Content strategy is a plan for the structure, tone, appearance, and production of the content on a website. That content includes everything from home page imagery to blog text.
Good Content Strategy
- Maintains a consistent tone across a site
- Reflects the character of the topic or brand
- Ensures the clarity and focus of messaging
Bad Content Strategy
- Commits the content creators to more work than is likely to get done
- Does not include adequate editing or quality assurance
- Does not have clear goals
Content Strategy Concerns
Audience
The content of a website will have the most impact if it is chosen and created with a specific group of people in mind. Reading level, attention span, generational language, political orientation, and stylistic preferences are all important to consider.
Summary
Content should always provide a summary before specifics. The ‘upside-down pyramid’ approach is giving people the most general concepts first and then letting them choose to explore the details. This is a critical strategy for all websites.
Attention span
People simply don’t read much on websites, unless they have already navigated to something that specifically interests them. Landing pages like your home page should never include long paragraphs of text. They will not be read. And large blocks of text on pages and posts should be broken up by other elements like headings, images, lists, quotes, charts, tables, and adequate spacing.
Headings
Heading text, or the larger text used to indicate the topic of sections in your content are very important. They should make it easier to users to scroll through your content and find sections that interest them. They also help keep users oriented within the content and they are a critical part of SEO.
Media
In most cases, images, graphics, and videos are the most viewed parts of a website. Many visitors will be more likely to watch a video than read text. So planning for media content can be very important. It’s important to make that media match the tone and appearance of your brand.
Editing
The most often overlooked part of content strategy is quality assurance. Many visitors won’t care about typos or broken links. But the one’s who do may be those that you need to impress to sell your project, promote your brand, or gain a new ally. The most critical requirement is that you always look at content after you publish it.