How to Stay On-Task with Web Content Creation

So you’ve been tasked with creating content for your new website? It’s a difficult job to take on when you’re already maxed-out at work! *Insert sad tuba noise here.* To give you a hand, we’ve created some tips to make the content creation shuffle a little more graceful.

Throughout this process, always remember that your content doesn’t need to be entirely perfect out of the gate. You should definitely work hard to create valuable content, but if you’re really stuck on how to perfect a certain page, don’t sweat it and more importantly, don’t let it derail your progress! Our user testing and post-launch analysis of your site performance will ultimately help you perfect your message.

“Creating a perfect site from the start is nearly impossible. So is anticipating every user scenario. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution to web design and development. We’ve found that collecting data is the key to success. We need to know how people are using your current site, (or how they want to use your site), to know how to make the most effective experience for your visitors.”

Nathaniel Raymond, Graphic Details Web Designer

Web Content Creation Station: All Aboard

1. The Content Meeting Shuffle
   If you’re part of a content team, chances are you have varying daily schedules, or even work in different locations, making it difficult to find meeting times that line-up. Our advice is to set up your web content creation meeting ASAP. Even if your content isn’t due for two months, set aside a day or a few days to meet and push content out together. The sooner you put it in your calendar, the easier it will be to keep up with deadlines.
2. Assigning Roles
   While you’re meeting to discuss content goals, assign roles to help identify individual responsibilities. Divide your work up among departments to improve time management and communication. You can have some individuals writing together, some individuals gathering photo content, and others getting video together. Then, assign one person as the single approver who works to make your brand’s voice consistent across all media.
3. Missions and Philosophies to Fight Writer’s Block
   If you find that you are struggling with creating content for a particular page, think about how it will enforce your mission statement and user goals. For each page, ask yourself: Who is this page is for? What’s the goal of this page? Where do we want the visitor to go next? Does this page accomplish what it should with text and visuals?
4. Deadline Check-ins
   During this process, we work hard to keep you up-to-date on the status of your site build. Each milestone makes way for a new set of tasks and responsibilities. To keep things moving ahead, and to keep on top of content deadlines, create and share an editorial calendar.  Refer back to our process guidelines and milestone calendar frequently to remind yourself of what lies ahead (of course, we’ll keep you up-to-date as well). Our objective is to go live on-schedule so we can start assessing performance and make important adjustments as necessary.

Use Our Guidelines to Help Keep Organized and Focused

To keep you on-track with the writing process, Graphic Details will supply you with a helpful writing guideline checklist and template. You’ll start by writing titles and short descriptions for each of your pages, and we’ll prompt you to consider keywords for search engine optimization (SEO), and calls-to-action as you progress. Don’t forget to use these forms! They will help you keep focused on your deliverables!

Choose Quality Visual Content

When you are gathering photo and video content, remember to choose graphics that represent your brand and reflect your chosen keywords. In turn, Graphic Details will make sure to format these graphics for best practices with SEO. Be thoughtful when choosing web graphics:

“It is important that thought is put into imagery and videos, as well, and that they all fit the point-of-view and voice of your organization. Poor graphics are not going to gain you any credibility and won’t entice people to actually read any of your copy.”

Jaimie Knapp, Graphic Details Design Director

Keep Tabs on Your Site Performance

Creating websites is an art form. However, unlike a painting that gets completed and hung in a gallery for viewing, a website is ever-changing. It’s important to continue to work with us post-launch to properly scale your site as you grow. It’s just as important for us to keep an eye on your site’s performance by reviewing analytics and user-experience data, especially in the first few months after launch. That will determine if the content you worked so hard to create is truly engaging your site visitors and sending them down the right user journey.