Last week Content Strategy New England held its third meetup event with guest Colleen Jones, Principal of Content Science. Colleen presented Content Analysis: From Inventory to Insight, discussing the importance of content analysis to determine the effectiveness of web content.

Below is a video recording of the event, which includes Colleen’s presentation and a thorough Q&A at the end. The presentation slides and event photos are also available.

If you’re interested in attending future events, please join the Content Strategy New England community.

Video: Presentation and Q&A

Slides: Presentation

Photos: Presentation and CSNE Members

Related Links

Content strategy has garnered respect in 2009. Gaining recognition as a legitimate discipline, it is less the stepchild of user experience design, information architecture, or marketing.

Many thought-provoking, informative articles have been written on the topic this year by a growing community of web content strategists. There is a Content Strategy Knol, a Content Strategy Google Group, as well as numerous content strategy meetup groups (see below). All of these resources aim to raise awareness and forward a discipline dedicated to making web content work.

Content Strategy New England meetup group

Last month, Margot Bloomstein and I created Content Strategy New England (CSNE), a meetup group designed to unite web content professionals and enthusiasts in New England. The group’s mission is to examine how clear communication is brought to online user experiences through the evolving discipline of content strategy.

If you’re in the Boston area, I welcome you to attend the first Content Strategy New England meetup on December 8, 2009. The event is hosted by Refresh Boston and features Margot Bloomstein, who will present "Content strategy: What’s in it for you?" This discussion is a follow up to Margot’s recently published article on A List Apart: The Case for Content Strategy—Motown Style.

Other content strategy meetup groups

Not in New England? Join one of several other content strategy meetup groups across the country, including:

We’re united by the discipline of content strategy, although not by naming conventions.

If you’re a web publishing professional practicing content strategy or are interested in learning more about the discipline, I encourage you to join the content strategy community. It’s a great opportunity to share, learn, and promote best practices.

Learn about content strategy

The following are some noteworthy articles, slides and resources:

I often find myself having to convince people of the need for and value of content in web marketing. Valuable content is necessary to attract and retain readers. I recently participated in a web marketing planning session where we addressed concern over lack of repeat website visitors, especially within the organization. The problem seemed apparent to me: outdated content. However, making the case for web content is challenging.

What follows is a case example of traditional marketing vs. web (content) marketing. The dialogue is edited for length, particularly because I was repeating myself to make my point (I’m a more concise writer than speaker).

"We need a new plan for marketing our website. People aren’t looking at it, even though we promote it constantly."

I raise my hand. "The website needs new content."

"Excuse me?"

"People need a reason to visit your website. They need to anticipate new content if they are to return. If the "news and events" section hasn’t been updated in four months—if the pages contain static content–people have no incentive to return."

"We can do that, but how do we get people to look at it? We need a marketing plan."

"That is marketing. Content marketing. If you consistently create new content—if people can rely on that—they will return."

I received a grin as if I didn’t understand the problem. "People need to know it’s there though."

"Yes, but you need to have content before you can promote it. You can’t tell people to use a website without giving them something useful."

"I think this is a case of the chicken or the egg."

Respectfully, no. This is not a question of the chicken or the egg. You can’t convince people to visit your website "for the latest" when there is nothing new to see. People have no reason to trust you if your track record doesn’t support your claim.

Developing and maintaining web content is hard. But you can’t ignore it, save it for later, or separate it from your marketing plan. Marketing cannot make up for valuable content. (Admittedly, I sounded just as preachy during the meeting.)

Step one

Develop current, relevant, useful content.

Yes, this means you need a content strategy. Yes, this means you can’t jump straight to marketing. But as part of developing your content strategy you gain an understanding of what content is needed to attract and retain your visitors.

Joe Pulizzi, Founder and Chief Content Officer of Junta42, explains in his whitepaper How to Attract and Retain Customers With Content:

Once you have delivered relevant content, you become a trusted resource. Content marketing enables companies to build a level of trust among their customers that makes it easy for those customers to buy.

"Buy" here refers to what you want your visitors to do, whether it be purchase a product, learn a skill, download a PDF, be informed of current news and events, or subscribe to your RSS feed to keep up on your great content.

Step two

I’m not addressing step two until I’m convinced you understand that content is step one, or when I write another post, whichever comes first.

But how does the story end?

I’m pleased to say that the web marketing meeting ended favorably. We discussed a plan to better involve the key web content stakeholders in the maintenance of the website and have them accept more ownership of the content that pertains to them. This does not constitute a content strategy—much more needs to be addressed—but good topics were discussed, including performing a content audit and developing a maintenance plan. The seed was planted and hopefully more is to come.

More on content strategy

Content strategy is a fast-growing topic in web publishing. It’s exciting and encouraging to see an increased awareness of the need for good web content. Here are some "current, relevant, and useful" resources for learning more:

More on content marketing

What about you?

Chime in! What challenges do you face marketing your website? How does content fit into your strategic plan?

I used to be a strong advocate for using PDFs. They are easy to create, view, and distribute—especially for those who deal with cross-platform and application compatibility issues. But what I didn’t foresee was how PDFs would be used to circumvent the web publishing process, compromising effective web writing, usability, accessibility, and search engine optimization (SEO). Now I lament a time when people relied on web publishers to develop and distribute their content effectively.

When PDFs are good

My problem is not with PDFs, but how they are used. They are great for electronic publishing. PDFs are also ideal for forms and other documents intended for printing, as well as large reference guides that benefit from being stored locally on your computer. It is a good portable and compatible file format and an excellent alternative to proprietary formats used by Microsoft, Adobe and others.

Advantages of using PDFs in electronic publishing:

Problems with using PDFs in web publishing

So, if PDFs are so great for electronic publishing, why do I dislike them for the web? Answer: they are too often used ineffectively. Because PDFs are easy to create and distribute, they are employed as a shortcut to publishing online—bypassing the publishing process —resulting in poorly developed web content.

It is common practice to use PDFs in place of web pages. Instead of having content written by web writers and designed by web designers people simply "Save As PDF" and then add a link on their website.

A PDF is not a substitute for a web page.

PDFs developed outside the web publishing process result in:

How to effectively create PDFs for the web

Maintain web accessibility. As Joe Clark writes in his well-reasoned article, Facts and Opinions About PDF Accessibility, "You should put the same care into marking up your PDFs that you put into marking up websites." PDFs can be just as accessible as HTML. In his article Clark suggests when PDFs should be used and explains how to make PDFs as accessible as web pages.

Maintain web usability. You need to choose PDF for an intended functional purpose, not as a substitute for a web page. Consider the need of you users. Duff Johnson offers useful guidelines for maximizing PDF usability.

Maintain focus on quality. PDFs should be held to the same standards as your web pages, including quality writing, design, and search engine optimization (SEO). If PDFs are used properly and included in your web publishing process and content strategy, then they can be implemented effectively.

Tips for publishing PDFs on the web:

How do you feel about PDFs on websites? Do you think your organization uses them effectively?

Benefits of a FAQs page:

Common problems with a FAQs page:

Tips & suggestions:

What would you recommend? Do you find FAQs pages useful? Do you have examples of ones that are either well designed or poorly managed?