Content Rules Your Website
As a digital project manager, I spend the majority of my time working directly with Terrostar’s clients to help them understand the different phases of their projects. I set expectations, enforce deadlines, and field all kinds of questions. I’m quite often asked…
“Do I have to write content for the entire website? I’m not a copywriter.”
The answer is, “Yes, you do. And that makes two of us.” However, there is no reason to fret! We’re here to help guide you along and take it step by step, err page by page.
Content is king, or queen, but she can be quite demanding in all of her royal highness-ness. While she certainly does deserve to hold court, and demand the people’s attention; she didn’t build her empire overnight. It took thoughtful consideration, strategic planning, advisory sessions and an entire team to establish her reign. That may seem rather daunting as you are counting your coworkers on one hand, and realizing ALL of the responsibility may fall on you. Do not despair! We’ll have you writing hero headlines and calls to action that garner all sorts of attention!
Are you ready to hold court on your new website?
Great! Then, let’s get to work. After our initiation meeting with your team, we will create a navigation structure for your new site. The navigation structure is typically presented as a flowchart with each bubble representing a page on your website. This will be your outline that helps you assess your content needs. You can undoubtedly count on an About section and a Contact page. Those are two good places to start.
Determine what website content you can reuse or refresh.
If you have a current website, assess its content and determine what you can eliminate and what we can pull over (copy/paste) as is. To start, consider areas that need a refresh; perhaps the content hasn’t changed in several months, or even a year. This is the perfect time to give it a spit and polish.
What is it that you wish customers/prospects to do now that they have landed on your website? Do you have a Call to Action (CTA) that tells them what to do? Should they call, or fill out a contact form? Once you’ve answered these questions, craft several CTAs to direct them throughout various pages on your website. Be clear, concise and to the point.
We Love Content Snare
You fill in the rest with a little help from our friend Content Snare. We love this mighty tool that allows us to guide you through required content areas of your website. We show you a screenshot of exactly where the text will go and provide a recommendation for approximate length. Then, you simply provide the words. We even send you friendly reminders to keep it top of mind. In the event that you simply do not have the personnel to write the content, we can offer that service as well.
We promise we will not leave you, or your new website, in the dark. After all, as powerful as the queen (content) is, she didn’t get there alone!
By Stephanie Ganzer
By Ryan Thompson