Creating Amazing Web Content:

Strategies and SkillsKate Johnson

Content Strategy Manager@katedjohns

#IABCWeb

Content strategy

RichardIngram.com

It’s complicated

Dan McCarthy, ViralHousingFix.com

Multiple stakeholders Content from multiple sources Multiple outlets Nonsequential pages Ongoing maintenance and updates Measurement

And so on…

Content Tools

Content audit

I love my content inventory.

Page table

Care and feeding

Maintainance

A lifecycle, not a launch

• Set regular update schedule• Use automatic reminders• Review every page annually

Writing for the Web

Web users skim• Users scan for key words and

phrases

• They don’t read word-for-word

• Web readers are impatient

Nielsen’s F pattern

NNGroup.com

Be user-centered• Focus completely on the tasks

your users need to accomplish.• Your site can’t be a loudspeaker

for things you want users to hear.

• Users will only stay if your site gives them what they need.

Get to the point

• Put your main idea in the first sentence

• If skimmers don’t find what they want, they leave

Ideas, innovation and a well-educated workforce are essential to a vibrant economy and a healthy democracy. Academic programs at the University of X provide you with the skills you need…

Main idea firstThe University of X offers 50 degree programs, all designed to graduate well-informed students who will contribute to a healthy democracy.

Our programs include• Economics• Political Science• History

Scannability

Break up text with

• Short paragraphs• Subheads• Bulleted lists• Images• Inline links

How to be scannable

A skimmable page

nichycy.org

How to write a page

What questions do users have?These become your subheads.

What do you want users to do?These are your calls to action.

Stick to the factsNo unsupported claims• Our innovative products are the

best on the market• Our staff are uniquely

committed to our customers and their futures

innovativeuniquecutting-edgedistinctivetop

excellentleadingchallengingexcitingone-of-a-kind

Avoid the adjectives

2 parts of SEOKeyword relevance (on-page

SEO)

• How often keywords appear on page

• Keyword placement

Off-page SEOFactors that determine your pagerank• Sites that link to you• Age of domain• Behavior of users• Page load speed

The keywords are theirs• Listen to your audience.

• Read what they write.

• The keywords are theirs, not yours.

Put keywords in• Title tag• Page headline• Subheads• Linked text (aka anchor text)• Bold text• Alt tags for photos

www.du.edu/marcomm/

IABCKate Johnson@katedjohns

Tools and resources