After spending some quality time with our pal Jonathan Kahn at Web Content Chicago 2010 in June, we convinced the fellow content strategy evangelist to make a trip to sunny Minneapolis. Jonathan is founder of London-based web design agency Together London, author of the blog Lucid Plot, and an all-around smart cookie. We like him.
Amidst his whirlwind of tourist activities and an intense round of bar trivia (we won third place), Jonathan obligingly sat down with me to talk shop. I can’t wait to revisit the podcast myself: I was too entranced by his charming accent to pay much attention at the time. (Kidding!)
Listen in to hear this brilliant Brit wax poetic on:
How he came to the practice of content strategy
How to fix a broken web development process
Content strategy: A job for one or many?
The best part, though, is where I make him say something Minnesotan. (You won’t be disappointed.)
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Many of our clients request our help writing video scripts or incorporating interactive tools into their website. We’re all for enhancing the user experience with non-text content, but only if it makes strategic sense. And only if there’s a solid maintenance plan in place. Because publishing non-text content comes with a set of unique challenges.
Be proactive about non-text content maintenance.
In an ideal world, all website maintenance decisions happen as a result of your own company’s preferences, and on a reasonable timeline. But even if you’re not living in that ideal world you can still protect yourself. Here’s how:
Retain source and working files from content partners
Consider hosting options carefully, and make a contingency plan
Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows
Retain source and working files from content partners.
Anyone with a computer can edit a text file, regardless of its source. By contrast, editing audio, video, and Flash-based elements requires access to the original files and the sophisticated software used to create them.
It’s harder to guarantee that access if you’ve outsourced the content. Unless you make sure to get a complete handoff of all original source files you can get stuck editing these elements in other programs, to the detriment of file quality. (For example, video and graphics are best edited at the highest resolution, then rendered/exported/converted to the resolution at which people will ultimately use it.)
Consider hosting options carefully and make a contingency plan.
To complicate matters, content producers often choose to host their content on third-party platforms. Third-party video hosting services (e.g., YouTube) attract content producers by offering APIs, advanced embedding features, HD quality, and free bandwidth.
Using such providers may streamline your process initially, but also requires handing over a certain amount of control. (Companies get acquired, business plans evolve, etc.) If a change is made to the initial agreement, the API, or even the display/delivery of your content, you may be forced to take your content elsewhere.
Disruptions resulting from external partners take time and resources away from your day-to-day business functions. They also affect the user experience. (Think of a video-centric page missing its videos. Yikes!)
Concerns about hosting problems can be easily mitigated by retaining those high-resolution versions and their attendant metadata. With those in hand, upload to other suitable hosting services will be a snap.
Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows.
Content workflows need to take into account the complexities of editing non-text content. This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in successfully making both pre- and post-publishing changes to non-text content:
(click to enlarge)
Incorporating these guidelines into your site maintenance plan will help ensure your non-text content is working as hard as it can to keep users engaged and coming back for more.
At Brain Traffic, we’re all about asking tough (yet perfectly sensible) questions of our clients. “It’s great that you want to post a news feed on your home page!” we might say. “You’ve got someone assigned to making sure it stays up to date and accurate, right?” And so on.
There’s a reason why we ask these questions. Because it’s not just irritating for web users to find stale content online. Sometimes it can mean the difference between a successful family vacation and a wasted afternoon …
Recently, my husband and I headed to Iowa with my parents for a cousin’s wedding. My Dad proposed we stop at a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright on the way back.
Three hours out of the way later, we arrived to a closed gate. The sign read: “Will open Memorial Day weekend.”
This had to be a mistake! The Iowa Department of Natural Resources website told us tours start May 1. We called the house. Sure enough, opening hours had been changed, but the website had not been updated.
We got back in the car, turned around and headed home. This little mishap meant I spent SIX (6) EXTRA HOURS IN THE CAR WITH MY PARENTS.
Website owners, please make sure your content is accurate. Take the time to think about where it’s coming from, who will update it (and how often), whether you have the resources available to support it, why it’s being included in the first place, and how it will help your users accomplish their goals.
You might not hear or see your users, but we’re out there, trusting you’ve put some smart thinking behind the words we see on our screen. Don’t let us down.
Source: iowadnr.gov
The house I never got to see – Cedar Rock, the Walter residence, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
We're infographic junkies here at Brain Traffic, and it's not hard to figure out why: Successful infographics are the marriage of great design and useful information. In other words, infographics are visually appealing content.
Converting your information to an infographic benefits your users by communicating your message in a visually compelling form. Whether they show up in internal deliverables or online, infographics seem to get everyone excited. Whenever I'm ready to create a new graphic, I use these resources for ideas and inspiration.
Great Lists from other sites
1. Smashing Magazine They've done several infographic round-up posts, but this is the one I keep going back to.
2. Six Revisions There's a strong consumption theme running through this collection. I've sent the coffee and beer graphics around to family and friends on more than one occasion.
3. Blog of Francesco Mugnai 50 great infographics. Nothing else.
Sites dedicated to Infographics
4. Flowing Data Great graphics and advice about how to create them. Props to Nathan Yau .
5. Chart Porn There's a humor category. (swoon)
6. Cool Infographics Lots of resources for creating graphics as well as examples. Check out the tips for designing infographics
7. We love Datavis The browsing on this one is not my favorite (the thumbnails are tough to decipher without clicking), but the graphics they pick are really strong.
8. How Toons Cartoons are not infographics in the traditional sense, but these are so entertaining I had to include this example.
Print Infographics
9. Feltron Annual Report Nicholas Felton does a report every year. It’s pretty amazing.
10. Good Magazine You know about Good, right? No? Just go there. Go there NOW.
Bonus – Interactive graphics!
I know I've already named 10, but I have to end with my all-time favorite interactive infographic. It's the New York Times Olympic Medal count – there's one for the Summer and Winter. They’re both so amazing, I love to go back to them even when it's not an Olympic year.
So, you’ve done your research. You know what content is important to your users. You put that information on your website and pat yourself on the back for providing useful, useable content.
But wait. Don’t congratulate yourself just yet. Because simply putting content on a page doesn't guarantee users will find it. It could be hidden in a "content blind spot."
What’s a content blind spot?
Content blind spots occur when the information is there, but users can’t see it. In general, users scan and skip content, looking for clues before committing to read. But if the clues are missing, users won’t find the content.
Problems that prevent users from finding content include:
Information is not where users expect to find it, based on past experiences on that website or the web in general
Links do not look like links (e.g., link text not underlined or not blue)
Copy is “hidden” inside a graphic element or photograph
Page titles and links do not use relevant keywords or common user terms
Just like those little Smart Cars that hide in your Prius’s blind spot on the freeway, content stays unseen until someone changes their position. While driving, that means you or the Smart Car needs to speed up, slow down, or change lanes. Likewise, content stays hidden in a blind spot until either the user changes their approach to accessing the information, or you change the way it’s displayed.
What it’s like to experience the content blind spot
While doing our taxes, my husband asked me how much interest I paid on my student loan in 2009. I went to WellsFargo.com to find out.
I get all my bank-related documents electronically, so I knew right where to find that sort of information—or so I thought. I logged in to my student loan and went to the Statements & Documents tab. Once there, I saw a link called “Available Tax Documents.” Bingo.
“Hey! I’m looking for information to help me file taxes. The 'Available Tax Documents’ link will give me what I need.” (Click image to enlarge.)
Wrong. I went from feeling triumphant to confused within seconds—or however long it took a “Tax document not available online” error message to load.
After a few more failed attempts, I called customer service. A friendly representative walked me through the exact same process I had just gone through. I got the same error message. She was confused. I was confused. She transferred me to another department. The call was disconnected mid-Muzak stream. I was fuming.
I gave up. But my husband was convinced the information had to be online. I handed him my laptop, and wished him luck.
He found the information in two seconds.
“Oh. The information I was looking for was there along. Now I’m mad at Wells Fargo for making me feel stupid.” (Click image to enlarge.)
How the content snuck into my blind spot
I totally missed seeing my 2009 tax info because I had expected to find it in the Statements & Documents tab. Then, the tab rewarded my incorrect assumption by providing an “Available Tax Documents” link.
I didn’t even look for the information on the Account Activity page. Why? Because I was used to looking at a similar page for my checking account, and there is no “interest paid” information there. It’s just a summary of my balance. So why would I look on that page for interest information on my student loan account?
How to avoid the content blind spot
My experience is just one example of how content can “hide” from your user. To avoid this type of content blind spot:
Be consistent in where you put similar pieces of content throughout the site
Use relevant keywords and user terminology—especially when labeling links and navigation
Don’t mislead users with links that don’t deliver what they promise
If you put content in your users’ blind spot, they’ll leave your website feeling angry, confused, and frustrated. And without the information they needed. Not everyone has a husband with eagle eyes, you know?
While digging through my box of cassettes the other day, I had a minor epiphany. Content strategy and the creation of mixtapes are shockingly similar.
As it has been said, content strategy plans for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content. For a website, certainly. But for the creation of a mixtape?
For those unfamiliar, a mixtape:
Is a compilation of songs (just as websites are collections of content)
Created for a specific someone (consider your audience)
Communicates a specific message (in service of business objectives)
Should elicit a particular response (meet user needs/assist in task completion)
Although they can now be a collection of downloads, “mixtape” is a throwback to their heyday in the 1980s when they were cassettes. Later, they took the form of burned CDs, then mp3 playlists.
For those unfamiliar, a review of some basic tenets of content strategy:
Analysis: Objectives defined, assumptions and risks noted, success metrics established. Account for internal and external forces that might influence them.
Audit: A quantitative or qualitative review of your current content landscape.
Strategy: Actionable, achievable recommendations. Includes editorial workflows, calendars, messaging hierarchy, content types, formats, plus much more!
First is analysis. "What do I want to do with this website (or mixtape)?" Surely you've a recipient in mind. Otherwise, you wouldn't be making a website (or mixtape), right? This goes hand in hand with the objectives and message. All websites (and mixtapes) need clear objectives. They can both do many, many things, but a focused approach will make their creation and delivery much easier.
The objective of creating a mixtape might be to musically convince the recipient that you are indeed cool, or in love, or sorry, or over them (or in rare cases, all of the above). Focus on a theme and/or purpose for the mixtape, give it a title, and dig in.
To put together a website (or mixtape), you'll need source content (songs, in this case). Now would be a good time to perform a qualitative content audit. The audit should note what content (here, your music collection) is currently available, and if it is usable.
Websites brimming with content that is redundant, outdated, and trivial are frustrating and often impossible to use. Broken links, five year old “news” articles, and duplicative pages get in the way of achieving objectives. An audit helps to determine what can stay and what gets the boot.
The same applies for the content for your mixtape. For example, your Bee Gees 8-tracks won't make it onto a mixtape if you don't have an 8-track player. Is that vinyl LP copy of "Thriller" too scratched to use? Did the tape deck in your friend's Camaro eat your copy of Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet," rendering "Wanted Dead or Alive" more dead than alive? Perhaps your computer hard drive crashed, corrupting all of your Justin Bieber downloads.
On this mixtape, you might choose to include some content (songs) you don’t actually have in your collection. How will you decide where to get it? The provider of that content will be selected on the basis of what best suits your needs. For instance, you may already have an ongoing relationship with a content provider. Is it the funny-smelling record store down the street? Amazon.com or iTunes? You might also pick a place all your friends are raving about. Or you might avoid one your parents happen to frequent.
With source content in hand, selecting the songs from the pool begins the mixtape editorial workflow. These questions will help you get started:
Does this content (or song) support the overall message?
Does it make sense in this context? (Not everyone will “get” your raga references.)
Does its place next to other selections make for a pleasing experience?
Will it fit in the remaining time on side B of the cassette?
Make sure that the content (song selection) is relevant to the lucky recipient/user. Putting punk songs and opera and hip-hop tracks one right after the next might be jarring for some, but not for others.
Remember: Stay true to the focus of the theme, consider the recipient, and assert your coolness.
A few additional tips:
Create your mix with the end user in mind (be aware of their pop culture knowledge).
Clearly state the title.
Write the title and track list in a language they can read (as opposed to Esperanto. Or Klingon.)
If you are making a cassette, make sure they have a cassette player.
The associated “metadata” (in this case, title, track list, and any totally sweet, custom artwork) completes the package. The tone and voice of the title and artwork are all additional opportunities to continue the theme and message of the mixtape. The track list rounds out the experience by providing a reference to the greatness you've compiled. If you follow these important rules, your final product will be so much more than the consumable tape or CD alone.
Just like creating a mixtape is more than slapping a couple of songs together haphazardly on a cassette, creating websites with useful, usable content is more than just slapping words on a page. Taking the time and effort to carefully go through these processes will produce an end result that will make your website users happy (or your mixtape listeners happy).
You spend weeks writing your client’s site. And it pays off. Your messaging is dead on. Your copy is fresh, clear, and active. Deliriously tired but satisfied, you email the document to your client.
Two days later you get the document back. You open it.
MAMA SAY WHAAAATTTTT?!
She. Butchered. Your. Document. Butchered it! Using track changes, she reformatted your beautiful bulleted lists into gigantic paragraphs filled with run-on sentence after run-on sentence. She added “dynamic” and “synergism” to the home page intro. As an overall comment, she requested you please “change all the links to ‘click here’, so people know to click.”
This feedback is bad. Very bad. But she’s the client. What do you do?
First, let’s clarify something.
This article is about dealing with bad feedback. Not dealing with negative feedback. Bad feedback and negative feedback are two different things.
Negative refers to how the client perceives your work.
Bad refers to how the client expresses their perception (negative or positive) of your work.
For my fellow visual learners, a chart:
Now let’s talk about types of bad feedback—and how to deal with them.
Below, a profile of four popular types of bad feedback accompanied by coping tips:
1. Jargon-y feedback. Your client: “I’d like the copy to be more delightful.”
You: “Sure! No problem! I’ll make it more delightful!”
Wrong move, buddy.
When a client uses subjective, vague terms in feedback, you MUST call her on it. Right away. Even if you know stopping to dissect and analyze her feedback is going to take extra time and effort. Even if you have to revise schedules.
In the long run, you will save time, the content will be better, and your client will be happier. Promise.
If you can, help your client see the flaw in her logic. If she wants the intro to be more “robust,” respond with an open-ended question such as, “What does ‘robust’ mean to you, exactly?”
Also, make sure you get examples—ask the client to email you “robust” copy samples. That way you have something tangible to work with.
2. Vague feedback.
She says, “Looks great!!!” And that’s, like, it.
Your client read all 87 pages of your copy deck and had no changes? Riiiiiggghhht.
I’d bet my bellybutton this is what’s really going on: your client didn’tactually read your whole content doc. Or at least not thoroughly. She’s so busy worrying about the site’s design/other projects/her newborn octoplets she didn’t have time to read it.
So she’s cool with it. For now. That is, until her site is four hours from launch and she calls you for a boatload of last-minute revisions.
Do yourself and your client a big favor and make it very clear she needs to provide feedback now (remember, do so nicely!) or forever hold her peace.
Say something like, “I’m so tickled pink you went through ALL the content and you don’t haveANYrevisions. I’ll go ahead and send you the invoice and close out your project. It was great working with you!”
If she responds with, “Wait! Wait! I might still have some revisions!” you can firmly (but nicely!) remind her of the feedback process you agreed to when the project kicked off.
Tip: Include one or two questions using the comments feature in your document when you send it to the client. That way, if she gives you the ‘ol, “Looks great!” you can respond by asking if she had any further thoughts about your questions.
If she has no idea what you’re talking about, or if she responds with, “Oh, right. We’re going to have to change that,” you know she didn’t look it over thoroughly. Proceed with caution!
3. Contradictory feedback.
She says, “We only call ourselves ‘managers’ internally. Please don’t use that term in the copy.’”
You say, “Okay.”
What’s so contradictory about that, you ask? You’re right: It’s perfectly straightforward direction. Until you get your document back from your client and see she added ‘managers’ to the company tagline, home page headline, global navigation, footer, and image ALT tags.
Clearly, you need to clarify what your client wants.
But, for the sake of your working relationship, you also need to be careful not to put her on the defensive or make her feel foolish. There are many ways to proceed. For instance, you could say …
“Earlier you said I shouldn’t call you ‘managers.’ But throughout the document you inserted the word ‘managers.’ What exactly would you like me to do?”
There’s nothing wrong with that approach. I guess. But doesn’t this just seem friendlier …
“Hey! Thanks for the feedback. I had one quick question regarding the word ‘managers.’ I see you’ve added it in a few places—is it okay to use that term now? Thanks!”
See? Nicer. Generally, clients like it when you’re nice to them.
4. Nonsensical feedback. Maybe she’s high on coffee. Or she prefers expressing thoughts verbally. Or maybe she’s been up all night watching Lethal Weapon and its sequels. Whatever the reason, sometimes your client will give feedback that, well, makes absolutely no sense.
“Could you please add another future verb to this entire beginning of copy paragraph? Thanks!”
Huh?
“I talked to Janice and she said Tom’s player copy doesn’t need any more action-oriented dropdowns (except maybe for twice?). Thanks!!”
Whazza who?
“Legal review. Stakeholders. Danny Glover. Thanks!!!”
Mmm. If you have no clue in sweet heaven what she’s talking about (it does happen), schedule an in-person interview with her—over the phone works, too—so you can walk through her, um, “points.”
Start by reading a couple of her comments back to her. Hopefully, she’ll stop you after a couple minutes and say, “Geez. I wasn’t making any sense! I meant to say blah, blah, blah.” Or whatever. If she doesn’t, hopefully you’ll be able to glean some insight into her state of mind through verbal cues.
Finally, a request.
It’s easy to roll your eyes when a client gives you slick, vague, contradictory, nonsensical feedback. But you know what? She’s likely juggling a billion things, from wireframes to babies to Lethal Weapon DVDs. Your copy is just one of them. Cut her some slack. And remember, she’s not a writer. If she were, she wouldn’t need you.
If you’re willing to have patience and put forth a little extra effort, you can help your client. You can educate her about content best practices. You can show her examples of successful websites with great content. You can take time to really understand where she’s coming from, so you can put her feedback in context.
In the end, your content will be better. And your client will be grateful. So, what do you say, ‘ol chum?
Using personal pronouns may sound like a simple, common-sense web writing best practice. Speaking directly to users with the word “you” is something most companies get on board with easily enough. But those same clients often ask us to avoid self-referential pronouns like “we,” “our,” and “us” in their web copy.
Granted, sometimes there are legitimate legal considerations that keep companies from getting personal with their web copy. (I’ll get into these legalities later.) Other times, it’s simply a matter of being overly cautious or old-fashioned.
Why use personal pronouns in web copy?
In my experience, many larger corporations have trouble breaking free from the formal business communications style they’ve been using for years. But guidelines that limit the use of personal pronouns should be reconsidered now that we’re in the digital age. These days, content needs to speak to users clearly and directly. It needs to compete for their attention.
A simple way to grab your users’ attention is by using personal pronouns in your web copy. Why? Personal pronouns reflect the way real people write and speak.
For example, most of us don’t refer to ourselves in the third person. We use first-person (me, we, our, us) and second-person (you, your) pronouns in our email exchanges, Facebook statuses, and Twitter feeds—channels that compete for your users’ attention every day.
Using these first- and second-person pronouns on your corporate website will:
Help users connect with the content
Help users understand the content
Identify who owns the content
Make writing the content easier
What happens if you DON’T use personal pronouns in web copy?
Not using personal pronouns forces you to repeat your company’s name throughout your website. This approach creates awkward sentences that are tedious to read and to write. The repetition can also set off keyword stuffing alarms. At the very least, your website ends up sounding unnecessarily formal and stuffy.
Worse yet, the bland third-person pronoun “it” may creep into your web copy and force you into using awkward sentence constructions. For example, something simple like “Content strategy is all we do. And we do it well” becomes “Brain Traffic believes its focus on content strategy is an advantage.” Blech.
Coupled with company name repetition, “it” creates confusion around who is speaking. It’s hard to tell who owns the content when it’s written so generically. (Right?) And if you want your users to feel connected to your brand, it’s important they know you stand behind your content.
When legal reasons prevent personal pronouns
Of course, sometimes there are legitimate legal grounds for not using personal pronouns. For example, we work with a few clients who sell cobranded products. Their legal departments strictly forbid the use of personal pronouns in order to avoid making sweeping statements about the collective “we.”
To illustrate what I mean, let’s say White Castle partnered with Holiday station stores on a special line of slider-scented gasoline. (Ok. That’s gross. But it’s the first thing I came up with from a quick glance out the office window.)
Anyway, if White Castle/Holiday created a website dedicated to this cobranded product, legal teams may advise against using “we/our/us” in the content. Value statements and “about us” sections get a bit more complex when cobranding. Maybe Holiday wouldn’t like being lumped together with White Castle on general statements about what “we” as a company believe in. Or, vice versa.
Large corporations with many divisions may also have legal concerns about using personal pronouns. Insurance companies are a good example. While Division A offers products similar to those of Division B, the products may have completely different rules and regulations restricting their features and use.
Let’s say Acme Insurance Company uses personal pronouns on their website when describing their products. If a Division B customer purchases a plan based on benefits they saw on a Division A product page, the customer may have grounds for a legal complaint. But by avoiding personal pronouns and only using the specific division name in product descriptions, Acme reduces their chances of getting sued.
So, to be safe, it’s better not to make broad “we/our/us” statements when there’s this type of product overlap.
How to prevent legal issues with personal pronouns
To avoid finding out the hard way, ask your client for any legal restrictions surrounding the use of personal pronouns at the start of the project. Because I can tell you from experience, going back and rewriting copy decks to eliminate all “we/our/us” statements is not fun.
When to use personal pronouns on your website
Unless legal guidelines prevent you from using personal pronouns, go ahead and get personal with your web copy. Using this type of plain language will make your web writing process easier. Even better, your users will more quickly connect and engage with your web content.
So your website is up and running, and your content is in good shape—in English. But when your company decides to enter the Indian or Nigerian markets, what gets lost in translation? Your website can become a cultural minefield, but here are some ways to avoid those “mines.”
Say the right thing, the right way, in the right language
Most people think that globalizing content means hiring a translation firm. But one thing we often miss is localization. It’s the magic spice that ensures your content is culturally acceptable, your brand remains consistent, and what you said in English stays relevant in Hindi or Cantonese.
We’ve all laughed at global companies’ faux pas. For example, KFC’s slogan “Finger Lickin’ Good” was translated literally as “Eat Your Fingers Off” in China. And the American Dairy Association was very successful with its “Got Milk?” campaign, but the literal translation, “Are You Lactating?” didn’t go over well in Mexico. They’re funny, sure. But you can bet those “mines” did some brand damage and cost a lot of time and money to correct.
Who’s doing it right? The most recent McDonald’s campaign featured the slang phrase “I’m lovin’ it.” In French Canada, it’s translated as “C’est ça que j’m,” meaning literally “It’s that which I love.” “J’m” is slang for “J’aime” or “I love,” so it’s not a literal translation. The catchphrase is made meaningful and relevant to the culture, thanks to localization.
A final warning about publishing your site in English in a non-English-speaking country. As a general rule of thumb: don’t do it! Sites that are not at least partially translated into the local language risk being dismissed as irrelevant and ethnocentric. Even in countries where English is a widely spoken second language, users may find it tedious to read a non-native language.
Show and tell (the RIGHT story)
Pictures and graphics can complement your copy and reinforce your message. But, on global websites, they can also be “mines” that can blow up in your face. In Indonesia, Iran, or Malaysia, that shot of a woman in a sundress won’t work. In many Muslim countries, it’s unacceptable for a woman to show skin besides the face and hands. In many areas of the world, it’s not appropriate to use only Caucasian models. It’s better to use models that reflect the ethnicity or diversity of the target culture. To take it one step further, photography using American models may not work for Europe, even if there’s appropriate diversity—certain types of clothing, style, and environments scream “American!” to a Dutch or Danish audience.
Symbols in photography and graphics can also cause problems. A thumbs up gesture might mean “Great!” or “OK!” in Western countries. But in the Middle East? It’s obscene. Animals can be risky, too. Cows are sacred in India and dogs are considered unclean in some parts of Asia. And using an animal that doesn’t live in the target geography, like a walrus in Ethiopia, may result in confusion and frustration.
Your brand’s perception can suffer from cultural missteps or gain from cultural sensitivity. So invest time and thought when selecting pictures for your global audiences.
It’s a Small World After All
Bottom line? Thanks in part to global brands, our world is shrinking. So why not protect your brand by ensuring that foreign language content is done right the first time? Even if your company is a startup entering only one foreign country, translation and localization are a worthy investment. By ensuring your content resonates with your audiences and conveys your brand’s tone accurately, you’re protecting your brand experience. Which if you’re Coca-Cola or Toyota, is worth billions of dollars. And even if yours isn’t, localization shows your customers that you take them seriously. So, say what you mean, and mean what you say … in Farsi, Taiwanese, and Swedish.
For anyone who works with content, knowing how to format a web content document—or simply how to read it—is a crucial step in successful content creation.
Why? Because without a clearly structured web content document, you run the risk of confusing your content reviewers, designers, and developers. And that confusion can lead to mistakes and frustration—stuff that could end up manifesting itself on your website.
Remember, a web content document isn’t just used by web writers, even though they are often the people who create and manage it.
Content reviewers use it to make copy edits and review messaging/tone. Designers use it to get the right copy into their design mock-ups. Developers use it to determine which copy appears as links on the actual website, and when to display dynamic content—for example, content that goes live on a specific date.
Here are a few of the formatting essentials you’ll need to cover to make sure your web content document (commonly called a “copy deck”) works for everyone on your marketing and/or creative team(s):
Links and buttons
You can count on link and/or button copy to be in just about every web content document you work with. As you probably know, this is the content that takes the user to a new page, cross-references relevant information, or helps a user complete a task.
You’ll need to choose a style for representing links and buttons in your document. Our standard is to format this copy as blue, underlined text. This tends to be the industry standard, too.
Examples:
Read the Brain Traffic blog
Submit your request
If you do decide to format the links and buttons in your document in a different style, make sure it’s clear—and that everyone on your team knows what it is. Keep in mind that straying from the norm might confuse reviewers, designers, and developers used to working with the standard blue, underlined text style convention.
Regardless of the style you choose, follow the link and button text in your content document with its destination, which will likely be based on a site map or an external URL.
Examples:
Site map page ID:
Submit your request<link to 2.2>
External URL:
Read the Brain Traffic blog<link to http://blog.braintraffic.com/>
Descriptive content labels
If your copy isn’t properly labeled within your content document, designers and developers working with the document can have a difficult time figuring out which copy goes where.
So, make sure to identify all the content pieces on each page. For example, put the label "Heading" above your page headline, "Body copy" above the main content, and "Right column copy" above content that lives on this part of the web page. Or use whatever labeling convention your agency or organization may already have established.
Example:
The key is making sure the labels are clear and easy to understand for everyone referencing your document.
Dynamic content
Content that may change or is dependent on functionality conditions is often referred to as "dynamic" content. For instance, if you’re working on a project that includes content that launches on different dates or should only be displayed based on certain requirements (maybe after a user logs in, for example), your document will need to specifically state when to display that content.
I recommend writing a short note to the developer above the specific piece of dynamic content. Describe the rule for displaying it—for example, "only display this content for California residents."
I write these notes in gray text, so it’s easy for developers to skim and find them throughout the content document.
Example:
<Note to developers: Display this link on 1/1/2010>
See our 2010 plans<link to 3.4>
Meta data
Those of you well-versed in web content know what meta data is, but let’s do a quick review. It refers to specific information developers need to make your content searchable.
Meta data includes:
·Meta title (the title of the content page, which appears in your internet browser)
·Meta description (a keyword-loaded description of the content page)
·Meta keywords (words that refer to specific topics on the content page and make it easily findable)
A web writer or SEO expert is usually responsible for creating this information. Whether or not you create ityourself, you’ll need to include meta data in your content document. Which means you might also need to format this content, especially if you receive the meta data in a different type of document, like Microsoft Excel.
It’s a good idea to place the meta data in a separate section of your content document—say, at the top of each page—so it’s clearly distinguished from the actual web copy.
Example:
Remember, the web content document you create isn’t just black-and-white. Sometimes it’s blue. And underlined. With notes. Because that’s what works.
