Having a content strategy for your website

When designing a website, most businesses do not really have a web content strategy in mind. This is because their aim, first and foremost, is to get the site up and running, offering their product range, providing contact details and finally, some information on the company. It is only later that businesses tend to turn towards content in boosting their web rankings. However, if you have a content strategy from the outset then this can save a lot of work later on.

When designing a website it is important to consider the information to be offered on the site and the style of web writing as well as the build process. You need to make sure you have planned and prepared at every stage and are working towards a specification.

The three main areas you need to bear in mind when preparing a content strategy for your website is firstly that it is well written and of a good grammatical standard. The website also needs to be well organised and easy to navigate. Making it easy for the site visitor to find the information they want quickly, while maintaining the visual appeal of the site is important. Finally, the content needs to be user focused and written with the customer/site visitor in mind.

Most of these points do sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many businesses fall into the common trap of just saturating their website with useless and inappropriate content. This ultimately means that the website will not work well with search engines.

Planning the content strategy as early as possible will allow you to build a strong website from the start and this means you won’t have to fire fight any content issues later on.

Dan Higginbotham
Writer/editor