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Written by Oscar

Streamlining content for your new website

Every website needs content. Words, pictures, videos all help you inform or sell to your audience online. But creating content can be hard, time-consuming, and involve an endless number of stakeholders. Throw in the design of a new website, or consolidation of multiple digital real estates and you can end up with product that looks slick but doesn’t work in practice.

However, with a robust content creation process and clearly defined roles and responsibilities in place, you have the foundations to create content that will deliver against your objectives. Here is the process we use with our clients at the start of a web design project, it’s been really effective.

How to streamline your content

1. Make content the hero

Consider your content upfront before you start designing your new site. Too often clients commit to a design using dummy content or Lorem Ipsum placeholder text. If the content used in this initial phase isn’t realistic it can result in a site that isn’t fit for purpose.

Who to include?
Stakeholders, marketers, strategist, designer

2. Existing content review

Undertake an audit of all your existing content. Decide what is still relevant and required on the new site and what can be reimagined or resigned. Old content can often be a goldmine for content ideas, always consider if you can repurpose or streamline, rather than starting from scratch.

Who to include?
Stakeholders, marketers, copywriters, SEO specialists.

3. Identify new content

Pinpoint gaps in your content that need to be filled by the new site. Perhaps you need to tell your stories more visually or using video; this can drastically impact functionality and design, so always feed this into the design process early on, ideally include it in your brief. Utilise SEO specialists to inform your content strategy by identifying content opportunities based on search volumes.

Who to include?
Stakeholders, strategists, marketers, SEO specialists

4. Content creation

When it comes to creating content, it almost always pays to use specialists to craft your stories. By breaking the content of your site down into constituent parts you can more easily delegate the responsibility among your internal team and external suppliers. Set clear deadlines for content creation, your site can’t go live without it after all.

Who to include?
Copywriters, designers, photographers, illustrators, videographers.

“With a robust content creation process and clearly defined roles and responsibilities in place, you have the foundations to create content that will deliver against your objectives.”

Oscar Pettersson, Founder, Pepper Digital

5. SEO Audit

To maximise the performance of your site, you will want to ensure key pages and content are optimised for Google as well as your target audiences. Work with external experts if you do not have this specialist skill in-house. A one-off SEO project at the start of a new web build can ensure you stick to that crucial SERP top spot.

Who to include?
SEO Specialists, copywriters

6. Content review

Before your content even gets close to your new site, make sure it is reviewed and approved. Proofing content before it gets to your new CMS will save a whole host of pain for whoever will be content managing your site on an ongoing basis. This is especially true of content heavy sites or those with dense information for a range of varied audiences.

Who to include?
Stakeholders, proofer

7. Content population

Once your site is built and your content is ready for the world to see it, make sure your content manager works together with your design team, to ensure your content is true to the original designs and really sings. Now is the time to make final adjustments before the site goes live. Include all the relevant SEO and tagging to allow it to be discovered by your target audience.

Who to include?
Content manager, designer, SEO specialist

8. Review of website drafts and publish

When content is viewed on page it can occasionally throw up previously unseen nuances, glitches in the build or human error when content populating. It’s always advisable to scan your new content in draft with a fresh pair of eyes before you go live. If you have the time and resources, now is a great time to A/B test your content.

Who to include?
Proofer, marketer, stakeholder

9. Evolve and refresh

Websites are living and breathing beasts. Be sure to review what content is working well for your various audiences using analytics tools. Feed this back into your content and digital design teams so they can iterate and evolve your site for maximum impact.

Who to include?
Content manager, marketer, designer