Planning and managing content to meet business goals 

Content is the main reason people go to a website. However it is often overlooked. Even a website with carefully written content might quickly lose quality if it doesn’t have a well-defined content strategy. 

Content is everywhere and it takes a variety of forms - ads, articles, images, infographics, videos, blog posts, web pages and more. But what should we write about? What’s the point of it? Should it have a more casual or formal tone? To whom are we writing for? 

Content strategy plans for valuable, findable, meaningful content. A content strategy outlines the brand’s message and addresses the goal the organisation has in mind, whether differentiating itself from the competition or making the brand more approachable, for example. It defines a framework that guides the creation, distribution and management of actionable content that helps achieve a specific business objective. 

The main goal is creating a consistent message, voice, and style so that the content created across teams conveys the same business goals, fulfils the right purpose and reaches the right audience.  

What does a content strategy entail? 

• Managing the roles, tasks, processes, and tools needed to create, edit, maintain and achieve content and ensure it appears to the right people at the right time.
• Understanding business requirements and helping to identify problems that would benefit from a content solution.
• Defining the tone and voice of the copy, according to the relevant audience of the brand. 
• Deciding the policies, standards and guidelines that need to be followed by the team. 
• Determining how to prioritise, organise, and assess content.

Content Governance 

Content governance consists both on the day-to-day detailed management of content delivery as well as in its long-term management. It provides content creators the same structure and guidelines, to ensure the message conveyed is consisting.

A good content governance:

• Determines priorities. 
• Defines detailed guidelines, standards, policies, procedures and tools about how content should look, behave, and interact with users.
• Assigns content ownership and roles to people within the organisation. 

Planning a content structure

Organisations need to keep up with the increasing demand for more and more content while making their content relevant for the needs of their target audience. That’s why it’s important to structure content in a way that it can take different forms on the site. 

Modular content

By analysing the structure and purpose of content, it’s possible to break it down into modular components that can be delivered to any device and easily modified for particular audiences and purposes.

Shared and reusable modules can also improve content quality and consistency.