You just signed the contract for your new website, a must-have for your company's digital presence, and you are now officially dreading your role as the content collector.

This, my friends, will be the biggest challenge for most clients. While you may have enjoyed writing classes in college or high school, you are not quite sure even where to begin. 

Why do we do this to you? While most web design services do offer editing and copy writing (including us), many will still have the client gather content for the most accurate view of what the company wants to express.

In short, the head of media/marketing at a manufacturing company will definitely know more about the subject than someone outside of the industry.

How exactly do you generate great website content now that you have your homework? We will go over some pieces of advice to make the process as easy as possibly. 

Content Templates & Deadlines

You may spend the day browsing competitor sites to see how they arrange their content, but this may still leave you with plenty of questions as to where to begin. 

A content template will be created based off of the website design. If you have sub headers or side bars, you will see where you need to add the content based off of the template. It may look like the example below. 

• Page Header: Largest text on the page
• Sub Header: Second largest text on the page
• Main Image: Large image
• Text 1: Introductory Paragraph
• Text 2- 5: Use this for the body of the content

The above example is more simplistic, but it may get more detailed depending on whether or not you are using forms, accordions, or other features on that particular page. 

Most companys will ask one person to be in charge of overseeing the creation of the new website. This means that person will be receiving pressure from their bosses on the home front as well as Project Managers trying to stay on time and in budget.

How do you combat both at once?

Stick to your deadlines. You can discuss this with your Project Manager as well as each department you need content from. 

Tip: Create a Google Spreadsheet or Document that contains the content template and share it with everyone that will be working on the project. This will help track time and reinforce deadlines. 

Writing For The Web

You may scoff at the idea of content creation and collection being hard especially when you currently have experience as a writer.

However, journalism, technical writing, reports, and essays are all starkly different than writing for the web. 

When we say keep it readable, what we really mean is scannable. 

Steve Krug claims in Don’t Make Me Think that one of the most important fact about web users is that they don’t read, they scan.

Zoltán Kollin, UX Myths 

The truth may hurt, but most people are not going to read what you write word-for-word. This is why the content needs to be easy to digest and scan for site-viewers to get the most information possible in the shortest period of time. 

This may mean use of:

• Bullet points and ordered lists
• Short 2-3 sentence paragraphs
• Visual aids such as video
• Headings and sub headings for visual breaks 

Do not get discouraged that your site-users are not clinging to your every word as if it were your last. There is no need for panic, it is just the facts of life.

What you should bear in mind, though, is that content is absolutely crucial for your viewer and search engine optimization. 

Ideally, you want people to spread the word by sharing your content with others. 

Spruce it up with:

• Factual white papers
• Infographics and charts  
• Featured topics and photos from the audience 
  • For example, Modcloth features regular people who buy their clothes as models, this highlights the audience gets them involved with the content 

Maybe you do not have an exciting thrift store themed eCommerce shop or even a blog worth sharing. That does not mean you need to fall short on content. 

If you can't keep it exciting, at least keep it relevant: 

• Make sure you use keywords that apply to your industry in a natural fashion
  • People (and Google) will know if it is generic and keyword loaded
• Provide the information that the user wants
  • Why are they going to your website in the first page?
• Stick to the topic, if you can say something in 2 paragraphs do not use 10 to describe it

As mentioned above, when we say optimize, we do not mean keyword load your content until it barely makes sense. This is the absolute worst thing you can do. We will, however, still be using keywords. 

How do you know what to use? The basics end up being more like thesaurus work than keyword research. 

• Keyword Tool is a free alternative to Google Adwords which can help you figure out stronger words to use
  • Being simple and straight forward is usually best with keywords
• Tools like Google Trends allows you to see talked about topics
  • Only use this if it matches your industry; it may be better for blogging 

Experiment with some words after you select your tool of choice.

You may have been calling your dog grooming business a "Pet Sanctuary" throughout all of your content only to realize that no one even knows what that means. Perhaps you discover that they preferred "Dog Grooming" all along. 

One of the best ways to learn about optimization is to keep in mind what not to do. 

Do not:

• You do not need to say "Click Here", "Learn More", or "Visit this Link". Most people know exactly what a link looks like.  
  • Instead, subtly add the links throughout the content. This allows for search engines to index it instead of crawling words that are not relevant to what the link is. 
• It may seem like a pain, but do not skip out on the meta fields. Our CMS includes them for search engine optimization. 
  • Instead, use 3-4 keywords for each field. They can even be the same!
  • You may do something such as having a keyword and your company for the browser title then having the same keyword, your company, and also a location for the sentence that is included in your search description. 
• This is also true for alt text for images. If you add an image, be sure to give a few words to describe it.
  • This is crucial not only for optimization but also for accessibility. 

Start Writing

You may find it easier to split the responsibility of writing up between departments for precise content. However you go about collecting it, keep in mind that this will be the driving force of your website. 

Users will come to your site for a variety of reasons, and your content needs to resonate with them. 

If you have writers block or feel like you are stuck, you can always get in touch for some additional assistance.