Establish a Content Strategy

Establish a governance strategy for managing content, the people handling it, and the processes they will follow.
Seven professionals each hold a cog in hand, uniting them as a team process.

How to Define an Effective Content Strategy for your Website

  • 1

    Establish Governance: People

    Identify the people involved and responsible for your content. At minimum, you will have a Web Strategy Owner and Website Manager, but you will likely have more. 

    Be sure to understand how platform user roles tie into the content a user is permitted to work with. 

    Web Strategy Owner

    This individual should be in senior leadership so they understand the high level needs of the agency and the high level top tasks of website visitors. They lend their clout to the Website Manager, to allow for cooperation from across the organization. 

    Website Manager

    The Web Manager wears many hats. This individual manages users, determines where and how new content is incorporated into the website, ensures content is reviewed for accuracy, performs regular reviews of content, and determines if the website is effective for top tasks.

    Website staff content responsibilities and user permissions 

  • 2

    Establish Governance: Processes

    How will you manage major revisions or deal with outdated content? The three common processes outlined here are crucial for creating and maintaining accurate web content. Establish the details of how your agency will handle them.

    Creating New Pages or Undertaking Major Revisions

    1. Review content for accuracy.
    2. Review content for editorial, mobile, and accessibility concerns. Use the Checklist for New Content as a guide.  
    3. Ensure the page is placed properly in the menu by the Website Manager, in context with related content and mapping to the main menu.

    Conduct a Periodic Audit of the Entire Website

    • The Web Manager will identify pages that have not been updated or have low traffic and coordinate updates with content owners.  
    • Content owners will review their content and document that it is up to date.

    Create an Editorial Calendar of Seasonal Campaigns and Messaging

    • The Web Manager will develop a cycle for reviewing and updating annual or seasonal content and ensure this plan is communicated to and enacted by the website staff. 
  • 3

    Create a Shared Understanding of Top Tasks

    Managing a website of a thousand pages or more is overwhelming, unless you know the top tasks. Then it becomes empowering. Understanding your website visitors and what they need to do allows you to focus on what is important.

    Keep the list of top tasks to a manageable number, six or eight. Explore personas, data-defined examples of typical website visitors and their top tasks.

    Documentation is crucial, because website ownership changes hands. The Web Strategy Owner and the Website Manager need to be on the same page. 

  • 4

    Measure the Effectiveness of Top Tasks

    1. Create 5-10 Key Performance Indicators.
      • A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a quantifiable measure to evaluate success. Each KPI should map to a site visitor top task, as identified in your personas.
    2. Identify the Source of the Measurement.
      • Each KPI will have a different source for the measurement, which could be Google Analytics, user feedback, volume of calls to a call center, the content of call center calls, successful submissions to an online application.
    3. Set the Target Measurement for each KPI, such as:
      • Decrease in user feedback complaints in percent or numbers.
      • Decrease in user feedback about certain topics in percent.
      • Increase in traffic and in complete applications.
      • Decrease in incomplete applications.