Content Strategy for the Web

by Kristina Halvorson

  Content Strategy for the Web

  Second Edition

  Kristina Halvorson

  Melissa Rach

  Foreword by Sarah Cancilla, Facebook

  Content Strategy for the Web, Second Edition

  Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach

  New Riders

  1249 Eighth Street

  Berkeley, CA 94710

  510/524-2178

  510/524-2221 (fax)

  Find us on the Web at: www.newriders.com

  To report errors, please send a note to errata@peachpit.com

  New Riders is an imprint of Peachpit, a division of Pearson Education.

  Copyright © 2012 by Kristina Halvorson

  Project Editor: Michael J. Nolan

  Development Editors: Tenessa Gemelke and Margaret Anderson

  Production Editor: Cory Borman

  Copyeditor: Gretchen Dykstra

  Proofreader: Rose Weisburd

  Interior Design and Composition: Kim Scott, Bumpy Design

  Cover Designer: Sean Tubridy

  Indexer: Joy Dean Lee

  Notice of Rights

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact permissions@peachpit.com.

  Notice of Liability

  The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the authors nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

  Trademarks

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

  ISBN 13: 978-0-321-80830-1

  ISBN 10: 0-321-80830-4

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  Advance Praise for Content Strategy for the Web, Second Edition

  “The first edition of Kristina Halvorson’s little book was like a rip in the Matrix through which light poured. In the space of a few chapters, she had changed our field forever, for the better. This second edition retains all that was wonderful in the first book, while yielding dazzling new insights into the hows and whys of content strategy.”

  — Jeffrey Zeldman, author, Designing With Web Standards

  “When I wanted to introduce content strategy as a ‘must’ for eBay Europe, I bought a copy of Content Strategy for the Web for everyone I needed to influence. Two years and a content strategy team later, it clearly worked! By far the most comprehensive and accessible book on content strategy available. Required reading for our entire team.”

  — Lucie Hyde, Head of Content, eBay Europe

  “Content Strategy for the Web is the most important thing to happen to user experience design in years.”

  — Peter Morville, author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability

  “Marketers, take note: From mobile and social media to email and websites, killer content is central to your online success—but without a solid, centralized content strategy, you’re doomed from the start. Like no other book, Content Strategy for the Web gives you the tools you need to get the right content to the right people in the right place at the right time. Essential reading for marketers everywhere.”

  — Ann Handley, CMO, MarketingProfs and author, Content Rules

  “This is the go-to handbook for creating an effective content strategy. The Post-It® notes and dog-eared pages in my copy are evidence of that!”

  — Aaron Watkins, Director of Digital Strategy, Johns Hopkins Medicine

  “Kristina Halvorson and her company, Brain Traffic, are central to the emerging discipline of content strategy.”

  — James Mathewson, Search Strategy and Expertise Lead, IBM

  “Content Strategy for the Web touched off the explosive growth of content strategy and its recognition as a critical field of practice. Amazingly, this second edition doesn’t just keep up: it pushes content strategy in a more mature—and valuable—direction.”

  — Louis Rosenfeld, author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Search Analytics for Your Site

  “Kristina Halvorson is a force to be reckoned with. In three short years, she has single-handedly brought content strategy to the forefront of the UX community’s attention. I’m in awe of how quickly she’s mobilized a small army of content strategists, and can’t wait to see where she goes next.”

  — Jared Spool, CEO and Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

  “This little red book is responsible for changing the way I think about designing for the Web, and I don’t think I’m alone. After a decade of treating content like an afterthought, Content Strategy for the Web helped us fix our priorities, and gave us a better way forward.”

  — Ethan Marcotte, author, Responsive Web Design

  “The web isn’t about only your website anymore. What does that mean for your content strategy? Kristina and Melissa answer with sassy and sound advice.”

  — Colleen Jones, author, Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content

  “If the loss of potential customers and brand degradation keep you up at night, good. There may not be monsters under your bed, but they’re in your web presence—and they’re coming to get you. Content Strategy for the Web offers practical, effective techniques to keep the monsters at bay, whether you’re waging war in a small business or on behalf of a corporate behemoth. Scared? Not anymore.”

  — Margot Bloomstein, Principal, Appropriate, Inc. and author, Content Strategy at Work

  “If you want your organization or your clients to be successful online, you need to help them think—and act—strategically about all their content. You need this book.”

  — Janice (Ginny) Redish, author, Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works

  For the staff at Brain Traffic, whose hard work, brave insights, and shared sense of humor inspired every page that follows ... again.

  And for our families, whose loving patience and support made this book possible.

  “The best people are the ones that understand content.

  They’re a pain in the butt to manage, but you put up with

  it because they are so good.”

  — Steve Jobs

  Contents

  Foreword: The Rapid Rise of Content Strategy at Facebook and Beyond (Sarah Cancilla, Facebook)

  Before We Begin...

  REALITY

  1 NOW

  Hit the ground running.

  2 PROBLEM

  Why does your content (still) suck?

  3 SOLUTION

  Content strategy to the rescue.

  DISCOVERY

  4 ALIGNMENT

  Down with silos, up with people.

  5 AUDIT

  Take a close-up look at your current content.

  6 ANALYSIS

&nb
sp; Your content lives in a complicated world.

  STRATEGY

  7 CORE

  Core strategy: the center of it all.

  8 CONTENT

  Substance and structure: the stuff they come for.

  9 PEOPLE

  Workflow and governance: the path to victory.

  SUCCESS

  10 PERSUASION

  Making the case for content strategy.

  11 ADVOCACY

  Get out there and do something.

  12 HERO

  Save the content, save the world.

  Content strategy reading list

  Acknowledgments

  About the authors

  About Brain Traffic

  Index

  Foreword

  The Rapid rise of Content Strategy at Facebook and Beyond

  At Facebook, employees are empowered to be bold in the name of innovation. “Move Fast and Break Things,” “What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?” and “Done Is Better Than Perfect” are a few of the mottos pasted on the walls at Facebook headquarters.

  Back in 2009, Facebook content was getting “done,” but it was far from perfect. Engineers, designers and product managers were writing most of the copy. If you had a keyboard, you were a copywriter. If you could commit code, you were a publisher. And there was a lot of content: menus, navigation text, product tours, multi-step forms, nomenclature, in-product education, help pages, blog posts, and much more. Less-than-perfect content meant confused and frustrated users, and it was taking its toll on the brand.

  The Facebook Design and User Experience team decided it was time to create a new role within the department. They called it “content strategist.”

  Just a few weeks before the job posting went up, the first edition of Content Strategy for the Web was published. Soon after, the Facebook team contacted author Kristina Halvorson for advice about the position, and she graciously offered suggestions about what to say in the posting and where to look for candidates. She also helped get the word out.

  I’d been working as a content strategist at eBay for several years when I spotted Kristina’s reference to the job posting. I tucked my already well-worn copy of Kristina’s book under my arm and headed off to interview at Facebook. They hired me.

  Soon after I started at Facebook, I discovered that most of my new coworkers thought “content strategist” was a highfalutin term for “copy editor.” They filled my inbox with questions like, “Is there a better word for this?” and “Should the period go inside or outside the quotation mark?” I even had an engineer free-type my rough copy ideas directly into the code for the live site. Thrilling, yes, but not exactly the methodical, holistic process I was hoping for.

  I needed to find a way to introduce real content strategy into a system that was hardwired to reject anything that might gunk up the works. In the past, I might have organized a meet-n-greet/dog-and-pony/brown-bag extravaganza to educate to my colleagues about the benefits of content strategy. But my usual approach wasn’t going to fly at a company that valued action far above talk. Instead, I heeded the “move fast” writing on the walls and focused on gaining quick wins.

  I first set my sights on a group of links in the lower corner of the Facebook homepage. These links offered people the chance to invite friends to Facebook, connect with friends already there, and try Facebook Mobile. The links didn’t drive a lot of traffic and weren’t an important piece of the team’s strategy, so they didn’t want to dedicate resources to improving them. But I was welcome to change the copy. So I did, relying completely on my content strategy intuition to guide my decisions (there was no time for testing, after all). At the very least, I knew I could make the calls to action clearer and more compelling.

  Mere hours after I made my quick-and-dirty changes, we rolled out the new version of the content module. The result? Net traffic to this area of the page rose 56%. Which is to say, six million more people found friends, invited friends, and tried Facebook Mobile every week, purely as a result of those tiny improvements.

  Over the next few months, I gained a few more quick wins for content. And each time I tackled a project or fulfilled a request, I carefully framed my proposals in the context of the larger Facebook content strategy that was beginning to evolve. I also tailored my recommendations to the audience at hand: When working with engineers, I tried to make things simple and empirical, often relying on spreadsheets and “if-then” statements. With designers, I went visual. And with executive stakeholders, I always made an effort to reference bigger-picture goals.

  When someone championed the cause of content strategy, that person became a “FOCS” (friend of content strategy), and was awarded a coveted FOCS tee. As in, “You know that guy Matt? He’s a total FOCS.”

  Soon, people started to solicit my help on more complex problems. Questions about tone, structure and site-wide consistency began to outnumber those about grammar and syntax. The company began giving enthusiastic support (and budget) for longer-term, content-driven initiatives.

  Today, a mere two years later, there are nine content strategists on the Facebook team, and we hope to welcome several more by the end of 2012. We work alongside product managers, designers, engineers, and user researchers on every major product launch. We’ve developed a comprehensive set of content standards for the company. And we serve as a hub for the teams throughout Facebook that touch user-facing content, including product marketing, user operations, and the lawyers.

  In the two years since I started at Facebook and Content Strategy for the Web first came out, the discipline has come into its own. Meetup groups have formed all over the world. People are gathering at conferences dedicated exclusively to content. Not unlike Facebook itself, content strategy has spun into a spirited community of people who are excited to share new ideas and perspectives—allowing the discipline to advance at an amazing clip.

  Content Strategy for the Web has played a huge role in educating web practitioners and business leaders about why good content matters. Not only does the book champion a strategic approach to content, it also demystifies how to do it. Whether you’re a seasoned content strategist or it’s your first time at the rodeo, you’ve got everything you need to create, deliver, and govern useful, usable content right here.

  Facebook’s culture is unique, but what moved the cause of content strategy forward here could happen anywhere—including where you work.

  • Demonstrate value on your own terms. Be proactive, and identify tiny projects that will showcase the benefits of content strategy. Then get them done, with or without resources.

  • Apply content strategy to your content strategy. Frame each recommendation and each success within the context of the larger content strategy, even if the request was tactical in nature. And do it in a way that will appeal to your audience.

  • Friend everyone. Cultivate allies, find your FOCSes, and make them T-shirts.

  In 2009, the content strategy community was small. Now it’s vast, and eager to support you in your efforts to make a better web through better content. Today, when you tell people you’re a content strategist, the question is no longer, “What’s content strategy?” Now it’s, “When can you start?”

  Join us as we move toward a web where content strategy is not simply nice to have, but an essential part of what we make and imagine.

  Sarah Cancilla

  Content Strategist, Facebook

  Before We Begin...

  If you’re reading this book for the first time, then hello! It’s lovely to meet you. And if you’re familiar with the first edition, then hey, welcome back. Glad to see you again. Give us a hug.

  So. Things out there in the world of content strategy have changed pretty significantly since the first edition of Content Strategy for the Web was published. What used to be a niche topic discussed by only a few hardcore content nerds has become a worldwide movement in organizations of all shapes and sizes. Hooray! More hugs all around.

  As the conve
rsation continues to gain momentum, the field of content strategy is evolving at lightning speed. And so, by necessity, this second edition of Content Strategy for the Web is a much different book from the first. But don’t worry. All new material has evolved directly from the methodology described in the first edition; all revisions are based on the shared knowledge of the wider content strategy community, and our own experiences at Brain Traffic, our Minneapolis-based content strategy firm.

  And now, a few things to note:

  What this Book Is

  This book is an introduction to the practice of content strategy. It describes some of the key benefits, roles, activities, and deliverables associated with content strategy.

  We wrote this book for people who want to understand what content strategy is, why it’s important, and how to go about getting it done.

  This book also makes the case for content strategy as a legitimate, necessary practice in any and all organizations that create and publish content online.

  Throughout the book, we describe processes and methodologies that may be applied to all kinds of content (not only text). And as you read, remember that just about everything we write about can be scaled and tailored to fit your needs.

  What this Book is Not

  This book is not The Complete Guide to Everything You Ever Need to Know About Content Strategy, Ever.

  We hope you find this book a valuable reference tool for a long time to come, but don’t mistake it as the only book you’ll ever need. In fact, here are a few specific topics this book intentionally does not cover (at all, or in detail):

  • Content management systems (CMS) strategy (software selection, design, and implementation)

  • Translation and localization

  • Personalization and behavioral targeting

  • Content marketing

  • Social media planning

  • Metadata strategy

  • SEO