Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Content Hygiene

There are some straight-forward considerations to keep in mind when developing content. The idea is to provided succinct information and offer a call to action that is always current and relevant. Be clear on the purpose of the content and integrate it with other marketing activity. Each page should be treated as an initial point of entry to your web site.

The practices below should be embedded every time you approach content and then they will become second nature:

    Title: The title sets the expectation of what the visitor will be reading.

    Image: If you include an image have it support your message and what you are trying to convey. 

    Meta tags: If you want the page properly indexed in both internal and external search engines place key word meta tags and a good meta description. Also if you don’t start here you are wasting any money going towards search engine optimization programs.

    Text: Keep it simple, short and professional. Leave clever references to your marketing activities. Do use subheadings and bullets. If the copy requires scrolling please break it up into several pages and allow the user to decide how far they wish to drill down. You can always make the full text available in a .pdf or the printable view.

    Related links: Always include links to relevant information within the site. You will be doing the user a favor by aggregating all the possible dispersed content and cross selling your offerings. Be diligent and provide meaningful and relevant links.

    Call to action: Have a goal of what you expect a user to do. For example, go to the next stage of information along the selling cycle, purchase a product/service or make a call.


Next: Creating an editorial calendar for content.


Copyright© 2009 Lule Dine All Rights Reserved.

1 comment:

The Mad Mapper said...

Hello everybody,

I completely agree with the term Content Hygiene. At my organization everyone has been training in Information Mapping.

For those of you out there that are not familiar with this methodology. You should take a serious look.

My organization has been able to improve performance, solve information-intensive business challenges, and achieve long-term, measurable results using their methodology.

Information Mapping can be found on the web at www.infomap.com.