Hello. I’m Ellen de Vries. @eldevri on Twitter.

A website is not just for Christmas.

Prevention is less expensive than cure

Dog / website ailments:

•  It eats £1000s of your money and demands lots

of your time

•  It’s untrained and badly groomed

•  It sits lifelessly and ignored in the back garden

•  No-one wants to take responsibility for looking

after it

What is good content? •  Relevant to audience and context

•  It supports your brand and tone of voice

•  Well curated

1.  Who is responsible?

•  Anchor (wo)man

•  Curator

•  Editor

2. Establish objectives

•  What do you want to the site to achieve?

•  Importance versus feasibility •  Keep the ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ stuff for

later

Feasibility.

Importance.

3. Audit and research •  Research competitors

•  Work out what’s changing and what stays

•  If you’re into Search Engine Optimisation do research now

4. Branding •  Who are you? In a nutshell. •  What makes you different? •  What do you believe in? Don’t be boring. •  Establish a tone of voice.

5 . Messaging •  Who are your audiences? •  What problems do they need solving? •  How do you make things all better? •  What do you want your reader to do next?

6. Create •  Create an information architecture (and

site map) •  Create a schedule for content makers and

writers •  Don’t forget tagging and metadata

7. Ongoing workflow •  Edit edit edit edit edit •  Keep track of expiring content •  A schedule for keeping content fresh •  Think about your distribution channels •  Keep a spreadsheet for your QA

As time goes by… you need to feed and groom it.

Thanks for listening. Ellen de Vries ellen@thecopyhouse.net Twitter: @eldevri