Content Strategy within the Design Process is an excellent article written by Brad Shorr at Smashing Magazine on how: Content Strategy is the glue that holds a project together AND that language influences behavior.

I loved how Brad gave an objective overview of how content is an emerging practice area that needs recognition and integration into the development process from the beginning -- and through -- any digital project or initiative. If anything, you need to read the barter and exchange of team members during the process - hillarious and spot-on!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Likewise, Brad provides a compelling infographic [right] as well as additional resources on the subject:

The New Rules of Marketing and PR - David Meerman Scott
Explains content strategy better than anyone. The third edition was published in July 2011.

Content Strategy - Google Knol
For a thorough overview of content strategy and links to books, blogs and other resources, check out this fantastic Knol.

Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices - Jacob Gube
To promote creative compatibility, designers and writers alike should study this Smashing Magazine article.

Top Ten Mistakes of Web Management - Jakob Nielsen
For insight into design-related project management, read this post by the brilliant Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen.

Lastly, you need to subscribe to Smashing Magazine’s network or obtain their free five year anniversary eBook here! Well worth the download and/or sharing with others.
                                                                                                                (Image credit: Chris Depa, Straight North)

Best,
Denice MacDonald

If your website content is out of date, off-brand, and out of control, you're missing a huge opportunity to engage, convert, and retain customers online regardless of that new and shiny social media plan you are about to launch.
 
Without meaningful content, your website isn't worth much to your key audiences or viable for syndication to your various communities. Creating and caring for meaningful content is far more complicated than we're often willing to acknowledge.  

Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson explains how to create and deliver useful, usable content for your online audiences, when and where they need it most.

It also shares content best practices so you can get your next website redesign right, on time and on budget.  

For the first time, you will:

1.  See content strategy and its business value
2.  Find out why so many web projects implode in the content development phase
3.  Learn how to audit and analyze content
4.  Make smarter, achievable decisions about which content to create and how
5.  Find out how to maintain consistent, accurate, compelling content over time
6.  Get solid, practical advice on staffing for content-related roles and responsibilities

To order this book, simply go to Amazon now. You can also download it to your ebook here. 

More about Kristina Halvorson:

Website: Brain Traffic 

Blog: Content Comes First

RSS: Sign up for Feed

Twitter: Follow Kristina 

Best
Denice MacDonald 

[Credit: Book description modified from Amazon.com]

With social networking, twitter, blogging and web page content creation at an all time high – how do we evaluate the quality of content that we are posting and syndicating? In most cases, we are writing content that is too technical, only makes sense to internal personnel or blatantly boring. 

The following are resources to help identify the quality of content and if the content is being written so everyone understands it. 

20 Tips for improving your web writing: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-content/20-tips-for-improving-your-web-writing-005409.php  

10 tips for improving web writing (same, but different angle plus a lot of links to more content usability tips): http://webdesign.about.com/od/writing/a/aa031405.htm    

3 checklists for web content and intranet authors: http://www.contented.co.nz/Contented-writer-checklists.pdf  

According to the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test, we should be writing content at a seventh or eighth grade level. To help evaluate what level your content is set at simply update Word and Outlook as follows: 

MICROSOFT WORD

Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.

Click Proofing.

Make sure Check grammar with spelling is selected.

Under When correcting grammar in Word, select the Show readability statistics check box.

OUTLOOK

On the Tools menu, click Options.

Click the Spelling tab, and then click Spelling and AutoCorrection.

Click Proofing.

Under When correcting grammar in Outlook, select the Check grammar with spelling check box.

Select the Show readability statistics check box.

After you enable this feature, open a file that you want to check, and check the spelling. When Outlook or Word finishes checking the spelling and grammar, it displays information about the reading level of the document. 

BTW – the grade level for this blog is 8.1 – not too bad. 

Best

Denice MacDonald