greg smart

I recently came across an article by Erin Kissane, Writing Content that Works for a Living that was worth mentioning. While getting content out of a customer is always a challenge, getting/developing good content can seem all but impossible. Erin lays out some guidelines to help streamline and simplify this portion of the development process:

1. Who is the product for?
   Ask yourself: Can the target audience tell from this copy that we’re speaking to them? Can other people outside our audience tell that we’re NOT speaking to them?
2. What is the product?
   Ask yourself: Have we spelled out, clearly and in simple language, what the product is? Are the nouns as concrete as we can make them?
3. What does the product do for its target user?
   Ask yourself: Have we laid out the product’s primary features and benefits in a clear, concrete way?
4. Why is the product better than the available alternatives?
   Ask yourself: What evidence do we have for those claims? Are we presenting that evidence clearly and without fluffy, empty language that makes us look like we’re boasting?

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We have recently been going through the development process on one of our larger projects this year and seem to have hit the content delivery wall. As I have finished off the css, graphics, PHP framework, 3-tiered navigation (etc…) I began to look toward content delivery from my client. We have been talking about this for months, have repeatedly gone over how and where to start with the content development and have been following up consistently via telephone, email and in-person meetings. Still, no content.

First of all, this is not an issue limited to any single client. Content creation and delivery is always a difficult task. Here at Pleth, LLC we do not develop content in-house. We either leave this to the client or will bring in content writers from outside firms. The problems reside with the former. Clients often say they want to develop their own content, but rarely deliver on this in a complete and timely manner.

As I searched for resources on this topic I did come across an interesting article that spoke to effectively tackling these issues: The Cure for Content-Delay Syndrome, by Pepi Ronalds.

Most writers enjoy researching their topics and crafting their prose, and for this reason, many writers are less than enthusiastic about shaping someone else’s words… Editors are taught to weave disparate voices into something more professional, and they can quickly identify and prevent common errors—particularly on multi-writer projects. They are taught the fine art of helping writers improve their work and have a strong eye for detail. Where writers often like to start with nothing, editors expect to start with a pre-existing body of work, and generally enjoy shaping it into something stronger.

As I reviewed the article above I realized that what is required is a role player with strong editorial skills. Someone that can take content, provided in-part and haphazardly, and shape it into a finished product. Although the addition of this roleplayer does increase the bottom line for clients the necessity becomes apparent with an empty site and launch deadlines looming.

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Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

Jeffrey Zeldman

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