What is a website content strategy and why do you need one?
Copywriting is just that—the writing of copy. It’s the final, polished product, the words marketers use to get people to act after reading them. Great copywriters get people to feel, think and respond.
When it comes to your small business or non-profit’s website, how do you get your copy to that point? How do you figure out what your copy needs to say and the direction it needs to take to even get the reader to respond?
By first creating a website content strategy.
A website content strategy does more than simply map out the content on your website, it maps out your content’s purpose and objectives, helps identify what makes your organization or small business unique and how to successfully communicate that uniqueness. Think of it as a blueprint for the yet-to-be-written copy. You shouldn’t build a house without first doing architectural drawings, and you shouldn’t write website copy without first developing a website content strategy. Taking the time to develop a website content strategy helps ensure that you’re producing purposeful and quality copy, rather than just producing copy for the sake of producing copy.
While here at Luminate we focus our efforts on helping non-profit organizations tell their story, we also frequently work with small business clients looking to redevelop the content on their website. Typically, these are clients who, like our non-profit clients, want to tell their story in order to better connect with their audience. In order to help them do so, we start by creating a strong foundation.
We dig deep, and ask our clients questions such as:
Why are we creating this content?
What is the purpose of the content and what do you want it to achieve?
Who is the content talking to? Who is it NOT talking to?
What do you want that person to do when they read the content?
These may seem like easy questions, but the answers aren’t always. Each answer creates clarity and speaks directly to your brand. When you create content with clearly defined goals and objectives, you’ll achieve the desired results. Website content created on a whim or without purpose is more likely to come up short of your goal.