Best practices for archiving and deleting content
When we talk about the digital content life cycle, we typically break it into five stages: strategize and ideate, plan, design and create, evaluate, and finally, maintain.
Content toolkit: Unnecessary word list
Complex words and phrases make your web copy difficult to understand. When you do a copy editing pass, look for ways to simplify by replacing two and three-word phrases with pared-down versions.
Web writing best practices: Keep it lean
When you stuff your pages with extra articles, adverbs, and roundabout phrasing, your message gets fuzzy. Write lean and your readers will thank you.
Content toolkit: Substantive editing checklist
Substantive editing is the part of the writing and revision process that looks at what Ginny Redish calls, “the big picture”. It occurs in early drafts and addresses key messages, user needs, and structure.
Content toolkit: Content quality audit template
A content quality audit is a foundational activity that informs your content strategy by identifying strengths and weaknesses in existing content, and helping you to prioritize future content projects.
How to audit for content quality
If you want to get serious about how your content aligns with your brand and impacts customer perceptions, then do a qualitative, or quality audit.
Content toolkit: Content RACI templates
A RACI is a matrix used to clarify the roles and responsibilities of each person involved in a project. In content projects, a RACI forms the backbone of your content governance plan. It ensures all team members and stakeholders understand their role, and that of others, in the content creation process. It also helps to identify […]
How to use a RACI chart to define content roles and responsibilities
As a manager of a content team, you may find yourself having a head-on-desk moment at some point, frustrated by content processes that never seem to work.
Content toolkit: Copy editing checklist
Copy editing is an important part of the writing and revision process. It’s one of the last touches on the copy before publication and is best done by someone other than the author. No one can catch all the typos in their own work, so fresh eyes on the words will help.
Glossary of content strategy terms
Content strategy is an expanding field that crosses the boundaries between user experience, information architecture, marketing, taxonomy, and technical communication. As content strategists, the language we use often means different things to different people, depending on where they come from.
Understanding the Content Maturity Model
Updated March 2016 The content maturity model is a great way for to you see where your challenges and opportunities are around creating content. You can use it to align stakeholders and team members around a common understanding, and get them excited about evolving their content practices. Most importantly, it provides you with some structure and […]
7 tips for hiring the right writer
You already know that it’s more effective and cost-efficient to hire a professional writer to develop your business copy than, say, getting the product manager or designer to do it. But how can you make sure that your content investment pays off? And why do so many professional writers do a lousy job of getting […]
Content mapping part 2: Mapping content to customer journeys
Updated March 2023 This is the second article in a two-part series about mapping content to customer journeys. If you haven’t yet read part one on the foundational elements of mapping content to customer journeys, please take a moment to have a quick read.
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