A Rant (Mostly) About Web Content
February 10, 2005 | 
27 Comments
Your average Web site is an unattractive, unorganized shell full of disconnected thoughts, filler and marketing spiel.
There I’ve said it again, and you know what — it’s true as it was years ago.
The value a great Web site can bring is huge. Yet people seem to want to skimp and/or put a lackluster effort into their Web presence. I think this is commonly due to a simple lack of understanding.
Just as people don’t get design, they don’t usually get Web content either. Sure a business could go with a cookie-cutter logo, and they could slap any old words up on the page, but what does that say about their business??
A Web site is a lot of work
Don’t people know that in today’s economy, it’s really easy to jump the fence? You need to take every opportunity to make what you do the best it can be. On the Web, this means putting not only money into projects, but work as well. Stakeholders almost always act surprised when they are asked to actually be involved with their Web sites.
“You mean I’ve got to work on this, too? Isn’t that what I pay you for?”
“Well, yeah, especially when it comes to Web content, you’ve either got to work or hire someone to do it for you.”
“My 15 year niece does Web sites, she has a blog, can’t she…”
“Ahem, no, she can’t. You need to do it, after all, it’s your Web site. I can help, but I need involvement on your end.”
Contrary to common perception, this stuff doesn’t just create itself! ;)
So, what about that content?
There is no reason to have a Web site without some kind of content, and yet so many people go into their Web projects with no clue how they’re going to address it. I’ve seen it in my years building for the Web and I’ve seen it as a Web user. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked, “Ok, but what about the content?” or “Why don’t they have X, Y or Z on this site??”
I realize it’s a hard subject to get your mind around, from every angle. It takes quite a bit of planning and discussion to even get started. If you can get it planned out and kicked-off, carrying it through the whole project can consume the lion’s share of the effort.
But as with many things that involve hard work, it’s important and it’s well worth it.
At Children’s we had to bring Gerry McGovern in to speak to our stakeholders to make people realize that content was something we really needed to put a lot of effort into. Desperate measures, for sure, but without it we’d not have been able to get all of the great content we had in our organization on to the Web site.
Since I’ve left they’ve actually looked into hiring a full time person to manage the content. Once they were educated to the benefits, they realized it was something they could not do without.
Content is king. Silly saying, but totally true. Often times you’ll get stakeholders and clients to buy into that phrase—getting them to do anything about it is another story. This has been an age old problem that countless minds have tried to solve, only to turn away, hands in the air.
What stakeholders need to know…
Content won’t magically appear. Most “Web designers” can’t create it for you. It’s important, usually should be priority #1 on a Web project. It takes work, lots of work. It needs a plan, and a process. In many cases creating, editing and managing the content for a Web site of any size is a full time job. For a real person. A content management system won’t do anything on it’s own, and you’re better of not wasting your money if you can’t properly implement it.
Still not convinced. Let’s look at the value of content in terms business minded people will understand:
- Good Web content is probably the #1 factor in getting people to come to, and use, your site. It can increase your profit margin by creating new customers.
- Good Web content can help you cut costs when it comes to customer service by providing your customers with the information they need. It can save you money.
- Good Web content can help build your brand, bringing you new business. More money!
- Good Web content can help keep your current customers informed and keep you on their minds. This can bring you more business. Again, more money!
I could go on. The bottom line? If you are going to go through the trouble to build a Web site for your company or organization—do it right.
Put some time and effort into your content, if you need to hire someone to do it for you. The ROI is there and if you can’t be bothered you’re probably better off with nothing. A bad Web presence is much worse than no presence at all in most cases.
(While your at it, spend some money on a great, forward-thinking and customer-centered design, if nothing else, it will save you money in the long run, I assure you.)
This stuff doesn’t have to be that hard, but it is a lot of work; so roll up your sleeves, be prepared to open you wallet and toss your assumptions aside. Web content can be a great asset, but you need to want it and work for it.
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. hank said:
I agree totally. Isn’t it funny how some clients will obsess about the tiniest graphic details yet not give a single thought to the content? In my experience I have found one of the major project bottlenecks in web development is the client providing the content, and then the disorganised and poorly crafted junk you get back can be a real eye-opener. There definitely is a market for copywriting now more than ever.
One thing I find in our role as web builders is the need to provide a solid content structure, in the form of a strictly defined content map or somesuch. The worst thing is leaving the content solely in the hands of the client.
Posted on February 10, 2005 07:54 PM | #
2. Jason Santa Maria said:
Sometimes I think the reason some business don’t want to write their own content (but nit pick design details) is because they don’t actually read other business websites, they just skim them like they do with other sites.
I have worked at an agency with just a bunch of designers, and I have worked at and agency with a diverse group of people including a copywriter. Until I worked with a copywriter on our staff, I never realized just how damn important they can be.
Posted on February 10, 2005 08:16 PM | #
3. neil said:
I think part of this comes down to the fact the the vast majority of companies and organizations have real problems talking about what it is that they actually do, never mind talking about it in a language that doesn’t devolve into empty happy talk and puffery. I’ve seen this many times when dealing with clients.
Also, getting the client to bring someone in to help them with content is a great idea. More often than not, unfortunately, there has been little in the way of budgeting for this kind of requirement.
I guess my question is, where do you as the designer put your foot down with regards to content? Do you turn jobs down because a client has little financial interest in investing in their content, even though you know that the site will completely fail because of it?
I’ve had to walk away from at least a couple of clients because they just had zero interest in dealing with their content, and no financial wherewithal to hire someone who’d deal with it for them.
Posted on February 10, 2005 09:35 PM | #
4. Kyle said:
This is a major advantage of having having very large companies as clients. They know copy matters. It’s such a difference when you can tell a client has really sat down and thought about the content versus when they just threw the job to someone they thought might do an okay job at it.
How do you deal with clients that don’t get it? Personally, when I was freelancing, I asked them in the initial meeting about content. If they were not prepared to deliver quality content, I tell them I will charge them for content creation. You just have to lay it down to them in dollars and cents. Explain to them that they will be loosing money if the content is not good enough. Tell them the best functionality and best design in the world won’t save them from having crappy content.
Posted on February 10, 2005 09:45 PM | #
5. Alec said:
I like your statement that a good Content Management System won’t do anything on its own.
To take the analogy further, the CMS is like exercise equipment. Unused it does nothing for its owner but take up space. Or like musical instruments. In the right hands, a musical instrument can alter lives and perception. In the wrong hands…
To go even further, a CMS is like a bus. Without a trained driver, it is either useless (stands still) or dangerous (swerves around knocking people down).
Any CMS needs a driver. And that’s where the real expense should be in all but nonprofit organisations. The people to make all this work.
Human capital. Many businesses don’t want to spend on such soft costs. And some of the same companies hire people to create networks of garbage machine generated pages to push themselves higher in SERPs.
Crazy world. Great post.
Posted on February 10, 2005 10:41 PM | #
6. Dan said:
Great post, and I couldn’t agree more.
I’m currently working on a site that my company started back in August, and it still isn’t finished. Why? Because our client has spent months fretting over the smallest graphical details (it took them three weeks to decide on the shade of red they wanted on the homepage…), and we’re still awaiting the rest of the content.
Oh, and the official launch date is this coming Monday. Stressed? Me???
*gibber!*
Posted on February 11, 2005 01:49 AM | #
7. Kev said:
Great post. I’ve been in a situation where the client either doesn’t care about the content, doesn’t care how its presented or wants to add more content in after the site has been designed and signed off (I’m not talking about content management but instances where they want whole new sections inserted into existing sections) and to be honest, its one of the things I struggle with the most - there must be a trick to getting decision makers to care about content but if there is then I’m not a party to it.
Posted on February 11, 2005 01:56 AM | #
8. Gabriel Mihalache said:
Jason Santa Maria’a early shocking hardcore! Confesions about his wild youth! Read all about it in today’s Asterisk!
Now, seriously, I think the best way to avoid having to deal with this personally, when working as a designer, is to team up with a copywriter, included in the same price. It might reduce your income, but it will shorten projects and spare you from having to deal with pig-headed managers. I know it sounds like “passing the buck”, but that’s what copywriters are for (dealing with clients, not passing the buck ;) Exactly the same issues come up in programming, and not only because most applications are web pages, client-side applications too!
As I read more and more design blogs, it becomes clear to me that designers and programmers are brothers in suffering :-(
Posted on February 11, 2005 03:17 AM | #
9. Jason Santa Maria said:
I guess I should have structured that a bit better. What I meant is that having one on our own staff made things go so much more smoothly. The client doesn’t know what to write? We’ll write it. Client has really bad copy? We’ll clean it up. It was great just having it as another facet to our team. She wasn’t just good with words, she knew creative and knew marketing, so she was a big link in our brainstorming sessions too. Good good good.
Posted on February 11, 2005 05:10 AM | #
10. Leslie Jensen said:
Neil, good point about clients not knowing what they actually do and finding an appropriate voice to speak their message.
I find that one of the most important things to figure out when talking with a client is their value proposition. I ask the client the following questions to find this: Who are you? What do you do? For whom? Why are you different? What is the call to action you want your potential/existing clients to take?
Not easy questions for all companies to answer and sometimes clients get frustrated. I let my clients know that the answers will help with their total marketing plan. Once they know who they are and can articulate their message clearly, it is so much easier to create web content or any content for the company. After this process, my clients tend to be grateful that we took the time at the beginning to really get to know their company, their vision, and their needs.
I often bring in copywriters to write and shape my client�’s message. It�’s also nice to have that fresh perspective on a client.
Posted on February 11, 2005 05:44 AM | #
11. Dan Jallits said:
My contracts specifically detail the type and format of the information that will be presented on the company website. This allows me to start designing templates while the company prepares their content. I am usually done with the templates and practically begging the company to send the content so I can finish the project. What do I get in the long run? Friggin’ brochures from 1988. (With Sarcasm!!)Not like the technology industry has changed much since then or anything.
Now I am looking not at the types of content on their competitors sites, but the actual content itself, because I now am writing the content and have no clue what the specifics of their respective industry is.
I have been freelancing since January 2000 and this issue (web content) has always been my biggest rant. So I hear ya D.K.
Posted on February 11, 2005 05:51 AM | #
12. Ste Grainer said:
Having an in-house editor/copywriter is definitely a huge bonus and can go a long way toward convincing clients that their content really is important. Content editors can help define style guides, maintain consistency between various projects (brochures, website, even video), and they can mix together the various departments within an organization (i.e. take the engineering specs, add some marketing pizazz, and shake well).
There should be a “good content repository” - like the many sites out there that showcase good design or adherence to web standards. It would be a collection of websites that have stellar content, so that we have a place to point clients to say, “See, these websites do it well.” My first nomination for such a site would be Apple: a strong, immediately recognizable brand that clearly invests in their content.
Posted on February 11, 2005 06:13 AM | #
13. danno said:
The core idea - that content has to be right - is bang on. But I think that most posters here underestimate the real significance of generating content for many organizations.
The clue is how often the client provides the brochure from 1988. If it was that easy, and that cost-effective, you can be sure that you’d see more recent material. You can’t underestimate the legal, brand and marketing complexities involved. Here are some:
And I won’t even start with government sites. How many managers that you know are really looking for a giant headache?
Saying “The client doesn�’t know what to write? We�’ll write it. Client has really bad copy? We�’ll clean it up.” is not that different from the client saying my cousin does websites. The client hasn’t got much more reason to think that someone who calls themselves a copywriter is going to meet their high standards than you have for expecting that the cousin will produce standards-compliant pages. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but what has this person done to indicate they understand the real scope of the problem?
Posted on February 11, 2005 08:00 AM | #
14. Dave P said:
So, if I can ask you all: Why not provide the content generation service as part of your overall web design offering?
Clearly, by the comments here, the client isn’t always in the best position to produce their own content, due either to neglegence or inability, or a combination of both.
Teaming up with a copywriter is good for those of us that can manage it, but there’s no real reason we can’t do this ourselves. Hell, we all do it with our own sites.
The key, I presume is to charge the client for it. Once the client sees how much goes in to generating content, both in time and money, you may find a few willing to take a load off of your shoulders. And if not, heck, more money for you.
Posted on February 11, 2005 08:53 AM | #
15. Keith said:
re: Copywriting/editing – I hear quite a few of you singing the praises of having a copywriter or editor on the team. In general I totally agree with that, when I worked for Boeing we had a few writers to tap and a few editors and it was great.
But I think it’s important to have someone who knows about Web content and kindof like danno talks about, you really need someone who will be able to focus on that company’s content for a long period of time. Someone to manage the process as well as edit and create content, etc. Ideally this would happen on the client side.
It’s not about copy really, it’s about content and all that entails.
Having said that, one of the reasons why I started Asterisk and why I continue to help out with Digital Web is so that I can keep learning about content (which is most often text), writing for the Web and managing a content cycle, etc.
My hope was that I could provide that service to my clients and stakeholders. I think I can do so to a certain degree, but it’s much to big a job to do that and do IA, and design, etc.
(and project manage, and account manage, etc. LOL)
Posted on February 11, 2005 08:57 AM | #
16. Keith said:
Dave P – I guess you hit on one of the reasons why I got into writing. To help get a handle on this stuff so I could help clients.
Posted on February 11, 2005 09:27 AM | #
17. Dave P said:
…and not to blow smoke Keith but you do a really good job at it (writing that is).
Posted on February 11, 2005 09:42 AM | #
18. Nipith Ongwiseth said:
I think the problem stems from the myth that everyone has to have a web presence. Most people seems to feel that if they don’t have a web site, they’re not up to date and are behind their competition. As a result they simply hire a designer to throw something up, and they think that, that’ll solve the problem.
What they don’t realize is that a website is just a message delivery system, much like an ad or a flyer. To do any of those, you have to first have a message to deliver. Yet, the message is often the last thing they think about.
Add on top of that, most of the business world don’t really understand design. They think of design as simply window dressing. Something that looks pretty, but that’s all. Clients often don’t realize that design can communicate, but in order to communicate, they must have a message.
I think as designers we have to be prepared for this and build into our process a few cooperative sessions, where we and our clients work through the content, whether it’s starting from scratch and creating outlines of the content, or it’s just editing and finalizing the content. And if you need to include the cost of copy writers into the project, so be it. Most clients don’t understand design and don’t understand the design process. We need to educate them, and working with them through it is probably the most direct way.
Posted on February 11, 2005 10:44 AM | #
19. Adrian said:
At my job, I usually do my best not to get involved in projects that have no content.
From my observations, what usually happens is somebody gets the bright idea that they need a website. “We’re going to make a website!” They go and hire someone (or try to get someone to do it internally, like me), and then it stalls because they give no thought to what’s going to go on the website. Their process is backwards in my opinion. You should already have good content or know what content you’re going to generate before you get to wanting to put it on a website.
The content will influence the design more than anything else. You should never get to the design stage without at least having a very clear picture of what the content is going to be. Ideally, you should already have a pretty decent chunk of content, but you can do the bulk of the work just knowing what the content is going to be and where it’s going to go.
Posted on February 11, 2005 10:56 AM | #
20. Graham said:
We’ve had web projects drag out for literally months because our clients kept changing the content mid-stream, or adding content right at the end of the project. As a result, my department is currently trying to “lock down” the content by basically refusing to start the development phase of the project until 100% of the content in is our hands.
We will do an outline, and an early comp if necessary, but we are trying to stress to the clients that we need ALL the content before we start writing the HTML. We charge by the hour, so it only hurts a client’s pocket book for them to constantly give us new content which forces us to re-do design elements late in the game.
We’ve also thought about asking a client for a “Change Order” if they present content to us after the content-gathering phase. This is exactly what happens in the construction business, and each change order adds to the finished price of the project.
Posted on February 11, 2005 01:13 PM | #
21. Kevin Tamura said:
So, one of the things I keep running into is clients cutting out our copywriting services with the old “We have someone that can do that” attitude. It always ends with sites being late as they try to pull content together at the last minute; content that usually doesn’t work for the web and that we end up rewriting anyway.
Posted on February 11, 2005 03:48 PM | #
22. Markus said:
Dave P said it - and I could not agree more. If your hired to design/redesign a website, your job is not only the “visual design” of the site but also the “content design”. For customers that don’t have a budget for a professional web copy editor we use a portfolio of sites that we put together on good web copy. This helps our customers in understanding successfull web copy and guides them in wording their own copy.
Posted on February 12, 2005 02:34 AM | #
23. Nathan Smith said:
It seems that there are many designers as of late that are getting simply fed up with clients not coming on-board and doing their part in the creation of their website. This is something I’ve been struggling with for awhile.
I was hired by one client in June of 03, and didn’t finish the job until February of 04. The design, however, was done for several months before they actually got their act together and provided the content.
I don’t want to name names specifically, but it was a para-church organization. For the longest time, I thought this problem was isolated to the church environment, assuming that since all these people had jobs other than their volunteer churchy ones, they just did not have the time to sit down and think things through.
Now I’m realizing that this problem is just a client - designer/developer problem, and feeling a lot less isolated. As far as copy people go, I think that they are of the utmost importance, since after all, content drives design.
It’s like that line from Tommy Boy, where they’re talking about whether or not the brake pads have a lifetime guarantee. It doesn’t matter so much what’s on the box, it matters what’s inside. That’s something I try to stress to people I work with, we provide the container, you supply the substance.
By the way, I found a slight typo:
…and your better of not wasting…
(under What Stakeholders Need to Know)
Posted on February 14, 2005 02:07 PM | #
24. Kim Siever said:
Reminds me of the time I was first starting out and when I asked my first client for content, she handed me a pamphlet and a bunch of newspaper clippings and said, “Here you go.”
I am sure none of you are surprised to find out that when I was finished writing the content, she didn’t like it.
I have never made that mistake again.
Posted on February 14, 2005 06:38 PM | #
25. Kim Siever said:
I should point out that now when someone asks me to write the content, I let them know that they will be charged for it. If they don’t like how the content looks when I am done, there will be an additional charge to make any changes.
It doesn’t take long before they realise it is cheaper to do it themselves.
Posted on February 14, 2005 06:42 PM | #
26. Nathan Logan said:
Wow Keith, that was spot-on. Thanks for the insights and for putting it into plain English for clients and developers alike. This article will be a great reference for educating potential clients.
Excellent work - a wonderful resource for the community.
Posted on February 15, 2005 01:30 AM | #
27. Bryan said:
The company I work for often has to deal with content-less type clients.
We have sites that were suppose to launch July of 2004 ! and they still haven’t. Why, because the committee’s and organizations get their board members involved and the thing takes a millenium to actually get done.
We have one site that was suppose to launch last year, and they have like 6-7 main sections all with sub content. Well, all we have is “About Us” and that is a country mile long.
crazy.
Posted on February 23, 2005 05:37 AM | #
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