Content strategy for the Portland Music Foundation
Thursday, November 4th, 2010Part Two in the Series: The Sausage Makers: Remaking the site of the Portland Music Foundation
When building a Web site, one obvious ingredient often gets overlooked, and that’s… the content. They say content is king, but in reality it is often mistreated as badly as the king’s jester. That can lead to a site that fails miserably, even though it may have a shiny new content management system or a glittering design concept.
What you need is a content strategy.
Content strategy is a practice that makes sure content gets treated like royalty (and it should be, because let’s face it, content is the reason people are coming to your site). It takes the who, what, when, where and why of content into account.
Allow me to demonstrate, using our friends at the Portland Music Foundation (whose site we’re redesigning) as an example.
Who. Obviously, we need to consider the needs of people who are coming to the site. More importantly, however, we need to think about who’s going to manage the content. In the case of the PMF, that task falls to president Pat May. Pat, like most of us, is very busy at his day job. He also doesn’t spend much time in front of a computer (and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!). He needs a content management system that’s easy to use and that automates things like purchasing memberships, and allows others to self-publish content (while still giving him the ability to review and approve).
What. For PMF, it’s basically pretty simple: publish information that lets people know its mission, where they can attend upcoming events and seminars, and who is a part of the organization. Pemaquid has been cooking up some special features, but the challenge is to keep things simple so that Pat – or other PMF board members – can easily keep the site up to date. Many sites fail at the “what”, because they come up with ideas that are creative and terrific but are difficult to execute given the “who” (see above).
When. Again, this is straightforward for PMF: the Web site needs to be available anytime from anywhere, both for visitors and for content producers. On some sites, like bank sites or news organizations, there’s a regular cycle when people visit the site that can lead to spikes (and then dips) in traffic as visitors hit it all at the same time.
Where. Where will visitors and content producers usually be editing content on the site? At their bustling office at work? At the library? On the comfy couch at home? Any special considerations should be taken into account.
Why. You need to ask this question early and often when building a Web site, and it’s the key to a successful content strategy. Why would anyone appreciate your Flash intro? (also, ask yourself “why do they always need to put a ‘skip into’ link there if it’s such a useful part of the site ;-) Why have a “What’s New” section on your home page if no one has time to update it? Why build a content management gizmo for your FAQs if they only get updated once a year? Asking “Why?” helps you put those grandiose ambitions you cooked during the brainstorming session into their proper perspective.
With the PMF, content strategy is ‘why’ there won’t be any elaborate features that require time-intensive management from administrators. That doesn’t mean the site won’t have any creative, unique features or a great design. More on that coming soon…


















