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…

If anyone can do it, it’s Joe Michaud, but I am very skeptical.

Back in the day, newspapers were the first true “information companies”. People picked up the Sunday paper for all sorts of reasons: news, sports, classifieds, community calendar, auto ads, coupons – and so on. The newspaper worked b/c it combined all that information in a neat package that was easy to deliver and had something for everyone.

Now, there’s a new place to go to get all the information you need – your computer, connected to the Internet.

Want to know who won Best Actor in 1943? Google it.

Want to know about an obscure topic like domain tasting? Ask Wikipedia.

Speaking of Wikipedia, does anyone still buy encyclopedias anymore? Encyclopedias, like newspapers, provided a wealth of information. Alas, for Britannica salesmen, that information is now easily available online.

There’s an article in this morning’s Wall Street Journal on How We Get News (in the future). In it, there’s this line:

…in the next decade we won’t use newspapers or television news programs to decide what stories we see each day…

One big key for newspapers going forward is going to be relevance. I know one person who recently dropped his subscription to the Portland Press Herald b/c on his Sunday paper, above the fold, were two headlines – one on Paris Hilton’s release from prison, the other on the upcoming final episode of the Sopranos (this is not a joke).

Newspapers will have to do a much better job understanding what is relevant to their best customers. To make matters worse for them, the Internet is making it easier for small teams to disseminate high quality information that meets or exceeds what can be provided by the local newspaper team. Probably the worst news of all for publishers is that as people spend more time online, advertisers are finding a more cost-effective way to market their brands than through ads in the local paper.

I worked for Joe Michaud at MaineToday.com a few years ago. It was a great experience all the way around. Joe was an innovator, and there were lots of creative people on staff (and then there was me ;-). The main reason I didn’t stick around is b/c I was pessimistic about the long-term prospects for newspapers. I figured they might be gone before Joe retired and I’d have a shot at a promotion.

If anyone can help newspapers succeed in the 21st century, it’s Joe Michaud, and I wish him well. But because of the way people get information these days, I think it’s doubtful the newspaper as we know it will survive. In the near future, I predict publications using content from professional journalists will look quite different than they do today, will cater to narrower niche markets, and will in all likelihood not enjoy the regional monopoly of the local newspaper companies of today.

Today is Cyber Monday, the Monday immediately following Black Friday and supposedly the day when e-tailers’ online sales surge like the rush for a Blue Light Special.

Only trouble is, The Legend of Cyber Monday is just that – a myth, concocted by marketing consultants to spur their Clients into Web site upgrades to prepare for a virtual tsunami.

Cyber Monday historically has not been the most popular online shopping day. In fact, according to Business Week, it’s only the 12th biggest sales day online.

That’s not to say your Maine Web site shouldn’t be ready for business today. It’s just important to remember that your site should be ready for business every day.

Naturally, good Web design should be the most important part of your Web strategy, this Monday and every Monday. That’s right, even more important than your search engine marketing plan. Because today – or any day – it’s not going to matter if you’re the #1 result in Google if people click on over and find that your site is hard to use.

See you on Cyber Tuesday….

Their products include cards for most important occasions – birthdays, holidays, thank yous and other note cards – as well as calendars, picture frames, wrapping paper and prints of the amazing and colorful paintings of Catherine Breer (she’s the “catherine”).

Working with Catherine and her partner, Annie Darling – graphic artists every bit as talented as our own design team – made for an interesting project. Our challenge was to translate the very clear vision they had for the look of the site into something that would be pixel perfect across all browsers.

That’s why making sure the xHTML and CSS was valid was so important. That’s also why we used a “sIFR” (Flash image replacement) javascript to render the page titles in the specific font requested by the Client.

A custom version of our Pemaquid Commerce content management system for e-commerce allows annie|catherine to easily update product images, prices and descriptions, review and process orders and update other site content including Store Locations, Reps, News and Events. They can also create custom promotional pages.

Finally, we developed an easy-to-use e-newsletter manager that allows a|c to send email promotions at will using a simple yet elegant template Pemaquid designed for them.

If you’re looking for great looking designer stationery or fun holiday cards in advance of the holiday season (Gosh! Is it that time of year already?), you definitely ought to surf on over and have a look.

annie|catherine is graciously offering readers of this blog a 20% discount if they enter the promotional code “adcb” at checkout (good through October 31).

Google is also preparing to get in the game.

If your want to position your brand to a young, smart, tech-savvy crowd, figuring out these open platforms – the Next Big Thing – should be on your agenda. Pemaquid is the first developer in Maine to have created apps for these open platforms, so contact us if you’re looking to make them a part of your Web strategy.

First, in terms of usability, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have a section of your site that’s under construction, especially if it’s in your site’s navigation.

People will click a link expecting to see “T-shirts”, “boats”, “free beer” or “hot sexy singles” – whatever. Instead they’ll see… nothing. You’ll leave people disappointed (especially those seeking the sexy singles). Not a good impression for your site.

It would be better in most cases to either leave out that page/section completely, until it’s ready, or at the very least, put more enticing information about the content that’s coming soon and, ideally, a date when the page will be ready for a return visit. Then at least you can encourage people to come back.

My second thought has to do with search engine optimization. If you are selling products online and have plans for line extension (you sell shirts and will expand to sell pants), you may want to have some sort of page that has some copy optimized for the new product line, to give the search engine spiders something to latch onto and bring the Googlers over to your site even before the line is out, in a form of advance online marketing.

Anything, though is better than “Under Construction”, which simply sends the message that your Web designer hasn’t built a page yet and there’s no telling when it might get done…

But if your Web site isn’t well designed, all the money spent on Web Strategy will be wasted. You’ll be bringing people over from Google to see… a really-bad-Web-site. People don’t stick around really-bad-Web-sites that are clunky… confusing… hard to use… hijack the Back Button… don’t allow you to bookmark backpages (Flash sites are notorious for this)… Most importantly, people don’t buy stuff from them.

Businesses that invest in search engine optimization but that have a really-bad-Web-site end up like the Boy Who Cried Wolf – they may have the #1 position in Google, but after a while nobody pays attention.

Don’t get me wrong – having a Web Strategy is a great idea – but it’s even more important to make sure you get the Web Design right.