You’ve probably visited thousands of websites over your lifetime, but which web experiences stick with you?
Which ones inspired you to act?
Likely, those websites had something in common. You couldn’t put your finger on it at the time, but something on these great websites connected with you emotionally and/or intellectually. That connection was made through content.
The term content might make you cringe, reminding you of hours (days?) spent trying to define it, create it, assign it, wrangle it, improve it, locate it or even destroy it. For those of us who like our inbox empty and can’t stand the lingering 0:06 seconds on the microwave… content can be a bit too messy. But that’s no excuse.
Why is it so important?
Content marketing has become integral to SEO development strategies and social media marketing. Our digital conversion goals rely on quality content to guide potential students through the funnel. We expect A LOT out of our content, so it better be good. The million-dollar question:
How do we create good content that is
- Strategic
- Consistent
- Relevant
- Optimized
- Scalable
- Essentially…. well, Good
Content Strategy is born!
What is Content Strategy?
“Content strategy plan for the creation, publication and governance of useful, usable content.” – Kristina Halvorson wrote back in 2008 for A List Apart. Using a process and a set of tools, we can analyze our current content, strategize to make it better, create quality content in a sustainable way and measure our content to see if it is working.
We use tools like content inventories, publishing process maps, user personas and content templates. With a sound Content Strategy in place you can feel confident about the copy, photos, videos, white papers, blog posts, infographics (and whatever the next cool thing is) your institution is creating.
In Higher Education?
We have a lot of content. A lot. So much. Higher Education websites have been around since the beginning of the internet (the internet took its first breaths on college campuses) and we’ve been accumulating content ever since. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Higher Education websites serve many audiences and have thousands of pieces of content. It is easy to feel like we are pruning a jungle (thanks for sticking with me on that jungle cruise photo).
In few other industries is a solid Content Strategy more needed. To keep up with the latest digital marketing techniques we need to be lean, mean and strategic. So hit clear on the microwave, then join us for Content Strategy Month at Converge.
Interested in learning more about Content Strategy for Higher Education?
Attend our free webinar on April 3rd, Great Content Strategy on Campus.
Follow our Friday After Class (#FAC) series and blog posts. We’ll be featuring Content Strategy all month and have some great guest posts lined up!
Stay tuned for our white paper focused on Content Strategy.
Sign up for our newsletter (at the bottom of every page of our website) to stay up-to-date on all of these things!
