The Content Development Bottleneck – Don’t Let Content Slow Down Your Development Projects

Nearly all websites are a combination of visual and written content. Most website development firms focus on the visual and technical aspects of web development and often rely on the clients or content development partners to create the written content. Website development companies have long struggled with the challenge of getting website content from clients and partners in a timely manner. This causes a variety of problems for web development and programming companies, including mismatched expectations, extended project timelines, excessive communication with the client, delayed project payment timelines, and, in some cases, unhappy clients. This can often lead to websites that are ineffective because, although the design is functional, the content fails to compel the site visitors to take action. During this presentation, we will explore a variety of tools, best practices, and strategies that website development agencies can test and implement to help overcome this challenge.

Start off on the right foot:

1. Contract consideration – Set clear expectations
   • Set deadlines early to catch red flags and set expectations
2. Develop Content Branding Guidelines – Ensure everyone is on the same page
3. Build Content Development Timelines – How long does content really take to create?
4. Start with a Strategic Website Architecture – Create the right foundation

Content development tricks and tools include:

1. Transcribing video interviews
2. Ghostwriting from recorded interviews
3. Leveraging freelance writers
4. Staffing content writers
5. Partnering with copywriting and content marketing agencies

Best practices and strategies covered will include:

• Balancing design, conversion, and optimization
• Evaluating internal writing talent
• Creating timelines so that if the content is behind schedule, you will know quickly
• Use content types to establish templates for design
• Designing for content – An SEO dream come true
• Designing for content extensibility – Making room for sub-pages, read more, and other optimization extensions after the site launch

Experience Level: This presentation will be helpful for owners, operations staff, sales team members, project managers, and other support team members at websites development agencies, firms, and corporate teams responsible for building web projects. The technical level of this presentation will be low.

Participants Will Learn: New approaches and strategies for content development that can be implemented to improve the efficienty of their business operations and elevate the overall quality of the websites that they develop.