Tips for Content Improvement
I’ve immensely enjoyed learning about content optimization, the methods used to make content accessible and straightforward. Today I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the post 5 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Content for Tomorrow on the blog Content Rules. The content of this post coincided with the material taught in a previous class, Digital Literacies. This reading focused a lot on making content understandable on its own but also recognizably part of a whole.
“Avoid dependent language”
Dependent language is defined as vague terms of reference that the reader isn’t guaranteed to be familiar with. After having considered the claim, I found that I unconsciously used dependent language in almost every document I wrote. To remedy this, I fill my documents with linked text so that readers can quickly access the reference material. This method provides more value to readers.
“Write to a model”
I remember adjusting to writing within the confines of a specific format, or model, in Digital Literacies. It was an adjustment to think of how to fit content to the model. In that class, the content itself was unfamiliar, so adapting it to fit the model was challenging. However, I have done this many times while competing in speech and debate in high school. At such tournaments, presentations were always written and given in specific ways. I attended tournaments every weekend, so I got a lot of practice in this.
“Focus each topic on one idea or subject”
This guideline functions as an antidote to overthinking for me. It’s easy to worry about how much information your readers will need and to constantly expand the scope of the paragraph/page/section. However, the post on Content Rules asserts that if you have said what you planned to say, then you have done your job and you can move on.
SWOT
Have a Problem? SWOT it! by Custom Fit Online puts an interesting twist on the SWOT acronym. SWOT Analysis takes inventory of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of a company and leverages off of that data. This reading recommends companies to not only brainstorm answers for the four categories individually but also to view them in pairs after that. The pairs are defined thusly:
- opportunities that derive from strengths
- opportunities to improve on weaknesses
- using strengths to overcome potential threats
- threats that derive from weaknesses (don’t spend too long on this one)
While I have filled out SWOTs in the straightforward way, I never considered pairing categories. This new method coincides well with the report that I’m assigned that outlines recommendations for a company and possible difficulties in executing the recommendations.
Structuring an Audit
This informational video from MadCap Software is chock-full of diagrams for structuring a content audit. It’s helped me tremendously in organizing my thoughts about my client’s company. Two such diagrams shows the growth of maturity of a company in content management, one through the logical progression of needs, actions, and successes and the other through planning, creation, delivery, and governance. Previous modules shown in class have covered identifying needs and planning courses of action in much more depth, so it was a relief to see a broader view of the process.
Needs, Actions and Successes is probably the simplest model I’ve seen for creating processes. “Needs” not only determines where you want to be but also the distance between that and where you are (gap analysis). “Actions” are guesses at the steps that will close the gap. “Successes” are the postmortem evaluation. This model works for more than just content development but for any problem-solution issue.
The most prominent chart was the Content Strategy Quad developed by Brain Traffic. It shows the interconnectedness between the different aspects of content strategy. Content strategy is divided into two groups and two subgroups within each group. Systems design consists of structure and process while content design consists of editorial and experience.
Jennifer Goon 