Content strategy - or "Adding content's easy, finding a reason to is not"

So, you have a site and you want it to expand - just add more content, right? Cause adding content to the site isn't a problem: Storage is infinite and band-width is cheap. Even producing the content can be relatively low-cost (especially if you do it yourself). So there's no problem with adding new pages or even large sections about just about anything. Well, not entirely, cause there is the cost of the visitors attention, and that's the thing you're aiming at getting. So, the question is: what will someone gain from visting your page and how does that benefit you? To answer this you have to think about where in the content strategy chain the page fits in.

Wait a minute! What "chain"?

One of the primary reasons for having a company site is conversion of visitors to enthusiastic customers, and that process can be described as taking the visitor from being aware of the prouct, to having brand preference, and converting to customer, and finally being a full-fledged advocate of the product.

Let's make an example with you, the reader of this entry in the blog section on Saloconsulting.se, and thus it goes a little something like this:

1. Awareness: well, you're reading this, so you're obviously aware of the site's existence, but is this post good enough?
2. Preference: do you find this interesting you'll read to the end, and if it's good enough you might read another post (by me, or one by of the others)
3. Conversion: if you find the material on this site good, you can also join us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+
4. Advocacy: this is the step where you'll actually recommend this blog to your friends or colleagues

To get you through to number four on that list I'd have to be a pretty skilled writer, so the general goal of the blog posts are to raise your awareness by giving you tips and insights into different aspects of business site creation, managing and campaigns. We of course also hope to increase your preference so you might return for some  more reading later on. And the more you read, the the better the chance of adding you as a connection or friend.

What's the reason for having that page?

Above I have described very basic form of content strategy, leaving out some of the flow from content request to creation, delivery and maintenance. A high level strategy should also align the content to the site's overall purposes while allowing for specified strategies for subsections and even individual pages. While adjusting just one page to your content strategy might initially seem like a waste of time, I'd say it's a waste building a business related page without one. Cause if you can't find a credible reason for the page or section to be, there's no need for it to exist.   (top image credit: Mureren med sin murerske by Sven Türck)