Let’s spend the next several pages taking a good, close look at all the different ways content ownership and roles might be defined and assumed.
Business Units: Ownership at a Macro Level
There isn’t one typical place for content to live within an organization. It is often shared between several departments or business units. So, who should have the final say about your website content?
It might seem easy to immediately disqualify, say, the CMS team, by saying that techies shouldn’t be in charge of content. But, aren’t they the ones typically responsible for publishing and archiving the content? That’s sort of important. Often, they’re also the folks who end up (by default) writing the metadata that makes your content findable, both by external search engines and your own site’s engine. These things matter.
Maybe brand and marketing should take a back seat. Except, you know, they probably want input over little things like brand voice, messaging, style guide considerations, hierarchy of information, calls to action ... right.
How about the web strategy team? Can they let go of ownership? Maybe content isn’t that important to a successful user experience. Oh. Wait. It is.
And finally, the product/service SMEs, who probably are tasked with reviewing (or even writing) web content, on top of the 18 million other things they’re supposed to be doing. We sort of need their input to make sure things are accurate and up to date.
Content needs a home
There’s no denying that shared ownership is messy. That’s why, ideally, content needs a place of its own—a home base that facilitates cross-team collaboration wherever content is involved:
Even if you can’t create an entirely new business unit for content strategy—or you can’t right away—you can designate a person or several people to have content strategy as part of their job description(s). And give those people latitude to be envoys to other business units. Content strategy ambassadors, if you will. That will help you ensure all of the business units understand each other and collaborate. Really, it can happen.
Individuals: The Responsible Parties
No matter how the business units are set up, behind every thriving content project, there is an army of individuals keeping the content functional and fresh. The number of individuals, and the specific roles they play, varies by organization.
In addition to content strategists (see job description in Chapter 3, Solution), let’s discuss some of the common roles you may want to consider for your content team.
Note: These roles do not need to be job titles; they are areas of responsibility. One person may fulfill several of these roles at once, and/or there may be several people with the same role. It all depends on your situation.
Web editor-in-chief
A web editor-in-chief helps to establish and enforce all web content policies, standards, and guidelines. Depending on the scale of web properties and initiatives, the editor-in-chief may serve either in an executive function—largely to oversee teams of web editors, and to facilitate their interaction with other business units and web contributors—or in an editorial function, working directly with web writers to ensure content quality and accuracy.
This is the person who is ultimately responsible for setting and communicating standards that will shape your web content, whether on your corporate website, your intranet, in social media, or anywhere else your company distributes content on the Web.
The editor-in-chief may also be responsible for the education and professional growth of content creators. He may also take the lead on educating requesters, providers, and reviewers/approvers on what your web content standards and processes are, and how they can expect to engage with creators and publishers.
Additionally, the editor-in-chief should be a key stakeholder in any content strategy initiative. No one will be closer to your organization’s web content, and no one will be more deeply invested in its constant improvement.
Finally, if anyone is going to be familiar with the day-to-day challenges of dealing with web content, it will be your editor-in-chief. This person should weigh in on decisions like resource planning and management, content management technology purchases, and other operational considerations.
A web editor-in-chief:
• Sets and communicates web content standards
• Motivates and develops the staff
• Participates in web strategic planning
• Facilitates web content planning
• Participates in web operational planning
• May help make the business case for content
• Is empowered to say “no”
Web manager or editor
Web editors plan and oversee the publication of content. This may involve writing original copy, or coordinating and editing contributions from others. The web editor also maintains the web editorial calendar and maintenance plan. Although the role is usually mostly journalistic, it may also require technical skills and strategic planning abilities.
This role is necessary to maintain content quality, consistency, and relevance on your website. The web editor functions as a gatekeeper, and ensures new content is consistent with site strategy and relevant to users. The larger your website, the more web editors you will likely need.
A web manager or editor:
• Sets guidelines for the editorial tone, style, and voice of content
• Establishes a style guide and editorial procedures
• Oversees the development of content
• Develops and oversees the web editorial calendar
• Owns and facilitates the maintenance plan
Content creator
The content creator is responsible for producing accurate, compelling text that clearly conveys the required messages to the target audience and supports your content strategy objectives.
Because the bulk of the content on the Web is text, most content creators are writers. However, creators may also need to create assets such as images, diagrams, sound, or video, and provide appropriate captions for them. You may have separate content creators for text and other types of content—or one person may source or create all of them.
The content creator may also be responsible for providing metadata, such as keywords and a short description, to accompany each piece of content.
Content creators:
• Develop all required content (text, video, images, etc.)
• Work to enhance, edit, and reformat legacy and newly created web copy to conform to web writing best practices
• Ensure all content conforms to your web SEO requirements and best practices
Sourcing manager or curator
Although it might sound easy to buy or otherwise use content created by another organization, when done well, sourcing content can be a full-time job. Sourcing managers or curators are similar to web editors, except they’re responsible for aggregating or curating content.
They identify appropriate content/content providers and work with the procurement department to negotiate contracts. Curators serve as the primary contact for content providers at all phases of the relationship—from set up to retirement.
A sourcing manager or curator:
• Sets guidelines for content selection and purchase
• Manages the contract renewal process
• Establishes a checklist of ideal content qualities (tone, topic, etc.)
• Adds commentary or context to the content, if necessary
• Develops and oversees the editorial calendar and maintenance plan
Search engine optimization (SEO) specialist
An SEO specialist analyzes your website’s business objectives, content, and intended audiences in order to figure out which SEO strategies will win prominent listings in the results pages of web search engines.
This person should collaborate closely with web editors and writers to ensure keywords and phrases are incorporated into the site content. She should also be in touch with your development te
am to ensure technical implementation of web pages or content modules isn’t interfering with SEO efforts.
SEO techniques change frequently, so a large part of the SEO specialist’s job involves research, self-study, and reading in order to stay abreast of developments.
SEO specialists:
• Look for ways to improve and track SEO performance
• Identify appropriate keywords based on research and business goals
• Educate content creators and editors on search engine optimization
• Ensure the appropriate keywords are incorporated into content in accordance with SEO best practices
• Review keywords and keyword placement, as part of the content maintenance process
Subject matter expert (SME)
Throughout your organization, there are people who have knowledge on specific topics that they want to convey to your audiences. From marketing and branding to product development and operations, these subject matter experts may be the business owners for the content, or just the super smart people whose insight you need to get the content right. Depending on their role, subject matter experts may:
• Collaborate with the web editor on content planning and prioritization
• Represent their group’s interests in the high-level conversations about content planning, creation guidelines, content resources, site organization, and more
• Review and approve major content launches
• Act as a content source, providing the informationothers neeto create a piece of content, and reviewing the finished content product for accuracy and tone
• Act as a content creator, authoring a piece of content and providing it to the web editor for review
Reviewer and/or approver
Reviewers and approvers include subject matter experts, product or service managers, legal counsel, and other key stakeholders who are able to provide insight and information for the website. These individuals are typically “wrangled” by either the web editor or content strategist during the web content development process.
Web content is not a day-to-day responsibility for these folks, and it’s likely to fall at the bottom of their to-do lists. It’s very important to give reviewers and approvers a timely heads-up about when they’ll be required to spend time with content drafts. It’s all too common to turn over content with a request for review or approval by a certain date, only to have that date come and go without a response.
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Case Study: Striving for Consistency in SEO
James Mathewson was originally hired at IBM to focus on content-quality initiatives—creating a style guide and helping people follow it. But over the years, his role has evolved, and today, he is the global search strategy lead for IBM marketing (translation: he’s really, really smart about SEO).
Improving content quality and search results
Using his combination of content and SEO skills, James has been able to help the IBM content team make huge strides in content quality and search results.
For example, on one project, they compared user research results about the kinds of search terms people used against an audit of actual content on the site. And they realized (through keyword research) that there were differences between the users’ language and the company’s terminology. As a result, the company developed content components specifically designed to bridge the gap.
Making SEO easy for content creators
In addition, James is working on several tools to help content creators incorporate SEO into their content more easily. With the help of Acrolinx, he’s invented a plugin that alerts creators when their content is not optimized for search. He calls it a “spell checker on steroids.” In addition to checking for SEO, the tool tells the creator when a keyword is inappropriate (either it is being used in another asset or it is not familiar to the audience), and suggests alternatives.
His next project is a database of user-friendly keywords, with features that will help govern keyword usage across the enterprise. The tool will help content creators choose appropriate keywords and manage how many times a keyword is used (so they don’t create apparent duplicates and other bad user experiences).
James says, “Tooling makes following standards easy for page owners. We have an online style guide (which was recently published through IBM Press), but they have to check it regularly. They often don’t have time or don’t remember to check. If you build it into the tool, it’s a drop-click operation ... that helps us create relevant, high-value content for users.”
When we talk about SEO people playing a role on the content team, James has it covered.
* * *
Should you hire or outsource?
Deciding whether to pay someone from the outside to create your content—or develop the in-house infrastructure to do it yourself—is a big decision. There’s lots to consider.
Julie Vollenweider is the first point of contact for clients who contact Brain Traffic. She offers these guidelines to help you make your decision.
WHO SHOULD YOU HIRE?
WHAT WILL YOU NEED TO DO?
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT?
Committees and Councils: The Extended Family
As we’ve discussed throughout the book, people throughout your organization, and beyond, have a big impact on your content. So, you need to involve your key stakeholders not only in the discovery and definition processes, but on an ongoing basis.
One way to do this is to form councils or committees—groups of informed stakeholders who can provide unique insight into content initiatives at regular intervals. Whether or not they have real decision-making power, the goal of these groups is to ensure your content or content strategy stays aligned with business goals and user needs.
Internal advisory council
With an internal advisory council, SMEs and other stakeholders are asked to weigh in on content activities and decisions. Although the content team is still ultimately responsible for making decisions and doing the work, having a council can be a valuable way to keep stakeholders informed, get people aligned, and understand perspectives from outside the content team.
Some of the most frequent council members are representatives from the following teams:
• Organizational leadership
• IT/site infrastructure
• Analytics/measurement
• Regional/country
• Marketing and offline promotions
• Procurement
• Legal/regulatory
The internal advisory council participates in high-level planning meetings, where the content team presents the content and discusses any relevant issues or problems. Topic areas include:
• Significant changes to the content strategy
• Policies and procedures
• Staffing and budget changes
• Sourcing/content acquisition plan
• Content measurement and feedback results
• Content retirement and removal
Web councils can become a permanent part of your strategy and planning cycle. As web governance expert Lisa Welchman notes, web councils can also be a temporary way to get people aligned and comfortable with new processes and policies. She says, “Sometimes, this is the council’s most important function. I’ve seen web councils last for 12 to 18 months and then disband not because they were dysfunctional or ineffective, but because it had served its role as a catalyst for [collaboration] around the digital channel.”*
* http://www.welchmanpierpoint.com/blog/establishing-web-council
Either way, internal alignment will always be critical to your content’s success; a web council can help.
Audience advisory committee
Audience (user) advisory committees are a great way to get regular audience feedback on your content. These committees come in different sizes, but a team of 5–7 users is ideal. Often, non-profits use the advisory committee as a way to recognize volunteers who are already involved in the organization. For-pr
ofit businesses usually offer incentives for participation.
Ideally, the committee consists of volunteers representing key markets and audience groups (e.g., geographic areas and topic interests). They commit to staying on the committee for a specified length of time (usually a year), and are provided with training/insight on the organization’s goals and objectives.
The committee acts as the users’ voice. They:
• Provide insight into the user experience
• Evaluate current content
• Advise about content gaps
• Identify trends and opportunities in the user community
Good candidates can also be found by promoting the committee on the website itself, or sending an invitation to influential customers or bloggers. Aim for a mix of people who have different levels of involvement and history with the organization. And, be sure to report back to them on how their opinions were incorporated into your content work.
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Case Study: Do You Need More than One Person in Charge?
When we talk about “centralized governance,” people often assume we mean “one person who tells you what to do.” That doesn’t usually work, and it’s especially tough when you’re surrounded by subject matter experts with passionate ownership of their content. This is often the case in educational institutions; however, Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota, has developed a governance model to oversee the college’s web strategy to minimize confusion and confrontation regarding web content.
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