Writing & Editing
Copy Writing and Editing. With more than twenty-five years of experience writing and editing copy, I cut my teeth just as print copy was being converted to digital. I’ve written countless articles from everything from healthcare to tax law. I’m able to take complex language and translate it to something the targeted user will understand, ensuring that the correct message resonates with the right user.
Information Architecture
Information Architecture. As an Information Architect it is my job to understand where the entirety of the content on any given site is located, and organize it so the right people get to the right content in the most direct fashion. A pretty daunting task — especially for sites with a lot of content and a diverse user group. Information Architecture is more than just putting content into traditional nested folders. With wider acceptance of “flat” architecture, it is just as much about structured content and connecting content together with metadata and taxonomy to organize it based on user needs.
Content Management Systems
Technical Content Manager. The basic understanding of the modern content management systems is critical in being able to present your content as effectively as possible. Content management systems continue to evolve and offer new features and tools, and I work directly with technical developers to ensure that the content management systems are optimized to allow for flexible messaging across platforms, with the end goal of being able to provide the user with a seamless experience when consuming content.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO). With content constantly fighting for attention from search engines, it’s important to analyze your own content to make sure the most relevant messaging is what your users find first. As a content strategist, I create a series of criteria to analyze how your users are interacting with your content and determine whether your content needs to be enhanced, consolidated, or archived.
Search Engine Optimization
Taxonomist. This is a key tool in any Content Strategist’s toolkit. Taxonomy is the individual pieces of metadata that help organize your content on the back end so that users can find it quickly without having to struggle to find a needle in a haystack. I analyze content and recommend and implement taxonomical structures to make sure the right content is surfaced when the user needs it.
Taxonomy, Metadata, & Structured Content
Social Media Advocate. The social media landscape can be crowded and noisy, but it can be an important component in delivering your message to your users. Social media should be able to quickly communicate the benefit of your content and to draw the user to action. As a content strategist, I know how and when to selectively use social media to reach out to an audience and, when necessary, create a call to action to draw them into further engagement.
Social Media
Governance Management. Compare the content strategist as one of those services that comes in to de-clutter and organize your closet (except, instead of socks and soccer balls, its pages and images and documents). They don’t want site owners and content contributors coming in and just throwing things everywhere once they leave the area. Governance keeps things neat and tidy (at least for as long as you can enforce it).