“What exactly do you do?” I get asked this question constantly. What’s a Web writer? What does that mean? In short, I am a copywriter. I write copy. My Web copy is different because it answers to technical concerns online, including:
- How people read onscreen
- Tasks people are trying to accomplish online
- Using keywords appropriately
- Answering users’ questions in as few pages as possible
Some people think if you’re a good writer, you can be a good Web writer. This is probably true, but only after you master some basic Web writing skills.
What I also do is try to envision my clients’ sites from 10,000 feet above so I can give them a content strategy. Content strategy is thinking about content in a way that relates to EVERY page on a site, giving value and shape to content throughout a site.
Some people confuse content strategy with content intelligence. To me, content intelligence is a subset of content strategy, and a technology solution. For example, content intelligence is listing the physicians who treat a particular condition on that page. In a perfect world, with a strong content management system, this would be done without having to ‘handwrite’ lists of physicians and instead would be database driven.
Content strategy is understanding that you want patients to make an appointment with a physician when they are finished reading the page and crafting the page to make that end goal happen. Giving them the list of physicians who treat that condition is a strategy to make sure they make that appointment.
Give me your definitions for content strategy and content intelligence.
