I spend a lot of time in my work cleaning up jargon on college websites, which is why it pains me when I find myself using jargony content strategy terms. Yet, like other specialty web disciplines, content strategy has a number of specific guides, tools and processes to help us get our work done. Designers, developers, UX-ers, we all have them — and we need to be able to communicate the purpose and value of these concepts to other people on our … [Read more...]
About Rick Allen
Rick Allen has worked in higher education for over twelve years, helping to shape web communications and content strategy. As principal of ePublish Media, Inc, a web publishing and content strategy consultancy in Boston, Mass., Rick works with knowledge-centric organizations to create and sustain effective web content. Keep going »
Defining Target Audiences: Who Are We Talking To, Really?
July 28, 2015 by
When I ask higher ed web teams who their primary audience is, inevitably the answer is "prospective students." Makes sense, right? Since higher ed websites are such an important marketing tool, most people will agree prospective student is an appropriate primary audience. Yet, when you navigate college websites, how well does content speak to this audience? And what about other audiences? How do they fit in? The reality is we cater to … [Read more...]
Storytelling with On-Brand News Content
November 24, 2014 by
News content plays a big role in higher ed marketing and communications. It takes center stage on our website homepages and many top landing pages — not to mention our email newsletters, alumni magazines, Twitter, Facebook and other social channels. We rely on it to maintain a timely, engaging web presence. Above all, we rely on news content to help tell our story. Yet how often do we consider what messages our news content is communicating and … [Read more...]
Planning Content Goals With Web Stakeholder Interviews
July 30, 2014 by
In an earlier post, we talked about using focus groups to better understand your web users' needs. But external web users are not the only type of users we need to understand in order to create valuable and purposeful content. To create web content that works, we must also understand our internal web content stakeholders. These are all the people planning for, creating, curating, editing, approving, publishing and maintaining content, among … [Read more...]
Why Duplicate Content Is Bad for the Web
February 27, 2014 by
Among the countless content problems found on websites, one of the most egregious and commonly cited is duplicate content. Content strategists — not to mention search engine optimization (SEO) professionals — love to hate on duplicate content. As soon as we spot it during a content audit, we quickly bring out our metaphorical red pens. Begone, duplicate content! But why? For those of us on the other end of the table, it’s easy to dismiss … [Read more...]