Content = Conversations
When you start thinking about web content, it’s helpful to start with the right metaphor.
Take a three-legged stool, for instance:
- Leg 1: visual design
- Leg 2: information design
- Leg 3: technology/functionality.
Each of these legs is necessary, but not sufficient. To be useful, it needs its seat. In this metaphor, that last essential component is your content.
Content is what brings your users to your site. And here’s where more metaphors can be helpful. Do you want your site to be an open file content for your users to rummage through? Do you want it to be a newspaper, feeding them the information you think they need to know? Or is it simply a digital catalog for them to browse, perchance to buy?
No, no, and no. You want your web site to be a conversation with your users. They come to you with questions. You want to give them answers. Quickly, easily, and conveniently. Once you answer their questions, you can start to ask them a few of your own. You can keep the conversation going.