Here’s my favorite passage from Kristina Halvorson’s Content Strategy for the Web, a book that has changed the way I think about web design. Emphasis mine; it took real restraint not to emphasize the whole passage.
For years, we’ve been spending millions of dollars on strategy and research, user experience design, visual design, and technical platforms. In other words, we’ve invested in everything we need to build the online vehicles for our content.
And yet, strangely, it’s the content that gets left until the last minute. It’s the main reason projects are delayed or even abandoned. It’s an afterthought, a nuisance.
Why? Because most of us haven’t yet realized that we’re actually in the publishing business.
… But here’s the deal. The moment you launch a website, you’re a publisher. The moment you begin a blog, send an email, participate in social media, build a widget, even show up in search engine results… you are a publisher.
Publishers plan far in advance which content they will create. They have established, measurable processes in place. They invest in teams of professionals to create and care for content. They would never think of starting with design and then cramming content in at the last minute.
Like it or not, this is your job now. Web audiences demand useful, usable content. If you don’t deliver, they will leave. And in order to deliver, you need to make content a priority. You need to think like a publisher.
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