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Yann Gourvennec’s recent post about internet content covers  a lot of what I’ve been thinking on the subject lately. Although Yann does it in a more interesting, cohesive and pithy manner.

Entitled 6 steps to valuable Internet content, Yann has written more than just something to consider when formulating a content strategy. This article is exactly what your content strategy should be.

I’ll summarise, but I highly recommend you read the post in full.

Step 1: the idea that web text has to be terse is not a good idea

There is still a widespread belief that you need to keep your text short. But, as Yann argues, long content is fine, so long as the author can keep you interested. People will also print out content so long as it’s good content.

Besides, the search engines are all about searching text, so more text content = more likelihood that others will come across it via Google.

Step 2: spice up your text with images, not the other way round

Google can’t index them (well), and users tend to get frustrated by them. So a good web pages can have images … but they shouldn’t be the sole purpose.

Step 3: hypertext, hypertext, hypertext

This one has been on mind, as I’m trying to convince a client on this one right now. The most basic description of the internet is a hyper-linked system … so get linking!

My favourite, and probably your favourite websites are those that give you the great links – Not the ones that push you into a corner.

Step 4: Good content shows in the title

Step 5: Keywords mean a lot

Yann’s advice on these is to really, really focus on web searcher. Instead of thinking about your product name, think from searcher’s perspective. How would they be likely to find you via a search? What problem are you  helping them solve ? How do they refer to your product or category?

Once you start framing it from that viewpoint, you can write content that will match the searchers keywords, and they’ll be far more likely to find you.

I’dd add that you need to careful here. Writing content, including titles just for SEO can be dangerous, because your copy can be left feeling lifeless and lacking soul. You need to strike a balance, and that’s hard.

Step 6: Creating valuable content

Yann’s final is that we should consider our visitors’ problem state to help decide what our content should include.

• If your visitor knows his problem, and has already decided on the solution.
• If your visitor knows his problem, but has not yet found a solution.
• If you visitor doesn’t even realise he has a problem.

Your website needs to appeal to the typical problem state that the visitor is in.

This post has resonated with me more than anything else I’ve read in ages about online strategy. Do check it out, my quick synopsis doesn’t do it anywhere near enough justice.