You know what I mean. You’ve got multiple writers across different departments, subject matter experts without a writing background, or writers without subject matter expertise. You’re wrangling legal teams, SEO specialists, content creators, and content uploaders. And, to top it all off, everyone is sending/saving/uploading content that's formatted differently.
It can be chaos. This is why so many companies rely on website content templates to keep everyone on the same page.
Templates are essential to the content creation process, especially if you have more than one 'cook in the content marketing kitchen.'
Templates also help your team think strategically and holistically about the content they’re creating for each page.
"By knowing what’s going to go where, you have a better idea of what needs to be written, and how much needs to be written about each message element." - Roger Parker
How can your templates accomplish all this? By incorporating the right elements—for strategic thinking, SEO-friendliness, usability, and, of course, on-page content itself…
There are a few important elements that must be included in any content template. Here are the top 3 you need to make sure your templates include:
These strategic elements will help your content creation team stay focused on company goals, user goals, and the content that supports them.
If you already have page tables, consider incorporating them into your templates.
(Page tables are strategic breakdowns of each page of your site and may include page goals, prioritized content, and maintenance concerns. If you want to learn more, we recommend picking up a copy of Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach.)
If you are creating templates from scratch, make sure to include strategic elements from the start. And if you’ve got a template without strategic elements, it’s time to weave them in.
Here are a few elements you may want to include in your templates:
In addition to audience, purpose, and strategy, you need to account for SEO and usability upfront by including them in your templates. SEO and usability elements, which so often go hand in hand, may include:
Even if you aren’t focused on SEO, it’s always a good idea to include usability elements, as well as browser titles and meta descriptions, which impact users as well as search engines.
💡 See Also: Content 101: How to use Structured Content to Save Time and Reduce Effort - including advice around SEO and usability and how to structure your templates
Make sure you don’t forget the on-page content (which, if you already have templates, is probably what you’re starting with). With predetermined templates, you can make sure that your content writers not only address the headline and body copy for each page, but also:
Depending on your project, you may want to include some or all of these elements—or you may want to have several different content templates for different sections of the site. For example, a video library will have different content requirements than a landing page, though both can benefit from the strategic and SEO elements discussed above).
Beyond a template for the web content itself, you may also want to use a template to help with the strategic planning process for developing new content. Here are a few templates you can use:
Using a website content outline template helps ensure that you’re including everything you need on your page from both a content and SEO perspective.
Like other content writing templates, the contents of this template will depend on the type of content and topic.
In general, your website content outline will include:
This content template will help you save time every time you create a new web page. All you have to do is fill in the information and publish it. Not only will it save you time but it will also ensure that every new page that’s created is consistent.
Ready to outline your content for the web? Get our free content project brief, which you can use to plan and outline each web page.
While the website content outline template helps you plan the content on each page, the website content planning template allows you to plan the website content for the entire site.
This is an essential part of not only web design but also a strategic approach to website copy.
Your website content planning template should include:
You’ll also include any other pages that are essential to helping others understand your offers. This might be individual service or product pages or perhaps pillar pages meant to educate visitors on important topics in your industry.
If you want to build your own content model for your website, check out our content model template.
Editing your website content can be overwhelming when you first get started, especially if you’ve never done a content audit before.
However, by keeping an updated list of site content that you periodically update, you can make sure there are no gaps in your content needs.
Your website content audit template will include:
You can add whatever elements are important to you to your website content audit template. If you’re blogging regularly, be sure to add these posts to the audit as well so you can more easily find link opportunities.
Ready to audit your website content? Download our content audit spreadsheet.
Now that you have an idea about what to include in your content templates, let’s talk about content management as it pertains to templates.
You can use a tool like Google Docs to create, collaborate, and manage templates.
However, there are some specific benefits to using a tool that’s built for content operations—like GatherContent. GatherContent offers a range of content templates that help you structure your content, which becomes increasingly more important as you scale content production.
GatherContent’s templates are customizable to your needs. All you have to do to customize your website content template is drag and drop the fields to create your template.
You can build a library of templates for you and your team to use to keep your content consistent.
It’s time to put that chaos back in its place (which isn’t in your content project)! Your next steps now are pretty simple:
You know what I mean. You’ve got multiple writers across different departments, subject matter experts without a writing background, or writers without subject matter expertise. You’re wrangling legal teams, SEO specialists, content creators, and content uploaders. And, to top it all off, everyone is sending/saving/uploading content that's formatted differently.
It can be chaos. This is why so many companies rely on website content templates to keep everyone on the same page.
Templates are essential to the content creation process, especially if you have more than one 'cook in the content marketing kitchen.'
Templates also help your team think strategically and holistically about the content they’re creating for each page.
"By knowing what’s going to go where, you have a better idea of what needs to be written, and how much needs to be written about each message element." - Roger Parker
How can your templates accomplish all this? By incorporating the right elements—for strategic thinking, SEO-friendliness, usability, and, of course, on-page content itself…
There are a few important elements that must be included in any content template. Here are the top 3 you need to make sure your templates include:
These strategic elements will help your content creation team stay focused on company goals, user goals, and the content that supports them.
If you already have page tables, consider incorporating them into your templates.
(Page tables are strategic breakdowns of each page of your site and may include page goals, prioritized content, and maintenance concerns. If you want to learn more, we recommend picking up a copy of Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach.)
If you are creating templates from scratch, make sure to include strategic elements from the start. And if you’ve got a template without strategic elements, it’s time to weave them in.
Here are a few elements you may want to include in your templates:
In addition to audience, purpose, and strategy, you need to account for SEO and usability upfront by including them in your templates. SEO and usability elements, which so often go hand in hand, may include:
Even if you aren’t focused on SEO, it’s always a good idea to include usability elements, as well as browser titles and meta descriptions, which impact users as well as search engines.
💡 See Also: Content 101: How to use Structured Content to Save Time and Reduce Effort - including advice around SEO and usability and how to structure your templates
Make sure you don’t forget the on-page content (which, if you already have templates, is probably what you’re starting with). With predetermined templates, you can make sure that your content writers not only address the headline and body copy for each page, but also:
Depending on your project, you may want to include some or all of these elements—or you may want to have several different content templates for different sections of the site. For example, a video library will have different content requirements than a landing page, though both can benefit from the strategic and SEO elements discussed above).
Beyond a template for the web content itself, you may also want to use a template to help with the strategic planning process for developing new content. Here are a few templates you can use:
Using a website content outline template helps ensure that you’re including everything you need on your page from both a content and SEO perspective.
Like other content writing templates, the contents of this template will depend on the type of content and topic.
In general, your website content outline will include:
This content template will help you save time every time you create a new web page. All you have to do is fill in the information and publish it. Not only will it save you time but it will also ensure that every new page that’s created is consistent.
Ready to outline your content for the web? Get our free content project brief, which you can use to plan and outline each web page.
While the website content outline template helps you plan the content on each page, the website content planning template allows you to plan the website content for the entire site.
This is an essential part of not only web design but also a strategic approach to website copy.
Your website content planning template should include:
You’ll also include any other pages that are essential to helping others understand your offers. This might be individual service or product pages or perhaps pillar pages meant to educate visitors on important topics in your industry.
If you want to build your own content model for your website, check out our content model template.
Editing your website content can be overwhelming when you first get started, especially if you’ve never done a content audit before.
However, by keeping an updated list of site content that you periodically update, you can make sure there are no gaps in your content needs.
Your website content audit template will include:
You can add whatever elements are important to you to your website content audit template. If you’re blogging regularly, be sure to add these posts to the audit as well so you can more easily find link opportunities.
Ready to audit your website content? Download our content audit spreadsheet.
Now that you have an idea about what to include in your content templates, let’s talk about content management as it pertains to templates.
You can use a tool like Google Docs to create, collaborate, and manage templates.
However, there are some specific benefits to using a tool that’s built for content operations—like GatherContent. GatherContent offers a range of content templates that help you structure your content, which becomes increasingly more important as you scale content production.
GatherContent’s templates are customizable to your needs. All you have to do to customize your website content template is drag and drop the fields to create your template.
You can build a library of templates for you and your team to use to keep your content consistent.
It’s time to put that chaos back in its place (which isn’t in your content project)! Your next steps now are pretty simple:
Gigi is a content strategist and web writer specializing in travel, technology, education, non-profit, and wellness content. In 2010, she quit her agency job and started Content for Do-Gooders, where she helps clients solve messy content problems around the world. You should follow her on Twitter.