Good content is all about relationships, and website content is no exception. It requires you to understand the connection between web design and copy, the engagement between information and users, and the alignment of goals with results.

Planning your content is more than a starting point—it is the continual backbone of the entire creation and post-launch process.  

• Do you consider and account for all content—past, present and future?
• Are you aware of your (or your client’s) audience and goals?
• How does social media factor in your planning?

The more thorough and dedicated your content planning, the more engaging and fruitful your content will be. There are many tools and practices out there that can help you plan, generate and maintain website content.

Website planning tools for every stage of the process

There are many website planning tools available for tasks like wireframes, mockups, flowcharts, and prototyping.

But wireframing isn’t the only type of planning you need to do before a successful website development project.

Beyond design tools, you’ll also need content planning tools to ensure the copy for your website is effective. Here are some tools and practices you can use during each step of the website planning workflow.

Audience research

All website content should be fueled and underpinned by a clearly defined understanding of your audience. Before establishing how to communicate, you have to know who's out there. The only way to create content for your audience is to study them.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How will your visitors navigate through a site?
• What information do they need? What information do they want?
• Do they need to be reassured or propositioned? What relationship will you build with them?

Before content can be developed, the foundations have to be set. This consists of the underlying goals and objectives of your content. Your goals, the business goals, and audience goals can align and work together as long as they have been carefully examined and understood.

Your content should be catered to your audience. Good content performs on multiple levels, ticking all the boxes. Know what boxes need ticked first, be realistic in your expectations and think like your audience.

SparkToro is an excellent tool to use during the audience research process. It crawls social and web profiles like a search engine to discover what your audience reads, listens to, and watches.

It also looks at who they’re following, sharing, and talking about online. There is a free plan available that allows you to try out the tool’s functionality before you invest.

Site-maps

Sometimes guilty of being more design-centered than content-focused, sitemaps are an underused content planning tool for web designers. Site maps define the logical relationships between all of the content on your site—they dictate and guide people’s navigation through your website.

A sitemap is a website design tool that can offer insight into the where, when, and why’s of content placement. The key benefits of sitemaps for content planning are:

• Allowing for content to shape the design, rather than the other way around
• Spotting gaps in content
• Observing the status of content in relation to the site as a whole—what can be swiped or elaborated?
• Act as a complete and shareable document for team collaboration
• Allocate the creation, rewrite or monitoring of content
• Aiding in identifying a relevant design and digital strategy
• Establish a user flow for how users actually interact with your site
• Identifying potential content issues that could affect generation or maintenance, i.e., content governance. Use this primary insight to predict and prepare

When planning content for a website, both your site and business should be assessed. Your type of business and website determine the kind of content that you will produce. A handy way of getting to grips with the function of your content is to make sure you always have one foot in each camp: yours and your user’s.

Rooting content in the user’s needs and understanding how to communicate your (or your client's) goals in a relevant, audience-friendly way is the crux. Matching user experience with functional, goal-driven content can be tricky. Using personas is a great way to dimensionalise your content and focus on the impact it can have on an audience.

Johnny Holland examines the relationship between user experience, content strategy and design interaction in his post 'Why personas are critical for content strategy’.

Remember:

• Organize your content around the user’s needs not the structure of your company
• Be sure to assess the goals of your content and structure it around these objectives
• Don’t let the design restrict your content planning or generation. Prioritise content.

Lucidchart’s sitemap generator is a tool that allows you to create a sitemap. The visual workspace features diagramming, data visualization, and collaboration tools that enable teams to build sitemaps together.

This tool makes it easy for you to visualize your web pages while getting feedback from all stakeholders. Built for sitemaps specifically, it’s easier, more flexible to create a sitempa with Lucidchart than it is a tool like Photoshop or Illustrator.

Content inventory

A content inventory is a great way of studying the scope and purpose of each page on the site. A useful tool for establishing what already exists, the inventory acts as a means of deconstructing every morsel of content.

More than just a practice for collecting and recording content, an inventory can aid in establishing the flow and focus of messages and an underlying ethos. Although it can be tiresome (infamously tiresome), the process of cataloging is a rewarding one, offering a hands-on insight into the specific purpose and role of every sentence.

Taking the form of a simple spreadsheet, all site pages can be broken down and content is slotted under headings and categories such as:

• Title
• URL
• File format
• Meta description
• Meta keywords
• Categories and tags

These content inventories map the paths to meaning because they highlight gaps and the relationship between pieces of content. From this inventory, the user experience begins to take shape. When creating a content inventory, remember:

• Think of the bigger picture. Inventories are a handy way of viewing the past, present, and future of your content. See this process as audit of sorts.
• Keep it up. As you add content be sure to log it in the inventory. Commit to the updating and maintenance of your inventory
• Assess all content. Video, images, and applications are all forms of content, too, so be sure to assess their relevance and placement

When it comes to the content audit, a spreadsheet can do the trick. It’s an easy tool that most people can navigate with little instruction. We’ve put together this Content Audit Spreadsheet to help you take a content inventory and find the gaps in your content. If you update the spreadsheet in real-time as you add new content to your WordPress site or content management system, then you’ll be able to keep the inventory up-to-date.

Content mapping

Content mapping is a great way of working out which content should be featured on your website. This technique brings together your analysis of business goals, audience assessment, and content aims.

These maps become a framework of answers that can ensure that your content gives audiences the information they search for during each stage of the customer journey. This mapping helps you visualize the effectiveness of your content. Does it represent business goals while answering instant audience questions?

Not only does it encourage you to structure your content in a user-friendly way, but it allows you to quickly see where fat can be trimmed and where your focus needs to be applied.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when mapping your content:

• Can you trace answers to questions? Is this a clear and easy to negotiate process?
• Does your existing content align with business goals and apply to your target audience?
• Is your content arranged in the most understandable way?  Have you approached it from various perspectives and user situations?

While you’re mapping out your content, remember:

• Collaborate. Now is a good time to involve team members or your clients in the content process. New perspectives can uncover new content structures and meanings.
• This isn’t set in stone. This map can be reimagined and utilized at any time. Play with structure and content until it fits just right
• Root your content in clearly defined goals. Know the business, audience, and content possibilities before you start mapping

Content schedule (Editorial calendar)

Helpful in establishing a content cycle, an editorial calendar maps out future content aims, tracks content ideas, and generally avoids project delays due to late content. This schedule defines what you will post, where to post it and when it will be published. Not only will this schedule outline what new content needs to be generated, it will also help you measure how your existing content is performing.

Rewriting or removal is just as necessary as an original creation; use this planning time to assess the effectiveness and timing of your content. Schedule regular reviews and audits to maximize its performance and relevance.

Content is more than website copy. Aside from updating and maintaining content, this schedule includes the generation of blog posts and social media posts and engagements. It’s a plan of action, an assessment of your content challenge.

New, better practices are established and weekly time is dedicated to your content cause. Shareability is an important factor to consider when creating your calendar. There are some great online tools that tick this box, Google Calendar and Gather Content are perfect for outlining and organizing your content milestones.

Here is some useful info to include in your content schedule:

• Titles and keywords help focus the goal of content and be SEO-aware
• Author and date information coordinates collaborators and set clear deadlines and milestones
• Target audiences encourage research and current trends that apply
• Media types and channels help you determine if content is the best way forward or if a video or podcast are more relevant

This schedule focuses efforts and ensures you engage with your team or clients in a way worthwhile to you and them. It can tackle marketing goals, content topics, social media channels, and collaborators.

As you work on your content calendar, remember:

• This schedule is a great way to bank and track blog ideas and trends. This helps assess relevance and impact.
• It can be fleshed out as you go, the schedule is a work in progress. Keep it basic.
• Be aware of shareability and repeating yourself. Ensure posts and content is diverse and easy to share.

Content planning is a commitment

The more you put into the planning stages, the more relevant, engaging, and insightful your content will be.

These planning practices don’t just pave the way for future content generation. Mapping, scheduling, and inventories help us relate each piece of content to the next, highlighting gaps and helping us understand ways to better communicate with our audiences.