Content Strategy

Make use of content strategy to deliver great digital experiences.

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John Connor can’t save you. Robots are here to take over the world. Two interesting new consumer mobile and digital content experiences were launched in the past week, signaling some of the first mainstream brands embracing this new paradigm of interactive, bot-driven content experiences: Quartz’s News App and The New York Times Election Slack Bot. Both

Feb 16, 2016

Putting Your Main Message First

Want to learn how to clearly communicate your message? Watch the new “Put Your Main Message First” video from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Created by USCIS’ Office of Communications, the video teaches you about the importance of organizing your information so that your audience understands your key messages. “It’s common in government writing

Feb 12, 2016

What is Content?

In this age of content marketing that has led publications to call certain ads “paid content,” those of us in government need to broaden our ideas about what “content” is. Many of us get it, but some agencies may also be missing opportunities because they don’t even grasp that content is a broad and fluid

Feb 10, 2016

The Content Corner: Location-Aware Content

While January was about looking ahead, February is focused on content and many of the new possibilities and challenges that will face us as content creators over the next year and beyond. At the intersection of these two themes lies the genesis of my topic today: location-aware content. More than a Map One of the

Feb 08, 2016

Does Content Syndication Work?

You may have heard some chatter about syndication but thought to yourself—sounds good but does it really work? The answer is—Absolutely!! Here is your Proof NIH News in Health is a monthly newsletter that has recently been syndicated. Since syndication, the newsletter’s content can be found on multiple websites. These websites include state and local

Feb 04, 2016

The Content Corner: Four Ways to Help Your Content Stand Out

When discussing trends for 2016, I made some mention of the content overload that started in 2015 but will certainly increase in 2016. Contently recently found that organizations created 73% more content in 2015 than in 2014. I see no reason why that number will decline in 2016, especially as content becomes the beast of

Feb 01, 2016

State of Federal Blogging 2016

How government agencies blog has come a long way in the past decade. As we welcome 2016, here is a look at how the White House, NASA and the Department of the Interior run their blogs and share content. White House: Blog Less, Empower More When you go to WhiteHouse.gov, their blog is featured prominently

Jan 15, 2016

The beginning of a new year is generally a time where people on a personal and professional level look ahead and prognosticate. When it comes to almost any digital media, the one thing we can be certain of is that the pace will quicken, the offerings will expand, and something totally unexpected will jump out

Jan 11, 2016

Content Models: As Simple as Pizza Pie!

Open and structured content models assist in the dissemination of information to various devices and media types. In the age of smartphones, tablets, social media tools, syndication and websites, the need for modular content is growing. How can you make your content adaptive to all of these mediums? Open and structured content models can help you create

Jan 07, 2016

Digging Into the Data of Our Customer Survey

As a follow-up to the recent post about our annual customer satisfaction survey, we wanted to dig into the data and share some of the overall results to give you some more insights into how we’re using your feedback to improve our programs and services.

Jan 05, 2016

Good Content Needs Plain Language

If good content is essential to good user experience, as Tyrus Manuel proposes in his November 23, 2015, DigitalGov post, then plain language is also part of good user experience. Plain language helps the public do what they need to do—find forms, apply for benefits, look up information and more—when they use federal websites and other

Dec 23, 2015

With Collaboration Comes Great Things

We are pleased to announce the beginnings of a new Syndication.Net/Sharepoint module for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Syndication Storefront. The collaborative effort between HHS and National Institutes of Health’s (NIH), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) teams will eventually enable .NET content management system users to publish

Dec 21, 2015

The Content Corner: Can You Leverage Cornerstone Content?

If you have a website, then you most likely have cornerstone content—though you may not think of it in that way or even considered it. Just as in architecture, a cornerstone is a basic and essential part of any online presence. Cornerstone content is also important to any new visitors to your agency site, even if you

Dec 21, 2015

The Content Corner: Is Pair Writing Right for You?

Fresh from last week’s article about workflows and their importance in the content creation process, I stumbled upon a new twist in content production known as pair writing. Many of you familiar with agile methodologies or software programming in general should know the term pair programming. Pair writing hopes to take some of the same

Dec 14, 2015

The Content Corner: Work Smarter with Workflows

I noticed recently that I have spent a decent amount of time discussing or referencing content workflow, but I haven’t spent much time on how to actually create or use workflows. Developing content workflows can be a fairly painless process that can make your regular content creation a much smoother and efficient process. Content workflows

Dec 07, 2015

The Content Corner: The Balance Between SEO and the User

I always think of SEO like the dentist—no one really likes it, but you need to do it. Yet, despite my lack of excitement for the topic, this will be at a minimum my second post (here’s the first) about the relationship between creating good content and SEO practices. Today I want to dive a little

Nov 30, 2015

The Content Corner: Good UX Needs Good Content

As DigitalGov focuses on user experience this month it is good to remember one harsh truth: You cannot have a good user experience with bad content. It is important to keep a “content first” strategy in place during any website redesign or new site development. It is so easy for the various disciplines involved in

Nov 23, 2015

The Content Corner: User Research for Complex Systems

My office is preparing to embark on a complete redesign of a 10-year-old system that averages 20,000 users a month. The success and adoption of the new system design and the product as a whole will be heavily determined by how well our team translates users’ needs. Providing a good user experience will also play

Nov 16, 2015