About the book

The book by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach was written in 2012. Even though it is now 9 years
since it was written, we found the book still very relevant and most of the content is useful today.
Red represents emergency or stop, in other words, something that is important, and that is why the
book was given this color. The book is important for all companies, and especially those who want to
take content seriously. They will learn how to engage with their visitors and gain more trust, and this
might lead to more sales, and that is what companies want.

Reality

Good content “... supports a key business objective” and “... fulfills your users’ needs” (Halvorson &
Rach, 2012, p. 6). The content should engage and inform, and make sure people want to come back
to your business. It is also important that the content is well structured so people can navigate
through the content. They do not care about a fancy design or endless options if they cannot find
the information they are looking for. It is also important to have some control over the content, so
nothing is outdated. Companies today tend to think that content is almost like a cheap commodity,
but it is not, it is technical and advanced communication with your audience. The book describes 5
steps on how to improve content:
Do less, not more. There is no point in creating a bunch of content, so make sure the content meets
some sort of standard and that it gives the audience something useful.
Figure out what you have and where it's coming from. Get an overview of the content that is
already created, and did it work?
Learn how to listen. It is important to listen to both the audience and to understand their needs, but
also your co-workers and people from other departments. This will ensure a good partnership.
Put someone in charge. For the website project it might be hard when there are only 2-3 people in
each group, but instead, divide the work, so everyone gets ownership of specific work tasks.
Take action … now. There is no point in waiting. Put it out, and learn by trial and error, in other
words, fake it till you make it.

Discovery

How much content do you have? And what platforms is it on? Who is producing it, and who is
requesting it? Having control of your content is important "... because content touches just about

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every area of an organization" and "... strategies only work when everyone is aligned and on the
same page" (Halvorson & Rach, 2012, p. 39). The book talks about how creating a common
understanding for the content helps the content strategy succeed external and internal. The book
also talks about the importance of a proper analysis, no matter the budget or time, take time to do
an analysis in some form and scale. The book focuses on three main parts of ecosystem analysis:
Internal impact factors: How does the organization itself impact the content? What is our strategy,
what do we want to communicate, what channels are used to deliver the message and how is the
workflow managed when creating and maintaining the content?
External impact factors: What effects do users, competitors and influencers have? To deliver good
content you must know who your users are. There are many different ways of doing surveys and
interviews to figure this out, both online and offline.
Communicating the result: How do you share what you have learned to make changes?

Strategy

The core strategy is what connects all the other components of the content strategy together. Our
content needs to change constantly to be relevant. This is one of the most important things to
consider in order to grow a business. A core strategy can be as short as one sentence, as long as that
sentence holds meaning for the whole team. The key here is short, memorable, and focused on the
content.
Student Life Amsterdam, the new online information guide that helps foreign students to live their
best experience in this city.
To explain:
The name of our activity defines our target but also the place where our activity takes its place. Like
a reference book, we will provide all the information that our target group needs. Especially for
students and moreover foreign students. For the final purpose to live the best experience possible
with all tips and things people need when they arrive in a new country
Connecting the content component with people components is one of the most important roles that
content strategy plays in the organization. In general, in all types of activities, each has a well-
defined role, and it is very important that it be so, because thanks to this we will be able to appeal to
the competent person who will take care of the said part. In our case, it's a little different because
although we each have our preferences and skills in certain parts, we all worked together.

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Once you realize the complexity of the content lifecycle, sitting down to identify or design our
content processes can be daunting. It is important to create and source content first, then the
content must be maintained and as often and de evaluated.
“Once our content processes have been identified and designed, it’s time to figure out a smart way
to tell people about it and motivate them to adopt the process. We need to make people feel
included, communicate the benefits, and moreover give it time.” (Halvorson & Rach, 2012, p.156).

Success

“Business is, by and large, a numbers game” (Halvorson & Rach, 2012, p. 165). Therefore, look at the
numbers. It is important to understand how Google Analytics works, or Instagram Insights, or other
analytic tools. That way it is easier to understand what is working and what is not. This can be
numbers such as bounce rate, which pages have no traffic, percentage of outdated content, and so
on.
When working with a design process, always think about content. If it is the design of the website or
if it is the design of a newsletter. How will the content best be represented? As mentioned earlier,
there is no point in having a fancy website if the visitors cannot find the information they are looking
for. For the design process, it might be a good idea to create an editorial calendar or checklist or use
other content strategy tools. At last, it is never too late to start with content. There are still a lot of
companies that do not take this seriously. Remember that “… getting to a solution is going to take
time” (Halvorson & Rach, 2012, p. 181).

Student Life Amsterdam

Our “Student Life Amsterdam” website has a lot of content because we added it very regularly and
we kept ourselves informed to know if our articles are still up-to-date. It’s the best thing to do when
adding a lot of content, especially on a news site. Our content needs to change constantly to be
relevant. This is one of the most important things to consider in order to grow our business.
Therefore our content is relevant for our target group. We have tried to make our website as easy to
navigate as possible and we try to make it even more user-friendly every day. For the more negative
points, although there is nothing alarming, we have decided to keep our FAQ page for the moment
in case we get any questions or special requests but subsequently we are thinking of removing this
section from our website. In addition, we need to focus a little more on our SEO and offer more
content on our social networks in order to attract more people and thus also be better referenced.

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Night Life Amsterdam

The “Night Life Amsterdam” website has a fun and interesting idea of informing about nightclubs
and what they have to offer every day of the week. The site and the content are still being created.
Looking over their site some ideas on how to improve it came to mind. The site needs more content,
so far the only information was the name and location (through a link) of the four different clubs.
Information like ratings of the clubs, pictures/videos, and maybe a map with the location on their
site would be useful. Also moving their link to their own social media from the bottom to the top of
the page can improve the CTR to their socials.

Fit Beer

Giving advice to “Fit Beer” was a challenge and we had to dig through their site to even find some
minor things to improve. The users' needs on their site are definitely met, the content is solid and
the design of the site is clear and nice to look at. The small improvements “Fit Beer” can do is to
either change the picture on their “about” page (to a picture of themselves) or remove their names
on the same page. “Fit Beer” needs to change the format on their Instagram photos to give a better
overall look to their Instagram. The link to their Instagram is now in black and white, we recommend
changing the colors to Instagram’s official colors. All these are minor details, but together they can
improve the overall quality of their site just a little bit more.

Asking Yourself

The “Asking Yourself” website does not have a lot of content, which makes it easy for the visitor to
navigate and understand. So, little content is not necessarily a bad thing, but they could have added
a bit more information such as what is the best way to play this game. When playing the game, we
saw that there was a mix of questions, and one of the questions was “What was your first
impression of me?”. There are questions for yourself but also some that you need to have a friend or
a partner when answering the questions. So, an idea would maybe be to divide the questions into
categories, one for yourself and one with friends. However, their Instagram account really reflects
their website, so they should add their social media to the website. One last thing, the only call-to-
action button they have is the “Start Game”, so that could maybe stand out more on the website.

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Bibliography

Halvorson, K., & Rach, M. (2012). Content Strategy for the web. Pearson.