Here’s our monthly selection of must-reads from the Firehead bookmarks of the last few weeks. Enjoy!
Content Strategy reads
Making things that matter: mapping a creative content strategy
Can art be translated to the web? Now London-based content strategist Elizabeth McGuane gives her thoughts about her recent talk at the Dublin Art Fair about art and content strategy.
Content Strategy Your Clients Can Own
Great post about the practical side of creating a content strategy for clients and how it requires time, technology, budget, commitment AND a good working partnership between agency and client.
A List Apart on Testing Content
Going beyond user testing to some how-tos on content evaluation: “Whether the purpose of your site is to convince people to do something, to buy something, or simply to inform, testing only whether they can find information or complete transactions is a missed opportunity: Is the content appropriate for the audience? Can they read and understand what you’ve written?”
Duplicate content: causes and solutions
Everything you ever wanted to know about duplicate content, why it’s a problem and some solutions.
Social media still needs good web writing
No one wants to retweet weak content so Robert Jarovi offers a great round-up of skills to improve your web writing, with the knock-on effect of boosting site traffic through social media sharing. See also, Kristina Halvorson’s: Social media won’t fix your content problems.
A working description from Joe Gollner of what it is that content strategists do. He makes an interesting distinction between content strategist and content solution architect.
Design vs. Content: Collaboration Comes First
Which comes first, design or content? Read about three useful tools in hatching good content despite the chicken-egg conundrum that many of us face.
2010 in articles and blog entries
Richard Ingram posts his 10 favourite articles and blog entries of the past year. Worth a read.
Want to rate your content? Here’s a good checklist to help you carry out your evaluation.
2011 Trends: Content Marketing Is Critical
What are the five questions marketers should ask to determine if their content is attractive to their audience?
Organization and Career
SimplyChecklists.com
We like this handy checklist tool to help organise all the big and small things in your life.
Use the One-A-Month Technique to Adopt Habits that Stick
Wouldn’t it be nice to have everything run on autopilot? This Lifehacker post suggests a few ways this can happen. All it takes is a small amount of initial discipline…
Je suis une copywritresse (or how being bilingual makes me a better writer)
A copywriter outlines three ways that being bilingual improves her writing in both languages.
Some members of Generation Y are learning that manners mean money – no manners, no jobs.
