Ever wonder why so many
websites feature dense,
unreadable prose? Force you
to navigate through pages of

you’re working as a Web editor or content strate-
gist, particularly if you’re trying to break into
the field, a well-thumbed and annotated copy of
this book should live on your desk within easy
reach.
brochure copy and legalese?
Look like they backed up
a truck full of PDFs and
dumped them in the content
management system?

benefit from Sheffield’s book. Project managers
would do well to read it carefully and incorpo-
rate its advice into their next project plan or
scope of work. Anyone involved in Web develop-
ment can probably tell a horror story about a
project that went off the rails because the edito-
rial process was mismanaged. Too often, content
strategy and development is treated like a black
box in project plans, without the same level of
planning given to design or development tasks.
Sheffield knows that content requires the
same detailed attention throughout the project
life cycle as every other activity. He walks read-
ers through the process, explaining the activities
and deliverables needed to create useful, usable
content. He maps tasks to the project life cycle,
summarizing what content strategists do during
discovery, analysis, design, build, and mainte-
nance phases. And he includes several examples
of content-strategy deliverables, so readers see a
snapshot of the types of documents they would
create and use throughout the project.
The Web Content Strategist’s Bible and Content
Strategy for the Web both cover the content strat-
egy process and deliverables, but Sheffield is
more focused on how, while Halvorson spends
more time on why. If you’re not actively work-
ing in Web development or wanting to work as a
content strategist, then you may find Sheffield’s
book more detailed than you really need. But if
For your boss (or your whole Executive team)
Want to persuade your boss or the executive
team at your company that your Web content
needs attention? Pick up a book that will do for
Web content what Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me
Think did for Web usability. Content Strategy for
the Web is a quick, breezy read, and it will give
readers a better sense of why organizations need
to expend more effort on content planning, cre-
ation, and governance.
Halvorson gives organizations some tough
love, detailing the failures of management and
oversight that result in rotten content. Do you
have any idea whether the content on your web-
site provides business value? Do you edit ruth-
lessly, focusing on delivering quality content
instead of just quantity? Once your content goes
live, does anyone take responsibility for its care,
maintenance, and eventual peaceful retirement?
Sadly for most organizations (and unfortunately
for most Web users), the answer to all of these
questions is no.
There’s a solution to this problem, and
Halvorson breaks it down into simple steps: plan,
create, and govern. Before any organization can
develop a content strategy, it first needs to eval-
uate the content it already has. Halvorson shines
a bright light into the dusty corners and forgot-
ten filing cabinets of the website, encouraging
content caretakers to document it all in a con-
tent inventory and then analyze its usefulness.
Too many organizations shy away from auditing
their content, believing it a Sisyphean task best
left ignored. Halvorson makes it clear that the
content audit is a necessary part of the process,
one that can reap huge rewards.
This book will help you develop better content,
covering the nuts and bolts of editorial work-
flow—content creation, Web writing, and man-
aging the approval process. Halvorson’s focus on
the people side of content strategy extends into
the maintenance and governance phases. She
reminds everyone that the content isn’t going to
take care of itself and makes a call to arms to
empower content strategists within the organi-