A 5 Step Guide for Website and Online Store Creation.

When building a new website or online store with both WordPress and WooCommerce, a structured content process is paramount. 

As you strive to elevate your brand’s online presence, utilising the full potential of your business’s existing content while creating new material can be an exciting or stressful venture. The level of enjoyment or distress throughout this journey is intricately tied to the efficiency of the workflow you can manage to adopt.

This guide outlines 5 steps to take for an efficient content workflow and collection that reflects not only the relevance and effectiveness of your content, but also a seamless alignment with your overarching project goals.

Step 1: Conduct a Content Audit

What is it?

A content audit is a thorough assessment of all existing content to measure its relevance, effectiveness, and alignment with project goals. To leverage your business’s existing content and maximise your brand’s online presence goals, the content has to not only be relevant but also aligned with your objectives and your audiences wants and needs.

Conducting a successful content audit is your strategic ally. This involves examining your business’s existing content, from the most popular to the least, identifying outdated or inaccurate material and content that could be underperforming in the search engines.

Why is it important?

• Pinpoints outdated or irrelevant content.
• Offers a snapshot of current content assets.
• Sets the foundation for strategic planning.

How to Proceed?

1. Inventory Compilation: Catalog all existing content assets.
2. Quality Assessment: Evaluate the relevance and effectiveness of each content piece.
3. Gap Analysis: Identify any missing content topics or types.

Step 2: Develop a Content Strategy

What is it?

Picture it as a roadmap that defines the planning, creation, and management of content, ensuring it meets both business objectives and user needs. As so, it forms a foundation base for all content decisions to be made in alignment with your brand, your values, and your goals.

A solid content strategy is about the user experience as a whole, not just about the text on a page. From your site’s structure and navigation pathways, to the tone, voice, and calls to action on it.

Why is it important:

• Provides consistent messaging.
• Aims for specific business outcomes.
• Enhances user engagement and experience.

How to Proceed:

1. Audience Identification: Define your best audience.
2. Set Content Goals: Determine content’s desired outcomes.
3. Choose Content Types: Select suitable formats (e.g., blog posts, product pages, videos).
4. Establish Tone and Brand Voice: Draft guidelines to maintain consistency.

Step 3: Collect Content

What is it?

The process of gathering all required content assets, either from existing repositories or newly crafted sources, to populate the site or store with high-quality material. 

Content resources include text, images, videos, infographics and other media. By collecting the appropriate content before setting hands on building your website’s sitemap, we can ensure achieving a design that understands the users’ scope and facilitates their experience on your website. 

Why is it Important:

• It informs the design process.
• Prevents project delays tied to missing content.
• Ensures all content is available before design begins.

How to Proceed:

1. Define Key Roles: Know who’s responsible for which parts of the content creation.
2. Detail Tasks: Make sure each role understands their responsibilities.
3. Set Deadlines: Assign a timeline to each task based on overall project deadlines.

Step 4: Document the Content Workflow

What is it?

Our content workflow is a systematic roadmap that outlines the various stages of our content production and distribution process. This includes designating roles and planning tasks, responsibilities, and optimal timelines to ensure smooth and organised operations.

A meticulous documentation of the sequence and methods used to create and publish content, while keeping the content creation process on schedule to consistently meet project deadlines

Why is it important:

• Mitigate Issues: Identifies and mitigates potential bottlenecks.
• Consistency: This process guarantees the same high-quality output across all content.
• Collaboration: Enables seamless teamwork and clear communication.
• Feedback Loop: Ensures swift and constructive feedback implementation.

How to Proceed:

1. Determine Roles: Decide who is engaged in producing which types of content.
2. List Tasks: Assign specific tasks to identified roles.
3. Apply Deadlines: Prioritise and time-stamp each task to ensure timely delivery.

The LightSpeed way

Defined Roles and Tasks

Each content-related role has specific responsibilities and their correspondent tasks:

• Content Strategist: Guides content direction and relevancy.
  • Engage in market and audience research.
  • Identify gaps and opportunities in our content.
  • Formulate content plans and briefs.
• Copywriter: Produces the core written material.
  • Develop content drafts.
  • Revise based on team and client feedback.
• Graphic Designer: Crafts corresponding visuals.
  • Design engaging visuals in line with content objectives.
  • Revise based on layout requirements or feedback.
• Media Editors: Tend to video or podcast content requirements.
  • Edit and refine video or podcast material.
  • Ensure media is appropriately embedded or linked in content.
• Reviewer/Editor: Refines and finalises content.
  • Check content for consistency with LightSpeed’s standards.
  • Conduct quality assurance and fact-checks.
• Publisher: Launches the content on our platforms.
  • Ensure content is appropriately formatted and optimised on our platforms.
  • Conduct final checks for any layout issues.

Adhere to Timelines and Dependencies

Each project comes with its specific timeline. Always be aware of:

• Dependencies: Some tasks can only start after the completion of others. For instance, graphic design usually comes after content draft approval.
• Deadlines: Always strive to meet or exceed the given timelines for each task. If challenges arise, communicate early.

Sub-Processes to Note

While the main content workflow is standard, certain projects may involve additional sub-processes, especially if they involve intricate approval stages or unique publishing requirements. In these cases we advise to always refer to the project brief or consult with the project manager to maintain consistency.

Wrapping up key points

For us, content workflow is not just a procedural necessity but a strategic move that positively impacts various aspects of content creation:

• Optimised Efficiency: A streamlined workflow ensures a smooth transition between content creation stages, saving valuable time and resources. From ideation to execution, each step is well-defined and contributes to a more efficient content creation process.
• Enhanced Collaboration: The structured content workflow fosters teamwork through clearly designated roles and responsibilities. Team members understand their tasks, leading to a more synchronised and productive content creation environment. Collaboration becomes a key driver for success.
• Consistent Quality: The documentation of roles, tasks, and processes in the content workflow guarantees a consistent and high-quality output across all content. Mitigating potential bottlenecks and implementing a feedback loop ensures that content meets established standards.
• Timely Project Completion: The adherence to deadlines and dependencies outlined in the workflow contributes to the timely completion of projects. Consistent meeting of project deadlines is crucial for maintaining trust with clients and stakeholders.
• Strategic Decision-Making: Through a content audit and strategy, organisations gain insights into the relevance and effectiveness of their content. This information forms a foundation for strategic decision-making, aligning content with overarching project goals and business objectives.
• Improved User Experience: A well-defined content strategy takes into account the user experience as a whole, encompassing site structure, navigation, tone, voice, and calls to action. This focus on user experience contributes to the overall success of the website or online store.
• Innovation and Excellence: The culmination of these benefits marks a significant milestone in the pursuit of innovation and excellence. A synchronised team that minimises errors and delivers a final product aligned with both business objectives and user expectations establishes a reputation for quality and efficiency.

At LightSpeed, our content workflow outline serves as a foundation to our success and contributes to maintaining our reputation for quality and efficiency.

By conducting a thorough content audit, developing a comprehensive content strategy, collecting content thoughtfully, and documenting a structured workflow, our systematic approach promises a seamless project execution. 

The direct result is a team that remains synchronised, minimises errors, benefits from streamlined collaboration, and delivers a final website or online store that encloses both business’ objectives and user’s expectations.

Ultimately contributing to the overall success of digital projects and the organisations as a whole, we mark together another milestone in our pursuit for innovation and excellence.