Kevin Vess, one of our graphic designers, just sent me a great article—the Cure for Content Delay Syndrome, by Pepi Ronalds. This excerpt from the article sums it up, "In the vast majority of website projects that I have managed during my ten years in the industry, content is often the last thing to be considered (and almost always the last thing to be delivered). We'll spend hours, weeks, even months, doing user scenarios, site maps, wireframes, designs, schemas, and specifications—but content? It's a disrespected line item in a schedule: "final content delivered." It's the perennial cause of delay and the stuff of myth (I once shelved a project for three years while the client "wrote" his content.) It's a malaise that needs fixing and needs fixing fast."

Web development usually happens in the domain of marketing departments, so it's not a huge surprise that there is more focus on calls to action and style and brand guidelines than on writing styles. The unfortunate result is that website content often fails to reflect the thought and planning that goes into the rest of the site. How often have you visited a site and seen that the wording for miscellaneous pages, forms, submission messages and pop-up boxes seems inconsistent, at best? The result is a site that looks great, but reads poorly.

Ronalds' argument, to get a writer/editor involved in the web design from the initial phases is a good one. Editors can create a writing style guide, help define the site's tone and voice, set tasks and schedules to keep internal writers on schedule, and increasingly important—help shortcut the organic SEO process by introducing appropriate keywords, page headers and link titles.

Speaking from experience, I can think of several projects that hit a road block when it was time for final content. Either the project languished because content writing never moved to the top of the client's to do list, or the design had to be modified because when the writer/editor was finally shown the redesign, they discovered critical content that wouldn't fit within the approved page elements.

After reading Ronalds' article, I'm going to rethink our approach, and encourage all of our web clients to get their content experts actively involved early in the design process. Take a look at your own site—is the writing consistent? Does it reflect the ‘voice' you want to project for your company? If not, bring in an editor, or block the time to do a thorough internal review/rewrite.

If you've been studying your site's SEO, I'm sure you've noticed how Wikipedia often appears at the top of Google's search results for many of the keywords you're interested in. The next step, of course, is finding out how to get included on Wikipedia, to drive people to your site.

Wikipedia is not the easy source of leads that some marketing folks hope it is. Putting up content is easy. Creating content that survives editing and "reverts" (deletes) requires more work and patience.

Until about a year ago, search marketers tried to add as many links as possible from Wikipedia to their client sites. Wikipedia responded to the uproar about poor quality entries and links by putting a NOFOLLOW tag on all external links, which devalues the link for link authority purposes.

Now, if you want to promote your business on Wikipedia, you must focus on adding value to the encyclopedia, not just gaining links or getting traffic. Here are a few tips for getting content included on Wikipedia:

• Understand the Wikipedia Community: Wikipedia is edited by volunteers who build their reputations by making quality edits to the content. Quality edits are unbiased -- not self-serving and promotional. If you really want to learn how Wikipedia works, become a member of the Wikipedia community, and an active editor on your topic. Build a User page and engage with other members of the community through the Talk page functionality. Grow your editorial reputation first, and then you'll understand how to best add information that could benefit your business.
• Follow the Rules:. Make sure you contribute rock solid content, and use quality references from top unbiased, credible media sources. Don't add references that require logins or are from poor quality sources. A few more content guidelines:
  • All information must be verifiable: this means referencing it, like you did in term papers. Unsourced information doesn't last.
  • Neutral point of view required: superlative language about a political candidate, harsh criticism of a company, or any other biased language will be rewritten before long
  • No original research: this is the kicker for most writers that wish to use Wikipedia to advance something other than the sum of human knowledge.
• Know What's Notable:. Don't discuss your product or service all the time. When you do, invite a client or user to speak frankly about it on air. It's okay to promote a website if the site contains content relevant to the episode.

Seemingly small entries can draw a substantial amount of attention and traffic, if you are able to add a number of solid references. This takes time and requires a substantial commitment, but there is a payoff. You are adding to the available knowledge online and building your business' reputation.