Content is a common delay with design and development projects.
Clients keep putting it off for a variety of reasons. It’s up to you to help your clients complete the content faster.
With your help, there are several ways to jump start content creation and finish outstanding projects. This also helps clients with their content in the future.
Meet With Clients
Sometimes clients aren’t able to complete their content because they don’t know what to write. One or two meetings can boost their creativity. The idea of the meeting is to get the client talking about their site. Instead of the design, ask questions about the company, what they sell, their target audience, common questions their customers have and what their goals are. All of these are perfect starting points for Home, About Us and FAQs pages.
Record the interview and give your client a copy of the interview. They can use this to craft their own content. If you provide copywriting services, you could use it to write the content for them. It may take multiple meetings to get all the data necessary for you or the client to finish the content.
Suggest A Writer
If your agency doesn’t offer copywriting services, partner with a copywriting agency. You can recommend the agency to clients to help them finish their content faster. Your clients may have an idea of what they want to write, but aren’t sure how to phrase it or make it SEO friendly. A professional copywriter not only knows how to write copy that performs well on line, but they stick to deadlines. This ensures you get the content for the site in a timely manner.
After the project is finished, the client can continue working with the copywriter. Their site stays full of fresh content. It’s all thanks to you introducing them to a writer to begin with.
Teach Them To Upload Content
Many of your clients have never uploaded content to their own website. You may already have a temporary site set up for them to upload their content. The delay might not be the content itself, but learning how to use the system. Provide detailed training for your clients on how to upload content to pages. For instance, a step by step guide on using WordPress’s dashboard goes a long way towards motivating clients to be proactive about content creation.
If the site is finished and waiting for content, teach them how to upload content into the various sections of the site. It’s intimidating for clients to figure out how and where to upload each snippet of content on the home page or make sure articles are formatted correctly. Guide them through the process. Ask for a few pieces of content in order to create a custom guide.
Make Organizing Content Easy
Your client has finished their content, but now has no idea how to organize it on the site. They don’t know how to make their latest post show up in the middle column versus the right. Maybe they want to place a blog post on the front page, but are waiting to upload until they learn how to do it. Implementing the Conductor Plugin is a good way to give your clients more control over their content. More control means they’ll be inspired to create content faster to fill in each section of their site.
Clients don’t need to understand code to use the plugin’s features. All they have to do is point and click to choose layouts, content settings and display styles. Of course, you’ll need to show them how to use it the first time to make sure they’re comfortable using it. You can also use it yourself if clients are providing you with content. It helps shorten content organization and page layout time.
Conclusion
All clients need is a little boost to get their content finished faster. With a little assistance and training, clients will produce their content in a more timely manner so you can finish projects without content delays. Helping them now could lead to long term relationships, especially if you offer writing services.
Make it even easier for clients to manage their own content with the Conductor Plugin. Learn more about how to implement the plugin into the sites your agency creates.
Image: Caleb Roenigk