Content Development Guide
Whether you are revising an existing site or building one from the ground up, careful consideration of your site’s content is critical to its ultimate success. The following steps will help you imagine what your site can be, and help you organize for construction or redesign, whether your site is built by IRT, by your contractor or by your self.
Step 1: What are the possibilities?
- Study our Web Page Anatomy so you will know what is and isn't editable and configurable
- Review the list of Site Tools to see what features you might want to request for your site
- Browse through Devices & Widgets and Stationery for additional ideas and demos
Step 2: Start Organizing With an Outline
- See our Example Outline format; get a downloadable Word template you can use as a starting point
Step 3: Gather and/or Write content, Review and Edit
- Review the list of Suggested Topics as a starting point for your research
- Develop topics by talking to faculty, staff, students, researchers; gather existing content (pamphlets, flyers, reports, etc.) you can mine and edit for the Web site
- See our guide to Writing for the Web, and try to follow our Editorial Standards
- Images and video are a powerful way to communicate with your audience and add visual interest to your site. Be sure to check out our video resources as well our online image repository, which may have just the photo or logo you need.
- Provide general instructions for art elements. There's no need to develop visual layout comps, although they are welcome; See Web Page Anatomy to learn which areas of pages you can design.
Step 4: Develop a Site Map
- See our guide to Site Map Development; IRT needs documentation to specify what pages go into the site, how they are organized, and where all of the content is. Every page must be accounted for.
- If your site has 10 or more pages, you may want to organize them into topics and have tabs and tab menus included on your site.
- Indicate the naming and order of the tabs.
- Minimum 4, maximum 10.
- Every tab must have a "home" page within your own site
- External links can be included in your menus, but cannot be tabs.
Step 5: Deliver Your Content
- If working with IRT production...
- You must deliver ALL of your content -- text AND images -- in final, edited, electronic form; IRT does not publish placeholders (e.g. "coming soon").
- Between site map, outline and content documents, it must be clear what is wanted for each page in the site. Clarity and specificity are important; any need for analysis or interpretation will slow your project significantly.
- Missing content can prevent production from commencing.
- If you are working with an outside contractor, or developing a site yourself using IRT formatting, these steps will also be useful for getting organized. Your outside contractor may have additional steps or requirements.
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