Debunking the myth: Content doesn't create itself

Content Management systems are the easy end all solution for creating content for the web, a magical thing which makes it easy to create awesome websites which get tons of visitors, right?

When I work with clients on CMS systems this is often exactly what they want.

Well, I hate to tell you that no this isn't quite what a content management system does. A content management system is a tool, just like dreamweaver or iweb which makes it easy to post web content. But more often than not this leads people to think that it will make the content they are writing magically perfect. Well this isn't quite the case.

What the content management system does is make the formatting of content easier, often times it comes with (or clients will ask for) a WYSIWYG editor. This is great for quickly formatting text or manipulating the text format without knowing too much html. This is much different than making everything magically good for the web.

What people often forget with a CMS is that writing for the web is a totally different medium than writing a press release, or an informational pamphlet. In fact a good website should be much closer to a script for a commercial than a news press release in most cases. Of course the most important thing is to know your audience. And this is the biggest problem I've seen in most web pages

The "I'm in control effect"

When users are in control of their own content they tend to write the content in the way that makes the most sense to them; That is they mostly write as if they were writing for print.

When users are in control of their own data (often for the first time in my experience) they tend to like to write just like they would for print. And this makes sense, this is the way we were taught to write in school in the essay format. Unfortunately this often is not the best format for your content.

On a website you have to target a user and often you have a short period of time (try seconds) to captivate the user. This means that you need to be as concise as possible. Especially above the fold. This is simply not something that most users think about.

This is also a huge hurdle for users, many of whom don't want to or don't have the time, to learn to write for the web. But still this is very important. If you can write for the web, you will inevitably land yourself more users, and improve your search engine ranking. All without having to pull some fancy tricks.

Because of the "I'm in control effect" users often feel that their existing writing skills will tie over into the web world. Which is partially true, but often times cute wording, and that "eloquent style" makes their material all but impossible to find for all but the most advanced of search engine users.

Writing for the web has a learning curve

Even though Content Management systems, such as drupal, or joomla have the capability to create content without knowing html, there is still a learning curve for web writing.

Until users are truly educated in writing for the web, which often times means beating them over the head with a stick, they will continue thinking of content management systems as magical tools which will create beautiful webpages which attract visitors as long as they know how to write.

My Advice: keep a stick handy at all times, and if that doesn't help them, feel free to link to this website.