culture.gov.au
Connecting you with Australian culture online
Preparing content for your website
Your website is the content you choose to place on it - the words, graphics, audio or video material that you choose to use. You have created a website in order to present your organisation to the world, so the primary requirement is that content be interesting and informative to users, and provide accurate and up-to-date information about your organisation and its activities.
You will obviously ensure that the content you select is appropriate for your identified audience. You must also ensure that it conforms to legal requirements, particularly copyright and privacy laws.
The message you want your audience to receive will determine the combination of words and graphic elements - such as photographs, drawings, icons, your organisation’s logos and identifying images - that will be required to convey that message.
Website content should be visualised from the viewpoint of visitors to your site. They need to be able to find out about the organisation quickly and simply - who you are, what you do, what attractions you offer. The information needs to be presented in an attractive and interesting manner - both words and format - so that they notice, remember and are prompted to return.
When you have determined the content to be included, you need to consider what elements need to be newly-created and the resources you have available to perform those tasks. The completed website material - words and images - will need to be available in web-ready format, which means digitisation of all content.
Don’t forget that the material you finally select will need to be edited for factual accuracy, spelling, grammar, sense and relevance. You also need to ensure that you have the resources to review the content regularly and keep it up-to-date.
What to do
Consult the following online references for more information.
Look at a number of cultural organisation websites and examine the scope and nature of the content they have included and how it is presented. If you have trouble knowing which sites to look at, go back to the home page of this website and do a search for websites of organisations like yours.
The Building section of the NOIE ebusinessguide deals in detail with choosing and preparing content.
Sensis, who produce the White Pages and Yellow Pages, has developed a very useful document entitled 'Planning a Business Website'. For more information visit the Sensis website and download a copy of Planning a Business Website.
The following internet development guides contain useful information:
- Guide 4. Is the Internet for me? - content selection
- Guide 5. What will I do with my website? - content preparation
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