Content Everywhere: Strategy and Structure For Future-Ready Content

by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Care about content? Better copy isn't enough. As devices and channels multiply--and as users expect to relate, share, and shift information quickly--we need content that can go more places, more easily. Content Everywhere will help you stop creating fixed, single-purpose content and start making it more future-ready, flexible, reusable, manageable, and meaningful wherever it needs to go.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Writing, Business, Web, Professional Development, Reference

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Sara Wachter-Boettcher is a web consultant based in Philadelphia, and the author of the forthcoming Technically Wrong, from W.W. Norton, as well as two books for web professionals: Design for Real Life, with Eric Meyer, and Content Everywhere.

She helps organizations make sense of their digital content, and speaks at conferences worldwide.

Reviews

[Ahmad hosseini · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is this book about?
This book isn’t really about method; it’s about mindset: about establishing a way of thinking that will serve your content—not to mention your users, your organization, and your sanity—well into the future. It’s about building a framework for thinking about content, not answering every question you’ll encounter about it.

Who Should Read This Book?
This book is for anyone who cares about content and is interested in making it work for mobile devices, across multiple channels, and for an increasingly unfixed future.

What is content?
“Content” can be a dirty word. Vague and vast in its definition, it can come to include nearly anything and everything—so it’s easy to dismiss or to stop bothering to parse its meaning.
Content isn’t homogenous, each molecule the same. It’s layered, rich, and intensely personal. It’s expensive to create, time-consuming to keep up, and impossible to do without.
Content is powerful. Done right, it can be useful, lovable, and memorable— even when it’s being repurposed, reused, and reconfigured in countless ways. It can communicate critical information, share stories, and build connections. It can drive sales and increase customer satisfaction.
My favorite sentence is “Content is your product”.

What is content strategy?
Content strategy should at a minimum include several items:
• Goals: How will content support your overall strategy? What should it accomplish for your organization? For your users?
• Resources: How much time and money do you have for your content? What skill sets are on hand?
• Key messages: What are the top organizational messages you want content to communicate? What do your users need?
• Voice and tone: How does your brand translate to your online presence? What should you sound like?

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was asked to read this book for work and thought, "eh, ok, I'll probably learn something." Work picked very well! I loved this book. Wachter-Boettcher begins by discussing the WYSIWYG strategy of yore: "what you see is what you get." I was sold! This book is very much about thinking about how the reader engages with content and how the reader's wants will change based on the device selected (desktop, mobile, tablet). As a blogger, I was immediately captivated by thinking about navigation strategies and how the visuals will need to be modified.

Wachter-Boettcher has this incredible way of making complex ideas seem startingly simple. And I found myself (as someone who works in social media as a profession) thinking about the ways in which her content strategies apply to social media, as well.

If you work with content, in any form, I highly recommend this book.

[Laura Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gentle introduction to thinking about content decoupled from form and the importance of doing so with regard to publishing everywhere your customers would like you to do so. More of a meditation on this topic than a how-to, but that's all I was looking for in the first place. A good introduction to the issues you are likely to face as you try to stop thinking about a specific, rigid output format.

[Laurian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little worried by the introduction, which sounded like a book about database design masked as IA. What I really wanted was a book that talked about the shifting landscape of the same pieces of web content being all of the place and what that means for how users and content creators interact with the content. This book did a pretty good job of addressing the basics of those issues. I think what I really wanted was a more research-based book with a set of case studies, but I will now go forth and try to find another book that is more in that vein.

This book did a great job of opening the topic and making it understandable. I started to nod off with the chapters on APIs and mark-up (a topic I'm already very familiar with). But the last third really made the book start to sing again.

[Loucaspapa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read on how the content landscape has changed, and how to adapt to it if you're a content strategist, an IAer or a UXer. As a UX person myself, without that much of experience on Content Strategy projects so far, I found the book very useful, helping me shape a good picture on the role of Content Strategy and its place next to other concepts such as Mobile First, Responsive Design, etc.
Now, it's time to get hands on... What about you?

[Holly Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read other content strategy books recently (e.g. The Elements of Content Strategy) and been disappointed by their lack of clarity and direction, this was a refreshing read! Content Everywhere is clearly written and organised and filled with practical tips. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in an introduction to creating highly considered content that is meaningful and findable in the present and adaptable for the future.

[Maurizio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro utile per chi si occupa di contenuti in ambito digitale. Offre diversi spunti su come organizzare meglio i contenuti ottimizzandoli per il responsive design e per il loro utilizzo su piattaforme diverse da quella originale. Una stella in meno per qualche ripetizione di troppo degli stessi concetti.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little fluffy/repetitious at the start, but stick with it. It gets meatier and provides a good discussion of the value of structuring content for reuse--and, most helpfully, how to make the case for it with business and technical teams.

[Arah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps due to the role I've played with CMS development and use in a few jobs I've held, a lot of what this book said was old-hat to me. However, the case studies are insightful and the evangelistic angle is an inspiring reminder of what needs to stay important.

[TJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had read this a year ago, it might have blown my mind. After being immersed in the topic for months now, it all seems more no-duh than anything. Still, a good (though slightly outdated) primer on the topic of content strategy.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent look at how content reuse can help businesses make the most of their most important asset: content.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good introduction to making content future-proof. The only reason I didn't give it for stars was because I hoped for more on content APIs.

[Alan Kang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone interested in RWD or Adaptive Design should read this book. RWD is not only about design, it's more about contents.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little repetitive, but essential reading for content strategists. Definitely gained some fresh insights from this book, which I discovered via Sara's presentation at a Content Strategy DC meetup.

[Bob Mabbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most exciting, instructive, and terrifying chose-your-own-adventure I've ever read!

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Needed to read up on content management for work. This book is well-written, kept my interest, and provided lots of good information.

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful for those wrapping their heads around content modeling, portability, information architecture, and user experience.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the technical side, Content Everywhere deals with streamlining how content is shared.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Informative writing can be entertaining. A few sassy sentences don't do it. This book is so dense it's not effective.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a useful resource for content creators who want to do more than “write it right” to make their work findable, flexible, and future-ready. While Sara Wachter-Boettcher acknowledges her advice is more about a mindset than a method, she includes strong examples of content rules, models, and systems as she illustrates how implementing formal processes and procedures now can help you prepare for the future. I particularly appreciated her emphasis on breaking down silos between the world of content and the world of web development, by explaining how content creators can prepare and discuss their work in terms that will help developers build the space to support it.

[Starfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting - if somewhat dated in places (oh, bless, so much innocence and optimism around the direction the US government was heading in back in the halcyon pre-45 days)- look at why it's important to separate content from the way it will be displayed and organised when it gets to the user.

I'm coming to the subject as pretty much a rank beginner - my expertise is in writing the content before it's entered into any kind of system. But I can absolutely see how a lot of the concepts are relevant in terms of breaking the overall content I wrote down into modular chunks (and PLANNING those chunks wisely), and I'm looking forward to learning more on the topic.

[Marcell Nimführ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book definitely hasn't aged well. It is seven years old and can only help people to make their very first thoughts about content. For today's readers, it would be good to condense it to 50 pages as an intro.

[Meg Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for content strategist or anyone interested in strategy for further-ready communication!

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was OK. I had read a lot of this in other books on the topic.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply amazing, there is so much good advice and quite actual, even if it was written a decade ago.

[Roberta Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is okay. A bit dated for modern context.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting artifact that needs a new edition.

[Tridib Chowdhury · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is now a paradigm shift in content writing and this book talks about it.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on content strategy.