Content Extraction

You are right, getting content from clients is the hardest part of the job. Even simple product images etc are a nightmare to get hold of! Some clients are on the ball and deliver straight away but most of the time like you say….pulling teeth!

First off - I love to see the article you share with your clients to help them create their own content.For those designers/developers with the skills to do so, Copywriting could be another revenue source. "$x to design/develop your site, $x to write your content."Perhaps the article you wrote could be re-purposed into a "survey" - a form/poll designed to be filled out by your client and their staff that would get their own creative juices simmering. Ask them to fill out things like "List 5 types of visitors that come to your site. What are the top 5 things they are looking for on your site? etc." While this may not provide your content, it would help you zero in on the essentials, and if distributed amongst the key contact people, it could also identify differences in opinion early on within the client’s environment - rather than later on, which could result in large design/content changes late in the project. 

I agree with the need to involve a professional writer. It’s impossible to get content from the client in a timely manner and then when you do, it’s often rubbish.The other challenge is SEO - your content needs to be written appropriately from this perspective as well. I find that it’s helpful to have this as the starting point - get the client to talk about concepts and themes that are central to their site, which can then help to inform the content.Even in the non-freelance world, and with copywriters available as a resource, developing good content within a reasonable timeframe is hard work. 

My absolute favorite, though, are the clients who take a year to deliver a small amount of simple content and then expect their site to be done the next day.

Spot on! My advise for these companies is to hire a copy writer who knows how to write for the web, not just a regular one.

I’m with you Steve, we have a sales staff here. The duties sometimes fall to them, or a certain sales person. The results are needless to say "fluffy". How many sites fall flat on their face because content is king - the written word is the content - and tada, no written words.I’m just happy if they "feel something" regarding the graphics and website aesthetics, cause you know you are not going to get any good images either!!-[Friday miniRant]PS: I’ld love to see the article you’ve written up to prompt good copywriting from your clients then Steve, has it ever once worked though, lol. :) 

I feel your pain. I am a Web Designer in a Public Health Organisation in the UK and I have enough trouble getting content from the relevant departments to put on the website. We are gradually moving over to a new CMS, so those departments will have to publish the content themselves. But without knowing what they want on there in the first place - it is difficult to create some sort of structure.

I have found that if I require 50% of the cost of the website up front, that I’m much more likely to receive content in a timely fashion.

by getting a signed contract before you start, and a deposit, and you state in the contract that no work can or will be done before the client provides "x", and the fact that they’ve given you some money already will definitely prompt them towards giving you at least some of what you’re asking for.  "hey, here’s a check i wrote for $500, what’s that for?, oh yeah, my website…hey! i don’t have my website yet..oh yeah, i need to give this guy something…what does he need again?"i find that client education is a big part of my work. you’re the web designer, you know what the need is; generally, your clients do not.  so not only do you need to explain what they need to understand about the process but you also need to give them a bottom line incentive to provide you with what you need ($$$).  you might need to hire the services of a copywriter.  there are many good articles about the need for good web copy, and it’s dead on true.  i find myself writing copy quite a bit because i learn to understand the needs of my project as i work through it, and, i know the balance between writing copy that will not only give a site visitor what they need but also be good material for search engines to feed off of.your clients are busy, so make them understand that the process of putting together their website is just as important as ordering inventory or paying the rent on their 5th ave. store.  they make time for that, i bet, so you need to educate them that they need to make time for you.

This is an incredibly common problem :). As said before: a good copywriter is worth a few hundred. It is, as a matter of fact, one of the only good solutions. You could always consider interviewing and writing it yourself. Then again: wiritng good copy takes up just as much of your time, as crafting a good design.

Is it possible to totally rewrite content which is already on the web? That would be much cheaper and easier…

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I ask clients at the start of a project whether they’d like us to write their content for them. That eliminates the problem. Those who want to write it themselves have done it before or have already begun, so they know what’s involved.Set a content deadline very early in the project and emphasise its importance. Clients will procrastinate unless you make it real and give them a list of material and a date by which it must be delivered to keep the project moving.Copywriting - if you can offer it - is another string in your bow and an opportunity for additional revenue. As well as speeding up your projects, its probably something your competitors don’t offer, and it’s definitely something that your clients both need and want.

Chris, that’s a great idea. It rides on luck though a tad, I guess. If a bad member of their people gets nominated then all hell could break loose.

Great idea when it works though. 

I do believe "Content extraction" is the main (and shall be the first) part of a Web project. If you want to really manage this content, you have to qualify and describe it. Then you can create the structures and the systems that will handle the information.To achieve that, you have to guess and anticipate on what the content the client brings.I often see websites becoming big mess after some updates because, one day, the client says "I would like to put an image galery here" or "We will put this file for download on this page" even if the system does not allow it.But it’s difficult to make managers and designers work this way.

Do it for them!I`m specializing in making websites for the hair and beauty market. To make the projects swift, I have also made "templates" for content they would generally need. I also write content on demand. Ever since I started out in the web industry I saw the need for delivering content to clients. For them the easy part is desiding design, the hard part is what content to deliver.If you dont write content yourself, get a freelancer to do so. Make more money, make the client more happy! PS: (I do not do my projects in english ;)

I’ve been a website project manager for just about 10 years now, and the number one killer of any project schedule has always been client deliverables. And the worst one of those is site content. Right now I have a stack of sites that are all on hold waiting for content. For the clients who can afford it, I point them to one of our partners who is a marketer / copywriter. All of our clients are told from day 1 that their content is the one thing that will throw off the schedule. Rarely do they believe it until the due date comes up. Today, we build the site and site framework without the content and then send them their final bill. This way our receivables schedule is on track, and we fit in content integration during slack periods of the week.