Boston Cares

Spring 2020

Introduction

In this project, the main focus point is the content strategy for a brand website. I’ve selected an NGO organization, Boston Cares’ website, and completed proposal, audit and report presentation. Through the project, I learned the definition of content strategy which was defined by Halvorson in 2018. I also practiced the theory with this real case study.

Logistics

Content Strategy

Team: Solo

Role: Content strategy, Audit, analyst and reporter

Tools: Google doc and spreadsheet

Background

Boston Cares is the largest volunteer agency in the New England Area. It connects volunteers and people who need help by offering a wide range of programs and opportunities. Boston Cares runs 30 years since 1991, and its volunteers dedicate over 1.3 million hours to the communities from Greater Boston and eastern MA.

Proposal

This strategy proposal will serve as an initial guidance document to improve the whole website over the next few years. Presenting an overview of the content life cycle, the proposal will also describe the process from the research stage to the final step of generating an appropriate content strategy. All steps and guidelines will follow the “Time for Execution”.

Goals

- Attract and invite more volunteers to join the programs

- Get more donations and support from society

- Build brand image and raise awareness

Core Strategy

Provide a variety of trustworthy and interesting volunteer opportunities that engage people in programs and connect with others who need help in New England.

Business Model & Internal Structure

Conducting an internal analysis, including staff structure analysis, questionnaires, stakeholder interviews and group discussion to define the business model and internal structure of the organization, its mission and value, channels, governance and expectation from stakeholders.

Target Users

By interviewing users, conducting usability testing and analyzing current users’ data, I will generate persona and journey maps, putting the users’ needs as the priority.

Competitive Analysis

After analyzing the content strategy of competitors, I will identify the spot of Boston Cares in the market and define the potential opportunities.

Content Inventory

Auditing the website according to the preset scope and have assigned id, title, URL, format, source, metadata and traffic in the inventory.

Qualitative Audit

To analyze the quality and effectiveness of the content and content gap, conducting a qualitative audit is needed. It will evaluate a number of criteria, including usability, knowledge level, findability, actionability, audience, accuracy, business value, etc.

Gap & SEO Analysis

Analyzing the gap between the existing content and the expectation from stakeholders, based on the gap, I will be able to give recommendations.

To increase the quality and quantity of website traffic, SEO analysis is needed. To improve the SEO keywords and factors, the research will collect data that includes title, metadata, traffic and keywords.

Persona

Audit

With an executive summary, I audited 111 pages with crawl tool, Screaming Frog SEO spider, and analyze its content quality.

Results

Optimization

The main frustrations of Boston Cares websites include findability, usability, actionability, governance, and accessibility

Findability

Fill out all accurate metadata for content
Re-structure IA based on user research results
Define the value of the search feature and design a spot for it

Usability

Write a clear structure in HTML & editorial content
include types of content, e.g., image, video, text, icons, etc.

Actionability

Add accurate CTAs to pages
Reduce the parallel level of action & build up a hierarchy
Involve effective UI design to support actionability

Governance

Have clear documentation for workflow and ownership
Build guidelines for editorial and style content

Accessibility

Layout naturally for different screens

Conclusion

Boston Cares provides many great opportunities to people, it could also provide great content and user experience with a solid content strategy.

After stages of plan, research and analysis, it is obvious that the official website has many issues about editorial content, interface design, deliverable and governance. The next step will be implementing these recommendations into the site. This will bring more members, raise competency and establish brand image.

Through this case study, I learned more about content strategy and built up a clear method map of generating a good content strategy for clients.