The content game needed to change: Why we're introducing Siteimprove Prepublish

High quality information is now the most powerful trust builder across all industries. Any brand that wants to build meaningful relationships with their audience, must earn it by offering valuable content. Brands that saw the changing winds have already launched their own in-house media outlets (see HubSpot’s The Hustle).

But reader beware, the digital space is saturated with content—the good, the bad, and the ugly. So much so that only 9% of online content is ever seen.

This hyper competitive environment has marketing teams everywhere stuck in a cycle of producing for volume to match the constant demand for content, which only results in content that doesn’t offer value and doesn’t perform.

Quality content doesn’t only come down to writing or design chops, because no amount of creative copy and design can disguise content that doesn’t have real substance. No, the root cause of underperforming content is not just the content itself but the processes (or lack thereof) leading up to hitting that publish button.

That’s why we’re introducing Siteimprove Prepublish. Prepublish is the answer to delivering consistent content experiences that are accessible, optimized for SEO, and perform at top capacity.

How Prepublish works is it gives you instant insights into your content’s performance, which you can use to create experiences that (the right) people love.

The beauty of Prepublish is that it doesn’t just help you deliver impeccable content, it also improves the way your team works. Let’s dig into why you won’t want to work without Prepublish ever again.

Why Prepublish

A report commissioned by LinkedIn found that nine in ten sales and marketing professionals say they are misaligned across strategy, process, content, and culture. Can you relate?

What this nugget of information hints at—and what we’ve seen from our customer’s experiences—is that your content is in direct alignment with your team’s performance. So, if your team is out of sync, your content is going to show it.

That’s where Siteimprove Prepublish steps into the arena. Arming teams with one connected tool that gives instant feedback directly in your CMS, bad content doesn’t stand a chance.

Here’s a quick glance at what Prepublish can do:

• Automated accessibility checks
• SEO diagnostics right on your page
• Customizable company policies
• Instant quality checks

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let us paint you some different scenarios where Prepublish comes in clutch.

Get it right the first time

Website redesign. Just saying the phrase can make any marketing leader shiver. Website redesign veterans can tell you many a tale about redesigns gone wrong. Almost all those stories start with poor planning.

Luckily, Siteimprove, paired with Prepublish, is there every step of the way, whether your goal for the redesign is a rebrand, a new digital strategy, or better user experience.

The first step of a redesign is an audit of your current site to trim the fat and get your baseline. Where these redesigns get tricky is in the in-between transition periods because even while you’re creating a new web design, and possible rebranding your look and tone of voice, your teams still have to keep the content flowing for the business.

Prepublish can help check that old branding or messaging isn’t carried over from the old site, that SEO goals are aligned, and content quality is pristine. This is especially important if any content had to be manually migrated (not ideal, but hey it happens), and you need to make sure no mistakes were made during the copy/paste journey.

Once you’ve launched your shiny, new website, avoid being part of the 60% of marketers who don’t have a defined and documented content marketing strategy. Use Prepublish directly from your CMS to make sure any new content is on target for your SEO, accessibility, and performance goals right out of the gate.

Staying on brand and out of hot water

Sticking to brand and legal guidelines isn’t the most glamorous part of content production. In fact, the tediousness of it can make you want to bang your head against the keyboard. But in the end, it does make sure your content isn’t putting your brand’s reputation at risk.

Siteimprove lets you create policies to make it easier to carry out best practices on your website. For example, create a policy to find images older than 8 months to keep your content fresh. Or maybe you need to comb your site for a specific HTML tag to weed out old code that’s slowing down your site’s performance.

You can even use policies to help you avoid non-inclusive language when writing about gender, age, or disabilities. This is a win-win because everyone who visits your website will feel welcome and valued, and you make your content attractive to a wider audience.

Include everyone from the start

Customers have made it loud and clear that they expect brands to reflect inclusive values and social responsibility. And in response, 26% of companies started diversity and inclusion programs for the first time in 2021, according to a survey by Forrester.

But to be truly inclusive, your website should be accessible. So why is it that accessibility is so often an afterthought in the web design and user experience process?

For most companies that are struggling to maintain accessibility, it comes down to either time, resources, lack of expert knowledge, or all of the above. But that’s why a tool like Prepublish is key to maintaining an accessible website, even if your teams are new to accessibility.

Prepublish can check for essential accessibility issues, such as incorrectly used heading structure and missing alt text on images. But it doesn’t just flag them for you. The tool also guides you with recommendations for how to fix the issues.

By testing your content early and often, you avoid the headache of having to go back and fix mistakes, and instead feel confident that any freshly published content is fully accessible.

Ready for any outcome

The only constant in digital content marketing is change. Your teams need to stay on the same page, while also being light on their feet to create content experiences that stay relevant, engaging, and provide value, even as your audience’s wants and needs keep shifting.

If your goal is to create the ultimate brand experience for your audience, then you’ll have to nail your branding every time, while also making sure your SEO and accessibility strategies are airtight. Siteimprove Prepublish is the missing piece for teams who want to maintain a well-oiled content machine. Because your audience deserves better content.