Today, content strategy is the backbone for how you should be reaching your audiences. With endless amounts of content published every day on- and offline, defining your strategy to create and share it all is essential. Similarly, plain language — a global movement calling for clear information that audiences can find, understand, and act on in their first reading — has been around for decades. Yet, somehow, rarely do these two content worlds cross paths.
At Zuula, we say, No more! We believe that plain language and content strategy belong together. With a shared commitment to evidence-based research and purposeful messaging, plain language and content strategy are perfect partners in clear, compelling communication.
To help you identify (and implement) plain-language-supported content strategy, follow our 1-2-3 Content Fix: Align Plain Language and Content Strategy
1. Use audience-focused content built on personas.
Personas are a qualitative and quantitative analysis of exactly who is your audience.
In plain language, audience is king, and all content creation stems from this focus. Similarly in content strategy, nailing the audience is the first strategy step. And both worlds greatly depend on personas for building out the content experience, such as its information architecture, content tone, and more. By using personas to guide your messaging, you create content that addresses your audiences’ unique needs, level of understanding, and reading behaviors — which impacts both the language and the content’s structure.
Plain language questions to ask:
- Who is the specific audience I need to reach?
- What motivates my audience to care about the topic at hand?
- What is their literacy level?
Content strategy questions to ask:
- What expectations and behaviors do my personas have?
- Where do my audiences go to seek information?
- Do your audiences consume content on a desktop or mobile device?
2. Write helpful, real language your audience understands.
One of the main tenets of plain language is using real language — not jargon or buzzwords — that your specific audience relates to. Plain language uses active voice, short sentences, and a helpful tone.
Content strategy also focuses on real language that’s conversational and approachable in a voice your audience relates to. Additionally, clear, audience-focused language drive Google’s search results, further aligning our plain language and content strategy worlds.
Plain language questions to ask:
- What words and phrases does the industry I’m creating content for consider jargon?
- Am I using active voice?
- Are my sentences 25 words or shorter?
Content strategy questions to ask:
- Does my content support my company’s unique verbal brand?
- Am I talking about what my audience needs rather than just focusing on my organization or myself?
- Am I using unique language that distinguishes me from my competitors?
3. Make data work for you with usability testing and online analytics.
When it comes to content strategy, data is a crucial tool for knowing what content works and what doesn’t. A good strategy continually addresses the number of unique visitors, time spent per page, number of clicked links, etc.
And the same goes for plain language! Usability testing — where you test how sample audiences respond to the content before publishing it — can help you have real insight into what messaging falls flat versus what soars. These integral steps ensure the content you create not only sounds good, but is effective.
Plain language questions to ask:
- How long did it take users to go through the entire content experience?
- What words/phrases confused my participants? And why?
- Were they able to identify and follow important calls to action?
Content strategy questions to ask:
- What types of visitors am I attracting to my content?
- How many people clicked my links? Who were they?
- Which content has the most views?
Of course, this quick blog is just the tip of the plain language–content strategy iceberg. But, by implementing the above guidance, you’ll immediately be on a more strategic path to reaching your audiences and driving real action — and sharing content that’s a true brand asset.
