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Objective

Why are you writing this?

You should always write with a clear purpose. This means you should have a clear reason for writing and a clear objective — something you want your audience to do as a result of what you write.

Most changes to website copy should be anticipated and planned in advance, but identifying a clear purpose is especially important if the change wasn’t originally planned for or anticipated.

Before you or anyone on the team creates or changes content on hope.edu, ask:

"What are we trying to accomplish?"

Answer honestly. Changes worth making will provide something that:

Our audience wants or values
Supports a Hope College goal or objective, or
Both

If the content change doesn’t solve a problem or answer a question for our audience, and it doesn’t support Hope’s brand, either do it differently or don’t do it at all.

Good reasons to write

The content isn't working: If the content was carefully and strategically created, you can assume it’s working. If specific content isn’t working, the only way we’ll know is if our audience tells us (e.g., in a support request or contact form submission), we ask them (e.g., in a survey or conversation) or we analyze audience behavior by monitoring Google Analytics or other reports. Keep a record of any feedback you receive; periodically, Hope College will compare everyone’s notes and observations with the data and use what we learn to find ways to improve.
The organization changes: Organizational changes are periodic and can usually be planned for in advance. If Hope College changes (e.g., we begin offering a new major or program, hire a new person, change an application process, etc.), someone on the team will be assigned to revise the appropriate section(s).
As part of planned maintenance: Certain pieces of content need to be refreshed on a regular schedule to keep them relevant or up-to-date. These sorts of changes should already be on your radar. Similarly, about once a year, even the best content should be reviewed to ensure everything is still clear, on-message, up-to-date and accurate.
Someone finds an error: New errors will usually be caught by Editors and Publishers as they’re reviewing and approving changes, but keep an eye out as you use the site for anything outdated, inaccurate or broken. If the error is in a section of the site you’re not responsible for, let the appropriate people know so that they can take care of it.

Bad reasons to write

Just because you can: Access to the CMS isn’t a license to make changes whenever you please.
You feel like tinkering: Extra time on your hands? Refrain from poking around and tweaking content for the fun of it. It may seem harmless, but it usually isn’t. If you think there may be an opportunity to improve something, talk to your content team about it first.