Gathering content from clients is a huge bottleneck in many digital agencies. This post is meant to be a first step in eliminating that problem. Feel free to use the website content checklist in this post as your website content template to speed up the process of gathering content from your clients.
Why use a template for gathering website content?
Let's answer that with a question we can all relate to.
Which of these sounds easier?
Option 1
Your client sends you homepage content, so you start building their site.
You create the About and Services page, but realise that the images they’ve provided are watermarked with a stock image site logo. So you send off an email to get the right ones.
Ten minutes later you’re building the contact form and realise you don’t know which email the contact form should go to. Off goes another email.
In the footer there are some social media links. You dig through 30 emails to find them, but they aren’t there. You send another email.
Option 2
You create the Home, About and Services page using the content and web-ready images the client gave you. When building the contact form you drop in the correct email from the content checklist you prepared for your client earlier.
Moving on to the footer, you copy and paste in all the social media links, collected upfront with the rest of the content.
The choice is obvious. Creating a website content checklist for clients is a game changer.
So why do we end up going for Option 1 so often?
There are many reasons, but usually it's because we’re in a rush or something slips our mind at the start of a project. Later, we pay for it dearly in lost time and not being able to finish the job because we’re waiting on something from the client all over again.
To avoid crappy situations later:
Content needs to be tightly woven into your processes.
If your process currently looks something like “email client, ask for 5 pages of content and social media profiles,” you’re in trouble. As much as we'd like to think that clients will think of every detail to give us for their website, the chances of that actually happening are slim.
This post is all about why you need a website content checklist for clients - and you'll find a checklist to use a bit further below. But first we need to cover something important.
To get content from clients on time, you'll need more than just a checklist (or website content template).
There's one thing we're passionate about: Getting accurate content on time, without endless email trails. That means minimal editing, less time digging through emails and fewer mistakes.
To help you accomplish that, we've got a bunch of different tools and resources for you:
- Content Snare - This is our tool which helps you create a content process that keeps projects moving and gets you paid. There's a 14 day free trial which you can get HERE.
- How to get content from clients - A handy guide and video series on everything we've learned to get content in record time
- A 5 day challenge to help you not only get content faster, but improve many of your processes in just 5 days.
Your content process
With Content Snare, you'll have your content process done ASAP. The built-in content templates and wireframes enable your clients to provide you with great content, on time. In fact, you can access the entire checklist in this post as a downloadable website content template. It’s all built into the platform.
Try it out for yourself with 14 days on us.
How do I make a checklist for my website?
Now let's get on to creating your website content template for clients
One of the most important parts of gathering content is to provide a thorough list of everything you need upfront. The easiest way to do that is have a master template which you can quickly scan through, delete the parts you don’t need and send that off to the client.
Obviously, some jobs are highly complex and need their own list, but many jobs will fall into a fairly standard website content template.
Below is a list of everything you’ll need from your clients for most website jobs.
Feel free to take bits and pieces, or better yet, just grab our Google Doc templates by signing up below.
General & Global
- Logo
- Footer widget options
- Social feed
- Page list / mini menu
- Legal links
- Logo
- Contact info
- Recent posts
- Certifications & Memberships
- Call to Action
- Brief about
- Opt in
- Sidebar widget options
- Opt in
- Recent posts
- Contact block
- Categories
- Author
- Social media profile links
- Favicon (or create one from their logo)
Home Page
- Header/Hero Image
- Main headline
- Tagline
- Headline for SEO
- Site description
- Header button text
- Main content & images
- Call to action
About
- Main content
- Images
- Team photos
- Team bios
- Team social media
- Certifications & Memberships & Partners & Accreditations
- Call to action
Products/Services
- Headings
- Summary
- Images
Blog
- Author Bio
- Author Image (gravatar)
- Several initial posts with featured image
Contact
- Phone number (s)
- Email address (es)
- Email to send form to
- Contact form fields
- Map address (es)
- Mail address (es)
- Supporting text
- Areas serviced
- Business numbers or license numbers if required
- Premises photos
Supporting Content
- Testimonials including images
- Client images/logos
- FAQs
- 404 page content & links
- Downloads & Resources
- Video embed code (client to upload)
SEO
- Target keywords
Email Marketing
- CRM/autoresponder credentials
- Lists to add subscribers to
- Tags to add
- Opt in
- Location(s)
- Headline and/or subscribe text
- Button text
- Fields (optional/required)
Tracking & Scripts
- Analytics
- Facebook pixel code
- Live chat script
- Reviews embed code
eCommerce
- Products
- Title
- SKU
- Category
- Description
- Image
- Price
- Dimensions & Weight (if calculating shipping)
- Shipping method (s) & costs
- Payment method (s) and credentials
- Coupons
Legals
- Privacy Policy
- Terms and Conditions or other legal info
- Custom copyright
Taking your website content checklist for clients to the next level
Having a checklist is a step in the right direction. If you want to make it even easier, you’re better off providing your client with a document where they can add all of this info in directly. Drop your email in above to get our template.
If you want to make life even easier, the next level up is to use a tool like Content Snare to ensure your clients provide content, images and links in the right format. If you'd like to gather content from clients in the most efficient way possible, start a trial today.
Send me your template, please.
Hey Robin - you can grab the templates by entering your email in the box at the bottom of the post
Hello James,
Thank you for the documents. This is SO practical. Thanks!
Kindly send me your template.
Thank you.
Hope it helps!
You can put your email in and then you'll have the Google docs info delivered. From there you can create a copy into your own Google drive or download as a Word doc
Hi James,
Seriously this is what we generally think in the middle of every project to prepare list for new project. This list will be helpful for many agencies especially newbie 🙂
Us too! I think it's pretty common to think something like "oh man... we have to do this better next time" haha
Send the template.
I filled out the form 3 times and I still didnt get the email.
Please advise or provide the link.
Looks like you had previously subscribed and unsubscribed so it wasn't sending it out. I've made some changes to the automation and will email you the link manually
Great checklist. Wish I would have had this a loglng time ago. I always had pieces of something similar I would send out little bits at a time but never had (reads: took) the time to optimize the process.
Thanks for such a great resource. Out of curiosity... What type of increase in your actual production did you see after using a list like this? Has to save sooo much time lol.
Thanks again my friend.
Not going to lie... it took me a LONG time to do something about it as well. Everyone's so busy they forget to take time out. I actually dedicated an entire morning every week to optimising processes and team - one of the best things ever.
It's really hard to measure this kind of thing. Like a bad business owner, I wasn't tracking my own time to individual projects before/after. Same goes when we changed to Content Snare to manage the process. All I know for sure is that I stress & get mad less, which is the most important thing for me 🙂
Great help! Please send template. Thank you.
Hey Katy - the templates can be found at the end of the post. It gets delivered to your email 🙂
This is a great resource. Thanks for preparing and sharing it. I've signed up for the Google Docs but haven't received an email. I don't recall signing up in the past but I could be wrong. Thanks from a fellow Aussie in Melbourne 🙂
Really Helpful. Thanks for sharing
Superb resource! Great work, James. Thanks for creating and sharing such handy checklist. Thumbs up 😉
Awesome, glad you like it Ondreas. No worries at all!
Am not receiving the download link
The download link does not work! I tried with two different emails.
Can you please drop us a line at support@contentsnare.com from the email you used so we can check it out and send you the link
Love the site page masterlist on this page....would be very interested in template.
Saw your second comment that you found it. Glad you liked the master list!