Web content

Web content is the text, visual or audio content that is made available online and user encountered as part of the online usage and experience on websites. It may include text, images, sounds and audio, online videos, among other items placed within web pages.

In the book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville wrote, "We define content broadly as 'the stuff in your website.' Web content may include webpage document pages, information, software data and applications, e-services, images, audio and video files, personal Web pages, archived e-mail messages stored on email servers, and more. And we include future web content as well as present web content roadmap."^[1]^: 219

HTML web content

Even though we may embed various protocols within web pages, the "web page" composed of "HTML" (or some variation) content is still the dominant way whereby we share content. And while there are many web pages with localized proprietary structure (most usually, business websites), many millions of websites abound that are structured according to a common core idea.

Blogs are a type of websites that contain mainly web pages authored in HTML (although the blogger may be completely unaware that the web pages are composed using HTML due to the blogging tool that may be in use). Millions of people use blogs online; a blog is now the new "home page", that is, a place where a persona can reveal personal information, and/or build a concept as to who this persona is. Even though a blog may be written for other purposes, such as promoting a business, the core of a blog is the fact that it is written by a "person" and that person reveals information from her/his perspective. Blogs have become a mighty weapon used by content marketers who desire to increase their site's traffic, as well as, rank in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Modern research from Technorati shows that blogs now outrank social networks for consumer influence (Technorati's 2013 Digital Influence Report data).

Search engine sites are composed mainly of HTML content, but also has a typically structured approach to revealing information. A Search Engine Results Page (SERP) displays a heading, usually the name of the search engine itself, and then a list of websites and their web addresses. The web addresses are listed by their order of relevance according to the search query. Searchers typically type in keywords or keyword phrases to find or search what they are looking for on the web.

Discussion boards are sites composed of "textual" content organized by HTML or some variation that can be viewed in a web browser. The driving mechanism of a discussion board is the fact that users are registered and once registered can write posts. Often a discussion board is made up of posts asking some question to which other users may provide answers to those questions.

Ecommerce sites are primarily composed of textual material and embedded with graphics displaying a picture of the item(s) for sale. However, there are extremely few sites that are composed page-by-page using some variant of HTML. Generally, webpages are formed as they are being served from a database to a customer using a web browser. However, the user sees the mainly text document arriving as a webpage to be viewed in a web browser. Ecommerce sites are usually organized by the software we identify as a "shopping cart".

Content management

Because websites are often complex, a term "content management" appeared in the late 1990s identifying a method or in some cases a tool to organize all the diverse elements to be contained on a website.^[2]^{[better source needed]} Content management often means that within a business there is a range of people who have distinct roles to do with content management, such as content author, editor, publisher, and administrator. But it also means there may be a content management system whereby each of the different roles is organized to provide their assistance in operating the system and organizing the information for a website. A business may also employ various content protection measures, which are typically technologies used to attempt to frustrate copying without permission.

Even though a business may organize to collect, contain, and represent that information online, content needs organization in such a manner to provide the reader (browser) with an overall "customer experience" that is easy to use, to be sure the site can be navigated with ease, and that the website can fulfill the role assigned to it by the business, that is, to sell to customers, to market products and services, or to inform customers.

Geotargeting

Geotargeting of web content in Internet marketing and geomarketing is the method of determining the geolocation (the physical location) of a website visitor with geolocation software and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/ZIP code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP, or other criteria.

A typical example for different content by choice in geo-targeting is the FedEx website at FedEx.com where users have the option to select their country location first and are then presented with a different site or article content depending on their selection.

Automated different content

With automated different content in Internet marketing and geomarketing, the delivery of different content based on the geographical geolocation and other personal information is automated.

References

^ Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (2nd ed.). O'Reilly Media. 1998. ISBN 9781565922822.
^ Is Content King?

[1] Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (2nd ed.). O'Reilly Media. 1998. ISBN 9781565922822.

[2] Is Content King?

[1]

[2]

HTML web content

Content management

Geotargeting

Automated different content

See also

References