I am an expert in digital content management, website administration and governance, accessibility (WCAG) and search engine optimisation (SEO) in Melbourne Australia.
What is digital communications?
Digital communications is about writing, editing, publishing and managing your online content so that your organisation or identity is presented professionally and consistently wherever your customers, clients, stakeholders or audiences find and understand you.
My background
Who I am
I’m a digital communications expert.
My background is in academic, government and trade print publishing. I have edited and typeset everything from government newsletters to academic journals and monographs.
I coded and published my first website in HTML in 1996 and have been writing for, editing, publishing, designing and developing websites ever since.
I understand HTML and a bit of CSS, but I am not a developer. I am a publisher, administrator and manager. My web development my expertise is in the technical standards and broader standards of best practice for web publishing.
What I do
My focus is on publishing, which means managing content so that it reaches and meets the needs of audiences. I structure content for digital delivery using my professional experience in writing and editing, and my governance and technical skills in managing websites, whatever content management system they use.
I am expert in the most popular open source content management system, WordPress, and am experienced in others used in government, corporations and organisations, like Drupal, Joomla, Squiz Matrix and Sitecore.
Most of my work has been in the government, education and health sectors; however my skills and experience make me flexible and able to quickly adapt to new industries and environments.
In recent years I have worked for and in membership and member services organisations, superannuation, medical, health and sport.
My primary focus is on websites. Many organisations neglect their websites as they view social media as more fashionable, but they neglect to understand the user behaviour data, which often shows that their website attracts many more visits than their social media profiles.
I can fix your website problems
My depth and breadth of knowledge in digital communications is the product of extensive and diverse experience gained in the public and private sectors in diverse industries including education, health, wine and real estate.
Accessibility
Problem: your developers don’t know anything about accessibility
I advise how to build accessibility features into sites during development and write associated content, such as image alt tags.
For existing sites, I audit your site for accessibility, and scope and document work to retrofit it to meet current standards.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Problem: your developers don’t know anything about search engine optimisation
I advise how to build search engine optimisation features into sites during development.
For existing sites, I audit the search engine optimisation of your site, and scope and document work to retrofit it to meet current standards, such as writing a meta description for each page and implementing open graph (OG) metadata.
Content management
Problem: no one in your organisation wants to take ownership of your content
For new sites I undertake content management by writing content, and structuring it by designing the information architecture, taxonomy and navigation that provide structure to websites.
Another common task is auditing the content of existing sites that are to be migrated to new content management systems, redesigned or rebranded. I determine what content to discard, what to keep and what missing ideas need to be explained by writing new content.
Google Analytics
Problem: you don’t understand how your content is performing or if anyone is reading it
I analyse and write customised reports on the data collected by Google Analytics and Google Search Console about your website.
Social media and email newsletters
Problem: you don’t coordinate your content across website, newsletter and social media
I plan and write social media and email newsletter content, and advise on publishing best practices.
If your content across multiple platforms is disorganised or inconsistent, you’re not communicating with your audience but confusing them.
Rescuing broken, hacked or neglected sites
Problem: your website has suddenly crashed, or you are locked out from the CMS or your hosting account
I have seen a range of website disasters relating to broken, hacked and otherwise neglected websites. The outcome is that the website breaks or disappears, and you panic.
Do you have easy to access, up to date records showing the expiry and renewal dates for your domain names and web hosting accounts? Without these, your website could be lost.
Do you have logins for your website, social media accounts, Google Analytics and other digital assets recorded and secured to prevent unauthorised access, or loss of access?
Governance, documentation and training
Problem: you lack expertise in managing digital assets
I can review your digital publishing practices, then develop governance and management plans, and deliver customised training to your staff.
I also document web publishing processes and write website manuals so that you retain organisational knowledge rather than losing it when employees leave.
Hire me
I am available for everything from a one day consultancy to conduct a high level audit of your website, benchmarked against current standards of best practice, or for six months full time to lead a content migration for a large corporate or government website.