I recently completed some work rebranding Endis, the sister company of the web business I work for. As well as specific sales and support web sites, Endis wanted an umbrella site for their UK brand. Simple, direct branding, with links off to the other sites (if you get geo-coded off to the US site, that was nothing to do with me. Just talking UK here).
Endis are a fantastic company with pedigree in web site development. Their unique and helpful platform works for both small and large organisations; commercial and charitable, as an off-the-shelf CMS and for fully customised sites.
Share Insight is the new support site for the Endis Insight platform. Because it is not a sales site, and the majority of content is generated by members (in forums) and staff (articles, guides, release notes, video), it contained little static content when I was asked to look at it.
This kind of content could be called supporting copy, creating the supporting frame for the interactions which take place upon the web site. Another term I like (and just coined I think) is environmental content: the content which sets the environment for users to interact.
Setting the right environment for a web site where existing customers come for support demands a clear user experience and easy access to the help that they need.
ChurchInsight have been providing websites to churches, charities and other organisations since 2002, developing and improving their platform many times over along the way.
I came into their new UK sales web site project as a copywriter, but ended up having a big say in the overall structure and tone of the site. Insight does so much that the important thing was to draw out a few selling points clearly and simply instead of trying to get them all in and losing people in the ensuing melee.
Gabriel Smy is a writer and Content Strategist at Fluent. SmyWord is his iron in the content strategy fire. He lives in Cambridge with his four sons and can't resist a paisley shirt, a moody film or a good gastropub. You can follow Gabriel on Twitter.