Content 102: Preparing Content for Your Site

Clearly labeled, well-organized content helps a site get off to a good start. In this article, we’ll walk through how to get your content ready to hand off—including file types, naming tips, and practical strategies that we've developed to set website projects up for success.

Start with a Folder

Create a folder on your computer or cloud drive labeled with your project name. Inside, make subfolders for each major content type.

• Text (bios, services, product descriptions, etc.)

• Images (photos, logos, graphics)

• Video or Audio (if applicable)

• Documents (PDFs, forms, whitepapers, slide decks)

• Other (screenshots, reference files, moodboard elements)

If you're a Soka AI client, we'll use these same folder structure to collect and store your content. Depending on what you have, you might upload to Google Drive, or through an input form.

Labeling Files

Use filenames that describe the file’s purpose or location on the site.

This works: homepage.txt about-us.docx

Even better—include your name or initials in the filename, in case files get separated or merged:

alex-homepage.txt js-about-us.docx

If you’re not sure where a piece of content belongs, you can name it based on the topic and contributor. If you have a ton of content and renaming it is an obstacle for you, you may need us to batch rename large quantity of content, and we can do that. We usually talk this through with new clients.

Written Content

Save files in these formats:

• Plain text (.txt)

• Word documents (.docx)

• Google Docs

• Google Sheets

Image Files

Send us the best version you have. We can resize and optimize as needed.

Preferred formats:

• JPG or PNG (standard)

• SVG (for logos or icons, if available)

• WebP (optional—enthusiastic/advanced users only)

  
  

Recommended sizes:

• At least 1500px wide for full-width images

• Minimum 600x600px for square images like team photos or thumbnails

Describe Your Images for the alt text

We write captions, content, accessibility and SEO tags, all based on the info you supply about your images. The key is to be specific.

Here's an example for the image below. We can see by looking that this is a woman pointing at her iPad and cutting and onion. That's not helpful information for the description, though. What is helpful is specific information about the image that relates to your business. Here's how that might look:

"Mila reviewing a recipe on her tablet while prepping ingredients for the spring menu at our downtown café location."

This covers a few things:

• It names the person (which helps humanize it)

• It mentions the activity and location (which offers context)

• It gives enough for accessibility and SEO, without over-describing

• It supplies information for the caption, to write content, or train AI.

  
  

Unprepped content, like onions, creates problems.

Here's why you will want to supply details for each photo:

• It makes it possible for us write SEO-friendly and accessibility-compliant alt text

• It clarifies and provides context we can’t always guess

• It reduces back-and-forth communication, which keeps costs down and speeds up the site build

  
  

It is not necessary for you to write your own altt text, but if want to, that will save us even more time and money. You can provide alt-text in this format: a text file or spreadsheet that describes each image, along with the image name.

Another tip is to name the image to reflect what it is. Example for above: kitchen-prep.jpg

And here’s the alt-text for the image:

Woman chopping vegetables in a bright kitchen while looking at a tablet, surrounded by fresh herbs and ingredients on a counter.

Keep it Organized

If you have a lot of content, a little structure up front makes the entire process smoother.

Tips for setting up a structure that works for you:

• Using numbered filenames can indicate order: 01_homepage.txt, 02_about.txt

• Avoid names like final-final-v3.docx

• Break large documents into smaller files by topic or section

• If you're collaborating, add your name or initials to the file name, so we know who to ask about it.

  
  

Tell us What it's For

You don’t need to know exactly where everything goes. But if you have a sense of what the content is for—tell us.

Just include a quick note like:

"This belongs on the About page, below the founder bio."

"This could be a section on the homepage or services page."

We’ll read what you send and help make smart placement decisions.

One Final Thought

We love working with content, so think of these ideas as suggestions and starting points. Every site is different, and every site is built around its content.