In general, it is safe to think of Content Types as templates for documents and records created in SharePoint.  I explained Content Types in more detail in this post: http://sharepointrm.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/content-types-and-sharepoint-rm/.

Before you create a Content Type, you should make sure you know the metadata requirements for the document/record type you are creating.  All of this should be the result of your business process analysis your organization did prior to implementing SharePoint.  (You diddo a business process analysis, right?)  You should create all the metadata site columns you need to include in new Content Type prior to creating the Content Type.  (Creating new site columns is not difficult, but I’ll try to write up a post on the process soon.)

To create a Content Type, log into SharePoint as a user with site administration permissions.  On the site Home page, click on ‘Site Actions’, select ‘Site Settings’ and ‘Modify All Site Settings’.

Under ‘Galleries’, select ‘Site content types’.

On the ‘Site Content Type Gallery’ page, click on ‘Create’.

Enter the name of the Content Type, a description, the parent Content Types and the Content Type Group.  Click on ‘OK’ to create the new Content Type.

Within the new Content Type, you’ll want to add additional Site Columns (metadata fields).  (These Site Columns should be created prior to creating the Content Type.  I’ll try to include a post on creating Site Columns sometime in the near future, but it’s really not hard.)  Click on ‘Add from existing site columns’.

Select the desired Site Columns and add them to the list.  Click on ‘OK’. 

That’s it.  The new Content Type is created.

In coming posts, I’ll show you how to assign the post to a Document Library and base Records Routing on the Content Type.