Wrap Your Head Around Your Site - Do a Content Inventory
Pondered on Wednesday September 3, 2008
My job as a Web Developer at a small company recently evolved. We bought a Web Content Management System called Tridion.
Before we met with the consultants I knew I needed to get a handle on how much content we had in the two systems that currently house our site. I wanted to account for what pages lived where. I had an idea but I needed to know for sure so I built an expanded site map.
What I quickly realized was that the site map was decent for getting a bird’s eye view of our content. The activity helped me assess page counts – our site is small (roughly 362 pages). I also noted where each page lived to help structure a migration checklist.
I had a gut feeling that I needed to know more about our content. Oddly enough months ago I asked my boss to get Dan M. Brown’s book Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning
After reading the chapter I knew I needed to look at every page of the site and assess what made up each page. I will warn you right now as Jeff Veen has stated this is a mind-numbing process.
The chapter took me a night to read. The inventory took hours – many well spaced apart hours. Through the bleary-eyed marathon I gained invaluable granular knowledge that the site map did not provide. I could identify how many page templates our site would need in the WCM. I also had a comprehensive view of what information made up each page. Due to some great content inventory examples I found online (listed below) I started to understand how to assign id numbers to our pages. That structure wasn’t far off from what the Tridion consultant needed from us.
The trouble with doing a content analysis is that it is only most valuable to the person or persons who complete the task. If I handed you the Excel file you might get it if you were already familiar with the site. Like training to run a marathon I can’t hand you my fitness level. You have to run the road yourself.
It is, in my opinion, the mental traversing of the pages that helps you wrap your head around what exactly your site has evolved into over the last few years. I highly recommend the activity for quarterly reporting on your web site. Plus from what I have read there is not a good software solution for outputting a content inventory. Just like there isn’t a way for you to “install” a better resting heart rate.
Content Inventory Resources
- Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning by Dan M. Brown
- Seneb Consulting’s Example Content Inventory (Excel)
- Doing a Content Inventory (Or, A Mind-Numbingly Detailed Odyssey Through Your Web Site) by Jeff Veen
- Taking a content inventory by Donna (Maurer) Spencer
What were they thinking?
- Patty Duggan
- thought on Sunday September 14, 2008
Add your thoughts
Jill. Nicely written! I’m impressed. Seriously. You should consider writing editorials for high-tech, software magazines.