16 Feb
2009
A project I’m currently working on involves analysing a large amount of legacy web content and restructuring a public sector site with a new, straightforward, navigation. Findability and interesting, relevant content is key.
In parallel, I’ve been asked to improve the same website’s performance in search engine results.
Being new to formal SEO, I started by looking at Nick Garner’s SEO success map (gif, 80kb). I promptly gulped at the enormity of the task and asked the Twitterverse for their opinion. The responses were interesting:
- ‘Don’t we automatically do a lot of that anyway when building usable sites?’
- ‘You do SEO every day – you just don’t realise it’
- ‘seo is naturally writing relevant content in valid, accessible, semantic html’
- ‘I’ve done not one ounce of SEO’
- ‘Ignore it. Good start is to just be sensible’
- ‘That SEO map seems to ignore writing good stuff’
After mulling over these opinions, and with some really useful ideas from Adam Maltpress on SEO considerations specifically in the context of public sector websites, I decided to pull together all of the strands into a mindmap (pdf, 104kb).
I created the mindmap as a tool to help my own thinking and planning, though I hope it’s general enough for others to use in planning how to build, restructure or develop their own web content.
The overarching ideas behind my approach are:
Limited resources
You have limited resources so you need to concentrate on areas you can control. The mindmap is broken down into sections so that you can make incremental improvements to specific areas.
Driven by content
Your strategy is content-driven: first and foremost it’s all about writing interesting content that’s relevant to readers and optimizing your site structure to support findability.
Organic SEO
No sneaky tactics, no link exchange programs. The SEO benefits of a strategy like this will be a result of writing more interesting content that other people link to and a site structure that search engines can crawl easily.
Collaborate
I’ve shared the mindmap on Mindmeister (registration required to edit). Please feel free to add your own ideas or feedback, either within the map itself or through in the comments below.
Updated 13th November 2009: The mindmap was open to collaborative editing on Mindmeister.com. Somehow the map was edited non-sensically beyond repair so I’ve now deleted the mindmap. Instead, here’s a PDF version of the mindmap (pdf, 104kb) I found in my archive.
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Great post on content strategy.. LOVE the mindmap you put together… will definitely be using this in an upcoming post!
Hi Andy. Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad you found the mindmap useful!
Gavin, thank you for sharing this document. This is the first time I’ve seen anyone attempt a content strategy mindmap – you’ve covered a lot of ground, here. It should be very useful to anyone who’s interested in seeing a high-level snapshot of the content lifecycle and all the associated players.
There’s going to be a content strategy consortium held in Memphis, TN this March – I’m facilitating, and I’d love to share this document with the group. May I?
Hi Kristina. The mindmap format was part experiment really. I was struggling to describe the elements and linkages of a content strategy and the resources involved in a sequential form. So, I thought I’d just get all of the ideas down and then see how they fit together. This seems to have struck a chord with a few people. I think it also reflects the chaotic world of content managers and the ‘hats’ we wear.
You’re welcome to use the document at the event in Memphis.
Richard Sheffield has produced this interesting mindmap on web content strategy structured around four components: technical; creative; process and design.