Gathering Content for Websites

The content gathering process is one of the most important steps in planning a website.

We at Emarkable are firm believers in a ‘content-first’ approach to planning websites. Allowing your content to drive your designs and layouts not only saves time and increases production efficiency; it also optimises information for your users and lets your designs support the content, not the other way around. The gathering content process takes place during the planning phase and is key to getting organised, especially when your site will include many pages or content of a complex nature.

The phrase ‘gather content’ means bringing together content elements (including text and media) that will be presented on a website and organising them so that they can be easily edited, evaluated, and staged for development.

Content gathering may take place in slightly different flavours at different points in a website’s production lifecycle, including new websites, website redesigns, and existing active websites.

Depending on how deeply you want to dive into your content planning, there are several key pieces of information to consider, as well as some helpful additions and optional recommendations. Please review some of the types of content we recommend gathering below. Most of what we highly recommend are elements that drive design, but we also include those that drive search engine optimisation and general workflow support.

Content Gathering for Website Redesigns

Create a Content Inventory

A content inventory is a list or chart of all the pages and associated content contained within an existing website. A simple inventory may be in the form of a spreadsheet containing key pieces of information. We recommend a visual sitemap in the form of an organisational hierarchy, which allows you not only to see what pages are included on your site but also how they are linked together to form your website’s architecture. You may want to use a site crawler to automatically discover pages and page data about your website – trust us, this saves a considerable amount of time, especially on big sites.

  • A key part of evaluating current website content.
  • Compile a content inventory to understand better what content exists on your website.
  • Perform a content audit to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of content.

Create a Content Inventory

A content inventory is a list or chart of all the pages and associated content contained within an existing website. A simple inventory may be in the form of a spreadsheet containing key pieces of information.

We recommend a visual sitemap in the form of an organisational hierarchy, which allows you not only to see what pages are included on your site but also how they are linked together to form your website’s architecture. You may want to use a site crawler to discover pages and page data about your website automatically. Trust us, this saves a massive amount of time, especially on big sites.

Simple Content Inventory

Your content inventory may also include:

  • Page Information: page titles, meta descriptions, and URLs
  • Page Stats: organic visits, total page views, landing page conversions, bounce rates
  • SEO Information: primary and secondary keywords for optimisation, inbound links
  • Associated Content: links to actual page content or a content organiser for easy viewing

Performing a Content Audit

The next step is to perform a content audit, a process that evaluates your existing content to identify its strengths and weaknesses. This exercise also provides insight into where content gaps might exist, as well as where optimisation opportunities might exist, and where outdated content needs to be refreshed. Most importantly, it can identify high-performing content that you need to be very careful with when performing any redesign.

Once you have completed your content inventory, it’s time to perform some operations on the data to extract important learnings. You may need to merge the content inventory list with data exported from an analytics system, such as Google Analytics.

Rank by Landing Page Conversions

Rank pages to see which ones had the most user entrances that resulted in conversions. Be cautious when editing high-converting pages to avoid removing or editing them too much. Identify non-converting pages that might be rewritten, optimised, or removed.

Look at Social Engagement

Understanding which pages have been shared on social media will help you further identify which content is playing the most critical role on your website. This can be very helpful in determining whether your site’s blog is successful or not. You can also decide later on which pages to spend more time promoting on social media.

Identify Pages with High Bounce Rates

Pages with high bounce rates need to be fixed or possibly removed altogether. Compare individual page bounce rates to the site averages to determine where to put your attention. High bounce rate landing pages can hurt your overall SEO.

Review SEO Elements

Review your page titles and meta descriptions. Ask yourself, do they match the page content? Remember, this information is what people see when they perform a search engine query. Your title and meta description need to be compelling and reflective of the underlying content, or you may suffer from low click-throughs and high bounce rates. Think of these as a text ad.

Compare Time on Page

You may find that visitors spend more time looking at one type of page than others, which could indicate where to focus your attention. Don’t waste time and money building out sections that don’t hold readers’ attention. Look for trends.

Identify & Evaluate Inbound

You may want to identify which pages have the most inbound links by using additional 3rd party tools. You might hurt your SEO if you decide to remove a page with many inbound links. Always remember to create 301 redirects if you do remove a page to preserve the link equity from those inbound links.

Gather Content for Existing Active Websites

Gathering content for existing and actively developed websites can aid in workflow and process management. We recommend active content gathering, especially in situations where content is being created regularly, such as a blog, press centre, or help desk. When content is due on a deadline, keeping a well-ordered process is key to releasing it on time every time.

More Planning your Website

Part 5

Content Planning for Success

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Part 7

Optimising Your Content Workflow

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