Managing Content

This article provides a high level overview of some of the issues and steps to take when working with existing content. It will provide the guidance needed to inventory, assess and edit content based on the parameters outlined.

Current Problem- Massive "Orphans"

Currently, there are a lot of pages that have not been seen or managed since creation. The content may be old or contain duplication and should be evaluated for future state consideration.

Not addressing legacy content has several SEO and user experience consequences, including:

• Negative SEO impact (short-term search rankings)
• Poor UX (hard to find answers with redundant pages)
• Lost rankings, traffic and leads

Using the SEO Status Meter

The current state of our SEO hovers from Poor to Weak, but our goal is to use the steps in this article to improve to at LEAST an OK state.

Solution 

Step 1: Take Inventory & Ownership

• Request inventory 
  • Request a CMS extract spreadsheet from Daniel Botha
    • Include: Topic, sub topics, acronyms and not so obvious keywords that could be used for the topic in title and description
  • Skim all spreadsheet page URLs for topic match
  • Confirm topics with email to Daniel Botha
    • List exceptions for pages you are NOT responsible for (Include why note, so the inventory page match query can be adjusted accordingly
    • Confirm ownership of remaining page URLs
• Toss back pages that aren't your topic

Step 2: Organize by Topic

• Review spreadsheet content
• Document topic/subtopic for each page
  • Identify and group subtopic pages
  • Log topics on inventory spreadsheet

Step 3: Clean Up Old, Outdated or Duplicated Content

Clean up removes critical negative SEO signals which enables good content efforts to actually have a shot at making an impact

• Type of content:
  • Old
  • Is it old evaluation:
    • Not old: Update (useful with refresh)
    • Old: Delete (no longer useful)
    • Old page analysis/what to look for:
      • Old creation date
      • Old year in title, URL or description
      • Old versions, standards, legislation, programs, change announcements, etc.
  • Duplicate
    • Duplicate topic analysis/what to look for:
      • Check title, description, and URL for repeated topics
      • Industry versions of a topic
      • Change announcements for a topic
      • Repeated topic section or definition on multiple pages
      • Different page types with a same topic title (i.e. service, event, article)
    • Content merging & updates
    • Good= include organized, concise, topic-relevant sections that address users' top questions
    • Not good= Dump a bunch of FAQs on the page
• Clean up
  • Clean up- Assign status
    • Identify page "status"
      • Ok
      • Old/delete
      • Old/update
      • Duplicate/update
      • Duplicate/merge
  • Clean up- Deletions
    • Document a best-match page URL to display instead (avoid "page not found" errors)
    • Send "page deletion request" to Daniel Botha: Include URL to delete, best alternate URL to show instead
    • Qualification: Page is old or duplicate content that is not needed or no longer useful
  • Clean up- Updates
    • Use a "notes" column to log tips for what to update, timing/urgency, etc.
    • Analyze Google top search results for input on how to make your page a better "answer"
    • Create revised page copy
    • Send "page update request" to Daniel Botha 
      • Include page URL, page copy
    • Qualification: Page will be a unique topic with current, value-added content once updated
  • Clean up- Mergers
    • Create revised page copy that concisely merges respective pages using organized sections. 
      • Don't force it. Quality over quantity.
    • Send "page merger request" to Daniel Botha
      • Include URLs to merge, page copy
      • Daniel will determine which URL to keep
    • Qualification:
      • Page topic was duplicated and requires consolidation to be unique, current and value added

Step 4: Keep Managing It!

• Maintain master spreadsheet
• Schedule regular page reviews
  • Add "review frequency" and "last reviewed" data
• Check spread sheet topics before planning new pages
• Monitor performance
  • Schedule monthly meeting review reports with Daniel Botha
  • Keep a log of notable page-level changes and additions

Learn More

The goal of content is to know the names and performance of all your topics. Want more information? Watch this Content Management Training recording presented by Angie Schotmuller.