Part 1: Take control of content with clear guidelines

Part 1: Take control of content with clear guidelines

The organisation ABC has decided to improve their website that they launched in 1999. They hire an agency and set up a project team. The starting point for the client at ABC is to focus on the technology. "We just migrate the content. It's fine as it is."

But wow, there are a lot of pages on the website! As the project team starts digging through the pages, several problems come to the surface. The web team says: "We don't have an overview! We can't manage all this!". And those responsible for the content: "We can't find our own content on the site! And we don't know what our visitors find!". ABC's customer service team reports numerous and confused calls from users who have found outdated pages and pages with incorrect information. The project team also realises that the old websites are difficult to navigate, especially for users with disabilities.

And besides – everyone at ABC has a nagging feeling: isn't a disproportionately large website a burden on the environment? Surely it has a negative carbon footprint?

Guidelines for clarity and sustainability

What to do? The project manager formulates a plan with his or her project team, and together they take action. A key element of the plan is long-term sustainability. The aim is to develop guidelines that everyone working on the website can follow, and that they can share across the organisation. However, knowing that it is difficult to develop guidelines without context, they decide to work in an integrated way: the guidelines will evolve as the work progresses.

The work to take control of the content is done in three steps, which will also be reflected in the guidelines:

1. Check page visitor statistics.
2. Decide whether pages should be improved, merged or deleted.
3. Delete pages appropriately.
   

Check page visitor statistics

The project team starts by finding out how many visitors each page has. They use analytical tools to see both recent page views and page views over a longer period of time. If a page is to convert visitors to an action, they make sure to also measure the goal of the page and see how well it converts.

Already now, the project team can see that there are many pages that could be removed. They make a list of web pages that have few visits or low conversion rates.

Improve, merge or delete?

Once they know how each page is performing, it's time to think about why. Is it difficult to find the page via links and navigation? Is the page not capturing the keywords that target audiences are searching for? Are there perhaps several pages on the site competing for the same keywords? The project team also questions the pages: does each page have a clear purpose and a clear desire to convert?

It turns out that there are lots of overlapping pages, both in terms of content and keywords. Some pages cannot be found via the menus. And many pages have an unclear purpose and goal.

The project team is now reviewing the list of pages and deciding on three types of action:

• Improve the page so that it gets more visitors or conversions, for example by targeting the text to other keywords or making the page visible in the menu and through links.
• Merge several pages into one.
• Delete pages.

If the project team cannot agree on what to do with a page, they go to the project manager who decides, usually in collaboration with experts.

Now there is a plan to delete the pages and to make the pages that remain significantly better. And they take the lessons learned into the guidelines.

Removing pages the right way

Some pages simply have to go. And those that need to be removed, they remove them properly, so they don't break any links to the page that end up in the trash. A lot of broken links can negatively affect search engine optimisation.

That's why they always do two things when they remove a page:

• Deindex the page so it doesn't show up in search results.
• Redirect the page URL to another appropriate page on the site.
  

Cleaned-up website and guidelines in place

The project team has now removed almost half of the original pages. They have also formulated guidelines for everyone at ABC to follow when creating new pages, merging and deleting web pages. The web team will take responsibility for managing the guidelines. The project team also proposes a network that will have the chance to continuously develop the guidelines. Experts are of course part of the network.

They complement the guidelines by describing who is responsible for what: The web team decides which web pages to include, as they have an overview of the website. Experts provide content knowledge.

Now they want to spread the word throughout ABC. They hold information sessions and trainings on the guidelines and responsibilities, and it is clear that they are much needed. There is a sense of security when everyone knows what the rules are.

Take control of the content with clear guidelines – you will contribute to these goals

All is now well and good. A lot of pages have been removed, but no important content has disappeared. But which of the UN Global Goals has the project team contributed to?

• Goal 7: Sustainable energy for all
  The project has probably reduced ABC's energy needs by reducing the number of web pages.
• Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth
  ABC employees are relieved of the stress of having a website that they cannot keep track of. It is now easy to see their own responsibilities on the website and intranet.
• Objective 12: Sustainable consumption and production
  ABC has ensured that web production is sustainable in the long term, with guidelines for deleting content and guidelines for adding new content – and who should do it.

Read more about the ABC organisation in parts 2 and 3 of our blog. Part 2 will describe how ABC used the shape of its web pages to make the site searchable and accessible to all. Part 3 will talk about the linguistic expression of the website.