Looking for a crash course in content management? You’ve come to the right place. Many of our clients such as Symmons, Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) and recent Sitecore Site of the Year award winner, Goodwin Procter, LLP have all invested significant time, resources and money in robust content management systems to have the flexibility of creating and editing their website content.
As developers during the design/development phase of each project, we use a comprehensive CMS strategy, applying proven best practices and a structured methodology to ensure the success of each project. Last fall, Engineering Manager, Sean Connell, wrote a post on the “5 Simple Steps of CMS Implementation” and now I am following up with a few best practices of content management that should be enforced during the CMS implementation. Let’s dive right into these tactics, shall we?
Simplicity/Ease of Use
Keep the content management system (CMS) user-friendly for the content authors. Navigating the CMS should be intuitive much the same way as the website. When implementing a CMS, care should be taken to maintain consistent naming conventions and adding helpful messaging around more complex areas of the CMS. Automation and pre-populated fields will also make it easier for content authors to edit different areas of each page, while maintaining brand consistency throughout the entire website. You’ll find a “lack of adoption” from users if the system is too difficult for them to follow.
Workflow/Security
Website owners want the right people editing content at the right time. To ensure an effective content strategy, make sure to implement a publishing workflow so that administers can oversee the content that gets published. Automate workflow tasks as much as possible to avoid over complication. Be cognizant of the organization you’re building workflow on behalf. Some organizations have less process and some have more process. Tailor workflow to the organization.
Preview/Authoring Environment
Giving content authors the ability to preview content before it appears on the website is fundamental for a good CMS implementation. For larger organizations, it might make sense to set up a content authoring environment on one or more servers to review content styling and grammar. Then publish approved content to one or more content delivery servers via workflow.
Structured Content
The structure of your content tree is very important and is crucial for your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Make sure you are working closely with your SEO and Information Architecture teams to layout the structure of your website content. Keep your blog towards the top (or root) of your content tree as this will be the website’s way of providing search engine spiders fresh content.
Search for the End User
Often times, users will go directly to the search tool before scanning the website to look for information. It’s important for developers to consider the end user and not just the content authors when developing the website. Using the CMS, developers can build custom indexes that will provide better search utilities for the end user.
Once the website is developed, it’s up to the content authors to leverage the strengths and benefits of the CMS. Check back next week for a post on best practices of content management for content authors and learn more CMS capabilities and how they create a better web experience for your content authors and site visitors.
If you’re still in the CMS selection phase of the process, feel free to check out our CMS White Paper to learn a four-step approach for CMS comparisons.