Managing Web Site Content
Understanding content lifecycles, workflow, authoring, and web pages
Tired of changing code on web pages every time the content needs to be updated? Maybe it's time for a content management system.
Very few companies build their own content management system (CMS) from scratch because there are a lot on the market today. Before selecting a content management system, take a close look at the content requirements of the business. Outline the following content management requirements and use them to investigate the product options available.
Content and its Lifecycle: All content has a lifecycle. It appears on a web page one day and is removed another, it may stay indefinitely or sometimes there is an urgent need to post it immediately. Review the content requirements for the web site. Document each type of content and its expected lifecycle. Think about the following questions:
- Does the CMS need to allow Start and End Dates for content?
- Is there a need to post content in real-time? Or can it be posted starting the next day? Are there concerns about posting urgent content across time zones?
- Does content that’s expired (the end date has been met) need to be retained or can it be deleted?
Roles in Content Management: There can be several different user roles in a CMS:
- Contributor: a person who offers information to be displayed on the site.
- Author: a person who writes content for the site.
- Editor: a person who reviews written content and suggests or makes changes. An editor can approve or deny the content to be published.
- Publisher: a person who sets the content to be published (posted) on the website.
- Translator: this is a person who translates a piece of content into one or more different languages.
Workflow Processes: It’s rare that a piece of content can be written and posted immediately to the website without going through some type of review and approval process. This process is called the “workflow process”. Depending on the requirement, different types of content can go through different workflow processes. A general workflow process might look like this:
- Step 1: Author creates the content and submits for review
- Step 2: Editor reviews the content and deny citing improvements required.
- Step 3: Author makes required changes and resubmits the content.
- Step 4: Editor reviews and approves the content.
- Step 5: Publisher reviews all approved content and posts the content.
- Step 6: Content is available on the website.
Outline the steps necessary to take each content type from creation to final publishing. Look for a CMS that will support the workflow.
How does content get to the web page? Content has been created, approved and published. So how does it actually get onto a specific web page on the website? It’s called Content Categorization and it happens during the creation or editing of the content. There are two types of categorization:
- Navigation based Categorization means that the author/editor selects the exact location on the web site where the content should be posted. Usually they do this by clicking through a Navigation tree that shows the website’s navigation and selecting the page the content should be displayed on. In this case, content can only live in one spot on the website.
- Attribute based Categorization means that the author/editor selects content attributes (Meta tags) that best describes the content. Web pages then display content that contain specific attributes. In this case, content is created once but can be displayed in more than one location on the website.
Content Management Software: There are many CMS applications available at different price points. Some systems you buy, some are hosting systems that you “rent”. Take a look at Google’s extensive listing of Content Management Systems.
Selecting a Content Management System requires fully understanding the content needs of a website. Understanding content lifecycles, workflows, roles and categorization are some of the key elements in a CMS. Sometimes it’s good to try an internal pilot using a demo of one or more CMS applications to determine if all the requirements can be met and if there’s anything that was missed.
