JD Power reports that one of the top issues users have with enterprise digital experiences is navigation and way finding. Simply put, users cannot find the content they need when they need it. Wait! How can that be? Our marketing and UX teams create some great content, right? It is because we do not structure and organize our content in such a way that optimizes search and recommendation engines, so they can understand the content and deliver recommendations in context.
Why do users feel they can’t find relevant content?
Search engines use algorithms to identify the patterns in not only what users are searching for, but also how they are searching for it. Search engines utilize crawlers that find, qualify, and rank content in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Optimizing your content for SEO not only increases the chance to be discovered by qualified traffic (users with intent), it also aids machine learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) by identifying and learning content relevance and the inter-dependencies between content elements. Because the relationship between the pieces of content is understood, it gives recommendations the ability to serve relevant content to customers.
Recommendation engines rely on machine algorithms that search, map, and provide users with relevant content. They are self-learning and self-optimizing, utilizing AI to break personalization out of the rules-based engines automating the delivery of user experiences at the one-to-one level. Much like in SEO, recommendation relies on both keywords to describe the content, and hyperlinks to understand the relationships between the content elements in order to determine the best content match for the user. Recommendation works by using hybrid methods of collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. Because the relationship between the pieces of content is understood, recommendations gain the ability to serve relevant baseline experiences to customers. If we don't optimize the way we organize and manage our content, then we weaken the value of our recommendation system significantly.
How to optimize your content
Navigation
You want users to articulate exactly what your site offers simply by looking at the navigation menu. Don’t hide relevant content topics under categories such as “shop” or “services”. Display them proudly in your navigation.
Leverage topic clusters to structure your site navigation and architecture.
Your navigation menu should use keywords! Each navigation link should be a relevant keyword phrase that leads to the content for that topic or solution. Each overarching subject (generally focused around a broad keyword with high search volume).
Relational sub-topics, focus on more specific keywords with smaller (attainable) search volumes.
Sub-topics should anchor back to the overarching topic content using both inbound and internal links.
Overall better user experience aids ML and AI in identifying and learning content relevance and the inter-dependencies between content.
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