A solid taxonomy strategy is essential for organizing content effectively. Think of it as the backbone of your content structure, designed to guide users smoothly to what they need. A clear taxonomy not only enhances user experience but also improves search engine optimization (SEO) performance. This post will walk you through creating a tailored taxonomy strategy to meet your unique content needs.
Strategic Content has an in-depth article explaining how taxonomy can be used for content management systems, navigation, search, meta data and personalization. And, Ingeniux has a wonderful article briefly explaining why taxonomy is important to these content functions. However, when it comes to teaching content strategist some techniques for strategizing a taxonomy for their content and classifying that content to the taxonomy strategy, the bloggers tend to leave us hanging. According to LinchpinSEO, an “average of 38% of visitors to a website will leave a site that is poorly laid out.”
With all of the articles out there about what a taxonomy is and how it can support an end user’s discoverability of your site’s content, there are very few (if any) articles explaining and teaching how to create a taxonomy strategy. Let's fix that problem, shall we?
Building a Taxonomy Strategy for Effective Content Organization
Creating a taxonomy for an existing enterprise ecosystem can seem very daunting. Where does one even begin?
Inventory the Content
You need to start by taking a full content inventory. A content inventory is a comprehensive, detailed list of all content assets on a website, digital platform, or within a broader content ecosystem. It provides a clear overview of all existing content and is often a first step in any content strategy, audit, or migration processes.
This process may take some time, particularly if your content is spread across multiple legacy locations, so plan accordingly. Most content management systems and databases have built-in functions for exporting data to Excel, which I recommend using to save time in compiling everything. Begin by focusing on active content.
Conduct A Content Audit & Analysis
Before developing your taxonomy, conduct a content audit to identify common themes within your subject matter. Be sure to include metadata, keywords, and user intent in your audit to create a more comprehensive understanding of the content landscape.
Then conduct a content analysis to identify top performing content and keywords. What are the common themes? Recognize primary focus areas, such as health, technology, or finance, which will inform your primary topics. For instance, if multiple posts cover the topic of "social media marketing," consider this as a topic.
Collect experience, traffic, and usability data for that content. Conduct keyword research. Keyword research is a helpful way to determine what content your audience is already looking for. Using relevant keywords in metadata to boost SEO and make content more searchable, increasing search visibility by 40%.
What are the top internal search terms?
What are the top external search terms for your content?
What are the top “people who ask” questions surrounding your keywords?
Don’t forget to tap into the data from the chat bots! What questions are users typing in the chat that leverage your keywords?
What are the top support subjects?
What about support calls?
What information or help do the users need?
How does your content address their needs?
Define Topics and Subtopics
Establishing clear topics and subtopics is crucial. You will need to think like your audience. Leverage search logs and user experience data to understand how your audience searches for and interacts with content. User surveys or keyword research can help when you do not yet have search logs to reference.
Organize your Topics into an intuitive hierarchy. Keep It Simple! Cover diverse topics, but keep the number manageable to prevent overwhelming users. Avoid overly complex structure; a good rule of thumb is 5-10 main categories.
Clarity is key! Use descriptive names that correlate to relevant search queries. Choose names that clearly describe the content theme. For instance, use "Travel Tips" instead of "Miscellaneous" for clarity.
Leverage Personas
How do the topics and sub-topics change based on the different personas? If your platform involves personalized or segmented experiences, a taxonomy informed by personas allows you to deliver content that feels tailored to each audience type, enhancing overall engagement and satisfaction.
How do the varying groups of users leverage the content?
What are those differentiating factors?
How would they use the content differently in their role?
Reach out to your design and marketing teams. They will most likely have personas they account for in their user experience design work. If your company doesn’t have personas designed, you can tap into the user groups you pulled in the audit.
Organize Topics and Subtopics
A visual aid is always helpful for organizing your topics and subtopics, as it visually shows how they relate to one another. I prefer to use a free whiteboard tool, such as Mural or LucidSpark to visualize and illustrate how topics and subtopics may interact to better deliver content to users.
Start by drawing 5-7 circles on my whiteboard, each representing a main content theme. Then, sort your topics into these themes, grouping similar and related items together to create clear topic clusters. Focusing on one bucket at a time keeps the process well-organized. Next, I rank the topics and subtopics within each theme to build a topic-based navigation wireframe.
Next, I create an organizational chart to represent the relationship between each topic and sub-topic in my taxonomy strategy.
Validate Your Taxonomy Strategy
Validating your taxonomy strategy with user testing is essential to ensure your content organization aligns with how real users understand and interact with information. This approach makes your taxonomy user-centered, intuitive, and effective, leading to a more seamless, engaging, and successful content experience.
I recommend a free Maze account, empowering you to perform user research exercises such as card sorting and tree testing to validate your taxonomy strategy.
Implementing Your Taxonomy Strategy
Once categories are defined, put your taxonomy strategy into action. Ensure your content management system supports your taxonomy. Most platforms enable easy implementation of categories and/or topics, and tags.
Map and connect existing content to the taxonomy following your application's best practice. Be sure to develop guidelines for categorizing new content to maintain consistency.
Continuous Improvement
Continual testing is essential to improve your taxonomy. Conduct user testing to confirm your taxonomy’s effectiveness and make necessary adjustments. And, regularly review and adjust your taxonomy to reflect changing trends and user needs.
Collect feedback on users’ navigation experiences
Analyzing Website Analytics. By continuously reviewing engagement data, you can identify high-performing topics and those that may need refinement.
Stay flexible; adjust categories based on user feedback and data to keep your taxonomy relevant.
Prioritize accessibility and relevance in your taxonomy strategy
Final Thoughts
An effective taxonomy strategy enhances user experience, boosts SEO, and streamlines content organization. By analyzing your content, defining clear categories, implementing thoughtfully, and refining through testing, you can create a taxonomy that allows users to engage meaningfully.
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