If you are an information architect, using a content analysis tool will enable you strengthen the understanding of the website’s structure; especially the key sections, pages and how the content is distributed. A properly done inventory lays the ground for website redesign because you can assess what content currently exists, the quantity and its organization. As a result, you can use content inventories to;

1. Identify the project scope; what is the quantity of the content on your site?
2. Establish the various types of content on your site
3. Understand website structure; what is the location of the content? Can the hierarchies or patterns be viewed in the URL structures?
4. View Metadata: Have you tagged the pages appropriately?

For a better understanding of your content pages, the templates and the real content and how they relate, use a content analysis tool. Using an automated tool will save you time because you don’t have to copy and paste page links, it gets this done fast and right.

How the DYNO Mapper Content Inventory Helps

• Enables you to understand the website’s URL patterns
• Brings out an all-inclusive list of all files on the website; HTML, videos, images, audio files, documents, among others.
• Captures metadata like page titles, descriptions and keywords, all necessary for SEO gap analysis.
• You can visually identify page templates with each page’s screenshots
• Provides in/out links of all the pages and therefore you can analyze cross-linking on the website
• Export with ease to Excel or a different tool for comprehensive data analysis.

How to Use the Data After an Inventory

An inventory enables you to;

1. Create content audits based on website pages
2. Populate sitemaps and content maps
3. Prepare a content migration worksheet
4. Apply metadata tags and taxonomy to pages prior to content migration.

Armed with this information, you can proceed with your sites’ redesign with a high level of accuracy. 

Additional Resources:

Content Inventories, Audits, and Analyses: All part of benchmarking, Rahel Anne Bailie

The Content Inventory is Your Friend, Kristina Halvorson

Building the Mother of All Content Inventories, Sue Davis

The content inventory, Rahel Anne Bailie