The User Experience Blog for Website Architecture Planning

International targeting is not something that every webmaster is familiar with, especially if their market is more localized. When a person manages multiple websites that are designed for users within a specific region that speak a specific language, it is important that the search results display the most relevant language as well as the country version of the website. There are two major things that one can do to make sure that the content will reach the audience in the correct language: URL level targeting and site-wide targeting.

What is a Content Audit?

A content audit is the process of checking each piece of content on a website, and then compiling it into a large list. When you opt to perform a full content inventory, you will make a complete list of every single item of content on the website. This will include all pages as well as any assets like videos or downloadable files. In lieu of this, you may opt to perform a partial content inventory. This is simply a listing of a specific subset of the website's content. A partial inventory could include the top few levels of a hierarchical website, or the most recent content created in a specific time period (like the last 6 months). This will still include all sections of the website. To dwindle it down even further, a content sample is a less detailed collection of content pieces from the website.

Productivity tools are an essential part of completing a successful website redesign. Some individuals might think that the task of redesigning their website means simply giving it a facelift—this is not the case. Doing this will cause an array of problems. It is essential for the webmaster to know the content that makes up the website and how it performs, as well as how to proceed with new content going forward. Visual sitemaps, content inventories, content audits, Google Analytics, and content planning tools are made to assist with discovering the meat of a website, and translating what you should do with it.

What is a Content Inventory?

A content inventory is a comprehensive list of your content that has been organized within a spreadsheet or software. Using this, you can plan the content of a brand new website or improve upon an existing one. When you are in the midst of a website redesign or migration, a content inventory will collect more information to add to the initial list of files on the inventory. The program that you are using, such as DYNO Mapper, can accommodate more columns of data as they become available. The way that the data is organized will depend on the structure of the website and its navigational model. Content inventory is also used for tracking content through different systems. Additionally, use a content inventory to guide how each web page will be rebuilt when undergoing a redesign. When you choose to perform a content inventory, you are actively taking stock of what items are contained on a website, leading to a successful content audit.

For anyone who has an established website with good traffic and search rankings, the greatest challenge of a website redesign is reaching or surpassing the current algorithms so rankings and traffic is not lost. That is generally not an easy task, and for good reasons. Let's look at the top 10 website redesign mistakes site owners usually make.