Organizing Your Website Content

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Wesley Daniels
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1 A GUIDE TO Organizing Your Website Content How to build an optimized sitemap through card sorting

2 Table of Contents Overview / 3 Card Sorting Process / 4 Card Sorting Materials / 16 Conclusion / 18 About Mindscape / 20 2

3 Overview Building an Optimized Sitemap The process of creating a sitemap can be daunting, especially when you want the sitemap to not only accurately represent your business, but also to be optimized for search engines. Fortunately, once you have your keywords identified, there is an exercise you can perform that will help you build out your sitemap while simultaneously matching up keywords to each page. The exercise we will use for this process is called Card Sorting. 3

4 Card Sorting Process

5 Card Sorting Card sorting is, as the name suggests, the process of sorting cards into various related groups. It can be a fun exercise for you and your team and, with a couple iterations, it works very well for building out an optimized sitemap. Using your list of keywords gathered from the keyword research process, follow the steps below to build out your optimized site map. 5

6 Create the Cards The first step in card sorting is to create your cards. For your convenience, we have included a card template in the back of this ebook. You can also use a set of 3x5 index cards - lined or unlined, it doesn t matter much. On each card you want to write one keyword (or keyword phrase) from your keyword research results, as well as the search volume. Check out our ebook on how to go through the keyword research process if you haven t yet! Just work your way down your keyword list and write each keyword and its search volume on a new card until all keywords have been recorded. 6

7 Find Some Space Now the fun part begins. With your keywords written on the cards, lay all the cards keyword-side up in front of you. It s important that you re able to spread out and make lots of piles. 7

8 Group Highly Related Keywords Together As you look at the keywords in front of you, begin grouping highlyrelated terms together. You should try to get one to five cards per group. This process works best in a team of three so that any indecision can be settled by a quick majority wins vote. Each group of cards will become one page in of your sitemap. So for all the terms in a group, you want to imagine one or two paragraphs of text that can easily utilize all of those terms. For example, let s assume you have the following terms: Jewelry Store in Grand Rapids Best Jewelry Store Grand Rapids Grand Rapids Gold Necklaces Gold Necklaces West Michigan Grand Rapids Silver Jewelry Jewelers in Grand Rapids 8

9 Group Highly Related Keywords Together If you created a page that used the term Jewelry Store in Grand Rapids it may be difficult to work in the term Gold Necklaces West Michigan. Sure, you could probably find a creative way to do this, but you want the copy on each page to be highly focused. Below is an example of how these terms might be grouped, along with a little explanation of why the terms are grouped together. It s easy to imagine writing a couple paragraphs of text that contain all the terms below. We could write that when our visitors are looking for Jewelers in Grand Rapids we are the Best Jewelry Store in Grand Rapids. We can use those terms a few times in the copy and all the content on this page will be highly focused on our Jewelry Store. Jewelry Store in Grand Rapids Best Jewelry Store in Grand Rapids Jewelers in Grand Rapids 9

10 Group Highly Related Keywords Together Next we can focus on our Gold Necklaces and could easily write a couple paragraphs about how we offer Gold Necklaces in Grand Rapids and that we offer the finest selection of Gold Necklaces in West Michigan. Notice how these keywords are slightly different from our list. That s perfectly okay for long tail (keyword phrases with 3 or more terms) keyword phrases like this. Now we have a page of our site focused on our Gold Necklaces in Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids Gold Necklaces Gold Necklaces West Michigan Lastly, we have our Grand Rapids Silver Jewelry keyword phrase. It s the only one on the page so it will be easy to write copy around this term. Grand Rapids Silver Jewelry As you can see, each group has just a few keywords in it and the terms are highly related to one another. The more terms you have in a group, the more difficult it can be to write effective copy. 10

11 Group Highly Related Keywords Together Once you have your groups of 1-5 keywords made, identify the term that is either the most accurate description for the page OR the term with the most search volume. This term will become the name of your page. Put this card on top of the pile and group the other keyword cards below it. Use a paper clip, rubber band, or stapler to keep the cards together in their groups. As previously mentioned, each of these groups represents a page inside of your site. 11

12 Group Your Groups Once you have your keywords grouped into pages, you will want to do another round of card sorting to organize those pages. This step will help you organize your pages into sections, eventually completing your site map. Lay all of your clipped keyword groups out on the table and begin to group the piles together into logical groups. Again, this process works well with three people as you can quickly come to a consensus when there are questions. 12

13 Name the Groups After you have formed your groups of pages, try thinking of a name for those groups. Write the name on a piece of paper, on an extra card, or on a sticky note. Place each group name on the table from left to right. Place the pages below the group name in a vertical fashion. In our example, we might have grouped our Grand Rapids Silver Jewelry page with our Grand Rapids Gold Necklaces page. Having those two pages in a logical grouping, we may name that group Gold and Silver Jewelry. If there were more pages in that group, we may decide to name that group Our Jewelry or Products. Whatever name you choose doesn t necessarily have to be one of your keywords. The names you give these will form your top level navigation and should accurately and obviously represent the pages they contain. 13

14 Admire Your Work! Take a step back and look at your page groups. You have just created an optimized site map. Your group names are your top-level navigation elements and the pages below represent sub-pages. Do the names make sense? Do the pages contained in each group make sense? Are you missing any obvious pages like an about us page or an our company page? If so, simply create a card and add it to your site map. Occasionally you may end up with many pages in one group. In these cases it might make sense to make smaller groups of these pages, essentially creating three levels of navigation (top level, sub-pages, and sub-sub-pages). 14

15 Check Your Competitors Visit some of your competitor s websites. How does your site map compare to theirs? If you ve forgotten anything, just add a page and go back and do some keyword research for the content. Chances are though, if you ve done your keyword research well you shouldn t have missed much. 15

16 Card Sorting Materials

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18 CONCLUSION

19 Final Thoughts Building a sitemap and plotting out keywords to corresponding pages all from scratch can be frustrating. Like a puzzle, this process has many moving pieces to keep track of, and it all has to come together in a way that makes sense. Card sorting is a great way to visually organize your keywords into pages and easily make revisions as you work through the process. Working with up to 3 people total will also help gain insight and determine the sitemap you ll go forward with. Use the cards provided in this ebook, grab a couple of your coworkers, and have fun creating the foundation to your website! 19

20 About Mindscape Founded in 2001, we are a complete web-success company focused on creating user-friendly websites and Web-based applications that help companies save time and money by streamlining processes, generating leads and making sales. We provide ongoing marketing services that help companies understand buyers, and reach them via the Web at the exact moment those customers are looking to buy. Follow us for updates or contact us for more information: info@

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