Content taxonomy is the backbone of internal site search

High-quality website content is crucial for engagement and conversion. It requires an investment of time, money, and resources, but that investment can be wasted if your prospects and customers can’t find it.

Consider Amazon. You’re not going to buy anything there (or even go to the site more than a couple of times) if their search results don’t give you relevant, useful options.

That’s where content organization and tagging come into play.

What is content taxonomy?

Content taxonomy is the categorization and classification of the content on a website. An effective content marketing taxonomy enables several important functions, such as finding and re-using content, dynamically creating web pages, and filtering search results. It also improves the results of internal site search.

When you place a coffee order, you need to specify size and your caffeine preference, but you may not want milk. And you might go off the beaten path and combine two syrups. It’s the same with a content marketing taxonomy; some categories may be mandatory (content type), while others may be optional (product). Some like journey stage might be multi-select.

How to develop a content taxonomy

The first step is to determine your required categories. Many are common to content-based websites, including:

• Media format

• Content type

• Review cadence

• Persona

• Journey stage

You’ll also want to consider your company’s needs and priorities. For example, if you’re global, your content might be translated into several different languages or you might need to categorize it by world region. And you’ll likely need several categories based on your products, services, or solutions. Keep in mind that this exercise should take existing content into account as well as any potential future plans, such as expansion into other countries.

With your categories established, next, you’ll define the classifications needed under each one, again looking at both the present state and future plans. Voila! You now have the foundation you need to enable your internal site search to find and display relevant high-priority content. With this taxonomy as your cornerstone, you can organize and tag the content on your site so your customers (and your marketing and sales teams) can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.

[If that sounds like a daunting task for your business, Credera’s strategists specialize in working with our clients to develop that type of framework. Let’s talk about how we can help.]

Content taxonomy best practices

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you’re developing a taxonomy:

• Use unique terms as categories and subcategories to avoid confusion.

• Stay away from jargon or internal phrases.

• Be specific — don’t use terms like “other” or “miscellaneous.”

• Avoid most acronyms.

• Don’t use special characters.

• Use title case and noun-based phrases.

• CMS
• Content Management
• Content Strategy
• Digital Experience