As I work with more and more sites I continue to be struck with how different each site is. One difference in particular can be content froth, or what content is bubbling on the surface of the website. The content that changes frequently can include:
- Comments
- Press releases
- Blog posts
- News
- Product updates
- New reports
- Corrections
River Sites
Some sites are very frothy, like news sites that are more like rivers with content flowing onto the site. These sites:
- Are constantly producing content (or republishing content from other systems)
- Probably have very low traffic to old content
- Are particularly concerned about being able to produce content quickly
- Need to have mechanisms for the content to appear in multiple contexts (by topic, etc)
Also, although during a transformation old content might be able to be dropped for these constantly-changing sites, the amount of froth means that continuing publishing during website transformation needs to be carefully planned
Pool Sites
Other sites are like little inflatable pools, with a small amount of content but you can also easily make a splash in them so the whole thing is frothy:
- These sites are easy to create (and probably take down).
- The site visitors and the site owners can clearly see all the content.
- Everyone clearly sees the purpose of the pool.
- It's quite easy to move.
Ocean Sites
Perhaps the most interesting sites are more like oceans with a large amount of information in the depths that are extremely still:
- These sites have lots of still content in the depths, whether or not you can clearly see it (even if there is a lot of turbulence at the surface)
- This still content, even if there is a huge amount of it, can be migrated over at your leisure (even months before the "go live" date) in the event of a major website transformation.
- There is a much higher probability that a large amount of the content is actually coming from other systems (that can be left as-is during a transformation).
- It is difficult, if not impossible, to even get a grasp of the entirety of the site. But ideally you come up with a way to shine light into the content (see the Rethinking the Content Inventory report).
- Depending on the nature of the site, there still may be a significant amount of traffic to some of the older, still content.
- May have a larger amount of frothy content than a smaller news-driven site, but even with that there is still a huge amount of still content.
- Monsters in the depths lurk, for instance old content or sites that people have forgotten about, that, again, may still be utilized by site visitors.
- There is probably a lot of content that no one uses and can be dropped.
- Large sites are big enough to have different sub-climates, for instance different sites / subsites that are quite unique.
Recently after presenting on the content handling process during a migration, a content strategist came to me and said that they thought that the old content should just be thrown out and rewritten during a migration. If you have a river or a small swimming pool of a site, then sure this might be the case. But an ocean? Probably not.
David Hobbs Consulting frequently works with organizations that are either thought leaders or the global authority on their topics of expertise. These sites must have a depth of content, much of which is evergreen content that is frequently accessed or perhaps as an institution must be made public. Furthermore, this type of content often must be written (or at least carefully vetted) by scientists or other subject matter experts. This content may be therefore be quite still, even if there is a constant stream of new blog posts and other updates. In a transformation, this evergreen content must be retained (even if it is changed to meet new goals).
In summary, consider content froth in your analysis of your site. In the event of a web presence transformation, the level of froth can be an important factor in your planning.
