"Content is king!"

In internet years, that is an ancient quote, hearkening back to the days before most people even had computers in their homes. The idea was that high-quality content would be crucial for success on the internet. Even (or especially) in the age of AI, it is still the life blood that drives the economy of the internet.

Ok, content is king, but where do I post it?

There are so many ways to strategically think about your content and where you even post it.

Have a video that you want everyone to be able to find? Post it to YouTube! Want it to be used mainly for visitors on your site? Post it on Vimeo and make it private!

Have a professional post that will work for LinkedIn? Post it there!

But wait, I thought we were talking about our website content? We are!

All of these can flow into content on your website as well. Have a video on YouTube? Create a post on your site and embed it there. Have an article on LinkedIn, post it on your site as well and set the canonical tag to point back to the original LinkedIn article.

All of this is in addition to the content that you would naturally already put on your website. Things like articles, case studies, and resources are already being added to your site. However, even just saying "to your site" might not even tell you exactly where to put it.

Ah, so everything can flow back to my website... but even there, where do I put it?

This is where it starts to get a little trickier.

Should everything just be a post with carefully curated categories for organizing the content? Maybe.

Should I create custom places to put each type of content that I may have for my site? Maybe (but probably not).

The actual structure that you use will depend greatly on your content as well as the overall strategy you want to have going forward.

Is all your content standalone, single pieces of content or do you have "series" of content where you could have multiple posts that a user progresses through in order? If so, you could utilize a custom "series" taxonomy to group those posts into a series and connect them visually on the post and within your site's search.

Have video content? Is it all the same type of content (ex. conference session, sermon, etc.) or could it be just a video within another type of content (ex. an interview that is pasted into a post)? You could group videos under the same "post type" or have a content type "taxonomy" that is shared across multiple post types.

Alright... you said "taxonomies" and "post types" but what does that mean?

Think about organizing things around your house. Maybe you have a drawer that you put all of your pens, pencils, and markers in. You of course throw out all the ones that don't spark joy though right?

Post Types

When it comes to your content, that drawer is the "Post Type". It's where you combine all the items that have a similar function, will have a similar layout, and require a similar set of information about them (author, audio file, video embed, downloadable resource, etc.).

The most common, and default, content types in WordPress are "Posts" and "Pages". However, you can create an unlimited number of additional content types. Want to have a generic "resources"? Sure thing! Want to create a custom post type for each type of resources you'll have (ex. Case Studies, Interviews, Podcast Episodes, Conference Sessions, etc.)? That works too.

Taxonomies

Taxonomies are ways of grouping items based on a certain criteria. If we go with the drawer above, the post type might be "Writing Utencils" (go with me here...) and a taxonomy could be "Type" where we classify pen, pencil, marker, etc. You could have any number of taxonomies to group your items:

If there is a characteristic about the items in the drawer that you can use to group them, you can create a taxonomy for it. However, as you can see with my list above, you can quickly start creating taxonomies that are less than helpful.

Tips for starting to organize your content

So, we've determined that we can organize our content, but how do we go about using post types and taxonomies? There isn't a one size fits all solution for this, however, there are a few questions that you can ask to help in guiding how you organize your content.

What kind of content do I currently have and what content do I want to have?

It's hard to organize something you don't have. So, to start, think about the content you currently have and how it would best be organized. That can be your launching point. You can then start to imagine the content you want to have and begin creating structures for that content to flow into.

For example, we have a client that has hundreds of sermons in their library. They were existing sermons and they knew they would continue to add more each week. They wanted to take clips of those sermons and share stylized, digestible bites from them. When organizing the content, they have a "Sermons" post type that can house all of the sermons as they are and a "Sermon Clips" post type for the new offering. Each content had similar taxonomies so we could connect both the sermon and the clips to the speaker as well as a series.

What do I want my content to do for me?

Creating content is great and can be fun. However, almost no one creates it just for the sake of creating it. There is a reason for the content. There is something you are wanting your target audience to do.

Are you a non-profit providing general resources to support a target audience so they can then in return support your organization? Multiple taxonomies that help users find the right content at the right time and in their own words will be key.

Do you sell products and create content to highlight your products? You could have taxonomies that help you connect content to specific products and use them to create dynamic and engaging landing pages for your products.

How are users going to want to interact with my content?

Ultimately though, the biggest thing with organizing content is to help the right person find the right content that drives them to take the right action at the right time (that's a lot of rights!).

What are users wanting to find? How are they searching for it? Are they able to browse, filter, and search naturally? Are you even aware of what they're searching for and how they're searching? Are you tracking search traffic for terms? Are you tracking on-site search queries? Are you tracking traffic to existing tag or category archives?

All of these can give you a lot of information that can then dictate how you organize your content to make it easier to search and browse.

What next?

We'll be continuing down this trail for a bit. In our next post, we'll take a deeper dive into taxonomies - the types, how they work, and how they can be used to create a faceted search experience for your users.

In the meantime, if these thoughts have sparked some questions about your own content, don't hesitate to reach out! We're happy to chat over any questions or ideas you may have brewing.