Best ways to organize articles on a web site?
August 5, 2011 8:31 AM Subscribe
I have a how-to type web site that's grown to be fairly large. The categories I've created to organize my articles often don't fit well and I may already have too many. I'm also not using tags. I seem to lack both a good system and an aptitude for labeling & categorizing things. I need to come up with a better method that my readers will find more useful and which will also be search engine friendly.
The problem I'm having seems to be common to many web sites because so far I haven't been able to find any really good ones to use as a model. So I'm looking for some, along with advice, best practices and other resources that could help me.
The problem I'm having seems to be common to many web sites because so far I haven't been able to find any really good ones to use as a model. So I'm looking for some, along with advice, best practices and other resources that could help me.
I'm also not using tags.
Is this a statement of principle or fact? 'Cause with a little tagging discipline, tags can work pretty well.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 8:44 AM on August 5, 2011
Is this a statement of principle or fact? 'Cause with a little tagging discipline, tags can work pretty well.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 8:44 AM on August 5, 2011
What are the top 10 searches, categories, or scenarios your readers will be coming to your site for? Are they all of the same level or scope. (E.g., "How To Learn Plumbing" and "How to Learn Carpentry" would be categories of the same level. "How to Learn Plumbing" and "How to sharpen your saw" would not be.) After you sort out the top-most categories, write those on large Post-Its. Now write all your other categories or entries onto other Post-Its and put them below the large categories they fit naturally or meaningfully with, fudging them around until they make the most sense. You may (or may not) end up with a second level of info as well.
(I do this kind of thing for fun (and previously have done it for laaaarge organizations for work), so if you want to memail me your site I'd be happy to take a look at it and make some specific recommendations.)
posted by cocoagirl at 8:46 AM on August 5, 2011
(I do this kind of thing for fun (and previously have done it for laaaarge organizations for work), so if you want to memail me your site I'd be happy to take a look at it and make some specific recommendations.)
posted by cocoagirl at 8:46 AM on August 5, 2011
Me again. Looking at the site I assume you're talking about, is the sub-title of the site still meaningful (Plans, Projects and How To's)? Because that's a first-level taxonomy that speaks to me as a visitor to the site, and I can see that the site doesn't reflect that right now. Or has the site evolved mainly into a series of blog posts (articles) that you want people to be able to reference when they need to? Half of the issue is organization of information, and the other half is where to best place that information on the page.
posted by cocoagirl at 9:01 AM on August 5, 2011
posted by cocoagirl at 9:01 AM on August 5, 2011
It would help people give you suggestions if you clarify whether the site listed in your MeFi profile is the site in question. I know self-linking is frowned upon here but it's hard to answer this kind of question without seeing some sort of context.
I agree that Wordpress has a great CMS.
posted by dfriedman at 9:34 AM on August 5, 2011
I agree that Wordpress has a great CMS.
posted by dfriedman at 9:34 AM on August 5, 2011
Response by poster: Thank you for the advice you've given me so far. My web site is MachinistBlog.com and it uses Wordpress. I'm not using tags because I don't want to, but because I'm not sure how to use them most effectively. It seems to me that they need to somehow work in conjunction with my categories.
Coocagirl, I'm not sure how to respond to you and I also don't have the time right now. I will probably contact you privately. But I do think my tag line is still meaningful. But even if it isn't I have to be very careful about changing it because it could have a very detrimental effect on my search engine rankings, which are very good.
posted by 14580 at 10:13 AM on August 5, 2011
Coocagirl, I'm not sure how to respond to you and I also don't have the time right now. I will probably contact you privately. But I do think my tag line is still meaningful. But even if it isn't I have to be very careful about changing it because it could have a very detrimental effect on my search engine rankings, which are very good.
posted by 14580 at 10:13 AM on August 5, 2011
There are no fixed rules on how to use categories and tags beyond using categories for general and recurring classification (cars) and tags for specific and less recurring classification (sedan). Tags are a useful solution when you want a shallow taxonomy, i.e. few category levels, or where there might be disagreement/ambiguity in how data should be classified, like when you have user generated content (YouTube).
In your case, you've seemed to used categories for many instances where tags could have been used. There's really nothing wrong with this. If you still want to explore tags, you need to ask yourself if your readers would find more fine-grained metadata useful.
For example, take the CAD/CAM category. The first post I see is Casting Lots of Small Parts. To describe this post, you might use words such as "casting" or "prototyping". These words might not be completely relevant but the point is that your readers might use them to find similar content. If you find that this is the case and that the same keywords can or might be used for other content, you could probably use these words as tags.
Your case in somewhat special because the blog is already established. What you could do is to pick a couple of posts in each category and briefly try to describe them using 1-3 words and documenting this in a text file. As you work through the posts, you should see recurring patterns of words. Go through the final list of keywords and see if you can define a set of keywords.
Just make sure that a specific tag cannot be applied to all posts in a category, because that's not a meaningful tag. Also, although tags should be used for more specific classification, you need to find a balance wrt granularity so that you don't end up with a lot of tags that are related to only one post (this data would probably be more appropriate in the title of the post).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:21 AM on August 5, 2011 [1 favorite]
In your case, you've seemed to used categories for many instances where tags could have been used. There's really nothing wrong with this. If you still want to explore tags, you need to ask yourself if your readers would find more fine-grained metadata useful.
For example, take the CAD/CAM category. The first post I see is Casting Lots of Small Parts. To describe this post, you might use words such as "casting" or "prototyping". These words might not be completely relevant but the point is that your readers might use them to find similar content. If you find that this is the case and that the same keywords can or might be used for other content, you could probably use these words as tags.
Your case in somewhat special because the blog is already established. What you could do is to pick a couple of posts in each category and briefly try to describe them using 1-3 words and documenting this in a text file. As you work through the posts, you should see recurring patterns of words. Go through the final list of keywords and see if you can define a set of keywords.
Just make sure that a specific tag cannot be applied to all posts in a category, because that's not a meaningful tag. Also, although tags should be used for more specific classification, you need to find a balance wrt granularity so that you don't end up with a lot of tags that are related to only one post (this data would probably be more appropriate in the title of the post).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:21 AM on August 5, 2011 [1 favorite]
@14580
You can (and, in my opinion, should) noindex/nofollow on tag pages. I've done this many times successfully without suffering any SERP issues on some very nicely ranking sites. It will keep you from getting dinged for duplicate content (and, in fact, you're already doing this on category pages, as you should).
Tags are good for the user, but, like you said, can cause SEO issues if not handled correctly. However, you seem to already have a handle on what to do. I say do it.
posted by chrisfromthelc at 2:49 PM on August 5, 2011
You can (and, in my opinion, should) noindex/nofollow on tag pages. I've done this many times successfully without suffering any SERP issues on some very nicely ranking sites. It will keep you from getting dinged for duplicate content (and, in fact, you're already doing this on category pages, as you should).
Tags are good for the user, but, like you said, can cause SEO issues if not handled correctly. However, you seem to already have a handle on what to do. I say do it.
posted by chrisfromthelc at 2:49 PM on August 5, 2011
You could ask your users to give you category and tag titles that they think of as they use your site. Use it as a springboard to build from. Crowdsourcing has its good points.
posted by ptm at 11:34 AM on August 6, 2011
posted by ptm at 11:34 AM on August 6, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
Is the problem the CMS you're using, or the act of organizing? Perhaps you can find a plugin for have built a user-submitted tagging system. It would be helpful on subjects that you may not be familiar with.
posted by chrisfromthelc at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2011