Search First Content

Table of Contents

The single purpose of any content is to be consumed. As new topic discovery happens through observation of feeds, topic research happens through search first and category navigation second. Search optimization benefits the consumer, accurate categorization benefits the creator. All levels of content from documentation to blogs should be discovered through internal search tools and external search engine optimization.

Search optimization cannot lead to metadata content. A piece of content must first be created for the sole purpose of benefiting the consumer. Improved algorithmic results at the cost of quality or relevance will sour an audience’s attention.

Stakeholders

Consumer

This individual follows the documentation, reads articles, and/or watches videos. This needs to be identified for each piece of content in order to cater the massage to the audience.

Creator

An individual who spent time in order to share an idea with others. Will be captured to assist in updating and cataloging efforts.

Manager

Those responsible for the organization of content. A dedicated team that focuses on organization and ease of access to content.

Admin

Those responsible for distributing and hosting content. A more technical focus to work out how to implement content management.

Properties

A separate and siloed organization benefits content management instead of consumers. An effort needs to be made to collect all resources under the same domain. Additionally creating a more uniform delivery across different products and BUs.

Documentation - Truth

This is the primary decision point. Any mistake here is projected onto the product. All other sources of content point a developer to this baseline in order to execute an idea.

Spec

Granular list and description for each and every component.

Feature

A concise breakdown of purpose and functionality.

Execution

Short single action breakdown.

Resources - Learn

A purpose-built collection of articles meant to educate, remaining relevant well after the published date. Cataloged such that individual topics can be easily found. Categorization and search optimization are equally important to the material.

Hands-On

How-tos, Guides, Samples

Long-form description backed by code and/or documentation. Descriptions are hosted but often point to external platforms for execution. The organization of Git repositories will benefit consumer discovery.

Evaluate

White Papers, Thought Leadership, Stories, Reports{#white-papers,-thought-leadership,-stories,-reports}

Content that will be relevant for longer than a blog and potentially needs to be updated. Discussing

Roadmap

Keeping sources for sharing product vision will allow managers to share with consumers. This can be presented as general goals and updated in place as items change.

Blog - Discover

A unified voice streaming ideas organized by topic and audience. A river delta celebrating the potential solution to a real or perceived problem. Reporting new information good and bad.

Categorize

All content should be discoverable in the same place. Filtering by subject and tags will allow consumers to cater to their own needs or interests.

Products

Each product can have a dedicated stream but there will still be company-wide content that won’t need to fit under one specific product.

Announcements

Company news, changelogs, etc will benefit the consumer by being all in one place and in the same format.

Ecosystem - Connect

Community

Groups of consumers share interests and should be united wherever possible. While a managing team may want to have separate need groups a consumer would rather find everything in one place.

Events

This requires a larger time commitment for the consumer and should be focused on a single purpose.

Forums

A living history of public discussion that should be available to consume by anyone but needs to be moderated such that the discussion has a clear topic and resolution.

Pipeline

Idea, Create, Publish

A single process with few measured deviations. Capture, cultivate, and curate in order to improve quality and benefit the consumer.

Submission

Having one place to start this process would be ideal, but the fewer entrances to a pipeline the better. With one place writers can submit a piece the direction and discovery can begin for any type of content. A single structure can be communicated and enforced. Any specific topic prompting can be listed.

Validation

Let tools work for us. Adding automatic text validation will increase quality without having to suggest writers use specific tools.

Feedback

The immediate benefit for creators. Asking someone to invest the time can be reworded by the automated and collaborative observation from the team. Even when content doesn’t fit into any need for the company the discussion and improvements will benefit the creator.
Channels and statuses should cater to what teams can/should provide feedback or become aware of the new content.

Visibility

When content is validated the discussion needs to include more stakeholders. Increasing the internal visibility will improve the overall impact. Additionally, once content is published there needs to be multiple people watching for any further feedback from the consumers

Catalog

Putting content in the right place matters both to reach the correct audience and to ensure proper ongoing maintenance. A detailed and clear appendix of all relevant content will keep mistakes low and easier to fix. Stale can be just as harmful as wrong, knowing when and what to update or archive will be invaluable.

Promotion

Marketing teams want to find the right content as much as the consumers do. Deciding what type and area will give them a backlog to work with as well as help identify any gaps.

Maintenance

Publishing is not the end of the line. Dedicated efforts to ensure existing content remain relevant or is moved to an appropriate place enforce the importance of new content and reduce confusion.

Review

Quarterly meta-analysis of all content will encourage reuse and remove outdated content. Additionally making feedback channels for each piece of content can alert to problems early.

Patch

Not all content needs to be removed or replaced. The ideal case is to fix errors or update content in place. An article that has been edited can be shared as new or have a more recent published date.