Tag, You’re It: Understanding Taxonomy and Content

You might remember from biology class that taxonomy is the classification of living things and the study of the relationships between them. So it makes sense that we use this same term when studying and classifying digital content. And while digital content is not “alive” in the traditional sense, the description is applicable nonetheless. 

Typically organizing your digital content begins with user experience (UX) and content strategy activities to establish a solid foundation, but the implementation and maintenance of these strategies should center on taxonomy. 

Why Taxonomy?

Whether it's for your site editors or your audiences, a structured approach to taxonomy improves the user experience and helps people find what they're looking for faster.

Taxonomy also enables you to surface relevant information at the right time in the user journey, allowing for a more thoughtful and impactful approach to how (and when) content is displayed on the site.

As websites continue to grow in both size and complexity and content becomes easier to publish thanks to content management systems, it’s critical that your content is organized effectively so users and search engines can find it amidst the digital sprawl. 

So where do you start?

Topics and Keywords

One of the most common uses of taxonomy is leveraging topics or keywords to help users find content based on subject matter. 

For example, after performing a site search, you might see a list of suggested topics designed to help narrow down the results. Or you may be offered a list of keywords that are associated with a specific piece of content, which allows you to cross-reference it with content that is similar in theme.  

It’s important to follow best practices when using topics and keywords (or tags) as the basis for your taxonomy. Without proper oversight, these tags may do your content more harm than good. Here are some tips to help manage these terms:

• Avoid duplicate or similar terms (e.g., cat, feline, kitty).
• Use language that will resonate with your users, not internal jargon.
• Avoid creating tags without content.
• Double-check that special characters display correctly (e.g., &).
• Avoid overusing tags. (For example, adding every tag in your taxonomy will not improve your ranking on Google.) 

Organization and Structure

Taxonomy is also an effective way to organize your site content based on the information architecture (IA). For example, section taxonomy may dictate the subfolders that appear in the URL alias and/or the breadcrumbs that display on the page. Not only is this a good way to orient users as they navigate across the site, but it’s also important for search-engine optimization (SEO), making it easier for search engines to crawl and index content.

This will often be a hierarchical taxonomy since most websites do not have a flat structure. As you think about how to structure these organizational taxonomies, keep the following in mind: 

• Each page should have a dedicated “home” on your site—avoid creating content that doesn’t fit into a section.
• Keep the folder structure consistent across pages—although certain content types may warrant an exception (e.g., publication dates for news, blogs).
• Create a scalable structure that will grow with your site.

Other Examples

Taxonomy can also be used to organize unique content on your site. Some examples include: 

• Event category
• Language
• Location/Facility types
• Registration status
• Audience
• Product type

You should look to taxonomy whenever you and your users stand to benefit from better organizing your content. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so it’s important to flex those creative muscles when thinking about potential taxonomies.

Care and Feeding

Taxonomy should grow and evolve with your content strategy. It's a living document that should be fed and cared for to ensure it meets the needs of the organization, as well as the audiences for which it's intended (your site visitors, as well as your CMS editors.)

It’s important to audit your taxonomies on a regular basis to ensure they continue to serve their purpose and provide actual value. Like most things, this is easier to do periodically instead of waiting to the point that it has become overwhelming and/or difficult to identify the original purpose behind a taxonomy. Oftentimes, it is beneficial to bring together a multidisciplinary team to support this process and ensure that everyone is aligned and responsible for maintaining a healthy system of taxonomies.

For example, you might find that certain taxonomies are obsolete based on changes to your site, or that a list of terms has become bloated due to a lack of governance. 

And speaking of governance, it’s important to remember that a taxonomy is only as powerful as the governance that supports it. These are guidelines that ensure that editors and content creators are utilizing the taxonomy correctly and that define the process for creating new tags, auditing existing tags, etc.

Remember …

Whether you’re a novice or an expert, it’s important to remember that taxonomy is critical to how you, your users and search engines find and classify the content on your website. 
It’s a powerful tool but it’s not magic. It requires knowledge, planning and maintenance, but when done correctly, it can make all the difference. 

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