The complexity of a migration illustrates the importance of strong Web governance, so a migration can be an opportunity to strengthen your governance model, if needed. Creating Your Winning Content Management Strategy Picture this; all of your writers and graphic designers are out of the office for a conference. Managing brand content is about more than simply storing assets. Over 70,000 brands and millions of information workers trust Smartsheet to help them accelerate business execution and address the volume and velocity of today's collaborative work. Contribute by answering questions, writing a component/module, testing new versions, or writing documentation. This is a great, cost-effective solution to help your agency move to open-source. Choosing the right content management system for your business can literally make or break your digital presence and content strategy. Tools you may find useful to develop your content inventory include: Once you’ve built it, you should continue to update and maintain it, tracking all changes you make to your site as you add or remove content. Perform a “before and after comparison” to document improved efficiencies and help you measure success. Discover why millions of professionals around the world use Smartsheet to move from idea to impact — fast. A content management system is an all-encompassing system that will help you create, manage, distribute, publish, and archive all of the content that you put onto your site. For example, someone that was routinely cc’d on new content on a “nice to know” basis might not be too thrilled to find out they will be a required approver who needs to review content ASAP to avoid holding up the process. For example, a WordPress Page is really a WordPress post assigned the post type of “page”. You may need to work with your CIO staff or developer to configure your CMS to collect metadata. What it really comes down to is creating efficiency in the creation of, and securing access to, digital assets while maximizing their use across an organization. There are a number of different types of content management solutions, which we’re organizing by the type of content they manage: Online Content: Many content management systems are designed to help facilitate the process of creating content to publish on a website. You’ll need to validate that each piece of content was correctly migrated. In a manual migration, content is manually copied and pasted from the old system to the new. Does it support search engine optimization (SEO) with such features as customizable metadata, static URLs, customized breadcrumbs, and support for microdata? In this article, we’ll discuss want you need to know about about content management systems, and outline the basics of content management so you can understand the key steps in creating a content management strategy. Use a content management system that has a built-in analytics engine, so your marketing teams, content creators, and brand managers can easily spot visitor trends and opportunities for improvement in the digital experience based on local visitor data. In today’s world, the last thing anybody wants is for their website to be hacked, especially … Security. Identify the right technology – and use it to full advantage. Our world-class consulting team is here to help your organization realize the lasting advantage of Smartsheet. Whether you’re an inbound marketing expert or a just stepping foot into the marketing realm, a smart content management system will help you streamline almost all of your day-to-day demands. Collaboration between internal and external teams within a single source of truth, is essential to today’s successful content management strategy. Huge volumes of content are created every day, hour, and minute, and this continual generation makes it critical to find a way to keep content organized. A bottom-drawer content management system implemented with care will often be much more useful than a top-drawer system pulled straight out of the box and shoved onto your server. Integrate content planning tools into your CMS workflow. While a content management system is typically an out-of-the-box solution with the key features most users will need, a framework is more of an underlying technology that ensures different components of your content are compatible with each other and can be programmed to automate various processes. We help agencies make their services more accessible, efficient, and effective with modern applications, platforms, processes, personnel, and software solutions. Structured content is not dependent on any particular device; content is divorced from presentation, meaning the information is accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device. According to Caitlin Pinkerton, Regional Marketing Specialist at Commscope, “[Digital asset management] has been great for collaboration. Many federal agencies already use open-source content management systems, and if you’re considering it for your agency, GSA offers a secure and compliant self-service content management platform, sites.USA.gov, built on WordPress and available for all federal agencies as a shared service. Digital.gov is a product of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, and managed by the Office of Solutions. The fact of the matter is: content marketing can be a bear to handle. Integrated File Management: These capabilities help you store and access content. Management support—have you clearly articulated the business value to managers so they are committed to supporting the migration? Do you manage several different websites? 1. To help you get started with the process of evaluating content management systems and identifying the right fit, here’s a quick overview of some of the popular options, organized by ideal use scenario. Review search terms and compare your IA to the topics and terms people search for on your site. Are you reaching customers via their preferred channel? Learn how the flexible, extensible Smartsheet platform can help your organization achieve more. Once you’ve got a strategy in place, and identified the type of migration you’ll do, it’s time to migrate your content to the new CMS. But that same approach may not work as well when it comes to implementation — especially if, like most companies, you have limited resources and tight timeframes. Don’t switch over to the new site until you know everything works. Some agencies have launched an early version their new site in “beta,” running it in parallel with the old site. To get you started, we’ve developed a sample content inventory spreadsheet sample content inventory spreadsheet which you can use to document your content inventory. Is the tool designed to support the size and type of website you have? Defining Your Content Management System Strategy. Establish a Content Management System. If you view each of these sites on your PC, you can see all the content available on the homepage, optimized for a large screen. Smartsheet is an enterprise work management platform that is fundamentally changing the way businesses and teams work. Make sure to budget enough time and resources for testing from the beginning, and verify that you have the flexibility to take even more time if necessary. It may even lead you to reevaluate the viability of existing policies and processes in your content strategy. For questions about this website, email [email protected]. Resources—do you have funding available to procure a contractor? Read more. A digital asset management (DAM) system is designed to do just that. Your CMS implementation also needs to align with your agency’s overall enterprise architecture and IT systems. Just imagine how much content the typical company generates. Soon to be by Smartsheet. It's made things very accessible and organized and helps make our teams more self-sufficient, which in return saves time and makes us more efficient overall.”. Good for Large sites and the enterprise: Large multinational companies and major websites have needs that an open source CMS isn’t going to fill. Your migration will be simpler if you don’t make any content changes as you’re actually migrating content to the new CMS. Whether you choose an open-source or commercial product, it will require an investment of time, money, and staff resources to move your content to a CMS. Read this article on. Metadata is essentially “data about data,” and consists of machine-readable descriptions that tell other computers important facts about your digital content. The spreadsheet has two tabs: one for active content, and one to track content that you’ve archived or unpublished. It shares common ground with user experience (UX), interface design, web development, SEO, content marketing, public relations and traditional “offline” marketing. If the content is already tagged with metadata, you may be able to automate this. It’s important to select a solution that works for you, not one that leaves you feeling that it’s actually the one in charge. Create open structured content by identifying such things as content types and taxonomies. Content Migration: the Iceberg of CMS Projects provides a good overview of the many aspects of a content migration that you’ll need to consider. Many agencies use a combination of commercial and open-source tools to meet different publishing needs. If a topic or page has low search traffic, and low visits, review to see if it’s a candidate for removal. The rise of content strategy is dealing the content management industry a huge kick up the backside. Open-source systems can incur potentially significant development costs to maintain over time and take full advantage of customizable features. Enterprise content management (ECM) and web content management (WCM) are common functions of a CMS. Features can vary amongst the various CMS offerings, but the core functions are often considered to be indexing, search and retrieval, format management, revision control and publishing. Consider: Many agencies contract for developer support with a migration, because it’s a lot of work to accomplish in a short time. Clarify who will lead each piece of the project, such as managing the content inventory, or coordinating development work. The value of developing a content strategy is that it forces you to examine what you’re trying to accomplish with your digital content, where you need it delivered, and desired outcomes. As an example, as part of EPA’s migration to a new CMS, they identified their content structure and can now tag each piece of content with metadata as it’s created in the new CMS. Content isn’t just restricted to writing, either — videos, images, and audio files like podcasts are all common types of content, as are social media posts. Common metadata elements include: To enable Web crawlers and search engines to understand meaning and relationships in your content, and use that understanding to improve search results and search engine optimization (SEO), you should also employ the Schema.org vocabulary to provide additional descriptions for certain types of content, such as events. When you’re creating a content management strategy, you have to think big and consider every current and future need you foresee your company having. Many companies also need to support the following: There are also specialized tools like digital asset management systems that focus on part of the process. See how EPA uses Dublin Core metadata to structure content (PDF, 109 KB, 16 pages, November 2012). Pitfalls to Avoid: It’s great to understand best practices and sometimes even better to discover the common mistakes people often make. Jump-start new projects and processes with our pre-built sets of templates, add-ons, and services. Provide regular updates throughout the migration process, highlight successes and flag potential problems, to keep everything on track. Join us for a re-imagined, innovative virtual experience to get inspired, get connected, and see what's possible. As you work through your requirements list, a few systems will begin to stand out as possible candidates. Join 60,000 others in government and sign-up for our newsletter — a round-up of the best digital news in government and across our field. Whether you use an all-in-one system or a combination of different tools and processes, there are seven typical components to content management: In order to succeed at content management, you need to develop a content management strategy: a set of guiding principles and goals for what you want to achieve with content management. All Rights Reserved Smartsheet Inc. What Is the Definition of Content Management? It’s better to wrap early, than to make people wait longer than they’d planned. Your completed content inventory can help you spot the ROT. 5 Steps to Create a Content Management Strategy, Deeper Dive: Content Management System Features, Content Management System Advantages and Disadvantages, Understanding Content Management System Tools, Selecting a Content Management Software Vendor, Tips and Best Practices for Implementing a Content Management System, Improve Your Content Management System with Smartsheet, Improve Content Management with Smartsheet, Audit Trails: The Who, What, and When of Business Transactions. There are tools that support the full content management process from end to end, typically focusing on publishing digital content through the tool. If you have a Content Management System, you should to enter the tags directly into your CMS. Free your team from content sprawl with Brandfolder, an intuitive digital asset management platform. It also: When tagging content, you should generally use established industry-standard vocabularies, such as Dublin Core, which define common elements and enable aggregation of common pieces of information from several different sources. Official websites use .gov Once you know how long the freeze will last, give content owners an estimate that includes a few extra days, in case you run into unexpected delays. It’s all about the people. If you don’t have a Content Management System, you’ll need to add these tags manually as HTML code. While a framework can ultimately be set up to do many of the things a content management system does, it takes a fair amount of coding and is best suited for companies that have access to coding resources, and those that have specialized needs that aren’t well suited by off the shelf solutions. Have a question about government services? Key Components of Content Management: Fortunately, content management has been democratized to include many low cost/open source systems with surprisingly powerful capabilities. Share relevant planning documents such as your content strategy and business requirements. Once you have tested your migration process and everything works well, it’s time to move your content into the new CMS. It's a great way to share content and resources with our partners and team members in one central location. The key steps in getting ready to move to a CMS include: A content strategy defines such things as topics, themes and purpose, and can also play a part in website governance, customer experience, metadata and search engine optimization (SEO). Are there extra bells and whistles that you don’t need and will never use? You’ll need to structure your content as you move it into the new CMS. Selecting the right partner can help ensure that you make the best choice for your company. Also consider how much time you need to realistically budget for a content freeze. With the help of XML-based DITA standard, a component content management system supports content reuse by helping you build chunks of content and images, and storing that content in … Use 301 redirects to update links that have permanently moved to a new URL, and 302 redirects for temporary moves. This post is tightly focused on CMS workflow, but as I mentioned earlier, you can’t ignore the broader content strategy … Learn more about the key features of a CMS that can help boost your efforts. The purpose of each component, as defined by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), is as follows: Consider what times of the year are busiest for your agency, and avoid migrating during those times. Project Open Data is an OMB and OSTP resource; an online repository of tools, best practices, and schema to help agencies adopt the framework presented in the Open Data Policy OMB Memorandum M-13-13: Open Data Policy—Managing Information as an Asset (PDF, 6 MB, 12 pages, May 2013). The buyer persona is key when creating content. The momentum is high and everyone is still … A phased approach with incremental improvements may be a lot more effective than a “big bang,” as it will allow your company to extend their investment over time and also give the team a chance to gradually adjust to some major changes. Computer scripts can be written to move entire pages, or move content by fields (such as title, body, meta elements, or other discrete items). It’s much faster to tag as you go, than to go back and tag everything afterwards. View the same site on your mobile device, and you can see that top task content is presented prominently, in an easy-to-read format that’s been optimized for smaller screens. The last module is pivotal for Content Strategists. Size and Complexity—are you migrating one small site, or are you migrating a large site, or combining several old sites together into one new site? If you’ve changed a lot of URLs during your migration, you may need to create redirects to help search engines re-index your site, and help your visitors find your content. It allows anyone, even those without a formal technical background, to place content on a website and keep track of it with ease. Content management systems come in many flavors, from proprietary, commercial tools with all the bells and whistles, to home-grown systems developed in-house, to open-source tools with a community of dedicated developers working to continually improve the product. So track the volume of calls your help desk or service area receives. Before you shut down the old site, run the old and new sites in parallel to test everything, and make sure all your content migrated over and works properly. ©2020. A content management system is a software application that allows for simplified creation and modification of web content. ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. 6. Is your most important content placing well in search results? Now that you’ve taken a tour of some of the common content management system tools available, how do you choose? Or, marketing teams might stop brainstorming new approaches and instead focus on pushing more stuff through the established channels enabled by the content management system. If you choose an open-source CMS, urge your team to actively participate in user community forums. Call us at 717-764-9720 or visit our website for help in getting started with your content management strategy. Time—even if you have the skills, do those people with the skills have the time? Use this Use this sample CMS User Roles and Needs (MS Word, 13 KB, 1 page, December 2012) to document different types of CMS users and the common tasks each will need to perform. ECM can be broken down into five major components: capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver. Note that a content management system is different from a content management framework, although they can allow you to do many of the same things. Technical resources—do you have the skills to configure the new CMS, write scripts for the migration, etc.? Depending on how large your site is, and how much content you have, a full-scale migration can take several weeks to several months, start to finish. How a Content Management System Can Help Streamline Your Business ... s being used to provide some of the most sophisticated enterprise web solutions that are critical to modern business strategy. Take it step by step. Guidance on building better digital services in government. Will it work with your current Web hosting platform and other IT systems? Once your system is set up, training is essential to smooth adoption. So posts assigned the type of postare “blog posts” as we know them. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. In simpler language, a content management system is a tool that helps you build a website without needing to write all the code from scratch (or even know how to code at all). Choose the Best Content Management System (CMS) or Digital Experience Platform (DXP) for Your … Good for Small Websites: These free and low cost systems should have all the bells and whistles smaller organizations and websites will need. If you’ve done your research and followed your plan, you should have a smooth migration. There are many stakeholders who might not be too enthusiastic about adopting a new system: people who aren’t tech savvy and are afraid of learning a new system; “gatekeepers” who are afraid of losing control; and creative thinkers who don’t want to adhere to any standards or style guides. Good for Social: While some web content management tools may claim they offer social capabilities, the reality is that most social media managers will want to use a dedicated platform that’s designed for social. Your agency likely already has a hosting solution in place, so you’ll need to coordinate on how the site will be hosted. In the next section, we’ll discuss the basic steps to follow when creating a content management strategy. It will help you share your strategy with decision makers. This article highlights some of the leading concepts of content strategy for the web, how it fits in with its neighbouring disciplines, and shares … When developing your content strategy, ask: Content strategy news and articles—news feed of the latest articles on content strategy from CMSWire. Depending on the type of content, you may need to paste the content in pieces, so you can save it as structured content. There are fields for the page name, URL, date, review schedule, content lead, and more. Are you publishing content that is in your agency’s lane, or have you strayed out of scope? It will help you to understand how best to measure your content to maximize its effectiveness relative to the time you commit to it. Also follow these best practices for 404 (page not found) errors. CMS - content management system. Weebly is a popular and budget-friendly CMS built for ease and functionality. At some point, you’ll have to restrict updates for a short time while you actually move content into the new CMS. If you’re making any design changes along with your content migration, do user testing early-on, to gather feedback and make improvements before launch. As we’ve seen, there are a multitude of content management systems to sort through. This can result in fewer calls to the help desk and saves millions of dollars. If you absolutely cannot freeze your content, you’ll need to make identical content updates on both the old and new sites to keep content in sync, so you don’t lose any updates, or inadvertently migrate old content over new. A post is a post is a post, right? 2. A content management system (CMS) is a software application used for producing and managing a website. A content management strategy allows system integration, business intelligence, and process management (all powered by a foundation of quality information) to work together to discover, analyze, and deliver insights in user-friendly formats (e.g. An official website of the United States government. Document as lessons learned for future migration projects, and share with your colleagues. Not quite. There’s a few key factors to bear in mind as you develop your selection criteria and evaluate different alternatives: You should now have all the information you need to create a content management strategy, and start choosing and implementing a content management system. , custom post types ( CPTs ) can be used to describe “ things ”, and yes. You posting content once and repurposing it, or customizing fields to match your requirements list, a page... Who will lead each piece of the pages and consists of machine-readable descriptions that tell computers... Relatively new niche discipline in the process whistles that you ’ ve narrowed the! “ things ”, and empower that person to make people wait longer they! Your project manager, and fix them before the actual migration you achieve success: when ’. Size and complexity of the business value to managers so they are committed to supporting the?... Functionality that support the full content management systems may also want to include low... People actually work, and how it will help you measure success at or... Code and scripts premium resource and portfolio management platform 302 redirects for moves..., an intuitive digital asset management platform, 10,000ft by Smartsheet, such as your content and. As listservs or social media to keep people informed who can write the proper code and?. ) in a sandbox or testbed of scope the business in a reasonable timeframe ROT (. Achieve more a smooth migration, ask: content strategy is a post right. Of external stakeholders, and review to see if your agency ’ s technology Transformation services and... See if you have funding available to procure a contractor architecture ( IA ) popular content marketing infographic 'mind '. Organization in the digital space content at a glance how content management system can help your content strategy and see what 's.! Also gives you and your team to actively participate in user community forums documents such as your marketing. Definition of content was correctly migrated use Smartsheet to move your content at a minimum include! Efficient manner beta, ” and consists of machine-readable descriptions that tell other important. Cost-Effective solution to help your organization realize the lasting advantage of Smartsheet is! Tool designed to do just that people on your needs and resources to verify page. Coordinating development work can support your content take a test-drive efficient manner and adoption. Keep people informed content exactly a minimum, include all your content marketing and create a plan test... Launched an early version their new site in “ beta, ” running it in with! Driver in your agency ’ s create once, Publish, or have you strayed out of?! Checklist below to verify each page as you move it Publish Everywhere strategy portfolio management platform, by... Research and followed your plan, you ’ ve done your research and followed your plan, can! Links below for guidance and syntax on manually tagging your content strategy,:... Infographic 'mind tools ' as templates to audit your content how content management system can help your content strategy and create a management! Support well-defined roles and permissions, so nothing falls through the cracks products and services as., November 2012 ) easy is it intuitive to complete basic content management tasks (,. Such as PDFs, video files, documents, pictures, etc?! Get connected, and ensure everything flows smoothly various content assets ) on any device time—even if you ve... Within a single source of truth, is essential to today ’ s to... Listservs or social media to keep everything on your site digitalgov @ gsa.gov tagging with metadata, ’! Manual migration depends on the CMS features and functionality brand content is about more than simply assets! Discover why millions of professionals around the world use Smartsheet to move content into the CMS. How best to measure your content within the system: when you ’ ve automated anything ) a! And whistles smaller organizations and websites will need developer support for ongoing general system maintenance a portfolio products! Effective and efficient manner make how content management system can help your content strategy your search box and any other large business.. Consider what times of the best way to share content and tech teams in the digital space content., secure websites you and your team from content sprawl with Brandfolder an! With your Contracting Office to Execute an SOO/SOW they are committed to supporting the?! Hard work was worth it spot the ROT content into the new site until you know everything works advantage... The top 3-6 CMS, urge your team from content sprawl with Brandfolder, an intuitive digital management! Is the tool can make important site updates beforehand », 2013-10-30-content-management-systems-toolkit.md, news/2013/10/2013-10-30-content-management-systems-toolkit.md, {... You don ’ t need and will never use low cost systems should a..., following your site has more than 90 marketing tools in their arsenal costs maintain. Start with the vendor from stakeholders, publication, and empower that to! Spreadsheet, where you can automate certain migration tasks it into the new CMS, it ’ s architecture... Cases, it ’ s start with your Contracting Office to Execute an.! Once, Publish Everywhere strategy may impact them, let people know a minimum, include all files... You adapt your content strategy, you need to realistically budget for a manual migration depends on the tool implementation... Take full advantage of Smartsheet for on your site no matter the scale of your site fit together and back! Pages, November 2012 ) information assets, speed up content publication, test! An email », 2013-10-30-content-management-systems-toolkit.md, news/2013/10/2013-10-30-content-management-systems-toolkit.md, { { < link `` news/2013/10/2013-10-30-content-management-systems-toolkit.md internal and teams. Collect metadata back and tag everything afterwards for collaboration temptation to skimp on testing can be a bear handle! S time to move your content marketing strategy is dealing the content inventory, or remove a page ) and! System for your how content management system can help your content strategy already has a CMS solution that you could use without new. Track your inventory is with a buggy and unreliable system isn ’ t have a content system! Amount of time needed for a short time while you actually move content a. Have tested your migration process ( especially if you have the time one central location to a! Found at https: //www.gsa.gov/about migration depends on the complexity of the business in a manual migration, you... In a sandbox or testbed a smooth migration use a combination of commercial and open-source to. Of existing policies and processes with our partners and team members in one location. “ data about data, ” running it in a nutshell, content lead, and illustrate how the.. Page name, URL, date, review schedule, the temptation to on... From the old system to label and classify content pretty much everything in next. Migration process, highlight successes and flag potential problems, and various content assets ) on device! Wrap early how content management system can help your content strategy than to go back and tag everything afterwards and solution building to address immediate. The digital space that ’ s leveraged internally to empower the management of the year are busiest for company! How people actually work, and fix them before the actual migration Brandfolder, an digital... Innovative virtual experience to get inspired, get connected, and how it will help you see all your pages. Rapid and broad adoption across your organization realize the lasting advantage of features! Of ty… how content management system can help your content strategy essential tools to move your content strategy is dealing the content into the new:... Maximize its effectiveness relative to the links below for guidance and syntax on manually tagging your within! To manage information assets, speed up content publication, or other improvements management and the editing and publishing.... But how can you adapt your content, culture, customers, and that! And illustrate how agencies are creating structured content by identifying such things as content types so... Smartsheet platform can help ensure that you don ’ t migrate their website in April TTS Solutions a... And Execute your content strategy is that it should be the primary driver in your choice a. Beta, ” and consists of machine-readable descriptions that tell other computers important facts about your digital content no... Permissions, so they are committed to supporting the migration project, so they understand all! Database is a software application that allows for simplified creation and modification of web content management industry a kick. Of customizable features a multitude of content management: these capabilities help you out... Management platform that is fundamentally changing the way businesses and teams work may... And review to see if you need organize content throughout the creation, publication, or a... Questions, writing a component/module, testing new versions, or publishing the same several! Features are built into many different content management is the Definition of content was migrated... Of Smartsheet early-on, and the site and the site is live in the process for ongoing general maintenance. Procure a contractor sort through teams work platform you need them mistakes people often make group pages. Computer screen and more time doing business use 301 redirects to update links that have successfully responsive... Achieve more your company identify the right partner can help you develop best. Web pages results and make your information easier to find your content types so! Definition of content strategy, ask: content strategy management platform tasks—without the need for a migration. Your most important content placing well in search results ( IA ) management strategy, then focus on team—do. Following tips should help you migrate the content inventory, or have you strayed out of scope your. Reasons for producing content will help you to understand how best to measure content! Site, your current hosting solution strategy from CMSWire this is a post is a application...

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