Content Management for Multiple Audiences

March 23, 2004 | 5 Comments

One of the hardest things to do when managing content for a Web site is address the needs of multiple audiences. Content management of itself is a difficult and ongoing process. One that takes quite a bit of work to do well. Throw in multiple audiences and it gets even harder.

In response to my post yesterday I received an e-mail from a reader who was concerned that I wouldn’t be posting about Web standards, CSS and other “Web development” issues in favor of going with more soft-skilled, usability-type posts from here on out.

Rest assured this isn’t the case.

I’ve been posting about all of these things and many more for quite awhile. I do plan on trying to delve a bit more into things like usability and accessibility because I find there is a need to do so, for both myself and my readers, but I realize there is more that needs discussing.

Web design (etc.) is a big topic.

As with many sites, this site has multiple audiences and it can be quite tricky to manage (an write) my posts in such a way that will make everyone happy. I feel I do a pretty good job of it and hope that I can continue to do so.

When Jason Fried posted about his disappointment down at SXSWi, he was making a very specific point that was well taken and generated quite a bit of buzz.

I too felt there was a bit too much talk of CSS and the like, mainly because much of that was “preaching to the choir” in some ways. However, “the choir”, doesn’t make up the whole of the Web design community and I’m well aware that there still needs to be a heavy focus on things like Web standards and CSS.

Many of you may “get it” but there are still many who are still learning CSS and still haven’t embraced Web standards. I know I still get something out of all the CSS and Web standard talk.

And let us not forget our clients, managers and stakeholders! There is a huge need to communicate better with them, on many levels and about many issues. You may convince your manager it makes sense to do some user study and still have a hard time getting them to by into Web standards. These things do go hand in hand quite often. If anyone has any ideas on how to better speak to clients and the like, I’d love to hear them.

So, if it is about people, like I say it is, then it’s important for me to address all of my audiences and I fully intend to do just that. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to go about it, but here are a few things I feel can help many audiences get the most our of your content:

Get to know your readers. To better cater to your audiences you need to know who they are. Listen to their feedback, you may have audiences you don’t even know about.
Write to your audience. Try and compose your content in a way that your readers will identify with. This can be very hard, especially when working with multiple audiences, but developing a tone and style for your site can really help make a good connection with your users.
Title your pages and posts properly. This allows your readers to easily decide if they are interested in your post.
Categorize. This can be tricky. I find that the more you try to break things up into categories, the harder your content is to manage on the author’s end. Finding the right categories can be tricky as well.
Use a schedule. For example, I post my “Song of The Week” on Fridays. This way those who are interested in that know when to hit my site.
Provide multiple RSS feeds. This is something I’m still working out. I do have a “no play” feed that contains only my “Web” and “work” related posts. This way readers can filter out the fun stuff if they want. I’ve seen some sites provide separate feeds for each category.
Make use of “channel” homepages. If you have an especially large site with multiple audiences you could try and break it up into several audience-based sections.

There are lots of other ways, but I feel that getting to know your readers (or users as the case may be) is the most important step. Remember that content management is a process, not a technology and takes lots of thought and hard work.

Content can be a site’s biggest asset and should be treated as such.

Filed under: Web General

Comments

1. Cameron said:

Good advice, Keith. Sounds like I need to assign my “Forum Topic of the Week” posts to a certain day of the week, eh?

Posted on March 23, 2004 04:12 PM | #

2. mattymcg said:

Thanks for the tips Keith, my site definitely suffers from not knowing what audience it wants to write to, so half my posts alienate the non-design crowd and the other half don’t interest the designers. Still, I think with a personal site it is also a matter of evolution, and I am feeling my way and the site is probably a reflection of where I am in my life.

Having said that, it does depend on what purpose you have for your site. Many people write for themselves, not their audience and use it as a medium for self-expression. They are generally not concerned with what traffic they generate or what their readers think, because posting to the world and whoever wants to read it can be cathartic and rewarding in itself, without the need for feedback and popularity. And I think that is fine too.

Still, I envy sites who do manage to please everyone. Dunstan’s comes to mind…

Posted on March 23, 2004 06:03 PM | #

3. DarkBlue said:

I too find the organisation of content to be a significant issue. I am currently examining various ways of accessing and presenting that content.

On my website I have four major sections and each of the four is distinct (topic-wise) from the others:

Weblog

Computer Modding

Urban Exploration

“Distractions”

There is some crossover on the weblog which, by its nature, is a diary which often touches on my efforts in the other areas.

With regards to presentation I have a unified set of templates at the moment and, while this is perfectly satisfactory to me, I believe that it might benefit the user if there were a visual indication of the section he is currently in.

I want to retain a blanket “identity” on my website, but I also need to “brand” the individual sections. I haven’t experimented with this too much at present but I am playing with some designs offline. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with a set of templates that allow me to seperate the categories successfully.

The front page is causing me no end of headaches. It is dominated by a summary of the latest weblog posts and I don’t think it offers any clear indication of the scope of the website as a whole… This is something I urgently need to address.

My inclination is use the front page as a gateway to the major sections and provide a more suitably tailored front page for each of those sections individually. So the front page becomes a portal to a “microsites”.

Which brings me to problem of addressing. Obviously, each area of my website is already individually addressed, but the URL’s are sometimes quite long (eg: http://urbanmainframe.com/folders/urbex/index.htm) and not as intuitive as they could be.

So I am now looking at using sub-domains to address the major sections:

http://urbanmainframe.com/ (the portal entrance)

http://blog.urbanmainframe.com/ (the weblog)

http://urbex.urbanmainframe.com/ (urban exploration)

And so on.

I haven’t implemented any of this yet because, as I wrote earlier, I want to the get the design and identity sorted first. But I am happy with the plan and think that this would be a nice way of maintaining my four virtual websites, yet still offering the broader portal view.

What do you think?

Posted on March 24, 2004 02:43 AM | #

4. RMCox said:

Going along with DarkBlue’s sentiment (#3) more so than the original post – yet tangentially on the topic of audience and content management – on my personal site there exists that same sort of scheme: where the homepage is a portal to several distinct applications. No real logical path connects everything either, since everything serves as its own entity with its own navigation and branding. I took some steps in an attempt to connect everything, at the very least, back to the homepage with a consistent, yet unobtrusive, tool bar. To what degree I’ve been successful, you’d have to judge for yourself by visiting my site and poking around, but maybe you can get some ideas anyways.

Back on topic: Posts like these (this and yesterdays) serve the web community very well because they remind us all of the complex job that web design is, that there are an incredible number of variables and skills required (working together) to pull off a successful site. Where open communication with your audience goes hand in hand with valid pages and good design. After lurking around at this site and those like it, I can honestly say my sites are slowing improving in many areas – not just at the code-level – due to those taking the time and addressing a wide range of topics such as this.

These were both great posts and I look forward to future explorations (and anecdotes) regarding accessibility and usability as well.

Posted on March 24, 2004 07:17 AM | #

5. Ray said:

I believe there is an inherent and unnecesary bias in website structure. The bias is to put the company ego and operational ease as a higher priority over serving the unique and distinct requirements of different markets. By optmizing a company’s Internet presence for entry to all of the company’s offerings through a single point, users are forced through a common entrance and then they are expected to self select to satisfy their more specific interest. For example investors interested in a company are expected to look for a financial page, while existing customers are expected to look for customer services pages, while prospective customers are expected to figure out which of the company’s offerings may be of interest to them.

A better model is to provide individual departments, functions or products their own microsites or minisites, using a common css to enforce look and feel, but to enable these departments to decide the optimal content and message they would like to provide their audiences.

Several advantages are achieved with this approach. Each individual microsite can be explicitly tailored to the target audience’s needs, and the department which is responsible for this audience can be given more freedom to serve their audience. There is less need to coordinate changes across a single website. Changes can be made more rapidly, and accountablity for a company’s success of failure with an audience is increased. Lastly microsites support link building campaigns to increase the search engine placement of a company. They make it easier for customers, partners, suppliers or providers to link to the relevant aspect of a business and for the relationship to be clearly articulated and contextually positioned and for the relevant portions of a website to be more accurately found in an Internet search.

Matching the different needs of a company to the different needs of the audiences is critical to enable businesses to develop and expand. Businesses which force users through a common front door (i.e. website) and expect them to navigate their way through, may reasonably serve their exisitng customers and relationships, but at the cost of making it more difficult to capture new customers and relationships, which are unfamiliar with their company.

Posted on April 1, 2004 08:37 AM | #