Until now, only content types have been mentioned. Yet, there are also taxonomies, a different part of the content model that might be sometimes more suitable than a content type. To identify them, look for content types representing lists like categories, tags, segments, or any enumeration values of which you want to assign to other content items. You may also imagine these as a drop-down picker.
Divide lists into taxonomies and content types
When you selected the content types that serve as categories, decide for each whether the content type should stay a content type or it should be taxonomy and you need to change it accordingly.Taxonomies and content types are suitable for different use cases. You can usually use taxonomies when you need an internal, invisible relationship between objects (for example, a persona or customer journey metadata) while content types are better for external, visible relationships observable on the front end (for example, blog authors or article CTAs).Use content types if you want to:
Localize the values and you want to display them on your multilingual website, app or other media.
Let your content creators add new entries to the list of values.
On the other hand, use taxonomies if you want to:
Be able to filterbased on the values in the content list in Kontent.ai.
Represent internal (invisible) relationships.
Prevent content creators from altering the list.
Global search for content items is available as well, but filters are only available for taxonomy values.
Use content types and items for lists
You can model content types that you see as a 1:N relationship in a straightforward way. If content type A (e.g., Blog post) links to content type B (e.g., Author):
For creating the options, create content items based on content type B (Author). Each item will represent one option.
Add a linked items element to content type A (Blog post) that will be limited to content type B (Author).
If suitable, limit the element so that content creators can add a specific number of options only.
Create a content item of content type A (Blog post), and link the related content items of type B (Author) to it to create their relationship.
If you want content type A to link again to content type A (for example, for related articles), start with step 2 directly.For a limited (often curated) number of content items, link them vice versa. That means, link the content items of type A (Blog post) from content items of type B (Author). For example, for the top blog posts of this week, you’ll have an item called Top blog posts of this week, which will link to each promoted blog post.For M:N relationships, this approach is recommended as well because it’s easier to manage. Add a third content type that will link all relevant items of the other two content types.See the diagram below to check how both cases are modeled in the Safelife demo project:
Blog categories is an example of a 1:N relationship with preset options.
Author is an example of a 1:N relationship with changeable options.
Navigation item is an example of a 1:N relationship with itself.
Topic is an example of Blog post's and Article's M:N relationship.
Preparing personalized customer journeys can't be done randomly. When you go to your favorite smaller shop on the corner where you go every morning, the owner or employees there most probably know you. The better ones even know your name, maybe even allergies, personality, etc. In smaller, face-to-face shops, this is how personalized customer journeys are done. But how can you do this in your online business?
Now is the time to put the content model into Kontent.aiIf you have created the content model on a physical medium or in a diagram software, now is the time to convert it into Kontent.ai. To do that, go to Kontent.ai and add the necessary content types, content type snippets, taxonomies, and set up everything else related to the content model, like the limitations of each element.
