Which tool is useful in what situation
Before you move further, let's go through what can come in handy in different situations. Bookmark this page for later when you're modeling content. But even passive knowledge can make a difference when you read further.
Table of contents
Content types
- Templates/forms for content items
- Contain content type elements or content type snippets
- A typical use case is a concept of a blog post, testimonial or article
Focus on the purpose of the content type, not its representation. However, if you need to embed layout into your model, use a generic Page content type. Don’t create types such as Page with left section. Instead, use taxonomies or components to specify the layout options.
Avoid one-off types or being too specific, such as creating Home page or About us page content types.
Content items
- Some content based on a content type
- Contain filled elements
- A typical use case is one specific blog post
Use for content of the same type, such as different articles, CTAs or FAQs.
Avoid using for content that's only part of one specific item. For example, an article-specific slideshow or attachment.
Content type elements
- Atomic parts of content types with optional validation rules that later works in content items as a piece of structured information
- Contain a piece of content (text, numbers, dates, etc.) but also linked items, components, and taxonomies
- A typical use case is a blog post title, target persona, text voice, related articles
Use the right element based on the information purpose. For example, if you want to pick the content creator from a list of options, use the Multiple choice element for checkboxes (if multi-choice) or radio buttons (if single-select).
Don’t be too specific, such as Twitter summary (more suitable would be Social network summary).
Content type snippets
- Multiple content type elements re-used in multiple content types
- Contain content type elements
- A typical use case is metadata for SEO, content brief, customer journey context
Use for sharing elements across content types. It can be only one element if you want to maintain consistency, such as a detailed guideline that would be difficult to manage separately, persona, or page options.
Use to ensure the same naming of content type elements' codenames to make your developer's job easier.
Linked items
- Link content items together, create relationships
- Contain other reusable content items
- A typical use case is related articles, author, child navigation
Use validation in the element to ensure that content creators will link suitable content only.
Component
- Inline, non-reusable pieces of content inside a rich text element that work similarly to content items but don't have a name and are not listed among all content
- Similar to content items, contain filled elements
- A typical use case is a slideshow, attachments, poll, one-time images
Use when the item is tightly related to the parent content item only. When a second use appears, or you want to decouple the workflow, convert it into a content item.
Use for anything that can't be represented using the out-of-the-box rich text toolbar. For example, prices, images, names, or phone numbers.
Taxonomy
- A tree of tags for settings or categorization
- Contains its terms
- A typical use case is a persona, voice & tone, category
Use to manage site relationships, personalization, layout, content discovery, or tags that won't be displayed to your visitors. Useful for internal filtering in the inventory.
Don't use if you want to display the taxonomy term to your website or app visitors. Instead, define a content type as taxonomy metadata.
Collections
- A way to compartmentalize different kinds of content
- Similar to taxonomy, used for filtering content items
- A typical use case is dividing content between company departments or separating regional content
Use to classify content items. For instance, a university would use collections to group content by faculties. An international company could use collections to separate region-specific content from the shared one.
Depending on your use case, you can also decide to use variants to manage regional content.
Variants
- Variants of a content item, with the same structure and connected to the original content item
- Similar to content items, contain filled elements
- A typical use case is translations, region-specific content
Use for fallbacks of content.
Subpages
- Specify child items of a content item
- Subpages are similar to linked items, they exist only with Web Spotlight enabled
- A typical use case is a page tree for a website
Separate the actual content from the navigation. Create the content in a separate content item and then link your page to it. This way, your content will be ready for an omnichannel presence. Later, you can create a different hierarchy for another channel and reuse the same content.
For more information, you can also check our content strategy glossary and Kontent.ai terminology.