What content types you should create
Continuing with the coffee example, the first step of coffee preparation is to decide what kind of coffee you are going to make. Those coffee recipes are different content types. One recipe allows you to make the same coffee over and over again, and so do content types. They allow you to create content items, instances of the content type.
Table of contents
For example, Australian coffee drinkers love flat whites, cappuccinos, and lattes so those are the content types you should focus on when opening a cafe in Sydney. Do not focus on the coffee cups when buying and making coffee. A flat white in a ceramic mug is the same flat white as in a glass mug. The important part here is not to focus on the form.
Key points
- Identify your core content types based on your content analytics and/or business and customer goals.
- Focus firstly on modeling internal content relationships, structure, metadata, and leave presentation dependent objects last or don’t include them into your model at all.
- For every content type, think about how it will serve your internal and external stakeholders, and if it should be part of the content model at all from the point of view of the content process.
Decide what's important for your business
Each project will have its own content types. To figure the content types out, have a look at the most important information you are trying to convey. What’s important?
If you are re-platforming an existing project it’s easy, analyze your Google Analytics and its search keywords. That’s what is important for your visitors. Match that with the business needs and you’ll slowly get an idea of what your core content is.
With new projects, the approach is similar but since you don’t have previous data, take a look at your goals or set personas and look into their needs.
The form comes last
Don’t focus on how the content types will be presented to your visitors yet. Thinking about how the content will be presented only at the end of the content modeling process is a good sign. This mind shift is essential when re-platforming as most other typical CMS platforms have a bias towards a form of presentation. Most commonly, it’s their focus on the web and pages.
To overcome the bias, do a content audit and group pages with the same or similar content together. Metadata and tagging will help with this process. Maybe you have several flat white recipes with different mugs or dosages.
Content model for the web
If you've come to Kontent.ai because of your website, we recommend including Web Spotlight in your subscription and using its predefined content model to get ahead at the start. Yet, put effort into preparing a content model in this case too so that you can get the benefits of using headless CMS.
Every project has some kind of calls to action, so create a CTA content type to progress your visitors towards their and your goals. If stakeholders want to manage them directly, include them in the model. That’s how you should approach each decision – think about whether the content type is useful for your business and your customers. Think about who your internal and external stakeholders are. Think about who'll be responsible for managing that content.