This next phase of the overall Re-Alignment of Berchman.com as I stated in my first post for this project is to “define purpose, guiding principles, and desired outcomes” with this website.
Note: I am working on this project when it fits between client work, and posting when I can. I have not posted in a while because work has picked up a bit. However, I have no plans of abandoning this effort. Stay tuned!
By going through this ‘exercise’ I’ll also be constructing the map of my content. The map of content consists of what I write about on this site, the topics I cover, and the overall taxonomy of the web site in general.
Define Purpose
- Primarily to share things I learn and in turn learn from others.
- Secondarily it is a personal chronicle.
Guiding Principles
- I want to keep it honest, real, and fun. Pretty simple really.
Desired Outcome
- There are actually many. Instead of pontificating I will suffice it to say ‘successful‘
- Success would mean helping you, having readers, comments, and new clients to work with
How does this now impact my content map?
By knowing the definition of these three it helps me understand content requirements. What types of content are required on the website in order to meet the above needs?
- WordPress/Thesis Tutorials
- Video (Tutorials and Misc.)
- Writing on other topics
Presently there are 22 categories on this website. That is way too many for this size of a website. When reviewing the 22 I was able to narrow it down to 5 categories going forward
- Articles/Features
- Tutorials
- WordPress
- Thesis
- Video
All my other categories were really misused ‘tags.’ Over time, in moments of hasty thinking, they accumulated and became more fractured. The remaining 17 “categories” are really “tags.” This is because they are classifying information within the content, not the content itself. Here is an excellent article articulating the distinction.
When I implement the website realignment I am going to remap those present “17 categories” and move them to tags and validate the members of each redefined category title.
Main Navigation
In addition to the dynamic content (blog posts) that evolves over time there are other content areas:
- Home
- Hire Me
- Pricing
- Contact
- Résumé
- Who is Berchman?
Tthere are also a host of other links; RSS, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. on other areas of the page. In order to simplify and streamline I am going to reduce the number of main navigation elements from 6 to a simple 4. I do this by adding smart subcategories.
The resulting navigation will be:
- Home
- Hire Me
- How we work together
- Pricing
- Form to start the process
- About Me
- Résumé
- Portfolio
- Visual Examples
- Client List
As always things change so I will remain flexible. I do think that this new structure—once visually in place—will be serve information better to you the visitor.
As always I appreciate your feedback, thoughts and input. Let me know what you think.
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