Website Usability Guidelines

Content Inventory (1 of 3)

What is a content inventory? A content inventory is a list of all the content on your site. If you are revising a website, start with a content inventory of what is now on the site. Then, use your website requirements to create a planned content inventory for the new version of the site. If you are developing a new site, of course, you will only have the planned content inventory.

Why conduct a content inventory? In any situation, you have to know what you are working with. The content (the information) is what your site offers to your users. You have to know what you are now offering and decide whether each piece of it is still needed; still accurate; and still written in the right level of detail, the right tone, and the right language for your users.

Many websites grow by accretion. People keep adding pages to the website, but few pages ever get taken away. After a while, if you don't keep a content inventory, no one knows what is on the site. It could have outdated and inaccurate information. It could have pages that contradict each other. It is very hard to maintain a site if you don't have a content inventory.

If you are developing a new site, setting up a content inventory at the beginning puts you on a good path. If you keep up the inventory as the site matures, you will continue to know what is on the site, how old each page is, when each page has been revised or needs to be reviewed, and so on.

What goes into a content inventory? If you use a content management system, it may help you with your content inventory and offer you a database of categories like those we suggest here.

Otherwise, use a spreadsheet or a database application for your content inventory because you should have at least this information about every page in your site:

• the overall topic or area to which the page belongs
• the page title
• the URL
• a short description of the information on the page
• when the page was first written
• the date of the last revision
• who wrote the page (if you know it)
• who is responsible for the page now and that persons contact information
• when the page must be reviewed next
• the expiration date of the page (if there is one)
• other pages that this page links to
• the page's status which is explained in the next paragraph

Status: Use this category to keep track of progress in revising or developing the content for your site. If you are revising a site, you can use this category to indicate whether a page is fine to keep, needs to be deleted, needs to be revised, is being revised, etc. If you are developing a new site or new content, you can use this category to indicate how far along a particular page is: planned, being written, being edited, in review, ready for posting, or posted.