As the content revolution has taken hold of web development, the information architecture of a website has become increasingly important. Although a site might start with twenty to fifty pages, it will need to scale to several hundred throughout its lifecycle. It’s no longer enough to create a design that elegantly accommodates the information that will be available at launch – websites must be built to scale.
For the uninitiated – why do websites need content? Why do they need one hundred pages, when the key marketing information can be explained in five? In short – Google. As Google’s search engine algorithm has put a strong emphasis on content, traditional SEO tricks and techniques have fallen by the wayside. The primary indicator that a website will perform well in search engines is its size. Basic SEO principles still need to be followed, however there is no way around the size requirement.
Good content takes years to build. As such, sites must be built with the capability to scale. Their future and ultimate design must be brainstormed at launch. The content will often scale in multiple dimensions, that is – multiple sections of the site will be able to expand to several times their size. Certain elements, such as a blog, should be able to expand indefinitely throughout the site’s existence.
The scalable content areas can often help reinforce a website’s marketing message. Product pages, case studies, whitepapers, and industry pages can all both improve website conversion rate, and scale through detail pages and views. Blogs, news, and events can keep the brand fresh through daily or weekly updates. Older updates and pages should be archived, so that they will remain in the sitemap and help increase the website’s size over time.
Once the scalable site is developed and launched with its initial content, the next step is creating a content development timeline. New content should be added to targeted sections on a regular basis so that the website will continue to increase in search engine performance. A “content calendar” is the easiest way to ensure consistent content development, and rigorous adherence to the deadlines will make once lofty goals, such as top positioning in Google, an ascertainable feat.
Scalable web design does bring its own set of challenges. When combined with responsive development, scalable sites need to adapt dynamically to hierarchical content changes. Multi-level sitemaps need to be designed, with leaf nodes at each level of the tree. Sub-elements such as whitepapers might be available for certain products, and not available for others. The website will need to dynamically adapt both to its available content, as well as to the user’s browser and device.
Although the additional content overhead does bring challenges to website development, it also does bring significant opportunity. Well-written content can help solidify a marketing message, and enable the sales team to explore what makes a company truly unique. Websites can serve more of a purpose than simply brochures of products and services; they can instead become “idea platforms” – promoting development of the concepts and techniques that help move the industry forward as a whole. With the continuously increasing popularity of scalable websites, the future of the web as a forum for the open and free sharing of knowledge looks increasingly bright.
Written by Andrew Palczewski
About the Author
Andrew Palczewski is CEO of apHarmony, a Chicago software development company. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has over ten years' experience in managing development of software projects.
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