Clicks & Notes

alt tags - The Content Inventory: Roadmap to a Succesful CMS Implementation

• when a company is setting up a content management system, there’s a tendency to focus too much on the technology and design of the CMS, and not enough on the content itself
• inevitably, when it comes time to populate the CMS, the company runs into trouble – hence the need for a content inventory
• things to list in your content inventory:
  • all content on the current website
  • content that is to be migrated to the new site
  • web-based applications or transactional systems to be integrated with the new website
• information to capture for each piece of content:
  • description
  • content owner
  • content type
  • format
  • location
  • update frequency
  • status
  • general notes

(via Column Two)

Here are some additional resources on how to do a content inventory:

• New Architect - Taking A Content Inventory
• adaptive path - Doing a Content Inventory (Or, A Mind-Numbingly Detailed Odyssey Through Your Web Site) – includes an Excel worksheet that you can download and use
• SIGIA-L - summary of content inventory responses
• MCPS Web Services - Web Site Content Inventory Process (PDF, 274 kb)

The following are examples that you can look at or download:

• Perspective Software and Design - Content Inventory and Tracking
• Contentology.com Toolkit – includes three Excel spreadsheets: a Content Evaluation Matrix, a Content InventoryAssessment, and a Content Requirements Plan
• PageSolutions - Web Content Inventory – includes content inventory, preparation, and migration worksheets

Update: See also Bloug - Applications to Aid in Content Inventories?, for ideas and pointers to tools for performing content inventories in large, distributed enterprise environments.