A content model is a way of classifying various types of content in a project. It provides a comprehensive study of the elements and relationships between content types. These relationships can be in many forms, depending on the intent of creating the model. These relationships can show the hierarchy, parallel paths, direction, or interconnectedness of the various content-type elements.
Relationships can be investigated and modeled within the scope of a single document, a set of documents, or a complete organization-wide collection.
By understanding the content type elements and their connections to each other, you can improve your overall content organization both visually and conceptually to simplify customer navigation and comprehension of your content. Content modeling is also especially useful for visualizing elements and their relationships to improve collaboration between strategists, designers, authors, and editors.
Steps to creating a content model depend on many factors, including the type of relationship you want to investigate, the nature of the content itself, and the size of the content base you use to create your content model. Some general steps to creating a content model are as follows:
- Identify: Determine what content is to be used for content modeling. Typically, this would involve the content you plan to target through improving quality, searchability, and delivery.
- Summarize: Generalize the primary concepts and themes for the project. Build a set of main points to act as centers to form the relationship model.
- Prioritize: Once elements are determined, arrange them in order of importance. Hierarchies of importance are usually mapped out at this point, with secondary elements being subordinate to primary elements.
- Model: Once priorities are set, you can now create a high-level map to begin attaching attributes, and determining relationships between components.
In an organization where several content team members must navigate a large quantity of content, the search and update of information is much easier with a well-modeled set of content. Additionally, content delivery is easier and can be better targeted with an effective content model.
Structured authoring, which improves the process, delivery, and impact of content creation, is more efficient and practical when the content is properly modeled.
Reuse of content is important both for making an efficient content creation process, but also for consistently presenting content to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and create a uniform visual and conceptual layout that makes content consumption easier and more streamlined for the end user.
