Information Architecture at IMSB - Build it & They will Come

Written on April 14, 2009 – 6:50 pm | by Shana Albert |

I was fortunate enough to attend the Information Architecture Session at IM Spring Break and I’m so glad I did. This session was another brilliant one as the panel consisted of Steve Plunkett, Todd Malicoat and Carolyn Shelby.

For those of you who don’t already know…. Information Architecture is the way a website is organized to make it user-friendly as well as search-friendly. You want users to not only easily discover the site, but be able to follow the information on the site so they can easily get to their ultimate destination. Without the proper information architecture you might be bringing the wrong kind of viewers to the website. Or, you might be getting the right type of viewers, but they can’t locate what they need once they get there. Could you imagine a viewers frustration if this happened? Trust me…. they would never come back once they have those kind of struggles on your site.

A bad information architecture outcome can be virtual suicide for any website, but with the help of this amazing panel they have brought us all one step closer to Information Architecture Nirvana. So, without further ado…. here is what went down at the Information Architecture Session at IM Spring Break.

First up was Steve Plunkett

Steve spoke about Information Architecture and how it affected Search. The three categories that he went into detail about was…

Collected Data Structure
Search Evolved: File Management – DAO ( Digital Asset Optimization )
Conversions and Forms

Collected Data Structure

Domain authority
Directories, flash and filenames (see Digital Asset Optimization)
Activity within record, references, file changes, relocations.
Bounce rate (www/email/groups)
Segmentation

Search Evolved: File Management & Digital Asset Optimization

Steve when into great detail talking about the fact that Search has changed. No longer is it just about optimizing a website, but also other digital assets such as….

PDFs - There are 25 fields in .pdf that you can optimize for Google.
Spreadsheets
Feeds - RSS Segmentation
Social profiles
- employee cost
- personality research
Video/flash
Podcasts
Whitepapers
Games/widgets
Images
Analytical challenges

** Steve pointed out that EVERYTHING you do points back to domain name. Name all of your files, images, PDF’s with keywords and domain name.

Conversions and Forms

Conversion paths - users answer questions in a form and then they land on a page that delivers tailored content to their specific answers.
Conversion reporting
Email database

Things to Remember

Help search engines find your site by building your website in a search friendly data structure
Leverage content by optimizing digital assets
All search results are not created equal. Always keep the end in mind (conversions) to provide value for SER

Next up is Todd Malicoat

As far as Information architecture goes Todd Malicoat gave us some awesome tips for two different types of websites: The Blog and the eCommerce site….

Blog

Use snippets - Instead of having the entire post on the front page Todd suggests using just snippets. This way there is no duplicate content on the site.
link to your best posts - Put a section on your blog that lists your "best of" posts.
funnel pagerank and anchor text
automated internal linking - Automated internal linking keeps pages themed and helps older posts. Related Posts plugin for WP helps to automate the improvement of building an internal link structure
Tag clouds - Not always great to use - dupe content and dilutes link pop

eCommerce

Link to top selling products - home page, every page, body
Use another word other than "Home" for the Home page…. such as the name of your product.
French Fry Pages - These type of pages offer little value and dilute link population (such as the privacy policy page)
sitemaps- These work great for very large sites work well. They help funnel the juice.

Todd explains that search engines aren’t as smart as some might think…. "Search engines are smart…but not that smart. You really want to spoon feed them the information you want them to have."

Next up was Carolyn shelby

Carolyn talks about how to determine the best architecture model for our needs….

All in One - everything on the homepage
Flat - all pages peers, every one accessible from each
Hub and Spoke (Daisy) - useful for multiple, distinct linear workflows
Strict Hierarchy - lower-level pages can only be accessed via its parent
Multi-Dimensional Hierarchy - many way of browsing to the same content

Content Creation - Create an outline (Yes, a real outline) - She mentions if you don’t know how to do an outline you really need to go back to school to learn. It is just that important.

define the site topic
Do keyword research - pay attention to the phraseology that your audience uses; pay attention to most common search phrases; explore your niche to get ideas for additional topics.
Mingle with the peasants - interview customer service, talk to sales people who deal with the public, read consumer reviews (online, offline, wherever), talk to non-your-industry people about your topic. This where you can get some of the best and clear ideas.

Some tips that Carolyn mentions…

Remember we are not Normal - Carolyn mentions that due to the industry we are in and the experience we have in search …. "We are not normal…we do not search like regular people…we’ve been touched…" So, in order to remedy this we need to think outside of the box when it comes to Content Creation and Research.
Check your 404 logs to see what people are typing in as a "guess". This can help identify the terms the site’s audience uses.
Don’t forget the Logs - As far as Keyword Research goes Carolyn says, "Keep track of internal site search logs. Look for clues in access logs."
Keyword Research Tool - She also mentions a great site to use to get keywords is SeedKeywords.
Don’t forget to Think outside of the Box - Carolyn even mentions that she has even used a more nontraditional method to this that really works. She has her daughter’s friends come over and then she asks them, "If you were to search for "such & such" how would you go about finding information on that?" And, without offering them any help she watches what they enter into search to find the information on that topic. She watches step by step how they go about getting information on that topic. Here she gets a real clear answer on how some people might search for a certain topic.

Carolyn did a recap of both of her IM Spring Break Sessions on SEO 101. So, make sure to check that out.

It was another awesome session at IM Spring Break. Steve, Todd and Carolyn gave us a bunch of really terrific information to insure our success with Information Architecture. Remember, it is your job to make sure that when readers or users come to your website they can quickly find the information they are looking for. One way to lose a user forever is to make finding what they want difficult. Follow the suggestions and tips this amazing panel gave you… and you will be on your way to information architecture bliss.

Above image by Dana Lookadoo

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4 Responses to “Information Architecture at IMSB - Build it & They will Come”
By Glen Allsopp on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply

Great stuff Shana, man I wish I was in the states for all these conferences.

A guy called Chris (good friend of mine) happened to tell me he went yesterday. He’s from NJ so that might help you remember who I’m talking about.

Anyways he had nothing but good things to say about you all and the conference. Good work!

Cheers,
Glen
By Dana Lookadoo on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply

This was one on the best sessions at IMSB. Heck, they were all good. However, we were glued to listening to each speaker share nuggets. And Steve Plunkett ensured we repeated the mantra, “It’s all about the domain!”

Shana, awesome coverage and writeup! You’re the queen notetaker!

Glenn, you did miss you. Sure look forward to the opportunity to meet you at a future IM Broadcast event!
By @steveplunkett on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply

Thank you for the very complete summary of all of the #IMSB Events, I hope you will be doing the same in the future at the #IMSB events.

=)
By Terry Harmon on Apr 16, 2009 | Reply

Good coverage of this session! I think I might wanna think about going to one of these smaller conventions…