Planning website content takes more than brainstorming topics and writing pages. Businesses also need to know where those pages belong on the website and how they relate to the rest of the site, which is where site planning and content mapping comes in.
A site plan lays out the website’s structure across a website, while website content mapping connects the pages throughout the website to one another. When the two work together, websites go from a collection of pages to a site that’s logically organized and easy to navigate.
At Rocks Digital Marketing, every piece of content we write is first incorporated in the site plan and content map. Managing Partner Lissa Duty guides this site plan and content mapping process.
How a Site Plan Organizes Website Pages
A site plan identifies the pages a website needs to have published and organizes them into a hierarchy. For a typical business website these pages would include the core services, sub-service pages, locations, resources and blog posts. Sorting pages into a hierarchy helps prevent important pages from getting buried, duplicated, or omitted entirely.
Here at Rocks Digital we don’t create a new page just because we’ve found a new keyword opportunity. Every page published on the website and added to the site plan should have a defined purpose within the website, for the business and as part of the SEO strategy. But while a site plan identifies which pages are needed and where they belong, it doesn’t capture the relationships between them. This is where content mapping comes in.
How a Content Map Connects Website Pages
Content mapping builds on the site plan by focusing on the relationships between the pages. A content map identifies pages that cover related topics, but that serve different stages of the same customer journey. These connections won’t always follow the hierarchy that a parent and child page does on a website, but they are certainly connected. For example, a blog post or FAQ might discuss a service closely enough to link back to the corresponding service page.
Content mapping can reveal published website pages that have no clear relationship to the service pages they are supposed to support. With a better understanding of how content is connected across the website, it’s easier to build topical authority, internal linking gets easier to plan, and the site starts to function as one connected body of content, rather than a collection of separate pages.
Why a Website Needs Its Content Mapped to the Site Plan
A site plan alone doesn’t guarantee that related pages actually work together. Pages can sit in a logical hierarchy yet still have no connection, if there’s nothing that maps the relationships between them. For example, a how-to guide might cover a topic in more depth than a service page can, yet you still need to identify that relationship to guide the content strategy and ensure both pieces of content support each other, instead of competing in search results.
When an important topic or service has no supporting website pages, the site plan and content map together can help identify this gap. The site plan also helps to identify poor content coverage, overlapping topics, and website pages that need to be rewritten. Rather than add more pages, it’s often better to replace or update existing content instead.
How a Site Plan and Content Map Support the Content Strategy
Ultimately, the website content strategy sets the direction for what a business’ website needs to communicate. A site plan turns this into the pages and hierarchy the website needs, and a content map shows how those pages work together. This is the process Rocks Digital uses to plan and write website content for new and existing websites across industries, from construction and law to home services and healthcare.
Contact Us for Site Plan and Content Mapping Services
Rocks Digital develops content strategies that attract visitors and build authority with search engines. When you’re not sure whether your website has the right pages, structure and content relationships, get in touch about a site plan and content mapping strategy. Call (214) 989-7549 or request a website evaluation.
