Goal:
The Self-Help Support team wanted to refine the scope of several web pages they own, the purpose of those pages, and a strategy for managing them that would fit with their objectives.
My role:
I reviewed the pages in question to develop a series of recommendations for short-term and long-term optimization.
Deliverables:
A content inventory of the web pages.
Analysis of the pages using Google Analytics and Crazy Egg heatmaps.
Annotated feedback on inconsistencies between similar pages.
A new core strategy statement.
Low-effort and high-effort opportunities for improvement.
Results:
I completed and presented my findings to the Self-Help team’s manager on time. Unfortunately, there was a re-prioritization of projects that meant there were no resources for implementing any of the recommendations.
Process:
After clarifying the team’s goals for this work, I started by reviewing previous efforts to optimize the pages. I then started a detailed inventory of the pages, including when they were last modified, by whom, and the type of the content on the page. It quickly became clear that several pages had no official owner, and had fallen under the Self-Help’s team purview for lack of alternatives. I added page traffic information from Google Analytics and reviewed activity on individual pages using Crazy Egg heatmaps.
To identify actionable next steps, it was important to create a clear core strategy statement for the team. This is the statement I created based on an understanding of the content product, business goals, the audience, and their needs.
I proposed this statement could be used to:
Determine which pages align with the team’s work.
Determine which pages don’t align with their work and should be handed off to other teams.
Clarify content types the team specializes in, and how they connect to each other.
Evaluate content based on 3 key attributes: freshness, accessibility, and findability.
I used the core strategy statement to guide 2 levels of recommendations: ones that can be done first, with less effort, and ones that might require more long-term work.
For example, fixing inconsistent microcopy and moving important calls to action higher up on the page would be easy steps in the right direction.
On the other hand, allocating responsibility of certain pages to other teams would require more collaboration and maneuvering. As would cross-linking to pages in more systematic and automated ways (instead of page editors creating manual lists of links).
I wrote up detailed recommendations backed by feedback from customer surveys, heatmaps from CrazyEgg, and findings from the content inventory. I also carefully annotated several pages to show inconsistent elements and patterns in similar (sometimes overlapping or duplicative) content.
What I’d do differently:
It was discouraging to put time and effort into recommendations that couldn’t be implemented. For future projects, I’d like to better gauge resource availability up front.