There comes a point in time when every business needs to make the switch to structured content. Some small websites can get away with unstructured content creation, but owners of large, growing businesses don’t have time to waste on updating content and rewriting documents that already exist.
Structured content saves companies the time, money, and frustration associated with constantly creating new content by making content reuse effortless. It also enhances the effectiveness and overall quality of published documents. Here’s why industry professionals prefer structured content and how it can improve the value of your company.
Quick Takeaways
- Structured content is intentionally planned, developed, and connected so it’s ready for any publishing channel
- Content reuse, efficiency, findability, personalization, and future-proofed content are the most prominent benefits of structured content
- 80% of customers are more likely to purchase from a company that provides a personalized experience
- Structured content sees higher click-through rates, more visibility, faster indexing and voice search domination
Structured content allows you to stop wasting time on minor edits and start maximizing your company’s resources by reusing content.
Structured Content vs. Unstructured Content
When it comes to content creation, people often create single-use content specifically intended for a web page, presentation, user manual, or collateral. Each piece of content lives in its own designated space, and when new content is needed, new content is created. Content management teams call this “unstructured” content.
Due to its unique nature, unstructured content is often duplicated, difficult to find, and almost impossible to maintain. It’s also time-consuming, error-prone, and expensive to manage at an organizational level.
Because of this, technical writers prefer to create and publish “structured” content instead. Structured content is built in a structured format, allowing for granular management and lots of flexibility.
When content is structured, the need to rewrite content is eliminated and content already created can be reused in multiple ways. This is called content reuse, and is the main reason why top professionals prefer to use structured content. With structured content, businesses can also:
- Make bulk updates
- Track changes
- Speed-up reviews
- Publish to multiple systems
- Create new deliverables
- Cut support costs
Learn more about structured content in this video.
Structured content allows companies to turn materials into building blocks that can be taken apart and put back together to create different structures. This not only allows for greater flexibility but also maximizes company resources.
Why Professionals Prefer Structured Content
You already know that content reuse is a major benefit of using structured content, but that’s not all structured content has to offer. Below, you’ll learn about 5 more reasons why top professionals prefer structured content over unstructured content.
1. Efficiency
With the ability to reuse content, all tasks related to content production and management become more efficient. Documentation is created in minutes, updating content is quick, and applications render the appropriate format for any device.
Because structured content can be reused, your company naturally has to create less content. This also means less:
- Duplication
- Searching for content
- Maintenance and governance
- Time spent updating content
With time saved on creating and updating content, you can spend company resources on more productive tasks, like creating new content.
And remember, structured content allows for granular control of its parts. This control over content extends ownership, governance, algorithmic curation, and more, promoting efficiency in every content-related environment.
Findability
If users can’t find your content, its value is wasted. Structured content makes your materials easier for both computers and people to find, internally and externally. Structured content is rich with metadata, which enables computers to “read” it and understand how to use the content."
SEO, or search engine optimization, uses structured content as data and makes your business’s content more visible on SERPs, or search engine results pages. According to Search Engine Journal, structured data has:
- Higher click-through rates
- More visibility
- Faster indexing
- Voice search domination
Structured content can also be adjusted to a search engine’s algorithm and offers advanced search options. Not only will your content be more visible to your audience, but it will also be easier to navigate, resulting in a more satisfying experience for users.
Personalization
Personalization is more than including a customer’s name in your most recent email. When brands create a genuinely personalized experience for their audience members, customers’ loyalty and trust grows. In fact, 80% of customers are more likely to purchase from a company that provides a personalized experience.
Structured content allows companies to embed purpose and intent into each piece and component of content. From semantic content to embedded metadata, the qualities of structured content allow you to deliver personalized customer experiences based on persona.
Future-Proof Content
With a strong foundation, you won’t have to worry about rebuilding your website every 3-5 years. Whether you’re rolling out a new brand identity or reorganizing your navigation structure, changing specific components without rewriting an entire document is effortless.
Because metadata is stored with structured content, the content itself can be exported and transformed into other formats without losing its meaning. This also simplifies collaborative work with other teams and organizations.
Improved Technical Quality
Last but not least, structured content improves the technical quality of your materials, ultimately enhancing their value and effectiveness. More specifically, structured content helps improve:
- Accuracy. By applying review workflow rules and reusing already-accurate modules, your content becomes less prone to error. External systems can also store lists of terms to ensure that correct terminology is always used.
- Conformance. Certain information, formats, and review processes are often necessary for business landscapes. Structured content allows for easy maintenance when it comes to fulfilling specific requirements, whether they be contractual, regulatory, etc.
- Consistency. Your content is easier for readers to understand when it’s found in the same location and formatted in the same manner. Structured content encourages the use of regulated visual structures, enhancing the readability and quality of your content.
High-quality content is both error-free and consistent. Structured content naturally regulates and enhances the technical quality of your content.
Create Structured Content Today
Publishing structured content is one of the most important things you can do for the success of your business. This not only makes personalized documentation possible, but it’s also significantly easier and less expensive to create. Just ask Omnicell who significantly reduced their support and translation management costs by switching to structured content with Heretto.
Heretto helps organizations build a powerful platform to create, manage, and publish structured content for their audiences. Maximize your company resources today by requesting a DITA consultation with one of our industry experts or check out our guide to help you get started on your structured content journey today!
