Panel discussion for the 2012 Ingeniux User Conference, featuring Champlain College, CASE, University of the Pacific and St. Louis University

1. Brian Andrews, Champlain College
Karen Buck, Zehno Cross Media Communications
Janna Crabb, Council for Advancement and Support of
Education
John McClimans, University of the Pacific
Mark Rimar, Saint Louis University
Talking Taxonomy:
Learn from our greatest hits and misses
using the Ingeniux taxonomy
functionality
Ingeniux User Conference 2012
Seattle, Washington

2. What Is Taxonomy?

3. Taxonomy (from www.gxdeveloperweb.com/)
Mutually
exclusive in the
biology world

4. Clustering

5. Clustering and Aggregating
An organizational category of meaning or
metadata
Conceptual, faceted or contextual clustering
can be quite extendable
Clusters and facets could be defined
– by topic
– by media type
– by department
– by media type
– by attribute
– by functionality
– by audience
– etc.

6. How to Apply Taxonomy?

7. Channeling Jim:
What’s your business case?

8. Marketing & Content Engagement
Benefits
Search engine optimization
Improved navigation & findability
Easier syndication & integration of like content
Longer engagement with site
– Surfers
– Taskmasters
Greater likelihood to take action

9. Models to Learn From

10. Models to Learn From

11. Models to Learn From

12. Search Engine Optimization

13. Search Engine Optimization
– Taxonomy-
driven redesign
– Time on site
doubled
– Pages/visitor
doubled
– Applications and
quality up

14. Sharing Our Ingeniux
Taxonomy Experiences

15. Council for Advancement
and Support of Education

19. Goals
Use taxonomy to push content at site
visitors based on their area of interest,
region or institution type
Use taxonomy to pull together all
resources on a given topic, regardless of
type of content
Pull in related resources, products and
conferences on a page (for example, a
conference or product page)
Flexibility to update and change site
easily as taxonomy changes

21. Challenges
Content has to be tagged correctly for
content to display correctly
Our CMS users often don’t know that a
tag page can have impact across the site
Our review team is not large enough to
effectively review all content regularly

22. University of the Pacific

23. Started using taxonomy
in October 2011 with a
website redesign
Designed to function
within two main
categories:
– Informational
– Functional
Primarily use for:
– Organizing Content
– Content Reuse and
Syndication

24. Content Reuse and Syndication
Old site, news was
decentralized
– Recreating news
pages
– Out of date content
Redesigned site:
Centralized
newsroom
– Taxonomy-driven
syndication

27. Content Population
A-Z Directory
Media Pages
Employee
Newsletter

29. Employee Newsletter
Content is
categorized within
the CMS
Via an XML feed,
content is
dynamically drawn
into the newsletter
template of our
email marketing
software

30. Champlain College

31. Goals
Promote a recently developed mobile site
specifically for prospective
Undergraduates
Promote a “Sign up for Text Updates”
campaign to prospective Undergraduates
Provide forms for visitors to sign up for
text updates

35. St. Louis University

36. An Evolution of Taxonomy
In the early stages of utilizing the latest
integrated Ingeniux CMS Taxonomy, but
we have traditionally used a multi-select
tool to categorize pages for about six
years
The multi-select tool:
the Grandfather of All Taxonomi
We will be using the new tool in many
similar ways as we have in the past.
– Some of the areas we have already developed
and will continue to expand, include topic
and news based as well as related content

37. With multi-select tool,
we now categorize
every page and several
component types
specifically for
– university top level
– a college
– a degree-granting
center or division
We use a secondary
classification to
categorize departments
or sub-areas
With multi-select, we
deliver specific versions
of the main University
web site template
through combination of
programming and
components

38. Categorization Helps SLU
Remain consistent with our overall brand for our
web site
Manage and deliver the 40+ site templates
– The different versions of templates are consistent to each other
and an overall branded look and feel.
– Certain header graphic elements and rotating photo banners that
appear at top of body copy area site remain locked down.
– Departments must work with web team for photo banners and
graphic standards and conventions are followed by web team for
header graphics.
Empower our web team professionals in their fields
of expertise
– Helps Web Services compensate for and best serve the varying
skill levels of developing web content at our institution. Not all
300-350 of our users are exceptional content or web developers!

39. Some Content is Also Delivered via
Multi-select
News articles are tagged
and pushed to specific
page types from a
centralized media and
communications team
Content pushed to
slu.edu homepage and
college, school and
center home pages
Pushed content is based
more on our
organizational structure
than topic related

40. Taxonomy Better Manages These
Elements
browser title bar: name of each section is pulled and
displayed via variables for SEO
graphics: rotating header banner and profile photos can be
used/reused in different sections
navigations: specific sections receive locked down
navigation (no longer in use)
meta data: sometimes, a basic set of keywords has been
added to a section (no longer in use)
Google Custom Search: law school only searched for
pages containing "SLU LAW"
Google Analytics: each unit once had a unique tracking
code
hidden pixel cookie tracking codes: specific marketing
campaigns sometimes need to track specific pages

41. New and Future Use of Taxonomy
We will be
launching our
redesigned
beabilliken.com
microsite next
week
Articles and videos
will be categorized
to pulled back to
The new site will
take advantage of
taxonomies by:
– homepage
slider
– specific
sections used
for related
content
– archive pages

42. Quiz Your Panelists

43. For more case studies and how-to
tips, check out Zehno white papers
and