A guest post by Clemency Wright, of Clemency Wright Consulting, the UK’s leading provider of keywording services and consultancy.
We use keywords all the time when searching for content, but have you ever really considered how keywords work and what happens behind the scenes?
If you are a content manager, or you are responsible for uploading content to a search system, then you probably already use keywords. But how do you decide what keywords to add? Are your users satisfied with the search results? Do they sometimes struggle to find what they need?
Keywords help you to surface content, but optimised keywords ensure an efficient and reliable search experience.
Why? It’s simple: a customer who can find what they need quickly and easily is more likely to engage with your content and buy from your organisation.
First things first : what are keywords?
Keywords are words applied to digital files to enable users to search for and retrieve relevant information. Keywords are also sometimes referred to as tags.
Some useful terms:
- Content – specifically digital content, includes any file that is shared on a platform such as a database or website
- Digital assets range from photos, videos, illustrations, gifs, logos, design files (such as Illustrator and InDesign), PDFs, text files such as Word documents to Excel spreadsheets, etc.
- Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the practice of organising digital assets within a search system or database so they can be found
Why is content visibility important?
Information may as well be non-existent if it can’t be found.
In the days before Google, finding things was more manual, analogue, and time consuming. Technology has made the search process quicker, and in some cases easier.
But Google doesn’t always have all the answers. Have you ever performed a search and been utterly confused by the results? Or has your search for a specific item been met with numerous irrelevant advertisements? The problem with most online search engines is that they are trying to achieve two (seemingly contradictory) goals on one platform:
- The first goal is to provide information such as ‘how to make bread’
- The second goal is commercial, turning the query ‘how to make bread’ into a financial opportunity (selling bread makers)
The proliferation of paid adverts benefits those who are looking to buy more than it does those who are looking to learn.
In digital asset management systems, search is primarily about making sure people can find what they need to do their jobs within a business or organisation.
A simple search system with a search box should do it, surely?
If search were that simple, there wouldn’t be so many DAM systems out there, all offering new and better ways of searching. If search were that easy, why is there such a complex onboarding process and why does it take on average 12 months to implement a new DAM system?
So what DOES a DAM system do?
DAM systems measure success by the ability to track assets through the entire lifecycle, so they can know exactly which assets are performing best, where, when, and how. DAM success is about leveraging technology so that search is more efficient, assets perform better and a higher quality product is created as a result.
There is definitely a financial benefit to investing in a good DAM, and continual revision and improvement is required to maximise ROI. It is important for organisations to know what content they have so they can avoid duplicating work that already exists or publishing work that carries a risk (such as outdated material or incorrect data).
Final Words
Getting started with keywording can feel overwhelming at first but don’t let this put you off. The longer you ignore it, the more difficult it will become to fix, and the more upset your users will become.
My best advice is to design the process.
Just as you would any other business function, create a roadmap and put the user first.
In many ways, keywording reflects the ‘design thinking’ process because usability is the key goal. When organisations apply ‘design thinking’ to their keywording strategy, they create a process that is truly optimised for their own content and users. The process is iterative and non-linear. The steps include user testing, problem solving, prototyping, and evaluating.
If you want to know more about Keywording, check out our new course!
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