Jim True gave a presentation on content strategy and modeling using WordPress and the Pods plugin. He discussed how to plan content types, whether to use custom post types or taxonomies, and how to relate content using relationships. The presentation provided examples of modeling content for products, parks, and suggested determining main and sub content types along with needed custom fields to populate the data model before building a site.

1. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Plan Before You Build
Information Architecture & Content Strategy
Jim True, Tampa Bay WordPress

2. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Jim True, @jimtrue
Support Lead &
Community Manager
@podsframework
http://pods.io

3. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
What is Content?
In the sense of the Web, Content
can be anything of substance that
you need to share, promote or
provide information to your users
about your business or service or
products.

4. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Content is Hard!
It’s the one thing that’s harder to collect from
your client’s than the paycheck.

5. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Content is Everywhere!
Product Photos Different Formats & Pricing
Price &
Shipping
Details
Special
Product
Offers
Product Details, ISBN, Customer Reviews
Related Products & Editorial Reviews

6. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
AMAZON Organized
PRODUCTS
Main Content Type
REVIEWS
MEDIA & PHOTOS
OFFERS & SALES
Sub Content
BOOK FORMATS
SHIPPING METHODS
CREATORS (AUTHORS)
PUBLISHERS
GENRE, CATEGORY &
TAGS
Organizational
● ISBN
● Description
● Price
● Publish Date
● .etc
Everything else is either related to
sub content or organized by the
organizational content

7. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Another Content Example
Park Photos
Contact
Details
Special Notices
Hours, Entrance Fees
& Climate
Map, Event Calendar, History & Reviews
Social Links

8. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
TX State Parks Organized
PARKS
Main Content Type
REVIEWS
MEDIA & PHOTOS
EVENT CALENDAR
Sub Content
AMENITIES
REGION
Organizational
● Address/geocode
● Contact Details
● History
● Hours
● Entrance Fees
● Social Links
MAPS & CAMPSITES
RESERVATIONS
External System

9. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
CONTENT is the KEY
• Think of the DATA you’re trying to represent in a
Logical, Structural way
• You’re looking at it as usable, searchable, organized
CONTENT
• You also don’t want to enter ANYTHING more than
once.

10. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Content Strategy
Thinking & planning the Content you’ll use
& collect for your website organized in a
way that is usable for the users of the
website and searchable on the web.

11. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
CONTENT Modeling & Strategy
• How you structure your Data for presentation
& organization is Content Modeling
• How you use it and interact with it and how
your audience will use it on your site defines
your Content Strategy

12. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Content Management System (CMS)
This is where our job starts.
Taking the content model & content strategy
and populating it into a CMS.
• WordPress & (Pods, ACF, Types, CPT-UI, many others)
• Drupal & CCK
• Joomla (Content Construction Toolkits)
• Other?

13. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
WordPress & Pods
Grow Beyond Posts & Pages
A Content Development Framework for
https://wordpress.org/plugins/pods/

14. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
How does Pods Help?
• Add Custom Post Types & Taxonomies as Pods without any
Coding
• Add Custom Fields to those Pods
• Link Pod to Pod (Relationships)
• Change Fields & Pod definitions on the Fly, if you need more
fields or new relationships between other Pods
• Extend existing Post Types: Users, Media, Comments, Posts,
Pages… even Custom Post Types from other Plugins!

15. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Plan the Content Types
• Determine your different Content Types
• Which will be Custom Post Types (CPT)
• Which will be Custom Taxonomies
• Determine how they need to connect to each other
(Relationships or Taxonomies)
• Determine the Custom Fields to add to each Content Type
to Populate your Data Model

16. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Taxonomy vs. Relationship
If your item (Taxonomy or CPT) can stand alone by itself as
a page of detail, it should be a CPT. If it can only exist as a
group of things, it’s a Custom Taxonomy.
Ex. Books & Authors > Relationship (CPT to CPT)
Ex. Books & Genres > Taxonomy for Genre to organize and
filter the books.

17. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Workshop
What Kind of Content
Do YOU Have?

18. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
How to get Help with Pods
On our Website:
http://pods.io/forums/
On Slack Chat:
http://pods.io/chat/
http://podswp.slack.com #support
On WordPress.org:
http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/pods/

19. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
We are a FREE Plugin (no paywall)

20. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Thank you to The Iron Yard!
We meet here the first Thursday of every month,
Thanks to the amazing Toni Aliberti!

21. Plan Before You Build • 1/5/2017 @ Iron Yard • Jim True • @jimtrue
Thanks to Tampa Bay WordPress
WordPress Meetups:
meetup.com/Tampa-Bay-WordPress
Slack Chat:
tampabaywp.org/chat/