New Category List

[Ed]

If a customer is looking for information to a particular destination, he'll most likely search for the term. The search will bring up articles in either category. Because most travel-oriented websites focus on specific regions (as do region-oriented websites, obviously) customers who are looking for articles for their websites are most likely to use the search function rather than sift through pages of content looking for an article that will fill their needs. Most customers don't have time to browse - their websites are focused, they need specific content, and they need to find it fast. Additionally, with search term RSS feeds, they can be notified when an article appears that fits what they're looking for.

I would concentrate more on making sure that the search term appears in your keyword list. If your article is about New England, make sure that term appears there. If it is about New England AND travel, make sure both terms appear there: New England, New England Travel.

Thanks,
Ed

[geniuswaitress]

I already do those things, and I remember you saying that most customers buy articles after searching for keywords. What about those who don't? Honestly, any chance to get sales is a chance that's worth something.

For those customers (even if they're few) that might browse a category, I'd love to see all the travel articles actually listed under travel.

I haven't decided yet where to put mine. Maybe an even split.

[geniuswaitress]

Another suggestion for streamlining would be to ditch the quite vague "Entertainment" subcat under Arts & Culture. A look through the articles that are even in that cat turns up only articles that not only could go somewhere else, but fit BETTER somewhere else. It's full of movie articles (Movie & TV cat), movie quotes (Movie or Quotes cat), pieces on acting (Performing Arts cat), video games (Video Games cat), etc.

[jrichards]

Hi geniuswaitress and others,

Thanks for all your input, I'm very aware that the categories structure is both challenging and important. While Developing the new category structure I looked at a number of other sites like dmoz, the Dewey decimal system and our own existing category system to try and find a new system that would be more appropriate. I hear some laments for the old system. But there were some serious flaws with the old category system as well, not the least of which was that, the writing style was the top line category. This meant that we ended up having two categories for animals, one under Articles-> Animals and one under Blog Entries->Animals, which as you can imagine was quite confusing for customers. So that was the main reason that we consolidated/re-organized the categories.

Now with the issue of Travel and Regional Articles being a confusing distinction, perhaps we could alter the Category titles slightly to clarify the situation. What if we changed
Travel to Travel Tips
and changed the
Regional to Travel and Regional

My feeling is that people who are interested in buying articles about a particular region may be interested in both travel guides to that region and historical or geographical information about the region.
-jrichards

[geniuswaitress]

Good idea, but why have Travel Tips in a separate main cat from the travel and regional?

Making the travel tips a subcat of the (new) travel and regional would put them all under the same main header. And that's a good thing.

I appreciate the challenges --I've worked in a used bookstore for 13 years.