The decade-old ITtoolbox.com, a community site dedicated to helping IT people do their jobs, recently underwent a major redesign that altered not only the site's visitor-facing front end but its database and technology back end as well.
The biggest visible change to the site, which functions as a professional network as well as a data and information repository, is in navigation. Before, individual, subject-specific knowledge bases were presented as microsites with no way to navigate to other related content on the network. They were even hosted on separate servers. This isolated the site content, especially since a large majority of new visitors arrive via search engine.
Now, visitors to one page can click through to white papers, surveys, podcasts, vendor selection groups and blogs, among other elements. "If you're looking at someone's blog, for example, the site navigation follows you," said Martin Sielaff, senior director of technology. "Now every page is a front page. Almost immediately, this boosted the site's average page views per visit by 10%, he said.
And because everything is on the same back-end server, pages load more quickly and are more manageable from a development process. It's easier to add content and links. Search is also improved. Results are organized by type of content: Blogs, Groups and Wiki.
The change will also boost branding and overall site awareness, Sielaff said. "When someone comes in from a search and they land on someone's group message, we want to make it very clear that they have found a community of people but that they can also find white papers, or vendors or a wiki," he said.
And because the community, which topped 1.3 million registered members in August, is such an important focus, visitors can connect with others by search as well as an alphabetical listing. "We want people to be able to get places without having to click on 17 links. It's about making the site as shallow as possible," Sielaff said.
Dana Todd: From an SEO perspective, they've done a great job of creating separate "themes" and architectural silos, which should help them manicure their link structure and value. I particularly like the simplified navigation once you drill down into a topic. Visually, they can probably take one or two steps further to reduce the clutter.
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Expert 2¢
Dana Todd: From an SEO perspective, they've done a great job of creating separate "themes" and architectural silos, which should help them manicure their link structure and value. I particularly like the simplified navigation once you drill down into a topic. Visually, they can probably take one or two steps further to reduce the clutter.
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