Every day as you browse the web, the websites you visit dynamically recommend content based on their best guesses about what you might be interested in. Netflix features “Today’s Top Picks for You,” Amazon highlights “Products related to this item,” and Facebook suggests “People You May Know.” Even sites with limited knowledge about you can still offer appealing links based on your current viewing: a news article may include links to other articles on a similar topic, and a shopping page for jackets will group similar products together.
On museum websites, displaying related content is a crucial but often-neglected strategy for providing a more engaging user experience. It is a key part of the skim-swim-dive paradigm we discussed in a recent article. As we described, websites should be built with three audiences in mind:
- Skimmers: Visitors interested in seeing what is available at the site by quickly looking through headers and menu options
- Swimmers: Visitors interested in spending time exploring the content of the site in more detail.
- Divers: Visitors willing to invest significant time reading articles, watching videos, and locating specific information.
When designing a site for divers (and even swimmers), displaying related content is a must. In this article we will explore 1) The benefits of displaying related content, 2) Good examples you can find on the web, and 3) How we implement effective related content features using our low-code/no-code strategy.
1) Why Feature Related Content? (And Why Most Museum Websites Don’t)
Highlighting related content benefits both museums and their website visitors. Consider these potential outcomes:
- Longer, more productive visits to the museum website – Visitors will encounter content they would not have discovered otherwise, finding pages they would not have known to look for. Related content links can be a great way to showcase the depth of a collection or exhibition.
- Cross-promotion of exhibitions, events, articles, and more – Visitors browsing exhibition pages can easily learn about events, news stories, blog articles, or even items in the museum store associated with the exhibition.
- Improved search engine optimization (SEO) – Search engines favor websites with comprehensive, interlinked content, which may result in higher search rankings. According to Google, “The number of internal links pointing to a page is a signal to search engines about the relative importance of that page.”
With such benefits, it is somewhat surprising that most museum websites do not consistently feature related content. Why not? The main reason is likely that it is simply difficult to do on a normal platform. In the past, it is something that has required significant custom coding. Although it is much easier now (more on that below), not all museums are familiar with the technology that makes it possible.
2) Examples of Related Content on Museum Websites
Some museum websites are already displaying effective related content, as seen in the examples below. These examples also help pinpoint the types of pages that may show up in related content. This content might include:
- Related works of art or artifacts
- Relevant articles, blog posts, news stories, videos, or podcasts
- Educational resources
- Upcoming events
Here are some examples:
Related Artwork:
The Cleveland Museum of Art (note that this list is generated by AI, a feature we may be seeing more of in the future)
Related Events:
Related Museum Store Items:
Related Articles:
National Baseball Hall of Fame (Articles on the site feature links to the bios of players mentioned in each article; the bio pages then link back to any articles that mention them.)
Related Content of Multiple Kinds:
3) Adding Related Content with Our Low-Code/No-Code Strategy
Adding effective related content to museum websites is clearly possible, even if museums don’t typically take advantage of this feature. What, then, is the best way to go about adding it?
As mentioned above, implementing related content requires a higher level of technical sophistication to museum website development. As a result, due to either budget constraints, or lack of technical capability, many museums fail to benefit from related content.
The first level of technical complexity stems from the question of how these relationships are established in the first place. Google, Amazon, and Facebook have hyper-advanced algorithms that fine turn related content to each individual based on massive sets of data.
Museums have neither hyper-advanced algorithms nor sufficient traffic volume (data sources) to implement that level of personalized content recommendation.
But there are easier ways to establish content relationships. The most common is to set up custom taxonomies (think WordPress categories and tags) that can be used to match pages based on themes, subjects, or events. For example, you could create a tag that corresponds with a major exhibition. You could then apply that tag to any collection items in that exhibition, blog posts about the exhibition, or events that run alongside the exhibition.
Related post widgets can automatically display any content tagged with that exhibition. For a more customized approach, a related post widget can be set up with an override feature that allows specific posts to be prioritized for a particular exhibition.
When we implement related content, we usually set a default category match, with an override feature for museum content administrators to either change the default category or add individually curated posts. We also set an option to not display any related content for rare cases where leading visitors toward a deeper dive is not warranted.
Building these kinds of relationships into a museum website, with needed contingencies and overrides, would normally require quite a bit of custom code. But with our Low-Code/No-Code framework, we are able to set these structures in place using existing tools and features in the framework.
Museum websites have profoundly robust and valuable content, but most of it remains obscured to most visitors that just skim through looking for basic visiting information. By adding related content to these heavily trafficked pages, you can prompt deeper exploration and surface the great stories behind your collection and programs.
