[Public Sample] A practical example of organizing a content shelf by selecting 12 core articles from 320 notes

What I realized after creating a blueprint for my own notes this time was that a content shelf is not just a 'list of titles for articles to be written in the future'.

It is not just about what to write anew, but also

• what to keep

• what to revise

• what to connect

• what not to touch for now

deciding all of these.

Only after organizing to this extent does it become a 'content shelf blueprint'.

Hello.

I am Tsuyoshi Watadaru of 'Netarie', a support service for note publishing for small businesses.

I am a former retail store owner and have been involved in article production as a Web writer for 8 years.

This article is a public sample of the 'Note Content Shelf Blueprint Service' provided by Netarie.

I will introduce the decisions I made, excluding individual management information, from the blueprint I actually created for my own notes.

In the current blueprint service, I do not apply the exact same number or structure as this article.

I design by looking at what that person's note has, what is missing, and how much needs to be organized.

The first thing that was decided was not the new articles to be written.

Before I started the design, I was also a bit mistaken.

I thought that a content shelf blueprint was something that determined the titles and structures of new articles to be written.

If you ask AI, it will come up with 30 or even 50 article ideas.

However, what my notes needed was not to increase the number of new topics.

In reality, what was decided first was the following.

• Articles not to be written

• Articles to be recreated

• Articles to which some content will be added

• Articles where only the end or internal links will be fixed

• Articles to be left as they are

• Areas not to be touched this time

This is because before thinking about new articles, I needed to confirm the role of the existing ones.

At the time, I had over 320 published articles on my note. Moreover, the number of articles was increasing at a fairly high frequency.

It is not that I am troubled by having too few articles.

Rather, because there are so many articles, it has become difficult for first-time visitors to judge:

"What kind of work do you do?"

"Which one should I read first?"

It was in a state where it was difficult to judge.

What was needed was not to increase the number of articles further.

It was to choose the main paths related to my current work from among the 320.

This is where the significance of designing a content shelf lies.

First, I divided the articles into five roles.

I checked the existing articles based on the following five roles.

・Entry articles to meet readers through search, etc.
・Articles that organize readers' concerns
・Trust-building articles that convey personality and ideas
・Articles to read before considering services
・Articles that answer frequently asked questions

Before I started, I thought I lacked entry articles.

I thought that because there were few articles to attract people from search, it wasn't leading to work.

However, when I actually classified them, there were quite a few entry articles.

About 80 book review essays.
About 45 comments on AI news.
About 47 articles on attracting customers to note by industry.
There are also search articles on how to utilize qualifications, movie analysis, and others.

What was thin was not the entry point.

It was the trust-building articles that convey personality and judgment criteria.

There were 9 articles counted as trust-building articles.Moreover, 2 of them no longer matched my current posting policy.

If I had only thought about it in my head, I think I would have continued to increase entry articles.

By trying to classify them,

“Not writing more, but supplementing different roles”

My judgment changed to that.

Note that it is not necessarily the case that other notes lack FAQs or need to increase trust-building articles.

If judgment materials are already available on service pages, profiles, or external sites, you may not need to create new articles.

In this case, I judged that it was difficult to guide with only 12 core articles.

This time, I selected 12 core articles from over 320 articles.

The 12 articles here are not a table of contents for all articles.

These are the 12 articles I chose as the main articles I want readers to see first on my note at this time.

Even in the current design blueprint, I sometimes use up to about 12 slots when organizing core articles.

However, filling 12 articles is not the goal.

If 6 is enough, then 6 it is.

If existing articles and service pages are sufficient, there are cases where almost no new articles are created.

In my case, since I had over 320 articles, simply selecting 12 would have made it difficult for people to find those 12 in the first place.

Therefore, in this case, I made the decision to create 4 hub articles as a solution.

The hub articles referred to here are articles that organize related content and guide readers by saying,

"If you're interested in this topic, you can start here."

that is the purpose of these articles.

The 4 pieces I designed this time were as follows.

For my note at that time, the following structure worked best:

Pinned article
↓
Hub article
↓
Individual article

This shape was a good fit.

However, this does not mean it is the standard form for the current design blueprint service.

If there are few articles, simply connecting them directly may be sufficient.

If an existing magazine already serves a navigational function, there are times when I don't create a new hub.

If external service pages are sufficiently organized, there are times when I don't significantly redesign the pinned article.

What is necessary is not 'creating a hub,' but rather,

ensuring that readers do not get lost regarding what they should look at

.

The 12 pieces were not all newly written.

The breakdown of the 12 articles selected this time is as follows.

• New articles to be written: 4

• Articles to be remade to fit current policies: 4

• Articles to be nurtured by adding information: 2

• Articles where only the call-to-action at the end needs fixing: 1

• Articles to be used as-is: 1

Of the 4 new articles, 2 already had drafts completed.

In other words, I did not write all 12 from scratch after creating the blueprint.

Use past articles where possible.

If there is no need to change the main text, do not force a revision.

Articles that are already fulfilling their role should be left as they are.

This has not changed even with the current blueprint approach.

In fact, currently,

before creating new articles, I first check if the goal can be achieved just by rearranging or adding information

is a mindset I have made even clearer.

Depending on the project,

there are designs where,

"only one new article is needed"or"no new articles this time"

is the outcome.

Even if there were 3 articles on the same theme, I did not consolidate them.

As you proceed with sorting, similar articles will emerge together.

In my case, I had three articles written about pinned articles.

・An article for those who haven't created a pinned article yet
・An article for those who have a pinned article but it remains stuck as a "Nice to meet you" post
・An article for those who understand the necessary elements but cannot start writing

The theme is the same.

However, the state of the reader is different.

Therefore, I compared the following three points.

1. Reader
What state is the person reading the article in?

2. Problem
What are they currently struggling with?

3. Conclusion
What should they understand by the time they finish reading?

If these three points are almost the same, it is a duplication.

Do not write a new one; revise the existing article. If any of them are different, you can keep them as separate articles.

The three articles written about pinned articles had different reader states. Therefore, I decided not to force them to be integrated, but to give each one a role.

Organizing a bookshelf is not a task of mechanically reducing similar articles. It is a task of deciding whether to place them on the same shelf or on a different path.

I also provided reasons for articles that I did not put on the shelf.

When you select 12 core articles from 320, many articles remain outside the shelf.

However, not being able to put them on the shelf does not mean they have no value.

For example, book essays and movie reviews were not incorporated into the main flow this time.

However, I will keep them as articles that are read through searches and convey my personality and consistency.

The bookshelf is not a table of contents for all articles on note.

This time, it is the main path I want readers to walk. I also decided where the articles placed outside the shelf would function.

I also provided reasons for articles not included on the shelf.

When you select 12 core articles out of 320, many articles remain outside the shelf.

However,

not being on the shelf does not mean it lacks value.

is not the case.

For example, book essays and movie reviews were not incorporated into the main traffic flow at this time.

Even so, I will keep them as articles that are read via search or that help people get to know the person named Tsuyoshi Watataru.

The article shelf is not a table of contents meant to neatly categorize every single note.

This time, it is the main path I want readers to walk.

I have also carried this way of thinking over to my current design blueprint.

Regarding articles that do not fall into the core, I consider treatments such as:

• keeping them as articles read via search

• using them as related articles

• keeping them as a separate group of articles on a different theme

• not touching them for now

• checking them later if the information becomes outdated

I consider these types of handling.

In this case, I made only minor corrections to the pinned article.

In the design at that time, I also considered completely rewriting the pinned article.

However, after checking, the quality of the main text was high, and there was no reason to rewrite the whole thing.

I decided to make corrections mainly in the following three areas.

• Replace the link in the blueprint mail with the published sales article

• Add guidance to the four hub articles

• Organize the order of the guidance

I will keep the beginning of the pinned article, the self-introduction, and the consultation guide.

I am not going to fix every single place that can be fixed.

I will only fix the places where it is difficult for readers to make a decision.

This remains the same even now.

However, in the current blueprint mail, the pinned article itself is not mandatory.

Depending on the project,

• use the current pinned article as is

• pin a different article

• do not create a pinned article

are also possible conclusions.

I also decided on places not to touch this time

I also noted the "places not to touch this time" in the blueprint.

Update frequency and article volume

If I stop updating to organize the content shelf, there is a possibility that my posting will stop altogether. I will maintain the current update pace.

Article URL

If I change the URL, the links posted in the past will break. Although there are some where the old name remains in the URL, I will not change them this time.

Standard lead-in at the end of the article

I will maintain three items: self-introduction, free inspection article, and newsletter. For each article, I will add exactly one 'main exit to read next from this article' just before the end.

Short profile

The target audience, title, background, and work methodology are contained within a short text.

I will not change a single character here. Deciding which parts not to change is also part of the design.

Deciding which parts not to change is also part of the design.

If you try to fix everything, you will end up not being able to publish anything at all.

The article shelf blueprint also includes the order of publication.

Even if you receive the article shelf blueprint, if you don't know where to start, you will get stuck again.

Therefore, I have assigned an order for publishing and reorganizing the 12 pieces.

In the first half, I have placed articles for which drafts are already complete or articles that only need the ending fixed.

Articles to be written from scratch are in the second half.

This time, the work to be done first consists of the following three tasks.

1. Publish two completed drafts
2. Connect a link from the pinned article to the design blueprint service sales article
3. Enable navigation from the entry article of the industry-specific series to Hub 4

I will finish this within this month.

After that, I will create 'What is an article shelf?' for Hub 1.

It is not the case that the article shelf will not move until all 12 pieces are completed.

Once the sales article and the public sample are published and the link is connected from the pinned article, one path will begin to move.

The blueprint is not a plan that requires waiting a long time until completion. It is also a sequence table for starting work that can be done from the day it arrives.

I will spend about a month steadily organizing the article shelf according to the blueprint.

What I learned from creating an article shelf

What I realized after designing my own notes was that it wasn't the number of articles that I was lacking.

I already had plenty of entry-point articles.

What was missing were articles that showed who was writing them.

• What criteria do I use for my work?

• To what extent do I use AI, and where do I make human judgments?

• What do I accept, and what do I decline?

• When I'm unsure, what criteria do I use to decide?

Such articles were thin on the ground.

Therefore, for the new articles I write this time, I have given them a greater role in building trust.

By the way, this article is one of them (laughs).

It has the role not only of explaining the contents of the blueprint service, but also of showing how I actually applied it to my own notes and what judgments I made.

However, if I were to diagnose a different note, I think the results would be completely different.

For someone who only has five articles, there is no need to create the same 12 pieces and 4 hubs.

If someone already has a well-organized external service page, they might only need a few additional articles for their notes.

If the FAQ is sufficient, an FAQ article is unnecessary.

I have come to think that an article shelf is not something you force into a mold, but rathersomething that creates the necessary path from what you already have.

You can also create your own blueprint.

The organization I performed in this article is something you can do yourself.

In my notes this time, I first checked existing articles by their role, and compared similar articles based on 'reader, problem, and conclusion'.

On top of that, I have selected core articles relevant to my current work, created hubs only where necessary, and reviewed the roles of pinned articles and internal links.

If there are already similar articles, it may be better to utilize those existing ones rather than writing new ones.

I am not hiding the method itself.

For those who want to try organizing their own content shelf, there is a textbook that summarizes the concepts and procedures.

👉 [Complete Edition] How to Grow Your Note for Work (1,500 yen)

In the textbook, I enable you to think about your own content shelf by using methods such as role categorization, inventory of existing articles, and design cards.

In my own note, as a result of organizing over 320 articles, it has taken the form of 12 core articles and 4 hub articles.

This is not a definitive model, but one answer that emerged from my note.

If you feel you can proceed on your own, there is no need to use the Blueprint Service.

On the other hand, when I actually tried organizing my own 320 articles, I felt that knowing the method and being able to judge your own articles are two different things.

I have an emotional attachment to the articles I have written.

Even if their roles overlap, I find myself thinking:

"I want to keep this one too"

"Can't I somehow fit this into the main path?"

I end up thinking like that.

As the number of articles increases, it takes time just to check them.

At such times, the "Note Content Shelf Blueprint Service" is a way to organize them from an outside perspective for once.

What I organize with the Blueprint Service is not just the article titles.

• What role to assign to your current note

• Which articles to keep as the core

• How to make the most of existing articles

• Where to make minor adjustments

• Whether pinned articles or hubs are truly necessary

• What information is better placed outside of note

• Whether it is necessary to write new articles

• Which areas do not need to be touched right now

• Where to start first

I will organize up to these points.

If you want to proceed on your own, please use the textbook.

If you have too many articles and cannot narrow them down, or if you want someone else to organize what you currently have from a third-party perspective, please use the blueprint service.