Content modelling

A content model is the blueprint for your website: the types of content you publish, the details you record about each, and how they connect. Get it right and information is easier to find, reuse, and update. Get it wrong and the cost shows up later in a rebuild.

An experienced Drupal architect turns the requirements from your discovery workshops into a content model that developers can build from and visitors can navigate.

Structure that fixes problems, not just moves them

Migrating a site as it is carries its problems into the new platform: inconsistent metadata, duplicated content, and poor findability. We use content modelling to fix those problems as part of the move.

For the Therapeutic Goods Administration, we consolidated 71 content types into 49 and gave each of more than 95,000 registered goods its own page. For the Attorney-General's Department, we organised 1,200 pages and more than 6,000 publications into nine site sections.

What you get:

  • A blueprint developers can build from. A content model that fits how Drupal works and guides the build.
  • Content visitors can find. Relationships between content exposed through faceted search, filters, and navigation.
  • A foundation for search, personalisation, and AI. Well-structured content is what makes these features reliable.

Our approach to content modelling

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Start from your requirements 

We work from the outputs of your discovery workshops: your audiences, their information needs, and the content you publish now and plan to publish.

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Design the model with a Drupal architect 

An experienced Drupal architect defines the content types, fields, taxonomies, and relationships. We design the model to work with Drupal's own tools, so it's simpler to build and maintain.

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Model relationships, not only pages 

Drupal's strength is modelling how content connects. We expose those relationships for faceting, filtering, and navigation, so visitors can reach the same information in more than one way.

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Hand over a model your team can use 

The content model becomes a key deliverable that guides your developers and editors. It's part of our information architecture service.

Frequently asked questions

Content modelling defines the content types, fields, and relationships a site needs, such as publication, event, person, and location, instead of treating every page as free-form text. Drupal's core strength is structured content, so the model determines how flexible, reusable, and searchable your content is for years. A weak content model is a common cause of expensive rebuilds.

Migrating as-is carries the old site's problems into the new one: inconsistent metadata, duplicated content, and poor findability. We've used content modelling to fix these during migration, including on projects that re-architected more than 1,000 pages and thousands of publications into structured site sections.

Structured, well-tagged content makes AI features such as faceted search, recommendations, and summarisation more reliable. AI applied to poorly modelled content automates the existing mess. Content modelling is the groundwork that determines whether later AI and DXP investment pays off.

Content modelling is part of our information architecture service. Information architecture defines how content is organised and found, through sitemaps, navigation, and taxonomies. The content model defines the structure underneath: types, fields, and relationships.

Case studies

Respect at Work-hero-header
Case study

Morpht built the Respect@Work website for the Australian Human Rights Commission, using privacy-safe personalisation to show employers and workers what applies.
TGA scientists in lab
Case study

Morpht rebuilt the TGA website on GovCMS, turning 95,000+ ARTG records into searchable pages and cutting 71 content types to 49 for 5.5 million monthly users.
AGD case study
Case study

Morpht moved the Attorney-General's Department website from SharePoint to GovCMS, organising 1,200 pages and 6,000+ publications into nine searchable sections.

Latest insights

Pages and folders
Article

An examination of the humble "list" and how content can be modelled in Drupal to be flexible, simple and editor friendly.
Migration
Article

Learn about how to use the Migration API to massage and migrate source data into Drupal. A presentation by Kelvin Wong at DrupalSouth 2019.