The right time to grow a (Page) Tree 🌳 - handling your Confluence content structure like a Pro

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The active usage of Confluence requires not just contribution and alignment on a team level but a clear understanding of how your Space should evolve. Active collaboration is even one of the primary reasons that cause messy Confluence spaces.

If you recently started a bold new activity with your team, you've probably faced a situation where your Confluence content looks a bit like … this:

When multiple users are aiming to create content in Confluence, certain issues arise:

• Duplicated pages (because why search for 'there is already a page with that name' when you can add a number to the title and "fix" it!?)

• Wrong page position (because people should figure it out, right)

• Overcomplicated pages (pour all the info, hit Save, and go on with your life)

• Poor formatting (yes, it's a thing)

Each of these issues deserves a detailed explanation of how to be resolved, but today I am focusing primarily on Page 🌳

Creating and sharing pages in Confluence is easy. You have a big blue 'Create' button accessible from everywhere, so you press it, write your thoughts, hit Save, and share it with your team. But do you always think about the team's ability to search for Confluence content while creating the page?

When rushed, we tend to throw content fast and dirty, all for the sake of an existing URL. Here is my top advice for growing a healthy page tree:

1. Give yourself 5 minutes of peace before creating a page

Think from the perspective of your readers. Where does it make sense for the Product Manager or Marketing to search for your page?

2. If you plan to expand on a topic, put down the core structure before writing the content

I use Confluence to plan and write my articles. We use a similar structure to plan our marketing and event efforts at work. We always agree on the parent page and decide if the activities require only one or several new levels. Here is an example of a nerdy activity led by our content writer and company's CEO, fully executed and structured in Confluence:

Each part of the activity is tracked on a separate page to avoid the most popular mistakes, like people updating the wrong page, and the “Done” emoji shows which episode is released, so we don't need to spend time opening pages in search of status. Keeping the content of each page relatively short and on topic prevents us from going outside the scope. Imagine the load of seven pages poured into one?! Even the TOC macro won't save us from getting lost in translation.

3. Keep your team informed of HOW your content should be structured

No need to gamble to know that someone will eventually create the same page in a different space because they forgot to search. Use one of the many ways to notify your team about your desired Confluence structure. Tag them on pages or share the project parent page with a comment through Confluence.

Well, this won't save you from an occasional spring cleaning of your Confluence spaces, but it would reduce the questions and the time lost in a search for the mysteriously positioned page.

[Andy Gladstone]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ great article. This can be subtitled 'SEO for Confluence". 

I love Confluence, but there needs to be a bigger push to create a better user experience when moving, re-sorting and organizing pages in nested page trees. The current (Confluence Cloud) drag and drop shortcut solution is clunky and I always find myself moving pages into the wrong places. Also, we need more sorting/arranging options so that users can better arrange content and not have to rely on Admins for that action.

It's Spring, so the cleaning season has been in full swing. I try to tackle a space a week and rotate through them so the clutter does not build up. That's my PRO TIP!

[Andrew van Ingen {ServiceRocket}]

Hi @Andy Gladstone , can you elaborate on "more sorting/arranging options"?

[Amanda Barber]

I love the idea of being able to sort by updated date within a space. Not sure what other use cases my team would have but that's one that pops up right away, @Andrew van Ingen {ServiceRocket}