I consulted with M&S in 2024 to improve online conversion at all parts of the customer journey. This is one of the improvements I suggested based on sales analytics data.

M&S has an online content hub called Inspire Me, which contains aspirational content to help customers affordably curate and cultivate a lifestyle.

There are multiple sections including Styling Trends, Expert Advice, Buying Guides, Style Advice, Gift Guides and more.

Inspire Me primarily targets women but also publishes useful content for men (like T-shirt fit guides). The issue is that there isn’t enough of it.

M&S sales data revealed a few links that I could not find within M&S’ primary navigation. I opened up the site map and found a completely different set of links that catered to underserved customer segments. This fact was supported by direct customer feedback in customer surveys and also third party review sites like TrustPilot.

I sensed an indirect opportunity to achieve dual aims because the M&S sitemap is loaded with brilliant ideas that don’t live in the website navigation – they can only be accessed through the sitemap:

• engage underserved segments through Inspire Me
• significantly increase relevant content published there

With a little content management system (CMS) rework to imrpve the information architecture, these could easily be converted into evergreen content ideas and promoted year-round as both educational and revenue raising activities.

Information Architecture

Link hierarchy is consistent:

• URL/content (landing page)
• URL/content/category/…. (category pages)
• URL/content/…. (individual articles)

Internal structure inconsistent (within Men).

• Home/Inspire Me/Men/…. (13 articles)
• Home/Inspire Me/Style Advice/…. (2 articles)
• Home/Inspire Me/Styling Trends/…. (2 articles)
• Home/Inspire Me/Buying Guides/…. (2 articles)
• Home/Men’s Suits (1 article)

Lack of consistency makes it difficult for housekeeping. On the Men’s category page (URL/content/category/men) the links highlighted in red are not specific to Men so you would be inundated with less relevant or entirely irrelevant articles.

A long-term solution is to categorise the links within their respective categories, if you want to maintain the navigation bar. Some links, like M&S Live, may need to be replaced.

Incorporate evergreen content from sitemap

the sitemap is loaded with brilliant ideas that that don’t live in the website navigation – they can only be accessed through the sitemap.