Content Governance Team
Provides best practices and guidance for the development of digital content, design patterns and user experiences on Emerson.com.
Provides best practices and guidance for the development of digital content, design patterns and user experiences on Emerson.com.
The Content Governance Team meets on a monthly basis to discuss issues and updates to Emerson.com and approved sites. With a representative mix of digital marketers and technologists from Corporate, Automation Solutions and Commercial & Residential Solutions, the team focuses on providing guidance and enhancements to content-and design-related issues. Issues prioritized by this Functional Governance Team are presented monthly to the Emerson.com Governance Team.
All Documents & Guides
Find resources created by the Content Governance Team, including playbooks, guidelines and other key process documents that define content standards on Emerson.com and approved sites.
Content Strategy Overview - A roll-up document that includes all the content strategy inputs for Emerson.com websites, including messaging architecture, content pillars, corporate audience profiles and more.
Online Style Guide - Style guidance with overviews of all components and layouts for Emerson.com and approved websites.
FAQ Strategy Guide - Provides strategic approaches for creating FAQs that are intended to appear in the Support section of the website or as supplemental information on a Product Details page.
Infographic Guide - Outlines the recommended approach for creating static infographics on Emerson.com with a focus on style, best practices, and the components in which these infographics can be placed and optimized.
CoreMedia Tag Overview - An overview of the available tags in CoreMedia and their current prescribed uses to help filter catalog listing and search results, and assemble certain page layouts or collections.
Brand Standards (Corporate) - A deep-dive in how to use the Emerson brand mark and the brand identity system when promoting consumer and product brands on your website or other mediums.
Brand Standards (Automation Solutions) - An overview of Automation Solutions’ brand structure to present brand identity properly in print, in digital, in conversation and everywhere else.
Brand Standards (Commercial & Residential Solutions) - A collection of brand guidelines for brands that are part of the Commercial & Residential Solutions platform.
Digital Transformation Writer’s Guide - This writers guide comprises definitions, key points and usage examples that should be considered when writing about digital transformation and its associated concepts.
Plantweb Digital Ecosystem Writer’s Guide - The information in this guide is intended to help writers better understand Plantweb and the concepts associated with it. It is not intended as final messaging to be directly inserted into marketing collateral and should not be interpreted as “copy ready” — except where noted.
Editorial Style Guide/Controlled Vocabulary (Commercial & Residential Solutions) - A list of acceptable terms for usage in marketing of Commercial & Residential Services' products and services.
Design Sprint Participation Guidelines - Overview and framework to help illustrate the workflow and goals of Maintenance Design Sprints.
Online Style Guide - Style guidance with overviews of all components and layouts for Emerson.com and approved websites.
Configurator Style Guide - Detailed visual design guidance for creating product configurators within the Emerson.com digital style.
eSpot Guidelines - For content authors who need to add timely promotions or announcements on a page, this document outlines usage options.
Forms Design Style Guide - A style guide dedicated to outlining all the design elements recommended to build a form with a 3rd party application inside of an Emerson.com website.
Other Approved Sites Style Guide - For sites that share the emerson.com domain (such as sensi.emerson.com or climate.emerson.com), this document outlines the style variations and usage exceptions available to these extended sites, referred to as “Other Approved Sites”.
Events Guide – Guidance for creating an Events landing page to promote an upcoming physical or digital event, for placement on the Emerson.com family of websites.
Promoting Your Apps on Emerson.com - A summary of components available for promoting your apps on the Emerson.com website and approved sites.
Campaign Tools & Guides - A document that combines campaign information about events, emails, landing pages and forms.
Campaign Landing Pages Overview – Guidance for creating your next campaign landing page on CoreMedia or other approved campaign software packages.
Campaign Emails Overview - Guidance for creating your next campaign email on CoreMedia through Eloqua or other approved CRM packages.
Events Guide – Guidance for creating an Events landing page to promote an upcoming physical or digital event, for placement on the Emerson.com family of websites.
Forms Design Style Guide - A style guide dedicated to outlining all the design elements recommended to build a form with a 3rd party application inside of an Emerson.com website.
Campaign URL Best Practices - Set up your campaign URLs for optimal search engine performance and find out how to request a Vanity URL for your next campaign.
Image File Format Guidelines - Understand the optimal file types for all intended image use cases, including target file weights for uploading to CoreMedia.
Website Image Style Options - An overview of the image styles available for content creators. Includes an array of options available for hero, product and people shots with usage guidance.
Icon Set for Download - A zipped file that includes PNG files and source Adobe Illustrator files, that will allow marketers to re-use or create new icons based on these assets.
Video Production Guidelines (Automation Solutions) - Overview of specific requirements about video format, length, audio, equipment, graphics and other elements, these guidelines include techniques and best practices for successful video production.
Document Naming Conventions - A guide for the proper naming of your PDF resources so that users and search engines can find and index your PDFs.
Calls-to-Action Master List - View a list of preferred Call-to-Actions that are available to content authors and can ensure that button CTAs are short and actionable.
Translations are part of Emerson’s distributed governance model, owned by the businesses at the platform level with technology support provided by Enterprise IT. If you are considering a new locale, remember to go through the Emerson.com Governance Team for approval. Visit the Content Management section for Translations Management Documentation.
Frequently Asked Questions of Content Governance
These are the mostly commonly asked questions we receive about content governance and how we can help you market on Emerson.com and approved sites.
Each document in the "All Documents & Guides" section includes a description appended with information detailing if it is specific to Commercial & Residential Solutions or Automation Solutions. If the document doesn't reference a business platform, then the document is Pan-Emerson and should apply to the entire company. In some cases, a document may be created for a specific platform but will include best practices applicable to either platform.
First, try to use the Emerson Digital Governance request process on this website's home page. If you are having issues or need immediate assistance, please contact the following individuals for help:
If your business has identified a need for a new component to strengthen a particular layout or user experience, use the Emerson Digital Governance request process to submit your request.
Before submitting a request, please review the Emerson Online Style Guide to determine if another component may satisfy your requirement. Once submitted, work with your platform's governance representative to help understand the process of moving from request to implementation.
You may be asked to help provide QA before the component goes live.
Automation Solutions requires the use of a pre-formatted copy deck in order to route a new page to the Content Authoring team. You may add new components to the pre-formatted copy deck, but you may not create your own copy deck from scratch without consulting with your Content Governance Team platform partner.
Commercial & Residential Solutions does not require a copy deck, but does ask that you follow common layouts used for each section of the site on Emerson.com or any of its approved sites. The more consistent the layouts, the better time your users will have navigating within a section to understand where content is typically located.
Remember to have the following assets ready for your new page:
Visit the Automation Solutions Marketing Site and select a layout that matches your business need. You can cross-reference the Emerson Online Style Guide for visual confirmation and to see if other components might be available to use.
The functional Content Governance Team meets monthly and would be glad to review your design or user experience challenge at our meetings. We may provide on-the-fly guidance or identify the need for a new JIRA ticket, in which case you may be asked to provide additional requirements and/or review the output of the design and its development implementation to ensure it meets your business needs.
Please visit the Emerson Online Style Guide and look under the left navigation to identify all available layouts and components. Each layout also shows the complete list of available components to build out the presccribed layout.
Global navigation is owned by the Digital Advisory Board, so any overhauls to the global navigation will need to be approved by that Board. However, if your change is related to the navigational elements within your business platform's section on Emerson.com or an approved site, you should reach out to your Content Governance partner who can help implement your change.
Navigational changes in CoreMedia are available for updates only at the Administrator level, so please document your requested changes and consider any cascading affects to your site or section that may also need to be updated. Additionally, crawl your section for any URLs that may be impacted by such changes.
Navigational changes in CoreMedia are available for updates only at the Administrator level, so please document your requested changes and consider any cascading effects to your site or section that may also need to be updated. Additionally, crawl your section for any URLs that may be impacted by such changes.
Please refer to the styling document linked to here, as it provides a comprehensive look at the various style options. Sometimes, you will use a 3rd party application that cannot exactly match the intended designs of the approved Emerson.com form style. In such cases, try to approximate the look and feel as much as possible or seek out your platform's Content Governance Team representative who can help to align your styled forms more closely with the original design intent.
Ideally, find an image that matches the vertical or horizontal design of the space where the image will be placed with roughly the same aspect ratio. Think 1:1 for a square or 16:9 for a widescreen video or hero image.
Because CoreMedia is not compressing images as robustly as needed to meet certain Google speed requirements, you should also strongly consider pre-processing your images before uploading to CoreMedia and sizing them to meet the desktop pixel size dimensions as outlined per component within the Online Style Guide. See the Image File Guide for additional information.
For every photo that doesn't require a transparency, use a JPEG file format. For hero components, strive for a 1440 pixel wide (16:9) image that is less than 500 kb. If you know users will be using 4k monitors with larger viewports (e.g., 27-inch desktop monitors an engineer might use), then go for a 2880 pixel wide image that comes in under 1 MB.
For images that are 400-800 pixels wide, strive for 100kb or less; for images that 399 pixels wide or smaller, strive for 25kb file size. You will need to "weigh" the value of a fast load versus the number of users with bigger monitors to make that final determination.
For all other logos, illustrations, and photos that require a transparency, use the PNG and follow the same general file weight/size guidelines. In the future, the goal will be to allow SVGs for icons and logos, and to implement robust compression technology on CoreMedia to make this process more automated.
You can find representative samples of available iconography styles in the Iconography section of the Emerson Online Style Guide. If you'd like to re-use these icons for your digital project, you can download the .AI files. For usage questions, please reach out the Content Governance Team.
Given that site speed is an ongoing focus of Emerson Digital Governance, we recommend taking the time to optimze your PDFs as a "Reduced Size PDF" when possible to keep your file sizes under 1MB. In some cases, this size reduction won't be possible, but always consider the impact on load time and the possibility for increased bounced rates the larger your PDF file size. In some cases, consider splitting up your PDF into a series, which can improve load times and become a strategic part of a drip or content marketing campaign.
Remember to add all required meta data and approved tags to your pages. Specific to Pages, Videos, Downloads and External Links, you must add your platform tag to these items for them to show up in onsite search results. Additionally, you should add appropriate tags for each facet that applies to the specific content type such as Video or Page. While many facets are the same across the search results tabs in CoreMedia, there are differences, so make sure you have appropriate tags selected for your content type. If that doesn't work, remember to include relevant keywords in your H1, H2, and body copy on the page. For product questions, we recommend consulting with the Product Catalog team, although the same general principles will apply there are some unique requirements for using the Product Loader.
As a first option, try to use Emerson-licensed Brightcove to determine if the video will be viewable in China. If this does not work, consider using China's most popular video site Youku.com
Once the translation workflow has been completed and you have a new page in your country locale, you can update the copy to conform to the expectations of your local customer base. You can also author new Components and Pages specific to your locales needs directly in the locale without creating and translating them from the parent locale.
