Preparing for a web move

It’s web moving dayPreparing for a web update and migration

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OverviewSeminar objectives

• Provide a summary of major work tasks for developing effective website content

• Provide information about resources to help with website content planning and development

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But first ask: Why?Why do all this work to update web content before you move into a redesign? It’s like you are “moving house”. What do you do when you move?

• You might take an inventory of all your stuff• You sort into “Keep, Fix, Store, and Toss”

piles• You get rid of the “toss” and “store” piles

before moving day

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More pre-move game plan• You attend to the “fix” pile: this chair goes

out for reupholstering; that lamp needs a new switch

• You plan how to set up your stuff in your new space

• You figure out what else you need to make your new space great and get it or create it

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Is this your web “house”?

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Why “clean house” in web world?• It takes time to migrate material into a new

design. Why take along what you don’t need?

• Improperly archived and out-of-date pages are messing up the effectiveness of search on our websites

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Your tasks, aka the big scary slide1. Identify target audiences (visitors to your

website)

2. Conduct web content analysis (content audit/inventory)

3. Conduct competitive analysis

4. Define website visitor content requirements

5. Specify area business requirements

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Yikes! Scary Slide, part two!6. Plan web information architecture (sitemap/navigation)

7. Prepare website content

8. Obtain required training

9. Prepare project management plan

10. Create web content update and maintenance plan

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First: Identify target audiencesWho are your website visitors?

• List target audiences• Organize content by target audiences• Write target-audience-specific content• Create and use personas

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Creating personas• Name: made-up name, representative of

audience• Picture: representative stock photo, or

shadow image• Relevant demographic information: age,

major interests/responsibilities, other relevant info

• Main goals and tasks: what s/he is trying to achieve on your website

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Meet High School Hannah• Grade 11 student in GTA,

16 years old• Gets good marks in science

and math but doesn’t know what she wants to do yet in university

• Her friend’s older brother is an alumnus and she’s checking out programs

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Conduct web content analysis Helps you

• Know what content you have and need

• Identify content audiences, topics and types

• Also called a web content audit or web content inventory

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Conduct competitive analysis• See what others in your business or line of

work are doing• Have more than one individual participate:

get a larger group in your area to identify those in your industry or area that others think are doing a good (and bad) job on their websites

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e.g. university media relations• Look at five other competitor universities

websites and information for media: what do their pages provide?– Toronto, Western, McGill, Guelph, UBC

• Who are the competitors in your area, whether in the universities or other fields? How do you stack up?

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Define web visitor content needsKnow your website visitors’ questions:• Ask frontline coworkers what questions

they get asked regularly by phone or email by the same audiences (visitors): likely those are questions not currently being answered upfront by your website

• Ask your visitors (conduct a “needs assessments” … e.g. focus groups)

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Spade? Shovel? Earth-mover?• Know your website visitors’ language• If your organization or company uses

different words to describe services, use common terms in tags and descriptive language so information can be found

• Check your web analytics for common search terms

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Draft preliminary contentThink of your content as existing to answer questions your

visitor is bringing to the website

Question: What are the requirements for admission?

Heading: Admission requirements

Answer (text following heading): The admission

requirements vary by program. Then list each program

with inline link to requirements for each.

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Create headers for these queries• I’m a first-year student: how do I pay my fees?

• I’m a corporate executive: What’s your track record of industry-academic collaboration?

• I’m a newspaper copy editor. Where can I find print-quality photos of Administrator Mucky Muck to pop into a story I’m editing at 9 p.m.?

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Identify “business requirements”Identify what website visitors need to know but don’t know they need to know• e.g. policies or procedures

Include relevant “about us” information• Should include contact information• Does not belong on landing / home page

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Website information architecture• Define your web information architecture

(sitemap/navigation) for the area of the site you are migrating

• Make sure that your information architecture works with the new web design and new over-all “IA”

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Now prepare website content• Use your website visitor requirements as starting

point for your website content• Use your sitemap (information architecture) to

identify where content should go • Write/add the other content required (consult your

business area requirements and content analysis)• Remember key web writing guidelines – write

accessible, scan-able, search-engine-optimized (SEO) content

• Find images/create graphics for your website

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And very importantly …• Be prepared to throw things out. Out-of-

date pages should not be part of “live search”

• In future, update pages; don’t create new ones

• Web pages can be archived and accessed for historical purposes

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Prepare project management plan

• Before you get too far, prepare a project management plan to co-ordinate all this work

• Use a project management tool to track the major work tasks to be completed

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Next steps after contentThis plan will take you to the point where your content is now up to date, as well as written and organized to:• Best serve your audience’s needs, including

for accessibility• Reflect best practices of web communications

The next frontier: Learning a new Content Management System (if a new one is part of your web redesign) and moving your content

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Web updating and maintenance• Have a long-term content update and maintenance

plan

• Your website is like a garden. You can’t just plant it and ignore it. It needs care, including weeding

• Your Content Management System (CMS) should

be a useful tool, long term; many can remind you to do content reviews on set schedule

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Our goal…

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Thank you, and happy moving!

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Kelleyteahen@gmail.com Twitter: @kteahen