Content Champions Meeting 19 April 2011

Content Champions Meeting 19 April 2011

• Acknowledgement to http: //theoatmeal. com/comics/design_hell PS I actually had a senior member of staff in another organisation ask if we could get rid of the ‘ladder on the left’ of the page. In other words – the entire navigation of the site. We were struck dumb.

Objectives of the day • Gain an understanding of the work to date – benefits of the updated website • Awareness of Information Architecture – preparing the foundations • Why it is important to have a publishing strategy • Some basic principles of publishing in Far. Cry • How you will be involved • Support available

What we will cover • Live. Wire so far • What is a publishing strategy and why this is important? • Identifying your audience and their needs • Measuring success, metadata and Search Engine Optimisation • Post audit – what happens next? • Planning and restructuring your content • Brief introduction to Farcry CMS • Useful tools for making your life easier

Live. Wire so far • 5 strands to the project – Moving to single domain – Search Engine Optimisation – Using third party websites – social media plan – Publishing plan – Future gazing • There is a web page dedicated to the project www. rgu. ac. uk/livewire

Live. Wire so far • Strand 1 – Moving to a single web domain (Ivonne Appleyard) This is work that involves rationalising all content on the www. rgu. ac domain. • Our Consultants, Uservision, have examined the information architecture of the site with particular focus on Research and Business Interaction • Competitor analysis has been carried out • Tested with key people across the university • Event on 19 April for content ‘community’ across the university to introduce people to the project and the content management task ahead – you will be the key ‘champions’ in Schools and Departments

Live. Wire so far • Strand 2 – Optimising our website for natural search (Allan Scott) This is work which has to be done on a page by page basis to ensure that the site performs well in Search Engines. It is characterised by continuous monitoring and improving. • Communications Officers are now optimising news stories • Marketing are doing SEO keyword research for postgraduate course pages • Training is being developed for content editors across the university

Live. Wire so far • Strand 3 - Improving our external online presence (Katherine Pickles) This is work that ensures we have a meaningful presence on social media in particular. It includes our presence in Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. • Consultation on our Draft Social Media plan is ongoing • Deadline of end of April for feedback

Live. Wire so far • Strand 4 – Publishing Plan (Jonathan Shackleton/Kate Blake) We want to ensure we are putting the appropriate checks in place at the same time encouraging more ownership of content. • Consultation on our Publishing strategy is ongoing • Deadline of end of April for feedback • Refreshing the look and feel of the homepage

Live. Wire so far • Strand 5 – Future Gazing (Katherine Pickles) • Reports on opportunities to enhance the University’s online presence will be submitted to the Web Project Board.

Current state Web activities to date post phase 1 October 2009 to February 2009 • Getting the site ready for launch: • Quality checking all content • Adding remaining content • Responding to feedback received • Keeping change control process for feedback • User testing with sample prior to launch to test specific issues

February 2010 onwards Tasks fall into 5 main categories: • Maintenance of content: reactive - responding to requests to change content • Maintenance of content: proactive - quality checks on a rotational basis • Enhancement of content: adding new content which has been requested by university staff/depts • Enhancement of content: proactive projects to enliven and improve the website • Migration of specific IWS content – where content is better placed in Far. Cry to enhance the user experience

Work completed to date • • • Accommodation pages – new area created in Far. Cry Graduation pages – new area created in Far. Cry Virtual Tours – commissioned and implemented on the site. Eight main categories of over 40 tours. Microsites commissioned and delivered: Gray’s Degree Shows – using the galleries embedded in Far. Cry to display the student work and the directory listing to display the artists’ details; conference web pages: HUCBMS, IWA symposium, QI seminar; de. PICT site; Business-Incubator site; Print Making Summer School Update of all undergraduate courses as per prospectus Apply online update: all pop-up pages of instruction, re-direction and course changes Creation of banners for new pages/replacement banners for existing pages Uploading of News and Events - ongoing (544 News items and 256 Events) Uploading of video clips, including graduation and You. Tube channel clips

• Training of staff in use of Far. Cry: – – – – – • • • Aberdeen Business School Admissions Careers Pharmacy and Life Sciences Help Desk International Admissions Alumni Marketing DELTA Library Creating campaign landing pages (with trackable parameters) on request (e. g. Nursing post grad) Creating stats reports on request (ad-hoc) Production of ‘Web Editorial Guidance’ and ‘How to Guides’ in wiki format to aid training.

Total ‘digital assets’ in Far. Cry: • 2000 HTML pages • 1303 Links • 692 News items • 393 Events • 91 Facts • 158 Case Studies • 2699 Images • 385 Documents • 352 Courses All of the above are live content items (except for draft HTML pages) and require regular maintenance and review .

Publishing plan • A publishing plan is essential for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable web content. • A publishing plan must work to define not only which content will be published, but why we’re publishing it in the first place • A plan enables us to think about not just publishing anything and everything just because we can • The publishing plan is currently out for consultation – feedback by end April

Task 1 • Think about your content area • Identify the audience • What do you expect the audience to do? • Test this with others in each group – use them as your guinea pigs

Information Architecture • What is it? • Web Marketing Today

Making sense of the content Here is a summary of how we can make our site more useable: • Make it obvious what's clickable – follow conventions • Break pages into clearly defined areas – so users can quickly focus on the areas they need • Keep the 'noise' down – keep it simple and give everything space so the choices are not overwhelming • Omit needless words and remove ‘happy talk’ – aim to reduce by 50% • Create a visual hierarchy – nest related things together, show the relationship between things and give prominence to the more important things on the page • Create clear, simple and consistent navigation

Task 2 Sorting your content • Think about the content you currently ‘own’ • Categorise this according to the tasks identified in Task 1

Measuring success • Web Marketing Today

Web Metrics – food for thought? • Web metrics on old site – 1/02/2009 – 30/01/2010 – 27, 117, 216 page views in total in the year on 11, 722 pages 1. Home 5, 790, 295 2. Intranet 4, 693, 095 3. ITS projects 2, 340, 350 4. ABS Postgrad 1, 565, 017 5. Student Finance 939, 101 6. Course search 502, 558 7. ABS undergrad 430, 780 8. /hub. cfm 371, 093 (think this is a technical element on most pages) 9. Library 361, 078 10. Course entries 312, 237 – The top ten pages viewed account for 63. 82% of the total number of page views. – The top 20, 71. 82% – The top 30, approx 75% of all views Thereafter: – Page ranked 600 had 803 views and less than 0. 01% of all page views. – From 600 to 11, 722 each page accounts for than 0. 01% of the total.

Measuring Success - Overview • Measuring Success – Linking Metrics to Performance • Web Metrics Reports • Web Site Statistics Overview

Measuring Success – The chalenge To have web pages •

Web Metrics Sources • Urchin Analytics • Google Analytics • Alexa Web Information Service

Web Metrics Reports - RGU • Alexa Web Information Service • Urchin Analytics • Google Analytics • Measuring Social Media Performance

Web Site Statistics Overview

Web Site Statistics Overview Comparison against competitors

Overview of the RGU site – new site

Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Far. Cry CMS • www. rgu. ac. uk/webtop • Libraries for content types • Conventions for naming conventions • Different ‘views’ depending on role (permissions)

Content types • News • Events • External Links • Facts • A – Z • Case Studies • Feedback

Content type – course content Course Content • Courses • Course Fees • Accreditations • Endorsement

Publishing in Farcry Workflow: “The sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion” • Publishing rights are distributed at the appropriate level • Approval processes are in place to ensure professional, consistent content

Your role Part 1: Content audit • What content is here already? Who is it for? • Does the content get to the right people with the right message? • Is it clear what each page is about? • Is there a clear call for action or path from this page? • Who cares about this content, and will anyone care if it’s not there? • Which are the most important pages and sections? • How do people get to the content? • What information is missing?

Part 2: Plan tidy-up operation • Remove obvious ‘ROT’ (Redundant, outdated, trivial) material as soon as you can. • Clean up content that is there to make it up to date, relevant and timely. • Group logical things together. • Enable current content to be clearer and easier to find • Follow the conventions for metadata and Search Engine Optimisation

Part 3: Plan new content • Establish key themes and messages • Create a structure – tree diagram and post-it notes • Write a plan for creating and commissioning content including images, videos and written content • Prioritise the content according to importance, create an editorial calendar and add each item. Give each item a deadline, and diary any actions/chase ups required • Locate the authors/originators and advise them what you want from them and in what format (e. g. videos in flv at present)

Part 4: Publish new content • Where does it live, how does it get there? Who will publish it? • How do people get to it? How will they search for it? Where is it linked from? • What is the call for action or value for the page? • Where do people go from this page Part 5: Manage and govern both existing and new content • Review, see what worked and what didn’t. Get rid of stuff that didn’t work. Make any other incremental changes required. Part 6: Start all over again!

Useful support • Jacob Nielsen – for writing for the web – Jacob Nielsen - web usability and metrics – video clip • Farcry wiki – for after you are trained • Web Marketing today – for SEO and helpful hints and tips • Google – for understanding web analytics

What next? • Training in Farcry – both on and offline • Start reviewing and planning for the new structure • New IA will be out in late May once tested • Once in place, review and categorise the content • Once created in Farcry – input to Farcry