Websites are only as good as the content they contain. Even a beautiful website design cannot mask a poorly written and unhelpful page. And with over 5 million visits to the College website each month, we cannot be complacent about the importance of keeping all our pages current and ensuring they meet the needs of our audiences.
Web Management Board has therefore launched a Content Forum to raise the importance of website content management across Imperial. We did a lot of work on top level website content during the 2007 web redesign project but, until now, haven’t been able to share what we learned and the techniques and features we regularly use to site owners managing departmental websites.
The new Content Forum will use the knowledge gained during the redesign project to develop a toolkit of resources for College site owners, and will work to build a strong community of professional web managers who can help and support each other. This blog is just one part of the Content Forum work – other activities in the short term include:
- A survey of current site owners to find out more about who is managing the College’s web presence
- A revamp of the Web Guide to create a user friendly site for new and current site owners, including “how to” guides for working in the College CMS.
- A programme of site owner workshops and events, building on the established “web workshops” launched by Web User Panel
- A review of the existing training courses available for site owners
- The development of a College framework for site metrics to enable the wider roll out of Google Analytics to site owners
- The creation of a regular automatic report for site owners highlighting CMS pages not updated within the last six months – hopefully to help ensure more up to date content throughout the site
- An addition to the College web template to enable visitors to the website to report out of date or incorrect content to site owners
Let us know what would help you – and if you want to contribute to any of these activities.
