College of Engineering:
Web Maintenance
David Baker, Kegan Sims
Web Communications
Make a strong first impression
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The OSU Brand — Visual
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The OSU Brand — Visual
Feed your pets
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The OSU Brand — Visual
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The OSU Brand — Visual
Control Growth
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The OSU Brand — Visual
Navigation pruning tips
• Organize links into two navigation
areas
• Group by function
• Use established navigation regions
• 4-7 links max.
Think in regions
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The OSU Brand — Visual
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The OSU Brand — Visual
Manage your content
• Get to know your regions
• Provided a home for
temporary/rotating content
• Start with a content template
• Set stakeholder expectations
• Develop a content plan
What a content plan looks like
Bimonthly
• Update feature stories; maintain queue of 3 to 6
• Market each new feature story as it's released by distributing to subjects, personal networks, journals and the main OSU social
networks
• Track traffic for retired stories
• Update highlights to reflect current needs
• Ensure the calendar feed has enough entries to display at least four events for the next 60 days.
• Evaluate news stories and announcements to ensure the region is meeting your communications goals.
Quarterly
• Study traffic to key landing pages and sites. Relate measures to ongoing marketing events or initiatives.
Every 6 months
• Conduct informal focus groups or discussions to determine effectiveness of feature content and generate ideas for new content
• Review entire site, including program pages, to identify areas for improvement, refinement and enhancement; examine
language, organization and imagery; note problem pages and schedule them for review and updating.
Yearly
• Review and update marketing and communications goals
• Review and update this plan
• Distribute questionnaires to new audience members
• Review boilerplate messages and language on home page and other top-tier pages
• Conduct user tests asking users who are new to the site to perform basic functions; identify and fix major problem areas
Biennially
• Review site photography beyond the feature story imagery for currency, Brand alignment and connection to marketing goals
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Web copywriting top ten
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1. Use brief introductory copy on
every page (boilerplate)
2. Avoid dense blocks of text
3. Make page scan-able
4. Use bold/italics sparingly
5. Never use all caps
6. Never underline (unless Link)
7. Use hierarchical headings
8. Use lists
9. Write for search engines
10. Follow AP Style
Good page/bad page
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The OSU Brand — Visual
Learn how your site is used
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Use the Brand Guidelines
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The OSU Brand — Visual
Resources
• Website quick start guide
http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/webcomm/website-quickstart-guide/
• Brand Guidelines
http://oregonstate.edu/brand/
• Themes and templates
http://oregonstate.edu/brand/content/templates-and-themes
• Content templates
http://oregonstate.edu/brand/content/content-templates
• A List Apart
http://alistapart.com
• .net Magazine
http://www.netmagazine.com
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The OSU Brand — Visual