College WebStrategy & Update

Chris MoreJanuary 2010

What can the Web do for you?• Capture our audience• Increase enrollment• Promote Ag Awareness• Communicate to our stakeholders• Promote our research• Highlight our faculty

Vision

“A unified college Web presence that provides useful and rich content to our audiences while ensuring high quality-control standards.”

This is only possible if we are on the same system and working together.

Brief History• Plone selected in Aug. 2008 as the common

content management system• Entered the WebLion partnership in Aug 2008• First Plone site launched in Feb. 2009• RedDot content manage system to be phased out

as sites transition to Plone

What is WebLion?• University lead• Top Web developers• Largest campus Web group• Plone - tool of choice• College partnership allows for:

• People• Tools• Support

Recent Results• Food Science

• New site launched in February 2009• Page views doubled since go-live - #4 in college

• Entomology• New site launched in May 2009• Visitors doubled, page views tripled since go-live• #1 site in college – 25% of all traffic• Factsheets – original content drives the traffic

Before and After – Food Science

Before and After - Entomology

Before and After – College Homepage

Before and After – Future Students

Before and After – Turf Grass

Our College Web Challenges• Multiple audiences• Consolidating Web sites• Multiple technologies• Redundant Infrastructure• Single point dependencies

General Behaviors• 60-70% of visitors come from search engines• Visitors scan text for keywords• Visitors view on average 3 pages per visit• Visitors quickly develop impressions

Our Strategy• Define audiences• Develop personas• Define goals• Customize the look and feel• Migrate or develop Web-friendly content• Purge out of date or not maintained content

Our Process• Meet with client• Develop information architecture• Migrate content• Train client on how to load and edit content• Shoot and add new photography• Approval and go-live

Best Practices for Success• Generate fresh and rich content• Focus on content instead of design elements• Create small committee to approve direction• Perfect is the enemy of good• Set dates and keeping moving forward• Define ownership

Why be on single system?• Efficiency• Authentication• Evolution of features• Share content• Disaster recovery• Easy to focus on content• Consistent branding

What is included in our template?• Called agCommon, current release v2.5• Penn State required marks and links• Standard site elements• Customizations: Colors, images, content• Web 2.0: RSS, Blogs, Web comments, discussion

boards, photo galleries and slideshows, people directory, social networking buttons, plus more

• Google Analytics

What will I have access to?• Add/edit/delete

content• Modify

navigation, text, folders, images, people, files, etc.

What won’t I have access to?• CSS and styles• Template / framework• Programming language (Python) and the server• Users and groups (not people directory)

These are controlled due to being on a shared system.

Who can maintain your site?• Anyone - No Web or tech experience needed• No software needed – only Web browser• Training is very minimal – easy as email• One or many editors can be granted permissions

College-wide Web Statistics• Past 12 months: Visitors +37%, Page views +66%• Migrated from 277 to 250 sites

Why?

• Search engine optimizations on new sites• Higher Google page rank• Good content

Most viewed college sites – past 6 months

New Features – Footer Site Map

Get all of your major areas of the Web site within one click from the homepage.

• Does not clutter information architecture

• Provides unique collections of links based on topics

New Features – Photo Galleries

Slideshow allows for easy viewing of images.

• Images are clickable to view full size

• Thumbnails scroll left and right for large galleries

• Non-flash based thus search engines can see content

New Features – Social Networking Sharing

Share content on college pages with all major social media Web sites.

• Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and more

• Statistics shows what content is being shared on what networks

Lifecycles• Phase 1 – where we are today

• Migrate content & reformat• Focus on on target audiences• Ensure search engine optimization• Add new photography

• Phase 2 – where we need to be• All major sites are in the Plone system• Make sites go from good to great• Continuous improvement

Summary• User-centered design• University wide support• Web and communication experts• Collaboration• Raise the bar• Continuous improvement

Current Major Web Projects• School of Forest Resources – complete in next 30

days• Extension – homepage launch in February• Ag & Extension Education Department

How to get involved• Fill out an Ag Communications Project Request

form: http://agsci.psu.edu/communications• Schedule a meeting