1.GCU Content Management Guidelines

1.1.The Structure of the GCU Website

Content within the new GCU website is organised across a number of different levels. Each of these levels represents the content’s relative position within the site’s information architecture. In order to provide users with quick (in most cases single click) access to relevant content, the site employs a navigation taxonomy which comprises of:

  • Links to ‘Global’ (Level 1) architecture/content. Each level one content section is presented within its own dedicated section homepage – for example Study Home, Research Home, Business Home, Alumni Home etc.
  • Links to ‘Local’(Level 2) architecture/content. For example within the study section, a local navigation menu provides links to the study section’s sub sections – i.e. Undergraduate, Postgraduate, International etc.
  • Links to contextual (Level 3) architecture/content. For example, if a user has navigated to undergraduate within the study section, the local navigation menu will expand to provide further links to deeper (Level 3) content pages such as Why Study Here, Student Life, and Accommodation etc. Where necessary, contextual links to content at a deeper level will also be provided.

The structure of this content is outlined in Figure 1 below. As can be seen from the diagram, the top three levels of the site’s structure (and the global, local and contextual links which they contain) define the primary user journeys for the site. The layout of the templates for these pages is therefore fixed and cannot be altered by content managers, however using the content management system the content of the pages can.

Figure 1 – GCU Site Architecture/Content Structure

1.2.What content can be managed and who can manage it?

1.2.1.Content Ownership

The majority of content within the site is contained on pages which exist at level 3 and below within the website. The content of these pages can be fully managed by their respective stakeholders/owners, subject to the permissions granted to them (see section 7) by the website administrators and the content manager responsible for that section or page of the site.

In addition to managing the content of pages within level 3 and below of the information architecture, content managers can also manage much of the dynamic content (news, events, promo panels etc) which appears on the level 1 and level 2 pages however, alterations to the layout of these pages and indeed the layout of standard content pages should only be undertaken by the web administrators in order to protect the integrity of the user experience which the site has been designed to deliver.

1.3.The Content Writing Process

The guidelines below will help you with planning a page, evaluating your approach while you're writing, and reviewing it after you have a draft. Follow the steps below and also use the GCU Content Authoring Checklist to ensure that your content meets the required standards for publication on the GCU website.

  • Before writing a Page:
  1. Establish that the page you are producing:
  2. Has been approved for production by the relevant section manager
  3. Meets the agreed information principles of the websiteand that an appropriate position within the site architecture has been agreed with the University’s Website Content Officer.
  4. Determine the audience of the page. Who will use the information you want to provide?
  5. Determine the objective of the page.
  6. What message should the page convey?
  7. What does your audience want to accomplish when they visit your page? You may want to make a list of the "top tasks" and ensure that the page allows each task to be completed.
  8. Determine the scope of the content.
  9. Define what the page will and will not cover. New content should fulfil a need on the site. Do not duplicate content that exists elsewhere. A simple search can help you find similar content on the site or the Information Architect can provide advice on more in-depth searches.
  10. Leverage existing content through links, when possible. Write only the content needed by your audience and link to related content already on the site.
  • While Writing

It's easy to get buried in the content and lose sight of the bigger picture during the writing process. Once you start writing, make an effort to occasionally stop and check in with your original goals.

  1. Check the Information Architecture to ensure that your content is optimized for search.
  2. Refer to your original objective and plan for the page.
  3. Refer to the GCU Style Guide when you have questions on style.
  4. Refer to the GCU Website Content Checklist to ensure that your content meets standards.
  • After Writing

After a page is written, re-evaluate the following:

  1. Does the page meet the objective?
  2. Does the page meet the needs of your audience?
  3. If you were an outside visitor, could you easily complete your "top tasks" using the content and/or links on this page?

1.4.Types of Pages

This section covers requirements and best practices for writing home, section landingand content pages.

1.4.1.Home Pages

Home pages introduce and draw visitors to the content within the site.

  • Requirements
  • Write and design home pages so they are easy to scan
  • Provide an introduction to the content on the site
  • Provide users with easy access to the main sections of the site, including sub-sites.
  • Best Practice
  • Include many links to the key content on your site to help users find what they need quickly.
  • Promote the content below the home page and encourage the reader to go deeper into the site.
  • Include headlines and short summaries to show the reader the news or other special content that resides deeper in your site.
  • Use the middle of the page to "push" your main message (the eye travels to the middle of the page first, then to the left, then to the right).

1.4.2.Section Landing Pages

Section landing pages are the introductory pages (sometimes called ‘Gallery’ pages) that pull a user into the real content. They typically introduce specific sections within a site and link to deeper content within that section.

  • Requirements
  • Write and organize section landing pages so they are short, concise, easy to scan
  • Write pages so they make sense when found out of context, via searches, links, and bookmarks
  • Provide an introduction to the section's content
  • Provide links to the top levels of content in the section.
  • Best Practice
  • Make it easy for users to find what they need.
  • Include surrounding text if the link is not descriptive enough.
  • If you have many links to deeper content, group similar links under the same sub-header.

1.4.3.Content Pages

Content pages are the lower-level pages on your site that provide the in-depth material of your site.

  • Requirements
  • Write content pages so they are relatively short, concise, and easy to scan
  • Write pages so they make sense when found out of context, via searches, links, and bookmarks
  • Best Practices
  • Content pages provide users with the bulk of the information on your site, but your carefully crafted text will go ignored if it can't be read quickly and skimmed for the main points.
  • Break up long blocks of text with meaningful headings and subheadings that reinforce the main points of the page. See Page Elements for more details.
  • Use bulleted or numbered lists instead of long paragraphs
  • Write short paragraphs with short sentences. Sentence variety is good, but too much complexity will prevent a skimming user from grasping your point.
  • Put your main points in the first paragraph or two. Help users quickly determine if the page has what they need.
  • Incorporate calls to action into your content.
  • Write content pages so they are informative, not promotional, in tone.

1.5.Page Elements

Certain content elements can guide a user through information, making a page easier to read and understand. This section covers requirements and best practices for writing headers, sub-headers, and introductory text, the body of content, and graphics and photos.

1.5.1.Headers

  • Key requirements
  • Be concise
  • Be unique
  • Describe page content
  • Contain keywords that:
  • Searchers use in searches
  • Help the page rank high in search results
  • Are important to your users
  • Provide a meaningful caption for search results
  • Not contain acronyms or abbreviations,
  • Not include ampersands unless they are embedded in terms, e.g., R&D

1.5.2.Introductory Text

In the introductory text, focus on optimising content using search terms which are relevant to the page content – within the context of the wider site information architecture. The intro statement should provide the context – who, what, where, when, why, and how about the page topic. Search engines typically display the introductory content as a site or page description.

The introductory text should also describe the page content. Make your main points clear up front. If you had 30 seconds to tell someone the message you want the page to convey, what would you say?

  • Key requirements – introductory text should:
  • Describe/introduce page content
  • Contain keywords that
  • Searchers use in searches
  • Help the page rank high in search results
  • Are important to your users
  • Not contain acronyms or abbreviations that are not defined or used on the page
  • Not include ampersands unless they are embedded in terms, e.g., R&D
  • Spell out acronyms before they are used

1.5.3.Sub-headers

  • Key requirements – sub-headers should:
  • Break up long blocks of text
  • Contain keywords that:
  • Searchers use in searches
  • Help the page rank high in search results
  • Are important to your users
  • Describe paragraph/section content
  • Not contain acronyms or abbreviations
  • Not include ampersands unless they are embedded in terms, e.g., R&D.
  • Best Practices
  • When writing long pages, use sub-headers every 2-3 paragraphs.

1.5.4.Body of Content

  • Key requirements – body text should:
  • Contain keywords that:
  • Searchers use in searches
  • Help the page rank high in search results
  • Are important to your users
  • Not contain acronyms or abbreviations that are not defined or used on the page
  • Not include ampersands unless they are embedded in terms, e.g., R&D
  • Spell out acronyms before they are used
  • Best Practices - when writing the body of your content, consider the following:
  • Get right to the point, and deliver your message clearly
  • Use conversational language that your target audience will understand (avoid jargon and large, vague words)
  • Use active voice (i.e., use "workers will complete the facility" instead of "the facility will be completed")
  • Don't use long quotes, puns (especially if for an international audience), and obsolete terminology (such as "check it out!," "cool stuff," "click here," "hot links," and "under construction")
  • Only use time references when writing news articles. Out-of-date references decrease the site's credibility and present a maintenance problem—if you are using time references (i.e., today, yesterday, last month) on a static site, you are unlikely to go back to update that reference.
  • Make sure your site has a personality and consistent tone
  • Make your content "scannable" so visitors can find what they are looking for quickly. Use the following approaches:
  • Bullets
  • Sub-headers
  • Summaries
  • Typographical elements to pull out important phrases (larger type, bold face, italics—but NOT underlines, unless it is a hyperlink)
  • Short sentences (no more than 20 words)
  • Short paragraphs (no more than 3 sentences)
  • Short pages (no more than 3-4 paragraphs). For content that is more than 3-4 paragraphs, consider "chunking" your content.
  • Use headlines and summaries on your home page and on all menu-style pages.

1.5.5.Graphics and photos

  • Key requirements – graphics and photos should:
  • Be displayed near the appropriate text in the main content area of pages
  • Need descriptive alt text.
  • Best Practices: Try to add photos, illustrations, or other graphical treatments where you can. Graphical treatments can help bring attention to important content on your site, while photos and illustrations add colour, dimension, and visual context. Write meaningful captions that tie into the content of the page, not just describe what's in the photograph—but keep captions short and concise. A well-chosen photo with a meaningful caption can capture and drive home the main point of an entire page.

1.6.Content naming conventions

The content naming convention for the gcal.ac.uk website is consistent with the site’s structure previously described in section 5.1. Accordingly, each piece of content within the site is allocated a set of descriptors which show its relative position within the site (i.e. the section and/or sub-section/s in which it resides) and its unique name – allocated when the content is created. A list of the descriptors which are used to denote the relative position of content is available from the GCU webteam.

1.6.1.Page level content

Using these conventions and descriptors, Figure 2 below describes the naming convention for two examples of pieces of page level content contained within the Study section of the website; ‘Why Study Here’ and ‘Glasgow Rocks’. Within this diagram:

  • ‘Why Study Here’ exists at level 3 either:
  • as a content page in its own right - or alternatively;
  • asa sub-section of ‘Undergraduate’ with further content pages (e.g. ‘Glasgow Rocks’) below it.
  • ‘Glasgow Rocks’ exists at level 4 as a content page within the ‘Why Study Here’ sub-section – which in itself exists as a sub-section of ‘Undergraduate’ which is in turn a sub-section of ‘Study’.

The naming convention for these two pieces of content would therefore be comprised of the abbreviated descriptors and the real name of the content as follows:

  • Example 1 - ‘Why Study Here’ at level 3 as a sub-section of ‘Undergraduate’ with content pages beneath
  • Naming convention is: ST-UG-WS-Page Name
  • Example 2 - ‘Why Study Here’ at level 3 as a content page in its own right
  • Naming convention is: ST-UG-Why Study Here

Figure 2: Content Naming Conventions

1.6.2.Naming conventions for other types of content

The following conventions will also be applied to other types of site content:

Content Type / Naming Convention
Promo Panels / PP-Promo Name
Link Panels / LP-Panel Name
Vacancies / VAC-Vacancy Title
News Articles / NEW-CAT-Article Title
Events Title / EVE-SUB-CAT-Event Title

2.Maintaining Content

2.1.Updating Content

Content on the GCU website should be updated on an as-needed basis, while other maintenance tasks can be scheduled (see 6.3– Content Maintenance Plan) to ensure that the site’s content is regularly reviewed.

The following content should always be updated as it changes or becomes available:

  • Contacts
  • News
  • Events
  • Course & programme related information

Other content maintenance tasks can be performed on a regular basis. These include:

  • Link updates and fixes
  • Spell checks
  • Content reviews and edits
  • Optimisation updates

2.2.Removing Old Content

Removing old content can be just as important as putting up new content. Going forward, as the University continues to generate new content; it will be important that the value of old content is continually reassessed and that old pages are removed. The maintenance plan should consider all of the following:

  • Is the content out of date?
  • Is it covered somewhere else?
  • Does it still fit the purpose of the site?
  • Check your statistics--has anyone looked at the page in the last six months? - If not, and if the content is important, should the page be moved to somewhere else in the site?
  • Can any of the content be consolidated, either with other existing pages or with pages that will be added in the future?

2.3.The Site & Content Maintenance Plan

The GCU website is the primary means by which the University will keep its customers and stakeholders informed about what’s happening at GCU.

In order to ensure that the quality of the GCU website is consistently maintained going forward, the University executive should plan and budget for content and site maintenance activity each year and content managers (within each of the University’s content teams) should have and follow a maintenance Website & Content Maintenance schedule.

The Website & Content Maintenance Plan will set out a series of maintenance tasks which will be carried out at scheduled intervals - thus ensuring that the site’s content and other related technical aspects are always kept up-to-date.

The actual frequency of these tasks and reviews can be varied depend on the content. If the content is tied to a particular project or time frame, utilising content expiry workflows or scheduling regular reviews will enable the University to manage content before it becomes outdated. Other, more static content can be reviewed less often, but may require annual content and technical reviews.

Where necessary, given the size of the site, it may be prudent to break down reviews of the site into manageable chunks throughout the year.

3.The Content Management Process

3.1.Guiding principles

The content management processes described herein assume that there will be a guiding ‘content management principle’ that; wherever possible, responsibility for content creation and management will be delegated down to members of staff within each of the departments represented on the website.