Higher education websites produce a large amount of content, and that content needs updating, cleaning, and refreshing regularly to uphold the same quality standard as your university.
Your website makes the first impression on your visitors and will have the power to keep them on the site or not. Because it manages a large amount of content, the site must be reviewe0d, updated, and monitored often. That’s why higher education institutions need website management that ensures a positive digital user experience and increases engagement.
Everything from the speed of the webpage to the accuracy of the content matters when it comes to managing the different parts of your website. A strong content management system (CMS) is essential to making the process of maintaining the website smoother and more organized.
Let’s look at a few best practices that will provide the foundation for managing your higher education website.
1. Update your website content frequently
Updating your higher ed website content frequently helps eliminate unnecessary information and outdated content. When you add new information, there is most likely old information that needs to be deleted from the site as well. Going through all your webpages to make sure all the content is relevant and supports the digital experience goals helps keep things up to date and useful to your users.
One of the primary reasons people visit the site is to find information they are looking for, so making sure that information is accessible and accurate will increase engagement and improve the impression it has on repeat visitors.
2. Choose a strong CMS
Finding the CMS that works best for the needs of your higher ed website will make the process of maintaining it more streamlined and efficient. The CMS organizes large amounts of content and consolidates the workflow into one interface that makes content creation systematic and manageable.
There are many content management systems to choose from, and each one prioritizes different features that can be more valuable to your higher ed website than others. WordPress and Drupal are both popular options for higher ed websites because they are structured to manage large amounts of content.
3. Monitor website performance
The website’s speed, accessibility, and usability all contribute to its performance. Website performance will also help determine how effectively you rank on the appropriate SEO keywords.
For example, Google analytics will provide a detailed report showing how effectively the website has been meeting your performance goals. A website that underperforms won’t be as attractive to students or engage their interest in your content.
From checking for broken links to making sure content displays correctly, all the functions of the site should be evaluated regularly to keep it professional and credible. No one wants to click from page to page only to find dead ends with pages that no longer exist, clearly broken content, and links that lead nowhere. Taking the initiative to clean up your higher ed website regularly will help maintain the level of professionalism and quality that will stand out to prospective students.
4. Create site guidelines and standards
Creating guidelines for how the site will operate and writing out standards to follow while creating content will make content management easier on any high-content website. In the same way writers have a style guide and rules to follow when writing, a site guide will help uphold the site’s brand and contribute to making the organizational layout more uniform and straightforward to edit.
Having everyone who creates and edits content on the website follow the same guidelines will save time in the long run when information needs to be edited. Similar to site guidelines, establishing brand guidelines will create a consistent identity while supporting the goals of the website.
5. Put strong security measures in place
Security for your higher education website should be a priority. Taking the time to put a security system in place will save you the time and trouble of fixing security breaches later. With universities, privacy needs to take the foremost priority. Not only are there privacy laws, but the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protects European citizen’s personal data as well as those of European students studying abroad in America.
KWALL can help
KWALL will support the development of your higher ed website, help you implement a CMS, and continue to support you while you use it. We can also help you create a maintenance and support plan that works so you can manage content through a content management system. KWALL specializes in helping colleges and universities increase student engagement through the quality of their websites. Reach out and contact KWALL today to talk about how they can help you.
