Contact Info
- This page usually changes more than any other page on your website. Outdated info on this page makes your site look abandoned.
- It is often the highest-traffic page on your site after the homepage.
- Put updating this page at the top of your priority list.
Content
- Don’t create more content than you can maintain. The site will start to look outdated and possibly abandoned.
- Don’t use blog posts on the homepage unless you have a team of writers. Blog posts show publish dates.
- If you are going to blog, set visitor expectations – mention how often you plan to publish blog posts.
- Are you the owner of the information, or are you merely repeating someone else’s info? Consider linking to the source info on the owner’s website, but read the caveats below to using links.
- Try as much as possible to use “evergreen” content that does not need frequent updating.
- If a file only needs to be available for a specific time frame, consider another way of providing access, e.g. emailing the file, or storing the file on Box and emailing the link to it.
- If content needs to be restricted, contact us for advice.
Links
- Links have a high maintenance cost, particularly if you link to someone else’s site.
- Big agencies, like DNR, periodically redesign their websites. This causes tons of broken links on any site that links to their site.
- Use the broken link checker periodically to ensure links in your content don’t lead to non-existent pages.
Menus/Navigation
- Don’t overload the main menu. Too many top-level entries will make the menu collapse behind a toggle and can be difficult to navigate.
- Take time and plan the menu. Sketch it out on paper, and run it by your coworkers. People organize and group things differently, even in the same department.
- Be wary of changing menus on a live site. People get used to items being in a certain location.
- Don’t build an “all links” page and then repeat the links in a sidebar menu.
- Turn on breadcrumbs to make navigation easier for site visitors.
Photos
- Ensure all images that need alt text receive it. This is an accessibility requirement.
- Use a tool like squoosh.app to compress images before uploading them to WordPress. Large images make your pages load slowly, particularly on mobile devices. Slow page load times can cause visitors to abandon your website.
- Upload photos sparingly.
- People usually don’t stay on the homepage very long. They won’t be there long enough to cycle through a lot of photos in sliders.
- Make sure you have rights to the photo and have obtained any necessary releases. Use the UW Photo Library to access high quality images from campus.
- Give photos meaningful names before you upload them.
- Don’t upload multiple, slightly different copies of the same photo.
- Once you get over 100 files in the Media Library, it can become challenging to find things.
User Accounts
- Grant access to your site sparingly, particularly administrator access.
- Set a calendar reminder to review your list of site users at least once a year, and purge accounts for people who have left. This is particularly true if students maintain your content.