Reworking Your Site

Some considerations when reworking your site; How to make sure your visitors aren't left out in the cold.

Transcript

1. Reworking Your Site
   

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2. Goals
   •  Don’t leave your visitors stranded
   •  Google Analytics is a powerful tool for
   planning and follow-up
   •  Make sure you have a migration plan…
   that you can handle
   

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3. Step 1: Take Inventory
   Take Inventory of Your Current Site
    Objectives
    Pages
    Content
    Images and Files
    Most Popular Pages, Search Terms, and
   other Googley things
   

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4. Step 2: Formulate a Plan
   Determine How You Are Going to Move
    Review your Inventory to make informed
   decisions
    Create a method for mapping old URLs to
   new URLs
    …or cheat and Map old URLs to database
   identifiers…assuming the reworked site is
   in a CMS
   

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5. Step 3: Execute the Plan
   This Will Likely Be Time Intensive
    Rework the navigation
    Rework the content
    Freshen up the design
    Move things around
    Go wild
    …But don’t forget to keep your Map up to
   date.
   

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6. Step 4: Install the Map
   Some Pages have been pruned; Others
   moved to a new URL and some may still
   be at the same URL.
   With an accurate Map a developer can work
   some magic.
   

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7. Here There Be Magic
   

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8. Explaining the Map
   Using a Google Campaign, mark some
   Pages as “Moved” and others “Dropped”
   I used a Google Campaign URL
   Builder
   http://conductor.nd.edu/google-campaign
   

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9. Example of the Map
   /start/
   http://oit.nd.edu/new-to-nd/?
   utm_source=migration&utm_medium=scp
   &utm_campaign=moved
   /start/parent_information.shtml
   /start/parent_information.shtml/?
   utm_source=migration&utm_medium=scp
   &utm_campaign=dropped
   

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10. Moved Pages
    Redirect from the original URL to the new
    URL, but add Google Campaign
    Information
    In the case of OIT, the campaign name is
    “moved”
    

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11. Dropped Pages
    Redirect from the original URL to the same
    URL, but add Google Campaign
    Information
    In the case of OIT, the campaign name is
    “dropped”
    

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12. Oit.nd.edu – Google Analytics View
    

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13. Observations
    You can automate the conversion of some
    sites…or portions of the site.
    The less HTML you store in your content,
    the more portable it is.
    

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14. Why Do All This
    Your website is for other people…Don’t
    strand them.
    Broken links are a reality, but with some
    foresight and planning, you can mitigate
    the issue.
    

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15. Questions
    Jeremy Friesen
    Lead Application Developer, Web
    Agency University Communications
    jfriesen@nd.edu
    @jeremyfriesen
    blogs.nd.edu/jeremyfriesen
    

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16. Resources
    Link Checker
    http://linkchecker.sourceforge.net
    Search Engine Optimization
    http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-
    optimization-starter-guide.pdf
    Lynda.com license from OIT
    training@nd.edu
    

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