How web structure can increase content value

How Web Structure Can Increase Content
Value
Slide 1
How Web Structure Can
Increase Content Value

Value
Slide 2
1. Define your audience
2. Measure value and resourcefulness
3. Determine the purpose of each page
Overview
Source: Higher Education Marketing – How Web Structure Can Increase Content Value

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Slide 3
 The recipe to a great web site contains different ingredients:
 web design and development
 content
 social media
 SEO
 Analytics
 But a good foundation will allow these elements to work at
their best, leaving you with a site that doesn't only look
good, but functions well too.

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Slide 4
 Structure dictates content
 In a previous post about writing for the web, we spoke
about different practices that make for good online
content.
 But before the writing starts, laying down the main
components of your site will give you a clear
understanding of the type of content you need to fill
it with.
 Keep in mind that even though your college or university site
is already up and moving, you can still evaluate the structure
of the site to make sure that you have the right type and
amount of content.

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Slide 5Source: Higher Education Marketing – How Web Structure Can Increase Content Value

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Slide 6
Here are three essential steps to strengthening the
overall structure and content value of your website.

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 The only way to properly evaluate the content on any given
web page is:
 to think about the type of audience that will be visiting
that particular page.
 To help determine your audience members, first breakdown
the demographics of your website visitors.

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Slide 8
 For higher education marketing websites, the most common
audience groups are:
 Current students
 Prospective students
 International students
 Faculty and staff
 Parents and alumni
 Partners and sponsors
 Participating community members (i.e. volunteers)

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Slide 9
 Does the current content on your site speak to all of these
demographic groups?
 By mapping out your audience this way, you will have
an easier time understanding which pages or level of
information you need to expand on.
 To be truly effective, your site needs to reach out to all of its
target visitors.

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Slide 10
 Take a look at how McGill University has a distinct
navigation menu for each of their audience groups.

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 By choosing a demographic group from the options given at
the top of the screen, the navigation menu below will change
accordingly.
 What this does is:
 allow the McGill site to be structured based on
audience
 ensure that their visitors land on the pages they want
to go to quickly and without getting lost.

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Slide 12
 Once you understand who is visiting your site, you can gain
a better grasp on what your visitors are looking for.
 This brings us to our next point of evaluation:
 does your site’s content provide each group with
the information they need?
 Determining exactly what your visitors want to know will
determine the type of content that should exist on your site.

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Slide 13
For example, what sort of information do prospective students
want to know?
Here are the main pages that this demographic tends to visit:
 Program options
 Admission requirements
 Tuition
 Financial aid
 Housing options

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 Do all of these pages exist?
 Can they all be accessed directly from the homepage?
 If not, can they be found relatively easily?

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 You want to make sure that your visitors have an easy and
enjoyable time discovering the answers that they have.
 If these top-tier pages are hidden under layers of other
parent pages, then you run the risk of having visitors leave
the site before finding what they were originally looking for.
 In other words, missing or hidden pages can
potentially cause you to lose a new lead

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Slide 16
Another element of ensuring your web content is resourceful is:
 providing your audience with information that they
don’t realize will be useful to them.
Again, with our student demographic example, here are a few
examples of content pages students may not think to look for
but would be interested in if they found it:
 Alumni mentor programs
 Community engagement initiatives
 Research achievements
 International study options
 Specials events or publications

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Slide 17
Every page on your site has to have a distinct purpose.
 The main Program page, for example, serves to
inform visitors on the list of program options offered at
your college or university.
 The purpose of the Contact page is to let visitors know
the easiest ways to get in touch with you.
All this seems obvious, but it’s possible that in between edits or
redesigns, a few pages slipped between the cracks and exist
with outdated content or no real function.

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Slide 18
The visitor demographic and the purpose of a page will shape
the type and amount of content your site needs.
 For example, the Housing and Residence pages will
likely be visited by prospective students and parents.
 With this in mind, you will be able to craft your
content in such a way that it will appeal to those
specific demographics.
 Knowing that prospective students will be the
primary demographic visiting that page, it is
reasonable to include relative information that you
think the visitor would want to know.

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Slide 19
George Brown College International Student Housing page is a
great example of how to integrate relative information on a
given page by considering the target audience group.

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Slide 20
Does your site have all the information that your visitors are looking
for?
Are there instances where content exists in more than one place,
causing your site to have unnecessary duplicate pages?
 As we mentioned at the beginning of the post, a solid
website structure will directly affect the management and
development of the content on your site.
 Once you have the structure of the site down, it will be
easier to create the words to fill it up!

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Slide 21
What practice has been useful for you when evaluating or
creating content on your college or university website?
Does structure play a role? Let us know!

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Slide 22
Questions?
1.514.312.3968
info@higher-education-marketing.com
Visit our Website: Higher Education Marketing
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How web structure can increase content value

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