The Value of Content Sharing
One new feature on the redesigned site, which will be located in the left navigation column, is a new Add This widget, which will allow Web visitors to easily share content with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter or via e-mail. If content can be more easily shared then it should increase traffic to our Web site and improve our search traffic. At least that is the objective.
If you read any popular blogs or online news sites, you’ve likely seen these sharing links at the bottom of an article. I’ve grown to really like these sharing features as it makes sending Web content to colleagues and friends a whole lot easier.
One popular sharing tool provider Share This recently published some interesting statistics on their blog on the value of content sharing. They note that e-mail still matters. Sharing content by e-mail made up the largest percentage of shares comprising some 46 percent.
“Despite reports of its demise, e-mail is still the most popular method of sharing, and despite its meteoric rise of late, Twitter is still not a very popular sharing channel. In our research, we found that 46 percent of shares came via e-mail, 33 percent from Facebook, 14 percent from other channels such as Digg, del.icio.us, LinkedIn, etc., and just 6 percent from Twitter.”
In the same blog post, Share This included data from their network of publishers that highlighted content sharing’s impact on overall site traffic, search traffic, and visitor engagement.
Sharing vs. Search
Many of [ShareThis's] publishers are seeing increasing results from sharing. Here are a few network-wide observations…
- Sharing can make up 5-10% of your overall traffic.
- Sharing can make up 15-30% of your search traffic.
- Sharing drives 25-50% more engagement (page views/unique) than search.
An additional benefit of using a sharing widget on our own site is the built-in analytics capability, which will allow us to see what content is being shared across our Web site.
Knee Deep in Web Content, Among Other Updates
We are spending much of our time these days writing content for the new site. This includes writing many profiles for the new “Faces” faculty, student, and alumni Flash piece, a bank of stories for the new home page’s Wall gallery, and content for the many new pages we will be adding to the site. It’s all hands on deck for the Communications and Marketing staff as each member of our office is writing Web profies. We’re also gearing up to have a handful of students to assist us during winter break with pulling content out of our current Web site and readying it so it can be easily posted in the new CMS.
Should We Use Underscores or Hyphens in URLs?
As part of our implementation of Ingeniux CMS, we’ve had to decide how we want URLs to read (i.e., how will the page name read in a browser’s address bar).
Out of the box, Ingeniux displays page URLs as numbers with an .xml extension (e.g., 345.xml). Although, this method is short and clean, numbers aren’t real memorable. It’s much easier for site visitors to remember academics.html or news.html than 345.xml. You have some inclination where academics.html will take you when clicked, whereas 345.xml is pretty vague.
To present more human-readable URLs, Ingeniux allows us to utilize structured URLs using a hyphen or an underscore as a separator and specify .htm or .html as an extension. So which is better, hyphens or underscores? For me it has always come down to usability, something we touch on during each CMS training. It is much easier to read a Web address done in hyphens than underscores, especially when including URLs in print. If URLs appear as underlined text, the underscores are often harder to read.
When it comes down to it, search engines treat both underscores and hyphens differently. Google for example treats hyphens as separators or dividers while underscores are not treated as such as shown below.
Underscores vs. Hyphens
Example 1: www.anselm.edu/my_web_page.html
Example 2: www.anselm.edu/my-web-page.html
How Google reads these URLs.
Example 1: mywebpage
Example 2: my web page
Ingeniux CMS Training in Seattle
I spent all of last week in Seattle attending CMS training at Ingeniux’s offices. It was time very well spent.
I came away from the week of training even more impressed with Ingeniux, especially it’s flexibility and robustness as a CMS. The first day we covered all of Ingeniux’s terminology and their use – site controls, components, page types, navigation types (taxonomy vs. standard navigation), among others. We covered workflow and permissions as well as the underlying technology that powers Ingeniux – XML, XSLT (stylesheets), and schemas. It was a lot to pack into five days.
Home Page Wireframe, Site Map, and Content Outline
Over the course of last month and half we’ve been hard at work on several fronts with the redesign project. First, we worked with BarkleyREI to finalize the information architecture (aka site map) for the college site. We also completed the site content outline, which is a more comprehensive outline of the site’s higher level pages with detailed notes.
Lastly, we completed work on the home page wireframe, a visual representation of the home page we finish before we begin any design work. The wireframe defines what will go on the home page, including primary, secondary, and tertiary navigation, footer, call outs, search box, news and calendar listings, and multimedia features. Over the course of this work we sought and received input from several offices and have appreciated their feedback.
Overcoming Silos
Early on in our redesign project when we were selecting a Web firm, we received feedback from several companies that our Web site information architecture was strong, but was very siloed. We spend a lot of time on our current Web site directing visitors to one department or another for Web information. The thing to keep in mind is that our Web visitors should not have to learn our organizational structure to find information about us. With this in mind, we spent a lot of time developing the site’s information architecture to have it be more topic based and building stronger landing pages for the site’s target audiences – current students, parents and families, alumni, businesses and community, and faculty and staff.
It’s important to note that the primary audience for the college Web site is prospective students, an external audience that is least familiar with the college’s organizational structure and an audience where topic-based navigation is a better approach.
Next Steps
With the home page wireframe, content outline, and site map now complete, we now move on to the next project priorities:
- Home page design concepts - BarkleyREI will present us with four design concepts for review
- Lower level wireframes – defining what will be included on all landing pages and major sites linked off the college home page
- Content migration tracker – a spreadsheet tracking all content that will be migrated from the current site to the new site
- Site application inventory - an inventory of all scripts, applications, and forms that will carry over to the new site and require development or template skinning
- Ingeniux application handling - Determine which applications and functionality will be handled within the Ingeniux CMS and those that will require custom development.
We also recently installed a new CMS export tool on our Web server that will allow us to easily export all current CMS content as plain text in a directory structure. Pages in the new CMS will be coded to XHTML Transitional, so much of the formating on our current site will be stripped out to remain complaint with the new document type.
Ingeniux Selected as New Content Management System
I’m pleased to announce that we have selected Ingeniux as our new content management system (CMS). The selection comes after nearly eight weeks of work and with considerable assistance and input from our Web vendor, BarkleyREI, and the CMS Selection Group, which included staff, faculty, and student representation.
The CMS finalists were Ingeniux (based in Seattle) and Hannon Hill (based in Atlanta). Both CMSs have a strong foothold in the higher education space with hundreds of college implementations between the two companies. Both CMS companies spent a full day on campus in April where they met with the Web staff, key staff from Information Technology, and provided two-hour demos of their CMSs in front of our selection group.
We started the CMS selection process with a clear understanding of our CMS functional requirements and objectives. These were communicated early on in the Web redesign project in the original RFP and then again during the CMS selection process. Both vendors submitted full proposals, which covered in detail how they matched up against our functional requirements. Their on-site demos also addressed how each product addressed our requirements. Both Hannon Hill and Ingeniux met most of these requirements, but in the end, Ingeniux came out on top. Read more
Schedule Set for On-Site CMS Demonstrations
All faculty and staff are invited to attend two upcoming content management system (CMS) on-site demonstrations. The dates for these sessions are included below. If you wish to attend any of the sessions, RSVP with Tricia Halliday at 656-7240 or thalliday@anselm.edu so we can provide a head count to Dining Services for refreshments and have enough seats set up to accommodate everyone who wishes to participate.
As was announced previously in this blog, a campus group is assisting College Communications and Marketing will CMS selection. The CMS is the software used by the college to manage Web site content.
INGENIUX – http://www.ingeniux.com
Date/Time: Wed., April 15 – 9:30a.m.-11:30 a.m
Location: NHIOP Auditorium
Ingeniux has more than 100 college implementations of their CMS, including Stonehill, Franklin and Marshall, Bates, Roanoke, Swarthmore, University of the Pacific, University of Puget Sound, and University of Pittsburg, to name a few.
HANNON HILL CASCADE SERVER - http://www.hannonhill.com
Date/Time: Wed., April 22 – 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
Location: NHIOP Auditorium
Hannon Hill has more than 100 college implementations of their Cascade Server CMS, including North Carolina State University, William & Mary, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Duke, Emory, Hofstra, and Northwestern, among others.
Campus Group to Assist With CMS Selection
As part of the redesign project, the college will be selecting and implementing a new content management system (CMS). The CMS is the software used by the college to manage Web site content.
The following faculty, staff, and students are assisting College Communications and Marketing with reviewing three-to-four content management systems. The CMS Selection Group will review content management system proposals, participate in on-site demos for each system, and provide feedback and recommendations to College Communications and Marketing regarding CMS selection.
CMS Selection Group Members
Doug Minor, Communications and Marketing (chair)
Adam Albina, Information Technology
Katherine Bentz, Fine Arts
Lauren Chooljian, Student, History
Lorie Cochran, NHIOP
John Dillon, Geisel Library
Fr. Mathias Durette, O.S.B., Student Affairs
Lisa Gowern, Events Management
Nancy Griffin, Admission
Keith Hrasky, Admission
Rui Li, Information Technology
Anne Lord, Alumni Relations
Br. Issac Murphy, O.S.B., Monastery
Jessica Pappathan, Chapel Art Center
Michelle Rocheleau, Academic Affairs
Laura Rossi, Communications and Marketing
Bob Shea, Dana Center
Cory True, student, politics
College Communications and Marketing is very appreciative of this group’s assistance during this phase of the redesign project during what is a very busy time of year for everyone.
Web Redesign Update: Strategy, Staffing/Web Management Assessment, and CMS Recommendations
Since BarkleyREI’s three days of on-site discovery meetings in late January we’ve been busy. We reviewed pages and pages of discovery notes and other information compiled during their time on campus. We’ve provided BarkleyREI with additional college research, Web analytics data, findings from campus listening sessions and Web redesign survey, and finalized a project schedule.
The BarkleyREI team has been a joy to work with. They have a very talented team and we are very pleased with the progress made so far.
Last week BarkleyREI presented their initial Web redesign strategy via conference call and Web presentation. We’re currently reviewing the document with internal stakeholders and will include an overview of the site strategy in this blog in the next couple of weeks.
BarkleyREI began their strategy presentation by saying the following:
“Arriving on campus we had certain perceptions about a small, Catholic, liberal arts college, but after hearing the many stories and experiences of faculty, staff, and students, you blew us away. Saint Anselm College is truly a special place. I want my kids to go there.”
So What’s Next?
As part of BarkleyREI’s work, we’ve asked them to review our current Web staffing level, how the site is currently managed and supported, adequacy of training provided to faculty and staff, and current Web budget. The goal of this exercise is to better understand the resources required to maintain and support an interactive, engaging Web site that incorporates multimedia technologies and content. BarkleyREI will present their recommendations to us later this week.
We’ve also asked BarkleyREI to recommend three content management systems (CMS), based on what they’ve learned during the discovery and strategy phases. In the coming weeks, we will seek the assistance of a core group of faculty, staff, and students to help us with CMS review and selection. The review and demonstration of each CMS product will be done through an open process. Once the CMS demonstrations are scheduled, campus-wide e-mails will be sent to faculty and staff inviting people to participate in each session. We’re also hopeful people will use the commenting features of this blog to provide feedback during the CMS selection process.