Environment and conservation website section review
Goals
In support of the Environment Framework, and to help raise the profile of the County’s work to foster environment-friendly practices and strategies:
Raise the profile of environment content on the website
Improve the content by applying best web writing practices
Group similar content to give a better overview of all initiatives and opportunities available
Reduce the number of trivial pages to help website visitors find information and reduce risk of outdated information
APPROACH
We started with a content inventory by creating a current site map and gathering analytics. The team then proceeded to a bird’s eye review of the content looking for opportunities to simplify and reduce repetition. Each subject matter expert proposed a new site map and we gathered together to discuss and build a single, common site map. We then prioritised pages to be re-written first based on a combination of factors: relevance to the Environment Framework, interest from the public and impact of re-writing, We chose 6 pages to be fully re-done for this first phase.
OUTCOMES
A whole website subsection was re-organized. Content was re-written with a resident-focused approach. Each subtopic landing page became a guide to content under that section rather than just a collection of links.
Pages moved or redirected: 79
Short URLS updated: 36
Pages deleted / merged: 7
Pages identified for future merge/deletion: 14
View these PDF documents: before and after
ARTIFACTS
Project plan, site maps, web page plans, task tracking, redirect map, project report
TOOLS
Google Analytics, Scrutiny, Excel, Microsoft Word, Django CMS
TEAM DYNAMICS
Communications specialists from four departments worked together on this project. I played the role of project lead and web specialist, providing mentorship to the group. Since this was a small-scale project, we relied on a single Excel document with many spreadsheets to plan, organise and track our work, as well as generate the original and new site maps.
