Tag: websites

Making your website more searchable

 

Photograph of a laptop showing Google search results

One of the most popular questions I am asked is ‘how do I make my website more searchable?’. With so much of our traffic coming from search engines like Google, Bing and Baidu (other search engines are available!), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is really important. So what can you do as an editor to improve how your web pages appear in search results? In this post I will share some tips. (more…)

Accessibility tricks and treats

Three lit halloween pumpkins and candles next to a laptop showing the Imperial accessibility website
As you may be aware there were some new digital accessibility regulations that came into force last year called the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. These regulations mean that all public sector bodies (including universities) must ensure websites and mobile applications are more accessible.

There is a project being undertaken to ensure the College fulfils its obligations and to identify those websites and applications that don’t meet the College’s standards.

So what are our standards?

At the College we aim to meet WCAG 2.1 standards (level AA). Most of these standards are to do with the way that the content is structured and delivered in terms of the underlying code in the templates and content types. If you are using the College’s centrally supported websites (such as T4), then most of these things are out of your control as an editor. But, there are some things that are in your control such as how you add images, links and other content to your pages.

With Halloween fast-approaching I thought I would ease any fears and share some tricks and treats to show you how easy it is to improve your content.

(more…)

Tools for collaborative writing

In my last post I talked about pair writing. This is a really great technique for creating effective content, but there is one potential challenge – it can be difficult to find a slot in the diary when you are both free, and even if you do, you’ve then got to find an available room. This is true of any collaborative working, but once again technology saves the day.

There are many different tools that you can use to collaborate on a writing project in real time, and in this post I will talk about some of the ones I have used over the last couple of years. I will also go through some of the pros and cons of each. This is not a comprehensive study of all the tools available; it’s based on my experiences, so I would encourage you to do some further research and try out the tools yourself. (more…)

Content design techniques: pair writing

Whether you are creating a new website or simply adding a few new pages; one of the most important things to do is to bring the right people together to actually write the copy. There are a number of ways you can collaborate on content writing, but pair writing has proven to be a very popular technique in recent years. In this post I will talk about the technique and how it can improve collaborative working and the output on your website.

Pair writing, unsurprisingly involves two people sitting down together and writing copy in real-time. It really is as simple as that!
Close up of two women doing records in a notebook sitting at a laptop (more…)