Web Page Guidelines

Best practices  

• Make your content skimmable

• Frontload: Put your main idea at the beginning.  

• Use the language your audience uses. Aim for a readability score of Grade 8-9. Use the Hemingway Editor to assess. If you need assistance with writing for your website contact [email protected].

• Be user-centric, not organization-centric. Focus on user tasks. Write for students, not yourself or your office.

• Be conversational. Use contractions and first- and second-person voice (“we” and “you”),

• Remember that content is more than just text. Consider whether imagery, statistics, or videos may be a more effective way to convey your message than text. (Use photos, but not images with text on them. These are not ADA compliant in most cases.) Images must be approved by Marketing please send to [email protected].

• Use bullet points 

• Write as clearly and concisely as possible and keep your sentences and paragraphs short (three sentences or less). 

• Use specific detail to show rather than tell. 

• Keep a page word count over 300 words – if you don’t have enough (and don’t add text just to fill this number), then maybe it should be part of an existing webpage.

• Be sure to add a good page descrption so users can find your page!

• Be sure to follow CCRI's naming conventions for webpages and docuents on the website.

What to avoid 

• Long blocks of text and complex sentences

• Ambiguous headlines and subheads 

• Passive voice 

• Jargon and blah-blah text (e.g. collegial-speak like “cohort”). You are writing for prospective students.

• Too much bold or italics -- if everything is emphasized, nothing is

• Too many menu items -- difficult to scan & understand

• Archives of content - Do not archive old materials such as past events, presentations, photos, etc.

• “click here” language. Use descriptive links like “view the schedule” or “apply for the program”. People know how to click a link.
  
  

Explanation

• Combine similar content and pages that have too little text – Google penalizes pages with too little content in terms of our search rankings. With hundreds of pages already on the site, a new page shouldn’t be created unless there is a need. Too many pages makes it hard for students to find what they are searching for.

• Remove archives (such as past events, presentations, photos, etc.), old info, and lists of off-site links – We are trying to keep only the basics on the website—too much content hinders the ability to have a clean, organized website. We do not want students finding and using old versions of documents, or finding the wrong event dates from years past.