{"id":1592,"date":"2023-09-25T14:23:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T19:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/web-redesign\/?p=1592"},"modified":"2024-02-14T15:05:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T21:05:20","slug":"clean-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/web-redesign\/2023\/09\/clean-house\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time to Clean House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marketing & Communications is working with <\/span>Manafer<\/span>r<\/span>a<\/span>, a <\/span>new <\/span>third<\/span>–<\/span>party <\/span>partner<\/span>, to <\/span>improve organic traffic<\/span> to t<\/span>he UND website<\/span>. <\/span>Manaferra<\/span> ident<\/span>ified<\/span> several<\/span> issues that hinder search engine optimization<\/span> (SEO)<\/span>. <\/span>We\u2019ve<\/span> learned issues on one site will negatively <\/span>impact<\/span> all sites. <\/span>There is a lot of work to do<\/span>, and w<\/span>e <\/span>need <\/span>you to do your part to help us all<\/span>.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Action Items<\/h3>\n

To help you prioritize, the following action items are listed in order of SEO importance. The deadline to complete these fixes is November 22, 2023.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We will provide detailed spreadsheets outlining content issues to site owners in the coming weeks. Site owners must review their websites for any of the following issues and make edits per the instructions below. This includes independent sites.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Delete <\/span>all <\/span>unused documents, <\/span>images<\/span>,<\/span> and pages<\/span><\/strong>: <\/span><\/span>Search engines scan <\/span>everything<\/span>.<\/span> Manaferra<\/span> identified<\/span> 4<\/span>.9K<\/span> URLs on our website that are <\/span>getting traffic even though they <\/span>aren\u2019t<\/span> linked <\/span>to<\/span>. <\/span>This is not acceptable.<\/span> Site ow<\/span>ners<\/span> will be <\/span>provided<\/span> reports on <\/span>unused content<\/span>. <\/span>If <\/span>unused<\/span> content <\/span>isn\u2019t<\/span> deleted<\/span> by t<\/span>he <\/span>November 22<\/span> deadline<\/span>, Marketing <\/span>& Communications <\/span>will <\/span>delete<\/span> all<\/span> unused <\/span>content. Your review is critically important because <\/span>unused<\/span> content reports are not 100% <\/span>accurate<\/span>. We need content owner<\/span>s<\/span> to <\/span>identify<\/span> content that is <\/span>falsely<\/span> reported as unused.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Move <\/span>internal content to <\/span>online storage<\/span> and <\/span>delete<\/span> it from the website<\/span><\/strong>:<\/span><\/span> Our website has become a dumping ground for <\/span>office and department content like meeting minutes<\/span> and agendas<\/span>. <\/span>This has a much greater SEO impact than we realized. <\/span>Google has a limited crawl budget assigned to UND.edu. <\/span>We need to make<\/span> the most of that crawl budget, so Google spends its time visiting and indexing important pages, rather than files with no relevance to the marketing side of the website.\u202f<\/span>Internal<\/span> content<\/span> will no longer be allowed to be published<\/span> unless it is legally required<\/span> to be public on the website<\/span>. <\/span>All internal content<\/span> must<\/span> be moved to <\/span>a<\/span> public or password protected<\/span> online <\/span>storage location<\/span> such as Teams<\/span>,<\/span> Dropbox<\/span>,<\/span> or a shared drive<\/span>. <\/span>We will work with you to <\/span>identify<\/span> content <\/span>that <\/span>must<\/span> be moved.<\/span> Use this form to <\/span><\/span>r<\/span>equest a TEAMS <\/span>site<\/span><\/span><\/a> from UIT.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Convert<\/span> PDFs <\/span>to <\/span>website<\/span> content<\/span><\/strong>: <\/span><\/span>Site owners are misusing <\/span>PDFs <\/span>as <\/span>an easy way<\/span> to whip up web content. This is a big issue because <\/span>PDFs are <\/span>seen as secondary content to search engines, are <\/span>not mobile friendly<\/span>, <\/span>aren\u2019t<\/span> easily updated<\/span>,<\/span> and <\/span>have<\/span> accessibility issues. <\/span>We will <\/span>work<\/span> with <\/span>site owners<\/span> to <\/span>identify<\/span> PDFs that <\/span>should<\/span> be converted to web content.<\/span> Not all PDFs will make good web content. For example,<\/span> PDFs <\/span>such as brochures and annual reports <\/span>with<\/span> design elements<\/span> are <\/span>better to <\/span>remain<\/span> PDFs.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Audit your meta descriptions: <\/span><\/span><\/strong>Meta descriptions are the content that people see in search results. A meta description lets your audience know what to expect before they follow the search result link. A well-written meta description can make the difference between your page getting clicked or <\/span>missed<\/span>.\u202f<\/span>Many <\/span>pages<\/span> have incomplete, inaccurate, duplicate, or missing meta descriptions.<\/span><\/span> Follow <\/span><\/span>SEO best practices<\/span><\/span><\/a> to ensure pages have <\/span>strong meta <\/span>descriptions.<\/span> Meta<\/span> descriptions can be updated in Omni\u2019s <\/span>m<\/span>ulti-edit menu.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Fix broken links:<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Broken link<\/span>s<\/span> send singles to search engines that our website is old and outdated. <\/span>You\u2019ll<\/span> be <\/span>provided<\/span> a list of broken links that must be fixed. <\/span>We\u2019ll<\/span> rescan the site after <\/span>November 22, 2023 <\/span>to ensure the links were fixed.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Move pages in development to a _do-not-display folder: <\/span><\/b>UIT periodically pushes code changes to our website that automatically publish all content on our website. This has caused bad content to be found via search. Please move all testing or back-up content to _do-not-display folder.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you have questions, please contact Aimee Halstenson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Marketing & Communications is working with Manaferra, a new third–party partner, to improve organic traffic to the UND website. Manaferra identified several issues that hinder search engine optimization (SEO). We\u2019ve learned issues on one site will negatively impact all sites. There is a lot of work to do, and we need you to do your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s Time to Clean House - Website Updates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/web-redesign\/2023\/09\/clean-house\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s Time to Clean House - Website Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Marketing & Communications is working with Manaferra, a new third–party partner, to improve organic traffic to the UND website. Manaferra identified several issues that hinder search engine optimization (SEO). We\u2019ve learned issues on one site will negatively impact all sites. There is a lot of work to do, and we need you to do your […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.und.edu\/web-redesign\/2023\/09\/clean-house\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Website Updates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-25T19:23:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-14T21:05:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrick C. Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrick C. 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