Maintaining Web Content

Maintaining your website is about more than just adding new content. It’s about ensuring that everything on your site remains accurate, relevant, and accessible over time in order to provide the best possible user experience. This guide outlines the workflow you should follow for creating and maintaining your web content to keep it fresh and up-to-date, regardless of the content management system (CMS) you use.

Content Creation Workflow

We use a system of user roles to help streamline the content creation process and be strategic about web content maintenance (view user roles for Drupal 10 and WordPress). Within the system of these roles, users are able to create web content following this workflow:

1. Draft Content: All web content should be drafted and finalized in a shared document (e.g., Google Doc, Word Doc) before being added to the website.
2. Add Content to Website: Finalized web content can then be added to the website within the constraints of your user role.
   • Users without publishing permissions should submit content changes as revisions. These revisions will need to be reviewed and approved by a user with publishing permissions.
3. Review Content: Content should be properly reviewed for accuracy, clarity, and accessibility. Revisions will be published once they are approved.
4. Publish and Maintain: Once published, content becomes live on the site. Site Managers are responsible for periodically reviewing the website's content to ensure it remains current and relevant.

Drafting Content Outside of Your Website

Before adding content to your website, it’s best to draft and finalize it in a collaborative tool like Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

Why Draft First?

• Allows for collaboration and feedback before publishing.
• Helps ensure clarity, consistency, and accuracy.
• Reduces the risk of publishing incomplete or unapproved content.

Finalizing and Reviewing Content Before Publishing on the Website

Before publishing, ensure your content is:

• Fact-checked and approved by relevant parties.
• Clear and concise, using plain language that's easy to understand.
• Not duplicate content, linking to existing websites rather than copying content.
• Formatted for the web, with headings, short paragraphs, and bullet points.
• Accessible, including alt text for images and descriptive link text.

Once your content is approved, you can add your content to your website. Be sure to:

• Avoid copying and pasting directly from Word or Google Docs without cleaning up formatting. Use a “Paste as plain text” option if possible.
• Add images or media where helpful, with proper alt text.
• Save drafts while working on content that isn't ready to go live.
• Preview your content to ensure everything looks correct on both desktop and mobile. Check for typos and broken links, and fix accordingly.

Periodically Review Your Content

Make it a practice to review your site's content regularly, ideally at least once a year. Keeping outdated content can confuse visitors and lead to issues down the road. During your content review:

• Check for outdated information and update time-sensitive content (e.g., event dates, deadlines, staff changes).
• Verify that all links and documents still work.
• Ensure contact information is current.
• Look for opportunities to consolidate or simplify content.

Outdated content should be deleted or archived if it is no longer relevant. Always confirm that content is no longer needed before deleting it.

Best Practices for Content Maintenance

• Avoid duplicating content found on other websites. Link to those pages instead.
• Always look for ways to consolidate or simplify content
• Archive or remove outdated content to avoid confusion.
• Collaborate with your team to ensure consistency and accuracy across pages. Content maintenance is a team effort.