Occasionally, we come under attack.

For once, it’s not for our dress sense. Instead, it’s a malicious cyber-attack. This occurs a few times every year: a malevolent entity out there (in the form of a bot) finds a form on a 杏吧原创 website and bombards that form with multiple submissions. In the latest attack, in less than twelve hours, 76,000 submissions were made to one event sign-up form. We are a popular university, but we aren’t that popular. These spam attacks by bots are becoming much more frequent and we have to take them seriously.

Ways to fight spam

Thankfully, there is a very simple and effective solution. We can add a CAPTCHA field to a form. This is a small checkbox that the person completing the form must click on to prove they are human. If they are human, then they can proceed. 

Great news! Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple. We have literally thousands of forms on the 700 websites we help manage and maintain at 杏吧原创. For each website we need to turn on a special application, which is a three-step process for us. Then someone has to go in and add the CAPTCHA field in each and every form.

Yes, thousands of form edits are required. For this, we must mobilize you to add the CAPTCHA field to as many forms as possible.

How to solve the problem

There are a few steps to take to address the vulnerability in your forms using CAPTCHA.

Firstly, you can  – there are hundreds of sites and we have to go through a process with each site individually to enable CAPTCHA. Initially therefore we will only enable it on sites where an administrator is keen to get rolling and place CAPTCHA on their forms. To start the ball rolling please with a list of all the websites you administer.

Secondly, you might find that there are several forms in the back end of your site. Some sites have 250 forms. Not all these forms are still required. Some are test forms built by you, your colleagues, or by Web Services. Others were used for a specific purpose and their day has come and gone. To save yourselves a lot of time you might wish to run an audit of these forms now, so that you don鈥檛 have to add CAPTCHA to forms that are no longer in use. Please read our tips on how to safely decide if a form can be deleted or switched off.

Lastly, you can add the CAPTCHA field. That is the easy part:

1. In the back end of your site, click on Forms and then click on whichever form to which you wish to add the CAPTCHA 
2. Once you are in the form editing screen, click on the panel on the right hand side marked Advanced.
3. Towards the bottom of the list of fields you should see CAPTCHA. Click on that. This will automatically add the field as the last field before the Submit button on your site*.
4. Update the form.
5. You can view the front end of your form to check that CAPTCHA is switched on

That is it: rinse and repeat on all of your live forms. This will protect your forms from non-humans (until the machines become sentient and start to take over).

鈥斺赌斺赌�

*If you add a CAPTCHA field to the form and it reads the following, then please for your site(s): 

To use the reCAPTCHA field you must do the following:

1 – Sign up for an API key pair for your site.

2 – Enter your reCAPTCHA site and secret keys in the reCAPTCHA Settings section of the Settings page

The post CAPTCHAing the moment with Forms appeared first on Web Services.

Back to school is an exciting and busy time for most of us. It is where we reorganize ourselves to ensure a fresh start for the upcoming school year. For students, that may look more like organizing school supplies and timetables, and for staff and faculty, that looks more like organizing sites. If you lack the time to reorganize your whole site, don’t panic! Your site will look all fresh and new with just a simple homepage spruce-up!

1. Quicklinks Makeover

Quick Links are one of the prime features of your homepage. They add an extensive visual element to your page, which helps make your site appealing. Additionally, they drive traffic to other sections of your site and help your audience reach key pages.

Quick Links should:

• Link to your top-viewed pages and/or pages where you want traffic directed. You can view your site’s top-viewed pages through your Google Analytics. This is all covered in our post on Page Visits in Google Analytics.
• Include excerpts which are short descriptions of the page it links to.
• Include engaging, eye-catchy images.

For more information on Quick Links, you can visit our What to put in your Quicklinks post.

2. Modernizing Images and Videos

Images are everything. They set the tone of your site, especially the ones on your homepage. Therefore, it is crucial that the images you choose are attractive, and represent your current audience. By this phrase, we mean selecting high-quality images, as well as updating your images and videos every so often that reflect your site in today鈥檚 world.

3. Calls to Action are Your Friend

Calls to action (CTA), are anything you include on your site that encourages a person to take a certain action. CTA is important because your audience is directly engaging with your site. Popular calls to action include the 鈥渞egister鈥� button for an event or a 鈥渟ubscribe鈥� button to a newsletter. CTA can be added to your page as a button, a Quick Link, or as linked text. For more information on CTA, visit our Calls to Action post.

4. Keeping up with Current Events

Keep your homepage up-to-date by promoting upcoming events and recent news with News and Events Listings. This will help ensure your site’s content is fresh and lively and has the appeal that your site is being regularly monitored and cared for. Additionally, it also keeps the community excited and regularly informed about what is going on in your department.

5. Steering your Site in the Right Direction

Lastly, you want to make sure your homepage is in line with 杏吧原创’s image and the University’s current brand guidelines. This includes elements such as the brand, visual identity, typography, colours, photography and graphic elements. Reflecting these elements on your homepage helps create a consistent user-experience across the 杏吧原创 domain. For more information visit 杏吧原创 Master Brand Guide.

Still interested in learning more about homepages? Visit our post on How to Make your Homepage Visually Appealing. 

The post Back to School: Ensuring a Happy, Healthy, Homepage appeared first on Web Services.

Believe it or not, writing content for your website is much different than for other mediums. Because there is an abundance of other sites for users to visit, you need to ensure yours captures their attention swiftly. Most engaging websites must pass the 5 Second Test. Essentially, you have around 5 mere seconds to grab the attention of your users before they abandon your site for good. A well-written site will not only capture users鈥� attentions but will help them find what they鈥檙e looking for, understand what they find, and use what they find.

This article will cover six topics on how to write for the web. We鈥檒l go over: headings, paragraphs, sentences, words, active voice, and pronouns.

Headings

Headings and subheadings are useful tools that give order to your pages. This sense of structure helps to guide visitors to the information that they鈥檙e looking for.

Headings also help to break up the text of a page. Websites with giant bodies of text are daunting and usually turn users off from your site. Headings help to give your site space, making your content much easier to read.

Additionally, they make your website scannable and highlight the key points of your pages. Visitors usually scan a site to search for their desired keywords before reading it in its entirety. Headings will help to prop up key points, allowing users to find what they鈥檙e looking for faster.

Headings are also crucial to make a web page accessible. They not only help people with learning difficulties, but they are essential for people using a screen reader to access the page. And as with all measures for accessibility, they simultaneously make the page easier to scan for all users.

How to use them:

• Accurately portray what the text below is about
• Keep them short and sweet (Less than 8 words)
• Ensure they are clear and concise (Don鈥檛 try to be clever)
• Make them big and bold (help them stand out)

Paragraphs

While you might be inclined to write as much information as possible down on your site, keep in mind that when it comes to writing for the web, less is more. Long paragraphs of text are intimidating to read and often scare visitors away.

How to use them:

Huge paragraphs make it hard for users to scan through your site. As a rule of thumb, keep your paragraphs to 50 words or less, allowing for a more digestible read.

Take a closer look inside your paragraphs to see if you can find any lists hidden inside. If you do, break up your paragraph by listing them as bullet points. Bullets are much easier for users to read and help your keywords stand out more.

Consider using standalone sentences when you want to make an important point or to guide the user elsewhere on the page.

Bold key sentences or words in a paragraph to highlight their importance. As a result, users will have an easier time scanning for what they鈥檙e looking for.

Sentences

Why is it important to keep sentences short when writing for the web?

When viewers must wade through long sentences, they often get lost in the clauses and commas, giving up before they even finish. People have very short attention spans online. In fact, statistics show that the average reader gets bored after only a few seconds.

Users often get confused when reading a long sentence. Most sentences can be reduced by a few words and still communicate the same message.

Short sentences give readers what they want by swiftly getting to the point. Most visitors want to get the info they want quickly, then leave. So why not give them what they want?

Long sentences are harder to read on screen than on print. Reading a long sentence in small print on a monitor can cause eye strain, so keep sentences short to avoid making your readers uncomfortable.

Long sentences are especially difficult for users cognitive, learning, and neurological disabilities and those with neurodiversity and neurological disorders. This may include people with ADHD or dyslexia. Making sentences shorter makes them much easier to read and understand – not just for those people, but for everyone.

How to do it:

• The average length of a sentence should be roughly 20 words
• Keep your sentences under a maximum of 40 words
• Use bulleted lists if a sentence can be broken down
• Remove any junk words or phrases like 鈥渋t seems like鈥�, 鈥減ossibly鈥�, and 鈥渁ctually鈥� that clutter up your sentences
• Try to write out long sentences first, then break them down into shorter ones by removing any unnecessary bits

Remember: Not all sentences can be made shorter. However, if you鈥檙e consistently trying to keep them more concise, it will make a huge difference!

Words

Although long and complex words are sometimes used for print writing, when it comes to writing for the web; simple is best.

How to do it:

Make sure to use common words and keep them as short as possible. Try and avoid using words with more than two syllables.

Keep your sentences simple by removing filler words/phrases like 鈥渢here is鈥�, 鈥渢here are鈥�, 鈥渋t is鈥�.

Define any acronyms to avoid excluding any confused readers. Since avoiding acronyms is impossible in web writing, simply define the acronym in the first sentence it is used by including it in parentheses. For example: Content Management System (CMS).

Active Voice

Active Voice vs Passive Voice

[one_half]

Active Voice: A verb is in the active voice when it expresses an action that the subject performs.

For example: the marketing department is reviewing the document.

[/one_half]

[one_half_last]

Passive Voice: A verb is in the passive voice when it expresses an action performed upon the subject or when the subject is the result of an action.

For example: the document is being reviewed by the marketing department

[/one_half_last]

Why use active voice?

• It makes your writing more interesting to read. It鈥檒l be livelier, more forceful, and more engaging, encouraging your visitors to keep reading.
• Active voice improves your credibility because you鈥檙e speaking directly to the reader, not at them. On the other hand, passive voice might suggest an unwillingness or inability to communicate.
• Active voice improves your writing by making it clearer and more direct. Concise writing is more likely to resonate with readers because of how simple it is to understand.
• Lastly, active voice makes your writing less awkward and clunky sounding by reducing the number of words.

How to identify passive voice

1. The verb phrase will always include a form of 鈥渂e鈥� such as 鈥渁m鈥�, 鈥渋s鈥�, 鈥渨as鈥�, 鈥渨ere鈥�, 鈥渁re鈥�, or 鈥渂een鈥�. For example: the form was returned by the student.
2. The person doing the action usually follows the verb. For example: many excellent undergraduate programs are offered by 杏吧原创.

How to create active voice sentences

• Put the subject first
• Change the verb
• Rethink the sentence

[slideme title=”Put the subject first”]

Passive: This proposed rule change was proposed by the Registrar鈥檚 office.

Active: The Registrar鈥檚 office published this proposed rule change.

[/slideme]

[slideme title=”Change the verb”]

Passive: We must consider how our resources will be used to deliver quality services.

Active: We must consider how to use our resources to deliver quality services.

[/slideme]

[slideme title=”Rethink the sentence”]

Passive: There is a considerable range of technical expertise demonstrated by today鈥檚 students.

Active: Today鈥檚 students are technical wizards.

[/slideme]

Pronouns

Pronouns like 鈥測ou鈥� and 鈥渦s鈥� help to engage readers and make them feel included. Not using personal pronouns forces you to repeat the company鈥檚 name throughout the website. This approach causes awkward sentences that are tedious to read and write. For example, the repetition of 鈥溞影稍� University鈥� can feel unnecessarily formal.

How to use them:

The key to understanding pronouns is knowing who you are writing for. Think of who your audience is and then write to them as if you were directly speaking to them.

For example, throughout this article we鈥檝e been referring to you (the audience) as 鈥測ou鈥� and not 鈥渢hey鈥�. This was done with the goal in mind of speaking directly to you and engaging you with the writing.

A final note…

Now that you have some new ideas for how to write for an online audience, you can take this knowledge and apply it to your own site. We suggest you start at the homepage and work your way through one page at a time.

The post How to Write for the Web appeared first on Web Services.

Do you know what pages are the most popular on your website? Google Analytics can tell you!

Use the Top Page report to get a quick glimpse into what users are viewing on your website. It lets you know which pages are the most popular by how many page views they received over a certain period of time

Why is this report helpful?

It tells you about visitors鈥� interests

Having a look at your most popular pages can give you insight into your visitors鈥� interests. You get a sneak peek into the kinds of topics that they are interested in. Perhaps you can create more content related to this subject.

Recently one of our most viewed pages is this blog post on Using Categories to Organize your Website. This suggests that people may be interested in reviewing their website structure. And they may be looking for ways to organize things. We can use this info to:

• 
  
  Create posts on categories and tags, navigation best practices, or tips on organizing content on a page.
  
  
• Add a call to action on that page that directs them to our Website Review Training.
• Link to similar content that already exists on our site.

You can see if people are getting to important content

There may be pages (programs, events, important dates) that you would like your visitors to see. The top pages report tells you how often these pages are being viewed. If they are not getting frequent visits, you can do a few things that might help out:

• Add the page to the menu, create a Quick Link on the homepage, or link from the banner.
• Optimize the page with some SEO techniques, so people find it in Google.
• Highlight the information in other communications (newsletters, links from other pages and websites)

You gain insight into trends

Look at your popular pages and how many views they received. Consider what the numbers mean and can tell you. Look at trends. If a particular page was very popular this month, is that an increase or a decrease over the previous month? What might have caused a recent spike in interest on this page? For example, a newsletter or social media campaign may be driving traffic.

Put your data in context. What other variables or factors could be affecting these numbers? It could be the season or term, or topics of interest in the public and larger university environment.

Use this information to inform your web content decisions. For example, at the start of the academic year, ITS wants to make sure that account information is front and center on its site for new students. And during peak recruitment cycles, academic departments can make sure that program and application information is easily found.

How to View Top Pages

To view the top pages on your site:

1. Login to analytics (here’s how to get access)
2. Go to Behaviour > Overview > Site Content > All pages
3. Choose how many rows to view in the bottom right

Tips

• Change the date range at the top right. You can look at the last week, month, quarter or whatever time period is relevant.
• Check off 鈥淐ompare to previous period鈥� to view changes in how particular pages perform over time.
• 
  
  Have a look at the average time spent on your top pages as well as the bounce rate. This gives you an idea of how engaged users are with the content.
  
  
• Use what you have learned to make changes. Start with one thing and review your analytics in a few months’ time to see if it made a difference.

For more tips on optimizing your website, check out our online training!

The post Discover your most visited pages and what this can tell you! appeared first on Web Services.

Looking for simple ways to create unique and interesting content? How about having your students write a few words about their experiences in your program?

The School of Public Policy & Administration (SPPA) has done just that. On their Student Experiences page, SPPA highlights what motivates and drives their students, and gives them a chance to talk about their experiences during and after the program!

Why this Approach Works

• You can curate user-generated content that both benefits the contributor (they get a spotlight) and is of interest to potential students.
• The content can be evergreened. This is something you can build upon with new posts as new students work their way through the program.
• We know that people like to read about people. The Meet our Team feature in Web Services is always the top hitter in our newsletter. And retirement and service anniversaries always top the Top 5!

This is also a wonderful way to showcase your program and what it has to offer. Plus adding new content regularly is great for getting found on Google (SEO) and gives people a reason to come back to your website.

How? Use Posts and Categories

We really like the way that SPPA has used a news post to create a unique profile for each student, and then brought them all together onto one page.

Step 1 – Gather Student Info

Use a form to gather information from your students.

For example, SPPA asks students to fill out a form to have their profile featured. It includes a blurb about their experiences, a photo, some details about their program and contact info, and consent to post.

Step 2 – Create a Post for each Student’s Profile

Create an individual post for each student. Make a template so that you have an outline to follow for each post and they are similar in appearance. Include things like:

• A student photo
• The student’s bio or writeup
• A unique category to pull all the posts together (e.g., SPPA uses “Student Experiences”)
• A similar title for each

Step 3 – Create a Page for the Profiles

Now that you have a few student profile posts, you need to create a page to hold them all:

1. Create a new page
2. Pull posts onto the new page based on the category
3. Pro tip: add a button to this page that allows students to request their own profile

You’ve just created some brand-new content for your site as well as a great little system for continuously updating it. Every time a student submits the form, you make a new post, then categorize it appropriately. It will magically appear on your new student profiles page!

Thanks so much to the folks at SPPA for sharing your idea of creating a Student Experiences page. We love seeing how our clients use the web template for their purposes 馃檪

If you are new to our template or would like a refresher, please be sure to have a look at our recently revised CMS training to learn how you can best use all the features.

The post How SPPA Profiles Student Experiences appeared first on Web Services.

Your Homepage – First Impressions Count!

Your homepage does not have to be static. Change it up to reflect the current term and highlight important information.

1. to reflect the season and the start of a new school year.聽 You can also add a button to your banner to link to important information.
2. Review your homepage text. Is it relevant and current? Can you add or change anything to help new students and visitors to your site? Find more tips on聽聽on our site.
3. 聽add a nice visual element to your homepage. Change them up regularly! Use quick links to:

• link to internal pages that may be hard to find
• link to popular or important content
• create a call to action (e.g., application form)
• link to news posts that you would like to feature.

Navigation & Organization – Make stuff easy to find

1. Review your menu. Is it logically organized? Is important info at the top? Are navigation items clear and descriptive? Check out our聽.
2. 聽on your web page for better navigation, search engine optimization, and accessibility.
3. Categories are super useful for organizing your web content. You can categorize pages, files, people, posts, and FAQs! Use categories to pull content into different areas of your site.聽!
4. 聽encourages a person to do something on your website (e.g., register for a program). It could be a link or a button. CTAs support the purpose of your web pages and help visitors know what to do.

The post Is your website back-to-school ready? Check out with these tips! appeared first on Web Services.

Did you know that if you are creating a page or post in CuTheme or CMS, you can add a table of contents to your content?

Well, you can! The Table of Contents block in CuTheme and the 鈥淓nable Table of Contents鈥� button in CMS software allow readers to navigate through the headings and jump to different parts of your page or post. However, be aware that CMS only allows creators to include a table of contents on pages, not posts. On the other hand, CuTheme allows you to include a table of contents on both pages and posts. This is an instance when CuTheme has an advantage over CMS.

Benefits of Using a Table of Contents

So, what are the benefits of using a table of contents in your page or post and why should you consider including one in your content?

1. It makes it easier for readers to navigate through different sections of your content.

By including a table of contents, users can easily find the content they are looking for. Readers do not have to spend their precious time scrolling through your content over and over again to find what they are searching for.

2. The table of contents will encourage you to properly use headings and sub-headings.

Proper headings are important because the table of contents will be automatically generated based on the headings on your page. For example, if you have an H2 heading titled, 鈥淭ake Action鈥�, this will appear as the first heading in your table of contents. And if you have an H3 heading titled, 鈥淭able Practice鈥�, this will appear as a subheading underneath your H2 鈥淭ake Action鈥� heading.

The following are examples of the table of contents:

TIP: You can use the table of contents to double-check that your headings are correct.

To learn more about proper heading use, visit this post detailing why headings are important.

3. A table of contents makes your page or post overall more accessible.

Including a table of contents ensures a better user experience since your page appears as organized content with the information and topics presented clearly to the users. Additionally, a table of contents and proper headings assist screen-readers and provide your audience with the ability to easily parse through information.

4. There is an increase in CTR (click-through rate) from Search in Google.

There are several SEO (search engine optimization) benefits to using a table of contents. Because of the Google algorithm, these links associated with your table of contents can result in more relevant search traffic to your content. Using a table of contents can cause search engines to rank your site higher in search results for terms associated with the headings in your table of contents.

5. If used correctly, a table of contents can make your page appear more professional.

Not only is a table of contents important for accessibility reasons, but it also cleans up your page and makes your content appear more professional and can even make content appear aesthetically pleasing. And who does not want their content to look aesthetically pleasing?

How to Use Table of Contents in CMS/ CuTheme

You might be asking; this sounds like an amazing feature, but how do I include a table of contents on my page?

To enable this feature on a CMS site, simply go to the back end of your page and press the 鈥渟how table of contents for this page鈥� button on the right-hand sidebar. Keep in mind that your table of contents will not appear on the backend of your site. To view your table of contents in CMS, press the 鈥減review changes鈥� bar at the top right of the backend of your site. Your table of contents will not appear if you do not include headings on your page. This is another reason why using proper headings is so important.

To enable this feature on a CuTheme page, the steps are a little bit different. To add a table of contents to your page or post, add an Anchor Table Content block to your page or post. You can find

For more clarification, visit .

*A note to CuTheme users: If you are working in CuTheme and you make any changes to your headings, for example, adding a new heading, be sure to update the table of contents by going to the block settings menu and clicking on 鈥淯pdate Items鈥�. Within this menu, you can also hide or show the list numbering, hide, or show the table of contents鈥� title, and make changes to the title.

Now that you know there is a table of contents feature available in both CuTheme and CMS, I highly recommend you include it in most, if not all, of your future content.

The post An Underrated Feature: Why You Should Use Table of Contents appeared first on Web Services.

If you鈥檙e keeping up with Web Services, you might know that we wrote an article about our virtual spring cleaning last month. A vital part of this clean-up was using tags and categories.

Continuing the analogy of spring cleaning, categories and tags are like your bookshelves, cupboards, and other storage. Leaving your things piled on the floor makes it harder for you and others to find what they鈥檙e looking for. Web content is similar: categories and tags provide a structure for your content and make it easier to find, group, and access related content.

Tags or Categories?

If you have read our spring-cleaning article closely, you might notice that we used tags to organize our posts. So, what鈥檚 the difference between a tag and a category?

• Tags are only available for the post content type and provide a secondary way to organize your post content
• Categories can be applied to any content type, not just posts. Because of this, the rest of this article will refer to categories, but if you鈥檙e working with posts, tags will also fulfill many of the same functions.

Are Categories Worth It?

Maybe now, looking at the task before you, you鈥檙e not sure if it鈥檚 worth the time and effort to categorize your content. However, you鈥檒l most likely feel differently the next time you鈥檙e searching for a piece of content on your site.

Rather than wait for the motivation that comes with the panic of realizing you can鈥檛 find a piece of content, get motivated with the following benefits of categorizing your content:

Organization for you and your team

The most noticeable benefit of using categories is probably the improved organization within your website. Like the example above, you鈥檙e most likely to notice a lack of organization when it prevents you from finding the content you鈥檙e looking for.

Since our spring cleaning, we currently have 183 posts on our Web Services website. That鈥檚 quite a lot of content to look through when searching for a specific post, but we鈥檝e used categories to separate our posts into groups of related content that are more easily sifted through.

Organization for your visitors

You鈥檙e not the only one who benefits from organized categories, however. Visitors to your site use your categories to navigate to relevant content. At the bottom of a post in CMS, the post鈥檚 categories are available as links. Clicking them brings the visitor to a list of other posts in that category, helping them navigate your website.

This is great not only to help visitors find content, but also will likely help keep them on your site, making it more likely that they鈥檒l explore your other content and perhaps engage with your calls to action (ex. signing up for a newsletter).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines also appreciate the use of categories. Google indexes categories to get an idea of your site鈥檚 content and direct appropriate traffic to it.

Using categories can cause search engines to rank your site higher in search results for terms that are relevant to your site鈥檚 category, resulting in more relevant search traffic.

How to Use Categories

Both CMS and CuTheme have the ability to categorize your content. The basic principles of assigning categories and using them to pull content onto a page are consistent between the two themes, but while CMS has different types of listings for different content types, CuTheme centralizes all listings with the listings block.

Learn how to use categories on your CMS or CuTheme site with the following tutorials:

CMS

• Categories: view our tutorial on categories in CMS here.
• Listing: CMS uses different post elements to list different content types, but the process is pretty similar overall. On your page:
  • Select Add Post Element
  • Choose 鈥淟ist (content type)鈥�, for example 鈥淟ist News鈥�
  • Select the category or categories you would like to be displayed of that content type
  • You may have other customization options in this screen
  • Click Insert Element
  • If you鈥檙e looking to list a specific content type, browse our CMS Help Centre for the content type and there should be instructions on listing it. For example, this is the tutorial for listing posts.

CuTheme

• Categories: .
• Listing: CuTheme uses the listing block to pull content onto a page. After adding this listing block, you just need to pick the type of content you鈥檇 like to display and then you can select categories to list specific content. .

Categories Across Content Types

Since categories are used for many different content types, this means that there are different types of categories on your website. For example, you can鈥檛 put files into an events category. If you have files for students as well as events for students, you will need to create both a 鈥淪tudents鈥� File Category and a 鈥淪tudents鈥� Event Category.

Best Practices

Using categories is already a great step in organizing your website and reaping the SEO and usability benefits. However, here are a few additional tips to help you make the most of your categorizing:

Naming Categories

• When naming your categories, use simple, clear, and descriptive names. For example, don鈥檛 use non-descript category names like 鈥淥ther鈥�, or ambiguous ones like 鈥淚mportant鈥�.
• Be consistent when naming content. For example, if you use singular category names for the most part, don鈥檛 mix in plurals.

Number of Categories

• Use categories that will cover a large group of posts, not just one or two. If you think of categories like a library, you should have sections divided by genre, not by author.
• Don鈥檛 create too many categories. If you have almost as many categories as you do content, then you鈥檙e just as disorganized as you were without them! Again, create general categories rather than hyper-specific ones and you shouldn鈥檛 find that you need too many categories.

Categorizing Content

• Assign posts to more than one category where appropriate. For example, this post is categorized as both 鈥溞影稍� CMS blog鈥� and 鈥淲riting for the Web Tips.鈥� This lets us display the post in multiple locations, as well as gives readers an opportunity to explore either category by clicking the category name at the bottom of the post.

Category Users Across 杏吧原创

Many websites across our virtual 杏吧原创 campus use categories to organize their content. Here are some examples of different sites making good use of categories:

• Pages: The ITS Help Centre, which is a knowledge base style site, has pages listed by category.
• Files: Awards and Financial Aid lists application forms using a file listing on their Forms and Templates page. These files are categorized as either 鈥淏ursaries鈥� or 鈥淔inancial Aid鈥�
• People: Neuroscience uses categories to showcase the accomplishments of their undergraduates after completing their degree. These people posts are organized by category, such as 鈥淓mployed in a Related Field鈥�, 鈥淢edical School鈥�, or 鈥淕raduate School鈥�.
• Posts: 杏吧原创鈥檚 Academic job postings use categories to sort by faculty. By opening the 鈥淔ilter by Faculty or Type of Opportunity鈥� and selecting a type of posting, you are brought to a page where only postings in that category are listed.
• FAQs: The International Student Services Office has a Frequently Asked Questions page which uses FAQ categories to divide the inquiries international students may have by category, such as 鈥淚mmigration鈥�, 鈥淯HIP鈥�, or 鈥淪tudent Life鈥�.

Hopefully these examples of the various uses of categories, as well as the above list of benefits and instructions on how to implement categories, inspire you to categorize content on your own site.

The post Everything in Its Place: How to Use Categories to Organize your Website appeared first on Web Services.

Welcome back to the Web Writing Crash Course series! At this point, you may be wondering: 鈥淚 have applied all the tips, but how can I be sure that my web post is scannable, accessible, and SEO-friendly enough?鈥�

We heard you, and we have gathered some (more) tips and tools to help you review your post before they go live!

If you haven鈥檛 checked out the last 4 instalments of our Web Writing Crash Course series, make sure to do so:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Language
• Part 3: Structure
• Part 4: Formatting

Reviewing Tip #1: Get a proofreader

As the author, it is easy to have biases in your writing, which cause you to overlook errors. Therefore, it is helpful to ask someone to proofread your post and provide a second perspective. This person can be your co-worker, friend, family, or someone in the demographic that you are writing for. Without having prior knowledge of the post, the proofreader can give you the audience鈥檚 perspective.

For example, if your post is about guides for students, ask a student to proofread it! If they find a part of your post confusing, there will likely be other students who have the same experience, and that means you should perhaps revise that part.

Reviewing Tip #2: Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that can tell you how readable your web content is. To find your page鈥檚 readability score, simply open the page editor screen and scroll down to the 鈥淵oast SEO鈥� module.

Yoast SEO can evaluate how easy it is to read your content, your paragraph and sentence length, your use of passive versus active voice, and so on, and rank your page as 鈥淣eeds Improvement鈥�, 鈥淥K鈥� or 鈥淕ood鈥�. A great tool to keep your web content succinct and accessible!

Reviewing Tip #3: Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor () is a free app that reviews your text, rates its readability, and highlights areas that can be improved. Simply paste your text into the text editor field and toggle on 鈥淓dit鈥� mode, and Hemingway Editor will review your writing for you!

Reviewing Tip #4: Slick Write

Similar to Hemingway Editor, Slick Write () is also an app that reviews your text and provides suggestions to improve your writing. Just click on 鈥淪tart writing鈥�, and as the call-to-action suggests, start writing!

And that concludes our Web Writing Crash Course series. We hope that with the tips that we provided, you can now create scannable, accessible and searchable web content. Have fun writing!

The post Web Writing Crash Course: 5. Review Your Post appeared first on Web Services.

Did you know that WordPress allows you to schedule posts in advance? You can set up exactly when your content will go live, sit back, and watch WordPress publish it for you.

This handy feature applies for all types of content: pages, posts, FAQ, people, events, and so on. And what’s more, it is available on both CMS and cuTheme!

How do I schedule a post or page on my website, you ask? We’ve got you covered!

Option #1: From the editor screen

On CMS

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1. Navigate to the Publish menu, which is on the right of your screen
2. Select Edit聽next to聽Publish Immediately
3. Enter the date and time you want your page to go live
4. 颁濒颈肠办听OK to save your settings. The Publish button will change to “Schedule”
5. Click Schedule

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On cuTheme

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1. Click the gear icon on the upper right corner of your screen
2. Select the tab named after your content type (e.g., if you are editing posts, this tab is named “Post”)
3. Expand the Status & visibility menu
4. Next to Publish, click on Immediately
5. A calendar will pop up for you to enter the date and time your page goes live. As you enter a future date and time, the Publish button on the top will change to “Schedule…”
6. Once you are done, click Schedule…

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[one_half_last]

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Option #2: From Quick Edit

1. From the All Posts screen, hover over the title of the post you want to schedule and click Quick Edit
2. In the Date field, insert the date and time on which you want your post to be published
3. In the Status field, select Published from the dropdown list
4. Click Update.

Interested to learn more about CMS and cuTheme? Check out our CMS and help centres!

The post Tips and Tricks: Scheduling Your Posts appeared first on Web Services.