Opportunity
What exactly is happening? The university's current CMS version is being sunsetted in January 2025. Every UNL CMS site will need to be recreated in the next generation of the CMS.
It could be more than a decade before sites have this type of opportunity to work through old, outdated content and re-fresh the organization and structure of the site.
- The most influential factor when it comes to maximizing time and resources is going to be the organization and thoroughness of a site’s content audit prior to the migration of content.
- For many, this should be a unit-wide project.
Understanding Types of Pages
Structured Data – Custom Content types for information that is searchable and sortable
Examples: News articles, Faculty and Staff pages, Program pages, Recipes, etc.
Non-structured Data – Content that is unique to a single page (basic pages).
Examples: About page, Mission Pages, Org charts, landing pages, navigational pages, etc.
Aggregation pages – Pages that sort, search, or present Structured Data pages
Examples: News pages/bands, Staff listings, Program listings, county listings, etc.
Assessment
Mentality: Take only what you can carry.
Some sites will have an easier time (with access to more resources) carrying over larger amounts of content, some will find it easier to pare down or rework content for better site organization and navigation.
- Know your site and think critically before the move.
- The goal is to avoid doing the process twice: once when you move all your content, then again when you realize you want to reorganize and trim after getting halfway moved.
Prepare
Double-checking Site Structure:
- Main Menu/Menu Bar: Unless your Six (or fewer) main nav bar items are set for you (or have recently been reworked), you should be thinking about any changes that should be made to the main menu going forward.
- The sub-nav items under your main navigation bar should all be looked at to make sure they are necessary and in the right location.
- Two methods:
- Start from scratch outline
- Dump and sort (paper or digitally)
- Gather a list of content by collective (unit-wide exercise)
- Export list of pages currently on the website
- A recommendation is to have at least two more tiers (4 total) of content structure planned out before moving content. Some sites might only have one or two branches of content that have multiple tiers beyond the menu. Map out this new site structure with a clean slate and then compare that “ideal” to what exists on your current site.
Plan by site size
1-15 Non-structured Data pages:
- Create site outline/map
- Audit structured data and aggregate pages
- Audit page content, and update language/photos when rebuilding pages
20 – 50 Non-structure Data pages:
- Create site outline/map
- Audit pages to conform to the site outline It is going to be easier to get started on this before the transition
- Audit structured data and aggregate pages
- Audit page content and update language/photos when rebuilding pages
50+ Non-structured Data pages:
- Create site outline/map
- Audit pages to conform to the site outline (do not move, just remove)
It is going to be beneficial to have this completed before the transition
Schedule and plan time for rebuilding pages one section at a time - Audit structured data and aggregate pages
- Depending on a page’s content, it might be easier to audit content and update language before moving the page.
- Text changes – yes
- Photos and layout – no
- This is going to depend on what you feel comfortable with keeping track of and the ease of updating content.
What’s next?
- Contact and organize the appropriate stakeholders within your unit to start the conversation about your site's transition.
- Begin the process of deciding what type of transition will work best for your site.
- Get a new site created to begin transitioning your content to the Next-Gen CMS.