Use SchoolStatus Site Builder to build your departments and pages. You won't have to start from scratch. We'll start you out with a sample district architecture and show you how to modify it to your needs. Did you already complete your Keyword research and selection? If you do wish to optimize your site using keywords or phrases, this step should be completed first. You should have a comma-delimited list of 10-12 final keywords or phrases ready to incorporate during the architecture-building process.
We have two main objectives during this stage of our project, first, build out all the pages and departments you need for your district and school websites, and second, incorporate the keywords we settled on during the previous keyword research process that we've already done. This includes creating good page titles and meta descriptions. We'll talk more about this below.
When you are ready, log in to your website instance. From your main dashboard, click the Site Builder tab at the left. You will be taken to Sitebuilder where we'll start you off with a sample architecture that has common school district departments and pages. You will be shown how to edit this architecture so that it perfectly suits your needs. Once done, we'll publish the architecture and begin the web page migration/production process.
When creating your site architecture, strive for easy navigation, and the best usability by avoiding too many tiers of navigation. For example, in the second-tier/left navigation of your website, when you click a link, it can expand to show the child links beneath it when relevant. Then, clicking one of those links can also open up its child links. We recommend not having more than 2 tiers of navigation on the left side at any time, otherwise, it becomes more cumbersome to use your site.
We will also identify any areas that should be dedicated departments. Limiting access to publishers in SchoolStatus is done on a per-department basis, and not on a per-page basis.
Example of a department in the URL:
https://www.domain.edu/admissions
Admissions is a department and its pages reside in the admissions directory after the main domain name. Here are some basic criteria that will help you determine if a section should become its own department:
- The section has several pages... or merits its own set of links in the left navigation.
- You want to limit access to this resource or grant access for someone to be able to log in and manage only this section.
SchoolStatus Tip - Use good page titles, META keywords, and headlines for all your top-tier, Money-maker pages. Keep your focus on the content from the top-down, incorporating your keyword phrases in the page title. It's also really good to try and use your keywords in the actual content of the page (after your architecture is exported). You get big points from Google if your keywords are used in the main headline (referred to as H1, or Heading 1) of a page.
Making compelling copy while incorporating keyword phrases sometimes requires a compromise between creativity and searchability. You have to decide what is more important.
Example of a page optimized for "Fishing Worms" (transparent data that the visitor doesn't see)
This is the invisible data that is not very obvious when someone is viewing your web page in their browser. But this doesn't make it any less important. Let's go over the invisible components of a page.
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Page Title: Fishing worms from Bobby's Bait & Tackle Shop
The page title is what shows up in the top bar of your browser window. Notice the term 'fishing worms' is at the beginning of the title? The closer you can get your term to the beginning of the title while still using it in good context, the better.
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Page name: Fishing-worms.cfm
Search bots can see and read the actual, physical filename and if your terms are incorporated into the page name, that's great. Instead of contact, try fishing-worms-contact
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Meta-data (keywords and description)
We focus on Descriptions and Keywords and try our best to make them unique and readable. Some say search engines do not pay attention to them but here are the facts. First, when you look at the Google results page, the Page Title is the clickable link that takes you to that web page. The Meta-Description is the brief summary text beneath the clickable page title that describes the page. Google knows if you do not have good meta-data. If you want someone to click your link, it is wise to write something interesting or inviting. If you don't add anything, then the bot will grab arbitrary text from the page... making it so you have no control over what is shown.
Example of a page optimized for "Fishing Worms" (visible data that the user does see)
Here are the visible parts of the page that people DO see when they are viewing your page in the browser. You will manage this content AFTER we have published your website pages. We're only showing it here to give you an idea of how you can use your keywords on both visible and invisible information in your web pages.
Heading (H1), or the main headline on your page: Fishing worms and other bait that help you catch the big one
First paragraph: Bobby has been delivering the best fishing worms this side of the Ohio River...
See also:
- Editing Structure in Sitebuilder - Learn how to move departments and pages around in Sitebuilder.