Welcome from Ed Creed, Head of Digital
Hello and welcome to the revived University of Exeter Web Team blog! My name is Ed and I head up the team.
We wanted to re-start the blog to give colleagues an insight into the work that we do, how we go about doing it and our considerations when we are developing new websites and content. Our websites are often the first point of connection with our audiences so we want to make sure that we are sharing our experiences with you all so that you can understand what we do and why we do it.
I started at the university just as we introduced our first content management system (CMS) to manage the website, and the Web Team was slowly growing in size. Fast forward 16 years and we’re still here with a well-established team and website, but both our approach to managing and developing the website has changed dramatically alongside the way that our users engage with our channels and content and the technology and platforms they use.
Fresh off the back of an incredibly busy 2024 where we completed several long running strategic projects, including migrating the whole website to a new CMS, and introducing the new staff profile system, this feels like a perfect time for the team to start sharing their experiences of what we’re working on.
The introduction of the new CMS (t4 version 8), gave us the opportunity to streamline the website for the user. This involved painstakingly reviewing every page of the site and, if needed, replicating them in the new system. The way that users search and engage with content on the website has changed and we’re now actively trying to reduce the amount of content that we have on the website. This makes it easier to manage the content we have but also ensures that our content can be more easily found and indexed by search engines. We now have 11,000 pages on the site (compared to our original 24,000!)
Through better use of insight into our users’ actions on the site we can ensure that we are targeting content at users and the journeys they take through our website. This requires all our contributors to question what content we’re adding, who it is aimed at and what’s its purpose.
Posts you can expect from our blog will include:
- Web support and T4 user guidance: We want to support all our CMS – t4 users but also help colleagues who may be creating content for any digital platforms supporting our students.
- Site launches: We’ll keep you in the loop about our ongoing projects, such as website updates and new technology we’re using.
- Meet the team: You’ll get to know the talented people behind our web projects and learn about their roles.
- Accessibility: We’re committed to making our websites accessible to all users. We’ll share tips on how to follow best practices in this area.
- SEO: We’ll share insights on how to optimise our websites for search engines, making it easier for users to find relevant information.
- Test and learn: Find out more about how we gather insight and test key pages to ensure they work for our users.
We hope you find the blog useful and we’d love to hear what you think! digitalteam@exeter.ac.uk