T4

The Importance of Link Checking Your Website

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If you are using Terminalfour (T4), there is a good chance you are developing or maintaining content for a page or set of pages for the university’s site.  The goal is typically to keep your readers on your site for as long as possible; maybe you have a conversion goal, such as having your visitors make a deposit, to enroll into an event, or apply to a program.  While creating your content, hyperlinks guide your visitors to additional references and information to supplement their reading – but what happens when these links break?  Some of even the biggest sites have broken links – the average number of broken links on any given site is 2.4% – but given their negative implications, we want to try to minimize them as much as possible.

What is a broken link?

A broken link is hyperlink that, when clicked, brings the visitor to an empty or non-existent webpage, resulting in a 404 error message.  Here at UMass Dartmouth, we use a form of internal linking called section links to help prevent broken links between pages with the UMass Dartmouth site.  We have less control over links to external sites that are owned by other individuals or organizations.

What’s the problem with broken links?

There are several issues with how broken links can affect your site, some more serious than others.

  • Broken links can affect your site’s SEO – or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is how well a site performs in a search engine result.  Search engines like Google will rank your site poorly if you have many broken links, along with many other factors.  In other words, people can’t find you!
  • Reduces your site’s credibility and can look unprofessional
  • They can impact conversions – if the user can’t access the link, they can’t complete your goal.
  • People are less trusting of sites seem like they have been abandoned
  • It’s just plain annoying to click a link that goes nowhere!

Why do broken links happen?

  • the source URL was entered into the content management system (CMS) incorrectly
  • the source URL was changed or moved
  • the source page or picture was deleted
  • the content is now protected and can’t be accessed

**Although not technically a “broken” link, domain name changes are still a common occurrence, and as a result, external links should be checked frequently.  Domain names are often sold and the link that you once thought was going to one place could now link to completely different content.

What can I do?

  • Use section links  whenever linking to internal pages within UMass Dartmouth’s site
  • properly link to the media library using the Insert from media icon for PDFS
  • properly insert images using the blue “Select media” button
  • only link to external sources when they are credible or absolutely necessary
  • check for broken links – either manually, if you have a small site with a few links, or using the Broken Link checker in T4
    1. Navigate to the Main Menu in T4 on the left hand side
    2. Go to  Measure > Quality Control> Broken Links

Main navigation in T4 to get to Broken links

    1. Search for the site/page(s) you’d like to check for broken links

Use the filter to find your site

References

Uncategorized

ASD Slate Comms Success

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The marketing efforts from our digital comms in SLATE saw great and very measurable success during this yield season. Most especially from the promotion of this year’s 3 live in person ASD events.

Our comm plan developed and written by enrollment marketing specialist Marissa Matton and executed by Timothy Murphy and Lindsey Costa saw 26 delivery(email) comms and 11 SMS (text messages) send out to our prospective attendees. The primary goal was to promote high registration and ultimately attendance numbers for the February 19th, March 20th, and April 23rd Admitted Students Days.

Shown below are charts displaying the 48hr bumps in registrants for each of the 3 live and in-person Admitted Students Days. Each bump directly correlates with

  1. Our initial promotion communications
  2. Our week before communications
  3. Our last minute days prior communications

FEBRUARY 19

MARCH 20

APRIL 23

Development, Directory, New features, T4

Improved Online Directory Search

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In an ever-persistent effort to enhance the website experience for the end user, similar changes that had applied to the Program and Course searches have also now been applied to the Online Directory as well.

Online directory search
Online directory search before the edits

Previously, one’s only options were to search by a name or department and click the corresponding “Search” button.  Now, users are provided a field where they can enter data, or they can select from a number of filters.  Either choice will return results below immediately.  The improved search function and additional filters  is providing higher volume of expected results.

New directory upon page open
New directory with the filters expanded
Marketing general

Lemons into Lemonade

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How do you show the world all that our vibrant campus community has to offer when a pandemic’s been raging for 2 years and we’ve de-densified the campus to keep everyone safe? You get creative with photography!

Our photographers played with camera angles and depth of field to shoot subjects who were abiding by social distancing recommendations and mask-wearing.

And since returning to campus last fall, we’ve updated and curated our UMassD Collection with 50+ new images and assets to help visually tell our story.

Development, New features, T4

Optimized web experience

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University Marketing is dedicated to improving umassd.edu website performance. We recently launched several improvements to umassd.edu image processing to ensure optimal web performance across all devices and regions.

Truly responsive images

Same image will be served up in different sizes depending on your screen size.

Images have been visually responsive on umassd.edu for best display on all devices; they scale up/down. Images on umassd.edu are now set to crop down to the best-fit for that particular device. Simply put: mobile device loads an image much smaller than a desktop computer. The result is better performance on mobile devices that suffer from slow internet speeds due to data plan or signal strength.

Image optimization

Optimizing images is all about balancing file size and image quality. Images are now optimized and resized in Terminalfour without the need to rely on content editors’ knowledge of image-editing software or compression methods.

Modern formats

Most images on umassd.edu are now processed as WebP. Using WebP, we can serve smaller, richer images that make the web faster. [source] If you are using an older browser, we have jpg available to display as a fallback. This all happens without the need for our content editors to engage, just upload your single jpg image, same as before.

Content delivery

Most of umassd.edu assets are now served through a CDN (Content Delivery Network). CDN serves assets from a location nearer to the visitor, speeding up the site and improving the overall user experience. Globally distributed CDN servers ensure that regardless of where your site is hosted, its assets will be served from a location close to your visitors.

lazy loading illustration source: imperva.com

Lazy loading

University Marketing recently upgraded our lazy load engine [source – Vanilla Lazyload]. Lazyload speeds up your web application by deferring the loading of your below-the-fold images, animated SVGs, videos and iframes to when they enter the viewport. You may notice some images fade into view as you scroll down the page, that’s Lazyload!

Uncategorized

It’s a team effort.  

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UMassD Marketing Department with the assist! Take a peek at just a few ways we helped promote the Men’s Basketball team’s  journey to the Sweet Sixteen. 

Corsair Content Checklist

Thanks to our partners in Athletics and Public Affairs, there was plenty to share!

✅  Game coverage
✅  Student Story
✅  Graphics
✅  Marquee
✅  Post-event recap
✅  Streaming promotions
✅  Press Opportunities
⬆️  Where did it all end up? Social media.

Instagram stories and posts:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UMass Dartmouth (@umassd)

Hard work pays off, indeed.

Web story by David James (now with over 500 views!).

A little Twitter fun.

We are locked and loaded. Ready for a full house. Let’s go Corsairs. pic.twitter.com/8ipDEvsOEN

Published Post Performance Summary

60,648
2,545
4.2%
839
Likes: 1,119
1,311
Instagram Reel Impressions: 4,230
Development, New features

Improved Program Search

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Significant improvements have been made to the university’s program searches in the last month.  Using an updated module, the search can now filter more quickly and efficiently and with more filter options than previously.  In addition to the search within ALL programs, we currently have searches isolated to Undergraduate programs and STEM programs.

Program search before the redesign
Program search before the redesign
Program search after the redesign
Program search after the redesign
Print and Publications

Bristol Plus Brochure

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The Bristol Plus brochure targets incoming and transfer students, who are interested in receiving an associate’s degree at Bristol Community College, and later transitioning to UMassD to earn a bachelor’s. Through this program, Bristol students will have access to facilities on both campuses, including the library, fitness center, bookstore, and dining halls. With almost 20 undergraduate online degree programs, students can choose their ideal field of study.

 

20210110370-ADM-BristolPlus-BRO-LD-r8
Uncategorized

Top News Stories

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Over the last two months (Dec. 20 – Feb. 20), Communications’ top five news stories were:

  1. Spring 2022 COVID update for students (University) 

  2. UMass Dartmouth professor and students discover fast-moving black hole (CAS)

  3. UMass Dartmouth to celebrate 20th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Virtual Breakfast (University)

  4. UMass Dartmouth awarded $1.49M from the National Science Foundation to develop leadership skills and engineering identity in graduate students (COE)

  5. Year in Review: Top 21 stories of 2021 (University)

Print and Publications

Honors College Brochure

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Targeted at incoming students, the Honors College brochure aims to inform students who are looking for an innovative learning environment  that will engage and challenge them academically. Honors College classes provide first-year seminars, small group discussions, group projects and opportunities that will prepare students for graduate school or the job market. Honors students receive special benefits including personalized mentoring, enrichment trips, early registration, leadership roles, etc.

 

202109315-ADM-Honors-BRO-KD-Final2
CRM and Slate, T4

Terminalfour User Guide

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Even with proper training, individuals can still get stuck when editing their University websites.  It is for this reason that the web department has created an online user guide for Terminalfour (T4), our web content management system, complete with the most commonly asked questions and tasks our users come across.

Some of the many subjects addressed include:

Home page of T4 user guide
The online user guide is a useful resource for answering your T4 questions