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Website Best Practices

When promoting your Saint Louis University programs on the web, it’s important to adhere to best practices. This ensures that your content is high quality, easily found on search engines, and easily understood by your audience. 

This is not an exhaustive list of website policies, but is intended as a guide to the most common issues that website managers will encounter. The key factor when creating web content is to keep the end user in mind, ensuring that you tailor your content’s organization and presentation to meet their needs.

Top Tips

  1. Keep your audience in mind by using language that is clear, consistent and in active voice as much as possible.
  2. SLU.edu follows the Associated Press Stylebook, with exceptions for certain SLU-related items. Refer to the online style guide for SLU.edu style and also for common style questions, such as listing dates, events, places, job titles and more. Do not use academic style, except for faculty profile pages. Faculty profile pages do not require AP style.
  3. Organize content for users to easily find info they need, which also supports Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This includes using appropriate headings, bulleted lists, numbered lists, accordions and dropdowns.
  4. Remember proper branding: Saint Louis University should appear in the first paragraph and SLU should appear in the first two paragraphs. Use the name of your organization or program within the first two paragraphs as well.
  5. Convert text from a Word or Google doc or similar apps into plain text before pasting it into the CMS, including links. 
  6. Format photos correctly and optimize their sizing using Image Compressor or a similar website.
  7. Images should include alt text, a description of the image for users with low vision and hearing. Links should also contain a description to improve clarity for users with screen readers.
  8. Do not use all caps unless it’s an acronym. Heading text should always be typed out in a proper case and never in all caps. The template transforms certain text to all caps but standard text is needed for ADA compliance.
  9. Avoid unnecessary PDFs, and make sure that any PDFs you submit comply with ADA standards. Tips for submitting PDFs:
    • Document is required for legal or accreditation reasons
    • Document is a user manual, handbook or other lengthy document that would be too long to place directly in the CMS (around 10 or more pages)
    • Document is an application that cannot be presented in any other format.
    • CVs that accompany faculty profiles

10. Ask for help! Contact any member of the digital communications team with any questions. 

Creating a Page

Pages should be established when there is enough information to warrant a page, generally, 500 words of text or fewer words of text but other content that provides information. To prevent incomplete pages from going live inadvertently, do not begin crafting the page until you have content ready.

Page Placement

Place a page where a user will naturally seek that information. SLU’s marketing and communications team is happy to help you determine the best location.

Naming Pages, Files and Other Content

Create URLs that reflect the content of the page, which will assist with SEO as well as ADA compliance. URLs and file names should be descriptive but brief.

Navigation

Navigation menu in the upper left corner of the page, or what we call simply, “the nav.” This lists pages within the same folder so that users can easily find their way to related content. Most users do not have access to update this, however, understanding the purpose of the nav can help you plan your site’s content.

Items should be listed in order of importance, and names should be descriptive to help with SEO, accessibility and helpfulness. For example, a navigation for an academic department might have options for undergraduate programs and graduate programs, followed by faculty pages.
 
It’s common that units would like to link to pages that are in a different folder. Those links should not be in the navigation, however. MarComm can assist users in finding a more appropriate location for that link within their content.

Proper Branding

Include Saint Louis University, and the related department, unit or program within the first paragraph. Include SLU within the first two paragraphs. 

This helps to optimize search results and ensures that visitors to your page will know exactly who owns the content.

Use only official logos.
 

PDFs

PDFs should be avoided except for cases when it would be impractical to put the information into the CMS, such as a user manual, or they are required for regulatory purposes.
 
PDFs must pass an accessibility check to ensure ADA compliance. Adobe Acrobat offers accessibility checks in the Tools menu. This includes adding proper content tags, alt text for images and ensuring that there’s enough visual contrast to support users with low vision. 

If a document originates from a third party, ensure that the document passes an accessibility check, or is allowed to be updated to pass. 

Photo Best Practices

Run all photos through Image Compressor, or a similar app, to ensure photos are saved to minimum possible size while keeping the required level of quality. The CMS will only allow uploading of photos smaller than 1MB.
 
Correct photo sizes ensure that pages have a harmonious layout and load correctly. The following photo sizes are designated for various uses on the website. Photos can be edited in traditional photo editing software, such as Photoshop. The CMS also offers a photo-editing tool, that will allow you to resize and crop a photo to the correct proportions.

Photo Sizes

  • 960 by 640 pixels for most photos. This is the “centerpiece” style photo.
  • 420 by 720 pixels for faculty pages
  • 200 by 300 pixels for staff directories
  • 360 by 480 pixels for portraits elsewhere

Photos can be sized and cropped in PhotoShop or in free apps such as Canva or PXLR.

Alt-text, or Alternative Text

Alternative text is an issue primarily for images that appear on CMS pages, PDFs, Power Points and similar documents. 

Alt text is a brief, literal description of content. Note that this is not the same as a caption: a caption assumes the user can see the image, while alt-text assumes they cannot. 

For headshots, a simple description of “Headshot of President Ed Feser,” is acceptable.

Website Maintenance and Housekeeping

Removing Old Pages

It’s vital that SLU.edu remains up to date, which means that pages, files and photos containing old or irrelevant content be removed from public view. Although the need for this is essential, the process to delete or remove information requires care to ensure that redirects are properly placed so that website visitors don’t received error messages. Keep in mind that removing a link to an outdated page does not remove the page itself.
 
Request that pages or files be removed by submitting a Wrike ticket.
 
To support that effort, all pertinent information should be within the content management system. Units may use tools such as Sharepoint, Google Drive, and outside web publishers for information that is intended for a limited internal audience. SLU’s Division of Marketing and Communications provides no oversight or support for those outside websites.