Improving Findability

Help users find your content.

Making our web pages more findable in the sea of U-M websites (not to mention the Internet) is a sizable effort, requiring collective work on several fronts.

Optimizing a Current Site

Already have a site? You can make it better with the following.

Info Presentation

When creating a web page, it's easy to bury important info in text. Web writing and visual design techniques make pages visually scannable and highlights important items.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most people searching for ITS information use Google. However, Google frequently changes its ranking algorithms, requiring the Digital UX Team to tweak pages so they will rank higher for search terms website visitors use.

Developing a New Site

These are items you'll implement when creating your website.

Domain Names and URLs

A system of URLs that makes sense to users and search engines. ITS has a domain name strategy in place to assist groups with this.

Branding

Commonly designed site identifiers that help users recognize the org they're dealing with and experience inter-site continuity.

Central Linking

Commonly located links to the ITS main site that help users move around ITS space.

Content Organization

Organizing sites around the most frequent info tasks of users is critical to success. From the groupings of pages represented by the main menu and other navigation techniques to the terms used for title pages, the discipline of Information Architecture expedites user goals and increases their satisfaction.

Implement this organization task when creating sites and adjust it periodically as the site grows and user needs change.