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Guidance for editors

Content transfer guidance (content assistants)

How to move content from the old site to the new one and what to do with images and documents.

Step-by-step instructions

Open WordPress and your allocated site in two separate tabs

  1. Open /wp-admin/ in one browser tab and https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/site-name/ in another, where site-name is the site that you’ve been asked to transfer.
  2. In the WordPress tab, navigate to New > Page at the top of the screen.
  3. Add a new row in your spreadsheet (LINK TBC) for the first page of the site that you’re copying, including the page title and URL.
  4. Copy and paste the content of the first page to your new page entry. If the page has a right-hand sidebar, copy and paste that content at the bottom of your page (if the same content appears on every page on the site, only use it on the first page that it appears). Only transfer pages that are within your site (eg /site-name/).

Page content

  • Title: Include the title exactly as it appears on the page, but use sentence case rather than title case (eg “Content transfer rules” rather than “Content Transfer Rules”). See the style guide (LINK TBC) for exceptions. This also applies for any headings, image card headings or button/call-to-action links. Obviously make sure not to include the page title with the content when you copy it into your new page – it has its own field just above the page content section.
  • Headings: Any subheadings should be properly nested, starting with Heading 2, then Heading 3 for any sub-headings of that heading, and so on.
  • Images:
    • Delete copy/pasted images: When you copy and paste content to a new page, be sure to delete any images. Pasting images doesn’t actually transfer them, as they need to be re-uploaded to the Media Library and added to a page from there.
    • Alt text: Also, all images should include alt text that describes their purpose. This may not necessarily be a description of what’s in the image. Save the original image to your computer and extract the alt text from the live webpage. See instructions below for how to do this.
    • Standard in-page images: Standard images that appear next to a paragraph of text or in the right-hand sidebar can be added to a page. See instructions below for how to add an image to a page.
    • Image cards/galleries: If the image appears as part of a collection of ‘cards’ to access subpages, then you don’t need to add the images to your page. Save the original image, upload it to the Media Library with a reference to the page in the Description field and use the same reference on the page itself (eg “Image card: Payments > Hall fee payments”). Once you’ve built the page that the image card links to (if it exists on your site), link this reference text to the page. In your spreadsheet, write “Image card/s” in the Notes column for that webpage row.
  • Links: Be aware that copied links will open pages on the old site. Any links to pages on the site that you’re rebuilding should be updated. Once you’ve transferred all of the pages on a site, you should check all of the links – type “Yes” into the “Links checked” column of your spreadsheet.
  • Documents: All approved documents need to be uploaded to the Media Library and published as a proper Document entry (eg Information Strategy document page). Please refer to the Documents audit spreadsheet for details of which documents have been approved to be transferred to the new site and LINK TBC for how to upload a document to the Media Library and Documents section.
Extract image and alt text from a webpage
Upload an image to the media library
Add an image to a page
Add a document to the Media Library and Documents section

Page settings

In the Settings sidebar > Page tab (click the cog icon at the top-right of the screen if you can’t see it), make sure that you have completed the following:

  • Permalink: By default, the URL of your page will be determined by its title ie “Content transfer guidance” will become “content-transfer-guidance”. You can update the page ‘slug’ if you need to under Permalink > URL Slug, if the page that you’re transferring has a different URL to its title – the page slug should be the same as the original page, even if the whole URL is different.
  • Taxonomies: In the Page tab of the Settings sidebar (click the cog icon at the top-right of the screen if it isn’t visible), make sure that the relevant taxonomies have been completed. These include: Audiences, Topics, Content Types, Related Departments and Related Subjects. All pages should have at least an Audience/s and a Content Type. Topics are only relevant for non-department based sites eg The Big Read. Only associate a page with a department or subject if they are specifically about it eg a department site (Biology) or subject page. See General tips – Taxonomies for more information. (CONTENT COORDINATORS)
  • Parent page: All pages should have a parent page. If you’re creating a homepage, the parent section will be “Academic Departments”, “Support Departments” or “Topics and Services”, as appropriate. You can set the parent page under Page Attributes > Parent Page. Any sub-pages should be nested under your homepage and those sub-pages as required. Only transfer linked pages that are within your site (eg /site-name/).
  • Section menu: All homepages should have a section menu, which can include some optional quick links (three max, although depends on word count) and a navigation menu to access sub-pages in that section. The navigation menu can only be built when the whole site has been transferred, but you can activate the menu and give it a suitable name (typically the name of your site) when you recreate your site’s homepage. See General tips > Section menu for more information about this. (CONTENT COORDINATORS)
  1. Regularly Preview your page to make sure that you’re happy with it, using the Preview link at the top-right corner of the screen. Please note, the page title may not appear in the preview, but it will appear on your published page (unless you’ve checked the Hide Page Title checkbox in the Page tab of the Settings sidebar).
  2. When you’ve completed the above steps, click Publish at the top-right corner and Publish again to confirm. View your published page using the View Page link that appears in the bottom-left corner and make sure that you’re happy with it. Include this URL in your spreadsheet and make sure that the slug matches the original page, even if the initial part of the URL has changed.
  3. Systematically work through the list of pages that are visible in your site’s left-hand navigation menu and any in-page links, completing steps 2-6 for each. Only transfer linked pages that are within your site (eg /site-name/).

If a page is at the root level (eg /site-name/page-name/) but linked from a topic page (eg /site-name/topic/) and its contents are linked to that topic, update the parent page so that page is properly nested (eg /site-name/topic/page-name).

Checklist

As you work through all pages in the site, you will complete a spreadsheet with a row for every page that you address. This spreadsheet will be sent to departments so that they know which pages and content we’ve transferred. Consider the following:

  • Note down if any pages have been moved (ie have a different parent page ) as the URL will be different. In the spreadsheet, include Retained, Removed or Updated in the relevant column. Most URLs will be updated (as the parent page will be different), but the URL slug
  • Note down if any pages or content aren’t being transferred (include details of tabs or specific content on a page if only some of it is being transferred).
  • Make sure that the parent page has been set correctly.
  • Make sure the permalink has been set so that the page ‘slug’ matches the original page.
  • Make sure that the taxonomy information has been completed (CONTENT COORDINATORS).
  • All images have should have suitable alt text and be correctly sized.
  • Style guide has been followed for basic things like headings, bullet points etc.
  • Section menu applied to homepage. Navigation menu built (only possible when all pages have been transferred) and Quick links menu built (optional). (CONTENT COORDINATORS)
  • Check that links open content on the new site and not the old one, particularly if those pages have moved or been removed.

Rules

These will be updated over time:

  • Events:
    • Some pages on our websites include records of historical events, often in tabbed lists with sub-pages for details of old events eg www.edgehill.ac.uk/research/isr/previous-events/. These are separate from actual event listings on our www.edgehill.ac.uk/events/ site that use a structured template. Only transfer details of historical events that have taken place in the last year ie 2021.
    • Don’t transfer details of any events that have already occurred or where a closing date has passed.
  • Staff lists:
    • Staff profiles will be recreated on the new website using a new template, so you don’t need to worry about transferring these, but do note them in your spreadsheet.
    • However, if you have a page with short staff biographies that are specific to a topic, service or research unit (rather than a generic staff profile), these can be recreated in-page using blocks. Example: www.edgehill.ac.uk/sustainability/contact/.
  • Undergraduate or postgraduate course lists:
    • As with staff lists, these will be recreated on the new website using a new template, so you don’t need to transfer these pages using blocks.
    • The pages can be created though (eg /departments/academic/biology/courses/), with any content apart from the course lists themselves.
  • Archived content: Any content clearly marked as “archived” should not be transferred.
  • Content intended for current staff: Any content designed for current staff and/or links to the wiki should not be transferred. Record these pages and/or content in your spreadsheet.
  • References to old template: Remove any references to using the left-hand navigation bar to navigate the site, as there won’t be one on the new site.
  • Video/podcast archives: Any pages with collections of embedded video series or podcast episodes should not be transferred. Individual videos and podcasts can be embedded on relevant pages, but we shouldn’t have collections of webpages exclusively with embedded video/podcast content on them. We can link to YouTube and/or podcast channel pages as necessary instead.
  • Tab pages: In most instances, tabbed pages will be

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