Palo Alto University Website Redesign Project

Project Overview: Migrate website to new Buzzr CMS in partnership with mStoner website vendor. The goal was to launch in October 2015.

See redesigned Palo Alto University Website

Project goals/challenges:

• Previous website size: 1,144 web pages
• Updated all content on each department’s page/QA for accuracy
• Wrote 10 new landing pages
• Challenges: Cross-functional project management with every department at PAU – all with different priorities and needs for the website.
  • Meeting needs for Alumni, Student Services, and Admissions departments using the website as a vehicle for marketing.

Actions I took to meet goals and departments/individuals I interfaced with or managed:

• Led website committee meetings to move through the migration process, approving wireframes, design/creative, and interviewing each department.
• Collaborated with each department to ensure that the information architecture was correct. Full information architecture document.
• Split up each section of the website into more manageable sections to make it easier for departments to meet project milestones.
• Worked closely with each department to educate on web content best practices and copyedit their material.
• Trained and managed a team of 4 content migrators for moving content from the old website to the new website.
• QA’ed all webpages to prep for going live.

End result and measurable data/impact on the organization:

• Successful on-time launch of the website.
• Increase of 5x the amount of web inquiries per month for Ph.D./Psy.D. programs
• Bounce rate average of 50% cut to average of 30%
• Ongoing maintenance and enhancement project management of website:
  • Adding Section 508/WCAG 2.0 accessibility features such as: alt tags on photos, separating navigation tags with title and H1 tags.
  • Implemented SEO campaign to add metadata and keywords to all landing pages and top 200 visited pages.
  • Led initiative to utilize H1-H6 headers within page content for SEO.