Have you been asked to promote a new program or initiative on your website? Have you been asked to create a whole new website just for the program?
Knowing whether to request a new website or build on a current website can be a tricky decision. With a few considerations, however, you can make the right choice.
Determine your audience
The first thing to think about is the audience for the information. Is it for current students, prospective students, the general public, or researchers?
- Are these audiences already using your current site to consume information? If yes, there are benefits from not having to go to a separate website. The site navigation and categories of content do not change, so it is not a jarring experience. Your audiences don’t have to reorient themselves.
- If the audience is distinct from that of a existing site, building an independent site might be valuable. It concentrates the purpose of the site to that one audience. This, in turn, reduces, cognitive load, the time it takes a person to process an interpret layout and navigation.
Knowing the target audience will help you decide where to place the content on the website. This ensures that the content is easily accessible and relevant to the person who needs it.
Consider visibility
UF Health is a huge organization. We’re a campus within a campus, and the size of our web presence reflects this. Between our colleges, institutes, programs and faculty labs, we have over 800 websites. With so much content, it can be difficult to find specific information. Almost all our audiences default to Google to search for the information they want. If there are too many many sites with similar content or names it can make finding their specific need difficult.
How much content is there to share?
How much information needs to be communicated to the audience? If it’s one page or just a handful of pages, it may be best to add them to an existing site. Any new site that is created takes time to be visible in a Google search result. By building on a current site, we’re reducing that time for it to appear as relevant search result.
If the content is extensive, a separate website may be more appropriate.
Still unsure?
If you are still unsure about the best approach, don’t worry. Web Services is available to help. You can request a meeting with our team by sending an email to webservices@ahc.ufl.edu. We can discuss your needs and help you determine the best course of action.