How to Effectively “Proof” Your New Website Before Launch (Part I)
Congratulations! After months of hard work, you’ve completed a brand-new website. Pat yourself on that back—you’ve accomplished something big.
But you’re not done yet. Now it’s time to proof. This is the stage when you invite campus stakeholders to supply you with missing content or approve content on the website before launch. Are the admission due dates correct? Have faculty completed their bio pages? Has the English department provided you with student spotlights?
You’ll need to coordinate with several stakeholders across campus, manage new and or approved content, and hit your deadline so the website launches on time – the proofing stage can be tricky to navigate.
We’ve provided a detailed overview of how to best manage the proofing stage of your new website project. In Part I of this series, we’ll address planning proofing sessions with stakeholders, hosting them in person, and communicating with stakeholders afterward.
Plan and Schedule Proofing Sessions
It’s important to schedule in-person proofing sessions with those from whom you need approval or content for the new website. The goal of proofing sessions is to introduce stakeholders to the relevant area of the website (e.g. the biology department pages for the biology chair) and inform them what you need from them before launch.
Schedule several 30-minute sessions over the course of a month. It’s not efficient to reach out to each person individually for a time to meet. Instead, send out an email to all stakeholders with several open meeting slots for them to select on their own (a scheduling platform like Doodle poll comes in handy here). 30 minutes should be enough time to briefly review the relevant portion of the new website with stakeholders and let them know what content you will need from them (you don’t want to go over 30 minutes if you can help it!).
Identify which stakeholders should be invited. It would be great if you could walk through the new website with every single person on campus but, alas, you probably don’t have time for that. So, make sure to only invite stakeholders you need: those who will approve or supply you with necessary content before the website is launched.
For academic departments, you may want to only invite the dean or chair as opposed to all faculty. Make sure to consider other non-academic areas as well, such as University Advancement and Human Resources. Do your best to keep sessions to as small a group as you can. The more people attending, the greater risk you run of going over 30 minutes as well as opening yourself up to unsolicited feedback about the new website.
Host Proofing Sessions
Now that you have your proofing sessions scheduled, how should you run them? You’ll need to be strategic to to be efficient, effective and on time for launch.
Review high-level goals and processes of the website project. Briefly communicate how the new website is aligned with the school’s mission. This will help stakeholders understand why the site is important—and why it’s important to get their help. You should also review your process, emphasizing your due diligence and how the school’s high-level administrators have been involved in the process. Make sure to emphasize that your decisions have been based on best practices and solid research. Lastly, emphasize that you will only be focusing on relevant areas of the website during the session. While people may be excited to see the new website, let them know that, out of respect for everyone’s time, you’ll only be reviewing pages connected to their domain of influence.
Clearly explain what you need from stakeholders. Do you need them to review the content for accuracy on their program’s homepage? Let you know what content is outdated and should be removed? Or, write and supply you with new copy, videos, or images? Be clear about what you need from them. Again, emphasize that what you’re asking for will help the website serve its intended audience, whether that’s prospective students, donors, alumni or another group. This is when you’ll also show how they navigate to their web pages and use the content management system.
Detail the timeline and revision process. Let stakeholders know you’ll be emailing them after the session with links to relevant pages on the website and instructions on how they are to approve and/or submit content. Inform them that the link should not be shared with anyone outside of the institution. Lastly, give them a due date for their feedback; you’ll need to decide how much time to give them based on what you think is reasonable.
Email Session Attendees
Send an email immediately after the proofing session. You’ll want to send this right away to give as much time as possible. The earlier you email them, the more likely they are to hit their deadline.
Include relevant details in the email (many of which you mentioned during the session) so stakeholders can complete their tasks. Plan to include the following in the email:
Links to the relevant areas of the website, clear instructions on how they can submit approvals and new content, and any necessary login info if they are being asked to add content directly to the website (though you’ll likely be the one adding content to ensure it meets brand guidelines, and therefore may ask them to submit approvals/new content using a third-party platform like SurveyMonkey, GatherContent, Google Forms, etc.)
A reminder that all website links should not be shared with anyone outside of the institution
A review of what you need reviewed or added, like admission dates, student spotlights, program requirements, etc.
A clearly emphasized (and bolded) date for when you need all approvals/content submitted
In part two of this series, we’ll review the remaining steps on how to effectively proof your new website before launch.
