How to: Publishing a Node

Publishing web pages

Once OIT moves your current website into the new WebCMS, we set all of your pages to "unpublished" (we also do some code clean up at this point). Then, you'll attend training, and you'll be instructed to go through your website and publish your pages.

But what does that mean? Should you just go through and publish your pages? No, there is more to it than that.

There may be a great deal of content on your website. Designers are looking at your pages through the lens of design. Web developers are looking at them through the lens of code and functionality. As website owners and content contributors, your job is to focus on the actual content of the page before it gets published.

What to look out for

  • Check spelling and grammar of all the content on the page including
    • Main content area of the page
    • Labels on navigation items
    • Content on secondary columns
    • Content of FAQs, Forms, staff profiles or any other content types
    • Content on the bottom of the webpage (your contact information)
    • Spelling and accuracy of page titles
  • Check page titles and page description on each page for accuracy and spelling
  • Make sure all hyperlinks in your content are up to date
  • Make sure you have copyright permissions to use images and videos (including music rights)
  • Do not use tables to layout your web page, use them only for tabular data
  • Make sure headings are used correctly
  • Make sure image have descriptions
  • Make sure your uploaded documents (like .pdfs) are uploaded and labeled correctly
  • Make sure none of your links say "click here" or "read more" (see "descriptive links")

Publish Status

When you're finished checking your content, go ahead and save the page using the "Publish" status. Once all of your pages are in the "Published" state, we will take the site through the final Quality Assurance check and either launch the website or report back changes that need to be made before launch can take place.

To learn more about editing your site in the new WebCMS, see our online training guide and our new YouTube training playlist.