Website maintenance and development
Your website is often the first and lasting impression your students and parents have. It is crucial to regularly maintain your website to ensure a functional and positive experience for your users. Broken links and poor user experience can not only damage reputation but can drop your website in search engine rankings. Digital Accessibility is not just a positive feature but a legal requirement.
On this page
Regular maintenance
You should plan on conducting regular maintenance biweekly or monthly at the very minimum
- Login to your website and make sure all the themes and plugins are updated to the latest releases
- Your communicator will notify you of broken links, accessibility issues, and other errors; make sure to address and fix right away
- If you add new pages or update pages, make sure to run a thorough accessibility check; reach out to the communications team for review and support
Semi-Annual Updates Checklist
Block time on your calendar to conduct semi-annual website checks. A week or two before the start of fall and spring semester is ideal, but adjust based on your units cyclical workload.
- Read through all web copy and update content as needed
- Review and update contact information and social media links
- Review header, footer, and menus and ensure all information is correct
- Review and update your staff directory
- Update photos, titles, and contact information as needed
- Add any missing staff members
- Delete any staff no longer working
- Make sure all dates and information are current
- Delete any past events or obsolete posts/content
- Update dates for any recurring events
- Go through pages and posts and delete any drafts and private pages that are no longer needed
Annual Updates Checklist
Block time on your calendar to conduct a throrough annual review of your website. Ideally, during a summer or winter break is a good time to conduct such maintenance. But adjust the timelines based on when your unit has time and resources.
- Complete all tasks listed in the semi-annual updates checklist
- Review your site users and remove any editors and administrators who should no longer have access
- Refresh all photos and graphics to be current
- Review your website and pages in the website master sheet
- Make sure all pages on your site are listed in the site pages list
- Strike through any pages that are deleted and write notes about deletion in the comments
- Double-check each page for accessibility in WAVE accessibility checker and/or Google Lighthouse
- Manually test each page for accessibility
- Update the sheet to include the date the pages were tested and updated and the staff member who conducted the testing
- If time allows consider user testing to ensure your site is functional for your audiences
Student Affairs Resources
UW–Madison resources
Communications Staff
For support with central communications, campus partners, and cross-campus collaboration
For support with the Office of Student Transition and Family Engagement Programs
For support with Student Success and Belonging and Student Advocacy Programs
For support with Eloqua, WiscWeb 2.0, advancement, and assessment.