‘Just in case’ content is created or duplicated online, ‘just in case’ users might need it. Alex Saint, from the Current Students content team at the University, explains why sometimes less is more.
Do your webpages have too much copy for their own good?
The ultimate goal for University webpages is that users can quickly and easily find the information they are looking for.
Yet one of the biggest challenges the Current Students content team faces is unnecessary and duplicate content – a historical issue at the University. Here’s why we might suggest removing content from your pages.
Why is too much content bad?
It’s understandable that you want to provide users with as much information as possible, anywhere they might look for it. The more potential questions you answer on your webpages, the more students can ‘self-serve’ information, meaning that time-strapped teams receive less queries.
Online users don’t read – they scan. In fact, users only read 20-28% of a webpage, scanning for keywords to help find what they are looking for.
If you have too much content on your pages, you risk users being unable to find what they’re looking for.
What is the problem with duplicate content?
When duplicate or near-duplicate content appears in more than one location on a website as big as ours, it can negatively impact page rankings. This is because search engines can’t work out which page is more relevant to a query.
At the University, different webpages/websites are managed by different departments, so there’s a tendency for teams to look at their content in isolation, rather than as part of a wider user journey.
The result? A muddle of pages featuring similar content, competing with each other for various search terms. Users end up in the wrong places, on a roundabout journey to try and find the relevant information.
The solution? Some content is better placed in a central section like Current Students and (if necessary) you can signpost to this ‘one place of truth’ from your pages.
How do we work out what to keep on a page?
To do this, we ask:
- Why are students coming to this page? What’s the user need?
- What is the precise information they require or the task they need to accomplish?
- Does the content fulfil this need or is it included ‘just in case’?
- Is this content already provided elsewhere, and would it be better to link out to it instead?
We don’t want to make it the user’s job to sift through content and work out what’s relevant to them. Analytics show us that when this happens, users give up or get frustrated and try to find answers elsewhere. Meaning more queries end up in your inbox.
Case study: Student status letters
The problem
Student status letters are used to prove someone is a student at Bristol. They are mostly required to open a bank account or confirm council tax exemption, and getting hold of one should be a simple task.
We found that a search for student status letters brought up a long list of pages with duplicate copy from all over the University website, often advising students to contact a specific faculty.
Students were confused and misled with many contacting the wrong faculty for assistance.
The solution
We set up a centralised student status letter page where students can self-serve.
We also asked faculties to remove any duplicate content referring to student status letters from their webpages or signpost to our new page instead.
The result
Our new page is now the number one result on Google. Students can quickly find the page with the right information.
TLDR: the takeaway
Cutting out duplicate content means students will find information easier. This also results in increased trust in our website.
Content that does not match the precise user need or duplicates content from other pages on the University website:
- Negatively affects user experience
- Damages trust in the University
- Creates maintenance issues
- Confuses search engines
And that’s why sometimes we might suggest removing content that does not fulfil the user’s need on a particular page.
Content design is never about more content, it’s about smart content.
If you’d like to discuss improving the content and performance of current student pages at the University, contact student-web@bristol.ac.uk.
To get in touch about a specific section of the University website you want help with, complete our project support request form and we’ll be in touch.