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PPSC Website

Conceptualizing the PikesPeak.edu Website

With over hundereds of pages to manage across the Pikes Peak State College website, it's impossible for anyone to manage it alone. Altogether, we have spent years working to get all of our departments to own their pages on pikespeak.edu. We've worked closely together across divisions to manage pages and generate content. We want to continue to build proficiency as a college with collaboration and training so that we can optimize our Search (SEO) and User Experience (UX).

We believe cross-functional digital collaborations with the PPSC website and Social Media accounts will help our college serve students better.

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Improving Your Website

3 Rules to Conceptualize Your Website

Improving Your Website

  1. Write clean, concise, jargon-free, compelling content.
  2. Update your site, keep your content fresh and accurate.
  3. Use forms when possible to help students achieve their task.
  4. Write Descriptions (metadata) for each of your pages. 2-3 sentences about what this page does.
  5. Write Titles for your web pages. Less than 50 characters. Title your page appropriately because it will show in google search results.
  6. Keep your content simple, that does not mean thin content or lacking depth.

Your website needs to communicate this to your audience.

We are building an ever-evolving, ongoing process for a great website. Our primary audience is prospective students. Everything on the homepage fits this criterion. We want to empower you to invest in your web presence. If you would like to learn more about improving your website, please request training.

3 Rules to Conceptualize Your Website

  • 1/5 students will give up on the institution entirely because of a poor website experience.
  • 3/4 students say the website makes a difference in their perception of the school.

  • Students care about what you provide. Your value is what you offer.
  • For example, a mission statement is about you, not the student and means “don’t read me.”
  • For this reason we have made great efforts to focus on services rather than departments or organizational structure.
  • A website is a conversation you have with students. It is exhausting for your audience to know everything you know. Trim the fat, tell them what they need to know in language they understand.

Consider what it means when we say “clicks”.

  • More than 50% of website traffic comes from devices that do not “click.” They use features like geo-location, search by voice, question-based search, touch and force touch. How we interact with websites is evolving rapidly.
  • More than 86% of college website traffic comes from the direct search of the college name.
  • More than 84% of students seek out the college by searching for name, then the degree or department they are trying to find.

These data points show us "search" is the new “click.” Our overall web strategy focuses on brand messaging and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We believe placing a higher priority on the content we share on our pages, rather than placing links into menus (like the main and footer menus), will produce better results for our students and us.

Ben Jarret

Do You Need Web Training?

We partner with IT to offer training throughout the semester and are actively working on D2L web training for faculty and staff. These training sessions provide the information you need to edit the website.

Request Web Training