Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
News content managers
In this page you'll find information about creating and managing news article content on our university website.
Please note: this information is only relevant to users that have been approved as news editorial content managers in Sitecore. If you require approval and access please visit our Getting started page for more information.
News masterclass Recorded session 02/12/21
- Getting started - where / how to add your article 00:00
- News article section - SEO 03:35
- News article section - Data 05:50
- News article section - Article 12:11
- News article section - Staff setting 15:12
- Previewing and publishing 15:51
- News page hero article 16:51
- Working with components 19:28
- Fixed 12 container 21:05
- Full width image 22:25
- Image grid gallery 24:06
- Video 25:55
- Additional paragraphs 31:19
- Podcasts 33:12
- Benefits lists 35:15
- Call to action simple (for the end CTA) 39:29
- Global promo banners (schools / research and enterprise centres) 41:15
- Iframe embeds and new containers 43:09
- Curating the new landing page 48:08
Article checklist
SEO
This is the first information a search engine will crawl to determine the subject of your article. It will also be the first information a user may see when searching organically, so it should be very clear about your 'page promise' and give your audience a reason to click.
- Your meta title should reflect your article title which should clearly outline what your article is about, including any keywords or phrases
- This is the title that users will see in search results inside and outside of the university website
- This section should auto populate however if you do edit your article title at any point please make sure to reflect this change here as it will not update
- This is the article description users will see in search results outside of the university website
- It is important for search rankings that this is filled in
- Ideally your description should not exceed 158 characters including spaces
- Your meta keywords will help to boost your article in external search results
- Pick up to 10 keywords or phrases that will help search engines to identify the theme of your article
- Each word should be separated by a comma, for example - student accommodation in Leeds, sustainable living in halls, sustainability
- Be specific - keywords such as 'student' or 'university' will not help search engines to determine the theme of your article very well and will be highly competitive for ranking. Long-tail keywords that are three or more words are usually most valuable
- Be relevant - while you can add up to 10 keywords, only add as many as are suitable - one or two is still fine
Data
The university's website is driven by a comprehensive taxonomy system (tagged categories). In order for this to work effectively it is important that we all tag our own content in the right way.
- This tag should only be pulled from the 'subject area' tag group
- Select the category which best fits your article
- This taxonomy item should be used to help your news content feed into specific areas of the site, to support campaigns, programmes and partnerships content
- For example if you tag your content as 'Leeds Rhinos' it will appear on our Leeds Rhinos partners page on Carnegie School of Sport site and help to further showcase the relationship we have with that partner
- This list will need to be updated as new programmes and partnerships require dynamic content blocks - please contact the Digital team via digital@leedsbeckett.ac.uk if you would like a new tag adding to this list
- Within this taxonomy group you should only ever use the 'Student hub' item
- Using this taxonomy item will hide this story from the main news pages but it will still show on the student information landing page
- This taxonomy item should be used to help your news content feed into our research centre or research group site sections
- For example if you tag your content as 'Culture and the arts' it will appear on our Centre for Culture and the Arts pages
- This list may need to be updated as centres and groups evolve - please contact the Digital team via digital@leedsbeckett.ac.uk if you would like a new tag adding to this list
- Please note that not all research centre or group pages currently house a news dynamic block but we will be adding these over time so it is important that we start to adopt this approach now
- This taxonomy item should be used to help your news content feed into our schools site sections
- For example if you tag your content as 'School of Sport' it will appear on our School of Sport pages
- Notice some schools have multiple tags such as 'School of Sport building', which you would use if your article mentions the building or its facilities. In this instance you would select both School of Sport AND School of Sport building
- This taxonomy item will populate your news feed pages
- This taxonomy item will also be used to help your news content feed into other dynamic areas of the site, primarily our dynamic hubs due to be launched in 2022
- Please select all that apply but they must be relevant to your article
Article
- Add your article title here
- Remember to include any valuable key words to help with page ranking
- Select 'today' if you would like to publish your article straight away
- You also have the option to backdate your publish date or delay publishing if needed
- This will be the introductory paragraph to your article and will appear at the top of your article (above your featured image if you are using the news detail page template)
- Imagine this is visible outside of your article - let your user know what to expect and give them a reason to read on
- This is the main body of your article
- Include all copy here, until your first break point if you are using components
- Please make sure to format all copy correctly following our Formatting guide
- This will be your primary image and will show at the top of your article as well as across all dynamic blocks where this article is visible
- You can use the red focus dot to select the focus area on your image
- For more information about using images including searching, uploading and sizing, visit our Working with images guide
- Here you can add a caption for your featured image
- This will not be required for hero / picture story articles
Staff setting
Here you can add colleagues that are mentioned within your news article.
- Please only select academic colleagues
- Select all that apply
Social share
This information will make sure we present our material externally in the right way and assign a specific image. If we do not fill out these fields then external platforms such as Google or Twitter may pull images from elsewhere on our digital estate which can be reputationally damaging.
- Here you can select an image that will be displayed if the article is referenced outside of the university website, for example on Twitter or LinkedIn
- For information about using images please see our Working with images guide
- Please add an alternative description (alt tag) for your image here
- This will be pulled into the social platform and apply an alt tag automatically for you
- For more information about alt tags please see our Accessibility guide
