Everyone wants their site to look good, to be engaging and interactive, and most importantly, to garner loyal visitors and boost business. But where do you start? We’ve discussed improving your school’s website through keywords, search engine optimization, Google ranking and many other web strategies before. But a lot of these terms can be difficult to grasp if you’ve never dealt with any web-related issues in the past. Luckily, our good friends at Google have found a way to make the entire web-development process a lot easier.
Earlier this week Google announced the launch of their new educational resource called Webmaster Academy. Essentially, the Academy acts as a free educational resource to help website owners maximize their use of Webmaster Tools, an in-depth, free resource that Google provides to help people increase the overall productivity of their sites.
While Webmaster Tools continues to stand as a valuable resource to all webmasters, from online shop owners to institutions like colleges and universities, understanding the intricacies of website management is no easy task. There are multiple layers that need to be considered in order to ensure that your website performs as well as you want it to. The issue is not so much with the way Google guides users through each layer, but more so with the sheer volume of options and information that are available. Ultimately, there is so much to know, and if you’re starting as a novice it can be quite difficult to know where to start. Hence, Webmaster Academy.
Webmaster Academy is designed to guide web-novices through each step of web management and optimization. From content tips to details on web analytics, information is divided into three categories, each containing tasks that lead you through a gradual progression of web management.
1) Google & You
The topics addressed in the first category focus on the importance of content, and range from the basics of how Google functions to contextualizing videos and images. Beginning with a lesson titled “Learn how Google works, the Academy literally starts you off with the very foundation of what you need to know.
2) Webmaster Tools
As users progress into the second category, they will be given more technical tasks, like “Make sure Google can crawl your site.” (Don’t worry, you’ll know what “crawl” means once you get there.) These lessons will enable you to round off your web skills in such a way that you will also be able to handle the back-end of your site.
3) Businesses
The third category really focuses on teaching you web strategies, like how to “Optimize your site.” You will also be given lessons on when and how to monitor your site’s performance, which will in turn help you identify which parts of your site are doing well and which need improvement.
The time it will take you to get through all the Webmaster Academy lessons depends on what you’re trying to find out and you how much extra digging you decide to do. Either way, you should consider putting the time into understanding how websites function in relation to Google. This will better equip you with the knowledge to increase the efficiency of your school’s website.
Have you already completed Webmaster Academy lessons? Tell us what you thought!
Contact Higher Education Marketing today for a free website audit.
