AEM Update Email: January 25, 2021

SEO Tip – Revisit old pages and apply best practices

You regularly review your active pages to update content and make sure each page is still valuable to your program - but have you thought to check the page properties and apply other best practices? Page properties have evolved as we have learned more about the ways in which people and search engines are interacting with our sites. There are required fields in page properties that weren’t always required but can help with SEO, accessibility, and analytics. 

When editing or auditing an old page, and especially when you see a spike in traffic to a page, get in the habit of checking the page properties. In addition, take a moment to review the accessibility of the page – do all images include alt text? Do audio elements include captioning? Is the layout logical? Oftentimes, best practices have been applied to new pages but not to older pages – and a little editing and updating of properties and page elements can have a big impact on performance. Finally, take a quick look at the related articles or any resources links and see if updating these can help your visitors better navigate to valuable content.

Photo Editing Tip – Recorded demo on basic photo resizing

In a recent N.A. AEM authors “office hours” session, Margaret Pizer walked through some basic photo-editing tasks in both Photoshop and a free online photo editor. You can view the recorded call here on Box. If you are looking for help on how to resize images for Nature News, we highly recommend that you check out the recording. Margaret has also included some simple photo editing instruction into a Box note here.

GDUs - Web Accessibility 102

We are holding two separate Web Accessibility 102 sessions this week.

Web Accessibility 102: Maps and Visual Assets (for Designers and GIS Staff): Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 26^th (at 1pm ET/12pm CT/11am MT/10am PT) we are holding the first Web Accessibility 102 geared towards folks who design maps and visual assets. We invite all designers to attend the session as well as anyone who is working with designers and advising on the creation of assets for TNC properties. Learn how to meet accessibility guidelines when using colors, text and images, what to consider when styling maps, and how to fix maps, images, and infographics that are not sufficiently accessible.

Web Accessibility 102: Creating Accessible Pages (for Authors and Publishers): On Friday, January 29^th (at 2pm ET/ 1pm CT/ 12pm MT/ 11am PT) we are holding the second Web Accessibility session on how to create accessible pages. This session is highly recommended for AEM Authors and anyone who is writing, editing, or proofing pages on TNC properties. Learn how to apply the concepts covered in the first Web Accessibility GDU, and the digital content best practices you already know, to optimize images and graphics, page properties, and page layouts to improve the ability of all users to interact with your pages.

Email Jenael (jfalcao@tnc.org) if you would like an invite to either of these sessions!

FYI: Position Posted – Bilingual Editorial Manager

The Global Digital Team is hiring a Bilingual Editorial Manager (ID 49267) who will be responsible for maintaining up-to-date, meaningful and engaging Spanish content for nature.org. The position will be open until filled. Please share with anyone you know who might be interested!

That’s all for this month!