Web & Digital Strategy

New Website Features

hbruc3 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 20:10:51 +0000

New Website Features hbruc3 Fri, 10/24/2025 - 15:10

AI Alt Text and More Custom Blocks

jbaum02s — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 18:10:40 +0000

AI Alt Text and More Custom Blocks jbaum02s Thu, 10/23/2025 - 13:10

Web Editor Training Video

khobb2 — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:27:37 +0000

Web Editor Training Video khobb2 Mon, 10/13/2025 - 11:27

Web Editor Training Video

Web Stats FY25

jbaum02s — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 15:32:43 +0000

Web Stats FY25 jbaum02s Fri, 09/19/2025 - 10:32

Overall Traffic — Views & Users

FY23 to FY25. Hover a bar to see exact values.

FY23

FY24

FY25

Views

Users

FY25 values: 6.3M views and 1.5M users.

Website Conversions

Soft Apply → Hard Apply (users). Program Apply shown as a separate stat.

Soft Apply = users who reached the application | Hard Apply = users who completed it

Estimated application completion rate: — of Soft Apply users completed the application.

Top Pages — FY25 vs FY24 (Pageviews)

FY24 (green) stacked above FY25 (gold). Labels on FY25 show value and YoY change.

FY24

FY25

Top 20 Program Pages — FY25 Views

Gold bars represent FY25 pageviews.

Views

College Page Stats

FY25 views and year-over-year change vs FY24. Gold rings show volume relative to the top college.

Increase

Decrease

Tip: hover or focus a ring to hear exact values.

Top Events

Views (gold) vs Users (green). Hover bars for exact values.

Views

Users

Campaign	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Avg. cost	Cost	Conv. rate	Conversions	Cost / conv.
WDS IL 20240229	38,305 (6,631% ↑)	4,117 (6,332% ↑)	10.75% (0.5% ↓)	$0.16	$641	6.25% (19.85% ↑)	1,083 (11,671% ↑)	$0.59
WDS US 20240229	458,111 (80% ↑)	42,754 (271% ↑)	9.33% (4.79% ↑)	$0.17	$7,344	24.37% (7.25% ↑)	11,213 (487% ↑)	$0.65
Totals	496,416	46,871	20.02%	$0.09	$7,985	24.51%	12,297	$0.65

AdWords Conversions

Conversion	WDS US Campaign	WDS IL Campaign
Soft apply	10,836	1,016
Hard Apply	378	67

Cost Per Acquisition for Google AdWords Campaigns

Campaign	Cost	Completed Applications (hard_apply)	Cost / application
WDS IL 20240229	$641	67	$9.56
WDS US 20240229	$7,344	378	$19.43
Totals	$7,985	445	—

Search Overview

Totals with change vs previous year.

Search Performance — Top Queries

Bars show relative size within their own metric (blue = Impressions, gold = Clicks).

Impressions Clicks

Web Impact

jbaum02s — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 19:51:00 +0000

Web Impact jbaum02s Tue, 09/09/2025 - 14:51

The Office of Web & Digital Strategy has achieved several key initiatives across the uis.edu website and mobile app, enhancing the overall experience for both visitors and content editors. These improvements have strengthened accessibility, usability, transparency, and the findability of information. View our FY25 website stats for details on site performance.

Web Stats FY25

UPCEA Online Assessment

UPCEA completed online assessments of 51 institutions and the uis.edu received high ranks in the following:

Visual UI/Design

Accessibility

Transparency

Voted #1 for:
- Visual Design and Appeal
- Accessibility
- # of social media platforms
Voted #3 for key factor transparency
Key factors examine how clear, detailed, and easily found program offerings, tuition costs, fees, program length, and delivery.

Areas that were identified that require our attention and need improvement include site speed/performance, crawlability, and internal links.

Featured Projects FY25

Dynamic Program Pages

Dynamic program pages were developed in collaboration with Web, Admission, Registrar, and Marketing to improve usability and transparency of information for UIS academic program pages. A central document was created where all program information is managed. It includes overviews, apply call-to-action, deadlines, important dates, steps to apply, catalog links, careers, and request info forms. The pages include logic to show content specific to the program type.

Progam Page Stats

2,313 conversions (clicks to apply) from the academic program pages.
220,067 views, a 41% increase
89,957 users, a 36% increase

Confirmed Student Checklist

In collaboration with Enrollment Management, the Office of Web & Digital Strategy redesigned the Confirmed Student Checklist page, to better outline the necessary steps for students after acceptance. The page features an interactive checklist with call-to-actions for each step. Students can check off steps as they complete them, or print and do so in paper form. There are tabs to show the checklist by student type.

Value of UIS

The “Value of UIS” page presents UIS’s value proposition at a glance—rankings, student outcomes, financial aid, and campus life—using clear stats (e.g., $25M in aid, 83% employed after graduation, 70+ clubs), a short video, and prominent “Apply”/“Request Info” calls to action. It’s valuable because it builds credibility and ROI confidence for prospective students and families while efficiently driving inquiries and applications. Since its launch in May 2025, the page received over 6K views in only 3 months!

Orbit Updates

General updates were made to improve the overall look and feel for the Orbit site as well as the following.

Newsletter and Subscription Capability for Internal News

The web team created a custom module that adds the capability to subscribe and unsubscribe to unit news for UIS employees and updated the Orbit site to feature department newsletters to streamline internal communications. We also added dynamic links to help the user navigate to a list of unit newsletters when viewing an article flagged as a newsletter.

Custom Gutenberg Blocks

The web team developed a module that adds custom blocks for cards with images, cards with image and description, and basic cards with only text. This allows the website editors to add different cards to webpages, no coding required!

Basic Cards

Image Cards

Image Cards with Description

Department & Term Content Blocks

You can now put news, event, directory, and all sorts of feeds anywhere you want in your content! To learn how to insert them into content, please see our How to Use Department & Term Content Blocks resource.

Types of department specific content that can be added:

Directory list for faculty and/or staff
Featured profiles for alumni, students, and faculty
Events
News
Programs of Study
Research Projects
Resources
FAQs
Policies

Office Hours/Emergency Office Hours

The web team added a webform that allows for units to submit/update their office hours to be displayed on the uis.edu website or to submit emergency hours, when office hours change due to inclement weather or other emergencies. During an emergency a link is included in the Emergency banner. We encourage any office that has posted hours on campus to please fill out the form!

Compliance & Policy Notifications

A custom module was developed to send notifications to users for pages flagged for compliance to update at a specified date. For policies, notifications are sent if the last reviewed date is past 3 years, advising employees to update their policies. This effort was designed to help ensure the site stays compliant as well as up-to-date for the site's important content and resources. Find our more on How to Create a Policy.

Accessibility Updates

The web team has continued scanning the site and making updates to the site themes and structure to ensure compliance from a development perspective, as well as emailing units on any identified compliance issues. We installed a contributed module that outlines accessibility issues for editors, allowing them to see identified accessibility issues in real-time.

Additionally, our office has been scanning the site using the software available, and sending out reports to units on content related accessibility issues that need resolved. Other efforts include:

Working with the Office of Digital Accessibility on policies and workflows to ensure we are supporting units and providing the necessary resources for compliance.
Curating lists of outside vendor sites that are listed across the web.
Updating file upload options to limit to PDFs only since PDFs can be scanned for accessibility.
Development related updates to ensure site templates and themes are accessible.
Additional training with quizzes were implemented to ensure site editors are educated on compliance requirements.

Virtual Tours

The web team created 360 walkthrough tours for Residence Life Housing Options and Nursing department on their �山�� page.

Translated Microsites

The Discover UIS page was created, as well as other top landing pages related to admissions and applying to UIS, were translated to Spanish and Mandarin. We also created a 360 video with a student walkthrough of housing. This effort was made in conjunction with updating the YouVisit virtual tour to offer the tour in those languages.

Website Stats

Find information on site performance, top performing pages, top academic pages, search results, and more!

Web Stats FY25

New Block Options for Editors

jbaum02s — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:40:08 +0000

New Block Options for Editors jbaum02s Wed, 07/23/2025 - 07:40

Custom Block Examples

khobb2 — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 17:49:26 +0000

Custom Block Examples khobb2 Wed, 07/16/2025 - 12:49

Card Blocks

Editors now have the option to add different types of cards for their site within the normal editor. Each card can be customized with images, text and links.

Image Cards

Called the "Image Card Container" this block produces a great way to link pages of interest to your content.

You will need:

an image (preferably 400px by 600px)
a card title
a link

What it looks like inside the editor:

What it looks like published:

Visual Arts

Study Away

Image Cards with Description Container

Add Image Cards with a Description using the container. You can add up to 4 cards per container. You can add a title, image, description, URL, and link title text. The link title should match the page title you are linking to for accessibility.

Published View of Image Cards with Description

Once published, the cards automatically add the style and hover effects.

Basic Card Container

A great way to add some calls to action in your content.

You will need:

Card title
Description text (optional)
Link

What it looks like in the editor:

What it looks like published:

Visual Arts

This is where the description goes.

Study Away

This is a longer description to show you how the card looks.

Web Resources

You can add a card with a link and customize each field within the card.

Department & Term Content Blocks

Directory: Faculty or Directory: Staff

Events

FAQs

News

Policies

Profiles

Programs of Study

List of Programs

List of Programs with Filters

Research

How to Use Department & Term Content Blocks

jbaum02s — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:15:04 +0000

How to Use Department & Term Content Blocks jbaum02s Thu, 07/10/2025 - 14:15

Department blocks can added to any Page by clicking the + button in the editor and clicking or searching for the block name.

Editors have the option to add content specific to their department or for some, by term. There are various types of blocks available for use:

News - list of department articles
Directory
- Faculty
- Staff
FAQs - list of department frequently asked questions, input using the FAQ content type
Events
- Event Grid
- Event List
Programs of Study
- Programs - list all programs
- Programs w Filters - list of all programs with option to filter by type and format
- Undergraduate Programs
- Minor Programs
- Graduate Programs
- Graduate Certificates
- Online Programs
Profiles
- Featured Alumni - featured alumni added using the article content type
- Featured Faculty - featured faculty added using the article content type
- Featured Students - featured students added using the article content type
Policies
Resources
- Resources Table - list of department resources in a table format
- Resources Grid - list of department resources in a grid format
Research
- Research by Department - list of research for a department
- Research by Term - list of research for a project keyword

How to Add a Department or Term Content Block

Department blocks can added to any Page by clicking the + button in the editor and clicking or searching for the block name.

When you add a department view or term content block, it will show a message 'This block is rendering empty content'. This is correct.

In order for the content to show for your department on that page, make sure your page has the department selected under the More Settings section below the editor. If you do not have a department selected, your content will not show up.

For the Directory blocks, select the department in the Directory Dept field. For blocks that are based on terms, like for example the Research by Term block, select the keyword in the Project Keywords field.

If added correctly, you will see the content rendered after saving the page as a draft.

Web Editor Training

khobb2 — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 13:50:20 +0000

Web Editor Training khobb2 Mon, 06/09/2025 - 08:50

Sign up for website editor training on the uis.edu website. Training typically lasts an hour and is open to all staff and students.

Web Editor Training Sign Up

When

Wed, Aug 13 2025, 2 - 3pm

Tue, Aug 26 2025, 11am - 12pm

Tue, Sep 9 2025, 3 - 4pm

Thu, Sep 25 2025, 10 - 11am

Wed, Oct 15 2025, 2 - 3pm

Thu, Oct 30 2025, 10 - 11am Google Outlook iCal

Tue, Nov 11 2025, 11am - 12pm Google Outlook iCal

Mon, Nov 24 2025, 3 - 4pm Google Outlook iCal

Wed, Dec 10 2025, 11am - 12pm Google Outlook iCal

Location

Zoom

Event Type

Employee

Training

Workshop

Department

Web & Digital Strategy

Website File Upload Limitations

jbaum02s — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:30:43 +0000

Website File Upload Limitations jbaum02s Tue, 04/01/2025 - 10:30