Website Content Strategy
Redesigning web content strategy for the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to bridge the gap between audience segments and strategic priorities.
THE CHALLENGE
Bridging the gap between research and visibility.
Existing EPS homepage prior to content strategy and structural recommendations.
UC Davis required a digital transformation to better communicate its global research impact. The existing site struggled with complex information architecture and a fragmented user journey that failed to highlight key research milestones.
My role involved conducting a comprehensive audit of their digital ecosystem, identifying pain points in content discoverability, and developing a structural web strategy that prioritized storytelling, research communication, and WCAG accessibility compliance.
Defining the Architecture
Simplifying 80+ pages into 7 core pillars
The existing content structure was reorganized around seven core content pillars, creating clearer pathways for prospective students, donors, researchers, faculty, and the broader public.
Content Hierarchy
Making the homepage work harder.
Tighter content · Clearer hierarchy · Stronger research visibility
Old homepage news section
New homepage news section
The homepage was restructured to prioritize timely research, news, institutional storytelling while reducing visual clutter and creating clearer content hierarchy, and automating event updates to streamline ongoing content management.
Accessibility & Content Audit
Building accessibility into the content strategy.
Content and accessibility audit used to track issues, recommendations, ownership, and implementation status.
Accessibility considerations were incorporated into the content audit and structural recommendations, using WCAG guidelines to identify opportunities across content, navigation, headings, links, imagery, and page structure.
Analytics Insights
+33%
NEWS ARTICLE VOLUME
+43%
WEBSITE USERS
+3
TRAFFIC SOURCES (Direct, ORGANIC, REFERRAL)