Radford.edu Website Redesign Project

The Radford University website, www.radford.edu, is the digital doorway to the university. It is often the first interaction prospective students and families have with Radford University. The website is a fundamental element of the university's marketing and communication strategy and is the digital home for all recognized university entities.

Radford University’s first website launched in 1994 but in 2011 the university's digital presence was reimagined. Through the use of Adobe Experience Manager, a comprehensive content management system, Radford University launched its first cohesively design and structured website. The site was refreshed in 2015. A lot has changed since that time and it is clear that as one of the university’s leading assets, it needs improvement. The functionality and future of radford.edu will be reimagined once more through this latest website redesign project.

Coinciding with the redesign of the website, the university will also be selecting a new content management system (CMS) for editing and maintaining websites, and undergoing a refreshed brand initiative, which will include a new visual identity for the university.

The university has carefully selected and is working with vendor-partners New City Media for the website redesign and VisionPoint for the brand refresh initiative. Together, with these agencies who specialize in higher education projects of this nature, radford.edu will once again showcase a cohesive, modern, accessible experience for our website visitors.

The website and website redesign project are jointly managed by University Relations and Information Technology Services. Updates about the redesign project will be made on this page.

The website redesign kicked off with an introductory call with Radford University and New City Media

Stakeholder engagement, enrollment/admissions discovery, marketing strategy discovery, review existing website, analytics review and discovery workshops.

Create a research plan, conduct audience research, analyze research results, identify conversions and indicators in the admissions journey and develop a strategy blueprint.

Define the site architecture and navigation strategy, develop a content strategy, develop search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, wireframes and page designs. 

Content writing, template and information architecture development.

Website owners and authors should carefully review their websites, page-by-page, line-by-line to clean up website content and assets. To help you stay organized as you review your website, you are welcome to use the attached web content audit spreadsheet (Excel).

• Audit and clean sites by unpublishing and deleting:
  
  • outdated or irrelevant photos and videos 
  • pages no longer active on the site
  • graphics that use old RU branding
  • outdated PDFs, Word, Excel or other documents that do not need to be kept for record retention
  • past dates or deadlines
• Update and repair content:
  • replace old content with up-to-date content
  • recheck and fix any broken links
  • reduce the amount of content on a page
  • make pages more scannable with bulleted lists
  • add alt-text on graphics with text so content is accessible
  • check and avoid the use of "click here" or "learn more" as link text. Instead spell out what you want a user to click on. Example: View the schedule of events online.

The Marketing and Communication web team will begin migrating content from the current CMS into our new CMS. During this phase, website owners and authors will not be able to make updates to their sites. 

If essential web updates are needed, site owners and authors should submit requests using the IT OneStop ticketing system. Please include the URL of the page to be updated along with clearly marked edits. Requests will be completed in the order they are received.

Phase I Launch
Launch homepage and top line pages including: admissions, financial aid, student life and program pages.  

Phase II Launch
Launch additional pages in priority order.