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The blog currently contains nearly 500 posts, many of which contain content which remains relevant to the University, and some of which is used by students, educators, and the private sector many months after publication. Rather than begin again with an entirely new, empty, blog we are going to move over the current content to the new blog, tidying up and ensuring that the content meets our new, higher, standards for web content. Content will need to be ported over and reformatted to fit with our new CMS and additional content may need to be sourced and assets may need to be updated. Because the old blog and the new website are completely disparate systems, and also due to the infrastructure of the website, it is impossible for us to automate this process (and nor do we wish to), so this is to be completed manually.
General Guidance
Migration order
Migration must take place from oldest post to newest post. This is to ensure that any newer blog posts that contain backlinks to older posts are updated appropriately (see Links below).
Text
Text from the blog post must be copied in plain text format this can be done either by copying the text into a text editor (ensure that it is set to “plain text”) or by copying without styling (Cmd+Shift+V on Apple Mac or Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows). This will remove any extra hidden code added by Wordpress when the page is created.
Links
Internal links must be recreated as section links. All links, in accordance with UoD guidelines, must open in the same tab.
Images
Images which are used in the Section Config as thumbnail images must conform to the following guidelines:
4:3 aspect ratio
Minimum of 400px in their shortest dimension
Passed through https://tinyjpg.com
Images to be used in the blog post itself must conform to UoD guidelines on image content.
The Old Blog
The old blog is powered by wordpress. All blogs posts have the same format and should look more or less as illustrated:
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Blog posts themselves are quite simple and are made up of a minimum of three pieces of contentgeneral parts:
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Pattern Hero.
This consists of two elements, the title of the blog post, which is in the heading, and a small piece of text in the feature block. These should both be completed for every blog post.
Text Block(s)/Media embeds/Other content.
This should contain the content of the blog post. There may be more than one of these if the blog is particularly long, or split up by media content.
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The Pattern Hero
This is populated with two three pieces of information:
The name. This must be a descriptive name, for example, “Pattern hero - My Erasmus Experience”, this is to ensure that they are clearly marked in our approval queues.
The heading. This is just the title of the blog post. This is formatted automatically by the CMS, so there is no need to change this to a heading or any other formatting. The only thing to note here is that all of our content uses title case for headings. They will display in upper case, but the underlying content is always title case.
The feature block. Most blogs already have an introductory piece of content. This is usually the first paragraph and is displayed in bold in the blog post. You should be able to simply copy this into the introduction inputText from the blog post must be copied in plain text format this can be done either by copying the text into a text editor (ensure that it is set to “plain text”) or by copying without styling (Cmd+Shift+V on Apple Mac or Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows). This will remove any extra hidden code added by Wordpress when the page is created. This is used for both the introduction, and also for the abstract.
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This is the main content of the blog. This must be given a descriptive name, for example, “Text block - My Erasmus Experience”, this is to ensure that they are clearly marked in our approval queues.
This will consist of one or more text block content types. When determining how many text blocks to use for a piece of content, use your judgement. If you feel it makes more logical sense to break up a blog into more than one text block, then do so. Note that the headings for the blog content should start at H2 as the first major heading and then go down from there (the main title is the page’s H1 primary heading). Note that for SEO purposes blogs should all have a minimum of three internal and three external links. All links should open in the current window. It is recommended that you install Grammarly for Chrome to check for basic spelling and grammatical errors and correct these as you migrate the content over, plus potentially media embeds, depending on the nature of the blog post. Text from the blog post must be copied in plain text format this can be done either by copying the text into a text editor (ensure that it is set to “plain text”) or by copying without styling (Cmd+Shift+V on Apple Mac or Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows). This will remove any extra hidden code added by Wordpress when the page is created. Once copied you should re-apply any styling to the blog post manually. Note that headings in the main blog text must start at H2 and go down from there. When adding links back in, please note that internal links must be added as section links.
Section Config
The section config contains all of the setup and configuration data for our blog posts. It must be given a descriptive name, for example, “Section config - My Erasmus Experience”, this is to ensure that they are clearly marked in our approval queues. It is important that this is completed correctly or blog posts will not function as expected. Below are the fields which must be filled in. You can ignore any fields in the section config which are not directly referenced below.
Abstract
This is the same piece of text that is used for the feature block in the pattern hero. Simply copy and paste the text from the pattern hero feature block into here.The abstract is in the Excel sheet listed under “description”
Thumbnail Image Rectangle
This image is used on both the homepage of the blog (for the most recent blog posts), and also in the category listings pages. If possible, use the image from the existing blog post. If an image needs to be replaced please use one of the following resources to source an appropriate new image:
The thumbnail image must be in 4:3 aspect ratio and must be run through tinyJPG (see General guidance)
Content-type Tag
This MUST be set to “Blog Post” or the post will not be displayed on the website.
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There is an excel sheet for administering the blog migration process available here:
https://unimailderbyac.sharepoint.com/:x:/r/sites/DigitalMarketingTeam/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B297D658A-BA58-4422-AED4-B416C7DC402F%7D&file=Shared Documents/Projects/2019-20 projects/12. Blog Migration/blog-feed-migration-MASTER.xlsx?d=wbcb64b1a128c4c4e9c7a3961be151bfe&actioncsf=default1&mobileredirecte=trueMX09ne
As you migrate blog post content you should initial each column from “Content” onwards as you complete the migration process. Please note that some of the migration process processes won’t be completed on the first pass, so some columns should remain blank. Going through the excel sheet from left to right, here are the areas that need to be migrated:
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Please ignore this column for now. We are currently redesigning the author system to accommodate the blog and will add the authors in later
Links
For SEO purposes, all blog posts should have three internal, and three external links (if possible). If your post does not meet these guidelines, if you can find an appropriate place to add a link in, then please do so. If not make a note in the Links column
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