Ohio State’s Professional Website Platform
If you’re looking to increase traffic to your U.OSU site you’re probably wondering what this SEO business is all about.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of manipulating your website in order to increase the number of visitors you receive from search engines. Sounds great, right? But how does it work?
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing are the primary force in driving Internet traffic.
In 2013, Christine O’Malley, executive director of health sciences, created a WordPress blog to capture the experiences of the One Health Summer Institute in Ethiopia. For eight weeks, 15 faculty members and five students participated in outreach, teaching, and data gathering for research.
The blog served the group well, though something was missing. The chronological nature helped record the trip but lacked additional information surrounding One Health projects and resources for partners of the initiative.
“When I saw U.OSU come out, I thought, that is for us,” O’Malley said. “It solved both my problems, it gave me a platform where information could live as a static website but also included the blog.”
So you’ve set up your U.OSU site, you have an About page, some snazzy Widgets, and a post or two. Now it’s time to work on increasing your social reach. Additives tend to have a negative connotation (no sugar added, etc.) but in this case, social additives can propel your site to the next level. Here are three simple steps to get you on your way.
Edublogs, the service behind U.OSU, hosts an annual awards celebration to promote and demonstrate the educational values of social media.
Fun fact: “The Edublog Awards started in 2004 in response to community concerns relating to how schools, districts and educational institutions were blocking access of learner and teacher blog sites for educational purposes.”
Some of the best teaching and learning content, on Edublogs and other social media, has undoubtedly been created right here at Ohio State. Help recognize our content creators by submitting a nomination by Sunday, December 1st.