Most Important Things to Remember When Editing Content on a Website

Note:  this list of the most important editing points applies to any website, not just Drupal sites.

• Use headings! This is one of the most important ways to have an accessible website (so the visually impaired can easily use screen readers), and boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A heading should always have a some text under it, for example a paragraph or a list. Using headings organizes the page content. H2 tags are top level headings, and H3 tags are nested inside the H2s, and so on…   As an example, an H3 should never be the first heading on a page – it can only be an H2. However, the first text on a page does NOT need to be a heading, it can be a regular paragraph (or more). Do not add regular text (called a p tag in HTML) and then make it bold to make a heading. These mistakes only decrease your Search Engine ranking and they do not help the visually impaired.
• Any PDF or image file you upload cannot have any spaces or special characters in the file name.  Rename your file before uploading!  Use only lower case alphanumerics and hyphens.  (Using underscores can be visually confusing if the filename appears as a link on your web page and the link is underlined.)  See this article: https://sembyotic.com/file-naming-best-practices-websites/
• Link text should never be “click here” or “here”.  Again, Search Engines do not like this and it is not helpful for those with vision impairments.  The actual text for a link should be more descriptive, e.g., “See report X”, “See more information about X”, “View the Agenda”, etc. Leave out the word “here” completely.
• Use root relative URLs when creating a link to a webpage or to a file (for instance, a PDF) that is on this site.  This means you delete the domain name, and start the URL with the first “/” after “edu” (cpaess) or “org” (usclivar or cedarscience).  This applies to all files you upload and want to link to.
  Example of a root relative URL:  /meetings/2021/irowg-8
  Example of a full URL:  https://cpaess.ucar.edu/meetings/2021/irowg-8
• After creating or editing a page, check any links on the page to make sure they work.
• Page URLs are created automatically by Drupal.  You can edit the URL, however.  A URL should consist of only lowercase alphanumerics and hyphens, and reflect the title of the page (but not be too long), and the words should be separated by hyphens. Articles and conjunctions (a, an, the, and, or, etc.) should not be included in a URL.
• Links to pages that are on this site should open in the same window – this is the default behavior.
• Any image you upload has to have the “Alternative text” field filled in with a short description no more than one sentence long.  This is very important for accessibility.  People with vision disability use screen readers and the “alt” tag is what is read about the image, the only thing.  It is now required in Drupal 10.