Organization and Presentation

One of the defining characteristics of an effective website is how its content is organized. Before considering how content should look on the page, it’s important to determine how it will be structured. A thoughtful content hierarchy helps ensure that key information appears where users are most likely to notice it, creating a page that feels intuitive, welcoming, and engaging.

It’s also important to recognize that not every page on your website serves the same purpose. Some pages are designed to encourage users to engage with your content and take a specific action, such as registering for an event, submitting a form, or exploring additional resources. These high-impact pages should be structured to guide users naturally toward those goals.

Other pages, such as an About page, serve a more informational purpose. Rather than driving a specific conversion, they provide context about your department, answer common questions, and help users navigate to other areas of your website. Understanding the purpose of each page allows you to organize content in ways that best support your users’ needs and create a more effective overall website experience.

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While there is no definitive playbook on how to organize website content, here are four proposed steps that you should consider taking before updating or publishing your content.

Step 1: Collect all your content

Before you can determine how to organize your content, you first need to identify what content will appear on the page. Gathering all of the relevant text, images, videos, and other assets upfront gives you a complete picture of what you’re working with. From there, you can begin organizing the content into a logical structure that flows naturally, highlights the most important information, and encourages users to engage with the page.

Step 2: Identify its purpose

How you expect users to engage with your content should guide you on how to organize it. This will allow them to complete a task or goal with greater ease and increase the likliness of them returning to that page or your site.

• Inform or Create Awareness: These pages provide the user with information and simple tasks that keep them moving through your site to pages where they can perform an action.
• Take Action: These pages are focused on convincing the user to do something, like submit a form or register for an event. Action-focused content, such as buttons or forms, should be clear, scannable, and easy to find.

Step 3: Prioritize

This is when you should be thinking about what your users are looking for. Once your content is organized, make sure to plan for any information that your users are coming to your site/page to be placed at the top where it can easily be seen. Information that you feel is important for your users to know about should immediately follow that.

While not all users look for information the same way and in the same places, consider using this guide to help decide where information should be placed on your homepage or another page on your site.

Step 4: Begin building your page in WordPress

Within the UMC WordPress theme there are many blocks you have access to in order to organize your content. However, there is one block in particular that you should use as the foundation for placing your content: Columns.

Columns allow you to organize content into distinct sections and rows across your page. This makes it easier to group related topics and messaging together, creating a clear visual hierarchy and helping each section feel cohesive, organized, and connected around a common theme.

Using columns effectively

There is no rule for how you can use columns, how many you should use in a row, or where to place them since your content drives how you present information on your page. However, let’s explore a few examples that should give you a better idea of what to think about.

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The content you choose to feature on your homepage may differ from another department’s because every audience has unique needs. Regardless of the specific content, however, your homepage should always be designed with your user’s needs in mind. While the content on every homepage may serve a different purpose, the way we organize it should follow a consistent, user-centered approach across all Wake Forest websites.

The banking example

Consider this scenario. You’re looking to open a new savings account. Although you already bank elsewhere, you’re interested in switching to take advantage of better rates and incentives. After a quick Google search, you click on a link that takes you to a bank’s homepage that you’re interested in learning more about. Before you even arrive, you already have a clear idea of what you’re hoping to find.

• What products and services do they offer?
• What interest rates can I expect?
• How easy is it to open an account?
• Can I trust this bank with my money?

These are the questions you expect the homepage to answer immediately—or at the very least, make it easy to find the answers. If that information isn’t readily available within the first few seconds, you have to stop and figure out where to look next. Every additional moment spent searching increases the mental effort required to use the site. If the experience isn’t intuitive, frustration grows, and you may abandon the website altogether in favor of another bank that makes finding information easier.

The same principle applies to our websites. Visitors arrive with specific goals and expectations. A well-organized homepage anticipates those needs, surfaces the most important information, and helps users quickly find what they’re looking for, creating a more effective and satisfying experience.

Prioritizing homepage content

How you organize your homepage content can have a significant impact on user experience. Consider using the following structure:

Organizing your content this way ensures that the information users are actively looking for appears first, allowing them to accomplish their primary goal quickly and easily. Once you’ve met that immediate need, you can introduce additional content that is important for your department to communicate. While it may not be the reason visitors came to your website, it is often information they will find valuable.

By placing this secondary content immediately after the information users came to find, you increase the likelihood that they will continue scrolling and discover it. When users have a positive experience finding what they need, they are much more likely to stay engaged with the page and explore the additional content you’ve thoughtfully placed along the way.

Keep in mind that users typically spend less than 10 seconds on a homepage, so capturing their attention quickly is essential. Make sure your homepage features the right content to immediately communicate value and encourage visitors to continue exploring your site.

Once you’ve determined how your content should be organized, the next step is deciding how it should be presented. The way your content is presented has a significant impact on how users perceive both your website and your department. A well-designed experience can build trust and encourage engagement, while a poor experience may cause visitors to leave before finding the information they need.

When evaluating your website’s content presentation, focus on these key areas:

• Site navigation
• Page content
• Site footer

While it’s important to ensure each of these elements is visually appealing and functions effectively, it’s equally important to consider how they work together to create a cohesive user experience. When thoughtfully designed, these components guide visitors through your site, help them find information more easily, and keep them engaged.

Effective website navigation acts as a roadmap, helping users find the information they need quickly and intuitively. By making it easy to explore your site, clear navigation encourages visitors to stay longer, discover additional content, and engage more deeply with everything your website and department has to offer.

Users don’t always enter your website through the homepage. In fact, with the growing use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, many visitors now arrive directly on internal pages through links included in AI-generated responses and citations. Once they’re on your site, your navigation should make it easy for them to explore related content and find what they need—without requiring them to return to the homepage to get their bearings.

Here are some things to consider when evaluating your site navigation:

• Several users rely on navigational links to get around upon their first visit to a site.
• Navigation labels should be short and easy to read.
• Try to limit how many links you provide; group related content together under one umbrella term.
• Make sure your pages are nested properly (breadcrumbs).

Nesting pages and breadcrumbs

Make sure your pages are nested in the correct sections of your site based on your information architecture (in other words, how you have your pages organized). Unless it’s intentional, do not publish them at the root level of your site and then add them in your nav.

You can learn more about how to nest pages on your site by visiting the Organize Your Pages section on the WFU WordPress Guide website.

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As outlined in the Content Strategy page, there are two primary types of web pages that shape the user experience: pages designed to educate and inform, and pages that encourage users to complete a specific task or goal.

Pages designed to educate or inform are typically intended to help users gather information. Rather than asking visitors to complete a specific task, these pages should present content in a clear, organized way while providing intuitive navigation that encourages users to continue exploring your website.

In contrast, pages intended to drive user action should include clear calls to action and straightforward instructions for completing a task. Visitors who arrive on these pages are often ready to move beyond the information-gathering stage and engage with your department—whether that’s submitting a form, registering for an event, or completing another meaningful action.

Overcome the trap of perfectionism.

It’s easy to become fixated on perfecting every detail of a webpage—adjusting spacing by a few pixels, resizing images, or rewriting the same sentence over and over until it feels just right. While these refinements can improve the overall presentation, they rarely have as much impact as accurate, relevant, and up-to-date content.

Most users won’t notice minor visual adjustments unless they negatively affect the experience, such as making a page difficult to use on a mobile device or obscuring important information. They will, however, notice when information is outdated, inaccurate, or difficult to find.

Strive for a polished experience, but don’t let the pursuit of perfection delay publishing valuable content or keeping existing content current. A page with accurate, trustworthy information will almost always provide more value to users than one with flawless visual alignment.

Optimize your page content.

Creating valuable content starts with understanding your users’ needs. The following best practices can help ensure your content is optimized to deliver the information they’re looking for in a clear and effective way.

• Make sure to describe what the purpose of the page is up-front and provide content that your users are looking for.
• Your most important messaging should be visible without making them scroll (too much).
• Use clear, specific, and familiar wording for link and button labels.
• Lesser important content should always follow your primary messaging.
• For longer scrolling pages, consider adding multiple call-to-actions for important content in both the relevant section(s), at the bottom of the page, and/or on the right-hand side.
• Include callouts or designated areas for related content.

Do a quick (5 minute) page audit.

Sometimes, taking a step back to evaluate the content on your page is the best way to determine what needs to be changed, removed, or added. That’s where the 5-Minute Page Check can help. Use this rubric to quickly assess how well your page is performing across key areas, including readability, accessibility, calls to action, and more.

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Site footers—the section that appears at the bottom of every page on your website—play an important role in helping users quickly find key information about your department. Visitors have come to expect details such as contact information, office hours, social media links, and other commonly accessed resources in the footer. Because this placement has become a widely recognized web convention, including this information in your footer makes it easier for users to find what they need without having to search your site.

Here’s what to keep in mind:

• Focus on your contact info – that’s what users primary look to your footer for.
• Don’t include lengthy copy because it’s unlikely to be read (e.g., your ‘about us’ statement).
• If you have different pages where someone can connect with you or receive additional information, like social media links, provide those details here.