How to publish a new page on vic.gov.au
- Marcella Marino
- Jess Pietsch (Unlicensed)
This guide covers the basics of creating a new page for your website or section on vic.gov.au.
It covers:
search engine optimisation (SEO) tips
the different content templates in the CMS
the mandatory and optional components of the landing page template
how to format your text
how to add images and documents to your page
what you should do once your page is published.
It's a good idea when you create a new page to fill in just the required mandatory fields (e.g. Title, Summary, Topic, Site) and then save it as a draft before you start working on your page in more detail.
Saving your page regularly helps to avoid losing any work if there is a CMS timeout. If this happens to you, try opening another tab and logging back in on that tab. Then return to the tab you were working on and you may be able to save the page.
Watch our instructional video, or follow the landing page steps below:
Step 1: Choose your content template
To create a new web page in the CMS, you can either:
roll over Content and then Add content in the top menu and select your template, or
click on the Content page, click the Add content button.
There are several content templates to choose from. The Landing page template is typically used for most content, and will be the example used for this guide.
For specific instructions on when and how to use other content templates, read our guides:
We also have guidelines on content types that don't have a specific CMS template – they would just use the landing page template:
Step 2: Complete the Header tab
Page title
Enter a unique, SEO-focused page title. This will display as the page title on the live website.
Remember:
The majority of our website traffic comes from search engine results, so if your content is not optimised it won't be found and won't be read.
If your content is likely to be common then you will need to take this into account and be descriptive within the character limit. For example, use ‘About the Department of Premier and Cabinet’ rather than just ‘About us.’
Your title should be between 30 and 60 characters and contain keywords.
Summary
This is the meta description text that is shown on Google search results as well as on promotion or navigation cards.
Aim for between 10 and 15 words (or 155 characters, including spaces). The CMS has a limit of 200 characters, but it’s best not to exceed 155 characters.
Make it meaningful – don’t just copy and paste the first sentence from the page content. The summary should describe the content of the page using top 10 keywords and missing keywords to help people find your content.
Use Google Trends to see what keywords people are using most in searches.
Be specific – if the page is about an application, service, form or process, specify which one and what it does.
Only use acronyms in your title if there is evidence that the acronym is commonly known, such as ranking highly in search results and on Google Trends.
Introduction text
The text you add in this section appears under your page title on your published page. Use one or 2 sentences to summarise the purpose of the page.
Header links
You can add up to 6 links in this section, which display on the right hand side of the page title.
Step 3: Add the topic field
All content is matched to a predefined topic so we can automatically display key information across relevant areas. Topics also help people to discover and browse content that is relevant to their interests.
Check the 'topics and tags' page to see the list of topics you can choose from.
Step 4: Check the correct site and site section is assigned to your content
On the right hand side of the landing page template, click the Sites drop-down.
When you’re assigned access to the CMS, this section will be completed by default. Depending on your access, you may have the option to select a different primary site.
Step 5: Save a draft of your page
Once you’ve saved the page in draft, you can start adding content, navigation cards and promotional cards.
Step 6: Add a Customised header (if needed)
Here you select the type of header you want for your page. Unless a variation has been designed or signed-off by a UX designer (in conjunction with the content team), leave this as the default option of 'default appearance.'
Header style
Default appearance
Displays your page with the page title and introduction text.
Full-width background image
Add an image to the top of your page. For instructions on adding a full-with image, visit our Hero banner page.
Corner graphics
Allows you to customise the top and bottom corner graphics of a page. These can only be changed if there has been approval from the Digital 9 governance group. The graphical image will not display when a hero image is added.
Logo
This is a small logo that will appear above the page title. Only use this when working with a UX designer or the content team.
Step 7: Add Header extras if needed
Under this tab you can add an introduction banner.
This banner will appear under the page title and introduction section on the published page.
For more information, see our introduction banner guide.
Step 8: Add a Feature image (if needed)
Step 9: Add a Page campaign (if needed)
Step 10: Add your Page content
This is where you add the main body copy and components to your page.
Table of contents
Tick the box if you'd like to add a table of contents to the top of your page that includes anchor links that jump to any H2 headings, as well as H3 headings if you select that option.
Content components
Select Add Component to begin adding content. The Basic text component is the most common component you'll use.
Visit the Format basic text page for more detailed instructions on using this component, such as formatting headings, creating lists and adding links.
Visit the Body text components page to learn about using these features:
Show table of contents
Basic text
Navigation cards and promotion cards
Call to action feature.
Add images and documents
There are some important rules for using images, image galleries and downloadable files.
Documents should be:
only added when there's a strong user need
no larger than 10MB
named appropriately and descriptively, using hyphens between words in the original file name
always accompanied by a HTML version of the content.
Images should be:
only added if they serve a purpose (not merely decorative)
cropped and resized to the appropriate dimensions
named appropriately and descriptively, using hyphens between words in the original file name
accompanied by alt text (unless descriptive).
Find more information at guidelines on adding images, files, audio and videos and accessibility guides.
Step 11: Add Sidebar content (if needed)
Site-section navigation
Ticking this box displays the site section navigation menu, visible on the right side of the screen on your published page.
Add the name of your site section in the Site-section Navigation Title field (for example, Commemorating veterans) as this will display at the top of the menu and helps users orientate themselves.
For more information, read our Site-section navigation guide.
Related links and What's next
These will be unticked by default. Keep these unticked if you have no content in them, otherwise a heading will be displayed on the page.
For more information, read our Related link and What's next guide.
Contact
Read the Adding a contact block guide.
Social sharing
This allows users to share the page on social media. It defaults to 'On' but can be turned off. We recommend keeping it on.
Step 12: Review Background colour
White is used for most pages and will be the default option selected.
Change this option to grey for a homepage or for a site-section landing page that has a lot of cards and visual components. Avoid using grey if there’s lots of basic text on the page.
Step 13: Review the Department/agency section
Review the Department/agency assigned to this content is correct and update if needed.
Step 14: Add Metatags (for in-language content)
You won't need to update most of these fields. An exception is if you're publishing a page in a language other than English.
When creating an in-language page, update the Content Language field with the appropriate language code. This formats the page correctly, especially in the case of right-to-left languages.
A list of language codes is available on the Translated content page.