All of us who manage or contribute to Boise State websites already know our work is never really “done.”
Pages get added, programs change, news posts age, offices reorganize, programs evolve. Before long, even a well-managed website can become harder to maintain, and a challenge to search and navigate.
Now throw in the fact that 85% of today’s searches utilize some form of AI and that search results are no longer just a list of blue links.
Search has changed, and our website needs to change with it
Our audiences see AI-generated summaries, featured snippets, knowledge panels, rich results, local listings, videos, and answers pulled from multiple sources. These results are known as “zero-clicks” because they may not result in clicks to our website.
People are also searching differently by asking longer, more conversational questions. Instead of just typing “tuition” or “major change” into the search box, they’re asking:
- “How do I change my major at Boise State?”
- “When is tuition due?”
- “Does Boise State have an online certificate in x?”
- “Who do I contact about my financial aid?”
Competition for answers
If Boise State doesn’t provide the answer, then third-party sites such as Niche, The Princeton Review, College Raptor, CollegeVine, and College Scorecard fill the gap. We don’t have any control over third-party site answers, and sometimes those answers conflict with our sources of truth.
It’s no longer enough to ask, “Can people find our site?” A better question is, “Can users, search engines, and AI systems recognize Boise State as the official, accurate, and trustworthy source for this information?”
AI search also raises the cost of unclear content. Outdated, duplicated, or conflicting content muddles the larger information environment around Boise State.
Because search systems and AI tools focus on identifying trusted source material, if our websites contain multiple versions of the same information, expired deadlines, outdated PDFs, broken links, or unclear pages with no obvious purpose, we make it harder for audiences (and machines) to know which Boise State answer is the right one.
New learning opportunity
That’s the focus of our new class offering, “Optimizing Boise State Websites for Search and AI.”
Participants will learn about search optimizing through a lens of search satisfaction. That involves creating content that helps audiences complete a task, make a decision, get an answer, or find the right next step. we want Boise State pages to be easier to find, easier to understand, easier to trust, and easier to act on.
Our goal is to make our web presence clearer, more useful, more accurate, and more trustworthy by asking:
- What are people trying to do?
- What questions are they really asking?
- Are they looking for a program, a person, a requirement, a deadline, a form, a policy, a service, or a next step?
Once we understand the intent behind the query, we can make better content decisions.
We’ll also make the case for pruning web pages. One of the most important things we can do to improve trust to make sure the content we publish has a clear purpose. If a page is outdated, duplicative, thin, abandoned, or no longer connected to a meaningful user need, it may be doing more harm than good.