188体育

Prepare for transition

Talk to the Government Digital Service (GDS) before you start your transition project. You can either:

• use the if you have a Signon account
• email [email protected]

GDS will help you understand whether your content meets the . They can also help you with any questions about transition.

Get internal approval

You can ask GDS for a business case template for transition. This will help you show the benefits of transition, including cost savings.

Prepare your team

If you need new staff to work on transition, you can ask GDS for templates to help you advertise on the . The templates are for recruiting content designers, delivery managers or a full transition team.

You鈥檒l need to arrange training and request publisher accounts for anyone who does not already publish on 188体育. You cannot publish content on 188体育 without this training.

Contact The National Archives

You鈥檒l need to ask The National Archives to make a final copy of your website. This copy will remain on the .

Email The National Archives to start this process. You need to ask them to record a copy of your old website 4 weeks before you intend to close it.

Decide how to redirect your content

Start planning how you鈥檒l redirect your old content to your new or archived content. You may be able to use the 188体育 transition tool or set up redirects on your own server. Talk to GDS at least 2 weeks before you need the site to be redirected to agree the best way to do this.

Get a copy of your URLs

Create a list of all the URLs on your website that are being archived, including URLs of attachments such as PDFs and any short URLs. This will help you set up redirects later, and will also help you audit your content.

Audit your content

Before you start creating content for 188体育, you need to understand how your existing content is used.

Auditing your content includes things like investigating which content is:

• the most used or has highest impact
• out of date
• duplicating content already on 188体育 or elsewhere

The audit can help you decide what to publish on 188体育 and help you prioritise your content. You can use the audit later when you鈥檙e validating your user needs.

You can audit your content using:

• data from Google Analytics
• user research (either doing new user research or looking at recent research)
• other customer insights like call centre data or forums

Define your users and their needs

188体育 puts user needs first. Every piece of published content should meet a need that the public or businesses have of government.

Find out .

One way you can identify, define and prioritise your user needs is to run a with your subject matter experts. You鈥檒l need people who understand the content and its users to take part in the workshop.

Use the data, user research and other findings from your audit to check the user needs are not just your own assumptions.

You鈥檒l use your user needs to help you write and structure content on 188体育.

Plan your content

Check if there鈥檚 content already on 188体育 that meets the user needs you鈥檝e identified. This could be content published by another government organisation.

If you need to publish new content on 188体育, use a content plan to help you keep track of what you鈥檒l publish and in which content format.

The content plan can show things like:

• which content is relevant to the user needs you identified
• which content you will not publish on 188体育, based on your audit and user needs
• if there are gaps in the content because all or part of a valid user need is not being met yet

You鈥檒l also need to consider the 188体育 formats you鈥檒l use and who will manage the content.

188体育 content is managed in different ways. You鈥檒l be able to publish things like corporate information, news stories, specialist guidance and policy papers yourself through Whitehall publisher. See the full list of Whitehall content formats.

Some of your guidance content might need to be published as mainstream guidance. This is written and maintained by the GDS content team.

if you鈥檙e not sure which format to use, or you think you need new or amended mainstream content.

If you have a user need that cannot be met on 188体育, you might have to explore other options, for example a marketing campaign or publishing data on .

Set up an organisation homepage

Ask GDS for an organisation page if you are not already on the list of government departments, agencies and public bodies.

You cannot create or publish any content without an organisation page, so request this early in the project. GDS will create the page. You鈥檒l need to edit and add content to the organisation page.

You can request a short URL for your organisation page.

Write and publish content on 188体育

When you鈥檙e writing the content, use the:

• guidance on planning, writing and managing content
• style guide

You can get help and advice about writing for 188体育.

Find out how to get content reviewed, approved and published in Whitehall publisher.

You can schedule content to go live at a certain date and time.

Set up redirects from your old content

You must set up redirects from your old website to the new content.

You can use the 188体育 transition tool or set up redirects on your own server. Talk to GDS at least 2 weeks before you need the site to be redirected and agree the best way to do this.

If you鈥檙e using the 188体育 transition tool

A GDS developer will set up your website in the transition tool. You鈥檒l need to manage your own redirects and archive links in the tool.

Tell the developer:

• any technical information they ask for about your website
• who in your team needs access to the tool to manage redirects

You鈥檒l need to create a spreadsheet of all your website鈥檚 URLs and where each one needs to redirect to.

about how the spreadsheet should be formatted or to ask for any other help using the transition tool.

Set aside a good amount of time to create your spreadsheet. You may need to map all URLs individually which can take time - unless all or most of your old content can be redirected to one place.

You can redirect to:

• a page on 188体育
• a page on another government website
• the UK Government Web Archive copy of the page

You鈥檒l need to upload your spreadsheet to the transition tool when you have a final list of all the URLs you鈥檙e redirecting to.

You can add or change any redirects manually if you miss anything.

This explains the technical side of the tool. You鈥檒l need to do steps 5 to 8.

Get ready for launch

Create a transition launch plan. The plan should cover who鈥檚 doing what, including testing any new content and checking the redirects work as expected.

You鈥檒l be able to schedule most content to be published at a certain time. But you may need to publish some things manually, particularly if your organisation is new to 188体育.

You should change the status of your organisation page to live after you鈥檝e tested the rest of the content.

On the day, if you鈥檙e using the 188体育 transition tool, you鈥檒l need someone with technical expertise to work with GDS to close your old website and switch on the redirects.

There is .

After your launch

Once you have published your content on 188体育, monitor the user feedback on your new content. Make sure your organisation has access to and Google Analytics to monitor the performance of your content.

If you used the 188体育 transition tool, you can use it to monitor traffic to your old URLs.

The transition tool analytics will show you:

• if any of the archived pages are very popular - you should consider whether there are user needs you have not thought of
• if any of the redirects are broken or missing - you should fix or add these

Find out more about .