Standard Silktide Fixes

Western provides access to Silktide, a powerful web improvement tool designed to help content creators, web developers, and marketers build high-quality websites. Silktide helps you focus on four key areas: content quality, accessibility, search engine optimization (SEO), and performance. Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Content – Checks for spelling, grammar, broken links, readability, content accessibility, and SEO best practices.
• Accessibility – Evaluates how well your pages meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
• Marketing – Analyzes keywords, ads, content optimization, and technical factors to improve your reach.
• User Experience – Assesses mobile responsiveness, user flows, image quality, uptime, and overall functionality.

Your goal? Aim for a perfect 100% score, especially in Accessibility. This article will show you how to address issues in Silktide to help you improve your scores across all areas, creating a better website for everyone.

Spelling errors, focus on "likely spelling errors"

• If you see spelling errors that you know are correct, for example local areas you know to be accurate like Whatcom or Skagit, click Learn, to have Silktide learn the spelling and add it to the datebase. If you think something is correct, but you’re not sure, click the G and Silktide will search on Google to see if search results display "proving" the accuracy for that exact spelling. (Examples could include a business or product name listed within a directory profile page.) Update appropriately.
• If a spelling error resides inside a metatag, you can usually correct those by going to Edit on the administrative toolbar, then expanding the MetaTag content area, and correcting the issue inside the Description field. If the Description field displays a token [node:summary], that means the content is currently being generated from the body field. Update the first 160 characters in the body field within the Edit administrative toolbar, ensuring that all spelling is accurate.

Broken Links

• Update the link with the correct URL. If the link is an internal link, use the LinkIt tool in Drupal to link to the node by typing in the title of the page you are linking to. Creating internal links
• For external links, do a quick search to find the correct URL online, copy the URL from the browser, then update the link on your page.
• Alternatively, remove the link entirely if it's no longer necessary or relevant.

Check that each page has an appropriate title

• This is a manual check. If the title is appropriate and matches the content, approve the title.

Avoid using the same link text for different destinations

• When the same titled links go to different destinations, change the link text to be more specific. Instead of "Read more," use "Read more about [course name]" or "Download the whitepaper [on sustainability]". Instead of Contact Us, update to Contact [Humanities and Social Sciences]. Instead of linking to Directory, link to [Anthropology] Directory.

Consider optimizing images

• Select every image under 1MB and bulk approve them. Any image OVER 2MB, consider optimizing the image by using https://tinypng.com to compress images.

Add an analytics solution to every page

• If the URL is /invented-url-for-404-page, click Ignore the page.
• If there are other URLs, email webhelp@wwu.edu for guidance.

Review publicly visible email addresses

• If wwu.edu is in the email address, select the approve host button.

Review publicly visible phone numbers

• If the numbers are prefixed by 360-650 use the bulk approve option to approve them all.

Ensure links explain their purpose

• Go through your content and update the link that needs further explanation by adding more context. 

Ensure pages don't require zooming and 2D scrolling on small screens

• Follow the writeup on Addressing 2D Scrolling Errors in Silktide. If there are any remaining issues after the fixes, email webhelp@wwu.edu for guidance.