All news posts, stories and blog pages are hosted on the sait.ca News site in Cascade.
These pages help enforce our brand, provide social proof to support our informational content, and can improve our site’s organic search health.
New story pages are primarily created by members of the Communications, and Alumni and Development departments.
There are a few unique considerations you need to take when writing stories for online publication vs. print or other media.
Know who you’re writing for
Before you start writing, first think about who your intended reader is. Your tone of voice should adjust accordingly. How you write for a diploma student may differ greatly from a story written for an industry partner.
When repurposing existing content, you may need to create an alternate version for a different audience to make it impactful. This includes considering other types of media, like graphics or video.
Optimize for search engines
Avoid jargon and overly “frilly” language. While you may have come up with an amazingly witty headline for your story, if it doesn’t include a single keyword or phrase related to the topic, you may be making that story very hard to find online.
Use keywords strategically in your story title, summary, subheads and in image alt descriptions. Do some keyword research ahead of finalizing your story to determine what related words and phrases your target users search for in relation to the topic your story is about.
Try and find a balance between creating something catchy and including meaningful words and phrases. Learn more about on-page search engine optimization.
Use paragraphs and headers effectively
Many online users will scan through content. To ensure your readers pick up on the important pieces of your story, consider the “scannability” of your post. Avoid extremely long paragraphs, but make sure you’re not breaking every sentence into a new paragraph either.
Additionally, use meaningful headers to break your story into different sections.
Finally, don’t shy away from using bullet points or lists. They’re easy to scan and digest.
Link to related content
If you’re referencing a past story or media release, or a SAIT program or service, link to that page (use internal links when directing to other sait.ca pages). This allows the user to easily learn more about a specific thing you’re referencing, without you having to include the “Coles Notes.”
Assigning categories to your story page helps organize editorial content into themes and dynamically feeds your content to strategic sections of the website where that story is most likely to be relevant.
For example, tagging a story with a specific academic school will ensure that the story appears on that school’s landing page.
Story pages do not need to have categories assigned from every category bucket. Additionally, you can assign multiple categories within one or more buckets.
News categories
- Community: general interest stories for our local community, excluding student life and alumni-focused articles. Avoid things with a strong industry audience and content marketing focus. Articles should speak to everyone and not just one audience.
- Donors: Stories about donors or with a donor focus.
- Partnerships: Stories about SAIT partnerships, usually with industry.
- SAIT Faces: Stories with SAITFaces in the headline text. Profile members of the SAIT community.
- Student Life: Articles only relevant to students. Should be helpful content such as study tips, exam prep, spotlight on services, etc.
- Tech and Innovation: Stories about our digital technology programs and innovation from ARIS.
- Thought Leadership: Articles written by SAIT leaders.
- ConEd: Stories related to programming specifically for our continuing education learners, or topics of interest to them. All articles from ConEd Magazine are tagged with this.
- Media Release: Posts specifically written for media outlets.
Strat plan categories
Should the story relate to any of the work we're doing as part of our strategic plan, use the appropriate category.
- How we work and learn
- Future-ready skills
- World-class learning experiences
- Innovation leadership
Feed categories
Feed categories send stories to areas throughout the rest of sait.ca. In most instances, a story should have at least one feed category assigned. Feed category buckets include:
- Audience: used for stories targeted at a specific user type or area of interest (for example, admissions-related stories or stories relevant to international students)
- Departments: used for stories related to one or more departments.
- Schools: used for stories related to one or more academic schools.
- Programs: used for stories related to one or more credit or apprenticeship programs
- Certificates (Continuing Education): used for stories related to one or more ConEd certificate programs.
Contact Digital Experience and Strategy
Get help with content updates, creating new pages and sections, reporting, UX best practices and more.
Oki, Âba wathtech, Danit'ada, Tawnshi, Hello.
SAIT is located on the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of Treaty 7 which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the Îyârhe Nakoda of Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney.
We are situated in an area the Blackfoot tribes traditionally called Moh’kinsstis, where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. We now call it the city of Calgary, which is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta.