An aspect of my role as communications officer in the Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark involves managing the website and it’s content. This involves building website features and pages, managing and optimising content, ensuring the site is GDPR compliant, and working with the web developer to implement large changes. My aim is to re-develop the website in the near future.

As a web developer I know the importance of implementing the appropriate consent measures for sharing data with any third party. Something as simple as a YouTube video playing without the users can be a breach of data protection laws. One of my first actions in the Geopark was to add cookie compliance to our website. I worked with the web developer to integrate Cookie Consent into the Geopark website and I ensured that it was fully compliant.

Throughout my role in the Geopark I have implemented various interactive features on their WordPress website. These have collectively assisted in reducing the bounce rate by 96%.

My colleague, Dr. Eamon Doyle writes monthly article on geology for our local newspaper, the Clare Champion. Every December I collate these articles into a geology booklet which I send out to our mailing list and colleagues. In 2022, I developed this booklet into an online interactive publication which I’ve since embedded on the Geopark website.

I am always conscious of SEO when uploading content to the Geopark website. With so much insightful information on geology and other scientific subjects, we would like our site to be a useful resource for people when searching. All-in-one SEO is the WodPress plugin that I use for SEO to optimise our website content. I use the tool MOZ for keyword research.

I will admit that the Geopark website needs a full update and refresh but until the time when we are in a position to undertake this project, I am keen to have keep the current site performance optimised. I keep track of such performance measures as page speed, responsiveness, content accuracy, SEO, accessibility, and image sizes. 

I hope to work on the new website update before the rollout of Google’s new Search Generative Experience search engine.

In addition to managing website content and pages, I often need to build features and pages. This entails a mixture of working with the built in WordPress page builder and hard coding HTML / CSS into the theme files. 

Some of the items I have built for the Geopark website include the GEOfood section of the website and all of the GEOfood subpages, a new social media icon element in the header and footer, interactive features and downloads, a new homepage row for the Burren Ecotourism Network and more.  

It is our intention to re-build the Geopark website in the near future. Before taking on this project, I would like to understand how the current site is being used and where the pain points are.

While Google Analytics is installed in the site and gives great feedback on metrics for traffic, channels and more. I wanted to install a user behaviour tool to understand how people are using the site via heatmaps and recordings. I installed Microsoft Clarity, which I have been using to track user behaviour. While the overall objective of using this tool is to gain insights for our next website, I have also been using it to track and fix any broken links and pain points that exist on our current website.