This document outlines how to customize your Resource Directory.
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The first thing we need is the official brand name that will be published for this service. It will be used for the copyright, Privacy Policy, and wherever your name shows up in plain text. Sometimes this is the name of the parent organization, and other times is the name of a specific program or other brand name
A URL is the website address of your Resource Directory.
We recommend using a subdomain of your primary domain, for example search.example.org, so that the root domain is free to use for landing pages or other likely purposes.
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Even if you don’t need landing pages today, experience has shown that it’s best to reserve the root domain in case you need landing pages in the future.
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You will receive a shared Google Sheet with a template for defining Categories and Suggestions. Both Categories and Suggestions may be defined with any text that makes the most sense, along with one or many taxonomies that will return resources for the defined need. We encourage our clients to consider two things while defining Categories and Suggestions:
Create items for the most common needs your team receives.
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This is a great opportunity to take some pressure off your call center staff for the “easy” referrals.
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Use plain language that is readily understood by your target audience.
Categories are intended to provide a scannable, non-overwhelming overview of popular needs in terms that help seekers will easily relate to.
An ideal Category grid has 9-12 Topics
Try to limit each Topic to 3-6 Subtopics.
Avoid adding too many links as that can be confusing or difficult to navigate for users.
The Categories interface is limited to two levels.
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Users migrating from a system that has more levels of nesting will need to redesign their grid for our service. Feel free to ask for help during this process.
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Washington 211 is an example of clean, scannable Categories: search.wa211.org