Teacher: Alison Roberts Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE BSBEBU401A Review and Maintain a Website Search Engine Optimisation and Change Teacher: Alison Roberts Northern Sydney Institute of TAFE

What is SEO? An important website statistic is where visitors are not coming from. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) refers to how well a site is designed to be ranked in a Search Engine’s Results Page (SERP) Ranking refers to where a site appears when it is returned in a listing after a user has entered in a search string.

Recommending changes Without the data you can only make educated guesses about what needs to be changed Your recommendations should follow some form of change management process It is important to make yourself aware of the technology and methods used in designing and modifying websites

Implementing a change management system A change management system is a way of logging information or reporting a request for change Request for change need to be: In writing - no matter the source in order to maintain change history Be controlled – make sure the changes have a positive effect on all existing sites and systmes Usually done via a change request form or via a helpdesk

Expected impact of the change Some website changes may be minor and only fix a small problem, other changes may have a strong and direct impact on users It is important to clearly understand what the impact will be to the user so that you can include training and help references in your change-process to minimise impact Impacts can be assessed also in terms of time, cost and resources.

Review costs implications Cost in staff time to design, plan and implement the change External web designer or programmer may need to be contracted Up-skilling of staff if changes are made in- house New or additional hardware/software may be a requirement to host the modified website

Review Cost Implications You may have a support or maintenance contract with a web design agency or hosting provider. This might be based on number of requests or time taken to make changes Ensure cost involved matches Return on Investment (ROI) – will not having the modification reduce the effectiveness of the website?

Balance between efficiency and risk Too many people involved in the approval process it can take an inefficiently long time to make small modifications Too few people made aware of the proposed change then potential problems may be overlooked

Risk management A risk is something that may happen and if it does, it will have a negative impact on existing sites and systems Any change to a live website comes with a level of risk The level of risk will depend on the complexity of the intended change and how wide the impact of the change is within the website

3 stages of risk management planning Risk identification need to identify and name the risk, should be defined in two parts – cause and impact Risk quantification Need to assess the probability of the risk occurring as well as the likely impact if the risk does occur Risk response Avoid the risk Transfer the risk Mitigate the risk Accept the risk

Tools to reduce the impact of risk Backup – integral part of the process Roll-back path – how will changes be undone if the are unsuccessful Standby operations – for high availability run a duplicate website Optimise the current website – deleting unnecessary files, performing server maintenance, installing updates and patches

Documenting expected outcomes Changes can have a flow on affect where one change leads to many more. You need to: record reasons for changes document the consequences of a change Make sure the changes are agreed to before they are put into practice

Approval/Non Approval Once recommended changes have been defined decisions need to be made as to whether the changes are viable or not. Factors affecting if a recommend change will be implemented include: Cost Technical difficulty Expected return from making the change Staff capabilities

Inform users of changes Communicate with users what the changes will be why the changes are being made how the changes will affect website usage when the changes will occur and reassure them that the changes are being made to improve their website usage experience Provide training and help where necessary