Maintaining Your Site Module 8: Web Publishing and Maintenance LESSON 7 Module 8: Web Publishing and Maintenance Maintaining Your Site

Lesson Overview What happens once a Web site is live on the Internet? In this lesson, you will learn: To use analytic analysis to determine the effectiveness of a Web site To use bug reports to improve the Web site About the importance of periodic backups Lesson 7 Overview

Guiding Questions Once your Web site is live on the Internet, how does your job as a designer change? What must be done to keep your site functional and valuable? Use the guiding questions as a class starter, allowing the students time to answer the questions in their journals. Discuss students’ answers to the questions.

What Is Analytic Site Analysis? A study of the behavior of visitors to a site How many visitors have been to the site? How much time do viewers spend on the site? What Web browser do viewers use? What is the geographic location of viewers? How are viewers getting to the site? Information that can be used to improve the site E-metrics – the standards used to create the analysis Discuss analytic analysis. Analytic analysis is a study of the behavior of viewers to a site. This analysis can give a designer information to be used toward making improvements to the site. The designer can learn from the analysis how many viewers have viewed the site, how long viewers are viewing the site, what Web browser viewers are using, the geographic location of viewers, and how viewers are getting to the site. All of this information is important to the initial design of the site and can now be used to update the site. Analytic analysis uses E-metrics, which are the standards by which the analysis is created.

How Many Visitors Are Viewing the Site? Might point to the effectiveness of the meta tags May need to change or add site meta tags Might point to the need to promote the site to the target audience Businesses using an SEO service might use this as an evaluation of the service How many viewers are viewing the site? This information can indicate the effectiveness of the meta tags used in the site. If the site is not getting the type of traffic that you expected, you might need to change or add the meta tags for the site. You might also want to try a different way of promoting your site to your target audience. If a business is using an SEO service without an increase in viewers, the SEO service may not be doing the job that was expected of them.

How Long Are Visitors Viewing the Site? A short time might indicate wrong keyword meta tags A long time might indicate frustration with site navigation In e-commerce this information is critically important A low proportion of sales to views indicates further analysis changes How long are viewers viewing the site? If viewers are only viewing the site a short time, the keywords used in the meta tags may be wrong for the site and viewers are being directed to the site incorrectly. If a large number of viewers are spending an extended period of time on the Web site, they may be growing frustrated with the navigation of the site. If the purpose of the site is to sell an item to the viewer, this information can be vital to the success of the site. If the number of views compared to the number of sales is out of proportion, the Web site may need to be changed to meet the viewer’s needs.

What Type of Web Browser Are Viewers Using? Can help with technical testing of the site If one browser is used more than others, that browser should be given more attention in technical testing Might point to a browser not initially tested, but should be tested What type of Web browsers are viewers using? This information can help the designer with technical testing of a site before making it live to the Internet. If most of the viewers to a site are using Internet Explorer, then the designer will want to make sure the site is viewed best using Internet Explorer. Other browsers will now become secondary to the Internet Explorer view. This information might also point to the use of a browser that you had not initially tested. With this knowledge, the designer may want to add this new browser to the list of browsers used for the technical testing procedures.

What Is the Geographic Location of Visitors? Indicate the global reach of your site Might indicate the need for a designer to target the needs of visitors in specific locations Think back to the Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and IBM Web sites Where are the site visitors located? Information such as this might indicate the global reach of the Internet. How many viewers outside of your own country or area are viewing your site? A designer may notice a high volume of views from a certain area of the world and decide to create a separate page with information specifically for that area. Refer back to Module 3, Lesson 1 where students viewed the Web sites of Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and IBM. Each of these Web sites have pages specifically designed for different countries and areas of the world.

How Are Viewers Getting to the Site? Directly Indicates the viewer has gotten the URL from a source Links Indicates a link to the site has been placed on another site Search engines Indicates the effectiveness of meta tags or an SEO How are viewers getting to the site? Viewers might be accessing the site by directly entering the URL for the site, through a link from another site, or from a search engine. This information can point to the effectiveness of the designer’s attempts to promote the site. Viewers who are directly entering the URL have most likely gotten the URL from literature that the designer has distributed or from someone who has used the site. Viewers accessing the site through a link indicate a link to the site has been placed on another site. If this is through an advertisement of the site, the effectiveness of the advertising can be evaluated. Thirdly, the number of viewers that access the site through a search engine can indicate the effectiveness of the use of meta tags or an SEO.

Bug Reports Errors that occur with the site Might be errors not found during the initial testing of the site Might be errors that occurred after publishing the site to the Internet Types of bug reports Directly reported by a viewer From an Internet service Discuss bug reports. Bug reports are an indication of problems with the Web site. These might be errors that you did not catch in your initial testing of the site or might be problems that occurred after you published the Web site live to the Internet. Bug reports might come in the form of a user reporting an error to you or you might choose to use a bug reporting service found on the Internet.

Periodic Backups Backups should be made every time the site changes Backups can be made to multiple storage devices Discuss periodic backups. Each time that a designer makes a change to a Web site, a backup should be made to the file containing the Web site. This can be done by saving the file to multiple storage devices and will provide a way of returning to an older version of the information if needed.

Assignment Look at free and fee-based analytic analysis services. Use the “Analytic Analysis Services” guide (S.8.7.WS_Analytic) for in-depth research of one of the services. Cownter - http://cownt.us/ Crazy Egg – Visualize your customers - http://crazyegg.com Click Density - http://www.clickdensity.com Smarter Tools - http://www.smartertools.com/SmarterStats/Features/Web-Log-Analytics-Interface.aspx Google Analytics - http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html Piwik open source Web analytics - http://piwik.org/ Clicky Web analytics - http://getclicky.com/ Students will use the Web sites listed in the PowerPoint to look at free and fee-based analytic analysis services. They will use the “Analytic Analysis Services” worksheet (File S.8.7.WS_Analytic) to guide them in their in-depth research of one of the services.