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Website Must-Haves Know your audience Good design Clear navigation Clear messaging Web friendly content Good marketing strategy

Site Navigation and Usability

Usability - What is it? a way of determining if your website is easy to use and the information is easy to find Main components of usability: “Learnability” Efficiency “Memorability” Errors Satisfaction

Usability - Why is it important? People will not stay on your site if: It is difficult to use If your site doesn’t clearly state what you offer If users get lost easily Different usability goals depending on the kind of site

How do you test usability? Select representative users and get them to perform tasks on your website Observe users and note successes and difficulties Test users individually and let them solve problems on their own

Navigation “Where am I? How did I get here?” Breadcrumb trails Clear navigation labels Group relevant information together Research other websites

Design

Design – What is good design? Visually represents the personality of your organization and/or products A way of extending client communication A way to differentiate yourself from other organizations Establishes brand recognition

What is a good web designer? A graphic designer that specializes in the web Someone who knows which colours and fonts work best for the web Someone who will work with you to represent your organization with a clean, professional design (John review?)

No Budget? Build in a phased approach Take advantage of pre-packaged small business bundles offered by phone/cable companies Use tools and templates that can help you get a website up in a matter of hours

Writing for the Web

How do users read on the web? 79% of users scan text, picking out words or sentences of interest Only 16% of users will read word-by-word Web users are impatient and critical Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper

When writing for the web Design your documents to be “scannable”: –Highlight keywords –Use meaningful sub-headings –Use bulleted lists –One idea per paragraph –Less word count then conventional writing

When writing for the web Use the “inverted pyramid” style for writing Use simple sentence structures Write as if the content is a magazine article with shorter paragraphs and be more to the point Use short line lengths and column widths: long lines of text are tiring to the eyes

Quality of your content Try to make regular updates Make sure your statistics are not outdated Establish credibility by linking to sites with supporting information Do not let links become a distraction: try grouping links at the end under a “See Also…” section Do not change URLs when archiving content

Internet Marketing

What is internet marketing? Getting people to come to your site using a variety of techniques: –Banner ads –Direct mail –Direct –Affiliates –T.V. and radio ads –Event Sponsorship –Providing content to other sites

“Stickiness” factor

What is the “Stickiness” factor? How long people stay on your site and how often they come back Some ways to achieve “stickiness”: –Regular content updates –Offering free services, free advice, free resources –Having regular contests and giveaways –Adding elements that are purely for entertainment purposes

Web Metrics

What are web metrics? Standard measures used to evaluate the performance of your web site Can be used to determine if your website is meeting your goals and objectives Will allow you to decide what further improvements you should make

Web analytics software Software such as Webtrends uses your web server’s log files to provide you with reports regarding visitors to your website Reports include: –Number of page views –Number of unique visitors –Search engine referrals –Browser and operating system details Different web metrics are significant for different kinds of sites

Privacy Legislation PIPEDA is the new Privacy legislation You may not post or publish personal information without permission from the individual Personal info does not include work job title, work phone or work address or any info that is available in other public sources (ex: phone book) Unless you need personal info for specific purposes – its best just not to collect it

Questions? Céline Allaert