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Website Must-Haves
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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
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“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 e-mail
– 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?
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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
[email protected]
http://www.ilogic.com/