2. Why?
• Nearly six-in-ten adults (58%) have done research online
about the products and services they buy
• A quarter (24%) have posted comments or reviews
online about the things they buy
• On a typical day, 21% of adults search for product
information online
• 2011 UK retail consumers spent £68 Billion online
Sources : Jim Jansen, Senior Fellow, Pew Internet & American Life Project
IMRG CapGemini eRetail Sales Index
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4. Why are you doing this?
• What’s the driver to start a new website?
• What’s the competition up to?
• What’s happening in your marketplace?
• What issue /opportunity will the site address?
• How could a website further your business?
• Have you defined SMART objectives?
• How will you measure ROI?
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5. Are your business objectives..
• New customers?
• More sales to existing customers?
• Lower advertising costs?
• Lower distribution costs?
• Faster information?
• Better customer service?
• Something else?
• How will you measure success? Accessed through
6. Success criteria
• SMART
• “Generate 10 leads per month
via the website by the
1st December 2012”
• “Increase online sales by 10%
in Quarter 2 of 2013”
• ROI
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7. Some practicalities
• Who will develop the site?
• What budget do you have?
• When does the site need to be completed by?
• Who needs to be involved from your firm?
• Any major effect on internal systems – e.g. stock?
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9. User-centred design
“Unless a website meets the needs of the
intended users, it will not meet the needs of the
organization providing the website.”
Jakob Nielsen
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11. Audiences / Target visitors
• Who are your audience? Describe them
• What are their demographics?
• Have you more than one audience type?
• How will they use the website?
• What technology do they have?
• What “look and feel” would they expect?
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13. Personas
Character
Intelligent, enthusiastic, bold, persevering, achiever, family man.
Profile Joe Description
Gender Male Joe is a service engineer in our customers’ service department. He is married with 2
Age 30 young children and lives in Bristol. He has worked in this role with our customer for 4
years, and has a good understanding of our products.
Occupation Service Engineer
He works almost entirely on his customers sites, servicing equipment. He has City and
Guilds qualifications in maintaining the sort of equipment that we sell spares for. He
is an avid football fan, and supports Manchester United!
Site usage
Joe wants to:
Find out more about our company’s products .
Keep up to date with what’s new in our industry.
Find out technical specifications quickly
Has authority to order spare parts up to £250 immediately
Web confidence and Context
Joe is a confident web user at home on his PC, and understands how to find the
information that he needs quickly. He is confident about buying online, and uses eBay
/Amazon etc extensively.
At work on customer sites he browses the web /collects emails etc via his Apple
iPhone.
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14. What’s the
“most important action”?
• Buy online?
• Complete a contact form?
• Telephone you?
• Download something?
• Is it different for different target visitors?
• What if they won’t do your first choice activity?
(Do they trust you enough?)
• Is there a lesser activity you’d still want them to do?
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16. What works / what doesn’t
• You need to do your homework
• Note ideas from other sites (good and bad)
• Try to think why you like /dislike a particular site
• Bookmark (add to “Favourites”) or use
www.delicious.com as you go
17. Your current situation
• What expectations did you have for your website?
• Is it delivering what you expected?
• Is it delivering what your customers expect?
• What activity do your statistics show?
• (Have you got statistics on your current site anyway?)
• What changes could be made to meet your business
objectives?
• Do you want to start again or modify your existing
website?
19. Your choices
• Assemble a range of services yourself
• Use a complete package (free or paid for)
• Get a web developer to do it all for you
20. Domain Names
• Consistent with brand
• Memorable
• Easy to type
• .co.uk and .com
• Likely variations to protect brand
• Keywords if possible
• Avoid hyphens - if possible
21. Checking a domain name
• There are many sites
where you can check
/register a domain name
• www.123-reg.co.uk
22. Hosting
• Website software requirements
• Web space
• Bandwidth
• Support
• Location
• Statistics
• Additional services
23. Email
• Associated with your domain name
• Reflected across all of your marketing materials
• Memorable
• Inline with your business processes
i.e. sales@, enquiries@ etc
24. Domain and hosting costs
• .co.uk = £6 per two years
• .com = £10 per year
• Shared hosting = £5 per month
• 500Mb-2Gb web space
• 2Gb-unlimited data transfer
• email
• Control panel
• What packages such as WordPress will you need?
• Location of server?
28. Good content
• There are many types of content that you could provide
• But you need to relate it back to your target
audience...and your user centered design.....
• And ask if it adds value, and if so how?
• Or if it adds value in another way, e.g. with SEO?
29. The basics
• Products and services
• Contact information
• Testimonials
• Frequently asked questions
• About your business
• Resources
• Policies
30. Copywriting
• Identify your audience
• Who are they, M/F, young /old, local/national/international?
• What devices are they looking at your site on?
• Is English their first language?
• How educated are they likely to be?
• Disabilities?
• Why will they visit your site?
• To read about your services / to learn something technical /
to ask for advice / to sign up to something etc....
• Any cultural /religious factors that may influence them?
31. Personas
Character
Intelligent, enthusiastic, bold, persevering, achiever, family man.
Profile Joe Description
Gender Male Joe is a service engineer in our customers’ service department. He is married with 2
Age 30 young children and lives in Bristol. He has worked in this role with our customer for 4
years, and has a good understanding of our products.
Occupation Service Engineer
He works almost entirely on his customers sites, servicing equipment. He has City and
Guilds qualifications in maintaining the sort of equipment that we sell spares for. He
is an avid football fan, and supports Manchester United!
Site usage
Joe wants to:
Find out more about our company’s products .
Keep up to date with what’s new in our industry.
Find out technical specifications quickly
Has authority to order spare parts up to £250 immediately
Web confidence and Context
Joe is a confident web user at home on his PC, and understands how to find the
information that he needs quickly. He is confident about buying online, and uses eBay
/Amazon etc extensively.
At work on customer sites he browses the web /collects emails etc via his Apple
iPhone.
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32. Where to find images
• Copyright is important
• Do NOT just right click
and grab images
• There are many low
cost /no cost sites:
www.microsoft.com, www.istockphoto.com, www.reflexstock.com,
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www.fotolia.com but there are many more.
36. Growth Of Mobile
• 30% rise quarter on quarter in Google mobile searches
• 4.7% of Wikipedia users are on a mobile device
• (March 2011)
• Google has 98% mobile search share
• Is your / will your website be mobile friendly?
38. Accessibility
• 14% of the UK population registered disabled
• Accessible websites:
• work better in less popular
browsers/platforms/sizes
• are more flexible
• are more search engine friendly
• It’s the law! Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (2002)
40. What are your options?
• Using HTML & CSS
• then uploading result to hosting space
• Using a programme on PC
• then uploading result to hosting space
• DIY Online website builders
• Already online
• Content Management Systems (CMS)
• “Open Source” or proprietary
• DIY or via web designer
41. Learning HTML and CSS
• Time-consuming & technical
• But greatest flexibility
• Able to spot problems and make changes easily
• Requires only basic text editing software
• Notepad, Notepad++, Filezilla
43. HTML Editors: WYSIWYG
• Limits exposure to HTML
• Close (but not perfect) to what you see in a browser
• Can create bigger files than necessary
• May create proprietary code
• Dreamweaver, Expression Web, Kompozer
45. Online website builders
• No HTML required
• Simple interface
• Limited ability to alter design and layout
• May not be search engine friendly
• Tied to the host/provider
• Google Sites, Mr Site, Moonfruit, WebEden, Web Hosts
47. Content Management Systems
• Database-driven, so more complex behind the scenes
• Very easy to add/edit pages and content
• Fully customisable, depending on developer
• “Open Source” or proprietary
• Open source options have thousands of templates and
plug-ins available, usually free or very low cost
• WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Mambo
50. What a CMS System WON’T Do…
• Write your content!
• Persuade you to use it on a regular basis
• Set up a process for writing and editing
“Content management is not a technology problem.”
- Jeffrey Veen
51. A word of warning
• To be able to SEO your
site, you will need:
• Access to the meta data
such as Title Tag etc
• To be able to update
web pages yourself
• Whether this is via DIY or
web designed site –
you need access
52. Planning Effective Web Content
Developing a web brief –
(for yourself or a web developer)
53. Writing a web brief
• About your company
• Target audience(s)
• Objectives
• Most important action(s)
• Look and feel
• Functionality
• Content management
• Search engine optimisation - access
54. Writing a web brief: Part 2
• Logos and branding
• Your contact details
• Timescales
• Existing marketing programmes
• Competitors
• What you don’t need or want
• Your budget
55. Writing a web brief: Part 3
• Reference sites
• Proposed works / payment schedule
• Terms and conditions & Confidentiality
• Project plan
• Testing
• Contract
• Additional costs – hosting, PPC, images
• Additional work costs (daily rate)
• Financial status of the supplier
56. Choosing your agency
• If you’re using an outside agency..
• What are you looking for in a web designer/developer?
• How do you choose the best provider?
• What about social media?
57. Keeping good relationships
• Identify your point of contact
• Stay in contact with him /her
• Request regular project updates
• Stick to your deadlines
• Avoid “scope creep”
• Get everything in writing
59. • If you haven’t already, sign up for faster broadband
• Forms are on the sign-in desk with Charlotte
• Go to www.onlincolnshire.org and find out more
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