The presentation outlines a best practice principles for website creation - considering overall strategy - and the tactical areas of goal setting, content creation, usability, branding, search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media optimisation (SMO). The presentation includes easy to follow practical tips for all businesses.

1. Making the most of your website
Tips to ensure that your website adds value to your business
Prepared for the University of Oxford Begbroke Transfer
Wednesday, 2 November 2011

2. Introductions

3. Who is Obergine?
Full service digital marketing agency.
We create online and mobile solutions that add value
to our clients and their customers.
Clients include:
 Oxford University Press
 University of Reading
 Concha y Toro
 Cono Sur Vineyards & Winery

4. About the presenter
Jeremy Anderson
Digital director
Jeremy is a founding partner of Obergine and is
responsible for client services and digital strategy.
With over 15 years as a digital marketing
professional, Jeremy has expertise in:
 Web design
 Content management and e-commerce
 Mobile sites and apps
 Digital, search and social media marketing
 Web and data analytics

5. Planning a successful website

6. Know your audience
 Who is your target audience?
 What are their goals?
 What motivates them?
 Are they skilled internet users?
 What do they want to achieve by visiting the site?
 What information do they need from the site?
Create personas in order to profile them…
 Personas describes the goals, skills, attitudes, motivations and
environment of a specific user group.
 Examples include “scientists”, “investors” and “researchers”

7. Solid strategy
Reach
Make it easy for your target audience to find your
business and engage with you online
Convert Reach Convert
When people visit your website – recognise that they
are looking for an answer to a need and the website

must facilitate this quickly and easily
Retain
Retain
Empathise with your customers and respond to their
needs to ensure that long term satisfying
relationships are formed

8. What are the tactical areas do you need to consider?

9. Comprehensive tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

10. Goals Goal tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

11. Goal fundamentals Goal tactics
Your website needs to achieve business
goals such as investor enquiries, membership,
sales and data collection

12. People want information quickly Goal tactics
Business goals not clear
Lack of calls to action
No visible contact details
Third party certifications
Data capture buggy and no
privacy policy in place
Google Analytics in place
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
N/A

13. Clarify what you do, why & who for Goal tactics
Clear business objectives
Clear products
Market specific info available
Qualified data capture
No email opt-in
Too many mandatory fields
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
N/A

14. Content
Content tactics tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

15. Content
Content fundamentals tactics
The best content is relevant, clear and
useful and available in different media
formats

16. Content
Keep content current tactics
Text heavy content
Overly technical content
News not current
Good clear diagrams
Embedded BBC video
Photography is relevant
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain

17. Content
Make online content easy to digest tactics
Short paragraphs
Bullets and sub-headings
Content cross-selling
Rotating content
Events not showcased
No dates or RSS on news feed
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
P

18. Usability
Usability tactics tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

19. Usability
Usability fundamentals tactics
Make it easy for visitors navigate the
website, locate the information they need
and perform the tasks required

20. Usability
Simple and logical site hierarchy tactics
Clear calls-to-action
Logo links to the homepage
Verbose link hover text
Breadcrumbs trail
Branded 404 page in place
External links in same window
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
N/A P

21. Usability
Make sure your site is not buggy tactics
Duplicate navigation not clear
Content/navigation mismatch
No breadcrumbs trail
Pages display error messages
Faulty data encryption
Validation is clear and robust
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
N/A O O

22. Branding
Branding tactics tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

23. Branding
Branding fundamentals tactics
Your website needs a recognisable design
with the content to invoke an emotional
response that reinforces the brand
identity

24. Branding
Branding needs a clear identity tactics
No logo
Limited branding on site
No tab/bookmark favicon
Generic pictures
Consistent professional copy
Consistent colours
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
N/A O

25. Branding
Branding needs consistency tactics
Consistent and deep branding
Consistent colour pallet
Consistent tone of voice
Brand story video
Tab/bookmark favicon present
Social media branding aligned
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain
N/A P

26. SEO tactics SEO tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

27. SEO fundamentals SEO tactics
Build your site for easy indexing
Keep your content fresh and relevant
Maximise diversity and volume of quality
backlinks

28. Why is SEO important? SEO tactics
 Over 85% of prospective customers use the internet to find what they
are looking for
 Seven out of ten users click a search result within the first page of
results
 Only 8% of users venture beyond the third page of search results
A good ranking on a major search engine
can make the difference between
commercial success and failure

29. SEO top tips SEO tactics
1. Search engine results are ads 6. Quality backlink diversity
2. Be consistent and relevant 7. Outbound links matter
3. Localise your content 8. Be social
4. Link text must work out-of-context 9. Get listed locally
5. Keep your content fresh 10. Make sure your site is fast

30. Social media optimisation tactics SMO tactics
Reach Convert Retain
Goals Goals
Content Content Content
Usability Usability
Branding Branding
Search engine
optimisation (SEO)
Social media Social media Social media
optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO) optimisation (SMO)

31. Social media fundamentals SMO tactics
Be active in social media, push and pull
content to/from social media channels and
encourage user generated content

32. Be active, friendly and genuine SMO tactics
Social media promoted on site
Branded social media
Facebook, Youtube & Twitter
Informative, relevant, and
constant dialogue
Facebook “like-gate”
Can not share content from site
Performance against core strategies
Reach Convert Retain

33. Takeaways

34. Goal tactics
 Review your website goals and ask yourself if there are missed opportunities for the website to
help your business
 Display contact information on all website pages
 Measure website performance and user interactions – Google Analytics is highly effective and a
great free tool
 Capture email addresses for email marketing at every data capture touchpoint
 Include a privacy policy on website that explains clearly what data is captured by the website, who
it is used and how the user can be removed from any marketing database
 Make call-to-actions for investor enquiries, membership, events and contact requests clearly
visible across the website

35. Content tactics
 Use photography and video to promote your products, services and events
 Align page content with photography used
 Ensure that content can be printed, downloaded as a PDF and also available online
 Include third party certifications
 Promote new and updated content and remove old content as soon as it lacks relevancy
 Spell check and proof read your content before publication
 Create content for your target audiences eg., “conferences” and “demonstrations”
 Cross-sell content across the site

36. Usability tactics
 Navigation controls should use different colours and styles indicate when selected or activated
 For sites that include sub-pages, always have a breadcrumbs trail
 All call-to-actions (secondary, primary and tertiary) should use clear language and styling
 Utilise link descriptions to provide tool tips that aid the user journey and set user expectations
 On data capture forms, ensure that mandatory fields are clearly indicated and that any field that
fails error validation is highlighted
 When linking to external sites and/or PDF files ensure that they launch in a new browser window
 Use imagery (eg., embedded maps on contact pages) to help provide context and clarity to content
 On large sites provide a site wide free text search

37. Branding tactics
 Implement your brand so that it reflects the credibility and reputation of your business
 Your website design should consider fonts, styles and colour palletes holistically and should not be
limited to the logo
 Your social media channel branding needs to reflect your website design and branding
 Brand both your 404 “missing page” and browser tab/bookmark favicons
 Use the same tone of voice for your website copy as you do for social media channel
communications
 Use photography that shows off your products, philosophy and innovation in situ ie., with real
examples
 Reward your customers for their custom with useful content and initiatives that encourage repeat
visits [JA]

38. Search engine optimisation tactics (1 of 2)
 Google listings are ads - all your pages need unique page titles and descriptions with the page
description expanding upon and substantiating the page title
 Relevancy - our page title and primary page header need to be tightly aligned and use the same
keywords
 Link text - ensure that all your internal links are verbose and make sense out of-context
 Quality backlink diversity - get your business talked about within a range of industry blogs,
societies, universities and local/national press with backlinks to your site
 Outbound links - be generous with your links and link out to other sites within your content
 Content freshness - create content on a regular basis that people will find useful, discuss and link
to

39. Search engine optimisation tactics (2 of 2)
 Social signals - engage with people on social media channels and publish links to your content on
these channels
 Get local – register your business with Google Places, Bing for Business and Yahoo Local and
include local keywords in your content
 Speed matters – make sure your site loads quickly

40. Social media optimisation tactics (1 of 2)
 Start with Twitter and LinkedIn – then consider other channels such as Facebook and Youtube
 Brand your social media channels
 Use social media to engage with those influential in your industry eg., medical industry bloggers
 Be active! Engage with people every day
 Post information about your products and services on LinkedIn
 Integrate Twitter feeds on to your website
 Provide content sharing facilities on your website to allow sharing content via email & social media
 If you have a blog – allow this to be syndicated via RSS and encourage people to comment upon
your posts

41. Social media optimisation tactics (2 of 2)
 Be generous - give back to those who interact and share your content
 You're human - communicate like one and do not hide behind a brand name
 Post information about your products and services on LinkedIn
 Include shortened links (ie., http://bit.ly) whenever you can in your posts on Twitter
 Link your Twitter and LinkedIn social media channels - one tweet can then get published in 3
places if you have integrated a Twitter feed on your website!
 Don’t link Twitter to Facebook – instead use Facebook’s wall to post different and longer updates
that offered by Twitter’s 140 character limit
 Create Facebook pages and not groups and claim your Facebook vanity URL (ie., web address)
such as http://www.facebook.com/obergine.agency by getting 25 followers ASAP – ask your
friends, families, colleagues and staff!

42. Any questions?

43. Thank you
If you have any questions or wish to discuss your digital or print marketing activities with Obergine,
please contact us using the details below.
Jeremy Anderson Obergine
Mob: +44 (0)7718 781189 The Jam Factory
Tel: +44 (0)1865 245777 27 Park End Street
Email: info@obergine.com Oxford OX1 1HU
Web: http://www.obergine.com United Kingdom
Twitter: http://twitter.com/obergine
Facebook: http://facebook.com/obergine.agency