Websites: Creating Effective Content and Launching Your Site Aug 2014
- 1. Websites: Creating Effective Content and Launching Your Site
- 2. Housekeeping
- 4. What can we achieve today? Inspire Direct Inform
- 5. Learning outcomes 1. Identify content for your site that is valuable for users and marketing 2. Evaluate what images will work well on your site 3. Understand the benefits of telling your story through video on your site 4. Compose a task list of what to do when launching your site
- 7. Building a site – what to consider 1. Design / Appearance (front end) 2. Usability 3. Functionality 4. Content 5. Search Engine Optimisation
- 8. Content –Top 5 tips 1. Write content that is easy to skim start with conclusion at the top limit each paragraph to one key concept use meaningful headings (good for accessibility) use bullet points and number lists 2. Keep wording short and simple 3. Know your audience imagine who they are and write with them in mind
- 9. Content – Top 5 Tips 4. Build trust be factual and accurate Check for typos and spell check Keep content up to date 5. Be generous with your expert knowledge be seen as an authority don’t give it all out at once, digestible pieces Have a clear call to action
- 10. Content tools It’s as simple as a Word doc Set up heading structure to reflect site
- 11. What’s on your page Links Downloads Images Icons Video Email signup
- 12. Links 1.Internal links 2.External Links 3.Backlinks *to your site* 4.Download links
- 13. Value of links 1. Get people to the ‘checkout’ 2. Help with navigation 3. Help search engines indexing your site 4. Improve referral traffic
- 15. Hyperlink Tips 1. Try to avoid cluttering the page with too many links. 2. Make sure people can see everything that is in your site in the navigation. 3. Make sure that in-text links are meaningful, so that visitors know where they are going. Avoid terms like ‘click here’. This is especially important for people who use screen readers and other devices. 4. When linking to a document, image, spreadsheet or database file, make it clear that the user is initiating a download by clicking on that link.
- 16. Bad document linking Click here to download this document.
- 17. Good document linking You can download our guide to better linking here (PDF 350kb)
- 19. Email signups
- 20. Images – what your site needs 1. photographs of business premises, people and products 2. company logos 3. diagrams and other illustrations that describe business products and services 4. maps of business locations.
- 21. Images – what your site needs Write a shot list for your site Have it Need it Building Shot Product shots People Shot Map Internal Shots Logo
- 22. Your own images 1. High quality 2. Authentic 3. Up to date 4. Professionally shot where possible 5. Add image credits where appropriate 6. Need to tell a story 7. Convey your personality
- 26. Intellectual Property Intellectual Property law (with some exceptions) requires that you obtain permission from the copyright owner (or relevant rights holder) before using copyright material.
- 27. Image copyright If you don’t own it – you shouldn’t use it.
- 29. Stock Libraries Shutterstock (international) Australian Stock Images (Australian) Oz Stock (Australian) Australia Stock Photos (Australian) iStockphoto (international) Getty images (international) Stock Exchange (international) http://search.creativecommons.org/
- 32. Images 1. Use high res images wherever possible 2. Save files in format suitable for web e.g. PNG or JPG 3. Resize image for size of space where it is going on the website. 4. Find a suitable program to edit images
- 35. Free image editing programs 1. Pic Monkey - http://www.picmonkey.com/ 2. Photoshop Express Editor - http://www.photoshop.com/tools?wf=editor 3. GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/
- 36. Icons 1. Create visual quick links 2. Provide visual cues and clues 3. Need to be relevant to your customer
- 38. Video Pictures might tell a thousand words – but a video will tell more of the story.
- 39. Why bother with video? • More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month • 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute • Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than last year • Google search loves video
- 40. Video Create Video • Relevant topic • Keep it simple – shoot on your smart phone or camera • Edit the rough bits Add to youtube • Create Channel (google acct.) • Upload video • Add description • Get embed link Embed in site • Create a page • Insert the embed code • Press play!
- 43. Launching your site - Checklist Check the site content Check all links incl. downloads Test your forms Redirect your domain name Keep a close eye on site for first 30 days Check your analytics
- 44. Site Launch SEO tasks 1. Ensure you know your keywords 2. Have Google Analytics installed 3. Have a site map 4. Submit your site to Google 5. Start building back links with other businesses 6. Submit it to Google myBusiness (use to be Google Places)
- 46. Next steps 1. Put together your image shot list 2. Get your content in order and organised 3. Sort out your links and downloads 4. Look into video 5. Get your launch checklist together 6. Start thinking about marketing your site
Editor's Notes
- #3: Site safety – bags under desks, mindful of cords etc
- #4: Based down the road in Dickson Some of you will have seen Todd Wright present on other marketing and social media topics Introduce myself – I look after the website projects for Threesides and will share….
- #5: INFORM we are here to inform you with some basic tactics and an overview of how to create effective content for a new or existing website – we only have a short time today so we aim to INSPIRE you to do further research and will DIRECT you to various resources today that you look at in your own time.
- #7: Today we are going to look at content and functionality and launching your site. However there are a few other components of a website you’ll need before now to get your site live. First – Domain name which is the address of your website (www.threesides.com.au) you domain can be hosted by a number of providers and doesn’t have to be hosted with your website (where you purchased the domain) We always encourage our clients to buy the .com and .com.au and if a community org. then the .org.au and org.com. Buying obvious spelling variations of domain name as well can be helpful to ensure competitors or organisation you don’t want to be associated or confused with. Hosting – Website and content MUST be hosted not just the domain. You need hosting to be able to see online. Make sure DNS is pointing to host provider. Content Mgmt – You may use a content mgmt. system to help manage the content on your webstie. Such as Word Press, drupal, joomla. Bigges advantage of CMS is that you can make changes across a whole site and quickly, and you’re less likely to break formatting and links.
- #8: Five major parts to building a site, today we are going to focus on CONTENT and although we wont be talking about SEO a number of the suggestions we make today will improve your SEO.
- #9: Get to the point up front Heading styles and Keywords in headings (h1 tags), Google give more weighting to content that is using the heading styles (especially H1) But it is also good for accessibility, because people using screen readers will actually skim content by moving from heading to heading. Headlines need to refer to the content directly below it so it makes sense. Use an image of ideal target market (client) to prompt who you are writing for KISS
- #15: Encourage to click ‘open link in a new window/tab’ with external websites. If they close down the tab your site will still be open in the background.
- #19: Important to name files before they are uploaded to the website (keywords if possible) Images/PDFs/Video bla bla You can start doing this right now
- #24: Canberra accounting firm, their intended branding is to not look like typical accountants, want to be a fun organisation to deal with
- #25: The Ruc – where do you think they work? What do you think it’s like to work here
- #26: Bec – What type of person do you think she’s like? Wanna test, ring Threesides.
- #32: There are a range of creative common licenses, go through examples ATRIBUTION and ATRIBUTION NON COMMERCIAL Go to creativecommons.org.au
- #39: Great for authentic testimonials