The document provides an overview of building an effective website. It discusses determining goals and audience, developing content strategy, designing user experience, and optimizing performance. The presentation covers planning the site purpose and needs, creating content, designing prototypes, building and deploying the site, and using analytics to improve it over time. Effective practices include defining personas, mapping content workflows, testing designs, and regularly analyzing metrics to enhance the site.
3. Taking the Audience’s Pulse
• How many people work on your website?
• How many people are overseeing an ecommerce
site?
• How big is your website?
• Who uses a blog?
• Who outsources their website?
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4. Overview
• The importance of a web site, worth the investment
• Real world constraints
• Each topic could be an hour
• Google it, do it
• Conversation, ask questions
Let’s Jump In
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5. What It Takes
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6. It’s Simple…
1. Planning – Ideation & Definition
– Determine why, set out your goals
– Specify who you are building it for
– Determine needs
– Set budget, evaluate in-sourcing and outsourcing
2. Execution - Build & Maintain
– Write content
– Build prototypes
– Create designs
– Build and deploy
3. Improve & Optimize Part of the plan!
– Measure performance & evaluate
– Iterate on #2
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7. Setting the Stage
•Starting from scratch vs
upkeep
–First 90 Days analogy, Michael
Watkins (turnaround, salvage,
continue success)
•A Balancing Act
–Planning & Strategy vs Execution &
Tactical
–Creativity vs Science
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8. Interweaving
As we go through the over-arching steps, we
will add to the tenants of running a website
Build on a foundation
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9. Ready Set Go
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10. Determine Why
• A site needs stated purpose
–Money? Attention? People?
• Specific activities
–Sign-ups, leads, social following, online store, etc.
• Document Everything
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11. Product Management
• Captain of the Ship, Quarterback, Director…
• Prioritization
• Site Strategy
• Wear the hat
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12. Get in the Goal
• Set Targets and Track against them
• Create a Dashboard (example)
• Stay Focused
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13. The Audience
• Define who you are talking to: personas
• Speak to that audience
• Limit by making tough decisions
• http://www.forrester.com/
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14. Needs
• Lots of blog posts? Sign-up forms? Credit cards?
• Static one-off?
• Execution & Support
• Mobile? Go responsive
– 55% cell owners go online
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16. Budget, In vs Out
• Wide ranging costs
• Be smart about spend, do what you’re good at, get
help with the rest
In-sourcing Outsourcing
•Requires staffing, guidance, •More expensive
leadership •Trust
•Quicker reaction time •Less hassle
•Longevity, dedication
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17. Thus far…
• We know why
• Specific visitor activities
• Goals are set
• There is a defined audience
• Our needs are clear
• What next?
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32. Problem 1: Silos
• Content workflow diagram
• Understand how content is created, who affects it,
and how.
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34. Problem 2: Clutter
• Content inventory
• Understand what content you have. Can
be quantitative or qualitative.
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38. Problem 3: Lack of Insight
• Channel map
–Understand how users interact with each piece of content
you create.
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40. Problem 3: Lack of Insight
• User testing
–Understand whether users are
able to find/do what they need.
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41. There’s so much more...
• Governance • Analytics
• Maintenance • Expert reviews
• SEO • Content reuse
• Gap analyses • Editorial calendars
• Reports
• Style guides
• Content matrices
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42. Helpful resources
for getting started
Content Strategy
for the Web,
by Halvorson & Rach
Letting Go of the
Words,
by Redish
Content Rules,
by Handley &
Chapman
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43. Write
• Have a clear message - http://letsembark.com/
• Create an inventory & map
• Set tone and voice
• Use a calendar
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44. Content Management Systems
• Use one
• Lets you manage and publish content easily
• Types
–Wordpress, Drupal, Squarespace, etc
• Easy to modify
• Ecommerce Platforms
–Magento, Spree Commerce,
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45. Set the Experience
• What is UX? IA? Hard to define…
• Map the user’s experience by persona
• Set homepage, major section, and page goals
• Build Prototypes
–Allows for discussion and manipulation
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46. UX Design Tools for Prototyping
• Axure – http://www.axure.com
• Balsamiq - http://www.balsamiq.com
• Visio
• Pen and Paper
• Whiteboards!
Check the app marketplace!
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47. Thus far…
• We know why
• Specific actions
• Goals are set
• There is an audience
• Our needs are clear
• Content comes first
• Experience maps or prototypes
• How do we make it enticing?
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48. Web Design Time
1. Stay consistent with color and typography
– Offline synchronization
2. Have a design or pattern library, style guide
– http://developer.android.com/design/index.html
3. Use mock-ups
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49. The Genius of Design(ers)
• Photoshop, Paintshop, Illustrator
• Spend time on Illustrations, photos, the graphical
–Not on bulleted lists, padding, font sizes (set by style)
• Leverage templates
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50. Build and Deploy
• Use source control
• Have a test environment, or two, or three
• Build a rigorous deploy process
• Deploy on schedules
• Project management tools
• Hosting
– Redundancy, Speed, Uptime, Security, Price
– Do Not DIY
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51. Optimize
• Analytics Tools
–Google Analytics, free, easy to use
–Revisit the process & flow
• Use Data to inform actions, back into the flow of
work
• AB Testing
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52. Tips
• Avoid using dates except where prudent
• Avoid Flash
• Use a blog, write regularly
• Have reports emailed to you
• Responsive design
• Google Webmaster account
• Landing pages
• Nonprofit Website Best Practices
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