Web 2.0 Testing and Marketing

E-engagement capacity enhancement for NGOs

HKU ExCEL3

Content

• Testing– Usability Testing– Landing Page Optimization Testing– Website Analytics

• Online Marketing– Search Engine Marketing– Email Marketing– Affiliate Marketing

PERFORMANCE & TESTING

Usability Testing

• Utility: Whether a website serves its intended function.• Usability: how easy a website is to use.• Besides checking a website’s utility, usability testing is

also very important because people will leave the website if– It is difficult to use– Users get lost in the website– The purpose or message of the website is not immediately

clear– The website does not load properly

Usability Testing

• There are 5 components to usability1. Learnability2. Efficiency3. Memorability4. Errors5. Satisfaction

Usability Testing

• There are 5 components to usability1. Learnability:

how easy is it for users to get the hang of things the first time they use the website?

2. Efficiency: how quickly can users perform a task once

they are familiar with the website

Usability Testing

• There are 5 components to usability3. Memorability:

After not using the website for a long time, how easy is it to use it again?

4. Errors: Did the user make any errors, how many

and how severe were the errors?

Usability Testing

• There are 5 components to usability5. Satisfaction:

How pleasant is it to use the website?

Usability Testing

• The 3 main categories for usability testing include– Explorative– Assessment– Comparative

Usability Testing

• The 3 main categories for usability testing include– Explorative:• Used to assess prototypes, ideas, thought processes,

concepts or initials designs.• Generally applied to the earlier stages of website

production to assess users’ natural behaviours when interacting with websites and testing out design ideas.

Usability Testing

• The 3 main categories for usability testing include– Assessment:• To test overall usability test, mid-way testing to arrive

at a final design, testing during redevelopments, or when website traffic shows an anomaly.

Usability Testing

• The 3 main categories for usability testing include– Comparative: • Comparing two or more designs to identify strengths

and weaknesses.• Can be applied to comparing new and old designs or

comparing competitors designs.

Usability Testing

• The process of usability testing is as follows:1. Choose your testers 2. Before testing, put test subject at ease and give

them clear instructions.3. Start test with open-ended questions.4. Start task(s) and ask the subject the continually

voice their thought process out loud.5. End of testing by debriefing and answering any

remaining questions.

Usability Testing

• Choosing your testers– Testers can be chosen through a variety of

methods• Hallway testing: Choosing any friends, family, contacts

who are unfamiliar with the website• Remote testing / marketing firms: participants from

certain demographic or psychographic background can be chosen for representativeness• Expert: an experienced professional in the field may be

able to offer deeper insights

Usability Testing

• To ensure a consistent experience for participants, a script should be prepared in advance for giving the testing instructions.

• Plan how the observation will be conducted. Will the participant be video taped or will everything just be recorded by observers.

• Test in a comfortable environment, across various operating systems and browsers.

Usability Testing

• Usability testing aims to find out whether users understand the purpose of each page, understands the navigation system, and are able to find and search for things.

• General usability tests can find out how users interact with the website, what they like / dislike, what is difficult to do / understand, whether users get lost, and whether any parts of the website cause users to be mistrustful.

• Specific tasks looks into the details of accomplishing or finding something and whether there are errors.

Usability Testing

• Usability tests are usually one hour or less.

• A sample of about 5 subjects should be enough to find most of the major errors.

• Best practices suggest that it is reasonable to spend 10% of the website design budget on usability testing.

ONLINE MARKETING

Search Engine Marketing

• Besides organic (i.e., natural) search results, there are also paid search results.

• Buying the advertisements for certain keywords is known as: Search Engine Marketing– In Google, this is known as AdWords where you

“buy” keywords and you pay when someone clicks on your link.• Google Grant offers a certain amount of money to NGOs

each year to spend on AdWords.

Search Engine Marketing

• Before buying keywords, it is important to figure out a budget first and to research possible keywords.

• Google offers some free tools to help with this type of research e.g., Google’s “keyword tool”

Search Engine Marketing

• When buying keywords, remember that you can tailor different keywords to different / relevant landing pages.

• There are options that comes with buying and some keywords you can buy for only certain hours of the day and can also restrict by location.

• When choosing the keywords to buy, think carefully about the focus of that landing page and all the possible / likely phrases that will be used in the search query.

Search Engine Marketing

• Don’t forget to test the heading and description in your ad to find out what is the most effective.

• Check back on your account often to adjust pricing and keywords accordingly.

• Evaluate your ads often:– Look at impressions (i.e., number of views)– How many are converting (i.e., result in a kiss)

Email Marketing

• Newsletters are a great way to keep users updated and to reach out and engage them.

• This is also an opportunity to tailor your communication with your user base and people in your email list can be segmented into meaningful groups so that emails can be tailored for each group.

• Remember to build into your website prominent links and call-to-actions that encourage users to sign up for your newsletters.

Email Marketing

• Emails are just like landing pages and can also be tested for different working or layouts or designs.

• Emails can be used to encourage donations and keep donors up to speed on the results of their donations.

References