So how can we connect with our audience?

So how can we connect with our audience?

Web site ?

Platypus

Working in computing over 30 years in academia and business

Set up first web servers in QUB, co-ordinated webmasters and department representatives to build Queen’s first web site

Started Ireland’s first Internet Service Provider in 1994, providing connections and developing content management for web sites, first clients Belfast Telegraph…

Now specialise in software development that takes full advantage of the web, easy owner operation, optimised for search engines

Run workshops on web related topics, such as, How to maximise your online presence, Creating a more powerful web using RDFa…

The first decade of the 21st century…

http://www.cinema-and-movies.com/








The SEO challenge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8



Web site ?Search engines

Back to basics

How search engines workSearch engine “spider” software crawls through text on a web site

As it goes, it builds a word index for that web site in the search engine

Once indexed, it assumes a default re-indexing frequency

When due, the spider returns to site and re-indexes the words

If lots of changes, it increases re-indexing frequency

The more quickly a site changes, the more frequent spider returns

Back to basics

What search engine?

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4










Back to basics

How do we use a search engineThis index of words is then queried when we do a ‘search’

Search results are displayed depending on the search keywords we use

100s of different factors are considered in determining results rankings

Our behaviour… we rarely go beyond three pages of search results

We’d rather change the keywords we’ve used and try again

Back to basics

Back to basics

Search engines—signposts or advertising billboards?

Google seems to encourage the signpost approach…

Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Submit a sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools—uses sitemap to learn about your site structure and to increase coverage of your web pages

1

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?&answer=35769

http://www.google.com/addurl.html





http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/




Design and content guidelines

Titles—what you do, first word important, short, 65 characters

Make sure that <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive

Pages—each page must have a different title

Make sure your meta description ‘sells’ the page to the searcher

Think about keywords and make sure that your site includes them

Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords

2






http://www.i2-biz.net

http://www.i2-biz.net/

Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links

Offer a sitemap to your users

Create a useful, information-rich site, with accurate pages

Add content regularly

Use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links

Check for broken links and correct HTML

Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)



3




Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google when content last changed

Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content

Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server

If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system creates pages and links that search engines can crawl

Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of pages that don't add much value

Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers

Technical guidelines


4

http://www.platypusconsultancy.com/robots.txt





Web site ?Know who they are

Establishing desirable target audience

Determine your audience profileDemographics—age, gender, location, incomeWhat particular interests, influences, beliefsWhat media will they be using (desktop, mobile, home, work)

How many are thereAny relevant behavioral trendsClarify how to deliver value to your audienceWhat do you want to achieve when users visitWhat is your goal or "conversion" metricHow will you measure this

Knowing your audience

Compare keyword phrases and see trends over time and per countryhttp://www.google.com/trends

Make sure all links are workinghttp://validator.w3.org/checklink

Introduction to Google's web site optimiserhttp://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/tour.html

Identify suitable keywords and see popularityhttps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Find what pages have been indexed by Google—site:<domain name>

Find how many sites link to you—link:<web site>

Useful "tools" of the trade

http://www.google.com/trends



http://validator.w3.org/checklink

http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/tour.html

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal






Getting started with Google Analytics

Create a Google account

Identify your unique web ID

Insert unique ID into Javascript tracking code and add this code to all pages (which links to JavaScript library on the Google servers)

After logging in to your account you may select reports of interest from your Google Analytics dashboard

Google analytics

http://services.google.com/analytics/tour/index_en-GB.html

Getting started with Google Analytics

Create a Google account

Identify your unique web ID

Insert unique ID into Javascript tracking code and add this code to all pages (which links to JavaScript library on the Google servers)

After logging in to your account you may select reports of interest from your Google Analytics dashboard

Google analytics



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qfG2d9etvk

World map overlay—zoom in shows cities site accessed





Measuring and analysing access with Google AnalyticsTrack and analyse user behaviourShow how users find your siteShow where users go on your siteCompare metrics for one page against all othersView how metrics are changing over timeVisuals of geographic spread of visitorsAggregate several web sites or split parts of one siteShow ‘bounce rate’

http://www.google.com/analytics/support.htmlhttp://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity

http://www.google.com/analytics/support.html



http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity




Web site ?


Social web tools

Opportunities & Challenges!Opportunities & Challenges!

What is mentioned most in social media sites?

http://infegy.com/buzzstudy/social-radar-top-50-social-brands-of-2009/

Top 50 social brands of 2009

Adam CoomesJanuary 04, 2010

The Social Radar top 50 measures the brands with the most active web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the web during all of 2008 and 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions.



1 Twitter

2 Google

3 Facebook

4 iPhone

5 YouTube

6 Obama

7 Mac

8 Apple

9 iPod

10 Microsoft




11 Windows

12 MySpace

13 Yahoo

14 Amazon

15 Fox

16 Disney

17 BlackBerry

18 Firefox

19 BBC

20 Wii




21 Sony

22 XBox

23 Playstation

24 Linux

25 CNN

26 MTV

27 AT&T

28 eBay

29 Starbucks

30 NFL




31 Android

32 Nokia

33 Ford

34 ABC

35 Skype

36 Dell

37 UPS

38 Wikipedia

39 NBA

40 LG




41 ESPN

42 Oprah

43 Samsung

44 NASA

45 Nintendo

46 Canon

47 Nike

48 Gap

49 Kindle

50 Intel


Business purposes of social networking sites

Establish pointers to web site by attracting initial audience attention and developing a relationship.

Create brand. Very important—web site visitors often only seeking confirmation after having made an initial decision to use a product or service following research on social networking sites.

Peer reviews—very influential.

Marketing!

Use of social networking sites

Is online reputation management the new Search Engine Optimisation?Niall McKeownNiall's Online Marketing Blog, 9 December 2009

There is a strong argument that being #1 in the natural search engine results in Google for some industries is no longer what it used to be. I'm not arguing that search is irrelevant or that a site should not be built optimised for search engines, my argument is that the customer and how they purchase has little to do with being top of Google. Rather, it is how you are represented in terms of your online reputation. My argument is that online reputation management is fast becoming more important than search engine optimisation in service based industries. Better still, get your ORM right and the SEO takes care of itself.

Search Engine Optimisation effectiveness

http://blog.ionom.com/2009/12/is-online-reputation-management-the-new-search-engine-optimisation/

How twitter is changing our lives

Mary Gazze, CTV.ca News StaffJanuary 1, 2010

If you weren't one of the hundreds of thousands of people who jumped on the twitter bandwagon this year, you might be missing out. Even if you don't want to know what your friends had for breakfast, users and experts say twitter has changed our lives this year.

And if making new friends isn't for you and if you don't care about getting messages directly from celebs, politicians or companies, tech experts say you are robbing yourself by not taking part in a medium that keeps people informed about world events and even giving us a peek inside countries that are closed to the Western world.

Other reasons for using social networking sites

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091218/holiday_twitter_100101/20100101

Evaluate what’s right for your company

Twitter—140 characters on ‘what you are doing’, observations

The Value Of Twitter Is In "The Power Of Passed Links”. It is predicted at current growth rates, Twitter "will surpass Google for many websites in the next year." And that just as nearly every site on the Web has become addicted to Google juice, they will increasingly try to find ways to get more links from Twitter. Because Twitter equals traffic... Moreover, he asserts that these Twitter links “convert better” than search links because they are often pre-filtered and come in the form of a recommendation from someone you are following. TechCrunch, June 2009

Twitter FAQs, http://bit.ly/4CB5l

Other reasons for using social networking sites


Seeking investment

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0122/1224262838183.html

Software company completes fundraising using only LinkedIn, Gordon Smith

The Irish Times, Friday, January 22, 2010

GOSHIDO, A Limerick company which has developed software for managing projects, has completed a private fundraising round using only the social networking website LinkedIn.

According to executive chairman Frank Hannigan, the company is selling off 10 slots to investors at €25,000 each equivalent to a 2 per cent stake in the company. Seven hundred e-mails were sent to potential investors through LinkedIn earlier this month, generating 200 replies by phone, e-mail and Twitter. The company raised €162,500 in just eight days.

LinkedInAs an individual, build up network of common-minded peopleYour relationships matter—http://www.linkedin.com/

Slideshare—presentations onlineMaximise awareness of ideas and link from blogsPresent yourself—http://www.slideshare.net/

BlogSharing knowledge in area of expertise, gain credibility, http://wordpress.com

FacebookBuild community,http://www.facebook.com/

YouTubeAdd video of your product and servicehttp://www.youtube.com Google Maps for office location—http://maps.google.co.uk/

Google’s local business centre—http://www.google.co.uk/lbc/

Social networking sites

Real time search

Google announcementsDecember 2009

Google's real-time search features are integrated into the Google search experience and surface highly relevant, fresh content from across the entire web including public content from social networks, news and micro-blogs

The new features are based on more than a dozen new search technologies that enable Google to monitor more than a billion documents a day for fresh updates and process hundreds of millions of daily changes.

Google's latest improvements

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXHHkROejik&feature=player_embedded#

TwitterLess frequent but more in depth blogsCommenting on public blogsFacebookLinkedinWikipediaYouTubeSlideshare

Most effective approach with social networking sites?

?

Technology

So how can we connect with our audience?