Optimising your web presence

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Optimising your web presence

• Simon Brock
• Wide Area Communications

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Introduction

• Background
• What is your web presence?
• How do you use the web as part of your business?
• How do you optimise that use
• Conclusions

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Background

• Wide Area was founded in 1995
• Most of the business is serving publishers
• Web site creation
• Content management
• E-commerce
• Online strategy

4
On the web

• everyone is a publisher
• We all have
• Our own home page
• Our own blog
• Hundreds of people visit our website every day,
  and
• Every day I check all my staffs blogs

5
Which is wrong

• There is a difference between
• Owning content
• Publishing content
• There is a discipline to publishing
• We will need to understand a little of that
  discipline

6
What is a web presence?

• There are two parts
• The part people see your web site
• The part you see how you use web services
• Will concentrate on the first but I will offer an
  observation on the other at the end

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Your web site

• A companys web site can serve many purposes
• Brochure
• Shop front
• Communication channel
• Many web site are not built for purpose

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The Field of Dreams web site

• If you build it they will come

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If you build it they will come

• Very much the mantra of the .com bubble sites
• Was never true
• Building a web site is the start of a process and
  not the end of a process
• Even now, poor choices mean web sites cannot be
  changed

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What can we learn from this

• Your web presence must be part of your business
• If you have a brochure site mention it everywhere
• Keep your site up to date
• It should not be expensive to keep your site up
  to date

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If you build it, will come

• The rise of the search engine has affected how
  web sites are structured
• Many companies are now completely dependent on
  search engines to generate audience

12
The death of the home page

• A site used to be designed from the home page to
  listing page to article
• Google takes people to article pages
• On some sites, 90 of users never see the home
  page

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Every page is a home page

• If you dont want the first page a user sees to
  be the last page then
• Every page must be a home page
• If not then your user is only two clicks away
  from your competitor

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Every page must

• Have clear calls to action
• Make sure it shows content which is important to
  the user
• Show content which is important to you
• Must not be a dead end

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If they built it might come

• The mantra of the SEO industry
• Search engine optimisation is important
• SEO is also obvious and simple

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The SEO rapper

• To understand SEO, seek out the Poetic Prophet
  the SEO rapper

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Your web provision should

• Implement search engine folk lore
• Create meta tags
• Allow you to change titles and descriptions
• Have pages which are search friendly

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Ranking

• Ranking is a method by which a search engine
  decides if your site has value
• It is dependent on whether other people value
  your site and link to it

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What about PPC

• Pay per click is important
• Google is not search engine
• Google is an advertising engine
• Two forms of adverts
• Paid for on the RHS
• Free in the middle
• SEO says you pay for both!

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When Google breaks
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How you use the web

• Web is bringing applications into organisations
  as services
• Google Apps
• Microsoft Exchange, Share Point
• Salesforce.com

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Simons diary

• 10am Meet with WorkingMums.co.ukUsing
  SalesForce to manage clients
• 2pm Meet with national newspaperUsing
  SalesForce to manage subscribers
• 7pm Meet friend for drinkMajor software house
  developing solutions with Salesforce

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Remember this

• The left and right will use the web effectively
  because
• They can
• They must
• The M business will be squeezed

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Conclusions

• Always remember the web is part of your business
• Your web presence should be adaptable and
  flexible
• You should understand your relationship with the
  web
• The web will continue to change your business