Creating a Winning EBusiness Second Edition

1
Creating a Winning E-BusinessSecond Edition

• Understanding Web Technologies
• Chapter 9

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Learning Objectives

• Identify Web site and Web page development tools
• Explain the importance of Web site testing
• Define Web site benchmarking
• Describe ways to measure Web site ROI using Web
  analytics
• Identify Web analytics software and service
  providers

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Web Site and Page Development Tools

• Tools a programmer or developer might use to
  create Web pages
• Markup languages
• Text editors
• HTML/XHTML editors
• Web authoring software
• Multimedia tools and scripting languages

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Markup languages
• Set of rules or tags embedded in an electronic
  document
• Describe data or define layout and formatting

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Markup languages (continued)
• Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)
• The ISO standard on which markup languages for
  the Web are based, including
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML)

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Streamlined subset of SGML
• Developed in 1996 by the XML Working Group at the
  W3C
• Used to describe data in documents transmitted
  over the Web
• XML tags are customizable and can identify any
  datathe sender and receiver must agree on what
  the tags represent

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Originally developed by Tim Berners-Lee
• Created to lay out and format documents for the
  Web
• Headings, text, tables, bulleted or numbered
  lists, images, links, and other style issues
• Became an SGML standard in the mid-1990s
• Tags are predefined

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• W3C sets the standards for HTML
• Adds or deletes predefined tags and properties
• Current standard is version 4.0.1
• More strict coding standards
• All tags now in opening/closing pairs and
  
• Tags written in lowercase
• Properties (attributes) used to define formatting
  being deprecated in favor of cascading style
  sheets

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML)
• Reformulation of HTML 4.0.1 into XML
• Current W3C standard for Web pages
• Benefits of XHTML
• Stricter coding rules to help eliminate coding
  errors and omissions
• Better structured documents that display in a
  browser more quickly
• Flexibility of custom tags

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Basic text editor software
• Used to create Web pages by manually typing tags
  and their properties as well as text content
• Lacks special features common to word processors
• Windows Notepad

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• HTML/XHTML editors
• Software designed specifically to create HTML or
  XHTML documents
• Special features that make inserting tags and
  properties easier
• TextPad
• BBEdit
• HomeSite
• HTMLPad

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Web authoring software
• WYSIWYG environment
• Similar to creating a document in a word
  processor
• Menu commands
• Toolbar buttons
• Automatically inserts HTML/XHTML code as user
  inserts and formats text, images, links, and
  other elements

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• FrontPage
• Similar to working in Microsoft Word
• Familiar working environment that shares common
  features with Microsoft Office products
• Easy to learn and use
• Inexpensive
• Offers design templates and multiple working
  views and sub-views

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Dreamweaver
• Industrial strength version of Web authoring
  software used by professionals
• More complex and perhaps more difficult to learn
  to use for a novice
• WYSIWYG environment
• Multiple working views

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Tools used to create and edit multimedia content
• Photoshop and Fireworks
• Create and edit animated GIFs
• Draw vector graphics
• Edit bitmap (raster) graphics

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Tools used to create and edit multimedia content
  (continued)
• Flash
• Originally designed to provide animation for
  vector graphics
• Used to create Web page ads or online product
  tutorials
• Used to create interactive Web sites
• Viewer must have Flash player plug-in installed

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Tools used to create and edit multimedia content
  (continued)
• FreeHand
• Graphics design program
• Used to plan the layout of any document that
  contains graphics
• Brochures
• Product catalogs
• Web pages

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)
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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Tools used to create interactive Web page
  elements
• Java applets and servlets and ActiveX controls
• Small programs that execute at the server or in
  the browser when a Web page is served
• Control interactive Web page elements, such as
  clickable buttons and scroll bars

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Web Site and Page Development Tools (continued)

• Tools used to create interactive Web page
  elements (continued)
• JavaScript, JScript, PHP, CGI, and ASP
• Scripting or programming languages used to embed
  run-time instructions in a Web page
• Build Web pages on the fly from elements stored
  in databases
• Update databases with information from Web-based
  forms
• Open pages in pop-up windows

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Web Site Testing

• Test all Web page features and functions before
  they are published to a final destination server
• Links work correctly
• Data submitted by visitors on Web-based forms
  updates databases correctly
• Dynamic or interactive elements function properly

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Web Site Testing(continued)

• Web site should also undergo a stress test
• Ensure that the site can function properly with a
  heavy load of customer/visitor activity
• Hire outside testers, if necessary

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance

• Measure the performance of a live site on a
  regular basis
• Establish measurable performance benchmarks
• Evaluate actual performance against the
  benchmarks
• Learn from the experience and make necessary
  changes

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)

• Measure the performance of a live site on a
  regular basis (continued)
• Revisit performance benchmarks and make changes,
  if necessary
• Begin again

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)

• Benchmarks
• Performance-based goals
• Developed by observing actual performance of
  similar e-businesses or reviewing industry
  averages
• Typically include sales goals
• Typically include evaluation of visitors actions
  at the Web site

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)

• Web analytics
• Used to help determine Web site return on
  investment (ROI)
• Identifies and measures visitor behaviors and
  actions
• Visit or session measures continuous requests for
  pages by a single visitors Web browser for a
  specific period of time

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)

• Web analytics (continued)
• Unique visitors measures the number of individual
  visitors to a site
• Repeat visitors measures unique visitors who
  return to the site
• Page views or impressions measures the number of
  times a specific page is viewed
• Page views per visitor measures how deep a
  visitor goes into a site

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)

• Web analytics (continued)
• IP addresses identifies origin of unique visitors
• Referring URLs indicates how visitors reached the
  site
• Browser type identifies which browsers visitors
  are using
• Click-stream analysis shows the path visitors
  take from page to page at the site
• Conversion rate indicates the rate at which
  visitors become customers

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)

• Web analytics (continued)
• Shopping cart abandonment indicates how many
  customers fail to complete their purchase
• Web analytics measurement tools
• Server log analysis
• Page tagging

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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)
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Evaluating Web SitePerformance (continued)
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Chapter Summary

• Markup languages are a set of rules or tags that
  are embedded in an electronic document SGML,
  HTML, XML, and XHTML
• Text editors are used to manually create Web
  pages by typing HTML or XHTML tags and properties
  as well as typing text and inserting pictures.
• HTML/XHTML editors provide tools for quickly
  inserting tags

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Chapter Summary(continued)

• Web authoring tools provide a familiar WYSIWYG
  environment with toolbars and menus
• FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Flash, FreeHand,
  Photoshop, and Fireworks are popular Web
  authoring and multimedia tools
• Java applets, servlets, ActiveX controls, PHP,
  JavaScript, JScript, CGI, and ASP provide Web
  page interactivity

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Chapter Summary(continued)

• Web pages must be thoroughly tested before they
  are uploaded to a live Web server
• Web site performance must be monitored by setting
  benchmarks and evaluating actual performance
  against those benchmarks
• Web analytics is a system of Web site performance
  measures based on server log analysis and page
  tagging