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Gain a deep understanding of how tightly marketing is connected with web design. Information is readily available to support your web design decisions, whether it be through activity & insights gleaned from your analytics, engagement activity from your social media channels or direct feedback from your customers via online surveys.
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Website Redesign and theEssential Digital Marketing & Web
Development RelationshipJustin Klingman, Director of Web Software Development
Brad Henry, Director of Digital Marketing
@beacontec #csuc13
What We’ll Talk About
Marketing drives design in Web site redesigns
• Pre-Launch– Marketing– Analysis & Design– Development
• Development– Utilize Cascade’s SEO features
• Launch
• Post-Launch– Development– Marketing
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing
What’s the point?• Identify the major actions you want people to take on your
website• Ensure that you have conversion triggers that represent
visitors accomplishing those• Ensure you have data funnels that represent each of those
user flows• Departmental Input• Committee Selection
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing: Let Data Drive
Two major types of information we should utilize:1. Quantitative: Helps answers the “What happened”2. Qualitative: Helps answers the “Why it happened”
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing
•Analyze Data to understand funnel dropouts and user paths to conversions•Understand the Needs of your audience•Site Search Data
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing
• Gather Qualitative Data!• Understand visitor perceptions around critical areas
– Usability– Trustworthiness– Navigation– Brand Perception– Paths to Applications– Engagement Activities– Cost– Academics– Student Life– Quality– Value The right
message
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing: A&D for Analytics
• Start with your Business Specification– What do you want to know and why– What are the anticipated paths to KPIs– How does feature or function interaction impact those paths
• Develop your Technical Specifications to accomplish your business specs
• Plan for integration/customization of analytics code in the development process
• Plan for QA and attribution testing• Plan for configuration and customizations in the reporting
interface• Plan for training
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing
• Plan for intuitive and simple interaction• Organize your information hierarchy based on how users
interact with your content• Make your calls to action focused deliberate• Flow of information should be in the order in which majority
of users tend to access that information
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing
• Don’t forget Organic!• Perform extensive keyword analysis before naming
directories, files, images, and anchor texts.• Ensure that your development techniques are SEO friendly• Ensure proper internal Page Rank distribution
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Dev: Analysis & Design Phase
• Web Committee– Responsible for direction of redesign project and for all final decisions– Members should come from all target audiences and support staff
• Involve your Web Services Firm– Includes Project Manager, Digital Marketing Strategist, Developer,
Graphic Artist– Digital Marketing Strategist should be involved in all steps
MarketingITProspective StudentsCurrent StudentsAlumniFaculty/Staff
Chief Marketing OfficerChief Information OfficerVice Chancellor, Enrollment ServicesChair & Associate ProfessorStaff Member (Alumnus)Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor,Provost, Web Communications Specialist
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Dev: Analysis & Design Phase
Site Hierarchy
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Dev: Analysis & Design Phase
Content Inventory Matrix
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Dev: Responsive Design
• What is it?– Changes the layout of your site to
adapt to the device’s screen size– Not a separate mobile site
Desktop: http://www.gcccd.edu/ Mobile
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Dev: Responsive Design
• Advantages– Gives tablet/mobile user the desktop experience, just laid out
differently– Single HTML page, instead of a separate mobile site– Screen size-specific instead of device specific– Keep all functionality of main site, no matter the device– Scales to fit all screen sizes: desktop, tablet, smartphones
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing: Responsive Design
Analytics:• Redirects aren’t necessary to push visitors to new pages• Maintain sessions and originating source data• Removes duplication in tracking• Can segment mobile users based on screen resolutions• Can measure the improvements in site interaction due to responsive
design
Conversions:• Better usability equates to more conversions• Faster to use without needing to zoom• More intuitive input fields for mobile users
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PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Pre-Launch Marketing: Responsive Design
Organic Traffic
• Faster and easier development updates – one change affects all devices• Easier for search engines to crawl (and index website)• Improved Page Rank and Page Authority• Google recommends this development technique moving forward.
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“By 2015, there will be an average of 5.8 devices per person in North America…”
Cisco Visual Network Indexhttp://
www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns827/networking_solutions_sub_solution.html
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Development Phase
• Key Technical Optimizations– Robots.txt– Overall Canonical strategy– Crawling strategy– Responsive Design for Mobile– Rich Snippets
• SEO-friendly practices– Links
• Text based links using descriptive keywords• Never written in JavaScript or Flash
– Use <h> tags for all titles and headings– Include meta keywords and description fields on every page– Use hyphens for folder and page names (no spaces or underscores)– Unique page titles– Keep it clean!
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
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Development PhasePRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
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Development PhasePRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
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Launch Phase
• Soft Launch– Carefully consider timing: Not during especially high usage– Use http://new.beaconu.edu/ to start off with– Use 301 Redirects for orphaned pages to reduce number of 404s– Split Testing
• Send users to both new and old site• Constant monitoring of analytics: Ensure new site is meeting needs
– Duration: Until you have sufficient data
• Launch– Use 301 redirects for any http://new.beaconu.edu/ pages that may
have been indexed or bookmarked– Discontinue Split Testing– Party! (Don’t forget to invite your Web Services firm)
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Post-Launch Marketing
Know what’s going on!• Analytics
– Traffic Sources– Site usage– Conversion Paths– Custom Variables– Conversion rates
• Organic– Rankings– Pages in index– Page Rank distribution– 404 & page dropouts– Redirect checks– Robots.txt file
Before After
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Post-Launch Marketing
• Plan for testing• Learn from your audience • Segment your audience and serve variations of layouts, marketing
messages, images, buttons, flows, etc…• Re-run your survey and compare responses
PRE-LAUNCH DEV / LAUNCH POST-LAUNCH
@beacontec #csuc13
Conclusion
• Marketing and development working closely together– Reduced cost due to – Increased marketing effectiveness due to
@beacontec #csuc13
Questions?
Beacon Technologiesbeacontechnologies.com
Brad [email protected]
Justin [email protected]
