Web Site Critique

Web Site Critique

and Development Strategy

Presented By:

Evette Castaneda

EB250
–

Survey of E
-
Commerce

Project Goals


Critique Current Site



Research Current Web Trends



Expand E
-
Commerce Knowledge



Determine Recommendations for Future Site
Development

Critique of Current Site


Errors


Accessibility Issues: Navigation


No primary page for site


Difficult to navigate information on business dept.


Content


Clerical Errors


Factual Issues


Critique (cont.)


Comparison to Similar Sites


Marion College


Business Dept. site easy to access and navigate.


Utilizes “Resources” area


Butler University


Business Dept. site informational, yet well designed
towards target audience.


Utilizes “vodcasting” to recruit students

Web 2.0 and Current Trends
Applied to Site


What is Web 2.0?


Collaboration


“Read
-
Write” approach to content


Interactivity


Pod/Vodcasts


Blogs


Photo/Video Sharing


Social Networking



Web 2.0 (cont.)

E
-
Commerce Strategies Applied
to an Academic Site


Content


Web Copy


AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)


Engage your audience with quality content


Involvement


A visitor should be encouraged to interact with the site.


More involvement leads to visitor feeling more connected
to the site.

E
-
Commerce Strategies (cont.)


Tools and Resources Page


Use of ‘freebies” to entice visitor


Templates, tutorials, research tools


Links to business articles and RSS feeds


Testimonials


E
-
commerce uses testimonials to gain trust of
customer


Same can be applied to academic site


Marketing of Site


SEO (Search Engine Optimization)


Keywords


No longer as useful as in the past


Content Management System


Pages “trapped”
in CMS


“Unfriendly” search engine URLs


Structure of system discourages web crawling


Hierarchy of site limited compared to other school sites


Marketing of Site (cont.)


Link exchanges


More links into a site the more popular site is in
search engines


Creating Link Exchanges


Post on blogs


Contribute content to other sites


Offline Promotion


Use URL on letterhead, business cards, etc.

Marketing of Site (cont.)


Social Networking Sites


MySpace, Facebook


Use as a companion tool to primary site


Connect with future and past students


Maintain active student contact through page


Post comments on other pages


Post bulletins


Blog


Use calendars and events feature


SMWC MySpace Page

Proposed Changes for Site


Content Changes


Student Maintained (student worker or assignments)


Blog


Message Board


Pod/Vodcasts


Promotional Video


Email Newsletter


Other


Student Testimonials


Tools/Resource Page



Proposed Changes (cont.)


External Promotion


Develop department Myspace page


Develop link exchange relationships


Jump Page


Create centralized department page offsite


Maximize for search engine optimization


Integration of BAM


Utilize skills from all areas towards site development

Bibliography


Hall, Christian (2007, March). The biggest web trend in
2007 will be....
Practical Webdesign
,
(160)
, 16.


Noel
-
Levitz, Inc. , (2006).Engaging the “Social
Networking” Generation.
E
-
Expectations Class of 2007
Report
.


“The Undergraduate” (2007). YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPVktiydS8E