Slide 1: Website Planning
Website Planning
Slide 2: Website Planning
Agenda
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning:
• • • • • • • Is a website right for you? Where to Start? Get a plan! Domain Name & Registration Website Usability Choosing webhosting Choosing development methods Measurement
Slide 3: Website Planning
Agenda
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning:
• • • • • • • Is a website right for you? Where to Start? Get a plan! Domain Name & Registration Website Usability Choosing webhosting Choosing development methods Measurement
Slide 4: Website Planning
Student Connections
An Industry Canada initiative started in 1996 and is partially funded through the Youth Employment Strategy. Student Connections provides Internet and ECommerce training to small- and medium-sized enterprises in order to help them develop an online presence and remain competitive in the new electronic marketplace. The program also provides practical technical and business experience to Canadian college and university students in IT-related fields.
Slide 5: Website Planning
Student Connections
• Student Connections has been at the Humber Business School since January 2004, and over 2,500 clients have been trained since. • We offer standard and personalized workshops, oneon-one training, and enterprise support. • Topics pertinent to you: Security Audits, Website Evaluation, Online Marketing/Promotion
Slide 6: Website Planning
Is a website right for you?
• Canadians ordered just over $7.9 billion worth of goods and services over the Internet for personal or household consumption in 2005.1 • They (Canadians) placed almost 50 million orders online during that year (2005).
1
• Almost 7 million Canadians aged 18 and over placed an order on-line in 2005 while slightly over 9 million logged on to browse, or in other words, to do some "window shopping".
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/061101/d061101a.htm
Slide 7: Website Planning
Is a website right for you?
• The people who made an on-line purchase represented about 41% of all adults who used the Internet in 2005.
• Over one half (52%) of adult Internet users living in households with incomes of $70,000 or more reported an on-line purchase last year, compared to 32% among Internet users in households with incomes less than $70,000.
Slide 8: Website Planning
Is a website right for you?
• Younger Internet users were more likely to buy on-line than their older counterparts. About 44% of users under 45 made an electronic order in 2005, compared with 36% among those aged 45 or older. • Three quarters of adult Canadians who made an order online in 2005 reported paying directly over the Internet with a credit or debit card for some or all of their purchases, while about 17% reported paying with a credit card over the telephone.
Slide 9: Website Planning
Slide 10: Website Planning
Slide 11: Website Planning
Is a website right for you?
• An estimated 9.2 million adult Canadians used the Internet to do some window shopping for goods and services in 2005. They accounted for over one half (55%) of all Internet users. • More than 6 out of every 10 of those on-line window shoppers actually wound up making a purchase not online but directly from a retailer.
Slide 12: Website Planning
Is a website right for you?
Internet Access Website Presence Purchasing online Selling online Small Firms 2004 79.3 31.6 39.9 6.7 2005 79.4 33.4 68.9 40.4 5.5 58.7 11.9 62.5 10.4 62.2 12.8 67.8 15.8 42.5 7.0 43.4 7.0 Medium Firms 2004 96.1 2005 95.9 70.5 Large Firms 2004 98.5 79.4 2005 97.7 82.3 2004 81.6 36.8 All Firms 2005 81.6 38.3
Slide 13: Website Planning
International Information
Slide 14: Website Planning
International Information
• According to Forrester Research, net-influenced sales represent three times as much revenue as online sales. • The good news is that it's predicted that net influenced sales will reach $169.2 billion in Europe and $37 billion in the UK by 2007
Slide 15: Website Planning
Agenda
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning: • Is a website right for you? • Where to Start? Get a plan! • Domain Name & Registration • Website Usability • Choosing webhosting • Choosing development methods • Measurement
Slide 16: Website Planning
Where to Start? Get a plan!
• A website plan is a comprehensive guide to your website! • Remember! The more planning effort you put into your plan, the less time it will take to get a properly developed website. • Jane’s strategy:
– Start with your biggest bestest dream, and plan it backwards! – For example, if you want thousands of people visiting your site daily, you want to make a million dollars in revenue on sales alone, etc. etc. What is your dream?
Slide 17: Website Planning
Planning 101
What your plan should cover: • Domain Names • Site design – What not to do & recent trends • Site functions/features • Selling online • Content development • Marketing the site • Maintaining the site • Measuring site performance
Slide 18: Website Planning
Choose a Domain Name & Alternative
• FAQ: Is a domain name important? www.studentconnections.ca (National) www.scph.ca (Humber) • Choose an alternative – your first choice may be taken
Slide 19: Website Planning
Agenda
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning:
• • • • • • • Is a website right for you? Where to Start? Get a plan! Domain Name & Registration Website Usability Choosing webhosting Choosing development methods Measurement
Slide 20: Website Planning
Canadian Internet Registration Authority
www.cira.ca Features: 1. Who Is? 2. Certified Registrars
Slide 21: Website Planning
CIRC: Who Is?
Slide 22: Website Planning
CIRC: Certified Registrar
Slide 23: Website Planning
Choose a Domain Name & Alternative
• Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
http://www.iana.org/gtld/gtld.htm
• .Com domain names controlled by VeriSign Global Registry Services
http://www.verisign.com/products-services/naming-and-directo
Slide 24: Website Planning
Agenda
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning:
• • • • • • • Is a website right for you? Where to Start? Get a plan! Domain Name & Registration Website Usability Choosing webhosting Choosing development methods Measurement
Slide 25: Website Planning
Site Design – what not to do
No navigational menu. No active links to the next pages
Slide 26: Website Planning
Site Design – what not to do
Writing, from one end of the website to another. (although, highly suitable for a blog)
Slide 27: Website Planning
Site Design – Recent Trends
• Future trends are leaning toward more grid-like structures, clean designs, and lots of white space. • Your website must be fast! (in terms of load time, in terms of purchasing options, etc.). • Less text is more! • Usability Tests: Such a hot topic – we will spend a few minutes on this!
Slide 28: Website Planning
Usability Tests
Usability is defined by five quality components: • • • • • Learnability Efficiency Memorability Errors Satisfaction
Slide 29: Website Planning
Usability Tests
User Testing • Get hold of some representative users, such as customers for an e-commerce site or employees for an intranet. • Ask the users to perform representative tasks with the design. • Observe what the users do, where they succeed, and where they have difficulties with the user interface. Shut up and let the users do the talking.
Slide 30: Website Planning
Usability Tests
When to test? • Before starting the new design, test the old design to identify the good parts that you should keep or emphasize, and the bad parts that give users trouble. • Unless you're working on an intranet, test your competitors' designs to get cheap data on a range of alternative interfaces that have similar features to your own.
Slide 31: Website Planning
Agenda
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning:
• • • • • • • Is a website right for you? Where to Start? Get a plan! Domain Name & Registration Website Usability Choosing webhosting Choosing development methods Measurement
Slide 32: Website Planning
Choosing Web Hosting
• Research is required • Generally, prices become more cost effective the longer the commitment contract • Ensure that you know what your site will require ahead of time (languages; support; services) • Prices range from Free to $20/month – depending on the features you need, the provider, etc.
Slide 33: Website Planning
Choosing Development Methods
• Build your own • Using templates • Designers & Developers (yes, there is a difference!) • Embedded marketing
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Measurement
• One of the most important tools in maintaining your site and making IT successful • There are free web traffic analyzers available, you just have to look for them
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Tracking website traffic
• A website traffic report is an analysis of the activity on your website. The information they provide can include: – Most and least often visited pages – The number of visitors over a period of time – Which organizations or ISP’s the visitors are coming from – Which countries the visitors are coming from
Slide 36: Website Planning
Recap
• Introduction to Student Connections • Website Planning:
• • • • • • • Is a website right for you? Where to Start? Get a plan! Domain Name & Registration Website Usability Choosing webhosting Choosing development methods Measurement
Slide 37: Website Planning
For More Information Please Contact us at: 416-252-0399 Or Visit Our Website www.scph.ca
