Planning, Developing, and Promoting a Successful Small Business Website

Appendix item 1-1:  Overture Search Tool

This tool provides insight into the number of search queries by using the data from the previous month on the Overture search engine.

Appendix item 1-1 (continued): The next two screen-shots demonstrate the difference in the number of searches for two similar terms.

Appendix item 1-1 (continued):  Michigan website design search engine queries for the month of June.

Appendix 1-2:  Wordtracker

A word such as “college” is typed into the search form.  Wordtracker returns suggestions that can be explored more in depth.

Appendix item 1-2 (continued):  After terms are chosen from the selected list, they are shown in step 3 for review.

Appendix item 1-2 (continued):  The results of the WordTracker programs shows the number of times a term was searched in a three month period (count), 24-hour period, and the number of competing sites that use that keyword.  The KEI analysis is a ratio of the number of searches to the number of competing sites.  This number gives the user an idea of how easy it may be to obtain good search engine listings, and how valuable the term might be.

Appendix 1-3:  Google Sets

Google Sets gives a developer insight on how search engines group certain subjects by “theme”. 

Appendix item 1-3 (continued):  This is how Google “themes” Northwood University.

Appendix 1-3 (continued): This is how Google “themes” the term “flavored coffees”.  Placing subjects by “theme” is not a perfect science.

Appendix 1-4:  Reach/Acquire/Convert/Retain Chart

Appendix 2-5:  Flowchart of Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth

Appendix 2-6:  Search Engine Theme Pyramids

Appendix 2-7:  Load time Charts for different connections

30 Kilobyte File

95 Kilobyte File

Appendix 2-8:  Expected Locations for E-commerce elements

Appendix 2-9:  Web Usability Checklist

Based on content from Designing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen

Compiled by Tom Cutshall July 20, 2001

Background

The guidelines in Nielsen’s book are based on "experience of what actually works when real users try to perform real tasks on the web" (Nielsen, 2000, p. 11). The book is the result of "usability tests with about 400 users from a wide variety of backgrounds using a large number of different web sites over the last six years" (Nielsen, 2000, p. 14).

Web Site Focus and Goals

____Are the user’s needs at the center of your web design?

____Why are users coming to your web site? What do they want to do?

____Are the main things users want to do on your web site easy to do?

Organization

____Is the web site structured to mirror user’s tasks, rather than organizational structure?

Functionality

____Does web site work on browsers and plug-ins up to 2 years old?

____High contrast text color to background color. Black text on white background is optimal.

____ALT tag with description for each graphic so visually impaired can "read them" with screen

reader.

____Do not include text in images as they will be difficult to read.

Content

____Homepage should answer "Where am I" and "What does this site do".

____Is text short and concise?

____Use short paragraphs, headings, subheadings, and bullets for ease of scanning.

____Paragraphs should ideally start with a topic sentence and keep to one idea per paragraph.

____Can user tell in a glance what the page is about and what it can do for them?

____Help should contain examples, be task oriented, show how to do step by step, but be brief.

Download times

____Does the page load within 10 seconds? This is the limit of most user’s attention while

waiting.

____For users with a modem, a 34K page loads in 10 seconds. What is the page size including

graphics? (Pages 40K in size have a user bailout rate of 25-30%)

Appendix item 2-9 (continued):

____Does the top half of the page have more text and less images so the page is useful even

while user is waiting for rest of page to load?

____Are ALT tags on all images so users can understand what they are while they load?

____On pages with many images, provide small versions of graphics user can click for full

pictures.

Layout

____Use percentages rather than fixed pixel number for page and table width--this will adapt the

web page to different screen sizes and resolutions to avoid the hated horizontal scrolling.

____ Images need to have width and height attributes.

____Images no larger than 544 pixels wide by 376 pixels tall or they won’t fit on WebTV screens.

____Use frames sparingly--they take away the ability to bookmark or create a link to a specific

 page.

____Break long text documents into theme related chunks on multiple pages for ease of reading

____Provide printer friendly version of long text documents (no frames, all on one page).

____Text should mostly be left justified for ease of scanning/reading.

____Web page titles (what shows on top browser bar) should be concise, 2 to 6 words long.

____Web page titles should start with content specific, unique words that are easy to scan on a

list of bookmarks or search engine results (i.e. don’t start all page titles "UGA Libraries… )

Links

____For ease of scanning, only the most important information-carrying terms should be made

into hypertext links. Avoid using ‘Click Here’" or using the web site URL as the hypertext link.

____As needed, provide a short description of where the link is going.

____When a list of links is given, group and categorize the links under subheadings for easy

scanning.

____Have a few highly relevant links to other web sites and one supersite rather than too many

links.

____Do the links use standard colors (purple for visited, blue for unvisited)? This way users easily

know where they have been.

____Links opening up a new browser window is not recommended--users lose back button.

____Hypertext links should include the "http://" as part of the URL for faster linking.

Navigation

____Navigation needs to help users answer the questions:

·         Where am I?

Appendix item 2-9 (continued):

·         Where have I been?

·         Where can I go?

____Consistent logo/graphic and link to the home page on every internal web page in the upper

left corner of page. This provides context and navigation to those who link directly to an

internal page.

____ Best to not use pull-down menus or graphics for navigation choices as the links don’t

indicate by color change that a link has been followed (users loose "where have I been"

information).

____Better to have short list of navigation options rather than pull down menu that won’t let user

see all the options at once.

____Does the home page navigation options overwhelm users with too many choices?

____Many users are search dominate and want a search feature for the web site Provide search

option on the home page and all internal pages, preferably from the top right corner of page.

____Search engine should provide automatic spell check, plural, and synonyms.

____Search results should provide an option for similarity search ("more like this").

____Allow for direct linking to a web page and non-linear use versus forcing users to go through

home page and navigation steps.

____Useful to include a "bread crumb trail" showing where user is in relationship to hierarchy of

pages (i.e. home> departments> reference)

URL Issues

____URL of web page should avoid underscore (illegal in domain names). Use dash or preferably

run together words (i.e. dictionarythesauri.html rather than dictionary_thesauri.html)

____ URL should be short, use common language, and all lower case letters.

Appendix 2-10:  Text to Code Ratio/ Keeping content near the top of the code.

Many webpages use code similar to the code listed below because webpage editors generate it this way.  Much of this code is unnecessary, and can create longer download times by reloading the same information on multiple pages.  Externally linking these files like seen on the next screen shot improves the “text to code ratio”, improves download time by “re-using” elements, and keeps important content that is indexed by search engines closer to the top of the code.

Appendix item 2-10 (continued):  This code is streamlined and improves the overall quality of the website.

Appendix 3-11:  Overture Bid Price Tool

Some websites pay between $10 - $18 dollars per click through for the term “website hosting”

Appendix item 3-11 (continued):  Advertisers pay for being listed for the term Midland, Michigan

Appendix item 3-11 (continued):  Advertisers are even paying the minimum click through cost for the term “Northwood University”

Appendix 3-12:  Screenshots from Webalizer Statistics Tool

Monthly Visitor Tracking

Number of visitors that visited the site during a given month for given search string queries.

Appendix item 3-12 (continued):  Top Entry and Exit Pages on the website.

Appendix 2-13: AW Stats Traffic Analysis Tool

Appendix 3-14:  Clicktracks Traffic Analysis Tool

Analyzing average time on the site for users coming from anywhere, Google, or any search engine.

Appendix item 3-14 (continued):  Average length of time spent on the site based on how the user found the site (which S.E phrase).

Appendix item 3-14 (continued):  Clicktracks offers the ability to track users based on many different criteria.  Below are some of the options for various ways to create individualized reporting for website traffic.

References:

August Bandwidth Report

Weboptimziation.com Webpage, Retrieved August 10^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0308/

 

            Bernard, Michael Examining User Expectations for the Location of Common

E-commerce Web Objects,  SURL.org Webpage, Retrieved June 19^th, 2003 from World Wide Web, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_apa.html

            Buu-Hoan, Christina, The Danger of Defining "Ethical" SEO in Terms of Search Engine Compliance, Retrieved April 26^th, 2003, from World Wide Web

http://www.searchethos.com/ethical-SEO.html 

            Color with Flare and Care

Hitbox.com Webpage, Retrieved June 20^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://resources.hitbox.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?building/color

Craven, Phil, Google’s PageRank Explained

Webworkshop.net Webpage, Retrieved June 25^th, 2002

http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

Definition of the word Breadcrumbs

Consumerreports.org Wepage, Retrieved June 19^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detailv2.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=787&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=735

Definition of the word Success

Dictionary.com Webpage, Retrieved June 6^th, 2003 from World Wide Web http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=success

Definition of the word Dynamic

Searchnetworking.com Webpage, Retrieved June 17^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci348104,00.html

            Definition of the word Client

Webopedia.com Webpage, Retrieved June 17^th from World Wide Web

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/h/host.html

 

            Definition of HTML

Webopedia.com Webpage, Retrieved August 21^st, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/HTML.html

            Definition of the word Cookie

SearchSecurity.com, Retrieved June 29^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/gDefinition/0,294236,sid14_gci211838,00.html

Demonstrating the Importance of Top Search Engine Placement

Websearchworkshop.co.uk Webpage, Retrieved June 25^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.websearchworkshop.co.uk/stats.htm

“DiddlyDazz” (screen-name at webmasterworld.com), Best Title Length

Webmasterworld.com Webpage, Retrieved June 25^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/4692.htm

            Eisenberg, Bryan, Dear Marketer:  Have You Ever Looked Into the Wrong End of a Telescope?, Digital-Web.com WebpageRetrieved June 15^th, 2003 from World Wide Web, http://www.digital-web.com/features/feature_2003-04.shtml

Finck, Nick Form vs. Function:  Finding the Balance

Digital-Web.com Webpage Retrieved June 19^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.digital-web.com/features/feature_1999-10.shtml

Fogg, B.J. P.h.D, How Consumers and Experts Rate Credibility on the Web

ConsumerWebWatch.com Webpage, Published October 29^th, 2002

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/news/report3_credibilityresearch/stanfordPTL_TOC.htm

            Godin, Seth, (2001).  The Big Red Fez How to Make any Web Site Better

New York, NY: Fireside Books

Greenspan, Robyn, Retailing: 2002 E-Commerce Holiday Wrap Up

Cyberatlas.com Webpage, Retrieved June 23^rd, 2002

http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/retailing/article/table1 

            Inan, Hurol, (2002). Measuring the Success of Your Website: A Customer-Centric Approach to Website Management Frenchs Forest, Australia: Griffin Press

Lee, Na Ree, Colour as a Tool for E-branding

Colormatters.com Webpage, Published February 25^th, 2002

http://www.colormatters.com/research/nrl_ebrand.pdf

Niles, Brian, 37 E-mail Marketing Tips Every Marketer Should Read Before Pressing Send, Targetx.com Webpage, Retrieved June 27^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.targetx.com/knowledge_center/special_reports/37/37.html

Sasaki, Hiroshi, Color Psychology

Shibuya.com Webpage, Published April 30^th, 1991

http://www.shibuya.com/garden/GENERAL%20COLOR%20REACTION

Search engine war: Yahoo is back according to OneStat.com

Onestat.com, Retrieved April 26^th, from World Wide Web

http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox17.html

Tabke, Brett, Search Engine Theme Pyramids

Retrieved June 15^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.searchengineworld.com/engine/theme_pyramids.htm

            Taylor, William Permission Marketing

FastCompany.com Webpage, Published April, 1998 from World Wide Web

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/14/permission.html

Thomas, Wayne M., Good Ethics Must Become Priority for Renewal in Our Industry, Phoneplusmag.com, Retrieved April 17^th, 2003, from World Wide Web

http://www.phoneplusmag.com/articles/331soap.html

            Walsh, Norman, What is XML?

XML.com Webpage, Published October 3^rd, 1998

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/98/10/AEN58

            Wiley, John, Yahoo! and a Yippity tai-yai-yay!

Wiley.com, Retrieved April 26^th, from World Wide Web

http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/sonnenreich/history.html

World Wide Web Consortium, Leading the Web to Its Full Potential

W3C.org Webpage, Retrieved June 24^th, 2003

http://www.w3.org/

            Zeldman, Jeffery, 99.9% of Website are Obsolete

Digital-Web.com Webpage, Retrieved June 17^th, 2003 from World Wide Web

http://www.digital-web.com/features/feature_2002-09.shtml

Bibliography

            Dean, Terry, Site Marketing:  Applying Psychology to Internet Marketing

E-builders.net Webpage, Published December 2^nd, 2002

http://www.e-builders.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=artilce&sid=17

            Knemeyer, Dirk, The Information Design Approach to Web Development

Digital-Web.com Webpage, Retrieved May 29^th, 2003

http://www.digital-web.com/features/feature_2003-05.shtml

            Mercedes, Dawn J. Ph.D., Flashes of Brilliance and Use-Centered Design

Digital-Web.com Webpage, Retrieved June 10^th, 2003

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            Post by “Marcia”, Moving Toward a Plan for an Integrated Website Marketing Approach, WebmasterWorld.com Webpage, Posted November 11^th, 2002

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum10/1481.htm

Post by “Nick_W”, Building Small Business Websites

WebmasterWorld.com Webpage, Posted June 11^th, 2002

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum10/1066-1-15.htm

            Swackhammer, Jason, Don’t Make Me Think

Great Lakes Web Professionals Presentation, Presented May 8^th, 2003

            Thomason, Larisa, The Top Ten Reasons Visitors Leave Your Site

NetMechanic.com Webpage, Published April 2001

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Other Websites Used for Research

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/

http://www.bluerobot.com/

http://www.business2.com

http://www.clickz.com/

http://www.codeave.com/css/

http://www.consumerwebwatch.com

http://www.conversionexperts.com/

http://www.digitalenterprise.org/

http://www.digitaltoolz.com/

http://www.futurenowinc.com/

http://www.grokdotcom.com/

http://www.marketingprofs.com/

http://www.movingclouds.com/

http://www.searchengineposition.com

http://www.webmonkey.com

http://www.workingknowledge.hbs.edu/

Author Notes

Todd is an Internet Consultant with several years experience in the field of SEO and internet marketing. Todd completed a dual-bachelors degree program in Management Information Systems/ Business Administration from Northwood University in the summer of ’03 after completing this thesis on Planning, Developing, and Promoting a Successful Website for Small Business. He is also a moderator of the Professional Web Business Issues Forum.