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MARKETING AND ADVERTISING CONCEPTS FOR WEB PAGE DESIGN

When designing a web page there are three separate sections, which need to be taken into account. The first is the visual appeal, the second is the user friendliness, and the third is search engine compatibility.

1. VISUAL APPEAL

This is the easiest section which most home computer users have the tools and skills to accomplish. Placing words and pictures within pages in a fancy looking manner is not a difficult task for most computer users and the average home computer user has the software available to perform these tasks. Most computer users only see the visual effect and do not even know that there is a whole host of information in the background hidden within the code of the page that they are viewing.

2. USER FRIENDLINESS

Making the separate pages and sections connect together in a user friendly manner is a little more difficult than the first step of designing visually appealing pages. This usually requires specialist software or some in-depth knowledge of HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) the programming language or code used to design web pages. There are many HTML editors available on the market today which make this section relatively simple. These packages assist the designer with things like site navigation structure and Hyperlink placements with ALT text and other fancy features such as forms for the user to fill in. They also make management of your website a lot simpler by pre programming many web site management functions.

3. SEARCH ENGINE COMPATIBILITY

This is the most important part of any webpage design, because if this is not done correctly then you have wasted your time and effort in the first two sections. Search engines will not easily locate your web page, and if a search engine robot does locate your web page, it will have difficulty in evaluating your page for purposes of storing your page’s information with in its searchable database. This means that people searching the net will not be able to locate your page amongst the masses of pages added to the Internet every day. Statistics show that there are more than one million extra pages on the internet every day. A little over one and a half million pages are added every day and about half a million are deleted because they are history and are no longer relevant to the site concerned. Just searching through one days new entries will be a mammoth task, because of the diverse locations to which these pages are published and the many languages used through out the world.

MARKETING AND ADVERTISING INFLUENCES WITHIN WEB PAGE DESIGN.

The first two sections above, visual appeal and user friendliness, are simple tasks compared to the third section, search engine compatibility, and are not discussed in this document. I will be discussing the third section here in a little detail focusing on marketing and advertising of your website. The third section should actually be incorporated into the first two sections, and expanded in the HTML code in the backgrounds of each page as necessary.

You need to keep in mind at all times the reason for creating a web site. What were your reasons for wanting to have a web site in the first place? If you wanted a web site just because it is the trendy thing to do, and you are trying to keep-up with the Joneses, then you may be wasting your time and money. You must look at your webspace as your marketing and advertising space. This is the place where your information is made available to the public, unless you have protected it with some sort of security system and want a members only web space.

When creating a website for some body one of the first questions I like to ask is why do you want a website. This may seem a stupid question to you, and you will be surprised at the strange answers given. Most people have no idea at all what a website can do for their business. As an example let us use a takeaway.

Many people think that a website for a takeaway is a waste of time. Well without effective management it is a waste of time. The web site for a takeaway will have directions on how to get there, what’s on the menu, what’s on special and look funky and trendy to attract visitors. A menu may be displayed with an option to place an order, which will be delivered to you, provided you are within a reasonable traveling distance. This may be accomplished in the following manner

When the viewer submits a form after selecting his meal, from the options with in the form, the program sends this information to a network printer, which is located at a convenient place in the takeaway where it is immediately printed. This is then confirmed by the takeaway, the order made up and delivered. The customer may choose to pay by credit card over the Internet first or pay when his meal arrives. This concept may be adjusted to suit any business, such as an electrician or a plumber, it may even suit your business.

When designing a web site one needs to establish the following information:

1. What type of business are you operating.
2. Who are your clients.
3. Why are they your clients.
4. Who are your suppliers.
5. Have you ever advertised before, and if so how and where.
6. Who will be your primary target market to view your information.
7. Why is this group your primary target.
8. Are there any secondary target markets.
9. What information do you want to place at the disposal of each target market group, and why do you think that these viewers will want to know what it is you are trying to convey to them.
10. Once the viewers have looked at your webspace what would you like them to do?
1. Look further at what else you have to offer.
2. Purchase goods or make a reservation online.
3. Send their sales rep to visit you.
4. Send you an e-mail requesting your sales rep to visit them.
5. Tell their friends about your message
6. Visit your physical address and spend time there.
7. Fill in a form
8. Anything else

Once this information has been established then the lay out of your website may begin. Each section of your business needs to have its own section within the web site. The sections must be related in a coherent, logical and user friendly manner. Each section must be laid out and constructed with its intended target markets in mind. Each page needs to have its own set of back ground information which will include the following main items, which will each need some consideration.

1. A key words list
2. A page description
3. A page title
4. ALT text for images and Hyperlinks.

1. KEY WORDS LIST

The key words list is an important tool for search engines and some thought needs to go into choosing these words. These are the words, which you expect those in your intended target markets to type into the search for dialog box of any search engine, which they may choose to use. Some search engines limit the number of key words. Other’s allow up to 255 words within this list. This means that you need to prioritize only the first 20 or so words of your whole list. Key words which are spelt incorrectly often net large numbers of viewers as certain words are often spelt incorrectly by a large section of the world population. If your intended target market does not speak the same language as you then spelling certain words correctly in their mother tongue will also be successful. The list is not fixed and you may from time to time edit this list. If however you have registered your list with a search engine and you change the list you must then reregister the new updated list with the same search engine or have some code within the page to tell the search engine robot to return at some fixed interval such as every two weeks.

2. PAGE DESCRIPTIONS

Page descriptions are used by many search engines to categorize your webpage. Some search engines display your page description along with a word score as part of the results. If you do not have a page description, it is difficult to know what the page is all about. Another problem is that some search engines display the first few lines of the HTML code in the absence of a page description or page title. This makes the reading of the results from a search engine rather difficult, thus the page may not be selected by the viewer even though it was displayed amongst the top ten results of the search initiated.

3. PAGE TITLES

Page titles are used in many places, each assisting the end user to evaluate what is being displayed. Some search engines display the page title along with the word score as part of the results of a search. As with page descriptions if the page title is not present some search engines substitute the first few lines of HTML code for the page title, or page description. This makes understanding the results from the search engine a little difficult. The makeup or wording of the page tittle is rather critical and must make the end user, your intended target market, inquisitive as well as be rather informative at the same time where possible. In some cases we will work from a page title and construct the page whilst in other cases we will first construct the page then create a title afterwards. The idea behind this is that some information lay outs are easy to describe, whilst other information layouts are quite confusing at first and need some thought before they may be described in a single cohesive sentence. Page titles, which are in the form of short concise sentences work much better than single words or a few descriptive words.

4. ALT TEXT FOR IMAGES AND HYPERLINKS

When the mouse pointer moves over a hyperlink it changes shape. In Microsoft’s Internet explorer for instance it changes from an arrow type pointer to a hand, which is pointing with the index finger. This indicates that the link is active, and if clicked on the focus will shift from the current location to a new location as determined by the Hyperlink. If you move the mouse pointer onto a Hyperlink, a picture or an image and keep it there for a short time a message box opens which displays the Alt text as indicated in the HTML code. If the page designer has not entered any text to be displayed there, a default text pops up with the image name or link name as used within the HTML code. This may be confusing to a user, especially when the image has an unrelated name. A good website will have informative text placed within the ALT text boxes telling an end user where the focus will shift to if the active image or link is clicked on. If an image is not an active Hyperlink it should still have an informative ALT text, describing the image or the concept which the image is trying to put across to the viewer. You might have a graph showing some trend, which the ALT text could inform, the viewer about.

HOW IT FITS TOGETHER

The first three of the above four topics will never be displayed within the actual page itself, but will assist search engines to locate your information. If search engines have difficulty locating your information then an end user will have difficulties finding your information. The only tools at an end user or viewers disposal to search the Internet, are search engines like www.askjeeves.com or www.google.com and a host of others. Each search engine services a specific target market, some are general information for the man on the street, others are market specific, such as engineering, medical or single countries like Ananzi which search only specific domains or areas of interest. Who your target markets are, and which search engines you wish to register your URLs with, must be kept in mind when choosing page titles, page descriptions and keywords. Mtuba4u will register the main site www.mtuba4u.co.za with some search engines, It is how ever expected of the advertiser, or the information provider to register their URLs with the search engines which they feel will produce the best results. We will register our site with a few search engines, as well as the main pages of each section. If you would like us to register your information at specific search engines for you, we will do this for a negotiated fee. Registering with search engines is actually a simple but time consuming task, provided you have all the information such as key words, page titles, page descriptions, URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) and IP (Internet Protocol or Information Package) numbers at your disposal.

USING KEY WORDS (INCLUDING SOME NOT IN KEY WORD LIST)

Key words are not always unique words but rather words, which may describe the type of information you wish the viewer to see, or words which are contained within the subject matter. For instance if your business is retailing men’s clothing, then tie, necktie or "neck tie" might all be key words. The names of specific up market men’s clothing manufactures such as Pierre Cardine may also be used as key words in this instance.

You should have a function whereby a user may search just your site for specific words. The main reason behind this concept is that you will advertise your main page or home page in the local media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio or perhaps even television if you budget allows. This will attract viewers to your website, now how do they find exactly what they are looking for? If you have a "search this site function" then the viewers do not need to waste their time searching or navigating through your whole site to locate exactly what is desired. Typing the keyword that you used in a specific advert into the search for dialogue box will locate more information on that advert or subject. This key word will need to be unique within your website, to ensure that only the required pages are listed by the search for that information or advert as advertised by you in the other media. This unique word does not need to appear in your keyword list and does not need to be registered by any search engine, as this search is performed locally on the machine that hosts your website.

You do not need to register every URL ( Uniform Resource Locator or web page address) within your website with search engines, provided the pages that are registered have hyperlinks to those pages not registered. Registering the main pages within each sector will make sure that at least the main sectors are located, from where links to a "search this site function" and other relevant pages can be established.

Your town, province, district and other location names should be considered as key words for your home page or the main entry page into your web site. These key words do not need to be in every keyword list, but should be considered where you believe that a potential visitor may type in a Boolean search containing these words and others which are in the list for a specific page. A Boolean search is any search, which contains more than one word. When a seasoned searcher initiates a search they may make up a complex Boolean expression to minimize the number of results displayed. Words typed into the search for dialogue box may be separated by or grouped together with brackets and operated on by the different Boolean operators to achieve the desired results. There are only three Boolean operators namely OR, AND as well as NOT.

• OR

The or operator will include all pages which contain any one of the words, or all of them or any combination of the words typed into the search for dialogue box in the results. If you do not specify an operator between words then some search engines treats the whole group of words as an OR expression. This may result in an exceptionally high number of pages returned by the search engine, as the returned results will include all pages which contain any one of the words within the search for dialogue box.

• AND or + (plus or addition sign)

The AND operator will include all pages which contain all of the words typed into the search for dialogue box with the AND operator between them, in the search results, and exclude those pages which may contain words which are excluded by the NOT operator if applicable.

• NOT

The not operator will exclude all pages which contain the word or words or expressions to the right of the NOT operator as specified within the search for dialogue box from the search results. This is useful to separate those that waffle from those that get straight to the point. The NOT operator is also useful in eliminating specific subjects from a larger group so as to minimize the number of pages returned in your search results.

A complex Boolean expression produces fewer results to search through and this needs to be evaluated when choosing keywords. You do not want your search results to be excluded because of a single inappropriate word placed within the key words list, which is not used within the rest of your page. Choosing keywords to be placed within a keywords list for any specific page needs careful consideration by your marketing or advertising team.

Any website designer or publisher who has not discussed these issues with you before or during the different development and designing stages of a website for you, or where your information is currently displayed has done you a grave injustice. The lack of key words, page titles, page descriptions and the fact that most web sites have not been registered with search engines has been the cause of much frustration by website owners who often complain that their websites are not visited nearly enough.

To check if your current web page or web site has keywords, page titles and or page descriptions, follow the procedure as listed below.

1. Open the Internet explorer and locate the page in question.
2. At the top of the screen point at view next to file and click once. This brings up a drop-down menu. From this new menu select source and click. See figure 1 and figure 2 at end of document.
3. This opens a wordpad document which you may save to view later at your discretion. This document is the complete HTML code for the page concerned.
4. Read through the first few lines of the document, and see if you can find the words "key word", "title" or "description"
5. If these words are not there then your page does not have them.
6. If this page does not contain the key elements as discussed in this document please rectify by contacting your webpage designer and informing him / her that you are not happy that these key elements are not within the code.
7. Follow up by making sure that your webpages have been registered with at least one local and one international search engine.

Figure 1

Figure 2

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Revised: November 25, 2009 02:38:11 -0500 . (South African standard time)