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1) REVIEW ASSIGNMENT #4
Go back and rethink your web site, and come up with one or two opportunities for interactivity.
2) SITE TRAFFIC-BUILDERS
• CODE PAGES TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE IN A SEARCH
a) Put key words in the title of your site example:
School of Visual Concepts Classes on Advertising, Graphic Design, Illustration and Computer Graphicsb) Develop a list of key words by searching for competitive sites and writing down words that appear in copy. Use plural form of keywords when possible.
c) Place a sentence with key words as the first bit of copy on your site. Hide it if necessary by placing the font in the same color as the background
d) Consider keyword density: the number of times your keywords appear as a percentage of all the words in your site. Higher density moves you up the relevance scale.Repeating your keywords over and and over can actually penalize your site ranking with some search engines, including Lycos.
e) Avoid "deadweight" words like "WWW" "web site" "homepage," etc. because they're so common searching engines ignore them
f) Use META tags to define a description and keywords for your site.(Go to http://www.svcseattle.com and view document source)
Search engines rarely display more than 250 characters of content tags. Useful for AltaVista, and Infoseek.g) Use "gateway" words when defining your list of keywords. Example: gateway words for a "school" are words like "portfolios," "employment," "awards."
h) Put keywords in the <alt> tag for the images that appear first in your site.
i) Create multiple "home" pages. Name your "main" one index.html, but create others with different titles and META tags to increase possible listings on search engines.
• REGISTER YOUR SITE
j) Use free all-in-one site registration services such as Submit-It or Add-It. Don't forget to register several pages on your site if they're more than 2 or 3 levels from the home page.
• USE BANNER ADS
k) Buy them. Here's what they cost.
http://www.adcentral.com/l) Trade them. Here's where to sign up.
Link Exchange
Banner Exchange listings
• PROMOTE YOUR SITE OFFLINE
m) Put out a news release
n) Put your url on everything: packaging, brochures, the building, the product, etc.
o) Get a memorable domain name, and use more than one domain name if it makes your site findable via a guess, e.g., REI could have also registered tents.com, backpack.com, kayaks.com, etc.
• ODDS & ENDS
p) Win some awards, cool sites, design sites, web critic, etc.
http://www.highfive.com
http://www.projectcool.comq) Promote your site to visitors by having them sign up for a regularly delivered email newsletter
r) Go into relevant news groups to tell an avid community about your site. Just do it in a low-key, non-hype way.
s) Put a feedback area on your site and ask visitors how, specifically, they came to your site. Learn from your successes.
• MONITOR WHERE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO MODIFY SITE
t) How to read a stats page
http://www.speakeasy.org/stats/www.pyramidbrew.com/wwwstat.html
•KEEP THE CONTENT FRESH
u) A good site is always under construction
3) TACTICS TO ENCOURAGE REPEAT VISITS
• The bigger the site, the more reasons to come back
example: Joe Boxer = 400+ pages, average visit >15 minutes• The big draws:
> freebies - software downloads, coupons, images, fonts, coloring books
> contests, games - sweepstakes, scavenger hunts, push-to-store
http://www.pyramidales.com/hunt.com> dynamic content - stock quotes, scores, classifieds, Letterman
http://ESPN.SportsZone.com/mlb/today/sco.html> interactivity - chat areas, bulletin boards, surveys, auctions
http://www.pepsi.co.uk/chat/index.html> cutting edge technology - audio/visual enhancements, etc.
http://mtv.com/mtv/live/tikkiland/> serial writing - "to be continued..."
http://www.pyramidales.com/sstory.html(But if you maintain it this poorly, forget it.)
4) YOUR QUESTIONS
• How do you know which concept to stop at?
(If you get what you think is really good should you keep going because something better could come up?)
• How do you put together a web portfolio?
• Top resources for web design tips:
http://ds.dial.pipex.com/pixelp/wpdesign/
• How much does a site cost? How much should I charge?
On the very low end: $10,000
On the very high end: $1,000,000+
A good average for a site of modest complexity: $30,000
http://www.netb2b.com/cgi-bin/cgi_wpi_archive/wpi/98/06/01/article.1
• What does it cost to keep a site up and running?
> $2,500 to $10,000 per month
> Rule of thumb for an annual on-line budget
Development: 40%
Promotion: 40%
Maintenance: 20%
http://www.netb2b.com/cgi-bin/cgi_wpi_archive
• How do I find HTML programmers? What do they cost?
> Expect to pay between $50 and $65 an hour for HTML programming.
> To find people, start by asking your ISP or hosting service. For instance:
http://www.adhost.com/pricelis.html> Don't forget that SVC teaches HTML, as do other schools. Post a notice or call the school
> HTML user groups and SIGS can be a good source for people (excellent resource links on this site, too.)
http://www.halcyon.com/seasigi/html.html
> Contract/temp services rep HTML programmers (and much more)
http://www.creativeassets.com
• To what extent does it make sense for me as a creative type to learn the tools (HTML, etc) and when should I seek outside help?
It makes sense. You can rough out the pages yourself, and then be able to talk knowledgably to your programmer who will do the final tweaks and production.
• How easy are the current editing tools now?
Find out for free:
Dreamweaver http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/download/
NetObjects Fusion
http://www.netobjects.com/download/index.html
GoLive Cyberstudio
http://www.golive.com/three/gogetit/index.ehtml
• If I am working with a programmer, how is that relationship structured, what is the workflow process, how are the responsibilities divided?
Similar as art director > illustrator or
graphic designer > e-pro artistIt's collaborative, but you're essentially in charge.
For way more info, buy David Siegel's book:
Secrets of Successful Web Sites
Order it here• How do I get other related web sites to place a link to my web site on their page?
Write them and work out a trade, join a web ring, use a banner exchange
Read c|net's excellent guide
http://builder.cnet.com/Business/Promote/index.html
• How do I do the research to find out what sites exist that may be appropriate and compatible?
Search engines
• What about domain names?
Without your own domain name, you'll be found at a url like this:
http://www.ziplink.net/~klingerv
With one, you're at the much more user-friendly (and memorable):
http://www.klingersvoice.com• Would you give the Chicago Style Manual another chance?
Yes.
5) COURSE EVALUATIONS