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Demystifying Web 2.0
- 1. Carla Lowe Pendergraft Carla Pendergraft Associates www.carlapendergraft.com PO Box 1232, Waco, TX 76703 254/855-7354 [email_address]
- 2. How many are responsible for working on their website? And what software do you use? How many work with someone else who does the actual website work? How would you rate your website knowledge: Beginner Intermediate Advanced
- 3. What questions do you want me to be sure to answer during this presentation? Don’t be shy!
- 4. 5 Features every website should have Online Surveys Email Newsletters Social Media Blogs & Podcasts Intro to Copyrights ADA accessibility E-commerce 3 ways to get better rankings
- 5. Before you acquire any new technology, ask why . Will it meet our needs? What are our needs? What purpose will it serve? How much time will it take?
- 6. Web users now spend half their time visiting content, far outpacing time spent with search, communications and commerce (Online Publishers Association, 8-07)
- 8. Purpose of website should be obvious Name of your entity & logo Full contact and location info Incoming links TITLE in the blue bar
- 10. UPDATED, at all times Full contact info at the bottom of every page Mailing address Street address Phone Fax Email
- 11. surveymonkey.com is the killer app in this category. Both free and paid Unlimited surveys for $200/year
- 12. Can do 10 questions/100 responses per mo. free.
- 14. A great way to communicate what’s coming up – special events, ways to get involved, etc. And now, it’s really easy to create them online. Consider creating multiple newsletters to reach your various audiences.
- 15. “ Do-it-yourself email marketing”
- 16. how many email messages were sent how many were opened how many emails bounced (bad addresses) how many recipients asked to be removed from your list
- 17. Put a signup link on your website (Constant Contact gives you the code) When people ask you for info via the web, ask for permission to send a newsletter in addition to sending them the info. Every time you meet with your partners or customers, send around a signup sheet and ask them verbally if they want to be added to your mailing list.
- 18. Any site that allows users to share opinions and experiences with each other. Generally free of charge Usually serves up ads to pay the bills
- 19. MySpace – online diary shared with friends YouTube – share videos Flickr – share photos Wikis– share knowledge
- 20. Many businesses have a MySpace page to reach the youth market – and are getting results. It doesn’t cost anything but time. It doesn’t require much technical knowledge. Why not have one?
- 21. Really not designed for use by most businesses Forces you to choose age, height, etc. Difficult to match the look and feel of your business graphics Moving/blinking ads impossible to remove Some businesses block access to MySpace
- 22. Usually about 3 min. videos Free and easy to use Some CVB’s/Chambers put up promo videos A great way to promote your community! Waco – Cameron Park mountain bike ride with a helmet cam
- 23. Online photo sharing Many people will search for specific images. Waco Suspension Bridge Every CVB/City/Tourism entity should try to have a page in Flickr with their best photos of their landmarks, attractions, features! Great way to promote.
- 25. A site that lets a group collaborate. Example: Wikipedia You login to the website, and have access to add to it, edit, delete. Easy way to build a website without technical knowledge. Much more efficient than email for communication
- 26. Easy way to build a website for an event, especially when a group is working on it If you want to fire your web designer, you could possibly use a wiki instead Any sort of group work – creating an FAQ, collaborating on copy for new brochure – can easily be done on a wiki
- 27. Wetpaint.com – free; has some ads Pbwiki.com – 30,000 businesses use it. $8/user per month – discounts for nonprofits
- 28. Blogs Podcasting RSS Feeds
- 29. Blogs should be personal and honest. Blogs should provide extra value . Blogs should be a conversation between you and the people you serve. Blogs should be updated frequently. Blogs should always allow comments.
- 30. They can become very time-consuming. Many sound fake—done for marketing purposes only. Easy to start – Easy to let die. It takes fearlessness to have a blog, because dissatisfied people won’t hesitate to flame you or your company on it.
- 32. Audio or video broadcasts, usually in a regular series, like a radio or TV show. A bit harder to learn the technology Hard to keep doing them, coming up with fresh ideas Usually an MP3 file Podcasts are a great tool!
- 33. For PC’s – Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ For Macs – GarageBand To learn how, take a podcasting class at your local community college or Education Service Center
- 34. Can be made available several ways: Direct download from your website – most common, and easiest. As a listing in podcast directories Podcast Alley ( www.podcastalley.com ) Through RSS feed. Through iTunes
- 36. An RSS feed allows people to subscribe to your podcast page by using a podcast receiver Example: Juice ( juicereceiver .sourceforge.net) If they subscribe, they will receive new episodes automatically.
- 37. Easiest way: use software to create your feed. www.feedburner.com (owned by Google - free) http://www.tristana.org/ ($35)
- 39. Anyone who publishes needs to know about copyrights “ Publishing” includes: Websites – they are not exempt! Podcasts Photographs on your website Blogs Anything you create online where the public has access to it!
- 40. Everything on the web is protected by copyrights unless those rights are given up in writing. You don’t have to register a work to have copyrights You own the work as soon as it takes a tangible form You don’t have to use the copyright symbol
- 41. Photos, artwork, clip art all may be copyrighted. Mapquest/Yahoo maps are copyrighted. Even buildings and landmarks may be copyrighted Be cautious of work done by volunteers – they may own copyright
- 42. If you use a photo of a person on your website, you should have written permission from them. Be aware of laws protecting the disabled. Photographs that show a person’s disability can violate their health privacy and affect their job opportunities. Example: A photo of a person in a wheelchair. Example: A photo of a person with a neck brace.
- 43. If you took this shot, it would be ok to use it on your website. If you took this shot, you would need permission from the Eiffel Tower to put it on your website.
- 44. Be sure you have written releases for all photos, artwork, etc. on your site Signed model releases that include Web If you have a volunteer create a webpage for you, have him/her sign a copyright release
- 46. Issues A volunteer started it, and was not paid for his labor on the site. The site accumulated 160,000 “friends” How to control what the volunteer said? Who owns the name “Barack Obama?” - Barack Who owns the “friends?” – the volunteer Compensated “volunteer” $39,000 for labor, $10,000 in fees
- 47. Why is it important? Use ALT tags to truly describe graphics Convert graphics-only sites to mixed graphics and “real” text If you can copy and paste it into a Word file, it’s “real” text the search engines can read And the sight-impaired can also read “real” text! Watch the use of color – be sensitive to the many forms of color blindness Avoid pure Flash sites
- 48. Do “Control-A” and the graphics will appear as darkened blocks; “real” text will separate by line. Then read what the search engine reads. Does it contain keywords?
- 49. We hover over the Waco logo, and a yellow Tag pops up that says, “ Waco”. If I’m blind, it doesn’t tell me much. “Waco Convention & Visitors Bureau Logo” might be more descriptive.
- 50. Allows you to accept Visa/Mastercard online for purchases Sell hats, pins, posters, all logo’d items Special Events admission tickets
- 51. Free shopping cart software No setup costs No monthly fees Simple interface where you control shipping cost schedule, taxes, etc. Cost: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction
- 52. Not as custom looking as having your own program running There is a transaction fee Limited options on each product: size, color
- 54. To craft a website so that it does well in the “organic” listings of search engines for various search phrases.
- 55. “ Spiders” crawls from link to link, indexing the info and putting it into a huge database Google’s database is 850 terabytes. A terabyte is a million megabytes. A person types a phrase into the search engine’s search box The search engine lists websites it thinks will have the information you are searching for
- 56. Google (www.google.com) MSN (www.msn.com) Yahoo! ( www.yahoo.com ) Open Directory ( www.dmoz.org )
- 57. Keywords in actual copy on page Keywords are search terms a person might type into Google or another search engine, to find your site. Links coming into page Links = “votes” for your page TITLE
- 58. What phrases do you think potential visitors to your site might type into a search engine? Those phrases, called keywords , must appear in your copy, or CONTENT. Think about what they would be looking for.
- 60. Don’t use “tricks” such as using invisible text Don’t submit to 1,000 Search Engines Don’t listen to shady people who promise you high rankings and charge you a fortune!
- 61. They are considered "votes" by the search engine. The more votes you get, from relevant websites, the higher your site should be ranked. Trade them with others – but watch quality Professional associations Ask your vendors to include them
- 62. Go to Google ( www.google.com ) Enter the following: link:www.yourwebsitename.com
- 63. Remember that Google just shows a representative sample of links. Click on the links – sometimes you will find negative information that you can attempt to correct Also research your competitors’ incoming links on Google.
- 64. The TITLE tag is the most important SEO element of any web page. It shows up in the blue bar of the browser. It is used by the search engines both to rank the page, and as the name of the site. A good title is generally a 4 to 8 (12 max) word description of the page contents. Use keywords while still remaining readable to humans. Use different titles on different pages.
- 65. These are tags that do not appear on the website itself. They are in the code behind the page. The most important: Meta description Meta keywords
- 66. Should be a short paragraph describing your site to the search engines. Typical meta description tag: <meta name="description" content="The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library holds more than 45 million pages of manuscripts, an extensive audiovisual collection, and oral history interviews with than 1,000 individuals." />
- 67. A list of words that relate to your site. Typical met tag for keywords: <meta name="keywords" content="Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ, historical documents, US Presidents, presidential libraries, research and archives, Lady Bird Johnson" />