Web in Focus

down­load the mp3

Sum­mary:

This is the video ver­sion of a work­shop Jeff King pre­sented at the recent IECA Con­fer­ence in San Fran­cisco. The “Web Strate­gies to Grow Your Con­sult­ing Prac­tice” pre­sen­ta­tion focuses on search engine opti­miza­tion and effec­tive tech­niques to con­vert web­site vis­i­tors into customers.

If you find the pre­sen­ta­tion help­ful, please keep KINGdesk Web Design in mind for your future web design needs.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Outline:

1. Google Strate­gies (Search Engine Optimization)
   1. Speak Google’s lan­guage – seman­tic HTML
   2. Meet Google’s core objec­tive: sat­is­fied users via rel­e­vant search results
      1. Cred­i­ble sources
         • Do other sites link to you?
         • Dura­tion of web presence
      2. Rel­e­vant information
         • Is your con­tent related to the search term
         • Is your con­tent timely?
2. User-​​Centered Design
   1. Speak your user’s language
      1. Web-​​optimized con­tent: scannable
         • Tightly focused con­tent (one topic per page)
         • Plain lan­guage
         • Short sen­tences and paragraphs
         • Sub­head­ings, lists, links, and numbers
         • Front-​​load impor­tant words and points
      2. Visual appeal
         • Don’t worry about cre­at­ing an experience
         • Avoid:
           • Splash pages and wel­come text
           • Move­ment and sound
           • Clut­ter
         • Use:
           • Clean design that sup­ports the content
           • Good typog­ra­phy
           • Appro­pri­ate imagery
   2. Meet your user’s core objec­tive: rel­e­vant content
      1. Who are you?
         • Con­sis­tent site iden­ti­fi­ca­tion across all pages
         • Sim­pli­fied logo (if applicable)
      2. What do you do?
         • A direct, plain-​​language descrip­tion of your service
         • Imme­di­ately adja­cent to your site identification
      3. Can I trust you? (demon­strate expertise)
         • Pub­lish arti­cles (give away gen­eral value)
         • Include tes­ti­mo­ni­als
         • List suc­cesses and credentials
      4. How do I con­tact you?
   3. User test­ing and analytics

Links:

• Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug – Fun­da­men­tal book on web design
• Web­site Opti­miza­tion by Andrew King
• Sil­ver­back – user test­ing pro­gram for the Mac
• Google Ana­lyt­ics – free ana­lyt­ics for your website
• Google Apps – Gmail hosted at your domain