Download - Startup Harvard Part 2 (Alex)
START-UPS 2.0 @ HARVARD
Cultivating a web presence
Registering Domains
Getting A Spot On The Web
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Promotional techniques, major search engines, and search engine optimization.
Getting People To Your Website
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Promotional Techniques4
Word of mouth
Search engines
Traditional “offline” media
Forums, link-sharing rings, online news
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Major Search Engines5
Yahoo
MSN
Ask, AOL, others.
Regional leaders (Baidu)
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Search Engine Market Share
Yahoo
MSN
Other
Getting to the very top of the results, making
your mark on the first page.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)6
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Becoming a top-five search result7
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Each search engine thinks differently
Most use two factors to rank search
results
Page relevance
Page quality
Page specific—not site specific
Page Relevance And Page Quality
Changes depending on
the search text
Most important factor
Determined by what a
webpage talks about
Has nothing to do with
search text
Calculated differently
by each search engine
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Page Relevance Page Quality
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A sketch of how Google determines page relevance and quality, and then ranks results.
Case Study: Google9
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Google: Page Relevance
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A page is relevant if your search topic is the same
as the topic of a webpage
Google has to figure out what your webpage talks
about
Google: Page Relevance11
Google’s “brain” is very advanced; it factors in text’s size, placement and color when determining the importance of a word on a webpage.
META tags (keywords, description, etc.)
A page’s textual content
The relationships of other websites linking to and from the page
All help Google determine a page’s topic(s)
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Google: Page Relevance
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If your webpage’s topic(s) are similar to what
somebody is searching for, your webpage is
considered relevant to that search
Relevance is a spectrum—pages can be a little bit
relevant, or very relevant
Google: Page Quality (Page Rank)
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Different from a page’s numerical ranking in search
results
A measure of
Quality / Creditworthiness (do you believe it?)
Importance (is the site significant / well-known?)
Google: Page Quality (Page Rank)14
Google’s
Page Rank
algorithm is
poorly
understood,
but these are
believed to
be influential
factors.
Popularity
Page Rank of other websites linking to
the page
Page depth
Age
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Google: Ranking Results
Pages Google believes are most relevant (similar)
to someone’s search are prioritized.
Pages Google believes are of the highest quality
are also prioritized.
Pages that are both come first.
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What Can You Control?
The text that appears on your pages
Repetition of keywords and phrases
Page placement of search-friendly terms
Avoid placing important text in graphics
Use keywords in a page’s name
Avoid using many subdirectories
Have established websites link to your page
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine; top Google search result for “tangerine”.
Example: “Tangerine” Search
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http://www.tangerines.org/; number two Google search result for “tangerine”.
Example: “Tangerine” Search
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Understanding visitor behavior, retaining visitors, and web design essentials.
Handling Visitors
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Figuring out how visitors are using your website
Understanding Visitor Behavior20
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How Are Visitors Using Your Website?
Traffic analysis
Packages
Web-host provided
Services
Google Analytics
Microsoft Adcenter
Who visits your website?
Where do visitors spend the most time?
What did people search for when they came to your site?
Which search engines give you the most traffic?
When do most people visit the website?
What kinds of advertisements have people been clicking?
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This shows some of the visitor analysis available through Google Analytics.
Example: Google Analytics
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How to keep people coming back
Retaining Visitors23
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Retaining Visitors
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Fresh content
Good design
Fresh content
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News
Frequent page updates
Blogs
Forums, chat, messaging, etc.
www.gs.com, Goldman Sachs.
http://www.boddit.com/ , Boddit.
Example: Goldman Sachs
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Elements of good web design
Web Design Essentials27
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Three Types of WebPages28
Note: rich-media usually
refers to interactive
technologies like Adobe
Flash or Microsoft
Silverlight, but rich-media
also includes non-
interactive video and
audio on a website.
Pure rich-media
Pure HTML
Hybrids
All three types can be augmented by
client-side scripting.
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Rich-Media Versus HTML
Beautiful, major impact
Easily integrate multimedia
Slower, usually more frustrating to use, often irritating after the first few visits
Require visitors to have plug-ins and faster computers
Expensive to create and update
Easier and faster to use
Low visitor learning curve
More accessible
Cheap to create and update
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Pure rich-media Pure HTML
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Hybrids
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Best of both worlds
HTML base
Augmented with rich-media where appropriate
Sometimes rich-media splash/landing/intro pages
Elements Of Good Web Design31
Overall Simplicity
Easy Navigation
Concision
Unobtrusive Rich-Media
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http://webagent007.com/, Web Agent 007.
http://www.whoswestudios.com/flashsite.html, WhosWeStudios.
Example: Pure Flash
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http://www.digg.com, Digg.
http://ad.nl, AD.
Example: Pure HTML
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http://www.digg.com, Digg.
http://ad.nl, AD.
Example: Hybrids
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Monetizing traffic.
Generating Income From Visitors
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Monetizing Traffic
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Store front: selling a product or service
E-shopping carts, online payment processing
Contact info, call/fax/e-mail orders
Subscriptions
Pay to see any of site
Pay for certain, premium sections
Selling Advertising Space
Selling Advertising Space
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Banner ads
Text, pictures
Audio / Video
Interactive (mini-games)
Inline Text
Interstitial Pages
http://www.sfbg.com, San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Example: Advertising Zones
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