Transcript Using the Internet

Using the Internet
David North
[email protected]
CCFSA Conference
October 2008
What is the Internet?

It is a brochure


It is a phone book


Lots of people drive by everyday
It is a library


People use it to find services
It is a billboard


People use it to learn about your organization
People use it to do research
It is an advertisement

It sells to people
72% of the US population
used the Internet in the
past month
Why use the Internet?






It reaches just about everyone
It is how people find out about everything
It lets you communicate to the people that are
interested in you
It allows you to continually update your message
It is relatively low cost communication
It is something you can do
Who are you?

What type of organization are represented here
today?
Adoption agencies
 Children’s homes
 Others?


Do you know what HTML or HTTP stand for?
If you do not, you are in the right place

If so, you may be an expert and can teach this class
In this presentation

I Can’ t





Make you a technical expert
Make you a web expert
Make you a web marketing guru
Make building a web site a “piece of cake”
I Can




Motivate you to use the web better for your organization.
Make you more familiar with good ideas and processes for
building a web presence
Make you a little more familiar with web technology
Make it all a little less mysterious
How to use a website to promote
your organization




Plan it
Build it
Maintain it
Promote it
Plan it


Fire! ready, aim
Planning is the most important step





Helps you know what you want to do
Saves time
Saves money
Helps you have a better chance to get what you needed
Writing down your plan is important




It is the best way to get agreement
It makes you decide things
It makes things clearer
It helps you remember
Plan it : Who is your audience?

Who do you want to communicate to?



Customers, Clients, Stakeholders
Describe them as narrowly as you can
You probably have more than one audience?





Is that a problem?
It is a reality
Minimize the list
Write down a list.
What do you know about your audience?






What is important to them?
What do the think about?
What prompts them to action?
What are the best ways to communicate to them?
What do they want from you?
Write the answers to these down for each audience
Plan it : Who is your audience?

Exercise - Adoption Agency
Who is the audience that they want to communicate to?
 What do we know about the audiences?

Plan it : What message do you want
to send to your audience?

Two types of messages

Emotional
“Touchy Feely”, Concepts
 Caring, dependable


Content
Answers to the 5W’s
 Who, When, Where, What, Why
 How to

Plan it : What message do you want
to send to your audience?
What messages do you see?
Plan it : What message do you want
to send to your audience?
What messages do you see?
Plan it : What message do you want
to send to your audience?
What messages do you see?
Plan it : Emotional Messages

What emotional messages do you want to send
to each audience?

Communicate about your organization

Brainstorm single words or phrases about your
organization
Reach out to what is important to your audience
 Look as see what others like you communicate
 Write down a list for each audience

Plan it : Content Messages

What content messages do you want to send to
each audience?

Facts about your organization

Who, What, When, Where, Why
Invitation to use service
 How to do things with your organization
 Social proof about your organization
 Write down a list for each audience

Plan it : What Messages?

Exercise - Adoption Agency
What emotional messages do we want to communicate?
 What content messages do we want to communicate?

Plan it : What action do you want
your audience to take?


Web sites should prompt an action
What are the possibilities







What do other web site try to get your audience to do?



Increase awareness
Give you their contact info
Call you
Sign up for your service
Tell others about you
Send you money
look and see
What is the #1 think you want them to do?
Write down a list
Plan it : What Action?

Exercise - Adoption Agency

What action do we want our audience to take?
Plan it : What actions do you want
the web site to do?


Web sites can do things
What are the possibilities








What do other web site do to do?


Search/look up content
Collection visitor information
Let visitors leave comments/questions/feedback
Calculators/Evaluators/Predictors/Matching
Track processes
Take orders
Send emails
look and see
Write down a list
Plan it : What Action?

Exercise - Adoption Agency

What action do we want our web site to do?
Plan it : Story Board

Make a list of the pages




What page will have each message
What page will do each action
Put pages up on the Wall for each web page
Write on the pages


Page Heading
Description of content or action

Organize the pages in a hierarchical way to create the menu plan

Who can help you do this kind of work?



Web Designer
System Analyst
You!
Plan it : Story Board

Example
Home
Page
About
Services
Success
Stories
Service 1
Story 1
Service 2
Story 2
Contact
Us
Plan it : Summary

Identify your audiences
Identify your messages
Identify what you want the audience to do
Identify what you want the web site to do
Create a story board

Who can help you do this kind of work?









Marketers
Systems Analysts
Any good discussion leader
You!
Questions?
Build it

Design




What is web site is going to look like
Look and feel
User interface
Build

Create and assemble components
Build it : Look and Feel



Graphics and layout
Communicate Style
Usability




Easy to read
Easy to navigate
Easy to do what you want to do
Who can help you do this kind of work?


Graphic Artists
Purchase or get free Web page templates
Build it : Content

Build/Find the components for web pages

Text



Media





Use style and content messages
Use keyword for search engines
Pictures
Video
Audio
Animation - Flash
Who can help you do this kind of work?





Writers
Graphic Artists/Photographers/Videographers
Web Developers
Volunteers
You!
Build it : Pages

Use tools to assemble pages

HTML tools – WSIWIG



Content Management


Build it online
Who can help you do this kind of work?





Build each page
Upload to web site
Web Developers
Some one with some computer/web experience
Volunteer
You!
Questions?
Build it: Technology

What tools are you going to use to build the web
site

Questions for tools selection
Who is going to use them
 Will the tools let me do all the things I have planned
 How will the site be maintained after it is built with a tool
and who will be able to do that


Possible choices
HTML tools (the language of web pages)
 Site builder tool (some hosting sites have them)
 WordPress (free content management tool

Build it: Technology

Where is the web site going to be hosted?


What is hosting?
Hosting services




Registering your URL


Hosting Services
Who can help you make these decision?




Bluehost
GoDaddy
Network Solutions
Web Developers
Some one with some computer/web experience
Probably the group that going to help you build the web site
Questions?
Build it: Technology

Example – Building a web site with Word Press

Hosting


Bluehost – www.bluehost.com
Download Word Press

– www.wordpress.com
Select a theme
 Get online and add pages

Build It: Summary

Create a Story Board
Develop a Look and Feel
Develop Content
Build Pages
Technology Decisions

Who can help you do this kind of work?









Web Developers
Some one with some computer/web experience
Volunteer
You!
Questions?
Maintain it

Web sites need new content and accurate content




You must have a plan to maintain the web site



Regular updates
Add new content – you need to find new content
Who can help you do this kind of work?




There are new things to communicate
You want people to come back so there has to be a reason
It makes it more popular in the search engines
Some one with some computer/web experience
Volunteer
You!
Questions?
Promote it

Web sites need to be promoted


If no one visits your web site then it is not worth
much.
Two types of Promotion
Off the Internet
 On the Internet


You also need to track the performance of the
web site.
Promote it: Off the Internet

In Print

Put your URL on everything you print






Letter head
Business Cards
Brochures
Presentations
Promotional items
In Verbal discussion

Refer people to when you talk to them one-on-one



When they call and ask questions
When you tell people about your organization
Refer to it in presentations
Promote it: On the Internet

On your site

Make your site search engine friendly





Page titles
Key word density
Meta tags
Lots of content
Updated content
Registration – collect peoples email (and other info)
 News letters – send information out from your site

Promote it: On the Internet

On others sites
Get listed in search engines (SEO)
 Get listed on web pages that list organization like
your site
 Get other peoples web sites to point to your site
 Make entries in other peoples blogs that point to
your website
 Advertisements


In you email

Put a link to it in the signature of your email
Promote it: Track it

Have a method for tracking and reporting about
the visit to your site
If we can measure it we can improve it
 You can tell if your promotion methods are making a
difference


Tracking tools
Host site may provide a tool
 Google Analytics

Promote it: Track it

What kind of things can you learn from tracking
Number of Unique visitors
 Number of returning and new visitors
 The time spent on your site
 How many pages were viewed
 How people got to the site

Promote it: Track it
Promote it: Summary


Web sites need to be promoted
Two types of Promotion


Off the Internet
On the Internet

Track the performance of the web site

Who can help you do this kind of work?





Some one with some computer/web experience
PR Person
Volunteer
You!
Questions?
Summary




Plan it
Build it
Maintain it
Promote it
Just Do It





You can talk about it
You can think about it
But until you do it your organization won’t get
the benefit of it
People are looking every day on the internet –
can they find you
Just Do it
Next Steps

If you don’t have a web site


Use what we have discussed here to plan, build, maintain and
promote one.
If you do have a web site

Use what we have discussed here to help update what you
have


Go through the planning exercise we did and see if your web site is
communicating the messages and allowing the actions
Get some help – There are lots of people that do know
about using the internet – find one to help.