Best web sites

Best web sites

Suzanne Kart, CeP, M.A.

Associate Vice President

LERN

#lern13 @suzannekart

Challenges of web design

• Seldom do we have complete control over what it will look like.

– May have to conform to style of an umbrella site

• Don’t always have access to a professional web designer

• Time is at a premium

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BEST SITES SHARE COMMON ELEMENTS

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Original, Fresh Content

• Content is king.

• People visit for the primary purpose of finding information – make sure you deliver.

• Your content should be:

– Up to date

– Unique

– Fresh – fresh content will keep visitors (and search engines) coming back

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Austin Community College

• They’re telling us what’s happening right now

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City of Mountain Home (Idaho)

Parks and Recreation Department

• What’s working here is that they are updating their content every couple of days, resulting in higher SEO

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Target Audience

• A good website will have headlines and text that speak to the target audience’s needs and wants.

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Bucks County Community College

“Whoever you are and wherever you are in your career/life, learning will always be a step that leads to growth. Training which results in certificates and credentials can lead to great success in many fields. Bucks County Community College provides various areas of training to individuals seeking to improve, and propel themselves into tomorrow’s jobs.”

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The Learning Oasis

• Career resources for women

• Very clear how they can help you

• They have a great blog with lots of inspirational and useful information for women

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Simple layout

• Pages read straight forward from top to bottom

• Less eye skipping

• Solid browsing experience

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Okanagan College

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Milwaukee School of Engineering

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User-friendly Navigation

• A good website has content that’s easy to find.

• Navigation should be consistent from page to page.

• Make sure all your links are working.

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Castro Valley Adult & Career Education

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Autry Technology Center

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Design the content, not the page

• Don’t decorate, communicate

• Softer, receding page “furniture” (permanent elements)

• Strong color and 3D effects that draw attention to the content itself

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Alaska Bar Association

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Icons, used sparingly

• Icons can convey a message quickly

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College of Southern Idaho

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Nice big text

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North Berwyn Park District

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Your print catalog still generates 75% of

registrations

• DO NOT ELIMINATE THE PRINT CATALOG

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Mobile optimization

• Over 34% of all mobile users have gone online from their phone. They do so at least once a week.

• 85% of people between 18 and 26 go online regularly from mobiles, with that number being as high as 91% in Asia.

• 40 to 50 year olds are just as likely to go online as people aged 30 to 40.

• 29.80% of mobile shoppers abandon poor mobile sites before completing purchase or research

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Drake University

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Canadian Marketing Association

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eMarketing strategies that work

Brochure/Web Mix

• Picture of brochure on Home Page

• URL on cover and back cover of your brochure

• Encourage people to go to your web site

• Sign up for mailing list on your web site

• Encourage people to register online

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Hawaii Community College

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Web site strategies that work

• Multimedia and interactive features enhance interest

• Video clips, audio, color, pictures, animation, photographs, all generate more interest

• Polls, blogs, social networks and other interactive features get people involved, which leads to more registrations

• Live Person and other ways to communicate all help

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Orange Community Education & Recreation

When you hover over these local pictures, they take you to different pages like “snowboarding”

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YouTube

• 70% of Americans use YouTube

• Allows your customers to actually see something about your program

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Schoolcraft Community College

TinyURL.com/SCVideoExample

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Some other great web site techniques

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Promote online registration

• Online registration is more cost effective

• It allows you to respond better and faster

• It creates more services and benefits for learners

• It will lower staff time

• It is the way people purchase in the 21st century

• Eventually 90% of registrations will be online

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University of Wisconsin Parkside

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Search pages

• Recommend at least four ways to search: – Location

– Category

– Course number

– Key word search

• The more ways to search, the better.

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University of New Mexico

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Ways past participants can help improve your web site.

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Post past participant work on your web site

• It shows potential participants what others have done.

• The message is “you too!” can do this.

• It is peer-to-peer marketing.

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Langara College

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Have your customers create content – that’s web 2.0!

Think -

– Surveys

– Feedback

– Preferences

– Learner projects

– Comments

– Pictures

– Video clips

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Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service

• Video

• Pictures

• Social Media

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Thank you!

• Suzanne Kart

• kart@lern.org

• Connect with via social media at suzannekart.com

#lern13 @suzannekart