Website Information Architecture

Website Information ArchitectureBuilding Online BrandPurpose Here we intend to build a tool which audits a website on the basis of certain parameters, keeping in view the KM perspective .

Motive of any websiteIt is about your visitors. Reflects the message that you want to convey through your business. Only purpose is to answer questions people may have.In brief, it is about conducting business and being efficient.

Motive (Cont..)Whatever be the purpose of a website, goal is to attract more and more targeted visitors and making them come again and again.

To achieve this, we must host quality website.

What is quality site??Quality site is one that people want to visit and link to. So what makes a quality site? There are two versions of quality--- One is how visitors judge your site and Second is how the search engines view your site.Ultimate GoalTo increase web traffic.To get moretargeted web traffic.To learn more about your customers and potential customers by doing a website traffic analysis.To get more of your visitors to become buyers or clients.To increase time spent by visitor on a webpage.

Website Traffic???Increasing hits??

Increasing page views??

Increasing sessions??

Increasing unique visitors?? Research InstrumentDesign.

Behaviourial Analysis.

SE Optimisation.

DesignIs The Conscious Effort To Impose A Meaningful Order. Design is not just what it looks like and feels like.Design is how it works.-Steve Jobs

Design(Cont..) Content Organization

Navigational SchemesContent OrganizationAll in one: The simplest model, all content will be accessible from the same home page;Flat: Pages are peers and interchangeably accessible;Index: Based on the flat structure, but provide additional content in the telephone book style;Scatter:

Content OrgDaisy: Design for sites that need a workflow pattern of a linear nature- basically returns users to a certain point on the site after theyve completed a task;Categorical strict hierarchy: Content on lower level pages can only be accessed via the parent page; andMultidimensional hierarchy: Provides users with multiple ways of browsing the same content.

Navigation scheme

Navigational Schemes

Ensure that users are always aware of their location within the site; this allows them to easily browse forward or backwards;Hyperlinks should be distinctly set out from content such that they are easily discernable;Informing users of where they will be moving to upon clicking the hyperlink;

Navigational Scheme.Allowing for the usability and availability of the browser back button; andSeek to provide the audience with a minimum clicks to get maximum resultsBe easy to learn.Be consistent throughout the website.Provide feedback, such as the use of breadcrumbs to indicate how to navigate back to where the user started.

Navigation(Cont)Use clear and intuitive labels, based on the users perspective and terminology.Support user tasks.Have each link be distinct from other links.Group navigation into logical units.Avoid making the user scroll to get to important navigation or submit buttons.

Navigation(Cont..)Use the minimum number of clicks to arrive at the next destination.Not disable the browsers back button.

Behaviourial AnalysisKnow Your Online Visitor's Intent

Profiling of Online Visitors.Tracking visited pages.Time Spent on each page.Keywords Clicked on.Visitors LocationTime of VisitSource that lead them to your website.Data is then categorized and analyzed to determine the visitors interest and intent.Cont..The number of visitors.

The average number of page views per visitor a high number would indicate that the average visitors go deep inside the site, possibly because they like it or find it useful.

Average visit duration the total length of a user's visit. As a rule the more time they spend the more they're interested in your company and are more prone to contact.

Average page duration how long a page is viewed for. The more pages viewed, the better it is for your company.

Domain classes all levels of the IP Addressing information required to deliver Webpages and contentBusy times the most popular viewing time of the site would show when would be the best time to do promotional campaigns and when would be the most ideal to perform maintenanceMost requested pages the most popular pagesMost requested entry pages the entry page is the first page viewed by a visitor and shows which are the pages most attracting visitors

Most requested exit pages the most requested exit pages could help find bad pages, broken links or the exit pages may have a popular external linkTop paths a path is the sequence of pages viewed by visitors from entry to exit, with the top paths identifying the way most customers go through the siteReferrers; The host can track the (apparent) source of thelinksand determine which sites are generating the most traffic for a particular page.

Search Engine OptimisationReflecting Consciousness And Connecting CommerceKeywordsKeywords are the words on a webpage that best describe that pageKeyword selection is the most important step to effective SEOThe keywords you use will be the phrases where you want to be highly ranked on SEsTime and research should go into selecting the appropriate keywords before doing any SEOWhat are the words one would use to find your site?

MetatagsMeta tags are used to provide a description of the page, and a list of main keywords it uses.There is a debate over whether to cram loads of keywords into these tags, or just select the most important ones.Search engines are getting smarter everyday, so they may penalise you for crammingSome search engines reportedly dont even look at the meta tags (e.g. Google)

Title tagThe text in this tag shows up on the top of your browser window. Quite important to include keywords here, as the title will give a general summary for what your page is about.Most search engines see this tag as an important tag for categorising what type of site you have.

Anchor TagsOne of the most important tags you must use for SEO.Spiders use these to crawl your site, so you must have links to pages throughout your site.Other sites that link to yours will send spiders your way also.Google (and others) use anchor tags to rank your site in many ways:Firstly, text in anchor tags are given a lot of importance. If other sites link to you, this must mean your site is popular, and so you increase in rankings.The most popular sites would, in theory, be linked to by many websites throughout the internet.Since anchor tags are so important, it is vital that you include keywords in these tagsSEs think the words to describe a link should give a good indication of what that page is about.This is one reason why it is good to have a navigation bar that uses links to all your sites.Better that you use words, not imagesTry and use tags, and not image maps, flash, etc.A sitemap is also an effective way of tying your site up if you link all your pages to this site maText and ContentThroughout your page you will need to use keywords in order to rank well for that wordThe most important places of your content to put keywords are in the headers, at the beginning, and the end of paragraphs. It is importance to balance the overuse of keywords for the sake of SEO and keeping the text relevant, readable, and informativeThere is no point in having a highly ranked page if it provides no information to a user, as they will leave your site immediately

H1,H2,H3 etc tagsThese tags are considered by search engines to be a description of your page. Very important to put in some keywords there.It is always a good idea to structure your content so that it contains these tags at beginning of paragraphs, tables, sections, etc.It is quite logical that a search engine gets the overview of a paragraph from a header tagWe know what this slide is about by looking at the title of the slide.ImagesImages are not read by search engines, and so you should avoid using too many images on your site Many sites use images for fancy fonts, when they contain keywords that are never read by a search engineAlways use an alt attribute when including an imageThis gives a spider a description of the image, and also doubles as making your site accessible to blind people.

Code StructureIt is important to look at your HTML code and see the structure of it.Some pages have too much code, and too little contentSome code makes it so that content is found at the bottom of the page.Pages that use tables for layout are notorious for doing this.Make sure that keywords are found at the top of your source code as well as on the actual web pageRemember, SEs dont see pages like we do, they only see our HTML codeUpdates your sites RegularlySites that are updated regularly are spidered and indexed more frequently by SEsSites that change often are considered by SEs as sites that provide current information, and must therefore (although not always) provide up to date informationThis would provide a more relevant set of results than providing a user with pages that were made 10 years agoNews Items are a great way of including a regular changing page.

Dynamic CodeDynamic code can make updating your site very easyAlso useful for creating pages on the flyE.g. A shopping cart with items you want to buySEs do not always look favourably on pages with dynamic dataThese pages usually have a ? after the page name and are followed by dataYou have to regularly update your site if you want to do well with dynamic pagesE.g. Forums

Inbound LinksAs said before, links from other sites are very important.Google will no list your site if its not found on an other webpage listed by themMethods to get links on other pagesLink Exchange (free)Paid AdvertisingGoogle AdwordsOvertureSpecific Websites THANK YOU !