Masterclass presented by Gerry McGovern, World-renowned Web content and usability expert

Overview

Why the key to success for your website is a relentless focus on the tasks of your customers—and how to do it

This Masterclass will give you the tools and the arguments to show why a customer-centric approach is the best way to serve customers in Canada—whether they are citizens, potential customers or your own staff. The future of Web management is task management—and this Masterclass will give you the road map to achieve it.

People are driven to your website because they have a task to complete. They want to:

* Find an expert in global warming
* Book a hotel
* Start a business
* Compare laptops and buy one of them
* Find the phone number for tech support
* Buy tickets for an event
* Complete a tax return
* Apply for a grant or funding
* Find out relevant laws and regulations

Managers who look after the top websites in the world are changing their focus. They are not managing content. They are not managing technology. They are not managing websites. They are managing tasks.

If you are managing technology, content or websites, you are managing from an organization-centric point of view. If you manage tasks, you are managing from a customer-centric point of view.

November 28-29, 2007
Library and Archives Canada, Auditorium
395 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0N4
Details available at NeoInsight

While ranking formulas or search engine algorithms change frequently, there are a few crucial pieces of a web page that should contain your targeted keyword phrase to increase the likelyhood of achieving long term stability with your search engine rankings.
These locations:

1. Title Tags. A few hints about title tags: Approximately 70 characters at a minimum show in most of the major search engines and you want your keyword phrase to appear closer to the beginning of the title. Some organizations have structured their title tags so the name of the organization comes first, followed by the department and then the topic of the page. Try reversing this structure and your keyword phrases will come to the front of the title PLUS you will help your users when they bookmark your sites - if they bookmark multiple pages, their bookmarks will be easy to distinguish - more so than if the first 35 characters of each bookmark (or favorite) were the same! One last tip - don’t spam your titles by keyword stuffing them as users will see these titles in the search engines and may not click on your link if it looks too spammy - spam does not equal credibility.

Stay tuned for the next 9 crucial on page elements!

Stuntdubl, a.k.a. Todd Malicoat, recently posted on his blog about a website he had recently visited which “had two guys with nice suits on one of the most hideous homepages I had ever seen.” He also invites the rest of the world to ‘out’ any other offenders by inviting: “Any body else got some favorite examples of sites that need a redesign with people wearing suits?”

We see this alot - the worst offenders are frequently people who call themselves Web Designers!

Somehow, even the most bright business professionals sometimes do not differentiate bad design from good design…and because design is perceived to be an individual preference in their minds, we typically cite the Standford University Credibility Guidelines when trying to tell these people that they need to clean up their site. This takes the onus off of us and doesn’t make it look like we saying their website is ugly - people respond better to comments along the lines of “by following certain principles you can increase your sales or improve your bottom line”.

But web designers? Would you hire a web designer with an unattractive website?

For more credibility resources, check out del.ici.ous