Easy Opportunities to Improve Your Website Presented by Mark James, CEcD VP Economic & Business Development AEP Economic & Business Development SM America s Economic Development Authority www.aeped.com
Agenda 2
The Importance of Web In Econ Dev 90% 3
4
#1 It All Starts With A Strategy 5
6 6
#2 Orient To Geography 7
8
9
10
#3 Sell the People (and the program) 11
Drive to Contact www.chooseneindiana.com 12
13
#4 Content is King! 14
A word about a trend 15
GreaterDubuque.org victoriaedc.com Greaterspokane.org NLEP.org 16
17
Examples of Content Marketing Blogs Contextual Searching Video/Photos Gated Content Social Media 18
Great News for Economic Development! Contextual Searching Keyword > modifier > modifier > location 19 19
Long Tail Search Terms Keyword > modifier > modifier > location 1. Brand name: Starbucks 2. Location: Washington, DC 3. Long tail descriptor: Drive-thru 1. Guthrie 2. Oklahoma 3. Economic Development 4. Available Properties 20
Off Page SEO The new key to off-page SEO? You need to create content that other people find valuable and want to share with their visitors. That s it. That s the secret sauce. (And FYI, that s according to Google). Here s the full excerpt: Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors. You can increase your search rankings and earn natural inbound links by creating amazing content. 21
#5 Mobile is Here to Stay! 22
As a result, the future of the internet is mobile 23
Responsive Design http://www.business2community.com/onlin e-marketing/responsive-website-designexplain-please-0585257 24
Test Your Site https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ 25 25
#6 Make Your Site Utilitarian 26
The Rule of Format 27
Print this page Cascading Style Sheet 28
Share this page 29
30 30
Social Media for Practical ED Pro Get Social Easily addthis.com or sharethis.com 31
#7 You Get What You Measure 32
Web Site Metrics As a profession we have got to do better at this Key statistics- Visits Pages visited Documents downloaded Contact us form viewed Contact us form submitted Check monthly at minimum Look for trends caused by other actions Benchmark Use SM to drive traffic 33
34
AEPED s PPC Campaign 35
36 36
#9 How to Hire a Web Firm 37
Hiring a Web Developer The RFP is EVERYTHING Specify- Audience Do an outline nav Functionality Performance criteria Timing References Programming platform How many design schemes do you want basis for selection Who will do what- Graphics Copy writing Data tables Estimate (if you can) the # of pages 38
Economic Development Websites Content Management Systems Add/edit/delete pages -Manage digital media -Updates weekly -Eliminate dependency relationship with design firm 39
#10 Our web sites need to be about COMMUNICATION, not marketing 40
Most important Formula for Success Get a great content management system Create best fit equilibrium between- Business goals Audience expectations Financial Resources Revise, revise, revise 41
Test Your Own Site How s it rank? How many linked to you? SEO (and SEM) Mobile Friendly http://www.seocentro.com/to ols/search-engines/keywordposition.html www.websitegrader.com www.searchenginewatch.com https://www.google.com/web masters/tools/mobile-friendly 42
Questions??? 43