Web Optimisation Strategies

Assignment Brief
Introduction
Red Road Designs are a start-up web design agency based in Bradford. They employ a small staff team of three led by the company?s owner Imran Iqbal. They specialise in designing and developing e-commerce web solutions for local businesses and offer a range of web hosting packages for customers.

Additionally, Red Road Design can design company logos, business cards and promotional print material. They also offer a consultancy service that evaluates the SEO of existing websites.

It is vital to the success of Red Road Designs that their own website reflects the values and standards that they can offer their customers. It is also vital that Red Road Design?s web marketing strategy places them at an advantage in the competitive market that they are entering.

Component 1 Instructions
Element 1:

Consider the needs of Red Road Design and write a short report (no more than 1000 words) that identifies and justifies the key design, marketing and SEO techniques that the company would need to include in their new website. Your report should also include details of how the company could use social media to support their web marketing.

Element 2:
Using the findings of your report create a minimum of two pages for the new Red Road Design website. One of the pages must be the home page. Your pages should demonstrate how the report?s findings could be practically applied.

Component 2 Instructions
Elements 1 and 2:

You are required to produce a report (around 1500 words) that evaluates the effectiveness of the web pages that you developed in Component 1. Your evaluation should cover the design, the SEO and the marketing techniques that you have implemented. You should also consider how the site could be further optimised with a particular emphasis on the use of social media

Your report should begin with an identification and evaluation of a range of on-line analytical tools that can be used to support and manage a website. You should then select appropriate on-line analytical tools and use these as a basis of your evaluation. The results of the on-line analysis should be included as appendices.
Assessment Criteria:
Component 1:

? The appropriateness and breadth of research sources
? The appropriateness of the marketing techniques in meeting the issues raised by the case study
? The level and range of technical skills evidenced in the created website
? The range effectiveness of the SEO techniques applied in the creation of the website
Component 2:

? The depth, breadth and accuracy of the evaluaton of the website
? The clarity, coherence and structure of the written evaluation
? The application of academic standards and referencing
? The range and appropriateness of sources used to set the criteria for evaluation
? The ability to select and justify appropriate web analytical tools

FEEDBACK:
Component 1:

A good, strong opening abstract to your report. However, when you use a specific term such as ? value proposition? for the first time it is a good idea to offer a brief explanation of this and to place it in context.

You make a good point when you discuss the need to balance the ?familiarity? of a site?s design with the individual needs of the company and its customers. Perhaps some examples here would have better illustrated the point. However, I would question your assertion that every website needs a help facility. It does depend on the nature of the site and the experience of its users ? this echoes the point that you originally made.

You cite Ryan & Jones, 2009 in your summary of the key elements of web optimisation. I would question the currency of this ? a lot has changed in the last 5 years and SEO, in particular, is constantly evolving. The points they make are probably still valid (the same applies to the work of Nielsen, 1995) but you should acknowledge this and support with a more current source.

One key area to consider in 2014 is the role of social media. You do mention this, which is good, but, again, use Ryan & Jones as a source. This area, in particular, would have benefited from the use of more current research sources.

Overall, however, your report is well written and presented and does draw attention to on the key issues. A wider use of research and a little more focus on the specific needs of the company would have strengthened it.

Your actual site is OK but would benefit from a more modern, cleaner design. There are too many design elements on the home page which give it a somewhat amatuer feel ? not what a professional design company should be aiming for! Also, try and write your own copy. Much of the text on the homepage comes from https://www.nouveau.co.uk/. I need to see that you can create this yourself.

You need to make use of the meta description and keyword tags. These are missing from your site. You should also consider how you can make better use of the range of heading tags ? particularly <h1>. You also need to use alt tags in the images.
However, I thought the language option was a neat touch ? even though this was a little undermined by the text which clearly aims the site at UK users.

The link to a blog is well intentioned and would support the optimisation of the site. I would explore the potential of this further in the second part of the assignment.

The next part of the assessment asks you to evaluate the site you have built. Read through the points I make above and use these as a starting point for your evaluation. You should also look at the generic questions below that I am sending to all students.

? What benefit would Google Webmaster tools offer your site?

? How could you use Google Adwords to promote your site?

? Install the KGen tool for Firefox. Use this to generate a list of your keywords and then generate a similar list from an established web design agency. What does this tell you? What changes to your keywords do you think you can make?

? How easy is it to access the content of your site if viewed on a tablet PC/Mobile? What could you do with the site design to improve this?

? How could you build links to your site? How can Social Media be used to achieve this?

? How effective are your internal links? Are you describing the page you are linking to in the anchor text?
Component 2:
would add do three thinsg:

1. Discuss how a blog (you have a link on your site) can help in increasing awareness of your site

2. Discuss the need for meat tags ? particularly description and keywords ? these were missing from your original site but play a vital part in SEO

3. Widen the use of references. In particular try and use a more up to date source that supports the 2009 publication that you have used extensively