1 Digital Marketing Strategy: Website Evaluation – MAR 6722 Updated 2022 The website for an organization, brand, product, etc. should be created with a purpose in mind. When you onsider that your website is the one piece of online content over which you have the most control with respect to content, design, duration, etc., it’s clear that how it is designed and maintained is of critical importance to your digital marketing strategy. As a significant part of this assignment, you will need to examine a website as well as other online components of the website organization’s marketing efforts (such as social media, search engine results, etc.). As part of this assignment, do not contact the owners/operators of the website with hopes of gaining valuable information that will help you with this assignment. This is important for three reasons: (1) the questions are to be answered from your perspective and not that of the owners/operators; (2) it is against the established rules of the assignment to seek outside assistance; and (3) the owners/operators may not have as much business knowledge as you. Any students found to have solicited the assistance of the website owners/operators during the assignment period will receive a zero grade on the assignment. Complete this assignment by answering the following questions in this document. You may use bullet point responses when appropriate rather than full paragraphs. In either case, however, proper spelling and grammar is required. When you are finished with the assignment, submit it online by the specified deadline. 2 Part A – The Basics The “what” behind the website is important to understand, but the “why” behind its existence and design is even more important. Use your common sense and your marketing knowledge to discuss your focal website by answering the questions below. A1. What is the URL of the website you are evaluating? A2. What is the name of the business or organization that owns/operates this website? (E.g., the website www.visit.com is owned and operated by a firm called Citybreak.) A3. With respect to online vs. face-to-face business transactions, how does this business appear to operate? What parts of the business are online and what parts are face-to-face? A4. From a marketing perspective, why do you think this particular website exists? What do you think that the owners/operators of this website expect to achieve by having this online presence? A5. From what you have learned about the website and the organization that sponsors it (i.e., the owners/operators), who do you believe is the primary target market for this site? Why? A6. What/who do you believe are the potential secondary target markets for this website? Why? Part B –The Marketing Exchange A key part of your evaluation process is to think from various perspectives. This section helps you to consider the marketing environment in which this website has been constructed, and how the website plays a role. B1. Considering the Distribution Approach to Marketing Exchange, what are the main exchanges that this website should be helping to facilitate? In other words, what is the information? …the innovation? …the compensation?…the transaction costs? You need to consider the various exchanges that the website is promoting regardless of whether they are online or face-to-face. B2. What types of efficiency issues are at stake here? In other words, where can the flow of information, innovation, and/or compensation be made more efficient using e-marketing in order to increase perceived value to the company/organization and to its clients/users? B3. Does the website seem appropriate for the purpose of facilitating the apparent main marketing exchange? Why or why not? 3 Part C – Website Purpose and Design A website without purpose is potentially worthless or, even worse, harmful to the brand, the organization, and sales. The purpose should drive design. If not, the design is likely flawed. C1. How does the website use the AIDA model to move people in the target market to make a purchase? C2. What are some obvious (or even subtle) design elements that are used in the website that help achieve its goals? C3. What is the structure of the website and how does that affect navigation? How does the navigation and design differ across access devices (e.g., desktop vs. mobile)? C4. What does the website do to build connections and/or relationships with the target audience members? Part D – Search You could build the best website in the world, but if it can’t be found, what’s the point? Content marketing, inbound marketing, search engine optimization, and even search engine marketing all rely on website artitecture, design, and content to succeed. C1. How important do you believe online search is with respect to the success of your target website? C2. From your examination of the website, what do you believe would be the key search terms that the owners/operators of this website would expect people to use to find their site? What search terms do you think that the target market typically would use? Do you think that the website is designed to optimize search results for these terms? Explain each of these answers. C3. Using some of the key search terms that you think the target market would use, perform at least five different searches (i.e., five sets of search words) on each of the following search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo (that is a total of 15 searches). Does your target website appear on the first page of the search results? If so, in what location? If not, does it appear on the next several pages? What does this mean with respect to search optimization for your target website? For the searches you just performed, do apparent competitors appear? Does a casual observation of these competitors’ websites (homepages only) suggest that they would be more likely to attract the primary market versus your target website? For part of the answer to this question, create a table of your search results listing the search terms, placement of the target website in the results, placement of apparent competitors (list some seemingly viable competitors), etc. C4. What would you suggest as possible ways for your target website to improve its search results? 4 Part E – Online Social Media Ideally, the social media accounts associated with a website work seamlessly to achieve objectives, build brand, facilitate funnel movement, and engage audiences. E1. From your examination of your target website as well as specific searches for social media for this organization, what types of social media (blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) appear to be used by the business/organization? E2. Examine some of the key social media links and consider their use in facilitating an efficient and effective marketing exchange. What are your target website operators doing right? What are they doing wrong? What improvements could they make? E3. What potential problems can this particular organization experience with respect to their current use of social media? What opportunities are they ignoring? E4. What would you suggest as possible ways for your target website to improve its social media marketing? Part F – Privacy Online privacy issues are paramount for a great many digital users, as well as for government agencies that regulate communication and commerce. Not adequately addressing online privacy can result in a perceived breech of trust, and that could mean disaster for the brand. F1. What types of privacy issues would seem to be relevant to typical visitors to your target website? F2. What types of privacy issues would seem relevant to typical users of the website’s social media pages? F3. Does the website have a privacy policy? If so, what is the URL? F4. What types of third-party seals or logos does the website display that would alleviate customer concerns regarding privacy? Do they seem to be useful? Why or why not? F5. Do you believe the website sufficiently addresses the potential privacy issues that you have considered for questions E1 and E2? If so, why? If not, why not? F6. What could the website operators do to improve their handling of potential privacy issues? 5 Part G – Security In today’s age of hacking, phishing, and other illegal and unethical behaviors, online security is a critical consideration. Not only do transactions need to be secure, they must be perceived to be secure. G1. What types of security issues would seem to be relevant to typical visitors to your target website? Is money at stake? Credit card information? Health information? Other? G2. What types of security issues might arise from the website organization’s use of social media? G3. What types of information regarding security does the website have in its privacy policy or in a separate security policy? G4. What types of third-party seals or logos does the website display that would alleviate customer concerns regarding security? G5. Do you believe the website sufficiently addresses the potential security issues that you have considered for questions F1 and F2? Why or why not? G6. What could the website operators do to improve their handling of potential security issues? Part H – Analytics What’s an analysis without some data? See what you can find about your website that could help you to provide advice to a client if this were their website. H1. Using one of the many free website ranking sites (yes, you can search for them online), see if you can find out analytics information regarding your target website. Note that if one of the free website ranking services doesn’t provide any results for your selected website, try one or two others. Consider the various types of information that are presented and give feedback on what you have found. Provide an evaluation of how the website is doing and give details to support your evaluation (including the website used to find the analytics). H2. Analyze some of the competitor websites that you found in Part C (Search) and see how your target website compares. Give details to support your evaluation. H3. Consider various ways that you can assess the social media accounts that your website uses. What analytic information can you find? Consider (a) the number of subscribers, views, Likes, friends, fans, comments, etc.; (b) the recency/timeliness of posts, comments, blog entries, etc.; and (c) the degree of positivity or negativity of comments, responses, questions, etc. Use this information to build an evaluation of how the website is doing with its social media accounts. If appropriate, you can compare this to any seemingly key competitors that you found in Part C (Search). 6 Part I – Recommendations What are your recommendations for your target website? Provide an overall recommendation for the general nature/scope/direction/feel for the site as well as recommendations for search, social media, privacy, and security. What changes would you make? What additions would you make? What reductions would you make?
