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Why bother promoting your site?
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You’ve
put a lot of work into creating your site – now people need to find
it to see it!
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Marketing
– some departments in this University are in competition for students,
research dollars, donations.
- The
University’s business is distributing information, letting people know
what is available contributes to that part of the University mission.
What’s
special about the web?
- Audience
Understanding both your audience and how they will connect to the
information you provide is part of your challenge in promoting your
site.
- Internal:
If the audience is internal, and all on a network, and all using
machines you control or mailing lists you control, promotion becomes
almost trivial. Mail out the URL and provide bookmarks in the
standard browser.
- External:
Most of the internet audience out there is not like your internal
audience. They are on slow connections, with little tolerance
for long delays in page download. We’ll look at more details about
the standard web audience in a bit.
- Delivery
mechanism
- With
internal audiences, you can be as flashy as you want with graphics
and sound because everyone viewing the site is on a fast network
connection.
- External
audiences may be on slow connections, with little tolerance for
long delays in page download.
- Control
over publicity
You don’t have total control over how your site is publicized. You
can improve your chances with web search engines, or you can pay to
promote your site. But others can link to your site in ways you can’t
control.
The
general web audience
Information
on the general web audience is only important if your site is designed
for that audience.
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com
The general web audience, and major web site traffic, is monitored by
the same folks who do TV ratings. Nielsen Media Research makes lots of
information available for free (and more if you are willing to pay a lot).
Some of the general findings from Nielsen include:
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Most
web users don’t go to many sites, only 10-20 per session
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They
don’t spend much time on a page – less than a minute
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As
of June 2000, there were 136.9 Million Internet users in the US, 26.2
in Japan, 19.5 in the UK, 7.6 Australia
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The
US audience is large, the international audience is smaller, in part
for economic reasons related to the way phone services are charged
in other parts of the world (there are few unlimited local calling
options).
How
customers find sites
Web
Development Support | General
Info | Getting Started |
Design & Promotion
Cool Tools | Troubleshooting
| Feedback
If
you need further assistance with Web applications or questions, send e-mail
to web-consult@virginia.edu
or call the ITC Help Desk at 924-3731.
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