Jeremy - 14/12/06 - Future-proofing your web presence.

Our most recent seminar was on the topic of future-proofing. With the web moving so quickly, but with key trends starting to emerge, we're seeing organisations thinking seriously about how to invest now, but have the agility to change and adapt as the web moves on without scrapping their online presence, or writing off their earlier investment.

So what are some of the core considerations?

e-strategy IS Business strategy
There's no longer any difference. While online and offline strategies have historically been separate, they can no longer be considered separateable. The only difference is that e-strategy is business strategy, just translated and applied online.

Plan for at least 5 to 10 years
Strategies now need to be medium to long term. A web presence should evolve over a much longer period of time in line with the business and customer needs. Forget the 2-year strategies of the earlier days of the web.

Develop a microsite strategy
No more piecemeal mini sites! Create a strategy for deploying specific tactical-purpose sites, only within a core integrated framework. Where suitable, deploy technology to empower your internal staff to do this, rather than outsource.

Embrace Web 2.0
The web's all about communication, and Web 2.0 is a significant step in fostering one-to-one relationships, revolving around what each individual wants and needs. Investing in these relationships will be money well spent!

There are some further, more detailed thoughts about what all this means from our speakers in the other blog posts on this page...

Louise - 14/12/06 - Building Agile Web Systems - Part 1.

The key to future proofing your web presence is flexibility. In my seminar presentation last week, I discussed the various methods you can employ to ensure your web platform implements a high degree of flexibility. I'm going to briefly talk about my first point today, and hopefully cover the other topics over the coming weeks.

1. Stick to Standards
Web Standards have been developed to ensure the different parts of the web world understand each other. Imagine two people having a conversation - one speaks only Spanish, the other speaks only Japanese. Now imagine that both of your chatters speak French. Obviously, to understand each other, the second scenario with a common language is preferable! This is a similar concept to how web standards work. Replace your two conversationalists with a web browser and a web server - they communicate happily in HTML.

I suspect your website (if you have one) will already be built in HTML, but how well does it comply with the W3C's web standards and guidelines? Thankfully, as well as giving us lots of rules and instructions, the W3C have also developed a cool tool on their website that lets you check your websites compliance.

Why should you endeavour to comply with the W3C's standards?
The most important reason is that if you don't, you could be preventing people from accessing your site! People using screen reading browsers, for example will have trouble browsing your site if standards are ignored. The BBC recently posted a good, if not slightly depressing, article about how poorly accessibility standards are adhered to by some of the world's biggest sites.

Standards have also been conceived with usability in mind - therefore, in theory, if your site complies with web standards, it will make for a better browsing experience for all of your site users.

Useful Links:
W3C website
Web Accessibility Initiative

Another reason is that search engine robots love compliant sites. The better your site complies with web standards, the more content search engines will be able to index and evaluate.

How does complying with web standards help future proof your platform?
New web technologies that are developed will use web standards. If your site doesn't comply, browsers using new technology may encounter problems when using your site. To remedy this, your website may have to be changed.

In my seminar, I also talked about XML - another W3C standard. I won't go into the specifics about what XML is; put simply, it is a way of describing data that different systems can read and understand. In the current web climate of interoperability between sites, web users and desktop applications, making use of this most flexible of web languages is going to help secure your web platform's future.

Drew - 14/12/06 - 3 Steps to Securing your Search Future.

Understanding how search engines may evolve can give us an insight into the adaptations our websites will need to ensure ongoing organic traffic. So what's in the crystal ball?

1. Linguistic Analysis (How a search engine processes your site) will become more sophisticated. What you can do: Get rid of jargon and business speak - talk to your visitors, engage them, optimising as much for the user as for the search engine.

2. Link Popularity (the quantity and quality of sites that link to yours) plays a greater role in ranking, quality links and harder to come by. What you can do: Successful link building to increase a website's "popularity" will be about creating a dialogue with other site owners and blog authors. If you want to harness search traffic, making your website link worthy must be a primary directive.

Useful Link:
Delicious Social Tagging Tool and Search Engine - http://del.icio.us

3. Social Tagging (User Opinion and Personalised search results). What you can do: No website is an island - make sure your products and services stand up to opinion - actively engage in a conversation with your Users, but be prepared for criticism. In the future it may not be enough to attract traffic in the short term - it will also be vital that a user recommends your site to ensure long term gains.

Dan - 14/12/06 - How the user journey affects success online.

The idea of a user journey - a path one takes online when interacting with your website and others - is not a new one. It is however one that, in these times of fierce competition on the web, can make a dramatic difference to how successful your website is.

It's also constantly evolving, which means keeping pace with the varying expections and actions of users is essential.

So what are some areas for focus in the near future?

Entry points through search
Users can access any page on your site through search engines (assuming they are indexed in the first place!) and are also using search as an alternative to bookmarking - i.e. using very specific search terms about what they're looking for and where they want to find it, in order to shortcut straight to the right page on the right site. You need to ensure all pages have context, relevance and simple, appropriate next actions so the user is satisfied with the entry point and can continue their interaction with you. Look at your web analytics to determine entry pages by search phrase. How do they perform on this basis?

Active engagement
The user that interacts with you will often start their journey elsewhere on the web, often several steps removed from your site. Consider using Web 2.0 technologies and techniques to push your engagement with these users beyond the boundaries of your site.

Plan new functionality methodologically
So often sites provide new functions or features because they seem cool or someone in the organisation thinks they'll be a big hit. Cool is good, and ideas are great... But there needs to be method in madness. New functionality needs to be ratified by the needs and desires of those who will use it, so make sure there's a process in place to sift the wheat from the chaff, as this will become all the more important as the web moves forward.