Promoting Website

I have thought about how I will promote my website so people will know about and visit it so I have done some research to try find out the most effective ways to promote websites. The methods I felt were suitable for my site and the ones I could use are:

• Social networking sites
• Online forums and directories
• Leaflets

Social Networking Sites:

Social networking sites can be a good way to promote businesses and websites and used to advertise products and services because these sites have many users that visit the networking site regularly. The site I have chosen to use is Facebook. This is because my website is aimed at a young audience and a lot of young people use Facebook (the average age of users that use Facebook is 26yrs). The way I would promote my website would be to create a Facebook page and include information on that page to persuade users to visit my website. In the about section, I would have a short paragraph saying what the gift finder site is about and how it works. On the main page I would post special offers, new products etc when they come available but I would try to make sure I posted quality content so people are not put off the page. There would also be my website address and email address in the information section.

Online Forums & Directories:

From research I have done to find out how to promote websites, I have found out more about link building. Link building helps a website perform better in search engine results because they look at the websites popularity and this helps the search engine position each website in their results. Search engines use page ranks to determine a websites position and the higher the page rank, the higher the position so it is important to get other websites to link to my website. The way I could get more sites to link to my website would be to add my web address to web directories and forums. This would not only improve the website's performance in search engines but would also take people from the forum or directory direct to my website so I could potentially get more users visiting my website.

Leaflets:

Another way to promote my website would be to design and print leaflets with information about the website and the web address. Leaflet dropping would be an option so a lot of people would get to know about the website and also these could be placed in shops and noticeboards in different towns and villages around Hull to promote the Princes Avenue and Newland Avenue area of Hull.

Websites used for this research:
www.socialmediatoday.com/smc/78505
www.wilsonweb.com/articles/checklists.htm

Development Schedule

October: Project Proposal
By the end of October I would like to have completed my project proposal document

November: Visual Designs
By the end of November I would like to have completed all visual design including wireframes, sketches and mock-ups.

December: Information for site
By the end of December I would like to have collected all the images and information about each product that will be on my site and put this information into my database for my site.

January: PHP
Start working on the PHP and by the end of January I would like to have created a search box so the database can be searched and return relevant results to the keyword the user enters in the search box. Then start working on the log in section.

February: PHP & design
By the end of February I would like to have completed most of the PHP work and start working on the look of the website.

March: Design & Coding
By the end of March I would like to have completed all the designing and all the coding for the site.

April: User Testing
By the end of April I would like to have carried out some user testing and also made the appropriate changes to improve my website.

May: Hand in
In May 2011, hand in all work for this project including all documentation, website files and finish online blog.

Visual Design - Mock-up

A mock-up of how the website could look with possible colours:

Visual Design - Sketches

Quick sketch of how website could look:

Mood Board

I chose to do a mood board for my website which shows how I want my site to look and feel. The images I have used show that I want my site to look cute, girly and colourful.

Project Structure

The website will have both global and local navigation. The global navigation will be consistent though-out the site and the local navigation will be different within each section. The dark blue box on the structure shown above is the home page. The lighter blue boxes underneath the home page are the pages that can be accessed by clicking on the links on the navigation bar. This is the global navigation as these links will be on every page in the same place on the page so it is consistent. The light blue boxes underneath the global navigation show the navigation that will be within each section. This is called the local navigation because these links will not be on every page and will only be on the pages that are within a certain section.

Project Content

The main component I will be producing is the actual gift finder website. Within the website there will be a number of different sections. The main sections on this website will be the home page, gift page and the boutique page. The home page will be important because it will show the user the different ways they can search the websites for gifts. It will have a search box where the user can enter keywords to see if there are any gifts available that are similar to what they are looking for. There will also be a search feature where the user chooses an option within each drop down box e.g. a price range, preferred colour, category etc. and the website will try and return results that match all the options they choose e.g. if they chose the jewellery category, colour purple and price range under £10, the results could return a purple bracelet that costs £8. Another way the user will be able to search the site will be to view products by category, price, colour or boutique so on the home page I will make the option clear by using icons for each one under a heading that reads ‘Search by’. The final way to search is to simply click on the ‘gifts’ link on the navigation bar at the top of the home page.

When the user clicks on the gift link on the navigation bar, it will take the user to the gifts page. This page will display all the gifts that all the different boutiques sell. There will be options at the top of this page above the products that allows the user to filter the results and also sort the results. They will be able to sort the results by choosing an option from the drop down box e.g. sort by price: low>high, newest gifts etc. The user will also be able to filter the results by viewing results by category, colour, price or boutique and then the site will display relevant results. When the products are displayed, each product will show the product name, product image and product price. That is the only information that is shown about each gift on this page and if the user wants to find out more they would have to click on the product and then it would take them to another page which would display more information such as the a description, boutique name and where the boutique is located so they would know where to go to find the shop.

When the user clicks on the boutique link on the navigation bar, it will take them to a page that shows all the boutiques that have products on the website. For each one, the name of the business and an image of their shop will be displayed on this page and when the user clicks on one, they will be taken to another page that displays more information. This information will be about the boutique, information about who they are and what kind of products they sell. This page will also provide the user with contact details such as address, telephone number, email address and a map of where their shop is located.

Another main section that will be on my website will be the log in section. This will be for the businesses to enter log in details and then be able to add, edit and remove products to and from my website. They can add new products, edit information such as prices, and remove products they no longer sell. There will be a small link in the footer of the website that they can click on which will then take them to a screen that will ask for their username and password. Once they are logged onto the site there will be a page that will let them choose whether they want to add a new product, edit an existing product or delete an existing product. If they choose to add a new product they will be taken to a web page with a form where they would enter information about the product such as name, price, and description and then upload an image of that product. If they choose to edit a product they will be taken to a web page displaying all the products they sell which are on my site and when they click on one to edit, they will be taken to a form like the form to add a product except all the product information will already be there and then they can just make the changes they want and click update. If they choose to delete a product they will be taken to a page displaying all the products they sell which are on my site and then they click on a product to delete, they will be asked if they are sure they want to delete it and when they click yes, the product will be removed from my site.

As well as my website, I would also like to create a newsletter that would be sent to users that have signed up by entering their email address on my site. The newsletter would include information about new products that have been added to the site and any special offers the shops have. This newsletter would be sent out monthly because I don’t think there would be enough new information to fill a newsletter to send out weekly or fortnightly.

I will also be keeping an online blog which shows everything I have done for this project and when I did it. This will include ideas, research, sketches, prototypes, and any other tasks I will do for this project.

Ideas for website using small businesses

(to complete)

Online Shopping VS Offline Shopping

I have now researched online shopping and offline shopping and how customers research products and how they purchase products.

-42% of consumers researched online and then purchased the products online
-34% of consumers researched online and then went to the shops to purchase the products
-21% of consumers researched online, went to the store to check out the products and then went back online to purchase them
-12% visited a store and then purchased the products online
-7% purchased the product in store and then research them online afterwards
-Businesses should try and aim themselves to both online and offline customers
-People sometimes get annoyed when they find a product online, go to the store to purchase it and find out the item is out of stock in store.
-People can find online shopping annoying as they have to wait longer to receive their order and they have to pay for delivery which will make their order more expensive than purchasing the product in store
-A lot of customers prefer to shop in store because the can see the exact colour and size of a product
-People researching online spend more time looking at product descriptions rather than looking at product images.
-Most people would prefer to see items in person before purchasing
-Some people are willing to pay up to 50% more for products they can see and touch rather than products online
-Online shopping can be more convenient for people, can be cheaper prices than in store and customers have unlimited access to an online shop
-People are largely influenced by the presentation of products or services
-Some people will pay attention to the smallest detail if they are going to make a purchase which makes presentation even more important
-Online retailers should encourage product reviews

Websites used to help me with this research:
http://googleretail.blogspot.com/2010/03/trend-to-watch-research-purchase.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/320788/the_benefits_of_shopping_online_vs.html?cat=46
http://www.smallbusinessnewz.com/topnews/2010/09/16/offline-retail-vs-online-retail

Pros & Cons of Using High Street Companies

Pros:
- The gift finder website would be able to target both genders as there a lots of high street shops for men and women.
-A lot more choice of gifts
-Lots of different types of gifts

Cons:
-Not all high street stores offer affiliating because they do not depend on online purchases
-Most companies who do allow people to affiliate and link to their website have certain restrictions
-Using gifts from high street stores could be quite common as people might have already seen them in the shops and if they saw something in the shop but wanted to purchase it online, they would know where to find it and go straight to the store's website as there would not be any need for a gift finder website to help them.

Pros & Cons of Using Small Gift Businesses

Pros:
-Unique gifts that people may not normally find in high street shops
-People may return to use my site if they like being able to find different gifts to what they would normally find
-My website could potentially help small businesses as people would be getting directed from my site to their site so they have got more chance of getting sales
-My design could be more interesting because instead of aiming the website at both genders, I would just aim it at the female audience as most of the gifts in these little gift shops are targetted at females

Cons:
-Quite a lot of the small businesses I visited only sell their products in their shop and not online so this would be a problem as I wouldn't be able to direct users anywhere to purchase the gifts they sell
-Could be quite difficult to find businesses that sell online as well as in their shops

Pine-apple

The final shop I visited was Pine-apple on Beverley Road, Hull and above shows the type of gifts that they sell.

http://www.pine-apple.co.uk/


Unlike the previous shops, this shop also has a website where people can purchase products online so this would be suitable for my project as I can link from my website to product pages on their website.

Bogoh Boutique

The third shop I visited was Bogoh Boutique on Princes Avenue, Hull and above are the types of gifts they sell.

http://www.bogoh.co.uk/


Again, this small gift business has a website but they don't offer people to purchase their products online but instead just give people information about them, contact information and a bit of information about what sort of products they sell in their shop.

Polly Anna

Another shop I visited was Polly Anna on Princes Avenue, Hull. Below are some images that show the types of gifts that they sell.

Again, these gifts are aimed at female recipients and would be suitable to put these gifts on my website but they don't have a website where they sell their products so I would be unable to use this small business as I wouldn't have any information about each gift or a product page to link to.

http://www.pollyanna.biz/

This is their website and it only contains basic information about them such as information about them and how to find them etc.

Stellar Interiors

One of the shops I visited was Stellar Interiors on Princes Avenue, Hull. Below are some images that show the types of gifts that they sell.

These gifts are clearly aimed at female recipients and would be suitable for my gift finder website but the only problem is, they do not have a website where people can purchase their products online.

http://www.stellarinteriors.co.uk/

This website only tells people about the types of products they sell in their shop on Princes Avenue and does not give the user an option to purchase online.

Small Gift Businesses

As I am creating a website that allows users to search for gifts, I went and visited a number of gift shops in Hull. I went to see what sort of things they sold and to see if they were different to what people could find in normal high street stores. Whilst visiting these shops I noted the name of the shop and also took note of their products.

The shops I visited were:
-Stellar Interiors (Princes Avenue)
-Polly Anna (Princes Avenue)
-Bogoh Boutique (Princes Avenue)
-Pine-apple (Beverley Road)


From my visit to these small gift shops I found out that they sold a lot of unique gifts that were different to shops on the highstreet and using these gifts on my website would make it more interesing as people would be finding gifts they have difficulty finding elsewhere.

The next step now is to see if these gift shops have websites where they sell their products online.

Designing for Different Genders

I have been thinking about the design for the gift finder website and have been finding it difficult to come up with a design that would be suitable for both genders so I have decided to research gender differences in design.

Many websites have a male gender bias because women have the ability to think like a man far more easily and more often than a man can think like a women

Women's Preferences in Design:
-They prefer pages with more colour in the background and typeface
-They prefer more rounded shapes and rounded edges
-When looking at images on websites they prefer more informal images than posed images
-Women generally prefer sites that have been designed by women
-They prefer soft, neutral tones and gradients
-Women don't like cluttered sites that use a lot of links, loud music or flashy videos

Men's Preferences in Design:
-They prefer pages with dark colours
-They prefer straighter lines and fewer colours
-When looking at images they prefered the three-dimensional look and images of self-propelling rather than stationary objects.
-Men generally prefer sites that have been designed by men
-They prefer the language used on websites to be more formal or expert language than informal

Some organisations try to design websites for both men and women equally but research shows that more websites are biased towards men.

Businesses can be losing money because they are not meeting the visual needs of their target audience.

Websites used for this research:
www.imediaconnection.com/content/18685.imc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4740173.stm
http://www.ehow.com/how_5838142_design-websites-women.html
http://blog.auinteractive.com/what-women-want-designing-websites-for-women