UX SEO. Each multiplies the impact of the other.

Transcription

1 UX SEO 1 Multiplying effect you get when UX and SEO work together to develop and execute strategy from the beginning of the process. Each multiplies the impact of the other.

2 A couple of things before we start Presentation will be on slideshare linked from EdUI site David Poteet, Melissa Beaver, Director of Jessica Behal, Director of Internet Questions at the end 2

3 3 One of our favorite clients - Old Dominion University Distance Learning - demonstrates the impact you can get when UX and SEO work together.

4 ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - RESULTS Enquiry Traffic to Enroll Fall of /day 3% Fall of ,064/day 20% 4 Saw huge increase in traffic, but more importantly the rate at which students who filled out the enquiry form then enrolled jumped significantly. SEO can drive traffic, but UX helps you convert. We ll show you the process we followed to get these sort of results, and then we ll give you more details of the ODU case study.

5 Definitions User Experience Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Organic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay Per Click Analytics Conversion Funnel 5

6 Why This Matters 6

7 US ENROLLMENT TRENDS (MILLIONS) % % (projected) and over Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/ pdf 7 Most of us have spent the majority of our working career in higher ed during a period when enrollment was growing fast enough nationwide that you could screw up a lot of things and still grow enrollment. We re moving into a period where that will not be the case.

8 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES 3,500,000 3,000,000 32% -3% 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000, , (projected) Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp 8 Over the next decade, although higher ed enrollment among traditional age students is projected to increase approx. 9%, the actual number of high school graduates in the US is projected to decrease by approx. 3%. Note that this varies a lot depending on where you live. In some states graduates will increase, in some they will decrease. More on that in a minute.

9 3,500,000 3,000,000 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES ATTENDING 2 OR 4 YEAR COLLEGE 32% -3% 2,500,000 2,000,000 70% 80% 1,500,000 1,000,000 62% 500, (projected) Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp 9 So when you overlay the number of HS grads going on to college, you see that the percentage is increasing.

10 12TH GRADE ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS IN 2009 Reading Math 5% 3% 35% 27% < Basic Basic Proficient Advanced 24% 37% 33% 36% Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp 10 But let s look at the achievement levels of high school graduates. These percentages haven t changed much in the last 15 years, so we shouldn t expect them to change much in the next 10.

11 3,500,000 3,000,000 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS -3% 32% 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000, , (projected) Advanced Proficient Basic or below Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp 11 We re making an assumption here that most students who are Advanced or Proficient are already going to college. So if the percentage of high school graduates who go on to college is going to increase, then it is more likely to come from the students who are on the lower end of the achievement scale.

12 Your mileage will vary CHANGES IN HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION LEVELS BY STATE 12

13 Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/ pdf 13

14 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES 2,000,000 1,750,000 1,500,000 1,250,000 1,000, , , , (projected) White Black Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+cs h5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp 14 So when you overlay the number of HS grads going on to college, you see that the percentage is increasing.

15 REALITY CHECK You will have to work harder to reach the best students. 15

16 So Why SEO? 16

17 HOW STUDENTS BUILD THEIR LIST OF POSSIBLE SCHOOLS Source: Noel Levitz 2012 E- Expecta+ons Report h5ps:// research- higher- educa+on/2012/2012- e- expecta+ons- report 17

18 WHO S DOING IT? Organic PPC Using Analytics 4 Yr Private 4 Yr Public 2 Yr Public Source: Noel Levitz 2012 E- Recrui+ng Prac+ces & Trends at Four- Year and Two- Year Ins+tu+ons h5ps:// research- higher- educa+on/2012/2012- e- recrui+ng- prac+ces- and- trends- at- four- year- and- two- year- ins+tu+ons 18

19 Why they fight 19

20 Why UX & SEO Fight SEO expert usually brought in after the site has already been built. Seen by rest of the team as adding keyword spam Often just focused on traffic without understanding of real user goals. UX plans sites without considering needs of SEO and analytics Not enough content in the right places to optimize Links and titles don t match the way people search Hard/impossible to track clickstream through to conversion 20

21 SEO Needs UX Why high bounce rates? Why dropoff in conversion funnels? Inbound keywords can indicate user goals When more traffic more conversions Wrong traffic? UX problems? 21

22 UX Needs SEO Prioritize based on measurable demand Use common language keywords and phrases Quantify $$ impact Settles political debates Reveals untapped market demand 22

23 GOOGLEBOT EATS UX!! Content strategy Navigation & overall experience Brand strength Clear concise message 23 Over the last year Google has incorporated more and more UX factors into how it ranks websites. So UX is becoming critical for good SEO.

24 PROCESS OVERVIEW What are we trying to make happen? Who are our users? What do they want? Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy What s happening now? How do they search? How can we track goals and patterns? Create human & robot friendly content Design & test Launch Prototype & test Build & test Measure & improve 24

25 RESEARCH & STRATEGY What are we trying to make happen? Who are our users? What do they want? Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy What s happening now? How do they search? How can we track goals and patterns? Create human & robot friendly content Design & test Launch Prototype & test Build & test Measure & improve 25 - Find out user info goals, what motivates them to act - How this affect search behaviors

26 What are we trying to make happen? UNCOVERING BUSINESS GOALS THROUGH STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS 26

27 What are we trying to make happen? What are the priorities for your institution? What (3 things) should the website accomplish for your institution? How will you personally define success for this project? 27 Among other things, you are trying to get out some goals that you can then track and measure and use SEO to support. Some other great resources for example stakeholder interview questions: Kevin Hoffman A List Apart article Aug and Undercover User Experience Design

28 Identify Measurable Goals Goal: Increase enrollment - How can the website support yield? - How much? By what date? From a particular region? In specific majors? - Higher GPAs, better SATs Goal: Promote new program - Generate web traffic how much? Increase inquiries? Track buzz? Goal: Balance portrayal of fun with academic rigor Goal: People in business know what we do 28 - Take feedback from and suss out goals that you can quantify for SEO. Follow-up with questions if needed. - Set arbitrary (but realistic) targets if you don t have real numbers in mind. - You might have more definite goals: like increase enrollment of students - SEO can find out how much traffic you get

29 What s really happening right now? DIGGING INTO ANALYTICS 29

30 Setup Google Analytics 30 -setting up at beginning -If using Google Analytics, doesn t apply to past data -different types of profiles, traffic -comparing the right time periods

31 How current insights help UX Identifying Patterns 31

32 How current insights help UX Top pages and paths Sources & keywords give clues about goals 32

33 How UX research guides SEO strategy INTERCEPT SURVEYS, KJ SESSIONS, USER INTERVIEWS 33

34 Intercept Survey What did you come to sitename.edu looking for today? Are you a... [audience group]? Optional Top 3 Criteria Name & Using Ethnio.com 34 Digging into your analytics can tell us what keywords users are using to get to your site, but it doesn t always tell us what they were really looking for or what s important to them Example? So, let s ask them!

35 WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 CRITERIA? 35 Example of results we got in a recent survey. You see lots of overlap in the words survey takers used; e.g., reputation, ranking, prestige, quality... It also reveals a common search behavior pattern: searching on major, searching by best program in But we like to dig in on these keywords; SEO can send traffic to our site by optimizing on those search terms, but can we convert those users by making sure we answer the content questions they have. We primarily do this by talking to users. The intercept survey I just showed you is a great way to contact students for follow-up on responses to their answers. Follow-up with you said reputation, atmosphere, and academics were the 3 most important items to you. Ask them what do those things mean to you? Size can mean many things for example class size, student-to-teacher ratios, can I walk to classes? will I feel overwhelmed? are you big enough for me to feel energized?...

36 KJ SESSION AT ST. VINCENT S COLLEGE 36 You don t need to do academic research here. You are just trying to get a better idea of what students are looking for and how they talk about it. KJs Focus Questions - What do you come to the website to find or do? (Vote for your top 6) - How do you know a college fits? What things do you look for? (Vote for your top 3) One-on-one interviews - Cover some of the same questions: what do you look for on the website, what are your top criteria? The UX research often takes this interview data and sums up the findings in personas and task maps... Take note of the language they use this is a great place to start researching keywords and looking at search behavior.

37 Personas, University of Portsmouth Maria Works hard, has good college scores Wants to study International Relations & Spanish Wants to work at an embassy Considering going on to a postgraduate degree Daniel Good student but has struggled academically Doesn t test well due to slight dyslexia Not sure which course he ll take, maybe computing & technology Can he get help & not be stressed out? Christian International student finishing his IB UK degree is more respected by employers Wants to be able to work outside his home country Getting recommendations from a local agency Sophie In her early 30s, took time out from school to start a family Currently enrolled in college Wants to become a teacher Can only consider universities nearby 37 Maria, a solid A/B student who is already thinking about career

38 Personas Maria WHAT - international relations degree international relations postgraduate courses international relations uni postgraduate spanish courses WHEN - 1 year before application early fall of final year WHY - identify universities where I can study what I want to be identify universities with helpful, knowledgable and good lecturers identify universities with great potential for future careers identify universities where she will be supported HOW - friends search engines family teacher recommendations WHAT will they search? (right terms to attract qualified leads) WHEN will they search? (time) WHY will they search? (goals - bad goals) HOW will they search? (methods / mediums) 38

39 TOP USER TASKS 39 Took all the feedback from KJs and a collection of one-on-one interviews conducted over the course of a very intense week. This is showing a sample of top information goals around courses (majors). Prospective students were really concerned about digging into the core of what the major entailed what topics will be covered, what will my professors be like, will I learn what I want to learn SEO can look at these information goals and see what areas are ideal for optimization

40 TOP USER TASKS 40 SEO can highlight the items Jessica: top things to optimize Each of these could be an entry point where prospective students would begin their journey

41 KEYWORD RESEARCH 41

42 KEYWORDS TO CAREWORDS 42 Gerry McGovern, Customer Carewords: ask users which 10 keywords would they click on when visiting your site. We use the words from the KJs, user research, and keywords from early SEO research to survey suers on what they would click In this example for University of Portsmouth, we see the prevalence of course related content which we also found in the KJ session. In the KJ session, we found top information goals around courses

43 What are we trying to make happen? Who are our users? What do they want? ARCHITECTURE Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy What s happening now? How do they search? How can we track goals and patterns? Create human & robot friendly content Design & test Launch Prototype & test Build & test Measure & improve 43

44 KEYWORDS TO CAREWORDS TO SITE ARCHITECTURE 44

45 Sanity Check How are we going to track everything that UX is planning? What patterns would we like to be able to track? Pitfalls Offline 3rd party tools Mobile Forms URL changes 45

46 What are we trying to make happen? Who are our users? What do they want? Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy What s happening now? How do they search? How can we track goals and patterns? Create human & robot friendly content Design & test Launch Prototype & test Build & test Measure & improve CONTENT & PROTOTYPE 46

47 EXAMPLE OF PAGE EDITING 47 Using the search phrase about 3-5 times for a word page. Use phrase in page title Use it in the meta description tag because this is what Google shows as the page description in your search results. Even though this doesn t help your ranking per se, it can help your click throughs.

48 ORGANIC AND PAID LINKS FOR CHATHAM HALL 48 -content -title -meta description -links / anchor text -alt tags Data shows that appearing in both the organic results (center) and paid results (right column) increases your likelihood of getting a click.

49 What are we trying to make happen? Who are our users? What do they want? Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy What s happening now? How do they search? How can we track goals and patterns? Create human & robot friendly content Design & test Launch Prototype & test Build & test Measure & improve AFTER LAUNCH 49

50 Ongoing Testing & Optimization Usability testing Mini-feedback surveys / intercept surveys A/B testing Tools UserTesting.com VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com Optimizely.com CrazyEgg.com Usabilia.com 50

51 Putting it all together 51

52 ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - BEFORE CURRENT DL.ODU.EDU SITE 52 ODU s site before we started.

53 PERSONAS Greg, manager BS in Human Services Considering MA Tiffany, mom Wants to finish degree in education Developed a series of personas based on user research. Beth, engineer Pursuing MS in Engineering 53

54 ADDRESSING THE BIGGEST QUESTION 54 One of the questions that all personas had was how distance or online learning really works. We knew we had to overcome this obstacle before anyone would convert, so we planned the content that would help make our case.

55 HOW IT WORKS DESIGN 55 Designed version of this landing page

56 KEYWORDS 56 Google s keyword research tool. We use this and other keyword tools to identify keywords and phrases that a) real people are actually searching for, and b) match up with the programs ODU wants to promote

57 CAREWORDS 57 Carewords survey incorporates those keywords, helps us determine which links on the website people are most likely to click on.

58 OPTIMIZING CONTENT HOME PAGE distance learning degree va #1 58 Harder to optimize a home page since there is typically much less text. We created a home page where much of the interaction actually happens while still on the page. So from Google s standpoint, there is more content on this page than you see when you first open it.

59 ODU SEARCH RANKING 59

60 MODELING & SIMULATION DEGREE mod sim degree #1 OPTIMIZING CONTENT 60 More people search on mod sim degree which is an abbreviation of modeling and simulation. Notice how we worked Mod Sim into the body copy as an abbreviation. Also, the content under each tab is actually part of this same page, so it makes it easier for us to optimize.

61 CRIMINAL JUSTICE (BS/BA) virginia criminal justice distance learning #2 OPTIMIZING CONTENT 61

62 OPTIMIZING CONTENT ENGLISH (PhD) online PhD in english #4 62

63 COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGN 63

64 ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - GROWTH IN VISITS NewCity kicks off campaign in April

65 ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - RESULTS Traffic Enquiry to Enroll Fall of /day 3% Fall of ,064/day 20% Fall 2012 enrollment +26% Partner community colleges see enrollment increases as high as 38% 65

66 Read more Killer Web Content by Gerry McGovern Letting Go of the Words by Ginny Redish Call to Action by Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffery Eisenberg Search Analytics by Louis Rosenfeld Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik 66

67 Questions? 67