Learn to Manage Web Sites
Web site managers may or may not be
skilled at programming, writing, marketing or publishing - or they may
simply be good at finding, understanding and managing the expertise of
others in these and other aspects of web site development and delivery.
This
course is above all focused on developing an awareness of what is
involved in creating and maintaining effective web sites and then
developing a capacity to properly manage projects for the web.
If you would like to be a website manager and need a qualification to back this up - this course is a great step towards your goals.
Study 3 selected core units and a further 3 electives - which you choose to suit your needs and ambitions.
Modules
Note that each module in the Qualification - Certificate in Web Site Management is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
MANAGING ONLINE CONTENT FOR WEBSITES
The information (content) that is placed on a website should really be determined by the product or services that the business sells, the industry it is in or the nature of the business and the audience that you are selling to. For any business aiming to sell online, there will be products and/or services that a customer can buy that can be outlined on the website. This is not all that is required on a website and it may not be enough to sell the product or attract, retain and convert customers on the site.
Some ways that we have mentioned in previous lessons to attract customers to your site include:
- Paid advertising – such as paid advertising on links when people do searches, paid links on websites for certain products, paid adverts on social media.
- Improving SEO
- Engaging in social media – encouraging clients to interact with you via social media.
- Publishing Blogs
- Writing Newsletters
All of these are methods to encourage people to come to your website. But there are other ways such as by increasing the content on your actual site which will create more chances that customers will come to your site. You also have the opportunity to target customers.
By having a blog on your own site, you can demonstrate to customers and potential customers that you are a market leader in the industry and you know what you are talking about. It is a point of differentiation. In addition to having unique content to publish on your social media pages, you will also be able to bring additional traffic to your site from organic search engine searches. If your blog has content that is related to your products and services and expertise, search engines will recognise the content that is on your page as relevant when people are searching for similar topics.
Once you have attracted people to your site, using some of the tools mentioned in the previous lessons, you will need to keep customers there and get them to do something. Going back to your business goals, think about what is the goal of your website, or even specific webpages on your site. Given that search engines can index any page that is published on your site, people searching the web may land on any page, so your site should be designed in a way that will be helpful whichever page people land on. Different pages on your site will have different goals and purposes.
Call to Action- What do you want the visitor to do?
Having call to actions and action buttons on your pages will lead people browsing your site. Call to actions may include completing an online form for you to contact the customer, subscribing to a newsletter, blog or your social media page, purchasing a product, leaving feedback, downloading free information or something else that you want visitors to do and what you think they will want to do also.
Your call to action may need some testing on where you locate it, the wording or image that you select and what the appropriate call to action should be for the page. You may have more than one call to actions on the page. Using colour or brightly coloured graphics to differentiate action buttons from the rest of the information will make the button stand out and will help direct the visitor to use the button. For example, “Buy Now” may be in a bright orange box that stands out from your white background and predominantly black text of the rest of your site.
Try to have the information on the webpage that people need to make a decision about the call to action. If you send people to 2 or 3 different pages on your site to read more information, you run the risk of confusing them and the visitor being distracted from the original page they were on.
Website Content
Webpages that are selling products need to be informative. Let’s just look at a new computer as an example.
What will the potential customer want to know?
- What kind of computer is it?
- What are its specifications?
- Is it a good brand?
- Does it do what the customer wants? (So is there enough information on what the computer does for the customer to determine this?)
- How big is it?
- What colours does it come in?
- What software does it come with?
- What other software packages can the customer purchase?
- How much is it?
- Are there any special offers?
- Is there an instalment payment plan?
- Is there any back-up if the computer goes wrong?
- Is there a guarantee?
- Is there someone they can ask for help if they need advice?
- How is it delivered?
- How long does it take to be delivered?
- Why should the customer buy this product from this company rather than another – what makes this business special?
- What do other customers think of the product or the service that they received from the business?
- Where are the reviews/testimonials?
And we are sure you can think of many other factors that influence whether this customer buys this computer today.
So to sell just one computer, all of this information may be needed on the website. Now imagine a company that sells 500 different types of computers, websites, software etc. All of this information would need to be included for each product. The information would also need to be maintained regularly when details change to ensure the information is kept up to date.
But this is not always enough. There are probably many different websites offering the same range of products as this business. So this is where a website and the information has to stand out. We have already mentioned that the website has to tell the customer what makes the business special, but the potential customer will only read that if they come to the website.
Why Choose ACS?
- Our team of tutors are all qualified and experienced in their field - they have industry as well as academic backgrounds.
- Our tutors are there to support your learning - we take you seriously and do all we can to help you through your course.
- Questions are welcomed and answered promptly.
- Assignments are assessed and extra hints and comments given to extend your knowledge and skills.
- This is more than a package of lessons - it is a learning system where you as the student learns through practical set taks as well as theory.
Who Will Benefit From This course?
- If you have a dream to work in web development - then this course is for you
- If you already work but would like a qualification to back-up your experience
- Those given the opportunity to manage a web team but lack some technical knowledge.
