"Findability and Usability: How Designing for Visibility Paid Off for Combined Insurance"
As presented by Rob Garner, Director, Strategy for iCrossing on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at the ANA Digital Marketing and Social Media Day in Houston, TX.
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iCrossing: Designing For Visibility - ANA Digital Marketing And Social Media Day
1. Designing for Visibility ANA Digital Marketing and Social Media Day January 27, 2010 Hope Ross Account Director iCrossing Rob Garner Strategy Director iCrossing
7. Awards and Accolades Top Digital Agency Top Search Agency Top 25 Interactive Fastest Growing Companies Top 25 Interactive Number One Search Agency Search Agency of the Year
13. Ensure that Ajax is both crawlable and indexable Factor: AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique used to load content from a server without changing pages. AJAX relies heavily on JavaScript to display and swap content. Implications: Search engine spiders generally cannot read AJAX content. Implementation could block content visibility to spiders. Best practice/Action required: Use AJAX selectively, primarily for supplemental content associated with low search volumes. Alternative Practices: Create a static, spider friendly version of your site that includes content from within your JavaScript.
14. Use site language that is consistent with the user's perception of your product or service Industry Language Oral care Oral health Locate dental professional Good oral hygiene Oral hygiene Good Oral hygiene Whitening Battery-powered toothbrush Kid’s toothbrush Professional whitening system 148 5,232 10 190 5,155 190 5,075 145 592 670 17,407 Search Volume per month Consumer Language Dental care Dental health Find a dentist Dental hygiene Dental hygiene Personal hygiene Tooth whitening Electric toothbrush Child toothbrush Tooth whitening system 188,818 74,588 29,525 24,558 24,558 17,670 146,212 16,522 835 6,205 529,491
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21. Use search data and ask search questions when developing personas
28. The process: envision Develop User Experience Strategy Brief Conduct keyword research Conduct user research Interview 5 – 7 stakeholders including UK representative Gather existing & new research data / define hosting needs Envision Gather business, brand, user insights, and search data Elaborate Create site framework, design and development, page build Execute QA testing, deployment
29. The process: elaborate Establish hosting environment Develop visual design Create site map and wireframes Develop creative concept Baseline search metrics Create copy deck Envision Gather business, brand, user insights, and search data Elaborate Create site framework, design and development, page build Execute QA testing, deployment Develop test strategy
30. The process: execute Ongoing measurement and optimization Envision Gather business, brand, user insights, and search data Elaborate Create site framework, design and development, page build Execute QA testing, deployment Deploy Interest2Action Deploy new site Execute QA tests
33. Personas & journeys Identified Primary and Secondary Personas : collaborative exercises produced four primary and one secondary persona Developed Journeys for Each : online and off-line interaction points, primarily preceding enrollment Prioritized Content and Features: established a hierarchy of requirements based on customer value, business value and development complexity/cost
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37. What did we do? We interviewed 12 Combined internal Stakeholders, performed a competitive review of 5 different sites, and leveraged dozens of research and data sources.
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39. Methodology - how we approached the challenge 5. Keywords are classified/structured into relevant categories based upon criteria E X T E N D Seed Concepts Generate Keywords C A T E G O R I Z E Calculate Volumes R E S E A R C H Analyze Findings A N A L Y Z E S T R U C T U R E Classify Keywords 1. Seed concepts are established upon business needs and requirements 2. Keyword lists are generated through various extensions of seed concepts 3. Keywords are analyzed and annual search volumes are calculated 4. Search universe is analyzed. Criteria is established to define nomenclature patterns Identify Patterns 6. Dissect the keywords and findings to determine any unique/emerging patterns I D E N T I F Y Find Solutions 7. Formulate recommendations based upon findings mapped to business needs R E C O M M E N D
40. Category Breakdown Type 767 Searches Detail 2,003 Searches Geography 841Searches General 1,009 Searches General 6,498 Searches All Categories 24,512 Estimated Searches Supplemental Insurance 7,369 Estimated Searches Government 2,249 Searches Brand 536 Searches Type 2,354 Searches Disability Insurance 11,998 Estimated Searches Product keywords were used to generate a list of 349 search terms related to Combined Insurance’s business *Note- The total of the classification search volumes is higher than total category search volume due to the overlap of terms between classifications. **Sub-categories shown have estimated search volumes > 100 Information 730 Searches Gap Insurance 4,038 Estimated Searches Disability Income 846 Estimated Searches Type 722 Searches Type 217 Searches General 1,660 Searches Who? 818 Searches Loss of Income 148 Estimated Searches Information 219 Searches General 191 Searches Who? 369 Searches Brand 313 Searches Information 322 Searches Organization 191 Searches Who? 170 Searches Action 121 Searches Government 213 Searches Why? 152 Searches Geography 113 Searches Detail 122 Searches Who? 104 Searches Low Income 113 Estimated Searches
46. A creative solution: one brand supporting many user intentions, including search engine traffic Where search intention is met with relevant answers: High ranking pages get straight to the heart of what searchers are seeking Findability is a usability issue: Both new visitors and existing customers can find what they are looking for, faster Delivering on the search “promise”: Multiple points of entry create a relevant and engaging experience
47. Search drives the experience Interest: Supplemental Insurance Interest: Supplemental Health Insurance Specific branding and content Multiple points of entry reflect the expressed intent of a users’ search
54. Ranking visibility – before and after Ranking visibility, old site Ranking visibility, new site
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56. THANK YOU ANA Digital Marketing and Social Media Day January 27, 2010 Hope Ross Account Director iCrossing [email_address] Rob Garner Strategy Director iCrossing [email_address]
Hinweis der Redaktion
you need to know where you were to find out where you went.
Rich Internet technologies that are implemented without search engines in mind can instantly render a once-thriving natural search program into total obscurity. Flash and Ajax are key tools in the design and development toolbox, but considerations must be made for search upfront.
For the most part, search engines are still very literal, and truly effective semantic intelligence still lies far ahead. Position content and language that reflects the way users search, in order to rank for those terms. The path to understanding this language is through linguistic and keyword research, and also by studying and knowing your target. Language and keywords impact and guide information architecture and content strategies, among other aspects.
When you change phone numbers, the phone company will leave a recorded message telling the new number to the person who called your old number. This is the effect a 301 permanent redirect has on a search engine -- it applies the old URL and backlinks to the new URL; the search engine is happy, and your site is happy. A canonicalization problem occurs when 302 redirects are pointed to permanently moved pages. I have seen instances where clients have gone through four or five redesigns using 302s, and a string of six-to-eight redirects points to a single page, each with its own set of inbound links. This basically makes it difficult for engines to determine the "real URL" to show in results and apply backlinks to. How do you fix it? See the next point.
Search has expanded well beyond Web pages and 10 blue links to offer video images, news and social streams, among many other vertical asset types. Many industries tend to have assets that are more relevant than others (images, maps, and video tend to fit more for travel-related sites, for instance). Ensuring that there is a search strategy and place for these optimized assets is critical in the planning and design stages.
Develop your target user's search persona, and use search to develop a picture of your user's journey both in-search, and on-site. When some sites receive 25% to 45% of traffic from search engines, a huge area of research is being ignored by not finding out how those same users seek out content in engines, both linguistically, and from an engagement standpoint.