Best Practices for Your Website

Produced

• 2003

This year, for the first time, Stanford University's Best Practices for Your Website course is available on videotape. Learn from the pros how to make your site more visited, more "sticky," more successful.

Doing the Deals

Featuring:Jonathan Hart, Partner, Dow, Lohnes and Albertson, PLLC
Managing a website involves signing off on a host of legal questions, from who owns the underlying code to what happens if you forget to run a partner’s banner ad.

How should you structure these relationships? Attorney Jon Hart outlines what you need to consider when you are “Doing the Deals.”

Highlights:
The two dimensions of contracts—coming to terms vs. allocation of risks
Outsourcing your website construction – do you need to own the design?
Agency vs. independent contractor status
Term sheets vs. letters of intent
The importance of keeping options open
Specific requirements for advertising contracts

Jon advises us that, when all is said and done, good contracts are not designed to win litigation, but to avoid it.
Video type: VHS; Length: 50 mins. (2003)

Driving Traffic to Your Website

Featuring: Ulla McGee, General Manager, PCWorld.com Network
Ulla McGee sets theory aside, and explains what has actually worked and not worked for driving traffic to her company’s site. Ulla focuses on five approaches.

Email marketing – providing double-opt-in, easy unsubscribe, an up-front privacy policy, and most important: meaningful content.

Buying keywords on search engines – the benefits (and two pitfalls) of using Google and Overture.

Offline communications – the least expensive traffic builder to date for PCWorld.

Barter deals – the art of identifying complementary sites.

Content deals – why branding opportunities can be worthless.

Whether your site’s purpose is to sell products or market your firm, Ulla’s real-world experience will provide useful guidance in your own Web marketing efforts.
Video type: VHS; Length: 30 mins. (2003)

eNewsletters: a Primer

Featuring: Loren McDonald, Founder and President, Intevation
Loren McDonald examines the necessary steps for a successful eNewsletter.

Getting signups: Promoting your newsletter signup link
Double opt-in or not?
Lead generation
“Forward-to-a-Friend” — worthwhile?
Getting newsletters opened: List hygiene
ISP filters – what do they flag?
Blacklists – be concerned or not?
Hard versus soft bounces
Is midweek better?
Encouraging action: Using consistent, commonsense navigation
Measuring results
Testing/improving/testing

McDonald's suggestions will give your eNewsletter the chance to stand out from the rest—and actually get read!
Video type: VHS; Length: 50 mins. (2003)

Getting the Basics Right: Navigation, Usability and Content Management Techniques

Featuring: Brian Sullivan, Creative Director, Atomz
It costs you money to create content. It costs you to post content, and it costs you to drive traffic to your site. If visitors can’t find your information, all that investment is wasted. Brian Sullivan explains design and site architecture techniques that increase the odds that visitors to your site will find what they’re looking for— and what you put there for them to find.

Highlights:
Five dimensions of effective navigation
Site maps – useful or overused?
Managing content
Making the visitor’s experience positive
Improving the search function

Brian teaches you how to step away and experience your site as a visitor experiences it for the first time.
Video type: VHS; Length: 46 mins. (2003)

Making Your Website Work — For Your User

Featuring: Michael Gold, West Gold Editorial
Michael Gold takes us on a tour of the Web – identifying sites that offer a great user experience, and sites that are too clever for their own good. Michael suggests we keep in mind that our site user is busy— a clicker, not a reader; easily lost; and not a geek.

Highlights:
“Webifying” information – presenting it in a scannable format
The Rule of Seven – and how to compartmentalize information
Maintaining consistent navigation on internal pages
The value of offering multiple seeking methods

Michael reminds us the purpose of a web site is not to win awards – it is to serve the visitor quickly and painlessly.
Video type: VHS; Length: 46 mins. (2003)

Search Engine Optimization

Featuring: Bruce McCurdy, Project Manager, PCWorld.com
Bruce McCurdy explains the mechanics of search engine optimization and what it means to design a site that is friendly to automated Web crawlers.

Learn about:
the power of the title tag
the increasingly irrelevant role of keyword meta tags
the still important value of the description tag
Google – the 600 lb. gorilla – and the importance of link popularity and link relevance
solutions to the dynamic page problem
when ASCII characters can help you
page cloaking – and when it won’t get you banned
the advantage of multiple site entrances

Search engine optimization is an ongoing process, but with this overview you will be more able to sort through the promises, and understand what can be done to increase your site’s visibility.
Video type: VHS; Length: 30 mins. (2003)

Staying Out of Legal Trouble

Featuring:Jonathan Hart, Partner, Dow, Lohnes and Albertson, PLLC
If you have the print publishing rights, do you have the Web publishing rights? Jon Hart discusses this, and dozens of other hot issues.

Highlights:
Copyright law, including the impact of the Tasini decision
Legal implications of linking and framing
Freelancers and works made for hire
Understanding fair use
Trademark law, including look and feel
Domain name disputes
Privacy policies

Hart packs this presentation with a wealth of information. After viewing this video you will have a good feel for the many legal issues impacting your company’s presence on the Web.
Video type: VHS; Length: 47 mins. (2003)

Special: All 7 videos - Save $224

Buy all seven of the Stanford Best Practices for Your Website videos, NEW from Stanford Professional Publishing Courses, at a special price.

Video - Doing the Deals
Video - Driving Traffic to Your Website
Video - eNewsletters: a Primer
Video - Getting the Basics Right: Navigation, Usability and Content Management Techniques
Video - Making Your Website Work - For Your User
Video - Search Engine Optimization
Video - Staying Out of Legal Trouble
These effective new training tools go beyond the hype of new technology, to share actual best practices of website management.