Fair/Festival Website Content: Increase Traffic with Compelling Content

1. 2009 OAAS Convention Computers & Technology and Your FairFriday February 20, 2009 Everything you needed to know about Fair/Festival website content and were afraid to ask. Content: the easiest and least expensive way to increase your website traffic Presented by Doug van Wolde   On Behalf of WeGo.ca Website Developers Inc.

2. Website Content • What is it? • Why it’s important • How to test it • Tips to improve it • Questions

3. Mini Bio • In the Internet industry since 1997 • Started my own business in 2001 • I help other businesses develop their online presence with a focus on web marketing • Manage or administer about 50 web properties • Built 100+ websites • My primary clients are in the Fair and Events industries • Websites I visit frequently: • Flickr.com, Geni.com, Facebook.com, mdhsreunion.ca, marketingmag.ca, marketingprofs.com, itworld.ca, emarketer.com, zdnet.com/techupdatetoday, clickz.com • Hobbies: camping, mountain biking, photography, African Cichlids • Visited Fairs in 2008 = 12

4. Web Content and Other Features of Your Website

5. Elements of a Good Website

6. What are the Benefits of Good Content? • Your message is delivered • Make your impression • Create a reason Visitors keep returning • Cuts down on administrative type phone calls • Provides a pipeline of information for the press and other media • Helps to spread WOM (pages, text and forms can be linked to e-mail and other blogs) • Drives visitor traffic to your website • Cause Visitors to take action (They will choose to attend your event)

7. More than a Fad • Canada has 21,800,000 Internet Users • “They have the Internet on computers, now?” Homer Simpson

8. Basic Business Tools

9. Whois Behind Your Website? • Web Developer/Content Manager/Administrator • This is someone hired or employed or volunteering within your organization that you trust to manage your web affairs • Web Hosting Service Provider • This is where your content is stored • Usually off-site in a shared hosting hotel like the one at 151 Front Street in Toronto. • Domain Registration Provider (Registrar) • This is a company you pay to maintain your domain name

10. How will most people find your site on the Web? • What media will a Visitor use to find your website?

11. What is web content? • Pictures • Text • Video • Sound • Any type of electronic document can be uploaded to your web server and linked from your website.

12. What is the best type of content? • Text • Search engines rank your website’s importance according to the text content it finds valuable • Good search engines rank the text based on what the robot thinks a human will find valuable • Your task as content Managers is to find out what Visitors want on your website

13. Content Is King • What is meant by the term "content" is written text in plain vanilla HTML or a variant that produces good clean text that can be indexed with ease by a search engine • Photos and video cannot be indexed by the search tools of today Text

14. Bad Content Example

15. Good Content Example

16. Why content is important to your fair? • Because the web is so important to many people who visit your fair • If you have nothing to say, you won’t generate any actions • Gain or improve Search Engine Rankings • Especially Google • You are competing for attention • Visitors will choose how they spend their time and money based on what you have to offer.

17. Page Activity • Ask your Webguy/gal for a report of your page activity. You will probably find out that most visitors to your website want to know:

18. Traffic Report • Measured by unique visitors • markhamfair.ca by week • Throughout the year is 4,000 Visitors per week • The week before the fair is 35,000 Visitors

19. Search Keyphrases • bromefair.com first week in February

20. Content Management Types

21. Manual process • You create and edit HTML pages in one application and then use a separate FTP application to get your pages to the web server. • Pros: This works great for those who like to get technical and offers full control over every aspect of the site. • Cons: This method requires technical expertise of HTML tags as well as FTP server access and offers no way to simply edit content. This method is suitable for web professionals.

22. CMS • With a content management system, you have a one-stop shop to manage all the technical details of building the site, which lets you focus on the content itself. • Pros: The content is finally separated from the HTML, and updates no longer require knowledge of FTP, HTML, or server information. • Cons: A CMS is a very involved system for simple sites. It is expensive to buy, implement, and maintain, and it usually requires its own support staff.

23. Blogging Platforms • With blogging tools such as Blogger and WordPress, you have the functionality of a stripped-down CMS. • Pros: It's very simple to create and update content. There is often no cost associated with these tools, and they offer easy-to-use, readily available templates. • Cons: Many websites built on blogging platforms look alike. Editing is limited to the blog page.

24. Content coaching • A content coach is a copywriter or wordsmith in the web publishing business or Search Engine Optimizer – SEO (perhaps even your current Webmaster). • Pros: Ensures content is placed in the correct location on the site to maximize search engine traffic, also ensures that all the pages stay intact, and you follow web etiquette • Cons: Delay in publishing while you wait for updates.

25. Volume and Frequency • How much text should you add and how often? • Lots and always would be the best answer • Search Engines are continually looking for new text that might help Visitors • Google has an entire site devoted to helping Webmasters achieve better search results.(Google Webmaster Tools)

26. Search Engines • More than 80% of markhamfair.ca’s search traffic comes from Google

27. Testing • Collect data from your online forms, blogs, WOM and telephone complaints • Put yourself in the Visitor’s chair • What would they want to see and how easy is it to find? • Test searches with popular keywords • Fall fair Milverton • Concert Lindsay September • Raspberry jam contest Bolton • (name 10 topics or reasons why someone would come to your website? What do you imagine the visitor is looking for?)

28. Testing - Results

29. Customer-Focused • Visitors are on your site to find a solution or solve a problem. Does your Web site content draw these prospects? • To draw them in, make sure your Web site engages Visitors by offering customer-focused content • that speaks to their needs • and provides a solution to their problems. • Talk less about you and your company and more about your customers' needs and concerns. If your content is customer-focused, Visitors will stick around and ask for more.

30. No Shortcuts • Don’t cheat • There’s no substitute for good content. Visitors must find your site valuable based on the information it contains. • There’s no such thing as great results instantly with submission to 300,000 search engines • Uniqueness of content • Make sure your content is different from the other fairs or events • Copying text might event get your site banned by search engines • If you have a budget for content, hire a Copywriter or Content Coach • If you don’t have a budget, enlist the volunteer help of a Contributor • A Content Contributor can be anyone in your organization who is good at writing, recommend the work be approved/reviewed before publishing

31. Essential Fairs and Exhibitions Type Content • Prize Book Text • html • PDF • Other contest information/Demo Derby • Exhibits/Displays/Shows/Attractions • Administration/Parking/Contacts/ • FAQ • More?…

32. Summary • Find out what real people want from your site and provide that content • What is it? • Text • Why it’s important • It’s how Search Engine’s rank your site • How People find you with keywords • This translates into attendance at your event • How to test it • Web Statistics • Google Reports/rankings • Gather Feedback • Tips to improve it • Focus on Customer/Visitor • Apply what you learn from the tests • Always be adding new text • Make Content unique • Get a content helper

33. Questions