Assignment:
Part A - Search
1. How important do you believe online search is with respect to the success of your target website?
2. From your examination of the website, what do you believe would be the key search terms that the owners/operators of this website would expect people to use to find their site? What search terms do you think that the target market typically would use? Do you think that the website is designed to optimize search results for these terms? Explain each of these answers.
3. Using some of the key search terms that you think the target market would use, perform at least five different searches (i.e., five sets of search words) on each of the following search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo (that is a total of 15 searches). Does your target website appear on the first page of the search results? If so, in what location? If not, does it appear on the next several pages? What does this mean with respect to search optimization for your target website? For the searches you just performed, do apparent competitors appear? Does a casual observation of these competitors' websites (homepages only) suggest that they would be more likely to attract the primary market versus your target website? For part of the answer to this question, create a table of your search results listing the search terms, placement of the target website in the results, placement of apparent competitors (list some seemingly viable competitors), etc.
4. What would you suggest as possible ways for your target website to improve its search results?
Part B - Online Social Media
1. From your examination of your target website as well as specific searches for social media for this organization, what types of social media (blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) appear to be used by the business/organization?
2. Examine some of the key social media links and consider their use in facilitating an efficient and effective marketing exchange. What are your target website operators doing right? What are they doing wrong? What improvements could they make?
3. What potential problems can this particular organization experience with respect to their current use of social media? What opportunities are they ignoring?
4. What would you suggest as possible ways for your target website to improve its social media marketing?
Part C - Privacy
1. What types of privacy issues would seem to be relevant to typical visitors to your target website?
2. What types of privacy issues would seem relevant to typical users of the website's social media pages?
3. Does the website have a privacy policy? If so, what is the URL?
4. What types of third-party seals or logos does the website display that would alleviate customer concerns regarding privacy? Do they seem to be useful? Why or why not?
5. Do you believe the website sufficiently addresses the potential privacy issues that you have considered for questions E1 and E2? If so, why? If not, why not?
6. What could the website operators do to improve their handling of potential privacy issues?
Part D - Security
1. What types of security issues would seem to be relevant to typical visitors to your target website? Is money at stake? Credit card information? Health information? Other?
2. What types of security issues might arise from the website organization's use of social media?
3. What types of information regarding security does the website have in its privacy policy or in a separate security policy?
4. What types of third-party seals or logos does the website display that would alleviate customer concerns regarding security?
5. Do you believe the website sufficiently addresses the potential security issues that you have considered for questions F1 and F2? Why or why not?
6. What could the website operators do to improve their handling of potential security issues?
Part E - Analytics
1. Using the alexa.com website, see if you can find out analytics information regarding your target website. Do this by going to alexa.com and entering your website URL into the box at the top and then by selecting the correct link on the following page or by going directly to the analytics data by using the following: (e.g., for petsmart.com, you would use the URL https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/petsmart.com). If your target website does not have data listed for Alexa.com, then try other evaluation websites (such as https://www.moreofit.com/similar-to/www.alexa.com/Top_10_Sites_Like_Alexa/or you can use any other relevant websites). Consider the various types of information that are presented and give feedback on what you have found. Provide an evaluation of how the website is doing and give details to support your evaluation (including the website used to find the analytics).
2. Analyze some of the competitor websites that you found in Part C (Search) and see how your target website compares. Give details to support your evaluation.
3. Consider various ways that you can assess the social media accounts that your website uses. What analytic information can you find? Consider (a) the number of subscribers, views, Likes, friends, fans, comments, etc.; (b) the recency/timeliness of posts, comments, blog entries, etc.; and (c) the degree of positivity or negativity of comments, responses, questions, etc. Use this information to build an evaluation of how the website is doing with its social media accounts. If appropriate, you can compare this to any seemingly key competitors that you found in Part C (Search).
Part F - Recommendations
What are your recommendations for your target website? Provide an overall recommendation for the general nature/scope/direction/feel for the site as well as recommendations for search, social media, privacy, and security. What changes would you make? What additions would you make? What reductions would you make?