The Value of Content Sharing
One new feature on the redesigned site, which will be located in the left navigation column, is a new Add This widget, which will allow Web visitors to easily share content with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter or via e-mail. If content can be more easily shared then it should increase traffic to our Web site and improve our search traffic. At least that is the objective.
If you read any popular blogs or online news sites, you’ve likely seen these sharing links at the bottom of an article. I’ve grown to really like these sharing features as it makes sending Web content to colleagues and friends a whole lot easier.
One popular sharing tool provider Share This recently published some interesting statistics on their blog on the value of content sharing. They note that e-mail still matters. Sharing content by e-mail made up the largest percentage of shares comprising some 46 percent.
“Despite reports of its demise, e-mail is still the most popular method of sharing, and despite its meteoric rise of late, Twitter is still not a very popular sharing channel. In our research, we found that 46 percent of shares came via e-mail, 33 percent from Facebook, 14 percent from other channels such as Digg, del.icio.us, LinkedIn, etc., and just 6 percent from Twitter.”
In the same blog post, Share This included data from their network of publishers that highlighted content sharing’s impact on overall site traffic, search traffic, and visitor engagement.
Sharing vs. Search
Many of [ShareThis's] publishers are seeing increasing results from sharing. Here are a few network-wide observations…
- Sharing can make up 5-10% of your overall traffic.
- Sharing can make up 15-30% of your search traffic.
- Sharing drives 25-50% more engagement (page views/unique) than search.
An additional benefit of using a sharing widget on our own site is the built-in analytics capability, which will allow us to see what content is being shared across our Web site.
Introducing “Faces of Saint Anselm”
BarkleyREI has designed an engaging Flash piece that will be used in the right sidebar of the redesigned Web site to present profiles of current students, faculty, and alumni across the site. Internally, we’ve been calling it “Faces” for some time now. We think BarkleyREI has done a great job in designing this particular Flash application and we are looking forward to using it as it will allow us to display profiles in a new and more interactive way.
Faces Overview
As described above, the “Faces” Flash piece will live within the right sidebar of select pages throughout the site. When clicked on, an overlay will open above the page. Each profile will include name, class year, major, a short text profile, and “Dig Deeper” links, which will link people to relevant Web pages within the Saint Anselm Web site. Each profile will include either a photo gallery of images (relevant to the person profiled) or a single video or audio/photo slide show.
Web Usability Testing of Current and Prospective Students
This week we are conducting Web usability testing on the new site design with current and prospective students. We had two people from BarkleyREI on campus on Tuesday to test the new site with current students and we are testing prospective students at BarkleyREI’s headquarters in Pittsburgh throughout the week.
Before I get into it, I suppose I should explain what usability testing is and why we are doing it (and why it is really important). Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen describes usability testing as “a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word “usability” also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process.”
The aim of our usability testing is to evaluate the new Web site design and information architecture with end users. Up until this point we’ve followed industry best practices in developing our site strategy, the site’s information architecture, and in designing the user interface for the site. So each step of the way we’ve made numerous assumptions and usability testing allows use to get direct input on how real users of the site think and respond to the design, content, and how we’ve organized the site. Does the site meet it’s intended purposes, what is its ease of use (in particular sections or as a whole), are users in each group able to complete expected site tasks, are we seeing any trends from one user test to the next.
New Home Page Design Concept
After more than a month of work, multiple design concepts and revisions, and input from prospective students and many staff and administrators from across the college, we are pleased to unveil the new Saint Anselm College home page design.
During this stage in the project, BarkleyREI presented us with four distinct home page concepts for review. Each concept featured a Flash multimedia area at the center of the home page focused on telling stories using video, photo/audio slide shows, and photo galleries. Based on the feedback we gathered during the initial review of the four design concepts, we narrowed our choice to a single design, what we are calling “The Wall” concept. We then made changes to the design’s final color palette, the number of stories presented, interactive elements, font sizes, logo treatment, etc.