Author Archives: russellondigital

How to Write A Functional Specification

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The functional specification or spec describes in detail how a website operates from the point of view of the user. They may touch on technical issues but only where it helps enforce the site’s functionality. They range in size, with functional specs for complex sites running to 100 pages or more.

Remember, though, that although the functional spec will naturally touch on technical elements, it is not a technical document. It should be written clearly for an audience who are not necessarily technical in background. Avoid technical language or acronyms, and if you must use them include a non-technical definition.

The exact content of a functional specification will vary from job to job but they all share some common sections. Continue reading →

Sketching Website Functionality

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My last post mentioned ways that you can describe website functionality. I want to explore those methods in more detail, beginning with sketching.

Sketching is a perfect way of getting you ideas down on paper visually and quickly. They can be drawn informally in a meeting to almost instantly describe the functionality you are talking about, or you can take more care over them and use them for a tool to brief designers or developers.

However you use them, remember sketching is not about design, it’s a tool that helps you to capture ideas or express an concept visually. You don’t have to be an artist to sketch, though the more you practice, the better you become. Continue reading →

Communicating Website Functionality

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As websites become more and more complex it becomes increasingly difficult to explain and document their functionality but, more than ever, the need to do so is critical. Accurately defining how a website operates informs stakeholders (those who have commissioned the site, either a client or in house) as well as developers.

Below I’ve listed nine techniques that you can use to describe functionality, and included the strengths and weaknesses of each. Continue reading →

Design Basics: Balance and Harmony

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In this, my latest infrequent post on design, I talk about how balance and harmony affect a design. Specifically I mention web pages but the concepts include any kind of digital interface or even offline graphical design.

Introduction

The design of a web page should be pleasantly balanced; unbalanced designs are distracting. Balance, though, is very subjective; it unifies subjects within a design.

Balance is affected by:

  • The size of elements in a design
  • Their tone
  • Their position within the web page
  • Their interrelationship with other elements on the page Continue reading →

5 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

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There are numerous social media analysis tools on the market. Radian 6 seems to have cornered the market at the moment but there are similar products from Alterian, Meltwater and a host of other companies all offering similar features. They do generally come with a hefty price tag, though, normally involving a recurring annual licence fee.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. There are tools available that have similar functionality to the big players but are free to use. Granted the interfaces aren’t as elegant and a lot of the cool functionality is missing. But if you need a quick and dirty answer to you social media monitoring needs why not try these out… Continue reading →

4 Free Web Analysis Tools

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There are numerous occasions where you may need to analyse various aspects of a website and there are numerous paid tools that you can use for the purpose. But there’s nothing better than using a free tool for something! So I’ve listed those 4 that I’ve used most frequently and included a brief description of what I use them for. If you know of any more please feel free to share by adding a comment below. Continue reading →

How People Search The Web

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In order to take full advantage of search engine marketing you really need to know how people actually search on the web. OK, we all know you type a key word or phrase into Google and hit search but what is our thinking up to that point and throughout the search cycle?

Typically there are three types of search queries:

  1. Navigational queries where a user wants to go to specific website but might not know the exact URL, e.g. “John Lewis”
  2. Informational searches where the user wants to find a piece of information e.g. “American Pie lyrics”. As you can imagine these cover a wide range of daily search traffic
  3. Transactional searches where a user is trying to find products or services with the express intention of either making a purchase e.g. “cinema in Brighton” Continue reading →

Make Your KPIs SMART

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At the outset of planning any digital project you should consider what outcomes or results indicate success. The most common way of doing this is to select a set of KPIs (key performance indicators). By monitoring your KPIs you can see if you are on track to meet your goals or way off mark.

When establishing your KPIs you should always make them SMART. That is…

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-based

I’ll go through each of these in more detail and provide examples below.

Specific

At the top level KPIs should be particular to the business or organisation. If you work in-house this will be relatively simple but if you are an agency you need to work with your client to ensure the indicators are business specific.

An example of a specific KPI for an online retailer might be to increase sales, whilst for a charity website it could be to increase the number of registrants to a sponsored fun run. On the other hand, the PR department of a travel agent might have spent a lot of time and effort to produce news articles for their website but their downloads might not necessarily be specific to the business and wouldn’t constitute a KPI.

Measurable

KPIs must be measurable otherwise you won’t be able to determine if your activity is being successful or not. Although qualitative data such as satisfaction scores can be used, objective, quantitative measures are best. They are difficult to argue with whereas qualitative indicators are open to interpretation.

For example, you may define the reduction of the homepage’s bounce rate to 30% or less as a KPI. This is a clear cut, definite statistic that can be found from your analytics software. Whereas, asking users how pleasing they find a web page design can lead to misleading results; what does pleasing mean? Aesthetic design? Content? Usability? It could be all or any of them.

Achievable

It is unlikely that your new site design will increase traffic tenfold in the first three months, or that a new iPhone app will increase sales by 75% so don’t be tempted use such improbable results as KPIs. Instead choose indicators that are genuinely achievable.

Clients or senior management often expect digital tools to be a wonder solutions that will provide massive returns, but by keeping your success criteria realistic you will be able show a true reflection of performance and also manage the client’s or stakeholder’s expectations.

Relevant

Your digital activity will usually form part of a wider communications plan that may include multiple online and offline channels which are intended to add to the success of the organisation. It is important, therefore, that any KPIs mirror this plan.

For example, if your company (or client) was running a campaign to raise awareness of their new brand of catfood, your digital KPIs might be to achieve 200 or more downloads of information sheets per month. The number of job applications received through the website, though, would be irrelevant.

Time-based

KPIs should be measured over a pre-defined period. This could be for a certain number of months or for the duration of a particular activity. An example might be to receive 1,000 enquiry form submissions for the first quarter of the financial year. Or to achieve 300 downloads of a weight-loss app during a summer slimming campaign.

To summarise

Setting KPIs allows you to manage the progress of a digital campaign or activity. They help identify areas that aren’t gaining the expected results or, conversely, those that are seeing greater than expected interest.

By keeping those KPIs SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based) you make sure that they are pertinent to the business and it’s current communication strategy, that they refer to activities that are possible within a specific time frame and that there is no ambiguity in how they report progress to project stakeholders.

Measuring The Results Of A Social Media Campaign

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Over my last few posts I’ve explained how to plan and run a social media campaign. In this post I will cover the final stage of the campaign – measuring the results. As an agency you will be expected to provide your client with a return on their investment, and if you are running the campaign in-house you will be expected to show similar results to senior management.

results against KPIs

You will have determined the KPIs in the campaign planning stage. Now each month you should measure your results against those KPIs to ascertain how successfully the campaign is in reaching the set targets. For example, a KPI might be to increase the traffic to a website by 10% in 6 months. Monitor the traffic to a website, calculate the percentage increase (or decrease) and report back to the client.

monthly metrics

As well as providing clients with results that match their KPIs you should also provide the following statistics where possible on a monthly basis:

  • Number of fans, followers, subscribers etc.
  • Number of video or content views
  • Volume of user comments posted to a blog, profile or posted content
  • Retweets or peer-sharing statistics for related content and posts
  • Comment or retweet resonation (number of user comments multiplied by how many followers or friends each user has)
  • Company website traffic statistics (where you have has access)

These statistics can usually be found in the dashboards of the social media channels you are using. Alternatively freely available tools such as Hootsuite can provide you with them.

ROI

The direct ROI will usually be measured by the client rather than their agency since it will involve them comparing things such as revenue gained from social media channels against revenue from other channels. Generally they will not want to share this type of information.

conclusion

Measuring the results of a campaign not only shows whether it is a success or not but can also indicate which specific channels are more effective. With this information you can either abandon less successful activity or change it. Likewise if a particular social network is producing outstanding results you can ramp up your activity in it.