The professional online portfolio is going to be tailored specifically towards a career in television presenting.
Therefore the websites purpose is to promote the brand in order to increase the changes of noticeability within the industry. The end product is to present the individual as desirable to employers,agents, production companies and other industry professionals. Therefore traffic needs to be generated towards the site in order to gain recognition, stand out and show the individual can be valued as a potential television presenter.
What is online traffic?
Online traffic refers to the viewers of a website. This could include the types and or quantities of viewers. Traffic is needed to be directed toward the site in order for the portfolio to be visible, useful, seen, heard about and recognised by viewers and most importantly seen by the intended target audience in order to communicate brand effectively.
There are many ways to encourage traffic toward a website, one of the main ones being SEO (search engine optimisation) (Cooper,2016).
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In order to establish what SEO is, what it does and why it is effective, primary research has been conducted in the form of communication with a former SEO representative of 'Lattitude group' (Latitudegroup, 2009) .
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Search engine optimisation is a process that allows a website to rank high enough to appear on the first pages of search engines, and therefore generate online traffic towards your website (Media, 2016).
There are various methods that encourage and improve a websites SE0 (Cooper,2016).
- Keywords/tagging
- Categorising
- Hyperlinking
- Good Content
(Cooper,2016)
In order for a website to be positioned within a high rank on search engines, the search engines algorithm needs to be considered (Bluehost, 2012). The job of a search engine is to collect and organise online information, putting it into an algorithm, storing information under categories of ranking running from most relevant to the search to least(Media, 2016). To optimise the results and rankings of a website on a search engine, my website must contain as many of the algorithm features as possible, such as good content, titles and keywords, links etc.
Tagging and key words are one way to optimise searching because search engines use key words in order to arrange and pick out websites.. Therefore one way to optimise a website and generate more traffic would be to make sure the language used on the site is tailored specifically to the genre by using a large quantity of context appropriate tags and key words so that the search engines are able to detect a page and rank it high. However one needs to keep in mind too much of this can have the danger of over cluttering a website which would bring down the credibility. Search engines can usually tell if a website has been created under false pretences in order to drive traffic, and will instead favour other websites instead (Bluehost, 2012).
Another way optimisation can be achieved is through page titles and successful coding. By titling a page appropriately within the code, search engines can successfully identify what a page is about and be able to collect the information correctly in order for it to be visible with related content rather than lost in the search engine.
Hyperlinks are another successful method of optimisation because they heighten the credibility and ranking of a website(Cooper, 2016). Linking to other websites would connect a website to others which would mean that because a site is involved with other relatable sites, the credibility and reliability of the site would improve which would in turn improve my ranking and optimisation. Search engines would be able to link the sites together which would aid the popularity and accessibility of the website(Bluehost, 2012).
Content is a major factor in search engine optimisation (Waite,2016). The better the content is, the more inclined people are going to want to view the site which would therefore increase traffic through word of mouth, viewer popularity and SEO. Things such as video,audio and photograph content would increase optimisation and therefore encourage traffic because the more and wider variety of content would enable search engines to rank the quality of the site higher, which would increase search engine optimisation. Due to the fact the website being created is for an aspiring television presenter, it is crucial that video content is included to demonstrate this, otherwise no potential employers are going to take it seriously or be interested which would decrease traffic.
Other ways one can drive traffic toward a website is that one could brand the site over a multi-platform scale. Ways this could be achieved could be through a business cards, word of mouth, advertisements elsewhere such as print or other websites/blogs called social media optimisation.
SMO - Social Media Optimisation, another method of generating traffic, is the process of using multiple social media platforms to promote a brand by regularly posting info and updates raising awareness and gaining social media followers which would increase brand positioning and therefore drive people toward the website
Driving traffic to the website will be beneficial because in order to become a successful television presenter, popularity and likability is an important factor when getting noticed and remembered. Therefore the more people who find themselves onto the website the better. The websites aim is to set the individual's presence in the industry and inviting employers and industry professionals the chance to view the sites content and hopefully consider me for a role. Therefore traffic to my site is essential and these methods are all going to be considered during the creation of my website to give me the best optimisation as possible.
References
Bluehost (2012) What is SEO and how does it work? , 31 January. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqg3F-8jBec> [Accessed 16 March 2016].
Cooper, S. (2016) SEO lecture slides Available from: <https://my.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_1200728_1&course_id=_83764_1> [Accessed 14 March 2016].
Latitudegroup (2009) Search engine Optimisation Available from: <http://www.latitudegroup.com/our-services/channel-by-channel/seo#home> [Accessed 14 March 2016].
Pros, C.S. (2016) What is SMO? Social media optimization explainedSMO Pros. Available from: <http://smopros.com/what-is-social-media-optimization/> [Accessed 18 March 2016].
Waite, D. (1016) SE0 Questions [Facebook Chat].
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