Marketing on the Internet

Website chosen: Gap.com

1.) Is this site designed primarily for task or experiential users? What strategies do
you find here to support your conclusion?

The Gap website is definitely for task oriented users because the people who are going to this site are looking for a specific thing, and their main goal is to get something done. The Gap website is like a virtual magazine and people go to it to buy goods such as clothing and accessories. Gap.com’s users are looking to solve a problem, and that problem is the issue of finding suitable fashions for their body.

From my experience on the site (I have shopped here) I find it clean in appearance and the navigation is super simple.

Beginning from the main page, the top information bar divides Gap’s clothing into their main lines: Men, Women, GapKids, babyGap, GapMaternity and GapBody—and when you scroll over the one you want…such as Women, you get a drop-down menu choice of petite or tall—I love this, because I am a tall woman and the fact that there is an option for their tall line really satisfies my needs:

Not only is the site organized, but the images of the jeans are very accurate and are simply labeled. Also, I am aware of where I am at all times, because the top and side info bars stay the same through the whole experience, so I can always get to where I want to be.

2.) Referring back to the principles of traffic building and search engine marketing,
summarize all of the strategies you find this organization employing on their site
to facilitate organic or paid search results. Be thorough in your analysis.

When it comes to grabbing attention-Gap already had their attention as a successful clothing store well before Web 2.0 took over. So, their domain name choice fits-it is simple, easy to remember: www.gap.com. If they had done something like www.thegap.com it would be more confusing and not as successful in my opinion just because it is so not necessary.

The search engine marketing for gap is not very organic-it is more direct. People seem to be aware of Gap and what they offer and go directly to their site. Although, since they are part of a house of brands-their sister stores are Banana Republic and Old Navy-when certain keywords are searched online such as “clothes” gap will come up on the first page—and if Gap is not found first, and one of the sister stores is-on every site at the very top are links to each other’s sites:

They obviously don’t rely too heavily on search engine marketing because their meta tags are pretty vague and when I google search them, they are barely on the first page-but when “gap” is searched, it is a sponsored link and comes up first. Also, Its title tags are very clear-and this is important because when “gap” is searched on google, it’s link is very clean and to the point:

Gap is really known for their mass media advertising such as through their commercials and print ads. Currently they are well known for their RED ads:

Their commercials are known for being clean and they incorporate the celebrity spokesperson—I would say majority of their money for advertising goes towards print and television:

Wow, ok, so believe it or not-there is no domain name for www.jjignotz.com, but there is a  www.ignotz.com. totally weird! And it is the most random site ever.  The home page consists of three images: a photo camera, video tape, and a video recorder.  When you click on them it just takes you to a blank site-no rhyme or reason really.  Right now I have a website… www.jjignotzphotodesign.com.  I think this was stupid, now that I think about it.  I am thinking about changing it to just www.jjignotz.com -clean, simple. I am just hesitant, because I already have been marketing my site with business cards and word or mouth.  I suppose I would have to put a post on my site now, directing people to the new site–for a few months at least.  Dang.

Do you maybe have any suggestions for me?

Check out my site!