Sales tax on internet sales are bound by ever changing local, state and federal law.  Calculating the proper internet sales tax to charge customers is based on many factors including the billing address (for non shippable products) and the shipping address for shippable products.  These addresses determine the local and state tax jurisdictions to use.  Sales tax jurisdictions overlap, overrule and override one another.  There are over 11,000 sales tax jurisdictions in the United States.  Tax jurisdictions may vary from one building to the next.

To complicate things more, sales tax rates and sales tax jurisdictions are constantly changing.  There were over 5,000 changes last year alone.  That’s about 100 sales tax related changes per week.  If you are involved with internet transactions you are accountable for these potential changes in the sales tax on internet sales.

Sales tax on internet sales such as online stores, event registrations, subscriptions, memberships, B2B and B2C transactions of any type are subject to sales tax.  If your customers happen to be tax exempt, there’s even more sales tracking and paperwork, a lot more.  This adds collecting, organizing and accessing sales tax exemption certificates for sales tax exempt customers and associating the most current certificate with each sales tax exempt customer order.

Sales tax on internet sales extent beyond the United States.  You are also expected to know the law and collect the appropriate sales tax on internet sales outside the United States (European VAT tax comes to mind).

Sales and use tax compliance, especially for sales tax on internet sales, should be automated.  Beyond automating sales tax on internet sales at a global scale, it is wise to also automate the reporting.

The SharePoint Cart E-Commerce Module offers global level calculations of sales tax on internet sales for both B2B and B2C transactions, as well as the very important automated reporting.

Basically, we created a private view on the company list, and wanted to use that data for the mashup to visually represent the density of hospital types on a map. Also threw in a heat map display of hospital types per region.

I’m sure you can think of better uses for enabling folks to discover and share new insights from data through rich, 3-D data on a globe and fluid, cinematic guided tours—virtual cinematography moving through data, etc. but we wanted to build you a sample.

…we know it’s not Hollywood quality but hopefully it demonstrates the concept well enough to get the idea juices flowing.

PS – This took about 15 minutes to build.

Taxonomy and Folksonomy are types of metadata fundamental to solid information architecture.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is a formal classification using a tiered term structure.

Domain – Kingdom – Phylum – Class – Order – Family – Genus – Species

You knew it at one time.  You also learned another one: the Dewey Decimal Classification System.  These are some of the most well-known classification systems on the planet.  Dewey Decimal taxonomy has been used for more than 130 years and is still in use by more than 200,000 libraries worldwide.  There’s a reason – it makes sense.  Taxonomy represents a structured system of classification, thus providing a unified vocabulary.  Taxonomy is centrally managed and consistently applied to content.

Folksonomy

Folksonomy, on the other hand, refers to categorization by the users.  That’s right, you can crowdsource part of your taxonomy and let your users determine how the content should be classified.

SharePoint 2010 provides this natively using Keywords which gives the power of tag-based classification to individual users.  Users can tag content using any Keywords they wish.

They can use their own tags to describe a Page, video, document, image, or any other piece of content.  Your user has the option to make each Keyword public or private. If the user selects to keep a Keyword private, only that specific user sees how they tagged content.

To manage all taxonomy and folksonomy capabilities, SharePoint 2010 introduces a new multi-faceted, tiered classification system across your entire SharePoint infrastructure called Managed Metadata, or Managed Metadata Services.  Managed Metadata supports both a formal taxonomy and an informal folksonomy.

Terms

Terms are the fundamental building blocks of the SharePoint 2010 taxonomy and folksonomy system.  A Term is a word or phrase that can be associated with an Item in SharePoint.  Terms are collectively stored in a database referred to as the Term Store.

SharePoint provides the tools for associating these words with any type of content.  Users with Internet Explorer can even tag websites which are not even part of your SharePoint solution.

Terms are split into two types: Managed Terms which represent taxonomy and Enterprise Keywords which represent folksonomy.  Managed Terms can be organized in a parent-child hierarchy.  Terms may be predefined by entering your org’s tags into the SharePoint Term Store management interface, or by uploading an Excel spreadsheet populated with your tags.  Term Sets can even have specific managers which can add, update, and delete terms.

For example, your org may elect to have one person manage the Terms related to Government Affairs while different people manage the Terms related to medical conditions.  Your org can structure the parent-child hierarchy using your information.  The Term Set structure can be as simple or as complex as you need.

A word of caution: start simple.  Do not make it cumbersome for your content authors to appropriately tag your content.  Make it easy.  We have seen orgs start with overly complicated taxonomy structures which are improperly used.

A simple classification system correctly applied is infinitely more powerful than a complex system used improperly.

Enterprise Keywords, on the other hand, are all stored in a single keyword set that does not support a hierarchal structure.  Enterprise Keywords do not require specific permissions to manage.  You can allow any user to add Keywords.  Members, Volunteers, Donors, Board Members, Chapter Leaders, Registered Users, or anyone you wish.

Benefits of Classification

Classification allows content to be related to similar content.  There are many websites which display “Related Articles”, “Related Events” or “Other Products You Might Like” – all based on the classification of the content being viewed.  Once your content has been tagged (classified) properly, SharePoint can easily display other similarly tagged pieces of content.

Classification also allows you to relate content to users.  Users can enjoy a highly personalized experience when logged into your Site.  For example, users may indicate an interest in Government Affairs within their profile.  Content may also be tagged as relating to Government Affairs.

SharePoint can use this information to display content related to Government Affairs to this user on any Page you wish.  You can configure Web Parts to show other articles, upcoming events, products, or any other content that has been tagged with Government Affairs.
Suggestions are provided when adding tags

Classification also provides the ability to sort and filter based on how content has been tagged.  If users are uploading documents into your SharePoint intranet and are appropriately tagging the content as they upload, it becomes very easy to apply a filter and show all documents in a library with a certain tag.
Apply filter

Assuming users are tagging content, it’s easy to predefine List Views that show only Items that have been tagged with certain Keywords or Terms.

Let’s assume that we have an association of automobile owners.  Our formal taxonomy might have a Term Set which specifically describes various car components: safety, price, rating, manufacturer, and color.  As staff create and upload documents to the internal research Document Library, these documents would be tagged with the various topics.  A View that shows only documents which have been tagged as “safety” makes life easier for anyone looking for documents related to auto safety.

You have spent and still spend a lot of time trying to organize the content of your website into logical buckets.  Afterwards, you put a nice navigation bar in place to provide your Site users with a very simple and intuitive way to go find content in your Site.  Everyone can now find anything they want anywhere in your Site, right?  If so, congratulations!  You have a perfect Information Architecture and a perfect navigation structure that needs no further explanation or clarification!  You have achieved what no one else ever has!  It’s time to retire!

If you are like the rest of us, you could use additional ways for users to find the information they need when they need it.  You did put the navigation in place.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a way for users to actually navigate the content using the new taxonomy you have in place?  SharePoint 2010 offers Managed Metadata features which make finding any needed content even easier.

Search refinements are covered in greater detail in the Search chapter, just know SharePoint 2010 provides Term Filtering for both Managed Terms and Enterprise Keywords on search results.  This works off the shelf with no required customization.

Search Results Page

Managed Metadata is associated with content through the use of Site Columns.  This means it’s very easy to leverage the Managed Metadata using any of the native capabilities in SharePoint, such as the Content Query Web Part (CQWP).

The CQWP is one of the Swiss Army Web Parts. You can accomplish many content aggregation tasks with just this single Web Part.

The CQWP allows you to use Managed Metadata fields to create very Amazon.com-like behavior within your Pages.  If you are looking at an Article Page related to automobile safety, you can use the CQWP to show “Other pages related to Auto Safety” or “Upcoming Events related to Auto Safety.”

Personalization

Every one of us likes to be treated special.  Dale Carnegie wrote in 1936, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

That has not changed.  Even in the language of the web, we like our content served up specifically for us.  We don’t want to wade through hundreds of links.  If we express what we’re interested in, we expect that information to be used for providing us relevant information.

Using the social features in SharePoint 2010, users can specify tags they are interested in.  These tags may be Managed Terms (taxonomy) or Enterprise Keywords (folksonomy).  Either way, SharePoint will serve up content tagged with terms users are interested in on their Newsfeed.  This is individual personalization based on Keywords!

Personalization can also be accomplished using SharePoint Audiences.  Audiences are groups of users you have created based on similar attributes.

For example, you can create an Audience called “Volunteers Interested in Auto Safety.”  Users in this SharePoint Audience have at some point indicated “Auto Safety” as an interest within their User Profile.

The ability to target content towards a specific Audience is available in many SharePoint Web Parts.  This level of personalization is quickly becoming the norm on websites, and can only fully be truly successful and relevant after a carefully planned and managed taxonomy structure is in place.

Summary

Taxonomy is a fundamental Information Architecture building block which empowers you to better organize and present your content.  Taxonomy is simply classification of your content.  It is extremely useful for the following reasons:

• Relating content to other pieces of content.
• Relating content to people (personalization).
• Aggregating content from multiple locations into a single display.
• Improving search.

Taxonomy is the formal, hierarchical structure of tags which are usually managed by staff.  Folksonomy is similar to taxonomy, but users create the tags.  Members, Volunteers, Donors, Board Members, Chapter Leaders, Registered Users, or anyone you allow can add tags to your folksonomy.  SharePoint offers both, and both are very important.

In SharePoint 2010, Terms are your taxonomy, and Keywords are your folksonomy.

Personalization can also be achieved using SharePoint Audiences.  Audiences are logical groups of users that you define with similar attributes.

Perhaps not the sexiest topic, security is certainly among the most important.  The SharePoint security model allows your org to lock down some of your content to only members while keeping some of your content open to the public.  That’s an example of a public-facing website with login access to the protected content.

The SharePoint security model allows your org to re-use your existing roles already populated in your AMS or CRM solution.  You likely already have roles defined as committees, groups, chapters, councils, special interest groups, communities of practice, or any other logical grouping of users.

SharePoint can honor those roles and provide access to specific locations of your Site with varying levels of permissions based on the location and role combination.  You can also leverage your existing Active Directory Security Groups.

To successfully accomplish any of this, you need an understanding of the SharePoint security model and how to tailor it to suit your org’s specific needs.  Understanding best practices related to SharePoint security will save you a lot of overhead with respect to ongoing security management.

SharePoint Site Groups

A SharePoint Site Group is just a group of users.  You add users to each SharePoint Site Group.  SharePoint Site Groups can be thought of as Roles with varying levels of permissions to various locations of your Site.

For example, you may have a SharePoint Site Group called “HR Staff” which has Read permission in most sections of your intranet.  However, in the HR Site, your “HR Staff” SharePoint Site Group has been granted Read, Add, and Delete permissions.

This same principle applies throughout SharePoint and across the different permutations of the platforms’ uses – whether you are using SharePoint for an intranet, extranet, member community, public-facing website, or all of these permutations.

You can create your own SharePoint Site Groups.  Let’s first look at the default SharePoint Site Groups available with any new Site.

• Visitors – Use this group to grant read permissions.
• Members – Use this group to grant contribute permissions.
• Approvers – Members of this group can edit and approve Pages, List Items, and documents.
• Owners – Use this group to grant full control permissions.
• Designers – Members of this group can edit Lists, Document Libraries, and Pages in the Site. Designers can create Master Pages and Page Layouts in the Master Page Gallery, and can change the behavior and appearance of each Site in the Site collection by using master Pages and CSS files.
• Hierarchy Managers – Members of this group can create Sites, Lists, List Items, and documents.
• Restricted Readers – Members of this group can view Pages and documents but cannot view historical versions or review user rights information.
• Style Resource Readers – Members of this group are given read permission to the Master Page Gallery and the Restricted Read permission to the Style Library. By default, all authenticated users are a member of this group. To further secure this Site, you can remove all authenticated users from or add users to this group.

Active Directory (AD) will almost certainly be used to store some of your users who access your SharePoint solution.  In fact, most orgs end up looking something like this:

• Intranet Solution = User accounts in AD.
• Extranet Solution = Staff user accounts in AD while non-staff user accounts in AMS/CRM system.
• Public-facing Website Solution = Staff user accounts in AD and non-staff user accounts in AMS/CRM system.  Users without user accounts can simply register to create an account in your AMS/CRM system.

Therefore, SharePoint’s built-in ability to honor your existing Active Directory (AD) Security Groups not only saves time but also prevents you from having to manage individual user account permissions in multiple places.  For example, you can simply define in SharePoint the existing AD Security Group (like Domain Users) which has Add, Modify, and Delete permissions in a particular Site.

You will undoubtedly have the need to create your own SharePoint Site Groups.  A SharePoint Site Group can be thought of as a Role, and your org will need specific Roles (SharePoint Site Groups) different from those created by default during installation.

A key benefit of SharePoint Site Groups is that it’s easier and faster to manage permissions at a Group level rather than at the individual user or Item level.  Think in terms of “groups of users” who need the same permissions in a given location (Site, Subsite, Document Library or List).

When “Bob the Accountant” leaves your organization to spend time practicing Yoga in the Himalayas, how much work do you want to do ensuring his replacement has all the same permissions that Bob had throughout the Site?  It would be nice to simply add the new person’s account to the correct AD Security group(s) or make sure the new guy’s account belongs to the same SharePoint Site Groups.

If you chose to ignore SharePoint Site Groups and configure permissions for individual accounts, you will need to figure out every single location where you granted rights to “Bob the Accountant.”  You will need to determine what permissions were granted at that location, remove Bob’s account, and add the new person’s account with the same permissions.

This is not even a realistic option.  Without a third-party utility or writing scripts, you would need to manually check every single Site, Subsite, Library, List and Item.  It’s just not going to happen.  Plan out your SharePoint Site Groups and stick to your plan when adding new users to your Site.

Here are the fields you fill out when creating a new SharePoint Site Group:

• Name and About Me Description – Type a descriptive name for your Site Group and add a description for the group.  Do not skip the description even though it’s not required.  Take the extra 30 seconds and fill it out accurately.  You will thank yourself 12 month later when you try to figure out why that Site Group was created.
• Owner – The owner can change anything about the group, such as adding and removing members, or deleting the group. Only one user or group can be the owner.
• Group Settings – Specify who has permission to see the list of group members, and who has permission to add and remove members from the group.
• Membership Requests – Specify whether to allow users to request membership in this group and allow users to request to leave the group. All requests will be sent to the e-mail address specified. If auto-accept is enabled, users will automatically be added or removed when they make a request. Caution: If you select ‘yes’ for the Auto-accept requests option, any user requesting access to this group will automatically be added as a member of the group and receive the permission levels associated with the group.
• Give Group Permission to this Site – Specify the permission level that you want members of this SharePoint group to have on this Site. If you do not want to give group members access to this Site, ensure that all checkboxes are unselected.
  • Full Control – Has full control.
  • Design - Can view, add, update, delete, approve, and customize.
  • Contribute – Can view, add, update, and delete List Items and documents.
  • Read – Can view Pages and List Items, and download documents.
  • Approve – Can edit and approve pages, List Items, and documents.
  • Manage Hierarchy - Can create Sites and edit Pages, List Items, and documents.
  • Restricted Read – Can view Pages and documents, but cannot view historical versions or user permissions.
  • Records Center Web Service Submitters – Can submit content to this Site using Web Services.

SharePoint Permissions

SharePoint permissions can be divided into three main categories:  List Permissions, Site Permissions and Personal Permissions.

The separation of permission categories is for organization purposes only.  You can certainly mix any two or more permissions as needed.

Site Permissions

• Manage Permissions - Create and change permission levels on the Web Site and assign permissions to users and groups.
• View Web Analytics Data – View reports on Web Site usage.
• Create Subsites – Create Subsites such as team Sites, Meeting Workspace Sites, and Document Workspaces.
• Manage Web Site – Grant the ability to perform all administration tasks for the Web Site, as well as manage content.
• Add and Customize Pages – Add, change, or delete HTML Pages or Web Part Pages, and edit the Web Site using a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation-compatible editor.

• Apply Themes and Borders – Apply a theme or borders to the entire Web Site.
• Apply Style Sheets – Apply a style sheet (.CSS file) to the Web Site.
• Create Groups – Create a group of users that can be used anywhere within the Site collection.
• Browse Directories – Enumerate files and folders in a Web Site using SharePoint Designer and Web DAV interfaces.
• Use Self-Service Site Creation – Create a Web Site using Self-Service Site Creation.
• View Pages – View pages in a Web Site.
• Enumerate Permissions - Enumerate permissions on the Web Site, List, folder, document, or List Item.
• Browse User Information – View information about users of the Web Site.
• Manage Alerts – Manage alerts for all users of the Web Site.
• Use Remote Interfaces – Use SOAP, Web DAV, the Client Object Model or SharePoint Designer interfaces to access the Web Site.

• Use Client Integration Features – Use features which launch client applications. Without this permission, users will have to work on documents locally and upload their changes.
• Open – Allows users to open a Web Site, List, or folder in order to access items inside that container.
• Edit Personal User Information – Allows a user to change his or her own user information, such as adding a picture.

List Permissions

• Manage Lists – Create and delete Lists, add or remove columns in a List, and add or remove public views of a List.
• Override Check Out – Discard or check in a document which is checked out to another user.
• Add Items – Add items to Lists, and add documents to document Libraries.

• Edit Items – Edit items in Lists, edit documents in document Libraries, and customize Web Part Pages in document Libraries.
• Delete Items – Delete items from a List, and documents from a document library.
• View Items – View items in Lists and documents in document Libraries.
• Approve Items – Approve a minor version of a List Item or document.
• Open Items – View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.
• View Versions – View past versions of a List Item or document.
• Delete Versions – Delete past versions of a List Item or document.
• Create Alerts – Create alerts.
• View Application Pages – View forms, views, and application pages. Enumerate Lists.

Personal Permissions

• Manage Personal Views - Create, change, and delete personal views of Lists.
• Add/Remove Personal Web Parts – Add or remove personal Web Parts on a Web Part Page.
• Update Personal Web Parts – Update Web Parts to display personalized information.

SharePoint Permission Levels

You’ve guessed it right; SharePoint Permission Levels are logical collections of permissions!  Therefore, you could create a new Permission Level called “Chapter Leaders” and add the appropriate permissions to your new Permission Level.

One of the fundamental concepts in SharePoint is the Site. A Site is just a collection of “stuff.”  A Site is a collection of information.  A Site can contain Documents, Pages, Lists, Libraries, Calendars, images, media, videos, CAD files – pretty much any kind of content that you can imagine.  A Site has unique security properties.  A Site can be locked down to a specific team of people, or opened to the entire world by allowing anonymous access.  A Site can be stand alone or nested within other Sites (sometimes called Subsites).  Subsites can be thought of as sections.  Sites can utilize different languages.  Subsites can have distinct language settings which are different from their parent Site.

Sites can be manipulated very easily using a web browser.  You can change the Theme (which changes the color scheme and fonts).  You can change the navigation.  You can add and hide links.  You can add structures for content.  Sites can be manipulated by adding Lists, Libraries, Workflow, Security, Content Types, Page Layouts, Master Pages, and many more components.  Finally, after you have manipulated a Site to satisfy your requirements – you can save your Site as a Site Template.

Some Sites are intended to be permanent fixtures which are always available, like your main Intranet page or your public-facing website.  Some Sites are intended to be disposable, used only for a short time, such as a Site dedicated to a project or an event. In either case, you have the capability to move or delete Sites with ease.

All SharePoint Sites are based on Site Templates.  Even if you want to create an empty Site, it is created from a Site Template cleverly named “Blank Site.”  There are different Site Templates depending on the version of SharePoint you choose, and the Templates are available in all flavors: Team Site, Blog, Document Center, Meeting Workspace, Search Center, Enterprise Wiki, Publishing Portal, and more.  Site Templates are a powerful tool in SharePoint.

As explained earlier, Sites can be manipulated.  You can always manipulate various aspects of the Site should your org’s requirements change.

The following list details configurable Site options:

• Language.  Text that appears on the Site is displayed in the Site Template’s language.
• Security.  Define unique user groups and permissions for each Site.
• Navigation.   Configure unique navigation links in each part of your SharePoint hierarchy.  Site navigation can reflect relationships among the Sites in a Site Collection.
• Web Pages.   Customize pages associated with various Sites.
• Layouts.   Provide unique layouts or master pages in a Site.
• Themes.    Modify colors and fonts on a Site.
• Regional settings.    Modify the regional settings, such as locale, time zone, sort order, time format, and calendar type.
• Search.   Customize search settings. For example, specify that a particular Site never appears in search results.
• Content Types.   Customize each Site’s Content Types and Site Columns (metadata).
• Workflows.   Provide unique workflows for each Site.

SharePoint does not translate your English text into Spanish or any other language.

SharePoint can manage the process by which you translate the content (either manually or automatically), but SharePoint does not do the translation.

SharePoint is used around the world and is built with support for various languages using two distinct support concepts. The first concept is language Variations.

Variations may be utilized if your org is using SharePoint for a public-facing website and you require various pages within the website to be available in multiple languages. Variations facilitate the management and maintenance of content for different users. Variations can be based on different languages, countries, or regions. Variations can also be used to represent different brands or devices. If your org actually has affiliate orgs which are managed in a similar fashion, you can use SharePoint Variations to represent that content in a different way for different users.

The other concept is based on Language Packs. Language Packs are provided by Microsoft and allow you to use SharePoint in a different language. This means your entire user experience. Site navigation, Site menus, and the SharePoint Ribbon are all available in the selected language. SharePoint search also uses the language information. Users creating Sites have the option to select the default language of the site. SharePoint will automatically detect the browser language preference and react appropriately. Users may also select the desired language.

Here are seven high-level steps to ensuring your SharePoint public-facing website is ready for the Internet search engines.

SEO Step 1: Search Terms
Make a list of the search terms you want people to find your website with. Start with the broadest terms and then get more specific. These should be terms which describe the overall theme of the site.

SEO Step 2: Competition
Identify and research your competition. Your competitors include any site which ranks in the first ten slots using the above search terms. Now that you have identified your competition, it’s time to research. Determine the keyword density of the page which is ranked well.

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. You do not want to publish a page with a keyword density much greater than the site which is ranked number one. You want your pages keyword density to pretty much mimic it. How long have they been around? What exactly do they offer and why do people go to their site? Basically, you are sizing them up to see what you are up against. Document these findings for each search term in your list.

SEO Step 3: Analysis
Analyze your website. For each search term, identify which page is most suited or relevant. Determine its keyword density, and add or subtract content accordingly. Again, you want to have about the same keyword density as the page ranked number one. Always tailor your content for users, not search engines. Once your page is ranked within the top positions, you can almost forget about keyword density and focus on fresh theme, relevant content.

SEO Step 4: Confirmation
Ensure your website is being crawled. This can be determined by searching for your domain name. If it’s not automatically being crawled by a particular search engine, manually submit your site. Do not pay a so-called “SEO” company (online or otherwise) to submit your site to “thousands of internet search engines.” Use some good old common sense on this one – how many search engines really matter? Hint: you care about the ones you have actually heard of, which is likely something less than “thousands.”

SEO Step 5: Site Map
A SiteMap is a way to describe the Pages of your Site to a search engine. It also provides the mechanism for letting search engines know when your Pages have been added, removed or modified. A SiteMap file is an XML formatted file containing an entry for each Page of your Site. Each entry contains the date/time the Page was last modified.

There is a unified “SiteMaps protocol” used by the big three internet search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!). This means one SiteMap file can be used by all three major internet search engines.
Create a sitemap.xml file, register it with the major search engines, and keep it up to date. Keeping the sitemap.xml file up to date can be a daunting task with even the smallest of websites. For this reason, it is recommended that you automate this process. You want your sitemap.xml file to be updated every time a page is published/approved as well as moved, removed or otherwise modified.

SEO Step 6: Links
Secure quality in-bound links to your site. These links should come from sites that are theme relevant and ranked better than your website pages. Do not participate in “link exchange programs”, or other shady short-cuts. Pick up the phone and make some calls after figuring out what you can offer in return. You want the in-bound link to originate from text describing the page on your website it is linking to, which should be the relevant search term. More quality in-bound links equal higher rankings.

SEO Step 7: Monitoring
Keep watching your rankings and continue adding fresh content. Continue trying to secure quality in-bound links to relevant pages. Do not get frustrated and try to cut corners, you will undoubtedly regret it, especially if your website gets blacklisted. Mostly, continue tailoring your content for your intended audiences. Proper SharePoint WCM site SEO is handled at the page level, not the site level. In other words, let your content authors do their jobs and ensure they understand the rules.

Navigation

Your users should be able to find your content.  They need to be able to browse through an intuitive navigation structure and find the content they are looking for.

SharePoint provides two tools for managing navigation.  First is a Navigation manager.  This tool makes it very easy for an authorized user to update the navigation.

SharePoint Navigation Management

Navigation should not be static.  Continuously revisit and update your navigation based upon the behavior of your users.  If new trends appear that demand significant attention; your users should be able to easily browse to that content.

Second, metadata driven navigation provides users with the ability to rapidly browse and discover information in Document Libraries using metadata filtering and views.

Internal Search

We’re not talking about Google or Bing.  We are talking about the search box on your website.  Search comes with SharePoint.  It is not an afterthought or a bolt-on solution.  Search is an integral part of SharePoint, and needs to be an integral part of your public-facing website.  Spend time designing the Search experience.  Define the usability.  Search is so important we’ve dedicated an entire chapter on it.

How do they find your website?

We are talking about Google and Bing here.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of optimizing your site and your content to ensure that search engines list your site as the top results for particular searches.  SEO drives users to your site to find you.

Our next post will cover seven high-level steps to ensuring your SharePoint public-facing website is ready for the Internet search engines.

Audiences
Your website is built for them – not you. Your website is for your audiences. Your org likely has many audiences: anonymous public, or logged in members, volunteers, donors – everyone that supports your organization. Your website may be for students, teachers, educators, the press, government officials, affiliates, and other orgs. Again, your website is for them – not you.
It’s for them to learn about you. It’s for them to communicate with you. It’s for them to communicate with each other – about you. It’s for them to learn, contribute, teach, and share. Your website must serve many masters, but the master it should serve first and foremost is them.

Clearly define your core audiences. Just because your website is public-facing does not mean the entire world is your audience. Your defined target audiences will dictate your content, functionality, presentation, marketing, and structure.
Remember they will use the website only if it is convenient for them. They will use your website only if they can find what they want, when they want. They will use your website only if it works for them on whatever device they happen to be using when they find it.

Your users do not care about your technology. They don’t care about your AMS, CRM, CMS, Financial Package, servers, widgets, or ACME parts.
Your users do care about you. They care about your content. They care about the Page, the file, the audio, and the video. They care about what you say, and they might care even more about what the other users say on your website. They either want Content, Commerce, or Community.

Content
What content do you have today? What format is it? Do you have HTML pages, PDF files, videos, and podcasts? Is it all in one location, or is it spread out all over the place? Is it in a CMS already?
It is never too early to perform a content audit. A content audit should actually be an ongoing effort of your org. You should have a handle on your content and the way it is managed. The sad reality is most orgs don’t. The content audit can seem overwhelming, but it really is a simple task which just happens to be time consuming.

Content is king, has been king, and will continue to be king for the foreseeable future. If your website has irrelevant or just bad content, your website will not be successful.
In most cases, your top-level website content is actually marketing copy. Put your salesperson hat on when you write your content. On your website, your content is one of your products. Your audiences are your customers. Think about how to sell your product to your customers.

Train your staff how to write better content for your website. Have a genuine interest in providing the best possible content for your audience(s).

Design
Design is more than just pretty pictures. Design is the entire user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). In fact, the pretty pictures should be the last part of your design stage. You should first define the structure and usability, and then make it pretty.

Contextual Planning
Plan the entire design in the context of SharePoint. SharePoint provides a lot of capability right off the shelf. While SharePoint can be molded programmatically to be anything you need, that doesn’t mean it should be.
Remember to start with configuration and resist customization. Leverage the power provided out of the box as much as possible.
Your planning team needs to be aware of SharePoint capabilities. They need to see it in action and be able to use it. They need a sandbox so they can try ideas during the design stage. Remember, SharePoint provides a lot of configurability through in-browser configuration. Use it.

Wireframes
Wireframes are the best way to plan the logical layout of individual Page templates. The technology you use to develop a wireframe can be pencil and paper or software. Wireframes should be done before any artwork or creative design. The wireframe should be kept simple, but should serve these very important purposes:

• ? Suggest the overall structure of the website.
•      Suggest the relationship among Pages.
• ? Suggest the relationship among areas on a single Page.
• ? Suggest the necessary templates that will be used throughout the website.
• ? Suggest the global and secondary navigation.

Wireframes can be used for initial usability testing, link prediction testing, and most importantly, for communicating website and Page structure.

One SharePoint environment can support multiple public-facing website URLs such as your org Site, foundation Site, a dedicated annual conference Site, a dedicated community Site. On the other hand, these could all be components of a single, top-level URL.

Public-facing websites can be open to everyone and can allow anonymous users. These Sites can also have “members only” content, Pages, blogs, videos, downloads, etc. In the past few years, orgs have also started supporting “registered users” who fall between members and anonymous users. Typically in such scenarios, a person can create a new account (register) on the website to receive access to more information and functionality.

Before we delve into the specific SharePoint tools which enable WCM, we should describe a high-level methodology for planning and implementing a public-facing website.

This methodology is simple and has five stages: Discovery, Design, Technical Planning, Implementation, and Assessment.

Discovery
The Discovery stage is used to identify and clarify the objectives and audiences of your public-facing website.

Objectives
Begin your website solution design with high-level business objectives. These objectives must support your org’s strategy. This sounds like common sense, but you would be shocked how many initiatives skip this crucial step.

We’ll go out on a limb and say your website has only a couple of high-level objectives: Education and Revenue. If we were to use traditional business terminology, we could state your website supports Content, Commerce, and Community (though for many orgs community is largely about education).

Your website serves to educate your audiences at various levels. What are the issues your org is involved with? What is your org doing related to these issues? Is your website aggregating relevant information from all appropriate sources, including external sources? Does your website focus on professional development, credentials, certification, or personal development? Do you provide information not available elsewhere? Does your org provide analyses, standards, expertise, commentaries, subscriptions, or other products? Does it facilitate knowledge sharing between likeminded individuals?
Your website is also used to generate revenue.

Before you cringe in disgust, realize we are referring to Membership, Event Registrations, Subscriptions, Donations, Bookstore sales, Advertising, Career Centers, Conferences, and any other revenue-generating activity your org focuses on.

As you begin your WCM project, you should clearly articulate your objectives. Remember to Capture, Clarify, and Confirm these objectives.