Have Results SEM Blog

6 Lessons SEOs Can Learn from the Coronavirus Crisis

2020-04-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

We, SEOs are faced with a lot of challenges on a daily basis whether internally trying to convince teammates and other managers about the importance of certain SEO projects, or externally from all the uncertainties surrounding SEO.

With the coronavirus crisis I noticed 6 similarities between what the world is facing from this pandemic and what SEOs deal with as part of their job. I also noticed some lessons that SEOs can learn from what the smartest minds who are leading the world out of this crisis are doing.

1- Certainty is impossible but signals are everything

The world is now busy creating projections models for how many people will be infected and die from covid-19 putting different scenarios based on how people will respect the social-distancing orders. But public health officials made it very clear that these projections are very sensitive and can change rapidly with the change of human behaviour, and other factors too that cannot be controlled or predicted like the nature of the virus, the weather, etc. They also rely a lot on looking at historical data from other countries (and even previous pandemics to have a feel of what to expect to build their models accordingly)

Same with SEO, unlike most marketing activities, SEO decisions are based on signals, historical data, case studies from similar websites, and a delicate sense that is developed over time and with experience. It is never an exact formula or an equation. And like with public health projection numbers, it is very sensitive to algorithm changes.

So, as an SEO Manager myself, I totally feel the pressure that the Public Health Officials are having now trying to convince everyone to stay home to flatten the curve, costing countries billions (or even trillions) of dollars based on some back of envelope estimates and theoretical models that may or may not be relevant. But what if they haven’t!!!

The lesson here is that as an SEO, be confident to launch big projects based on signals, historical data, and theoretical models. And remember that if they were enough to take extreme actions to save lives, they should be just fine to make SEO-centric decisions.

2- Act fast, time is of the essence

In a pandemic, everyday a lot of people die. So time is of the essence, and the faster we act the more lives we get to save.

CureVac, a vaccine manufacturer, which is hoping to advance its own vaccine candidates to human testing soon, told the Financial Times that regulators would need to “abbreviate” the regulatory process for vaccine testing and speed up the vaccine approval process or face the consequences.

Same thing for SEO, everyday people search online for content whether it is informational, transactional, or navigational. If you don’t show up on the results page at all when people search for what you can show them, or you show with very poor or irrelevant content, you lose those people, and there is not a time back machine that can bring them back to you.

Of course there are technical and security constraints that will slow you down, content and brand guidelines that require approvals, revisions, more approvals, and more revisions. But if we want to learn something from the coronavirus crisis, we need to be more agile and find better ways to be fast without causing any harm. It is possible if the intention is there!

3- Act with everything you got

A couple of days ago, I found a post circulating among the SEO community on twitter about Bill Gates’ decision to fund the construction of factories that will manufacture seven promising coronavirus vaccines even before knowing which one will be the chosen one.

“Even though we’ll end up picking at most two [vaccines], we’re going to fund factories for all seven just so we don’t waste time in serially saying ‘ok which vaccine works’ and then building the factory…It’ll be a few billion dollars we’ll waste on manufacturing for the constructs that don’t get picked because something else is better. But a few billion in this situation we’re in, where there’s trillions of dollars…being lost economically, it is worth it,”

It may sound like gambling at the beginning, but if you look deeper, Gates’ foundation is not manufacturing 7 random vaccine candidates, they know that one of them will be the one that people will benefit from and are acting with all what they have to make sure when that working vaccine is known it is already manufactured and ready for distribution.

So again, we act fast and act with whatever data we got, but also we act with all our might.

How can that be a lesson for SEO? Simple, you present your SEO audit to your engineering team with 7 technical issues that need to be fixed with a certain way that ensures SEO best practices. Your engineering team will not gladly take your list and fix everything exactly as you asked for. There will be a lot of resistance and negotiation trying to get the minimal possible work with a lot of technical workarounds and band aid solutions so that the list is checked but not in the right way. That is when you need to be more persistent and tenacious, while remaining professional and friendly, and do your best to ensure that the SEO asks are being taken more seriously even though it may be hard to quantify each ask separately.

4- Some effective solutions are free

Governments racing with time to mass produce face masks, PPEs, sanitizers, and ventilators to save the lives of as many of their citizens as possible which is costing hundreds of millions of dollars. But a free, and I think an even more effective life-saving measure is social-distancing when people are well educated (with good content) about its importance to save lives.

In parallel, with businesses being on pause, most brands now are pausing their paid search campaigns and those who have invested in organic content are the ones harvesting the fruits of their labor.

Yes SEO is hard to quantify and is surrounded by a lot of uncertainties, and is faced with a lot of opposition and denial in good times, but it is the last castle that can defend your whole organization during trying times, because good content is what remains on the SERP when there are no ads.

5- Use fear to change a behavior

Psychological and Behavioural Economics studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains, as a factor for moving people from their status quo. In his paper, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk”, Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman wrote that “People tend to be risk seeking in the domain of losses and risk-averse in the domain of gains”.

“People tend to be risk seeking in the domain of losses and risk-averse in the domain of gains”

Look how governments are reacting (or even over-reacting) towards the coronavirus pandemic; schools are closing, businesses are going bankrupt, massive layoffs, and hundreds of millions of people are not shaking hands or hugging anymore. Why all of that? Because of fear!

Economies are taking a very hard hit and all these social-distancing measures are costing a fortune but it will also save millions of lives. The thing is, no one will ever know how many lives will be saved when all of this is over.

Another good example is the 90s Y2K bug when computer experts warned the governments that the computer systems are not prepared to handle the year suffix changing from 99 to 00. Although it was not very clear what exactly could have happened if this bug wasn’t fixed, a big monetary investment was made to hire the right resources to fix this issue “just in case” it might prove to be necessary.

A lot of companies unfortunately look at SEO either as a growth only channel or when it gets hit because of a penalty or an algorithm change. Rarely do companies treat SEO as an asset that needs to be guarded. But if there is another thing we can learn from the covid-19 crisis, it is that SEO Managers should start educating their companies (or clients) that if websites take SEO for granted they may come a time when they LOSE whatever organic traffic they take for granted. And we have seen a lot of big brands losing millions of their traffic because of unintentionally blocking search engines, not paying attention to their content quality or implementing a technology stack that is not SEO-friendly.

6- Back to the basics, It’s all about humanity

SEO, like any ethical marketing practices, should be about driving value and listening to people’s pain and needs and using all the available resources to educate and delight them.

With an unprecedented amount of people using the internet like never before because of all the lockdown measures, that Netflix had to lower their streaming quality in some countries to avoid crashing the service, we know that people are consuming more content than ever before, and it is up to companies to react fast to present to their customers, or to a completely new target groups, content that is relevant, reassuring, and adds some value, and hope!

I have seen a lot of great examples of companies offering free subscriptions, support to businesses that got hit, tools, whitepapers, dashboards, trackers, support groups, free accommodation, free food, free rides, and you name it with no return on their invested time and resources, only. because it adds value and shows how the community matters to these brands not just profits.

My final thoughts

This crisis will be behind us, hopefully very soon, and we will stand up again. But life will never be the same. For those who acted for humanity and showed empathy and support whether to their employees, their customers, or to their community, will be remembered for ever. But for those who only understand shortsighted profits, and marketing for them is only a commercial faceless relationship, will always be vulnerable every time life happens because their bubble is not meant to last!

Tracking Google Ranking Change by Sector - A New Tool to follow the Bot

2015-04-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

With the SEO landscape constantly changing, it can be difficult for Search marketers to follow Google’s updates and their impact on each site. In 2014, there were numerous updates spread throughout the year, with more Panda updates than you can count on one hand.

On April 21, 2015 (yesterday), Google’s latest update went live, changing the reward structure for mobile-optimized sites and mobile search results. This is the biggest update of the year, as claimed by Google, and we were anticipating significant fluctuations in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) within each industry, but so far nothing happened.

How did we know?

Ayima Pulse, a tool that was launched yesterday to provide market insight to help marketers adjust their SEO strategy based on any and all algorithm changes and fluctuations in real-time.

Ayima Pulse tracks over 54,000 hand-picked, non-branded keywords in 10 unique industries across the UK & US – more than any other equivalent free tool on the market. This provides unprecedented insight into when shifts occur in Google’s algorithm by industry, and the sites affected.

Pulse is showing fluctuations from the past 30 days in the following industries:

Telecoms
Travel
Electronics
Insurance
Fashion
Finance
Jobs
Education
Gambling
Automotive

an “All keywords” view that combines all the industry reports into a single view of Google’s fluctuations.

Whilst major Panda, Penguin, and mobile updates garner the coverage to alert marketers of changes within the SERPs, day-to-day fluctuations go unpublicised. In turn, attributing a drop in traffic and possibly conversions becomes problematic. Crucially, these unannounced changes may only affect the industry in which YOU operate. Pulse offers a solution to this problem by offering industry focused tracking that’s updated daily.

How Ayima Pulse Works?

At midnight each day, Ayima Pulse takes Google’s top 100 organic search results for the most popular non-branded keywords relevant to the top 10 industries and add them to Ayima Pulse database Site ranking changes are assessed against those from the previous day, proportionately weighting the significance of each move.

Ayima Pulse plots the difference on a sliding volatility scale of 0-100, updating graphs for the whole market and individual industries.

How Can Ayima Pulse Help Marketers?

Very simply, the more ranking fluctuations you see, the higher the volatility rating. Selecting an industry displays the volatility for that sector along with the top 10 highest ranked sites (assessed across relevant keywords).

If you want to see a site’s visibility trend line and percentage share of voice, just select a site from the top 10 or top 100 list. Or if you want to see how you stack up against the competition, you can select up to 5 sites to compare. Plot lines will display the trend against the volatility of that industry.

Sites displaying an increase in visibility on a highly volatile day have been positively affected by changes in the SERPs. Likewise, those displaying reduced visibility would have been adversely affected.

Who are Ayima Pulse's Competitors?

Before Ayima Pulse, we have been using Algoroo and MOZ Algorthm changes:

What is Algoroo?

Algoroo is a Google algorithm tracking tool developed by DEJAN. The system monitors roughly 17,000 keywords to 100 search positions deep and looks for fluctuations. Both negative and positive movement is added up to create a single SERP flux metric they call "roo". High roo value indicates a high volatility in Google's search results. Low roo value is usually displayed on an ordinary day, unlikely to be affected by any algorithmic changes at Google. Throughout its timeline you may notice a number of detected events which go onto orange or even red. Google doesn't always disclose internal updates and algorithm changes, but when they do Algoroo add it as an annotation on its graph.

MozCast and Google Algorithm Change History By Moz

MozCast is a weather report showing turbulence in the Google algorithm over the previous day (or see the 5-day history on the left). The hotter and stormier the weather, the more Google's rankings changed. Google Algorithm Change history lists all the algorithm changes by date and name (if there is any)

Resources:

https://www.ayima.com/pulse/
https://algoroo.com/
http://mozcast.com/
http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Google is so 2010 - Inspired by Andrew Shotland

2015-04-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

Andrew Shotland, the author of Local SEO Guide, once said in an interview with SEOBook, "SEO is not exactly Ghandi-type work. So you better enjoy it."

But that is not his best quotation. To me, his masterpiece, and what really affected me is:

"Leavng Google is like walking away from a bully. Everything I do now in terms of marketing is pro-active and on my terms. There's no rug under me. There's no dictator telling me how to be righteous. Sure, I stand or fall on my own marketing acumen, which is all I asked for anyway. I never wanted to be punished based on a 3rd party's rules. If I mess up, I want to mess up because my target market (the 2nd party) don't want what I have to offer at the price I'm offering it - not because some 3rd party intermediator decides arbitrarily that I'm not good for my target market."

With thousands of websites going online everyday, SEO agencies are also growing in number, and do not be surprised to find one in every corner. It is not a rocket science and if you are lucky and have good sales team you can make fortune "Selling SEO" to small businesses who believe that they can make fortune too being on top of Google SERP for the keyword "buy" or "fix".

The problem with these companies is that they know very well that SEO is for Google not for the customer, and because they are selling keywords not value, they end up losing both Google and the customer and eventually the deceived business owner who believed that the SEO agency can do her/his site some Apracadabra magic to make it rank.

If only SEO is run by smart marketers who know very well how the market is shaped and understand the true meaning of the word value, only then even Google will become obsolete.
Those Google Hypocrites do not only waste their time doing an old fashion dead job, but they also harm their clients' websites with their spam, scraped nonsense content, and over optimized stuffed with keywords tags.

Why I am saying that now, because after google scared the hell out of everybody regarding its Mobilegeddon algorithm change, nothing happened. But of course I am not blaming Google, I am blaming those who decided to make their sites user friendly just because they fear Google, not because they want their visitors to enjoy their stay on their sites. For those people I would say, you deserve it!

Facebook Algorithms Change - What Everyone With a FB Page Need To Know

2015-03-29T15:24:00.002-07:00

Although no one knows the exact formula for the Algorithm, it contains a number of factors including: post types, time decay, story bumping and last actor, hide post/scam reporting, relationship setting (affinity), weight (last action).

Most recently, as of 2015, Facebook actually made more changes to the algorithm, and started significantly decreasing organic reach for any Facebook content that is deemed as promotional in any way.

In a recent user experience survey, Facebook found that users wanted to see more stories from friends and pages they care about, and less promotional content. This didn't mean ads, though. This meant "salesy" posts from the pages users already “Like.” So in response to this, in November, Facebook re-tweaked their algorithm to filter out any “overly promotional page posts.”

Facebook constantly makes updates to its algorithm, however this recent change is one of the most substantial updates they've made as it forces marketers who Facebook to promote their contests, new products and events, to spend money on ads, if they want these messages to be seen (even by their existing followers).

According to people surveyed by Facebook, there are some consistent traits that make organic posts feel too promotional:

Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app
Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context
Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads

How to get the new WordPress SEO 2.0 to Join Google's Knowledge Graph

2015-03-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

The 'WordPress SEO 2.0' is the latest addition to the notorious YOAST SEO Plugin.
All what you have to do is to either download it, or if you already have it, just update it.

Once you do you will find this new feature which support Google’s new Knowledge Graph.

When Google has picked it up and shows a Knowledge Graph block for you or your company, it would look like this: (but it is not guaranteed of course)

How To Be Ready For The Next Google Algorithm Update on April 21, 2015?

2015-03-20T19:12:00.003-07:00

Many website owners now started to receive warnings on their GWMT accounts telling them that their websites have issues on being friendly on mobile devices, and most of these issues are speed related.

Then Last Month Google has announced it will release an update on April 21st, which will have a significant impact on websites that are NOT mobile friendly. According to Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Zineb Ait Bahajji the coming Mobile Update will have a much stronger impact then any Panda update!

As a marketer, I now have to know how big this difference will be on my domain and where there is specific room for optimization. Because if the traffic from mobile devices continues to rise, and the wheat separates from the chaff, then I have only a few possibilities to find out the following points:

What is the status of my mobile performance?
What do I ideally have to do to improve it?
What does my competition look like?

It is therefore even more important to have a basis of comparison in which the specific difference between my Desktop and Mobile Visibility can be recognized.

Search Metrics have already collected & analyzed data last year for providing facts about differences of the Mobile SEO Ranking Factors. The split between mobile and desktop search results is measurable. At their last Mobile Ranking Factor study in 2014 the difference of URLs between Desktop and Mobile index was already 36%.

Here is an excerpt of their findings:

"It’s for this reason that we have been tracking the same keywords for months in the mobile area as we have for desktop searches. This is, firstly, to see how the results keep differentiating more and more (which they definitely do) and, secondly, with the intention of giving our users the opportunity to have more evidence for their optimization.

And so, the time has come: the Mobile SEO Visibility (Beta) is now available as a KPI in the Searchmetrics Suite for all users, providing first indications for figuring out main differences between Desktop and Mobile SEO Visibility.

Comparability of Desktop and Mobile Visibility

The starting problem is: Desktop and Mobile cannot really be compared and analyzed to one another under real conditions. In the mobile area, there are different click-through-rates, search volumes, user intentions and the influence of local parameters on the search results is different.

Nevertheless, we want to make a comparison between Desktop and Mobile index possible and have converted our calculation of the normal SEO Visibility – which is based on a dynamic CTR calculation by machine learning algorithms – 1:1 to mobile. Why? Because we consider it to be intrinsic to prepare a mutual basis as a KPI in the form of this comparison. Especially to see how the performance is now and how it will change at April 21st.

The Mobile SEO Visibility will be updated weekly.

We have decided on an Android smartphone as a user agent. Differences between iOS and Android can occur, but in my opinion they are irrelevant, as the only differences that I have previously witnessed occur in queries for apps. For example, if you search for ‘netflix’, the Apple App Store ranks on an iPhone, whereas the Google Play Store ranks on an Android. This is also the reason why apple.com and google.com show such great deviations in Mobile SEO Visibility. Other than this, there have not been any further relevant differences between these domains so far.

Mobile SEO Visibility with desktop comparison at a glance

From now on, there are new KPIs for the evaluation of Mobile SEO Visibility (Beta) in the research area. The new search result page of the Searchmetrics Suite in the research area looks like this:

The rank overview, which was previously displayed across the entire page width, has moved to a closed circular graphic on the left side – in favor of the new ‘Desktop vs Mobile’ KPI. By the way, we have dubbed this circular graphic ‘mojo’, as in Austin Powers, as it shows at a glance how much mojo a domain has in a respective country and which channel works best!

We have also pre-calculated the Mobile SEO Visibility on all subdomains so that you can see how a mobile subdomain, such as en.m.wikipedia.org or m.imdb.com, performs.

The new KPIs and possibilities at a glance:

Desktop vs Mobile Visibility – comparison of visibility on the same database
- Difference been Desktop and Mobile Visibility (circular graphic with percentage overlap of the respective Visibility)
- Trend desktop/trend mobile – to previous week
Mobile SEO Visibility (SEO research)
Mobile Paid Visibility (SEO research)
Mojo with the ranks for SEO, paid, social and links
Toplist domains (top 10/ top 100) comparison of SEO visibility desktop vs mobile

1. Recognize problem: same database for desktop and mobile

This ‘Desktop vs Mobile’ KPI offers the simplest way to create comparability between Desktop and Mobile Visibility performance. In order to ensure this comparability, we work with identical CTR calculation and search volume on the basis of desktop values.

2. Solve problem: individual data for mobile

We know that both CTR and search volume differ in the mobile area. We have already been working with mobile data for years and have even offered mobile rankings in the project area of our Suite since June 2013. Therefore, we recommend this new Mobile SEO Visibility (Beta) only be used as an indicator in order to understand how the performance between mobile and desktop differs.

Specific analyses in the project area

For an optimum mobile measurement of performance, individual, local rankings for mobile with individual mobile search volume are necessary. We offer this data and functionality within the project area in the Searchmetrics Suite using more than 800 search machine/country/device combinations.

Conclusion: From data comparison to deep analysis

The new ‘Desktop vs Mobile’ KPI can been seen as the starting point for recognizing how big the overlap between my Desktop and my Mobile Visibility is. Furthermore, the trend shows at a glance how my performance has recently developed. Due to the fact that this KPI is part of the research area, all users of the Suite benefit from this update, which spans not only the SEO but also the PPC area.

In order to be prepared for April 21 – Google’s mobile update – and thereafter, the tracking of concrete mobile rankings is required. This is already available in the project area of the Suite, taking into account also historical developments and individual data.

Check out the current status of your Desktop vs Mobile Visibility and start projects in order to track your individual performance.

suite.searchmetrics.com/en/research.

CBT for SEM | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Search Engine Marketing

2015-03-16T15:55:00.003-07:00

Gone is that age when online marketing was all about generating traffic, backlinks, or even rankings.

Now the game has changed drastically. There is only one KPI for a successful Digital Marketing Strategy. Conversions.

A conversion could be a new purchase, a new lead, a new newsletter subscriber, you name it. But people need to convert from a state of being strangers to relatives.

SEM needs cognitive behavioral therapy

Psychology plays a big role in the engagement process. Psychologists believe that psychotherapy is about change, some aspect of oneself or one's life. People make valuable changes everyday in major ways but change will not happen on its own. It requires that they make a conscious choice to examine patterns in their lives, question old assumptions, and take action towards intentional and meaningful changes.

Therapy is not just about understanding, it's about turning understanding into real change that lasts.

Most therapists working with patients dealing with anxiety and depression use a blend of cognitive and behavioral therapy. This technique acknowledges that there may be behaviors that cannot be controlled through rational thought, but rather emerge based on prior conditioning from the environment and other external and/or internal stimuli. CBT is "problem focused" (undertaken for specific problems) and "action oriented" (therapist tries to assist the client in selecting specific strategies to help address those problems), or directive in its therapeutic approach.

So, in simple words, CBT is about understanding the stimuli of specific behaviors and when we know the triggers, we can control the action.

Scientia potentia est

Each day, we make hundreds - sometimes thousands - of decisions, without even realizing it. People are surrounded by persuasive messages all day long, from verbal suggestions by co-workers, to signs and flyers in the street, to more blatant advertisements on TV, radio, the Internet and in other media.

Most of these messages are fairly low-stakes; we see and hear them as we go about our business. We’re able to ignore them, or may be biased in a small way, but probably won’t be inspired to take action that very minute.

When a person visits your ecommerce store, however, they’ve already demonstrated a very important characteristic just by being there: they have some kind of commercial intent.

Are your offers and messages taking advantage of that and persuading visitors to become buyers?

Let’s have a look at the science behind persuasion and its impact on your ecommerce conversion rates.
Six Ways Shoppers are Influenced & Persuaded

Dr. Robert B. Cialdini described six ways in which consumers are persuaded to make purchasing decisions, in his popular 1984 book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

According to Dr. Cialdini, these six subtle psychological pressures can influence customers in the moments that matter, inspiring them to say yes to whatever it is that’s being asked of them:

Reciprocation
Consistency
Social validation
Liking
Authority
Scarcity

Yes, we've talked about these before, but they're so important that it's worth examining them again to see how they can apply to your ecommerce environment.

1. Using Reciprocity to Drive More Small Conversions

This principle requires that you give something back in exchange for whatever it is you’ve received. One example of this is a free gift with a purchase, though it also applies to concessions people make to one another.

If you visit a small town ice cream shop, you’ll probably be offered a small sample of the different flavors of ice cream you’re considering. Accepting this small token makes a persuasive argument for you to go ahead and buy, because you feel like you should return the favor! You’re highly unlikely after accepting the sample to leave without buying an ice cream.

Ecommerce stores obviously can’t reach out and let you try their products in the moment of consideration.

What’s an online retailer to do?

Consider the size of your ask and what you can offer in return, or what concession you can make, to that customer for making such a big commitment to your brand. Often, consumers are more likely to accept a series of small requests than one large one.

Take retail Goliath Amazon, for example. They have some seriously big ticket items available for purchase online. Yet if you’ve ever bought new furniture for your house, you probably wanted to try it out first - to sit on the couch you’re considering, or feel the grain of the wooden bed frame.

How do you overcome that desire (which becomes an objection to buying online) and persuade the customer to convert? By offering something of value to the customer before you ask them to buy.

In Amazon’s case, this often means making a concession like offering free shipping, as in this example:

Reciprocity and Microconversions

Amazon Prime is another great example of reciprocity in ecommerce. In addition to Free two day shipping, they offer customers a number of “gifts” like early access to sales, free photo storage, and tons of movies and television shows on demand, simply for joining Prime for $99. All things considered, the price tag is a relatively small ask.

Once a customer enrolls in the program, Amazon can continue marketing to them and step it up with personalized offers based on that customer’s preferences.

The reciprocity is ongoing with the free two day shipping.

As Amazon continues to ask for more - convert and join Prime, convert and make a small purchase, convert and make a larger purchase - they continue to offer something of value. Since the customer has already said yes to the smaller offers, they feel invested and are more comfortable saying yes to the bigger ones.

Reciprocity isn’t only a sales tool; it can help you build your social audience, as well.

Offer a small discount or a free gift on checkout, then ask on the Thank You page that the customer follow your brand on Facebook. You’ve just given them something and they’re more likely to complete that action. You could also take this opportunity to ask for a review or social shares, which takes us right into the next principle that can help you persuade and convert.

2. Social Proof Made More Powerful with Personalization

Social proof is the psychological phenomenon whereby your online store visitors are influenced by the actions of others and are more likely to take the same action. It can be massively influential in an ecommerce environment and you have plenty of tools at your disposal!

One popular way to demonstrate social proof is to integrate your store with Facebook. Showing visitors which products other people bought most often or Like the most can be incredibly persuasive.

Check out all of the social proof in this Booking.com hotel listing:

The little heart icon tells visitors that 4857 people have added this property to their Wish List. almost 4,500 people have left review. Forty-seven people are looking at the property right now and someone just booked 2 minutes ago! All of this social proof is highly persuasive to the buyer, who wants reassurance that they’re making a good choice.

Personalizing social proof kicks it up even further. Try letting visitors log in on your website using their Facebook credentials, so they can see reviews and products purchased by their friends. Check out Facebook integration apps in the Shopify’s Resources App Store.

3. Ensuring Commitment and Consistency

People are more likely to take action on things they’ve already thought over or discussed with others. This is thanks, in part, to our desire to be consistent and stay committed to our ideas.

In an ecommerce environment, we want customers to stay committed to the idea of purchasing this product in front of them. We don’t want them to question or overthink it too much, or they’ll start objecting.

One great way to combat this is to use rhetorical questions as a way of driving commitment. In a 2006Journal of Language and Social Psychology article, social scientists point out that “rhetorical questions can increase persuasion and message processing, creating a relatively strong, resistant attitude.”

Rhetorical questions don’t require an answer; the answer is either obvious, or doesn’t exist. They’re used to make a point, not elicit a response. Some ecommerce examples could include:
“If you could save 15 minutes a day, would you?”
“What if you never had to sharpen a kitchen knife again?”
“How would your family enjoy a week at the beach?”

You can even A/B test these different persuasive questions and see which are most effective ones by targeting first time visitors with a slide-out message or with an overlay.

4. Being Likable

We’re more likely to be influenced by people we like, but what is likability in ecommerce?

Being communicative, responding promptly and politely to inquiries and focusing on great user experience can all help. I’m more apt to like your brand if you make my shopping experience simple, intuitive or even fun.
Humanizing Your ecommerce Brand

Another way your business can be likable is to take care to humanize your brand in your communications and marketing material.

Generic business material is boring. Spice it up and give customers someone to actually like by sending messages out from your personnel, instead, like this:

Our internal data at Commerce Sciences shows that quality assurance and satisfaction messages are great applications of this personalized messaging tactic. However, it’s less effective with company policy messaging. People tend to see policies and restrictions (eg.: a 30-day return policy) as arbitrary rules; it’s easier to relate to a policy that was defined by an organization than a specific person.

Other promises are more effective coming from an individual. Testimonials on your ecommerce site are a great example of this - they’re far more compelling, with the name and picture of the author, than brand messaging saying the same. In fact, customer testimonials are the most effective form of content marketing (AdWeek SocialTimes).

5. Building Your Ecommerce Brand’s Authority

There are two distinct but equally important types of authority online: your authority with your audience and customers, and the authority your ecommerce site demonstrates to search engines.
Industry & Topic Authority

As an authority in your industry, your brand is a go-to source for accurate information, expert advice and in-depth insight. Within your brand, you may also have one or several public-facing people building their professional authority, which furthers your brand image and authority as a whole.

Image source: Twitter

Airbnb CMO Jonathan Mildenhall is a great example of the power of building authorities within your brand. Formerly the VP of Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence at Coca-Cola, Mildenhall is a keynote speaker on the international stage and has graced the cover of AdAge. He helped Coca-Cola win 20 Cannes Lions in a single year (2013) and has amassed an impressive audience on Twitter and Tumblr.

Encouraging and empowering employees to speak at industry events, write for relevant publications, and use social networking ensures a steady flow of positive brand content that reflects well on the entire company. It shows the world your brand is passionate and involved in your industry.
Web Authority

Your ecommerce site’s authority is a different animal, though many of the same tactics are effective for brand authority building. Google and other search engines consider hundreds of factors in their ranking algorithms, including the perceived authority of the site.

How can you demonstrate authority?

While we don’t know exactly what it is search engines are considering (it would make it too easy to game the system), we can safely assume there are several authority signals in play. The best known and most talked (and speculated) about authority signal, of course, is the volume and quality of backlinks to your site.

Links tell search engines that other sites found your website and content reputable, relevant and informative enough to send traffic from their site to yours. Be cautious of SEO strategists who promise to build links for you; search engines crack down hard on links that appear reciprocal or otherwise spammy. Links should be earned through the publication of great content that compels people to naturally recommend your site to their audience.

Blogging is a fantastic way to build both topic and web authority, yet it’s a strategy underused by ecommerce brands, as demonstrated in Tommy Walker’s recent post The Curious Case of the Underwhelming Ecommerce Blog. Blogging brings huge traffic opportunities, keeps user on site longer and helps nurture and convert leads; if you commit to blogging and do it right, the payoff can be huge.

You’ll find some great blogging and linking tips in this Shopify SEO Strategy post.

6. Creating Scarcity

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is a powerful motivator. Customers can be compelled to take action immediately when offered free shipping for a limited time only, time-sensitive discounts, the last of a remaining product, etc.

Stock Scarcity

Smart ecommerce marketers use a variety of tactics to create scarcity, such as showing a limited number of items left as in the example from Francesca’s, above. You can also show scarcity by size, by showing the unavailable sizes crossed out or in a different colored font. Or, use a tactic employed by many travel booking sites and display the number of current page viewers as buyers competing against one another.

Urgency and Timing

In the example above, Bath & Body Works really taps into the FOMO with limited time offers. You can also use coupons with a time limit, even going so far as a to include a countdown to expiry. Flash sales are another popular tactic for creating scarcity via urgency. If you don’t buy now, you’re going to pay more/miss out/not be happy. It’s super effective for converting buyers who are on the fence.
Conclusion

Persuasion isn’t the result of a single optimized message, or even an offer that matches your visitor’s intent. For ecommerce retailers, it means appealing on an emotional level to your customer using each of the tools and technologies at your disposal.

It means persuading each customer to take the next small step… and the next… and the next, until they ultimately convert and complete your desired action. And if you get your customer all the way to the cart but don’t seal the deal? Check out these 13 amazing abandoned cart emails for persuasive recovery messaging.

References:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - WikiPedia
A guest post by Omri Yacubovich on Shopify

The Grid | AI Websites That Design Themselves

2015-03-13T17:33:00.001-07:00

Content is power. Power your content on The Grid. http://www.thegrid.io

This is not another do-it-yourself website builder. The Grid harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to take everything you throw at it - videos, images, text, urls and more - and automatically shape them into a custom website unique to you. As your needs grow, it evolves with you, effortlessly adapting to your needs.

The Grid's algorithms expertly analyze your media and apply color palettes that keep your messaging consistent and unique. The Grid also detects color contrasts, automatically adjusting typographic color to maximize legibility.

What's possible when an AI does all the hard work for you? You can get things done, even on the go. Drag-n-drop builders don't play nice with fingers on phones, but AI works perfectly, anywhere.

Never again change your content to fit your template or the latest hot mobile device. The layout changes as you add content, and adapts to look great and work flawlessly no matter where your users find you.

It’s as easy as that. Actually, it’s incredibly complicated, but The Grid figures it out so you don’t have to.

Join the evolution today at http://www.thegrid.io.

Why my Business needs SEO? Here are 24 Reasons!

2015-03-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

With every hot new trend online, rumors start flying about the death of search engine optimization (SEO). But search is a huge part of how your customers use the internet. If you’re not investing in SEO, your website is simply not successful. Need convincing? Here are 24 reasons why every business needs SEO:

1. Because customers expect and want to find you in search.

If your website is not findable in search engines, you may as well not exist. Without SEO, you’re not getting traffic, leads, or sales. Plus, not being found in search is a big red flag to your prospects, who may doubt your credibility or believe your business is a scam if they can’t find you.

2. SEO helps you appear more often in search.

This is the most basic benefit of search engine optimization. Appearing more often for a wide variety of keywords means a better brand image and more traffic, which both lead to more sales.

3. It helps you rank higher in search results.

Appearing higher in search results is as important as appearing often. The higher your website is in search results, the relevant and reliable prospects believe you to be. The top 3 results also get the most traffic.

4. You gain more traffic and visibility.

More visitors on your website or blog means more sales. Increased visibility means a better reputation, which boosts both traffic and how high you appear in search.

5. SEO allows more of your content to appear in search results.

The more spots you own on a search results page, the more traffic and sales you get. Regularly publishing high quality content, good link structure, and simple navigation are a few ways to help you show up more often in search.

6. It improves targeting so you reach the best audience.

Implementing good SEO helps you target the right groups of people, so your messages are more powerful and effective. Using the right keywords, languages, and internationalization techniques also help you appear more often and rank higher in search results.

7. Because your target market is already looking for you.

Your customers use the internet to find businesses that solve their problems and help them achieve goals. Investing in SEO helps you be there when they look for you, so you get more qualified leads and sales faster.

8. SEO helps you own your company name and most important keywords.

When someone searches your company or product names, your website and other online properties need to be the top results. If not, you lose traffic, sales, and credibility.

9. It gives you more control over your online reputation.

SEO is a major component of online reputation management. How often you appear in search, how high you rank, and how many spots you control on a search results page all affect your brand image. Strong optimization helps you control how you are perceived.

10. It’s a long-term, cost-effective marketing strategy.

Of all online marketing strategies, search engine optimization is the least expensive and works the longest. This makes it a great foundation for all your online marketing efforts.

11. You get more pre-qualified leads.

Depending on the keywords you rank for, you can get more prospects who are already qualified for your sales funnel, so you don’t have to coax leads to buy. Optimizing product pages for buying keywords, for example, helps you sell more without spending a lot time building a relationship.

12. SEO provides richer search results for prospects.

Proper optimization techniques create rich snippets and deep site links in search results, which make your results stand out from the competition. Prospects get a better experience and you get more traffic.

13. It improves business through local search.

Customers in your area are looking for you online. SEO helps you appear in their local searches, getting you more leads and sales both online and in-store.

14. SEO builds business and employee branding.

Google Authorship and social media activity not only strengthen overall SEO, but also help build the brand image and reputation of your company and executives. Strong optimization and branding work together to get you more traffic and sales.

15. It creates a better user experience.

By making it easier for prospects to find and navigate your site, search for products, and complete transactions, SEO helps you deliver what your customers really want, leading to better relationships and more sales.

16. You get more links as people discover your great content.

More links strengthens SEO and helps more people find you, leading to more sales.

17. SEO increases engagement.

More comments, sharing, and other forms of engagement lead to more sales, look good for your reputation, and boost your overall SEO.

18. It increases social signals.

Likes, tweets, pins, shares, and other signals from social media helps you appear higher and more often in search. They also help you spread brand awareness and increase your reach as more people see your content.

19. SEO improves branding and sales.

Search engine optimization is cyclical, so as your business grows, your SEO is strengthened and your business keeps growing. More traffic, customers, reviews, and mentions make you more visible, leading to more traffic, customers, reviews, and mentions.

20. SEO allows you to deliver what your customers actually want.

Matching keywords to the searcher’s intent helps you get more pre-qualified leads and build a reputation for quality and usefulness. More leads and a strong reputation mean more sales.

21. It entices visitors to return.

Content that does well in search engines is generally high quality, relevant, and popular. These hallmarks of SEO are the same things that attract repeat traffic and build a loyal following of readers and customers.

22. You get a high ROI.

In addition to SEO’s long-term, cost-effective nature, it delivers a high return on investment because it keeps working for you as long as you keep up with best practices. Unlike other marketing methods, search engine optimization doesn’t stop working when you stop paying. As long as you maintain your website’s optimization, it keeps working for you.

23. SEO offers instant credibility.

Search engines use a combination of authority, relevance, and popularity to determine how high to rank results. When your website appears on the first page of search results, that means you beat out millions of other results, making you seem more credible and trustworthy. Additionally, search engines are like third-party endorsers, so the higher you appear, the more relevant and credible customers think you must be.

24. It offers valuable insight into your customers, products, and marketing campaigns.

Search engine optimization is unique from other marketing methods in that you can track and analyze almost everything. Effective reporting, analysis, and testing can help you better understand your audience, improve your products and marketing campaigns, and strengthen your overall SEO.

New Technologies Used by Smart Local Businesses You Need To Keep an Eye on!

2015-03-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

Digital marketers need to be proactive and agile when it comes to implementing new technologies to offer more value and capture more real estate in the minds of their customers even if it will alter their business models.

Here are 4 new technologies that are being R&Ded by some big companies to better serve their customers.

With your car.

This week, Pizza Hut and management consulting firm Accenture announced they were working with Visa to develop a connected car that allows drivers to purchase pizza while on the road. The smart car would integrate Visa Checkout – its PayPal-like digital payment service -- into the car's dashboard, making it possible for customers to speak to order food while keeping both hands on the wheel. Then, when the car gets close to the Pizza Hut, beacon technology notifies employees that the customer has arrived.

"By 2020 it is estimated that more than 250 million vehicles worldwide will include some form of embedded connectivity," Bill Gajda, Visa's senior vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships, said in a statement. "We initially focused on a specific use case – ordering a meal on your way home – but we envision a world where consumers can seamlessly make many of their everyday purchases from the car."

Visa is currently demonstrating the connected car at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Tests are expected to continue over a three month period starting this spring in Northern California.

On your watch.

Pizza Hut wasn't the only pizza chain showing off new tech on Monday. On the same day, Domino's introduced a smartwatch app that allows customers to place and track orders via Pebble and Android smartwatches.

"Pairing Domino's with smartwatch technology couldn't be more of a natural fit," Kevin Vasconi, Domino's chief information officer, said in a statement. "We are constantly looking for ways to use technology to enhance our customers' experience and provide them with more convenience."

Whenever you're near.

While smartwatches and cars are flashy ways to promote a company as tech-savvy, the single piece of technology that promises the greatest returns for the restaurants industry is beacons and other tech that alerts employees of a customer's location.

A whole host of restaurants are now using your smartphone to track customers' locations. Taco Bell's app alerts employees when customers arrive at a Taco Bell location ready to pick up their orders. Blue Bottle Coffee and Square allows customers to pre-order items for pick-up sometime in the next 24 hours, with baristas starting their order fresh when alerted that the customers are approaching. When it comes to marketing, everyone from McDonald's to Quiznos is experimenting with beacons to try and lure customers into stores with coupons and targeted deals. Expect "beacon" to be a major buzzword in 2015 for quick services chains trying to prove that they can use tech to keep their service up to speed.

By reading your mind.

Pizza Hut's digital menu that reads minds is a limited test in the U.K., as opposed to a potentially far-reaching ordering platform like other items mentioned here. However, the Subconscious Menu's ability to determine a customer's order in just 2.5 seconds by tracking automatic eye focus is telling of what might be yet to come in the realm of restaurant ordering.

You can now order your dinner from your phone, your watch and even your car. Payment can be automatic, going as far as to pull from your bank account the moment you enter a restaurant. Employees know where you are located and the exact moment they need to have your coffee ready, without you saying a word. With ordering and payment becoming increasingly integrated into our lives, who's to say that the next six months won't reveal tech with the ability to order food before you're even sure what you're craving?

Preroll YouTube Ad Proves that Understanding your Audience Pays Off (Inspiring preroll ad examples)

2015-03-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

Psychology is an essential science that goes hand in hand with Online marketing.

Do not you agree with me that it's almost more of a reaction now, than an actual decision. Click play on a YouTube video and our brains are programmed to automatically hit the "Skip Ad" button as soon as it appears. That's the challenge of the preroll ad—the urge to skip is so great that most people wouldn't even hear a marketer if they promised free pizza and beer in those few precious seconds.

Geico and The Martin Agency takes full advantage of those five seconds and makes sure there is some serious payoff for anyone who sticks around and doesn't hit skip.

Original Post: http://www.fastcocreate.com/3043111/whatever-you-do-dont-skip-this-five-second-geico-ad

23 Questions to Ask yourself before creating a new website

2015-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

Whenever a Google employee is asked about what needs to be done to recover from Panda, they refer to a blog post by Google Employee Amit Singhal that gives a checklist that you can use on your site to determine if your site really is high quality or not. Here is the list:

Would you trust the information presented in this article?
Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
How much quality control is done on content?
Does the article describe both sides of a story?
Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don't get as much attention or care?
Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
Is this the sort of page you'd want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog

Unified Device Targeting with Bing Ads

2015-02-27T08:06:00.001-08:00

'Bing Ads' sent me this email yesterday:
In October 2014, Bing Ads rolled out tablet-related device targeting changes. Beginning March 23, 2015 Bing will further consolidate by adding smartphones into a single, unified device targeting option, with bid modifiers available to help manage traffic from various sources. Once this migration is complete, with a single campaign setup, you will automatically reach people across the Yahoo Bing Network wherever they are searching: on smartphones, tablets or PCs — while enjoying the controls you need to help you meet your search advertising objectives.

What is changing?
Instead of selecting specific devices and operating systems for your ads to target, you will automatically begin to receive traffic from all devices. You can apply bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bid for traffic coming from different devices — providing the flexibility to optimize your campaigns to meet your business goals. This table shows the bid adjustments that are available:

		Bing Ads	Google AdWords
Targeting selection		Unified across devices	Unified across devices
Bid modifiers	Desktop	Not available	Not available
	Tablet	-20% to +300%	Not available
	Mobile	-100%* to +300%	-100% to +300%
‘If mobile’ URLs		Yes	Yes
Mobile Preference		Yes	Yes

*Bid modifiers available in increments of "1" from -90% to +300%, or you can set to -100% to opt out of mobile ads.

To see what the new interface will look like, be sure to visit the Unified Device Targeting Frequently Asked Questions section of BingAds.com.

How will my campaigns be affected?
This migration will impact all campaigns that are currently targeting mobile only or PC/tablet only. This table illustrates the changes for different campaign types:

Current Device(s) Targeted	Impact
PC + tablet	Smartphone targeting added
Smartphone	PC/tablet targeting added
All Devices (PC + smartphone + tablet)	None

Why is this change being made?
Our goal is to help you connect with searchers regardless of where they are searching, and make it as easy as possible to manage your campaigns across search engines. Mobile searchers drive over 30% of the searches on the Yahoo Bing Network¹ — so if mobile is not currently part of your campaign targeting, you may be missing the opportunity to connect with valuable new customers.

What do I need to do?
There are several steps you can take now to prepare for the Unified Device Targeting migration. For more information and best practices, please refer to the Unified Device Targeting Frequently Asked Questions section of BingAds.com.

Action: the most important action to take right now
Review your campaigns to determine if your campaigns (and how many) are targeting either mobile devices only or PC/tablet devices only. If you have campaigns that are only targeting one or the other, review to see if you have more than one campaign targeting the same keyword (for example: a mobile-only campaign targeting the keyword "roses" and a separate PC/tablet campaign also targeting the keyword "roses").

If you have multiple campaigns targeting the same keyword, you will need to combine them into a single campaign before migration begins March 23, 2015. Otherwise, Bing Ads will automatically add additional device targets to your existing campaigns, and you run the risk of having multiple campaigns targeting the same keyword, which means you will be competing against yourself for ad placement.

Action: the second most important action to take right now
If you haven’t already, be sure to create a mobile-friendly landing page or website, so no matter which device people are using, your site will look great. To learn more about best practices for creating mobile-optimized web experiences, review the Mobile Optimized Website Guide on BingAds.com. In addition, be sure to implement {if mobile/if not mobile} query string parameters in your destination URLs to ensure that you are driving traffic to the correct destination.

Need help? Have questions?
Use these resources for more information about Unified Device Targeting and best practices for managing campaigns during the transition:

PPC ads on Google Play Store SERPS

2015-02-27T07:34:00.001-08:00

Like with Adwords ads on Google SERP (Search ads), Mobile app developers will soon be able to run PPC ads on the Google Play results page.

It is of course different than the current mobile advertising system, where advertisers (whether app developers or anything else) could target only other mobile apps.

The ad listing will look something like the Adwords ads we see everyday on Google Search Engine Result Pages.

Google Play now reaches more than 1 billion people on Android devices in more than 190 countries, helping a growing number of developers like you build successful global businesses. In fact, in the past year, we paid more than $7 billion to developers distributing apps and games on Google Play. We remain as committed as ever to making Google Play the best place to find great apps, games and other entertainment.

App discovery plays a critical role in driving your continued success, and over the past year Google has provided best practices to enhance app discovery and engagement, as well as app promotion tools to get the most out of search and display advertising for developers. We are always looking for new ways to help you get your apps in front of potential new users. That’s why, in the next few weeks, we will begin piloting sponsored search results on Google Play, bringing our unique expertise in search ads to the store.

With more than 100 billion searches every month on Google.com, we’ve seen how search ads shown next to organic search results on Google.com can significantly improve content discovery for users and advertisers, both large and small. Search ads on Google Play will enable developers to drive more awareness of their apps and provide consumers new ways to discover apps that they otherwise might have missed.

In the coming weeks, a limited set of users will begin to see ads from a pilot group of advertisers who are already running Google search ads for their apps. We’ll have more to share in the coming months about the expansion of this program as we look at the results and feedback. We believe search ads will be a useful addition to Google Play for users and developers alike, and we hope this will bring even more success to our developer community.

Source:

Track Visits to Unused Domains on Google Analytics

2015-02-26T09:41:00.001-08:00

Every now and then I come up with a new idea of a website and brainstorm to find a good brand (domain) name for it that is not already taken. Then I buy it, get busy, and did not have the time after that to do it.

But anyways, what if I want to know how many type-in traffic I am receiving to all these domains?

Of course I could create a Google Analytics account and embed its tracking code and keep an eye on the traffic. However, that does not seem convenient if you do not have much traffic that worth monitoring them in a separate account. Or, if you have hundreds of these parked domains, and it would take forever to create (and keep an eye on) separate Google Accounts.

Creating a Google Analytics account for a parked domain is also impossible if there is no page at all, and the domain is 301 redirected from the DNS to another site.

So, I believe the easiest and fastest way to track all parked domains is to use DNS redirections and UTM tracking.

Here is how to do it: (This method requires that you redirect unused domains to tracked domain(s))

Identify the destination page (It could be a used site that you want to redirect type-in traffic to it, or a sandbox site that you will use as a pool to collect all parked domains traffic stats.
Go to Google Campaign URL Builder (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?rd=2)
In the ‘website URL’ field put the URL of the destination domain (not the parked domain)
Fill in the ‘campaign source’, ‘campaign medium’, and ‘campaign name’ fields with whatever labels you prefer. I used ‘redirection’, ‘301’, and ‘forwarded_parked_domains’.
After you click submit you should see a URL like that: http://www.sandbox.com/?utm_source=redirection&utm_medium=301&utm_campaign=forwarded_parked_domains

Now, copy the generated URL and paste it in your DNS section of Domain forward.

Here is how I did it on Godaddy: https://support.godaddy.com/help/article/422/manually-forwarding-or-masking-your-domain-name

If you use otehr DNS provider, google “Domain forward + your DNS provider’ and you will find the how-to

P.S. Another way is to open your .htaccess file and paste the following 2 lines:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^$ http://www.sandbox.com/?utm_source=redirection&utm_medium=301&utm_campaign=forwarded_parked_domains [R=301,L]

Of course you will use your own campaign URL

To retrieve the stats on Google Analytics:

You can find the results under Acquisition > Campaigns (as illustrated below)

20 Reasons Localization Is Essential To Website Conversions

2015-02-24T12:31:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the global reach of the internet, website localisation is one of the best things you can do to increase website conversions. By creating a culture- and language-specific version of your website for each demographic market you target, you become a truly international business. All businesses, even small online retailers, can benefit from localization. In fact, you can’t afford not to have localized websites, and here are 20 reasons why.

1. It offers global expansion and increased reach.

Although English is still the predominant language online, other languages, most notably Chinese, Spanish, French, and Arabic, are quickly closing the distance. Offering web content in additional languages and cultures helps you increase your reach and become a respected international business.

2. Localization helps you appeal to multicultural audiences.

Translation helps international visitors find and buy from you, but it doesn’t consider cultural differences and sometimes doesn’t convey your message or brand very well. Localization includes both cultural and linguistic concerns, helping you reach audiences in different cultures much better.

3. It increases web traffic.

Search engines rank websites with localized versions or pages higher than non-localized websites and return your website as a result more often. On top of that, local sites are more likely to link to you when you provide information in the local language. Increasing traffic is one of the three most important things you can do to boost revenue, and more traffic means more sales.

4. You get more traffic from regional and language-specific search engines.

These smaller search engines have much less competition because they’re small and most businesses don’t have localized websites to appear in results. This means it’s much easier for your localized websites to rank higher than your English website. The higher you rank and the more often your website appears in search results, the more traffic and sales you get.

5. Localization increases brand recognition.

When you translate your website into the language and culture of your target market, you show that you respect and value your audience. They in turn are more aware of your business than your English-only competitors because they see your website more often and more easily understand your message.

6. Localization increases website stickiness and sales.

Having a strong localization plan boosts your presence and sales in a targeted area, such as localizing in French and German to increase sales in Europe. Multiple studies have found that when users are presented with a website in their native language, they stay on the site twice as long and are four times more likely to make a purchase from it.

7. It increases overall ROI.

Increased traffic, conversions, and brand awareness also leads to increased trust, credibility, customer loyalty, and satisfaction, in turn leading to more conversions. Localization is also scalable for both your audience and your budget, delivering huge benefits for only a marginal additional cost.

8. Localization maintains low printing and content distribution costs.

Localizing your website increases reach without raising these costs a few ways. First, you can reuse much of the same content across multiple languages; second, translating your website into a new language and culture is scalable; finally, having a web presence costs the same no matter what language or culture. Having a localized website may also eliminate the need for direct mail such as catalogs and brochures in various languages.

9. It is a cost-effective virtual branch office or satellite location.

Instead of building a brick-and-mortar store or renting an office in an international location, your localized websites become those virtual stores by offering information, products, contacts, and everything else you can deliver digitally.

10. Localization lowers customer support costs.

By answering questions and providing information in a target market’s native language and culture, you give customers what they need online in the best format for them, which reduces the need for multilingual phone and chat support.

11. It allows you to target minorities in your own area.

Many countries have large subgroups with their own languages, cultures, and skyrocketing purchasing power, such as the Latino market in the USA. Creating localized websites for these groups helps you solidify your presence and boost sales in your own area.

12. Localization maintains brand image and voice across cultures.

The problem with straight translation is that it doesn’t consider cultural differences and doesn’t always maintain your branding message. Localization is better than translation because it considers communication, sales incentive, design, layout, and programming specific to each culture and area, so you don’t lose the integrity of your brand across languages.

13. You become a local business.

Localizing your website turns you into a local business, which boosts conversions because many people want to buy locally, you get more traffic from local keywords, and you have an easier time building brand awareness.

14. Localization makes your local marketing stronger.

When you have a website specific to a certain area’s language and culture, your local internet marketing efforts (including search engine optimization, directory listings, and social media) benefit from having a local resource to point visitors to.

15. It makes you more trustworthy and credible.

By using the area’s local slang, idioms, metaphors, and figures of speech, you can communicate with your target customers more easily and directly, reducing confusion and boosting your own reputation.

16. Localization appeals to more customers.

Most web users don’t buy products online in a language other than their own. By offering them that option, you attract more prospects and close more sales.

17. It means fewer abandoned carts.

Programming can be as much a barrier as language or culture. Localization includes proper programming to prevent backend problems such as forms that make it difficult to input personal and payment info. Fewer problems means more closed sales and higher average order value.

18. Localization makes payment easier.

When you enable local credit cards, shipping and tax codes, and buying practices, your localized websites attract customers that would shop elsewhere otherwise, boosting your ROI, conversions, and revenue.

19. It increases local sales.

Offering products, support, FAQs, and other information in your customers’ native languages makes them more likely to buy from you because they have all the information they need in a format they understand to make an informed purchase.

20. Localization increases revenue.

Most consumers care more about language than price. So even if they know they can find a product cheaper somewhere else, they are more likely to buy from you at full price if you have a localized website for them.

The Science of Shopping Cart Abandonment eBook and infographic

2015-02-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

Shopping cart abandonment — when shoppers put items in their online shopping carts, but then leave before completing the purchase — is the bane of the online retail industry.

But it's also a huge opportunity: Approximately $4 trillion worth of merchandise will be abandoned in online shopping carts this year, and about 63% of that is potentially recoverable by savvy online retailers, according to BI Intelligence estimates.

Many eCommerce websites now are building (or using) Cart Abandonment Software to capture some of the leaked opportunities.

There are many APIs that can be used on your eCommerce website to capture back abandoned carts:
Somone of them charge you for the actual recovered carts.

Download eBook: The Science of Shopping cart abandonment eBook
Cart Abandonment infographic

Content is God

2015-02-12T08:31:00.002-08:00

We all know for sure that Content is said to be the king of SEO. But I will prove to you in the coming 3 minutes that it is not just a King but God.

Good content is that that helps your customers and potential customers. A blog you write, a video you create, or an ebook you giveaway should be all about giving and nothing but giving.

Most new marketing and advertising strategies now know how important free content is, so they try their best to "manipulate" it and use it as a "bait" to attract people and after they are hooked in they ask them to "Pay the Money" whether through premium services or simply via advertisements.

I am not saying that advertising is wrong and paid services are evil. of course not. What I mean is that when you think content generation, your mindset needs to be focused on giving a true value not exploiting the readers/users/viewers. Think of it as charity!

God is Love: How does God Define Love?

The Bible tells us that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8). But how? The most well known verse is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

So one way God defines love is in the act of giving. However, what God gave (or should we say, "who" God gave) was not a mere gift-wrapped present; God sacrificed His only Son so that we, who put our faith in His Son, will not spend eternity separated from Him.

Another great verse about God's love is found in Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." In this verse and in John 3:16, we find no conditions placed on God's love for us. God doesn't say, "as soon as you clean up your act, I'll love you; " nor does He say, "I'll sacrifice my Son if you promise to love Me." In fact, in Romans 5:8, we find just the opposite. God wants us to know that His love is unconditional, so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us while we were still unlovable sinners. We didn't have to get clean, and we didn't have to make any promises to God before we could experience His love. His love for us has always existed, and because of that, He did all the giving and sacrificing long before we were even aware that we needed His love.

God is Love: It's Unconditional

God is Love, and His love is very different from human love. God's love is unconditional, and it's not based on feelings or emotions. He doesn't love us because we're lovable or because we make Him feel good; He loves us because He is love. He created us to have a loving relationship with Him, and He sacrificed His own Son (who also willingly died for us) to restore that relationship. -

God is Love: True Love Only Comes Through a Relationship With Him

God is Love! As such, true love -- God's love -- can be summed up in this passage of scripture: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:7-11).

Conclusion

Your content is your expression of unconditional love, you expect nothing in return.

Moreover, your content is not just an act of one way giving, but an act of building a strong and passionate relationship. And finally, every time you post a piece of content, it has to be a masterpiece, a sort of sacrifice of time and resources for the sake of those you love.

Inspired by: Neil Patel, the generous content provider.

How People watch videos now?

2015-02-08T16:01:00.001-08:00

Forty years ago, Stanley Kubrick showed us 2001. The first 90 seconds are without dialogue and solid black. It's hard to imagine that working as the intro to a YouTube video today.

Instead, our finger is on the mouse trigger, ready to leave in a moment. Not only that, but instead of leaning forward, we've got our shields set to level 7, wary of what's to come. As the video begins, a series of questions arise, unbidden:

Who sent me here?

What do I expect?

What's this about?

What else is on? (10,000,000 choices, not three)

What does this remind me of?

Hey, isn't that Hugo Weaving's voice?

Wow, he's cute...

Are they selling me something?

What's the joke here?

Are those stock photos?

What will I tell my friends?

Who would love this that I should send it to?

Okay, yeah, I think I get it... Next.

- #Seth_Godin

What is The Future of Web Analytics?

2015-02-07T16:43:00.001-08:00

Wondering what's the future of web Analytics?

Always asking why a visitor to my website clicked on this link? or why stayed that long on this specific page? or abandoned the shopping cart at that specific stage?

Maybe the answers to all these questions can be found in that new little device, that will add a totally new dimension to the Analytics equation... Emotions!!!

PND is developing PND Wearable - a "personal neuro device" that gathers information on the wearer's moods, emotions and health. This new device will be attached to Google Glass (The inevitable wearable in the near future). The device itself has many functions (What I like most is using one's brain signals to control a mobile game with hands free). But in the future's future when everybody will be wearing this little device to track their emotions, and when they browse any webpage with their Google Glass, the Neuro Device will send their neuro signals to it and eventually to Google Analytics.

Not Just Online, But Offline too!!

Let's say a person goes to Walmart and geolocation recognizes this, with geolocation features, that person could receive ads to his Glass about new Walmart promos, when clicked the visitors data (and his emotion) will be stored and analyzed.

Google Analytics Adds Basic Cohort Analysis (Beta)

2015-02-06T06:02:00.001-08:00

In statistical analysis, a cohort is a group of people or subjects who all share some time-bound event, characteristic, or experience. For example, shoppers who visit an ecommerce site for the first time on January 30, 2015 could be said to be a cohort since they have a shared characteristic — they visited for the first time — and the experience was during the same time period, Friday, January 30. Cohort analysis is, perhaps, most useful when two or more cohorts are compared. This comparison lets marketers and analysts see the relationship between the two cohorts over time.

The Analytics’ cohort report can be configured around cohort type, cohort size, metric, and date range.

Cohort type. At the time of writing, the only available cohort type was acquisition date, thus one could look at how folks who visited the site on a particular date behaved over time.
Cohort size. This report attribute may be set to day, week, or month. In the email example above, each cohort was defined by folks who registered in January. It may be the case that if Google added additional cohort types, it would also expand the list of available cohort sizes to include other sorts of dimensions.
Metric. This is simply the thing one wants to measure. Presently, metrics include conversions per user, page views per user, sessions per user, user retention, goal completion, conversion, and more.
Date range. The relative date range for the data to be displayed.

The cohort analysis can also be run across segments. As an example, one could look at the average session duration for visitors on mobile devices versus visitors using desktop computers. Or cohorts could be based on new visitor acquisitions the week before Christmas 2014, the week including Christmas, and the week after.

This example shows session duration for three cohorts.

Doing this analysis, we might learn that visitors using desktop computers generally spend more time on site than do visitors on mobile devices and that this effect is even more extreme during the week before Christmas.

You can read all the article about it here: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/79720-Google-Analytics-Adds-Basic-Cohort-Analysis

SEO Friendly Infinite Scroll

2015-02-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

Three major news website redesigns this year look very different but have an important feature in common: articles that seamlessly transition to new content, without requiring readers to click or tap headlines and then wait for new pages to load.

This “continuous scroll” strategy for news sites’ article pages is gaining momentum. It’s been adopted by Time.com, NBCNews.com andLATimes.com, reflecting the fact that direct homepage traffic is waning (see the New York Times innovation report), and traffic from social media (particularly Facebook) just keeps growing.

So as readers increasingly enter sites from “side doors” or article pages, media organizations are trying to figure out how to get them to stick around. Pew recently found that visitors from Facebook are far less engaged than direct visitors. Here’s how sites that relaunched in the first half of 2014 are addressing that problem by making use of the continuous scroll (aka infinite scroll) feature in their article pages:

Time.com

Since its March redesign, Time.com’s bounce rate — the percentage of visitors who leave the site after viewing only one page — has declined by 15 percentage points, according to managing editor Edward Felsenthal. The percentage of desktop visitors going to another piece of content jumped 21 percentage points between February and May.

Felsenthal attributed that to the continuous scroll, which provides a clickless path for readers to reach another story. He said the left rail, which serves as a “traveling homepage” of links to the top stories of the moment, also helped.

The fact that Time.com queues up top stories, not related stories, is crucial to the site’s strategy for serving social visitors, Felsenthal said: “In many ways the major objective of our redesign was to showcase for those users the full Time offering.”

NBC News

The redesigned NBC News takes a different approach from Time. Article pages transition into related stories, not top stories. And some stories are compiled into “storylines,” so if you’re interested in “hot cars and kids,” you can read a stack of more than 30 stories.

Mobile page views in June were up 30 percent over the previous 12-month average, according to an NBC News spokesperson. On average, NBC News readers on desktop and mobile are seeing nearly 20 percent more pages per visit than before the site’s February redesign.

Los Angeles Times

The LA Times redesign is less seamless than the other two in terms of transitioning quickly to the next piece of content. There’s a choose-your-own-adventure quality to the layout; non-blog stories transition into a section page instead of another article page based on which section you choose.

That gives readers more control over where the site takes them next, but requiring readers to choose what they see next adds some friction that the other sites lack.

A spokesperson for the LA Times said it was too early to share specifics about how the newspaper’s new site is performing. She summed up the goals of the May redesign:

• Eradicating print-centric and antiquated web concepts, such as “the fold,” “the jump,” “endless clicking” and “the dead end” with endless scrolling and multi-directional navigation
• Seamlessly pathing readers from one piece of content to the next, with section fronts and article pages anchored by a row of thumbnails that automatically transport readers to related coverage or other sections

Quartz, Fortune, and Cosmopolitan

The homepage-less Quartz is a clear influence here, particularly for Time. Whatever page you arrive on via social media occupies the top spot in the story stack, with top news — not related stories — below. Editorial news judgment plays a big role in the reader’s experience.

Quartz senior editor Zach Seward said it’s nice to see others emulate one of his site’s signature features: “It must mean we’re onto something.” He also said he doesn’t like the term “infinite scroll”:

The intent is to help users who get to the end of a story but want to keep reading. Some sites have dead ends, others create paralysis of choice. We choose to quietly suggest just one more story, which users can easily scroll into or just ignore. It’s all about that one moment rather some kind of infinite experience.

Seward recently told Digiday’s Ricardo Bilton that Quartz estimates “readers view about 50 percent more stories per visit than they would without the option to scroll.” And, Seward said, “When people choose to read another story on Quartz, about 80 percent do so by scrolling, as opposed to clicking on a headline.”

Time Inc.’s Money and Fortune have also adopted the Quartz-inspired Time.com template for their redesigns. And at the “sexy new Cosmopolitan.com”, a long stack of related stories is presented to readers at the bottom of article pages.

The article page is the new homepage, so what goes on underneath articles seems to be the paramount concern when redesigning a media site in 2014. Some, like Time and Quartz, choose to “quietly suggest” a particular story. Others, like the LA Times and Cosmo, are using the space below stories to offer lots of choices for readers. But all of them have redesigned with an eye toward that second click or page view.

10 Essentials in Implementing a SEO-Effective Infinite Scroll

The Infinite Scroll is becoming increasingly used in Web design. In fact, many businesses are choosing this feature for their websites, either to provide a different experience to users or to stay up-to-date with the latest digital trends. While it can be beneficial to adopt Infinite Scroll, it is important that its implementation takes into account the best SEO and usability practices.

The Main Issue: Indexing

In terms of SEO, one of the major challenges that you may encounter in trying to implement Infinite Scroll is indexing. The issue stems from the fact that Google does not allow the JavaScript download to display content found below a Web page that was programmed in Infinite Scroll. As a result, when the search engine lands on your Web page, it will only see the content that is first presented to the user; the content that is visible without having to scroll. To address this shortcoming, you must help Google detect your entire website’s content to effectively index your website and promote visibility between internal pages. You can do this by implementing an interlinking strategy.

Interlinking: The Solution to Indexing

An interlinking strategy is necessary to promote effective indexing to your website’s pages. By allowing Google to effectively crawl internal pages, you can ensure your website’s domain authority will remain high.

Classic Pagination

The first step to an effective interlinking strategy (when implementing Infinite Scroll), is to use a system of classic pagination. Pagination not only allows for a better crawling of pages (as mentioned above), but it is also necessary for users who turned off JavaScript display on their Web browser for whatever reason.

By adopting a classic navigation system, we help Google access all content on your website. As a result in the search engines, your website appears completely normal without any third-party technology such as Infinite Scroll. You no longer have to be concerned about your content being detected.

The following provides practical tips on how to implement classic pagination with Infinite Scroll.

As the image above indicates, the key to successful pagination is to first divide the content into unique segments, while carefully avoiding the possibility of duplicate content. Next, one should have a unique URL per page (ex. site.com/page/1, site.com/page/2, etc.) and a unique title per page (ex. website – Page 1, website – Page 2, etc.). It is necessary to present search engines and users with navigational numbered links toward other pages. There should be at least one "Back" link and one "Next" link.

Furthermore, you must use the REL and CANONICAL meta tags in the pagination system to properly segment the process, ensure there are no issues with browsing and indexing, and to avoid the possibility of duplicate pages. You must also ensure that off limit pages all give a 404 error. Why?

"JavaScript code which is too complex or arcane could also prevent rendering the page fully and accurately." — Google Webmaster Central Blog, May 23, 2014

Too Complex or Arcane?

Without classic pagination, the Google bot will not be able to access your content. Infinite Scroll requires a scrolling interaction that the robot in theory cannot execute. No scrolling, no content. No content, no search results.

Other Interlinking Elements

The following is a list of other key elements that need to be implemented to ensure proper indexing:

Well-segmented categorization: Segmentation of your content should be structured appropriately with categories and tags.
Well-structured menus: Do not be afraid to include in your menus all the internal pages that you think are pertinent (categories, tags, articles, etc.)
Interlinking module: An effective and popular technique for executing a good interlinking strategy is the use of an automatic module. For example, inserting a "related post" or "random articles" script at the end of a blog article will allow the wide distribution of pages with a high domain authority. This brings optimal indexing, and gives fresh impetus to forgotten older articles.
Avoid no-follow links: Surprisingly, many sites use the no-follow attribute on their own internal links. This practice basically indicates to Google that you do not trust pages that are internal to your website.
Sitemap: Including a sitemap on your website will help the indexing of your site.

Infinite Scroll as a Progressive Improvement

Infinite Scroll should be implemented as a "progressive improvement"; that is, it should function as an additional feature available to users that support it, without penalizing others or changing the technical structure of the site.

Asynchronous Download

For a "progressively improving" implementation, an Infinite Scroll has to load the required JavaScript elements necessary for asynchronous operation. Here is an overview of Infinite Scroll in asynchronous mode:

The user requests a page (eg: site.com/page/3) and gets the content of this page.

When it reaches the limits of content while scrolling, a JavaScript function will run, requiring new content from the server.

When the server responds with the new content, another JavaScript function interprets the data and injects it into the HTML page.

When there is more content to download, the server responds with a 404 error message that will not be shown to the user. Rather, we will post a notice that the content is exhausted. This feature works for both a scroll up as a scroll down.

Preloading and Caching

The asynchronous download can cause delays in the content display depending on the server’s response time. Therefore, we must use preloading and caching. The purpose of preloading is to download the adjacent content preventatively to minimize the new contents’ loading time. Caching’s purpose is to keep asynchronously downloaded content in memory.

Browsing States

1. History API (Or "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T BREAK THE BACK BUTTON")

The Infinite Scroll is definitely a plus for continuous navigation, but what about "segmented" navigation? If a user scrolls for several sections, finds an interesting link and clicks it, then returns to the Infinite Scroll, what happens?

If a user visits your site, leaves, then comes back a few days later and tries to find a certain piece of content, what is their experience? How will they know where to go? The answers to these questions are found in the History.pushState.

2. History.pushState

History.pushState lets you change the URL in the address bar dynamically. When the user scrolls and reaches a new section, the address bar will change. The pushState then creates a new state in the browser navigation history. If the user clicks on the back button, it will be up to the previous URL we populate via pushState.

history.pushState(stateObject, title, URL);

window.onpopstate = function(event) {

window.location = window.location; }

Sites like Facebook and 9gag demonstrate the importance of this practice. If you scroll far down on the site page with Infinite Scroll, then accidentally press the "Back" button and return immediately to the site, you will return to the very top of the scroll instead of exactly where you left off.

SEO Benefits?

The implementation of an Infinite Scroll, when well established, will not influence the SEO performance of a website. The major advantage however, lies in optimizing conversions (depending, of course, on the objectives of the website in question!).

For example, one of the most documented cases is that of TIME Magazine, which managed to reduce its bounce rate by 15 percent simply through the implementation of an Infinite Scroll. The reason being is when users enter the Time.com website, they browse through several different pages of content without realizing they have changed pages multiple times. This increases the likelihood that they will view many content pages on the website during their visit. The main lesson learned in all of this is that a user is extremely lazy, and it’s up to you to make it as easy as possible for them to go through your content!

Thus, the implementation of an Infinite Scroll on your website may allow you to decrease your bounce rate and increase the amount of content being viewed, as well as the number of pageviews. This can be extremely interesting for sites whose main income comes from advertising with CPM ads (if the advertisement reloads when users change pages with Infinite Scroll).

Conclusion

In summary, the implementation of Infinite Scroll on your website may benefit the user experience and increase conversions, provided you follow best Web development practices. By following the advice shared in this article, you can easily avoid falling into the trap of not indexing. You will also be able to give more weight to your internal pages and much more easily achieve your conversion goals. The Infinite Scroll will help achieve conversions if set up based on UX best practices.

References

Francis Roussin, earned media advisor, and Philippe Vachon-Rivard, front-end developer at iProspect, also contributed to this post.
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2392566/10-essentials-in-implementing-a-seo-effective-infinite-scroll
http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/257466/time-coms-bounce-rate-down-15-percentage-points-since-adopting-continuous-scroll/

Google Study: PPC and SEO for Branded KWs is better than Just SEO

2015-02-04T06:59:00.001-08:00

It used to confuse me before, why would I add my brand keywords or keywords that I am already on top of SERPs for in my PPC campaign? I was thinking that people are going to click on my links automatically because they are already on top.
But I still ran the camapigns with those KWs, just to prevent competitors taking them.
Then I found an inetresting study to justify the paid clicks on branded and organically ranked KWs:

The study which was conducted by Google concluded that 50 percent of clicks generated by paid ads are not replaced by organic clicks when the ads are absent and the website has a first position organic search ranking. The study also shows that as the organic search ranking decreases, the percentage of clicks not replaced by the paid ad increases. This implies that organic search alone cannot drive as much traffic to a website as organic search combined with paid search.
Here is the Abstract:

Impact Of Ranking Of Organic Search Results On The Incrementality Of Search Ads

Abstract: In an earlier study, we reported that on average 89% of the visits to the advertiser’s site from search ad clicks were incremental. In this research, we examine how the ranking of an advertiser’s organic listings on the search results page affects the incrementality of ad clicks expressed through Incremental Ad Clicks (IAC) and as estimated by Search Ads Pause models. A meta-analysis of 390 Search Ads Pause studies highlights the limited opportunity for clicks from organic search results to substitute for ad clicks when the ads are turned off. On average, 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic search result. We find that having an associated organic search result in rank one does not necessarily mean a low IAC. On average, 50% of the ad clicks that occur with a top rank organic result are incremental, compared to 100% of the ad clicks being incremental in the absence of an associated organic result.

To Read the The Full Study (PDF): http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/37731.pdf

SEO Engineering vs. SEO Magic

2015-01-28T09:24:00.001-08:00

Don’t we all hate it when people think of SEO as a magic wand?

“Make my site rank on top of Google!”“How much do you take for SEO?”“I want more traffic! More leads! And more online sales, do your thing... and I will pay you 300$ a month!”

And the scenarios never end!!!

There are hundreds of different ways to do SEO, including sitemaps, link-building, and search-engine-friendly site design and so on. The best strategy for successful SEO can differ by product, by page and even by season. Identifying what works best for each case is what really shows results. In many times, well-known strategies for SEO may not work for a client, while certain tactics that may not be expected for them could work like a charm.

The bottom line is, an SEO specialist is not a magician but an Architect or an Engineer.

We are directors, we orchestrate the whole online existence of the business and integrate it to physical life.
We are marketing specialists, we design and draw marketing strategies, segmentation, targeting, and positioning.
We are analysts, we research the market, identify strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.
We are detectives, we spy on competitors and monitor the brand’s mentions and reputation
We are Financial Analysts, we know how to calculate the Time value for money (i.e. the future value of a present investment)
We are Brokers, we buy and sell (online) real-estate and placements all the time.
We are problem solvers and crises managers, when a new algorithm hits, we know how to contain it and recover the site and protect the business.
We are the Big Brother, we oversee the big data world of numbers, internet traffic distribution, traffic flows, channels, Trends, and daily buzz.

We may not be Magicians, But we definitely are... Supermen and Women

SEOs are Supermen

Differences Between Responsive Design, Dynamic Serving, and a Separate Mobile Site

2015-01-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to configure a website for all screens. Factors to think about include the cost, time to build, your available human resources and infrastructure, and the needs of your customers.

Whatever configuration you choose, as an underlying principle we strongly recommend that you serve all your sites from a single domain, like example.com. In particular, if your desktop site is hosted on example.com, don’t put your mobile site on a separate domain, like a.com/example.

Stay with a single domain and you’ll build brand and URL equity with your users. With that principle in mind, let’s look at the three basic ways you can build a mobile-friendly website: responsive design, dynamic serving, and a fully separate mobile site.

Responsive Design

Responsive web design (RWD for short) is a clever design technique that uses a single HTML code base for all platforms. That is, all viewing devices read from the same code on the same URL. The content resizes itself to fit the screen being used, based on pre-defined breakpoints and fluid grids.

RWD requires solid up-front planning. Costs can be high at first, but once the device-specific strategy is set, maintenance can be less resource-intensive.

Pros:

· One URL for all content. Using a single URL for a piece of content makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content. It’s also easier for search engines to discover and index your content.

· A streamlined user experience. Presentation of all content is customized, and device-specific features can still be used.

· Flexible orientation. RWD naturally allows for landscape or portrait device orientation changes by users.

· No redirects. Load time is reduced and performance increased.

Cons:

· Careful planning required. Since all HTML is shared here, careful planning is a must to develop a truly custom and robust experience with optimal performance for each device and user.

Common mistakes to avoid:

· Data bloat. Don’t let mobile users download full-size images meant for big screens and fast speeds. Try to reduce HTTP requests and minimize CSS and JavaScript. Load visible content first and defer everything else.

Who it’s for:

Businesses that are focused on offering a consistent experience and can plan holistically for all devices with a single web team. (Starbucks.com, BostonGlobe.com and Time.com all use this approach.) RWD can be expanded to fit new devices as they emerge, and the single URL is good for linking and sharing articles without confusion or redirects.

Dynamic Serving

In this method, the web server detects the type of device a visitor is using, then presents a custom page designed just for that device. Custom pages can be designed for any device type, from mobile phones and tablets to smart TVs.

Pros:

· A custom user experience. Each user gets content and layout created just for their device.

· Easier changes. Adjust content or layout for one screen size without having to touch other versions.

· Faster loading. Your team can streamline content for optimal load times on each device.

· Single URL. As with Responsive Design, Dynamic Serving keeps all your users on a single URL.

Cons:

· Content forking. Multiple custom pages mean multiple sets of the same content. Unless you have a sophisticated CMS in place, keeping content up to date on all device-specific pages can be challenging.

Common mistakes:

· Faulty device detection. Your servers will need to run scripts to recognize all available devices. This step prevents problems like the server sending a mobile-optimized site to tablet users. Your webmaster will need to keep the directory up-to-date and running smoothly to avoid bad detection or gaps in service. Another common mistake is that the server assumes a device orientation, most commonly portrait, but the user may be holding the device in a different orientation (ie landscape).

· Changing experiences: Users will be confused if you have multiple sites and they appear radically different. While it’s important to customize for each screen size, your brand look and feel should be recognizable in all formats.

Who it’s for:

Dynamic serving is a resource-intensive solution for companies that make frequent changes to their website, and who often need to adjust display for one device, such as tweaking only their mobile site. A capable IT staff (or vendor) is a must to manage the different and possibly complex sets of website code required.

A Separate Mobile Site

A third option is to simply create a mobile site that’s separate from your original desktop site. Your system detects mobile visitors and redirects them to your mobile-optimized site (often using a sub-domain like m.yourname.com).

Only mobile users will see the separate mobile site. Users of tablets, Web-enabled TVs or other devices will still see your original desktop site.

Pros:

· A custom user experience. This gives you the most freedom to create a separate mobile site that is designed only for mobile users.

· Easier changes. Content or design changes can be limited to the mobile version of the site, with no effect on other devices.

Cons:

· Multiple URLs. Sharing a web page requires careful redirects and integration between your mobile and non-mobile sites. Redirects also lead to longer page load times.

· Content forking. Keeping two different sets of content can make data management more complex.

Common mistakes:

· Faulty redirects. When a mobile user lands on a deep desktop page, make sure they aren’t redirected to your generic mobile homepage. Also important: avoid smartphone-only errors, where a desktop URL redirects to a non-existent mobile URL.

· Missing annotations. The two-way (“bidirectional”) annotation helps Googlebot discover your content and helps our algorithms understand the relationship between your desktop and mobile pages and treat them correctly.

· Inconsistent user experience: People who look at your smartphone site should recognize it as the same business they see on your desktop site. This prevents confusion and a bad overall user experience.

Who it’s for:

Businesses that for any reason need to manage their mobile site independently. For instance, some businesses may want to use a different vendor for mobile, or may want a mobile structure that simply wouldn’t be possible with RWD. Since setup is relatively easy and can be quite cost-effective, a separate mobile site can be good for small businesses with more basic site needs.

References:

http://www.google.com/think/multiscreen/start.html
http://www.feedthebot.com/mobile/
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/
http://www.foraker.com/choosing-between-responsive-web-design-and-a-separate-mobile-site-to-improve-mobile-visitors%E2%80%99-experience/
http://mob.is.it/blog/why-separate-mobile-site-is-usually-better-than-responsive-design