Mobile Apps - Should your brand offer one?
TOP NINE TIPS WHEN BUILDING A MOBILE APP FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Are you looking into i-phone application as the new way of reaching and engaging consumers with their brands.
Before you decide to engage a digital agency to build an mobile or i-phone application for your brand, you should:
- Check your web analytics data and find out how many visits are coming from Mobile devices and what percentage of total visits this represent. This will give you a very good indication on how your customers are accessing content from you.
- Be where your kpi’s are. Do not loose focus on what the key kip’s of your business are. if you still have to optimise your website, or fix key SEO errors or still create compelling content; work around that first instead of creating another mediocre channel. Far better to have a fantastic; deep content website that search engines and customers can find that having a website plus a mobile app that does not deliver at its full.
- Be relevant Your idea of an i-phone application really brings relevance to your product and service in the real world? or add real value to your product and service? There are thousands of mobile applications out there which do not offer real value. Make sure if you build one, you build one that is brings a new level of engagement to your consumer segment. A new level is found when people pay for it.
- Focus. Decide the top two features of your mobile app and ensure barriers of entry are there so you do not get competitors building an even better app some weeks after you launch your app.
- Be interactive. I-phone applications do not mean just games and push content. They can also be a channel to push discounts on point of sale, view exclusive content, make payments, refer friends, push brand/user generated content to friends through facebook/twitter, create alerts, find updates, get support…anything…You have to think here very big and interactive.
- Be specific when briefing. Put together a detailed brief on what your app should be, how it should work/engage. Use your trusted network to find top three Mobile App providers and get some quotes against your brief. Ensure a Non Disclosure Agreement is signed by parties so your app idea does not get leaked to competitors. If you app functionality needs to be phased, you might want to include how the other phases will work and get an estimate for future development.
- Talk to other clients Ask your potential App developer to tell you the top three Apps they have created and call the companies and ask how the provider has performed. This will give you a good idea on how good they are not just building apps but offering maintainance and customer service. You might want to engage a local provider that you can have regular face to face catch ups even if you have to pay premium service.
- Be quick. Thousand of apps get created and published everyday so you might not be the only one seeing the market opportunity. Focus on progression rather than perfection, even if this means you have to launch a basic version of your app first.
- Optimize your app. Ensure you are using the right app name so people can find your app easily. if it is a “Free” app.. tell upfront or even if it is a “Lite” version of a premium one. Ensure your app title, app company name, app description, keywords and image titles include the top keywords you believe people might type when looking for an app like yours.
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Is your editor-web writer publishing content optimized for Google and users?
To stand out of the crowd (billions of content web pages) you need a check list to ensure every piece of content you create is unique, relevant, offer some advantage/benefit to the reader, is SEO friendly and that readers will share it or link to it.
From top Google Engineers (Matt Cutts) to Social Media experts; everyone talks about the importance of unique great and optimized content.
There is no doubt that content is king when prioritizing your efforts, time and budget allocated to improve your website and generate extra new visits and more repeat visits.
Below is a checklist I have curated after more than 10 years helping companies create content for the web. This unique check list will help you ensure every piece of content you publish is unique, relevant, SEO optimized and fundamentally that your readers will be very likely to share it and link to it.
WEB CONTENT CHECK LIST - CREATION AND PROMOTION OF YOUR CONTENT
- Niche. I have selected selected a niche topic and know the top three search queries I want my article/content page to optimize for.
- SEO. I have added these two/three search combinations on my page title, page description and H1 tag. I have added ALT tags to all my photos in my article.
- Internal linking. I have created an intro paragraph that links to parent section pages and other relevant internal pages.
- External linking. My article links to relevant external websites with better Page rank and popularity than my website.
- Comprehensiveness. I have added compelling photos/video to offer readers visual clues to “hard to understand” concepts. My article language that my average visitor will understand and relate to.
- Tangible examples. My article do not just tell but “show”. My article uses case studies, industry trends, videos, photos and other content to make it extremely unique and compelling.
- Quick scanning. My article makes use of bullet points-tables so my readers can easily scan key information. Remember some people do not read online, they quickly scan for key information.
- Highlighting. I have used bold words to highlight keywords within the article.
- Re-create. My article has re-created content from a podcast, white paper, manual, even from instructions or insights I have sent to many clients.
- Take advantage. My article take advantage of popular national celebration, events allowing more chances to be picked up by search engines. ie: “Top tips for this year New York Marathon” this article might work if you sell energy drink, sporting apparel, etc…
- Call to actions. I have added clear call to actions (What you would like people to do once the complete reading the page) including key website goals: ie: link to registration form, to contact us form, link to my business Facebook page, Youtube Channel, Flickr, Twitter,etc.
- Publishing, crawling and ranking. I have checked my article has actually been published (Yes, sometimes articles get finalised but noone press the “publish” button), that Google has crawled and ranked my article.
- Article promotion - Free channels. Once my article has been published, I have promoted my new page on all e-newsletters I have access to (partners, providers, customers, employees), promoted the article on Google Plus, Facebook page, relevant Youtube videos, Twitter account, Local/National Media; linked on popular blog posts.
- External promotion - Paid. I have updated my Google Adwords account to start bidding for related terms and drive traffic to my new article page.
- Internal promotion - Free. I have linked to this new page page from other similar pages on the site.
- Review. I have created an alert to review my article content in 6 months/ 1 year time as there might be new information available that might make my article even more compelling. (Google loves fresh content!
Contact us, we can help you audit and improve your website content.
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HOW TO CREATE A PRODUCT VIDEO REVIEW FOR YOUR WEBSITE - TOP 14 TIPS
(Click on the above image to see all videos)
Publishing product videos on your website can increase dramatically visits and conversion rates. Marcs & Spencer saw a dramatic 25% uplift in basket size from online visitors who watches videos. Video provider experts such as Treepodia also have showcase fantastic examples on how video can help your website convert more.
As I could not find anything on the web that compares different product video reviews, I would like to share some top tips to consider when creating a product video review.
The above examples are from the Footwear/shoe retail industry. .
The Key insights and top tips on How to create a product video review are:
- Branding: offer branding elements to reinforce where company promotes the video. You can see above how Eastbay, Running Warehouse, Runners Point (German website) and Wired use excellent branding at the start and finish of each video.
- Uncluttered background. Clean and clear background tend to work well. Lululemon, Runners Point and Zappos are great examples above.
- Good sound. Ensure you video has a clear sound. DO not make your viewers make an effort to be able to listen.
- Be Creative. Use different approaches so you keep the viewer attention. Merrell and Lululemon are great examples on how to bring a video with a different approach. Lululemon does not even use voice. Runners Point also uses a great presenter hands technique (moving product from hand to hand) to ensure the viewer does not get bored.
- Call to action: once the video is finished, what would you like the viewer to do? visit a website? visit a store? make a call? fill in a form? be clear. Online Shoes and Runners Point are great examples above.
- Unique. Is your video content really giving a unique information, do not just say what it is already available on many website.
- Credible and Genuine presenter. Be sure the presenter is credible and genuine. Viewers need to feel they trust the presenter.
- Suitable dress: make your presenter wear suitable clothes related to your industry. You can use this as a way to reinforce branding. Online shoes example above you can see how the presenter is reviewing an Asics shoe wearing a Nike top - not really nice match. Runners Point and Eastbay are a great example of dress-product matching.
- Lighting. Ensure is totally clear to see the product you are reviewing.
- Test. Have your producer to test different techniques and different products, use multiple cameras and zoom ins; before you decide the final taxonomy for your video.
- Enjoy the process of creating product video reviews. It should be fun.
- Benchmark. Compare how your videos are doing (traffic) with your competitors.
- Customer Feedback. Get feedback from your customers (put live some 10-20) before you go and produce a couple of hundred product review videos.
If you are still not sure why you should have a video content strategy please read this article from E-consultancy.
Contact us If you are interested to run a product video review test.
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SEO Tools
- WooRank http://www.woorank.com/ Analyses some main SEO metrics for a site. Good for comparing competing sites against each other on some basic-level criteria.
- Blekko http://blekko.com/ws/komosion.com+/inbound blekko is a search engine that’s making all SEO data available for everyone to access. There are some pretty insightful metrics there.
- SERP Snippet Optimiser http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html Create mock-ups of search results pages
- Excellent Analytics http://excellentanalytics.com/ This is a pretty advanced one, not sure if you will need it. It lets Excel 2007 draw down data direct from Google Analytics. Pretty good for custom-building reports, I’ve used it now and again but it’s going to take a long time to get it to work how I want it!
- Market Samurai http://www.marketsamurai.com/ Awesome keyword tool. It has a free trial, 30 days I think, after that it’s a one-time fee. Pretty much every Keyword Analysis project I’ve ever done has involved this product. There’s plenty of training and support videos on their site.
- Dimensionator Analytics Toolbar http://www.analyticspros.com/resources/dimensionator-analytics-toolbar.html Opens up several “hidden” datasets within Analytics. Pretty sweet.
Firefox Addons
Professional SEO Tools
- Advanced Web Ranking http://www.advancedwebranking.com/ Paid tool, not very user-friendly, keeps track of web rankings for large numbers of sites.
- Keyword Spy http://www.keywordspy.com/ I’ve used this in the past, it claims to give you insight into the keywords that sites are targeting with Adwords. I found it to be relevant about 60% of the time, but even so that’s pretty useful stuff from a competitive analysis point of view.
- Raven Tools http://raventools.com/ Professional suite of tools, geared to agencies managing reporting for several clients. Good social media reporting mechanisms too. 30-day trial.
Any other SEO tool you would suggest?
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