superfast business: website mega trends 2014
TRANSCRIPT
DAVID LAKINS KEY MULTIMEDIA
WEBSITE MEGATRENDS
KEY MULTIMEDIA
• Internet is a very different place than five years ago
• 75% of buying decisions are now made online
• Mobile devices are making it easier for consumers to shop anytime, anywhere
• According to Sagepay online spending will top £13bn this Christmas
Times are changing!
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Now is the time to take a good look at your online presence
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Megatrends for 2014 and Beyond
6 Areas to
focus on
Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design & Usability
Importance of Content
Engagement, Calls to Action and Conversions
Social Media integration
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Website Performance
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Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design &Usability
Importance ofContent
Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions
Social MediaIntegration
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Website Performance
• Do you know how many people visit your website and where they come from?
• Do you know what devices they use to view your site? • Have you got specific goals for your website (sales,
email sign-ups, downloads or watching a video etc) ? • What key metrics do you use to measure the
performance of your website? • Do you regular review your website’s performance and
its achievements against your goals? • Do you know what Google really thinks about your
website?
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Web Performance Megatrends
• First impressions count - visual appeal can be assessed within 50 ms
• Expectations just got higher
• Tolerance levels just got lower
• Site speed, page size, server errors, and broken links all make a difference
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Why Performance Matters
• Most web users expect a home page to load in ½ a second or less
– If Amazon increased page load time by +100ms they lose 1% of sales
– If Google increased page load by +0.5s they get 25% fewer searches
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Site Performance Impacts Revenues
Poor experience = abandoned sessions Repetitive poor experiences = lost customer for life
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Performance Quick Wins
• For some websites, improving performance may actually be the optimisation that has the biggest impact on organic traffic e.g. compressing images
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Your New Best Friends
Digital is 100% measurable If you can measure it – you can manage it!
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Google Analytics Key Metrics
• Number of unique visitors
• Ratio of organic, referral & direct
• Bounce rates
• PPC vs Organic
• Time on site
• Page speed
• Desktop vs Mobile use
• Goals met & Conversion rate
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Google Webmaster Tools
• Identify performance issues such as:-
– page speed
– page size
– server errors
– and broken links
• Suggest HTML improvements
• Shows who links to you, search engine position and click through rates (CTR)
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Enhancing Your Search Presence
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Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design &Usability
Importance ofContent
Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions
Social MediaIntegration
KEY MULTIMEDIA
Enhancing Your Search Presence
• Are you aware of how your website appears in the search results – on desktop; on a smartphone; logged in to Google or not logged in?
• Are you still focusing your SEO on ranking for specific keywords?
• Does your site get found in the search results by your potential customers when they type in their problems / challenges?
• What is semantic web and how does it impact on your online presence?
• Have you checked to see if the performance of your website is affecting your search results?
• Do you know who is linking to your website?
• Are you taking advantage of Google enhanced search result features by using sitemaps, rich snippets and additional tagging?
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SEO Megatrends
• Search is constantly changing • Mobile search & wearable technology • Local search • Personalised search • Less about keywords • Knowledge Graph & Semantic search
(understanding meaning & intent) • Paid Advertising – Adwords / PPC • Enhanced search results • Google trying to keep us within its
search environment
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Search is Changing
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Classic SEO
page 1 result
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FUTURE OF SEO
The future of competitiveness in search will be based on your ability to differentiate.
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SEO - Change of Mindset
Away from keyword stuffing and page 1 ranking to …. ….providing high-quality and very relevant content that your targeted audiences will actually read or use
…. connecting and building relationships through your content
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Change of Mindset
• Titles & Meta Descriptions still matter – but really as a display factor and how they encourage your target audience to click through
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Customer Buying Decisions
• Customers can start the buying journey from any point
– Search, social, YouTube, forums, magazine, product review, recommendations.
Using other sites to rank
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Website Design & Usability
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Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design &Usability
Importance ofContent
Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions
Social MediaIntegration
Website Design & Usability
• Does every page of your website work on both tablets and mobile phones?
• Is the design, layout and organisation of the site professional and consistent across all devices
• How easy is it for your visitors to scan your pages for important information?
• Is your navigation clear and well organised? • Do you offer a rich online experience when compared to
your competitors? • Are you using any of the latest trends in web design e.g.
infinite scrolling pages, parallax designs? • Do you test how different layouts and styling can impact on
your websites performance?
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Web Design Megatrends
• Impact of mobiles
• Lots of different screens sizes
• Click vs touch & swipe
• Large imagery & less is more
• Beautiful typography
• Parallax scrolling site
• Responsive design
• User experience matters more than ever
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Mobility Changes Everything
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Mobility changes everything
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People need an excuse to fire up a laptop. The sofa is where your business case for a mobile strategy exists. 60% of desktop search starts on a mobile device
• Design – adapting designs to a smaller screen
• Development – not all devices work the same
• Navigation – touchscreen navigation changes the way we use the web
• Content – mobile users want accessible content, faster, simple, without the distortion of elements
Mobility Means …
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Key Take Away Points
• Build mobile into your website strategy
• It’s all about the user experience regardless of the device
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Importance of Content
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Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design &Usability
Importance ofContent
Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions
Social MediaIntegration
Importance of Content
• How well do you know your audience?
• Have you got a story to tell?
• What’s is your customer’s journey
• What is your content strategy for tying these three together?
• How regularly are you creating content and how well is it shared?
• What different types of content are you creating and distributing? Articles, downloads, email newsletters, videos, infographics, expert documents?
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Content Megatrends
• Content and story-telling is King
• Content presentation matters
• Established content publishers – newspapers and news sites e.g. BBC, Sky
• Highly targeted & shareable content – Buzzfeed – the king of the viral content space
• Individuals are emerging as content producers with their own business models
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• Content drives visitors
• People like fresh content
• Search engines like fresh content
• More content means more tickets in the online lottery
Importance of Content
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Different Types of Content
Articles
Reports
Interviews
White Papers
Videos
Infographics
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Video Speaks Louder Than Words
• Video is used to animate a site but increasingly used to replace explanatory text which takes time to read
• Videos are also easily shared on social networks
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Build Useful, Link-Worthy Pages
• Great web pages are those that :- – fulfil a compelling value proposition
– position you as an expert
– solve a problem for their users
– or add something of value in a unique way
• You can get a long way by:- – making your pages as useful as possible
– and by finding the most visually pleasing medium to tell a story
– creating linkable assets enhance your search rankings
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Example - ZOOPLA.co.uk
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Engagement, Calls to Action & Conversions
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Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design &Usability
Importance ofContent
Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions
Social MediaIntegration
Engagement, Calls to Action & Conversions
• Is the purpose of your website and the critical actions you want your visitors to take clear within 5 seconds of viewing?
• Do you have a primary call to action on every page of your website?
• How do you measure conversions on your website and social media and do you have a monetary value for each one?
• You’ve got my interest, now how easy is it for me to find your contact information or place an order?
• Are your online forms only asking for the essential information you need to respond?
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• User experience first: – credibility
– customer habits
– psychological triggers
– use of different types of media
– colour psychology
– website architecture
– buyer personas
– A/B split testing
Engagement & Conversion Megatrends
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• Conversion design is something that guides the visitor towards completing that one specific action, using persuasive design and psychological triggers to turn them in to customers.
Design for Conversions
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• Establish a goal for each page and measure it!
• Analyse your audience and exceed expectations
• The art of persuasion, language and colour is so important in the use of selling!
Design for Conversions
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Improving Call to Action Language
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Change.org
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Using Social Media with your website
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Website Performance
Better Search Results
Website Design &Usability
Importance ofContent
Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions
Social MediaIntegration
Using Social Media with your Website
• How well is your social media use aligned with your content and search engine strategy?
• Have you chosen your social media tools based on what your target customers are using?
• Do you know when the best time to tweet or post a message for maximum engagement?
• How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media use?
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Social Media Megatrends
• Imagery & video are driving social media use
• Social media is increasingly being recognised for its income-generating potential
• All major social media platforms offer paid advertising
• Social media provides trust and authority signals to search engines e.g. Google+
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• You now have the ability to reach out and communicate on a personal level with your target audience on a daily basis
Social Media = Game Changer
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• Increase exposure
• Increase traffic
• Develop loyal following
• Generate leads
• Provide outstanding customer service
• Grow business partnerships
• Reduce marketing expenses
• Improve sales
Benefits of Social Media
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Be
ne
fits
YouTube LinkedIn
Google+
Pinterest Instagram
Snapchat
StumbleUpon Digg
Slideshare
Popular Social Media Sites
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• Social media needs to be integrated and work hand-in-hand with all your other marketing and PR initiatives
• Encourage engagement and interaction
• At a basic level ensure your website, blog and email newsletter include social “share” buttons for people to easily share your content on ALL their social networks.
Sharing is Caring
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@KempandCoPbury
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• Hootsuite
• Tweetdeck
• Sway - suggests content that you should share with you audience
• Social Mention & Ice Rocket - free tools to help monitor specific keywords and see trending topics
Social Media Tools
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DAVID LAKINS KEY MULTIMEDIA
WEBSITE MEGATRENDS
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