Friday 27 January 2017

artnlight: A Leafy home in Bangalore

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Mobile optimization is a Value Added SEO in 2017

In many industries, this may be conservative and, at the agency I head up in the UK, Bowler Hat, our B2C clients are seeing up to 85 percent of all site sessions conducted on mobile devices.
Suffice it to say, mobile has well and truly arrived. Yet, while responsive design has been around for a while now and is fairly well-established, the majority of sites tend to fall down on usability. That is, the majority of sites are still built for desktop and then dialed back for mobile. That form-fill that was mildly annoying on desktop is an absolute pig on mobile. Even if it is responsive.
This is not good enough in the mobile-first world we are racing toward in 2017.
In this article, I am going to look at how you can ensure you are truly optimizing for mobile users. We will look at the fundamentals of responsive design and page speed, but we will also look beyond this at user experience tailored to mobile devices. We will then wrap this up with a mobile optimization checklist that you can use to identify optimization opportunities.
Our goal here is to go the extra distance to create fully mobile-focused websites; to delight our users and drive conversions; to use mobile optimization to develop a strategic advantage over the competition. And, of course, Google wants to delight mobile users so we can improve engagement and on-page ranking factors and also benefit from improved SEO. Better for users. Better for search engines. Win-win.

What Google wants

At this time of year, many SEOs are looking forward, and, referring to an SEO best practices post for 2017, Google’s Gary Illyes complimented those who suggested mobile is the big drive for 2017.
The following are three key stats that I have lifted from Google’s promotional materials that clearly illustrate the importance of mobile optimization:
  1. Today, more people search on mobile phones than computers.
  2. People are five times more likely to leave a site if it isn’t mobile-friendly.
  3. Over half of mobile users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
Because more people search on mobile than on computers, mobile generates more page views. If your site is not mobile-friendly, users are less likely to stick around. And if your site is slow, they may not even wait for the page to load.
Add in the unreliability of mobile data networks here and your site has to be a mean, lean mobile-friendly machine, or you may not even get a shot at that customer.

The mobile-first index

The absolute nail in the coffin for a desktop-first approach to websites and search is the mobile-first index. Adopting this philosophy makes sense as more searches happen on mobile than desktop. Yet, at the moment, ranking is still primarily based on the desktop version of a site.
When this happens, the content and links of your mobile site, along with any other factors — speed, user experience and so on — will be the key drivers of your search engine visibility. Desktop will likely still be a factor, but it will be in a secondary capacity. Mobile first.
The writing’s on the wall here, folks — mobile has been important for a good while now, but 2017 is the year that it will become the key factor in your quest for improved rankings and conversion rates from site visitors.
The good news is that this represents a chance for those who really put in the work to develop an advantage over their competition. It will take work, but climbing over this obstacle is the way forward, and doing so before your rivals will put your site in better stead.

Mobile-friendly approach

Our first focus in gaining this advantage is to look at just how we deliver mobile-friendly content. There are three possible approaches::
  • Responsive web design
  • Dynamic content
  • Separate URLs (mobile site)
Responsive website design is Google’s recommended way to tackle mobile-friendly sites and, as such, is the approach you should take unless you have very strong reasons not to.
Responsive design has been around for a while, so this is not a new concept. However, we still see sites that are technically responsive while not providing a strong experience for mobile users.
Ultimately, responsive design is just a small part of creating truly mobile-friendly websites.

Mobile optimization

Google has a number of tools for testing for mobile usability and, beyond that, Search Console has a mobile usability report that details problems on a page-by-page level.
You should utilize these tools while developing your new site and use Search Console to keep tabs on problems throughout the life of the site.
Search Console looks at the following mobile usability issues:
  1. Flash usage — Most mobile browsers do not render Flash and, as such, you will want to use more modern technologies.
  1. Viewport not configured — The viewport metatag aids browsers in scaling a page to suit a specific device.
  1. Fixed-width viewport — This problem attempts to circumvent mobile design with fixed width pages and is best shelved when a responsive design is adopted.
  1. Content not sized to viewport — Here the page content does not fit the window, and a user has to scroll. This can be fixed with relative rather than fixed widths.
  1. Small font size — This is a scaling issue and requires users to pinch the screen to zoom in.
  1. Touch elements too close — This is a common usability issue where it is too hard to tap a given element without also hitting the neighboring element.
  1. Interstitial usage — A full-screen pop-up often represents poor user experience on a mobile device and is something that Google is looking to crack down on in 2017.
These are the key technical elements that Google is looking for and reporting on to webmasters.
Optimizing your site to remove these issues may have positive effects on how the usability of your site is graded by Google and certainly has positive implications for users. Again, win-win.
Mobile optimization resources:
  1. Mobile-Friendly Websites — https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/
  2. Mobile-Friendly Test — https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly
  3. Mobile Usability Report — https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6101188?hl=en

Page speed

Page speed is important on all devices, but it can be critically important on mobile when users are out and about looking for quick answers. A page that may load relatively quickly on a WiFi network may not be quite so snappy on a mobile data network. 4G has delivered some great speed improvements, but coverage (in the UK, at least) is not something that can be relied upon.
There are, however, a range of best practices for improving page speed and, once again, Google has come to our aid with the PageSpeed insights tool. This enables us to easily assess how fast our pages load and get some pointers on what we can do to improve.
Page speed insights is now built into the Mobile-Friendly test:
https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/ — the more attractive front end
To show how this works, I’ll share details below for a small local B2C business called Vinyl to Digital, which agreed for me to use them as a case study.
Here is the output from Google’s testmysite.withgoogle.com tool:
page speed report for mobile site
We can see some obvious recommendations for technical improvements here:
  • Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content.
  • Enable compression.
  • Optimize images.
  • Minify CSS.
  • Leverage browser caching.
This is a WordPress site and, as such, most of these are fairly simple tasks. There exist plugins that will tackle the majority of this without any costly development time.
We can also see an overview of page loading times within Google Analytics in the Behavior > Site Speed report.
site speed in google analytics
Here we can see that average page load is almost four seconds, which is above the ideal two- to three-second loading time. We can also see that almost half of that is attributed to the average server response time.
Making the basic improvements from the PageSpeed insights tool and finding a faster hosting partner could likely get the loading time down to around two seconds.
The main takeaway here is that you can get accurate metrics on loading time and clear insights on what you can do to improve things. You will have to customize this to your own CMS or approach, but you can often get 80 percent of the results with only 20 percent of the effort.
We also can’t talk about mobile page speed without considering Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP has been designed to enable the often slow, clunky and frustrating mobile web to load instantly anywhere.
Be fast. It makes your users and search engines happy.
Page speed resources:

Mobile user experience

Mobile-friendly design and page speed are the fundamental components of a mobile-optimized website. However, these two elements by themselves don’t always add up to a perfectly optimized website.
I first wrote about responsive design in 2012, and yet, despite the semi-maturity of the approach, many sites implementing responsive are still not truly optimized for the wants and needs of mobile users.
The raw technical implementation of a responsive layout isn’t enough to solve this problem. Instead, the designer must put himself or herself into the user’s shoes and take into account what people will do and want to accomplish on a mobile phone.
Fortunately, the good folks at Google and AnswerLab conducted a research study to determine how users interact with a wide range of mobile sites. The goal of this report is to establish a set of best practices for mobile site design.
I have not seen much noise regarding this report yet, which is unfortunate, as it provides the best overview I have yet seen regarding how to go beyond the basic mobile-friendly and page speed optimizations detailed above.
The results of the study were distilled down into 25 mobile site design principles across five primary categories:
  • Homepage & Site Navigation
  • Site Search
  • Commerce & Conversions
  • Form Entry
  • Usability & Form Factor
The key takeaway from the report was that mobile users are goal-oriented. They expect to be able to achieve their goal quickly and easily with a minimum of fuss. No pinching to zoom. No confusing navigation or touch elements too close together to really use.
Success comes from focusing on the mobile experience. Give users what they need and on their own terms. Make it easy for them to achieve their goal.
It is also worth noting that, while these tools are useful, you can’t beat good old-fashioned user testing. Determine the goals a site user has while on your site, and then have multiple users within your demographic test across a range of devices. The insights you may achieve here are valuable and allow you to understand the real-world implications of how a user interacts with your site.
I am also a big fan of tools that record how a user interacts with your site. At Bowler Hat, we use inspectlet. This provides us with videos of user sessions, along with heat maps, scroll maps and a bunch of other features. With a tool like this recording user sessions, you are always conducting usability testing (so long as you watch the videos).
The tool offers a strong set of filtering options so you can easily identify patterns and review real users as they use (or attempt to use) your site. Combining this tool with information from Google Analytics can be insightful. Say GA is telling you that 50 percent of mobile users drop off at the second page of your checkout. Now you can see exactly what those users are doing and why they are having problems.
When it comes down to it, the essential elements to performing mobile optimization are a combination of tools and real user testing.
Mobile usability resources:
  1. Design and UI — https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/design-and-ui/
  2. Mobile usability testing — http://usabilitygeek.com/usability-testing-mobile-applications/
  3. Google and AnswerLab optimizing for multiple screens — http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//intl/ALL_ALL/think/multiscreen/pdf/multi-screen-moblie-whitepaper_research-studies.pdf
  4. Inspectlet — http://www.inspectlet.com/

Mobile optimization checklist

So we have three fundamental components of building mobile sites that your users will love (or that will delight your users and drive conversions in Google’s vernacular).
  1. Responsive design
  2. Page loading speed
  3. Mobile design and usability
The following is a checklist based on the the three key areas reviewed in this article. We use this approach to review sites to determine areas that can be improved for mobile users.
We have reviewed many sites and have yet to find any that provide a perfect mobile experience. In most cases, the sites have a wide range of potential optimization opportunities.
Review this list point by point and refer back to the designing for multiple screens whitepaper for any required clarifications.
Basic mobile optimization
  1. Responsive design
  2. Page speed
  3. Hosting speed
Home page and site navigation
  1. Keep calls to action front and center.
  2. Keep menus short and sweet.
  3. Make it easy to get back to the home page.
  4. Don’t let promotions steal the show.
Site search
  1. Make site search visible.
  2. Ensure site search results are relevant.
  3. Implement filters to improve site search usability.
  4. Guide users to better search results.
Commerce and conversions
  1. Let users explore before they commit.
  2. Let users purchase as a guest.
  3. Use existing information to maximize convenience.
  4. Use click-to-call buttons for complex tasks.
  5. Make it easy to finish converting on another device.
Form entry
  1. Streamline form entry.
  2. Choose the simplest input method for each task.
  3. Provide a visual calendar for selecting dates.
  4. Minimize form errors with labeling and real-time validation.
  5. Design efficient forms.
Usability and form factor
  1. Optimize your entire site for mobile.
  2. Don’t make users pinch to zoom.
  3. Make product images expandable.
  4. Tell users which screen orientation works best.
  5. Keep your user in a single browser window.
  6. Avoid “full site” labeling.
  7. Be clear why you need a user’s location.

Mobile optimization as a competitive advantage

By working through this list, we go beyond the basic and obvious. We create a mobile user interface that aims to make the experience of goal-driven mobile users truly delightful. Certainly, in my day-to-day experience of the web, I rarely find this to be the case. If I put my SEO and UX hat on, then even some of sites of the titans of the online world could do much to improve.
So we focus on each of these areas to create a site that is blisteringly fast and a pleasure to use on a mobile device. We help our users achieve their goals and, in return, we get better results from our marketing. From improved visibility in organic search to boosted conversion rates from all other inbound channels — focusing on mobile users allows us to develop a strategic competitive edge over our competitors.
Competitive advantages are not easy to forge. There is a clear opportunity here for the fast and the brave. In 2017, focus on your mobile users and leave your competitors in your digital dust.
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Sunday 25 December 2016

I am Abhishek malani Digital Marketing Expert in Bangalore

Hello,

This is abhishek malani, Digital Marketing Expert in Bangalore. I Have 8+ Years of Real Time experience in Digital Marketing. We deal with Search Engine Optimization - SEO, SMO.



Abhishek Malani: When did you begin Digital Marketing and how could you get into it?

Reeshi: I began my Digital Marketing venture in 2009. As an adolescent, I was sincerely simply attempting to profit on the web. I had been attempting to do as such route before 2009 however nothing happened. At long last, in 2009, I handled my first customer on Freelancer and that is the place my trip started.

When I began off I didn't know anything about SEO. Honestly, the way I won the customer was very interesting. I essentially made my own particular gig professing to search for SEO administrations, took the best proposition I got and made it into a decent proposition and sent it crosswise over to my customer. He enjoyed it a considerable measure, and I won my first customer! I did not understand what I was discussing in my proposition.

When I won the gig, I worked hard to comprehend everything that I had specified and learned all that I needed to about SEO and conveyed what I had guaranteed. He was extremely content with the outcomes! That is the means by which I got into the field of Digital Marketing.

What do you think has changed in Digital Marketing since you begun?

A considerable measure! Furthermore, it is changing at a stunning pace and to be honest, it's difficult to keep up in some cases. Everything was considerably more effectively manipulatable in those days. Presently the frameworks and calculations have turned out to be to a great degree progressed and keen. Thus have individuals.

Which is the reason it is all the more imperative nowadays to concentrate on the general population who are your clients instead of the machines. Be it improving rankings in web indexes, more reach on Facebook, better open rates. All these are just intends to your client and not the client itself. In the event that you utilize every one of these channels to make a to a great degree charming knowledge for your client, you would have won.

How essential do you think Digital Marketing is, in the whole promoting scene?

It is critical. I feel that the greatest contrast between customary advertising and advanced showcasing is the capacity to target and measure. This gives computerized promoting the edge over customary showcasing however that doesn't imply that conventional advertising is dead, neither will it pass on at any point in the near future.

Both these variants these days appear to exist together and in actuality supplement each other extremely well. Asking individuals on conventional channels to come cooperate on their Facebook page or proliferating a hashtag furthermore I know organizations that run little battles online to see what mix of visuals and correspondence works before taking it on customary channels. The pyramid has been upset now, before individuals use to first spend on customary channels and afterward spend little on advanced channels yet now that has totally altered is the thing that I accept.

What do you believe is the foundation of any advanced showcasing effort nowadays?

Content. Substance is the foundation, bedrock, spine and the most major part of any computerized advertising effort. You can pick any channel or crusade you need, substance is the thing that will drive it. You need to perform SEO, you require incredible substance. The genuine substance as well as. Web-based social networking Marketing flourishes with awesome substance. Would you like to run a fruitful promotion battle, prepare to have your mind blown. You require extraordinary substance in type of duplicate. Email Marketing? Content. Versatile Marketing. Content. Whatever you attempt to put your hands into substance assumes a key part.

Talking about Content, what has been your prosperity with it?

I have extraordinary accomplishment with substance. My highlight was a blog that I and the group executed that got to 500K sessions in under a week! It went insane viral, it was everywhere. It got by every single significant distribution over the globe.

Likewise, I have overseen more than 200 blog entries crosswise over various organizations and pulled in a considerable measure of movement from these sites. Truth be told, I have set up a blog starting with no outside help and got it to a normal of 100k sessions/month in under 7 months with only two substance scholars.

What do you think makes content fruitful or viral?

There are different perspectives to it however in the event that you need to extensively partition into two basins then basically educational substance and sincerely charged substance are two containers I would separate them into.

When I say for all intents and purposes enlightening substance, the data you are giving out ought to be functional and really practical. You can accomplish this, by making the data as granular as could reasonably be expected.

Sincerely charged substance works extraordinary in light of the fact that it associates with your gathering of people. It can be any feeling (make an effort not to make it negative) and it will help you achieve an indistinguishable wavelength from your gathering of people and they will help you open up it facilitate.

What organization of substance do you think has the greatest effect on a brand?

There is no single response for this. It totally relies on upon the channel you are on and certainly relies on upon your intended interest group. Be that as it may, in the event that I needed to put my cash then I would put it on video. With expanded web infiltration and better speeds and lesser utilization time, viewers tend to get a kick out of the chance to arrange significantly more than different configurations.

What do you believe is the greatest metric(s) as far as substance promoting?

For me the single greatest metric to quantify accomplishment as far as substance promoting is enhancement. When I say enhancement what I intend to state is what number of individuals shared your substance and opened up its compass. Why this metric? Since this says a great deal in regards to your substance. Not just did the guest read your substance completely,consumed it and associated with it, he/she now needs to impart it to his system. This is enormous in light of the fact that for many individuals, what they share on their divider reflects what they are and by sharing your bit of substance they are doing you an immense support by giving their own space to your substance.

In the event that you make your substance for enhancement you won't require any showcasing. It will ceaselessly advertise itself and individuals will continue streaming it. However, only a heads up, it's harder than it sounds.

Which different directs in Digital Marketing is critical as per you?

Each channel is essential. You can't disregard any channel as such and you ought to attempt and put resources into each channel. Your activity profile ought to look adjusted and reliance on one single channel is not a smart thought.

For instance, on the off chance that you concentrate just on SEO and getting the majority of your activity is from the web crawlers, one calculation change may destroy your business and site. How about we take a similar illustration and apply it in an alternate situation. In the event that you are getting the greater part of your movement from SEO and after that you catch their email address and through email promoting or through the site itself, you make them draw in with your online networking pages, you have pulled in activity as well as held it. Presently you can simply ahead and connect with them all the time and motivate them to return your site and give you more business.

Every channel has its own particular advantages and disadvantages. On the off chance that you incorporate everything together and make them cooperate, are you diminishing the hazard as well as offsetting your whole activity source.

On the off chance that you needed to clarify Marketing in one line what might it be?

Promoting or showcasing is the uprightness of an awful item. Concentrate on your item/benefit/offering and utilize all computerized promoting channels as an input instrument to improve your offering so it markets itself.

Any useful tidbits for trying Digital Marketers?

Regardless of what number of web journals you read, what number of talks you have there is just so much you can learn. Go out there and do it. There is significantly more to realize when you really execute things. The obstruction to passage into computerized showcasing is low to the point that anyone can begin doing it and learn by doing it. Break a couple of things, mix up a tempest and learn through the procedure.

Abhishek Malani: Thanks a great deal for noting my inquiries. I took in a considerable measure and I'm certain DigitalAbhishek Malani's perusers additionally taken in a great deal today. Anticipating more substance from you!
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