Tag Archive for: Marketing

You would think the sky is falling given how webmasters and online marketing experts are responding to Google’s huge upcoming mobile algorithm. Sites are tossing around all manner of terrifying nicknames such as the mobilepocalypse, mobilegeddon, mobocalypse, or mopocalypse to stir up fear and panic, but the truth is the upcoming update shouldn’t be all that scary for you.

If your site serves mobile users and you care at all about your customers, you should already have made efforts to make your site mobile-friendly. While a big ranking drop seems frightening, the truth is that mobile users are probably already avoiding your site. Don’t think of the upcoming change as being forced to change your site to please search engines. Thank of it as improving your site for mobile users.

Countless sites are talking about the “mobilepocalypse” as if the world is ending, but I’ve already covered the simple set of steps you need to take to check that your site is ready for the mobile update. If you aren’t passing Google’s mobile test, this infographic from Nine Hertz will walk you through what needs to be done before the 21st.

 Mobilepocalypse

Google is making it easier for mobile users to fill out forms thanks to a new enhancement to its autocomplete attribute in Chrome, the company announced yesterday.

As in the past it is up to webmasters to make sure the forms on their sites are marked up with the autocomplete attribute, but it is an important step to take. Past analysis shows implementing autocomplete on your forms increases conversions and reduces cart abandonment.

Google also encourages sites to use the autocomplete attribute, citing increased completion rates and saying:

“Making websites friendly and easy to browse for users on mobile devices is very important. We hope to see many forms marked up with the “autocomplete” attribute in the future.”

The new enhanced autocomplete attribute allows you to easily label input element fields with common data categories like ‘name’ or ‘street-address’ without having to alter other aspects of your site. This way, Chrome is able to accurately fill-in each line when users tap on the field from their smartphone or tablet.

Google offered a sample form so you can see get an idea what the new markup code looks like. You can see how each field is marked up by going to this page and viewing the source.

11057091_1622144431330260_1923819740_n

The best marketing is always informed by data. The more data you have the more you can pinpoint who you should be reaching out to and what they are interested in, and Facebook is making it easier than ever to find out who you audience really is.

Tuesday, Facebook announced it would be granting Page owners access to “topic data” which tells marketers and business owners what audiences are saying on Facebook about all sorts of topics including events, brands, and activities.

Obviously there are some privacy concerns with this type of data, but Facebook says all personal information is being withheld.

With topic data, fashion retailers can see what types and styles of clothing their customers are talking about, and businesses can gauge the public opinion on their brand.

This isn’t the first time marketers and business owners had access to this type of information, but previously they had to use third-party tools to get this level of insight. Facebook also claims that these tools frequently used sample sizes that were too small to be effective and argue it was “nearly impossible” these tools were accurate.

Advertisers should know there is no way to directly use this data to target ads, but it absolutely can be used to craft more effective ads and target them more accurately for your market.

 

Social media is all about crafting an image and that starts at the profile and cover photos. These pictures are the first things visitors see when they come to your profile, and it is essential to maintain a consistent image across social media. Unfortunately, trying to prepare your photos in the ideal sizes and specifications for the wide array of social media platforms can be a headache.

Every single social media site has their own specific sizes for images and many of the specs can seem almost random. Facebook requires 851px by 315px, while Google calls for 1080px by 608px and images on LinkedIn are supposed to be 646px by 220px. You can spend your time trying to come up with a mnemonic device to try to keep all the different image specs straight, but chances are your time is better spent elsewhere.

Thankfully, the team at Spredfast created a handy infographic which lays out the most recent photo specs for pretty much any social network you are likely to be on. The graphic details all the ideal photo sizes for profile pics and cover photos, as well as detailing the optimal sizes for posting photos to make sure cropping won’t ruin the image.

 Social Image Size Infographic

While Facebook may be the most popular social media platform, some brands are discovering Twitter can be just as effective for growing your business and turning followers into leads and sales. However, it isn’t always easy to start building a real fruitful presence on the site.

According to Search Engine Journal, only 34% of marketers on Twitter are successful at finding leads on Twitter. Does that mean the hugely popular service isn’t fertile land for marketing? Not necessarily. You just have to understand Twitter before you can expect to start finding good leads.

Too many companies just Tweet whatever they can think of without any sort of strategy. But if you take the time to learn the ropes and see what works and what doesn’t, you can start Tweeting with a purpose and drawing in loads of quality leads.

Over the weekend, HubSpot and Market Domination Media released this infographic filled with useful tips and statistics that can help you craft a game plan so you can turn Twitter into a lead generating machine with a little time and testing to find what works best for you.

 Twitter Conversions Infographic

The release of Google My Business was intended to make it easier for businesses to maintain a consistent appearance across all of Google’s services, but one feature was seriously lacking. While Google My Business allowed businesses to upload an image to their profile, the companies still had difficulty controlling which images would be used in various listings.

That is a serious problem when you are trying to establish a consistent brand presence online.

Screen-Shot-2015-02-23-at-2.24.26-PM-515x600

Today, Google announced a major update to Google my Business that finally gives companies some agency in their appearance across Google’s platform. As the announcement explains:

Starting today, you can tell us which image you’d like to appear when customers search for your business on Google. Just log in to Google My Business on the web or in the Android or iOS apps, and visit the Photos section. While you’re there, you can also give your business a fresh look online by updating your profile, logo and cover photos.

Google My Business Photos

The upgrade unifies Google’s three interfaces for images into one simple interface. There is no longer any guesswork in making sure your brand is always presented how you want it on the search engine.

Google Help Files explains the best practices for uploading photos for your business:

Your photos will look best on Google if they meet the following standards:

  • Format: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP
  • Size: Between 10KB and 5MB
  • Minimum resolution: 250px on the longest side for profile & logo photos; 720px on the longest side for other business photos
  • Aspect ratio: The longer dimension of the photo should be no more than four times the shorter dimension. Landscape photos look better than portrait photos on Google products. Panoramic photos may use different aspect ratios.
  • Quality: The photo should be in focus, well-lit, have no photoshop alterations, and no excessive use of filters. The image should represent reality.

Online reviews can be the deciding factor in the success of small businesses or companies that are just starting out, and yet many businesses ignore the single most powerful free form of marketing. This infographic from Web Republic breaks down the current trends and effects of reviews including:

  • Amazon is the leading review site in America and 42% of all its customers have left at least one review.
  • Other top US review sites include Google+, Yahoo, Yelp, and TripAdvisor
  • Yelp is the review site with the most global traffic
  • 84% of all consumers read online reviews, reading an average of 4-6 reviews before they begin to trust a business
  • 76% of customers are willing to pay more for hotels with better reviews.

How are you encouraging happy customers to leave reviews?

Online Reviews infographic

SEO is an essential part of growing your business online, but it can often seem impossible to keep up with the constantly changing trends and policies. With the never-ending changes coming from Google and the other major search engines, you could drive yourself crazy trying to react to every single update.

Thankfully, a recent infographic from CJG Digital Marketing breaks down the most important trends and changes coming for SEO in 2015. With these tips, you won’t have to fight to keep up to date with the latest changes because you’ll be prepared before they even happen.

 Top-8-SEO-Trends-to-Watch-Out-this-2015

Instagram LogoMany celebrities and popular internet figures were shocked last week when they lost thousands upon thousands of followers in the Instagram Rapture. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, as Instagram gave warning they would be deleting fake and spammy accounts, but the purge of useless accounts still caused an uproar across the social network.

Celebrities were the hardest hit, as Justin Bieber lost over 5 million followers, or 15% of his total followers. Kim Kardashian lost 1.3 million, but rapper Mase received the most embarrassing lost as his 1.6 million followers dropped to only 100,000 in under 20-minutes. His account was deleted quickly after.

Instagram was clear the purge would be coming in their announcement they had hit 300 million active followers. They noted spammy accounts had already been deactivated for violation of community and were not included in the count.

“When we remove accounts from Instagram that don’t follow our Community Guidelines, you may see a decrease in your follower count,” the company wrote in its blog post. “This shouldn’t affect engagement from authentic accounts that like and comment on your posts.”

Celebrities may still be reeling from their large drops in followers, but most marketers are celebrating and larger brands haven’t seen much of a change. For marketers, the deletion of spam accounts means better analysis of how many people are being reached with each post.

iphone-410324_640

A recent report from Chitika Insights shows the iPhone generates more traffic across both apps and the mobile web in North America than any other smartphone manufacturer. Perhaps surprisingly, its share of traffic was larger on the mobile web than across app usage.

For the study, Chitika analyzed two sets of data including half a billion mobile exchange impressions through their Cidewalk platform (for app traffic) and millions of ad impressions from the Chitika Ad Network (for web traffic).

Screen-Shot-2014-12-15-at-9.02.27-AM-690x600

While Android devices collectively make up 54% of app-based internet traffic throughout North America, Apple takes the largest individual share. Apple also generates more web traffic (52.5%) than all Android devices combined. In both instances, Apple leads the second most popular smartphone maker, Samsung, by approximately 20 points.

This may seem strange to many, as Google search is prominently featured and more deeply ingrained in Android devices, while the iPhone emphasizes its app store strongly. Chitika explains the interesting findings by saying:

It’s likely that Apple users, in aggregate, are simply more likely to use their browser throughout the course of a given day. Safari has regularly earned praise for its functionality on mobile, and, perhaps more importantly, Apple makes it the default browser for any link clicked on an iOS device. This familiarity may predispose iPhone users to more often trust in their browser when performing tasks, as opposed to finding and using an associated app.