With almost 80% of search queries coming from mobile platforms, Google has been implementing new ways to make the mobile search experience more streamlined and convenient for its users. One of the most drastic moves to facilitate this was the introduction of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
On an average, pages take longer to load on mobile than they do on the desktop. This is especially significant in the Indian context as Indians have the highest amount of data consumption in the world and access the internet primarily through their phones. If brands want to engage India’s next billion internet users, implementation of AMP will become one of the most crucial differentiators.
Unlike its direct competitor (Facebook Instant Articles), AMP is an open-source framework which is very easy to access. A page can be AMP-enabled by modifying the website’s HTML code with certain specified tags or by implementing a specialised JavaScript framework. But even if you don’t have any experience with coding, you can still implement AMP if you use a CMS platform like WordPress. Just by installing a Google AMP WordPress plugin which is easily available, you can make your page AMP-optimised and help it load faster.
Google initially launched AMP for static content-heavy sites such as blogs. Since an AMP page is a stripped down version of the original version, it improves readability for the user. Implementing AMP on blog pages can have several benefits for the reader and the site owner.
According to a study by Kissmetrics on How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line, loading time is one of the biggest factors contributing to bounce rate. Over 40% of those surveyed said they would leave a page if it took longer than 3 seconds to load. A study by Tractus looked into the effects just a 1-second delay in page load time can have on several key metrics. They found that bounce rates increased by 8.3% and page views decreased by 9.4%. This clearly shows that for a successful blog, you need more than just great content. You need an optimised page that improver a reader’s overall experience.
Implementing AMP on blog pages can be one of the most important ways to help your website perform better. When a page loads almost immediately, users are less likely to abandon the page. They are also more likely to explore your site further and click on other links within it. Below is a quick glimpse of one of our blogs, where you can see significant improvement in terms of time on site – just because of the AMP blog page.
When a website implements AMP, they are very likely to see an increase in page speed, page visits, dwell time and a reduction in overall bounce rates. Incidentally, these are also some of the main factors Google takes into consideration when ranking a page. In addition, ever since Google’s algorithm started prioritising mobile-optimised pages, the implementation of AMP could further help improve your website’s SEO.
Implementing AMP will also help your website gain more visibility. AMP-enabled pages have a lightning icon next to them which helps them stand out from the other results displayed. Users are also likely to seek out pages with this icon, knowing that it will load faster. All of these factors can help a website rank high on a search results page.
For content marketers, analytics is one of the best tools to understand user behaviour, what kind of content is working and where traffic is coming from. Tracking AMP pages is very easy as there are analytical tools available to help you track page visits, link clicks, conversions and more on AMP versions of your pages.
Page load speed is a critical factor in improving a user’s experience, especially when you are trying to drive conversions. Understanding the importance of this, Google launched AMP for landing pages. Brands can significantly improve the performance of their landing pages by implementing AMP.
If you run an e-commerce site or any other online business, leads or sales are most likely your number one priority. But if your website doesn’t load quickly, then you could be losing out on valuable customers. The same study by Tractus found that 30% of shoppers who have a bad experience with an online shopping website say that they will never visit that site again and that they will not wait more than 2 seconds for a website to load. So if you want to improve the quality of leads generated via digital, optimising your page speed is crucial.
Implementing AMP could be one of the best measures to create a landing page that converts. There has been shown to be a direct correlation between page load time and the number of conversions. If a page loads quickly and the customer is satisfied with their experience on it, they are much more likely to purchase a product or complete any other call to action.
If one of the main goals of your website is to monetise through ads, then implementing AMP could help you achieve this. This is primarily due to the difference in the way ads are showcased on an AMP-enabled page as compared to a regular page. Since implementing AMP trims all the unnecessary elements of your page and streamlines it, ads are displayed more prominently and with fewer distractions. This can increase the number of clicks on an ad displayed.
Background: India Home Health Care (IHHC) is a leading provider of home nursing and other healthcare services. They work in partnership with BAYADA Home Health Care to provide patients with registered nurses, visiting doctors, physical therapists and more from the comfort of their home.
Goal: India Home Health Care (IHHC) wanted to generate a higher number and quality of leads at a lower cost-per-lead (CPL).
Strategy: In order to achieve higher leads for IHHC, we decided to implement AMP for their landing pages. Since a majority of the leads for IHHC came through mobile, enabling AMP would have a strong impact. Google ads targeted towards potential clients redirected them towards an AMP-implemented landing page. As this would significantly reduce the load-time of these pages, we predicted that it could generate higher leads for IHHC.
Results: The implementation of AMP led to a higher number of leads generated as compared to any other pages on the site. The two most important results from this were:
As the number of mobile internet users in India and around the world continues to grow, making pages more mobile-friendly will become one of the biggest objectives for brands. Implementing AMP could be one of the most effective ways for brands to become more discoverable and ultimately, gain higher conversions, whether you are a real estate giant or a leading FMCG company. So do try it out and let us know the results you get!
As dramatic as it may sound, generic home pages are dying. Gone are the days when websites welcomed visitors with the same page whether you are a millennial in South East Asia or a retired businessman in Mexico. Just like how old-school drip marketing is being replaced with customised emailers and native apps are getting substituted by new-age progressive web apps, universal home pages are being upgraded to pages that are personalized as per the demographics of the audience, and nothing in the online space is the same anymore!
Ever since we hopped on to the bandwagon of the Internet, digital marketing has taken over the world of branding and advertising. The ease in which you can showcase your company and literarily reach out to the palms of viewers across the world is unfathomable. Keeping this strategy in mind, why would you want to show the same webpage to all your visitors when each one of them has different needs and expectations from your brand? Let’s take a look at the benefits of personalising your homepage and the different ways in which you can wow your website traffic till you ultimately convert them into loyal consumers.
A tailor-made home page will help in generating premium leads as the page will display what you specifically have to offer for each visitor. Attracting potential clients by showcasing types of content they will find engaging is the basis of digital marketing and personalised web pages do exactly that.
Through customised home pages, brands can welcome their online visitors with a personalised message. This triggers a unique user experience as you add a personal element to your page, assuring viewers that you have already hand-picked your services as per their preferences and requirements.
Personalised homepages also add value to your marketing strategy by widening your global reach. Since you can personalise pages based on the location, you can now easily target consumers with what is trending in that particular locality. This makes the content on the homepage more relatable for the visitor and adds to the possibility of them converting to your brand.
Apart from showcasing the brand and attracting target groups, websites also provide business owners with a plethora of other useful information to understand online traffic. From the location of the viewers and the time of peak traffic to the type of content most-consumed on the website, marketers can observe the patterns of activity and use this to their advantage. Let’s understand this concept better with a hypothetical situation. Consider yourself to be the owner of a B2B organisation which provides end-to-end HR services. A potential client has recently visited your website through a Facebook carousel ad and spent seven minutes going through your HR packages. The next time the individual visits your website, they will either have to manually search for the packages they were interested in or bounce back with a last minute change of mind. However, through a personalised homepage, the visitor will be welcomed with a customised message. This message will showcase the services and packages they had clicked through with an effective CTA to either buy the package or know more about it. The unique user experience will draw the user into your website and boost the lead generation of your B2B organisation.
Adobe India is one of the first Indian websites who has upgraded their website with a personalised homepage. Visitors around the world are initially welcomed with a homepage that displays a blurb on their next-gen Creative Cloud segment. There are two CTAs – one for individuals who are interested in the concept and the other one for businesses.
In order to explore the effectiveness of the personalised homepage, we clicked on the “Creativity and Design” tab and ventured into the field of photography by scrolling through the Creative Cloud Photography plan. After spending a good ten minutes on the website and surfing through the various plans available for individuals, businesses, students and universities, we clicked on the Adobe icon in the top left corner to go back to the homepage.
If the Adobe website had a generic homepage, one would expect the same page to show up as discussed above. However, since the website has a personalised home page, we were welcomed with a customised page which helped us continue from where we left. In this case, since we had browsed through the various Creative Cloud Photography plans earlier, we were welcomed with the blurb “Ready to buy?” followed by a CTA which helps us with choosing a plan as per our preferences.
As you can see in the above image, the blurb about the Creative Cloud is still present, but you also have a personalised message on the plans you were interested in earlier.
Personalised home pages work as an excellent marketing strategy for B2C companies and social media platforms as well. In a quest to provide consumers with what they are searching for, personalised home pages read the IP address of the visitors and categorise them as per the location. The visitors are then welcomed with topics and concepts that are trending in their locality or that are the most searched for in the region.
Let’s take the example of Youtube to understand this theory better. Youtube has personalised their homepage as per the location of the visitors and showcases all the trending videos in the region.
As you can see in the image above, Youtube viewers in India are welcomed with a series of trending videos that include snippets from the regional entertainment industry. The ads on the page are also targeted to the audience based on the location of the guest.
The image above is the same homepage viewed from Dubai. As you can notice, the URL entered is the same, but the content on the page is different. In this homepage, the trending videos are based on the popular activities of the region. They also include videos in Arabic – the regional language of Dubai. Additionally, the advertisements on YouTube are entirely different from the ones displayed on the homepage when viewed from India.
Big names in the digital space like Adobe and Youtube are already leveraging the benefits offered by the adaptive nature of personalised homepages. But, what about small-scale businesses and start-ups? The best part about this new-age concept is that you can personalise your homepage one step at a time. It is not a go-big-or-go-home kind of situation.
For example, we, at Social Beat, recently explored the idea of personalised home pages by customising our website as per location. With our headquarters in Chennai and regional offices at Mumbai and Bangalore, we decided to start by customising the address in the “Get in touch” tab as per the location the visitor is at.
As seen above, if you visit our homepage from Chennai, the “Get in touch” tab in the footer will display our Chennai address.
The same homepage displays the Bangalore address when you log in from Bangalore.
There are a wide range of tools available out there to personalise your homepage based on a multitude of integrations like Google Analytics, Hubspot and Wordpress. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
With this tool, your homepage will be personalised based on a variety of factors such as geographic location, data from their social media profile and CRM information, to name a few. You can also opt for a free trial or schedule a demo as per your preferences.
Evergage focuses on enhancing visitor engagement by providing them with a tailor-made user experience. Visitors are welcomed with more relevant offers and appropriate content which is guaranteed to help in lead conversions and customer success stories.
Apart from these tools, you can also check out Bound, Convert and Optimizely that are brilliant in examining your traffic and providing visitors with unmatched customer experience.
Now that you have a better idea about personalised homepages and the vital role they play in visitor engagement and lead generation, its time you upgrade your company’s website with this ground-breaking technology and stay ahead in the ever-lasting race of digital marketing.
Contact us at Social Beat and leverage the multitude of benefits a personalised homepage can bring to your business.
If you are running a business online, you should know by now that generating leads is everything. Lead generation is the single most important aspect of digital marketing that helps your business grow.
If you are looking to capture more targeted leads through digital media, one of the main things that you would need is a well optimised, highly targeted landing page. Still not convinced? Here’s an example!
Conversion Rate Experts, world's leading agency for conversion rate optimisation (CRO), helped Moz, then SEOmoz, generate $1,000,000 million with just one landing page that had an alluring call to action. What's more? This revenue was generated by the fantastic landing page and few emails within four months.
You can read the complete case study here.
One of the takeaways from the above case study is that improved user experience helps in lead generation.
So, are you looking to improve the user experience of your landing pages and, in turn, increase your lead generation? Read on!
Designing and managing the perfect landing page
Consider your landing page as a system that will convince your page visitors to become your customers. A well-designed landing page, by itself, can help increase lead generation and conversion. Here are some tips to create an appealing landing page.
Instead of a typical headline, which screams "buy me," use an enchanting headline that would garner your visitors' attention.
For example, a landing page headline like this – Your One Stop for a Beautiful Kitchen – would interest the visitors a lot more than headlines that talk only about selling.
This is easier said than done. How can you possibly understand someone whom you hardly know? However, understanding your prospective audience and designing the page keeping them in mind is absolutely necessary.
In terms of design, a good idea would be to have a quick A/B testing done and experiment with heat maps on your site. Analyse the results and rework on the design perspective if necessary.
If you are creating a landing page to get your visitors to download your content, one way to do that is to research on what people are searching for in your domain and offer them that. Keeping the target audience in mind, we built a landing page for one of our esteemed clients, Casagrand. Casagrand is one of Chennai’s leading real estate developers with premium projects completed in and around the city. Since their target audience mainly consisted of potential home buyers, we created a handy e-book titled, “Chennai Home Buyers Guide” which consisted of useful tips and suggestions to make the process of buying a home easy and hassle-free. We created a landing page in which visitors had to fill in their details for a free copy of the e-book. This strategy was a win-win for both the customers and our client as the customers walked away with a detailed e-book on buying a home and Casagrand just got a lead of a potential home buyer who is looking for projects to invest in.
You might be tempted to put all the information you have on the landing page. However, you must understand that the landing page design has only one purpose to serve - to get users to click on your call-to-action (CTA).
When you overload the page with too much information, it might have an adverse effect as it might become daunting to someone reading it for the first time. Understand that most users are going to read your landing page content and see the design for the first time. They must be able to grab the information they are looking for from the website. That’s when they will become potential customers for your business.
Furthermore, highlight the major benefits of your service or product on the landing page in a significant and striking manner. This will appeal to visitors and persuade them to become your customers.
Here’s an example of a landing page that is to the point.
This landing page scrolls through six sections with each section describing information that users would like to know. In the image shown above, the section project info has listed all the efficient and important project information in the form of bullets; this would be easy for people to read and understand quickly.
To accomplish a task efficiently, you must use the right tool. As the good old saying goes, “You can use a screwdriver to pound in nails, but it's a lot harder.” You don’t have to do it the hard way always. Understand that sometimes the right way can be easy too.
There are lots of simple landing page creation tools out there, and each one is unique. You must analyse and pick the right tools for you. Some of the tools that we recommend are:
Instapage – it’s a simple, hassle-free landing page tool. It’s a drag-and-drop software tool that has a lot of professional web design templates.
Unbounce – This is another drag-and-drop software tool. It’s quite simple and recommended for beginners.
LeadPages – One of the most well-known landing page creator tools available online is LeadPages. Most top bloggers and businesses use this tool.
“A picture is worth a thousand words” – This good old saying holds good, especially while creating high-converting landing pages.
Imagine reading the below-mentioned blog page with zero visuals! Tough, isn't it? Even a blog needs images and other forms of visual support, so landing pages must definitely be visually intense.
It is always a good idea to use images, videos, 360-degree photos/videos, infographics, maps, etc. Visuals help users to understand your page quicker. Additionally, having an image or video on your landing page leaves a more enduring impression on users’ minds than written content. Check out our blog on the type of content your target audience will find engaging for a detailed understanding of how content marketing can make your brand trend.
Another visual element that matters a lot is the font that you use; use fonts that are catchy and don’t come across as too overpowering.
If you think that you can simply use some opt-in or CTA form and gain leads, you are absolutely wrong. The type of information you put in your CTA form and the way you design it play a major role in increasing conversions. For example, instead of simply asking someone to sign up to your page, you can ask them to sign up to get newsletters or sign up to get daily tips. Also, captions like “connect with us for…” may work well in increasing sign-ups and conversions.
Using real-time customer testimonials is a great way to increase the credibility of your business. Reviews by customers will definitely create a positive image about your business to first-time visitors of your page, and this might, in turn, help in converting them into your customers. It's a proven fact that customer testimonials improve sales. This option could be left out, for the time being, if you are a new business.
Last but not the least, following up with your leads or subscribers is important. Once you have designed a landing page by keeping all these aspects in your mind, you can definitely expect quite a significant number of leads generated from the landing page. Once that happens, the next step is to convert your subscribers into customers. One way of doing that is to call them up on the numbers provided and talk to them about your business. A subtle way is to send them emails.
However, while sending emails, you must not restrict to sending promotional emails or regular newsletters. Alternatively, it is advisable to send your subscribers a series of crafted emails that will appeal to them. At times, include details about deals and offers, but don't make this a practice. For more insights, check out our blog on the different ways email marketing can work for you.
Never be afraid of sending more emails. However, refrain yourself from sending emails that follow a standard template. The more you send personalised or crafty emails, the more are the chances of converting your subscribers into customers.
Managing your business and marketing it digitally consumes equal, or at times, even more, time, money, and energy when compared to its traditional counterpart. By creating an influential and captivating landing page, you are investing in a driving force to convert your visitors to potential clients.
The principle of User Experience has not changed in the past few decades; our approach to UX, on the other hand, is constantly evolving. User experience is the means, not the end to a problem; the process is never ending. The art of balancing user needs and brand message is an important element. We already have many trends rolling out in pace with the technology, and it all boils down to knowing what to use when.
In the race to catch up with the latest trends and continuing to do what exists, we forget the most important aspect – users. It sounds like UX 101, but this is where many designs lose vision. We forget to find out what the users need and instead assume what they want. As a result, most websites look alike and most experiences feel the same. One may argue that it is efficient and gets the job done. I agree, but what you haven’t tried out may get greater results. Grab the better one, always.
Do you really need a compulsory registration, does your customer have to go through 5 pages before buying a product, and does that information about the company founders on the home page help in any way? Your average user probably does not. The definitive answers to these can be found with some user research, but it’s important to ask these questions. One such case in point was when we designed a simple, no-scroll landing page for a real-estate client. The users had only the most important information presented to them without the frills. The main CTA on the mobile version was a callback feature, which encouraged users to drop just their numbers, without giving out much personal information in an enquiry form.
Rather than add a feature because the competitors do it or because it helps with ROI, we need to achieve the same without turning off the user. Find creative ways to add new dimensions to the user journey, a perspective for every type of user.
With technology advancing each day and the number of devices multiplying, we have a greater challenge to cater to every member of the community. Crafting experiences that are inclusive to all can be a challenge, and the key to achieve that is by understanding that there is no single approach to every problem.
There are plenty of avenues to bring in more users, increase conversions and make more money for the clients. The need of the hour for many businesses is to take it further and this is where UX fits in nicely. Instead of concentrating on what the majority of the customer base is thinking; we need to start looking at what the minority wants. In many mobile versions of our websites, we come across devices that are used by less than 15% of the users but we have ensured that they have a similar experience of browsing as the rest. Customizing to each device size is a little work, but it yields good results in the long run. Begin by understanding how the bottom 20% of the users behave and find ways to enhance the experience for them. Tap into all of your demographics and include the lesser-used browsers; the aim is to have a consistent user experience for all.
Personalization is important; users want to feel that businesses are directly talking to them. A good design gives them that without compromising on brand message and end-goal.
The last few years saw design minimalism in websites and apps – hamburger menus, single color & typeface, flat icons and hidden sections (the footer especially). This approach clearly works because the style is simple without distracting the user. It is a linear thought process, taking the users from Point A to Point B without making them think about anything else.
While minimalism will be around for a long time, it needs to be handled without being overdone. In the name of de-cluttering many websites and apps have dumbed down their journey so much that users feel powerless. No one likes to be told what to do and it is something that we should avoid. It is crucial to let the users decide how they want to fulfill their needs; the job of user experience is to ensure that the process is coherent and seamless. Gently push, don’t shove.
It can be as simple as having more options during the checkout process – can the customer continue as a guest user, can the customer login through any of social media accounts instead of a compulsory registration or Gmail signup? Test different options to see what works for your business and implement them in the longer run.
We are surrounded by best practices and latest trends that come out every week. They are good to implement but don’t get too caught up in them, always ask if it’s the right one for your user base. We need interfaces that are efficient & data-driven, not just what is in. Create memorable experiences that would bring a user back and make them remember you for a long time.
Understanding User experience and its importance
The father of UX - Don Norman defines user experience as a science that encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services and its products. User experience takes more than just defining it. Let's relate it to the real model.
What makes shopping fun? Most of you would say - ‘buying the product’. I agree, but not entirely. Buying the product is the last step of the shopping process. What led to buying is your positive experience at the store, walking down the different sections, stacked with a variety of designs and then finding the perfect take away. Not to forget, the billing experience!
Let us map the real-world model to your online experience on a business website – right from getting to your website through a certain landing page, to reading your content; from navigating the site to finally taking a conversion action, everything counts as user experience.
Research studies on UX and A/B tests on websites have led to pointing out thrust factors that impact the experience of a user on your website.
UX Factors that lead to conversion
Let us see how we can build a good website design below:
1) Product Pitch: The pitch of a website sketches out the business identity. Content that speaks out about how the business goals are intended to benefit their customers, caters positively to the user’s experience. This is the part of experience where tone of the website builds trust and communication with the user. A strong selling pitch can boost your sales.
2) Comfortable and Intuitive navigation:
Comfort and intuitiveness are key factors that lead a user to conversion. Even if you perfectly speak out how good your product is, if a user fails to see the interface as friendly, intuitive and quick - they are likely to bounce.
3) Content & Aesthetics:
Neil Patel says that great content is definitely the reason behind returning visitors and he quickly adds that good content is valuable only when it's readable and engaging. That’s where aesthetics comes in. Content becomes friendlier when the formatting stands out in a way that grip the user's attention. A good use of contrast colors for backgrounds and text can make a piece of content interesting to read; adding images that are crisp and meaningful, makes your content 10x; visual cues using text formatting, colors, icons can guide the user about your site;
Everything that brings about a conversion like important content, call to action, contact information etc. should be made to stand out by using principles of aesthetics.
In addition to SEO, Google algorithm is emphasizing on returning results that have an excellent user experience. So it's important to always look back at how your website is doing from the UX perspective.
Here’s an excellent example to demonstrate how the thrust factors contribute to providing an experience that builds a trust relationship between the customer and the product.
Gehna, a brand that sells stunning unique Indian jewellery have made their online presence valuable by providing a user-friendly platform for online shopping and jewellery customization.
Some of the reasons why Gehna’s landing page User eXperience ticks:
1) The first impact this website makes, is with its aesthetics. Clean layout with enticing images, interesting fonts and color balance, which ultimately leads to a pleasant experience.
2) The content on this page is kept optimum without distractions and has excellent customer value. Studies in cognitive psychology state that a user is prone to action whenever he finds all the necessary information around a CTA. The banner on this page impresses the user by laying out their available services in a dignified way. This is the point which engages the user and leads to conversions.
3) By giving their users an insight into their work, customization process and user testimonials, they have built trust with their prospective customer.
To sum it up, with their unique propositions, well organized content and evident CTA’s, they have provided the customer an impactful experience that bags conversions. I urge you to remember, a great landing page UX leads to the quickest conversions.
If you notice in entirety, it’s the little things that tend to add up in the big way. What demonstrates this is the power of a well-designed form with a proximately placed CTA
Every CTA leads a step closer to conversion. Once a prospective customer decides on a product/business, the only thing in between, is the experience of making it happen. Be it a registration, purchase checkout or a reservation - more often, the last step towards a conversion is completing a web form. UX is indeed impactful here.
To understand this better, let’s take a look at a few insights from conversionXL’s Peep Laja
The key is to ask only for relevant information and skip the research questions. This means that a 5-field form out performs a 9-field form by approximately 30%. Research studies based on usability ROI, has seen that every time a form was simplified, businesses saw huge increases in their conversion rates.
With a great service pitch, an eye-catching image and simple fill-out form, Pamperazi clearly tells you what you’re up to.
UX is so impactful that it can break or make your business revenue
Statistics from experiments conducted by various organizations has shown the tremendous impact that UX has had on sales/revenue. Let us explore a few examples & case studies
Call to Actions
According to Jared M Spool, founder of user interface engineering, changing a CTA button on a checkout form increased a major e-commerce website’s annual revenue by $300 million. In fact studies even show that a prominent CTA button right next to some related content can increase conversions from 2.78% to about 19%.
Here is a great example of Casa Grande’s Aldea. It adds prominence and proximity to the CTA.
1) Providing sliding images of the exteriors and interiors of the apartments.
2) Displaying the amenities and perks of the apartments, evidently
Having given a perfect picture of what the user is signing up for, a CTA is provided right in place for users to make further enquiries. This is a high-converting UX.
Visual Design
A well balanced design is about proper use of page elements and colors. Visually balanced designs have a positive impact on the user experience.
LaundryBoy is a winning design that puts together a great visual balance. With their website themed around blue shades, they’ve made their CTA completely stand out in a balanced contrast. Would you ever believe that a visually balanced design could lead to a 25% higher conversion rate.
Practice of Decluttering
Your landing page will always face a 5 second test to grab the user’s attention. The impact made here brings about the conversion. The Weather Channel wanted to turn people into premium subscribers. They decluttered their homepage and had a single subscription action with their features enlisted
Listen to the Users voice
Users, be it retained customers or prospective customers, have come into the habit of letting businesses know what is causing the friction. Valuing their feedback yields huge difference in your conversions.
Creating a new sign up page based on user feedback, raised the revenue for SEO Moz by additional $1million.
Your users are adapting to trending designs, which is why your designs has to update as per contemporary standards or be even better.
With a great UX - make them an offer they can’t refuse
A lot of research has been done around the impact of design on content. Recent studies on cognitive psychology states that people are moving from text-driven content towards visually mediated content.
Content is more strong and easily assimilated, when accompanied by informing design/images.
Olympia Grande makes the right use of content and images to showcase the strength of their residential project. By placing prime information like project overview, cost and enquiry in a compact space of the user focus, they’ve got the user’s attention. That's a winning strategy for quick conversions!
UX impacts SEO which in turn impacts your sales
A good UX makes your website accessible, useful, usable, findable, credible and valuable. All of this impacts the SEO positively, leading to a good ranking on search engines. A website that is optimized with quality content and good experience, will gain customer traffic and succeed at customer retention.
It is wise to learn from others mistakes; it’s a faster path to move ahead. Bad UX is mostly about doing the basic functionalities wrong. So in addition to demonstrating what works, let me point out what doesn’t.
Common Issues in UX that break sales
Research studies in UX have shown that 88% of the visitors do not visit a website that has given them a bad experience.
As you see, UX is an integral part of a business website bridging your customer to your business. Understanding the usage pattern of your users gives an insight into their experience, learning what part of your website frustrates or confuses them helps incorporate some necessary changes to the website to get better conversions.
With a lot of companies investing in UX, it is evident that the user’s experience with a website is having a soaring impact on the sales and revenue.
Here’s wishing your user eXperience a good health!
Live Chat is an efficient communication medium for proactively engaging customers and converting them into leads. This can be done at ease with the help of well trained agents using some of the many Live Chat tools avalable. However, deciding which one to pick be a bit confusing. Hence, we have put together a list of the 10 best live chat softwares for your website that can help boost sales and service your customers.
Before we go into the details and the USPs of each of the live chat softwares available, here's a quick comparison of the features these platforms have to offer and their pricing:
USP: Social Discovery to help better understand the customer
Facebook ,Twitter and LinkedIn icons are bound with the chat option and if the agent feels that he/she can connect with the potential customer through social networking sites the customer can give a friend request or follow the customer directly from the chat area. This feature is called as ‘social discovery’, which is a unique feature and it also helps the agent to know about the customers better and further chats can be made more customisable. The details of the customers can be seen only after accepting the chat requests. Apart fom this, Snap Engage also allows the agents to remotely control the user's browser and help them navigate to the right pages quickly. Also, tthere are blogs written in their website which helps the agent to enhance his/her skill to be a star agent. Unlimited access to sites is provided by Snap Engage. CRM and help desk can be integrated.
PRICING
The basic price is $60 in which 4 agents can be employed.
USP: Competitive Pricing
Zopim is an affordable, easy to use Live Chat option. When you engage with a customer, a separate pop up doesn’t appear on the screen for every customer, instead all the windows and controls are integrated with the dash board they offer, unlike many other chat options. Automated chats are possible so that you can reach out to customers, before they complete their conversation. Integrating with Zen Desk can help in multi-channel support like emails and social media. Chat history is available by which it becomes easy for the agent to know the customer.
PRICING
Free version is available and the basic version costs for $11 (single agent) per month.
USP: Customizable GUI
The customisable graphical user interface GUI makes Olark stand out from the rest. When it is Christmas time, it gets updated to the Christmas theme. Every celebration can be more fun with the GUI it offers. The logo of the organisation can also be incorporated in the paid versions of Olark. After every chat, rating can be given for the chat from which instant feedback of the conversation through live chat can be noted. Another noteworthy component of Olark is ‘savethecart’ feature by which the agent can know what is the product that is stored in the cart and based upon this the chat can be done and targeting becomes easy.
PRICING
The basic version costs $15 (single agent) whereas the free version limits in the number of chats.
USP: Geo targeting and content targeting
The geographical location of the website visitor can be tracked along with the content what they are looking for so that even the greeting by the agent can be of the language which the viewer follows which gives a personal connect to the user and the user is more likely to buy the product. Keeping track of the content can also help in product that can be promoted through chat as a follow up. Unlimited access to sites and can be managed centrally. There are three versions like other chats that include basic business, smart business and enterprise Omni.
PRICING
The basic price is $29.95 and free version is available with limited features
USP: Integration with G-talk and Instant Messenger
Ogg Chat can be integrated with G-Talk and Instant messenger. Separate desired departments can be created and operators can be added to the chat. Every operator can include a schedule chart to keep a track on the pending schedule. Some data are available that can be used to analyse like brief chat history but however real time monitoring of the viewers, usage of canned messages is a considerable setback.
PRICING
The basic version of the product costs $9.95 and all plans include a 14-day free trial
USP: Real time translation
Internationalisation is possible as it offers real time translation feature. Languages are translated instantly which makes it easy to use in non-English speaking nations. The admin interface isn’t much cluttered. It is a simple, user friendly admin which the consumer may like to use. Prioritising the mails become easy with the email management system that is offered. All the information about the clients can be viewed in one click, but a separate window opens up every time which may be tough to view for a series of clients.
PRICING
A 30 day free trial is available with constraints and the basic version of LiveHelpNow chat costs $21 per month
USP: Quick response through the Mobile application
Users find the mobile application very useful as the agents can respond to the queries from any place. However, the user interface doesn’t support any other language other than English which is seen as a drawback. Live Chat tickets can be administered through e-mail. Service Level Agreements are complex when compared to other chat options. Kayako allows the user to create a macro which enables automatic response to some of the basic and repeated queries as it reduces the response time of the agent.
PRICING: The basic version of the Kayako Live Chat costs $24 and three versions of Kayako are called as Case, Fusion and Engage
USP: Ease of file sharing
Casengo has one inbox for all the chats, emails and social media posts. The cloud based application allows the responders to post their answers in a quicker phase than other options. The customers of online retailers and other small businesses have the response in a very fast time period. Most of the live chats, attachments can be sent only through downloadable links, where as the file itself can be sent as an attachment, however sending multiple attachments is not an easy task using Casengo.
PRICING:
The basic version costs $9.65 (9Euros), Free version can be used in which enables only the chat option
COMM100LIVECHAT
USP: Guaranteed 100 percent uptime
Comm100livechat, as the name suggests this live chat claims to produce 100 percent uptime. A typing indicator allows agents to see what their customers are typing before they submit their message. With 'MaximumOn' technology, the software also ensures that your live chat program runs continuously without interruptions, despite failures at both server and data center levels. Chats can also be extended onto mobile platforms; including on iOS and Android devices.A drag-and-drop file transfer feature allows agents to share a file that provides all the requested information. However, no real time translation is available and no co-browsing option is available.
PRICING
The basic version of the live chat costs $29 and there are different versions based on the Shared Server and dedicated Server
USP: An all in one live chat with email integration
If your business is a small firm and is looking for a one stop solution that integrates e-mail with your live chat options, website live chat can serve your business. It supports till 20 multiple chats with quick tabs to enable swift performance. The user interface helps to edit the interface without coding. Internal operator chat that helps to interact internally when a query hard to manage by an agent can be used to clear his doubts.
PRICING
The basic version of the live chat costs $20 and there are different versions available with different pricing.
At a networking meet last week, I was not surprised to hear a couple of interesting questions thrown around. Some of them which I got hold of, are as follows:
Firstly, let me start off with the difference between the mobile website and a mobile responsive website.
A mobile responsive website design means that no matter what the screen size is, the content always optimizes for the corresponding screen size. Thus, the website can be viewed using any device with any screen size like mobile, tablet, etc. This eliminates the need for cumbersome panning or resizing the website when viewing on different devices.
Alternatively, a mobile website means that you have a separate entity built for a specific devices’ screen size only. Try opening it in a differently-sized device and you would immediately want to check out other competitors in the industry with a better user-friendly website rather than suffering anxiety, eye-strain and blood pressure trying to work your way through the website.
This inspired me to have a look at the Indian companies that do not have a mobile-responsive website and I was pretty surprised to see that a lot of the big names also, do not have an optimized mobile web strategy. Some of them are discussed below:
The advantages of moving to a responsive web design are many, right from getting mobile traffic to your website to making the website adaptive to the future devices. There are companies that do have dedicated apps but again, not everyone is expected to have the app installed on their device. Instead, a responsive website can allow them to browse without frills. Companies can either opt to brace up for the future or be ready to lose up to half of their traffic in the future in the absence of a mobile responsive web design.
Feel free to reach out to us in case of any feedback or comments at team@socialbeat.in.
With paid advertising getting more expensive by the day, SEO is a critical part of any digital media plan. Not many businesses in India are doing a good job at SEO, which leaves an opportunity for young businesses to capitalise on the growing digital market. So, where does one start? Below are the key aspects of SEO of executing an SEO plan.
1. Pre-work to SEO: The first step is to analyse competition and where one stands relative to them. Importantly, one needs to finalise the target keywords by combining data on (a) focus areas for the business and (b) intensity of competition for those keywords. Google Adwords Keyword Tool it the best way to research relevant keywords. It's a good practise to place some paid ads to test the effectiveness of the keywords. Tools like SEOMOZ are also useful in assessing competition and their strategy.
2: On-page SEO: Once the keywords are finalised, the website needs to be made as informative as possible for the consumer and for search engines. For the search engine, the critical factors are
Search engines value what consumers value - which is, relevant and original content. Professional reviews or reviews from consumers, blogs, articles, case studies will add significant value to a website.
3. Off-page SEO: Given the intense competition, on page SEO is usually not enough to start ranking high. Especially in India, some sectors, such as ecommerce, have seen a lot of off page link building. A link is considered a "vote" by google, about a websites popularity. While it's easy to go for "paid links", the path is very tricky and businesses deploying such strategies have been severely penalised by google in the past. Building links from high quality sources (relevant blogs, mass media, consumer blogs and social media) is a much more viable and long term strategy. Finally, For local businesses, it critical to rank high on Google Places. More about that in a future column.
No discussion on SEO is complete without understanding how search engines rank websites. The key factors they look at are:
SEO continues to be a excellent customer acquisition channel and any business investing in it will see returns in 3-6 months, depending on the competition in the category.
An interesting article written on this subject highlights why many small and medium businesses have not been able to leverage their websites and online presence.
The first and most important thing is that the websites are not responsive or compatible across platforms (PC, tablet, smartphones, mobile etc). Consumers are increasingly browsing the internet on the go even in India. This means the websites should be accessible and viewable on any device.
The second finding from the study is even more revealing. Almost 80% of businesses do not feature their social media properties on their website. Social virality starts only when there is a critical mass in social media. Only if website users and traffic from the website is targeted towards social media, the critical mass can be reached.
The study also shows that not all websites call out the email address, phone number or contact form (if necessary for the business) clearly on the homepage or header/footer. Print and TV advertising have already shown us that a strong call for action is required and the same is true for the web as well.
Finally, websites seem to be lacking Search Engine Optimisation. Most websites have over 35-40% traffic coming from search engines and now increasingly from social media, emails and affiliate marketing. This means search engines and Google in particular should be the first place to start for building traffic to the website. Its not just off page SEO that is missing, but basic onpage SEO that is lacking in many websites.
So when are you going to move to a a search engine optimised responsive website with a clear call to action?
