Category: Digital Marketing

5 Ways to Create Customer-Centric Content

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

In the modern era, the future of a brand lies in the hands of online communities. The collective voice of online consumers is so powerful that it can either make a brand successful or bring it down to nothingness. This has been the trend of marketing today and we’ve all seen such events unfold before us.

How many times have you come across a Facebook post wherein customers are roasting a particular brand for an oversight or mistake? This may not result in the end of a company but it can deeply affect its brand image. In short, brands must be wary of the voice of online customers and strive to leverage it to their own benefit.

One of the most popular yet challenging ways to gain customers’ trust is through customer-centric content. Such content helps to position your brand as an authoritative and credible leader in the market.

Now, let us understand what customer-centric content is?

In traditional forms of marketing, content is focused on putting the brand in the forefront. It is aimed at generating brand awareness, website traffic, and driving leads through the sales funnel.

Customer-centric content, on the other hand, targets these objectives through a more subtle approach. Some of the characteristics of this form of content are:

  • It is based on data collected from the target audience
  • It provides readers value without requesting for anything in return
  • It is customized according to certain user preferences
  • It is in sync with a brand’s customer-centric approach

Let us now look at 5 different ways of creating customer-centric content:

1. Create Customer Personas

Customer personas help in creating content that is relevant for the buyers. It is basically a guideline to understand the real customer, their job titles, their interests and preferences and education level. There are several free persona templates that startup brands can use.

Once customer personas are created, set out to establish your marketing message, your mission statement, and the possible reactions of the audience to your value proposition. Keep referring to these personas during content development to ensure that your communication remains relevant.

2. Interview the Audience

In order to understand the audiences’ mindset or fill out personas accurately, you must collect information and data. Interviewing the target audience is one of the best ways to acquire data. This could be a face-to-face interview or an online survey created using Google Forms.

Take a look at your customer personas to understand what kind of information you need and frame the questions of the interview/survey accordingly. You can maximize the response rate for your survey by offering a discount or incentive for responding to it.

3. Search Engine Optimization

This is a widely recognized approach and you must utilize it in the best manner possible. Creating consumer-centric content involves a presence on platforms that are used to find solutions to their problems. Search engines are one of the most popularly used discovery platforms for consumers. The tricks and tactics for this technique are easily available online.

You must also identify keyword opportunities on the basis of what consumers are searching for. AdWords Keyword Planner is a tool that can help to create the right content for the right customer using the right keywords. Make use of this tool efficiently as it will give you an insight into the topics that your customers are talking about.

4. Focus on the Content Format

The content format is dependent on customer demographics. For instance, if you are reaching out to professionals, you must utilize whitepapers, case studies or research reports. Similarly, if you are trying to engage with teenagers, your content must take the form of quizzes or humour.

Furthermore, the consumption channel will also vary on the basis of your target audience. This focuses on the social media platforms and an understanding of where your target audience is active.

5. Eliminate the Jargon

Certain brands tend to utilize jargon in their communication. Remember that this does not impress the audience since they are unable to comprehend what you are trying to say. Always keep the language simple and easy to understand. Keep it concise and straight to the point.

Customer-centric content is of immense importance today and no brand can attain success till they start focusing on this aspect of marketing. Without resourceful and engaging content, a brand cannot place itself in the customer’s mind and will eventually die out of the market.

How Chatbots Can Help Marketing and Sales

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Chatbots have significantly developed in the last few years, owing to the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) that controls them. They now serve as sophisticated tools and can assist you in automating several business processes.

Apart from being efficient at handling customer care queries, chatbots can help to boost marketing initiatives and drive the customer smoothly through the sales funnel. Given below are some of the ways in which chatbots fit into your marketing strategy:

1. A Personalized Experience for your Target Audience

Interacting with someone who identifies you by name impacts the nature of the conversation greatly. Chatbots align with social media and gather information about every individual they come across. Chatbots respond to queries accurately and further provide shopping advice based on users’ interest and behaviour.

2. Keeps the User Engaged

Chatbots are successful in engaging as well as retaining your customer. This is because, unlike other marketing efforts, chatbots have the capacity to entertain your audience for long. For instance, a video has the ability to engage the target audience  but once it is over, the users’ interest in you is also over. On the other hand, a chatbot grabs the users’ attention, captures more information while interacting with them and sends personalized as well as engaging content relevant to your brand, product, and services.

3. Enhances Your Audience Network

Chatbots mostly exist on social media platforms. This means that they are able to reach vaster audiences and can tap larger demographics for your brand. They can be integrated with different messaging applications giving the customer more avenues to connect with you. As a result, you are in a better position to enhance sales with newer opportunities and prospects.

4. Capture Customer Feedback

A chatbot makes it easier for you to collect feedback from your customers. Generally, people do not like to answer questions or complete a survey if there is no incentive involved in it. However, a chatbot subtly approaches the customer gathering feedback in the form of questions through conversations.

Furthermore, by installing the right machine learning tools, chatbots can analyze the data that has been received, giving you more insight into how you can improve your marketing strategies. You can focus more on your customers’ needs and develop an inbound marketing plan which helps to generate leads and sales.

5. Develop Relevant Messaging

A brand’s messaging is crucial to make or break its image. If customers constantly receive emails, newsletters, and other notifications, they tend to get irritated. Chatbots analyze the data that has been collected and send out customized and relevant communication to users through social media. This way, consumers only receive the information they are interested in and seek to know more about the brand.

6. Make Brand Interactions Fun

We all know that chatbots deliver quality information to customers but what they also do is make communication fun. This means that your marketing efforts make a lasting impact on your consumer and increase the number of users visiting your website. Links to relevant blog posts and other content pieces can be shared for consumers to interact with the brand.

7. Proactively Reach Out to Customers

Brands generally like to adopt a passive approach. They only communicate with a user when they have been contacted. A chatbot, on the other hand, welcomes the user when they visit your website or social media page and inform them of their availability. You appear to be more proactive this way and therefore enhance your brand’s reputation, increase interactions and sales numbers.

8. Make the Sales Process Smoother

Leads must be nurtured to help buyers successfully complete their sales journey. However, this can be a time-consuming process. Chatbots enable you to collect important information and accordingly send personalized messages to the users.

A chatbot-based lead-nurturing campaign can be made extremely successful by capturing user data and performing split testing on the messages you create for the target audience. This approach helps you to understand the right marketing strategy and really nurture every lead that comes your way through the website or social media profiles.

Conclusion

Two-way communication via messaging applications has become the ideal way of interacting with customers and reaching out to them. This is exactly why chatbots are becoming the need of the hour. A chatbot integrated into your marketing strategy can help you gather information about prospects, personalize marketing efforts, improve target audience reach, and generate more sales and revenue through social media.

6 Mistakes Small Businesses Should Do Away With

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For the purpose of running a business successfully, you need to have expertise in finance, accounting, business law, marketing, strategic development and many other fields. As your business keeps growing, your responsibilities also keep expanding. There is a huge amount of hard work and risk in any business you run and that’s why many businesses shut down within the first 18 months.

Here are 6 common mistakes small businesses should do away with:

1. No Space for Ego – For a business to be successful, you have to make several right decisions. It is difficult to take the correct decision and choose the best all the time. Mostly, the biggest blockage to making the best choice is not lack of skills or knowledge but the business owner’s ego and stubbornness on his/her thoughts.

Sometimes business owners take a decision depending on their gut feeling without doing any proper research and survey. It is advised to stay updated always and think with an open mind. This is extremely important for a successful business.

2. Be sure before hiring – A hiring manager should hire wisely. Hiring a wrong person could lead to a big waste of time, effort, and funds. Usually, in a small business, only the hiring manager is responsible for deciding and hiring.

You should not limit the interview of the candidate only up to the hiring manager. There should be several rounds of interviews. They could be written or on computer or face to face. You have to keep in mind how well is this resource going to fit into the team. Make sure that the candidate is a complete fit in the company before hiring.

3. Spend Proper Time in Planning –A business owner starts a business in the field of his expertise. This is highly beneficial as it reduces the learning time. But there is a huge difference between having the knowledge and practical application of that knowledge. It is extremely important to have a proper business plan and an execution plan.

Even if the business owner has great skills, he must follow a plan which would be helpful in keeping the business streamlined. Plans help in meeting deadlines and stay focused on the mission of the business. There is a very old saying “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

4. Define proper goals and mission –To achieve success at what you do, you must properly draft business goals, vision, reasons, and points of passion. Even if you have a small group of people working, it is difficult for all the people to have a common consensus. So, at these times, a well-defined goal or mission is helpful in coming to a conclusion and preventing from any form of argument. You should not compromise on your goals in order to meet a consensus.

5. Accept your Weaknesses – Every human has a set of strengths and weaknesses. It would be your biggest mistake if you ignore your weaknesses. No matter how perfect you are at your work, you can still make mistakes. So, you should not be overconfident about your working skills and accept that you are also bound to make mistakes. A successful business owner would be the one who would know his or her weaknesses well. You should be open to inputs from others about what they feel you lack.

6. Manage your employees efficiently – People management skill is one of the most important skills that the owner of a small business should have. There are several misconceptions in everyone’s mind regarding managing resources. The employees are the assets of the company.

All employees are different and as a leader, it’s your responsibility to understand their key skills and behaviour. You should know how to motivate your assets and how to make them work in the most efficient manner. Make sure you spend proper time in understanding each of them.

The key to a successful business is uniqueness, but being over confident is the deadliest mistake. Even a small mistake made by you could lead to the collapse of your business. So, avoid the mistakes mentioned above and keep going, taking your business to new heights.

8 Steps to Create a Strong Brand Identity

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Entrepreneurs make different kinds of brand-related mistakes. Some create a false opinion about their products in the market, on the other hand, some over marketing their products, but the biggest mistake which most entrepreneurs make is poorly creating the brand identity. Brand identity highlights the image of a company which helps customers to form their first opinion.

A successful brand should be consistent in the communication – banners, prints, online ads, website, social media, and customer service. Below are the steps to create a strong brand identity:

Step 1 – Define the Mission and Vision of your Company

You clearly need to draft the reason of your existence, your target audience and what your company is passionate about. No need to start focusing on a big group of audience at the start itself. Concentrate on the target audience and as time would pass, your branding would expand.

Step 2 – Research other Brands within your Industry

You should be fully aware of what your competitors do, what they lack and what they are good at. Make sure you can convince your customers how you are different and better than others in the same industry. You must concentrate on the quality and uniqueness of your products. Hence, you have to dig deep into your research such that you are able to offer products or services which no one else is offering.

It’s a good idea to offer your customers a more authentic product or provide better support system or help in saving money over others brands.

Step 3 – Create an Attractive Logo and Tagline

The logo is one thing that would appear everywhere. It would be on your product, product packaging, ads, website and all other places you can think of. You should try to create something that is unique and extremely attractive. You must spend money wisely and develop a visual presence for your brand. Hire a professional designer to do this for you.

Step 4 – Decide the Tone of Communication

You should be sure of the tone you would like to talk to your customers in. Your tone could be friendly, formal, professional, informative, etc. Choose a brand tone which suits your product and the product marketing style.

Step 5 – Create a Good Personality for your Brand

All customers look for something different and demand extra personal attention. The personality of your brand should be such that people don’t forget it easily and also talk about it. You have to be consistent all around regarding your brands’ personality.

Be consistent with the tone in which you communicate, the description you give about your products, your success stories, your learnings, your business idea, and so on. Everything should be consistent as this helps in gaining people’s trust and interest in your brand.

Step 6 –Your Brand should be a part of every Step taken in Business

In any form of activity, you perform for your business, your brand value should reflect. Always remember, brand building is a gradual and continuous process. It never stops. If your client is walking into your office, then he should be able to feel your brand presence in your communication and also in the surroundings.

All your product packaging, visiting cards, advertisements should have the brand logo on it. Your website and social media activities should also have the logo present.

Step 7 – Think 100 Times before changing your Brand

Once you have decided the tone of communication, the logo, and the name, then you should avoid changing it. Change only if it has a relevant story behind it. By changing your branding, your customers can get confused and might lead to losing their trust on the brand.

Step 8 – Advocate your Brand

You know your brand the best and you are the best person who can advocate it in public. You must spread the word around on your brand. Also, you must train your new recruits well and imbibe in them your brand value. The whole company needs to be talking in the same brand tone.

You would definitely realize that by having a good brand, you can gain the customer’s trust. It takes quite a while to build your brand value and is an ongoing process.It is very important to build your relationship with the customer, and therefore you should be patient and consistent.

How to Attract More Shoppers to Your Website

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In the competitive world today, a new strategy is being introduced every now and then with the focus on attracting customers to your website. However, the fundamental key to getting people to open your website and reach out to you is the content on your page.

Ways to Get More Customers to Your Website

1. Make your website attractive and captivating

Basically, one should understand the basic fundamentals and principles needed to uplift sales, whether it is online or offline. A major attraction for the customer to buy from your website is the captions you add to your page and how attractive you make it for the customer.

You should regularly add new variety to the stock on your page so that a customer finds something different every time he opens your page. Also, the user should look forward to seeing your page because he has an attraction to find something new.

2. Customer engagement

Remember to take general information such as phone number, address and other details from your customers so that you can update them about the promotions you are offering.

Another way of making your website popular is by hiring a digital media expert to advertise your page. They have the knack of bringing your page up and increasing the visibility of your page.

3. Blogging

Another way of attracting more customers to your website is by creating an amazing blog that can attract people by delivering useful and interesting information about your page and products as well. In your blog, you can mention all about your product and can also highlight the product so that it attracts the customer.

Give a very attractive headline to your blog. Give examples and ask your customers to share their e-mails so that you can get in touch with them. Ask them to subscribe to your page so that they will become your permanent customers and will look into your page each time they turn on their computers.

4. Free Giveaways and Events

Another important way of attracting people is by hosting a party. This party does not necessarily need a dance floor but it needs to have food for free or promotional gifts. Even if you are not doing a party yourself but sponsoring an event, people appreciate the sponsorship and visit your page to also see your products.

5. Innovative Branding

A very innovative and successful method of marketing your website is by branding. This can be done by decorating the exteriors of your vehicle with good graphics and displaying information about your website on both sides of the vehicle. People around will see your website; the more your vehicle moves, the faster will be your publicity.

6. Advertising and Promotions

One way customers can know about your business is through advertising in new online directories. You can also share your ideas and plans through local yellow pages and advertising magazines that are circulated in colonies. These advertisements are totally free and also profitable.

7. Video Marketing

Video marketing is also an effective strategy to attract customers to your website. You can create a series of video posts with solutions to problems in harmony with the kind of services or products you offer. Use YouTube to reach out to more individuals and establish an authority in the industry.

Conclusion

Each of the activities mentioned above takes time and therefore, it is not advisable for you to expect overnight results. Remain constant in your efforts and gradually, you will notice an increase in the number of visitors on your website. Once traffic has been generated, use attractive offers, and product ranges with eye-catching captions and CTAs to generate conversions.

Why Video Marketing is So Powerful for Businesses

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Video content has emerged as the preferred format of consuming content. You don’t need statistics to figure that out. Just think of your own browsing choices. If you wanted to know about the top 10 places to holiday (or any other topic), would you read about it or watch a three minute video?

Here are some staggering statistics that shows the popularity of videos:

> Video traffic was 73% of all consumer internet traffic in 2016. This will rise to 82% by 2021. (Cisco VNI, 2016)

> YouTube has one billion users. That’s two third of all internet users.

> 87% of online marketers use video marketing. (Outbrain)

> 10 million videos are watched in Snapchat everyday

> More than 500 million hours of video is watched on  Youtube everyday

Why Do We Prefer Video?

So what is it that makes us prefer video over text? It’s our lazy brain.

Our brains need more work to construct meaning from text. On the other hand, comprehending visuals is easy for our brains.

The eyes are our most active sense and we have used visual communication for thousands of years.  The combination of visuals and auditory input is what makes video a more natural way of communication for us.

90% of information sent to the brain is visuals and the interesting fact is that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text. This is the reason videos need fewer steps to extract meaning and are perceived with ease.

What Video Marketing Can Do for Your Business?

Videos can do all that a successful marketing tool should do for your business. It can increase your conversion, builds your brand and sell your product convincingly. Consider the following numbers:

  • Videos on landing page improve conversion rate by 80% (Eyeview Digital)
  • 4 in 5 consumers believe that demo videos are helpful
  • Online shoppers who view video are 1.8 times more likely to make a purchase than non-viewers. (Animoto,2015)
  • Using the word ‘video’ in the e-mail subject line increase the open rate by 19% (Syndacast)
  • Visitors spend 2.6 times more time on a page with video (Wistia)

Videos also help in SEO as more time spent on page and greater shareability of videos boost rankings on search engines. Product videos explain your product in an easy to understand and captivating way.

Check out this video of Ultra Ever Dry that went viral.

In his book Influence, Rober Caildni gives six techniques to influence anyone. Videos use all these techniques effectively which makes them great for marketing.

The six factors of influence are reciprocity, likeability, trust, authority, social proof and scarcity.

Videos can play on all of these techniques. Videos featuring founder or employees naturally build trust and likeability among viewers. A video where someone is speaking to you is much more personal than reading text. This builds relation with the brand and personifies it.

Although a text article can also show your expertise, a video gives more information to build authority. For example, authority is also built by the expressions, tone of voice and clothing.

Testimonial videos are a great way to build social proof. A compilation of your satisfied and happy customers makes visitors more likely to make the purchase.

Finally, the principle of reciprocity is also used when you give lots of information in the form of video which is easier to consume but harder to make. Your customers are more likely to notice the effort and pay you back.

Our natural preference for visuals and human interaction make video marketing the most powerful tool for business. Here are some tips to make sure your videos drive consumer action.

#1 Keep videos short and to the point

According to Animoto, Almost 75% of consumers prefer video under 60 seconds. Consumers are impatient with their attention and penalize brands that waste their time. Ask yourself if there is a shorter way to tell your message.

#2 Prefer Humans over Animation

Videos with people get more engagement than animated or whiteboard videos. We naturally connect more to a smiling human face and a trusting voice. However, animation may be a better option for explaining complex concepts and processes.

#3 Use the right type of video

There are many categories of video. You can make a product video, testimonial video, founder story video or an entertaining content video. Use the right video on the right page.

For example, a testimonial video would be great to convert leads on landing page whereas founder’s story would fit well on the homepage of your website. You must also choose the video based on your industry. A product business will require a product video but a law consultancy will do well to produce videos with legal tips for clients.

#4 Budget Videos

A popular video doesn’t have to be expensive. Many small business owners shoot regular videos from their desk and get good results.

The important part is to understand what your customers would like to see and deliver that in the simplest way possible. Make sure the lighting is sufficient and voice is audible.

How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming the Customer Experience in Ecommerce

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Have you noticed the relevant product recommendations by Amazon or the interesting movie suggestions by Netflix ? This is not a coincidence but the work of Artificial Intelligence systems supporting ecommerce sites.

Artificial Intelligence or AI is being put to use by tech giants as well as by smaller players across all industries. AI application is changing everything from gaming experience to security systems.

Ecommerce is also undergoing transformation as AI is enriching customers’ experience while shopping online. In fact, a study by Business Insider estimated that as much as 85% of the customer interactions will be managed without a human by 2020.

This is made possible because of the big data collected on customers from various sources. Combining high processing capability and machine learning by computers allows AI to learn about customers and give a human touch to shopping online. AI can take on the roles of salesperson, inventory manager, marketing and store manager!

 Virtual Assistant

AI is bringing back the experience of a salesperson helping you out in a brick and mortar store. Human like virtual assistant can recommend products based on your past purchases and your customer profile. A detailed database gathered about each user allows assistants to give hyper personalized experience.

Virtual assistants can also suggest on the right clothing based on your location, weather or suggest a suitable phone according to your day–to-day usage. For example, a virtual assistant may help you to choose the right type of boot for your dress.

This is done by searching the web for information on fashion and boots. The assistant visits fashion blogs, looks at Pinterest images and gathers data on similar shoppers to suggest the best pair of boots. Your assistant will continuously learn about you and your interest to come up with relevant product recommendations.

Companies are also working on voice recognizing assistants that can have a conversation with shoppers. Soon it would be possible to tell your personal AI powered assistant what you want rather than searching for the right keyword for your product. Natural language programming enabled AI systems will be intuitive and understand the context of interaction like a human.

Personalized Store

Ecommerce stores have had to choose their layout, branding and product assortment that would appeal to their target until now. This will soon change as machines learn about you to give you a personalized store altogether.

People of different countries may prefer a different layout and feel of the store. Similarly, different age demographics may have different expectation from ecommerce sites. Baby boomers may be more likely to buy a product bought by their friends whereas millennials may prefer to wait until prices drop.

AI allows online stores to change their layout, offers, and branding to fit the customer. This is done by customizing smart banners, smart pages and smart elements that adapt to the customer visiting your site. This is like walking into a store custom built for you.

Fight Counterfeits

Artificial Intelligence will also help to identify counterfeit and duplicate products.  Chicago based start-up 3PM Marketplace Solution is working on an algorithm that identifies counterfeit products. The algorithm uses pointers such as fake reviews, customer reviews and data from other marketplaces to spot a duplicate product.

Removing deceiving third party sellers will build trust and credibility for sites using AI.

Intelligent Marketing

According to Conversica, one third of the leads are never followed up with. AI can reduce missed leads by automating follow up messages and remarketing to visitors who browsed for considerable amount of time.

AI can be used for pre-sales marketing too. This is already done by many sites by remarketing the products that a customer abandoned in shopping cart. AI can target a customer who visited and follow them in all social media channels to show the exact same ad. For example, searching for mobile phones will trigger the AI powered remarketing to show your smartphone advertisements on all social media channels and display ads.

Using machines to learn and improve also allows a lot of marketing work to be automated. Companies are currently automating marketing tasks such as mailing, lead conversion and answering objections of prospects.

 Store Operations

AI is also helping at the back end of ecommerce stores. The usual business intelligence systems fall short in inventory management and assortment management in today’s dynamic marketplace. AI can forecast demand trends based on predictive analysis in these cases.

Many factors such as competitors pricing, velocity of orders, supply and demand, seasonal popularity affect the demand of a product. By using AI to estimate stock required the store can avoid being out of stock or over-stoking on products that won’t sell in future.

 After Sales Service

The role of marketing does not end at sale. After-sales service is important to get repeat business. AI is helping personalize after-sales service by automated feedback forms, timely mailers and renewal/replacement alerts.

Some brands are even connecting to intelligent appliances and send service alerts or fix problems remotely. For example, AI powered service system at Bosch can detect service issues with its dryers and washers and notify customers.

Being in continuous contact with customers ensure share of mind and brand loyalty.

AI enabled ecommerce sites are able to process data that is impossible for a human to comprehend. This gives the opportunity to gather data on the bigger picture for strategic decisions and yet act on a granular level to give a personalized experience to customers. AI is changing how customers browse, shop and experience ecommerce for the better.

How to Set Up Google AMP on Your WordPress Website

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Imagine a situation like this. You need to access some information urgently but your data balance is too low.

The dilemma of the situation is that you do not have any means to recharge your data balance and all you can do now is to use the data that’s left wisely.

After a quick Google search, you clicked on a link which led you to an unknown page. Bad luck strikes again when the page displays a pop-up draining all your data.

That Sucks big time doesn’t it?

But no need to worry as new innovations are gaining their foothold in the world of omnipresent internet.

Lately, Google has officially declared that more than 52% search requests that they get are from mobile devices.  Added to that Kissmetrics (Behavioral analytics and engagement platform development company) analysis says that 40% of those users just bounce to other websites if the response time is more than 3 seconds. And moreover, SEO experts have confirmed that latest search updates of Google are giving prominence to mobile friendly websites.

These facts were enough to cement the desperate need for mobile friendly websites.

The arrival of AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) was at this crucial juncture of time and has proven to work wonders since then.

What is an AMP? How does it help?

amp-google-wordpress-image

AMP is an open source framework program by Google which helps publishers improve their website’s user experience.

AMP helps publishers develop a skimmed down version of their actual page so that the user will not have to wait for much longer for the access.

Advantage of an AMP powered page is that it there is a strong probability that the website might be showcased in Google Carousel thus increasing the traffic and a swift rise in the ranking.

Have a look at this official video of AMP to get a detailed idea,

How does AMP work?

AMP uses a subset of HTML pages for optimized page rendering. Another indispensable and astounding feature of AMP is that it has an exclusive Javascript.

There are three types of AMP,

  1. AMP HTML: A subset of HTML which has got custom tags and properties. However AMP HTML has got lot of restrictions to keep it minimalistic in terms of size. Those who are exposed to normal HTML language can easily adapt to AMP HTML.
  2. AMP JS: Third party Javascript is not allowed in AMP JS. AMP has their own Java frame work which manages resources as well as asynchronous handling.
  3. AMP CDN: This will help AMP pages get cached automatically in CDN through optimization.

How does AMP make a website accessible in lightning speed?

Focus on the website content: Mostly website takes time to load because of third party applications attached to the website. What AMP does is that it gives primary importance to the content of the website rather than anything else.

Next would be the JAVA part of the website. Instead of loading website’s JAVA elements, AMP loads its own version of it. By doing so obstruction by third party JS can be avoided and the page continues to load with or without the JS script.

 However, such limitations can be tackled by iframes which allow third party JS.

 Static Layout: AMP instantly loads the lay out first so that all the external images, apps or even iframes gets confined inside the layout of a website. By doing this AMP can pre-determine the exact size and shape of the website even before it’s loaded. In Short AMP does not require any other outside resources to load a website instead of that it requires only one HTML request to lay out the entire document.

 Inline, Size-bound CSS: Even though everything works fine and is in the correct order, CSS tend to block the entire rendering page load and has high chance of getting bloated. AMP pages only allow single style sheet and that too inline. As a result a lot of HTTP requests will be removed from the rendering path.

One of the most astounding features of inline CSS is the size itself. The entire script will be of 50KB. Thus, making it easy to load. However, the process also depends on the written CSS quality of the author of the website.

 Font Optimization: Font of websites tends to be super large hence optimization of fonts is necessary to decrease the load time. And mostly, AMP requires zero HTTP requests until the font starts downloading. This is only possible due to the synchronous nature of the java script and only inline style sheets are allowed.

 Style and Lay out recalculation minimization: The browser has to recalculate and lay out the page upon script change or even an update. Since Amp mediates all render operations it minimizes effort. In short, one or two layout is required before a page is fully loaded.

GPU Accelerated Animations: AMP transfers a lot of image loading work to the GPU of a device rather than CPU. This makes the website run faster on your device.

How to Install AMP in a WordPress Website?

1. Install WordPress AMP plugin: At present there are 2 plugins are commonly used by developers. The most famous one is developed by Automattic and the latter developed by CDN. After installation, you can see the optimized version of your website if you add AMP to the end of the permalink.

 For eg: www.ABCDEFG/blopost/amp/

Process

  1. Open the DashBoard
  2. Go to ‘Plugins’
  3. Click ‘Add New’
  4. Type ‘AMP-WP’ in the search box
  5. Chose the desired AMP plugin and click install
  6. After Installation click the ‘Activate Plugin‘ tab
  7. After installation go to ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Permalinks’
  8. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button

2. To Validate the AMP version

  1. Paste the AMP version of URL to the Omnibox, Add ‘#develeopment=1’ to the end of the url and press enter
  2. Press CNTRL+SHIFT+I
  3. Select ‘Console’

If everything works fine a message will appear which says that ‘AMP validation successful’

When a user does a search on a mobile device, Google at first searches for an end tag to find out which websites have the mobile version. So the priority always goes to that website which has AMP tag in their link.

<link rel=”amphtml” href=”http://ABCDEFG.com/2016/01/28/a-new-business-model-for-twitter/amp/” /></head>

3. Customize and configure Your AMP Page: After installing AMP to your WordPress website it will create a layout for your page. However, if you need any addition you can avail the help of plugins to edit the CSS as well as your AMP template of the website. For example, you can install analytics, SEO, Adsense etc. to AMP in accordance with your preference.

AMP since it’s open source also has the feature to edit so that any improvement from developers can be added to it.

4. Fixing the Errors: It is obvious and normal that error will pop up after the installation of AMP. If it happens do not panic as AMP is not at all a stand alone plugin which is meant to resolve any mobile optimization related issue of your website. What AMP does is it simplifies layout of your website in each and every scenario. So if there is any kind of error you need to fix it manually which can be easily traced in through WordPress.

AMP is made by Google and they give prominence to websites which have AMP support if there is a search. Fixing errors is a crucial process as it will ensure that your AMP page gets indexed on Google search and cached on AMP CDN (Content Delivery Network). CDN helps AMP websites when there is a search from third party website for eg. Twitter.

Errors of an AMP page can be found by navigating through,

Login to Google search console > Search Appearance > Accelerated Mobile Pages

Last but not least always check for errors after each and every update.

How does AMP influence on Digital Marketing?

Higher traffic: The purpose behind the birth of AMP was to make websites accessible for all users without any delay. Since AMP pages loads within seconds the bounce rate will be less and happy users are more likely to back again.

Higher Ranking: Google has denied that AMP is not at all a criterion for ranking. However, in Google Carousel results, only AMP pages are showcased. and those who are using AMP version of a website will beg to differ as they have seen ranking improvement considerably.

Increase in Paid Search Results: Users tend to hit back to their search after reading the content. Since, pages load within seconds users will have the tendency to access more pages thus increasing clicks on paid search results.

The flexibility of Open Source: The beauty of open source is that it can be improved in accordance with the need of a user. Analytics, as well as SEO extension can be added to the AMP pages so that insight about a website will be detailed and simple.

 

9 Digital Marketing Certifications You Can Get in 2017 [Infographic]

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Digital Marketing has evolved into a powerful marketing technique of this new age.  The most impressive part about digital marketing is that it does not require much of an investment and the results are amazing. After realizing this immense potential, companies nowadays are hiring more and more experts.

If you are a person who is so much interested in digital marketing the first thing you should do is to get certified by Google, Bing or HubSpot. Most companies prefer digital marketing professionals with certifications as an additional qualification. There are plenty of free certification courses that are now available on the web.

This infographic lists out popular digital marketing certifications that you can acquire in 2017. Let’s see which are they,

9-Digital-Marketing-Certifications-infographic

 

 

How User Reviews Influence Your Digital Marketing Success

Posted on by NextJSjointviews

Is your business rated by users on Facebook, Google or App stores? Do you know how these ratings impact your conversions? Read on to understand the role of user review in digital marketing and some guidelines to handle regular as well as negative online reviews.

user-reviews-blog-image

One of the key differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing is the two way communication between users and marketers. Online platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Justdial and other review sites have given consumers a seat on the marketing table. Consumers are continuously shaping how you are perceived online by

  • choosing what to read and watch,
  • interacting with brands publicly, and
  • providing reviews to the world.

Negative user reviews have the power to take you down despite brilliant digital marketing efforts.

According to 2016 survey by Vendasta, online reviews impact 88% of purchase decisions. 92% of consumers now read online reviews vs. 88% in 2014 and star rating is the number one factor used by consumers to judge a business.

User review is just the online version of the good old ‘word of mouth’ channel of marketing. For past few years social factor is a major influence in buyer’s decision. Following are the ways in which user reviews influence your digital marketing:

1. Form a brand personality

Your online presence gives your brand a personality. Information like how active you are on social media platforms and your responsiveness form an instant image in the reader’s mind.

But these are not the only information shaping your image. Visitors give more importance to other user reviews on your product and service. 73% of consumers form an opinion by reading up to six reviews.

2. Impact your Sales and Conversions

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. User reviews have a direct and strong impact on online sales. Think about the last time you brought a product online. Did you look for the star rating or scroll down to see product reviews?

According to a survey 94% consumers would use a business with a four star rating whereas only 14% would consider a business with a one or two star rating.

3. Better Ranking

Yes, review ratings can help you rank higher in search engines. Google rates local business on prominence which is indicated by user reviews and ratings. More reviews can give you better visibility not only in Google but on other social media platforms as well.

4. Generate Ideas for Digital Marketing

User reviews are ears of a marketer in this digital world. You can find out what your customers like, why they buy from you and why they don’t. Good marketing is all about listening and those who listen well to the user reviews can adapt their digital marketing strategy effectively.

User reviews can give you

How to Support Digital Marketing with great User Reviews

Presence of user reviews on your site can increase your conversions by 4.6% according to Reevo. Here is what you can do to make sure user reviews are supporting your digital marketing efforts:

  • Ask your customers to review you online. You can send them mails or notifications to do so. Higher number of reviews improve visitor conversion rate. Make the process of reviewing your business easy and quick.
  • Make sure you have recent reviews. 44% of survey participants said reviews must be less than a month old to be relevant.
  • Be responsive and reply to maximum comments in a relevant manner.
How to Handle Negative User Reviews

There may be instances of negative ratings and user reviews. If you are a large company some negative reviews are inevitable. Following are the best practices to follow while resolving them:

  • Never delete the review  –  Ignoring the review is the worst response. You can reply with an apology and a solution where possible. In fact, negative reviews are not necessarily a bad. 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both positive and negative ratings. Users suspect fake and censored reviews if there are no bad reviews at all.
  • Try your best to resolve  – Take feedback positively and resolve the issue at the earliest. This is an opportunity to fix your product and service before it costs you money in recall or damages. According to a study for every customer that complains there are 26 unhappy customers who remain silent (Lee resource). Be glad someone spoke up and resolve the issue.  Also, if a business resolves its issue quickly and efficiently, 95% of unhappy customers return back to your business.
  • Don’t get defensive  –  Never get defensive or attack the customer with logical arguments. Lay down the reason/ facts and apologies to close the issue. A full blown fight can quickly become viral on social media. This will harm your reputation even if you are right on your part.

Reviews are going to be a major part of digital marketing strategy in coming years. User reviews help build trust with your business and directly affect your conversions.