Does your site pass the 2,4,6,8 second rule?
Value: [rating=4]
Recommended link: Google Analytics Benchmark
We’ve shown through several recent posts that speed matters if you want to maximise conversion. The Walmart example in our previous post showed how conversion rate drops dramatically below 4 seconds, so this is a good rule of thumb in evaluations.
Today, Google has released a new compilation that helps companies compare their performance to this.
It has 3 different benchmarks:
This supports the data from our previous post - suggesting that desktop sites need to render in less than 4 seconds:
Google notes that you can check out the site speed reports in Google Analytics to see how you compare. Remember that averages across the whole site can be deceptive…
Practical ideas for converting more visitors to subscribers
Bloggers use it, online retailers use it, and social media marketers practically make their living from it.
And email marketers?
Maybe they should use it more.
To quote the ultimate authority on human behavior (er, Wikipedia):
"When a person is in a situation where they are unsure of the correct way to behave, they will often look to others for cues concerning the correct behaviour"
This is the concept of social proof. It underpins the use of such elements as bestseller lists, product ratings and those blog feed & Twitter icons that give prominence to the number of existing feed subscriptions and Twitter followers.
All serve to convince or reassure the observer that "buying that product" or "following that Twitter account" is worth doing. Social proof (or the lack of it) is why we tend to avoid restaurants that are empty.
So might you use the concept when growing your…
21 reasons to persuade yourself or your colleagues you need to blog, blog more or blog better
Are you needing a bit of ammunition to justify the time and energy to invest in a blog? Or perhaps you have a blog and you're looking to increase the frequency or quality of your posts. At Musicademy, blogging is core to what we do to engage existing customers and attract new customers, so this is how we justify our efforts and it certainly is a lot of effort!
So, here are 21 good reasons to get blogging or blog better. And rule number one of good blog writing – blog readers love lists! (As long as they're useful or inspire)
Because blogging drives traffic to your website. The blog can feed a stream of tweets, Facebook updates and newsletter content as well as leaving…
7 of the best sources for learning about Google SEO algorithm updates. Sites and forums that discuss the latest updates?
I’m often contacted by site managers and marketers who have just experienced a change in their rankings in the natural listings. Often this is because Google has recently made changes to its algorithms that have affected rankings. I’ve been hearing more of these recently (especially from site owners who've received to unnatural link notices), so I thought it would be helpful to create a short reference of the best sources to learn about current updates.
These are the sites I monitor to learn about changes - I’ll start with the official Google line which I recommend subscribing to through a feed or Twitter and then look at other sources including forums which are often more useful for understanding the SEO techniques which may have been penalised.
1. Google Webmaster Tools Blog
As the…
The latest data on UK retail search volumes
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: BRC-Google Q1 2012 monitor - Published April 16th 2012
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Google produce a regular Online Retail Monitor (ORM) that measures changes and trends in the growth of retail search terms over time. The latest version has some interesting data on the growth in mobile search which also has implications for all site owners. Since it’s direct from Google, using their data on searches for retail terms, it’s a reliable source, although it only gives relative changes not the absolute % of searches that are mobile.
The headline figure is a 132% year-on-year growth in mobile search for retail broken down as follows:
Search volume variation through time
The data is also useful for top-level benchmarking…
Creating effective landing pages for SEO
If you have followed the first six steps in this series on SEO (plus added your own twist and freestyling) you should now be seeing increased coverage (pages & keywords) in search results for your target keywords. Now the real fun begins since...
Being visible and getting clicks doesn’t guarantee you success. Success depends on many factors, of which landing page quality is one. It’s almost impossible to create a landing page that caters for the needs of all natural search visitors. Your aim should be to improve your landing pages over time, using proven optimisation methods, so that the natural search traffic you get positively contributes to your website’s KPIs.
Please note that you don’t have to make immediate conversions and revenue the primary goals for all natural search traffic – there may be some research terms (head and mid tail keywords) for which your…
The 4 most important tools for LinkedIn & your business
LinkedIn is the most important social networks for B2B marketers who are taking online marketing seriously, particularly in the UK and US. LinkedIn now has an array of tools to help bridge the gap between the network and your own website, they're getting better and better and I wanted to share them with you.
With 5.5 Million users in the UK alone (growing daily) there is an opportunity for all B2B businesses on LinkedIn.
As part of integrating LinkedIn on your website you need to also consider how you connect and interact on LinkedIn. You should checkout a recent post on Oatmeal that made us all chuckle, it highlights how so many companies take a very lame approach to Facebook, the same principal applies to LinkedIn. You have to remember…
5 ideas for creating effective content on your website
We talk a lot in our posts about the importance of content and inbound marketing, that being central to success and a how blog is the key for building a central repository of useful, insightful or entertaining content for your website visitors.
A blog really does have the potential to be 'the hub' in regards to content marketing. But what are the other options on your site, assuming that you have a blog section already and you feel that you're doing it well enough, what's next?
Well, a question in my inbox this morning from a Smart Insights Expert member got me thinking on this. Subject to the realities of your website, its flexibility, ability to scale and of course your access to people or budget resources, there's tonnes that you can now consider beyond a blog.
Our 5 ideas: Think sales first
Think of the…
Five top tips to ‘twitter’ more effectively
Social media marketing can be a difficult beast sometimes, but small and medium businesses who struggle with social networks can take comfort from the fact that even the big brands get it wrong too at times.
Effective use of social media is part art and part science – there are techniques and procedures that work, but creativity and flexibility are also an integral part of any successful campaign.
Here are five of the most common Twitter mistakes made by major brands who ought to be big enough to know better...
1. Only Tweeting during office hours
B&Q have made no secret of the fact it has invested heavily in its social media presence over the past couple of years, and made it a key part of its overall marketing strategy.
Below is a Xefer graph…
KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid
A now established process within some of the world's mega brands, social listening is now a highly competitive market in itself. With so many experts and software options it can be difficult to decide what option is best for you.
While social listening creates many opportunities I believe it is less obvious for smaller less talked about brands or industries, hopefully sharing my learnings from running this process at First 10 for a number of clients will help you design it into your SME. It all starts with keeping it simple.
Listening
Listening to your customers has always been important, social networks have just changed the scope and places in which that feedback can take place. Within this article I focus purely on social listening which I will explain in more detail shortly. Before I do, you should remember that their are…
