Suggestions and best practices from finance, travel, real estate and retail

Creating a compelling user experience (UX) is essential for any website. Whether you’re working in retail, finance, travel or real estate, UX is important to fulfil the user's needs and provide a positive experience that keeps people loyal to the brand. The increasingly mobile nature of web experiences today means that UX has become more important than ever. After looking at several hundred sites, Google has developed a series of UX playbooks, tailored for different sectors. Google realized that there were certain universal UX elements that helped create a frictionless shopping experience for users and have identified key best practices and principles. [si_guide_block id="38757" title="Download our Business Resource – E-commerce design pattern guide" description="We created this guide to give our members a definitive reference of best practice for the design of key website page templates essential in retail e-commerce websites."/] All…

Effective customer engagement requires making your customers an integral part of brand creation and not just seeing them as a means of revenue generation

The first short message system (SMS) message was sent in 1992 and the first phone with texting capabilities was released by Nokia the following year. Given the digital communication technologies introduced since then - voice over internet protocol (VoiP), video streaming, and social media - it may be tempting to discount the potential of the humble text message. You do this at your own peril. After all, SMS response rates are 209% higher than email, Facebook or even phone calls. That's because 94% of text messages are read and recipients typically respond to them within 90 seconds. In addition, when comparing SMS messages to mobile ads, SMS wins every time. Half again as many recipients immediately purchase…

Qualified leads are your lifeblood, so here are three ways to capture more leads on your mobile landing pages

Qualified leads - in the form of emails you have captured and nurtured enough to effectively sell to - are the lifeblood of your business. Whatever your current traffic level reality, you need to capture more of these emails. What you need to do leading up to your email forms is key, because it’s these copywriting, form presentations and calls to action (CTAs) that will grab your visitors’ attention and get them to take the next step. Better yet, you’ll be distancing yourself from competitors who don’t yet understand and apply these fundamentals. [si_guide_block id="125214" title="Download our Premium Resource – Mobile SEO guide" description="This guide will give you a through breakdown of everything you need to know about mobile SEO. It explains different ways to configure websites, important design principles to follow, and how to…

Small business marketers need to sit up and pay attention to the latest mobile design options

Technology has revolutionized communication and changed the face of doing business in modern times. Computers, Tablets, and Smartphone which were initially used to surf the net, stream videos and chat online have become key business tools. Mobile is becoming ever more crucial now that it accounts for over half of all web traffic. But how does a small business use the latest mobile design to grow its business? The answer to this question is determined by two factors: Increase in popularity of Social Media The development of more capable Smartphones Facebook, the most popular social network worldwide has 1.71 billion monthly active users across the world, according to the latest statistics. The other factor hinges on the improvement of mobile design evident in the…

With desktops relegated strictly to the workplace, nearly every other online activity is accomplished with ease on mobile devices

When the average American spends over five hours glued to their smartphone every day, you know that it’s become their primary “screen”. That’s 2.5x time spent on mobile than desktops per month. With desktops relegated strictly to the workplace, nearly every other online activity is accomplished with ease on mobile devices. It all started innocuously enough, with mobile searches overtaking desktop searches on Google, way back in 2015. By October 2016, mobile traffic overtook desktop traffic worldwide for the first time ever with 51.3% of all traffic from mobile. That figure has been blown out of the water today, with a whopping 73% of online traffic now coming from mobile devices according to data collected from the Parse.ly network. [si_guide_block id="87688" title="Download…

Some mistakes are so common they often get ignored by the mobile app development companies on the pretext of aspiring to provide something unique or different to the users

Did you know that by 2020 mobile apps are projected to generate $188.9 billion in revenues via app stores and in-app advertising? The data published by Statistica highlights how the mobile app market is growing and shows that there is a big chance for small and mid-scale companies to capitalize on the profusely growing mobile app market. [si_guide_block id="125214" title="Download our Premium Resource – Mobile SEO guide" description="To help you learn the actions you need to take to follow Google's changes, this guide will give you a through breakdown of everything you need to know about mobile SEO."/] Though the data highlights the growth and exposes some of the opportunities available, some data also shows a decline in mobile app usage. According to AppsFlyer,…

Digital marketing trends 2019: What should you be looking to integrate in the coming year

When it comes to mobile technology it is important to be ahead of the curve when adopting trends. These tech updates are often beneficial for marketers. We are going to look at the landscape of mobile as we move closer to the new year to help you beat that curve. I'm going to give you the top mobile tech trends that will be prominent in 2019 to continue our trends series that Dave Chaffey kicked off earlier this month.

Augmented Reality (AR)

Big brands like Google and Apple showing breathtaking new AR (augmented reality) demos on iPhone 8 and iPhone X are proof that AR is going to be the game of 2019. With the most recent arrival of ARKit 2, Apple is providing developers and organizations with an improved platform to…

With the significant penetration of smartphones today, it has become imperative for entrepreneurs to take advantage of mobile apps to further improve their businesses

Ever since the smartphone revolution began, a lot of opportunities have opened up that can help businesses to thrive. The combination of mobile apps and new age startups has the potential to change the rules when it comes to business. With the significant penetration of smartphones today, it has become imperative for entrepreneurs to take advantage of mobile apps to further improve their businesses and help their startups to grow. When starting a business, you must clearly describe your objectives and prioritize them straight away. Following this, you then simply have to work on four important touch points. which are also the main routes for achieving success in your business. Customer engagement Service…

Mobile experiences are now the norm

Smartphones are everywhere, and they’ve grabbed our attention. Maybe even too much! Based on seeing my teenagers’ faces almost constantly buried in their screens, I’m sure mobile website usage will ramp-up much further in the future. So, when we do conversion design we need to be mindful of this reality. We need to realize that the smartphone is not where the conversion happens, but more often where it starts - the first or second touchpoint - especially when it comes to lead-generation usage scenarios, but also for e-commerce. In this post, I first highlight how mobile user experiences differ from their desktop counterparts. Then I share my top four do’s, followed by my top four dont’s of mobile conversion design. Follow this guidance and other mobile best practices and your site will soon see higher…

Examples of how website designs must be optimized to support the way we hold and interact with smartphones

Our compilation of statistics showing the growth in smartphone usage highlights the well-known need to create effective mobile experiences. With mobile minutes accounting for more than two-thirds of online interactions in many countries, there is an obvious need to optimize designs so they are consistent with consumer behaviour as they use their phones. This need is also suggested by statistics showing lower conversion rates on smartphone (they’re typically between one half and one third of those on desktop).

Consumer behaviour of mobile interaction

I was recently running a training course looking at improving mobile customer journeys and experiences where our focus was on Millennial and Gen Z personas. I discovered this great new-to-me research on mobile interaction based on how a phone is held and interactions occur with a mobile handset using fingers…