Superfast Business: Website Mega Trends 2014

DAVID LAKINS KEY MULTIMEDIA

WEBSITE MEGATRENDS

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• Internet is a very different place than five years ago

• 75% of buying decisions are now made online

• Mobile devices are making it easier for consumers to shop anytime, anywhere

• According to Sagepay online spending will top £13bn this Christmas

Times are changing!

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Now is the time to take a good look at your online presence

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Megatrends for 2014 and Beyond

6 Areas to

focus on

Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design & Usability

Importance of Content

Engagement, Calls to Action and Conversions

Social Media integration

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Website Performance

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Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design &Usability

Importance ofContent

Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions

Social MediaIntegration

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Website Performance

• Do you know how many people visit your website and where they come from?

• Do you know what devices they use to view your site? • Have you got specific goals for your website (sales,

email sign-ups, downloads or watching a video etc) ? • What key metrics do you use to measure the

performance of your website? • Do you regular review your website’s performance and

its achievements against your goals? • Do you know what Google really thinks about your

website?

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Web Performance Megatrends

• First impressions count - visual appeal can be assessed within 50 ms

• Expectations just got higher

• Tolerance levels just got lower

• Site speed, page size, server errors, and broken links all make a difference

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Why Performance Matters

• Most web users expect a home page to load in ½ a second or less

– If Amazon increased page load time by +100ms they lose 1% of sales

– If Google increased page load by +0.5s they get 25% fewer searches

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Site Performance Impacts Revenues

Poor experience = abandoned sessions Repetitive poor experiences = lost customer for life

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Performance Quick Wins

• For some websites, improving performance may actually be the optimisation that has the biggest impact on organic traffic e.g. compressing images

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Your New Best Friends

Digital is 100% measurable If you can measure it – you can manage it!

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Google Analytics Key Metrics

• Number of unique visitors

• Ratio of organic, referral & direct

• Bounce rates

• PPC vs Organic

• Time on site

• Page speed

• Desktop vs Mobile use

• Goals met & Conversion rate

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Google Webmaster Tools

• Identify performance issues such as:-

– page speed

– page size

– server errors

– and broken links

• Suggest HTML improvements

• Shows who links to you, search engine position and click through rates (CTR)

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Enhancing Your Search Presence

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Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design &Usability

Importance ofContent

Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions

Social MediaIntegration

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Enhancing Your Search Presence

• Are you aware of how your website appears in the search results – on desktop; on a smartphone; logged in to Google or not logged in?

• Are you still focusing your SEO on ranking for specific keywords?

• Does your site get found in the search results by your potential customers when they type in their problems / challenges?

• What is semantic web and how does it impact on your online presence?

• Have you checked to see if the performance of your website is affecting your search results?

• Do you know who is linking to your website?

• Are you taking advantage of Google enhanced search result features by using sitemaps, rich snippets and additional tagging?

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SEO Megatrends

• Search is constantly changing • Mobile search & wearable technology • Local search • Personalised search • Less about keywords • Knowledge Graph & Semantic search

(understanding meaning & intent) • Paid Advertising – Adwords / PPC • Enhanced search results • Google trying to keep us within its

search environment

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Search is Changing

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Classic SEO

page 1 result

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FUTURE OF SEO

The future of competitiveness in search will be based on your ability to differentiate.

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SEO - Change of Mindset

Away from keyword stuffing and page 1 ranking to …. ….providing high-quality and very relevant content that your targeted audiences will actually read or use

…. connecting and building relationships through your content

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Change of Mindset

• Titles & Meta Descriptions still matter – but really as a display factor and how they encourage your target audience to click through

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Customer Buying Decisions

• Customers can start the buying journey from any point

– Search, social, YouTube, forums, magazine, product review, recommendations.

Using other sites to rank

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Website Design & Usability

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Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design &Usability

Importance ofContent

Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions

Social MediaIntegration

Website Design & Usability

• Does every page of your website work on both tablets and mobile phones?

• Is the design, layout and organisation of the site professional and consistent across all devices

• How easy is it for your visitors to scan your pages for important information?

• Is your navigation clear and well organised? • Do you offer a rich online experience when compared to

your competitors? • Are you using any of the latest trends in web design e.g.

infinite scrolling pages, parallax designs? • Do you test how different layouts and styling can impact on

your websites performance?

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Web Design Megatrends

• Impact of mobiles

• Lots of different screens sizes

• Click vs touch & swipe

• Large imagery & less is more

• Beautiful typography

• Parallax scrolling site

• Responsive design

• User experience matters more than ever

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Mobility Changes Everything

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Mobility changes everything

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People need an excuse to fire up a laptop. The sofa is where your business case for a mobile strategy exists. 60% of desktop search starts on a mobile device

• Design – adapting designs to a smaller screen

• Development – not all devices work the same

• Navigation – touchscreen navigation changes the way we use the web

• Content – mobile users want accessible content, faster, simple, without the distortion of elements

Mobility Means …

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RIMMEL

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Key Take Away Points

• Build mobile into your website strategy

• It’s all about the user experience regardless of the device

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Importance of Content

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Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design &Usability

Importance ofContent

Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions

Social MediaIntegration

Importance of Content

• How well do you know your audience?

• Have you got a story to tell?

• What’s is your customer’s journey

• What is your content strategy for tying these three together?

• How regularly are you creating content and how well is it shared?

• What different types of content are you creating and distributing? Articles, downloads, email newsletters, videos, infographics, expert documents?

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Content Megatrends

• Content and story-telling is King

• Content presentation matters

• Established content publishers – newspapers and news sites e.g. BBC, Sky

• Highly targeted & shareable content – Buzzfeed – the king of the viral content space

• Individuals are emerging as content producers with their own business models

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• Content drives visitors

• People like fresh content

• Search engines like fresh content

• More content means more tickets in the online lottery

Importance of Content

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Different Types of Content

Articles

Reports

Interviews

White Papers

Videos

Infographics

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Video Speaks Louder Than Words

• Video is used to animate a site but increasingly used to replace explanatory text which takes time to read

• Videos are also easily shared on social networks

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Video Speaks Louder Than Words

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Build Useful, Link-Worthy Pages

• Great web pages are those that :- – fulfil a compelling value proposition

– position you as an expert

– solve a problem for their users

– or add something of value in a unique way

• You can get a long way by:- – making your pages as useful as possible

– and by finding the most visually pleasing medium to tell a story

– creating linkable assets enhance your search rankings

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Example - ZOOPLA.co.uk

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Engagement, Calls to Action & Conversions

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Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design &Usability

Importance ofContent

Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions

Social MediaIntegration

Engagement, Calls to Action & Conversions

• Is the purpose of your website and the critical actions you want your visitors to take clear within 5 seconds of viewing?

• Do you have a primary call to action on every page of your website?

• How do you measure conversions on your website and social media and do you have a monetary value for each one?

• You’ve got my interest, now how easy is it for me to find your contact information or place an order?

• Are your online forms only asking for the essential information you need to respond?

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• User experience first: – credibility

– customer habits

– psychological triggers

– use of different types of media

– colour psychology

– website architecture

– buyer personas

– A/B split testing

Engagement & Conversion Megatrends

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• Conversion design is something that guides the visitor towards completing that one specific action, using persuasive design and psychological triggers to turn them in to customers.

Design for Conversions

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• Establish a goal for each page and measure it!

• Analyse your audience and exceed expectations

• The art of persuasion, language and colour is so important in the use of selling!

Design for Conversions

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Improving Call to Action Language

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Dropbox

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Change.org

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Using Social Media with your website

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Website Performance

Better Search Results

Website Design &Usability

Importance ofContent

Engagement, Calls toAction & Conversions

Social MediaIntegration

Using Social Media with your Website

• How well is your social media use aligned with your content and search engine strategy?

• Have you chosen your social media tools based on what your target customers are using?

• Do you know when the best time to tweet or post a message for maximum engagement?

• How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media use?

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Social Media Megatrends

• Imagery & video are driving social media use

• Social media is increasingly being recognised for its income-generating potential

• All major social media platforms offer paid advertising

• Social media provides trust and authority signals to search engines e.g. Google+

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• You now have the ability to reach out and communicate on a personal level with your target audience on a daily basis

Social Media = Game Changer

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• Increase exposure

• Increase traffic

• Develop loyal following

• Generate leads

• Provide outstanding customer service

• Grow business partnerships

• Reduce marketing expenses

• Improve sales

Benefits of Social Media

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Be

ne

fits

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube LinkedIn

Google+

Pinterest Instagram

Snapchat

StumbleUpon Digg

Slideshare

Popular Social Media Sites

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• Social media needs to be integrated and work hand-in-hand with all your other marketing and PR initiatives

• Encourage engagement and interaction

• At a basic level ensure your website, blog and email newsletter include social “share” buttons for people to easily share your content on ALL their social networks.

Sharing is Caring

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@KempandCoPbury

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• Hootsuite

• Tweetdeck

• Sway - suggests content that you should share with you audience

• Social Mention & Ice Rocket - free tools to help monitor specific keywords and see trending topics

Social Media Tools

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DAVID LAKINS KEY MULTIMEDIA

WEBSITE MEGATRENDS

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