Increase Click-Through Homepage Carousel by Avoiding these Usability Mistakes

In compliance with the recent research– only 1% of 3 million visits to the website’s home page results in clicks on homepage carousel.

The majority of clicks are made on the first slide and after that the click rate drastically drops with every following slide.

It’s quite surprising,considering the fact that it’s an important widget, found on many websites.

Apart from that, it’s a colorful and engaging graphic element, which must attract a lot of attention.

So why users tend not to engage homepage carousels? The problem is not the beauty of the carousel itself, but in its navigation and several other structural mistakes that designers unknowingly commit.

1. Replace navigation arrows with label navigation

After a couple of clicks without finding what they are looking for, customers look at the right navigation arrow that shows if any more slides are available. If they are, customer simply looses interest as he gets tired of endless line of slides and thinks that he will not find what he is looking for on your website. Thus, customer never gets to see the other slides of the carousel.

However, this situation drastically changes when navigation labels are used instead of small and hardly visible arrows. The results improve even further, when you add clear and comprehensive inscription on labels.

Thus, customer immediately sees if the product he’s looking for is on the website. Besides, you can place navigation buttons in a clearly visible area, increasing the engagement rate and amount of clicks on all the slides.

2. Remove auto-sliding, when user has already taken control 

Auto-sliding is a very frequently used technique on the majority of websites that have homepage carousels. It helps users to engage with the most important content.

However, users will loose interest if auto-sliding doesn’t stop when they’ve taken manual control and are trying to get to the slide that's the most interesting for them or stay and read the slide.

Stop the auto-sliding as soon as they engage and you’ll see the considerable improvement.

3. Show new additions by rows, not one by one

Researches show that people like to browse new items in batches, because this way they can see multiple items at once. Despite of this, some website owners tweak their carousels in such way that allows items to be shown one at a time.

It’s very inconvenient and irritating and is fully capable of considerably reducing the engagement with the carousel. People don’t like to work more than they have to, which is why they will more likely convert if they will be able to see all the new items in several clicks.

What else can be done to improve homepage carousel?

Make items progression clear and compressive

People like to be in control - knowledge of how many items are there to see gives a feeling of confidence and control. If your carousel shows this progression in a non-intuitive way visitors on your website will get irritated.

Such situation occurs when a certain number of items is shown out of the entire number. Much better option is to show how many rows of items are there and which row the visitor is on.

Click targets must be bigger

When you design homepage carousel, you need to take into account that your visitors come from various age groups. Some people have better vision than others, which is why click targets on your carousel must be bigger.

Sometimes the size of the arrows is smaller than the cursor and this is unacceptable, because your visitors will get irritated and will quit your website, begin unable to find what they are looking for.

What's you experience with homepage carousel? We would like to hear your opinion from both points of view - user and business owner.

Button Design Techniques to Improve User Experience (UX)

Principels of successful button design

It’s not a secret that currently one can create a button via multitude of ways. The majority of these methods are quite similar, nevertheless in rare cases you see a button that is very different from the rest of them.

These unique buttons were simply created with a little more time, attention and effort.
Was it worth it to spend time on button design? Definitely, otherwise, no one would have paid any attention to them.

The most widespread methods of buttons creation are CSS3 and special tools. But before you get down to creating a magnificent button that everyone will like – you need to take a minute and think about the purpose you’re designing this button for and how it will fit the overall look of your website.

If you’re creating a button just for the sake of it – why would you take a trouble of creating something unique? You can just download a free button set that somebody uploaded and be done with it. However, if your goal is to deliver an award-worthy design, it’s worth to consider several button design aspects that are outlined below:

Consistency with the brand

Your button design must be consistent with the context you’re creating them for. What does this mean? It means that your should pick corresponding color scheme and graphic style, maybe even use the brand logo or borrow its form if possible.

You are not limited by anything: play with fonts, colors, pattern and shapes. Let your creativity run wild. If you see that website design is flat – create buttons in the same style.
It won’t be wise to use shiny gibbose buttons – just make sure that your button will blend seamlessly into the overall design of the website.

Ask yourself: Is my button contrast enough?

Considering that at the moment people want simple, yet visually pleasing website designs, web designers are forced to include lots of eye-candies. This means that the page will have a lot of vivid and attention-grabbing elements.

Use different colors, size and shapes for button design

However, you need to make sure that the button design is clearly visible and can be easily found. The higher the contrast, the better. You can outline it with different colors, shades and fonts, just remember to make it stand out without sacrificing overall UX.

Is your button design compatible with the content?

You need to keep in mind that buttons must match not only the logo of the company, but also the overall UI. For example, buttons can be buttons on the mobile version of the website, but on the desktop website they can be replaced with something unusual and interesting.

Use shades with caution

Remember that any shades look much better, when they are darker than the element itself. Which is why, when your element is darker than surrounding, you need to be very cautious.

Conceal secondary elements

You should always keep in mind that secondary elements, such as menu elements, controllers and bars can be similar (same corners, shape), but with different shades, borders and gradients.

Shape of the buttons

Round vs square button

In case the interface of your website includes too many buttons of the same shape – it’s definitely time to change that.

You need to make at least the most essential buttons stand out. You can change their shape from square to round. It will definitely attract the attention of users.

Outline of the buttons

Always remember: under no circumstances can the button’s outline be lighter than the button itself. Moreover, the outline of the button must be darker than the background – it’s a golden rule that needs to be followed.

Make use of icons

When working on action button design, icons can be your best friends. For instance, in case you’re designing a “Next Page” button and don’t know how to go about the buttons inscription – just use an arrow, pointing to the right and users will understand that this button is for going to the next page. Such button will look better than overused “Next” or “Next page” buttons.

Indicate the importance of the buttons with color saturation

In case your website has lots of functions and options it’s recommended to focus the attention of the user on the most important ones from the very start. For this exact purpose, you can make the most important buttons the most color saturated.

Apart from that, you can use association. For example, if a set of buttons is related – make the most important one – deep blue and the less important ones blue and then light blue.

You can also make use of the buttons’ size and make the most important buttons big and clearly visible.

The last, but not the least button design technique

Indicate button’s state

Design professionals can easily distinguish the state of the button, however, that is not the case for the rest of us. User will try to click the button whether it’s active or not and will get frustrated if it’s inactive.

To avoid the unpleasant situations like that – you can simply use CSS instruments, such as shades, gradients and borders to show that the button isn’t active yet.

Conclusion

As a web designer, you have you own approach to button design. It's nothing bad in re-using predesigned elements or UI styles, as they are a great way to save time and money. But if you want to add a dose of uniqueness to your website, crafting you own web buttons is the path to go.

Market Research Methods for Developing Successful Marketing Campaigns

Marketing campaign cannot be properly organized without conducting a detailed market research. It’s like stepping in bathtub, without knowing the temperature of the water.

Besides, you don’t need a big funding to conduct market analysis – you can always use some market research methods always at hand. Be it human or financial.

Below are a few market research methods, vital for the success of your marketing plan.

E-mail Surveys

You can always use the old and secure method – conducting research via e-mail.
The only thing you need to keep in mind is that no one likes and no one will read and participate in a survey if it’s going to be long and tiresome. Try immediately getting to the point.

In addition, you can use a lot of online tools for surveys, such as Smart Survey, Survey Gizmo, SurveyPlanet and so on.

Personal meeting with the top clients

Words cannot describe what we can feel and see in person, which is why nothing beats actual conversation with your best clients over lunch. Invite them to join you for a lunch in a respectable establishment and ask them what they do and don’t like about your company.

Make them say what they would like to see as additional features, what aspects they consider better than yours in regards to your competitors. You can also find out what is their favorite thing about your company and make a point of stressing this feature in your future marketing campaign.

Your aim is to make them feel unique and valued. Treat their ideas like they are the best they ever had.

Social Media

Where can you find and discuss the latest news of your industry?

On social media of course! Forums and chats are used by users to discuss the best and the worst features of this or that company.

Register as a user and try to discuss your company. You will get a lot of valuable information on the subject. You’ll find out what customers value in your company and what needs to improve.

Social media will provide a better scope on the image of your company in the wide row of companies from your industry. Use this as one of the basic market research methods to get precious feedback on your company.

Google Alerts

If you want to hear the real opinions about your business, you should definitely make use of Google Alerts. Using it will give you a chance to receive updates anytime someone mentions the name of your company online.

Just imagine how much you’ll learn of what the competition and customers think about you.

Personal Attention to Your Customers

In case your business is dealing with corporations or some major companies – take time to visit them in person. Nothing beats the pleasure of personal attention. Not even phone calls.

Visiting clients will help you create an image of caring and attentive to its customers company. This is how you win a positive reputation and build long-lasting relationships.

The oldest of market research methods still being used - Ask for Feedback

Asking your clients for feedback is a sort of personal interaction. It creates the impression that you truly care about their opinions, suggestions and wishes.

Ask your clients to leave feedback for services and/or products on your website. If you receive one and the same advice over and over again – you’ll know for sure what you need to improve.

It’s also important to keep in mind that issues aren’t a bad thing (that is if they are small and can be easily solved). Research shows that customers are more satisfied with those companies that handled their small issues with products or services quickly and efficiently, than with those, where they had no issues at all.

This happens because in case there is no issue– there is a doubt in competence of the company to handle it quickly and efficiently if there appears one.

That's our list of market research methods which proved their effectiveness in designing successful marketing campaigns. Do you know other techniques? Let's discuss them in the comment section below!

Improve Customer Satisfaction by Tweaking Mobile

Mobile devices play an important role when we talk about how to improve customer satisfaction, as more and more people use them for searching info in Google and making purchases.

Recently studies confirmed that the number of people, using Google search on mobile devices is already greater than the number of people u sing Google search from their personal computers or laptops.

Mobile devices are the bridge between the real world and e-commerce online stores.

They allow customers to browse your website and read reviews, make purchases and use the help of your customer support agents while being in another part of the world in the convenience store or taking a ride in a bus.

Nevertheless, the way people are using their mobile devices to contact the customer support of the online store they want to make a purchase in is gradually changing.

And if you use it incorrectly now, when it's all about customer satisfaction, your conversion rate will plummet and you won’t get positive marketing.

In the majority of cases, when a customer requires help, he uses Live Chat, available on almost every e-commerce website. In case, he doesn’t find the answer he was looking for he calls the store.

Thus, one customer is now connected to two different customer support operators, taking twice more time and resources to resolve the issue. What is even worse, in some cases online stores have a different database for each channel of communication, which is why customer needs to fill out the form twice and the 2nd customer support operator knows nothing of the customer’s interaction with the first one.

This results in irritation of the customer, who is on the verge of quitting his attempts to reach customer support and convert. Moreover, he may even leave a bad feedback on forums or website, specific to your nature of business.

Proactive websites are now using new way to improve customer satisfaction, forcing customers to call and talk to a live operator. Thus, more meaningful relationship is formed, where customer will feel much less irritation, while calling because he’ll be hearing a polite and positive voice, asking for the details of his account and calling him by name.

Given the situation described above, proactive websites need to consider the following customer experience strategies for 2016 to have an edge over the competition.

Key drivers to improve customer satisfaction

Uniformity

Keep in mind that customers need their experience to be consistent. You can achieve it by giving operators from various channels of communication an option to see the information client provided on any channel. This will spare customer the trouble of entering the same information over and over again, as he moves around the communication channels, trying to solve the problem.

Updated Technology

We are living in the era of ever-evolving technology, which is why we already have the option to keep other customer support operators apprised if one of them is already on the line or in live chat with a client. This will help you to avoid spending twice as much resources on the same problem.

Better Database

You need to create one database, which will be accessible to customer Support Operators from all departments. Thus, voice operators and live chat operators will see all the account information and e-mail of the customer.

This will greatly facilitate the issue resolution and your customer support operators will be instantly able to have an intelligent conversation with the customer, knowing exactly who he is.

IVR technology


Interactive voice response (IVR) has been around for a while now. It can be successfully used for those customers, who use voice channels to get an answer. Clear understanding of the customer’s problem or desire, obtained via will allow you to redirect call to the operator, that is best suited for answering it.

Use mobile apps to avoid data sharing

At the moment, there exist a lot of apps, using which client provides personal details to get easier access to the accounts or profiles that he needs. These are great tools to improve customer satisfaction. You can also make use of this apps, integrating them in your customer support system.

Thus, all the customer’s information will be immediately passed to the customer support operator, while the customer himself will only have to push one button to contact your company. Just imagine how pleasantly surprised he will be, when he hears: “ How do you do, Mr. Johns? May I help you with anything today?” instead of “please provide your order number”.

These are some of the simple ways to improve customer satisfaction with minimal expense. Implement them and soon you will be pleased to see great results.

Digital Marketing Outsourcing vs Hiring Locally: Pros and Cons

Marketing is a cornerstone of every company's success, which is why it’s crucial to thoroughly plan time and resources that you can allocate for it. In case you’re a startup and don’t have much funds and free time on your hands, internet marketing can be a very tiresome task.

You’ll have 2 choices: either to research marketing campaigns and try to create one yourself or to hire freelancers as they’ll take much less money and time.You can also hire a local agency, but that’ll cost you pretty penny and may not yield the desired results.

If you choose to stick to your guns and create marketing campaign by yourself, you’ll need to look through a couple of qualitative tutorials on the matter and decide which strategies are affordable and suitable for you, disregarding the rest of them.

However, if you o with freelancers, check out popular freelance websites, such as Guru or UpWork.com You’ll be able to find various people, offering to create a magnificent campaign for you.
Always remember that there is a connection between price and quality of work, so in case you hire someone for $5 per hour that work won’t make you happy. Go for the middle because thus, you may find a talented individual or agency that will be able to build a strong and efficient marketing campaign for you.

Key Advantages of Digital Marketing Outsourcing:

Affordability

If your business if well-established and flourishing, it’s only natural that you hire a big team of marketologists. They won’t be limited by budget and will be capable of exploiting every possible way of advertising.

However, if you’re a startup and your resources are limited – digital marketing outsourcing is a good idea. It will allow you to find people, who are competent in what they do, but are ready to work for a smaller sum than those professionals, whom you can hire locally.

Chance to set a deadline

When you are looking into such freelance websites as Guru.com or UpWork.com, chances are that lots of people will bid on your project no matter the deadline. Naturally, there will be not only those, who can truly accomplish your project with a decent quality and within the set deadline, but also those, who bid on everything, regardless of their abilities.

You can quickly weed them out by looking through their portfolio, giving them a small task and see how are their results. Besides, price can also indicate the level of knowledge, a person, who is a professional in his sphere of work will never agree to work for a small sum.

Advantage due to the time zone difference

The difference in time zones opens magnificent opportunities: for example, if you’re located in the US, but hire someone from Germany – they will work, while your business is closed.

Thus, if there exists any kind of problem and you want it fixed overnight, just hire freelancers from the opposite part of the world and the job will be done, while you’re sleeping. It’s a huge advantage that needs to be exploited.

More time to focus on main task of the company

In case you know nothing about marketing and have no time to learn about it – digital marketing outsourcing is the right solution. Why would you spend the precious time, necessary for the development of your business, on something utterly uninteresting for you and time consuming.

Delegating this work to professionals is a much better option. In time, freed by outsourcing you will be able to create new services, products or work on perfecting the existing ones, increasing the revenue and possibilities of hiring an entire digital marketing team.

Risks of Digital Marketing Outsourcing

Nothing is perfect in this world, which is why it would have been unwise to assume that outsourcing has no negative aspects. If you outsource your digital marketing, you must be absolutely confident that the freelancer or team you’re hiring is truly capable of delivering the expected results. Below are a couple of risks, associated with digital marketing outsourcing:

Sharing of confidential information

It’s only natural that you will have to share a portion of your confidential information with freelancer or freelance team you’re hiring. Information like that may contain company’s secrets.

This is the main reason why you need to examine the team you’re hiring thoroughly and draw up a contract for work, where this will be indicated.

Non fulfillment/Partial fulfillment of Obligations

It’s not a secret that some freelancers or freelance agencies may furnish their portfolio with the items they didn’t create. It’s extremely disappointing, especially if you’re hoping that the result of their work on your project will resemble clean lines and strong skills you saw in their profile.

This is the main reason, why you should always choose freelancers or agencies that have their personal website, where their works are displayed. Thus, you’ll know for sure that the works, they’re showing are real.

Communication Gaps

When you’re located on the other part of the world from your employee it’s not a secret that you’ll experience problems in communication. There are less chances for talking via Skype, which is why your only option is e-mail.

This may lead to a row of problems: for example if your employee needs to get your feedback on certain elements of your marketing campaign and you’re not available.

Conclusion

Carefully analyze the pros and cons of Digital Marketing Outsourcing before making up your mind. If there’s anything you can do in-house and you have the right skills and time, then maybe it’s worth to give it a try. If not, start researching digital companies.

HTML5 or Flash: which one is the best option for you site?

Currently, everyone is convinced that HTML5 surpasses Flash in many aspects and today we’re going to find out if there is any truth to this statement. Thus, we’ll establish what HTML5 and Flash are and then will move to discussing benefits of each, eventually coming to their comparison.

Both of them are useful and easy to work with technologies, which are used for online content creation and display advertising.

Naturally, HTML5 and  Flash are different and both have advantages and shortcomings that we’ll discuss further.

What is HTML5?

HTML5, which is also known as HyperText Markup Language is a language, used for creation of web content and website development with the help of code. It’s important to remember that HTML5 is not a program or tool, it’s a rather recent language that was finally approved only a year ago - on October 28th, 2015.
It’s value cannot be underestimated, as it has shown itself as a reliable and easy to use language in building online banners ads, embedding animations, videos and other multimedia files in text as well as providing possibilities for scriptable rendering of 2D shapes.

HTML5 allows the creation of striking and appealing websites with the minimum efforts, made by users.

What is the Adobe Flash?

Initially, Adobe Flash was «FutureSplash Animator» that came into being in 1996. Since then it underwent a multitude of updates and variations.

Now, Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform, RIA tool and software for creation of small games, animations, videos and graphics. It’s an ideal technology for video streaming of online content, such as advertisements and videos.

Adobe Flash doesn’t have Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) processing, which is why it works slower on Mac OS X and Linux. Apart from that it cannot work on iOS, which is why it’s not supported by any iOS device (such as iPad or iPhone).

However, it’s a software, used on the majority of desktops, which allows developers to enjoy the possibility to use microphone and webcam for creation of their multimedia files.

Key benefits of HTML5 vs Flash:

1. The first benefit that comes into one’s mind is that HTML5 is FREE. Granted, developers need to be fluent in HTML5 coding to be able to work with it, as well as fluent in javascript and CSS, but it allows creating engaging and interesting web content very easily and quickly.

2. Another benefit is the possibility to render content without installing applications, plugins and so on. Developers can finally forget bout the tiresome installations of players, necessary for smooth work of the majority of RIA.

3. HTML5 is universal and works perfectly on any device, be it desktop, tablet or mobile phone. Moreover, it adapted for any operational system, be it Android or Linux and Mac OS X. It actually works much faster than Adobe Flash, since it doesn’t rely on CPU for quick running and doesn’t overheat the devices it’s used on.

4. HTML5 has responsive design; meaning it’s adapted to the screen of any device it’s used on. It’s an amazing feature, especially seeing that marketologists can use this feature to show their advertisements in a appealing way.

5. Another benefit that is brilliant for marketing campaigns is SEO support, which HTML5 possesses. It provides an tool for getting higher positions in the search engines and correspondingly increasing the overall customers’ turnout and conversion rate.

6. Researches show that people are moving their online searches to mobile devices, which is why HTML5, which already is up-to-date with this trend, will soon become a must for those, who are not willing to be lagging behind.

Flash advantages:

1.First of all it’s worth to mention that Adobe Flash is a ready-to use solution. You need to simply download it and it’s ready for your work. You won’t need to study tutorials and search for solutions

in order to create code that is required for your task.

2. It’s supported by all web browsers for desktop PC. It’s very convenient, however you should keep in mind that it’s not supported by mobile devices, which is why none of the content will be displayed.

3. Flash provides possibilities for creating much more beautiful and qualitative graphics. It also offers built-in visual effects, which is why developers can freely create any animations and video files.

4. Flash has been around for a long time, which is why there are far more people, who are proficient in it, than in HTML. Considering how long it’s been since the first version of it – it’s not surprising that there are heaps of developers, who can easily advice you on creating multimedia content in Flash

5. With flash, designers are at liberty to use sub-pixel definitions for rendering smooth and beautiful scenes. They can also use audio recording and web cam. This is a huge advantage, since it provides multitude of exiting possibilities.

6. Flash is ideal for video streaming, especially live video. This feature remains highly valuable for developers as it opens a wide row of multimedia applications.

Comparison: HTML5 vs Flash

Since Flash appeared a long time ago, it has a well-established developers community, bigger number of available tutorials and people to generally discuss and exchange ideas about Flash with. However, HTML5, which appeared only a year ago is free of charge, which is great if you are fluent in its coding as well as in using javascript and CSS.

When it comes to choosing between HTML5 and Flash, for those people, who aren’t that tech-savvy, Flash will be a better choice.

HTML5 has responsive design, which is a huge plus over Flash, which is not supported on mobile devices at all. However, video streaming and live streaming runs much better on Flash.

But due to the fact that Flash relies heavily on CPU, it quickly overheats devices that its used on. HTML5 doesn’t have such a problem. Therefore, on this point the dilemma HTML5 or Flash has an obvious answer: HTML5.

Conclusion:

Although Flash has a wider reach, a bigger community and provides better possibilities for video rending and streaming, it is limited in many aspects: not supported on mobile devices or iOS and relies on CPU, which slows down its work by up to 40%.

Apart from that, devices it’s used on tend to overheat, which is not a good thing in the world of ever-changing technologies.

Although it won’t disappear as fast as many of us tend to believe, it really is on the decline.

HTML5, on the other hand, possesses all the up-to-date features, such as responsive design, which became a must in the world of modern design and SEO support – crucial for your website’s marketing campaigns.

Moreover, HTML5 is free and that’s a guaranteed ticket to success. So it’s fair to say that in the battle HTML5 vs Flash, the victory would most probably be held by HTML. What do you think on this? Will one of them get primacy or they will continue to be as popular as they are today?

5 Obsolete SEO Techniques that Harm Your Business

Which of these Obsolete SEO Techniques are you still using? Find below the ones you have to get rid of and as soon as possible.

Let's start!

Perhaps every businessman understands the importance of having a commercially successful website in terms of increasing the digital reachability of his business.

However website cannot become commercially successful by itself (such cases are extremely rare and usually imply crowdsourcing).

Therefore, you need the help of the experienced SEO professional, who will be able to boost the reach of your website and increase its overall turnout.

It's worth to remember that your SEO must be well aware of the current trends in the SEO world. Sometimes websites get fined for so-called “grey” practices, in other cases, practices that are considered legal and popular this year, may be penalized the next year and if your SEO is unaware of the changes – your business will definitely take a hit, no matter its size or nature. Google spares no one in this regard.

Below you will find some tips on how to improve your SEO practices by simply pulling the plug on the obsolete ones that can get you in trouble.

1. Backlinking:

There is a fair chance that you’ve heard of this term, whether from your SEO or somewhere in the

net. It’s one of the practices that can influence your business negatively.

It implies the creation of unbelievable amount of links to the website you’re promoting, without accomplishing any audit or research on the domains that you’re linking.

When Google Penguin appearedin 2013 such practice immediately became not only obsolete, but also harmful for your business. Nowadays it’s all about the qualitative links.

Why not backlinking? 

Simply because your website’s rating will drop if you create links back from websites that are absolutely unrelated to your nature of business or from websites or blogs with bad reputation.

If you want to avoid it, simply stop including your links in various directories, exchanging links with websites that have absolutely no relation to your business or writing posts chock full of your links on any open blogs.

Now Google ranks high only those websites that have a few links, but from very qualitative websites with excellent reputation. The focus is on quality, not quantity.

2. “Fake” Content:

A lot of misinformed SEO and business bloggers consider that long pages of words will be ranked high, as they waste tons of time to create them. However, to their great disappointment, they couldn’t

be further from the truth. Google Panda will not let any poor quality content to be ranked high.

The so-called “fake” content, that is full of links, is no longer perceived and ranked high. Just like with back links – quality means high rank, even if your article does not reach 2000-words. You can simply make sure that it’s above the 300-words minimum and you’re set.

Of course, that is given that you will provide interesting and engaging content with helpful tips or insights for the users to read.

Duplicate descriptions, that can be found on various pages of the same website will also be ignored by Panda, who’ll drop your ranking like it’s hot. Your visitors and users of your website must want to read the content you’re providing, otherwise Google Panda will penalize your website and you hardly need that.

3. Excessive Keyword Usage:

There is no denying that keywords have been one of the main ways to promote your website. However the excessive usage of keywords can never lead to anything even remotely productive.

Cramming lots of coarse sounding, out of place key words in a text makes your content unreadable to users, considerably decreasing overall website or blog quality.If you are an experienced online business owner, you understand the importance and benefits of using keywords the right way.

Moreover, it’s worth to mention that such practice of keywords cramming is currently strictly against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Nowadays, content writers can finally take a deep breath, because there appeared Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). What does it mean? It means that it uses the most widespread phrases of your page as the keywords.

Even more surprising is the fact that it can find synonymous phrases in your text, so you don’t have to annoy your readers with constant repeating of the same words over and over again.

For example, if your article is about “website design”, Latent Semantic Indexing will also determine that your keyword phrase is “web design” or “responsive web design” and so on. All the focus is now on quality and user experience.

Bots are being taught to analyze texts from the point of its simplicity and usefulness for users.

4. Keyword Rankings:

This obsession with keywords ranking is so obsolete. You need to simply understand that nothing will change financially speaking even if your website is on top, but no one clicks it and there is no

traffic.

No traffic means no sales and revenue.

Therefore, before you invest a good chunk of your funds and time into reaching higher rankings, you need to think it over and determine whether these resources will be better spent on something that actually maters.

For example, creation of new products/services or improving the UX of your website.

You will be much better off targeting a few keywords instead of a multitude of hardly related ones. Long tail keywords bring most of the traffic to the website.

Another good strategy is to write exciting meta descriptions to your pages. Thus, visitors will be more inclined to click them.

5. Ignoring images:

It’s not a secret that a while ago images weren’t considered a useful tool in your website’s promotion.

Well, guess what? Now they are!

People are attracted to visual materials, such as images, video, gifs, animations and so on. What you probably did not know is that search engines like them as well.

They just need some help seeing them. In order for search engines to see your images and index them better you need to write alt texts for them.

Suitable and well defined description will help Google determine to what category your images and your text is related. Such relevant images can sufficiently increase your overall website quality and Google ranking.

For instance, if you’re selling washing machines you can rename your boring 1.jpg file to the name of the washing machine model. Thus, users will know for sure that such model is available on your website and will visit your website to see if they will be able to purchase it.

Make sure you omit these obsolete SEO techniques from your promotion strategy. Instead, focus on recent tactics that proved to be efficient and are Google-friendly. Don't know what they are? Keep checking our blog to find out.

Email Personalization Practices to Boost Conversion Rate

Convert more customers

Every internet user like personalization. If so, why not to use Email Personalization to boost click rate, hence make more profit.

Recent studies reported that only 5% of companies do use email personalization, while 94% of them stated that it's critical for their business.

Let's make use of personalized marketing to get customers to buy our products. How? Read further to find out.

Initially, we all had funny-sounding e-mails that were very similar to our usernames. However, we can’t be young and reckless our entire life, which is why the majority of us changes e-mails and the reasons for change can be very different.

Some people deem necessary to change their e-mails for work, so that they sound more professional, others do it just cause they don’t like the previous childish one. E-mail has become the integral part of our digital life. Practically, every website and service requires you to sing up or login, using your valid e-mail.

Therefore, it is only natural that due to the general change in the role of the e-mail, marketing strategies, connected to the e-mails were also bound to change. No matter whether you are a startup or have a well-established business, the huge impact of successful email marketing strategy cannot be underestimated, especially if we’re talking about the conversion rate.

Just imagine how embarrassing it will be to have the necessity to explain everyone that you’ve lost customers because you’ve ignored the new trends in e-mail marketing. People like to be treated personally and that is the main feature that marketologists need to exploit.

1. Personalized e-mails are the key for building strong ties with your clients

Always keep in mind that not all e-mails in marketing are directed on profit generation. If you see that a user has signed-up for updates, it means he finds the information on your website to be valuable, but not because you cram advertisement in it.

E-mails with notifications about useful content, unrelated to sales can help you build trusting relationships with your clients. You need to analyze what they like and send them the information accordingly.

If they see that you aren’t just pushing your products or services, but instead care about their preferences and want to supply something useful free of charge, they will be much more inclined to read those of your e-mails that do contain sales-related info.

Let’s see an example: you have a car dealership and also a blog related to automobiles, where you upload interesting info and news. If you send all your users info or updates regarding both of them – some of them will most likely unsubscribe, because the 2nd part of the e-mail will not be interesting for them. Some of the users just want to read your blog and will gladly find out if you have any updates, new articles and so on.

Other part of the users are only interested in cars and are awaiting news regarding new models that are expected to be in stock in your dealership. Therefore, it is crucial to divide these two categories and send them e-mails of the separate nature. Eventually both categories will browse your blog and dealership website and generate traffic.

2. A couple of personalized e-mails a week can secure a lot of long term clients;

Some companies believe that constant daily notifications for their clients will generate sales. However, they couldn’t be more wrong. Daily e-mails can actually be a way to get yourself unsubscribed from. It’s simply too much. No one wants to receive daily e-mails from a business, it’s annoying and utterly unnecessary. E-mails like this are often marked as spam. One or two e-mails per week will be more than enough.

You simply need to make sure that they are qualitative and provide useful information. Content you include in your e-mails must be intriguing, not just sales-related. For instance, if you have a big sale coming up – don’t send your customers the remainders every day. One e-mail before the sale starts and one, while it’s in progress will be more than enough. These sales notifications must be a pleasant surprise, not a tiresome nuisance.

3. Personal follow-up e-mails must be sent out at the right time 

Follow-up e-mails are a great way to return users to the website or re-ignite their interest, especially if they couldn’t accomplish the purchase because they’ve experienced problem in the shopping cart

section. Nevertheless, timing of such e-mails must be thoroughly studied.

For example, in case user intends to buy an item, but had a problem and abandoned the page – quick follow-up e-mail can return him to the page.

But, if the follow-up e-mail is sent right after your journey ended, or you got out of the theater and the company that sold you tickets instantly asks if everything was up to your liking.

You didn't have the time to collect your thoughts after the experience and yet you need to reply. Such e-mails are perceived as a nuisance and cannot be regarded as something positive.

As a part of internet marketing, Email Personalization is indeed a great way to get your customers engaged in what you sell or do. Pay attention to data about your users you can collect and how you can make use of it. Don't delay too much. Start today to send personalized emails: it's simpler and easier than you can imagine.

Methods of Your WordPress Blog’s Monetization

User experience means everything in the world of modern website design, which is why it is essential not to harm your user experience, while trying to convert your traffic into income.

If you fill your blog or site with popups, advertisements and bait-and-switch paywalls, you will definitely get an immediate cash flow, however the reputation of your blog as a trustworthy source of useful and helpful articles will be broken. It will be hard to gain the community’s trust back, as well.

This was the main reason why we have gathered several methods for you to be able to gain profit from your WordPress blog without damaging your reputation.

1) Make the unique content available only for members

Content models like that are widespread across numerous industries, which offer the base content  for free with an option to buy eBooks or special reports.

Many websites like that offer free publications, but if you want to see the premium content, you must be a part of “club” or “membership”.
Actually, there are several ways to load membership-only publications on WordPress,among the most popular are Membership Pro 2, Wishlist and Restrict Content Pro.

2) Background of your blog or site can be rented out.

You may not even realize it, but background of your blog with high traffic is a very valuable estate.
At the moment it can look unassuming, but advertisers will pay a lot to place their adds at the background of your popular blog or site.
Why? Simply because relevant ads, placed on the background of websites with high traffic, have much higher click rate than any other. You can even create beautiful and stylish looks for your website with the help of these background ads.

3) Advertising related products

As surprising as it sounds you actually have plenty of opportunities to make money by offering relevant clothing items or gear to your readers. If your blog is about the design, then it is worth to offer your audience mugs or shirts, where they will be able to print the designs they like on your website. Besides, you won’t need any additional investments in order to get started, which is why you won’t loose anything. WordPress offers a perfect opportunity to integrate such items.

4) Recommendations of the products/services that you trust

If you make a deal with the manufacturer of certain goods you can monetize your blog via the affiliate traffic.

For instance, users will gladly read thorough and well illustrated guides, which contain recommendations to purchase products, described in them, based on certain well-explained criteria.

For example, famous bloggers can write reviews and don’t conceal the fact that they were paid to do so. They don’t have to hide it because their readers read their reviews in any case as they have previously built a strong following for themselves, providing useful and interesting information.

5) You can publish posts, sponsored by advertisers

There has recently appeared a new trend – publishers accept sponsored content only if it is highly qualitative. It’s a tricky issue, because no one wants its blog or website look cheap and possess a lot of trashy sales content.

So what can be done to smoother the effect?The most obvious and correct answer will be to mark the post as “sponsored”, so that the customers have correct expectations.

Thus, it is obvious that you have several options to monetize your website or blog without harming user experience. You just need to figure out a way to add value to that content that is free on your website, so that it can be equally if not more valuable than the sponsored one. In such case your readers won’t consider themselves tricked and will not abandon your blog.

To Use or Not to Use SaaS?

Essentially, SaaS or Software as a Service is a software for rent, leased to the client for a period of time. Client doesn’t have to buy it, install it, maintain it, host it or configure it – everything is done by the software’s creator.

It’s a new dawn in the world of information technology and it has a bright future. Software as a service can work in the cloud, it’s affordable, robust and effective.

In what spheres SaaS is used the most?

Given that SaaS usage widens day by day, it’s obvious that it will be used in a wide majority of spheres, such as customer relationship management, collaboration software, HR management and so on.

The great thing about ever-evolving technology is that now you can actually have the entire database in the cloud, accessible via business intelligence software. Simply imagine how much you can save! SaaS can be deployed on a cloud within hours and flawlessly function, saving you a lot of funds and time.

 Moreover, one cannot overlook one of the most important spheres – eCommerce. It gradually shifts to SaaS as well. Taking into account that eCommerce market grows exponentially it’s only natural that in the nearest future there will appear a multitude of new solutions to meet the needs of the eCommerce and marketing.

1. Profits in no time

SaaS applications have a significant advantage over traditional model of application usage. SaaS is already deployed and configured.
Company, renting SaaS from the provider can simply register and have the access to the needed and tweaked application in a couple of hours.

Because of this one can save a lot of time and money that otherwise would have been spent on covering man-hours of professional staff, responsible for application deployment and configuring, like in the traditional models.

2. Affordability

With SaaS you don’t have to buy the application, you just need to purchase the license, which doesn’t cost much, unlike the traditional model. Besides, the cost of maintenance is also quite small due to the fact that it is divided among clients, using the same solution. You receive the functionality that you need without wasting a fortune on hardware or application development.

Ready-to-use SaaS solution will allow you to redirect your internal resources (which would have been otherwise tasked with development, deployment and so on) to developing new products or fixing other issues.

Moreover, SaaS providers will configure the software to meet your business needs, so that you won’t have to put any efforts into using it. In many companies, predominantly startups, marketing and/or sales budget is quite small, which is why an affordable solution can truly make a difference.
 

3. No need in any Infrastructure

The beauty of the SaaS solution is that you don’t need to have your own IT infrastructure, as it’s being taken care of by your SaaS provider.

With a solution like that you won’t have to hire professionals to create and deploy applications – everything is accomplished by your SaaS provider.

Moreover, you won’t have to watch for updates and upgrades – they become automatically available for all users, renting the software, when the provider makes them.

4. Scalability and mobility

With SaaS you’re mobile and need only Internet and web browser, accessing your application from any part of the world, anytime and on any device.

You don’t have to install it, but you get all the benefits of it. 

As a rule, SaaS is located in the scalable cloud and possesses integration with all the other SaaS in the same cloud. If a client wants to take advantage of any other SaaS from this cloud, he can simply enable it.

He won’t have to think about server capacity planning – that falls on the SaaS provider's shoulders.

5. No Issues with Security

With SaaS solution you don’t have to worry about security of the data you’re entering in your application, your SaaS provider is responsible for it.

Clients benefit not only from the free updates, but also get free security updates. This is extremely convenient as all the data is backed up by the vendor and you obtain disaster recovery at no charge as well.