by Charles River Interactive | April 20, 2016 | Content Marketing, Industry Trends, Uncategorized
When is the last time you saw someone waiting – on a park or city bench, at a café table or a transit stop – and he or she wasn’t staring at a smartphone? These hand-held screens are more than a modern convenience; for many Americans, they are our connection to the world, people and services.
Nearly two-thirds – or 64 percent – of people in the U.S. own smartphones, according to the 2015 smartphone use study by the Pew Research Center. Of those, 15 percent do not have many options for getting online other than their phones.
As mobile dependency increases, marketers need to take into account mobile search, responsive design and, yes, even content strategy for a mobile audience.
Why is Writing for Mobile Important?
We use our phones to find nearby amenities, look up directions, manage banking accounts, share photos, text and call people, read news stories, follow stocks, etc.
Consider these stats from the Pew mobile study on the habits of smartphone owners in the past year:
- 68 percent followed breaking news
- 62 percent looked up info about a health condition
- 57 percent did online banking
- 44 percent looked up real estate listings
- 43 percent searched for jobs
- 30 percent wanted to take a class
- 18 percent applied for jobs
That means in the five minutes someone may spend waiting for a bus, there are endless, competing online tasks and information to fill the time. How do you make sure mobile users stay engaged with your website? A sleek, responsive design will absolutely help, but you need mobile-friendly content to round out the user experience.
5 Tips for Mobile Content
- Get to the point: As we’ve discussed, mobile users are often killing time or quickly searching for information. (And your content is competing with incoming texts and push messages). If they don’t think your site can quickly and easily answer their question or meet a need, they will move on, fast.
- Be simple and clear: Web writing best practices calls for easy-to-understand content (we aim for a 6th-grade reading level). For mobile users, it’s even more important to omit complex language and industry jargon. According to a mobile comprehension study from the University of Alberta, mobile users found it twice as hard to understand subject matter than desktop users.
- Don’t rely on your navigation: Mobile users won’t see the navigation bar that appears on your website. That means inserting strategic call-to-action links is key to facilitating the user journey. Sure, users can click on the “hamburger” icon to view page options, but keep in mind the quick, impatient, scrolling habits of the smartphone user. Deliver them helpful links, where they make sense, and it will pay off.
- Give them what they need: Mobile users are very likely to be looking for key information such as phone numbers and directions. Make these features easy to find and interact with.
- Craft super-powered H2s: These headers serve double-duty on the web: They draw in organic search traffic with keywords and phrases and organize content for rapidly skimming and scanning users. The act of thumbing down a mobile screen helps users move even more quickly through a page. Write compelling H2s to make users pause and read. But make sure they are accurate, or they may lose patience.
As a marketer, the best thing you can do is visit your own mobile site often. Many times, clients admit they have never even viewed their own content on a smartphone. Make sure you know how the experience is different from your work desktop.
Interested in learning more about mobile trends? Read more from our blog, View from the Charles:
The Rise of Mobile Chat Apps
Mobile Search Updates: Why You Need a Mobile Website
by Charles River Interactive | March 8, 2016 | Analytics, Industry Trends, Uncategorized
Does this sound like you?
Your developers, SEO and paid search teams have come together to build a website that is driving traffic in volumes and surpassing your most optimistic estimates. Plus, the reports you’re getting from Google Analytics tell a positive story of highly engaged users.
From Google Analytics, you are learning how users came to your site, what pages they visited and how they engaged with your content.
But this data only tells part of the story. You want to know more about what users are actually doing on your site. Google Tag Manager is a free, effective tool that tracks user behavior.
What is Google Tag Manager?
Google Tag Manager (GTM for short) is a free easy-to-install service offered by Google. GTM allows you to set up an interface to build “Tags” (also known as pixels) to track and evaluate visitor interactions on your site through Google Analytics as Events and Goals.
You will gain valuable information about your audience reach, visitor experience and navigation, and path to conversion.
Why Use Google Tag Manager?
Here are three top reasons to start using Google Tag Manager on your site:
- Streamline your tags: Adding and managing tags can be time-consuming and messy. With GTM, you do not need to re-code your site. GTM provides your development team with a block of code to add to the opening <body> tag of each page you want to track.
- Improve site function: Once in place, the GTM online menu interface allows you to immediately build, test and publish your tags within minutes. Because the tracking tags are not hard coded, your site load time, a critical component of the user experience, can improve and may reduce visitor site abandons due to slow load times.
- Benefit from versatility: The data from these tags is not just limited to Google properties such as AdWords and DoubleClick. You can also collect multiple third-party applications such as Comscore, Facebook and Marin. You can add further customization by using HTML and JavaScript-based tags, variables, and triggers.
How to Implement Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager opens up a universe of new data and analytics possibilities to uncover new insights into your website performance. Charles River Interactive (CRI) has developed an end-to-end strategic and targeted GTM implementation approach with our search partners. We lay the GTM framework with defined goals, naming conventions, and deployment stages. Instead of a flood of raw data, CRI lets your metrics tell a story about your audience and their experience on your site. This brings about actionable insights and solutions to improve your website and marketing strategies.
Helpful Tools to Learn Google Tag Manager
Interested in learning more about GTM and how to apply it? Here are some helpful tools and resources:
Interested in learning more about how to leverage Google’s tools for your marketing goals? Read more from our blog, View from the Charles:
Google SERP News: Right rail ads are gone
How to Launch Smarter Campaigns with Google Customer Match
by Charles River Interactive | February 23, 2016 | Industry Trends, Organic Search, Paid Search
As of Monday, Google has confirmed a huge adjustment to search results: right hand rail ads are disappearing.
Last week, on Feb. 18, a dramatic increase in SERPs (marketing lingo for Search Engine Results Pages) with four ad positions, as well as a slow but noticeable decline in right rail placement, led many PPC leaders to question if the change was finally happening. Hinted at last December, when Google began beta testing four ad SERPs alongside Shopping PLAs across a very limited number of results, this update is a game-changer for search engine marketing as a whole.
Why is Google Removing Right Rail Ads?
Google claims the new layout will help searchers find (read: click on) more relevant and engaging content. But the change suggests an effort by Google to standardize the advertising ecosystem across all devices – mobile, desktop, and tablet – by serving the same number and style of ads in the top results. While this makes room for a variety of right rail results such as Knowledge Panels and Shopping PLAs on desktop, the effects on paid advertisers will be swift and global.
Google SERP Before
Google SERP After
Top 3 Changes in Google’s New Ad Layout
So what do the changes mean for paid search? Here are the most dramatic potential changes:
- Cost-Per-Click Increases: With the number of paid advertisements decreasing, competition for those top spots just got hotter. The potential for a rise in CPCs across all SERPs is a possibility, as companies compete for an even smaller advertising space. Not to mention the effects of bidding for a top 4 spot, only to find oneself in spot no. 5, now at the very bottom of the first search result page.
- Higher Competition for fewer Ad Spots: While adding a fourth spot is good, total paid listings has decreased from approximately 10 to 7. This puts even more pressure on appearing in those top four spots.
- Less Above-the-Fold Real Estate for Organic Results: An additional ad pushes all organic listings further down a page already chock full of PPC, Google My Business results and Local Packs. While overall organic strategy shouldn’t see any seismic shifts, there is opportunity to adjust SEO tactics to focus on long-tail term optimizations (in addition to more competitive ad-filled SERP keywords), so that your business can continually increase traffic from all positions in the search funnel.
How does the Google Ad Layout Impact Paid Search?
It’s estimated that 85 percent of clicks came from the top ads and only about 15 percent came from the side and bottom ads. The data shows that right rail ads have a much lower likelihood of a click regardless of position, and the fight has always been for top three spots.
So now we’ll have an extra spot to bid for, as well as shopping PLAs and Knowledge Graphs on desktop (when applicable). Quality Scores and efficiencies will be more important than ever, and other factors such as search relevancy and ad copy, are expected to become increasingly more influential in advertisers’ ability to efficiently maintain position in the top four ad spots, while successfully driving traffic to their site.
Google is telling us loud and clear that good, relevant ads will be rewarded with coveted top positions for an affordable price. All you have to do is listen!
Interested in learning more in paid search and SEO trends? Read more from our blog, View from the Charles:
How to Launch Smarter Campaigns with Google Customer Match
Optimizing for Voice Search
by Charles River Interactive | February 11, 2016 | Industry Trends, Paid Social, Uncategorized
It took a week’s worth of bad news to make people talk about Twitter again. Today, you’re probably hearing a lot about the future of Twitter, and wondering whether it has one.
From the #RIPTwitter backlash to news that user growth has “come to a halt” – as a few media outlets put it – the company is fighting to prove it’s still relevant.
If you’re a marketer, you want to know what all of this might mean for your brand engagement on Twitter. Here’s what you need to know:
Twitter User Growth
Twitter released its fourth quarter earnings report late Wednesday. Not only has the company failed to increase new users since it went public, it has actually lost monthly active users from the previous quarter, according to news reports. Investors were clearly disappointed, as stocks fell in after-hours trading.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, as it arrived on the heels of the #RIPTwitter drama. The company’s fight is now two-fold: Proving itself to investors and preserving the loyalty of the angry users it desperately needs.
#RIPTwitter: What Does it Mean?
Twitter has been hinting for a year that an algorithm was in the works. On Friday, Buzzfeed broke the news that it would be introduced this week, sending the twittersphere into a frenzy. Enraged users created the #RIPTwitter hashtag to protest the change, officially announced Wednesday.
Why the revolt? Users say Twitter is copying the Facebook playbook. Until now, the real-time Twitter feed has been its key differentiator, setting it apart from other platforms. Now, users worry the algorithm will vet everything they see.
What is an Algorithmic Timeline?
- How it works now: The feed appears in reverse chronological order. Users see the latest tweets from people they follow.
- The problem: If you don’t log in for a while, your real-time feed keeps updating without you.
- What changes: If you log in after a hiatus, the new algorithm will highlight the top missed tweets it thinks are most relevant to you, based on your activity and other factors. (Read more about the feature on Twitter’s blog.)
- What stays the same: After these “top missed tweets,” users continue on to their normal feed.
- Who has to use it: It’s an optional setting that’s rolling out in waves.
How Does the Twitter Algorithm Impact Brands?
So die-hard Twitterheads are upset. As a marketer, should you be, too? It doesn’t look that way.
Here’s what changes:
- The algorithm will only pick tweets from a user’s followers. It will not select ads.
- It will factor in organic engagement, so promoted tweets can’t cheat the algorithm.
- The company promises it’s not moving toward a “pay to play” system for advertising, like what Facebook uses.
- Your brand’s unpaid tweets are still equal to user tweets. They may appear as top highlights, if they get enough traction.
That means you should continue to invest in and distribute high-quality content. And who knows, maybe these changes will actually help you reach more people – that is, if Twitter makes good on its promise to Wall Street for user growth this winter.
Interested in learning more about social media trends? Read more from our blog, View from the Charles:
by Charles River Interactive | February 2, 2016 | Industry Trends, Paid Social
Snapchat debuted as an app with a reputation as a tween/teen alternative to more traditional channels like Facebook and Twitter.
Today, Snapchat has begun to emerge as a legitimate social network that brands and agencies cannot ignore. Consider these stats from Snapchat:
- 60 percent of 13 to 34-year-old smartphone users in the U.S. are on Snapchat
- 5 billion-plus daily videos views
- Over 100 million daily active users
According to these numbers, Snapchat is growing up. And for smart marketers, it presents a key opportunity to reach a coveted demographic.
What is Snapchat?
Founded in 2011 by three Stanford students, Snapchat had a clear goal: Provide a social media platform where posts, pictures and opinions shared “in the moment” would not haunt a user’s online reputation forever. It promised the ability to be spontaneous and honest without those 2 a.m. college posts popping up during future job interviews.
How Does Snapchat Work?
Snapchat is a smartphone app that allows its users to take pictures and video, add filters, text and emojis, and share them directly with friends.
The key to Snapchat’s appeal – and success – is its short window: No post lasts longer than 24 hours, and some disappear in seconds. This is important because it builds an engaged audience. Users keep checking in so they don’t miss posts and because they can only see them once, they make it count.
Snapchat and Marketing: What You Need to Know
Snapchat provides advertising opportunities with their Discover section, which is populated by big name publishers like ESPN, VICE, Wall Street Journal and many more.
- Targeted advertising opportunities: Recently, Snapchat has announced wider ranging advertising options that will allow digital marketers to target specific groups of people. This type of ad product will allow brands to directly engage with their target audience depending on a number of factors like location, interests, etc.
- Compelling campaigns through My Story: Brands can use the ‘My Story’ feature to highlight a product or service in little bite size chucks with a reveal at the end and a strong call to action. My Story compiles a series of posts – or snaps – in chronological order to tell a story.
- Comprehensive social media strategy: Brands can use their existing social media groups in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to add more followers on their Snapchat page via posting the Snapchat user QR code as their profile picture or a straight up image post. (Be bold, make your Snapchat QR code your Facebook profile image and watch your followers jump higher.)
While Snapchat is still in the early stages of growth, I’m seeing more and more 30+, 40 + individuals creating and sending snaps to their friends and colleagues. With every image having a permanent home elsewhere, sharing “of the moment” images/video to friends creates more of an intimacy with your friends. However as the user base of Snapchat moves to an older demographic, having opportunities to deliver your message to where the attention is of your audience will further validate using Snapchat as one of your social media channels.
Interested in learning more in social media trends? Read more from our blog, View from the Charles:
The Rise of Mobile Chat Apps
Facebook & Twitter Unleash New, Exciting Features
by Charles River Interactive | January 18, 2016 | Industry Trends, Organic Search
What is a mobile messaging app?
Digital marketing reports have suggested that mobile chat is the “next killer app” for 2016. Mobile messaging apps are a cost effective way to send messages and media in real-time from sender to receiver on a mobile device. Unlike smartphone text messages, mobile chat apps are free stand-alone programs that have evolved into mini-platforms, incorporating a wide set of tools like built-in web browsing, shopping, payment options, online communities, web-based video, and on-demand communication. In 2015, AdAge reported that the main contenders in the U.S mobile messaging app space are Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. However, Adweek’s 2016 predictions suggest that global players like WeChat, Line, Kik, and Viber are beginning to become popular among brand marketers and millions of millennials. Most of these mobile messaging apps have similar features, but each offer different tools that impact the way businesses and users engage on these platforms.
Most popular global messenger apps, based on a number of monthly active users.
What does this mean for Google?
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google is developing a new mobile chat app in efforts to maintain its position as a top search tool. Although Google’s new service is still in the works, reports have suggested that Google plans to develop an “artificial intelligence-enhanced” platform to contend with Facebook owned WhatsApp and Messenger. In fact, The WSJ suggests that Google’s new app would enable users to message one another or a chatbot, a computer program that engages in human conversation. These chatbots have the ability to figure out a range of appropriate responses and remember earlier conversations. For instance, chatbots can help a human troubleshoot IT problems. This way, users won’t have to leave the app to discover new information.
How does mobile messaging apps benefit clients?
According to research conducted by Activate, Inc., mobile messaging apps have grown with 2.5 billion registered users in 2015 and an additional 1.1 billion new users expected by 2018. Mobile chat is a powerful tool for businesses because the stats show consumers prefer to be engaged in this manner. While messaging apps provide excellent personal support, eliminate phone calls, and foster consumer-brand relationships, there are additional benefits for businesses. Given that consumers look to brands to meet immediate needs, mobile chat apps offer an interface for a customer to ask what they want on-demand in a comfortable space. That is, brands can now reach consumers during their purchasing decisions. In addition, specific features of mobile messaging apps give connected consumers access to essential store and product information like inventory availability, product reviews, and a user-friendly shopping cart. With that, mobile messaging platforms provide an opportunity for businesses to tailor their digital marketing strategies in way that will organically insert themselves into mobile conversations.
