85% of Smartphone Users Prefer Mobile Apps over Mobile Web

According to recent report from Compuware, mobile applications are preferred by smartphone users over mobile web sites by 85%. Reasons cited were that apps are more convenient, faster, and easier to navigate than mobile websites.  With over 61% percent of people in the US now owning smartphones, it is important that businesses now realize that the need to "dip their toes" into mobile applications is now.

Medical, Shopping, Banking, and More Now Mobile

No longer are customers sitting down at home in front of their desktop computer to get their shopping, news updates, or banking done. Now users are embracing apps that allow them to schedule an appointment, streamline their banking, notify them of current and breaking news, and texts them when a deposit has been made into their accounts. Having a mobile app for customers not only allows them a quick, easy, and effective way to keep in touch with a business, but also allows the business to collect data on who and how their app is being used, very similar to how Google Analytics for a website. With the ability to track analytics from a mobile app, businesses can now learn about their "mobile customer".

Convenience Factor of Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Websites

When asked about the benefits of using a mobile app vs. a mobile website,  the biggest factors cited were:

-          Convenience (55%),

-          How fast they are (48%),

-          Easier to browse (45%)

-          Better user experience (28%)

Knowing these convenience factors and implementing them into a business could offer up essentially an endless possibility of benefits for the business owner. Faster customer service, better customer relationships and increased opportunity for market share through referrals are just a few of the examples that a mobile app could help a business.

Enhance the Customer Experience

While a mobile app will help to instill a better customer and user experience, it is important that it is updated frequently, much like a blog, with fresh and relevant content and information that will keep the customer coming back to the app. Push notifications when personalized content, special offers, perks based on interests are all great ways to ensure that this will happen. Ways to improve downloads of your app include social sharing and referral and review options available within the app. Mobile apps, just like desktop websites are the image and identity of your company to both new and old users. Failure to implement a successful brand image on either could result in loss of clients, visitors and profit. So how do businesses ensure that a mobile app will portray them in the best of light? Stephen Pierzchala, Technology Strategist at Compuware said it best:

"With consumers expecting greater experiences with mobile apps now more than ever, fulfilling those expectations doesn't just happen -- it takes a conscious effort throughout every stage of the design and development process to get it right. Performance is a crucial contributor to providing a dependable mobile app user experience, so performance should be considered a key driver in the design process. Mobile applications need to focus on a core utility, and they need to be fast and reliable in order to be valuable."

If you would like an in-depth look at the report, you can download it here.

Quick Tips to Help Create Blog Content

With all the new updates in the Google search algorithm thanks to the Hummingbird update, businesses now more than ever need to ensure that their blogs are updated with fresh and relevant content on a daily basis to ensure that visits and search rankings don't drop-off. Below are just a few quick and easy ways that businesses can stay on top of relevant content that they may find useful for the next time a blog post is scheduled to be posted.

Google Alerts for Fresh Content

If you are unfamiliar with Google Alerts, now is the time to study up. Google Alerts allows you to create an alert or email every time something that relates to your original search query is posted. For example, say you are looking for news articles related to the new iPad. Google Alerts will then allow you to choose what type of results you would like (News, Blogs, Video, etc.), how often you would like these sent to your email and whether or not you want all results or only the best results for this topic. This will not only keep you up-to-date on all results of what is being put on the internet about the new iPad, but save you time from having to scour the internet.

Review Your Blog

Who is the blog targeting? Are posts targeting that demographic? How has the blog changed, and is it better or worse than when it was first started? Looking through past blog posts and data can help businesses realize what their target demographic really wants from the company blog. By looking at the data, businesses can then begin to create articles and topics for future articles based on those posts that received the most post, comments, or goal that the company is looking to achieve.

Expand Thinking Beyond Words

Blog posts don't simply have to be all content. Infographics, videos, and webinars are all great forms of media that can be used to create blog posts that are equally or more informative to your target demographic, and allow a company to show off the company's personality in a unique way. These types of blog posts and media also have the chance to become more shareable, as they allow consumers to process the information faster than reading through a 500-600 blog post.

Step Outside Of Your Boundaries

Much like in your daily life, blog writings can become tedious and repetitive, which can lead to a major case of writer's block. Once the feeling of monotony starts, step outside of the box and write about something that interests you or the company. Write about a personal experience that not only helped co-worker in life situation, but also in a work situation. These types of blog posts allow businesses the ability to give visitors to their blog a peek into the personality of the business, as well as what type of people they have working there.

While these are examples of how to help create blog content, they are not the end all solutions for every business. Take some time out of the day to discuss with co-workers the overall look and feel of your blog, get an understanding of what the company wants the blog to be for your company and for your visitors, and begin to formulate a plan that will help to deliver fresh and relevant content to them.

Hummingbird and the Future of SEO and Link Building

Recently Google released their Hummingbird update to their search engine. This update was far more in depth than recent updates such as the Panda and Penguin updates, featuring re-tooling and behind the scenes updates of the search engine itself to help it perform smarter and faster. If you have been keeping up to date with all of the Google updates, you would know that the Panda update helped to remove bad content from search results and that Penguin pretty much removed low-quality links from search results. As Hummingbird has taken affect, we can only look into whether SEO and link-building will be non-existent in the future.

What is Hummingbird?

Hummingbird to marketers is similar to buying a new house with all new appliances as opposed to just painting your existing, older home. It helps to deliver more relevant results to users faster. Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, put it best:

In general, Hummingbird — Google says — is a new engine built on both existing and new parts, organized in a way to especially serve the search demands of today, rather than one created for the needs of ten years ago, with the technologies back then.

Essentially, Hummingbird was created to make everyone's lives easier through user experience improvements including:

-         Updates to the knowledge graph (comparisons and filters)

-          Conversational, cross-platform search

-          Better mobile search experience

Essentially, Google is making sure that the content that shows in the results are designed for the user, not for keyword-stuffed content.

Future of SEO

Whereas in the past, where results were delivered to the user based on keyword relevancy and link quality, the Hummingbird update aims to deliver the best results to the user based on the meaning behind the search query. For example, when someone is searching for "best hamburgers" on their desktop it may mean that they are looking for recipes, whereas if they are searching for "best hamburgers" on their mobile they may be looking for a restaurant nearby with the best hamburgers around. Conversational search is also playing a larger part of SEO, as Google hopes to answer user next question even before users type it in the search bar.

Future of Link Building

Although much of the "spam" link-building and low-quality content has been removed or punished by the Penguin and Panda updates, some still exists, and Hummingbird aims to remove it faster than the previous updates.  So how can marketers build links within these new updates parameters? Simply put, by building quality content that meets the specific needs of users and is in-depth. No longer are poorly written, low quality articles or blog posts going to be a factor in search results. Link building within the Hummingbird update is very similar to what marketers should have been doing before the update:

-          Developing high-quality, amazing content

-          Getting to know influencers in your space

-          Online community contribution

-          Asking friends to considering sharing content (when appropriate)

-          Bank on earning your links naturally

In the end, while Hummingbird has changed the way SEO and link building works, it has only urged and pushed marketers to adapt to a more timely and efficient way of serving users. Instead of creating keyword heavy content, marketers can now create high-quality and relevant content that will better serve the end users requests.

3 Reasons Businesses Need Location-Based Marketing

Location-based marketing is not something that is brand new to advertisers and marketers, and yet very few effectively understand what it is and how it can be implemented within advertising or marketing campaigns that lead to higher conversion rates, better targeting and more data about consumers. Below are 3 reasons why every business should implement some type of location based marketing within their current or upcoming marketing campaign.

Location is the New Cookie

Just like how marketers gather information through the use of cookies left behind by visitors to sites, location data provides marketers valuable information about where a consumer is from, where they have been and where they may go next. With the help of algorithms, businesses can then begin to group consumers into behavioral and demographic segments for targeting within their next campaigns.

Competitors Already in the Game

In a recent forecast, mobile ad spending was expected to surge 95% in 2013. In total, this is an estimated jump that will account for almost 25% of total media spending this year. With the changes and updates made within Google Adwords to help create an easier and more reliable way to target mobile customers, businesses now have no need to worry about setting up completely new campaigns within Adwords. By simply checking off a box within Adwords, they now have mobile ads. Within the industry, businesses are already noticing lower costs for keywords when targeting mobile specifically, leading to higher visits and chances for conversions versus those businesses that target on desktop only devices. By utilizing location-based mobile ads, companies can reap the same benefit of a person looking on line as they would if a pamphlet was handed to them when walking by the store or business.

Location is Extending beyond Smartphones

The first device that pops up in anyone's head when "location-based" is mentioned is usually a smartphone, and while this may be the major driver of all location-based data for the time begin, we need to look towards tablets and the ever changing technological landscape for the next smartphone. While it is imperative to have location-based ads targeted to smartphones and tablets, it is even more important to have those ads linking to the closest store or business. As more and more smartphone and tablet owners begin to use their device throughout the entire shopping process, businesses must create strong ads that help to engage their audiences while on the go in a mobile and location friendly design and interface.

While these are only a few of the reasons businesses need location-based marketing within their marketing strategies, it is important to also ensure that their web site is equally "location-friendly". This means your site is optimized to be viewed on any type of device, whether mobile or desktop, and also allows for a satisfactory customer experience when it is viewed on their tablet, smartphone, or desktop, failure to do so can lead to lost conversions and customers.

The Evolution of Search Marketing – From Keywords to Conversations

In celebration of Google's 15^th birthday last week, we thought it would be appropriate to write about the history and future of search marketing. Our thoughts, ideas and processes have changed throughout those 15 years, as often as search algorithms have changed names and updates have been added. As we begin to fully digest the effects and updates of the Hummingbird update, we take this time to look where search is headed.

Keywords Change to Conversations

In the beginning, in order for a website to be found in the top search results, all a company had to do was insert keywords within the copy, meta description and so forth on their web pages. As Google continued to grow, their search algorithms became smarter, and so did technology. With the invention of personal assistants such as Apples' Siri, your voice and conversation became part of the search process. Through technology we no longer search for results relating to "Date Detroit was founded" on our mobile devices, instead we say "When was Detroit Founded?" this changes the way Google's search engine works. Through "conversational search" we are no longer just searching for results, but receiving a direct answer and response to the question via voice. Going further, we can begin to ask more in-depth questions, such as "Who was it founded by?" and receive the correct results. The magic here is that the search engine assumed the "who" in this case must be referring to the founder of Detroit based on previous searches.

Search Now One Step Ahead

When Google first started, visitors to the site would type in what they are searching for, hit search, and results would then be displayed. As Google grew, visitors looking to search for something would only have to type a word or part of a word to see instant results. Now, as we go to the Google page, the algorithm has an idea of where we are, what we have searched for, and the potential results to answers we have barely even typed or spoke of. As Google and technology continue to improve, Google founders expect that search will get even more integrated within the general public, including a possible implant in the brain, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

The Future

As Google continues to improve upon its search engine, advertisers and marketers must realize the potential of everything they do and how they can relate to search results. For example, no longer does "Hump Day" signify just Wednesday within the search results, but also the Geico commercial and a camel, hashtag, and so much more. A search engine no longer provide you with links to other websites, but provides the relevant posts, pictures, videos and statuses from friends and family. The future of search is bright, and Google is leading the way. How is your company adapting?

3 Ways to Create a Successful Partnership between Social Media and SEO

Advertisers and marketers are always trying to find that perfect balance of traditional and digital advertising and marketing to reach their target demographic and audience. With digital advertising and marketing overtaking much of the budget, agencies are finding out that reaching their target audience isn't as simple as it used to be. With so many social media networks, advertising networks and SEO changes that must be updated or added into the marketing plan, things can get out of hand fast. Often times, all of these different outlets and networks that you joined will be for naught, as clients do not see a change in their profit margins. Below are 3 ways that can help improve profit margins, likes, and retweets.

Leverage Promoted Posts to Increase Outreach and Link Building

Everyone is familiar with the old ways of content marketing that are outdated, and in some cases, can often hurt your chances of appearing higher in search rankings. Nowadays, social media networks such as Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook allow users and companies to "promote" their posts. What this essentially does for a company is allow their status, pages, posts or tweets to get displayed on your target demographics news feed. Targeting a clients key demographic with these promoted posts using highly relevant content can help to get a product or business noticed, the content shared, and onto other newsfeeds and help lead to sales and new followers and fans for a very low cost.

Create More Effective Content

It is said over and over, but the key to gaining new fans, likes and customers is to create fresh, relevant and effective content as often as possible. By looking through your Google Analytics and determining what keywords are helping to bring people to your site along with what they are searching for, and what is the most effective content is, companies can begin to write content that will help drive more visits to their site. Along with this, having the social media data of what articles were shared the most will also help to determine what a company should be writing about. By having this and a 3-4 month plan, companies can begin to think of complementary blog posts and articles that will complement those primary posts and articles and help drive audience engagement activities to those main posts and articles.

Engage the "Movers and Shakers"

How often is the company engaging with its customers? Oftentimes companies will simply set-up a social media page and forget it, leaving the page to potentially be run over with spam messages or worse, unhappy customer reviews. So how can a company improve upon and build their social media profiles? Interact, engage and build relationships with your key influencers (i.e. those people who have a large group of followers, fans, friends, etc.). These are the people that enjoy your brand and continually post, tweet or interact with your statuses. By using services such as Klout, your social media team can begin to compile a list of influencers that your SEO team can begin to build a relationship with these people by sharing their content, retweeting tweets of theirs, answering questions, commenting on their posts, etc. Much like a real-life relationship, things must move slowly and carefully, or risk being seen as "stalker-ish" and annoying. If done correctly, these types of relationships can help build the company's social credibility and a better success rate of having influencers share your content and link back to you.

SEO and social media are no longer two separate teams within a company. In order for your client to be happy with a digital marketing campaign, these teams must work together to create a fully operational and successful content and relationship driven campaign using data from both departments.

Google Introduces "Google Tag Manager", Analytics for Mobile Websites and Apps

Earlier this year during Google I/O, Google introduced a new mobile website and apps management feature that can be integrated into Google Analytics to help improve mobile capabilities for developers, add analytics, re-market data and conversion tracking to mobile websites and apps, without having the need to update the mobile app, which can cause frustration amongst users. So what does this mean for not only mobile websites and apps, but marketers and developers?

Data, Data, Data

Similar to the time before Google Analytics was created for websites, marketers and businesses had no idea where or what their target markets and visitors did on their sites when they got there. With the invention of Google Analytics, marketers and businesses were then able to see where traffic went once they visited the site, what pages they spent the most time on and how to improve their website to improve customer experiences. With the creation of Google Tag, and the installation of the code into mobile apps, marketers can begin to track Adwords conversion tracking, remarketing and Analytics from the mobile app, helping in turn to create a more robust, user-friendly mobile app.

IT-Friendly

With marketers in mind, Google created Google Tag, however, they wanted to ensure that it was also IT-friendly for developers who were going to be using, implementing, writing and rewriting the codes within the mobile app. Through the Google Tag Manager features, developers will be able to debug mobile site's (mobile app debugging currently not available yet), and preview the mobile website or app that they are working on before it goes live within the Apple and Android App stores.

Quick and Easy Implementation

Marketers and developers can add or change tags whenever they want, helping to keep the site updated and running smoothly and quickly. Using the web interface, developers and marketers won't need to write or rewrite new code following implementations.

Google Tag Manager can best be summed up as the future of Google Analytics. As more users continue to make the switch from traditional desktop computers to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, mobile websites and apps will, and are, becoming the go-to source for search queries, e-commerce, and much more. With the features and abilities of Google Tag Manager only going to be growing as he mobile market expands, it is important that businesses integrate this system into their mobile websites and apps, so that they can ensure the business' website or app is delivering a fully capable and customer-friendly interface and experience.