peri@apisproductions.com

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Posts by Peri Lane:

pushnotifications

Web Push Notifications

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Web push notifications, browser push notifications, Chrome push notifications, web push: whatever you call them, web notifications — notification-style messages sent through a web browser — are turning websites into even more powerful tools for marketers.

Most likely, you’ve at least been on the receiving end of push notifications from an app, and you’re probably already aware of the unique opportunity they hold for building real-time, in-the-moment connections with your prospects and customers. If you haven’t used push notifications in your marketing mix before, get excited. Studies have shown that notifications have 30x conversion rate over email. Best of all, web push notifications appear similar to native mobile push on many smartphones even if you don’t have an app.

What are web push notifications?

Web push notifications are notifications that can be sent to a user via desktop web and mobile web. These are alert style messages that slide in at the top or bottom right hand corner of a desktop screen, depending on the operating system, or appear on a mobile device in a manner nearly identical to push notifications delivered from apps. Web push notifications are delivered on a user’s desktop or mobile screen anytime they have their browser open — regardless of whether or not the user is on the website.

The difference between web push notifications and app push notifications

All that’s required to send web push notifications is a website that has web push code installed in it. This means that brands that don’t have apps can leverage many of the benefits of push notifications (real-time, personalized, in-the-moment communications) even if they don’t have an app.

App push notifications are sent via code installed in an app.

Ideal Push Content

  • Educate your audience about new products or services you are offering
  • Alert subscribers about breaking news
  • Send reminders for upcoming events
  • Link to relevant, timely material on your website

Best Practices

  1. Use a clear, action-oriented message
    Writing a vague push notification which does not provide a direct benefit to the user only adds it to the long list of messages that are read once and forget. Think short…like Twitter short.
  2. Timing is important
    Website Push Notifications, by their very nature, require an instant response on the part of the receiver. This makes timing all the more important. A classic mistake is to ignore the time zone your subscribers are located in.
  3. Don’t send out notifications too frequently
    You need to carefully monitor your click rates, time on page, bounce rate and opt-outs after every push notification to find out which frequency works best for your audience.
  4. Click-rate isn’t the only metric you should track
    The most immediate metric that comes to mind when thinking website push notifications is click rate. However, if you’re only tracking how many folks clicked on your notification, you’re missing out on the actual conversions and value created by your push notification campaigns. Instead, you should strongly focus on the business goals and website actions you deem most important.

Interested in setting this up? Let us know, we can help!

mobilefirst

Google’s Mobile First Indexing

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What is mobile-first indexing?

Mobile-first indexing is simply how Google crawls and indexes the web. Instead of looking at the desktop version of the page, Google looks at the mobile version of the page. In more simple terms, Google is crawling and indexing your web page based on how it renders on a mobile phone versus a desktop computer.

Why does it matter?

If your desktop pages are different from your mobile pages both in terms of content and structured data, then your rankings may be impacted. Google has generally moved sites that have parity between mobile and desktop pages first to mobile-first indexing. But with over half of the search results now indexed through mobile-first indexing, it is just a matter of time until your web pages are moved over as well.

You do not have to have a mobile site to be in the mobile-first indexing, as Google will index desktop sites as well. But, it’s going to be hard to rank if your site is not mobile friendly. So there’s work to do for all of you who have not have a mobile-friendly site yet.

What do you need to do? Check out Google’s mobile friendliness test and check whether or not your site is mobile friendly. In our experience, this is a minimum requirement. If your site does not pass this test, your mobile version is bad.

2019design

Web Design in 2019

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The experts have weighed in on website design trends for 2019 and we’ve compiled our list of the ones we feel will be most relevant for our clients below. If you’re planning a new design project, please consider some of these ideas.

1. Vibrant Saturated Color Schemes

Vibrant saturated color schemes are capable of seeking user’s attention, with a high-end visual appeal. The vibrant color schemes and electric hues that defined the 80s and 90s continue to make a bold comeback in web design. Designers are abandoning the color safety nets of the past and taking risks with contrasting colors to create memorable visual experiences.

2. Negative Space

We are all used to full-width responsive websites crammed full of text and images and call-to-actions. More and more, white (or content-negative) spaces are taking over the field of view. It’s like an anti-space domination phenomenon. What we are seeing are text & images surrounded by lots of space, whether it be white, black, and all of the colors in between. This allows for these minimal texts and bold graphics to pop off the page. There is digitally nothing else to look at. It also produces a calming effect, allowing the viewer to easily digest the information on the screen right in front of them. The urge to scroll down becomes less so, and the idea of time suddenly feels like it might be on your side.

3. Big Bold Typography

Bigger is better — at least when it comes to header font sizes. Jumbo sized fonts are replacing images as a creative way to get your attention. Web designers are opting for super large header fonts as a succinct way to get their message across. Font styles already carry so many meanings, whether it be classic or modern or silly or romantic. And when they are amplified into mega huge characters, and layered on a negative space with nothing but space to make your eyes look at it — well, no wonder this is a good idea.

4. Lightweight Moving Backgrounds

Over the last few years we have seen an explosion of video backgrounds in web design. The problem this has can cause slow down in a site’s load time. And because it takes only a few seconds for you to lose 40% of your traffic (3.8 seconds, to be precise), this has become a real big problem. Particle backgrounds are great alternative. With animations in javascript, the movement is created as a natural part of the background, making it lightweight and fast. Light as a feather (or as a particle, as it were).

5. Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions are events with one purpose: to surprise the user and create an event that is inviting and human. Every time you take a small action on a website or app and there is a specific response to it, this is a micro-interaction. When you refresh a Twitter page and hear a beep, this is a micro-interaction. Or when you check Facebook, the red icon displaying your message count is—you guessed it— a micro-interaction.

These have been the most common uses of them, but in 2019, web pages will heavily feature their more interactive incarnations. Hover and scrolling animations, chimes, and much more. All in all, this is a way to involve your audience in your website, to subtly transmit information to the users about their actions and usage, and make web pages feel a little smarter.

6. More Video content

We’ve been talking about the value of adding video to your website over the past couple of years now. Video not only diversifies the page but caters to an on-the-go audience who don’t have the time to scan through a lot of text. What is new is the move Google has made toward mixed search page results, featuring video content above standard web pages. This has led websites to prioritize video production in order to make themselves easily searchable and offer content in the most efficient, shareable way.

7. Minimalism

Perhaps one of the most classic and timeless web design trends, minimalism is often the go-to aesthetic of choice. The fewer elements and content on a website, the less your audience will have to think. If a website is designed in the right way, it will show the user exactly what she is looking for. Minimalism will continue to dominate the digital landscape in 2019. Animations and fade-in effects that make scrolling more engaging will give web pages freedom to space out their content and thus result in more whitespace, contrast and clear typography without too many distracting elements.

8. Thumb Friendly Navigation

With mobile browsing having firmly overtaken desktop, design overall is becoming increasingly thumb-friendly. More and more now, users will encounter navigation tailored to the thumb, such as the hamburger menu.

9. 3D

3D has proved itself as a quite stable and persistent trend for the last few years, so we are definitely going to see a lot of it in 2019. Luckily for all of us, technologies are evolving quite quickly allowing graphic designers to create amazing 3D masterpieces which make the viewer the almost immerse into the design. Typography will be definitely not bypassed by any of the graphic trends 2019 including 3D. Often created as the main visual element of the design, 3D typography gives designers freedom to improvise. Even by using 3D typography alone, graphic designers in 2019 will be able to make us immerse into a whole new world.

 

10. Good Writing

As the saying goes, Content is King. With a more technology-aware modern day user, the user experience (UX) is largely driven by the content. Gone are the days when UX and content worked differently. To provide the user with the right kind of desired experience, the influx of Content and UX is very important. This has led to the content centered UX, where a UX has more to do with what content is the website catering to the end user.

We think 2019 will be the year of great writing. The year of great storytelling and narratives. Strip away the colors, animations, grids, and illustrations from a website and what you are left with is mostly words. Words are what really matter in a website.

landingpages_blog

Landing Page Essentials

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Landing pages typically allow qualified visitors to sign up to receive additional information, download content offers, or redeem other marketing offers. Through their content, landing pages allow you to target a specific audience, offer them something of value, and convert a higher percentage of visitors into leads.

According to MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook (2nd edition), 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the business’ homepage, not a special landing page. Furthermore, of the B2B companies that are using landing pages, 62% have six or fewer total landing pages.

Landing pages are the heart and soul of an inbound marketer’s lead generation efforts, so why are they still so underutilized? MarketingSherpa cites that the number one reason businesses don’t use landing pages is because their marketing department doesn’t know how to set them up or they are too overloaded. We’ve outlined some key essential components for landing pages below.

  1. A killer headline and compelling subheading(s): the first 3 seconds belong to the headline and this will decide whether your prospects would like to stay on the page or not. Your subheading should be short but offer a few more details to how you can solve a need.
  2. Clear copy: use bullet points to demonstrate clear takeaways and break up large blocks of text, and keep it brief and to-the-point. What will the person get out of your offer? Will they learn how to do something? Become more knowledgeable about a specific topic? How will the information be presented to them?
  3. Solid Design:
  • Color: The psychology of color is real, and it does affect viewer perceptions. Red indicates warnings, blue is serene, etc. While it’s useful for a landing page to match your company colors, it doesn’t have to.
  • Whitespace: Do not cram every inch of your landing page full of text, graphics, or numbers. Leave ‘breathing room’ between items. It makes the page more attractive, and easier to read.
  • Images: A good landing page mixes text and imagery. Too much emphasis on either will go awry, although we’d say if you’re going to err, err on the side of more graphics rather than more text. The right picture is worth 1,000 words.
  • Video: No other element on a landing page will do more to increase conversions than a short video highlighting the benefits of the offer – even if that video is just summarizing the page’s own copy.  Putting a video on a landing page increases conversion by 80%.
  1. A clear, bold Call to Action (CTA): it’s important to understand that your landing page should be focused around one single offer. Make your CTA very clear and feel free to get creative. Instead of a simple “Learn More”, try something more catchy like “Get a Free Assessment” or “Start Saving Time”.
  2. Proof (testimonials, statistics, etc): testimonials serve as a trust raising factor for your prospects. Insert real testimonials to boost the conversion rate. Statistics are easy to reveal and understand if they are clear.
  3. Signup form: as a best practice, only ask for information you need from your leads in order to effectively follow up with and/or qualify them.
  4. Reduce the noise: eliminate headers and navigation and keep the footer links to a minimum (i.e Privacy Policy, Disclosure, etc) – the idea here is to eliminate distractions and keep your potential lead from jumping off the page to something else that catches their eye.
  5. Contact Information: at a minimum an email address, ideally also include a phone number. Try Live Chat for an instant contact tool.
  6. Mobile Friendly: today over 52% of internet users are browsing from smartphones. Having a mobile responsive landing page is absolutely crucial.
  7. Social share buttons: make it easy for users to pass your information to others to the most popular social media channels. Don’t miss out on this simple opportunity to extend the reach of your landing page and the content it offers beyond your direct network and reach.

Still need help? The Apis team is ready to assist!

webstrategy_blog

7 Essential Questions to Create a Website Strategy

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Whether you are starting a brand new website, considering a redesign, or have a shift in your overall business, it’s helpful to take a step back and create a website strategy to serve as a road map. Take the time to consider these seven essential questions that will shed light on how your website should be designed and how to position content. Just like building a house, you wouldn’t just start nailing boards together, right?

1. What are the main objectives you want to achieve?`
Do you want to just keep your current users happy and continue to offer a great rich site with fresh content that keeps them coming back? Or are you more interested in expanding your market – maybe a new segment of potential customers that you want to attract? Or a combination? Identifying this key objective will set the stage for the decisions you make about your website.

2. Who are the primary visitors, and who do you want to attract?
This is key information that needs to be at the heart of your decisions as to what your website experience is and how you position your content.  Here’s an example. One of our clients took a survey of their advisors about their website and upon reviewing the results, identified that the advisors weren’t the ones using their website, the advisors’ staff was. And they are looking for much different information.

3. Where are they going for information?
Review Google Analytics. Know what content is most often viewed as well as the pathways users are taking to get there. Do you have important information that users are not finding? If so, consider re-positioning it on the site.

4. What makes you unique?
What do you differently than your competitors? Do you have a specific niche that sets you apart? That is what you emphasize.

5. What are the competitors doing?
It’s just good business practice to keep tabs on your competitors. Identify key messaging they may be using and be sure to set your company apart in a unique way.

6. What messages are you eager to communicate?
Recognize this can change frequently, but it’s really important to be clear in your message and also identify relevant calls to action. If you are very focused on a particular product or marketing concept, give it the most dominant place visually and be sure to assign a call to action to it – a button to contact you or learn more.

7. What is your plan to create new content and how will you manage it?
Will you manage your content yourself? Do you have staff to manage it for you? Perhaps you will need to outsource your content management? Identify how often and who will take the lead on this important aspect of your website.

hands on laptop keys

Content Performance

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Creating good content for your website takes valuable time and effort – wouldn’t it be nice to know how effectively you are reaching your audience?  We are super excited to be able to offer our hosted clients a mechanism to provide in-depth analysis.  WPEngine’s Content Performance plugin takes Google Analytics and integrates it right into your WordPress  dashboard with an interface that is easy to read and analyze. Quickly filter reports to evaluate which topics are driving the highest engagement, which content is worth promoting, or evaluate your publication trends over time. Simplify your analysis and start building a smarter content strategy.

Below are a few key ways teams have utilized this tool.

Example Uses

  • Optimize content relevance to increase audience engagement, conversion, and revenue partnerships.
  • Plan your content calendar by understanding which topics are getting traction or require a refresh.
  • Improve call to action for high-performing content to drive signups or conversions.
  • Repurpose popular content and categories into ebooks or whitepapers.
  • Improve content for posts with high bounce rates.
  • Adjust author assignments based on user page views or engagement levels.
  • Track overall performance/growth of your publication over time.

MOST POPULAR CONTENT

Select “Posts” or “Pages” in the top navigation, then “Unique Page Views” from the dropdown menu to see which content is receiving the most traffic from unique visitors to your site. This is a good gauge of how popular your posts and pages are with real users.

CONTENT WITH LOWEST BOUNCE RATE

Select “Posts” or “Pages” in the top navigation, then “Bounce Rate (%)” from the dropdown menu to see which content has the lowest bounce rate, indicating the content is fast and engaging.

AUTHORS WITH MOST SUCCESSFUL CONTENT

Choose “Authors” in the top navigation, then “Unique Page Views,” “Sessions,” or “Bounce Rate (%)” from the dropdown menu to see which authors are creating the most content or drive the most engagement for your users.

MOST USEFUL TAGS

Choose “Tags” in the top navigation, then “Unique Page Views” to see which tags used on pages are driving more views, or which content topics are most popular.

For each report you run, you can download the report as a CSV to generate your own graphs and integrate into your own data as needed.

CUSTOM POST TYPES

Choose the type of post you would like to view from the “Type” dropdown menu if you would like to view aggregate performance data for posts classified as a “custom post type.” To view only standard posts, choose “Posts” (default).

VIEW TRAFFIC SOURCES

Select the “Traffic Sources” checkbox to view the origin of the traffic to each post on your site. This feature sorts traffic into four categories: Organic, Referral, Direct, and Other.

Organic: This refers to search engine traffic, indicating users are getting to this page by clicking a link on a search results page.

Referral: This refers to traffic referred from other websites. This includes social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Direct: This refers to traffic that came from users typing the URL in their web browser, going to the site via a bookmark, or clicking an external link from an email, text message, or a PDF.

Other: This refers to traffic from paid advertising and custom campaign channels, as well as unidentified channels

This feature can help your team identify the success ratio of various campaigns, and how to effectively invest marketing funds. Since Traffic Sources identifies the sources of traffic to your site, this additional insight is invaluable to marketers to better understand their audience.

COMPARE SECONDARY METRIC

Choose to compare two metrics side-by-side. Simply click the “+” sign next to the first metric drop-down menu, and select a second metric to compare. Once you make a selection, it will show your results for both metrics.

WEEKLY TRENDS

Select the “Trends” tab to view a graph showing week-over-week performance for metrics. Sort by Unique Page Views, Page Views, Users, New Users, and Sessions.

CONTENT PERFORMANCE TERM GLOSSARY

The terms below are used in the charts and menus of the Content Performance Dashboard. This glossary will help you understand which metrics relate to which data found within Google Analytics, for a better understanding of how the data in the dashboard is being generated.

CONTENT PERFORMANCE METRIC
GOOGLE ANALYTICS METRIC
DESCRIPTION
Unique Page Views ga:uniquePageviews The number of sessions during which the specified page was viewed at least once.
Note: A unique page view is counted for each page URL and page title combination.
Page Views ga:pageviews The total number of page views for the property.
Users ga:users The total number of users
New Users ga:newUsers The number of new users to visit the property.
Sessions ga:sessions The total number of sessions.
Note: Google Analytics only computes this value for the first page entered in a session. Consider using Unique Page Views as a proxy to get an accurate count of sessions for your selected report filters.
Bounce Rate (%) ga:bounces / ga:sessions The percentage of single-page sessions (i.e., sessions in which the user left the property from the first page visited).
Note: Bounce rate can be impacted by other events, such as live chat or video auto-plays. Consider setting these events as “non-interaction.” Otherwise, the way Google Analytics computes bounces and sends multiple engagement hits might lead to lower bounce rates than actuals.
Page Views per Session ga:pageviews / ga:sessions The average number of pages viewed during a session, including repeated views of a single page.
Avg. Time on Page (h:m:s) ga:timeOnPage / (ga:pageviews – ga:exits) The average time (in hours, minutes, and seconds) users spent viewing a page or a set of pages.
Avg. Session Duration (h:m:s) ga:sessionDuration / ga:sessions The average duration (in hours, minutes, and seconds) of users’ sessions.
Avg. Unique Page Views per Post N/A The number of unique page views for the property divided by the sum of the number of published posts for the selected dimension.
Avg. Page Views per Post N/A The number of page views for the property divided by the sum of the number of published posts for the selected dimension.
Avg. Users per Post N/A The number of users for the requested time period divided by the sum of the number of published posts for the selected dimension.
Avg. New Users per Post N/A The number of new users to visit the property divided by the sum of the number of published posts for the selected dimension.
Avg. Sessions per Post N/A The total number of sessions divided by the sum of the number of published posts for the selected dimension.

 

Ready to get started? If you are an Apis hosting client, just let us know and we’ll be happy to install this plugin on your website.

Johannes Gutenberg

Gutenberg is Alive

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Sometime this year a major WordPress upgrade will be available which will drastically change the default WYSIWYG interface. The new editor, called Gutenberg, will be part of the WordPress 5.0 release. It is named after Johannes Gutenberg, who invented a printing press with movable type more than 500 years ago. The concept behind Gutenberg is not new, it draws its inspiration from how old printing presses used a galley and chase to create reusable templates that could consistently reproduce the same layout. With its introduction comes the concept of composing content with blocks. Gutenberg Blocks function similar to the way most page-builder plugins currently work–by providing a way for users to visualize the layout and appearance of their content.

Gutenberg takes it a step further, built with React and Redux, it integrates deeply into WordPress to provide a rich and powerful new editor experience for authors. Its also friendly to plugin authors, exposing many APIs that make it easy to extend and create custom blocks. The current visual editor requires a lot of us to utilize shortcodes and HTML to make things work.  Essentially, Gutenberg replaces the single edit field of the current WordPress TinyMCE editor with lots of individual “blocks”.

These blocks then allow you to build more complex designs than those allowed in the current WordPress editor. So what’s a block? Well, a block can be pretty much anything. For example, you can have blocks for:

  • Regular text
  • Images
  • Video embeds
  • Buttons
  • Widgets (yes, those same widgets you use in your sidebar)
  • Tables

And because each block is “separate”, you can also add things like custom backgrounds just for specific blocks. In general, it gives you more flexibility and in-depth control. The theory is that Gutenberg will eventually replace the common layout builders.

Have a look at the current editor vs. Gutenberg here:

 

Interested in poking around in this new editor to get a feel for it? We’ve got it installed on a staging site and will be happy to give you access to try it out. Just let us know!

 

 

pwa_small

The Next Big Thing: Progressive Web Apps

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You may not have heard of them yet, but Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are about to change the mobile landscape. The need for businesses to target customers on mobile devices is obvious. The question is no longer if they should do it, but how. A business that wants to appeal to mobile-based customers has three choices: build a responsive website, develop a native app or create a PWA.

PWAs are a hybrid of native apps and mobile websites

Mobile websites are quick and easy to get to, but they tend to be less pleasant in terms of user experience. Many of our clients have a deep repository of content that is not always ideally designed for the mobile experience. Native apps provide the finest user experience, but they are limited to certain devices and have high barriers to adoption. Native apps require submission to the app stores and a download. Sitting between these options is the newest mobile solution: the PWA. It combines the best elements of mobile sites and native apps.

A progressive web application takes advantage of the latest technologies to combine the best of web and mobile apps. Think of it as a website built using web technologies but that acts and feels like an app. Progressive web apps take advantage of the much larger web ecosystem, plugins and community and the relative ease of deploying and maintaining a website when compared to a native application in the respective app stores.

A study has shown that, on average, an app loses 20% of its users for every step between the user’s first contact with the app and the user starting to use the app. A user must first find the app in an app store, download it, install it and then, finally, open it. When a user finds your progressive web app, they will be able to immediately start using it, eliminating the unnecessary downloading and installation stages.

The PWA Defined

  • Progressive: a progressive web app works on any device and enhances progressively, taking advantage of any features available on the user’s device and browser.
  • Discoverable. Because a progressive web app is a website, it is discoverable in search engines. This is a major advantage over native applications, which still lag behind websites in searchability.
  • Responsive. A progressive web app’s user interface fits the device’s form factor and screen size.
  • App-like. A progressive web app looks like a native app and is built on the application shell model, with minimal page refreshes.
  • Connectivity-independent. It works in areas of low connectivity or offline.
  • Re-engageable. Mobile app users are more likely to reuse their apps, and progressive web apps are intended to achieve the same goals through features such as push notifications.
  • Installable. A progressive web app can be installed on the device’s home screen, making it readily available.
  • Fresh. When new content is published and the user is connected to the Internet, that content is made available in the app.
  • Safe. Because a progressive web app has a more intimate user experience and because all network requests can be intercepted through service workers, the app is hosted over HTTPS to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.

Our Prediction

While first introduced in 2015, PWAs have gained popularity this year. Google, Apple and Microsoft — the three main standards in terms of native app distribution — are all driving the transition to PWAs. Because of their inherent flexibility, PWAs are the best way to stay ahead of the curve in the mobile industry. Still need some convincing? Check out this PWA Stats page.

Look for PWA services from Apis Productions in June 2018. 

 

cornerstone_big

Cornerstone Content

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Ready to focus more on Search Engine Optimization? As we are in the process of rebuilding our own website, we’ll be sharing some of the methods behind the madness. Cornerstone content is really the main focal point content of your website and is intended to provide the best description of your company. It should consist of well written articles, which are the most complete and authoritative.

Cornerstone content plays a very important role in Search Engine Optimization and needs to be full of the keywords and phrases that define your brand. We are big fans of the YOAST SEO plugin and found this article to be very informative in defining what cornerstone content is and why it’s important. There are also great tips for how to tag your cornerstone content using their plugin. This is a great article that describes how to create amazing cornerstone content.

Keep an eye out for an upcoming special guest blogger who will dive into the SEO tips and tricks even further.

brandingboard

The Case for the Branding Board

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We recently started creating branding boards (aka Style Guides) for clients as part of website design projects and have realized what an indispensable tool they are. The overall end result is a very cohesive branding image that extends well beyond the website. The branding board is essentially a design guide that identifies the company’s key branding ingredients. These guides can be distributed to anyone involved in creating materials for the company – from business cards to social media imagery.

Key elements of the branding board include:

  • Color palette: should incorporate 1-3 primary colors plus 2 or more secondary colors
  • Typefaces: Headings, Body and Accent font families as well as bold or italic variations
  • Logo variations: vertical or horizontal options, social media variations, black and white version

Other optional elements:

  • Icon sets
  • Button: style (squared, rounded, etc.) and color
  • Tone of Voice: a descriptive definition like playful, conservative, etc.

Need one? Let us know!

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