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Best Practices for Website Navigation

Best Practices for Website Navigation

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The menus that direct users to internal pages on a site such as the top menu bar, links in the footer and sidebar menus are familiar cornerstones of website navigation. However, it isn’t enough to simply have these features present and accounted for.

Website Navigation design may be the most critical element in website usability. An intuitive and well laid-out navigation structure can help increase time on site and page views, improve the overall user experience, and increase conversions.

Begin With a Site Map

Start at the beginning; Inventory all of the pages on your website with a Site Map. Outline your pages into principal categories and themes, and then define them within those main concepts. The site map will help target which primary navigation items are required across your main navigation and footer.

Prioritize Visitor Needs

Focus on your users. Imagine their process as they tour your site on their way to converting. They must be able to land and easily locate the information that is pertinent to them. Make certain the pages that every visitor needs to see are featured in your website navigation.

Be Descriptive, Be Brief

A vague list of headings in your navigation menu will discourage visitors from navigating beyond your landing page. Use clear, descriptive terms, without making them overly long. Make certain that the visitor- and search engines- can understand exactly what to expect from each option.

Limit the Number of Menu Items

At first thought, providing the visitor with more options may seem like a good idea but the opposite is true. Too Many options looks cluttered and are more difficult to navigate. There is a consensus that 7 menu items or less in your top navigation is ideal.

This number also aids in your SEO. Because each menu item is a link on your page, the less links you have, the more authority each interior page will have in searches.

If you absolutely require more than 7 menu items, consider breaking them up into groups. Also, try to limit menu levels to a maximum of 2 wherever feasible.

Item Order is Important

Simple, just put the most important items first … right? Wrong.
Due to cognitive biases, items at the beginning AND the end of navigation / lists are the most visually prominent. Ensure the items most important to your visitors are placed accordingly.

Don’t Obsess With SEO…but Don’t Ignore it Either
Getting you site ranked is important. If SEO tactics fit naturally with your menu items and descriptors, take every opportunity to use them. However, don’t make the foot fit the shoe. Remember Item number 2? Prioritize Visitor Needs. Don’t compromise the user experience with clunky sounding headings or puzzling menu choices just to serve your SEO.

Include a Search Function

It shouldn’t have to be said but many websites leave this important feature out. Not only does it give your users an easy way to find exactly what they are looking for, a search function also provides a failsafe for when your navigation left out something important to that particular visitor.

Don’t Forget About Mobile

You’ve put a lot of well-considered thought into your navigation. Everything makes sense, its fluid, intuitive, and operating smoothly. Now, check everything again on your mobile version. Not all menus, functions, and visuals translate as expected to mobile. Check the mobile site to make sure your navigation is looking and working as it should. A good once over can prevent you from losing a large percentage of traffic because a small correction was needed.

Why you should be writing articles on LinkedIn

Why You Should Be Writing Articles on LinkedIn

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As an advocate for doing everything you can to increase your presence in the all-mighty search engines, I often encourage clients to write multiple blog posts each month, focusing on keywords in their niche, quality of content, and truly answering the questions that their readers are asking.  Lost in the shuffle of maintaining, managing, and cultivating great content for your site is the importance of discovering new avenues in which to spread your wings and gain page views, user engagement, and website traffic.  Many of our clients are major players with LinkedIn profiles.  While Linked in used to be considered a glorified network of impressive resumes, it has become a social networking site with real content opportunities.  Let’s figure out how to leverage LinkedIn’s place among the tech giants to our website’s advantage.  Let’s start writing articles on LinkedIn.

Writing LinkedIn Articles: The Statistics Show You the ‘Why’

Sometimes research is shocking.  This was the case in my research for why LinkedIn articles are a ‘buy now’ stock in the content market.  Check this out.

  • LinkedIn is the number one business-to-business channel that marketers use to promote and distribute their content with 94% in this category.  That even beats Twitter! (B2B marketers only selected Twitter 89% of the time, so while there is overlap, and you should also be on Twitter, LinkedIn reigns supreme.)
  • Impressions of content (how much content on LinkedIn is viewed) stands at 36 Billion impressions per month.  That’s nearly half a Trillion per year.  
  • Of the 250 million active LinkedIn users, only 3 million write articles.  That means that those 3 million people are garnering billions of views each month.  Be one of the few and attract the eyes of the billions. 
  • LinkedIn, amongst all social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) accounts for 50% of all business to business website traffic

Viewing these statistics from a holistic perspective tells us that LinkedIn is so much more than a resume site that connects professionals to one another.  It is, in fact, a powerful tool to drive targeted traffic to your website.  While many of you already promote your latest blog post from your website on LinkedIn in small notifications and posts, I feel as though there is a greater opportunity within the platform itself that too many clients are ignoring.  Writing articles specifically for LinkedIn.  

Imagine, you have a captive audience of professionals that you regularly target on your website.  Now, realize that these same professionals have their profiles on LinkedIn. Millions of them.  Are you seeing the picture?  This is the difference between discovering your audience and knowing where they live.  It is paramount to direct marketing to the people you most want to reach.  In the case of the insurance industry, for example, the agents, brokers, advisors, and consultants that your B2B caters to are all on LinkedIn and are all going to be exposed by LinkedIn’s algorithm to the content you have to share. 

This is what opportunity looks like.  So let’s move from asking why we should bother with writing articles on LinkedIn and onto how we should go about writing effective articles on the platform.

Writing Articles on LinkedIn: The Rules and the Not-So-Much-Rules

There is one rule that should govern any blog post or article you write, whether it be for your website or on a social media platform: 

Don’t Lie.  Always tell your readers the truth and make it your own.  

The same, of course, is true for writing an article on LinkedIn.  Keep in mind that these are readers who are already close, if not in, your target audience.  They want information that they can use.  They want facts and opportunities.  They also are in a hurry to get to the point.  Keep it simple and follow these basic guidelines to keep their interest.

  • Keep the article to less than 1000 words.  500 to 700 is ideal.  
  • If you can add an image, do so.  There is not a lot of creative freedom in LinkedIn’s word processor but do your best.
  • Add hashtags relevant to your audience so that they can find your post.
  • Don’t just duplicate content you’ve written on your website (more on this in the next section).  It is important that your content for LinkedIn is unique.
  • Be real.  Speak colloquially, this is, after all, your audience that you are accustomed to marketing to.  They know the lingo and they expect your expertise.

How to Actually Post an Article on LinkedIn

This part is pretty straightforward. You can look here to see how. After following those simple steps, however, it is important that you make sure that your article is available to the public. You’ll need to go to your profile settings to make sure that your posts are not hidden from the very people you are trying to reach. Go here to find your profile settings. Check that your visibility is set to public for posts. That’s the nuts and bolts of what you need to do. There are other considerations, however, that you should take into account. Let’s talk about those.

Never Duplicate Content!

This cannot be overstated. Duplicate content on the internet, as far as the search engines are concerned, is akin to plagiarism. If you have a blog on your website and you republish that blog on a social media site (word for word) then you risk the wrath of Google. Just don’t do it. Period. If you want to promote a new blog post on your website on a social media platform it is important to link to the blog but do not, under any circumstances, re-print the blog on that platform.

Search engines are constantly looking for plagiarism on the web. They do this to safeguard your precious, original, content. The problem lies in the fact that algorithms are not human and therefore cannot know that your duplicate content on LinkedIn or any other platform originated from your website. As smart as the algorithm is…it is still dumber than us. Thank goodness.  

But we must account for the search-bot’s ignorance and never duplicate content from our site to another platform. Period. You can, however, paraphrase or restructure your content from your website blog post to your social media platforms without risking your search rankings. We’ll dive deeper into this in a following article but for the time being, suffice to say, do not just copy and paste content from one part of the internet to another.

Post Articles on LinkedIn? Yes, Do It Yesterday

According to the stats, there have been little over 1 million people to post articles to LinkedIn. Taking into account the number of people who read those articles compared to the number of people on the platform it is obvious that writing articles on LinkedIn is a win-win exercise. Follow the rules.  Don’t duplicate. Leverage your expertise. LinkedIn is more than just a portal for resumes or a quasi-networking shenanigan. LinkedIn is a bonafide Social Network and it is waiting for you to take advantage of its endless possibilities.

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8 Fresh and Creative Web Design Trends for 2021

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2020 threw us all for a loop, bringing chaos and changes none of us saw coming. But now that 2021 is upon us, we’re all looking forward to brighter days ahead.

You’ll see more creativity, freedom, and meaning in web design this year. Throw out the old and bring in the new with these fresh web design trends for 2021.

Communicate with your audience while keeping your website visually interesting and modern. Check out these innovative design trends for 2021 and get inspired for your next re-design.

1. 3D Elements & Depth

3D Website - Campo Alle Comete

3D Design – Campo Alle Comete

Goodbye, flat websites! 3D elements bring a web design to life, adding depth and dimension.

Combine 3D shapes and elements into an otherwise simple design with clean lines for a modern look. Or, enhance user experience (UX) using 3D elements in an interactive design.

Bring your audience into your world using a three-dimensional approach, showing off your products or content in a lifelike manner.

2. Dark Mode

Dark Mode Website - Johnny Vino

Dark Mode – Johny Vino

Dark mode design uses a low-light user interface (UI), with primarily dark colors such as black. 

Dark mode has practical benefits, like reducing eye strain and conserving the battery life of our devices. This makes it a great choice for certain mobile apps or streaming services (think Netflix) that you may be staring at for hours on end (don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone).

Some designs allow you to toggle between light and dark mode. Jump on the dark mode trend if reducing eye-strain is a factor for your website or app, or if you’re looking to achieve a dramatic effect.

3. Illustrations

Illustration Website - Brandit

Illustration – Brand It Guru

Gone are the days of cluttering websites with dull stock images. Add visual interest in an eye-catching way by using illustrations as a part of your branding and web design in 2021.

Illustrations are great for businesses to express themselves in a relatable way. Use cute, funny, or unique illustrations to separate yourself from the crowd.

Cartoon illustrations, pencil sketches, and abstract art are just a few ways you can utilize this trend in your next design.

4. Collage

Collage Website - Broke Design

Collage – Broke Design

Make your website your canvas and your mouse your paintbrush with the new collage trend.

Forget boring websites. Add depth and visual interest by mixing different mediums such as illustrations, graphics, photos, and decorative fonts in a collage-like manner. Stretch your imagination: the possibilities are endless.

Motion and interactivity bring these designs to life even more.

5. Minimalism

Minimal Website - Concept Studio

Minimalism – Concept Studio

Minimalistic designs aren’t new, but many companies are going back to basics. This approach offers a clean design that’s not distracting and easy on the eyes.

Minimalism uses a flat approach with simple color palettes, basic shapes, and clean fonts.

Explore your creativity in different ways. While minimalism may only use a monochromatic color palette like black and white, many websites display an overall minimal look in all of their design choices.

6. Calm Color Combinations

Neutral Color Website - Lois Jeans

Calm Color Combinations – Lois Jeans

Calm, muted color combinations are a popular, refreshing choice in web design for 2021. With the amount of screen-time we take on daily, a muted color palette is a nice break from all the noise.

Like dark mode or monochromatic colors, calm colors are also much easier on the eyes. Muted colors allow your customers to focus on what’s important: your content.

Colors like earth-tones, neutrals, and pastels are popular choices to bring a cleaner, more comfortable aesthetic to your website.

7. Interactive Design

Interactive Website - Boost

Interactive Design – Boost

Interactive design is a unique way to convey a message to your audience. Many websites are using scrolling effects and motion to tell their customers a story.

Adding visual elements, like 3D shapes, that users can interact with, is great for UX. It can be time-consuming and costly to implement but is an excellent way to connect with your customers and bring them headfirst into your brand.

8. Parallax Scrolling

Parallax Animation - Tillamook

Parallax Scrolling – Tillamook

Parallax scrolling animations have been rising in popularity for years, but in 2021 you’ll see many with even more complex designs and creativity.

Parallax scrolling uses the technique of a slower-paced background against faster content and images in the foreground. This creates depth and a three-dimensional illusion while your visitors interact with the content.

Engage your audience in a visually interesting way using more than a simple image or video. Choose the most important elements in your website (whether that be text, images, videos, etc.) and make them stand out to your customers with parallax scrolling effects.

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!

 

 

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