4 Critical Web Challenges Facing WNY Businesses in 2014

4 Critical Web Challenges
Facing WNY Businesses in 2014
PCA Technology Group | www.pcatg.com
“The Big 4” Your
Business Cannot
Afford to Ignore
Mary Owusu, MBA – www.linkedin.com/in/maryo

The Power of Listening
 Cloud Computing
 Cyber Security
 Network Consulting, Outsourced IT, Managed
Services
 VoIP / Unified Communications
 Software Development
 Internet Marketing & Analytics

Business Cannot
Afford to Ignore

What are “The Big 4”?
The
Big 4
1
2
3
4
Web User Experience
Google’s 500+
Changes
B-to-B Social Media
Mobile

The WNY Environment
 Globally, technology is rapidly changing.
Adoption Curve
Categories of Adopters
Tipping Point
(begins to hit
mainstream)
Key Point
Don’t miss the Chasm.
Your business should be
actively watching what’s
going on in the
technology marketplace
in order to be prepared to
make the move before
your competition does.
That’s what this
presentation is all about.
How about in Western New York?

For this presentation…
 Think of the groups of adopters as “B2B’s nationwide.”
Throughout this presentation, I’ll highlight where these
other B2Bs are on the curve in terms of the 4 trends. If
they are in or pass the chasm, it means your prospects
are expecting these trends on your website.
Key point: Don’t get left behind the curve.
Tipping Point
(begins to hit
mainstream)

The Web User Experience is changing.
The
Big 4
1
2
3
4
Web User Experience
Google’s 500+
Changes
B-to-B Social Media
Mobile

What your prospects and
customers expect today:
1. Please Don’t Make Me Think: The infamous “F”
The Web User Experience …is changing.
1

2. Please Speak MY Language
Snow
tires
1
Winter
tires
Auto
injury
attorney
Car
accident
lawyer

2. Please Speak MY Language
1

3. Be in the ZMOT (Use Pull vs. Push Marketing)
1

1
Key Point
Where do your
prospects go in their
ZMOT moment?
Find out and make sure
that you’re there waiting
for them.
ZMOT = Zero moment of truth.
The moment your prospect grabs a
digital device to self-educate prior
to making a decision to buy, try or
trust a product or service.

4. Positive Experience on Any Device
1
For nearly all my
clients, mobile users
make up 20-40% of
website visitors.
More on “Mobile” later
in this presentation.

4. Positive Experience on Any Device
1

The Web User Experience is changing.
Why that matters to your business:
Google is watching
how your prospects
interact with your website…
…and rewarding or penalizing
your website based on it.
2 key things Google is watching: CTR and BR

1. Your Site’s Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Ranking
CTR
1
12.5
9.5
7.9 6.1 4.1 3.8 3.5 3.0 2.2
Key Point
The higher your
site’s CTR (relative
to these
standards), the
higher your Google
rankings.

Improving Your Site’s CTR
1. Write compelling titles, descriptions, content
1

1. Write compelling titles, descriptions, content
1
For sites with
good
CTRs, Google
will show these
sitelinks.

2. “Own” more properties
1
Key Point
Give people more
“things” to click
on. Get press, get
involved in your
community, join
industry
groups, post
jobs, etc.

2. “Own” more properties
1

3. Build Your Offline Brand
1
Key Point
Marketing 101 –
Offline marketing
increases your
brand awareness.
This in turn
increases the
probability that, on
Google, someone
will click on you vs.
the competition.

3. Build Your Offline Brand
1

2. Your Site’s Bounce Rate
1
BR represents the
percentage of visitors who
enter the site and "bounce"
(leave the site) rather than
continue viewing other
pages within the same site.

Your Site’s Bounce Rate
Ranking
BounceRate
1
Average BR by site type
20 –
40%
70 –
90%
10 –
30%
RETAIL SITES
Driving targeted traffic
SIMPLE LANDING PAGES
With one call-to-action ex: add to cart
PORTALS
MSN, Yahoo Groups
10 –
30%
40 –
60%
30 –
50%
CONTENT SITES
With high search visibility
(often for irrelevant terms)
SERVICE SITES
DIY, self service, FAQ
LEAD GEN SITES
Services for sale
Source: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/bounce-rate/

Improving Your Site’s Bounce Rate
1
Factors that affect BR
1. Poor page design
2. Poor correlation between
what the page is about and
what the user thought the
page would be about
3. Slow loading pages
4. Attracting the wrong type
of audience by ranking for
the wrong keywords
Tips to Improve BR
1. Speak their language
2. Provide relevant content
3. Place search box
prominently
4. Build a clear navigation
menu
5. Speed up the pageload
(check using Google’s
Page Speed plugin)

Improving Your Site’s Bounce Rate
1

Google’s 500+ Changes in 2013
may already be affecting your sales.
The
Big 4
1
2
3
4
Web User Experience
Google’s 500+
Changes
B-to-B Social Media
Mobile

may already be affecting your sales.
1. Market Share – 75%+
2. Most Innovative among Peers
3. Control / Influence – owns or partners with several
other popular web properties (ex:
AOL, Android, NYTimes.com, Weather.com)
Why Google Matters

1. (Not Provided)
2
Year: 2012

1. (Not Provided)
2
Year: 2013

1. (Not Provided)
2
Year: 2014

1. (Not Provided)
2
Key Point
If you’re solely using Google Analytics, you should
be aware that Google is withholding your data!
You need to export all of your keyword data out of
Google Analytics. Then use a Ranking Tracking
software to keep track of those keywords yourself. Why?
Because those keywords are bringing traffic to your site.
It’s critical for your business to continuously keep your
eye on them, and maintain those rankings.
PCA can help.

1. (Not Provided)
2
Key Point
If you’re solely using Google Analytics, you should
be aware that Google is withholding your data!
You need to export all of your keyword data out of Google Analytics.
Then use a Ranking Tracking software to keep track of those keywords
yourself. Why? Because those keywords are bringing traffic to your
site. It’s critical for your business to continuously keep your eye on
them, and maintain those rankings.
PCA can help.
PCA can help:
Sample Rank Tracking Report we use for our clients.

2
PCA can help:
Sample Rank Tracking Report we use for our clients.

2
PCA can help:
Sample Rank
Tracking
Report we use
for our clients.

1. (Not Provided)
2

2. Penguin Updates
2
What Google Did:
Penalized websites
that had lots of links
pointing TO them from
irrelevant sites.
Takeaway – Know
what your “web guys”
or your outsourced
SEO company are
doing. They could be
using bad techniques.

2. Penguin Updates
2

3. Hummingbird Update
2
What Google Did:
Focused on conversational searches. The
idea is Google want to be able to deliver
correct answers to broad-meaning questions.
Takeaway – Google is moving away from
focusing on keywords and meta tags, etc.
and more on what the searcher “means”
instead of what he/she “says.”

3. Hummingbird Update
2

4. Author Rank and Publisher Rank
2
What Google Did:
Along with the world wide
web consortium, Google is
paying attention to sematic
web – a way of coding
websites using standardized
markups or tags for items
such as
Author, Publisher, Product
Price, Product Color, etc. so
that someone could
theoretically search for
something such as “Who in
Buffalo charges the least for
red widgets” and receive an
exact answer from Google.

4. Author Rank and Publisher Rank
2

5. Knowledge Graph explosion
2

6. Google Now
7. Google buys Nest (thermostats)
2
Plus Hundreds More
… so what is Google up to?

Google wants businesses to stop pushing one-way
messages to customers, and start focusing on
naturally pulling prospects in by being in the right
place at the right time in front of the right people.
Google wants businesses to focus on building
their authority, increasing semantic relevance, and
improving the user experience.
Takeaway: KNOW what your web team is doing. If
they’re focused on “meta tags” that’s a red flag.
2

At PCA, we are transparent with our clients.
 We baseline your site before we do any work.
 Show you the work we’re going to do on your website
BEFORE we do it.
 Schedule monthly meetings to present performance (#
leads, # phone calls, etc.).
 Compare our metrics to what you’re seeing internally –
ex: Do our # of leads match yours?
 Always seek your feedback to continuously improve the
program and grow with your business.
2
PCA can help: Know what your web team is doing

The Future of Social Media
in the B-to-B marketplace.
The
Big 4
1
2
3
4
Web User Experience
Google’s 500+
Changes
B-to-B Social Media
Mobile

7 Steps to Doing B-to-B Social Media
the Right Way
1. Set specific, clear, measurable goal(s).
a) Increased brand awareness,
b) Lead generation,
c) Service and support, or
d) Reputation management.
The Future of B-to-B Social Media
3
Source: Social Marketology by Ric Dragon

the Right Way
2. Identify the smallest possible target segment
for that goal.
3
Social media marketing allows you to
be hyper-granular and drill down to
micro-segments, to dramatically
improve engagement levels and
conversion ratios.

the Right Way
3
3. Research what social places they “hang out in,”
if any at all.
a) Blogs and microblogs (Twitter)
b) Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, G+)
c) Podcasts
d) Video sites (YouTube)
e) Photo sharing sites (Flickr, Pinterest)
f) Discussion Forums (Yahoo! Answers)
g) Association membership sites/groups
This is the most time-intensive, tedious step.

3
3. Research what social places they “hang out in,”
if any at all.
PCA can help: The most time-intensive, tedious step
Below is a snippet of the sample research we did to assess a client’s social
media “hang-outs for prospects.” Client was a B2B international manufacturer
of expansion joints for engineers, architects and municipalities.

the Right Way
3
4. Identify the influencers of these communities
using Klout’s Influence Matrix.

the Right Way
3
Klout’s
Influence Matrix

the Right Way
3
5. Create an action plan with metrics.
6. Incorporate brand personality and voice.
7. Execute and measure results continuously.

the Right Way
3

Your Mobile Customers
… Beyond Smartphones & Tablets
The
Big 4
1
2
3
4
Web User Experience
Google’s 500+
Changes
B-to-B Social Media
Mobile

The Mobile Economy is growing
At the end of 2013, the number of
mobile phones officially surpassed
the number of people on Earth.

Mobile Advertising revenue is growing
US – 2012: $3.2billion
– 2013: $3.8billion 19% growth
– 2014: $4.7billion 24% growth
That’s a 47% growth from 2012 to 2014!
Source: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-2013-mobile-growth-statistics/

Standard Site vs. Mobile Site
vs. Responsive Site vs. Mobile App
Your Mobile Users… Beyond.
4

Does mobile matter for my business?
Check your Analytics for
percentage of mobile users and
their behavior vs. desktop users
4

4
Looks like smartphone users are bouncing at a
significantly higher rate than desktop users. Plus they’re
not converting. That’s a problem. Now let’s fix it.

At PCA:
 Our marketing and analytics team will assess your
potential loss/gain from mobile users (i.e. “What are you
missing out on now?”). We will also provide clear direction
on which type of mobile experience would work best for
your audience – responsive, mobile site, or mobile app.
 Our programmers our world-class engineers. They can
build any mobile experience, from a responsive website to
a mobile app.
 Our marketing and analytics team will step in again to
measure the impact of the new mobile site in terms of
increased leads, sales, phone calls, etc.
2
PCA can help: Mobile Sites

4

What is “beyond”
smartphones & tablets?
Wearable devices
4

What is “beyond”
smartphones & tablets?
Wearable devices
4
Takeaway – These
have not yet hit the
Chasm. We’re
keeping an eye on
when they do. Until
then, focus on your
smartphone and
tablet users.

“The Big 4” Your Business Cannot
Afford to Ignore
The
Big 4
1
2
3
4
Web User Experience
Google’s 500+
Changes
B-to-B Social Media
Mobile

Business Cannot
Afford to Ignore
Q&A

Business Cannot
Afford to Ignore
Thank You

4 Critical Web Challenges Facing WNY Businesses in 2014

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