Blogging

User Engagement Is the New SEO: How to Boost Search Rank by Engaging Users

Jan 10, 2021 | Seo

Many businesses aim for their websites to rank highly in search engines, but it’s a moving target.

Google, for instance, updated its algorithm 3,234 times in 2018 to meet user needs (emphasizing the “optimization” part of SEO).

You might remember when Google’s featured snippet addition disrupted the numbered ranking system of search pages. Because the snippet’s goal is to provide a simple answer from a strong piece of content, it might pull from the second or fourth website listed on the search engine result page instead of the first.

As a result, 34% of desktop users don’t even click on a webpage, since their questions are answered by a featured snippet on the search results page. This may seem like a cheap tactic to hoard traffic, but it’s not. By prioritizing the searcher’s experience over the hierarchy of web pages, Google ensures satisfied users.

Optimizing for search engines shouldn’t be your main focus anymore. The ongoing shift in Google’s algorithm over the past decade indicates a new market focus on meeting user expectations. In this post, I’ll do my best to pull back the curtain and show you how improving the user experience on your site will also improve your rankings and increase traffic.

Search Engine Engagement Metrics

Before we delve deeper into the metrics that will likely correlate with an increase in rankings in the age of user experience, it’s worth noting that no search engine is an open book. Google notifies the public when it updates its core algorithm, but it’s notoriously secretive about this proprietary information.

With this in mind, here are a few user engagement metrics that Google and other engines seem to value as priorities.

Mobile Optimization

In 2015, Google announced that mobile optimization would become a contributing factor to SEO rankings. Half of all searches originate on mobile devices, after all.

Google recommends a responsive web design that adapts to desktop computers, phones, and tablets, and it rewards mobile-optimized sites with higher rankings on SERPs.

This opens up into another potential benefit: placement in Google’s coveted “local pack.” The local pack is the set of three businesses featured on Google’s search results. Previously, Google featured seven businesses there, but the number has since been reduced to maintain a mobile-friendly layout.

Semantic Search

We’ve already mentioned that Google’s algorithm has drastically changed, especially since the old days of keyword stuffing. The first change allowed Google to judge not only the use of keywords, but also the ways in which they are used. During this phase, keywords and phrases needed to appear naturally. If they detracted from the readability of a page, Google would penalize that page’s ranking.

After the 2013 Hummingbird update, the search engine’s algorithm considers overall meaning — it realizes a page is more than the sum of its keywords. For instance, if you searched for “What’s the fastest animal?” prior to Hummingbird, a page would have to use the keywords “fastest animal” in several places to communicate the topic to Google’s crawlers. Now, with semantic search, Google can compare search intent with a page’s content to provide a better search experience.

Most recently, Google has helped searchers by rolling out BERT. This technology was designed for users who increasingly search by posing questions. It considers search intent by analyzing how a word relates contextually to the words that precede and follow it. Most searches made via voice recognition are questions, so this advancement will probably benefit Google in the future (Comscore predicts that half of all search engine inquiries will be voice searches by 2020).

Dwell Time

The dwell time metric is determined by the amount of time a user spends on a page before navigating back to a search engine. Search engines use this metric to judge the relevance of a page to a user’s query. If a user stays on a page for a long time before bouncing back to the SERP, then that page is likely more valuable than others.

Browsers such as Google Chrome, which is used by 81% of W3School’s 50 million monthly visitors as of August 2020, know how long a visitor remains on a page. Dwell time is a significant indicator of relevancy and quality, so webpage designers should aim for visitors to remain on a website for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, dwell time is one of many metrics that only search engines have access to. However, you can still use other data to measure the user engagement on your own site. Tracking metrics like time on page, bounce rate, and conversions from your landing pages can provide crucial insights into the value your users get from their experiences with your website.

4 Ways to Boost User Engagement on Your Website

Realistically, it’s easy to understand how a great user interface has the potential to boost search rankings, but making it happen is another story. Let’s take a look at several UX SEO best practices.

1. Augmented Reality

In 2017, personal care and beauty store Sephora released the Visual Artist update on its app. Users can virtually try on lipsticks, eyeshadows, and other cosmetic products from the comfort of their homes. This small user experience-focused change resulted in a reported organic revenue growth of 14% parent company LVMH.

Augmented reality is increasingly accessible to smaller businesses. It is quite common to find eyeglass retail websites, for instance, boosting user engagement with AR features that allow shoppers to virtually try on glasses.

You can also use this technology to include customers in the experience of launching a product. Jordan Brand did just that with the release of its Air Jordan III Tinker sneakers. Sneaker fans could scan a Snapchat code, purchase through Shopify, and have the shoes delivered by local fulfillment centers within the day.

2. Interactive Tools

Increasing user engagement is as simple as finding ways to capture the attention of a website visitor. Interactive tools and activities that occupy a user’s time (and provide value) are essential when creating a top-notch search experience.

This could be something simple such as a mortgage cost calculator on a home lending website, a responsive chatbot, or live user survey feature on your landing page. Warby Parker, for example, has enhanced the online prescription glasses retail web experience by offering an online quiz for picking out the right frames. The simple quiz provides personalized fashion advice and leads visitors along their sales journeys.

In fact, if you use a tool like SEMrush to identify the most trafficked pages of a popular website, you will often find that they are interactive. These tools keep users engaged. By installing event tracking within the tools, Google Analytics can report just how engaging they are.

3. Video Content

Many marketers fear that video content will slow down their pages and cause the bounce rate to skyrocket. This is a valid concern, but it also may be worth the risk. Video is easier for people to process, and it can encourage someone to stay 2.6 times longer on a webpage. Well-placed video enhances dwell time and boosts rankings.

For example, Toyota used video in its interactive “Choose Your Wild” campaign for its 4Runner vehicle. The video engages potential customers by letting them go virtually “off-road” in the vehicle and, at the same time, allows the company to collect customer preference information in a fun, unobtrusive way.

4. Lead Magnets

Surprisingly, some of the most effective ways to ensure you’re providing an exceptional user experience aren’t particularly innovative at all. Lead magnets with gated content aren’t a new tool in the digital marketing space, but you’ll find that you’ll command your audience well by understanding their needs and producing applicable content.

After all, the subtext of Google’s movement toward user-friendly webpages is really just ensuring that high-ranking pages are valuable content resources. You will be improving the user experience and prioritizing conversion optimization at the same time.

Bidsketch uses this approach: It offers a free sample proposal in exchange for a voluntarily disclosed customer email address. Content-heavy websites like The Oatmeal and BuzzFeed similarly capture email addresses by offering quizzes (which also enhance user engagement and dwell time). Try offering various free “goodies” as lead magnets such as spreadsheets, tutorials, generators, or calculators.

By keeping users engaged with valuable, meaningful content, you will not only create happier visitors (and maybe brand advocates), but you will also rank highly on Google.

Whether that engagement stems from augmented reality, interactivity, videos, lead magnets, or some other approach, it can make all the difference in the success of a company’s user experience and SEO efforts.

Meteora Automation Tool to Boost Instagram Engagement and Sales

Oct 9, 2020 | instagram, Social Media

By now, it’s been clearly proved that Instagram isn’t something of a wet squib. It has exploded on the social media scene like a big bomb, and gone on to become one of the fastest growing social networks. All kinds of product-based businesses and influencers from across industries are leveraging this social platform to drive momentum among their audiences and boost sales.

The speed at which Instagram is growing, you can expect it to get even bigger in the years to come. If you conduct commerce on the internet, you must include this social network in your marketing plan.

But once you’ve joined Instagram, the real challenge that stares you in the face is the growth of followers and engagement. After all, Instagram is also social media and you can’t hope to achieve success on it without making an strenuous endeavor in the right direction. If you don’t want to get caught up in a never-ending loop of trying hard to climb uphill (competing against industry rivals), you should definitely invest in a tool which would automate the whole process.

That’s exactly where Meteora comes in!

What is Meteora?

Meteora is a powerful Instagram account management software which helps all kinds of businesses and influencers build an engaged following, grow sales and build brand credibility through automation.

Using this tool, you can easily create an ecosystem which, in turn, naturally propels your brand and establishes long-term customer relationships. Whether you’re an Amazon seller, Shopify seller or belong to just any industry, you can use Meteora to quickly market your products and boost your sales – while having complete peace of mind. This Instagram account management tool has been meticulously developed to take the pain out of social media marketing.

The Anatomy of a Meteora Campaign

The main purpose of using Meteora is to boost sales on Instagram. The tool has all the inbuilt features and techniques to automate much of the engagement and interaction that you need to create on Instagram to market and sell your products. Through the use of Meteora, your Instagram following increases automatically, while also offering the ability to block fake followers. You don’t have to like, follow or comment on social posts yourself because Meteora does it all for you while you sit back and watch your audience grow and see your prospects turn into paying customers. At any time, you can access the Meteora dashboard and check out the performance of your Instagram campaign.

All you need to do is tell Meteora the kind of audience you seek and the tool will give you the matching parameters to set up.

Audience Targeting:

Meteora offers four ways to target an audience – location, event, competitor and hashtag. If you want to target people based on your interest in a specific niche, hashtag targeting is what you need. Likewise, you can also target on the basis of a particular location, event or a competitor. Next, you can define all the parameters to fine-tune your targeting.

Messaging:

Now, that you’ve described the audience you’re looking for, it’s time to set how you’d like to interact with them. While setting up the parameters, you can refine the messaging as well. If you want to follow an Instagram user who interacted with one of your posts, Meteora helps you do that. You can also pre-write a comment and save it so that Meteora will automatically post it for your in response to a user’s comment. You can write these comments in advance based on the day of the week, location etc. You can also reword your comments anytime.

Key Data and Metrics:

Once your campaign has been executed, the data will start to come in. As you review the data, you’ll get a better sense of how the entire campaign is working. Based on the initial data of your campaign, you can refine your targeting further for better results. The reporting screen will keep you up-to-date at all times about the overall performance of your campaign. You’ll know how many likes and follows have been completed. You’ll find out how many fake Instagram followers have been blocked. The live feed on the dashboard will present a quick picture of what’s happening with your Instagram account in real time.

Meteora Pricing Plan

To suit different needs, Meteora offers three different pricing plans.

Basic [$49/mo]:

If you’re just starting out with Meteora, this is the plan you should probably pick up. The plan includes all engagement types, location targeting and hashtag targeting. Using this plan, you can grow your Instagram account by 25-55 new followers on a daily basis along with dedicated support.

Premium [$99/mo]:

This plan is a high recommend for savvy marketers. Some highlights of this plan include unlimited targeting (location, hashtag, event, competitor), fake follower avoidance etc. On account of higher suitability for a wide range of serious online marketers, this pricing plan is the most popular on Meteora. Choose this plan to grow your Instagram on a big scale.

Pro Setup [$249/mo]:

This is the best of all. With this plan, you’ll have a world-class team at hand to support your Instagram growth. Key features of this plan include direct message interactions, Google AI sentiment detection, algorithm-based target optimization, one on one target set up with an expert etc. This plan is a surefire choice, if you plan to make it big in market.

In addition to these plans, Meteora also has in store bulk pricing offers. If you’re a marketing agency, you should feel free to get in touch with the customer care team of Meteora to negotiate a great deal.

So, Are You Ready to Grow with Meteora?

Over 25 million businesses are already using Instagram to expand the reach of their products and grow their sales. If you plan to hit Instagram with a bang and do better than most other businesses with the least effort, Meteora is the tool you need. Automate all of your Instagram marketing and get ready to watch your follower engagement grow and your product sales shoot up quickly.

Video Marketing 2020: Mobile vs. Desktop Engagement Stats and Factors

Oct 9, 2020 | Video Marketing

Video has become a critical component in every business owner’s overall strategy. As technology evolves, the quality of the video is improving with it, where consumers seek more engaging content. So the use of video is set to continue to rise exponentially.

Therefore, we have to look at new ways to engage our audience using video content. How do we do it? It starts with giving customers unique experiences that have their best interest at heart while also meeting your business goals. This could be done in several different ways. The most popular marketing videos are explainer videos, which usually are mini videos explaining products or services. They are fun, snappy videos that quickly get the point across.

These are a few more video content marketing examples:

Video interviews
Tutorials
Presentations
Live Streams
Product demos
Video ads

With the world quickly moving toward the mobile market and with 4.78 billion users expected to use mobile almost exclusively by 2020, it has become even more critical to make sure you are marketing to your mobile customers.

When planning your video ad campaigns, it’s essential to keep your mobile audience in mind. Think about how you use your own mobile devices, where you are when you use them, and how you interact with your device while on the go.

MicroLearning is a new concept that has surfaced over the past few months due to the increased interest in using mobile devices. Web designers and online eCommerce business owners may benefit from this recent interest in Micro Learning.

MicroLearning is tied into “gamification,” which takes a “fun” approach to various activities that you can do online. This can be used to appeal to both your customer base as well as your employees. Technical knowledge can be communicated through this technique, and it increases the engagement level of your visitors.

Now that you have a good idea of the most popular video content, let’s look at the latest video marketing stats vital for you to know in 2020.

The return on investment for video marketing (ROI)

91% of marketers have indicated that they are happy with the ROI that video marketing brings in when it comes to social media.

Looking at the current state of videos, they are more time consuming to make and may need more expertise. Yet, would the return on your investment be worthwhile? Let’s look into this. The first return would be seen when more people visit your business website, increasing your brand awareness.

It may not initially bring in sales, but your brand becomes more well known and reputable along the way. As more customers hear that your brand serves their needs, they will be more prone to purchase. Another opportunity to use this data is to invest in video ads on YouTube or Facebook, which can bring you more reach.

Video ads are the number 1 way consumers discover a brand

Video ads drive more users from social media like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to make purchases. Generally, this means a standard Television ad or social media ad. Most users will find these ads while scrolling or when engaging with content. Often, it makes the brand appear reputable and serves as a visual cue. While they may not buy at that moment, when they see another signal, it could lead to the purchase. Most platforms like YouTube and Facebook push for video ads and optimize for them as well.

Video ads are easier to digest, and it’s visual by nature, so many tactics used in television advertisements could be applied. You can always think of your ad as the first engagement with your customer. However, if you are employing a video ad strategy on other platforms, that’s a good idea too and will eventually be seen by your target customer.

25% of consumers purchase a product they saw on a story on Instagram

We already know that Instagram is a robust platform that has leveraged the idea of stories and offered marketing space for a price. While the in-feed promoted posts were useful, people have grown tired of them and simply scroll past. Stories are more engaging, and they do make people stay longer on the app, more prone to check out your product.

The good news for you is that Instagram has a loyal base of people who avidly check the app for about 53 minutes daily. That’s enough for potential customers to see your ad, make a connection, and make a purchase. Better yet, they may make a connection and share the product with friends and family.

YouTube is the number 1 platform affecting consumer behavior

This video platform is home to 50 million content creators, and each is hoping their best videos get incentivized from advertising income. How does YouTube essentially pay its bills? Well, they can only do it via advertising. If you’ve ever been searching for information and google populates a video or how-to guide, and if you watch it, you will see an ad a few times in that video. This is one of the critical approaches that have made YouTube the prime platform for driving consumer behavior.

In this way, YouTube is affecting consumer behavior through their well engineered ad platform. Another option is via the content creators themselves. Most YouTubers run sponsored videos where they use a product from a brand that pays them to share it with their audience.

Often if they have 100,000 or more people subscribed to their channel, they will be considered an influencer since they can influence that audience to buy the sponsored product. It works on the premise that YouTube creators become like their friends, and they know trust and like them, so when they share a product, it’s easier to purchase because their “friend” recommended it.

85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool

This becomes even more interesting when we see that 96% of marketers have attributed ad spend to video. Since more than 90% of marketers are using videos for marketing, you cannot afford to be left out of this picture. Similarly, research shows that 71% of B2B marketers and 66 % of B2C marketers use video marketing.

As more and more businesses seek to get their offerings in front of their ideal customers, the competition has undoubtedly become more fierce. The only way to use this data is to find a way to create compelling video marketing for your business. When video marketing is combined with social media, it can also become a powerful and cost-effective way to get your products in front of the right audience.

75% of consumers decided not to buy a product because the video voiceover annoyed them

This stat from Wyzowl shows that the video’s content and sound quality can be equally important. People have unique tastes, and it always helps to know your customer well. This can lead to your customer relating to your brand better when they eventually do see your ad. The worst thing you can do is have an ad that people don’t watch or find annoying. Also, it’s more expensive to have an annoying video ad. On Facebook, if your ad performs well, then they will show it to more people and vice versa. The aim is that the platform does not wish to create a negative space for its users. The objective is to keep people on the platform so they can buy more.

You can avoid having an unsuitable ad by ensuring you do your research on your audience, likes, dislikes, and tastes in the video. Many marketers join a variety of platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and keep in touch with the conversations to get a sense of their preferences. Alternatively, you can look at your competitor’s ads to find what’s working. If you’re on Facebook, you can easily navigate to all their running ads by accessing their page and watching a few of their ads under the “transparency” section. It helps to ensure that your ads are pleasant and keeps your viewers engaged, so if it means hiring a video editor to make it happen, it makes the best investment for your company.

Mobile Video Marketing

Your customers are more attracted to video than they are to image content, and for this reason, the video has outperformed other forms of content. Additionally, mobile use has seen an uptick in the last 4-5 years, and more people are consuming your content using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. In short, your customers love to watch videos on their mobile devices. According to YouTube, more than 70% of all YouTube video use comes from mobile devices. Additionally, 93% of Twitter video views are from mobile devices.

You can use this knowledge by ensuring that all your video marketing content is optimized for mobile. Simple aspects such as creating portrait mode video instead of landscape video can make a big difference. With the onset of Instagram stories and TikTok, the world is moving swiftly towards space where we consume most of our video content in portrait mode. The good news for you is that it is easily converted by using software like adobe premiere or final cut pro to update your videos.

82% of all consumer web traffic will be video in the future

Cisco recently released its annual internet report and found that around a million minutes of video per second will pass through the internet. Additionally, they also noted 82% of internet users buying something online would be facilitated via a video. This will prove exciting as marketers will have to cater to more video content by either outsourcing video content or repurpose their content.

Ideally, this video creation must be planned since it can take up to 5-6 hours. Yet, the good news is that more and more companies embrace the need to simplify the video process offering free and paid solutions that will undoubtedly help you create professional videos that are aimed at business marketing.

66% of marketers see success on TikTok

TikTok has multiplied in the last two years, where they allow users to make short-form content and share it with around 800 million TikTok users. While the application is entirely new compared to the giants of social media like Facebook and Instagram, it has been showing some decent results.

More and more adult users are on board for the fun, quirky, and sometimes cringe-worthy videos that show up. Marketers bring their business to TikTok using the trends and popular music to make educational content that draws their target market in. Their ad platform is also seeing some traction, and it is relatively inexpensive to start.

They do have a large influencer base who will gladly make video content for your brand and share it on the page with millions of followers. Most influencers on the platform are learning how to price their services, and you may find you get underpriced attention for your brand leading to more customers coming your way.

Final Thoughts on the Future of Online Video

Video consumption has increased significantly in the last decade, primarily due to the advancement in technology. As a marketer, this should be a useful tool to use in your content strategy. By making use of content like explainer videos, tutorials, Instagram stories, and live streams, you will start to see a rise in engagement on your brand.

The data indicates that people need good video content that entertains, educates, or inspires. If your content does any of this, they will likely be interested in finding out more about your product or service.

Additionally, using video will increase your engagement and brand awareness, especially when making use of YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram stories, which offer inexpensive ad campaigns for businesses seeking to reach their ideal customers.

Did you enjoy finding out about video marketing stats? If so, please go ahead and look at our recent stats on the top video platform, YouTube.

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