Subscribe to our RSS Feed

Category Archives: Online marketing

Web design and the iPad

Designing for the iPad

Apple is currently soaring on the sales success of the iPad, and the consumer technology giant has smashed Wall Street expectations after profits surged on strong demand for new products – including the iPad.

The company, which sold almost as many of its new iPad tablets as Mac computers, said revenues jumped 61 per cent to $15.7 billion (£10.3bn) in its second quarter. Profits rose 78 per cent to $3.25bn. So far, it has sold about 3.3 million iPads during its first three months on the market.

While it remains to be seen if the iPad’s initial success can be maintained, it is possible that this nifty device has the potential to be a game changer in computing, and the way in which we browse and design for the web.

The launch of the iPad can be seen as a significant step towards the advancement of consumer computing, locking away the complexities of a powerful operating system beneath a streamlined, polished user interface. Although the iPad is a fully portable device, it’s totally different from a laptop, and boasts a large touch screen and 10 hour battery life. This makes it the ultimate tool for enjoying the web. So, with the iPad being different from everything that has come before, how should you approach designing for it?

Should conventional design for desktops apply? Or should designers draw on insight provided by mobile projects? We predict that from the launch of the iPad will emerge a new design hybrid, one which combines aspects of desktop and mobile design.

However, whether the iPad is able to change the world or not, is not the issue of this article. The fact of the matter is that the iPad is here and that, with 3.3 million of them already sold, we must design for the web whilst keeping it in mind. So, what do we need to consider?

Bright screen

The iPad is so bright that long term use can fatigue users. Therefore designers should consider colour contrast. Perhaps use light greys instead of white and dark greys instead of full on black. The backlit iPad screen is not ideal for long term textual consumption, so do your users a favour and mix up photos and video to make for a less strenuous experience.

Pixel density

The device’s pixel density, combined with screen dimensions that lie somewhere between a desktop and mobile phone, mean that neither downscaling desktop sites nor upscaling mobile sites is ideal.

The iPad

Links and Hover Effects

Most important is the fact that the iPad is a large touch screen device. This is a fundamental long term difference and a move from mouse to finger. Just think, there are a number of complexities in rendering an interface that defines hover and mouse in/mouse out features on a device that has no pointing mechanism!

As the primary method of user interaction with the iPad are the fingers, all those hover effects that were favourable for pointer-based devices will be a hurdle in user experience on the iPad. As, when using a finger and touching the screen, you loose the hover state.

Also the links can no longer be concealed in a text and left for the user to dexterously click upon. Therefore you might want to resize the links so that the user experience does not suffer. Also consider the concept of mousing (and Fitts’ Law). Will users be as accurate with their finger as a mouse cursor?

The Fold

The iPad changes the nature of the fold. The ability to change orientation makes the fold exist twice – and in two different places. Hopefully, this will stop people worrying about whether users will scroll because, if there ever was a device that makes people want to scroll, the iPad is it.

The iPad and the fold

Device orientation and fluid width design

As some iPad apps lack consistency between modes (sometimes only some features are available in landscape mode) it would not be advisable to have different designs for different orientations. Two designs may also confuse users when they switch modes. It’s also worth thinking about how a user might hold the device and the fingers they may use to navigate a site.

As the iPad has no right way of viewing websites, you can view pages either in landscape or in the portrait mode. But for the designer that means two completely different layouts for which to design. It is for this specific reason that the iPad highlights the need for smart fluid width design. Using a smart combination of CSS and Javascript the User Experience can be made to improve drastically.

HTML5

Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac (along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser) supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The iPads strong support for web standards may also benefit designers in another way, especially with the release of the OS4. Apple’s iAd platform is based around HTML5, which offers opportunities to anyone well versed in the technology. Revealed by Jobs last April, iAd aims to provide media rich in-app mobile advertising that (according to Apple) will provide the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web. With Google openly adopting HTML5 for Youtube, it is only a beginning of the things to come with HTML5.

Additional benefits

Although unconventional in interface terms, the iPad is a good citizen when it comes to webs standards. Safari for iPad is one of the most advanced, standard compliant browsers around. Also, WebKit (an open source web browser engine and also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine that’s used by Safari) is the only browser engine. WebKit is appealing to designers because they know exactly what they are designing for and don’t have to worry about how a design may appear on a range of different browsers. This allows for more focus when creating an iPad specific site.

Two sides of the argument

Designers are not united regarding optimisation for the iPad. Some say that there is no need unless iPad users are your core audience. However, if you can make something look good on the iPad, it is likely that it will look good on a desktop too.

Others say that designing specifically for the iPad will mean that users are not left in the lap of the Gods. Removing the need to zoom to read text, or ensuring that text links are large enough to be easily ‘clicked’ by a finger will remove a barrier between the users and your content. You don’t want uses to have to constantly adjust viewing behaviour because your content does not arrive formatted for easy consumption.

Nevertheless, it would be bad practice to develop a website specifically for the iPad platform – just as we no longer create sites specifically for the Mac or PC. Think of the iPad as another step in the evolution of the way in which we design for the web. As with every new device that comes out, we must take into account the subtle differences and play to its strengths and weaknesses.

The iPad - a beautiful piece of design too!

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on July 23, 2010
Categories: Design, GA Guide, Homepage, News, Online marketing
Tags: , , , ,
Comments (3)

47% of 18-24 year olds use real-time search results

Back at the end of 2009, Google announced that it would be integrating real time search results into search results pages. For a good demonstration of this, watch their real time search demonstration below…

Now, six months later, almost half (47%) of 18-24-year-olds use real-time search results. However, just 8% of these users find them useful (according to research by Tamar).

But what about other types of search results?

Interestingly, by looking into the search habits of 2,210 people, Tamar’s report also showed that just 4% of people would choose paid search results over natural search results, down by 1% on 2009 and down 6% on 2007.

The research found that people over 55 were the least likely to trust paid search as a trusted source with just 3% choosing it over natural search results.

Younger people are increasing their use of mobile to search as 14% of both 18-24-year olds and 25-34-year-olds use mobile search every day.

Neil Jackson, search strategy director at Tamar, said, “Consumers have decided that natural search is the route they trust more and this defines the strategic starting point for all brands, which need to focus on being highly visible ‘naturally’ through campaigns that reach effectively across a wide range of media and devices, especially mobile – a huge growth area for the search engines.”

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on July 21, 2010
Categories: Homepage, News, Online marketing, Search, Social media, mobile
Tags: , , , ,
Comments (0)

Setting up shop

The topic of monetizing any social media activity is spoken about regulatory at GA HQ – in fact, we’ve written quite a few blog posts about it too (see ‘How to… Monetize your Facebook fanpage‘ and ‘A little bit of give and take‘). And now there’s another way of monetizing your facebook page…

Take a look at Temperley London’s facebook page , click on the ‘Store’ tab and you’ll see a page that acts as a shop front to the Temperley online shop – directly from Facebook.

Temperley London Facebook Store

Of course, Temperley aren’t the first brand to embrace this idea (brands have been using FBML (Facebook Markup Language) in Facebook to modify pages for a while now). However, what’s so clever about the Temperley Store page is that website and social media administrators at Temperley do not need any knowledge of HTML or FBML in order to modify the page.

In fact, this page is created and controlled entirely through their CMS. So, if they wanted to change their hero product, layout of the page or link through to a specific product instead of to category pages, they could do this quickly and easily in house.

Although it seems as though Facebook will be launching a payment platform very soon, this is currently not available and (for many reasons) may not be right for them in the future anyway. So, for Temperley London, this method of directing Facebook users straight to purchase on the website is  a perfect way of monetizing their page quickly and efficiently.

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on June 28, 2010
Categories: Case studies, Graphic Alliance, Homepage, Online marketing, Social media, Work, eCommerce
Tags: , , , ,
Comments (0)

Andriod versus iPhone

iphone vs android

You may remember a previous post on mobile apps and mobile websites which explored the necessity to build apps for different operation platforms (android, apple, blackberry and so on). Whilst I am still a firm believer in the fact that other phones will slowly eat into the iPhone’s market share, there is no denying the unbelievable appeal of the iPhone (especially with the release of the iPhone 4 tomorrow at 8am).

In fact, a statistic (posted on  NMA online and taken from ComScore) today stated that: “The number of European iPhone users rose 161% to 10m users in the year to April, accounting for 18% of all smartphone users”.

However, it seems as though the Android is slowly starting to catch up…

ComScore also indicated that the number of people with smartphones using Google’s Android operating system is rising at an even faster rate. The number of Android users rose 2,429% to 1.8m in Europe between April 2009 and April 2010.

And to finish, some words from Jeremy Copp, European VP of mobile at ComScore,  “Google’s Android is most certainly the one to watch. It has gained about 1.7m users in a very short period of time and now accounts for 3% of the European smartphone market.”

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on June 23, 2010
Categories: Homepage, Online marketing
Tags: , ,
Comments (1)

Brand name bidding and the impact on luxury brands

Recently, a client of ours enquired over whether it was legal for a competitor of theirs to bid on their brand name in Google Adwords. Unfortunately, we had to tell them that, back 2008, Google opened up trademarked keywords to bidding in the UK (primarily to open up a potentially huge stream of revenue for itself).

Although this news is nothing new, the topic of brand name bidding re-emerged when, earlier this week, an article published in NMA stated that, according to a report sent to them by Marks & Clerk: “[out] of 266 UK marketers and business executives, 71% were “uncomfortable” with Google allowing brands to bid on rivals’ keywords, with 63% saying it’s unacceptable when a brand is protected by a trademark.” (NMA, Trademark bidding may be controversial, but is it common place? May 28th 2010).

However, the overall gist of NMA’s article was that although some brands are bidding on their competitors’ terms, it might not be happening as much as one might expect, and that additionally, it might not be as detrimental an effect on brands as was once expected. This was the conclusion arrived at after researchers at NMA looked at all the main department stores and supermarkets on the UK high street. They found that the only brand bidding on a rival term was House of Fraser on Debenhams.

So, never one to be out done, I conducted a little research of my own, but this time looking at smaller, more high end brands…

One of the first brand names I researched was ‘links of london’. The results were surprising. In the sponsored links, were a host of counterfeit websites with ‘links of london’ in the URL but with no use of the phrase in the ad text (Google will investigate ads which are using the brand keyword in the ad text). Some websites listed in these paid for links were so similar to the real thing, that it was quite hard to tell the official from the fake. Damaging? I think so – especially to luxury or high end brands. The same went for other luxury brands which returned sponsored links that the official brand might not be too happy about.

However, I would agree with NMA in that it is probably not happening as much as we all expected when Google first broke the news. In fact, during my search, I found few reputable, well known brands which had bid on other, similar sized, rival brands. In fact it tended to be poor quality, counterfeit or little known websites which had bid on bigger brand names (when the brand was not available to buy on the site in question – instead offering an alternative or fake product). That, or the listings were genuine stockists of the brand.

Therefore, in conclusion, although rival companies do not seem to be bidding on their competitors as much as expected, it is still damaging to a brand who does not want to see their product flogged on a discount or counterfeit site. Additionally, according to studies conducted back in 2009, the sectors most affected by the change was the travel and insurance sectors (ones which I did not research this time round).

So, what should a brand do?

Firstly, as demonstrated by Google vs. LVMH, there is little to be gained in taking legal action out against an online giant such as Google. Therefore, I would persist in arguing that brands need to remain focused on their organic search listings, and not focus solely other types of online brand building activities. Any brands’ strategy – large or small, should include organic SEO so that they appear at the top of Google’s organic search results.

Do not rely on paid listings to avoid good, old-fashioned search engine optimization – consumers still prefer organic listings over paid for links. Regardless of what’s going on in the paid section, ensure your site and brand shows up at the top of the natural, algorithmic section of the search. This alone will reinforce the relevance of your brand to the search term entered.

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on June 3, 2010
Categories: Homepage, Online marketing, Search, luxury brands
Tags: , , ,
Comments (0)

Happy birthday YouTube!

You may have noticed that I’ve been talking about video A LOT recently. Well,  if like me you’re fascinated by this explosion of video content and viewing on the web, you may be interested to know that: YouTube now generates more than 2 billion views a day (http://youtubeukblog.blogspot.com/) and that the average user spends, on average, 15 minutes per day on the site. It is also 5 years old this month (just like Graphic Alliance). So, happy birthday YouTube!

But remember that YouTube isn’t the only video online video community on the web. Although Google sites (YouTube is owned by Google) continue to dominate the space, they account for just under half of videos streamed during a month. According to comScore.com, the main growth drivers were sites such as BBC properties, Megavideo.com, and Facebook.com.

megavideo

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on May 19, 2010
Categories: Homepage, Online marketing, Search, Social media
Tags: , ,
Comments (0)

Probably the best blender in the world…

will it blend

The time has come to showcase another brilliant viral, and how fitting that this one should include the much anticipated iPad.

Right now we just can’t get enough of the guys at Blendtec who have created a superb collection of video virals entitled ‘Will it Blend’ to market their Blendtec blenders. Each week, Tom Dickson (the founder of Blendtec) asks the all important question, “will it blend?” and attempts to blend a varity of items to demonstrate the power behind his blenders.

Click here to see the iPad being blended.

Although we’ve chosen to showcase the iPad episode here, other previous experiments have included: Toms’ Tom Tom, Nike trainers, a Rubik’s cube, 6 Bic lighters, a 15 foot garden hose, Spam, Cubic Zirconia, an iPod and oysters.

To see more of Tom’s crazy antics visit: http://www.blendtec.com/willitblend

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on May 10, 2010
Categories: Homepage, Online marketing, Social media
Tags: , , ,
Comments (0)

Landing Page Optimization – some hints and tips

With all this recent chatter regarding SEO for video, I thought it best to talk about the importance of landing pages and optimization. Landing page optimization (or LPO) is part of conversion optimization and is all about improving the percentage of visitors that result in a conversion (i.e. a lead or sale). And, just so we’re clear, a landing page is one which a potential customer will land on after clicking on a search engine results listing or online advertisement. Therefore, by participating in LPO, your page will not only look appealing to a potential customer entering your site, but also provide relevant page content which will appeal to this target audience.

Landing pages, and their purpose, should be identified as they are a critical part of your site – they are where you will convert visitors into customers.

While every landing page depends on overall strategy and past performance, I’ve put together a few hints and tips which may help get started on your LPO quest. Some may apply to your website, while others may not at all, so have a read and pick and choose the relevant tips to help you optimize your landing pages more effectively…

1. Display clear calls to action:
Think about exactly what it is that you want your visitors to do once they land on your website. If you don’t own an ecommerce site these may include things such as signing up to receive the newsletter, requesting a quote, downloading a brochure, or requesting a call back. Stick to the main objective at hand as too many options or unnecessary information will only confuse you visitor.

2. Remain focused:
As mentioned above, remember to stay focused on the task at hand. As an example, some website owners even go so far as to remove the page navigation so as not to divert attention. Although this is not necessarily something we would always recommend, just bear in mind how easily distracted we can become online, so don’t bombard your potential customer with additional company information – instead of helping them with their decision, you may unwittingly be distracting them.

3. Buttons:
When it comes to your call to action buttons, think big and think bold. The larger the button, the better it will perform. I know it sounds simple, but it’s an area of web design that is often overlooked. Also remember to think about button placement as your buttons will need to attract the attention of your visitors. Think about placing your buttons at the top of pages, in the centre of a layout or within a whitespace (or deadspace). Additionally, keep your button above the fold.

call to act

4. Contrast:
Contrast for call to action buttons is good, so you should take the time to decide what colours to use for your buttons. Use colours that have a high contrast relative to surrounding elements and background as this will hep it stand out.

5. Delivery:
Instead of just presenting the offer, why not email it instead? It’s a great way of harvesting data and validating an email address.

6. Thank You:
Say thank you to your customers. Not only is it good manners, but it is also an important part of the tracking stage (you can monitor the number of times a thank you page is displayed). It will also provide you with a place to ask for more information.

7. Tracking:
Use analytics tools to monitor how your visitors are interacting with the site. Use the funnel tool to help you understand where changes could be made to help increase conversions.

8. Testing:
Use A/B testing to measure the success of page variations against a control page. With this type of testing, significant improvements can be seen after changing elements such as copy text, layouts, images and colours. However, as not all elements will produce the same improvements, it will be possible to identify those elements that consistently tend to produce the greatest improvements by looking at the results from different tests.

Click here for more examples of clear call to actions buttons.

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on April 28, 2010
Categories: GA Guide, Homepage, Online marketing, eCommerce
Tags: ,
Comments (0)

The question remains…

After my post last month on mobile apps and mobile websites, two recent related news articles caught my eye. The first is the announcement, from the co-founder of Ocado, that their iPhone app has generated 4.4% of its total orders since February this year.

After being downloaded 107,000 times since it’s launch last July, its use has equated to £15m of revenue per year and, unsurprisingly, Ocado are looking to develop onto further digital platforms in the future.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, news has been received that What Car? has launched a mobile site, optimized for smartphones.

What Car launches mobile friendly website

According to New Media Age, this news comes as media agency MPG Media Contacts published research indicating that internet use in the home was shifting from PC to mobile. This was supported by a survey of 100 UK households which indicated that 21% of respondents aged between 18 and 65 said they prefer to browse the internet on their phones. These findings are also supported by Facebook who say that more than 100m of it’s users regularly access the site via their mobile phones.

So, the question really still does remain… mobile app or mobile website? Nevertheless I’m still standing firm, sticking to the idea that, in the long run (or if you can only afford one) a mobile site is the way to go…

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on April 20, 2010
Categories: GA Guide, Homepage, Online marketing, Search
Tags: , , , ,
Comments (1)

Using video for SEO – a winning strategy (for the time being)

With over 1 billion views per day on YouTube alone, it is clear that internet video is on the rise. However, because most companies are ignoring video SEO (for the time being anyway), there is actually a relatively small amount of video content that is properly submitted to the search engines for inclusion in the search index.

Add to this that videos, when properly submitted, are just over 50 times more likely to generate a first page Google results ranking (according to Forrester research), and the case for using this medium to leverage your SEO efforts are clear.

But wait, there’s more! Because search engines also favour video content. This is because Google, and other search engines, aim to have a mix of content types displayed in the search results. Therefore, they give a higher ranking to video content to ensure mixed search results. For an example of this, try typing the word “eyeliner” into Google.

Using video for SEO

Using video for SEO

So, how do you ensure that your video content ranks high in the search engine?

Well, similar to traditional SEO, there are some best practice steps which you can follow in order to optimize your videos for search.

1. Keyword research:

Before even producing your video you should have performed a keyword audit to identify the top performing and most commonly searched for keywords and phrases.   Once identified, these can be embedded into your verbal script or commentary. They should also be placed within the title, description, file name and URL (wherever possible).

2. Video production:

When creating video for the web you can either hire someone to do it or, do it yourself. Try to think about your audience. Do they need a professionally created video, or will semi pro suffice? It is often said that videos which appear too polished can turn users away. So there’s something to be said about producing a more down to earth, behind the scenes type recording. Other things to consider include video length (the rule of thumb here is anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes) and how to make your video stand out. Always keep in mind the possible viral nature of video content.

3. Landing pages:

Before uploading and publishing your video, have a think about where you would like to direct your viewers. You’ll need to think about the call to action that prompted them to click through, and then designate a suitable landing page that will provide the relevant information. This landing page could be a Facebook page, blog, or web page. Think about clear calls to action and how to turn that visitor into a conversion.

4. Distribution:

TubeMogul makes the process of uploading video to multiple sites a simple process. It also provides a number of tools and tracking options. However, remember to set up accounts on each video site first. Some of the most well know include: YouTube, MetaCafe and Vimeo. As you upload your video, you;ll have the option to add your keywords and phrases into the title, description and tags for each site. Top tip: Keep your titles and descriptions keyword rich whilst remaining readable (as having a long list of keywords will appear as spam).

5. Analytics and tracking:

As always, tracking and analytics are of the utmost importance, as these stats will tell you what works, and what doesn’t. Use your results to tweak your landing page optimization.

And that’s it! But be quick, because it won’t be long before best practice video SEO becomes common practice…

Posted by: Susan Lim Clowes on April 15, 2010
Categories: GA Guide, Homepage, Online marketing, Social media
Tags: , , ,
Comments (0)
12»
Graphic Alliance Twitter Graphic Alliance Facebook Graphic Alliance on Flickr
Graphic Alliance

hello@graphicalliance.co.ukT: +44 (0)20 7395 5770

Graphic Alliance