social media marketing markham

The Truth about Social Media Marketing in 2018

by BusinessContent MarketingMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

In the past decade, social media marketing has become more prominent in effective marketing campaigns. The speed at which news travels and the creative levels it can pass through makes it one of the best tactics to utilize while being cost-effective.

Since the ability to integrate social media does not have any requirements, the competitive scope of the field is constantly growing. To produce organic reach within posts and campaigns has become increasingly difficult.

Whether your brand is looking to improve social media results or requires an online marketing company to assist with the process, you should understand the truth behind these tactics to leverage them in your favour.

 

 

Return on Investment

Social media is one of the best investments as it can produce large results at small costs. The truth is that positive return on investment is hard to reach sometimes due to the size of the competitive field. Over 75% of marketers are utilizing social media in their campaigns but only half are seeing positive results being produced.  

 

Relying on other Marketing Tactics

Often, companies pump money into social media marketing in time increments with the hopes that it will assist with increasing reach and attention. Without other marketing tactics to rely on, the narrow focus creates tunnel vision, omitting key components that will boost your social media efforts.

For example, if your company is solely focused on social media blasts whereas a competitor is focused on both building social media material while creating a new customer base, the competitor that diversified their efforts will see higher returns. Without a building customer base, the social platforms die out in the long-run.

 

Industry at a Glance

Depending on your brand and the industry it is in, it might need more than the regular social media tactics to dominate the field. All companies start off on the same foot, with the potential to see positive return in their efforts. However, those that have strong visuals, logos, content, or just specifically tailor to demographics that engage with social media will have an advantage. If your brand does not take these factors into consideration, it will not see success as easily.

 

It’s your Lucky Day!

Have you heard of a viral post? Whether it be a product or a service, when a social media post goes viral, it is success that will continue to exponentially grow on its own. However, going viral is not up to strategy or decision-making — part of it relies on luck. A change in time or the people that interact with it can change the luck associated but don’t stress out on this factor! Consistently putting out quality content will provide a solid foundation for your social media campaigns.

 

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Insider Info: Quality in the Eyes of Google & How it Shapes Digital Marketing

by BusinessContent MarketingMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

The Internet game has greatly evolved since it first began – gone are the days of online marketing in the early 2000’s when all you had to do was launch a website and easily connect with a previously untapped market. Fast forward to nearly 20 years later today, and having a website that’s stuck in the old days – slow, unresponsive, and riddled with pages of poor quality content – will guarantee just about your business’ early demise in the fast-moving digital marketplace.

With search engines like Google serving as the gateway for consumers to find products and service providers like you online, establishing a good rapport with potential customers starts with them finding your business as it comes up in search results. As your website gets users to explore its unique content and stay on your site, it sends a signal to Google that your business is able to adequately respond to users’ needs, leading it to be recommended to more users and enjoy increased reach and visibility as search rankings climb.

So how exactly does Google determine a page to have high quality content, and in effect, recommend it to users – your potential customers? How can you tell if your website has low quality pages that cause lead conversions and sales to suffer?

How Does Google See Quality?

Over the years, Google has given digital marketing companies and businesses ideas of how a high quality website should be. Here are the trademark factors your website should satisfy:

  • Unique content – this means that all content on your site isn’t merely lifted off another site.
  • Content for humans – when SEO first came to light, people thought that saturating a page with keywords to meet density standards was enough for a page to be deemed relevant, as it matched all the competitive keywords and search phrases users use to find information relevant to their queries – even when it made absolutely no sense at all. Today, Google encourages digital marketing companies, content writers, and business owners to write for humans: no more unnecessary keyword saturation, but more natural writing aimed at actually answering users’ questions.
  • Backlinks – the more reliable, quality external links and pages point to your site, the more trustworthy and reputable it is in the eyes of Google. This signals that your page is high-quality, since it’s reference-worthy.
  • Answers users’ query – your page must allow a user to successfully find the information they need, hence, answering their query. This is a bit intriguing, since measuring it isn’t as outright compared to other quality indicators, but it basically points to users spending a good amount of time on your site. To Google, this means they are finding what they searched for, and are exploring your site for more relevant content, as opposed to spending just a few seconds, then bouncing back to search results. When users don’t spend a good amount of time on your site, this signals to Google that your site wasn’t able to successfully answer a query, and in effect deems your website as low quality, and shouldn’t be enjoying a prime position on search results.

New Indicators of High Quality Websites

As digital marketing evolves these days and the race towards increasing relevance and a well-defined online customer journey pushes businesses like yours to improve performance, there are now also other indicators of quality apart from the trademark factors every digital marketing company in Toronto swears by:

  • Fast connection – what good is a website if it doesn’t load fast, and within the average time of a user’s attention span? No one likes waiting forever for a site to fully load, especially in this age of the instant need for information served online. When your site loads really slow, chances are, users bounce back to search results and select another site in place. This signals poor quality to Google, which can cause a faster-loading site to take your prime position on search.
  • A seamless, integrated user experience – gone are the days of waiting for desktop or laptop computers to power up so you can go on the Internet to search for a product or service. In their place, users can simply whip out a smartphone or use a tablet to access information online. But what’s bound to happen if your website is designed to display optimally only on old, clunky computers? You’ll definitely fall behind on reaching out to the smartphone generation that wouldn’t want to, and probably have no time to waste pinching the screen and scrolling endlessly from side to side – all because your website doesn’t fit and wasn’t designed with the modern user experience in mind.
  • No grammar and spelling errors – sounds surprising, but if you want your website to be Google’s snippet feature among other search results – definitely a great feat since users’ attention are drawn to it, you’ll want your content to be spotless, since Google is likely to remove poor quality content.
  • Alternatives to non-text content – it’s great that your website uses a variety of media to share the latest updates and introduce the best features of your products and services, such as through video, but populating your site with rich, non-text media isn’t enough: there has to alternatives. This is why videos should have transcripts and the alt text attribute isn’t forgotten. With this, Google certifies your site to be universally accessible.
  • Interactive, easily consumable content – no one likes reading through chunks of text just to find the information they need, so Google prioritizes ranking sites with well-organized pages filled with content that’s easy to consume and interact with. There are different ways to interpret this, but you’ll be surprised how Google’s algorithm has easily allowed machine learning systems to pick this up.
  • What’s next – Google doesn’t want your story to end there, so it ranks well content that point users to more useful information, like external links to sources or a follow-up on tasks anchored on a strong call-to-action, such as leading to a dedicated product page, shopping cart, or even just a simple contact page that will prompt more action from users to get everything they need.

These factors aren’t really set in stone, but they’re all a good place to start when checking how well your website performs, and if its quality is good enough to help your business engage a wider audience in the fast-paced, ever-changing digital landscape.

Is your business found on Google search results where it’s supposed to be? Boost your rankings and the customer experience you provide with a smart and modern website! Work with our digital marketing company in Toronto to optimize your site. Call us at (416)-619-7935 to start.

digital marketing company toronto

Insider Info: Quality in the Eyes of Google & How it Shapes Digital Marketing

by BusinessContent MarketingMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

The Internet game has greatly evolved since it first began – gone are the days of online marketing in the early 2000’s when all you had to do was launch a website and easily connect with a previously untapped market. Fast forward to nearly 20 years later today, and having a website that’s stuck in the old days – slow, unresponsive, and riddled with pages of poor quality content – will guarantee just about your business’ early demise in the fast-moving digital marketplace.

With search engines like Google serving as the gateway for consumers to find products and service providers like you online, establishing a good rapport with potential customers starts with them finding your business as it comes up in search results. As your website gets users to explore its unique content and stay on your site, it sends a signal to Google that your business is able to adequately respond to users’ needs, leading it to be recommended to more users and enjoy increased reach and visibility as search rankings climb.

So how exactly does Google determine a page to have high quality content, and in effect, recommend it to users – your potential customers? How can you tell if your website has low quality pages that cause lead conversions and sales to suffer?

How Does Google See Quality?

Over the years, Google has given digital marketing companies and businesses ideas of how a high quality website should be. Here are the trademark factors your website should satisfy:

  • Unique content – this means that all content on your site isn’t merely lifted off another site.
  • Content for humans – when SEO first came to light, people thought that saturating a page with keywords to meet density standards was enough for a page to be deemed relevant, as it matched all the competitive keywords and search phrases users use to find information relevant to their queries – even when it made absolutely no sense at all. Today, Google encourages digital marketing companies, content writers, and business owners to write for humans: no more unnecessary keyword saturation, but more natural writing aimed at actually answering users’ questions.
  • Backlinks – the more reliable, quality external links and pages point to your site, the more trustworthy and reputable it is in the eyes of Google. This signals that your page is high-quality, since it’s reference-worthy.
  • Answers users’ query – your page must allow a user to successfully find the information they need, hence, answering their query. This is a bit intriguing, since measuring it isn’t as outright compared to other quality indicators, but it basically points to users spending a good amount of time on your site. To Google, this means they are finding what they searched for, and are exploring your site for more relevant content, as opposed to spending just a few seconds, then bouncing back to search results. When users don’t spend a good amount of time on your site, this signals to Google that your site wasn’t able to successfully answer a query, and in effect deems your website as low quality, and shouldn’t be enjoying a prime position on search results.

New Indicators of High Quality Websites

As digital marketing evolves these days and the race towards increasing relevance and a well-defined online customer journey pushes businesses like yours to improve performance, there are now also other indicators of quality apart from the trademark factors every digital marketing company in Toronto swears by:

  • Fast connection – what good is a website if it doesn’t load fast, and within the average time of a user’s attention span? No one likes waiting forever for a site to fully load, especially in this age of the instant need for information served online. When your site loads really slow, chances are, users bounce back to search results and select another site in place. This signals poor quality to Google, which can cause a faster-loading site to take your prime position on search.
  • A seamless, integrated user experience – gone are the days of waiting for desktop or laptop computers to power up so you can go on the Internet to search for a product or service. In their place, users can simply whip out a smartphone or use a tablet to access information online. But what’s bound to happen if your website is designed to display optimally only on old, clunky computers? You’ll definitely fall behind on reaching out to the smartphone generation that wouldn’t want to, and probably have no time to waste pinching the screen and scrolling endlessly from side to side – all because your website doesn’t fit and wasn’t designed with the modern user experience in mind.
  • No grammar and spelling errors – sounds surprising, but if you want your website to be Google’s snippet feature among other search results – definitely a great feat since users’ attention are drawn to it, you’ll want your content to be spotless, since Google is likely to remove poor quality content.
  • Alternatives to non-text content – it’s great that your website uses a variety of media to share the latest updates and introduce the best features of your products and services, such as through video, but populating your site with rich, non-text media isn’t enough: there has to alternatives. This is why videos should have transcripts and the alt text attribute isn’t forgotten. With this, Google certifies your site to be universally accessible.
  • Interactive, easily consumable content – no one likes reading through chunks of text just to find the information they need, so Google prioritizes ranking sites with well-organized pages filled with content that’s easy to consume and interact with. There are different ways to interpret this, but you’ll be surprised how Google’s algorithm has easily allowed machine learning systems to pick this up.
  • What’s next – Google doesn’t want your story to end there, so it ranks well content that point users to more useful information, like external links to sources or a follow-up on tasks anchored on a strong call-to-action, such as leading to a dedicated product page, shopping cart, or even just a simple contact page that will prompt more action from users to get everything they need.

These factors aren’t really set in stone, but they’re all a good place to start when checking how well your website performs, and if its quality is good enough to help your business engage a wider audience in the fast-paced, ever-changing digital landscape.

Is your business found on Google search results where it’s supposed to be? Boost your rankings and the customer experience you provide with a smart and modern website! Work with our digital marketing company in Toronto to optimize your site. Call us at (416)-619-7935 to start.

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Complete Customer Experience: Start with AMP Web Design

by BusinessContent MarketingMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

With the rise of websites, online media and digital marketing strategies – first on traditional desktop computers and laptops, and now on mobile, as smartphones and tablets become the modern consumer’s top go-to device for browsing, shopping and managing their diverse lifestyle – it’s no secret that delivering a complete customer experience is now also determined by the ease in which potential customers can navigate your business’ website.

These days, it’s not just any type of website that helps realize your mission of delivering a complete customer experience in the digital marketplace; gone are the days of sluggish, unresponsive, and unoptimized websites users constantly have to zoom in or out off, or scroll back and forth just to interact with a potential merchant whose products and services they’re considering. In the age of heavy digital interactions and digitally-savvy consumers, websites built using AMP web design cut through the chase and raise the bar for a pleasant and modern online customer experience.

Creating a new website for your business with AMP web design? Build on the best features of the platform with these standards for a complete digital customer experience in mind.

Let Users Explore

With lightning fast loading speeds in an AMP site, it’s easy to encourage potential customers to explore your site, and navigate it both with ease and confidence. Instead of pressuring them with spam-like calls to action, ads, and links to contact or order forms in the middle of a product or service page, allow users to explore the site’s different features first before they make a decision. Because your site’s content flows seamlessly and loads instantly when built using AMP web design, your potential customers can delight in their on-site navigation, ending in a successful purchase, or a well-thought of subscription to services you offer.

Convenient Online Transactions

AMP web design is yet to fully debut and become completely functional for e-commerce sites, but as the platform continuously grows, it’s no secret that a pleasant online shopping experience is tied with fast order processing speeds and instant delivery of receipts or confirmation of orders – instant loading time only an AMP website can give.

As you explore e-commerce with AMP web design, it’s important to incorporate enticing features, such as allowing guest purchases, especially for first-time customers. Many online shoppers will definitely tell you that the real bane of online purchases lies in having to sign up or register in order to proceed with the transaction – and worse, many e-commerce sites don’t make the registration process a breeze. But to sustain marketing, you can allow first time customers to make guest purchases, and after, prompt them to register for the site to access other offers, promos, and products.

With AMP web design, you can easily transform potential customers’ e-commerce experience on your site, maximizing the optimal display of content that promotes your products and services, and the fast loading time it takes for them to view said content. Coupled with fast processing, and allowing guest purchases, users will delight in the ease of use of your AMP website.

Use Efficient Forms

Many online shoppers and your potential customers now use their mobile devices to browse products and services they need online, and even proceed with registration, or better, purchases and subscriptions. Filling out online forms can already feel like such a chore even on desktop computers, but more so on mobile devices as screens are smaller, and users often find themselves scrolling endlessly just to complete registration.

But in reality, the modern, digitally-savvy market living high-paced lives doesn’t have time for that. Instead, they need forms that load and process their order quickly, and aren’t complicated to fill out on small screens. To this end, AMP web design can help transform your potential customers’ experience on your site, as not only do forms load fast when built using this platform, but even better, can be perfectly optimized to suit viewing and filling out using their smartphones.

Apart from the fast speeds and optimal flow AMP web design provides as a baseline for your mobile e-commerce site, make sure to incorporate clear labels, real-time validation, and the simplest possible method of completing an online registration. With these standards in mind, you can keep your customers engaged, instead of frustrated, which can lead them to navigating away from your site, and loss of valuable conversion opportunities.

Optimize for Mobile

Perhaps the most important feature of the modern, mobile user experience, optimizing display of content for optimal interaction on smartphones holds the key to retaining and expanding your customer base in the digital marketplace. When users continuously find themselves having to pinch the screen for zooming in and out in order to fully interact with the information displayed on your website, they’re most likely to navigate away from your site, and cost you opportunities to convert leads and sales.

Redesigning your website with AMP web design is the best new way to deliver an optimal mobile user experience. With AMP web design, you are essentially building a website that is made for mobile use first, easily capturing the majority of today’s market that lives and shops on their smartphones. As content related to your products and services are displayed for optimal mobile viewing, and instantly load to deliver information your potential customers require right at that very moment, AMP web design will definitely elevate the level of customer satisfaction you can provide online, making your business a leader in the digital marketing space.

Deliver a complete user experience to your digitally-savvy, modern customers. Redesign your website, and rebuild your brand with AMP web design. Give us a call at (416) 619-7935 today to learn more and get started.

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Refining the Mobile User Experience with AMP Web Design

by BusinessContent MarketingMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

With the rise of technology and smart consumerism, it’s essential now more than ever to provide your customers with a pleasant experience on your website, as this largely influences your next big sale, and builds on your position in the market. As websites rise, so do innovations in how they are built – but the threshold remains the same: an ideal user experience, now even more seamless and powerful with AMP web design.

Because your next leads and sales are now mostly determined by how visible your business is in the digital space, search engines such as Google adopt measures in determining if your site is worth recommending to users, in effect boosting your ranking, as well as your opportunities to connect with more users and convert their visits to your website to leads, sales, and return visits. As a smart business owner in the digital age, it’s time to learn all about the latest in web design, and how your website can meet standards to curate and benefit from a providing a complete digital customer experience.

Google’s Standards

Search engines such as Google value 3 top components of websites, ensuring that these perform well and deliver an ideal user experience especially on mobile devices – now the most widely used device for living on the web. These are:

  • Mobile design and usability
  • Page loading speed
  • Responsive design

Satisfying these 3 components gives rise to an ideal user experience, allowing Google to review your site and determine how it can be improved in order to better attract potential customers and keep your established following engaged as new products and services debut. The existence of the perfect website is a myth, but with these 3 factors, your business can be a myriad of steps closer to providing a complete customer experience online.

Ease of Mobile Use

When your website is designed for, and highly usable on mobile, it’s easy for users to navigate your site and connect with your latest products and services. This fosters memorable interactions that prompt them to gravitate towards your business, subscribe to your offerings, and trust your brand with many of their needs over time.

Fast Responses

Fast loading speeds on mobile devices further cement trust in your business, as in the digital marketplace, a fast, easy to use website is the counterpart of a warm welcome you provide to customers in your store. When your site is slow to load, it drives away potential customers, as it appears that your business is sluggish in delivering service people count on you to provide. A good buffer speed is about 2 to 3 seconds, and any slower than that, you could be losing business; and on the upside, the faster your site loads, such as with AMP web design, the more likely it is to retain viewers and convert them to leads and sales.

Designed to Adapt

Finally, a responsive design fosters inclusivity in your brand, as it signals to potential customers that your business is able to adapt to their needs and deliver a unique and complete customer experience across different devices they use to access information about your products and services, and subscribe to them. AMP web design promotes ease of use, avoiding past scenarios in which frustrated users have to pinch the screen, and scroll back and forth to view all the content, easily testing their patience and potentially driving them away all because your brand is much harder to interact with, and derive value from that way.

How to Optimize Your Site for Mobile

The latest innovation in mobile optimization is AMP web design, and as it was conceived to support the mobile user experience, it is the clear winner in terms of mobile design, page loading time, and responsiveness. AMP web design allows sites to be built especially for mobile use, with the complete customer experience in mind. To this end, it accounts for lightning fast loading speeds, as well as content that fits in and flows seamlessly on mobile devices – no longer requiring endless waiting and scrolling just to access information they need.

As you build your brand with AMP web design, there are a few key points to remember and apply to ensure that on top of fast loading and seamless flow, your potential customers will find it easy to discover your products and services.

Short and Simple Menus

For one, make sure to keep your site’s menus short, so as it does not become too complicated for users to navigate, especially on mobile devices where screens are far smaller than on desktop. Next, it’s also important to make it easy to navigate back to the homepage, as your site’s homepage usually lists all the crucial information about your business that they will want to review, and would need to get back to in order to further explore other areas.

No More Clutter

Along with ease of navigation, don’t clutter pages with too much information that will distract potential customers, as this can drive them away from the offers that led them to your site to begin with, in the process costing you business that you could have already had. If your site has an internal search feature, make sure to incorporate filters to help direct users towards relevant products and services, quickly improving the user experience.

Be Relevant

As your potential customers are directed to your business from search results for reasons of relevance to their needs, make sure that your pages are indeed relevant to their queries, and are not mere ‘clickbait’ pages that appear to match the search phrases they used, but turn out to have no connection to their intention. This will only cause them to navigate back to other search results, instantly increasing your site’s bounce rate.

Deliver a complete and memorable customer experience on your website for powerful conversions and sustained sales with AMP web design. Let’s talk about how your business can improve digital customer service when you call us at (416) 619-7935.

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Mobile Website Issues Solved by AMP Web Design

by BusinessMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

As we navigate and grow in the digital age, your next customer most likely will find your business online, and if possible, will purchase your products and subscribe to your services using just their smartphones – the current market’s device of choice, and where much of their lives are now lived. Your website isn’t just a place that allows potential customers to find you; rather, your business’ website is a digital marketplace wherein the next big lead could be generated from, as well as a steady stream of e-commerce revenue.

For these reasons, it’s important that your website stands out and performs well on mobile devices to instantly attract potential customers and capture their interest from landing on your homepage, all the way to checking out items in their shopping cart, or filling out a contact form.

Are you now realizing how old, sluggish, and poorly updated your website is compared to market standards? Now may be the perfect time for a complete overhaul with AMP web design. Here are some telltale signs you need a redesigned website with AMP web design:

Mobile web design issues

To get started, you can check how well your site is performing against industry standards – in short, how does its’ overall aesthetic compare to that of your closest competitor? Google Search Console is available for testing sites and identifying issues to improve on in order to build better, traffic-generating websites.

Here are some common mobile design issues that are identified through the Search Console, and how they can be solved with AMP web design:

Poorly fitting content in viewport: This is a common occurrence among older websites that were designed for only desktop use, long before people turned to their mobile devices to browse the web. Many of these sites fit desktop screens well, but when viewed on mobile do not fit inside the window, and users find themselves repeatedly scrolling from one side to another to view all the content. These sites are not equipped with code that automatically adjusts its content to fit smaller screens.

Touch elements are too close: This issue occurs when elements of a webpage are too close together, making it hard for users to tap on an element or make a selection without hitting another option. As a result, users can become frustrated as they cannot properly interact with the site.

Viewport not configured: The viewport meta tag indicates to different browsers the suitable display size of a page according to a device’s window. When left unconfigured, this leads to a site that is not optimized for viewing on mobile, or its integrity is not preserved across different devices.

Flash usage: Most mobile browsers are no longer designed to render Flash, so in building a more modern site, such as through AMP, you will be prompted to use more modern technologies in order to provide a pleasant mobile viewing experience.

Fixed-width viewport: This is a trick that attempts to bypass mobile design using set width pages, but it’s not a solution to mobile optimization issues, as a fixed width isn’t dynamic and cannot easily adjust to preserve the user experience across different platforms.

Font size: As many old and poorly updated sites were built with just desktop use in mind, many sites use small font sizes, forcing users to pinch the screen and zoom in to see the content – and it doesn’t take long for them to bounce back into the search results page and find another website that offers the same information, without having trouble with the display.

Interstitial usage: This happens with pop-ups that cover the entire screen of a mobile device, which at the very least can be annoying and unpleasant, especially for users already beginning to explore the content in a page.

With AMP web design, these problems can be resolved as AMP allows developers and publishers to build websites that are built especially for mobile, essentially performing at their best even on the smallest of screens, and across different browsing sizes and processors.

Through AMP web design, your potential customers will no longer have to go through the pains of zooming in and out, and scrolling back and forth just to see all the content in a page. Instead, content on your website will be easily accessible, and your products and services even more a delight to explore with AMP web design as your customers enjoy a mobile experience that is especially built for their needs.

Slow page load times

Page speed is an important factor that makes or break user and potential customer experience on a website. Slow loading times deter users from transitioning into leads and customers, as it takes a while before they are able to access information about products and services they could need at that very second. As a result, they could bounce back to search results, and choose another website that can offer the same information, without the lag time. This causes your site’s bounce rate to rise, indicating to search engines like Google that it is not a relevant search result, and over time its rankings will be pushed down.

A quick look at Google’s PageSpeed insights show problems related to your site’s loading speed, and provide insights for improvement. AMP web design solves the problem of page speed at is core, as it uses only stripped down versions of HMTL, CSS, and its own JavaScript library in order to build a site – none of the elements that cause loading time to slow down, even when a user is on a mobile data network, as opposed to WiFi which is faster and more stable.
Thanks to lightning fast loading speeds, your potential customers will no longer have to wait for your products and services to load, and they will no longer be driven away or discouraged by sluggish page speeds that cause them to choose your competitors instead.

AMP web design builds on modern business and the idea that customer experience no longer just constitutes a warm storefront welcome. In the digital age, customer experience begins with the first point of interaction – your website, and from there, users can transition into leads you can count on, numerous sales, and return visits over the years – all depending on how their interest was first captured, and their needs met by your complete service in online interactions.

Make the transition to complete customer experience in the digital age. Choose AMP web design to build your brand’s online presence, and reap the rewards of improved customer satisfaction. Call us at (416) 619-7935 to get started!

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How AMP Web Development Affects SEO and Paid Search

by BusinessMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

Since Google launched AMP web development as a new way to create websites, it’s already quickly changed the landscape of mobile search. A primary concern for website and business owners is ranking on top of search results, thereby opening more opportunities to convert leads thanks to being more visible to a wider range of audiences. SEO is a big factor in ranking on top of organic search, but with the rise of paid advertising, and recently, the AMP carousel in search results, being a mobile user’s first choice is becoming more than a game of matching keywords and commonly used search phrases with relevant and engaging content.

As AMP results dominate prime positions on mobile search, it’s time to examine how AMP web development is changing the competition long set by SEO and paid search.

How AMP affects SEO

Organic search rankings are mainly determined by keywords, domain authority and website traffic. Because AMP sites are served on top of organic search results, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that AMP does affect SEO. However, Google stated that AMP itself is not a ranking factor – well, at least not yet.

In reality, AMP web development influences clicks, impressions and user experience because AMP itself was conceived as a platform for building a new breed of websites especially for mobile, as these load instantly and flow perfectly even on small screens – essentially what the mobile search market needs. All these boost a website’s SEO efforts, helping it drive business to the top of the first page of search because of complete and excellent user experience. As websites developed on AMP now appear on a carousel above search results, these are likely to enjoy more impressions, clicks and user engagement – factors that spark to online lead conversions, and eventually, sales for a business.

So while AMP web development does not directly affect SEO rankings, mobile-friendliness or optimization is – the very factor AMP sites exist for. Google has steadily pushed for mobile-friendly sites in search results, and in the process, eliminating sites that are not optimized for mobile viewing. Over time, as AMP sites generate more views and direct more relevant traffic from their mobile search audience, these sites are able to cement their authority, and in effect, their rankings on search as well.

Currently, not all content users search for is applicable to AMP. In terms of very specific industries and niche content, there may not be enough relevant AMP pages for Google to build a carousel of AMP search results of. In these cases, ranking on search could still be largely due to SEO and paid search.

On the upside, when your AMP site is displayed as a search result, AMP will be indicated, and as search users become more familiar with the mobile-first dynamics of the web development platform, this can lead to more pageviews, lower bounce rate, and positive feedback due to fast loading time and mobile viewing optimization – all boosting your site’s authority and relevance as a search result, making it still a top option for users.

How AMP affects Paid Search

Google AdWords is a great way for businesses in need of an extra boost in visibility and traffic to appear on top of search results, and drive more business from occupying that prime advertising landscape. The position of paid search results have shifted a lot in the past, and recently, these now appear on top of organic search. Since then, subscribing to paid ads have been a top choice of many brands to beat the competition for ranking on top of organic search results.

But throwing AMP web development in the mix makes displaying search results even more interesting now. Because screens can only fit so much, even paid search is expected to become more competitive, making sure that only quality paid search results are delivered to users.

Brands that pay more to display their sites on top of search results and enjoy more impressions, clicks and opportunities for conversion are now challenged to craft even more appealing, engaging, and quality advertisements so as to land on the first page and compete with both the AMP search results carousel, and organic search results.

For brands, this means that their ability to spend on paid advertising no longer solely paves the way for their site to land on the first page of search results; their ads now also have to greatly improve in quality and be more relevant to users’ needs, signaling to Google that their site is the best possible paid match to a user’s search query – on top of both mobile-first AMP sites and organic search results. For users, access to AMP search results means a mobile search experience that is truly mobile-first, crafted with their phones’ screens and processors in mind.

AMP web development’s faster-loading mobile pages also result in more page views, allowing users to interact with more ads displayed inside sites. For brands that employ this strategy known as remarketing, this means more potential customers see their advertisements, greatly increasing their opportunities for conversions and sales.

Combined Power

To cement your website’s rankings on mobile search, a healthy combination of AMP web development, SEO, and paid advertising can greatly boost your chances of ranking on top of search results.

Building AMP site, or converting your current website to AMP makes your business a leader in the mobile customer experience, and for when Google has enough content to build a carousel of AMP search results, your website ranks on top of search. Displaying ads on AMP sites also guarantees more views, and your business better chances of generating leads and converting to sales, all because of faster loading times and optimal display on mobile devices.

Combine the visibility power of AMP on mobile search with tried and tested SEO and quality paid advertising. Boost online conversions with AMP web development and capture the mobile search market to grow your business in Toronto and in the GTA. Let’s start when you call us at (416) 619-7935.

amp web design gta

The Lowdown: AMP Web Design vs. Mobile Responsiveness

by BusinessMarketingMobile MarketingWeb Development

As majority of search is now done on mobile devices, your website has to reflect how well your business packs a complete customer experience on the go, and on the smallest of screens. To support the mobile user experience, two ways of building websites, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) web design and Responsive Web Design (RWD) lead the mobile revolution.

While RWD promotes an integrated, seamless user experiences across devices, AMP web design crafts a user experience that is especially made for mobile. As a business owner in a bustling market such as the GTA, it’s important to weigh your options and decide whether it’s AMP web design or RWD that allows you to give your customers in the digital marketplace the same warm welcome they would receive in-store.

(Re)learning Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design was the first step towards optimizing the modern user experience – mobile being only part of its goal. Businesses that adopt RWD do not just target the mobile-centric lifestyle of the market in the GTA and provide optimal viewing experience and interaction with content; rather, RWD allows for content, including forms and custom applications, on these sites to be seamlessly consumed and interacted with across different devices as it flows seamlessly on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Thus, it can be said that RWD promotes flexibility to accommodate all users and their device of choice – a viable alternative to downloading mobile applications.

RWD is great for preserving the user experience across platforms and devices. It’s perfect for users who first searched for your business online on desktop, and decided your business was worth learning more about as they moved around, switching to their mobile phones or tablets to continue browsing your products or services, and placing their order. This is the essence of RWD, but what it packs in flexibility and seamless viewing and interaction, it lacks in speed and performance, especially on mobile.

Speed is a commonly acknowledged pitfall of RWD; the idea is sound and the vision is great, but the execution is a lot of times flawed. Because it aims to incorporate and present the same user experience in a seamless, integrated manner across all devices, it sometimes fails to account for different processing components among devices, resulting in slower loading times, higher bounce rate, and lower conversions  – putting you further out of touch from your prospects in the GTA.

Discovering AMP

AMP web design is rising as a new way to build websites made for mobile, or made for mobile first. Because AMP sites are innately created and in a sense, automatically optimized for mobile, these perfect the mobile user experience and support the market in the GTA that lives, shops and needs access to information on the go using their mobile devices. AMP web design uses the same core components for building sites as we know them, but requires only lightweight, stripped down versions of HTML and JavaScript, streamlined CSS, and Google AMP Cache to deliver content that is especially made for mobile.

Because of its lightweight properties, AMP web design allows sites to load lightning fast to deliver content on mobile devices that users immediately need. As a business owner in the GTA, standing out in the bustling market requires a competitive advantage ranging from quality of products and services, to now using AMP web design that allows your site to perform faster, convert more leads from the market, and even be found better on mobile search.

Since AMP supports the made for mobile principle, sites built with AMP web design are displayed on top of other mobile search results. As AMP continues to evolve and grow, and more businesses and industries catch on, investing in AMP web design in its early stages to build a site for the mobile user turned potential customer can drive your website to the top of search. This allows you to not merely compete with your competition’s search rankings, but appear on the carousel above them that users see first, and are most likely to choose first.

Choosing What’s Best for Your Business

Some argue that AMP is not directly meant to replace RWD as a way to build websites for the modern consumer; however, as a business owner, it’s no secret that everything is a product of careful cost-benefit analysis, and to invest in two separate, but similar efforts is not the smartest way of maximizing resources. At the end of the day, it’s all about your goals as a business, and the types of interactions your website fosters to deliver a pleasant customer experience.

Choosing between AMP web design and RWD to improve how you do business in the bustling GTA market all still depends on your industry and the types of content and elements that allow you to deliver the best mobile experience and keep your customers happy.

AMP web design is focused on speed and helping your business get found first on mobile to stand out in a busy market, such as the GTA. It’s a straightforward way of delivering a customer experience that largely hinges on viewing content and accessing information on the go. To this end, RWD seeks to preserve and deliver the same customer experience across platforms, providing room for elements such as forms and custom applications that slow it down in most cases, but aim to assure the market that the same brand of customer service is available across all platforms.

If your website still relies on the frills of custom applications that sound great in theory, but are difficult to properly realize on mobile, taking that risk might work for a market that seeks to be entertained first. But the same can’t be said for the large majority that lives on mobile, and therefore needs everything delivered in an instant, and directly in a clean and concise manner that makes content easy to digest, interact with, and decide whether it’s worth delving into to get in touch with the business provider and subscribe as a happy customer.

As a business owner in the GTA, it is important to determine what type of information is available on your website and is consumed by your market that converts their visits into sales. If you use your website primarily to promote your latest offers, maintain a catalogue of your products and services, and provide potential customers with the information they need to decide on doing business with you, AMP web design is a great for connecting with them on mobile. This allows them to view your site and learn about your unique offerings as their needs arise, while they move around.

AMP web design is also gaining ground in e-commerce sites, so shopping on your website and instantly converting leads to sales you can count is becoming a breeze both for you, and your mobile customers. At the end of the day, it’s all about thinking forward and innovating on the customer experience your business currently provides, constantly building on what you have to offer to stay relevant and support the modern market’s needs.

Make smart business decisions to stand out in the GTA’s bustling market, starting with how potential customers find you on mobile search. Convert the modern market to your happy customers with AMP web design by calling us at (416) 619-7935.

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Google AMP: The future of Mobile Content and Customer Experience

by BusinessMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

As the market moves, so should your business. To thrive in the digital marketplace, your business should be as mobile as the market it serves, and provide a complete customer experience through your website that now doubles as your place of business. A key element in curating a website that converts is web design. Successful digital marketing is no easy feat, and this is why your business needs all hands on deck, including that of a web design company in Toronto that moves with the diverse market in the city and is well-versed in the craft of giving customers a better mobile e-commerce experience.

There are a number of ways a web design company helps your business move alongside the market in Toronto. These include implementing a dynamic design in your website to allow it to flow seamlessly across the multiple devices your market uses to find your business; fostering an inclusive digital market by making your website responsive to accessibility needs; and lately, giving your customers the ‘made for mobile’ experience through Google AMP. Keep reading to learn more about this upgrade, and how it maximizes your customers’ experience on your website.

Own a business that provides a complete customer experience across all platforms. Our team at 360 Business Local has the experience and knowledge to to optimize your website for mobile. To work with 360’s web design team, call (416) 619-7935 today!

All About Google AMP

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an upgrade that can be implemented into your website’s code. This upgrade seeks to revolutionize the mobile experience, making your website load faster on mobile devices, and flow better on the screen for easier viewing. Google’s goal is to deliver the best possible mobile experience to its users. As a business owner, this is parallel to your goal of driving business forward through excellent customer experience on your website.

AMP is geared at helping digital marketers and web designers create mobile-optimized content that instantly loads on all devices. The aim is to largely reduce, or eliminate waiting time for users to access the content they need. Lengthy waiting times discourage users from viewing a website and checking out the products and services that could have best served their needs, had they not been kept waiting too long for the content to load on their mobile devices.

Apart from speed, websites that adopt AMP also improve viewing experience on mobile. Because AMP seeks to fully optimize the mobile experience, it allows content to flow better on mobile devices, almost as if the website was especially designed for mobile first. And with how the market moves around these days and relies more on smartphones and tablets to shop online, sign up for services, and consume content in the digital space, websites might as well be crafted for mobile first.

AMP for Your Local Business

Incorporating AMP in web design greatly benefits your business, as it could improve every customer’s interaction with your website. A web design company can help you transform your website into a conducive place of business, starting with the ease in which your market finds your business and views content, up to how they can purchase your products or subscribe to your services on a purely mobile platform. When your company embraces the value of AMP and incorporates it in your website, your business provides an optimal customer experience.

This is because much of the market in a busy, sprawling metropolis like Toronto is mobile these days; most people want to browse  on the go, and get access to information about products and services they’re looking for immediately. A lot of the market even shops online, subscribes to offers and services as these come up in search results; goes in the direction of establishments that appear on the map; and starts a conversation about a brand and their experience with it.

Recently, Google started incorporating AMP in mobile search results. It’s Google’s way of subtly pointing users to results they can easily view, work with, and see the value of, as these are especially optimized for a hassle-free mobile experience. For businesses in Toronto, it helps to be tagged as an AMP search result when potential customers researching your market looks for you. This way, it immediately sends them the signal that they can easily find what they are looking for on your website, even on mobile. When this happens, you have a higher chance of converting visits to leads, and leads to sales.

While AMP does not directly affect SEO rankings, speed matters. Because AMP is designed to load your website faster on mobile compared to a non-AMP competitor site, your business is likely to rank higher and be found first by the larger chunk of the market. According to Google, if two sites are equal in all characteristics with respect to SEO, but one site loads faster thanks to AMP, the faster site is more likely to rank higher and be recommended first to search engine users as this fosters a more pleasant browsing experience for potential customers.

AMP as the Future of Digital Marketing

As AMP evolves and is constantly being developed by Google to perfect the user experience, many websites are just catching on, and there still remains the question of how long this trend will have traction in digital marketing. Nothing is ever completely certain, but as we are headed towards personalization, increased targeting, and constant improvement of the customer experience as the marketplace itself evolves and goes digital, it’s more than safe to say that AMP is one big step towards these efforts.

As always, it helps your business to go in the direction of what improves the user’s experience and interaction with your brand so as to foster successful conversions, sales and partnerships. Embracing AMP in web design is a sure step in further optimizing the customer experience in the digital marketplace, and the sooner your business catches on, the sooner you reap the rewards of innovation.

Give your customers an experience made especially for mobile with AMP. For mobile web design, call 360 Business Local at (416) 619-7935 today!

online marketing toronto

Craft a Powerful Brand with Good Content

by BusinessContent MarketingMarketingMobile MarketingSearch EnginesWeb Development

Your business relies on its website to tell its story in the digital space; often your website also helps you reach a market that is yet to find you. Employing efficient online marketing strategies in a diverse and competitive space, such as Toronto, requires making the best use of your website through the content you generate and publish, and will constantly evolve to tell your brand’s story. Your business evolves and grows through the information it is able to successfully share with patrons that subscribe to your products and services. A good story will draw your market in, but has to be constantly retold in new ways to keep your audience entertained and subscribed to your offers.

With good content, you tell the story of your brand in order to influence the market in your favour. Leveraging good content in online marketing spins the story in your brand’s favor, setting the tone for the rest of the market, and dominating the conversation. To do this, your business must continuously create meaningful content that fuels your brand’s story, helping you to retain and grow your market resulting in leads, conversions, sales, and closed deals. The standards for what good content is, and how it converts viewers to customers are constantly changing, but in 2017, these are the trends to watch out for and hacks you should adopt.

Create your brand with online marketing content that captures your market. For captivating content marketing, contact 360 at (416) 619-7935 today!

Embrace Content Diversity

Website content isn’t just composed of written text that goes into your blogs and articles. After all, your viewership isn’t entirely made up of readers who will patiently wade through blocks of text to discover your unique products and services. Successful online marketing requires embracing multimedia content creation in order to engage your audience in your brand’s narrative and capture their interest in your well-placed offers.

Recently, content such as videos, especially live ones now available in the form of webinars, podcasts and live streams on various social media platforms, are a hit among audiences. Not only does multimedia content entertain, but it’s also a good way of offering a 360 degree insight into your business. With product videos, infographics, slideshare presentations, tutorials, FAQs, and streaming from your launches and industry events, your audience connects with your brand in real time and see’s your business come to life before their eyes, as opposed to just reading about your latest offers and having to imagine and set up their own expectations.

Multimedia content creation does not have to cost much either. With the rise of the smartphone-wielding generation and taking customer experience on the go, shooting videos and streaming these live at events can be done using mobile apps or your phone’s camera. Producing multimedia content shouldn’t be time-consuming either, as you can repurpose content in other formats and use these in your other online marketing collaterals, such as using the material in video scripts for infographics and blog posts.

Real Content for Real People

In working hard to optimize a website for search engine queries, many make the mistake of creating content that’s easily found, but reads poorly for real people who are on your website trying to determine if your offerings are a good fit for their needs. In the process, you are likely to lose this viewership and potential market if your sole concern is to rank well on a Google search.

Online marketing is embracing the principle of creating real content for real people. In-depth content that is properly laid out, can be easily understood, uses clear language and utilizes high quality, inviting images to support the text is now shown to rank and convert well – even better than content that is aimed at ranking well on search, but flows poorly, is haphazardly arranged and reads awkwardly due to excessive use of common search phrases.

Creating content for the right people is a long process, but as you work on that, you can also use some quick fixes on content that’s already published on your site. These are called content upgrades. To start, you can attach snippets to existing content on your website that’s already performing well. These support content that’s already well-received by your market, you can use upgrades such as bonus tips, downloadable PDFs your audience can take on the go, kits, checklists, worksheets, training videos, and even useful templates. This saves you the trouble of having to completely change content that’s already working for your business all at once, and instead lets you implement useful changes that not only cement your authority on subjects concerning your business’ industry, but also allow you to reshape your site’s content in a more manageable timeframe. By fostering interactions with your audience like these, you can also encourage sign ups for newsletters, email marketing and leads in exchange for access to downloads and access to other content upgrades.

Add a Personal Touch

Much like the localization of search these days, micro-targeting and hyper-personalization are going a long way in building customer trust and fostering good business ties. In online marketing, all it takes is to remember who is it for and why you’re doing business. Always, the goal is to serve the needs of your local community and build trust in your products and services as a staple in their lives.

When you target a demographic in your audience and personalize online marketing efforts according to their interests and preferences, you are able to bring your business closer to them and remind them of your ability to craft unique solutions for their needs. It shows that your business has the best interests of the market at heart, and your business has ties to each set of audiences to prove that.

Remembering important holidays and sending out messages that show your audience you are one with them in commemorating these milestones only takes a little time and is worth the effort in maintaining a solid presence online. Crafting marketing messages according to your market’s location, work information, personal tastes and previous search behavior demonstrates your business’ ability to connect with an audience and prove that your business can supply the market its needs as these arise.

All these efforts can work seamlessly with your larger, general and widely-encompassing online marketing messages. These show how your products and services are needed by and adequately cater to a wide array of audiences, all of whom are drawn in by a specific point that appeals to them at the onset.

Crowd Source and Influence

Tell your market you want to hear from them – and watch the magic as it unfolds. There is nothing that defines the customer experience more than giving your audience a stake in your brand through their opinions that help to shape your business. When you engage your happy customers, they become loyal patrons who will form part of your base following. In time, they will rally your brand and their experiences will shape their peers’ interaction with your business.

This smart online marketing tactic persuades a market you are yet to connect with using what their peers have already said about your business. User-generated content is on the rise these days, and for this to work to your advantage, it should be supplied by customers with good interactions with your brand who can lend their voice to sharing your brand in a simple as a photo, post or tweet shared across their social media platforms. This now works as the new word of mouth, and poses an infinite amount of possible interactions with your brand, each starting with a loyal customer and their social circles.

Taking care of your online reputation is only one benefit of user-generated content. With a steady rise in review submissions, small competitions, use of hashtags you encourage your followers to use on social media when starting a conversation about your products and services, and the gentle prodding of influencers or brand ambassadors, you can also generate content pieces from what they have to say, and use these in review posts, news articles and online marketing campaigns. Not only do you open more communication channels with your market and act on their feedback as these come in, all working towards boosting your brand and improving business; you also gain relevant content you can repurpose and use for future marketing campaigns.

Content is your website’s heart and soul – it gives your online presence meaning, and defines your brand in the digital marketplace. Content is what your potential customers consume, and what makes or breaks every lead you generate and every sale worth closing. Good content makes telling a powerful brand story, piquing the market’s interest and capturing an audience who will follow your business as it grows – all possible.

Leverage high-quality content for your business today, and transform your website into a booming digital marketplace. Contact 360 Business Local at (416) 619-7935 today!