Although marketers have been utilising augmented reality technology for some time, a popular game like Pokemon Go, which is quickly gaining cultural traction, is obviously beneficial for advertising. Businesses have swiftly come to appreciate the importance of consumers looking for virtual monsters within physical stores. In-game advertising options have been offered by Niantic, a Google spinoff firm that contributed to the creation of Pokemon Go. Niantic has also said that it would let companies to pay to become sites that players will visit.

There are now new fan-made services in the Pokemon universe. These include the Infinite Fusion Calculator and Random Pokemon Generator, which help players with some aspects of gameplay.

Marketers would be advised to keep an eye on the trend and look for opportunities to use the cutting-edge technology. Games like Pokemon Go will only boost the popularity of augmented reality.

Opportunities for Marketing with Pokemon Go AR

All sizes of businesses are vying to join the Pokemon Go craze. You may have seen neighbourhood establishments, like the coffee shop around the corner, advertising themselves as PokeStops, or places where gamers may acquire things that would enable them to catch additional Pokemon. In a McDonald’s in Japan, the first PokeStop that was sponsored first appeared. Onscreen, it resembles a standard stop with the exception of the golden arches emblem. Given that many players are millennials who dislike overt marketing, this kind of subtle branding is less likely to alienate users who are wary of overt advertising.

Marketers are not only sponsoring PokeStops but also setting up shop at other PokeStops and hosting special weekend events where gamers congregate. For instance, the Hillary Clinton campaign arranged a voter registration event at an Ohio PokeStop. After all, as company owners (and campaign staffs) are well aware, getting customers in the door is often the hardest part.

Small brick-and-mortar companies are joining the game by enticing users to share screenshots to Facebook or tag their Instagram for a discount on menu items, hence increasing social media engagement and sales. Small companies may profit from trends like this while they are still in their infancy without spending all of their little advertising resources on something that is so untested and new.

Data Possibilities

Being a participant in a game, albeit a popular one, that might become a passing fad is not the end goal for businesses. Here, significant customer insights are the real prize. There are many chances for marketers to observe user behaviour and then provide relevant, timely information with the help of a game like Pokemon Go, which utilises the GPS in a player’s smartphone to identify their movement.

Serious privacy issues are also raised by the sort of data that is collected by AR games and applications. Traditional advertising may be viewed with some scepticism by millennials, but strangely, technology like this has the ability to learn even more about people than more conventional techniques. And given that Niantic is a Google offshoot, you can guarantee that they’re not passing up any chance to collect data.

What’s New in Augmented Reality While games like Pokemon Go aren’t for everyone, it doesn’t negate the fact that AR marketing has other important, useful applications. Applications for augmented reality that let you “try before you buy” include one that aids in selecting house furnishings and accessories. It might seem hazardous to purchase stuff like a new couch since you can’t really tell until it’s in your house if it will fit in. Additionally, making the wrong decision can be costly. By letting customers “place” items in their homes to see how they fit, both in terms of size and aesthetics, businesses like IKEA and Sayduck have made it simpler for customers to make the right choice.

Even though picking the wrong sofa is more regrettable than picking the wrong makeup shade, it can still be annoying. With its AR cosmetics mirror, which enables consumers to preview how different colours will appear on them before they purchase, Shiseido is lowering that risk.

Using AR, grocery shopping can be more convenient. Shoppers may easily compare items by pointing their phone’s camera at a shelf using IBM’s augmented reality software, which was released in 2012. Based on the user’s choices, the app provides rating information and product information. Additionally, the app provides coupons for specific goods, providing manufacturers with yet another marketing channel.

Digital media and augmented reality

Players of Pokemon Go have been busy posting pictures of their travels on social media, including several Instagram images of Pokemon that have appeared on or nearby. Fun, shareable content features adorable characters and large crowds gathered in unexpected locations.

You can up your selfie game with the help of augmented reality. Snapchat offers a wide range of adorable filters that can do anything from make you appear like a cartoon puppy to put a flower crown to your head, offering fantastic potential for marketers. For instance, a cosmetics firm or a clothing line can let customers “try on” a new style or trend before allowing them to share a picture of themselves online. They will surely inspire their friends and followers to create and share their own photographs by producing this sort of immersive material.

Moving forward

You could probably confidently wager that Pokemon Go is a craze if you were a gambler. Nevertheless, whether it is or not, it has highlighted the potential of augmented reality marketing in a way that hasn’t been done before. In some respects, it resembles a case study for how companies respond to and interact with this novel use of augmented reality, and astute marketers will examine it to guide their own decisions and come up with creative new applications for it. Pokemon’s catchphrase, “Catch ’em all,” seems to be a directive to marketers.

The post Pokemon Go and the Use of Augmented Reality in Marketing appeared first on LabUp.

Are you interested in creating a landing page but unsure of where to begin? View our selection of cutting-edge landing page templates for ideas, then make your own without cost!

Top trends in landing page design for 2023

The year 2023 is already looking like a hot one for web design. We’re presenting you the five most intriguing landing page design trends right now, from bold typography to 2000s nostalgia.

1. The aesthetic of one colour

A single colour is used in the monochrome design aesthetic. Instead of using multiple colour hues to achieve a coherent effect, it employs many tones and tints of the same hue.

This fashion trend is ideal for businesses that wish to project a professional image and a sense of stability.

Monochromatic outfits look wonderful when using muted and neutral colours. Additionally, keeping graphic components together will require pairing them in the same undertones, such as cool or warm colours.

2. Art collage

Why not create your landing page such that it speaks the visual language of the internet? Collage art has become a fad because it can use visuals to communicate strong statements. Although collage can also include typography, this fashion draws attention to itself by combining eye-catching graphic elements.

This tendency may be advantageous for creative brands. Collage art enlivens a landing page and presents your business as relaxed and artistic.

This works well with lifestyle, home decor, and certain fashion labels.

Play with the composition by selecting various visual components—such as images, original artwork, textures, and text—that don’t go well together. As a consequence, you will have a distinctive design that says volumes about your creative brand.

This landing page from the Abbey Dawn website is a great illustration of image-heavy page design, despite its simplicity. With minimal words needed, it uses dynamic images that shift to display its offers.

3. Hero movie

Full-screen videos that occupy the majority of a landing page are known as hero videos. They may instantly draw onlookers in by illuminating an idea, product, or service.

Brands of clothing and fashion employ movies that mimic fashion shows to keep their merchandise on display.

It’s also a fantastic option for almost any firm that wants to show off fresh items in a practical setting.

Pick videos with a clear message and eye-catching design. Make sure that your videos are optimised and that they don’t conflict with your text, menus, or pop-ups.

Additionally, maintaining videos at the top of your landing page will increase conversion rates. In fact, engagement for videos above the fold might increase by up to 50%.

4. Nostalgia for the 00s

But wait, this happened just five years ago. A sad no. Although it’s hard to believe how quickly time passes, the Y2K trend has now become regarded as sentimental.

A new design trend involves large text, block pictures, and heavy formatting, which was popular in the early days of the internet. Simple emojis or stickers, GIFs, grids, and vibrant colour schemes are a few examples of what this may look like in the context of landing pages.

For firms who wish to emphasise this look in their images, such as clothes and beauty brands, Y2K inspiration is fantastic. This is a no-brainer if Millennials or Gen Zers are your target audience.

To dominate your design, choose your favourite hue of pink, baby blue, or any pastel colour. Then incorporate some icons and pop-up windows from the 2000s. Glitter and gradients may be added to it to make it more elaborate.

5. Big, bold font

Bold font will undoubtedly make your landing page stand out from the competition.

For companies who want people to notice them right away, this trend is ideal. Bold typeface is ideal for headlines and hero text since it’s for those who want to make a strong statement.

Think fancy fonts, large font sizes, and heavy titles when you want to make an impression. Being theatrical and shifting attention away from pictures and visuals and towards dense-looking text are current trends.

Strong writing is highlighted by bold typeface, which also sends a strong impression about your brand.

6. Minimalism

Deliver the best possible user experience with a simple landing page layout. Smooth navigation depends on straight lines, uncluttered space, and important visuals.

Despite the fact that minimalism is not a new fashion, it has a futuristic feel. For companies who want to seem slick and professional, this trend is fantastic. This is particularly advantageous for leisure and technology businesses.

Contrast textures and backdrop with the goods and copy. The visual composition should be dominated by white space. Sans serif fonts and short material will keep your landing page clutter-free and make it simpler to read.

Conclusion

Online consumer advertising requires effective landing page design. While the incorrect layout can result in a high bounce rate and fewer leads, the proper one can significantly increase conversions. To guarantee that your landing pages are as successful as possible, try them out and make necessary adjustments after using this article as a starting point. Good fortune!

The post Design trends for landing pages in 2023 appeared first on LabUp.

Of course, there are certain rules for the creation of the site. But for it to give a good conversion rate, you need to constantly explore new approaches. Or, more simply put, testing.

Fortunately, there are plenty of A/B testing tools available. But before you go on to review them, refresh your memory on the basics.
What is A/B testing and why you should do it

A/B testing is the process of comparing two or more different versions of a website page. It helps to understand which version works better.

The first step is to create a new version of the page, changing one element that you think might improve the conversion rate. It could be a different font, a different main image, a different location of the call to action (CTA) button.

After that, 50% of site visitors are directed to the original version of the page (A) and the remaining 50% are directed to the modified version (B). The distribution is done randomly. When enough data is collected, you can analyze user behavior and understand which version of the site worked better.

If the new page shows a higher conversion rate, your hypothesis is confirmed. Of course, sometimes pages will show the same conversion rate. Or the new page will show a deterioration in performance. But any result goes to the plus side. You’ll understand what works and what doesn’t, and you can better plan your next testing.

Performing A/B testing systematically helps you fine-tune your site pages to get better results. By improving the user experience, you increase leads and sales.

Most importantly, there are more pros than cons to A/B testing. The process involves changing one item. If the result is negative, you can quickly undo the changes. And any positive changes can simply be saved and used as a starting point for the next test.

But which tool to use? Below you will find a list of 13 services. They all allow you to test, but differ in price, additional features and complexity of use.

Leadpages

Not only can you test sites on Leadpages, but you can also create them. Leadpages offers unlimited A/B testing with the Pro plan. You can also create three sites, conversion rate tools, optimization tips, analytics, pop-ups and alert banners.

How much does it cost

The Pro plan will cost a minimum of $74 a month if you pay one year in advance. There is a free 14-day trial.

Who it’s good for

Small to medium sized businesses where landing pages are created on the website for marketing campaigns.

“Google Optimization.”

Google has its own free testing tool

“Optimization” is an A/B testing tool from Google that is fully integrated into Google Analytics. The tool collects a lot of information about users. Audience segmentation is available for testing.

“Google Optimization” offers more than just A/B testing. Multivariate testing, split URL testing and server-side testing can be done with the tool. These, however, will require more in-depth study of the tool.

How URL length affects SEO: Google expert opinion

How much does it cost

“Google Optimization” is a free tool. There is also a paid version, Optimize 360. It is offered to large corporations on demand.

Who it’s good for

Those who are looking for a free tool with additional features and full integration into the Google ecosystem.

Freshmarketer

Freshmarketer is a tool from Freshworks. It offers full automation of marketing processes and conversion rate optimization (CRO).

On the platform you can create versions of the site pages, analyze your audience segments and track revenues. Heatmaps and session records can be integrated with Freshmarketer. This will provide additional insights into the problems site visitors are experiencing.

How much does it cost

All the functionality for A/B testing is offered in the Conversion Rate Optimization extension. The cost starts at 219 euros for 10,000 unique visitors per month. To set up the extension, you will need a subscription: Growth, Pro or Enterprise. Cost is $19, $149 and $299 per month respectively when paid one year in advance.

Who it’s good for

Companies looking for a complete set of A/B testing tools as well as platforms that need to automate their marketing processes.

VWO

VWO is used by many large companies

VWO is one of the leaders in the field. A/B testing is available as part of the Testing package. Three plans are offered: Growth, Pro and Enterprise. With VWO you can perform not only A/B testing, but also multivariate testing, testing of a specific audience segment.

The platform uses a visual editor and code editor, which allows users with different technical backgrounds to work. VWO offers test results in the form of dashboards. There are also heatmaps and session recordings. They help you understand how users interact with the site.

Among the unusual features of VWO is the text generator based on artificial intelligence. It creates variants of existing text on the site for testing. There is also a function SmartCode, which reduces the page load time as part of the test.

How much does it cost

Prices are available on request.

Who it suits

Large companies with specific requests for testing.

Optimizely

Optimizely is a good option for big business

Optimizely is a platform focused on large companies. You can use the tool to test websites, mobile apps and messengers.

Optimizely offers three plans that include A/B testing. The largest set of tools is present in the Intelligence Cloud plan. It offers not only A/B testing, but also multivariate testing. There are embedded optimization tools.

How much does it cost

Pricing is available upon request.

Suitable for whom

Large companies with high website traffic.

Omniconvert

Omniconvert allows you to do highly personalized testing

Omniconvert is a conversion optimization platform that includes A/B testing, surveys, pop-ups and audience segmentation. The platform offers three plans: Explore, Reveal and Adapt. Explore is positioned as an e-commerce conversion optimization tool. It offers features such as split URL testing, related testing and a browser extension that bypasses CDN caches. It also offers an anti-bug tool to help identify the source of any problem as part of testing.

Perhaps the main feature of Omniconvert is the ability to personalize experiences for different audience segments (40 segmentation parameters). Among the parameters: user location, number of days since last conversion, new/returning users.

How much does it cost

The Explore plan starts at $167 per month. Reveal offers three options:

• Start – free;
• Grow – starting at $83 per month;
• Scale – from $250 per month.

Who’s Suitable for

Startups, small and medium-sized businesses with a programmer on staff.

AB Tasty

AB Tasty is a good option for beginners

AB Tasty is a digital optimization platform that offers A/B testing, multivariate and multi-page testing. The tool is easy to use, but also offers additional features. For example, a heat map, segmented targeting and a dashboard with ROI (return on investment). The platform offers a drag-and-drop editor with supporting documentation and a good support team. Which means users who are far from the technical side of things will be able to set up testing without any problems.

How much does it cost

Prices are available upon request.

Suitable for Whom

Companies who are trying A/B testing for the first time.

Convert

Convert – one of the fastest tools

Convert is a powerful tool for A/B testing. It includes:

• split URL testing – multiple versions of a page on different URLs;
• multivariate testing;
• multi-page testing – changing individual elements on multiple pages.

The platform offers advanced settings for creating and adjusting experiments. There are many integration options, including Google Analytics, WordPress and Shopify.
Convert is known for its speed of operation. It maintains a high user experience when testing by not accidentally displaying the original version of the page. According to Convert, such an error can reduce conversion rates by more than 10%.

How much does it cost

The cheapest Kickstart offer is $699 per month. The Specialist plan starts at $879 a month, and for the Leader plan you have to pay $1,899.

Who is suitable for whom

Agencies and experts who are looking for a tool with functionality for a large enterprise, but at a nicer price.

Adobe Target

Adobe Target targets only large companies

Adobe Target is a platform for personalizing digital experiences. It helps to carry out extensive testing. With Target, you can test not only websites, but also mobile apps and other channels. The platform is aimed exclusively at large companies. Target integrates with other Adobe Marketing products through the cloud of the same name. This allows for data sharing and analysis. Target has gained popularity due to its self-learning algorithm that underpins the Automated Personalization feature. Using machine learning, the platform offers different test options to different users based on their individual shopper profile. As a result, more personalized content is displayed and sales are higher.

How much does it cost

Pricing is available upon request.

Suitable for whom

Large companies for whom CRO tools and personalization are very important.

Convertize

Convertize is for people without technical skills

Convertize is an A/B testing platform that doesn’t require technical skills to use.
It offers a simple interface with an intuitive visual editor to create page variants. Convertize offers fine-tuning that improves testing speed and efficiency. Autopilot runs algorithms that reduce the need for manual test monitoring. More users will be automatically directed to the version of the page that performs best.

Technical site audit

The presence of duplicate pages, security, correctness of all technical parameters: redirects, robots.txt, sitemap.xml loading speed.

Technical optimization – one of the main stages of promotion.

The platform also offers more than 150 A/B testing tactics based on psychology and user behavior.

How much it costs

The Solo plan allows 20,000 users per month with prices starting at $49. The Team plan, priced from $199 per month, offers a limit of 100,000 users.

Who it’s good for

Companies looking for an innovative A/B testing tool at a low cost.

Kameleoon

Kameleoon features high security standards

Kameleoon is a powerful A/B testing platform that includes additional features. The platform allows for client-side, server-side personalization and mobile app testing. In addition, there is a smart graphical editor, a large library of widgets and building blocks, and pre-publication variant simulation. Kameleoon promotes high standards of security and privacy, which is suitable for organizations in finance and healthcare. The platform is also popular among retail and e-commerce representatives. This is due to its extensive segmentation capabilities and machine learning algorithms that automatically increase conversions. The algorithms predict buying intent in real time.

How much does it cost

Pricing is available upon request.

Who it suits

Medium to large companies that need a stylish and robust tool.

Oracle Maxymiser

Oracle Maxymiser will require technical skills

Oracle Maxymiser is another powerful platform aimed at large companies. Oracle Maxymiser has a built-in visual editor that makes it easy to set up tests. In it, you can specify test rules for specific user segments and display personalized content. There is also a code editor for more complex projects. Among the unusual options is the test duration calculator. It helps to assume the duration of the test to achieve a statistically significant difference.

Comprehensive web analytics

Allows you to see each traffic source, its quality – conversion percentage for each campaign, ad group, advertisement, keyword. It allows to understand the quality of traffic provided by each channel and whether it is worth investing in it or not. However for getting the most out of working with Oracle Maxymiser you need to have technical skills.

How much does it cost

Pricing is available upon request.

Who it’s good for

Large companies with tech support specialists on staff.

Apptimize

Apptimize is suitable for cross-platform work

Apptimize is an A/B testing platform that helps optimize customer experience across all channels including web, mobile platforms, OTT (online video service delivery) and stores. Apptimize allows you to test changes on any platform and track their impact across all channels. Messages, pricing and additional features can be fine-tuned so that users who move from one platform to another have the same information.

How much it costs

Pricing is available upon request.

Who it’s good for

Companies for whom cross-platform performance is important.

A/B testing is critical to optimizing user experience and increasing conversion rates. And there are quite a few tools available to help you do it. Focus on your goals and budget when choosing the best option. Small businesses should focus on tools that offer the most features for the least cost.

The post 13 Best A/B Testing Tools for 2022 appeared first on LabUp.

Before you start planning your audit, you need to decide what your goal is. Who and what are you testing? You need to know who your users are, what their needs and expectations of your text are. If your product is used by people from different demographic groups, it should be tested with users from each group. If your test doesn’t sufficiently reflect your demographics, you run the risk of creating text that doesn’t make sense to all of your characters.

Step 2. Choose an audit method and create a test

Once you’ve decided who and why, you can choose the most appropriate text audit method. For example:

• You want to test whether your users can understand how to shop on your site. In this case, method #1: Usability testing will work. It will allow you to see if they can successfully complete tasks.
• You want to see if the home page is relevant to your target audience. A highlight test will assess how they feel about it.
• You want to see how users perceive the home page at a glance. You should use a five-second test to measure first impressions.

Tip: In the test, don’t ask users if they like the text. Ask if they can navigate easily, if they understand a paragraph, or if they feel comfortable with the tone. Remember that you’re not writing a fiction novel here. In context, it doesn’t matter if the reader likes your text. What matters is how relevant and understandable it is.

Step 3. Test the test

After you’ve created your initial test, see if it makes sense. Before you start finding test participants, take a few colleagues or acquaintances and run the test with them first.

A common mistake is to make a test and then run it immediately for users. As a result, you may discover problems in the test while it is running. Testing the test will make sure that the instructions make sense and that test participants can properly understand what is required of them. This allows them to focus on your text rather than trying to decipher it.

Step 4. Gather the test participants

Once your test is created, it’s time to find test users. If you’re running quality tests, you need to find at least 5 participants. That’s enough to justify your content decisions. If you want to collect quantitative data, it’s best to run a test with at least 20 people, or even more if possible.

Ultimately, the number of people you need to recruit depends on the audit method you are conducting and the criticality of the task.

Great care should be taken to find the right users for the actual test. The people you work with may not use your product. You will end up with a positive feedback because they already know your project and that data is unreliable.

Step 5. Run the test

Now you need to decide whether to moderate the test or not. Each method has its own advantages.

• Moderated test.

You will have more control during the test. Having a moderator will provide additional feedback on the results of the study.

Moderating these studies will allow you to ask additional questions specific to the user. You will be able to understand their doubts when they arise as well as reassure participants during the test.

If you moderate the test, allow plenty of time for participants to read the content. Unlike traditional usability testing, where users complete tasks and express their thoughts out loud, text testing may require more time.

• Unmoderated test With unmoderated testing, you don’t need to find someone to moderate the test. This type of testing is usually done remotely. It allows you to run more tests at a faster rate, even simultaneously, which gives you more quantitative data to audit. Moreover, it allows you to find users from different parts of the world, this allows you to understand how people from different countries react to your text.

Step 6. Analyze Results

Once the testing is complete, you can analyze the results. You’ll get a general idea of how your text is performing, as well as features you need to improve – whether it’s readability, voice, or any other important factor.

Conclusion

A text audit is not a one-time event. As your site and user base grows and develops, you need to keep testing to see if your text is working and interacting with it.

The post Stages of Content Analysis appeared first on LabUp.

Content analysis – what is it?

Content analysis is a research method to see if the content on your site is working for your users. With content analysis, you can check – whether your site’s content is interesting enough, addresses their pain points directly, and provides enough context to help users successfully complete tasks on the site. Bad content will increase the site’s bounce rate and cause users to opt out of purchasing your products or services. Good content, on the other hand, will make the user interface (UX) intuitive and keep users from getting confused or distracted.

What content to analyze

Wherever there is content on the site, it’s worth analyzing it.

• Home page.
• Error messages.
• Menu buttons.
• Filters.
• Headers.
• Product or service pages.

Everything should be clear to your users on the site.

To decide what content to analyze, prioritize it according to the urgency and importance of the task to your users. If it’s a critical message, such as a payment error message, it’s vital that the content is easy to understand and helps the user achieve their goals.

Content Analysis Criteria

• Usability. Usability refers to checking how easy it is to interact with the content on the site.
• Readability

Checking that your content is readable to users. For example: If they get to the end of a sentence and then have to reread it over and over again to understand, then the quality of the content needs to be improved. Remember, users expect to be able to scan the text, not read every word.

• Accessibility.

Accessibility means whether your content can be used by as many people as possible. A high accessibility score ensures that people with disabilities can use your content. For example, having a feature that reads content aloud will be accessible to blind users. Or the inclusion of subtitles in video content will allow people with hearing loss to understand the content. Not only will this expand your audience, but it will create inclusive content that everyone can enjoy.

• Searchability

This has to do with search engine optimization (SEO) and determines whether or not people can easily find your site online. This will greatly increase the number of people who find and read your content. Tone and Voice You must also consider the tone and voice of your content.

• Tone and Voice. You should also consider the tone and voice of your content. Your company, has a voice that it uses to communicate with users. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that every piece of content resonates with your audience. Remember that your voice should remain consistent, but the tone can vary depending on the context. For example: a bank would have a different voice than a dating site.

Content analysis will help you understand the emotions you need to convey: more formal, informal, cool, educational, etc.

Content Analysis Methods

There are several methods of content analysis, each useful depending on your goals and usage scenario.

Method 1: Usability testing

You can run a content usability analysis to test the content with little modification. The purpose of this method is to assess how users interact with the site, how they find the information they want, and whether they encounter any confusion. With this method, you will assess whether the content is clear and allows people to use the site successfully. This method will provide you with qualitative information about what works and what doesn’t. And will give you an idea of what text needs to be changed or improved. Always keep behavior in mind: what users do during the test may contradict what they say.

Method 2: The “Close” test The “Cloze” test measures how well your users can understand a piece of text through context and prior knowledge.

In this method, you take a 125- to 250-word snippet of text and remove one every few words, usually every fifth or sixth. You present this text to the test participant and see how many missing words they can correctly guess. An overall score of 60% or higher is considered clear enough to satisfy users.

Method 3: The Highlighting Test

This method will allow you to see how people feel about your text. The voice of your text is important, and this test will show whether the text resonates emotionally with users. The gist of the method: You give participants the text and ask them to highlight in green what made them feel confident about the product and in red what made them feel less confident. At the end of this test, you’ll know which parts of the text need improvement first.

Method 4: Five-Second Test

In the five-second test, you present the text to your users and give them five seconds to look at it and then ask them questions. You can use this method to analyze landing pages, UI content, etc. The questions you ask can range from general, such as “What do you think of the page?” or “What do you remember?” to more specific, such as “What products are on sale at a discount?” It’s best to start the analysis with general questions to get general feedback and participants’ thoughts, and then ask more specific questions to see what information is causing problems for them. In this method, you test whether the information on your page can be quickly absorbed, comprehended or understood. Five-second tests are useful for understanding how your users perceive text at a glance and what value they remember.

Method 5: A/B Testing An A/B test involves creating two versions of text and testing them.

A/B tests provide quantitative data on which text performs better. This method of analysis provides useful metrics, such as click-through-rating (CTR), which will allow you to easily identify the winning option. To succeed, however, you need to have a large sample size for statistical significance. For example, Netflix is known for doing A/B testing of headlines to determine which ones best encourage users to watch videos.

Method 6: Readability Test

This method will test how easy your text is to read by favoring short words and short sentences. For the best results, use the readability test in combination with the other methods described above.

The post Content Analysis of the Site. Methods appeared first on LabUp.

With controlled experiments, marketers, product managers and developers can quickly check their creative ideas for viability and, based on objective data, quickly and flexibly incorporate the most successful ones into the product. In short, you no longer need to speculate about why one version or another is better than another: experimentation speaks for itself. This method is ideal when you need to increase conversion rates, boost revenue, increase your subscriber base, or attract more clients and leads.

Global companies like Google, Amazon, Netflix and Facebook have built their business processes in such a way that they conduct thousands of experiments a year and put the results into action quickly.

Jeff Bezos once said: “Amazon’s success depends on how many experiments we can do per year, per month, per week, per day.”

Netflix’s technology blog in April 2016 included this phrase: “Thanks to our empirical approach, we can make sure that product changes are dictated not by the tastes and opinions of the company’s most authoritative employees, but by objective data. That is, our viewers themselves tell us what they like.”

And Mark Zuckerberg confessed in an interview that Facebook’s success is due to their unique testing system, of which the entrepreneur is very proud: “At any given second, there is not one version of Facebook running in the world, but about 10,000.

What is an A/B test?

In a classic A/B test, the first thing we do is define what we are going to test and what our objective is. Next, we create one or more variations of the initial (control) web element. Next, we split the traffic in half at random (that is, we distribute users according to some probability), and finally, we collect data (metrics) about how each version of the page performs. After some time, we analyze the data and leave the version that worked better and switch off the less successful one.

It’s very important to conduct tests correctly: otherwise, not only will you not get meaningful and useful results, but you can go down the wrong path. In general, controlled experiments can help to solve the following tasks:

• To solve UX deficiencies and popular customer barriers (pain points)
• Improve the effectiveness of existing traffic (increase conversions and revenue, optimize customer acquisition costs)
• To raise engagement (to reduce the bounce rate, to increase the click-through rate).

We need to remember that when we favor a particular option, we’re essentially scaling (rolling out) the results we’ve gotten to that point to the entire audience of potential users. It’s a real leap of faith, and every such action must be justified. By implementing solutions without a solid rationale, we’re bound to make at least one wrong move – which will negatively impact the product in the long run. We call the process of gathering such rationales hypothesis testing, and the rationales sought are statistical significance.

Here are a few examples of what is tested through A/B tests:

• Different types of sorting in site navigation menus (as in this example of a large German electronics retailer)
• Landing pages (as in this example from a leading European airline passenger protection company)
• Marketing messages: e.g., newsletters or banners (like this example of an international natural cosmetics retailer)

How an A/B test is born: Formulate a hypothesis

At the heart of any A/B test is a problem that we need to solve or some user behavior that we need to change/reinforce. Having identified the problem or challenge, the marketer formulates a hypothesis – an educated guess that will either be confirmed or disproved by the experiment.

An example of a hypothesis: If we add a social proof icon to a product page, visitors will learn about the popularity of our product and the number of cart additions will increase by 10%.

In this case, when we have identified the problem (low rate of additions to cart, for example) and formulated the hypothesis (displaying the icon with social proof encourages users to add the product to cart more often), we can proceed with testing on the site.

Classic approach to A/B testing

In a simple A/B test, traffic is distributed between two versions of content. One version – with the original content and design – is considered the control version. The second version is a variation. Variations can be different: for example, you can test different header variations, call-to-action buttons, layouts, and designs.

In a classic single-page-level experiment, we don’t even need to make two URLs to test. Most A/B testing solutions allow you to dynamically change the content, layout, and page design.

However, if you want to include 2+ sets of pages in testing, then you need to split test and use multiple URLs.

When to do split testing

Split testing (sometimes called multi-page testing) is generally similar to A/B testing, but allows you to experiment using a separate URL for each variation. In other words, split testing can be done between two existing URLs, which is especially useful if you have dynamic content.

Let’s say you already have two pages, and you want to see which one works better. For example, you’re launching a newsletter and you have two different versions of a potential landing page. Do split testing – and you’ll understand which landing page performs the best within that campaign.

You can include more than two variations in an A/B test

If you want to test more than two variations, conduct an A/B/n test. This can be used to compare the effectiveness of three or more variations, rather than testing each variation against the same control variation (i.e. running a chain of independent A/B tests). If your site has high traffic, you can use A/B/n testing to test many variations at once, thereby reducing testing time and getting results faster.

However, I don’t recommend making too many changes to a variation. If you make only the most important and meaningful changes, the results of the experiment will make it easier for you to understand possible cause-effect relationships. And if you want to test a number of changes at once, conduct a multivariate test instead.

What is multivariate testing?

Multivariate tests allow you to test changes in several sections of a page at once. To understand the principle, conduct a multivariate test on one of your webpages: change a couple of elements on it. In the first variation, replace the main photo on the feedback form page. In the second variation, add a video to the page. Now the system will generate another possible variation based on your changes – with a video AND a feedback form.

You will have 2 x 2 = 4 versions of the page

V1 – control version (without feedback form and video)

V2 – a variation with the feedback form

V3 – variation with video

V4 – variation with feedback form + video

Because multivariate testing checks all possible combinations, we do not recommend adding many variations – unless you have a site with very, very high traffic. If you conduct multivariate testing with many variables on a site with low traffic, there is a risk of getting insufficiently meaningful results on which you will not be able to draw any meaningful conclusions. This type of testing requires at least several thousand visits per month.

What test to use depending on the situation

An A/B test will help you find answers to questions like, “which of these two variations of the page do visitors respond better to?”

And multivariate tests can help answer such questions:

• Do visitors respond better to the video or the feedback form?
• Or does only the feedback form work better, without the video?
• Or is it better to keep the video and remove the feedback form?

How to evaluate the effectiveness of an A/B testing platform

To evaluate the effectiveness of an A/B testing platform, you can do an A/A test. To do this, you need to create two identical versions of the page and run the A/B test. Ideally, the system should respond that both variations showed approximately the same results. Read more about A/A tests here.

The path to successful A/B tests

“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong” – Benjamin Franklin

When conducting A/B testing, a clear and adequate methodology is very important. Only then can we trust the test results and make effective decisions based on them. A/B testing gives us a framework that allows us to compare the reaction of site visitors to different variations of pages, and if one of the variations works better – to establish the statistical significance of the result and to some extent causality.

The post What is A/B-testing and How to do it Correctly appeared first on LabUp.

There are several basic criteria by which you can assess the quality of materials on your site (blog). In this article, we’re going to look at how to conduct a comprehensive check of your existing materials against the criteria for quality content.

Uniqueness

The first requirement that your content within your site must meet is uniqueness. And this does not mean that you need to replace all the usual words on their pre-revolutionary counterparts, or try to describe in other language the procedure for selecting, say, winter tires for the car. This kind of uniqueness is sure not to play into your hands.

We can conventionally divide uniqueness into two types:

• Absolute (uniqueness on the Internet).
• To determine the uniqueness of the text, you can use online services such as Content Watch or Advego.
• The desired rate of uniqueness is between 80 and 100 percent.
• Relative (uniqueness within the site).
• The uniqueness of content, as well as the content of meta tags within the site is one of the most important factors of search engine optimization. It will largely depend on the ranking of pages in search results.

To analyze a site for duplicate content within a site, you will need Google Search Console and a crawler, which I will use Netpeak Spider as my crawler. GSC will notify you of any duplicate pages within the site as they appear. Netpeak Spider will help you control duplicate content in real time. The program will allow you to find:

• complete duplicate pages,
• duplicate text content in the <body> tag,
• duplicate H1 titles and Title and Description meta tags.

Spelling and lexical literacy

User opinion about your professionalism will be formed under the influence of several factors, and one of them may be your literacy (or illiteracy) – spelling, syntax and lexical. If you can’t afford to get help from a professional editor, who will remove all unnecessary things from your text and correct all mistakes, use Glavred or TEXT.RU.

By the way, if you also work with English-language materials, I recommend using the Grammarly service.

Structuring the text

Structuring your information with titles, numbered and bulleted lists not only makes the text visually more appealing, but also easier for the user to understand. In addition, based on numerous studies, H1 and H2 headings play a significant role in SEO and are taken into account by search engines.

If your site has only a few dozen pages of text content, checking it out does not threaten to turn into a real nightmare of a few weeks. However, if the site has thousands of pages of content, it is better to use an automated solution. The aforementioned crawler can be used as such a solution.

To check the presence of headings of any order, search for duplicate headings, as well as too long H1 (more than 65 characters by default), you should act according to the following algorithm:

• Start Netpeak Spider.
• Open the Options tab on the sidebar.
• Go to “Content” → “H1-H6 Headings”. Check the items “H1 Content, H1 Headers” and “H2 Headers”. If the main content of the site is complex and voluminous material that should be structured with lower-order headings (H3-H6), check the appropriate items for analysis as well.

In the Initial URL field, enter the site address.

If you are interested in analyzing all pages of the site, you should simply enter the domain. If you want to scan, for example, only blog pages (both section and pages within it begin the same – say, website.com/blog), enter the section address into the search bar, and then under “Settings” → “General” enable the “Scan only within section” option.

Click “Start” to start the scan.

When the scan finishes, you will see a table with the following results:

In the columns corresponding to the selected headers (the ones you checked in “Preferences”), you will see their number on each page of the site (or on all pages of the section), as well as the H1 length data.

Ideally, each page should have one H1 header (no more than 65 characters in length on average) and several H2 headers. The total number of headings of one order or another is irrelevant from an SEO perspective, but plays a significant role in structuring content, as we wrote above.

After sorting out the header data in the main table, go to the sidebar. There, under “Reports” → “Errors”, you will see a summary of errors, in particular errors associated with H1 headers.

By clicking on the name of the error you are interested in, you will filter the results and see an additional tab that summarizes only those pages where the error is present.

The amount of text and meta tag content

As good as those three sentences you fill in the blank in the middle of the page are, they remain just three sentences. Although quality is valued over quantity, the latter is still important for optimizing content within a site. This applies to both the main content within the tag and the Title and Description meta tags.

To check the volume of content (and its presence as such), I’ll use the aforementioned Netpeak Spider. However, before describing the validation sequence, let’s go over the recommended content volume and content length meta tags:

• Main content: at least 500 characters.
• If you are running a content project and all of your content should be somewhat long, you can set a minimum length for this in Preferences → Restrictions.
• Title: at least 10 and no more than 50-70 characters on average.
• Description: for the main page – 50 to 230 characters on average, for all other pages – 50 to 320 characters.

Check as follows:

• Run Netpeak Spider.
• Enter the address of the site in the “start URL”.
• On the sidebar open the “Options” tab. Under “Head Tags” select the first four parameters, in the “Indicators” check the “Content Size” (the amount of text in the block <body> with spaces) and “Number of characters” (the amount of text in the block <body> without spaces).

Click “Start” to start scanning.
At the end of the scan, a table will collect data for each of the analyzed indicators, and the tab “Reports” → “Errors” will summarize the problems associated with too little or too much volume.

Keywords

Sometimes even the coolest expert article that meets a very topical need of the audience may end up somewhere in the tail of search results. Hence the need to run through semantics properly and use text analytics services to improve your material for organic keyword rankings.

Inbound and outbound links

When adding the next incredibly useful and engaging piece of content to your site, don’t forget to make sure it gets found. If the content is not found by users and search engine robots, its value will tend to zero. What can you do to remedy the situation? The answer is simple: leave links to your content in the right places, viz:

• in the block with the latest entries on the home page;
• In the “similar posts” blocks below other posts;
• in the block with the pinned posts (visually highlighted block on the home page, slider);
• in the block with the “latest posts”;
• in the text of thematically related materials.

Now you probably know what you’re going to do with new publications in the future, but don’t forget about the materials you’ve managed to produce in the past. To find out which pages you have no incoming (from other pages) and outgoing (to other pages) links, reopen the crawler window and do some simple maneuvers:

1. Go to the settings section of the program and check the options, as shown in the image below.
2. In “Parameters” on the sidebar, select the template with the minimum set of parameters. Activate the parameters related to the “Links” item.
3. Enter the site address in the Initial URL field and start scanning.

If at the end of the scan you will find pages which have no internal links, or which do not have any internal links, Netpeak Spider will mark them as error pages. In the first case the error “PageRank: no outgoing links” will appear, in the second – “PageRank: no links”.

Images and videos

Many users who are tired of the endless stream of information, which flows every second literally from everywhere.

For those who work with content, it means only one thing: all your posts should have pictures. Photos, screenshots, infographics, gifs, and videos all make the content more attractive and “reader-friendly. If your content is educational, pictures and videos make the material more visual and informative, revealing all the things that are difficult to show in text.

To check if all content pages on your site have images, scan the site with a crawler. The procedure is similar to the previous ones, the only difference being that the only parameter you need in this case is “Images” (the “Content” item).

Briefly about the main things

Content quality and optimization play an important role both for its potential readers and for search engines, which strive to show content that will best meet users’ needs. There are several main aspects of content optimization in terms of quality, ease of perception, and compliance with search engine requirements:

• uniqueness,
• orthographic and lexical literacy,
• text structuring,
• the volume of text and the content of meta tags,
• keywords,
• incoming and outgoing links,
• images and videos.

You can check and optimize content for each of these points using various online services.

The post How to Optimize and Check the Quality of Content on the Site appeared first on LabUp.