migovr_blog_deisgn01

Content marketing in 2017

by BrandingNewsTechnology

Content marketing is rapidly evolving. Producing generic content and throwing it out there hoping for a miracle is no longer a marketing strategy for any business that hopes to stay competitive.

Spun content on web pages, auto-generated videos, and other poor content marketing strategies will often have a negative impact on your brand, making your business that much less to succeed.

Over the past few years, successful brands have been taking advantage of advances in tech to develop successful content marketing strategies.

For instance, mobile accounted for 53 percent of the total time spent on a digital device compared with 47 percent on desktops back in 2013. In 2015, 65 percent of users spent time on mobile compared with only 35 percent of users on desktop, illustrating the important role mobile has played for content in recent times.

Every indication is that content marketing and social media marketing will continue to evolve, and technology will be firmly in the driver’s seat.

Check out this sample of some of the tech advances that are likely to transform this landscape in 2017 and beyond.

1. Artificial Intelligence

Many of us have been conditioned to tremble and cower at the sound of artificial intelligence, thanks in part to the years we spent following The Terminator and The Matrix. With AI now capable of producing decent articles and other forms of content, content developers and marketers also have good reason to be afraid of AI.

Or do they?

While AI has been known to do impressive things, humans who take advantage of technology are often much better at accomplishing tasks than humans or machines alone. This is why content marketers who will take advantage of AI stand to benefit greatly from harnessing the powers of AI.

AI has the potential to change the content marketing landscape, even revolutionize it. It can be used better understand content for your keywords, enabling you to develop content that resonates with your audience. AI can also be used to help format content for SEO, discover relevant content for curation, and automate content distribution.

Content marketers will definitely have more to gain than loose from AI integration.

2. IoT and new devices

The world we currently live in is nothing short of unreal.

New devices are coming up each day with the ability to communicate via networked connections, thanks to the ever-expanding world of the Internet of Things (IoT). Users are no longer restricted to their PCs, laptops, and smartphones as far as interacting with content is concerned.

For instance, smart refrigerators can communicate with the user, Even the bluetooth speakers within a smart home. The challenge for content creators will be developing content that will be able to respond to each of the various devices within the IoT space.

This way, content marketers will be able to provide customized content based on location, monitoring data, and real-time alerts straight to the device. Marketers will even be able to send content based on proximity data, for instance, clothing retailers sending messages about dressing ideas during the cold season.

3. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

2016 has clearly been the year of virtual reality and augmented reality. If in doubt, just as any of the millions of users who at one point made Pokémon Go more popular than Tinder and Instagram. These developing technologies have uncovered a whole new platform for content consumption, one that Facebook’s Oculus Rift will most likely explore within the coming years.

VR will likely ease its way into the content marketing arena to fulfill the growing need for visual content. Content marketers will get the exciting opportunity to push content optimized for VR, which is largely unchartered land.

4. Live streaming

Live streaming has long been associated with live broadcasts of events such as sports.

Recently, however, live streaming has become just one of the many ordinary functions of a smartphone, right next to making phone calls and texting. Live streaming apps like Meerkat and Periscope have become more popular among everyday users

Live streaming offers content developers and marketers the platform to come up with more in-demand and live content, which still remains a vastly unexplored area.

Plus, with Facebook jumping into the live streaming arena, more users are likely to appreciate content that is modeled around live experiences.

5. Improved search engine algorithms

Search engine algorithms are finally becoming fully automated as far as updates are concerned. Most content marketers design their online marketing campaigns around manual search algorithms.

These are often updated manually and such updates are communicated promptly to the online community.

However, self-updating algorithms such as RankBrain will make it harder to predict what the rules are for maintaining organic visibility. RankBrain, a machine learning algorithm, scours the internet and fine-tunes search results, basically making it harder for content marketers to “cheat” their way to organic results.

Content marketers who will find ways to stay afloat will reap sweet, organic rewards.

6. E-commerce and social media

On their own, e-commerce and social media marketing have been explored by content managers for years. The likes of Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest have been used to propagate content and make inroads into new markets.

But the real game-changer is going to be social purchasing as more social media sites begin integrating aspects of e-commerce. Social media is currently one of the leading platforms that content creators use to distribute content and building audiences. With such sites becoming more focused on revenues, their focus will shift from content consumption platforms to becoming e-commerce hybrid sites.

As such, content marketers will need to find alternative platforms for interacting with their audiences since opportunities for organic visibility will have diminished considerably.

2017 and beyond presents a myriad of challenges and opportunities for everyone in the content marketing space. As a content marketer, preparing for the future isn’t optional. Early preparation will enable you to stay competitive as others in the industry play catch-up. Early adopters always have the benefit of self-differentiation, even when they implement technologies that end up taking a different direction.

Either way, it’ll be a huge win for the early birds.

by VIKAS AGRAWAL

migovr_blog_responsive_design

Tips for responsive design

by DevelopmentNews

Test Your Design on Actual Devices

Planning how your design will scale for different sizes is an important part of designing for those devices, but you cannot stop at that theoretical approach.

Being able to interact with your design on real devices will show you how it really works, either confirming the decisions you made or showing you where improvements may need to be made.

In addition to your own testing, running usability tests with actual users is another important part of working with your designs in a real world setting.

First check existing analytics to see the percentage breakdown for users based on devices. Prioritize your tests based upon the breakpoint information. If you’re moderating the tests on-site, it’s also worth purchasing commonly used devices 

If you can spare the resources, it’s worth testing different devices with different users. While this multiplies the number of users required for testing, it is the safest way to prevent bias due to design familiarity. For example, if you’ve designed three breakpoints, testing with 15 users (five per breakpoint) will help you uncover most usability issues. Services likeUserTesting help scale usability testing affordably since they handle the recruitment, task creation, moderation, and analysis.

If you’re particularly tight on timing or money, you can test multiple breakpoints with the same users. Just randomize the order of devices presented to minimize the bias from design familiarity. For example, if you test mobile, tablet, desktop with User A, switch up the order for User B.

migovr_blog_tips

Tricks for writing a great blog post

by News

An estimated 53.6 million new posts appear per month on WordPress alone. Why even start a blog with so much competing noise out there?

Because a business blog for your ecommerce store is a great way to establish relationships with customers in a non-sales context. Good blog content engages by solving problems and informing readers. Your business meets a unique customer need and your blog should speak to that. If it does, and you follow the advice below, you’ll increase your chances of standing out from the 53, 599,000,000 other posts going up this month, and you just might gain a few new customers.

migovr_blog_tips

1 Get to know your audience

Before you start writing anything, ask yourself these two questions:

Why am I writing this?
Your business goal may be to get sales leads, but the primary goal of your blog is to inform your readers and give them advice to solve a problem. In this way, you can use your blog to build authority and trust, which you’ll need to attract and retain customers.

Who is my audience?
You should have created customer personas when you started building your business. Get them out and keep them in mind when you’re writing. This will help you get into your ideal customer’s head and write TO them: what are they interested in? What are their problems? What kind of tone do they react to, ie highly technical or casual and relaxed?

2 Have a conversation

Once you know who you’re talking to, think about how you’re going to talk to them. A blog should be friendly and engaging, practical and easy to navigate

– Get to the point: Your readers are busy people, so show that you value their time by getting straight to the point. Favor the active tense and be concise: don’t use ten words when you can use five.

– Keep it simple: you’re here to make your customers’ lives easier by providing expert help, not to show off your expansive vocabulary. Avoid industry jargon and long, rambling introductions or side-notes.

3 Inform, don’t sell

People are bombarded with sales messages from the time they wake up to the time they slip back into bed at night. Chances are, they’re not coming to your site to read another pitch. They’re going to be asking themselves ‘What’s in it for me?’, so make sure you have a compelling response. Develop blog content that gives something to your reader: the answer to a question, the solution to a problem, a piece of information they didn’t know.

4 Craft catchy headlines and tweet-able titles

Headlines and subtitles have a dual role: to attract curious readers and push your blog to the top of search engine rankings. Short, to-the-point titles are easy to share on social media, where you can generate conversation and engagement around your blog.

Think about using evocative, sensory words, or incorporating questions that pique interest. Numbers have been found to attract clicks, but they’ve been heavily used to the point of being annoying, so use them sparingly and always with a compelling theme connected to your business, e.g. “7 tips for a good night’s sleep” if you sell bedding.

5 Structure your ideas

No one likes sifting through a rambling jumble of text online. Make it easy for your readers to follow your train of thought and pick out the information that they need. Try these tips:

  • Use subtitles to organize your ideas
  • Divide body text into digestible paragraphs
  • Use bullets for easy-to-scan lists

And remember, ALWAYS check grammar and spelling. Not only will this make your writing pop, it will reassure your readers about your professionalism.

Use related images to break up text and add an attractive visual elements. Photos, drawings and diagrams can also be great ways to explain complex ideas.

6 Use keywords

Before you begin writing, make a list of keyword related to your business and the subject you’re tackling. Keep them in mind as you write and try to incorporate them judiciously throughout your text, especially in titles and subtitles. Over time, and coupled with reader engagement–comments and social sharing–keywords will help you rank higher in search engines.

Be wary of using too many keywords–you’re writing for people, not search engines–and never, ever copy and paste text from your own blog or other sites. Duplicate content will get you into major trouble with Google.

7 Go Out on a Bang

Before signing off, recap the main takeaways for your readers and include a call to action. This is where you might be able to slip in something related to your sales goal, like getting readers to sign up for your newsletter or check out a related product page.

Here are some suggestions for writing calls to action:

  • Ask readers a question to encourage comments and shares.
  • Use engaging text that asks a question.
  • Give a clear direction of what you want the reader to do next.
  • Create a sense of urgency.
  • Focus on the benefits.
  • Embed call to action in link. You can be creative if it’s appropriate and clear.

…and most importantly…

8 Be consistent

Creating and maintaining a business blog takes a lot of time and energy, but you don’t have to commit to writing an article every day from the beginning. Build a healthy blog by posting regularly, even if it’s only once a week. You can use newsletters and social media to inform your community about new posts. Just remember, once you start the machine, you have to keep it running!

An old blog post with more information about creating an editorial calendar which helps with consistency …

Key Takeaways

  • Post on a consistent schedule
  • Tailor content and tone to your audience
  • Write posts that deliver value to your readers
  • Structure content for readability
  • Run spell check!
  • Finish on a call to action
migovr_blog_microsoft_edge1

Introducing Microsoft Edge

by News

For quite a long time, Internet Explorer dominated the web browser scene. Back when there was no Chrome, and Firefox was barely an infant, Internet Explorer was the de facto king of web browsers.

Then Google Chrome was released, and Opera and Firefox were growing in momentum. Everything changed, and Internet Explorer began to fall slowly from grace.

Owing to its sluggish interface, poor performance and, of course, itscompatibility issues, IE lost the browser wars, and was thankfully replaced at the top by Chrome and Firefox. Even Safari, in spite of all its faults, managed to outshine Internet Explorer.

While Microsoft tried to save its flagship browser, it soon realized that time had come to finally pull the plug.

Recently though, Microsoft announced that they were going to kill off the Internet Explorer brand, and release a brand new web browser instead. They originally named it Spartan, but then decided to go with something simpler:Microsoft Edge.

Introducing Microsoft Edge

First up, let’s leave everything else behind and talk about the logo. Here is a comparison with the Internet Explorer logo:

Does it look like a desk lamp? Is it an out of proportion E? Did they really plagiarize their own IE logo?

Of course, it can be argued that Microsoft are not trying to reinvent the wheel, and the fact that the new logo bears some resemblance to the older Internet Explorer logo can be a positive: there are users who know nothing about the browser wars, and they will feel an instant connection with Edge in the same way they did with IE.

In any case that is just one of the many first-look observations.

Additional Points

Microsoft have not as yet totally killed Internet Explorer. As the latest information stands, both Edge and IE will co-exist on Windows 10. However, the biggest USP of Edge, according to Microsoft, will be that it will integrate with Cortana (Microsoft’s version of Siri, a virtual assistant). Beyond that, you can also annotate and mark up web pages directly within the browser.

Everything else that MS Edge does, modern web browsers already do. Minimal interface, tabbed windows, lazy loading, support for modern scripts, etc.

Furthermore, Microsoft have conducted a series of JavaScript benchmarks. Results? Apparently, Edge is 112% faster than Chrome.

Keeping in mind that Chrome rose to stardom only on account of its speed. Does this mean Edge will replace Chrome and become the apex web browser?

Does Edge Have A Chance?

There are two major reasons behind the success of Chrome: first, it offered a nimble interface and a faster browsing experience, something that Internet Explorer users craved for.

Second, it offered tight integration with Google services (a Google account is all you need to keep your bookmarks secure, for example), something that Firefox did not offer in its initial stages.

Considering the fact that Edge will probably be learning from the mistakes of Internet Explorer, and that it is so far proving to be faster than Chrome, do we not have enough reasons to believe that it can topple Chrome and Firefox?

To some extent, perhaps yes. However, web browsers are a different breed compared to other software, say photo editors or word processors. When a user leaves a given web browser and use another, they need to undertake a proper migration.

Much like migrating a web host, you need to transfer your content, such as bookmarks and login details across to the new browser. Obviously, Edge needs to offer enough motivation to its users in order to encourage them to migrate from other browsers.

Faster browsing experience is just one side of the coin. JavaScript benchmarks do mean something, but they don’t mean everything. Edge needs to go over and above that. Here is how:

  1. Faster browsing aside, MS Edge also needs to focus on faster UX. The thing is, both Chrome and Firefox have become bloated (not as bloated as IE, still bloated enough). Blame it on addons, extensions, whatever, but if Microsoft Edge can offer a nimble UX to its users, it will certainly challenge Chrome and Firefox.
  2. Probably the biggest mistake that Microsoft previously made was that it ignored the power of the mobile platform for too long. For Edge, Microsoft should consider mobile users as the primary audience: people on smartphones and tablets, be it Android or iOS or Windows Mobile. If Microsoft insists on focusing on the desktop once again, Edge too will fail, badly.

Conclusion

All said and done, the road will not be easy for Microsoft Edge. Web users are already in love with either Chrome, Opera or Firefox, and when even Safari is finding it tough to carve a niche for itself, Edge too might not be able to shine overnight.

That said, there is a demand and requirement for a low-cholesterol web browser that is quick to run and easy to work with. If Edge can fill that void, it certainly has a fighting chance.