Exciting Opportunities to Drive Growth with Instagram for Business

Social Media for business continues to evolve and mature. It’s now official. Instagram is bigger than Twitter! And with recent announcements there are exciting opportunities to exploit Instagram for business growth that exceed those of using Twitter. And they may even exceed Facebook marketing opportunities for the foreseeable future, depending on your business audience.

If you’re not using Instagram for marketing your business, it’s time to consider it seriously. 93% of marketers are using Facebook, but only 36% are using Instagram.

Instagram (owned by Facebook) recently announced that they have reached over 400 million monthly active users. 100 million of those have joined since December, so growth has recently accelerated. This number surpasses the number of active Twitter users.

As I have spoken with business people in my local area recently I have seen and heard very little interest or engagement in using Twitter. But those in the 20-45 year old range tell me they are spending more time on Instagram as are their friends. These informal conversations seem to support the trend in the data.

28% of the US population now uses Instagram. But Instagram is not just a U.S. phenomenon. 75% of its user base is outside of the U.S.

Instagram has also just announced that any business can now run ads on the platform by using the Facebook ad infrastructure available via Power Editor.

Why You May See Higher Marketing ROI from Instagram

There are several reasons why you may generate more return on your marketing investment with Instagram versus either Twitter or Facebook.

It’s big and growing fast. You can now reach more people than on Twitter and growth appears to be accelerating. While Twitter is large, its user growth has slowed considerably. And equally concerning is that less than half of Twitter users even check it daily.
It’s not overly crowded yet by marketers. Only 36% of marketers are using Instagram so far, so the chances of your message being seen and gaining user engagement is still much higher than on other platforms already crowded with marketers, e.g. Facebook. That will change over time as the platform gains popularity and more business features are added, but not for a while.
User engagement is higher. 3.1% of posts on Instagram have user engagement of likes, comments, and re-posting. This is way above Twitter and Facebook where post engagement is 0.7% or less. (Source: SocialBakers research)
Organic reach is not limited. It’s like the good old days of Facebook. Your business post is displayed to 100% of your followers. Contrast that with the 2-6% of followers that you can reach organically on Facebook now. This benefit probably won’t last as the platform grows and Facebook looks for more ways to monetize the audience. But for now you can build relationships with your followers easily and consistently without paid advertising or post boosts.
Younger people use it more than Facebook. According to data from a Cowen & Company study, 44% of 18-29 year olds use Instagram while only 23% of them use Facebook regularly. It’s about the same usage for those in the 30-44 year old age range with 27-28% using each platform. Instagram usage is significantly lower for people over 45 years old as compared to Facebook usage. If a key audience for your business is younger people making purchases, you may see greater bottom line results from Instagram marketing than from Facebook. As it gains in popularity I also expect to see usage increase across all age ranges the way that it did for Facebook.
You have access to all the Facebook user data. Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, you not only have access to user data from Instagram, but also from the same users on Facebook. A whopping 94% of Instagram users also have Facebook. So the wealth of user data that Facebook has aggregated on each of us is also available for Instagram advertising.
You can run very targeted ads with specific calls to action. The Facebook ad infrastructure is being shared with Instagram. So for paid advertising to extend your business reach you can do the same specific targeting based on interests and behaviors in addition to demographics. In using Facebook’s Power Editor, you also have options for specific objectives and calls to action. An Instagram ad can create brand awareness, but it can also be clickable to your website (unlike a normal post). You can also set objectives for a mobile app install or a video view. Website conversion tracking will be coming soon.

Will This Last?

The Instagram marketing opportunities are exciting right now. As the platform grows I expect they will become less compelling over the next few years. Facebook will need to monetize the audience the same way they have done on the core Facebook platform.

More and more marketers and users may clutter up the Instagram feeds to where they will need to implement something like the Facebook News Feed algorithm to prioritize posts.

As Facebook moves toward more visual content the distinction between Instagram and Facebook may diminish. Facebook is already sharing the ad infrastructure between the two platforms. There may be other technology synergies and integration in the future. Will they continue to have value as two separate platforms or will they converge over time?

As more older adults move on to Instagram, it may no longer be a cool place to be. A new wave of young people may choose yet another social media network to increase interaction away from their parents.

So the time is now to exploit opportunities to grow your business with Instagram marketing. There is still a lot to test and learn about what is most effective to drive business results. There are differences. For example, you can’t post from a desktop to Instagram. You must be on a mobile device. And it’s about beautiful, eye-catching images. See my other blog post on Top Five Instagram Marketing Best Practices for some key elements to keep in mind.

Will Your Facebook Page Replace Your Small Business Website?

Facebook is making it easier for your small business to engage with customers on mobile devices. They recently announced some interesting new features for Facebook business pages. As they begin to roll out, some people think they could eventually replace your small business website. Others think that they are just a more effective way to drive traffic to your website.

Facebook reports that a billion people visit their business pages every month. And they also report that there are 45 million active businesses on Facebook. The numbers are huge. At the same time (as I’ve blogged about before) more that 50% of Google searches are now done on mobile devices. Also, about 25% of people search for local businesses on Facebook. Facebook is making it easier for your business to be found and accessible on mobile devices.

New features

Not long ago Facebook announced new messaging features to enhance communications with people who like and comment on your business page. Now, rather than having to reply publicly, you can private message the poster. Then last week Facebook announced additional new features particularly targeted at small businesses:

More prominent call to action button – They are testing new buttons for Call Now, Send Message, and Contact Us. The call to action button will also be placed just under the cover photo on a mobile device.
New sections for Shop and for Services – Retailers will be able to list and feature products for sale. Service providers will be able to showcase a list of offerings at the top of the page. Additional sections are still under development.
Mobile-oriented layout – The mobile display of your page will be designed for less scrolling and clicking. It will also introduce section tabs to quickly select what section you want to look at.

The features are starting to show up for some business page managers now and will be rolling out to others over the coming weeks.

Separately, Mark Zuckerberg also confirmed that they are working on:

A Dislike button – He says people have been asking for this a long time. He now sees it as a feature to enable people to express empathy with particular posts. But will it be available on business pages? And will it be an easy way for people to express a negative review?

Why Your Facebook Page Should Replace Your Website

If you are a small business person, you know it’s sometimes complex and time consuming to either build your own website on a hosting service like Wix or Squarespace or to hire a web designer to create and maintain a custom website. On the other hand, Facebook business pages are pretty simple to create, maintain, and update. Facebook pages are already integrated with messaging and with advertising. You don’t need a technical expert.

With the addition of the Shop section, Facebook may be offering an alternative to keep you from going to Shopify or other competitors. Depending on your target audience, Facebook’s Shop section may be as valuable to you as the integration of Shopify and Pinterest with Buy buttons. There is an evolution toward Social eCommerce and Facebook also wants to enable that.

Google and other search engines can index and rank your Facebook page. Then you don’t need to worry about the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your website.

You don’t need to worry about the mobile display of your business, since Facebook will do that for you.

Why Your Facebook Page Should Not Replace Your Website

If you don’t use Facebook to drive traffic to your website, then you are giving up control. You are at the mercy of Facebook’s terms and conditions and future features. Do you want to be locked into their platform rather than pick and choose the best ways to target your audience? And will their features be sufficient to communicate the unique value proposition of your business and to express your business culture and values? Even with these new features, your options are still fairly limited.

Will the Dislike button be an asset for expressing empathy with your business posts? Or will it become the bane of your existence when misused by an unhappy client or competitor?

What if Social eCommerce on mobile devices doesn’t really work for your business? Can and will your customers make a purchase decision from a small photo and description on a mobile device inside the Facebook app?

Facebook still only displays your posts to 2-6% of your followers unless you have extremely engaged followers or you pay Facebook to boost your posts. You may be locking yourself into a lot of payments to get your content seen.

Risks Outweigh Benefits

I think the risks outweigh the benefits at this stage. While you could rely on Facebook with these new features, I still think the cons outweigh the pros.

What do you think about Facebook’s newly announced features? I know many small businesses who started with a Facebook page and then later built a website. But that was before Facebook became pay to play. Would you be willing to rely on Facebook moving forward for the simplicity instead of doing a simple, small business website?

If you haven’t already, please like us on Facebook!

Easy Steps to Create Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

The way we look for information continues to evolve quickly. A few years ago a mobile marketing strategy was nice-to-have. Now it is a must-have. In fact, it should be your marketing strategy, not an addition to it.

Customers are on the go and inundated with possible sources of information. To succeed now and into the future you need to be able to engage them seamlessly across social media, your website, and email. You also need consistency across all the devices they use. For small and mid-sized business people that can be a big, complex task.

Your customers may be at home on a desktop, traveling with a tablet, or walking or driving in your neighborhood with a smartphone. Will they find you? Will their experience with your brand be good on each device and each touch-point? Let’s try to boil it down into a some easy steps to think about to create your (mobile) marketing strategy.

Get insights into your customers’ buying behaviors. Marketing and strategy start with understanding exactly who your target customers are and their behavior for making a purchase decision.
- Who are they?
- What kind of devices do they use when?
- When do they make a decision to contact you or come into your business?
- What information is most helpful to them to engage with your business?
- How do they most often contact you?
- What times of day do they look for information about you?

Answering these questions will help to guide your strategy. Don’t know the answer to these questions? Then it’s time to start asking. Ask your customers individually. Conduct an online survey. Look for market research online relevant to your location and industry.

Only invest in a mobile app if you have business justification. Most small and mid-sized businesses will find the cost and usage of a mobile app to have a negative return on investment. While smartphone users spend a lot of time using apps, they primarily use about five very popular ones, like Facebook, Google, etc. Don’t worry if you don’t have a mobile app. Many people prefer to use a mobile web browser rather than load up their device with niche apps.

Create a consistent experience across channels. Your brand image and value proposition should be the same across the web and social media platforms. Your customers interact with you across multiple channels even for one purchase decision. Make sure they can easily link back and forth. And make sure the key information about location, phone number, and email are consistent.

Time some content posts to customer behavior. Do you have customers streaming off a cruise ship at certain times? Do you see most of your business late afternoon and early evening? Timing some of your content posts to those times may engage people in social media or email at just the time they want or need to interact with your business.

Run mobile ads on social media. Facebook is now a pay-to-play platform for businesses and other are moving that direction. But you can reach your on-the-go audience by running pay per click mobile ads on the social media platforms where they spend their time.

Test and refine. Try out your strategy. Use the data on what works and what doesn’t work to refine or modify your strategy. Ask customers for feedback in person and online to guide what adjustments you may need to make.

Responsive Web Design Critical to Your Bottom Line

Have you re-designed your web site in the past couple of years? If not, you are likely in urgent need to update it to a responsive web design. If you’re a digital marketing person, you already know what that is. If you’re not, you may be wondering what I’m talking about and why I say it is critical to your bottom line.

Why Responsive Web Design Is So Important

A while ago I shared data on the shift of consumers to mobile devices to find information. I blogged about it in Mobile First Marketing. I also blogged about what I called Mobile Meltdown Day earlier this year when Google was updating their mobile search rankings. (Others called it Mobilegeddon.) Mobile Meltdown is just beginning. The reality of the initial impact was less than expected. About 17% of non mobile-friendly sites saw their mobile search ranking decline significantly from page 1 results. But that shouldn’t make you complacent about mobile-friendly sites that use responsive web design.. Mobile searches are already over 50% of total searches and continue to increase.

Failure to make responsive web design a priority will put your business at risk moving forward. You will be missing out on customers if they do not have good experience with your web site on mobile devices. In the short-term they may continue to find you in search results. But they will likely abandon you when your site is shrunken, un-optimized, unreadable, and difficult to use. Depending on your business and the typical age ranges of your customers you may already be at risk of losing new customers. The potential impact to your bottom line is huge.

What is Responsive Web Design?

I primarily use three different devices for accessing information on the Internet. I have standardized on Apple (don’t get me started on my poor experiences with past Microsoft products!). So I use an iPhone, iPad, and Macbook Pro at different times and locations. At work I am using my desktop browser(s) on a large screen. If I’m relaxing in the family room, I usually have my iPad open checking social media, reading news, using apps, and searching for information using the browser. If I am not at home I am using apps and searching for information on my iPhone while I am on the move. You may have fewer or more devices than me, but you get the idea. No matter what device size I am using I want to be able to read and interact with information from your business. If it’s unreadable, too slow, requiring me to go to a separate mobile site, or otherwise difficult to use, I just go to the next of your competitors. I personally don’t have time or patience to deal with your business if you don’t make it easy for me to learn about or find you. And I’m not alone!

Responsive web design is the approach to deal with this situation of multiple devices to have a consistently satisfying customer experience. It is a way of designing and developing web sites so that they are easy to read, interact with, and navigate across a wide range of devices. It is an approach for your web site to adapt and adjust to the customer, based on which device they are using at the time. There should be minimal re-sizing and side-to-side scrolling required. Mobile customer experiences should be optimized for speed and for minimal page switching.

How You or Your Web Designer Implement Responsive Web Design

You may use tools or frameworks such as Webflow, Bootstrap, Foundation, or Skeleton if you are Web developer into the technical details. For a WordPress-based web site, I like to start with a theme that already incorporates principles of good, responsive design. That way I can focus more on the customer experience and compelling marketing content.

Principles and best practices continue to emerge for Responsive Web Design, but these are some to consider now:

Start by designing for the mobile customer
Use images that are flexible and workable on retina displays from small to very large
Compress images and videos to improve performance
Get rid of non-essential content and site decorations
Present more information that can be seen scrolling downward rather than requiring a lot of back and forth between pages
Get rid of Flash on your site
Minimize navigation menus
Have important information at the top of your site
Use bigger buttons
Look at whether you should have an app in addition to a web site

Small and mid-sized businesses are particularly lagging in the move to responsive web design. If your web site is not yet using responsive web design it needs to be on your priority list of things to do. You’re probably already losing some customers who are trying to interact with you on mobile devices. But this will increase significantly over the next 1-2 years. The time to act is now before you see a negative impact to your bottom line.

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Let me know any comments or questions.

Simple Reasons Why Your Social Media Marketing Fails

I heard from a business person last week telling me she has done social media marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest and listed her products on a very large eCommerce site, but has seen no results. She said, “I’ve tried lots of things, but nothing is working.”

You may be like her or you may be in the group of people who used to do very well on Facebook, but not anymore. You were posting updates and interacting with your audience. New people were becoming aware of your business. People were sending you messages and coming by to buy products or services. But not any more. You are struggling to reach the people who liked your page. Your sales directly attributable to Facebook have declined. You’re not alone.

In my experience there are some simple reasons why your social media marketing is failing in today’s environment. Here are the most common, along with some things you can do about them:

Failing to segment the market and target your specific audiences. You may be doing what I call “spray and pray marketing.” You throw stuff out at everybody and hope that something sticks. You are spending time, effort, and money with low or non-existent results. Success in marketing, especially social media marketing, is to segment the market and create content to meet the needs and desires of each. Social media is “new,” but timeless principals of marketing are not.
Not creating buyer personas. Personas of your typical buyers in each market segment should drive the social media platforms, content, tone, images, ads, and value propositions to communicate with them. It is also the basis for very targeted advertising on social media to augment your organic reach.
Spreading across too many platforms or the wrong platform. In the evolution of social media we are seeing some maturation and segmentation. If you are only using Facebook or Twitter, you may be missing the platform where your target audience spends its most time and engagement. If you are only using Instagram, you may be missing audiences who only use Facebook or LinkedIn. But trying to be everywhere can also backfire. Your content and formats either won’t be optimized or you will spend an excessive amount of time posting natively to each platform.
Focusing on selling something immediately from social media. Marketing is about meeting customers needs profitably over time. I am incredibly annoyed when someone asks me to connect on LinkedIn and then immediately sends me a sales pitch. They know nothing about me or my business. I have expressed no interest in their product or service. They have ruined a potential future business relationship with me by jumping into sales mode. If you have sales people and they are doing this, stop them! They are hurting your business, not helping it.
Driving people to a landing page or web site that is not mobile friendly. As I have blogged before, mobile is where it’s at now. If people go to a page or site they can’t easily read on their mobile device, you have lost them as a potential customer.
Not promoting discovery of your content. You are not using the right hashtags on platforms where they should be used. Or you are using irrelevant hashtags. Or you are not doing keyword research for your personas and creating content that highlights those keywords. Or you are not reaching out to others and engaging on social media so that they may also come and look at your content.
Relying on organic reach. I’ve blogged about this previously. Facebook is now pay to play for businesses. Other social media platforms are moving that direction as they plan and experiment with ways to monetize their users. You must at a minimum pay Facebook to occasionally boost key content to your followers. And you should be considering highly targeted ad campaigns based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. You still have tremendous opportunity for your content to show up between photos of friends and family, but you will have to pay for that privilege to go beyond 2-6% of your followers.
Not being social. The mantra at Social Media Marketing World this year was, “Don’t be on social media. Be social!” Engage with your followers. Ask them questions. Thank them for following you. Reply promptly to comments or questions from them. Use a variety of posts. Remember that people are on social media to stay connected, be entertained, and be informed. They are not there for a hard sales pitch.
Not being visual enough. The posts with the highest engagement are photos and videos. I’m still amazed at how many tweets I see on Twitter without an attached photo. Your content is much more likely to be attention grabbing if you have an image or video. Great images are keys to success on both Instagram and Pinterest.
Driving traffic to a web site without an email opt-in or to a landing page that is not optimized. Despite the hype around social media, the data show that email marketing is still the most effective way to deliver personalized marketing to people over time. They are giving you permission to get to know you better even if they are not ready to purchase from you right now. They are more likely to look at your email after opting in than they are to see your social media posts.
Ignoring data analysis, testing, and adjustment. Digital marketing is unique in being able to give you a wealth of data about what is working, what is not, and whether it is cost effective. It is also fairly easy to do A/B testing. Conversion pixels are making it better to track exactly what converts and what doesn’t. Watch the data. Stop what doesn’t work and do more of what does. There is also research data available online to guide you in areas such as highest converting content, highest converting landing pages, social media post types with the most engagement, best times to post on different platforms to maximize engagement, etc. Your mileage may vary, but this data points to useful starting points so you don’t waste a lot of time and effort. And if you have a personal Pinterest account, convert it to a business account so you get data analytics.

Social media expertise is not the same as marketing expertise. Good marketing is still good marketing. But social media gives us new, cost effective ways to target audiences to drive our marketing objectives. Social media gives us some new tools and communication methods. Social media platforms will continue to evolve and change as more commercial, business features are added.

Have you identified any other reasons why your social media marketing hasn’t worked? Are any of these the reason your social media marketing is failing to produce the desired results?

Help all of us learn more by sharing in comments.

Top 5 Instagram Marketing Best Practices

Instagram is a social media platform that continues to grow in importance to marketers. Especially if your target audience includes 18-40 year olds on mobile devices, this is a place you want to be. But to be effective and generate a return on your marketing investment, there are some Instagram marketing best practices to follow.

Why Instagram?

If you haven’t looked recently at the statistics for Instagram, it’s time to look again. According to recent studies from Pew Research and Iconosquare:

300 million people use it and 75 million are active each day
70 million photos are added each day
more adults use Instagram than Twitter
53% of 18-29 year olds are on it
70% of users have looked for a brand on Instagram
37% of users follow 1-5 brands and 32% follow more than 5 brands
only 28% of marketers are on Instagram

I have to confess I got more focused on Instagram opportunities after two clients in their thirties shared with me how they are active on it, as are their friends. That caused me to re-evaluate my own marketing priorities.

Brands are seeing results from Instagram marketing

Search Engine Journal reported that big brands are achieving impressive results:

Chobani experienced a 7-point lift in people who considered Chobani at any time of day.
Mercedes-Benz achieved a 580% lift in site visits using Facebook and Instagram ads together.
Taco Bell gained a 29-point lift in ad recall, nearly four times over the control group.
Ben & Jerry’s saw 17% more people become aware of a new flavor.
Levi’s had a 24-point lift in ad recall, nearly three times over the control group

And it’s not only big brands reaping rewards. Many small businesses are also seeing value. Food trucks, restaurants, entertainers, artists, architects, coffee shops, clothing shops, jewelry shops, and many others are building a loyal audience on Instagram who help them to spread their marketing stories and messages.

Best Practices to Follow

As social media platforms continue to evolve and mature, there are a distinct set of best practices to follow on Instagram:

Set up a unique profile – Name is the only thing searchable, so use yours or your business. Make it engaging in 150 characters. What is your very succinct value proposition? Include a link. This is the only place you can include a hyperlink back to your web page or your landing page for an opt-in. Make it so people want to follow you, not just to like one of your random photos. Include something personal or humorous in the bio if possible. Consider using emoticons to make your profile more attention-grabbing and interesting.
Use high quality images and videos – Instagram is about visual content. A picture is worth a thousand words – literally! Use a photo to tell a story about your company, your products, or your services. But constantly posting photos of your products over and over again without telling a story won’t cut it. You’re not there to sell. You’re there to nurture a customer relationship. Post photos that people can relate to and that they care about. Consider showing a behind the scenes view of your business.
Use lots of hashtags – Unlike Pinterest, Instagram engagement is higher with lots of hashtags. One study claimed that posts with 11 hashtags get the most engagement. You may not need 11, but use quite a few so people can find your content and engage with you. It’s also a good idea to create a brand-specific hashtag or to create one for major campaigns and contests. Hashtags help you to get discovered. Look for trending hashtags that you may create relevant content for. Make sure you use relevant hashtags. Don’t be accused of #hashtagabuse by just latching on to a high volume one. Including your location can also help to boost discovery.
Post consistently and be interactive – Ask questions. Reply to comments. Like and share content from your followers.
Run a photo contest or offer special incentives – One way to boost engagement and reach is also to run a photo contest related to your brand. Use a unique hashtag and offer some prizes. Consider other ways you can reward your followers on Instagram with special discounts and promotions or by highlighting and sharing their content.

Note that you can link other social media platforms to your Instagram account, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and foursquare. You can easily cross-post from Instagram to those platforms. Note that Facebook owns Instagram, so expect to see more business and advertising features added over time. Also, it appears that Facebook may currently favor and give higher weighting in the News Feed to content shared from Instagram.

Hope you find these Instagram marketing best practices helpful. Is your business marketing on Instagram? Anything else you would add or tell others to avoid?

Drive More Business with Mobile Local Search Marketing

As some of you know I live on the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. Our largest industry is tourism. Every day we have more than 23,000 visitors with mobile devices looking for local business information. On top of that we have daily visitors streaming off cruise ships with their mobile devices. And we have 65,000 full-time residents that need to find information about local goods and services. After all, you can’t just drive off the island to buy something! These consumers are increasingly using mobile local search to find information. And people searching on a mobile device are closer to a purchase and more likely to take action than with traditional desktop searches.

Mobile Search and Local Search Marketing are Converging

It’s imperative for most of the local businesses that I serve to be optimized for both mobile and local search. But it’s not just for local, small businesses on my island. Large brands such as Ace Hardware in the U.S. and Argos in the U.K. are using mobile combined with local search marketing to drive customers into their stores. It’s no longer a nice-to-have. Mobile Local Search Marketing is a must-have!

Google has reported that more than 50% of searches are now done on mobile devices. On-the-go consumers are looking for local information.

52% of searches on smartphones are done in the car or away from home and work (source: Thrive Analytics)
60% of consumers use a smartphone while shopping and this number is growing over time (source: Thrive Analytics)
37% of all consumers use mobile search to look for local products and services, but the percentages are much, much higher for Gen X and Y consumers (source: Thrive Analytics)
70% of consumers prefer a mobile website over a mobile app for local information (source: LSA Local Media Tracking Study 2014)
56% of smartphone searches on the go or in a store have local intent (source: Google)
63% of consumers use multiple devices to find a local business and 79% of them are smartphone users and 81% are tablet owners (source: comScore study)
24% of local searches done via a mobile app are done through Facebook (they are number two behind Google Maps – source: comScore study)

The data are compelling. These are trends that will continue to increase.

How to Optimize for Converged Mobile Local Search Marketing

So how do you optimize for Mobile Local Search Marketing? I’ve blogged before about Mobile First Marketing and about Mobile Meltdown Day (that some other bloggers have also called Mobilegeddon!) Those posts also still apply here. But let’s look specifically at some things your business can do to be found on the first screen of a local search on a mobile device:

Have a mobile friendly web site that passes Google’s test – If your web site on a smartphone requires someone to scroll left and right or to pinch and zoom to be able to read something, then you need to update your web site now. As of April 21, 2015, Google started penalizing you in mobile search ranking.
Ensure your Google My Business listing is up to date – If you haven’t registered on Google My Business, do it! If you have, make sure information is up to date and that your business name, address, and phone number are consistent with other places you are listed on the Web. Having a Google My Business listing gives you a better mobile local search position and gives you a listing in Google Maps.
Include images in Google My Business – Make it easy for consumers to identify you and your products/services
Make location prominent on your web site – Have your location in relevant places such as title tags, description, and in your content
Ensure images on your web site are compressed and consolidated – Load time for your site is important, so make sure your images are optimized.
Get listed on other relevant business directories – Get a profile on Yelp, Yahoo, Bing Local, other local directories, plus directories relevant to your industry
Make sure your NAP (name, address, phone) are consistent everywhere on the Web – Google wants to know you are real, accurate, valuable and nearby to its customers in search results
Get reviews and recommendations – Reviews on Google and Yelp will also help your mobile local search ranking (make sure they’re positive!)
Create local content in your blog – Local content in your blog will also help to position you for mobile local search
Create a business Facebook page – For consumers doing mobile local search in the Facebook mobile app, be sure you have a business page with name, address, and phone number

These are some highlights for optimizing for mobile local search, but for a very detailed list of factors and weights specific to Google local search ranking take a look at Moz’s 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors.

Besides the basics, there are some other things you may want to consider to increase the amount of business you get from mobile local search. It may also be a good idea to have a click to call button so people can easily reach you. And you may want to consider other geolocation features that attract people who are nearby.

You may also want to consider PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising on mobile devices. These ads typically display at the top or bottom of the screen. If you are not highly optimized for mobile local search, this can be a way to make your business visible on the first screen. And if you are optimized, you could potentially have your business displayed three times on the first screen:

Google My Business listing
Mobile Local Search results
PPC ad

Are you optimized for mobile, but not for local search? Are you optimized for local, but not mobile search? Or are you not optimized for either? An investment in mobile local search, possibly combined with PPC mobile ads, will help today’s consumer to find you. Because they are closer to an action or purchase decision than a desktop searcher, this is an investment that will drive real business results.

What do you think? What have you done with local and mobile search optimization? What have you learned? Are there other tips you would share?

How to Avoid Mobile Website Meltdown on April 21…and Beyond

It’s almost here! I’m calling it Mobile Meltdown Day. April 21 is the date that Google will lower your web page rankings if your site is not deemed by them to be mobile friendly. Some big brands and lots of smaller businesses may wake up to a surprise on April 22 unless you take action now. Google announced this change in a blog post on February 26. It may only impact your mobile search rankings for now, but there is widespread speculation that it may also affect desktop search rankings later.

What are Google's goals?

Google isn’t making this change just to make work for your business. More and more of your and Google’s customers are shifting their time and attention to mobile devices to search for information and interact in email and social media. As Google wants to maintain their dominant market share for search, they have some goals they are trying to achieve with this change:

Have a better mobile search experience for their users
Give their users exactly the information they are looking for in the most usable format
Make money – they will be seeking to expose apps and media in search results on mobile devices

Why is this important to your customers, not just Google?

In a July 2012 study conducted by market research firms Sterling Research and SmithGeiger for Google they found:

67% of smartphone users say a mobile-friendly site makes them more likely to buy a company’s product or service, and 74% say they’re more likely to return to the site later
61% say that if they don’t find what they’re looking for (probably within about five seconds), they’ll click away to another site. Half say that even if they like a business, they’ll use its site less often if it doesn’t work well on their smartphone
72% of users say a mobile-friendly site is important to them

How do you know if you are at risk?

Look at your website on a smartphone. Does it appear cut off on the screen? Do you have to scroll left or right? Is the text so small that you have to pinch and zoom to read anything?
Run the Google Mobile-Friendly Test by entering your URL.

What can you do?

Chances are good that if you have not updated your web site in the past few years, you are at risk.

If your website is based on WordPress, you can convert to a responsive theme that will detect and adapt the display for different types of mobile devices. Look for a responsive theme that enables you to follow mobile design best practices.

Here is my top ten list of mobile best practices:

Do not require any scrolling right or left
Make it easy to find your location and operating hours
Use bigger buttons
Enable finding important information in one or two clicks
Create a simple home page with a short menu
Highlight your site search so customers can quickly find information on your site
Add a click to call button
Simplify data entry for forms and minimize typing – use drop downs and choices to select
Don’t require customers to pinch to zoom to be able to read the text on your page
Keep the user in a single browser window

Are you ready for Mobile Meltdown Day? Have you tested your company’s web site? Have you at a minimum put an action plan in place to become compliant with Google’s mobile friendly policies?

Are there other mobile best practices that you have identified? Please share in comments so we all benefit.

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Mobile First!

Today it is about being mobile first! If people cannot access your content easily and clearly on mobile devices, you are missing the boat! This is true all over, but on the island of Kauai, this can be a literal statement. I was recently chatting with the owner of a rental shop near the port where cruise ships come in. He was telling me that he had developed a web site, but he had not thought about it being mobile first. But his target customers all arrive with mobile devices. He said, “I see them coming off the ship all looking at their smartphone or tablets.” The same is true of nearby hotel and timeshare visitors.

Nielson reports that over the past year, the average consumer spent nearly seven hours more per month with their mobile phones, and more than 70% of mobile users use smartphones.

Mobile first email marketing

According to Movable Ink’s Q1 2014 US Consumer Device Preference Report email opens continue to migrate away from the desktop. In fact, two thirds of emails are opened on a mobile device. Within that, the tablet share of email opens continues to grow.

Movable Ink said that 66 percent of emails were opened on either a smartphone (47.2 percent) or tablet (18.5 percent) in Q1 2014. That’s up slightly from the 65 percent in Q4. By contrast PC email opens were down to 34 percent.

What an opportunity for online, digital marketing. This means that your email reaches your target audience anytime and anyplace. Think about that. But also think about how it must be designed for the customer on the go. If you don’t grab him/her with the title and the first five lines of your email, they will move on to the next one. It has to be attention grabbing, get quickly to the value for your customer, and then to the call to action. In a previous role, I wrote many such emails to be used by the salespeople in our company. Many of them were surprised that they got a quick response from a senior executive. It was because it was targeted at them, designed to be read on a mobile device, with a clearly stated value proposition and an easy call to action.

Mobile First Blogs

Don’t be surprised if mobile devices are soon the primary way that people read your blog posts. You can use Google Analytics to see how they are being accessed today and what the trend line is for mobile devices for your particular site. Have you looked at and thought about how someone will access your blog from a mobile device? Do your sharing icons work on the mobile device? Can users comment? Is there far too much scrolling to the right required?

The best way to find out is to test your site on a variety of devices. But Google also provides a website called Make Your Website Work Across Multiple Devices which helps you test your mobile website for mobile compatibility. There is also a link to their PageSpeed Insights tool where you can test performance on mobile and desktop devices and get suggestions for improvement.

Mobile First Design

How do you get mobile first design? If you are designing a new web site, make sure your developer is enabling responsive design. There are many tools and themes available now to automatically enable web sites to be responsive to mobile devices and to optimize the display and performance. If you have an existing web site that is not designed for mobile, you have a few choices:

Do nothing – your customers will have to enlarge and scroll on a mobile device
Re-design to be responsive – if your web site is a few years old, it may be due for a re-design anyway
Create a separate mobile site – you could have a separate mobile site, but then you have to maintain two sites

Mobile First Features

The rise in use of mobile devices also opens new opportunities to think about exploiting unique features of those devices. A common example is being able to link to mobile turn-by-turn directions. Not only can they find your business online, their device can guide them to you. They can touch the screen and immediately call or email you. They can check back in with you during the day and at different locations. You may also want to make use of location awareness to push certain information or promotions. And mobile devices are also good for social media integration. Making it easy to share on social media directly from a mobile device may increase your reach.

So it really is a new world. I now carry the Internet in my pocket via my smartphone. When I travel, I stay connected with my tablet to use in the airport, on the plane, and in my hotel room. I may search for information about a business anytime and anywhere that I have a connection. If you are not mobile first, you are missing the boat! (maybe literally!)

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