A fantastical idea, a powerful pitch, and energetic enthusiasm from all sides of SonicWall stakeholders. Only one task remaining: execution of the over the top Boundless Campaign.
SonicWall came to Bluetext with one main objective: bring their Boundless Cybersecurity campaign to life. As such, the SonicWall team needed creative assistance in bringing the campaign visuals up to par with their brand value. The Bluetext team was asked an age-old question of B2B companies, “How can we make this campaign memorable?”
Especially in the saturated cybersecurity market, it can be challenging to differentiate from strong competitors and help visual abstract brand promises. So the Bluetext team presented a thought-provoking approach to the campaign’s new creative and campaign taglines.
“When cyber threats are limitless, your defenses must be Boundless.” Break free with SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity.
To communicate and contextualize this message, Bluetext presented a creative direction that would showcase the end-user in a gravity-free surrealist state, which literally breaks free of the constraint of cyber threat. The creative would be scaled across main industry verticals in order to personalize and target advertisements. The idea was over the top, innovative, and ambitious but well-received with client buy-in. Next came the challenge of execution, which was overcome using a custom photoshoot complete with realistic costumes, props, and even a trampoline. In order to achieve the effect of floating in an anti-gravity state, professional ballet dancers were hired to jump on the trampolines. Photographers captured the dancers posing mid-air, then flipped the photo 180°.
Once the in action shots were captured, the images were edited to remove the backgrounds and impose on industry-specific scenes. Related props were also imposed onto background images to make the scene appear as if person and objects had been magically released from the pull of gravity while the world remains grounded around them.
At the time of the new Homepage and campaign landing page launch, these static images truly came to life with a subtle parallaxing effect.
To drive users to these newly premiered pages, SonicWall needed eye-catching advertisements that viewers would — no pun intended — gravitate to. Bluetext designed a variety of verticalized static banner ads and further animations to drive page traffic.
Best Practices for Conversion Driven UX Design
If your company has a website published in the public domain, chances are, you know a thing or two about conversion goals. Conversion goals help to measure marketing performance, set goals and most importantly, provide conversions for a company. On websites, conversion goals can range from lead generation to sales to even page views. The point is, you must find your conversion goal and optimize your website toward it. There are various design choices that are simple, yet efficient in achieving different types of conversion goals. The goal is to keep it simple – the lesser the cost per conversion, the higher the return-on-investment (ROI).
Hack Your Way to Higher Conversion Rates
Less is More
According to CEO of Chartbeat, Tony Haile, “You have just 15 seconds (or less) to convince new visitors to stay through the power of your site’s design alone.” Compared to years ago when web-design trends were over-the-top and animation and flash were all the rage, clean and simple flat designs are what reign supreme today. Market trends indicate today’s consumers appreciate a nice, clean layout. Impress your visitors with your content and offerings. Bombarding them with unnecessary flash and animation not only annoys them, but it also slows down the load time of your website. Whatever you do, don’t mirror your site after this masterpiece. You can always check the speed of your website using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. PageSpeed Insights analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster.
Fire Excessive Fonts
When a user lands on a site with various different styles of old and new fonts, it becomes a disjointed and confusing user experience. If you’ve got more than two or three fonts on your homepage, trim them down to create a more modern look. Having two primary fonts keeps your website consistent and organized. While you’re at it, consider increasing your font size for readability. Smashing Magazine reported that “anything less than 16 pixels could impair your site’s readability.” Your website should not only be consistent but also readable.
Give Content a Break
Put yourself in the user’s perspective. Nothing is more intimidating and scary than landing on a page with big blocks of unbroken text. You would bounce too! Large text fields are an immediate red flag that digesting the material will be time-consuming and complex. Mix it up and improve your site’s readability by adding headings, subheadings, bulleted lists and numbered lists to break down content into easily-digested segments.
Improve Your Visuals
While you’re thinking about breaking up content, consider adding imagery. Customers or prospects may need to literally “see it to believe it” and images can be a powerful tool to help contextualize value. Custom graphics and visuals are a great option that is sure to impress users. Cheesy stock photos can seem generic and off-putting, so consider upgrading to simple tools like Canva and PicMonkey which make it easy to customize your images. In addition, if you’re looking to generate confidence in your service or product, try human photography. According to various studies, images of human faces can have a positive image in driving contact form conversions. Remember, people trust people! Human faces help establish an emotional connection, which in turn makes your website a more personalized experience.
Trust in the Numbers
While imagery and human photography might make a subconscious impact on trust, seal the deal with statistics and testimonials. People inherently trust in data and social proof. Statistics can help rationalize and solidify the decision-making process, especially when compared against competitors. Highlighting elements of social proof is an extremely easy and effective way to drive conversions. Consider positioning this information higher on the page, or perhaps in eye-catching designs, so users can be sure not to miss it.
Always Open the Window
Outbound links are a critical component of the ideal SEO formula, but be sure never to lead users away from your site. Make sure that all external links open in a new window. This ensures not only the best user experience for the user, but your site will stay open and users won’t drop off in search of content elsewhere.
Make it Stick
Add a Contact or Sales call-to action-directly in the main menu. Keeping the main conversion at top of mind (and menu) ensures your users are always enabled to contact you. You would never want a customer or potential lead to finally be ready to convert, only to be lost in the site and unable to contact you. To really make your central call to actions stand out, consider implementing a sticky navigation. This means that the main menu will lock in place above your content, no matter where the user is on the page.
Need to make changes to your website to improve your navigation? Bluetext can help.
A Content-First Approach.
Enterprise-level website redesigns are exciting but can be overwhelming. There are countless variables to consider – from appeasing stakeholders and business units, to ensuring an intuitive customer-first user experience that aligns with company-defined website goals and KPIs. One of the most important considerations to think about before embarking on a large-scale website redesign is content. A beautiful, new design is worthless without good content. Users want (and expect) to get value from every website they visit, and that value comes from the content. But at the enterprise level, understanding and applying a smart content strategy can be a daunting and difficult task. Luckily, the content marketing experts at Bluetext are here to help.
6 Key Content Strategy Steps to Take Before Design:
1. Conduct a Content Audit
Before investing in a big website redesign, there needs to be a thorough discovery phase that involves conducting a ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial) analysis to understand the current state of content, identify legacy content that should be removed, any gaps in the content, and ultimately understand if the current content aligns with the redesign goals. Bluetext has industry-leading crawling and scraping tools, such as Screaming Frog, to automate and provide this data. Competitive analysis and market research are also critical steps to gaining insight into how other players in the industry are applying content strategy. Some specific aspects to take note of include:
- Page structure and content flow
- Calls to actions
- Navigation/sitemap
- Linking
- Relevance to the user
- Language/tone of voice
- SEO
- Multi-media usage
2. Establish Website Goals & KPIs
Out with the old and in with the new! In order to create a successful new website, you need to identify the current weaknesses and where improvements can be made. Like any major business venture, it must begin with setting realistic goals. Be sure to benchmark against tactics and KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure the success of those goals. A flashy new website might look nice, but ultimately your stakeholders want to see quantifiable success. It’s important to audit what content is working and has high conversions. Leverage Google Analytics to see what the most trafficked pages are and what users are searching for. Setting up click tracking and heat mapping on your site provides data to help understand user behavior and guide decisions. An example of a website redesign goal mapped to tactics and KPIs may look like this:
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- Goal: Streamline Product Page Content
- Onsite Tactics: Design product template based on journey-oriented content strategy. Reduce content to highlight the most important and relevant selling points/CTAs.
- KPIs:
- X% decrease in bounce rate on product pages
- X% increase on time on product pages
- X% increase on product page conversion rates
- Goal: Streamline Product Page Content
3. Build out Website Personas for Journey Mapping
Understanding the different personas using your website is pivotal because these users and their unique goals should inform the content requirements. For example, a large software company’s website will have multiple personas. One persona might be a new, less-informed user who is seeking a solution for a specific problem they have. Another persona may be a returning customer and therefore more educated. This informed user might be looking for product support or to try a free download of a new product.
These two users have very different needs for the website and therefore the way they navigate the site will be different, and the website content and design need to account for that. Understanding the goals of the various personas and the likely journey or path in how they use the site to achieve that goal directly impacts the content and the content hierarchy they should see.
4. Create Data-Driven Navigation
An intuitive site structure (displayed via the navigation) is integral to a great website. The navigation informs the user how the site is structured, and when done well, helps guide the user to the content they need to see. According to Sweor, “88% of online customers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.” Considering many customers rely on either search or the navigation to guide them, having an intuitive navigation that ensures every persona has a clear path to their destination is key. Think of your sitemap as a personal GPS through the sales funnel. It should route a user from a unique “Current Location” to the end goal of conversion. Analyze user-behavior data to better understand how different customers are using the navigation currently. Is there a significant difference between new and returning user behavior? Also, see if there are other ways customers are using the site that aren’t accounted for in the navigation that should be. Once a proposed sitemap/navigation is created, conduct usability testing to validate the new structure.
The goal of a good navigation system should be to get the user to the most relevant content as quickly and easily as possible. Much of this comes from smart design, but content plays a big role here, too. Use skimmable, digestible words that customers understand, not lengthy, internal company jargon. Users are quick to click, so using copy that resonates fast and leads the user to the right path will provide a better experience for them. This applies to content across all pages as well as navigation content. “Most of the time we don’t choose the best option—we choose the first reasonable option.” Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug.
There are only a few chances to convince the user that they can get to the content they need before they get frustrated, bounce, and look elsewhere at another site. As such, every piece of content needs to be thoughtful and intuitive.
5. Define Goals for Each Page-Type/Template
At the enterprise level with hundreds of products and solutions spanning multiple business units, it becomes extremely difficult to give all the content the time and nurturing it needs. It becomes tempting to simply include everything as a “catch-all”, but this is a fast-track to overwhelming and losing user interest.
As mentioned previously, different personas require different content. Defining goals for each page-type/template helps focus the content to achieve that goal. Is the call to action driving a conversion for that goal? Are the proper users being driven to this page to achieve that goal? Do these page-specific goals align with the previously set redesign goals, tactics, and KPIs? Once goals are well-defined for each page-type/template, then the content requirements and hierarchy should be thought out accordingly.
6. Determine Content Requirements and Hierarchy
Now that page goals are defined, it’s time to determine content requirements and content flow. The content should be aligned with the goals of that page and when done right, will improve conversions. The order of the content displayed is important, as users skim and expect to see the most relevant content at the top. The perfect marriage of content and design always refers back to the goals and on-site tactics. Ensure the content drives the user to perform the goal of that page (whether it’s downloading a free trial, contacting sales, submitting a form, etc.). Once content requirements and hierarchy are well defined, then it’s finally time for design!
Understanding and planning out content needs early-on makes the design process more efficient and effective. That being said, the biggest ROI for smart content strategy will be proven after launch when those previously defined KPIs improve.
Looking to get started on your next big website redesign? The experts at Bluetext are ready to help!
Always keep in mind: your website is the first impression that users will get to see what it’s like to do business with you. Just like you would put on a clean suit for a pitch, put on your best interface on your website. Do not drive away a business opportunity by designing a cumbersome website that is hard to navigate! Below are the best practices for implementing a B2B navigational system with users in mind.
Create a Buyer Persona
When thinking through your navigation, it is important to focus on who is buying your product. A key goal should be to tailor your navigation to buyers, without excluding any potential leads. A way to do this is by creating buyer personas.
Buyer personas are fictional representations of who is buying your product. Your personas should be rooted in data from analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, or Siteimprove. When making navigation decisions, ask yourself, WWMBD — “what would my buyer persona do?”.
Bluetext, as a top UX design agency, uses a combination of quantitative web traffic data and stakeholder perspectives to ensure a comprehensive understanding of a business’ users. It is always important to put trust in the numbers, but also consider the unique perspectives a sales or product marketing team may bring. A bounce rate may key you into acknowledging a problem but does not always explain the root of frustration.
Declutter Your Navigation
According to a study conducted by Hubspot, 76 percent of people answered that the most important factor in a website’s design is the ease of use. In order to make your website as easy to use as possible, declutter your navigation and design it to be scannable and intuitive.
A good rule of thumb for decluttering navigation is to present the user with no more than six top-level navigational choices in your main navigation. If more than six choices are needed, consider creating a utility navigation for items that could be considered “tools” or require action. Utility navigations provide a sense of hierarchy and create separation from content that could be mostly for browsing or educating buyers on the products and services your company offers.
Need some help purging your navigation? Get a fresh perspective! Hiring a UX agency will give your site a fresh set of eyes to evaluate what is and isn’t needed. Like a true scientist, a UX design agency will also use tools to test their theories with tools such as a tree test to validate proposed sitemaps.
Implement Sticky Navigation
Usability studies show that implementing a persistent website navigation, or a “sticky navigation” increased website conversions as much as 10%. Studies show that users were able to focus on the products on the webpage they were on and scrolled further down the page when the navigation was always at the top of the screen.
Keeping navigation items accessible at all points of the user journey will help avoid the “dead end” scenario if lost on a page. It’s like having a built-in GPS for your user journey to always present alternate routes and course correction.
Make it Easy for Users to Contact You
Having your “Contact” button in the top navigation, as well as your footer, ensures that users will be able to get in touch with your business no matter where they are on the site. There is nothing more frustrating than wanting to get in touch with someone without the proper means to do so. If you implement a sticky navigation as stated above, adding “Contact” will serve as a persistent call to action leading to more leads generated from your website.
Need to make changes to your website to improve your navigation? Bluetext can help.
Your website acts as an essential business tool — used across every industry for a diverse number of functions. B2B companies rely on their websites to generate leads, phone calls, or physical location visits. No matter what function your website serves, there is one universal goal every business wants to accomplish with its website: leveraging it to create more growth.
There are several ways to increase your leads, sales, and revenue without investing in a complete redesign and rebuild. A great website will enable your team to work smarter, not harder. Here are tips that you should consider trying — while simple, they can help your business grow significantly.
1. Responsive Design
Mobile accounts for over half of global website traffic; if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you may be losing valuable leads. In the coming years this number will only increase, and ensuring a mobile-friendly design may be crucial to your future success. A responsive website design (RWD) adapts to fit any screen in a way that makes all pages, features, and actions accessible to users. Making sure that your website can support traffic on any browsing device ensures that users are not dropping off your site because they cannot access what they’re looking for.
2. Simplify Your Navigation
In order to increase conversions, you need to keep users on your website. When a user lands on your website, they should be able to quickly and intuitively navigate to relevant content, allowing them to find the information they need without losing interest. The first step to keeping a user on your site is maintaining a simple and intuitive navigation. Too many options will likely overwhelm your user; it is important to have a clear path for users to the action you would like them to take as well as the information they are looking for. Otherwise, they may look elsewhere.
3. Avoid Clutter and Complex Noise
While incorporating animation and motion on your website adds visual interest for users and helps your site stand out, it’s important to be aware of the balance between unique design and overly-complex noise. Too much movement can be overwhelming for your user and may detract from what they originally came to your website to achieve. A complex design can also negatively impact your site speed, potentially increasing bounce rate and affecting your SEO score. While finding a middle-ground between these two extremes can be difficult, it’s important to ask if new design elements will add value to the end-user.
4. Don’t Go Crazy With Your Fonts
While fonts are an easy way to enhance your CVI and bring visual interest to your website, they may also be difficult to read for some users or on some devices. Using a Sans Serif font for your website’s body copy and making sure the font size and color meet accessibility standards is crucial in getting your message across to users. If they are not able to read the content on your site, they definitely won’t be converting.
User experience is crucial to effective website design, but so is your internal team! Here are some tips to streamline the digital sales process for end-users and internal teams. A positive user experience will directly translate into increased conversions.
Use Call Tracking
If driving users to make a phone call is one of the main goals of your website, it is important to know which page has prompted the user to make the call. You can easily track this information by using unique phone numbers on different pages, allowing you to determine which page is driving the most traffic to your call center. These numbers can easily be configured to route to your main phone line, meaning there won’t be any disruption to the way you’re currently handling phone leads.
Install Live Chat
While live chat may not seem immediately relevant to your business, every website can benefit from this simple tool. Live chat functions to facilitate interactions with your users and enables them to quickly get the answers they’re looking for without spending too much time hunting around the site. Many chat services will also integrate with mobile phones, allowing your business to easily monitor traffic.
To learn more about driving leads via a responsive UX design and how Bluetext can help you increase conversion rates, contact us today.
Looking to jazz up your website? One of the hottest website design trends in recent years has been on page animation. But like any design decision, there are pros and cons. Bluetext top website user experience designers weigh in on the debate on how far you should go in injecting motion to your website.
To animate or not to animate?
Animation enthusiasts recommend adding motion to create a dynamic and flowing user experience. Not to mention, animation has been a major web design trend over the last few years, meaning your visitors are accustomed to seeing it on competitor sites and therefore expect a comparable experience on your pages. The opponents, or static supporters, on the other hand, will argue that animation is distracting and can seem unprofessional in certain industries. For example, B2B has traditionally been a strictly static and straightforward approach to website design, leaving the flashy frills to more consumer-based websites. However, having an interactive animated website could be a valuable point of differentiation. So what do the experts recommend?
Truth be told, animation can be a wonderful addition to a website’s aesthetic and functionality, but only when executed in the right way to fit your broader business goals. Careless integration of animations into your web design scheme can be a real eyesore and have negative impacts on site speed, SEO, and user experience. Weighing these pros and cons carefully, Bluetext website user experience designers recommend subtle animation and keeping in mind the following considerations.
Not all animations were made equal! Motion design spans a wide breadth of categories. Bluetext recommends the following types for a professional, yet modern feel to your site.
1. Loading Animations
Loading animations can be used as an effective way to engage users from the get-go. Since it only takes a user 3 seconds to abandon a page if the content doesn’t load, the use of loading animations offers content right from the start. Animated typography, countdowns, or a simple animated logo allow users to have fun watching while waiting for the site to load.
2. Micro-Interactions
Taking a cue from the mega “micro” trend sweeping the digital marketing industry (microtargeting and micro-moments sound familiar?)This effect is one of the hottest trends of website design. These are used to make small interactions (such as clicking a button) quick and clear for the user. Hover effects are one of the most well-known examples of micro-interactions. Certain page elements, such as navigation buttons, CTAs, or linked images, are the ideal canvas for mico animations.
3. Page Transitions
Subtle animation can be purposefully to ease the navigation from one component to another and between pages. Arrows, background scrolling, load bars, or any component that offers directionality to the user are great opportunities to use this effect.
4. Parallax Scrolling
Using full-width imagery, this effect takes the user on a cohesive journey as they move down the page. By definition, the background moves at a different speed to the foreground elements, creating a visually stunning effect on either full-page backgrounds and strips. While this is sure to give a wow-factor to your main website, it’s important to remember this effect is not available on mobile devices.
5. Decorative Delights
While these effects do not offer any functional benefits, they can be used to add more interest to the page. While it might be difficult to imagine serious B2B websites using these layouts, this might be exactly what your site needs to spice up drier content sections. Especially when placed near elements intended to draw attention, such as new messages, lightboxes, key CTA buttons, this turns aesthetic pop into actionable results.
With so many options for website motion, it can be tempting to want to do it all. However, top website designers have one golden rule: moderation is key. This rule doesn’t just apply to junk food, overdosing your site on fun animations can overwhelm the viewer and distract from the most important aspect: the content! Use animation sparingly and strategically. Before you fall in love with a beautiful design, consider the practicality. There are instances when animation could actually detract from your site, for example, if it hinders a user’s ability to read important messages or complete a conversion. For instance, you shouldn’t add animation to text paragraphs because it will make reading them much harder. You also would not want to add animations to fields where visitors enter their own content (such as a contact form or comments), because it would distract them from completing the task. When considering embedding motion effect, pressure test your decision against these questions:
- Does the site’s movement guide the viewer when to scroll and where to click?
- Does the animation support brand storytelling by gradually revealing information?
- Does the animation help a viewer visualize your product or service’s impact?
- Does this effect break up static scroll?
If you can answer yes to these questions, feel free to act on your motion goals! As long as you consider functionality first, animation can be a powerful visual tool to capture your audience and drive them deeper down the sales funnel.
Are you looking to drive users to your website using animation, but don’t know where to begin? Get in touch with Bluetext.
Have you ever found yourself on a website, staring blankly at the screen wondering where the rest of the pages are? Navigation is one of the most important functions of any web page whether it be a blog, product listing page, about section, or a document library. If your user doesn’t know where this content is housed, the utility of the information is lost! As a crucial element of user experience, failing to build smart navigation into your digital interface can lead to a variety of issues including secondary UX issues, accessibility problems, and increased bounce rates from frustrated users.
Let’s take a step back; what is a navigation menu, and do I still need one if I have “search”?
Navigation menus are maps of the categories or features of your content; on websites, these are known as sitemaps. These menus can appear in a variety of ways; from the traditional header locked navigation bar, to hamburger menus that pop out to link to various interior pages of a website.
While many websites have a Search function of some kind, whether it be a search bar or filter, research shows that 70% of users rely on navigating to content directly. While search features are helpful to some users, navigation menus can lead your visitors to the content they need quickly and reliably.
No matter where you are with your website, here are some quick, easy tips to help you optimize your platform for a better user experience.
1. The 3 Click Rule
Your navigation structure should be intuitive and allow users to land on any page and find what they are looking for in 3 clicks or less.
If your site has lots of content and sub-pages that relate back to a greater unifying category, take advantage of breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are a component of navigation menus that help users orient themselves within a sitemap. They can be embedded into the navigation bar as a dropdown, or appear in the design of the child pages on your site to guide users through the various layers of content.
2. Show Off Your Menu
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel-don’t hide your navigation menu! When a user visits your site, it’s likely one of the hundred other web properties that they have browsed in the last few days. As our digital lives have progressed, users have become accustomed to certain kinds of queues and user interface (UI) elements. Keep your navigation menu in an intuitive location, be that the left rail, top of the browser window, or a pop-out hamburger menu with an obvious icon.
3. State the Obvious
Be as clear and descriptive as possible. Avoid using vague descriptions in your navigation headings. If a user can’t tell exactly what to expect from a page in the navigation, there’s a chance they won’t make it past the landing page. Use descriptive language to identify what your pages contain, less is more with heading titles. Streamline the main menu display experience where possible and take advantage of dropdown menus for categories with multiple child pages. If you hyperlink to pages within your site from banners or in-line content, make your hyperlinks obvious!
4. Stay on Topic
Don’t let SEO impact your navigation taxonomy. While ranking well in search engines is important, packing your Headers and menu items with keywords that don’t relate to the page contents won’t do you any favors with users. Avoid this common pitfall by using the copy and metadata on your pages for SEO strategies, leave your headings and menu items clean and accurate for better UX.
5. Lead with a Mobile-First Mentality
Over 53% of all web traffic occurs on mobile devices. When designing your navigation menu, start by thinking about how users might visit the site; on both their computers and mobile devices. Take advantage of responsive designs that can adapt to a variety of browsers and devices rather than discovering post-launch that your navigation is broken.
6. Stop Guessing! Test Your Audience
If you’ve updated your navigation menu but still see disappointing numbers for bounce rate and click through on your site, test your experience. User behavior can be monitored with tests such as a Crazy Egg Heatmap, which illustrates where your users are browsing on the page.
TLDR: improving your navigation design can improve your relationship with users
Confusing or obscure navigation will lead to fewer visitors to your interior pages and can result in awful analytics reports. Clear and effective navigation can enhance visitors understanding of where your content is located, instill confidence in browsing your site, and create credibility about your product.
Do you need to up your navigation game but you’re not sure where to start? Get in touch with us.
There’s no denying it. Our society is more digital now than ever. You, me, your neighbor, your neighbor’s neighbor… we are all online. Most importantly, your prospective clients are online and are ready to consume high-quality digital content.
Now is the time to invest in your website and make it more user-friendly for your audience. There is a lot of low-hanging fruit to improve your site, ranging from basic content updates like changing imagery and posting blog posts. Or investing in more impactful measures such as consulting top digital marketing agencies to understand the most cost-effective way to improve your website.
So what exactly will make your website user-friendly for today’s content consumers? Many UX designers will tell you that you should either keep your users either scrolling or clicking from one page to another within your site. So which is the better user experience? To scroll or not to scroll?
Keep reading (and scrolling) to understand why scrolling on a website is OKAY and why it is actually expected from the vast majority of online users.
Social Media
Today’s world is used to scrolling. Why? The never-ending social media feed.
Social media sites are designed with one thing in mind: to get users to consume as much content as possible. The best way to do this is to get them to continue to scroll so that they can consume infinite amounts of new content. Most social media platforms are best used on mobile devices, which are easy to use for scrolling through as the flick of a finger takes very little effort.
The Computer Mouse & Track Pad
Okay, so this may be a given… but you know that little roller ball on your mouse? Okay, wait. That may be a little archaic… Do you know that trackpad on your laptop? Well, that lovely thing is used to invite the user to scroll down a page. We know that webpages are going to be lengthy, so much so that the actual hardware we use to “surf the web” has adapted to allow us to do so.
Okay, pause. Those two reasons are only related to how the physical interface prompts a user to scroll. You may be asking, “What are the different types of scrolling that you can include on my website?”
1. The Subtle Scroll
Design the page so that it appears as though you are scrolling through one long piece of content. Maybe the background color stays the same, maybe it slowly changes color, as shown on Palantir’s About Page. Perhaps you’re experiencing parallax scrolling – which in and of itself invites the user to fixate on one piece of the webpage at a time. With this effect, the user barely notices the page length, as the seamless design shift keeps them engaged and focused on the story.
Check out how Bluetext implemented this type of scrolling on the homepage of the Clarabridge website. We designed a seamless animation that invited the user to continue scrolling through the homepage to better explain the technical and analytical power behind the Clarabridge platform.
2. Fixed Long-Scrolling
Instead of having the whole page scroll, fixed long-scrolling allows for specific aspects of the content to remain static while the rest of the content scrolls around it. You can also set up the scrolling to shift to a new section when the user reaches a certain point.
This is ideal if your website has important content or CTAs that should always be accessible to the user. For example, a sticky call to action button is often used to keep key conversion points always present and top of mind.
3. Infinite Scroll
This is most similar to the type of scrolling shown in social media. Is your website a news site? Do you have blog content that you want your users to explore? Consider implementing infinite scroll on your listing pages, allowing posts to continue to load so that the page gives the appearance of infinite content. Of course, this can often be overwhelming for a user who is attempting to find something specific, so we invite you to consider including intuitive filtering so that users can self-select the types of content they are looking for.
(Photo Credit: knowband.com)
4. Parallax Scrolling
Parallax scrolling is different from the previous three types of scrolling as it invites the user to see new pieces of content and animations with every scroll. Check out how Bewegen invites the user to scroll through their home page and explore their main product. For a personal favorite, give a scroll through Albino Tonnina’s personal website.
Now that you have four great design options to incorporate into your website, it’s time for you to choose the right design for the content on your website. Top web design agencies like Bluetext are great resources for you to turn to in order to gain expert insights on what is best for you.
Looking to begin your next website project? Contact Bluetext today for a consultation.
The recent COVID-19 outbreak has had ripple effects across almost every industry. Around the world, the global pandemic has altered the way we live, socialize and even conduct business. In this unprecedented scenario clouded with uncertainty we all, especially digital marketers, are wondering: What needs to change? And how drastically?
When it comes to search engine optimization strategies, digital marketing and content agencies are continually researching the latest trends and evolving best practices. In the current environment, the role of a top digital marketing agency is to keep a pulse on the present, while also looking forward to strategies that will drive long-term success. Here at Bluetext, our digital marketing analysts are harnessing a variety of tactics to support overall business goals and serve users the best we can during these uncertain times. Check out the top ways we’ve been monitoring and optimizing around current events.
Strength in Numbers
When in doubt, trust the data! Using top marketing analytical tools, such as SEMRush and Moz, one can track the aggregate behavior of online users. Gathering the most up to date data can be tricky, so don’t do it alone. The more expertise and tools, the better. Trust a marketing analytics agency to help break down the numbers into a comprehensible story of website traffic. Use professional tools, such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, to monitor the recent fluctuations in your page traffic. Do a keyword analysis of your current keyword list to see if search volume has shifted. Google Trends page is a great tool to identify emerging patterns. Are there new phrases your customers are searching for? If the language has evolved, so should your SEO strategy. If you have chatbots for customer service transcripts, these can provide valuable insight into current needs.
In short, the data doesn’t lie. Businesses need to understand search traffic shifts to get as clear as possible a picture into whether to pivot your SEO strategy or not.
Content is King — Still
Ultimately any changes to your SEO strategy should be driven by your unique business needs. For example, a brick and mortar store will need to cater to how they can serve customers at home. If your business was already available online, you may be experiencing altered user behavior as people spend more time at home and online. Every business should ask: “Is the content relevant to current needs?” Your messages may need to shift in sensitivity to the current environment. A complete overhaul is not necessary, nor appropriate. However, if there are opportunities to generate new content that supports your users in a unique time, do so. And if your business is considered essential or has been significantly impacted, you should create a dedicated page to capture all relevant coronavirus traffic. Keep the page simple, focused and sensitive. Don’t try to provide the latest breaking news, but exactly what and how your company is doing. If your business has been minimally affected, perhaps there is an opportunity to contribute to emerging conversations. Exploding Topics is a valuable tool for up-to-date trends across search engines and social media mentions. At the end of the day, users are seeking timely and accurate information now and long after the dust has settled on this pandemic.
Optimize Often
Optimize Often
Search engine optimization is never a “one and done” task. Any digital marketing strategy requires upkeep as is the nature of the evolving industry. Now, more than ever, flexibility is paramount to staying afloat. Be proactive, be vigilant. SEO strategy will need re-evaluation in the upcoming weeks and months. No one can predict how long the pandemic will last so you must be ready to pivot to any new or resurging customer needs.
In an unpredictable environment, one thing is certain: this is our new (remote) reality. Don’t expect old strategies to work as they once did, and don’t expect this shift to “blow over soon”. Your business should be prepared to remain relevant now more than ever. There will likely be long term implications in behaviors and business operations. Get behind the shifts now and flex your agility. It will pay off in your long term business health.
If you’re looking to partner with an agency to pivot your SEO strategy, let us know.
It’s rare for a business to offer its services for free. The phrase “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” reigns true in most industries and all business decisions. Originating with early-century saloon owners marketing free, salty lunches as a way to entice beer drinking, even the etymology of the #TNSTAAFL phrase foreshadows the destiny of commerce itself – it’s impossible to get something for nothing.
So, what does a free ham sandwich in 1891 have to do with 2020 content marketers and gated thought leadership? Imagine your business is the bar and that hungry and thirsty passerby out front is the CMO searching for a way to convince their boss on more paid media dollars, or a CTO who needs a VPN alternative. You have something they could want – a delicious, frothy piece of premium content to quench their industry-specific questions. Post that “Free Lunch” sign, give them some snacks, and then charge them for the beer to wash it all down. You’ll have a bar full of returning customers every time.
You Want to Be a Thought Leader?
Let’s break it down. Businesses that are trying to establish themselves as thought leaders in their space usually have two types of content: Blogs and premium content. Typically, you want to spend your time on the premium content first and then chop it up into free digestible portions, which become your blogs. Since the blogs are free and busting at the seams with the same SEO juice that you prioritized in your premium content, both should come up as a result when someone is looking online for an industry-question you have the answer to.
Think about the last time you were researching B2B tactics. You wouldn’t hand over your email address to just anyone at the beginning of your research. You browsed around to see who knows what they’re talking about. Once you found a credible thought leader, then you actually started paying attention to what they were talking about.
Economy vs. Premium Content
According to content marketing agencies, balance is key. The trick is to walk the line between having free ungated blogs that are enticing and helpful to draw traffic but not too helpful and giving away a company’s expertise without gaining any leads. Save the premium advice and info for the premium content. Ask yourself, “Would someone reasonably pay for this service?”
Make it exclusive, insightful, and urgent. Typically, premium content are eBooks, courses, webinars, checklists, and sometimes videos. Those resources take a lot of effort to create, so you want to put them to work for you and your marketing team. This premium content comes with a price or a gate. The key to the gate and unlocking the juicy stuff is usually as harmless as an email.
As a top content marketing agency, Bluetext breaks down some do’s and don’ts behind gating the premium content.
Do Design Gated Content Conversions Using Ungated Content UX/UI
Make sure your tip top-funnel blogs feed into your top funnel gated content. A UX design company will engineer an ungated content user interface to drive invested leads to gated content. Dangle the carrot and then drive them down a rabbit hole of insights. If your resource page template’s layout has a related topic listing, you can get someone reading one blog to jump to the next, especially when you have click-worthy resource titles.
Create a clear, focused path to follow. Put an enticing CTA at every step of your ungated posts to draw them to the gated content. Theoretically, the user lands on a first blog post via Google search, they peruse 2-3 of your other blogs, and then they are a bit invested by the time they get to gated content. Long story short, using the Free Lunch scenario, clean up your bar so it looks inviting enough to have them buy a drink.
Don’t Forget to Design the Landing Page UX/UI for Conversion
At least make the gated content page template easy to use and worthy of personal info. Best practices for gated content landing page design include showcasing the product, talking about the benefits and insights they can learn, highlighting a quote from the piece, and ideally some social proofing or testimonials. A website design agency will be your best bet to formatting these nuggets of information in a clean, digestible fashion. Like any other business transaction, sell it with foreshadowing what they are about to invest in.
Do Add SEO Excerpt from Gated Content on the Landing Page
The Google Algorithm crawls ungated content, but while you will be losing out on SEO potential by putting keywords behind the gate, you can still put some of those keywords directly on the landing page. Think of it like a teaser, or a sample sip of the beer you want them to buy.
Don’t Miss Out on Capturing User Journey Clues Via CTA Pixel
If the user has followed the intended path laid out above, they have digested other information on the website before converting on the gated content. A digital marketing and analytics expert will implement Google Analytics or UTM parameters to track where users come from and behavioral trends. This is a critical insight that can help your sales and marketing team follow up and understand the lead without asking them. In fact, don’t ask them anything else besides their email (coming up next!).
Trusting a digital marketing and analytics agency to configure the UI/UX back end of your CMS to gather clues (via UTM or Google Analytics) will ensure these tools talk to your CRM when it passes over the lead. Your CRM can then organize to segment those leads into audience pools with the user journey info and UTM parameters. Did they arrive via Facebook or LinkedIn? Did they read about technology or marketing thought leadership? Did they visit SMB or Enterprise blogs before? Depending on what you want to do with the leads gathered from the gated content, a digital marketing agency can follow up with retargeting campaigns. By taking out the guesswork, digital marketing campaigns are then geared toward the topics and categories you know a specific user is interested in.
Don’t Over-Gate with Nosey Forms
Sometimes businesses want more defining characteristics of the user to help their follow up marketing to have some foundational info. Asking for an email is the easiest marketable piece of info you can gather – but should you want more, make sure the form is at least easy to use. For instance, free type is ok, but dropdown select from offers convenience. Ideally, if you need to ask for more info, triage that asks by making some questions optional so you don’t scare anyone away. Remember – you want them more than they want you at this point. You might be the third tab they have open in their research, so think twice if knowing their position is worth losing them to a competitor’s simpler gated content.
Do Gate Content. Don’t Gate Content.
We wish it were black and white, but the answer to the infamous To Gate or Not to Gate question comes down to the following:
- How exclusive is your offer?
- How easy is your form to fill out?
- How SEO friendly is your LP?
- How actionable is your CTA?
If you have your thought leadership on fleek from a UX/UI, SEO, and CMS perspective than you’re ready to start offering free lunches to any potential lead that comes into your digital business.