Yes but there is no single rule to follow for optimising search position.
Social media have done an excellent marketing job convincing people that is where they must establish a presence. Facebook In particular is very clever at gaining accounts for companies and organisations and then once these entities have a large enough following, require payment for messages to be provided to more than 2% of the followers.
For not-for-profit organisations investing in various social media platforms, it is a bit daunting that Facebook has frequently updated its algorithm to reduce the amount of followers who will see a brand’s post, unless those posts are paid advertisements (1). This has become so prevalent that 98% of followers will never see the posts in their News Feeds. Similarly, Twitter seems to be moving in a similar direction with the announcement it will introduce an algorithm-controlled feed as well (2).
Research show 72% people prefer to receive promotional content through email(3). Should your organisation not be selling product, you are still trying to sell the organisation to gain credibility and importantly, donations.
Short headlines that can be understood out of context and containing a keyword associated with your content will bring maximum reward for user engagement and search engine optimisation (SEO).
People scanning headlines will gain a clearer idea of the information in your content. Remember first impressions are fast.
Recent research has revealed some fascinating data about what computer devices Australians use and assicated activities on each device1.
We are reaching the point where the majority of households have a tablet as well as a PC with 75% also having a smart phone.
Unlike the PC which everyone in the family will access, the tablet is “owned” by a single user in the same way as their smart phone.
A key piece of information from this research for us is that both on the PC or the tablet, Australians are looking at their email.
Simplifying website structure may appear to be counterintuitive but here are three solid reasons why.
According to Jakob Neilsen people learn a core set of features fairly easily during their early use of a system whether it be a website or other computer system. This includes experts in the field. Everyone learns things differently.
Not so long ago the internet for most people was displayed primarily on a desk top or laptop computer. In this environment most things look pretty much the same. There were challenges and web standards were often interpreted differently between the various browsers but the page layout was designed to fit the range of screen resolutions of the day.
Early web access for mobile phones started around the turn of the century. The Nokia 9880i Communicator introduced in 1998 was a notable precursor to today’s smartphone’s with its large screen and web enabled network features. But the revolution to the smartphones we know today began with the introduction of first Apple iPhone in 2007.
How do you decide where to put effort for your online activity to achieve best value?
US company Custora recently released a report (1) that shows that social media does not pack much punch compared with organic search and email.
Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. A conventional layout is thus more likely to make sites profitable.
According to research undertaken by Jakob Nielsen, each bar shows the amount of time users spent on fixations within a 100-pixel-wide stripe running down the screen, starting from the very left.
Web users make up their minds about the quality of a website in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage!
According to Canadian research it takes less than 50 milliseconds to decide if you like a website. A surprising result for lead author Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University and her colleagues who believed it would take at least 10 times longer to form an opinion.
We acknowledge the Dja Dja Wurrung as the traditional owners of the land we love.