Thursday, February 24, 2022

Why and how you should integrate UX User Experience into product development?


 

Why User Experience for Product Development?

A user experience is how an individual interacts through the utility, easiness, and efficiency of a product. The creation of a product relies on User Experience. Data on User Experience lead to innovative ideas which create a new product. Data from the public ensure the right product development towards the targeted users. So, for a successful product, User Experience plays a crucial role in development.

Likewise, how can a company integrate User Experience into product development?

This paragraph will introduce the five most important techniques to integrate user experience into product development. User Experience has become a new playground for Companies. Ensuring a Great User Experience is the major step in Product Development. The techniques used are as follows:

1.       User Research

2.       Personas

3.       User Experience Canvases

4.       User Experience Designs

5.       Wireframes

User Research:

Firstly, a Product originates by considering the user’s needs. There shouldn’t be any assumptions about lifestyle, interests, or demographical features. User research collects data from target users through a structured process. Moreover, User Research data confirm the product you develop meets the needs and expectations of end consumers.

User Research splits into two subsets:

1.       Qualitative Research

2.       Quantitative Research

Qualitative Research

This research use interview techniques. They use open-ended questions to understand the behavior and stress level of users while using the product. In addition, this research uses a small group of users to find their shopping habits. Qualitative research needs greater care since it collects opinions from users rather than numerical data.

Quantitative Research

This research focuses on a larger group and uses online surveys to gather information. Quantitative Research helps to identify the patterns and trends among users. In Addition, it helps statically reliable way to access targeted user groups. We will get good objective and unbiased data with much care and precise data collection.

Further, I will take you through how Interviews and surveys are done.

 Interviews and surveys

The best way to collect user experience data is to conduct interviews and surveys. It seems like a lot of work but it’s simple. First, we need to sort the respondents. Then use social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn for interviews and surveys.

For Instance, you are developing an online shopping application. Social media platforms, help you find people in shopping groups who are interested in shopping apps. After that, you need to contact them and invite them for an interview or survey. Since this is online you can give them vouchers or freebies to gather enough participants. In other words, you will gather information and gain a few customers as well. You can use Qualaroo, Hotjar Polls, or Intercom as a platform to conduct interviews and surveys.

Above all always prepare the right interview questions focusing on users’ expectations, needs, and problems. This gives an insight into what users want, what they achieve, and what problems can occur along the way.

Most Importantly follow the tips while preparing the questions:

·       Interview and Survey should not take more than 15 minutes. Lengthy ones will be boring for the participants. In addition, participants should understand the reason for the survey.

·       Prepare questions as if you are directly asking the participants. This helps to avoid off-the-topic questions.

·       Always choose open-ended and close-ended questions to understand the user’s needs.

·       Give options in a way to understand what users expect from your product.

Personas:

Personas are fictional user creations based on real-life users’ data collected through research. This helps to represent the different user types who similarly use the product. In Addition, personas data include behavior, goals, needs, and experiences of users. Data shouldn’t be prepared out of assumptions. User Experience design personas should consider empathy with target users. Personas help the company to understand the user’s personalities, traits, interests, and needs.

Tips for Effective Personas:

1.       Collect detailed data from targeted users.

2.       Differentiate the users based on their expectations about the product.

3.       Prepare a hypothesis based on the differences and qualities of different users.

4.       Data should be from multiple sources but focus only on the creation of a single persona

5.       Explain the situation or scenario why the consumer needs your product

In addition, here are some uses of Personas in Design Projects:

1.       Should reflect a consumer’s behavioral pattern, needs, skill set, and goals toward the product.

2.       Should include what consumer achieves by a product through the design. This helps to create a unique product from competitors.

3.       Should include day-to-day life approach showing how a product performs among consumers addressing their needs.

4.       Should include the challenges faced by consumers to improve the quality of the product.

To Conclude always prepare Personas from the targeted user’s point of view.

UX Canvases:

The key to conversion is by relating the targeted user needs to the developing product.  UX Canvases helps to document all your problems like a business model. There are different types of canvases available. However, it’s better to use User-Centered Design canvases from a popular business model.

User-Centered Canvas has 9 different sections. The left-hand side focuses on their needs, problems, fears, and challenges faced by the users. The right side focuses on the new product solutions for the targeted users. User-Centered Canvas help in the initial hypothesis and helps in the final decision.

Creating canvases helps to gather all the different data on a single page which helps the developers to refer with ease. Since all the challenges are on a single page it’s easy to come up with solutions for the product.

Benefits of UX Canvases:

1.       The UX Canvases gives an idea for the team to start user-centric conversations

2.       It gives data to the team about why and what problems they are solving for the new product

3.       UX Canvases gives more clarity for the new product development design

4.       It gives an idea about the current position of the product development and areas which require more clarifications.

Above all, The UX Canvases are an excellent tool for the research, planning, and discovery phase of a project. Filling the data on UX Canvases will give clarity about assumptions and would give practical ideas for product development.

User Experience Designs:

User Experience Design is a process where a team designs a product that gives relevant experience to users. The entire process of creation includes design, usability, branding, fun, and pleasure in user experience and functions. User Experience Design is a process that happens even before a product arrives in the user’s hand.

Moreover, User Experience Design focuses on three factors why what, and how a product is used. “Why” relates to why a user should buy the product for daily uses and the values a user achieves. “What” refers to what functionality a user can access with the product? “How” refers to how the demands of a user are achieved with the product. Likewise, for software development make sure that the software has a seamless experience through an existing device.

In addition, the main goal of User Experience Design include:

1.       Understand the use and needs of the product among users.

2.       Specify in detail the user requirements

3.       Design the product with solutions

4.       Evaluate and rank against requirements.

Wireframes:

Wireframes help the experts to come to an overview of the developing product. It helps to map the flow of possible design solutions based on user data. These conclusions or overview gives an insight regarding business and user needs. The wireframes help the board members to decide on the prototype for user-focused products. Good Wireframes are the backbones for greater products. This would guide the company on how the solutions would reach the targeted users. A good Wireframe would have a realistic, easy layout so anyone can understand the worthiness or concepts for the developing product.

In other words, Wireframes are an art where the structure should easily reveal the company solutions. This enables the experts to give feedback based on wireframes.

To sum up, here are a few tips to prepare a wireframe:

1.       Concentrate on usefulness, availability, layout, and format to make an easier design for use, produce and sell.

2.       Structure the data on a hierarchy that helps the company to understand the information easily.

3.       Each page should have proper headings, links, and images which makes it easy to understand.

4.       Optimized wireframes give a better view across all displays of different devices.

5.       Always maintain clean and understandable wireframes

Conclusion:

Understanding and integrating user experience would help to group the targeted users. To achieve a high conversion rate always integrate user experience into product development. To conclude, a product’s success depends on integrating the user experience from the initial stage of development.


Linkedin

Medium Blog

Friday, January 28, 2022

Google Algorithm Update 2021

 Google Algorithm Update 2021

 

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update

What is Google Algorithm Update?

Have You at any point considered how a bit of information is displayed on a browser when You enter keywords in a search engine? There are millions and trillion of data accessible on the net and a tremendous measure of information is added to the data-set the entire day. You as a web user retrieve data-dependent on keywords within a fraction of a second. It's all because of Google Algorithm. An algorithm is a set of specific instructions coded to solve specific and complex problems under the digital computation of computers. Google Algorithm uses many factors like keywords you input, Demography of a user, Quality, relevance, freshness of content, and a web page's usability. Google Algorithm always focused to give a user-friendly experience on web pages by prioritizing rich quality content, faster loading time, the best possible security, and Responsive web pages. To meet high expectations Google Algorithm is designed with high standards. Quality Checkers around the globe review the algorithm under strict guidelines and Google releases updates to evolve the standards of Algorithm Day by Day. The year 2021 was not different and Google rolled out several Algorithm updates to improve the user experience overall.

Knowing the relevant updates will keep you updated in line with SEO and help you to improve ranking by knowing the performance shifts. The 8 most major Google Algorithm Update for 2021 includes:

Passage Ranking

About this Results

 Mobile-First Indexing 

 Product Reviews 

 MUM 

 Link Spam 

Page Experience

Page Titles

PASSAGE RANKING:

Passage ranking is an automated feature Displaying the most relevant content as sections from larger web pages.

Here is an example of passage indexing.

Just assume I wrote an article about Google AdSense. Instead of writing a definition, I wrote detailed content covering a wider area about Google AdSense. If You search for “how to kickstart Google AdSense” Passage Ranking would display relevant sections from the entire blog rather than displaying the whole content.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - Passage Ranking

How Passage Indexing is useful for Content Creators?

Google Use Neural nets and the BERT algorithm to understand the Content for website ranking. Webpages that are already ranked well may not see huge changes but pages with large and relevant content without proper optimization may see a boost in traffic since passage indexing's tend to display relevant data from larger content depending on the keywords used by users.

I hope you understand how passage indexing works. This update plays a major role and it has a few benefits:

Longer Content on web pages gets a boost

Focus on content useful to netizens rather than giving more importance to Bots' needs.

Passage indexing gives importance to long-tail keywords

Rather than On-Page Optimization, Passage Indexing gives importance to Long Quality Content

 

“About This Result” Update:

What is the “About this Result” Update?

It is an automated feature by Google, improving User-Friendly Experiences. This feature is available for all devices like Desktop, Mobile, tab Browsers, and Google Apps. This feature is accessible by clicking the three dots which appear next to the search result of the result card.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - About this Result


Clicking the three dots would display extra data and the additional subtleties include:

whether any reference data from Wikipedia is available on the indexed site.

when the site was indexed by Google.

how secure the website is based on security protocols like HTTPS.

displays the language used on a web page.

display websites that are linked to the webpage based on keywords.

This update was delivered to give an insight into the content and security of web pages. This doesn’t have any role in Indexing the web pages under SEO. But as an SEO Specialist make sure to use HTTPS security, proper backlinks, and relevant keywords to the content.

Mobile-First Indexing Update:

Technology has evolved and mobiles have become as powerful as computers. Mobile-First Indexing means Google uses the mobile version of web pages for indexing and ranking.  Web pages were created for desktops in the past, but things have changed when people started using mobiles more than desktops. Till 2019 Mobile-First indexing update was introduced for the new website and it didn’t bother about the older sites. In June 2021 Mobile-First Indexing update was released making the Mobile-first Indexing compulsory for the old as well as the new websites.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - Mobile first indexing update


Key factors to look for Mobile-First Indexing:

Make a Responsive website focusing on all devices available

For faster loading use compressed videos and images

Always test the mobile sites manually to see the features of desktop works in mobile without a lag

Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to see the performance of Mobile Friendliness of websites.

Product Reviews Update:

What is Google Product Review?

Google Product review aims to deliver a good quality review detailing the pros and cons of the product. The only aim of this update is to provide a trustworthy review to the users helping them to decide the product to be purchased.

In summary, Google will display long quality reviews on the top of the result page and short line reviews will be displayed at the bottom. The reviews that detail the specification, usage, pros, and cons of the products will be ranked higher than irrelevant reviews on the web.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - Product Review Update

Factors Deciding high-quality product review:

Provide videos and images of the product.

Provide multiple links with prices of products helping the viewers decide where to buy from.

Review should be simple, focusing on the user needs in mind

Explain how the product varies from competitors’ and also mention alternative products available.

MUM Update:

Multitask Unified Model (MUM) is an AI language that is more powerful than BERT. This update was released to help viewers get complex answers most simply. When a Netizen enters a complex question on Google Search, MUM gives exact information most simply from multiple dimensions of the SERP. MUM can understand 75 different languages so it can provide answers from various multi-lingual sources.

Imagine You are Planning to visit a place for the first time and searching related questions will make MUM fetch the details from various sites and provide them to us on a single page instead of searching and fetching information from various websites.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - MUM Update

Tips in SEO perspective:

1. Create rich content with relevant data and Google Mum will add your content to search results.

2. Give a hierarchy to the content using heading tags, proper images, and data and this will make MUM use your data to widen search answers.

Mum is the beginning of something big and in the future, technology and innovation would be taking this MUM algorithm to new heights.

 

Link Spam Update:

On July 26, 2021, Google rolled out Link Spam Update. This Update was rolled to eliminate the Spam links used for Backlink of Websites. This update is going to affect a lot of links that are categorized under Black Hat practices.

As per Google's Statement, the best way to avoid delisting through Link Spam Update is to follow White Hat practices and follow the rules of links spam update. Google also advised tagging the links properly. Affiliate Links, Guest Posting, and Sponsored Links are the links that Google recommended to be properly tagged.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - Link Spam Update


Use the following tags:

1. Affiliate Links: “rel = sponsored”

2. Guest Posting: “rel = nofollow”

3. Sponsored Links: “rel = sponsored”

Best practices to follow:

1. Avoid promotion by purchasing links and don’t use irrelevant links to your page.

2. Don’t exchange links to bring traffic

3. Always use tags for the links used in your webpage

Page Experience: 

Google always gives priority to user experience so Google introduced Page Experience update and the update can also be called Core Web Vitals.

What is Page Experience Update?

Page Experience Update is all about how friendly a user experiences in using the web page. In simple words Google Algorithm wants Web pages to update and evolve day by day so that user expectations are met across all web browsers and platforms.  This helps the Website companies to increase traffic and business and this also helps the users to interact and engage user-friendly with the website.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - Page Experience

These Page Experience updates include:

1. LCP – Largest Content Full paint (Faster loading time for the content of a web page.)

2. FID – First Input Delay (Faster Responsiveness to the user’s action on a web page.)

3. CLS – Cumulative Layout Shift (User-Friendly layout of the web page.)

Tips to improve Core Web Vitals:

1. Increase Loading speed and reduce errors

2. Remove ads that block content

3. Compress and optimize videos and images for faster loading

4. Avoid complicated and complex Java Script

5. Reduce Server Response time

6. Compare Website with Competitors

7. Always analyze and update the design of the web page

8. Use relevant Heading Tags and proper dimensions for images

 

Page Titles:  

As you, all know Title tags show the hierarchy of a webpage and help the viewers to understand what the web page is all about. Though title tags <h1> to <h6> plays a major role in SEO, <h1>and <h2> tags are the main one’s bots and crawlers considers to understand what the web page is all about. 

What is Page Title Update?

Since 2012 there were rare instances where Google used to alter the title tags in SERPs. But on August 25, 2021, Google introduced Page Title Updates and this brought a major rewriting in Title Tags for the articles or websites appearing in SERPS. Now Google started using any text available on the same webpage to make title tags based on Search Queries. Google also revealed anchor text within links can also be used as title tags that point to the web page.

Google Algorithm Update
Google Algorithm Update - Page Title Update

If you ask whether this update will affect the SERP ranking the answer would be a big “No”, but this can indirectly affect the Customer traffic to the website. When a customer searches query and when Google Rewrites the title tag that doesn’t match the content of the website there are chances for viewers to avoid visiting the web page and this may also increase the bounce rate. Since this update is in the early stage, we can see further updates rolling out bringing more improved changes.

These are the 8 core updates for the year 2021. Google Algorithm is evolving Day by Day and in the future, we can see wonders in web user experience. Always keep up-to-date with SEO and Google Algorithm if You want to be a Digital Marketing Expert. Keep checking my blog for more articles and updates about Digital Marketing.

Thursday, December 16, 2021

SECRETS TO KICKSTART A SOFTWARE COMPANY USING DIGITAL MARKETING?

Digital Marketing

 Are you looking to diversify your Software Development Business venture?

Everyone wants to diversify their company with more Customers, Signups, and more traffic to a website without squandering assets or spending excessively. The ultimate key to this secret is innovative thinking and out-of-the-box ideas which will bring incredible accomplishments and results for your company.

This will result in diversification and this would be the hack to your business growth.

It’s a method of advancing your business and this isn’t accomplished just through promotion but through all channels of digital marketing in the Software Development Business.

Here are the steps to the secret of growing your business:

Know your Business: 

In Digital Marketing the key element is to know the audience. For a Software Development company, some individuals are keen on Technology, Software, and other tech-related products and services.

We are going to implement Digital Marketing strategies for people who are intrigued by technology. This is just the beginning. The more we know about the target audience the better user-friendly content should be provided to them.

If the content goes to the wrong audience, then the steps taken Digital Marketing strategy is a failure.

Digital Marketing

Start Company Blog:

If you want to target potential customers then attract, engage, and delight the customers through blogging. This happens mainly because the company has the answers or products for the questions or necessities of the targeted audience. The key to attracting potential customers is providing a solid solution or products to the needs or questions which are unanswered.

To make this happen select the relevant blog related to your product, give answers to their unanswered questions and give solid solutions with your product and this will bring more customers.

Digital Marketing

Social Media Marketing Campaign:

Social media permits Companies to the interface, engage and draw in potential clients. The most popular social media platforms are LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok. With solid Social Media strategies and the capacity to make engaging content, companies can draw in their crowd. In other words, without proper marketing strategy on social media lot of potential customers would be lost. The only solution to this is to be active by creating, sharing, and engaging valuable content with the targeted audience.

Once the company is established on social media Then branding for the company will be generated automatically and sales and target would be achieved.

Digital Marketing

SEO Strategy for Software Development Company: 

The key to an SEO strategy is Off-Site and On-site Integrations.  Sites Overall Visibility can only be improved on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) by Site Optimization, Blog Posts, and other social media content.

For a tech company, experts should focus on on-site as well as off-site optimizations. For On-Site integrations, HTML Tags, Images, Quality Content, and Overall Website Structure plays an important role. Then the major task is to find the right Keyword to target the right audience. To do this Google Keyword Planner can be used. High Search Volume and Low Search Volume keywords should be considered for optimizing the website. In Off-Site Integration, the main key factor which needs to be concentrated is reaching out to forums or Bloggs where the competitors are posting. This would help to bring more customers. The only thing to concentrate on is to publish quality content about the product and also make the viewers understand what makes the product unique from other competing products. Bloggs and Forums help companies to solve unanswered questions of potential customers. This will generate more leads and increase product awareness.

This is a wide way to give valuable content to viewers and generate business from that valuable content.

Digital Marketing

Use Lead Magnet for Software Companies: 

To explain in simple terms Lead Magnets are when a company offers free Digital Content related to the company Product in exchange for the customers' Contact information like Email and Phone Numbers. The free Digital Content will only attract customers who are interested in the product. Thus, a wide database can be collected from customers and this can be used in further marketing promotions. Lead Magnet helps to generate potential customers for what the company has to offer.

 

Digital Marketing

Email Marketing: 

This is sending commercial emails to potential customers who have given permitted to receive communication emails from the company. Email marketing is used for product promotional emails and product informational mails. The benefits of Email Marketing are Conversion to Customers, Brand Awareness, and Customer Loyalty. Email marketing plays a major role in corporate companies due to Accessibility and Affordability.

Thus, Email Marketing makes viewers interact with the company and turn to customers.

Digital Marketing

Get Listed on Review Sites: 

Nowadays every product and service relies on reviews. In the past, it was just a recommendation from the people we know. In today’s digital world the fuel to purchasing decisions are reviews. Good reviews turn on the customers to make a purchasing decision. Instead of wasting money on expensive ads concentrate to provide good products and services and engage the customers in providing feedback and review. This would build confidence among people who wish to buy your tech product and this would bring more customers. Reviews not only improve business it also create branding among the people.

About 88% of people rely on reviews. Some of the popular review platforms are Google my Business, Amazon, Facebook, Yelp, Better Business Bureau, and yellow pages. Prioritize and make customers write reviews on popular platforms. Good reviews never come overnight. It takes time but the effort will pay off one day. Finally, customers will start rolling to your product from the reviews.

Digital Marketing

Best Practices for IT Companies:

1.           Research Your Marketplace and Buyers

2.           Comprehend Your Competition

3.           Comprehend Your Target Audience

4.           Make a rick content organic website

5.           Build a Solid Market Stack

6.           Make meaningful blogs related to the product.

7.           Build Meaningful Social Media Presence

8.           Exploit Tech Influencers

9.           Stir things up with Product Reviewers

10.         Get Ranked on Peer-to-Peer Review Sites

11.         Remember About Existing Clients

12.         Incorporate Emerging Tech with Marketing

 Conclusion:

For a Start-up Software Company to be successful, you need to think out of the box and be Creative.

Instead of spending more money on campaigns and advertising think about digital marketing strategies in the most affordable way. This makes your product and company different from competitors.

Make valuable connections with potential customers and give them a user-friendly experience by showing the customers what the company offers and what makes the tech product unique from the competitors.

Finally, always be up to date about Digital Marketing Strategies which would help your company to diversify and create branding.

Click "My Website:"

Click "Linkedin Profile"

Click "My Medium Blog Site"

Popular Posts