Till It Clicks, Author at TILL IT CLICKS

6 Reasons Why Blogging is Absolutely Necessary for Your Business

A vital part of today’s online culture is blogging. Initially, the concept of blogging came about when individuals started sharing personal details online and started treating blogs as personal journals. It eventually was adopted by companies of all scales across the world for various reasons. While every company has a website, it doesn’t help businesses stand out amongst the others. Thus companies needed to come up with sharing dynamic content that can engage their customers. Most of them took to blogging as it helps the company truly shine. After noticing an upward trend in online visibility post blogging, businesses have started integrating blogs into their marketing programs and treating them as a separate marketing channel altogether.

While a company website has more of a practical approach in addressing its audience with a certain tone of professionalism, a blog has a more relaxed tone to it which a consumer will be more comfortable with. Apart from being a great read, a blog can have several other benefits too for a company such as:

1. Strengthening SEO and Driving Traffic to the Website

Source: NationalNews

Blogs are an important source of driving traffic to your website. The more well-written and articulated blogs that you publish, the more the chances of your website showing up on search engines. Blogging helps you strengthen your SEO which aids with driving traffic to the site. Putting up fresh blogs regularly is also a prompt that goes to search engines such as Google that your website is active and is constantly churning out new content. The right keywords are the backbone of a blog and being mindful and intelligent while choosing them will only improve results.

2. Boosting Lead Generation Efforts

Source: Anologix

One of the easiest ways to boost leads is by adding a lead generation-specific call-to-action button at the end of every blog so that the viewer knows exactly what they need to do next. These buttons can also help in collecting data which can be utilized for other marketing activities such as targeted ads, emailers, etc. An alternate way to generate leads through blogs can be to redirect the user through internal links to the important pages of the website where the audience can make a purchase or decide to avail a service.

3. Creating Internal Links and Backlinks

Source: Cuong

A brilliant aspect of blogs is that you can add relevant internal links and backlinks to your blog and help viewers with site navigation. Internal linking enables you to direct the audience to the important pages of your website. Backlinks help prove authority to search engines and establish that the content being created is being consumed by a wider audience and thus will position your website as an industry expert. Backlinks and internal links are some of the most crucial factors that the Google algorithm considers while driving website traffic to the website and increasing SEO success.

4. Educating and Engaging the Audience

Source: CRISS

A blog is an extremely handy tool to dive deeper into the organisation and the industry it caters to. Sharing relevant excerpts, interviews, trends, customer case studies, etc can help bridge the gap between you and your customer and also keep them interested in the field. Sharing updates related to work culture, new additions to the work-family, etc is vital as it helps your audience understand that the company’s interest is not limited to generating sales. Such updates humanize the brand and help you in developing a better connection with the audience.

5. Social Media Redirection

Source: LogRocket

In the chaotic world of social media, blogs prove to be a simple way to be discovered. Content creation can be exhausting especially when the requirement to be creative and stand out is so continuous. At such times, leveraging your blog content and sharing it with links across your social media channels proves to be a fruitful way to gather more engagement. It helps you to stay consistently active without having to brainstorm about every post. This proves to be a win-win situation for your organisation as not only are you uploading fresh and creative content on social media but are also driving traffic to your website.

6. Establishing Long-term Brand Relationships

Source: Opportunity India

An ideal business blog is that which informs and educates its readers and addresses their queries. There is also a psychological tendency to trust the written word. Thus blogs are a great way to have extensive conversations with customers, industry experts, and peers. Being a reliable source of information proves to establish your brand credibility. All of this compounds and forms a long-lasting relationship between the brand and its consumers.

There are billions of people in the world connected to the internet and a few thousand more brands trying to reach this wide audience. A steady flow of website traffic is something that every brand craves for. With the surplus devices that have made their way to every home, it is critical that blogging makes its way into the marketing strategies of organisations.

Thus with the multitude of benefits discussed above, the concept of blogging cannot be underestimated. If you are a company and are looking to step into blogging, do reach out to us. We will be happy to guide you in the best possible way.

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An Introduction To The Concept Of Contest Marketing

In a world where millions of brands are trying to secure the ‘Top Of Recall’ spot in our minds, it comes as no surprise that marketers all over the world try to come up with ingenious ways to capture the attention of customers. One of the most yielding methods has been found to be the concept of running contests. Contest marketing is a strategy that uses giveaways and prizes to engage and identify customers.

The online culture has given rise to a plethora of opportunities for firms to interact with their potential customers and the contest strategy stands out amongst the others. Organizations of all scales have been able to leverage the advantages of social media via contests to amplify the brand message and awareness. It helps the brands bring their products to the forefront. Many companies have now set a specific budget aside just to cater to these contests, right from initiation to design and distribution overall, ensuring a successful execution at the desired level.

1. Content Marketing in Today’s Digital Era

Source: Raven5

In current times, most of the contests held have been online, either via social media or the company website and newsletters. A few kinds of contests are held across social media platforms wherein the viewers are asked to tag their friends or retweet or engage with the content that is shared. Based on the reach that is achieved, winners are announced. There are numerous variants of contests such as draws or giveaways where the viewer is required to fill in their details and either on a weekly or monthly basis, one of the people registered will be declared the winner. Some other examples of contests utilize Crowdsourcing or Trivia Knowledge, Sweepstakes, Fill In The Blanks, etc.

2. What Does Contest Marketing Offer?

Source: SBSA

The gratification plays a big role in running successful contests and varies depending on the industry the company running the contest caters to. It usually ranges from coupons, cash prizes, free-of-cost products, online courses, etc. Anything that excites customers will be up for grabs to encourage more people to participate. The kind of gratification a company offers plays a major part in the level of participation. Thus this is one of the reasons why running contests is a favourite primarily in B2C companies and is not very popular with the B2B industry as they gain very little from such activities.

The popularity of contests has increased steadily over time. The ‘competitive’ behaviour is ingrained in every human being. Right from sports world cups to various events all around the world, the concept of being a ‘winner’ is extremely appealing to the human psyche. Therefore, it is observed that the average effectiveness of running contests is quite decent. If the contest is run by a big brand, chances are people will be readily participating. However smaller brands need to invest a few resources to create a buzz around the campaign and to get people excited and curious. It is a great way to narrow down, target, and get in touch with the real potential consumer base of the brand.

3. Integrating Contests into Your Marketing Strategies

Source: Easypromo

While incorporating the contest strategy into the marketing plan, it is important to remember that there are no limitations to creativity and every idea can be executed innovatively. Running contests is an extensive and fun task that requires consistent monitoring. If there is no team available within the organization, there are several tools and software programs available online that can aid with running them as well.

If you are a business that wants to break the monotony of posting regular content on social media or are looking to do something different, contest marketing can be a great avenue to build engagement for you. If you need help and guidance with incorporating contests into your marketing plans, please feel free to reach out to us. We would be happy to help you conduct amazing contests and boost engagement for your brand.

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Why Now Is The Best Time For Investing in OTT Ads?

Does this sound familiar – You have been contemplating taking a holiday and randomly see an ad for a cheap flight ticket while playing a game or you see great deals for a holiday resort while playing your favourite videos. These are all called OTT Ads that stand for Over The Top Advertisements.

These ads are displayed specifically on streaming platforms and are shown directly to the viewers thus eliminating all the middle points such as distributors between the advertiser and the end customer. Unlike traditional TV advertising that comes with a few limitations such as predetermined broadcast schedules, geographies etc, OTT ads provide a lot of flexibility. Any device that streams videos can be used for OTT ads including mobiles, computers, laptops, gaming consoles and streaming devices such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, etc.

The ads are distributed according to the requirements of the brand. The advertising industry is seeing a steady shift where brands prefer investing in OTT ads compared to traditional TV ads. They are adopting advanced digital strategies that help them plan their digital marketing in a much more efficient manner.

OTT ads are designed and distributed in a strategic way. These kinds of ads will reach a smaller but more data-driven and targeted audience group. The targeting precision reduces resource wastage significantly. Not only can the OTT videos be completely leveraged as a complete funnel performance channel, but it has the capacity of engaging the customers and influencing consumer behaviour too by ensuring ad relevance.

One of the features is that most ads on OTT aren’t skippable thus almost forcing the viewer to watch the entire ad so it remains at ‘Top Of The Mind’ recall.

Tick These Boxes While Investing in OTT Ads

Platform adaptation: Remember that OTT ads will be viewed by your target audience across several platforms on various devices such as the laptop, TV, mobile phone, tabs etc. You will want to make sure that the ad doesn’t seem disproportionate on any device and is adapted for the best quality of viewership across all platforms.

Source: Appsflyer

Keeping it short and simple: It’s best to keep the ads short and straightforward. This practice is best when we have an ad that is not skippable. It’s important not to annoy our audience with really long ads. We risk losing the attention of the viewers. It’s ideal to wrap up the message of our video in a span of a maximum of 30 seconds.

Source: Balcom Agency

Relatability in ads: The overall feel and vibe of the video should resonate with your brand. A person whilst seeing the ad should be able to easily comprehend the message and be easily able to identify with the brand. Loss of interest is very common if the ads aren’t relatable to the target audience. At the end of the day, the audience should be able to link the ad to the brand.

Source: BankBound

Understand the audience demographics: Having knowledge about who your ideal target audience should be and all their details such as location, behaviour etc help narrow down on targeting options thus increasing the possibility of generating leads. Understanding the interest-based behaviour of people will also help you position your offerings in a way that will resonate with the audience.

Source: Neil Patel

Clear call to action: After watching an ad, there needs to be a clear direction for the audience with instructions on how they can engage with the ad. A button should be extremely visible with either a – Buy Now or Know More or any other message with reference to your offerings. If there is no clarity on what to do next after watching the ad, the audience is likely to forget to engage with the brand.

Source: ClearVoice

In conclusion, the OTT industry has erupted into the field of advertising and by the look of it, it is here to say. More people by the day are switching from traditional TV media and spending a lot of time exploring various streaming platforms. Successful execution of OTT ads can give you an added advantage over competitors and help target new audiences. This new phase of advertising can also assist you to work smarter and be impactful. OTT ads are transforming the paid media landscape and now is the best time to jump on the bandwagon.

Things To Consider When Choosing The Right Digital Marketing Agency

It’s safe to say that the world we live in today has become a fairly digitalised world. Searching for and validating things on Google and understanding an organisation through its social media and website has become second to nature. Businesses of all sizes look forward to having a strong digital presence to increase brand awareness, gather leads and ultimately boost revenue generation. But as doing this in-house can be a costly and time-consuming affair, it has become economically wise to outsource the responsibilities to a professional digital marketing agency.

Given that there are so many aspects to digital marketing, it’s important to understand and have absolute clarity on your desired outcome. Every agency may not have expertise across all the verticals of digital marketing. Some are stronger in creating websites but may not be adept with SEO while the others will have a niche expertise in pay per click (PPC) advertising and social media strategies. The clarity in objective will help you narrow down to the perfect agency with the required expertise that will help you reach your goal.

Here are some of top attributes to look for while choosing a digital marketing agency:

Agency’s Approach to Digital Marketing

Source: PNGITEM

One of the first things to look for is how the agency perceives digital marketing as a concept. Spend some time having discussions with the agency and understand how much they have explored in the digital universe. Question the agency’s methodology and if they are able to present a rationale backed by legitimate resources and reports, you know you will be in good hands. It proves that they assess data before making decisions instead of blindly following trends. It is also important for the digital marketing agency to be well-versed with the technical side of things and stay up to date with the latest industry trends.

Estimated and Promised Results

Source: 3C Software

The kind of results that the agency estimates is a reflection of how well they understand the digital industry. Any agency offering instant results and promising immediate revenue generation and brand awareness is a major red flag since all forms of digital marketing are long term strategies. Realistically estimated outcomes may not be as attractive but you can be assured that they will be achieved via transparent methods that will always keep you in the loop. Too many variables impact the end result and not even the best digital marketing agency in the world can guarantee good and quick results.

Digital Presence Evaluation

Source: VH

One of the first things to do while deciding on a digital marketing agency is study the digital presence of the agency. Experts know the value of clear communication, good design and a great UI experience. If you visit the website of an agency and find yourself confused as to where to proceed next and how to navigate, it’s probably not a good sign. If you are satisfied with the prima facie visit and have had a good experience on the website, check out if they have an active and attractive social media presence. If you like their digital presence, it is most likely that the quality of their work for your brand will also impress you.

Pricing Packages

Source: UpLabs

While budget plays a major role in selecting the right agency, it is important that it isn’t the only deciding factor. There are quite a few agencies that offer attractive packages at a very low price range. But it is important as an organisation for you to understand the way they function and if they will be able to offer qualitative service while keeping their cost low. Have a discussion with your agencies about the kind of time they will be investing and the resources that they will be utilising to reach a better understanding. Agencies quoting a premium pricing plan are bound to direct more resources towards your brand and churn out quality work.

References and Reviews

Source: Experis

When selecting the right digital marketing agency, always make sure to go through all the testimonials, reviews on Google and other platforms. Unlike their website and social media platforms, where only the positive reviews are displayed, make sure you check their Google reviews. This can give you access to the negative reviews, if any, and help you understand what challenges the agency faces and where they struggle. One of the key aspects to watch out for is the complete absence of reviews altogether. It’s best to avoid an agency exhibiting no reviews as it shows a gap in understanding the field of digital marketing.

In conclusion, it is vital to have many conversations with a potential agency to understand their style of functioning and build a certain level of trust and comfort. A digital presence is pivotal in driving sales today and an absence can cause you to lose out on a substantial amount of leads. Digital Marketing is an ever evolving game that takes a considerable amount of time and effort to show significant results. So choose your digital marketing partner wisely.

7 Reasons Why Your B2C Business is Plagued by Poor Customer Engagement

Having a long-lasting, loyal customer base in today’s hyper-competitive environment can be extremely difficult for businesses. Also, with brand loyalty fleeting, the cost of customer acquisition is shooting up at a staggering rate. Taking proactive measures to enhance customer engagement is the only viable solution for brands to overcome this challenge.

But to take customer engagement to the next level and deliver better experiences, it is necessary to first understand the existing problems. This blog sheds light on the critical problems affecting customer engagement and ultimately taking a toll on your business’ conversions, profits, and customer retention.

Following are the top 7 reasons why your brand might be failing to keep customers engaged.

1. Poor Website UI/UX

Source: Codism

Your website is your business’ digital storefront. If the design and user experience are not attractive and user-friendly, customers will not stay on your website long enough. Outdated designs and a sluggish user experience can easily drive away potential customers and affect your business.

2. Oblivious to Customer Problems

Source: WiredPlus

Enhancing customer engagement can be very tricky, especially when you are not aware of the problems customers are facing. Setting up an effective customer feedback system is necessary. This can help you gain crucial insights into the key improvement areas of your product/ service. As a result, you can make required changes and enhance customer engagement significantly.

3. Reliance On a Reactive Engagement Model

Source: JFG

Gone are the days when customer engagement and service followed the reactive route. Engagement today is the outcome of your marketing outreach efforts. You can’t expect customers to easily get attracted to your brand. Instead, you have to strive hard and proactively create brand stickiness to keep your customers engaged.

4. Absence of Personalised, Targeted Strategies

Source: Froggy

Customised and targeted marketing strategies are beneficial for brands to deliver personalised and relevant experiences to their customers. The more customers relate to your product/ service, the more it helps in keeping them hooked to your brand for a longer duration. However, if you fail to incorporate the personalisation element, your brand is very likely to create a bad first impression and fail to engage the potential customers.

5. Not Having an Omnichannel Presence

Source: Packaging Strategies

Interactions across different channels and mediums help in reinforcing customers’ trust in your brand. Omnichannel presence also enables brands to be consistently visible and accessible to potential customers. This also plays a huge role in boosting customer engagement levels.

6. Low Bandwidth and Inadequate Resources

Source: OnlineBusiness

Time and resources are imperative when bringing effective customer engagement strategies to fruition. However, most brands fail to recognise the value of these factors. As a result, they do not have the time or resources to focus on customer engagement strategies and end up struggling to connect with their customers.

7. Lack of Powerful Customer Communication

Source: REVE Chat

Communication is at the heart of your business growth. It has the power to make or break your business. Establishing and maintaining seamless customer communication across both online and offline channels is a vital necessity. It can drive high customer engagement, and thus deliver substantial outcomes for your business.

Customer engagement can be a hard row to hoe for every business, irrespective of its size and type. Get rid of the above mentioned 7 problems to successfully step up customer engagement and boost your business growth. Craft meaningful strategies and improve your brand’s customer engagement metrics with TIC. Contact us to know more about how our seasoned marketers can help you drive up customer engagement for your business.

Marketing: Your Business’ Engine That Requires Regular Maintenance

For any business today, having a well-thought marketing strategy is essential to achieve its desired growth goals on a regular basis. Without one, it can be difficult to stay on top of the ever-changing media landscape. However, a meaningful marketing strategy is not just about great ideas and practices but also about being consistent with marketing efforts.

Marketing is like your business’ engine. It needs constant checkups and servicing to keep running. In absence of these maintenance activities, the whole system can grind to a halt! Hence, marketing cannot be treated as a standalone, one-off activity. It should be an ongoing process that requires commitment and discipline over an extended period of time.

The key thing here though isn’t just making sure everything falls into place, it also needs strategic optimisations on top of this careful planning. This is because there will always be changes happening within today’s dynamic market environment. And when not managed properly, this could lead to severe disruptions in the marketing processes, and ultimately, in the business outcomes.

Short-termism in Marketing is Affecting Businesses

Source: Smart Insights

When it comes to marketing strategies, a large number of businesses today are focusing too much on metrics and expecting quick gains. Whether it be social media marketing, paid advertising, SEO, or any other aspect, organisations are expecting great returns within the first few months. However, this does not happen as marketing campaigns take time to drive desired results.

While this approach of marketing may signal growth in terms of numbers, it fails to persist in the long run. Ultimately, this can hamper your brand-building efforts and can also take a toll on your long-term business objectives. Hence, it is always advisable to rely on long-term marketing activities to achieve strong and sustainable growth for your business.

‘The Perfect Marketing Strategy’ is a Myth

Source: Zoho

When implementing a marketing plan for your business, it is important to understand that no strategy is ever suited to drive positive outcomes repeatedly. Every marketing plan requires regular adjustments and tweaks in order to consistently meet business objectives for a long period. Relying on a single strategy can never create stability or a sense of predictability within the marketing department.

With this short-term oriented approach, businesses and marketers concentrate their budgets only on on-demand generation and bottom-of-the-funnel campaigns. As a result, they fail to address one of the major marketing objectives of every business – customer retention. However, keeping your marketing strategy flexible and making constant optimisations could significantly outweigh the benefits of short-term tactics.

Why Marketing is Not a One-time Affair?

Time – It is important to follow a single digital marketing strategy for at least a year before you start to see positive results.
Connections – Creating genuine connections and relationships with customers requires time. Trust cannot be built within just a few months.
Expansion – Short-termism compels you to target only your most likely buyers. This prevents you from extending the reach of your brand.
Customer Retention – While short-term strategies only focus on customer acquisition, employing the long-term approach can also help you to significantly improve customer retention rates.

To give your business the best chance of growing, it is thus important to stick with a single but flexible digital marketing strategy for an extended period of time. Only then can you start expecting returns from your marketing efforts. Instead of running behind quick gains with short-term tactics, focusing on long-term strategies can be useful for your business to get the best outcomes at every touchpoint.

Sonic Branding: A ‘Sound’ Strategy to Build Strong Brand Identity

Remember Airtel’s classic promotional jingle…
Britannia’s Ting Ting Ti Ting…
Ponds’s Googly woogly woosh…

These are not only just nostalgic melodies by brands but perfect examples of sonic signature, demonstrating the excellent use of sonic branding.

Branding plays an important role in today’s complex market for businesses, ideas and products. Your brand identity needs to be cohesive and consistent. A sonic branding strategy can help you achieve this goal. Sonic branding involves the use of music, sounds, or any audio to create a memorable brand identity. It’s an effective way to promote your business and establish a strong connection with your target audience.

Why is Sonic Branding Significant?

As audio becomes more important than brand content, it is crucial to keep an eye on the entire audience. Building an audio element to your brand is often an afterthought or even something that people don’t think about at all. I am sure you all are aware of how audio content is taking flight with the podcast marketing these days, and Spotify is of course leading the sector. There are many ways to strengthen your audience’s association with your brand. From marketing to Instagram/TikTok reels, your audio selection plays an important role in shaping your brand identity. So make sure you learn the basics before starting.

Sonic branding is still a relatively new concept and people are just starting to think about using music for the purpose of marketing. But for music to be recognized as a commodity, to be bought, it must be quite appealing. Music that doesn’t adhere to existing music business marketing frameworks and definitions isn’t marketable in the short term. Sounds like a marketing speak? That’s because it is! It’s marketing speak for you to be part of a dialogue and to be aware of how your sonic branding choices can change the perception of your business, positively or negatively.

What is Sonic Branding?

Sonic branding is a collection of audio touchpoints that convey the values and personality of your brands. With Sonic branding, your company’s unique soundscape can be used in various elements like the sonic logo, interactive voice messages (IVR), commercials, digital ads, videos and podcasts, and the sounds customers use when using your apps and websites. Sonic branding has three major components: music, voice and sound effects wherein music is the most demanding element because of its distinctiveness.

For example, the sound you hear when you turn on your computer, phone or Amazon’s Alexa that follows your commands in an acoustic signature. Sonic branding communicates emotions and feelings as opposed to images and texts. It conveys factual information through sound but is less sustainable than visual images. Think, for example, of the sound generated when you switch from Netflix to your TV, or when you receive a text.

How to Use Sonic Branding for Your Business?

When people get to know your brand through a specific sound or song, they associate those distinctive sounds with your organisation, product, or service. If played well, this strategy can make customers immediately think of the song or jingle when they think of your brand–or think of your brand when they hear the specific song or sound.

Music is directly related to emotions. Different types of sound represent different emotions. For example – drum rolls and trumpets usually denote heroism, tabla and sitar denote something Indian, djembe denotes something African, birds chirping denotes nature or morning time, strings can be used to represent both happiness and sadness.

The use of the right sound for your brand can help you communicate your brand message in a better and creative way.

As you all know, visual logos and branding programs are really iconic today. But audio brands are the future, they are likely to become iconic very soon. The shift has already begun. If you do not have an audio brand, now is the perfect time to get started. When done right, your efforts can provide rewards for years to come.

Here is a small fun activity for you –

CAN YOU MATCH THESE SONIC LOGOS TO THEIR BRANDS?

Take our quiz to find out whether you can recognize the brand based on its sonic logo.

By Kamlesh Biswas

5 Sureshot Strategies for a Successful E-Commerce Website

With the growing number of internet users, worldwide e-commerce sales are expected to grow to 5.4 trillion US dollars by 2022, according to a report by Statista. The rising preference of people to buy products online is boosting profits for many e-commerce businesses. These online stores initially catered mostly to Gen Z and millennials with personal care, electronics, wellness, etc products. However, e-commerce businesses have soon expanded their customer base by becoming the backbone for supplying essential items as well.

To successfully sell products online, it is important for your store to have an effective digital presence. A strong online presence gives your brand the perfect platform to communicate with your target consumers and compel them to buy your products. Here are 5 simple yet highly effective tactics that you can implement to build and manage a successful e-commerce website.

1. Keep Your Website Design Clean and Simple

Image Source: Usability Geek

Design is an important element of your online store’s website. Without a clean and clear design, visitors are likely to lose interest in your e-commerce website. On the other hand, a smartly designed website with a simplistic colour scheme and elegant fonts can compel visitors to stay longer on your online store.

Your e-commerce website can also prevent the use of heavy elements such as extra-large images, files, and too many ads to ensure faster load times. Besides, simple web design also makes sure that visitors are not distracted but are fully engaged while exploring the range of products you are offering. A fast-loading website not only appeals to your website visitors by reducing bounce rates but also increases your conversions.

2. Make Navigation Easy for Visitors

Image Source: Convertcart

Everyone loves online stores that are seamless and easily navigable. It is thus important for the navigation of your e-commerce website to be clear. You need to make sure that various sections, categories, sub-categories on your website are properly described and visually defined. This enables website visitors and shoppers to find their preferred goods quickly and without any hassles.

You can include your online store’s main navigation menu at the top of the page or on the left-hand side of the page. Further, you can organize product listings using meaningful categories, subcategories, and labels. Most importantly, your e-commerce website should also have an in-search feature that not just helps users find the products they are looking for but also shows relevant items.

3. Use High-quality Product Images and Graphics

Image Source: Imagekit.io

Adding good-quality images to your e-commerce website is a simple and effective way to improve your site’s user experience. It is therefore recommended to always use professionally clicked product images in your e-commerce website. Such high-quality images let visitors have a closer look at the product and strengthen their purchasing decision.

Ensure that the product images that you use on your online store are not too small or pixelated. Use of high-resolution images can also help in driving longer visit times and reduce bounce rates, thereby boosting your site’s SEO. This helps in improving the credibility of your brands and increases the chances of visitors willing to buy products from your online store.

4. Ensure Your Site is SEO-friendly

Image Source: Serp Wizard

You have spent a great deal of time setting up your e-commerce site. Yet your website fails to rank higher on the search engines and witness increased traffic? How can you overcome this obstacle? Search Engine Optimisation. Having a strong SEO strategy in place is a must so as to witness higher brand impressions and clicks and thus, better sales.

While optimising your e-commerce website for search engines, it is important to take into account relevancy as well as ranking difficulty. Using internal links can be a great way to enable search engines to crawl and index your pages. Faster load times and a responsive design can also help your website appeal to both, searchers and search engines, and thus, improve your website traffic significantly

Establishing and maintaining a website for your e-commerce business can be a daunting task. But it is possible to achieve your desired web traffic goals and boost your sales with the help of above mentioned simple steps. By following these tactics, your e-commerce website will not only witness increased visitors but will also convert like crazy. So, what are you waiting for? Implement these strategies and give your online store the sales it deserves.

Website Design and Development Trends | Till It Clicks

6 Web Design And Development Trends Dominating the Industry In 2021

Design and development have become the most important aspects of building a website today. The reason being, most brands across the globe have now realised the necessity of building an online presence that is attractive and which delivers a seamless user experience. However, to achieve this, it is important to always stay on top of the latest website design and development trends.

The pandemic outbreak in 2020 has highlighted the significance of strengthening online presence for better reach. As a result, brands and businesses are focusing on making their websites more appealing and user-friendly. To make this easier for businesses, we’ve put together a list of the biggest and most effective web design and development trends in 2021.

1. Progressive Web App Development

Image Source: Railsware

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites that combine the best of both – mobile applications as well as web-based applications. These websites are intended to deliver a high level of performance regardless of device or network condition. PWAs are comparatively more interactive and responsive than conventional responsive websites. They are built in a manner that enables them to behave like native apps.

The advent of PWAs has been beneficial for global brands like Amazon, Twitter, Forbes, etc in order to improve the loading times for their users. Features such as push notifications are helping brands in making their websites more interactive, thereby increasing conversions and decreasing bounce rates. PWAs are also proving to be a great asset for businesses by boosting their time on-site and significantly improving re-engagement rates.

2. Dark-Themed UI

Image Source: Prototypr.io

For a long time, a white background was considered to be the only option to create empty spaces on a website or an app. However, a few years ago, mobile applications started offering dark-themed UI options which garnered a lot of appreciation. Owing to its popularity, website designers have also started creating dark-themed user interfaces and we believe that this trend will continue to rise throughout 2021.

As far as user experience is concerned, dark themes are extremely useful for users as they help in minimising digital eye strain. The dark mode utilises minimal device energy and saves a lot of your device’s battery time. By increasing contrast, the dark theme UI makes design elements more visible, which is crucial in making your website look more appealing.

3. AI-Powered Chatbots

Image Source: Mesheble

Artificial intelligence based chatbot is a software that is designed to understand and simulate human conversations. These chatbots help businesses in speeding up their operations through voice or text chats and also improving the customer experience. By collecting data, answering frequently asked questions, and providing solutions for various other customer concerns, AI-powered chatbots are useful in reducing customer drop off rates.

Powered with speech recognition techniques and cognitive intelligence, AI-driven chatbots are capable of replicating human conversations with precision. The interactive feature of AI-powered chatbots makes the users feel valued and enhances customer satisfaction rates. As a result, prominent B2C businesses have started adding AI-powered chatbots to their websites and we believe many more companies will continue embracing this trend in 2021.

4. Single-Page Websites

Image Source: Skenix

Long and extensive web structures no longer attract users. Brands today are compelled to build single-page websites as they are much easier to navigate and utilise less time of site visitors. Visitors of single-page websites can find everything – right from the brand’s offerings to contact details, on the same page. With no new URL to navigate to on the website, these websites consume less space on servers.

The simple and creative design layouts used in single-page websites deliver faster and seamless user experiences. These websites enjoy a simpler deployment process and are also extremely cost-effective. Moreover, designers also get to try their hands on minimalistic yet responsive designs that offer user-friendly interfaces and are also more attractive.

5. Voice Search Optimisation

Image Source: Techwyse

From Siri and Alexa to Cortana, voice-controlled digital assistants are one of the easiest ways to make internet searches today. Owing to this technology’s user-friendliness as well as accuracy, more and more people are making voice-based searches. This has highlighted the need for websites to optimise their websites for voice searches, so as to not miss out on valuable traffic and leads.

Users these days show a great interest in voice recognition technology and so, businesses have started adopting this feature to ensure higher customer satisfaction. This will also prove to be quite beneficial when it comes to serving multilingual customers. Big organisations such as Apple, Google, and Android have already incorporated voice search into their UI/ UX design process and many more global enterprises are likely to follow suit.

6. Motion UI

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Customers today don’t only expect websites to be faster and mobile-friendly but also want their digital experiences to be visually rich and interactive. As a result, Motion UI is quickly gaining prominence as a great tool to deliver a more engaging user experience. Motion UI is a front-end framework that is useful in developing fully responsive websites as well as mobile applications.

With Motion UI, businesses are able to add complex animations, dynamic transitions or even interactive elements such as slide, spin, bounce, etc on their website. The apt use of such effects and elements can be a great way to draw visitors’ attention to an important position on the page, such as the call-to-action button. Motion UI is compatible with all web technologies and can be used anywhere on a web page – header, footer, or menus.

Staying abreast of the latest web design and development trends, even amid a constantly changing landscape, is indispensable today. The above mentioned design and development trends are dominating the industry in 2021 and are likely to continue doing so in the future as well. Incorporating these trends into websites can help brands attract more audiences and stand out in the market.