Updates of AMP in 2019

Since 2016 Google has been giving businesses an opportunity to focus on their websites mobile experience. The release of Accelerated Mobile Pages was a clear indicator of how Google was trying to prioritize the mobile-first approach. If you do have an online business are not optimizing your website for a faster, smoother, & richer mobile experience, then you’re definitely setting yourself up for failure. In this blog, we will be looking at the evolution of AMP & its current state of progress at the moment.

The Evolution Of AMP

As I’ve mentioned before AMP was launched during 2016. It was an open-source project by Google which combined the development efforts of millions of people to ensure faster delivery of data on mobile pages. What AMP does is, it removes all the “unnecessary” clutter that might be delaying the loading of the pages. From what you can see, you’ll notice AMP pages will be without too many images, they’ll have a simple font. Under the hood, the CSS will be optimized for faster delivery of data, HTML and JS code will be delivered as a first in first out basis.

History Of AMP

Since releasing in 2016 AMP have been the talk of the town among Digital Marketers all around the world. Digital Marketing professionals and tech enthusiasts are both looking at AMP pages from the perspective of gains. While marketing professionals see it as another method of lead gen through articles, the IT dept is looking for ways to go even faster. But lead forms were not always available and have only been recently introduced leading to a spike in the popularity of AMP pages, ensuring 900,000 businesses online are currently using AMP for some if not all their pages.

While AMP pages were initially built to deliver news faster, companies have adopted it to suit their requirements for a variety of different pages. Brands are focused on AMP developments for their product pages as they’ve seen a significant bump if buy-ins from the customer based on faster data delivery. Especially e-commerce players who say an increase of up to 20% in their sales figures as compared to companies that did not use AMP.

All AMP Updates of 2019

In the first quarter of 2019, some interesting updates were released by the AMP team. Let’s look at some of the most interesting one’s below:

1. Video Optimization on AMP

One of the most important updates to AMP in 2019 has been the video optimization efforts that have been taken. As a digital marketing company in Pune helping small business access the gains of AMP, we know the importance of video in a marketing strategy. Three new updates have been made,
i. Videos can now be docked so that the user can continue to scroll as they are reading their content
ii. You can now install a video player that has AMP video interface features you might need as a business
iii. You can use the AMP video optimization to run ads and keep a track of them on your website

These three features have really come as a blessing to video marketers, especially who were recently seeing a decline in watch times across the internet.

2. Input Masking

Lead gen on AMP pages is just in a nascent stage but it is still an extremely necessary step that needed to be taken. One large step forward for AMP lead gen pages is that you can now customize what you form should look like to a large degree.

3. Smoother List Scrolling

Since the internet is filled with the list, & one of the most common actions users take on their phone is to scroll, AMP has now enabled smoother scrolling options while the page is in development. You can set the grid and, resize the containers to provide the best experience to the users.

Conclusion

Very few businesses in India are taking advantage of AMP pages as there are not too many digital marketing companies in Pune that are technically capable of providing that solution. If you want to know what CodePlateau can do for your business, get in touch with us today!

Laravel: A New Era in PHP Framework 2019

If you are in the business of building web applications for your clients or businesses you might have flirted with the idea of using several different types of PHP frameworks. CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Yii, and Phalcon are some of the most popular PHP Frameworks but there is one that goes above and beyond these tools and one that is our favorite here at CodePlateau and that is the Laravel PHP Framework. But what makes the Laravel PHP framework better and different from all the others? Let’s take a closer look.

Why Laravel Is The Best PHP Framework For 2019

1) Object Oriented Libraries

One of the reasons Laravel is as popular as it is (more than 1 million sites use Laravel, and it currently has more than 51,192 stars on GitHub) that it has Object Oriented libraries and plenty of pre-installed ones. Surprisingly none of these libraries are part of any other major PHP frameworks. It’s easy implementation and advanced features has made it a success across the world and you have access to tools like password reset, CSRF protection, encryption as well as authentication.

2) Authentication Techniques

As discussed above Laravel provides several object-oriented libraries of which authentication is a major item. It provides a very simple and straightforward method of implementing authentication techniques across platforms. Even the control access to resources as well as the manner in which authorization logic is organized is very simply configured which makes Laravel one of the easiest frameworks to adopt.

3) Security

One of the biggest concerns businesses has, especially those that work directly with customers, is the threat of data security. Even companies like Facebook have come under the scanner for leaking their user’s data. Laravel takes a unique look at security and provides a really clever response. Security is covered within the framework itself. Instead of saving passwords in the plain text they use salted and hashed passwords. It avoids injection attacks by avoiding user injection of <script> tags. Overall it’s one of the safest PHP frameworks to work within 2019.

4) Artisan

Apart from the business reasons many companies choose to work with Laravel, there are plenty of development reasons that developers have chosen Laravel as the best PHP framework in 2019. Laravel provides an in-built command line tool called Artisan, which allows programmers to avoid tedious, repetitive tasks and rather focus on the tougher parts of the build.

5) Database Migrations

Change is the only constant, in life and in programming. Sometimes 1000’s of lines of code will need to be updated due to a feature change, or you’ll have found a better way to manage the database, the reasons could be anything. Database migrations with Laravel is extremely easy. As long as your changes are carefully managed in migrations and seeds you can migrate changes into any other development machine you might have. If you’re looking to make your developers life easier you should definitely consider Laravel as your PHP development framework in 2019.

6) Tutorials

Assuming you’re new to Laravel & haven’t had the chance to explore it as much as your peers, you don’t need to worry. There are plenty of tutorials available on YouTube, however, Laravel offers its own tutorial service (which no other platform does), Laracast, which provides excellent, high-quality, insightful, videos that give you everything you’d like to know in one place. While the tutorials are not entirely free you do have plenty of free videos available on Laracast which should help you more than cover the basics. It’s only the advanced tutorials that you need to pay for.

Conclusion
Your developers will surely thank you for picking the Laravel PHP framework and if the decision was left upto them, that’s what they would pick 9/10 times. At CodePlateau we have a team of highly skilled programmers who are experts in Laravel and Web Application development. If you ever have any requirements for web design and web development, do get in touch.

How To Rank Your Video Quickly On YouTube

Video are a great way to showcase your company’s products or services. A well-made video can even enhance a company brand reputation, but only if enough people see it. The problem with video marketing is that there is so much clutter out there that unless you rank well on popular platforms like YouTube chances are that very little people will see your content. In this blog, we’re going to look at how to rank your videos on YouTube.

How To Do Video SEO in 2019

1) YouTube Keyword Research

Obviously, the first step in any SEO process is to make a big long list of keywords you want to rank for. Now on YouTube just like on Google there are several ways to do this. The best way that I’ve found that works almost all the time is to use the keywords that appear in the suggested dropdown of YouTube search. Why re-invent the wheel when the source itself is telling you what keywords to use.

Another simple method to do keyword research base on the keywords you want to rank for is to choose what keywords the videos that are appearing at the top of the search are already using. You can look at the top 3 videos for a particular keyword and then use keywords based on those suggestions. Make sure that whatever keyword you use also is popular on Google search so that you can extract some users from that search as well.

2) Quality Content

Now getting your audience to find your video and making sure they watch it are two completely different sets of tasks. Using keywords, writing a proper description and having amazing video tags will be great to rank for a few weeks, however, if YouTube notices that even after ranking highly if your users are not clicking on your video you’ll soon start moving down the search chain. You need to ensure that your content, right from your thumbnail, to the title are of top quality, exciting and intriguing that will make the user want to click. Once they click to open the video you have to make sure that the actual video footage is exciting enough to keep the audience viewing it for its entirety.

3) Encourage Engagement

The flow of your content should be such that people want to engage with it. This could include liking the video, leaving a comment or even sharing it. All of these send a very important message to YouTube saying that you liked the video so much that you cared to engage with it. There are several ways to do this in your video, by adding an outro which encourages a user to comment on the video or asking thought-provoking questions during the video that will probably divide opinions and make users want to write something in the comments.

4) YouTube Optimization

Remember how we talked about keywords at the start of the blog, those aren’t simply to enter into your video description, title, tags etc. What you also need to keep in mind is that you need to say the keywords multiple times during the video. YouTube has an AI that automatically transcribes what you’re saying, and it’s pretty accurate so you have the opportunity for the AI to read the content of your video. If they read it, understand it and file it away for when it’s next required. Next time someone’s looking for a keyword you’ve mentioned they’ll remember your video and pop it up in search.

Conclusion
Different people use a combination of these videos to rank well on YouTube. Do you have a secret ingredient that you like to use as well? Please let us know in the comments below.

How To Reduce Website Bounce Rate And Improve Conversions?

If you’ve ever seen the statistics on your Google Analytics you might have noticed a small tab that mentions bounce rate. A bounce rate is very bad for business. But what is a bounce rate and why are so many businesses committed to reducing it? Simply a bounce rate is when a person comes to your landing page and jumps off even before they’ve had a chance to view it properly. Not viewing your landing page means not having an opportunity to convert. No conversion means less business. Below, we’re going to highlight the steps you need to follow in order to improve your website & reduce bounce rate & hopefully improve conversions.

How To Reduce Bounce Rate On Your Website?

1. Improve Website Speed

The first thing you’re going to need to do is to improve your website speed. The faster the content loads the faster the customer is able to view the content you have to display on your page. Statistics say that customers will not wait more than 2 seconds for their webpage to being loading. If your landing page takes more than 2 seconds to load you have to fix it immediately.

2. Improve Your Content Readability/Display

Once you’ve improved the page load speed of your landing page make sure you give your customers something exciting to look at. The content you have on display, whether they are images, words, or a video has to be neatly displayed on the website. The formatting of the content should be easy to read. If you’re writing a blog then make sure to include an appealing heading and image to draw the user to the content. Write shorter paragraphs and include images as a reference and as break points for your readers.

3. Avoid Using Pop-Ups

Content Consumers don’t like when there is a disruption on their content consumption journey. Whether it’s watching a video or reading a blog. Having unnecessary pop-ups that distract the consumer will only want them to push away from your website and webpage. But Pop-Ups do work, so you’ll need to place them strategically so that they become a part of the content journey of your consumers.

4. Keep Refreshing Your Content

Most websites offer static content to consumers. A blog is typically the only place that you are able to keep refreshing the content on a weekly basis, so make sure you do that. However, for your website, make sure to update the content every few months to make sure that the most relevant is reflecting on your website. Your customers will be thankful to you for that. Not only will it lead to a lower bounce rate, but you’ll also become their go-to source for all industry related information.

5. Attract The Correct Type Of Visits

The best way to ensure that you have a low bounce rate on your website is to ensure that the person visiting your webpage or website has a relevant reason for being there. Either you’re selling a product he’s looking for, or he’ looking to avail the services you’re offering or quite simply your blog or website has an answer to the question he has. Either case, using targeted relevant keywords will ensure that your website visitors will have come to complete a certain action and helping them to do that will reduce your bounce rate. Don’t add irrelevant keywords or content to your website, not only will this lead to a higher bounce rate, but also a search listing rank penalty from Google.

Conclusion
The logic to reduce bounce rate is pretty simple, give the customers what they want, as soon as possible and in as visually appealing a way as possible. Meeting these three targets should help you achieve your bounce rate standards. If you need help with getting more conversions on your website, please do let us know and we’ll be glad to help you with a free website consultation.

Checklist for a Mobile Friendly Website

Smartphones have been integrated into our world and how! You can’t turn a corner today and see someone’s head glued to their screen. While the question of where does this lead us as a society is for greater minds, we’re looking at the checklist you need to keep ready to be able to implement a mobile-friendly website. In today’s blog, we’re going to be covering just that topic. Hopefully the end of it, you’ll know exactly what you need in order to have a fully functional mobile-friendly website.

Mobile Friendly Website Checklist

1) Implement Mobile Friendly Design
There are at least 3 ways in which you can serve your customers with a responsive web template. However, out of these 1 is highly recommended by Google and is relatively easy to implement as well. This is by using a responsive design template. The HTML code, the URL shared to the customer is the same in the responsive design template. The other two options that are not ideal, but good to know are, by dynamic serving where you URL shared is the same across the different devices, but the HTML served on each device is slightly altered for the screen. The third option is to use a completely separate URL, one for mobile viewers and the other for web browsing.

2) Structured Data
Using structured data will definitely help Google understand the content on your website. The same applies to your mobile website as well. The pages on your mobile website should have the same structured data that is on your website. Google does mobile first indexing. Keep that in mind.

3) No Flash
Adobe Flash is quite an outdated tool. Some of your favorite games had been built using Flash but in more recent times flash has encumbered websites and makes them slow. More importantly, Chrome automatically disables flash on most sites due to security and speed issues. So it should be pretty obvious to anyone building your mobile website that they should not be using any Flash on your mobile-friendly website. Use JavaScript, CSS or similar other modern properties instead.

4) Font, Buttons, Design Is Important
Another important aspect of ensuring that your website is responsive and mobile friendly is the design architecture of the website itself. Being responsive enough is not enough it should have to be aesthetically pleasing as well. Pay special attention to the fonts. Mobile screens have been steadily growing bigger over the years, but they are still no comparison to screens of your websites and desktops. Fonts that are easily readable on larger screens are not so when using your website on mobile screens. It’s not the same with mobile phones. Buttons themselves can have an impact on your customer experience which can again have an impact on your website SEO.

5) Performance Matters
Apart from the fonts, buttons, design the performance of your mobile responsive website is also of the utmost importance. You have to focus on optimizing your mobile website to give your customers the kind of experience that they have come to expect from your website. There are several ways in which you can optimize your mobile website such as

– Improve your images
– Boost performance by improving the server response time
– Reduce the file size of your uploads by using tools like GZip
– Optimize your CSS

6) Focus On Your Customers
Maybe you won’t be able to display everything your website has to offer on your mobile website. That can be irrelevant. Your mobile website can be the platform that gives customers exactly what they need when they need it. Mobile users are normally looking for information on the go and they need accurate information quickly. If you are able to serve it to them through your mobile website then your customers will be dependent on you. Optimize the content for your users and you’ll almost have the battle won.

Conclusion
Having a mobile website can be easy but ensuring that you develop a mobile-friendly website that looks good, delivers on the design, content, and experiential aspects to the customers is not a piece of cake. You can do so by hiring the best web design and development company. If you’re looking to hire a professional web design company get in touch with us today.

Things To Consider When Building An E-Commerce Website

From relying on mega online e-commerce websites like Amazon and E-Bay many companies are now focusing on building their own e-commerce sites to directly try and tap their customers. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a significant rise in the number of websites that are selling products online and with good reason. If you have some products you’d like to sell, it’s better to focus on developing an e-commerce website from scratch. You’ll have more control over the products you sell, the customers you are targeting and you have greater control over the pricing of the products. But if you’ve decided to build a website or are thinking about getting a professional e-commerce website development team, here is a checklist that you should be aware of.

Guidelines for E-Commerce Website Development

1. Understand the customer and product
Don’t build a website simply because you want to have an online presence without the customer base of the product that will sell online. There are plenty of products that have a higher propensity to sell offline than through online sales to ensure that you’ve made the right choice in going ahead for an e-commerce website development. If you need additional advice you can always get in touch with the best website development company in your area.

2. Choosing the right platform
Once you’ve decided to come online the next question becomes which platform to use and there is plenty of e-commerce website platform to choose from. You can either go with Hybris, Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify or even consider building your website from scratch using HTML, Java, and CSS. What you need to keep in mind, especially if you have a sizeable user base is to make sure you have
– A functioning customer relationship management tool to handle all their requirements
– A payment gateway integration to make paying for your products simpler
– Strong backend which can support your frontend activities
– Mobile responsiveness for all pages

3. Website Hosting Provider
Once you’ve decided which platform you want to choose the next choice to be made is the hosting provider you will go with. Now you may think that all host provide the same services, but in our multiple years of experience in website development and web design, we’ve seen that some services, although priced identically, have vastly different service levels. If you need more details on hosting providers for your website please feel free to get in touch with us.

Here are some things to keep in mind while selecting your hosting provider
– Speed is of the essence. Google rewards sites that provide data to the customers faster with a better ranking
– Choose a hosting provider that will make sure your site is available to the customer at all times. There should be zero or very marginal downtimes
– Since you will be dealing a lot with sensitive customer data, privacy and security or a concern. Make sure you choose a hosting provider that keeps your site protected at all times
– In case there is any issue you want to make sure that your hosting provider is there to support you at all times. Choose a host that has good service staff to support you.
– You might be starting off small but you should be able to build your website as you go so scalability in terms of server size, space, and reliability are always important

4. Choosing what you want your customer to see
Another important aspect of an e-commerce website development project is to make sure you know exactly what pages you’ll be showing to your customers. How easy the website is to navigate? Are the images too cluttered? These may not seem like important factors when building an e-commerce website but they are all very relevant not only to your customer but to Google as well.

Conclusion
If you use e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify you might be able to develop an e-commerce website yourself, but without the help of professional reliable web development and design company, your website won’t have the much-needed fascination to the public. If you want someone to professionally build your e-commerce website, get in touch with us today.

Why Image Optimization Is Relevant For Google Search Rankings

Most websites nowadays have tens of thousands of images. Some as a means to impress their prospective customers and some as means to display what their products and services could look like. While having a lot of images can be used to attract customers they can also slow down your website. On the other hand, images can also be optimized to improve the SEO for your website. We’ll be taking a look at what image optimization is and why it matters for your website SEO and Google Search Rankings.

What Is Image Optimization?
Image optimization is the process by which an image with the right message you’re hoping to deliver is published on your website in the right dimensions (height and width) as well as the right size (file size). It is important to note than larges images will require more space on the server as long as taking more time to be delivered to the customer. The better the optimization the better the customer experience will be. Another step in image optimization is to insert the right image alt tags on all the images. We’ll look into why that’s relevant a little later.

Why Image Optimization Is Important For Your SEO?

1. Using Relevant Imagery
Using the right images in the right place is very important for your website SEO. Let’s get this out of the way very quickly so that we can focus on how to optimize images for your website. Image search is really important. More than 6 out of 10 customers do an image search at least once a day. On your website if you’re using an image of a monkey but describing a cat it does not make a lot of sense, does it? This may seem like common sense but when you’re talking about obscure concepts like hard work and imagination what kind of imagery you use is totally up to you.

2. Alt Tags
The most important bit about image optimization is probably using the right alt-tags in the images. Just like website pages have SEO titles and headlines to make it easier to search, images have alt-tags to be able to find them more easily. Now you have think it’ll be easy to fool Google and try and use your business keyword on your images, which is fair but don’t overdo it or you will be penalized.

3. Using The Right Linking
Images on your website can also be used to link to pages and other images. Use the linking feature on images to take your customer on a journey throughout your website. As you probably know the more time a customer spends on your website the higher Google ranks your website in search. If you have the correct images linking to the right pages to take your customer to exactly where he wants to go then you will kill two birds with one stone, by improving your ranking and improving your sales.

4. Use Proper File Names
Ensuring that you use proper file names on your images is just a way to ensure that you maintain good hygiene on your website. Using file names like DSC00192.jpg is not at all helpful either too Google or your customer. If the image is taking time to load he can see the filename and at least understand if it’s relevant to them. If not, they can move to a different image. Having a proper file name also helps a search engine saving it in a relevant repository.

Conclusion
Do you need help in optimizing the images on your site for better SEO scores? Get in touch via email or leave a comment below and we’ll get in touch with you immediately. We’ve helped a number of our clients improve their SEO rankings simply by optimizing the images best suited for their website. Get in touch today!

Importance Of Web Designing In SEO

There are a lot of naysayers that don’t understand the link between a Web Designing and SEO process. While these two may seem complimentary to each other they need to work hand in hand if your business is to succeed. It is no longer about “if you build it they will come”, it is actually more on the lines of “if you build it well, they will come”. Here our take why website design is very important for your websites to search engine optimization.

5 Reasons Web Design is important for your business

1. Better Web Design More Visitors
Your website design will depend on the customers you would like to attract to it. For the younger generation a simple website without a lot of bells and whistles won’t be suitable while if you add too many “new age” features in your website and your customers are from an older generation they might not enjoy it as much. Now if you wonder what does SEO have to do with this remember that a lot of your SEO ranking has to do with the customers you can attract to your website and how long they stay on your website before moving on.

2. Site Speed
Another important aspect of SEO is how fast you‘re able to provide the required information to your customer. The quicker they receive the information they more they’re willing to stay on your website. Not only does the speed on your website matter for technical SEO, the speed at which the user can locate all the relevant information while on your website is another important aspect of how loyal of a consumer he becomes. Site speed itself is an important parameter that Google judges in ranking your website in its search.

3. Navigational Ease
Another important factor that could decide your website SEO is the ease with which users can find the information they’re looking for. I touched on it briefly in the last point and while they may seem contradictory to one another, how fast your potential customer can find the information he’s looking for can go a long way in ensuring that he keeps coming back to your website anytime he has any trouble with your particular skill set and needs answers. You’ll be steadily increasing your brand loyalist and reducing your dependency on paid ads to grow your fan base.

4. Professionalism
Another reasons companies rely on trusty web design companies in Pune for their requirements is because a well-designed website gives an air of professionalism to their brand. According to research, a customer is more likely to choose a business based on the quality of their website. A higher quality website gives an assurance to the customer that the business is to be trusted and they can do business with them.

5. Changes With Time
As with most things your customer preferences will change over time. As your audience matures so will their choices. If you are planning to grow with the company, it then becomes imperative to be able to change as per their needs. While the keywords you target will most likely not change you can always aesthetically revamp your website to continue to make it more attractive to your prospective customers.

Conclusion
Don’t let people tell you that web design and SEO are not linked because as we’ve discussed it above they very clearly are. If you are looking to build a new website for your organization or overhaul your existing website to match the needs of your current customers, you’ll need the services of a professional web design company in Pune that knows their way around both SEO and Web Design. If you‘d like to know more about how we can help you change your website to get more customers, get in touch with us today.

Transformation of Web Development with AI

From the growing number of self-checkout cash registers to advanced security checks at the airport; artificial intelligence is just about everywhere. AI is beginning to embed itself into all aspects of our lives. But how can we use artificial intelligence in Web Development?

Artificial Intelligence combines a number of goals like problem-solving, reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, machine learning, natural language processing, motion and manipulation, perception, social intelligence, creativity, and general intelligence. AI has impacted the web development field as well. Things like web design, design images, content development, search engine, product suggestions, etc. can be automated with the help of AI.

Self-Learning Algorithms

Artificial intelligence can be applied to web programming as well. The AI algorithms can be used to develop codes, which modify and alter from scratch and transform into a fully functional code, without the need for any manual interference. A number of tasks, such as adding, updating database records, as well as identifying the code snippets that would help solve a problem are some of the points where artificial intelligence can be applied. Web developers can make use of these predictions to formulate a perfect solution. This helps developers to build smarter apps and bots at a much faster rate than before.

Artificial intelligence can be applied to web programming as well, the AI algorithms can be used to develop codes, which modify and alter from scratch and transform into a fully functional code, without the need for any manual interference. A number of tasks, such as adding, updating database records, as well as identifying the code snippets that would help solve a problem are some of the points where artificial intelligence can be applied. Web developers can make use of these predictions to formulate a perfect solution. This helps developers to build smarter apps and bots at a much faster rate than before.

Artificial Intelligence in Web Design & Web Development

Web design is an important area, where the creative skills and the conversion optimization knowledge of the web designer can help build a high-performing website. The latest development in HTML based website development has been the integration of AI-based algorithms. In fact, working on AI-enabled platforms has made it easier for web developers to take decisions related to design, layout, brand imaging, and content. The real-time suggestion based on analysis of existing similar websites helps companies to create a better web interface, which can reach target clients efficiently. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are constantly helping in delivering better user experience and product/service presentation to quality analysis, security strengthening, coding etc. Using AI solutions, you can adapt your website better to the user’s needs. Real-time learning technology evaluates customers mood and understands their preferences. According to the information received, this technology allows to dynamically modify website per each customer.

Some Other Uses of AI in Web Development

Image Search
The AI has been implemented by Google in the image search as well to detect labels of the image, detect explicit content, detect landmarks, detect faces, and various other such features. Apart from this, Google has also undertaken research projects to design images with the help of AI.

Personalized Search Results
Amazon is one of the best websites that make use of AI in it. Based on the search results, it provides you with an appropriate combination of the products. These help you to find the similar products and related products to help you decide the best product to buy within your budget. It impacts user behavior and helps makes them return again. It also keeps a track of your browsing history and recommends suggestions based on the same. This in turn also enhances its revenue with the increase in sales.

Chat Bots
Chatbots made the communication process more natural. Based on Artificial Intelligence, they soon will learn how to recognize human emotions. More and more online buyers will find it easier to interact with a website via a Chatbot. This option will remove all communication barriers and make the shopping process even more easy and pleasant.

Effective Marketing
Artificial intelligence marketing solutions truly understand the world in the same way a human would. This means that the platforms can identify insightful concepts and themes across huge data sets, incredibly fast. AI solutions also interpret emotion and communication like a human, which makes these platforms able to understand open form content like social media, natural language, and email responses.

Does this all sound too good to be true?
Researchers predict that by as soon as 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human. That’s only two years and some change away.

5 Tips To Improve The Efficiency Of Your E-Commerce Mobile App

Online sales have seen tremendous growth over the years. From simple online shopping websites like Amazon and Flipkart, to the more recent evolution of e-commerce applications. Seems like everyone is getting on-board. In all the chaos and confusion of new e-commerce app launches every day it is easy to get drowned out by the noise. How do you ensure that your e-commerce app is not only appealing but makes a lot of sales for your brand? We’ve put together a list of tips to help improve the efficiency of your mobile app.

How To Improve Your Mobile App Conversion Rate
While mobile apps have evolved over the years their basic guiding principles for development remain constant. If you follow the guidelines as described in this post it almost guarantees you a successful e-commerce mobile application. Here is how to improve your e-commerce app.

1. Focus On The User Experience
The most important aspect of any mobile application is the experience the user has with it. First impressions count for a lot. The easier the user finds to use the e-commerce app the more likely he is to buy from it. No complicated interface to make movement within an app and exploring it a nightmare. The user interface of your mobile application should be clean and easily navigable. Pay attention to menus, buttons, and any clickable item. Make sure they are the right size and shape for all users to click comfortably.

Important elements like add to cart, buy button, and proceed to payment button should all be placed in the thumb zone. A thumb zone is an area on the phone screen where your thumb on either hand can reach comfortably without having to stretch.

2. Easy Log-In and Check-Out Process
I think you’ll agree that as a user you absolutely hate a complicated sign-up process to new websites. So much so that if it isn’t too important than you will abandon it mid-way. The same goes for any e-commerce application. If you give your customer too much time to think then they’ll eventually find a reason to not spend that money, or not spend it on your applications. That isn’t something you want to happen. Use social sign-in as a quick way to create user accounts to your app.

Similarly, if your check-out process is complex, you’re just giving your prospective customers time for doubts about their purchase. You want them to finish this part of their buying journey as quickly.

3. Consistency Is Key
An important element of the user experience is consistency. It is so important in fact; it needed a whole other section to talk about it. Consistency in your fonts, colors, design schemes is obviously not to be tampered with. However, also focus on the consistency in your image sizes, product descriptions, and prices. All the information mentioned in your app should be 100% accurate at all times.

4. Faster Loading Speeds
As with most websites, e-commerce applications that load quickly and display the products accurately are the ones customers would prefer to shop on. You should upload only optimum images on the site without compromising on the quality of the same.

If a product page takes over 4 or 5 seconds to load chances are your customer will quit his shopping or switch to another app that provides a similar service. Testing a prospective customer’s patience is a sure-fire way to lose one.

5. Pay Attention To The Three Tap Rule
The best apps have a UI & UX design such that their customers can get from the top category to the actual product they would like to buy in three taps. The common and effective method is to have the category > subcategory > product. It makes sense to link to alternative products or similar products in a section below.

If you’re finding it hard to adhere to the three tap rule, you should at least ensure that the search bar on your app consistently provides quick, relevant, and accurate results. That way instead of combing through your product choices the customer can move to exactly what they are looking for.

Conclusion
Building an e-commerce application that sells well and keeps your customers coming back for more may seem easy but is more complex than you can imagine. Using these tips to build an effective e-commerce mobile app is the first step. Your next step would be to hire a mobile app development company that can make the best use of these tips. If you’re looking for a professional mobile app development company that works within an affordable price range, please get in touch today!