by | May 31, 2018 | Local SEO
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google Asks For Photo Of Business HoursBen Fisher noticed and posted on Twitter that if you try to edit a business’s hours in Google search under the local knowledge panel…
Bing Crawl Consumption Not Showing Return On InvestmentJoost de Valk, the founder of Yoast, posted some interesting data on Twitter yesterday around crawlers and how much they consume of their site, how active they are and if there is any return on investment. The big one is that Bing crawled ~84…
Google: Crawl Budget Optimization Is OverratedGoogle’s John Mueller said on Twitter that he believes that crawl budget optimization is overrated in his mind. He said for most sites…
Google Search Tests New Tab Bar NavigationReena Jha from India shared with me on Twitter a new search interface being tested by Google, maybe only in India, I do not know. The new interface puts the navigation in tabs in the footer of the page…
Recapping The Say Something Nice About An SEO/SEM SeriesIn October, I thought it would be nice to say something nice about the folks in our industry and I started a daily post about how specific individuals in our SEO/SEM…
Google Indoor Workspace TennisHere is a video I spotted on Instagram of two Googlers playing tennis, indoors, by their workstations. They are pretty good. Marco La Porta, who shared it, wrote ” warm up #italy #tennis #google.” T
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
by | May 31, 2018 | Local SEO
Someone asked me if it was true that it takes around three months for Google to assign value to a link.
The interesting thing about the recent patents and updates to patents is that they explain a way to efficiently accomplish these mind boggling calculations.
Those kinds of research papers aren’t super exciting because they’re concerned with how to essentially do geek plumbing. But they are important because they make things like real-time Penguin calculations possible.
Does it Take 3 Months for a Link Effect?
The reasonable assumption for the past ten or so years has been that it takes about three months for the influence of a link to become noticeable in the search engine results pages (SERPs). With the recent advances in hardware, software and algorithms, it’s more likely that the influence is happening faster.
The search engines are a lot faster than they were ten years ago. So it follows that perhaps the link effect might be even faster today than it was a decade ago.
Evidence that Link Effects May be Faster
Consider that Penguin is now a part of Google’s core algorithm. Penguin, a link algorithm, works in real-time. This has been the case for almost two years now.
So it is reasonable to assume that the value of a link is folded into Google’s ranking algorithm at a significantly faster rate than three months.
Because Penguin is real time and is now a part of Google’s core algorithm, it is absolutely reasonable to update our estimate of how long it takes for a link to take effect. Three months now seems too slow and not reasonable at all.
The time period for a link to take effect is probably on the order of a week to fifteen days. But whether you see the effect of those links is another matter altogether. One link or a few links by themselves may not be enough to help your rankings.
What if Rankings Change 3 Months Later?
Sometimes rankings change three months after a link. Could that be attributed to the links? In three months there is no way to know whether a change in ranking is due to a single link, another link that was added to your site, links dropping off of a competitor’s site or even a totally unrelated change with Google’s core ranking algorithm.
A change in Google’s core algorithm could decide that your competitor’s site is not a good fit for certain keyword phrases. Then your site rises because it’s a better match. Or it could be that your site offeres a better user experience and Google’s algorithm is handing out prizes for good UX that week.
Three months is far too long to make an accurate judgment about whether a sigle link or a group of links made a difference. There are too many things going on externally to your site (having nothing to do with your site), and too many factors directly related to your site that are changing, in order to put your finger on it and say with any confidence that this single factor is what caused a change in rankings.
Links and Ranking Changes
In my opinion, it’s best to focus on building content and cultivating links, in that order. Identifying which link caused a rise in rankings would be nice. But it’s not always possible to identify which link caused the change in rankings. The calculations involved are many and we have no idea how the various link factors are weighted on any particular day.
So the best answer to the question about how long to wait until a link has taken effect is to not wait. Just let go of fussing over minor details like a single link and move on to the bigger picture and keep building bigger and better things. The links will work their magic regardless if you are worrying about it or not.
Images by Shutterstock, Modified by Author
by | May 31, 2018 | Local SEO
Google’s latest edition to the new AdWords experience is integration with Optimize, the company’s visual editor for landing pages.
Optimize and AdWords integration has been available since last October, but until now has not been available as part of the new AdWords experience.
Optimize gives marketers an easy way to change and test the landing pages related to their AdWords ads.
Using Optimize, marketers can create different versions of the same landing page which are ‘optimized’ according to what the individual user has searched for.
Marketers can also use Optimize to A/B test different landing pages to see which one performs better. Integration with AdWords allows users to set specific AdWords metrics as experiment objectives.
Google also offers an enterprise version called Optimize 360 which lets marketers conduct dozens of landing page tests at the same time.
Marketers can enable Optimize for use with AdWords by following the steps below:
Sign in to your AdWords account.
Click the wrench icon (settings menu) in the upper right.
Navigate to SETUP > Linked accounts.
Under Google Analytics, click DETAILS.
Turn on Google Optimize sharing.
Along with bringing Optimize integration to the new AdWords experience, Google is giving users the ability to link multiple AdWords accounts at once.
Previously, advertisers that had many AdWords accounts under a manager account had to link each sub-account individually. Needless to say, that could end up being time consuming.
Now, advertisers can link their AdWords manager account directly to Optimize which will pull in all their AdWords accounts at once.
Lastly, Google is also introducing the ability for Optimize users to run a single experiment for multiple keywords, even if the keywords are spread across different campaigns and ad groups.
by | May 31, 2018 | Local SEO
“Content is king” is a phrase that gets bandied around the web an awful lot. I’ve written before about how content is no good without promotion, and I stand by that.
But if you do promotion right and have a relatively established website, there are a few things you can do with your content that can help explode your traffic. And I don’t use that hyperbole lightly.
Too many people fall into the trap of churning out blog content for the sake of it, without much thought and research, or without delivering on that research once it’s been done.
Here’s how to stop that happening, and to create informational content that will truly shine and bring lots more people to your website, in a consistent way.
The starting point for all effective content (that targets search traffic at least) is keyword research. You need to ensure you are writing pieces of content that target phrases and topics people are searching for.
For this process, our focus is on informational content so you should be looking for the kind of things your audiences are searching for higher in the buying funnel before they reach the commercial queries that are more likely to directly convert.
Questions
A great way to find this is looking for questions that people are asking about your topic.
Fortunately, Ahrefs has a handy little tool for that which will tell you what questions people are searching for around your topic:
In this example, if I had a client who offered trips to Italy, I would put Italy in and see what comes back. I could then start typing in more specific locations like Rome or Florence and get another batch of ideas.
You could then go the other way and broaden the search to Europe and see if you can capture some people who haven’t yet filtered down to Italy itself but could still be interested if your content is good enough to inspire them!
Competitors
Another great source of content inspiration is competitors. You can look at their blog and see the kind of articles they are writing, but you can also be more scientific and use Ahrefs to see what their best performing content is.
Just plug in the URL of competitor domains, filter by top pages, and see how you should prioritize your content based on which of their pages are giving them the most visibility.
The key is to choose a well-ranked site, so you can garner as much information as possible, though obviously doing it for multiple sites will yield even more ideas:
Blogs
In addition to sites that you consider direct competitors, do some research and find prominent blogs that focus on your niche, then carry out the same process as you did with competitors.
Naturally, blogs will have more informational content, so if you can find an authoritative blog on your topic, it will likely be the source of lots of excellent ideas for informational content.
Places & Things
One area that often gets overlooked when doing keyword research is the name of places and things.
In travel, this is particularly prevalent as there are so many places to see and visit and good search interest for specific things. Often these kinds of things are overlooked in favor of more general phrases like “things to do in…” or “best time to visit…” but there is actually a lot of volume at the other end of the scale with very specific things.
You can see this below in the top pages for a client we work with, which are almost all guides about specific things in Rome:
Phrases like “Palatine Hill” and “Catacombs of Rome” are largely ignored by the huge travel sites, so present a huge opportunity for smaller independent brands if they create content that is good enough.
Once you have the right topic, the next challenge is structuring your content in the best way to actually then rank for the terms you’ve identified.
Your piece should be the most comprehensive one about the subject matter on the web, so it’s highly likely it will be a long one.
We recommend at least 2,000 words, but this can vary depending on the topic. Look at who is on Page 1 and ranking well and get a feel for whether that will suffice or if you can get away with shorter or need to go much longer.
As well as length, there are a few other key areas we have found to making your content as effective as possible.
Introduction
Start your page with a good overview which gives a quick insight into what the page is about and what it will cover. This is effective in getting a featured snippet at the top of the search results when your content starts to rank prominently.
Internal Page Menu
As you are likely to have an extremely long page, a menu at the top of the page that jumps down to the various sections included is a good idea and gives Google more information to understand what the key areas of the page are.
This menu should reflect the findings in your keyword research, with the headers matching the sub-topics that had good search interest around them.
Media
Images and video will make the page more comprehensive and also help to keep people on the page longer, which will impact your ranking performance over the longer term.
It will also break up the swathes of text you have on the page and make it easier to consume for readers.
Headings
Ensure you have a proper heading structure throughout, with the title as an H1 tag, and the key sections that your menu jumps to marked up as H2 tags. Within those sections then make headings H3 tags.
This can also be extremely effective in achieving featured snippets in the search results.
Here’s an important area that is often overlooked. One area that will naturally develop as you add more content to your site is internal linking opportunities. More content, more places to link to and from!
As you are adding new pages to your site, be sure to link through to other relevant pages within the same topic area.
For example, if we follow our Italy example, ensure that all pages about Rome link to other pages about Rome and that pages about Florence all link to other pages about Florence.
As your site grows you will need to return to old content and link to the new pieces being added, and when you reach a point where you have a strong body of content it is good to do this in a structured way throughout the site so Google can recognize the pattern.
Developing strong “silos” around your various different topics through the strong internal linking patterns will help Google understand all the content better and see you as more of an authority on the topic. That will help both the informational content rank better, and also the commercial pages that are closer to the bottom of the funnel.
It should go without saying that your content needs to be amazing. Google wants to deliver the best results for users, so to be future proof you need to be confident that your page lives up to the bill.
Look at Page 1 for the phrases you want your content to rank for and make sure that you create something better. It doesn’t need to be 10x better, just 2 or 3x better will do just fine.
The main thing is that when a user finds it, they are satisfied and get all the information they could possibly want without going elsewhere.
Below are some examples of sites sticking to these principles extremely well and benefitting from strong rankings and traffic improvement as a result.
Free Tours by Foot – Things to Do in New York
This pages covers all the points highlighted above and ranks on page 1 of Google for some of the most competitive terms in travel.
An overview sentence at the start, internal page menu, then a video to encourage people to stay on the page longer.
There is then a huge amount of content on the page, broken up effectively by well structured headings, media and other formatting. It’s also packed with internal links to supporting content and commercial pages, all of which also rank extremely well.
You can see the impact of producing this kind of content consistently on the site’s traffic below:
Roma Experience – Palatine Hill
This is a good example of the Places and Things recommendation above that we implemented for a client.
We built out their content by developing lots of in depth pages around the key places that people visit Rome to see, and a wide variety of them rank extremely well as the quality of content produced by bigger, stronger sites is not up to scratch (because they are focusing on bigger keywords).
The mix of in-depth content, page menu, other media and internal linking have helped these pages, and the site in general, hugely improve its visibility and rankings for key commercial phrases too:
Journey Era – Best Things to Do in Oahu
This is a good example of an authoritative blog getting things right that you can use to inform your own content and find ideas.
Journey Era has created epic content throughout the site, with a huge, in-depth article on things to do in Oahu.
However, I believe the key to their performance here is the supporting articles that feature for every item included in the list.
This creates a very strong silo around that post, and as a result, the main post and the supporting pages rank like crazy.
You might be left thinking “it’s all well and good to get traffic through these informational pages, but I want to make sales.” And you’re right.
It’s true that the chances of someone converting off a phrase like “Palatine Hill” compared to “Rome tours” aren’t as high. However, having more content around the topic of the commercial phrase will help it rank higher as well, as the examples above show.
You should also do more to engage with the visitors coming through informational phrases so that they may buy something off you in future. It’s highly likely that many of those searchers are doing some research before they buy something in future, so if you can take this opportunity to show off why your brand is great then that will stand you in good stead when they reach the point of purchase.
Feature some form of lead magnet on your informational pages so visitors have a reason to hand over their email address to you. You can then build a relationship with them via email, so when they are ready to buy something you are the first brand that jumps to mind.
The title of this post focuses on exploding traffic, rather than conversions, and it’s true that there is some work to be done to take this increase in visitors and turn them into an increase in customers.
However, there is no doubt that if you write great content around topics that are well searched for, structure it using the approaches above and then ensure you engage the users that land on your site, you will see an extremely positive return on that investment for your business.
It takes time to develop that content, but it is both sustainable and far-reaching if you commit to it. The hardest thing is getting started, so take that first step and everything else will follow.
More Content Marketing Resources:
Image CreditsFeatured Image: Created by author, May 2018Screenshots taken by author, May 2018
by | May 31, 2018 | Local SEO
Augmented reality (AR), best characterized by a real-time blending of virtual objects into real-world settings, is no longer science fiction.
Now accessible by most smartphone cameras, AR has made the move to the mainstream.
And brands have taken notice.
Deloitte identified that almost 90 percent of companies with annual revenues of $100 million to $1 billion are now leveraging AR or VR technology. For smaller firms, a poll conducted by Purch revealed that 10 percent of marketers utilize AR, and 72 percent are planning to in the coming year.
AR can do so much more than simply entertain.
Early adopters have firmly established AR’s potential. Not only as a marketing channel but as a brand differentiator. It allows a new level of convenience, speed and can leave a lasting brand impression.
Tony Effik, CSO at Publicis Modem, commented:
“AR has the potential to provide consumers with an experience they want and they will tell their friends about.”
But beware. AR ≠ Physical + Digital. The whole must be more than the sum of the parts.
Developing AR for the sake of having the technology will fail. Using AR to make your brand appear innovative can be viewed as forced. AR created as a gimmick may generate some buzz, but it will likely be short-lived.
If your AR experience needs a marketing campaign to gain users, you’re doing it wrong. If AR is your marketing campaign, you’re doing it very wrong.
In augmented reality marketing, the AR element must:
Provide a meaningful and branded interaction.
Play an authentic role in the communications.
Be a gateway to a new reality of brand engagement.
There needs to be substance to the experience. It has to provide value.
Let’s look at how different brands has approached this challenge.
Examples of Ineffective AR Marketing
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AMC, Heineken, Starbucks, Heinz and many other brands have launched “interactive object” AR features. I’ve read praise for such experiences. That they “turn a static image or object into something full of movement and wonder” according to SmallBizDaily.
I call bullsh!t.
Each brand is an excellent example of the wrong way to do AR marketing.
The augmented object doesn’t enhance the real world environment. It’s simply projected onto it, or worse it’s an unnecessarily complicated step to access website content.
In the short term, this may win the wow factor and draw people into an experience. But these brands are relying on novelty. As AR experiences become more commonplace, such “marketing” will have little impact for the amount invested.
If your goal is to trigger digital content that does not require the physical environment, using AR is overkill. And will likely result in lower interaction rates than if you used a simple digital marker.
A Purdue University study compared a print version and an augmented reality version of the same car ad. The result? The print ad retained 82 percent of the factual information. The AR ad only 59 percent. Using augmented reality impeded communication because the focus was on the technology rather than the message.
These brands are forgetting about creating added value for their users.
You need to go beyond the initial wow factor.
You need to create something functional.
To understand how best to integrate augmented reality with your brand, think carefully about how your target audience will actually interact with it.
Effective AR marketing does not give people a reason to look at their phones. But rather through them to the augmented world beyond. The augmented content must in some way enhance the physical world it is being superimposed into.
Examples of Effective AR Marketing
When brands understand why AR should be more than a marketing gimmick, we see some powerful applications of the technology.
Looking for benchmarks?
The Drum reported that AR experiences “can lead to dwell times of over 85 seconds, interaction rates of up to 20 percent and click-through rates to purchase of 33 percent – numbers that dwarf anything across print, online or television advertising”.
Let’s dive into six augmented reality marketing examples to understand how to move AR from novelty to compelling use cases.
1. Drive Engagement via Gamification
If you remember the 12 minutes when Pokemon Go was popular, it was enormously popular. And it played a critical role in training consumers that the camera can do more than capture images, it can also be interactive.
Pokemon Go failed because after the initial week or two, there is not much new to learn with only basic gameplay to begin with and few new features introduced. Meaning there were diminishing returns on screen time investment for the casual player.
Here’s the message for marketers:
For AR to be impactful long term, it has to do more than place virtual characters into real environments. But we also learned that cute characters and local marketing are a powerful combination to lure people to specific locations.
Google is capitalizing on this for Maps.
Many people can’t actually read a map. And often the small blue dot is not so helpful.
So you begin to walk and see if it is moving in the same direction. Which often it’s not. Augmented reality can help solve this consumer challenge.
It was announced at Google I/O ’18 that Maps’ Walking Navigation is being enhanced by AR with visual overlays and an animated guide to help you find your way.
Brands can capitalize on a similar approach, especially those whose value is location based such as:
Tour companies could overlay “how it was” on historical places to create a virtual window to the past (developing upon The Guardian’s approach form 2014).
Department stores could show the optimal path to collect all items on a shopping list, highlighting relevant offers on the way based on past buying behaviors.
Restaurants or food delivery services could have an AR menu for patrons to see each dish before you order so you can see the portion size and ingredients.
AR visualizations can become a valuable part of an environment, augmenting the real world with relevant information.
2. Go Beyond Branding to Experiential Marketing
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AR is being used for big installations by big brands.
The arguments for such interactive billboards is that they are keeping out of home advertising alive. Passersby get to immerse themselves in branded content and the resulting engagement is inclusive and sparks conversations.
When else do you see people standing around staring at billboards?
Sure. You could go to the mall and dance with penguins thanks to VISA or pat a polar bear with Coca-Cola & WWF. But such a marketing tactics attract attention because AR is right now a novelty. This effect will wear off quickly.
Do such interactions leave an impactful impression that will change user behavior?
Will consumers remember the brand message or just the fun experience?
That depend on if the experience ties directly into the brand’s value or message.
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The Walking Dead Scary Shelter is a perfect example of how to do Out-Of-Home AR right. Bringing the emotions of the show, it’s value, directly to the viewers.
3. From Lenses to Purchasable Looks
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Snapchat lenses were a major driving force behind the augmented reality taking to mainstream. Along with Instagram and Facebook, Snapchat helped to teach consumers that smartphone cameras can be interactive.
Lenses became a million dollar revenue generator for the company, thanks to brand sponsorship. The value is measured in views and the price tag is high. It costs more than double the price of a Facebook ad to reach the same number of eyeballs.
AR can get you eyeballs. But it’s even better at driving actions.
You can take the technology behind lenses and turn it into a virtual try-on.
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With this technology, you can virtually:
Test that bold red lipstick with Sephora.
See the effect of months of skin care in the space of a moment with Modiface Skin AI.
Create custom-fit glasses based on a 3D scan of your face with Topology Eyewear.
By featuring your customer as the model, you remove any doubts about what the product will look like in real life. The personalization is perfect, and so too is the convenience.
No need to go to the store. No need to deal with returns when the product isn’t quite right.
This is not only beneficial for the user experience, but the cost saving for your company can be substantial.
It doesn’t always have to be a hard sell of try and buy. You could run a virtual makeup tutorial for the perfect smokey eye, mentioning the products used as you go, a more valuable user experience than watching a video of someone else doing it.
4. Put Products in the Hands of the User
“Try before you buy” was the axiom of offline. “Free returns” the conversion mantra of online.
Neither is as powerful as product visualization in AR.
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IKEA perfectly incorporates AR into their marketing strategy in a way that solves a real problem. You can understand how a piece of furniture, in the exact proportions, will look like in your own home. Allowing customers to test the product as they would already own it, reducing returns and regrets.
And IKEA is not alone.
WayFair (via their app) and Target (via their mobile site) have both integrated AR into their digital catalogs. Amazon (via their app) has also begun to offer preview-in-place functionality on thousands of items.
But it’s not just big retailers exploring AR product visualization.
With Art.com you can preview over 2 million pieces of art and customize the frame through AR. Similarly, Dulux allows you to visualize what color to paint your walls.
Each of these is a practical use case where augmented reality adds significant value to the experience. With AR, you are changing the current visual state of a space.
To see something is more impactful than just trying to visualize it in your own mind. It’s a powerful trigger for that “have to have it moment.” Not only making the decision easier, but making shopping more personalized and fun.
The key challenge is how to let customers know you have the option of virtual try on. Including an AR component in your existing app is one proven method.
But you can get more creative. Stockless pop-up stores with images as markers, billboards, magazine ads – each of these is an opportunity to trigger an augmented version of the product.
Such a strategy may have given Lacoste’s AR virtual try-on experience more reach than the 15,000 users they achieved via their app.
Virtual try-before-you-buy, to show products in the context of how they will actually be used, are ideal ground-level use cases for how marketers can use AR.
In other marketing channels, there is a much boarded gap between the experience and the product. What’s more, the scope of the channel often requires generalized messaging.
With AR, you are marketing the experience of the product to one person.
5. Give New Life to Storytelling
Augmented reality offers the opportunity to deepen the digital storytelling experience. A new path that leads away from the abstract depiction of objects on a flat screen towards a more visceral sense of real life scale and physicality.
Here we must pause to mention that in virtual reality, where viewers are immersed in a virtual world, also has powerful storytelling capabilities.
Both AR and VR can make characters come alive. In VR you live in their world, while in AR can characters step out of the screen into your world.
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AR has the potential to be as disruptive as TV. Not only as a new technology but a whole new medium which will develop its own conventions.
Because the audience is no longer a passive recipient of a story when watching it on the screen. They become active participants – interacting with it through the screen.
It’s powerful, as this kind of engagement elicits more emotions and will leave a longer lasting impression.
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Yet, the purpose of AR storytelling is lost of every brand that animates print (sorry TIME) or objects (sorry 19 Crimes). This is not leveraging the true power of augmented reality. It’s not much more valuable than using computer vision to trigger a video.
Storytellers need to focus on emotionally connecting, not trying to create an improved version of yesteryear’s QR-codes.
Media companies including The New York Times and Washington Post are exploring the potential of augmented reality to add value to news reporting. To help to satisfy the craving of audiences to get closer to the story.
They understand that despite all the camera angles, watching sports on TV creates an experience where you are “passively cocooned on the couch as a mere spectator to miniaturized athletes squeezed through a two-dimensional plane.”
Their Olympians AR feature stories try to break this mold. Encouraging viewers to actively engaging by walking around the life-sized athletes suspended in action or see athletes race across your table.
I can appreciate how such an experience adds new dimensions and a deeper understanding. But this felt more like a classroom than a story.
For show-and-tell augmented reality I prefer Google Expeditions or the BBC’s Civilisations augmented reality app designed to complement the TV show.
What’s more, there is no relevance between the AR story and the physical environment. It’s a simple case of ASTTW (“Add Something to the World”) in contrast to the more valuable LATWATMSAI (“Look at the World and Tell Me Something About It”) – the two cases for mixed reality identified by Benedict Evans.
The impact would likely be heightened by taking the user into the world of the object via virtual reality, more so than bringing the lone object to the world of the user via augmented reality.
The obvious challenge here is that many smartphones are now AR compatible, making the technology accessible. While VR requires a dedicated headset and for brands has a higher development cost.
A different approach to AR storytelling is taken by Quartz, illustrating text-based stories with augmented objects. The 3D object is not trying to tell the whole story itself, but is replacing flat photos and videos as a more impactful visual communication tool. Providing additional context to the news story told through text.
John Keefe from Quartz stated that two-thirds of people who are presented with the possibility of seeing something in AR will do so. Indicating a desire of readers to get closer to the story.
While these approaches may not yet be perfect, publishers are taking steps in the right direction for AR. Testing ways to to extend the story beyond the edges of a screen. A first exploration into what AR journalism will look like.
The next step is to refine AR storytelling so that there is a utility to it. Rather than ASTTW, we focus on storytelling that depends on the environment in which you are standing.
6. Focus User Attention
So far we have focused on augmented reality experiences that add objects to the real world. But there is just as much opportunity in using AR to help consumers focus on specific items that would otherwise be lost in the array of visual clutter.
Let’s take the situation of shopping in a supermarket. What I don’t mean by focusing user attention is some dystopian shopping experience where you’re bombarded by special offers.
By focusing user attention, I mean truly useful applications for an easier in-store experience. Package design in recent years hasn’t made nutritional information easily accessible.
Rather than staring at small print labels or Googling it for every individual product, why not utilize AR to highlighting food that fits my dietary requirements, be that without nuts, or gluten-free or low calorie?
Similar selection bias could be utilised when trying to find the right bus in a new city, looking for a dog friendly cafe nearby or identifying the most relevant contacts at a networking event.
How to Get Started with Augmented Reality Marketing
We can’t yet design for a world where we presume people are wearing AR glasses. Google Goggles had major social issues and Snap Spectacles never went mainstream.
Some more stylish “you don’t know I am wearing them” models of AR glasses are in the works, but I’d say are at least a year off. So we need some form of screen if we want our AR content to be consumed at scale.
Which leaves us for the time being with smartphones as the most common device for AR experiences.
If you already have a native app, AR can be a useful addition to further the customer journey and make your app more valuable to users.
Yet brand-focused native apps still suffer from the fundamental issue that people don’t want to download them and rarely use them unless a habit has been created. So for your AR experience, think beyond only native apps.
You can build augmented reality functionality into:
Websites, thanks to Chrome, Firefox and other browsers working to become compatible.
Banner ads, known as ARDP (Augmented Reality Digital Placements).
Facebook Messenger bots that support augmented reality features.
Social networks, such as Snapchat and Instagram.
Cars. Jaguar and BMW are experimenting with smart windshields to offer AR content.
Bus stops have been used as an augmented reality delivery mechanism.
There are a myriad of development tools, the main two being Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore. Add Facebook’s AR Studio into the mix, and the compatible mobile device base for augmented reality is almost 1 billion people. These frameworks have also led to a significant decrease in development costs.
So, are you ready to bring new realities to your users?
You now know that:
Novelty won’t build brand loyalty.
Augmented reality marketing has the potential to genuinely enhance user experience.
In 2018, the device will likely be a smartphone app, although there are a wide variety of delivery mechanisms available.
AR development has become affordable.
Now is the time to establish you augmented reality marketing strategy. Let’s enhance the world.
More AR/VR Marketing Resources:
Image Credits
Featured Image: Created by Jes Scholz, May 2018.Google Maps image by GoogleAugmented Supermarket by Medium
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