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Have you ever supplied your recent brand images or video shoot to a digital agency only to hear it will cost more money to re-edit them before they can be used on Social Media? Brand images and video dimensions need to be suitable for social media Ads or organic social platform placements for the best results.
I hope this post seems obvious and unnecessary to it&#8217;s readers and if so, you&#8217;re free to leave now with my full blessing. Unfortunately it&#8217;s a consistent problem we see from brand&#8217;s photo and video shoot results so perhaps this post might help you save money.
<h2>Why do Social Media friendly image dimensions matter?</h2>
One of the key components of a successful <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/social-media-advertising/">social media strategy</a> across both your Ads and organic social posts is the use of high-quality visuals. Your brand needs to get the greatest return on investment possible when planning a photo or video shoot to fulfil this need.
If you plan to work with a professional photographer or videographer then Social Media friendly dimensions must be kept in mind. It&#8217;s no longer enough to consider the formats and dimensions that look well on the mantlepiece, wall or TV but crucially what works across Social Media and on a mobile device in particular. Each Social Media platform has its own unique image and video size requirements.
For example, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have different required aspect ratios for images and videos. If brands fail to take these dimensions into account, their visuals may be cropped or resized when used in Ads or organic posts, resulting in a loss of quality and a negative impact in advertising costs and results.
Social Media platform algorithms are designed to prioritise visually appealing content which engages the user. This means that images and videos that are correctly sized and optimised for the platform tend to perform better than those that are not. By creating visuals that are optimised for Social Media, brands can increase engagement, reach a wider audience, improve ROI and their overall Social Media presence.
Essentially, by creating visuals with the appropriate dimensions, brands can ensure that their content appears as intended, and is more likely to catch the attention of their audience.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14288 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-700x515.jpg" alt="girl lying down with hair swept over her face for Social Media photography" width="700" height="515" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-700x515.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-250x184.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-768x565.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-1536x1130.jpg 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-2048x1507.jpg 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/girl-lying-down-with-hair-swept-over-her-face-for-Social-Media-photography-120x88.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h2>The benefits of high quality social images and video</h2>
One of the key benefits of having high quality Social Media friendly images and video comes back to &#8216;Retention&#8217;. In other words, once someone sees your content they need to remember it and better yet, click on it.
Good quality brand imagery increases the click through rates on your Ads and organic social posts, reducing overall cost per conversion. It&#8217;s simple really, if you have great looking images for your brand, it increases your chances of users clicking through to find out more about you and where they can buy from you.
The same applies when it comes to organic social media posts also. Having high quality photos taken at brand events or shoots which fit into these dimensions makes a huge amount of business sense.
<h3>Three good reasons why you need Social Media friendly images from your brand&#8217;s shoot:</h3>
<ol>
<li>The results can be used for both ads and your organic social posts providing high quality visual content for the future.</li>
<li>Retention. The more impact your creatives have, the more likely they&#8217;ll be retained by users viewing them.</li>
<li>Increase your sales. The main reason why you should invest in creating great looking Social Media friendly images is because they increase sales. If people see high quality imagery, that&#8217;s what they&#8217;ll associate with your brand and chances are they&#8217;ll click on it and visit your website. This means more traffic coming into your site and ultimately more sales!</li>
</ol>
<h2>What does poor formatting on Social media placements look like?</h2>
When advertising on Social Media or any other digital Ad placement, it&#8217;s crucial to make the best possible use of the screen real estate available to you. Suitably adapted images or video content will fill the entire screen and place your core message right where the user is focused.
See an example of a poorly formatted 9:16 Facebook or Instagram Story image versus the correct formatting below.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14291 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements-700x500.png" alt="Poor Social Media image formatting example on Facebook and Instagram Story placements" width="700" height="500" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements-700x500.png 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements-250x179.png 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements-768x549.png 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements-1536x1097.png 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements-120x86.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Poor-Social-Media-image-formatting-example-on-Facebook-and-Instagram-Story-placements.png 1680w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h2>Which Social Media image &amp; video dimensions do I really need?</h2>
If needed, find a full detailed list of <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-image-sizes-guide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">all Social Media sizes</a> from Hootsuite. In reality, you&#8217;ll really only need the current main ratios and minimum pixel sizes below to be well prepared for pretty much all social media platforms:
Images:
<ul>
<li>1.91:1 (1080 x 567 pixels) &#8211; Less important than the rest of the dimensions</li>
<li>16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels)</li>
<li>1:1 (1080 x 1080 pixels)</li>
<li>4:5 (1080 x 1350 pixels)</li>
<li>9:16 (1080 x 1920 pixels)</li>
</ul>
Videos:
<ul>
<li>16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels)</li>
<li>1:1 (1080 x 1080 pixels)</li>
<li>4:5 (1080 x 1350 pixels)</li>
<li>9:16 (1080 x 1920 pixels)</li>
</ul>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14289 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-700x155.webp" alt="Social Media image dimensions on mobile devices" width="700" height="155" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-700x155.webp 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-250x55.webp 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-768x170.webp 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-1536x340.webp 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-2048x454.webp 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Social-Media-image-dimensions-on-mobile-devices-120x27.webp 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h2>How can Brands avoid this common mistake?</h2>
Thankfully most modern professional photographers and videographers will keep Social Media dimensions in mind when shooting. However, a gentle reminder of their importance to your brand at the start of any photo or video shoot will serve your business well.
Keeping social media-friendly image dimensions in mind during photo and video shoots can save time and resources in the long run. Having to later re-work those images or video will cost multiples of what it takes to have them considered at the start of production. The initial shoot is the stage when it&#8217;s easiest to produce the source content correctly and allow the editing and crafting of the dimensions needed for Social Media.
By taking the time to create visuals with the appropriate dimensions during the photo and video shoot, brands can avoid these additional costs and ensure that their content is ready for distribution on social media.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14286 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-700x467.jpg" alt="Phone user taking a photgraph in 9-16 dimension for social media" width="700" height="467" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-700x467.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Phone-user-taking-a-photgraph-in-9-16-dimension-for-social-media-120x80.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h2>How should a photographer or videographer shoot to deliver Social media friendly results?</h2>
Obviously your professional photographer or videographer should know the best way to shoot your brand content to allow for Social Media friendly dimensions. However if you find this task on your plate, here are some suggestions and advice based around the ratios mentioned previously above:
<h4>Shoot in 4:3 or 16:9 ratio</h4>
This is ideal for later cropping to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. If you&#8217;re working within a tight budget, then shoot in everything in 4:3 or 16:9 and later crop down to 1:1, 9:16, 4:5 etc as needed.
Shoot in 16:9 if you&#8217;d like to include landscape images in your campaigns for any reason and they&#8217;re also commonly used on the web. The only downside to shooting in this ratio is that it won&#8217;t work well for Instagram and Snapchat until cropped down.
<h4>Shoot in 1:1 ratio</h4>
Square formats are the standard Ad image dimension and ideal for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and some YouTube placements.
<h4>Shoot in 9:16 ratio</h4>
This is ideal for video placements across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Obviously this perfectly matches the average smart phone screen and takes up the full screen real estate available for your brand. 9:16 images are crucial to help your brand look it&#8217;s best across Facebook and Instagram&#8217;s Story placements.
The key thing to remember when using these ratios is that you&#8217;ll likely need to crop down your images once you&#8217;ve finished. It doesn&#8217;t matter whether you&#8217;re shooting in 4:3 or 16:9, you&#8217;ll still need to crop down the image before publishing on Social for best results.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-14287 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-700x467.jpg" alt="videographer editing brand video for social media dimensions in their editing suite" width="700" height="467" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-700x467.jpg 700w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/videographer-editing-brand-video-for-social-media-dimensions-in-their-editing-suite-120x80.jpg 120w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" />
<h2>Some other things to consider</h2>
Once you&#8217;ve edited the image in Photoshop or Canva, use the Crop tool to remove any unwanted parts of the image. You may want to add an overlay text box to the top left hand corner with a CTA or logo to help promote your business further.
<h4>Use high resolution photos</h4>
It&#8217;s important that you don&#8217;t just take low resolution photos and expect them to look good. A higher resolution will give you better results.
<h4>Keep your image file sizes small</h4>
Image file sizes shouldn&#8217;t exceed 100MB unless you know exactly what you&#8217;re going to do with the image and that you need larger.
<h4>Create multiple versions of the same image</h4>
If you&#8217;re unsure about which version looks best, then create several versions.
<h4>Make sure you name and tag your images correctly</h4>
You&#8217;ll want to know what it was you were shooting to easily find them again so using sensible naming conventions is key.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
Taking the time to shoot for social media friendly results will save you time and money in the long run. Utilising multiple ratios, good resolution photos, keeping file sizes small, sensibly naming and tagging images are all ways to ensure your brand is looking its best across social platforms. This will help brand retention for users and ultimately your sales!
If you need help from a specialist <a href="https://www.friday.ie/expertise/digital-marketing/social-media-advertising/">Social Media Ads Agency</a>, talk to us today.
&nbsp;

Photographer pointing camera at the viewer for a social media brand photo shoot

Your Brand Photo & Video Shoots need Social Media friendly results

Whether you’re looking at food recipes on a blog, shopping for a new jacket or booking a holiday, imagery has become significantly important for our everyday use on the web. It should be no surprise that images are typically the largest asset a website serves to its users.
If we can reduce the size of those images as much as we can without affecting their overall quality, it will greatly improve the user’s experience and page speed on your website. Converting your images to a next-gen image format, like WebP, is one of the best ways to achieve this.
<h2>What&#8217;s WebP?</h2>
WebP is an image format created by Google way back in 2010. It is an alternative to image formats like JPG and PNG by serving much smaller file sizes without losing too much image quality.
<div id="attachment_9749" style="width: 1270px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9749" class="wp-image-9749 size-gallery-panel" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/webp-jpg-2-1260x620.png" alt="" width="1260" height="620" srcset="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/webp-jpg-2-1260x620.png 1260w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/webp-jpg-2-120x60.png 120w, https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/webp-jpg-2-80x40.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1260px) 100vw, 1260px" />WebP 59KB vs. JPG 167KB</div>
Have a look at the two cat images above and see if you can notice any differences between them (I couldn’t anyway).
The image on the left is a 59KB WebP and the image on the right is a 167KB JPG. That doesn’t sound like much, it’s only a few KB but that’s a 95% difference in file size. If your website is particularly reliant on imagery, those few KB quickly add up!
<h2>Why Use WebP?</h2>
From the reduced image file sizes you get from WebP you can expect a number of benefits:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Improved page load speed will allow your users to navigate through and interact with your website with ease. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Meeting user’s expectations of how fast your website should load also enhances user engagement. The longer you keep a user waiting the more frustrated they will become, increasing the chance they will leave your website.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Google likes websites that serve images in next-gen formats as they offer “faster downloads and less data consumption”. So having WebP images is one way in which Google will reward your website with an improved SEO ranking.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Can we use WebP now?</h2>
At the time of writing this article, about <a href="https://caniuse.com/#feat=webp">80% of all web users, and most modern browsers, will be able to benefit from WebP images.</a>
Internet Explorer and Safari are the main browsers that still don’t support WebP. As WebP is a product of Google, Apple seem reluctant or unable to support it on Safari. There was a <a href="https://twitter.com/html5test/status/752434454061322240">tweet back in 2017</a> that Safari on iOS 10 was going support WebP but it was scrapped before final release.
It is also extremely unlikely WebP will see support on Internet Explorer as Microsoft has since abandoned support in favour of their new browser, Edge.
<div id="attachment_9751" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9751" class="wp-image-9751 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/bye-bye-ie.gif" alt="" width="500" height="281" />Protip: Stop using Internet Explorer</div>
So yes, we can use WebP now but there&#8217;s a catch. Two sets of images need to be provided: the WebP image and a JPG/PNG fallback in case the user’s browser doesn’t support WebP. However the advantages definitely outweigh the disadvantages so it is well worth your time to implement WebP images.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
For huge reductions on image file sizes, WebP can be used in place of PNG and JPG images. Smaller image file sizes has many benefits such as better page load speed, improved SEO ranking and enhanced user engagement.
Despite Safari and Internet Explorer not supporting WebP, the reduced image file sizes are too great not to implement on websites.
Smaller image file sizes means less data, less data means faster pages, and faster pages makes for a happier web.
<hr />
Why not check out some of my other articles <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/author/jonathan/">here</a>?

Next-gen Images: Page Speed’s New Best Friend

You possibly have not yet heard of the AMP pages/project, and that’s ok, as it is a relatively new thing. I want to give you some insight into what AMP is and how you can benefit from it. 
<h3>So what is Google&#8217;s AMP?</h3>
According to the <a href="https://www.ampproject.org/">Accelerated Mobile Pages</a> (AMP) Project, “AMP is an open source initiative that embodies the vision that publishers can create mobile optimised content once and have it load instantly everywhere.” 
You know when you do a Google search on your mobile and you get news related results that appear in a carousel? That content is AMP. What’s happening is that the content behind the headlines is loading in the background before you even read it. 
When you decide to click and open one of the articles all of its content has already loaded so it pops up instantly. AMP content is formatted in optimised highly efficient HTML and javascript. AMP pages are loading 85% faster than standard pages. 
Google spent a huge amount of time over the last several years convincing web developers and publishers to adopt responsive design. So why are they introducing a new play rule now? If you ask me, I would say it’s because Google always looks to give users the best possible experience. With <a href="https://instantarticles.fb.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook Instant Articles</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/news/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple News</a>, and whatever else is happening I’m wondering how web developers and publishers are going to adopt another new format.
Another reason for AMP is that Google wants to keep the user inside its ecosystem and AMP gives it more control here. Displaying Maps, Reviews, related search content, full answers, recipes etc &#8211; if we get the answer to your query without having to leave Google’s platform, we rely on it even more.
It’s possible that AMP will ultimately be ranked higher than responsive pages; but for now, Google has not taken an official position on this.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-2539 aligncenter" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/AMP7-1.jpg" alt="AMP Pages" width="300" height="533" />
<h3>How to get started with AMP pages?</h3>
If you have a WordPress site, it should be pretty straightforward to implement AMP and a plugin I have used called <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/amp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AMP</a> works very well. Some WordPress themes may not be fully compatible so check its compatibility first. 
<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/glue-for-yoast-seo-amp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Glue for Yoast SEO &amp; AMP</a> is another plugin that will come in handy with your SEO efforts. This plugin makes sure the default WordPress AMP plugin uses the proper Yoast SEO metadata and allows modification of the AMP page design. 
If you don’t use WordPress, Google created a <a href="https://www.ampproject.org/docs/get_started/create_page.html">tutorial</a> to help you start with AMP’s. 
It takes Google several days to crawl and index your site before it starts showing in Search Results. As always with Google, early adopters will see the best results. 
If you are considering implementing AMP, do it as soon as possible. Google is doing everything to push and promote AMP, they have even implemented mobile tagging of AMP’s through <a href="https://www.google.com/analytics/tag-manager/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tag Manager</a>. 
<h3>How can you benefit from AMP?</h3>
Here are the main advantages of having AMP pages:
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1">Faster loading pages for mobile users — AMP pages load 15-85% faster than standard sites, therefore it’s not a surprise that one of the main benefits of AMP is faster mobile loading.</li>
<li class="li1">Improved search engine ranking — Faster load times help mean better rankings.</li>
<li class="li1">Use of Carouses: Google started to display AMP content within carousels that include large images. This naturally draws users attention and improves your click-through rate.</li>
</ol>
There was a lot of talk that AMP pages will see a huge ranking boost, so the SEO community got excited. :) However, the latest research and Google’s announcement showed pages will not receive any ranking boost or be shown in top search results.
However, when there are two versions of a page, Google will prefer and link to the AMP version.
<a href="https://youtu.be/WrpkFROqR0Q">https://youtu.be/WrpkFROqR0Q</a>
Let us know your thoughts and challenges with implementing AMP Pages in the comments below.

What are AMP pages and how to get started?

<h3 class="graf--h3"></h3>
It seems as though everything you hear about digital marketing recently concerns mobile. Even if you have the word mobile in your job title the odds are you are earning more than your peers. A recent <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://econsultancy.com/reports/career-and-salary-survey-report-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://econsultancy.com/reports/career-and-salary-survey-report-2016">survey by eConsultancy</a> found that mobile emerges as the top paid specialism among digital marketers. With good reason too, just follow the money!
eMarketer estimates that in 2015, US consumers bought $74.93 billion worth of goods and services via mobile devices, up 32.2% over 2014 spending levels.
So it’s clear mobile purchasing is on an upward trend. In terms of traffic Ireland actually tops Europe as the most active mobile users with nearly half the share of total website visits.
The chart below illustrates our time spent shopping via different mediums.
<figure class="graf--figure">
<div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder is-locked">
<div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder-fill">
<img class="progressiveMedia-image js-progressiveMedia-image" alt="" data-src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*ojrHLTJ2ubOvpNO3QjNQtQ.png" />
<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-1883 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/always-on.png" alt="shopping time per medium" width="100%" height="auto" /> Source: Shopify, 2015
Having a mobile strategy is essential, especially if you run an eCommerce business. Here are some important trends to look out for the rest of 2016:
<h3 class="graf--h3">Customer Experience is more important than ever</h3>
Obviously smaller screen sizes have a big influence on how your eCommerce website is designed. You need to maximise the value from all real estate available. This all drills down to the experience you provide your customer.
Is the layout familiar? Is the path to purchase simple? Can consumers find products easily?
A recent study by EPiServer (chart below) details what users expect to see on an mCommerce site. If you run an online retail business, it would probably be a good idea to take note of these.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1892" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/infographic_adam.gif" alt="infographic_adam" width="100%" height="auto" />
Mobile customer experience will extremely important in 2016. Google already have put a big emphasis on mobile user experience and it heavily influences mobile search rankings. Having an effective mobile <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/expertise/user-experience/ux-design-dublin/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/ux-design-dublin">UX strategy</a> is absolutely critical.
<blockquote>85% of consumers will abandon basket if site too difficult to navigate according to Adobe</blockquote>
<h3 class="graf--h3">Social eCommerce</h3>
An interesting trend which I mentioned in my <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/blog/7-digital-marketing-trends-for-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">digital marketing trends</a> post last month, is the merging of social media and eCommerce.
Facebook is currently trialing a personal assistant service through their messenger app. Which allows you to purchase goods and services through conversation. For example, you can book an Uber directly through the app.
<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-1884 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Messenger-Uber-Ride-Updates-1024x768.jpg" alt="Facebook m" width="100%" height="auto" />
The applications of this technology are only limited by imagination. Facebook have highlighted a couple of use cases such as booking restaurants, ordering gifts for friends based on social data and making appointments.
Although only in a development phase, this could be a game changer for direct response marketing.
Social media is also an increasingly effective product discovery platform. Orders grew 202% in 2014.
Facebook dominates in terms of total orders and considering 78% of Facebook ad revenue comes from mobile you can be sure a high percentage of these orders were on mobile.
The average order value does tend to fluctuate depending on the platform, LinkedIn comes in with the highest order value (mainly due to B2B transactions).
<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-1885 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Screen-Shot-2016-03-03-at-10.55.55.png" alt="social media average order stats" width="100%" height="auto" /> Source: Statista, 2016, <a href="http://www.allmarketresearch.ie/">healthcare market research</a>[/caption]
<h3 class="graf--h3">Mobile Payments</h3>
Although the technology for mobile payments has been around for some time consumer adoption hasn’t been widespread as you might think.
Among others, barriers such as privacy concerns, device capability and infrastructure costs have limited this adoption rate.
However, 2016 should see significant growth in as nearly 1 in 5 smartphone users are expected to use mobile payments this year (210% growth).
A number of factors are influencing this growth rate. Device capability is an obvious one. Most high-end Android phones have had NFC (wireless payment technology) for a couple of new years now but only iOS devices from the iPhone 6 onwards have this technology. The iPhone 6 has been the fastest adopted iPhone of the series, which broadens the mobile payment market.
However, the single most important factor affecting mobile payment adoption is quite a fundamental one. Incentive.
In order for e-wallets such as Apple Pay &amp; Android Pay to be successful, the value proposition needs to be clear.
Effectively your phone is just doing the same job that your credit card already does. And with tap to pay enabled cards what&#8217;s the point on using your phone instead? Similarly, why should retailers upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate such technology?
This is where incentive and loyalty programs come in.
Starbucks in many ways are the pioneers of mobile wallets, their app which launched back in 2009, now has 10 million active monthly users. Providers are realising that customers need to be incentivised.
Android Pay has partnered with Coca-Cola to reward users paying with their smartphones on vending machines while Samsung are developing a push coupon loyalty program for their customers. Expect to more partnerships between the e-wallet providers and big retailers in 2016.
<img decoding="async" class="wp-image-1887 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/coca-cola-mobile-payment.jpeg" alt="coca cola mobile payment" width="100%" height="auto" /> Source: Coca-Cola, 2016
<h3 class="graf--h3"></h3>
<h3 class="graf--h3">Conversions will stay low vs desktop</h3>
Although worldwide eCommerce traffic on mobile has seen significant growth, conversion rates remain comparatively low vs desktop. The worldwide average conversion rate for smartphones was 1.2% vs 2.8% for desktop in 2015 according to Monetate.
These figures, however, do not paint the full picture. The influence of mobile cannot be underestimated with regards to customer journeys.
A recent <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consumer-business/us-retail-mobile-influence-factor-062712.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consumer-business/us-retail-mobile-influence-factor-062712.pdf">Deloitte</a> study looked at the number of in-store transactions that were influenced by research on smartphones. They predict that in 2016 up to 20% of retail purchases will be influenced by mobile.
A similar effect can be observed with desktop &amp; tablet sales, consumers tend to use mobile for product discovery and complete the purchase on desktop.
<blockquote class="graf--blockquote">FACT — Female shoppers research products on their smartphones more than men according to Shopperstates.</blockquote>
Central to this is having an effective multi-channel attribution strategy. This is critical when it comes to allocating your marketing budget and resources. Attribution is grounded in data and analysis, which forms one of our 4 key areas of service.
If you would like to talk to us about mobile, attribution or anything else, don’t hesitate to <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/contact/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/contact/">get in touch.</a>
</div>
[ratings]
</div>
</figure>

Mobile eCommerce Trends 2016

The good news is here! As of Tuesday the 12th of January, Microsoft has ended all support and security patches for all version of Internet Explorer (referred to as IE from now on) versions 8, 9 and 10. Users still using versions older than IE11 will start receiving an “End of life” notification telling them about this new development and encouraging them to update to IE11.
This is good news for both web users and web developers. At one time, IE was the most popular browser in the world. In the mid-2000s, the browser accounted for almost 70% popularity among all the browsers in the world. However, as other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox came on the scene with their faster performance and advanced web features, usage for IE started falling, until it became one of the least and the worst reputed browsers in the market.
<h3 class="graf--p graf-after--p" style="text-align: left;">Web Design &amp; Internet Explorer</h3>
Our aim as a web development agency is to have our beautiful sites perfectly rendered the same across all browsers including versions of IE as far back as IE9. Amongst web developers, older versions of Internet Explorer always posed challenges when creating websites. While we can be almost certain when testing a site against Chrome and Firefox that it will be rendered similarly, the same cannot always be said for IE.
The fact that IE required hacks, special rules and syntax for allowing certain modern web features to work, would cause hours of frustration to web developers and also adding costs for clients to cover the extra time for development and testing. With IE11 being a browser that adheres to modern web standard and features, the level of frustration will be exponentially decreased when testing.
However, while Microsoft has stopped releasing support and security patches for older versions of IE, that does not mean that we will stop developing for them altogether. The fact remains that a lot of big enterprise companies are still using versions of IE as far back as IE8 and it might be a while until they will upgrade to newer versions of IE.
<h3 class="graf--p graf-after--p" style="text-align: left;">Modern Browsers &amp; Trends for 2016</h3>
With regard to modern browsers, according to statistics, on desktop Chrome remains the top browser with about 67% of usage. This is followed by Firefox at 19%, IE at about 6% and Safari at 3.9%. While these statistics show Safari at the bottom on desktop, browser stats on mobile paint a different picture with Safari being the second most popular mobile browser after Chrome. This is due to the popularity of iPhones which come with Safari as the default browser.
Without having to support older versions, we can now explore and use some of the advanced features which we know are supported by modern browsers. Modern web features such as animations, drag and dropping of files for upload, transitions and even mobile features had limited support in older versions of IE so trying to use them always posed a challenge. That will not be the case anymore.
Browsers are not stopping just there though. Advanced and experimental features such as 3D rendering and particle generating are already available in the newest versions of Chrome and Firefox which allow users to play 3D games such as those on game consoles right there in the browser, something that would have been very far-fetched a few years ago. Disregarding the notion of games, experiments such as this <a href="http://tympanus.net/Development/SeatPreview/">concept of a 3D seat chooser</a> for a cinema show what the future for web browsers will be like (click play on the video then &#8220;select your seats&#8221;).
<a href="http://tympanus.net/Development/SeatPreview/" rel="attachment wp-att-1662"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1662 size-full" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/select-seats-e1452860829601.png" alt="internet explore and browser trends 2016" width="767" height="510" /></a>
Technologies such as WebGL (Web Graphic Library) are opening up doors to endless possibilities of web development as can be seen in the plethora of examples in the Chrome Experiments site, which will in the next few years really allow us as web developers to do whatever we dream.
Expect to see some elements of these experiments being adopted by brands in 2016 to create more immersive and intuitive digital experiences. In particular look out for mobile uses of WebGL and how it can be merged with virtual reality like this customisable Mini Cooper interior that uses your phone&#8217;s accelerometer.
<div class="video-container"><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/134538490" width="100%" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/134538490">Mobile WebGL Experiment with 3D and Virtual Reality</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/eleksdigital">ELEKS Digital</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.
The death of older versions of internet explorer will be welcomed by the whole web development community and by the web users too.
As a result, web developers can spend more time getting creative and experimental by developing sites without the fear of old browser compatibility issues. This ultimately leads to providing users with a more immersive and pleasurable web experience. Here is to the future of web browsers!

Goodbye Internet Explorer: Browser Trends for 2016

<h3 class="graf--h4">It’s 2016 — how users behave</h3>
I want to cover a topic that Ash already <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/mobile-first-thinking/">touched off last year</a>, the reason I&#8217;m writing a similar post it is because I still see designers taking the wrong approach to design. We are now 2 years past the tipping point where mobile web browsing overtook desktop PC’s as the most common way users access websites. In 2015 mobile usage has soared above 2 billion users, that&#8217;s over a quarter of the world’s population. By now, every website should be mobile friendly (<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ie/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html" data-href="https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ie/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html">or Google will penalise you in its search rankings</a>), this is a given but in a lot of cases, the process used to design a responsive website is the same as it was 5 or 6 years ago.
The old ways die hard, creating a mobile-friendly responsive website has long been part of the web design and development process but how designers approach designing for the best possible user experience hasn’t changed much. A designer might start designing a website for desktop browsers first, even though it is not the most common way most users will access the website — it&#8217;s just how they have always done it.
Some designers use a website design process called (*buzzword warning!!) ‘Graceful Degradation’. Using this approach they start by designing a website for the largest possible screen size that will contain all content, images, features and functionality for the best possible user experience in a desktop browser. They then start shifting and removing page elements as they work through designing for smaller screens and slower bandwidth, only being careful to keep the website functional. It’s almost inevitable that the mobile website will be a watered down, compromised user experience when placed beside the desktop website.
<h3 class="graf--h4">New year, new ways</h3>
It’s a new year and a good reason to put learnings from life experience into practice. Mobile first design is in my view the only way to create the most responsive websites. I have a new buzzword for you, ‘Progressive enhancement’. Progressive enhancement is where you put your best foot forward on the mobile platforms, providing users with an amazing experience that both looks great and functions perfectly on their device, serving lean and concise content with the features and functionality they need.
The next step is to bring this design to the desktop, unlike graceful degradation where the designer decides on what to cut out to water down the product they can instead work on making it even more robust.
We’ve all heard the expression ‘content is king’, well this is very much the case when it comes to mobile <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/expertise/user-experience/ux-design-dublin/" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/ux-design-dublin/">UX design</a>, the content will inform the layout, functionality and site style. Mobile first often lends itself to a linear layout, designing mobile first will force a designer to make important decisions about the content hierarchy and what is to be displayed or hidden. The most important content is usually on the top of the screen, followed by the next and so on. This is unlike a desktop approach where you can put two blocks of content side by side for equal impact.
Often we see websites full of waffle, too much text to crawl through, people don’t read websites, they scan them for relevant information. Who wants to read a 400 word mission statement on your homepage? The mobile first approach will help us keep content in check simply because there simply isn’t enough room for waffle, this can only have a positive effect on the user experience across all devices.
The mobile-first principle can also apply to how your site is built from a technical point of view. Using the old ways we would have loaded all the content from the full desktop page and hidden what we are not showing on mobile, this results is a unnecessarily long load time. Using a mobile-first development approach we load only what we need on the mobile platforms with the rest loading on an as-needed basis. This leads to faster load times and a better user experience.
Progressive Enhancement is not religion, it works in a lot of cases of UX web design but there are always exceptions and we look at every project individually before deciding on an approach. For example a recent project we worked on was designing a new responsive MS SharePoint intranet for AIB, a resource that would always be accessed primarily on desktop PC’s by over 15,000 users on a daily basis so obviously we used a desktop first approach.
<h3 class="graf--h4">The challenge</h3>
The aim of mobile first responsive web design is not to reverse the underlying problem, creating a poor desktop experience instead of a poor mobile experience. Both mobile and desktop solutions will benefit, your users will be happy and sales, engagement and goal conversions will follow.
Designing for mobile first is far from a natural transition, it&#8217;s not comfortable. Designing on mobile is restrictive in terms of space but its a challenge that needs discipline, especially when it comes to content, it&#8217;s not easy but it does give you a better result in the end. If you are not convinced, give it a go and let us know what you think.

Designing websites mobile first for a better user experience

At the best of times, selling can be challenging. Selling online particularly so.
You have to get everything right: your marketing, your product, your pricing, information and fulfilment. If you are selling products and services selling on a website, you need a good user experience and more and more, a good mobile experience.
We&#8217;re working on some exciting eCommerce projects in the Friday studio right now and putting our experience of buying online and designing great user experiences to good use.
Here is a compilation eCommerce operations who employ some nifty features and functions that give their customers a seamless experience buying online. Mobile phones at the ready please.
<h3>Helbak.com</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1441" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/helbak.jpg" alt="helbak" width="767" height="517" />
Let’s start with a Danish company who sell simple everyday-use ceramics. I like this site because of it’s overall minimal design and classic use of typography. It translates smoothly from desktop down to mobile.
No frills here, just a clean and stylish layout with beautiful photographs and a timeless design. It&#8217;s user experience is it&#8217;s simplicity. <a href="http://www.helbak.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.helbak.com</a>
<h3>Firebox.com</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1439" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/firebox.jpg" alt="firebox" width="767" height="600" />
Hundreds of goodies &amp; gadgets. While away your bus journey to and from work, routing through Firebox&#8217;s impressive range of gift items.
The best feature about this site is the subtly organised and clever layer design of the burger menu which ensures you’ll never get lost browsing their very appealing product offerings. <a href="http://www.firebox.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.firebox.com</a>
<h3>Farmdrop.co.uk</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1449" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/farmdrop.jpg" alt="farmdrop" width="767" height="517" />
Sticking with burger menus &#8211; Farmdrop, as well as selling lots of locally fresh organic veg &amp; food items, win our hearts with the icons they use to represent food categories in their menu.
These add to your mobile user experience visually and big buttons allow for no-nonsense link selection. Their add to cart feature is nice too and throws up + | &#8211; buttons so you can easily edit your quantities. Shame they only deliver to London. <a href="http://www.farmdrop.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.farmdrop.co.uk</a>
<h3>Canopy.co</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1445" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/canopy.jpg" alt="canopy" width="767" height="600" />
Everyone loves Amazon, right? But their product database is so big. Get help from Canopy, a community of guys &amp; girls who pick the best of the bunch and group them into ‘hand-curated issues’ you can browse through &amp; be inspired by.
A nice feature is their BACK TO TOP button. Scroll down and notice the logo at the top changes to an up arrow which is always present on the sticky menu. TOP buttons are known to get in the way &amp; cover up content on mobile so this a clever solution. <a href="http://www.canopy.co" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.canopy.co</a>
<h3>Evolutionfresh.com</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1443" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/evolution.jpg" alt="evolution" width="767" height="517" />
For those into nutrition, or just healthy food porn, check out Evolution Fresh &#8211; producers of wholesome juices and yogurt. They have put much effort into the aesthetics of their ecommerce site, with stylish photography and colourful watercolour icons to list the ingredients.
Their filter system is great, which is attached to the bottom of the screen. It really helps you find what you’re looking for. <a href="http://www.evolutionfresh.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.evolutionfresh.com</a>
<h3>Indochino.com</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1448" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/indochino.jpg" alt="indochino" width="767" height="600" />
Staying on the topic of filters, Indochino use a filter bar that sticks to the top with the burger menu bar for quick access.
It’s a joy to use, as options include icons and colours &#8211; that assist you in your quest for the perfect suit, or other item of men’s clothing. <a href="http://www.indochino.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.indochino.com</a>
<h3>Lush.co.uk</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1447" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/lush.jpg" alt="lush" width="767" height="517" />
&nbsp;
While sweet smelling air fills your nose passing by a Lush store, their ecommerce website is a feast for the eyes. A few features stand out. They take full advantage of their very active social accounts &#8211; click the chat symbol to find out WHAT’S BEING TALKED ABOUT for all the latest.
Their shop/store search facility is simple and it works. It retrieves the closest Lush shops to you with GoIP and displays their contact numbers and opening hours together in one place. A wonderful mobile eCommerce user experience all round. <a href="http://www.lush.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.lush.co.uk</a>
It&#8217;s a great time to be a consumer &#8211; because it&#8217;s so important to get the customer experience right, we get to benefit from improvements in design, tech and UX enhancements.

Smart examples of Mobile eCommerce user experience

Number 1 on the first page of a Google Search &#8211; it’s what we’re all looking for in life really, isn’t it? 
Even when putting my own name into the goliath Search Engine Google I remembered my glee when I noticed I had pipped the other Gillian Hunt, the American photographer to the top spot. 
Yes indeed, this Gillian Hunt was once upon a time a Number 1 Google Search Result. One of my biggest claims to fame &#8211; maybe… achievements &#8211; well perhaps not. To be honest I had little or no idea why my LinkedIn Profile was ranking above any other search result in Google, but it still made me smile!
For an individual the need to be the number one search result may just be an ego thing **cough cough** but for a business it can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death, kick ass Christmas parties or tea for one… you get the picture. 
Being found on the internet by potential customers is key for a thriving business in today&#8217;s world. And that’s where SEO comes to the party.
<h2 class="graf--p">The basics of SEO &#8211; Optimisation</h2>
Search Engine Optimisation, so really what is it? SEO in its simplest form is a marketing discipline which primary focus is to increase the visibility of a search engine result of your business. 
Now to do it well you need to look at both the technical and creative aspects of your website. But with a strategy in place genuine SEO can improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. 
Sounds easy doesn’t it?
And some of it is; Search Engines want users to find what they are looking for but they need to know your business is the most, or one of the most relevant results given the search terms/words entered into that little white box. 
SEO has a specific set of tactics in it’s toolkit endorsed by the Search Engines that allow their technology to easily crawl your website picking up and indexing all the relevant information, (<a href="http://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/10-on-page-seo-tips-to-use-in-2015">Read more</a> on some of these techniques). 
That’s one component of SEO “optimising” the relevancy of the site. But hey kids SEO is not all about ensuring you are presented accurately on the web, so search engines can match your relevancy to a search. Oh no… now not only do you need to be relevant, but you need to be popular too! What the?!
<h2 class="graf--p">Domain Authority</h2>
Yes Search Engines decided if your content is shared or linked to from other sites than this is worth a higher ranking particularly if those sites themselves have a high “Authority”. What the hell is Authority I hear you ask? 
Well just like the real world online authority suggests power and control, a site with a high domain authority is listened to by users, people read, engage with, share and link to these type of sites and Google award that site for well… being popular. 
When a popular site with high domain authority links to your site **Bing** your ranking is improved. It’s just like hanging round with the cool kids or even the cool kids mentioning you while they chat to their cool kid friends. 
Feel like you’re in school again? Well it’s not far off it, relevance and popularity is what it’s all about and any SEO strategy worth its salt is going to influence just this, how relevant you are by optimising the site and popular by getting your site links out there into the interwebs.
<h2 class="graf--p">Mobile Optimisation</h2>
So I have been keeping up to date with SEO standards and tweaking my site, linking back to it and getting my content out there in the web, basically trying my very best and then someone mentions mobile. WHAT? With significant Web traffic coming from mobile devices, companies cannot afford to ignore the mobile Web and yet many still do. 
For Google, mobile comprised almost half of all traffic from June to November, with 52 percent coming from desktops and 48 percent from mobile. <a href="http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2388915/why-mobile-web-still-matters-in-2015" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(Read more on mobile and browsers stats.)</a>
That’s a lot of mobile users getting online and you know it because you’re one of them. And suddenly the game has changed for all those sites who have not thought about mobile. As of Tuesday, April 21, 2015, Google has made a massive change to the way it ranks websites. How massive? Seemingly some people were calling it the “Mobilegeddon”, which could be a slight over reaction. 
But maybe not, if your website is not mobile friendly Google have said themselves:
<blockquote>
&#8220;it will have a significant impact in our search results&#8221;.
</blockquote>
So SEO is not just about relevancy and popularity or certainly not just on desktop, all of that now needs to be applied to the mobile web. 
So is your site mobile ready? <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Test it here</a> and see how you rate. 
We had to try it ourselves and ohh look… The Friday Agency is AWESOME, but of course we are, that’s our business (and just us… we’re just awesome).
<a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friday-Mobile-Ready.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1384" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Friday-Mobile-Ready.png" alt="Friday-Mobile-Ready" width="767" height="477" /></a>
<h2 class="graf--p">Responsive Design</h2>
So what can you do after some good SEO strategies and your site is rating reasonably well on a desktop search but lost down a dark lane of a mobile search? Google’s number 1 suggestion for mobile optimisation is Responsive Design. 
We have spoken at length about Responsive Design in our Journal <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/responsive-web-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mobile Apps or Responsive Websites</a> <a href="https://friday.ie/blog/mobile-apps-responsive-websites-choose/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Responsive Web Development</a> (see what I did there… linking back to our site, good SEO).
Basically it’s building one site that fits all, one URL, one website that adapts for phone, tablet and desktop. Other options are dynamic serving, where Google sniffs out what device is searching and serves up different HTML, but even Google says this can be error prone. 
Of course there is also the Mobile site which was one of the earliest mobile optimisation strategies. But seriously all this sounds like too much work 2 sites, 2 builds, 2 SEO maintenance works to be constantly updating. I’m tired just thinking about it. 
Responsive design &#8211; One site, built for all, users like it, Google really likes it and of course SEO marketers like it. It&#8217;s a simple concept, but so many businesses are still playing catch up. 
Now you may think I have been unfairly Google centric on this post, but really, with all devices included, StatCounter Report’s for the last quarter Google has over 93% of the Search Usage in Ireland and just over 90% Globally… so I thought I might just do that, focus on the big guns, it’s all about relevancy and popularity after all.
 <a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/StatCounter-search_engine-ww-monthly-201505-201507-bar.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1374" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/StatCounter-search_engine-ww-monthly-201505-201507-bar.png" alt="StatCounter-search_engine-ww-monthly-201505-201507-bar" width="616" height="375" /></a>
If you need help with SEO or optimising your site for mobile through Responsive design and development, give us a shout &#8211; it’s what we do.

SEO –  So you want to be number 1?

Following on from my last post <a title="UX for mobile" href="https://friday.ie/blog/user-experience-for-mobile/">User Experience for Mobile – Take care of your audience</a> I want to bring up the concept of mobile-first thinking. Traditionally, website designers and their customers approach a new website project focusing on it’s desktop iteration, the mobile version becoming an extra goal that is completed at a later date. Now there’s an increasing trend in the marketplace to flip this process and commence with mobile concerns first, before building up to tablet &amp; desktop models. If you still consider mobile web design a niche industry, you need to change your thinking. Mobile is no longer the future nor is it a trend. It’s right now. As the statistics prove, the web has completely broken out of it’s computer-shaped box and into our pockets &amp; handbags.
So why use this method? Read on to find out.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">RISING TO THE CHALLENGE</h3>
I switched to using Adobe Illustrator to design websites a long time ago &#8211; it&#8217;s a great tool for resizing for different screen sizes and being resolution independent, it&#8217;s perfect for creating retina graphics. It was an unnatural concept after having used Photoshop for all my designing years, but now, when I revisit old Photoshop documents in order to make changes to past client site designs, I find it frustrating and I know that I’ll never go back. So recognising that same feeling when first trying mobile-first website design was a good indication that I had room to improve and had another opportunity to master more methods. It’s clear that the approach of mobile-first is a tougher competitor but you’ve got to surrender a bit of comfort for the sake of becoming a superior designer!
<h3 style="text-align: center;">THE HEADACHE</h3>
There are different ways to make design decisions but when planning a user experience for desktop, you don’t have to decide what is the most important thing when you have tonnes of space to put stuff. There are no real hard choices to be made. But when you design &amp; build for mobile the opposite happens. You have very little room, and so the decision-making process is much much harder.
Designing for mobile means simplifying. Sounds easy but it’s not. To create a simple experience; to reveal your content &amp; actions in a way the user will understand; to choose their position so they appear as and when they are needed and not when they aren’t, makes the job a tough one. The screen is tiny, you really have to work hard to figure out what needs to be there: primary content, secondary content, actions &amp; other extra information. Think 2 things: user-experience and enhancement. And ONLY offer up additional information, (the frilly bits) to people when you know their devices can handle it.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">PROGRESSIVE ENHANCEMENT</h3>
So instead of ‘degrading’ a website design for smaller displays, rewrite the important parts of the layout. Then progressively enhance it for serving a rich experience to more capable devices. Consider your vital content. Cut back the content material to it’s most essential components for your mobile experience. It’s a worthwhile exercise: you can display this information in an even stronger way as you deliver it to the desktop design.
To be honest, mobile-first design is not fun and it&#8217;s not easy. You are hit with constraints from the word go. But it’s the way I prefer to work, and crafting a successful web experience that is mindful of user context and device features the best way that I can (no matter how challenging) is really very satisfying.

Mobile-first Thinking

User experience (UX), a term that hasn’t been used widely in the past, is now EVERYWHERE.
A frequently overlooked aspect of design is the good old user interface. Whether intuitive or ridiculous, interfaces are everywhere. On our TV sets; in the cockpits of airplanes; on the watches we wear on our wrists and more obviously, on the websites and apps we engage with daily.
Why is it likely to find a disheartened user behind the interface of a mobile website? Well it&#8217;s early days&#8230; we have a way to go before we get it just right. But it’s our job as designers to challenge the current issues with mobile web design while thinking of new solutions to offer you a quality user experience. Take care of your mobile audience by considering the following points.
<h3>Declutter the mobile user experience</h3>
Prioritise your content. Obvious, sure but it can&#8217;t be overstated. Sidebars for &#8216;filling in the gap&#8217; extraneous items become a thing of the past. Anything that does not help the user to achieve their main goal can be removed completely, or placed further down the page if absolutely necessary. Hide the non-essential info. You can still keep hidden information accessible using a feature (like a dropdown menu or accordion feature) that allows the user to expand &amp; collapse the goods upon request.
Your content is key but analyse your potential customer &amp; choose the essential bits for your mobile site. Place the most significant info at pole position. Every business has a purpose so it’s important to make this instantly clear to your visitors.
I most often use my phone to find a company’s contact information on the run so ensure your details are easily available. They don’t have to be flashing &amp; jumping up &amp; down at the top of the screen, but they should be accessible within a click or two from the main navigation.
<h3>Speed matters</h3>
A mobile site’s performance matters to everyone, and these days we expect a website to load within a couple of seconds. We’re all familiar with the sense of frustration that comes when trying to access info quickly on our phone, resulting in visions of it smashing to pieces against the nearest wall. Don’t push potential customers to other sites that load faster. Ensure your website has the best loading speed (learn how in <a title="Speed up your website" href="https://friday.ie/blog/tips-speed-up-your-website/">this blog post by Ziggy</a> on the subject).
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1007 size-full" title="User experience stat" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/imagery21.jpg" alt="user experience stat" width="767" height="300" />
Handling navigation is one of the most challenging aspects of responsive design. The burger menu is now globally recognised and is widely used in mobile design because it is an environment where each pixel counts, due to smaller screen sizes and is essential for navigating content on any mobile screen.
Keeping the burger menu visible at all times (i.e.: by initiating a ‘sticky’ menu) provides maximum accessibility to your navigation and is highly recommended (try out FRIDAY’s sticky menu for size from your mobile now).
Use margins of at least 10 pixels on either side when displaying text to maximise space usage on a mobile device. Large headings will make it easier for the user to scroll up &amp; down and scan the page to digest only whats relevant if there is alot of content. Consider too the fact that you will most likely have to increase the size of buttons &amp; clickable areas and space out text links, to compensate for our sometimes fat and clumsy fingertips instead of the precision tip of a cursor.
It goes without saying that the best designs are very carefully considered. But remember there is no such thing as a perfect UX because there is no such thing as a perfect human being. Don&#8217;t worry about making your mobile app or mobile site perfect. Instead put the effort into always making it better. If we’re constantly making it better, we’re going in the right direction.
If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, check out the video below on optimising mobile user experiences by a nice guy called Luke Wroblewski.
<div class="video-container"><iframe loading="lazy" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Y-FMTPsgy_Y" width="670" height="503" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>

User experience for mobile – take care of your audience

“The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App” say <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/04/02/the-mobile-browser-is-dead-long-live-the-app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/04/02/the-mobile-browser-is-dead-long-live-the-app/">Forbes magazine</a>. Sounds extreme? That’s because it is. They quote a report which says that in the first quarter of last year US users spend an average if 2 hours and 42 minutes of their day on their mobile devices, but only 22 minutes of this time is spent in a browser, the remainder being focused on apps. “If you follow the principle that you need to be where users are, then you need to be building and distributing apps” they say, but that’s a drastic statement. Examining the information in the graph below, you’ll notice that while 86% of user behaviour is app-based, the vast majority of that is consumed by gaming, Facebook, and other social channels. Users aren’t accessing this content solely because it’s available as native mobile apps, they’re accessing social and entertainment channels for leisure.<a href="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mobile_graph.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" size-full wp-image-944 aligncenter" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mobile_graph.jpg" alt="Mobile Apps vs Mobile Sites" width="800" height="727" /></a>
Contrary to what Forbes suggest, building a native mobile app isn’t going to guarantee you any extra users than your existing web presence does, but if your app is useful to your market and delivers content and features that make the most out of the platform then it certainly can do. The main message here is not to make an app for the sake of making an app. As with any sort of digital platform, strategy is key. There are many cases where a mobile or responsive site will make more sense than an app. The most obvious being budgetary restrictions. Designing and creating an app is a heavily labour intensive process, and your app must have separate versions for iOS, Android and Windows devices, amongst others. It’s an expensive route to go down, and alternatives should be considered if time and cost are issues, and unfortunately, they always are!
If your website is designed and built <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/blog/web-design-process/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">properly</a>, (i.e. designed <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/blog/responsive-web-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responsively</a> with a mobile-first strategy) then your website will already look and function well on mobile devices. You can prompt your users to add your website to their home screen. Did you know that you can create app icons for your website so that when it’s added to a home screen you can specify the icon that appears? Once the icons have been designed (in various formats for mobile and tablet), it takes just a few lines of code to add the functionality to your site. With a great mobile site, your web app can look as slick as any native iOS or Android app, and the same site will work and appear the same across all platforms at a fraction of the cost.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" size-full wp-image-946 aligncenter" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ios8.jpg" alt="ios8 App" width="350" height="700" />
The case for native apps is strong however, apps perform faster on devices, and can make use of the devices features, i.e. location services/ camera, etc. Think of Facebook’s check in feature for example or Instagram’s camera integration. Apples new Health features are already being incorporated into <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.macstories.net/reviews/myfitnesspal-adds-healthkit-support-bringing-its-data-to-ios-8s-health-app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="http://www.macstories.net/reviews/myfitnesspal-adds-healthkit-support-bringing-its-data-to-ios-8s-health-app/">fitness apps</a> to increase their data sources and offer more and better features to users.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-947 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dff_slide_2-1024x524.jpg" alt="Responsive Site Design" width="1024" height="524" />
<h4 class="graf--h4">Mobile/Reponsive Site — Pro’s and Con’s</h4>
Pros
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Cost Effective compared to native apps</li>
<li class="graf--li">Design and structure can be updated much quicker than an app.</li>
<li class="graf--li">The coding used will work across all devices, i.e. iOS and Android, so no need for separate deliverables.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Promoting your site as a mobile site will count towards your overall SEO ranking.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Flexibility &#8211; your developer can make changes to your site&#8217;s design or functionality much more easily than in a native app.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Marketing costs are reduced as there is no need to drive users towards a separate app. Users won’t have to go to the trouble of downloading an app, they can connect to the website at any time.</li>
</ul>
Cons
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Your user must visit the site through the browser or you must encourage them to add it to the home screen so that they are encouraged to revisit.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Your web app has no visibility in any app store, which potentially could be an issue if competitors do have that visibility.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Mobile/Responsive websites have limited access to the devices built in features.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Your user must be connected to the internet in order to access your mobile site.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-948 size-large" src="https://www.api.friday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/fishie11-1024x524.jpg" alt="Mobile App" width="1024" height="524" />
&nbsp;
<h4 class="graf--h4">Native Mobile Apps — Pro’s and Con’s</h4>
Pros
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">They perform faster than a web app and can work without an internet connection.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Visibility in app stores.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Built-in mobile features give you masses of options in incorporating features into your app, and you can make full use of touchscreen/camera/location/device orientation etc.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Because all native iOS apps need to be authorised and approved, the user has a sense of safety and security when using the app or, crucially for e-commerce, providing payment information.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Once your user has chosen to install your app, it always appears as an icon on their device, encouraging repeat use.</li>
</ul>
Cons
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf--li">Multiple version of the app must be built for multiple mobile platforms and devices.</li>
<li class="graf--li">There is much less flexibility with a native iOS app, any structural or functional features that need to be re-coded must be re-submitted to the app store for approval, a process that can take weeks, which isn’t ideal.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Cost — The costs for creating a native app is generally much higher than a mobile site</li>
<li class="graf--li">A new strategy is required for marketing and SEO, which must be considered when budgeting for an app.</li>
<li class="graf--li">Users may not always update to the latest version of your app, meaning that any fixes or updates you make may not always be delivered to the user unless they choose to update.</li>
</ul>
Both routes carry a strong case, and the best solution for your business will be based on your content strategy, how you want to deliver content to your users, and how you want them to interact with it. If mobile apps are something you’re considering for your brand right now, then get in touch, we’d love to talk more about it!