Data Privacy: What is it and How to Protect Your Data?

What is Data Privacy?

Data privacy deals with personal information that is obtained on the web, whether that is personally identifiable information (PII) or personal health information (PHI). It is a branch of data security that focuses on the way that data is handled specifically in regards to consent, notice and regulatory obligations (1). 

Why is it Important?

Data Privacy has become an increasingly important issue for companies to address. Closely held company data is one of a business’ most important assets. Data is useful for mapping company performance, making decisions and solving problems faster, improving overall customer experience and measuring the success of your company (2). It provides market insight and competitive intelligence that can give it an operational advantage in its industry.

Data Breaches Have Consequences

There are a variety of ways that a data breach can affect your company negatively. The first that will come to mind to most people is the financial repercussions of the breach (4).

 

These financial repercussions factor in a few different ways:

  • reimbursing affected clients
  • response efforts for breach
  • investigating the incident.

 

A negative impact that is less notable, but equally devastating is the reputation damage it inflicts on your brand. Regaining customer trust is difficult after a data breach. There will likely be customers lost during that time period as people become much more reluctant to use your company (4). These effects may not be permanent, but the time and cost to repair the damage can be significant, so it is important to not overlook the reputational impact data breaches cause.

The Alarming Rate of Data Breaches

Data breaches have become fairly common in this day and age. In fact, in 2018, it was reported that approximately 1.244 billion people in the US had their data breached. These data breaches resulted in 466 million records being exposed. That year, nearly half (46%) of US firms had reported a privacy breach. And making matters worse, 77% of IT professionals said that they did not have a plan if a cybersecurity incident occurred (3)! With nearly half of firms reporting cybersecurity attacks, there must be an increased sense of urgency, seriousness & awareness given to cybersecurity. Better prevention and resolution plans to buffer attacks require such focus and resolve.

How Can You Protect Your Data?

Now that you understand the negative effects a breach can have on your company, how can you prevent them from happening?

 

Here are a few tips to help secure your data:

 

  1. Employee Access & Education – Employees tend to be the easiest (and first) route for cybercriminals to access your data, so making sure that only authorized employees have access to crucial data is important. In addition, educating your employees about data breaches and the steps that they can take to ensure they’re only clicking on secure links and emails is critical (5). 
  2. Backup Servers – Having backup servers that can replicate your data is a good preventative measure. This will prevent large data loss that could occur from a breach (5). Ransomware attacks (where data is forcefully encrypted and held for ransom) can be alleviated when backup servers are employed.
  3. Obtaining Data Privacy Software – There is a variety of different software, like SiteLock, that you can purchase in order to protect your site against data breaches. The software SiteLock detects and automatically removes malware and other infections. It also has the ability to increase web speed by as much as 50%.

Contact us at 3PRIME to protect your website with SiteLock!

 

Data Privacy isn’t just good policy, it’s brand awareness

Data privacy deals with some of the most important personal information that users can provide online. Obtaining this data is extremely useful for companies, as it factors into a variety of different things that help to improve overall customer experience, determine corporate policies, and business operations. The way this information is being stored and protected is essential for companies.

Cyber attacks that resulted in data breaches have become increasingly common, affecting nearly half of US firms. These breaches can have serious effects on a company’s operations and its brand image. 

Make sure that you have preventative measures and solutions in place so that these types of data breaches don’t happen to you! A byte of prevention is worth 1.244 billion people needing a cure!

 

Sources:

www.varonis.com/blog/data-privacy/

www.towardsdatascience.com/how-important-is-data-for-your-business-c15a35c6935e

www.statista.com/statistics/273550/data-breaches-recorded-in-the-united-states-by-number-of-breaches-and-records-exposed/

www.itgovernance.co.uk/blog/the-damaging-after-effects-of-a-data-breach

www.entrepreneur.com/article/332794

The Benefits Of AR/VR Usage In The Classroom Environment

The Benefits Of AR/VR Usage In The Classroom Environment
Now that app developers are utilizing augmented reality and virtual reality on a more frequent basis, it is time to take a closer look at the benefits that these technologies have to offer. For example, there are a number of teachers who are now relying on these technologies in their classroom environment.

How can augmented reality and virtual reality be used in the educational field? How can app developers help teachers to get the most out of the technology? Meanwhile, there are teachers who have already met with app developers and have begun to incorporate the technology. These are not mere trends. They are not the wave of the future.

In fact, they are here to stay. That’s why this helpful guide is here to provide further background on the advantages of AR and VR in a classroom environment. Gone are the days of relying on the good old fashioned chalkboard. Teachers are now able to keep their lessons fully up to date and streamline any number of typical processes. These are just a few of the benefits that these technologies and their associated app developers have to offer.

The technology may be in its infancy but the potential is limitless. The proper care must be taken to ensure that it is being used in the correct manner. App developers offer further insight as to what the best practices are supposed to be. There are some great uses for augmented reality and virtual reality and the following guide is here to provide the necessary insights.

Increased Levels of Student Engagement

Let’s face the facts here. The average student is always going to struggle to remain engaged. It can be tough for teachers to make certain lessons come to life. This makes it more difficult for teachers to impart the information needed. Now that technology has advanced to a stage where augmented reality and virtual reality can be used, these problems are going to start to fall by the wayside.

With the help of these technologies and app developers who have their specific interests in mind, teachers can now tailor their lessons to the students in a more direct way. While there is nothing wrong with using textbooks or more traditional learning materials, a student is more likely to sit up and take notice when cutting edge technology is used.

That’s just the nature of the beast. Even a child that is not all that enthusiastic about certain subjects will be more likely to pay close attention when the lesson is presented to them in a new and exciting way.

Taking Students On More Field Trips

There is no hiding the fact that students love to go on field trips. This is one of the best parts about being a student. Thanks to augmented reality and virtual reality, students will no longer have to head home with a permission slip in hand. The school systems are no longer forced to budget for various trips. Once the upfront costs associated with app developers who work with these technologies have been paid, the students are free to go on as many field trips as necessary.

The headsets that are used come with a variety of price points, as well. This allows schools to choose the models that work best for their needs, without being forced to break the bank in the process. There are various tools (like Google Cardboard) that are also designed to make the process of implementation easier than ever before. Google Expeditions is another common tool being used in today’s schools.

Teaching Students How To Code

The days of saying “it would be nice if more students could learn how to code” are now over. With augmented reality and virtual reality apps, teachers are able to pass these lessons along far more easily than ever before. Early studies show that these platforms offer students untold advantages when it comes to learning how to code. Augmented reality platforms are believed to be especially useful.

Mobile platforms are becoming the most commonly used by students looking to learn coding. These platforms offer the sort of interactive study that other platforms simply cannot match. Studies show also show that these students are more likely to have a positive learning experience and pass all of the necessary tests when they learn on these platforms.

Assisting With Content Creation

When students are given the chance to visit various sites in their region, they are more likely to become passionate about related topics. From there, augmented reality and virtual reality can become key agents when it comes to the creation of content about these locations. Turning trips into virtual reality/augmented reality experiences is a great way to inspire students.

From there, students who are given the chance to enjoy these experiences will work harder to virtualize other sites that they have yet to learn more about. These forms of technology give students the chance to serve as the creators of their own personalized learning experience. The added engagement is one of the many benefits.

Teachers and administrators are already enjoying the various advantages. While there are some who remain skeptical, educators and researchers alike have begun to share the benefits that they are experiencing with the general public. With the help of app developers, schools are now able to modernize the learning business and give their students the opportunity to position themselves for greater levels of future success.

Author Bio:

Melissa Crooks is Content Writer who writes for Hyperlink InfoSystem, a mobile app development company in New York, USA and India that holds the best team of skilled and expert app developers. She is a versatile tech writer and loves exploring latest technology trends, entrepreneur and startup column. She also writes for top app development companies.

5 Luxurious Technologies That You Need in Your Next Car

Luxury is defined as a state of great comfort and a condition of abundance. For as long as cars have been around, the brand and model of a car has been a symbol of luxury and status. However, nowadays the car itself isn’t what makes it desirable, but rather what is inside it. According to the Director of Industry Analysis at AutoPacific, automotive technologies are becoming the new measure of quality. With so many technological improvements to a car’s capability, these applications are becoming the new thing to have. So, to flaunt your style, check out these futuristic technologies that absolutely need to be included in your next car.

Self-Parking

Although autonomous cars have not fully hit the roads, self-parking capabilities are becoming more popular. Companies such as Tesla, BMW and Mercedes all have cars that can remotely park. You simply pull up the application on your phone, and you can park your car, or remove it from a tight parking spot without ever getting in the vehicle itself.

Autonomous Safety Controls

Once restricted to high-end cars, autonomous safety controls are now offered in many affordable brands and models. Some of these controls include lane-keep assistance, automatic forward-collision breaking, and adaptive cruise control. These technologies are not only cool and futuristic but also work to keep you safe while in the driver’s seat.

Gesture Controls

Car companies such as BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen are now advertising touch screens that you don’t even have to touch. Instead of pressing a button to turn up the radio, you can now do it with a simple hand motion. This increases the amount of functions that your car can perform as it provides no limit to the number of buttons and touch-options available. It can also make your drive safer, as you don’t have to be staring at a screen to change a radio station.

Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication

Your car is becoming more human than you know. Now your car can communicate with you about your surroundings. For example, you can receive information about traffic, climate conditions, and other road conditions through your dashboard. Your car can also search through mobile apps such as HWYPro, designed by Bill Busbice Jr. This allows you to integrate all the information you need to know while going on long journeys.

Over the Air Updates

Because cars are becoming more digital, software updates are becoming very important to keep everything running. We used to have to take the car into the dealer to receive software updates or install the software through a thumb drive. However, now, some cars are allowing the ability to provide key software updates over the air. This is similar to how your mobile phone or computer receives updates and can save you time and money.

When searching for your next car, be sure to look for these technologies to ensure that you’re getting the most up-to-date and technologically advanced vehicle.

How can your Restaurant use Digital Signage to Attract More Customers?

The food industry is one of the biggest users of digital signage LCD and LED displays, mainly because of the nature of the business where, over and above marketing, digital signs are also used for menus, recipes, list of ingredients, and other information that is very useful to the customer. As early as 2011, a survey conducted on 200 industry leaders showed that 21% planned to roll out digital ordering kiosks and menus. So, how can your business use digital signs to attract and retain customers?

  • Digital Menu Boards
Here a digital media board is being used at a restaurant.

Here a digital media board is being used at a restaurant.

Place digital menu boards (DMBs) above the cashier or any other strategic place that can be viewed by all. Studies have shown that this boosts overall sales by between 3% and 5%, and even higher on the specific items promoted. DMBs help drive foot traffic and you should, therefore, use them in places like airports and malls where you are competing with other restaurants and you need to catch the eye of passers-by. Studies show that purchasing decisions of 30% of customer surveyed are influenced by what is on DMBs and 15% of restaurants report increased customer numbers after installing DMBs.

  • Display of useful information

Display of information such as calories and ingredients will help you stay on the good side of the law. Recent U.S. laws require that restaurants that have over 20 outlets display calorie info alongside each item. Displaying ingredients used could help you attract customers. You can also list potential allergens like nuts and gluten, and whether the items displayed are vegetarian and/or vegan friendly.

  • Ordering Kiosks

You could use your digital signs as ordering kiosks. These take the form of digital menus or tablets brought to the table. Ordering kiosks are intuitive touch-screen signs that allow customers to place orders, even without talking to the waiter. Some restaurant owners fear that this might give an impersonal and cold experience, but they actually lead to a more personalized experience.

According to a 2010 survey, customers preferred QSR offering self-service. “Chef Crafted Sandwitches” in 200 McDonald’s stores is a good example of how ordering kiosks can boost your restaurant business’s sales.

  • Games and entertainment

Other than digital signage content giving information, you can also use digital signs for interactive games and other forms of entertainment. This will come in handy since customers will not get bored (which usually leads to them leaving) as they wait for a table.

  • Social networking

If you have a social media channel, you could integrate it with digital signage to allow people to leave reviews and comments. You could ask them to give feedback for a chance of getting money-off coupons or free burgers. You can display social media feeds and encourage sharing, which increases the chances of your content going viral.

  • Add recipes

Adding a recipe is a good way of attracting and retaining customers. Recipes make a good back screen when there’s nothing else being displayed.

Your competitors are most likely using digital signage and you should not be left behind since this catching up might be difficult. You should let a pro handle digital signage since this will allow you to concentrate on your core business and it will bring professionalism.

Author Bio: Bill Williams will help you attract customers to your restaurant through digital signage. He offers digital signage and other business promotion services like SMM and PPC. Visit this website for more details https://www.dopublicity.com/

How to Build a Powerful and Effective Email Marketing Strategy

How to Build a Powerful and Effective Email Marketing Strategy

Even though it has been around for quite some time now and many other channels of communication have emerged enabling businesses to communicate with their customers and stakeholders, email remains a firm favorite of businesses, large and small. In fact, due to its familiarity, universality, and flexibility, email is actually thriving even with the new generation of mobile device users who are using it to communicate 24×7. However, unless businesses have an effective email marketing strategy in place, it is quite likely that the time, money, and effort in sending off the emails will be wasted to a great extent. Some tips on getting it right:

Get Together an Acquisition Strategy

If the growth in numbers of your audience is your priority, as it will invariably be, you need to begin by thinking about all the places and occasions where the audience is already engaging in some way with your company or brands. Now you need to find out how you can enhance that experience and drive better and more interactive engagement. This can be as simple as optimizing the opt-in form for mobile devices.

mobile friendlyMake Your Communication Mobile-Friendly

With more and more customers accessing their emails over mobile devices, you are bound to lose out badly if your email communication is not optimized for these devices. A survey reveals that 63% of American customers immediately delete the emails that they cannot read with ease on mobile devices.

Getting Recipient Permission

It is extremely important that you, as a sender of marketing emails, get the permission of the recipients so that they feel that they have consciously chosen to engage with you and not been randomly selected to be spammed. The process of opting-in automatically refines your database so that only those who are genuinely interested in your company and products are present in the database, avoiding the usual label of being marked as spam.

Use Relevant and Targeted Data

Whenever you need to send out communication using bulk email marketing services in Mumbai, you need to make sure that you are only addressing the relevant audience and not using a shotgun approach by sending to your entire database. If your communication is filtered so as to be location or gender-specific then you are likely to get superior results due to enhanced customer relevance and experience. If you are active on social media, do not use the same contents in your email as consumers are constantly looking for different information on these channels.

Personalized Email Communication

Customers who have opted-in to receive email communication from you will appreciate the communication, even more, when they are addressed by name, and the contents reflect that the recommendations have been made as per the recipients’ preferences and past purchase behavior. According to experts the addition of personalized recommendation can increase click-through by 25-35% and conversion by as much as 15-25%.

Drive Deals With Email Marketing

According to studies,those who prefer to receive information about deals over email as compared to any other channel, including social media, such as Facebook comprise the largest segment. The behavior is explained by the simple fact that the deals stay in the inbox and can be read at leisure, unlike the flurry of posts in social media that can leave you scrambling, and possibly missing out something that might have been really interesting. The best thing to do is to publicize your deals on social media and encourage customers to sign-up for your emails.

Conclusion

Along with a strong website and social media presence, you can use email marketing to engage with the customers in a way that is meaningful to them. You need to customize your email marketing efforts to cover a large assortment of devices that range from conventional desktop computers to the latest in mobile phones and tabs. Encouraging opt-ins from customers will refine your database and you will be able to deliver exclusive, customized and targeted communication through a focused email marketing exercise.

Author bio: Jonathan Caser is a senior customer consultant working with GingerDomain.com, a leading digital marketing services provider.

Mobile SEO: Mobile Search Results Ranking Factors now revealed

Many webmasters and business owners already know that it’s important to have a mobile-optimized website, but few are truly conversant with the differences in ranking factors for mobile search and desktop search. Such people adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to SEO, applying the same techniques for mobile search optimization as they do for their desktop sites, and they often neglect their mobile ranking metrics during performance analysis.

In a world that is growing increasingly mobile, this is a very dangerous strategy, and one that prevents many businesses from realizing their full online marketing potential. Google revealed in May 2015 that in ten countries, including the USA and Japan, the number of Google search queries on mobile exceeded the desktop search queries, and many countries continue to follow the trend. In fact, overall analysis reveals that mobile searches are more than desktop searches globally.

Any astute marketer/business manager would see the importance of having a separate strategy to track mobile search ranking performance. This is especially true because Google does not use the same ranking algorithm to provide mobile search results as it does for desktop. There have been numerous reports in the last few months revealing various factors that influence mobile search ranking, particularly after Google released their ‘Mobilegeddon’ update to making mobile friendliness a key ranking factor for mobile search results last April.

This article reveals the most important element search marketers should be following during mobile search optimization, revealing inherent differences between mobile and desktop search optimization strategy. Read on to find out more.


Highest ranking domains must also be mobile friendly

magnetAccording to research done by Searchmetrics, the Google mobile-friendliness update resulted in a higher fraction of mobile-optimized domains within the first ten pages of search results. Before the update, approximately 80% of the top 100 websites ranked were mobile-optimized, a number that increased to above 90% in the months following the update’s release.
These are just statistics, which, while helpful, do little to practically arm marketers looking to improve their mobile search performance going forward. This post breaks the findings from Searchmetrics’ report.

 

Technical elements

The report shows that technical components significantly contribute to mobilerankings, probably owing to the smaller screen size and limited bandwidth available for mobile devices. Technically speaking, these are the most important ranking elements:

 

 

  • Site speed – you can use the PageSpeed Insights tool from Google to gauge your site’s loading speed. On average, page one ranking sites have an average loading speed of 1.10 seconds.
  • Flash elements– use of flash elements has been on the general decline, even before the Mobilegeddon update was released. Instead, HTML5 is recommended to enable proper content display on both desktop and mobile.
  • Keywords within domain – use of keywords in domains’ significance has fallen in the last three years since Google instituted the Exact Match Domain Update. The report reveals that significance of keywords within domains is even less for mobile search result placement than desktop. Therefore, choose your domain name according to your branding strategy, and forget the keywords.

 

User experience

Mobile devices have limited screen sizes, and so optimizing fonts, images and other elements for proper rendering is important for creating positive user-site interactions. The following are the most important factors considered under user experience:

  • Unordered lists – high-performing mobile sites utilize more unordered lists compared with their desktop counterparts. However, the lists are shorter for the formers than the latter. Use of bullet points improves content scan-ability, but keep the lists short and sweet.
  • Internal linking – mobile content has fewer internal links compared with desktop content, even though this number has increased significantly in the last year since the update. Ensure that your internal links are meaningfully used and placed in such a way that mobile users can click on them accurately.
  • Images – top-performing mobile search results have fewer than four images per page on average, unlike desktop sites which have at least nine. Mobile content should include sparing use of images, and the images should be optimized to ensure fast loading.

 

Content

Content remains significant as a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile search. These are the most important factors to consider when building mobile-optimum content:

  • Body keyword use – keyword use within the body of content increased from 2.7 to 5.48 between 2014 and 2014. It is notably lower than desktop averages which are around 10.22 within the same timeframe.
  • Word count– desktop results have an average word count of 1285 compared with mobile’s 868. Understandably so, mobile content should be shorter to avoid tiring out readers, but long enough to provide adequate information on the subject.
  • Proof terms – high-performing mobile sites utilize more proof terms – words related to a page’s main/target keywords. These are easy to include naturally if your content adequately covers the subject in discussion.

 

Conclusion

These are the most important mobile ranking factors. However, things like social signals and inbound links still play some role in mobile ranking, although their part is not immediately clear. However, if you begin with these as you draw up your mobile SEO strategy, you are likely to see great improvement in the coming months.

 

Bio:

Michael Bentos is a highly experienced online marketer currently working with the team at ParadoxSEO.com, an SEO company with a powerful platform that aims to simplify SEO. He provides internet marketing and SEO service to businesses worldwide. Connect with him via LinkedIn.

 

5 Tips For Helping Your Ecommerce Site Compete With The Big Boys

untitled (8)5 Tips For Helping Your Ecommerce Site Compete With The Big Boys

If you are running an e-commerce website, it can be assumed that you are familiar with social media. However, you may not be familiar with the many ways you can use it to compete with the big boys.

Get a Boost With Facebook

One of the simplest, cheapest and most effective means of marketing on social media is by utilizing the Facebook Boost option. Once you place a post about your product on Facebook you have the option to Boost that post. What that means is that you set a budget of, say, $5 that you wish to spend to advertise that post to as many as 10,000 people who Facebook believes might be interested based on their preferences.

Send Samples to prominent Instagram Users

The second most popular way to market your product is by sending free samples along to influential Instagram users who specialize in your market. The way to find these popular accounts is through WEBSTA, a site which catalogs the most popular and trending Instagram hashtags.

Simply search for your market or similar product and then browse the most-followed users who are displayed. Users who display both high numbers and contact information tend to be the types open to product placements and marketing opportunities. These people can have an enormous reach, and their recommendation could yield you significant results.

Reddit and Subreddits

If you are not on Reddit you need to be. Along with their front page which displays the most popular topics, They also feature subreddits which cover practically any and every topic under the sun. If you sell vintage Star Trek toys, there will be a subreddit for it.

Search for your market and simply engage with the community. Don’t make blatant sales pitches, though. Instead, engage the users in conversation, just like in real life. You may offer some keen insights and wisdom as well. After all, you are an expert, aren’t you? You can certainly refer to your site, but don’t come across as sales-pitchy. They do have rules about that sort of thing.

Tweet To Your Market

In much the same manner as you would use Instagram and Reddit to seek out people receptive to your market, you can do much the same with Twitter. Simply Search for people who have an interest in, say, vintage Star Trek toys. Follow them, and you may be surprised how many follow you back. Then you can market your product. But, be sure to pepper your advertisements with other interesting bits of information.

You want to build a subconscious trust in your followers’ minds, so that when they see your brand they are not put off, but are genuinely eager to see what you have to say.

Blog, Blog, Blog

Lastly, it is an easy and worthwhile effort to write a blog on your site. In here you want to mention other people in your market whom you follow and who have posted things that your audience might find fascinating, or at least mildly interesting. Influential Instagram users, popular Twitter accounts, YouTubers, and bloggers who have garnered a large audience are all fair game. Not only write about them, but then drop them a line to tell them that you have. That gives them the opportunity for some shameless self-promotion, and will mention you and your product in return.

Today’s Social Media Marketing is so much more innovative and fun than yesterday’s stale newspaper and radio ads. Today you have the ability to compete in a large market, and do it on the cheap. All that is required is some time and a little creativity. Unlike the results you would receive placing a small ad in the local media, you can have massive, exponential results, just like the big boys.

Jessica Kane is a professional blogger who has worked in eCommerce for the last five years. She currently writes for Rakuten Super Logistics and recommends them for all your ecommerce fulfillment needs to further your success.

 

Photo credit to Robbert Noordzij

How to Create a Video Game

video-game-developerWhat Exactly do you Need to Create a Fantastic Video Game?
There are some video games that make game development look like such a simple activity. Well, actually it is a very simple task as long as you know exactly how to go about it. Consider games like Flappy Bird, they are so simple but they can keep you up all night trying to reach a certain target. Such games fly out of the app stores without trying so hard. The only thing that you need to do is take time to plan the game development process and you will be sorted out.

  • Take the first step

Many are the people who want to create games without thinking them through. Just like with any other project under the sun you will have to plan for game development carefully. This means everything from the storyline, graphics, animations and the platform that the game will be available on. These are factors that have to be considered properly if your game is going to be a good performer on the app stores.
When you take the first step and develop a proper game development plan you will be on your way to great success. Of course this is given that the concept behind the game is fantastic. In your planning process you will come up with the characters and their characteristics. You will develop the tools that will be needed to achieve certain goals before you actually start coding

  • Implement the ideas

It is one thing to plan and dream about how great your game is going to be. However, there is a big difference between dreaming about creating a game and actually creating one. It is about time that you woke up from your dreams and then proceed to execute the game plan. This is where you will find out whether your game is going to be a trendsetter or it is going to bore people. During the implementation process you will have to develop the codes that enable certain activities to take place in the game. As you do this you will find out what will work and what will not.

  • Test the game yourself

The worst mistake that you can make is to give the players to test the game for you. This is one way of messing with your popularity on the app store. Test the game yourself and find mistakes that you could have made. Ask your friends or select a random person to play the game and get their opinions as well. This is the best way to create something fantastic.
Once you have planned, developed, tested and corrected the game and you are sure that it is great then you can toss onto the app store to be downloaded. Only a little bit of marketing will be needed if the game is super great. Good news always travels fast and if you have a good game then that is great news for many people around the world.

  • About author

Michael Collin is a software developer and animator. He studied in one of the best schools for animation and has used this training to develop some really awesome video games that are available on various mobile platforms.

App Store Optimization: Wrongs You Need to Avoid in 2016

mobile-App-Store-OptimizationIt takes time to see good things happen. It is far from an outdated phrase when it comes to optimizing mobile apps for better discoverability and business conversion. As far as practices for app store optimization is concerned and developers and marketers equally should know the value of waiting or waiting for good things.

While most data collected last year on app store intelligence and practices to make app marketing more productive indicate the rising horizon of opportunities, the relentlessness and impatience of CEOs and app designers continue. Everyone these days have their eyes set on procuring inbound traffic but this often accompanies losing sight of the bigger picture concerning conversion, retention and engagement. Again this makes us recall the same phrase, wowing people may look lucrative and easy but creating value will take time. Let u discuss below some of the critical mistakes in app store optimization practices that you need to beware with.

Depending on shortcuts

Obviously, nobody knows the exact attributes weighed by Apple and Google in indexing mobile apps in the respective app stores. Though there is an array of aspects like conversion rates, customer retention, engagement and others can impact search rankings to a considerable degree. But how one comes before the other in the ranking is kept private and we have no clue on that. So, all that you can do is to follow the ground rules rather than just trying to grab quick numbers and attention.

There is an array of shortcuts that many app marketers follow in spite of knowing how these harm websites in the long run. Targeting app list through practices like using Google’s web search data, stuffing app title with keyword, purchasing rating and reviews and similar shortcuts and backdoor techniques are likely to offer negative impact on the app.

There is no proven shortcut on targeting lists but contradicting to this notion of quick rise, most such practices actually make detrimental effect on the app store ranking of the apps. Apple with stricter guidelines on app submissions and app listings has already discouraged such practices to a great extent. While no credible sure-shot shortcut is there to help any app get ranking, stricter developer guidelines and refined approach in search ranking is further making it tough for apps to achieve ranks solely on these practices.

What is the role of ASO? It is basically to present your app to connect the audience who require it most. With quick numbers your app can altogether fail to get to the device of your audience. ASO refers to a competitive approach to get in the list with the bigger picture of grabbing users, retaining and converting business from them in mind. Basically it is part of the app marketing effort to generate higher ROI. Shortcuts cannot help you do that.

Stuffing app title with keyword

Stuffing app title with keywords is a cheap shortcut that even in the short run can actually prove detrimental to your app. Many app developers exhaust the word count limit given to them for the app title with keywords. For instance, Apple offers a limit of 255 characters for app title and there are many app publishers who take this opportunity to stuff the app title with keywords exhausting the limit of character count.
An app title with quite a few search friendly keywords will obviously generate huge number of search queries but will it garner a good amount of conversion with this? After getting through a nonsense clutter of keywords, the customer is very likely to view this as a promotional trick and avoid the app altogether. This is what happens with most apps that try to get to the list by long title with stuffed keywords. Both Apple and Google is now serious about making the search results more relevant by rejecting such tricky titles. Besides that, app store users now are wiser about such tricks and they often take this as a warning sign concerning the quality of the app.

Not selling your features

There are too many apps that in spite of having a keyword stuffed app title fail to make a selling point mentioning any of the unique app feature or benefit. App in more than one ways is likely to play the role of an offline business and like any business you need to convince customers about the uniqueness and why one should purchase it. If you have few lines left to describe your product to the prospective customer you need to mention the most saleable aspects and features to boost the chances of conversion.

It is more about covering most relevant search terms instead of targeting every user landing on app store. Users search based on purpose and feature and unless you can convince them on this regard, you are likely to get avoided. You always need to let your users know how the app solves specific problems for them rather than describing the app in vague terms.

About Author:

Juned Ghanchi is the chief marketing officer at Indian App Developers Company; he has extensive experience in community management, lead generation and content strategy. He regularly writes about the innovative mobile app technology which improves our lives and our plate.