Month: June 2022

6 Reasons Why You Should Use Video On Your Website’s Home Page

Posted on by jenny

Over the last couple of years, our Charlotte website design clients have been making some really fantastic use of high-quality video. With the changes that are underway with Google Analytics, video stands to offer even more benefits to the companies who incorporate it into their website. If you’re considering a website design project, you’ve probably thought about what kind of photos that you’ll use. However, have you considered adding video footage?

Here are 6 reasons why you should.

Boost Your SEO 

Google Analytics has been overhauled, and the way Google tracks website “bounces” has completely changed. Google now tracks what it calls “Engagement Rates.” If a person comes to your website and stays for 10 seconds or longer, your site gets credit for engaging a visitor. This is also the case if a visitor has at least two pageviews or completes a conversion event, such as clicking on a call-to-action button. The more people who come to your website and “engage,” according to Google’s definition, the better it is for your search results ranking.

Because a video can command a person’s attention for longer than a still photo, using video footage is an excellent way to drive visitor engagement and to boost your position in search. Video combined with well written copy plus a catchy call-to-action button is even better!

Instant Branding

A video provides an unmatched opportunity to communicate an experience, a community of people, and sense of place. It instantly gives visitors a feeling of “ah, so that’s what it’s all about.” In seconds, videos can illustrate an atmosphere and setting. Is this experience formal or casual? Outdoor, indoor, or both? It shows the people who are involved and their age, ethnicity, vibe and even characteristics like whether they have mobility challenges or other accessibility issues.

Add Movement

When we plan website design projects, we often look for ways to incorporate movement into a website. This can make a site more appealing and interesting for visitors. Movement can be accomplished in a variety of ways such as by using custom animations or sliding sections. However, nothing beats the movement that a video can offer on a website.

Show a Variety of Services or Activities

One of our most long-standing Charlotte website design clients is the US National Whitewater Center. If you know about Whitewater, then you probably know that there’s so much more to do there than just rafting and kayaking! The homepage video provides a perfect place for them to highlight the wide variety of activities that are offered at the Center. Further, the video allows them to also capitalize on other areas that we’ve covered, like movement, branding, and SEO, which are also very important to them.

Show Size/Scale

Have you ever tried to take a photo of a beautiful place and thought that the photo just didn’t capture it? We get it. When our clients want to show the scale and how impressive a location is, video is always the best bet. In fact, aerial footage using drones is often the most effective way to capture the scale of a location.

Check out this video that our client Big Beverages uses on their homepage. Big Beverages is a new bottling company that has quickly grown. They want to show their state-of-the art facility and how large and pristine it is. Mission accomplished.

Add Human Connection and Emotion

In a digital world, one of the elements that always makes a difference is showing human faces and emotion. People connect with people. People do business with people. Showing a video that truly captures human energy and emotion is a powerful component to add to a website.

Our friends and clients at The Institute for Speech and Debate could have settled for a nice group photo to use at the top of their website. Instead, they are using a short, dynamic video loop that brings their summer program to life. It contains an aerial shot that also shows the size of a summer camp session along with the energy of the group.

Bellaworks Can Help

Adding a video to your home page is a small change that can make a big difference. Contact our team, and let’s make a plan for using video to engage with your website’s visitors. We can recommend what to shoot and connect you with the right professionals to get it done.

 

 [j1]

Website Owners, Take Note! Google Analytics Is Phasing Out Its Original Code

Posted on by austin

Our Charlotte, NC website design team has been all a buzz about the changes coming from Google Analytics. If you own a website, you’ll definitely want to get up to speed on and prepare for the transition in Google’s products.

If this is all news to you, you’re in the right place. Read on to find out more about the changes that are coming.

Here’s the Scoop

Google is preparing to phase out its Universal Analytics (UA) data tracking properties, making way for the new GA4 analytics tracking system. These are two separate data streams, and you can have both UA and GA4 running on your website simultaneously. Over the next year, website owners are encouraged to use both and to compare the differences in how the data is being tracked and to make changes to any reports.

What’s the Timeline?

  • GA4 actually rolled out in October 2020. If your website was created on or after this timeframe, you probably already have GA4.
  • You can install GA4 anytime and begin collecting data.
  • As of July 1, 2023 UA will no longer track data. If you install GA4 now, you’ll have a year’s worth of data by then and your GA4 tracking will continue.
  • You will have about 6 months after UA stops tracking to download all historical UA data.

What’s Changing?

This is all part of a foundational shift in how data is collected in several key areas. To give you a sense of what’s changing, we’ll review three core areas that are undergoing overhauls as part of GA4.

Privacy Tracking

The old methods of tracking data through IP addresses, cookies, and tags are becoming a thing of the past. A higher level of privacy is being demanded today across various types of activities. You can read about the moves to protect consumer privacy which can be traced back to the European Union’s 2018 rollout of the General Data Protection Regulation.

GA4 will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make predictions and assumptions about website traffic and user behavior. This will supplement the data and fill in gaps created by increasing privacy restrictions.

Cross-device Tracking

Google’s previous tracking was largely based on collecting data from individual devices and sessions. Information was tracked in silos and was often duplicated across devices.  

GA4 offers a shift from a focus on individual metrics to a focus on the customer’s journey. It stitches together multiple data streams and sources, for example, from both websites and apps, to offer a more accurate picture of where a customer is in the sales funnel. It uses multiple identifiers to measure a single user’s journey, providing far more valuable insight into engagement and effectiveness.

Engagement Tracking

The metrics used for tracking are being redefined. This will provide a more realistic assessment of your user’s interaction with your website.

Here’s an example.

In UA a user’s visit to your website for several minutes without a next step click or interaction was recorded as a bounce, even though they could have found value in the website.

In the new GA4, Google will track what they’re calling “engaged sessions.” These are defined as the number of sessions that lasted longer than ten seconds, had a conversion event, or had at least 2 page views or screen views. You can see that the new GA4 parameters certainly more accurately reflect today’s user engagement.

GA4 has a number of default actions and events, like page scrolls, clicks, file downloads etc., that can easily be tracked without requiring manual set-up as it did in the past. Together with cross-device tracking capabilities, the data GA4 collects provides a much truer assessment of user engagement.

Take Aways

The new GA4 is a complete overhaul of Google Analytics, designed to be flexible with the changes and increased regulation that are already in motion for the industry. This is the time to install GA4 and to get familiar with its capabilities and how they can help your business. Set up your tracking criteria and begin to learn how to use the reports. And, of course, understand that GA4 is still in its infancy, and more changes will come. The internet and associated technology and regulations are still developing at an incredibly fast pace.