Top Tech Innovations To Look Forward To In 2012
The start of the new year always brings a lot to look forward to and working in the online industry there is a lot that can affect our industry. The anticipation of things to come can be quite exciting and with that in mind I wanted to cover a few of the most interesting gadgets and trends coming this year.
The Asus Padfone – A Smartphone-Tablet Hybrid
Perhaps the most exciting device in the smartphone and tablet markets, I found this new gadget difficult to place in either of the following two sections, as it essentially belongs in both. The new Asus Padfone will likely run the next version of Android but will combine the functionality of a smartphone and tablet into, essentially, one device without the need for synchronisation. The smartphone itself will mirror many of the other smartphones on the market but what sets this device apart is the tablet attachment. At any time, you can slide your smartphone into a slot on the back of a pad and instantly use your phone on a tablet-sized screen, with increased resolution and additional battery power to charge the phone…
With the smartphone running all of the functionality, the cost for having both a smartphone and a tablet would be far lower and it would allow you to instantly improve your browsing or viewing ability wherever you are.
Conversion Rate Optimisation Tools
It’s the stuff that makes online marketers toss and turn at night: what combination of product, service and content will compel as many visitors as possible to click and buy? Smart marketers know that testing these combinations through split and multivariate testing is always going to drive better results over ‘best guess’ efforts.
While you’re probably familiar with Google’s free tool, Website Optimizer, there is a raft of new premium services that give you unheard of control over any and every aspect of your website. Here is an overview of some of the best conversion rate optimisation tools, from the quick and easy to enterprise-level heavy-lifters.
Ninja Button
A simple tool for the web marketer who doesn’t want to bother with complex A/B testing or multivariate optimisation set-ups, Ninja Button lets you create any number of combinations of button colour, text and shape and automatically tracks how successfully each compels users to click on them.
There’s no need to ask your developer to create the buttons or insert tracking codes – it’s easy to create the combinations and just check in a few weeks to see the results. Does a white “View plans and pricing” button work better than a solid one saying “See plans and pricing”? This tool will tell you. Pricing ranges from free to US$99 per month.
18 Productivity Tools for Improved Time Management
If you’re doing anything at all on the Internet these days, the amount of time you have is your scarcest resource. With that in mind, here are 18 productivity tools I use to help me maximise what I can do each day.
Hardware Productivity Tools
1. iPhone
The iPhone is one of the best productivity tools available. Not only can you check your emails, manage your calendar and check your social media accounts, but you can do it in your dead time such as waiting in line or getting a coffee. Additionally, many of the software tools I recommend in this article are beneficial because of their iPhone apps.
2. iPad
When I first got an iPad I didn’t really know how to use it to get the biggest productivity benefits from my day. What I finally understood is that the iPad is not a replacement for your laptop or your phone. But when you use it in conjunction with the apps listed in this article, such as Things and Flipboard, you really start to see its benefits.
3. Mac
As a die hard PC fan it was a hard decision to convert to Mac, which I did in January 2011. The transition was a bit hard at first and re-learning all of the shortcuts took a bit of time, but once the transition was over (which took me a month or two) I gained significant productivity improvements. Not only does my Mac start up and shut down in less than 20 seconds but features such as Spotlight and custom keyboard shortcuts save a considerable amount of mouse clicks (more about that later).
Advanced Tip: Don’t use your mouse to open any programs or documents. Instead use COMMAND + SPACE to open spotlight and then start typing the name of the application or document you want to open. When you see it at the top of the list, just hit ENTER and it’s open.
4. Smartpen
Anybody who attends a business meeting takes handwritten notes (at least if they want the meeting to be effective). Usually these notes include action items, key points and other pertinent information. The question is, what do you do with those notes after you’ve taken them? If you’re like me, you probably have alot of notebooks full of notes from various meetings. Using a Smartpen is a great way to get your handwritten notes onto your computer. You handwrite your notes using your Smartpen, then sync your smartpen with your computer, and all of the handwritten notes are automatically transferred to your computer available to browse or search. The best part about this software is that it can transcribe your handwritten notes into text (and it’s very good at it) and you can search through your past notes using keywords.
5. Amazon Kindle
At first, the feeling of reading a book on a Kindle was a little jarring, especially because I enjoyed the feeling of holding a book and turning pages. But in less than a week the benefits of reading on a Kindle far outweighed any nostalgia I had towards physical books. The main benefits of reading on a Kindle are that you can set the size of the font you want to read at (ensuring a consistent reading speed), fast turning of pages, instant availability of nearly any book you want to read, the ability to send documents and web pages to it, and carrying all of your books with you wherever you go.
Software Productivity Tools
6. Things
Things is by far the best piece of software for managing a to-do list that I have ever used (and I have used a lot). Things is a software application that runs on Macs, iPhones and iPads. You can quickly add to-dos using keyboard shortcuts from wherever you are on your Mac, you can create categories and assign to-dos to categories, and you can schedule to-dos for the future. The iPhone and iPad apps synchronise with your Mac so you have the same list on all devices, and you can quickly add new to-dos through your iPhone or iPad when you’re on the go.
Advanced Tip: take your iPad to meetings, create a project name for the meeting and add to-dos for all action points and notes that come out of the meeting.
6 Google Analytics Insights for Improving Website Performance
Your website probably has Google Analytics tracking code installed. But are you using the data available to improve the performance of your site?
Begin by critically questioning what information you need to help drive your business strategy. Google Analytics contains some fantastic data to help you understand the experience of visitors on your site, their motivations and behaviour. And by monitoring the trends in this data you will be equipped with the knowledge to expand your audience reach and drive growth.
Here are 6 insights Google Analytics can yield about your site:
1. Buying Behaviour
It’s great to know that your total visits are increasing over time, but what does this really say about your website? Let’s assume you have an Ecommerce site. A more valuable insight into the performance of your site is gleaned from analysing those keywords that are motivating your customers’ decision to buy. Taking this even further, we can look at the different buying patterns exhibited by new and returning visitors.
Google Analytics Navigation (New): Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic
- Viewing: Keyword
- Report Tab: Ecommerce
- Report View: Pivot Table
- Pivot by: Visitor Type
- Pivot Metrics: Transactions | Revenue
Armed with this data you are now able to consider the following:
- What keywords are generating the most revenue for your business? Can you redesign your homepage to focus on those keywords that are enticing your visitors to make a purchase?
- Are new visitors to your site behaving differently to returning visitors? Are your SEO efforts successfully driving traffic to your site? Is your site effectively converting this traffic into sales?
When Does PageRank Matter?
As much as I would like to ignore Google PageRank altogether, it is still relevant when building inbound links. When looking at external links there are essentially two factors to consider; the first is relevance, the second is PageRank. Those two factors combined are what build your website’s reputation for a given keyword or topic. So while your own website’s PageRank is not an accurate indication of where you will rank for a specific keyword phrase, the PageRank of your inbound links does matter.
Which Links Matter?
Building links from highly relevant high PageRank websites is the ultimate goal for any SEO campaign. Achieving that goal is how you can build your perceived authority (or reputation) for a target keyword. If you are getting links from high-value, relevant websites then Google sees that as a good indication that you are a reputable source for that keyword.
For example, let’s say you receive an inbound link from two websites that are both highly relevant to your web page. But let’s say hypothetically that one has a PR2 and one has a PR4. Bearing in mind that they are both equally relevant for the purpose of this example, the PR4 link is going to be worth far more to ranking for the target keyword used. The PR4 site is itself a more reputable source and so Google will give more weight to that link than the PR2 site, which has a lower authority.
Getting a whole bunch of these higher value links is the ideal scenario for building your authority online. However, this is where many people get confused. It is not enough to simply target high PageRank links – even more so since the launch of Google Panda. Yes, a PR8 link from anyone would be awesome for your rankings but a PR8 link from a relevant website will be many, many times better.
