There are a variety of different ways to personalize the web experience for the user. So far, we’ve explored only one—channel based personalization. In this post we’ll take a look at persona based personalization. The goal of your website is to attract visitors to convert into leads and eventually customers. However, when people visit your website, the first thing they are going to wonder is, “What can this website offer me? How can I benefit?” This is why you must make it clear to the user how they will benefit from interacting with your website. Otherwise, you risk losing their interest and with that, a potential customer.

Attention all business owners with non-mobile-friendly websites: courtesy of Google, you now have another reason to dread mid-April this year. On April 21^st, Google will officially update its search algorithm to consider mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor in Google search results.

In a previous blog, we defined what content personalization is and why it matters. However, if you missed that post, personalization is all about making the content and web experience more relevant to the individual.

Content is a word with many different meanings that exists in multiple mediums. Everything from documents to videos to images and audio are all different forms of content. Yet, that still doesn’t really define what content is. At a basic level, content can be defined as information, but that’s just the beginning. Updating your website with content, on its own, is not enough to generate leads or drive conversations.  Rather, you must create content that engages your target buyer persona and encourages conversions. Personalization is what makes this possible.

Since the dawn of recorded history (and likely before), pundits and pontificators have warned of the promise and peril of new technologies. I recently had occasion to reflect on the dualistic nature of technology firsthand when faced with the dilemma of how to spend a few hours of free time the other evening. My wife and kids having gone to bed earlier than usual, it was only 8pm, and I was confronted with possibility of using digital technology to either enrich my life or to entertain myself. Which do you think I chose? Before answering, let me provide a little background...

Throughout February, I’ve written about the different benefits of Responsive Web Design (RWD). In case you missed the other posts, RWD refers to “an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones),” according to Wikipedia.

Let’s begin by defining what inbound marketing is at a basic level. At its core, inbound marketing is marketing that is focused on getting found. This is in contrast to traditional “outbound” marketing, which aims to find customers and interrupt people. Common outbound marketing techniques include cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam, and trade shows.

If you’re looking for new ways to capitalize on the consumer shift to SoLoMo and draw in nearby mobile users to your place of business, Facebook has you covered. In late January, Facebook announced a feature called Place Tips to help users receive contextually relevant information about nearby businesses directly in their News Feed. In what may prove for businesses to be a silver bullet for SoLoMo connection and conversion, Place Tips offers up this information by pulling content from company Facebook Pages, as well as from people in the user’s social network who’ve been there before.

Facebook is on a roll. Recently released Q4 2014 earnings show full-year revenues of $12.47 billion, a 58% year-over-year increase. Most of this growth is driven by ad revenues, which reached an all-time high of $3.59 billion for Q4 alone, and specifically mobile ad revenues, which represented 69% of total Q4 ad revenues. This is a far cry from the spring of 2012, when the world’s biggest social network openly acknowledged it had a mobile ad monetization problem. Shortly thereafter, Zuck and crew did an about face and went all in on mobile. And they’ve been cashing in ever since.

Mobile is taking over. Now more than ever, consumers are ditching their desktops and switching to smartphones and tablets to make purchases. And as a 21st century business owner, your website is basically your company’s storefront. In today’s technological environment, it’s not just recommended that businesses optimize their websites for mobile, it’s a necessity.