#yottaa

[linkworxseo]

The average conversion rate at US retailers lingers at 2.7%. And while 58% of these retailers are seeing conversion rate growth YOY, there remains an open question: are eCommerce professionals really focusing on the right growth tactics or are they missing the obvious? 

[afiorletta]

Stretch Your E-Commerce Marketing Dollars By Optimizing User Engagement

By Coach Wei, CEO and Co-Founder, Yottaa

No question about it, 2013 was a big year for e-Commerce. So it’s no surprise that retailers have allocated more money to e-Commerce marketing in 2014. But with bigger budgets comes more pressure on marketers to perform. And so the question is: “How do I improve our online business results?”

My recommendation: Focus on user engagement.

As the e-Commerce landscape grows more competitive, consumers have come to expect more. Earning their business in this environment comes down to engagement. Retailers must deliver more personalized, responsive and dynamic user experiences that grab consumers from the moment they land on a web site.

This generally requires a complex set of designs and content, and any number of third party JavaScripts aimed at creating a better web experience. Yet, despite the best efforts to create a great e-Commerce site, user engagement often remains elusive.

That’s because user engagement isn’t just about the content on your site — no matter how great it is. Rather, it’s how a user experiences and interacts with your site that really counts. 

How long before the user sees relevant content? How quickly can a user interact with the site? Does your site load in under three seconds? Each of these experiences has a big impact on user engagement. For example, an additional one-second delay in Time to Start Render (how fast a page shows content) can increase bounce rate by 65%.

Deliver the most relevant content first: You have a tiny window of time to capture visitors’ attention. Make sure your page loads the content users expect first. This doesn’t include peripheral widgets, sidebar content and ads. Logos and structural content like navigation can be the very first things to paint in the browser window, but the central content should come directly after, if not first. To see what your users see, try tools such as websitetest.com and webpagetest.org to test your site from a variety of devices and locations. You may be surprised.

Achieve “just-in-time” content: Users don’t want (or need) to see every available asset on a page all at once. They prefer a cleaner, more relevant experience. Optimize engagement in this manner by using development techniques that render images and content the moment the user's eyes land on that location.

Minimize distractions: Peripheral content — such as chat widgets, social media and modal popups — is important for users that have already engaged with your brand, but can be distracting for others. Delay the rendering of particular assets to give visitors an opportunity to absorb information before inviting them to engage further with your brand.

Don’t overlook the importance of speed: While site speed has traditionally been IT’s focus, there’s no question that speed has a direct impact on conversion rates, revenue and user engagement. You should be concerned with both sending your user a page they can fully use in a matter of a few seconds, as well as a page that starts rendering almost immediately.

Ensure device-specific content: During the 2013 Thanksgiving shopping week, mobile traffic grew 77% and revenue increased by 78%. But there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for mobile. For example, even if your site is responsive, if you have a flash video it should not be sent to Apple devices. And if your site is not responsive, images that are functional on a desktop viewport may not work at all on mobile devices. Mobile commerce will continue to grow, and those retailers with mobile-optimized content and sites will see the biggest gains.

  The e-Commerce landscape is getting more complicated as mobile and other forms of digital commerce emerge. By optimizing user engagement, marketers can positively impact business performance now and in the future.  

          Coach Wei is CEO and Co-Founder of Yottaa, which provides end-to-end acceleration, protection and visibility for web applications across the wired and wireless web, delivering speed, scale, security and actionable insight. 

[retailtouchpoints]

Stretch Your E-Commerce Marketing Dollars By Optimizing User Engagement

By Coach Wei, CEO and Co-Founder, Yottaa

  No question about it, 2013 was a big year for e-Commerce. So it’s no surprise that retailers have allocated more money to e-Commerce marketing in 2014. But with bigger budgets comes more pressure on marketers to perform. And so the question is: “How do I improve our online business results?”

My recommendation: Focus on user engagement.

As the e-Commerce landscape grows more competitive, consumers have come to expect more. Earning their business in this environment comes down to engagement. Retailers must deliver more personalized, responsive and dynamic user experiences that grab consumers from the moment they land on a web site. 

This generally requires a complex set of designs and content, and any number of third party JavaScripts aimed at creating a better web experience. Yet, despite the best efforts to create a great e-Commerce site, user engagement often remains elusive.

That’s because user engagement isn’t just about the content on your site — no matter how great it is. Rather, it’s how a user experiences and interacts with your site that really counts.

How long before the user sees relevant content? How quickly can a user interact with the site? Does your site load in under three seconds? Each of these experiences has a big impact on user engagement. For example, an additional one-second delay in Time to Start Render (how fast a page shows content) can increase bounce rate by 65%.

Deliver the most relevant content first: You have a tiny window of time to capture visitors’ attention. Make sure your page loads the content users expect first. This doesn’t include peripheral widgets, sidebar content and ads. Logos and structural content like navigation can be the very first things to paint in the browser window, but the central content should come directly after, if not first. To see what your users see, try tools such as websitetest.com and webpagetest.org to test your site from a variety of devices and locations. You may be surprised.

Achieve “just-in-time” content: Users don’t want (or need) to see every available asset on a page all at once. They prefer a cleaner, more relevant experience. Optimize engagement in this manner by using development techniques that render images and content the moment the user's eyes land on that location.

Minimize distractions: Peripheral content — such as chat widgets, social media and modal popups — is important for users that have already engaged with your brand, but can be distracting for others. Delay the rendering of particular assets to give visitors an opportunity to absorb information before inviting them to engage further with your brand.

Don’t overlook the importance of speed: While site speed has traditionally been IT’s focus, there’s no question that speed has a direct impact on conversion rates, revenue and user engagement. You should be concerned with both sending your user a page they can fully use in a matter of a few seconds, as well as a page that starts rendering almost immediately.

Ensure device-specific content: During the 2013 Thanksgiving shopping week, mobile traffic grew 77% and revenue increased by 78%. But there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for mobile. For example, even if your site is responsive, if you have a flash video it should not be sent to Apple devices. And if your site is not responsive, images that are functional on a desktop viewport may not work at all on mobile devices. Mobile commerce will continue to grow, and those retailers with mobile-optimized content and sites will see the biggest gains.

  The e-Commerce landscape is getting more complicated as mobile and other forms of digital commerce emerge. By optimizing user engagement, marketers can positively impact business performance now and in the future.  

          Coach Wei is CEO and Co-Founder of Yottaa, which provides end-to-end acceleration, protection and visibility for web applications across the wired and wireless web, delivering speed, scale, security and actionable insight. 

[suryaray-blog]

Akamai returns to roots, taps founder as new CEO

#SuryaRay #Surya Eight months after launching an executive search for a successor to Akamai CEO Paul Sagan, the company tapped its c0-founder Fred Leighton for that role. Leighton, who is also chief scientist for the Cambridge, Mass. content delivery network (CDN) provider, will start his new gig January 1, 2013. Last spring, Sagan announced his plans to step down as CEO at the end of 2013. Both Leighton and Sagan will remain on the board and Sagan will stay on as a senior strategy advisor, the company said. In a statement, Martin Coyne II, the lead director on Akamai’s board said:  ”When we began evaluating our options for the next CEO of Akamai, our objective was simply to have the best possible leadership team in place for continued growth and innovation in the years ahead, and that’s what we’re doing with Tom’s appointment. We conducted an exhaustive review of the company’s strategy and opportunities as we evaluated a broad range of potential candidates. We are confident that naming Tom is the best and most natural evolution of management responsibility at Akamai.” The company also promoted two executive vice presidents. Rick McConnell is now president of products and development and Robert Hughes was named president of worldwide operations.  Both will report to Leighton. Akamai claims a roster of blue chip customers including the BBC, IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard which also resells Akamai’s CDN as part of its public cloud. As the nature of web content  has changed, Akamai has had to adapt to handle more dynamic content and has made a series of acquisitions towards that end. Early this year it bought Blaze for its web site optimization expertise just a few months after purchasing CDN rival Contendo. No one expects that M&A  strategy to change. Akamai competes with Limelight Networks and Level 3 in CDN as well as an array of smaller, more specialized players like Yottaa. Last but not least, public  cloud giant Amazon is both a customer and a competitor to Akamai. Amazon offers its own CloudFront CDN service but utilizes Akamai CDN to speed content delivery around the world. Just a few weeks ago Akamai and AT&T inked a deal under which AT&T will deploy Akamai CDN servers at the edge of its network and resell Akamai services — in effect bowing out of its own CDN business. http://dlvr.it/2fLtK5 @suryaray