Mobile Application Development Key for Driving Business: Survey

Enterprises are focusing more attention on mobile applications to drive customer engagement, a survey finds.

Mobile applications are increasingly viewed as a business-differentiation tool to increase customer engagement, reinforce brand value and provide better customer service, and delivering a high-quality user experience and improving mobile app performance are top business priorities, according to the most recent annual survey of global enterprises by mobile application platform provider Kony Solutions in conjunction with MGI Research.

The results indicated many companies are still in the early phases of adoption and are taking a practical approach to new technologies and standards, with enhanced application performance (72 percent) and multiplatform mobile application support from a single code base (67 percent) weighing in as top requirements. These took precedence over managing bring your own device (BYOD) (46 percent) and greater use of HTML5 (26 percent).

The “State of Mobile Apps” survey also explored 2012 mobile budget priorities, finding that 48 percent of respondents plan to increase budgets for multiplatform development tools over the next 12 months. More than 200 survey respondents also reported their top technical concerns are support for open standards and multiplatform mobile app support—especially for hybrid apps, which are expected to be the biggest gainers in the next 12 months over native or HTML5 apps.

“From increased attention to the user experience and planning bigger investments in multichannel offerings, this report demonstrates that more organizations are adopting a ‘mobile first’ mindset. It also confirms something our customers have long known—mobile is a key driver of business success, and an essential channel for increasing customer loyalty and improving customer service,” Harold Goldberg, Kony’s chief marketing officer, said in a prepared statement. “While it’s crucial to stay at the forefront of trends such as BYOD and HTML5, it is clear that a multichannel, hybrid approach is what enterprises are looking for to stay ahead in today’s mobile environment, ensuring that they can future-proof their mobile strategy and position their organizations for continued growth.”

The survey revealed that customer service apps (55 percent) are the top applications in development this year, with respondents indicating that enhancing customer engagement (87 percent) and increasing competitive advantage (79 percent) are key business drivers. Survey results also indicated that many companies are still challenged by mobile apps, with about 6 percent reporting a “huge failure” in their mobile app development and more than 21 percent reporting either below average or disappointing return on investment (ROI) from mobile apps.

“These results are consistent with the fast-moving adoption of mobile apps. Through this survey, we see that organizations that are focused holistically on the entire mobile application ecosystem—from planning through design and development, to deployment and management—are getting outstanding results and ROI from their mobile app investments” Igor Stenmark, managing director of MGI Research, said in a press statement. “With such a heavy emphasis placed on application performance and user experience, more organizations are realizing that a simplistic focus on just time-to-market is no longer the best approach and that a disciplined implementation of a proper mobile application framework enables companies to best meet their mobile business objectives.”

Credit: eweek

Google Shopping’s Impact on Search Engine Optimization

Over the next several months, Google’s free Product Search feature will start costing ecommerce sites a lot more. Since the launch of Google’s Froogle in 2002, Google has provided a free product search service. The newly launched Google Shopping marks the first time that the company has converted a free service to a pay-for-placement model. Search marketers wonder, what does this mean to organic search?

How Google Shopping Affects SEO

For those who focus purely on search engine optimization, the change may actually be a positive. Some of the placement tests for Google Shopping results actually improve the organic results’ position on the page compared with other paid modules. For example, a search for “teddy bears” before the move to Google Shopping would have resulted in the result at left below. The shopping results are beneath the paid results, pushing the organic search results lower on the page. We can only see one full organic result in this image, and the top of the second.

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Comparison of Google shopping results placement.

Today’s shopping results are still in flux as Google tests the best placement for these new ads, but many of the placement experiments are appearing in the upper right. In the example above and to the right, the shopping results appear as an anchor point for the paid search ads, to the right of the top block and above the right block. As a result, Google is able to squeeze two more organic results into the same space that the previous shopping module had taken up.

The experiments are still running, however, with the full launch set for sometime this fall. Until then, Google will likely continue to test and revise placement of the shopping modules to find the balance it needs to strike between revenue and searcher satisfaction. Expect to see larger and smaller modules, different formats and different placements during this transition period. With individual searches producing experimental experiences like the ones below, the true impact on organic search performance will likely be difficult to determine for some months yet.

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Style and placement of Google Shopping ads varies.

The majority of the marketing world will not see this change with purely SEO eyes, of course. For most, Google Shopping will likely represent more downside than upside as tight budgets and human resources are stretched even further. Even the relative positive possibility of more organic visibility would be countered with a decrease in real estate dedicated to paid ads.

Google claims that relevance and shopping-result quality will increase as companies are forced to manage their data feeds more closely once payment comes into play. According to Google’s blog, “Higher quality data—whether it’s accurate prices, the latest offers or product availability—should mean better shopping results for users, which in turn should create higher quality traffic for merchants.” While there’s some logic to this, it will also have the side effect of forcing ecommerce sites with fewer resources out of Google Shopping, effectively ending what had to this point been a free source of traffic.

For more information on managing the transition to paid placement, see "Google Shopping: Preparing for Paid Listings," our previous article on that topic.

Credit: Practical eCommerce