WhatsApp has finally launched its long-awaited app for small businesses across the world, ‘WhatsApp Business’. This new app is aiming to separate the personal and the business lives of people who had long wished to separate their business conversations from the personal ones on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp Business highlighting how small business owners use WhatsApp to connect with their customers and other business partners.

The new features include ‘Business Profiles’, ‘Messaging Tools’, ‘Messaging Statistics’, ‘WhatsApp Web’ and ‘Account Type’.

Business Profiles- It will help customers to get additional information such as the email or the store address, website or any extra description of the business.

Messaging Tools - It allows business owners to set quick replies to ensure that they can quickly send answers to FAQs in addition to greeting messages that introduce customers to their business or custom away messages when the owners are busy or during off hours.

Messaging Statistics-  It will provide business owners with a simple metric about the number of messages that were read so that they can tweak the content of quick replies or their strategy of contacting their customers.

WhatsApp Web-  In this the regular web interface of ‘WhatsApp Business’ allowing owners to send or receive messages using a desktop.

Account Type- One of the most important parts here is the fact that business owners can list themselves as businesses after installing the app to ensure that the customers contacting them know that they are business owners. WhatsApp pointed out that over the time business accounts will get ‘confirmed accounts’ after it is confirmed that the operator of the WhatsApp Business account is using the same number as the actual business contact number.

The company clarified that normal users can continue to use WhatsApp without change and there is no need to download anything new. Users have full control on the messages that they receive as they can block any number including the messages coming from a business account. Users can also report the messages from Business accounts as spam.

As research says, 80 percent of small business in India and Brazil stated that WhatsApp Business App helps them to get in touch with their customers, as well as grow their business. This app is gradually rolling out to more countries in coming weeks.

Google cautiously work on its algorithms and updates to improve the results appeared on SERP (Search Engine Ranking Pages) and the new update by Google ‘Mobile- First Index’ isn’t actually ‘new’.

Most of us might not have heard about it but it was announced in 2016 by Doantam Phan, Product Manager- Google. Although it was clearly stated that it won’t affect much of the ranking still there will be a massive chaos in the indexing process. Before learning more about Mobile-First Indexing, let’s understand what indexing means.

What is mean by Indexing?

The standard definition of indexing is the process of search engine where the robots come and crawl the website and take snaps, which is stored and considering all the ranking factors, the website is placed on SERP. We can view the saved copy and the last indexed time by visiting the cached version is displayed below.

How Google Indexing Is Done Now:

At present, Google has an indexing procedure in which the desktop site is primarily indexed for providing the results. Even for mobile  What happens in the back ends is the mobile bots land on your website and check the ‘Mobile Friendliness’ of a site on the desktop itself.

What is Mobile-First Indexing?

As mentioned, Google doesn't have a separate indexing process for mobile and the recent figures say that more than 70% of the searches are made from the mobile. So Google is planning to make a separate process of indexing for mobile phones known as Mobile-First Indexing to provide even better results for the mobile users.

Even for the site who have Accelerated Mobile Pages, there’s some gap of providing the exact content because of the existing indexing procedure.

Checklist to face Google’s Mobile-First Index:

1. Make sure that your mobile version of the website has the same content as Desktop version. Even if you have Accelerated Mobile Pages make sure all the content exist on the website.
2. If all of your web pages are not displayed on the mobile version, then sorry, your site will be greatly affected by this update. Try website compressor rather than excluding pages.
3. Proper navigation of menus and sub-menus of the website are the most important factor in the indexing procedure of website under the mobile first-index update.
4. This is actually going to be in the main comprised of mobile pages, meaning that snippets, structured data, and other content will appear in Google search results.
5. The visual appeal even of the mobile-friendly websites are somewhere improper, like the alignment issue of the text, image size or clarity, popups etc. even such minor issues can land your website’s ranking somewhere you don’t want.

This is understandable for all, how this is showing the change in indexing, and even if you have been working on mobile optimization and planning for this kind of change over the past months or years, there are still things your business needs to do to be ready.

 Prepared your business and get started with this new announcement from Google-

• Mobile Sensibility - If your site already has a responsive design, by Google’s standards, you will likely not have to do much to be properly indexed for mobile.
• Structured Data Testing- Trial structured data tests for both URLs and compare the output. Adjust any errors that might be present, but avoid adding any instruction that isn’t necessary to mobile sites.
• Google bots-  Trial the txt testing tool to make sure that the mobile version of your site is accessible to Googlebot this will be key for indexing.
• Canonical Links-  If your site does have canonical links, there is no need to make changes.
• Webmaster Forums- If you have specific questions on your mobile site, you can contact Google Webmasters
• Verify in Search Console- If you have only verified the desktop version of your site, you will need to verify your mobile version as well.
• Building a Mobile Site  - Google will continue to index desktop sites, so it is better to have a quality and complete mobile site.

It is going to take some time for Google to make this change in prioritizing mobile indexing, so in the meantime, do all that you can to optimize your site and get prepared for it.

Going through the optimization list will be comprehensive enough to make sure your site is indexed at this point. Google is very likely to put out more information soon since this is so new. In the next blog, we will explore more in-depth so that you can make a preparation checklist as we enter the New Year.

So Stay Tuned!

 App Store Optimization (ASO)

Techniques That Works In Mobile App Store Optimization

You are preparing to launch your mobile app for this you have a useful set of features like an intuitive user interface, a clear target audience, and a strong brand behind your success. App store optimization (ASO) is often misunderstood, everyone is trying to sell their unique formula to push mobile apps to the top of the heap. Unfortunately, it can be tough to gain the most from your optimization efforts.

We highlighted some important techniques to understand clearly, what works and what doesn’t when it comes to ASO.

ASO is different from other channels

The best practices for optimizing every channel with ASO is different for a few key reasons. For instance, analytics reporting from the app store is not as robust as other channels’ reporting systems, making it more difficult to understand the immediate and lifetime effects of any optimization efforts.

Misutilizing The Compelling Visuals in ASO

You can upload as many as screenshots in your app to the store. People tend to be very visual, this offers a huge opportunity for your brand. Nevertheless, many apps simply resort to providing screenshots of their company’s logos or login screens if not utilizing truly compelling images is a wasted opportunity for your app.

Immediate ASO Impact

Tracking the immediate impact with ASO this change, resulted in many additional quality downloads and active users, unfortunately, that’s just not the case, you aren’t receiving quality, real-time data on your downloads, it’s difficult to determine which changes have the most impact immediately. As a result, optimization can be extremely difficult to handle.

Lifetime Assessment Of ASO

It’s also difficult to understand the true lifetime value of your App store optimization. Perhaps, you have a strong feeling to change the resulted visibility for new downloads that will come from less-engaged users or from users whom you didn’t retain. More downloads aren’t beneficial in mobile app users they must be deleted within or after one week.

There are many opportunities for marketers to do things wrong with ASO.

Not Thinking About ASO

Many brands just launch an app, expecting it to be successful. Just because ASO is different does not mean that it is impossible. To compete successfully in the app store, you not only need to have a strategy in place but also strive to put your best foot forward every time.

It's compulsory to take User Feedback on ASO

Customer reviews play a huge part in ASO, if you’re not promoting your engaged users to provide feedback on your app, you’re missing out on key optimization opportunities. Prompting users, based on their actions, for instance, they’ve used certain app features or have returned to the app a specific number of times to tell you how they’re enjoying their experiences can provide you with useful feedback for improving your app as well as let others know what they can expect from your app.

Manual Testing Is Important In ASO

Providers swear that they can help you by testing your ASO, if you really want to understand what is happening and whether you’re garnering quality conversions, you have to work manually by digging through some data.

Conclusion

The single biggest mistake that marketers and brands make with regard to ASO is deciding to do nothing. You cannot become perfect user experiences or prompt user engagements if you don’t have a good number of users and you cannot obtain users if they can’t find you. Your sales funnel begins with app-store optimization so, make sure it’s not the last thing left on your to do so.