Entries Tagged 'Strategy'

At Boston Interactive, we view websites as living, breathing, evolving things. They need to be consistently updated, maintained, and refreshed in order to be effective. One way to regularly make sure that your website is operating optimally is through A/B testing.  However, to continually improve your website and better serve your customers you can never go wrong with A/B testing, a form of research that allows you to test different copy and design elements on your website and determine which are most effective.

What is A/B Testing? 

A/B testing involves deploying multiple versions of a website or e-mail and measuring how each performs in order to determine which design or copy elements are most successful. It is important in A/B testing that variables are isolated, so that you can identify exactly which factors are making the test more or less successful.  The tests are generally preformed on a live website rather than in a controlled environment and usually without the user’s knowledge. Read On

The success of a website is largely impacted by the process used to create it. After all, an effective website requires the proper understanding of the audience, competitive analysis, strategy, and architecture in addition to its aesthetic and functional components. One hot trend right now in the world of web design is agile development, which promises a fast, yet effective approach to creating websites.

Agile development, sometimes referred to as “scrum” or “rapid prototyping,” is a development method that allows for the best possible solution within a set time frame.  It allows for an evolution of the project through a recurring process of rapid team and user feedback.  Essentially what that means is that agile development is a process of continuous review and recommendation by both the client and developers. Read On

Websites are like offices in the summertime. They slow down. Between the vacations of co-workers, customers, clients, vendors, Congress, and constituents, making things happen can become difficult. The same is true for your website. Most websites experience significant reductions in traffic between May and August, with the exceptions of certain industries of course, such as travel and tourism. There are, however, a few ways that online marketers can use the summer slowdown effectively. Read On

Last week AOL Advertising, the largest online ad network, released a study revealing that Spanish-language online ads are not only failing to connect with Hispanic audiences, but actually alienating them. These ads are typically translated from English to Spanish, segmenting the audiences only by the languages they speak with little regard for their life stages, interests, or other psychographics… No wonder they’re turned off.

This report begs us to examine the way we build foreign language websites and how we speak to our multi-cultural site visitors. At Boston Interactive, we receive frequent inquiries from companies looking to expand their web presence into multiple languages. And as we operate in a global economy and a world that is so connected by the web, more and more organizations have to consider this every day. Even if your company does not need a foreign language site today, it’s important to consider whether it may need one in a few years. That way you can build your website to accommodate future phases. Read On

Starting a website redesign can be quite an undertaking.  At my interactive agency, we like to think of building a website like building a house.  You need architects, general contractors, and interior designers.  If building a site is analogous to building a house, then let’s think of a redesign as moving your house.  You’re going to need to get some things in order before the movers come. Read On

Last week, I attended the MITX Awards, and while the awards ceremony was very well done – great presenters, finalists and overall event production – what really stood out to me was the collaboration that made several companies and organizations standout this year: ASPCA, Dunkin Donuts and ZipCar.  It was clear that their success was not due to any single person or any one agency, instead it was a combination of agencies and people that made these brands, sites and campaigns noticeable. Read On