From the Fitbit Versa to the Apple Watch and everything else in between, wearable tech has been making waves for a number of years now. It’s a market that will only continue to grow for the foreseeable future. That’s why an increasing number of businesses are exploring ways they can tap into the opportunities available through wearable technology.
But wearable tech will not automatically deliver optimal results in the absence of a deliberate, articulate strategy to do so. Working with a digital transformation consultancy such as WGroup would certainly help. Nevertheless, the following are some useful tips on making wearable tech a key contributor to your company’s bottom line
1. Ensure Your Employees Understand It
Whether you are in the business of selling wearable tech or not, it’s vital that your employees have at least a basic understanding of what the most common wearable gadgets are, how they function and how they can fit into your overall product.
The best way to do this is to give your staff a practical, hands-on feel of popular wearable devices. You can buy a wide range of them then place them in your in-house tech library where your staff can learn by experimentation.
2. Optimize Your Mobile Apps for Wearables
It’s important that businesses do not look at wearable tech as something that can thrive in isolation. Rather, it works best when it’s deeply integrated in smart homes and other digital environments.
There’s no better place to start than getting your mobile apps optimized for wearable devices. After all, smartphones are the most widely owned, internet-enabled gadget in the world today. Optimized apps would ensure your customers have a relatively seamless transition from the wearable to their smartphone.
3. Optimize Your Website for Voice Search
The purpose of having wearable tech is to ensure not just ease of carrying but also more convenient use. It’s not surprising, therefore, that wearable technology is a key reason for the growth of voice search.
Someone would find it much easier to speak a search instruction to a device on their wrist rather than open their smartphone or computer and type a search command. However, voice search has a different dynamic than text search. Individuals tend to use more natural-sounding long-tail keywords and complete sentences. It’s vital that your website is optimized accordingly.
4. Reduce the Page’s Load Time
According to one study, 2 in 5 users will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. In addition, Google’s search algorithm gives a higher search results ranking for websites that load faster (all other factors constant). Therefore, reducing load time has a positive impact on your business’s bottom line in multiple ways.
With wearable tech, the need for speed is especially important. Ergo, crop and compress your images and minify the Javascript, CSS and HTML files on your web pages.
5. Optimize Landing Pages
A defining characteristic of wearable technology is small displays and tiny apps. If someone is going to visit your website using their wearable device, you should ensure that key landing pages are optimized for readability on small screens. That may mean keeping images at a minimum and ensuring pages are not too long.
6. Use Structured Data Markup
Wearable devices often don’t have the computing resources (such as sizeable RAM) that computers and smartphones do. Therefore, you want your site to be easily reachable and searchable.
Using a structured data map ensures that search engines like Google and Bing can read and present your content fast and efficiently. It allows users to obtain the most pertinent information about your business such as menus, events, and price ranges. Google has a Structured Data Markup Helper that can guide you through this process.
We are still a way off from wearable devices surpassing smartphones and computers as the internet-enabled consumer gadget of choice. Still it’s important that businesses start to align their processes and procedures with this emerging technology so they have an edge over their competition when wearable tech eventually commands a sizeable share of the market.
