Social media presence.

Social media platforms are becoming an increasingly powerful marketing tool for businesses and Vancouver companies are adopting this trend. Currently, 7 out of the top 20 companies have Facebook pages while 11 of them have Twitter accounts. Moreover, the companies that utilize Facebook are actively updating their pages by frequently posting community images, event photos, and original textual content. These companies have posted an average of 6.6 posts in the last two weeks and received an average of 16.95 likes, 0.62 comments, and 0.42 comments per post. Simultaneously, 9 of the 11 companies that use Twitter have been diligently publishing new messages by sharing an average of 17 tweets in the same time frame and attaining an average of 4 comments, 11 retweets, and 3.8 favorites per tweet. That said, two of them have been inactive over a month. By comparing these companies’ social media presence with other large corporations such as Exxon Mobile, we can see that our local companies have used their Facebook and Twitter accounts effectively. Exxon Mobil’s Facebook page for instance, has been inactive seen 2010. However, they have been updating their Twitter page frequently by posting 11 tweets in the last two weeks and receiving 1 comment, 9.82 retweets, and 1.82 favorites per post. 

Responsive web design.

Using responsive web design is gradually becoming a necessity for businesses and 3 of the top 20 B.C. companies are using this feature. This enables these companies to enhance their mobile experience (related article: How to Make Your Website Friendly for Mobile Commerce) and possibly augmenting their client-base. According to Mashable, responsive web design is defined as technologies that “use media queries to figure out what resolution of device it's being served on. Flexible images and fluid grids then size correctly to fit the screen. If you're viewing this article on a desktop browser, for example, try making your browser window smaller. The images and content column will shrink, then the sidebar will disappear altogether.” By using responsive web design, B.C.’s top companies can achieve five goals:

• Accommodate increased web traffic. More and more businesses and consumers are visiting company websites through their smartphones or tablets. In fact, 17.4% of the global web traffic is from mobile. This is an enormous boost compared to the 11.1% last year. This trend will likely continue to follow as the shipments of smartphones and tablets are expected to increase. Moreover, 46% of consumers today utilize their mobile devices to research exclusively. To accommodate today’s mobile demand, B.C’s top 20 companies, as well as any business worldwide, should adopt responsive web design.
• Present consistent user experience. With responsive web design, local businesses can ensure that their web content is optimized for all devices. Instead of showcasing their regular company websites, which looks too small on a user’s mobile device, local companies can use responsive web design to optimize their mobile websites so that they will fit perfectly on the user’s screen.
• Compete with other companies. Today, if a prospective client doesn’t receive positive mobile user experience, he or she will leave that website immediately and purchase products or services elsewhere. Therefore, it is vital for B.C’s top 20 companies to always deliver the optimal user experience through responsive web design. Global companies such as Shell and CIBC have all adapted to this shift in the mobile landscape by using responsive web design for their own mobile pages.
• Add convenient communication features. With responsive web design, local companies can display their phone numbers and addresses when their prospects search for them on their mobile browsers. Moreover, local B.C. companies can allow prospective clients to call them by directly clicking on the phone number. These are vital features that B.C. companies should have to expand its client-base regionally and globally.
• Integrate desktop and mobile sites. By using responsive web design, B.C. companies’ desktop and mobile websites will be synced. This means that local companies don’t have to create a separate mobile-page. Also, the mobile site will be automatically updated when the desktop version is modified.

Technicalities.

Strong in-build website functionalities can enhance a website’s SEO and user experience. Right now, 3 of the top 20 B.C. companies have Meta Redirects. (Meta redirect is a function that enables users to type in a domain name without the triple w at the beginning [e.g. mysite.com] but can automatically take the searchers to the www domain [e.g. www. mysite.com]). Additionally, half of the top 20 B.C. companies use Meta Descriptions while 7 of them have Meta Keywords. Furthermore, 13 of the top 20 companies don’t have web content issues when javascript is disabled.  With Meta Redirects, Descriptions, or Keywords, a company can increase its SEO ranking significantly as its webpages will be easily found by a searcher. Moreover, if a website doesn’t encounter web content issues when javascript is disabled, meaning its web images or videos actually appear when visitors browse through its website, its user experience is consistent and maintained. In addition, this will help the company’s SEO ranking as Google can “crawl” or examine its webpages. (Google can’t examines pages that have javascript, causing these pages to not appear on search results at all.)