Tag Archives: online marketing

Marketing

Step by Step on How to Optimize Any Content for Search Engines

Search engine optimization is arguably the most crucial part of the content game, after content itself. Search engines and content are two peas in a pod; your audience uses search engines to find the answers you create content to provide. If you’re not visible on search engines, your ideal audience can’t see the great content you’ve put out or convert to paying customers.

Search engine optimization is what you need if you’re trying to bring in new audiences; remember, great content is nothing if it doesn’t reach the people who need it. Moreover, more reads mean more leads and ultimately, more money for you. If your content keeps coming up when people search for related keywords, they’d be more inclined to trust and patronize you. In this article, we show you how to optimize content for search engines in a few easy-to-apply steps.

Create Your Content Strategy with SEO in Mind

A common mistake people make is that they create good content strategies but leave out search engine optimization. SEO isn’t just a promotional tool to bring in after you’ve created content; it should be the basis of your content strategy.

A good content strategy is premised on keyword and user intent research to find out what your target audience wants, what they’re likely to search for, and how you can meet these needs. When your content strategy begins with this, it’ll be much easier to create optimized content and rank on Google’s algorithm.

Create High-quality Content

After you’ve created your SEO based content strategy, the next step is to create high-quality content that’s relevant to the keywords you use. To calculate the relevance of your post and rank it, Google’s algorithms also check user experience and how long visitors stay on your page. If users typically leave your page within a few seconds of opening it, Google will mark your page as being irrelevant and give it a low rank.

Pro Tip: When you create high-quality content, your readers are likely to share it with their network, contact you for further information, and be willing to pay for your services.

To create high-quality content, pick out 1-2 long-tail keywords (more on this below) to center your post on. With the keywords in mind, you can create organically optimized content. When you have a clear and narrow topic – because you’re answering a particular question instead of writing broadly – it’s easier to create content where the keywords flow naturally.

Incorporate Long-tail Keywords that Match the User Intent

Ranking on SEO isn’t about using as many keywords as possible; in fact, using many keywords can hurt your SEO because Google considers this keyword stuffing, i.e. using many keywords to aid ranking. Using many keywords also takes away from the user experience, which is something Google uses to check if you meet the needs of your visitors.

What you want to do is focus on a few long-tail keywords (phrases with 3-4 words) that your reader is likely to search. This helps you keep the focus of your post narrow enough, so you spend your time optimizing for a few keywords and keep you focused on answering a particular question your reader has.

When you focus on long-tail keywords – which are usually question based – you’re more likely to attract visitors who will read your entire post, and have a higher chance of converting and earning you money.

Include the Chosen Keywords in Specific Areas of Your Post

There are certain essential areas of your post where you should include your keywords; these are your Title tag, URL, meta description, headers and body.

Your title tag is the first contact the Search Engine, and the readers have with your post. It’s how they know if your post is relevant to the search. Google’s algorithms cut off your title tag after the first 60 characters, so ensure you put the keywords in the first 60 characters of your title tag.

Your URL, unique to every post, is another thing search engines look at to know what your post is about and rank it. Take advantage of your ability to customize your URL to optimize it for SEO by including as many as two keywords in it.

A meta description is the short description of a page that comes up on SERPs. This can be a section of your post with the relevant keyword or a specially curated summary. When writing your meta description, include your long-tail keywords, try to answer the question the reader is asking without giving so much away that they don’t need to open your page anymore. Also, keep in mind that meta descriptions are cut off after the first 300 characters so keep your copy straight and to the point.

Your keywords should be included in your headings and throughout your copy in organic ways that won’t come across as keyword stuffing and get you penalized. Focus on providing the information your readers need, and you’ll find that the keywords flow naturally into the text, whether directly or with synonyms.

Create Keyword Clusters

Since you’re focusing on 1-2 long-tail keywords per post, you won’t be able to speak about a topic in one post completely. This is where keyword clusters come in. What this means is that instead of having several posts with similar keywords who’d have to compete for ranking, you’d have a group of posts with the same primary keyword but different long-tail keywords, so they don’t compete for ranking on the same SERPs.

Using keyword clusters also drives traffic to several pages on your blog with just one search. How does this work? Well, the posts in the cluster – since they answer specific questions regarding a broad topic – would link to each other. Therefore, if a reader wants to know more, he’d be inclined to click on the hyperlink to your other posts. In essence, you’re getting views on several posts from one search engine query.

Conclusion

Optimizing your content for search engines is like the proverbial journey of a thousand miles; it begins with your first step. It can seem like a daunting task, but once you start, it gets easier. Remember to keep the focus on creating content your readers want to see and not on search engine visibility. Once you provide useful content and implement the right strategy, visibility is sure to follow.

Marketing

How Augmented Reality Represents A Marketing Bonanza

The mobile augmented reality (AR) market is projected to reach a staggering $79.77 Billion by 2022 and will be one of the fastest growing sectors in upcoming years.

Functionality has already spread far and wide. Emergency responders use AR to help them train to coordinate dangerous situations. In healthcare, an AR scanner called AccuVein projects vein density on a patient’s arm in real time so injections and taking blood can be quick and easy. Another App can even project surgeon’s hands onto another doctor so they can match movements for complex procedures.

AR is prevalent in helping those with disabilities. Recently, Temple University received part of a larger AR related grant to create glasses that would facilitate captioning for live performance for HOH and Deaf patrons. The same tech can be used for ESL or Foreign language speakers.   

However, people probably best recognize AR from games like Pokemon Go — where frenzied players were able to capture their favorite creature avatars in order to gain advancement in the game. Retailers at the time were quick to realize that a Pokemon stop near (or in) their location meant increased foot traffic and tried to capitalize on the phenomenon.  

From there marketers could truly realize the potential for AR tech. Ostensibly there are a few of major avenues where AR intersects with marketing right now.

Wayfinding

Google Glass ended up looking a little goofy, but the technology promised by apps like Google Lens, which gives consumers ways to access businesses easily just by looking at the facade, may revive the glasses wearable. In AR, companies can offer discounts and coupons that entice passersby or using software like wikitude, the app can actually lead a customer to their desired location. Already, Gatwick Airport uses a sophisticated wayfinding AR feature to help people get to their gates quickly and efficiently. It is possible for any business to incorporate this kind of tech too.

AR is usually thought of as a way to add imagery to a screen, but it can also be used as a focusing tool to take away distractions. For example, there is tech being designed to help grocery shoppers get only what they need for a recipe or to see only gluten free options so they don’t pick the wrong items.    

Product Pre-Assessment

Another way AR is being used effectively in retail markets is in product assessment prior to purchase. This is accomplished in a number of innovative ways by smart retailers. Ikea’s virtual catalog has become a standout in the area with the ability to scan your room and digitally place a piece of their furniture in a spot of your choosing so customers can see how they like the look and color of something before purchase.

Other retailers have created variations on this same theme. Warby Parker scans your face and places their glasses on you, so you can avoid going to the store to try on all their styles. L’Oreal has a way to see how their makeup might look if you were to apply it. Clothing retailers also are allowing shoppers to visualize clothing without going to a changing room. And some even make changing room options easier with smart mirrors that allow you to see the garment you are wearing in different styles or colors without having to search around the racks.

In a similar vein, architects, interior designers and the real estate industry has taken up AR for their marketing efforts. Prospective clients can virtually visit their construction projects or look at their current furniture in a planned new house.

Improved Engagement

Other retailers have seen how AR helps with general product engagement. Lego has created AR stimulated kits that “come to life” when seen with their app. Disney has similar functionality with their coloring books. Movie posters also have been using AR to target cinema goers, giving them an additional thrilling glimpse into a film while waiting in line for popcorn.

Is AR Tech Too complicated for me?

The most intriguing part is how AR is becoming more democratic in its use. Applications like Adobe Spark AR and Apple’s ARkit allow anyone to get in on the ground floor with things like Instagram logos and simple AR additions to branding.

The question of how to assess metrics however, is still evolving. How does an AR view compare with a video view, for example? Marketing consultancies like CleverTap provide strategies to connect meaningfully with demographics and to assess ROI — and they also have get to know AR articles and infographics to help marketers get the hang of why and how to use AR for their own products.

See the infographic below for a quick guide to the ins-and-outs of AR tech. The best part, however, is that the applications for AR are still being worked out. Anyone could have the next innovation in AR in the marketing sphere — maybe a floating fish that eats your emotions will be the next big thing. Or maybe you have a good new idea.

Marketing

Best practices for writing a follow-up email

Technology has certainly changed the way we talk to and reach out to established and potential customers (and family and friends, of course). Sure, we can “talk” to them broadly when it comes to websites and social media—letting everyone in on events and news and important information. But email has replaced a lot of the one-on-one conversations we used to have on the phone or in person. And email has become a great way to introduce, or to re-introduce, oneself to those potential and established customers.

That’s why one of the worst feelings is when you reach out to someone and don’t hear anything back—just silence. There are lots of questions that probably race through your head. So what do you do—abandon email as communication the second time around? On the contrary: Sending a followup email is something you can and should do, and can do well. This graphic explains it.

When They Don’t Respond, Here’s How You Write a Follow-Up Email

Internet, Marketing

How To Write An Email People Will Actually Open

 

Despite email lists being an age-old technique, it is still one of best marketing assets that you have from a business perspective. In fact, almost 59% of all B2B marketers state that this is their preferred method when it comes to developing interest, and fishing for leads.

But… it’s not that easy.

Out of the millions of email campaigns out there, the highest industry open rate is a mere 28%, the worst part about that? Only 5-percent of this 30% actually bothered to click on the links in the email (the place where the magic happens).

Woah…

Enough of the statistics! Let’s get into our tips to help you write emails that capture the attention span of potential leads and drive them down your sales funnel.

Your Subject Line Will Either Make Or Break Your Email Campaign

The attention span of your perfect customer is eight-seconds. That’s it. In this time, your email needs to stand out against the crowd in their inbox. It needs to create interest, and desire to open the email, and find out what all the buzz is about.

Subject lines need to be short, descriptive and to the point. Remember, what you can see on your computer – is not necessarily what you will be able to see on a smartphone (where majority of consumers spend their time).

Typically, you should aim to keep your subject lines under 50 characters. That’s the safe zone. Also – studies have shown that the subject line should only have the first letter of the first word capitalized. Leaving the rest lowercase actually has an impact on your open rate.

The Preheader Text – Furthering Your Net

The next thing you want to pay attention to is the first couple of lines in your email. This is also known as the preheader text. From an inbox standpoint, the first sentence (roughly 8-10 words) is shown right next to the subject line.

It is important that this matches your subject line, which will further the intrigue you create. Leading them down the yellow brick road to clicking your email and giving it a quick read.

Personalization Is The Way To Go

In the digital era, segregation is crazy. More people are spending their times feeling connected while being isolated in their home then actually going out and enjoying social experiences. This all leads to the craving to feel like they are a part of a community.

Which is why your email campaigns need to include some form of personalization.

For example, your lead generation tool should capture the email address, and at least the first-name of the individual signing up. This will mean you can send a nifty “Hey John Doe”, which consumers appreciate.

Another great idea.

Make use of your list segregation. This is a great way to not only lead your customers through the sales funnel. But also, to build brand trust, and create desire behind the product or service that you have on offer.

Send Through An Awesome Video To Improve Lead Conversion And Click Through Rates

You hear it all the time. Including images and videos in your email marketing campaigns is a big no-no.

Well, it’s partly true.

It all depends on the engagement that you have on your email lists. The reason why some consider this as a no-no is because these emails are more likely to end up in the spam folder. But if you have loyal subscribers that look out for your email on a regular basis – this is not a problem you need to worry about.

Which is where you can take full advantage of videos in your email to improve lead conversions. It could be anything really. For example, a cool animated video explaining exactly how your service works. There are companies that can help you record and send video, while minimizing the risk of ending up in the “no mans land” spam folder.

Be Consistent With Your Email Newsletters (Probably The Most Important Part)

Marketing in modern society is based on the AIDA principle. Which is essentially creating awareness of your brand, driving interest to your product/service, instilling a desire into potential customers, which then turns into an action when they purchase what you have on offer.

The entire ideology behind a marketing campaign is to take them from “being interested” to having enough “desire” to actually click through and pay you for your product/service.

But if they never know when to expect an email, you are losing half of your influence.

Which is why being consistent is super important. Now, we are not saying you need to worry about posting on a daily basis. But we would recommend having a specific day of the week, at roughly the same time when subscribers can expect your email.

Time Your Emails Properly

The next important part of getting your emails opened is the timing. Which still falls under the being consistent flag.

For example, if you have a blog that focuses on healthy recipes for breakfast. Sending a newsletter in the evening wouldn’t exactly help, now would it?

Make sure you know where the majority of your audience is, and what time best suits them for the type of content you will be sending their way. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll be sending better emails in no time.

 

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Author Bio: Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them.

Marketing

8 Ways to Strengthen Your Awesome Brand Online and Offline

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Your company’s brand is a work in progress, so it’s important to always look for ways you can improve it. Whether you are refining your messaging, choosing a consistent color scheme, or finding your voice on social media, strengthening your brand is an ongoing project that happens on- and offline.

How to Strengthen Your Brand Online

Learning the most effective ways to do both can help you build a stronger brand for your company overall, which can help you keep your customers coming back while reach out to new ones. Here are a few tips to help you build up your brand online:

1. Blog Frequently

Blogging is crucial for any business seeking to reach new customers online. A well-maintained blog can keep your business at the top of search engines, which makes it easier for potential customers who need the services you offer to find you.

Focus on creating high-quality, engaging and relevant content for your target audience, and add new content regularly. Consider guest blogging on related sites, or extending such an invitation from your site to industry professionals. Your blogs can showcase your expertise to potential customers and could help them decide to seek out your services.

2. Create a Social Media Presence

Social media offers businesses a simple, effective, and low-cost means to stay in touch with their current customers and to reach new ones. Create profiles on the sites most likely to be used by potential customers, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.

You’ll be able to easily share content, post updates about your business, or address complaints as they arise. This can help to build a strong connection between your business and its customers, since they will be able to interact with your business directly and can see that their concerns matter to it.

3. Share Testimonials

A glowing testimonial from a previous customer can provide dividends for your business for years to come, especially if they are famous or well-known in your industry. Many customers determine where they will make a purchase from based on online reviews, and a collection of testimonials could help to win their business.

A testimonial provides your business with social proof and gives potential customers a chance to learn about your services and expertise from people just like them. Ask some of your customers who were especially satisfied to leave you a review, and consider posting them on a special section of your website.

4. Find Your Personality

Consumers today are more likely to frequent a business that has a recognizable personality than one which has a bland or generic voice. It may take some time, but finding your business’s unique voice can help you better connect with customers and provide them with a personalized experience.

Every business is different and will have its own way of appealing to its buyer personas. Take some time to experiment and create a unified voice for all of your communications which speaks to the customers you are trying to attract.

Whether you opt for a snarky, social-media savvy persona perfect for reaching millennials or a more reserved, sophisticated persona which can connect with professionals getting ready for retirement, finding the right voice for your company is crucial to building a successful brand.

How to Strengthen Your Brand Offline

While making effective use of the Internet is crucial to the success of any business, keeping your brand strong offline is just as important. Whether through stunningly designed business cards, elaborate print collateral or full production television commercials, brand strengthening happens at all levels:

5. Define Your Brand (in Opposition to Competitors)

What makes your brand different, or better, from your competitors? If you don’t know this, your customers won’t either. Placing this front and center in any marketing campaign can help you easily distinguish your business. This can also provide inspiration for your marketing efforts.

You’ll be able to highlight some quality of your business which is superior to your competitors, and can inform potential customers of what you have to offer, especially if you are new to the market. Buyers could immediately take an interest in your business and see what you have to offer.

6. Keep Fonts, Colors and Logos Consistent

Your customers need to be able to quickly identify your business from your competitors. The last thing you should do is confuse them with multiple color schemes, too many fonts, or chaotic logos.

Choosing a consistent font, color scheme and logo can help to make your brand more recognizable to customers and can make your own marketing efforts easier. You’ll have fewer moving parts to keep track of and can better build campaigns around a definite aesthetic, feeling or lifestyle, which itself can serve as inspiration for future campaigns.

7. Create Your Niche

Part of what makes a marketing campaign a success is its specificity. Focusing your marketing efforts on baby boomers getting ready for retirement isn’t nearly as effective as focusing on professionals with advanced degrees in the same age group who require financial consulting services to prepare for retirement in the next ten years.

Limitations can prove to be powerful aids when it comes to finding clients, as you’ll be able to automatically filter out many people who won’t be interested in your services, and can instead focus on the handful who are actively looking for your services.

8. Set Deadlines

You could have an endless well of ideas for your marketing campaign, but if none of them come to fruiting, they won’t be worth anything. You can easily spend too much time modifying your original idea to try to cover too many angles at once, and come up with a campaign that lacks a clear focus and which is ineffective at reaching any particular audience.

Setting a deadline can help you focus your efforts on a handful of ideas without losing control of them.

Building your brand is a long-term project, and it’s not uncommon for companies to change their brand multiple times. Don’t be afraid to experiment in order to find the brand that best suits your business, but always make sure each element contributes to a complete experience for your customers.

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With over 18 years in business, Silkcards specializes in unique and beautiful print that reflects a brand’s image and makes a positive first impression.

Internet, Marketing

5 Golden Rules for Introducing Your Business to Online Audience

The digital revolution in India has encouraged many businesses to opt for their website. Two major things can be observed here: First, even the brick and mortar businesses that earlier refused to go for online operations have also started investing on the digital presence, and secondly, the businesses don’t stop at just building their own website and social media pages. They want their websites to be professionally and strategically designed to market their business and eventually increase the revenue. In short, the website creation is not just an option for the Indian businesses that want to grow- it is the mandatory condition. So, let us see the best practices to adopt while designing or marketing a website geared to make your presence stronger and increase the revenue:

Don’t be just another site by overselling

Millions of websites float on the digital ocean just like a number of huge ships and small boats that are laden with a number of items they are hawking to sell. Right from the world tour to mundane industrial tools, these sites sell almost anything under the Sun.

Being exposed to 5000+ messages geared towards marketing the product the consumer today has actually developed contempt towards commercially motivated messages forcing them to buy the products he doesn’t want. Hence any attempt at over-selling will ironically diminish your chances to sell your products or services. Besides, when everyone is overselling and you also join the bandwagon with the similar semblance- where lays the uniqueness, the innovative appeal. Instead of selling the products sell the “purpose-designed content presented in most natural format. Let genuineness guide the content and ensure that the content should be captivating, interesting and above all informative.

Content is really the king – Respect it

The content should complement the products you offer and subtly reveal it to the clients during the natural course of reading. Three things that will offer you a distinct appeal will be – the language, media, and knowledge. In fact, the aim should not be to make sales or acquire a client but to establish a definite rapport with the reader that would start a long lasting relation. This approach will help you to acquire loyalty and eventually converts readers into client. Whether you are finalizing the content of the website or writing company blogs, always ensure that you should use the simple language, a beautiful flow and some genuine knowledge in your content.

Change with time

You also need to assess the present scenario identify the obliterated practices and shunning them the same time you can identify the present shift in trends and predict the futuristic strategy. That will offer eh cutting edge over your clients. For example, e current trend is to value images much more than content. People of today now need something quick that does not to be read while squinting but could be seen while effortlessly. Hence employing n infographic can be the best way pp enjoy the attention.

Graphics attract but is moderate

You should also ensure that the audience should get the swift entry while they type for any search. You can offer a number of infographics that will allow you the entry a well-designed calendar. Besides the mobile search have now surpassed he desktop search. Hence a having a mobile enabled infographic can be the best choice.

While design plays a key role in impacting the audience you need to be very careful while designing your site. The major objectives of a site are not to overstuff your site with design elements but to offer a design that is most relevant with r studying habits.

Minimalism is the Mantra

Go for minimalism when it comes to eh designing. Opt for the simple design with brand specific features. Whether it is design, content, colors or programming the minimalistic approach will offer you a good rapport with the audience and will play a major role in increasing your reach while widening the opportunities to sell. There should be a Concord symphony between the design and content. The design should caress the eyes while communicant g with the audience in a nutshell.

Social Media

Everything You Need to Know About Social Media Marketing for Retailers

Social media is a major part of today’s world. With Facebook recently announcing that over 2 billion people now have a Facebook profile, there simply is no way to ignore its existence. As a brick and mortar retailer with no online selling option, the lazy view would be that you don’t need a social media presence but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The likelihood is that a portion of the people in your store are likely using social media while in the store (perhaps creating a Snapchat story or an Instagram post) or else they used social media in advance of their visit to your store. Of course it is vital to note that social media requires effort and time and it’s difficult to see the tangible results for the effort you put in.

That’s why it is so important to be measured in your approach to social media and not invest a load of time recklessly creating various platforms. It’s not simply about creating the likes of a Facebook page for example because that page also needs to be maintained and populated and someone has to be assigned the responsibility of doing that. The guys over at Storetraffic have put together this infographic which details everything you need to know about social media to make a start for your brick and mortar store. Check the full details out below!

Marketing

10 Ways To Make Your Lead Generation Website Convert On The First Visit

 

You’ve invested a lot into your lead generation website to get eyes on it, but it’s not enough that people just look at it. It’s extremely important that your lead generation website is able to drive visitors to conversion, and what you might not know is that they need to convert right away. Straight North examined more than 300,000 sales leads and discovered something surprising — 84 percent of conversions happened on the first visit. When visitors came back to the page multiple times, their chances of converting plummeted.

The following presentation outlines these shocking statistics, and lays out some tried-and-true methods for re-engineering a website to drive higher conversions on the first visit. After all, there’s too much riding on your website to leave anything to chance, especially when the chances become so much slimmer with each visit.

 

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Author Bio: Brad Shorr is Director of Content Strategy at Straight North — an Internet marketing agency that provides SEO and PPC services — and has more than 25 years of marketing and sales experience. Brad has been featured on leading business sites including Forbes and Entrepreneur.

Design, Marketing

The Ultimate List Of AB Testing

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Creative-Design

Building a conversion optimization strategy is a process. You’ve spent time on tracking, analyzing, building a hypothesis and building your test. Moments before you launch, take the time to go over the following AB test checklist to make sure you have everything you need and to ensure your test results are meaningful and scalable.

Everything you need to do before launching:

The first thing to do when you decide to start testing is ask yourself where you’re going to test. That’s where planning comes in. Usually you want to start where you can both have the biggest impact and also learn the most. Oftentimes, this is at the top of the funnel where there are the most users, but take a look at this section and see what works best for you.

  • Measure your website’s performance (Read more about where to start and what to track)

  • Use heatmaps to understand user behavior (Read more about heatmaps to increase conversion)

  • Define your goal – (e.g – registrations, sales)

  • Define KPI’s – what will you track?

  • How long will it take you to reach significance? Make sure to chose a part of the funnel that will generate results and matter.

  • If you have other tests planned or ongoing – would yours conflict?

  • Choose the best platform for your test

CREATIVE CHECKLIST

The design process of a test is where you make the difference. Knowing what to test and how will be the difference between a successful or failed test. The steps you take to optimize your assets will determine if your test results in relevant or non-essential conclusions. Here’s what you need to make sure of before you complete your new variation:

The Call to Action Button:

  • You have one call to action (CTA)

  • Your CTA is above the fold

  • The text on your call to action contains no more than one or two words

  • Your CTA is clear – people will know what to do immediately

  • The call to action button stands out – in color and size

The Content:

  • The content focuses on value – not features

  • Your headline matches your message on ads

  • Your title is actionable and tells people what to do

  • You’re using one font type

  • Your unique selling proposition is clear

  • You’re using social proof – testimonial, customer logos, reviews

  • Your keywords are relevant to your SEO needs

  • All text is HTML for SEO

  • You are mobile focused

  • You have no or a minimum of links on the page

The Main Visual:

  • You have no more than 2 main colors on your page

  • The visual compliments your USP

  • The visual directs user attention to the call to action

  • The visual projects trust and reliability

The Registration Form:

  • Requires a minimum of fields to get started

  • Required fields are easy to distinguish from non required fields

  • Highlights your USP and why people should sign up

  • You have a confirmation page/layer

  • You send a confirmation email to signups

PRE-LAUNCH CHECKLIST

Before launching your test, there are a few important elements you have to check. This AB testing checklist may take sometime to go through but once you move forward with your test, you’ll know it has been set up in the best way. You should always be sure that the changes you made are working well and are trackable:

  • Your goals are set up in Google Analytics

  • Your goals are set up in AdWords (if relevant)

  • Your Google Analytics tracking code has been implemented

  • Google Analytics events have been set

  • Images are rendering correctly

  • Adwords account is connected to analytics (if relevant)

  • Ecommerce tracking is enabled (if relevant)

  • Goals are firing within Google Analytics

  • Segmentation is correct: your experiment is appearing to the right audience

  • Page load time is at minimum – use Google’s speed test tool

  • Variation is compatible with all browsers using BrowserStack

  • Demographics and Interest reports are enabled on GA

  • All links work (and send to the right page)

  • All links open in new tab

  • Links have anchor text

  • Image size is at minimum

  • Variation is compatible with mobile or excludes mobile traffic

  • You’ve QA’d the entire funnel of your variation (not just the page you’re working on)

  • Heatmaps are working well

  • You’ve located any 404 non existing pages

  • Lead box is working correctly

  • Your main title is in H1

  • Experiment parameters are setup

Time to launch that test!

THE AFTERMATH

A test isn’t complete until we’ve reached conclusions, analyzed our results and have a plan for our next steps:

  • Test for a minimum of 7 days – to make sure there aren’t any changes due to special occasions or unknown criteria

  • Make sure you reach statistical significance. Don’t be quick to the trigger – allow tests to run to their full extent until you’ve reached significant validity

  • Analyze the data and draw conclusions

  • Get the team involved – the best way to keep testing is to showcase your results to others and get them on board with testing

  • Take the next steps – optimize

TOOLS

There are many tools that can make your job easier and faster:

  • Hotjar – The all in one solution for heatmaps, surveys, analysis and visitor recordings. If you haven’t tried it yet you’re definitely missing out.

  • Invision – Use invision for better communication around design and creative. Comment and collaborate on creative projects with your team and clients.

  • VWO – Like Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer allows you to edit pages via its sleek user interface and AB test them without needing developers or designers.

  • Webmaster tools – Google’s webmaster tools lets webmasters tell search engines about their site to make it understandable by bots and maximize visibility to people.

  • Kissmetrics – Analytics platforms like these, in conjunction with Google Analytics, can give you access to extra-accurate and different types of reporting

  • Site speed checker – Speed checkers such as Google PageSpeed tool allow you to assess the load time of your page and learn of ways to optimize it

  • Test Significance Calculator – Sometimes, for one reason or another, we run AB tests outside of a true testing platform and just wind up with raw data. Having a significance calculator allows you to determine statistical significance in these scenarios.

This post originally published on Talia Wolf’s blog

Talia helps businesses plan and execute conversion optimization programs. She runs thousands of A/B tests using emotional targeting and persuasive design to grow their business.

 

Talia is a frequent keynote speaker at marketing conferences and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization. Follow her on twitter at @taliagw and learn more about her conversion optimization training programs.

General, Marketing

14 Great Free Online Resources To Boost Traffic To Your Blog

Traffic

Congratulations, you’ve started a blog for your business. Content Marketing is one of the key ways to drive online leads to your business, so you’re off to a good start.

But how can you find the best topics to write about, the best design tools and the best ways to distribute your content? Just as importantly, how can you do it all without breaking the bank?

To help your business we’ve collected 14 awesome free resources to help you grow your blog traffic. How do we know they are awesome? We’ve tried and tested them for ourselves, and we’ve only included the tools that we’ve seen have really made a difference to our blog traffic.

1. Generate Content Ideas- from BuzzSumo

Starting a blog isn’t the hard part, knowing what to write is. Start off with BuzzSumo to check what content on your online site drives the most traffic, as well as what your competitors are writing about that is getting them attention from your potential customers.

BuzzSumo

2. Check interest and Influencers with Topsy

You can also use Topsy to check that there is a general interest in your topic, and to learn which influencers are already talking about your topic. You can then embed their tweets in your posts, or quote them to add value to your blog, and interest for your readers.

Topsy

3. Brainstorm topics with Hubspot’s Free Blog Topic Generator

Have a general idea about what to write about now but can’t seem to put the words together in a catchy way? You need Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator. Just put in a few nouns related to your topic of choice and this fantastic free resource will create a ton of great headline options to inspire you.

Hubspot-headline-generator

4. Craft The Perfect Title with Co-Schedule’s Headline Analyzer

Once you’ve got some headline options you need to craft the perfect headline to grab your readers’ attention. I’m a huge fan of Co-Schedule’s headline analyzer to help create that perfect headline. Enter in your headline of choice and you’ll get both an analysis and an overall score to hone your title to perfection.

Co-schedule-headline

5. Use Evernote for Content Structuring and Brainstorming

Once you’ve crafted your headline you can start collecting ideas for your blog post. I love using Evernote for this, but you can also simply open a Google Doc and share it with your team. Collect all your ideas and begin to shape your blog content.

Evernote

6. Use Atomic Reach for Testing and Honing Your Content

Written out a blog post outline? Great! Now you just need to check it is relevant and interesting for your audience. We’ve been testing out the Atomic Reach App, for exactly this purpose, and we are loving how easy it makes it to check your content.

It not only checks it for appropriate sentence length, spelling mistakes and more, it also lets you know if your content is relevant for your audience.

Atomic

Ready to launch your beautifully crafted, appropriate content into the blogisphere? Wait a minute! You’ve forgotten images. Posts with images have a 50% higher click rate, so if you want to stand out from the crowd you’ll need interesting and appropriate images.

7. Beautiful, free images from Canva

Canva is a freemium service which helps you design beautiful images to accompany your blog posts. Whilst many templates will cost you a token $1 to use, there are enough free options to help a beginner blogger create beautiful, functional images.

canva

8. Free images for social media, including great collages from PicMonkey

Another fantastic free resource for creating images for your blog posts is PicMonkey. PicMonkey not only offers you a great choice of free backgrounds and fonts, but can also create perfect collages for your blog needs, perfect for tool roundups, or posts about influencers in your field.

PicMonkey

9. Super simple design for your blog from Pablo

Looking for even more options for gorgeous graphics to help your blog post stand out? We’re loving the beautiful new tool from the team over at Buffer, Pablo.  Pablo is simplicity itself, enabling you to create wonderful images in mere seconds.

Pablo

So you’ve picked your topic, you’ve written your headline, you’ve finished your content, and you’ve added beautiful images to really show off your work. Now what?

Without distribution nobody is going to get to your content. You don’t need an enterprise budget to distribute your content to your target audience. There are some fantastic free tools to get you started without paying a dollar.

10. Social Media Distribution the easy way with Buffer

Buffer is a fantastic free social scheduling tool to help you distribute your content across all your social networks. You don’t need any social media knowledge to be able to use Buffer, which really is the simplest social media tool around, and totally free.

Buffer

11. Promote your blog via your email signature with WiseStamp

When promoting your blog post don’t just add it to your Buffer and forget about it. Add your blog link to your email signature with WiseStamp and every email you send out becomes a blog promotion tool. Promoting a company blog? Double, triple or quadruple your blog exposure by using a team signature solution like WiseStamp for Business.

wisestamp

12. Add a call to action to your blog with Snip.ly

Snip.ly is an ingenious little free tool which allows you to add a personalized call to action to either your content, or somebody else’s content. You can use snip.ly to drive your blog traffic by linking to other content from authoritative sources on a similar topic, and adding a snip.ly call to action to drive readers to your content. You can also add a call to action to your blog with snip.ly to convert more of your readers into users.

snip.ly

13. Track and amplify to your blog progress with Mention

I love Mention! Mention pulls up your footprint from the web and social media, so you can track exactly who is sharing your blog, and where. By being responsive to your readers you can double your blog traffic, as well as engage and create dialogue by looking for people asking the question that your blog post answers.

mention

14. Test, and retest with Google Analytics

You’ve sent your blog post out, and with our free tools at your disposal, your traffic is looking good. Use Google Analytics to monitor not only your numbers, but also your traffic referrals, so you can thank your users, make any relevant changes to your blog post, and craft even better content next time.

Google_Analytics

 

This is a guest post by Naomi Goldberg, a British-born content marketer and mummy to three, crafting and promoting content and social for WiseStamp for Business.

This post was originally published on WiseStamp blog

Design, Marketing

Here Are Some Of The Most Important Conversion Optimization Numbers You Should Know About

It is that time of the year again when everyone rushes to sum up the year and plan for the next. So these past few weeks we have been working on getting as many numbers as possible to understand the current conversion optimization statistics. Understanding what marketers are doing, how shoppers are behaving, what devices people are converting on and more importantly what to look forward to in 2015 can be a crucial part of your plans for the upcoming year.

Here are some very interesting numbers coming up from this year’s companies and spenders:

  • 63% of marketers optimize websites based on intuition & best practices.
  • 73% of companies have no idea why consumers abandon their shopping carts.
  • Poor A/B testing methodologies are costing online retailers up to $13bn a year in lost revenue.

Here’s what you all should look at in the conversion optimization statistics infographic below:

2014:

  • What marketers are doing
  • How Customers Are Spending
  • Conversion by traffic
  • Conversion by Devices
  • Mobile Apps Numbers
  • Where & When to Invest in Social Marketing
  • Making Videos Convert
  • Retail Numbers and Stats

2015:

  • What’s next?

Conversion-optimization-numbers-2014

This post originally published on Talia Wolf’s blog

Talia helps businesses plan and execute conversion optimization programs. She runs thousands of A/B tests using emotional targeting and persuasive design to grow their business.

 

Talia is a frequent keynote speaker at marketing conferences and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization. Follow her on twitter at @taliagw and learn more about her conversion optimization training programs.