Mediastreet
Author

editor

Browsing
In News

How to Create a High-Converting Product Landing Page

No Comments
By ReadWrite.com

Technology has changed the digital marketing landscape forever. We now have more ways than ever before to communicate company and product benefits. Marketers can improve on-site engagement and sales when they use the tools they have at their disposal.

Business leaders and marketers across all industries want nothing more than to connect with their readers and grow their brands. However, they face many challenges along the way. One of the biggest hurdles is convincing users to invest in a product or service. The simplified solution is to build engaging product landing pages.

The thing is, not all landing pages are created equal. You have to know how and when to connect with customers if you want to find success.

Technology has changed the digital marketing landscape forever. We now have more ways than ever before to communicate company and product benefits. Marketers can improve on-site engagement and sales when they use the tools they have at their disposal.

Now, let’s dive in and look at several actionable ways you can use tech to create high-converting product landing pages.

Show relevant lead magnets

Lead magnets are one of the best things you can do with your product landing page. Simply put, these are exclusive content and offers designed to generate leads and provide value to readers.

Common examples of lead magnets include:

  • Discounts
  • Case Studies
  • Infographics
  • Event Invitations

These offers are crucial for improving conversions because, on average, 40-70% of qualified leads are not ready to buy. If a customer leaves without interacting with your brand meaningfully, they will likely forget it exists.

On the other hand, if a user joins your email list, you have a direct line to stay in touch and build rapport through lead nurturing.

The key to getting people to click a lead magnet is to offer something the reader will find valuable. This concept will vary based on the intended audience. Segmenting visitors based on their unique interests, goals, and pain points can help you come up with inventive and effective lead magnets.

There are plenty of different lead-generation plugins that allow users to create attractive and engaging offers for product landing pages.

Make mobile-friendly product landing pages

Google has made it clear that they want business leaders to optimize their websites for mobile. When you consider that over 68% of the global population owns a mobile device, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, according to smachballon.com.

Online shoppers use smartphones and tablets to engage with brands, read reviews, and shop. Mobile apps are on the rise that allows consumers to do all of this and more. If your website or app, including your landing pages, is not optimized for mobile, you could miss out on significant traffic and clicks.

There are many ways to ensure your site is ready for mobile users. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

  • Use a landing page builder that comes with mobile templates.
  • Reduce the size of images and host videos off-site for faster loading times.
  • Make sure buttons and navigation work with handheld devices.
  • Test your product landing page with multiple operating systems and devices.

You’ll find that putting smartphone users first in terms of page design and functionality can lead to a tremendous boost in conversions.

Optimize for voice search

While we are on the topic of mobile devices, let’s talk about voice search. Did you know that around 30% of all searches were conducted without a screen last year? In other words, people use smart speaker devices or voice assistant apps on their smartphones and computers to search for websites, information and products.

Websites not optimized for what a customer might say have a slim chance of appearing in the results for these types of searches. The good news is you can start making changes today to make your landing pages voice search-friendly.

We suggest including FAQs at the bottom of each product page. This seemingly small addition can significantly impact how people engage with your brand.

At face value, an FAQ section answers vital questions asked by your target audience. The option to see these questions and answers can guide users and help them determine if your product or service is right for them.

Behind the scenes, FAQs can help build your search presence, particularly when it comes to voice search. When someone uses voice search, they typically ask a question. If your landing page answers their inquiry concisely and accurately, Google may relay the answer you provided to the user.

You can also appear in the featured snippets at the top of Google for specific keyword searches. It’s worth mentioning that over 40% of voice results come from featured snippets.

It’s also a good idea to add schema markup to your website. Schema markup is behind-the-scenes code that allows Google to understand your intent better. Marketers use this SEO strategy to inform Google about product availability, prices, and more.

The bottom line is this; if you want to attract more visitors to your landing page, even if they aren’t using a screen, voice search optimization is a must.

Focus on user benefits

A fundamental mistake many business owners make when designing their product landing pages is they spend too much time focusing on features instead of benefits. The two ideas are similar but differ in one important way.

Features are what your products can do. Benefits describe how features will ultimately help the end user. For example, a social media marketing plugin might promote a feature called a social wall. Most potential customers, even those skilled in social media marketing, will wonder exactly what they mean and why they should care.

Now, imagine if, instead of promoting a social wall feature, the company stated that this feature allows people to share all of their social media feeds in one place, which can boost brand awareness.

The second description is more detailed and explicitly tells users how they will benefit from this feature.

When designing your product landing pages, keep your customers’ needs in mind. Instead of writing a bullet list of features like you’re in an investor call, spend some time thinking about your product from your customer’s eyes. Write benefit-oriented descriptions, and people are far more likely to engage with your business.

Show social proof

Social proof is an excellent way to improve your landing page conversion rate. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, social proof is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to do things based on other people’s experiences. We all tend to trust people and businesses that are respected by others.

The most common type of proof is user reviews. Think about the last time you bought something from Amazon. There’s a good chance you scrolled to the bottom of the page to learn what other people thought of the product.

If you saw only 1-star reviews, you likely decided to pass and look for a similar product with better reviews. Similarly, a bunch of 5-star reviews may have prompted you to place an order.

Research shows that user reviews and other types of social proof can have a noticeable impact on conversions. In fact, surveys suggest that 83% (trustpulse dotcom) of people trust customer reviews over traditional advertising.

There are two primary ways to add reviews to your landing page. The first method involves placing an open-ended review form on your page, just like Amazon. Customers can review your products, and future visitors can see how others feel about your brand.

The other way to show reviews is to pull positive feedback from social media and surveys. You could include a section on the product page that reads, “see what others think of (product)!” A few glowing reviews can turn a prospect who is on the fence into a happy, paying customer.

You can also use live sales notifications and trust seals to capture visitors’ attention and convince them to take action.

Split test product landing pages

Much like the rest of your website, your product landing pages need to evolve with the needs of your customers. Split tests are a great way to experiment with new ideas and improve clicks.

Split tests, also known as A/B tests, involve changing a page, email, or social media marketing campaign for 50% of your audience. These changes can be subtle, like switching the verbiage on a call-to-action, or they can be something more noticeable, like a complete colour swap.

The objective of split testing is to see which version of the page leads to more clicks and sales.

Let’s say a marketing team decides to test their call-to-action by changing “subscribe now” to “subscribe and save.” After enough time has passed – we suggest two weeks to a month for each test – they look at the results.

If the subscribe and save option saw significantly more clicks, the team may use this new call-to-action on pages they want to improve.

It’s possible to test many different aspects of your pages, but it’s worth mentioning that tracking one test per page is the best option. Multiple tests make it hard to determine what led to better (or worse) results.

Final thoughts

Online businesses need product landing pages to generate leads, sales, and interest in their brand. Every industry is different, so it’s always a good idea to introduce new strategies slowly so you can figure out what works.

The tips presented today will help steer your product landing page in the right direction. The tools and resources you need to improve performance and connect with more customers are out there. The only thing left to do is get started.

By ReadWrite.com

Our mission: We are building the next generation of tech media companies focused on providing relevant information in a way that favors readers’ productivity instead of page views and time on site. Leveraging this new and efficient type of content, ReadWrite aggregates professional communities dedicated to specific subjects of interest such as connected cars, smart homes, AR/VR, fintech and APIs.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In News

Artificial Intelligence Is Going To Destroy Social Media

No Comments

By John Brandon

Remember the date of March 3, 2023.

It might be just another Friday on the calendar, but it’s actually the day a well-known social media company announced their own demise. It’s also the beginning of the end for all social media.

That’s right, March 3 is when LinkedIn announced a new “collaborative article” concept, which (if you follow AI trends and know how these things usually pan out) seems harmless enough at first. Prior to this, it was — a voicebot will always be available in your home or a robotic car will drive you to work. In the announcement, LinkedIn mentioned this innocuous phrase: “These articles begin as AI-powered conversation starters, developed with our editorial team.”

What’s really happening here? My guess is that LinkedIn is using AI to scan their own platform (what they claim is “10 billion years of professional experience”) to generate AI-created content. As humans, we’ll respond to these posts because they will be tailor-made to encourage a response and debate. How these posts will be labelled is still unknown. What’s clear is that there will be a plethora of AI-enabled content meant to encourage more engagement.

One report called this semi-automated social media. I tend to take a darker view. I recently wrote about how an AI chatbot is posting on Twitter, and that the commenters are often a bit confused about whether the account is powered by a real human or not. It’s a curious development. I’m in favour of AI helping us do our work. I’m not in favour of people thinking content created by a human is actually something cooked up by an AI, mostly because it means the entire experience will degrade, one post at a time. I’ve already experienced way more LinkedIn spam messaging of late, to the point where I now barely read any direct messages at all. The last thing I need is AI spam.

The question is where this all will lead. Once AI starts controlling the algorithm and posting content to lure us into more discussions, it’s just a matter of time before more and more accounts that appear to be human (with an AI-generated face and a fake location) start invading these networks, ruining the experience for all of us.

Imagine how this might work.

On a typical day, you might login to LinkedIn or Facebook, scrolling through your feed. You see plenty of comments and lively discussion. But it’s all a ruse. The social media platform has allowed and even enabled the AI accounts to create the discussions (and the comments), and they are geared for you — your interests and proclivities. The chats will always look appealing because the social media networks know what you like and what you usually follow.

On Instagram and TikTok, bots will know which photos and videos you like the best, but without the human element, it will all become nothing more than a way to grab your attention even more and keep you hooked longer on the apps, showing you ads that are also fine-tuned to your interest. Not to make it all sound too dire, but think of The Matrix and the moment Neo realized he was (spoiler alert for the five people who don’t know this) nothing more than a battery in a tube.

When we are all surrounded by AI bots acting like humans, looking at content that was not generated by humans and looking at ads powered by algorithms, it will feel about the same as The Matrix. None of it will seem real. And then one of it will have value.

With apologies to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, this might be when we reach behind our neck and pull the cord out. It might be when social media finally loses its grip on us and we realize it was all designed to keep us hooked to their advertising formulas after all. I hope we do wake up before that nightmare occurs.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By John Brandon

John Brandon is a well-known journalist who has published over 15,000 articles on social media, technology, leadership, mentoring, and many other topics. Before starting his writing career in 2001, he worked as an Information Design Director at Best Buy Corporation. Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnbrandonmn. @johnbrandonmn

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

Google Unveils Generative AI Capabilities In Gmail, Docs Ahead Of Reported GPT-4 Release

No Comments

By

Google today announced several tools to allow businesses to use generative AI as a way to discover and use corporate data. It also showcased how its productivity suite, Google Workspace, will incorporate AI to help write emails in Gmail and create marketing materials in Google Docs. Other apps include Sheets, and Slides.

The PaLM API, included in the announcement, is a way to build on top of Google’s language models. The API comes with an intuitive tool called MakerSuite that lets developers prototype ideas and, over time, it will have features that prompt engineering, synthetic data generation and custom-model tuning. Select developers can access the PaLM API and MakerSuite in Private Preview.

“We’re now at a pivotal moment in our AI journey,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud wrote in a post. “Breakthroughs in generative AI are fundamentally changing how people interact with technology — and at Google, we’ve been responsibly developing large language models so we can safely bring them to our products.”

The latest Gartner data shows that Google held 13.7% share of the global enterprise email and authoring market in 2021, with $3.4 billion in revenue. The analyst firm also expects the email and authoring market to grow to $27.9 billion in 2023.

AI will provide a platform to start, but Johanna Voolich Wright, Vice President, Product, Google Workspace, wrote in a post that is the technology is no replacement for the ingenuity, creativity, and smarts of real people.”

A list of AI-powered features that will come to Workspace apps in the future include:

  • Draft, reply, summarize, and prioritize your Gmail
  • Brainstorm, proofread, write, and rewrite in Docs
  • Bring your creative vision to life with auto-generated images, audio, and video in Slides
  • Go from raw data to insights and analysis via auto-completion, formula generation, and contextual categorization in Sheets
  • Generate new backgrounds and capture notes in Meet
  • Enable workflows for getting things done in Chat

Google’s news comes in advance of Microsoft’s virtual Future of Work with AI event on Thursday.

Microsoft Germany CTO Andreas Braun said last week the event will likely include the release a multimodal GPT-4, which OpenAI released today, as well as a ChatGPT upgrade for Microsoft 365 applications such as Word and Outlook.

Some media sites have already reported that Microsoft GPT-4 will be “multimodal” to allow AI to translate a user’s text into images, music, and video. A call canter, for example, could use the AI program to automatically convert phone conversations between employees and customers into text, according to one report.

By

Sourced from MediaPost

Read More
By
In News

Science-Backed Techniques to Achieving Your Full Revenue Potential

No Comments

By Terry Rice

Amina Al Tai, an expert on mindset and business coaching, shares tips and strategies to help you unlock your full revenue potential.

I help entrepreneurs build their personal brand and revenue. And although that may seem daunting, the process is relatively simple. You just need to leverage my A.T.M. model.

Actions – The activities you must perform to be successful

Tools – The applications and resources that increase the impact of your work

Mindset – The self-perception or belief you hold about yourself

Pretty straightforward right? Well, I’ve noticed most people tend to prioritize actions and tools while they almost ignore the importance of mindset. Here’s the issue with that; your mindset can tank your chances of success way sooner than any external challenges.

Sure, you might know you need to build your email list. That’s an action to take. And you may determine that you need an email marketing program to help you send and optimize your newsletter. As you may have guessed, that’s a tool.

But what happens if you start thinking “I’m never going to figure out how to use this email marketing program” or “I’m not sure if I have useful information to share”?

This is why mindset is so critical. It allows you to push through those self-limiting beliefs so you can take on new challenges and continue to grow on a personal and professional level.

And, that’s exactly what I chatted with Amina AlTai during this week’s episode of the Launch Your Business podcast. Amina is an expert on leadership, mindset and business coaching. And as you’ll notice, she clearly wants you to win.

During our conversation, which is full of techniques you can immediately apply, AlTai provides input on:

  • Developing a money mindset and charging your true value
  • Increasing endurance to push through extended challenges
  • Removing upper limits that decrease your impact
  • Identifying and capitalizing on your zone of genius

I’ll share one of my key takeaways from our chat below.

Your mindset can have a negative impact on your clients and revenue

Amina says that on a sales call, it’s not just about your money mindset. It’s also about the mindset of your prospective client.

Unfortunately, if your mindset leads you to believe you’re not good enough or you just want to get a “yes” out of the client, you’ll accidentally project lack or scarcity.

This is why you need to believe in yourself and your offer wholeheartedly. If you don’t believe that you can bring a transformation to your client, you need to dig in deep to understand where that story is coming from. Fortunately, Amina provides guidance on how to do so during our conversation.

Once you’ve developed your own money mindset, you can coach your potential clients through their potential fears and limiting beliefs. This will allow you to close more deals and deliver better results.

Next steps

Ready to learn more from Amina? First, listen to the full interview below.

Then, be sure to check out her new podcast Amina Change Your Life. She serves up bite-sized lessons and inspiration on career, entrepreneurship, ethical wealth building, and well-being.

You can also learn more from Amina by visiting her website and following her on Instagram.

Feature Image Credit: Laurel Creative

By Terry Rice

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In News

ChatGPT for Email Marketing: 7+ Prompt Ideas for Awesome Emails

No Comments

By Trevor Sinclair

Are you struggling with email marketing? Do you want to increase your conversion rates and ROI? Look no further than ChatGPT for email marketing.

With email marketing boasting an average ROI of $38 for every $1 spent and 81% of SMBs relying on it as their primary customer acquisition channel, it’s a strategy you can’t ignore.

However, navigating this marketing channel can be confusing, leaving many businesses lost in the woods without a clear map or compass.

In this blog post, we’ll guide you through using ChatGPT to create killer email content that speaks directly to your audience’s fears, anxieties, hopes, and dreams, helping you move the needle.

Benefits of ChatGPT for Email Marketing

What are the benefits of using this AI chatbot in your email marketing efforts? Let’s take a look.

Subject Line Generation

Did you know that the average office worker receives a whopping 121 emails a day? With so many emails in their inbox, having a subject line that grabs attention is crucial.

Studies show that 47% of email recipients open an email based solely on the subject line. Luckily, ChatGPT can generate subject lines that are eye-catching and relevant to the email content.

Body Copy

According to HubSpot, personalized email messages can improve click-through rates by 14% on average and conversions by 10%. With ChatGPT, you can generate personalized and engaging body copy that resonates with your target audience.

A/B Testing

A/B testing is a must. It lets you identify the elements driving conversions and optimize your campaigns accordingly. Studies show that A/B testing increases open rates by a whopping 29%. With ChatGPT, you can quickly create different versions of an email to see which performs best.

Ask ChatGPT for Critiques

This powerful tool can provide valuable insights and recommendations for improving your email marketing efforts. For example, ask if your email draft contains any spam trigger words!

Golden ChatGPT Email Formula

If you rely on ChatGPT to do all the heavy lifting, you will end up with thin, generic content that won’t resonate with anyone.

But when you combine your knowledge of your audience with the power of ChatGPT for productivity and efficiency, the results can be incredible.

The formula is simple yet powerful: W + W + K/B

  • Who am I talking to? What do they do for a living? What are their interests and pain points?
  • What action do I want this person to take? Do you want them to book a consultation? Or subscribe to your list? Download a free e-book?
  • What does this person need to know or believe in to take action? The benefits of the new product, how it compares to similar products, and why it’s worth the investment. What biases or objections might they have about your service? Is it the cost? The time commitment? The trustworthiness of providers they’ve had in the past?

These are essential questions that every email marketer should be asking themselves before they even start writing.

To use the Golden ChatGPT Email Formula with ChatGPT, feed the information into ChatGPT as context before you ask it to generate outputs.

The Most Important Thing in Email Marketing

The secret sauce in email marketing is knowing your subscriber like the back of your hand.

If you want your subscribers to feel like you really get them, you’ve got to talk to them about their fears, anxieties, hopes, and dreams. Maybe they’re struggling with acne, their weight, or their finances. Maybe they absolutely love Pomeranians!

And not just any old way, but in their own words.

That’s how you build trust and empathy, which gets your emails eagerly anticipated, opened, and acted on.

But you can only do that if you know your subscriber like they’re your best friend.

So how do you get to know them?

The best way is to talk to them directly via a survey.

Email Survey ChatGPT Prompt

Here’s a great ChatGPT prompt for this:

“Imagine you represent a [niche] brand that wants to improve its products based on customer feedback. Compose an email to a customer who recently purchased an [Offer] from [Brand]. In the Email, cover the following points:

Thank the customer for their recent purchase and express your appreciation for their support.

Ask the customer to share their thoughts on the product.

Ask the following questions in the email:

  • What made you choose [OFFER]?
  • Have you tried similar products before? If so, which ones and how do they compare to [OFFER]?
  • Has [OFFER] made a positive impact on your life? If so, how?
  • Is there anything we can do to improve [OFFER]?

Assure the customer that their responses will be kept confidential and will help you improve your products and services in the future. Lastly, thank the customer for the feedback. Use [niche] puns and write as if you’re talking from friend to friend.”

The Ultimate ChatGPT Subject Line Formula

Here’s a powerful formula that can significantly increase the chances of your emails getting opened:

Curiosity + Self-Interest = lots of opens.

John Caples, a legendary copywriter, and author of Tested Advertising Methods, introduced this formula.

Next, we’ll discuss how you can apply this formula to your email subject lines.

ChatGPT Subject Line Generation Prompts

Here are some email subject line prompts you will love.

1. Deconstruct + Repuporse

If you already have a list of effective subject lines, you can ask ChatGPT to repurpose them for your niche + audience.

I got my hands on these:

  • At-home workouts don’t work, unless…
  • Top 4 beginner workout “errors” revealed
  • Maybe the laziest way to double your fitness results
  • Add This to Your Coffee for Health

Next, I asked ChatGPT to repurpose these subject lines for a dog audience (and what they care about). This is where you insert the expertise we gathered from the survey!

2. Weird Mechanism + Desired Benefit

A weird mechanism is an unconventional way to achieve a desired benefit. For example, when people encounter something unexpected or unusual, they’re more likely to take notice and investigate further.

Here are some examples of subject lines that showcase the [weird mechanism] + [desired benefit] formula for a dog audience:

  • “Weird doggy treat banishes bad breath (and improves their mood)”
  • “Tibetan method trains dog to clean up their toys”
  • “Strange Tibetan secret gets your dog to love crate”
  • “Little-known technique reduces separation anxiety”

Next, use this formula to instruct ChatGPT to generate subject lines for your niche. Again, it’s best to prompt ChatGPT with relevant examples to your audience.

Lastly, emphasize the goal to pique curiosity, and voila!

3. Problem + Hint at Solution

This classic space ad formula is one of my all-time favourites.

Here’s how it goes: you start with a specific problem and then drop a hint at the solution. After that, it works like a charm.

Sure, you might see a dip in open rates, but the specificity of the problem can lead to more clicks and conversions.

Here are some examples:

  • Tired of being tired? Natural cure
  • Can’t focus? Do this!

Now, you can instruct ChatGPT to follow the formula I’ve provided.

Make sure to add context surrounding the following questions:

  • Who are you writing for?
  • What do you want to emphasize?
  • What is the intent of the email subject line?

How To Hook Email Readers with ChatGPT (From The First Word)

You can have all the opens in the world, but if your readers aren’t hooked from the first word, they don’t read the rest of your email. They aren’t going to buy anything, either!

So, what’s the secret to getting your readers to dive right in? That opening line has got to be on point.

Here are a few rules to hook more readers:

  • It should be congruent with your subject line
  • Keep it short and sweet
  • Stimulate curiosity or promise a benefit, or better yet, both!

1. Open with a Surprising Fact

First, try opening your emails with a surprising fact; ChatGPT can help you. Facts can capture readers’ attention and pique their curiosity, making them more likely to read on. (We go into detail on how to find facts with ChatGPT).

2. Lead with an Irresistible Story

Next, ask ChatGPT to craft an irresistible story, but ensure it’s centered around your subscriber. For maximum impact, the story should demonstrate how your reader can gain a desired benefit or avoid pain or problem they fear.

Using ChatGPT for Email Marketing (Prompt and Email Ideas)

Here are some ideas for you to try with different types of emails.

1. Re-Engage a “Dead” List

Do you have an email list that’s been idle for a while? I have a template that can help you out.

Before you blast emails using these ChatGPT prompts, re-engage your “dead” list.

The power of this template is to make your email heartfelt.

Begin by admitting, “Hey, I know I haven’t honoured my end of the bargain,” so that your subscribers know you’re a genuine person who realizes you haven’t delivered the emails your subscribers signed up for.

From there, emphasize the value (or the promise of value soon) you’ll provide. It could be new product launches or exclusive tips and tricks that your subscribers will appreciate.

However, giving subscribers an easy way out is crucial if they prefer to opt out. This shows that you respect their time and inbox and empowers them to take control of their relationship with you.

So look at the template below, customize it, and let’s revive your email list!

  • Start with a greeting and introduce yourself.
  • Acknowledge the lapse in communication and apologize for it.
  • Emphasize the importance of consistency and engagement in building relationships.
  • Reiterate your content’s value and express your commitment to providing more of it.
  • Offer either new content/resources or a question to engage the subscriber and encourage a response.
  • End by thanking the subscriber and offering an opportunity to unsubscribe if they are no longer interested.

2. The Welcome Email

Your welcome Email is the workhorse of your business emails. It’s like a first date that determines the course of your relationship with your subscriber. Will they see you as a trustworthy friend or leave you in their inbox with hundreds of others?

Don’t forget to include all of these ingredients in your Welcome Email to make sure it’s a success:

  • Make a great first impression
  • Set expectations
  • Request action
  • Polarization

Be bold and come out and say what you stand for (or against). Alexander Hamilton stated, “Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.”

If some people unsubscribe at this stage, that’s a great thing! The objective here is to build a list of people who are aligned with your core values and feel a strong connection to you.

Here’s a prompt to get you started:

  1. Briefly acknowledge and compliment the recipient on inviting you to their inbox, making them feel good about their decision to invite you in.
  2. Acknowledge any previous interactions with the recipient and express excitement to continue the relationship.
  3. Here’s where you mention your freebie. Use this section to overcome the major objection we all must overcome: recipients downloading “freebies” and totally ignoring them.
  4. Use authenticity, storytelling, humour, and tone to connect with the recipient and make your message memorable.
  5. Reinforce the benefits of the content or resources you’re offering and how they can help the recipient achieve their goals.
  6. End with a clear call-to-action, directing the recipient to consume the resource.

And here’s the output!

If you’re struggling to tweak the prompt, don’t be afraid to take my output and use the “Deconstruct + Repurpose” method I highlighted in the subject line section above!

3. The Hold my Hand Email

Now, let’s write a killer “Hold My Hand” email that speaks to those sceptical, jaded, and burned-out subscribers. These prospects want results but feel overwhelmed and confused about how to get there.

Now, the conflict between desire and doubt is something that many buyers face in any market – whether it’s weight loss, dating, business, dog training, or beyond. It’s a tough nut to crack, but it’s not impossible.

The “Hold My Hand” Email is your secret weapon in this battle.

Here’s the structure:

  1. Reaffirm the benefits your subscribers want to achieve. What are their hopes and dreams? What motivates them to make a change in their life? Or what pain are you helping them avoid?
  2. Acknowledge the roadblocks to success that your subscribers have faced in the past. What fears and anxieties have held them back? By acknowledging these roadblocks, you can show your subscribers that it’s not their fault they haven’t achieved the results they want.
  3. Use your subscribers’ words to show that you understand their fears and anxieties. This is a powerful way to build rapport and establish trust.
  4. Amplify their desire by using future pacing to paint a vivid picture of what your subscriber’s life will be like. Use “Imagine If” statements to help your subscribers visualize the positive outcomes of their hard work and dedication.
  5. Finally, link to your offer (program, coaching, etc.) and promise a step-by-step plan or method to help your subscribers achieve their goals. You’ll want to show your unique process, so things will be different this time.

ChatGPT A/B Testing Prompts

Remember my “hold my hand” Email? Well, I asked ChatGPT to give me a variation.

Specifically, I wanted to test a different layout structure and add some “imagine if” statements to get the reader to visualize the desired result of their dog behaving perfectly.

So I kept adding more “imagine if” statements until I had a total of 5!

You can also refine an email by switching up the tone.

While you could ask ChatGPT to switch the tone to “persuasive” or “witty,” aiming for the best in the business is even better.

And who are the best in the business? This list identifies the top 20 copywriters who make the most money. Names like Joe Coleman and Laurence Blume are at the top of the list.

Using AI Templates (With Jasper)

With Jasper, you can forget about spending hours brainstorming and crafting the perfect email copy. Instead, you can leverage its pre-programmed templates to create killer emails in minutes.

I know what you’re thinking: “But Trevor, what about ChatGPT?”

Well, my friend, while ChatGPT is great for generating original content, Jasper’s templates can save you precious time and effort.

It has specific templates you can leverage for both subject lines and email!

Jasper also has an awesome document editor and Boss Mode, so you can write and switch between templates in one place.

Get Jasper Right Here

ChatGPT For Email Marketing (Feedback and Compliance)

One of the best ways to get feedback on your writing is by using ChatGPT. For email marketing, this can be especially helpful to ensure that your emails are not triggering any spam filters or violating compliance issues.

Simply provide ChatGPT with your Email and ask for suggestions on improving it.

For example, I asked ChatGPT, “Can you please look at this email and point out any spam triggers or compliance issues that might be contained within it? How could I improve it?”

ChatGPT For Email Marketing – Final Thoughts

While ChatGPT can be a valuable tool in email marketing, it’s important to remember that it’s not a substitute for understanding the fundamentals of email marketing, copywriting, and your audience’s needs.

It’s important to remember that ChatGPT is only as good as the information and guidance it’s given. You will be head and shoulders above the average email copywriter using the tips I’ve provided in this article.

So, use ChatGPT wisely and clearly understand its limitations, and you’ll be on your way to crafting successful email campaigns that resonate with your audience.

By Trevor Sinclair

Sourced from Niche Pursuits

Read More
By
In News

How to Stick to a Schedule, Even If You Lack Writing Confidence

No Comments
By Sonia Simone

It’s tricky to stick to a schedule when you can see all of the flaws in your own writing.

So, how can we publish content every week, or even every month, when we still have so much to learn?

Most of us run into this sometimes — and it can turn into an ugly case of writer’s block. We have a real desire to serve an audience with our work, but unhelpful perfectionism holds us back from meeting our writing goals.

Let’s knock that one out before we start talking about how to get comfortable clicking Publish — even if you’re not a “great writer” yet.

How (savvy) new writers stick to a schedule

Maybe you’ve seen Ira Glass’s famous quote about what he calls the gap:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

“But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this.”
– Ira Glass

You know what “the good stuff” looks like, but you don’t have the chops yet to create work at that level. And that’s painful.

Honour the writer you are today

Now, there’s a school of thought when learning to draw that “you have 10,000 terrible drawings in you, so get them done as quickly as possible.”

And of course, in the place of “drawings,” you can substitute blog posts, podcasts, videos, or any other kind of creative work you add to your content calendar.

Some people find this idea liberating. If you’re one of them — get on it!

I find it unspeakably depressing.

In the first place, I think 10,000 is an insane number. You don’t have 10,000 genuinely bad pieces of creative content to get through. Maybe you have 10. Or 20.

When you stick to a schedule and get through those first rough pieces, you’ll improve your craft. And you’ll begin to write content that’s better than the content you wrote last month. That’s not terrible — that’s fantastic.

I also don’t believe in spending extended periods of your life gritting your teeth. If you want to learn to play the cello, but you’re going to be unhappy until you sound like Yo-Yo Ma, that’s an awful lot of time to spend being miserable.

Maybe instead, you could learn to appreciate what you can play today, and take pleasure in that, while still working on getting better.

In my experience, both in my writing and my teaching, I find it’s more helpful to honour the work that reflects where we are today. With all of its flaws and all of its imperfections.

You could look back on work you did a year ago, or five years ago, or 20, and cringe.

Or you could look at it and respect the care that went into it, while also seeing the elements that you hadn’t quite mastered yet. (And maybe even feeling great about the progress that you’ve made.)

Once you’ve decided to at least try to appreciate the early days, I’ve observed three things that will let you do well with your content today, even while you’re still working on your craft.

Give it some G.A.S.

The first element is caring, a lot, both about the quality of your content and the audience you serve with it.

If you actually care about what you’re writing, you’re ahead of most people.

Writers who stick to a schedule and put in the work, to the best of their abilities, still stand out, even in the overwhelming sea of content being published today.

And if you genuinely care about putting content out that benefits your audience, they’ll appreciate it and find use in it, even if it’s not “perfect” by some unreachable standard.

You don’t have to have the writing skill of an Ann Handley or a Malcolm Gladwell.

You do have to care about your business blogging.

Give it some time

The second really important element is giving yourself enough time to produce a piece you’re proud of.

Check your facts. Check your spelling. Make sure your arguments are well supported. If you can, strive to get most of your commas in the right place.

Let your content sit for a little bit, and you’ll see the places where your argument is weak, or your phrasing is confusing.

Time is a great replacement for talent.

A lot of crappy content isn’t crappy because the writer lacked skill. It’s crappy because they weren’t given enough time to do a good job.

Plenty of the writers you most admire produce dreadful first drafts. Between you and me, it’s one reason I don’t draft in the WordPress editor. I wouldn’t want my colleagues to see some of the total dreck I write as I’m getting my thoughts together.

Kelton Reid’s blog post about things only serious writers do mentions the benefits of thinking on paper.

“Some of your best work will come by virtue of you wrestling with the words on the page, not in your head.”
– Kelton Reid

Go ahead and meander. Let your mind and fingers ramble across the keyboard. The ideas that emerge can be much richer that way.

But it only works if you stick to a schedule and give yourself enough time to really polish the final results, and remove the tangents and cruft.

Give it some standards

The third element might seem not-so-sexy (unless you’re Copyblogger’s Editor-in-Chief Stefanie Flaxman), and that’s having a clear set of editorial standards.

Copyblogger publishes a pretty good volume of content, between the blog and Copyblogger Academy.

Getting bogged down in perfectionism isn’t an option, but you can make a conscious decision about your standards — like never skipping content proofreading. Yes, a typo might slip through occasionally, but they should be rare.

Stefanie goes through every post checking for wrong dates, imprecise word choices, and funky typing.

No editor can check for everything. But our standards give us a list of the most important items to check off, to make sure they meet our standards.

When you decide on a set of writing rules to live by, you create more trust and authority with your work.

If you apply these three elements — caring, time, and standards — to your content, even if you aren’t a “great writer” (yet), you’ll be able to produce useful work that you can be proud of, and that will serve your audience.

A resource to help you stick to a schedule

If your writing and publishing process could use some direction, you might be interested in Stefanie’s Content Writing Masterclass inside Copyblogger Academy.

The in-depth course is for writers who want an insider’s view of how to build an audience of interested prospects who know, like, and trust you.

You’ll discover practical techniques you’ll be able to use right away, so you can start creating content that attracts traffic, builds an engaged audience, and primes them to buy.

 

 

Reader Interactions

 

By Sonia Simone

Sonia Simone was a founding partner of Copyblogger Media. These days, she helps content writers become fiercely creative and insanely productive. Check out her brand-new free report on 7 Things Prolific Writers Do Differently — written especially for content writers.

Sourced from copyblogger

Read More
By
In News

Medium launches a ‘premium’ Mastodon instance as a membership perk

No Comments

By Sarah Perez

Publishing platform Medium is opening up its debut Mastodon instance, me.dm, to its members, the company announced today.

Last month, Medium first teased its plans around the Fediverse — the group of interconnected servers powering a range of open source, decentralized applications, including the Twitter alternative Mastodon and others. It said it wanted to make access to me.dm a perk included with Medium membership, offering a place for authors and readers to discuss the content published on its platform.

The company explained at the time that this would make for an interesting local feed — a reference to how Mastodon users can view a dedicated feed of just the conversations happening on their own instance (server), in addition to those happening more broadly across federated servers (those servers their local server knows about and is connected to).

In addition, Medium said it would tackle some of the onboarding challenges involved with joining Mastodon by making it easier for newcomers to find both the people and topics that matched their interests as part of its onboarding flow.

That’s an area others have begun to tackle, as well, as they aim to capitalize on the potential of the decentralized web. Last week, for example, the magazine app Flipboard announced it would launch its own instance on flipboard.social to address similar concerns. The new Mozilla-backed Mastodon mobile app Mammoth additionally features an onboarding experience that aims to simplify sign-up by sharing suggestions of who to follow from across different categories.

But while there are some similarities with these other Fediverse plays, Medium is the first major tech company to offer users a “premium” Mastodon experience — meaning access to the instance isn’t free as it is elsewhere when signing up directly. Instead, interested users would have to purchase a Medium membership, which currently runs $5 USD per month or $50 per year with its annual plan.

The company believes the exclusivity and the community it will curate on its instance will have immediate value. Already, it’s quietly onboarded 5,000 people from its waitlist onto the instance and is forecasting a community in the “six figures” in size at some point later this year.

Image Credits: Medium

“We want Medium to be the best place to read and write on the internet,” Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine tells TechCrunch. “We want to do it under a single subscription — I think people are tired of having dozens of subscriptions. And I think we’ve also found that ad-driven models have their own kind of corrupting influence,” he continues. “I think that’s why a lot of social media ends up toxic — because people are focused on engagement, rather than substance. So, in order to have the best place to read and write, you have to build the whole thing around an economic model for substance. For us, that means a subscription,” Stubblebine adds.

Plus, the exec points out, the instance will be among those run by an experienced tech company. That means it will run the instance on its own infrastructure and will have its own Trust & Safety team managing moderation. (Today, there’s one person dedicated to the task, but it could scale in time.)

Stubblebine notes, too, that instance’s domain name — me.dm — could have a draw.

“You have to share the domain along with your username in the Fediverse. To have a short domain is valuable,” he says.

Image Credits: Medium

Betting on a federated future

Coincidentally, Medium is announcing its Fediverse instance’s opening on the same day that Twitter was facing yet another partial outage.

However, the move also comes at a time when there seems to be a broader shift in Mastodon’s direction — and not just because Twitter has become unreliable.

Under Elon Musk’s ownership, there are questions about Twitter’s future — the company has lost advertisers and is in debt to creditors. But there are questions about the future of centralized social media, as well.

That’s further highlighted by the fact that Medium itself was created by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. (Williams exited Medium as CEO last year, but remains chairman of the board.) Another Twitter and Medium co-founder, Biz Stone, also sits on Medium’s board.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, meanwhile, is backing Bluesky, another decentralized social concept but one that uses a different protocol than Mastodon. Its future, given its reliance on Twitter’s funding, seems questionable, though.

Stubblebine addresses the oddity of having so many Twitter founders now involved with companies building alternatives but says Medium’s impact on Twitter’s fate is not a huge consideration.

“We didn’t go into this year, thinking that we wanted to compete with Twitter or even that it was possible,” Stubblebine says. “But it seems obvious to me that there’s an exodus from Twitter — and enough of an exodus to create an alternative. We’re not particularly worried about whether or not Twitter lives or dies. We see it more as there’s going to be a new thing and maybe it lives alongside Twitter or maybe it completely replaces it. But regardless, it’s going to be important. And, regardless, that new thing is Mastodon,” he adds.

Medium plans to improve its Mastodon experience as it grows, hoping to provide a place for writers to find new readers for their stories and enable conversations, then roll out more features in time.

It’s not the first company to try to relocate some of the discussions that used to take place on Twitter to its own external community in the wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition. In addition to Flipboard and its own Mastodon instance, Substack late last year targeted Twitter with its launch of an in-app discussions feature, too.

Meanwhile, Tumblr owner Matt Mullenweg confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing the ActivityPub protocol that powers Mastodon and other Fediverse-connected apps, in addition to others, like Bluesky and Nostr.

Medium itself, by comparison, isn’t integrating with ActivityPub — it doesn’t think syndication of blogs to the Fediverse is the future; its focus instead is on proving a place for the authors to build a community.

Stubblebine also says he’s not worried that offering a premium instance will corrupt the potential of what’s, so far, been a free and open source social web.

However, he does admit there has been some pushback from the wider community about Medium going the premium route.

“Most of the pushback is based on a fear of — sometimes it’s expressed as a fear of capitalism, but, when you dig into it, it’s always a fear of monopoly. This is one of the things that I think is exciting about the Fediverse — there’s really no hope for anyone to monopolize it. So it just leads to healthier business ideas,” he explains. “This is just a business idea that will be one of many on the Fediverse…I think it’s new, so it will probably be a little bit alarming. But in practice, there’s just no way for it to pan out that way,” Stubblebine says.

“I think there’s this unbundling of social media going on right now,” he continues. “And what that gives us is the opportunity to be more opinionated. For me, that’s exciting — I don’t want to be a town square for the entire world. I want to be the town square for people that love reading and writing — and a certain type of reading and writing — thoughtful reading and writing,” he concludes.

Feature Image Credits: TechCrunch

By Sarah Perez

Sourced from TechCrunch

Read More
By
In News

How To Use E-Books And White Papers As Lead Magnets For Your Marketing Campaigns

No Comments

By Vikas Agrawal

A lead magnet is a free resource or deal offered by marketers to customers in exchange for their contact information. They are a tool for capturing leads and building a list of interested prospects. Lead magnets can take the form of e-books, white papers, webinars, free trials and more. By offering lead magnets, businesses can attract and engage with potential customers, ultimately increasing the likelihood of converting them into paying customers. In fact, businesses with a mature lead generation process acquire more leads and are said to generate, on average, 133% more revenue.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the other benefits of using lead magnets and discuss how you can use lead magnets—particularly e-books and white papers—in your own marketing efforts.

The Benefits Of Using Lead Magnets In Campaigns

There are many benefits to using lead magnets. They can help you:

Attract a target audience. When lead magnets provide value to the target audience, it can incentivize them to exchange their contact information, effectively attracting and capturing leads.

Build relationships. Lead magnets can help you establish trust and build relationships with the target audience.

Increase engagement. Lead magnets encourage potential customers to engage with the business’s content, increasing the likelihood of them becoming paying customers.

Qualify leads. Lead magnets help businesses determine the level of interest and engagement of potential customers, enabling them to prioritize and qualify leads.

Establish thought leadership. By offering informative content, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry.

Boost brand awareness. Lead magnets increase brand awareness by promoting the business’s products or services to a larger audience.

Provide valuable insights. Lead magnets offer valuable insights into the target audience’s needs and interests, enabling businesses to tailor their lead-generation campaigns and marketing efforts.

Utilizing E-books And White Papers As Lead Magnets

E-books are comprehensive, educational content that can provide valuable information on a specific topic related to the business’s industry. They can be a guide, tutorial or case study and can be used to educate potential customers on the benefits of the business’s products or services. Moreover, my company surveyed marketers and 55.9% said that e-book samples generate the highest conversion rate in short-form written content.

Follow these steps to create and promote an effective e-book:

Identify the target audience. Start by identifying the target audience for the e-book and their needs and interests. This will help you create an e-book that is relevant and valuable to them.

Choose a topic. You want to be strategic and choose a topic related to the business’s industry.

Plan (and write) the content. Outline the introduction, main sections and conclusion before you start writing. Ensure the content is informative, educational and relevant to the target audience.

Design the e-book. Use design elements such as images, graphics and headings to make the e-book visually appealing and easy to read.

Publish the e-book. Publish it in a format that is easily accessible, such as a PDF.

Promote the e-book. Promote the e-book through a variety of channels, including email marketing, social media, advertising and landing pages on your website.

Measure the results. Measure the e-book lead magnet campaign results by tracking the number of downloads and conversions. Use the insights gained to improve future campaigns.

Unlike e-books, white papers are in-depth, research-based content that provides insights and solutions to specific problems related to the business’s industry. They often demonstrate the business’s thought leadership and expertise in a particular area. You can often use the same process and strategy above for a white paper, and by offering white papers as lead magnets, you can further establish yourself as an expert in your field and provide valuable information to potential customers.

Best Practices For Using E-books And White Papers As Lead Magnets

There are several strategies for promoting and distributing lead magnets to your target audience. Here’s how:

Choose the right channels. Carefully research the channels through which you will promote and distribute the lead magnet, making sure the channels align with the target audience’s preferences and behaviors.

Offer the lead magnet on landing pages. Create landing pages on your website specifically for the lead magnet and offer it in exchange for the target audience’s contact information.

Use email marketing. Promote the lead magnet to your existing email list and encourage them to share it with their network.

Utilize social media and influencer marketing. Use social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote the lead magnet to the target audience. You can also partner with influencers in your industry to promote the lead magnet to their audience.

Offer the lead magnet through webinars. Offer the lead magnet as a resource during webinars or other events to encourage attendees to download it.

Utilize paid advertising. Use paid advertising, such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, to reach a larger audience and drive traffic to the landing pages for the lead magnet.

Monitor and adjust. Monitor the results of the lead magnet promotion and distribution strategies and adjust as necessary to improve the effectiveness of the campaign.

In conclusion, with the use of e-books and whitepapers, businesses can establish thought leadership, boost brand awareness and increase conversions by offering valuable and relevant content, delivered in a thoughtful, targeted manner.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Vikas Agrawal

Co-founder at Infobrandz, an elite team of visual communication experts taking content marketing to the next level.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

State of Search: Top SEO Strategies for 2023

No Comments
By Michelle Hawley
Stay up-to-date on the latest in search engine optimization. Learn about SEO strategies, best practices and the latest updates to Google’s ranking factors.

The Gist

  • SEO best practices still matter. To show up in search engine results pages (SERPs), following search engine optimization (SEO) best practices is necessary.
  • Still Google’s world. Google dominates the global search engine market with 84% market share, making it crucial to consider in an SEO strategy.  
  • High-quality content. On-page SEO involves optimizing visible elements such as content, which should be relevant and high-quality, with expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-A-T) guidelines in mind.

When someone wants to search for a product, look at videos or read about a topic, they go directly to their preferred search engine. And if you want to show up in said search engine results pages (SERPs), you’ll need to follow search engine optimization (SEO) best practices.

As we delve into best practices as of February 2023, our primary focus will be on Google. Why? Because it has dominated the global search engine market since its inception in 1997.

As of December 2022, Google held 84% of the search engine market — with runner-up Bing claiming nearly 9%.

 

The necessity of considering Google in an SEO strategy, whether for a single blog post or entire website.

 

Google doesn’t share its search volume data. But experts around the web estimate the search engine sees anywhere from 40,000 to 99,000 search queries every second. For one day, that could amount to more than 8.5 billion searches.

SEO, which companies use to maximize content marketing efforts, ultimately breaks down into three categories:

  • On-page SEO
  • Off-page SEO
  • Technical SEO

Let’s take a look at some core components of these three categories and how SEO professionals can aim to follow best practices.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO, also called on-site SEO, refers to the optimization of elements that you can see on-page, such as:

Content

Content is at the core of on-page SEO, and it’s what many people focus on when first optimizing their SEO strategy.

Relevance and quality are more important than any other Google ranking factor.

Google actively penalizes thin content that offers little to no value to searchers. While in the past it used to consider pages as a whole, it now looks at and ranks subsections within pages to match queries.

When you’re working on your content creation strategy or overall SEO strategy, consider these questions to determine if you’re headed in the right direction:

  • Do you have a target audience in mind that will find your content useful if they come directly to you?
  • Does your content demonstrate expertise that comes from firsthand experience?
  • After reading your content, will someone feel they’ve learned enough about the topic?

If you’ve answered yes to these three questions, you’re on the right track.

Some content worst practices to stay away from include:

  • Creating content specifically to attract people from search engines
  • Utilizing extensive automation to produce lots of content on a variety of topics
  • Summarizing what other content creators have said without adding additional value
  • Writing to meet a particular word count or because you’ve heard Google’s algorithm prefers a specific word count (it doesn’t)
  • Creating content that promises to answer a question that has no answer (for example, suggesting you know the release date of a movie that has no confirmed release date)

E-A-T Guidelines

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This concept became a core part of Google’s algorithm in August of 2019 and continues to play a significant role today in evaluating content.

In Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, E-A-T specifically refers to:

  • The expertise of the creator of the main content
  • The authoritativeness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself and the website
  • The trustworthiness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself and the website

E-A-T plays a part in websites of all types, including gossip columns, satire websites, forums and Q&A pages. How a website meets E-A-T guidelines will depend on the type of website. Some topics or industries will require less formal expertise than others.

For example, a news website with high E-A-T articles will convey journalistic integrity, contain factually accurate information and utilize robust policies and review processes with included sources.

A site containing scientific topics, on the other hand, should be created by people or organizations with the appropriate scientific knowledge or expertise and represent established scientific consensus.

When it comes to establishing E-A-T for your content, think about the page’s topic and what expertise is needed to achieve the purpose of that page.

Search Queries

Search queries are the words and phrases people use when using search engines or smart assistants. These words and phrases shift based on the search intent — the “why” behind the action.

Types of search intent include:

  • Informational: The searcher is looking for information, wants to answer a question or learn how to do something. The best way to target an information query is to develop high-quality, SEO-focused content that provides helpful and relevant information to the user. Position yourself as a source of information people can trust.
  • Navigational: The searcher is looking for a particular website or page. For example, they might type “YouTube” or “LinkedIn.” You can’t typically target navigational queries unless you own the specific website or page the person is looking for. But you can make sure you claim the top results spot for your brand’s own navigational query.
  • Transactional: With this search intent, the user wants to make a purchase. The query might include a brand, product or service name or a generic item, such as “coffee maker.” You can target these search queries with optimized product or service pages. You can also use pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to target these search terms.

By understanding search intent — which might include keyword research to best understand which words the target audience uses — companies can better craft content to meet needs and win more readers.

Links

You should include two types of links within your website or web page content: internal and external.

Internal links redirect to another page or piece of content on your website. For example, on an article about the latest chatbot trends, you might link to a related article about how chatbot technology works.

External links direct readers to a page that is not yours. These links should be highly relevant webpages or sites with high expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-A-T).

Link building is also important — getting other websites to link back to your website or piece of content. These links signal to Google that your website is valuable enough to earn a citation, allowing content to rise in search rankings. We’ll talk more on these later, in off-page SEO strategies.

Visuals

Visuals (videos, gifs, pictures, infographics, etc.) are a large part of online content.

If you plan to use visuals on your site or pages, you’ll want to ensure that they’re:

  • Large and high quality (beware of large image file sizes, however, which can cause slow loading)
  • Relevant to the content
  • Shareable
  • Placed high on the page
  • Have a relevant file name
  • Have alt text, which aids visually impaired users

If you’re using video content, include a video transcript. Not only will a transcript make your content more accessible, but it will also make videos more “scrapable” by search engine bots.

Meta Title & Meta Description

Your meta title (the alternative title that shows up on Google) tells search engines and searchers what your content is about and what keywords to focus on. This title should be relevant to your content, include at least one word or phrase from your keyword research and be no longer than 60 characters.

Search engines don’t factor meta descriptions into your ranking — but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it.

The meta description is the ideal place to let Google and searchers know what your page is about. As a result, you’ll see higher click-through rates.

URL & Slug

Including your keyword within the slug of the URL — the last part of the URL that identifies the unique page — is a small bonus to SEO. However, if you can’t do so in a sensible way, it won’t be a big hit against you.

Ensure that your slug matches the title of your content. For example, if your blog post is about customer experience, your URL might be: www.yourwebsite.com/blog/all-about-customer-experience

Another thing to keep in mind is that shorter URLs receive high click-through rates than longer ones. A shorter URL comes across as more trustworthy and authoritative to users.

Other best practices for URLs include:

  • Avoid using dates in your slugs (for example: “2022-customer-experience-best-practices”
  • Use the hyphen between words in your slugs

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to optimization strategies that don’t involve the content on your website. Some of the most vital off-page SEO tactics include:

Link Building

As mentioned above, earning backlinks from other authoritative sites can position your website or web page as trustworthy and increase your rankings on Google.

You don’t want to get backlinks from any site. In fact, getting backlinks from link farms — a group of websites that all link to one another to increase organic search rankings — can result in a penalty from Google. Google also penalizes any site that gets caught paying for links.

Some link-building tips to turn to instead include:

  • Create high-value content that others want to share
  • Promote your content via social media, which leads others to sharing it
  • Submit your website to business directories
  • Promote your content via paid campaigns, which may lead others to link to it
  • Look for relevant content on other sites that contains broken links, and send an email with the suggestion to use your content as a replacement
  • Ask people in real life to share your website or content on social media

Brand Building

Google rewards well-known brands. And branded searches (your company’s name, domain name searches and product searches) will lead right back to your website.

Google offers a great tool, Google Trends, that allows people to track interest in a topic, such as a brand, over time. SEO professionals can also use this tool to track searches for specific products or services.

Social Media

Social media plays a big role in how people learn about brands, websites and content. As of 2022, there were 4.59 billion social media users worldwide — a number expected to grow to 5.85 billion by 2027.

 

Social media usage and its role in the SEO world.

 

You should have a presence on the social media channels that matter most to your target audience.

Some of the most popular social media platforms, as of 2022, include:

  • Facebook: More than 2.9 billion monthly active users (MAU)
  • YouTube: More than 2.5 billion MAU
  • Instagram: More than 1.4 billion MAU

Not only should your profile include pertinent information about your brand (what it does, where it’s located, contact methods, the website, hours for in-store operation, etc.), but you should also post original and engaging content regularly.

For instance, if you offer a specific product, you could create educational content on how to use that product or answers to frequently asked questions. You can also encourage user-generated content from your community.

Encourage users that read and engage with your social media content to visit your website or web content to learn more.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is exactly what it sounds like — it refers to the technical aspects that play into your website and web pages, like page load speed and responsiveness.

Google Search Console is an ideal tool for monitoring and maintaining SEO health. It can measure traffic, generate reports, including a technical SEO report, and fix issues.

Technical SEO includes:

Site Speed

Loading performance is part of Google’s Core Web Vitals, which measures different aspects of the user experience. A website or page should only take 2.5 seconds or less to load the page’s main content.

To ensure fast website load speeds, you should:

  • Choose a fast hosting option
  • Choose a fast domain name system (DNS) provider
  • Keep the use of scripts and plugins to a minimum
  • Use small image files (without creating pixelization)
  • Minify your site’s code
  • Compress your webpages

Mobile-Friendliness

As of the second half of 2022, mobile traffic accounted for more than half of global web traffic. Not only does a mobile-friendly design make for a better user experience, but it’s a significant ranking factor for Google.

If you’re unsure of your website’s mobile accessibility, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Most brands accomplish mobile-friendliness by using a responsive web design, which adjusts itself automatically depending on the type of device a person is using.

Google also offers a guide on customizing website software for companies that use content management platforms (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla or Squarespace.

Beyond using a responsive design, companies should also pay attention to how content and assets behave on-page for mobile users. Layouts that shift when a person is trying to read content or interact with the page are a significant part of Google’s Core Web Vitals.

SEO professionals can monitor these movements with a metric called cumulative layout shift (CLS), which measures visual stability and quantifies how often these shifts occur. Core Web Vitals recommends that pages maintain a CLS of 0.1 or less.

XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap helps search engines understand your web pages while crawling them. It tells them:

  • Exactly where each page is
  • When a page was last modified
  • Which pages hold the most priority
  • How frequently a page is updated

Some hosting platforms create an XML sitemap automatically. If your chosen platform does not, you’ll want to look into using an XML sitemap generator.

Site Indexing

Google Search Console allows you to submit your website’s XML sitemap for site indexing. (Bing also has a version of this tool called Bing Webmaster Tools.)

These tools also track the general SEO performance of your site, allowing you to:

  • Test your site’s mobile-friendliness
  • Access search analytics
  • View backlinks to your site

Search in 2023: SEO Strategy Remains Top Priority

People want content that is high-quality and relevant to them. If you want to appear in their search results, it’s essential to pay attention to changing SEO trends and tactics.

Google continually updates its algorithm, meaning how they rank your site or content will depend on your use of the latest SEO strategies. With the latest tips above, you can ensure your content meets essential Google ranking factors and shows up in search results for your target audience.

By Michelle Hawley

Michelle Hawley is an experienced journalist who specializes in reporting on the impact of technology on society. As a senior editor at Simpler Media Group and a reporter for CMSWire and Reworked, she provides in-depth coverage of a range of important topics including employee experience, leadership, customer experience, marketing and more. With an MFA in creative writing and background in inbound marketing, she offers unique insights on the topics of leadership, customer experience, marketing and employee experience. Michelle previously contributed to publications like The Press Enterprise and The Ladders. She currently resides in Pennsylvania with her two dogs.

Sourced from CMSWIRE

Read More
By
In News

How Meta’s New Project P92 Could Deliver the Killing Blow to Twitter

No Comments

By Charlie Sorrel

And why the fediverse should be on alert

Meta’s new text-based social network might obliterate the remains of Twitter and also take aim at the fediverse.

The decentralized social media network, code-named P92, could be compatible with ActivityPub, which is what services like Mastodon are built on. Users will be able to log in using their existing Instagram credentials, which means that it will be trivially easy to join in with Mastodon instances around the world. It’s a boss move from Meta, but it could be as dangerous for decentralized social media as it is for Twitter.

“The one feature that Facebook lacks is the ability to give its users autonomy. Social media apps like Mastodon do not have a parent company operating them. It works on independent servers, and the users have the liberty to set their own code of conduct,” marketing expert Ryan Faber told Lifewire via email.

P92 Skirts the Fediverse

Twitter is on its way out. Since the Musk takeover, the trolls and bad actors who always strove to ruin Twitter for the rest of us have finally taken over. Lots of folks have moved to Mastodon, a decentralized collection of many federated servers, any of which you can join. In its simplest form, it’s kind of like email in that you pick your email provider, but you can email anyone else on any other email service.

This is fundamentally different from services like Twitter and Facebook. These are monolithic structures where everything happens inside a walled garden. The advantage of this approach is that you can easily sign up without having to vet and choose a server “instance.” The disadvantage is that anyone with enough money can buy the whole thing, or a single company can mine terrifying amounts of personal information from billions of users worldwide.

At the same time, Meta is under ever-increasing government scrutiny for its practices. By adopting the federated model, it might avoid the regulation it fears. If P92, or whatever it ends up being called, is just another ActivityPub-compatible service, or even just an Instagram-branded Mastodon server, the argument for breaking it up is weakened.

It sounds amazing, like a real win for open, decentralized social media and micro-publishing, comprised of a collection of servers and standards known together as the fediverse. And for Facebook and Instagram users, it removes the biggest barriers to entering that fediverse. Instead of trying to understand the whole federated thing, you just—presumably—join up from Instagram or whatever new app Meta comes up with. But this is also the biggest danger for the existing fediverse.

Meta’s Decentralized Social Media

In the 1990s, Microsoft used a strategy called “embrace, extend, and extinguish” (or “exterminate”). It was how it took over the fledgling browser market, for example. In the case of Meta and the fediverse, it would work like this.

Meta would embrace, say, Mastodon and instantly become the world’s biggest Mastodon server. It may then add features, and it would definitely make sure that anyone using its own instance would be just as heavily surveilled as they are using Meta’s other products.

Then, if all goes to plan, Meta could use this dominance to squeeze out the rest of the fediverse. It would become a de facto standard, and any independent Mastodon servers unable or not willing to implement Meta’s proprietary features would be shut out.

A group of teens using their smartphones in the park.
Maskot / Getty Images

“Facebook is not coming to Fedi because they want to administer a good, responsible instance that regards other well-run instances as peers and equals and has policies that aim to respect the autonomy and values of its users and other instance’s users right?” the Research Fairy, the creator and administrator of the scholar.social Mastodon instance, said on Mastodon.

The Best Defense

But it might not be so easy. While an easy sign-up will probably be enough to get the remaining Twitter users to jump to Mastodon via Facebook, the fediverse has some tricks up its sleeves. First, a Mastodon instance can block any other instance. This can be used to cut off servers that go bad or are full of trolls, but it could also be used to block Meta’s P92 network. And right now, I’d wager that many Mastodon users are anti-Meta (or anti-Facebook), and would prefer a server that blocks it.

Even an extensively-blocked Meta-owned Mastodon instance could be enough to finish off Twitter. And you never know, it might even end up introducing more people to Mastodon and all the other decentralized social media and federated goodies beyond.

Feature Image Credit: Urupong / Getty Images

By Charlie Sorrel

Fact checked by Jerri Ledford

Sourced from Lifewire

Read More
By
Load More