Experts in artificial intelligence have responded with amazement, and some scepticism, to Google Brain’s recent assertion that before the decade is up, it will have cracked the linguistic Holy Grail of understanding what the residents of Newcastle are talking about.
Professor Simone Williams, a neurolinguistics expert working for the project, was adamant the prospect of being able to translate Geordie into English was no longer a pipe dream.
She went on, “After we bought AlphaGo we hooked it up to looped episodes of Geordie Shore. It went dark and after two full years, we were about to give up. But six months ago it finally made a breakthrough and conclusively proved that ‘scran’ was a phoneme used to denote a condition of hunger.”
Professor Williams admitted the project was always seen as a moonshot, particularly by financial backers.
“A lot of people didn’t believe in it. We had to go against decades of conventional thinking that Geordie wasn’t technically ‘speech’ but a method of echolocation gone horribly wrong due to alcohol abuse. And we were constantly being told there was no commercial value in knowing what a ‘canny broon’ is.
“But for linguists like myself, Geordie is the last great frontier. Once we crack it, the prospect of a sci-fi universal translator becomes very real.”
Professor Williams did say it would be at least three years before simple messages like texts could be fully translated and another two years to reach a B2 CEF level.
Until then, trade with Geordies would still have to rely on basic object recognition or getting surly residents of Gateshead to act as interpreters by pretending to agree with their ridiculous claim that they’re not a suburb of Newcastle.
Adobe Photoshop is an incredibly complicated piece of software that is multifaceted and multipurpose. However, one of its lesser-known workspaces is going to be removed completely.
Adobe Photoshop might never have been synonymous with 3D work, but it has had the functionality for a good few years now. With the introduction of Adobe Dimensions (previously Project Felix), the 3D workspace did see more use, however. Adobe has now made the announcement that they are removing the core 3D engine within Photoshop, which necessitates the removal of all interactions in the 3D workspace, 3D printing, normal and bump maps, lighting effects, spherical panoramas, and the import and export of all 3D formats, among a few others elements.
There are a few features being removed that did see some use for photographers. For example, the spherical panoramas and the lighting effects in particular. The lighting effects didn’t — in my experience at least — seem to be creating results that would be impossible without reliance on the GPU or the 3D workspace, so perhaps that will be recreated in time.
In this video by photoshopCAFE, you will be given the reasons behind the removal, as well as some ways in which you can still access these features using older versions.
A study in which machine-learning models were trained to assess over 1 million companies has shown that artificial intelligence (AI) can accurately determine whether a startup firm will fail or become successful. The outcome is a tool (www.venhound.com) that has the potential to help investors identify the next unicorn.
It is well known that around 90% of startups are unsuccessful: between 10% and 22% fail within their first year, and this presents a significant risk to Venture Capitalists and other investors in early-stage companies. In a bid to identify which companies are more likely to succeed, researchers have developed machine-learning models trained on the historical performance of over 1 million companies. Their results, published in KeAi’s The Journal of Finance and Data Science, show that these models can predict the outcome of a company with up to 90% accuracy. This means that potentially 9 out of 10 companies are correctly assessed.
“This research shows how ensembles of non-linear machine-learning models applied to big data have huge potential to map large feature sets to business outcomes, something that is unachievable with traditional linear regression models,” explains co-author Sanjiv Das, Professor of Finance and Data Science at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business in the US.
The authors developed a novel ensemble of models in which the combined contribution of the models outweighs the predictive potential of each one alone. Each model classifies a company, placing it in one of several success categories or a failure category with a specific probability. For example, a company might be very likely to succeed if the ensemble says it has a 75% probability of being in the IPO (listed on the stock exchange) or ‘acquired by another company’ category, while only 25% of its prediction would fall into the failed category.
Credit must be given to the creator. Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted. (CREDIT: Greg Ross)
The researchers trained the models on data sourced from Crunchbase, a crowd-sourced platform containing detailed information on many companies. They married the Crunchbase observations with patent data from the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office). Given the crowd-sourced nature of Crunchbase, it was no surprise to learn that some companies’ entries miss information. This observation inspired the authors to measure the amount of information missing for each company and use this value as an input to the model. This observation turned out to be one of the most critical features in determining whether a company would be acquired or otherwise fail.
Lead author Greg Ross of Venhound Inc. notes that the ensemble of models, along with novel data features, “generates a level of accuracy, precision and recall that exceeds other similar studies. Investors can use this to quickly evaluate prospects, raise potential red flags and make more informed decisions on the composition of their portfolios.”
The increase in social media and digital technologies has led digital marketing to become the most in-demand form of advertising. It is easier to reach a larger audience and have a higher return on investment (ROI) within a short period in the digital marketing field.
For this reason, more people are interested in becoming digital marketers. This guide covers all the necessary steps you need to launch a career in digital marketing as well as similar jobs you can pursue. Read on to discover more and learn how to become a digital marketer in 2021.
What Is a Digital Marketer?
In this guide, we look at learning to code. We show you the easiest languages to learn so you can start on the right foot. You’ll get to know which languages are the hardest to learn, as well. You can tackle these after getting a few of the easier ones down. It’ll be a madcap adventure, I’m sure, so let’s get started.
Some of these tools include social media, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and mobile marketing. It is essential to understand these powerful tools as you begin your career path to becoming a digital marketer.
Digital Marketer Job Description
In short, your primary role is to act as a bridge between a company and its customers. Digital marketers perform several duties, from creating and uploading content to strategizing ways of enhancing search engine rankings. You will be in charge of the client’s online platforms, such as the company website, Instagram page, or blog content.
You will plan and strategize ways to engage with customers and keep them interested in your client’s brand or product. You will also likely manage Google Analytics and other SEO tools, enhancing the company’s online presence through posting images, videos, and written content.
Digital Marketer Salary and Job Outlook
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates a six percent job growth for advertising and marketing jobs between 2019 and 2029, which is faster than average. The fast job growth can also be attributed to the lucrative annual salary. The BLS also reports that marketing management professionals earn $141,490 per year.
PayScale offers a more specific salary outlook. According to its official report, digital marketing specialists earn an average salary of $50,380. However, this can go up to $62,767 for experienced digital marketers. If you enter a digital marketing management position, your salary can double. This means you should enter the field as soon as possible.
Top Reasons to Become a Digital Marketer in 2021
Besides the job security and high salaries, there are many different reasons to become a digital marketer. This field is both fulfilling and full of variety. Below are more reasons why pursuing a digital marketing career in 2021 is worth it.
Job outlook. Digital marketers have a great projected job outlook for the rest of the decade. The six percent growth rate projected by BLS emphasizes job security in the industry for an extended period.
Flexibility. Apart from extensive job opportunities, you also have the freedom to work in any industry. Digital marketing professionals can work in retail, fashion, entertainment, education, technology, or sports.
Lucrative salaries. The digital marketing industry pays its workers well. You can receive a median salary of $50,000 and above, depending on your skill level. In addition, most digital marketers have the freedom to work as freelancers, which is a great way to make extra income.
Creative outlet. If you’re a creative person, working as a digital marketer is a dream come true. There are always opportunities for you to think outside the box and develop ways to make a marketing campaign stand out.
Digital Marketer Job Requirements
Although penetrating the digital marketing industry isn’t as challenging, you still need to meet specific criteria as a digital marketer. Employers are open to employing individuals who meet the following requirements.
A bachelor’s degree. Employers look for candidates with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing or a related field. However, an Associate Degree in Marketing is still enough to get you a job as a digital marketer.
Digital marketing tools. You must be familiar with several digital marketing tools. Tools like social media, email marketing, and search engines play a significant role in the success of digital marketing campaigns. In addition, you need to understand how Google Ads works, perform numbers analysis, and keep up with the current trends.
Experience. On average, employers look for candidates who have worked for two or more years in the digital marketing industry. However, this doesn’t mean beginners are out of luck. You can launch your career by applying for entry-level digital marketing jobs to gain more experience.
Problem-solving skills. Like every other industry, problems and emergencies occur in digital marketing. Therefore, you need to be a fast thinker and always come up with suitable solutions for any problem.
Types of Digital Marketing Careers
As mentioned above, digital marketers can work in any industry. You can also branch into different career paths under digital marketing. Whether you want to become an SEO expert or a digital marketing manager, your roles contribute to the business’s success. Below are some of the most popular digital marketing careers.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist
An SEO specialist ensures a website ranks highly on several search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You will delve into keyword research to ensure each article aligns with current common search terms. Your primary role is to increase website traffic by making sure your website activity generates leads.
Social Media Manager
A social media manager oversees a client’s social media platforms. You will be responsible for creating and posting content, responding to customer comments and queries, and monitoring engagement data. Moreover, you need to be up-to-date with current trends to ensure your client’s products align with contemporary markets.
Marketing Coordinator
A marketing coordinator is in charge of content marketing strategy for all marketing channels. You will also lead the marketing team in the day-to-day activities of the marketing department. These activities include tracking product performance, monitoring customer engagement, or drafting performance reports for clients.
Digital Marketer Meaning: What Does a Digital Marketer Do?
As mentioned earlier, a digital marketer acts as a bridge between the company and its customers on all digital platforms. Digital marketers wear many hats and therefore need to have many different skills. Read below to learn more about the responsibilities that digital marketers have.
Conducts Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is one of the best ways to enhance a company’s website traffic. It involves marketing strategies that redirect user attention to your site. You will create and distribute content through link building, content marketing, and search engine optimization.
Tracks Social Media
As a digital marketer, you will manage one or more social media pages. Your role is to enhance the client’s social media presence by posting regular content and engaging with the customers. You will also gather analytics, conduct pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, and write performance reports.
Communicates with Customers
Digital marketers are in charge of developing and maintaining relationships between the company and customers while increasing brand awareness. Digital marketers need to ensure that all content being produced and published online is in line with the brand’s image.
Essential Digital Marketer Skills
Digital marketing can be applied to any industry, meaning professionals need a variety of unique skills. Almost all businesses in 2021 have a digital marketing presence, and there are many jobs out there that require different skills and tools. Most employers look for the following skills in all potential employees.
SEO and SEM
Search engine optimization and management skills help you bring traffic to your client’s website. Therefore, you must know how to research keywords, analyse performances, and keep up with the analytics. This is arguably the most important part of digital marketing because it helps clients or customers find your business or organization.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Social Media marketing
You should learn how pay-per-click marketing works and use marketing channels like Google Ads and sponsored posts. Understanding trends will help a brand’s social media stay relevant. You should be familiar with Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other relevant platforms to the industry.
Storytelling
Whether visual or written, your posts, blogs, and images must tell a story. You should have the ability to make ideas flow in a way that any reader can understand and that adheres to your company’s brand. Communication is a vital part of digital marketing.
How Long Does It Take to Become a Digital Marketer?
It takes anywhere between six months to four years to become a digital marketer. You have the freedom to pursue various learning paths, including community college, bootcamp, university, or online courses. Therefore, depending on your learning path, the time frame will differ.
Can a Coding Bootcamp Help Me Become a Digital Marketer?
Yes, coding bootcamps offer short-term digital marketing courses for beginners and experienced professionals. You can learn various digital marketing fundamentals, such as advertising, PPC marketing, content strategies, email marketing, SEO, and marketing budgets at one of the best digital marketing bootcamps in 2021.
Can I Become a Digital Marketer from Home?
Yes, thanks to modern technology, it is possible to become a digital marketer from home. You can register for an online course, pursue an online degree, or join an online coding bootcamp remotely. All you need is a reliable Internet connection and a working computer.
How to Become a Digital Marketer: A Step-by-Step Guide
Becoming a digital marketer involves a straightforward process of getting an education, gaining experience, and finding a job in the industry. Below is an overview of how to become a digital marketer in 2021.
Step 1: Get an Education
Like all other careers, it is essential to get an education before launching your career. You can join a digital marketing boot camp or any other educational institution. If you can, take this time to find a specialty within the industry.
Step 2: Gain Experience
You can gain experience by finding an internship or an entry-level job. You will gain hands-on experience in the field and develop the skills to flourish as a digital marketer. You can also take the initiative to create a personal portfolio of mock marketing or social media campaigns.
Step 3: Find a Job
After you gain enough work experience, find a career in the industry. For example, you can work as an SEO specialist, digital marketing manager, or email marketing manager. There are many different specialties within this field, so find one that works for you and your career goals.
Best Schools and Education for a Digital Marketer Career
There are several learning paths for a digital marketer. Some are long-term, while others only take a few months to complete. Below are the best schools for anyone pursuing a digital marketing career.
Digital Marketing Bootcamps
Digital marketing boot camps are short-term programs with a curriculum that focuses on the fundamentals of the industry. Most boot camps provide career services like resume reviews and mock interviews, and many boot camps partner with companies to ensure you receive job placement upon graduation.
Vocational Schools
Vocational schools focus on the technical aspects of digital marketing. You will receive hands-on training on using analytics tools like Google Adwords, social media networks, affiliate marketing, and other digital marketing concepts.
Community College
You can pursue a two-year associate degree at a community college. The education path is not equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, but most associate degree holders are eligible for entry-level positions. You can also transfer your credits over to a bachelor’s degree if you want.
Digital Marketing Degrees
A bachelor’s degree is enough for you to launch a lucrative career in the industry. However, after the four-year degree program, you have the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree or even a PhD. You should research the best online degrees before you decide which one to pursue.
The Most Important Digital Marketing Certifications
Certifications are essential for any career path. You solidify your authenticity as a digital marketer and gain the upper hand when it comes to attracting clients. Below are three of the best professional certifications for digital marketers.
This is a free certification program that tests your knowledge of Google Ads. You will explore basic and advanced knowledge before completing a Google Ads Fundamentals assessment. You can choose from a few different Google Ads certifications depending on your career goals and where you are in your journey.
This program focuses on the fundamentals of inbound marketing. It is a free four-hour Hubspot Academy course that teaches you everything you need to know to become a digital marketer. If you want to learn inbound marketing techniques, this certification program is the perfect choice for you.
The Copyblogger program is one of the best content marketing certifications courses. It is self-paced coursework that costs $495 on Copyblogger. Once done, you become listed in the Certified Content Marketer directory and have a certification for your resume and LinkedIn profile.
How to Prepare for Your Digital Marketer Job Interview
A job interview is a significant part of the job search process. You should research the company, find out about their products, prepare your cover letter, and practice mock interviews more than once. Remember to stay positive and always exude confidence when responding to questions. Practicing questions is the best way to prepare for your job interview.
Digital Marketer Job Interview Practice Questions
Why do you want to pursue a digital marketing career?
Which digital marketing tools do you use?
How will you enhance our company’s online presence?
What strategies would you implement to raise awareness for our company?
Should I Become a Digital Marketer in 2021?
Yes, digital marketing is a fast-growing industry with many opportunities. You get to explore your creativity, work in a fun environment, and network with a diverse team. Furthermore, you can earn a lucrative salary with many opportunities to move up in the field. If you want to work with digital content, social media, and SEO, you should become a digital marketer.
Digital Marketer FAQ
Can You Become a Digital Marketer Without a Degree?
Yes, you can enrol in a digital marketing boot camp or pursue any digital marketing online course on massive open online course (MOOC) platforms.
Is It Hard to Become a Digital Marketer?
No. Digital marketing is a flexible field and accommodates people with little to no experience. However, you need to be motivated and ready to work hard.
Is Digital Marketing Worth It?
Yes, digital marketing is worth it. The industry has an impressive job growth rate of six percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which guarantees job security. Even better, it can be an exciting career where no day is the same.
How Many Years Does It Take to Become a Digital Marketer?
A digital marketing career takes a few months to four years to start, depending on your learning path. You can attend a digital marketing boot camp for two to six months, a community college program for two years, or a university degree program for four years.
To the average outsider, link building seems intimidatingly complex. You’ll be in charge of placing links to your site with a delicate balance of brand visibility and subtlety, working with high-profile publishers, and dodging Google penalties at the same time. It’s a service that costs thousands of dollars per month to manage if you’re working with an external agency, so clearly it’s not something you can do yourself, right?
Start Link Building if You’ve Never Tried Before
The truth is, while link building is complicated, it’s also approachable, even if you’ve never tried the strategy before.
What Is Link Building?
Let’s start with a primer on what link building is. As the name suggests, it’s a way to construct links in a digital environment. With the right approach, you can place links with external publishers and other websites, pointing back to various pages on your website.
Builds SEO and DA
The most obvious benefit is that the link serves a functional purpose, creating more roadways that people can use to find your site. But it’s also important for search engine optimization (SEO). Earning more links and being connected to more authoritative sources will increase your domain authority (DA), eventually helping you rank higher in search results – and earning you more traffic.
Link Building helps new business
Links are especially powerful for new and emerging businesses since they don’t have much authority or much of a web presence to work with initially. It’s also valuable here because it’s inexpensive and accessible, meaning you can use it even if you’re working with a limited budget.
There are many possible ways to approach link building. Some people attempt to earn as many links as possible as naturally as possible, creating compelling onsite content and hoping that people link to it. But it’s much more reliable to manually build links yourself – as long as you’re building them in an appropriate and Google-friendly way. More on that later.
The Benefits of Link Building
There’s no question that link building is valuable, at least when done right. But where does that value come from? What makes this strategy so effective?
Traffic. First, there’s the potential for traffic generation. Getting a link to your site placed in the right article, with the right publisher, could conceivably send thousands of visitors to your site every month – or even more. And because the link is functionally permanent, it could keep sending recurring traffic to your site for months, or even years to come.
Search rankings. Most people discover link building as a tactic when researching SEO. Link building isn’t the only element necessary for an SEO strategy, but it’s one of the most important. Together with onsite content optimization, coding optimization, and technical improvements, it can help your site rank higher in SERPs and, ultimately, get more organic traffic.
Visibility and authority building. Link building can also be valuable for visibility and building the subjective authority and reputation of your brand – especially at the higher levels. Merely mentioning your brand in an article, or getting connected to the right publishers and authors, can be a boon for your entire company.
Black Hat Link Building and Potential Penalties
Link building isn’t always straightforward. Google goes out of its way to penalize websites that infringe on the experiences of its users. If it thinks you’re spamming backlinks, overtly promoting yourself, or trying to manipulate its ranking algorithm — you’re going to face a penalty.
Link building tactics that are meant only to manipulate search rankings, and that have little to no value to average users, are known as “black hat” tactics. They’re also considered unethical.
But don’t worry. There are plenty of ways to build links properly – and as long as you’re improving user experiences, you’ll be in good shape. The most straightforward tactic is to write high-quality content for an external publisher, while linking to your own onsite content as a reputable source.
Prerequisites for Link Building
Before you start link building, there are some things you’ll need in place first.
For example:
An established website. You can’t build links to a place that doesn’t exist. If you want to get the most value from your links, your website needs to be functional, safe, mobile-friendly, and easy for users to navigate.
Good onsite content. Additionally, you’ll want an archive of high-quality written content on your website. This is going to help establish your site’s domain authority, and will also serve as valuable fodder you can use as the destinations for your links. The better your onsite content is, the stronger your links will be.
Social media profiles. Social media is the best place to promote your onsite and offsite content. It’s also a great way to connect with other authors and reach out to new publishers.
Author profiles. Your business may have an awesome brand built for it, but it’s not always ideal to write as the business. Instead, you may want to write content as individual authors, complete with author profiles you can build up over time.
What Makes a Link Effective?
What is it that makes a link effective?
In terms of SEO, you’ll need to consider, at a minimum:
Domain authority. The higher the DA of the publisher, the more valuable the link is going to be.
Value to the reader. If the link is valuable to the reader in some way, like giving them additional background information, that’s helpful.
Context and placement. The link needs to be relevant to the piece – and should be one of several links to a variety of sources. It shouldn’t stand out unnaturally.
Appropriate anchor text. The anchor text can be optimized for your target keywords and phrases, but not to the extent that it makes the link seem unnatural. The text needs to blend with the rest of your content.
Long-term, you’ll also need to consider:
Publisher diversity. Repeated links on the same publisher have diminishing returns. It’s helpful to work with as many publishers as possible.
Link diversity. It’s not good to link to the same pages over and over; try to point to a range of different pages on your site.
Frequency and volume. If you build too many links too quickly, it could invite a penalty.
Starting With Your First Links
You can’t climb to the top of the SERPs overnight. In fact, some businesses spend months to years developing their brands enough to start ranking higher. SEO is a long-term strategy that demands commitment and patience.
Still, the journey begins with a single step. Try to work with a low-stakes, accessible publisher to build your first link(s). Look for local publishers and small publishers in your niche – and reach out to the editors with content ideas their audience is going to love.
If they like your pitch and you get a chance to write for the publisher, take the opportunity seriously. Write the best article you can, place your link carefully (and in a way that’s beneficial to users), and comply with any requested edits you receive.
Building Your Influence
Next, you’ll need to start networking and building your influence. As you start getting featured in more publishers, you’ll get more writing opportunities naturally and your circle of readers will grow. It will get easier and easier for you to get featured with new publishers and build your presence.
While you’re at it, keep up with your old publisher relationships as well – new publishing opportunities can always be helpful.
Working With an Agency
Though link building is approachable and understandable even for amateurs, it can also be prohibitive in terms of time and monetary costs. Getting started with link building takes a lot of work, especially if you don’t already have a team of writers and established publisher relationships. That’s why it may be in your best interest to work with a link-building agency — a team of professionals who already know what they’re doing and can help you get the best results.
Conclusion
No matter what, link building has the power to transform your business. If you’re not already using it to support your SEO strategy or attract more referral traffic to your website, now’s the time to get started.
Timothy Carter is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Seattle digital marketing agency SEO.co, DEV.co & PPC.co. He has spent more than 20 years in the world of SEO and digital marketing leading, building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and drive growth from websites and sales teams. When he’s not working, Tim enjoys playing a few rounds of disc golf, running, and spending time with his wife and family on the beach — preferably in Hawaii with a cup of Kona coffee. Follow him on Twitter @TimothyCarter
If you want to write content that makes an impact, start with these steps.
When it comes to content, you may think that you already know it all. While there are countless tutorials and how-to tips out there, I’m here to tell you that there’s always more to learn.
Marketers depend on content. However, not all content is successful. Part of the reason this happens is because of your content creation methods. That said, here are some tips on creating quality content that will meet your needs and the needs of your audience.
1. Determine Your Goal First
You should never produce content just to have new content. You need to create content that’s helping you achieve a set goal. You may be trying to achieve some goals such as establishing thought leadership, producing more sales, more leads, more traffic, or something else.
When you have your goal, you can determine important creative elements–such as the depth and details of the article, your tone and overall writing style, and if you educate or provide solutions to your reader.
Knowing the goal of the content is going to help you achieve the goals you have set.
2. Select a Topic
A quality topic will help you meet your goal. It should be something that your audience is interested in learning about.
There are a few ways to find topics, which include:
Common customer questions.
Trending topics.
Keyword research.
Once you determine what you want to write about, it’s time to research the topic and refine your idea. You need to ensure that you can support the claims you make.
3. Build the Framework of Your Content
After you know the type of content you want to write, your topic, and the information you will include, you should create an outline to organize your ideas.
You don’t have to create a formal outline, and there is no right way to organize the content. The idea here is to give a bit of structure to the ideas you have. This is going to help you logically present the information.
4. Start Writing
This is the easy part. You have done the hard work of planning all of your content, and it is now time to flesh out the ideas you have. You don’t have to start at the top. The goal is to write based on the outline you created. You can jump from one section to the conclusion as you write, if you want.
5. Creating Content That Generates Results
Creating content is easy. Creating content that helps generate the results you want is more challenging. While that’s true, the tips above will help you with this difficult task. Be sure to keep this in mind, which will minimize issues and ensure you get the results desired with your content creation efforts.
Cold calling is not for everyone — and that’s where automated outreach comes in. But what is the impact on your brand?
As an introvert, I’ve spent the majority of my entrepreneurial life mastering the techniques of inbound marketing.
But avoiding outreach forever isn’t sustainable — especially in the early days where SEO is practically non-existent and your social-media followers primarily represent your “friends and family” circle.
Research led by ValueSelling Associates, Inc reports that 48% of sales professionals are afraid of cold calling. The art of making a great first impression in the first 20 to 30 seconds and taking the lead further down the funnel requires practice and resilience, which led to the further development of automated tools, text bots and outreach systems plugging into exported lists of LinkedIn contacts.
But every entrepreneur feels for the efforts of a sales representative — or any outreach person (be it in marketing or recruitment). What really draws the line, however, is an inappropriate message that throws the conversation off — and can negatively impact the brand’s perception in the long run.
While receiving 8:40 a.m. cold calls every other Monday isn’t among the best ways to start the week, here is how to get flagged right away (and why you should avoid these common traps).
1. Sell competitive services
I founded my development agency 11 years ago, and I’ve probably received over 10,000 pitches for development services since. Even if I can relate with outsourcing firms leasing talent, any cold outreach attempting to sell a solution we offer straight on our homepage is outright automated and shows zero personalization in researching the prospect.
While working with a product founder in the SEO space, I saw a LinkedIn pitch from a direct competitor offering a white-label license to the other product. Considering that virtually every review website lists down both solutions among the list of top alternatives, it’s one of the best ways to make your business viral on Twitter or across Facebook groups by trying out too hard.
2. Insist on a meeting right away
Unless you found a cure to a rare disease or had an unlimited supply of masks on the day of the first lockdown in 2020, there is no practical reason an executive (or a senior manager) would welcome a random phone call the day after. Many executives have their week planned ahead of time — some only booking meetings in 15 to 25 business days.
There are different variations of this outreach approach:
Suggesting an urgent meeting within 24 hours.
Sending two available time slots that fit you best (without considering the other party).
Proposing meeting hours late at night or very early in the morning.
Warming up a lead takes time, especially when it comes to cold outreach. Some sales reps try to ease the process by sending Calend.ly links or looping in an automated scheduling bot, but facilitating personalization immediately gets in the way.
Give your leads some breathing room; suggest providing some context or send some brochures over before insisting on urgent calls.
3. Provide zero context
Being secretive isn’t helping out in landing a demo meeting.
A surprising percentage of the automated follow-up LinkedIn messages I receive include something along the lines of: “I work in IT, let’s book some time next week and explore the best way to help you out.”
And last month, a LinkedIn connection request came in from a medical professional.
“I’m a doctor, we need to jump on a call.”
After inquiring about additional details, she insisted on disclosing more over a call.
Needless to say, I archived this message and moved on. Time is valuable, and having to hop on dozens of cold calls monthly would hardly allow any business professional to complete anything else.
Be mindful of the prospect and provide succinct yet sufficient information before moving to a meeting request.
4. Butcher someone’s name
Our CTO conducted an experiment and added a random emoji to his LinkedIn name. After assessing the results a month later, he reported that 30% of all outreach messages included the emoji in the initial pitch.
Any seasoned practitioner with access to the internet would immediately realize they have fallen prey to an automated bot. We may be used to receiving robocalls from governmental institutions or a cell provider, but hey, at least they are relevant and personalized.
Some of the corresponding examples include a nickname or an alias used in a forum system instead of the person’s real name. We have all seen this in the context of mass emails among newsletters, but trying to mimic a human message or a LinkedIn outreach deserves a personal touch.
5. Ignore the application requirements
Not every outreach is cold — sometimes there is a legitimate reason to touch base, and that’s great.
But missing out on essential details in an RFP or a social-media post really defeats the purpose of trying to connect with a prospect.
Our hiring posts always disclose location (and the fact that we look for individuals starting full-time employment). At least half of the respondents are business developers or recruitment firms leasing people abroad, completely omitting the details in the post.
This practice is recognized broadly and using freelance networks or job boards often leads to a simple “test” for applicants. An example here is asking applicants to include a random word in the subject line — or pick their favourite colour. Application-tracking systems never capture these, and business professionals save time sifting through these ignorant submissions.
6. Offer something irrational
While entire Reddit communities exist solely to mock hilarious spam messages, it’s not uncommon for business professionals to receive an irrelevant outreach proposal that simply does not make any sense.
At least twice a month, I receive a premium InMail offering a low-level job that isn’t fit for my skills (and certainly does not make sense as a serial founder). This includes anything from seasonal jobs for students to entry-level positions in legal or pharmacy.
I have been pitched on trucks in South America, unlimited supplies of integrated chips from Chinese manufacturers, enterprise-grade solutions aimed for Fortune 500 corporations and everything in between.
Don’t buy an email list and blast every single email right away. While sales outreach is a numbers game, you don’t want to completely demolish the brand value by being intrusive in the wrong circles.
There are different ways to embarrass yourself and harm the reputation of the business during outreach. Trying to contact someone who hasn’t been an employee for years, asking for a random person in the organization you simply found online or mass emailing a series of group emails in a thread (hoping for a single stakeholder) won’t get you anywhere either.
But the bottom line is simple. While the shotgun approach would not disappear overnight, add at least some personalization in your outreach process.
Be mindful of your prospects and spend a few extra minutes confirming that they fit the buyer persona. Check your grammar and construct a simple yet clear message stating the purpose of the outreach. Stay clear of relationships you want to avoid — and make the most out of the remaining list.
Following this simple set of practices will lead to scheduled meetings and slowly grow your pipeline. Just make sure you don’t get busted while taking shortcuts early on.
Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. CEO of DevriX and Growth Shuttle, Mario Peshev helps SMEs scale digitally to 500,000,000 monthly views. He advises executives and senior managers on operations, martech, management, recruitment and business strategy.
While search marketers can get bogged down worrying about high quality content, successful link building strategies, and technically sound sites, when it comes to SEO, we need to take a step back and look at the what and why in order to get results.
To that end, Moz’s own Ola King walks you through the three main pillars, or as he calls them, “bosses”, of SEO work. All of your SEO strategies feed into their demands, but they all need different things.
Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Hi, Moz fans. I’m Ola King. I work at Moz, and I’m excited to join you today for this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I will be talking to you about the three bosses of SEO.
Creating high quality content, making sure that you have a solid link building strategy, making sure your site is technically sound, these are great things to do when it comes to SEO. However, none of them would be as effective if you’re not taking a look at things from a strategic, wider lens. Basically, it means you have to take a step back and look at what you’re doing and why you’re doing them in order for you to get the results that you need.
So for SEO, there are three main pillars really to consider. I call them the three bosses of SEO. So that’s really your business, your searchers, and your search engines. Each of these bosses have their own individual needs.
Boss #1: Your business
So let’s start with the business. So these are the needs of the business. This is by no means a comprehensive list. I’m sure there are things that I’m missing. So if there are things that you think should be here, please leave a comment and we can have a discussion on that so we can all learn from each other. But the whole idea of this is to get you thinking about things from a broader lens before you dive into tactics.
Key metrics and goals
So the first one is the key metrics and goals. Any activity that is done without a goal is essentially a hobby, which is fine. However, if you want to do serious SEO work, you need to have a goal. In order to know what your goals are, I guess you have to look at your business goals.
Then that determines your marketing goals, which then determines your SEO goals. So understand what your KPIs are, understand what your priorities are, and that will then let you know what your next steps are. So, for example, if your goal is to get more traffic, you need to focus more on the top of funnel types of content, so like an ultimate guide for example.
If your goal is to get more leads, you might start looking at maybe your product comparison pages. Then if your goal is to have more sales, then it might be time to start optimizing your product pages for example. So always look at your key metrics and goals and then work from there.
Competitors
So the competitors is also something you should really consider. A lot of people are very familiar with who their direct competitors are in terms of product or services.
But when it comes to SEO, there is also the informational competitors, so people that might not be doing the same thing as you, but they provide information to your ideal audience. So always keep an eye on those competitors as well.
Resources
The resources. So look at the resources that you have in terms of time, budget, and personnel. If you don’t have the time for SEO, you might be able to consider outsourcing it. Or if you don’t have the right talent for link building, maybe you might want to partner up with an agency that does that. So always take stock of your resources before you start thinking of what you should do.
Brand identity + recognition
The brand identity and recognition also determines the types of content that you go after. It doesn’t matter if the content has a lot of volume and it’s trendy. If it doesn’t align with your brand in the long run, it’s not really a very good use of your time.
Area of expertise
The area of expertise as well is very much related to this. So what are you an expert at? Try to lean on your expertise. If you don’t have the expertise but you want to provide that information to your audience, maybe you might want to collaborate with other people that are better suited to that so that you can still complete your goal for your business and audience.
Strengths
Strengths is very related to expertise, but this is in terms of what talents, what skills do you have. Are you better at doing research and creating long-form content, or are you better at creating things that go viral and are more like listicles? Lean into your strengths and collaborate as needed with people that can help you with your weakness.
Time in business
The time in business also the time is the approach you take for SEO. A brand-new website, what you would need would be completely different from a business that has been around for a long time, that has a great website, but they’re just trying to do a refresh, which is also different from a business that has been around for a very long time but doesn’t have a very good online presence.
All of this would affect the way you approach content, link building, and trying to rank for those tough content. So that’s your business. As I mentioned, I’m sure there are things I’m missing. So I’m very curious to know the other things that you might come up with as well.
Boss #2: Searchers
So next up let’s look at the searchers. So these are the people that you are serving as a business. The first thing, when it comes to the searchers, is look at your persona. So what are the types of people that you’re trying to attract into your website? There is no point in creating any piece of content if you don’t even know who you are trying to attract with that content. So start with the persona.
Search intent and relevance
Once you’ve identified the persona, you can then start looking at the search intent and relevance.
So what are they looking for? The good news is the answer is already right on your search engine results pages. Do a quick search for your ideal keyword and you’ll be able to see the results that the search engines have deemed as the most appropriate for what your audience is looking for, which matches the search intent. Once you’ve done that, then you’re going to want to create the right content to satisfy the searcher’s intent.
Topics, not keywords
When you’re creating content, focus on topics and not keywords. So gone are the days where you just want to create your page and stuff it with as many keywords as you can and you start ranking and print out dollars. Not so effective anymore. You basically want to look at each page on your site covering a topic that you have a focus.
While you’re doing that, then you want to make sure that you have the most comprehensive page that answers that searcher’s intent. Cyrus Shepard actually has a great
Some people consistently earn hundreds of likes and comments on each of their posts, and their audiences have helped them achieve financial freedom and security.
However, they all started with no network and zero followers.
So what actions did they take to achieve this success?
In this post, I’ll share 15 outstanding personal branding examples and break down their strategies to build successful personal brands so you can use the same process to achieve similar results.
3 Things All Strong Personal Brands Have In Common
As I analysed these individuals with strong personal brands, I noticed that all their strategies have three key things in common.
While there are many ways to build a personal brand, implementing these three commonalities into your personal branding strategy will significantly increase your likelihood of success.
Consistency
Every person on this list posted content consistently for an extended period of time (i.e., posted content 2-5 times per week for several years).
A consistent publishing schedule is essential to build your personal brand for a few different reasons:
It takes time to find your own brand identity and voice.
It takes time to build trust and a genuine relationship with your target audience.
It takes time to find audience-content fit (i.e., content that your audience likes and that you enjoy creating).
Therefore, even if you don’t think your initial content is very good, publish it to start gathering data and figure out what you enjoy creating and what resonates with your audience. You’ll also get better at creating content by publishing more.
Target A Single Niche
Another commonality I noticed among these individuals with great personal brands is that they all focus on a specific niche.
A key mistake many creators make is discussing too many different topics or expanding into other niches. While it may be boring to talk about one specific niche, the reality is that your audience probably follows you because they enjoy learning about that specific topic you cover.
For example, if you talk about digital marketing, NFTs, and solopreneurship, there’s a good chance that the people interested in digital marketing won’t be interested in your NFT content. As a result, you’ll find it difficult to build a loyal audience that loves all of your content.
Additionally, most people are only experts on one topic, so choose the niche you feel you know best.
However, if you want to post content related to your personal life and growth, this content can make you more relatable and strengthen your relationship with your audience.
As a general rule, make about 80% of your posts related to a specific topic, and then the other 20% of posts can be about your personal life or interests.
Share Real Experiences
Many readers don’t enjoy blog posts written primarily for SEO because these posts often lack personal experience. In fact, many people now turn to ChatGPT for strictly factual information.
Sharing your personal experiences makes your content more relatable as your audience is likely facing challenges you’ve also faced, and they’d love to hear someone else’s perspective on how they approached and solved that problem.
Bonus: Choose A Primary Platform
Most large influencers today began by publishing content on just one platform.
Over time, many of them branched out to different content formats, but at that point, they usually had teams behind them to assist with content repurposing. If you’re beginning your personal branding journey and don’t have a team to help you repurpose your content, focus on just one platform.
Brett Williams is a designer who makes over $100,000 per month with his one-man design agency, DesignJoy, and $50,000 per month from a course on productizing service businesses.
Nearly all of his customers for both businesses come from his 70,000 followers on Twitter.
To grow his audience, Brett followed all of the best practice advice, like posting consistently, owning a specific niche, and sharing his authentic experience. However, he also shared a lot of revenue numbers.
Here’s just one example of the transparency he regularly shares around revenue numbers.
He is also a solopreneur, which is currently a trending topic.
So the combination of real revenue numbers around a trending topic helped him quickly build a large audience.
Codie Sanchez has built a strong personal brand in the entrepreneurship category. Specifically, she has established herself as an expert on buying boring businesses and has helped make that niche a trend.
Before focusing on building her personal brand, she had already built a portfolio of “boring” brick-and-mortar businesses. So when Cody decided to double down on building her social media presence, she already had capital to deploy and hired social media experts to help her repurpose the content across YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even a newsletter.
Today, she uses her audience as lead generation for her portfolio of businesses, and she also has a course that helps students identify and buy great “boring” businesses.
The key to her growth on social media likely comes down to a few things:
She hires experts. She hired people like ex-YouTuber Jamie Rawsthorne to help her grow her YouTube channel, and she also hired people to help build her social media profiles. These experts already understand the nuances of how each algorithm works, making it easier to optimize the content for each platform and grow faster.
She has unique experiences and shares them through excellent storytelling. Few people have worked on Wall Street and then built a portfolio of boring businesses, like car washes and laundromats. This experience gives her content unique context, which makes it more interesting.
She had a strong personal network. While she was in the trenches building these businesses, she also built a strong network. Therefore, when she decided to double down on building her online presence, she already had a leg up. So meet more people in real life and build genuine connections by attending conferences, hosting your own events, or sparking thoughtful conversations in the comments on other people’s social media posts.
Chris Do is a designer and the CEO of The Futur, an online education platform whose mission statement is to teach 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.
Today, Chris has a strong online presence across multiple platforms, but his primary growth channel is Instagram.
He outlines the approach he used to grow to nearly one million organic Instagram followers in this video:
As you’ll hear in the video, Chris’s main strategy to grow his Instagram following was transforming his existing keynote presentations into fun, engaging carousels.
This arsenal of content made it easy for him to post consistently, because he just had to reformat it into carousels. Additionally, he had already tested these keynotes with live audiences and knew what did and did not resonate with them.
The main takeaway is to look at the content you already have that has resonated with your audience and then repurpose it into engaging content formatted for that platform.
Chase Dimond has built a strong follower base on LinkedIn, and there are a few key reasons why he’s been successful.
First, he positioned himself in a very specific niche. Rather than trying to compete in the larger marketing consultant niche, he established himself as an email marketing expert for ecommerce companies.
In fact, if you look at his LinkedIn profile, he has sent over a billion emails for ecommerce companies that have collectively generated over $150 million in attributed revenue.
As a result, any ecommerce owner struggling with email marketing will immediately identify him as a specialized expert who can solve their specific problem.
He also publishes daily on LinkedIn, and you can tell that his posts are very visual. In fact, rather than typing out text-based content, he just uses screenshots from Twitter. This helps the text jump out at scrollers and capture their attention.
Jon Youshaei is an ex-YouTube employee who left his job to build his own YouTube channel.
Today, he is a well-respected thought leader and has interviewed YouTube experts like MrBeast, Danny Duncan, and many other creators.
While Jon publishes fairly regularly, he publishes less often than some other creators on this list.
Instead, his fast growth is mainly due to the outstanding guests he has on his podcast.
If you want to grow your personal brand faster, consider collaborating with other influencers in your industry. Jon already had some connections from his time as an employee at YouTube, but you can always start by interviewing smaller influencers and then work your way up.
Ideally, target influencers that also share content they participate in creating, as that will help your content earn more reach.
Jon also puts a lot of effort into editing the podcast videos to make them more entertaining than a traditional conversation. If you plan to do content collaborations with other influencers, think about how you can make your interviews unique and entertaining.
Romana Hoekstra is a SaaS marketer who quickly built an impressive audience on LinkedIn.
While many of the creators on this list are founders of multi-million dollar businesses, Romana is a great example of a freelancer who has built a strong personal brand. So even if you don’t have a stack of impressive accolades, like a multi-million dollar exit, you can still establish yourself as an expert by niching down and consistently creating visually attractive and actionable content.
She was even named a top content marketing voice:
About 80% of her content is focused on content marketing for SaaS companies and the other 20% is related to her personal life, making her a relatable and interesting creator.
Romana also puts a lot of effort into creating visually appealing graphics.
Regardless of the social media channel you’re posting your content on, think about how you can make it more engaging and fun for people to consume.
Elena Verna is the Head of Growth at Dropbox and has mastered the art of balancing entertaining content, like memes, with thought-provoking ideas that interest other high-level executives.
Here’s just one example of a meme she shared recently that is funny to her target audience:
However, she also frequently posts thought-provoking, original content like this post:
While Elena certainly has an advantage as an executive at a major company, anyone can use her strategy of mixing memes with thought-provoking leadership content.
You’ll also notice that a lot of her content is observational. For example, rather than telling you her opinion, she shows you an interesting fact and then offers her analysis.
This is another great example of her “observational” style content:
If you don’t have anything interesting to share and are looking for content ideas, identify patterns and share them with your audience. Then, you can provide your observation on it.
Alex Hormozi’s personal brand blew up seemingly overnight.
He grew from just 180,000 to 1.2 million followers in just six months, and two main factors allowed him to achieve such rapid growth in such a short period.
First, he had already built several eight-figure businesses, so he had very unique (and valuable) personal experiences to share. Even if you don’t have experience building multiple eight-figure businesses, you can still create equally interesting content by either interviewing these experts or taking their advice, implementing it, and then documenting your results.
However, he also credits his rapid growth to his content repurposing strategy. He was originally only producing seven pieces of content per week, but his growth took off when he increased his content output to 80 pieces per week.
The best part is that he didn’t even increase the amount of content he created. Instead, he simply hired people to repurpose the content he was already producing across more platforms.
Justin Welsh has established himself as one of the most prominent solopreneurs on social media and has over 450,000 followers on Twitter and over 500,000 followers on LinkedIn.
He was previously an executive at a successful startup, and after getting burned out, he eventually built his own personal brand.
Justin revealed that he relies heavily on content repurposing and publishing workflows, as he believes consistency is essential for building a personal brand.
Here, he shows that he posted the same piece of content 12 days apart, and you can tell it performed very well both times.
Using templates prevents you from starting from scratch each time you create a piece of content, and you feel intimidated staring at a blank screen.
The key to building a strong personal brand really comes down to consistency, so consider creating content templates to make it easier to create content. This way, you won’t waste time staring at a blank screen as you won’t have to start from scratch each time you create a piece of content.
Jay Clouse quit his job to become a full-time creator and has grown his social media following to over 35,000 followers on LinkedIn and over 40,000 followers on Twitter.
He is also a top voice on LinkedIn and earns over $50,000 per month as a solo creator.
He recently revealed exactly how he would focus on building an audience in 2024, and here’s the step-by-step process he recommends:
Choose one word or catchphrase to be associated with. For example, Nick Huber is known for “sweaty startups,” whereas James Clear is known for building small habits.
Create a free email course. An email course will help you build a deeper relationship with your readers, and unlike on social media, where you depend on an algorithm to show them content, you own the audience. Email subscribers have also permitted you to be in their inbox, so you’ll probably have a deeper relationship with them.
Choose a discovery platform. Similar to the advice I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Jay recommends that you double down on one platform (YouTube, Twitter, etc.).
Design your social media profile to align with your premise. Whatever you choose to be known for, optimize your tagline and personal brand statement to speak to your target audience. The most effective personal brand statements are clear, concise, and make it obvious what kind of value you provide.
Study, study, study. Whatever you choose to be known for, aim to become an expert on that topic so you provide the most helpful advice possible.
You can read his full step-by-step guide on building a personal brand, but those are the main steps to get started.
Jay also does interview-based videos with top creators, and leveraging their audiences has helped accelerate his growth. He is also a master at content promotion and creates mini-trailers of the interviews, which he then promotes on social media.
Ross Simmonds has over 65,000 followers on Twitter and is known as an influencer in SaaS marketing.
He has an impressive content publishing frequency and Tweets several times per day, and he revealed in the post below that he also relies heavily on content repurposing and republishing.
Most of his posts include helpful tips SaaS companies can use to improve their marketing strategies, but he also includes the occasional personal/philosophical post to keep his content relatable and personal.
Ross also creates many different types of social media content. For example, while most people only post text-based Tweets, Ross frequently posts graphics and even video content on Twitter.
If video content is your primary content format, you can easily repurpose them into short clips or even hire a copywriter to repurpose snippets of it into written content formats.
Unlike other influencers on this list, Noah Kagan has steadily built his personal brand over the past decade and didn’t use a single platform to build his audience.
Instead, he hosted in-person events, attended conferences, and made a real effort to build personal connections with people in real life.
As many of these people he met levelled up in their careers, these personal relationships have helped him grow on social media. For example, he recently launched a book and is well on his way to becoming a bestselling author, as his friends all pitched in to help promote it.
The main takeaway you can learn from Noah is that sometimes the best way to grow an audience is to meet people in real life, provide value, and cheer for them when they win.
He has also consistently posted content on his podcast, YouTube channel, and social media accounts for over a decade, so have a long-term mindset as you build your personal brand.
Nick Huber has risen to Twitter fame thanks to his unique niche (storage sheds) and the occasional controversial and/or uncomfortable statement.
Unlike most tech entrepreneurs, he stands out as a down-to-earth, country person, which makes him unique and fits his brand nicely.
Think about your unique interests and hobbies and then weave them into your content marketing strategy.
If you don’t feel that you fit in with the traditional tech entrepreneur mold, embrace your unique characteristics, because they will actually help you stand out.
Kevin Espiritu runs the largest YouTube channel on gardening. He began as a blogger and eventually transitioned to YouTube as his primary platform.
After switching to YouTube, he became the face of the channel and eventually began building his personal brand in the broader entrepreneur community.
Today, he regularly shares content on Twitter about his experience as a top player in the creator economy.
However, unlike many other solopreneurs and influencers on this list, Kevin doesn’t have a specific content framework or strategy for his personal brand. He purposefully writes on his Twitter biography that his Tweets are mainly notes to himself.
If you’re struggling to think of content ideas, write about anything you’ve recently discovered that you find interesting. If you find something interesting, there’s a good chance other people will also find it interesting, and as a result, you’ll grow a following.
Alex Lieberman is a co-founder of the popular newsletter Morning Brew. Yet today, he’s best known as a content creator and regularly creates content around entrepreneurship, the creator economy, and business ideas.
A key reason Alex is such a successful content creator is that he’s great at sharing his personal struggles and experiences.
For example, he openly shared about his failure with a backyard game he began after leaving Morning Brew.
If you’re posting primarily instructional content, think about how you can post more experiential-style content so that you seem more relatable.
Start Building Your Personal Brand Today
As you can see, there are many different ways to build a personal brand, but finding your niche and voice can be challenging.
To help you navigate the challenge of personal branding, we created the Copyblogger Academy, a community of solopreneurs and content creators building personal brands. You’ll also have access to courses on personal branding and direct feedback from the team behind Copyblogger and top personal branding experts.
If you want to invest in yourself and take your first step towards financial freedom, try the Copyblogger Academy today.
By Jeff Stillwell In the age of big-box online retailers, social media influencers and the option of next-day delivery on most online purchases, brands…
on this, where he talked about you want to be the first click, the long click, and the last click. So be the most comprehensive page that satisfies the searcher’s intent based on topic, not keywords.
Psychological and socioeconomic factors
So when you’re creating your content or you’re trying to devise your content strategy, always look at the emotion, psychology, social, and economic factors that are affecting your audience. It’s easy to look at data on your site’s traffic and obsess about what could have gone wrong in terms of your competitors or other factors. But you might also want to take a step back and look at what’s happening in the lives of your audience, like what are they struggling with right now.
So in the past 18 months also, every one of us have been experiencing the pandemic. So that has changed the way people search for things. Searches for keywords like remote, things like delivery, those searches have gone up over the past few months, and that’s based on the social factors that are affecting people. It means they can no longer do things that they were able to do before, so now they’re having to adjust in different ways. So always look at what’s happening to your audience and then react accordingly.
Brand affinity and trust
The brand affinity and trust also affects the way people interact with your site. If people are familiar with a brand, they are more likely to trust them and interact with them more.
So if you’re a newer website or a brand, it might be a good idea to let the content speak for itself and not try to make your brand the front and centre of attention. Whereas for a bigger brand, it might be a good idea to do the opposite. So a site like Amazon would do good to have their brand name in the title tag for example because people know their brand and they can trust them and click on the site, whereas a brand-new website it might be a good idea to not necessarily make that the focus of attention.
Trends and seasonality
So other things to look at are trends and seasonality. As you’re looking at your SEO data, if you notice a dip, you might not be doing anything wrong. It could just mean that it’s the nature of the time of the year. So I’m sure certain keywords would trend upward around the holiday season, for example, for things like electronics, video games, etc.
Then towards like February or March, maybe those searches might reduce. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It’s just the seasonality.
Search behaviour
So the search behaviour as well. People’s behaviour changes over time. Humans are not robots. They are very dynamic.
Things change, things that they search for. As I mentioned before, when their emotional, psychological, social, and political factors are affected, it also changes how they search for things as well. So always try to react to that or pay attention to what people are doing. Try to understand what’s changing in their search behavior and react to that accordingly.
Customer journey
The customer journey is very important. Always understand the touch points that your customers have with your business. Even outside of your business, look at their journey before they get to your business. This allows you to know the types of content you need to create to fill in the gap in their journey. This allows you to know who you might need to collaborate with, so other information sources that your audience has, where they hang out. You are able to understand those things and be able to create the perfect content for them and also promote it in the right places as well.
Struggles
The struggles. What are the things keeping your audience up at night? What are they struggling with? Understanding this allows you to create content that no other person would be able to create. It would almost be to them like you have like some magic wand where you’re able to predict what’s going on with them.
Try to understand what are their struggles. You can find out the struggles by looking at questions that your audience asks your help team, for example. That’s a good place to start and use SEO tools to do your keyword research to know what some of those questions that they’re asking, that indicate struggles. Go on forums like Quora and Reddit. Those types of places allow you to find those struggles.
Location and language
Location and language affects how people search for things. Different locations have their own slangs, have their own culture, behaviours, and ways of doing things. Try to understand the location that you’re targeting. Try to understand what the culture is like, what the language is, and try to create your content with that in mind. If you don’t have that expertise or knowledge, it’s a good idea to partner up with someone in those locations as well.
Also make sure that your site is internationalized as well if you’re targeting multiple countries. There are lots of resources that teach you how to do this. You can find that in the Moz [SEO Learning Center] as well.
Accessibility
Accessibility, different people search for things in different ways. People have different needs. So make sure that your site is universally accessible to everyone. So make sure it’s mobile friendly. Make sure you don’t have like annoying pop-ups everywhere. Make sure that you provide an alt tag for your images to make your content more accessible to all.
So these are the factors that are affecting the searchers. There’s a lot that I probably missed, so I would love to know what you think and also other ones that I forgot.
Boss #3: Search engines
So the last but not the least is the search engines. In order to win for SEO, you really need to understand that the search engines are businesses as well.
Business model
So in order for them to rank your site, you have to be a site that is in line with their business. For Google, if you want to understand what their business model is, there is a video on YouTube that you should watch.
It’s called “A Trillion Searches, No Easy Answers.” It’s a very interesting video that shows you the behind the scenes of how they think about things, what challenges they have, and the future of where they’re heading. This would then allow you to be able to know where they might go next so that you can react accordingly.
For Google, once again, I mean ultimately they are just trying to provide content to their searchers that is valuable, that is from sites that are indexable, that provides a good experience, and of course it has to be relevant content.
Natural language processing
They put a huge emphasis on relevant content. That leads us to the next one — NLP. So every additional change that Google has been making over the past few years is geared towards that goal of helping people get answers to things that they search for in a natural way, so making search basically more human.
That allows them to be able to help people find the relevant content to them by using more advancements in machine learning. So in order for you to do well for SEO, you need to understand what are they doing with these updates. Read the release notes. Try to understand what each update means and then try to cater your content to match that goal as well.
E-A-T
E-A-T, it means expertise, authoritativeness, and trust. Google is very strict on this when it comes to sites that are in the money or your life categories. So that’s health, finance, and fitness, things like that. So make sure that your site is displaying the signals that they need for this authority.
There are a lot of resources out there. I wish I could spend more time to explain this, but we have limited time. But make sure you look into this so you can follow the right guidelines for the E-A-T.
Links
The links, I don’t need to explain this too much. Everyone that works in SEO is pretty much familiar with this. But links are basically the digital word of mouth. A lot of people are familiar with getting backlinks.
But just as important to getting backlinks, you also want to make sure that you’re spreading internal links as well. So make sure that the pages on your site that are getting high traffic, you are also linking to pages on your site that might not be getting as much traffic, but they are just as important to you.
Core web vitals
This is a recent update, the Core Web Vitals. So it’s meant to basically build better websites in the world. A lot of people debate the effectiveness of this at this very moment. I would say you should do your best. Use tools like the Moz Performance Metrics Beta and try to improve your site as best as you can to at least be prepared when these changes do start affecting your ranking power.
Indexability
Indexability, of course make sure your site is indexable to the search engines. So the things like your robots.txt file is well set up. Make sure that there are no HTML or JavaScript errors. Make sure that you are reducing pages on your site that have no value so that you’re not taking away from that crawl budget for the most important pages. Look at your site’s architecture. Make sure things are set up correctly so it makes your site very indexable.
Schema markup
Take advantage of schemas. These help the search engines understand your website very clearly. Having schemas doesn’t mean you would always win the SERP features, but at least it gives you a fighting chance. So take advantage of them as well.
Query deserves freshness
QDF is “query deserves freshness”. So for certain queries, the search engines determine that more up-to-date information is more relevant than other types of content, so they refresh them more frequently. So if you notice that some of your content did not perform quite as well, it might just be because that they are outdated.
So a little quick refresh can help you take advantage of the opportunity to rank better.
Ongoing updates
Last but not least, ongoing updates. SEO is not stagnant. It’s continuously dynamic. It’s moving, and things are changing. All the search engines are pushing dozens of updates on a daily basis.
So keep an eye on, like I said, their business model, try to understand where they are headed, and try to be able to predict where they’re going. Keep on top of the updates and then adjust as you go. But yeah, so these are the three bosses of SEO, and these are all what they need.
As I mentioned, I probably missed a lot of things. But the whole idea is not for this to cover everything. The idea is just getting to think of SEO from a very holistic perspective. You might be wondering this is a lot. Where do I even start from? Well, the most important thing is your business. Try to make sure that you’re doing the right thing for your business.
Then make sure you do the right thing for your searchers and then start satisfying the search engines to get results. But yeah, so that’s all I have for you today. Leave your comments below. I would love to have a discussion with you and see what we can learn from each other as well. All right. See you next time.
You can use hidden search modifiers to find better results a lot faster.
You likely use Google multiple times a day, from searching for restaurants nearby, to looking up answers to everyday questions. And usually, Google is pretty good at giving you what you want, even if you didn’t type in the right phrase. But when it comes to using Google for research purposes, especially for work, there’s probably some room for improvement…and that’s where a few hidden tricks can help you out.
Use Quotation marks when you can
Looking for something specific, like an author’s name, a long phrase, lyrics, or an idiom? Sometimes Google will show you results that match with a couple of words, but not the entire phrase. Use quotation marks around the phrase to force Google to only show results matching that phrase.
For example: iPad Air “4th generation”
Use dashes to exclude misleading words
Sometimes a particular word messes up your search results. If you don’t want results for a particular word, you can literally subtract it out by using a dash.
For example: canyon -grand
Use Google’s tabs for the best search tool
It’s easy to forget, but Google is a lot more than just text search. There’s Google Images, Maps, and Google Books. Use the tabs at the top to switch between these modes.
Use a tilde to include common synonyms
Looking to expand your search results? Use a tilde symbol before a word to find results related to the term.
For example: coding ~class (That way, you’ll also see results for coding colleges, classes, courses, and so on.)
Search for the particular file type you’re looking for
This is especially useful when you’re looking for documents online: Type in the search phrase, and then just add “filetype:pdf” at the end to look for PDFs. You can also find PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and Excel sheets using this format.
For example: climate change report filetype:ppt
Find citations that link to a certain page
This is an obscure tip, but it can help you find pages that link to a specific page. If you’re looking for citations for a college essay, for example, just use the “link:(insert link here) format to find the links.
For example: link:lifehacker.com
Use an asterisk for words you can’t remember
Sometimes you’re looking for lyrics to a song and you can’t remember a couple of words. This is where an asterisk comes in. Google treats this as a wildcard or a blank, and it’ll give you search results considering the gaps in your knowledge.
For example: strawberry * forever
Find related websites to what you’re searching for
This is a search trick everyone should know about: Let’s say you found a website you liked and want to find more websites like it—you can just ask Google to do the hard work for you using the “related:(site address)” search term.
For example: related:boardgamegeek.com
Do site-specific searches directly from Google
Usually, the search feature in websites isn’t great. But because Google indexes web content anyway, you can use Google to search through websites reliably. Use the “site:(website link)” term the next time you want to search a site.
For example: site:lifehacker.com
Find results from two specific places
Looking to find results from two terms? For example, maybe you’re looking for TV shows from Netflix or Amazon Prime. You can do that using the pipe symbol (that vertical bar), with basically tells Google to choose between this “or” that.
For example: Netflix | Prime
Search within a number range
When you’re using Google for online research, narrowing down results in a particular timeframe can help. You can use two dots to search between a range of two numbers.
fter what feels like an eternity, Google is bringing dark mode to Google Search for the desktop. The update is now rolling out globally, and like most server-side changes, you don’t have to do anything to receive it — you should automatically see the toggle to enable dark mode in the Search settings.
So if you’ve been waiting for a while to switch to dark mode in Google Search for desktop, here’s how you can do so right now.
How to enable dark mode in Google Search for desktop
Navigate to the Settings icon (the gear icon on the right).
You should see a toggle at the bottom of the settings to enable dark mode. Toggle Dark theme to enable dark mode in Google Search for desktop.
That’s all there is to it. If you want granular control or want Google Search to update its colour scheme based on your system theme, you can do so. Go to the Settings icon, select Search settings, and go to the Appearance tab that’s located on the left. In this section, you’ll see three options:
Device default: Matches the colour scheme of your device
Dark: Light text on a dark background
Light: Dark text on a light background
Select one of the options and hit Save to save these settings for your Google account. Doing so will save the preferences across devices.
With dark mode enabled, Google Search switches to a dark background with white text and blue accents for the links and buttons. There’s significantly less strain on your eyes, and it makes a huge difference in day-to-day use.
I’ve been using the Dark Reader extension in Chrome for a few years to get dark mode in Google Search for the desktop. Google rolled out dark mode a long time ago on the best Android phones, and while it took its time bringing the feature to desktop users, it is great to see that it is finally here.
Google says the feature will roll out over the coming weeks, so if you don’t see the option just yet, hang tight; it shouldn’t be too long before you can start using dark mode on Google Search for the desktop. With Google Search now getting the feature, it shouldn’t be too long before we see dark mode make its way to Drive, Maps, and other Google services on the desktop.
Feature Image Credit: Harish Jonnalagadda / Android Central
