The following was previously published in an earlier edition of Marketing Insider.
From business practices and political policies, to school curricula and building designs, inclusivity is permeating many aspects of our lives. With one in four Americans living with some form of disability, these policies are intended to include those who might otherwise be left out or marginalized from areas of daily life.
And in today’s online world, one means of inclusivity that’s more important than ever is accessible website design, especially as 4.6% of disabled Americans suffer from a visual impairment. However, seven websites in 10 still contain “accessibility blocks” that render them either extremely difficult or impossible for millions of consumers to use, according to a study by an accessibility software company.
If your own brand is guilty of this, you could be losing business to competitors with more inclusive websites. So what exactly can you do to make your own site more accessible?
Have a clear visual hierarchy. Making sure that your site content is presented and organized clearly is crucial for making it easy to digest, and therefore accessible to all. This involves setting out your information using a clear visual hierarchy that takes visitors on a natural, logical journey through the content. In order to do this, many designers implement principles of the Gestalt approach. This is a series of theories related to visual perception, based around the concept that humans will see the whole before the individual parts when looking at a group of objects.
Make interactive elements and text large enough. According to Google guidelines, touch targets like icons and links should be at least 48×48 pixels to ensure those with impaired vision or motor skills can easily interact with a website.
In addition, padding and spacing should be taken into consideration in order to further simplify interactions, with touch elements recommended to be at least 8 pixels apart. This reduces the possibility of users tapping on the wrong option.
By the same token, text should also be big enough for users to read, so set font size at least 16 pixels — and if smaller text must be used, ensure it’s in upper case. Furthermore, always provide a customizable text option for users to tailor the text size to their liking.
Consider contrast colour combinations. The colours you use can also have a huge impact on your site’s accessibility. Using high levels of contrast can be hard to look at, even for those who aren’t visually impaired, while low levels can make it hard to differentiate between various on-page elements, especially for those who are colour-blind. It’s recommended that you refer to the W3 guidelines for online accessibility, which stipulate a contrast ratio of at least 4:5:1 in larger elements, and 7:1 in regular ones.
Provide captions for video content. You’ve probably watched a video in a different language with subtitles before, so you’ll know that if these captions weren’t present, you wouldn’t have been able to understand what was being said.
Visitors with hearing impairments who watch videos on your site will face the exact same issue, even if the content is in their mother tongue. As such, you should always include subtitles, as well as full transcripts for any audio material. This can have SEO benefits as well as being good practice for accessibility.
The messages app is starting to become the most sought-after piece of digital real estate among brands and retailers.
Marketers at e-commerce start-ups say they’re increasingly using text messages to promote new sales or product launches. That’s because they are finding it more difficult to get customers to pay attention to emails, as some customers have now signed up for email updates from dozens of brands after a decade-plus of online shopping. Additionally, the upcoming iOS14 update threatens marketers’ ability to use targeted ads on sites like Facebook. As part of the iOS14 update, iPhone users now must opt in for apps to track their browsing histories. If customers don’t, marketers will no longer be able to use their browsing history on past sites, like e-commerce sites, to serve them targeted ads.
Put together, companies are coming for people’s most intimate form of communication, amidst a slew of digital marketing changes. Because people still use it to primarily communicate with friends and family, text messaging is one of the last methods of digital communication that hasn’t been completely overrun by brands. But since it’s still not primarily used as a marketing channel, marketers are still trying to figure out just how many texts from a brand customers will tolerate. Bombard customers with too many text messages, and companies risk alienating with them altogether.
“In many ways, I think SMS is the final frontier of marketing and brand communications,” said Kinfield CEO Nichole Powell, whose start-up sells skincare essentials for the outdoors like bug repellent and moisturizer. “As a consumer, I can see why — I gave up on my personal inbox years ago, and now even social media oftentimes feels quite saturated. There are brands that I’ve followed on Instagram for years, but I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw one of their posts.”
Investor and marketing strategist Nik Sharma said that part of what is fuelling the SMS boom is brands in search of more ways to “somehow keep [customers] engaged and get them on the path to purchasing something.” According to marketing platform Omnisend, the number of SMS messages sent by the more than 50,000 companies that use Omnisend’s software increased by 378% between 2019 and 2020, while email campaigns were up 108%.
The new SMS playbook
In speaking with marketers at e-commerce start-ups, they say they try to only text customers sparingly — often only a couple times a month. But they’re still trying to figure out what kind of texts — and how many of them — someone will tolerate from a brand. In one of the most criticized brand texts from last year, Fashion Nova, sent SMS messages to customers encouraging them to spend their stimulus checks on Fashion Nova products.
One of the most common ways that marketers are using the channel is texting customers alerting them to sales, as they’re betting that people won’t mind getting a text from a brand if it’s alerting them to a good deal. Brendan Hastings, director of engineering at DTC underwear brand Thinx, previously told Modern Retail that the company used SMS to promote its August sale. He said that Thinx has found that SMS messages receive open rates close to 100%, where email open rates are 15-30%.
Powell said Kinfield hasn’t yet used SMS to promote any sales — her company has primarily used it to poll customers about what type of packaging they’d like to see for future products — but hasn’t ruled it out in the future. “We’d prefer to take the time to get to know our audience and see first-hand what kind of things they like to use SMS [for],” she said.
Eli Weiss, director of CX and Retention at direct-to-consumer brand Olipop, said that his company has found success with using text messages to alert customers to new flavours. On Instagram, Olipop will encourage customers to sign up for its SMS list in order to get first dibs when the new flavour drops.
In December, when Olipop released a limited-time blackberry vanilla flavor, the company received $15,000 worth of sales in 15 minutes from people on its SMS list. Olipop’s email list still drove slightly more sales — but the company has ten times more email subscribers than it does SMS subscribers.
Weiss said that he doesn’t see SMS entirely replacing email — that rather, Olipop will only use it to “communicate with our most engaged group of people.” Weiss said that he plans to stick to sending Olipop customers one or two texts a month. Going forward, Olipop is considering using SMS to sell company merchandise, or to send customers more personalized messages from different members of Olipop’s customer service team.
“SMS is like any fun new marketing thing where right away it can kind of get abused…some brands are now sending three messages a week,” Weiss said. “I think the future is exclusivity and intentionality.”
You don’t need millions of followers to make money on Instagram. Here are some tips and ideas on how you can bring in extra cash while creating something you love.
Got a cool craft you enjoy making? You can sell it on Insta. Love photography? You can sell that too. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be an influencer with millions of followers to make money on Instagram. Although you do need to have a brand-sponsored post to be paid directly by Instagram, there are are plenty of creative ways to make money on there that don’t involve ads. Here are some tips on how you can use Instagram to take your hobby or idea to the next level.
1 Determine your brand and style.
Trying to figure out your Instagram persona might sound like a difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be. Reflecting on what you’re passionate about and how you want to talk about it is the key to keeping people’s attention on your page. “Figuring out who you want to be and how you want to be perceived…is really important,” says Kennedy Roberts, founder and lead creative of KAR Creative Studios, a team that helps with social media, web content, and photography for emerging brands.
Los Angeles-based designer Lorena Cortez uses her passion for photography, film, and styling to promote her online pinup-inspired store, Ruby Rae Clothing, on Instagram. “I was intentional about the content I was putting out to be not only aesthetically pleasing to the eye but also promoting my brand. My favorite way to promote myself is through parallax-style videos that I shoot and edit myself,” says Cortez. So before you launch your business on Instagram, take some time to figure out the things you are interested in and how you want to showcase them.
2 Sell your product or service directly.
Speaking of business, you don’t actually have to have a website or an online store to make money off of Instagram. You can create content that leads people to a course or a download, or sell any type of art or craft you enjoy making. “Any hobby that you have, you could potentially use Instagram to sell those things. Even if you’re not functioning as a business with a website, you can easily throw up an Instagram page and share images of your product and sell some,” says Roberts.
Artist Danny Koby first started her page to show off tufted yarn rugs she makes, and had no intention of selling anything. “I really just wanted to have a place to put pictures of my art, but somehow people found my page and wanted their own bath mat! I really never expected it to grow so quickly. I am so thankful for everyone who follows and supports me and my art,” says Koby. She does not have an online shop and all sales are done through Instagram DMs.
3 Get your work out there.
Follow accounts that are posting things similar to yours and interact with their content with likes and comments to increase your visibility on Instagram. Another tip is to be consistent with posting—”every day, if possible,” suggests Robert. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to people to collaborate. Have a fellow creator do a guest post on your page, or suggest doing a takeover on theirs. “I like to say using Instagram is a telephone, not a microphone. What is most important is making connections with people,” says Robert.
Jalyn, founder of Milkweed, started her business selling body butter candles about a month ago—and sold out of her first batch within 10 days of launching. Each candle comes in a customized, hand-painted jar. All orders are placed via DM and paid for via Venmo or another payment app. “Eventually, I think I’ll make a website. But for now, Instagram is serving all the purposes. From marketing, to customer service, to selling the candles themselves. IG has made it easy for me,” she says.
4 Treat Instagram like the real world.
While many say social media is far from real life, Roberts believes it doesn’t always have to be that way. In fact, using Instagram to communicate like you do offline might be just the thing for your business. “Instead of thinking about Instagram like this weird alternate reality, just think about it like it’s life and you were marketing your business by word of mouth,” suggests Roberts.
Artist Jackee Alvarez runs two Instagram businesses—one for selling her paintings, and another to sell handcrafted clay and wire earrings with her friend Madison. She says one of the most helpful parts of having her business on Insta is the access she has to people. “I think what helps creatives is really having a conversation with the people that are supporting them. I wouldn’t be able to have such quick contact if I just had my website—I would have nowhere to let people know what’s going on and really get opinions,” says Alvarez. She also says that there is a learning curve with Instagram, especially with knowing what hashtags to use and when to post, since posts do not show up chronologically. When you set up your profile as a business account, Instagram allows you to check insights on your content. The insights section will show you when your followers are most active, how many people are interacting with your content, and how many accounts you have reached.
“The good thing with Instagram is you literally have the whole world at your fingertips. Anyone can stumble upon your page and give you a follow and support with a purchase. I think the way Instagram is currently set up allows for small businesses to be seen and supported,” says Alvarez.
And speaking of follows, aim for quality not quantity. “I think you can have 50 followers and if all 50 of those people love what you’re doing and buy something from you, you could make a lot of money,” says Roberts. “Aim for quality people who are actually interested in what you do.”
Exactly how Google uses engagement signals (i.e. clicks and interaction data) is subject to endless SEO debate. The passage above suggests Google uses engagement metrics to train their machine learning models. Google has also admitted to using click signals for both search personalization and evaluating new algorithms.
While many Googlers no doubt work hard to be helpful to the SEO community, they are also under pressure “not to reveal too much detail” about their algorithms out of caution that SEOs will game search results. In reality, Google is never going to tell SEO exactly how they use engagement metrics, no matter how many times we ask.
Most SEO debate focuses on if Google uses organic Click-through Rates (CTR) in its ranking algorithms. If you are interested, AJ Kohn’s piece is particularly outstanding as well as Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday on covering this topic. For a nuanced counter-view, I’d recommend reading this excellent post by Dan Taylor.
To be fair, I believe most of the debate around CTR up to this point has likely been far too simple. Whatever way SEOs think Google uses click data, how Google actually uses clicks is guaranteed to be far more sophisticated than anything we may conceive. This complexity gap gives Google easy deniability, and justification for calling otherwise reasonable SEO theories “made up crap.” (Google may very well say something similar about this article, which is fine.)
Not another CTR debate
At this point, you may think this is another post adding to the CTR debate, but in fact, it’s not. THIS SIMPLY ISN’T THAT POST.
Arguing “if” Google uses click signals leads us down the wrong path. We know Google does, we simply don’t know how. For example, are they direct signals, or used for machine learning training only? Are click signals used in the broader algorithm, or only for personalization?
Instead, lets propose something far more radical, and likely far more helpful to your SEO:
Why you should assume Google uses clicks for ranking
The patent is fascinating from an SEO perspective because it explains how using click signals can be very “noisy” (as Google often says) but describes a process for calculating “long click” and “last click” metrics to cut through the noise and better rank search results.
To be fair, we have no evidence Google uses the processes described in this patent, and even if they did, it would likely be far more sophisticated/nuanced than the process described here.
That said, the patent is riveting because it supports many of the same best SEO practices we’ve advocated for years. So much so that, if you optimized for these metrics, you’d almost certainly improve your SEO traffic and rankings, regardless if Google uses these exact processes or not. Specifically:
More Clicks (“High CTR”): earns you more traffic no matter your rank, and initial clicks form the basis of all subsequent click metrics.
Improved Engagement (“Long Clicks”): almost always a positive sign from your users, and often an indicator of quality as well as being correlated with future visits.
User Satisfaction (“Last Click”): the holy grail of SEO, and ultimately the experience Google strives to deliver in its search results.
We can summarize these principles into 3 tenets of click-based engagement metrics for SEO: First, Long, and Last.
Let’s explore each of these in turn.
1. Be the first click: earning high CTRs
As stated earlier, this isn’t a debate if Google uses CTR. There’s plenty of evidence that they monitor and consider clicks in a variety of ways. (And to be fair, there’s evidence that they don’t use CTR as extensively as many SEOs believe.)
Even if CTR isn’t a ranking signal, having a higher CTR is almost always good for SEO, because it means getting more clicks and more eyeballs on your content.
Besides the inherent value of earning a high CTR, clicks also form the basis of subsequent click-based metrics, including long clicks and last clicks. So earning that first click is an essential step.
How to earn higher click-through rates
Your ability to earn a higher CTR is almost entirely contained with optimizing your appearance in Google search results. How your snippet stands out and gets noticed for being a likely helpful, relevant answer—in a sea of other competing results—is the name of the game.
You may think your options at influencing CTR in this way are quite limited, but in fact, you have many, many surprisingly powerful levers to pull in your favor, including:
What about artificially manipulating your CTR, either using bots or one of the many blackhat click services you can find on the web? More often than not, these tactics lead to disappointing results. One possible reason why is that Google is very skilled at sniffing out “unnatural” browsing behavior.
So high CTR can be a good thing, but the fact remains—as Google has told us countless times—CTR is a “noisy” signal to use for ranking. Should a result with a flashy title be rewarded simply because users click on it, even if the actual page provides a lackluster experience?
In truth, while earning clicks is one of the primary goals of SEO, the “noise” of the signal is probably why Google avoids using CTR as a direct ranking signal itself.
In fact, earning a high CTR if your content leads to a poor user experience may actually hurt you in the end. More on this below.
So first, we need to figure out if our clicks create a good user experience. Read on…
2. Earn long clicks
So what if you trick people into clicking your URL, but your page actually doesn’t deliver what you promised, or even adequately answer the query.
This isn’t good for users, or for Google. And it definitely isn’t good for you.
One measure of content relevancy search engines can use is weighted viewing time, based on the concept that users typically spend a bit longer time on a site they find relevant, versus a page they find not helpful. Within this framework, “long clicks” can carry more weight than “short clicks.”
“But Cyrus,” smart SEOs protest, “not every query needs a long click. Many searches, like the weather or the “highest mountains in Europe,” can be answered very quickly, often in seconds. It doesn’t make sense for these pages to have long clicks.”
Those SEOs are right, of course. Fortunately, Google engineers understood not every query is the same and devised a clever solution: click scores can be weighted on a per-query basis, including language and country-specific click data.
“Note that such categories may also be broken down into sub-categories as well, such as informational-quick and informational-slow: a person may only need a small amount of time on a page to gather the information they seek when the query is “George Washington’s Birthday”, but that same user may need a good deal more time to assess a result when the query is “Hilbert transform tutorial”
To dive a little deeper, it’s not so much how long visitors stay on your page, but your ratio of long clicks (LC) to overall clicks (C), weighted on a per-query basis. This LC|C ratio could be used to re-rank queries based on user-engagement.
Take this a step further: results with good long-click ratios may rank higher, while results with poor long-click ratios may rank lower.
So consider a situation where you “hacked” your CTR to earn more clicks, but the page itself doesn’t deliver, resulting in more short clicks. In theory, this could actually hurt your rankings, even though you started with a higher CTR!
So be sure to back up your higher CTRs with great user experiences, e.g. long clicks.
How to optimize for long clicks
Many SEOs refer to long clicks as analogous to improving your “dwell time”, or simply the amount of time a user spends on your site. The signals associated with improving dwell time are often known as “UX” (User Experience) signals.
The golden rule of getting more long clicks is simply this: provide the most useful, complete, and engaging answer to a user search query, in the most attractive and effective format possible.
A note of distinction: because most pages rank for multiple keywords, and multiple keyword variations, all with possibly varying search intent, it’s often helpful to target for those various search intents all on the same page.
For example, a user searching for information about meta descriptions may also be interested in “meta description length”, “meta description format” and “how to write meta descriptions.” Optimizing more completely for these varying search intents can improve your long click metrics.
Pro Tip: You don’t need to optimize for every user intent on the same page. Linking to other resources on your site is fine, and even encouraged! Visitors don’t have to stay on the same page for a search click to count as “long.”
Aside from the quality of the content itself, there are a number of UX factors you can employ to encourage your visitors to engage with your content at a deeper level. While not an exhaustive list, a few examples may include:
Prominently link to closely related topics to cover multiple searcher intents. These can be internal links, or even external links.
Admittedly, there aren’t a ton of good excellent resources published on increasing engagement and improving long clicks. That said, I believe Brian Dean of Backlinko does an excellent job with this, and his resource on improving dwell time is worth checking out.
3. Be the last click
Yes, being the last click may be the holy grail of SEO.
A user clicks their way through a page of search results, not finding what they are looking for. Finally, they click on your URL and behold!…. You have the answer they sought.
Put simply, being the last click means searchers don’t return to Google to select another result (e.g. pogo sticking.)
Even if Google doesn’t use this as a ranking factor, you can see how it might benefit your SEO to be the user’s last click as much as possible. Satisfying the user query means users are more likely to browse and share your content, as well as seek you out again in the future.
How to be the last click
In my own SEO, there are fewer things I’ve seen associated with greater success than improving visitor satisfaction, and this is exactly what Google seeks to reward.
It’s also damn difficult to achieve.
Sadly, a typical process in SEO is to give a content brief to a copywriter, expect them to cover all the salient points, hit publish, and hope for the best. But more often than not, do you believe this content truly deserves to rank #1? Is this the first, last, and only result a user needs to click?
Years ago when working in a successful restaurant, a manager gave me advice about delivering 100% customer satisfaction that I will never forget: “Whatever happens, make sure they want to come back.”
This is how you should treat SEO: make sure every visitor to your site wants to come back.
Exactly how to make sure your visitor wants to come back is going to vary based on each and every query, but generally, it means going the extra mile, answering questions more completely, and offering the user more resources and a better experience.
In short, deliver an experience superior to every one of your competitors.
Beyond this, I recommend these 3 resources when improving your content (all amazingly from Rand Fishkin):
To be honest, it’s nearly impossible to accurately measure click-based signals, as Google holds all the data.
(Even if you could accurately measure your long click/click ratio, or last click metrics, calculating their actual value would be meaningless without an accurate account of every other Google search result, let alone on a per-query basis.)
That said, there are metrics that can help you directionally measure any progress you might make. These are all available either through Search Console or Google Analytics:
Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a “good” score for these numbers, as everything is relative to the specific query it appeared for, as well as every single one of your competitors.
Regardless, these metrics can be directionally useful indicators when making improvements to your content. For example, if you see a drop in bounce rate and increase in session duration after a major content update, you can take this as an indicator that things are moving in the right direction. And in fact, it’s not unusual to see an increase in rankings/traffic after such a change accompanied by a positive shift in metrics.
While we can’t directly see what Google might measure in terms of complex click metrics, we can often make educated guesses.
And even if Google isn’t using these metrics exactly the way we speculate, we can still improve our SEO by paying attention to the user click behaviors we have influence over.
Thanks for making it this far. Remember:
Be First
Be Long
Be Last
Get those clicks, and earn them!
Appendix A: Evidence of Google using click-based ranking signals (incomplete list)
A business’s best advertisement is a happy customer.
Word-of-mouth has long been touted as one of the best ways to attract new customers. Prospective consumers want to know how your product or service can directly and positively impact their lives, and customer testimonials can clearly demonstrate that value.
However, it can be challenging to build up a loyal base of advocates who will promote your business to their networks. Here, 11 members of Rolling Stone Culture Council explain a few strategies that have helped them create true product advocates and why they’ve been so effective for their businesses.
Deliver an Exceptional Customer Experience
We’re very focused on delivering an exceptional customer experience and making it easy for our customers to post reviews and share how their experience at Velvet was. We’ve partnered with a company that allows our customers to create “one-click reviews.” Timing these messages to our customers when their experience is fresh has proven to drive more engagement and feedback via reviews. – Matt Morea , Velvet Cannabis
Put Them in the Driver’s Seat
We are big advocates of putting our consumers in the driver’s seat of their experience. We do so by giving users the ability to invite their peers with them when they workout, helping our partners build company cultures cantered around fitness and wellness and giving our stellar Client Services team the flexibility to “surprise and delight” our users at their discretion. – Ed Buckley, Peerfit
Let Them ‘Brand Manage’
Give the consumer ownership of the brand and let them “brand manage.” Ask your customer base what they think of the state of your brand. Constructively accept the answer. They know when they are over you, so ask them to stay by involving them in the brand directly. – Michael Polk, Billboardology.com
Do Something to Surprise and Delight Them
Do something for your hardcore consumer base without asking them to do anything or expecting anything in return. The sheer act of doing something purely because you want to be kind to people who support you will help gain their loyalty and trust. “Surprise and delight” and doing things “just because” really goes such a long way. – Cassie Petrey, Crowd Surf
It’s super simple. We share stories of our core customers honestly, truthfully and with detail. They’re the most real examples of how our products are used and make people’s lives easier and better. Let customers advocate for themselves. This will allow new customers to identify with these stories and involve themselves organically and immersively. – Meg He, ADAY
Work Hard to Impress Them
The best strategy is to work hard and consistently deliver above client expectations. When you impress them, you build trust, and clients are way more likely to refer, post, share and return. – Wes Meyers, Burning Tractor
Thank Them
We have a really strong and loyal local following with our businesses. Twice a year, we email our subscribers to thank them for supporting our small businesses. Then we invite them to continue their support by giving us positive reviews on both Facebook and Google. This boosts our search engine rankings and strengthens the positive brand perception we’ve worked so hard to build. – Buck Wimberly, ULAH, LLC / ULAH Interiors + Design, LLC
Create Shared Experiences
The best thing you can do for your consumer base is to create shared experiences between them and your brand. A shared experience can be emotional, transactional or even experiential and should be achievable across all messaging platforms and through the purchase funnel. Aiming to create shared experiences drives loyalty and humanizes your audience members, who are too often thought of as data points. – Matt Blackburn, ORDER
Focus on Your Superfans
The best strategy for activating your consumer base is to focus on your superfans. This will do two things instantaneously. First, superfans will become a revenue-generating income source by eagerly purchasing new content, merch or experiences. Second, they create a FOMO-inducing movement that spreads across the fandom as they are naturally talking about and spreading news and updates for you. – Kim Kaupe, Bright Ideas Only
Showcase Your Customers With Your Products
As a B2B jewellery supplier, we showcase our customers and how they work with our products in a coveted yearly calendar, a monthly magazine, ads in industry publications, on our Instagram and more. Seeing our jewellery being creatively and successfully used by other industry professionals is the best testimonial to our quality — and it gives the spotlight to our customers, which they really appreciate. – Vanessa Nornberg, Metal Mafia
Listen to Them
Create and maintain an open and honest dialogue with your core audience. A brand can listen more than it speaks to grab key insights into the cultural pulse of its central fan base. – Erik Oberholtzer, Tender Greens / cohere
2020 was a very challenging year for everyone, with Covid-19 causing the global economy to plummet. As a result, brick-and-mortar companies and businesses with a limited online presence had to seriously consider their digital marketing strategy.
However, many businesses jumped on the bandwagon without carefully planning out their strategy. So, they ended up blowing their budget on driving traffic through ads without first building a solid foundation—an optimized website.
Now is the time, more than ever, to master your digital marketing strategy to get your business in front of more eyes. But strap yourself in for a journey rather than a two-stop trip—digital marketing is not a one-off effort, but rather an ongoing objective that needs daily monitoring.
So, what steps should you take to get your digital marketing campaign off the ground?
I could’ve simply said that you need a website, but what you need is an online environment that is secure, has a clear structure and works fast.
Here are three vitally important things any modern website needs:
• Speed: Create a clear site structure so that people can quickly find what they need. And with Google confirming that Core Web Vitals will be ranking signals in May 2021, you must pay extra attention to how users experience the speed, responsiveness and visual stability of your site’s pages.
• Mobile-Friendliness: Desktop searches fell behind mobile back in 2017, with over 55% of global web traffic now falling on mobile devices. Moreover, mobile is no longer a growing trend, but the norm, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, don’t even think about going online.
• Security: Web security is critical in preventing hackers and cyber-thieves from getting access to sensitive data, including that of your users. Without a proactive security strategy and an HTTPS connection, businesses risk the development of malware attacks and attacks on other sites, networks and so on.
Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t easy, but it’s essential when it comes to digital marketing. Don’t think that a set-it-and-forget-it approach will work here. You need to be consistent so that potential customers can always find your website for relevant searches.
2. Get On Google My Business
Another way to help customers find you is through Google My Business (GMB).
Google My Business puts your details where potential customers can find them more easily. It also puts your business on Google Maps where it can be reviewed. This can also ensure your business is ranking on the map alongside other similar businesses, giving you a massive boost in visibility, thanks to the Google Local Pack. Optimizing a GMB account is trickier than it looks to begin with. But there are plenty of sources online that provide extensive guides on this topic.
3. Social Media Profiles And Activity
Besides being on Google, you need to actively engage your audience on social media. Think of the difference between eating at a chain restaurant or at a small local one. You never see chefs at restaurant chains, but at your local diner, if a chef talks to you, you find out more about the place and the ingredients used, and unless the food’s awful, you’re likely to spread the word and go back. As a small business, this is the approach you need to take on social networks: Actually talk to and engage with your customers.
Learn what social media platform is popular among your potential customers and get on it too. The most obvious option, Facebook, even has tools for promoting business pages to segmented audiences. If your clients use Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram, expand your presence there too. This is something business owners may need help with, as the most effective way to grow an audience on social media is to consistently create and publish interesting, engaging content.
And if your audience has migrated to newer platforms like TikTok or Clubhouse, try them out. The point is, follow your audience to attract the right traffic.
4. Figure Out What’s Right For Your Business: SEO Or PPC
Before making a decision, assess your financial capabilities and understand if you need to go for search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising or both at the same time.
SEO and PPC are both digital marketing strategies that ultimately get your site to appear on Google page one. But to yield positive results, both strategies need a lot of expertise, tech knowledge and a marketing budget.
PPC is perfect for quick sales if you have a new website that isn’t performing well in organic search, if you think you have a great product/service and want to test it out or if you have reasonable profit margins.
On the flip side, SEO is what you need if you’re looking for long-term growth and can afford to invest in it, if you want to build up your brand over time or if you want to optimize your marketing costs.
Unlike with paid advertising, once you start ranking at the top of Google searches using SEO, you’ll start driving high-quality traffic to your business at no cost. In PPC, you won’t get any clicks if you don’t regularly fork over a small fortune.
Alternatively, you can choose to do SEO and PPC at the same time. This totally depends on your opportunities.
Everything covered here is fundamental to boosting your business’s online visibility. For businesses new to digital marketing, these steps may feel huge to begin with, but once you get the hang of it, it will seem as natural as wearing a seatbelt in a car. With the right set of tools—a well-optimized website, a Google My Business account, an active social media presence and constantly-published engaging content—you can drive web traffic, generate new sales and even get customers to fall in love with your brand.
On the Internet, ads support businesses like Google, which give people around the world free access to information. Ads also help media companies, publishers, and small businesses draw attention to their offerings.
But the ad industry today—Google included—is facing an erosion of trust. Some 72% of Americans feel that almost all of what they do online is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms, or other companies, and 81% say that the potential risks they face because of data collection outweigh the benefits, according to a study by Pew Research Centre.
It is understandable that consumers feel this way, given how hard it is to follow how individual data is shared these days. Now, increasingly, we’re seeing government respond to people’s demands for privacy, with the enactment of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and U.S. state laws governing consumer online privacy.
It’s become clear that the ad-supported web needs to evolve to better support privacy and restore trust. We need to rethink the type of tools we have relied on to fund the open web, like third-party cookies—bits of code that help advertisers track people across the Internet.
It would be easier, in the short term, for advertising companies to put our collective heads in the sand or make minimal changes based on data privacy regulations. But these approaches will continue to degrade trust with users and spark concerns from regulators. To move forward as an industry, we need to take bold action.
The largest browsers, including Chrome, have either already phased out third-party cookies or are in the process of doing so. Last month Google announced that once these cookies go away, we will not replace them with new types of identifiers that are being created to enable the same level of individual tracking.
At Google, we’re choosing a new path toward privacy-cantered advertising. Instead of tracking individual users across the web to determine their preferences, as we had previously done, we’ll now rely on other methods to determine which ads to show them.
The centrepiece of our strategy is the Privacy Sandbox, a group of new technologies built in collaboration with others in the web and advertising communities. Its goal is to help protect individual privacy and restore trust in ads. Without ads, the web could become a series of paywalls, limiting access to content to those who can afford to pay for it.
With the Privacy Sandbox, we’re putting a great deal of effort into keeping individuals anonymous by observing their behaviour and placing them in large groups of people with similar interests—but not based on who they are. Advertisers can then serve ads based on those groupings, instead of targeting people individually.
It’s like going to a county fair—the vendors don’t know who you are, but they know lots of people will be looking for art, food, or gifts, and so they set up their booths to serve that audience. The advertisers trying to reach funnel cake fans can’t see who exactly in the crowd is seeking out funnel cake, and they don’t need to.
This innovative technology, and others like it, shows a path where relevant advertising and ad-supported content can coexist with a private and secure experience for people browsing the web.
To ensure we’re successful in this new approach, we’re already collaborating with the advertising industry, including groups such as the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, as we work to create industrywide user privacy standards.
We hope other ad-supported companies will join us. It’s already been encouraging to see support from ad leaders including Unilever, Nestlé, Mondelez, and PMG as we collectively take action to restore individual privacy.
Today, individuals are tracked closely by many companies—including Google—as they travel the web. If an ad has ever followed you around, even after you’ve purchased a product, you’ve experienced this first-hand. Through the Privacy Sandbox, we’re encouraging a shift away from this approach.
Internet access is for everyone. Privacy should be too.
LinkedIn likes to create new features, but I’ve noticed that most are a waste of time and a mere distraction. Focus on the basics, and you can become a LinkedIn rock star. To do that, you also should know what not to focus on, which typically includes the features that are declining in use. Here are eight things that you shouldn’t worry about on LinkedIn:
1. LinkedIn Live
LinkedIn Live was only given to non-LinkedIn marketing people, which I believe was a mistake, as LinkedIn advocates like me would have used it better. Then it became ubiquitous and its quality and delivery waned. People were getting bored, and the number of watchers declined. Then the pandemic and Zoom came along, and suddenly people were on webinars all day and night and the last thing they wanted was yet another one. So, don’t waste time on it.
2. LinkedIn Groups
Groups began dying years ago. LinkedIn has tried several times to revamp them, and each time they get less and less engagement.
3. Company Pages
Posts on LinkedIn company pages are typically only liked by people who work there or want to work there, and you probably won’t see comments unless the post features the CEO/founder. This often pales in significance when compared with the amount of engagement a CEO/founder will get by posting directly from his/her profile, even if they have fewer followers. People buy people on LinkedIn, not companies.
4. LinkedIn Polls
It took me a day after polls were released on LinkedIn to see the first poll that said “Are you sick of polls?” And sure enough, you don’t see them now, or if you do, they have a minimal amount of votes and lack quality.
5. LinkedIn Stories
No sooner was Stories released and it was killed by lack of user interest. This is not Instagram. It didn’t work, so it’s time to move on. Why would you want to spend time and effort creating content that disappears? The best content on LinkedIn gets liked and commented on even weeks later, which enhances your personal brand.
6. Long Articles
Although studies vary, people spend roughly 20 minutes a month on LinkedIn, and I’ve noticed that they don’t have time to read long articles. They go to Forbes for that! LinkedIn used to promote articles but then stopped and removed them from the profile, too, which made them totally invisible. People on LinkedIn like to view photos of you, videos of you and short posts of 200 words that they can read easily. They don’t want to click through to an article or a website to read the rest. Work on improving your feed.
7. Skills And Endorsements
Unlike recommendations, which are personally written and usually by people who have worked with you, there is no context to endorsements and skills on LinkedIn. Skills can be endorsed by anyone with no background, so I believe this makes them pretty meaningless. Instead, make recommendations a priority.
8. LinkedIn Advertising
The number of potential clients that came to me after trying and wasting tens of thousands of dollars on LinkedIn is incredible. In my opinion, LinkedIn advertising is for people, companies and CMOs who typically don’t know how LinkedIn works. Organic content by your CEO will always beat anything you do on Linkedin Advertising. Additionally, since people care more about your CEO/founder’s content and not your company page, why spend money advertising on a page that no one cares about? Create more content for your CEO/founder’s page, and skip the LinkedIn adverts that don’t work well.
Focus on the live elements of LinkedIn that work and create long-term engagement that enhances your personal brand and will win you clients, not the features that won’t.
The original iMac was something entirely different from what people expected in a computer that sat on their desk. While everyone else was selling boring beige boxes, Apple said, “Hey, we have this translucent, gumdrop-shaped all-in-one computer that is, well, cool.” And it was.
It wasn’t anywhere near the most powerful computer you could buy at the time, but it was colorful and fun. It was approachable and friendly–you could pick the whole thing up with a handle at the top. It was, well, playful.
I think you could argue that the iMac’s personality made it–in some ways–the most personal of personal computers. Over the last 20 years, the iMac has evolved, but it almost always retained that sense of playfulness, even if it lost the colour.
Courtesy Company
The G4 version, which came out in 2002, was one of the most iconic desktop computer designs ever. That’s the one with a 17-inch LCD display floating on a stainless steel arm over a half-sphere dome that served as the base, and housed the computer’s “guts.”
If we’re really being honest, however, in the last few years the iMac has lost that playfulness. It still has a personality, but as its silver aluminium industrial design became thinner and more sophisticated, the iMac’s personality changed.
It is still a better-looking computer than almost any other desktop, but it’s starting to show its age. It has large bezels around the display, and a chin that makes it resemble a caricature of what a cool all-in-one might look like–seven years ago. Plus, it hadn’t seen a colour that isn’t either grey or darker grey in years.
Until now.
On Tuesday, Apple announced the newest version of the iMac. The highlight was supposed to be that it now includes Apple’s M1 processor. That’s certainly a big deal, and it shouldn’t be overlooked. After all, Apple had promised to transition all of its Macs to Apple Silicon within two years, and we’re nearing the halfway point of that promise.
Besides, the M1 is an order of magnitude faster than the Intel chips it replaces, making the new iMacs an incredible all-around computer. The M1 even meant that Apple was able to slim down, well, everything about the new iMac. It has thinner bezels, a smaller chin, and there’s no longer a bulge on the back to house all of the computer guts.
Honestly, though, I think a much bigger deal is that the new iMac is now available in seven colours.
Welcome back, personality.
Courtesy Company
It might not seem like adding colour is that big of a deal, but I think it’s brilliant, especially for the iMac. If the explosion of personalization that happened on the iPhone when Apple made it possible to customize your Home Screen and add widgets is any indication, our devices are more an extension of our own personality than ever before.
And most of us would probably prefer to think our personalities are colourful–not grey. It’s as if Apple is saying to its customers, you no longer have to choose grey or greyer-grey. Now, you can choose whichever colour suits you–just like you can do with an iPhone.
This latest design brings back the thing that made the iMac so popular in the first place. In this case, along with the fun, you also happen to get one of the most powerful Macs the company has ever made. That’s not a bad deal at all, and I suspect Apple will probably sell a lot of them. That’s brilliant.
As outlined in Guide to growth: Four strategies, there’s an opportunity to grow your business in the face of constant change through Marketing with Purpose. By being more inclusive of your customers’ values and lived experiences, you can increase trust and improve advertising performance. 85% of people will only consider a brand if they trust it. Mining for inclusive keywords and using them authentically is one actionable way to increase trust and drive growth.
Creating inclusive advertising strategies is more important than ever. It’s no longer enough only to advertise product features to a target audience because people’s expectations have shifted according to generational values, and people will buy from brands when they stand for something more than just their product, and when they align to their values. 50% of adult consumers actively consider company values when making a purchase. 63% of global consumers prefer to buy goods and services from companies that have shared values. There’s a clear need to shift from merely focusing on the usual search terms for products, features, or services to mining for inclusive keyword sets as a key strategy for growth.
Mindset shift towards values
Values-led search queries are driving a change in the marketplace, as consumers identify companies that align with their priorities as part of their research process. 88% of people want brands to step up and help them with societal problems and their environmental footprint in daily life. Our research also found that inclusive advertising improves brand perceptions around trustworthiness, market leadership, and the likelihood to recommend a brand.
If you want growth, you must start to rethink not only how people are shopping, but also how your campaigns consider a values-based purchase journey with evolved ad copy and keywords. Advertisers who can try on a new mindset with inclusive advertising can expand reach and will uncover more opportunities to connect with people. Shift from product-centric to human-centric to uncover keywords and expand your reach.
Source: The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects in Advertising phase 3 study, Microsoft Advertising, 2020.
Shared values drive growth
Any good advertising effort begins with rich, relevant content rooted in product truth, but there’s more needed to make good advertising great. People’s trust, respect, and loyalty for a brand grow when its advertising, product truths, and mission statement are aligned. It’s worth reflecting the beliefs, needs, and values of people in your advertising, but only when it’s aligned to your brand values as well. When mining new keywords to build trust by looking for shared values between people and your brand, it’s important for you to create ad experiences that make people feel your brand “is for someone like them.”
How to get started:
80% of people believe brands should play a role in solving societal problems, but many companies aren’t prominently featuring their mission statements nor their corporate responsibility efforts on their websites, which could be used to demonstrate how they engage with the world, or how they take a stand. This is a missed opportunity.
If you don’t already have an established mission statement, now is the time to identify your company’s core values. Consider the following:
Does your brand mission focus on values, responsibility, and inclusion? If not, consider doing so as these are the core building blocks of trust.
How are your brand values important to people?
Do your brand values align with people’s values to build trust, love, and loyalty?
Do you know what people are actively searching for? If not, examine search query trends.
Questions 3 and 4 above are the key to keyword mining for inclusive marketing. With some simple analysis of your Search Query Report (SQR), you might be surprised to see how your audience is engaging with values-led search queries.
Source: The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects in Advertising phase 3 study, Microsoft Advertising, 2020.
Inclusive keyword mining
Mining inclusive keywords can make your brand appeal to new potential customers or make your current customers more loyal, but you might be wondering how you can do this. The process is outlined below, but since keyword discovery will vary between verticals, marketplaces, products, and services, let’s first calibrate some of the levers we have to pull with inclusive keyword mining.
• Diverse set of keywords: Reflecting a full range of human identities and/or organizational differences, both visible and invisible (e.g., beliefs, experiences, backgrounds, ages, abilities, socioeconomics, faiths, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, languages, nationalities, and more)
• Inclusive set of keywords: Comprehensive; open to everyone; not limited to certain people; enclosing. Embracing inclusion is the act of intentionally creating a respectful, supportive, and empowering environment by engaging each other’s strengths, experiences, and perspectives to achieve a common objective.
Now let’s dig into how to build and expand a diverse and inclusive keyword list. There are four basic tools to use:
While all four tools can help you expand your inclusive keyword lists, let’s focus on using the SQR, as it shows which keywords people are already actively searching to trigger your ads. Once you know these queries are already being used, the goal is to maximize opportunity by identifying queries on which you’re not currently bidding.
Step 1
Confirm if you’re bidding on all value-based phrases that are in your mission statement or related to your brand values. If not, add them to your list for keyword expansion.
Step 2
Pull a 60- or 90-day SQR.
Step 3
Filter for any search queries that have values-based keywords and variations you would like to identify. For example, but not limited to:
Accessible
Adaptive
Authentic
Black-owned
Community
Eco-friendly
Equality
Equitable
Ethical
Gay-friendly
Genuine
Inclusive
LGBTQ
Pet-friendly
Progressive
Supportive
Sustainable
Unique
Valued
Vegan
Women-owned
Step 4
Do a Microsoft Excel VLOOKUP to compare the filtered search queries (new inclusive keywords) to the existing keywords on which you’re bidding. Anything in the search query set that’s not currently being bid on is a new keyword opportunity. And that can mean new connections with people.
As for the look-up, look for the term within the keyword (i.e., “IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH())” ) so you can identify whether the term is included anywhere in the keyword
Step 5
Pivot the keywords to get a clear view of value-based search trends.
As an example, we performed an Inclusive Search Term Analysis for the prior 90 days for a shoe brand on October 15, 2020. It contained the following phrases in frequency: “black owned” appeared 143 times, “ethical” 254 times, “gay” 158 times, “LGBTQ” 72 times, and “sustainable” 557 times. The following chart shows these data across a sample of the various search term phrases where these inclusive keywords appeared, like “what are durable but ethical basketball shoes,” “usa sustainable sneakers,” and “waterproof sustainable running shoes.” Sustainability value-based search terms are a clear front runner to add to the keyword list for this brand, with ethical considerations second, gay and Black-owned next, and then LGBTQ. This is just one simple exercise that can help guide your growth with mining for inclusive keywords.
Step 6
If you want to take this process one step further, use an n-gram analysis (contiguous sequence of words from a given sample of text). N-gram analysis is a great tool for sorting through thousands, or even millions, of keywords to find your best and most significant opportunities; it allows you to get actionable insights through aggregating keyword data.
Bringing it all together
Brand trust is more important than ever, and meeting consumers with values-led, inclusive, and diverse keywords should be part of any advertising strategy, because inclusive advertising increases purchase intent by an average increase of 23 points. Language discovery with values-led purchasing is only a start to an inclusive marketing strategy. Also consider how imagery in your ads reflects people’s lived experiences. Imagery is as important as words, as images can speak a thousand words. To learn more tips and tactics for more inclusive keywords and marketing strategies, review the “Role of Inclusion” in the Marketing with Purpose Playbook. It gives you the fifty words that signal inclusion, the nine feelings of inclusion for product marketing, and the three metaphors for inclusion that you can apply to your images and ad copy.
This is a journey of learning, and as marketers we have great opportunity in considering, understanding, and supporting the broad spectrum of human experiences. We hope these inclusive keyword strategies help you unlock the enormous potential — within your teams, and for your clients and their customers.
Additional resources
If you would like to learn more about accessible and inclusive marketing, check out these additional Microsoft Advertising resources:
Download the Marketing with Purpose Playbook for detailed guidance on accessibility strategies and inclusion’s impact on advertising performance, plus free open-source technology to help you evaluate and fix your website for accessibility.
Use our key takeaways from the Modern Marketing is Accessible Marketing webcast to understand the business case for inclusive design and accessibility in your marketing, advertising, and overall customer experience.
Download our Modern Marketing is Accessible Marketing eBook for comprehensive tips and checklists on how to build accessibility into your marketing to reach, resonate with, and serve more people.
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Source: The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects in Advertising phase 3 study, Microsoft Advertising, 2020.
