Friday 29 July 2016

What Makes a Really Good Email?

Anybody can send an email these days, but how can you make it really stand out in the inbox? Turns out, there are a lot of ways and a lot of brands are already putting those tactics to work.

We teamed up with Really Good Emails to talk about the innovative things brands are doing with email and how to apply them to your own email strategy.

It takes time and testing to know what will resonate with your audience, but if you take a cue from these email experts, you’re as good as gold.

What separates a really good email from the rest?

It depends – the answer really comes down to what your readers are most receptive to. Plain text can be just as effective as elaborate designs and interactive content, but you won’t know until you test!

Take note of any trends in your click-thru and open rates and use that data to give your subscribers what they want most.

Don’t be afraid to get creative.

In order to make an impact on your audience, you have to boldly go where no email marketer has ever gone before. (Or least far enough to stand out from the crowd.)

Part of being on top means recognizing the need for a more personalized experience. The number one takeaway? Custom content always gives us the feels.

Some trends are worth paying attention to.

Sometimes you keep an eye on things outside of your own industry to see what’s trending. 

When other email marketers share their success stories, take their advice and run. Plus, it never hurts to add new creative concepts to your marketing toolbox. You never know how it can boost your existing content!

Don’t get lost in the noise

The marketing world is loud. Companies are competing left and right to outdo the other so it’s important to stay relevant, innovative and bold.

Your content and design should be able to speak for themselves.

Mistakes happen. Learn from them!

Mistakes happen, but fortunately they’re avoidable. (Even email experts make mistakes.)

Some major things to keep in mind are a consistent experience and making sure all of your emails are responsive on both web and mobile.

Be willing to go the extra mile.

First impressions matter. Make sure your design looks great, is functional and all of your links work. This is your time to really sell your customers on what you have to offer.

Here’s where the experts get inspiration.

Sign up for the email lists of your favorite brands, retailers and influencers. Bookmark the emails that catch your eye. Ask what is it about them that makes you stop and stare. 

It’s not a bad thing to need a little direction. (Consider it constructive research.)

Want to join the movement?

There you have it, folks! Some of the most ingenious tips from the pros.

Missed out on this week’s chat? Here’s your chance! You can find us same time/same place on Thursday, August 11 at 12pm ET. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @AWeber.

The post What Makes a Really Good Email? appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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Let’s Get Technical: How to Create Video Content

By now you should already know that if you’re not creating video, you’re missing out on some serious audience engagement and revenue growth (if you don’t feel like clicking the link, here’s a taste of the stats you’re missing out on: 64 percent of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video… including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80 percent… 75 percent of online video viewers have interacted with an online video ad this month… is your jaw dropping yet?).

But I understand why you might not be ready to dive into the video marketing trend. Of course you want to create video. But maybe you just don’t think you have the skills or tools to get started.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you do. And before you start with the excuse that “you’ve tried creating videos with little-to-no success,” I’m going to show you how to do it better next time.

All you need is a little technical guidance. 🙂

 

Video 101: Screen and live recordings

There are two types of videos you can create: a screen recording and a live recording.

Screen recordings

If you want to record something on your website or provide a tutorial on how to do something on a computer, you can make a screen recording. Here’s an example of what I mean:

These are perfect if you don’t want to just have someone explain how to do something; instead, you can show them exactly how to do it. Screen recordings can live on their own, or they can supplement a live recording with actual humans in it (which I talk more about later in this post).

All you have to do is open up the recording software of your choice (like QuickTime or CamStudio) and hit record!

A quick piece of advice before you start: screen recordings will capture sound, so be sure to record in a quiet room. While this means avoiding locations where people are talking, consider subtle noises like the sound of an air conditioner or other humming appliances.

For more information on how to create a screen recording, what equipment to use and advice on editing, watch this video featuring our very own video education specialist, Jay Moore:

Live recordings

Want to include a friendly face in your video? Live recordings (also referred to as “talking head” videos) are the way to go.

Before you start, be sure to consider these essentials: lighting, audio and on-screen talent.

Jay wrote about this in a previous post, but here are some highlights:

Pay attention to lighting to ensure you capture clear and clean visuals. Now that doesn’t mean you have to purchase expensive lighting equipment to achieve this look. Instead, aim for locations or rooms that are well-lit.

A standard camera that films video is all you need; even your iPhone will work just fine (just don’t use your laptop).

For audio, Jay recommends an iPhone compatible clip-on mic. Also, try to find a location that has as little environmental noises as possible (e.g., HVAC systems, people talking, birds chirping).

To prep your on-screen talent, I recommend preparing a script or outline of what the person in your video will be talking about. This will help you or your colleague stay on track.

For more detailed information on live filming, being on camera and reading scripts, check out this video:

Pro Tip: Need help on what to say in your videos? Learn more.

 

Adding the final touches: Video hosting & calls to action

Hosting your videos online makes it possible for your audience to easily watch them. It also gives you a link to share with others.

Our team’s favorites include Vimeo and YouTube. While both are great locations for hosting, they differ in price (Vimeo has a freemium plan, but requires a paid account for added features, while YouTube is free for all). Wistia is another great hosting platform, but we recommend it as you scale up your video content strategy.

Each platform also includes basic analytics, which allows you to see how viewers are engaging with your video content. From number of plays to how long someone watches a video, these statistics can help you identify what is and isn’t working in your video strategy.

Although the differences between each platform may be minor, be sure to do your research to find one that meets your needs (and budget).

Hosting with these providers also makes it possible to add calls to action (CTAs) within your videos. This allows you to drive viewers back to your website or encourage them to subscribe to your email list.

For more information on choosing a video hosting platform and adding CTAs, watch the video below:

 

Spread the word: Sharing your video

Once your video is complete, you can share it through email, social media, your website… any location where you interact with your online audience.

Although I may be biased in suggesting email as a must-have channel for sharing your awesome videos, the proof is in the data: according to Hubspot, adding video to your emails can lead to a 200-300 percent increase in click-through rates!

So, it’s a no-brainer. For more information on adding video to your next email, check out this video below:

 

What will you create with video?

Now that you’re equipped to create engaging video content, it’s time to get started.

Have other questions about creating videos? Ask away in the comments below and we’ll get back to you shortly.

The post Let’s Get Technical: How to Create Video Content appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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Customer Data: The Solution to Lead Generation

More leads, please.

In most companies, it’s an ongoing process to generate interested buyers to your product and services.

We want qualified leads that move effortlessly throughout the sales cycle.

But the problem lies in our preparation. Some of us just don’t have enough information about our prospects.

The CSO Insight study reported that “42 percent of sales reps feel that they don’t have the right information before making a call.”

Use accurate customer data to prepare your team. Knowing key insights can make or break the deal.

Power up your data profile. Leverage it to produce more qualified leads.

Gathering Reliable Data

Based on a Ascend2 study, “35 percent of those surveyed said the biggest barrier to lead generation success is the lack of quality data.” Your data should tell a vivid story of your customer.

To gather reliable data, track anonymous users who visit your website. Watch leads interact with your content via session replays.

Ask for feedback from current customers. Monitor the trends of loyal consumers.

B2B marketers must also “embrace more third party and real-time data sets to really understand buyer’s across the entire customer journey.” For example, that may include using social logins to access a prospect’s profile information.

Data is widely available. Your team must decide which acquisition channels work for your company.

What’s the best way to collect email addresses? Or how can you quickly accumulate customer preferences?

customer-demographics-chart

“Understanding who your customers are and, in turn, what they like, will undoubtedly enable you to increase conversions and sales. Make it easy for your customers to share their data with you, and use that data to keep them engaged with your business,” says Josh George, a senior applications engineer at Lyons Consulting Group.

Know who you’re serving. Collect valid data for better results.

Enhancing Buyer Personas

Get inside your prospects’ minds. Map out your ideal customer to understand their reasons for buying.

But, what’s the point?

Buyer personas are roadmaps to navigating through your prospects’ interests, dislikes, and habits. If you’re aware of their behaviors, your team can create targeted solutions.

“By developing research-based buyer personas, you can create effective, highly targeted marketing campaigns. Each piece of communication ties back to your buyer personas so that every message addresses relevant pain points and positions your software as a viable solution,” states Brie Rangel, Account Strategist at IMPACT.

Knowing the basic demographics of your buyer is a given. Your team’s goal is to dive deeper. Learn your customers’ goals, challenges, and personal story.

Below is an example of a buyer persona for a specific startup founder. The story section offers a complete picture of the prospect, everything from the stage of his product to what he does for fun.

buyer-persona-startup-founder

The role of customer data is to provide accurate information for your buyer personas. You don’t want to waste time selling enterprise-level B2B SaaS software to a B2C startup.

Moreover, inaccurate buyer preferences and habits will leave both the prospect and sales rep frustrated. So, double-check your personas.
Because in the end, your mission is to match your product with a qualified lead. That’s how you bring in sales.

“Use personas to spend more time with qualified leads, because they’re the ones who are most likely to turn into those long-term customers you’re looking for,” says Nicole Dieker, freelance writer and copywriter.

Enhance your buyer personas. Use data to add a face to the customer.

Segmenting Your Audience

After learning your customers distinct behaviors, it’s time to serve those individual needs.
It makes no sense to group everyone together.

If Sally specifically likes apples, why send her emails about oranges and grapefruits? Instead, educate her about the difference between gala apples and pink lady apples.

That’s a mental hurdle for most SaaS teams. We assume if our customers like X; they will definitely love Y. It isn’t always that simple.

Segmentation comes in many shapes and sizes. From geographical to behavioral differences, your customers vary. And it’s up to your team discover how to connect with them.

market-segmentation-approaches

You might consider a city in a particular state or the buyer’s readiness to purchase. Work with your team to develop a goal.

Define your reason for segmentation. Experienced marketing and product leader Doug Goldstein offers the following common segmentation objectives:

  • Create segmented ads & marketing communications
  • Develop differentiated customer servicing & retention strategies
  • Target prospects with the greatest profit potential
  • Optimize your sales-channel mix

Segmentation is impossible without customer data. Add insights derived from analytics to guide how you group prospects.

And don’t be afraid to experiment. Testing is how you’ll discover the right messaging for your sales reps. Plus, it can help you market product information on your site.

“When practicing website optimization, leveraging customer segmentation provides a framework for running intentional, well-hypothesized experiments on your website that drive value,” writes Junan Pang, a solutions architect at Optimizely.

Segment your audience to deliver more personalized and timely experiences. With a segmented list, you’ll be able to target the right services to interested buyers.

Building The Relationship

You can collect the data, create the buyer personas, and segment your audience. But all that data can’t substitute customer relationships.

And that’s where most businesses miss their opportunity.

“[C]ompanies often manage relationships haphazardly and unprofitably, committing blunders that undermine their connections with customers,” states Jill Avery, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School.

Customer data is intended to facilitate the relationship between the sales rep and the buyer. However, research shows that companies without sophisticated data management tools “derive erroneous results that annoy customers, resulting in a 25 percent reduction in potential revenue gains.”

bad-impressions

Don’t attempt to foster a customer relationship with poor-quality data. If you do, prospects will seek out your competitors.

TechTarget executive editor Lauren Horwitz and SearchCRM site editor Tim Ehrens agree:

“Customer data management often falls to the bottom of the priority list. Organizations get bogged down with more pressing issues, such as cutting costs or keeping daily operations running. But relying on poor-quality customer data almost always frustrates customers — and many of them take their business elsewhere.”

Relationships are built on human-to-human contact. That means being genuinely interested in your buyer’s concerns.

How can you make their lives better? Where can you offer convenience?

And sometimes your product won’t be the solution. Yes, your SaaS service may not be the best option for that particular person.

Sales teams must recognize that it’s okay to remove unqualified prospects from the pipeline. This action should be commended, not frowned upon.

Use customer data as a tool to score leads. Then, gain insight on how to target prospects that matter to your company.

Data shouldn’t supplant the customer relationship. Make the human connection.

Go for the Data

Your team needs qualified leads. Focus on customer data as a solution.

Gather data from reliable sources. Use buyer personas to target your audience. Segment their behavior to create a personalized approach. And focus on building relationships throughout the sales cycle.

Want more leads? Go for the data.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.



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Best SEO Tools for 2016

  When it comes to doing search engine optimization (SEO) for your website, there are many factors to consider. In order for SEO to be successful, you definitely need a solid strategy and game plan. However, you also need a […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Best SEO Tools for 2016

--
Written by Haris Bacic, AdFicient

The post Best SEO Tools for 2016 appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.



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How an Air Conditioning Supply Company Keeps Cool Under Pressure with WordStream

To many small businesses, time is the enemy. It often seems as though there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, and this can appear especially true for companies just starting out with paid search. Between the pressures of actually running a business and taking care of customers to the constant time constraints of managing a PPC account and learning about new products and features, it can prove too much for some advertisers.

 Customer Spotlight Ryan Air Conditioning homepage

This was the case for Peter Sheridan, Director of Retailing for Ryan Air Conditioning Spares, a small HVAC company based in Manchester, England. Peter knew that PPC could help him grow his business, but finding the time to dedicate to managing his paid search campaigns personally was proving problematic.

That’s when Peter turned to WordStream.

So Many Goals, So Little Time

As Director of Retailing, Peter knows every aspect of the business, including those elements that larger companies might hire a dedicated person to handle.

“I wear a lot of hats in the company, including handling all website-related tasks, as well as order placing and marketing,” Peter explains.

Although this hands-on approach to the business affords Peter unique insights into the challenges faced by the company, it places great demands on his already limited time. Peter knew that PPC could help his business grow, but without the manpower or time to oversee or directly manage his paid search campaigns, Peter knew he needed help.

Peter discovered WordStream’s Managed Services team while searching for a solution. He had worked with other external companies to handle his PPC in the past, but Peter says his experiences did not meet his expectations.

“I was dissatisfied with the previous company that was managing my paid search account for me,” Peter says. “I ended up managing my AdWords by myself, but it became too overwhelming, so I sought the help of WordStream.”

It wasn’t long before Peter knew he had made the right choice.

Immediate Results

After discussing his needs and objectives with WordStream’s Managed Services team, Peter began working with his dedicated account manager to identify opportunities that would have the most immediate impact.

“When Pete started with WordStream, we discussed how his Shopping campaigns were doing well, but that they could be doing a lot better if we made some bid changes based on return on ad spend,” explains Peter’s Managed Services representative. “By shifting the focus of our bidding strategy to the individual product level we were able to increase bids on products that were losing impression share due to rank. Every product that was losing impression share due to rank and also showed a good CPA and/or ROAS we adjusted the bids to try and tap into the product potential.”

 Customer Spotlight Ryan Air Conditioning metrics

Soon after working with his account rep, Peter began to see immediate returns. He also realized that, despite his familiarity with AdWords and a strong grasp on his wider campaign objectives, finding the time – and context – to analyze his core metrics was resulting in wasted spend, a problem that Peter’s account manager was able to identify and correct.

Customer Spotlight Ryan Air Conditioning metrics 

“Pete had a few products that were spending more money than they were bringing in,” Peter’s Managed Services rep says. “I explained to him that ROAS and other important metrics can be hard to put together inside of AdWords if you are not in it daily, especially when you are trying to pull this data from a Shopping campaign. But simply magnifying our strengths and eliminating our weaknesses we have been seeing an overall spike in average order value and a decrease in CPA.”

Customer Spotlight Ryan Air Conditioning metrics 

An example of the kind of improvement – in this case, click conversion rate – that
Peter experienced since allowing WordStream’s Managed Services to handle his account

A Strategic Partnership

Working with WordStream’s Managed Services team has given Peter perhaps the greatest gift anyone can receive – time.

“They’ve taken the PPC workload off my plate so I don’t have to struggle trying to manage my account by myself,” Peter says. “They’ve also given me peace of mind.”

In addition to the tangible results Peter has observed in his account since allowing WordStream’s Managed Services team to handle his account on his behalf, Peter found the experience of working with his account manager equally productive.

“[My Managed Services representative] is as concise as I would expect an AdWords manager could be,” Peter says. “I can be difficult to nail down to a specific time of day for us to liaise with each other, but when we do, the attention to detail and explanations are excellent.”

Thanks to the time savings offered by entrusting his AdWords campaigns to his Managed Services rep, Peter has been able to devote more time to identifying new opportunities, as well as taking care of his customers – a point of pride for Peter and his team.

In addition, reducing wasted spend and focusing on elements of his campaigns that are likely to yield the highest returns has enabled Peter to spend his ad budget more efficiently, as well as eliminate inefficiencies that were costing him money. This means Peter’s campaigns are more tightly organized, optimally structured, and significantly more cost-effective.

Customer Spotlight Ryan Air Conditioning metrics 

“Costs have reduced and the campaigns are much more specific and efficient,” Peter says. “There’s no comparison to WordStream! They are, by far, more effective than any other PPC platforms or agencies.”

As Peter can attest, WordStream’s Managed Services team has helped him save money, reduce wasted spend, and allocate his resources more effectively. Most importantly, though, working with Managed Services allowed Peter to focus on what really matters – growing his business and taking care of his customers.

To find out more about how Managed Services can do the same for your business, contact us today for a no-obligation consultation about your PPC management needs.



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Should SEOs and Marketers Continue to Track and Report on Keyword Rankings? - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

Is the practice of tracking keywords truly dying? There's been a great deal of industry discussion around the topic of late, and some key points have been made. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand speaks to the biggest challenges keyword rank tracking faces today and how to solve for them.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about keyword ranking reports. There have been a few articles that have come out recently on a number of big industry sites around whether SEOs should still be tracking their keyword rankings.

I want to be clear: Moz has a little bit of a vested interest here. And so the question is: Can you actually trust me, who obviously I'm a big shareholder in Moz and I'm the founder, and so I care a lot about how Moz does as a software business. We help people track rankings. Does that mean I'm biased? I'm going to do my best not to be. So rather than saying you absolutely should track rankings, I'm instead going to address what most of these articles have brought up as the problems of rank tracking and then talk about some solutions by which you can do this.

My suspicion is you should probably be rank tracking. I think that if you turn it off and you don't do it, it's very hard to get a lot of the value that we need as SEOs, a lot of the intelligence. It's true there are challenges with keyword ranking reports, but not true enough to avoid doing it entirely. We still get too much value from them.

The case against — and solutions for — keyword ranking data

A. People, places, and things

So let's start with the case against keyword ranking data. First off, "keyword ranking reports are inaccurate." There's personalization, localization, and device type, and that biases and has removed what is the "one true ranking." We've done a bunch of analyses of these, and this is absolutely the case.

Personalization, turns out, doesn't change ranking that much on average. For an individual it can change rankings dramatically. If they visited your website before, they could be historically biased to you. Or if they visited your competitor's, they could be biased. Their previous search history might have biased them in a single session, those kinds of things. But with the removal of Google+ from search results, personalization is actually not as dramatically changing as it used to be. Localization, though, still huge, absolutely, and device differences, still huge.

Solution

But we can address this, and the way to do that is by tracking these things separately. So here you can see I've got a ranking report that shows me my mobile rankings versus my desktop rankings. I think this is absolutely essential. Especially if you're getting a lot of traffic from both mobile and desktop search, you need to be tracking those separately. Super smart. Of course we should do that.

We can do the same thing on the local side as well. So I can say, "Here, look. This is how I rank in Seattle. Here's how I rank in Minneapolis. Here's how I rank in the U.S. with no geographic personalization," if Google were to do that. Those types of rankings can also be pretty good.

It is true that local ranked tracking has gotten a little more challenging, but we've seen that folks like, well Moz itself, but folks like STAT (GetStat), SERPs.com, Search Metrics, they have all adjusted their rank tracking methodologies in order to have accurate local rank tracking. It's pretty good. Same with device type, pretty darn good.

B. Keyword value estimation

Another big problem that is expressed by a number of folks here is we no longer know how much traffic an individual keyword sends. Because we don't know how much an individual keyword sends, we can't really say, "What's the value of ranking for that keyword?" Therefore, why bother to even track keyword rankings?

I think this is a little bit of spurious logic. The leap there doesn't quite make sense to me. But I will say this. If you don't know which keywords are sending you traffic specifically, you still know which pages are receiving search traffic. That is reported. You can get it in your Google Analytics, your Omniture report, whatever you're using, and then you can tie that back to keyword ranking reports showing which pages are receiving traffic from which keywords.

Most all of the ranked tracking platforms, Moz included, has a report that shows you something like this. It says, "Here are the keywords that we believe are likely to have sent these percentages of traffic to this page based on the keywords that you're tracking, based on the pages that are ranking for them, and how much search traffic those pages receive."

Solution

So let's track that. We can look at pages receiving visits from search, and we can look at which keywords they rank for. Then we can tie those together, which gives us the ability to then make not only a report like this, but a report that estimates the value contributed by content and by pages rather than by individual keywords.

In a lot of ways, this is almost superior to our previous methodology of tracking by keyword. Keyword can still be estimated through AdWords, through paid search, but this can be estimated on a content basis, which means you get credit for how much value the page has created, based on all the search traffic that's flowed to it, and where that's at in your attribution lifecycle of people visiting those pages.

C. Tracking rankings and keyword relevancy

Pages often rank for keywords that they aren't specifically targeting, because Google has gotten way better with user intent. So it can be hard or even impossible to track those rankings, because we don't know what to look for.

Well, okay, I hear you. That is a challenge. This means basically what we have to do is broaden the set of keywords that we look at and deal with the fact that we're going to have to do sampling. We can't track every possible keyword, unless you have a crazy budget, in which case go talk to Rob Bucci up at STAT, and he will set you up with a huge campaign to track all your millions of keywords.

Solution

If you have a smaller budget, what you have to do is sample, and you sample by sets of keywords. Like these are my high conversion keywords — I'm going to assume I have a flower delivery business — so flower delivery and floral gifts and flower arrangements for offices. My long tail keywords, like artisan rose varieties and floral alternatives for special occasions, and my branded keywords, like Rand's Flowers or Flowers by Rand.

I can create a bunch of different buckets like this, sample the keywords that are in them, and then I can track each of these separately. Now I can see, ah, these are sets of keywords where I've generally been moving up and receiving more traffic. These are sets of keywords where I've generally been moving down. These are sets of keywords that perform better or worse on mobile or desktop, or better or worse in these geographic areas. Right now I can really start to get true intelligence from there.

Don't let your keyword targeting — your keyword targeting meaning what keywords you're targeting on which pages — determine what you rank track. Don't let it do that exclusively. Sure, go ahead and take that list and put that in there, but then also do some more expansive keyword research to find those broad sets of search terms and phrases that you should be monitoring. Now we can really solve this issue.

D. Keyword rank tracking with a purpose

This one I think is a pretty insidious problem. But for many organizations ranking reports are more of a historical artifact. We're not tracking them for a particular reason. We're tracking them because that's what we've always tracked and/or because we think we're supposed to track them. Those are terrible reasons to track things. You should be looking for reasons of real value and actionability. Let's give some examples here.

Solution

What I want you to do is identify the goals of rank tracking first, like: What do I want to solve? What would I do differently based on whether this data came back to me in one way or another?

If you don't have a great answer to that question, definitely don't bother tracking that thing. That should be the rule of all analytics.

So if your goal is to say, "Hey, I want to be able to attribute a search traffic gain or a search traffic loss to what I've done on my site or what Google has changed out there," that is crucially important. I think that's core to SEO. If you don't have that, I'm not sure how we can possibly do our jobs.

We attribute search traffic gains and losses by tracking broadly, a broad enough set of keywords, hopefully in enough buckets, to be able to get a good sample set; by tracking the pages that receive that traffic so we can see if a page goes way down in its search visits. We can look at, "Oh, what was that page ranking for? Oh, it was ranking for these keywords. Oh, they dropped." Or, "No, they didn't drop. But you know what? We looked in Google Trends, and the traffic demand for those keywords dropped," and so we know that this is a seasonality thing, or a fluctuation in demand, or those types of things.

And we can track by geography and device, so that we can say, "Hey, we lost a bunch of traffic. Oh, we're no longer mobile-friendly." That is a problem. Or, "Hey, we're tracking and, hey, we're no longer ranking in this geography. Oh, that's because these two competitors came in and they took over that market from us."

We could look at would be something like identify pages that are in need of work, but they only require a small amount of work to have a big change in traffic. So we could do things like track pages that rank on page two for given keywords. If we have a bunch of those, we can say, "Hey, maybe just a few on-page tweaks, a few links to these pages, and we could move up substantially." We had a Whiteboard Friday where we talked about how you could do that with internal linking previously and have seen some remarkable results there.

We can track keywords that rank in position four to seven on average. Those are your big wins, because if you can move up from position four, five, six, seven to one, two, three, you can double or triple your search traffic that you're receiving from keywords like that.

You should also track long tail, untargeted keywords. If you've got a long tail bucket, like we've got up here, I can then say, "Aha, I don't have a page that's even targeting any of these keywords. I should make one. I could probably rank very easily because I have an authoritative website and some good content," and that's really all you might need.

We might look at some up-and-coming competitors. I want to track who's in my space, who might be creeping up there. So I should track the most common domains that rank on page one or two across my keyword sets.

I can track specific competitors. I might say, "Hey, Joel's Flower Delivery Service looks like it's doing really well. I'm going to set them up as a competitor, and I'm going to track their rankings specifically, or I'm going to see..." You could use something like SEMrush and see specifically: What are all the keywords they rank for that you don't rank for?

This type of data, in my view, is still tremendously important to SEO, no matter what platform you're using. But if you're having these problems or if these problems are being expressed to you, now you have some solutions.

I look forward to your comments. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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Thursday 28 July 2016

9 Ways For Marketers To Do Amazing Technical Things Without Knowing Code

As a marketer, you are always looking to do more with less. You may get the sense that technology can help you do better and you’re right. Follow along as I explain exactly how you can harness this force without writing a single line of code.

1. Do A/B Split Tests and Personalization

Visual Website Optimizer and Optimizely that allow you to drag and drop your changes across the website by simply copy and pasting a snippet of code across your website (or getting somebody technical to help you do that). Both tools allow you to customize your website for different types of visitors, and they’ll allow you to run controlled experiments to see which variations of your web pages perform best.
optimizely-set-up-experiment
Optimizely allows you to drag and drop different variations of your web page without any code.

2. Build Landing Pages

Maybe you don’t want to optimize your website: you want to build some new pages. Maybe it’s a new campaign announcing a new product launch, or maybe you’re running an event you want to collect an email waiting list for. Whatever it is, you’ll need a web page that describes what you’re doing, a landing page. Thankfully, you don’t have to build anything in HTML or CSS. You can use drag and drop editors in Unbounce or, if you’re really looking to maximize conversion, marketing-based solutions like Leadpages.

3. Build Entire Websites

Don’t want to stop at just building a web page? Maybe you want to look to build an entire website for a new product. Thankfully, you don’t have to call a web agency to do everything for you at a high price! You can use solutions like Squarespace or Wix to build everything in your website without a line of code. And if you want to get even more customized, grab a theme from Themeforest and learn the basics of WordPress! You’ll soon be building beautiful websites with layers of personalized complexity–without a line of code.

4. Scrape Links, Content and More with Python (but use with caution!)

By downloading Anaconda and using the iPython Notebook contained within, you can use Python scripts and copy + paste the outputs.

The easiest and most powerful use of this is to take links and data from other websites. Be careful though, a lot of websites will have terms of use that prohibit the use of their content. Nevertheless, it might be a good tool to use to get raw data, or to get useful links that point to certain resources. You might, for example, want to get all of the links of your competitors profiled in a certain blog post, or you might want to get all of the links of different services in a directory.

anaconda-python-code

This script above will take all the links from a sample page (in this case the Wikipedia page for the Python language)

Here’s the raw script you can copy + paste in Python 3.5 mode:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
r = requests.get(“http://ift.tt/2ajWVI2;)
soup = BeautifulSoup(r.text,”lxml”)
for link in soup.find_all(‘a’):
print(link.get(‘href’))

5. Send Newsletters and Automate Emails

Email is one of the most effective marketing channels out there, and the best for return on investment. If you can get people coming back by filling their inbox with valuable information, you’ve reached marketing nirvana.

mailchimp-sell-more-stuff

Instead of doing all the messy work coding up HTML-rich emails, you can use the drag & drop and email list capabilities of Mailchimp. If you want to automate emails a layer beyond, and take people through an in-depth series of automated emails, you could use a solution like Drip.

6. Get Data

Ever needed to take a quick look at certain data, like the demographic traits of a certain country? Need to source the latest financial data? Look no further than Quandl. You’ll be able to find all sorts of data, from the average age of first marriage for women to life expectancy at birth. Best of all, you can export that data directly in Excel, stepping away from all of the code if you needed.

7. Filter Through Data

Most people think of Google Apps as a great way to collaborate with others, but they don’t know about the full power of this suite of tools. Google built a way for you to add layers of functionality on top of their powerful software, allowing you to do so much more with different types of data. Best of all, you can copy + paste pre-made scripts and benefit from the effects without being technical!

Check to see if your website is online or save all tweets that match a certain hashtag to a spreadsheet. You can do that or a variety of other tasks through scripts that will save you time and money.

most-popular-useful-scripts

Use these scripts for good, not evil.

8. Building Popups and Other Interactive Elements on a Website

Sometimes, you want to add an additional layer of interactivity to a website, whether it’s a popup to highlight a brand new feature, or a walkthrough that will help guide users. Thankfully, with tools like Engage and HelloBar you can add different modals or elements to your website that can help you collect emails, direct traffic elsewhere, or dictate what users should look at in a web page.

kissmetrics-engage-lightbox-on-kissmetrics-blog

9. Dig Deeper into Websites, and See How Your Website Looks in mobile

Most people don’t know about the handy Google Chrome Inspector or its equivalent Firebug on Firefox. While most of the time it is used by developers to spot errors or mock up certain changes in the code, you can use the Inspector to check into the exact URLs of images, and how your website displays on different screen sizes, from iPhones to tablets.

responsive-design-chrome-inspector

The responsive design tool in these inspector tools will allow you to simulate what your website looks like from device-to-device, a crucial need to see if your website is mobile-friendly. This is a factor that’s critically important for websites with mobile traffic, and one that Google uses to rank webpages.

Conclusion

By harnessing technology, you’ll be at the cutting-edge of digital marketing. You won’t even need to learn how to code to get an awesome array of new powers. Save yourself time and money, and make sure you use your new capabilities for good!

About the Author: Roger is a digital marketer who self-taught himself to code but recognizes when code is useful and when it isn’t. He manages Growth for edtech company Springboard, and will often write about new technologies at his own personal blog code(love). You can find him on Twitter.



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