How to Achieve 100/100 with the Google Page Speed Test Tool

Posted by FelixProOptimization

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

[Estimated read time: 7 minutes]

Website loading speed is a priority for the overall user experience, and it’s also one of the hundreds of SEO ranking factors. Truth is, nowadays people don’t have the patience to wait more than five seconds for a page to load. If your website isn't loading fast enough, you'll lose potential customers.

With more than 50% of online traffic coming from mobile devices, everyone expects a site to load almost instantaneously. With that in mind, in this article, I will show you how we managed to score 100/100 with Google PageSpeed Insights Tool for Monitor Backlinks for both desktop and mobile.

The motivation

Our site was loading quite fast already, but we knew there’s always a way to make it even better.

One day, while playing with the PageSpeed Tool, I noticed Google’s website had a terrible score for mobile devices, 59/100. The desktop version was doing better at 95/100.

Maybe they should use their tool to improve their website, right?

That’s what pushed us to make our site load faster and prove you can get 100/100. It’s not an obsession; it’s aiming to be perfect.

We started at 87/100.

Here’s the result we got after implementing some of the techniques I’m about to share with you.

How to make pages load faster

Before I start showing the exact steps we followed, let me tell you that the PageSpeed tool is only a guideline for best web performances practices. It provides recommendations for optimizing your website for page load speed, and achieving favorable results depends on how your server environment is set up.

While some of these steps require technical expertise, others do not. Note that they can be followed using almost any content management system (CMS).

Step #1: Optimize images

The PageSpeed Insights Tool suggested that we optimize our images to load faster by reducing their file size. To solve this problem, we did two significant things:

• Compressed all images using tools like Compressor.io and TinyPNG. These tools are free and can reduce image file size by more than 80% in some cases, without decreasing the quality of the image.
• Reduced the size of the images to minimal dimensions without decreasing image quality. For example, if we wanted to have a picture at 150x150px on our website, that’s exactly the size the picture should have been on our server. You should never have larger images than what you want them to render at, nor reduce their size using CSS or HTML tags.

We downloaded each of our images, then manually compressed and resized them. After optimizing these images, it’s best to make a habit of optimizing all the new images you upload to your server. Each new image should be compressed and resized.

Google also offers the option to download your already optimized images, and you can just upload them to your server. You can do the same with JavaScript and CSS.

Step #2: Minify CSS & JavaScript

Google was now telling us that we had to minify our JavaScript and CSS files.

The minifying process reduces the sizes of your files by eliminating unnecessary white spaces, characters, and comments from your CSS and JavaScript files. Programmers will often leave many spaces and comments while coding. These can even double the size of your CSS and JavaScript files.

To fix this problem, we installed Gulpjs on our server. The tool automatically creates a new CSS file and removes all spaces. It also creates a new CSS file automatically for all the new changes you are making. In our case, it helped us decrease the size of our main CSS file from approximately 300kb to 150kb. The difference was all in unnecessary characters. For more instructions on how to remove white spaces, check Google’s guide.

If you are using Wordpress, I recommend you to install the plugin Autoptimize.

You can also download the optimized files from the PageSpeed Tool. Here’s an example:

Below is the result we got after minifying CSS and JavaScript.

Step #3: Leverage browser caching

For many website operators leveraging browser caching is the most challenging part.

To fix this problem, we moved every statical file from our website to a CDN (content delivery network).

A CDN is a network of servers located at various sites around the world. They are capable of caching the static version of websites, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files. The CDN stores copies of your website’s content on its servers, and when someone lands on your site, the static content is loaded from the server closest to them.

For example, if your website’s main server is from Texas, without a CDN, a visitor from Amsterdam would have to wait for the server to load the site all the way from the U.S.A. With a CDN, your site is loaded from a location that’s closer to the user. In this case, this is a place closer to Amsterdam. Therefore, the website will load faster.

Here’s a visual representation from GTmetrix of how a CDN works.

We moved all images, JavaScript, and CSS files onto the CDN and kept only the HTML file on our main server. Hosting your images on a CDN will make a big difference in how fast your pages load for website visitors.

After we did this, the PageSpeed tool still annoyingly suggested that we leverage our browser caching for some third-party resources. Here’s a screenshot:

We fixed the social media scripts problem by replacing the counters provided by them with some static images hosted on the CDN. Instead of having third-party scripts that were trying to access data from Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus to get the followers count, we hosted these ourselves and fixed the problem.

Even more frustrating than the social media scripts problem was that the Google’s Analytics code was slowing our website.

To solve the Google Analytics script problem, we did something rather difficult. As we didn’t want to remove Analytics from our website, we had to find a different solution.

The Analytics code is rarely modified by Google more than once or twice per year. Therefore, Razvan created a script that runs every eight hours to verify when the Analytics code was last modified. The script downloads the Analytics code again only if new changes are found. This way, we can host the Analytics JavaScript code on our server without having to load it from Google’s servers on every visit.

If no changes have occurred, then the Analytics code will load from the cached version on our CDN.

When Google modifies its JavaScript code again, our server will automatically download the new version and upload it to the CDN. We used this script for all external third-party scripts.

Here’s a screenshot from Pingdom Tools showing how everything loads from the CDN, including the Analytics code. The only file loading from our server is the homepage file, which is only 15.5 KB. Eliminating all third-party scripts hugely improved the overall loading speed.

Step #4: Eliminate render-blocking resources above the fold

Eliminating render-blocking is one of the most complicated parts of improving page load speed because it requires more technical knowledge. The main problem we had to deal with was moving all JavaScript code from the header and the body to the footer at the bottom of pages across the website.

If you are using Wordpress, the Autopmize plugin I suggested above should help you with this task. Check its settings, then uncheck “Force JavaScript in <head> and check “Inline all CSS.”

Step #5: Enable compression

Implementing the enable compression suggestion can be done simply in your server's settings. If you are not very technical, you can ask your technical support team to enable GZIP compression for your server.

Step #6: Optimize the mobile experience

The mobile experience is all about showing a responsive mobile version for all different types of resolutions, using correct fonts, and having a good navigation system.

You can test how your website looks in different mobile versions using Google Chrome. Click on the hamburger menu on the top right side, and then on “More Tools - Developer Tools.” On the left side, you can select to see what your website looks like in different mobile resolutions.

In our case, there weren’t many changes to be made.

Conclusion

These are the most important steps we’ve followed to make Monitor Backlinks score 100/100 with Google’s Speed Tool. We didn’t optimize only the homepage. We also optimized an internal page, the free backlinks checker.

The three most important actions you can take to improve your website are:

1. Use a CDN (content delivery network).
2. Fix the render-blocking issues. (Avoid having JavaScript in the body of the coding. Your JavaScript code should be placed at the bottom of the files.)
3. Optimize the size of images and compress them.

Has your team undertaken such a project for your website? If so, what were your results?

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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How Emotional Targeting Converts More Leads

A study found “that websites with a stronger emotional impact produced a greater intent to buy.”

Appealing to your audience’s emotions creates a connection. Whether you’re designing product descriptions or landing pages, your team must aim to evoke emotion into your messaging.

That’s why storytelling works so well. It’s a powerful way to engage your customers.

Research by Pringle & Field found that “emotional campaigns outperform on almost every metric,” including revenue, profit, and share gain.

Emotional targeting produces authentic content that speaks the consumer’s language. It’s those irresistible stories that touch people’s hearts and propels them to purchase your products.

Ready for a challenge? Learn how to convert more leads with high-impact emotional messages.

1. Psychological Triggers

Emotions determine our everyday decision-making. We buy when we’re sad. We buy when we’re happy.

However, most brands miss the opportunity to develop an emotional link with shoppers. They focus on product features, rather than understanding the feelings behind the purchase.

In 2014, Facebook “revealed that it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million randomly selected users to change the number of positive and negative posts they saw.”

This controversial psychological study found that people mimic the emotions expressed in online content. So, if people read a positive post, they are more likely to respond positively.

With that in mind, prepare your SaaS to develop digital marketing campaigns ingrained with psychological triggers. For instance, happiness induces people to share.

Serial entrepreneur Neil Patel says, “When your content drives people to a state of happiness or joy, they will automatically respond to your offers, feel obliged to share your content, and will stop at nothing to tell others about you.”

Here’s an example from Moz. Their Whiteboard Friday videos express excitement as experts teach SEO and online marketing skills, and they receive thousands of YouTube views.

Also, A/B test your campaigns based on behavioral and emotional marketing, not tactical elements.

Talia Wolf, the Founder and CEO of Conversioner, states, “Great marketing campaigns look at the entire product as an ecosystem. Rather than just changing the headline, or the colors of individual elements, they approach the product as a whole.”

There is real value in tapping into people’s emotions. Work with your team to develop digital content that connects to your shoppers’ sentiments. It will help maximize your lead conversions.

2. Memorable Experiences

Memories are precious moments in our lives.

We remember graduating from high school, breaking up with our first romantic partner, or even that embarrassing moment when we flopped a presentation. These experiences evoke us to think about how we felt at that particular time.

To harness the power of memorable experiences, associate your brand’s shopping experience with your customer’s life events. For example, transfer the same emotions customers felt when they got married or bought their first home.

For instance, chocolate is usually associated with joy. Hershey’s is keeping that alive with its #HelloHappy campaign.

Stacie Stauffer, senior brand manager at Hershey’s, told AdFreak the following:

“The second you say ‘Hershey,’ the most amazing thing happens. This giant flood of emotions and memories happens—when I made s’mores camping, or stirred up chocolate milk with my mom. That solidified that we should be speaking more as [one] brand, and from a much more emotional place.”

This type of emotional targeting makes consumers feel subconsciously connected to your brand. They are compelled to read more, click on your offer, and even purchase your services.

Chris Dalton recommends offering value without expectations.

He said, “Sometimes, the best sales pitch is no pitch at all. Consumers have become savvy to ignoring direct sales tactics or sleazy methods. If you offer information relating to your products with honesty and transparency, your customers will notice.”

Buffer does an effective job by giving its customers an inside peek at their operations. Check out their BufferOpen blog about their “journey to greater productivity, more transparency and a happier work culture.”

Map out a path to connect your customers’ memories with your brand. And sometimes that means not selling, just providing value.

3. Visual Storytelling

DemandGen Reports noted that video content for B2B marketing increased by 8% to 54%, and infographics jumped 9% to 52% in 2014. It’s becoming a necessity to use visuals as part of your marketing strategy.

A good visual stimulates people’s senses. It can create fear, elicit pity, or showcase friendship. Font styles make a difference, too. People consider clear, readable font as trustworthy.

But you can’t just plop any picture on your website or Instagram account. Freelance writer Dawn Papandrea agrees:

“To make visual storytelling work, however, you can’t simply slap a few stock photos onto your blog or social media posts. Just as headlines and calls to action must be crafted carefully, your visual content deserves more than a second thought.”

From screenshots to actual photographs, think about how to convey emotion to your audience. Do you need a wide-angle shot? Will a big red arrow show more impact for the viewer?

In the above picture, Nike displays the endless possibilities customers can experience with their apparel. It’s all about the adventure and the limitless options the brand offers its consumers.

In addition, be aware of diversity in your visuals. Cultural shifts happen within our society.

Not everyone will be on board with your company’s inclusiveness. But don’t let that stop your eCommerce store’s progression.

General Mills faced negative backlash for featuring an interracial couple in their 2014 Cheerios Super Bowl commercial ad. Despite some disapproval, there was also an overwhelming positive response applauding their diversity efforts.

Use visual storytelling to communicate emotion to your customers. From infographics to videos, give your shoppers a better understanding of your brand’s culture.

4. Social Proof

We’re humans. We want to belong.

Social proof in marketing activates those desires to be affiliated with a specific group of people or worthwhile cause.

Social media strategist Michael Sherman, says, “For many, a proven testimonial or example is the emotional trigger a person needs to say yes on buying your products and using your services.”

Old Navy appeals to shoppers’ sense of belonging. They focus on offering trendy clothes at affordable prices.

In the tweet below, the retailer implies that if you want to get ready for spring and be happy with your friends, purchase from their wide-selection of clothes.

Here comes spring…
Nab thousands of items from $5: https://t.co/nGQ9Pji1pN http://pic.twitter.com/XX7nIsfyXs

— Old Navy Official (@OldNavy) March 5, 2016

For social proof to work well, your brand must truly understand your consumers’ motivations and intentions.

For example, expert social proof may emotionally influence your consumers to take action. This happens when an industry influencer or well-known blogger publicly approves a product. Those endorsements look like a basic quote or a video testimonial.

Rent the Runway experienced a 200% higher conversion rate from mentions by a fashion magazine or blogger than paid search.

Learn what riles up your consumers. Identify experts that appeal to your audience and coincide with your brand’s values. Give people the social proof they need to buy your products.

Target Emotions

Strive to build an emotional connection with your buyers. As a result, customers will feel connected with your brand and purchase more.

Strategize on how to add psychological triggers. Ditch transactional relationships for memorable experiences. And invest in visual storytelling to express your brand better.

Target people’s emotions to convert more leads.

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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Introducing UpDog: Untangling the World of Social Media Barketing

Posted by DavidPierce

[Estimated read time: 3 minutes]

Technology makes it easier than ever to learn about people and the world around you. Despite significant progress, however, the tech community has left a gaping hole unaddressed: the tools available to our dogs to engage in social media marketing are completely unsatisfactory.

So, what's UpDog?

UpDog is our new company-wide initiative to bring the benefits of human social media marketing to the canine world. If you haven't noticed, we love dogs here at Moz.

A photo posted by Moz (@moz_hq) on Aug 26, 2015 at 1:01pm PDT

We're uniquely positioned to hear and empathize with the needs of our aspiring barketers. Now that we have finished our second-quarter planning, we're ecstatic to share that the future is looking up for dogs! We intend to strategically fold canine marketing tools into all of our platforms.

Feeling skeptical? Not sure this is right for your social media barketing strategy? Well, check out what Moz's founder has to say:

"Every day, when I walk to work, hop on a plane, or speak at a conference, I see them. Thousands of humans, buried in their phones, swiping for hours through potential dating partners or friends' baby photos or short videos surrounded by crayon scratches. It made me realize — it's not fair that only our species gets this privilege. We need to be thinking about Earth's other inhabitants too, especially our best friends, dogs."
– Rand Fishkin

#InternetOfDogs

Before we can make progress on improving the landscape of marketing tools for dogs, we have to improve the state of content creation itself. That's why we're hereby announcing the Moz Bark-Activated InstaShot Pro tool!

We developed this sophisticated technology in-house so we could precisely meet the needs of our furry friends in the office. Each device is uniquely associated with your dog, and connects to WiFi to upload photos to the cloud.

Simply bark, upload, and watch the Likes and Hearts roll in for days. Want a taste of the kind of 10x content YOUR dog can start creating without the help of opposable thumbs? Take a look!:

Choose from your favorite filters to give your canine perspective that modern human touch!

Gratuitous pictures of breakfast, lunch, and dinner have gone to the dogs!

Duckface? Welcome to the new obsession to sweep millennial pups — dogface!

Seriously, watch out — dogs love selfies.

This whole new perspective is sure to draw tons of new followers, likes, and shares!

Beautiful design for beautiful dogs

The device itself is sleek and beautiful. Our design team turned to the past to inspire the device of the future.

This led us to a design that seamlessly blends with all shapes, sizes, and colors. Moreover, our innovative strategy for collar customization means no dog will have to compromise to match their (probably broodingly artistic) mood on any given day.

We'll launch with our original RogerPup model, and are working on partnerships with top designer brands to innovate on iterations of future collars.

Looking ahead

As the year progresses, keep your eyes out for improvements, integrations, and renewed focus on shaping our tools for the barketers of the world! Here's what we have in the pipeline for the coming months:

• Followerwonk – Explore the success of your top Treats on your Twitter account. Compare your main competitors, animalyze trends, and track scents!

Click to open a bigger version in a new tab!

• Moz Local – Understand what drives traffic to your favorite park benches, fire hydrants, and light poles.

Be sure your local search barketers know what a zip code is first, though.

• Moz Content – Support both the analysis and posting of blog posts powered by our top-notch Bark Translation Team.

Our newest product will turn over an even newer leaf with cutting-edge bark-to-speech software!

The possibilities are as limitless as an off-leash dog park!

We're confident this is only the beginning, and we can't wait to see what the future holds as we continue to evolve our business model to meet the avid marketing demands of our furry comrades.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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AdWords Benchmark Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Other Top Stories From March

Whenever Google makes a major change to the SERPs, it’s big news – and March was certainly no exception. Google’s decision to scrap ads from the right-hand side of the SERP was the topic of discussion among the digital marketing community, and for good reason. It’s one of the biggest changes Google has made to its results pages in several years, and advertisers and marketers alike immediately began speculating what the change would mean for them.

Of course, although the banishment of ads from the right-hand side of the SERPs dominated much of the conversation, it was far from the only news in digital marketing. Here are the top posts from the WordStream blog from March, so if you missed any, grab a coffee and catch up.

1. Google AdWords Industry Benchmarks for YOUR Industry [New Data]

Even if they won’t admit it, even the most confident advertisers secretly want to know if their account performance measures up to their competition. Fortunately, our most popular post from March allowed readers to do just that. WordStream’s resident data scientist Mark Irvine explores a vast wealth of AdWords benchmark data in this post, and the results have been beautifully packaged into an infographic so you can check out how you stack up quickly and easily.

2. RankBrain Judgment Day: 4 SEO Strategies You’ll Need to Survive

A couple of months back, I wrote a post about Google’s emerging artificial intelligence machine learning program RankBrain, speculating on what this amazing technology could mean for SEOs. Well, Larry explores this notion in great depth in our second-most popular post of March, in which he outlines (or prophesies, if you prefer) four detailed SEO strategies you’ll need to adopt in order to survive “SEO Judgment Day.” Be warned – if you haven’t seen any of The Terminator movies, many of the excellent references and in-jokes may be lost on you.

3. The New Google SERP: 3 Changes & 3 Things That Haven’t Changed… Yet

Believe it or not, there’s a great deal more to Google’s decision to remove ads from the right-hand side of the SERP than initially meets the eye. Although we’re still gauging the true impact of this monumental change, there have already been several revealing observations that hint at what advertisers can expect from Google in the future. Check out our examination of the current state of play with regard to the SERP change in our third-most popular post of the month.

4. 7 Ideas for Upgrading Your Call to Action

As is the case with many aspects of conversion rate optimization, creating compelling calls to action is one of those topics our readers simply can’t get enough of. In this post, I outline seven ideas for strengthening your calls to action, so whether you’re a seasoned veteran of CRO or just starting out, you’ll find plenty of actionable CTA tips in this post.

5. Google Kills Off Side Ads: What You Need to Know

The initial news that Google had killed off ads from the right-hand side of the SERPs was, quite honestly, a little shocking. It didn’t take long for shock and disbelief to transform into worry and speculation, and this post was among the first to break the news of Google’s major SERP shake-up.

6. Our 8 Best Copywriting Tips… Ever!

Writing excellent PPC ads is a lot harder than it sounds. Sure, your ads might be good, but are they great? For this post, I went back over our very best copywriting advice from the past several years and updated it with fresh new examples. If you want to write even better ads to increase your CTRs, check out our best copywriting advice ever and see how many of these strategies you’re using.

7. 3 Weeks After Google Killed Side Ads, Here Are 5 More Takeaways

You could be forgiven for thinking that three weeks would be long enough for the excitement of Google’s decision to axe right-side ads from the SERPs to die down – but you’d be mistaken. In this post, Erin looks at five more takeaways that advertisers need to know about how the new SERP will affect their campaigns, each of which is backed with plenty of data.

8. 10 Smart & Easy Facebook Marketing Ideas

To many advertisers, Facebook is a platform they know they should be using, but may not necessarily know how. Fortunately, Margot’s got you covered in this post. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll have 10 actionable – and easy – ideas for future Facebook marketing campaigns.

9. 29 PPC Tools You Need to Try This Year

Yes, you read that correctly. In this post, Larry rounds-up 29(!) PPC tools that can simplify your workflow, make your life as an advertiser easier, and help you run faster/jump higher etc. Well, maybe not the last bit, but you get the idea. Check out Larry’s list and see if any of these tools are a good fit for your PPC workflow.

10. 25 Digital Marketing News Sources You NEED To Be Reading

Our last post of this month’s round-up wasn’t actually published in March, but rather January. In this post, I highlight 25 (a mere handful, really) of the must-read digital marketing news sources that should most definitely be in your RSS feed. If the events of March were any indication, it’s no wonder our readers are so keen to stay in the loop. 

Find out how you're REALLY doing in AdWords!

Watch the video below on our Free AdWords Grader:

Visit the AdWords Grader.

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Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

The social media strategy you use can determine the success or failure of an online marketing campaign. Many social media managers and website owners don't do proper research. They are often wasting valuable resources working on social media activities that […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

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Written by Gary Dek, StartABlog123.com

The post Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Businesses appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.

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Facebook Unveils Miss Takes, The Digital Assistant For Drunks

Ever had a few too may drinks on a Friday night and posted an inappropriate Facebook status update (perhaps on your ex's page) or a bleary-eyed duck-faced selfie from your local ER with a bottle of Tennessee whiskey in hand? Hey, we've all been there.

Facebook has been watching it all. Do you have any idea how many servers they've dedicated just for all the wild pictures and late-night posts drunken people have uploaded in the past 10 years? 

A few apps have been created to help drunks save themselves embarrassment among family and co-workers, such as "Drunk Locker" on Android, which prevents users from accessing popular social network apps on your big night out. 

But apps like that take so much effort. Downloading it. Installing it. Actually remembering you have it on your phone (before it's far, far too late). 

But now you have a new Facebook friend. And her name is Miss Takes. 

She is your designated driver when navigating social media while drunk. This new Facebook digital assistant is designed to eliminate drunk and/or embarrassing status updates.

Is Facebook drunk with power? Here's a sober look at the five things you need to know about Miss Takes, Facebook's new digital assistant.

1. Location, Location, Location (Bar, Bar, Bar...)

Facebook remains 100 percent committed to your privacy. They emphasized that by mentioning it in every other sentence of their blog post announcement. Yes, we can always opt out of sharing our location if we can figure out where Facebook has buried the setting. We get it.

But Facebook still know exactly where you are at all times, as long as you're carrying around an iPhone, iPad, Android, or one of the other tens of thousands of devices that access Facebook every day.

As Facebook noted: "Miss Takes stays in such great shape by constantly running in the background – and she never gets tired!"

One of the things Miss Takes looks for is whether you're near a bar, lounge, pub, roadhouse, saloon, tavern, or club (as well as any other entities that are known to serve alcohol). Whether you're doing a pub crawl or crawling on the bathroom floor of a pub, Miss Takes knows roughly where you are.

Though simply being near a bar won't trigger any serious action, it will put her on alert. If you pull out your smartphone while near or at a bar, expect Miss Takes to pop up and say:

"It looks like you're at a bar. Would you like help?"

This will trigger any number of multiple-choice questions (see, the SATs weren't irrelevant and a total waste of your time!) that you tap to proceed. So far, here are a few of these options I've seen:

• Access News Feed in read-only mode. If you choose this, you can Like and react to posts but not comment or upload photos. Facebook won't ask you what's on your mind.
• Sign out of Facebook until after you wake up with a raging hangover around noon tomorrow. Pretty straightforward.
• I'm not drunk, and I'll prove it. This takes you to a pretty easy test, such as picking a unicorn out of a sea of donkeys.
• I'm not prove, and I'll drunk it! This takes you to a much harder test involving Chinese arithmetic.

Update: One of my friends who lives in Los Angeles told me there is also a "celebrity warning system" if you're famous and it detects you're near a notoriously tipsy celebrity, such as Lindsay Lohan or Kiefer Sutherland. This will supposedly put your phone on total lockdown until it detects you're a safe distance away.

2. It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere

Time is a huge factor. On certain days of the year, Miss Takes is on severe (or "red") alert – such as St. Patrick's Day, New Year's Eve, and your birthday.

Facebook has been collecting lots of big data on drunken behavior and knows which days of the week and times of day people are most likely to be drinking. Miss Takes looks at factors like your status updates to know when you're going to an industry conference or planning to meet up with your friends, or if you currently live in Wisconsin.

Facebook didn't reveal these times, but no doubt around noon and from 5 p.m. until closing time are among the most heavy drinking times.

3. Don't Fail Miss Takes Tests!

While location and time are huge factors in Facebook's DrunkAlyzer algorithm, Miss Takes is also personalized. Think Scarlett Johansson's voice in "Her".

When your status updates look super questionable (such as making numerous typos or grammatical mistakes), it may trigger a quiz before you're allowed to hit the Post button. One mistake, and you'll be locked out of Facebook until (at earliest) sunrise, which Facebook helpfully tells me is at 6:24 a.m. tomorrow.

In another test, Facebook will tell you to hold your phone a certain distance away, and then once your face is lined up properly, it will put up an eye chart and ask you to read the entire line (usually 3rd or 4th line) successfully. If you can't do it, you're done for.

Miss Takes may also play "Truth or Dare" with you, and dare you to find a cop and ask for a breathalyzer test. If you actually do this, Miss Takes will know you're drunk and take Facebook away from you.

I also saw in another report that Miss Takes will actually tell you she's going to conduct a breathalyzer test before she'll let you post. She instructs you to blow into the headphone jack and tells you to click on "Done" when you're done blowing.

It's a trick though! When you click done, she responds with: "Did you seriously just blow into the headphone jack? Your status is officially 'too drunk to Facebook!'"

4. Is That Vomit On Your Chin?

Using Facebook's impairment-recognition software, Miss Takes will check whether any objects appear in your photos (beer bottles, a toilet, a gorilla suit) or if your body is contorted in such a way no sober human being could survive.

The technology can also detect other signs that you might be drunk – if you're sweating, if your eyes look glossy, or if your tongue is hanging out.

Up pops Miss Takes:

"Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop Dave? Stop, Dave."

5. Facebook Has Been Working on This Technology Since 2014

Seriously. As detailed in Wired in 2014, Facebook started "building image recognition technology that can distinguish between your drunken self and your sober self".

That's the truth.

However Miss Takes isn't real. Not yet, anyway. ;)

Happy April Fools' Day!

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Building a CTA Button Your Leads Can’t Help But Click

It’s the great marketing paradox. We spend hours brainstorming and months testing the copy of our calls-to-action, but whether we ask our users to Sign Up Now, Start a Free Trial, Get Started, Request Access, or Learn More, all we really want them to do it click the button.

Just click the button.

So why do so many of our quality leads fail to comply with our simple request? The way your CTA button is set up on a landing page is just as important as the CTA itself. Otherwise, it’s a button to nowhere.

Make your CTA pop on a pretty page

Visual appeal is everything. Before they see your CTA button, your landing page is the first impression your potential customers will have. Choose attractive, simple imagery – if your page is cluttered, your visitors won’t know where to look. Color scheme also is important: Using complementary but contrasting colors help a page to pop.

Notice how the below example from PopSurvey is coordinated with shades of blue, allowing the pink in the logo and CTA to pop out on the page. The secondary CTA, “Pricing & Sign Up” in the header is a slightly duller pink that still stands out but doesn’t distract from the main call-to-action button.

Ensure your page is easy to read and draws the attention of your customers’ eyes – don’t make them strain to read the text. The following landing page from Website Magazine is cluttered, has too many distracting colors, and small text. It’s impossible to know where to look!

Get to the point

Customers won’t have the patience to stay on your page if they don’t know what you’re offering. Use clear, strong wording to elicit the quick reactions that all good Calls-to-Action invoke.

Active verbs like “join” or “discover” can make people feel like they’ll be a part of something or learn something new. Negative questions like “worried?” and “confused?” can tap into human fears – always an attention-getter. And make it personal and urgent – use pronouns like “your” or “my” to convey ownership, as well as time-sensitive words, as in “Get my free newsletter now.”

At Socedo, one of our landing pages, is frill-free. We’re still A/B testing variations around “Start My Free Trial” or “Start My 14-Day Free Trial.” Regardless, previous testing has confirmed that the phrase “Free Trial” is crucial to our CTA buttons. It’s simple and to the point, and users know exactly what will happen when they click the button. No matter where you look on our site–the landing page, the navigation, or the blog–you’ll see a blue button with the “Free Trial” copy.

But just like any marketing strategy, you should always be A/B testing. What works for one brand might not work for another, and things can change over time.

Lead to the button with benefits

Drive more leads by offering your unique selling point. When a customer clicks on your CTA button, they should know why it will benefit them. Start with a confident headline on the page that conveys a key value you offer, and support it with a subhead that explains it. Follow with clear button copy that encourages users to claim these benefits.

If you’re like everyone else – boring and wordy – you won’t get your customers to pay attention or even to think about clicking your CTA. Add personality, emotions and enthusiasm to help draw in customers.

This landing page from Manpacks is fantastic and hilarious. It has a header with a clear benefit, in this case convenience on men’s essentials. Then the subhead explains exactly what Manpacks offers. By the time the user reaches the CTA button, they already know what they are going to “Get Started” with.

Sqord is a fitness and game tracking wristband for kids. Their landing page isn’t bad. It has a coherent color theme that reflects the audience and the product, the button pops, and it gets to the point. The headline is catchy but not very specific, and the subhead only provides a few more surface-level details: “Sqord is your online world, powered by real world play.”

By the time the user reaches the button text “Buy Sqord Membership & Gear” it’s hard to know what they’re actually buying. Is it the wristband, the app, or both? And why should I care?

Instill fear of missing out

You always want what you can’t have, right? It’s all about urgency. Customers hate missing out on a short-term offer. Focus on deadline phrases such as “limited time” or give them and end date. Add exclusivity to your product, when appropriate, with phrases like “while supplies last.” And CTAs that save money will always be a winning tactic. Customers can’t ignore it.

This landing page from Slope, a visual marketing platform, creates FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) by implying only a limited number of people will be allowed access to the beta. In addition to avoiding this negative, the button creates a positive experience of exclusivity. If you’re one of the select few who request early access, you’ll be part of the inner club–the talk of the town at your next marketers’ get-together.

Be creative

You’ll probably notice a pattern to the successful landing page CTAs mentioned here. They all have a high-benefit header, an explanatory subhead, and a button with active verbs. They all have a coordinated color palette, with the button standing out. They all get right to the point.

Most importantly, they all have some level of creativity. You can read as many prescriptive tips for CTA buttons as possible, but at the end of the day, it’s the unexpected element of your page that will give you the edge for higher conversion rates.

About the Author: Aseem Badshah, Founder and CEO of Socedo. Socedo helps sales and marketing professionals leverage social media data to discover, qualify, and nurture leads, automatically.

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