How to Get More Followers on Twitter (the Semi-Legit Way)

Social media marketers put high value on the size of a following, so here’s a conversation that happens a lot between marketers.

Q: “How do I get more Twitter followers?”

A: “Tweet more, engage with people, share something useful or provocative.”

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve heard this conversation or been part of it. Maybe dozens of times.

But here’s a less common question:

Q: “Why do some Twitter accounts grow faster than others?” 

This post answers that question. Then it goes into some practical tips to grow your Twitter following, including some of the more spammy tactics. Yes, we’re going to step over to the dark side of social media.

Quick disclaimer: before you scorch me in the comments, please understand that this post is informational only. These are not recommendations or judgements.

Why do some Twitter followings grow faster than others?

We analyzed the Twitter accounts of 300 bloggers and marketers to discover what actually correlates with follower growth. We used Follower Wonk to check the number of followers, number of tweets per week, total tweets over time and the likelihood of retweets.

Each of these correlates with follower growth at different rates. The findings might surprise you. Here’s the data.

Surprised? I was.

• Tweeting a lot DOES NOT correlate with follower growth.
  The statistical relationship is very weak. Only 10% of the accounts that tweet a lot are growing fast.
• Getting retweeted DOES correlate with faster growth.
  In 35% of cases, Twitter accounts that get retweeted a lot are also the accounts that grow fast. This suggests that being engaging does help.
• Big Twitter accounts grow much faster.
  Size matters a lot. The size of the following has a powerful relationship with the follower growth rate, much more than any other factor. Twitter accounts with large followings are the fastest growing accounts in 96% of cases.

Why do the big accounts grow faster?

It’s partly due to the design of Twitter. From the moment you set up a Twitter account, it starts recommending accounts with large followings. It promotes these accounts in many places and ways.

And then of course, there’s the bandwagon effect, aka the conformity bias. A lot of followers? It’s gotta be good! 

A large following is social proof. It’s evidence of legitimacy, even if that following is not an engaged audience. Even if a large percentage are fake.

No one checks for fake followers before clicking the follow button, right?

Regardless of the reason, it’s clear that big accounts grow faster.

So it’s a chicken and egg problem. The key to getting more followers is to have a large Twitter following. But how do you get followers in the first place?

Here are ten ways to grow your Twitter following, from sketchy and spammy to human and high-touch.

1.  Auto Follow / Auto Favorite

Rating:  Spammy

When you follow someone or favorite a tweet, you appear in their notifications.

Some of them will notice you, check you out and follow you back.

This is the most common way to inflate a following fast. It explains why a lot of random people may be engaging with you on Twitter.

These two activities, following and favoriting others, will gradually grow your account, but it’s slow …unless you automate it with a robot. Here are two tools for automating Twitter activity, so you can do social media without actually being social!

Note: We don’t use these tools. We aren’t recommending them. We are simply explaining one type of social media automation. 

• Hypegrowth – Follows other accounts for you
• TweetFavy – Favorites people’s tweets for you
• ManageFlitter – Unfollows people who don’t follow you back (manual)

That last one keeps your following / followers ratio in balance. So your account looks less spammy.

But these accounts are still easy to spot: lots of followers, the followers and following numbers are almost the same …and often and there are very few tweets.

If you’re simply trying to grow your following, you’re actually looking for spam accounts like these. Follow them and they’ll follow back.

Your robot and their robot can be friends!

Of course, these tools will win you a mostly irrelevant, unengaged following. Not very social, but hey, it was easy, right?

2. Manually follow, automatically unfollow

Rating: Sketchy

Rather than use a robot, you can do it by hand.

Spend a little time on Twitter every day and simply follow a bunch of people. Look for these Twitter users:

• Anyone who looks likely to follow back (they have a close follower/following ratio)
• Anyone with #followback or #TEAMFOLLOWBACK in their profile
• Anyone with 10+ emojis in their bio, especially

If the manual approach gets boring, you can find someone on Fiverr to do it for you.

3. “The Yank”

Rating: Sketchy

Here’s a way to create artificial fame. Use your new autofollow/followback robots to build up a large following of maybe 100k+ accounts. Then, on a sunny morning… unfollow everyone!

It’s known as the “mass unfollow” and here’s what it looks like. It’s also common on Instagram, not just Twitter.

Now, at a glance, you’ll appear to be loved by thousands …but you are quite picky about who you follow. You must be a rockstar. Put a velvet rope around your phone.

That’s the sketchy way to get 100k followers but only follow 10 people. Sure, you’ll hurt some feelings, but pseudo-celebrity has its price.

Interesting read: Chris Brogan (legitimate influencer and thought leader) did this back in 2011, partly as an experiment and partly to reduce direct message spam. He wrote about his experience here.

Now let’s move on to some more legitimate ways to grow a Twitter following.

4. Nail your profile picture

Rating: No-brainer

You’re trying to be more visible. To stand out. They won’t follow you if they don’t notice you.

These are our best tips for social media profile pictures. Here’s a quick summary for visibility in Twitter, where competition for attention is fierce:

1. Warm colors stand out
   The Twitter interface is dominated by cool colors (blues in the logo and UX) so warm colors stand out (red, orange and yellow). So a picture with
2. Faces are more prominent than logos
   Be a person, if at all possible. Show your face and smile big for the camera.
3. Rectangular logos look tiny
   Uploaded logos should have a square (1×1) aspect ratio. Upload a wide logo and it might be legible on your profile page, but too small to see in streams, where it’s squished down to 50 x 50 pixels or even 20 x 20 pixels in some places.

Put those together and you have a hierarchy for visual prominence in Twitter profile pictures. The profile pics at the top stand out much more, don’t they?

Once you’ve got your profile picture optimized for visual prominence, work on your header image. Make it non-boring. That means interesting, clever, unexpected, helpful or funny. And make sure it looks professional.

5. Write a descriptive Twitter bio

Rating: No-brainer

A lot of Twitter bios are just “About Us” content. That’s fine. But boring, maybe. Here are three ways to write a bio that grows your following:

Make your bio a call to action.

Some Twitter bios actually give people a reason to follow you. It tells them specifically what they’re going to get. Names the topics while adding a little credibility. A Twitter bio can be a little CTA.

Compare these two examples:

Optimize your bio to rank in Twitter search.

Another reason to write a descriptive bio is SEO. You can optimize your bio, making it more likely to appear in Twitter searches, by adding relevant keywords. Make sure a few keyphrases are in there. And make sure to add your city, if possible.

Twitter is still a research tool for a lot of users. Imagine you’re a prospect or journalist, looking for you. How do you search? What do you find?

Avoid hashtags in your bio.

For this, I have no evidence or research. But I do have common sense. Hashtags within bios aren’t likely to help your bio get found. They are really just little opportunities to leave your bio page. They’re actually competing with the follow button.

I’m all in for a hashtag (maybe two) on a tweet. But this isn’t a social post, it’s your bio. Hold the hashtags, please.

6. Find your top performing tweets and post them again

Some of your social posts are 10x and 100x as engaging as the others. They get exponentially more likes, shares and comments, so these posts are 100x more effective at making your account visible.

If you’re actively watching the streams, you know which posts get engagement.

If you schedule your tweets using a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer, check the analytics.

We don’t really care about clicks or traffic here. We’re just looking for visibility and follower growth.

You’ll probably find that a lot of the most engaging posts don’t even include links. They are sometimes just little tips or inspirational quotes

Keep tweeting these. Keep ‘em in rotation. And pin the best one to the top of your stream.

7. Tweet more

Now that you’re using data to decide what to share, this next tip will have huge value: increase your frequency.

Whatever your frequency was, double it.

There is no upper limit (that I know of) for how often to tweet. I know one marketer who tweets every 15 minutes. I know the guy. He has a huge following (500K+) and I asked him about frequency. He told me his goal is website traffic and that after testing, he learned that more is better.

Of course, you can’t spend all day manually tweeting. You’ll need a tool to automate these social media posts. Just turn up the dial and schedule more posts for more often.

That doesn’t mean you can set it and forget it. You still need to be there to engage with people who engage with your content. You still need to amplify.

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Jay Baer, Convince and Convert “You have to have it open. You can’t dive in and dive out. The way to grow a following is to be conversational and to add value to interesting, real-time conversations. You can’t do that if you post once a day at noon.“

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And beyond using Twitter for short posts, here’s a tip for bigger engagement through bigger content, right on the Twitter platform:

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Jeremy Moser, uSERP “Start creating content on Twitter itself. Use tweet-storm tactics and develop a thread of tweets surrounding a single topic. Within the thread, tag other active accounts, source quotes, and provide a coherent stream of consciousness on the subject. These are incredibly effective at getting compounding shares, as each threaded Tweet brings the original to the top of a user’s timeline. Mentioning others within these Tweet-storms takes advantage of Twitter’s algorithm, which now showcases what those users have liked (to their followers) directly on the timeline.“

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8. Find super-relevant people to share with

When you share something, whether you wrote it or not, share it with people who will love it. Twitter is a great way to find people with extremely specific interests.

If you wrote a post about personal branding, mention people with “personal branding” in their bio. They’ll likely thank you for it! They’re very likely to share it and follow you back.

Read the full post about targeted sharing on Twitter.

9. Link to your Twitter profile from everywhere

Let people know you’ve active on Twitter by linking to your Twitter bio every chance you get. Here’s a quick list of places where you can link to your Twitter account.

• Your website
• Your email signature
• Your other social profiles
• Your bio at the end of articles
• Your presentations
• Your physical signage

10. Connect with your friends from other networks

Twitter probably isn’t your only social network. You spend time in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Reddit and Slack. You share, you engage, you make friends and you …can look for these same people on Twitter.

As you use other networks, keep Twitter open and in mind. Enjoying a conversation on another social media platform? Take a minute to find them on Twitter. There’s a good chance they’ll be happy to connect.

These will likely be high quality connections, since they’re people you already interact with.

If they shared something of yours on another network, share it on Twitter, but mention them thanking them for sharing it earlier. They’ll be notified of the mention and they’re likely to share again (and follow you) when they see it on Twitter.

This builds stronger connections to more relevant connections, the ones that matter most in the end.

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Tony Spencer, Take Spruce “Social followings are more than just a number. If you want a social following that can make an impact on your business growth or success, they need to actually be interested in you or your brand. Otherwise, you have a bunch of followers who won’t convert.“

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Ask yourself: Why do you want a big following anyway?

Would the world be a better place if you have 100k followers? Would it really help your business? Your career? Your personal life?

Probably not.

Large Twitter followings are not usually very engaged audiences. And remember, organic reach in social media is low (likely only 2% of followers see anything you post in their stream).

A large following in Twitter is worth less than other platforms. Here is the cost-per-post in paid influencer marketing. Only Facebook is lower.

So why the obsession?

Social media networks want us to obsess. They want us to stay on their platforms. They want us to play it like a game. That’s why they make the number of followers look like a score.

But the most visible metrics aren’t always the most important. In fact, the easier a metric is to see , the less impact it has on your business. We call that “Julian’s Law.”

In this post, we listed all of the content marketing metrics, from most visible/least important to least visible/most important. Here’s a preview of that post:

Followers, with benefits

If there are upsides to having a large Twitter following, they fall into a few categories. Each has their own factors in success.

• Drive more website traffic? Yes, but only if…
  …your followers are engaged. Twitter is a powerful source of traffic, but only if your followers care enough to pay attention. If you have an auto-generated following or robots, you’re unlikely to capture this benefit.
• Impress journalists and editors? Yes, but only if…
  …you already have their attention. Generally speaking, some content creators are more likely to be impressed and more likely to use you as a source. A large following is “social proof” which lends credibility in a PR context. This is a practical reason to want a large following.
• Impress your friends? Yes, but only if…
  …your friends are into that kind of thing.

But the real benefits of Twitter (and of all social media and the internet as a whole) is the connections between people. It’s a powerful tool for research and networking, PR and influencer marketing. On Twitter, you can find almost anyone you can imagine and start a conversation.

Let’s close on a great quote from Ted Ruben:

“Make your social connections count or they won’t be worth counting.”

The post How to Get More Followers on Twitter (the Semi-Legit Way) appeared first on Orbit Media Studios.

from Orbit Media Studios https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/how-to-get-more-twitter-followers/
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Web Content Best Practices: Our 22-Point Checklist for Publishing High-Performance Articles

The 80-20 Rule states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. A small number of actions get big results.

Big in content marketing, it’s more like 90-10.

Every glimpse into every Google Analytics account shows this clearly. The top-performing articles drive most of the impact, both on the traffic side and the conversion side.

This is true for traffic.

A small percentage of articles get most of the visibility, especially through SEO…

And this is true for conversions.

A few articles are much better than others at getting visitors to subscribe…

One of the main jobs of the digital marketer is to find these high-performers and then understand them better. How are they different? What makes them special? How could you create more content like these?

But the conclusions are usually the same. There are common traits that the top performers share. And when you put these traits together, you have a set of best practices for website content and content marketing.

These are our web content best practices

They are based on our experience publishing 500+ articles, surveys of 5000+ bloggers, and collaboration with 1000+ clients. We’ve combined them into one, big web content checklist.

So before you push the publish button, go through this list and make sure you’ve included everything. If you leave something off, do it deliberately.

We’ve broken this up into three separate lists, one for SEO, one for human psychology and one for additional media. Of course, there is overlap.

Here’s a printable PDF in case you’d like to check things off a paper list as you write your next post.

Download my checklist

Let’s take a closer look at each item…

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) checklist

We’ll start with SEO and traffic. Makes sense. If no one sees it, nothing else matters, right?

The following elements help indicate the relevance of the article. They are key places to use target phrases and increase the likelihood that the content will rank. Just make sure that you’re targeting a keyphrase that you have a fighting chance of ranking for.

Title tag

It’s in the tab above the address bar for every page you’ve ever visited.

Title tags are the single most important element for on-page SEO. Not only are they a powerful indication of relevance, but typically the title is the link on a search results page. The ideal length is 55 characters or the rest will be truncated. Be brief.

Use the target keyphrase once in the title. If possible, use it near the beginning of the title. The prominence of the keyphrase (in other words, how close to the beginning it appears) is important.

It might be tempting to put your business name at the front of the title. Don’t. SEOs have a saying: “brand last.” Start with your keyphrase, end with your business name. Remember, in content marketing your first goal is to help people. Promoting yourself comes second.

<H1> header

The header on the page should be formatted using the <h1> header tag. Use the target keyphrase once, indicating relevance to search engines and stating the general topic to headers. Beyond this, the headline should be written for readers. More on headlines in a minute.

Keyphrase use in the body text

Your target keyphrase should appear in the article. As you write, you’ll find yourself using the phrase naturally at least a few times.

There is no rule for the number of times you should use a phrase (it would be strange if there was) but if you’d like a general guideline, I’d say use the phrase 2-3 times every 1000 words. Something like that.

During editing, make sure it’s used, but not overused.

Warning: If it feels unnatural, don’t force it. Don’t overdo it on the keywords. Do not compromise your writing. If your keyword usage is obvious to a reader, you’re guilty of “keyword stuffing.” Repeating a phrase in unnatural ways is bad for readers and bad for rankings.

Semantically linked words

Here’s where SEO copywriting gets more fun.

Beyond using your target keyphrase, work in the words that are semantically related to that phrase. This is how you can target the topic, not just the keyphrase.

Indicating relevance for the more general topic is great for search rankings. A great page on your topic would certainly include closely related words and phrases, right?

For example, this article is a “website content checklist.” That’s the primary keyphrase and I’m using it, I’m sure (I’m not actually counting how many times). But a great content checklist should really touch on all the adjacent subtopics, relevant questions and related words.

So I’ll take a minute to see what Google shows as related words, topics and questions and incorporate those into this article.

Where do I find those?

• I just start searching for the phrase and see what Google suggests.
  I write those words and phrases down and work those into my article.
• I search for the phrase and look for a “People also ask” box.
  I write those questions down and make sure to answer some of them in my content.

This is the key to semantic SEO and the future of search engine optimization.

During this process, you’ll find yourself writing a more detailed, helpful article. Yes, SEO can make you a better writer.

Meta description

Although meta keywords are totally useless, the meta description remains important. Just like the title, it doesn’t appear in the content of the page, but it’s highly visible in search results.

The text in the search snippet is either an excerpt from the body text or the meta description. It’s a chance to sell your article and increase the clickthrough rate. So make it good.

Your meta description should be a single sentence, plain English summary of the content of the page. Use your target keyphrase at least once, but not more than twice. Limit it to 155 characters to be sure that it will fit within the snippet without getting truncated.

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Human psychology content checklist

Each item in this next set of elements will align the blog post with human psychology. These can improve click through rates, time on page, bounce rates and conversion rates.

H1 header secondary headline

A headline is a promise. A great headline is a strong promise, giving the reader specific benefits to slow down, click and dive into the article.

Some of the top-performing headlines and actually like two little headlines smushed together. They name the topic, then name the benefit of clicking. After the keyword, add a dash, colon or parentheses, then then add a second headline with the benefit of clicking.

Here are examples of double headlines that separate the first from the second with punctuation. Each leverages another technique to catch readers’ attention

• Use a number
  The Complete Hamster Training Guide: 5 Circus Tricks Rodents Love
• Promise a specific benefit
  Hamster Training Tips – How To Train Your Hamster to Jump Through Hoops
• Create urgency
  Train Your Pet Hamster (Before He Escapes Forever)
• Trigger curiosity or emotion
  Hamster Training: This Furry Guy Learned This Trick in Just 10 Minutes
• Ask a question
  What Tricks Can You Teach A Hamster? Training Advice from a Pet Rodent Expert

Resource: How to Write Truly Great Headlines.  That post has everything you need to win the click.

Subheads

Visitors aren’t really readers. They’re scanners who might read if we can slow them down. According to one study, visitors are reading 28% of words at most.

Adding subheads can slow down the scan reader. Break up your article into sections. These serve as mini-headlines for subsequent paragraphs, keeping visitors flowing through your content.

These subheads should be formatted using <h2> or <h3> tags, not just bolding.

Don’t worry too much about SEO and keywords when writing subheads. Go ahead and be as clever as you’d like. This is also a great place to use any headlines you rejected for the <h1> header.

Lists

A list-based article gives you a natural reason to use a number in your headline, telling busy readers that the article will be easy to scan. If it looks like a list, it’s an easier click.

But little lists can appear throughout the article. As in…

• Use bullet lists whenever there are three or more distinct ideas in a section
• Use numbered lists as a format for the entire article or whenever sequential ideas are presented
• Avoid list formatting when telling stories with a narrative flow

Short Paragraphs

This isn’t college and your article isn’t assigned reading. So don’t make it look like a textbook. The back button is right there in the corner and they know it.

No paragraph should be longer than four lines maximum. Occasionally, drop in a very short paragraph of one sentence or even one word to add emphasis.

Designers have always known the power of whitespace. But somehow, writers didn’t get the memo.

Formatting

Subheads, lists and short paragraphs go a long way, but they aren’t the only way to make content more scannable.

• Bolding, Italics
  Excellent ways to add emphasis and make content more easily scanned, but don’t overdo it.
• Block quotes
  Your website should have options to call out key messages, just as newspapers and magazines have done for years.
• Personal tone
  Readers are people. Write as if you’re writing for one, specific person. From you, to her.

Internal Links

Your goal is to eventually convert your reader into a lead or a customer. That means guiding them deeper into the site, and that means internal links.

“Your site is the mousetrap, your content is the cheese.” – Barry Feldman

If you don’t help make those connections between the cheese and the trap, you catch fewer mice. Here are four types of links to create every time you publish:

• Link from the new article to a relevant older article
• Link to the new article from an older article
• Link from every article to a product or service page
• Link from each article to the article of an authority or expert with supportive content (see below)

There is also an SEO benefit here. Links between pages help pass ranking potential between pages on your site, although these links have far lower impact on rankings than links from other websites. Internal links are also an easy opportunity to use target keywords in anchor text.

Resource: 3 Internal Linking Strategies for SEO

Contributor quotes

If optimizing for search means adding keywords, then optimizing for social means adding people. There are three main benefits to publishing collaborative content.

• • Improve the quality of the article
    The outside points of view adds both insight and credibility.
  • Improve the social reach
    The contributors may share the piece, improving the social reach. An ally in creation is an ally in promotion. This is sometimes called “ego bait.”
  • Grow your professional network. 
    Every article is a networking opportunity. Most people love to contribute to things. To them, you are a press hit.

Bonus: You can even use content as a way to open doors with influencers and potential clients. This is called zero-waste marketing because it creates value even before the piece is published.

Adding sources is easy. While writing, just reach out to an expert or influencer and ask them if they’d like to contribute a few sentences. If they do, add their picture and link to their website. Once it’s live, let them know.

It takes forethought, but it’s actually the least time consuming part of the content creation process.

Source: How to Write a Blog Post for SEO (Step-by-step video)

Examples and evidence

Great writers add evidence to support their claims. They add examples to improve clarity. Ideally, every point in your article is supported with data and examples.

There are at least five types of evidence that you can make your content more compelling.

1. Research studies and statistics
2. Charts and graphs with supportive data
3. Stories and case studies
4. Supportive resources
5. Relevant (positive or negative) examples

If you cite research from others, make sure to let them know, if only by mentioning (and tagging) them when you share the article. They might notice and then share from their own channels. More mentions, more potential social reach.

Better yet, make the article itself a research piece. When you conduct your own original research, you make your brand the primary source for new data.

Sound ambitious? Maybe not. It’s actually becoming common, according to our own research on blogging.

Length and detail

Great articles are complete. They answer all of the top related questions. They don’t skip steps. They don’t stop short. They cover the topic completely.

But there is no ideal length for blog posts. So don’t start with a target word count. Yes, there is an average length for blog posts: 1269 words. That’s long. And it’s gotten longer year after year.

But length is not a search ranking factor. That’s why we’re in the “human psychology” section, not the “SEO” section. Using semantic SEO writing techniques may lead to higher word counts, but word count is never the point.

Yes, there are many studies that show a correlation between length and high-rankings, but writers who add length for SEO are likely adding fluff.

Do it for your readers, not for Google.

Detailed articles are engaging. They hold readers’ attention. You can check for yourself using your own data. Create a scatter plot chart using word count and time on page for your top articles.

We did and here’s what it looked like for us.

So how long should your article be? It depends on the topic.

Every blog post should be as long as necessary to cover the topic completely, and not a single word longer.

Calls to Action

Now that you’ve given your reader a detailed, high-quality, carefully constructed article, it’s time to let them show their gratitude. Every great post has a CTA.

“Subscribe.”

That’s the typical call to action for blog posts.

It’s the popup window. It’s in the right rail. It’s “in-line” within the body of the article. It’s the header of the blog. It’s the sticky footer you see below.

Wherever it appears, it should include three things: prominence, promise and proof. These are the three p’s of high converting email signup forms.

If not subscribe, the call to action can also be an invitation to leave a comment. End the post with a question they can answer with a comment. Or ask the reader to share other ideas that would complement the article. Or even invite the reader to disagree with you.

Author box

Your content management system probably makes adding a nice author box easy. Easy or hard, it’s worth the effort since it has social media and conversion benefits. The ideal author box includes the following:

• Profile picture
• Brief biography (usually just a few sentences)
• Link to the author’s bio and other articles on your website
• Link to other social media profiles

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Media and visuals checklist

Here are ways to improve quality by adding more compelling media. Of course, you won’t add all of these to every article. But we recommend upgrading your content with these whenever possible. The more, the better.

Featured image

Articles with compelling images are more likely to be shared and clicked in social media. Content without a strong visual is not going to win attention in social streams. Images also make your message more memorable, thanks to the pictorial superiority effect.

Never publish an article without an image.

The featured image at the top of the article will likely be used in the social snippet if the article is shared. Most social media sites show a rectangular area of the image, which is roughly twice as wide as it is tall.

This “aspect ratio” of 16:9 means square-ish images get cropped. So images optimized for social media meet one of these two criteria:

• They have a 16:9 letterbox aspect ratio or…
• The main subject of the image is within the center vertically, rather than near the top or bottom.

Optional: Add the headline of the article (or a version of it) into the image itself to make it more meaningful, increasing the chance that it will get clicked when shared on social media.

We put our favorite blog image research and tips into this post.

Supportive visuals

Add an image every 500 pixels or so (every three or four paragraphs) to add visual interest at every scroll depth. In other words, at no point in your article will there be a screen of all text with no images.

The impact is measurable. A tool like Hotjar has scroll heatmaps that show how far down your visitors flow. The impact of multiple images is often dramatic.

Video

The combination of movement and sound make video a super compelling format for content. Adding video to the top of your posts is a powerful content strategy and a great way to get visitors to stick around.

We track the impact of video on website engagement using event tracking in Google Analytics. There is a huge difference in behavior between visitors who watch and visitors who do not. This is what it looks like in Analytics:

To maximize the percentage of visitors who watch the video (let’s call that the “view rate”) use a custom thumbnail with both the headline and a face. Here’s an example of a high-performing video thumbnail.

Audio

Similar to video, audio is a big media upgrade to any post. It’s also easier than you think.

1. Turn the recording software on your computer
2. Read the post in your own conversational tone
3. Save as an mp3 file
4. Upload to Soundcloud or Spreaker
5. Embed the audio player of the file to the page by copying and pasting in the <iframe> code, just as you would a YouTube video.

It will look (and maybe sound) like this:

Click to Tweet

The easier it is to share, the more likely it will be shared. This is another simple way to optimize your content for social media.

Take a short, compelling quote from the article and write it as a tweet, using the link from the article, along with any hashtags and mentions. Put the tweet into Click to Tweet, then embed it into the article as a link or a little blue bird button.

It will look something like this:

Website content checklist: 22 things to add to your next post #contentmarketing tips on @orbiteers

Click To Tweet

PDF Download

The PDF is really a print simulation. It’s definitely not digital content best practices to make this the only version of an article.

But when the PDF is an alternate version of an article, added as a convenience for visitors who may want to download or print, then it’s added value.

The PDF is also a common format for the “lead magnet” or “content upgrade,” available to visitors who enter an email address. Of course, this kind of “gated content” is the cornerstone of marketing automation.

Links to PDFs can include an icon and an indication of the file size, similar to this:

Download a PDF version of this Website Content Checklist (236 kb) >

Or include a button like this:

Download My checklist [PDF]

“Copy is not written. Copy is assembled”

These are the words of copywriting legend Eugene Schwartz. They’ve never been more true than today, in the era of content marketing.

A great piece of digital content is assembled from many little elements, words, images, tags, media and formatting. Each adds to the results in its own small way.

Did we miss anything? Anything to add? Trade tips with your fellow readers by adding a comment below.

The post Web Content Best Practices: Our 22-Point Checklist for Publishing High-Performance Articles appeared first on Orbit Media Studios.

from Orbit Media Studios https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/web-content-checklist-17-ways-to-publish-better-content/
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How to use Infographic Data Visualization to Attract Qualified Leads

‘Show, don’t tell’ isn’t just a term in entertainment—it’s fundamental to content marketing and exemplified in infographic data visualizations.

As the world moves increasingly online, visuals have become the key to engaging audiences—especially as brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. But, why infographics, you may ask?

Infographics are an excellent visual tool that combines text, charts, imagery, icons, and colors to tell memorable brand stories. These data visualization examples showcase how powerful and memorable infographics can be. They also position companies to share compelling stories to attract qualified leads.

In this article, we share seven tips so you can create data infographics that will boost your brand awareness and revenue.

1. Use the right kinds of infographic data visualization

Creating infographics that are meaningful and easy to understand can be tricky. For marketing teams without much experience with design, data visualizations become a huge hurdle.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. First, you need to understand some basics, such as how many kinds of data visualizations are available:

• Charts
• Diagrams
• Maps

Now, some of these individual categories include a variety of visualizations, as well. Charts include the following:

• Bar charts
• Bubble charts
• Line charts
• Pictographs
• Pie charts
• Scatter charts
• Wordgraphs

Diagrams can also be broken down into:

• Fishbone diagrams
• Flow charts
• Mind maps
• Wireframes

With so many options available, choosing the right visual becomes an obstacle for designers and marketers—and it happens early on in the creative process. So, which visual should you use for your infographic?

To make the right choice, you need to define the point of your data and your story. That is how you can pick a visual that conveys your message.

Here’s a simple infographic that clarifies how the different infographic data visualizations work.

Source: Venngage

Let’s break it down further. If you have one point of data—1/4 people surveyed used our tool—a pictograph will be sufficient to depict that information.

However, if you have multiple points of data that need to be compared, a bar chart will be able to convey the information to audiences better. In this product marketing chart from TryChameleon, you can see how multiple KPIs stack up against each other.

Depending on the focus of your graphic and how many data points you have to share, you can choose the right visual to share your message with prospective leads.

2. Create trust with infographic data visualization

Trust is imperative in marketing—and when you are sharing data, it becomes even more important.

One of the best ways to build trust among leads is to compile your data from credible sources, that are unbiased and objective. Also, verify your data with at least two additional sources to ensure that the studies can be replicated.

Another way to portray trustworthiness is by visualizing your infographic data correctly. Look at the graphic on fast food below. While it clearly states which companies are bringing in sales, the comparison is distorted.

Using logos, which come in a variety of shapes, has distorted the data—because the logos can’t be transformed correctly. This leads to a massive imbalance in scale that doesn’t correspond to the numbers presented.

On the other hand, this stacked bar graph on digital transformation includes a clear axis and legend that shows the data at scale.

Here’s how you can avoid data distortions that could potentially lose users’ trust in your brand:

• Include a scale for your data so your information isn’t distorted
• Don’t start your data baseline at points above zero
• Don’t skew the size of the axes
• Include both axes in the graphic
• Avoid cherry-picking data to suit your message
• Pick the right charts for your data
• Stick to the norms of data visualization that your leads are accustomed to

Following these points will make it easier for you to create infographics that build trust in your leads.

3. Keep infographic data visualization simple

Designers can be tempted to create complex infographics—when you have a lot of data to share, designing a multi-layered graphic seems like the best option. But that isn’t the best way to approach design. According to a study on graphic design trends, simple infographic data visualizations are the norm.

This is because complex data should be simplified for the audience—if your design is complicated, people won’t understand it. Nor will they be able to decipher the data.

By overburdening the graphic with data, like in the example below, you run the risk of losing your audience.

This infographic has so many colors and so many pie charts that potential leads will have no idea where to look or how the data points correspond to each other. Users will spend more time deciphering it than understanding the data—which will inevitably lead them to scroll past your content.

Data visualizations must stand on their own—when a person looks at it, they should be able to understand what information it includes and what the data means, like in this example.

Source: Venngage

This infographic can be easily consumed—the graphs are simple, the images are relevant to the topic, and the icons give the data context. While you can write a blog around your data to share your methodology, your data shouldn’t need additional information to make them understandable.

Infographics need to stand on their own to tell your story. With a simple visual, you can do just that and attract prospects to your brand to boost conversions.

4. Limit text in your infographic data visualization

The great thing about infographics is that you can combine text and graphics to share a complex story. But when you visualize data poorly, you end up adding too much text on the graphic to explain what the data is about, like in this example.

The graphic doesn’t convey any information on its own—users have to read the sidebar to understand the data. That shouldn’t be the aim of infographic data visualizations—if you want people to read your graphic, you might as well create a blog.

The point of visual communication is to build connections between data—and to share information with as wide an audience as possible. If your charts aren’t standing on their own, then you haven’t chosen the right ones. Or, you’re trying to share more data than is necessary.

Make your data bite-sized and easy to consume, especially when you’re trying to reach multiple leads with a single graphic. The best way to do that is by using less text and more relevant visuals like icons, images, and illustrations, like in this example.

Typography and text should be a last-minute resort—used only when a visual can’t convey a data point. That is the best way to attract leads and increase conversions.

5. Using color in infographic data visualizations

Colors are an important part of visuals—they serve multiple purposes and give marketers a range of options for sharing their data. However, marketers and designers need to be careful when they incorporate colors in their infographic data visualizations.

Just because you have access to a large swathe of colors, doesn’t mean you use all of them. The color palette you choose should include a handful of colors, at the most.

Too many colors can become overwhelming, while too few will create connections between data that don’t exist. Three to five colors should be more than enough to convey information.

Keep your brand colors in mind when choosing colors—you don’t want to choose a palette that is similar to a competitor’s. Look at these Instagram statistics and how they use the brand colors for the platform to illustrate the chart.

You could also use different hues of one color. Or reduce color transparency to give your visuals more range. Remember that colors must have a purpose within your design—to convey information or to evoke a particular feeling within the user.

If you want to know how to choose a color palette, you can refer to this graphic.

Source: Venngage

Colors already have a role to play in society—green means ‘go’ or ‘earthy’, while red is associated with ‘alert’ or ‘danger’, and blue makes people think of ‘coolness’ or ‘serenity’. When you create data visualizations, note how colors are perceived by users before you include them in your infographics.

Also, keep in mind that muted colors have been on-trend for the past couple of years and are showing no signs of abating. The color palette you choose for your infographic data visualizations should be muted—bright and bold colors will look jarring to audiences.

To understand the difference between muted colors and bold colors, here’s a simple graphic.

Source: Venngage

A muted color palette doesn’t decrease the range of colors designers can use—but it makes visuals look more authentic and organic than bold colors.

6. Create hierarchies in infographic data visualizations

Your infographic needs to have a visual hierarchy—this will help users follow your infographic story as you mean to tell it. A visual hierarchy is an essential component of communication—because people assign context and importance to the patterns they observe.

You want users to find correlations in your data through the visual itself—and you can do this by creating a distinct hierarchy. There are numerous ways that you can create visual hierarchies within your infographic:

• Different color hues
• Decreasing font sizes
• Grouping related elements together
• Placement of text and visuals
• Styling elements differently

Look at this example that depicts market segmentation for computer consumers.

Source: Venngage

The bar chart shows the market share hierarchy through the size of the bars and the color gradient. Users can infer the results of the research just by looking at the infographic—they don’t need any further explanation.

That should be the aim when creating visual hierarchies in your infographic—for users to be able to understand the data correlations at a glance.

7. Highlight information in infographic data visualizations

When you create a visual, you need to highlight key data instead of making your users seek it out. This is particularly important when you have complex data to share, or numerous percentages and numbers.

It can become confusing for users if you don’t draw their eye to the pertinent information. One way to do this is by using icons in infographics—they are a great tool to convey stories.

When paired with captions, icons also highlight important data in visuals. For example, look at the icon infographic below.

Source: Venngage

This visual is packed with data but the viewer never feels lost because the icons, text, and colors create a cohesive, albeit heartbreaking, story. Remember: when you’re trying to attract leads, the data you share should be relevant to them.

Gathering data and building a story around it takes time. When you create a visual to relay that story, you want to ensure that your users understand it easily.

By highlighting key components in the graphic, you can draw your audience’s interest and grow your leads.

Key takeaways: Understand the story behind your infographic data visualizations

Creating great infographic data visualizations can be a challenge. But when done right, these visuals can attract leads and boost conversion rates.

To recap, here are the seven ways data visualization can increase awareness of your brand:

• Choosing the right kinds of graphics
• Building trust in leads
• Keeping visuals simple
• Limiting text on visuals
• Color use in visuals
• Creating data hierarchies
• Highlighting key information

With these points, your marketing and design team can source data and create visuals that will draw audiences to your brand.

The post How to use Infographic Data Visualization to Attract Qualified Leads appeared first on Orbit Media Studios.

from Orbit Media Studios https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/infographic-data-visualization/
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How to Prepare Your Website and Business for a Digital Advertising Campaign

Internet advertising isn’t all graphic design and keyword research, as important as those things may be. Sometimes online advertising methods look like neatening up your site’s layout, tracking numbers and figures, and similar prep work. Check out our steps below so that your site is up to snuff before launching your big ad campaign!

Step One: Optimize That Landing Page

Your landing page is what appears to customers in response to a search engine optimized result. In plain English, it’s your customer’s starting point, the first glimpse they get of your website, and sometimes your brand. Landing pages aren’t necessarily the same thing as home pages, but there’s often overlap.

Point being? First impressions matter, especially when preparing your site for digital advertising. If you want to amp up those conversions, you need to make that first impression count.

Keep it Simple

We’ve discussed this in previous posts, but when in doubt, simplify your landing page. Navigating your site should be a straightforward experience, especially for first-time users. Are links easy to locate? Have you clearly stated your brand’s mission, your CTA(s), or what your business does that no one else can? Consider removing pop-up ads (unless they are indeed useful), dead links, gratuitous buttons and graphics, and so on.

Ensure it’s Mobile-Friendly

A staggering 86% of the top landing pages are optimized for mobile—emphasis on the word top. Customers don’t have the patience for non-responsive sites, oversized images, tiny text, or any other problems that come with a non-mobile-friendly site. Your customers will be more receptive to your digital advertising campaign if they can easily access it on their phones as well as their PC.

Step Two: Track the Impact of Ads

The last thing any of us would want to discover is that our hard-earned advertising budgets were being funneled away on a failed campaign. That’s why it’s essential to track the ads’ success at all stages of your marketing plan.

Get Organized

Look, we get it. Tracking ads can be arduous, especially when you have to do it weekly or even daily. But a wise man once said, “your habits will determine your future.” Your future being, in this case, the success of your business.

We recommend setting reminders in your content calendar to review the stats of your ad campaign regularly. Determine what’s working well and what needs improvement. Whenever possible, point to specific numbers and percentages to back up your claims. Better to find out that one aspect of your campaign isn’t going according to plan early on instead of halfway through the year. Or, worse yet, after the campaign is already over and done with.

Track Your Success on a Variety of Channels

Okay, we admit it, telling you to “check up on your campaign” regularly is pretty vague. What do we mean by that, exactly? Where exactly should you be checking?

The short answer? If it can be monitored, and if it’s a means by which customers hear about or get in contact with your business, track it! We’re talking about conversion tracking on Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, as well as CRM and KPI tracking. Heck, we’re even talking about tracking incoming phone calls. 

Now, wait a minute—phone calls? That’s right; those customers hear about you from somewhere before they call you, don’t they? So ask them where they heard about you! Was it from a Facebook ad? Or perhaps a Google one? Feedback like this will help you figure out where most of your ad budget should be going. And if you forget to ask, don’t worry. Phone tracking systems like Dynamic Number Insertion assign different numbers based on the source of the call. In other words, you can see what site a customer is calling from without actually asking the question.

Step Three: Ensure You Can Handle the Surge in Leads

We don’t typically think of sites being unable to handle heavy traffic these days. After all, this isn’t 1997! An influx of guests isn’t going to mess with page load times, is it? Well . . . yes, unfortunately, this can still happen, even in the year 2020.

We discussed keeping things simple in Step One, and the same applies here. Optimize file and image sizes, cache heavily, and anything else that will minimize lagging. And speaking of “tracking the impact,” it pays to monitor what times of day, and in response to which ads, traffic surges. That way, you can prepare yourself for those spikes when they’re most likely to occur.

Remember, as frustrating as slow load times and increased traffic can be, they’re actually a blessing in disguise. Your business is booming, and your ads are, indeed, effective! If those aren’t reasons to be proud, we don’t know what are.

Partner With Snap, Your Internet Advertising Guide

Need to create a knockout ad campaign? No problem! We’ll set you on the right path for crafting landing pages, regularly monitoring analytics, and preparing for hiccups such as surges in traffic. For a full rundown of our digital advertising services, shoot us a message. We can’t wait to hear from you.

The post How to Prepare Your Website and Business for a Digital Advertising Campaign appeared first on Snap Agency.

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From https://jenniferballew.blogspot.com/2020/10/how-to-prepare-your-website-and.html

Local SEO for Lawyers and Attorneys

Law firms need visibility just like any other business, no surprise there! And for many, that means local SEO. This is not as simple as inserting the right keywords; SEO for lawyers means staying up-to-date on Google My Business, local ads, and similar cutting-edge SEO tactics. Without further ado, let’s examine some of these tactics more closely and see how attorneys can incorporate them into their practices.

Google My Business

We’re not exaggerating when we say we love Google My Business. A one-stop shop for your company address, contact info, and a link to your homepage is ideal for boosting a law firm’s visibility quickly. Google My Business listings are also perfect for pairing with local SEO.

We’ve discussed programs like Google Search Console before, which help companies research and choose the best matches for keywords and keyword phrases. Once your law firm has conducted a little keyword research, you can pop said keywords right into your Google My Business post.

Let’s say, for example, that your law firm operates in Minneapolis, and standard search phrases include “best attorneys in Minneapolis, MN” and “Twin Cities professional law firm.” Does your Google My Business description include these phrases? Do FAQs, or answers to customer queries on your GMB listing, have them? It’s all about honing in on what your customers care about and search for the most—and directly addressing those points or queries.

Voice Search

Back in the days of yore, Siri or Alexa’s voice search was for asking silly questions with equally irreverent answers. Nowadays, voice search is a powerful marketing tool on mobile and personal computers alike.

Consider that 58% of people have used voice search to get info about a local business. You know how it is: you’re driving around in search of a fantastic professional service near you, and you ask Siri to find something within driving range. The same happens with attorneys; it’s more convenient to find a skilled lawyer in your area than drive miles out of your way.

Point being? Tailor your local SEO for voice search! One way to do this is by incorporating SEO keywords into featured snippets. These are the boxes of larger text you typically see at the top of a Google search, and they exist to answer the user’s question immediately. Over 40% of voice search answers come from these magical “answer boxes,” so remember that when writing content. While you can’t ensure you’ll be featured in a snippet yourself, structuring your writing as short answers to specific queries will boost your likelihood of that happening. For example, one of your FAQs could look a little something like this:

Q: “Who are the top local criminal law firms in Minneapolis, MN?”

A: “[Your Business Here] is a top local criminal law firm in Minneapolis, MN. We specialize in…”

See what we mean? Easy as pie.

Local Ads

There’s truly nothing like a good old-fashioned digital ad. And to be completely frank, that can mean so many things for a local law firm. Maybe that means partnering with a local influencer, or creating ads that reference specific locations in your metropolitan area. It could also mean brushing up on your knowledge of geofencing and developing ads that appear to users within certain pre-ordained geographic boundaries. This could simply be some thorough keyword research and incorporating those top search terms into your Google Maps Ad campaign. With SEO for lawyers, “local ads” sure does sound like a catch-all term, but we prefer to think of it as room to explore and innovate.

The (New) Google Screened

If you’re a professional service firm (*cough, cough* such as a law office), you should know about the all-new Google Screened! It’s sort of like being “verified” on Instagram, but for local businesses. Google Screened for lawyers means an extensive background and license check to make sure you’re the real deal. If you pass the test, you earn a green checkmark next to your business’s name. And if your client is caught between a local attorney with that green checkmark and an attorney without one, which one seems more reputable?

So what are you waiting for? Get your law firm verified on Google Screened before the market becomes oversaturated with those green checkmarks. It’ll do wonders for your business—especially if you act quickly. 

Snap: Spotlight on Local SEO for Lawyers

Local SEO for lawyers can be challenging; we get it. Standing out among the competition is hard enough, even without being held to such high professional standards. Luckily, here at Snap, we have a strong eye for detail and the latest and greatest SEO trends. For help navigating attorney marketing and the professional service landscape, we’re here to help. Give us a call today.

The post Local SEO for Lawyers and Attorneys appeared first on Snap Agency.

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From https://jenniferballew.blogspot.com/2020/10/local-seo-for-lawyers-and-attorneys.html

How to Understand Your Website Traffic Sources (Plus, 18 Tips to Increase Website Traffic)

Where there’s traffic, there’s hope.

Because every visit is a chance for something good to happen.

That’s why increasing website traffic is the first goal of most digital marketing strategies. It’s the equivalent of traditional marketing’s goal of brand awareness.

If we’re going to spend all this time, energy (and maybe money) to generate traffic, let’s first spend a few minutes to understand the sources of website traffic, how they’re defined and how they’re measured.

• • How is website traffic measured? Categorized?
  • How can I increase traffic from each traffic source?

• How accurate are traffic sources in Google Analytics?

This guide breaks down the traffic sources of website traffic and includes tips for increasing traffic from each.

Traffic Source	Visitor Action*	Context/Intent
Paid	… clicked an ad	…impatient. Wants something specific.
Organic search	…clicked on a link in a search engine	…knows what they want
Social	…clicked a link in social media	…just browsing the web
Email	…clicked a link in an email	…been here before
Direct	…typed the address into a browser	…remembers us, or heard about us
Referral	…came from another website	…interested in learning more

*Not always the case, this guide shows why these aren’t quite what they seem.

Here’s how the traffic sources look in Google Analytics.

Assuming that marketing campaigns (such as advertising and email newsletters) are tracked using UTM tracking codes with a URL builder, this is what the Acquisitions > All Traffic > Channels report will look like. To see the percentage view, click on the pie chart.

If you switch back to the data view, you’ll see behavior metrics (bounce rate, pages per visit, average length of a visit) and the conversion metrics (the percentage of visitors who took action) for each source of traffic.

Useful for tracking the effectiveness of various marketing efforts.

Let’s look more closely at each specific source of website traffic. But first, here’s a helpful way to think about the sources and the efforts that make them go.

Oars, Sails and Motors

Here’s a fun little metaphor we’ll use to help us understand the sources of traffic to websites.

Imagine weighing anchor and heading out to sea for a fishing trip. The farther you go, the more fish you’ll catch. You want to go far, go fast and you don’t want to break your bank account (or your back) in the process.

You’ve got a few options: sail, row or fire up the motor.

1. Paid advertising (The motor)

Anyone can buy traffic. Social ads, pay per click, retargeting and banner ads (usually called display ads) are certainly one way to get the boat moving.

Here are the defining traits of paid traffic.

• Advertising is fast. Pick your platform, set a budget, create your ads. Day after tomorrow, you’ll have paid traffic.
• Advertising is temporary. You’ve got to keep buying gas or the motor doesn’t run. Turn it off and it stops as quickly as it started. The other sources of traffic are more durable.
• Advertising is expensive. We all know tales of captains running huge, expensive motors at full speed and not catching a single fish.
• Advertising is targeted. The quality of the visitor is high because you often know more about them based on the click. They must be interested or they wouldn’t have tapped on your ad. But there are really two kinds of ads and therefore two kinds of targeting.

Nobody goes to Google to browse. And no one goes to Facebook to look for something specific.

A skilled digital strategist can look at a product, service or headline and know where it will perform: paid search or paid social.

User data is digital currency. It can help you run better, more empathetic and less interruptive paid campaigns like account-based marketing (ABM) and retargeting. Beyond paid search and social, digital advertising empowers marketers to reach audiences across channels, and personalize ad experiences based on what we know about users and their behaviors.

How to increase website traffic with paid advertising:

Sure, anyone can buy traffic. But when you’re paying for visitors, it’s even more important that they’re qualified and able to take action.

• Choose the right advertising strategy (search, social, ABM, retargeting) for the right audience, content, and goals.
• Use targeting to be as relevant to the user as you can. (Without crossing the line from helpful to creepy.)
• Put yourself in the mind of your audience, and offer them something relevant and valuable enough to act on—both in your ad and on-page.

2. Organic: Search Engine Optimization (Sails)

Just like sailors rely on the weather, SEOs are subject to the winds of Google. But sailors who know search optimization often go very far very efficiently.

Here’s why: every page can catch traffic, like a sail catches wind.

Search traffic is durable.

A page that ranks for a given phrase is likely to keep ranking. Many of the listings we see in search results have been there for months or years.

Keyword opportunities are virtually limitless.

Unlike a boat, which can only hold so many sails, there is no limit to the number of pages you can publish and phrases you can target. Some sites rank for millions of pages.

Search is hypercompetitive.

You need super high quality content because you’re competing with the 10M+ pages that are relevant for your target phrase.

Beyond that, every brand now has to compete with Google itself. Each year, there are more “SERP features” which pull attention away from organic listings and reduce click through rates to websites. This is the biggest trend in SEO.

When it works, organic search is a durable, almost passive source of “free traffic.” You get more traffic with less continued effort. You could stop marketing completely and keep pulling in visitors for years.

But it’s hard to predict and it’s often slow, uncertain work. If this is your maiden voyage (new website, young domain) be patient. It’ll take a while.

  Analytics issues with organic traffic

Medium exactly matches organic

That’s how Google Analytics categorizes organic visitors in the Channels report.

But here’s the problem: Many of these visitors didn’t “discover” you in search at all. A lot of them were already brand-aware but forgot your web address. So they searched for your company name, saw you there in position #1 and clicked. Organic traffic! But not discovery.

So a lot of organic traffic is basically direct traffic.

You can check Google Search Console to see what percentage of your organic traffic were for branded (navigational) queries, as in your company name.

How to increase website traffic from search engines

• Target phrases based on your own Domain Authority (here’s how)
• Write very detailed pages that answer all the questions related to your topic. (One great, comprehensive page is better than lots of little pages.)
• Go back and improve or rewrite older, almost-high-ranking pages (here’s how)

3. Social Media (Oars)

Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!

Social media traffic requires social media activity. Every time you pull those oars, you can move ahead a little bit. But if you stop, you won’t coast for long. You’ll soon be dead in the water.

Here are the defining traits of social media traffic:

Social media is unpredictable.

Even with consistent activity, you’re going to see big spikes and valleys in traffic patterns. Anyone know what’s going to trend tomorrow? Is anybody really good at “viral marketing?”

Social media isn’t just about traffic.

It’s about networking, PR, customer service, influencer marketing and listening. None of these are measured in Analytics. If your only reason for being active on social media is to attract visitors, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

(Some) social media can be delegated and/or automated.

You can’t replace yourself with a robot. But the types of social posts that drive traffic can certainly be scheduled or even automated.

There are basically three kinds of social media posts, and promotional social posts (sharing your own content to drive traffic) can be managed through tools (scheduling and automation tools like CoSchedule).

Here’s what social media traffic often looks like in Analytics. Spikey, isn’t it?

  Analytics issue with social traffic

Social Source Referral exactly matches Yes OR Medium matches regex ^(social|social-network|social-media|sm|social network|social media)$

That’s how Google Analytics knows what traffic to categorize as social media in the Channels report.

So “social media traffic” drastically undercounts traffic from social shares. Here’s why:

Something like 80% of all sharing (source) is not trackable as social shares. This traffic is called “dark social” because it’s not accurately tracked by Analytics. Dark social includes:

• Clicks on links shared in text messages
• Clicks on links shared in email messages
• Clicks on links shared in messaging apps (What’s App, etc.)
• Clicks on links shared in chat applications (Gchat, Slack, etc.)

Campaign tracking code with UTM parameters would fix the problem. But these are just random visitors copying and pasting URLs out of the address bar and into an app or an email. No tracking code. So most of these will get recorded as Direct traffic. More on that in a bit.

How to increase website traffic from social media

• Sharing more content more often using every trick in the book! (here’s how)
• Create short social videos that promote your content (here’s how)
• Avoid Instagram

4. Email Marketing (Oars)

Sometimes there is no giant tech company, such as Google or Facebook, between you and your potential visitor. That’s email. It’s the one digital channel you own and you control.

You don’t own your social followers or search rankings, but you do own your email list.

Email is very spiky like social, but more consistent over time.

A rowing team gets results through repetition and coordination. The Olympic-level email marketers are just as consistent and organized. Here are the defining traits of an email marketing program:

Email marketing is about consistency
Email drives the cadence of a content strategy. It’s in sync with publishing calendars, event schedules, product launches.

Email marketing is about trust
The subscriber has control. You have a sender name and subject line. To win an email visitor, you need to first build enough trust through your content to get their email address, then build your reputation in the inbox to get opened and clicked.

Email gets a little easier
Results gradually improve as you build your email list and try new things. What’s working? Ever tried sending on a weekend? Changing the sender name? Doubling frequency?

  Analytics issues: Email traffic

Medium exactly matches email

That’s how Google Analytics knows what traffic to categorize as email in the Channels report.

Simple, right? Yes, but only if you add tracking code. Add it to every inbound link in every email you send. It doesn’t take long. Follow these instructions and use this campaign URL builder.

How to increase website traffic from email

• Make your sender name a person, not a company (here’s how)
• Make sure your subject lines are “front loaded” with a specific promise (here’s how)
• Send more email. But first, segment your email lists. Then send targeted content to targeted audience groups.

5. Direct Traffic (Current)

Just like the current under a boat, brand awareness drives traffic. They know the brand, they type the address into a browser, a direct traffic visitor arrives.

It’s probably the least discussed source of traffic, but it’s the most important. I asked my friends at SimilarWeb to share the traffic source estimates from the top online marketing companies. Direct traffic is the top traffic source by a lot, more than all other sources of traffic combined.

Probably most internet traffic is direct traffic, but people don’t talk about it much. There’s also a lot of confusion about it.

  Analytics issues with Direct Traffic

Source exactly matches direct AND

Medium exactly matches (not set)

OR

Medium exactly matches (none)

That’s how Google Analytics knows what traffic to categorize as social media in the Channels report. Look at that last part. If there is no medium for the visit, it gets counted as direct!

So here’s the misunderstanding:

Direct traffic is supposedly from visitors who typed your address into their browser, but it’s actually all unknown sources of traffic. It’s direct traffic if the visitor…

• Typed the URL into the address bar
• Clicked a bookmarked or in browsing history
• Clicked a link that wasn’t in a browser (PPT, PDF, QR code, app, etc.)
• “Dark Social” shares (links in email apps, chat, slack, SMS text messages)
• Incognito/private browsing mode
• Clicked a link with bad campaign tracking code
• Clicked from HTTPS to HTTP page

Any visit that isn’t from a search engine, social network or referring website and has no tracking code is lumped into direct traffic. A better name for it would be “Unknown traffic.”

There are ways to minimize these issues, but Google Analytics will never be 100% accurate. And that’s fine. We only need it to be accurate enough to help us make good marketing decisions.

How to increase direct traffic

This is a really interesting question that no one ever asks. I’ve never heard of anyone setting a goal to increase direct traffic. But why not, right?

Keep that current of direct visitors flowing by doing anything that builds brand awareness.

• Offline advertising (TV, radio, print, outdoor)
• Launch a useful tool
• Do more networking, live events, presentations, podcasts or anything else where people talk to each other

6. Referral Traffic (current)

Here’s another source that people don’t talk about much, probably because it doesn’t align with a marketing activity, unlike search, social and email.

But like direct, it can be a consistent current under your boat.

Spikes usually come from news mentions and links on blog posts. Steady traffic often comes from directories.

  Analytics issues with Referral Traffic

Medium exactly matches referral

That’s how Google Analytics knows what traffic to categorize as social media in the Channels report.

That’s pretty straightforward. It should be all traffic from other non-search, non-social websites. But in reality, a lot gets caught in here, including a bit of search and a bit of social.

Check your Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals report to see which sites are sending you visitors. You’re likely to see sources that are obviously email (mail.google.com) or search (uk.search.yahoo.com)

If you’d like to have more sites tracked as organic search sources, rather than referral sources, you can add them in the property settings.

Here you can see we’ve added Duck Duck Go and Ecosia …which apparently isn’t necessary anymore. They’re on the list of default search engines.

How to increase traffic from referral sources

• Submit your site to all relevant directories (consider paid inclusion directories if they rank for your target phrases)
• Write for other sites often (guest posting is a powerful approach to referral traffic)
• Do something newsworthy! Think of link building as digital PR.

Diversity is good, Matey!

The best fishermen don’t always go to the same lake.

The best marketers don’t rely on one source of traffic.

Smart marketers diversify their traffic sources. It’s risky to rely too heavily on one traffic source, especially search and social. We can’t control what big tech companies do with their algorithms.

A friend of mine shared the breakdown of his default channel groupings. It’s impressive. None of his traffic sources make up more than 23% of his traffic. Take a look:

Clearly he has a budget. In fact, he has a team dedicated to each channel. Must be nice to have that kind of fishing fleet!

Read next: What’s a good bounce rate? 

We looked at 500 Analytics accounts and found the average bounce rate for each of the online traffic sources. Here’s are the averages:

What about your site? Here you can see the average bounce rate for companies in your industry.

The post How to Understand Your Website Traffic Sources (Plus, 18 Tips to Increase Website Traffic) appeared first on Orbit Media Studios.

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Google Ads to Begin Testing Images in Ads

Google has always wanted to be the most popular and effective search engine out there, and we can’t help but admire their ambition. But staying the biggest and best means rolling out new features to keep customers happy and the site running smoothly.

The same goes for Google Ads. If you’re up to date on advertising and digital marketing trends, you may have seen Google throwing around terms like “responsive search ads” and “Google Search image ads” before. And no, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill Google image searches or sidebar ads, even if the phrases do sound similar. The development is a bit bigger than that, so let’s examine just what Google means by “testing images in responsive search ads.” Buckle up; there’s a lot to unpack.

First of All, What Are Responsive Search Ads?

What does a traditional search ad look like? Static headlines with equally unmoveable text are probably what come to mind. Marketing experts craft the ad, and the finished product appears the same way to anyone who makes a relevant search.

But what if you could mix and match headlines to narrow in on your demographic? With responsive search ads, you’ll be able to enter multiple headlines and bodies of text from the get-go. Google Ads tests different combinations of headlines and text bodies to see which are the most effective to audiences.

For example, let’s say that you’ve created several headlines and text bodies—we’ll have letters represent headlines and numbers mean the text. For some audiences, Google would use the header “A” with text body “1.” On others, “A” may be paired with text bodies 2, 3, or 4. Bodies 1, 2, 3, and 4 could instead be paired with the headers B, C, and D you’ve created. Mind-blowing, huh? At the end of the day, it’s all about adapting your message to your audience and figuring out which ad combos (ahem, which responsive search ads) perform best. It’s on you, the creator, to come up with eye-catching headers and text bodies, but Google does the shuffling for you. The more options you provide, the more Google has to work with and test out.

Clearly, this is search engine optimization at its finest, even though responsive search ads are still pretty new territory. But what if we told you that, on top of these flexible ads, Google was adding images to them, too?

What Will Responsive Google Search Image Ads Look Like?

As crucial as the right keywords and keyword combos are in SEO, we’re still a visually-oriented species. This means that even if your search ads appear in response to the right keywords, your customer’s eye won’t necessarily gravitate toward your ad. Don’t get us wrong, positioning your ad right at the top of the search results gives you some major clout. But images can provide ads with that little extra push to pique a customer’s interest and get them clicking through to your site.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re a high-end bridal shop. Your customer is in search of a snazzy three-piece suit for their friend’s wedding. Pairing an image of a sharply-dressed model with your search ad is sure to catch their eye. In the case that your business sells more than just three-piece suits, you’ll want to prepare different headers, text, and of course, different images in response to those customers’ queries. Sure, you’re still advertising the same business, but you’re highlighting other aspects of that business for other customers. The bride of said wedding, for example, would probably rather see the image of a wedding dress, paired with subtly different text, than the wedding guests. Make sense?

Benefits of Images in Google Ads

There are all sorts of perks in this new development, many of which will only become evident over time. We’ve compiled a list of the benefits of images in Google Ads below; go on, give it a look!

• The ability to emphasize time-sensitive deals
• Grabbing the attention of a 65% visually-oriented population
• Even greater ad variety keeps potential customers engaged
• Honing in even further on the right demographic by curating images as well as text
• Images breathe life and authenticity into what could quickly become just a bunch of shuffling headers and text bodies

And that’s just the beginning! As Google continues to roll this feature out, we’ll have even greater insight into how images interact with responsive search ads. It’s difficult to say just yet, but we can’t imagine this development being anything other than successful.

What Other Elements Can We Predict for Google Ads?

Again, we don’t want to do too much predicting without substantial evidence, but we’re 99.9% sure we’ll see an uptick in personalized, image-centric ads in the future. Clearly, Google is having some fun with responsive search ads as a whole, so we’ll be keeping an eye on those to see what gets added, tweaked, or removed from this feature entirely. We’re excited to ride the wave of change as Google Ads rolls it out from under us.

Your Business + Snap: An Image We’d Love to See

Want to stay up to date on ad trends like this one? Want some help preparing those headline and text body combos—and finding the most visually striking images to match? Well, you’re in luck, because that’s what we here at Snap do best. What are you waiting for? Message us today; let’s stay on top of the trends together.

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3 Types of Email Campaigns and When to Use Them

We’re always on the hunt for the latest and greatest email marketing strategy. And why, you may ask? Because email marketing is effective. Whether you’re a local mom-and-pop business or a corporate entity, email campaigns reach target audiences in personalized, cost-effective ways. Not to mention that you connect with 2.6 billion potential customers in the process.

Let’s explore further some of the most effective email campaigns and when to use them. Can you identify which technique(s) would be the best for your business going forward? (Hint: it’s likely more than one, if not all of the above.)

1. Remarketing Email Campaigns

At its core, remarketing is the process of following up with customers who browsed your site but didn’t make a purchase. It’s all about reintroducing and re-attracting visitors who may have been on the fence about making a purchase before, and turning them into repeat customers. Ever heard the phrase “second time’s the charm?” (well, okay, it’s typically the “third time,” but you know what we mean). Sometimes all it takes to convert a customer is repeating the same info, while wrapping that info in new, pretty packaging.

What does this email repackaging look like, exactly? That’s up to you! If you want to keep it simple, you may send out the same, catch-all ads with different pictures, email-exclusive deals, customer testimonials, or wording. We suggest taking it one step further and tailoring your remarketed emails toward individual demographics and search habits. What if the email featured the exact item that the customer had been eyeing earlier? Or if it included a “picked just for you” section with items geared toward that customer’s demographics (age, gender, occupation, or income bracket)? Your possibilities are endless.

2. Abandoned Cart Emails

Technically, abandoned cart emails should be filed under the “remarketing” header, but they’re such effective email campaign examples that they warrant their own section.

Let’s put it in perspective: there are many reasons a customer might close out of your site with items in their virtual shopping cart. Never fear, not all of them need be bad—maybe their web browser glitched, or the customer got distracted by something IRL. Have you ever been in the situation where you spotted that life-changing product, told yourself, “I’ll look back at it later,” and forgotten the site or product name entirely? In those hair-pulling scenarios, abandoned cart emails ensure that that excellent find isn’t lost in the void of the internet forever.

But enough talk—what are these abandoned cart emails, specifically? They’re automated email reminders that customers have closed out of your site without purchasing the items in their cart. In email marketing strategy, we love a good gentle nudge—and in this case, that nudge might be just enough to get your customer saying, “You know what? Maybe I will buy that product, after all!” At the very least, it’ll keep your business on the customer’s radar.

Still not swayed? In a recent study of 41 businesses, carts were abandoned at a rate of nearly 70%. Yikes, right? Those stats jump even higher for mobile purchases, where it’s easier to “X” out of a tab on a moment’s notice. Thankfully, abandoned cart emails convert, on average, 10-20% of customers, those stats again being higher for mobile sales. And that’s quite the difference.

3. Drip Email Campaigns

You’ve probably heard of drip marketing, but you might not even realize it. It’s the practice of sending “drips,” which are pre-written sets of messages to customers over time. They’re most prevalent in email marketing, especially for companies with an extensive buyer list who want to reach many people quickly.

Although they’re automated, drip emails aren’t sent out simultaneously, with the same phrases, to every customer. Words or phrases are often adjusted to fit the shopper’s demographic, purchase habits, and specific behaviors. You, the company, have a slew of automated emails at the ready that are tweaked to fit your customer’s unique profile.

Now, drip campaigns may sound intimidating, especially with all the subtle adjustments that need to happen. Don’t worry, sites like MailChimp are already designed to make the process an easy one. You’ll want to conduct some demographic research in tandem with such platforms, though.

One last thing—send emails with triggers! These are specific actions the customer must take to receive emails. A common example is a post-purchase confirmation email; bonus points if you recommend similar items in the process. Other examples include subscription renewals and sign-ups for more info, or better deals on future products. A good, old fashioned call to action on a drip campaign has been shown to boost clicks up to 371%. And that’s quite the leap.

Snap: Email Campaigns Made Simple

We take pride in our email campaigns here at Snap. We’re committed to paving the way in email marketing, whether you’re conducting a drip campaign, remarketing strategy, or something else. Join us to be paired with the best email marketing techniques for your business—and straightforward ways to implement them.

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SMEs: The Key to Strengthening Your Content

If you work in a professional service sector, you’ve probably heard the term “subject matter expert” or “SME” before. What you may not have known is that SMEs are one of the strongest ways to strengthen your content, particularly in marketing. They boost the quality of a piece by lending their expertise—and if you can cite them or get them to share your work, even better.

But hold up, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, let’s cover our bases and examine just what an SME is, and why they matter so much.

What is the Role of the SME?

The role of the SME is one of authority. That’s a pretty broad description, but we’re completely serious. Wikipedia’s definition of SME is literally “a person who is an authority in a particular area or topic.”

In professional services, it makes sense that you’d have an SME on hand. We wouldn’t trust our medical practitioners, accountants, lawyers, etc. unless they were authorities in their fields, would we? Whether they’re offering data-driven insights, contributing to written or visual content, or simply lending you a quote, SMEs are invaluable people to have in your corner. 

In Digital Marketing, What Kinds of People Are SMEs?

The term “SME” may cover quite a bit of territory, but there are several traits that make SMEs stand out in online marketing. Let’s break those traits down:

SMEs Are Detail-Oriented

As thought leaders in their industry, SMEs won’t overlook the crucial details. Whether you’re developing a long-term content strategy, writing technical pieces, or analyzing this quarter’s SEO data, SMEs have your back.

Make note, however, that technical SMEs and marketers will not necessarily be the same people. Take written content, for example. The SME’s keen eye for detail may contribute to the content, but someone else may be doing the writing itself so that it appeals to a wider audience. If you have an SME on hand who doubles as a digital marketer, fantastic! If not, we can’t recommend tag-teaming it highly enough.

SMEs Can See the Big Picture

This may sound contradictory given our last point, but it’s that combination of attention to detail and a big-picture focus that brings an SME’s vision to life.

The “big picture” can look very different for each company. For some, it’s developing that content strategy out one, two, three years ahead. For others, it’s setting clear goals for conversions through likes, shares, and other forms of audience engagement. You’ll want to identify your goals, broadly speaking, before calling in an SME—and then further refine those goals once you’ve heard your SME’s insights.

SMEs Are Thought Leaders

We used this term earlier, and no, it’s not just some pretentious turn of phrase. What makes a good subject matter expert is that they know both the here-and-now of their chosen topic and can also make predictions about that industry’s future. This is especially important in marketing, where we constantly have to make projections about how well a campaign will do. In other words, SMEs have the prior knowledge and the confidence to say, “Yes, that plan will prove profitable, and here’s why” or “No, based on X, that’s not a wise plan of action.”

How to Get an SME to Contribute to Your Content

SMEs can be either internal (i.e., from your product or sales team) or external industry experts. In both cases, once you’ve reached out and shared your vision with an SME, there are multiple routes you can go to gain their contribution:

Have Them On Stand-By to Offer Their Expert Opinion

We touched on this earlier—the bond between an SME and a content marketer (whether they be a writer, web designer, strategist, or something else) is like no other. How you decide to work together with your SME, though, is your choice entirely.

For many, SMEs perform the “behind the scenes” work. In recent years, however, we’ve seen an increase in SME appearances in live video content, like webinars and Instagram Live videos. Here they can field questions and talk up your brand with the statistics to back their claims up.

Ask Them to Share Your Work

What better way to boost credibility and increase reach than to have an SME share your content? This can go both ways: the SME can talk about your business on their site, or you can quote them on your page and provide a citation. We especially love SME quotes in short marketing content pieces. Think of how much more “oomph” an 800-word blog post or an at-a-glance infographic has with an expert’s opinion woven into it!

Snap: Award-Winning Digital Marketing SMEs

At Snap, we’re SMEs in the digital marketing field. (Well, the Fast 50 award we won this year for substantial company growth would certainly suggest so.) We’re constantly growing our business through SEO, web design, social media marketing, and more—so what are you waiting for? Come chat with our subject matter experts today!

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How to Choose the Right Platform to Advertise On

Where is the best place to advertise? It’s a question that keeps many brands up at night. It doesn’t help that there’s no one straight answer. A cursory, “where should I advertise?” Google search brings up thousands of conflicting results. It appears there are as many answers as there are brands.

When we answer this burning question with the phrase “it depends,” bear with us. There are countless platforms out there, yes, but there are several that, in our minds, rise to the top. Essentially, all platforms are suited to different goals. The key is to identify these goals strategically and work with the platform(s) best suited towards them.

Let’s look at some of the best digital platforms for advertising and break down what makes them great.

Google Ads

As you may already know, Google Ads is based on a bidding system, where advertisers get to display brief ads, product listings, videos, and so on. Those ads can appear in search engine results, non-search websites, mobile apps, and more, making their reach far and wide. It uses a pay-per-click (PPC) pricing model, which means that the ads you pay for appear in response to specific keywords and keyword combos. Whenever a user clicks your ad and is directed to your site, you pay a specific dollar amount.

Positives

Google Ads are best for those lower in the funnel stage of advertising. That may not make sense immediately, as this platform can be a tad pricey. However, the clicks are usually more targeted; you can ensure that your ads only appear at certain times of day, for example, or in response to a specific chain of keywords. It’s all about the balancing act: ensuring that your ads are, indeed, appearing to the right people, but that your advertising budget isn’t going to waste on random or conversion-less clicks.

Not only are the clicks more targeted, but businesses make, on average, double the revenue for every $1 they spend on Google Ads. Well, technically, it’s around 2 to 2.3 times their total expenditure, but Google took the modest approach in a recent report.

Drawbacks

The biggest drawback with Google Ads is, again, the expense, but don’t let that deter you! To continually optimize your PPC ad campaign (and protect your ad budget while you’re at it), you can regularly review keyword performance and keep an eye on your bidding budget.

Social Media

Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and even TikTok encourage content creation and sharing valuable product information. This is not the place for boring product manuals or technobabble (unless you can condense it into a nice video or infographic). It relies heavily on user-generated content to help individuals and businesses connect. If you’re looking to create a social media ad campaign, you’re in good company; there were over 3.8 billion social media users at the start of 2020. 3.8 billion—nearly half the world’s population!

Positives

Is your product visually appealing, or does your brand have a memorable aesthetic, whether in color scheme, company voice, or something else? Then social media is an excellent route to go. Even if your products and services aren’t exactly straightforward or glamorous (we’re looking at you, B2B businesses), social media helps boost user engagement by breaking your company down into digestible chunks. That could mean explaining products in bite-sized social media ads or giving those ads a cohesive color scheme for a visually-oriented public.

Not sure where to start? Instagram is one of our favorites, placing extra emphasis on visuals over text. What’s more, approximately 90% of users follow a business on the platform, meaning that IG users are already looking to hear from and interact with brands and ad campaigns.

Drawbacks

One of the most evident drawbacks of social media advertising is that it’s time-consuming. Tasks may include staying up on trends—or continually refining your brand’s voice, look, stance on important issues, etc. With social media and the world around us constantly changing, it pays to have an alert digital marketing team monitoring and tweaking your ad campaign when needed.

LinkedIn

Okay, we know that this technically should be filed under the “social media” category, but LinkedIn does function differently from the rest. It’s all about professional networking, so ads that recruit new employees, in addition to boosting brand awareness, tend to be the most successful.

Positives

LinkedIn offers effective targeted ad options, such as Sponsored InMail, that’s sent to other LinkedIn members. This allows companies to connect with those already interested in growing professionally, rather than spammers. There’s also Sponsored Content, which runs ads in users’ news feeds and Lead Gen forms. These techniques are worth a look; feed engagement has grown 50% in response to sponsored ads alone.

Drawbacks

As we talked about with Google Ads, LinkedIn advertising can come at a steep price. For many businesses, $5 or more per click isn’t a worthy investment. Moreover, many LinkedIn users are just job hunting, meaning they may not be receptive to your sales pitch. That’s why it pays (literally) to know your target audience and accommodate their needs.

Snap: Crafting Show-Stopping Ad Campaigns Since 2010

What constitutes the “best ad platform” is debatable, but thankfully, the “best digital marketing agency” is not. Okay, okay, we’re being facetious, but we really are great at what we do, and creating killer ad campaigns is no exception. Message us today to find out more.

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