SEO In 2021, The Definitive Guide

by Subin John | Apr 7, 2021 | SEO

The term SEO, i.e., Search Engine Optimisation, is not new for those who are internet netizens. It is an important marketing tool very complicated and multifaceted. Hence it’s very tough to understand what it demands, even if you have the basic knowledge.

SEO is important because it helps you gain visibility; drives traffic towards your site,and gives you a chance on how to convert your viewers into reliable customers.

Apart from this it enhances your brand popularity, helps build contacts with your clients and improves your ranking in the form of a trustworthy and powerful net user.

SEO Elements

In the present digital world, SEO has become very vital because it has some crucial elements that are listed below:-

1. Keywords:-

   The days are gone when keywords were the only search engine optimization technique that was popular, but somehow they’re still important. The only difference is that the recent keywords need to get searched, picked, and used wisely for creating an effective and influential content.

   To me, keywords are just phrases or words that are used by the clients to search any content online, and these are also used by the brands to build connections with their customers, who are hunting for their services.

   Researching keywords:

   It is very vital to choose keywords for your content that has a very low competition and high rate of search.

   They should be precise so that you can use them to maximize your titles, other online SEO elements, and URLs.

2. Content:-

   As one of the most important/crucial elements of SEO, your content helps you reach and engage a huge number of viewers. It can be created in various forms like

   1. Blogs
   2. Videos
   3. Podcasts
   4. Social media post
   5. E-books
   6. Web-page
   7. Infographics
   8. Local listing

   Your content should always be informative, relevant, interesting, engaging, and moreover shareable, so that whenever a customer wants to know about a brand, your blog should be the first one to attract him. This is how you’ll be able to gain a good reputation among your end-users. They’ll be able to build a relationship with you through your content.

3. Local SEO:-

   This is an upcoming element because many people use their mobile phones for search. They use either smartphones or tablets for getting the required information. Apart from using local SEO and local keywords, some best practices like creating pages for your business on sites i.e., Google My Business, Google Maps, and Google +, creating local pages for your site and directory listing, have gained pace.

4. Off-page Search Engine Optimization:-

   Another important element of SEO is external optimization practices away from your site. Backlink building is the technique used here as the external site of backlinks tell that your content is valuable, worth watching, and authoritative to the search engine.

   Among the various backlink building tactics, guest blogging infographics for more sharing and acknowledging influence in your content are the latest and the best.

5. SEM-Search Engine Marketing:-

   This element includes native ads, social media ads, Google AdWords, display ads, Google Shopping, and pay-per-click like things. It directly refers to the marketing strategies that are paid. SEM can’t be taken as a vital part of SEO efforts, but it definitely helps you reach your new and targeted audience.

Significance of SEO in today’s business world

1. Business growth:-

   SEO becomes essential because it helps you reach your goals. Through SEO, you can improve your business relationship with your viewers, divert more traffic to your page/site, gain customer experience, have better interactions, and enhance your authority to face competition. This all ultimately will result in more sales, more reliable customers and skyrocket business growth.

2. Failing Search Engine:-

   As an important factor to mention is that the search engines are failing or they’re not perfect. Your website will have to suffer if preventive steps are not taken to encounter this issue. The search engine cannot gain popularity unless your site has a proper link structure. Your site can lose ranking or the search engine can be entirely blocked, if there are some coding errors in it.

   There are some more problems that can fail your search engine like:-

   1. forms
   2. Language and Semantics
   3. Duplicacy
   4. Non-textual matter, images, videos, audio files, and flash.

3. Ranking And Visibility:-

   SEO’s main purpose is to increase your visibility to help your customers find you easily when they’re hunting for something you wish to offer them. Moreover it means the higher the ranking on SERP, the more audiences will see your content and try to connect. It all depends on the SEO efforts you make to increase your ranking, further affecting your visibility.

4. Positive Customer Experience:-

   SEO is also important because the time and effort you put into creating appealing content make your site popular. SEO enhances your site’s usability and develops a kind of better visitor’s experience.

   For e.g.:- when you make efforts to enhance your interaction on your site, it becomes accessible to all mobile, laptop, and desktop visitors. They spend more time on your page as the bounce rate reduces and the page load speed increases. This is how you’re able to create a seamlessly positive experience for customers.

5. Increased Traffic:-

   Among the main goals of SEO, increased online traffic is very crucial. And it grows with visibility and ranking. You need SEO practices to promote your website through search engines, improve your ranking and be among the five top positions or even number one.

6. Trustworthiness:-

   It eventually means authority, relevance, and high quality. Through its, a new term is gaining popularity in SEO and has become an important factor to increase web users and search engines. It’s based on a simple equation that says higher authority + high ranking = more trustworthy traffic for your product.

Cost of SEO Services

When it comes to SEO Services, the cost differs from agency to agency. The amount actually depends on how big your business is and the extent of services you need. You should remember that in SEO Services, you get what you have paid for exactly.

Therefore, never compromise with cheap SEO Services, choose an agency that offers quality services. Due to the wide range of marketing campaigns, it is really tough to estimate its cost.

Generally, SEO projects range between $400 to $10,000 per month depending on the extent of services offered.

For a small business, the price is on the lower end but an e-commerce store that has 50000+ products needs a large budget planning for SEO. However, it should be determined precisely. Larger website means an extensive SEO project. Moreover, SEO is an ongoing process, so instead of a one-time investment, you should focus on a monthly plan to keep your site active and fresh. And make efforts to reach the top ranking of search results continuously.

SEO Services in 2021

The spectrum becomes winder as marketing channels continue to grow online.

When we talk of 2021 SEO plans, it includes elements like content marketing, social media usage, conversion avenues, and many other online analysis. Therefore, it is very essential to choose well-versed SEO companies that offer multiple internet marketing services. Pick the best company for your marketing campaigns that can influence SEO results. Make sure that the company you’re working with has a variety of services in their SEO packages as a professional full-service provider.

The 2021 SEO cost depends on many factors, some companies have broken down the cost into a three-layered process for their customer’s convenience, but its marketing cost is related to us. There is no agency that has set a standard against SEO charges. It becomes your duty to compare the price of packages with others as a necessary part of the buying process and choose the most appropriate SEO expert for your niche.

Things to look for when hunting the price of SEO:-

The price of SEO depends on the extent of your plan. There are a few things that can help you make the right choice:-

1. The agency should be authorized and qualified; it should be able to educate/inform you about what is the fare rate of SEO or what to look for when comparing agencies, firms, or vendors.
2. The rate varies; hence it’s very challenging to learn what impact will they have on your business or what actually they reflect.
3. The agency you choose is ready to adopt the search engine frequent changes and take steps to meet refined algorithm updates. Moreover, they’re approachable to the best SEO strategies.
4. Be vigilant to partner companies that have packages like one-size-fits-all, and also beware of agencies that have high rates of SEOs. But instead, you look forward to join hands with the company that have varied plans and packages to satisfy your unique needs and are fit for your SEO plans.
5. Choose a reputable and experienced company in the field of Internet marketers. They have a systematic SEO cost approach. It has the potential to help you know the value of effort in making a successful SEO campaign/strategy.

However, the cost of SEO projects in 2021 lies between $750 – $2000 per month, depending on the size of your business. A one-time project cost ranges between $5000 to $30,000 along with hourly consultant rates that are somewhere between $80-$200 per hour.

Is the 2021 SEO worth it?

Some of the old SEO techniques and strategies are no more active. They’re almost dead. To begin with, Google’s algorithm updates can only help removing poor quality content that cannot achieve ranking on the # 1st page of search engine result page (SERP).

So, Google’s new design is used now to gain organic ranking with more elements and get more opportunities for high-quality images, videos, and content.

Google has become sophisticated and smarter than before. There has been a lot of difference in its quality content spam.

The spam practice that was dominating before is no longer in use. Moreover, the old tactics that were hindering your site’s ranking are dead.

All malpractices like-

1. Content copying
2. Spammy backlinks
3. Keyword stuffing
4. Clickbait headlines
5. Slow and fake sites

that are penalized by Google are no more in existence.

The blog updates and tweaks have taken over the ill practices through SEO experts scrambling. Therefore, SEO is worth it, still today. The only thing is how to do it correctly in order to get maximum benefits and reduce the penalty or splashing.

Procedure to conduct SEO 2021 to rank 1 in Google:-

There is no better time to begin with, the newly designed SEO than now, as it’s still active and doing better than before. It’s cost-free, and you can perform a few things right now with advanced SEO tactics. Just check quickly whether your site and the pages are indexed by Google or not using a linked “site:yourdomain.com.”

This type of check will help you know about the list of pages existing on Google, another tool called Google Search Console can also be used for the same purpose. If you don’t find any result, this means that your site is in great trouble and has not been indexed by Google.

Hence to supercharge your SEO, there are some ways provided by the Google Search Console:-

For more information, you need to check your website’s speed of page loading. It plays a crucial role in SEO, and if you want to improve your Google ranking, then it’s necessary to have a site that is responsive and fast.

There is another tool available for free called the Page Speed Insights to check your site’s speed.

By putting your page URL, you can know about the performance of your site through the desktop or mobile phones, laptops, or tablets.

Another ranking factor is to see whether your site is mobile-friendly or not. Hence, a mobile friendly test like a free tool presented by Google can be used.

And lastly to measure your natural traffic, you can log in to Google Analytics and take a look into how much traffic volume you’re getting. If it’s up to your expectation, then don’t bother, but if you find some improvement, then analyze and see what could be done.

As far as SCO is concerned, it’s an iterative process that becomes important during SEO audit at regular intervals. So you need intervals to improve your performance and measure results.

*Pros and cons of SEO:-

SEO is an important marketing channel that has a variety of ways to provide different results. Hence it becomes very essential to know about the pros and cons of SEO for choosing the right tool for your business.

Pros:-

1. The right SEO rewards you with long-term results. Once you hit high ranking in Google, you’re sure to get long-term benefits.
2. As the initial investment in SEO lasts for an extended period of time, it seems quite cheaper.

Moreover, for targeting keyword-based information SEO is an essential element.

Cons:-

1. To generate a good amount of organic traffic, SEO takes nearly 3 to 6 months for a new website. So it’s time-consuming and very slow at showing results
2. SEO needs high-quality content for optimization and technical tweaks with no promises.
3. In the case of disruptive new business, where people are unaware of your product, SEO doesn’t fit well.
4. The penalties and changes keep you always on your toes, and sometimes the business gets demoted.

2021-SEO strategies

Search Engine Optimization had plenty of chances for marketers in 2020. To avoid Google featured misinformation updates and conducting search results during the pandemic, this year has been great. For SEO the year 2020 had mild effects on algorithm updates, and the SEO tactics need no adjustments. But a slight growth in the value of existing ranking factors has been noticed.

There are some SEO priorities to review for 2021:-

1. Core web vital:-

   The concept of Core Web Vital has been recently launched by Google. This is a three-user metric that will soon be registered as an important ranking factor. All the metrics have different page speed aspects to deal with. The pages that do well on metrics will get the same benefits of ranking as other pages.

   Page Speed Insight or Search Console can be used to check the vitals of your site. Google will determine your maximum score and offer some recommendations to improve your site specifically. In order to get a good Core Web Vital Score, here are some tips and practice to follow.

   1. The (LCP) Largest Contentful Paint should be loaded within 2.5 seconds for the maximum visual part of the screen.
   2. The (FID) First Input Delay should be kept under 100m to make the page interactive.
   3. The (CLS) Cumulative Layout Shift should be kept under 10% during loading. To optimize your CLS, you need to consider your video and image size attributes and also that your content covers the whole page from top to bottom.

2. Use schema markup:-

   It is a group of HTML tags that introduce your content to search engines. These tags can be implemented easily in the form of product prices, cooking recipes, phone numbers to the author’s name, or working hours.

   Once the tags are added, your content will be shown to the users through google more confidently.
   Google will create gorgeous snippets using data to enhance search results.
   Secondly, schema markup is very helpful in developing healthy entity links apart from local SEO.

   You can Schema Markup either using a google helper or through the plugin CMS platform- Schema website.

3. Resolve Technical issues:-

   Technical audit plays an important role in search optimization. Despite maximum backlinks and good content, if your page is not accessed by Google, then you should go for a website audit to find technical issues that need to be resolved. Here are some practices to follow-

   1. Make your page accessible to the search engines.
   2. Install an SSL certificate as a secured protocol before switching from HTTP to HTTPS. Also, make sure that the images are taken from reliable sites.
   3. Create a user-friendly website structure so that users can easily navigate your site with three clicks only.
   4. Create short, clean, and readable URLs
   5. Use a mobile-friendly website for an optimized search engine.

4. Proper content structure:-

   If we see in terms of SEO, it simply means creating quality content with proper length and keywords stuff. In order to maximize content search engine, there are certain tips to follow-

   1. Use keywords in a natural way, as a pronoun, with associated words and variations.
   2. The content length preferred by search engines has no standard, but when used as a benchmark, it needs to be informative. If it’s less than the top-ranking page length, then you must have missed the right scope.
   3. To create a content structure for a good user experience using HTML tags, with a heading, split-up content, and a valuable outline.

5. Build high-quality backlinks:-

   Use relevant sites to build high-quality links through reliable partners. Place those links in the content for making it more clickable/valuable. Also, ensure that the backlinks are do-follow from SEO’s perspective. Prioritize editorial links that look more organic from websites.

6. Look for SERP features:-

   Google uses many SERP features today for text formatting, Schema, alt tags, and markup that are attainable. There are numerous SERP features, and it becomes difficult to know which ones are the best. Therefore it is better to apply some filters. Firstly the filters will isolate SERP’s features that are acquired by your competitors. Secondly, they’ll isolate the search results for those you have been ranking high, and lastly, these filters will isolate queries that have high search volumes.

Conclusion

To compete in this hi-tech world, every business owner needs a robust SEO plan. The latest tools and strategies of digital marketing can help speed up your SEO. If you want to reach the top of the ranking page, implement the SEO basics – techniques and tricks and go beyond search engine optimization.

17 Super Actionable Content Marketing Tips For More Traffic

by Subin John | Apr 7, 2021 | SEO

With so much content available to us, getting the right traffic is pretty overwhelming because it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Some content can be attractive while some may be blank, so people usually come back to visit a good, simple, and felt content on all levels.

Therefore, to stand out in the crowd and be at the top of the google search list, a decent content marketing strategy is the need of the hour.

Imagine writing a thoroughly well-studied article without any interested reader!

How does it feel? Perhaps sad!

However, one can easily pick up these 17 interesting tips for actionable content marketing for increased traffic and see the difference they hold.

1. Fix a plan!

   The primary goal that we have as bloggers and digital writers is to direct more and more traffic to our sites, increase reader visitors, and better rank on the search Engine Results Page (SERP).

   The very first step in achieving your goal is making a plan on how to work. A content marketing plan is critical, or else it will seem like you are driving into a destination you do not know about. A content marketing plan will define your goals; it will be transparent and clear about the issues that are going to address.

   A content marketing goal includes- the target audience, content created for that target, and the positives they will achieve from the content.

2. Content remarketing!

   Content remarketing is the process of holding on to your visitors by targeting them with content once they leave your site in an attempt to re-engage them and to attract them back to your site.

   This technique gives you an opportunity to tell your visitors you exist and come back to your site to check some fantastic lists.

   Your visitors might be reading some online news, watching YouTube videos, and there you are, sliding into their screen to show them something exciting that you have created. In simple words, it is an approach to get your visitors back to your site.

   Remarketing provides you with the following opportunities:

   • Increases repeated visitor lists and engagement.
   • Raises the efficacy of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content marketing.
   • Increases branded searches.
   • Makes bounced website visitors turn into leads.

   It is essential to build engagement with your customer base, and therefore tagging them is a way of expressing that they are worth the content and time. There is also an increased chance that these readers would circulate your article, thereby increasing your reach profoundly. By grabbing the existing users, you can call upon some new users as well.

3. Keyword investigation!

   The very first step for content production is finding the right keywords. For which you need to focus on SEO to write unique quality-worth content. To reach your business goals in content marketing, you must optimize your website keywords. Keyword research being the fundamental concept of SEO, is the primary aspect you need to be well versed with if you are a beginner.

   So, what is keyword research, and why is it important?

   This is a process that includes finding the right keywords to identify how target users find websites like yours, in simple words, to increase targeted traffic to your business.

   For instance, you want the latest news of a cargo ship being blocked in the Suez Canal. You might type it on Google and will expect to get your results on the first page itself, also known as SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

   So here, keywords will include- Suez Canal, Cargo Ship, blocked, and so on. This way, keyword research helps to understand the queries that the users put forward to find in the search results. And in this way, business values are assigned to these hit words, commonly used by the target audience.

4. Acknowledge complexities!

   Trying to answer complex questions is regarded as one of the best content marketing strategies. And logically, why will someone surf the net if the answers to the questions are easy? But, you may bounce back saying, not everyone knows everything!

   Then create things that are not expected to know by everybody and develop them so that the masses will get lured to them. All you got to do, is find questions that are difficult to solve by people in large; for instance, Mathematics and Statistics are academically interesting yet provoking subjects that are not liked by a large crowd. So why not make things easy and write your posts on the ANOVA test or the t-test. In this way, you will target a large academic group to your site.

   Another exciting approach is to create a Quora profile and insert a link to your website that discusses the subject raised in the question. Answer questions and ask people to check out your blog for more details. So, you are making yourself visible on other websites and promoting your site as well. Also, make sure you are well versed with the topic and provide the correct information to your users.

5. Add scientific data!

   The world is ever-evolving, and therefore, people are becoming more and more aware of the literature that is available to them. Gone are the days when you could post something, and people would believe you. Evidence and reports have become a prime and fundamental aspect of letting users know that you are providing the correct information.

   Adding facts, reported studies, clinical trials, and other scientific proof that has been well documented could add weightage to your blog or content. It leaves an impression that the writer is updated and is aware of the topic’s integrities. Giving the suitable sources of the articles, websites, journals, or books where you have given the information is another way of keeping plagiarism and copying at bay.

   Plagiarism is the act of copying someone else’s work, written documents, or even ideas and proclaiming them as your original work. It hampers the credit that needs to be given to the right person and must not be practiced at all.

   So if I write two sentences, which one do you think will make an enormous impact?

   “Men tend to drink more carbonated beverages than women.”

   Or

   “According to the Center of Disease Control (CDC), men tend to drink more Carbonated beverages than women.”

   The second sentence has a more significant impact because it is supported by the CDC, which means there has been a study done, and it is clinically accurate.

6. Stop copy-pasting!

   The most common mistake done is copying articles from favorite blogs or information available on the first page of Google itself. If you type the keyword and someone else does the same, why do you not think that Google will show the same search results? Now, Google cannot differentiate if it was you or somebody else. So, no matter who it is, everyone will exactly get the same list of searches when you type in the keyword. Then why copy?

   As discussed above, it is an act of plagiarism, and by doing so, you may create considerable content but is it worth of content?

   Well, you can indeed address this the right way!

   – Make sure you quote them whenever you have grabbed some information from them.
   – Provide references wherein you need to include the name, website/journal/article, year, month, date, and the URL to that site.

   For instance, or even cite social media accounts, for example, @username on Instagram to repost or click on the Share button on Facebook, which lets people know who has created the post first.

   – Last, do not forget to cite images and videos by giving suitable sources.

7. Highlight the brand!

   One of the essential strategies of content marketing is to be a voice to your brand. In other words, it should reflect your brand. Perhaps, you are doing this content to move your brand to the next level. Therefore, your content needs to be created so that it talks about your brand and makes the target audience visit your brand.

   For instance, if you own a site that deals with buying Instagram Likes or comments than in your articles, you need to cite your website as an example to reach your goals.

   Say, I am writing an article on how to increase Instagram comments?

   After giving a brief introduction about the topic, you would jump on citing an example of your site and also providing a link to it.

   “Buylikesservices.com is one of the finest sites that provide Instagram Likes and Comments as the cheapest rate available in the market. Our outstanding team of professionals is well aware of the niche dynamic and helps you get the right recognition you deserve. All you gotta do is visit the site, select the package of your choice and relax as your order will be delivered to you.”

   In this way, I am not just providing information on how to increase one’s likes and comments on Instagram, but also adding the brand’s name to reach its goal.

   Also, this site is a real, authentic one, and you can go check it out for Instagram, Facebook, or tiktok services.

8. Voice out!

   Speaking your mind out is an essential aspect of a writer. Writers are meant to bring a change through their hands in the way they write. The pen may be your most powerful weapon here. Be it sensitive topics like women’s safety or propaganda on global warming, write your heart out. It is crucial to market good quality content in the market; one that is informative and enlightening.

   Do you know what adds value to your articles?

   Your own experiences, the lessons you’ve learned. They may not be accurate to all, but at least they may touch hearts that are broken. Just copy-pasting articles from other websites may not help in brand recognition, and it will reflect just your dedication to work. There’s no harm in taking ideas, but you got to improvise on those ideas.

   Competition is essential as it makes us push forward beyond our limits and makes us do things that we feel are impossible. Knowing your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses is another factor you shouldn’t ignore. Did you know one could employ “spying” to learn more about your competitors?

   Here are some tools that you could browse to know more!

   • SEMrush
   • WhatRunsWhere
   • Adbeat
   • Ontolo
   • MixRank
   • Moat
   • KeywordSpy

9. Learn about your audience!

   Your audience represents your target group, and you must know about your target audience’s likes and dislikes. To create the right content, you should know who your audience is.

   How would you know about your targets then?
   Here are three crucial steps that you need to follow;

   Step 1: assemble demographic data

   This is the primary step to get data about your visitors, readers, email subscribers, and social media followers.

   So, who will help you find the correct information?

   Email subscriber analytics, social media analytics, and web analytics are data providers that will help you get information on your target group’s gender, age, qualification, and income.

   Step 2: get customer feedback

   Customer feedback is a direct way of knowing what your clients feel about your content. It indeed gives you insights into how your data is helpful and how it can be improved.

   Step 3: create customer avatars

   This includes data on customer’s issues, problems, information sources, and behavioral motivators.

10. Appraise your current status!

    Your content will be out there. Be it articles, blogs, or social media content. The next step is to figure out if this content helps you reach your goal and assess if the content is creating positivity within your readers.

    To do so, you need to do something called content auditing.

    So what is content auditing?

    It is the process of logging onto all your content, assessing its usefulness, and identifying its gaps.

    If you want to log in to your content, sites like Screaming Frog work well by listing URLs, analyzing page descriptions and titles, finding duplicate pages, and creating sitemaps.

    Checking the usefulness includes:

    • Looking out for metrics that form if the data is shared.
    • Identifying any bound sources.
    • Narrowing the search engine ranking for those keywords.

    Finding gaps includes:

    • The goals that are not met.
    • Answers you don’t provide to your readers.
    • Improvising on the repeated content.

11. Audience interaction is a must!

    Audience engagement is the key to your success. It would be best if you typed it in such a way that you are being encouraged and friendly to your readers. The more you inspire your readers, the stronger the relationship becomes. And there are high chances that these readers will be lured back to your page.

    Another aspect is “calling for action.” This encourages your readers to interact with you through comments, emails, or your brand’s social media page. Leave some space to note comments, feedback, or options to rate your content. It builds a direct engagement between you and your client. Also, it is necessary that once you get a comment or feedback, you need to revert as soon as possible to your users. This creates an impression that you care about your readers and provide the correct information to them.

12. Collaborating with the known!

    To increase your reach so that maximum people read your content, you can collaborate with well-known people in the industry. Be it social media influencers or writers, collaborating with them will help you gain recognition from their target audience too. So, more and more people will read or view your content.

    For instance, interviewing a famous personality will grasp some attention from their followers as well as well-wishers. On can even collaborate with social media influencers to promote or endorse your brand and assignments.

    Social media influencers are individuals with a large follower base. They are liked and adored by thousands of followers for their clothing choices, food, and lifestyle.

    So, you tend to grab the attention of a larger audience and be it in the hall of fame too.

13. Remodel your content!

    Writing blogs daily sounds fun but do you know how time-consuming it is to develop a new topic every day with widely accepted and proven research?

    However, being consistent is critical for your audience as it keeps them glued to your page. So one way to keep up with the consistency and not waste much time on writing newer topics every day, consolidate older articles and repurpose them.

    It will allow you to update old data and republish it with better information.

    How can one update an existing blog?

    – Provide the latest facts and stats
    – Add images, videos, and sources
    – Provide links to your other similar blogs

    Another way to re-introduce the blog is by coming up with titles like “2.0” or “second edition.” It is also vital that you update the date of posting. The earlier the blog is updated, the better impression it has.

14. Add social media links to your writing!

    Currently, social media icons that can be created include Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. For creating social media icons, you have to enter the URL of your social media profile page for the social media sites you want to make.

    After selecting the social media icon, select the size and click on the “generate” button.

    It is widely seen that blogs go hand-in-hand with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. By linking social media sites, you tend to increase more and more viewers to your blog. And the best way to do it is by adding social media links.

    This way, it is also easier to share content on other more comprehensive platforms.

15. Discovering content syndication!

    The basic framework behaving syndication is that if the content creators have a broader appeal and popularity, it will allow other publications to publish this content on their site.

    The publication has to credit the content writer’s work to link back to the original site for greater visibility.

    In this way, you tend to extend your content’s shelf-life and let it circulate for some time. It allows you to double the usability of your content to share it with a larger audience without reinventing it.

    So if you syndicate one article to 15 blogs, you can 15 links back to your site.

16. Use titles that arouse emotions!

    One of the easiest ways to gather more vigorous attention is to write content that generates some hardcore emotions, stuff that readers could relate to and are interested in knowing more about it. According to one analysis, titles that have a solid emotional title get more clicks.

    For instance, if you focus on social media posts, posts that arouse happy, sad, or exciting feelings make people like, comment, and share the content.

    Another exciting catch is when you try and narrate a real story with a lot of spice and suspense. To relate to your users must be your key focus here.

17. Promote your content!

    Just writing and posting your content is not the only task. The actual job comes in when you try strategies to circulate and increase the reach of your content. Among all, social media promotions are one of the fastest-growing ones.
    More than half of the world is on social media, and so, social media is a gateway for some easy and fast business. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok, these platforms are growing massively and can be used for business propaganda and exaggeration. So, why waste time? Start right ahead with a social media plan.

The bottom line!

Content marketing holds for all kinds of business. So, irrespective of what you dwell into, these content marketing tips should be present in the corner of your mind, and you must make sure to utilize them wherever possible. No shortcuts work here. However, passion and dedication to your work will pay you off.

Some may be beginners, and some are pretty familiar with the industry’s working, but remember not one or two strategies may fit your purpose, but the age-old mantra remains the same- try until you succeed!

Email Marketing: The Definitive Guide

by Subin John | Apr 7, 2021 | SEO

Marketing is something which is ubiquitous, be it the situation where you have to present yourself for an interview or when you have to sell your product. Gaining profits is the grail of any business enterprise and it is only through marketing that a business triumphs. When companies market their products, they are able to generate demand and consequently, profits. Survival of any firm is out of the question if these aspects are not administered to.

Marketing is a function which involves a set of operations to create, communicate and deliver value to patrons. It also includes an effective management of relationships with customers for the comprehensive benefit of the organization as well as its stakeholders.

Evolution of Marketing

In classical times, the only concern of any organization was ‘production’ of goods. They only enthralled upon large scale production and as a consequence, the consumer’s demand and quality of the product did not receive much attention.

Eventually, ‘sale’ of the product became the pivot replacing production of the product. But, it was only in the 1970s, after the era of production and sales, that the notion of marketing emerged. Firms took a good deal of time before they could realise that the only key to making profits is the customer.

Objectives of Marketing

Some of the basic goals of marketing are as follows:

1. Through marketing, it becomes easy to pinpoint customer’s needs and hankerings. Promotional programs like personal selling and advertising make consumers intimate with the utilisation of the product, which enhances the product’s demand.
2. Marketing also helps in expanding the market share of any organisation. Efforts put up in promotion reaps benefits in terms of increased product awareness which results in easy capture of a fair share in the market.
3. Goodwill of the organisation also swells up in the market if effective marketing is done. Any firm just needs to provide top notch products and later popularise the same with advertisements, modest prices and finest quality.

Email Marketing

Marketing emerged at no less than a break neck speed after the 1990s, and also sprouted many more kinds of marketing since then. One among them is Email Marketing.

In this, you mail educational, entertaining and promotional content to people who have subscribed with you or have earlier shopped from you. The principal motive behind this is to intensify your connection with the customer or even potential customer through customised texts that you directly send them.

Also, do not forget to comply with the CAN- SPAM Act, GDPR and other ordinances which govern email. They direct you to be responsible while sending commercial emails. Send emails to only those who have opted in and hence anticipate messages from you. Give them the option to opt out as and when they want to. While making contact, keep your identity transparent.

With these points turning over in your mind, make a strategy with which you will be making up your email list i.e. a complete database of people to whom you will send your email. Lead capture forms that have been put up on your website is the most customary mechanism. You will stand in need of email marketing software and a CRM for sending, tracking and monitoring the potency of your mail. Also, you can employ email automation software which will send email predicated on triggering criteria.

Through this article, you will be very well acquainted with all the ins and outs pertaining to email marketing.

Why Email Marketing

A very usual question which still haunts our mind after the evolution of other digital marketing strategies is : “Is marketing through email still pertinent?”

The answer is in affirmative. You can outstretch and connect with your audience personally and thereby increasing sales at an economical cost. Tools of email marketing have empowered the businesses to reach their target audience as easily as pie.

What follows are some of the reasons favouring email marketing:

Connection with the audience:

You can make your customers enlightened through emails. Customers connect with you more when they have this assurance that they are on your mind. A simple email would be like “Hi, Divya, Why are you leaving so soon? Stick around this time. You have amazing products lying in your cart. How does Flat Rs 100 OFF sound?” I copy pasted this one from my mail.

Emails captivate people:

Email has been an effective way of communication for over 40 years. People usually reply, forward, visit the link or do something or the other with the mail they recieve. Therefore, you can use them for driving audiences to your website or make them do any call to action.

Email marketing is measurable:

Email marketing tools are designed in a way which helps you in tracking the consequences once you are done with your email campaign. You can trace bounce rates, delivery rates, click through rates, unsubscribe rates as well as open rates. These metrics are of utmost importance as with these you can have a clear picture of the success of your email campaign.

Affordable:

You can be in touch with a multitude of customers for not more than a penny per mail. Here are the rates of a few email marketing services:

• SendGrid- $0.0006 cents per mail
• Mail Chimp- 12000 free mails a month
• Vertical Response- 4000 free mails a month

Sounds amazing, right? Email marketing ensures a remarkable Return on Investment which could be made more significant if you hire a personnel to manage these activities. Consider this, as per Shout It Out Designs, if you have a database of 15,000 email addresses, about 152 hours would be spent per year on managing this campaign, which would include all the activities like writing and sending emails, solving customers’ queries, managing the database etc.

Rocketing Brand Awareness:

It is not fair to consider social media as the only way to increase brand awareness. If you possess your prospect’s or customer’s email address m, this directly indicates that they are interested in your business. Through email marketing, you can multiply this level of interest, brand awareness as you are always on top of their minds. But, you should know that sending 4-5 mails daily to each customer is the easiest way to make them hate you.

Email Marketing is opportune:

One of the advantages of email marketing is the sale of your product, if done in an appropriate fashion. Make use of all the information you have regarding your customer so that you can send them certain offers in their birthday month. These little gestures work wonders. Your strategy can also include seasonal offers, holiday sale or an annual sale. Incorporate urgency in your mail which will make the readers avail the offer promptly before it ends.

Everyone uses Email:

As per a survey by Hubspot, 91 percent of purchasers use email. This fact is more than sufficient to persuade you to exploit the tool. You can hit two birds with the same arrow by making effective use of email marketing tools. You can furnish your customers with discounts, latest products and even they have the option to forward those to others. A quality email marketing strategy should aim towards encouraging your customers to share your offers to the max.

Email marketing laws and their compliance

In the United States and all other countries, Email Marketing is guided and governed by various laws, especially CAN- SPAM Act. These regulations are meant to dictate certain decrees by which all the email marketers should abide by if they wish to avert themselves from heavy fines. These laws make sure that there is no unauthorised use of email addresses of people. Therefore, if you are engaged in a licit business using email marketing, you are inevitably complying with these laws.

Here are a few things which are going to further assist you in compliance of Marketing laws:

• People’s consent:

  The most significant thing which you should make sure is that you have consent of all those people to whom you are sending your campaigns. The CAN- SPAM Act ensures that spammers do not attempt to contact people when they are not permitted to do so. If the person is your exist customer, an active member or a donor, you have an implicit permission to send them emails. In the other case, you will have to seek express permission from them by making them enter their email in a form or on your website.

• Avoid equivocal information:

  Along with your email campaign, you also put up header information, which should be genuine and true. Add nothing misleading or inaccurate stuff there to hoodwink the receiver to open your mail.

• Set the seal on transparency:

  Conforming to the CAN- SPAM Act, avoid deceiving customers by disclosing your mail as a form of advertisement. Your mail should look more like a promotional advertisement rather than a personal text from a friend.

• Encompass a genuine postal address:

  This could be your street address or P.O. Box.

• Give the option of opt- out:

  Every mail you send to your customers should incorporate an option to opt out from receiving further mails from you.

• Revere opt- out requests:

  It is stipulated by the CAN- SPAM Act that within 10 days, all opt out requests should be honoured. You cannot make the recipient do nothing more than visiting a page to opt out or send a reply mail. You can’t charge fee or make them undergo multiple steps before they can opt- out.

A how- to for developing an efficacious email marketing strategy

Prior to making an email marketing campaign, your focus should be towards coming up with a comprehensive strategy so that you can have a clear target. Follow the undermentioned tips to reach to a constructive email marketing strategy:

• Delineate your audience:

  Only when the content of your mail holds relevance to the recipient, then it would be a definite victory. For example, an 18 year old engineering student would be least interested in fashion courses. So, to begin with, make a customer profile to gain knowledge regarding their interests, tastes and preferences.

• Be clear with your goal:

  Do not just keep on sending mails only for the sake of sending and be exasperating. You should have a clear picture in your mind of the objectives which are to be achieved through emails which can be to gain more customers or introducing a new product or service to your customers etc.

• Make the sign up process simple:

  Augmenting a database of genuine and interested customers is the most arduous aspect. So, in order to simplify a little bit, make sure that the process of signing up is easy- peasy. All your social media posts should have the link which directs the people to your sign up page. Add a pop up box on your website or make the sign up option easily visible. People won’t give their email addresses all by themselves until you ask or make it easy for them. You can hire the services of a proficient marketing expert for such technical works.

• Determine the type of campaign you wish to pursue beforehand:

  Know that there can be many kinds of campaigns, each for a certain specific objective. Take into consideration your audience as well as the goal to decide between sending a newsletter, a blog post update or an announcement.

• Schedule your campaign:

  The pre- eminent way to generate a loyal following is to have a steady time to send your mail so that the customers get it at the same time when they are expecting to hear from you. Email marketing services make this step easy.

Step- by- step vade mecum

When you have a goal set priorly, developing an email marketing campaign is uncomplicated. Act in accordance with the steps mentioned below to create a fruitful email marketing campaign.

Set your goal

The first and foremost thing which you are required to do before beginning an email marketing campaign is to set the purpose for which you are putting in efforts. This previously laid down goal would guide you all the way through the process and will help you while making decisions which are of utmost significance to the firm. Some examples of campaign goals are to drive website traffic, promotion of products and services, spur sales, spreading news, request funds or donations etc.

Hand- picking an email marketing service

Before opting for services from any company, contemplate upon the requirements and goals of your business and then pick the one which complies with them.

Build a database of emails

This would probably be the most long- winded work, but at the same time, holds a very crucial place in the entire process. You define your target audience through this list of emails, thus making it vital for email marketing campaigns. Do not commit the folly of buying email lists. Work hard and increase the list with organic and genuine audiences who are interested and will engage with your content. Some of the sources from which you can get email addresses include existing lists, softwares managing customer relationships, email accounts, contact management systems, etc. You can also make use of your social media handles and website to request new emails.

Segmentation of the list

After making a complete list of emails, the next step would be to split up the same so that you can send mails to all those people depending upon their demographic information or interests. People are more likely to open, read, engage and forward your mail only when they find it relevant. Segmentation can be done on various grounds like geography, past purchases, demographics, expressed interests, buyer’s behaviour, email engagement etc.

Design your campaign and email

While using any email marketing platform, making an effective email is vital. Almost all of the service providers serve you with a template and will guide you regarding the best place for headers, CTAs etc.

Make use of autoresponders

Autoresponders are responsible for automating the delivery of email. Submission of email by any person triggers these autoresponders to send an email. They are worthwhile in generating leads, building trust, providing confirmation emails, sending transactional emails and serving useful information to the customers. Through autoresponders, you can save a great deal of your time and efforts as it unfailingly dispatches triggered emails.

Give the green light to tracking as well as analytics

Understanding your campaign has to be done by actively involving in its analytics. This way you will know where you need to focus more, where there is a scope for improvement, the number of customers associating themselves with your mails etc. You can get the exact numbers right in front of you by customizing your analytics. Some of the metrics that can be used for tracking are as follows:

• Unique open rate: This is the count of distinct receivers who take time to open your mail.
• Click- through rate: This depicts the number of people who have clicked on one or more links contained in your email.
• Bounce rate: This rate shows the number of times your mail is rejected by the servers. A high bounce rate indicates that your email database has a lot of unproductive addresses.
• Unsubscribe rate: This is the rate which shows how many people decide to opt out from receiving any more mails from you. It should not exceed 1%. If it does, try reevaluating your database and mail content so that it becomes more attractive and relevant to the tastes and preferences of your audiences.

election of an email marketing service

When surrounded with too many options, it becomes difficult to choose the one which would prove to be most fruitful for you. Same is the case with email marketing platforms.

You can make an attempt to narrow down the list of alternatives by examining the needs of your business in the first place. Find out if you are in need of a start- to- end service provider or just need assistance for the process of segmentation. Also, keeping in mind your goal, choose a platform which satisfies your needs and accomplishes your targets.

All the email marketing services have incorporated varying features within their plans. It is your part to figure out what all features are extremely useful for you and which ones are dispensable.

You should also have a solid estimate of the number of emails or the number of customers and prospects you have so as to determine the costs. All the email marketing services charge on these basis.

One last thing which you have to take into consideration is the present scale of your business as well as the scale in the near future. If you are sure of an increase in scale of your business after some time, select a platform which evolves with you. These platforms have come out with multiple plans, pricing of which depends upon the scale and extent of your business.

Bottom Line

Now that you are very well acquainted with the steps to gain expertise in Email Marketing, make sure before their implementation you are also clued up on its downsides. As Email Marketing is gaining importance in the present time and age, almost all the companies have resorted to it. Consequently, people encounter ‘email fatigue’ and mark most of the mails as spam.

Once marked spam, all your further mails would directly go to their spam folder which is never opened. You can steer clear of the spam folder by targeting your audience and sending mails to those who are interested in your content and are likely to open and read your mails. People will connect more with you if you address all of them with their names and display only the subjects they are interested in.

Also, for a lucrative campaign, avoid customising your email too much and comply with all the rules, laws and template limits.

Landing Pages: The Definitive Guide

by Subin John | Apr 7, 2021 | SEO

A landing page is a specific website that new users, subscribers, customers, or visitors are directed to by various marketing tactics. A landing page differs from a regular, standard webpage as it serves a particular purpose.

Landing pages are unique to particular audiences and focus on compelling to take out a single action or make a specific choice. The decision can be anything like signing up for an e-newsletter, making a purchase, registering for an upcoming event, downloading a free e-book, and many more.

This definitive guide contains every critical aspect and landing page for best practices to help you quickly design and develop high-converting landing pages, giving you more conversions. If the first impression is good, then there are many chances of them going further and enquiring more about the particular business at a higher level.

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is created to facilitate a single desired action. Actions can be making a purchase, signing up for a free trial, filling out a form, or entering an email address.

If stated in simple terms, then a landing page is a page where users “land” after clicking on a link from a source like a Google Ad, Facebook post, Instagram Ad, email, or any other traffic source.

A landing page is a web page where you send visitors to initiate a conversation and close a deal.

Focus: Landing pages are designed with a single goal and objective, known as a call to action or, in simple terms, CTA.

That focus makes landing pages the best option for enhancing your marketing campaigns’ conversion rates and lowering your cost of acquiring a sale or lead.

There’s a Difference Between a Landing Page and a Homepage or a standard webpage:

It’s a common mistake to get confused between a landing page and a homepage. Sometimes marketers assume that they’re the same. Sometimes they are, but mostly not.

The homepage: The homepage focuses more on informing and empowering the visitor. The homepage doesn’t have any goal, but the landing page does. It has multiple objectives and highlights a broad range of content to offer an overall perspective. It provides visitors access more profound into the website.

The landing page serves an entirely different purpose for the customers or visitors. Everything about the landing page, from links to images, works on a specific goal to turn these visitors into customers, paired with definitive ads that promote a single offer. It helps to convert the traffic on the website.

It focuses on a specific goal and delivers explicit requested content. It has one desired or a single call to action that drives sales and captures leads.

Why You Need Landing Pages:

A landing page’s main objective is to convert targeted web traffic into customers and email subscribers.

If you want to drive traffic on your website, don’t skip building landing pages, improve your SEO, and build your brand exposure.

Build a landing page:

• If you’re going to direct customers to buy a specific product.
• If you want to experiment and create a new product or try new products in different markets.

What makes a landing page great?

Two main reasons landing pages are great for increasing conversions:

• They’re targeted to a specific group.
• They have a focused Call To Action (CTA).

An excellent landing page is the one that clearly defines its value to its audience and generates leads. Research about your specific audience, brand, and industry, then you can do it effectively.

Types of Landing Pages

There are many variations, but they vary depending on the specifics of the business. The goals define the following types of landing page:

• Click-through Landing Pages:

  Click-through is frequently used by eCommerce and marketers. Clickthrough pages are primarily for sales or subscriptions. Usually, these pages have a simple button as the call to action that sends the visitor into the specific page.

• Lead Capture or Generation Landing Pages:

  These are lead capture or lead generation pages. These use a form as their call-to-action (CTA); this form collects lead data, like visitors’ names and contact details. Companies and other business websites sell items using this landing page to create a list of prospective customers.

  Ecommerce brands also use these types of landing pages for list-building or offering free shipping or special deals. They sometimes provide something free in exchange for contact info.

• Sales page:

  While some of the most effective landing pages in the digital marketing dictionary, sales pages are the most commonly misused.

  The most effective sales landing pages are large and can generate up to 200% more leads than landing pages with more CTAs. Always do A/B testing your landing pages before publishing them. However, functions and results can vary.

• Splash page:

  Splash pages are typically used to inform the visitors or something before giving them access to another landing page. It acts more like a welcome page of sorts and doesn’t usually ask visitors for any information. Other types of splash pages include short or quick forms to enable you to gather vital user data.

• Squeeze page:

  Squeeze pages are created to capture a visitor’s or user’s email address to build a brand’s email list. Squeeze pages usually pop up while scrolling through a website or blog, and they typically ask you to sign up for the website or brand’s newsletter to stay in the circle without having to search the site later. Examples of squeeze pages are:

  • Squeeze page, or we can say pop up window appears as the visitor scrolls through the webpage and ask them to sign up to stay updated on trending stories of that page.
  • Some are those that pop up after you’ve visited a website multiple times, and they need you to sign up before you move to other content.

What should be included in a landing page?

Landing pages should be ultra-focused on a single point of conversion. So don’t think about what to include; think about what you don’t have. Forget the extra slang, jargon, and excess of vivid images. Focus on the goal for the effective landing page; less is more.

It’s also crucial for you to keep in mind these five essential elements:

• Offer details:

  The offer details should combine both special features and benefits like descriptive summaries, benefit statements, bulleted lists, etc. Successful offers are easy to understand if expressed in both features and services that draw a unique audience.

• Unique Selling Proposition (USP):

  A unique selling proposition makes your business stand out from others in simple terms. It is what your brand stands for. The USP should be apparent throughout your page, within its primary headline and sub-headline. Make your page’s headline unique because it tells a visitor why they’re on the page and gives them the extra push to keep reading. Excite their curiosity and make them want whatever you’re offering.

• Visual Representation:

  Any multimedia you add should provide context and push a visitor to take action. Use specific images and graphics representing your offer in detail and give information on your landing page. Focus on minimalism and a clean design.

• Call to action (CTA):

  Call-to-action on the landing page is typically in the form of a button. It guides visitors towards a specified page directed to it. It’s essential to be specific with the sign. Be brief, and include an eye-catching color to ensure your CTA button is visible.

• Social proof:

  Increase the trust factor and further convince your audience by including credentials, reviews, trust seals, social signals, and rewards. Reassure the customer that you’re selling is worth the opt-in or purchase.

Analysis of a Landing Page:

1. Headline: Most crucial part. It should match what has to be clicked and support headlines providing additional information.
2. Logo: Brand recognition
3. Multimedia (image or videos): To show what you’re offering
4. Call-to-action
5. Benefit statements
6. Description of your features
7. Social proof: customer testimonials, logos, reviews, etc.
8. Repeated call-to-action or reinforcing closing argument.

A few simple steps for creating a high-converting landing page:

1. Choose a high expert-designed landing page template.
2. Name your landing page.
3. Customize your page with unique content and branding.
4. Add a strong call-to-action.
5. Preview your page for multiple device sizes.
6. Prepare your page with SEO settings.
7. Publish your page.

Adaptive web design on your landing pages:

Keep these essential points in mind while creating your landing pages (It will help a lot):

• Images and colors –

  Consider how your landing page’s background looks on different devices. Make your landing page device responsive so that it shows its content definitively. Choose a solid color to enhance readability.

• Button and text sizes –

  Most of your page call to action will involve links or buttons. Consider making your buttons larger or increasing their height for mobile devices so they are easier to click.

• Input Fields –

  If you are using an opt-in form on your page, then make that page clear for your visitor to fill in. Create the text input fields larger to make these on a mobile device visible.

It would help if you considered the sequence in which these elements accumulate. Often it will pile your content with blocks in the wrong order, which will make your content harder to read.

Strategies to Build a High-Converting Landing Page in 2021:

A landing page is created exclusively to boost conversions. There are specific strategies that it needs; otherwise, your conversion rate will go down.

• Create an Attractive Headline:

  An eye-catching and attractive headline is the very first thing a visitor sees when they arrive on your landing page. A compelling headline attracts them to look further as it’s hooked them directly. It sparks their initial interest and keeps them on the page for several seconds.

• Put your audience in mind while designing:

  That means designing for the visitors, including images and graphics, breaking large text blocks, and making the CTAs easily actionable and identifiable.

• Use Pictures Effectively:

  Images convey direct meaning and show people what your product looks like or works. They add a crucial visual representation and also split text to your landing page.

  Pictures are more expressive than words, so you must tell some things but show the rest. Combined, the image and the headline connect the importance of collaboration and how the Landing pages will help businesses out.

  Use Images:
  a. Large
  b. Attention-grabbing
  c. Relevant to their service
  d. High-quality

• Be specific:

  Be specific with what you’re offering and creating. It is vital if you have multiple offers running individually at the same time. Remember, you must have a landing page for every active campaign. That way, you’ll be cleared with the offers and no confusion for visitors and your customers clicking on links for a specific campaign, deal, or product.

• Focus primarily on the benefits of your audience:

  The pain points you’re addressing, The page, service, product features, etc., are the main points to keep in mind while designing a webpage. Don’t just focus on the specific features; instead, outline how your landing page will address the problem they’re seeking.

• Give away a relevant offer:

  The relevant offer is the thing you give in exchange for your lead’s personal information. It should be compelling for your visitors to provide their contact information and relevant to your business.

• Ask for what you need:

  Ask for a bit of information as you need in your form to create a low bar to entry. A name and an email are sufficient to sustain a new lead.

• Remove all navigation:

  The landing page should have one objective only, and that is to convert visitors into leads. Any other links, like internal links to other pages that are competing on the website, will divert from that goal. Remove any other links on your page’s call-to-action to draw all of your visitors’ attention.

• Make your page responsive:

  Like we mentioned before, the landing pages need to be responsive to fit every viewing experience. Give your visitors a relevant viewing experience and every possible opportunity to convert.

• Optimize for search:

  Ensure that you optimize the landing page with target keywords for your organic search and paid campaigns. It should be a catch-phrase that they should find your landing page whenever someone searches for your key phrase. Similarly, ensure the targeted keyword should be on your landing page as on the paid ads.

The Landing Page Metrics You Must Track:

Creating a landing page and running it on different platforms isn’t enough; measuring its performance against specific critical metrics to see if it’s helping you fulfill the intended goals is equally vital. While various businesses use different metrics to measure the performance of their landing pages, the following are the most commonly used metrics across many websites’ landing pages to get the measurements:

1. Page Visits:

   Page visits typically refer to the number of visitors who’ve visited your page over a specific time. If this number of visitors is lower than you’ve anticipated, try to optimize your paid strategy, use social media platforms or emails to get the desired visits, or improve the keywords to draw more users to visit your page. The higher the number of visitors on your landing page, the higher is the probability of conversions.

2. Bounce rate:

   Bounce rate is typically the next most important metric to consider after page views when interpreting a landing page’s performance.

   Bounce rate defines the percentage of visitors who left your landing page without visiting a second page. A visitor can drop off your page due to plenty of reasons, like:

   • Your content may not follow with your claimed offer.
   • The copy of the landing page’s may not be catchy enough to capture the attention of a visitor.
   • Your landing page’s overall visual hierarchy might not be informative or appealing.
   • Your visitors might find what they were looking for and then leave the page.

   An excellent bounce rate of a landing page typically consists of three categories. These are as follows:

   1. Excellent rate: between 26 & 40%
   2. Average rate: between 41 & 55%
   3. Decent rate: between 56 & 70%

   In the lead capture landing page, a bounce rate higher than 65% is considered flawed. Thoroughly checking them for leaks is probably the best way to reduce your page’s bounce rate.

3. Traffic Source:

   Research which traffic sources bring in high-converting website visitors that drive more conversions and help you channel your marketing efforts better. The better you research the various traffic sources drawn for your business, the better you will be targeting.

   Some examples of traffic sources to look well at how visitors land on your page or from where:

   • Direct Traffic: Visitors who land on your landing page directly by typing the URL.
   • Social Media Traffic: Visitors who land on your page by clicking on a link present from a social media post or profile.
   • Email Traffic: Visitors who land on your page by clicking on a CTA button or a link present in one of your marketing emails.
   • Referral Traffic: Visitors who land on your landing page by clicking on a link present on other sources, pages, or websites.
   • Organic Traffic: Visitors who land on your page by entering keywords or search queries on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
   • Pay Per Click Traffic: Visitors who visit your landing page by clicking on a Pay Per Click ad.

4. Form Abandonment Rate:

   The name suggests that the Form abandonment rate is the percentage of visitors who landed on the page and began filing the form but left without submitting it.

   It can happen for several reasons.

   • Maybe your form is too long.
   • Throws the questions to visitors, it may be hesitant to answer.
   • Raises data security concerns.
   • Too difficult to attempt, etc.

    
   Ensure that the information you’re seeking through the form matches the noted value you’re offering to raise your form’s value. Don’t add such questions as credit card details, residential address; why would someone insert such information in your opt-to form.

5. Submission Rate:

   Submission rate defines the percentage of visitors who filled and submitted your lead-generation form(s) and arrive on thank you page. The higher the submission rate, the better optimized your landing page is.

6. Conversion Percentage:

   Measuring conversion percentage, i.e., lead-to-customer, is also critical. This metric helps you understand the rate of leads generated through landing pages that are converted into customers.

   Let’s take the example that you created a landing page, you spend much time promoting it on different sources on the internet, and the analytics report shows how many users are signing up for your offer. However, your conversion rate will turn into a vanity metric if you’re unable to convert these leads into paying customers.

   Sometimes, landing page optimization involves re-evaluating your sales and nurture programs or redefining your target audience. The lead-to-customer rate provides insights for you to examine the efforts and make smarter decisions.

   A reasonable conversion rate varies on your offers and business, where it lies in the quality of leads generated through the landing page and your conversion or sales funnel. Generally, 2.35% is the average landing page conversion rate, where an excellent landing page conversion rate is between 5 to 10%.

7. Use a thank you page:

   A “thank you page” is the webpage or where you lead once users or visitors completed your form. For that, you could show a thank you message on the same page too, but there are many reasons why that’s not the best option.

   A “thank you page” serves significant purposes:

   • You can entertain your new lead in additional relevant content.
   • By thanking them for their interest, it could go a long way in promoting them to a customer down the line.

Conclusion

Landing pages play a specific role in digital marketing strategy. It’s crucial to understand that not every landing page is created or works equally. You must learn various aspects of it to handle the landing page properly. This guide for landing pages focused on the varying landing pages like Click-through pages, Lead capture pages, Squeeze pages, Splash pages, and Sales pages that should incorporate your marketing strategy thoroughly.

Advanced SEO Techniques For Ranking Higher In 2021

by Subin John | Apr 7, 2021 | SEO

It’s no wonder that a majority of content creators, businesses, and marketers are switching their focus on the digital front for improved sales and better results, given the fact that more than half the world is now online. And since search engines play an integral role in attaining most of these sales, the race to rank top in the search results is ever fierce.

If you own a website, you must already be familiar with SEO or Search engine optimization and the importance it holds. For those new to the term – SEO is a practice of optimizing the web pages such that the search engine algorithms rank it higher among other web pages with similar content, helping one gain more traffic on their website.

A well-laid SEO strategy not only aims to increase the traffic for a website but also enhance the user experience, both of which greatly decide the search engine rankings.

However, it is imperative to keep track of the latest SEO techniques as Google continually updates its algorithms, meaning the same SEO might not be as effective now as it was a few years prior.

This article aims at exploring the advanced SEO techniques for 2021 for a higher ranking on the search results.

Make sure the site is mobile-friendly

What is a mobile-friendly website?

A mobile-friendly site essentially means a website designed such that it is both readily accessible and visually pleasing across various handheld devices such as smartphones, iPad, iPhones, etc.

Importance and Benefits

The boom in the number of mobile users worldwide in the past decade has made mobile-friendly interfaces one of the most critical factors every website owner needs to consider.

Why would anyone prefer to open a desktop screen to browse a site or look up something when they could do it on a smartphone, easy and quick? The same is why sites that are essentially mobile-friendly rank higher in the search results and witness more traffic.

A good user interface through proper UX/UI design also creates a better image for your brand apart from setting it upwards on the ranking ladder. Moreover, since mobile users give the highest conversion rate, a non-accessible interface is like turning away a plethora of potential customers.

Make the experience visually appealing with animated images

Images bring things to life, and this is equally true for the content on a website.

Visuals on a site not only make the content more appealing, worthwhile, and easy to understand but also prevent people from skimming.

The time spent by a person on a particular website directly links to the search engine rankings. Activities like skimming and high bounce rates create a negative image for your website, seriously impacting how Google ranks it.

However, spicing it up a bit and switching from images and regular GIFs to animated images is a great trick to speed things up in 2021, considering how audiences’ interacting behavior has evolved over the years.

Doing so will increase the time people spend on your site as well as improve the quality and value of the content you put up, giving you a better chance at ranking higher.

Do not miss out on unique keywords

It’ll not be wide off the mark to say that keywords are the foundation of SEO.

People look up a certain thing, a specific word to be precise, and a plethora of relevant websites, articles, among other search results with all kinds of information, in-depth and related, end up on their screens. What do you think directs all that information? That’s right, the keywords.

What do keywords mean in terms of SEO?

In simple terms, keywords are some unique words that users and search engines use to communicate. Whenever someone types out a query in the search tab, the algorithms don’t look at each folder in their systems; instead, it looks for relevant keywords in what they wrote and matches it with sites containing similar ones.

Though there are many ways to find relevant keywords for your content, one needs to be more precise with their targets for better results. Below are some of the latest and most effective keyword types for 2021 you must not miss out on –

LSI keywords

What is LSI in SEO?

LSI(Latent Semantic Indexing) are words that are theoretically related to a precise keyword, helping search engines cover in-depth what’s on a website.

For, e.g., a blog on hairstyles wouldn’t be the first on the search results whenever someone looks up ‘hairstyles’ just because the person has cramped the keyword ‘hairstyles’ a 1000 times into it. Well, that might have been the case a decade earlier, but over the years, Google has become smarter and not just scans the blog for a particular keyword to understand what’s on it.

Search engines like Google will also look up for keywords related to hairstyles such as ‘bob cut,’ ‘curling iron,’ ‘conditioner,’ etc., known as LSI keywords.

Using such keywords not only upscales the keywords game for you but also makes it easy for Google to scan it, understand it, match relevance, and bring it up on search results, giving you a chance to rank higher.

Comparison and journalist keywords

Both comparison and journalists keywords have far lower competition than other keyword types compared to a much similar scope in boosting SEO.

What are comparison keywords in SEO, and why are they important?

As the name suggests, keywords that have a comparison factor such as – android Vs. iPhone.

These are keywords many search for but have very low competition when discussing the relevant results that show up. That’s so because people searching them up are already aware of what iPhones and android are and are not looking for a definition but a comparison blog, not what many websites offer.

A rich keyword game driven by low competition makes your content seem more informative and worthwhile to the search engine, making it rank higher on the search results.

What are journalist keywords, and why are they important?

These are the keywords that journalists often look up since their job requires them to find relevant information across the internet for the topic they are working on.

Unlike the ones mentioned above, these keywords do not directly boost the SEO or rankings but help you create impactful backlinks through blogs and articles journalists write.

A journalist keyword will help your content pop up whenever such a person looks it up. It increases the chances of your content or data ending up as a reference, which will help you create a backlink as the person using it mentions the link to your website in their content.

Again, these keywords have low competition and can significantly boost both your content’s credibility and visibility.

Keywords to avoid

If there are keywords that can increase the traffic on a website, there are those which can reduce it. However, it is not really about avoiding those keywords but more about preventing the risk that comes along.

The two main issues to avoid are – keywords stuffing and using keywords with a featured snippet.

Keyword stuffing

What is keyword stuffing?

It is a trick to manipulate the search engine algorithms by cramming the entire website with keywords instead of focusing on bringing relevant information and content.

What happens when you stuff your page with keywords?

Keyword not only does the opposite of boosting SEO, i.e., negatively impact the ranking, but it also goes against the search engine’s guidelines. Keyword stuffing is considered a black hat SEO technique by many. When found guilty, intentional or not, it can lead to high bounce rates, credibility damage, permanent or temporary ban, suspension, and penalties on search engines like Google.

Keywords with featured snippets

What is a featured snippet?

You must have seen those short snippets of text on the top of the search results that give a quick answer to a query? These are known as featured snippets and are extracted from web pages.

Are featured snippets helpful?

To be honest, Yes. If you could ace the featured snippet game, the boost in your website’s traffic will be unmatchable. However, that’s if you could ace that one #0 position on the search results, competing against hundreds and thousands of websites.

Why should you avoid keywords with featured snippets?

It is good to be optimistic, though not when you know that risk is certainly more than the benefits you could ever yield.

Apart from the competition to get that #0 position, the decrease in potential traffic rate is all a part of the risk. Whenever text appears in a featured snippet, the chances of that particular link getting clicked increases by multi-folds, and this increase is balanced through those who might have clicked at your website if not for the featured snippet.

This means that if you use a keyword aiming at featured snippets, you are potentially damaging the existing traffic, with minimal chance of gaining more.

However, if you are confident of your content’s quality and strong on keyword game, giving featured snippets a try is not that bad of an idea.

Focus on linking

Both internal links and backlinks can significantly improve the traffic rates on your website as well as help boost the SEO.

Internal linking

What is internal linking?

Simply speaking, internal links are the links on one webpage directing back to another webpage on the same site/domain.

Why are internal links important for SEO?

Linking the web pages on a website through hyperlinks helps build page authority and makes it easier for Google’s algorithm to find a particular web page, file it, and understand its content. However, it is imperative to place the links strategically, i.e., in areas needed, in a format that is accessible, understandable, and user-friendly.

A page with good internal linking has a better chance of ranking higher than those without it.

Backlinking

What are backlinks in SEO?

Backlinks are links directed to your website through some other domain/website. Meaning some other person mentions the link to your website in their content.

Why are backlinks so important to your SEO?

Backlinks are the perfect tool to create authority, credibility, authenticity, and visibility for your website and content. Popular search engines like Google place great importance on backlinks and consider a site with several backlinks worthwhile, increasing the page’s ranks on the search results.

However, understanding that not all backlinks hold the same value is crucial, e.g., a backlink from an authoritative site will hold importance over a budding site in the traffic difference they have and how Google sees them.

How to get more backlinks?

Though creating internal links is a no-brainer, that’s not the case for backlinks.

First and foremost is to create content that is worth linking. Try to include the latest data, do research, and find hard-to-find stuff that is not only relevant to your content but equally important for the competing websites.

Below are the ways to create a healthy network of backlinks for your content –

Reach out to the niche-specific sites that could use your content up pretty well. However, though to directly ask them for a favor does not work well, neither does going in without proper research.

Find sites that have links to dead and outdated websites, which your content could fill up for pretty well. The moving man method and broken link building are two of the most effective ways for the task.

Other methods include –

• Guest posts
• Link roundups
• Reviews
• Link reclamation
• Research your competitors and find sources

Step up the content game

Though you must have heard it a thousand times that nothing beats good content, however, content is much more than the information it serves. The content that worked five years ago won’t be effective half as practical, given the changing interactions and how data is consumed. To say that the generation today has a wildly different concept of focus and what is worthwhile will not be wide off the mark.

How to improve the content for SEO?

Original and informative content is the most basic SEO technique. However, below are some more advanced techniques you could include to enhance the user experience.

Give everything you know through internal links

Make our website the one-stop answer to every plausible query a person might have, whether familiar or not. It refers to strategically creating and placing backlinks to definitions, suggestions on your own website so that a person doesn’t have to look them up elsewhere.

This gives you a chance to create backlinks and enhance your content’s quality with the information that is readily available.

Add keywords early in the content

Google tends to focus precisely on the content on the top of the website, meaning it works the best if you add the most prominent keyword early in the context.

Optimize the loading speed for your page

Time is valuable, and Google knows it. A page that takes forever to load not just puts off the person visiting but also Google, as it mentions site loading speed as one of the critical ranking factors.

Dig in and understand the areas holding back your website’s loading speed and fix it, especially for mobile devices, since most search queries occur on smartphones.

Add a comment section

Interacting and feedback are a great way to indulge with the audience, but did you know that Google includes comments into the ranking factor?

Comments increase the content value, creates confidence in the source, increases the average time people spend on your website, and for the most crucial part, helps Google rank it better.

Unique and original images, titles, and descriptions

Something out of the box or visually appealing tends to attract attention and make the audience curious, forcing them to click on it.

Be mindful of the SERPs

What are SERPs?

SERP or Search Engine Result Pages are Google pages that show up whenever someone initiates a search query. It can include anything from featured snippets, videos to Google ad results, etc.

Since the first Google page gets the highest click rate for all the obvious reasons, you must create content with that particular aim in mind.

But wait, isn’t that what we have been talking about for this entire time? Yes, but not exactly.

The Two main SERP features

Paid results and organic results are the two most vital SERP features that often take up the critical first-page space on Google.

Paid results are from those who invest in keywords through Google ads and are mostly placed higher in results.

Organic results are when you successfully optimize your content to get a higher rank, i.e., a place on the first page. But, only appearing on the first page does not guarantee a higher click rate, instead creates competition for the audience.

It is where SERPs help with determining the look of your website on that first Google page.

Why do SERPs matter for SEO?

Say that you created content on ‘running shoes,’ now, if your title and description compete for SERP for ‘ running shoes,’ chances are that you wouldn’t get many clicks even if you manage to get a place on the first page.

However, if you chose a SERP for brand comparison or trail running footwear, etc., you place a higher bid.

It is because whenever someone searches for running shoes, they are bound to witness a shopping trail, followed by ads, and further down a blue link to your website, left with scarce hope of being clicked.

One way out of the scenario is to AVOID SERP features. As mentioned earlier in the article, things like features snippets create a greater competition than it gives a chance to gather traffic.

Although this does not mean you cannot optimize the page to look more clickable even when competing against many.

Utilizing ‘schema’ and strategically built content makes Google turn organic snippets ( title, URL, meta description) into a rich snippet( containing additional data such as reviews, stars, among other information on the first page).

This technique is also very effective in building up your SERP real estate( the pixels you have control over on the first Google page), which in turn help you increase the click rate without actually having to rank higher.

Other ways to boost SERP real estate include – guest posts, youtube videos, featured snippets, etc.

Supplementary content is the way to go

Things like infographics, charts, features breakdown, calculators, summaries, pros and cons, and almost anything that increases the content quality while making it seem informative, easy-to-understand, imperative, and different from the rest all act as supplementary content.

Google places huge importance on sites offering such information, helping you, directly and indirectly, get a higher rank through Google.

Update and Revise

There are two main tricks to go about with the yearly trends and new data available to boost the quality of your post –

The first is to reoptimize old content.

Is it better to update your website?

If you have an old article or content that is still relevant, just out of date, it is better to repurpose it than create a new one on the same topic. It saves you effort and time and adds value to your site as the one that is often updated while also helping you not lose backlinks, boost reliability, etc.

To do this, source the latest data from multiple resources, add images, additional content, and anything you feel is lacking on the website.

The second method is to create yearly revised topics.

Yearly content

For example, every year, paint companies, companies like Pantone, etc., come out with a color palette for that particular year. If they put out a revised color scheme on their website early on in the year with the title ‘color of the year 2021,’ they are bound to witness heavy traffic.

It’s because there isn’t much competition on tag 2021 at the beginning of the year as it is mid-year, but there are those interested in noting the event. To move with the trend and create content on hot and in-demand topics is a sure shot way to boost website traffic.

The YouTube SEO

For anyone who does not know yet, YouTube has successfully bagged the title of both a search engine(second most popular after Google at that) and a popular social media site. That being said, since YouTube videos also take up space on the first page of Google search results, not to mention the growing demand for visuals and over a billion searches every year, employing YouTube SEO might exactly be what your website needs.

However, apart from optimizing YouTube SEO for websites, you must make sure that your YouTube videos are SEO-friendly as well.

Local SEO Optimization and Social media marketing

Everyone knows how “near me” searches have gone through the roof in recent times. That is because people are always looking for in-person services around them, no matter how many online options are available. If you have a business or a service, this technique will improve SEO and help you reach a wider customer base.

How does social media affect your SEO strategy?

Social media and SEO both tend to work in symphony, and pretty well at that. Social media works great in increasing your content’s visibility, helping attain more traffic for the sites. Similarly, mentions or links to social media handles on websites make the content more credible and valuable while also giving you a chance to shoot up the follower count.

The Bottom Line

There is no shortcut to building a high-performing website. However, employing the above-mentioned latest SEO techniques for 2021 and a pinch of hard work can undoubtedly set your ranking game up at the next level. Happy Scrolling!

Copywriting: The Definitive Guide (2021)

by Subin John | Apr 6, 2021 | SEO

Copywriting is the practice of crafting text to inspire, inform, or persuade. It is aimed to increase sales and conversions. In simple words copywriting is writing copy that sells your services or products and convinces potential customers to take action. It’s like someone reaching all the customers at one time. Like a salesman interacting with one person at a time, a copywriter gets all of them at once through web pages, blog posts, magazine ads, billboards, etc.

However, there’s a lot of confusion when we hear about copywriting. Some people think it’s about the right to publish a book or a photo etc. It’s not copywriting but Copyright. Copywriting might be found on :

• Brochures
• Paid ads
• Website Pages
• Product Pages
• Landing Pages

You might be wondering how copywriting differs from Content Marketing?

Copywriting is done in a way to increase sales. Whereas content marketing may have different goals like informing, educating, creating band awareness, etc.

In simple words, Copywriting is more precise, direct, and clearly aimed to sell the product or service.

Now that you know what copywriting is and what a Copywriter does let’s see how you can do it yourself. Here’s a definitive guide on how to write an excellent copy that will reach your target audience and drive sales.

Step by Step guide on Copywriting

1. Know your Audience

   You can’t write a description without knowing what your audience wants, right? Before you start writing, you should know what exactly are you writing for? Your text should be understandable and useful to readers. The best practice is to write in your target audience’s language so you can give as much information as possible.

   Start by creating a buyer persona and once you have got it outlined, ask yourself the following questions :

   • Who is your target audience?
   • Who would you want to sell to?
   • What do your existing customers want?
   • What struggles might your customers face while shopping, and how can you solve them?

   Once you get answers to all these questions, you’ll be ready to Copywrite

   While you know your audience, it’s crucial to know their awareness level. Every target customer might not be fully aware of your product or service, or some may not even hear of it. To take the situation in your favor, you have to approach your audience according to their awareness level. There are many variations to the sales model funnel, but AIDA is the most popular copywriting model.

   According to AIIDA, there are four stages:

   • Awareness – This is stage one where your customer doesn’t know about your product or brand, or they don’t care much. At this stage, you should focus on conveying the benefits of your products and how they will be useful to your customer.
   • Interest – Here, we come to the second stage. At this stage, your target audience is aware of your product and is interested in what you have to offer. Since your audience has knowledge about your product, you just have to give a slight push to their emotions.
   • Desire – At this stage, your audience is considering your product or service and comparing it to a similar brand in the market.
   • Action – This is the last stage of the funnel. Here, your customers are ready to buy your product. All you need to do is give them a call to action, and they’ll take it.

2. Use the right tone for copywriting

   Writing a great copy is a lot more than choosing the right words. The tone you’re using, the way you’re writing have a far more impact than the words you choose. It tells your audience whether you’re serious, fun-loving, or uber professional.

   You must adjust your tone according to your target audience. This makes your audience feels they are in the right place and your product or service is just right for them. If you’re facing any issue in getting the right tone, you can also use some tools for the same. For instance, Grammarly has an in-built tool that helps you adjust your writing tone according to your target audience.

   Grammarly works by telling you exactly what tone you should be using for your audience. Suppose you choose “general audience,” the tool will indicate all the complex sentences you might want to remove or change in order to make your copy more understandable to the audience.

3. Write a persuasive Copy

   When compared to other kinds of writing, copywriting is very different. It’s not just about writing well; it’s a whole lot about writing persuasively. Whether you’re a literary genius or not, your focus should be on moving the readers through the proper sequence of steps and ultimately convince them to buy your product or services.

   For this, you can try the following tips :

   • Start simple to grab your customer’s attention –

     According to data, you have very little time to grab your customer’s attention before they leave the page. To be precise, you just have 20 seconds. You can go several ways to start your copy, but the best way is to keep everything simple.

     If you start with complex sentences, your audience may get confused, and the message may get diluted. Keeping it simple, short, and sweet is the most effective way. The goal is to make your audience crystal clear about your product. Don’t make them guess what you have to offer.

   • Slightly move to the benefits –

     After hearing your value proposition, your customer starts to think about what’s in there for them? While some people prefer features over benefits but benefits are usually valued over features. Before elaborating on how your product works and how to use it, emphasize the benefits one will get after buying your product.

     Explain how your product fulfills a desire or need and how your customers’ lives will be better after using your product.

   • Explain the features –

     Now comes the time to explain all the features your product has. Your audience already knows what you’re offering and what the benefits are; now, it’s time to briefly break down the features of your product.

     To explain all the features, you can write them in bullet points or craft small sections. Keep it simple but don’t forget to mention all the key aspects.

   • Include a strong call to action –

     At this point, your audience knows everything about your product and how it will prove useful to them. All you need to do is just ask them to take the next step. In simple words, you need to include a CTA.

     This might be the most complicated part of the process, but simplicity is the key here again. There’s no need to add complexity to your CTA; keep it as simple as possible.

4. Focus on Pain Points in your copy

   We understand it could be quite compelling to write all the good things about your product and how awesome it is or how your customers are loving the experience. But here’s a thing, every customer isn’t looking for features or benefits before buying a product. Some buy things to get a solution to their problem. These problems are pain points, and your focus should be on writing more about them. For instance, an SEO company that offers services on getting more traffic to a website or any other aspect related to SEO may start their copy with – Want to drive more traffic to your website? Or Want to rank on top on SERP?

   This way, you’ll indicate the problem the customer wants to solve. Copywriter Rose Crompton says there are six main issues customers face :

   • Risk and Trust
   • Ease and convenience
   • Financial
   • Productivity and time
   • Communication and support
   • Processes and journey

   Think about the problems your customers might be facing and try to solve them through your copy.

5. Put the most important information on top

   As you know, copywriting is structured in a different way than other forms of writing. For instance, in content writing, we give a slight introduction about the topic at the beginning and a conclusion at the end. In copywriting, one has to give the most crucial information in the beginning.

   Users come to your web page to get some information or learn about your product. Unfortunately, not every user is patient enough to read the whole copy to know about something they are looking for. That’s why make all of your points strong, but start with your core message and your most important points after that.

   Your customers are looking for some specific information, and if they don’t get it, they’ll move somewhere else. There’s a concept called “information scent” where you write in such a way that the user gets sure that their desired information is near. This way, the users read all of your text, knowing that their information is very near.

   To retain your audience on your web page, give them certain clues that they have what they’re looking for.

6. Write catchy headlines

   Believe it or not, headlines can make or break your perfect copy. Whether you’re writing for landing pages, Facebook posts, or advertisements, headlines convince the readers to go through your copy.
   You can follow these tips to write attention-grabbing headlines:

   • Write unique headlines –

     the Internet and advertising world are full of people who copy other people’s content. You definitely want to stay out of such practices. In order to stand out from the crowd and sell your products, your headlines must be original and unique.

   • Use specific headlines –

     Being specific is far better than being vague. As soon as your audience reads your headline, they should be aware of what you’re offering. Describe what your potential customers will get very specific.

   • Make proper use of each headline –

     Your headlines should guide the reader about what they’ll read further—stress the benefits of reading on, rather than complex and less popular words.

   • Try to create a sense of urgency –

     Though this step is not always applicable, it is a great way to engage the users.

   • You can also use numbers on your headlines –

     Numbers make things more legitimate and real. Most users open a post that uses a number in its headlines.

7. Use Social Proof

   Now that’s a big point. Incorporating social proof in your copy is like icing on the cake. This is actually one of the six principles of persuasion given by Robert Cialdini, that says, “People are especially likely to perform certain actions if they can relate to the people who performed the same actions before them.”

   Social proof has a great impact on your marketing efforts. When a customer sees others are having a good experience with your product, they also want to enjoy the same. It’s because as a customer we always consider what other customers say about the product. According to the data, 70 % of customers believe in review sites, while only 30 % trust advertisements they see.

   Social proof can help to make your copywriting more effective by increasing the trust factor. You can use social proof in your copywriting in the following two ways :

   • Use social proof to enhance your copywriting –

     This is for your own benefit. Surveys or customer reviews will help you understand what customers love about your product. You can study social proof to understand what main things to highlight in your copywriting.

   • Add social proof near copy –

     You can also add reviews and testimonials to your website landing pages and homepages to strengthen your copy and show what other users think about your brand or product.

Be practical and use social proof in whatever form you think will persuade your potential buyers to take action.

8. Write a compelling copy

   If you’re writing blog posts, emails, ad copies, sales letters etc, this point is for you. Here are a few things you can try to write a compelling copy of:

   • Write as if you’re talking –

     Believe it, this is an insane copywriting super hack. You have to write as naturally as possible. If you aren’t sure whether your copy is natural or not, read it out loud. If anything seems awkward, write it again, and if you feel it sounds fine, it is good to go.

   • Use short sentences –

     Using short sentences is a key to get a better copy. And this fact is also backed up by strong research.

     The research was conducted by The American Press Institute, where they gave research subjects two articles to read.

     Article 1 had an average sentence length of 54 words, whereas Article 2 had an average sentence length of 12 words. People who read Article 2 had 711% better comprehension than those who had Article 1.

   
   
   The bottom line – Use short sentences in your copy.

   • Write as if you’re talking to one person –

     Let’s understand it with examples :
     Avoid writing like this.

     “Many users struggle to get more traffic to their website. They have tried all the tricks, but nothing seems to work for them.”

     Instead, you can write to one person:
     If you’re here, that means you, too, are struggling to drive traffic to your website. You might have tried every trick, but at last, nothing seems to work.”

     The same thing applies to B2B also. Write specifically to one person.

   • Use Active Voice –

     Active voice sounds much better than passive voice. If you’re not sure about how to do it, you can try some tools.

   • Avoid complex words –

     You might be knowing all the great literary words, but not everyone is familiar with them. In fact, these complex words can make your copy hard to read. And as you know, if users find your copy hard to read, they may not read it at all. The best practice is to use words that are easy to understand.

9. Keep Testing

   As you know, copywriting is a process. All the mentioned steps are part of the process, and no matter how well you know your audience or how much you have researched, you have to test your copy. When you test it, you’ll be surprised at what works and what doesn’t works for your copy. Sometimes, you’ll find your headlines wrong, sometimes the lead may have a bit of a problem, or sometimes the tone may not sound correct.

   But here’s the catch. By testing, we don’t mean to test different versions of your copy. Instead, test some element changes and stick to something that brings more conversions. After picking the most successful version, test again.

   Here are a few changes you can test :

   Point of View – “Get more Followers now” instead of “You can get more followers.”
   Button Copy – Sign up, Subscribe now, Click to get more recipes, etc.
   Headlines – Try with numbers or indicating a solution.
   Formatting – You can try bullet points instead of numbering or vice versa.
   Calls to Action – This is the most important part. Try different and strong CTAs until you find which one is bringing more conversion.

   There are several tools to make your copy testing easier, like Google Optimize or Optimizely.

10. Optimize your Copy for Voice Search

    According to the data, 50 % of all the searches will be made by voice. Though not everyone does that, why take a chance? People are changing their searching methods and prefer voice search instead of writing everything on tiny keyboards. Users are drastically turning towards voice commands over smartphones, PCs, tablets, and smart assistants.

    Here are a few SEO tips to make your voice search more successful :

    • Write as you speak — use everyday language that is understandable.
    • Answer the questions that people ask — the answer should appear on the 1st page (keys should be in the first paragraph / the first 30 words).
    • Use subheadings and titles.
    • Low-frequency queries are longer.
    • Write down the description and use trigger wording that is 166-215 characters long.
    • The page should not take more than 4 seconds to load.
    • Use micro-markup and structure the data so that the search tool knows what content is on each page.

    To conclude the Guide

    Once you’ve read this guide, you’ll know a lot about copywriting. To help keep everything together, you can see the checklist below. This will remind you what you’ve learned and what you might be missing out on.
    Here’s the list :

    #1 The first step is to know your audience. Ask yourself the following questions before you begin :

    • Who is your target audience?
    • Who would you want to sell to?
    • What do your existing customers want?
    • What struggles might your customers face while shopping, and how can you solve them?

    Also, consider the awareness level of your audience by using the AIDA model.

    #2 The next step is to choose the right tone for copywriting.
    #3 Write a persuasive copy.

    • Start simple to grab your customer’s attention
    • Slightly move to the benefits
    • Explain features
    • Include a strong call to action

     
    #4 Focus on Pain Points in your copy.
    #5 Put the most important information on top.
    #6 Write catchy headlines.
    #7 Use Social Proof
    #8 Write a compelling copy

    • Write as if you’re talking.
    • Use short sentences.
    • Write as if you’re talking to one person.
    • Use Active Voice.
    • Avoid complex words.

     
    #9 Keep Testing Your Copy
    #10 Optimize your copy for voice search.

Here we end up with the list. The copywriting tips mentioned above will help you to know your audience better and make a successful marketing strategy. The key to a great copy is knowing what your audience wants and writing it in a way that persuades them to take action.

We hope this guide and checklist will empower you to write a copy that helps bring more conversions and grow your business overall. Following all the tips mentioned, you’ll definitely notice an increase in response rates and conversions.