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What We Can Expect from Core Web Vitals in 2022

2021 was a big year for SEO. We saw Google’s rollout of indented results, where sites can have multiple relevant pages shown on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP); its continuous scroll update to mobile search, which automatically loads the next batch of results when users scroll to the bottom of a search page; and its title tag rewrites, where it replaces a site’s title with its H1 tags or other elements.

Were all these changes met with thundering applause? Not quite, but it’s Google’s SERP world, and we’re living — and trying to rank — in it.

Another release that wasn’t an immediate hit was the Page Experience Update, based on Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics.

These new metrics “prioritize” (more on this later) the user experience by analyzing a web page according to three signals:

• Largest Contentful Paint
• First Input Delay
• Cumulative Layout Shift

URLs that pass each Core Web Vitals threshold are supposedly more likely to rank than URLs that don’t, and vice versa. However, Google has seemingly changed its mind over time on how big of impact sites will see and how many thresholds they ought to pass.

Google’s goal with this release? Get site owners to improve their website’s performance. Unfortunately for Google, though, they didn’t take the bait.

 

Core WebVitals Aren’t Going Anywhere

Although it received a lackluster response, don’t expect Core Web Vitals to go quietly into the night. Heading into 2022, we can expect Google to ramp up its importance for ranking.

In fact, I’d wager that there’ll be more of a ranking disadvantage for sites that fail one or two of the thresholds — as opposed to just those failing all across the board, as is currently the case.

This means that sites need to start optimizing pages collectively for each Core Web Vitals signal, so they’re not left behind if and when their competitors’ sites begin ranking higher.

Effective marketing requires visibility and reach, and there’s no better option than ranking high on SERPs. This means adhering to Core Web Vitals is a must. But when venturing to do so, it’s best to know ways to optimize sites and what shortcuts to avoid that could hinder a site’s usability.

 

Understanding Each Core Web Vitals Signal

Core Web Vitals essentially put user experience at the forefront by measuring a site’s performance in three parts: visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift), interactivity (First Input Delay), and loading performance (Largest Contentful Paint).

Let’s briefly define each signal:

• Cumulative Layout Shift: The maximum change to the layout of a page within a five-second session.
• First Input Delay: How long it takes from a user’s first click on an interactive element (such as a link or button) to when processing happens on that click.
• Largest Contentful Paint: How long it takes the largest element on a page to load. Note: the largest element varies, depending on the device used.

 

What Not to Do When Optimizing a Site for Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are supposed to enhance a website for the user experience, but how SEOs go about it can do more harm for usability than good. The metrics for Core Web Vitals are fragile, allowing them to be passed easily even with terrible optimizations.

Let’s take these two scenarios:

One way the Largest Contentful Paint threshold can be passed is by making text larger on a page. This metric measures how long the largest element on a screen takes to load — the quicker it loads, the better the metric.

Since text loads faster than an image, making it bigger would allow a site to pass this threshold. But this tactic won’t improve the site’s user experience, and the larger text may be an eyesore to an otherwise visually-appealing site.

Because visuals are essential to marketing, it’s easy to see why this wouldn’t be a good idea.

Another bad optimization example that passes a Core Web Vitals threshold is removing valuable links. First Input Delay measures the time it takes to process a user’s click on an interactive element on a site.

For example, let’s take blog pages, which consist of an image, a title, a summary and a “read more” CTA for each post. Typically, SEOs make both the image and CTA linkable to the full blog post, and users have come to expect it.

If an SEO removes the links from these interactive elements, users will still click them (because they’ll assume they link somewhere), but nothing will happen. The user will eventually find a functioning element, but later than they would otherwise.

As a result, the clock for First Input Delay won’t start until the page is fully loaded, which will improve metrics for this signal but ruin the user experience in the process.

A crucial part of marketing is putting the consumer first. Configuring a site to adhere to Core Web Vitals while simultaneously slowing down the user experience achieves the opposite. Mindful optimizations are what every site needs to truly care about the user experience.

 

What To Do When Optimizing a Site for Core Web Vitals

There are ways to enhance a website for each signal, although Core Web Vitals haven’t been well received. Consider these options to improving a site for Core Web Vitals:

• Cumulative Shift Layout: Use facades for late-loading content. Facades hold the place for content that will appear once a page finishes loading. Let’s say a site has product images it’s showcasing on its home page.  Facades will hold their place as they’re loading so that the page won’t get rearranged once they do, because they’re the focal point and probably larger than other elements on a page.
• Largest Contentful Paint: Drop large elements beneath the fold. This allows more unstable elements, such as embedded content (images, ads, Tweets, etc.), to appear gradually as page loads. If an ad needs to be displayed on a page, leaving it beneath the fold will help improve this metric.
• First Input Delay: Add interactive elements early on that serve a purpose. If a page has an element that needs to be clicked before users can view a site, it will cause a delay since the page is still loading in the background. One example of this type of interactive element is a cookie preferences overlay.

 

Pass Every Threshold

Core Web Vitals are here to stay. As we head into 2022, any site that hopes to rank needs to make sure they’re passing every threshold. Not doing so will cause a free fall from the ranks, which no marketer wants.

There’s a right way to go about optimizing pages for Core Web Vitals. Once we do, we’ll make the SEO world better for both ranking and user experience.

About the Author:

Tom Capper is the Senior Search Scientist at Moz. He’s a thought-leader with a penchant for challenging industry norms and developing unique SEO strategies and tactics. His focus is on designing new research to help Moz solve complex and technical issues for SEO professionals at every stage in their careers.

The post What We Can Expect from Core Web Vitals in 2022 appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

5 Best Landing Page Builders That Will Maximize Conversions

Good landing pages are the lifeblood of any digital marketing campaign.

Without them, visitors don’t know what to do next.

Where can they sign up? Where do they find the product from the ad they just clicked?

Simply driving traffic to your homepage from a search engine, paid ads, or lead magnets won’t work.

That makes landing pages critical for conversions.

However, they can also take hours to build, especially when creating multiple landing pages for a specific keyword or different campaigns.

Trust me. I’ve done it before.

What do you do? You need a landing page builder.

 

Why Should You Consider a Landing Page Builder?

You’re a busy entrepreneur or digital marketer. I know you don’t have the time or bandwidth to sit and fiddle with back-end code and figure out how to design a beautiful landing page.

What about hiring a web designer or a developer? Let’s face it. While designers and devs are excellent at their jobs, their services aren’t cheap.

This is where landing page builders come in.

You can have a fully responsive, mobile-optimized page designed to convert curious visitors into paying customers within a few hours.

What do you need to input? Your website text, fonts, images, and brand colors.

Everything else is drag-and-drop with dozens of integrations to make capturing leads and sales as straightforward as possible.

However, the best landing page builders don’t stop at page design. The creme-de-la-creme on the market (see below) offers robust analytics to help you figure out what’s working and what you need to send to the trash bin.

The result?

You save hours figuring out how to optimize and improve your conversion rates. Instead of reading blog after blog and getting frustrated, you can go back to focusing on what you do best.

 

5 Best Landing Page Builders That Will Maximize Conversions

Ready to say hello to efficiency? Here are the top landing page builders for your next digital marketing campaign.

#1 – Swipe Pages

It doesn’t get better than Swipe Pages for an affordable landing page builder. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can create insanely fast, mobile-optimized AMP landing pages.

With no coding required, it’s one of the top options for marketers and entrepreneurs.

The best part? Swipe Page’s landing page templates give your site visitors an app-like experience. You won’t need to worry about elements squishing together or losing sales because your mobile site sucks.

At $29 per month, you’ll struggle to find another builder offering lightning-fast AMP pages at that price point.

Remember, a one-second delay in page loading times can result in a seven percent reduction in conversions.

With Swipe Pages on your payroll, your conversions will go up. Use the A/B split testing feature (more than two variants are possible) to nip what isn’t working in the bud. You can also leverage dynamic text replacement to personalize the site experience for customers.

This is only the tip of the iceberg for Swipe Pages features. Some of the other tools you’ll have at your fingertips include:

• multi-step forms
• Google Analytics & Facebook Pixel integrations
• variant performance analytics
• responsive breakpoints
• performance optimization
• blend modes
• parallax scrolling

Essentially, everything you need to create a landing page that drives visitors to take action and boost your bottom line.

Swipe Pages Pros:

• 40+ high-converting templates
• 80+ pre-built blocks
• AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
• no coding skills required
• fully responsive multi-screen editing
• connect to 1000s of third-party apps like Zapier and Mailchimp1-click Stripe checkouts
• built-in analytics
• offers hosting and a custom domain

Swipe Pages Cons:

• no funnel offering yet (upsells, order bumps, etc.)
• no heatmaps
• server-side A/B split testing is only available on the highest-tier plan
• dynamic text replacement feature is not available on all plans

Swipe Pages Price: Plans start at $29 per month.

 

#2 – Unbounce

Unbounce is the “OG” landing page builder tool. It comes with excellent drag-and-drop features and a strong focus on conversions with the help of its AI-powered Smart Builder.

You’ll find popups, sticky navbars, and plenty of other options to help a visitor take action. Whatever your landing page goal, Unbounce can help you achieve it.

One of my favorite Unbounce features is Smart Traffic. Once you hit 50 page views, the tool automatically sends visitors to the landing page most likely to convert.

The only downside? It’s not a beginner-friendly tool.

The learning curve is steep with dozens of tools and integrations, but you’ll reap the rewards if you have the time and want an advanced landing page builder.

At $90 per month for the basic plan, Unbounce is one of the most expensive landing page builders on the market and targets enterprises over small businesses.

If you’re not making money from your leads yet, start with one of the cheaper alternatives like Swipe Pages before making a big investment.

Unbounce Pros:

• 100+ AI-powered landing page templates
• integrates with WordPress, Google Ads, Salesforce, Marketo, and other popular emails, CRM, and analytics tools.A/B split testing
• dynamic text replacement for SEM campaigns
• AMP-ready mobile pages
• fast page load speed times
• add sticky headers, pop-ups, maps, scripts, and pixels to pages
• quickly duplicate pages

Unbounce Cons:

• expensive
• high learning curve
• not beginner-friendly
• features like redirects and integrations are only available on the higher tier plans
• built-in forms feature has limited options
• coding skills are required for certain features

Unbounce Price: The Launch plan starts at $90 per month.

 

#3 – Leadpages

Do you need a landing page for your one-product online store or a simple way to build your email list? Leadpages is the solution for you.

It’s perfect for digital products like ebooks, presets, or courses.

With integrations like OpenTable, restaurants can use Leadpages for reservations, and online coaches have access to Calendly to process payments for strategy calls.

It is versatile enough to create a wide range of web pages (with templates to boot) and the attractive price point makes Leadpages stand out from less intuitive options, like Mailchimp.

To get your page up and running, select a template and start customizing the look and feel of your landing page. You can add videos, images, and forms. Select pre-styled content blocks from the Sections menu for items like a pricing plan or a standout call-to-action.

With built-in conversion guidance, Leadpages almost guarantees you’ll create a landing page that will convert visitors into paying customers.

Leadpages Pros:

• 2.4 seconds page load speed
• unlimited page publishing
• 200+ professionally designed templates
• mobile responsive pages
• code-free drag and drop functionality
• built-in lead optimization toolA/B split tests40+ integration
• slow starting price

Leadpages Cons:

• A/B testing, online payments, email triggers, and advanced integrations are only available on higher-tier plans
• low tier support
• not all templates are free
• templates can make all sites look the same, which isn’t great for branding

Leadpages Price: $37 per month for a standard plan and $74 for a Pro account.

 

#4 – HubSpot

HubSpot is one of the leading tools for digital marketers and salespeople. The platform is an all-in-one solution with CRM management, email marketing, blogging, forms, and a landing page builder.

If you’re searching for comprehensive marketing software on a budget, it doesn’t get better than HubSpot’s Marketing Hub package.

Inside the software, you’ll find HubSpot’s landing page builder. It will help you create beautiful pages that generate leads and look great on any device.

The best part? You don’t need to rely on designers or an IT team to knock it out of the park.

What I love about HubSpot’s landing page builder is the personalization feature. It lets you display different content, CTAs, and forms to improve your conversion rates.

You can showcase personalized content based on visitors’:

• location
• source
• device
• lifecycle stage

Why should you care about adding dynamic pages to your repertoire?

Well, when you increase the number of landing pages, you’re likely to see a 55 percent increase in leads.

However, that only happens if visitors get the right information at the right time. HubSpot’s personalization features give you the power to deliver custom content at just the right moment.

HubSpot Pros:

• built-in library of mobile-optimized templatesA/B split testing
• personalize content based on CRM data
• easy-to-use drag and drop landing page builder
• customized SEO suggestions to improve search performance
• high-quality customer support

HubSpot Cons:

• only available as part of the Marketing Hub platform.
• limited features on lower-tier plans.
• HubSpot branding on the free plan.

Hubspot Price: Free with paid plans starting at $45 per month.

 

#5 – Wix

Looking for a landing page builder that’s simple, affordable, and converts visitors into email subscribers?

Wix is one of the best options on the market.

Start with a conversion-optimized template (choose from over 30 options). Use the drag-and-drop editor to add or edit any element on your site. With no coding skills required, it’s an easy process that will have your page up and running in no time.

Once your site is live, Wix has a robust analytics tool to optimize your performance. Connect your Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, Crazy Egg, or Hotjar to dive deeper into your data, run A/B steps, heatmaps, and gain actionable insights to boost conversions.

The only downside? Wix isn’t the best solution for everyone. The landing page builder targets limited use cases like coming soon pages, webinars, product or app landing pages, and events.

Wix Pros:

• easy to use
• beginner-friendly
• affordable
• free 30+ templates
• connects with third-party apps and sites

Wix Cons:

• limited bandwidth and storage on cheaper plans
• functionality isn’t as robust as other builders
• website builder more than a dedicated landing page builder

Wix Price: Plans start at $4.50 per month

 

Frequently Asked Questions About Landing Page Builders

 

Conclusion: Landing Page Builders

When it comes to an effective digital marketing campaign, landing pages are not the place to scrimp.

They’re the best way to drive tons of targeted, specific conversions.

Without one, your visitors are left to fend for themselves on your site. If you’re bidding on specific keywords, don’t waste your ad spend on directing people to a generic home page and hoping for the best.

A landing page builder makes it easy to create and publish a high-converting landing page.

The best part? It will only take a couple of hours to design and hit publish.

Choose one of the landing page builders above and you’ll be driving more leads in no time.

What’s your favorite landing page builder?

Source: neilpatel.com

How to Create a Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia is an ever-evolving, user-generated encyclopedia that allows users to add content, including pages, articles, and general knowledge. Topics span from pinball to Prometheus and everything in between.

Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.

If you’re interested in creating a Wikipedia page for your business or marketing endeavors, you should know upfront that getting a page added to the encyclopedia is notoriously challenging.

With a slew of rules that determine what content can be added to the site and the sheer effort of writing a highly-researched page about your business, creating a Wikipedia page is no easy feat.

To help guide what content does end up on the platform, Wikipedia has five pillars to guide creators as they build content for the platform:

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
2. Wikipedia is written from a neutral perspective.
3. Wikipedia is free, editable, usable, and distributable by all.
4. Respect and civility must guide interactions among Wikipedia editors.
5. The platform has no firm rules, only guidelines, and policies.

After a page is published, volunteer editors are deputized to edit and add to the page for the duration of its existence.

Although those guidelines may seem daunting, there are big benefits for marketers and business owners who manage to make the encyclopedia work in their favor.

The largest benefit of Wikipedia is its sheer size and reach.

The encyclopedia averages over 2.5 billion unique visitors per month, earning it the title of one of the most visited sites in the world.

In addition to the sheer magnitude of users, the platform offers other benefits to marketers and business owners:

• Earn traffic and drive backlinks to your site:

When you become an active contributor on Wikipedia and start optimizing content, you can identify pages that are relevant to your audience.

Search for relevant articles with broken links and those with missing citations, then use links to your site to update those pages.

When you add appropriate links in the right spot, you’ll score backlinks and drive traffic to your website.

• Guide to your services and offerings:

Given the structure of a Wikipedia page, you can provide readers with basic information like your brand story, location, and executive list.

You can also include numbered lists of your services and offerings that allow interested parties a top-of-funnel interaction with your products.

Through direct linking, you can then drive to the respective pages on your website.

• Build credibility:

While Wikipedia is not a valid source for scholarly research given its user-generated nature, there’s no denying that people flock to the platform for information.

By building a page for your organization on the site, you can further develop your credibility as an established company.

As we’ve discussed, publishing your page on Wikipedia can be a complex process.

However, the benefits far outweigh the challenges.

 

10 Steps on How to Create a Wikipedia Page

In this post, we break down the ten steps on how to create a Wikipedia page.

1. Create an Account

The first step in your journey to creating a Wikipedia page is registering an account on the platform.

While starting an account enables you to create pages, it has other benefits, including:

access a permanent user page where you can share a brief bio and a few photos access a talk page where you can interact with other users build your reputation as a Wikipedia author customize the ways your pages appear

To register an account, complete this form.

After you’ve completed this step, you’re on your way to your first Wikipedia page.

 

2. Contribute to Existing Accounts

While Wikipedia is home to exclusively user-generated content, to build credibility on the site, you should contribute to existing accounts and pages.

You can do this by editing existing entries regularly for clarity, factuality, and reliability.

To do so, you need to first create a user page.

As you engage more with improving content, you can boost your credibility on the site, increasing the likelihood that, when the time comes, your page will stand a fighting chance of getting published.

 

3. Verify a Page Doesn’t Already Exist

Perhaps you’re an expert on a particular niche topic that you’re certain no one has tackled in the expansive landscape that is Wikipedia.

Regardless of how unique you perceive your topic to be, you should still dig to determine whether someone has already staked their flag in your topic.

Use the search bar to explore any pages that may be related to your intended topic.

 

4. Check Your Topic’s Notability

Unique to Wikipedia, notability is testing editors use to determine whether a topic is substantial or relevant enough to need a unique article.

To earn this title of notable, the information on your page must use reliable, independent sources.

In general, a topic needs to meet two specific qualifications to be deemed worthy of a stand-alone page: general notability and subject-specific notability.

If your topic meets these two guidelines, you’re a step closer to actually getting your Wikipedia page published.

However, editors can still opt to merge related topics, eliminating the need for a stand-alone page.

 

5. Research Your Topic and Gather Resources

Before diving into writing your Wikipedia page, be sure to fully research your topic.

Whether you’re building a page for your business or developing an adjacent industry topic, be sure to include both internal and external sources to ensure that you are solidifying your reliability and notability in your draft.

 

6. Create an Outline

After you’ve gathered your research sources, build an outline for your page.

Here, break your information into digestible sections that can be indexed through the site’s table of contents that accompany every page.

 

7. Write a Draft of Your Wikipedia Page

Take your time as you write your Wikipedia page.

You want your content to be thorough, thoughtful, and helpful, providing searchers with what they want to know.

While Wikipedia pages can do a lot to benefit your marketing efforts, keep in mind that the true intent of the platform is encyclopedic and impartial.

 

8. Add Citations

Incorporating citations into your Wikipedia page is vital to your page’s success.

Citations are the vehicle that drives searchers to trust the information you share on your page.

Before you start creating your page, Wikipedia shares the disclaimer that: “The topic of an article must already be covered in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

These include journals, books, newspapers, magazines, and websites with a reputation for fact-checking.

Social media, press releases, or corporate/professional profiles do not qualify.”

We’ve talked a lot about credibility in this blog post—by using reliable citations, you can boost your overall credibility.

 

9. Submit Your Article for Review

After you’ve written and proofed your page, it’s time to submit your article to Wikipedia for review. This process can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get the go-ahead from Wikipedia.

As we mentioned earlier, publishing on Wikipedia is notoriously challenging; you may have your page or article rejected a few times for finally gaining approval.

 

10. Continue Making Improvements

Once you’ve completed your page and gained approval, it’s not time to rest on your laurels.

As your page gains traction on Google, you must conduct regular updates to ensure it provides the most relevant information about your offerings.

 

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Create a Wikipedia Page

 

How to Create a Wikipedia Page: Conclusion

Whether you’re looking to increase traffic to your website, improve your search engine optimization, or simply build credibility, Wikipedia is a great outlet.

Through a number of strategies, marketers can make the user-generated encyclopedia work to their benefit, doing much more than simply providing information to interested parties.

As you begin to learn how to create a Wikipedia page, keep in mind that the process may be complicated.

For your page to be approved, you need reliable sources that stack up to imbue credibility in your page.

However, regardless of how long the process takes, the end product will be well worth it.

What strategies have you used for marketing on Wikipedia?

Source: neilpatel.com

How to Identify and Close Your Keyword Gaps

 

Would you like to uncover new traffic-driving search queries for your site?

I bet you are thinking, “Yes, of course,” right now.

If so, here is a new idea for you: Perform a keyword gap analysis.

What is Keyword Gap Analysis?

Keyword gap analysis (also referred to as content gap analysis) analysis means identifying ranking opportunities your site is missing.

Usually, it involves analyzing which queries your close competitors are ranking for and your site is not.

But there are various ways to identify content gaps.

Why is Keyword Gap Analysis Important?

There are many different ways people search for the same thing online.

It may be impossible for a single team to foresee all of those.

Even if you think you are pretty good at keyword research, there is one step you have always have to start with: your core term.

But what if your customers have a different idea of what that core term should be? If so, you are missing a huge chunk of keywords.

There can be synonyms, local terms, jargon, etc. you are not considering.

There may be products or product features you are not offering.

There may be problems your service is solving, but you fail to mention them on your site.

In all of those cases, content/keyword gap research is helpful.

 

How to Perform Keyword Gap Analysis

Here is how to perform keyword gap analysis:

1. See what your competitors are ranking for, but you are not.

This type of analysis is available through any SEO platform these days. My two favorite ones are:

Spyfu

Spyfu offers an easy and quick way to find your keyword gaps.

All you need is to enter your domain.

The tool will identify your organic or paid competitors and generate the list of keywords that you are missing.

In Spyfu, the feature is called Kombat, and it allows you to research your keyword gaps based on the following intersections:

• Keyword universe: Keywords unique to any of the entered domains
• Weakness: Keywords both of your competitors are ranking, but you are not.
• Exclusive keywords: Keywords that are unique to your domain (your competitors’ keyword gap).

The detailed view will let you see and export all your missing keywords together with their search volume and “keyword difficulty” that takes into account various factors (like title optimization, quality of backlinks pointing to the page, etc.)

What I love about Spyfu’s tool is that it allows you to find keyword gaps for both organic and paid keywords.

You’ll find similar sections inside Ahrefs and Semrush, but I don’t believe either of those offers paid keyword research.

Ahrefs

As mentioned, Ahrefs’s “content gap” tool works similarly to Spyfu’s.

What I like about Ahrefs is that it helps you research a section of your site, not just your domain or URL.

I find it pretty handy when I want a close look at a specific part of the site and identify higher-level gaps.

For example, if you were to analyze a flower shop using Ahrefs, you would be able to investigate keyword gaps for its /special-offers/ section, including all URLs that are included in that section.

This is a very handy option to have, especially if you are dealing with a large and/or multi-category site.

 

2. Semantic Analysis

Unlike Spyfu and Ahrefs, Text Optimizer doesn’t look at your specific competitors. Instead, it:

• Takes your search query
• Performs a search for it in Google or Bing
• Grabs search snippets those returned
• Applies semantic analysis to identify underlying concepts and entities
• Reads your content and identifies related concepts you failed to include in your copy.

There is no need to include ALL the suggestions in your content.

But the more you include, the closer the gap between your page and its organic competitors will be.

I like the tool because it pushes you to create longer, better-researched copy.

 

3. Your Own Analytics

Finally, you can also find content gaps within your own website analytics.

Look for under-performing pages—pages that seem to send people off from your site and pages that don’t engage your audience.

These pages obviously need some help.

Finteza is a web analytics suite that focuses on conversion and engagement analysis.

For example, if I see a graph like this, I know there’s a page that doesn’t perform well:

This is an obvious sign of a content gap:

• This page does rank and brings clicks to the site, so we cannot just trash it
• Yet, the page fails to engage anyone, so it needs content gap research.

At this point, I’d look at competing pages to see how they cater to the target audience, which questions they address, how they engage their visitors, and how their copy is better than mine.

Here are more ways to diagnose and fix lead generation problems on any content-based page, and here’s how to use analytics to improve conversions.

There are many more analytics solutions out there— here are more options.

 

How to Close Those Content Gaps

Keyword gap research is not simply a content optimization technique.

By identifying keyword gaps, you may discover new ways to present your products (e.g. colors, sizes, etc.), such as content-based landing pages that address problems your customers are facing and introduce your products as a solution.

Chances are, you will need to involve your product development, customer support, sales, and reputation management teams, as many gaps you are discovering can be turned into new product ideas, selling points, and competitive advantages.

While researching your newly discovered queries, look for other things you can pick up during your research.

What are your competitors doing better?

Maybe it is a nice page layout, an engaging content element, or a new way to structure content — there’s always something more to learn from your competitors.

The post How to Identify and Close Your Keyword Gaps appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

How to Write Perfect Page Titles and Headlines (7 Tools to Help Make it Happen)

What’s your biggest challenge when writing an article?

If it’s crafting a great headline (which is also going to be the page title), then this list of tools is right for you!

The page title is the most important on-page element that is prominently visible anywhere your page is shared or linked:

• More often than not, the page title is the most visible (and clickable) part of the search snippet.
• Unless otherwise specified, the page title is what shows up in the link preview when anyone shares your article on social media
• The title of the page shows up in any browser tab.

So in many cases (when there are many tabs open), this is what may drive the reader back to your tab.

No wonder writing an effective title is so challenging: you have to achieve so many goals, from creating a keyword-focused headline for higher-rankings to making it interesting and creating enough to trigger a click!

There’s no single formula for an effective page title, but here are some tools to help you come up with your own style and method.

Let’s dive in now:

 

Steps to Create Page Title

1. Find the Best Keyword for Your Titles: Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a multi-purpose SEO suite with one of the most powerful keyword research tools.

There are a few ways to identify your keywords:

Enter your core term (your general topic) there and then click through to “All keyword ideas.”
Type your competitor’s domain and see which keywords are driving traffic for them (and which ones you can center your content around).

The beauty of this tool is that it’s very easy to use.

All you need to do is type in a keyword, and it will show you the URLs that are ranking for it so you can see your competitors at a glance.

You can also limit results by “SEO difficulty” which reflects the organic competitiveness of each keyword.

This allows you to discover keywords to use in your title that are easier to rank high in Google search.

Best of all, the tool is free and there is a ton of data available in the free version, so there is no excuse for not trying it!

 

2. Create a Question-Based Title: Text Optimizer

Crafting your title as a question is a great way to get more people to click it.

Human beings have that natural instinct of trying to find an answer whenever they see a question, so search and social media users will be more inclined to click your title when it is written as a question.

Text Optimizer is the semantic analysis tool that lists popular questions for any keyword you enter:

The tool ranks the questions by popularity and organic competitiveness.

Clicking any question takes you to a semantic analysis of that particular question, allowing you to discover related concepts to include in your title or the page copy.

The further semantic analysis allows you to pick up even more content ideas and angles, as well as improve your current title.

Another great source of niche question inspiration is, of course, Google’s “People Also Ask” boxes.

 

3. Analyze Your Title: Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer

Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule analyzes your title based on multiple criteria, so you are likely to find the analysis quite eye-opening.

Word choice analysis (an analysis of the overall structure, grammar, and readability of your headline.)

The tool breaks your word choice into motional, common, and powerful words to ensure you have the right balance of everything.

• Sentiment analysis: headlines that convey strong positive or negative emotions tend to perform better.
• Headline length analysis determines if your title is too short or too long (in characters and words). Overall, titles that are 6-8 words long tend to earn the highest number of click-throughs.
• Analysis of the first and last three words of your title. The idea is, when skimming content, most readers tend to read the first and last three words of a headline.
• Searchable keyword analysis: headlines should include searchable keywords and phrases so that readers can find your content easily.

Even running the tool just once will give you a ton of ideas on how to improve your strategy going forward.

 

4. Preview the Facebook Snippet: Facebook Debugger

Would you like to know what your title will look like when shared on Facebook?

Use Facebook’s official tool called Facebook Debugger.

Just enter your live URL to the “Preview” box and scroll down to the “Link Preview” section:

From here, try to decide if your title is inviting a click or if it needs some improvement.

 

5. Preview the Twitter Snippet: Twitter Card Validator

Twitter feeds have become richer than they were when the platform launched.

Twitter now generates “rich tweets” showing the link preview whenever there’s a link included in a tweet.

If you want to see what your title looks like when your article is tweeted, use Twitter’s “Card Validator”.

Here’s also a solid guide on adding Twitter cards to your site for your content to generate rich tweets.

 

6. Preview on Mobile: Google’s Speed Insights

Now that most people are reading blogs from their mobile devices, it is important to make sure that your title will look nice, as it is often the first thing that loads.

Google’s Speed Insights allows you to preview your page title on a mobile device and shows how fast it took to load it.

7. Preview Google Snippet: Google, Yoast, and More

Finally, I bet you’d want to know what your title would look like in search results, and it is quite doable too!

Don’t get me wrong: no tool will guarantee that your search snippet will look exactly like what they show, but you can rest assured that it will be quite similar.

Yoast Plugin (as well as several solid alternatives) generates the search snippet preview when you are still typing your article in the WordPress editor.

For published and indexed article, use Google’s SITE: command to see what its snippet looks like:

There are also a few search snippet generators — including this one — that do a pretty good job:

Conclusion

To create a well-performing title, you need to balance several goals and tasks, including:

• Making sure you know which keyword you are focusing on
• Avoiding getting too wordy: Shorter titles perform better
• Wording your title as a question
• Making sure your title looks good (and doesn’t truncate) in search and on social media.

The post How to Write Perfect Page Titles and Headlines (7 Tools to Help Make it Happen) appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

Landing Pages Are Overrated. Here’s Why and What You Should Do Instead

I used to hate building landing pages.

I’ve certainly made mistakes and had to learn some things the hard way.

For a long time, my landing pages just didn’t work. They were weak and barely converted.

Landing pages are being praised as the magic answer to all of our conversion problems, but it’s not as easy as some people think.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can build a landing page and presto, your conversions will skyrocket.

The conversion rate from a landing page varies across industries, but the average is only 2.35%.

This means that for every 50 people you get to your landing page, only one will actually complete the action you’re trying to get them to do.

That’s a little depressing right?

I have good news for you though. I’ve learned from experience that most landing pages can do better.

The majority of landing pages aren’t really optimized to achieve conversions. They look “pretty,” but they’re not living up to expectations because they’re flawed.

I’m going to show you why landing pages are currently overrated and how to change your game to boost your conversions.

But first, let’s talk about what a landing page really is and what it’s meant to be for.

 

What is a landing page, really?

In the simplest sense, a landing page is a page you land on.

The problem with that answer is that it’s much too simple.

If someone clicks a link in one of your ads and it takes them to your home page, then by this definition your homepage is a landing page.

Some companies are making that mistake.

Let me show you an example.

I’m searching for “cleaning services seattle” in Google. I click on the paid ad:

That takes me to their homepage:

Now, here’s an example of a landing page done right.

I click this search result:

And, here is a landing page tailored to my search preferences:

Your homepage might be a good place to send people if you’re just trying to build general awareness, but it’s not where you’re going to have success with conversions.

A landing page is meant to have one singular goal: To convert.

That’s it. It shouldn’t do anything more than that.

Check out this definition from The Landing Page Course:

There are two key points here:

• They are individual pages with one, singular goal.
• They are meant for the single purpose of receiving “campaign traffic,” which means the click-throughs from your Ads and campaigns. This could be social media ads, PPCs, or emails.

This means that first, you need to be running a successful ad campaign that is causing the right traffic to click through to your landing page.

After all, if no one is “landing” on your landing page, it’s going to be pretty useless, right?

Assuming that your ad campaign is successful and your CTR is good, then the landing page should have one of two possible purposes:

Capture leads for further communications and to allow you to market to them in the future when they’re further down the sales funnel.
Warm-up your potential customers to get them ready and eager to purchase your product or service before sending them through to close the deal.

Each of these purposes requires a different type of landing page.

Good landing pages can provide a number of benefits:

They help promote a positive first impression.

Ion Interactive says first impressions are formed in just 1/20th of a second. Landing pages can be customized and designed to help provide strong positive visual impressions quickly.

They can take advantage of trust elements.

Landing pages with images, videos and graphics can not only help attract people, but they will help you make a lasting impression.

People only remember 20% of what they read, but they remember 80% of what they see.

Landing pages promote customer focus.

It’s easier to capture conversions from a well-designed landing page than it is from a homepage or blog post because they have one singular goal. There is less noise to distract your audience.

All of this means that landing pages are the ideal place to get your audience to convert if they’re done right.

Conversion Rate Experts generated $1 million/ year for Moz simply by improving their landing page and doing some email promotion.

So why are landing pages overrated?

Well, it’s not because they can’t work. It’s just that too often people use a generic template or slap something together that just doesn’t get the job done.

Don’t worry if you’re one of those people. After all, when I started out my landing pages limped along too.

 

Avoid Common mistakes to Make Sure Your Landing Pages Are Doing Right

But now I’m going to share with you what I learned and what the most common mistakes are so that you can make sure your landing pages are doing their job.

1. Sync it with your ad campaign

Like I mentioned above, the very first step if to have an effective ad campaign.

You need to be targeting the right audience for your landing page, or nothing else matters.

After all, sending people ready to buy through to a lead generation page is not going to be very successful.

But syncing intent is not the only thing you need to focus on.

Your ad and your landing page need to have a consistent look and feel.

Here’s a great example of consistency:

You can see in this campaign from Highrise that the ad and landing page look very similar.

Here are some of the things they made sure to keep consistent:

• The image of the woman is the same.
• The theme is the same, including the background color, logo, font, and look of the CTA.
• The testimonial is the same.

Now, check out this example:

The ad talks about the “lowest taxation in the EU,” then you click through to a page talking about Bulgaria. What?

After reading the fine print, you can see how they tie together but remember that first impressions happen in seconds.

My guess is a lot of people click that end, see a landing page that doesn’t seem to match and instantly hit their back button. I know I would.

 

2. Make it mobile-friendly

Mobile landing page optimization is vital now that Google has switched to a mobile-first index.

The number of mobile users increases every year. Last year 66% of the population had a mobile phone.

That’s up 5% from the year before. I’m sure when they come out with this year’s stats it will have increased again.

Mobile users are beginning to dominate web traffic.

As of last year, over half of all web traffic is mobile.

Not only that, look at the breakdown by time of day:

Mobile is dominating the hours when people are typically outside of work.

These are the times people are most likely to be using the web for something other than work, such as browsing the net or shopping.

This means if you want to capture your audience, you need to plan for them being on a mobile device.

When it comes to mobile traffic, the two most critical aspects of your landing page are speed and simplicity.

Let’s talk about keeping it simple first.

Take a look at these two examples:

It needs to cut out everything but the absolute necessities, and it needs to be designed for mobile.

Having a CTA that’s only partially visible is going to lower your results.

Making it too difficult to read on a small device is also going to hurt your conversions.

 

3. Check that your load speed is fast

Page load speed might not be something you first thing of when designing a landing page, but it’s critically important for mobile and desktop traffic.

In fact, Google announced in January that starting July 2018 pagespeed will become one of their ranking factors for mobile searches.

40% of your audience will leave your landing page if it takes longer than three seconds to load.

It won’t matter if you get every other step right if no one ever hangs around long enough to actually view your page.

A lot of businesses are struggling with this, especially for mobile.

According to Google, the average time it takes to load a mobile landing page is getting better, but it stills takes an average of 15 seconds.

I just told you 40% of people will leave if it takes longer than three seconds.

When you isolate mobile traffic, that number actually increases to 53%.

So over half your audience will leave in three seconds or less and the average site takes 15 seconds…

Simply fixing your page speed could have a huge effect on your conversions without changing any other thing about your landing page.

Google also found that bounce rate continued to increase the longer page load took.

Here are their findings for mobile traffic:

How do you know if your page is too slow?

For desktops, you can test with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

For the mobile version of your site try Test My Site.

If your speeds are not where they should be, then make sure you take the right steps to boost them before worrying about anything else.

 

4. Make sure your headings work

Once your page loads, one of the first things your audience will notice is your heading and subheading.

When thinking about landing page design, always keep in mind that first impressions count.

Your headline is one of your first impressions. It needs to be clear, attention-grabbing and reflect the purpose of your page.

Check out this headline:

It’s simple, straightforward and you know what they’re selling.

Their subheading reinforces the message and adds more information, without being too long or distracting.

Now take a look at this one:

The title is catchy, but it doesn’t give you any idea what the product is.

The only thing that saves this is the subheading is perfect. It provides the context that they’re missing in the headline.

The subheading needs to complement and build on the main heading.

Its purpose is to give your readers a little more information while keeping them engaged and enticing them to continue down the page.

Check out Slack’s homepage:

While this is actually a homepage, it captures the key aspects of headings that you should use on your landing pages.

 

5. Remove all the distractions

One of the key distinctions of landing pages is that they only serve one purpose.

Even though Slack’s homepage is pretty clean, it would fail as a landing page for a couple of different reasons.

The first is that, like any homepage, it has distractions.

Your landing page shouldn’t have a navigation bar.

Why?

It’s been shown that removing the navigation menu on your landing page can increase your conversions by 100%.

But only 16% of landing pages don’t have navigation bars.

This is a simple fix that more people should be taking advantage of.

Another way you’re distracting your audience is with too many words.

There’s a direct correlation between lower word counts and higher conversions, especially in the health and travel industries.

Don’t put too much text on the page. Keep it as visual as possible with bullet points or infographics.

You need to include enough information to make it clear what problem you’re solving for your customer, but in as few words as possible.

I know it’s a bit of an art, which is why it’s crucial to test your landing pages (we’ll get to that later).

 

6. Use the right CTA

A landing page should have one call to action.

Over 68% of businesses have five or more CTAs and links on their landing page, yet stats show that having only one CTA boosts conversions.

Choose one specific goal and CTA for each landing page and stick to it.

Make sure that your call to action is relevant and consistent with your offering.

Using something vague such as “click here,” “submit,” or “continue” will not convert as well.

Your CTA is the whole reason for a landing page. It is the most important element.

You need to make it stand out.

Choose a bright color, make it a large button with a bigger font.

Draw attention to it, with arrows or other visuals. You want your audience’s eyes to be drawn to it naturally.

 

7. Limit what you ask for

Landing page abandonment can happen in the same way as cart abandonment.

One of the big triggers for abandonment is asking too many questions.

Most companies want to get as much data as possible. However, there are conflicting results when you reduce form fields.

You don’t necessarily have to limit form fields to some artificial number. But you should just focus on what’s important.

For example, asking your audience for their age immediately drops your conversion rate.

There’s often no point in collecting that data up-front!

Here’s a simple example from Optimizely:

You can also use interactive screens, like Oscar Health, to break up the questions.

This increases your chances of your audience interacting and completing the form fields without abandonment, since it breaks up the fields, making it seem like less.

Consider adding a progress bar so that your audience knows they’re getting close to the end and the screens don’t actually go on forever.

Also, keep in mind our fields need to be optimized for mobile. If it’s painful to do on a phone, people will flee.

 

8. Have the right visuals

First, I should be clear that visuals aren’t just images anymore.

I’ve seen video landing pages convert at 56%!

Here are just some of the benefits of putting a video on your landing page:

They increase audience retention. An engaging video keeps people hanging around longer, which allows your message to penetrate.
They also increase trust. Assuming your video includes a real person, it gives your product a life and voice. This will immediately increase your audience’s trust.
Your audience wants to watch videos. Unbounce found that people prefer to watch a video over reading an article, as long as the video is 5 minutes or less.

If you’re going to incorporate a video, make sure you embed your call to action within it (as well as elsewhere on your landing page).

Take a look at how Derek Halpern included his CTA:

Videos are also a great way to demonstrate your product.

If you have something that is difficult to assemble or use, videos are ideal.

For example, Long Tail Pro includes a video that walks you through exactly how to use their software.

Don’t make it too long; keep your video short, to the point, and useful.

Any images on your landing page should be relevant to your product or service.

Try to choose pictures that meet the following criteria:

• They should be large.
• They need to be relevant to your product or service. Make sure that if you sell a product, there is an actual picture of it on your landing page.
• Don’t ever use stock images.
• All your images need to be high-quality.

Including an image of a person looking directly at your call to action is an easy way to boost conversions instantly.

Here’s an example:

When we see someone looking at something, we’re naturally drawn to look at it as well.

It’s a simple yet effective way to direct the attention of your audience to where you want it.

 

9. Include reassurance and testimonials

Want to hear something controversial?

The best salesperson in your company isn’t actually the best in my experience.

Instead, the best salespeople are often your past customers.

People want to hear from other people’s experience.

That’s why always make sure to use clients’ testimonials on every single landing page I create.

Testimonials help to build trust in your personal brand. People trust other people more than they trust a company.

More than three out of four marketers don’t include social proof, yet it can boost your conversion rate by more than 1%.

1% might not seem like a lot, but the average landing page conversion rate is only 2%.

If you’re new and don’t have many testimonials yet, there are other ways to reassure your customers.

Consider showing your trust indicators to reassure users that your site is safe.

You can also build trust by sticking to the facts and using precise numbers whenever you state any statistics.

Make sure you don’t overstate results.

Saying something is the best without backing it up will make people think you’re trying to trick or scam them.

Avoid superlatives like “best,” “fastest,” “cheapest” unless you can prove it with research.

Another way to reassure customers is by offering a guarantee.

Free trials or money-back guarantees help build trust and boost conversions since they’re low risk.

You can also increase customer confidence by providing contact info.

Simply giving people a way to reach you can help reassure them your site and product or service is trustworthy.

10. Add a little pressure or incentive

An additional incentive to encourage customers to click your CTA can help boost conversions, particularly if your landing page is for lead generation.

Offering a free e-book or guide can help increase sign-ups.

Just make sure the content you provide is valuable, or any future marketing efforts toward these people won’t work well.

Whatever free gift you choose should be seen as an investment toward later paid conversions.

Remember the old saying about the carrot or the stick?

The gift is a carrot to entice conversions. You can also use a stick or “threat” to scare people into action.

Now, I don’t mean a real threat.

I mean use language such as “limited time offer,” “only 24 hours left” to increase your conversion rate.

11. Test, test, and retest

There is a science to landing page structure, but there is also an art to it.

To find the best landing page design for each of your campaigns you need to test them.

Many marketing blogs will rave about long-form landing pages. But guess what? Those don’t always convert the best.

The catch is that some companies, like Conversion Verve, have found that shorter pages actually converted better for them.

So even when you read about what works best on average, it doesn’t mean it will work best for you.

Sadly, barely half of companies actually test their pages today.

But testing has proven to boost conversion rates.

The companies whose conversion rates have improved year over year are executing 50% more tests on average.

A good way to test your pages is with heat maps.

A heat map gives you a simple visual of where your visitors are looking and clicking when on your landing page.

You can see what areas of your page people are paying attention to and what’s not working.

Of course, I’m a little biased, but my preferred heat map software is Crazy Egg.

All you do is enter the URL of your landing page, create an account, and check out your heat map.

Here’s an example of a scroll heat map:

The areas in red are getting the most attention.

In this example, you can see that not a lot of people are making it down to the bottom.

If your CTA were at the bottom, this would be a problem.

You can use heat maps to see where people are clicking:

Heat maps can quickly show you if your headlines, content, or CTAs aren’t getting enough attention.

 

Conclusion

Landing pages are often expected to convert people effortlessly, yet the average rate is around 2%.

Of course, the problem isn’t with landing pages exactly. It’s with how they’re being built and used.

A landing page needs to have one singular goal, and every part of it needs to be designed to move viewers toward that goal.

First, make sure your landing page is consistent with your campaign, then make sure it’s optimized to be fast and mobile-friendly.

Your headings need to be attention-grabbing, and all distractions, noise, and clutter need to disappear.

Use an effective CTA and limit the amount of information you ask customers to provide.

Make sure you use great visuals and provide social proof or guarantees to reassure people it’s low risk to convert.

Remember, you can always offer an incentive or a little pressure to encourage people to click the button.

Finally, always make sure to test your pages. Use A/B testing or heat maps to see what’s working and improve what isn’t.

What tips or tricks haven’t I mentioned that helped boost your landing page conversions?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

Source: feedproxy.google.com