Website Design and SEO: How Design Impacts Your Search Rankings
Imagine you’re searching for a product or service online, and you click on a website that takes forever to load, has a cluttered layout, and is not the easiest to navigate. Frustrating, right?
Such experiences not only drive you away but also leave a lasting impact on your perception of the brand. This scenario underscores the critical role of website design in determining user experiences and, ultimately, search engine rankings.
A well-crafted website is a powerful tool that can influence your SEO traffic and enhance conversion rates. As the online gateway to your business, your website’s design should seamlessly align with your business goals, product offerings, and service structure to create an immersive and meaningful experience for visitors.
The Intersection of Design and Search Engine Rankings
The realm of website design is not confined merely to aesthetics and visual appeal. It’s intricately linked to your website’s performance and its ability to drive success.
A staggering 75% of a company’s credibility can hinge on its website design, underscoring the critical role it plays in shaping user perception and building trust. The significance of website design’s impact on user engagement cannot be overstated. And a site’s ability to engage users is an important SEO ranking factor.
Another factor that influences search engine rankings is speed. Research shows that 40% of users are liable to abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Impressions are formed quickly in the digital realm, with visitors taking less than 50 milliseconds to decide if a website resonates with them.
When millions of websites are vying for attention, a site’s optimization for search determines how high it shows up in the results. SEO is what sets the best apart from the rest and web design plays a critically important role here.
Understanding the Basics of SEO
SEO is the backbone of online success, determining how easily your website is discovered by users searching for relevant content. Increased visibility translates to higher organic traffic, which is crucial for attracting potential customers and driving conversions.
Defining SEO and its Significance
SEO includes a set of smart methods to improve your website’s position in search engine results. When keywords related to your business are searched, you want your site to show up among the top results. This brings more traffic to your website which means more chances for business growth. SEO is not only about driving traffic but also about attracting the right kind of traffic—users who are actively seeking the products or services your business offers.
Explaining Key Elements of SEO
Several essential elements contribute to effective SEO, including keywords, backlinks, and user experience.
- Including keywords in your website’s content helps search engines figure out what your pages are about.
- Backlinks, or inbound links, are links from other websites that point to yours. High-quality backlinks from trustworthy sources tell search engines that your content is useful and reliable.
- User experience encompasses multiple aspects of your website’s design, functionality, and ease of use, all of which impact how visitors interact with your site, how long they stay, and whether or not they come back.
We’ll discuss other important elements of SEO later in the article.
The Role of Website Design in Optimization
Website design plays a significant role in optimizing for these key SEO ranking factors. An intelligently designed website facilitates smooth navigation, making it easier to explore and understand your content. Properly organized menus, clear calls-to-action, and intuitive layouts enhance user experience, leading to longer session lengths and lower bounce rates. An aesthetically pleasing and responsive design also enhances user engagement, encouraging visitors to explore more pages and interact with your content, all of which contribute to improved SEO performance.
The Connection Between Website Design and SEO
Beyond being visually appealing, your website’s design directly influences its search engine ranking and user engagement. Businesses can unlock the true potential of their online presence and stand out in the competitive digital landscape by harmonizing design principles with SEO strategies.
Responsive Design and Mobile Optimization
Responsive design and mobile optimization are no longer merely design alternatives. They have become essential for optimizing SEO effectiveness due to the explosive growth in mobile device usage.
A responsively designed website changes depending on the size of screen it’s viewed on, ensuring it’s easy to use on all devices. Search engines favor websites that work well on mobile and rank them higher in mobile searches to give users the best experience possible. Adopting responsive design makes your website easy to use, regardless of device. This results in stronger user engagement, longer website visits, and fewer single-page visits (bounces).
Website Speed and Its SEO Impact
A website’s page load speed greatly affects its usability. Sites that are slow to load frustrate users, making them more likely to leave. Research shows pages that take five seconds to load have a 90% higher bounce (exit) rate than those taking only one second. Search engines recognize this and incorporate page speed as a ranking factor, knowing that faster sites lead to better user experiences.
User-Friendly Navigation and Intuitive Site Structure
User experience and SEO are closely intertwined. A well-designed navigation menu guides users through your website, helping them find the information they need swiftly and effortlessly. This not only enhances user experience but also aids search engine crawlers in indexing your content effectively. A clear and logical site structure organizes your content optimally, making it effortless for users to navigate and search engines to understand the hierarchy and relationships between different pages. As a result, user-friendly navigation and intuitive site structure contribute to lower bounce rates, longer dwell times, and improved SEO rankings.
Site Architecture and URL Structure for Crawlers
The architecture of your website and the way its URLs are constructed both have a substantial impact on how search engine crawlers navigate and index your content. A well-organized site architecture ensures that every page is accessible within a few clicks, preventing important pages from being buried deep within the site.
Descriptive, keyword-rich, user-friendly URLs help search engines and users understand the topic of the page. Clean URL structures not only improve click-through rates but also facilitate better crawling and indexing by search engines. You enhance the visibility of your content and improve your SEO rankings by creating a site architecture and URL structure that are conducive to easy exploration.
Website Design’s Role in Content and SEO
The synergy between content and design is evident in the way website layout, typography, and multimedia elements enhance content readability and user engagement.
Elevating SEO with High-Quality Relevant Content
The best websites are built around high-quality, relevant content that provides value to visitors. Search engines are becoming increasingly adept at discerning sites that contain valuable information from those that do not. Websites that provide insightful and well-researched content are rewarded with higher rankings. Content that answers common questions, offers solutions, and presents authoritative insights establishes a website’s credibility and fosters trust among visitors.
Enhancing Readability and Engagement Through Design
Website design plays a crucial role in guiding users through content, ensuring that the information is engaging. Thoughtful design choices such as clear typography, appropriate font sizes, and well-structured layouts enhance content’s readability. When website design incorporates visually appealing, easy to read content, users tend to linger and explore further.
Crafting SEO-Friendly Content with Proper Formatting and Meta Tags
Proper formatting and the strategic use of meta tags are signals for search engine crawlers, helping them navigate and understand the content’s relevance. Headings and subheadings not only improve readability for users but also provide a hierarchical structure that search engines can interpret. Carefully crafted meta tags offer brief overviews of the content, impacting how many people click on your website from search results.
Multimedia Elements Enhancing SEO Impact through Visuals
Multimedia elements such as images, videos, and infographics are not only attention-grabbing but also contribute significantly to SEO. Properly optimized images with descriptive alt text can be indexed by search engines, enhancing the content’s relevance. Videos increase user engagement, leading to longer visits, while infographics provide concise information in a visually appealing format and are excellent for generating external links.
The Essence of Technical SEO in Website Design
Technical SEO forms the backbone of a website’s search engine performance – a technical SEO audit often uncovers hidden problems preventing your website from loading quickly or indexing the right pages. Let’s explore the key facets of technical SEO and how they synergize with the art of website design to shape a site’s digital footprint.
Unveiling the Significance of Technical SEO and Its Link to Website Design
Technical SEO involves improving a website’s technical aspects to make it more visible to search engines. This intricate process plays a pivotal role in determining how search engines perceive and rank a site. The connection between technical SEO and website design is paramount, as design choices directly influence how search engine crawlers interact with the site’s underlying structure.
The Power of Proper HTML Coding and Pristine Website Structure
Proper HTML coding and a well-structured website layout are the building blocks of technical SEO. Structured HTML helps search engine crawlers easily grasp and organize a site’s content. A clutter-free website structure not only aids search engines in navigating the site but also enhances user experience by providing an organized and intuitive layout.
Unmasking the Role of Meta Tags, Alt Attributes, and Schema Markup in SEO
Meta tags, alt attributes, and schema markup are the unsung heroes of technical SEO. Meta tags provide succinct descriptions of a page’s content, helping search engines understand its context. Alt attributes enrich images with descriptive text, improving accessibility and aiding search engines in comprehending visual content. Schema markup, a form of structured data, adds an extra layer of context to certain content elements, enabling search engines to better categorize it and to display rich snippets in search results.
Illuminating the Significance of XML Sitemaps, Robots.txt, and Canonical Tags
XML sitemaps act as guides for search engines, directing them to essential pages on a website. They ensure that no valuable content goes unnoticed during the crawling process. Robots.txt files set rules for what parts of a site search engines should or shouldn’t explore. Canonical tags show search engines the preferred version of repeated content, preventing confusion.
Elevating User Experience for Enhanced SEO
User experience is pivotal for SEO success. Effective website design offers intuitive navigation, engaging content, and distinct calls to action, driving user engagement.
Unveiling the Synergy Between User Experience and SEO Rankings
Search engines emphasize providing users with valuable, relevant, and user-friendly content. As a result, a positive user experience is important in determining how high a website shows up in search results. Search engines look at bounce rate, time spent on the site, and click-through rates to see if users are satisfied and interested.
The Role of Website Design in Crafting a Seamless User Experience
Website design directs visitors through a digital journey that aligns with their needs and expectations. A well-designed website offers intuitive navigation, easy-to-digest content, and lucid calls to action. Effective website design practices enable businesses to direct users toward their intended objectives, whether those objectives entail making purchases, subscribing to newsletters, or accessing informative resources.
Spotlighting the Importance of Easy Navigation, Intuitive Layouts, and Clear Calls-to-Action
Easy navigation is the compass that guides users through a website, allowing them to explore content effortlessly. Intuitive layouts ensure that visitors can locate desired information without frustration, enhancing engagement and reducing bounce rates. Direct calls-to-action act as signposts, encouraging users to take desired actions like requesting a quote, contacting the company, or completing a transaction. These design elements collectively contribute to a seamless and satisfying user experience.
Recognizing the Nexus Between Mobile-Friendliness, Page Load Speed, and User Experience
Websites that are responsive and adaptable to various screen sizes provide an optimal browsing experience, satisfying users and search engines alike. Page load speed is equally critical, as pages that take a long time to load can make users frustrated and more likely to leave quickly. Since search engines prioritize delivering swift and relevant results, fast-loading pages receive a boost in rankings, further emphasizing the importance of mobile-friendliness and speed optimization.
SEO-Optimized Website Design Best Practices
Discover the art of harmonizing design and SEO for exceptional digital impact. Start by doing smart keyword research, then naturally use these important words in your website’s content, headings, and descriptions.
Navigating the Path to SEO Excellence with Actionable Design Tips
When it comes to optimizing website design for SEO rankings, a strategic approach can yield remarkable results. Begin by conducting keyword research. Integrate these keywords naturally into your content, headers, and meta descriptions to enhance search engine visibility. Furthermore, leverage descriptive alt text for images to make your content accessible and indexable for search engines.
Enhancing User Experience and SEO with Responsive Design and Mobile Optimization
As more people use mobile devices to browse websites, a responsive design makes sure your site looks good on all screen sizes. This improves how users feel and helps your site rank better on search engines. Businesses can reach more people and meet search engines’ mobile-first rules by focusing on mobile optimization.
The Need for Optimal Website Speed to Accelerate Performance
Your website’s speed and performance affect how users feel and how well it ranks on search engines. Pages that load slowly can make users leave and hurt your website’s search ranking by causing higher bounce rates. To enhance website speed, employ strategies such as optimizing image sizes, using browser caching, and minimizing server response time. A faster website provides a better user experience and earns favor with search engines, ultimately enhancing your search rankings.
Guiding Users and Search Engines through Navigational Ease and Structural Clarity
Intuitive navigation and a clear site structure are user-friendly and crucial for search engine crawlers to index your website effectively. Arrange your content logically, incorporating descriptive headings to lead visitors through your site’s offerings. Integrate breadcrumbs for hierarchical navigation, allowing users to comprehend page relationships. A well-structured site ensures a seamless experience for users and facilitates search engine crawlability.
Elevating Quality and Relevance with Content
Create valuable and relevant content that meets users’ needs and answers questions. Naturally include keywords, avoiding excessive usage. Consider producing in-depth, long-form content that thoroughly explores subjects, showcasing expertise and credibility. Employ proper formatting, bullet points, and subheadings to enhance content readability, thereby boosting user engagement and search rankings.
The Power of Clean Code and Technical SEO Optimization
Beneath the surface of a visually appealing website lies the foundation of clean code and technical SEO optimization. Streamlined code enhances website performance, leading to faster load times and improved user experience. Use schema markup to give search engines organized information, making important details stand out in search results. Also, make sure to do proper canonicalization, improve XML sitemaps, and use robots.txt well to help search engine crawlers understand your site better.
FAQs about Website Design’s Impact on Search Rankings
1. How does website design influence SEO rankings?
Website design plays an important role in SEO rankings. Search engines assess a website’s design to determine its user-friendliness, accessibility, and overall quality. Factors such as site structure, navigation, mobile-friendliness, and page loading speed are key components of design that impact how search engines perceive your website. A website that’s well-designed, easy to navigate, and that works on different devices can result in better user experiences, longer visit durations, and reduced bounce rates—all of which contribute positively to your SEO rankings.
2. Why is responsive design important for SEO?
Making your website responsive – so it looks good on all screens and devices – is crucial for SEO. With the surge in mobile device usage, search engines prioritize websites that offer optimal experiences across all platforms. Search engines consider mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, which means that a responsive design can directly impact your search rankings. A responsive design improves user experience and aligns with search engines’ preferences, potentially leading to higher rankings and better visibility in search results.
3. What role does user experience play in SEO?
How users feel when using a website is a key part of SEO rankings. Search engines aim to deliver the most relevant and valuable results to users’ queries. Websites that provide seamless, engaging, and satisfying experiences tend to rank higher because they meet the needs and preferences of users. When people enjoy using a website because it’s easy to navigate, has a specific call to action, loads quickly, and has interesting content, they tend to stay longer, leave less often, and interact more. All of this helps boost SEO rankings.
Elevate Your SEO Game with Expert Web Design from Globe Runner
When it comes to achieving remarkable SEO rankings, your website’s design plays a pivotal role. The intricacies of web design extend beyond aesthetics, influencing factors such as user experience, technical optimization, and content visibility.
Partnering with the professional web designers at Globe Runner can catapult your website’s performance in search engine rankings. Our expert team understands the nuanced connection between design and SEO, ensuring that your website looks appealing and functions seamlessly to meet search engine algorithms’ demands. It’s about crafting an online platform that resonates with your brand, engages users, and ranks high on search engine result pages.
Globe Runner’s web design experts are adept at translating your business objectives into a visually appealing and strategically optimized website. We empower your website to capture user attention, foster engagement, and ultimately drive conversions by aligning design elements with SEO best practices.
Our web design and SEO expertise converge to create websites that excel in both aesthetics and functionality. Contact Globe Runner today to unlock your website’s true potential.
Programmatic Advertising 101: What You Need to Know
What is Programmatic Advertising and How Does it Work?
The digital marketing landscape is evolving rapidly, with automation and artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionizing how businesses engage with customers. As companies place a larger focus on efficiency and personalization, they should incorporate programmatic advertising into the marketing mix.
This article will answer “What is programmatic advertising” and help you understand its use case across different businesses.
Programmatic advertising is an advanced and data-driven approach to digital advertising. It relies on automated technology and algorithms to make real-time decisions. These algorithms consider the criteria defined by advertisers and publishers in addition to customer behaviors.
One of the biggest benefits of programmatic advertising is that it lets you improve your audience targeting. It optimizes ad placement based on user data, behavior, and demographics, maximizing the chances of engaging the right audience at the right moment.
Programmatic advertising fits across the marketing funnel at different stages, serving varying roles. At the top of the funnel, it helps raise awareness by reaching a wide audience. In the middle, it nurtures and converts leads with personalized messaging. Finally, at the bottom, it aids in retaining customers and building brand loyalty. Further along in the article, we will explore how all this is accomplished.
In the world of paid media, programmatic advertising’s appeal lies in its efficiency and effectiveness, making it a compelling choice for advertisers seeking optimal results.
As a result, programmatic advertising has become a staple in the digital advertising space, with an estimated $148.83 billion allocated to programmatic digital display ad spending in the US in 2023.
Below, we explore how programmatic advertising works and how it can help your business.
How Programmatic Advertising Works
Programmatic advertising streamlines the journey from ad space buying to ad delivery. Before we explain how programmatic advertising works, here are a few important terms to understand:
Demand Side Platform (DSP): DSPs are used by advertisers and agencies to purchase and manage digital ad inventory across multiple ad exchanges and publishers.
Supply Side Platforms (SSPs): SSPs come into play on the publisher’s side. These platforms enable digital publishers to sell their online ad space in real-time auctions.
Real-Time Bidding (RTB): At the heart of programmatic advertising is RTB. When a user visits a page with ad space, there is an instantaneous auction. Advertisers bid for the ad space, and the ad of the highest bidder is instantly displayed to the user.
The flexibility of RTB enables advertisers to make adjustments to their bids, budgets and targeting parameters, optimizing campaign performance on the fly. Its transparency, cost-effectiveness, and scalability make RTB valuable for delivering relevant and engaging ads.
Data Management Platforms (DMPs): DMPs collect, analyze, and manage audience data. They provide valuable insights to advertisers, helping them craft data-driven strategies for precise audience targeting and campaign optimization.
Ad Delivery: Once the auction is won, the ad is delivered in real-time, appearing on the user’s screen while they are actively engaged with the content.
Ad Exchanges: An ad exchange is a digital marketplace that facilitates the buying and selling of ad inventory in real-time auctions. It connects advertisers with publishers, enabling them to buy and sell ad impressions.
Now that we know the meaning of relevant phrases let us look at how programmatic advertising works. When a user visits a website or app with available ad space, the publisher’s SSP quickly identifies the available ad spots and shares the information with the Ad Exchange. The SSP sets minimum prices for each ad spot to ensure the publisher gets fair value for their space. Then, through real-time bidding, DSPs enable advertisers to use algorithms to place competitive bids for these ad spots. This automated process ensures quick decision-making and helps advertisers effectively target their ads to potential customers.
Programmatic advertising differs from conventional methods by automating the ad-buying process through real-time auctions and data-driven decision-making. This can help you to target precisely and optimize your campaign. In contrast, conventional methods often involve manual negotiations and fixed ad placements, lacking real-time precision and audience insights.
How Programmatic Advertising Can Help Your Business
Programmatic advertising allows you to show a highly relevant sponsored ad to a potential customer who is browsing for your product.
That’s the magic of programmatic advertising. It targets with precision and agility.
Your business can leverage different aspects of programmatic advertising:
- Through automation in programmatic advertising, you can be in the right place at the right time. Automation allows algorithms to connect you to the most relevant audience and display your ads in real-time auctions, streamlining buying and selling ad space processes.
- Real-time analytics in programmatic advertising works by continuously collecting and processing data about user behavior, geography, preferences, and ad performance as it is happening. You gain valuable real-time insights into ad performance and audience engagement, enabling you to adjust your advertising strategy on the go.
- Scalability is another advantage, as programmatic advertising and automation can adapt to campaigns of any size. A local bakery can target a specific neighborhood with promotions during holiday seasons, while a multinational retailer can run global campaigns across multiple platforms.
- The targeting aspect of programmatic advertising is versatile and efficient.
- Behavioral targeting harnesses user data to understand interests and preferences. So, for example, if you run a fitness gear business, behavioral targeting allows you to display your products to users who frequently visit health and fitness websites.
- Persona targeting crafts ads tailored to specific customer segments, like a luxury watch brand showing elegant timepieces to high-income professionals.
- Geofencing narrows targeting to specific locations so that a restaurant can target an audience within a mile’s distance with an ad about its signature dish.
- Lastly, contextual targeting matches ads to relevant content. For example, a webpage with a blog about housing loans can display ads from real estate agents about available properties in the neighborhood.
Challenges In Programmatic Advertising and How Businesses Can Overcome Them
While programmatic advertising has multiple benefits, there are a few challenges that can be overcome with innovation and a responsible approach.
- Ad fraud remains a concern, where bots and fake impressions can skew performance metrics. Implementing robust verification tools and partnering with reputable ad exchanges can combat fraud.
- Privacy concerns arise from data collection practices, necessitating transparent privacy policies and user consent mechanisms. Many states are already enforcing GDPR-inspired statutes in 2023 in this regard.
- Data management issues include data quality and integration complexities. Employing data analytics tools and investing in data management platforms can streamline data processes, ensuring accurate and actionable insights.
For a business, it is crucial to maintain privacy and integrity so that your potential customers get a best-in-class purchase experience while your business can get maximum ROI.
Globe Runner- Your Trusted Partner for Programmatic Advertising
At Globe Runner, we run paid media and programmatic advertising, ensuring each ad campaign drives results. Our expert team generates new leads, reduces the cost per lead, and boosts your return on ad spend, maximizing the value of your advertising efforts.
Benefit from our tailored services encompassing paid searches, social media ads, remarketing, display, and conversion rate optimization. Our collaborative approach ensures a customizable paid media plan that delivers exceptional results. Book a call with us to learn more about a rewarding advertising experience.
Your Go-To Content Optimization Checklist
Content is the lifeblood of digital marketing. It attracts, engages, and persuades, eventually turning prospects into loyal customers. Content optimization is the process of fine-tuning your content to make it more appealing and actionable. The goal is to improve not only the content’s search engine discoverability, but also its potential for engagement and conversion.
Below we explore the ultimate content optimization checklist for boosting your marketing performance. These steps go hand in hand with the content tips outlined in our Conversion Rate Optimization guide.
How Content Optimization Works
To drive user engagement, content is optimized to resonate with the audience, cater to their needs, spark interest, and motivate them to act. In fact, you’ll appreciate that user experience is a priority right from the top. Content optimization begins with comprehending your audience and their needs, with keyword research providing insights into their interests.
This is the data that guides the subsequent content creation process. Our content optimization checklist will help you draft high-quality copy that is not only compelling, but also structured for easy readability and navigation.
That’s not to say that content optimization ends when you publish the pieces. As you’ll learn from our content optimization checklist, this is a continuous engagement that demands constant monitoring and fine-tuning of your copy. You’ll be using tools like Google Analytics to track the performance of your content and identify possible areas for improvement.
The Content Optimization Checklist
A content optimization checklist outlines the roadmap that you’ll use to maximize your content’s search engine visibility and user engagement. It smoothly integrates into your marketing processes, where it shapes your content creation from both a technical and strategic standpoint.
For instance, in our content optimization checklist, you’ll find a methodical blueprint for keyword research. This is what shows you how to center your content around the terms that resonate with your audience’s searches.
The checklist also emphasizes content quality. It details the technical procedures for not just creating engaging content but also delivering value to your audience.
Our content optimization checklist additionally comes with guidelines for enhancing the user experience. You can follow them to simplify the navigation and keep your content easily readable. Mobile optimization is another focal point of the checklist, as it ensures that your content is readily accessible and perfectly modeled for mobile screens.
You even get a roadmap for distributing content to the largest possible audience. Then to top it all off, the checklist integrates monitoring and analysis schedules, which should help you in tracking your content’s performance.
Keyword Research and Usage
Keyword research is the foundation of content optimization, as it uncovers the keywords that your audience has been using to scan through the web for information, products, or services in your niche. You’ll get clarity on your audience’s interests, queries, and linguistic preferences, along with keywords your competitors are exploiting.
Some of the tools that you could use for the job include Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Keyword Generator, Moz Keyword Explorer, or the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool. These tools generate and assess keyword ideas based on search volume, difficulty, intent, and relevance.
Once you’ve identified keywords, here’s how you should integrate them into the content page for maximum impact:
- Start incorporating your primary keyword early in your content, preferably within the first 100 words.
- Use the keywords in your content titles, headings, body text, meta tags, and URLs.
- Pay attention to the questions prospective buyers are asking on social media and create content around them.
- Avoid keyword stuffing; place keywords within the natural flow of the content.
- Use long-tail keywords to target variations on popular searches.
- Regularly update your keyword strategy based on current trends and audience interests.
- Avoid targeting the same keyword on multiple pages to prevent keyword cannibalization.
- Insert Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords in your content to help Google understand the context.
- Keep the URLs short, descriptive, and include your target keywords.
- Optimize your content for voice search by incorporating conversational keywords and questions.
Quality of Content
For easy readability, your content should maintain clear and concise language, employ active voice and second-person perspective, plus infuse storytelling and emotional appeal, all while avoiding grammatical and spelling errors.
You might also want to make the text scannable by partitioning it with images, videos, charts, headings, subheadings, bullet points, and lists.
Here’s are some guidelines to keep in mind:
- Use tools like Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, or Yoast SEO to check and improve your content readability.
- Use original research and data to add credibility to your content.
- Align the content with your brand’s voice and style guidelines.
- Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the “preferred” version of a page.
- Structure content with header tags (H1, H2, etc.)
- Make the content long enough to provide detailed information, but not so extended that it becomes boring.
- Regularly audit your content and remove or update any outdated or low-quality content.
User Experience
Quality content is a critically important part of a seamless and enjoyable on-site experience for your users, enticing them to engage with your brand and ultimately convert.
Here are page design optimization guidelines to provide a great user experience:
- Simplify navigation with clear menus and links that guide users to the information they’re looking for.
- Keep important pages three or fewer clicks away from the homepage.
- Accelerate page loading speeds by optimizing your images, skimming the code, and leveraging a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
- Make the site accessible to people with disabilities. Use alt text with your images, attach transcripts to videos, and facilitate keyboard navigation.
- Use clear calls to action to guide users toward desired actions.
- Capitalize on white space to cut down on avoid clutter and improve readability.
- Implement structured data (Schema.org) to help search engines understand your content.
- Optimize images with descriptive file names, alt tags, and compression.
- Regularly check for and fix broken internal and external links.
- Integrate breadcrumbs for easier navigation.
- Set up a search function for convenient access to information.
- Avoid using intrusive pop-ups or ads.
Mobile Optimization
The point of mobile optimization is to make the on-site experience seamless for mobile users. This is especially critical at a time when mobile accounts for close to 60% of website traffic.
Mobile users need a highly responsive website layout that automatically adjusts to fit the device’s screen size. With a responsive site design in place, make sure you address these other content optimization guidelines for mobile:
- Optimize images, minify code, leverage browser caching, and reduce redirects to increase your mobile site’s loading speed.
- Use larger font sizes, shorter paragraphs, and bullet points to make your content easily readable on a small screen. For even better legibility, try to increase the contrast between your text and background.
- Maintain a touch-friendly design on all elements of your website – including menus, forms, and buttons.
- Since Flash isn’t supported on many mobile devices, use HTML5 for animations.
- Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to be sure your website is mobile-friendly.
- Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for mobile speed optimization.
- Use a viewport meta tag to control the layout on mobile browsers.
Content Promotion and Distribution
The creation of high-quality, optimized content is only half the battle. The other half lies in getting this content in front of the right eyes.
For the best possible reach, we’d advise you to distribute it using an omnichannel content promotion strategy. You should especially prioritize social media, email, and guest blogging.
With email marketing, you get a direct line of communication with your audience. And when you send out those emails, you can expect an open rate of between 30-40% – with the bulk coming from engaged leads. You can even engage email conversion optimization techniques to drive sales directly from your automated messages.
Some of the content promotion guidelines to keep in mind here are:
- Highlight new posts or videos in your email signature to encourage people to check them out.
- Personalize your emails to make the content more relevant and engaging for each subscriber.
- Segment your email list based on subscriber interests, behavior, or demographics to deliver more targeted content.
- Use A/B testing to optimize various email elements – like the call-to-action, layout, or delivery time.
- Include clear and compelling calls-to-action in your emails to guide subscribers on what to do next.
- Regularly clean your email list by removing inactive subscribers to maintain high deliverability rates.
Social media, on the other hand, offers a broader audience and more potential for engagement. The platforms to prioritize are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.
While you’re at it, you should follow these principles:
- Collaborate with influencers and other complementary businesses to promote your content.
- Employ paid advertising to boost your content’s reach.
- Regularly share and promote your old content.
- Include social sharing buttons to encourage users to share your content.
- Repurpose your content across different mediums. For example, a podcast episode could become a blog post, or key points from a blog post could inspire a series of tweets.
For collaborations with other publishers, the best content promotion channel would be guest blogging. It gives you the privilege of tapping into other websites’ audiences through content features.
For the best outcome consider:
- Using content syndication to reach a wider audience.
- Repurposing your content into different formats like videos, infographics, podcasts, etc.
- Creating a content calendar to plan your content promotion activities.
- Identifying relevant blogs in your industry that accept guest posts.
- Writing compelling pitches to external publishers, with each outlining your content idea and why it would be valuable to their audience.
- Avoiding promotional or salesy content in your guest post.
Monitoring and Analysis
The final step in the content optimization process is monitoring and analysis. This is where you track the performance of your content to understand what’s working and areas that need improvement.
The likes of Google Analytics are equipped to generate detailed reports on a wide range of content engagement parameters. They show you which pages are attracting traffic, how long visitors are staying, and what actions they’re taking.
Here are some of the performance metrics that you should pay special attention to:
- Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed.
- Unique Pageviews: The number of sessions during which the specified page was viewed at least once.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of single-page visits.
- Exit Rate: The percentage of exits from your site that occurred out of the total pageviews.
- Average Time on Page: The average amount of time users spend viewing a specific page or screen.
Start Optimizing Your Content for Better Marketing Today!
As you can see, content optimization is an end-to-end process that encompasses the entire creative workflow – from keyword research to content distribution and performance analysis. With the content optimization checklist, you’ll find it easier to not just coordinate every step, but also compose original content that resonates with your audience and achieves your marketing objectives.
If all this sounds like a lot of work, it is. If you don’t have the time or the expertise to optimize your content, the experts at Globe Runner can help. We can fine tune your content and ensure you are making the most out of every visit to your website. Place your content optimization request today!
The Ultimate Guide to Link Building for Marketing Success
What is Link Building?
In its most basic form, link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own.
It’s considered to be one of the key pillars of SEO success, a fact that Google’s Andrey Lipattsev himself confirmed in a web seminar. The Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google revealed that links, content, and RankBrain are the top three ranking signals in Google’s search algorithm.
But, that’s not all there is to link building. You see, links are like the digital version of word-of-mouth marketing. Building them not only boosts your SEO, but also spreads brand awareness, attracts referral traffic, and establishes industry credibility.
Make no mistake about it, though. Link building is not as simple as scattering hyperlink breadcrumbs across the web. The most impactful links are those that are relevant, high-quality, and organically integrated. Such links are not forcibly embedded or purchased – rather, they’re earned based on the value of your content and the relationships you’ve nurtured.
This guide explains exactly how you can achieve these valuable links. Read on to discover the best SEO linking strategies to include in your digital marketing plan, the benefits they bring to your marketing efforts, plus the common mistakes to avoid.
And to help you make sense of it all, let’s start with the basics of link building. This is where we go into the detail of what is link building, and the role that quality link building plays in SEO.
Understanding the Basics of Link Building
Links come in two principal flavors – internal and external.
Internal links are the ones that connect pages within the same domain. Their job is to help visitors navigate your website. They direct them from one piece of content to another in a logical and intuitive way.
External links, on the other hand, connect other domains to your website. They’re otherwise known as backlinks or incoming links, and their role is to point out references. Whenever a website publishes your backlink, they’re basically identifying your website as the go-to authority on the subject matter.
Search engines like Google view these backlinks as votes of confidence. They interpret each as a sign that the link destination page has been vetted and qualified as a credible reference. It’s a bit like being the popular kid in school. The more people like you (or in this case, link to you), the more visibility and recognition you get.
Link Signals and How They Influence SEO
In the context of SEO, link building is not about who can make the most moves, but rather who can execute each move with precision and grace. Each backlink you acquire sends a distinct set of signals to search engines. The signals are then evaluated separately, and the SEO weight of each backlink is ultimately calculated based on a range of factors.
Search engine algorithms typically consider factors such as:
- Link Quantity: Search engines calculate the number of links pointing to a website and then interpret the total volume as an indication of its popularity and trustworthiness. Building more links may therefore have a positive influence on your SEO.
- Link Quality: The quality of the backlink matters just as much, if not more, than the quantity. Quality links are identified by evaluating the history of the linking domain, the relevance of the linking page, and the credibility of the linking source. High-quality links from authoritative and contextually-related websites are the ones that pack the strongest SEO punch.
- Anchor Text: Anchor text, which is the clickable text in a hyperlink, helps search engines understand the context of the destination page. But, while optimizing anchor text with relevant keywords can boost the SEO value of the target page, overdoing it may raise red flags.
- Link Diversity: A diverse link profile – with links coming from varied domains, IP addresses, and website types – is a boon for SEO. It represents a natural link-building pattern, thus minimizing the risk of being marked for shady “black hat” link-building tactics.
To improve search engine rankings you want links that are:
- High-quality, relevant, and natural.
- Anchored to contextual keywords.
- Diverse.
- Plentiful.
Types of Links: Natural, Manual, and Self-Created
Now that you can answer the question “what is link building?” let’s review the three types of links you can pursue:
- Natural Links: These are the backlinks you earn from other websites without any direct solicitation. You can build them by creating authoritative content that’s worth linking to.
- Manual Links: These are the links you actively seek out through outreach efforts. You could, for instance, collaborate with industry bloggers, influencers, or journalists on link exchange programs.
- Self-Created Links: Also known as non-editorial links, self-created links are built by website owners in an attempt to trick search engines. They are often integrated into blog comments, press releases, guest posts, advertorials, and infographics.
Benefits of Link Building for Marketing
Whereas link building is often associated with SEO, it’s one of those digital marketing strategies that have multiple benefits. Here are some of the positive impacts link building has on a website:
#1. Improves Organic Search Rankings
Securing quality backlinks from authoritative websites is like getting a vote of confidence in your industry. Search engines interpret such links as indicators of your site’s credibility and relevance, thereby elevating your organic search rankings.
Through this entire journey, anchor text provides search engines with context about your page. You can thus optimize hyperlinks with relevant keywords to enhance the SEO value of your page.
#2. Increases Website Traffic and Referrals
Once you’ve published a permanent backlink on an authoritative site, you stand to attract a steady stream of referral traffic. And unlike traditional advertising campaigns that cease to generate traffic once they end, high-quality backlinks can maintain a continuous flow of traffic from external sources.
Other than that, link building can drastically boost website visibility and exposure. As your site rises in search engine rankings, it pulls in more potential customers – translating to increased sales and revenue.
#3. Reinforces Brand Authority and Credibility
Google is not the only entity that recognizes endorsements from quality SEO linking. The links influence others as well.
Whenever they come across your backlinks on authoritative platforms, web visitors begin to associate your brand with trustworthiness and reliability. This positive perception may then accelerate your engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty – further cementing your brand’s market dominance.
#4. Expands Online Visibility and Reach
Link building can also significantly amplify your brand’s online visibility and reach.
It turns out that the more your site is linked to on other sites, the more likely you are to attract additional links and traffic. This has a cascading effect, where increased visibility triggers even more page views, which can lead to exponential business growth.
The same link-building has the potential to generate opportunities for guest blogging, speaking engagements, or media coverage – all of which you could leverage for additional online visibility. Then if you manage to get your links published by websites that have a strong social media presence, your content will be shared widely with a large audience.
#5. Grows Conversions and Sales
As quality SEO linking propels your site higher in the search results, it’s expected to attract more potential customers – which should ultimately translate to increased sales and revenue.
You’ll also be seeing more conversions coming your way by virtue of being a leader in your industry. Customers find it easy to trust authoritative brands, a position that you’ll get through sustained link building.
Strategies and Techniques for Effective Link Building
Over the past two decades, link building has transitioned from an anything goes proposition to a methodology focused on earning links via high-quality content and strategic outreach.
This drastic shift has made the process of link building a bit more challenging. But then again, its exclusivity has turned it into an even more powerful tool for enhancing your website’s visibility, credibility, and organic reach. You just need to set yourself apart with the right strategies and techniques, explored below.
Creating High-Quality, Relevant Content
What is link building without content?
The cornerstone of any successful link building strategy is high-quality content. This is the bait that lures other websites and convinces them to link to your own. And to be specific, the biggest magnets for backlinks are those exceptionally insightful content pieces that are well-researched, highly engaging, and full of unique perspectives.
Such content usually resonates with the interests and necessities of the target audience. It addresses their concerns, proposes relevant solutions, and provides authentic value.
To discover the best content opportunities in your industry, you could bring in tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Moz Keyword Explorer. They’ll reveal keywords that have a strong search volume but present low competition.
Then when it comes to writing, we’d advise you to conduct in-depth research on your chosen subject while verifying the accuracy of the insights. All your arguments should further be supported by credible sources, statistics, and examples.
You might also want to incorporate well-structured headings, bullet points, and paragraphs for the sake of readability. Then to attract even more engagement, consider complementing the text with multimedia elements such as images, infographics, videos, or charts.
When the content piece finally goes live, remember to promote it extensively for increased visibility. The more people it reaches, the more likely you are to attract natural links. So, you can go ahead and engage audiences through social media, email marketing, and content syndication, or maybe reach out to influencers, bloggers, and media publishers in your niche.
Leveraging Guest Blogging and Influencer Outreach
Guest blogging and influencer outreach are two other powerful strategies for link building.
Guest blogging, for starters, entails creating and publishing content on other websites within your industry or niche. You could thus incorporate your backlinks into the text or author’s bio, and then get the articles published on authoritative websites for optimum gains in link juice.
Influencer outreach, on the other hand, tries to foster relationships with industry influencers, in the hope that partnering with them will earn you backlinks and increase brand visibility.
If you choose to give it a try, your best growth chances would be with celebrated influencers who command a highly dedicated and engaged following. You could then get them to promote your stuff through sponsored content, reviews, or interviews. All the endorsements from such influencers will serve as social proof for your brand, potentially leading to improved visibility and organic backlinks.
In both guest blogging and influencer outreach, you should try to partner with authoritative entities that resonate with your target audience. So, take the time to investigate your options by their online presence, content quality, engagement rates, and audience demographics. Tools like Ahrefs, Moz, BuzzSumo, or NinjaOutreach can help.
Building Relationships and Networking
If you manage to establish genuine connections with website owners, bloggers, influencers, and industry professionals, they’ll provide you with valuable opportunities for backlinks, guest blogging, and collaborative content creation.
These relationships are not just for the short term. By continually providing value and nurturing the connections, you could maintain all those link building partnerships for the long haul.
The networks will even support you with content amplification. You could request them to share and promote your publications among their audiences – thereby sparking more visibility, organic backlinks, and social media engagement.
To build such relationships, start by identifying thought leaders in areas that complement your specialties. You could even use social media platforms, industry forums, conferences, and tools like BuzzSumo or NinjaOutreach to discover them.
Once you’ve identified potential contacts, use a calculated approach to get noticed and build rapport. Engage with them on social media platforms, leave thoughtful comments on their blog posts, share their content, and engage in meaningful conversations.
Remember, the key to building relationships is providing value. So, to capture authoritative prospects, you should always find mutually beneficial ways of collaborating.
Utilizing Social Media for Link Building
Social media platforms, with their multi-billion active users, present a vast avenue for expanding your link-building reach and content visibility.
You’ll find opportunities for fostering relationships and networking with industry professionals, influencers, and potential link partners. You can also leverage content amplification to boost discoverability and potentially attract natural backlinks from a wide audience.
Now, to exploit social media for link building, begin by crafting high-quality, share-worthy content on your website. You can embed social sharing buttons on your website, as well as incorporate CTAs into your blog posts to motivate readers to share the content. The featured post layout itself should be designed in a manner that teases audiences with visually captivating content snippets.
Earning Links through Public Relations and Press Releases
Use press releases to broadcast your brand’s noteworthy events, product launches, industry insights, or significant achievements. The idea here is to get the attention of news outlets and industry publications, in the hope that they’ll feature your story in the media. Every single time you’re published is basically an opportunity to boost your brand’s credibility and build high DA backlinks.
By regularly sharing valuable and newsworthy information, your brand will progressively increase its odds of getting published. Your ever-growing presence could even pique the interest of journalists, bloggers, and influencers – who might then start to treat your brand as a reliable source of industry news.
Do some research and generate a list of newsworthy items about your brand and industry including events, milestones, product introductions, and industry revelations, etc. Next, find the best publishers to share them with. Find journalists, bloggers, and influencers who specialize in your industry. You’ll need someone with a large online presence, a highly engaged audience, and content that complements your published topics.
Link Building Best Practices and Tips
Conduct Competitor Backlink Analysis
An analysis of your competitors’ backlinks may yield invaluable insights into their link building strategies – including link patterns, anchor text distribution, and the types of websites they target for backlinks.
Such info can be a springboard for enhancing your own link building strategy. You might, for instance, discover types of content or topics that they’ve garnered backlinks from, identify content gaps, uncover unique perspectives, or brainstorm ways to refine publications on your website.
You’ll find the data in the backlink analysis sections of SEO research tool suites like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, or Majestic.
Avoid Black Hat Link Building Techniques
Although the prospect of quick wins may appear attractive, resorting to black hat techniques exposes your website to all sorts of penalties – which may ultimately lead to a drop in rankings, diminished visibility, or even removal from search engine results.
Bouncing back from such penalties is anything but easy. And that’s if you even manage to recover in the first place.
Some of the most common black hat stumbling blocks that you might want to avoid include:
- Link Farms: Link farms are networks of thin websites that have been built exclusively to host tons of low-quality links.
- Paid Links: According to Google, paid links are those backlinks procured from third-party websites or link networks. Payment could be in monetary form or incentives.
- Private Blog Networks (PBNs): PBNs are networks of websites that exist solely to contribute backlinks to a central destination site.
Balance Between Do-Follow and No-Follow Links
To remain on the good side of search engines, you need to carefully engineer your backlink profile to appear 100% organic. You can start by building a diverse portfolio of both Do-Follow and No-Follow links.
Do-follow links are the standard backlinks that search engines acknowledge and follow. carry “link juice” from the referring web page to the linked page, thereby influencing search engine rankings and domain authority.
No-follow links are the direct opposite of that. Designated with the rel=”nofollow” attribute, they instruct search engines not to transfer link equity. This is what you should use on user-generated content, sponsored links, affiliate links, and so forth.
A healthy mix of do-follow and no-follow links suggests to search engines that your website is acquiring backlinks naturally, rather than resorting to manipulative tactics.
Measure Your Link Building Success
Link building, like any other marketing strategy, should be quantified and monitored consistently. The analytics will help you objectively measure performance, discern the strengths and weaknesses in your tactics, as well as refine your approach over time.
The best time to work out the specifics is before the actual campaign. You should come up with clear goals, and then use that to define the KPIs to track. The objectives could range from increasing organic search traffic, improving search engine rankings, and driving referral traffic, to enhancing brand visibility.
Tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, or Moz are your compass in that journey. They offer detailed backlink analytics, with which you can monitor the quantity, quality, and diversity of your backlink profile. Some of their key metrics include domain authority, page authority, anchor text distribution, and the number of referring domains.
But remember, acquiring backlinks is not the end goal in link building. You should try to measure even the impact of those links. The likes of SEMrush, Moz, and Ahrefs already have a rank-tracking feature for that.
Google Search Console can otherwise offer invaluable data on the number of clicks, impressions, and click-through rates (CTRs) from your backlinks. You could then adjust your strategy to focus on sources that drive meaningful traffic.
Common Link Building Mistakes to Avoid
As you undertake link building efforts, avoid these common mistakes:
Over-Emphasizing Quantity over Quality
One common misconception is that more is always better. Its proponents try to acquire as many links as possible, with little regard for their quality or relevance.
This approach has, however, been proven to be counterproductive – as it could potentially damage your website’s search engine rankings and overall reputation. The likes of Google nowadays pay more attention to quality indicators such as the authority of the linking site, the context of the link within the content, and link profile authenticity.
Ignoring Relevance and Context of Links
Another common pitfall is neglecting the relevance and context of the links you acquire. Ideally, your backlinks should come from websites that are pertinent to your industry or topic. A lack of relevance could otherwise dilute the value of the link and potentially undermine your SEO efforts.
You can gauge relevance by examining the content surrounding the link, the anchor text used, and the overall topical alignment between the linking and target sites.
Relying Solely on Link Directories
Link directories, once a popular method for link building, have fallen out of favor due to their susceptibility to manipulation. Google’s Penguin algorithm update, for instance, penalizes websites that rely heavily on low-quality directories for link building.
Instead of putting all your eggs in the directory basket, diversify your approach. Focus on acquiring links from authoritative and relevant websites through outreach, content marketing, and relationship building. This strategy is more likely to produce sustainable, long-term benefits.
Neglecting the Importance of Internal Linking
It’s understandable to prioritize backlinks in link building efforts – but not at the cost of internal links.
When inbound links pull in the link juice, you’ll need internal links to pass on the flow of link equity and authority to other pages on your website. The same internal links guide web visitors to related content, while search engines rely on them to interpret the site’s structure and hierarchy.
Failing to Update and Maintain Existing Links
Links, like any other website asset, links require regular maintenance and updates. And that’s because URLs could change over time, pages may be restructured, or content edited. Some of these adjustments lead to broken or outdated links, which may then compromise SEO performance and user experience.
You should thus audit your links from time to time to confirm that they’re up to date. Tools like Ahrefs will even flag up your broken backlinks, upon which you could reach out to the affected publishers with an update request.
What is Link Building to You?
Based on everything we’ve covered, it’s now confirmed that the traditional one-sentence definition of link building doesn’t fully capture its essence. This is what you should say instead if you’re ever asked “what is link building?”
- It’s a competitive edge: While many websites engage in link building, those that do it effectively gain a significant advantage in the increasingly competitive digital landscape.
- It drives organic growth: As your link profile expands, so does your organic traffic. Each new link is a pathway for web users to discover your website, convert faster, and buy more.
- It’s a strategy for long-term success: Unlike some digital marketing tactics that offer quick but fleeting results, link building is a strategy designed for long-term success. The benefits of a well-executed link building campaign can last as long as the links themselves.
- It’s a relationship builder: You get to build long-term relationships with other websites and influencers, which then facilitate increased collaboration.
- It generates exponential success: The few who achieve success in link building get to experience a cascading effect of more success. The wider your link profile expands, the more prominent your brand grows – thereby attracting even more backlinks.
- It’s a continuous journey: Link building isn’t a one-time task but an ongoing process. As your website evolves and grows, so too should your link building efforts.
To you, link building is more than just a tactic for improving search engine rankings. This is a far-reaching strategy that can positively impact nearly every aspect of your digital presence.
With those numerous benefits, however, comes just as many demanding conditions. Link building has evolved into a sophisticated marketing strategy that requires calculated tactics, data-driven decisions, interpersonal interactions, and finesse in working around search engine algorithms.
You could try your luck with these strategies, but as you can see, link building is complex and multi-layered. If you don’t have the time or the inclination to undertake your own link-building campaign, you could simply partner with a dynamic digital marketing agency that understands all the nooks and crannies of link building.
Don’t let link-building inexperience or intimidation hold you back from the huge traffic and lead gains you could realize. Contact Globe Runner today for a no-obligation quote on link-building or our full suite of SEO services.
Are you ready for GA4?
Just when we had all gotten comfortable using Universal Analytics, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) was brought in to replace it. The switch itself is happening in three phases:
- It began on October 14, 2020, when GA4 displaced Universal Analytics as the default platform on the Google Analytics website.
- The next milestone will be on July 1, 2023, when the new Google Analytics 4 will permanently cease supporting Universal Analytics properties.
- The sunset for Universal Analytics 360 will then follow a year later on July 1, 2024.
This is no ordinary “system upgrade”, though. Google Analytics 4 is, rather, a complete overhaul of the previous generation of Analytics. It has changed the entire data tracking ecosystem, forcing Universal Analytics users to retrain themselves on leveraging the platform. They now have a ton more data and customization options to work with, which in turn makes the learning curve even steeper.
That has, understandably, elicited mixed reactions from the business community. On the whole, however, the users of Google Analytics 4 are seeing positive results from the renewed digital analytics. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the platform are turning out to be exceedingly transformative to websites and apps.
All that power is yours for the taking, as GA4 itself is completely free of charge. This guide will even provide you with the headstart needed to get it underway. By the time you’re done reading it, you’ll have understood not just the full potential of Google Analytics 4, but also how to set it up on your website or app.
What is Google Analytics 4?
Google Analytics 4, or GA4 in short, is the latest version of Google’s web analytics platform. And while previous generations provided data analytics for websites, GA4 is engineered to track both web and app properties.
The tracking system here is not built on the same technologies as its predecessors. Google Analytics 4, instead, rides on a user-centric ecosystem that follows customers through their entire journey. You get to monitor not just your traffic metrics, but also the corresponding customer usage analytics.
Google has also future-proofed GA4 by aligning its data tracking with the latest privacy laws, including CCPA and GDPR. Third-party cookies and identifiers have been replaced by first-party trackers, which only monitor user behavior and keep the users anonymous. Any arising data gaps are then filled by predictive analytics from sophisticated machine learning and statistical models.
Setting up Google Analytics 4 for Your Website or App
Your GA4 setup options depend on the strategy that you’re currently running on Google’s Analytics platforms.
If, for instance, your properties were added to the Google Analytics platform after October 14, 2020, you don’t need to take any additional steps. You’re already set, as GA4 has been the default solution all along.
The exemption doesn’t extend to any properties configured before that October 2020 D-Day. Universal Analytics was the default option back then, and you can even confirm it for yourself by checking your property’s ID. If the number begins with “UA”, it means the property was built on Universal Analytics and is due for GA4 migration.
In that case, you might want to create a new one on Google Analytics 4 and then link it with your existing Universal Analytics asset. The setup process itself is as follows:
- Go to analytics.google.com and log into your Google account.
- Once you’ve landed on the dashboard, proceed to the left navigation panel and click on Admin. This will take you to your admin settings.
- Under the Admin tab, you’ll see two sections – Account and Property. Go to the Property section and hit the Create Property button positioned at the top.
- Google will subsequently display a series of property setup prompts, which you should follow to add a new property to the account.
- After the property has been added, GA4 will list it in the Property column of the Admin Settings page. You can then click on the Setup Assistant to launch the setup wizard.
- It’s on that Setup Assistant wizard where you get to connect your new Google Analytics 4 deployment with your website or app. The button at the top links your GA4 property with its pre-existing Universal Analytics equivalent, the Data Collection subsection configures Google Analytics 4 into your website, while Property Settings offers controls for defining audience segments and KPIs.
Understanding Key Features of Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is essentially a blend of privacy-centric tracking, cross-channel data metrics, and AI-driven predictive analytics. This is what ultimately generates in-depth insights into your customers’ journeys – from the moment they land on your website, through all their touchpoints, to the actions they might take in the future.
Universal Analytics had some pretty decent analytics too. But, it only offered generalized traffic data, with page views being the primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Google Analytics 4, on the other hand, goes beyond the page views to highlight individual audience interactions. You should be able to generate reports on engagement time, engagement rate, engagement sessions, etc.
Another thing that GA4 saves you is the trouble of piecing together measurements from Google Analytics for Firebase, Firebase Analytics, and Google Analytics for Apps. You no longer have to combine different data analytics tools to monitor multiple devices. Everything is now available on one centralized interface, courtesy of GA4’s cross-device tracking.
What it logs as user behavior is progressively fed into its underlying machine-learning engine, which then uses artificial intelligence and statistical models to make predictions about future events. It’s from these reports that you get to find out your revenue forecast, churn probability, purchase probability, etc.
As for the properties, Google Analytics 4 is flexible enough to accommodate both apps and web-based assets. You can set it to track up to 2,000 properties at once. The limit on the number of source properties is 50, each of which can be broken down into 400 sub-properties.
Using Google Analytics 4 for Website & App Tracking
GA4 is your go-to all-in-one digital analytics solution when you need to quantify user interactions on your website or app. It can track both website and app properties separately or as continuous experiences. Then from the analytics, you should be able to figure out not just the traffic volume streaming in, but also how users are engaging with your websites and apps.
All the interactions are measured as events. And they could be any type of user activity – from opening a web page, opting into a mailing list, or completing a purchase, to watching an in-app ad, running an app feature, or opening app messages.
You could also use Google Analytics 4 to track events executed by the website or app. This is where you measure occurrences like app crashes, form displays, page redirects, etc.
Overall, you’ll be tracking four types of events on your GA4 account:
- Automatically collected events: These are the events that are measured by default when you add your website or app property to Google Analytics 4. Examples include app updates, in-app purchases, app sessions, and page visits.
- Enhanced measurement events: These are the events that are tracked when you proceed to enable the enhanced measurement option. They include form interactions, file downloads, video engagement, site search, outbound clicks, page scrolls, and page views.
- Recommended events: While the previous two categories are default options, recommended events are set up manually from a list of predefined references.
- Custom events: Custom events are configured entirely from scratch. But, you’ll need custom coding skills to proceed.
Google Analytics 4 further allows you to mark specific events as conversions. And they don’t have to be sales instances – any important occurrence to your business should do.
Each user’s interactions are eventually linked to form a continuous user experience funnel. You’ll be able to view all the touchpoints and engagements that individual buyers sailed through before converting. This includes the actions taken on both your website and app properties.
To understand the users even better, you might want to separate them into segments. GA4 facilitates this by allowing you to define the audience conditions for each segment. You could, for instance, have a segment for users who’ve only interacted with your app, another one for PC-based visitors, plus maybe separate categories for first-time and returning customers.
Using Google Analytics 4 for Online Marketing
Now that third-party cookies are practically dead, Google Analytics 4 couldn’t have come at a better time. Cookie rejection rates have already reached 64% and still rising, yet marketers need them more than ever to cater to the growing demand for personalized experiences.
GA4 has found a way around the problem, allowing marketers to track audiences without violating any data privacy laws. Instead of identifying users by their IP addresses, the platform uses privacy-centric approaches such as IP anonymization. ID values here are in the form of randomly generated strings that are linked to users’ browsers and devices.
Otherwise, when the user ID is unavailable, the system relies on user info from Google signals. And in the rare occasions that the two identifiers are both missing, Google Analytics 4 turns to AI-driven statistical modeling. It basically uses machine learning to predict the attributes of an unidentified user based on the behaviors of similar users.
The predictive analytics go on to enrich the user data you’ve been collecting from events, and the result is usually accurately-segmented audiences. This is what you ultimately leverage in your targeted digital marketing campaigns.
If, for instance, you integrate Google Analytics 4 with Google Ads, you’ll find your custom segments imported automatically to the Audience Manager section of Google Ads. You could then proceed to target the different groups of users with well-personalized paid ads.
Conclusion
Google Analytics 4 can be said to be a more streamlined, future-proof version of Universal Analytics. You could even argue that the name “universal analytics” suits it better than its predecessor, as it offers an all-round view of customers’ journeys. Plus, Google has integrated multiple analytics assets to form a centralized dashboard for tracking both websites and apps.
The tracking system itself is adapting very well to a cookie-free future – with the help of IP anonymization approaches, AI-driven predictive analytics, calculated statistical models, and privacy-centric identifiers. All these resources are always active across omnichannel touchpoints, thereby mapping out your customer’s paths in real-time.
On the flip side, however, we’ll agree that all this power comes with a pretty steep learning curve. Setting up properties is the easiest bit. And after that comes the burden of coding custom events, defining audience segments, plus customizing multiple report attributes. All this is meant to culminate in meaningful insights, which you should then use to strategically optimize your web marketing campaigns.
Not the type of stuff a business executive would have time for. And that’s where we come in. Globe Runner is the digital marketing agency that’ll not only create and manage your Google Analytics 4 portfolio, but also transform the analytics into high-precision targeted campaigns.
Contact us today to find out more about the future of data-driven personalization.
Benefits of HubSpot For Your Business
Still tracking your customers and leads with outdated spreadsheets or using multiple platforms that don’t talk to each other—one to manage leads, one for content, one for customer support etc.? HubSpot may be the solution you didn’t realize existed. Or, maybe you’ve gone to their site to read up on marketing tips without realizing that they’re way more than an incredible place to find hundreds of marketing blogs, ebooks, and statistics.
What is HubSpot?
At its core, HubSpot is a customer relationship management platform. But it does so much more. HubSpot consists of its CRM and five hubs that can help you manage all your inbound marketing needs:
- CRM: keeps track of all your leads and customers as well as their activity and all your interactions with them in one easy-to-use platform that syncs with Gmail and Outlook for easy communication
- Marketing Hub: a complete system to set up and manage your marketing campaigns as well as track the success of your campaigns so you can keep improving your conversions
- Sales Hub: everything you need to manage your sales funnel from start to finish—manage, track and communicate with your leads with ease
- Service Hub: a one-stop-shop for customer service with the ability to set up support chat and ticketing as well as conversation bots and a knowledge base
- CMS Hub: a content management system that makes updating web content and SEO easier and provides analytics to track web traffic and conversions
- Operations Hub: helps you connect apps, clean up data, and automate processes
So, let’s go over some of the benefits of HubSpot!
Why HubSpot?
Well, to be honest, the list is pretty endless. So, let’s start off with five huge benefits of HubSpot.
- It’s free. The free version of HubSpot has a lot of functionality. Can you upgrade the features and benefits to a paid version? Of course you can. But you can easily get started with the free version and discover what works for you and what you may want to spend a little more on.
- It’s all-in-one. No more desperately trying to figure out how to get your CRM to talk to your email marketing platform to talk to your website. HubSpot does it all and makes sure that information is easily shared between tools, giving you (and your customers) a seamless buying journey.
- It’s easy to use. HubSpot is intuitive. And if you need help or guidance, HubSpot academy has everything you could possibly want to know—with courses and certifications to make sure you’re getting the most out of the product. HubSpot also has an incredibly friendly and engaged community you can go to for questions, tips, and tricks.
- It’s analytical. Gathering and interpreting data in HubSpot is intuitive and easy. Metrics are important, and HubSpot has in-depth dashboard reporting to give you the information you need instantly and without having to build complex queries.
- It has a ton of integrations. With so many companies using HubSpot, it’s natural that other companies and products are constantly building third-party integrations to work with it. Many of the apps you already use probably integrate seamlessly with Hubspot!
Sounds pretty amazing, right? Well, the news gets better! If you’re juggling running your business, marketing, and customer support at the same time, it can help to bring in experts. While HubSpot is intuitive, getting on top of your digital marketing game is still time-consuming. Luckily, some digital marketing agencies, like Globe Runner, have in-house HubSpot experts who can make sure that you’re making the most of every HubSpot feature that’s right for you. Globe Runner has expertise in using HubSpot for small businesses to big businesses, and knows how to use HubSpot to help your business take off!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is HubSpot a CRM?
While HubSpot is Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) software, HubSpot capabilities go far beyond what many people consider a useful CRM. HubSpot also functions as a digital marketing platform and all-in-one tool to manage marketing, sales, customer service, and content.
What is HubSpot used for?
Whether you’re using HubSpot for small business or big business, HubSpot does it all. With five separate “hubs” for marketing, sales, service, CMS, and operations, HubSpot covers all your digital marketing and customer tracking needs. Rather than trying to track all your leads and customer interactions through multiple online systems and spreadsheets, HubSpot CRM is a cloud-based solution that can make sure you don’t lose track of your customers and where they are on their buyer’s journey. But HubSpot is also a one-stop-shop for digital marketing, allowing you to use the software to create content, track leads, and conversions, and provide customer support with chat tools and ticketing.
Is HubSpot free?
The HubSpot software is free, and the free version includes many of the features in all five “hubs.” However, if you’re looking for additional bells and whistles, all of which can help boost your marketing and customer service games, there are bundles you can purchase, or build your own bundles to get exactly the features that allow you to make the most of the HubSpot benefits that address your pain points.
What are some companies that use HubSpot?
With over 150,000 customers in 120 countries, HubSpot is a widely used and loved platform. Customers include Reddit, DoorDash, and the World Wildlife Fund, to name just a few.
Is HubSpot worth it for small business?
If you have customers (or need more customers) HubSpot has many features that help manage your customers and their buying journey. No matter the size of your business, there’s a version of HubSpot that can benefit you. And with pricing options that start at “absolutely free,” you’re sure to find a bundle that works for your needs and your budget.
The Most Asked Questions for Digital Marketing Answered
Long gone are the days of potential customers finding you in the Yellow Pages. Let’s be real—long gone are the days when most people even remember what the Yellow Pages are. Google is now a verb, and it’s where the vast majority of your customers are going to start their search for your products or services—and possibly where they’ll end up buying them. Almost 60 percent of people aged 16 to 64 buy something online at least once a week. In the vastness of the almost 2 billion websites on the Internet, how are you supposed to ensure that the people looking for your exact product or service find you . . . instead of one of your competitors? Well, that’s where digital marketing comes in. But what exactly is digital marketing? Let’s answer some digital marketing FAQs!
Top Digital Marketing Questions
- What is digital marketing? Digital marketing is an overarching term that encompasses every tactic and strategy used to ensure that your website ranks as high as possible on Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERPS). It can include both organic and paid strategies using email, social media, and websites—all geared towards increasing not just traffic to your website, but the right traffic.
- What is a digital marketing plan? The best things start with a great plan. When it comes to digital marketing, the key aspect of your plan is “Who?” Many digital marketing tactics and channels are exciting and shiny, and it’s tempting to start with which tactics you’re most interested in (or have been told are the hot new thing). But your digital marketing plan should actually start with SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, time-bound) goals and your audience. In order to effectively market your very specific products or services, you need to determine who is most likely to be looking for them—and then where and how they’re looking for them.
- What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and covers all the strategies used to make sure your website appears as high as possible on SERPs. Typically, SEO is broken into three main parts
- Technical—This strategy focuses on optimizing the backend of your website, including link structures, sitemaps, and speed.
- On-page—This is the content optimization on your website that incorporates a strong keyword strategy to boost your rankings when potential clients are searching using specific keywords.
- Off-page—An important part of SEO has to do with what other sites link to yours. Off-page SEO focuses on strategies to get other well-respected sites t link back to yours and includes tactics like link building, reviews, and guest blogs.
- How long does SEO take? Unfortunately, it depends on many factors, including the amount of competition you have and the noise you’re trying to break through. The more specialized your service or product is, the easier (and faster) SEO results will start showing up. Whatever type of business you are, it will take an absolute minimum of a few months before you start seeing results.
- What is PPC? PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. While many digital marketing strategies are organic, PPC as a strategy that uses paid advertising on other websites that you pay a price for each time the advertisement is clicked on. A strong PPC strategy includes being extremely specific about targeting to make sure that the ads are being served to the most likely potential customers.
- What is conversion rate optimization? If you spend an exorbitant amount of money to drive traffic to your website and the traffic does, in fact, increase, that’s fantastic! However, if you’re getting few (or no) additional customers or sign ups from that increased traffic, then the money was not well spent. Your conversion rate is basic math—the number of people who took whatever action you wanted them to take divided by the number of people who landed on the page. Conversion rate optimization experts analyze your site and make minor (or large) changes to increase the rate of people who take an actual action on your website.
Digital marketing is complex and multi-faceted. There is no one-size-fits-all answer—nor is it possible to set-it-and-forget-it. Your strategies will change as your business does . . . and as search engine algorithms and technology do. Bringing in an expert team of digital marketing experts with a proven track record can keep you on top of your SEO game and help your business take off. Contact Globe Runner today and let us find the best strategies to be rocket fuel for your business!
5 Reasons Your Business Should Use Social Media for Advertising
These days, advertising and social media go hand in hand, but that wasn’t always the case. The social media impact on business has been tremendous—and it keeps growing. Before social media, communication between a business and customers was only one way. You put your message out there—and hoped it reached the right people. With social media, businesses have a dialogue with their customers—and the ability to target with undreamed specificity. And, in the almost 24 hours per week that the average American spends online every week, consumers are liking, following, commenting, researching, and buying. Let’s examine how social media helps small businesses.
Benefits of Advertising on Social Media
- Brand Awareness. Even when people aren’t actively interacting with your advertising on social media, they’re seeing it while they scroll—and it’s registering in their mind somewhere. In this way, you’re increasing awareness of your brand every time someone scrolls by your ad.
- Brand Loyalty. Advertising on social media has a human aspect that other advertising often doesn’t have. Customers love to interact with businesses on social media—and they love it even more when businesses interact back. Those interactions create a human connection that builds brand loyalty.
- Better Search Engine Rankings. While advertising on social media alone won’t significantly increase your search engine rankings, social media increases visibility and, paired with a strong SEO and paid media strategy, will help give you a boost.
- Reduced Marketing Costs. Social media marketing allows you to laser focus your targeting to reach exactly the audience you want. This means you have to spend far less money to reach more of the right potential customers.
- Customer Feedback. Consumers want to be heard. Social media allows you to receive and respond to customer feedback in real-time, increasing customer satisfaction and giving you a genuine understanding of what your customers want.
Types of Social Media Advertising
Now that you’re bought into the “why,” you’re ready to fire up your MySpace page and build some brand loyalty . . . or maybe we take a quick pause to think about social media platforms out there and which are most effective for your company—spoiler alert: not MySpace.
- YouTube: YouTube ads reach almost 3 million users and offer many different targeting and advertising options. It’s also the second most visited website in the world and reaches all ages.
- Facebook: It’s still the largest social media site in the world. While primarily a space for Millennials, all generations exist on the platform, and it’s widely considered a valuable place to market.
- Instagram: It’s an influencer paradise and offers incredible targeting options. Like Facebook, it’s a popular platform, although users tend to be younger than the Facebook demographic.
- LinkedIn: It’s considered the most serious and trustworthy social media platform. LinkedIn is where you’ll find college-educated young adults looking to network with money to spend.
- TikTok: A quarter of users are between 10 and 19. Because it skews young, you’ll find fewer users with disposable income, but with a higher population of teens, you find those who will go to parents or caregivers who can make purchasing decisions.
- Twitter: Twitter is a heavily male and urban platform. Similar to LinkedIn, you’ll find more people on Twitter with higher purchasing power.
While these aren’t the only options, they are some of the most popular and likely to get you results. And our team at Globe Runner has significant expertise in all those platforms and can help you turn social media into rocket fuel for your business. From remarketing to paid ads to testing and reporting, we do it all. Get in touch today to discuss how to take your advertising strategy to the next level.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why advertise on social media?
Because that’s where people are. These days, everyone is on at least one social media platform, if not more. An effective social media advertising strategy will build brand awareness and loyalty while creating a feedback loop that creates a true sense of human relationship with your customers.
Is social media effective for advertising?
Absolutely! However, the effectiveness of social media advertising depends on the thought and effort you put into your strategy. You need to think about your audience and who to target. Different subsections of people are more likely to use different social media platforms, so ensuring you’re advertising on the right platforms is key to your success. So is creating a social media brand persona appropriate for the platform and target audience.
Video Marketing for Business and Why You Should Use It
If you think you can ignore video in your overall marketing strategy, think again! Video is an ever-growing trend that is too important to pass by—in fact, it’s the number one content type for two years in a row! Obviously TikTok is all video, all the time, but check out other social media sites—chances are, you’re seeing a lot of video content. Video works—whether it’s paid media, YouTube shorts, or any video that captures your audience’s attention and imagination. And if you’re not incorporating video into your marketing strategy, you’re missing out on the benefits—which can negatively affect your bottom line. Let’s explore how video marketing benefits your brand and strategies that can keep you ahead!
Video Marketing Benefits
So, how does video marketing benefit your brand?
- Increases conversion rates on landing pages by 80% and click rates on emails by 300%
- Raises organic traffic to search engine results pages by up to 157%
- Increases viewer understanding of your products and services
Across the board, studies show that video increases the likelihood purchases while also increasing content sharing, leading to more viewers being introduced to your brand. Now that you know why video is a marketing must, let’s examine different types of videos for businesses.
- Explainer. This type of video is great for brands with a product or service that may be a little more difficult to understand at first glance—or solves a problem that may be complicated. Often animated, these videos give the viewer an overview of the problem and how your brand or service can solve it.
- Demonstration. Similar to an explainer, but usually not animated, these videos are exactly what they sound like—they have an expert or actor demonstrate how to use your product.
- Review. Customers love to hear from real people. A video review or testimonial from an actual customer can increase trust. Similar to a review, unboxings are also very popular, particularly celebrity unboxings.
- Culture. Want to increase brand loyalty? Give a company culture video a try. These videos spotlight your company’s brand voice and values, often highlighting the lives of their employees and how your company engages with the community and/or philanthropy. Similar to this is the behind-the-scenes video—where you take your viewer to places they wouldn’t normally see—inside your factory or distribution center.
- Series. Who doesn’t know who Flo is? Or the Geico Gecko? Some companies have been incredibly successful with creating an ongoing story built around a character that comes to symbolize their brand. Alternately, the story may not be built around just a recurring character, but around a developing storyline.
- Story. You don’t need a whole series to tell a story—you can do it in one video. Tell a story that incorporates your brand or product that has a compelling beginning, middle, and end and has a conflict that engages your viewers’ attention. How does your product or service solve that conflict?
Wondering what kind of video might be right for your brand and where to go from here? Globe Runner can help!
While video creation has become easier and easier with a multitude of user-friendly options for creation and distribution, bringing in a professional content marketing agency like Globe Runner can give you the boost you need. From content creation to publishing, Globe Runner has in-house experts who can elevate your marketing strategy with videos that increase brand recognition and create a relationship with your customers. And Globe Runner can work with you on how to incorporate video into your overall marketing strategy—bringing new life to your email marketing and pay-per-click campaigns. Get in touch today and learn how out team can help you turn video into rocket fuel for your business!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why is video marketing so effective?
Whether it’s at school, work, or play, consumers expect information, entertainment, and advertising to come in a video format. With videos more easy than ever before to create, more and more people are using them to communicate. Movement catches a viewer’s eye more than just text or images, giving you a better opportunity to engage your audience form the start. And videos humanize your brand, giving consumers a deeper connection to your product—and they’re easily shareable, giving you access to audiences that you didn’t have before without having to do any extra work. Not only that, but recall is much better with video than text or images—viewers are far more likely to remember a video they’ve seen than something they’ve read.
What is a video marketing strategy?
Whether you’re a large brand looking to lift up a particular product or a start-up just beginning your small business video marketing plan, having a strategy is key to success. It’s easy to forget that every part of your marketing needs a strategy and a plan. Globe Runner has content marketing experts who can help you create and adjust your video marketing strategy by establishing smart objectives, setting goals, analyzing competitors, finding the right audience and platforms, and measuring results.
Why is video marketing important?
Consumers love video—they’re accustomed to it, and it captures their attention more than words or images. And that was before the pandemic. During the pandemic, online media consumption grew in the United States by 215%. And the trend continues. Consumers are spending about 19 hours a week watching videos online. The use of video in marketing is a necessity to build brand awareness and find and grow your customer base.
What makes a video successful?
Obviously, your videos should be well-produced, with excellent lighting and sound. But what makes your video really stand out? A connection with the audience. Viewers love real stories from real people. Live videos get a lot of attention, but even when you’re not livestreaming, you can keep your videos natural. Keep it in your brand voice and tell a story that has a beginning, middle, and end—and remember, good stories have conflict, and the best conflict is the problem that your product or service solves. And never forget that emotion can be a great motivator.
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