How Important Is CX?

The post 7 Simple Ways to Boost Your Website’s CX first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

15 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

7 UX Principles to Boost SERPs

User experience is one of the most important principles of web design. There’s no doubt that you focus on UX with every page you design on the web, whether it’s a portfolio, a profile page, or an entire website.

Unfortunately, what many experts forget is that UX doesn’t just apply to digital pages. That means that you need to discover the right UX strategies for everything from your website homepages to your email marketing messages and even your listings on Google.

Today, we’re going to explore ways you can apply UX principles to your client’s image on search engines.

Why Your Search Engine Listing Matters

Let’s start with the basics…

89% of customers start their purchasing process with a search engine.

That means that whether you’re creating a portfolio to sell your services or building a website for a client, the first connection a customer has with your design isn’t on the homepage.

Developers and designers know that first impressions count when it comes to succeeding online. However, they assume that those first impressions happen on a social media channel, a landing page, or a home page.

The truth is that most of the time, you’re driving a specific experience for an end-user before you even realize it. Before you can wow an audience with a beautiful site design or a fantastic CTA offer, you need to convince them to click on your Google link.

Just as UX on a website is all about giving your audience what they need in an informed and strategic manner, UX in search engine results works the same way.

How to Make Your Search Listing Stand Out with UX

So, how do you begin to apply the principles of UX to your Google Search results?

It’s much easier than you’d think.

Step 1: Show Immediate Value

Delivering an excellent experience on a website often means providing end-users with the information they need as quickly as possible. Imagine designing a landing page; you wouldn’t want your audience to scroll forever to find what they need. Instead, you’d make sure that the value of the page was immediately apparent.

When creating an image for your search engine listing, you’ll need to take the same approach. This often means thinking carefully about two things:

Your headline
Your meta description

Around 8 out of 10 users say that they’ll click a title if it’s compelling. That means that before you do anything else to improve your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that the title of your web page is going to grab the audience’s attention.

The best titles deliver instant value.

Immediately, these titles tell the audience exactly what they’re going to get when they click onto the page. The promise drives action, while clarity highlights the informed nature of the brand.

The great thing about using an excellent title for a page is that it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked on the search results. Whether you’re number 2 or number 5, your customers will click if they find something they want.

It’s just like using a CTA on a landing page. Make sure your titles are:

Informative: Show your audience value immediately
Optimized for mobile: Remember, your audience might not see your full title on some screens. That means that you need to make the initial words count.
Easy to read: Keep it short, simple, and straightforward. Speak the end-user’s language

Step 2: Build Trust with Your URLs

Trust factors are another essential part of good UX.

When designing a website for a new brand, you know that it’s your job to make visitors feel at ease. Even in today’s digital world, many customers won’t feel comfortable giving their money or details to a new company.

Within the website that you design, you can implement things like trust symbols, reviews, and testimonials to enhance brand credibility. In the search engines, it all starts with your URL.

Search-friendly URLs that highlight the nature of the page will put your audience’s mind at ease. When they click on a page about “What is SEO” in the SERPs, they want to see an URL that matches, not a bunch of numbers and symbols

Use search-friendly permalink structures to make your listing seem more authoritative. This will increase the chances of your customer clicking through to a page and make them more likely to share the link with friends.

Once you decide on a link structure, make sure that it stays consistent throughout the entire site. If a link doesn’t appear to match the rest of the URLs that your audience sees for your website, they may think they’re on the wrong page. That increases your bounce rate.

Step 3: Be Informative with Your Meta Description

To deliver excellent UX on a website, you ensure that your visitor can find all the answers to their most pressing questions as quickly as possible. This includes providing the right information on each page and using the correct navigational structure to support a visitor’s journey.

In the SERPs, you can deliver that same informative experience with a meta description. Although meta descriptions often get ignored, they can provide a lot of value and help you or your client make the right first impression.

To master your meta descriptions:

Use the full 160 characters: Make the most of your meta description by providing as much useful information as you can within that small space.
Include a CTA: Just as CTAs help guide customers through the pages on a website, they can assist with pulling in clicks on the SERPs. A call to action like “read about the” or “click here” makes sense when you’re boosting your search image.
Focus on value: Concentrate on providing your customers with an insight into what’s in it for them if they click on your listing.

Don’t forget that adding keywords to your meta description is often helpful too. Keywords will boost your chances of a higher ranking, but they’ll also show your audience that they’re looking at the right result.

Step 4: Draw the Eye with Rich Snippets

You’ve probably noticed that the search engine result pages have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. As Google strives to make results more relevant and informative, we’ve seen the rise of things like rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for telling your audience where to look.

On a website, you would use design elements, like contrasting colors and animation, to pull your audience’s attention to a specific space. In search engines, rich snippets can drive the same outcomes. The difference is that instead of telling a visitor what to do next on a page, you’re telling them to click on your site, not a competitor’s.

When Google introduced rich snippets, it wanted to provide administrators with a way of showcasing their best content. Rich snippets are most commonly used today on product and contact pages because they can show off reviews.

Install a rich snippet plugin into your site if you’re a WordPress user or your client is. When you enter the content that you need into the website, use the drop-down menu in your Rich snippet tool to configure the snippet.

Ideally, you’ll want to aim for the full, rich snippet if you want to stand out at the top of the search results. Most featured snippets have both text and an image. You need to access both of these by writing great content and combining it with a relevant image.

Step 5: Provide Diversity (Take Up More of the Results)

As a website designer or developer, you’ll know that different people will often be drawn to different things. Some of your visitors might immediately see a set of bullet-points and use them to search for the answer to their question. Other visitors will want pictures or videos to guide them. So, how do you deliver that kind of diversity in the SERPS?

The easiest option is to aim to take up more of the search result pages. Google now delivers a bunch of different ways for customers to get the answers they crave. When you search for “How to use Google my Business” on Google, you’ll see links to blogs, as well as a list of YouTube Videos and the “People Also Ask” section.

Making sure that you or a client has different content rankings for the same keywords can significantly improve any customer’s experience on the search engines. Often, the process of spreading your image out across the SERPs is as simple as creating some different kinds of content.

To access the benefits of video, ask your client to create YouTube videos for some of their most commonly asked questions or most covered topics. If you’re helping with SEO marketing for your client, then make sure they have an FAQ page or a way of answering questions quickly and concisely on articles, so they’re more likely to appear in “People Also Ask”.

Step 6: Add Authority with Google My Business

Speaking of Google My Business, that’s another excellent tool for improving UX in the search results. It allows business owners to manage how information appears in the search results.

With this service, you can manage a company’s position on Google maps, the Knowledge Graph, and any online reviews. Establishing a company’s location is one of the most important things you can do to help audiences find a business quickly. Remember, half of the customers that do a local search on a smartphone end up visiting the store within the same day.

Start by setting up the Google Business listing for yourself or your client. All you need to do is hit the “Start Now” button and fill out every relevant field offered by Google. The more information you can add to Google My Business, the more your listing will stand out. Make sure you:

Choose a category for a business, like “Grocery store.”
Load up high-quality and high-resolution images
Ensure your information matches on every platform
Use a local number for contact
Encourage reviews to give your listing a five-star rating

Taking advantage of a Google My Business listing will ensure that your audience has all the information they need to make an informed decision about your company before they click through to the site. This means that you or your client gets more warm leads and fewer people stumbling onto your website that might not want to buy from you.

Step 7: Use Structured Data Markup to Answer Questions

If you’re already using rich snippets in your Google listings, you should also have a plan for structured schema markup. Schema markup on Google tells the search engines what your data means. This means that you can add extra information to your listings that will more accurately guide your customers to the support they need.

Providing additional schema markup information to your listings gives them an extra finishing touch to ensure that they stand out from the competition. For example, you might add something like a “product price” to a product page or information about the product’s availability.

Alternatively, you could provide the people who see a search result with other options. This could be an excellent option if you’re concerned that some of the people who might come across your listing might need slightly different information.

For instance, you can ask Google to list other pages along with your search results that customers can “jump to” if they need additional insights.

Baking structured data into your design process when you’re working on a website does many positive things. First, it makes the search engine’s job easier so that you can ensure that you or your client ranks higher. Additionally, it means that your web listings will be more thorough and valuable.

Since UX is all about giving your audience the best possible experience with a brand, that starts with making sure they get the information they need in the search results.

Constantly Improve and Experiment

Remember, as you begin to embed elements of UX into your search engine listings, it’s essential to be aware of relevant evolutions. Ultimately, the needs of any audience can change very rapidly. Paying attention to your customers and what kind of links they click on the most will provide you with lots of valuable data. You can use Google analytics to A/B test things like titles, pictures, featured snippets, and other things that may affect UX.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Google search algorithms are constantly changing too. Running split tests on different pages will give you an insight into what your customers want. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on the latest documentation about Google Search if you want to avoid falling behind the competition.

Like most aspects of exceptional UX, mastering your SERP position isn’t a “set it and forget it” strategy. Instead, you’ll need to work on constantly expanding your knowledge if you want to show clients that you can combine UX and SEO effectively.

Make sure you have plenty of tools set up to offer reports and insights into the kind of changes that you may need to make to align with search engine expectations.

Making the Most of UX in the SERPS

It’s easy to forget that there’s more to UX than making your buttons clickable on mobile devices or ensuring that scrolling feels smooth. For a designer or developer to deliver excellent UX for a brand, they need to consider every interaction that a company and customer has.

This means starting with the way a website appears when it’s listed on the search engines most of the time. Getting your SEO listing right doesn’t just boost your chances of a good ranking. This strategy also improves your reputation with your audience and delivers more meaningful moments in the buyer journey.

Don’t underestimate the power of UX in SERPs.

Featured image via Pexels.

The post 7 UX Principles to Boost SERPs first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

7 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, October 2021

Design trends on top of design trends. This theme of this month’s collection is trends that seem to build on each other. These examples use multiple trends listed here: hero typography, round buttons, and big branding.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month…

1. Hero Typography

Big, bold, and even unusual typography choices are the norm right now for hero headers in website design. The thread in this design trend is that type options seem to break all the rules – and it doesn’t matter.

These hero typography styles are often dramatically oversized, use unusual or nontraditional type styles, and break at least one common rule of typography. The trick is to do these things while creating a visual that still works.

For the most part, that means the typographic element is the dominant art, although not always. The examples below each take a different approach and can give you an idea if you love this website design trend or not.

Eighty uses oversized type elements with almost nothing else above the fold. The rule-breaking happens on the fourth line of text with a scrolling series of serif words. The two typefaces don’t seem to match and have a stark contrast. There’s also the sneaky registered trademark icon that’s spinning next to the brand name. (Another trend – big branding – that we dive into more below.)

Miranda Biondi uses super large text to grab attention – and a lot of it. The design also sneaks the contact and social media links in an unusual location, creating an odd text wrap that pushes the image. You can see the broken “rules” there. Overall, it is very attention-getting but a little difficult to read.

Humain’s homepage is rooted in a font choice that’s pretty unexpected. The all-caps serif is thin and complex. It’s not exceptionally easy to read, although it is beautiful. There’s a second level of hidden text that you can discover with hover and the brighter sphere.

2. Round Buttons

Buttons have been mostly rectangular for a while. Some have hints of rounded edges, but nothing as distinct as the circular buttons that are growing in popularity.

Round buttons are having a moment from major call to action click elements, to timeline navigation or secondary actions.

What’s nice about this trend is that simply the change from a rectangle to a circle is enough to make you look at the element because it is different from what you might expect. The challenge is ensuring that users understand the interactive quality of circles in these instances.

When using a nontraditional element such as this, it is important to include common cues so that users know what to do with round buttons. This might include tooltips, hover actions, shadows, or tiny animations that draw users to the designs.

Salesgroup uses small hover animations on the circular buttons. It further emphasizes it with a circlular button for the cookie notice that pops up on the screen.

Jan Jansen uses a big circular button, the only thing to click on the screen, and a hover state to imply functionality.

Earth Eclipsed uses a series of different circular click elements to facilitate understanding. Sometimes just the lack of another button style is enough to show that circles are for clicking.

3. Big Branding

After a long time of subtle, rather small corner branding for websites, big branding is in.

This design trend features logos – most commonly logotypes – that are almost uncomfortably large on the homepage. They can be in the traditional top-left location or almost anywhere on the screen.

The trick is to integrate branding with the rest of the design not to feel garish. This can be rather difficult to pull off and seems to be one of those things that people either love or hate when they see it.

Here’s how three different websites are doing it:

The 50th anniversary logo is a timed solution with big branding. It creates emphasis on the historical aspect of the train. Not only does the logo appear large on the homepage, but there’s also a loading animation as well.

Kunst Architects Associated uses a very large brand representation in the middle of the hero slider. The giant type element brings your eye into the design for sure and is re-emphasized by the company name in the left sidebar. The trick here is the balance between brand and other information in that valuable homepage space.

Hyer might use one of the biggest corner logotypes you’ll find. There’s no second-guessing what website you are on. The longer-term question is, does the big lettering imprint more on your memory so that you come back to the website later when you need the products or services offered? That’s a hard question to answer, but one that might be worth debate for design teams considering a visual outline such as this one.

Conclusion

There’s a risk when it comes to layering trends in a single design. If they don’t take off, the design can look dated fast, and there’s a lot of work to remove multiple trendy visuals from the project.

But when trends take off, they can work wonders. So it will be interesting to look back in a few months and see which of these trends is still making waves.

The post 3 Essential Design Trends, October 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

4 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

20 Best New Sites, September 2021

Welcome to this month’s collection of what’s making the web look good. This time out we’ve got some new brands and some rebrands, and we’ve got some good examples of branding continuity across media.

Branding continuity doesn’t just mean putting the logo in the corner and using the same colors and type. It’s about capturing the brand identity, the personality of the brand, so the user identifies it even if the logo isn’t immediately visible. Take a look at how some of these sites do it, and enjoy the collection.

Cantina Puiatti

This site for Cantina Puiatti vineyard is almost entirely greyscale, until you get to the wines. There, a single block of color containing information stands out, perfectly matching the label on each bottle.

Revolut

Online banking app Revolut has a site that reflects the look and feel of the app itself, and the design works particularly well on mobile.

Armadillo

Home warranty providers Armadillo have gone for the friendly, non-corporate approach here. Pleasing illustrations and bite-sized text feels non-intimidating and creates an impression of security.

Green Angel Syndicate

Green Angel Syndicate is an angel syndicate investing in companies working to fight climate change. The palette is soft, and some colorful illustration blocks help take the corporate edge off, creating more warmth than might be expected.

Madre

Some beautiful still-life-inspired photography features on this very simple site for home linen company Madre. The shop by color option is a nice touch.

Ovini

This site for Orvini olive snacks is very simple and clean, and the animated illustration from their packaging adds just the right amount of personality.

Cover Story

Cover Story makes a range of plastic-free paints. The site is very simple, allowing the user to focus on the paint colors themselves. And there’s added entertainment value in working out the writer each color is named after.

Seed

Seed offers a synbiotic supplement on a subscription. There is a lot of well-presented scientific information here, and the links to buy are strong without being pushy.

Banza

Like many in the ‘alternative’ food sector, Banza has gone for a bright, bold style with its branding, and its website matches this approach to good effect.

Déjà Pet Food

Déjà takes unsold human food and recycles it into pet food. The animals that feature on the packaging make an appearance here too, to add a bit of softness to the oversized type and 2 color palette.

Little’s Coffee Co.

Little’s Coffee Co.’s site echoes its product labels with a scattering of similar, brightly colored graphic elements. This effectively ties the branding together without being too dominating.

One Hive

The site for OneHive, a business management platform, takes the people-friendly approach with warmer dark blues for text in place of black and grey, and simple illustrations instead of stock photography.

Waltz Creative

Waltz Creative is a rebranding of Schipper Design. Bright candy colors, a hint of vintage type, and some fun graphics combine to create a sense of playfulness without being frivolous.

Stem Design

This portfolio site for floral designer Nicole Cooper features some exceptional photography that effectively showcases her work. There’s a nice nod to Mapplethorpe too.

Vroom!

With its classic comic book style, this site for the forthcoming obstacle racing game Vroom creates a sense of fun appropriate to its subject.

The Space That Makes Us Human

The Space That Makes Us Human is an interactive documentary experience exploring the impact space exploration could have on the future of humanity. This is one of those sites that is just a pleasure to wander around.

Vibor

Following a recent rebrand, Vibor’s new site brings Italian style to the world of industrial sensors with its use of black, white and greys, and accompanying grayscale images.

ArticketBCN

ArticketBCN is a multi-pass, or art passport, for 6 major art museums in Barcelona, designed to look like a passport. The site for it echoes the style effectively while presenting
its information clearly.

Nothing

Taking on the big guys, like Apple and Samsung, takes a lot of confidence and that confidence is apparent here on this site for Nothing’s ear(1) earbuds. And it looks even better on mobile.

Nice One, Dad

And finally, just because it’s Monday and we could all do with a laugh (or a groan), here’s a site of nothing but dad jokes. The jokes may be terrible, but the presentation is nicely done.

The post 20 Best New Sites, September 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

27 septembre 2021/par Service comm.

How to Use Quizzes More Effectively in Interactive Content

Content is the king of the digital world. This is an undisputed fact among marketers and business owners alike.

However, not all content is created equal. Interactive content is a more immersive form of marketing specifically intended for the digital age. Great for companies that need to develop deeper relationships with their audience.

There are various kinds of interactive content for brands to explore these days. For example, you can create a poll where your customers vote for certain answers to questions. In addition, some companies hire developers to build immersive gaming experiences with prizes and rewards.

Even standard content like blogs and articles can become more interactive with things like animations, buttons, and elements that ask visitors to do something.

One of the most valuable forms of interactive content is the quiz. So, how can companies use quizzes to engage their audience effectively? Let’s find out…

The Benefits of Quizzes in Interactive Content

According to studies, 93% of marketers believe interactive content is extremely effective for educating and entertaining customers. Interactive content is meaningful because it’s engaging, and many marketers state that creating engaging content is one of their toughest challenges.

In an environment where the average attention span is constantly dwindling, interactive content reduces the risk that your customer will end up being distracted by something else before they have a chance to convert on your website.

Quizzes are an excellent form of interactive content, but many marketers don’t take full advantage of them yet. Quizzes, like some other forms of interactive content, can come in different styles. For example, you could have a personality quiz that tells your customer what kind of vegetable they would be. That might sound odd, but it helps to give your customer a sense of belonging, gives them a feeling of being understood, and offers entertainment.

Some quizzes can answer questions for your customer.

For instance, a quiz on “what to buy your dad for father’s day” is an excellent way to solve a customer’s problem while guiding them towards potential products that you sell.

Z Gallerie, a retail company, launched a quiz called “What is your Z Gallerie Style personality?” The quiz offers a personalized recommendation experience on what to purchase for every current and potential customer.

The personality quiz became a great way of bringing product recommendations to leads without being pushy. Z Gallerie could, therefore, consistently provide a unique experience to each customer based on their results.

So, how do you make a quiz that’s really effective for your content marketing plan?

Step 1: Creating the Quiz

Quizzes are a kind of interactive content that can almost feel like a conversation with a brand. They’re an opportunity for you to show your audience how well you understand them.

According to TryInteract, people take quizzes because they want to know themselves better or want to confirm what they think they already know about themselves. These content solutions solve problems, even if they’re handling a person’s curiosity about what kind of celebrity they’re most like.

Before you start making your quiz, you need to know your goal and what you’re trying to do for your audience. If your goal is to get more people to feel more attuned to your company, you might need to create something that demonstrates how well you know your visitors.

The goal for the company is to demonstrate a deep knowledge of the industry and target market. If the quiz is helpful and informative, it adds to the brand’s credibility and makes it more likely that customers will want to continue purchasing.

Before you build your quiz, ask yourself:

What do you want to get out of your audience taking this quiz? (More conversions, better brand loyalty, improved engagement?)
Why would your audience want to take the quiz? (Is it relevant to their interests, will it give them some vital information?)

Knowing exactly what you and your audience should accomplish with the quiz will give you a good platform to begin building on.

Step 2: Choose the Title and Quiz Type

Titles are important in any content marketing. 80% of readers decide whether to check out an article based on its title. The same process is common for people who want to decide whether they should take a quiz or not.

There are a lot of great ways to pique your visitor’s attention with a quiz title. For instance, you could challenge your audience to prove their knowledge with the word “actually.” For instance, “How much do you actually know about Kale?” That kind of title immediately appeals to the competitive nature of the human being.

Another great example of a challenging title is to tell your audience that they can’t do something. Buzzfeed did that with its millennial quiz. The great thing about this quiz title is that it speaks to the competitive nature of the reader but also gives that reader a chance to show that they belong to a specific community.

Another option could be to ask a question and hope that curiosity will do the rest of the work for you. For instance, “Which celebrity chef are you most like?” The key to success here is understanding your audience and knowing exactly what they most want to know.

Once you’ve figured out the title, choosing the kind of quiz you want to create is the next step. For instance, you can try:

Personality quizzes: People like hearing good things about themselves because of a psychological phenomenon called self-serving bias. A personality quiz that recognizes the features your customers like about themselves will make them feel happier and more connected to your brand.
The knowledge test: Commonly found on social media, these quizzes challenge a person’s knowledge on a specific subject. The benefit here is that your audience can learn something and share their knowledge with their friends for social points. This quiz from Unicef is an excellent example of the “knowledge” style quiz.

Step 3: Crafting Quiz Questions

Once you have a good idea of the kind of quiz you want to create and the title you’re going to put alongside it, you’ll need to begin bringing your interactive content to life. That means designing the right questions.

Writing questions for a quiz is just like creating any excellent content. First, you need to keep your target audience in mind. Next, think about the kind of personality you’re trying to appeal to. Breathing some life into your quiz by injecting your unique sense of personality into it will be an excellent way to strengthen your bond with your customers.

Other tips for making the most of your quiz questions include:

Use visuals in your questions: Having text-only questions is fine in some cases, but it’s worth looking into images too. Using pictures helps to keep things relevant and interesting and makes your quiz feel a lot more immersive.
Don’t make questions too long: In-depth and complicated questions will only scare your audience away. Remember that they’re looking for something fun and lighthearted to do. This means that your questions should be as short as possible.
Make it interesting: Don’t just ask basic questions like “what’s your favorite color” try to go beyond what your customers usually see on quizzes and make it relevant to the quiz topic. Again, this is your chance to show your audience how much you know.

Step 4: Creating Results That People Want to Share

If you want to design a quiz that really blows your audience away, then the results are one of the most important things to focus on. The results you offer your customers dictate whether they enjoy your quiz so much that they want to share it with other people. Creating share-worthy results is how you boost your chances of finding new customers and even going viral.

So, how do you design results that people want to share? Start by helping your customers to feel positive about themselves. The results should make them feel like a better person or confirm the good things they already believe about themselves. Research tells us that positive emotions are more likely to promote sharing.

For instance, this quiz from the PBS company makes people feel good by demonstrating that they know their books. This confirms a customer’s idea that they are well-read.

Using share-worthy images is another way to improve your chances of designing results that people want to share. You’ll need to use interesting pictures here that speak to your audience. Bright and entertaining pictures will make results more eye-catching on a social media feed.

Don’t forget to include a call-to-action on your results page too. It’s always helpful to give your audience a nudge in the direction you want them to move in. Providing a call-to-action that asks your customers to share their results increases your chances of positive sharing behavior.

Step 5: Know How to Distribute Your Quiz

Once you’ve put all of the essential components of your quiz together, the next step is ensuring you can distribute that quiz and share it with as many people as possible. For instance, you can promote your quiz on social media to reach more possible customers. Twitter and Facebook are always great places to get started but don’t be afraid to experiment elsewhere.

Sharing snippets of the quiz experience in an Instagram Story could be a great way to generate engagement or posting a picture on your Instagram feed.

When promoting your interactive content on social media, use an attractive image to highlight the experience and ensure you make that captivating headline stand out. Share both the caption and image with a shortened link to measure results. Shorter links are more likely to attract audience attention and encourage sharing later. If your links are too long, they can end up looking spammy or unprofessional. That’s not the image you want to build with your quiz content.

If you need an extra boost for your quiz, promoting through Facebook advertising could be the ideal solution. Paid ads are a great way to get extra attention, but you need to choose your target audience carefully. Select your audience according to demographics, behaviors, connections, and locations.

Remember that Facebook gives you plenty of opportunities to track down the kind of customers you want to speak to. Creating a custom audience could be a handy step too. This is always useful if you have a lot of information from an email list or a collection of contacts you’ve generated over time.

Step 6: Following Up on Your Quiz

Once you’ve successfully attracted people to your quiz experience, the next step is to follow up on the leads you’ve hopefully collected. When designing a quiz, it’s always a good idea to ask your customer for their email addresses before you give their results. This ensures that you can collect plenty of leads in the long term for nurturing purposes.

Marketing company, The Foundation, designed a quiz that asked customers whether they had an entrepreneurial mindset. The quiz was based on an existing eBook offered by the company. The quiz, combined with a Facebook ad campaign, helped the business collect new leads to advertise their ebook. The Foundation managed to reduce its cost per lead from $6 to $3.80 using this method.

When following up on your quiz experience, make sure that you get the tone right. The first thing you need to do is thank your audience for taking the quiz in the first place. After someone opts in and offers their email address, send a quick email that shares their results and says “thanks.”

After a couple of days, you can follow up on your thank you email by asking your audience to retake the quiz or take a new one. Encourage these repeat customers to share their testimonials and gradually introduce more interesting content you have that’s connected to your quiz. For instance, if you create a quiz to determine whether someone has an entrepreneurial mind, you could advertise articles that cover similar topics.

Finally, after regular engagement from your audience, you can begin to implement strategies that might convince your audience to purchase your products. This could mean showing off your entrepreneurial eBook, asking someone to sign up for a webinar, or something else entirely.

Don’t forget to track the performance of every quiz too. Examining metrics like click-through rates for your quiz advertisements and conversion rates will help you see which quizzes generate the most attention and action from your intended audience.

Time to Add Quizzes to Your Interactive Content Strategy?

A content marketing strategy is one of the best ways to engage with your audience and strengthen your position in any industry. The right content demonstrates your knowledge, develops trust, and helps you to attract new customers. With interactive content, you can take the relationship you build with your audience to the next level. It’s your chance to engage with your customers and create an emotional relationship.

Quizzes are one of the most effective forms of interactive content, and they’re also one of the easiest to implement into your existing strategy. It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to create a good quiz, and you can usually find tools online to help you with things like structure and formatting. You could even hire a professional to design a quiz for you.

Once you’ve got the kind of quiz that’s really going to interest your target audience, the next step is distributing it in a way that generates as much attention as possible. Remember, you can advertise on social media and various other channels. However, it’s also helpful to pay attention to your options for helping do your promotion for you. For example, many customers will be more than happy to share quiz results that confirm the identity they’re trying to build online.

Featured image via Unsplash.

The post How to Use Quizzes More Effectively in Interactive Content first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

16 septembre 2021/par Service comm.

7 Essential Design Tips for a Killer “About Us” Page

Creating an incredible brand experience for an end-user is about more than just designing the right home page or lining up a series of great product pages.

Effective website design conveys crucial information about a company, through everything from font styles, to image choices. Nowhere is this representation of brand identity more important than on the about page.

People frequently confuse the about page with the contact page or fail to leverage it correctly simply because they don’t know what to say. However, creating an about page that speaks to an audience can be immensely powerful.

What is an About Page?

The first step in designing a great about page is understanding the purpose of the space. This isn’t just a page on a website explaining what a company does.

The about page is an introduction to a company’s story, its brand essence, and personality.

Done correctly, this page will demonstrate a crucial sense of affinity between a business and its customers. It will highlight values that resonate with a customer and make it easier for clients to trust businesses.

The Yellow Leaf hammocks company starts its about page with a video.

As you scroll through the interactive site, you discover new elements of the company’s tale, including what prompted the birth of the business to begin with and the brand’s mission.

Yellow Leaf lets its visitors know what the company is all about by using authentic images of real people to external content and bold quotes.

There are even snippets from customer case studies for social proof.

About pages are relevant because they give customers a way to build a real human connection with a business. Harvard professors say that 95% of purchasing decisions are emotional; we don’t buy things just because we need them. Instead, we look for companies that we feel connections with to solve problems.

Using an about page to convey an attitude, personality, or just what makes a business special is how designers can ensure that end-users will care more about the business.

How to Make an About Page Stand Out

So, how do you make an about page stand out?

Since every company is different, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for everything. However, there are a few essential steps to consider as you move through the design process.

Here are some pro tips for successfully attracting attention with the about page…

Step 1: Decide What to Include

It’s tempting to assume that a complicated about page will lead to a stronger relationship between a brand and its customers. After all, the longer the story, the more the customer knows about the company – right?

While it’s essential to include plenty of valuable information in an about page, it’s also worth remembering that today’s customers are short on time. They don’t want to spend hours scrolling through one part of a website. Instead, they want access to quick, convenient snippets of information.

The Joseph Payton about page is effective because it cuts the story down into bite-sized chunks. Each piece of information highlights valuable insights for the customer. Plus, hand-drawn images and animations make the experience feel like you’re getting to know Joe on a deeper level.

Before you begin designing, ask yourself:

How much text does the page need? How much space does there need to be for copy? How can you spread the content out in a visually engaging way?
What sections should the page include? For example, does there need to be a link to the contact us page or a contact form somewhere?
How does the page connect to the rest of the website? For example, can you link to things like case studies and reviews with quotes to tie more of the website together?

Step 2: Make the Mission Statement Clear

In a world where emotion influences buyer behavior, clients and customers want to buy from companies they believe in. It’s not enough to have the right product or price point anymore. People want to know that they have a human connection with a business.

On some about pages, it’s difficult to pinpoint the real mission of the company. It seems like you have to scroll through endless paragraphs of text to make your own assumptions about what matters to the company. However, a well-designed about page puts this crucial info front and center.

For instance, on the Apptopia about us page, the subheading tells you everything you need to know about the brand. This heading instantly tells the audience whether it’s worth reading on to find out more.

The best about us pages often include a lot more than just a single sentence of text. But it’s worth pinpointing some of the essential details from these pages and drawing extra attention to them. A larger font or a different font color could be perfect for this purpose.

Alternatively, if it’s difficult to refine the company’s mission down into one message, it might be worth creating a whole segment at the top of the page dedicated to this information. That’s what the Toms shoe company does.

Step 3: Invest in the Right Trust Elements

People aren’t always sure who they can trust these days.

There are millions of websites out there and billions of companies. Not all of them are going to appeal to every customer. Since an about page is all about making a crucial human connection between a business and its client, it’s important to implement as much trust as possible.

The good news is that there are many trust elements you can embed into an about page to make it more reputable. Star ratings taken straight from companies like Trusted Reviews and Google are a great way to show that a company is already impressing its followers.

Quotes plucked from your customers or segments of case studies that you can place throughout the About Page copy is another great way to show your authenticity.

You could even take the same approach as Aja Frost here and embed genuine data and graphs into the about page.

One particularly helpful way to make a website’s about page more trustworthy without eating up too much space is to implement trust stickers. Badges that show all the right groups and regulators approve a company are a great start.

Even showcasing the logos of companies that the business worked for before on a slideshow could be an excellent opportunity to add depth to their authority.

Step 4: Convey Brand Personality

Brand personality is reflected in the tone of voice that a company uses for its content. You can see a company’s personality in the choice of colors it has on its website. It’s in the fonts that convey a message, and the videos, images, and other unique strategies that each business uses.

Although a brand personality needs to shine through in everything the company does, it’s imperative on the about page. This is the environment where a customer is getting to know a business for the first time. As a result, the consumer should instantly recognize what kind of brand archetype they’re working with.

Take a look at the Eight Hour Day about page, for instance. The first thing you see is a picture of two people laughing. That means you instantly get a sense of friendliness.

As you scroll through the page, you’re greeted by friendly, informal copy combined with bright colors and snippets of useful information. Everything feels comfortable and reassuring.

When you reach the bottom of the page, you find a bunch of data that makes the company seem more trustworthy. There are links to its social media pages and a partial client list showcasing brands like JCPenny, Wired, and Purina.

Using the right combination of font, copy, and imagery, this About page tells you exactly what to expect before you begin interacting with the company.

Step 5: Take Visitors on a Journey Through Time

Showing customers where a business is going with things like brand mission statements and values are great. However, it’s also worth giving people an insight into where a brand has already been.

Many of today’s shoppers aren’t comfortable buying from brands that haven’t spent much time in their chosen industry. They want to see that the people they’re working with have experience, heritage, and plenty of background knowledge.

What better way to demonstrate all of these things than with a timeline of accomplishments? Here’s an example of how Marshall showcases its history by mentioning various crucial historical milestones.

A timeline of events doesn’t have to be this complex, however. If you don’t want to overwhelm visitors with a wall of text, an actual timeline that offers quick and easy insights into what the business has done over the years could be a better option.

Another option could be to have a few key statements from the company’s timeline, then link out to a separate “History” page for people who want to find out more.

Step 6: Show the Human Side

People don’t buy from businesses; they buy from other people.

An about page isn’t just a chance to show customers what a company does. It’s also an introduction to the people behind that organization. Showcasing the team members that contributed to the growth and continued development makes that organization more attractive.

Obviously, if there are hundreds or thousands of employees in a team, you might not be able to mention them all on an about page. However, the page should generally include some insights into the c-suite and significant members of staff.

A selection of company photos is a good way to introduce your team. However, you can consider other options too. For instance, to maintain their unique brand, the Tunnel Bear team designed to draw their own bear icons that represented their personalities.

The design is adorable, and it’s a wonderful way to showcase what makes the company so unique. At the same time, using this kind of illustration means you can avoid the hassle of trying to get all of your business photos to look consistent.

Step 7: Show Values with Visuals

Finally, as we’ve mentioned frequently throughout this guide, an about page is an essential place to showcase the values of your business. These are the core principles that guide you in everything that you do. They help tell customers what matters most to you and prevent you from moving in the wrong direction.

However, you’re not restricted to highlighting your values through copy and nothing else. You can also introduce customers to the things that matter most to you through visuals too. Graphics or illustrations that highlight important aspects of your business are a great way to share information without relying too heavily on text.

Videos are another brilliant option, particularly if you have a lot to say but not a lot of time to say it in. That’s what Ben & Jerrys does.

You can also find a stream of “issues” the company cares about on the website too. This means that people can get more information on things like Democracy, Racial Justice, Fair trading, and what Ben & Jerry’s is doing about all of those things.

Visual elements like this are a great way to give an about page more pizazz. Plus, they appeal to people who want to learn about your company but don’t want to spend forever reading through the text.

Create Better About Pages

An about page shouldn’t be an afterthought.

It’s a crucial part of showcasing a company’s unique style and personality. Used correctly, these pages convey crucial information about everything a business stands for.

Use the tips above to give more meaning to your about page design, and remember to pay attention to how much your traffic and conversions evolve with every update you make. A better about page could even help you to drive more conversions.

The post 7 Essential Design Tips for a Killer “About Us” Page first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

25 août 2021/par Service comm.

How to Write a Press Release: The Complete Guide for 2021

Actualités, Actualités, SEO

A press release is one of the most valuable tools in a marketing team’s arsenal. Though press releases have been around for decades, they remain one of the best ways to reach new customers, improve your brand reputation, and generate awareness.

Press releases are also wonderfully cost-effective. Unless you’re using paid distribution channels, all you have to spend is your time to create your press release.

So, how do you get started?

What is a Press Release?

A Press Release is a short, simple, and compelling news story designed to promote the goods and services of a business. You’ll usually see these pieces of content published on industry websites, news channels, social media platforms, and even on the company’s blogs looking for awareness.

The idea behind a press release is you provide a publication or group with all of the most valuable facts and insights into your latest newsworthy story. You might use a press release to announce a new product or to tell people about your recent partnership, for instance.

A press release post then delivers this information to a wider potential audience by distributing the content in a range of different places.

Why Should My Business Send Press Releases?

Why not simply tell people about your latest products and sales on social media, and leave it at that? The simple answer is Press Releases help you to gain the attention you might not get from your own media channels alone. With a press release, you can:

Set the record straight: In the middle of a PR disaster, a Press Release can give people the information they need to make their own decision about who’s right.
To improve your brand reputation: Launching press releases through well-known publications immediately boosts your credibility. The right publication shows you’re well-connected and professional.
To gain media coverage: When launching a new product or service, a press release helps attract potential customers to your business and gives you more opportunities for sales.
To improve SEO: In the digital world, a press release allows you to earn backlinks from high-authority websites, improving your ranking.
To find new customers: Press publications and websites will reach a wider audience than you can find on your own. In addition, publishing press releases gives you new eyes on your business for minimal cost.

You can send a press release for various reasons, including announcing breaking news, talking about newly launched products, discussing upcoming events, confirming partnerships, and more. It’s also worth creating a press release when new people join your executive team when you receive an award, or even if something bad happens (for crisis management)

What’s Included in a Press Release?

A press release will include different information depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. In general, PR posts feature:

A headline: This is where you share the most important info of your story
Contact details: How the media can get in touch with you
Location: Where you are and where the news event is taking place
Body copy: Information about the news event
Quotes: It’s common to see quotes in a press release from high-level staff
Boilerplate: Insights into what your organization is about

How to Write a Press Release (Step by Step)

Now you know what goes into a press release and why these tools are so valuable, it’s time to start planning your big announcement.

Here are our top tips for creating an amazing press release.

1. Choose the Right Story

Press releases are focused on sharing valuable news with a specific audience. It would be best if you had something important and new to say, or you risk not getting your story published at all. You can’t just talk about a product or service that’s selling well (unless it’s breaking world, or brand records).

Think about whether your PR topic is:

Timely: Is the event you’re talking about just about to happen, or has it happened recently? If something happened weeks or months ago, press groups aren’t going to be interested. Aside from ensuring your message is timely, make it topical too. Ensure this story is going to give something valuable to your audience.
Relevant: Before you send a press release to anyone, make sure it will be relevant to the audience you’re targeting. Who does the story affect, and why is it important? What kind of benefits or opportunities will it deliver?
Unique: What’s unusual or unique about this story? You don’t want to comment on the same things that everyone in your industry is already talking about.
Engaging: What about your story is going to make readers stand up and take notice? Is there any trouble or tension you’re going to overcome? Look at this press release from Target as an example. How can you frame your story in a way that makes people want to learn more about your business?

When asking yourself what your PR story should be about, consider whether you want to publish it if you were a publication leader. From an objective perspective, does this story have value?

2. Answer the Right Questions

A press release doesn’t just provide information. Written correctly, this content will also answer essential questions for your audience. For instance, let’s take a look at the questions you should answer, with an example.

For this example, we’ll be looking at a social media marketing firm partnering with an SEO brand:

Who is doing this? What’s the name of the social media marketing firm and the SEO brand? Where do they come from? Which executives are involved?
Who is affected? This news would probably affect the stakeholders and shareholders for the business and the customers by providing access to new services.
What have the companies done? They’ve joined forces in a partnership, but which sectors and teams are actually going to be working together?
Where is this happening? Which area will these two companies now serve? Who will be able to access the service?
When did it happen? When is the partnership going to start when will customers see the first major changes?
Why has this happened? In this example, the why might be to offer customers more services and helpful products.
Why does this matter? Why is it so important that this event is taking place for your target audience? How are they going to benefit?
How will you be implementing this change? For example, if you’re partnering with a new business, will you change your brand name and leadership team? Will you have a new headquarters?

3. Target the Right Sector

Like most pieces of great copy, a press release should generally be written with a specific audience in mind. The interesting thing about a press release is that you’re not just writing for the people who might be interested in your products and services. You’re also writing for a specific publication, journalist, broadcaster, or editor.

When you’re writing your content, you’ll need to keep both audiences in mind to ensure that you get your message across. Focus on the kind of crucial messages which will appeal to your end-users and customers but address the preferences and needs of the editor too. Many publications will have guidelines to follow if you want a chance of getting your content on their site.

If you’re sending your press release to multiple locations, you might need to look into doing several different versions of your press releases, each with slightly different wording and information, based on your target publication.

4. Get the Headline Right

There are few things more important in a press release than an amazing headline.

A good headline will immediately attract the attention of your publication, as well as anyone who might end up reading your article. The media uses headlines to determine whether stories are worth reading or publishing. This means that you need to get attention quickly.

Most press release headlines don’t try to be clever. There isn’t a lot of fancy language to worry about. Instead, your focus should be on sharing the main point of the press release fast.

For instance, if you’re announcing the arrival of new security measures in your business to protect hybrid workers, you might have a headline like:

[Company] implements end-to-end encryption for hybrid workers
[Company] uses new encryption techniques to support hybrid work
[Company] invests in encryption technology for hybrid employees

5. Use the Right Structure

Structuring a press release can be tough.

Some companies have specific requests on how your press release should look. For instance, you might have to place the date and time in a specific place. For instance, CNN always puts the date of the release before the headline:

If you don’t have to follow a specific format, you should stick with the inverted pyramid structure. This strategy involves placing the most critical information first and moving down the hierarchy to less important info – like contact details.

When structuring your press release, make sure the headline immediately tells your customers and readers what the story is about and presents immediate value. The opening paragraph will then summarise the main factors and elements of the story, giving a fuller explanation of what the story is about. For instance, for the “[Company] implements end-to-end encryption for hybrid workers” example, the first paragraph might read:

[Company] recently announced an investment in the latest encryption tools for information at rest and transit for hybrid employees. This new security strategy is rolling out immediately to new and existing customers of [company], with access to extra features available for premium subscribers.

The second paragraph then follows up with contextual insight into why this story is important. For instance, in the example above, the second paragraph might say:

This new investment comes at a time when more employees are moving into the hybrid working model. [Company] believes that higher encryption is crucial for teams working in a cloud environment, even with access to VPNs and other security measures available.

The third paragraph then presents details on the story, including information on who’s involved, how this story came about, and anything else that business leaders might need to know. If there is an additional paragraph, you might include some quotes from business leaders or industry authorities to add credibility or opinions.

6. Perfect Your Writing

No matter how short or simple, any press release is an insight into your company and brand. Don’t rely on the publication company you choose to do all the editing for you. Make sure you proofread your content and ensure everything sounds fantastic. It’s also worth double-checking any details to ensure that stats and facts remain accurate.

When boosting the writing of your press release, remember:

Address the topics that your readers will find most interesting: Choose relevant topics with obvious benefits and repercussions for your target audience. Don’t get bogged down in fluff, and don’t be overzealous with patting yourself on the back. It’s best to avoid too many adjectives like “world-leading” and “fantastic” when describing your brand.
Write in the third person: Third-person writing is common for press releases, even when you’re talking about yourself. For instance, you might say, “Dell’s marketing team recently shared information on a new computer series.”
Keep it simple: Stick to one focus story per press release and try not to overwhelm your audience with too much information. Press releases are short, focused, and easy to read. If you have extra information to provide, you can make a note at the bottom of the release. The close of your PR is where you can provide contact details, links to products, and backlinks to further articles.

Remember, a compelling, human quote can really make a difference to your press release too. This is a chance to allow the executive voices in your business to shine through. Make sure you highlight exactly why you’re so excited about the press release in the quote while using emotive language to connect with customers. For instance,

The company CEO said: “We’re proud to be offering our current and new customers access to this new security service. After working with the best encryption professionals in the industry, we’re confident we can reduce data breaches and security concerns for hybrid workers.”

7. Double-Check Your Press Release

Before you send your press releases to anyone, it’s best to do a quick check to ensure that everything sounds great and that you haven’t left any annoying errors unaddressed. Use this quick checklist to examine your content:

Is the release date and publishing date correct (make sure you’ve included information on any embargos)
Is the contact information correct and in the right-hand corner of the page? This includes the name of the company, phone number, and email address.
Does the formatting match the outline requested by the publication?
Is the boilerplate at the bottom of the template?
Is the headline eye-catching and meaningful?
Are all of the relevant details included throughout the press release in order?
Are names and information spelled correctly?
Is the press release free from any grammatical issues and complex jargon?

Make sure you include information on how to reach out to you if the publication notices anything wrong with your site’s performance.

Where To Send Your Press Releases

Once you’ve worked through your press release (and double-checked it for quality and accuracy), you can think about where you’re going to send it. For example, you may send multiple versions of your press release to different companies and publications. Ideally, you’ll create an entire press kit, which might include pictures of your team, product, or service, as well as contact details and extra brand information.

Some companies prefer to approach press relationships by pitching their story to a few carefully selected editors and publications. This is often a good idea if you’re trying to reach a particular audience or you want to improve your reputation by connecting with a certain brand.

Alternatively, you can use PR wire services to send your information to multiple companies at once. There are various services online to help you get your press announcements to the right people. Options to look into include:

Industry publications for specific sectors (like technology or medicine)
Local newspapers and online news outlets
General news sites like Google News and Apple News
Blog sites that attract your target audience
Influencers and industry partners

Start small and gradually build a list of contacts to help you get your voice and business out there. Eventually, you’ll find it’s much easier to get publications to accept your press releases. You might even find that people start approaching you to find out if you have any upcoming news.

Go and Get Published!

Now you’re equipped with everything you need to know to create a fantastic press release and attract new eyes to your business. The only thing to do next is to get out there and start sending your press releases to the right people. Remember, once your press release is published, make sure you promote it through your social channels, email, and website.

Featured image via Pexels.

The post How to Write a Press Release: The Complete Guide for 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Mobile loading speeds became a Google ranking signal in July 2018.

7 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

17 Things You Can Do To Improve Your SEO Ranking In 2021

Actualités, Actualités, SEO

There’s no shortcut to success when it comes to Google search results. That is unless you count pay-per-click advertising.

While pay-to-play will shoot your site to the top of the SERP immediately, it’s not a sustainable strategy for maintaining your position there. So, you’re going to have to get serious about SEO.

This guide will show you what to do to improve your SEO ranking and start seeing results this year:

Use Google Analytics to track metrics
Get an SSL certificate
Improve mobile page speed
Design a mobile-first UI
Make your site accessible
Optimize your images
Create great content
Structure your content for scannability and readability
Create click-worthy title tags and meta descriptions
Choose one focus keyword per page
Improve your internal link strategy
Use only trustworthy external links
Get your site listed as a featured snippet
Get high-quality backlinks
Create a Google My Business page
Refresh Your Content
Regularly monitor Google Search Console

How to Increase Your Website’s SEO Ranking

If you can improve your SEO ranking — and get your pages closer to, if not on the highly coveted top SERP — you will:

Boost your site’s overall visibility as its authority in search grows;
Bring high-quality traffic to your pages;
Drive-up your conversion rate.

That said, search engine optimization is most effective when it’s an ongoing strategy as opposed to something you set up and forget about. So, some of the suggestions below will only need to be implemented once, while others you’ll have to return to every six months or so to make sure your site is on track.

Let’s get started.

1. Use Google Analytics to Track Metrics

If you haven’t yet begun tracking your website’s activity with Google Analytics, it’s the very first thing you need to do.

While Google Analytics alone can’t tell you how well or poorly your website ranks, there’s valuable data in there about what happens to the traffic that arrives from Google. Or any search engine your visitors use.

You can find this information under Acquisition > Source/Medium:

What you want to see here is that (1) you’re getting lots of visitors from organic search results (as opposed to paid) and (2) that they’re highly engaged. So, that means:

Longer times on site;
Multiple pages visited;
Lower bounce rates.

And if you configure Google Analytics to track different conversions on your site, you can see how well those organic visits convert.

Obviously, there’s a lot more you can track here. But you must understand if your SEO efforts are working in the first place, and that’s where you’ll get your confirmation.

2. Get an SSL Certificate

HTTPS has long been one of Google’s SEO ranking factors. Yet, of the two billion-plus websites that are online today, BuiltWith data shows that only 155 million have an SSL certificate installed:

Security and privacy are major concerns for consumers. So if you want to increase their confidence in your website, installing an SSL certificate is an easy thing to do. And it’ll put you in Google’s good graces, too.

If you don’t have one already, get one for free from Zero SSL.

3. Improve Mobile Page Speeds

It was something we saw coming ever since smartphones overtook the desktop as the primary device people used to access the Internet. Once it became a ranking factor, though, mobile page speed was something we could no longer treat as a “nice to have.” It became a must.

And with Google’s most recent Core Web Vitals algorithm update, there’s no ignoring how big of a role your site’s mobile loading speeds (i.e., performance) play in ranking it.

To ensure that your site meets Google’s expectations for speed, bookmark the Core Web Vitals tool. It’ll tell you how your site performs across all four of the major ranking categories.

You’ll find your speed-related issues at the bottom of the page, along with resources to help you resolve them.

Most of those tips will have to do with optimizing your code. However, there are other things you can do to make your site load quickly:

Use well-coded themes and plugins;
Remove unused themes, plugins, media, pages, comments, backups, and so on from your database and server;
Install a caching plugin that’ll minify, compress, and otherwise make your site lightweight and fast.

It’s also not a bad idea to review your web hosting plan. You might not have the right amount of server power or resources to keep up with your existing activity.

4. Design a Mobile-First UI

On a related note, a mobile-first design can also improve your site’s loading speeds. Rebekah Carter wrote a really helpful guide on how to do this last year.

In addition to speeding things up — since you won’t be trying to jam a bunch of desktop-first design and content into a smartphone screen — it’s going to help your site rank better.

Just be careful when you do this. A mobile-first design doesn’t mean creating a scaled-back version of the larger site for smartphone users.

In fact, Google explicitly tells us not to do that and why:

“If it’s your intention that the mobile page should have less content than the desktop page, you can expect some traffic loss when your site is enabled mobile-first indexing, since Google can’t get as much information from your page as before.”

And if your response is that the content on desktop-only doesn’t matter, then it really shouldn’t be there. Don’t waste your visitors’ time with useless or repetitive content, as it’ll only give them more reason to abandon your site.

5. Make Your Site Accessible

Accessibility has come to the forefront of the SEO discussion thanks to Core Web Vitals.

Now, running your site through the tool will tell you if there are any inaccessibility issues that Google will ping you for. But that doesn’t make your site completely accessible.

Considering the rise in website accessibility-related lawsuits, you’ll want to take this seriously.

Because a bad experience due to inaccessibility won’t just cost you visitors and a lower search ranking, it’ll cost you a lot of money, too.

Here are some things you can do to ensure that your site and all its content is accessible.

6. Optimize Your Images

Technically, image optimization falls under the page speed tip. However, that’s not the only way you should be optimizing your images, which is why I wanted to address this separately.

According to HTTP Archive, the average weight of a mobile web page these days is 1917.5 KB. Images take up a sizable chunk of that weight:

Because of this, bloated image sizes are often to blame for slow pages.

You can do several things to optimize your images for speed, like using lightweight formats, resizing them, and compressing them. You’ll find 6 other image optimization tips here.

While those tips will help you speed up your site and, consequently, improve your SEO ranking, there’s something else you need to do:

Add alt text to your most important images.

One reason to do this is to improve accessibility. Another is so your web page can rank in both the regular Google search results and image results as this search for “WordPress by the numbers” does:

If you can write alt text that perfectly describes your graphic and matches the image searchers’ intent, you can create another ranking opportunity for your page.

7. Create Great Content

There are many technical ranking factors you have to pay attention to if you want to create a good experience for your visitors and rank well as a result. However, none of that will matter if your content sucks.

So, how do you make great content? It really depends.

Think about the difference between a page describing your web design services and a product page for a blender.

Your web design services page would need to:

Explain why hiring a web designer is a must;
What your design services entail;
What they can expect in terms of results;
Include some proof in the form of testimonials or portfolio samples;
Have information on next steps or how to get in touch.

That would be a comprehensive and useful page. If business owners searched for “hire a web designer near me” or “should I hire a web designer?”, that page would sufficiently answer their query.

A product page, however, would need to:

Provide a brief summary of the blender;
Show photos of the blender, different angles of it, as well as different variations of the product;
Display the price;
Allow customers to Add to Cart or Save for later;
Include technical specs of the blender;
Recommend related products;
Display sortable customer testimonials and ratings.

The last thing a shopper would want is to be directed to a product page that reads like one of your services pages.

So, great content not only needs to be well-written and error-free, but it needs to match the searcher’s intent and expectations. If you can do that, your visitors will stay as long as they need to read through everything, which will help strengthen the page’s ranking.

8. Structure Your Content for Scannability and Readability

Including necessary details and in the right format is an important part of making a page’s content valuable to the visitor. The structure is going to help, too.

For starters, you want to make sure every page is human-readable. So, that involves:

Shorter sentences and paragraphs;
Linkable table of contents for longer pages;
Header tags every few hundred words;
Descriptive and supportive imagery throughout;
Text callouts like blockquotes and bolded phrases.

By making a page less intimidating to read and easier to scan for a quick summary of what it is, you’ll find that more visitors are willing to read it and follow your calls to action.

You can use a tool like Hemingway to improve your page’s readability. Quickly pop the text of each page into the editor and follow the recommended suggestions:

You’re also going to have to think about how well Google’s indexing bots can read your page. They’re smart enough to pick up on cues but not smart enough to sit down and read your article on the benefits of Vitamin D or how to install a new showerhead.

So, you’ll need to use HTML meta tags as well as hierarchical header tags to tell the bots what the page is about.

If you’re building a WordPress site, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to analyze how scannable and readable each page of your site is (among other things):

9. Create Click-Worthy Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

To get eyeballs on your really great content, the brief preview users see of it in search results needs to be able to lure them in. Get more clicks to your site from search, and Google will take notice.

But they can’t just be superficial clicks. If Google notices that your page is getting a ton of traffic that almost immediately drops off once they see the content on the page, your page will not fare well in search results.

So, your goal is to stay away from clickbait-y title tags and meta descriptions and make them click-worthy.

The first thing to focus on is the length. Google only gives you a certain amount of space to make your pitch.

There are many tools you can use for this, but I prefer Mangools’s SERP Simulator:

It allows you to play around with your URL, title tag, and meta description and to watch in real-time as it fits the allotted space. You can also compare it to the pages that currently rank for the keyword you’re going after, which can be a really useful reference point. After all, if those sites have made it to the first SERP, then they’re doing something right.

Another thing to think about when writing click-worthy titles is how engaging they are.

The tool I recommend for this is CoSchedule’s Headline Studio:

I don’t find this useful so much for basic web pages. You don’t need to get creative with something like your About or Contact pages. But for content marketing? If you want to beat out competing articles for attention in Google, this tool will be very useful.

10. Choose One Focus Keyword Per Page

It’s not as though you can add a keyword tag to your page, and Google will automatically rank your site for it. That’s not what keyword optimization is.

Instead, what you do is select one unique keyword per page and write the content around it. So, it’s really more about creating a clear focus for yourself and then comprehensively unpacking the subject matter on the page.

Keep in mind, though, that if you want to improve your chances of ranking for the keyword, it needs to be relevant to your brand, useful for your audience, and your site needs to actually be able to compete for it.

You can use the Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that fit those criteria:

Ultimately, you should choose a keyword that:

Has a decent amount of monthly searches — over 1,000 is what I aim for;
Have “Low” to “Medium” amount of competition, but the lower, the better;
Matches the user intent. So take that keyword, put it into Google and see what you find. Then, look at the sites on that first page of search results. Do they match what your own page will address? If so, then you’ve found a keyword that aligns with your users’ search intent.

Now, if you’re writing great content that addresses your visitors’ questions and concerns, then optimizing for your focus keywords will happen naturally. The same goes for related keywords you might want to target. As you write the content for each page, the keywords will organically appear.

But remember how I said Google’s indexing bots need certain HTML and header tags to “read” the content on the page? This means you’ll need to include the focus keyword in some of those areas, so there is no question about what the page is about.

Here’s where your focus keyword should show up:

Title tag (H1);
Meta description;
Slug (hyperlink);
Within the intro;
The first H2 header tag;
Alt text for the most important image on the page;
Within the conclusion.

It should also appear throughout the page, along with variations of the keyword that people might search for.

You can use the Yoast SEO plugin to analyze this as well.

11. Improve Your Internal Link Strategy

Okay, so here’s where we start to get into SEO strategies that Google might not directly care about, but that can still drastically improve how well your site ranks.

Internal links, in particular, are valuable because they create an interconnected structure for your site. Here’s a basic example of why that’s important:

Let’s say these are the pages on your website. Each of them can be accessed from the home page and main navigation. This structure tells us that each page is related to the overall message and mission of the company, but they are not related to one another. And that doesn’t make sense, right?

When you’re educating visitors on your Web Design services, it’s naturally going to come up that you also happen to specialize in WordPress and eCommerce design. So, those internal links should appear on your Web Design page. And vice versa.

In addition, your Portfolio and Contact Us pages are likely going to be the most common CTAs on the site. Your prospective clients shouldn’t be forced to backtrack to the homepage or scroll up to the navigation to take action. By including these internal links or buttons within the content of the services pages, you’re giving them a quick and direct line to the next steps.

The more intuitive you make the user journey, the easier it will be for them to convert.

This is one reason why websites with a strong internal linking structure perform well in search results. Another reason is that internal links help Google’s bots find all of the content on your site and better understand how they relate to one another.

12. Use Only Trustworthy External Links

Link juice is one of the reasons why business owners are obsessed with getting backlinks. We’ll get to that shortly.

But it’s also something that comes into play when choosing external links to include on your site.

Link juice is the idea that one site can pass its authority to another through a dofollow link. So, by linking out to authoritative and trustworthy sources, your site may raise its own clout with the search engines because of that connection.

However, it works both ways. If you create external links to websites with misinformation that pose a security threat to visitors or are otherwise untrustworthy, that bad reputation can do your website harm.

So, make sure that every external link you use is necessary and reliable. If not, get rid of it.

13. Get Your Site Listed As a Featured Snippet

I said earlier in this post that pay-per-click advertising is the only way to shortcut the SEO process and get on the first page of Google. That’s not entirely true.

We’ve already seen how optimizing your images for Google Images search can shoot your site to the top of results. Another way to get ahead is by optimizing your page using structured data to land a spot as a featured snippet.

Like this page from Bankrate that answers the question “how do you get a loan”:

Remember that structured data alone won’t instantly move your web page into the featured snippet space. The content needs to be the best it can be, and the structured data needs to be well written.

Schema.org was created to help you pick the right category and write the structured data for it:

Use this to write up the relevant microdata for the pages to make the most sense to do so. For instance, an About page probably wouldn’t benefit from having structured data attached to it. However, a lengthy blog post that explains a step-by-step process would.

There are WordPress plugins (Yoast is one of them) that will help you insert this code into your pages if you prefer.

14. Get High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks pointing to your website are a huge indicator to Google that your site is share-worthy and authoritative.

However, like everything else in SEO, you can’t cheat your way into a bunch of backlinks. They need to come from authoritative sources, and they need to be relevant. That’s why paying or bartering for backlinks isn’t usually effective. If your web page’s backlink doesn’t organically fit within the content on their site, visitors aren’t going to click on it.

There are lots of ways to go about building up a repository of backlinks that do generate authority for you and improve your SEO ranking in the process:

Get active on social media and become an authority there: The rule is generally that 80% of your posts need to be non-promotional. By sharing content from all kinds of sources that are relevant to your audience, you’re going to get more meaningful engagement. And this’ll eventually put the spotlight on your own content and get people to share it on social media, too.

This is something that Google will look at when ranking your site: What sort of social signals are coming from your brand?

Get featured as an expert: You don’t need to become an influencer for people to view you as an expert in your field. It’s all about your reputation.

By leveraging your reputation to get speaking gigs, you’ll grow your authority even more. Just make sure they’re relevant to what you do. So, look for podcasts, webinars, and conferences in your field that are looking for experts.

Become a guest blogger: If public speaking isn’t your forte, that’s okay. Turn your attention instead to lining up guest blogging gigs.

By writing high-quality content for authoritative websites (whether you get paid or not), you’ll bring more attention to your own brand. And Google will pass that authority onto your site.

15. Create a Google My Business Page

Any business can create a Google My Business page. There are a number of SEO-related benefits to doing this.

The first is that local businesses can literally put themselves on the map with Google My Business. Here’s what a Google search for “restaurants near me” looks like:

Even if your site doesn’t appear on the first SERP, the map that sits at the top of search results can give you a front seat anyway.

Another reason to create a My Business page is that you get to control your knowledge graph sidebar, like Ford’s Garage does here:

By including high-quality graphics, pertinent details about the business, and collecting positive customer reviews, this knowledge graph could do your brand’s reputation a lot of good in the eyes of Google and your prospects.

16. Refresh Your Content

This is useful for all of the content on your site, even your most high-performing pages.

If your site is starting to gain traction, take a close look at your Google Analytics data. You may find a few pages that no one seems to be paying attention to or, worse, that they always seem to bounce from.

In Google Analytics, go to Behavior > Site Content to figure out which pages are underperforming.

Then, ask yourself:

Is this page even a necessary part of the user journey? If not, you can probably scrap it and have one less distraction on your site.
If this page is necessary, what do you need to do to make it more valuable and relevant to your audience?

With the most popular pages on your site, it’s not unreasonable to expect that at least part of what you originally wrote will go stale or become irrelevant within a year or two. So, it’s a good idea to refresh these as well.

To do that, it’s simple. Do a search in Google for your focus keyword. Read through the top five results and see what sort of information your post is missing. Then update it accordingly.

Anything outdated or irrelevant should also be stripped out.

17. Regularly Monitor Google Search Console

Last but not least, you should keep your eyes on Google Search Console.

There’s a lot of valuable information in here that will tell you why your site might not be ranking as well as it could. You’ll find issues related to:

Indexing
Mobile usability
Security
Core Web Vitals

You’ll also find data on how well your site is ranking in general. You’ll find this under the Performance tab:

Use this to identify:

Which keywords you’re ranking for and are driving traffic to your site;
Which keywords you’re getting the most impressions from but not getting clicks from;
Which keywords you’re getting the most clicks from but not a lot of impressions;
Which keywords you rank low for and could stand to improve upon.

You can learn a lot about how strong your SEO strategy is. Just use the Clicks, Impressions, and Position tabs to sort your data so you can better understand what’s going on.

Then, prioritize fixing the pages that can and should be bringing your site highly qualified traffic but aren’t.

Wrap-Up

If you’re wondering how long it’ll take before you see an improvement in your SEO ranking, it depends. If your domain’s current authority is low, it can realistically take about six months to see major changes. That said, if you implement all of the suggestions above, you can certainly expedite that.

Just remember that there are no real shortcuts in SEO. You need to have an authoritative and trustworthy website and brand before anything else. So, take the time to build your credibility online so that these SEO tactics can really work.

The post 17 Things You Can Do To Improve Your SEO Ranking In 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

1 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

How To Find Broken Links Using Selenium WebDriver

What thoughts come to mind when you come across 404/Page Not Found/Dead Hyperlinks on a website? Aargh! You would find it annoying when you come across broken hyperlinks, which is the sole reason why you should continuously focus on removing the existence of broken links in your web product (or website). Instead of a manual inspection, you can leverage automation for broken link testing using Selenium WebDriver.

When a particular link is broken and a visitor lands on the page, it affects that page’s functionality and results in a poor user experience. Dead links could hurt your product’s credibility, as it ‘might’ give an impression to your visitors that there is a minimal focus on the experience.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

26 juin 2021/par Service comm.

10 Elements of Landing Pages That Convert

Landing pages are central to successful marketing campaigns; they allow you to target particular customers with particular solutions to particular problems.

It’s easy to confuse what a landing page is because users “land” on many pages. When we talk about landing pages, we mean a page that is entirely dedicated to a particular type of customer. In fact, if we could create a unique landing page for each individual user, that would be awesome.

You might think your homepage is a landing page, but it’s not; users reach your landing page in various ways — directly, via organic search, or backlink. A landing page is normally dedicated to a specific marketing campaign. It is accessed from a link in an email, via social media, or most often via a PPC (Pay Per Click) advert.

Here are 10 elements of landing pages that are proven to convert successfully:

1. Use A Single Call To Action

Your potential customers must know how to move forward with your product or service as early in the experience as possible.

Are they signing up for a free trial? Are they signing up for your newsletter? Are they buying a product? Are they contacting you? Whatever you need them to do, make it clear.

The Hick-Hyman law of UX says the more choices you give a user, the less likely they are to make any choice at all; conversely, the fewer choices, the greater the likelihood that they’ll move forward.

Give the user one choice: click the button, or don’t click the button. A single CTA will out-perform multiple options.

2. Keep Forms Simple

Often, your landing page will need a potential customer’s information. They might be creating an account, setting up a trial, or just joining your newsletter.

If the potential customer is signing up for a trial, by all means, ask for their email address. But you don’t need their cell number, their mother’s name, the street they grew up on, their birthday, or any of that other junk that’s used to profile users.

Whatever the purpose, keep your form ultra-simple. That means as few fields as possible. If you really want it, give the user the option to fill it in later as part of an onboarding process — when they’re already invested — but not on the landing page.

3. Make the Headline Punchy

The first thing your potential customer sees on your landing page is the headline, so make it count.

Half a dozen words are usually more than enough. Your goal is to keep it short enough that the potential customer has read the headline before they realize it.

Often, you’ll want to clarify the statement with more information. That’s fine as a sub-heading after you’ve grabbed their interest, but make sure you grab their attention first.

The headline “Coyote Anvils” is best followed by the sub-heading “You’ll be eating roadrunner for dinner!”

Your goal for your headline is to explain your product or service in 2–3 seconds.

4. Center Your Content Around Your Value Proposition

What makes your product or service stand out? What makes it better than the competition? If you’re not sure, spend some time checking out companies in your space.

Creating a value proposition can be one of the toughest challenges a business faces because you need to put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes. But if you get this right, it will carry your marketing. You need to find the benefits within your product or service, not the features.

Value propositions are best when backed by facts. The “World’s Most Accurate Anvils” is best backed by proof: “9/10 coyotes said they were more likely to hit their target than themselves when using our patented AccuAnvil.”

5. Lists, Lists, and More Lists

You’ve got seconds to engage your potential customer, perhaps even less. One way to grab them is with a great headline, but you have to keep them interested beyond the headline.

One great way is bullet lists with short entries. Short-item lists naturally pull our eyes down the page because our eyes take in the whole line in one glance; we don’t need to read to absorb the information.

The longer you can keep someone on the page, the greater the likelihood they’ll keep looking, so pulling them down the page with lists is a great tactic.

6. Exploit the Zeigarnik Effect

The Zeigarnik Effect says that people remember incomplete experiences better than they do completed ones. This is because when a task is seen as completed, it can be filed away as a memory, but if it’s incomplete, then it remains at the front of your mind.

This is a boon for designers creating landing pages because we can create a situation where the potential customer begins an onboarding process and is aware that it hasn’t been completed — they might need to verify their email address, for example.

The lack of completion keeps the landing page and the product or service fresh in the potential customer’s mind. So when they see that onboarding email, they’ll use it.

7. Proof

Anyone can put up a website. It’s easy. And as a result, potential customers don’t necessarily trust you.

One way you can combat this is with some form of proof. That may be in the form of official certifications, or featured testimonials, or just independent reviews.

It rarely occurs to potential customers that you’re cherry-picking the testimonials and reviews you’re choosing to display, so even if only some of your reviews are good, it’s worth including them.

But be careful not to sound too good. If you post nothing but 5* reviews, people will smell a rat; that 3* review may actually do you a favor by making the 5*s seem more genuine.

8. Predictive Images

Potential customers lack imagination, they don’t have all the facts, and unless your product or service is very basic, they may not fully understand what the product does for them.

Use images to quickly show them what life may be like using your product or service. Paint an appealing picture. If they can see themselves in the image, they’ll grant you a little more time to persuade them in the form of further content.

9. Continuity

How did the potential customer arrive at your landing page? Chances are it was via a PPC link, or if you were lucky an organic search link. However they arrived, they were in a certain frame of mind, with a certain problem they wanted to solve; they aren’t going to take kindly to being diverted onto a different train of thought.

Your landing page has to match the tone, style, and value proposition of your adverts. The potential customer’s experience of your organization begins with the advert, not the landing page, so make sure that you don’t break the spell. If your landing page doesn’t match your advert, you could lose the potential customer altogether — and increase your bounce rate while you’re at it.

Remember: the customer was attracted by something in your advert, so give them the same attractive qualities on your landing page.

10. Drop the Nav

Most sites have a single main menu and a rich footer with links to customer service, contact pages, and so forth. These are detrimental on a landing page because you’ll leak traffic to other, less-focused parts of your site.

Your landing page is a streamlined selling machine. The only link you want on the page is your CTA.

It’s fine to keep legal text and even links to privacy policies — users rarely click those anyway. You can also link to your homepage using your logo. But don’t add any navigation that invites a click, or you’ll dilute all the work you’ve put in.

The post 10 Elements of Landing Pages That Convert first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.