Content is King, but who’s the King of Content? Image Source.

If you work in content marketing, you already know how much is out there about best practices, SEO tactics, and generating great content.

There are so many articles, ebooks, and self-proclaimed experts that it’s hard to tell what’s legitimate. Trust me, I know it’s tough to wade through the muck, so I’ve compiled the ten best content marketing resources on the web, and I’ll also tell you why they’re worth your time.

For Those Getting Started

1. The Business Case for Agile Content Marketing by CopyBlogger

Wondering what content marketing actually means and how it can help your business grow? CopyBlogger’s free ebooks series is exceptional; they’ll guide you through the entire content process by helping you develop a thorough content strategy, create content that converts, and then effectively promote.

2. The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging and Content Marketing Strategy (ebook) by Contently

For those who are concerned with blogging and writing well, Contently’s ebook is an awesome resource. The Beginner’s Guide includes advice on how to start building content from zero, how to outsource writing, and how to distribute content so it gets the eyeballs that you want.

3. Beginner’s Guide to SEO by SEOmoz

You can’t be a good content writer if you don’t take SEO seriously, so sit down with this beginner’s guide that will get you from square one to a decent, working knowledge of SEO. SEOmoz explains how search engines work, teaches you how to do keyword research, and guides you through the building of links. If you want to be a valuable content marketer, you should know these basics inside and out.

4. How To Write Cool Copy For Unsexy Stuff by Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg has tons of articles about great copywriting, which will help you put some pizazz in the content you create. Most of us don’t work for Vogue or Coca Cola, so sometimes it helps to see how other companies are using words to market what they’ve got. “How To Write Cool Copy For Unsexy Stuff” proves you don’t need the world’s most fashionable and stylish products and services to write charming copy.

For The Experienced

5. The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing by Quick Sprout

If you already know something about content marketing, this 40,000 word guide will be your new best friend. Not only does the guide explain current trends and give advice on building a strategy, it also provides advice on whether or not a blog should have a separate domain name. Every nook and cranny of content marketing is explored in this allstar guide.

6. How To Rise Above Lackluster Content by SEOmoz

Sure, you can write content, but how do you take it to the next level? How do you make it rise above the sea of content that’s already out there? Thankfully, SEOmoz craftily put together a post on how you and your blog can win the internet. If you make it “surprising, interesting, intense, positive, and actionable,” you’re off to a great start.

7. How To Measure The ROI of a Content Strategy by Mashable

So how do you convince your boss, your partners or even yourself that content is a good investment? Check out Mashable’s post on how to measure ROI. The post suggests using retweets, shares, comments, time spent on page, and other metrics to quantify success. Warning: Be patient, ROI success doesn’t come overnight.

For Ongoing Learning

8. CMI Webinars by Content Marketing Institute

’10 Tips to Build an Audience with Content Marketing – Lessons from the Nightclub Dance Floor’ was one of CMI’s most recent webinars. If that dosen’t captivate you, I don’t know what will! CMI’s free webinars tackle some of the biggest issues in content marketing, featuring a variety of experts, and covering a vast array of topics. Their multimedia webinars focus on multi-cultural marketing, social media alignment, and “brandscaping.” CMI also hosts and attends a ton of live conferences and events.

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9. Educational Webinars by The Content Wrangler

The Content Wrangler hosts webinars with industry leaders such as Mark Lewis and Marcia Riefer Johnston. The site’s most recent webinar focused on how to write powerful paragraphs and sentences. The Content Wrangler’s webinars are specific and cover a wide range of marketing topics.

10. Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Your college professor or high school English teacher may have directed you to Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab, and that’s because it’s one of the best sources and has over 200 free resources for information regarding grammar, sentence structure, citations, and more. In order to create great content, your writing needs to be perfect. Consult OWL with questions.

There are more resources out there, and as time goes on, new ones might usurp the ones on my list. In order to be the world’s best content marketer, stay in the know, and educate yourself using these resources. They’ve been saviors to me!

–Emma Siemasko

Get your ejector seat ready. You’ll be using it sooner than you start clicking on banner ads. (Source)

Best. Statistic. Ever. Makes me feel better about flying, but sorry for those designing banner ads.

They say that a kitten dies every time someone uses a bullet point in a presentation, so I shudder to think what’s going to happen the next time someone clicks on a banner.

Banner ads. The ugly stepchild of online marketing. Just trying to hang out in the top-right corner, minding their own business. They never asked to be overused. They never asked to be animated GIFs. But they certainly didn’t want to be ignored.

Yet, here we are, about to discuss how little action they get, and how they’re being usurped by another form of advertising. Poor little rectangular bastards. 75,000 wasted pixels in an otherwise useful area of your page. Destined to be thrown on the marketing scrap heap, never to be seen again…

Scratch that. Banners aren’t going anywhere. Yes they’re annoying. Yes they are essentially useless. But they’re here to stay, in all their 300x250px glory. They just have to compete with what’re known as ‘Native Ads’, which, as we’ll learn, have some significant advantages.

What’s a native ad? In 197 characters or less.

Native ads are contextual paid ads that appear in your content stream, designed to augment the user experience by providing semantically relevant supporting content, without breaking the flow of information.

But placing ads in content is bad, right?

It certainly is. The typical method for injecting ads is to use interruption marketing tactics to plant banners and text ads directly into the middle of a piece of content, forcing you to look at them in order to experience the whole article. People – me included – despise these ads. They provide no contextual benefit and diminish the value of the content they appear in. You can probably blame Google for this, as most of the bad behavior seems to have been built around the mass adoption of AdSense as an advertising platform.

There’s a reason for the epidemic known as banner blindness. People never liked banners and decided unconsciously to tune them out, focusing instead on the real content on the page. If you infer the same reaction to ads placed inside your content, you can imagine how unpleasant and interrupted the content consumption experience would be.

However, done correctly, ads inside content can be effective. This is where native ads come in.

So how are native ads different?

To extend the definition of native ads a bit. You can think of them as sponsored content designed to “blur the distinction between editorial and advertising in the eyes of the consumer”, according to Pilgrim Advertising. What this means, is that despite the ads being paid for, they are placed more carefully, with a heightened level of knowledge about where and how they are being used. The result is that they appear more like ‘useful supporting content that just happens to be paid for’. Read more about native ads.

The benefits of native ads

The infographic below was created based on a study to compare differences in behavior and perception between native ads and banner ads. Using eye tracking tools and surveys, the following insights were uncovered:

• Native ads are more visually engaging: Native ads in the study were looked at 52% more frequently than banner ads.
• Native ads drive higher brand lift: They registered a 9% lift for brand affinity and an 18% lift for purchase intent, compared to banner ads.
• Native ads are more likely to be shared: 32% of respondents said they would share the ad content with a friend, compared to 19% for banner ads.
• Native ads are consumed in the same way as the content they appear in: Consumers actually registered that they looked at the native ads slightly more than the content itself.

Enjoy the rest of the data in the infographic, and be sure to tweet the facts at the end of the post.

Tweetables

Share these rad stats with your followers to show how ad-savvy you are. And don’t worry, you can change the final tweet text before it goes out. Just leave the stats intact.

• Consumers looked at native ads 52% more frequently than banner ads
  » Tweet This «
• 32% would share native ad content with a friend, compared to 19% for banner ads
  » Tweet This «
• Native ads registered 9% higher lift for brand affinity & 18% higher for purchase intent than banner ads
  » Tweet This «
• People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad
  » Tweet This «
• Native ads are consumed the same way people view editorial content
  » Tweet This «

And in case you’re wondering. The stat about the plane crash came from here.

– Oli Gardner

(Image source)

Perfect? Wouldn’t it be subjective to say what’s perfect? Nah.

From the point of view of a marketing writer of 25 years (yeah, that’d be me), a headline has one objective: inspire the reader to read the next line.

This applies to your email’s subject line or your blog post title in the biggest way. It applies to social media because it’s your headline that will most likely be shared and clicked—or not.

So Which Headline Writing Technique Works Best?

Marketing geniuses always yack on about how important it is to get right to the point. Old school ad guys Ogilvy, Bernbach and Burnett seem to have cemented a rule stating a user benefit goes in the headline.

They’d tell you the headline is often the only line people read. Get right to the point, they’d insist. Don’t bury the lead… and blahbiddy blah.

As much as I admire these pioneers, I think this advice is crap.

Verbal Foreplay Is More My Style.

Perhaps you’ve noticed. I didn’t subscribe to the benefits-first formula in this article and I seldom do with the many things I write.

I believe when the goal is to get people to tune in, the tact to take is to turn on their curiosity. But it’s not like I’ve tapped into some breakthrough new discovery in psychology and human behavior. I’m simply saying a little dose of suspense or even an anxiety inducer makes for the ultimate attention-getter.

You Have To Choose Your Words Carefully.

And if you buy into this technique, which I’ve labeled “perfect,” you’ll understand the perfect headline is a teaser. A hint. You hold out on the big idea. You work up to it.

You pose a question. Why? Good question.

It drives you crazy not to know the answer, doesn’t it? You may even get more worked up when you don’t entirely understand the question. Or the question is the answer. Or the answer is a question.

I’m messing with you a little. It’s working like a charm too. I keep stringing you along and you’re hanging in there.

I love that about you. You’re curious. Your customers are curious. I’m curious. Everyone is. So choosing your words is also about choosing which ones to leave out.

Bring On Some Psychology

This Guy.

Wouldn’t my premise be even more perfect if it was verified by a little science? I thought so and decided to tap the mind of online marketer and blogger extraordinaire, Gregory Ciotti. You know his work from contributions he makes here at the Unbounce blog.

Gregory is an expert on behavioral psychology and seems to always have a study on the science of persuasion in his back pocket. So it wasn’t surprising when Gregory recognized the approach and cited “The Information Gap Theory,” made famous by George Loewenstein, a leader in the fields of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics.

“This is one of the better research papers in my opinion that relate to marketing,” said Ciotti. “The theory claims when you spark an interest or desire that is already there—which means topicality is important— you tickle that interest and the reader attempts to close the gap by finding out the answer.”

Another explanation I found comes from a Wired.com article, “The Itch of Curiosity,” by Johan Lehrer, who writes, “According to Loewenstein, curiosity is rather simple: It comes when we feel a gap between what we know and what we want to know. This gap has emotional consequences: it feels like a mental itch, a mosquito bite on the brain. We seek out new knowledge because we that’s how we scratch the itch.”

The Nagging Effect of Dissonance

In my interview with Ciotti, he also cited the “Zeigarnik Effect,” which essentially speaks to a human desire to finish what we start. When a task is unfinished, we experience dissonance. (More on this here.)

Gregory explained, “When you give people brain buster puzzles and stuff like that and then interrupt them and tell them they must stop now, experiments have proved up 90% of the people go back to finish the test. We really do feel discomfort when we don’t know the answer to something we want to know.”

But Nothing’s Perfectly Perfect

“The problem with headlines that aim to pique curiosity is they can go wrong if the desire isn’t already there,” Gregory said. “If you do happen to ask the right question and spark an interest on a topic readers are already passionate about and ask a question they really, really want to know the answer to, then you can use that mystique to get people to pay attention.”

Did it work here?

Your curiosity got you here. So it worked on you. Those not interested in closing an information gap on writing the perfect headline are probably off scratching some other itch.

What if I wrote this?

The Perfect Headline Arouses Your Curiosity

Not bad, I guess, but you’d have gathered the gist of the article before you read it.

How about this?

Use The Information Gap Theory to Write The Perfect Headline

Risky, right? You may not be curious enough to read on if you never heard of the theory.

I’m good with the headline I wrote. It sucked you in. It itched your brain. I hope I was able to scratch it.

– Barry Feldman

The number one question we get over here at Unbounce is “How can I improve my PPC Quality Score?” Marketers constantly want to know how they can improve their Quality Score so their landing pages rank higher. If you have spent any time in paid search, you’ll know that Quality Score is a BIG deal and if you opened this post, you probably already realize how important it is. A higher Quality Score means better ad auction eligibility, a higher ad position and it gives you a better chance to play with the big fish who have deeper pockets. So here are 10 quality posts surrounding the ever-so popular PPC topic: Quality Score.

1. Better Quality Score = Better Results?

Post by Michael Wiegand on Portent

Does getting a higher Quality Score lead to a better conversion rate? Does it lead to better cost per acquisition? 1 study. 27 Adwords accounts. The answers to these questions may shock you.

2. Quality Score for 2013 – What Really Matters to Google

Post by Chris Gombeski on Trada

This year, the Google Adwords team has offered up some key, updated information that takes some of the mystery out of the Quality Score metric – which is why you should pay attention to this post. Because what matters to Google should matter to you. This short post will brief on the key Quality Score elements you should pay attention to.

3. How Account Quality Score Can Guide AdWords Optimization

Post by Frederick Vallaeys on Search Engine Land

Warning: this post is a bit technical for those of you who want to nerd out. It covers what account-level Quality Score is, why you should track account-level Quality Score, and gives you step-by-step instructions and the code needed to track your own account-level Quality Score. Basically, it covers the who, the why and the how.

4. How is AdWords Quality Score Calculated?

Post by PPC Heroes UK

If you are lost in the sea of technical posts geared toward marketers who are PPC experts and want an introductory explanation of Quality Score, this post is for you. It goes over how a quality score is calculated and gives you a beginner definition of each component.

5. Revisiting the Economics of Google Quality Score: Why QS Is Up to 200% More Valuable in 2013

Post by Larry Kim on Wordstream

Question: What’s the value of Google Quality Score in 2013? Answer: A lot. Today, a quality score of 7 is rare. In fact, this post proves that today’s 5 is yesterday’s 7. As the average Quality Score decreases, the value of an above-average score is more valuable. The law of economics in action. This is a great post that should motivate you to understand and improve your Quality Score.

6. 9 Myths of Landing Page Quality Score

Post by Brad Geddes on Certified Knowledge

Welcome to this edition of Myth Busters featuring not only 1 but 9 myths! “It’s important to separate the fact from the fiction about what affects landing page quality score, and to understand what you can do to improve your landing page.” Amen Brad. Bust those landing Page quality score myths.

7. The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords Quality Score

Post by PPC Hero

Leave it up to the folks over at PPC Hero to produce the Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords Quality Score. This post is broken up into four chapters and covers all the granular details you would ever want to know about Quality Score. The one section that caught my eye was Landing Page Quality Score (surprise surprise).

8. 5 Surprising Facts On Quality Score Change

Post by Kohki Yamaguchi on Marketing Land

Did you know that Quality Scores can rise or fall rapidly from day to day? Or that a significant shift in CTR can trigger a rapid change in Quality Score? Before I spoil all the fun, I’ll let you uncover more of these surprising facts.

9. Quality Score Insights From Microsoft’s Ping Jen

Post by John Gagnon on Search Engine Watch

Bing Ads vs. Google AdWords. Go! Quality Score is similar on both platforms, but not the same, so dive into this post to uncover the subtle differences. PS – did anyone pick up that Ping talked about Bing? #rhymetime.

10. A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Quality Score & Tactics for Improvement

Post by John Lynch on Search Engine Watch

Quality Score is one of the most misunderstood concepts in paid search. And we can attest to that as we always hear it being brought up when talking about payed performance. This post talkes about how to you can quickly diagnose Quality Score issues with a list of quick-fixes and some not-as-quick fixes and it also goes over 7 ways you can implement to optimize your quality score.

Do you have any more awesome resources that will help our readers improve their Quality Score? Feel free to share them in the comments!

– Stefanie Grieser

Too often, when marketers think of attracting new leads to their product or service, they forget one of their most powerful tools: happy customers. There is nothing more attractive to leads than seeing happy customers who already use your service or product.

76% of consumers regularly or occasionally use online reviews to determine which businesses to use according to data from Search Engine Land. Even if positive testimonials never make it to the website, they can be invaluable internally to your sales, product marketing and public relations teams. Here’s exactly how to solicit and gather even more testimonials.

1. Identify Happy Customers

Before you send a blanket request to your customer base for reviews on your website, make sure they’re happy first. The last thing you want to do is pass the microphone to customers who aren’t currently delighted with your product or service so they can broadcast their displeasure on your website. That doesn’t mean you want to ignore unhappy customers’ concerns (more on them in a bit), but the goal here is to solicit positive testimonials from people who are genuinely happy with your product or service.

But how can you segment the cheerleaders from the naysayers in your email database? Easy—just follow these steps.

Use a NPS Survey to Segment Customer Satisfaction

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) index measures customer satisfaction on a scale from 0-10 by asking how likely they are to recommend a product or service. That’s it. These scores segment customers into Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8) and Detractors (0-6). Here’s a snippet from an infographic by referral software company Ambassador to visualize NPS.

There are countless uses for NPS data, but the goal here is to identify your happiest customers or Promoters.

Ask Around Internally

Another great place to find Promoters outside of an NPS survey is to talk to customer-facing employees within your company (think sales or customer service team members). See if they have any particularly delighted customers who have recently or consistently expressed their pleasure—most tend to have a few bookmarked. Those customers are ripe for testimonials and might be more willing to contribute one if someone they already know from within the company asks them. Make it especially easy for those employees to reach out by writing out an email template to use when they encounter happy customers.

Look to Social Media

Do you have customers who are always engaging online with your content? Retweeting your blog posts and sending you love on Facebook? Or just someone who gave you a one-time shout-out for your product or service? These are the perfect people to solicit for testimonials. After all, they’re already comfortable expressing their delight online. Add these customers to your list of potential Promoters and confirm your instinct with a NPS.

2. Solicit Reviews

Now that you’ve found out who your delighted customers are, it’s time to ask them for testimonials. Here are the best practices for the solicitation phase:

Stagger Your Timing

Know what looks super suspicious? A website with a block of happy customer reviews that are all posted in the same week. From a user-perspective, it just looks fishy to have too many reviews within the same time window. Avoid this bumper crop of positive reviews and stagger the timing of your solicitation emails. Not only does this system look more organic to your users, but it encourages customer delight to be a continued part of your marketing strategy instead of a one-off effort.

Focus Your Campaign

It’s awesome when you have a customer organically tell you how happy they are in general on an online review platform. Thank them immediately! But the most effective testimonials are usually used in tandem with a specific business goal. This goal can be anything from recommending a specific product functionality, hearing from a certain marketing persona, or promoting long-time customer relationships.

That’s why it’s so important in testimonial campaigns to get specific about what you want from the customer. For example, you may have a product review page, a Google+ page and Yahoo! Review page (in fact, we’ve come up with 12 places you should be soliciting reviews). So, where should the customer focus their attention? Recommend one platform per campaign and clarify what that platform is in your email. Decide which on products or services you’re specifically requesting feedback on and single them out in your questions. If you’re looking for a specific type of testimonial, for example statistics, guide the customer with questions that would have those answers. In this case, you might ask what measurable results they have seen with your product or service.

Make It Easy

The last thing you want to do is tap into a delighted customer base, get them excited to leave reviews, then leave them frustrated about not knowing how you want them to do it. Make the review process as easy as possible for your customers by including explicit instructions on exactly how to submit the review. If you want to be extra loveable, see if you can embed the review process within the email itself with Google Forms so they don’t even have to leave the screen.

3. Follow Up

At this point, you’ve spent some blood sweat and tears getting those customer testimonials. But you’ve got them now! All done, right? Before you jet off to your next marketing project, make sure to follow up with all the people you reached out to.

Thank Reviewers

Here are some customers that are already delighted with your product or service and took the extra time out of their busy schedule to write to you about why they are so darn happy. Don’t they deserve a little love? At the very minimum, you should send a thank you email with the appropriate customizations. But don’t stop there! Use this as an opportunity to make marketing people love. Why not thank them by name or handle or feature their stories on your social media channels? Or send them a little company swag? Or offer free tickets to your next event? Remember, the companies that put the customers first are the ones people actually want to be customers of. Remind these customers exactly why they were so delighted with you in the first place and give them a reason to brag about you to all their friends.

Woo Passives

When people ask your customers what they think of your company, do you want them to say “meh”? Didn’t think so. Passives, or people who answered 7-8 on the NPS aren’t actively hating on your company, but they aren’t exactly singing your praises either. Since Passives are on the fence, it’s not too late to convert them to delighted customers. Enlist your customer services team for help in creating a nurturing campaign for Passives to bring them to the light. This campaign can start with a simple question: what could my company do to raise your NPS? You could use tactics you might use for lead nurturing, or the process of wooing qualified leads when they aren’t ready to buy yet. Since Passives are customers who aren’t ready to promote your services yet, the principles are pretty similar. For example, one lead nurturing tactic that translates is sending targeted content about the areas the customer might be having the most trouble in.

Win Over Detractors

Remember how I said not to ignore those people who answered 0-6 on the NPS survey? I meant it! These are customers who would not recommend your product or service if they were asked. Ouch. Good thing you segmented them—these guys are obviously in need of some TLC. Enlist your customer service team to strategize the best way to reach these people. If you don’t have a customer service team, strategize with some of your customer-facing employees–winning over detractors will probably involve direct outreach. If the customer complains publically, here are some tips to de-escalate social media complaints.

Sharing great customer stories should be just as important to your marketing strategy as generating new content. If you’re still hungry for more information on testimonials, here’s a post on accumulating positive online reviews for inspiration.

– Lindsey Kirchoff

We are living in an age where capturing attention has become a rare – and powerful – commodity. Information left on its own tends to lack organization, which is why designing a landing page that efficiently and calmly directs attention to important content is crucial. Think of it as being lost in a jungle: in order to clear a path to safety, you need to pull out a machete and start hacking.

Instead of a webpage that confuses users by displaying everything at once, an attention-driven landing page design carves an instant visual path, directing them to 3 essential pieces of information.

At EyeQuant, we call these the 3W’s:

1. What the page is about (your offer)
2. Why it is important (your value proposition)
3. Where a user should go next (your Call-to-Action)

Considerable scientific research has been conducted in recent years in order to precisely identify how visual attention is deployed and directed, and what designers can do to best direct a user through the conversion process on a website. EyeQuant built an artificial intelligence based on this research that predicts what changes need to be made to guide a user’s gaze to the 3W’s, and also brings a common language to design meetings, where everyone has an opinion.

In this blog post, we’ll draw on recent scientific research to introduce attention-driven design as an essential strategy for maintaining a balance between branding and content, with a good dose of helpful hints along the way.

The Office Analogy

Imagine this situation: A co-worker has asked you to find a document in their office while they’re out of town. You open the door to her office, fumble around for a lightswitch (which is hidden behind a coat-rack), and sigh in frustration: There are piles of paper everywhere, photographs and posters hang all over the brightly coloured walls, and knick-knacks cover any remaining surfaces.

There’s so much visual information to deal with that you have to find a place to sit for a moment to figure out where to start looking. Finally, after combing over the same spot for a few minutes, you spot the document – right in front of your eyes the entire time.

What is Visual Clutter?

Would it have been easier to find that important document if the office had been less chaotic?

‘Visual noise’ is a another way of describing ‘clutter’. Just like in a messy office, clutter/visual noise is toxic to a landing page’s usability.

Visual noise tends to come in two forms:

1. Decoration: In an office, brightly-painted walls, plants, pictures, and mementos function as decoration, while on a landing page, decoration tends to come by way of branding, with logos, mascots, trust seals, and images.
2. ‘Stuff’: Handwritten notes, stacks of magazines, and empty coffee cups make up the endless array of ‘stuff’ we tend to amass, but on a landing page, ‘stuff’ is akin to secondary offers, parallel ad campaigns, unrelated images, and design gimmicks.

A high-converting, user-friendly website doesn’t need to be uber minimal, though; branding is essential to a landing page’s performance. This includes putting users at ease, communicating to target audiences, and building a bridge between a brand’s offline and online personality. All the same, branding should never take center stage and crowd out the 3W’s.

How can you make sure that your brand identity isn’t distracting from your value proposition and call to action?

By implementing sound data on the science of attention into your workflow, that’s how.

Recent research at MIT suggests that a cluttered environment not only wreaks havoc on a landing page’s navigability but also on the user’s ability to recognize the 3W’s. According to the research, “Excess and/or disorganized display items can cause crowding, masking, decreased object recognition performance due to occlusion, and impaired visual search performance”.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that too much ‘variability’ in color, size, and texture creates a particularly cluttered environment: Constantly fluctuating colors and sizes create an atmosphere of unpredictability, confusing a user’s attention and ultimately driving them away.

Researchers at Caltech (and EyeQuant scientific board members) came to a similar conclusion with a study about brand awareness and consumer choices: In situations where a consumer is multi-tasking or under time constraints, researchers found that consumers are more likely to choose a brand that visually ‘pops out’ over one they would otherwise choose in terms of personal preference. Essentially, what you see is what you buy.

To better illustrate what this research suggests, let’s take a look at a few creative agency landing pages, with EyeQuant heat maps that illustrate their distribution of user attention:

• Goodby Silverstein’s client work is crammed onto their page in no particular order, creating an objectiveless visual path for the user as seen in the attention heatmap. The navigation bar at the top of the page is the only way out of this visual maelstrom, but the type is too small to read, and garners little notice.

• MCC’s page seems less chaotic than Goodby Silverstein’s, but its color-coded organizational model is in fact arbitrary, and its varying type sizes are confusing. Take a look at the attention map: With no clear Call-to-Action or value proposition, the user flits all over the page with no real path guiding them to what they need to know.

Tips:

• Keep your landing page like you keep your office space: Organize content in terms of relevance with precise, intuitive categories – while making sure that the most important content (the 3W’s) stays close-at-hand at all times.
• Avoid variation in size, color, and texture. Think about predictability and consistency when organizing the information on your site; too much variability in your design is confusing for the user. Vibrant and bold color, size, and texture should be reserved for your 3W’s – everything else should be muted and uniform.
• Make sure that your 3W’s steal the spotlight by keeping branding to a minimum. Users aren’t coming to you to watch your latest ad, they just want to figure out what you do.

How to Turn a Design Meeting into a Picnic in the Park

Even with scientific data on your side, convincing your clients, your boss, and your team that attention-driven design is the right direction can be difficult: everyone has their own ideas.

In a study from 2006, researchers at the University of Copenhagen demonstrated that even a seasoned designer’s instincts can be fallible: During an eye-tracking study, designers could only predict about 46% of the elements users had seen on a webpage, while users themselves could only remember 70% of what they actually saw.

During a website’s redesign, making educated guesses is commonplace but often masks subjective bias – branding, creative, and analytics professionals all want to see their individual goals realized, sometimes at the expense of their colleagues’ own interests. As a result, many companies only begin testing a design once it has gone live. This strategy isn’t only counter-productive, it also wastes time and money, which is why objective, predictive insight is essential.

A study by MIT researchers suggests that a data-driven predictive tool is essential to creating an atmosphere of collaboration because it creates a common language across different fields. Simply put, when design intuition melds with data, intuition remains with the user, not in the design meeting.

Tips:

• Introduce a new member to your team: Her name is objective, scientific data.
• Pre-test, pre-test, pre-test: Before changes to your website go live, pre-test how well your 3W’s will stand out against the more decorative aspects of your landing page using EyeQuant.

You know yourself (and your clients’ needs): You’ve spent hours pouring over a landing page, you know everything there is to know about what it does and how it works. Unfortunately, 99% of the rest of the world don’t. This is why it’s important to keep the most important elements on your page unfettered by clutter and easy to see, so that when a user arrives at your page, they know (almost) as much as you do, why they should care, and how they can join in on what you have to offer.

So, how can you get started down the path to attention-driven landing page design? Not to worry, we’ve mapped out these steps for you:

• Start with a free EyeQuant test.
• Check for the 3W’s on your page – is this what your visitor sees first?
• Move stuff around, try things out, and conduct experiments using Unbounce to re-arrange and play with color and contrast!
• Compare your design tweaks using EyeQuant. Looking good? Implement with Unbounce, A/B test, rinse, repeat – and profit!
• Take your proposed changes and ideas to your next design meeting with a big smile on your face; you have neuroscience and artificial intelligence on your side.

– Bitsy Knox

• I have no idea what to test, so now I don’t bother
• Our visitors are leaving our website without doing anything
• We blew through our AdWords budget in a day!
• Our market has dried up…

I’ll pause there before early onset MFD (Marketing Fail Disorder) sets in. But if these resonate with you, your marketing is failing, and you’re wasting money that could be working for you instead of against you.

Read on for 10 marketing problems, each with a solution about how to fix them by leveraging the principles of conversion rate optimization, testing, and of course, landing pages.

1. The HiPPOs Are Running the Asylum

I’m not talking about the kind you’d see on an African safari. Rather, the suits in your company, who could be stakeholders, your boss, or senior management. The term HiPPO refers to the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion, where decisions are based on conjecture or “experience” and are handed down to you to implement without any evidence of their true value.

Back when testing wasn’t an easy process, you’d have to suck it up and run with these ideas, but now (thanks to the advent of many inexpensive A/B testing tools) you can diplomatically reply to such a request with, “I have an idea too – why don’t we test them?”

If you win the test, you’ll be afforded more leeway in the future while educating the HiPPO’s about the value of scientific experimentation & testing vs. random ideas. You’ll also start making more money for the company, which any smart HiPPO would be a fool to argue with.

Just remember though, if you dare to engage a HiPPO without testing, you run the risk of becoming yet another PWTMSMEBNE in the room (Person With The Most Subject Matter Expertise But No Evidence, obviously).

Stop listening to HiPPO’s, stop the assumptions, and start testing.

2. Our Visitors Are Leaking

Sounds like a strange statement to make. Actually, here the term “leak” refers to a “link” that moves your visitors away from a page and your intended conversion goal.

But really, who’s fault is it? My guess is that you’re sending your marketing traffic right to your homepage. Thought so. This is a classic rookie mistake that even seasoned marketing vets still make. Consider the fact that your homepage probably has between 30-60 links, and who knows how many products.

Are you really surprised that your visitors are wandering around like lost sheep? We all know that sheep need a herder. Someone to guide them to their final destination. That’s your job.

One visitor, one goal, no wandering around. That means no leaks.

So how do you plug the holes and stop the leaks? Congrats if you replied “with a landing page” in your head.

Fixing the leaks with landing pages

How do landing pages solve your leakage problems? By sending your marketing traffic to a targeted landing page you’ll reap many benefits including:

• A page designed specifically with one objective in mind, to attract clicks on the CTA that represents your conversion goal
• A message tightly matched to the ad clicked to get there
• A controlled environment that allows for optimization and accurate analytical measurement

3. AdWords Broke my Credit Card

AdWords (or any other pay-per-click platform) is probably the easiest way to blow your paycheck if you don’t know what you’re doing.

There are so many moving parts to a paid ad campaign that you may as well be playing Roulette in Vegas. The ad copy, CTA, destination page, keywords you are bidding on, competing companies bidding on the same keywords etc. – means it’s easy to get it wrong when starting out.

If you want to gain an advantage you need to follow a few key principles:

• Message match for Quality Score: One of the biggest factors in how much your ads cost is the quality score attributed to each ad. This is dependent on several things, one of which being the destination page, and how closely the content matches that of your ads. The easiest way to get a low quality score for a variety of ads is to send them all to your homepage. Not only can there be multiple messages on your homepage, but if you’re targeting different keywords, there’s no way they will all correlate to the content of your homepage. By using a landing page for each ad group, you can match the message of your ad more easily and as a result get a higher Quality Score.
• Message match for higher conversions: There’s also a human factor to consider when it comes to message match. If you read an ad that said “We sell blue apples” and arrived at a page with a headline that said “Welcome to the red apple store”, you’d think you were in the wrong place and leave. A landing page designed specifically for your ad will prevent the high bounce rate associated with this message mismatch.
• Privacy policies for lead gen: If you are doing lead gen and have a form on your landing page, you need to add a privacy policy link to tell Google (and your visitors) that you are trustworthy. Not having a privacy policy can seriously impact your Quality Score and drive up the cost of your ads – never mind the fact that they probably won’t get shown as better quality ads/pages will trump you in the search results. Finally, place the privacy policy link right next to the email form field to give it an extra trust factor.

Again landing pages are the secret weapon that will help you keep both the ad bots and humans happy, and your ad costs and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) lower.

4. Nobody Clicks Our Email Links

Are you telling a big long story in your emails? Paragraph after paragraph about how awesome you are? If people aren’t clicking on your email CTAs it’s probably because they sit at the end of an experience that’s perceived as too much work. People then give up reading and delete your email instead.

There’s a better way to do email marketing, by shortening your emails into succinct and concise messages with a strong call to action.

How to Shorten Your Emails Without Losing the Details

Your email should be a teaser and nothing more. It’s singular goal is to intrigue your recipients enough to get them to click through to your landing page, which is where you place the full details of your marketing campaign. Your landing page is a much more effective place to do the selling after you’ve captured people’s attention. The reason for this is that you’ve got as much space as you need to tell your story.

If you need to showcase your product/service using video, a landing page is the perfect place to do this – again removing the need for a lot of written content in your email.

Shorten your next email and see how your click-through rate improves.

5. I Don’t Know What to Test, So My Tests Don’t Work. Now I Don’t Test.

This is one of the most common problems in conversion optimization, knowing that you should be testing, but not knowing where, what, why and how you should be doing it. I’ll answer each of these questions in the order you should be doing it as part of your testing and optimization process:

Where

You want to start with the most high profile pages on your site. These will depend on your business, but will typically include your:

• Homepage
• Pricing page
• Landing pages that you are using for inbound advertising traffic
• And other high traffic pages (check your analytics)

What

There are some fundamental anatomical elements that are common to most pages, and these are most often what you’ll be testing.

• The core value proposition of the page, usually presented in the form of the page headline and sub-header
• Your call-to-action design (contrast, use of whitespace, size, location) and copy
• Form length, design and position
• Amount of and readability of the page copy (chunk it and use bullets for improved scanning)

Why

A big mistake is when people just try to test something without a real purpose, or a clear understanding of why they are testing. This is where your test hypothesis comes in. A hypothesis is a statement of what you are going to test and your theory behind why it will be a success (and any success criteria you can include). An example hypothesis would read something like this:

“The page does not have a clear call-to-action, and prospects spend too long trying to understand what to do next. Adding a large orange button right under the main benefits will help prospects identify the CTA and get more of them to perform the desired action.”

Once you have a hypothesis you are in a better position to make changes to a test page to compete against your original page in a conversion experiment.

How

Now that you’re ready to run a test, you need to follow a few basic rules to ensure that your experiment is a clean and uncontaminated one.

• Each page in your test – most commonly the original page and one “challenger” used in the A/B test, should receive at least 100 unique visitors and often as much as 500 or more depending on how drastic the changes increase (or decrease) conversions.
• Your test should run for at least a week to account for variances in time of day and different daily behaviors (weekends are often very different to weekdays).
• The statistical significance of the experiment should be over 95%. This is a number that is calculated by the testing software you are using to determine when the results you are seeing are for reasons other than chance alone.

That was a brief intro to A/B testing, but is enough of a framework to stop you complaining that you don’t know what or how to test.

6. My landing Pages Don’t Convert and I Don’t Know Why

The best way to find out why your landing pages aren’t working is to ask. Ask your visitors and customers. Ask whoever is viewing your landing page and ignoring your wishes. The best way to do this is to add a live chat or survey widget to your page.

The information you get from your visitors at the point of conversion can be invaluable in figuring out why they didn’t convert and what to test to improve your landing pages – think of it as if they’re shopping at the Apple store and aren’t quite sure of the benefits of an iMac over a PC. Having someone right there to answer your questions (like live chat) can be the tipping point that encourages a sale.

Once you get feedback from talking to your visitors or asking them survey questions, you are in a much stronger position to create a hypothesis for a successful page. Which comes full circle back to my last point about what to test.

If you want to read more about how to gather and put user feedback into action, read part 4 (or the whole thing) from this case study.

7. Our Blog Doesn’t Drive Many Signups

There are three main points to consider here:

• Your blog is a great source of inbound marketing, and should be considered a powerful tool in establishing your subject matter expertise and thought leadership. This is a critical platform on which to build the trust required to make people believe in you. If they respect your stance on a subject they will also believe that that you know what you’re talking about when it comes to building your product/service.
• Asking your blog readers to register for your blog update emails enables you to leverage the email list by sending more excellent content to them in the future – such as ebooks, whitepapers and case studies. These documents can have subtle calls-to-action in them to turn a reader into a customer – providing an extra acquisition path.
• You can also add a CTA to your blog (in the sidebar or at the end of each post) which will provide a small trickle of new customers. A good strategy for CTA design is to make them relevant to the category of the blog the reader is in. An example being, if they are in an A/B testing category, you would design your banner with a CTA like “Learn more about A/B testing”. This should lead to a landing page with content related to the subject and how your product provides the solution.

So yes, you should keep your blog, and set it up so that it is monetized using these three approaches. And don’t forget – the bigger and better your blog becomes, the wider the reach it will have and the simpler the next point will be.

8. Our Market Has Dried Up

This is a prime time to begin co-marketing with companies that have customers with similar needs as your own. By getting your name in front of a new set of eyes, you can rapidly grow the size your target market. To run a successful co-marketing strategy you need to start by laying the foundation for a smart relationship, and then establish contact with a clear set of possibilities laid out for each partner to do in order to get your/their name in front of each others customers.

Some examples of co-marketing tactics are:

• Sending an email to each others customer list to recommend the other company’s product, and explaining how they work together to provide extra benefit and value.
• Writing guest posts for each other’s blog that shares your subject matter expertise with their readership, while staying on topic with the content of each blog.
• Adding a logo and possibly partner description to each other’s website.
• Exposure to social networks.
• Co-promotion in contests and with special offers.
• Joint webinars.

Once you have an established authority in your market, you can set up a landing page for people interested in creating a partnership. A good strategy is then to have an email autoresponder set up, so that when the prospective partner completes your partnership request form, they will receive the email outlining that a reciprocal use of the prior examples would be how you’d like to move forward (if they are deemed to be a suitable partner).

9. Our Visitors Are Coming for Dinner But Not Eating

In other words, people are visiting your website, but not converting into customers. This could be a messaging problem which you can use an A/B testing tool to optimize, or it could be that your site is designed in such a way that visitors are getting lost or not finding the important information on your pages and as a result, bouncing from the site.

To see what they are doing on your pages, you can use heat map software like CrazyEgg to discover the most often clicked areas of your core pages, and adjust the layout to place the most important elements in the areas with the highest focus.

In the example below, you can see that visitor is jumping all around the page, and ignoring the call-to-action. It’s fairly easy to theorize that the reason for this is that the CTA doesn’t stand out from other page elements (especially contrast and color wise).

A lot of people say that button color is irrelevant, but this a complete falsehood when color contrast is the problem. Yes red might not perform better than green under ideal circumstances, but if the page is dominantly green, then a red button will stand out a lot more than a green one.

If you see something like this, you can improve the placement, contrast, size and whitespace use of your CTAs. If you see people spending a lot of time looking at the navigation or other “leaks” then you know they are confused and are seeking information elsewhere than the current page. Again, if you use a focused and targeted landing page, you can remove the potential for a lot of eye wandering and homepage A.D.D.

10. Nobody Downloads Our Content

You’ve spent the time to write an authoritative ebook or whitepaper, you’ve designed a great landing page to give it away in exchange for personal and business data. You’ve sent your entire email list to the page and shared it on your social networks. And yet, you are getting virtually no new leads from the page as nobody is completing your form to get the ebook.

It’s actually fairly easy to fix this problem. Here are three approaches to building a more effective ebook landing page.

Have a preview

Amazon pretty much invented this concept with their “Take a look inside” feature that lets you read part of the book and check out the contents. Most people are psychologically hard-wired with a sceptical “Try before you buy” mentality (think about how many people steal a grape before buying them! Yes I’m talking about you… and me). If your content is worth providing personal info for, then you should make it fair by showing off how good it is in advance.

To do this, take a portion of your ebook (a chapter for example), and make it available without barrier in one of the following formats:

1. A short PDF document that people can download and read to gauge the quality of your work.
2. An embedded SlideShare presentation that walks through a series of slides constructed using ebook content.

Can I say #guaranteedconversionlift?

Reduce friction

Friction is the perceived barrier to achieving a given task – in this case filling out your form. The trick here is to balance the level of friction with the “size of the prize” so that you’re offering a fair exchange. Essentially the better your ebook is, the more you ask in return. Just make sure it’s relevant data you’re collecting. Most people won’t part with their phone number to download a PDF, nor should they.

Add a viral traffic feedback mechanism

If you read the case study in part 6, you’ll be familiar with the viral feedback loop that you can use to fuel a continuous stream of traffic to your ebook download landing page. Essentially, you let people get your ebook in exchange for a tweet instead of an email. The tweet contains a link back to your ebook landing page, perpetuating the lifespan of your campaign. For best results, offer both options (PayWithATweet and exchange for an email).

If you have any thoughts or suggestions about how to fix these problems, please share in the comments. I’ll see you there.

– Oli Gardner

In 2009 I was introduced to the concept of having a dedicated landing page for each PPC ad. I saw first hand how conversion rates soar when this simple process is put into place and knew I would be an advocate for rest the rest of my professional life.

At the time conversion rate optimization was still in its infancy. The first ever Conversion Conference was held in 2010 and I was there (on behalf of my employer at the time).

Just three years later, here we are, living in a world where almost all of the major companies like Dell, General Mills and DHL understand the necessity of using dedicated landing pages.

This understanding is trickling down into small businesses as well, where smart marketers are using software, like Unbounce, to create and test dedicated landing pages.

Unfortunately, it seems that many organizations think this necessity begins and ends with Google AdWords. There seems to be a notion that Facebook ads are somehow different and dedicated landing pages aren’t necessary.

When it comes to creating dedicated landing pages we know there are a couple of best practices that set the standard for lifting conversion rates, whether it’s a PPC campaign or a Facebook advertisement.

Message match (headline and offer):

Message match means simply ensuring that ad copy is clearly reflected on the landing page. This usually means the ad headline and landing page headline match up. Additionally the offer from the ad and the one being made on the landing page must match up.

For example, if your ad reads “get 20% off your next purchase” the landing page should also say, “get 20% off your next purchase” and not “get 15% off your next purchase.”

Message match creates relevancy for your visitor and lets them know they are the right place.

Image match:

Image match is an extension of message match. When it comes to Facebook ads, banner ads or any other medium that allows images, the landing page should contain the same image used in the ad.

Just like with headline and offer matches, image match tells the user that he’s in the right place.

Big call to action that’s above the fold:

Having a big call-to-action that is above the fold is pretty self-explanatory. In almost all cases you don’t want to force the visitor to hunt for the conversion. It should be big, bold and visible without needing to scroll down the page.

Let the Facebook Landing Page Critiques Begin

I recently clicked through four Facebook ads that piqued my interest and was disappointed by the pages I landed on. They aren’t terrible, but there is always room for improvement.

In the first three examples, the landing pages are actually custom tabs that keep the visitor within Facebook. In the fourth example, the brand takes the visitor to a landing page outside of Facebook.

Walden University: Ph.D. in Psychology

What I Like:

• Nice design
• Big call-to-action
• Focused
• Keeps viewer on Facebook

I really like the design of this landing page a lot – it’s focused and has a big call-to-action. I also love how the custom tab on Walden’s Facebook page is designed to look exactly like a regular landing page. Kudos to Walden for that!

What I Don’t Like:

• No headline match
• Benefit from ad is not clear on landing page
• No image match

If you look at the ad you see the headline reads, “Ph.D. in Psychology” but the landing page makes no mention about a Ph.D. program. Instead it references “a degree” which could be anything – a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree or even an associate’s degree!

As anyone who has ever researched Ph.D. programs knows, your questions and interests vary widely from someone who is looking at a bachelor program. You aren’t so much interested in financial aid options as you are in research concentrations and noteworthy professors you might get to work with.

I would highly suggest to Walden that they create custom landing pages for each degree level to better cater to the needs of students at those levels.

Additionally the ad mentions an “online degree program” but nowhere on the landing page do I see the word “online degree” or “online classes.” If the mention of an online program is what got me to click, that is a feature I need to see highlighted right away.

Finally, there is certainly no image match between the ad and the landing page.

SustainableTrip.org: Eco Friendly Travel

What I Like:

• Design and images fit well with the brand
• Keeps viewers on Facebook

What I Don’t Like:

• No headline match
• Call-to-action doesn’t stand out
• No directional cues to guide the eye

The goal of this Facebook ad and corresponding landing page is to generate more “likes” for the page.

When I click the ad headline I am taken to a page that says, “Be a Sustainable Traveler!” The ad had mentioned being “eco-friendly” but the landing page headline says “sustainable.” Yes, these two words can be interchangeable, but why not create cohesion by using the same word in both?

You could interject and say it’s possible SustainableTrip.org is a/b testing their ads by creating one version that says “Eco-Friendly Travel” and one that says “Sustainable Travel” and if this is the case I would argue that they should have two separate landing pages – each with headlines that match the ad. Without doing so they are not getting true results.

Additionally, the call-to-action “Like us to explore exciting destinations…” doesn’t really stand out from the rest of the landing page. I would probably add a directional cue (such as an arrow) that points towards the “like” button up top and also experiment with making the CTA a different color so that it stands out better.

DreamPlanGo: Win a Trip to Bora Bora

What I like:

• Compelling headline
• Image match between ad and landing page
• Clear call-to-action
• Nice directional cue

I love this ad for a lot of reasons: really compelling headline, great visual, and clear call to action in the body copy. I just wish the landing page was a little more tailored to the ad. I love that the there is image match between the ad and landing page – 10 points for that! I also really like their use a directional cue that guides the eye to the “like” button at the top.

What I Don’t Like:

• No headline match
• “Like” barrier to entry will reduce form fill conversions

The ad headline reads, “WIN a Trip to BORA BORA” while the landing page says, “BORA BORA TRIP OF A LIFETIME SWEEPSTAKES.” A simple change here so that the ad and landing page headlines are the same could improve conversions.

Additionally, if this is a lead generation campaign for DreamPlanGo, I would remove the “like” barrier to entry. If the goal is to get as many people to fill out the entry form behind the fan gate, so remove the fan gate altogether. You can always earn that Facebook “like” later on down the road. However, if the goal of this campaign is simply to generate more “likes” than the fan gate makes sense.

UF: Master’s in Communication

What I Like:

• Important facts in bulleted list format
• Call-to-action is above the fold
• Good social proof
• No leaky navigation

At first glance this landing page isn’t bad at all. I see important facts being pointed out in a bulleted list, the call-to-action is above the fold and stands out, I see social proof and there’s no leaky navigation.

What I Don’t Like:

• Ad headline isn’t reflected on the landing page
• Major benefit pointed out in ad is hidden on the landing page
• No image match between ad and landing page

First of all, the ad headline reads, “Master’s in Communication” but the headline on this landing page doesn’t match.

The body copy of the ad highlights that you can graduate in as few as 18 months, but on the landing page it’s mentioned all the way near the bottom. Additionally, the image used in the ad isn’t close to any of the images used on the landing page.

Having successfully completed Facebook ad campaigns for a different state university, I can say first-hand that headline and image match are very important when dealing with college-aged young adults who are bombarded with ads from different universities.

Facebook Ad Dollars Aren’t Monopoly Money

When you purchase ads on Facebook you are spending real money, not monopoly money. This means you should be just as serious about getting a return on your investment as any other advertising channel. Dedicated landing pages will help you get there!

– Kristina Allen

Last year, we compiled 75 Marketing Blogs that covered conversion, content, email, paid search, SEO, analytics, blogging, and social media marketing. Of course, there are many more awesome blogs out there. So today, we’re going to expand that list and add 75 MORE must read blogs for you to consume that cover marketing and business inspiration!

All-in-One Marketing Blogs

Now this is all-in-one. And so are these blogs.

1. Econsultancy Digital Marketing Blog (RSS) – Latest digital marketing and ecommerce insight, analysis and opinion from multi-award-winning team of analysts and experts. Read the blog and search press releases.
2. Unmarketing (RSS) – UnMarketing by Scott Stratten is for those that believe business is built on relationships.
3. Heidi Cohen (RSS) – Heidi Cohen’s blog provides marketing related insights, grounded in digital, direct and social media marketing; served with a creative twist simplifies the complex concepts behind today’s evolving business challenges into an easy-to-understand format that facilitates readers’ grasp of new topics.
4. GetElastic (RSS) – #1 Subscribed Ecommerce Blog. Get Elastic blog is meant to share ecommerce best practices and better ways to manage the digital relationships. It covers mobile, search, social, and multichannel marketing.
5. Adobe Digital Marketing Blog (RSS) – Covers advertising, analytics, social media, targeting, mobile, and more.
6. Chris Ducker (RSS) – Chris Ducker helps entrepreneurs catapult their small business into the 21st century by utilizing ‘New Business’ marketing strategies such as blogging, online video, podcasting, outsourcing, social media and more!
7. WebProNews (RSS) – Breaking news in tech, search, and social media.
8. Marketo (RSS) – Catch the latest trends and proven best practices in modern B2B marketing on the Marketo blog.
9. B2B Marketing Insider (RSS) – B2B Marketing Insider by Michael Brenner discusses the latest on social business, content marketing, and more.
10. Business 2 Community (RSS) – An inside look at business news and trends focusing on Marketing, Strategy, Leadership, Branding, Public Relations, Technology, Social Media, Mobility, Media and Entertainment.
11. Digital Marketer (RSS) – Covers search, social, mobile, conversion, traffic, and ecommerce.

Analytics

Someone subscribe this girl to some analytics blogs. Stat.

12. Occam’s Razor (RSS) – Avinash Kaushik is the author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. He is also the Co-Founder of Market Motive and the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google. On this blog he presents ideas to empower companies to make evolutionary leaps in their digital strategies.
13. Eugen Oprea (RSS) – EugenOprea.com provides Web Analytics, WordPress, SEO and technology advice in general to help people build a remarkable presence online.
14. Annielytics (RSS) – This blog provides marketers with bite-size tips, strategies, tricks, and warnings in the pursuit of gathering and visualizing data.
15. Analytics Talk (RSS) – Digital analytics for businesses by Justin Cutroni.

Blogging

You know your addicted to blogging when…

16. BlogTyrant (RSS) – Blogging and online marketing advice.
17. Boost Blog Traffic (RSS) – Jon Morrow of Copyblogger teaches you how to get more readers, build your email list, become an authority in your niche — everything you need to get the attention you deserve.
18. The Sales Lion (RSS) – Inbound and content marketing, social media, and branding success for businesses by Marcus Sheridan.
19. Social Triggers (RSS) – Learn how to turn traffic into subscribers, persuade people to buy your products, and encourage people to share your content.
20. Sparring Mind (RSS) – Sparring Mind is a behavioral psychology blog that focuses on improving creative work and productive output.
21. Daily Blog Tips (RSS) – Everything you need to know about blogging, Internet marketing, promotion, and more.
22. Traffic Generation Cafe (RSS) – Want to increase website traffic? Join the cafe. No, really. Find current, tested, proven to work web traffic advice.
23. Become a Blogger (RSS) – An online community with the mission of helping as many people as possible, set up Authority Blogs and build successful businesses around their blogs.
24. Blogging with Amy (RSS) – Helping non-techy people start their own blogs or websites.
25. Kikolani (RSS) – Shameless plugin, I now, but Kikolani offers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers. Other topics include SEO and social media marketing.

Content & Copywriting

Genius

26. ContentVerve (RSS) – All about content, copy, and conversion.
27. Copypressed (RSS) – Building brands one word at a time. Get quality content that helps drive SEO, conversions, revenue, and more!
28. The Copybot (RSS) – Essential web writing advice from the chief copywriter for Copyblogger, Demian Farnworth.
29. SEO Copywriting (RSS) – How can SEO copywriting help your business? Discover actionable SEO copywriting tips, social media writing advice and strategies for creating great web copy.
30. The Content Strategist (RSS) – The Content Strategist delivers daily insight into content trends and digital publishing best practices for media companies and marketers alike.

Video

Here’s a bonus blog:
Vidyard Video Marketing Blog (RSS) – Thought leadership, best practices, how-to’s, and analytics to help drive the ROI on your video content.

Conversion Rate Optimization

If you feel like this guy when it comes to conversion, subscribe here

31. Bryan Eisenberg (RSS) – Bryan Eisenberg is the recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing, improving online conversion rates, persuasive content, and persona marketing.
32. Monetate Blog (RSS) – Expert advice and commentary on big data, analytics, segmentation, personalization, merchandising, website testing, marketing consistency, and more.
33. ConversionXL (RSS) – Radically increase your conversion rate, one element at a time. Advice, tools, case studies and a library of actions you can take now. Run by Peep Laja.
34. Conversion Rate Experts (RSS) – Find out why the likes of Apple, Sony and Google turn to us when they need help increasing their website conversion rate.
35. Online Behavior (RSS) – Covers targeting & segmentation, website testing & usability, and web analytics & optimization.
36. Invesp (RSS) – Read the Invesp blog: Your source for the latest information on conversion rate optimization.
37. Conversion Scientist (RSS) – To be successful, a Web site must convert traffic to leads and sales. To convert, a Web site must know who is coming and why they are there. The Conversion Scientist applies analytics, content, personas, layout, social media, marketing strategies and more to help make your Web site successful.
38. Conversion Voodoo (RSS) – Covers conversion strategies, testing, landing page optimization, and mobile.
39. Proimpact7 (RSS) – Conversion and analytics blog.
40. User Testing (RSS) – Covers conversion tips for content, marketing, navigation, mobile, and more.

Email Marketing

If you’re in the same boat as my grandma above, it’s time you brush up on your email marketing with these blogs

41. GetResponse (RSS) – Email marketing tips blog.
42. Bronto (RSS) – Email, mobile, and social marketing insights from Bronto Software’s team of marketing strategists.
43. Deliverability (RSS) – Covers authentication, deliverability, reputation, and other email marketing topics.
44. Retail Email (RSS) – The Retail Email Blog is your daily guide to what’s going on in the world of retail email marketing—as well as a powerful archive of creatives and tactics.
45. Be Relevant! Email Marketing Blog (RSS) – I read so you don’t have to – don’t have time to follow email marketing trends and best practices? Consider this blog to be your email marketing content curator.

Interviews

King of the Jungle. King of all interview blogs.

46. Entrepreneur on Fire (RSS) – EntrepreneurOnFire is a business podcast that interviews today’s most inspiring and successful Entrepreneurs 5-days a week. Past guests include Barbara Corcoran, Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and many others.
47. Blogcast FM (RSS) – BLOGCAST FM is the most prolific resource of interviews from successful and nationally known business owners, bloggers, online entrepreneurs, and published authors.

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

Insert witty caption here

48. Blind Five Year Old (RSS) – Blind Five Year Old is a San Francisco SEO and Internet Marketing consultancy and blog by AJ Kohn.
49. Internet Marketing Ninjas (RSS) – The latest SEO Industry news, notes, and chat.
50. ViperChill (RSS) – ViperChill is a blog authored by Glen Allsopp which covers viral marketing, search engine optimization, and blogging advice.
51. CognitiveSEO (RSS) – Learn how to benchmark and outrank your competitors with search and social media advice.
52. SEO.com (RSS) – SEO.com discusses the latest SEO news, topics and events. SEO is always changing and evolving. To stay on top, you need to stay current. Join the discussion at SEO.com!
53. Matthew Woodward (RSS) – Matthew Woodward publishes high quality internet marketing and SEO tutorials. Learn over the shoulder of an established expert.
54. Distilled (RSS) – Covers mostly SEO along with other mobile, marketing, and social topics.
55. David Mihm (RSS) – Local SEO strategies, tactics, and musings. Not updated often, but great local marketing posts when it is.
56. Kaiser the Sage (RSS) – Journal of creative and scalable SEO, content marketing, social media and link development strategies based on ethical principles.
57. PointBlank SEO (RSS) – Empowering ordinary marketers to build extraordinary links.
58. Portent (RSS) – The Portent Interactive blog covers Internet marketing, SEO, PPC and random silliness.
59. Trada Blog (RSS) – Learn more about the tricks of the trade, some of our community members and even some tips on how to run your own PPC campaigns all in one place.
60. Digital Inspiration (RSS) – Digital Inspiration is a popular how-to website that covers computer software, mobile apps, video tutorials and useful websites by Amit Agarwal.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media that. #likeaboss.

61. Danny Brown (RSS) – Danny Brown is a multiple award-winning marketer and blogger. His blog is recognized as one of the leading marketing blogs in the world.
62. Amy Porterfield (RSS) – Amy Portferfield is a social media strategist and trainer as well as the co-author of the Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies.
63. SocialMouths (RSS) – Kick-ass social media advice for the real entrepreneur.
64. HyperArts (RSS) – HyperArts blog covers Facebook, SEO, social media, web design, and WordPress.
65. Pam Marketing Nut (RSS) – Social media tips, best practices, training and tools for small business, medium business, large business from Pam Moore, Pam Marketing Nut.
66. Andrea Vahl (RSS) – Learn how to use Facebook and social media for your business.
67. Social Blogging Tracker (RSS) – Comprehensive social media guide to optimize social networking and branding.
68. Razor Social (RSS) – Razorsocial is the best resource on the web for free information on social media tools and technology.
69. Jon Loomer (RSS) – Jon Loomer uses his blog to provide daily tips and breaking news to make you a better Facebook marketer and blogger.
70. Jeff Bullas (RSS) – Helping business and personal brands with digital social media marketing including social media with blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and search engine optimization
71. 60 Second Marketer (RSS) – The 60 Second Marketer is an online community that provided tools, tips and tutorials for marketers around the globe. It was founded by Jamie Turner, co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile.”
72. Boom Social (RSS) – The core of our publicity and marketing strategies are based on age-old principals, carried out through modern day social media tools.
73. The Buffer Blog (RSS) – A blog about social media, productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business.

Website Optimization

Don’t get left behind in the times. Read these web technology blogs.

74. Royal Pingdom (RSS) – Ramblings and musings about web tech and the Internet in general from the team at Pingdom.
75. Rich Page Website Optimizer (RSS) – Website testing, conversion rate and website optimization services and blog, great for small and medium online businesses.

Bonus

76. Unbounce (RSS) – And don’t forget Unbounce (or just in case you missed it the first time around). Enjoy refreshing, unique posts geared toward stats-driven marketers that live and breathe conversion rate optimization, landing page optimization and A/B Testing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t list all the top blogs out there (otherwise this post would never get published), so if you don’t see your favorites in this post or the original 75 Epic Marketing Blogs post, please don’t be offended. Just mention them in the comments instead. They might make next year’s list!

– Kristi Hines

When Google announced its decision to retire Google Reader, the response from blog owners, writers, and content marketers was a resounding #@#@&*(#@. In short, businesses are afraid that they’re going to lose a significant number of subscribers who rely on Google Reader to ingest content.

How could Google put an end to such an influential, long-standing, loved, and useful product?

“There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google reader has declined, and as a company, we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products,” Google said in their official announcement. “We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.”

Complaining is pointless — the decision won’t change, so start taking action

The July 1st d-day is less than 3 months away, so the time to start your prep-work is now. If you wait until the last minute, you’ll run the risk of losing hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of regular readers (or however many you have).

There is no plug-and-play solution — you need to get your marketing ducks in a row, and get creative. There will be four parts to your strategy. Each is equally important and tackles a different facet of your subscriber problem.

1. New Audience Development (Recruit new readers)
2. Audience Retention (Build new subscription channels)
3. Alternatives (Find substitute RSS tools)
4. Communication (Educate your readers)

Here’s how to tackle these four areas:

1. New Audience Development

Plain and simple, audience development means boosting your readership — something that marketers and writers should be actively doing anyway, regardless of whether they’re affected by Google Reader’s demise. Now is the time to start recruiting more eyeballs to your website. Here are some ideas:

• Tap into existing conversations about your brand’s area of expertise in robust discussion communities like Quora, LinkedIn Discussion Groups, and StackExchange. Find relevant conversations, jump in, and link back to your blog as a frame of reference. The trick is to find discussion topics with existing built-in audiences. Put your business blog out there — you’re already creating all that valuable content, so get out there and answer some questions (see my Quora examples above).
• Syndicate your content with other blogs and media channels — build 1:1 relationships with fellow bloggers, or use an automated distribution platform like Pulse that leverages sophisticated algorithms to match readers with content they’re likely to enjoy.
• Guest post on high authority sites with the goal of recruiting new readers. You might not have the bandwidth to leverage this strategy on a regular basis, so make each opportunity count by hand-picking opportunities that match your goals (relevant audiences, wide readership, etc.).
• Submit your blog to high-quality topic and story aggregators like Alltop.

Not actively prospecting for new readers? The death of Google Reader provides a good excuse to start.

2. Audience Retention

Move your Google Reader people to email. That is all.

— Brian Clark (@copyblogger) March 13, 2013

With Google Reader, you’ll lose a big list of readers. So what? Build your own. Move your dependence away from other companies’ technologies and tools. It’s easier than you think, and here’s why: e-mail.

“Move your Google Reader people to email. That is all. ” said Copyblogger’s Brian Clark in a Tweet shortly after the Google announcement.

Media strategist, blogger, and writer Jerod Morris explains the value of Clark’s suggestion in an eloquent follow-up in which he describes the value proposition for content-consumers:

“When you subscribe to a website via a third-party RSS reader, you’re at the mercy of that third party,” says Morris. “But when you subscribe via email, you’ve created a direct relationship with the publisher… Email will never go away. Neither will e-mail subscriptions.”

Business bloggers, if this strategy intrigues you, make sure that you have the right tools for execution. First and foremost, you’ll need a targeted landing page that you can optimize for the conversion goal of boosting email subscriptions (Oh hey – that’s Unbounce’s specialty — check out the lead gen and click-through templates). You’ll also need an autoresponder to confirm subscriptions and schedule follow-up messages and newsletter blasts.

Your strategy should be to send traffic back to your business blog, and to do this successfully, you have a couple of options:

1. Create a beautiful, regular newsletter (Example: LearnVest)
2. Send subscribers a reminder when you update your blog (Example: QuickSprout)

A tool like MailChimp can help on all of these fronts from setting up your autoresponders to timing your messages and customizing your newsletters.

3. RSS Alternatives

RSS is a loved technology, and chances are that a good chunk of your readers won’t want to part ways. You need to make sure that your business blog caters to this inevitable user preference.

Across the blogosphere, writers are rounding up their favorite ‘Google Reader alternatives.’ Top media channels like Mashable, The Verge, and Lifehacker have come to some strong consensus around a select few:

• Feedly — Within the first few days of Google’s announcement, more than 500,000 Google Reader users migrated to Feedly, according to Mashable. On Lifehacker, this platform was voted a top contender to Google Reader, long before Google decided to retire its RSS reader. Feedly rocks because it’s more than an RSS reader. It has a content recommendation algorithm as well as built-in social tools.
• NewsBlur — Users who love the Google Reader interface will be natural NewsBlur adopters as the look & feel is very similar between the two. The key difference is that NewsBlur has a few more customization options. For instance, users can toggle original views and browse content exactly how it shows up on their original websites. Readers can also choose to view content in text-only format. NewsBlur has two user accounts on its platform — a free version that caps user accounts to 65 blogs and 10 stories at a time, or a premium version with unlimited sites and functionality

($24/year).

Do your due diligence before pinpointing the alternative that best complements your blog (and keeps your readers happiest).

4. Communication

Keep your readers involved with the decisions you’re making around this RSS issue. It could be the case that your audience has no idea what’s up, so if you’re moving subscriptions over to e-mail, make sure to prepare a thorough blog post, landing page, or website blurb that explains why.

You can also keep your readers involved with your decision-making process. Why not poll them for suggestions? What Google Reader alternatives would they like to see?

Open communication will decrease your risk of losing subscribers. As a blogger, it’s your job to maneuver your community through this transition. Be in control, and everything will be okay.

What have been the best Google Reader alternatives that you’ve come across? What’s your game-plan?

– Ritika Puri