• Change to meta robots noindex
• Use the lastmod date to reflect the change.
• Update your XML sitemap

None other than John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, showed up to answer the question in the thread below. Here’s what he had to say:

“Having them in a sitemap with a lastmod date reflecting the change in robots meta tag values would be better than removing them from the sitemap file.”

If you want to deindex your pages from Google, you’ve got the answer straight from the mouth of Google.

We recently came across an interesting conversation on the BigSEO subreddit. A user was trying to deindex many product pages on their site, but three weeks later, they’re still showing in Google’s search results. Even their Search Console shows no changes after the deindex. Is your site having a similar issue, or are you not getting your current Internet Marketing Initiatives results? Check out our award-winning SEO Services.

Here’s the catch: the user had deindexed pages for the same products on another of their sites, and those were deindexed immediately.

“Any ideas why Google has ignored my noindex tags?” the user asked.

Another user suggested OP remove the pages from the sitemap and resubmit it. In response to this particular suggestion, a familiar face intervened.

Here’s a screenshot of the thread and Mueller’s response:

Clearing Up Robots.txt Confusion

John Mueller also weighed in on using your robots.txt file and meta robots tags to block pages from being indexed. He indicated that in such cases, Google wouldn’t see the noindex tag if it’s blocked through the robots.txt file. He also added that using a robots.txt won’t remove pages from Google’s index.

Using social media effectively in your marketing isn’t rocket science. However, there are some aspects of social media marketing that are essentially about key principles. Keeping these things in mind as you work should ensure that you meet success more than failure. Let’s take a look at them.

Know your audience

If there is one aspect of social media marketing that requires absolute focus it is knowing your customers. Drill down into the lifestyles of your audience and you should find that you can manage campaigns more effectively.

You could look at the following key factors for your audience:

• When they were born
• The place where they live
• Languages spoken by them
• Earnings
• Spending
• Purchases
• What they do in their free time
• Where they are in life (student, parent, retiree)

From this information you can conduct audience research that allows you to better market your content, and attract and engage the people who would most benefit.

Have a clear plan

Yes, it’s important to get moving and to get that content out there. But it is also important to have a strong plan that builds in success. If you know what you are aiming for you are more likely to reach that outcome, and with social media marketing that is definitely true.

Make sure you set goals for what you want to achieve that are tightly linked to your business and what you need to get done. Do you want to grow the brand or just make more sales? Do you just want to retain the customers you already have?

Once you have answered these questions you will be in a position to tailor your content to the goals you have created. This gives your content a clear purpose.

Develop an audit

Gather and analyse social media data in one place to see what works. You can then plan to do more of what you are already doing (that works).

This means looking at:

• Your connections
• Find out who’s connecting with you
• Your target audience’s preferred social networks
• What your brand is like compared to the competition

You might want to ask yourself a few (honest) questions about your social media accounts, as well:

• Is your intended audience here?
• Is this platform being used by them?
• Are you able to achieve your business goals through this?

Determine which accounts deserve to be kept or discarded based on your answers.

Social monitoring

This involves finding out what people think about your brand, just as social listening does.

Using tools, you can find out who is talking about your brand on social media, the hashtags that are being used by others in your industry, etc.

Monitoring social media is the basis for social listening. Learning from the past is possible through your monitoring. Be aware and be in the know.

Don’t repost content across networks

You may appear lazy and sloppy by reposting. Rather than reusing the same message on each network and post, craft a new message for every platform.

Yes, the work and the time involved are greater. Although perhaps not to the extent you think. Full reworks are not necessary-just make some changes.

Your followers will see you as someone who is genuinely concerned about what they share. Additionally, it shows that you are paying attention.

Don’t go over the top

Should you regularly update your blog? Definitely. But on social media, posting too much can make you look unprofessional.

In terms of Twitter, overposting may not be easy, but it’s easier on Facebook and LinkedIn. Audience preferences vary. Make sure you are appealing to all of them.

Test so you know what works

Testing allows you to experiment with small variations of your messaging to learn which method is most effective.

In what way?

• Make two random groups out of your audience
• Each group should receive a different message variation
• Your chosen metrics should be compared to the responses

It’s all about changing one thing at a time. Changing multiple aspects of a message would make you guess again.

You should test some of these:

• Quotes versus key statistics
• Post length
• Emojis and their effectiveness
• Bullets arranged versus unordered
• Punctuation differences
• The tone of voice, such as passive versus active, casual or formal

Focus on the above to ensure you have a consistent approach to your social media management, and pretty soon you will see tangible results.

To put it mildly, that’s what running online ads felt like this year. Not only that, but the stories have only just begun! But don’t worry. In today’s post, I’m going to cover the 10 biggest stories in online advertising in 2021 and what they mean for 2022.

So cue the bell ring! This is your *real* syllabus (read: survival guide) for 2022. Class is now officially in session.

1. Google ruffles our keyword matching feathers

Keywords are the backbone of PPC. So of course Google would throw us some keyword curveballs this year!

What went down in ’21

For keywords, 2021 was a rollercoaster ride. First, we saw the sunset of our beloved modified broad match in February. Google’s reasoning was that broad match is more effective now, and that modified broad and phrase match often serve the same use case.

Saying this ruffled advertisers’ feathers is putting it lightly. Many people used modified broad since it acted as a “happy medium” match type. Between the pressures of the pandemic combined with the ever-rising challenges of PPC advertising, many felt these keyword changes from Google were insensitive, unnecessary, and untimely.

Then, in September, just as the dust was beginning to settle, Google announced more changes to keyword matching behavior that stirred the pot again. In short, exact match logic will now be used for all match types, and if you have multiple eligible keywords that aren’t identical to the query, Google will look not just at Ad Rank but at relevance, too. That second part had many advertisers, like PPC Chat host Julie Bacchini, quite unsettled. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all along, Google?

As if that wasn’t enough, it then claimed that because of these changes and improvements, there is no longer any benefit to using multiple match types for the same keyword if you’re pairing broad match with Smart Bidding.

This left many advertisers in a tissy… In fact, Greg Finn even wrote an article to argue this claim.

What to do in ’22

• With the loss of modified broad match, I encourage you to pair broad match with audience targeting as a workaround.
• Multiple match types or not, Google is right on one thing: less is more! Using plurals or slight variations is a personal pet peeve of mine. Downsize your list to just the core terms you need and stop wasting time on the rest!. Only key core terms are necessary in your keyword lists.
• Keep keywords grouped together in cohesive, thematically consistent ad groups.
• Above all else, let’s also not forget about negative keywords, as they can be your lifeline if you’re stuck using match types that aren’t the most ideal.

Rethinking your keywords for 2022? Our free keyword research tool can help!

2. Facebook advertising falls victim to Apple’s iOS 14 update

Would it really be a 2021 PPC roundup without talking about the infamous iOS 14 update?

What went down in ’21

On April 26, Apple finally rolled out the privacy-first iOS 14.5 update that now allows users to opt out of being tracked by apps—apps like, say…Facebook? Which provides tracking data so advertisers can track conversions and create retargeting audiences?

Advertisers are now facing incomplete data, shrinking audiences, and rising CPMs. Not to mention all the hoops they now have to jump through with Aggregated Event Measurement, domain verification, and shorter attribution windows.

This is because iOS14 allows for users to opt out of data tracking. Now, I understand and respect the importance of consumer data privacy, but as an advertiser, it’s frustrating. If you’re going to be subjected to ads anyway, why not have them be personalized?

Image source

Now, Facebook and industry experts alike are rushing to find targeting strategy alternatives. Some exciting progress has come of it!

What to do in ’22

This might sound crazy, but don’t give up on Facebook ads! It is still an effective channel for growing your business, so if you adapt and continue using it, you’ll have an advantage over competitors who give up.

We have lots of resources to aid you in your 2022 Facebook advertising strategy:

• Follow these tips to keep your conversion campaigns running successfully.
• Use Messenger and lead form ads to generate leads without conversion campaigns.
• Read the seven ways we’re combatting rising Facebook CPMs due to iOS14.
• Implement the Facebook Conversions API
• Continue to upload customer lists and try out these post-iOS Facebook ad strategies like targeting broader audiences.

3. Expanded text ads start packing their bags

Bon voyage, expanded text ads! The removal of these assets was far from quiet, let’s find out why:

What went down in ’21

Back in March, responsive search ads (RSAs) replaced expanded text ads (ETAs) as the default ad type for Search campaigns. Then in August, Google told us we’ll be bidding (no pun intended) our goodbyes to ETAs in June 2022.

Don’t hold your breath, though. ETAs will still run after the change takes effect. What’s really being retired is the ability to edit and create new ETAs. Advertisers will only be able to pause, enable, or remove them.

What to do in ’22

Even though RSAs are effective, the platform still lacks useful reporting for the different ad variations. And even though the change will take effect about half way through 2022, there are things you should be doing now so it doesn’t negatively impact your account. That being said:

• Start building out RSAs now and establish RSA benchmarks so you can know what to expect once ETAs are out of the picture.
• Test your ETAs now and use the detailed reporting to inform your RSA strategy.
• Perfect any ETAs you’ll want to keep running after June 2022 being.
• And keep your fingers crossed for better RSA reporting, as it’s been a common ask in the PPC community.

4. Third-party cookies start unpacking their bags

Google is really just slowly peeling off the bandaid here for us.

What went down in ’21

On June 24, Google announced that the feared deprecation of third-party cookies would be pushed out to 2023.

Google stated that that in order to build truly privacy-preserving technology, it needs to “move at a responsible pace” to allow “sufficient time for public discussion on the right solutions, “avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publisher,” and “ensure that cookies are not replaced with alternative forms of individual tracking, and discourage the rise of covert approaches like fingerprinting.”

That being said, testing for FLoC—Google’s solution for behavioral targeting in the absence of third-party cookies—has been pushed out to Q1 2022.

What to do in ’22

No action is needed for FLoC, but keep your eye on it.

As for third-party cookies, you’ve heard this time and time again, but keep finding ways to collect more first-party data and get familiar with new solutions available like enhanced conversions, which we cover in this update roundup.

5. Google does a lil’ search term report quid pro quo

Fun fact: this is one of my favorite PPC stories from 2021. Read on to find out why.

What went down in ’21

We know the search terms report was overhauled back in 2020 when low volume searches were taken out of view due to privacy.

This was a tough pill for advertisers to swallow, since we used to be able to see impression and click data on ALL search terms.

Fast forward to August, and advertisers notice the report is showing all search term data once again!

Twitter thread

Turns out it was just a bug that left us feeling sorely disappointed. But the search terms report changed again in September with some good news.

The report still does not show low volume terms that don’t meet the privacy threshold, but it now shows impression data for terms that didn’t get clicks, moving forward and prior to September 2020. In exchange, though, Google mentioned that in February of 2022 it will be removing any search terms prior to September 2020 that don’t meet the privacy volume thresholds.

What to do in ’22

Be sure to save any historical search terms report data you want to hold onto before February of the coming year! However, the search space has changed so much over the last couple of years that the impact those old searches hold will most likely be minor.

Also, start taking advantage of the search terms report a bit more in 2022, since we’ll be able to get more insights again. While this change wasn’t incredibly significant, it was a feather in Google’s cap to give advertisers an advantageous update for once. The platform may seem to have its own vendetta, but clearly it’s still listening and catering to its customers somewhat. Personally, this is the one PPC story from 2021 that makes me feel encouraged and hopeful for 2022.

6. Google Marketing Live leaves us all baffled

Google Marketing Live Stream 2021 was a…snoozefest?

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I love industry events as much as the next advertiser, but this year’s Google Marketing Live summit was resoundingly confusing and underwhelming. Let’s break down why.

What went down in ’21

Let’s start off with one of the culprits behind the 2021 GML hate: customer match thresholds were not really lowered despite Google’s promises. While yes, the platform made the option of these hyper-specific audiences available to accounts below $50,000 in lifetime spend, the fine print read that customer match will only be available to those accounts in observation mode. This still makes targeting them inaccessible to small businesses with lower budgets.

Aside from that, the announcements were either so convoluted or so minor that they caused other roundups to share inaccurate information (understandably so).

What to do in ’22

Okay so GML2021 wasn’t totally hated on. Confusing or not, there are some useful features to take advantage of in the coming year, like:

• The new black-owned attribute option in Google Shopping.
• Image extensions out of beta and the tROAS bidding strategy for Video action and Discovery campaigns.
• Better visibility into performance max campaign reporting.
• My new personal favorite: the Insights page. This page gives advertisers an in-depth look at spend and budget pacing, recommendations, and more. For me and my clients, it’s been surprisingly useful as a way to look into Google’s thinking and brainstorm new optimization ideas to execute on our own.

7. Shopify & Google become besties

GML2021 had another exciting announcement to come of it: Shopify and Google are now two peas in a pod.

What went down in ’21

While Shopify users could always leverage both platforms separately, Google announced this past spring that it’s about to get much easier to use them together. Users of Shopify will now be able to set product placement across all of Google’s entities like Maps, Images, Lens, and YouTube in just a few easy steps.

They’re calling this new collaboration the “Shopping Graph,” as it provides shoppers with more information than ever before about the products they’re viewing and where else they can find them.

What to do in ’22

Shopify’s Google Channel directly in the Shopping platform makes it easier for Shopify users to reach customers beyond the SERP shopping results, regardless of their Merchant Center set up in Google Ads. With an evolving buyer’s journey, this is a futuristic look at how to capture purchases across every step of the funnel.

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8. Facebook goes out for 6 hours

You might be thinking: “big deal.” I know I was. But for advertisers putting lots of hard earned cash into Facebook ads, it was a big deal. Let’s find out why.

What went down in ’21

On October 4, the app, the web version, Instagram, Messenger, and all of Facebook’s assets went dark for six hours on a Monday. All of Facebook’s servers had gone down.

For users, this was a wakeup call to not totally immerse their lives in social media. For advertisers, this meant opportunity lost. For Facebook, it meant $79 million in revenue loss.

What really happened behind the scenes that day, we may never know. What we do know is this was a message to all advertisers: always have a backup plan!

What to do in ’22

In this world, nothing is guaranteed. Even big, bad Facebook has its moments. If this doesn’t get you sold on a multichannel strategy in 2022, I don’t know what will! While the outage was minor to most advertisers, it’s important to be prepared for your advertising worst case scenario. When you’re running multichannel advertising, you’re covering your own butt. If a platform goes down, you’ll still be promoting your business elsewhere.

9. Google Ads monthly spend limits sneak onto the scene

If you’re thinking “Isn’t this already a thing?” you probably aren’t paying for Google via credit card. For card payments, this is a new feature!

What went down in ’21

Google quietly rolled out monthly spend limits this year. They function alongside campaign daily budgets—which continue to be a necessity. Monthly spend limits are implemented at the account level and act as a safeguard against overspend across campaigns. Beware, though, once the limit is hit your ads will stop showing.

What to do in ’22

This can be a great solution for accounts that are tight on budget in 2022. However, there will need to be a level of restraint when using this feature since setting your limit too low can also ultimately limit your results.

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10. Facebook reveals its secrets

I wanted to finish off with a 2021 PPC story underdog. This update didn’t get a ton of coverage, but can tell us a lot about how to plan our 2022 Facebook ads strategy.

What went down in ’21

In June, Facebook dropped an article and video series on how its News Feed algorithm works. But the most interesting part of it for advertisers was its explanation on how it uses machine learning to deliver ads.

In comparison to Google, Facebook doesn’t make clear-cut formulas like Ad Rank or Quality Score available to advertisers. When Facebook released these algorithm insights this year, it definitely caught my eye.

It comes down to three indicators that equate to an “ad score” (not visible to advertisers). This score helps the algorithm determine when and where to show your ad. Those factors are:

• How the advertiser sets the ad up. This can include details like Facebook advertising campaign objectives, audience targeting, location settings, and more.
• The value of the ad. An ad’s total value is based on how much the advertiser is willing to bid on that ad combined with how likely the viewer is to engage with it, as well as the ad’s overall quality.
• Each viewer’s preferences. As an advertiser, you get to choose what type of person you’d ideally like to see your ad. Similarly, Facebook users have the option to set up ad preferences to give the Facebook News Feed further guidance on what’s the best fit for them.

What to do in ’22

While bid is mentioned here, I think one of the main lessons we can keep in mind for 2022 is that you can’t buy quality.

Facebook is looking for high-value ads with attractive visuals and compelling copy. You’ll want to avoid what Facebook Ads calls “low-quality attributes,” like too much text in an image, sensationalized language, or click-bait.

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Not just a 2021 recap—your 2022 survival kit!

In order to improve for the future, we must look at the past. Between everchanging platforms and trends, staying on top of the latest and greatest from 2021 will save you from headaches in 2022.

While there won’t be a test to go along with today’s lessons, here’s a quick study guide of what we covered to help you prepare for 2022:

1. Google changed keyword match types and behaviors.
   Keep your keywords cleaned up.
2. Facebook was impacted by the Apple iOS14 update.
   Be nimble and adapt with new strategies.
3. Expanded Text Ads will be a thing of the past.
   Test your ETAs like crazy and get comfortable with responsive search ads.
4. Third-party cookies
   Stay alert for first-party data targeting solutions in 2022.
5. Google’s search terms report got a facelift.
   Start using it more frequently and collect the data you need before February.
6. Google Marketing Live didn’t live up to the hype.
   Better luck next year. (But also check out the Insights page!).
7. Shopify and Google join forces.
   Use Shopify’s Google channel to capture more leads across your funnel.
8. Facebook had a six hour long “whoopsie.”
   Always have a backup plan!
9. Google Ads monthly spend limits make an appearance.
   Use it to make budgeting easier.
10. Facebook puts out an ad ranking tell-all.
    Stay focused on creating high-quality ads that users want to see and engage with.

With all these updates, a little bit of confidence in automation, a touch of preparation, and a lot of content quality love can go a long way. Use these lessons as a pathway to results that will make your upcoming year the best one yet.

the y e a r b o o k

You paid to be in it. You paid to get your copy. And now it’s yours. But do you start at page one? No no. The order is as follows: Your own picture. The senior superlatives. The teams or clubs you belong to. The rest.

My point is, we don’t just love to reminisce. We love to read about ourselves. See the fruits of our investments. Feel a part of something bigger. And it is with this point in mind that I’m sharing with you today how to write a year-in-review email for your customers that they will actually read! Read on to learn:

• Why write a year-in-review email
• How to keep it customer-centric
• Lots of ideas and examples to inspire you

Why write a year-in-review email?

In addition to being something people are generally interested in, sharing a recap also has business benefits.

Strengthen confidence in your business

Celebrating your growth and achievements from the year reinforces your dedication and competency within your industry, and affirms your customers’ decision to choose your business over competitors.

Maintain loyalty

Customers appreciate when you share what you’re proud of with them. It tells them they are a part of your community and you value their opinion. It also reminds them of how hard you work and gives them reason to continue supporting you.

And on the flip side, when you express appreciation for their support, you strengthen the bond that keeps them coming back to you.

Reduce churn

When your email tells your customers what they have accomplished, it reminds them how much your product or service helped them achieve success and inspires them to accomplish even more next year—keeping them engaged with your product.

Take a look at the example below by emagazine platform Texture, which shares a reader’s minutes reading compared to all users and even money and trees saved.

If I were a Texture customer, I’d be motivated to beat everyone’s average,
save more money, and spare more trees next year. (Image source)

Year-in-review email ideas

There are a few different ways to write a year-in-review. Depending on your industry, audience, and resources, you might choose one or any combination of the following:

1. Growth stats

Share stats and facts that show how you’ve grown, such as: reached x customers, welcomed x new team members, opened a new location, moved to a bigger office, launched a new partnership.

Avoid vanity metrics or offputting stats like number social media followers,

2. Milestones & achievements

Look back on some of the intangibles, like awards or nominations, successful events, new or improved products, features, or services, anniversaries, or big projects like a rebrand, new site, or acquisition.

3. Account-specific reports

People love when someone else talks about them or celebrates their achievements. Spotify’s Wrapped is a quintessential example of this type of year-end recap, but it’s great for any device, app, or account with individual stats,

This is also popular for B2B platforms with analytics.

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4. Superlatives

Sharing stats and data for every account can be resource-heavy and sometimes runs the risk of syncing issues or data not loading. Instead, you might take a look at your behavioral data and identify trends within your audience, like the top-selling products, most popular blog posts, most shared social media posts, most popular product of each month, and more.

5. Industry stories

Some businesses will have access to more interesting information than others for the above ideas. If you can’t quite come up with something compelling, consider recapping some top stories or interesting stats of the year in your industry and for each one, share a brief reflection, action you took, or relevant tip.

Year-in-review email tips

Keep it separate from your holiday greeting or promotional emails

1. Use numbers

You’ll notice in just about all of these examples there are numbers. People love the numbers and the tangibles.

2. Visualize it…

Don’t just give your readers a bunch of text. Create a timeline or a journey path, include pictures or graphics, or even create a video.’

3. …but keep it mobile-friendly

This is a great visual by Big Cartel, and even though it appears as though it has a link to a page with the graphic and perhaps more details, the image in the email requires zooming and shifting, not a natural scroll.

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4. Make it customer-centric

Always make it about them! This is easy if you have customer data or achievements to share, but not necessary. The example above reads:

2015 was a huge year for Big Cartel – not only for our team, but for the army of talented artists who build their businesses with us. Thank you for making our favorite moments from this year possible, and for being a part of this incredible community.

The example by Wix below does this as well, saying, “Before we jump into 2018, let’s look back at the most memorable moments of last year and see what we achieved together.”

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So frame your accomplishments as achieved because of your customers—through their support, their use of your product, their reviews, feedback, votes, social shares, and more.

5. Thank your readers

Do NOT forget this part. The Wix email above nails the “togetherness” but fails to thank its customers. I’m sure the post it links to includes this, but it’s still important to include it in the email itself.

Thank you for choosing Texture for all your reading needs!

It’s all possible because of our incredible community of customers and contributors! THANK YOU!

Great work this year and thank you for being such an integral part of our growth in 2021.

6. Don’t create a landing page disguised as a thank you

Remember, frame this email as a celebration of growth, achieved with or made possible by your customers. The email below has an attractive, clean, and readable design, but although it reads “A year in review,” and “Thanks for being a part of our creative community,” the email copy does not support that.

Moreover, it closes with “Haven’t taken a class yet? Start today and join our growing number of students!” with a CTA to enroll.

Great design, not a year-in-review. (Image source)

The numbers could still work in a year-in-review email, but the language is not framed as accomplishments made together. It feels like a sneaky disguised landing page—a good way to lose customers.

7. Make it actionable

There are a number of ways to make your year-in-review email actionable:

• Provide recommendations based on the information you include.
• Share only a snippet or and include a link for them to view the review in a blog post—a good way to drive traffic to your site.
• For B2C, give them the option to share their numbers on social
• For B2B, make it easy for them to share the report with the rest of their team.

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Year-in-review emails are great for generating leads and conversions, engaging your audience, and retaining customers. This is not your holiday thank you greeting to your customers, so it’s also okay—and encouraged—to include a CTA, such as to

• Sign up for your newsletter
• Follow your social channels
• Shop your store
• Learn about an upgrade
• Continue using your platform or app

That’s a wrap for 2017. But we can’t wait to share what next year has in store for creators, brands, and video lovers like Y-O-U. Until then, upload away and keep our screens glowing. bright.

8. Get customers excited for the new year

Having a CTA at the end adds in the element of a continued relationship with your customer into the next year, but you can turn things up a notch with a little teaser.

In a weird way, 2018 was all about 2019. We can’t tell you everything that’s coming this year, but take our word for it—there’s never been a better time to upload and do more with your videos.

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Year-in-review email examples

Let’s take a look at a few more year-in-review email examples that you can steal ideas from.

1. Todoist—a personalized & practical churn buster

Todoist nails it with its “Your Year in Productivity” email, leaving you practically begging to renew your subscription for next year.

View the email here

There are three CTAs in this email, but they all work nicely together. The first is to view your report. The report itself is packed with stats, superlatives, and comparison information that will inspire you use the platform even more in the coming year, and the preceding copy encourages this:

“How did your productivity fare this trip around the sun? Did you rank in the top stratosphere of Todoist users, or did you fall off the shuttle? See how you did in 2017 and prepare to embark on a new mission in 2018.”

It then has a CTA to enroll in a free class to improve your productivity in the coming year, and to claim a discount for certain industries .

The only thing it’s missing is a thank you!

2. Vimeo—engaging, but one thing missing

Vimeo’s Top 18 Hits of ‘18 email shows some impressive design work:

View the full email here.

It’s clean, colorful, and readable, and shares a mix of information types. But while this year-in-review email is engaging, it’s all about Vimeo. There is no customer appreciation!

We couldn’t be more excited for 2019. But before we get ahead of ourselves, lets remember that a lot happened in 2018. Like, a lot. Let’s wrap an amazing, video-opacked year with our greatest Vimeo Hits.

I’d be willing to bet that Vimeo had a separate end-of-year customer appreciation email, but it’s still important to incorporate it here as well.

3. Campaign Monitor—superb customer centricity

This is actually a blog post, but Campaign Monitor does such a fantastic job of sharing its growth and achievements of the year in a customer-centric and creative way, I had to share it.

View the full recap here

Some key callouts:

• When sharing platform usage stats, Campaign Monitor makes its customers feel proud by calling them “curious subscriber scientists,” “customer experience architects,” “email artisans,” and more.
• Instead of boasting that its platform was used by 416,422 marketers to send 30.7 billion emails in 192 countries—the simple heading of “Your subscribers turned to the inbox more than ever,” shifts the tone to celebrating its customers’ importance.
• Before sharing the new features it released each month, the heading turns it into a collaborative achievement with “You asked, we answered” and what its customers “tapped into.”
• Campaign monitor shows genuine appreciation for its customers with phrases like: “When times got tough, Campaign Monitor customers got smarter,” and “You rose to the occasion with tenacity and ingenuity, ” and “We were honored to be with you every step of the way.”
• “It’s all possible because of our incredible community of customers and contributors! THANK YOU!”
• Finally, you get something to look forward to:

Look forward to a long list of new tools, resources, and inspiration coming in 2021, starting with our much-awaited annual Email Marketing Global Benchmarks Report. Keep an eye out for it early January!”

4. Wix—short & (mostly) sweet

Wix’s approach makes this a short and sweet email that grabs your attention at the start and sends you to its website to view more.

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Again, the full post most likely ends with an expression of gratitude, but there’s enough information here for a reader to leave it at that, so something like “Check out the sweetest moments of 2016, made possible by you!”

5. Strava—comical, relatable, watchable

As a cycler myself, I appreciated this email example. Plus, not only did Strava make the email more engaging with a recap video, but it also included some numbers right in the email to make it satisfying on its own.

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It’s time to celebrate your 2017 on Strava. You toed the line, you dug deep, you achieved (and maybe made some crazy faces and noises along the way). Check out this personalized recap of your year, and kudos for being a part of Strava’s incredible community of athletes.

6. Classy- top blog posts

This email starts with:

Grow, engage, convert. Fundraising tips and donor relations were the top themes on Classy this year. In case you missed ’em, here they are again…the 10 most popular posts from 2016.

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Share your year-in-review emails!

As you can see, year-in-review emails are a gem of a method to drive business goals at the end of the year while also engaging and delighting your customers and readers. Plus, they’re fun. What yearly recap emails do you look forward to receiving? Let me know in the comments!

Even if brands do not populate YouTube as other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, we should not forget it is still the second largest search engine, offering a business the ability to reach millions of people.

The ones that should consider creating a YouTube marketing strategy are especially those brands that rely heavily on the power of visual presentation, like cosmetic, tech, or fashion-oriented brands.

For example, if we look at the most popular brands on YouTube, we’ll see many of these represent these categories, like Nike, Victoria’s Secrets, Chanel, or GoPro.

Of course, like any other video-oriented platform, it requires an excellent quality of the clips posted since it is an indicator of a brand’s professionalism and a source of thrust for the YouTube subscribers.

Which brings high prices to be taken into consideration when assigning budgets. And certainly, taking money out of one’s own pockets is not a reason of joy for anyone.

This is exactly why creating a well-researched marketing strategy is essential if your want to launch your business on YouTube since you have to keep in mind your brand’s ROI.

The first most important thing before creating your YouTube marketing strategy is to start your competitor’s research process, indicating what type of content is more catchy for your YouTube audiences.

After this first step is done, you have to go to the next one – which is optimizing your videos. This optimization refers to many aspects – from the length, the content’s quality – both video and audio, and of course, a wise use of keywords. Second largest search engine, remember?

Other helpful tactics may be live-streaming from time to time, creating collaborations with YouTube influencers, or even running some YouTube ads.

Some of these tips and many others are included in the infographic below.

Allow me to make the case.

But first, let me remind you of the backdrop. Social media is not the same space as it was when I got started in this business in 2009. Back then, engagements were everything. Twitter chats were popular (all engagements). Facebook posts would have hundreds of comments with active conversations happening in the threads. Engagements were the focus–no question.

But since then, much has changed. Brands focused on using social to sell. Advertising has taken over. And, many people are just plain tired of “engaging” on social, for a variety of reasons.

So, with that backdrop, here are 3 reasons I think you might want to think long-and-hard about de-prioritizing engagements as part of our social media strategy in 2022:

1: People’s behaviors have changed on the primary social media networks

Let’s just take Twitter, as an example. Pew recently had some very interesting research which illuminates this point precisely. For starters, most people on Twitter are not tweeting a lot, and aren’t seeing any likes or retweets on the few tweets they do share.

Translation: Most people on Twitter are lurking. Specifically they’re looking for news and information to consume or they’re looking to be entertained–Pew’s research found exactly that in its recent report.

Bottom line: Most people aren’t going to Twitter to engage. They’re going to get information or to be entertained.

2: Engagements usually = likes

In 2021, I’ve done a number of social media audits. And one consistent theme in most of those audits has been that engagements are VERY heavy on likes. In other words, brands aren’t seeing as many comments and shares as they would like. Engagement has become all about likes. And that’t not great considering the like is, by far, the most passive form of engagement. Think about your own behaviors on social–what kinds of things do you give a “like” to? If you’re like most people, lots of things! However, how often do you comment or share a post? Probably not that much. That’s the larger trend–and that’s a big part of why I think we should all take a closer look at our engagement numbers. At the very least, we should probably be separating out engagements by likes, comments and shares, or giving them weight (1 point for a like, 3 for a comment and 5 for a share). This would help us get a better look at what meaningful engagement looks like.

3: In many cases, brands aren’t even engaging back!

I’ve been talking about this for years–the trend of brands posting content on social networks, receiving comments from fans/customers/prospects and then not responding or acknowledging those comments. Believe me, it’s far more common than you might think! If we, as brands, aren’t going to take the time to prioritize engaging back with fans when they take the time to engage with us, what’s the point? To me, it seems like brands are just chasing engagements–they’re not really interested in talking to customers and prospects.

Let’s take a look at McDonald’s on LinkedIn. Huge company, right? Engagement is undoubtedly a priority for them on all social networks. But, here’s a popular post they made recently with almost 40 comments–none of which were acknowledged or responded to from the McD’s team:

Here’s a glimpse at just a few of the comments that have went un-responded to.

Not only did McD’s not respond–they didn’t even “like” these comments! And most of these were positive comments from fans, employees and former employees.

Again, I could give you many examples of this–McDonald’s is not alone.

So, maybe it does make sense to de-prioritize engagements for 2022 given all this, right? Again, not saying you move away from tracking and measuring engagements altogether, but if you’re seeing the same signals I outlined above in your industry, it may make sense to rethink your objectives and KPIs from a social media marketing perspective.

In this article, we take a look at all of the algorithm updates that mattered in 2021, summarise the key takeaways from each of them and analyse what they mean for search marketing in 2022.

2021 was a busy year for algorithm updates

As we explain in our recent biggest SEO challenges article, Google hit us with a lot of algorithm updates this year and the summer period was particularly intense. At one point we had three updates in the space of one month and half a dozen over a three-month period, rolling out almost back-to-back.

As always, some updates make more of an impact than others and there are always winners and losers from one update to the next.

However, when you look at the collective impact of this year’s heavy update schedule, it’s had a significant impact on ranking volatility. Back in October, Head of Communications at Semrush, Mordy Oberstein, published data from the Semrush Sensor tool showing how volatility in the SERPs has increased this year.

If you're following @rustybrick's algo update coverage he's pretty tired of reporting on these all the time!

It got me thinking: Are things more volatile than they were?

Pulled some @semrush data & it seems… YES!

We see a huge increase in the % of volatile days in '21! pic.twitter.com/vmTP5vtaJh

— Mordy Oberstein (@MordyOberstein) October 19, 2021

The frequency of updates this year has also made it difficult to analyse each one in isolation. Normally, we have weeks or months to attribute ranking changes to major algorithm updates and identify which signals are affected by each one.

This year, the busy update schedule and the back-to-back rollout during the summer, in particular, made it harder to attribute changes to specific updates.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at all of the algorithm updates from 2021 and explain what we know (and don’t know) about them.

The complete list of 2021 Google algorithm updates

This year, we’ve had 10 algorithm updates announced and/or confirmed by Google. Every year, there are an unknown number of unconfirmed updates, most of which have a moderate impact on rankings or such a small impact they’re barely distinguishable from regular movement in the SERPs.

However, this year, three unconfirmed updates each had a major impact on results so we’re including all 10 confirmed updates and the three unconfirmed that shook things up this year:

1. Passage indexing (Feb 10): Google starts ranking passages from web pages for very specific queries, affecting 7% of searches worldwide.
2. *Featured Snippet drop (19 Feb): A 40% drop in Featured Snippet impressions with YMYL pages being hit hardest.
3. *Featured snippet recovery (12 Mar): A complete (or close to it) recovery from the Featured Snippet drop three weeks earlier.
4. Product reviews update (8 Apr): Google rewards in-depth product reviews while thin or overly promotional reviews (affiliate links) suffered.
5. June 2021 Core Update (2 Jun): Google announces the first core update of 2021 and pre-announces a second update for the next month.
6. Spam updates (23 Jun & 28 Jun): Google releases two spam updates less than a week apart.
7. Page experience update (25 Jun): After several delays, Google officially rolls out the page experience update.
8. MUM (Jun): Google implements its new Multitask Unified Model (MUM) technology at an unspecified date in June.
9. July 2021 Core Update (1 Jul): The follow-up to the June 2021 Core Update.
10. Link spam update (28 Jul): Google rolls out a broad link spam update across languages over a four-week period.
11. Page title rewrites (16 Aug): SEOs report a dramatic increase in Google rewriting page titles in the SERPs, later confirmed as an update by Google’s Danny Sullivan.
12. *Unconfirmed update (2 Oct): Heavy movement in the SERPs for several days but no word from Google on any algorithm updates.
13. Spam update (3 Nov): Google announces its fourth spam update of the year, which rolls out over 7-8 days.

Now, let’s take a look at each of these updates and what has changed for search marketers this year.

#1: Passage indexing – 10 February

The first algorithm update of 2021 landed on 10 February, commonly referred to as passage indexing although passage ranking is probably a more suitable description. The update didn’t have a major impact on ranking positions and it was more of a new feature introduction than the kind of algorithm update we’re used to seeing from Google.

That said, the new feature does change how Google’s algorithm indexes and ranks content.

Passage ranking is an AI-powered update designed to help Google return the best result for “very specific” searches. Essentially, the update allows Google to rank a passage that specifically addresses the user’s search query, even if the page itself is optimised for a different keyword.

For example, let’s say you have an in-depth blog post covering a broad topic, such as buying a second-hand car. Your primary keywords will be things like “buying a second-hand car,” “how to buy a second-hand car” and “what to check when buying a second-hand car”.

Your page title, headings and content will be optimised for keywords like this but your guide may include a section on the common financing options available to people buying used vehicles from a dealer.

Now, someone searching for information on the differences between Hire Purchase (HP) and Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) financing options may see your buying guide because Google understands the intent of their specific query and your comparison provides the best answer to their question, even if other posts are better optimised for the query.

Here’s what Google has to say about the update:

“Very specific searches can be the hardest to get right, since sometimes the single sentence that answers your question might be buried deep in a web page. We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to better understand the relevancy of specific passages. By understanding passages in addition to the relevancy of the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for.”

Google says passage indexing (or ranking) will affect seven percent of search queries across all languages as it rolls out gradually. This began in the US for English results on 10 February and continues to roll out globally.

#2: Featured Snippet drop – 19 February

On 19 February, MozCast reported a 40% decline in visibility for Featured Snippets, which plummeted to their lowest point since 2015. In many cases, Featured Snippets disappeared altogether and the impact was especially hard on health and finance queries.

Moz’s Dr. Peter J. Meyers published a blog post covering Featured Snippet visibility from February 10-23 with no signs of recovery.

Source

Delving into the data, Meyers saw that health queries experienced the biggest decline with a -68% drop in Featured Snippets while finance came in at a close second with a -60% decline.

Source

It turned out the biggest drops were seen for short queries, particularly single-word queries, and pages considered as YMYL were hit hardest (this explains the heavy hit on health and finance).

The key takeaway? Make sure you’re up-to-date with the latest on E-A-T and YMYL and update your content to meet Google’s expectations, especially if your pages qualify as YMYL.

#3: Featured Snippet recovery – 12 March

Precisely three weeks after 40% of featured snippets mysteriously disappeared from Google Search, they miraculously reappeared on 12 March with the same ranking positions as before.

To this day, Google has given no explanation for the disappearance or reappearance of Featured Snippets nor confirmed whether the episode was the result of an algorithm update gone wrong, a bug or anything else.

The closest thing we got to an explanation was general commentary from Google’s John Mueller who was careful enough not to reference the sudden drop and reappearance in February and March:

“I don’t know. …The featured snippets and rich results in general, those kinds of things can fluctuate over time.

And I know the teams are always working on those features and trying to fine-tune the triggering.

So when we would show them or when we wouldn’t show them, sometimes the triggering changes over time that we just kind of reduce the threshold overall or that we change the focus a little bit and say like less here and more here. Sometimes that happens across geographies or languages.

But these kinds of changes from our side are essentially normal organic changes in search, how they can always happen.”

That’s a typically diplomatic response from John Mueller but the Featured Snippet disappearing trick was anything but “normal organic changes”.

#4: Product reviews update – 8 April

On 8 April, Google announced an update specifically targeting product review content. After a testing, experimentation and review process, Google determined that a lot of review content doesn’t deliver information that truly helps people make purchase decisions.

Here’s what Google said in its announcement.

“From this, we know people appreciate product reviews that share in-depth research, rather than thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products. That’s why we’re sharing an improvement to our ranking systems, which we call the product reviews update, that’s designed to better reward such content.

This update is going out today and only involves English language reviews for now. We believe this will further help those producing rich content in the product reviews area.”

To bring review content up to its new expectations, Google provided a list of questions you should ask before publishing and updating any reviews on your website.

Do your reviews:

• Express expert knowledge about products where appropriate?
• Show what the product is like physically, or how it is used, with unique content beyond what’s provided by the manufacturer?
• Provide quantitative measurements about how a product measures up in various categories of performance?
• Explain what sets a product apart from its competitors?
• Cover comparable products to consider, or explain which products might be best for certain uses or circumstances?
• Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a particular product, based on research into it?
• Describe how a product has evolved from previous models or releases to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users in making a purchase decision?
• Identify key decision-making factors for the product’s category and how the product performs in those areas? For example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision-making factors and rate performance in those areas.
• Describe key choices in how a product has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer says?

Google clarified that the product reviews update was not a core algorithm update but it did state that Google’s usual advice for core updates did apply. We can’t confirm what Google meant by that but we expect it relates to content quality and the increased importance of E-A-T and YMYL.

For example, product reviews should be written by someone with proven experience and expertise on the product categories in question with their author bio and relevant links included in every post. For example, laptop reviews should be written by experienced tech reviewers who know their stuff, can go into detail and genuinely help people choose one device over the other options available to them.

Mordy Oberstein published a great writeup of the update’s winners and losers on Search Engine Journal, showcasing how the update was more complex than simply targeting thin content or affiliate links.

The big winners were pages that include buyer’s guides, comparison tables and calculations to help shoppers choose the ideal product for their needs. Affiliate content disguised as product reviews has suffered the most and Google is a lot more capable of detecting this type of content now.

#5: June 2021 Core Update – 2 June

On 2 June, Google took the surprising step of announcing not one, but two core algorithm updates – one rolling out later in the day and another in the following month. The reason for the double update was simple enough: “Some of our planned improvements for the June 2021 update aren’t quite ready, so we’re moving ahead with the parts that are, then we will follow with the rest with the July 2021 update”.

Later today, we are releasing a broad core update, as we do several times per year. It is called the June 2021 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates is here:https://t.co/e5ZQUA3RC6

This will be followed by the July 2021 Core update. Here’s more information about that…

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 2, 2021

Once again, websites with thin content lost out from the first update and YMYL pages suffered more than most – not for the first time in recent years. That being said, some of the winners from the June 2021 Core Update were losers from previous core updates and this was another reminder that updates themselves are experimental and Google is willing to correct itself when it takes things too far.

The June 2021 Core Update also kicked off the busy summer of updates – some of which we knew about, many we didn’t.

#6: Spam updates – 23 June & 28 June

The next summer surprise from Google was a spam update announced on 23 June via Twitter. Once again, Google told us that another spam update would follow, this time during the next week.

As part of our regular work to improve results, we've released a spam update to our systems. You can learn more about our efforts to fight spam in this post:https://t.co/piCLhbZPkH

And this video below:https://t.co/xMYWm4HPze pic.twitter.com/83IL0EB9Lm

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 23, 2021

Google pointed towards an updated list of webmaster guidelines ahead of the first update, including general guidelines and quality guidelines for website owners.

Above all, you should avoid all of the following:

• Automatically generated content
• Participating in link schemes
• Creating pages with little or no original content
• Cloaking
• Sneaky redirects
• Hidden text or links
• Doorway pages
• Scraped content
• Participating in affiliate programs without adding sufficient value
• Loading pages with irrelevant keywords
• Creating pages with malicious behaviour, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware
• Abusing structured data markup
• Sending automated queries to Google

You should also monitor your website for hacking and take steps to prevent and remove user-generated spam on your site. This will become increasingly important as attacks against websites and spam techniques continue to become more sophisticated.

#7: Page experience update – 25 June

Google announced the page experience signal in June 2020, giving us plenty of time to prepare for the update on 25 June, 2021. The update combined several existing signals related to user experience with the newer Core Web Vitals signals that measure loading times, the responsiveness of interactive elements and the visual stability of pages.

The cumulative page experience signal combines these independent signals into a single measurement for Google’s algorithm, allowing it to grade the overall quality of user experiences on individual pages.

Currently, there are three Core Web Vitals included in the page experience signal although Google says it may expand upon these over time:

1. Loading: This simply refers to loading times although Google is changing the way it measures this with a new standard called Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
2. Interactivity: Measures the responsiveness of interactive elements on your page (links, buttons, etc.) after users click them, using a new standard called First Input Delay (FID).
3. Visual Stability: Detects the movement of elements after they’ve loaded on the page and any instability this causes, using a new standard called Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

Google initially suggested the impact of the page experience update could be mild, stating that quality is the determining factor in rankings. It said the page experience signal could help differentiate between two pages of similar quality.

It turns out, Google may have done a better job of playing down the update than it intended and Danny Sullivan later insisted that it could have a bigger impact over time, even if the overnight effects were small.

I said it shouldn't be the case that overnight, we flip some type of switch and there's a massive change. That's not typically how rollouts of this nature (such as speed, mobile-friendly) have worked. And also that things tend to be relative…

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) February 24, 2021

Of course, ranking signals aren’t the only reason you need to provide a positive user experience and the Core Web Vitals aspect of the page experience update shows Google is taking UX more seriously.

Take a look at our guide on optimising for Core Web Vitals and the page experience signal for more information.

Currently, the page experience signal only applies to mobile pages but Google’s Jeffrey Jose says it will be applied to the desktop ranking system in February 2022.

#8: Multitask Unified Model (MUM) – June

Google rolled out its Multitask Unified Model (MUM) on an unspecified date in June 2021 and the busy summer of updates makes it difficult to pinpoint a date. Technically, the passage indexing update rolled out in February is a part of MUM so this could be counted as an extension or the completion of a much larger update or the start of an update that could take months or years to make its full impact.

MUM replaces BERT and Google says the new technology is 1,000x more powerful than its predecessor, allowing the search engine to understand complex queries to a greater degree. MUM also allows Google to multitask more effectively, pulling in content from multiple languages and translating it into the source language of the original query.

Much like BERT, it could take several years for the new technology to mature and have a major impact on the SERPs but Google is already teasing a new search experience, powered by the AI technology for 2022.

#9: July 2021 Core Update – 1 July

Google didn’t hang around with the July 2021 Core Update, rolling it out on the first day of the month. The follow-up to the June 2021 Core Update had a smaller overall impact but it hit harder and faster than the gradual rollout of the first update, peaking on 1 July and showing intense fluctuations in the following days.

The Semrush Sensor tool showed volatility was 42% more dramatic than the first core update of the summer.[1]

As with all core updates, it’s difficult to pinpoint the signals being affected and Google pushes the message that you can’t optimise for core algorithm updates. If you experience a decline in traffic from one core update, you’ll also often experience some kind of recovery during the next one or, in the worst cases a double hit if you’ve got serious issues with your pages.

You can read Google’s take on this Search Central blog post.

#10: Link spam update – 26 July

On July 26, Google announced a link spam update that would roll out over the coming two weeks but, ultimately, took a full month to finish rolling out. Search Quality Analyst at Google, Duy Nguyen, said that although “link spam has been greatly reduced over the past two decades, thanks to our constant improvements in our ranking systems and spam detection systems.”

“This algorithm update… is even more effective at identifying and nullifying link spam more broadly, across multiple languages. Sites taking part in link spam will see changes in Search as those links are re-assessed by our algorithms.” – Duy Nguyen, Search Quality Analyst at Google

The update didn’t penalise sites for spammy links but nullified any ranking benefits so sites with major issues in their link profiles could experience ranking hits that felt a lot like a penalty.

If your site experienced a heavy hit during this period, the only course of action you could take is to analyse your link profile and identify drops in traffic with suspect inbound or outbound links.

To prevent any nasty surprises with updates like this (or link penalties), run regular link audits to identify low-quality or potentially harmful links in your profile. Remove anything that looks suspicious and follow Google’s guidelines to protect yourself from future link spam updates.

#11: Page title rewrites – 16 August

In mid-August, SEOs started reporting a significant increase in Google rewriting page titles in the SERPs. While Google often adapts page titles to make them more relevant to user queries, the frequency and extent of changes being reported in the second half of August were extreme – and, at times, erroneous.

On 24 August, Google confirmed an algorithm update that adapted the search engines process for generating web page titles in SERP results.

“Last week, we introduced a new system of generating titles for web pages. Before this, titles might change based on the query issued. This generally will no longer happen with our new system. This is because we think our new system is producing titles that work better for documents overall, to describe what they are about, regardless of the particular query.” – Danny Sullivan, Search Liaison at Google

Regardless, the chatter from SEOs on social media suggested most were unhappy about losing further control over how their page titles show in search. On 27 September, Google updated its announcement of the update, thanking SEOs for the feedback and confirming that further changes had been made to the new system.

As a result, the frequency and degree of changes to page titles calmed from their peak in mind-August but Google still has more power over your page titles than before the update. Google insists that a “focus on good HTML title tags” is still important and published new guidelines for website owners on the Search Central website.

#12: Unconfirmed update – 2 October

Over the weekend of 2-3 October, SEOs and reporting tools signalled major volatility in the SERPs with the kind of fluctuations you would normally expect from a core update. With no announcement from Google and no confirmation after widespread reports of volatility, this one has to go down as an unconfirmed update.

These happen all the time but they’re not always significant and rarely comparable to core algorithm updates.

One explanation is that the volatility could have been a correction from one of this year’s core updates or some of the feature testing Google has performed throughout the year. Aside from that, we can only speculate, especially with the frequency of updates during the summer months making it more difficult to analyse movement in the SERPs.

#13: November 2021 spam update – 3 November

On November 3, Google announced another spam update, the fourth one rolled out this year.

As part of our regular work to improve results, we've released a spam update to our systems. This November 2021 spam update should be fully rolled out within a week. We encourage sites to follow our best practices for Search: https://t.co/jK3ArQmTqT

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) November 3, 2021

While this update was significant, it only affected websites clearly involved in spam or compromised by hacks. As long as you’re following Google’s webmaster guidelines and running the essential security measures, you shouldn’t run into any problems with updates like these.

That being said, it’s worth noting that Google has taken a big stand against spam with four updates this year.

What does all this mean for SEO?

This big question heading into 2022 is whether the busy schedule of updates this year was a one-off or the new normal for SEOs. We know that Google delayed at least one algorithm update in 2020 due to the pandemic so perhaps this year’s hectic schedule was simply the result of several updates being squeezed into 2021.

That said, we also know Google has teased significant changes to the search experience for 2022 and these changes are powered by its new Multitask Unified Model (MUM) technology, which is expected to expand in a similar fashion to BERT before it.

The good news is, we don’t have any major pre-announced updates for next year, as we’ve had in the past with the page experience, mobile-friendly and other updates. However, there is another “but” in the sense that the page experience signal will be applied to desktop ranking in February 2022.

As we discussed earlier, Danny Sullivan has also hinted that the page experience update could have an increased impact over time so we may start to see more influence in 2022.

The big issue for search marketers is that it’s been even more difficult to analyse updates in 2021 due to the busy schedule and overlap of updates this year, especially during the summer months where updates were sandwiched by others.

Here’s a summary of what we do know from the updates in 2021:

• Passage indexing/ranking means passages can rank for queries from pages that are optimised for other keywords.
• Product review content should help users choose the right product for their needs, based on specs, price and other comparisons.
• Page experience could gradually have a stronger impact than we’ve seen so far.
• Google is rewriting page titles more often and to a greater extent.
• MUM will make a stronger impact on the search experience and the SERPs over the coming years.
• YMYL pages suffered more than most during updates in 2021 often experiencing the strongest drops but also partial recoveries, suggesting Google hasn’t finished adapting its algorithm for these pages.

It is worth carefully analyzing individual social networks – even if setting up a profile is a matter of a few minutes and a small amount of work. So what should you keep in mind?

Find the right balance

It is good to start planning activities in social media by analyzing your own possibilities. With a good marketing strategy, small marketing budget and limited human resources, handling one or maximum two channels seems to be the most appropriate solution. As time passes, it is a natural step to expand the activities on the existing brand profiles or extend them to new social networks. But take your time!

Consider which direct marketing channel is best suited to your brand. It is assumed that a Facebook profile is a minimum, but not necessarily. Do you design interiors? Additionally, think about Instagram or Pinterest. Do you care about B2B contacts and expanding the reach of marketing messages among business customers? Consider setting up a company page on LinkedIn? Do you mainly appeal to angry young people? Be where they are – get into TikTok.

Take care of a consistent brand image

Preparing an action plan and a coherent communication strategy takes time, patience, and observation skills. Ad hoc action in social media, without a set tone of voice, messages or brand idea, will not bring long-term effects. There is a risk that in a short time the brand will fire from ideas and abandon the profile or continue to operate with unattractive, inconsistent and irregularly published content. Clearly defined communication and business goals allow you to achieve better results. Even those brands with a very limited marketing budget are able to engage their recipients thanks to the developed model of activities.

It’s always worth keeping an eye on the competition

Running your own business requires careful observation of competitors’ activities. It is no different when planning social media marketing activities. First of all, it is worth checking in which channels your competitors are present, how they communicate and what tools they use. Also pay attention to the use of the media and blogosphere, and activations on the Internet carried out by competitors. It’s up to you what you do with this information – you can be where they are or you can build a strategy around a sphere that has not been reached by the competition, and which – if properly managed – can turn out to be a bull’s eye for user adoption.

Crisis cases that are loud in social media show that you should carefully monitor your competitors’ publications. It is not uncommon for a competitive brand to benefit from a company’s image crisis.

Maintain relationship with your fans

It is common knowledge that the involvement of your website fans has an impact on website conversion, sales and other measures of success. However, the level and speed of ongoing customer service is equally important. If you only take care of engaging content, neglecting constant interaction with potential customers, e.g. not responding to their inquiries, your brand will be perceived as unprofessional.

Be prepared for crisis situations

An image crisis can happen to any brand – both a large corporation and a smaller enterprise – so it is not worth assuming that your company is not affected by this problem. It is better to be prepared for the fact that not everyone and not always will be satisfied with your product or service, and some people will be happy to share their negative opinion on the Internet. If you are already in this situation, react according to the LATTE principle (listen, acknowledge, take action, thank, encourage to return). Above all, however, do not react with hate to hate and do not perceive every manifestation of criticism in this way, which can be constructive and, as a result, very helpful. Use this information to do even better and improve your services. Treat your Facebook or Twitter account as another touchpoint with customers and a source of valuable feedback – not as a necessary evil that you “must” have nowadays, so as not to stand out from the competition.

Make sure you have the right people on your team

Even the best strategy will not be implemented in an effective way if you do not have a person or a team that is able to coordinate and optimize activities, also in terms of media support. Take care of a competent unit that will help you efficiently apply your social media strategy. It can be a person assigned to these tasks (for smaller projects) or a team within the company. It is also worth investing in training employees in the field of business use of social media.

Measure the effects of activities in social media

Remember to plan your time horizon and set yourself realistic KPIs – key performance indicators. It is easier to conduct and monitor activities with a set goal, so an integral part of your social media marketing strategy should be measurable and achievable results at a given time. Beginning entrepreneurs or start-up creators very often want to get the most out of the shortest possible time. It is completely understandable – because they devote their financial resources, free time, and heart to the project and would like to see the results of their actions as soon as possible. However, not all effects can be measured in a short time. To assess the impact of social media activities on sales and brand recognition, longer analysis and optimization are often needed.

Use the potential of social media

Unfortunately, you can still find the statement that social media is free. However, the statistics say otherwise. If you really want your brand to appear in social media, part of your marketing budget must be allocated to paid activities under the #PayToPlay principle and to the purchase of the necessary tools for effective social media service. The possibilities of Facebook, Instagram or other social networking sites are almost limitless and make it possible to reach specific target groups. Often the cost of acquiring a potential customer through turns out to be easier to measure and much lower than you might think.

If you want to improve your work, make sure that your social media team uses the right tools. Media monitoring is important, as it will provide you with constant monitoring of mentions about the company and will allow you to react quickly. Remember also to connect social media with Google Analytics and your website to have access to detailed statistics on the activation. Test all the tools – many of them are free, so you won’t expose your business to additional costs – and choose the ones that work best for your brand. Also, be interested in extending your activities to the blogosphere – thoughtful cooperation in this area will affect the image and recognition of your product or service, and, consequently, consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Over and out

Be inspired by other brands … but also by your mistakes. Try a lot of things, optimize only those that are worth it for your social media marketing strategy. Remove others unceremoniously from the strategy or leave them for better times. Most of all, however, enjoy your social media activities – they can pay off faster than you think.

the y e a r b o o k

You paid to be in it. You paid to get your copy. And now it’s yours. But do you start at page one? No no. The order is as follows: Your own picture. The senior superlatives. The teams or clubs you belong to. The rest.

My point is, we don’t just love to reminisce. We love to read about ourselves. See the fruits of our investments. Feel a part of something bigger. And it is with this point in mind that I’m sharing with you today how to write a year-in-review email for your customers that they will actually read! Read on to learn:

• Why write a year-in-review email
• How to keep it customer-centric
• Lots of ideas and examples to inspire you

Why write a year-in-review email?

In addition to being something people are generally interested in, sharing a recap also has business benefits.

Strengthen confidence in your business

Celebrating your growth and achievements from the year reinforces your dedication and competency within your industry, and affirms your customers’ decision to choose your business over competitors.

Maintain loyalty

Customers appreciate when you share what you’re proud of with them. It tells them they are a part of your community and you value their opinion. It also reminds them of how hard you work and gives them reason to continue supporting you.

And on the flip side, when you express appreciation for their support, you strengthen the bond that keeps them coming back to you.

Reduce churn

When your email tells your customers what they have accomplished, it reminds them how much your product or service helped them achieve success and inspires them to accomplish even more next year—keeping them engaged with your product.

Take a look at the example below by emagazine platform Texture, which shares a reader’s minutes reading compared to all users and even money and trees saved.

If I were a Texture customer, I’d be motivated to beat everyone’s average,
save more money, and spare more trees next year. (Image source)

Year-in-review email ideas

There are a few different ways to write a year-in-review. Depending on your industry, audience, and resources, you might choose one or any combination of the following:

1. Growth stats

Share stats and facts that show how you’ve grown, such as: reached x customers, welcomed x new team members, opened a new location, moved to a bigger office, launched a new partnership.

Avoid vanity metrics or offputting stats like number social media followers,

2. Milestones & achievements

Look back on some of the intangibles, like awards or nominations, successful events, new or improved products, features, or services, anniversaries, or big projects like a rebrand, new site, or acquisition.

3. Account-specific reports

People love when someone else talks about them or celebrates their achievements. Spotify’s Wrapped is a quintessential example of this type of year-end recap, but it’s great for any device, app, or account with individual stats,

This is also popular for B2B platforms with analytics.

Image source

4. Superlatives

Sharing stats and data for every account can be resource-heavy and sometimes runs the risk of syncing issues or data not loading. Instead, you might take a look at your behavioral data and identify trends within your audience, like the top-selling products, most popular blog posts, most shared social media posts, most popular product of each month, and more.

5. Industry stories

Some businesses will have access to more interesting information than others for the above ideas. If you can’t quite come up with something compelling, consider recapping some top stories or interesting stats of the year in your industry and for each one, share a brief reflection, action you took, or relevant tip.

Year-in-review email tips

Keep it separate from your holiday greeting or promotional emails

1. Use numbers

You’ll notice in just about all of these examples there are numbers. People love the numbers and the tangibles.

2. Visualize it…

Don’t just give your readers a bunch of text. Create a timeline or a journey path, include pictures or graphics, or even create a video.’

3. …but keep it mobile-friendly

This is a great visual by Big Cartel, and even though it appears as though it has a link to a page with the graphic and perhaps more details, the image in the email requires zooming and shifting, not a natural scroll.

Image source

4. Make it customer-centric

Always make it about them! This is easy if you have customer data or achievements to share, but not necessary. The example above reads:

2015 was a huge year for Big Cartel – not only for our team, but for the army of talented artists who build their businesses with us. Thank you for making our favorite moments from this year possible, and for being a part of this incredible community.

The example by Wix below does this as well, saying, “Before we jump into 2018, let’s look back at the most memorable moments of last year and see what we achieved together.”

Image source

So frame your accomplishments as achieved because of your customers—through their support, their use of your product, their reviews, feedback, votes, social shares, and more.

5. Thank your readers

Do NOT forget this part. The Wix email above nails the “togetherness” but fails to thank its customers. I’m sure the post it links to includes this, but it’s still important to include it in the email itself.

Thank you for choosing Texture for all your reading needs!

It’s all possible because of our incredible community of customers and contributors! THANK YOU!

Great work this year and thank you for being such an integral part of our growth in 2021.

6. Don’t create a landing page disguised as a thank you

Remember, frame this email as a celebration of growth, achieved with or made possible by your customers. The email below has an attractive, clean, and readable design, but although it reads “A year in review,” and “Thanks for being a part of our creative community,” the email copy does not support that.

Moreover, it closes with “Haven’t taken a class yet? Start today and join our growing number of students!” with a CTA to enroll.

Great design, not a year-in-review. (Image source)

The numbers could still work in a year-in-review email, but the language is not framed as accomplishments made together. It feels like a sneaky disguised landing page—a good way to lose customers.

7. Make it actionable

There are a number of ways to make your year-in-review email actionable:

• Provide recommendations based on the information you include.
• Share only a snippet or and include a link for them to view the review in a blog post—a good way to drive traffic to your site.
• For B2C, give them the option to share their numbers on social
• For B2B, make it easy for them to share the report with the rest of their team.

Image source

Year-in-review emails are great for generating leads and conversions, engaging your audience, and retaining customers. This is not your holiday thank you greeting to your customers, so it’s also okay—and encouraged—to include a CTA, such as to

• Sign up for your newsletter
• Follow your social channels
• Shop your store
• Learn about an upgrade
• Continue using your platform or app

That’s a wrap for 2017. But we can’t wait to share what next year has in store for creators, brands, and video lovers like Y-O-U. Until then, upload away and keep our screens glowing. bright.

8. Get customers excited for the new year

Having a CTA at the end adds in the element of a continued relationship with your customer into the next year, but you can turn things up a notch with a little teaser.

In a weird way, 2018 was all about 2019. We can’t tell you everything that’s coming this year, but take our word for it—there’s never been a better time to upload and do more with your videos.

Image source

Year-in-review email examples

Let’s take a look at a few more year-in-review email examples that you can steal ideas from.

1. Todoist—a personalized & practical churn buster

Todoist nails it with its “Your Year in Productivity” email, leaving you practically begging to renew your subscription for next year.

View the email here

There are three CTAs in this email, but they all work nicely together. The first is to view your report. The report itself is packed with stats, superlatives, and comparison information that will inspire you use the platform even more in the coming year, and the preceding copy encourages this:

“How did your productivity fare this trip around the sun? Did you rank in the top stratosphere of Todoist users, or did you fall off the shuttle? See how you did in 2017 and prepare to embark on a new mission in 2018.”

It then has a CTA to enroll in a free class to improve your productivity in the coming year, and to claim a discount for certain industries .

The only thing it’s missing is a thank you!

2. Vimeo—engaging, but one thing missing

Vimeo’s Top 18 Hits of ‘18 email shows some impressive design work:

View the full email here.

It’s clean, colorful, and readable, and shares a mix of information types. But while this year-in-review email is engaging, it’s all about Vimeo. There is no customer appreciation!

We couldn’t be more excited for 2019. But before we get ahead of ourselves, lets remember that a lot happened in 2018. Like, a lot. Let’s wrap an amazing, video-opacked year with our greatest Vimeo Hits.

I’d be willing to bet that Vimeo had a separate end-of-year customer appreciation email, but it’s still important to incorporate it here as well.

3. Campaign Monitor—superb customer centricity

This is actually a blog post, but Campaign Monitor does such a fantastic job of sharing its growth and achievements of the year in a customer-centric and creative way, I had to share it.

View the full recap here

Some key callouts:

• When sharing platform usage stats, Campaign Monitor makes its customers feel proud by calling them “curious subscriber scientists,” “customer experience architects,” “email artisans,” and more.
• Instead of boasting that its platform was used by 416,422 marketers to send 30.7 billion emails in 192 countries—the simple heading of “Your subscribers turned to the inbox more than ever,” shifts the tone to celebrating its customers’ importance.
• Before sharing the new features it released each month, the heading turns it into a collaborative achievement with “You asked, we answered” and what its customers “tapped into.”
• Campaign monitor shows genuine appreciation for its customers with phrases like: “When times got tough, Campaign Monitor customers got smarter,” and “You rose to the occasion with tenacity and ingenuity, ” and “We were honored to be with you every step of the way.”
• “It’s all possible because of our incredible community of customers and contributors! THANK YOU!”
• Finally, you get something to look forward to:

Look forward to a long list of new tools, resources, and inspiration coming in 2021, starting with our much-awaited annual Email Marketing Global Benchmarks Report. Keep an eye out for it early January!”

4. Wix—short & (mostly) sweet

Wix’s approach makes this a short and sweet email that grabs your attention at the start and sends you to its website to view more.

Image source

Again, the full post most likely ends with an expression of gratitude, but there’s enough information here for a reader to leave it at that, so something like “Check out the sweetest moments of 2016, made possible by you!”

5. Strava—comical, relatable, watchable

As a cycler myself, I appreciated this email example. Plus, not only did Strava make the email more engaging with a recap video, but it also included some numbers right in the email to make it satisfying on its own.

Image source

It’s time to celebrate your 2017 on Strava. You toed the line, you dug deep, you achieved (and maybe made some crazy faces and noises along the way). Check out this personalized recap of your year, and kudos for being a part of Strava’s incredible community of athletes.

6. Classy- top blog posts

This email starts with:

Grow, engage, convert. Fundraising tips and donor relations were the top themes on Classy this year. In case you missed ’em, here they are again…the 10 most popular posts from 2016.

Image source

Share your year-in-review emails!

As you can see, year-in-review emails are a gem of a method to drive business goals at the end of the year while also engaging and delighting your customers and readers. Plus, they’re fun. What yearly recap emails do you look forward to receiving? Let me know in the comments!

Christmas is the season of joy, of gift-giving, and of families united. While this may be true for all of us, for marketers and SMM specialists, Christmas is also the perfect time to perfect their campaign ideas.

During Christmas, social media opens its doors and all kinds of Christmas posts are starting to bombard our feeds.

Even though Christmas posts are magical, not all of them are successful. And because we know how hard it is to come up with new content ideas, we turned our attention to data.

The team at Socialinsider did a case study on Christmas campaigns and made a list of best practices marketers should follow to craft engaging Christmas posts.

• Choose the right platform

According to the data, the most engaging platform for last year’s Christmas campaigns was TikTok, with an average engagement rate of 5.493%, followed by LinkedIn (with a score of 1.399%).

However, Instagram was the app with the highest posting last Christmas (712,875 posts), followed by Facebook (with 320,251 posts) and Twitter (with 103,586 posts).

This means that creating a 360′ marketing strategy is important but just as important is to understand each platform’s features and to use the one that is most suitable for your brand’s needs.

• Use more albums on Facebook and more videos on Instagram for better engagement

On Facebook, brands should post more albums for better engagement (0.487%), to differentiate Christmas posts from regular posts.

On Instagram, videos perform best, with an average engagement rate of 0.383%, which is not surprising at all, considering how much the platform relies on visuals.

• Christmas posts with shorter captions bring more engagement

On Facebook, brands should post images with longer captions (40-60 words) for the highest engagement rate per post – 1.374%.

On Instagram, videos perform best with short captions (less than 20 words), with an engagement rate per post of 0.908%.

Why this matters: Facebook’s ad targeting limitation is just another in a long list of privacy changes that seek to make the end consumer more invisible to brands trying to market to those consumers.

The bigger picture: Over the past decade, we’ve seen tech companies embroiled in a constant roller coaster of advertising and privacy scandals, overhauls, reboots, and shut downs. A couple examples from the last ten years:

• Since April, the world of digital advertising has been in a bit of a tailspin as media buyers react to the new reality of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency update to iOS 14, which over 80% of users have opted into, according to some industry reports.
• In 2018, The European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation, codifying many advertisers’ fears into law and sounding a warning bell for similar regulation to come in the U.S.
• In 2017, Apple announced it’s Safari web browser was blocking all cookies. By 2023, Google has promised to do the same.
• In 2012, Facebook throttled Fan Page access in order to support ads, with brands seeing an organic viewership drop 16% to 6.5% over a two year period.

As a recent New York Times article bluntly stated about the reality of digital privacy changes for internet advertisers, “businesses that do not keep up with the changes risk getting run over.”

What this means for your brand: Despite the apparent doldrums, this new veil of internet secrecy is certainly not the gloom and doom scenario you might think at first blush. Yes, the crackdown on internet privacy and user data is only getting started, but it’s also only getting started. The sooner your marketing team accepts this reality, the faster and better they can pivot.

Here are three strategies your brand can implement right now to pivot your digital strategy to retain access to your prospects and clients.

1. Own your list, own the day.

In all things digital, what’s here today could be a ghost town tomorrow. Companies fold, sites go down, policies change—and if you don’t own your list, you are powerless to do a thing about it.

So: Use your access on the peripheral channels to create an audience on the channels you do control by levering the power of second-click content. When you share or publish a piece of content on any platform you don’t own, embed links to topically relevant “second click” content that lives on your website.

This second-click content provides a deeper level of contextually relevant information for those prospects curious enough to click. This content is also a great place to insert a list-building form, since the prospects who click-through to this page are most likely qualified leads who’ve engaged with your content and have demonstrated genuine interest.

Then: Move those prospects into a drip campaign, and get them engaging with content on your site on your terms.

Bonus: You’ll find that the customer dossier you can build on a prospect after a few email campaigns creates far more valuable sales signals than a few social demographic parameters ever could.

2. Create the content your customers want to see (and share).

Sure, it’s great to converse with your customers via an owned list, but how exactly are you going to get them there?

By creating high quality, engaging content that provides true value to the reader. In short, you have to give before you’ll get. You have to give high quality content that gets clicked on and then most importantly, shared.

This is key because when social agents share your content organically, it’s seen by new prospects (their friends and colleagues); prospects whose guards are way down since the content was shared by a friend, not a brand.

Bonus: Sharing gets you around all privacy restrictions, today and forever.

3. (Re)create the content your customers want to see and share.

The final step in this three-part strategy is rinse and repeat. All that great new content you’ve made? Recycle it. Repurpose it. Every platform has its own quirks and idiosyncrasies, and some will flow much more naturally than others, but in general, with a little re-working one podcast interview can become at least a couple of guest posts, some well-timed tweets, and maybe even a YouTube explainer video if you’re feeling fancy.

Audio transcription resources like Speechpad will transcribe your audio to text for as little as $1/minute—not a bad rate for 80% of a blog post in your inbox a day or two after upload. And video maker programs like Doodly can allow you to convert a drier bit of a webinar or white paper into an engaging doodle video, primed for social sharing.

If you’re going to build an owned customer database and create quality content, it requires an investment—time, money, or both. So double down on that investment, and squeeze as much value as possible from your content.

Don’t get lost in the digital landscape

The digital landscape is made of tissue paper. Nothing is built to last, and what was a monolith yesterday might be a meme tomorrow. If you’re not actively thinking about ways your company can create first party, direct relationships with customers and prospects, you’re going to get left behind.

All signs point toward the new data economy requiring a value exchange between brands and users in order for companies to gain access to user data. Knowing this truth can generate huge leverage in your marketing team’s favor. So don’t get left behind, start pivoting your brand today.

With so many pictures of beautiful scenery, delightful décor, fantastic food, and meaningful family moments to share, the holidays are a great time to let your creative side shine on Instagram.

Today, we’re going to make sure you never run out of festive flair, with a selection of the top 50 Instagram captions for Christmas.

You’re free to steal as many as you like, think of them as our gift to you!

Top 50 Instagram Captions For Christmas You Can Use

To help ensure you maintain the right vibes this holiday season, we’ve split our selection of amazing Instagram captions for Christmas up into a few different segments.

This way, you can always find the caption most likely to suit your latest shot. We’ll be looking at cute Instagram captions for adorable photos, captions inspired by songs, quotes, and movies, and even a few funny captions too.

Cute Instagram Christmas Captions

1. There’s #Snow place like home…
2. We’re just a bunch of candy canes, sweet and slightly twisted
3. ‘Tis the season to sparkle
4. Ready for a long Christmas nap
5. Already listening for reindeer hooves on the roof
6. Dreaming of a white Christmas
7. The holly to my jolly
8. My favorite color is Christmas lights
9. Eat, drink, and be cozy
10. Spreading holiday cheer year after year

Instagram Christmas Captions Inspired By Songs

1. Holidays are joyful; there’s always something new. But every day’s a holiday when I’m near to you.
2. “If there is love in your heart and your mind, you will feel like Christmas all the time.”
3. After all, there’s only one more sleep ‘til Christmas
4. Feeling Christmas all around, and I’m trying to play it cool.
5. The party’s on; the feeling’s here that only comes this time of year.
6. There’ll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and caroling out in the snow
7. I don’t know if there’ll be snow, but have a cup of cheer
8. Next year, I could be just as good if you check off my Christmas list
9. Hurry down the chimney tonight
10. Oh, all these things and more, darlin’, that’s what Christmas means to me, my love.

Funny Instagram Christmas Captions

1. Reminder: I am a present
2. Most days: Slay, December days: #Sleigh
3. Merry #Elfin Christmas
4. I’m dreaming of a white
5. All the jingle ladies put your hands up
6. Can’t wait to exchange all these presents
7. The tree isn’t the only thing getting lit this year
8. Single and ready to jingle
9. Christmas cheer? I thought you said Christmas beer…
10. All I want for Christmas is you food.

Christmas Quote Instagram Captions

1. “Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.”
2. “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
3. “Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance — each beautiful, unique, and gone too soon.”
4. “The joy of brightening other lives becomes for us the magic of the holidays.”
5. “Christmas is like candy; it slowly melts in your mouth sweetening every taste bud, making you wish it could last forever.”
6. “Love the giver more than the gift.”
7. “At Christmas, all roads lead home.”
8. “As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year.”
9. “Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”
10. “Freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin—inhale deeply and fill your soul with wintry night.”

Christmas Instagram Captions Inspired By Movies

1. “Eureka! This year, Christmas will be ours!”
2. “But for now, let me say. Without hope or agenda. Just because it’s Christmas. And at Christmas you tell the truth. To me, you are perfect.”
3. “It’s Christmas Eve and we are going to go celebrate being young and being alive.”
4. “Christmas isn’t just a day; it’s a frame of mind.”
5. “Blast this Christmas music. It’s joyful and triumphant.”
6. “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”
7. “What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?”
8. “Just remember, the true spirit of Christmas lies in your heart.”
9. “Some people are worth melting for.”
10. “That’s what Christmas memories are made from. They’re not planned, they’re not scheduled, nobody puts them in their Blackberry. They just happen.”

Examples Of Brands Marketing On Instagram For Christmas

If there’s one time of the year brands really pull out all the stops on Instagram, it’s usually around the Christmas season. The best Instagram captions for Christmas will get you on the right path to a memorable campaign this holiday season. However, if you’re still looking for some extra inspiration, check out some of these examples of brands making the most of the holidays:

1. Oreo

Oreo is no stranger to rolling out amazing content on Instagram, every time of year. For one of its holiday celebrations in December 2018, Oreo used an animation to showcase one of its new products. The campaign was also a fantastic “shoutout” to the people who would be driving around the US to visit loved ones and members of the family during the festive season.

This was a fantastic opportunity for Oreo to show off its festive side. The use of animation also made the cookie brand’s personality a little more endearing for the season. The use of the #roadtrippers hashtag was also an intelligent way for Oreo to get in front of more customers during the holidays.

2. Starbucks

Every year, Starbucks rolls out a selection of exclusive drinks just for the festive season. These beverages are often highly sought-after, and some even end up selling out within a couple of weeks (or days). The “red cups” are a common appearance on Starbucks Instagram feed, along with new hashtags for people to use when sharing their own festive drinks.

For 2021, Starbucks introduced the return of the red cups in November, getting people in the festive spirit with a quick, engaging video, similar to a TikTok clip. The creative video is a great, fast-paced way to grab people’s attention, while the branded hashtag ensures Starbucks has plenty of access to new user-generated content.

3. Cluse

Christmas is a great time for businesses to get customers excited about the idea of giving some festive presents. It’s a time to show off your latest products, share some deals, and even highlight what makes your brand special. Cluse shows a great example of this in their 2019 Christmas post. Not only does this Instagram snap look brilliant, but the caption is packed with branded hashtags for customers to share.

To make this campaign even more impressive, Cluse didn’t make itself, but chose an image from an influencer/customer instead. The photo by @si_sichen seems so much more authentic coming from a genuine consumer of Cluse products.

Choose The Right Caption This Christmas

As important as it is to get your pictures and videos right during the festive season, don’t underestimate the importance of the right Instagram captions for Christmas. A good caption is a chance to connect with your followers, share your fun side, and even generate engagement when used correctly.

Consider sprucing your Instagram captions up with some emojis if you want to make sure they stand out. Or why not add a branded hashtag into the mix to generate some great user-generated content for your next campaign? With a little luck, our Instagram captions above will have given you the inspiration you need, now it’s your turn to go and create some Christmas magic.

One of the most essential features of running an online business is selling online courses. Many people are now getting introduced to the world of eLearning.

Opting for such a category of online courses will prove extremely beneficial for you because it currently being in high demand. Now the question arises on what online course idea to implement because there are many options to explore in this category.

We are here to solve this confusion of yours with a list of 10 potentially in-demand most profitable online courses. Make sure to choose the one that has a chance of attracting maximum audiences to ensure great benefits.

Additionally whatever course you are going to choose should fit the criteria of the learner’s comfort. With this article, you will learn how to pick the perfect online learning course that will yield the maximum profit.

The increase in popularity of eLearning has led to many online course platforms having sprung up to provide the best quality services to students and workers.

Thus, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to choose the ideal online course topic ideas for you (2021 edition).

Which Are the Most Profitable Online Course Ideas For eLearning?

A good online course should target a specific audience to which you can deliver the best content to ensure success. In other words, your niche should not be for anyone and everyone.

Although it may sound peculiar, this is the only way to run a best-selling online course.

Take a look at the list of profitable niches for online courses to earn a large sum of money from home.

Remember these topics are general. If you are passionate about your course to really stand out amongst the lot, study your targeted audience. Then only you would be able to deliver the course as productively as possible.

To explain simply, just don’t target your course to be accessible for everyone. Ponder on who would get the most benefit from your online course idea. Work accordingly for that specific audience.

1. Computers and Technology

We live in a digital era. It has now become a necessity to be aware of the potential applications computers and technology has to offer.

Computers and technology have enabled us all to stay up-to-date on the latest Google trends. Meanwhile, technology is evolving steadily. Many are still behind it, or others are trying to think ahead of the present technology.

A computer is an essential technology that we can use in many efficient ways. They are not only useful to get information or for entertainment purposes. But one can even learn to earn passive income through online work.

For these purposes, online IT-related courses like programming, web design, and development through WordPress are very much in demand. They are a great source of income.

Web designers and developers are in great demand in this era of technology. Organizing a free course to sell in this niche can prove to be extremely profitable for you.

Its short tech-related courses would be aimed at students who want to excel in skills and become financially independent.

These tech-related courses are highly in demand because of the increasing importance of the virtual world. You can target a huge audience if you opt for any technical niche from the below-given options.

Other courses that you could opt for regarding the in-demand niche of computers and technology are listed below:

• Cell phone repair
• Creating a website
• Machine learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Robotics
• Software programming
• Cyber security
• Adobe Premiere
• Digital video editing
• Photoshop learning
• Podcast production
• Web designing

These are some course creator ideas that could earn you a great amount of money because of its trending need. Especially amongst undergraduate students who are looking for part-time work by learning a useful skill.

2. Business and Management

With technology, the world also saw a revolutionary change. This included business startups webinar getting introduced to varied ideas.

This approach gave rise to the introduction of many new professions in the business and project management field. Numerous audiences turned their hobbies into businesses and earned a desirable amount of income as well.

The demand for eLearning about business strategies and entrepreneurship programs has highly increased because of it. Nowadays, everyone desires to earn money by monetizing what they love to do.

What is better than making Personal Finance through things you enjoy? Of course, nothing! Ever since the freelancing and startups market has surged up, this topic is always in high demand by entrepreneurs.

Business programs include teaching audiences with diversified ideas but little experience on how to run a successful business campaign

Entrepreneurship online courses are perfect for beginners to learn the basics of starting a self-owned business.

In recent years, small businesses have sprung up everywhere reaching the limits of success. A course that teaches these strategies will help people reach their goals in no time at all.

You can also teach regarding the social media branding of products a businessman is targeting to sell. Digital marketing fundamentals have now been marked as an important aspect of online business and hence in demand.

And you should dive deeper into the business coaching industry trends when trying to start an online course on the following niches:

• Affiliate marketing
• Dropshipping
• E-commerce
• SEO
• Time Management
• Blogger
• Personal Brand
• Freelancing
• Amazon FBA
• Digital marketing
• Blog writing to promote business
• Branding of products through social media
• Launching a start-up
• Growth strategies
• Personal financing and revenue from the business

These brainstorming ideas are currently hot on the market. Choose any of the ones you think you can deliver to the audience efficiently.

As more people try to start their own businesses, you can attract masses to your business and entrepreneurship information.

3. Arts and Crafts

There are many people who take online courses in order to learn or improve their skills and make a satisfactory income.

Drawing, painting, sketching, and other hobbies have given a lot of artists a way to earn money through their hobbies. This niche not only earns money but also gives a source of entertainment to the learner.

In order to serve this niche, you must have artistic skills and be able to deliver them to audiences online. Content Creation samples of your work to attract the targeted audience. This is definitely going to assist in content marketing.

With e-commerce websites like Etsy and Amazon, millions of crafters can sell their products online and make money.

With courses in Arts and Crafts, providing knowledge and skills, students can take a deep dive into entrepreneurship ventures.

The demand for this niche in the market is marked by more people being attracted to art and crafts. You can target this audience and deliver your artistic skills to them.

Taking such courses can help students, freelancers, stay-at-home parents, artists, and other home-bound individuals earn a handsome income. All by putting their artistic skills at work.

Therefore, the following niches are hot currently in arts and crafts:

• Drawing
• Knitting
• Graphic Design
• Photography
• Animation
• Architecture
• Digital art
• Illustration
• Graphic designing
• Photography
• Jewelry designing
• Patchwork
• Interior design

Arts and crafts in the field of interest. Many people just learn it for fun. There are many real and virtual art-related courses you can deliver. Choose appropriately!

4. Physical well-being

Health has become an extremely important niche, especially after the crisis of global pandemics. Everyone wishes to be healthy and happy in their life by eating better and following an effective exercise regime.

You can opt to sell an online learning course relating to health management. That would teach the learner effective ways to ensure proper eating habits in order to lead a healthy life.

For this niche, the target audience is generally young men striving to gain muscle mass or shed some pounds. They will surely be interested in your online course if you target the ways of these through exercise and diet.

Health management isn’t just limited to bodybuilding but also anti-aging methods as well as disease controlling ways. Offer courses that cover this area and many healthcare audiences will approach you.

The audience to target can also involve middle-aged people who are willing to work on improving their health. They would definitely pay to hear expert advice on ways to be in better shape and mind.

Also, the pandemic has led to a rising number of mental health issues in people of every age. This niche can prove very profitable for you if you use it to spread awareness and teach students about mental health.

The vast amount of health-related data is available on the internet is progressively increasing.

Online courses related to health provide information regarding the ideal lifestyle, effects of food consumption, and disease control methods. In addition to this, such online programs also help raise awareness about mental health problems.

Thus, selling your own online course on a health-related niche is a good step. The following topics are famous:

• Meditation
• Vegan cooking
• Acupressure
• Weight Loss
• Herbalism
• Personal Development
• Diet and nutrition
• Skincare regimen
• Therapeutic aromatherapy
• Yoga
• Public health
• Biological medicine
• Global health awareness program

5. Education

Online courses on education can absolutely not replace the traditional classroom methods. It could though complement well for those who aim to learn but are short on resources like time or convenience.

This is an essential niche for teachers as well as students aiming to choose this profession in the near future. In fact, teachers could also gain benefits from these courses to increase their knowledge on several topics.

The demand for educational courses has currently increased because of the ease it provides in learning important topics. Many people aim at learning things online because it is easy and convenient. Hence, they take up online courses for educating themselves.

The profession of teaching is now not just limited to teachers. Anyone who is willing to spread knowledge on particular topics can teach the masses.

These courses help professionals to build new skills and a student-friendly teaching method. Also, when students take up these courses, they can easily teach others by effective means to earn financial support.

It would also be great if students could get online training to learn and develop their presentation skills.

Due to the sudden shift to eLearning, courses addressing various modes and approaches to teaching and learning are high in demand.

There is no better way to invest your time than in the process of learning and transferring that knowledge to others.

Hence, here are a few niches that potentially relate to the educational department and could earn you a large audience.

• Presentation skills
• Media training
• Public Speaking
• Teaching English
• Starting a coaching business
• Online course creation
• Real Estate
• Law
• Languages
• Office management
• Logical reasoning
• Mental health short courses

What online courses are in demand?

According to onlinecoursereport.com, Machine Learning with Python from IBM is the most in-demand online course.

Let’s dig into the details of it. Saeed Aghabozorgi, Senior IBM Data Scientist, will teach you about Machine Learning, studying computer algorithms.

Machine learning is one step forward in the world of in-demand artificial intelligence. It analyses data and statistics to predict potential outcomes and trends. It can prove extremely beneficial in this era of technology.

In this course, you learn the basics of machine learning in the approachable and well-manageable language, Python. It is a five-week-long course. In addition, it demands 4-5 hours of homework per week.

With no participation fee, you will receive a verified certificate for $39 through this online course.

On the second number, we have Harvard’s Introduction to Computer Science. This course is the most famous and in-demand course offered by Harvard University. This course teaches students the craft of programming.

Moreover, computer science is going to be the center of attention in the near future seeing the rise of technology. This course will assist you in the field of problem-solving, a life-changing skill in the virtual world.

You will learn how software and hardware are developed, designed, and analyzed. All to solve scientific, social, and business obstacles.

The mentioned course consists of programming problems in 9 sets, which approximately take 10-20 hours each to solve. Students who can pass the final test and these nine problems are eligible to receive the certificate. So contact them via email list.

Participation is free, but on completion, a certificate of $90 is to be purchased.

Conclusion

The virtual world has now marked an important place in the lives of human beings. Technology is being introduced in every aspect of real life from business to medicine. Hence, we should realize the importance of the online world.

Availing benefits from the online platform is the sole goal of this article. There has been a review of all the top trending online courses so you can choose the best one for you.

Online courses have caused great benefits to people of every age who have the will to learn and deliver. In a pandemic, the number of learners increased and hence the demand for such courses in various niches.

In this article, a few essential niches were covered like technology, business, data science entrepreneurship, health, education, arts and crafts. The article also discussed numerous ways to cover these niches.

As such, you must choose an eLearning course that reaches a large audience eager to start online businesses.

Online courses are convenient to learn and affordable for all ages. So, one can easily choose the ideal course for themselves.

The topics mentioned above will help you filter what course you want to sell and earn money. Aim for a particular audience, and your online course will flourish for sure. Have a great time choosing!

When everything is in abundance, why should marketers shy away from demanding an extra lot of customers? These extra customers would probably be the conversions from the traffic on their business’s website. So, they would want to put in extra effort into attracting more traffic to their site if they want to boost their product sales. To boost and increase their sales and conversion business should need business plan templates for promoting their products during this festive seasons to reach their target.

One way to achieve this is to practice Search Engine Optimization at its best. This technique will bring your business into the spotlight in no time if done right. Since sales are at their highest during the holiday season, it is likely that competition will be high amongst online stores. If you want yours to peak through and grab customers, you will have to be vigilant with your SEO practices.

Keeping all of this in mind, we have enlisted 8 marketing tips to boost your website traffic this holiday season:

1. Commence your marketing campaign well before time

A lot of businesses make the mistake of delaying their holiday campaigning strategy and losing out on sales.

As a marketer, you must think about placing your brand in your target market’s head before the season arrives. That is, customers should think of shopping from your before December begins. Launching your holiday marketing campaign before November or December can your brand an edge in the market. This will specifically work out for the customers who buy holiday gifts early on. You can easily tap into the early shopper with your holiday offers released ahead of time.

2. Target long-tail keywords

Once you are over and done with high-intent keywords and popular keywords, you should move your focus to long-tail keywords. These keywords make for a significant part of the overall web searches. Hence, if you miss out on targeting these, you might be missing out on an opportunity to get some serious traffic on your website.

3. Use seasonal keywords

Every festival has its own set of keywords that trend across the web. Seasonal SEO would be based on these sets of keywords. For example: for Christmas keywords like Christmas decor, Christmas gifting, Christmas lighting, etc, will trend.

If you do not target seasonal keywords, your store will not show up in the search results. Hence, you should include popular seasonal keywords in your product pages, landing pages, offer announcements, or blogs.

4. Design holiday landing pages

Landing pages designed for the holidays will prove to be your golden ticket to winning festive sales and SEO.

Here is what a festive landing page will do for you:

• Festive goals will be more targeted or specific
• Allows for a festive specific call to action
• Acts as a common home for all specific keywords
• Will show up all offers and product announcements, in a single space

These perks will immediately boost the chances of your pages ranking higher than non-centralized festive pages. Moreover, increased visibility will rope in organic traffic that will help you to generate leads, conversions and sales.

5. Offer free rewards

This is the one trick in a marketer’s handbook that never fails to perform. Everyone loves stuff that comes at no cost. So, you make use of that to your benefit. When you attest a free product or purchase gift along with the main purchase, the customers simply won’t be able to resist.

This strategy can be used very smartly to lure customers into spending more with your company. For example: if you give free products on purchases above $50, the customer will end up spending that amount with your company just for the sake of that free product.

Especially during holidays when everyone is in the mood for giving back, your customers will surely like to be on receiving end of the gifting. So, if you do not want to offer free rewards per se, you can offer free shipping instead. All these tactics with amplified highlights on offers, promotions, and savings will definitely bring increased sales volumes.

6. Do festive promotion link building

If you do not already know of the importance of off-page SEO, let us elaborate on that. A quality link to your web page will signal Google crawlers that the webpage is a valuable content piece. When Google receives this signal, it will shoot up the ranking of your page. This is what we mean by off-page SEO.

Backlinking is a strategic way to bring traffic to your web pages from other portals or websites. And when links are “Do follow” in nature, the Page authority and domain authority.

You must also consider the importance of anchor text. Quality backlinks should be sought from festive-specific anchor texts like Black Friday deals, Christmas offers, Halloween costumes, etc.

7. Have a solid internal linking setup

The strength of your linking profile will not solely depend on the number of backlinks you have but also on your internal linking structure. Whenever you create and publish content, keep an eye out for opportunities for internal links. The overall user experience will improve with this method along with a better SEO position, ultimately leading to more traffic on your website. So, if you are writing and publishing any new holiday content, try to give links from that to your internal pages.

8. Use the power of hashtags

If you are into social media marketing and have been doing it for a while, you must be aware of the kind of power that hashtags hold. They have the capacity to make your content seen loud and clear and even make it go viral.

You will be able to fully utilize their ability on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Focus on holiday-specific hashtags and boost your chances of getting spotted by a maximum number of potential customers. The best part about hashtags is that they are easy to remember and they can encourage user-generated content.

All armed to get some serious traffic this holiday season now?

This was a very handy handbook for you to ace your holiday marketing strategy like never before. You can gather up an experienced team of SEO professionals and with all hands on deck, imagine the kind of exposure you can get for your brand this season.

We don’t have to mention that hashtags are important. They’re a huge part of social media marketing and have a great role to play in making content searchable and shareable. But they aren’t just about following the latest trending tags. Or are they?

Why create our own?

We can create our own unique hashtags whenever we want. As long as they make sense to our audiences, we have absolute freedom on what we put out there. Yet some brands don’t create their own hashtags.

This could be a mistake. Creating unique hashtags can help a brand develop engagement, pure and simple.

What is a unique hashtag?

They are hashtags created with a specific purpose in mind. #Business, for example, can be used for pretty much anything business-related, but #ShareaCoke refers to a specific brand and is part of a specific campaign. Coke uses hashtags like that one because the campaign is built around the phrase. Also, no other brand is able to use it, it’s Coke’s invention.

A unique hashtag like that one speaks directly to audiences and it speaks to their loyalty. In a sense, it forms a unique message to customers. This uniqueness is needed to differentiate and add value to social media campaigns.

That is not to say that all hashtags should be unique to a brand, obviously. There is a ratio that needs to be understood and followed if a brand is to get the most out of the hashtag usage. We will look at these dynamics after we have taken a view on ‘regular’ hashtags.

The ‘regular’ hashtags

There are many generic hashtags, too many to get hung up about. There are ways to make sure you are using hashtags that will be seen by audiences, but that will also make sense for your brand.

To take this idea down to its basic level, consider the hashtag #followme. This particular hashtag is the most popular on Instagram, and it is used in millions of posts. But you wouldn’t use that on a branded account. If you did, you’d appear desperate and ‘spammy’.

The aim is to find hashtags that are popular but still relevant to your brand and what you do. It would be even better if you were able to find hashtags that were hyper-focused, to the extent that they literally refer to what you do. While this may sound a little obvious, it is important to build your campaigns around tags that are genuinely sensible.

The best way to get started with this process is to look at your competitors. They will be using hashtags in their posts. You could look at what they are doing and emulate that. The reason why this is a good idea is because it is obviously working with the audience you are trying to engage with.

Don’t focus on just the types of hashtags either. Look at the number of hashtags they use in a post. That shows how much your audience can tolerate and still engage with the content.

When looking to create campaigns around hashtags that are being used by everyone else, it pays to get involved in some social listening. There are plenty of platforms out there that allow you to check streams and see which hashtags are proving to be most popular. It is very easy to do, and will give you a steady supply of hashtags that are worth using in your own posts for exposure and engagement.

Finally, always look into the related hashtags that platforms offer you when you start to enter your own in posts. These related tags are definitely worth including, simply because the platform (whether it’s Twitter or LinkedIn, or any other platform) uses machine learning to find the best hashtags that fit your content.

So what do we do?

Hashtags should be used sparingly, but you do have to focus on what is working out there right now. The easy way to approach it is to find popular hashtags so that you have a good chance of being engaged with. Then, as campaigns progress, use unique hashtags that help to establish your brand.

As always, test what you do and make sure you change course if you need to.

Some campaigns are a done deal for becoming viral, but not all of a brand’s Facebook posts will have exceptional engagement rates.

In 2021, there were many tactics that helped brands increase their engagement on Facebook. Even though some are quicker in results than others, it is important for marketers to be more focused on the long game.

Going live has proven to be a technique that can even help brands double their engagement on Facebook.

And let’s not forget of course about the power of contests in social media. Many times called giveaways, they are better to be marketed as challenges brands address to their fans. This way brands can also gain some authentic user-generated content that can be further repurposed.

Regardless of a brand’s line of operation, size, or popularity, every business must understand that online audiences are most important when doing social media marketing. Which means listening to fans’ needs and offering solutions to their problems. This is what having a fan-centric approach refers to.

By carefully listening to one’s communities, every brand will find endless inspirational ideas, will understand if the users prefer image or video content or stories. And adapting to these needs will be 100% rewarded with the most precious social media KPI – engagement.

Facebook groups are also very important as it offers brands a chance to create a unified community.

As there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, below you’ll find an infographic that also summarizes a couple of tactics on how to increase Facebook engagement in a much more visual manner. Because, as pointed out – visual, colored, and easy-to-understand content matters a great deal.

Proven to be very successful for some brands, they are worth trying for improving your engagement on Facebook as well.

If your answer is “not recently” or “never”, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most brands, I would argue, rarely or never perform these types of audits. They take time. They cost money. And, they take time and energy away from teams that are already stretched to the max.

However, a good, in-depth social media audit is worth it’s weight in gold. Why? Here’s a few of the reasons companies have come to me for social media audits over the last 12 years (at last count, I’ve done 20+ of these social media audits over the years):

#1 – We need to adjust/revamp our social media strategy. An audit gives you the perfect “pause” to re-shape your social media strategy. The triggers for this are many: A new CMO; a new social media lead; a new direction/strategy for the company.

#2 – We don’t love our existing social media/content partner and we need an outside perspective. Interestingly enough, I probably get this one the most. The company isn’t quite satisfied with their current agency. And, in many cases, for good reason (often times it’s an agency that doesn’t specialize in social, so they’re a little out of their depth). They want to know where they’re falling down–and where they can crush it in the months ahead. But, they have no idea where they’re at because they’ve been outsourcing social–they need a fresh perspective and a fresh start.

#3 – We want to see how we’re doing. I don’t see this one all that often–but this is the approach I believe more brands should adopt. Conducting a social media audit annually (or bi-annually at a minimum) is a great way to evaluate how your team is doing, where you’re doing well, and where you could be doing better.

So, there are some very good reasons why companies should be doing these social media audits on a regular basis. Now the question is: What’s included in a social media audit?

#1: Start by reviewing and analyzing the branding of your social media accounts

Is the branding consistent? Do banner images across all your social profiles match up? Are your profile pics consistent?

Are you using consistent language? What about “About” sections–when was the last time you updated those?

#2: Next, review and analyze your brand social media metrics

How often is the brand posting? If you’re like most brands, probably too much! But, count the posts on a monthly basis going back a minimum of 3 months to get a feel. How does that stack up with best practices? How does it stack up against your resources? If your team was stretched in 2021, was it worth it to post 30 times a month on Facebook?

What are the reach and engagement metrics? Again, go back a minimum of 3 months–6 months for optimal analysis. Look at total engagements, but also break things out by likes, comment, shares, etc. Are you super heavy on likes and very light on comments and shares? That should tell you something about your content–especially if your goals revolve around engagement. Remember “likes” are a dime a dozen these days.

How much traffic are you driving from social to your web site? I’m discovering a lot of people don’t even really track this that often–and you should be. Especially considering how many links I see in social posts! Is that working? If social is driving less than 5% of traffic to your site, the answer is probably “no”! Which, should definitely alter your strategy in the year ahead.

How many leads are you driving from social media? And do you know exactly where they’re coming from? Do you know what the cost of acquisition is?

#3: Get a handle on your existing social communities

Review social demographic info on your existing communities. Facebook, in particular, gives you a bunch of data here. Review this on an annual basis, as it does shift. Especially look at your followers vs. your engaged audience–what’s the difference? LinkedIn also gives you some good demo data about your audience–is your content matching up with who’s following you on each platform? Make sure to look at age ranges, geographies, interests and, on LinkedIn, things like seniority.

#4: Which social media content is resonating, and which isn’t

Review impression/engagement numbers. Again, go back 3-6 months. Break it down by month, and then by post. You’re looking for peaks and valleys, as well as trends among content–which is driving more awareness and engagement than others?

What content is performing best in terms of: Total engagements? Comments only? Shares only? This is a key part of the entire audit. Look closely at what kinds of content for each of the above, too. For example, how is promotional content performing vs. more education-focused content? Look at format, too. How are photo posts performing vs. video posts?

#5: Review your competitors’ social media activities

How large are their social media communities? Do the counts and maybe even put together a chart that shows how your company stacks up against the competition.

What does engagement look like? Could you review the last 10 posts for each network? Ideally, you’d look at least at a month’s worth of data here for each competitor. But again, put together a chart that shows how your company stacks up against competitors in terms of engagement per post. You will be surprised at the results.

How often are they posting on each network? Cadence matters. If one competitor is posting just 5 times a month on Facebook, and you’re posting 30+, and they’re seeing better results, that should tell you something!

What content is working well for them? What isn’t? Just like you did for your channels, look closely at what kinds of content themes are working for competitors. And, formats.

#6: Review your leaders, employees on social media

What networks are they most active on? For most, this will be LinkedIn, but could also include Instagram and Twitter.

Are leader profiles complete? How could you optimize them? Most of the times, I see leaders falling down in two key areas when it comes to profiles: Banner images and not using the “Featured” section.

What kinds of content are they sharing? What kinds of formats are most popular? Look closely at content themes–are they posting too much about your brand? And, are they sharing too many company posts and not sharing enough organic pics?

What kind of results are they seeing? What content is resonating? What kinds are not? What I’m seeing right now is organic posts (photos and videos) are working the best. What’s not working: Shared posts from the corporate account.

#7: What’s going on in the industry?

What hashtags are most used in your industry? Do you even know? If not, now is the time to figure that out–because it can change.

Who are the major influencers? Again, something a lot of people don’t really know. And you might say, “we don’t use influencers, why would we need to know who they are?” Because even if you don’t use influencers, you definitely want to know what these folks are talking about. Because, most likely, those are the issues your customers care about. Influencers are much better at being plugged into that kinda stuff than brands are.

What are the popular topics of conversation? See above.

What social networks are customers gravitating toward? Where is your audience in 2021? Are people leaving one network (ahem–FACEBOOK!) and moving to others, like TikTok or Twitter? Brands are rarely going to stay a step ahead of their customers–but they can at least stay a half step behind!

Those are some of the big things I look at when I conduct these social media audits. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than what I listed above, but I think this gives you a pretty good idea. It can be a time-consuming process, which is why companies hire people like me.

If this sounds like a process that might benefit your company–and you don’t have the time to do it yourself in the New Year–send me a note. I’d be happy to chat about what a social media audit might look like for your business!

That’s because so much of a company’s success solely relies on its ability to sell. Actually, let me rephrase that, all of a company’s success relies on its ability to sell. And in the age of ecommerce, many of a company’s sales will come via its website. In fact, according to The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2021 totaled $204.6 billion –which was actually a decrease of 3.2% from the second quarter of 2021.

And with so much of a company’s sales coming by way of its website – there’s still a sufficient amount of revenue that is still unfulfilled simply because of a few…let’s say digital marketing mishaps. No need to agonize, this article isn’t going to be about some magical SEO hack that will solve all of your ecommerce woes. And while SEO is important, it can only help people find your website – but then what?

These 3 digital marketing tactics to increase your website’s conversion rates are focused on helping you entice the people that visit your website to make a purchase once they arrive. But enough of the introduction. Let’s get to the tactics that are going to help put you in the category of executives that smile whenever they think of sales and have dreams about sales instead of nightmares.

Put your main feature first

As a consumer, don’t you just get frustrated whenever you log on to a website to order a company’s main feature and instead, end up on one of the pages of the sites’ other featured products that you’re probably not interested in purchasing?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of the milk philosophy of marketing. For those unfamiliar with the milk philosophy – have you ever asked yourself, “Why is that the milk is always located in the back of every grocery store?”

Well, the milk philosophy to marketing is centered around the concept that by placing milk in the coolers in the back of the store, customers are more likely to see and be enticed by other items on their way to grabbing the milk. I must admit that the tactic has worked on me plenty of times while grocery shopping (be honest, how many times have you purchased items that you had no intent on purchasing while grocery shopping? I can’t be the only one).

And while the milk philosophy is highly effective on consumers at grocery stores. It’s not nearly as effective for customers shopping online. In fact, according to a survey from 451research, 61% of US consumers that shop online prefer websites that make their products easy to find.

Think about it along these lines; let’s say that you own a company that sells snowboards online. If your data shows that the most popular item on your website amongst consumers is a particular snowboard, then that snowboard should be the first thing that visitors see whenever they log on your website.

Contrary to what other digital marketers may tell you about featuring peripheral items above-the-fold on your website in order to help those products sell more. When it comes to shopping online, consumers prefer ease and speed. In other words, they want what they came for. There’s other ways to feature your peripheral items – one way is by highlighting them on your website’s shopping cart at the time of, or after – a consumer makes purchase.

It’s important to remember that in order to increase conversions, you must give the consumer what they came for as soon as possible before they go elsewhere (which will increase your bounce rate). If consumers come to your site for milk, make sure that milk is the first thing they see when they arrive on your website. You can sell your other items in the aisles (on particular pages) or at the checkout – like grocery stores do with candy bars (they also got that one right).

Simplify selections (UX)

This one may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many websites don’t simplify the purchasing process on their website. In order to increase conversion rate, it’s imperative that you secure the sale as soon as possible. That means ensuring that visitors can make a purchase in as few clicks as possible. The more clicks that a consumer has to make to get what they came for, the more likely they’ll look for it elsewhere – which is missed revenue for your company!

Instead of helping your competitors confiscate your current and potential customers – be proactive and make sure that the user’s experience on your website is pleasurable and makes it easy as possible for visitors to navigate with no hurdles. Especially when it comes to making a purchase! Remember, the least amount of clicks to make a purchase – the better.

In their book R.E.D Marketing, former YUM! Brands CEO Greg Creed and Yum! Brands CMO Ken Muench stated, “Relevance and distinctiveness can make your brand more mentally available and appropriate for their times, but only ease can – with a few tweaks, pull your rivals’ customers into your locations overnight.”

Ease-of-purchase on your website will not only increase conversion amongst your current customers – it’ll also lead to some of your competitors’ customers churning and becoming your customers. Which will certainly increase your conversion rate exponentially.

Be scarce

I don’t have to tell you that as humans, we’re very enigmatic (some more than others). So oftentimes, things that seem very practical; like purchasing something that we’re interested in – or not purchasing something that we have no interest in, can become a decision that’s unnecessarily strenuous to us mentally.

For example, have you ever been on a date with someone at a restaurant, and the person that you were on the date with had ample time to check out the menu, but when the waiter came to take their order – they still weren’t prepared to make a decision on what they wanted to order? (if not, you probably was the one on the date that couldn’t decide what to order…you’re not alone – we’ve all been there)

The reason that choices that should be effortless for us, become arduous, is because we’re innately wired to become more finicky when options are abundant – and more resolute when things are scarce. In his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, author and behavioral scientist Dr. Robert B. Cialdini stated, “A less available item is more desired and valued.”

So, in knowing that as humans – we’re innately wired to desire and value things that are more scarce, help your customers make a decision by utilizing the law of scarcity to work on your behalf. The way to do that is by showing visitors on your website that you only have a limited supply of a certain product or a certain service will only be available for a certain price for a certain amount of time. This will cause tension – and tension invokes action.

Here’s a few ways that you can apply the law of scarcity on your website:

• “Only 5 shirts left – purchase now!”

• “Upgrade your phone in the next two days and get 50% off.”
• “We noticed you viewed these items – we only have 3 left in stock.”

Some would say that this is manipulation. But if it actually helps a customer make a decision that they’re having trouble making, is it wrong? I’ll leave that answer for the ethics professors. The way I see it, as long as you’re telling the truth…I don’t see the harm in causing tension.

Hate it or love it – the fear of missing out (FOMO) is a very effective tool to invoke a desired action. As humans, the fear of not having something we may want is one of the things that makes us tick. I think Cialdini stated it best when he said, “The idea of potential loss plays a huge role in decision making. In fact, people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value.”

The proper application of scarcity tactics on your website will increase conversion rate because people are naturally more inclined to act on the thought of losing something than the possibility of gaining something. But as a responsible marketer – it’s your job to ensure that once the consumer does make a purchase, your product or service will be a gain for the consumer and not a loss.

Originally published here.

Instagram has finally shed more light on how its algorithm works. This is huge for marketers because it will change how we develop content for Instagram while also removing some of the guesswork we’ve had to do in the past few years. In this post, I’ll go over how to work with the new Instagram algorithm and what you need to know about it.

Over the last few years, the Instagram algorithm has undergone many changes and alterations. The first notable change was when they altered the Instagram feed and stopped showing posts in chronological order, instead showing what would be most valuable for the user. Instagram had determined that this was a necessary change in 2016, claiming that most people were missing 70% of all the posts in their feed, including almost half of posts from their close connections. However when the algorithm changed, many people saw a massive drop in engagement, and as these changes to Instagram’s algorithms continued, they have been a source of frustration for many creators and companies. So… what’s changed now?

How Does Instagram’s Algorithm Actually Work?

In June of 2021, through a series of blog posts, Instagram finally revealed exactly how their “algorithm” worked. This shed a lot of light on what people have been speculating for years but were never 100% sure of. Interesting findings and confirmations included the following:

What is the Algorithm?

When using Instagram, whether it’s the Feed, Explore, or Reels page, each section uses its own algorithm based on how people use and interact with it. When going through their Stories, users more likely want to see close friends or people they know personally, versus wanting to discover something entirely new when in Explore. Instagram ranks things differently in different parts of the app, based on how people use them. The system predicts your level of interest in the material; if it believes you’ll enjoy the substance of a post, it will prioritize it in your feed. A few data points influence this, including:

1. What kind of content have you previously engaged with?
2. What accounts have you subscribed to?
3. Which posts in the Explorer Feed have you clicked?

For example, if you shop online a lot, your feed will show you posts from users who align with what you’ve been searching for and purchasing online. The algorithm is attempting to provide people with material that they wish to consume.

How do posts get ranked?

Instagram has defined some key features that are used to determine how posts get ranked:

1. Information about the post

• How successful/popular a post is
• When it was posted
• Length of time (if video post)
• Location
• Whether people are quickly liking, commenting, sharing, and saving a post
• For Reels, what is the content within the video, such as trending/popular audio tracks

2. Information about the person who posted

• Whether the person is deemed interesting or relevant to your online behaviour
• How many times people have interacted with that person in the past few weeks
• Whether the person’s content is popular and frequently interacted with

3. Your activity

• What do you normally like
• What are your interests
• Signals like what posts you’ve liked, saved or commented on and how you’ve interacted with posts in the Explore page in the past
• Reels you have liked, commented on, and recently engaged with

4. Your history of interacting with someone

• People you interact with frequently are more likely to show up higher in your feed
• How interested you might be in what a person has shared
• Whether you have interacted with the person before, and whether their content is consistent with what you like

5 Instagram Management Tips You Should Know

Now that you know a little bit about how the algorithm works, here are some Instagram tips you need to know.

And don’t forget: you don’t need to be an expert when you’re starting out. Start with what is realistic for you to accomplish, and concentrate on what you’re good at and what people seem to be liking. Always be authentic!

1. Deliver High-Value Content and Post on a Regular Basis

Remember that Instagram wants you to stay on their platform, so if you post on a regular basis, Instagram may show your page to more people. Another tip is to keep track of your posts that receive the most saves and interactions, and upload more content like that. Saves are a great way to see which of your content is actually providing value to your audience.

2. Connect With Other Accounts Within Your Niche

Look for accounts within your niche that have more followers than you do, or that seem to be performing well. You can reference what they’re doing if you’re stuck for ideas, or start interacting with their content. By doing so, you may end up attracting their audience to your page.

3. Use Hashtags! (Yes, they still work)

Ensure the hashtags you use are related to your material, and stay away from overly popular hashtags. Add them to your posts, but also to your stories! Hashtags on Instagram now have their very own global stories, and it may be a great way to find new audiences and be seen even more.

4. Use Stories to Increase Engagement, and Provide Value to Your Audience

Attract followers to your content by creating valuable Instagram Stories. Take advantage of the stickers feature, and create polls, questions and answers, or other fun content. Let your followers be curious, and make them feel included!

5. Engage With Your Followers

Don’t leave your followers feeling alone. Interact with them! If they’re interacting with your posts and stories, reply to them and thank them, or answer the questions they may have. As we’ve learned, the algorithm increases your visibility to people who are interacting with your page. It’s an easy way to make a major impact on your audience.

Conclusion

Instagram engagement is sometimes hard to come by, even when you have a large follower count. But by understanding and working with the algorithm, you can find your way back to the top of the Explore page. Social media is about being social — and Instagram, more than ever, is rewarding people for doing just that.

On-page and off-page SEO

On-page factors all have to do with elements on your own website. These factors include your technical set-up – the quality of your code – textual and visual content, UX design, mobile friendliness and speed of your site.

On the other side, there are off-page factors, like links from other websites, social media attention and other marketing activities that take place outside your own website.

If you focus on off-page SEO, you’re mostly aiming to get more links to your site. The more relevant links you get, the higher your ranking in Google will be. Want to get more links to your site? We have several posts and use this tool for link building.

Importance of on-page SEO

On-page SEO consists of all the elements of SEO that you have control over. If you own a website, you can control the technical issues and the quality of your content to rank higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

We believe you should be able to tackle all of these factors as they’re in your own hands. Remember: if you create an awesome website, it will definitely start ranking.

Focusing on on-page SEO will also increase the chance that your off-page SEO strategy will be successful. Link building with a crappy site is very tough. Nobody wants to link to articles that are badly written or sites that don’t work properly.

3 Essential on-page SEO factors

In our view, there are three major on-page SEO factors. These three pillars are the ones you should focus on:

1. Technical excellence

The quality of your code should be high. If you’re looking for an SEO-friendly CMS platform, we would definitely recommend WordPress. Another reason to consider WordPress is that it helps you set up a website without needing too much technical knowledge.

If you have or choose WordPress, the free Yoast SEO plugin can take care of most of the remaining technical SEO challenges, without you even noticing it. So if you’re using WordPress and you’ve configured Yoast SEO the right way, you’ll have most technical aspects of your on-page SEO covered.

Another thing I’d like to mention here is indexing.

To be able to show your page in the search results, Google has to know about that page first. It has to be indexed by Google, which essentially means that this page has been stored in their index.

And for that to be possible, you need to make sure that you’re not blocking Google from indexing your post or your whole site. So check if you’re not unintentionally doing that and make sure to get your site indexed.

2. Create awesome content

In the words of Seth Godin, quality content leads to good SEO.

Why do you think people visit your site? Most likely because it contains the information they’re looking for.

Therefore, it’s important to write excellent and fresh content that corresponds with their needs and problems.

Search engines like Google also read your text. Which site ranks highest for a certain search term is largely based on the content of a website.

That’s why your content should be informative, easy to read and focused on the right keywords and search INTENT that your audience uses.

3. Flawless UX

The third pillar we want to mention is user experience or UX simply.

Simply put, users need to easily understand your website. They should be able to find what they want in a heartbeat. They should know where to click and how to navigate through your site.

Your sites needs to be fast. People are impatient and don’t want to wait several seconds for a page to load.

A beautifully designed website is nice, but you should definitely make it your top priority to create a user-friendly website first.

If you want to learn more about combining SEO and UX to get more people to your site, we’d advise you to take a look at this course on UX design.

On-page optimization factors you should focus on include:

• A short URL
• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Heading tags (H1, H2, H3 etc)
• Alt tags (naming images)
• Keywords (go for high value, low competition)
• Content (long-form content)
• Speed (faster websites rank higher)
• Internal linking (link to other relevant articles on your website)
• Images (unique, captivating photos)
• Mobile-friendliness (your site conforms well on any device)

Example of some on-page SEO action items include:

• Optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions
• Writing in-depth, quality content
• Cleaning up your site’s code (get rid of broken links)
• Streamlining your site’s navigation
• Speeding up your website

Keep reading to learn how to do on-page optimization for each of these on-page SEO factors!

How to optimize your website for on-page SEO

Now that you know what factors influence your on-page SEO, you can start optimizing them.

Remember, it will take time to optimize your site, as well as see the results from it.

Following best practices for these factors, however, will help you create a website that can endure algorithm updates.

URL

What is a URL? Your URL is like an address, but for a page on the Internet.

URLs for your website’s pages should include brief descriptions of the page’s topic.

For example, if you have a page about doggie daycares in Delray Beach, a good URL for that would be www.yoursite.com/dog-daycares-in-delraybeach. Or, if you have multiple locations, you may use the following format: www.yoursite.com/locations/delraybeach/dog-daycare.

Including your keyword in your URL instead of a long string of jumbled numbers also makes your site easier to navigate and gives people a better idea of your page topics.

Which of the following URLs would you rather visit, for example?

• https://www.example.com/category/subcategory/keyword.html
• https://www.example.com/125typu4f5ww56fifl6639j875fe.html

Use clean, organized URLs — like the first example above — to improve your site’s architecture and help you rank higher in relevant search results.

Title tag

What is a title tag? Your title tag is your page’s title, but it only appears in search results.

In order to show your website in search engine results pages (SERPs), Google has to know what your page is about.

Using specific keywords in the title tag of each page (<title>, </title>) makes it easier for search engine crawlers to understand your website.

For example, if you’re targeting the keyword, “dog daycare delray beach,” you may create the following title tag: “Top Dog Daycare in Delray Beach | Company Name.”

For the best results, limit your title tag to 55 characters to prevent Google from cutting it off in search results and use your targeted keyword at the beginning.

Meta description

What is a meta description? Your meta description is your page’s summary and appears in SERPs.

A meta description doesn’t influence your on-page ranking optimization directly. It’s a feature that helps users, however, learn more about your page. The fact that Google will bold user search terms that appear in your meta description is another reason to optimize your meta description for on-page SEO.

Include your core and related keywords in your meta description for the best results. Your page about dog daycare in Delray Beach, for instance, may use the following meta description: “Looking for dog daycare in Delray Beach? Come to Fido’s for dog daycare, dog grooming, and more!”

For the best results, your meta description should stick to 160 characters.

An SEO plug in like Yoast or AIOSEO will automatically let you know if you’ve put too many characters in.

Heading tags

What is a heading tag? Heading tags break up content with H2s, H3s, and H4s to improve its readability.

When it comes to heading tags, you want to use them for search engines and users.

Use heading tags throughout your content to break it up and make it easier to read when users are skimming for what they want.

You can also add your core or related keywords to provide search engines with more context for your page.

For example, a post about dog daycare may use the following headings:

• What does dog daycare include?
• How much does dog daycare cost?
• How to find the best dog daycare

When writing your heading tags, remember to target your core keyword in your H1 tag.

Alt tags

What is an alt tag? Alt tags provide more information for multimedia, like images and videos.

Since search engines can’t read multimedia, they depend on alt attributes to tell them what multimedia is.

For example, if you have a photo of a puppy, your alt tag could say “mini long haired Dachshund puppy.” Beyond that, you can add descriptive names to the image files themselves so Google can get a better idea of your multimedia.

Always include an alt tag for your multimedia content. Besides Google, your alt tags also help users that can’t see or interact with your content. Using alt tags makes your content accessible to everyone browsing your site.

Keywords

What are keywords? Keywords describe words used in SEO to target valuable user queries.

Each page on your site should include text content that discusses the page’s topic.

Even pages that are typically not optimized, such as the “Contact Us” page, can help your business gain recognition online. Using keywords throughout the body text of your page helps Google read it and rank it appropriately.

You should research and compile keywords for each page on your site. Keyword research tools from Google or Jaxxy Keyword and many others, can help you understand the keywords people research related to your products and services.

Look at helpful metrics, like monthly search volume and competition, to determine which keywords offer you the most value.

In most cases, smaller companies will focus on long-tail keywords or keywords with three to four words.

Long-tail keywords often have lower monthly search volumes, but they also have lower competition. It’s typically easier to decipher the search intent behind long-tail keywords since they are more specific.

For example, if someone searches the short-tail term, “dog treats,” it’s hard to identify exactly what they want to find. Maybe they’re researching the best organic dog treats for small dogs, or they might want to try a dog treat recipe.

On the other hand, if someone searches the long-tail phrase, “organic chew treats for puppies,” you know exactly what they want to find — and that they’re ready to purchase.

High-performing SEO campaigns contain both short and long-tail keywords — and the terms you choose to target will depend on your business and goals.

Content

What is content? Content provides users with answers and search engines with context.

Content is critical to on-page optimization.

With content, you give users a reason to visit your site.

Whether it’s to read a blog post or check out a product page, people browse your content. Optimizing your content can help search engines understand and rank your content, which can lead to people finding your website.

On-page SEO for content revolves around the following practices:

• Using your keywords in headings and paragraphs
• Breaking your content into simple headings
• Complementing your content with helpful images
• Ensuring your content uses correct spelling and grammar
• Making your content trustworthy and authoritative

In addition, you should regularly add new pages of content to your site so that search engines will see that you’re active online. You can do this with new blog posts, landing pages, and other strategies that show Google you’re hard at work for your customers.

Finding and removing duplicate content also improves your on-page SEO.

Duplicate content refers to blocks of similar content on multiple pages on your website — and its undesirable for two reasons:

1. Google doesn’t know which page to rank: When numerous site pages contain the exact same information, search engines won’t know which page to rank in search results.
2. Duplicate content confuses site visitors: When visitors encounter duplicate content on your site, it can confuse them, and they may not know what step to take next. Duplicate content throws a wrench in your content funnel and prevents your audience from taking action.

Duplicate content is bad for on-page SEO, so make sure to regularly check your site for duplicate content and remove it.

Again, a helpful SEO plugin can automatically do this for you.

Page speed

What is page speed? Page speed measures how fast content on a page loads.

With an attention span of less than the common goldfish, 50% of users will abandon a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. People want information, and they want it now!

Search engines like Google also use page speed as a ranking factor. You can control your site speed and page speed, so you want to optimize your page speed. Make your website load faster, and you can rank higher in search results.

Use Page Speed Insights to check your speed.

Page Speed Insights will provide you with customized recommendations for speeding up your site. You can also follow some best practices for page speed, like compressing images, eliminating unnecessary website code, and more.

Internal linking

What is internal linking? Internal linking describes linking to and from pages on your website.

Internal linking often gets overlooked when it comes to on-page SEO. As your site grows, however, it’s critical to develop an internal linking process. That’s because internal linking helps crawlers explore your site, discover new content, and understand the context of different pages.

Having little to no internal linking on your pages negatively impacts the user’s ability to access content on your site that is valuable to them. And if they can’t access it, that directly affects your conversion rate.

Use internal links to improve your on-page SEO by:

• Adding links to relevant, existing content in new posts
• Adding links from relevant, existing content to new pages

Every internal linking strategy is different, but for the best results, you should make sure that every new page has at least two to three links to it. If you’re struggling to find pages, don’t force a link. Instead, consider creating pillar content.

You can check the status of your internal linking with a free tool like Semrush.

Images

What are images? Images are a form of multimedia that helps people understand and skim content.

Images matter to SEO, as well as users. With images, you can break up your content. You can also provide context, like for complicated processes or difficult-to-describe features. Include images in your content, from stock photos to custom graphics to screenshots.

When adding images to your site, remember to compress your images. Oversized multimedia can slow down your page speed, which can impact your rankings. Remember also to add alt text, as this additional detail makes your website more accessible and can help with rankings in Google Images.

Be sure to also include usability features such as transcriptions for videos and alternate text for images. These are another great place to include your target keywords, and incorporating them can help make your site ADA compliant.

Mobile-friendliness

What is mobile-friendliness? Mobile-friendliness describes your site’s usability on mobile devices.

A mobile-friendly website is essential because more than 50% of the Internet’s traffic comes from mobile devices. If people on smartphones and tablets can’t access your site, your rankings in search results will go down.

Search engines like Google, for example, use mobile-friendliness or responsiveness as a ranking factor. This means, if your site isn’t optimized for mobile users, you’re missing out on valuable leads and revenue.

Mobile compatibility isn’t a suggestion anymore. It’s a requirement, especially if you want to rank well for your keywords. Google considers mobile compatibility when it ranks your website. Low compatibility = low rank.

On-page optimization for mobile-friendliness often focuses on developing a responsive site. With a responsive website, you have a single site, which makes it easy to update your website and add new content.

Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to check your site’s responsiveness!

How to evaluate your on-page optimization

Now that you know about on-page SEO, you can evaluate your site’s performance. You can either use a tool to audit your site or you can look at separate pages manually, depending on your preference. If you choose to look manually, you can use these criteria as a basis for on-page optimization.

• Are you using keywords for every page? Have these keywords been delivering visitors? If they haven’t been, why are you still using the keywords?
• Are you linking pages on your site to each other? Could this be a way to help visitors get from one point to another with only a click or two?
• Does your site load quickly? Or do some pages take a long time to load? If you’re having problems, find out where the issue lies. A slow-loading website is something neither human nor bot visitors enjoy!
• Does your site have fresh content? Has it been more than one or two years? Has anything changed or is it all still relevant?

To conclude

We’ve talked about the most important on-page SEO factors. First of all, make sure that your website is working properly and that your technical SEO is up to par. Secondly, create content that is user-centered and focused on the right keywords. Thirdly, work on the usability and speed of your site to help users and search engines around your website.

As these factors are all a part of your site, you can work on them to make sure that your on-page SEO is top-notch! That being said, do remember to also work on your off-page SEO. Although you may not have total control over these factors, you can still put some effort into creating that exposure on other sites as well!

Here are some of the best practices for e-commerce SEO:

Use Correct Keywords:

Keywords are as important as salt in the dish. And you need to include it evenly and evenly so that it matters. Do not crowd product titles and descriptions with keywords. Add as needed.

Mentions key keywords in product headings, descriptions, alternative attributes, and subheadings. Add keywords related to your primary keywords to help Google better understand the pages in your context. Take hours to understand your search values as well. This shows the interest that certain keywords bring to consumers. High search volume indicates high popularity. This means that your website is searching for that keyword more aggressively.

Keep an eye on your intent as it explains what you want to find when you type a particular keyword in Google’s search bar. It then tracks the progress of all these actions.

Moreover, SEO isn’t just about keywords. There are also technical pages that cover website speed, ease of use, mobile-friendliness, work links, and more. SEO auditing tools like RankWatch can help you perform e-commerce SEO audits and improve your technical SEO.

Data on Backlinks

Go to backlink analyzers to see what backlinks you are receiving from other websites. This can assist you in determining who is already a fan and which related sites you can target for additional link building.

Rank Monitoring

With rank tracking platforms, you can see how you rank in organic search engine results pages for your target keywords. You’ll be able to see how much you’ve gotten better over time this way.

Perform a competitor survey:

Select competitors. Competitors mean they are ahead of the game, already researching and doing the legwork for better rankings. Read and analyze their work as it will help you work on the site.

Analyze the use of keywords, especially on homepages and top product pages, and search for possible keywords on categories and product pages. However, do not blindly use keywords alone.

Site Architecture:

For the best e-commerce SEO, the site architecture or structure is a way to set up navigation, category pages, and product pages for your website. The basic idea is to make the best and most relevant content available to your users and reduce the number of clicks to find it.

Make pages simple and scalable. In particular, your site needs a clear navigation hierarchy, from your home page to your product categories to the products listed. As a rule of thumb for search engines and visitors, people can go anywhere with three clicks.

Correct navigation and internal links must also be guaranteed. Search engine bots detect pages and products on your website based on a well-defined internal link structure. This structure is easy to follow to increase your chances of being ranked high in your search.

Product Image Optimization:

Customers are more likely to purchase products that present their products from as many angles as possible than from websites without images. Therefore, the image is a very important part of the product page. Use unique images that are qualitative and compelling. The

images have excellent SEO. Add a keyword to the name of the image on the page and always enter alt text. This is a line of “alternative” text that you can display with your image and is another way to get important keywords on your website. When a search engine crawls a website, it has no way of knowing what the image is. However, alt text can provide context to search engines.

URL optimization:

URL optimization usually skips the beginning or may seem unnecessary to the owner. But that’s an important part of SEO to the eye. Optimized URLs help search engine bots find and crawl websites and find out what they are.

It’s easy to put the main keywords in the URL to make it easier to read and understand, which will improve your search ranking. The correct URL structure also facilitates website indexing.

In addition, URLs can improve the user experience, and a good user experience will keep your site’s audience longer. It offers additional opportunities to turn them into customers.

Allow Customer Ratings:

A rating creates credible trust among buyers and strengthens customer credibility. When they read the reviews, they feel like another customer has selected the product as they did and shared their unfiltered experience.

Helps increase conversions on product pages. It also helps you practice SEO by unknowingly using synonyms and long-tail keywords that help you rank your site.

Avoid Duplicate Content:

Nobody likes copying. Be original, clear, and unique for all content on your website. In most cases, it is the product description that is copied or easily tampered with, as provided by the manufacturers that sell on many websites.

However, due to changes in search engine algorithms, more websites are being punished for copying copies of their products. Therefore, try creating a new and unique description for each item on your website.

Aim for 35 concise sentences that describe the item and try to use the appropriate keywords or phrases to rank the item. Add canonical tags or 301 redirects to your pages to ensure that search engines know which pages may contain the same or similar content.

Conclusion:

As online competition intensifies and the number of online stores grows day by day, owners need to incorporate e-commerce SEO into their content to stay on top.

Research shows that online platforms like Facebook and Twitter have cemented themselves in the lives of consumers by providing a way for them to discover new brands and engage with companies that share their values and that can help them meet their needs both at home and in business. According to a recent Harris Poll commissioned by Sprout Social, some 55% of consumers say they use social media to learn about new brands, and 78% said they’re more willing to buy from a company after having a positive experience with them on social media.

Social Media for Business Owners

As a business owner, you may think you have social media covered. After all, your company has likely developed a solid digital marketing strategy focused on fostering engagement and drawing in new followers to your corporate accounts.

But there’s a strong case to be made for you to complement your company’s efforts on social media with a public, personal profile that puts your best foot forward. For one, social media provides a free and effective way for business owners to promote their companies and boost their credibility.

Here are four other ways you can use personal social media pages to your advantage as a leader in business:

1. As a business owner, you are your company’s biggest cheerleader. Sharing videos highlighting new products or touting recent sales wins on your LinkedIn page shows your passion and commitment to your job.
2. You have the chance to engage directly and instantaneously with current and potential customers, employees, peers, and investors, including by responding to questions and clarifying or amplifying company messages.
3. Building relationships online can help you strengthen and leverage your professional network to garner support for a wide range of business initiatives.
4. Asking questions and requesting feedback via social media is a quick and cost-effective way to gain insight into evolving trends and emerging issues.

Optimizing Your Social Media Efforts

When you decide to step out onto the social media stage, there’s a lot to take into consideration. Developing and implementing a well-thought-out strategy can help you optimize your efforts while reducing the risk of making very public missteps in your communication.

Here are seven ways strategies to try to stay grounded as you start building your personal social media strategy:

1. Collaborate with your in-house social media marketing personnel—even if that means you! Whatever strategy you do employ should complement the efforts of your business communications. For example, you might try coordinating the timing of business-related announcements or cross-posting content like images and resources.
2. Decide on which platforms you want to use. You don’t need to be active on every social media site that’s out there. Before jumping in, consider which platforms would best allow you to connect with both customers and peers. Which do you find the most interesting? What kind of content do you enjoy most? Where is your target audience spending their time?
3. Identify and cater to your target audience. Once you decide to go public on social media, it’s important to do your research to ensure you’re actually reaching the demographics you hope to target. Join relevant groups on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, and keep an eye on what others are posting so you can share content that’s both timely and trendy.
4. Consider keeping some channels private. It’s never a good idea to share something online that you wouldn’t want seen publicly. Still, sometimes it’s nice to be able to share a funny quote or a collection of family photos with just your inner circle. For times like these, consider keeping a private account on one or more platforms instead of or in addition to your public persona.
5. Be authentic. It’s glaringly obvious when you’re not being true to your personality and your personal values online. Every post you make doesn’t need to be perfect, but they should all be honest and provide a fair reflection of your position on the topic or issue at hand.
6. Add value. While the primary driving force behind your social media efforts may be growing your business, you won’t get many followers on any platform if you only use it to promote yourself. Craft a content strategy that allows you to showcase your areas of expertise by providing useful information, advice, or even freebies for your followers. For example, an accountant may send out reminders when estimated tax time rolls around, while a marketing agency may share a holiday-themed email template that’s free to download.
7. Develop your own brand. There may come a time when you want to grow beyond your business and pursue new career opportunities. Don’t be afraid to use your social media presence to spread your wings and expand your network so you can leverage your connections if and when the time comes.

A Final Word of Advice

When it comes to social media, your success is often a direct result of the effort you put in. The more active you are in sharing content, and the more you interact with others’ posts, the more engagement you’ll see on your own profile. For many leaders in business, the tricky part is staying consistent.

While it’s important to remain hands-on, don’t be afraid to get assistance with creative and technical tasks, perhaps from a freelancer or administrative assistant, so you can ensure your profiles remain active and you reach your goals on the social media front.

2022 is getting closer, and it’s likely to be an exceptional year for businesses working in digital advertising.

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t ended yet, and many analysts are already cautious about the risks related to ‘Omicron’, the global digital ad industry has successfully bounced back from the last year’s slow-down. More importantly, given the acceleration of mergers and acquisitions tracked in the past 12 months, 2022 will be a very exciting year for companies working in online advertising.

So, what are the key market trends to watch out for next year?

Metaverse (& Metaverse Ads)

If there’s a buzzword for 2021, it’s definitely metaverse. Even though the entire concept isn’t that new, when Mark Zuckerberg mentioned it in the context of Facebook’s (now: Meta’s) future, the market lit up instantly.

In this respect, in addition to numerous successful brands’ collaborations, the digital property space in metaverse has been recently booming, too, with valuations rising to record-breaking heights.

As for the prospects for 2022, metaverse in a whole, and metaverse advertising in particular, will definitely undergo its further evolution, yet its dynamics will significantly depend on how fast the implementation of 5G infrastructure will be going forward.

CTV

Not only OTT has officially become CTV this year, but the entire CTV advertising space has been blooming, mostly fueled by the rapid market capitalization, and the massive growth of viewers’ streaming activities across devices, worldwide.

What does this mean for 2022? Well, we can definitely expect the acceleration of development of new measurement and attribution solutions in the niche, with some new tech to be launched in H2, if things go well.

Data Strategies

Even though Google has postponed the deprecation of third-party cookies until 2023, the importance of developing a complex data strategy took the limelight in 2021.

More importantly, this aspect will grow even more urgent next year, specifically for publishers of digital properties who monetize their inventory with display and video ads.

In particular, their primary focus will imply the development of complex first- and zero-party data strategies, involving data lakes, CDPs and other related tech solutions.

Using automated analysis, TikTok scanned its ad network to identify critical elements of the highest converting campaigns, which could help maximize the performance of your approach on the platform.

Here’s what it found in terms of universal best practices for driving TikTok conversions:

Shoot in high resolution

Even on small screens, video quality matters and sends a message about your brand’s attention to detail. TikTok found that videos shot at 720p resolution or higher saw a colossal 312% lift in conversions vs. lower resolution videos.

Most modern phone cameras can shoot at 720p or higher, but sometimes that quality gets compressed when sending files or using editing software. So before posting, it’s worth taking that extra time to make sure you’re maintaining that high quality in the final product.

Go full-screen

Letterbox (16:9) format may reign at the box office, but TikTok is all about portrait mode.

Shooting in 9:16 aspect ratio ensures that you’ll maximize your screen real estate for the best audience impact: TikTok found that videos shot in 9:16 aspect ratio caused a 91% increase in conversion vs. videos that didn’t have this screen resolution — in fact, the latter were framed by unattractive black bars at the edges of the screen.

Motivate your audience to take action

Don’t try to be too cute. Instead, clearly tell your audience the action they need to take to convert. TikTok found that calls to action (CTAs) in text format provide an astounding 152% rise in conversions vs. videos that don’t plainly state what they want their audience to do next.

Being direct pays off in the digital space, so don’t leave potential conversions on the table because you were too polite to ask.

Keep it short & sweet

Video ads on TikTok between 21 and 34 seconds long received increased conversions by 280% compared to videos that fell short or long of that duration window. Of course, it’s OK to go shorter or longer when the situation calls for it, but video lengths in the middle of the range work best.

Industry-specific tips

TikTok has also shared some industry-specific tips:

eCommerce

• On-screen text or closed captioning that plainly displays an offer or CTA raise conversions by 80%

• Combining human voiceovers illustrating the product with an offer in text format lifted conversions by 87%

• Videos that incorporate a variety of scenes, as opposed to a static shot, lead to a 38% lift in conversion

Gaming

• Gaming ads with five or more scenes showed a 171% lift in conversion compared to those with fewer scenes

• Videos that utilized on-screen text in the first 7 seconds saw a 43% lift in conversion compared to videos that waited 7 seconds or longer to show text

Check out TikTok’s complete list of conversion tips here.

DiggityMarketing / Pixabay

Marketing professionals often use the terms SEM and SEO interchangeably. However, these strategies are different, and you need to know their differences to manage your search marketing campaign better.

This post will discuss the similarities and differences between SEO and SEM. But before tackling them, let us first familiarize ourselves with these terms.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Google Knowledge Graph defines search engine optimization (SEO) as the process of optimizing the traffic to a website by making it appear on the first page of the results list of a search engine called search engine results pages(SERP) during a search query. SEO is part of SEM.

Brands employ organic methods to rank high in SERPs in an SEO campaign. You can use several SEO strategies to increase your visibility to search engines like Google during their searches. Experts usually group these SEO techniques and tricks into three categories, namely:

• Technical SEO

  – Technical SEO involves the strategies to improve the technical aspects of your website to optimize its foundation and backend structure. Among the website aspects tackled by these procedures are mobile-friendliness, page speed, crawlability, indexing, structured data, security, and site architecture. This category aims to improve both the user and search engine experience.

• On-page SEO

  – On-page SEO includes all activities you do to improve your website’s researchability. Among the strategies in this category are HTML source code optimization, content creation, strategic keyword choice and placement, heading optimization, title tags, and meta descriptions. Implementing an excellent on-page SEO strategy will result in better visibility with search engines and higher SERP rankings.

• Off-page SEO

  – Off-page SEO includes activities to build your website’s reputation to the search engines. The main strategies include link building to authority sites and managing directory profiles and local listings. Other off-page activities you can do to boost your website include influencer outreach, guest blogging, brand mentions, social networking, and broken link building. If you have reputable website connections, the search engines will consider your site dependable and trustworthy and favor you during their search.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Wikipedia defines search engine marketing (SEM) as a digital marketing strategy that uses paid and unpaid advertising and optimization techniques to promote a website and boost its visibility in SERPs. Aside from SEO, the other SEM strategies are:

• Display advertising

  – These are image, video, or text-based advertisements aimed at convincing users in digital platforms like social media and websites to make a specific action.

• Remarketing

  – This strategy involves posting or showing ads to users who previously used your app or visited your website to boost brand awareness or sell a product or service.

• Shopping/product advertising

  – This is a campaign to establish and maintain product awareness with prospective customers.

• Pay-per-click (PPC)

  – Under this SEM strategy, you will pay a certain amount to websites or search engines like Google when your ads get a click.

Similarities between SEM and SEO

As search marketing strategies, SEO and SEM have similarities as they both aim to increase your brand’s ranking on SERPs. Among their similar features are:

• They both are intended to increase your website visitors by making your brand appear high in SERPs. Users are more likely to click on the top-half results of the SERP’s first page.
• They both require you to know your target audience’s behavior, wants, and needs to become effective. By learning your audience’s personality, you can develop effective content to convince them that your products or services will resolve their needs and wants.
• They both use keywords to bolster your website’s visibility to the search engines. To find the most effective keywords in your campaigns, you may use tools like UberSuggest and the Alexa Keyword Difficulty.

Differences Between SEM and SEO as Digital Marketing Strategies

Although they are often used interchangeably and believed to be the same, SEO and SEM have major differences. You can elect to use both these strategies in your digital marketing efforts to get immediate tangible results, and you have the money to spend. However, if you need only to choose one, here are their different features to help you decide:

• Cost

  – One of the primary differences between SEO and SEM is that SEO is an organic approach, meaning it will naturally attract traffic to your website over time. SEM is a paid scheme wherein you will pay each time a user clicks your ads. Cost-wise, SEO is a better approach.

However, your choice will depend on several factors, like your budget, business goals, and your business experience. If you are a startup and want to gain immediate impact, SEM would work well if you are prepared to spend. SEO will help you expand your business with minimal cost and high returns if you have several years in the business.

• Search results

  – Paid strategies like SEM could produce an immediate impact on your SERP and web traffic. You can specifically target a group of users with your ads. SEO, meanwhile, takes time before it can produce tangible results. Also, you need to produce quality content to build brand awareness, establish a relationship with your market, and build their loyalty.

Furthermore, SEM is an excellent strategy for testing. If you are new in business or the advertising arena, you can use SEM to get immediate results for your campaigns and change strategies if the results are dismal. SEO, meanwhile, is ideal for those who want a gradual but steady growth of their business.

• ROI

  – When it comes to return on investment (ROI), SEO could have the advantage as your costs are minimal. In SEM, you need to invest money to get results. However, if you are a risk-taker, spending some for higher returns will work well for you.

A solid SEO strategy will bolster your web traffic significantly in the long term. If you have already established your SERP ranking, you only need to post regular content or update your existing ones to get results. Meanwhile, in SEM, you need constant monitoring to determine how your ads perform. Your losses could also be significant if you don’t do SEM correctly.

Factors to Consider When Deciding Whether to Use SEO or SEM in Your Campaign

With a better understanding of SEM and SEO, you are now ready to choose better for your search marketing. But wait, don’t get too excited. Consider these factors in your decision making:

• Determine your business standing

  – Your choice partly depends on how long you have been doing business in your market. If you are a startup and your website is newly launched, it may take several months or years to develop your SEO and start to appear in organic search. Therefore, your best strategy is to launch an SEM campaign while planning for your SEO. This way, you will get immediate traffic. You can also leverage your SEM when advancing your SEO plan.

• Assess your industry

  – Your knowledge about your sector will also be a factor in your choice. If you have been actively doing business for several years and have a good idea of your customers’ needs and wants, an SEO strategy is an excellent way to grow your brand organically.

However, if your experience is limited and unsure of how your competition or market will respond to your content, SEM is a great way to experiment and test what works best in your industry. To know more about your market and business standing, you may research these sites.

• Examine your competition

  – To decide your strategy to compete against your rivals, investigate their approach and the performance of their marketing campaign. Look at their organic keyword and paid strategy and devise ways to outperform them. In your analysis, look for weaknesses in their campaigns that you can exploit.

There are several tools you can use to examine the keyword strategy of your rivals. You may utilize Alexa’s Competitor Keyword Matrix or SEMrush to do your research. Through these tools, you can get a glimpse of your rivals’ top organic and paid keywords attracting web traffic to their pages.

• Know the average cost-per-click in your market

  – Driving traffic to your website and completing a sale is your primary goal in your marketing campaign. SEM is the right strategy for you if you want immediate results. However, to maximize your ROI or avoid too many losses if your campaign flops, know the prevailing CPC rates in your industry.

Several factors affect CPC, like your keyword competition, quality score, ad rank position, seasonality, and bidding strategy. However, there are ways to lower your CPC rate. To determine your CPC performance compared to similar campaigners and reduce your CPC, you may use the free tool AdWords Performance Grader.

• Analyze your regular customers’ buying cycle

  There are three stages in your customers’ buying journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. In the awareness stage, they realize their need, but they may lack money to buy or don’t know what to buy. They are now actively looking and weighing the solution in the consideration phase. In the decision stage, they are now ready to make a deal.

The length of your customer’s buying cycle is also a key consideration on whether to use SEO or SEM. If you have a short customer buying cycle, wherein they are already prepared to buy when they search a product, an SEM strategy is a good fit. However, if your customers’ buying cycle will take weeks or months, an SEO campaign is better.

• Consider the performance of your website

  – Examine the status of your website to better decide on your marketing strategy. If there is already a potential for an SEO campaign, you should exploit it and save money. However, if the potential is low, go for SEM for immediate impact. You may use the Alexa SEO Audit tool to analyze the status of your website.

Final Thoughts

Understanding the differences and similarities of SEO and SEM as search marketing strategies allows you to optimize your campaign strategy. You may also opt to combine them to make your marketing technique more effective. But if you are not confident or not sure where to start, we are here to help. Our professionals know the ins and outs of search marketing. For additional inquiries, call us today.

This article was previously published on SocialSellinator’s blog.