Conversion rate optimization best practices can help you improve your results from the very beginning. In other words, you won’t have to start from scratch.
Following are some of the tried-and-true best practices I’ve used to accelerate my websites’ growth. You’ll learn how to do conversion rate optimization:
1. Identify your potential customer
Who belongs in your target market. And, sometimes more importantly, who doesn’t?
You want every marketing message to find its target. It must be so specific and compelling that your ideal customer can’t refuse it.
2. Survey users
Ask your users to complete surveys or polls. Keep the questions brief and few so you get more responses.
Avoid repetitive or boring questions. You’re looking for insights into your target customers’ specific wants and needs.
3. Collect and analyze data
Remember those metrics I mentioned earlier? Start tracking them. You can use conversion rate optimization tools like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and Google Analytics to make sure you cover all your bases.
As you gather more data, look for patterns. Maybe most of your customers find you via Twitter, for instance, or read your about page before looking at your products. You can use that information to boost conversion rates.
4. Run A/B tests
I can’t stress enough how important it is to run A/B tests. I’m always testing every aspect of my offers because I don’t want to leave money on the table.
Tools like Crazy Egg have built-in A/B testing functionality. This means you don’t have to comb through the data yourself and develop a pounding headache. Instead, you know the “winner” and the winning variant gets the majority of the traffic even before the test concludes.
5. Discover the exact journey visitors take through your site
Mapping your buyers’ journey can yield lots of tasty nuggets of data. Do they read lots of your blog posts? Do they follow you on social media? How far do they scroll down each page?
6. Focus on the content that matters using heatmap analysis
The most important pages on your website, such as your landing pages and product pages, deserve special attention. Run heatmap analysis on those pages to see where people click and how they use the page. You can then optimize it for maximum conversions.
7. Create the perfect page with A/B testing
A/B testing doesn’t stop after just one test. In fact, you might need dozens of tests before you craft the perfect page.
Test your headline, body copy, hero image, CTA, CTA button color, font size, font color, and anything else that might impact conversions.
8. Don’t “guess”
Everyone starts out with a guess, but that’s where the guesswork should stop. Once you’re actively collecting data, make decisions based on what the numbers tell you.
9. Guide your customers
CTAs and directional indicators can help you guide your customers where you want them to go. Be strategic about where you place CTAs, arrows, navigational panels, and other elements.
10. Reduce friction
Remove any elements that give the user pause or promote objections. For instance, if you don’t need a paragraph of copy on your sales page, delete it. Or, if you want to make the information more digestible, turn it into bullet points.
Conversion Optimization Rate Mistakes
Unfortunately, even with lots of information circulating the Internet, business owners still make mistakes when it comes to conversion rate optimization. I’d like to help you avoid the three most common pitfalls:
1. Not adding positive emotional response
In your copywriting, include positive storytelling to help convey benefits. Help your reader envision himself benefiting from your product or service.
2. Not adopting a mobile-first strategy
More than half of consumers use their mobile devices to surf the Internet. If your store isn’t mobile-ready, you’ll turn off prospects.
Multivariate, or A/B Testing? Find out How to Test and Optimize Conversions
We’ve already touched on multivariate and A/B testing. They’re both highly useful conversion rate optimization tools.
A/B testing (also called split testing) is useful when you want to take a granular approach. You want to know how a CTA button’s color impacts conversions, but you don’t want anything else to contribute to the test.
Multivariate testing, on the other hand, works great when you have two very different versions of the same page or asset. Which one appeals most to your target audience?
Choose a testing platform
You can run A/B and multivariate testing manually, but I don’t recommend it. Use a tool to automate the process and get your results faster.
Crazy Egg, for instance, allows you to set up a split test and run it automatically. Crazy Egg will divide traffic evenly between the two versions, then hand you a “winner” once the test has reached statistical significance.
Analyze A/B test results
Once you have your results, record and analyze them. Why did your target audience prefer Version B, for instance? What aspect of the color red or the font Georgia or the wording of the CTA appealed to them?
Once you’ve chosen a tool, such as Crazy Egg, you can run lots of different experiments. Each tells you something unique about your website and its visitors.
Heatmap: Discover where mouses travel and users click or tap when viewing a web page.
Scroll map: Find out the point at which most users stop scrolling on a given page.
Recordings: Record individual sessions of a user’s experience on a specific web page.
A/B tests: Conduct A/B tests on any variation of a web page.
Forms: Get detailed information about prospects and turn them into leads.
Advanced CRO Techniques
Once you’ve nailed the basics, you can drill down on more specific aspects of your website’s design, format, and copy to take conversion rate optimization to the next level. I recommend testing all of these facets of your website.
Test big ideas, not small ones. To get big lifts on your conversions, you generally need to try bigger tests. Changing little things like button colors won’t impact many visitors.
Focus on headlines. People use the headline to make a snap judgement on whether or not they should continue. A better headline could easily increase conversion rates by 30%. It’s on the few “small” elements that have a major impact.
Remove fields in your signup form. The fewer steps in your form, the higher your conversion rate will be, usually.
Interview customers. Use customer research to find the primary benefit that your market wants. Also look for the top three objections. Then make changes to your site that focus on the main benefit while addressing the main objections.
Always run an A/B test. Results are often counter-intuitive, we’re still surprised by results. Hard data is the only way to ensure that your idea truly works.
SEO vs. Conversion Rate Optimization: Should You Focus on Increasing Traffic or Converting your Existing Traffic?
SEO and conversion rate optimization might seem like two sides of a coin. One is designed to attract more traffic (SEO), while the other optimizes content for existing traffic (conversion rate optimization).
So which matters more?
In my opinion, they’re equally important. Without SEO, you can’t get traffic in the first place. Without CRO, your traffic will produce fewer sales.
Let’s say you have a pretty good baseline for SEO, but it could use some improvement. First, though, you focus on conversion rate optimization. After a few months of hard work, your conversion rate jumps from 10 percent to 25 percent.
Great work! But it’s not over yet.
Now that you have a good CRO baseline, how do you grow your sales even further? You drive more traffic to your site and get even more conversions.
Conclusion
I’m a big fan of CRO and growth hacking.
Through conversion rate optimization, I’ve vastly improved my businesses’ conversion rates, and I’ve helped my clients do the same.
Sure, it takes work. But once you have the data, you can generate more sales and dominate your industry.
Start by understanding the definition of CRO and how it works. Focus on following the CRO best practices and avoiding the most common mistakes.
Use the best conversion rate optimization tools in the business. Crazy Egg offers an ideal tool. Then keep testing. The more data you have, the better your chances of converting visitors.
Microsoft has unveiled a number of new features and technologies including private search, new ad units & more. Here are the highlights!
Microsoft unveiled several new features and technologies at Microsoft Advertising Elevate. In addition to new ad units, the announcement included new tools and technologies that are noteworthy even for businesses that aren’t currently advertising with Microsoft, such as private search technology and an upcoming small business hub with paid and organic social integrations.
Private Search For Microsoft Bing API
Microsoft is now empowering publishers to give consumers more options for privacy-first experiences. This feature is specifically designed for their search partner network, and is currently being used by Duck Duck Go.
Private Search is hosted on Azure with a setup that incorporates a private search proxy between the private search site or app and Microsoft Bing’s private search API. This would allow Bing to deliver results without ever receiving the search term.
The search partner will send the search request to the private proxy. Fraud detection would happen through the private search proxy and then the private search proxy would pass through an anonymized user agent and anonymized IP through to Bing’s Private Search API. The API would return search results and ads.
This would prevent personal data from being shared with other Microsoft services, including Bing, by anonymizing the user agent and IP, and by withholding the search query.
The search partner will be responsible for anonymizing the user agent and IP and they must comply with Microsoft’s policy in order to be eligible to use Private Search.
New Price Comparison Beta
Microsoft’s Edge browser has a feature that delivers discount codes in a flyout panel format. They’ve now announced a beta that would allow folks using Microsoft’s shopping features will be eligible to show up in that panel as a price comparison.
The ads will be delivered in the flyout within the toolbar when browsing product pages on Edge or through Collection by saving a product and manually clicking to view price comparisons.
This unit would enable businesses to deliver product listings to relevant consumers while they’re browsing the sites of other retailers.
These listings will pull from existing Merchant Center feeds so no further work is required for businesses that already have shopping campaigns created.
Best of all, since it is in an experimental phase, these placements are currently free – businesses will not be charged for the clicks on these ads.
The price comparison feature in Edge is a great example of where Microsoft is trying to provide a great experience for users (find the best deal!) and gain additional exposure for the products in advertisers’ feeds. Consumer research shows that most folks comparison shop at some level and price comparison surfaces this information automatically. It’s a win/win. – John Lee, Microsoft Evangelist
The metrics will be reported under the “O&O other” traffic segment within Microsoft Ads.
This is currently in beta within the US and the listings will only show on desktop, within the Edge browser. To request access to any of the Microsoft Ads’ betas, reach out to your Microsoft Ads account team or support.
New Video Extension Beta
Microsoft has announced a new beta that would allow advertisers to include multimedia extensions to their ads. The extensions are eligible to show alongside other ad extensions and, as with other ad extensions, advertisers will be charged when prospects click the ad unit.
Video extensions is an inflection point in the evolution of the SERP. Searchers are hungry for more information and we know that video is one of the most consumed forms of media for research (and more, of course!). This extension surfaces video at the point of search to improve and enrich the user experience. – John Lee, Microsoft Evangelist
Clicking the ad unit will result in the video expanding on the page with a CTA in the lower left-hand side.
If a prospect clicks the video extension and then clicks the ad unit in the same session, the advertiser will only be charged once.
The extensions currently only deliver on desktop but mobile is coming soon.
Videos must be uploaded and can either be uploaded from a local directory on the computer or a publicly accessible filer server location, such as OneDrive, FTP, Dropbox, etc.)
This is currently an open pilot within the US, CA, DE and AU with FR and IN coming soon.
New Ad Units for Property Promotion and Tours & Activities
Similar to the new automotive ad units that Microsoft recently announced, these new units are feed-based units that will promote vacation rentals (Property Promotion Ads) as well as tours and attractions (Tours & Activity Ads).
Property Promotion Ads
Property Promotion ads show in the top two slots on the hotel grid on Bing Maps, when someone delivers for hotels, or properties with certain amenities, in a specific location. The ads will deliver on desktop.
The first click on a Property Promotion ad will expand the listing to allow the user to select dates and proceed to booking. Advertisers will only be charged for the second click when users visit the site.
In order to run Property Promotion ads, advertisers will need to have Hotel Price Ads set up. To be considered for Property Promotion Ads, advertisers must provide at least five images and the star rating (which is currently optional in the feed for Hotel Price Ads but required for Property Promotion Ads).
Advertisers will have the option to add bid multipliers for Property Promotion Ads within Site Type.
Property Promotion ads are currently being piloted within the US only.
Tour & Activities Ads
Tour and Activities Ads will be triggered for travel intent and travel experiences intent queries to help advertisers promote their local experiences.
The ads will deliver on the Bing SERP when a user is searching for things to do in a specific location. When delivered on the SERP, advertisers are eligible for up to three ad placements.
The ads can also be delivered on Bing Maps when the user searches for a destination or is looking for things to do in a particular area or when they hover over Maps landmark pins.
A Potential Placement for Tours and Activities Ads
Ads Can Show When Searchers Search for a Destination
Last but not least, ads can deliver in the Bing Travel Guide as a carousel under the header image and destination description.
Tour & Activities Ads Can Deliver Within Microsoft Travel Guides
These ads could be a good fit for single-day or multi-day tours, theme parks and attractions, museums, cultural experiences, adventure and outdoor activities, food and dining, and educational experiences and classes.
These ads will show on desktop. To run Tour & Activities Ads, advertisers should visit Tools > Business Data > Dynamic Fields within the Microsoft Ads UI to set up their feed.
Tour & Activities Ads are in an open beta within the US and the UK. To request access to any of the Microsoft Ads betas, reach out to your Microsoft Ads account team or support.
New Audience Network Features: Facebook Import, Video Ads, & Geographic Expansion
Microsoft also unveiled new Audience Network announcements including a new Facebook Import option for native campaigns, video ads on the audience network, and expansion into New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.
Check out this post to learn more about these new Audience Network announcements and features, which also includes clips from Marketing O’Clock as Microsoft’s Evangelist, John Lee, discusses each of these new features.
Expanding Auto-Bidding Options
Microsoft plans to expand its auto-bidding options. Target Impression Share is currently in pilot and Portfolio Bid Strategies are coming soon.
Coming Soon: Unified Smart – an SMB Hub for Multi-Channel Campaigns & Social Media Management
Microsoft announced that. Businesses will be able to create “Smart Pages”, which allows businesses to set up a website for their advertisements to use as a landing page. The website is intended to be used as their webpage for all sources; meaning, they could also use this site as a destination for ads run on other networks.
Coming soon: Unified Smart campaigns, which will enable advertisers to set up campaigns in a simple interface where advertisers choose their goals, input their URL (which could be their Smart Page but does not have to be).
For search campaigns, advertisers will be able to choose keyword themes. Unified Smart goes beyond search, though. Advertisers would be able to target audiences on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with ads. Linkedin is planned as a later addition.
The current plan is for advertisers to have one budget which is shared across all channels.
Unified Smart’s audience targeting is AI-based, using data points from setup inputs, business type, the URL, and other information shared.
Businesses will also be able to post to their social channels and respond to comments all from the Unified Smart interface.
Unified Smart will track calls and/or conversions, visits, time on site, visits to specific pages, and more so that businesses can monitor the performance of their efforts.
Expanding into New Geographies
In addition to all of the new releases that Microsoft has announced, they’re also continuing to expand into additional geographies. Microsoft plans to expand into 29 new countries in 2021. They haven’t yet announced which countries will be part of the expansion.
Requesting Access to the New Betas
To request access to any of the Microsoft Ads betas, reach out to your Microsoft Ads account team or support.
There are a couple of trends within the Google Ads world that keep cropping up and catching our attention. While no one can make any promises, these four trends are good indicators of the direction PPC marketing will be headed in 2021. Check it out:
1. Hello, Trend Lines in Digital Advertising Spend
At first blush, the numbers don’t look great (see: Airlines). Back in Q2 2020, especially, at the outset of lockdown and quarantine, things looked downright grim. We mentioned the travel industry, in which paid search ad spend on Google declined by 47 percent.
Even though traditional advertising spend is going through some things, some people are still forecasting growth in 2021 digital ad budgets. This, despite the relative flux affecting so many ad budgets. According to the latest research from IAB, “buyers with at least ballpark budgets project +5.3 percent ad spend for FY2021 vs FY2020.” That’s a start! In its Global Digital Ad Spending Update Q2 2020, eMarketer predicts a 17 percent increase in digital ad spend for 2021.
This might be why so many Google Ads people are predicting that any lulls in spend, cost, and competition will be short-lived—a “v-shaped recovery,” if you will. Indeed, many marketing teams already have their sights set on a 2021 bounce back, in which digital ads promise to play a prominent role.
After all, businesses still get a $2 return for every $1 they spend on Google Ads (according to Google Economic Impact). It remains an effective way to reach targeted audiences with highly targeted and timely ads, even while the global pandemic continues to grip the world.
2. Hello, Responsive Search Ads (RSAs)
A reduction in manual tinkering ought to be welcome news to the ears of any Google Ads professional. Which is exactly the idea behind responsive search ads (RSAs). Powered by Google AI, RSAs automatically optimize your headlines, ad copy, and CTA variations based on audience and search terms. All you have to do is supply the content (time to hire some copywriters).
Since their introduction in 2019, RSAs have proven quite effective. Here are a few data points to support that claim:
More broadly, the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) within the Google Ads space are becoming far more sophisticated. This should be welcome news for marketers looking to squeeze every ounce of return they can out of their digital advertising budgets in 2021.
First and foremost, AI has been shown to more accurately target audiences and reach them when they’re most ready to buy. New automation technologies can predict click-through rate (CTR) and conversions, giving marketing brass more time to guide strategy and shape messaging. Today, most of that magic is built right into your Google Ads platform, often without much fanfare.
One of the central developments that many PPC marketers are using to make their campaigns more effective is Google Smart Bidding. Essentially, Smart Bidding is Google’s way of helping marketers get more out of their ad spend through automated “bid strategies” powered by machine learning.
Now, does Google Smart Bidding do it all for you? Not quite. At a high level, though, Smart Bidding was developed to “set more precise bids tailored to each and every auction.” Where you take it is up to you, but there’s real potential to identify and act on trends, behavior patterns, and even seasonal changes much faster than a human might be capable of.
4. Behold, the Rise of Video Ads
Much the same way you can target topics, keywords, and demographics with traditional Google Ads, you can launch Google Ads video campaigns to surface timely ads while people consume their favorite YouTube videos. It’s yet another effective way to reach what has become a wide and deep pool of viewers.
For brands trying to break in and expand their reach, YouTube is kind of like advertising at the Super Bowl.
Video ads are effective for a simple reason: you have a captive audience. Video ads are displayed while people are already looking at the screen watching their favorite videos, inherently driving more impressions and, potentially, engagement. With Google Ads, you currently have five options for video ads:
Skippable in-stream
Bumper
Non-skippable in-stream
Outstream
Ad sequence
We recommend you take a look at the create a video campaign section in Google Ads Help for more detail on how to take advantage of these different video ad types. Frankly, you could devote an entire role to this aspect of your PPC mix, depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.
Updates and Changes You Should be Aware of
Trends are one thing, but there are some recent changes to the Google Ads platform itself that will have a bearing on your 2021 strategy. We’ve earmarked the five changes we think will be most impactful, and that we’re advising our own clients to consider.
1. Privacy Concerns Prompt Google to Limit Data Availability
The ability to derive intelligence around keywords, target audiences, and demographics is essential for PPC marketers. It’s how we strategize, optimize spend, and build out campaign creative. Unfortunately, at least for us, the pool of available data is going to get a bit smaller in 2021 and beyond.
In response to increased scrutiny around data privacy, including new legislation such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), access to keyword and search query data will be even more limited in 2021. Google now limits the availability of search data, including query information in its widely used Search Terms Report. You’ll only be able to see data for terms “searched for by a significant number of users,” a change that has generated a fair amount of hubbub on the PPC forums.
The debate rages on. For advertisers, the implications of this more limited data set are multifold. At a high level, filtering negative keywords, optimization tasks, and keeping campaigns as efficient as possible will all become more difficult. Just think about it: what good is knowing that someone clicked a PPC campaign target keyword without knowing the term that the user clicked? It makes allocating ad spend far more difficult.
2. Google Makes Shopping Ads Free, Worldwide
Of course, it’s not all restrictions and limitations. You’ve probably noticed the expansion of certain search engine results page (SERP) experiences on Google to include a shopping tab. This is where companies can display product listings for certain keyword searches and, potentially, drive traffic to their marketplaces (and capture more sales).
It’s now free for all businesses to sell on Google, which means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings.
In the past, merchants would have to pay to put listings on Google. Now, Google is opening the floodgates: the company recently announced that it’s free for all businesses to sell on Google. For a search engine that gets “hundreds of millions of shopping searches” every day, this is a big leveling of the playing field—and a tremendous opportunity for businesses to get their slice of the pie.
Shopping ads are sort of a big deal. According to data from Smart Insights, shopping ads drive more than 76 percent of retail search ad spend, while generating more than 85 percent of all clicks on Google Ads or Google Shopping campaign ads. There’s just a whole heck of a lot of people who come to Google looking to shop.
Here’s Bill Ready, President of Commerce at Google:
“For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings. If you’re an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings, and for new users of Merchant Center, we’ll continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months.”
At a basic level, advertisers have an opportunity to surface their product listings in unpaid Google search experiences. So for the eCommerce folks, we recommend getting set up with Merchant Center and checking out the prerequisites needed to take advantage of free shopping ads. As Ready points out, advertisers already using Shopping ads will be able to augment their campaigns with free listings, providing more ways to reach target audiences and drive conversions.
3. New Custom Audience Tools for Better Segmentation and Targeting
Remember when you used to have to configure custom intent and custom affinity separately? Google just combined both into a single “custom audiences” tool available in Audience Manager. Essentially, Google has streamlined your ability to target people through YouTube, Gmail, Display, and Discovery ads, while making this form of personalization a bit more transparent for the end user.
This is Google’s way of automatically choosing the right audiences for your ad campaigns based on all of the information you specify. In terms of keyword targeting, you can now target based on “People with any of these interests or purchase intentions” and/or “People who searched for any of these terms on Google properties (such as Google.com and YouTube)”.
Again, this is yet another development in the move toward intent-based targeting and personalization, which Google is getting really, really good at. From a strategic standpoint, now is probably the time to revisit your Google Ads audiences through the lens of interest, intent, and keyword searches.
We recommend that you see About audience targeting for more information directly from the source.
4. YouTube and Discover Lead Capture
We mentioned the impact of video in the first section. Assuming YouTube and Discover are part of your Google Ads mix, you’ll want to tune into this update to Google Ads. Now, using extensions, you can capture leads directly from Google Ads campaigns on YouTube and Discover. This assumes, of course, you meet Google’s eligibility requirements (USD 50,000 total ad spend in Google Ads being the biggy among them).
Embedding a lead capture form in an ad that displays after a user expresses interest is just a better journey, when you think about it. Rather than sending someone off to a landing page, which requires more effort on their part and yours, why not give them the form directly? All you have to do is put together the ad creative, tell Google Ads whether you want more leads or more high-intent leads, and configure the field you want to be included in your forms.
5. Start the Countdown and Unleash Your Image Extensions
While it’s not quite as splashy as RSAs or the ability to capture leads from Google Ads, “countdowns” are an exciting new twist to Google Ads (see: Highlight upcoming events with countdowns). Essentially, you can now add countdowns to your ad text, alerting users to special events or offers that are coming to a close at a certain time.
Countdowns are yet another way to capture attention and build urgency with your ads. The most obvious use case is within the eCommerce space, where apparel vendors, for example, can compel people to click through and shop for seasonal sales that are closing soon.
That’s not all! As noted in Search Engine Land, you can now add image extensions to certain Google Ads as well, a “single right justified image alongside your ad.” Honestly, we think it looks great and gives advertisers yet another way to spice up their ads and win eyes on what have become rather crowded pages. Between image extensions and countdowns, vendors have plenty of tactics to get more people clicking through to their pages from ads.
Big Takeaway: Targeting and Timeliness Matter
There’s just no getting around it: PPC advertisers—or any marketers, really—need to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of closely defining their audiences. Of getting to know who their target market is, when their time of need occurs, and what they need to hear in that time of need to take action.
Looking back at the Google Ads trends and updates that we’ve earmarked for 2021, this timeliness and audience targeting emerges as a common theme throughout. Matt Gove, Chief Consumer Officer of Piedmont Healthcare, put it nicely in a recent interview with Cardinal Digital Marketing:
“We still use digital as much or more than any other channel. Specifically search, we spend a great deal, like a shocking amount of money, on trying to own search. Because we know healthcare is one of those disciplines where people do a great deal of searching at the time of need. So we’ve got to be able to capture people’s attention while they’re there, but we’re also doing more and more these days.”
“Searching at the time of need” should be plastered on the wall, cubicle, and window of PPC marketers, shouldn’t it? Chryssa Rich, Director of Marketing for Primary Health Medical Group, echoes this sentiment in another interview with Cardinal:
“We run lots and lots of Google ads. They all have outstanding click-through rates. Our best performing ads have about a 14 percent to a 15 percent click-through rate because we get really specific and really focused on when and where those ads are delivered and what the people are searching for.
Again, what Chryssa and Matt are telling us is that they find the most success when they can get really specific about the when, where, and who of their Google Ads campaigns. To us, this remains the fundamental underpinning that will guide PPC marketers in 2021 and beyond, no matter how the tools and tactics themselves evolve.
Blog conversion rate optimization (CRO) can be a difficult content marketing skill to master. Knowing the major do’s and don’ts is the place to make a start
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From the marketing point of view, the main goal of content is no longer to just amuse, entertain, or educate. Rather, it is to convert – convert visitors and readers into customers, users, and subscribers. Your content may be a unique piece of brilliant writing, but if it doesn’t convert it is worth nothing.
However, there are techniques that you can use to turn your great content into a working marketing instrument. Let’s talk about what you can do – and what you definitely should not do – to increase your blog conversion rate.
Out of the many conversion goals, blog content can effectively achieve two:
Make visitors navigate to the sales page
Make visitors subscribe by leaving their email address
With a few exceptions, blogs do not exist by themselves. They are a part of a complex marketing strategy planned and intended to sell a product or service. Naturally, a company wants to sell their own products and makes blog content one of the instruments to push readers to buy. This is where the content creators do their magic to make readers want to click the link or subscribe.
For example, a popular content marketing education platform, Copyblogger, aims at getting more subscribers which is their conversion goal. For that purpose, it places a subscription form on the blog page sidebar. A reader – who probably found the blog post looking for content marketing tips or recommendations – can be engaged enough to decide to enrol in free training and leave their email. Bingo, they are converted!
However, not every piece of content converts and your content marketing strategy may benefit from conversion rate optimization, or CRO, techniques.
Look for CRO opportunities
Start with analyzing your blog posts to identify those that you think can perform better. This is going to be your first stop in increasing your blog conversion rate. Use an analytical tool, for example, Google Analytics, to find blog posts that, on the one hand, bring high traffic but, on the other hand, have a low conversion rate compared to the site average.
These posts will be your primary candidates for conversion rate optimization. High traffic means they are properly searchable and relevant but something stops users from converting.
Try applying some of the techniques below both to your old posts and the ones you are just planning to write. Such a strategy may increase your overall blog conversion rate significantly.
Do’s and Don’ts of blog CRO
Let’s look at the best practices of conversion optimization and the most common mistakes that content creators make when trying to improve their blog’s performance.
Do post frequently
In content marketing, consistency is the magic word. You need to keep your existing and prospective readers engaged with new interesting content published regularly. More posts mean more traffic and, consequently, more leads and possible conversions.
However, how often should you post? Statistics show a dramatic jump in inbound traffic when you post 11 or more times per month. Thus, aim for that frequency and if you can post four times per week, that’s even better.
Another insight into this matter comes from none other than Google. As early as in 2011, Google introduced an algorithm filtering the search results by their “freshness”. Of course, this filtering applies to hot topics or recurring events but also to the information that is updated frequently. Posting often might increase your searchability.
The same principle applies to Google’s featured snippets where the algorithm picks the most recent updates to return after a query.
Don’t be spammy
While achieving an optimal posting frequency is something you should aim for, don’t post just for the sake of posting. Believe me, readers will see through it immediately. If you have nothing to post one day, then don’t post.
Both your loyal readers and visitors who found your blog for the first time expect to see meaningful posts related to your industry. Of course, you can be funny and entertaining once in a while but the main thing is that your content should create an impression of integral, organic flow. Anything that is placed just to fill the gap will stick out and ruin your reputation with users.
Do A/B testing
Experiment until you find the perfect – or near-perfect – strategy that can help you reach a good blog conversion rate. Sometimes little things matter – for example, did you know that the color of your CTA button can play a big role in improving the conversion rate?
During A/B testing, it turned out that red CTA buttons perform better than green ones, which was sort of unexpected as red is usually a “stop” color, while green is the color for “go”. However, the results showed a 34% conversion increase when the red button was used.
You can do similar testing to validate the strategy ideas that you wish to implement. Try several options and compare their performance.
Don’t try all the CRO tips you can find
While setting up your strategy of blog conversion rate optimization, you will come across dozens of lists of helpful hints, tips, tricks, and best practices (ha, you are reading one right now!).
Don’t try all of them at once. Some of them will work for you while others won’t. Test each new option carefully monitoring the results – and remember that proper A/B testing can take up to four weeks, so be patient.
If you try all optimization techniques you can lay your hands on, some of them might produce a certain increase of your blog conversion rate. However, you will not know exactly what worked in your case and keep using unnecessary practices wasting your resources.
Do use calls-to-action smartly
People often forget that CTAs aren’t just for your landing page, but for your blog too. I strongly recommend that you review your CTAs both for the old and new posts. CTAs may be the reason why your old posts do not produce as many conversions as you expect them to. If they are just sitting at the bottom of your post, your readers may just ignore them. Time to revamp your CTA strategy!
There are some CTA design options that you can experiment with:
Place your CTA in the sidebar. The sidebar is where most readers will subconsciously look for extras – links to other content, special offers, and, of course, CTAs.
Tweak the CTA design. You’ve seen how just changing the color of your CTA button can boost the conversion rate. See whether the CTA button design is outdated and needs a facelift.
Consider a slide-in CTA that appears while the reader scrolls the page and does not cover other content. A slide-in CTA has a better chance to attract the reader’s attention and will not annoy them by blocking the content.
Try not to clutter the area around your CTA button. Of course, you might want to use the sidebar space as effectively as possible, but some studies show that reducing clutter around a CTA button can improve the blog conversion rate by as much as 23%.
Make CTAs open in the same window. Users are mostly wary of links leading to new windows and trust them less than those that open within the same one.
Pop-ups can work well. However, they can also prevent Google bots from getting too far when crawling your site, which means you may be scoring an SEO own-goal!
Don’t mislead readers with CTAs
Read what is written on your CTA. Yes, that text that should make people click the button. Does it promise what is actually delivered? Is your “free” offer truly free? Will the user download what they expect to?
Your CTA should be clear on what the user is going to get. If your service is not exactly free, try to avoid this word on the CTA. Disappointed customers may be more damaging to your reputation than non-converted ones.
Another good practice is to avoid vague and general messages on your CTAs. In the image below, the company replaced the unclear “Test it out” CTA with “See demo” explicitly saying what the user is going to get clicking the button. And, by the way, this change led to a conversion rate increase.
This one is in the “No comment” league, but let’s spend some time on it. For all these techniques to work, your copywriting should grab the readers’ attention and be interesting, relevant, and engaging. Most importantly, your content should be alive.
What can you do to make your blog posts alive and vibrant? There are two basic principles:
Write on interesting topics. For each industry, the interesting topics are, naturally, different, but the rule of thumb is to write about the most recent and fresh events and developments. It’s always a bullseye to post your company’s updates – press releases, product news, upcoming events. Besides, monitor your industry sector and provide your own analysis of the recent innovations.
A good practice is to post useful content. Share something your readers can use in their processes – tips, checklists, how-tos, tutorials. Make your posts visual and eye-catching by including images, videos, animations. Your audience will like large, detailed long reads, but you can add some color to them with infographics illustrating your unique research on the subject.
Use bright and lively language. Don’t kill your great content with bland and boring wording. Don’t be afraid to joke, provoke, tease, and make fun of things. However, use these techniques in moderation and only to liven up the topic. Don’t become another Internet troll.
The most straightforward way to create great, engaging content is to be true. Write about real things and experiences, use case studies and quotes that resonate, all this should mean your content will never be boring.
Don’t focus on the volume alone
Some say people don’t read anymore, others say that people love long reads. The truth is that in this case, size does not matter much. What matters is the subject and the way you write about it.
If your content is relevant and engaging, your visitors will read it to the last word regardless of the volume. To reach that, your posts should really resonate with your audience and capture their attention from the first word to the last one. How can you achieve that – read the paragraph above.
At the same time, there are certain guidelines as to the volume of your blog posts. If you are aiming to increase social media sharing, try to write at least 750 words per post. However, for the best SEO results, your blog posts should be around 2,450 words.
Of course, these guidelines only work if you are posting content that helps to resolve real problems. To get high searchability, you need to write on topics that people search for. And, in this case, they will surely read even very long posts.
Conclusion
Content marketing is a wealth of opportunities. The great thing about it is that there are no cookie-cutter principles of how you should organize your blog. You can have a sleek, minimalistic blog or a page packed with graphics and animations – and get the same high conversion rates.
Find your best blogging strategy using the good old trial-and-error method. Test different techniques and tools to see what best fills your conversion funnel with leads. You may achieve an increase in your blog conversion rate by usual techniques, such as homepage and blog redesign to improve the overall user experience, or by non-standard options, such as adding a live chat choosing one of the different live chat software solutions.
Of course, do not forget to promote your blog to increase traffic and get more conversion opportunities. There are ways to increase your presence and visibility and make your brand recognizable among users. Try guest posting, social sharing, or email marketing, for example.
I hope my little list of do’s and don’ts will help you plan your content marketing strategy better and succeed in boosting your lead generation. If you have other ideas and suggestions, I would be happy to discuss them. Do reach out, and let’s talk about how to produce great content!
Staying on top of Google Ads features and potential problems can be challenging. Here are 10 common issues in accounts to watch out for.
Despite every Google Ads account having its own quirks and challenges, there are many commonalities that emerge.
After auditing hundreds of them over the past 13 years, I’ve noticed that many of the issues or mistakes found tend to fall into one of a few categories.
These can be things ranging from messy data output to wasting thousands of dollars because of a sneaky Google Ads setting.
While on their own they may not be account killers, frequently there’s more than one happening at a time.
These issues often pile on top of each other, creating results that are ultimately nowhere near what they could or should be!
In no particular order, here are the top 10 most common mistakes found repeatedly in Google Ad accounts.
1. Outdated Conversions
Once upon a time, you would place a Google Ads conversion tag on the conversion page, and that was that. It fed in pixel fires from that page.
Such a simplistic measurement also meant a lot less room for error.
Nowadays, advertisers use conversion tags on any number of pages, import conversions from CRMs like Salesforce, use call tracking, and import conversion events from Google Analytics.
This additional view of the conversion journey is invaluable, but it also means there can be a lot of noise. It’s harder to realize when conversions are double-counted, or if old ones are still populating.
If all of those old conversions are part of CPA calculations or bidding algorithms, it messes with bidding decision-making.
The Conversions area in Google Ads should be checked at least quarterly. Scan to check for anything outdated or old that should be removed.
Answer the following questions:
What are we tracking?
Should all of those factors be counted as a conversion in all calculations, or only a few?
Where does the tracking come from – the Google tag, a Goal imported from Analytics, an imported file?
Is there anything left that is a dead conversion that we should delete to keep the conversion interface clean?
2. Geotargeting Options
This is a sneaky one by Google.
When setting up a new campaign, you choose your geotarget.
There’s a sneaky expansion menu a lot of people forget about under Location options.
Opening this reveals the default way Google will show your ads, and here is the culprit:’
This means your ads will show outside your geographic target based on Google’s definition of a user “showing interest” in the locations you’ve chosen.
To see if this is affecting your results, you can dig down into Reporting and see it split by users physically in the location, versus when it’s just an “interest.”
In the Reports area, add a column for Location type. You can then filter by Physical Location or Location of interest:
If the interest-based location is dragging down your results, go back to your Locations setting, and choose the second radio button for Presence.
This will only show it to people physically located in your desired area.
3. Regional Trends
Speaking of location-driven decisions, there’s frequently a lack of location-based bid modifiers or decision-making.
It’s easy to overlook this when many managers rely on automated bidding.
However, when using manual bidding, eCPC, or maximizing clicks, this can make a big difference.
Many accounts run nationwide and at times, you see accounts set up to target the U.S. with nothing more granular.
It’s very likely you’ll see patterns of cities or states that have better or worse performance.
This can be handled through bid modifiers, but that doesn’t address other major issues: device modifiers, budget allocation, and ad copy, to name a few.
Large cities tend to eat budget, which can be OK if the metrics work in their favor.
But sometimes they don’t.
Occasionally, there are differences in device usage among different geographical areas.
For example, with cities that have a lot of commuters, you will sometimes see better conversion rates on mobile devices since they’re browsing and shopping while they sit on public transportation.
Check the Locations section in your Campaigns, and drill into the city levels for opportunities to tighten up your bidding.
4. Revisiting Ad Schedule Modifiers
As with a lot of bid modifiers, there’s a trend of setting up ad schedule bid modifiers and forgetting about it.
Performance during the time of day can change seasonally.
Revisit it at designated intervals with good data samples to make sure you stay relevant during the prime times of the day.
5. Messy Keyword Matching
With broad match types, Google picks the keyword a search term is matched to but doesn’t always choose the same one consistently.
You wind up having one search term matching to multiple different ad groups, usually with varying levels of performance.
The easiest way to see this is by exporting your search terms and using a quick pivot table.
Drop your search terms in, and then pick count of Ad Groups.
It’ll show you the number of ad groups a term is matched to.
You can also drop the Ad Group in as a sub-field to the search term, which will then list under each search term which specific Ad Group it popped into.
This used to be something to focus on for broad match only, but I now recommend doing it for all match types. Since Google relaxed its match rules around Exact Match, you will probably find more surprises here than you used to!
Obviously, we want it to match the best-performing one.
This means setting it as an exact match negative to the Ad Groups or Campaigns where we want it to stop matching.
This forces Google to match it the way you want.
6. Not Utilizing Experiments for Testing
To be fair, the platform doesn’t make this easy to figure out, which is a shame.
The Experiments feature is a great way to run a more controlled test once you get past the odd way you have to set it up.
You can test all kinds of elements, like the bidding mechanism or even landing pages.
In accounts where I’ve struggled to get an even distribution for a landing page test, the Experiments setup has come in handy.
I simply duplicate the Campaign and change the URLs in the ads.
Because I can specify the percentage of traffic I want to receive in the experiment, I can create a more controlled setup vs. leaving it to the meager Google Ads rotation options.
To get started on creating an Experiment, choose the Campaign you want to create a test for and hit the “Drafts” button in the upper right.
From there, you can create a non-running version of the Campaign, change the parts you want to test, and then choose to launch it as an Experiment for a pre-determined length of time.
A more recent addition here is that option for Ad Variations. You can launch a split test on copy way faster than having to manually upload a bunch of ads like you used to!
7. Lack of Bidding Strategy
There are many reasons accounts may still use manual bidding.
Often, there are more complex business metrics that determine the relative worth of a click – metrics that Google can’t see, or take into account.
These situations make human error a factor, and a strong bidding strategy can be left behind.
Keywords with a $1,006 cost per conversion should not have the same bids as those generating leads at $96.98.
Read up on bidding options and test different methods to find the one that yields the best results.
8. Adding Audiences for Observation
It’s easy to forget that searches happen across a wide range of potential customer types.
Google has a lot of information on users at this stage of the game.
Frequently, they will behave very differently, but it’s nothing you’d see in the search data because they search the same terms.
Adding Audiences and observing their results is a basic Marketing 101 function that is easily skipped over out of habit.
However, the data here is great not only for discovering new bid adjustments but also in finding audiences to target on other platforms like YouTube.
9. Missing or Disapproved Ad Extensions
So many accounts are missing Ad Extensions and/or have some that are disapproved.
I commonly see the missing Structured Snippet extensions, disapproved phone numbers (ack!), and disapproved Review Extensions.
Beyond the enhanced real estate these extensions give advertisers on the SERP, they can also help to pre-qualify clicks better (using things like “starting at” pricing, as an example). They may also give more information to encourage a click from a user.
10. Watching Partner Performance
By default, a new search campaign will have Google Search Partners checked as a placement.
This isn’t always a bad thing!
Sometimes partner sites generate some nice, low CPAs.
Make sure if you launch with it, you take a look as data accrues to see how it’s doing.
You can do this by choosing the Segment option in the top right, and picking Network (with search partners).
Of note here is that this is an “all or nothing” setting.
‘Include Google search partners’ is either running or it’s not, and advertisers cannot refine it any further than that.
What major website trends 2021 you need to consider? In a highly competitive market such as a digital one, it is important to foresee changes and learn how to adapt to them. Get to know 15 web trends of the next year and meet the decade fully armed!
#1 Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
Progressive web apps (or PWA) are not the phenomenon of this year. However, the technology gained modern developers and investors’ attention due to its potential to perform high-quality user experience close to native app one.
In 2019, 65% of online shopping orders through the website were made with mobile devices. PWA’s rising website trend makes it possible for users to view their favorite websites on a mobile web browser or desktop and without downloading special apps or computer programs. PWAs in 2021 will be written with HTML and CSS, JavaScript, React, or Angular. Besides great user experience and no need for programs, PWA could send push notifications and provide users with offline access to cached content.
For whom these latest website technologies may be important? E-commerce, news platforms, companies with low development budgets, and those who’d like to reach a bigger audience without losing it on the app downloading stage should be extremely attentive now. That is also true that PWA can change money algorithms in App Store and Google Play Market world where paid apps should share profits with app aggregators.
#2 Artificial Intelligence and Bots
What does the future of web development look like? That is believed by many that next year bots will become more self-learning and will easily match particular user’s needs and behavior. That means that 24/7-operating bots will be able to replace support managers and save costs for many companies.
In the upcoming decade, chatbots will remain the most common instruments to serve people and become the major branch of digital development.
Huge B2C companies already use the technology to serve their customers — official page chatbots inside Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Skype are good examples. A bot could be also integrated into PWA, regular website, professional or household equipment, and any Internet-connected app developed by a commercial company.
Bot’s rise will also influence trends in web design, especially UX one. The significant advanced of AI and machine learning technology resulted in demand for virtual assistant designs, which is not only about visual experience, or product serving algorithms, but also about useful sound design.
The most important advantages of AI-based bots are 24/7 problem-solving potential, human-like experience, and deep consumer behavior analytics.
#3 Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Accelerated Mobile Pages (or AMP) is one more web development trend. The idea of it is to speed up page performance and decrease the risk of leaving it by a user. AMP technology is a bit similar to PWA. The difference is that pages become accelerated due to open-source plugin recently developed by Twitter and Google.
AMPs are optimized pages that could operate fast and have a simplified and yet convenient design with only basic features compared to full-scope web products. Those pages are also mobile-friendly and their content is always readable.
New trends in web design such as AMP development show that the Internet is becoming more user-oriented. Although we’ve got 5G Internet technology and most brands choose to develop native apps to make any user experience better, AMP plugin gives companies a chance to save costs on UX and reach users with any Internet speed. As a result, we will see smaller and niche products successfully competing with huge market leaders.
#4 Single Page Application (SPA)
Nowadays, with high-speed Internet standards, there is no need to be stuck on an approach where every action made on the page like clicks on various buttons leads to one more web page downloaded from a server.
Single page application (or SPA) is one of the new website trends that helps us avoid seamless communication with the server and show better page performance and provide a high data protection level.
SPAs gain their popularity due to JavaScript frameworks rise. Working with them you intercept particular browser events and request JSON which looks like working with a web application. Google pages like Gmail, Google Drive, or Google Maps, as well as social networking platforms like Facebook, are of that kind. Current web trends observation makes it clear that in future most functional websites will be constructed as SPAs.
Why developers of 2021 prefer the SPA approach? SPAs have more chances to hold users’ attention as they seem to be fast operating — SPAs provide users with instant feedback (compared to regular sites with their white screens before the page will be completely downloaded). Single-page sites also consume less and could work without server-side code at all (API technology).
#5 Voice Search Optimization
The web development future seems to be less texty and more voicy and it’s not only about virtual multifunctional home assistants such as Siri, Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa. In 2021, more than half of all smart and IoT devices will hear users and execute commands given by voice. And even more — they will be able to recognize the voices of different people and provide personalized AI-based experience for everyone.
Voice search is just the most significant example of technology that was implemented more than a decade ago. In 2021, people would prefer to spend less time typing commands as devices could understand them clearly. That’s why most companies are now puzzling over how to optimize their physical and digital products for voice search and voice commands. 55% of all households globally are forecasted to have voice assistant by the end of 2022.
The latest in web development is voice-activated self-standing devices and voice optimization for regular web sites and apps. Strengthen with AI, voice search optimization is beneficial for both end-users and owners. First, it saves time and allows a user to order more (online shopping and services). Second, technology is multitasking. Third, it gains users’ extra loyalty as helps them to cope with routine. And, finally, voice usage is a powerful source of user behavior analytics.
#6 Motion UI
Innovation web design is one more trend branch in the digital world. From year to year startups keep paying more attention to user experience and invest fewer resources in the aesthetics. However, beautifully looking websites and apps have more chances to be noticed by potential users and become viral. In that terms, visual design becomes not the question of engineering, but the one of marketing strategy.
That is likely, that in 2021 MVPs will still be minimalistic. At the same time, experts foresee the demand for brand new design approaches like motion UI. Although motion user interface design has been trendy since 2018, it becomes widely accessible for any device users only now due to SASS libraries technology.
Motion UI makes digital products usage more intuitive and clear. The approach involves custom animation integration and CSS transitions powered by stand-alone libraries with numerous classes of animated elements. With their help, developers spend less time on digital product building and save the costs of product owners.
In 2021, the motion future of web design seems to be still appealing as SASS libraries are flexible, easy to use with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, and are highly responsive. Motion UI is also a proven way to capture users’ attention, so it is useful for those who develop products for markets with lots of players.
#7 Automation Testing
Most emerging web technologies are aimed to make the development process cheaper and provide users with the best experience. Development stages automation is the tool on how to reach the first aim. Machine learning and AI approach allow us to build complex projects with a small team or with fewer development experts, while product test automation helps us to check whether our product is ready for the deployment or not.
Test automation has numerous benefits. It leads to the best testing coverage, transparency, and tech problem detection.
The approach also helps the development team collect test cases and learn from them, reduce development costs (up to 20%), and reduce test cycle time in general. In other words, with test automation, you will get a better end product for less money.
Why latest web development technology such as test automation is so important in 2021? The answer is digital environment becomes more and more competitive. If you are faster than your competitors and the quality of your product is better — you will win.
#8 JavaScript Frameworks
Although JavaScript wasn’t invented yesterday, it is considered to be one of the most used programming languages in the world which makes every innovation concerning it that much actively discussed. In 2021, new website trends will include the rise and further development of JavaScript frameworks.
JavaScript frameworks emerged as attempts to standardize the language and create a convenient frontend ecosystem that is easy to benefit from. In 2021, JavaScript frameworks will involve UX, UI, testing, and product tech management aspects. Frameworks usage will be based on ready components one needs to compose working on a website.
Technically, JavaScript frameworks remain an application framework created with JavaScript programming language and based on libraries (both visual and functional) integration. This web trend has lots of benefits. Immediate feedback that is given to users without page reloads, high efficiency and fast performance, coding simplicity are just a couple of them.
Mind, that modern JavaScript frameworks have some differences compared to old versions. Built-in HTML templating, composed-based design, data management tools build system support are the most significant updates. However, Vue, React, and Angular frameworks will continue to be the most popular products of their kind in 2021.
#9 Serverless Applications and Architecture
What does the web development future look like? Serverless technology is the result of searching for the possibility to avoid system overloading, data loss, or costly development. Supported by major vendors like AWS, serverless algorithms were recently built as a cloud-computing execution model. According to the concept, regular servers could be replaced by clouds that manage machine resource consumption.
Current web trends concerning serverless app architecture help reduce development and ongoing support budgets, strengthen apps with flexibility potential, and keep the Internet environment more sustainable. The technology is based on function as a service (FaaS) usage.
Private cloud computing services providers give their partners a chance to create, run, and manage app features without building a product infrastructure by themselves.
In 2021, serverless technology is forecasted to be actively used for chatbots, IoT apps, products that need complex backend requests proceeding, and APIs. The most common tasks that could be executed serverless are downloading files backups, notification delivery, and objects export. AWS (AWS Lambda), Google Cloud (Google Functions) and Microsoft Azure (Azure Functions) will be still major service providers of 2021.
#10 Blockchain Technology
Cryptocurrencies are not the latest web development technology. The concept of them appeared in 2004 and three years ago crypto trading market (based on blockchain technology) explored with investments. What should we expect in 2021? It is clear for many, that blockchain currency trading could not be ignored by the official authorities. The usage of them became significantly active within the past decade and major payment systems decided to accept Bitcoins and other currencies.
In 2019, over 34 million blockchain wallets are used globally. Blockchain technology also requires hardware and software support, legal regulation, and infrastructure for trading. So next year emerging web technologies are likely to cover those aspects. Blockchain operations should be secure, protected from hacker attacks and tech errors. Major banks are planning to develop algorithms for protecting valuable user data and keep crypto trading as safe as one with regular currency.
Peer-to-peer networking is likely to develop too. If the blockchain world becomes more trusted and accessible for people, it will cause revolutionary changes in the way people pay taxes, interact with governmental services, and build a professional relationship.
#11 Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (or IoT) is a network of interconnected devices that require no or almost no actions from the users’ side to execute operations and perform useful results. In 2021, some of web development trends will be caused by IoT development.
As it is forecasted that there will be around 30 billion Internet devices operating in 2025, we could expect that next year there will be a certain demand on solutions that could level up secureness on automated IoT interactions.
IoT rising potential is another aspect we should consider next year. The basic reason for the Internet of Things to exist and develop is its ability to make human daily life easier or more convenient. With payment automation, smart home and smart city technology, e-health environment development, we could become generally less overloaded with routine tasks and invest our cognitive resources in more complicated ones.
Transport, healthcare, housekeeping, and marketing are likely to be major IoT niches in 2021. New trends in web design (UX) will be also influenced by changes in the IoT environment. We should foresee voice interfaces design and emerging approaches to big data architecture.
#12 Mobile-First Development
In 2021, there will be significantly more mobile devices than regular personal computers and now, we’ve got as much as 54% of the Internet traffic consumed with mobiles and tablets. So no surprises that web design trends tend to be more about small mobile screens than horizontally-oriented desktops.
Mobile-first development is a concept according to which you start thinking out your product treating mobile screen and other mobile hardware features such as productivity and physical buttons placement as major tech framework you need to work with. In other words, you do not work out the desktop-oriented site and then deal with adapting it to mobile box, but start with light, usually minimalistic, and intuitive product that is easy to interact with using mobile.
Latest in web design ideas are following: in 2021, it is recommended to deliver content with no decorative meaningless elements, reduce page number and avoid using columns, use triggers with mobile-oriented call to action (for example, online calls), use vivid colors, simple geometric shapes, contrasting color schemes, and illustrations. That is also important to understand that since 2018 Google has separate search ranking algorithms for mobiles where mobile-first sites are prioritized.
#13 Responsive Websites (RWD)
You can’t discuss website trends of 2021 avoiding responsive websites issue. The concept was born more than 5 years ago when mobile devices were actively seizing the market. In 2019, every second search request is being made by the mobile user, which means developers and designers should put extra effort into polishing their products and make it convenient for users in two formats — desktop and mobile.
There are at least 3 options on how to solve the problem. The idea is to develop either mobile-first website and adapt it to desktop, create a mobile-friendly website that looks on mobile screen and desktop in the same way, or invest in responsive web design (RWD) and use the same HTML code with CSS that could alter the rendering on your web site automatically. In 2021, the RWD approach is likely to gain significant attention.
What could we get out of website trends considering the rise of RWD?
The reason why you need a mobile user-friendly website is that it is the only way to get the right indexing from the search engine. And proper indexing influences your competitiveness.
In 2021, it is also time to forget about desktop and mobile versions separation (different content and stand-alone management), but to work on universal code for all types of devices.
#14 Push Notifications
Could push notification be considered as a short-lasting development fad or are they brand new trends in web design? In 2021, notifications will appear not only in mobile apps but in web apps. Moreover, they will turn into one more powerful tool to gain users’ attention, make user retention rates higher, and even provide desktop users with the type of experience they used to obtain through mobile devices only.
Facebook, global news platforms, Google Mail, and other huge market players already implement the technology into their web apps. Next year we could expect push notification adoption by small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time, instant notifications are likely to replace some types of communication with customers such as email sending.
The future of web development considering notification in web apps is forecasted to perform extra demand on ready to use solutions (like notification plugins and browser push notifications utilities) that could be easily adjusted to existing blogs, online shopping platforms, and other services. In other words, technology will become cheap and accessible to many.
#15 GPDR and Cybersecurity
Why cybersecurity is that much important in 2021? The point is we automate more and more routine operations using Internet-connected devices. And each time we proceed operations like online payments, sharing personal data while buying tickets or paying taxes, or even setting our smart houses and multimedia systems, there is always a risk for our data to be stolen.
The cybersecurity market is likely to generate over $300 billion by 2024. What are the latest website technologies in the field of cybersecurity? First, in 2021, we can expect the development of algorithms that could protect users from phishing attacks. This type of cybercrimes is possible with trusted sites and pages simulations (like bank account entry), where users are required to fill the form with security numbers or valuable data.
IoT interaction protection and mobile security will also gain momentum next year.
The development of privacy policy such as GPDR in Europe (General Data Protection Regulation) is also the latest in web development. The document has the status of international law and put a fine on Internet product owner if they collect user data in an unsecured way, as well or sell or store user information without asking user permission. In 2021, local regulations in the US such as California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will be applied.
PWA (Progressive Web Apps) have gained momentum among the web development community and are one of the most talked about technology shifts across the web landscape.
If you are someone who builds for web, there is a good chance that PWA is one of the latest ‘buzzwords’ that have been added to your work vocabulary. Progressive Web Apps have made installing web apps on phone possible.
There has already been a lot of spotlight and ‘geek speaks’ on building PWA and its advantages. Most of the attempts to introduce PWA, especially to the newbies, seem to be jargon filled or had too much of code that could intimidate them to take the first step. In this article, I’m trying to give a snapshot of PWA, just enough to kickstart their learning process.
This is what Wikipedia says about PWA. Well, this might seem a bit vague or even contentious. So let’s look at PWA in an informal way.
If ever the best of web and the best of apps had a clone child — it is PWA. Or else, it’s just that the web page has taken all the ‘right vitamins’ so that it can behave more like an app downloaded from the App Store/ Play Store. It starts as a normal web page in a browser, and as a user explores the webpage, they get the prompt if they would like to “Add to Home Screen”. Once the user gives the thumbs up to this prompt, VOILA! PWA gets added to their home screen. Once open from the home screen, it can even hide the browser UI controls and appear as an app.
This is more like a glorified bookmark that has hit the sweet spot between the web and mobile apps. I say this because PWA has managed to bridge the gap in the web. The web has always been thirsty for reliable performance at par with the native apps. It has always yearned for a place in the notification tray and in the home screen just like an app. More than 40% of the users bounce from the websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. PWA is a solution for this “Web Obesity Epidemic” faced by the users.
It is all about removing friction and making it easy for the users to get to what they want.
The entire credit for this seamless experience should be given to the Service Worker( A script that the browser runs in the background separate from web page), which is the backbone of every PWA. The service workers enable reliable and intelligent caching, background content updating, push notifications and the most attractive offline functionality to prior visited sites. This means that, after the first visit to a website, the site and app will be reliably fast even on flaky networks.
But a question could arise here — what about the fast first load with reliable performance? That’s when Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) meets service worker. AMP provides reliably fast web components for first load. These components are much faster to load and less data hungry. Websites that use the combo of AMP and Service Worker will provide reliable speed as of native apps. Once the page is loaded the site setups the service worker and assets are cached intelligently. This will always keep the PWA up to date thereby freeing the users from the frequent updates to be done from the App Store.
PWA in a nutshell:
Reliable : Fast loading and works offline
Fast : Smooth Animations, jank free scrolling and seamless navigation even on flaky networks
Engaging : Launched from home screen and can receive push notification
2. Why is it important ?
It is a myth that the users will happily download the app of every website they visit frequently. According to Comscore Mobile App Report, over 50% of America’s smart phone users download Zero Apps a month. i.e. Gone are the days when the phone is full of apps and people-smart phone honeymoon phase is getting depleted. Each step to download an app reduces 20% of users. PWA reduces the steps between discovery of an app and getting it on the home screen and thereby eliminates friction of getting an app installed. This provides a very fertile ground for businesses to pitch in their PWA.
The following three metrics can be highlighted to understand the importance of PWA in moulding the future web.
a. Reach : The mobile web audience has grown at a skyrocketing pace over the last few years. Google has reported that Chrome has whooping 1 billion mobile users compared to the erstwhile 400 million users in 2016. As per Comscore’s report the reach of mobile web is 2.5 times more than that of apps, while considering the top 1000 sites and apps. This is the reason why the decision of Flipkart, Myntra etc. to abandon their website and be ‘app only’ backfired. If we could provide a better experience to a wider audience, we could surely get a competitive edge over the others.
b. Acquisition : Another serious concern faced by the mobile apps are their user discoverability compared to websites. The user acquisition cost of web will be 10 times cheaper than that of native apps. With more exposure and low friction for on-boarding, PWA is likely to acquire more users at very less expense.
c. Conversion : The seamless end to end user experience even with flaky networks provided by PWA improves the number of successful conversions. Flipkart launched their PWA ‘Flipkart-lite’, which they claim to have delivered an increase in the conversion rate by 70% with lower acquisition cost.
To sum up : PWA helps to improve conversions by increasing potential reach with low acquisition costs.
3. How to get started ?
Once you get to know a new technology, the next challenge in-line is the decision to adopt it. Most of the people get into a dilemma at this point. Decision should be driven by your specific business need. The following two cases could help you identify the method that fits you to implement PWA.
a) From ground zero
Consider the scenario when a company is building a new website or going through a redesign. In this case, building a PWA from ground zero makes sense and is feasible. This will have the business to harness the power of PWA with AMP, service workers, App shell and Web Manifest. For e.g.. According to Ali Express, once they revamped their website as PWA, they were able to increase their conversion rate for new users by 104%, gained 2X more pages visited per session per user across all browsers and 74% increase in time spent per session across all browsers.
b) A simple version or A Single feature
When building from scratch is not realistic, one can always build a simple version of the website or focus on a single feature that has a high impact for end users. The focus is to deliver a fast, engaging and reliable experience. AirBerlin is an appropriate example in this case. They focussed on the post- booking experience in their PWA. After a passenger has checked in, they can access their journey details and boarding pass even without internet connectivity.
4. Challenges in PWA
There are some challenges in PWA which have to be considered while choosing it.
a) Cross Browser Support : While Chrome, Opera, and Samsung’s android browser supports PWA, IE, Edge and Safari are yet to extend their support.
b) Limited Functionality: PWA doesn’t have support for any hardware that is not supported by HTML5
c) Limited Legitimacy: As there is no central download Store for PWA, they lack in giving a sense of legitimacy and confidence which is usually given by native apps from Play Store/App Store.
d) Cross Application Login Support : Native apps have the capability to talk to other apps and authenticate logins (Facebook, Twitter, Google). As a webpage, PWA doesn’t have the capability to communicate with other apps installed.
Conclusion
We can’t say that PWA will kill Native Apps in the future. But still there is a growing interest for this approach in the community. PWAs are still in their infancy with a lot of challenges to be addressed. Yet, they have the potential to create a shift in the way the web works.
Food for Thought
According to Henrik Joreteg, “PWA is the single biggest thing to happen on the mobile web since Steve introduced the iPhone!”
Looking for a way to kickstart your business’ CRM strategy? Look no further. Browse our top CRM strategies for 2021, and compare quotes from leading CRM software suppliers
Launching a business venture. Budgeting for the next financial quarter. Hanging on to your get-out-of-jail-free card and building a hotel on Park Lane. Whether in business, life, or the frustrating realm of family board game night, almost everything you’ll ever do requires some kind of strategy. That is, if you want to do it right.
That’s why developing a fully-formed CRM (customer relationship management) strategy is the most important thing your business will do this year.
A CRM strategy governs the who, what, how, why, and where of your business’ interactions with your clients. It’s how you’ll acquire, sell to, re-engage, and retain your customers, and – ultimately – how you’ll grow your business and bottom line.
The only thing is, CRM strategies (like Monopoly strategies) can be pretty tough to put together.
Plus, CRM goals, visions, and strategies alone won’t revolutionise your business; and they don’t operate in a vacuum. The brains of your strategy should always go hand in hand with the brawn of a CRM system – and if you don’t have one already, you should look into it.
All that aside, you’re here for some CRM strategy inspiration. But before we get started on our top 10 CRM strategies for UK businesses, a quick word on the distinction between CRM strategy and software – and what it means for you.
CRM: Strategy or Software?
CRM refers to both a strategy, as well as a type ofsoftware (or system) for enacting that strategy. So how do they fit together?
Well, while a strategy will guide your approach to your customer relationships, a CRM system will help you implement it. We’re big advocates for CRM systems – and, that being so, the ten CRM strategies below will all require your business to be using CRM software to execute them to their full potential.
If you don’t already use CRM software, don’t fret – it’s easy to get set up with one.
Simply take our quick questionnaire, providing us with some information about your business’ CRM requirements. When we’re confident that we know exactly what you need – that is, your team size, the particular CRM features you’ll require, and what type of contact management software you already use – we can do our best work.
That involves matching you with CRM suppliers. Not any old companies, though – just those that are a good (the best!) fit for your business. They’ll then be in touch with you directly, to provide tailored CRM quotes and advice.
It takes 30 seconds, and is free for UK-based businesses. And, when you’re done, you’ll have everything you need to plan, develop, and execute your own CRM strategy – and start reaping the rewards.
1. Customer interaction and behaviour tracking
The first and foremost tenet of any good CRM strategy? Knowing your customers.
CRM software takes the guesswork out of tracking how prospects and deals find and interact with your business online. It also allows you to store a wide range of data about current clients, as well as those still being courted.
Which ad did Geoff click on? Did Beatrice engage with your email, or leave it unread? Which social media platform is Miriama most likely to find you on?
Once you’ve hooked your customers, CRM software then paves the way for you to get to know them a little better. And we don’t just mean their name, email address, or job title. Nope – we’re talking the date and nature of their last engagement with your brand, their previous orders, and their total spend – essentially, exactly what you need to target them with discounts tailored to their particular purchasing preferences.
This CRM strategy example, pulled straight from HubSpot, illuminates how easy the platform makes it to track your clients.
In addition to Greg’s contact details, you can view how many products he’s bought, how much he’s spent, and when he first made a purchase from your company. You can also email, call, or ‘meet’ him through the CRM’s interface – and any conversations you have with the guy will be recorded in the activity feed.
Of course, storing data comes with a few ethical issues, and you need to ensure that you’re respecting your customers’ privacy. That’s why CRM software is GDPR-compliant, and set up to only retain the customer data that you’re required (and allowed) to keep.
CRM strategy #1: Establish an extensive, ethical database about your customers to learn about how, when, and where they’re interacting with your brand. The more you know them, the better you’ll be able to sell to them.
2. Loyalty and rewards programs
The Tesco Clubcard. Starbucks Rewards. The IKEA Family.
Whether it’s tallying up Avios points or earning ourselves a free coffee, we all love being rewarded for our loyal custom. But is your business taking advantage of this powerful marketing tool? And how do you get started?
CRM software is the easiest, most direct route to fostering customer loyalty. Whether it’s reaching out with a special birthday treat or following up to check on a recent purchase, CRM allows you to personalise and perfect the customer experience.
And, by allowing your customers to accumulate digital currency when they buy, they’ll be more motivated to come back to you – and spend again. After all, why let those points go to waste?
Cosmetics behemoth Sephora provides an excellent example of this particular CRM strategy.
With more than 17 million members, Sephora rewards its customers with tailored offers and discounts. The program is structured in three tiers, so the more you spend, the better the rewards – and the greater the exclusivity.
Better still, Sephora further nurtures customer loyalty and engagement through running an online forum. Here, its members can come together to discuss products, and share user-generated recommendations and advice.
CRM strategy #2: Reward your best customers with discounts and offers that are personalised to their preferences. Engender exclusivity with a tiered loyalty system, and cultivate user participation through an online community.
3. Tailored, targeted marketing
So, you’re committed to customer interaction and behaviour tracking, with a customer loyalty strategy firmly in place. Now it’s time to get (even more) proactive – to start putting that data into use with marketing campaigns that are hand-crafted to your audience.
Here are four tips to help you build a CRM strategy around more effective marketing:
a) Personalise your emails!
Research suggests that emails with personalised subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened – and it’s not hard to see why. You’re already sending your customer an unsolicited email – the least you can do is address them by name!
Plus, it makes it feel a bit less like bulk marketing (which, of course, it is), while adding a dash of the personal.
Did I open this email? Yes, yes I did. And the food was delicious.
b) Segment your customers
Marketing with a ‘one-size fits all’ kind of approach rarely succeeds. Because, naturally, what works for one customer won’t necessarily resonate with another.
That’s why you need to segment your email lists. With the right marketing CRM software, you can sort your audience by demographic, purchase history, and personal preferences. This ensures the right messages always go to the right people, while helping you steer clear of any embarrassing slip-ups.
c) Be specific!
Being specific about what you’re offering is key to good email marketing. It also helps reduce any mental strain on the reader, allowing you to get straight to the point. Take the following CRM strategy example I received recently:
This discount from ride-sharing app Bolt is an attention-grabber.
I know what the offer is, how many trips I can use it on, and where (and when) I can use it. The stipulations are clear and signposted, and I know exactly where to go if I get stuck (the app).
d) Make it easy to unsubscribe
This may sound counter-intuitive to what you’re trying to achieve, but it’s hugely important.
Making it easy for your user to unsubscribe – ideally, by including a clearly visible link in the email footer – helps you remain GDPR compliant, while minimising annoyance to the reader. Aside from being the right thing to do, it also helps you inspire trust and confidence in your brand, and avoid being ‘spammy’.
Plus, it has benefits for your CRM database, too – clearing out users that are no longer engaged, and freeing up room for more lucrative prospects.
CRM strategy #3: Build a marketing CRM strategy around tailored, personalised emails,. Segment your customer lists to avoid mistakes, and maximise the effectiveness of your marketing messages.
4. Data cleansing and deduplication
Profits, prestige, power – as your business grows, lots of things will come your way, many of which you’ll enjoy. However, we’re guessing that increased media scrutiny isn’t one of them.
That’s why you’ll want to avoid any high-profile mistakes when communicating with your customers.
Attempting to sell a product to a customer you should have known was long-deceased, or addressing marketing emails to a married couple that split long ago? These pitfalls can cost you your reputation – and they’re surprisingly easy to fall into.
Fortunately, these kinds of errors can be avoided with the right CRM software.
By unifying your data into a single system, you avoid entries being duplicated across disparate systems. Sensitive customer data will be easier to manage, cleanse, and regulate – and you can be confident that you’re always working with the most accurate information.
CRM Strategy #4: Prioritise the regular auditing and cleansing of your customer database to eliminate mistakes, and ensure data integrity and relevance.
5. Sharper stakeholder reporting
Stakeholders, shareholders, auditors. The media. If they have anything in common, it’s that they all expect you to be able to deliver an accurate, segmented view of your entire customer base – often at just a moment’s notice.
And, let’s face it – no matter how much of an ‘Excel wizard’ you are, spreadsheets alone aren’t going to cut the mustard here. So what will?
Pulling your range of business and customer data into a single place – and allowing you to manipulate it via a series of online dashboards – analytical CRM software enables a new level of number-crunching. Reports are easy to generate, simple to export, and a breeze to read.
This CRM strategy example from AgileCRM shows how dynamically you can visualise your business’ key customer data. Agile, indeed!
CRM strategy #5: Utilise CRM software to generate internal and external reports about your customer base and business’ health. Increase your credibility and transparency in the eyes of stakeholders and the media – and do it in style.
6. Customer relationship identification
When it comes to cultivating good customer relationships, simple management isn’t enough. You’ll need to identify, too.
That is, you’ll need to understand not only your relationships with your customers, but what professional or personal relationships they have with each other, too.
The right CRM software offers a holistic view of your customer database – allowing you to identify where any need-to-know (and potentially profitable) connections occur between your clients.
It also helps to know about personal connections, too. Being aware that a customer has two young children might be important for marketing purposes, for example. But it can also help you avoid major embarrassment – like sending inappropriate sales propositions to your clients’ kids.
CRM strategy #6: Develop an understanding of your client’s professional and personal connections to better tailor your sales and marketing efforts to them.
7. Customer service team integration
Sure, CRM software does a lot for your sales team. Your marketing department, too. Still, for everything to perform at its peak, you’ll also need to keep your customer service staff in the loop.
Fortunately, that’s easy to do. Your CRM system feeds info about any interactions or successes your sales and marketing teams have had with a client directly to your customer service team. This allows the latter to quickly see what’s gone wrong – and how to fix it.
After all, there’s nothing worse than being stuck on hold – bouncing from one customer service agent to another, and having to explain your issue several times over. It’s bad service, and a common CRM problem. So don’t fall prey to it!
Use a CRM system instead. With everything they need at their disposal via the software’s unified, cloud-based interface, your customer service team will be able to handle issues, requests, and complaints with greater ease and professionalism.
CRM strategy #7: Connect your teams, unify your business, and make knowledge-sharing with your customer service team a top priority.
We’ve discussed the benefits of email marketing – that is, reaching out to customers directly to sell to them. But what about people coming the other way? How do you attract, engage, and convert new, inbound customers to your website – and turn them from prospects into clients?
The answer, of course, is content.
Whether it’s a blog, an innovative social media strategy, or a downloadable ebook or guide, you need to offer your users something they can’t get elsewhere.
Publishing original content in unique formats – videos, infographics, case studies, whitepapers, tutorials – is an excellent route to establishing yourself as an authority in the eyes of your readers. It’s also a great way to offer them some genuinely entertaining, informative content (with a few call-to-actions along the way, of course!).
Here’s where a CRM system comes in. As well as providing a platform for you to create, curate, schedule, and publish original, SEO-optimised content, it integrates with your social media accounts, to simplify community management.
Let’s take this CRM strategy example from Salesforce.
You can monitor keyword trends, review past social media post performance, and assess engagement levels – all from within a single interface. The software also integrates with social media monitoring tools– keeping you forever in the loop as to what your customers are saying about your brand and industry.
For more information, go explore our Salesforce review, updated for 2021.
CRM strategy #8: Creating unique, value-added content for your website and social channels (and monitoring it with a CRM system) adds a whole new dimension to your services. Your customers will love it.
There are plenty of ways in which a CRM system can boost employee empowerment. It breaks down data silos, fosters more efficient team collaboration, and adds a layer of transparency to every interaction your sales, marketing, and customer service teams have with clients.
Not only will your staff feel more accountable and independent, they’ll feel more confident – freed up to use the CRM tools and data at their disposal to make better decisions,
All killer CRM strategies place an emphasis on the people behind the business, rather than solely the profit. So should yours.
CRM strategy #9: Use CRM software to empower your team with greater access to data and improved collaboration.
10. Inspiration from CRM’s big names
When you’re all out of ideas, there’s nothing like turning to the biggest, most successful businesses in the world for inspiration.
Let’s take a look at two: Amazon and Apple.
Amazon’s CRM strategy is built around Prime, its premium subscription service. Prime is designed to personalise the entire purchasing process. Whether it’s sending you an offer for a product you were browsing, or encouraging you to revisit a forgotten shopping cart, Amazon has several CRM tricks up its sleeve.
Pictured: Thanks to Amazon Prime’s persistent, persuasive algorithm, I’m now the proud owner of the latest Mark Edwards thriller… and seven jars of Nutella.
Apple’s CRM strategy, meanwhile, is much more hands-off.
Led by founder and disruptor Steve Jobs, Apple famously eschewed market research and traditional customer loyalty programs.
Instead, Apple built its brand around its products, with its CRM strategy stemming from how the Silicon Valley giant’s customers interact with its innovative inventions.
Just think – thousands of videos exist online of Apple users ‘unboxing’ their new iPhone or Apple Watch. Elsewhere, Apple’s physical stores are a hub where potential customers can play and explore Apple’s range without the pressure to purchase – a monument to Apple’s playful, immersive approach to CRM strategy.
CRM strategy #10: Learn from big brand CRM case studies. Make inviting customer participation a key part of your marketing strategy. Tailor your checkout process to re-engage lapsed customers and minimise cart abandonment.
We already covered a few reasons why and how you can use WordPress. But let’s have a look at some of the additional and perhaps more uncommon approaches you could take with your site.
1. News Portal
Just providing the news is not enough, you need feeds as well. RSS feeds aren’t dead yet, and are used by many people to integrate with their readers and get a mashup of different feeds. WordPress provides feeds of your posts by default, but you might want to display feeds from various sources. That is when a plugin like the WP RSS Aggregator comes into play. This plugin enables you to select a variety of RSS feeds and display them on your website. A great example of this is WP News Desk.
WP News Desk
2. Real Estate Management System with WordPress
If you’re a company that deals in property and real estate using WordPress, you would probably want a separate plugin to manage your property listings. With the help of some plugins, you could create a website where builders, brokers, and customers come together. You could add a separate search and filter functionality to help your users. Add a payment gateway (which we discuss under e-commerce) and you could manage payments from within your website! A couple popular plugins that can help you do this include Estatik and Easy Property Listings.
Estatik WordPress real estate plugin
And if you’re looking for some more alternatives, check out our review of 8 different WordPress real estate plugins.
3. Knowledgebase/Encyclopedia/Wiki
With WordPress, you can create a robust knowledge base on a niche, an encyclopedia with features like a glossary or even a dictionary. You can associate terms with your glossary, in addition to creating tags and categories. You can create user defined templates for displaying your content and make sure readers can find the answers to everything they need. Many businesses and developers, in fact, utilize knowledgebase plugins such as the Heroic plugin (as seen below) to create docs, which in turn reduce the time needed for support and emails.
Heroic Knowledge Base WordPress plugin
4. eLearning Portal and Courses
Want to create your own Coursera? There are a lot of easy ways to now do this in WordPress with learning management system (LMS) hosting. One of the most popular methods is probably with the LifterLMS plugin. It allows you to create, sell, and protect engaging online courses. The mission of LifterLMS is to democratize education in the digital classroom. Create lessons, build courses, include multimedia lessons, and so much more. In fact, WP101 which we mentioned above utilizes LifterLMS to educate the masses about WordPress.
Creating WordPress courses
5. Appointment Scheduling with WordPress
Be it lawyers, musicians, consultants or doctors; these types of industries all revolve around appointment scheduling and booking patients and or customers in advance. Thankfully, there are a lot of great solutions with WordPress to manage bookings and online appointments right from your site.
Book an appointment in WordPress (Img src: EDD bookings)
Although sites like Nutcache and Freshbooks give you a lot of business tools like time and project management, if you want to do it within your WordPress site, WP-Invoice is a basic, but useful plugin.
WP-Invoice plugin
Create an invoice for your products and services and send them to your clients. You can enable them to pay you directly through your site by integrating a payment gateway like PayPal, Stripe, or Authorize.net. Add any time management plugin, and you can create a system that serves your full business needs.
If you want to convert your WordPress site into a job board, all you need is a plugin. The WP Job Manager lets you add, manage and categorize job listings on your website. It currently has an impressive 100,000+ active installs with a 4 out of 5-star rating. Registered users (or guests) can search, manage and apply for jobs. Employers can manage job listings (fill, edit and delete active listings) too. Here you can read our complete WP Job Manager tutorial.
Job board in WordPress
8. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
You can integrate a customer relationship management (CRM) module right into your WordPress site. This can save you time and money from having to bounce around between other third-party systems. And due to the fact that there are some many other WordPress integrations, this might in fact even work better than a more closed off or limited solution.
CRM customers
There are a lot of different WordPress CRM plugins to choose from, in fact, we dove into the top 12. But if you’re just starting we recommend checking out the Zero BS WordPress CRM and WP ERP plugins. Both are developed by devoted developers and have excellent support.
9. Events Management Systems
Run a business where you plan multiple events on a year-round basis? No problem. If you want to create events on your WordPress site and integrate them with a calendar, it’s as simple as 123. In this post, we cover the best event management plugins. A lot of them have full syncing with iCal, Google calendar, and more.
10. Business Directory Portal
If you want to create a business directory, we recommend checking out the Business Directory plugin. It currently has over 20,000 active installs with a 4.5 out of 5-star rating. You can create local directories, list business providers and generate a yellow pages like listing. You can keep the listing free, or make it available at payment. As for premium modules, you can add a module to rate businesses and a Google Maps module to add locations to your listings.
WordPress business directory example
11. Project Management System
To manage the progress of a project and its subtasks, you need a project management system. Although standalone options like Trello, Asana, and even Github projects are popular among developers (read: git vs Github), certain people might want options within WordPress for such a system.
Forums might not be as popular as they used to be, but they are still a destination for many users seeking the answers they need. The easiest solution to creating a forum out of your WordPress site is bbPress. It’s a lightweight plugin for WordPress, developed by Automattic, the same company behind WordPress.com. It currently has over 300,000 active installs with a 4 out of 5-star rating. bbPress comes with the ability of plugins and themes, to customize the functionality, look and feel of the core plugin. It best of all, it’s free! For more options please take a look at our post dedicated to the topic: Top 9 WordPress Forum Plugins.
Example of bbPress WordPress forum
13. Crowdsourcing
There is a multitude of plugins out there that allow you to run your own crowdfunding websites in WordPress. You set up a cause, and integrate a payment gateway like PayPal or Stripe to accept payments. In fact, you can enable a feature where people are only charged if you reach your goal! We took a look recently at the top 6 crowdfunding plugins for WordPress.
WordPress crowdfunding example
If you are just starting out we recommend checking out the WP Crowdfunding plugin, and if you’re dealing with donations, the Give plugin is also very popular.
14. Social Network
If you want a mini Facebook within your website, BuddyPress is what you should look for. It allows you to create a social network for your company or organization. It allows users to set up profiles, post messages, connect with each other and create communities. BuddyPress has its own set of plugins for further functionalities. In general, BuddyPress provides a simple, yet good user experience if you want to create a minimal social network within your website.
BuddyPress
So, Why Use WordPress? Because It Rocks
WordPress has a strong following all over the world. Some developers would rather use other platforms, but that often has to do with learning certain coding languages and throwing themselves in less user-friendly environments. As for bloggers, business owners, developers with clients, and ecommerce professionals, WordPress is the right choice. Not only do you maintain complete control over your site, but you receive great advantages like plugins, themes, free tools, and full media support.
Hopefully, we’ve answered your question, “Why Use WordPress?” And if someone asks you the question, just send them over here. If you still have some thoughts or concerns, let us know in the comments below.
Why Use WordPress? A Deep Dive Into 10 Good Reasons
If you find yourself wondering, “Why use WordPress?” you’ve come to the right place. Pondering this question means you’ve at least researched WordPress a bit or heard about it from a friend or colleague. But that doesn’t mean you’ve completely weighed any pros and cons or checked out the features in-depth.
Therefore, we’d like to break down the benefits of using WordPress for you, giving a clear view as to why it’s the most popular content management system and website building software in the world. WordPress can really do just about anything!
The Website Dilemma – Why Use WordPress?
For average business owners, names like WordPress, Joomla, Shopify, Magento, Wix, and Weebly might sound like alien names. The process of building a website brings these names into your life, since they’re all platforms used to build websites. Each has its own benefits, while many are used more often for niche websites with specific purposes. For instance, Shopify only makes sense if you’re running an online store. It’s not a platform you would start a blog with then turn into an eCommerce shop (check out Shopify alternatives to compare solutions). Magento is in the same boat. Other website builders and platforms have more flexibility, and those are typically the ones that are most popular.
Everything from Squarespace to Wix has wonderful tools for certain skill levels, but we’re going to explain why you should use WordPress over all of them.
Using WordPress is a no-brainer. There’s a reason 34% of the web uses it. 😉
1. The Software is Free and Open-Source
Both WordPress.com and WordPress.org are completely free to use. You can learn about the difference between the two here, but in short, WordPress.org is a self-hosted version where you control more of your site and take advantage of advanced plugins. WordPress.com works great for complete beginners, but it’s not exactly the best for a business that plans on making money so moving away from WordPress.com makes sense. It does have higher paid plans, but we recommend it for personal and hobby blogs.
But moving on, WordPress is free for anyone to download. It’s an open-source project that’s been around since 2003. This means that WordPress is developed by a collection of contributors. Open-source projects are typically free, with large communities. The users often take part in this community as beta testers or simple brand advocates, but there’s really no requirement for any participation if that’s not your style.
Warning: Although the WordPress software is free, you will most likely end up spending a bit of money. WordPress is self-hosted, so hosting is required. This can start at around $3 per month, for the really cheap shared servers, and go all the way to up to a few hundred per month for those needing ultimate speed and performance (Like with Kinsta).
You can typically find themes and plugins for free, but the premium (paid) ones often provide better features and quality support. Finally, many WordPress users end up paying for additional services, whether it be from freelancers or agencies. For instance, you might pay a freelancer to design a logo for you or adjust some of the CSS code on your site. Other WordPress users are keen on keeping graphic designers or maintenance experts on call. It all depends on your experience and the scale of your website.
But overall, you can absolutely keep your WordPress costs to a minimum. Many webmasters end up only paying for hosting.
See it in Action:
When you navigate to the WordPress.org website, it explains the basics about the platform, but the only button (besides the regular menu) is a link to “Get WordPress.”
WordPress.org
This brings you to a free download page, which is updated frequently depending on the newest release (currently WordPress 5.2+). This provides an instant taste of how the WordPress software is presented to users. You’re not bombarded by banner ads or prompted to complete a survey before downloading the free software. You see a basic page with some descriptions, beta releases, requirements, source code, archives, and a download counter. It delivers multiple download options (like .zip and .tar.gz files,) along with the proper instructions to install the WordPress software on your own.
Download latest version of WordPress
The Easy Installation Method
If you’re looking for an even easier installation method, we recommend looking towards your hosting company. The most reputable hosts have one-click installation buttons for getting WordPress running within minutes. At Kinsta, installing WordPress is as easy as clicking on “Add Site.”
Install WordPress
That way there’s no need to manage files and upload them through an FTP. Managed WordPress hosting companies take it a step further by handling the entire installation, maintenance, security, and backups down the road.
As for updates, you don’t have to go back to the download page every time a new WordPress version is released. Instead, WordPress lets you know about the update in the dashboard, where you can usually complete the process in less than one minute.
2. It Adapts So You Can Make Any Type of Website
One of the common misconceptions about WordPress is that it’s mainly for building blogs. At one point in time that was, in fact, the case. WordPress was developed as a blogging platform, but that has changed drastically with the various new releases over the years.
In fact, WordPress is at an advantage due to its blogging roots. It’s by far one of the cleanest, fastest ways to write and publish blog posts, and that’s all included right from the start. Some website building tools think about design and apps first, then the blogging interface comes in as an afterthought.
That’s not the case with WordPress, so you can create a beautiful ecommerce site and know that the blog is an integral part of the development process.
See it in Action:
The list is endless, but here’s a taste of the types of websites you can make with WordPress:
Blogs
Business websites
Portfolios
Forums
ECommerce sites
Ratings websites
Membership sites
eLearning modules
Chatrooms
Galleries
Personal websites for self-promotion
Job boards
Business directories
Q&A websites like Quora
Non-profit websites for collecting donations
Wikis and knowledgebases
Media-centric sites like YouTube
Auction and coupon sites
Clearly, the list goes on and on. The good news with WordPress is that the functionality for things like forums and ecommerce websites is achieved with simple plugins and themes. So, for instance, if I wanted to make an online portfolio for my web design business, I could go with the theme below. All it would require is a small one-time fee, an upload of some demo data, and whatever changes I wanted to make myself.
WordPress portfolio site
The screenshot below is a rather popular ecommerce theme that pairs with the WooCommerce plugin. WooCommerce is one of the primary ways you turn your regular WordPress website into a functioning online store, with payment processing, a shopping cart, and product galleries. Check out this in-depth tutorial on how to install WooCommerce.
The final example below shows a forum. This website was constructed using a theme, but you might also consider looking around the internet for some forum plugins. Several are available if you already have a cool theme picked out but it doesn’t have forum functionality. And that’s exactly how to accomplish different types of websites with WordPress. Write down the feature you need, then go to Google and see if there are any plugins or themes to fit your needs. I’ll bet you’ll always find good results.
In my own experience, I’ve never had WordPress tell me that a file is not supported. You can expect to upload common files like .jpg, .png, .gif .pdf, .doc, .pptx, .mp3, .m4a, .mp4, .mov, .wmv, and .avi. Along with that, you won’t have any problems with more obscure file types like .odt, .key, .ogg, and .3gp.
And while the are some file formats, such as SVGs, that aren’t allowed, there are good solutions to get around this. Check out this tutorial on how to safely upload SVGs in WordPress. In short, if you’d like to put a photo, gif, video or document on your website, it’s usually fair game with WordPress. It’s even common to host documents and presentations on a website without publishing them on a specific page.
A Word of Warning
Yes, WordPress supports pretty much any type of media. However, you should follow the rules and only legally use media that’s either owned by you, open for free downloads, or usable when credit is given.
Here are some places to find legal media such as photos and video:
As an excellent example of WordPress media support, the Sony Music website promotes both music tracks and videos. Therefore, you can often find several forms of video and audio clips on the website. Furthermore, it’s a picture-heavy website, as you can see with the large Kenny Chesney picture in the header. Although some website builders are getting better at media support, it seems like you’ll almost always find something that isn’t allowed.
Sony – WordPress media example
The Variety website also uses WordPress, and its homepage is littered with items like background images, short video clips, movie trailers, animations, music tracks, and galleries from film shoots and TV shows. It’s tough to find a better example than Variety, since every single article written for the entertainment magazine has something to do with media.
Variety – WordPress media example 2
4. It’s Easy to Learn and Has a Huge Community
As an open-source software, WordPress can be used by anyone. The userbase isn’t limited by pricing, premium customer support, or even skill level. Sure, there are plenty of things to learn about WordPress, but any person could play around with the dashboard for ten minutes and start to absorb how the interface works.
And since there aren’t many roadblocks to gaining access to the software, users have made blogs, forums, online courses, seminars, webinars, and books, all outlining different aspects of the WordPress platform. Then there’s the more official customer support from WordPress. You can either pay extra money for dedicated support or work through the WordPress forums.
It’s truly incredible how many resources there are for learning about WordPress or having quick development questions answered. For instance, you might follow a blog like this to receive a consistent flow of WordPress tips in your email inbox. On the other hand, you can also search Google to locate immediate solutions (WPBeginner is known for quick fixes).
See it in Action:
We see the WordPress community as assisting with two parts of the learning process:
Organized training for long-term knowledge.
Quick solutions to your WordPress problems.
WordPress training can be found for free or for a charge, but one thing’s certain: The best courses online are well-organized, affordable, and packed with information you can use yourself, give to clients, or share with your employees. For example, the WP101 website is a well-known training spot with flawless video course on the following topics:
WordPress 101
WooCommerce 101
The Yoast SEO plugin
Learn WordPress tutorials
Once you learn about WordPress through a training course, you’re going to end up working with your very own websites. Since traditional dedicated support isn’t provided through WordPress, you’ll need to turn to blogs, forums, Google, and other communities online. The primary WordPress support forum should do the trick for most of your development situations. In the screenshot below it shows topics for fixing WordPress, networking with WordPress, localhost installs, regular installations, and more. I’m personally more of a “Google it and see what comes up” type of researcher, but both forums and blogs are crucial to resolving problems in a timely manner.
As for premium plugins and themes, those developers typically provide their own dedicated support through knowledge bases, forums, ticketing systems, and email.
WordPress support forums
5. You Can Scale Up and Expand Your Website with Themes and Plugins
We’ve already discussed how the WordPress themes and plugins make it easy for you to construct a website, but these elements are also essential for scaling up. For a standard blog, you’ll install a theme, adjust the design, then start blogging. The same goes for a business website or portfolio.
It’s common for the themes to serve as the site’s foundation. After that, the design work is minimal besides some color changes, logo additions, and of course, the new pages and blog posts.
But every once in awhile you realize that something new needs to be added to your website. Maybe your customers are clamoring for a membership section of your site, or maybe you realized that a monthly quiz is a great way to get customers to interact with your brand. In both of these situations, a plugin rectifies the issue.
For instance, there are plenty of excellent membership plugins that convert part of your site into a community. Some of them are free, while others you have to pay for. The same goes for quiz plugins. We have a list of the best quiz plugins on the market, and that’s only a taste of the selection.
Site Expansion Isn’t Only Done with Plugins
Yes, plugins typically run the show when it comes to adding functionality to your site. Most of the time you only need one theme at site launch.
But as your site grows, you’ll start to notice different needs for your own site, along with changes in the industry. A great example of this was when Google started rewarding mobile responsive websites. Within a year it seemed like all WordPress theme developers began selling mobile-friendly designs. Therefore, lots of website owners needed to go out and get new themes.
It’s also common for growing websites to get new themes for the following reasons:
A fresh look is needed.
It’s required to switch from a free theme to a more powerful premium one.
The website owner wants better customer support from the theme developer.
There has been a shift in what the business offers online.
The site owner needs different tools that plugins can’t deliver.
See it in Action:
Looking for a WordPress theme is as simple as completing a Google search. You can find an onslaught of lists covering the different categories of WordPress themes. Try searching “real estate WordPress themes” or “flat WordPress themes,” and you’ll see plenty of choices. However, your best bet is to pick from a trusted WordPress theme shop and or developer. This ensures you get quality support, fast and well optimized code, and updates for the long haul.
WordPress theme shop
Here’s a list of some reputable and well-known theme hotspots:
There are also online theme marketplaces. However, be careful with these as sometimes developers will drop off the face of the planet, leaving you with an unsupported theme. But they also have a large variety, and high-quality themes do exist, you just have to look a little harder:
Plugins are similar to themes in that you can find both free and premium versions. The only difference is that free plugins are far more commonly used by actual business websites. Free themes are nice for personal and beginner blogs, but the pros usually spend the $50-$100 to get a much nicer premium theme. Read our in-depth post on WordPress free vs paid themes for a little more insight into which might be better for you.
That’s not always the case with plugins though, since many of the best plugins have always been free. You can search for new plugins through your WordPress dashboard or go to the WordPress plugin library. This library has over 50,000 plugins, most of which are free (or in some form of a freemium business model). The library has everything from caching to forum plugins, and spam to social media plugins. Installing a plugin takes no more than a few minutes, and each of the plugin pages include screenshots, feature lists, and even some demos.
WordPress plugin repository
Many premium plugins are sold throughout the internet as well. The main difference between a free and premium plugin is that you often get better customer support with a paid plugin. Here are some great places to search for premium plugins:
Website development companies often sell pricey packages where they ask for an upfront downpayment and recurring monthly payment for maintenance. The only problem is that WordPress isn’t all that difficult to manage if you learn the ropes and go through the proper training. Website management typically involves a few things:
You don’t personally check on the server, so it’s more about you getting a good host and seeing if the site is running at all times. Security and backups are either handled with plugins or through a managed WordPress hosting plan. Everything else on the list only needs to be done on occasion. For example, here at Kinsta backups are automatically taken every day, stored for 14 days, and can be restored with a click of a button.
One of the only manual maintenance tasks is updating plugins, themes, and WordPress itself. The good news is that WordPress notifies you when updates are released. Therefore, you make the updates whenever you see the warnings. It usually takes less than a minute for any updates, then you can get back to work.
Update WordPress plugins
Everything else (like SEO, backups, speed, security, broken links, and spam) can be managed using plugins. For instance, the WP Time Capsule plugin is a wonderful tool for setting both incremental file and database backups. The plugin runs in the background. If a file gets corrupted, or your site crashes, the restore function is there to solve the problem.
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WordPress is known for having SEO built into the platform. In fact, WordPress automatically generates title tags and meta descriptions for all of your pages and posts. This lets search engines know about your content, and it will get you indexed and potentially moved up in the rankings. As with everything in WordPress, there are also more advanced features offered by plugins and online tools. Here are some SEO favorites to consider:
The Yoast SEO plugin is also a must-have for any WordPress site. The default SEO tools in WordPress are great, but Yoast takes it to the next level.
Below is one section of Yoast that asks you for a focus keyword. This could be for either a page or blog post. Upon targeting that focus keyword, Yoast analyses the current post or page and shares how effective you are at targeting the keyword. You’ll see the keyword density, thoughts on the keyword locations, SEO title mentions, page title suggestions, and more. It’s basically a giant checklist for you to make your SEO the best it can be on every page.
A Google search for “website builders” or “website platforms” will reveal all sorts of results. WordPress will most likely be on all website building lists, along with competition like WIX, Squarespace, Joomla, Magento, Shopify, Weebly, and Jimdo. All of these are perfectly fine for making websites, but the non-open source ones, like Squarespace, Shopify, and WIX, limit your control to whatever features are offered in the premium packages.
That leaves you with some limitations like the following:
The ecommerce functionality is usually built-in, so there’s not much you can do about expanding with plugins.
You’re typically stuck with whatever hosting is provided. You don’t have the freedom to test hosts and go with the best value or highest performing.
Adjusting code is limited to what the companies share with you. Even worse, you get stuck with a completely unique coding language, like with Shopify (It uses a language called Liquid). In short, it almost guarantees that you have to hire a specialized developer for changes you can’t handle yourself through the editor.
You don’t technically have full ownership of your site and content. You’re renting the website from these companies. So when you stop paying, all of those files and pages are either lost or held by the company. With WordPress, you own the files, and no one can prevent you from moving them to other hosts.
See it in Action:
The Appearance tab is the control center for all customizations in WordPress. It’s where you have free rein over themes, fonts, colors, widgets, menus, logos, and code. Just about anything you can think of can be adjusted in this area. It’s great for beginners, intermediates, and advanced users, since it limits the amount of code you touch, while also speeding up the development process.
Furthermore, several themes have their own customization modules, or you could install a drag-and-drop editor to almost remove the need for coding.
Customize WordPress appearance
As for the advanced edits, all website files are accessible through the WordPress dashboard, your hosting account, or through a local environment. Whether you’re trying to insert a snippet of code for Google Analytics, or you’re attempting a complete overhaul of the landing page’s CSS, WordPress has you covered.
WordPress appearance editor
9. The Blogging is Hands Down the Best in the Business
WordPress was born as a blogging platform. It’s had its competitors, but nothing currently compares to the power, elegance, and advanced tools you find in the WordPress blogging engine. Options like Tumblr, Medium, Ghost, and Blogger are all perfectly fine for hobbyists, but the pros go for WordPress. An incredible set of tools is located inside the WordPress blog editor.
You can run a simple, one-author blog by taking advantage of the formatting and media tools. There’s also the option to build a full online magazine by scheduling posts far in advanced and setting multiple user types for contributors and editors. Along with options for previewing, editing everything in the post, and keeping code completely out of the equation, you really can’t beat WordPress.
See it in Action:
One advantage of the WordPress blogging platform is the permissions or user roles. Let’s say you run the site as an administrator. This means you have access to the files, all plugins, SEO, and security tools. You hire an editor and three writers to create content for the blog. The only problem is that you don’t want them messing with anything besides the blog posts.
Therefore, you can set the one person as an Editor role and the others as Contributors. The Editor can now edit and publish posts, while the Contributors can create posts but not publish them.
WordPress roles and permissions
We can also look at the blogging interface to see how powerful and well-organized it is. You can add media and change formatting with the click of a button. It lets you change the title and permalink at the top, and there are options for categories, tags, and readability. Revisions are displayed for going back and recovering past versions, and the Preview and Publish buttons are waiting for you until the very end.
WordPress editor
The Visual view renders the HTML, similar to what the end users are going to see. You can also switch to the Text view, which reveals all your post content in HTML format.
WordPress HTML text view
10. Everyone is Doing It
So jump off the bridge with them! Okay, just because every else is doing something isn’t always the greatest reason to follow along. But WordPress has proven itself time and again, so the word has gotten out about its performance, expandability, and ease-of-use. There’s a reason why over 29.3% of all websites on the internet use WordPress.
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Patrick Coombe, a well-known SEO, asked a question for website owners and marketers on inbound.org: “If you could start your website over, what would you change?” Here’s what Larry Kim, the founder of WordStream, had to say:
WordPress vs Drupal
You can read more about the two platforms here: WordPress vs Drupal – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons)
Clearly, WordPress is doing something right. You also don’t have to sacrifice much to test it out. As mentioned, the WordPress software is free, and most hosting companies have some sort of money back guarantee.
Most experienced WordPress users will praise the developers on their constant updates and improvements. What’s cool is that whenever an update is released there’s an informational page that outlines how the update will improve the WordPress experience.
See it in Action:
62% of the top 100 fastest growing companies in the US (Inc. 5000) use WordPress. – Nelio Software
WordPress has a full showcase of brands using WordPress, which includes everything from the Houston Zoo, the Obama Foundation, and even Toyota. Some other notables include The Tribune Media Group, jQuery, Plesk, The Chicago Sun-Times, Dyn, Nginx, TechCrunch, and many more. Check out this list of the top 130+ sites using WordPress.
