Content marketing can certainly help your business online when used creatively and purposefully, along with SEO and Social Media. Sure, content marketing has been around since the dark ages, but since the digital age, it …
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Facebook organic reach is down. Way down.
In the past, posting a link on your Facebook or Instagram page could drive hundreds of clicks. Not anymore.
Social media referrals have stagnated at around 5 percent of all traffic for years.
The average Facebook post will reach just over 5 percent of your followers.
The encouraging news is social media reach is still massive. There are more than 3.96 billion active social media users.
But reaching that massive audience is harder than ever before.
What’s the answer on how to grow a Facebook page? That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this article.
Organic reach is the number of people who see your content without paid distribution. It includes people who are shown your posts in their own feed or because their friends have interacted with you.
Paid reach is the people who see your content as a result of paid promotions. It is influenced by your ad targeting options and can also impact how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
But it’s not so simple.
Your content’s reach has a lot to do with engagement — that is how many people like, react, comment, or share your post.
Engagement rates are way up — but organic reach is way down.
And it is still on a rapid decline. So why aren’t our posts being surfaced more often?
Let me explain.
There are two major reasons Facebook organic reach continues to drop:
Can businesses keep succeeding with this decline in organic reach? Absolutely.
You can still get tons of traffic from Facebook.
The network’s ad platform has cushioned the damage for those who’ve made the most of it. The advertiser count to date has surpassed 10 million.
Knowing this, should marketers really worry about how to increase organic reach on Facebook?
Wouldn’t we be better off focusing on Facebook ads?
Yes and yes.
Here’s why.
Organic reach is important for several reasons. Mainly so you don’t have to pay to play. So, don’t underestimate the importance of how to increase organic reach on Facebook:
Many people use social media solely for brand awareness.
That’s fine – but it leaves so much opportunity on the table to drive real results for your business.
Lead generation is one of the missed opportunities. It also happens to be the linchpin of any successful marketing campaign.
You need to attract potential buyers and lead them into your sales funnel. When you do this organically, it won’t cost you anything besides time and effort.
In turn, the price of converting these potential buyers into actual buyers will be less.
That’s because the results of an organic campaign tend to snowball. This means that when more people engage with your content, it adds context to your campaigns.
The more organic reach that you have, the better your lead generation and conversion funnels will work.
Yes, Facebook’s ad product is one of the most intuitive and impressive that we’ve ever seen.
And yes, the sophistication of the audience targeting options is every marketer’s dream.
AdExpresso analyzed over 636 million dollars of ad spend and determined the average ad cost for the whole of 2021.
Here’s what they found:
As you can see, the average CPC for ads can be very low if you master the other variables.
But here’s the deal:
You can just as easily spend a fortune on Facebook ads and see no return. This means that to increase the effectiveness of your ads and stretch your advertising dollars, learning how to increase organic reach on Facebook is critical.
In the past, your options on Facebook were pretty much posts, videos, and ads. Now there are tons of new features like Facebook Stories, Facebook Watch, Facebook Groups, and Facebook Live.
Many companies aren’t making the most of these features — which creates an opportunity to drive organic traffic by filling the gap.
With that said, let’s look at how Facebook’s news feed algorithm works to surface content.
Then, we’ll dive into some strategies on how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
Facebook’s algorithm has changed drastically in recent years. The introduction of reactions and the “Why am I seeing this post” feature has changed how Facebook decides what posts to show users.
Facebook uses hundreds of thousands of factors to decide which posts show in a user’s News Feed.
Who you interact with, the type of media, and the popularity of the post are all used as ranking signals.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook now prioritizes posts that spark “meaningful interactions” and posts from friends and family.
There are other detailed data points that come into play:
The list goes on, but these factors give us enough food for thought.
So, with this in mind, what’s Facebook’s ultimate goal for News Feeds?
Like other platforms, Facebook cares the most about its users. It wants to continuously improve their experience with high-quality, relevant content.
Overly promotional content doesn’t fare well with users, so Facebook cracked down on that type of content. In the past, they also cut traffic from publishers in favor of user-generated content.
So, how can you drive traffic from Facebook when these algorithmic changes are decreasing your reach?
Let’s take lessons from BuzzFeed.
What is BuzzFeed doing right? Besides posting engaging content on Facebook, they’re spending millions of dollars on Facebook Ads.
Now, most people don’t have a ton of cash to spend like BuzzFeed.
So, we’ll take the smarter route that doesn’t require a heavy investment for a small business owner.
Before we look at the secrets on how to increase organic reach on Facebook, here are five things you must avoid doing at all costs on your Facebook page.
Facebook is a social platform and your brand needs to have a human touch. Don’t just schedule your latest blog links and product updates. Post your team photos like Zappos.
Social media marketing should show your funny or creative side, like Nutella.
Or, share inspirational graphics like me.
Facebook is based on interest, not intent. Not every update you send out on your Facebook page should be promotional. Rather, 80% of your updates should be social. Otherwise, users won’t hesitate to click the unlike button on your page (it’s just a click away).
Instead, use Facebook to build a community. Add value and start conversations with your audience.
It’s best to vary your posts to include different types of content:
Buying 5,000 likes for $5. Using clickbait headlines. Bombarding your fans with 10 poor-quality updates in an hour.
It’s a sheer waste of time and money.
Facebook seriously cracks down on spammers. Stick with the Facebook code and stay in their good graces.
Not only that, these manipulative tactics add no real value to your business. In fact, they’re likely to hurt you.
AdExpresso conducted a paid like experiment where they posted an identical video on three of their fan pages. They then paid to boost each post.
The result?
The two pages where they bought likes saw zero engagement, even after Facebook had automatically deleted the likes that were paid for.
The brutal truth about a large fanbase – no matter how targeted – is that your reach will automatically be lower.
This means that you have to put in extra work to create content that is relevant and useful to several different segments of your audience.
Would you rather have a small but hyper-engaged audience or a large and unresponsive one?
Now that you know what you shouldn’t do, it’s time to work on how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
The first step is to pinpoint where your shortcomings are. We’ll be gathering some key metrics to measure your performance.
Without this diagnosis, you won’t know where to focus your efforts.
Let’s jump in.
First, click on the “Insights” tab on the left sidebar of your Facebook business page.
At the top of the insights page, there’s a button that will allow you to export your data both on a page and post level.
A window will pop up with three different options for your insights:
Select your option and click “Export Data.” Your data will be saved onto an excel file.
In my experience, post level metrics are more insightful than page metrics.
Page metrics give a great panoramic view of your performance. Post metrics provide a more detailed look at how users interact with your content.
And that’s what really makes the difference.
To get a deeper view, go to “Posts” and then “Post Types.”
With the data you collect, you can tell:
These will give you a good guideline for launching an effective content strategy.
Not all of the data points will be useful.
Sift through them and choose the ones that make sense for you — and that might vary based on your industry and social media goals.
Here’s the data that will tell you the most:
Now that you’ve analyzed your organic reach, it’s time to make some improvements.
Remember that every industry and audience is different. I don’t recommend implementing all of these strategies right now. Instead, look at your data and see where you can make the most improvements, then pick a handful of strategies to try.
Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t, then try another strategy. Rinse and repeat.
I know what you’re thinking.
If organic reach decreases as the size of your audience increases, where is the value in growing your presence?
Well, there are still several benefits of having a large presence.
Growing your presence is not about increasing your page likes. The number of likes your page has gives no indication of how your content will perform.
What matters is that you build enough authority to command your audience to action. This means that they will engage with your content more favorably.
Here’s what you can do to increase engagement:
Random fans are useless.
They don’t engage and they don’t have a positive influence on your marketing campaigns.
This is why I don’t recommend trying to grow your Facebook page at the expense of building a targeted audience.
You want people who are finely tuned to your business interests.
This way, the content you publish will be more relevant to them. In turn, it will have a greater chance of showing up in their newsfeeds.
What can you do to build a targeted audience?
If your brand is watered down, chances are your audience will be too.
What you want is a brand image that sticks in the minds and hearts of your audience.
Constantly reinforce your message, post content that is relevant to your business, and always be consistent.
Earlier, we walked through the tracking of your page and post insights. This same information can be used to construct your persona.
Gender, age, background, location, and occupation are all black and white data points that you can collect.
You can then flesh it out with more substantive information like:
You can create a custom audience modeled after your ideal persona. This way, when you boost or promote a post, you’re more likely to reach those people.
Later, I’ll walk you through the best practices for paid campaigns.
I’m all for more likes – but not if it’s only a vanity metric.
You want quality over quantity.
There are a few ways you can attract the kind of people who care about your brand:
Apart from running like campaigns on your target audience, you can invite people who have liked your individual posts to like your page.
First, plug in your page in the search bar.
Select one of your posts and click on the group of people who’ve liked it.
This is a goldmine for finding people who already have an affinity for your content.
Browse through to see how many people who’ve liked your posts but have not liked your page.
Invite them to do so.
9 out of 10 times, they will.
You can integrate your Facebook page with other apps, tools, and platforms. These can increase the usability of your page as well as amplify your marketing efforts.
Here are some of the customizations that you can include:
If you’ve built a sizable following elsewhere, you can use these platforms to grow your Facebook page.
Here’s what you can do:
Too many people aren’t strategic with their social media content.
Whatever your goals are for your Facebook page — be it to generate revenue or drive traffic — evergreen content is the most powerful tool at your disposal.
Freshness isn’t just Google’s ranking factor.
The life of a post in Facebook News Feed is also dependent on recency. If you publish timeless content, then it will be useful for your audience for longer periods. They’ll keep engaging with your post.
Be sure to let users know that they can revisit evergreen posts that they’ve liked and engaged with in the past.
This will lead to an increase in engagement and Facebook will ensure that your post gets distributed further and that it appears in feeds for longer periods.
I challenge you to boost post durability with evergreen content.
The above evergreen post appeared 18 hours after being posted.
That’s an extremely long lifespan!
For posts that perform this well, you can repurpose them to ensure that you maximize their reach.
Here’s a simple process for repurposing evergreen content:
But what if you don’t want to do the legwork of creating and repurposing your own posts?
Content curation is not about taking someone else’s work as your own.
It’s about collecting posts from across the internet and sharing them with your network.
But it’s a little more than just stumbling across a post, liking it, and pressing the share button.
Instead, you should treat the curation process just like you would if you were publishing your own content. Spend some time reviewing and analyzing several posts on the same topic and share them with your audience on a consistent publishing schedule.
Prime example: Later tells the stories of brands they’ve impacted successfully through their resource offerings.
While they do this on their blog, you can adopt the same concept for your Facebook page.
Here are some examples of evergreen content using curation-type posts:
How can you ensure that your audience engages with this content?
Ensure your posts have all the persuasive checks and balances.
Coming up with a content strategy is half the battle.
You still have to ensure that you create the types of posts that make your audience want to share and engage.
Some tips for creating posts that captivate and inspire action:
Facebook is about building communities. A tightly-knit group is the closest you can get to it on social media.
A whopping 400 billion people use Facebook groups.
You’ve got two community options:
We’ll focus on number 1, as it is the best addition to your Facebook marketing arsenal.
You can use it to listen and engage with your brand advocates.
Before we get into the steps for building your group, let’s talk about the reasons you may want to start your own group.
Most people form groups around:
Of course, these aren’t your only options. As long as you can rally a group of people for a common goal, you’re good to go.
I’ve found that the most valuable groups for business are those that are either brand-specific or product-specific.
Here’s why.
You can use a branded group to build and nurture a community around your business. It also makes for a powerful tool to market your products/services.
Similarly, a product-specific group is geared towards helping customers get the most out of a product or service that you offer.
It’s all about customer success, retention, and loyalty.
You can do live coaching sessions, live Q&As, personal implementation feedback sessions, and accountability systems in your groups, to ensure that customers receive the transformation that they paid for.
Let’s get into the steps for creating a group.
Find the option that says “Create Group” to begin the process.
It’s easy to find from your homepage.
After you click on this tab, you’ll be prompted to name your group.
Write down your value proposition in your group description and lay down clear rules for posting in the group.
Pro Tip: Pin your rules post at the top of the group feed. It will guide new members to act appropriately.
Also, set up your group’s privacy settings properly.
Depending on the type of group, you may have to incentivize people to join.
However, with most groups, the promise of community and support is enough to get them on board.
But in case you need some incentives, you can:
Great conversations help boost post engagement. Don’t solely promote or sell your content and products.
Other ways to increase engagement in Facebook groups:
This can include creating content themes and inciting user-generated content campaigns. User-generated content actually drives 6.9x higher engagement than brand-generated content.
For example, you can set a designated topic or engagement theme for each day.
Melyssa Griffin’s group does this very well:
Moderate all of the posts in the group and have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to spam.
You want your group members to have the best possible experience, so weed out the spammers quickly.
This is a lot easier when you establish in your group rules what qualifies as spam.
So, that’s it for setting up a group.
I want to warn you, though: Groups require a time commitment. You’ve got to show up to welcome new members and encourage discussions.
Also, as groups grow, engagement decreases. At this point, you may want to consider segmenting larger groups into smaller, more focused ones.
Some people completely dismantle groups with tens of thousands of members because of poor engagement.
You don’t want that.
Targeting isn’t limited to Facebook Ads.
You can target your organic posts to make sure that they reach the right people.
While it’s been around for a while, the feature has gotten more useful with the decrease in organic reach of quality content. You can serve your post to relevant customers based on their age and location.
Your post has to at least target 20 people. You might get below this threshold if your page only has a few thousand fans.
Here are the steps to get started with targeting.
Head to General settings to enable targeting from your page settings.
Dig into your Facebook Insights for data about your audience and choose targeting parameters based on your goals.
When you create your post, click the “Public” setting under your page name, and you’ll see the option to set a “restricted audience.”
Select “Restricted Audience,” then set the age and location you want to reach. This is especially useful for local businesses or those with multiple target audiences.
This is so you can test how your content performs for different audiences.
Hop on Facebook Insights and check your results. Did the organically targeted post perform better?
Compare these social media marketing results with your average engagment rate. Also, figure out the targeting parameter that’s performing better.
In Social Media Examiner’s Experiment with Organic Targeting, a smaller page performed better than a larger page.
But, results will vary based on your audience.
When is the best time to post on Facebook? There’s no easy answer.
You need to consider:
CoSchedule reports that the optimal times are 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM.
They even broke it down according to each day of the week:
For the most shares and clickthroughs, they’ve cited 12:00 PM, 6:00 PM, or 9:00 AM as the optimal times.
Here are a few more studies and optimal times for any media marketer or business owner to best time good content.
Scratching your head already, aren’t you? Don’t blindly post at any of these optimal times.
Dig into your Facebook Insights. Find out when your fans are online.
Then, conduct your own test.
Post in the off-peak hours (6 PM – 8 AM) with the maximum possible fans online. Your chances of appearing in the feed increase since other Facebook pages aren’t posting during this period.
Here are the results when Track Maven tested with this social media marketing strategy.
Jon Loomer also tried posting links at off-peak hours and had positive results with his organic reach.
The reasons why this strategy is effective (besides less competition) are:
It might even boost post views over the newer content published during peak hours.
Note: You can monitor the social media marketing posting strategies of your industry competitors using Fan Page Karma.
Links have worked better for driving traffic. Sometimes.
Fred Alberti found that pure links generated 82% more page views than posts with photos and links in the caption.
Photos have become an unpopular post type with users, and hence, with marketers.
My recommendation is to post all types of updates that add value for your fans, be it links, images, polls, Facebook Lives, Facebook Stories, or even Facebook Watch videos.
Don’t stick with one content form into another just because a certain type of post is (currently) performing better on Facebook. Just like Google Facebook updates its algorithm regularly.
Instead, analyze your data from Facebook Insights to find the type of posts that resonate with your audience.
If you can, try serving value in the types of content that your audience likes.
You can also ask your audience what they prefer and respect their choice.
Simply create a poll on your Facebook page:
Post your question.
You might be surprised by the results! Don’t forget to test new features when they come out.
Facebook Watch, for example, drove tons of traffic when it was first released, and a lot of marketers are still not using it!
In recent years, there has been a shift to video content.
Facebook Watch views top 1.25 billion monthly users.
Facebook tends to favor video updates, causing media marketers to use more video blog post content.
Native videos are one of the strongest performers in the news feed.
The video plays silently until a user clicks on it. It’s important that your video is high quality from the first frame. It also needs to capture attention, even without sound.
Here are some tips on getting started with Facebook Videos.
To further engage the video viewers, you can add a call-to-action (CTA) to visit your website or a destination of your choice. This can be included in the final frame, or you can boost the video and use Facebook’s Ad CTA buttons.
AdExpresso found that “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” and “Sign Up” are more popular.
You also get rich video insights, so you can find out what is working with your audience.
If you want, you can pin a video to the top of your videos tab on your Facebook page. Just click on “Feature this Video.”
BuzzFeed got 1.7 million views for a featured video.
The featured video also appears prominently below your About section. Social Media Examiner used it to promote their upcoming event.
You can also embed the video in a blog post. It’ll make for a good multimedia experience for your blog audience and it can also increase the engagement on the Facebook post.
But, can you embed videos from YouTube or should you upload them directly on Facebook?
Naturally, Facebook favors native uploads over embedded videos from YouTube or any other third party. A business owner should not be intimidated by this media marketing strategy.
This SEJ study was performed for two weeks on three Facebook pages – Search Engine Journal, Stunning and Interesting Facts, and Did You Know.
Here is a detailed breakdown of the numbers.
Native videos also offer a better user experience and are usually cheaper to promote.
You can use native videos for Q&As, product launches, and co-creating with other targeted users.
How often should you post on Facebook? Well, it depends.
Massive websites like Huffington Post, Telegraph, and The New York Times publish a huge amount of content every day. They also push their content aggressively on Facebook.
For the average brand, this isn’t realistic.
Don’t be tempted to post 20 times a day.
Engagement actually decreases when you post too often.
The rule of thumb is to keep it between 1-3 posts/day, depending on your following.
Here are a few takeaways on the frequency of posting for social media marketing on Facebook:
A while ago, I shared a case study on how I used Instagram to earn $332,640 in 3 months. I struck deals with Instagram influencers (having a huge following) to post links to my landing pages.
You can use a similar strategy on Facebook.
I reached out to Facebook Pages having less than 30,000 likes for my Nutrition Secrets project. I offered a shoutout for shoutout deal to Facebook pages in my niche (about 1 in 10 pages accept such requests).
This helped me to increase the number of likes on the Nutrition Secrets Facebook Page. Any business owner will appreciate the simplicity of this media marketing strategy.
Similarly, have a look at the Facebook pages of media websites like Huffington Post and Elite Daily. They both have millions of Facebook fans and a similar audience (for certain types of content that they publish).
They share each other’s blog posts on Facebook regularly. This boosts post views for both parties while providing good content they didn’t need to create. This is simply smart media marketing.
Here is an example of a Huffington Post blog post shared by Elite Daily’s Facebook page.
And, here’s an Elite Daily blog post shared by Huffington Post.
Wired and Refinery29 also seem to have a similar partnership.
To achieve good results from this strategy, you’ll need to strike deals with pages that have tens of thousands of likes.
This means you need to have a solid influencer outreach strategy.
Here’s what you need to consider:
There’s no better way to generate buzz for your brand than to turn your customers, employees, and fans into advocates.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the practice of leveraging devout fans to spread the word about your business.
Think about brands like Apple, Microsoft, and Nike.
They are known for their die-hard fans who constantly promote their products and content.
The best part?
Most do it without any paid incentive.
You, too, can leverage word-of-mouth marketing.
Here are some ideas:
Do you ever wonder how I receive hundreds of shares and comments on every blog post I write?
It’s triggered by my email subscribers.
I simply email them, informing them about my new post. They kick off the interaction and sharing on every post.
Jay Baer shows us the similarities between an email list and Facebook fans.
So, how can you inspire social actions from email?
Simple social media marketing suggests starting by adding Facebook share buttons to your email newsletters. Some email platforms, like Mailchimp, make this easy.
Otherwise, you will need to create an HTML version of your email and create custom code for the share buttons.
Here’s how:
Convince and Convert further recommends sending out your popular and interesting status updates to your email list on the same day.
This increases reactions and comments on the post and drives engagement on your Facebook page.
You can also combine this email list with the Facebook group strategy.
Ask your subscribers to join exciting conversations on your exclusive Facebook group.
Say you already have a few hundred social media shares on your post. How would you like to increase the number of shares to a thousand?
You need to plan a strategic email outreach campaign to influencers, transitioning from just a good content strategy to boosting post views.
Identify the overlap in social media trends to your email campaigns for opportunities.
Combining the content messaging just makes sense.
The relationship between the two builds your brand engagement showing they can successfully go hand-in-hand.
Facebook contests are a simple way to increase your presence quickly.
But it’s a little more than just luring fans with a free gift.
Here’s what it entails:
Do you want to increase engagement? Grow your fan base? Generate more leads?
Whatever you decide, ensure that it is specific and measurable.
If your goal is to generate leads, then your entry method should include a mechanism to capture those leads, for example, an email grab.
If your goal is to grow your Facebook fan base, you can require participants to follow and like your page to enter the contest.
Do you see how your method of entry should be tailored to your goal?
Before you do so, be sure to check out Facebook’s guidelines for running contests and challenges.
You’ll still be required to set your own rules for the contest.
Simply write up a brief letting participants know how the winner will be chosen, who’s eligible to enter, and the details of the prize.
With most contests, the winner is usually chosen randomly.
If your promotion is a challenge, then you will need someone or a group of people to judge the entries. Alternatively, you can have a voting system to pick a winner.
This is where most brands fail miserably.
If you don’t pick your prize carefully and promote your contest, there’s a good chance it will flop.
Always pick a prize that is relevant to your business so you avoid attracting people who are in it just for the freebie.
Here are some ideas for promoting your contest:
This strategy is for avid Facebook users. You should have at least 1,000+ friends on your personal Facebook profile to drive significant results.
You have the content. Now, let’s boost post views.
You first share a post on your Facebook page. Then, you share it from the page on your personal Facebook profile.
WPChronicles increased its reach from 5 people to 134, by using this strategy.
Keep in mind, this strategy isn’t scalable and you might annoy your friends if you do it to much.
However, you can use it occasionally for posts that add value to your Facebook friends.
Pro Tip: If you just started your Facebook page, you can quickly build your first 100 fans and get social proof. Just use the “Invite Friends” feature.
This feature can also be used to grow your Facebook page from your email list. It isn’t available to all Facebook pages, though.
Using it is simple. Upload your contacts from MailChimp, Constant Contact, or any other email services. Facebook will find them and ‘suggest’ that they like your page.
We’re all familiar with hashtags and how they work.
But what’s the deal with them on Facebook?
Do they have impact on a post’s reach?
Let’s see.
BuzzSumo analyzed more than 1 billion Facebook posts from over 30 million pages.
Their study seems to agree with the general consensus that Facebook users are prone to hashtag fatigue.
Posts with hashtags performed worse than those without.
Does that mean that marketers shouldn’t use hashtags on Facebook at all? Not exactly.
There’s a lot of utility in Facebook hashtags.
It’s a matter of experimenting with relevant ones to see what works in your industry and for your audience.
They should also be used in moderation — one to two hashtags maximum.
Why so little?
Post Planner reported interactions are highest when one to two hashtags are used.
While the consensus is that you shouldn’t hashtag everything, Facebook is still built to accommodate their use.
This means that you can get quite a bit of functionality out of them without adding hashtags to all your posts.
Here’s how.
There’s no special protocol for creating hashtags.
Anyone can do it.
I recommend making your hashtags unique to your brand, so it doesn’t get confused with anyone else’s. It’s also smart to use the same branding style hashtags on all social media platforms, so there’s familiarity across channels.
Pro tip: Use your branded hashtags as a metric to track your brand equity on Facebook. Their popularity will give you a good indication of how many people are buzzing about your business at a given time.
You can also point your audience to the URLs of specific hashtags so they can participate in the relevant conversations.
Facebook creates a unique URL for each hashtag used. This means that you can use them to search for content.
This is particularly useful in groups when you don’t want evergreen content to be buried. Simply hashtag them so users can continue to refer to these content pieces by conducting a quick hashtag search.
For example: If you create content themes like I’ve recommended, your users can find all published content for each theme by searching for the unique URL.
Ever heard of newsjacking?
It’s when someone piggybacks on a trend to gain exposure for their brand.
We’ve seen it is best to use hashtags sparingly.
But if there’s ever a prime time to use them, it’s when they link to a trending topic. This way, you tap into the traffic and increase your exposure.
I must warn you: This strategy requires caution. You don’t want to be hopping on a trend that may do you more harm than good.
Listen:
A big piece of the organic reach puzzle is competition.
You have to fight for the attention of your audience.
Want to know the best way to always be ahead of your competitors?
Find your differentiating factor and flaunt it.
Both your visual and written content should stand out.
Some pro tips for your visual content:
Facebook’s constant app updates are no secret.
The changes come fast and frequently.
But here’s the thing:
They may fly under your radar if you don’t make it a priority to stay informed. That’s because new features are almost always released in different segments of the platform at different times.
You can take advantage of these updates.
When you get in on them early, you get the early mover’s advantage. This means that you can master it faster than anyone else and tap into the new capabilities for the benefit of your business.
Some recent updates that provide golden opportunities:
You must be wondering, “I thought this was about organic traffic?”
Here’s the thing:
Paid reach can funnel into your organic reach and extend the lifecycle of your posts.
This means it will be shown to more people and users will be able to interact with your content for a longer period of time.
How is this possible?
It’s simple.
People can still see your post even though they weren’t targeted through paid distribution.
The audience that you pay for may decide to share and engage with the post. In that case, it will gain an organic reach when their audience also engages.
Now let’s get into how to run effective paid promotions for your posts.
The Facebook pixel allows you to track the specific actions taken on your website and other landing pages.
Better yet, it allows you to build custom audiences so you can retarget people who’ve visited your website.
If you haven’t installed it yet, go to your “Ads Manager” or “Power Editor.”
You’ll be prompted to create a Pixel if you don’t have an active one.
After you’ve created your Pixel, you’ll receive a tracking code that you have to copy and paste into the header of your website.
To easily place the Pixel on your website, you can do one of two things:
And that’s it!
Do this once, and you’re good.
We’ve seen how organic and paid reach work hand in hand.
This is an effective way to ensure that your ads reach more people at a cheaper cost.
Some tips for organic promotion:
You can either run an official Facebook ad or a boosted post campaign.
At first glance, they appear the same.
So what’s the difference?
A few things.
This means the strategy of promoting posts organically first, is best suited to boosted posts.
Let’s get into the details.
First, find the “Boost Post” button under your post.
Select a goal:
Narrow down your audience.
You can opt for:
Set your budget and duration of your campaign.
Finally, ensure that your Tracking Pixel is turned on.
So that’s it for boosted posts.
What about actual Facebook ads? The concept is not much different.
Put these steps into action.
Head to Meta Ads Manager.
Select an objective for your campaign.
You have way more options than a boosted post.
But you can only select one objective.
You can either:
Select your ad placement.
Set your budget and schedule.
Format your ad, write a click-worthy caption, and add an eye-catching image.
After you’ve finalized the creative elements, you can place your ad order, and you’re set to go.
Pro tip: Read this post on how to make your Facebook ads better.
Have you ever visited a website, and ten seconds later, been shown a Facebook Ad from that very website?
Chances are you have.
When marketers abuse it, this could get annoying for a consumer.
Imagine continuously being shown ads for a product you already bought or a website you were never really interested in.
In any event, this is still one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolbox.
It’s where you’ll experience the full capability of the Facebook Pixel.
If you implemented Step 1, yours should be fired up and ready to go.
So, how does retargeting work?
It allows you to target your ads to people who’ve demonstrated an interest in your business.
Here’s a visual representation of the process:
As you see, this is brilliant for recapturing lost leads.
The whole premise is that it’s easier to convert someone who’s already engaged with your business rather than a total stranger.
Now:
Your retargeting ads are set up with the same steps that I detailed above for a normal ad campaign.
Your targeting is the only variant.
Something to keep in mind: Retargeting campaigns take some time to gain traction. Set a goal, decide on a time frame, and commit to running your ads for the duration of that time frame.
Let’s talk about results.
Facebook campaigns aren’t difficult to set in motion.
Yet, many marketers don’t see the results that they hoped for.
But here’s the brutal truth:
Unless you track your ads, how much they cost, and the return you’re getting, there’s no way you can keep optimizing your performance.
So which metrics should you be tracking?
These are all available in your Power Editor with Facebook’s Ad reporting function.
Analyze your results and work towards improving them.
Facebook “dark posts” have been around for a while.
Yet, they’re one of the most underutilized marketing tools.
Is the concept as sinister and shadowy as the name sounds? A bit.
“Dark posts,” otherwise called unpublished posts, are news feed style ads that don’t get published to your news feed. This means that they won’t be found on your timeline or in your fans’ feed.
So what’s the point?
You can:
Now that you know the benefits, here’s how you can put unpublished “dark posts” to work for your business.
Head to Ads Manager, then follow these steps from Facebook.
You’ve created an unpublished post, aka a Dark Post.
If you’ve had any success on Facebook, you already know that the creative elements are the variables that matter.
What does this mean for your Facebook strategy?
You need to test different aspects of the creative. This includes split testing your copywriting and visual elements to find the highest performing combinations.
It will serve you well for both paid promotions and your organic reach.
We’ve already been through the visual elements.
So let’s talk about copy.
The purpose of persuasive copy is to:
CTR refers to the number of people who click through to your website after they’ve been served your ad.
If it’s low, that’s a pretty good indication that your ad copy and visuals need work.
CTR is not a metric that will make or break your media marketing performance, but you also don’t want to get it wrong.
That would mean leaving a better result on the table.
An action will depend on what your conversion goal is.
It could be:
Any action that you want users to take when served your content comes into play here.
The less it costs you to drive these actions, the higher your conversion rates.
So, what does persuasive copy have to do with CPA?
Well, users will only move on a solid call to action (CTA).
In turn, the strength of your CTAs depend on your copy.
As a marketer, everything comes down to conversions and ROI, right?
The organic reach of your posts on Facebook is like a secondary metric.
Jon Loomer puts it perfectly.
If you go after reach rather than valuable content, you’ll be trying to game Facebook’s algorithm.
Deja vu?
Remember Google cracking down on black hat SEOs trying to game their search results?
Every platform wants to improve the experience of its users and increase engagement.
So, don’t go around chasing Facebook’s organic reach.
Instead, share every post with an objective.
The organic reach of your page is not the best performance indicator.
So while you may want to amp up your game, you need to consider how much reach is enough to justify the time and effort it takes to build your Facebook assets.
Write down the goals you want to achieve through your Facebook page.
Consider :
Only then should you devise a Facebook marketing strategy around these goals.
Choose the metrics you’ll use to measure your results.
Don’t let algorithmic changes dictate your marketing strategy.
The number of people who see your content without paying for it is referred to as organic reach. People who see your posts in their own feeds or because their friends have interacted with you are included.
Since reach is based on unique views of your content, it can be assessed across your entire page or from post to post. Organic, non-sponsored reach is the hardest to gain, but viral reach and ad reach are also options when targeting your audience.
Organic reach on Facebook may be down, but it’s not dead. If your reach is close to 3%, you’re at a scalable target. You can also use a paid strategy to boost your numbers if you need to.
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Facebook is a brilliant marketing tool.
There’s no doubt about that.
The number of businesses that actively use the platform continues to increase by millions, year over year.
But Facebook is not without its challenges.
The influx of published content has led to a downward spiral in organic reach, and the competition for news feed space is fierce.
Things that were once done on autopilot, now require significantly more effort and due diligence.
Will organic reach continue to plummet?
Or will it improve?
Nobody really knows what the future holds for organic reach on Facebook.
Either way, our task remains the same.
We have to get creative in our social media marketing and provide the highest quality content to our audience.
If you implement the strategies that I share in this post, you’ll be well on your way to improving how to increase organic reach on Facebook.
You’ll also be more skilled at navigating Facebook’s ever-changing platform.
What is your Facebook page’s average organic reach? What strategies are you using to combat organic reach decline on Facebook?
Imagine if you had the power to influence people’s subconscious minds. It would be great, wouldn’t it?
As a marketer, you could reach out to consumers and persuade them to click through and buy your product, or they’d see an advert offline and instantly want to rush and buy what you’re selling.
What if I told you there’s no need to wish for it? You already have this ability.
It’s called marketing psychology, and it’s a proven technique for spurring shoppers to action, or at least encouraging them to find out more.
Power words are a part of marketing psychology that you often see in adverts. In fact, they’re a go-to for many marketers. Think of words like ‘smart,’ ‘fresh,’ ’innovative,’ ‘bold,’ and ‘pioneering.’
However, there’s more to power words than that: they’re also effective in creating brand loyalty, and who doesn’t want loyal customers?
In this article, l look at three power words that may significantly impact conversation rate optimization.
Before I get into that, though, let’s have a quick look at what marketing psychology is.
In its most simple terms, marketing psychology studies how people interact with products and services.
It encompasses a range of disciplines, including advertising, public relations, market research, and sales. It’s also called neuromarketing, and the goal of marketing psychology is to help marketers understand what makes consumers tick.
This gives marketers the ‘magical’ ability to know what is most likely to resonate with their prospects and secure the conversion.
If nothing else, when used correctly, marketing psychology is an incredible technique to engage consumers and intrigue them enough that they want to find out more.
Now, before you start thinking that you need to get all scientific and deep, there are some easy ways to capture your prospects’ attention with psychology.
I’ve already mentioned power words, but maybe you’re not familiar with them, so I’ll explain.
Power words have a strong emotional impact and marketers use them to influence people’s buying behaviors.
There are several benefits to using power words for your marketing efforts. Here are some key ones:
Now, let’s get into these three power words for your marketing, shall we?
Why it’s a power word:
Imagine is one of the most impactful words in the English language.
When you imagine something, you immediately picture it in your mind, creating a level of engagement that’s hard to replicate with other words.
There’s a good reason why the word works so well.
‘Imagine’ evokes emotion and creates positive mental images. When people feel good about something, they’re more likely to take action, whether that means buying a product or service or simply sharing it with others.
You can also use the word to tap into people’s emotions and inspire them. For example, imagine being able to travel the world, or imagine how good it would feel to get in shape.
When we imagine something, we not only see it in our minds, but we feel the emotions associated with it. This can be a big motivator, especially regarding buying decisions.
We can all relate to this.
Maybe you’ve seen an advert for your dream car and imagined yourself behind the wheel. Or perhaps you’ve seen an advert for the lottery, and you’re already imagining that you’ve won. Most of us have done it. We’re already spending the money from our million-dollar win, often before we’ve even brought the ticket.
Finally, ‘Imagine’ is one of the top power words because our reactions to it are immediate: It captures attention quickly and easily.
Of course, you don’t have to use the word ‘image’ directly in your marketing.
An example:
From telling you the latest news to playing your favorite track on demand, Alexa’s already got many skills, but imagine if it could read your mind. That’s the premise behind a recent Superbowl advert.
In it, actress Scarlett Johansson and comedian Colin Jost imagined what life would be like if Alexa knew what they’re thinking and said it out loud.
The results weren’t all good, with Alexa inadvertently telling a variety of people things you wouldn’t necessarily want them to know.
Besides its comedic moments, the ad shows us that you don’t even need to use an actual power word for your marketing: just the suggestion of it is enough.
Why it’s a power word:
You is a placeholder for your name.
I know—it’s an obvious one. Perhaps the three most captivating words in sales are you, free, and guaranteed.
It might not be the most apparent power word that springs to mind, but think about it.
‘You’ represents your name. It personalizes your advertising, which is why marketers often use it in headlines and throughout copy.
‘You’ makes people feel important, heard, and seen. When used in advertising, it can tap into those feelings and create a connection with the customer. When customers feel they are being spoken to directly, they are more likely to respond positively.
In fact, ‘You’ is such a strong power word that most copywriters use it in their advertising.
Do you know why? Because, yes, you’ve guessed, the advertiser is talking directly to YOU, the consumer.
The reason words that refer to us are so powerful is a psychological effect called Fundamental Attribution Error, a type of cognitive bias. Basically, while we are naturally critical of other people, our critical minds take a break when we evaluate ourselves.
And guess what? There’s nothing as stimulating to us as our interests, desires, ambitions, goals, yearnings, and emotions. For our whole lives, that is all we have; as long as your copy addresses those things for your prospect, it is guaranteed to carry them along in a rapt, semi-torpid daze of introspection.
An example:
Look at how MailChimp uses the word you and your in its website’s copy.
Throughout its site, MailChimp spells out:
Then, it promises to keep you:
MailChimp then finishes by telling prospects, ‘they’ve got your back.’
See how it works? Wouldn’t it tempt you to sign up and start taking advantage of everything the product offers? Think about how you can do the same in your copy.
Why it’s a power word:
There are many reasons why ‘because’ is a power word, but three, in particular, stand out. The first reason is that it’s a psychological trigger. When someone hears or sees the word ‘because,’ their brain immediately starts looking for a reason; once they find one, you’re more likely to persuade them with what you’re saying.
The second reason is that it’s concise. ‘Because’ is the perfect word to use to get your message across efficiently.
The third reason is its versatility. You can use ’because’ in both formal and informal settings, with adults and children. It’s a word that everyone understands and can use effectively.
There’s more to it, though. Here are a few more reasons why ‘because’ is a power word.
The word because helps to make your argument or point more convincing by linking your reasoning clearly and concisely. When someone understands why you did something, they’re more likely to be on your side.
Psychologically, we tend to react more strongly to things that are accompanied by a strong emotion. ‘Because’ stirs up feelings of certainty and confidence, which can be very persuasive when trying to get someone to do something.
When we hear others use because effectively, it subconsciously influences our behavior and speech.
You’ve probably heard of “reason why” advertising—a phrase I believe comes from John E Kennedy, though I learned it from Drayton Bird. As human beings, we crave order. We want to know why something is the way it is, and what caused something to happen. And we crave it, particularly in our own lives.
These kinds of reasons, cause and effect relationships, are encapsulated in the word because. When our mind’s gatekeeper—the “critical factor”—hears that word, it treats it as a cue to let the speaker (or writer) through to the unconscious mind.
If you think back to your childhood or watch how kids negotiate with their parents, you’ll immediately see that this works precisely, as Langer showed. Perhaps this sort of situation sounds familiar:
“Mom, can I have some biscuits?”
“No, darling, not now.”
“But mom, I love biscuits.”
“I know, sweetie, but I said not now.”
“But mom, why?”
“Because I said so.”
Is that a real reason? No, it ain’t! It’s just a reiteration of what the kid already knows, right? But at this point, most children accept that it’s time to give up. And that’s something “programmed” into us, even as adults. It makes the word “because” very powerful.
An example:
Who hasn’t heard of L’oreal’s ‘because you’re worth it’ tagline? There can’t be many people out there in that category.
L’oreal’s slogan dates back over 50 years. Since its creation by junior copywriter Ilon Specht, the slogan took the world by storm, and you can see it in 40 languages.
As L’oreal states, the tagline resonates today and encourages self-worth and belief.
The takeaway? Think about how you can make your slogan timeless and meaningful when using power words.
Some examples of power words include: amazing, astonishing, incredible, beautiful, brilliant, exciting. These words grab attention and make people want to learn more about what you have to say.
You can improve conversion rate optimization by creating targeted campaigns, publishing compelling, keyword-based content, making your website easy to navigate, and ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. You can also use power words.
Some examples include:
1. Awesome
2. Breathtaking
3. Compelling
4. Eye-opening
The general layout of your site can have a significant impact on conversion rate optimization. The more cluttered and confusing it is, the more likely your prospect is to go elsewhere.
Your content also needs to be relevant to your audience, and the offer itself must be attractive for people to convert;
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These are not the only power words. There are others. But these three are particularly powerful and valuable to us as marketers and salespeople.
Imagine. You. Because.
They are also conveniently easy to work into copy, videos, and even face-to-face sales presentations.
You’d want to start using power words in your copy for many reasons, but the most obvious one is conversion rate optimization.
With some practice, you can start using these words to create more effective marketing materials and improve your bottom line.
Do you use power words in your copy? Which ones get the best results?
Knowing your domain authority is key to help you create or improve your marketing plan. But how do you know what your domain authority is?
Let’s dive into what this metric is and some tips for picking the perfect domain authority checker for your business.
Domain authority (DA) refers to the number of relevant backlinks—links to your website from other reputable sites—your site has. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your score.
Moz created the Domain Authority metric to help businesses figure out where they may rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). They estimate a page’s possible ranking via several channels, “including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score. This score can compare websites or track the ‘ranking strength’ of a website over time.”
Some brands are authoritative without even seeming to try. This is because the keywords that naturally exist on their websites will carry some weight.
For example, movie site IMDB has a high DA because relevant keywords are naturally integrated throughout the site. Secondary related keywords are also prevalent.
When you have a better idea about the terms for which you’re deemed authoritative, you’re able to optimize your site better.
But it’s not just keywords—the better your backlinks are, the better your chances are at increasing in DA.
Domain authority is determined on a logarithmic scale. This means solo metrics won’t always increase or decrease the score to the same degree. The more important a metric is, the greater effect it’s likely to have.
Although Google doesn’t use domain authority in their rankings, but a study by Ahrefs found a correlation between DA and SERP ranking.
The results of this study suggest DA may be a useful metric by which to gauge how much organic traffic you may receive from Google.
If you want to grow your SEO rankings, consider ramping up your domain authority strategy. However, it can take a while to develop authority, so don’t worry if you don’t see results right away.
Domain authority scores range from one to 100. When you have a greater domain authority score, it’s more likely you’ll see increases in web traffic and SERP rankings.
When you debut a new website, its domain authority is one. Moz points out sites with many external links are usually higher when it comes to DA, while small business sites and those with fewer inbound links generally have a lower DA score.
A strong gauge for your site is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites. Your DA can fluctuate over time and, with so many moving parts, identifying why it changed can be challenging. But don’t give up.
Moz highlights several factors that can influence your score.
One could simply be that your link profile growth hasn’t been seen by their index yet.
Another occurs when higher-authority sites experience massive growth in link numbers, which may skew the scaling process. This kind of fluctuation may more significantly impact domain authorities on the lower end.
You may also have earned links from sites that don’t contribute to ranking on Google. If Moz crawls a different amount of link domains than it did last time it went through your site, results may be affected.
Raising your DA is a long-term process, but there are several ways to go about it.
First, conduct a link audit. This process involves making sure that links to your website are valid and don’t include black-hat SEO tactics. Try Ubersuggest to get insight into your domain score, the current number of backlinks, and referring domains.
Backlinks, which are links from other websites to yours, affect SEO rankings—though backlinks aren’t all created equal.
Do you know how to go about getting high-quality links? Try our free backlink tool, Backlinks, to get started. Among other things, it’ll show you which sites are linking to your competitors rather than to you.
Various filters make it easy to assess which opportunities are best suited to your needs.
It’s also beneficial to search for local directories or “best-of” lists that could feature your business. These sites are often adding new businesses.
There are several link authority tools out there. How do you know which one is right for you?
SEO Review Tools has a basic domain authority checker. It looks at authority (based on backlink quantity and quality) and content.
Other metrics measured by this tool include website age and social media score. Your social media score relates to how active your social profiles are and how many shares your content receives.
Page authority is also measured. This metric is like DA, except it looks at a specific page rather than entire sites. Page authority is also calculated on a one to 100 logarithmic scale.
If you want to check several sites at once,Linkgraph’s Free Bulk DA Checker may be the perfect option. This tool allows you to check DA and spam metrics for up to 10 URLs at a time.
If you want to check even more domains, Rankz’s SEO Rank Tracker lets you check hundreds at once. They also offer a backlinks checker, backlinks monitor, and domain availability checker.
Moz has a comprehensive free domain SEO analysis tool. It showcases top pages by links, discovered and lost links, top linking domains, and keywords by estimated clicks. Of course, you can also find some of this information using Ubersuggest as well.
For example, when you search for the DA of neilpatel.com on Moz, it’s revealed it is 88, and there are 69,900 linking domains (i.e., backlinks). There are also over 269,000 keywords for which the site ranks, and the spam score just 1%.
The tool then breaks down the site’s most important pages based on page authority and other top-linking domains. You can also find metrics like top-ranking keywords, keywords by estimated clicks, top featured snippets, branded keywords, and more.
You can also see a breakdown of competitors using your keywords. You can then take the competing domains and plug them into a bulk checker like the ones noted above.
Once you’ve determined your domain authority score and the factors influencing it, what should you do next?
Start with backlinks. You want to give other sites a reason to link to yours.
If you specialize in something unique or offer a new option for a product or service, that could be a great start. Work to provide better information on your niche than your competitors do.
It may also be wise to collaborate with small businesses with whom you could forge mutually beneficial partnerships.
Reach out to companies with whom you already have relationships, too. See if there are ways you can support each other’s online presence. Swapping testimonials is just one of the many tactics you could employ.
You should also explore your existing content for opportunities to add links. For example, if you mention a coffee shop, link to their website. If they’re monitoring their web traffic, they’ll see you linked to them and may feel inclined to return the favor.
Of course, you want to make sure all the backlinks you receive are of high quality. It’s better to have a few quality backlinks than a ton of ineffective ones.
Guest posting on other sites may also help get your name and site out there. However, some sites are better suited for this than others.
When assessing which blogs to guest for, check if their links are “follow” or “nofollow.” This may impact how much value the link has, though all links will help users get to your website, so also think of links as a branding and referral traffic tool as well.
You should also look at their DA and PA for target pages, how long their posts are, and who their audience is. If their goals aren’t similar to yours, guest posting may not be worth the time.
This aspect of growing your domain authority overlaps with your content marketing strategy. Most companies now have blogs or similar outlets on their websites—so, if you don’t, consider starting something like this.
The more content you create regularly, the more likely you are to rank.
Domain authority is a metric created by Moz to determine how reputable and authoritative a domain is. It takes a lot of factors into account, including backlinks, traffic, and more.
More backlinks and better traffic can help increase domain authority. It’s important to focus on being a great resource for users.
Go to Moz’s domain authority checker tool to determine the number of your current domain authority.
Usually, once a month is a good cadence to check your domain authority.
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Domain authority may seem complicated at first. Many factors contribute to your ranking, and analyzing them all may seem daunting.
Nevertheless, once you get the hang of DA, it’s worth monitoring and optimizing for it.
Adding this to your SEO toolbox may allow you to have a more comprehensive understanding of your overall digital presence and website health.
Have you had success in improving your domain authority? Tell us in the comments.
The post How to Boost Domain Authority: Checking and Improving This Key Site Metric appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
Knowing your domain authority is key to help you create or improve your marketing plan. But how do you know what your domain authority is?
Let’s dive into what this metric is and some tips for picking the perfect domain authority checker for your business.
Domain authority (DA) refers to the number of relevant backlinks—links to your website from other reputable sites—your site has. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your score.
Moz created the Domain Authority metric to help businesses figure out where they may rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). They estimate a page’s possible ranking via several channels, “including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score. This score can compare websites or track the ‘ranking strength’ of a website over time.”
Some brands are authoritative without even seeming to try. This is because the keywords that naturally exist on their websites will carry some weight.
For example, movie site IMDB has a high DA because relevant keywords are naturally integrated throughout the site. Secondary related keywords are also prevalent.
When you have a better idea about the terms for which you’re deemed authoritative, you’re able to optimize your site better.
But it’s not just keywords—the better your backlinks are, the better your chances are at increasing in DA.
Domain authority is determined on a logarithmic scale. This means solo metrics won’t always increase or decrease the score to the same degree. The more important a metric is, the greater effect it’s likely to have.
Although Google doesn’t use domain authority in their rankings, but a study by Ahrefs found a correlation between DA and SERP ranking.
The results of this study suggest DA may be a useful metric by which to gauge how much organic traffic you may receive from Google.
If you want to grow your SEO rankings, consider ramping up your domain authority strategy. However, it can take a while to develop authority, so don’t worry if you don’t see results right away.
Domain authority scores range from one to 100. When you have a greater domain authority score, it’s more likely you’ll see increases in web traffic and SERP rankings.
When you debut a new website, its domain authority is one. Moz points out sites with many external links are usually higher when it comes to DA, while small business sites and those with fewer inbound links generally have a lower DA score.
A strong gauge for your site is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites. Your DA can fluctuate over time and, with so many moving parts, identifying why it changed can be challenging. But don’t give up.
Moz highlights several factors that can influence your score.
One could simply be that your link profile growth hasn’t been seen by their index yet.
Another occurs when higher-authority sites experience massive growth in link numbers, which may skew the scaling process. This kind of fluctuation may more significantly impact domain authorities on the lower end.
You may also have earned links from sites that don’t contribute to ranking on Google. If Moz crawls a different amount of link domains than it did last time it went through your site, results may be affected.
Raising your DA is a long-term process, but there are several ways to go about it.
First, conduct a link audit. This process involves making sure that links to your website are valid and don’t include black-hat SEO tactics. Try Ubersuggest to get insight into your domain score, the current number of backlinks, and referring domains.
Backlinks, which are links from other websites to yours, affect SEO rankings—though backlinks aren’t all created equal.
Do you know how to go about getting high-quality links? Try our free backlink tool, Backlinks, to get started. Among other things, it’ll show you which sites are linking to your competitors rather than to you.
Various filters make it easy to assess which opportunities are best suited to your needs.
It’s also beneficial to search for local directories or “best-of” lists that could feature your business. These sites are often adding new businesses.
There are several link authority tools out there. How do you know which one is right for you?
SEO Review Tools has a basic domain authority checker. It looks at authority (based on backlink quantity and quality) and content.
Other metrics measured by this tool include website age and social media score. Your social media score relates to how active your social profiles are and how many shares your content receives.
Page authority is also measured. This metric is like DA, except it looks at a specific page rather than entire sites. Page authority is also calculated on a one to 100 logarithmic scale.
If you want to check several sites at once,Linkgraph’s Free Bulk DA Checker may be the perfect option. This tool allows you to check DA and spam metrics for up to 10 URLs at a time.
If you want to check even more domains, Rankz’s SEO Rank Tracker lets you check hundreds at once. They also offer a backlinks checker, backlinks monitor, and domain availability checker.
Moz has a comprehensive free domain SEO analysis tool. It showcases top pages by links, discovered and lost links, top linking domains, and keywords by estimated clicks. Of course, you can also find some of this information using Ubersuggest as well.
For example, when you search for the DA of neilpatel.com on Moz, it’s revealed it is 88, and there are 69,900 linking domains (i.e., backlinks). There are also over 269,000 keywords for which the site ranks, and the spam score just 1%.
The tool then breaks down the site’s most important pages based on page authority and other top-linking domains. You can also find metrics like top-ranking keywords, keywords by estimated clicks, top featured snippets, branded keywords, and more.
You can also see a breakdown of competitors using your keywords. You can then take the competing domains and plug them into a bulk checker like the ones noted above.
Once you’ve determined your domain authority score and the factors influencing it, what should you do next?
Start with backlinks. You want to give other sites a reason to link to yours.
If you specialize in something unique or offer a new option for a product or service, that could be a great start. Work to provide better information on your niche than your competitors do.
It may also be wise to collaborate with small businesses with whom you could forge mutually beneficial partnerships.
Reach out to companies with whom you already have relationships, too. See if there are ways you can support each other’s online presence. Swapping testimonials is just one of the many tactics you could employ.
You should also explore your existing content for opportunities to add links. For example, if you mention a coffee shop, link to their website. If they’re monitoring their web traffic, they’ll see you linked to them and may feel inclined to return the favor.
Of course, you want to make sure all the backlinks you receive are of high quality. It’s better to have a few quality backlinks than a ton of ineffective ones.
Guest posting on other sites may also help get your name and site out there. However, some sites are better suited for this than others.
When assessing which blogs to guest for, check if their links are “follow” or “nofollow.” This may impact how much value the link has, though all links will help users get to your website, so also think of links as a branding and referral traffic tool as well.
You should also look at their DA and PA for target pages, how long their posts are, and who their audience is. If their goals aren’t similar to yours, guest posting may not be worth the time.
This aspect of growing your domain authority overlaps with your content marketing strategy. Most companies now have blogs or similar outlets on their websites—so, if you don’t, consider starting something like this.
The more content you create regularly, the more likely you are to rank.
Domain authority is a metric created by Moz to determine how reputable and authoritative a domain is. It takes a lot of factors into account, including backlinks, traffic, and more.
More backlinks and better traffic can help increase domain authority. It’s important to focus on being a great resource for users.
Go to Moz’s domain authority checker tool to determine the number of your current domain authority.
Usually, once a month is a good cadence to check your domain authority.
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Domain authority may seem complicated at first. Many factors contribute to your ranking, and analyzing them all may seem daunting.
Nevertheless, once you get the hang of DA, it’s worth monitoring and optimizing for it.
Adding this to your SEO toolbox may allow you to have a more comprehensive understanding of your overall digital presence and website health.
Have you had success in improving your domain authority? Tell us in the comments.
The post How to Boost Domain Authority: Checking and Improving This Key Site Metric appeared first on #1 SEO FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.
The post How to Boost Domain Authority: Checking and Improving This Key Site Metric appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
Knowing your domain authority is key to help you create or improve your marketing plan. But how do you know what your domain authority is?
Let’s dive into what this metric is and some tips for picking the perfect domain authority checker for your business.
Domain authority (DA) refers to the number of relevant backlinks—links to your website from other reputable sites—your site has. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your score.
Moz created the Domain Authority metric to help businesses figure out where they may rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). They estimate a page’s possible ranking via several channels, “including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score. This score can compare websites or track the ‘ranking strength’ of a website over time.”
Some brands are authoritative without even seeming to try. This is because the keywords that naturally exist on their websites will carry some weight.
For example, movie site IMDB has a high DA because relevant keywords are naturally integrated throughout the site. Secondary related keywords are also prevalent.
When you have a better idea about the terms for which you’re deemed authoritative, you’re able to optimize your site better.
But it’s not just keywords—the better your backlinks are, the better your chances are at increasing in DA.
Domain authority is determined on a logarithmic scale. This means solo metrics won’t always increase or decrease the score to the same degree. The more important a metric is, the greater effect it’s likely to have.
Although Google doesn’t use domain authority in their rankings, but a study by Ahrefs found a correlation between DA and SERP ranking.
The results of this study suggest DA may be a useful metric by which to gauge how much organic traffic you may receive from Google.
If you want to grow your SEO rankings, consider ramping up your domain authority strategy. However, it can take a while to develop authority, so don’t worry if you don’t see results right away.
Domain authority scores range from one to 100. When you have a greater domain authority score, it’s more likely you’ll see increases in web traffic and SERP rankings.
When you debut a new website, its domain authority is one. Moz points out sites with many external links are usually higher when it comes to DA, while small business sites and those with fewer inbound links generally have a lower DA score.
A strong gauge for your site is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites. Your DA can fluctuate over time and, with so many moving parts, identifying why it changed can be challenging. But don’t give up.
Moz highlights several factors that can influence your score.
One could simply be that your link profile growth hasn’t been seen by their index yet.
Another occurs when higher-authority sites experience massive growth in link numbers, which may skew the scaling process. This kind of fluctuation may more significantly impact domain authorities on the lower end.
You may also have earned links from sites that don’t contribute to ranking on Google. If Moz crawls a different amount of link domains than it did last time it went through your site, results may be affected.
Raising your DA is a long-term process, but there are several ways to go about it.
First, conduct a link audit. This process involves making sure that links to your website are valid and don’t include black-hat SEO tactics. Try Ubersuggest to get insight into your domain score, the current number of backlinks, and referring domains.
Backlinks, which are links from other websites to yours, affect SEO rankings—though backlinks aren’t all created equal.
Do you know how to go about getting high-quality links? Try our free backlink tool, Backlinks, to get started. Among other things, it’ll show you which sites are linking to your competitors rather than to you.
Various filters make it easy to assess which opportunities are best suited to your needs.
It’s also beneficial to search for local directories or “best-of” lists that could feature your business. These sites are often adding new businesses.
There are several link authority tools out there. How do you know which one is right for you?
SEO Review Tools has a basic domain authority checker. It looks at authority (based on backlink quantity and quality) and content.
Other metrics measured by this tool include website age and social media score. Your social media score relates to how active your social profiles are and how many shares your content receives.
Page authority is also measured. This metric is like DA, except it looks at a specific page rather than entire sites. Page authority is also calculated on a one to 100 logarithmic scale.
If you want to check several sites at once,Linkgraph’s Free Bulk DA Checker may be the perfect option. This tool allows you to check DA and spam metrics for up to 10 URLs at a time.
If you want to check even more domains, Rankz’s SEO Rank Tracker lets you check hundreds at once. They also offer a backlinks checker, backlinks monitor, and domain availability checker.
Moz has a comprehensive free domain SEO analysis tool. It showcases top pages by links, discovered and lost links, top linking domains, and keywords by estimated clicks. Of course, you can also find some of this information using Ubersuggest as well.
For example, when you search for the DA of neilpatel.com on Moz, it’s revealed it is 88, and there are 69,900 linking domains (i.e., backlinks). There are also over 269,000 keywords for which the site ranks, and the spam score just 1%.
The tool then breaks down the site’s most important pages based on page authority and other top-linking domains. You can also find metrics like top-ranking keywords, keywords by estimated clicks, top featured snippets, branded keywords, and more.
You can also see a breakdown of competitors using your keywords. You can then take the competing domains and plug them into a bulk checker like the ones noted above.
Once you’ve determined your domain authority score and the factors influencing it, what should you do next?
Start with backlinks. You want to give other sites a reason to link to yours.
If you specialize in something unique or offer a new option for a product or service, that could be a great start. Work to provide better information on your niche than your competitors do.
It may also be wise to collaborate with small businesses with whom you could forge mutually beneficial partnerships.
Reach out to companies with whom you already have relationships, too. See if there are ways you can support each other’s online presence. Swapping testimonials is just one of the many tactics you could employ.
You should also explore your existing content for opportunities to add links. For example, if you mention a coffee shop, link to their website. If they’re monitoring their web traffic, they’ll see you linked to them and may feel inclined to return the favor.
Of course, you want to make sure all the backlinks you receive are of high quality. It’s better to have a few quality backlinks than a ton of ineffective ones.
Guest posting on other sites may also help get your name and site out there. However, some sites are better suited for this than others.
When assessing which blogs to guest for, check if their links are “follow” or “nofollow.” This may impact how much value the link has, though all links will help users get to your website, so also think of links as a branding and referral traffic tool as well.
You should also look at their DA and PA for target pages, how long their posts are, and who their audience is. If their goals aren’t similar to yours, guest posting may not be worth the time.
This aspect of growing your domain authority overlaps with your content marketing strategy. Most companies now have blogs or similar outlets on their websites—so, if you don’t, consider starting something like this.
The more content you create regularly, the more likely you are to rank.
Domain authority is a metric created by Moz to determine how reputable and authoritative a domain is. It takes a lot of factors into account, including backlinks, traffic, and more.
More backlinks and better traffic can help increase domain authority. It’s important to focus on being a great resource for users.
Go to Moz’s domain authority checker tool to determine the number of your current domain authority.
Usually, once a month is a good cadence to check your domain authority.
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Domain authority may seem complicated at first. Many factors contribute to your ranking, and analyzing them all may seem daunting.
Nevertheless, once you get the hang of DA, it’s worth monitoring and optimizing for it.
Adding this to your SEO toolbox may allow you to have a more comprehensive understanding of your overall digital presence and website health.
Have you had success in improving your domain authority? Tell us in the comments.
Domain authority (DA) is one of the most important factors in evaluating a website, and it’s a metric search engines use to determine a website’s quality and relevance.
To determine a site’s domain authority, the metric counts the number of links from high-quality websites to a particular domain.
When you understand your domain authority, you see how your site compares with competitors. The higher a site’s authority is, the more visible you are, which can factor into SEO. Of course, that extra visibility has advantages. Most notably, your site’s ranking on the first page, searchers are more likely to find you, leading to increased awareness and conversions.
Domain authority (DA) is the number of relevant backlinks to your site that come from other reputable sites. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your domain authority score.
SEO company Moz created the Domain Authority metric to help businesses figure out where they may rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).
It estimates a page’s possible ranking via several channels, “including linking root domains and the number of total links, into a single DA score. This score can compare websites or track the ‘ranking strength’ of a website over time.”
Perhaps you’re wondering what domain authority means for your website? Well, have you ever noticed how some brands look authoritative without trying? This is because the keywords that naturally exist on their websites carry some weight.
For example, movie site IMDb has a high DA because relevant keywords are naturally integrated throughout the site. Secondary related keywords are also prevalent.
Simply put, when you know which terms give your site authority, you can optimize your site better.
See How My Agency Can Drive Massive Amounts of Traffic to Your Website
However, it’s not just about keywords. The better your backlinks are, the better your chances of increasing your DA.
It’s a logarithmic scale that determines your ultimate domain authority score. This means solo metrics won’t always increase or decrease the score to the same degree. The more important a metric is, the greater effect it’s likely to have.
Although Google doesn’t use domain authority in its rankings, there are still some great reasons to work on this area. For example, a high domain authority score:
Research also backs up the benefits of a high DA. For example, a study by Ahrefs found a correlation between domain authority and SERP ranking.
According to the results of this study, domain authority may be a useful metric to estimate how much organic traffic you may receive from Google.
What does this survey mean for website owners?
It means you should think about improving your domain authority strategy if you want to grow your SEO rankings. Nonetheless, remember that developing authority takes time, so don’t worry if you don’t see results right away.
Domain authority scores range from one to 100. When you have a greater domain authority score, it’s more likely you’ll see increases in web traffic and SERP rankings.
When you debut a new website, its domain authority is one. Moz points out that sites with many external links are usually higher when it comes to DA, while small business sites and those with fewer inbound links generally have a lower DA score.
A strong gauge for your site is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites. Remember, though, your domain authority can fluctuate over time, and with so many moving parts, identifying the reasons behind these changes can be challenging.
Moz highlights several factors that can influence your score.
There are several things you can do to improve your website’s DA score.
It’s also beneficial to search for local directories or “best-of” lists, like Google My Business, as these all help to build authority.
There are several link authority tools out there. How do you know which one is right for you? Here are a few tips:
Here’s a selection of tools for getting started with your search: SEO Review Tools has a basic domain authority checker and it gives you a social media score relating to how active your social profiles are and how many shares your content receives.
The tool bases authority on backlink quantity and quality, and measures other metrics like website age and social media score. Finally, SEO Review Tools measures page authority. This metric is like Domain Authority, except it looks at a specific page rather than entire sites. Page authority also uses a one-to-100 logarithmic scale.
For testing several sites at once, Linkgraph’s Free Bulk DA Checker may be the perfect option. This tool allows you to check DA and spam metrics for up to 10 URLs at a time.
Semrush has an extensive list of tools as well, including a backlinks checker, SERPtracker, and social media marketing.
Then there’s Moz, which has a comprehensive free domain SEO analysis tool. It showcases top pages by links, discovered and lost links, top linking domains, and keywords by estimated clicks.
For example, when you search for the domain authority of neilpatel.com on Moz, it shows it’s 90, and there are 106,400 linking domains (i.e., backlinks). There are also over 229,000 keywords for which the site ranks, and the spam score is 1%.
The tool then breaks down the site’s most important pages according to page authority and other top-linking domains. You can also find:
You can then take the competing domains and plug them into a bulk checker like the ones noted above, and see a breakdown of competitors using your keywords.
Of course, you can also find some of this information using Ubersuggest as well.
Once you know your domain authority score and the factors influencing it, what should you do next?
You should also look at their DA and PA for target pages, how long their posts are, and who their audience is. If their goals aren’t similar to yours, guest posting may not be worth the time.
This aspect of growing your domain authority overlaps with your content marketing strategy. Most companies now have blogs or similar outlets on their websites—so, if you don’t, consider starting something like this.
The more content you create regularly, the more likely you are to rank.
Domain authority is a metric created by Moz to determine how reputable and authoritative a domain is. It takes a lot of factors into account, including backlinks, traffic, and more.
A low domain authority can stem from a number of reasons. One possibility is that your site has not been around for very long, and therefore does not have as much history or as many links as more established websites. Another possibility is that your site’s content is not relevant to your target audience. If you are trying to rank for a keyword that has no relevance to your business, you may have difficulty achieving a high domain authority.
How long it will take to increase your domain authority depends on a number of factors, including the competitiveness of your industry, the quality of your website, and its content. However, if you put in the hard work, you could see significant improvements in your domain authority within six months to a year.
Website authority is simply another name for domain authority, the metric Moz developed that predicts how well a website will rank in SERPs.
More backlinks and better traffic can help increase domain authority. It’s important to focus on being a great resource for users.
There are a few things you can do to increase your website’s domain authority quickly. First, make sure your website is well-optimized for search engines. Second, build high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. And finally, continue to produce great content that people will want to share.
Go to Moz’s domain authority checker tool to determine the number of your current domain authority.
Usually, once a month is a good cadence to check your domain authority.
Domain authority may seem complicated at first. Many factors contribute to your ranking, and analyzing them all may seem daunting.
Nevertheless, once you get the hang of DA, it’s worth monitoring and optimizing for it.
Adding this to your SEO toolbox may allow you to have a more comprehensive understanding of your overall digital presence and website health.
Have you had success in improving your domain authority? Tell us in the comments.
For online stores, increasing conversions is the key to long-term success.
After all, if visitors don’t buy, then you’re not making any money! And with $7.31 trillion dollars projected to be spent on e-commerce retail by 2025, you want to make sure to optimize your CRO so you can receive as much of that spend as possible.
That said, optimizing your e-commerce store can be confusing.
Even if you’ve done everything right, from driving traffic to your website to running digital ads, you might still see low conversion rates. The average conversion rate for US e-commerce stores was 2.8 percent in the second quarter of 2021 (which is the most recent data available).
So what gives, and how can you push past a three percent conversion rate? E-commerce optimization is all about making it easy for your visitors to buy from you.
How do you do that? It starts with diving into your analytics to see where visitors are getting stuck. If that sounds complicated, don’t worry—I’m going to walk you through it.
First, however, let’s talk about why CRO is different for e-commerce websites.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) for e-commerce stores is different because e-commerce stores sell physical products, which can be more complex and time-consuming to purchase than, for example, a service – which has an average 9.3 conversion rate across the industry.
The difference in average conversion rates is partially because a service website might have one or two steps in the checkout process, while an e-commerce store could have five or six – meaning it’s all the more important for you to optimize your CRO.
This means e-commerce stores need to pay more attention to the purchase process, from product pages to the checkout page.
E-commerce stores have unique friction points, such as shipping and returns, which can impact purchase decisions.
Because of this, e-commerce owners need to take a holistic approach to optimizing their stores.
This might mean looking for opportunities to increase customer confidence through social proof and streamlined checkout processes.
Ultimately, e-commerce owners should focus on creating a frictionless purchase experience to boost their conversion rates.
Adding recommended products to your e-commerce store is a great way to increase conversion rates.
When someone visits a product page, they want information about the product and how it can meet their needs.
If you suggest additional products that might be of interest, you can help guide their purchase decision and increase your conversion rate.
Invespcro found that 37 percent of shoppers clicked a recommended product during their first return visit to a site.
Similarly, shoppers that click on product recommendations are four and a half times more likely to add items to the cart and complete a purchase.
Amazon, for example, recommends products based on previous purchases or items you looked at. This helps keep customers engaged with the site and increases sales.
They also use “Frequently Bought Together” prompts to show customers related items they may like.
Recommending relevant products to your customers also improves the personalization of your e-commerce store.
Website personalization and product recommendations can be further enhanced by using AI, trending data, and previous shopping experiences.
86 percent of consumers say website personalization affects their purchasing decisions. This is an e-commerce conversion rate optimization tactic you don’t want to miss out on.
You can add recommended products in several different ways. Some examples include:
The steps for adding recommended products will vary based on your e-commerce platform. Here are instructions for the most popular platforms:
High-quality product pages are key to your e-commerce success.
When customers can see what they’re buying and get an idea of how it will look and function in their lives, they feel more confident about the purchase.
Since your visitors can’t touch and feel your products, you need to make sure the media you use on each product page does them justice.
Start with high-quality photos that depict the product from various angles at different levels of detail.
Make sure your photos are high enough resolution to support a zoom feature to show texture and details.
If you have the space, add a 360-degree view of the product so customers can get a complete look.
If your e-commerce store sells clothes or accessories, use models to show how the items look on various body types.
Besides images, consider using demo videos or explainer videos to show your products in action.
Remember, you don’t have to generate all the content yourself either.
Encourage customers to submit visual content or source your images and videos from social media, which perform double duty as social proof, which will help increase conversions.
Product descriptions that highlight key features are also key to getting shoppers to buy.
Be sure to include all pertinent information, such as size, color, and fabric content.
Use clear and concise language to avoid confusion and highlight the unique features of your products.
You can’t make sales if site visitors can’t find what they want.
Your site’s navigation is often the first place shoppers look if they have a specific product or category in mind.
Navigation that is confusing, too complex, or difficult to understand will cost you sales and customers. In fact, a HubSpot case study found that simplifying or removing navigation elements from middle-of-the-funnel landing pages resulted in a 16-28% increased conversion rate!
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for e-commerce website navigation. The best way to design a website menu depends on the nature of your products and how your customers like to organize information.
Here are a few steps for creating effective e-commerce website navigation:
An example of great e-commerce navigation comes from Apple.
If you have a large number of products, a drop-down menu that lists everything can be overwhelming.
If Apple included all its products and services in a drop-down menu, its website would have very clunky and confusing navigation.
Not only would that work against the brand’s minimalist image, but it’d also be hard for customers to find what they need.
Instead, Apple opts for clean top navigation with no dropdown or secondary menu item:
When visitors click on a top navigation item, they’re directed to a menu page that lists options within the category:
Doing away with a complicated drop-down also helps streamline the mobile user experience, which is increasingly important.
Clear navigation also has SEO and UX benefits.
Providing a clear path to the products customers are looking for makes it easier for shoppers to find what they need on your site—which increases sales.
This can help improve your search engine ranking, as Google (and other search engines) favor sites that are easy to navigate.
If you’re unsure if your site is easy to navigate, or have seen drop-off points in your analytics, consider using a heat map tool like Crazy Egg to see where people click on your pages.
You can also use a tool like Optimizely to test different versions of your navigation and see which one leads to more conversions.
Once you’ve identified any potential drop-off points, it’s time to start making changes!
Wish lists and favorite options allow users to save items they might buy later.
This is a great way to increase conversions because it gives users the opportunity to “test drive” your site and come back later to buy products they love.
Creating a wish list also requires customers to create an account for your e-commerce store.
This allows you to offer relevant promotions and gather customer data to improve user experience and increase sales.
Wish lists can help you:
Research from Google found 40 percent of online shoppers think their experience would be better if they were offered a wish list.
In addition, make it easy for your customers to create wish lists on other platforms. For example, enable “Pin It” buttons so visitors can share your products on their Pinterest wish lists.
Or, promote the use of the “Save” feature on Instagram and Facebook.
There are many ways to make it easy for your customers to save products they are interested in.
If you use Shopify as your e-commerce platform, you have two options for adding a wish list feature: add custom code to your site, or add a wishlist app, like Wishlist Hero.
On BigCommerce, all you need to do is enable wishlists in your shop’s settings.
WooCommerce offers an extension so you can allow users to add items to their wishlist when they shop your store.
According to the Baymard Institute, 69.82 percent of e-commerce carts are abandoned at checkout.
This rate increases on mobile and desktop devices, which have some of the highest cart abandonment rates.
Cart abandonment rates by device:
To avoid losing customers at the checkout, make the process as quick and easy as possible.
This means offering clear and concise shipping information, providing a guest checkout option, and ensuring all payment methods are available.
You should also ensure the checkout process is easy to navigate with all required information requested upfront.
Here are a few ways to streamline the checkout process:
Remember, the easier you can make it for customers to buy, the more likely they are to convert!
Social proof is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal to boost e-commerce conversion rates.
Adding social proof elements to your site increases confidence in potential buyers and nudges them towards completing a purchase.
Some effective ways to add social proof include testimonials from happy customers, reviews from unbiased third-party, or user-generated content of your product in action.
According to Trustpilot, 89 percent of global consumers read online reviews before making a purchase.
This implies reviews are a regular part of a consumer’s purchase journey, but they can also be a deciding factor in the purchase process.
That said, reviews don’t just exist on your product pages.
Other digital channels such as social media, email marketing, and even paid search can be used to display reviews.
For example, brands that work with influencers can benefit from video and social posts that include reviews.
This can include YouTube reviews, unboxing videos, or branded TikTok promotions.
There are a few things you can do to increase your reviews, including:
To increase your e-commerce CRO, consider adding recommended products, making sure your product pages shine, implementing simple navigation, providing a wish list option, streamlining the checkout process, and adding social proof.
E-commerce conversions are the total number of visits to your e-commerce site divided by the number of purchases.
The average e-commerce conversion rate varies depending on the type of product you sell but is typically around two percent. Some of the top e-commerce sites have conversion rates between 5 and 10 percent.
E-commerce conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the process of making adjustments to your site with the goal of increasing the percentage of visits that result in a purchase. In e-commerce specifically, CRO is focused on optimizing the product page, checkout process, and overall user experience.
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E-commerce conversion optimization is key to driving growth for your business.
While blogs and service sites rely on traffic from search engines and social media, e-commerce sites need to optimize SEO and every step of the buying process.
When starting an e-commerce conversion rate optimization strategy, start by looking into your customer data and website analytics. Use heat mapping tools to see where customers are clicking and what they scroll past.
Once you understand what is and isn’t working, start making changes to your website.
Test each change to make sure it improves conversion rates before rolling out the change to all visitors.
What CRO strategies have you used to boost e-commerce sales?
What is your website’s conversion rate? What about your paid ads, forms, and landing pages?
No matter your conversion rate, there’s a good chance it could be better.
That’s because user preferences change over time. People get burned out by seeing the same ads and images, and styles change. Even the platforms where users hang out can shift.
There’s only one way to know if your ad, landing page, CTA, or entire website could convert better—and that’s to test it.
According to Invesp, 71 percent of companies run at least two A/B tests a month.
However, only one in eight A/B tests drive significant change. That means a lot of companies are running A/B tests but not seeing results. A/B testing tools provide the framework and data you need to run better tests.
A/B testing tools streamline the A/B testing process by making it easy to design, launch, and analyze tests. Is it worth the investment, though?
If you want to see real results with A/B testing, I strongly recommend using A/B testing tools. They can help by:
If you’re still not sold, let’s look at how subscription-based mobile phone provider Ben used A/B testing to drive conversions.
Ben began offering its customers access to the latest mobile devices in addition to affordable data and voice plans. They wanted to make sure customers knew they could choose the color of their phone, not just the model.
However, the company wasn’t sure how to share that news with customers. Using VWO, they ran two tests—one with the color palette under the phone image, and another with a menu option alongside the subscription choices.
After running the test for two weeks, they found that allowing users to choose the color option alongside their plan increased conversion rates by more than 17 percent and reduced customer calls to change device colors.
One simple test resulted in a large increase in conversion rates. Now, imagine if you continually ran tests like this. A/B testing tools make that possible.
There are a ton of options when it comes to A/B testing tools. In fact, the A/B testing software market is expected to be worth $1,151 million by 2025, which means finding the right tool requires sifting through dozens of options.
No single A/B testing tool will work well for all businesses. An enterprise e-commerce site, for example, has far different needs than a local plumbing company.
To help you find the right one, we’ve analyzed the top A/B testing tools to compare features, pricing, and ease of use.
Pricing: Free
Google Optimize is Google’s free A/B testing tool. The platform integrates with Google Analytics, making it easy to see how changes have impacted site performance.
With Optimize, you can create, launch, and track A/B testing performance all in one tool. If you’re already using Google Analytics or other Google tools, it’s simple to launch and set up your first test.
Main features include:
Getting started is easy. Simply head to the Google Optimize page and click “Start for Free.” Once you accept the terms and conditions, you’ll be prompted to create your first experience.
Select the type of test you want to run, choose the URL, and then design your test.
There are a few drawbacks to Google Optimize. For starters, you can only run five experiments at a time. A few reviewers say the A/B testing preview tool is difficult to use and has a few bugs, which is another thing to consider.
For smaller sites that don’t need to run more than a few tests at a time, however, Google Optimize is a solid option.
Pricing: Call for a custom quote. According to Capterra, plans start at $50,000 a year but may be less for smaller sites.
When it comes to full-features A/B testing tools, Optimizely is one of the best on the market. This powerful tool offers a wide range of testing and tracking features, including:
Optimizely is powerful—but it can also be intimidating for first-time testers. If you don’t have a large site and haven’t run A/B tests before, Optimizely may be challenging to use. However, if you have a large site and want to dig deep into your data and find out what customers really want, it’s worth a closer look.
To get started, reach out to their customer support team. They’ll ask for information about your website and traffic and then explain the full scope of features. Their team can also provide a customized demo so you can see the tools’ true potential.
Pricing: Call for a custom quote. TrustRadius reports pricing starts at $40 per month.
AB Tasty is an AI-powered A/B testing tool designed to help your business drive more conversions while providing world-class UX. They are trusted by more than 900 enterprise companies, including Sephora, Papa John’s, Walmart, and USA Today.
While it might not be ideal for smaller sites, it’s a good fit for enterprise companies looking to improve A/B testing and run more out-of-the-box tests.
Core features of the platform include:
There are a few drawbacks. AB Tasty doesn’t currently offer heat map tracking, while Optimizely does. Personalization features are in a separate tool, so it could cost more. Since they don’t list pricing on the site, it’s difficult to say for sure.
They also don’t support testing for paid ads, while Google Optimize does.
Is AB Tasty right for you? I don’t recommend it for smaller sites or those just getting started. It’s a full-featured tool with tons of options and ways to test, so it’s a great choice for enterprise companies, especially those in e-commerce.
Pricing: Contact for custom pricing. However, they do offer a 30-day free trial.
Having an app is good for business. A recent study found that 57 percent of shoppers prefer shopping in an app over other channels. However, A/B testing on apps is more challenging.
If you have an app or a buyer journey that crosses platforms, Apptimize might be a good solution for A/B testing. Apptimize provides A/B testing tools for web, mobile, OTT, and in-store. They specifically focus on testing for companies with frequent product rollouts, such as software companies.
Is it the right fit for your business? If your customer journey crosses platforms, it’s a solid option. Features include:
In addition to A/B testing tools, Apptimize offers features for workflow management to make the entire process smoother.
Overall, the Apptimize website is a little light on specific features, but they do focus on helping product teams test and personalize rollouts and manage new features.
If your goal is to figure out which color CTA button to use, this tool isn’t for you.
If you are constantly rolling out new features, want to better understand who your customers are, and want customers to enjoy a personalized experience across all devices, Apptimize is worth a try. Plus, they offer a free trial, so you can see if it’s a good fit.
Pricing: Contact for custom pricing. Plans vary based on product options, volume, and whether you need omnichannel testing. No free trial.
Adobe Target is a full-featured testing platform that allows businesses to test the entire customer experience, including images, copy, UI, apps, layout, background colors, and more. It can also test personalization’s impact, which is essential considering personalized CTAs convert 202 percent better than default CTAs.
Adobe Target includes:
Target also integrates with other Adobe products in Adobe Experience Cloud, so this is a great option if you’re using Adobe for analytics, insights, and content.
According to online reviews, Target is not beginner-friendly, so it’s probably not ideal for those just starting out. However, if you’ve used other A/B testing tools or are familiar with Adobe’s suite of tools, you likely won’t have any issues. Adobe also offers plenty of training modules to get you up to speed.
Pricing: Contact for pricing.
Most A/B testing tools focus on titles, headlines, and button colors. When it comes to driving e-commerce conversions, however, pricing can have a huge impact on conversion rates. Intelligems is an A/B testing tool designed for Shopify store owners to test pricing changes.
Does dropping your price a few cents impact conversions? What about raising prices? The only way to find the perfect price point is to test.
With Intelligems, you can easily test how pricing and features like Subscribe and Save impact LTV, checkouts, and long-term growth.
Features include:
This tool is relatively new but could be a game-changer for e-commerce stores. They are accepting suggestions for new features, so hopefully, they’ll expand testing options in the future.
Pricing: Contact for full pricing, but Capterra reports pricing starts at $199.00 per month, which is far below Optimizely’s rate.
VWO is another full-featured testing tool similar to Optimizely and Google Optimize. If Optimize isn’t quite enough for your needs, but Optimizely is too pricey, VWO may be the perfect fit. It offers sophisticated testing funnels that are insanely customizable at more affordable rates.
VWO features include:
VWO also tracks more than just traffic and conversions. It also leverages advanced tracking methods such as heatmaps, pageviews, screen activity, and user interactions.
The platform offers three plans, with higher plans offering additional features like campaign scheduling and custom JavaScript targeting.
One drawback is the lack of data storage. Heatmaps tests, for example, only store testing data for 60 to 90 days according to some reviews.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $90 a month for up to 500 conversions and 20,000 visits. Unbounce offers a free 14-day trial.
Most of the tools we’ve covered so far are stand-alone A/B testing tools. You add a tracker to your website, then you can build, test, and launch A/B testing.
Unbounce is a little different. It’s actually a landing page tool with A/B testing baked into its software. Want to test your PPC landing pages? Test the impact of personalization? You can do all that—and a lot more.
A/B testing features from Unbounce include:
Compared to full-featured A/B testing tools like Optimizely or VWO, Unbounce definitely lacks features. However, if you already use Unbounce or are considering it for landing pages and sticky bars, the A/B testing features are a strong selling point.
Unbounce is also more affordable than other testing tools, making it ideal for dipping your toe into A/B testing.
Pricing: Free to test, though you will pay for ads.
Social media ads can drive conversions, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to your website. However, it can also be challenging to tell which headline, offer, CTA, or image is responsible for driving clicks (and conversions).
When you consider the average conversion rate for Facebook ads is 9.21 percent, it’s clear there is plenty of room for improvement.
Recently, Facebook launched their Experiments Tool, designed to make it easier to A/B test paid ads on the platform. Brands can test campaign groups, campaigns, or ad sets against each other and easily see which performs better.
To get started, create your Facebook ads first in Meta Business Manager (aka Facebook business manager). Then, head over to Experiments Tool. Click Tests to get started and then select A/B test.
You’ll be prompted to select the ads you want to A/B test, schedule your campaigns, and name the test. You can also determine how Facebook should choose a winner based on key metrics like cost per result, cost per conversion, cost per 1,000 people reached, and cost per purchase.
When you’re done, it will ask you to review your testing parameters before launching your test.
This tool is important for two reasons: First, it’s straightforward to use, which isn’t the case for some of the more full-featured A/B testing tools. It’s also one of the few tools that allow you to A/B test social ads to optimize performance.
Currently, the tool doesn’t appear to work on Instagram, but hopefully, they’ll add that feature.
Pricing: Plans start at $167 per month.
For e-commerce, A/B testing is about more than testing CTA button copy or seeing if a top sticky bar converts better than a bottom sticky bar. It’s about pricing, product pages, images, mobile vs desktop, and so much more.
While most tools on this list work in any industry, Ominconvert was built with e-commerce sites in mind. Features to check out include:
You can also set and track as many goals as you want and gain insights into why specific tests aren’t working.
It’s worth noting this is not a tool for beginners; it can be code-heavy at times and requires a pretty decent understanding of your site’s backend. However, it’s also affordable at $167 per month. Ominconvert is used by several powerful brands, including Samsung and ING, so they definitely know their stuff.
Pricing: Plans start at $24 per month for up to 5,000 views.
More than 455 million websites use WordPress—and you might be one of them. If you’re looking for an A/B testing tool that plays nice with the most popular CMS on the market, you’re in luck.
Nelio AB offers powerful A/B testing tools right in your WordPress dashboard. No more switching tools, integrating a dozen platforms, or getting lost trying to figure out how to set up a split test. Instead, you can click and install Nelio AB in just a few minutes.
Here are a few features Nelio AB provides:
While it’s missing some advanced features (like detailed segmentation), it still offers plenty. The fact that it lives in WordPress makes it convenient to use.
Pricing: Free for up to 100 contacts; paid plans start at $19 per month.
Want to improve conversion rates? Personalization should be part of your marketing strategy. According to Salesforce, 66 percent of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations.
Freshworks can help you provide the custom experience your customers crave. It’s not an A/B testing tool; rather, it’s a CRM with built-in automation features, including A/B testing, split testing, and segmentation.
In addition to running tests, Freshworks also provides:
Freshworks also offers A/B testing features such as split URL testing, landing page optimization, segmentation, and detailed reporting. While the tool lacks more advanced features like heatmaps, its built-in A/B testing features make it worth a look, particularly if personalization is important to you.
Pricing: Free.
A/B testing tools offer a ton of data. Unfortunately, understanding the data can be a challenge. Is Test A actually better or did it just get more traffic? Do you even have enough traffic to make a decision?
That’s where my A/B testing calculator comes to the rescue. Plugin your test results, and see exactly which landing page, CTA, headline, or website drives better results.
With the click of a button, you can see how much impact your recent test had on sales. Want to check the result of a multivariate test? Click the “Add Another Variation” button to see how three, four, or more tests stack up.
Pricing: Free.
Testing titles and headlines is a sure-fire way to increase conversions and make sure blogs, landing pages, email, and web pages perform well. Coming up with snappy new titles, however, can be a challenge.
That’s where a title generator tool comes in handy. Simply input your main keywords and the tool will generate a list of 700 headlines.
Review the list, decide which fits your content or ad the best, and add it to your A/B testing workflow.
As you can see from the image above, many are adjustable based on the content, so use these as inspiration, not set headlines you have to use.
Pricing: Free.
When it comes to paid ads, there are several areas to test—the headline, image, ad copy, and landing page. If you have trouble coming up with different ad headline options, this tool can help.
Inkforall’s Ad Headline Idea Generator uses AI to generate ad headlines and copy. Simply enter your current ad, log in via Facebook, Google, or Microsoft, and the tool will generate a new ad using the information you’ve provided.
While the AI isn’t perfect, it’s an easy way to find new ad formats to test. I do recommend reading and editing the AI generation—they definitely aren’t perfect. If you’re struggling to develop different ad versions to test, this tool is good for inspiration.
A/B testing tools generally offer a visual interface and tracking features to help businesses set up, run, and track the performance of tests. Most tools require you to add a tracking pixel to your website to track test performance.
Yes, but it requires a different setup than A/B testing on your website. Most social platforms support A/B testing on ads in their business center where you can test ad creatives, copy, or images.
You cannot A/B test post engagement or conversion directly. However, you can test social traffic impact by using A/B testing on your landing pages.
The first step of A/B testing is goal setting. What do you hope to improve? Do you want more traffic, higher conversions, more social engagement, or something else? Then, make a hypothesis to test.
Simply put, any elements! Do you think changing the CTA will improve conversions? Do you want to see if a different landing page image will increase demo sign-ups? Once you know what you want to test, choose one of the A/B testing tools from the list above and launch your test.
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A/B testing is the cornerstone of building an effective digital marketing strategy. These 15 A/B testing tools will help you build, launch, test, and record the results. If you’re just getting started with A/B testing, you can’t go wrong with Google Optimize. It’s easy to use, works with other Google tools, and allows you to run up to five tests at a time.
If you need more features or want a tool that does more than just run A/B tests, one of the other tools on this list might fit your needs.
Did your favorite A/B testing tool make the list? If not, share it in the comments.
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