Tag: Strategy

5 Rules for Your Sub-Brand Keyword Strategy

If you’ve tried Coca-Cola, you’ve probably had a Diet Coke.

If you use Google as your preferred search engine, chances are you have a Gmail account.

What’s the link between the two? Both are high-profile companies with high-profile sub-brands.

Think of a sub-brand as a room in a house and the house as your brand. Successful sub-branding means targeting the right audience with the right product.

If sub-brands are part of your company’s brand architecture, a well-defined sub-brand SEO strategy helps keep the lines clear.

Brands like Coca-Cola and Google do this well, making it clear how their sub-brands are related to but different from the parent brand. From an SEO perspective, this makes for an ideal keyword strategy.

I want to help you do the same with your brand architecture.

These five rules will help keep your sub-brand SEO keyword strategy true to your brand image while allowing your sub-brands to uniquely stand out.

Why Do Businesses Create Sub-Brands?

To sub-brand or not to sub-brand?

That is the question.

As you build your business’ brand, it’s tempting—and often strategic—to widen your footprint over time.

Companies across all industries have portfolios with multiple brands. Sometimes they develop these brands themselves. Sometimes they acquire them.

There are a lot of good reasons to create a sub-brand. Here are a few:

To Target Specific Audiences

In some cases, a business might want to distinguish between its flagship brand and sub-brands that target more specific audiences.

Take the car brand Toyota and its luxury sub-brand Lexus, for example. The brands operate independently under the Toyota umbrella, but they market to different target audiences. Having separate brands allows them to connect with each on a deeper level.

To Tap Into New Markets

Sub-brands are an opportunity to reach new audiences. Appealing to a new niche allows the parent brand to:

  1. Build a stronger bond with their current customer base
  2. Attract new customers
  3. Expand into a new, profitable revenue stream

Another approach might be for product expansion. Companies can use sub-brands to test a product on the market under a different brand name.

Who can say where they might end up?

To Uniquely Market Different Products

Whatever the motivations, sub-brands should stay true to the parent brand’s mission as they develop.

Each product has its own personality, feel, and set of features even though they are all separate items under the same umbrella company. This also means each sub-brand needs a separate budget for marketing and promotion.

So, of course, your sub-brand SEO keyword strategy needs to be sharp to support it.

Influencing search engines will take time, but it pays off when the conversions your strategy drives show up in audience and revenue.

#1: Think About the Audiences for Your Main and Sub-Brands

Look at the demand of your audience and prospective audience. How are you going to meet their needs with a sub-brand?

To answer this question, you must determine their search intent. Use keyword research to formulate this strategy.

Your content needs to provide them with the information they need. From your branding to your content, you want to spark a unique relationship with your target audience.

As I’ve said in the past, brand-loyal people want to find a brand to be loyal to.

The company’s business goals should serve as the cornerstone of the choice to expand. How you go about your sub-brand SEO strategies is unique to your desired outcome.

For example, I bet you didn’t know Converse was a sub-brand of Nike.

Well, if you’re on Converse’s marketing team, using “running shoe” as the sub-brand’s SEO keyword would be “off brand.” A more fitting keyword for the strategy would be “high top sneakers.”

So, while Converse is a sub-brand of Nike, their keyword strategy sets them apart from the parent company to see self-sustaining conversions.

You’ll notice when the right combination of keywords serves the company and sub-brand’s goals.

How will you know you hit that sweet spot?

Your audience will tell you.

Insights from your content performance metrics and ROI will reveal a wealth of resources. Then, you can sustain those wins by following that same strategy, adjusting as needed.

#2: Keep an Eye on Your Competition

You’ll need to keep an eye out for the competition as you expand. A strong sense of your audience and competitors will help differentiate your sub-brand.

Say you want to step into a market and challenge the industry norms.

Think of some of your favorite parent companies. Now, think of some of their spin-off ideas that have been successful.

Who did you think of?

I thought of Apple.

Apple's parent brand and some of its sub-brand companies.

For instance, Apple offers a variety of tech products. These products bear the Apple logo and support the parent company.

Apple is not a product in and of itself, but each sub-brand leverages Apple’s brand value and appeals to various market niches.

When Apple first started, they wanted to be perceived as the alternative to the mainstream. Sub-brands help carry out this plan. Think about how users proudly declare their loyalty to Apple products: “No PCs for me; I am a Mac guy.” “I don’t have an MP3 player; I have an iPod.” “It’s not a Blackberry; it’s an iPhone.”

Sub-brands allow Apple to stand out from the competition in completely different markets. Google’s algorithm favors domain diversity, meaning that you’re not likely to see a ton of pages from the same domain in a given SERP. This means that when talking sub-brands, you want to use as many domains as possible.

The homepage of Shazam, a sub-brand under the Apple the brand.

While the previous examples leveraged Apple’s brand equity, the company has also had success with sub-brands that stand alone.

A multi-domain SEO strategy, not to be confused with subdomain, helps them market Shazam as a sub-brand under the Apple brand. While branded as an individual product, Shazam is set up as a separate domain that drives traffic back to Apple’s domain. It feeds in users through Apple Music.

While it’s not a go-to SEO technique like keyword optimization, a multiple-domain SEO strategy is an out-of-the-box play that doubles your chance to rank for multiple domains.

With sub-brand SEO, you can implement a multiple-domain strategy without devaluing the brand by strengthening its approach to their audience and against competitors.

#3: Avoid Keyword Cannibalization at All Costs

Before you make your way down sub-brand SEO street, don’t take a wrong turn with your content due to keyword cannibalization.

If more than one of your pages pop up for the same search query, you’re competing against yourself. Because they target the same keywords, your pages eat into each other’s performance (hint: why we call it cannibalization).

Be mindful of keyword cannibalization when developing a sub brand SEO strategy.

Keyword cannibalization problems don’t come with a “one-size-fits-all” solution. There are unique approaches to address different cannibalization issues.

Those approaches include:

  • Merging Page Topics: Try to merge pages with similar topics that are getting in the way of how the page is competing among others.
  • Page Re-optimization: Taking another stab at the topic by re-optimizing pages helps set clear intentions for the page.
  • Redirect lesser-performing content: Once you determine which of the cannibalizing pages is the strongest, remove other pages and broken links you no longer need. From here, you can perform regular content audits. You’ll want to make your topics come first and have your keywords work for them.

Fix cannibalization issues and you’ll pull in your audience, further establishing brand authority in your industry.

#4 Be Realistic About Keyword Difficulty

Estimating keyword difficulty reveals how hard it will be to rank first on Google. As you brainstorm the “keyword bank” you want to use for your sub-brand, remember it needs to be realistic and profitable.

The difficulty of a keyword is determined by variables like domain authority, page authority, and content quality. So, use these points to guide you toward the ones that fit your sub-brand best.

Say your sub-brand is a dog treat expansion from your main dog food line:

Use the SEO tool Ubersuggest to find strategic keywords for sub brands.

An SEO tool like Ubersuggest tells you which keywords are most difficult to rank for. An easy keyword difficulty score lands between 0 and 29. From the list above, you can see they all rank over 30, meaning the competition is tough. This report also gives you a sense of the keywords your competition is targeting.

Another helpful highlight is user search intent. Before stepping into a particular market, this helps see how your potential audience might benefit from using your sub-brand as their solution.

Sub-brand SEO optimization is like a marathon and may not reach its full potential overnight.

However, targeting a term with a high keyword difficulty like “dog treats” is still worthwhile. If the ROI is good enough and the potential conversion rate is acceptable, go for it!

Even if a keyword has a low difficulty rating, is it really worth targeting if the ROI shows that there is little chance of making money from it and that it is not frequently searched for?

#5: Think About Brand Architecture at All Times

You are placing your company in danger if you don’t keep a sub-brand in step with its parent company. You’re not taking full advantage of the parent brand’s equity if you implement a sub-brand’s strategy in isolation.

This could potentially hurt the parent brand’s credibility. We saw this when Old Navy overtook the Gap as a sub-brand by strategizing in isolation.

A crucial component of the brand architecture “home” is the strategy it takes to build out a room (a sub-brand). Remember the house example I explained to you earlier? With a sub-brand, you have to think about the layout and how it fits within the parent company, or “home.”

Examine the brand strategy of your parent company while keeping in mind the prospect of future sub-brands. How can you expand to offer more solutions to your audience? What new markets do you want to conquer?

FAQs

What is a sub-brand?

A sub-brand is formed when a brand extends to one or more new individual product categories. Based on the outcomes of this expansion, sub-brands can be an effective marketing tool.

A sub-brand uses a unique name to develop its own brand, though that name sometimes complements or plays off the name of the parent brand. A sub-brand also has its own client expectations and personalities distinct from the parent company.

What does a sub-brand mean?

A sub-brand is created when a primary brand expands. Take Diet Coke for instance. It has a unique color code, yet it incorporates the iconic Coca-Cola logo with the recognizable bottle shape.

Sub-brands are frequently developed as a way to connect with untapped markets. Sub-brands can then establish themselves in the new market on behalf of the parent company.

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Conclusion

The idea of sub-branding is not new.

Through sub-branding and brand extensions, iconic companies have discovered how to increase brand recognition and “go global” over the years.

Maintaining your parent brand’s vision for the future is easier if you map out how the sub-brand’s growth will affect it, and vice versa.

Your brand is only as strong as your brand architecture. So, be strategic about how you build out your “home”—from parent company to sub-brand(s).

Sub-brand SEO helps you be deliberate with how you build out this idea.

The more in-tune you are with your long-term goals, the easier it is to figure out your initial direction for a new product line.

Keep your intentions clear at all times, making sure that each new entity has a stand-alone personality and functions within the larger framework of your parent company.

Are you considering launching a sub-brand? Do you need to review your brand architecture so your SEO efforts work in your favor? Get in touch with my team and we will help you brainstorm your options.

How to Use Ubersuggest for International SEO Strategy

Thinking about going international, but wondering whether you’ll sink or swim?

As your business has been continually growing, you’ve decided it’s time to go global.

The problem is, you’re worried about your pockets being deep enough for a global marketing budget.

What if I told you a global presence was possible for any business?

It’s all about your strategy.

The global economy offers a wide net of opportunity. However, you’ll want to be equipped before you cast your line out in such a big market.

Think about it this way…

You don’t just have more competitors to face, you have a bigger audience waiting for you.

One essential, but neglected step here is assessing your SEO potential in your target locations and how to build your international SEO strategy.

Let’s get you ready for global growth.

Does Your Business Need International SEO?

Millions of people are searching for a solution your product or business can solve. If you shoot for an international audience, that number can get even bigger.

Going international isn’t a must for every business, though. Some companies cater to certain regions and still see major success. For example, Erewhon is a California luxury supermarket with locations only in Los Angeles. Forbes noticed them after they generated $2,500 in sales per square foot of the market. In 2019, this was four times what the average grocery store’s sales were. They even remained in demand through the pandemic, bolstered by increased interest in organic supplements to fight COVID.

But, in some cases, going international takes businesses to the next level. Companies like Spanx and Whole Foods took international leaps. Today, they’re household names that started off as small businesses.

If you have greater ambitions, international SEO is an ideal strategy to expand your business. It helps your content, products, and services appear in worldwide search results. This isn’t as simple as firing up Google Translate, though.

It’s essential to adapt each piece of content to the audience you are aiming for. This includes your keyword research, the topics you prioritize, and the content style you present. A solid international SEO strategy will help your company reach new markets and multiply revenue.

How Is International SEO Strategy Different Than Domestic SEO Strategy?

The foundation of your international SEO strategy is just like domestic, in that you need to follow a series of best practices. However, how you accomplish those best practices can differ.

The main differences between your domestic SEO strategy and your international SEO strategy include:

  • Language variations
  • Local audience requirements
  • Local competitors
  • Search engine popularity and variety
  • Website variations needed
A keyword overview from Ubersuggest for the term meal delivery.
A keyword overview from Ubersuggest for the term meal delivery.

International traffic is available for the taking, but even in the same language, you can’t treat two countries’ audiences as identical.

In order to direct consumers to the page that best addresses their queries, search engines like Google and others consider location. This is why one of the key components of SEO is making sure user search intent matches. You’ll need to research what adjustments to make for your international SEO strategy to assist in reeling in this new audience.

How to Build An International SEO Strategy

Now that you’re ready to build an audience, you’ll need a strategy:

1. Lock in your target countries or regions

Once you pick your target audience, zero in on your subsets within that market. So, say you want to expand into Canada – as I did with my agency. You should be aware of the market and their need for your product or service. If a country looks like a market with potential for growth, take the opportunity to expand.

Seeing who is searching for a brand like you and where they are will be a big help. For example, you wouldn’t want to try to optimize for surfboards in a landlocked country! Dig a little deeper into the language as well. Subtle variations, like tire in the U.S. versus tyre in the U.K., can impact what your audience is entering in Google.

2. Assess your needs in the competitive international market

To be successful in this new territory, you should know who you’re up against. Learn about the competition’s digital presence and how they appeal to the audience in that area. The industry may be bigger or smaller in your country of origin, which would change how you approach trying to rank certain keywords.

3. Use an SEO tool to conduct international keyword research

You can use Ubersuggest to analyze the area and see what your competitors are ranking for. Let’s use the keyword ‘SEO’ with ‘English’ as the language we want to optimize for in Canada.

A keyword overview from Ubersuggest for the term SEO.

You can see the search volume is high, and the paid difficulty for this keyword is easy. So, stepping into the Canadian market with SEO as a keyword to build around shouldn’t be too difficult, since it’s going to be a key focus for us.

Knowing data points on who’s searching for these keywords will help you settle amongst or ahead of your competition. You can even note the keywords and content ideas competitors are having success with so you can optimize accordingly.

4. Localize for your global brand placement

Localizing will go a lot farther than just translation. Your international SEO strategy has to be adaptable. Your content needs to be in the right context for your audience to provide them with answers.

Depending on the consumer’s needs, localizing will be your key to keeping prospects feeling like they’ve found the right solution during their buyer journey. I understand that localizing multiple sites will be a tough hill to climb. However, seamless integration can happen with proper planning.

5. Optimize content and technical aspects

For the international landscape, your content and technical aspects need optimizing for your target region. The attributes of your localized page versions should be language and region-specific.

You’ll need to use hreflang tags to tell Google what the variation is for so the algorithms don’t flag your site for duplicate content. Make sure you check all assets align with local expectations as well, so your content isn’t misinterpreted. This way, you capitalize on the actionable data received through reporting.

International SEO Ranking Factors

While you can build a perfect strategy, outside factors can still affect your international SEO ranking.

But I’ll make sure you’re prepared.

To keep your strategy solid, be on the lookout for these variables:


Audience Response

A follower’s comment or a customer’s review are important forms of feedback. When your audience speaks about your brand, address the negatives and learn from them. The positive feedback is helpful as well. Both pipelines show how you can connect better with your audience. With direct information from customers, you can boost your reach and use keywords to continue to keep them in your target audience.

Link Building

I stand by link building because the more links I get leading an audience to my site, the more people I can help in their business development strategy. Having local support from blogs or even influencers from that region will show your credibility, even as an international business.

Mobile-Friendly Design

Having a mobile site that loads quickly and is easy to read matters. It will help with your search rankings and show you’re able to deliver the ideal user experience at an international level.

Best Practices for International SEO

Doing international SEO right really depends on your strategy. If you can predict the needs of your audience, you can expand your reach even further.

To start things off right, these five best practices will be your guide:

1. Study the audience and market you’re interested in

You’ll be doing more of a multi-stage optimization. As you roll out your strategy, you’ll need to know your audience and market well to gain insights on how to put in place an international SEO strategy. As you and your team grow more familiar with your audience, you can plan appropriate content to present.

2. Plan your international SEO strategy and approach

This step will depend on your business and target audience. Look at your products or services and determine how they will fit in various markets. Each region or country will have its own needs, and it’s important to take note of where you will fit in. Keyword research will help you get a feel for the temperature of the market.

3. Prepare content translations for localization

Your URLs and domains need the proper structure so they can target your particular audience – even subdomains matter. This will be a crucial step, so you’ll want to get it right the first time. This step also sets the groundwork for your link-building strategy in each market. When creating content, the hreflang attribution will need a design for the geographical region(s) intended to receive the content. This helps to avoid being flagged for duplicate content, hurting your strategy’s strength.

4. Analyzing your competitor’s rankings

They may be your future competitors now, but you’ll need to gauge how they’re performing. Get a glimpse of their standing with content and paid ads besides SEO. If you want to take on this market, international SEO will help you optimize. It’s likely you’ll find hidden opportunities your competitors are overlooking along the way.

5. Make content catering to local audiences

Any content you create should be relevant topics for the local audience. If you don’t have a team based in the area, find an expert to make sure they can review your content. They will ensure your messaging and appeal are specific. You don’t want your content to feel out of touch or like a translation of your existing methods in another region. Even if you don’t speak the local language, you can engage with the right approach.

How Ubersuggest Helps With International SEO Strategy

Having the right tools in this transition will enable you to maximize your international SEO strategy.

Want to land well in your target markets? Use Ubersuggest to help support your international ambitions.

Let’s walk through how Ubersuggest can help with international keyword research.

For one thing, the research stage for what’s trending and needed in your target country can go much smoother using this tool.

You can test keywords to see how they measure in reach for this country or find new keywords to use for this audience. Reporting will show you how successful certain keywords will be to this region before you even ideate content.

keyword ideas from Ubersuggest for the term SEO.

I’d like to especially mention how you can see where you stack up against your competition.

Similar websites overview from Ubersuggest compared to Tim Hortons.

Here I took Tim Hortons, a popular Canadian coffee chain, and compared similar domains that rank for keywords that also align with their strategy.

Similar website overview from Ubersuggest compared to Tim Hortons.

Seeing just how you compete with common keywords, traffic, and backlinks will help you set yourself apart. Remember, the goal is to shape your content around the needs of the locals.

Relatability and relevance to the audience in this region are most crucial for your strategy.

Thriving in this market will also depend on the potential traffic and backlinks you can rack up.

Using Ubersuggest for international SEO entails finding sites or pages that are seeing high traffic volumes.

However, the keywords give clues as to why.

If Tim Hortons is one of your competitors, you can see what locals are searching for to ensure your pages align with their specific demands and interests.

A keyword overview from Ubersuggest for the term Tim Hortons.

So, based on the data, you can see how locals are likely looking for accessible coffee shops and always want to know when one is nearby.

Other than keywords and traffic, backlinks can be measured as well.

Within the backlinks overview, you can see your domain authority. Domain authority references which pages have quality external backlinks. However, the number of backlinks shows how much reach you’re getting with your content. If you can focus on referring domains, you can gain a lot of organic domains mentioning you. Like you can see below, Tim Hortons gets a lot of referring domains, meaning a lot of people are talking about them. Google recognizes this as many sites having confidence in their content.

A backlink overview from Ubersuggest for timhortons.com.
Backlink overview for Tim Hortons.

By getting referenced, your audience has the chance to widen.

It’s likely those backlinking to your site have a common thread with your brand or share an aligning topic. Then, you can look at your competitors, research which of their pages landed them a backlink, and see if you can rank for the same topic locally.

Being able to customize your strategy based on research before you enter these new markets brings fresh insight. Using this information, you can make pivots before investing and branching into going global.

Think of Ubersuggest taking your SEO marketing to an advanced mode.

I’ve got you covered when it comes to setting you up for success in a new market for your business.

Conclusion

It’s time to take things to a global level.

To make your international impact, international SEO is essential.

Why? It’ll help make big strides as you branch out. From studying trending SEO tactics to scouting the competitive landscape, you’re already increasing your chances for a positive investment.

But how do you ensure that your next big leap has a great landing?

Every region, every country, has its own little quirks and needs that you need to understand and master in order to get ranking in their searches.

This goes from the topics you cover to the way you describe different subjects and items, but it’s a science you will grasp.

It’s all about testing and understanding.

The numbers won’t lie.

Now get to raking in that international revenue.

What countries do you want to target first? Make sure you test Ubersuggest to see where you currently stand in those areas and how well your competitors are doing in real-time.

How to Optimize Your Anchor Text Strategy For SEO

The early days of SEO were like the Wild, Wild West.

Blackhat SEO experts did everything imaginable to rank their sites on Google, including keyword stuffing and creating spammy backlinks.

It worked–for a bit.

These days, Google’s SERP Algorithm cracked down on content quality, and those older SEO hacks have long crumbled to dust. Details like anchor text matter.

Why? Because we’re working with a more intelligent, more complex algorithm. Today, there are now more than 200 Google ranking factors.

The recent Core Web Vitals update, which said websites must be fast-loading, stable, and secure, impacted more than a million websites. This means that sites must improve on-site experiences if they want to rank alongside writing and publishing your content. 

Similarly, Penguin, (aka the “webspam algorithm”) has seen a few changes over the last few years. The anchor text in your backlinks and internal links is more important than ever.

Too much “noise,” and you’ll upset the algorithm. Too little, and you’ll disturb the algorithm.

It’s a delicate balance. 

However, it’s worth paying attention when you consider SEO is a top priority for most marketers in 2022.

This guide will cover how to optimize your anchor texts to improve your SEO – and avoid a Google penalty that reduces your audience size considerably.

However, before we start, let’s make sure you understand what anchor text is and how it can impact SEO.

What Is Anchor Text?

There’s a good chance that you use anchor texts daily, maybe without even realizing it. Anchor text is the clickable text you see in a hyperlink.

Example of anchor text anchor text SEO guide

If the internet is a highway, think of anchor texts like signs for upcoming exits.

They send signals to both your website’s users and search engines. When used correctly, they connect you to a different “lane” by allowing you to source credible information from another website.

They also play a role in helping users navigate your site and give Google’s algorithm a good idea of who your content is relevant for.

If you look at your site’s code, you will see a line that looks like this:

Anchor text SEO example of coding

This is the part of your site that Google sees.

There is a section that tells your web browser and search engines which link to follow.

Here’s how that translates to what’s on your page:

backlinks anchor text sample

When a user clicks on the link, it will take them to the indicated page.

If you’ve never dug into the details of URLs before, it’s easy to imagine that merely creating a link is where the fireworks end – but there’s a much more profound reason for brands to focus on this simple element.

Why is Anchor Text Important for SEO?

As I previously mentioned, in 2012, Google decided to rock the SEO world by releasing the Penguin algorithm. Then it was updated again recently.

Due to this change, anchor text quickly became the easiest way to determine how relevant a reliable website was.

Google also started using backlinks and its anchor texts to see if a website had been over-optimized.

Anchor Text Penalty 1 anchor text SEO guide

Since Google penalizes over-optimization in this case, the role of the anchor text was only magnified. Since Google has updated the Penguin algorithm multiple times, it’s easy to presume we’ll see even more changes in the future. 

It’s something to watch if you want to maximize ROI from your content marketing, as, sadly, when algorithms change, many brands see massive traffic dips. 

Do you want that to be you? 

Keep in mind, traffic dips will also mean a dip in revenue. Dip too far from too many hits, and your brand could be in trouble. That’s why finding the right balance with anchor texts is so vital to your SEO efforts. 

A 2018 update hit 3.1 percent of websites that had been over-optimizing their anchor texts (and that was just from more prominent websites who reported their dip, imagine how many more suffered.)

Anchor text penguin vs panda anchor text SEO

At the very least, it’s clear that the anchor text used in backlinks is an SEO signal for the foreseeable future. 

Remember: the theory behind anchor text applies to internal links as much as it applies to backlinks.

Luckily, the algorithm has wisened enough that Google will now only penalize the offending page instead of entire sites, but this could still dramatically affect your traffic and revenue in the long run.

The Different Varieties of Anchor Texts

When it comes to search engines, SEO experts like to leave no stone unturned.

In the case of anchor texts, we’ve had more than a decade to parse through all of the available information. It shouldn’t surprise you that there are many ways to create anchor texts that are both useful and useless.

1. Exact Match Anchor Text

An exact match anchor text is when you use anchor text wording as the targeted keywords for your entire page. For example, using “free SEO tool” as the anchor text to link to my SEO tool Ubersuggest.

In the early days of SEO, using exact matches several times on a single page almost guaranteed your post would do well. But, they were overused to such an extent that Google penalized overuse. 

It’s still a good idea to use some exact match anchor texts. However, in general, you want to mix it up with other types of anchor texts.

2. Partial Match Anchor Text

Partial match anchor texts include your keyword along with other words. For example, using “try my SEO tool” as the anchor text for a link to Ubersuggest. As you’ll see in this article, I typically use these the most on my own site.

It’s an especially useful method for anchor text because I can still effectively include my keyword without coming across as spammy.

Google can still follow my link and have a better idea of the content on my page without suspecting me of trying to manipulate its algorithm.

Since this isn’t seen as a manipulative linking practice, it’s a highly recommended way to boost the authority of your page. But, like other strategies, you don’t want to overuse them.

I also recommend avoiding sentence-long anchor texts. These dilute any keywords you use and can confuse the user as they aren’t sure exactly what part of the sentence the link is related to.

3. Branded Anchor Text

Next, you also have branded anchor texts that rely on a brand’s name to establish authority. Here’s an example from Ahrefs:

brand name anchor text anchor text SEO guide

As an outbound backlink, this is a great practice.

This is another safe and effective way to build a stronger anchor profile, as it signals to Google that you’re pointing toward other high-quality tools and services.

Of course, you also want to try to find other brands that will help you with your link-building efforts in this way as well.

Never hesitate to link to another brand, especially with a keyword attached to it. Google sees this as a healthy practice as you’re not over-linking to that brand.

4. Naked Anchor Text

This type of anchor text is easy to use–but also not the most effective. It’s commonly used for sources, such as an image or a quote. It is simply the URL pasted into a post in all its naked glory.

For example, I might say “according to www.thisisareliablesource.com, 45 percent of marketers think adding anchor text helps their website ranking.”

You can see why this isn’t a good idea.

When reading content, it’s pretty disruptive to have your attention diverted away to a reference suddenly.

It might also lead your visitor to believe you’re not as technically inclined, ultimately making them your authority.

Whenever possible, avoid this type of anchor text.

5. Generic Anchor Text

You’ve probably seen a lot of these, as they make it easier to create content that flows and even prompts a call to action.

Use this type of anchor text when you want to draw your audience’s eye to a credible source or useful tool – though not too much. 

A repetitive “this page” and “read this here” link practice can get pretty boring really quickly, and it doesn’t tell Google anything about the content you’re linking to.

Instead, highlight parts of the sentence to show users what they can expect to find when they click, as I did in the first sentence of this section.

6. Latent Semantic Index Keywords (LSI)

While this next option may sound complicated, it’s really just the method that search engines use to predict what users will type into the search bar.

When I type “what is anchor” into Google, the search bar provides a series of other popular search options for me to select from.

anchor text query on google anchor text SEO

Using LSI keywords as anchor text creates search-friendly elements of your site that Google can instantly recognize as relevant to a unique search.

While there’s debate over the validity of this approach (Google’s John Muller, for example, says Google has no concept of LSI keywords.) Still, it’s not a bad idea to implement this approach to help readers understand the link context.

Of course, you want to make sure you can naturally use these keywords in your content.

“What is anchor baby” or “what is anchor app” might be difficult to use in a way that flows as a coherent thought, so be aware of that when adding these types of links.

7. Image Anchor 

Image anchors make images clickable. They can help users navigate in and around your website, though be warned: they can make websites less accessible.

Links on images can move your audience to a new site when they just wanted to resize something to see it better or scroll through your post.

Most commonly, you’ll see this approach with a call to action button that is clickable, much like an ad.

CTA anchor text anchor text SEO guide

In these instances, Google will read the alt tag of your image as the anchor text.

If you don’t have an alt tag optimized, Google will read it as a “NoText” anchor, which you should avoid.

This method is a great way to vary your anchor text methods and provide a more non-traditional approach.

As long as your user knows they can click on it, feel free to include one in a blog post or on your site.

Anchor Text SEO: Best Practises for Using Anchor Text in Your SEO Strategy

Now that you’ve learned more about the various types of anchor text, it’s time to dive into some best-practice SEO tips.

These will be simple, basic guides that can help you develop a more nuanced strategy with time.

Tip #1: Stay On Topic

The unfortunate truth is that there’s a lot of misconception about what good anchor text is.

However, when it comes to SEO in your linking practices, relevancy is high on the list for being ranked by Google. 

They don’t want to get a bad reputation by providing users with irrelevant responses to queries. 

That means your anchor text should consist of words and phrases that closely match the topic of your embedded link.

Say, for example, you run a company that offers content marketing services to small businesses. 

If you want visitors to your site to navigate to a blog post you created about the importance of content, you would need to add a link.

In that link, you need to select a word or phrase as your anchor text related to your blog’s content. Otherwise, Google will see that hyperlink as manipulative and potentially penalize your site.

Here’s an example of what that could look like in your content:

relevant anchor text example anchor text SEO

I’ve used the anchor text “how to structure your URLs in the image above.”

That introduces the concept that I want my reader to understand and shows them that they should be able to find relevant information on that topic.

Here’s what you would see if you follow that link:

relevant anchor text example 2 anchor text SEO example

On the other side is a blog post that’s an exact match to the topic I introduced.

Imagine what would happen if instead of a helpful blog post, I linked to a page that was selling sunglasses.

You would be confused and probably wouldn’t want to follow another link on my blog. You probably wouldn’t come back and read my content because it is seen as manipulative.

So Google isn’t the only one looking for relevance here–the reader is, too.

If you want to establish trust with your website’s visitors, they need to know that you’re using sources and linking practices in their interest.

Additionally, research shows having at least one keyword anchor that signals relevancy creates a greater chance of your content ranking higher.

no keyword anchor text anchor text SEO guide

That means Google still values a keyword-relevant anchor text that provides a good idea about the topic of your content.

As long as you try to keep at least some of your anchor texts relevant, Google will have an easier time categorizing your content and ranking you accordingly.

Tip #2: Always Incorporate Variation

If you always want an exact match, Google’s spam filter will go off, and you’ll take a hit.

You’ll probably have a similar effect if you always only link to brand names.

When it comes to creating a strategy for anchor texts that helps SEO, it is best to use your own unique and varied approach.

That flies in the face of the typical advice you see that focuses on which anchor texts you should use based on specific ratios.

anchor text ratio breakdown anchor text SEO best practices

For a home page, you’d be inclined to use 5 percent exact match, 20 percent phrase match, and 10 percent key phrases.

However, recommendations vary widely based on who provides the advice and even what industry you are in.

In most cases, you can follow the prescribed advice and attempt to establish a baseline strategy for your anchor text practices. Once you get that baseline, do what works best to boost your SEO and organic rankings–and that requires a more in-depth evaluation.

You can always check out what your competition is doing if you are struggling!

I make this recommendation based on a study that displayed the after-effects of Penguin 4.0 on a variety of different brands across different niches.

anchor text case 2 anchor text SEO

After the update, the first brand decreased its “target” or exact match keywords and redistributed its anchor text strategy more widely.

Once the changes were implemented, it fought its way back to its pre-Penguin 4.0 standing on Google.

Just compare the graph above to this one:

anchor text case 2 anchor text SEO

The most notable difference is that they are different, but, in each case, both are ranking well. So what does that mean for ration prescriptions and other similar anchor text optimization schemes?

You should take them with a grain of salt.

While it might work for one brand, there’s no guarantee it will work for you. Plus, it’s incredibly tedious to try and exactly match another brand’s strategy to the letter.

Instead, you should focus on creating a more natural distribution for your anchor text scheme.

anchor text distribution infographic anchor text SEO

All of these variations rely on very natural language and display a clear intent to both search engines and your user.

By focusing on experimentation and natural language in your anchor texts, you’re more likely to see better results in the long run.

Tip #3: Test and Track Your Anchor Texts

Tracking how you use anchor texts on your site will take a bit of effort, but it’s the only way to test how they affect your SEO over time.

To start tracking the variety of anchor texts you use, I recommend using the Anchor Text Categorizer Tool by Linkio.

This tool asks you to fill in various details about your content, including the URL, page title, brand name, and keywords.

You should also fill in the exact anchor texts you use in the content, as you can see below.

anchor text tool screenshot

In this case, I’ve filled in a few from an actual blog post on my site.

anchor text tool screenshot 2

There’s also a helpful percentage calculator just to the side of your screen.

anchor text tool screenshot 4

This is where you can start creating a baseline for your anchor text procedure.

As I mentioned in the previous point, you can attempt to implement another brand’s scheme or develop your own. As long as you see a wide variety of anchor texts that help your SEO, then you’re taking the right approach.

Another good idea is to start using Semrush to keep tabs on what types of anchor texts link to your site. To find this info, you’ll need to navigate to the Backlinks tab of the Semrush dashboard.

From there, you’ll click on the option that says “Anchors”.

anchor text Semrush anchor text SEO guide

Now you can see which terms are being used by other brands when they link to your site.

Remember that anchor texts are largely used by Google as a signal of content relevancy and domain authority, so these anchor texts are vital to your SEO.

In my case, most anchors to my site are either my name or something marketing-related.

Anchor text Semrush results

That’s good because my name is my brand, and I help businesses grow through digital marketing.

These anchor texts took years to build, but because of the content I produce and the relationships I’ve built, they help my SEO, and in many cases, help my articles rank on the first page of Google.

With enough time and the right approach to your own backlinking, you can build this type of backlink anchor base for your own brand and see excellent results.

Anchor Text Strategy for SEO Frequently Asked Questions

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the clickable text that you see in online content that takes you to a new page. It is often underlined or colored blue. Like this.

Why does anchor text matter?

Google uses anchor text to determine if a link is relevant and valuable. It’s not the most crucial ranking factor, but it does impact SEO. Additionally, readers use anchor text to determine if they will click a link.

What are the different types of anchor text?

The types of anchor text are:

  • Exact match: Use the same keywords as the targeted keywords for your page.
  • Partial Match: Include the keyword along with other keywords.
  • Branded Anchor Text: Add a link to the name of the brand.
  • Naked Anchor Text: Uses the entire URL as the link.
  • Generic Anchor Text: Phrases like “click here” or “this page.”
  • Latent Semantic Index: Also known as LSI, these are keywords that search engines predict users will search for when they are searching for a particular word or phrase.

What are some tips for optimizing anchor text?

Some best practices for anchor text SEO are: stay on topic, keep a consistent structure, incorporate variation, and test and track your anchor text. When possible, use keywords–but don’t overdo it.

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  • Naked Anchor Text: Uses the entire URL as the link.
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Anchor Text SEO Conclusion

Anchor texts are important. While they won’t tank your SEO on their own, they are a ranking factor for SEO. Additionally, they can impact reader trust.

Google has had anchor texts and backlinks on an ever-tightening leash, so it’s a good idea to ensure you use the best approach for your SEO. 

It’s also a good idea to implement a unique backlink variation strategy based on your research results.

Using tools like Anchor Text Categorizer and Semrush will ensure that you don’t miss any important changes to your anchor text SEO efforts.

These tips will create an anchor text strategy strong enough to boost your SEO and weather any future changes.

What strategies have you used to improve your anchor texts?

How to Leverage Ubersuggest SEO Reports to Keep Your Strategy in Check

There are no two ways about it: SEO works. It’s one of the main tools I used to build this site, and I’ve seen it work for hundreds of clients around the globe.

However, SEO is complicated. It requires data insights, analytics, tracking, and constant upkeep. While there are plenty of SEO tools on the market, many of them are expensive and hard to use.

This is why I created Ubersuggest—to help marketers and business owners get access to the SEO insights they need to drive massive amounts of traffic and increase revenue.

Why Should You Use Ubersuggest SEO Reports to Support Your Digital Marketing and Content Strategy

Ubersuggest’s SEO reports provide a massive amount of insights into the overall health of your website, including SEO opportunities, backlinks, content ideas, and a whole lot more. Why should you use it?

If your SEO is lacking, you risk losing traffic to your competition. Consider these statistics:

If you want traffic to your website, you need to be on top of your SEO game—and Ubersuggest can help. More than 50,000 users, from small businesses to enterprise companies, currently use Ubersuggest.

Why do they love it? Here are a few reasons:

  • Ubersuggest is 70 percent cheaper than alternative SEO tools.
  • It’s easy to use, and we provide tons of support to make sure you can make the most of it.
  • We keep adding features, which means you’ll always have access to the tools you need to drive traffic and improve your SEO.
  • Gain access to tools, worksheets, and templates to increase the ROI of all your digital marketing efforts.

If you’re just getting started in SEO, I highly recommend watching the video below to understand the basics. Keep reading if you want to learn how SEO reports from Ubersuggest can help increase your SEO ROI.

Ubersuggest is a full-featured SEO tool that offers tons of SEO reports and tools to help your site succeed. Here are seven ways Ubersuggest will help you stay on top of your SEO game.

1. Use Ubersuggest SEO Reports to Identify Top SEO Opportunities

The first five organic results account for 67.60 percent of all the clicks, while results ranking 6 to 10 account for only 3.73 percent of clicks. This means if you want traffic, you need to find and leverage SEO opportunities.

Ubersuggest makes this process simple with our Top SEO Opportunities report. Here’s how to access it:

Sign in to Ubersuggest, then look at the Top SEO Opportunities in your dashboard. This list serves as a checklist to improve your current SEO strategy. The list will automatically update as you make changes and as new opportunities arise. For example, if a competitor starts to gain traffic with one of your core keywords, we’ll let you know.

Check it at least once a week, and try to tackle at least one suggestion a week from the list to keep your momentum going.

Ubersuggest SEO report tool for SEO opportunities

This report doesn’t just tell you what’s wrong—it also tells you how to fix it. Take a look at the screenshot above. If you click “Optimize for Keyword,” Ubersuggest will tell you what topics to cover and even provide a basic outline you can use to create the high-quality content Google loves.

It’s kinda like having your own personal SEO consultant keeping an eye on your website 24/7.

2. Use Ubersuggest to Perform Monthly SEO Audits

SEO audits should be performed regularly to ensure your website stays in good SEO standing. Most businesses, however, only perform an SEO audit two to four times a year.

It’s easy to understand why SEO audits are time-consuming and difficult, especially if the process is unfamiliar.

SEO audits don’t have to be a pain. With Ubersuggest, you can easily perform an SEO audit in just a few minutes. Here’s how:

  • Log into your Ubersuggest dashboard.
  • Click on the “Site Audit” button in the left sidebar.
  • Enter your website URL.

That’s all you have to do. Ubersuggest will crawl your website and deliver a detailed SEO audit. If you have a large site, this could take a few minutes, so be patient.

Ubersuggest shows your on-page SEO score, organic traffic, number of backlinks, organic keywords you are ranking for, insights into load time, and SEO issues.

Ubersuggest SEO report tools for an SEO audit

This is a great place to go to understand the current state of your website. You will get a detailed SEO overview of your website, as it stands today, so you can understand your technical strengths and weaknesses.

You can use this information to prioritize what’s most important and create monthly to-dos to tackle.

If you decide to hire someone to help with your website, just hand over the prioritized list to them each month. We tell you what changes will make the most impact on your website and how difficult the updates are, so you can decide what to tackle yourself and what to outsource.

3. Use Ubersuggest SEO to Find Profitable Keywords and Track Your Progress

Keywords are the backbone of a solid SEO strategy. However, finding the right keywords can be a challenge. Just because a keyword has a high search volume, for example, doesn’t mean it will drive traffic to your website.

You should perform keyword research on at least a monthly basis. The good news is that Ubersuggest can do it for you.

Use the Keyword Overview report to understand search volume trends, SEO, and paid difficulty, plus the average CPC for your targeted keywords.

This will help you find other keyword ideas that might be easier to rank for within the Overview report (think lower volume, lower-paid and SEO difficulty, lower CPC.)

Note, these change with seasonality for a lot of companies, so check this at least once a month.

Ubersuggest SEO report tools keyword overview

You’ll also see a table of Keyword Ideas. Keep special note of the keywords that have a low SEO difficulty, as these are generally easier to rank for. If you don’t currently have content covering that topic, now is the time. Just make sure those terms are relevant to your customers.

Ubersuggest SEO report tool for keyword ideas

You can also see what keywords drive traffic to your competitors’ websites with the Keywords by Traffic report. I recommend checking this monthly to see how keyword trends change for them as well.

Track how you perform for your targeted keywords with the Rank Tracking report. It’s best to have at least 30-50 keywords saved in any given month and to check weekly to ensure you aren’t losing ground with keywords you’ve worked hard to rank for.

Ubersuggest SEO report tool for keyword position

You’ll also see which keywords you are ranking well for. If you’ve recently updated content, earned new backlinks, or made other changes, this data will tell you it’s working. (And that you might want to use those same strategies on other pages.)

4. Use Ubersuggest SEO to Discover New Content Ideas as Your Company Grows

Every day, more than 6 million blog posts are published on the internet. That makes finding new content ideas a challenge. If it feels like every topic has already been covered, you’re not alone.

Finding new content ideas is challenging, but Ubersuggest can make it a lot easier.

Use the Content Ideas report to discover what types of blogs are popular on the internet. Get inspiration from the list and choose topics you’re comfortable writing about that you may have a different angle to talk about.

This report also helps you to stay away from writing about a topic that others have already covered and are ranking well for, which makes them harder to compete with.

Ubersuggest SEO report tool for content ideas

Don’t ignore topics that have already been covered. Instead, look for ways to create better or more in-depth content. For example, you could:

  • Write a longer post that covers a topic in more depth.
  • Share insights or case studies that show how to implement a strategy.
  • Consider other content formats, such as videos, infographics, or white papers.

The list of ideas in this report is ever-changing, giving you endless ideas to work from.

5. Use Ubersuggest SEO to Identify Backlink Opportunities

According to research by Backlinko, the number of domains linking to a page has the highest correlation to Google ranking. In fact, the number one result in Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than those in positions 2 through 10.

One of the best ways to improve your SEO is to increase your backlinks—the right way. Buying links, trading links, and other black hat strategies won’t deliver the results you want. Instead, I recommend using the Ubersuggest Backlinks report to see how your competitors are performing and find opportunities for your own site.

Links to both your and your competitors’ websites change regularly (for some, it’s happening daily). Head to the Backlinks Opportunities report often to see who’s linking to your competitors but not to you, then reach out to those companies with similar (not the same) content and ask them to link back to you.

Ubersuggest SEO reports for backlinks

Not sure what to say? Here’s a link to backlinks email outreach ideas and templates

Once you’ve gained some momentum, check your Backlinks Overview report at least monthly and pay special attention to the Backlinks Overtime report. This will show your backlinks growth and understand how many new websites are linking to you each month (and how many you’ve lost).

Ubersuggest SEO reports for backlinks over time

This can also help you find other websites similar to the ones linking to you already, and you can reach out to the ones who stopped linking to you to understand why.

6. Use Ubersuggest SEO for Weekly Check-ins for the Biggest Impact

Google’s algorithm uses more than 200 factors to determine which website to rank for a specific search, and those factors are constantly changing. This means the most effective SEO strategies are constantly changing, too.

So how do you keep up? By using Ubersuggest to get weekly notifications about the health of your site’s SEO.

Turn on weekly notifications here to get a quick view of the following:

  • Rank Tracking Alerts: Get email and in-app notifications about important rankings gained and lost, new positions conquered and lost.
  • Site Audit Alerts: Get email and in-app notifications of new SEO issues and errors found on your website, as well as on-page improvements that can increase your rankings.
  • Keyword Opportunities Alerts: Get email and in-app notifications about keywords that are rising in popularity and when it’s the perfect opportunity to invest more time and effort into ranking for these keywords.
Ubersuggest SEO reports for weekly alerts

Successful SEO is an ongoing process, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend hours every week digging into analytics. These SEO ranking reports allow you to keep an eye out for issues while you stay focused on your long-term goals.

7. Use Ubersuggest Support for Personalized Assistance

We’ve covered how to use Ubersuggest to pull the best SEO reports you need to track your performance. What happens if you have a question or aren’t sure what a suggestion means? The Ubersuggest team is here to help.

In fact, there are five ways to get additional SEO support from Ubersuggest, including:

  • Coaching Call: If you get stuck with anything, Ubersuggest offers monthly coaching calls where you can call in and get your questions answered by one of their SEO experts. Register here.
  • SEO Unlocked 8-week Free, self-paced course: My course covers everything you need to know about SEO, from what SEO is to performing keyword research and optimizing your website.
  • Customer Support: Have issues with Ubersuggest or aren’t sure where to find something? Submit a ticket and my team will get back to you ASAP.
  • Knowledge Base: This post covers the SEO reports in Ubersuggest, but there are even more features to love. Search in the Knowledge Base here to learn more.
  • Chat: Want immediate help? You can ask a question in the chat box at the bottom right of any page in Ubersuggest.

SEO Reports Frequently Asked Questions

What should an SEO report include?

A good SEO report should include overall traffic, keyword ranking, a list of backlinks, time on site and bounce rate, top traffic by page, keyword search volume, competitor data, SEO tasks to complete, and an overview of the entire SEO report.

What does a good SEO report look like?

A good SEO report should provide the data and insights you need to improve your ranking in search engines. Ideally, it should cover overall traffic, keyword ranking, backlinks, traffic per page, and SEO errors. The format should be easy to use and understand. With Ubersuggest, you can view all this data in the dashboard or screenshot the charts and embed them in a Google Slides presentation.

How do you read SEO reports?

It depends on the report you’re viewing and what type of data you need. I recommend starting with the overview of the SEO ranking report, then drilling down into specific areas based on your goals and needs. For example, if your overall traffic is dropping, the SEO errors are a good place to start as there might be an issue impacting your entire website.

How do you create an SEO report?

The best way to create an SEO ranking report is to sign up for Ubersuggest, add your website, and use the SEO report tools to pull the data you need to drive traffic. Alternatively, you can dig into Google Search Console and Google Analytics to pull the relevant data. However, those tools often don’t provide the level of detail or recommendations you need to drive SEO success.

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Conclusion: Get the Best SEO Reports from Ubersuggest

The cost of SEO varies based on the size of your site and your goals. However, the average small business can expect to pay between $750 and $2,000 per month for ongoing SEO support or up to $35,000 for one-time projects.

Despite the importance of SEO, those rates can be difficult for many businesses to manage. Luckily, Ubersuggest’s SEO Reports can provide visibility into your SEO for just a few dollars a month, and you won’t have to sacrifice results.

If you’d rather have an SEO expert do the work for you, we’re happy to help. Reach out to my team, and let’s talk about your SEO goals.

Have you used Ubersuggest’s SEO reports? What is your favorite feature?

Discover 6 of The Best Business Credit Cards for Travel Points and A Little-Known Strategy to Improve Your Chance of Approval

Credit card rewards can be a great financing tool.  Rewards points can reduce major expenses when you redeem them for cash back, statement credit, and more.  If your business involves a lot of travel, travel points can be a huge budget saver. Strong business credit can help increase your chances of approval when it comes to business credit cards for travel points.

Increase Your Approval Chances When it Comes to Business Credit Cards for Travel Points, and Get our Top Picks for the Best Options

Of course, you will also need to do some research to determine which credit cards for travel points will work best for your business. Never fear, because we put together a list of some of the best business credit cards for travel to give you a head start.

Our Favorite Business Credit Cards for Travel Points

These are some of our top picks for credit cards that offer travel points, but remember, details can change often and without warning. Please check with the card provider directly to ensure you have the most current information.

Bank of Hope Credit Card

The Bank of Hope credit card offers many benefits.  There is no annual fee, and you earn 5,000 bonus points after spending $1,000  in the first 3 months. Not only that, but you also earn 3x points on gas, 2x points on travel and dining, and 1 point per dollar on all other purchases.  There is also a 0% introductory APR for 9 months.  After that, there is a variable APR of 12.49%, 16.49% or 20.49% based on creditworthiness.

Banner Bank Credit Card

Another good option is the Banner Bank Credit Card. There is a $19 per card annual fee, and you earn 3 TruRewards points per net dollar on retail, internet, phone or mail order purchases. You can redeem points for cash back, travel, gift cards or merchandise.  The best part, however, is the fixed 11.99% APR.

Business Advantage Travel Rewards Credit Card

The Bank of America Business Advantage Travel Rewards credit card is made for small businesses. It boasts a $0 annual fee. There is also a bonus of 30,000 bonus points.  Regular rewards include 1 point per dollar on all purchases, except for 3 points per dollar on travel purchases booked through the Bank of America Travel Center.  There is a 0% introductory APR for the first 9 billing cycles.  After that the APR is 12.24-22.24%.

PNC Travel Rewards Visa Business Credit Card

The PNC Travel Rewards Visa business credit card allows holders to earn 1 mile per $1 in eligible net purchases and double miles on the first $2,500 in eligible net purchases.  There is a variable APR of 10.99-19.99% and no annual fee.

Mastercard Money Manager Business Credit Card

With the Money Manager Business Credit Card from Mastercard, you can earn travel benefits or merchandise via Republic Bank’s ScoreCard rewards. There is no annual fee the first year, and a $95 annual fee thereafter.  You can also get automatic fuel discounts and 0% intro APR for 9 months. After the introductory period, the interest rate is 17.45%.

Synovus Business Travel Rewards Visa Credit Card

This Synovus Business Travel Rewards Visa Credit Card offers 0% APR for the first 6 months on purchases.  There is no membership fee the first year, and then $50 per year thereafter. You earn 5x points on up to $5,000 per year spent on travel purchases.  This includes hotel, airlines, car rental, and vacation packages.  You also earn 3x points on up to $3,000 spent quarterly for purchases in the category of your choice, and 1x points on all eligible purchases. There is no limit on points, and you can pay for purchases with points, subject to some restrictions.  Points are worth 20% more when redeemed for travel.

Tip: Strong Business Credit Can Help You Get Business Credit Cards for Travel Points

Despite the fact that most credit cards will pull your consumer credit report, business credit can still play a role in the approval process. If your personal score is not right where it needs to be, but your business credit score is strong, you are more likely to be approved. Not only that, but you will have a better chance at getting the best rates and terms available.

This is why it is important to ensure your business credit is where it needs to be. A business credit expert can help. Get a free business credit consultation now.

The post Discover 6 of The Best Business Credit Cards for Travel Points and A Little-Known Strategy to Improve Your Chance of Approval appeared first on Credit Suite.

How to Create a B2B Content Strategy

B2B and B2C content marketing require entirely different strategies. However, whether you’re targeting businesses or individual consumers, one point remains the same: Content matters. 

Content is how you boost brand awareness, build trust in your company, and empower your customers to solve their problems. However, you can’t just create the occasional blog post or paid ad and hope to generate results. 

Instead, you need a targeted B2B content marketing strategy to reach your marketing goals. 

Let me show you why a strategy is so important and help you figure out how to reach those valuable business prospects.

Why Do You Need a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?

A content marketing strategy is like a roadmap or a blueprint. While it’s not set in stone, a marketing strategy is a set of guidelines to help you get from point A to point B. 

Without a roadmap, you’re more likely to get lost. There’s a higher chance you’ll lose sight of your business goals, and you might struggle to get back on track. 

A marketing strategy, then, is key to helping you create the right content at the right time to reach your target clients in the shortest time possible.

You can’t just use any old content marketing strategy, though. 

As mentioned, B2B content marketing presents different challenges from B2C content marketing. With B2B, you’re targeting other businesses, whereas, with B2C, you’re targeting individual consumers. 

While consumers might be impressed by influencer marketing and emotive product launch campaigns, businesses won’t be swayed by these tactics. Instead, businesses want authoritative content. 

They want useful, actionable information to help them solve real commercial challenges and grow their organizations. A clear, methodical marketing strategy can help you create the content needed to impress this audience.

How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Every B2B content marketing strategy is unique. However, successful content marketing campaigns typically start with well-defined objectives and a clear understanding of your long-term goals. 

Remember, don’t let the whole idea of a marketing “strategy” intimidate you. It’s surprisingly simple to get started once you understand what’s involved, so if you’re ready to build a successful content marketing campaign, here’s where to begin. 

1. Identify Your Audience and Their Needs

There’s nothing more important than your user base. 

Remember, the whole point of creating content is to convert your audience into paying clients, so your content must meet their specific demands and needs. If your content doesn’t resonate with your audience, they won’t move through your sales funnel.

How do you identify your audience, though? 

  1. First, create your buyer personas. 
  2. Then, segment your prospective audience into subgroups based on, for example, buyer behavior. 
  3. Decide whether you’ll target all these subgroups or if you want to focus on one or two specific segments. 
  4. Once you’ve identified your audience, you can tailor your content to match their specific demands.

Ultimately, what matters to your core audience should matter to you, so you must first identify their problems and then consider how you can solve them through your content.

2. Use Micro-Targeting to Narrow Down Your Focus

You’ve identified your target audience, you know what matters to them, and you’re ready to give them a great user experience. 

Now, it’s time to actually find those businesses online and generate brand awareness. How do you ensure that your content reaches the right audience, though? It’s all about using the right short and longtail keywords.

Start by using microtargeting. Through microtargeting, you use analytics data to reveal key information such as buyer behavior, preferences, and popular search terms or keywords. Then, you can use a variety of popular keywords in your content to help your audience find you through Google and other search engines. 

Check out Ubersuggest for your keyword research. Enter a primary keyword, such as “health insurance,” and scroll through the “keyword ideas” for inspiration:

B2B Content Marketing Strategy - Use Ubersuggest for Longtail Keywords

Carefully chosen keywords can help you reach the businesses most likely to require your services.

3. Research Competitors in Your Niche

Unless you’re in a super unique niche, chances are you have numerous competitors vying for your audience’s business. 

Look at what makes them successful and research what they’re offering your target customers. What can you offer that sets you apart from your competition? 

You need a unique selling point (USP) to draw customers, so consider what you could do better than your competitors and highlight what makes you unique when you’re selling your goods and services to prospects. Here are some tips for doing just that: 

  • Identify your competitors.
  • Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. 
  • Clarify what makes your business unique and build your USP around your strengths.

Not sure where to get started? Look to your target audience. Who else are they following? What other businesses are they interested in? Go back to your audience research and see what it reveals. 

4. Define Your Goals

Every great marketing strategy needs clearly defined goals to help you stay on track and measure your progress. 

How do you choose the right goals? By following the SMART objective. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. 

In other words, you’re setting a clear, realistic goal that you can achieve in a certain amount of time. The results are measurable, meaning there’s some quantifiable way you can measure your success and track whether you achieved the goal. 

To set SMART goals, ask yourself the right questions. For example, what are you trying to achieve? What steps will you take to reach your objective? Finally, how will you know if you achieved your goal? 

If you don’t have the answers to questions like these, your goals need a little more work before you’re ready to develop your marketing strategy.

5. Create Multi-Layered Content

Sure, words are great. After all, you’re trying to impress your audience and demonstrate your industry expertise. 

Too much text is pretty daunting, though. If someone’s reading your article and they’re confronted by line after line of unbroken text, you could quickly lose their interest. 

The answer? Multi-layered content. With multi-layered content, you’re basically using media such as text, videos, and images to create a visually engaging user experience.

We’ll use one of my own posts on visual marketing as an example. Sure, I include plenty of informative text to educate readers:

How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy - Create Multi-layered Content (an example)

However, I also include images to illustrate my points and break up the walls of text:

How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy - Include Images (NeilPatel example)

Finally, I include videos for users who prefer a more interactive experience:

How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy - Include Videos (NeilPatel example)

You’re targeting business clients. They’re busy people. Keep your content engaging and break it up with a blend of media types to hold their interest and keep your business memorable. 

6. Measure Your Results

How do you know if you’re achieving those SMART goals you set earlier? By measuring your results or tracking progress using tools like Google Analytics. 

Tracking metrics gives you key insights into what works and, of course, what doesn’t. Once you know what content works best, you can invest your energy into those areas and grow your business more effectively. 

Try not to worry if you haven’t met some performance goals. Honestly, not everything you try will work out. Not every ad will generate leads, partnerships can fail, and some content may go unnoticed. 

That’s all okay. In fact, it’s normal. Remember, you’re experimenting with different angles, so if something’s not working, just pivot and try something new. 

7. Prioritize Link Building and Collaboration

Want to build brand exposure? Consider collaborating with other businesses. More specifically, make (and accept) some guest posts. 

You might be wondering how letting another entrepreneur post on your website helps your own marketing goals. However, this is your opportunity to showcase your connections to your audience. 

If your audience sees that other industry leaders want to collaborate with you, then guess what? They’ll immediately trust you more, which makes them more likely to explore your services.

On the other hand, say you want to make a guest post on another website. Great. Not only will the post boost your exposure and increase your authority within your niche, but it’s essentially free advertising for your brand. Sounds like a win-win, right? 

Here’s an example from when I guest posted on Entrepreneur. Through this opportunity, I had the chance to reach a wider audience and help support their marketing goals: 

How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy - Prioritize Link Building (Neil Patel on Entrepreneur)

Don’t be afraid to collaborate as part of your B2B content marketing strategy.

8. Promote Your Content Across Different Platforms 

Where do your prospective customers hang out? If you researched your audience earlier, you already know the answer to this question, so your focus should now be on reaching these prospects as part of a targeted marketing campaign.

How you reach these potential clients all depends on your audience demographics, but here are some general tips. 

First, improve your website’s discoverability in search engines. The goal is to secure a first-page search ranking for your chosen keywords, so optimize your pages for SEO by adding meta descriptions, including alt text with your images, and using keywords strategically. 

Next, run a paid ads campaign. Paid ads ensure you shoot to the top of the search rankings for specific keywords. Monday.com, for example, is one of the first search results you see when you Google “collaboration software for businesses:” 

How to Create a B2B Content Marketing Strategy - Promote Your Content on Different Platforms

Aside from Google Ads and LinkedIn, you could also run paid ads on popular platforms like Twitter and Facebook. It all depends on where your target audience spends their time, so do your research to generate the best ROI from your paid ad campaigns.

Do you need any advice on choosing the right keywords for paid ads or platforms to market your B2B company? Check out my consulting services to see how my team could help.

Frequently Asked Questions About B2B Content Marketing

Before you start building your own B2B content marketing strategy, here are some quick takeaways to reflect on.

What Is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B content marketing is a strategy for creating, sharing, and promoting content designed to appeal to a business audience. The goal is to use content to build brand awareness and find new clients.

How Is B2B Content Marketing Different From B2C?

With B2B marketing, you’re targeting business clients. You’re trying to demonstrate your experience, expertise, and skill to convince businesses to work with you. 

On the other hand, B2C marketing involves targeting individual consumers. You’re focusing on nurturing leads, building an emotional connection with people, and convincing them to buy a specific product.

What Makes a Good B2B Content Marketing Campaign?

A good B2B content marketing campaign should help build trust in your company, provide valuable information to your audience, and inspire companies to choose your products and services. 

Above all, a great content marketing strategy should establish you as an industry leader or innovator in your chosen niche. 

Research your target audience to understand what challenges they face, and create content designed to help solve those problems. You should also check out competitors for content ideas and keep an eye on news channels. Aim for a blend of evergreen and timely content to keep your articles, videos, and podcasts varied and fresh. 

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B2B Content Marketing Guide: Conclusion

Do you want to establish your company as an industry leader? Are you trying to convince businesses to choose your company over your competitors? Then a solid B2B content marketing strategy can help you stay on track. 

Focus on creating useful content and cultivating a sense of trust in your company, and don’t be afraid to step back and make changes if something’s just not working. Remember, a strategy is a roadmap: It’s not set in stone. Let it guide you, but don’t let it hold you back when you’re ready to move in a new direction. 

Have you tried B2B content marketing yet? How are you finding the process?

How to Create an Editorial Calendar That Will Streamline Your Content Strategy

According to Bill Gates, “Content is King.” That was true in 1996, and it continues to be true today. 

As consumers become savvier, content continues to play a vital role in educating and converting consumers. 

However, not all marketers understand how to implement a content strategy correctly. When you don’t start with the basics, you could be making content production more complicated than necessary.

To be successful, your content plan must be actionable, and you need to publish content consistently.  

That’s where an editorial calendar comes in.

We’re going to cover the basics, including how to create and manage your editorial calendar, and how it can help your content strategy grow 

4 Reasons to Use an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar enables content publishers to plan, create, publish, and promote their content in an organized manner. Many bloggers and businesses use editorial or content calendars to streamline content production.  

In many ways, an editorial calendar is a lifesaver for creatives and business owners. Whether you’re a blogger, freelance writer, business owner, or creative director at a marketing firm, an editorial content calendar can help you stay on track and keep you sane—while ensuring a consistent flow of content.

Others use an editorial calendar to improve focus, because an organized approach can also limit writer’s block and keep content evergreen. 

There are other ways you can benefit from an editorial content calendar, including:

1. Better Organization and Delegation

With an editorial calendar, you can see articles that need writing at a glance. From there, you can delegate the articles to your writing team, ready for them to get to work. No more scrambling to send writers topics at the last minute or wondering if you’ll even get around to writing this month. 

With a calendar, it’s all right in front of you. 

Ultimately, this level of organization saves time, keeps the content coming, and ensures every member of your content creation team knows what they’re doing.

2. Improved Planning

The better you plan your articles, the better the writing tends to be. When you know what you want to write, you don’t waste time with last-minute research or trying to find the sources you need to support your article.

In fact, some consider planning to be more important than the content production itself. Planning content is essential for:

  • Creating the kind of content most suited to your audience.
  • Writing the in-depth content your audience wants—and needs 
  • Publishing exactly when and where your customers hang out. 

3. Helps Achieve Your Goals

Your editorial calendar is part of your content strategy. Ideally, you’ve developed your content strategy around the goals you’re trying to achieve with your product, your blog, or your company overall. 

An editorial content calendar assists in goal achievement by:

  • Allowing you to meet critical milestones.
  • Helping with promotional activities.
  • Reaching new leads and making fresh conversions.
  • Getting more newsletter sign-ups.
  • Building awareness of your brand.

Whatever your goals are for your business, your editorial calendar has a vital role in allowing you to achieve them.

4. Sticking to Deadlines

According to Mark Twain, “deadlines are the greatest source of inspiration.” 

However, that doesn’t mean you want to do a rush job. 

To avoid rushing content creation, every team member needs to be clear on their deadlines to keep reaching your goals and your audience engaged.

Further, keeping up with these deadlines is especially important when you’re publishing new content that’s a part of your business strategy. For example, if you are publishing blogs to support a new launch or annual sale. 

How to Create an Editorial Calendar

Don’t let the thought of creating an editorial calendar stress you out—I promise it’s not that complicated once you create a plan. This next section takes you through how to create an effective calendar, step-by-step. This is just an outline, so feel free to adjust these steps to meet the needs of your business. 

1. Determine Which Tools to Use

Your first step is deciding which tools to use. This varies from team to team, and content managers may need a combination of tools for best results. 

If you want free options for getting started, Google Docs, Excel, or Trello are popular choices. For paid tools, there are several worth considering, including:

  • Airtable
  • Asana
  • Monday
  • BrightPod

Airtable, Asana, and HubSpot offer free content calendar templates to get you started, and there are plenty of others available, too.

Whichever tool you use, make sure it meets everyone’s needs. As Buffer’s editorial director, Ash Read, told HubSpot:

“[your] editorial calendar should be a resource for your whole team, not just content creators.”

2. Create a Content Backlog

Next, you need to create a content backlog. This is just a list of content ideas for easy viewing and lets you track your ideas for posts.

You could use Google Sheets or Excel for this, or one of the free templates mentioned, like Asana.

How to Create an Editorial Calendar - Create a Content Backlog

Whichever you go with, your chosen tool should allow you to create a clear, organized list. Just remember, it’s OK to stray from your list. Not every idea will end up as an entire post, and sometimes changing your content strategy is essential for keeping up with new trends or thinking of a new angle.

Create your sheet, then start adding a few headings like: 

  • title
  • assigned author
  • project status
  • publication date

Other headings you could use are:

  • Special dates and anniversaries.
  • Themes and distribution channels.
  • Trending topics/new launches relevant to your niche.
  • Seasonal content and key sales dates. For instance, Black Friday, where you may want to ramp up content production.

3. Develop Your Content Strategy

Don’t overthink your content strategy. There’s a simple way of making sure your content strategy covers all the bases, and as long as you keep these parts in mind, you won’t go wrong. 

First, outline steps such as how much content you want to produce a month, what topics you want to cover, and your ideal customers. 

Then add strategic steps, such as managing your existing content and goal tracking. These might include: 

  1. Define your goals: For example, growing your mailing list or attracting new customers.
  2. Understand your customers: Which social media sites do your audience use? Which content types do they prefer/respond to? What are their pain points, and how can your products/services solve them?
  3. Analyze your competition: You can use a tool like Ubersuggest, which has a free and paid version to see which keywords competitors are targeting.
  4. Positioning: What makes your business unique, and how do you stand out in your marketplace? You could do this in a few ways, like specializing in a targeted niche or telling your brand’s story. Ask yourself how the content you’re creating can achieve this.
  5. Estimate your budget: How much is your content strategy going to cost you, and how can you maximize your ROI?
  6. Measure your KPIs so you know your content is getting results: For example, if you’re aiming to build brand awareness, an increase in shares and views will show you’re heading in the right direction.

4. Schedule the First Month

Many of us produce content at the last minute or create it whenever we have spare time. If you’re looking for a less stressful (and more effective) approach, schedule your content in advance.

A month is usually enough, but you could schedule up to six weeks. You can use Google Calendar for this.

How to Create an Editorial Calendar - Schedule the First Month

Add each step of your process, and make sure to give yourself plenty of time. So, you might create a due date on the first Monday to write your outlines, then schedule one article a week to be written, two days for editing, set a publish date, then schedule it into your social media sharing calendar. 

The process will vary based on how much content you produce and how many people are on your team, but I strongly recommend breaking each piece of content into more manageable steps. 

5. Move Articles Into Production

When you’re in the full swing of producing content, it’s easy to let pieces slip through the cracks, especially if you have multiple people working on the project. Creating a Trello account can keep you on track. 

The first step in using your Trello account for content production is to decide what stages each article will need to go through.

What you need is up to you, but here are some suggestions for your Trello cards:

  • assign to writer
  • writing in progress 
  • ready for edits
  • ready for uploading and scheduling

Alternatively, you could make it more complex and add additional steps like:

  • final edits
  • SEO audits
  • published

Then your Trello cards might look something like this:

How to Create an Editorial Calendar - Move Articles Into Production

6. Build Your Content Queue

If you’re just starting with an editorial calendar, you need to get a few articles ready for publication. 

Choose a schedule that suits you, but a forward-looking schedule of 4-6 weeks works well for most teams.

That sounds like a lot of work, but you can approach the task in two ways. First, you could spend a few weeks writing content until you have a volume of work to publish. However, this method isn’t suitable for everyone, unless you’ve got a team of writers to help you.

Another way is to spend a few months creating extra content every day, which is doable for most content producers. 

7. Continually Optimize Your Process 

So far, we’ve covered how to get your content production off the ground. However, you can’t set it and forget it. Over time, you might find there are bottlenecks in your process or that certain tools don’t fit your needs.  Make sure to check in with your team regularly to ensure the editorial process you’ve created is working for everyone. 

Common areas to review include: 

  • your schedule and the tools you’re using
  • the volume of content you’re storing
  • the time between stages 
  • the metrics you track 

Over time, you’ll get a better understanding of whether the tools you’re working at are suitable for your team and whether the amount of articles you’re publishing is helping your business grow. 

FAQs About Editorial Calendars

Why do I need an editorial calendar?

An organized approach to content production reduces time and helps you publish better quality content. From ideation and writing to publishing and promotion, an editorial calendar helps streamline every part of the process. 

Do I need paid tools to create an editorial calendar? 

Not unless you want to. Free tools like Trello and Google Docs are fine, but there are also paid options like Asana available. 

What headings should I include on an editorial calendar?

Not everyone’s calendar looks the same, but most marketers include titles, publication dates, and the article writer’s name. Once you’ve added in the most obvious headings, write in the titles that work for your specific needs.

What’s the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar? 

These terms are often used interchangeably. However, an editorial calendar generally outlines each step of the process, while a content calendar usually covers one aspect—such as when posts are published or shared to social media. 

Summary of Editorial Calendar Guide

An editorial content calendar is a must-have for any content marketer or small business looking to make the most of content production. It helps you stay focused on your goals and produce high-quality content consistently. 

Although it sounds like a lot of work, setting up a calendar isn’t difficult and allows you to seamlessly produce evergreen content while making the most of seasonal trends. 

How do you use an editorial calendar? Tell us below.

How to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy

Using quizzes in your marketing strategy is one of the most underrated marketing moves. Seriously.  They are incredibly effective at generation leads, engaging your audience, and much more. But, it isn’t enough for me to just convince you to implement quizzes in your marketing strategy, so I’m going to show you exactly how to create …

The post How to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

How to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy

quizzes in marketing

Using quizzes in your marketing strategy is one of the most underrated marketing moves.

Seriously. 

They are incredibly effective at generation leads, engaging your audience, and much more.

But, it isn’t enough for me to just convince you to implement quizzes in your marketing strategy, so I’m going to show you exactly how to create an effective quiz, how to distribute it, and how to follow it up with marketing automation.

At the end, we’ll cover several brands successfully using quizzes in their marketing strategy so you can walk away with a little more insight.

Part I: Creating Your Quiz

There’s more to a quiz than you might actually think. Did you know that six out of ten people only read a headline? That means we’re going to have to make a pretty good first impression, so let’s talk about the title first.

Title Selection & Quiz Types

The very first step to creating a quiz would be coming up with the title for it. Once you’ve got that down, you’re going to want to figure out what type of quiz you want to make.

Here are a few of the most common quiz titles;

  • The “Actually” Title: Believe it or not, adding the word “actually” can turn a simple question into a challenge. Compare “How much do you know about the Golden State Warriors” against “How much do you actually know about the Golden State Warriors” and you’ll see what we mean. No one likes to back down from a challenge, right?
  • “The Which (Blank) Are You?” Title: This one’s a classic. Due to our innate inquisitive nature, sometimes we just have to know which Marvel superhero we are before we die. It’s just one of those things we have to cross off our bucket list.
  • The “Celebrity Personality” Title: This is your typical personality quiz with the substitution of celebrities to give it that added pizazz. Because of the use of celebrities, they’re more likely to get someone’s attention sheerly through being starstruck.
which-wrestling-team-mate-are-you-quiz

Choosing The Quiz Type

The quiz titles above will give you a few ideas of quiz types, but here’s a few more to consider:

  • The Personality Quiz – We like to hear good things about ourselves, so because of the “self-serving bias,” personality quizzes work so well. This type of quiz categorizes people into personalities that compliment them based on their answers. If you’re a brand that focuses on product sales, you could use a personality quiz to place individuals into categories with personalized product recommendations based on the answers they gave.
  • The Knowledge Test: The knowledge test simply challenges anyone’s knowledge on a given subject. You could ask your audience how much they know about your brand, the products it offers, or any of today’s trending topics.

Crafting Quiz Questions

Now that you’ve got a general idea of what kind of quiz you want to create along with a title to go with it, it’s time to bring it to life by filling it up with questions!

Here are some things to keep in mind when formulating your questions:

  • Infuse Personality into Your Quiz: Breathe some life into your quiz by injecting your personality into it. Approach your audience as if you were talking to them in person. Make your audience feel comfortable so that they’ll be more likely to opt-in later.
  • Use Images for Your Questions: There’s nothing wrong with having text-only questions, but don’t be afraid to use images either. Using pictures keeps things interesting and relevant, it also makes your quiz feel more like a trivia game.
  • Keep It Short: People don’t have the longest attention spans, so keep things simple and sweet. Aim between 6 to 10 questions for your quiz, in general, this will only take your audience about two to three minutes to complete.

Designing A Lead Capture: Do’s and Don’t’s

After coming up with the questions for your quiz, it’s time to create a lead capture form. The purpose of lead capture is to gather contact information so that you can grow an email list.

You can then follow these leads up through marketing automation, which we’ll get into later. For now, here are some helpful do’s and don’t’s you should follow when creating your lead capture:

Do: Incentivize Your Lead Capture Form

Give your audience a reason to provide you with their contact information. Offer incentives like a free eBook or an entry to a free giveaway. Standard incentives include infrequent updates about your brand or a weekly newsletter. Find what works best to encourage your audience to join your mailing list.

Don’t: Ask For Information You Won’t Use

What’s the point in asking your audience for their phone number if you aren’t going to call them? Make sure you only ask for information that your brand will use; the most basic being a first and last name, and an email address.

Otherwise, you risk annoying your audience and having them bounce from your quiz.

Do: Be Honest About Your Marketing Strategy

It won’t always be clear to your audience that after you get their contact information, you’ll be contacting them. It’s a good rule of thumb to let your audience know that you’ll be getting in touch with them soon, so don’t be all hush-hush about your marketing strategy.

Be honest with your audience. Give them a quick heads up about what’s to come, like this:

Creating Shareable Results

Now onto the results! This is the moment your audience has been waiting for. You want to make sure your results are something they’re going to like and share with others, so creating share-worthy results will be your priority.

Here are a couple of pointers that will help you create results worth sharing:

  • Be Honest and Positive: Positive emotions are more likely to promote sharing, so create results that compliment your audience into sharing what they got. At the same time, be honest with your results. Don’t tell your audience that they’re something they aren’t.
  • Use Share-Worthy Images: Just like how we used images for your questions, we’re going to want to make sure we use images for your results. This time around, you want to use some pretty interesting pictures; ones that are worth sharing. This is what’s going to attract attention when people share their results on social media.
  • Create A Call-To-Action: Don’t let your interaction with the audience end at the results. Provide a call-to-action for your audience. It can be something as simple as a link to your website, or maybe even personalized links to product recommendations.
tony-ramos-wreslter-quiz-result

Part II: Distributing Your Quiz

Now it’s time to put your quiz through the ultimate test by promoting it on social media. Your major outlets for social networks would be Facebook and Twitter, but if you wanted to take it a bit further, you can also use paid advertising on Facebook to give your quiz that extra boost.

Share Your Quiz on Facebook and Twitter

When sharing your quiz on Facebook or Twitter, be sure you check off each of these to get the most out of promoting your quiz:

  • Be sure to use an attractive image to represent your quiz.
  • Make sure you have a captivating headline for your quiz.
  • Share both the image and the caption with a shortened link to track results.
red-lobster-quiz-facebook-ad

Don’t Be Afraid to Use Paid Advertising on Facebook

The process of promoting your quiz through Facebook via paid advertising can be a fairly lengthy operation, so to save you guys some time, we’ve truncated the whole process into a more time-friendly summary.

  • Selecting Your Target Audience: You have your choices of selecting a target audience by location, demographics, behaviors, and connections. You can even break these categories down even further. Let’s take location for example. We can narrow down the location to country, state/province, city, and zip code. Why would we want to do this? Maybe your brand wants to target an audience within its immediate vicinity. We don’t know. It’s up to you how you want to set the parameters for your target audience. So give it a try.
  • Creating A Custom Audience: Creating a custom audience consists of working with a list you’ve uploaded ahead of time. Facebook then generates an audience based on that list of previous customers you’ve already worked with.

Part III: Marketing Automation Follow-Ups

Here’s the fun part: following up on the leads you’ve collected. With the help of marketing automation, this may not take as much effort on your end as you might’ve thought.

We’re going to follow-up on your leads the very moment people opt-in, and in the course of two weeks, we’re going to show you how to nurture these leads until you can finally convert them into paying customers.

Here’s a four-step sequence that your marketing automation email follow-ups should live and die by:

Thank Your Audience for Taking Your Quiz First

Immediately after someone opts-in, send him or her an email that telling them “Thank you for taking our quiz!” This will remind your audience that they’ve opted-in, and it’ll also help assert your brand. It’ll give people a head’s up that you’ll be getting in touch with them soon.

Encourage Your Audience to Retake Your Quiz

After a couple of days, we’re going to pick up where your audience left off: their quiz results. Inform your audience about the other results they could have gotten. This may prompt your audience to retake your quiz, and maybe to even share their new results.

This is the perfect transition from your “thank you” email to sending out different content.

Build Trust with Case Studies or Testimonials

After a week, now would be a good time to build trust between you and your leads. Introduce testimonials or customer case studies to familiarize your audience with your brand and what other people think about it. This not only makes your brand look good, but it also lets your audience get more comfortable with who your brand is and what it stands for.

Convert Your Leads into Paying Customers

After two weeks, it’s time to convert those leads. Your audience should be familiar with your brand by now. Use incentives, like a webinar signup or coupons and discounts to encourage your leads to buy into your brand.

The rest is up to you and your expertise in converting leads into customers. These marketing automation follow-ups did most of the work for you, so it’s your turn to close the deal.

Part IV: Examples of Quiz-Use in Every Industry

It’s time to take a quick look at several examples of brands from different industries and how they implemented quizzes in their marketing strategy. Seeing these examples should give you a solid foundation when it comes to considering the use of quizzes in your own marketing strategy.

Retail: Z Gallerie

Z Gallerie is known for its commitment to providing furnishings, art, and accessories to both professional and amateur interior designers alike. They created the quiz “What is your Z Gallerie Style Personality?” to provide a personalized experience for every potential and current customer.

zgallerie-style-personality-quiz

Z Gallerie used a personality quiz as a way of bringing results that offered personalized product recommendations as a part of their marketing strategy. This method brought in a massive amount of leads per day which they followed-up with marketing automation.

It allowed Z Gallerie to continually recommend products tailored specifically to each person based on their individual quiz results. Now that’s online shopping done right.

Software: Cloud Sherpas

Cloud Sherpas specialized in cloud advisory and technology services for the world’s leading brands. (They’ve since been acquired by Accenture.)

Cloud Sherpas used their quiz to gauge each individual’s level of maturity, which helped determine the more qualified leads for their marketing strategy. They also promoted their blog on Facebook with the quiz attached.

cloud sherpa marketing quizzes example

Cloud Sherpas’ quiz brings in 3-4 qualified leads a day. Nothing like quality over quantity, am I right?

Marketing: The Foundation

The Foundation focuses on building businesses with entrepreneurs through the idea of building backward. It’s an incredibly interesting concept, and with it, they created the quiz “Do You Have An Entrepreneurial Mind?” based on an existing eBook they had which covered the basic types of business owners.

The Foundation used a quiz in its marketing strategy by pairing it with a Facebook ad campaign. This combination was able to cut their cost per lead from $6.00 to $3.80, and collected over 16,000 leads and millions in revenue. That’s quite the turnout if you ask us.

question-about-your-type-email

Nonprofit: Pin Cancer

Pin Cancer’s call-to-action is the rallying of the US wrestling community to fight against, you guessed it: cancer. Their noble efforts have prompted the aid of their quiz “Which USA World Team Member Are You?” as a means of driving social traffic and raising awareness on cancer.

On a site that normally sees 200 visits per day, Pin Cancer had the best day ever when their quiz went up, driving social traffic up to 6,000 in a single day and bringing in 3,800 new email subscribers. Talk about turning the tables on cancer!

Conclusion

Who knew implementing quizzes into your online marketing strategy could be so effective? We’ve just covered a lot of material, but hopefully, you got a lot out of it.

Just to recap, we went over the entire quiz creation process, so you should be familiar with how to create your own quiz by now. Distributing your quiz will really put it to the test, but as soon as you generate those leads, you know exactly how to nurture them until conversion.

Don’t let quizzes fly under your radar any longer; try using them in your marketing strategy to see just how far your brand can get.

Have you used quizzes in your marketing strategy? What were the results? 

The post How to Use Quizzes in Your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Develop a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps

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