Tag: Streamline

How to Streamline PHP for SEO

There’s a lot of misconceptions about PHP for SEO. Many people don’t understand it, what it is, how we use it, and how it impacts our SEO.

The good news is that you don’t likely have much to worry about. PHP can make your website better for SEO and better for your users. The key is to know how to use it properly and what pitfalls to look out for. 

The goal of this guide is to help you better understand how PHP relates to SEO and how to use it to your advantage. 

What Is PHP? 

PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, is a programming language that allows users to create dynamic content on a website. The goal behind PHP is to help make your website more interactive and more interesting. 

Here’s a simple example of what it looks like (alongside HTML, in this case):

example of PHP

The reason PHP is so popular is because it operates server-side, which means it’s already embedded in HTML so it’s simple, efficient, and forgiving. Using PHP allows you to perform standard website functions such as opening files, reading information, and closing them.

Since it’s also open-source, it means that it’ll run with your web hosting server without the need for any additional files. 

One of the most popular places where we see PHP and SEO come together is on WordPress. Many of us content marketers use WordPress for its simplicity and ease of use. The ability to upload files, drag and drop, and work directly in WordPress is why we use it. Most of this is thanks to PHP.

How Does PHP Affect SEO? 

The immediate thought when we look at PHP for SEO is that it is overcomplicated. This is because PHP is a programming language with an unusual syntax. It doesn’t have the uniformity and predictability of other languages. However, this flexibility is what gives developers room to work without too many restrictions. 

One major goal of website design and functionality is simplicity when it comes to SEO. We find that Google prefers a simpler website because it’s easier to crawl, Google picks up on more of our keywords, and it takes less time which means Google will crawl more pages. That’s what we want. 

Complicated scripts adding in dynamic features make it more challenging for Google to crawl the site thus having a negative impact on our SEO. 

PHP on the other hand can have a positive effect on SEO if we use it properly. Header files can vary based on the page being viewed which means we can use a wider variety of metadata resulting in more keywords and higher relativity to the page the user is on. 

Not to mention the fact that server-side optimization opens the door for more inexperienced web builders and SEOs. Without the need for complicated scripts to create simple things like buttons, you’re able to make the site more user-friendly and engaging which will keep people on your site longer. This factor also has a positive impact on your SEO. 

The goal of every SEO, site builder, and creator is to develop a website that is engaging, simple, entertaining, and effective at a certain goal. If you’re trying to drive visitors onto your website to purchase something from your e-commerce store, ideally you want to get them from point A to point B as quickly as possible, right? 

Years ago this was complicated. It required scripts and if you made one little mistake you’d break a large portion of the site and you’d have to backtrack to figure out what happened.

As a result, most people hired programmers to build even the simplest of websites. Today, inexperienced SEOs can build interactive websites with features that allow users to engage and stay on the site longer, which tells Google that people like whatever it is you’re offering. 

The Effect of PHP on User Experience

One of the main goals of PHP is to make your website more interesting and interactive for users. 

Let’s start with some of the most basic aspects of user experience and that’s the usability of your website. When your site loads slowly and portions of the site are broken, it creates a poor user experience because visitors are wondering what they’re missing and debating on whether they should do business with you. 

PHP SEO scripts helps create a positive user experience without requiring too much complicated code that can slow your site down.

E-commerce is one of the most popular uses for the PHP framework because it allows you to do things like create a shopping cart, optional upsells, and integrate payment processors like Stripe.

If you’re just getting started in e-commerce, this strategy works well because you can use ready-made scripts which will save you time and money if you were considering hiring someone to build the site for you. 

Another way that you can use PHP on your website is to create interactive features such as forms, clickable buttons, graphs, and charts. Doing all of this helps keep people on your website which reduces your bounce rate.

A bounce rate is a high determining factor for Google when it comes to deciding what site is going to rank high on the SERPs. 

The Effect of PHP on Website Features 

Everyone wants a website people find interesting and helpful in some way. PHP helps with that.

We’re living in a world where trust is at a premium and we never know which websites we can trust and which ones we can’t. Using PHP for SEO can help increase the security of your site by ensuring that all your applications are fast and secure. 

Since PHP uses its own memory, it is just as fast (or faster) than most other programming languages. Security has been a concern since it’s open-source but that doesn’t mean that it’s any more or less secure than the rest. Being that it has such strong community support, there are many different tools and frameworks to help reduce and fix vulnerabilities right away. 

There’s also a lower margin of error with PHP which helps anyone create web pages quickly having a roundabout impact on website features.

Think about it this way: If an inexperienced marketer wants to build an e-commerce website from scratch and they don’t have a large budget, they might attempt to do it themselves. To get the features they need, they’ll have to learn how to code. They may make a lot of mistakes along the way and possibly give up because they’re unable to build a functional site. 

Using PHP, that same marketer can use the existing PHP framework from other e-commerce websites and work from that template. The command functions are simple and the barrier of entry is much lower than in other programming languages. 

All of these factors help anyone create a high functioning website with features that work properly and remain consistent over time. In the event of a security issue or crash, the community resources behind PHP help ensure that everything gets up and running quickly and smoothly. 

Pitfalls of PHP for SEO

There is a lot of information floating around about the challenges behind getting PHP pages indexed by Google. The general belief is that if you follow all the right steps, you should have no problem getting your PHP pages indexed. That’s not to say there aren’t any red flags to look out for. Here are some of the things you want to avoid at all costs:

Use SEO-Friendly URLS

At one point, webmasters were warned Google wouldn’t index pages with “id=” in the URL. This could be what sparked the notion that Google doesn’t index PHP pages altogether, but this isn’t entirely true.

In 2008, Google stated they can (and do) crawl dynamic URLs. They also shared you don’t have to rewrite them, thought it can make it slightly easier for users.

Still, there are some SEOs who think dynamic URLs are bad for SEO.

Here’s my thought process: clean, easy to read URLs are better for SEO. However, changing dynamic URLs to static URLs can be time consuming. Don’t spend hours on this. If its something you can streamline, using a built-in SEO tool such as AIOSEO (all-in-one SEO) or all-in-one Joomla SEO, then great.

But (in general) there are more important changes that will give your SEO a bigger boost than URL structure.

Just remember, SEO isn’t a one-size-fits-all. If you want to talk more about your site, feel free to reach out to my team for a consult.

Pay Attention to Meta Data

This goes for all your metadata. PHP-developed websites will not take care of this for you. You’ll need to pay attention to all of your basic SEO principles like updating meta tags and descriptions for each individual page. 

You’ll also need to pay attention to HTML tags and develop a well-thought-out sitemap to help make crawling and navigation easier for Google. 

Pay Attention to Security

Lastly, the one pitfall we can’t avoid with PHP is from a security standpoint. While it might have plenty of security features to help you, most attackers are always one step ahead of the most recent update because of its widespread open-source use. If you’re capturing banking info or anything sensitive you might want to consider something else. 

PHP for SEO Frequently Asked Questions 

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about using PHP for SEO. 

Why Is PHP Used? 

The main reason why PHP has grown so quickly is because of the sheer number of developers out there. Having a large number of people who specialize in the language makes it easy to find someone to help you and at a cost that is affordable for small businesses and individuals.

The language is also easy to learn, so even a new developer can possess the skills necessary to build you a website that gets the job done. 

Another factor is speed. Google puts a heavy emphasis on site loading speed and how well all the components of your site load together. The Core Web Vitals update pays close attention to elements of your site that load slower than the rest. PHP helps websites load faster resulting in higher visitor satisfaction and a lower bounce rate. 

Why Do Some People Think PHP Is Bad?

The main reason people dislike PHP is because of the security issues. The open-source nature of PHP results in a lot of vulnerabilities and the low barrier of entry for programmers is also a problem.

There are a lot of plugins and apps developed by inexperienced coders resulting in shoddy performance and simply bad security policy for websites that are capturing sensitive information.

Is PHP a Frontend or Backend Language?

PHP is used for backend development only. The scripts are written on the frontend and operate with MySQL or JavaScript depending on the platform. 

What Is the Difference Between PHP and HTML?

PHP is a scripting language and HTML is a markup language. HTML is designed to make up the general structure and content of a website while PHP works server-side to add dynamic elements to the site. 

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PHP for SEO: Conclusion 

There are many ways to use PHP for SEO and when done correctly, it can have a huge impact on the user-friendliness and performance of your website. The goal of every SEO should be to design a website that is both enjoyable and SEO-optimized. PHP helps make that possible. 

Do you use PHP on your website?

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.

25 Social Media Tools That Experts Use to Streamline Their Marketing

With more than 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, social media marketing cannot be ignored.

Savvy marketers know social media is a vital part of every marketing campaign. For businesses, every social media platform is an opportunity to engage with their target audience.

Even marketing stars know that strategizing and managing even a few social networks can be overwhelming without the right management social media tools in place.

Consider this:

How can you keep up with your Twitter account when you haven’t even checked Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok today? What about all those new social media sites that are popping up every other day (or so it seems)?

How do you know which ones to target for your brand and which to skip?

Take a deep breath.

Managing your social media shouldn’t be overwhelming. Social media tools can help:

  • Save you time by doing the posting, social listening, and hashtag research for you.
  • Save you money by allowing you to allocate resources to other tasks.
  • Maybe even save your brand’s reputation by catching a negative post in time for you to run interference and resolve the issue quickly.

I’ve done the research for you and organized the top social media marketing into five categories. We start with tools that help with the four stages of social media marketing: discovery, creation, monitoring and scheduling, and analyzing. Then, I added a fifth miscellaneous category at the end.

If you find yourself stuck in a particular stage, just head down to the relevant section.

Are you ready to get productive, optimize your social media marketing, and become an expert social media marketer?

Let’s begin.

Content Research and Discovery

According to Statista, users post 347,222 stories to Instagram, and 157,000 share messages on Facebook every minute. It can be overwhelming to find value-added content in all that noise.

Let’s look at content curation social media tools that help filter meaningful content so you can find images, posts, and conversations that will resonate with your audience.

1. Nuzzel

This tool organizes stories shared by friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook, and other social apps. It’s available as a web, Android, and iOS app.

It displays aggregated stories from your social media circle as easy-to-read links in a feed. You can also add influencers in your niche.

Nuzzel is a social media tool that curates a news feed from social platforms.

You can catch up on news from the last hour, or go through the past week using the “Sort By” option. You can tap into content shared by your second-degree connections, as well.

Finally, you can also curate content from your newsfeed into an email newsletter.

2. Feedly

Feedly aggregates the top content in your niche from industry blogs and other publications. Their AI bot, Leo, acts as a research assistant that learns your reading habits and delivers articles you’ll be interested in.

It then “reads” each article and annotates them with relevant summaries, analyses, and links to relevant content.

Social media tool Feedly reads and analyzes content.

Leo learns from your behavior. If you save an article, it will show you more like it. If you click “less like this,” Leo will remember and show you fewer articles on that topic.

You can also set up priorities within topics. Choose a sub-topic, and Leo will include those articles under a Priorities tab.

Social media tool Feedly includes a priorities tab within topics.

3. BuzzSumo

There are several reasons I love this tool. On top of content discovery, you can use it to research keywords, track online trends, and even find influencers within your vertical.

Use it to dissect your competition, understand your audience, and find content with the most social network shares.

The Chrome extension lets you do your research while you browse, as well. To use it, enter your keyword or phrase to discover the top-performing content.

You can use the filters to customize your search by language, time frame, country, and a number of other parameters.

You can find the popularity of content on a particular social network by using the “sort by” feature.

You can also plug a blog URL into the tool to find its top-performing content pieces.

Analyze content articles with social media tool BuzzSumo.

4. Tagboard

This is another great social media tool for monitoring and searching for hashtags relevant to your industry and track brand mentions.

To start your search, plug in the keyword, and the tool delivers content from several platforms.

Here are search results for #neilpatel:

Find relevant hashtags with social media tool TagBoard.

You can directly respond to these mentions, right from the screenshot page.

On the right sidebar, you get useful stats around the frequency and sentiment of your hashtag.

Analyze hashtags with social media tool TagBoard.

Tagboard is especially useful to track conversations and engagement during conferences and live events.

Visual Content Creation

According to Venngage, 49 percent of surveyed marketers rated visual content as very important, but 43 percent said producing it consistently was their biggest challenge.

Social media has become undeniably visual, and having a presence on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and other visual platforms is paramount.

Here are a couple of social media tools to help you create videos, images, diagrams, Pinterest boards, infographics, and more.

5. Canva

This is a simple graphic design web tool with pre-made templates for all kinds of social networks and uses.

It combines some of the best elements of Photoshop with a drag-and-drop functionality.

Drag-and-drop functionality in social media tool Canva

For every template, there are a variety of layouts, fonts, and backgrounds to choose from. And if you find yourself having trouble with a particular functionality, there are free tutorials to help you design better graphics.

For example, if you’re considering repurposing your most shared content for an infographic, there’s a tutorial for creating simple infographics with Canva.

Here are ten websites to source free and premium stock photos you can use in your designs.

6. Biteable

Biteable allows you to create videos, animations, motion graphics, and a number of other visuals for social, ads, and even presentations. You can use any of their templates to get started.

You can sync your marketing calendar with theirs to get tips and ready-to-go video templates for relevant seasons, holidays, and events.

Content calendar functionality in social media tool Biteable

7. Pixlr

Pixlr is a freemium service with a lot of the functionality of Photoshop.

Its free services include Pixlr X (for express) with essential tools for quick editing. Pixlr E (for editor) offers a more extensive selection of tools for more sophisticated content creation and Remove BG, an AI-based background removal tool.

If you need even more photo editing capabilities, they offer a subscription-based plan that includes more stickers, overlays, and visual effects, as well.

Pixlr offers templates, as well, some free and some part of the subscription service.

Templates available in social media tool Pixlr

Pro Tip: One-Pixel Pinterest Image

The images you share on Pinterest should be vertically aligned. But, if you insert a tall image directly into a blog post, it’ll take up a lot of real estate.

The solution is uploading the tall Pinterest image below the first picture of your post. Then, change its height and width to one pixel each.

Now, the image will appear when you click on the “Pin it” button to share on Pinterest. The alt text of the Pinterest image automatically serves as the caption for the image.

Monitoring and Scheduling

It’s impossible to manage your brand’s social media accounts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But the world of social media doesn’t turn off at 5 p.m.

Social media tools for monitoring and scheduling can help. They can save you hours every week by combining your brand activity from multiple social media networks into one dashboard.

8. Hootsuite

Hoot is a full-service social media management tool that lets you track mentions, engagement, and other metrics across all of your social platforms. You can schedule and track posts using their analytics tools and respond to mentions via your dashboard.

9. Buffer

This is an amazing app to schedule updates from your social network accounts at the times that you work best for your brand.

It works a lot like Hootsuite. You can create and schedule social posts, and then track them through their analytics.

Analytics example from social media tool Buffer

Buffer will also prioritize social mentions for you, so you can respond to the most pressing ones first.

10. Hopper HQ

Hopper HQ connects your brand with top content creators in your vertical. Once you choose from a list of recommended creators, they deliver content you can share in posts and paid ads.

11. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is a simple, integrated social media and blog publishing calendar.

Publishing calendar example from social media tool CoSchedule

It also includes a suite of organizing tools for social media, brand assets, work, and content. Schedule your blog posts, collaborate with different authors on a post, and assign specific tasks to different people.

It has an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface, as well.

In the calendar view itself, you can also keep track of the most shared and engaged with content.

12. IFTTT

If This Then That is a fantastic social media tool to connect applications and automate social actions. IFTTT offers a series of applets that allow you to connect platforms and streamline your work.

For example, you can send your Instagrams to Twitter as native tweets. You can also get a weekly notification email of all of the people who followed you on Twitter. You can also archive tweets to a Google spreadsheet.

You can create your own applet from scratch by choosing a trigger and appending an action to it.

Or, you can use applets created by other people.

Applets available in social media tool IFTTT

In this article, Kristi Hines explains a killer recipe to directly schedule social media updates from your Feedly account.

You can schedule the articles you choose to read later in Feedly on your social network accounts through Buffer. You only need Gmail and Buffer accounts to set up this applet.

Social Media Analytics

The best way to find the most effective social network for your business is by tracking your social media marketing efforts.

The right data allows you to calculate ROI from your social media marketing campaigns. It’ll help you find your top-performing content, so you can tweak your campaign and optimize your marketing efforts.

Let’s look at a few social media tools to measure and analyze your social activities.

13. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most widely used analytics tools to track user behavior on websites. But, you can also track social reports under its reporting tab.

To access your social network standing, log into your Analytics account. Then, head over to the Reporting tab. Click on Acquisition > Social.

Set up goals inside Analytics to access these social reports. There are standard templates inside analytics you can use to set actionable goals for your social media marketing campaigns.

If you get stuck, use Google’s official step-by-step guide for setting goals.

There are eight reports you can see under social analytics–Overview, Network Referral, Data Hub Activity, Landing Pages, Trackbacks, Conversions, Plugins, and Visitors Flow.

Once you set up goals, you’ll be able to see your social media impact in Overview.

Social value graphic in social media tool Google Analytics

The most important report is conversions.

You can break down your social media campaign by network and find out the most successful platform.

If you’re interested in the user behavior–the like and share buttons your visitors are clicking–you’ll need to set up social plugins.

Although setting up this report might take time, the end results are worth the effort:

A clear picture of the social network that provides the best ROI and the kind of content you should create for it.

14. HubSpot

HubSpot has a number of tools, from marketing automation to a full content management system. Their Marketing Hub allows you to create and manage social media posts, video for social, and conversations from their platform.

15. Followerwonk

To get the best results from a real-time social network like Twitter, you need to be active when your followers are online.

Followerwonk analyzes your Twitter followers and tells you when your followers are most active.

You can also use it to find influencers in your niche and discover relevant people to follow.

You can also track your followers by demographics, such as age.

Demographics pie chart from social media tool FollowerWonk

16. Olapic

Olapic is a great tool to add to your visual marketing arsenal. You can use the tool to discover, curate, and schedule user-generated content across Instagram, Pinterest, and all your other social accounts.

Use it on your site, in your social ads, and in your emails to lift engagement and increase conversions.

17. Keyhole

For Instagram and Twitter, a good hashtag analyzer can go a long way. Keep up-to-speed on hashtags relevant to your industry with Keyhole.

The tool also uses machine learning to forecast whether your campaigns will hit their goals.

Finally, Keyhole tracks and monitors influencer performance. You can use it to compare influencers to determine who is most effective for your brand.

18. Semrush

Not only does Semrush allow you to create, schedule, and track your own posts, it also lets you track and analyze your competitors’ posts, too. You can also use it to optimize your social ads.

SEMRush is also helpful for general keyword and content research in your vertical (or you can also use Ubersuggest for this).

Miscellaneous Tools To Increase Social Engagement on Your Website

You are already equipped with the best social media tools to research, curate, plan, schedule, monitor, and analyze your social media marketing efforts.

What about social engagement on your website? The end goal of most social campaigns is to increase your website’s engagement and traffic.

Here are some tools to power your website and drive social media interaction.

19. ClickToTweet

A simple way to increase the number of tweets on your blog post is by adding a link to every actionable comment. When a reader clicks on the link, it automatically adds a tweet to their Twitter account.

You can track all of your embedded links from the dashboard.

You can also analyze their performance using their analytics tool.

If you’re on WordPress, there is a simpler alternative–Better Click to Tweet plugin.

20. Share Buttons by AddToAny

Floating share buttons can either help or hurt your engagement and conversions, according to BigCommerce. For example, sharing buttons with counters can hurt conversions if the number of shares is low, while adding share buttons to product pages can actually distract users.

The best way to find out when and where to use share buttons is through extensive testing.

If you’re on WordPress, you can start with Share Buttons by AddToAny plugin. It has the option to activate share buttons in the sidebar, as well as above and below every content piece.

You can also customize the number of social networks you want to show your visitors, from the ones below.

I recommend experimenting with two or three social media share buttons and stick to the social networks where your audience hangs out.

21. Snip.ly

Do you feel like you’re losing time curating and endorsing content by other publishers?

Snip.ly can give it back to you. It’s a link shortener with a great add-on: a customized call to action for every link you share with the tool.

You can use it to drive direct traffic to your website by adding a non-intrusive, custom CTA at the bottom of each post you share.

The CTA can include customized messages, colors, images, and themes.

CTA example from social media tool Snip.ly

Besides direct traffic, you can drive app downloads, email list signups, and event registrations.

The analytics dashboard allows you to track the number of clicks and conversions.

22. Onalytica

Influencers are a trusted source of information for your customers. A recommendation from them can lift your product sales and brand visibility.

But, how can you find influencers interested in your post, service, or product?

That’s where Onalytica comes in. It finds relevant influencers for your brand based on your article link or uploaded file.

It scans an article, then generates a list of targeted influencers in under a minute. After reverse-engineering relevant influencers, you can connect and start building a relationship.

23. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer

Headlines play a key role in engagement. It’s no wonder that Upworthy used to write 25 headlines for every post.

CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is a great tool to ensure headlines attract attention—and clicks.

Using it is simple:

  1. Head over to www.coschedule.com/headline-analyzer.
  2. Plug your headline in the “Type your headline here” bar.
  3. Press the “Analyze Now” button.

You’ll get an overall score for your headline and a grade for the variety of words you’ve used, top keywords in your headline, and the sentiment your headline evokes

24. KingSumo

KingSumo helps brands manage giveaways on social media that can help drive emails sign ups and followers.

To create a giveaway, create a title, description, start and end date, and the number of winners. Then, post it directly to your social accounts.

You can manage and track all of your giveaways from a single dashboard.

Dashboard for social media tool KingSumo.

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25. Facebook Comments Plugin

If a large section of your audience hangs out on Facebook, then activating Facebook Comments on your website can increase engagement and bring you closer to your social media marketing goals.

But, beware. There is a risk of comment scams that easily pass spam filters. You’ll need to stay on top of comment moderation.

Conclusion

Social media can become a huge distraction, even if it does help drive your business. Manually logging in to post blogs and business updates can eat up valuable time you could use to build a new product, take care of vendor orders, or handle customer concerns.

Start incorporating the above tools in your armory to automate repetitive tasks and batch your social media posts.

They’ll save you time every week. They’ll also improve your ROI from social media marketing and your bottom line.

Have I missed any of your favorite social media marketing tools? Can you share your social media productivity secrets? Please let me know in the comments below.

The post 25 Social Media Tools That Experts Use to Streamline Their Marketing appeared first on Neil Patel.

How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns

If you’ve ever led a marketing team, you know it’s easy to get overwhelmed by tasks and plans. Numerous blog posts, social media marketing campaigns, and emails crowd your pipeline. But distractions and urgent issues get in the way, and when you check the clock, several hours have passed. It happens all the time: you miss …

The post How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns

If you’ve ever led a marketing team, you know it’s easy to get overwhelmed by tasks and plans.

Numerous blog posts, social media marketing campaigns, and emails crowd your pipeline. But distractions and urgent issues get in the way, and when you check the clock, several hours have passed.

It happens all the time: you miss one deadline and end up missing more. The result is a half-baked campaign that fails to hit your goals.

Without a concrete schedule, this becomes an inevitable cycle.

To solve this problem, consider using a marketing calendar.

Why Use a Marketing Calendar?

In my experience, you need a marketing calendar to get a full overview of your team’s deliverables, deadlines, and tasks.

Recent research in an article by Evinex states that marketers who record their strategies are 538% more likely to complete tasks on time. Consider goal-setting as well, as 81% of people who set goals do achieve them.

I’ve worked on plenty of marketing campaigns, and I can tell you that it’s easier to hit your goals when you can streamline your tasks and manage deadlines.

So today, I’ll show you how to create your marketing calendar.

Step 1: Understand Your Customers

Every task in your marketing calendar should revolve around attracting your target audience. Your marketing efforts’ ultimate purpose is to reach the most customers and get them past the sales funnel.

For example, if you’re offering video games to students, you’ll want to launch aggressive marketing campaigns during school breaks. Similarly, if you’re targeting employed adults, you’ll want to post content during normal break times, after work hours, and or weekends.

Here are questions to consider when planning the activities in your marketing calendar:

  • What does my audience need?
  • What are their interests?
  • When is the best time to engage with them?
  • How will they interact with my content?
  • Are they more likely to sign-up for your program or service during a specific period or season of the year?

You have to think long term to reach the most number of consumers for your marketing campaigns. 

Step 2: Identify Marketing Calendar Responsibilities

Every member of your marketing team has a role to fill. Their responsibilities are often based on their skills, which will determine their tasks in your marketing calendar.

Here are some typical marketing roles:

  • Marketing Specialist
  • Social Media Manager
  • Search Engine Optimization Specialist
  • Email Marketing Manager
  • Web Content Writer
  • Web Producer
  • Product Manager
  • Marketing Analyst
  • Advertising Coordinator

Here an example of how to make it work for you.

  1. Web Content writer: works on blog posts, guest posts, social media copy, and landing pages.
  2. Social Media Manager: responds to social media messages, schedules posts, and plans social media marketing campaigns.
  3. Email Marketing Manager: builds customer segments, oversees email marketing campaigns, and develops contact strategies.

Since most marketers on your team work on different content types or areas, you may want to organize their tasks through other marketing calendars and templates.

Here are common types of marketing calendars to consider:

  • Content marketing calendar: With this all-purpose calendar, you get full visibility of your entire marketing strategy. This calendar includes your team’s marketing functions, content marketing campaigns, podcast series, SEO tasks, etc.
  • Editorial calendar: Use this to streamline the production and publication schedule of blogs or articles.
  • Social media calendar: If your business is active in several social media platforms, you’ll want to plan posts and organize tasks. This calendar lets you track high-performing posts and determine the best times to post throughout the week.
  • Email marketing calendar:  Use this to plan, organize, and schedule the content you’ll share with your subscribers.

The specific goal of each calendar is to organize and schedule your marketing initiatives.

Unlike your marketing plan, which lists down your deliverables, a marketing calendar shows when your team can expect to work on a task. Marketers may use several types of calendars to track related activities in one document.

Step 3: Determine Marketing Calendar Content Quantity and Publication Frequency

Most successful websites have a specific quantity and frequency for publishing content.

It would be best to plot out the content you must create per week or month. Then, once you’ve determined how often you will promote, consider your marketing budget and your team’s capabilities.

The types of content which you can publish per week include:

  • Blog posts
  • Case studies
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Social media posts

A good tip is to finish a consistent number of deliverables each week.

For instance, you can host a podcast episode on Tuesdays and post a long-form blog post every Thursday. Meanwhile, you may aggregate the results of your social media campaigns every Friday.

marketing calendar example

Yes, it can be challenging to plan and fulfill different types of marketing content. But a consistent weekly plan enables your team to establish a routine and consistently finish their tasks.  

Step 4: Identify Marketing Calendar Themes

For B2C retailers, core themes of marketing campaigns revolve around specific seasons or dates. A millennial fashion brand could regularly promote back-to-school outfits near the end of the summer.

In contrast, B2B brands could focus on their industry’s opportunities and challenges. Due to the pandemic, some businesses may want to cover topics such as “digital transformation,” “future of work,” and “long-term impacts of a recession.”

Now get a spreadsheet and list potential themes that are specific to your industry. Set a meeting and invite your team to brainstorm topics relevant to your target market.

Now use Ubersuggest to find out the search volume of each keyword. Themes with a high search volume are likely to be relevant topics that your target audience searches for.

For this example, I used Ubersuggest to research the phrase “digital transformation.”

using ubersuggest to build a marketing calendar

I discovered the topic has a pretty high search volume and a moderate SEO difficulty, so it is a good theme to keep in mind.

using ubersuggest to build a marketing calendar graph

I highly recommend having various themes and topics to cover each month, especially for brands catering to different buyer personas.

In the long-run, this will help you establish a variety and keep posts fresh.

Step 5: Creating a Marketing Calendar Backlog

Next, it’s time to create a marketing calendar backlog.

Think of content projects and marketing deliverables. During the process, you may discover some tasks are better suited for execution at a later date.

Having a content backlog ensures you can document all the ideas for your next campaigns, podcasts, or blog posts.

Here’s an example in Google Sheets to create a content backlog, but you can use other software and apps too.

The document should include the type of content, topic or headline, priority level, and deadline for each content idea.

marketing calendar example

Coschedule has a useful marketing project prioritization matrix for identifying tasks with the most significant impact on your marketing goals.

They suggest using a “10x versus 10% framework,” which goes like this:

  • 10x ideas are relevant to a significant portion of your target consumers. These ideas are likely to increase your results by at least 10x.
  • 10% of ideas refer to projects with minimal or almost no impact on your marketing results.

Let’s see how you can put this theory into action:

  • Step 1: Create an X/Y chart and place “Value” in the vertical Y-axis and “Target Audience” in the horizontal X-axis.
  • Step 2: List down each idea in a sticky note and place them on the X/Y chart. The most valuable projects are placed on the top, while projects relevant to most people are on the right side.

The most prioritized content should be situated on the top right corner of the chart.

Step 6: Create a Marketing Calendar

While there are many calendar tools and software in the market, we’ll use Trello for this article as an example.

A Trello kanban board usually consists of tasks that are organized into lists. 

using trello to build a marketing calendar

However, Trello also has a calendar view that gives users a complete overview of their tasks and deadlines per month.

Here’s how it’s done:

First, create a Trello board.

Hover to the Menu Bar and click “Power-Ups.”

trello card example marketing calendar

On the “Essential Power-Ups” section, add the “Calendar” to visualize Trello cards in a calendar format.

using trello to build a marketing calendar options

To create a task, click a date, and choose the “Add Card” button.

add card in trello marketing calendar

Then type the name, deadline, and task description.

You can open up the tool again and complete the following fields:

trello card example to build a marketing calendar
  • Card description: provides more in-depth information about the task.
  • Comments: gives feedback to team members. You can @mention your team member so they will receive a notification.
  • Add members: lets users assign tasks to members of the Trello board.
  • Add checklist: adds subtasks for activities that require several stages to accomplish.
  • Add due date: adds deadlines to cards.
  • Add attachments: attaches files from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box.

Trello calendars provide a complete overview of your marketing team’s activities and deadlines. By monitoring deadlines, marketers can set priorities and accurately determine the time it takes to complete each task.

Note: Mark vacations and holidays. These events could impact the schedule for your marketing content.

Step 7: Updating Your Marketing Calendar

Planning your marketing initiatives often involve a multi-step process. Prior to publication, most marketing content starts with a draft and requires reviews from superiors.

Here’s how it’s done in Trello with a sample account.

First, a deliverable gets written on the Content Backlog of your Google Sheet. Content with a high level of priority is the first one to get assigned to an author. When a content creator claims a task, the status of the deliverable becomes “In Progress.”

using spreadsheets in progress to build a marketing calendar

Next, return to Trello and create a card for the task. Add a due date, description, comments, and assign it to a member of your team.

blog post trello card example in building a marketing calendar

Trello lets you sort cards into “Lists.” The title of each list can be based on the current status of the task, which includes:

  • Open: a task still needs a deadline, description, due date, and other additional information before it gets assigned.
  • In Progress: a task has been assigned, and your colleague is working on it.
  • In Review: a task has been completed, but it still needs to be reviewed by your organization’s superiors.
  • Completed: the task is done.

If your colleague is working on the task, set the status to “In Progress.”

After submitting the draft, you can classify it as “In Review.”

trello card example in marketing calendar

In this phase, a superior will check the article to make edits or ask revisions. If there are significant changes, the card returns to the “In Progress” column with a new due date.

Once the task receives approval, then the card can be transferred to the “Closed” column.

You can also de-clutter the Trello board by archiving cards upon publication of the post. This removes them from the list.

Step 8: Plan Ahead 

Now that you’ve launched a marketing calendar, you’re ready to plan your projects for the upcoming weeks or months.

Holiday marketing campaigns take months or weeks to plan.

For instance, the entire bundle of holidays for the end of the year include Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Christmas. Many marketers may begin holiday planning as early as August to prepare for the influx of customers during their busiest time.

There’s no need to come up with specific content to publish yet. Just be aware of the main marketing campaigns and tweak the plan as you see fit.

Aside from preparing for upcoming campaigns, a calendar will help you set a realistic amount of projects. You can create content weeks in advance to hit your marketing goals during peak sales time. Your team won’t be stressed out with a practical schedule or be forced to downsize the campaign due to missed deadlines.

Conclusion

If you want to build a marketing campaign, you need an elaborate plan to succeed.

A marketing calendar lets you determine how far in advance you need to begin your marketing campaigns and the amount of time you have to fulfill them. Setting up tasks and deadlines is the only way to streamline your campaigns and make sure your team is on track to hit their goals.

How will you use your marketing calendar?

The post How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.

Develop Content Strategy – Streamline Your Content Production

Over 95% of marketing nowadays takes place on online platforms. Simply having an online presence is nonetheless not enough to get people on your website and social media pages. You need content that keeps people glued to the pages, sharing links to the pages, and coming back time and again. Churning the right content is, …

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