Author Archives: i4lead

Developing a consistent brand starts with creating a brand style guide. These branding rule books help graphic designers, marketers, web developers, community managers, and even product packaging departments present a unified vision of the brand to the public.

The best brands stick in our brains because their presence is defined by the repetition of the same logo, fonts, colors, and images. Once we see them enough, they become instantly recognizable. All of this is possible when each member of your team adheres to a cohesive brand style guide.

So, what is a brand style guide? In this article, I’ll go over the elements of a style guide and share some amazing examples of them in action to help inspire your next branding project or website redesign.

Table of Contents

• What are brand guidelines?
• The Elements of a Brand Style Guide
• Style Guide Examples
• Branding Guidelines Tips
• Build a Memorable Style Guide of Your Own

Picture the most recognizable brands you can think of.

Chances are, you’ve learned to recognize them due to one of the following reasons:

• There’s a written or visual consistency across the messaging.
• The same brand colors are reflected across every asset.
• The language sounds familiar.
• It‘s all very organized, and while not rigid, it’s cohesive.

But before you sit down to create your branding guidelines, I’d recommend taking a step back and defining your brand’s mission statement and buyer personas. These strategic elements will help you dive into the tactical components of your brand style guide later.

Brand Guidelines Mission Statement

Your brand guidelines mission statement ensures that all your content is working toward the same goal and connecting with your audience. It can also guide your blog and paid content, ad copy, visual media, and slogan.

Brand Guidelines Buyer Persona

Your brand guidelines buyer persona guides your blog content, ad copy, and visual media, which can attract valuable leads and customers to your business. You can create one quickly with our free persona tool.

The Elements of a Brand Style Guide

A brand style guide encompasses much more than just a logo (although that’s important, too). It visually encompasses everything your brand is about — down to your business’ purpose.

Here are some key elements that I believe make or break a brand style guide, with links to in-depth articles if you need more guidance or info:

• Logo. Logos are a powerful way to determine how your brand is perceived. We’ve got a nine-step guide to walk you through it.
• Color palette. Your brand color palette affects every aspect of your design, especially visual impact and user experience. We’ve got 50 unforgettable palettes to inspire you.
• Typography. Typography plays a critical role on any website by ensuring we can comfortably read and process all its text-based content. If a website’s typography works, we won’t notice. If it fails, chances are we’ll bounce off the page.
• Imagery and iconography. Ensure the best possible user experience with these icon best practices.
• Brand voice. Build your best brand voice using our free brand-building guide.

1. City of Chicago

See the full City of Chicago brand guide.

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What I like: Chicago’s brand guidelines rest on the beauty and simplicity of the city’s flag, both in terms of color and design. Plus, the tone of the guide is fun and casual — like its acknowledgement of how popular Chicago stars are in tattoo designs.

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A fun detail: The custom font, Big Shoulders, comes from the Carl Sandburg poem “Chicago,” which gave the city its nickname “City of Big Shoulders.”

2. Olympic Games

See the full Olympic Games brand guide.

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What I like: The Olympic Games still use the logo and colors from 1913, but the brand was refreshed in 2022 by Ben Hulse (whose work shows up a few times in this list). The bold interpretation of the Olympic colors embody the brand characteristics: hopeful, universal, inclusive, vibrant, and progressive.

3. Amnesty International UK

See the full Amnesty International UK brand guide.

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What I like: Amnesty International UK spells it all out on the cover: bright, bold, and positive. The pink, yellow, and blue brand colors are cheerful, optimistic, and bold. This guide also does a particularly nice job of illustrating do’s, don’ts, and exceptions.

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4. Sonic the Hedgehog

See the full Sonic the Hedgehog brand guide.

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What I like: Even cartoons need a style guide. Sonic the Hedgehog’s include phrases for each character, which is a fun and novel way to ensure brand consistency.

5. Burger King

See the full Burger King brand guide.

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What I like: Burger King says that everything it does should make the food “even more craveable” — including the shape of the font, which is custom-designed to evoke the shapes of food.

6. Eurovision Song Contest

See the full Eurovision Song Contest brand guide.

What I like: The font is so customized that no other characters exist other than the ones in the word “Eurovision.” That gives the brand an unmatched distinctiveness.

7. OpenAI

See the full OpenAI brand guide.

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What I like: OpenAI has put a lot of thought into the symbolism behind all its color choices. For instance, it uses a lot of black and white in its branding to signify that “OpenAI is an empty vessel that adapts to its content.”

8. DC Comics 1982

See excerpts from the DC Comics 1982 brand guide.

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What I like: What’s not to like? Even MCU apologists can appreciate the storytelling that went into DC Comics’ 1982 style guide. Superheroes are grouped by color palette, and each character includes a written introduction with catchphrases, mythology, and other details.

9. Reporters San Frontières

See the full Reporters San Frontières brand guide.

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What I like: One of RSF’s slogans, “Fight for facts,” is simple but powerful, which is reflected in RSF’s three colors: black, white, and a vibrant pinkish-red. The guide specifies how to use accent colors — red or black should only make up 20% of a design, with white using the other 80%. That reinforces RSF’s spare but muscular branding.

10. Major League Soccer

See the full Major League Soccer brand guide.

What I like: Major League Soccer’s style guide has to include color combinations for 20 teams. To ensure brand cohesiveness, MLS has a single logo mark, the crest, with no design variations. It also includes specific guidance on applying color layers to images.

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11. Czech Railway

See the full Czech Railway brand guide.

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What I like: The Czech Railway’s beautiful color palette is centered around a dark blue and deep orange, and the logo mark evokes railway tracks.

12. Coronation 2023

See the full Coronation 2023 brand guide.

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What I like: This 23-page guide covers one thing and one thing only: The emblem used for the coronation of Great Britain’s King Charles in 2023. As such, it’s a fascinating case study in detail. The guide includes half a dozen examples of how to use the emblem on royal swag, and it’s exceedingly specific in its do’s and don’ts.

13. EPA (1977)

See excerpts from the EPA brand guide.

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What I like: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 1977 brand guide is a favorite of graphic designers for good reason. Check out the patterns designated as program identifiers, like “toxic substances,” “noise,” and “radiation.”

The EPA’s jewel-toned rainbow of brand colors includes a muddy green called “Pesticides Green” and a color called, ahem, “Solid Waste Brown.” The EPA must have been a fun place to work in the 1970s.

14. Docusign

See the full Docusign brand guide.

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What I like: Docusign includes a page of colored pie charts to demonstrate the correct color ratios. Docusign also stands out with a zinger of an accent color — a bright coral that beautifully contrasts with the purples in the brand palette.

15. Zagreb Airport

See the full Zagreb Airport brand guide.

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What I like: Zagreb Airport in Croatia uses a simple triangle as a building block for complex iconography that references Croatian heritage and culture.

16. Oxford Student Union

See the full Oxford Student Union brand guide.

What I like: The addition of colo(u)r combinations is a nice touch here. I’m one of those people who can take a perfectly lovely color palette and make a muddy mess of it, so this is something I’d love to see in more style guides.

17. Fiat 2019

See the full Fiat 2019 brand guide.

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What I like: The four diagonal lines in Fiat’s logo are mesmerizing. Fiat has incorporated those simple four lines across its branding in playful, creative ways, like changing the length of half the lines, as it’s done on the cover (above).

18. Team Canada

See excerpts from the Team Canada brand guide.

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What I like: Even though only a few excerpts are available from the full 88-page brand guide, I’m including this because it’s simply gorgeous. Canada’s red maple leaf could have been a tired symbol, but the designers reimagined it with complex geometric patterns and bold colors.

19. Hulu

See the full Hulu brand guide.

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What I like: Hulu does a lot with a relatively limited palette, mixing it up with bold typefaces and whimsical illustrations. I also like this shade of green — despite being a common color, Hulu has landed on a standout hue.

20. Brasil Governo Federal

See the full Brasil Governo Federal brand guide.

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What I like: Brasil Governo Federal’s bold style and brash colors are eye-catching, to say the least. The style guide includes information on how to use the logo in video, which in my experience is a brand question that often goes unanswered.

21. IBM

See the full IBM brand guide.

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What I like: IBM’s brand guide is an incredible interactive experience with videos and custom typeface previews. It’s also among the most comprehensive of this entire list, since it includes support for non-Latin scripts like Arabic and fonts that support alternate glyphs and even ligatures. There’s even an entire section dedicated to data visualization.

22. American Airlines

See the full American Airlines brand guide.

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What I like: American Airlines’ style guide has a ton of examples, including specifics like what part of the airplane can be shown in a photo. Considering how many different types of ads the airline runs, it’s useful to have so many specific details to help avoid human error and inconsistencies.

23. British Rail

See the full British Rail corporate identity manual.

What I like: British Rail’s corporate identity manual collects several decades of brand changes — it’s worth a look just to trace the subtle differences over time.

24. Elizabeth Line, Transport for London

See the full Elizabeth Line brand guide.

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What I like: TfL, London’s transport authority, created a brand guide for its newest addition, the Elizabeth line. It even includes a section on “design idiom flexibility,” which provides guidance on how much Elizabeth line branding to use on a scale of “localness” to “Elizabeth line-ness.”

25. Medium

See the full Medium brand guide.

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What I like: Medium‘s simple brand style guide emphasizes usage of its logo, wordmark, and symbol. Medium’s logo is the brand’s primary graphic element and was created to feel “confident, premium, timeless, and modern.”

26. Walmart

See the full Walmart brand guide.

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What I like: The guide includes the brand‘s logo, photography, typography, illustrations, iconography, voice, editorial style, and more. Walmart’s color palette is so integral to its brand identity that its primary color is called “Walmart Blue.”

27. Asana

See the full Asana brand guide.

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What I like: Asana‘s simple style guide highlights its logo and color palette. It also explains how to properly use the brand’s assets.

28. Spotify

See the full Spotify brand guide.

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What I like: Spotify‘s color palette includes three color codes, while the rest of the company’s branding guidelines focus on logo variation and album artwork. The style guide even allows you to download an icon version of its logo, making it easier to represent the company without manually recreating it.

29. Starbucks

See the full Starbucks brand guide.

What I like: Starbucks’ interactive brand style guide includes details about how to use its core elements such as the iconic Siren logo and green color palette. Plus, the guide features a visual spectrum of how their creative assets can be used across different channels.

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30. Paris 2024

See the full Paris 2024 brand guide.

What I like: Paris 2024’s brand identity pays homage to the 1924 Olympic Games through Art Deco-inspired design. Best of all, designers applied eco-branding methods to reduce the amount of ink and paper needed for physical materials as well as limit the power and data consumption on digital elements.

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This brand guide also reinvents all 62 pictograms from the Olympic and Paralympic Games as “coat of arms that serve as rallying cries for sports fans.” Each pictogram is designed on an axis of symmetry that reinforces the coats of arms iconography. Go straight to the pictogram guidelines to take a look. The ones below represent surfing, swimming, table tennis, and taekwondo.

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31. Urban Outfitters

See the full Urban Outfitters brand guide.

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What I like: Photography, color, and even tone of voice appear in Urban Outfitters‘ California-inspired brand guidelines. Plus, the company includes information about its ideal consumer and what the brand believes in.

32. Love to Ride

See the full Love to Ride brand guide.

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What I like: Love to Ride, a cycling company, is all about color variety in its visually pleasing style guide. The company’s brand guidelines include nine color codes and tons of detail about its secondary logos and imagery.

33. Barbican

See the full Barbican brand guide.

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What I like: Barbican, an art and learning center in the United Kingdom, sports a loud yet simple style guide focusing heavily on its logo and supporting typefaces.

34. I Love New York

See the full I Love New York brand guide.

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What I like: Despite its famously simple T-shirts, I Love New York has a brand style guide. The company begins its guidelines with a thorough explanation of its mission, vision, story, target audience, and tone of voice. Only then does the style guide delve into its logo positioning on various merchandise.

35. TikTok

See the full TikTok brand guide.

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What I like: TikTok‘s style guide isn’t just a guide — it’s an interactive brand book. First, it provides an in-depth look into how it brings its brand to life through design. Then, it gives an overview of its logo, co-branding, color, and typography.

36. University of the Arts Helsinki

See the full University of the Arts Helsinki brand guide.

What I like: The style guide of the University of the Arts Helsinki is more of a creative branding album than a traditional marketing guide. It shows you dozens of contexts in which you‘d see this school’s provocative logo, including animations.

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37. Western Athletic Conference

See the full Western Athletic Conference brand guide.

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What I like: The Western Athletic Conference’s brand style guide includes extensive information about its history, mission, and vision. It also highlights its member universities and athletic championships and awards it is involved with.

38. Discord

See the full Discord brand guide.

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What I like: Discord‘s brand guide is as colorful and playful as the communities it serves. The brand’s motion elements are based on the dot, which represents the Discord user interacting with others in the communities it belongs to.

39. Netflix

See the full Netflix brand guide.

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What I like: As far as its public brand assets are concerned, Netflix is focused primarily on the treatment of its logo. The company offers a simple set of rules governing the size, spacing, and placement of its famous capitalized typeface.

40. NASA

See the full NASA brand guide.

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What I like: NASA‘s “Graphics Standards Manual” is as official and complex as you think it is. At 220 pages, the guide describes countless logo placements, color uses, and supporting designs. And yes, NASA’s space shuttles have their own branding rules.

41. New York City Transit Authority

See the full New York City Transit Authority brand guide.

What I like: Like NASA, the NYCTA has its own Graphics Standards Manual, and it includes some fascinating typography rules for the numbers, arrows, and public transit symbols the average commuter takes for granted every day.

Branding Guidelines Tips

If you want to take your branding style guide to the next level, let HubSpot’s Brand Kit Generator do some of the heavy lifting for you.

I’d also recommend following the best practices below, which the HubSpot Creative team has used to disseminate branding information to the rest of the HubSpot Marketing team.

This has not only made my job as a blogger easier, but also makes our branding feel well thought-out and cohesive.

1. Make your guidelines a branded document.

Whether you’re publishing your branding guidelines online or creating an internal presentation, consider making the guidelines themselves a branded document.

Ensure the published document follows your established brand voice, uses the symbols and imagery you’ve created, and employs the colors and typography that makes your brand feel like you.

Insights from HubSpot’s Creative Team

When our Creative team rolled out a visual identity refresh for the HubSpot brand, we all received access to a branded playbook that summarized all the changes and described how we should represent HubSpot online moving forward.

Not only was I a huge fan of the refresh, but also of the way it was presented to our team in a branded document.

You can do the same, regardless of your budget. Our Creative team actually used a free tool, Google Slides — so it’s totally doable for a small or freelance brand!

2. Name your brand’s colors.

You’ve already chosen your color palette — why not go as far as naming the colors?

Giving your colors unique names (aside from “blue” or “orange”) can help you tie the tactical elements of your branding into an overall theme or ethos.

Not to mention that it’s awesome to be able to refer to company colors by a unique name. Imagine if we called Solaris, HubSpot’s primary brand color, “HubSpot Orange” — that simply doesn’t have the same ring.

Insights from HubSpot’s Creative Team

In our visual identity refresh, our Creative team brightened and intensified our color palette, then renamed the individual hues.

They wrote, “Every color, tint, and shade is based on central themes. […] Whether it’s a subway line in Paris, or a flower-lined street in Japan, the secondary color names are a veritable tour of important cultural and geographical touchstones from HubSpotters all over the world.”

Think about what makes your brand unique, and why you chose the colors that you did. For instance, if you work at a law firm that specializes in car accident cases, you might choose red as one of the brand colors and call it “Stop Light.”

3. Create easy-to-use branded templates.

Alongside your branding guidelines should be templates to empower your team to easily design branded assets, even if they’re not designers.

Insights from HubSpot’s Creative Team

At HubSpot, we keep all of our templates in our team’s Canva account. There, anyone (myself included) can edit pre-made designs for any number of use cases.

As a writer on the HubSpot blog, I have to create graphics to supplement the information I’m sharing.

The branded templates made by our Creative team have made my work a great deal easier, and I can imagine that it’s the same for our Social Media team.

Not everyone is a designer, but with templates, you can ensure your brand looks professional no matter who creates an asset.

4. Ensure your branding is optimized for all channels.

Your branding guidelines should include different specifications for different channels.

Or, alternatively, you should have assets and designs that can be adjusted for various channels and mediums. Not only for sizing purposes, but for accessibility purposes, too.

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For instance, if you primarily market your brand over Instagram and on your website, then your branding should have web accessible colors, as well as Instagram-friendly designs and sizes.

However, you don’t want to significantly change your branding from channel to channel. It should work relatively well no matter where you’re marketing your brand.

Build a Memorable Style Guide of Your Own

Once you build your unique brand style guide, customers will recognize your brand and associate it with all the visual cues you want them to.

I hope you were inspired by our list of amazing brand style guides and wish you luck in creating a timeless style of your own.

In my half-decade as an SEO content marketer, I’ve spent a good chunk of my time either testing or working with any number of free website builders: Content Hub, WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Wix, Weebly, Webflow, you name it.

These website builder tools have been essential for me to publish content, either for my current employer or for my side projects. I’ve, therefore, become well acquainted with their capabilities over time.

But if you’re new to the website builder game, you might be confused about where to start. What is the best choice if you don’t know how to code? And which is budget-friendly? I’m going to cover that and more. First, let’s go over the basics.

Table of Contents

• What is a website builder?
• How I Tested the Best Website Builders
• Best Free Website Builders
• Website Builder Features You Need

If you’ve been considering building a website for some time, you’re likely familiar with your options. The most common method is buying a web hosting plan and domain name and installing your preferred CMS, such as WordPress.org or Joomla, on your website.

From my experience, the problem with this option is that when you install WordPress or Joomla out of the box, it doesn’t come with a handbook or page content.

With this method, my websites started as blank pages, which meant that unless I hired a developer or spent a lot of time building it, the result would look unfinished and unprofessional.

When testing out free website builders such as Content Hub or WordPress.com, I could considerably shorten my workflow. For instance, the themes came with placeholder text and images, making my website feel more complete than if I had started with an out-of-the-box CMS.

How I Tested the Best Website Builders

Workflow was the most important factor when finding the best website builders for this post. Is it easy to set up a website from the start, or do you need extensive time and experience?

Chances are, if you’re looking for a free website builder, you’d like the setup to be painless and seamless. For that reason, I chose tools that had:

• The standard required features: placeholder content, blogging tools, SEO tools, mobile-optimized and responsive, and templates and themes
• An entirely free option with solid capabilities out of the box — no need to upgrade at every turn
• A relatively easy workflow from signup to completion

With that, let’s go over the absolute best website builders I’ve used and tested before.

1. Best Free Website Builder for Growing Businesses: HubSpot Drag-and-Drop Website Builder

Pros

• Includes web hosting
• Personalization (thanks to HubSpot’s CRM)
• Security
• Responsive themes and templates

Cons

• The free version displays HubSpot’s branding
• You’ll need to learn HuBL, HubSpot’s templating language, to build custom modules and templates.

Get started with HubSpot’s free drag-and-drop builder!

I use HubSpot’s drag-and-drop website builder (inside Content Hub) as a content marketer on the HubSpot blog team and have used it for two of my side website projects.

Hands down, this is one of the best website builders available for free — not only because of the ease of signing up but also because it includes built-in tools for a handful of other functions, such as marketing and sales.

The website creation process is so easy, anyone could do it — mainly because the setup dashboard includes an interactive checklist for you to build your site step-by-step.

I loved this signup workflow when I was building a few side projects. It’s one of the best in terms of user- and beginner-friendliness.

Once you install a free theme, you start customizing the site immediately with your preferred colors and fonts.

The bar at the top of the page shows you where you are on the setup workflow, which is useful for skipping between tasks. Note that this is only active during the onboarding phase.

After you’re finished, you’re taken right back to the user guide, where you can begin exploring HubSpot’s suite of tools for business. You also have the option of connecting a custom domain, which is free.

You can buy a domain through a domain registrar such as GoDaddy and then proceed through the domain connection process.

This might be the most difficult part of signup due to the verification step. But you can always move forward with a free HubSpot domain name, which looks like this:

[randomly generated token].hs-sites.com

It’s not beautiful and is my least favorite feature, so I’d recommend moving forward with a custom-branded domain.

Now, it’s time to edit our site. The website editing process is a little more compartmentalized than in other tools.

Others might take you to the page editor right away. Still, HubSpot takes you to the entirety of its suite dashboard, allowing you to access its marketing, sales, and service tools in addition to its website tools (located under the “Marketing” menu).

To access it, simply go to Marketing > Website > Website Pages.

Then, click Create. I loved the option to create either a website page or a landing page. This makes HubSpot a great fit if you’re using your site to drive leads in any capacity.

The process is easy and familiar after you create your first page. You can choose a template, but be sure to install a theme first (which is part of the setup workflow).

The free themes and templates are perfect, and the HubSpot marketplace offers many options.

Most themes are business-oriented; if you’d like to build an artsy or eclectic website, other website builders include more “fun” designs.

I loved that you can switch between themes and mix and match them. Other tools don’t allow you to use different themes on the same site, so Content Hub is an excellent choice for limited design options.

Once you’ve chosen your template, you’re ready to begin editing. Content Hub pulls in demo content so you can see your page’s look when you’re finished.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used a template on WordPress only to get a fully blank page with the “Hello World!” heading. The demo content is a definite plus.

Finally, the drag-and-drop page builder is nothing to scoff at. It works based on modules, which you drag onto the page.

It then creates a live element you can edit directly, allowing you to see your changes in real-time instead of having to open a preview tab.

Another thing I loved is that it’s easy enough for a beginner to use but also gives developers the ability to create advanced custom modules and tinker with the site’s source code.

For instance, you can upload a custom CSS stylesheet in your settings.

Here’s the impressive part: Because of its simplicity and user-friendliness, HubSpot’s website builder is more than equipped to handle business-level demands, with marketing, sales, and service software already built-in.

Most of those are free to use at the basic tier, allowing you to send an email monthly, for example, and use HubSpot CRM without paying a single cent.

Of course, it comes with everything you need to build a website, including content management system (CMS) tools, themes and templates, security features, and a built-in content delivery network (CDN) to ensure pages load quickly.

Overall, I can’t recommend this tool enough for any type of business that wants more than a basic website builder.

Core Features

• Content Marketing Software tools
• Themes and templates
• Built-in security features (malware scanning, website monitoring, and web application firewall)
• Free SSL certificate
• Ability to connect to a custom domain

Pricing

A limited free plan is available. The premium CMS plans with additional features start at $23 a month when billed annually.

Brands Using HubSpot

• Botkeeper
• ProArch
• Eternal Works

2. Best Free Website Builder for Beginners: WordPress.com

Pros

• Customizable
• Flexible
• Mobile and desktop apps available

Cons

• The free version displays ads
• More limitations compared to WordPress.org
• Although intuitive, it’s more difficult to learn than other drag-and-drop builders

I can’t count the number of WordPress.com sites I’ve built for fun. It’s easy to sign up, it’s free, and its included domain name is not as ugly (and more recognizable) than others on this list. “Brandname.wordpress.com” has a nice ring to it, right?

First, though, I’d like to point out that WordPress.comis different from WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a free, fully-hosted website-building service, whereas WordPress.org is a content management system you can install on your website.

If you’re looking for a simple, free website builder, WordPress.com is the way to go. But if you have a little bit of website development knowledge and are willing to learn the ins and outs of WordPress hosting, WordPress.org is a great choice.

For this list, though, I recommend WordPress.com. Why? It’s an all-in-one option that doesn’t require you to buy separate WordPress hosting or test out different WordPress page builders.

It’s not as customizable as WordPress.org, but it’s more than sufficient for beginners, bloggers, and hobbyists. Due to the free tier’s limitations on bandwidth and lack of CDN, business owners should probably consider another tool.

Just like Content Hub, setting up your website on WordPress.com is very easy. As it guides you through the setup process, WordPress will ask you about your goals and immediately prompt you to choose a free theme for your website.

The themes are modern and mobile-optimized — I was surprised to find that I liked quite a few of the designs. When I’ve used WordPress in the past, I found the themes lackluster, but it seems to have updated its library.

From there, WordPress will take you to an abbreviated checklist that’s similar to HubSpot’s. By the time you’ve picked your theme, you’ve already completed the first three steps.

All you have to do is publish your first blog post, edit the website’s design, and launch your site.

Keep in mind that the site is still in the bare minimum stages — you still need to go into the dashboard and add pages and content.

Unfortunately, on the free version, you can’t install plugins, including the HubSpot WordPress marketing plugin.

Now, let’s talk about the drag-and-drop page builder. WordPress.com is much more minimal than other options on this list, and that’s because it primarily includes plain content formats such as paragraphs, headings, lists, and tables.

A drawback for me is that it’s not a live editor, so you can’t see your changes on the page without previewing it on another tab.

If you want live changes and previews, I’d recommend looking into a free website builder with a WYSIWYG editor like Webflow (discussed further below).

That said, its simplicity makes it a great option for beginners just starting to build their first website — no need to fiddle with complicated modules.

If you are looking for more built-out modules — such as banners, headers, pre-built sections, and more — you’d be better off with a website builder that offers these options on the free tier, such as HubSpot’s Content Hub or Webflow.

Core Features

• Large collection of themes
• Mobile-friendly and optimized for SEO
• Managed website hosting and security

Pricing

A limited free plan is available. Premium plans start at $4 a month when billed annually.

Brands Using WordPress.com

• Anytime Fitness Australia
• Activity Hero Blog
• Outsource School

3. Best Free Website Builder for Ecommerce Websites: Weebly

Pros

• Helpful SEO resource tools
• Good selection of paid and free apps in the app center
• The free plan has e-commerce functionality

Cons

• Limited choice of themes
• The free and basic paid plans display ads
• Limited SEO functionality

Weebly is a classic website builder that offers a unique bundle of web hosting, domain registration, web design, and built-in e-commerce functions.

This last feature is of note because, with other tools on this list, like WordPress, you’d have to install an e-commerce plugin to start a shop, and even on Content Hub, you’d need a third-party integration.

On Weebly, you can open a store as part of the sign-up process. Because of this, I highly recommend it if you’d like to build an ecommerce website. This website builder already integrates with Square, a popular online payment gateway.

As part of my test, I created a website for an online store. What I liked about this part of Weebly’s setup is that it’s so simple — you don’t have to go on and on about your goals or the type of website you’d like to build.

During the next few phases, you’ll choose a name for your store and designate the type of products you’ll be sell. I’m not sure what this step is for — it must be for metadata or for Wix’s tracking purposes, but it’s good to fill out either way.

As with Content Hub and WordPress.com, you’ll be prompted to choose a theme. If you’re setting up an e-commerce website, Weebly will automatically sort the themes so that you get storefront options first — there is no need to go hunting for them.

I found the theme selection a little less diverse than other options on this list, but the options are reasonable free e-commerce site builders.

While testing this website builder, I also found that it offers a nifty product listing tool that allows you to set up your inventory for sale immediately.

I loved how easy and simple this was, and it’s a great fit for someone who’s trying out e-commerce for the first time.

And, great news: Weebly, like the previous tools, includes a checklist to work through to set up your store correctly.

I’ve used Weebly before but have abandoned it due to its laggy page editor.

During my test this time, I found that the drag-and-drop editor is still somewhat laggy but more serviceable than when I was using Weebly for fun.

It includes the standard text, image, and rich content modules, with more variety and complexity than WordPress.com’s options.

It also features helpful SEO tools and resources to get you started with an SEO strategy, which is a crucial and unavoidable part of having a website because, without it, people might never know your page exists.

Core Features

• Drag-and-drop editor
• Integrated CMS solution
• Free SSL certificate
• SEO tools
• Analytics and Reporting

Pricing

A limited free plan is available. Premium plans start at $6 a month when billed annually.

Brands Using Weebly

• Caribbean Coffee and Chocolate
• Kerlin BBQ
• Argyle Yarn Shop

4. Best Free Website Builder for Web Developers: Webflow

Pros

• Offers complete control over your site’s design
• Drag-and-drop what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) builder
• Responsive interface

Cons

• After building a website on Webflow, you need to transfer it to a content management system.
• Requires some knowledge of HTML and CSS to access full features
• It has a complex free and paid plan structure
• You need to sign up for both a Site and Workspace plan

Webflow is a fantastic free website builder for those with more coding experience and who’d like a more customizable website builder tool.

Because of its ability to include multiple workspaces and multiple websites for clients, I especially recommend it for freelance web developers and agencies.

(And if you happen to be a fan of Adobe Creative Cloud, you’ll find that Webflow has a similar UX — another plus.)

Webflow is a winner when it comes to the setup workflow. Straightaway, you’ll have the option to build a website for your company, your clients, or yourself. I chose “Clients” to test its capabilities for freelancers and agencies.

Next, you’ll be asked to identify the type of website you’re building. Blog websites are an option, but if you’re planning to start a blog, I recommend Content Hub or WordPress.com instead.

Both of those offer powerful blogging options and a much more beginner-friendly interface.

I was surprised to see that Webflow includes different workspaces, something I didn’t run across in other tools (except Content Hub, which allows you to have access to different portals).

This makes Webflow an excellent choice for large teams where you might have different workspaces depending on permissions or job functions.

The free theme selection in Webflow is, though limited, very good. I told the tool I wanted to create a portfolio website, and it automatically suggested a portfolio theme for me to try.

After you choose a theme, you’ll be taken straight away to the website builder. Webflow’s page builder is complicated, and the learning curve is steep. While the tool includes a setup checklist, it’s not as simple as others on this list.

For instance, you’ll be prompted to change CSS classes right away — which can be daunting if you’re new to web development.

The actual page builder, though, is pretty familiar. You can add HTML elements such as sections, containers, divs, lists, buttons, headings, and so on.

The tool does include more technical language, so you’ll encounter terms such as “V Flex,” which refers to a vertical flexbox.

I can see this being difficult for beginners and even intermediate users, so if you identify as either, you might want to opt for another tool. (Or you can use Webflow to learn web development terms!)

One thing I love about Webflow that makes it a good fit for beginners is its inclusion of “Libraries.”

If you’re at all intimidated by the language and the learning curve, you can simply import pre-designed components and sections without needing to tinker excessively with the tool itself.

Webflow includes a free domain for you to use, but it only publishes to a staging environment — another reason this tool is such a great fit for developers.

The only thing you’ll need to purchase when using Webflow is a domain you can publish your site.

Core Features

• A drag-and-drop website builder
• Widgets to add features like maps and media
• Third-party integrations

Pricing

A limited free plan is available. Premium plans start at $12 a month when billed annually.

Brands Using Webflow

• Michael Kors
• Craft. do
• Hologram.io

5. Best Free Website Builder for Local Business Owners: Wix

Pros

• Easy to use
• Large collection of apps and templates
• Optimized for mobile

Cons

• The free version displays prominent ads
• The premium plans are pricey when compared to others on this list
• The only way to change templates is by creating a new site and transferring your premium plan to it

Wix is one of the most popular free website builders and probably one of the first options you thought of when you started researching tools.

The easy-to-use, fully hosted platform offers a drag-and-drop editor, an extensive collection of apps, and professional-looking templates.

I first used Wix from 2010 to 2013, when it was a simple website builder with a reputation for being laggy and poorly optimized. It’s now become one of the most robust options on the market.

Wix’s most noteworthy feature is its focus on providing all the tools necessary for business owners to get their businesses up and running online.

When setting up your site, you can choose your business type.

Unlike other website builders, which use this information for internal cataloging purposes, Wix creates a customized dashboard depending on the type of business you choose.

I set up a blog, an online store, and a brick-and-mortar shop, and all three had different checklists and integrated apps on their dashboards.

For this test, I chose to set up a local shop. Instead of taking me to the website builder right away, the Wix setup assistant tried to get as much information about “my business” as possible.

I was thoroughly impressed by the effort to get my business information in a beginner-friendly questionnaire. The information would later be used for Wix’s Point of Sale tool and on my website.

This makes Wix an especially good fit for local businesses who want to set up a robust online presence but don’t want to mess with different tools to do so.

Depending on your answers to some of the questionnaire questions, Wix will include different widgets, tools, and checklist items on your dashboard.

For instance, below, I told the tool I wanted to accept online and in-person payments, send automated emails, and more—

—and when I went to my dashboard, Wix created a checklist that helped me through a step-by-step set up process, including signing up on its Point of Sale tool.

This is extremely convenient and seamless for a local business owner, but the list can be overwhelming to look at.

I was maybe half an hour into the setup, and Wix had yet to prompt me to start designing my website. The first few steps in the checklist, in fact, all have to do with internal administration and finance.

That tells me that Wix wants to be the one administration portal for business owners to manage their online presence beyond designing a website.

When you finally begin to set up your site, Wix gives you the option of manually choosing a template or using Wix’s creation assistant.

This is a unique feature I’ve yet to run into in my tests, and it can be a game changer for local business owners that are short on time.

I chose to have Wix to create a site for me. It then prompted me to pick a theme and begin preparing home page designs based on my preferred aesthetic.

Since I chose “Fresh” it delivered earthy and clean designs. The selection is limited but good for a local business.

Afterward, you can add pages to your site with pre-imported demo content.

My least favorite aspect of Wix is the page builder itself. It’s cluttered, difficult to navigate, and overly complicated, which could potentially lengthen the learning curve for this tool.

Another aspect I found strange is that inserting a new element doesn’t snap to the grid.

Instead, it stays right where you place it, meaning it might be difficult to reliably use the exact same amount of padding and margin to align elements on your page.

But if you don’t need additional elements beyond the demo content, simply edit what’s already there, and it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Core Features

• A drag-and-drop editor
• A large collection of apps and templates
• Analytics and Reporting

Pricing

A limited free plan is available. Premium plans start at $16 a month when billed annually.

Brands Using Wix

• Cotton’s Restaurant
• Cau Steakhouse
• P.S. & Co.

6. Best Free Website Builder for No-Fuss, Short-Term Websites: Google Sites

Pros

• Very, very easy to use
• Simple to set up for current Google users
• Optimized for mobile

Cons

• This is a limited tool for any sort of business need
• The templates skew toward outdated
• Custom domains can’t be connected via Google Sites; 301-redirect needed

Google Sites is Google’s proprietary website builder and is absolutely worth a spot on this list, if only for its ease of use and for the fact that it’s 100% free — no upgrade required.

You can use it just as you would Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides. Simply go to sites.google.com, choose a template from the list, and start editing.

Google Sites offers templates for employees, individuals, and students.

Even though you could use it for a business website, I wouldn’t recommend this website builder for any type of business, whether freelance, local, small, or enterprise, because of the limited features and lack of integrations.

Google Sites is simply too limited for a business’ demanding needs.

If you’d like to build a website for any other reason, though — for a project, a personal update, or an FAQ — Google Sites is a fantastic choice.

For example, it’s a great option for a job seeker looking to create a simple portfolio to attach to job applications. Once you choose a template, you’re taken right to the editor, where you can start editing the demo content.

The interface is as seamless and familiar as you’d expect from Google. No overly complicated jargon and no overabundance of options, but still exactly what you need to build a strong site with a mild learning curve.

(In fact, the learning curve is so mild that I would actually not recommend this as a learning tool for those building a site for the first time. To truly learn how to create a website, consider a more robust tool that includes traditional web design elements.)

As with any other Google tool, you can collaborate with others and limit permissions. That makes it a great option if you need to build a team site for any reason.

Once you hit publish, it will be published to a subdirectory of a subdirectory on Google’s domain. For instance, here’s the URL I published my site to when I was doing my test:

https://sites.google.com/hubspot.com/tinasmithphdtest/about

You can’t connect a custom domain through the Google Sites portal, but you can always purchase a custom domain (I recommend using Google’s own domain buying service, domains.google.com) and setting up a 301 redirect.

Core Features

• A drag-and-drop editor
• The traditional Google Workspace interface
• Analytics and reporting (through Google Analytics)

Pricing

Free.

Brands Using Google Sites

No brands that I know of use Google Sites — this tool is best for personal projects.

7. Best Free Website Builder for Solopreneurs: Dorik

Pros

• Easy for users without coding or design experience
• Comprehensive and easily customizable AI-generated website
• Intuitive interface

Cons

• Very few e-commerce features

Dorik is a website builder that boasts users can create excellent websites in just minutes thanks to its myriad of features, including AI tools. Moreover, users don’t need any coding or design experience to design their site, according to Dorik.

I find Dorik‘s AI features to be the most impressive and unique compared to other website builders. Dorik’s website says it can generate a complete website in seconds with a single prompt. So, naturally, I put it to the test.

After clicking “Create New Site With AI,” I’m greeted with a pop-up showing I only have to enter the name of my website, type a prompt describing the site, and select the language.

This is the landing page Dorik’s AI tool designed for my “Jane Doe Marketing” website. I love how the page includes the following tabs in the top left corner.

• Home
• About
• Blog
• Contact

I also appreciate the imagery, which features 3-D figures of social media and entertainment apps.

And though the opening sentence is a bit dry in terms of tone, it includes important marketing keywords and is a strong start to improve upon.

I‘m blown away by the details of this AI-generated website. As I continue to scroll down, I see a section explaining what Jane Doe Marketing is an how it works. There’s even a “Learn More” button.

If I scroll a little further, I’ll find a spot for our location and contact information. Of course, Dorik provides a sidebar complete with tools to customize and edit the site to my liking.

Based on the ease of its AI tool alone, I think Dorik is an excellent website builder if you’re a freelancer, content creator, or solopreneur who wants a beautifully designed website with all the fixings without having to design or code.

Core Features

• AI website generator
• AI text and Image Generator
• Robust blog editor with built-in SEO tools
• Airtable integration

Pricing

Free features are available. Plans start at $15 per month.

Brands Using Dorik

I don’t know of any major brands using Dorik, likely due to its lack of e-commerce features.

8. Best Website Builder for Using Your Own Domain: Ucraft

Pros:

• Free domain
• Modern and diverse template designs
• Easy drag-and-drop editor

Cons:

• No free blogging options
• Limited e-commerce feature

Ucraft is excellent for organizations that want to use their domains for free and build a website without coding or having to have coding experience. This website builder also includes a logo maker and blogging platform.

My only issue with Ucraft is that there are no free blogging features, though you can add a blog for an extra $10 per month.

Core Features

• AI logo generator
• Easy-to-use templates
• Free logo maker
• Visual and content editor

Pricing

Free with paid plans available starting at $21 per month

Brands Using Ucraft

I don’t know of any major brands using Ucraft

Website Builder Features You Need

Choosing a website builder tool is easier when you know what you want. Here are the features to look out for.

1. Themes and Templates

The above drag-and-drop themes are available in Content Hub — sign up for free.

Website builders should have theme options that cater to specific niches so users don’t waste time creating new templates from scratch. For example, the website builders on our list have options for blogs, portfolios, e-commerce websites, and more.

Templates should be easy to customize and include pre-structured and pre-populated images, text, and other elements commonly found on websites. For example, every site needs a home page, an about page, and a contact page. All you need to do is pick one and replace the sample content with your own.

2. Media (Video, Photo, Audio, and Graphics)

Solely having text on your website can be monotonous, so including different forms of media helps break up text and can help information stick. I suggest filling your website with highly engaging multimedia content and graphics to support vital information and engage users.

You can easily bring your website to life using visual aids and mediums like stock photos, vector images, background images, stock video footage, sound effects, and video editing templates. Many websites provide free media resources for content.

Freepik is a well-known website that provides illustrations and images. Many sites also incorporate icons within the call-to-actions and resources sections. Flaticon is a great source of icons.

3. WYSIWYG Editor

The best website builder tools make it easy for users to customize their websites with drag-and-drop tools and what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editors. It’s great for beginners because you don’t need to learn how to code—simply design your site in a few clicks by dragging and dropping elements onto your page and seeing how it will look.

I also predict that using a WYSIWYG editor will save you a lot of time making changes after you publish your site because you can see how everything will look while you’re designing it. This is an important feature to consider when choosing the best website builder for you, one that meets your needs.

4. Malware Scanning

Security is a top consideration when choosing a website builder.

Security features vary depending on the website builder tool you select, but consider it a keeper if it offers malware scanning. Automated malware scanning allows you to address threats before they progress into something catastrophic.

5. Web Application Firewall (WAF)

WAFs sit between your web server and the internet to protect your website from common attacks.

You’ll be able to avoid SQL injections (where a hacker gets the ability to view your site database and access secure data) and cross-site scripting (XSS) (when a hacker injects malicious code into your site) by filtering, monitoring, and blocking malicious traffic from entering the network.

WAFs can come in the form of software-as-a-service (SaaS), and you can customize them to meet your website’s unique needs. If you create your website with HubSpot, you’ll get access to 24/7 enterprise-grade security tools like malware scanning and WAF.

6. Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Besides site security, I strongly recommend optimizing for page speed. The amount of time it takes for your site to load significantly impacts customer experience, conversions, and revenue, and whether your site is even usable on mobile devices.

There are many ways to improve page speed, and a content delivery network (CDN) is one way to do so. CDNs store heavy and static content on distributed servers located worldwide and load the cached content from a location nearest to the user to speed up its delivery.

7. Web Hosting

The best website builders make it convenient to start your websites by offering free web hosting. In some cases, you might need to provide your own web hosting for your platform or use something like WordPress hosting.

Free website builders offer limited bandwidth and storage just for personal use. You can upgrade to shared, dedicated, or managed hosting for an additional fee.

8. Storage

Web hosting provides two services: bandwidth and disk space (or storage).

Most free website builders offer ample (limited) storage for a beginner site but require you to purchase additional storage should you need it.

9. Blogs

Blogs can help your website by:

• Increasing visibility through SEO.
• Generating new leads.
• Building trust and loyalty.
• Creating brand awareness.

Most free website builders come with basic blogging tools, like AI blog writers and other content management features.

10. SEO Capabilities

According to our 2023 Web Traffic & Analytics Report, organic search is the second-highest driver of website traffic. With this, I can’t stress enough the importance of SEO optimization. If you want to bring in more traffic and views, your website needs to be search engine-optimized.

Most website builders help with technical SEO by offering free SSL certificates and supporting schema markup and XML sitemaps. They also support on-page SEO by allowing you to enter and modify URLs, meta tags, and image alt attributes.

11. Customer Support

While testing the website builder tools listed above, I encountered a few issues that I couldn’t troubleshoot on my own, which leads me to my next point: choose a tool that offers customer support.

Customer support assists you with anything you need help with — technical, sales, billing, payments, or experiences. Depending on the website builder, assistance can come in any (or a mix) of the following channels:

• FAQs.
• Chatbot support.
• Live support.
• A knowledge base.
• Video tutorials.

The best website builders keep a mix of channels and answer inquiries promptly.

12. E-commerce Capabilities

If you plan to sell physical or digital products in the future, consider choosing a website builder with e-commerce capabilities. There are dedicated e-commerce website builders, but these are often paid solutions with robust functionality, such as apps for payment and shipping.

Free website builders often integrate with a third-party e-commerce application or support a simple built-in store.

13. Third-party Integrations

Your website builder should integrate with external tools, such as email marketing, e-commerce, and social software, so you can add any functions you need, like live chat, to your website.

HubSpot, for example, offers 1,400+ third-party apps and tools for integrations, and WordPress.com offers extended functionality for your website in the form of Plugins.

14. Analytics and Reporting

Your website builder should also have a web analytics and reporting function to measure important metrics like the site’s popular pages, bounce rate, average duration per visit, and more.

Alternatively, you can track your website metrics in an analytics and reporting tool. When you bring your web analytics together with other key funnel metrics like trials or activation rate onto a dashboard, you give everyone on your team the ability to explore your data and uncover insights.

Picking Your Website Builder

There you have it! Since most of these website builders are free, try out a couple if you’re unsure of the best fit. In particular, take note of what you really want to get out of your site to ensure your needs will be met by one of these builders.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2018 but has been updated for comprehensiveness.

You want to learn about search engine optimization (SEO), but where do you start? We were all SEO beginners once, so take heart: There’s lots to learn, but I’ve got plenty of expert advice and a step-by-step guide to get you started.

We’ll start with some basic SEO vocabulary, review a step-by-step SEO tutorial to help you get your SEO strategy off the ground, and get tips from HubSpot SEO pro Victor Pan and SEOFOMO newsletter founder (and one of the world’s best-known SEO experts) Aleyda Solís.

Table of Contents

• SEO Basics
• How to Learn SEO
• SEO Step-by-Step Tutorial

SEO Basics

Understanding the foundational SEO vocabulary is important. Let’s dive into a few key terms:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Tactics to optimize your website to provide the high-quality information searchers look for. Good SEO also helps you rank higher in search results for specific keywords so people can find your content.
• On-page SEO: Any website optimizations that improve search rankings, like the keywords used in your content or back-end elements like site structure.
• Off-page SEO: Any actions that improve your search engine rankings outside your website, like backlinks from other websites.
• Link building: Links to your website from other high-quality websites that build authority and credibility.
• SERPs: Search Engine Result Pages are the results page you see when you conduct a search on Google or another search engine.
• White-hat SEO: Optimization tactics that align with accepted and recognized best practices.
• Black-hat SEO: Optimization tactics that manipulate search engine algorithms to rank websites higher in SERPs. These tactics are often unethical.
• E-E-A-T: E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust. It’s part of Google’s search quality rater guidelines and one of the factors Google uses to determine a page’s relevance and authority.
• Keyword: Words or phrases users type into a search engine to find content related to their search. As an SEO, you want to include relevant keywords in your content that align with search intent so your site appears in related searches.
• Keyword research: The process of finding keywords people enter into search results related to your business to help you inform the words to use in your website pages and content.
• Organic/organic results: Any results in SERP that are unpaid and that appear because of a page’s relevance to the search query.
• Organic traffic: Organic traffic is traffic that comes from organic results.
• Rank/page ranking: Where your site falls in SERPs for a specific keyword.
• Ranking factor: A ranking factor is an element that impacts where your site may fall in search results, like your page authority.
• Search intent: Search intent is why a user conducts a search.

How to Learn SEO

Learning SEO is a big task, and because SEO best practices change over time, international SEO consultant Aleyda Solís “highly, highly recommends that you don’t go to a single source.” It’s why on her own site, LearningSEO.io, she’s compiled guides and information from many different resources.

Solís offers this pro tip: “See what works for you within your context,” because even if the information is accurate, “it might not be right for your circumstances.”

Here’s a few ways you can accomplish that:

1. Read and watch reliable resources.

There are a lot of educational resources out there to read and watch that will help you build your knowledge of SEO. Here are some of my recommendations.

• The HubSpot Marketing Blog (we cover a variety of topics for different skill levels)
• The HubSpot YouTube Channel
• Bing Webmaster Guidelines
• LearningSEO.io
• Search Engine Journal
• Search Engine Land
• SEMrush

Google still has a little more than 90% of the search market worldwide, so add its Search Central Blog and Search Quality Rater Guidelines to your list.

AI-powered search engines are a fast-growing segment of the search landscape, so if you want to see how AI perceives your website and brand, take HubSpot’s AI Search Grader tool for a spin (it’s pretty cool).

2. Take free courses.

If you benefit from structured and guided learning, an SEO course is another option to build on your SEO skills. A bonus is that many courses offer certificates upon completion. These are some high-quality options:

• HubSpot Academy SEO Training Certification (free): Best for beginners
• Google Analytics Academy (free): Beginner and advanced learning paths
• MOZ Academy (paid): Courses for multiple levels
• Semrush Academy (free): Courses for multiple levels

3. Stay on top of the trends.

Especially with the advent of AI-powered search, SEO changes and evolves on a sometimes daily basis. Algorithms get updated, new trends surface, and consumer behaviors change.

For example, in December 2022, Google added an E for experience to the old E-A-T guidelines. Experience ensures that content is helpful, relevant, and created by someone with experience in the subject at hand.

(And it’s a key differentiator between computers and humans, as AI-generated content scrambles to get a robotic foot in the door.)

One of the most important factors in becoming an SEO expert is staying on top of the trends so you can pivot when major industry shifts happen. We cover changes in the SEO landscape on the HubSpot Blog, and Google also maintains a running list of major updates that can impact your SEO success.

4. Study your competitors.

Learning from your competitors is a great way to understand the keys to their success.

Pan suggests looking at websites that are doing well and seeing what other pages they link to, so that when you’re “thinking about creating content, it’s not just a single piece of content you’re creating, but the whole journey that a user might go through.” Your content should cover a natural progression of topics.

You can conduct a competitor analysis to uncover new keywords, where competitors get backlinks (also called inbound links) from, and other new opportunities to capitalize on.

Featured Resource: Our free Competitive Analysis Templates help you conduct a thorough analysis of competitors in your niche, and this step-by-step guide walks you through how to use the template for an SEO competitive analysis.

5. Learn by doing.

Once you feel confident, you can take a hands-on approach and enact some SEO strategies.

Solís says to adopt “a mindset of being proactive — always testing, always curious, always skeptical, and always thinking from a strategic perspective.”

If you already have a website, you can practice by doing a competitor analysis and updating your current strategy based on your findings. If you don’t have a website, consider building one, implementing your new SEO knowledge, and monitoring metrics.

One of the best things about SEO is that a wide variety of tools are available to help you along every step of the way.

6. Use SEO tools.

Considering the breadth and depth of the internet, it would be a nightmare to do some of the essential SEO functions by hand — this is where SEO tools come in to save the day. They’ve saved me significant time and energy and quickly brought me the results I’m looking for.

Here’s a list of tools I recommend:

• HubSpot’s SEO Marketing Software offers SEO recommendations to improve your site, optimize page content, and measure ROI.
• AI Search Grader, another HubSpot tool, analyzes how visible your brand is to AI search engines.
• Our Website Grader scores your site based on factors like mobile friendliness and SEO optimization.
• Google’s Search Console can help you measure your site traffic and fix SEO performance issues.
• Google Analytics helps you view important metrics to understand your SEO efforts, like the measure of organic vs non-organic traffic.
• Ahrefs is a favorite of HubSpot bloggers. It helps you conduct keyword research and stats their important stats like search volume and CTR.
• Jasper is an AI writing assistant that can help write SEO-optimized blog posts with target keywords.

Once you’re more fluent in the vocabulary of SEO, it’s time to jump in and get hands-on. Since I’ve promised you the shortest SEO tutorial ever, I’ve broken it down into three very broad categories for beginners: content, technical, and sharing.

As you get more familiar and comfortable with SEO, you can build out strategies in each of these categories using the links I’ve provided below.

1. Content SEO: Write great content.

My number one tip for content SEO is simple, if not entirely straightforward: Write really good content.

There are caveats, of course. What Google deems “really good” has changed over the years, sometimes dramatically and sometimes subtly, so this advice still requires at least a passing interest in industry trends.

And no matter how great it is, if your content covers a topic that not many people are asking questions about, you’re not going to see a flood of traffic.

So I’ve got some tools and roadmaps to help you structure your SEO — but even as you incorporate these tips, writing great content should be your north star.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is a cornerstone of good content SEO. It’s a great starting point for SEO beginners, so we’ll spend the most time here.

A dedicated tool like Ahrefs or SemRush can be useful for SEOs whether you’re a newbie or a pro, but you can also begin by simply listing words and phrases relevant to your business.

For instance, if you sell roasted coffee, you might opt for “roasted coffee,” “Colombian coffee,” and “local coffee roaster.”

List these keywords in a spreadsheet or document for you to keep track of.

Then, pick one word or phrase to use on one page of your site. In other words, you don’t want to target different keywords on one page. You want to target one keyword, as well as any keywords it’s semantically related to, so that you’re capturing user intent.

Continuing with the example from above, I might create a page for “local coffee roaster.” That would be my main keyword, but I can also target semantically related terms such as “local coffee,” “coffee roaster near me,” “coffee roaster [city name],” and “locally roasted coffee.”

This begins with keyword research, but Pan says not to stress out about it too much: Start by making a list of what the natural things people would search for. Put some of those keywords into Google and see what else people search for.

I asked Google, “is Jurassic Park real,” and here are some related common search terms, heaven help us:

Image Source

You’ll do better as a beginner to try to rank higher on keywords that have a lower search volume — trying to outrank well established sites on keywords with high difficulty is not going to earn you a lot of visitors. But if you’re an expert on a somewhat more niche topic, it’s your time to shine.

Once you’ve got some keywords in hand, here’s a few ways to use them to your advantage:

1. Use the keywords in the page title
2. Use them in your URL
3. Use them in your meta description
4. Use them in your H1
5. Use them in your page content — naturally. If you’re trying to force it, you may have chosen the wrong keywords for your content.

Consider this:

“We have seen some indie publications close because of overreliance on Google traffic. More than ever, this is a good reminder for SEOs to not necessarily rely only on Google. Try to diversify through all the channels and platforms that people are now using to search.” —Aleyda Solís

Search Intent

Why a user types a specific query into Google or another search engine is as important as the term itself.

For instance, if I search for “is Jurassic Park real” because I want a job training velociraptors, I’m expecting very different results from somebody using the same query to find out whether the movies were filmed at real-life nature parks that I could go visit.

Generally speaking, users want to learn something, to investigate a brand or product, to complete an action like buying a certain product, or to find a specific website.

Media Richness

Rich media includes audio, graphics, video, polls, or other interactive features. Think like a user: Do you want to read a 4,000-word block of text, or do you want animations or graphics to help break that up?

By structuring this data in the backend, you can optimize your content to make it more appealing in the SERPs.

Internal Linking

As you build out your content library, it’s important to link to your own content, which can help boost traffic and, over time, build your page authority.

The HubSpot blogs have thousands (and thousands) of posts that predate me, so to find relevant blog content to link to, I type “site:blog.hubspot.com” into Google, followed by the term or phrase I’m looking for.

From there, I can decide what to link to based on recency and relevancy. (And thank goodness for this, because my brain is too full of old song lyrics to remember anything useful.)

Image Source

Historical Optimization

If you’re doing SEO for a property that has a large content library, chances are good that some of that content is outdated. But that doesn’t mean it’s useless — far from it.

At a previous job, I reorganized and rewrote event recaps that were no longer serving their original purpose. Because each event centered around a specific topic or theme, it was easy enough to update the titles, headings, and images. I also updated statistics, the content itself, and the publish date.

It didn’t happen overnight, but those pages crept back up in Google’s rankings once they became relevant to our audience again.

Another way to optimize older content is to add more examples and make sure any existing examples are still correct. Double-check links and anything else that may have changed, like step-by-step instructions.

2. Technical SEO: Improve the technical elements of your website.

Even the best content on the internet won’t get any readers if Google can’t find it.

I once worked on a website relaunch that began with an audit of our URL structure. We had to create a logical way of structuring our URLs before we could think about things like redesigning graphics.

Technical SEO can seem complicated if you don’t have a lot of technical experience. Don’t try to do everything at once — the goal here is to set a strong technical foundation so that Google and other search engines can easily find and crawl your website so that it shows up in search results.

Pro tip: Choose a good CMS — like, ahem, HubSpot — that will take care of the more technical aspects so you don’t have to.

Go deeper into technical SEO with our technical SEO guide, which begins with the fundamentals you’ll need to run an audit. It also takes you through crawlability, indexability, renderability, rankability, and clickability.

3. Sharing and Backlinking: Make sure that users can find your website.

Because your content is great, people want to share it. Congratulations! Now let’s talk about how to build those backlinks.

Pan says to ask yourself, “Why do people want to share what you created?”

He identifies three simple answers to that question. “One, you’re super local, so it’s very relevant. You might even be the only person talking about it.”

“Two, you could have data or a perspective that only your site can share, because of access that you have,” like original research or other proprietary data.

And lastly, “your content triggers an emotional response.”

One simple thing I do for HubSpot articles is provide quote cards to the subject matter experts I’ve talked to. It’s an easy way to encourage link sharing beyond your own network, and it doesn’t take much time.

It’s also important to understand the different types of backlinks — for instance, you might be able to write a guest blog on another high-quality website and link back to your own.

We’ve got a complete guide on backlinking when you’re ready to give it a shot.

This SEO Step-by-Step Tutorial is Just the Beginning

Your learning doesn’t have to stop here. With the SEO 101 vocabulary I mentioned above and the step-by-step tutorial, you can easily start creating an effective search engine optimization strategy.

Our starter pack, linked below, will help you ramp up your SEO plans and boost the likelihood of your website ranking on the first page of SERPs.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

April Sunshine Hawkins is a StoryBrand workshop facilitator, keynote speaker, and co-host of the Marketing Made Simple podcast (which has 2M downloads). 

She helps businesses streamline their messaging, and loves teaching business leaders to leverage the StoryBrand framework to simplify what they’re trying to say. 

Keep reading to learn her three tips when it comes to storytelling, selling what you love, and making the customer the hero. 

1. Lead with what you love.

If this sounds a little too similar to the preachings of Liz Gilbert in Eat Pray Love, bear with me; it connects to marketing.

Don’t “do what brings you the most money”… Just do something for the joy of it. Plain and simple. 

“You need to be selling the products that bring you the most joy. Why are you pushing something you hate doing? Don’t do that,” Hawkins tells me. 

“I know so many people, especially in the SMB space, who are in a rut because they’ve backed themselves into selling something they don’t actually like selling,” she says. 

That doesn’t mean you need to stop offering those products entirely, especially if they’re keeping the lights on. 

But when you care about what you’re selling, Hawkins says, your customers can feel it. Lean into the stories or values that matter most to you, and you’ll find yourself connecting more deeply with your audience.

Now how do I make a career out of reading rom-coms and drinking frozen margs? 

2. Your customer is the hero. Not you. 

Hawkins sees too many marketers position their brand as the heroes, and she says it’s one of the biggest mistakes marketers can make.

“Everybody wakes up the hero of their own story. Your customers, the people you’re trying to draw in… The story needs to be about them.”

In other words, you’re not Batman — you’re Alfred.

Take a recent example: Hawkins was working with a jewelry brand that creates products in Malawi and pays their workers 3-5X the minimum wage. Naturally, they wanted to shout that from the rooftops. Who wouldn’t?

But Hawkins stepped in and pointed out that the brand isn’t supposed to be the hero. The customer is. 

“We rewrote the campaign to ask, ‘How can these pieces help people celebrate a milestone — like a promotion, an anniversary, a birthday?” 

Suddenly, the jewelry wasn’t just jewelry; it became a badge of a customer’s big (and small) life moments.

Have you ever landed on a website and read the first few sentences and thought, Wow, is this person in my head? That’s the end-game: For your customers to feel like you get them. 

“When we can position our products to align with what our customers are feeling, it creates that ‘ding, ding, ding’ moment — ‘That’s me! This is for me!'” Hawkins says. “That’s what we’re looking for.” 

3. Marketing is just storytelling. 

April Sunshine Hawkins is, as it turns out, exactly what you’d expect — bright, warm, and exceptionally joyful. 

She also loves a good story, which is why she works for a company (StoryBrand) that helps businesses sharpen their messaging through a provided framework. 

“It’s just nice to have a framework to go to, so when you’re like, ‘Oh no, there’s a blinking cursor again. What am I supposed to say?’ You have a framework to work off of,” she tells me. 

Here’s the nugget of wisdom: As marketers, we don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. If marketing is really just storytelling, then it’s vital to treat your messaging the same way you’d write a novel — with a hero, a surmountable challenge, and a triumphant ending. 

More companies than ever are using Instagram for business — over 200 million businesses, to be exact. 

Instagram has proven to be a worthwhile investment for marketing purposes. We surveyed 650+ global marketers in Jan. 2024, and they were more likely to rate Instagram as having high ROI than any other platform, and it’s the platform that will get the most investment from them in 2024. 

If you’ve only ever used Instagram for personal use, it might seem daunting to start using it for business purposes. Here, we’re going to explore how you can be using Instagram for business to promote your business on Instagram. 

Table of Contents

• How to Use Instagram for Business
• What is a business profile?
• How to Create a Business Profile on Instagram
• How to Switch to Your Business Profile
• Top Instagram Promotion Tactics of 2024 [Data]

How to Use Instagram for Business

Let’s delve into the six strategies you’ll need to employ to get the most out of Instagram.

1. Add value with your content.

First and foremost, Instagram is a visual platform. To attract an audience, it’s critical you spend time delivering high-quality, thoughtful content.

To succeed on Instagram, it’s essential you create valuable content that attracts an audience and encourages them to engage with your business. Consider how you can delight your customers while staying true to your brand.

For instance, Hot Pockets sells microwaveable pocket sandwiches. Admittedly, I wasn’t much of a fan of Hot Pockets — until I began following their business’s Instagram account.

There are only so many times you can post a picture of a sandwich. Hot Pockets goes in a different direction. Instead, it appeals to its audience through humor, often posting relevant memes or funny quotes.

For instance, in response to @ShallowDivers’ claim that Hot Pockets aren’t sandwiches, Hot Pockets responded with this:

Ultimately, it might take trial and error to find the content that works best for your business.

While Hot Pockets relies on humor, other brands like The North Face use impressive adventure images to appeal to its demographic.

The point is, brands need to add value to Instagram’s community rather than using the platform for advertisements alone. This is critical for your long-term success.

Looking for a few more tips on how to use Instagram to positively impact your business? Check out these Instagram hacks in the video below.

Put these tips to work, and update your marketing mantra from “content is king” to “valuable content is king.”

2. Maintain a consistent theme.

Imagine each Instagram post as an individual page of your website.

While each post should be good on its own, ideally, you’ll need to create a cohesive theme to maintain an audience’s loyalty. In fact, using a consistent voice and aesthetic across your Instagram page is the #3 strategy Instagram marketers are leveraging this year. 

It’s important to note, I mean “theme” in the broad sense, as it relates to everything from hashtags and captions to pictures and videos. You’ll need to create a consistent tone of voice and a unified feed aesthetic.

Ultimately, the more specific and consistent you are with your posts, the more likely you are to attract your most authentic audience.

You might think it’s better to appeal to more people through various themes, but ultimately, staking your claim in a specific niche will help you create stronger, more genuine connections.

For instance, consider MVMT. Its feed is undoubtedly consistent, with similar filters and color palette, and an emphasis on darker, edgier images:

Its consistency is equally obvious in its captions, with phrases like “Create a life you can’t wait to wake up to,” and “Unexplored paths lead to undiscovered stories.” In every post, you’ll see the same hashtag: #jointhemvmt.

Undoubtedly, its followers both expect and prefer this type of content, or they wouldn’t have followed in the first place. To continue delighting customers, it’s essential MVMT keeps true to its theme.

3. Engage with your audience.

Engaging with your audience helps your followers feel valued and, as a result, more connected to your business.

There are plenty of ways to engage with your audience. You might reply to comments on your posts, participate in comment threads, run contests or giveaways, use Instagram Stories polls feature, or give shout-outs to followers on your Stories, particularly if they post something relevant to your brand.

Halo Top Creamery does a fantastic job of engaging with its audience.

It frequently posts cute ice cream pictures with the caption “Ice cream is better with friends. Tag a friend you’d like to eat this with.”

A simple “tag a friend” caption is an effective strategy for growing your audience since your followers will then tag friends who might not know about you yet.

Additionally, Halo Top often does contests and giveaways, like this one:

By tagging winners in its posts, Halo Top incentivizes other followers to engage with the brand in the future. Additionally, Halo Top’s giveaways demonstrate genuine commitment to connecting with its audience.

4. Consider influencer marketing.

As a consumer, you’ve likely seen the recent influx of influencer marketers on Instagram — and for good reason.

Social media marketers we surveyed in 2024 said that Instagram offers the second-highest ROI of all platforms when working with influencers/creators. 

By leveraging the power of an influencer, who is already authentically connected with her audience and seen as a trusted source of information, you’re able to spread brand awareness and drive sales.

Micro-influencing in particular is a strong opportunity for brand endorsement.

You could use your budget and resources to invest in traditional advertising, but it’s often easier to create a more targeted, effective marketing campaign through influencer marketing.

Ultimately, influencers have already cultivated an engaged, loyal following — by identifying the right influencers for your niche, you’re much more likely to find followers who will truly enjoy and support your products or services.

5. Build an ad campaign.

There are two reasons you might use Instagram ads: to spread brand awareness or to increase sales.

It’s critical you focus on one goal when creating an effective ad campaign. An Instagram ad aiming to sell a product will look vastly different from one intending to attract followers.

For instance, consider this Greenchef ad that showed up on my Instagram feed.

With various images of delicious food and an enticing “$40 OFF” discount, it’s likely a high-converting ad. It’s very clear what Greenchef’s goal is: to get people to buy their product.

YouTube, on the other hand, invested in Instagram ads for an entirely different reason.

Its advertisements, featuring well-known singers like Camila Cabello, entice followers to simply follow YouTube Music’s Instagram channel (and, ideally, YouTube’s music channel itself).

To implement an effective campaign, it’s essential you decide what you’re hoping to achieve before you begin creating it.

Once you’ve chosen a goal, you’ll want to create the ad creative. Similar to what we discussed in strategy one, you’ll need to create high-value visual content if you want your ad to be successful. Take a look at other ads on Instagram and consider how you might emulate them.

Additionally, A/B test multiple variations of the same ad (changing the copy, image, or targeted audience for each version), to figure out what works best for your business.

When you’re ready to create your ad, you’ll need to use Facebook Ads Manager. Among other things, Ads Manager lets you narrow in on your target audience (including location, age, and various interests of your ideal demographic), choose your ad objective, and analyze ad performance.

6. Utilize shoppable posts.

If you’re using Instagram for business, then, Shoppable Posts is one feature you’ll want to know well.

It allows you to create posts and tag your products and/services to create a seamless shopping experience directly on the platform. It creates less friction for your followers, increasing the odds of turning them into customers.

Before you begin executing these strategies, you’ll need one thing: an Instagram Business Profile.

A business profile legitimizes your Instagram account and enables you to add critical information like your company’s business hours, location, and phone number.

Pros and Cons of an Instagram Business Profile

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” you might be thinking. “I don’t know how I feel about committing to all that.”

Here are some helpful pros and cons so you can determine if a business profile is right for you before jumping in:

Pros

• Access to metrics on how your posts and stories perform.
• Ability to track how your followers engage with your content.
• Access to features necessary to run ad campaigns.
• Gain feature for adding URLs to Stories so you can send warm traffic to your site.

Cons

• Being labeled as a business.
• May experience less organic reach and visibility.
• Must also have a Facebook account to access ad features.

For most brands, the benefits of a business profile outweigh the cons due to the additional features and analytics. However, it’s important to consider your goals before taking action.

How to Create a Business Instagram Profile

In order to create a business profile on Instagram, you must first create a personal Instagram account and then switch it to a business profile.

If you already have an Instagram account, skip to the next section for instructions on making the switch.

If you don’t already have an Instagram account, there are two ways to get one:

• From the computer
• From a mobile device (IOS and Android)

For detailed steps, check out our comprehensive article on how to create a business account on Instagram.

How to Switch to Your Business Profile

When you have an Instagram set up, follow these easy steps when you’re ready to make the switch:

1. Go to your profile on the mobile app and select the hamburger menu (three stacked horizontal bars) in the top right corner.

2. Scroll down to “Your insights and tools” and tap “Account type and tools.”

3. Under “Account type,” select “Switch to a professional account.”

4. Click “Continue” in the pop-up menu.

5. Select the best category descriptor for your account, like blogger or digital creator, then click “Done.”

You can also toggle the “Display on profile” button so the category you choose is visible to your profile visitors. The button is pictured below. 

And here’s what the button looks like on a profile:

6. Next, choose whether you’re a creator or a business. 

The descriptions under each type let you know what’s most applicable to you based on the category you chose. Once selected, click “Next.”

If you do not have a Facebook Business Page, you will need to create one before completing this step. If your Facebook page is already linked, move on to the next step.

7. Follow the prompts to continue setting up your account and customizing your profile. 

8. Select Done.

You’re now ready to begin implementing your social media strategy on Instagram.

From here, you’ll want to determine the audience you want to target, the aesthetic and tone you want to convey, and the content you want to create.

Top Instagram Promotion Tactics of 2024 [Data]

Here, we’ll review some of the top Instagram promotion tactics gleaned from our 2024 Instagram Engagement Report report.

Audience Interaction

Marketers’ primary goal on Instagram in 2024 is increasing engagement, so it makes sense that the most popular Instagram marketing strategy is interacting with audiences. 

Interacting with your audience offers so much more than just engagement. It helps build a sense of community with your followers and allows you to get to know them better.

Content Engagement

Audience interaction takes the #1 spot for the most popular strategy, but survey respondents say they plan to invest the most money in creating content that encourages engagement on the platform. 

What’s more is that 44% of marketers say that creating content that encourages engagement offers the highest ROI. 

Engagement on social media signals that your content is resonating with your audience. Whether it’s an in-feed post, a Story, or a live stream, engagement can be a great indicator of your page’s health.

Wondering how to make your content more engaging? Try creating content that champions your products/services. Our research shows that this type of content performs the best on the platform. 

You can also try the funny route. It offers the second-highest performance, which adds up because funny content tends to be relatable and usually gets someone to stop scrolling and pay attention. 

The format also influences engagement, with most marketers posting images more than anything else. Seventy percent of marketers surveyed post Images on the platform saying it has the highest ROI of all content formats. 

Videos are another effective tool, and the data shows that sharing video content brings in the most reach/impressions of all other formats.

Product Advertising

As Instagram shopping continues to grow, it’s no surprise that marketers’ #2 goal for 2024 is advertising their products/services. 

Our research shows that running advertisement campaigns is among the top five Instagram strategies, getting the most investment in 2024. And, as mentioned above, sharing content that showcases products/services offers the highest ROI of any content type 

Instagram shopping tools are still evolving, but 71% of social media marketers who sell products in the Instagram app say the features have high ROI. Most survey respondents also say that 25-50% of clicks on shoppable and linked posts lead to purchases. 

Over to You

Whatever your goal is, whether it’s increasing brand awareness or generating more revenue, using Instagram for business gets you one step closer to achieving it. While not all of Instagram’s tools will offer a high ROI, they are all worth trying to see what works best for your audience. 

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s no secret that AI is driving marketing industry growth. As a writer in the marketing industry, I’ve seen it myself.

AI can help with everything from brainstorming to content creation. But another marketing task that AI excels at? Personalization.

I’ve received plenty of personalized marketing assets, and it’s obvious when something uses surface-level personalization and when something is tailored to my specific interests and behaviors — and the latter always grabs my attention.

If you’re interested in using AI personalization in marketing to reach your customers, I put together this guide to help.

Table of Contents

• Why use AI for marketing personalization?
• Benefits of AI Personalization Marketing
• Challenges of AI Personalization Marketing
• Top 5 Use Cases for AI Personalization Marketing

Why use AI for marketing personalization?

In my experience, the biggest reason to use AI to personalize your marketing is that it enables you to scale your personalization efforts.

Marketers are no strangers to using marketing automation tools to personalize emails, generate leads, or set up workflows. Automation tools are great for streamlining recurring marketing tasks.

The difference with using AI for marketing personalization, however, is that AI is dynamic. AI can gather and interpret data, identify opportunities, and adapt to the data being presented.

This means that rather than being a tool to help streamline personalizations, AI can help you personalize your marketing on a deeper level.

Not only does personalization help increase sales, but 96% of marketers also say that a personalized experience increases the chances of buyers becoming repeat customers.

Benefits of AI Personalization Marketing

If you’re like most marketers I know, you already have reliable marketing automations set up. But if you’re curious about taking your automations up a notch, consider adding AI personalization into the mix.

According to marketers I spoke with, here are just a few of the benefits.

Personalization at Scale

According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing Report, 77% of marketers who use generative AI say it helps them create more personalized content. On top of that, 56% of those same marketers say their AI-generated content performs the same or better than their fully human-created content.

This demonstrates that AI isn’t a replacement for your current personalization efforts but rather a tool to help you scale them. When you provide the right prompts and have a clear vision of what kind of data you’re looking for, AI can help you reach more customers in a personalized way.

As James Brooks, marketer and founder of Journorobo, puts it: “AI gives us the opportunity to scale the unscalable.”

Brooks adds: “The key is using this creatively, thoughtfully, and putting the effort in upfront. If you put the effort in on the front end and create a great, thorough prompt, it will serve you for months or years to come, every day, on autopilot.”

Lauren Petrullo, CEO and founder of award-winning digital marketing agency Mongoose Media, adds to this sentiment: “The personalization that you can leverage with AI allows the consumer or the subscriber to feel like you’re talking to them one-on-one versus one-to-many,” she says.

Improved Marketing Automations

As I mentioned earlier, every marketer uses marketing automations to streamline their tasks. AI tools can improve your current automations by making them more intelligent and data-driven.

For example, say I have an automation that segments my target audience. AI can take that a step further by identifying patterns and predicting the behaviors of that audience.

This can help me make more informed marketing and business decisions.

Greater Customer Value

Finally, with greater personalization comes greater customer value.

The more details you have about your target audience, the more tailored your marketing will be. This results in them receiving more value than they would have through generic marketing tactics.

Challenges of AI Personalization Marketing

AI personalization tools are not without their flaws. Let’s break down a few of the challenges and how marketers can address them.

Crafting Prompts

The most common challenge I hear about when using AI — and have experienced myself — is with prompting.

AI is smart, but it’s still learning. In fact, most tools need time and a lot of practice (i.e., receiving prompts) to adjust to your voice, tone, and requests.

This can be a challenge when using AI for personalization. Brooks suggests being as specific as possible to generate better prompts:

“Look at a language learning model (LLM) as a person — a VERY intelligent and knowledgable person, but still a person,” he says.

“It cannot read your mind. Set very specific prompts. Tell the LLM exactly what you want: how you want them to write, what you want the outcome to be, how you want things formatted, what you do want, and what you don’t want.”

Technical Knowledge

Another challenge marketers may run into is having a lack of technical knowledge.

Marketing personalization at scale requires a bit more technical expertise than using ChatGPT, for instance.

You may need to understand APIs and have a deeper grasp of how AI works to create personalization workflows and automatic outputs.

“Fortunately, with the rise in ‘no-code’ tools, it’s never been easier to tap into APIs and automate your marketing,” says Brooks.

“I recommend checking out tools like Make.com and Zapier that natively connect with your favorite marketing tools and AI platforms like OpenAI. A little YouTube-ing can also go a long way to learning this stuff.”

Top 5 Use Cases for AI Personalization Marketing

1. Email Marketing

Sending personalized emails is nothing new. We’ve all been on the receiving end of a marketing email that’s addressed to us, or one reminding us of the item we just viewed while online shopping.

But AI tools can help marketers take it up a notch.

You can use AI to gather customer details such as their birthday, hobbies, professional expertise, and even passions. Then, enter that information into an LLM before sending your marketing emails.

Doing this allows you to send emails that truly speak their language, suggests Brooks.

“You can do this in an automated way using various no-code tools,” he says. “Personally, I use Bento for my emails. “It can make an API call for each email it sends out, meaning that you can send unique emails, per person, even if you are effectively sending a ‘Broadcast’ to thousands of people.”

2. Thought Leadership

Yes, you can use AI to identify thought leadership opportunities.

Let me explain.

As I was researching use cases for this article, I turned to X to ask marketers for examples of how they use AI for personalization.

Image Source

This tweet is how I connected with Brooks, the founder of Journorobo.

He was notified of my tweet through his AI tool, which looks for journalist requests (like the one I shared) and cross-references its user database to send personalized emails to users who match the request.

It even provides recommended talking points based on the users’ bio.

Using AI tools like this one can help marketers discover thought leadership and PR opportunities instantly.

Rather than waiting around for a journalist to reach out and cover your company or interview your marketing leaders, you can be proactive with your thought leadership strategy.

Pro tip: AI can help you jump on an opportunity way before your competition, too. Brooks was one of the first people to respond to my request, and I have no doubt he was able to get ahead because of the personalized AI email he received.

3. Chatbots

AI can also be used to personalize your chatbots.

Whether you have one set up on your website or for Facebook or Instagram, chatbots are essential for personalizing customer interactions.

You can use AI to create a customizable chatbot, like this one from HubSpot, to scale customer support, generate leads, and book more meetings.

An AI chatbot streamlines this process and, thanks to its dynamic memory and adaptability, makes the conversation even more personal.

“AI provides a memory of the conversation that you can incorporate into future messages,” says Petrullo. “You can also have AI read the tonality of someone’s responses, allowing you to respond at the energy level that someone is inputting.”

4. Landing Pages

Another great opportunity to use AI is for programmatic SEO.

Programmatic SEO involves creating landing pages (usually hundreds, sometimes thousands) to automatically target keywords. This process is done in bulk, which means it can take hundreds of hours if you were to do it manually.

AI can help you do this at scale. You can use AI to create hundreds of programmatic landing pages that meet search terms based on industry or location.

Upwork is a great example of this. You can search for any type of freelance service in any city, and Upwork will have a landing page. For example, I searched for “freelance graphic designers Austin,” and this is what showed up.

Image Source

I then searched for “freelance copywriter los angeles,” on Google and an identical landing page from Upwork showed up in the results.

“I‘ve got websites with broad audiences with many different niche interests,” says Brooks. “I’ve used AI to build thousands of landing pages that speak very directly to those niche audiences, making relevant cultural references and using the colloquial language of those niches (even if I know nothing about them!).”

5. Localization and Translation

If you’re expanding into international markets, you can use AI to localize your content by translating it into different languages for your various target markets.

This can be done for programmatic landing pages, as mentioned above. You can also localize ads, product marketing assets, and SEO content.

You don’t necessarily need to be expanding to different countries to take advantage of localization. If your audience is global and you want to personalize the ads or landing pages to their language, AI can automatically translate for you.

It can take years for someone on your team to learn a new language to the point where they can translate marketing content. Even if you have translators on your team, it’s difficult to scale personalized content when you’re manually translating.

“While AI is not equipped to do full empathy mapping and empathy matching, it does have a strong command of language,” says Petrullo. “You can use it as an intersection of common language at scale.”

Scale Your Marketing Personalization With AI

After speaking with marketers and researching different use cases for AI for marketing personalization, my biggest takeaway is that it’s essential if you want to scale.

Personalizing your marketing efforts goes beyond addressing your audience by name in emails. Marketing personalization is about getting to know your customers on a deeper level.

It’s about understanding their interests, behaviors, and how they speak so you can market your products or services in a way that resonates with them more.

Using AI personalization in your marketing means being more data-driven. AI tools will help you identify marketing opportunities, predict customer behaviors, localize your content, and tailor your messaging.

And if you want to do this at scale, employing AI is a must.

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

Technology offers new ways to communicate, but real human interaction remains the cornerstone of building trust and fostering genuine relationships.

This is where event organizers play a crucial role — not just in coordinating logistics or securing speakers, but in creating environments that encourage meaningful connections among attendees.

From industry conferences to corporate retreats, the true measure of an event’s success is often found in the connections made and relationships built.

By intentionally designing spaces and experiences that foster authentic interaction, event organizers hold the key to transforming a standard event into a catalyst for personal and professional growth.

Now more than ever, facilitating these connections isn’t just a bonus — it’s a necessity for attendees seeking value beyond the agenda.

Although technological advances often take center stage, nothing beats connecting with people IRL. We’re literally wired for community and deep human connection remains the cornerstone of building trust and an activated community.

In a time when people are feeling lonelier than ever before, event marketers are tasked with creating and nurturing an environment that fosters authentic connections.

Intentionality is key in designing experiences and spaces and event organizers can reimagine what it means to build an event that provides deep value and resonates with attendees in a meaningful way.

Maya Angelo said it best, “People remember how you made them feel” and when people leave events, having made meaningful connections — it’s an incredible feeling. Here are three ways marketers can nurture connections at their events to create connections and form lasting relationships.

Relationship Cultivation Strategies For Your Next Event

1. Create Both Structured + Passive Networking Opportunities

Remember the first day of school? Your teacher likely had some sort of ice-breaker activity set up that each student was required to participate in. Perhaps it was two truths and a lie or the classic ‘fun fact’ reveal.

We all rolled our eyes but secretly, we loved it. Why? These structured activities established common ground, leveled the playing field, and took the edge off having to make cold introductions. Because we all had to participate, there was a veil of safety that surrounded us.

Structured Networking Opportunities or “Icebreakers” alleviate the awkwardness and social discomfort that come from being in unfamiliar places and meeting new people for the first time.

Examples of structured networking include themed bingo cards, fun prompts that categorize people into small groups, and hot-take questions that guests will likely have an opinion on.

In addition to setting the tone with structured networking opportunities, it’s also great to create space for more passive ways for people to connect.

Too much structure can feel rigid and stale so spice things up with activities that attendees can interact with on their own time. These activities catalyze meet-cutes and people love a reason to find commonality.

At CultureCon, we love sprinkling passive meet-cute opportunities all around the campus — from the ‘Leave Your Fears’ wall where attendees can leave any limiting beliefs on the wall and take an affirmation with them to our “What Are You Working On” monument — a large scale passive activation where guests can share what projects they are currently enjoying and others can add how they can support the effort in their own way.

From film projects to job hires — tons of connections have been made from the “What Are You Working On” wall!

2. Prioritize Play

I’m not sure exactly when it happens, but as we venture into adulthood — play fades into the background. As if there is an age limit on it, we lean into our careers and responsibilities and put the idea of play on a shelf.

However, prioritizing play as an adult is incredibly essential. Play isn’t only a childhood playtime, it offers amazing benefits that can increase creativity, productivity, and imagination. Play invites guests to tap into their inner child by encouraging spontaneity and refusing the notion of taking oneself too seriously.

We can suspend the realities of adulthood and instead, lean into joy and novelty.

Remember when we talked about the importance of making people “feel?”

Playtime activates the release of endorphins, reducing stress and overall improving your mood. For attendees who are constantly prioritizing work and life stress, inviting them to be playful at your event can nurture their inner child, invite curiosity, and lay a strong foundation for connection.

You can infuse play into your event in a myriad of ways. One of my favorite techniques is to ask 9-year-old Imani what she would like to do at this event. Sometimes she answers, “A bingo card would be fun” or “What if you had a coloring station?”

Play is inherently social. Whether creating friendship bracelets or coloring — playful interactions deepen relationships and help strengthen social bonds. Play fosters a sense of belonging and happiness. It’s absolutely necessary to facilitate an event where you want attendees to leave feeling seen and valued.

Trust me when I say your guests will be so surprised to see the juxtaposition of an adult event prioritizing the needs of their inner child. The result? An event steeped in joy and connection.

3. Bookend Your Programming with Free Time

Although it can be tempting to prioritize time to mingle at the top of the event as guests settle, event marketers should also leave ample time post-programming for guests to connect.

There’s nothing worse than finally settling into an event — ready to say your first hello and having it end abruptly, just as you’ve gotten comfortable.

People are usually more ready to connect post-event so as you plan out the run of show, sprinkle in coffee and networking breaks at the top, middle, and end of the event to allow guests to connect throughout the day.

This will allow guests to dip their toes in the water throughout the event and enjoy all of those passive activities you’ve created.

If you are planning a tighter event like a dinner, versus an all-day conference, think about planning out breathing room at the top of the event with a cocktail hour and time post-dinner for photos, smaller-group chats, and connection-building.

I’m so excited for you to use these strategies as you look to infuse your event with mindfulness and encourage your attendees to leave more connected than when they came!

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

A habit that has woven itself through many facets of my life, like parenthood, my health, and entrepreneurship, is a consistent check-in I like to do with how I’m growing.

I often call it a ‘life inventory’ where I scoop up everything I’m working on, learning, and feeling, and ask myself about what’s going well and what needs to shift.

Inevitably, I spend a little bit of my check-in time wandering back down memory lane to the beginning stages of starting my business. With over a decade’s worth of experience, successes, trials, and a whole lot of teachable moments, it’s normal to wonder what I might’ve done differently if I knew then what I know now.

While I could wax poetic about all the things I wish I could share with my 20-something self, the advice I would give for starting my business is rather simple.

‘Keeping it simple’ might be the best way to summarize what I’ve learned about almost everything in life. So, take a step back with me to those early days while I share what I’d do first, without overthinking, if I was starting my business over today.

Maybe you’re looking for a fresh start in your business or a little insight from a seasoned entrepreneur as you start on your own business journey. I hope this advice helps not only give you that clearer starting line you’re looking for but also combats that pressure to start perfectly.

I know you want to mitigate risk and avoid as many pitfalls as possible. But the learning curve is part of the journey. In the meantime, let these five insights guide your vision and keep that process as light, fun, and adventurous as possible!

The First Things I’d Do If Starting My Business Over

1. Start an email list.

Starting an email list has to be my first piece of advice for you because I cannot count how often I’ve guided new business owners and entrepreneurs to do this over the years.

I learned how much easier growing a business can be when you don’t have to count on platforms you don’t own and can’t control to deliver your valuable messages to the people you’re creating for.

While social media is important it can also be a space where you waste time, money, and creative energy trying to engage your audience that lives on the other side of a strict, ever-changing social media algorithm.

My advice? Start an email list as soon as possible before any of those resources are spent in places that won’t deliver tangible results. A nurtured email list means you’re showing up in the inboxes of people who want to hear from you, buy from you, and stick around for your stories and growth.

On social media, they might tap that follow button, but from there, they might not see your content for weeks, months, or even years.

And unlike your social media pages, your email list isn’t one hacking incident away from being totally erased, it’s an asset that you own. That’s a powerful difference from what any other platform can offer you online.

As you create new offers (paid or free), you’re able to see if what you’re serving up is irresistible enough for people to want to exchange their email addresses for it. As a new business owner, this is an easy, free way to start gauging what your audience wants most from you.

2. Find a mentor.

Mentorship can feel like a big move for a new business owner … with an even bigger price tag. We crave answers and guidance in the beginning, but usually with a beginner budget, we tend to keep mentorship on the back burner.

I spent a little too much time piecing together my own plan out of stubbornness and feeling like I needed to earn all my advice.

But, as someone who eventually would become a mentor to many, I realized how much mentors want to give their advice to newbies! And not all mentorship needs to be one-on-one or costly. There are mentorship opportunities all around us if we know where to look.

First, look for free learning pathways. Tune into a podcast, like Goal Digger, my business and marketing podcast, where I share not only what I’m learning in business but open up conversations with amazing thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to pull out their insight, too.

Plus, I even drop episodes that are live mentorship and coaching sessions with all kinds of people who are at their own starting lines or turning points in business.

Learning from other leaders who inspire you can also be as easy as taking a digital course. They can teach you through their course that can come at a more accessible price point while delivering their brilliance right to your screen.

Find someone who’s gone before you and is doing something similar to what you want to do or how you want to do it. Look for people who align with the kind of business owner you want to become. If they have a course, take it. If they have a book, read it. If they host live classes or have an online community, grab a seat.

Eventually, whenever you’re ready, you might even go out on a limb and ask them to mentor you in whatever capacity they can. You might just land your dream mentor!

3. Share your focus and goals.

This can be a tough part of starting a business because the pressure to be impressive or show off our success can keep us from showing the building process.

The journey doesn’t always look ‘pretty’, and it can be tempting to hide those parts (like when we clean up our entire house before the house cleaner comes over.)

But looking back, I regret those moments when I hid my learning process, waiting for everything to be ‘perfect,’ keeping me from growth because when is anything ever perfect? Letting people in on my journey is when my business completely shifted and growth started building in huge waves.

My audience responded to these seemingly messy or incomplete glimpses into my process with a resounding “This is so real!” We related on a whole new level and more people wanted to work with me, trust me as a client, and buy into my new offers.

Beyond ‘being relatable’, here’s why sharing your process and focus is so effective: you want your offers to make sense to the people you’re making them for. The only way they’re going to get the clearest picture of your offer is to let them in long before you finally share the ‘tada!’ moment.

Surprise drives way less results than anticipation. Show your people what you’re working on and allow them to support and champion you!

4. Get clear on your brand vision.

Starting your business is already a massively pride-worthy moment.

I was so proud to finally get out of my corporate, windowless office and launch into my career as a photographer and then as a digital marketer, but what I needed to get grounded with was my brand. Early on, I genuinely didn’t know the difference between my business and my brand.

An easy way to boil it down is that your business is simply your offer. It’s the solution you give your clients, the service you sell, the products you produce! But your brand is your personality behind every offer, service, and product. Sure, Audi makes cars, but how a person sells them makes all the difference, right?

From your social media, your website, your ads, your blogs, and everywhere else you show up online, your personality should be visible. Don’t hide behind your offers or think that they speak for themselves.

In fact, you’re their best advocate. Your excitement and confidence in what you’ve created is what resonates with your audience!

Your personality can show up long before you even have something to sell. Think about how you show up on social media.

• Do you know why you’re posting or creating?
• When you take a step back, is your brand vision clear with everything you post?
• Can you see your own unique perspective, flavor, and approach woven into your captions and images?

If you’re struggling here, I’ve coined a social content approach called the JK5 that might help keep your creative flow simple.

Every time you go to create a post, choose one from your five unique content pillars that guide your content creation and show your brand personality to your followers. It could be parenthood, pets, style, interior design, poetry, or anything that shows who YOU are!

If you want to learn more about the JK5 and your brand pillars, listen to this episode of my podcast!

5. Choose your tools wisely.

I learned this analogy through my experience as a photographer, juggling a variety of lenses in my camera bag. I felt this pressure when I was just starting out to have every single lens for every possible scenario.

As my business grew, I bought new lenses but learned that there were just a few that I would reach for over and over again. I didn’t need all the shiny tools right away, and in many cases, never needed them at all.

When you’re just starting your business, you’ll probably be inundated by all the options for the best tools and platforms out there. It’ll make your head spin.

But most of them aren’t necessary for what you need on day one. You don’t have to spend your time and money merely looking like a business when that could easily distract you from being able to do the real work.

Take a few steps back and analyze what your biggest needs are. Differentiate between the ‘nice to haves’ and the ‘need to haves’ to keep your growth moving forward.

A key to helping yourself know the difference is by looking at the tasks that are already on your to-do list vs the ones that you’re looking forward to doing in the future.

For instance, you might need to invest in accounting software before the bells and whistles for your website. In fact, I’ll fully admit that I didn’t have a real branded, designer-made logo until THIS year.

You can go farther than you ever imagined with much less than you think!

Honor Your Own Journey

Overall, the biggest surprise to me is that I don’t actually want to redo any of it.

As someone who takes so much joy in the learning process itself, it’s only through the hiccups, the guesses, the mistakes, and the early days that I was able to awaken the unrelenting life-long learner and educator in me.

My learning journey is the only reason I can have hindsight enough to meet people at their starting lines or messy middles and be able to help them skip some of the confusion. I love helping smooth out the starting lines.

You’re so much more capable of amazing things than you might know, so any chance I get to help people like you get there is a joy.

So, while these are in some ways insights born out of moments of ‘regret,’ I would say I have a much greater appreciation for them as transformative experiences.

Honor your own flubs and challenges along the way! They’ve not only helped YOU become who you are and the skills you carry, but they’re also a pathway for you to help others make it through the mess as we’re all out here just trying to figure it out as we go.

Happy fall, MiM-ers! Grab your pumpkin-spiced latte, settle in with Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, and get ready to hear from a paid marketer who’s all-in on influencers, storytelling, and AI-targeted ads.

(I’m sorry I can’t offer up a more recent fall-inspired album. To be fair, I’m still obsessed with my “Summer 2019” mix.)

Keep reading to learn why Zapier’s head of paid ads thinks the golden age of paid ads is over. 

1. Fully embrace the influencer buzz. 

James de Feu says the golden age of paid advertising is over. And he’s okay with it. 

He’s also the manager of paid ads at Zapier. 

(I’m currently imagining Mad Men’s Don Draper rolling over in his TV grave.)

De Feu is so confident about influencer marketing that he negotiated to bring it under his paid ads team. He succeeded because, moving forward, “we see that as our brand motion.” 

In fact, when I asked how he’d spend a hypothetical $1k, de Feu tells me he’d put a hefty 40% into influencers. 

But don’t delete your Google Ads account just yet. De Feu says he’d still give 50% of that hypothetical budget to paid ads. (The other 10% would go to SEO, if you got stuck trying to add this up to 100.) 

As he acknowledges, “Paid ads will always be on, and we’ll still spend a ton of money there. But paid ads live and die in that spending month. It’s not getting us the reach it once did.”

That’s why de Feu isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket. Paid is still a good egg (err-basket?), but he’s excited to seek out influencers who thrive on the same platforms where Zapier’s customers hang out. 

“I smirked when you mentioned influencers, because that’s the name of the game — even for those of us in the B2B space,” he tells me. “It’s no longer just about glossy teenage products anymore.”

2. Storytelling is the bread and butter of marketing.

“In the world of paid ads, we get fixated on one single, siloed experience, and we just keep trying to optimize it until it’s perfect,” de Feu says. “But one thing we’ve learned is that storytelling is huge.” 

“Storytelling is huge” is exactly the same pitch I gave my parents when I was trying to convince them that majoring in creative writing was a sound financial decision — but de Feu isn’t wrong. If there’s one truth that remains consistent in the world of marketing, it’s that humans have always, and will always, love a good story.  

“Stretching something out, building a story, creating use cases, highlighting testimonials — I let go of that over the past couple of years, and I’m just grateful now that we’ve reset ourselves. Storytelling has always been, and will continue to be, our superpower as marketers.” 

So if you’re unsure of where to start in the world of paid ads, try this: Talk to your customers, learn their pain points, and then communicate your solutions through a good ole-fashioned tale. 

3. Get used to cha-cha-changes. 

David Bowie preached it: You’ve got to keep up with all the changes happening in the advertising industry or risk throwing precious cash down the drain. (Those are the lyrics, right?)

For de Feu, that means doing tons of tests to learn how to use AI to personalize Zapier’s ads — not just in creating assets, but in audience targeting, too. 

“You have to be really on top of all these recent changes or you’ll end up wasting money,” he says. 

An example could be an athletic brand that uses AI to target yoga apparel ads to their vinyasa-loving consumers while ensuring their golf apparel is sent to every guy on Wall Street. 

In other words: The future of ads will look a lot more like high-intent, targeted content, and less like the generic, all-purpose ads we’ve come to know and hate. 

I remember my first day at HubSpot. I was so nervous and had a million concerns swimming around in my head. How long will it take for me to get the hang of things? Can I manage my workload and connect with my coworkers?

Fortunately, my outstanding manager at the time prepared a comprehensive checklist that followed the rhythm of a typical 30-60-90 day plan. It helped me slowly but steadily adapt to HubSpot.

Fast forward a few years, and I’m a rockstar at my job.

To help set your new employee, or yourself, up for success, here’s what you need to know about crafting the best 30-60-90 day plan.

Table of Contents

• What is a 30-60-90 day plan?
• Benefits of a 30-60-90 Day Plan

• When To Make a 30-60-90 Day Plan
• How long should a 30-60-90 day plan be?
• Parts of a 30-60-90 Day Plan
• How to Write a 30-60-90 Day Plan
  • For Managers
  • For Executives
• 30-60-90 Day Plan Template
• 30-60-90 Day Plan Examples
  • For Team Leaders
  • For Marketing Strategists

A good plan is imperative to the success of a new employee. I know because my onboarding plan helped me set and reach attainable goals and acclimate to my new position.

One of the many benefits, I’d say. Here are a few more.

Benefits of a 30-60-90 Day Plan

“No one likes showing up to their first day of work wondering what they‘re supposed to be doing or how they should fill the time between onboarding meetings,” says HubSpot’s Senior Manager of Content Meg Prater.

She’s also my former manager.

Prater continues, “A solid plan gives folks a North Star to return to, with readings they can move through during slow periods, colleagues to meet, and training they‘ll receive. Setting clear expectations from an employee’s first day on your team ensures you’re both on the same page and their first few weeks on your team are streamlined and focused.”

And I totally agree. A 30-60-90 day plan helps you:

• Define the parameters of what success looks like for the role
• Outline expectations and drive focus in those key areas
• Empower new employees to effectively manage their workload

Learning the nuances of your new role in less than three months isn’t always easy. But crafting a strong 30-60-90 day plan is your best bet for accelerating your development and adapting to your new work environment as quickly as possible.

When To Make a 30-60-90 Day Plan

You‘d write a 30-60-90 day plan in two situations: during the final stages of an interview and the first week of the job. More on each scenario below.

30-60-90 Day Plan for Interview

Some hiring managers ask candidates to think about and explain their potential 30-60-90 day plan as a new hire.

As a candidate, this confused me at times in the past. But I now understand they just want to see if a potential hire can organize their time, prioritize and anticipate their tasks, and strategize an approach based on the job description.

A well-thought-out 30-60-90 day plan is a great way to help hiring managers visualize you in the role. But how can you outline your goals before accepting a new job? How are you supposed to know what those goals are?

I’ve found that starting with the job description is an excellent stepping stone.

Typically, open job listings have separate sections for a job‘s responsibilities and a job’s qualifications. I recommend working to find commonalities in these two sections and turning those into goals for yourself.

Then, stagger those goals over three months.

For example, let‘s say a job requires three years of experience in Google Analytics, and the responsibilities include tracking the company’s website performance every month.

I would use these points to develop an action plan explaining how:

• I‘ll learn the company’s key performance metrics (first 30 days)
• I’ll strengthen the company’s performance in these metrics (next 30 days)
• I’ll lead the team toward a better Google Analytics strategy (last 30 days)

30-60-90 Day Plan for New Job

The second situation where you‘d write a 30-60-90 day plan is during the first week of a new job, which I highly recommend whether you’re a new employee or a manager working with a new hire.

If you’re the hiring manager, this plan will allow you to learn how the new employee operates, address their concerns or preconceived notions about the role, and ultimately help them succeed.

If you‘re starting a new job and are not asked to craft a 30-60-90 day plan during the first week, it’s still a good idea to write one for yourself.

When I start a new job, sometimes it feels like a completely foreign environment during the first few months. Having a plan in place makes me feel more at home.

Pro tip: Even though 90 days is the standard grace period for new employees to learn the ropes, it’s also the best time to make a great first impression — so use it wisely.

The purpose of your plan is to help you transition into your new role, but it should also be a catalyst for your career development.

Instead of just guiding you over your job’s learning curve, the goals outlined in your plan should push you to perform up to your potential and raise the bar for success at every stage.

Prater suggests having a solid template for your plan that allows it to evolve.

“Anytime I onboard someone, I review all training docs and ensure they‘re up to date,” she says. “I also ask for feedback from the folks on the team who have most recently been onboarded. What did they like? What didn’t work for them?”

She also says moving the plan to a more interactive platform proved to be helpful to new employees.

“One of the most helpful shifts we‘ve made recently is moving our 30-60-90 plan (or 100-Days Plan) from a static Google Doc to Asana,” she says.

“The plan is organized by week, and each task contains relevant readings and links. It’s much easier for folks to move through, and it gives me better insight into where folks are in the plan.”

Meg onboarded me when I started at HubSpot, and I can confirm that my checklist in Asana was a game-changer because it helped me stay on task and visually track my progress.

The checklist below isn‘t mine, but it’s one she set up and follows the same format as the one she created for me.

Parts of a 30-60-90 Day Plan

An effective 30-60-90 day plan consists of three extensive phases — one for days 1-30, one for days 31-60, and one for days 61-90.

Each phase has its own goal. For example, my main goal in the first 30 days of my current job was to learn as much as possible about my new job.

The following 30 focus on using learned skills to contribute, and the last 30 are about demonstrating skill mastery with metrics and taking the lead on new challenges.

Each phase also contains a primer, theme, and goals that help define the desired outcomes.

Primer

The primer is a general overview of what you hope to achieve during the current 30-day period.

I prefer sitting down with my manager to pinpoint a primer that aligns with my goals and desired company outcomes, and I encourage you to do the same.

This ensures you and your manager are on the same page about expectations early on.

Theme

The theme is a quick-hitter sentence or statement summarizing your goals for the period. For example, your theme might be to “find new opportunities,” “take initiative,” or “be a sponge.”

Learning Goals

Learning goals focus on skills you want to learn or improve to drive better outcomes at your job. For example, if you’re responsible for creating website content at your company, you should learn new HTML or CSS skills.

At the start of my career with HubSpot, some marketing trends and jargon were unfamiliar, and I wasn‘t used to the company’s writing style.

As a result, my learning goals as a new blogger were to become more well-versed in marketing and to adapt to HubSpot’s writing style.

Performance Goals

Performance goals speak to specific metrics that demonstrate improvement. These include making one more weekly content post or reducing the revisions management requires.

For example, I was only writing one article per week when I started HubSpot, but it was my performance goal to be able to write multiple articles by the end of 30 days.

Initiative Goals

Initiative goals are about thinking outside the box to discover other ways you can contribute. For me, this meant asking my manager about taking ownership of new blog project or experiment.

Personal Goals

Personal goals focus on company culture — are there ways you can improve relationships with your team members or demonstrate your willingness to contribute?

To reach my personal goal of building rapport with my team, I scheduled coffee chats to get to know my colleagues more closely throughout my onboarding period.

How to Write a 30-60-90 Day Plan

No matter what job level a company is hiring, improving an employee’s skills requires concrete performance goals, so watch out for vagueness in the objectives you set for yourself.

“Writing a better blog post” or “getting better at brainstorming” are terrific ambitions, but they don‘t give you a way to measure your progress.

Set goals that are realistic, quantifiable, and focused. You’ll know exactly how to achieve them and gauge your success.

To write challenging yet feasible performance goals, you need to:

1. Understand your team’s goals.

Try to understand the purpose behind your team‘s goals. It’ll give you more insight into why you and your team should achieve them, motivating you to work as hard as possible to meet those goals.

2. Identify top priorities.

By connecting your responsibilities to your team‘s goals, you’ll know exactly how to align your tasks with the team’s needs, which keeps you accountable and compels you to help your team achieve its goals.

3. Define specific progress measurements.

Tracking your progress helps you gauge your performance and rate of improvement.

To see how you‘re doing, set up weekly meetings with your manager to ask what they think of your work and track the progress of your performance metrics, like the growth of your blog posts’ average views or the amount of qualified leads your eBooks generate.

My weekly one-on-one meetings with my manager were crucial to my success at HubSpot because I got constant feedback and tips on improving.

Reaching your performance goals is one of many paths toward future success in your new role.

You also need to study the ins and outs of your team and company, take the initiative, and develop relationships with coworkers — all things many new hires underestimate the importance of.

Consider setting the following types of goals during each stage of your 30-60-90-day plan:

• Learning Goals: How will you absorb as much information as possible about your company, team, and role?
• Initiative Goals: What will you do to stand out?
• Personal Goals: How will you integrate with your company and team?

Aiming to achieve these goals will help you hit the ground running in all the right areas of your job. And if you stick to your plan, you‘ll notice you’ll be able to spend less time learning and more time executing.

Prater also mentions the benefit of personalizing your 30-60-90 day plan so it’s tailored to your specific needs.

“I love when folks join the team and work with me to move deliverables around or add additional milestones to their plan,” she says. “This is a document meant to help you succeed, of course it will need to be different for each person who joins.”

How to Write a 30-60-90 Day Plan for Managers

Almost all 30-60-90 day plans consist of a learning phase, a contributing phase, and a leading phase — which we’ll review in the example plan below. This includes plans that are designed to guide people in new management roles.

What sets apart a manager‘s plan from any other is their obligation to their direct reports and the decisions they’re trusted to make for the business.

If you’re accepting (or hiring for) a new manager role, consider any of the following goals and how to roll them out at a pace that sets you up for success.

Featured Resource: 30-60-90 Day Sales Onboarding Template

Download the Free Onboarding Template

Goal 1: Get to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses.

Recommended phase: First 30 days

Everyone is learning the ropes in their first month at a company. For managers, much of that learning happens by talking to the team.

If you’re a new manager, grab time with your direct reports and get to know their roles. What do they like about them? What are their most significant pain points?

Making your team happy is a challenging goal, but it‘s an essential responsibility as a manager. Your first step is to figure out how you’ll manage and coach your employees through their day-to-day work.

Goal 2: Help a direct report acquire a new skill.

Recommended phase: Second 30 days

Even though you‘re new to the company, you were hired for a reason: You’ve got skills. And you can bring these skills to the people you work with, particularly those who report to you.

After meeting with and learning about your new colleagues, you might use the second month of your onboarding plan to find skill gaps on your team that you can help fill.

Do you have expert-level experience with HubSpot, and your new company just started using HubSpot Marketing Hub? Teach them to do something on a platform they didn’t know before.

Goal 3: Improve the cost-effectiveness of your team’s budget.

Recommended phase: Final 30 days

Managers often have access to (and control over) the budget for their department’s investments — software, office supplies, and new hires.

After you spend the first couple of months learning what the team spends its money on, consider using the final 30 days of your plan to make suggestions for new investments or how to reallocate money where you think it needs to be.

Is there a tool that can automate a task that‘s taking your team forever to do manually? Draft a financial strategy that includes this tool in the following quarter’s budget.

Goal 4: Draft a training strategy that can help guide your direct reports into new roles.

Recommended phase: Final 30 days

You won‘t be expected to promote people in the first three months of your new job, but you should still have learned more about your team to decide who’s good at what and how to coach them to where they want to be.

In the final 30 days of your 30-60-90 day plan, you might agree to a goal to develop a training strategy that outlines how to manage your direct reports and, ultimately, how to guide them into new roles in the future.

How to Write a 30-60-90 Day Plan for Executives

Executives are different from managers in that higher performance expectations come in. As an executive, you’ll need to be highly engaged with the organization from the first day and implement high-impact changes in your role as soon as possible.

At the same time, context is essential, and you’ll need to understand the culture, team, current operating processes, and challenges before you solve them.

Here are some critical steps to include in your 30-60-90 day plan in an executive role.

Goal 1: Soak up as much information as possible.

Recommended phase: First 30 days

It’s only a point in taking action with context, so start your ramp-up period by gathering information and charting the lay of the land.

That means reviewing existing documentation, attending as many meetings as possible, meeting with direct reports and skip levels, and asking many questions.

Goal 2: Create alignment between you and the team.

Recommended phase: First 30 days

You’ll meet new people in the first 30 days and understand their organizational roles. Ultimately, your job as an executive is to set the vision for the organization while removing roadblocks for your team as they strategize and execute it.

One of the best questions you can ask as you familiarize yourself and align with your team is, “In your opinion, what are some existing threats to our business (external or internal)?”

This shows you care about their opinion and trust their expertise while getting unique perspectives from multiple vantage points in the organization.

Plus, if you start hearing some of the same points from various team members, you can identify the most significant pains, equipping you to make the highest impact changes.

Goal 3: Identify the A players on the team.

Recommended phase: First 30 days

An A player is a member of your team that goes above and beyond what‘s expected in their role.

While not every employee will be an A player, you’ll want to ensure that critical roles and teams have at least one A player to lead, inspire, and strengthen camaraderie.

From there, you can figure out the existing gaps in staffing and training, whether it’s team members who need a lot of guidance and must be coached up to performance or empty roles that need to be filled altogether.

Goal 4: Create goals based on what you’ve learned.

Recommended phase: Second 30 days

When interviewing or shortly after being hired, you’ll get a feel for the types of pains the executive team has and the objectives for bringing you on.

Once you have more context about how the organization works, you can translate this vision into concrete, measurable goals that will take your department to the next level.

Goal 5: Diagnose process issues.

Recommended phase: Second 30 days

Companies of all sizes run into operational issues as they implement processes that are efficient and work at scale. Sometimes, when an executive team isn’t aligned with middle management, operations can become unwieldy.

Learn why things are done the way they are, and then figure out if there are workarounds you can implement to streamline operations. It’s as simple as eliminating bottlenecks or adding automation to specific functions.

Goal 6: Put together and implement a hiring plan.

Recommended phase: Final 30 days

You know your A and B players, and you will have a plan to retain, invest in, and mentor them. However, you‘ll likely come across gaps you need to fill and positions that need to be created to eliminate bottlenecks.

From there, you’ll want to create a hiring plan to execute short-term, mid-term, and long-term needs.

Goal 7: Effect changes in operations.

Recommended phase: Final 30 days

Speaking of bottlenecks, the final 30 days of your plan should be focusing on the areas of the business that can achieve the results the fastest.

Once you’ve identified these, you can focus on removing these roadblocks to start hitting goals and achieving higher performance.

Goal 8: Contribute to broader company goals.

Recommended phase: Final 30 days

As an executive team member, you’ll also be looped in on high-level company initiatives, and the other company executives will be relying on you to contribute your deep discipline, expertise, and experience.

Be ready to lean in on executive meetings and contribute to the vision and strategy of the organization as it moves forward.

30-60-90 Day Plan Template

Free Download: 30-60-90 Day Plan Template

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HubSpot’s 30-60-90 day plan template includes space for all critical elements of your plan — primers, themes, and goals — making it easy for you and your manager to see exactly where you are in the plan, what comes next, and how things are going so far.

While our template is a great starting point, it‘s worth cross-referencing this high-level plan with a more detailed description of your goals and desired outcomes to ensure you’re aligned with company expectations.

30-60-90 Day Plan Example

We’ve created a quick 30-60-90 plan example for new employees using our template.

30 Days

Primer

Many new hires are eager to impress, so they dive head-first into their work or try to make suggestions about their team’s process with limited experience in how their new team operates. But have patience.

Understanding your company‘s vision and your team’s existing strategy is crucial for producing high-quality work and making an impact.

You need to know the purpose behind your role or the optimal way to perform to avoid missing the mark, and your early efforts won’t pay off how you expect them to.

It‘s always better to over-prepare than under-prepare. And it’s okay to take time to learn the ropes — it pays enormous dividends in the long run.

In the first 30 days of your employment, your priority is to be a sponge and soak in as much information as possible. Once you do that, you can try to improve more specific parts of your team’s work style.

Theme: Be a Sponge

Learning Goals

• Study my company’s mission, vision, and overarching strategy.
• Read my company’s culture code to learn more about our company culture and why we implement it.
• Read the customer persona and target audience overview to truly understand who our customers are, their pain points, and how our product and content can help them.
• Meet with my team’s director to learn how meeting our goals will help our business grow.
• Read up on our team’s new SEO strategy, editorial process, and traffic goals.
• Learn how to use the SEO Insights Report to plan and structure blog posts.
• Review my team’s pillar-cluster model overview and understand how to match posts to clusters.
• Meet with my manager to learn more about her expectations.

Performance Goals

• Complete new hire training and pass the test with a 90% or higher.
• Be able to write 3 blog posts per week.

Initiative Goals

• Run the Facebook Instant Article experiment that my manager recommended me to do.

Personal Goals

• Grab coffee with everyone on my team so I can get to know them professionally and personally.

60 Days

Primer

By the end of your first 60 days, you should ramp up your workload, start overachieving, and make a name for yourself on your team.

To do this, start speaking up more at meetings. Feel free to share your ideas about improving your team‘s processes.

This shows you’re quickly conquering the learning curve and recognizing some flaws your colleagues might have overlooked. You still have a fresh perspective on the company, so your insight is invaluable.

Theme: Be a Contributor

Learning Goals

• Learn how to optimize a new post from scratch based on the SEO Insights Report and my competitive research.
• Read every other marketing team’s wiki page to learn about different marketing initiatives and how our entire department works together to grow our business.
• Deep dive into my company’s product roadmap and strategy to fully grasp our mission and vision.

Performance Goals

• Be able to write 5 blog posts per week.
• Be down to one cycle of edits per post.
• Understand how to edit a guest post — clean up at least one rough draft.

Initiative Goals

• Share content strategy ideas at my team’s monthly meeting and ask if I can spearhead the project to boost blog traffic.
• Ask my manager if I can oversee Facebook Messenger and Slack distribution strategy.

Personal Goals

• Meet with colleagues on other teams to learn about their marketing initiatives and develop relationships outside my unit.

90 Days

Primer

By the end of your first three months, you should have a firm grasp of your role, feel confident about your abilities, and be on the cusp of making a breakthrough contribution to your team.

Instead of reacting to problems that pop up at random, be proactive and spearhead a new initiative for your team.

You should also know how to collaborate with other teams to improve your processes. By taking on some new projects outside of your primary role, you’ll start turning some heads and catching the attention of the department at large.

Theme: Be a Leader

Learning Goals

• Analyze my highest and lowest-performing blog posts to date. How can I use this information to optimize new content to perform better out of the gate?

Performance Goals

• Be comfortable with writing five blog posts per week
• Edit one guest post per week
• Try to have 75% of my blog posts not require revisions.
• Write at least one new post that generates over 10,000 views in one month.

Initiative Goals

• Ask the SEO team if they want to partner with the product marketing team to brainstorm content topics related to our product roadmap.
• Ask the social media team if they‘re willing to develop a relationship where we can share each other’s content.
• Ask the sales team what our customer’s pain points are so we can write content that our target audience craves and help them close more qualified leads.

Personal Goals

Join the yoga club.

30-60-90 Day Plan Team Leader Example

Let’s apply that template to a team leader role with another 30-60-90 plan example.

30 Days

Primer

During the first 30 days, the goal of a team leader should be to cultivate connections with their team members and discover where they excel, where they struggle, and where they could use help.

Creating these relationships lays the foundation for solid communication over time, leading to better results.

Theme: Cultivate Staff Connections

Learning Goals

• Identify strengths for all team members.
• Pinpoint current challenges in accomplishing team goals.
• Encourage staff connections through honest communication.

Performance Goals

• Reduce project completion times by 25 percent.
• Increase team member output by 5 percent.

Initiative Goals

• Establish a mentorship connection with one staff member looking to advance.

Personal Goals

• Arrange one out-of-work activity for staff.

60 Days

Primer

For the second month, team leaders should focus on putting the connections they’ve made to good use and creating a mindset of success across the department.

This means establishing clear goals and specific metrics and working alongside staff to deliver critical outcomes.

Theme: Create a Culture of Success

Learning Goals

• Understand where previous team leaders have struggled.
• Identify common themes in goals not being met.
• Clearly define starting points, milestones, and end goals for projects.

Performance Goals

• Ensure current project deadlines are met.
• Deliver at least one project component ahead of schedule.
• Take ownership of one complex task to continue developing team culture.

Initiative Goals

• Based on current project goals, brainstorm two new potential projects.
• Integrate current efforts with sales, marketing, or social media teams.

Personal Goals

• Make time for mindfulness practice at work to help improve your focus.

90 Days

Primer

The last month of your 30-60-90 plan may focus on ensuring the framework you’ve built can be replicated on the next team project and finding new opportunities for your team members to excel.

Theme: Identify New Opportunities

Learning Goals

• Convene with staff to see what worked and what didn’t during the project.
• Look for outcomes that exceed expectations and discover what sets them apart to help drive improved processes.

Performance Goals

• Become confident in assigning staff-specific tasks with minimal oversight.
• Create a regular performance review structure that focuses on helping staff achieve their best work.
• Identify areas for reasonable cost-savings that don’t disrupt current processes.

Initiative Goals

• Look for team members with a passion for leadership and encourage their growth.
• Transition into a more hands-off leadership style that demonstrates trust in employee autonomy.

Personal Goals

• Take up a new hobby to avoid getting burned out at work.

30-60-90 Day Plan Marketing Strategist Example

Let’s apply that template to a marketing strategist role with another 30-60-90 plan example.

30 Days

Primer

During the first 30 days, the marketing strategist will analyze current campaign performance to discover what works, what doesn’t, and how strategy can be improved.

The marketing strategist will also work with team members and stakeholders to learn about existing processes. Investigating performance lays the foundation for how strategy can improve in the future.

Theme: Analyze Current Performance

Learning Goals

• Get familiar with the company’s product, mission, positioning, and goals.
• Consult with stakeholders to discuss existing processes, tools, and buyer personas.
• Learn about completed and ongoing experiments and their results.

Performance Goals

• Conduct content audits and competitor analyses to uncover performance gaps.

Initiative Goals

• Meet with sales reps, account managers, and customer support team members to learn more about customer wants and needs.

Personal Goals

• Get lunch with new team members to get to know them better.

60 Days

Primer

By day 60, the marketing strategist will have identified performance gaps based on the work done during the first 30 days and begun work on brainstorming ways to close those gaps.

Theme: Identify Performance Gaps

Learning Goals

• Research and brainstorm potential new processes that will help improve performance gaps.

Performance Goals

• Identify improvement areas based on the performance audits and competitive analysis results.

Initiative Goals

• Meet with the finance team to discuss the budget for new marketing experiments and initiatives.
• Deliver an experiment proposal to improve one of the gaps found during the audits.

Personal Goals

• Join an interest-based Slack channel to connect with colleagues on other teams.

90 Days

Primer

For the third month, marketing strategists may focus on ensuring the research framework they’ve built can be replicated for new projects and launch experiments to close performance gaps.

Theme: Launch New Experiments

Learning Goals

• Identify performance outcomes that exceed expectations and see what sets them apart from results that do not exceed expectations.

Performance Goals

• Develop a system for measuring and analyzing campaign performance.

Initiative Goals

• Launch a new experiment to help close a performance gap discovered during earlier analyses.

Personal Goals

• Join an interest-based Slack channel to connect with colleagues on other teams.

Making the Most of Your First Months

During the first few months at a new job, I always ask myself the following questions: Is the company a good fit? Can I meet (and exceed) expectations? What does my long-term career plan look like?

Over the years, I’ve learned building a robust 30-60-90 day plan can take some of the pressure off by providing a framework for success that combines big ideas with specific goals to help drive success.

If a 30-60-90 (or 100) day plan worked for me, I’m confident it will benefit you too.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.