Category Archives: B2B

Competition is essential for growth, but only when a business properly evaluates its competitors and betters itself to keep up. Even in marketing, analyzing the competition is healthy and can help inspire you to learn and adapt the business to better meet consumer needs.

Part of the way to do this is by understanding direct and indirect competition and how each can impact your work. Once you know the differences, you can determine how to best identify and evaluate your competitors — both direct and indirect.

What is direct competition?

When you think of a marketing competitor, you likely think of your direct competitors. Direct competitors are other businesses offering the same services for the same client needs in the same market as you.

So, let’s say your marketing firm primarily works with restaurants in the western U.S. There are certainly other firms focused on restaurant marketing specifically in the western U.S., and those firms would be your direct competition.

Even the smallest markets will have direct competition, which is important to prevent monopolies.

Direct Competition Examples

There are many examples of direct competition. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King are all direct competitors. Similarly, consider the infamous fast-food chicken sandwich wars, when major restaurant chains like Popeyes, KFC, Wendy’s, Zaxby’s, and more all launched chicken sandwiches to appeal to the same consumer base across the U.S..

Competition doesn’t just apply to huge, national or international brands. Two women’s fashion boutiques in a small, rural town are also direct competitors.

Digital companies also see direct competition. For example, Instagram and Snapchat offer very similar features, like disappearing stories and direct messaging, to their target audiences.

Indirect Competition Examples

Let’s say we have a client base in a small town. The customers are hungry, and often frequent the main drag to have dinner. Here, there are four major restaurants — all of which offer different types of food. Although the products they offer are different, the restaurants all stand for the same purpose: to feed hungry clientele in the town.

Similarly, consider a client who needs to buy gifts for a birthday party. One store sells clothing. A store across the street sells jewelry. Despite the different products, the two stores are competing for the same customer.

Direct and Indirect Competition in Marketing

When it comes to marketing, knowing your direct and indirect competition can help you improve your campaigns and even reach new audiences.

The aforementioned chicken sandwich wars are a great example here. Popeyes launched its highly touted fried chicken sandwich with a powerful marketing campaign. Direct competitors — other fast-food restaurants that sell chicken sandwiches — were able to use marketing to showcase their own entries into the so-called competition. 

The result? The chicken sandwich wars have been heavily covered by major media for the past couple years. Customers have lined up in droves at various fast food restaurants to try the latest and claimed-to-be-greatest chicken sandwiches.

On the other hand, analyzing your indirect competition can help marketers tap into a wider audience. If you know people shopping for gifts are choosing between your store and similar shops that offer different products, you can create campaigns to draw in those customers. Digitally, indirect competitors might be targeting the same keywords, and understanding that can help boost SEO and get your business to the top of the search engine results page (SERP).

1. Customer Feedback

One quick way to identify your competitors is to ask your current clients or potential clients. For example, if you have a potential customer come in with questions about your products or services, ask them some other businesses they are considering for this purchase. Send feedback surveys that ask customers what other brands they were considering and why they went with yours.

2. Market Research

This requires some digging on your end. If you have a brick-and-mortar, you’ll need to review similar stores, their websites, and their social media to get a better idea of their businesses. Customer surveys can also fall into the market research category.

3. Social Media

Many people share their purchasing experiences on social media and forum websites like Reddit. Check out the recommendations people are sharing for products or services that you also sell to help identify top competitors in your market.

4. Keyword Research

For indirect competitors, turn to keyword research. You can use the keywords you are targeting to identify other businesses that are targeting the same keywords, and ultimately, the same top spot on the SERP and the same audience.

5. Review the SERP

Speaking of the SERP, it can also be a handy tool to identify your competitors. Search your keywords to find what businesses are ranking highly for these keywords to see your indirect competitors.

Tracking and Analyzing Competitors

Now you know the differences between direct and indirect competitors, and you’ve narrowed down a list of both related to your business. What next?

It’s time to conduct a competitive analysis, which will help you improve your own business strategies when comparing them to your competitors.

There are several items to include in a competitive analysis: direct and indirect competitors, products/services sold, competitors’ sales tactics, pricing and sales, marketing and content strategies, and social media and websites.

This comprehensive data will give you a better idea of how your competitors are operating on every level, from the products they sell to their customer service, all online and offline.

Researching competitors, products, services, keywords, and marketing tactics adds up to a lot of data that needs sorted and organized, so HubSpot’s competitive analysis templates can make light work of these tasks.

For example, this Content Marketing Competitive Analysis Template can help you track competitors’ strategies across social, blogs, email, and SEO.

This multi-feature scorecard will allow you to compare your company to its competitors based on a number of customizable attributes.

There are many different templates to consider when creating a visual competitive analysis, so find the one that best suits your needs. You might find using multiple for different comparisons can also be useful.

Use Direct and Indirect Competition Analysis to Your Benefit

A little healthy competition never hurt anybody, but you have to know how to play the game. By identifying and analyzing your competitors, you can get a leg up on the competition by improving your marketing strategies, focusing on your target audience, and reaching potential new clients.

I love to travel, so my husband and I try to spend our vacations becoming immersed in a culture. It’s one of our favorite things to do together.

As a content creator, I’m predictably an avid content consumer as well. With my love of content and travel, I often pour through travel blogs looking for the best way to plan a trip and the best activities to do in a country. One thing that always helps me find what I need is content aggregation. 

Since they’re not solely for travel sites, content aggregators sites can be a useful strategy to reach new audiences. In this post, learn what content aggregation is and discover high-quality sites for featuring your content.

 

Essentially, content aggregator sites repost and collect content so viewers can see articles from various media sources all in one place. Usually, these sites are set up to aggregate content through RSS feeds automatically.

Content aggregation is different from content curation in that it’s automatic. With content curation, the content is actually selected by a person or team instead of gathered through automation, and it includes commentary or context. With content aggregation, there’s no original content at all.

So, now that we know more about content aggregation, you might be wondering, “What does this have to do with me?

How Content Aggregators Can Help Marketers

Well, to start, content aggregation can help marketers distribute content on multiple platforms, making it easier for people to find you. The more platforms you’re on, the more exposure you have to a variety of audiences that may not even know you exist. Given this, content aggregation is a tactic you could include in a brand awareness strategy. 

Additionally, using content aggregators to distribute your business content can help you become involved in your community, especially if you encourage interaction. For example, people can leave comments on your posts, have discussions with others, and also have conversations with you, generating a relationship and helping you attract new business. 

Before you get started, it’s essential to understand how to pick a content aggregation site. 

How to Pick the Right Aggregator Service

When it comes to picking the right aggregator service for your business, the most critical question is the type of content you’re hoping to share on it. For example, there are specific sites for news stories, others for blogs, and others focused entirely on social media content — you want to pick the one that aligns most with your needs (our list below will help). 

In addition, some aggregators cost money. If you have a strict budget, you’ll want to visit the pricing pages of the services you’re interested in to see if there are any fees. However, many services are free of cost and are curated by editors or algorithms, so your choice depends on your business needs. 

Let’s go over some different options of high-quality content aggregation tools that are worth considering.

Content Aggregation Tools

Blog Aggregators

A blog aggregator site is focused on blog websites. They can contain general blog posts or more niche-focused aggregators, such as a travel blog aggregator that’s focused on travel blogging content. 

Travel Blogger Community

Travel Blogger Community is a content aggregation site that I use when searching for travel blog content. You can request to have your content featured, and it is also curated by editors. 

 

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Travel Blogger Community is a great example of a niche site that may also exist within your industry, so be sure to do some research if you’re going to implement a content aggregation strategy.

Flipboard

Flipboard is a popular blog aggregator that allows users to create a custom feed based on their interests. You can create a profile, submit an RSS feed, and share our own personal content. You can also create a personal storyboard with content related to your business and link to it on your website via social buttons. 

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News Aggregators

News aggregator sites compile content from various high-quality news sources. These sites can be for general news, but also niche for location-specific news or industry happenings. 

Below we’ve listed some example news aggregator sites:

Google News

Google News displays the top news stories for the day, saving users a trip to their search engine. You can’t submit your content to the site as it is curated based on search history and location, but if your site gains traction, you increase the chances of being featured. 

Users can also customize their feed by “following” certain topics, sources, or searches.

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AllTop

AllTop aggregates content from various topics and sources, like top news sites and social media forums. Users can search for topics of interest and see the top stories or browse through the homepage. 

AllTop sometimes accepts site submissions, so be sure to check back periodically if you want to feature your content. 

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Pocket

Pocket is an aggregation site that features a wide variety of content that users can customize to meet their interests by clicking a “Follow” button. You can also bookmark content to read on-the-go on mobile devices — hence Pocket.

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WP News Desk

WP News Desk is a unique aggregator site that focuses on content related to the WordPress community. You can’t submit your own content to be featured, but if you run a high-quality WordPress blog that is informative for users, you may find your site featured on the aggregator. 

Feedly

Feedly is a content aggregation site that’s focused on helping users create their own feed so they aren’t overwhelmed with information overload.

This site has both free and paid plans, so users can aggregate content from as many sources as they want, and any niche they want.

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Information Aggregator Websites

Information aggregation websites contain exactly that — information. This can include blog posts, news stories, links to social media content, and any information that users can benefit from. 

Populrs

Popurls is a popular information aggregator. That allows users to choose the platforms they want information from to create a custom feed. Some popular sites it pulls from are Reddit, Huffington Post, The Verge, Google, Wired, and YouTube.

While you can’t submit your site to be included in this aggregator, it’s still a powerful content aggregator to be aware of if you’re going to start using content aggregation.

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Reddit

Reddit is one of the most popular information aggregator sites. It features trending topics from all different areas of interests, and is also a forum where people can comment and discuss the latest news. In addition, members of the site can submit content such as text posts, images, and links, so it’s great for marketers. 

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Social Media Aggregators

Social Media aggregators compile high-quality content from social media — Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Most social media aggregators help markets find user-generated content to share with their audience to build brand trust.

TaggBox

TaggBox is a social media aggregator focused on helping marketers develop brand trust and engagement through user-generated content. You create an account, select the tags that are relevant to your business, and you’re shown posts across different social media platforms that your audience has made about you. 

You also have the option to create a social feed of user-generated content to display on your own website, helping site visitors see your content in action and generate trust from other consumers.

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Tagembed

Tagembed collects and curates engaging social media content related to your business that you can then display on your website. You can generate a social feed from multiple sites, and share the custom content within your site for all users to see. 

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While it may not make up the core of your marketing plan, content aggregators are a unique and interesting tool for marketers to use to share their content and to gain exposure and become involved with your community.

So, you’ve designed a lead generation strategy and it’s working. Your website visitors are coming to your website, filling out your forms, and boom, you’ve got leads. Now what?

That’s the question I ask myself after re-watching all nine seasons of The Office for the 19th time. But it’s also the question we, as marketers, have to answer when consumers have passed that first threshold.

Once your visitors have shown an interest in your brand, how do you turn them into customers? That process is called a lead conversion.

Let’s dive into how to build your brand’s lead conversion strategy and how to improve your current conversion rate.

A lead goes through several stages before becoming a customer. They start as a lead, then grow into a marketing-qualified lead (MQL), and then become a sales-qualified lead (SQL). This means brands have to nurture their leads at every stage and create opportunities for them to take action toward becoming customers.

No two brands have the same process, as each will build a conversion path that is tailored to its leads. Below you’ll find a few tips on creating a lead generation strategy for your own business.

1. Gather information on leads.

Start with the data you have on your leads: source, industry, company, employee size, pain points – any information that will help you build a strategy that aligns with your leads’ needs.

Remind me to trademark “leads’ needs” after writing this article. Now, back to the important stuff.

“You will waste a lot of time building out a conversion strategy that is not based around facts about your audience,” says Marwa Greaves, Director of Global Messaging at HubSpot. “Ask yourself where your leads are. Are your leads most engaged in your newsletter? Your website? On messaging channels? Make sure you are meeting your audience where they are and not asking them to bend to your strategies.”

Jordan Pritikin, the Head of Email and Growth Marketing at HubSpot, also highlights another important element to consider.

“Understand why these leads are coming to your website in the first place. What is the underlying problem they are trying to solve?” says Pritikin. “If you can create email nurturing to help them solve that challenge, you’re much more likely to connect with them and convert them into a new customer.”

If you’re missing that information, work on obtaining it through forms and user research. From there, you can design a tailored conversion process.

2. Identify high-intent behaviors in each stage.

How do you know when a lead is ready to make a purchase? What behaviors will the lead exhibit? Having these answers is key to differentiating between leads who are ready to make a purchase and those who aren’t.

A lead who only reads your brand’s blog posts is likely not at the same purchase readiness as a lead who visits your pricing page. So, if you send an unqualified lead to the sales team, they will likely have a much harder time closing a sale.

How do you avoid that? Team up with your sales team to determine what signals low-intent and high-intent behaviors. Specifying those behaviors allows marketers to know what follow-up actions to take.

3. Use an SLA to align your sales and marketing teams.

A lead conversion strategy will struggle immensely without alignment between sales and marketing. One thing you’ll need to agree on is a handoff cadence that works for both teams. That’s where aservice-level agreement (SLA) comes in.

It’s typically used to outline an agreement between a business and a customer. However, it’s also used internally between sales and marketing teams to better align their lead conversion strategy.

An internal SLA should include each team’s goals, initiatives, and accountability measures for a given time frame, say Q1. That said, this agreement will require regular updates as priorities change with the business.

4. Build the lead conversion path.

Think of your lead conversion path as a trail of breadcrumbs guiding your leads to purchase. The path itself will include offers and calls-to-action to offer opportunities to convert.

Lead Conversion Strategy Example

Let’s use Zion, a fictional UK SaaS company, as an example. Zion’s sales and marketing teams have collaborated on an SLA, which includes the following: Marketing commits to sending 100 qualified leads to the sales team every month and the sales team commits to following up with those leads within a week of receiving them.

Both teams have also identified high-intent behaviors that will trigger automated emails and have implemented a lead scoring system. For instance, when a lead reaches a score of 95, this will automatically trigger an email sequence inviting the lead to schedule a product demo with a sales rep.

On the back end, that sales rep will receive a notification containing information on the lead, their activity, and a follow-up timeline. If the lead does not take action within a certain time frame, an automated, personalized email will be sent to the lead on behalf of the sales rep.

This is an example of the path Zion can build to convert leads, both on the customer-facing end and on the back-end between sales and marketing.

How To Calculate Lead Conversion

Calculating your lead conversion rate is simple: Take your total number of conversions, divide that by your total number of leads, and multiply by 100. That final number is your LCR.

Example time: Let’s say from January to February, you generated 105 qualified leads. From those leads, 20 became customers. The formula will look like this: 20/105 x 100. This means the lead conversion rate for that month was 19.04%.

Average Lead Conversion Rates

Because lead conversion happens at several stages across various touchpoints, no single average can be used across industries.

Your brand would benefit more from looking at conversion rates at a more granular level, such as by channel (i.e., email conversion versus landing page conversion) and/or by stage (i.e., MQL-to-SQL rate).

Lead Conversion Strategies

1. Implement behavior automation.

There are two reasons to use automation: it saves time, and it scales well.

Let’s say a lead is sifting through testimonials on your website. That may indicate an interest in your product. With this in mind, why not automate a follow-up email that could bring the lead one step closer to a purchase? This could be a free trial offer or a product demo.

According to Pritikin, emails based on behavior perform much better than other types of automated emails. However, Greaves encourages brands to broaden their perspective when defining those behaviors that suggest purchase readiness.

“Activity-based triggers are an easy win for marketers, but think outside the box when creating them,” Greaves says. “It’s not just views on your pricing page that may require an automated follow-up, it could also be views of other customer stories or reviews on your site.”

Here is a list of behaviors that could benefit from automation. The lead:

• Reviews your pricing page
• Schedules a product demo
• Signs up for a free trial
• Engages often in email marketing
• Inquires about product features through chatbot, email, or other channels
• Downloads a high-intent content offer

Working with your sales team to recognize those key behaviors will be instrumental in automating follow-ups that convert.

2. Nurture your leads through email.

Email nurturing is the process of engaging your leads through email marketing with the end goal of turning them into customers. When nurturing leads via email, offering relevant and valuable information is key.

This is when the data piece becomes important. Using the information you’ve compiled on your leads, you can deliver content that piques their interest, aligns with their goals, and solves their challenges.

There are a few tips to make your emails stand out:

• Personalize your emails with the lead’s name.
• Use automation software to trigger actions based on email engagement.
• Segment your email list.

3. Leverage social proof.

When leads are considering your products or services, social proof can help nudge them toward a purchase. Examples of social proof include customer testimonials and reviews, which give leads a look into customers’ experiences with your brand.

They are best used when leads are in (or close to) the decision-making stage. So, you’ll often see them on landing pages and pricing pages.

User-generated content is another great use of social proof and can be incorporated into your social media and email marketing content.

4. Use lead scoring.

If you’re having trouble aligning your sales and marketing teams on MQLs and SQLs, lead scoring can help.

Lead scoring works by attributing points to actions taken by leads and helps marketers know where a lead falls in the funnel. It also helps sales reps prioritize leads and know which follow-up actions to take. It also ensures that both teams are qualifying leads in the same way.

A well-qualified lead means one that’s more likely to convert once they reach your sales team.

5. Retarget through PPC.

Retargeting is a great way to reach leads that have considered your brand before but weren’t quite ready to make a purchase. When you retarget them, you can re-introduce offers they may be interested in or present new ones that align better with their interests.

Retargeting is a proven method for lead generation. However, according to Greaves, it can also work well to turn leads into qualified leads. With the latest restrictions on cookies – commonly used for retargeting ads – brands will have to rely more on first-party data for their retargeting efforts.

Let’s go over some additional aways you can generating more leads.

1. Start with the analytics.

If your lead conversion is low, your first step should be looking at your analytics. Specifically, your conversion path over a broad time frame to determine if the low rate has been consistent or is recent.

If it’s the latter, narrow down the period when the dip started and see what could have led to this change. If it’s been consistent, you may need to run various experiments with your conversion path.

Greaves recommends looking at your conversion CTA placements and the difference between them. You’ll want to look for the difference between high-performing and low-performing CTAs. If there are steep drop-offs on certain pages, that could indicate friction with your forms, like the length or the order of the fields, or even the type of information requested.

If the data shows that leads drop off shortly after the handoff to the sales team, it could be that marketing over-promised on what could be delivered.

With so many potential causes, start with the data to lead you in the right direction. Pun intended.

2. Define what high-intent behavior means for your business.

Many brands may have lead qualification issues and not even know it. Marketing may be sending their sales team leads and later realize that those leads aren’t ready for sales engagement.

How do you identify the leads that are ready? It starts with gathering the correct information. First, reach out to your sales team to determine what information needs to be collected. Then, create a comprehensive list of high-intent behaviors and low-intent behaviors that the marketing team will use to segment leads.

This process can help pass on more qualified leads to the sales team and drive your conversion rate up.

3. Experiment with the conversion path.

Think of your lead conversion path as a house. I know you might be thinking, “Why not go with a road metaphor?” but stick with me for a second. Regardless of the condition in which you buy your house, there will always be room for improvement. Things to remove, fix, add, and revamp. And as your tastes change, so will your house’s look.

It’s the same with your path. There will always be room to improve your path. Besides, your leads’ interests, goals, and decision-making processes may change over time and require a different approach.

“Lead conversion requires a lot of experimentation. You will not succeed if you set one strategy and forget it,” Greaves says. “Creating an experimentation process that allows you to test every part of your flywheel will allow you to learn more about your leads and your own internal process than you would have before.”

Although the work is never fully done, every experiment you run will bring you that much closer to converting your leads.

4. Automate lead nurturing workflows.

When trying to scale your lead nurturing process, automation is the name of the game. Manually sending out personalized emails to your leads might have worked in the early days, but that will quickly get overwhelming as your business grows.

Automation allows you to maintain the same level of personalization at a quarter of the time and resources. Once you’ve set up your conversion path, automate the follow-ups that will be triggered when leads exhibit certain behaviors.

These tactics can not only save your team time but also streamline the conversion process so that no lead falls through the cracks. This practice also leaves room for your sales and marketing team to focus on big-ticket items.

The key takeaway here is that lead conversion isn’t a one-and-done process. It calls for strategy, cross-team collaboration, and a whole lot of experimentation.

Website design is changing. While some constants remain — such as the need for relevant, timely, and engaging content — additional elements that can boost website impact continually emerge.

Some of these elements help tell stories and explain the essence of your company, while others work to immediately capture user interest or improve the experience on any device. Using every element simultaneously isn’t required (this can lead to a cluttered and confusing experience), but selecting specific elements that align with your brand and website goals can help boost overall impact.

To help narrow your focus and find the best elements for your site, we’re breaking down the most important elements of modern website design you can implement to improve your site’s performance.

1. Unique Typography

Most companies have a particular font or typography that they use to help their customers immediately identify them versus their competitors. In recent years, designers have access to a larger selection of fonts making it easier for businesses to more accurately express their brands through typography.

For example, The New Yorker is recognized instantly through its use of the unique font, Adobe Caslon Pro.

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Why is unique typography useful in modern web design?

Typography is a singular design element that gives a uniform look across each page on a website. For instance, The New Yorker website leads visitors from one section to another based on the typography and font sizes.

When creating your company’s brand, your choice in typography can indicate subtle hints about what you represent. Is your business fun or serious? Functional or informational? Regardless of what font you choose, be sure your designer considers its applicability across browsers and computers. Choosing a font that is not supported by common browsers and computers could mean that your website will display awkwardly on different devices.

2. Engaging & Responsive Hero Images

You don’t have to go far beyond the popular publishing website Medium to see an example of a great hero image.

Images like this one do away with the concept of above and below the fold, instead offering a singular point of view. By focusing on just the image with text rather than a CTA or social buttons, Medium creates a strong visual experience that encourages you to scroll down to read more.

Hero images are also often placed in the background with text and other content overlaid on top. Regardless of the approach you utilize, large images can help visually tell your story without having to rely on just text.

Why is it useful?

Hero images set the tone for your website without the need for text or video — the right image can instantly give visitors a sense of what your brand is about, what you do, or what makes you unique. As a result, it’s a good idea to both brainstorm hero image ideas and get feedback from multiple sources to see which image offers the biggest impact.

3. Background Videos

Videos that automatically play in the background can add a lot of intrigue to a page. They can be used to tell a story and significantly reduce the amount of other content that is needed to explain your business.

Take Wistia’s website, for example. When you land on their homepage a large video automatically starts playing in the background, and by clicking on the play button, you get a deeper look at the company:

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This background video serves as a brilliant way to get the visitor to click-through and stay on the page longer.

Why is it useful?

Background videos focus on enticing the visitor from the moment they land on your page. The video allows your visitor to understand the key points about your company without ever having to read a single line of text.

In addition, video is processed 60,000 times faster by our brains compared to text. While people are often hesitant to read heavy blocks of text, videos appear effortless and can be consumed very quickly. It also helps that connection speeds are increasing and mobile device sizes are growing, making for better video experiences.

4. Semi-Flat Design

Simply put, flat design is any element that does not include or give the perception of three dimensions, such as shadows. Not only is flat design easier for users to understand, but it can also load more quickly on websites without complicated or overly technical elements.

Many organizations — both large and small — have shifted from realistic skeuomorphism to flat design. However, companies like Uber have put their own spin on the style by adding subtle shadows and dimensions.

As you can see in the image below, the graphic elements have a sense of depth thanks to the shadows around them without overdoing it.

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Why is it useful?

Flat design helps the visitor understand your content more quickly, and adding some elements of depth can bring it to life. Regardless of whether you fully design your website using flat design or utilize shadows and other elements, it’s important to be consistent throughout your website. Ensure that your homepage, product pages, and any other key sections of your website all utilize the same design cues so that visitors can instantly understand what they’re viewing.

5. Hamburger Menus

Most websites have long menus of options to choose from. The advantage of this is that the menu can take the visitor directly to where they want to go. The disadvantage is that they generally take up a ton of valuable screen space. The hidden, or hamburger, menu changes this. This condensed menu saves space and is intuitive for users to navigate.

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Wondering why it’s called a hamburger menu?

If you use your imagination, the three lines that are stacked on top of one another look like two burger buns and a patty. Clever.

Why is it useful?

The pages of your website should have a clear path for the user to take. Removing a busy navigation makes the experience cleaner and distraction free. This increases the likelihood that users will find the information they need to complete a desired action.

6. High-Quality Product Images

Many B2B websites are starting to display large product images on their sites to highlight different features or parts of their product, and this isn’t by accident.

To give you a better idea of what we’re talking about, let’s take a look at the product page for HubSpot’s Marketing Hub:

There is a large featured image on this page, and as you scroll down, you’ll find additional in-depth product images. The images are also responsive which aims to ensure an optimized experience for viewers coming from different devices, as we mentioned earlier.

Why is it useful?

High-quality product images help designers highlight different features of a product in a more efficient and effective way.

This approach reinforces the benefits of a feature by providing the opportunity to highlight the most valuable pieces.

These large images are also scan-friendly. They help visitors generate a solid understanding of what the different product features do by conveying them through images instead of words.

7. Card Design

With the rise of Pinterest, designers and marketers alike have become fascinated with cards. Individual cards help distribute information in a visual way so the visitors can easily consume bite-sized pieces of content without being overwhelmed.

Miiryia’s homepage serves as a great example of card design in action:

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By breaking up different pieces of content into cards, users can pick and choose which articles they want to expand. This helps to keep the homepage feeling clean and organized, without relying on a ton of text.

Why is it useful?

Card design is becoming more and more popular across B2B and B2C websites because it helps to deliver easily digestible chunks of information for users. Using this design on your site can help highlight multiple products or solutions side-by-side.

Keep in mind that your cards should be responsive. This means that as the screen size gets smaller or larger, the number and size of cards shown should adapt accordingly.

8. Feature Videos

In addition to background videos, short product or feature videos are also on trend as they can be used to highlight a specific use case. These short videos are great at bringing your solution to life, while not overwhelming the visitor with a long experience that they must sit through.

A strong example of this comes from the folks at InVision. They display this short illustrator of how easy it is to use their product by dragging-and-dropping a design directly on their homepage:

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Why is it useful?

B2B companies benefit from videos that explain their products to help positively influence the buyer’s decision-making process.

9. Mobile-Friendly Layouts

First-generation websites were designed for desktops. As a result, they were built to accommodate larger monitors and point-and-click mouse control. The rise of mobile devices, however, means that web traffic may come from multiple sources — and your website must deliver the same experience regardless of user device type.

In practice, this means creating mobile-friendly website layouts that leverage the principle of responsive web design, which allows website elements such as images, text and user interfaces (UIs) to automatically rescale and resize depending on the device used to access the site.

Why is it useful?

Mobile device traffic now accounts for more than 54 percent of all web traffic worldwide. This means that if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be losing up to half of all prospective customers.

Consider a desktop-friendly site accessed by a smartphone user. If text, images and buttons don’t resize to match touchscreen controls and smaller screen size, it’s almost impossible for prospective customers to find what they’re looking for — after a few misclicks they’ll likely take their business elsewhere.

10. White Space

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White space is an often-used element of minimalist web design, but is now a critical feature of effective modern site frameworks. By balancing content such as links, text and videos with similar amounts of white space, users are naturally drawn to key aspects of your site. While there’s no hard-and-fast standard for the amount of white space you need, a good rule of thumb is to create at least some white space between every content element.

Why is it useful?

Website navigation plays a critical role in user satisfaction. If visitors struggle to find your product or contact pages, they’re far less likely to click through and begin the conversion process.

White space helps focus user attention on the elements that matter most to your business. For example, if you have a featured product image or video at the top of your homepage, separate it from further content with white space. This helps it stand alone and highlights its importance compared to the rest of your site. If you surround it with visually noisy elements, however, the focus is quickly lost. 

11. Speed Optimization

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Having an engaging, content-rich website won’t help drive conversions if your site loads slowly and users point their browsers elsewhere. As a result, it’s critical to optimize all elements of your site for speed to reduce the amount of time between click and content.

In practice, this means optimizing all images to balance image quality and file size. For example, while PNG images offer higher quality and transparency, they’re much larger than JPEG images; in most cases JPEGs offer the best balance between speed and quality. GIFs, meanwhile, are ideal for animated images but use fewer colors, making them less-than-ideal for static images.

It’s also a good idea to compress any files hosted on your site — many modern compression tools can significantly reduce file size without any commensurate loss of function. Site owners should additionally consider their hosting environment: For example, dedicated or VPS hosting will typically provide faster site loading speeds than shared hosting solutions.

Why is it useful?

According to statistics from Google, as page load times increase from 1 second to 10 seconds, visitor bounce rate rises by 123 percent. The search giant also notes that despite the shift to more robust 4G connections, “the majority of mobile sites are still slow and bloated with too many elements.”

As a result, even small investments into website speed optimization can pay significant dividends, especially since landing page speed is now used by Google as a ranking factor for mobile searches and Google Ads.

The Elements of Style

Modern web design requires regular evaluation to ensure your site delivers compelling visuals, engaging content and offers a unified experience for users, regardless of device. The elements listed above offer a solid starting point to create stylish, streamlined, and speedy websites that capture user interest and help drive conversions.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

A scaling business is bound to have data stored across multiple sources (e.g. databases, files, live data feeds). Even individual teams within a department — such as Content  Marketing, Brand Strategy, and SEO — likely use multiple data sources simultaneously. 

It’s important to ensure you have a way of viewing, visualizing, and analyzing all of that data at once. This gives you a complete picture of the health of everything related to your business, from small projects to team projections to overall business success.

Data ingestion is the process that can efficiently get all of your data in one place. 

Data Ingestion

At a high level, data ingestion prepares your data for analysis. In this blog post, we’ll cover the definition of data ingestion in greater detail, describe its importance, review the data ingestion framework, and highlight a few tools that will make the process simple for your team. Let’s dive in.

What is data ingestion?

Data ingestion prepares your data for analysis. It’s the process of transporting data from a variety of sources into a single location — often to a destination like a database, data processing system, or data warehouse — where it can be stored, accessed, organized, and analyzed.

This process allows businesses to get a holistic view of their data in order to leverage and apply resulting insights and findings in their strategies. 

Why is data ingestion important?

You may be wondering why data ingestion is so important and why your marketing team — and business as a whole — should leverage it. 

As mentioned, data ingestion provides a single view of all of your data. Without the ability to access, review, and analyze all of your data at the same time — versus having to check multiple data sources which visualize your data in different formats — you wouldn’t have a clear or accurate picture of what’s doing well and what needs to be improved upon.

Data ingestion tools exist to make this process even easier by automating the process of integrating all of your data from various sources. This way, anyone on your team can access and share that data in a format and via a tool that are universal among your organization. 

Data Ingestion Framework

The data ingestion framework is how data ingestion happens — it’s how data from multiple sources is actually transported into a single data warehouse/ database/ repository. In other words, a data ingestion framework enables you to integrate, organize, and analyze data from different sources.

Unless you have a professional create your framework for you, you’ll need data ingestion software to make the process happen. Then, the way that the tool ingests your data will be based on factors like your data architectures and models. 

There are two main frameworks for data ingestion: batch data ingestion and streaming data ingestion. 

Before we define batch versus streaming data injection, let’s take a moment to decipher the difference between data ingestion and data integration.

Data Ingestion vs. Data Integration

Data integration takes data ingestion a step further — rather than just stopping after the data is transported to its new location/ repository, data integration also ensures all data, no matter what type it is or which source it came from, is compatible with each other as well as the repository it was transported to. That way, you can easily and accurately analyze it. 

1. Batch Data Ingestion

The batch data ingestion framework works by organizing data and transporting it into the desired location (whether that’s a repository, platform, tool etc.) in groups — or batches — periodically.

This is an effective framework unless you have large quantities of data (or are dealing with big data) — because, in those instances, it’s rather a rather slow process. It takes time to wait for batches of data to be transported and you wouldn’t have real-time access to that data. However, this is known to be a cost-effective option due to the fact it requires few resources.

2. Streaming Data Ingestion

A streaming data ingestion framework transports data continuously and the moment it’s created/ the system identifies it. It’s a helpful framework if you have a lot of data that you need access to in real-time, but it is more expensive due to the capabilities that batch processing doesn’t have.

Data Ingestion Tools

Data ingestion tools integrate all of your data for you — no matter the source or format — and house it in a single location.

Depending on the software you choose, it may only perform that function, or it may assist with other aspects of the data management process, such as data integration — which entails transforming all data into a single format.  

1. Apache Gobblin

Apache Gobblin is a distributed data integration framework and it’s ideal for businesses working with big data. It streamlines much of the data integration process, including data ingestion, organization, and lifecycle management. Apache Gobblin can manage both batch and streaming data frameworks. 

2. Google Cloud Data Fusion

Google Cloud Data Fusion is a fully managed, cloud data integration service. You can ingest and integrate your data from a number of sources and then transform and blend it with additional data sources. This is possible because the tool comes with many open-source transformations and connectors which work with various data systems and formats. 

3. Equalum

Equalum is a real-time, enterprise-grade data ingestion tool that integrates batch and streaming data. The tool collects, manipulates, transforms, and synchronizes data for you. Equalum’s drag-and-drop UI is simple and doesn’t require code so you can create your data pipelines quickly. 

Start Using Data Ingestion

Data ingestion is a critical aspect of data management — it ensures all of your data is accurate, integrated, and organized so that you can easily analyze it on a large scale and get a holistic view of the health of your business. 

In an era where more than 50% of small enterprises fail in their first year, having a clear, defined, and well-thought-out business plan is a crucial first step for setting up a business for long-term success.

The business plan is an undeniably critical component to getting any company off the ground. It’s key to securing financing, documenting your business model, outlining your financial projections, and turning that nugget of a business idea into a reality.

Business plans are a required tool for all entrepreneurs, business owners, business acquirers, and even business school students. But … what exactly is a business plan?

In this post, we’ll explain what a business plan is, the reasons why you’d need one, identify different types of business plans, and what you should include in yours.

Business Plan Template [Download Now]

Working on your business plan? Try using our Business Plan Template. Pre-filled with the sections a great business plan needs, the template will give aspiring entrepreneurs a feel for what a business plan is, what should be in it, and how it can be used to establish and grow a business from the ground up.

Purposes of a Business Plan

Chances are, someone drafting a business plan will be doing so for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Securing financing from investors.

Since its contents revolve around how businesses succeed, break-even, and turn a profit, a business plan is used as a tool for sourcing capital. This document is an entrepreneur’s way of showing potential investors or lenders how their capital will be put to work and how it will help the business thrive.

All banks, investors, and venture capital firms will want to see a business plan before handing over their money, and investors typically expect a 10% ROI or more from the capital they invest in a business.

Therefore, these investors need to know if – and when – they’ll be making their money back (and then some). Additionally, they’ll want to read about the process and strategy for how the business will reach those financial goals, which is where the context provided by sales, marketing, and operations plans come into play.

2. Documenting a company’s strategy and goals.

A business plan should leave no stone unturned.

Business plans can span dozens or even hundreds of pages, affording their drafters the opportunity to explain what a business’ goals are and how the business will achieve them.

To show potential investors that they’ve addressed every question and thought through every possible scenario, entrepreneurs should thoroughly explain their marketing, sales, and operations strategies – from acquiring a physical location for the business to explaining a tactical approach for marketing penetration.

To show potential investors that they’ve addressed every question and thought through every possible scenario, entrepreneurs should thoroughly explain their marketing, sales, and operations strategies – from acquiring a physical location for the business to explaining a tactical approach for marketing penetration.

These explanations should ultimately lead to a business’ break-even point supported by a sales forecast and financial projections, with the business plan writer being able to speak to the why behind anything outlined in the plan.

3. Legitimizing a business idea.

Everyone’s got a great idea for a company – until they put pen to paper and realize that it’s not exactly feasible.

A business plan is an aspiring entrepreneur’s way to prove that a business idea is actually worth pursuing.

As entrepreneurs document their go-to-market process, capital needs, and expected return on investment, entrepreneurs likely come across a few hiccups that will make them second guess their strategies and metrics – and that’s exactly what the business plan is for.

It ensures an entrepreneur’s ducks are in a row before bringing their business idea to the world and reassures the readers that whoever wrote the plan is serious about the idea, having put hours into thinking of the business idea, fleshing out growth tactics, and calculating financial projections.

4. Getting an A in your business class.

Speaking from personal experience, there’s a chance you’re here to get business plan ideas for your Business 101 class project.

If that’s the case, might we suggest checking out this post on How to Write a Business Plan – providing a section-by-section guide on creating your plan?

1. Business Plan Subtitle

Every great business plan starts with a captivating title and subtitle. You’ll want to make it clear that the document is, in fact, a business plan, but the subtitle can help tell the story of your business in just a short sentence.

2. Executive Summary

Although this is the last part of the business plan that you’ll write, it’s the first section (and maybe the only section) that stakeholders will read. The executive summary of a business plan sets the stage for the rest of the document. It includes your company’s mission or vision statement, value proposition, and long-term goals.

3. Company Description

This brief part of your business plan will detail your business name, years in operation, key offerings, and positioning statement. You might even add core values or a short history of the company. The company description’s role in a business plan is to introduce your business to the reader in a compelling and concise way.

4. The Business Opportunity

The business opportunity should convince investors that your organization meets the needs of the market in a way that no other company can. This section explains the specific problem your business solves within the marketplace and how it solves them. It will include your value proposition as well as some high level information about your target market.

5. Competitive Analysis

Just about every industry has more than one player in the market. Even if your business owns the majority of the market share in your industry or your business concept is the first of its kind, you still have competition. In the competitive analysis section, you’ll take an objective look at the industry landscape to determine where your business fits. A SWOT analysis is an organized way to format this section.

6. Target Market

Who are the core customers of your business and why? The target market portion of your business plan outlines this in detail. The target market should explain the demographics, psychographics, behavioristics, and geographics of the ideal customer.

7. Marketing Plan

Marketing is expansive, and it’ll be tempting to cover every type of marketing possible, but a brief overview of how you’ll market your unique value proposition to your target audience, followed by a tactical plan will suffice. Think broadly and narrow down from there: Will you focus on a slow-and-steady play where you make an upfront investment in organic customer acquisition? Or will you generate lots of quick customers using a pay-to-play advertising strategy? This kind of information should guide the marketing plan section of your business plan.

8. Financial Summary

Money doesn’t grow on trees and even the most digital, sustainable businesses have expenses. Outlining a financial summary of where your business is currently and where you’d like it to be in the future will substantiate this section. Consider including any monetary information that will give potential investors a glimpse into the financial health of your business. Assets, liabilities, expenses, debt, investments, revenue, and more are all fair game here.

9. Team

So, you’ve outlined some great goals, the business opportunity is valid, and the industry is ready for what you have to offer. Who’s responsible for turning all this high-level talk into results? The “team” section of your business plan answers that question by providing an overview of the roles responsible for each goal. Don’t worry if you don’t have every team member on board yet, knowing what roles to hire for is helpful as you seek funding from investors.

10. Funding Requirements

Remember that one of the goals of a business plan is to secure funding from investors, so you’ll need to include funding requirements you’d like them to fulfill. The amount your business needs, for what reasons, and for how long will meet the requirement for this section.

Types of Business Plans

There’s no one size fits all business plan as there are several types of businesses in the market today. From startups with just one founder to historic household names that need to stay competitive, every type of business needs a business plan that’s tailored to its needs. Below are a few of the most common types of business plans. For even more examples, check out these 11 sample business plans to help you write your own.

1. Startup Business Plan

As one of the most common types of business plans, a startup business plan is used for brand new business ideas. This plan is used to lay the foundation for the eventual success of a business.

The biggest challenge with the startup business plan is that it’s written completely from scratch. Startup business plans typically reference existing industry data and explain unique business strategies and go-to-market plans.

2. Business Acquisition Plan

Believe it or not, investors use business plans to acquire existing businesses, too — not just new businesses.

A business plan for an existing company will explain how an acquisition will change its operating model, what will stay the same under new ownership, and why things will change or stay the same. Additionally, the business plan should speak to what the current state of the business is and why it’s up for sale.

For example, if someone is purchasing a failing business, the business plan should explain why the business is being purchased and what the new owner will do to turn the business around, referencing previous business metrics, sales projections after the acquisition, and a justification for those projections.

3. Business Repositioning Plan

When a business wants to avoid acquisition, reposition its brand, or try something new, CEOs or owners will develop a business repositioning plan.

This plan will:

• Acknowledge the current state of the company.
• State a vision for the future of the company.
• Explain why the business should (or must) be repositioned.
• Outline a process for how the company will adjust.

Companies planning for a business reposition do so – proactively or retroactively – due to a shift in market trends and customer needs. For example, Pizza Hut announced a plan to drastically overhaul its brand, as it sees the need to shift from dine-in to delivery – a decision resulting from observing years of industry and company trends and acknowledging the need to reposition itself for the future of its sector.

4. Expansion Business Plan

Expanding a successful business venture into another location typically requires a business plan, as the project may focus on a new target market and demand more capital.

Fortunately, an expansion business plan isn’t like a startup business plan in that it starts from scratch. Instead, this type of plan references sales, revenue, and successes from existing locations. However, as great as a reference as these points can be, it’s important to not be too reliant on them since it’s still a new business that could succeed or fail for a myriad of reasons.

Getting Started With Your Business Plan

At the end of the day, a business plan is simply an explanation of a business idea and why it will be successful. The more detail and thought you put into it, the more successful your plan – and the business it outlines – will be.

When writing your business plan, you’ll benefit from extensive research, feedback from your team or board of directors, and a solid template to organize your thoughts. If you need one of these, download HubSpot’s Free Business Plan Template below to get started.

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

When was the last time you gave your website a checkup? If you’ve never before audited your website, it’s been a while since you have, or you’re planning a website redesign in the near future, use this post as your go-to website audit checklist to make sure your website is primed for maximum SEO and conversion results.

Below, let’s learn what a website audit is, why it’s important, and how to use the information to improve your SEO and conversions.

Before we dive into the things you should be keeping an eye out for as you’re auditing your website, let’s review some of the benefits of doing one. Here are some of the top benefits from a marketing perspective:

1. Website Performance Optimization

Website audits usually evaluate a site not only for its content but also for its technical performance.

As a result, an audit will give you a chance to inspect the robustness of your website’s technical framework and infrastructure, assess how friendly your website is to search engines, and determine how easy it is for users to navigate and intuitively find content on your website.

2. Search Engine Optimization

By conducting a website audit, you’ll be able to identify any missed SEO opportunities and remedy any misguided or poorly executed SEO pitfalls (e.g. keyword stuffing, exact match anchor text links, etc.) throughout the content of your website.

It will also allow you to re-focus your SEO efforts on users first and search engines second. This will safeguard you from constantly chasing changes to search ranking algorithms, meaning you won’t be applying misguided practices just to show up at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

3. Conversion Rate Optimization

Website audits also enable you to re-evaluate the effectiveness of your website in terms of lead generation and conversion. As a result, you’ll be able to spot any previously overlooked opportunities to convert visitors into leads so you can add relevant CTAs, as well as identify deficiencies in your landing pages so you can optimize them to boost conversions.

4. Competitive Analysis

Conducting a website audit will allow you to compare your website to your competitor’s. You can analyze how well you’re ranking against competitors for keywords and determine potential new sources of revenue.

You can use tools, like HubSpot’s website grader, to perform an audit on your competitor’s websites to gather more insights. You can learn how your competitors are attracting visitors and see how they’re garnering conversions.

Ultimately, this will help you brainstorm new tactics and strategies for your site.

5. Identify Issues

When you do a website audit, you’ll be able to find issues that are hurting your SEO and conversions. Perhaps it’s broken links, hidden content, long page load speed times, or more. Identifying these issues will help you repair issues that are diverting traffic.

As you can see, assessing both the content and technical aspects of your website will open up opportunities to drastically improve the traffic and conversions your website generates.

Now that you know what a website audit is and why you should do one, let’s look at how to conduct one.

1. Run Your Website URL through a Site Audit Tool

Before you get started, you’ll want to find a website auditing tool that can help you analyze how your website is performing. When you use site audit software to run your site through, you can get specific recommendations and test how your page is performing.

2. Find Technical Errors

Once you’ve put your site through an auditing tool, you’ll want to look for technical errors. These could be related to performance, SEO, mobile, security, and more. The technical site structure and setup of your site play a large role in how well your website performs for customers.

3. Identify SEO Problems

Now, you’ll want to look at SEO-related issues so you can improve your ranking on search engines. This might mean looking at meta descriptions, reviewing image alt text, and more.

4. Analyze Design and UX

One of the things I like to look for when conducting a website audit is the user experience. How is this design working for your customers? Some software has heatmaps of what parts of your design draw the most attention and what users are reading. This type of analysis will let you know how the overall design and user experience are impacting your visitors.

5. Assess Website Content

A website audit will help you assess website content including blogs, website pages, etc. You’ll want to know how your current pages are stacking up. Ask yourself, “Is my content ranking well in search engines?” and “Is my on-page SEO and performance aligned with my traffic numbers?”

6. Generate a Checklist of All Site Issues and Recommended Fixes

Lastly, when you’re conducting a website audit, it’s important to have a place where you put a summary of all your findings. List out the site issues and recommended fixes, so that you can send that information to the appropriate teams.

Now let’s dive in even more specifically so you know what to be checking for in this website audit.

Assessments to Make When Auditing Your Website

But first, enter your website into HubSpot’s Website Grader — this will give you a general overview of your website’s strengths so you can gauge your focus on each of the assessments that follow in this article.

How’d you do? Got an idea of which website audit benefits you need the most? Here we go.

1. Website Performance Assessment

In the first part of your website audit, you should be focusing on how users navigate your website — from your homepage to blog posts, to landing pages, and any related content in between.

Make a list of the pages on your website and ask yourself the following questions to evaluate them for optimization opportunities:

Is Your Website Optimized for Maximum Usability?

The more visitors you can attract to your website, the more opportunities you’ll have to generate leads and, ultimately, customers. But only if your website performs well.

As I’m sure you can imagine, just having a website does not guarantee results. As part of determining the overall efficiency of your website, your audit should check to make sure your site is designed with your visitors in mind. The design and overall navigability of your website should correspond with what a person would come to the site to seek out, such as more information on a business-related topic, resources, product/pricing information, testimonials, etc. This will largely depend on your individual business.

The main goal here is to make it easy for people to get the information they’re looking for. As a result, you’ll likely see conversion rates improve on their own.

To audit your website for usability, consider the following:

• Are all the main value propositions of our business easily accessible via our main navigations/menu items?
• Do we have a simple yet intuitive website design and page layout? Make sure pages aren’t too cluttered; littered with ads, CTAs, or links; or void of internal links altogether.
• Are your conversion paths and/or shopping cart or checkout processes intuitive? Are there a ton of distractions along the way that could be creating friction for your site visitors?

You might also consider doing some user testing with members of your target audience to ensure you’re effectively surfacing the content they’re looking for, and that they find it easy to navigate to the parts of your website they’re interested in.

How Is Your Website’s Overall Speed?

Are there excessive page sizes and/or long page load and server response times? Does your site go down frequently? Site speed can be impacted when image files are too large or HTML and CSS needs to be cleaned up, all of which can drastically improve your site speed.

Ultimately, fast-loading and optimized pages will lead to higher visitor engagement, retention, and conversions. To quickly check a web page’s load time, download MozBar, a toolbar by Moz that you can attach to your browser for simple page analysis every time you visit a website.

2. SEO Assessment

Optimizing the performance of your website is crucial to holding onto visitors, but the above question isn’t the only one you should be asking. You should also audit the content you’re publishing to ensure it’s actually solving your visitors’ problems.

Is Your Website Content High Quality?

As you evaluate your content for quality, think about it from your target audience’s perspective. Did this information leave me satisfied? Did it answer all of my questions? Does it give me all the resources relevant to this topic? Do I know what to do next?

Keep in mind quality content should appeal to the interests, needs, and problems of your buyer personas; be interesting and well-written, provide valuable, thorough, and detailed information about a particular topic; and leave the reader with next steps (such as calls-to-action, links to resources, etc.).

If you’re still not sure if your content is high quality, evaluate it with this checklist:” How to Tell if Your Marketing Content Is Actually Valuable.”

Is Your Website Search Engine Optimized?

Make sure all your web pages are following on-page SEO best practices. To audit your content for on-page SEO, conduct a keyword analysis in which you do the following:

• Consult your analytics to review keyword performance. Which keywords are giving you the biggest gains in traffic and leads?
• Assess how well you’re factoring keyword performance into your content strategy. How much relevant content are you adding to your website to target those keywords?
• Review basic on-page SEO elements like URLs, page titles, meta description, and copy. Make sure keywords are included where relevant.

To help you conduct an on-page SEO audit of your content, read the “Step-by-Step Guide to Flawless On-Page SEO,” which also includes a free downloadable on-page SEO template to keep you on track.

3. Conversion Rate Assessment

While high-quality, search engine optimized content is a great way to boost your traffic numbers, it’s what happens once those visitors are on your website that really counts. Unless of course, you don’t care about conversions (ha!).

Is Your Website Optimized for Lead Generation and Conversions?

This is where optimized calls-to-action (CTAs), marketing offers, and landing pages play a major role in the performance of your website. Not only do they offer you opportunities to capture visitors’ information so you can follow up with leads, but they also keep your visitors engaged with your content and your brand.

To audit your website for maximum conversion potential, ask yourself the following questions:

• How many marketing offers do I have in my content arsenal to gate behind landing pages?
• Do I have a variety of marketing offers that appeal to all my different buyer personas?
• Do I have any landing pages/conversion forms on my website to begin with?
• How optimized are those landing pages?
• Do I have conversion opportunities for visitors in varying stages of the funnel?
• Am I using calls-to-action effectively? Am I missing opportunities to include calls to action on various pages of my website?

To learn more about CTA selection, check out our post, ” How to Select the Right CTA for Every Page on Your Website.”

4. Technical Assessment

Once you’ve addressed the three primary goals of a website audit, it’s time to loop in a developer or someone from your IT department for a technical evaluation. You could also hire an outside agency — just be sure to do your homework first.

Keep in mind that there may be some carry-over from the three assessments above — website performance, SEO, and conversion rate. The technical evaluation, however, addresses all three to maximize the user experience (UX).

Here’s what you should be looking for in the technical assessment stage of your website audit …

Is Your Website Design Responsive?

Does your website have a responsive design? Meaning, is it a mobile-friendly website? The usage of smartphones to access the internet is only growing. As of 2017, mobile devices account for half of all web page views worldwide. As a result, websites must be compatible with that growing demand.

For more on mobile compatibility, check out our “Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Mastering Mobile Marketing.”

Is Your Website Error Message Free?

Are response code errors popping up all over your website where there shouldn’t be any? Calling out 302-, 404-, and 500-level response codes can be useful to tell users that something’s wrong.

However, having this happen is also an indication that someone isn’t cleaning up broken links and, as a result, leading users to dead ends. Find those error messages and clean up your broken links. Tools like Google’s Webmaster Tools or Xenu’s Link Sleuth can be very helpful for this.

Are Your Website URLs Optimized?

Does your site have URLs of excessive length due to keyword stuffing? Do they contain session IDs and/or include tons of dynamic parameters? In some cases, these URLs are difficult for search engines to index and result in lower clickthrough rates from search results.

Does Your Website Have Too Much Flash or JavaScript?

Identify areas of your navigation that are entirely Flash or JavaScript. Search engines have challenges reading and accessing these, which could prevent your site from getting indexed.

Furthermore, these elements present problems from a usability perspective. Visitors are often looking for a very specific piece of information when visiting your site; if they have to sit through a 10-second visual introduction before they can find your hours of operation, you’re going to have a pretty frustrated visitor on your hands.

Is Your Site Structure Optimized for Search Engines?

We already talked about site structure as it relates to accessing content and usability for users, but it’s also important to make sure your site structure is optimal for search engines. If pages on your site are not internally linked to other pages on your site, those pages are less likely to be indexed.

Are You Defining How Your Web Pages Are Crawled and Indexed by Search Engines?

This can be done through various methods that include everything from robots files and tags to sitemaps. These measures are a way for you to guide search engines toward your website’s most useful content.

Robots Files or Tags

The robots meta tag lets you utilize a granular, page-specific approach to controlling how an individual page should be indexed and served to users in search results. These tags should sit in the <head> section of a given page.

The robots.txt file, on the other hand, is a text file that allows you to specify how you would like your site to be crawled. Before crawling a website, search engine crawlers will generally request the robots.txt file from a server. Within the robots.txt file, you can include sections for specific (or all) crawlers with instructions (“directives”) that let them know which parts should or should not be crawled.

Public and XML Sitemaps

Your website should also have public and XML Sitemap files. The public sitemap is one that users can access to review the pages of your site, like the index of a book.

The XML Sitemap is for search engines to review pages that get added to your site, all in one place. The usual location of a sitemap.xml file is www.domainname.com/sitemap.xml. The XML Sitemap is something every website should have; it offers an opportunity to tell Google and the other search engines what pages on your site you want to be crawled and indexed.

While search engines don’t guarantee they will abide by your sitemap, anecdotal evidence has proven time and time again that XML Sitemaps help provide insurance that your pages are found, and found faster — especially if your sitemap(s) dynamically update your new web pages.

Are You Defining Canonicalization of Content?

The canonicalization of your website content is the final major technical consideration to make. To gain more control over how your URLs appear in search results, and to minimize issues related to duplicate content, it’s recommended that you pick a canonical (preferred) URL as the preferred version of the page.

You can indicate your preference to Google in a number of ways. One such way is to set the Canonical Tag (rel=”canonical”) in an HTTP header of a page. Be sure to have someone check that the Canonical Tag is properly implemented across the site by making sure it points to the correct page, and that every page doesn’t point to the homepage.

Website Auditing Checklist

Now, before you get started, you might consider using this basic website auditing checklist to ensure you review all the necessary elements of your site’s performance, SEO, mobile, and security issues.

Website Audit Example

To pull all this together, I decided to run a website audit on one of my favorite bloggers, Christina Galbato.

This website is performing well. SEO and Mobile are scoring very highly. The main areas for improvement for this site would be performance and security.

You might be asking yourself, “What does that mean?” Well, let’s dive in a little deeper.

In each section, the website grader will let you know what you’re doing well and what you could improve on. See the SEO section below.

Then, the grader gives overall recommendations to improve your site overall. As you can see in the example, you’ll see a table to compare your current site to the recommendations.

Conducting a Website Audit

It’s important to establish an audit framework early on. Ask yourself questions ideally centered around gauging “How am I doing?” These questions may also include things like, “How does this compare to others, especially my competitors?”

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

When you’re working at a new job or trying to get a promotion, you need to be organized. While you might list organizational skills on your resume, putting that skill into action is a little harder.

Having organizational skills means that you can meet deadlines and be efficient in your workflow management. In fact, organizational skills can be synonymous with energy and time management in most cases.

All of these skills are very important in the workplace and potential employers want to make sure you can stay on top of things.

In this post, we’ll dive deep into what organizational skills are, specific examples of what they look like in action, and how to develop organizational skills in the workplace.

Organizational skills are about building structure, boosting productivity, and prioritizing the right tasks at the right time.

The antithesis of organizational skills is procrastination, clutter, inefficiency, and miscommunication.

Organizational skills mean you’re able to keep yourself calm while coming up with a scheduled plan. Many people with good organizational skills break up projects into smaller goals so they are easier to accomplish.

Importance of Organizational Skills

Organizational skills are important because they’ll help you get tasks done on time. These types of skills are important in the workplace because managers will see that you can handle your tasks, and have autonomy over your own projects. This will help you get promotions and references if you apply to new jobs in the future.

If you don’t have a plan in place for how you’re going to accomplish something, it will be much harder for you to finish. You’ll need to be able to anticipate how long a task will take, what resources you’ll need to complete that task, and have the discipline to block out the necessary time to finish it.

Organizational Skills on a Resume

When you’re listing organizational skills on your resume, you might consider breaking it down into more specific sets of skills. Let’s dive into the examples below.

Organizational Skills Example

The best organizational skills to list on your resume include:

• Communication
• Time management
• Delegation
• Attention to detail
• Decision making
• Strategic planning
• Goal setting
• Creative thinking
• Problem-solving
• Productivity
• Managing priorities
• Teamwork/collaboration
• Deadlines
• Scheduling
• Conflict management
• Office management

1. Own your calendar.

The best way to develop organizational skills is to truly own your calendar. Block off time where you need to get work done. Then, create a schedule for yourself that is realistic to stick to. It’s hard to stay organized when you have random meetings popping up on your calendar.

Additionally, it’s important to know how you work best. For example, I like to have meetings back-to-back because it’s hard for me to get work done in 30-minute increments between meetings. I want all my meetings at the same time, so I can block working time and then meeting time.

2. Make lists.

When you have a lot on your to-do list, you can make separate lists for what needs to get done and when. I usually have a running to-do list where I’ll add everything I need to do for the week. Then, I’ll break that down into daily to-do lists. You can organize your lists by tasks, meetings, reminders, etc.

3. Figure out what tools will help you.

Obviously, everyone works differently. That’s why it’s important to figure out how you work best. Do you like using a physical calendar or a digital calendar? Regardless, you’ll need tools to help you stay organized. Below is a quick list of physical and digital tools to help you get started.

Physical Tools

• Planner
• Calendar
• Notepad
• Folders
• Journals

Digital Tools

• Google Calendar
• Trello
• Asana
• Evernote
• Teuxdeux

4. Communicate with your team.

Another way to develop organizational skills is to communicate with your team. It’s important to communicate your plan of action to any necessary stakeholders. Additionally, communication will help keep you accountable.

If you’re working on a project with several people, you can communicate updates on your part of the project as they occur or at the end of the day. This is a great way to keep the team organized and on task.

5. Declutter your workspace.

Lastly, to truly be organized, your workspace should be free from clutter. While not everyone likes to keep everything neat and tidy all the time, you should still only have necessary items on your desk so you don’t get distracted. This will help productivity and organization overall. When you need to find a list or an item, it’s important that you know where it is and it doesn’t get lost.

Organizational Skills in the Workplace

Now you might be wondering, “How can I use these organizational skills in the workplace?” and “How can I highlight these skills?”

The first step is to list these skills on your resume when you’re applying for jobs. You can say “organizational skills” or you can list other skills, like the ones above, to be even more specific.

If you’re in a job interview, think of stories and examples of how you remained organized and how it helped you solve a problem or complete a project successfully. It’s important to discuss how you scheduled your time, how you handle multiple assignments, and how you delegate tasks.

While a potential employer might not ask specific questions about organizational skills, you can highlight these stories in questions like “What are your strengths?” and “Why are you a good fit for this role?”

Once you’re working for a company, you can highlight your organizational skills during projects or meetings. It’s a good idea to use these skills whenever you can because it’s sure to impress your boss and help you move forward in your career.

Organizational skills don’t just mean that you keep to-do lists. It means you manage your time efficiently, you’re productive, can solve problems, and think critically. That’s why it’s important to develop your organizational skills whenever you can.

You don’t want to waste time simply guessing what a prospect or customer wants and needs from your business or how they’ll react to a certain marketing campaign or strategy that you plan to implement.

Rather, you can turn to the process of data-driven marketing to make informed decisions that are based on real data to ensure your marketing efforts are relevant to prospect and customer interests and behaviors.

Now you might be thinking about the fact that your business has a large volume of complex data that are dispersed across multiple sources — this is where data mapping comes in handy.

Data Mapping

Data mapping is a key part of data management and data integration. That’s because it ensures you’re looking at and considering all of your data and doing so accurately — in other words, data mapping is what allows you to integrate your data from multiple sources.

In this blog post, we’ll talk more about what data mapping is, why it’s useful, data mapping techniques, and data mapping tools.

What is data mapping?

Data mapping is the process of matching data fields or elements from a source, or sources, to their related data fields in another destination — it’s how you establish relationships between data models that are in different sources or systems. Data mapping software and tools automatically match data fields from one data source to another for you.

Data mapping allows you to organize, distill, analyze, and understand vast amounts of data that live in various locations so you can draw conclusions and insights.

Why is data mapping useful?

Here are some more reasons why data mapping is both useful and necessary:

• Integrate, transform, and migrate data as well as create data warehouses easily.
• Establish direct relationships between your data across multiple sources at once.
• Ensure your data is high quality and accurate (data mapping software can automatically flag inconsistencies and data that isn’t high quality or accurate).
• Identify real-time trends and share data reports with team members both easily and efficiently.
• Ensure you’re getting the most out of your data and applying insights and learnings appropriately.
• Use data mapping software to simplify (and automate much of) the process of code-free data mapping.

Data Mapping Examples

A business like Amazon may use data mapping to accurately target you. They do this by pulling insights from your browsing habits, reviews, purchase history, and time on page. They can then pull and connect that data to/with data from other sources such as demographic information.

By combining these types of data sources, Amazon has the necessary information to target you with certain products and personalize your shopping experience in a number of ways (e.g. based on challenges you may be facing, geographic location, experience level, interests, education, nationality, age, and more).

Let’s consider another data mapping example — say you work for a TV network and you’re looking to organize TV shows on the network, actors who appear on the network, and actors within a show that appears on the network. The sharing of data between the three sources may look something like this:

Data Mapping Techniques

Within data mapping, there are three main techniques that are used — manual mapping, semi-automated mapping, and automated mapping. Let’s talk about what each of these techniques entails.

1. Manual Data Mapping

Manual data mapping requires professional coders and data mappers — IT will code and map your data sources. Although this is a heavy lift and requires professional help, it allows you to fully control and customize your maps.

2. Semi-automated Data Mapping

Semi-automated data mapping (or schema mapping) requires some coding knowledge and means your team will be moving between both manual and automated data mapping processes (hence the name of this technique).

Data mapping software creates a connection between the data sources and then an IT professional reviews those connections and makes manual adjustments as needed.

3. Automated Data Mapping

Automated data mapping means a tool will take care of all aspects of the data mapping process for you, making it an ideal option, if you are not/ don’t have access to a coder. This type of software will typically allow for drag-and-drop mapping. You just need to learn how to use the tool (and pay for it).

Speaking of the tools that will automate the process of data mapping for you, let’s review some of your options next.

Data Mapping Tools

Data mapping tools and software make the process of data mapping —including visualizing and interpreting your data — easier. There’s no code needed, they often have a drag-and-drop user interface (UI), and you can implement them on your team no matter your level of technical experience. Many data mapping tools also have the ability to help you with other data management tasks such as data migration.

1. Bloomi

Price: Free 30-day trial; contact for a quote.

Bloomi, which is owned by Dell, is an iPaaS solution — that’s both cloud-native and scalable — that connects both cloud and on-premise data and applications. Design cloud-based integrations, which the tool refers to as Atoms. Then, you can begin transferring data between the cloud and your on-premise apps.

Bloomi’s data mapping functionality translates electronic data interchange (EDI) for you. The tool has a drag-and-drop UI that makes data mapping easy as well as a library of available connectors so you can establish integrations quickly.

2. Tableau

Price: Free 30-day trial; $12-$70/ user/ mo.

Tableau is a visual analytics and business intelligence platform with data management and data mapping tools. Whether your data is in spreadsheets, Apache Hadoop, databases, the cloud, etc., the platform allows you to connect and begin visualizing your data in seconds without code.

Tableau regularly populates your most recent data (on a schedule that you can adjust). The drag-and-drop interface is easy to use and smart dashboards allow for effective data visualization. Lastly, you can easily share your data maps and dashboards with your team via mobile device for easy alignment and access.

3. Astera

Price: Free 14-day trial; contact for a quote.

Astera is an enterprise data management software that uses visual interfaces to convert, map, and validate data structures for you without the need for code.

You’re able to use the tool’s drag-and-drop feature to create, debug, and manage complex data integration tasks. Astera also natively connects to a variety of database providers including SQL Server, Oracle, and DB2.

To ensure your data is of the highest quality, there’s built-in data cleansing, data profiling, and data quality options — and to improve accuracy, there are built-in transformations that remove duplicate records, complete missing information, and get rid of redundant data. You’ll get flagged and receive emails if and when your data records don’t meet the high-quality data standards.

Use Data Mapping on Your Team

Data mapping has the power to ensure your marketing team and business as a whole get the most out of your data. It also helps you maintain high-quality data and automate the processes of data integration, transfer, migration, and more. Determine which technique you’ll use and if you need a tool to get started with data mapping on your team.

You know you’re a marketer when you’re sitting in traffic on the highway, it’s completely bumper to bumper, and all you can think about is “Why can’t I drive traffic to my website like this?”

If you’ve struggled with driving traffic to your website, you’re not alone. According to 2020 research done by Content Marketing Institute, 63% of content professionals are challenged with finding enough staff skilled in content strategy which is one of the top drivers of website traffic.

Between writing a new blog post, posting on social media, and strategizing for a new email campaign, it’s hard to look back and see what’s driving traffic to your site and what isn’t.

The list below will help you increase the traffic to your website, generate more leads, and improve ROI.

1. Content Creation

Inbound marketing focuses on attracting the right people to your company. One of the best ways to do this is by creating content through blogging.

To come up with content that will attract the right visitors to your website, you must first understand the buyer persona you’re targeting. Once you know your audience, you can create content that will naturally attract them to your website.

But how do you write a good blog post that will draw in the right audience? Follow these five steps:

• Identify your buyer persona: Find out more about your target market. Understand everything from job title to pain points.
• Conduct SEO research: Learn what your audience is searching for on search engines so you can provide the best content.
• Write a draft: Begin by drafting a post that answers your audience’s questions. Use interesting angles to make your post stand out.
• Publish: Publish your post on your blog site. Use SEO tools to optimize your content.
• Promote: Promote your blog post on social media and email newsletters to generate traffic. The more traffic your post generates, the higher it will rank in search engines.

Pro Tip: You can learn more about how to implement a blogging strategy here.

2. Topic Expertise

Ranking higher in Google will increase the organic traffic to your site. At HubSpot, we do this by using the pillar/ topic cluster model. Google favors sites that are known to be topic experts on the subject matter they’re writing about.

To be seen as an expert, you can create a pillar page, which is essentially a longer blog post that broadly covers all aspects of a topic. Then, you write “cluster content,” or supporting blog posts, targeting long tail keywords that show you’ve covered a topic exhaustively. Focusing on long-term traffic will help you rank higher on search engines

Christina Perricone, a senior blog manager here at HubSpot, says, “The pillar cluster model organizes content on your site around a single topic and search term through internal linking. This organization helps search engines easily crawl and categorize all of the content that you have on a particular topic, thereby making it easier for you to rank for that search term. When the model is done right, it also helps visitors navigate your site and move through related pages, boosting traffic for all of the pages in your topic cluster.”

3. Organic Social Media

Organic social media is not a new strategy, but it’s still something marketers should pay attention to. Besides posting on social media platforms, you can also use Instagram Stories (hello, swipe up feature!), live video, IGTV, or Facebook Messenger. The key with organic social media is to be an early adopter of new features.

For instance, Facebook released an automated lead generation feature on Messenger, allowing businesses to create an automated chatbot experience within Messenger to link to content offers on your site. This is a great feature for sending traffic to your website.

It’s also important to have a diverse social media strategy and use the right social media platforms — not just Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Platforms like YouTube or Pinterest can generate a lot of traffic to your site.

Henry Franco, a brand marketing associate at HubSpot, recommends two things regarding organic social media. “First, don’t spam your audience — it costs a user nothing to scroll past your post, and if you don’t offer them any value, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Know your audience, and craft content that speaks directly to them,” Franco says.

“Second, stay active with community management. People love when brands like and reply to them — it’ll humanize your business, and keep people coming back for more content.”

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Pro Tip: Check out our social media marketing guide to learn more.

4. Website Analysis

Let’s do a little reverse engineering of our thought process. Before you drive traffic to your website, it’s important to learn about your audience. To do this, analyze your website using platforms, such as Crazy Egg, to see where you’re losing and gaining visitors. With this information at your disposal, you can create the right content to drive the right traffic to your website.

5. Influencers

We know that customers are more likely to buy from organizations with excellent word of mouth, but how do you create great word of mouth? First, delight your customers. Second, work with influencers.

Influencer marketing isn’t a passing fad. In fact, it’s a budget-friendly option to drive traffic to your website. When influencers post discount codes, links, reviews, or giveaways, you are tapping into their audience to drive traffic to your website.

6. Email List Building

Using your current readers and customers is a great way to drive traffic to your website. When you post a new blog or content offer, you can promote it to your followers/subscribers for a quick traffic boost. With content-heavy websites, having repeat readership is helpful for traffic goals, conversions, and lead generation.

To get started with this, build an email list or grow your current list. Below are a few strategies you can use:

• Content offers: Publish content that requires visitors to share their email address to access it. Include CTAs for content offers on your website.

• Easy-access newsletter sign-up: Include sign-up forms on your website, from your homepage to your about page. If a visitor had a delightful experience on your site, they might want to sign up for a newsletter.

Use HubSpot’s free forms tool to easily add a form to your site and start growing your email list.

• Social media: Promoting your email newsletter on social media, whether through a post or contest/giveaway, is a great way to convert your current followers into subscribers.

Pro Tip: Learn how to build an email list from scratch here or grow your email list here.

7. Community Engagement

The more brand recognition you have, the more traffic you will drive to your website. One way to achieve brand recognition is to be active and engaged within the market. You can implement an engagement strategy today by participating in Facebook group discussions in your industry, answering questions on public forum websites, and interacting with your followers on social media.

One of my favorite brands on social media is Taco Bell. Taco Bell delights its customers on social media just about every day. See a couple of examples from the company’s Twitter below.

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In the example above, Taco Bell uses a simple tweet from a customer to engage with them and build community organically.

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Just remember to be helpful and human. No one likes spammy links or self-serving rhetoric when they’re asking a quick question online.

8. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO can help your website rank higher in search engines and bring in more traffic. Some on-page SEO elements include the bpage title, header, meta description, image alt-text, and the URL (plus more). Showing up in search engines will generate more traffic for your site.

Pro tip: To get started with on-page SEO, check out our ultimate guide to on-page SEO.

9. Quality Backlinks

In order to drive traffic to your site, you need to rank high in search engines. In order to rank higher in search engines, you need to be an authority in your industry. One way to do that, besides the topic/cluster model described above, is by acquiring quality backlinks. If websites with high authority link to your site, that gives you more credibility.

Irina Nica, senior content strategist at HubSpot says, “There are two main ways in which high-quality backlinks can help drive more traffic to a website: boosting ranking and driving referral traffic. On the one hand, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for every major search engine out there. By constantly earning high-quality backlinks from relevant websites, you’ll improve your rankings in SERP and, as a result, see a lift in your organic traffic.”

Nica adds, “On the other hand, backlinks can also drive a substantial amount of referral traffic. That’s something to be expected if you get mentioned on a popular news website. You can also see referral traffic coming through if you’re mentioned (and linked to) in an article that’s already ranking well for high search volume keywords and is getting a constant flow of traffic.

Pro Tip: Want to learn how to earn backlinks? Find out more here.

10. Video Marketing

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It’s time to add video marketing to your content strategy because the audience is looking for video content. Statista reports that 77% of internet users ages 15 – 35 are using YouTube to consume video content.

You can create videos for Instagram or Facebook Stories, live videos, IGTV, Facebook Watch, news feed videos, YouTube, etc. Want to get started today? Learn everything you need to know in our ultimate guide to video marketing.

11. Content Repurposing

Need content to drive traffic to your site but struggling to come up with ideas? I get it. A great way to overcome this hurdle is to repurpose old content. Take a well-performing blog post and repurpose that into a video. Or if you have a podcast that did really well, write up a blog post on that topic. Using content that has already performed well will continue to drive traffic to your site.

12. SEO Tools

To drive traffic to your website, it’s important to be a student of SEO. Learning SEO tools such as Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and SEMrush will help you develop a strategy to generate traffic to your website.

These tools will help you learn and analyze what’s working on your site and what isn’t. Plus, these help you come up with ideas for content that has the potential to generate high traffic. Check out our roundup of the best SEO tools to monitor your website.

13. Historical Optimization

Historical optimization is the process we use at HubSpot to update old blog content and generate more traffic and leads. If you’re anything like us, a majority of your monthly blog views and leads come from older posts.

Pamela Vaughan, a principal marketing manager on HubSpot’s Web Strategy team, a.k.a. the person who introduced us to the concept of historical optimization, has written about this extensively.

She says, “Historical optimization is a tactic best-suited for a blog that’s been around for several years because you need to 1) be generating a significant amount of organic search traffic, 2) have built up a critical mass of blog subscribers and social media followers, and 3) have a sizable repository of old posts at your disposal.”

Vaughan adds, “Historical optimization should be a piece of your overall blogging strategy — not the whole strategy.”

Pro Tip: Follow her step-by-step process for historical optimization.

14. Voice Search Optimization

Remember in “The Little Mermaid” when Ariel wanted to go where the people were? That same principle applies to digital marketing. In order to drive traffic to your website, it’s important to show up where people are searching.

Voice search is an increasingly important area in which to rank. In fact, according to eMarketer, voice searches will have increased 9.7% by the end of 2021. That’s why optimizing your content for voice search is essential.

Here are a few tips to get started:

• Research long tail keywords: When people use voice search, they speak in full sentences rather than short phrases. To optimize for voice search, start researching longer-tail keywords.
• Write answer-focused content: The content you write should answer your audience’s questions.
• Optimize for snippets: Smart speakers like Alexa and Google Home look for short, concise answers. Writing quick summaries in your posts makes it easier for search engines and smart speakers to find the answer they need.

15. Local SEO

If your company is a brick-and-mortar store, local SEO is an important factor to consider. My colleague, Kelsey Smith, wrote about it in this blog. She says, “To gather information for local search, search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user.”

For example, when someone types in “best soul food restaurant” on Google, the results are generated by the user’s location. Tools such as Google My Business and Moz Local help businesses manage their directory listings and citations so they show up in local searches. Here’s a restaurant that shows up for that search in Memphis, TN.

To rank for local search:

• Ensure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) is consistent on your Google My Business and social media pages.
• Use a directory management tool to monitor directories like Yelp, Foursquare, Best of the Web, etc.
• Research and use location-based search terms on sites like Google Trends, which analyzes popular search terms across various regions.

16. QR Codes

If there’s one thing that brings technology and the real world together better than any other tool, I’d bet my bottom dollar it’s the QR code. This interesting image of pixels can drive traffic to your website from just about anywhere with a flat surface. And they’re not just for restaurants trying to operate safely during the Covid-19 pandemic — marketers love them because they drive traffic — trackable traffic.

The main catch with QR codes is that you have to give the user a reason to scan them, so you can’t place them haphazardly. That shouldn’t be too difficult though, think of it as creating a real-life CTA button. If you make it enticing and accessible enough, people will scan it, and you’ll get to assess the success of that QR code’s placement in real-time. That’s something you’d spend weeks figuring out in a digital-only traffic campaign.

17. A/B Testing

Besides driving traffic to your website, you know you’re a marketer when your motto is, “Test, test, and test again.”

A/B testing is a split test that helps you determine what version of a campaign performs best. These tests can give you key information about your audience so you can create tailored content and offers that drive traffic to your site. There are a lot of tools you can use to get started. Check out our roundup of the best A/B testing tools.

18. Internal Linking

When a visitor comes to your blog, your goal is to get them to continue reading on other pages of your website. That’s why internal links — links to other pages on your site — are very important. When visitors continue to other pages of your website they’re more likely to convert and become a brand enthusiasts.

For example, you can create an internal linking structure using the pillar/cluster model described above. Pillar and cluster pages link back and forth, which boosts your site’s credibility on search engines, while also increasing the likelihood of a conversion.

19. Technical SEO

Technical SEO focuses on the backend of your website to see how the pages are technically set up and organized. Factors include elements like page speed, crawling, indexing, and more. Matthew Howells-Barby, HubSpot’s director of acquisition, has written about technical SEO in this blog.

In it, he says, “Don’t underestimate the power of technical SEO changes. [Technical SEO] resulted in us growing our organic traffic by more than 50% in just one month.”

To get started with your technical SEO, use some of the tips from Howells-Barby’s article, including:

• Fix broken links and redirects.
• Create an XML sitemap for your subdomains.
• Set up language meta tags.
• Add custom H1 and introductions to topic pages.

20. Community Building

Building a community of brand enthusiasts is a great way to continuously drive traffic to your website. You can build a Facebook group, Twitter chat, LinkedIn Group, or Quora Space specifically for your followers and others in your industry where you create value, while also linking back to your site.

A great example of community building comes from career coaching business CultiVitae. They have a closed Facebook group where Emily, the founder, answers questions and provides networking opportunities.

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With over 10.3k members in this group, CultiVitae creates value for its followers, while also promoting its product.

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These types of communities keep you top of mind in your customer’s eyes. Plus, it’s a great way to engage with your followers and learn more about your audience as they evolve over time.

21. Content Offers

Content offers, sometimes referred to as lead magnets, are a way to use content to drive traffic to your site and generate leads. Content offers vary depending on what stage of the buyer’s journey your customer is in, but can include webinars, guides, reports, trials, demos, checklists, and more.

Pro Tip: You can learn about different types of content offers here and how to create content for every stage in the buyer’s journey here.

22. Media Coverage and Public Relations

Earned media coverage is a great way to drive brand awareness for your company and traffic to your website. If your marketing and public relations teams work together, you can generate traffic to your site and create excellent word of mouth.

Ellie Flanagan, a senior corporate communications manager at HubSpot, says, “Although most outlets these days try to stay away from including backlinks in their stories (it’s usually against their editorial guidelines), that doesn’t mean that a good story won’t drive folks back to your site.

Media coverage provides great third-party validation for your company. Stories about new products or services, your company culture, or even industry thought leadership can all be great drivers for a reader who maybe hadn’t heard of your company before and wants to learn more.”

23. Social Share Buttons

Social share buttons are links that make it easy for your readers to share your content on social media. When your readers become promoters of your content, your traffic will increase. Here’s a quick cheat sheet on creating social share buttons.

Once you’ve created your social share buttons, how do you get people to share your content? Here are a few tips to get started:

• Ask people to share on social media.
• Create strong content.
• Include quotable content.
• Add multimedia such as images, videos, infographics, etc.

24. CTR Optimization

Once your content is posted and you begin ranking on search engines, make sure people are clicking through to read your posts. Your click-through rate (CTR) measures who clicked on your post and read it against the number of people who viewed the link to your post (e.g., the landing page, email, or advertisement) in total.

A great tool to measure your organic CTR is Google Search Console. To get more people to click through and drive traffic to your site, it’s important to write compelling and apt meta descriptions and titles. To write quality meta tags that are click-worthy, make sure your titles are short and snappy, and your description leaves visitors wanting more. This ties into on-page SEO, described above.

25. Academy and Knowledge Base Posts

One form of content that can drive traffic to your website is educational content. If you create courses, certifications, or educational posts that are helpful to your audience, you’ll likely see an increase in traffic.

For example, HubSpot uses HubSpot Academy to generate content that is helpful to our audience. We provide videos, certification courses, and knowledge base articles to answer questions. See an example of a knowledge base article below.

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26. Social News Sites

Have you heard of Reddit and Quora? These are social news sites and they’re great for driving traffic to blog articles. By nature, these platforms are similar to social media because they foster asynchronous connections between users. The difference is that these types of sites engage people around a question or topic, and external content can be shared to help explain the users’ points of view.

Another way external sites benefit from increased traffic via social news sites is when they’re shared in popular channels. You can share your website’s content on these sites yourself if you’re just starting out, but do so carefully. Just like on traditional social sites, too much self-promotion is frowned upon in the Reddit and Quora communities. You’ll fare best when you share your content in context of the topic and when it’s the best information to answer the user’s question.

1. Paid Advertising

You can drive traffic to your website quickly with paid advertising. With search engines, you can run pay-per-click or retargeting ads. With social media you can run display ads or sponsored posts. Your strategy will most likely include a combination of different types of advertising like social media, display, and search ads. In fact, according to the 2020 CMO Survey, firms expect social spending to rise by 62% over five years.

Pro Tip: Getting started with paid advertising can be a simple process — learn more about it here.

2. Contests and Giveaways

A simple way to drive traffic to your website is through contests and giveaways. This can give you a quick boost, while also rewarding your followers. You can host giveaways on social media, through your email list, or both.

Implementing a strategy like this can be simple. Just follow these six steps:

• Decide what platform on which to host your giveaway. (You can use multiple.)
• Choose a prize. (Free tickets, discount, etc … )
• Select the criteria. (Website comments, email sign up, etc … )
• Write the ad copy.
• Create the graphics.
• Post and promote the contest or giveaway.

3. Guest Posting

In that same vein, writing guest posts can generate traffic to your site. Guest posting shows you’re active in your community, while also linking to your website — more on generating backlinks below.

To implement a guest posting strategy, you need to find a site that would be a good fit for your company, draft a blog post, and then write a pitch. Caroline Forsey, senior content strategist on the Blog team, says, “I’m always particularly intrigued with a guest pitch if it shows me the writer has done their research ahead of time.

For instance, I’d pay much closer attention to a pitch if it tells me how this piece could appeal to my readers. Additionally, I’m impressed when a writer can recognize gaps in our content and how their piece will fill those gaps, rather than competing with existing content.”

As an example, here’s what HubSpot looks for in guest posts to the Marketing Blog.

4. Thought Leadership

According to Edelman’s and LinkedIn’s 2020 research, more than half of decision makers spend an hour or more reading thought leadership content each week. It’s clear that people have an interest in this topic, so why not dedicate more of your calendar to it?

Just about every industry has several well-respected people with words of wisdom to share. Even if they come from a completely different background than what your company specializes in, influential thought leaders have transferable knowledge that can be helpful for your readers.

When choosing a thought leader, the most well-known person isn’t your only option. Instead, look for great storytellers. The HubSpot Blog Team recommends keeping your eyes peeled for up-and-coming experts as well as individuals who thrive in less hyper-digital industries like agriculture, food and beverage, and humanitarian work like Sippie Siphiwe Mungaraza does at Mealtime Limited.

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Website Traffic Is Waiting For You

Driving traffic is a never-ending task, but it’s also a task that yields results long after you get started. There are so many paths your future customers can take to reach your website, all you have to do is find the one that works best for your business. Try one of these methods in your next quarter’s demand generation strategy to see a significant traffic boost.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.