The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Scannable Content

Rarely do people read content from beginning to end.

Maybe it’s because of our “microwave,” instant gratification culture. Maybe it’s because millions of other articles are vying for people’s attention.

Or maybe it’s because reading from screens takes about 25% longer than reading from paper. Research has even indicated that readers experience an unpleasant feeling when reading online text.

Whatever the case may be, it’s crucial to take the right approach when writing for online readers—a new approach.

There’s a certain art to digital writing that differs significantly from writing traditional paper text.

If you expect to convert more of your audience into actual customers, you need to crack the code.

You need to switch up your game plan.

In my early days of writing, I didn’t realize this. I had an eye for visual appeal, but I was unsure of how this applied to blogging. There I was, blogging away every day without realizing how people were viewing my articles.

Now, I have a better idea of how people interact with written content online.

What you’re viewing right now is a result of my research and testing.

It’s about scannable content.

What you’re up against

First, let me set the stage for the idea of scannable content.

Did you know that 55% of people spend fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page?

That’s not ideal when your goal is to keep visitors exploring and to get them interested in your product/service/brand.

You’ve got only a small window to grab their attention and motivate them to read your content. And it’s not realistic to expect visitors to read it in its entirety. Hardly anyone does that anymore.

In fact, research on the way people read websites found that only 16% of their subjects read a webpage word by word. Most participants—79% of the test subjects—scanned new pages they came across.

The takeaway is that less than two out of 10 people will actually read an entire blog post. The vast majority will be highly selective about what they read and will merely scan through it.

Another interesting thing is that just because content gets shared doesn’t mean reading engagement increases.

Chartbeat analyzed 10,000 articles shared on social media and found “that there was no relationship whatsoever between the amount a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention an average reader will give that content.”

This graph illustrates this phenomenon:

What’s the solution?

It’s simple. You need to become adept at writing scannable content. This is what the modern digital reader is looking for (whether they consciously know it or not).

What exactly is scannable content?

According to Forbes,

“scannable content is short, sweet and to the point. Sentences and paragraphs are brief. Bold text and bullet points highlight key points. Links to other content are used to provide your readers with supplemental information.”

This writing format is geared toward 21st century readers, who primarily read content on a screen as opposed to a book or any other print publication.

It’s specifically tailored to streamline the way readers absorb information to keep them interested.

And it works.

Dr. Jakob Nielsen even found that scannable online content boosted readability by 57%. If you’re used to conventional writing (e.g., large blocks of text), you need to throw that approach out the window.

You need to embrace scannability. Fortunately, there’s a step-by-step process you can follow.

1. Write short paragraphs

You might have noticed that I prefer to use short paragraphs in my content.

Really short. In fact, a lot of my paragraphs are only a single sentence in length.

That’s not by accident.

I would say that this technique is perhaps the most important when it comes to creating scannable content.

Allow me to provide you with an example. Here’s a large, ugly block of text:

You probably find yourself straining your eyes to read through it.

And here’s some text broken down into much smaller, more digestible chunks:

Which do you find more aesthetically pleasing and easier to read?

I would bet you’d say the second one.

It’s broken up in a way that allows you to move seamlessly from one point to the next without it taxing your brain in the process.

The key is to include only one idea per paragraph and make it a maximum of four sentences. However, I try to stick with just one to three.

Remember that white space is your friend, so use plenty of it to break up text into smaller chunks.

2. Keep your sentences short

There’s no reason to drag your content out by writing long-winded sentences and using PhD-level vocabulary words that only the academic elite will understand.

You need to remember that your audience will consist of a lot of different readers with varying levels of education (and vocabulary).

If readers have to continually check the dictionary just to understand what you’re trying to say, it defeats the whole purpose.

That’s why you’re better off keeping your sentences fairly brief and not getting overly wordy just for the sake of sounding smart.

As a rule of thumb, any more than 16 words per sentence is too long.

Be practical, and try to simplify complex information as much as possible so that everyone can understand it. “Dumb it down” if you have to, but keep the value high.

3. Follow the four-syllable rule

A simple strategy to ensure your writing isn’t wordy is to avoid using any words with more than four syllables.

For instance, you would want to stay away from:

• Unintelligibly
• Appropriation
• Lackadaisical

You get the idea.

Your readers should be able to maneuver their way through your content without becoming exhausted during the process.

4. Use subheaders

Most readers won’t be interested in every single point of your article.

Instead, most readers would prefer to bounce around to seek out the few pieces of key information that interest them the most.

You can accommodate this desire by including several subheaders throughout the body of your content.

This breaks it down in a logical way that makes your content “flow.”

If you read posts from any of my blogs including Quick Sprout, Crazy Egg, and Neil Patel, you’ll notice that I take full advantage of subheaders.

They serve as a quick and easy way to locate main points and accelerate the scanning process. Just make sure that each subheader encapsulates what the following paragraphs cover.

Also, try not to get too clever or cute about it. Instead, keep your subheadings simple and practical.

5. Use bullet points

Who doesn’t love bullet points? I know I do.

They seamlessly break down information so readers can extract key data without having to think too much about it.

Here’s a good example of bullet points used to perfection:

Rather than writing out your list in a sentence, separating your points by commas, create a bullet list, and your readers will love you for it.

6. Sprinkle in images

Images serve two distinct purposes.

First, they serve as an eye candy and fulfill your reader’s subconscious desire for visual stimuli.

Second, they provide periodic breaks between blocks of text.

Both help keep readers on your site for longer and encourage them to engage with your content.

I try to throw in an image at least every few paragraphs or so because I know the images I use enrich my content with information and add validity to my points.

I recommend using data-driven pictures (like graphs) or images to serve as examples, rather than merely using “placeholders,” because these will really add to the overall depth of your content.

7. Add links to external sources

To add authority and credibility to your writing, it’s a good idea to include quotes, data points, graphs, etc. from reliable sources.

I do this with pretty much every piece of content I write. It backs up my argument and proves that I’m not just pulling statistics out of thin air.

But since it’s not practical to include every gory detail, you’ll want to simply include a key sentence or two and insert a link to the original source.

If your readers wish to learn more about a certain topic you cover, they can simply visit the link. As a result, this won’t bog down your content with extraneous information.

8. Create lists

I love lists.

There’s something about breaking down content in a logical, sequential order I find satisfying. It keeps things neat and tidy.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

A study performed by Buzzsumo and Okdork analyzed over 100 million articles to determine which received the most shares. According to their findings, lists were the second most shareable format (only infographics were shared more).

If you really want to maximize the scannability of your content, use plenty of lists.

I’m not saying do this for every single piece of content you create because it will become redundant, but 50% or so should be a good number to shoot for.

Lists are a great weapon to have in your arsenal because they lend themselves to being scanned naturally.

Conclusion

Creating scannable content has arguably never been more important than it is today.

By accommodating the modern online reader and presenting information in a streamlined, visually appealing way, you can improve the reader’s experience.

This technique is also effective for preventing “cognitive overload,” which can drain a reader’s mental energy.

The end result is happier readers who spend more time on your site and who are more likely to convert.

Can you think of any additional techniques for making content more scannable?

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The Anatomy of Virality: How to Engineer the Perfect Viral Blog Article

You hear the term viral all the time.

I’m regularly reading Internet content that has “gone viral” or watching the latest viral video post. I research virality, and I read articles about content virality.

Virality is a big deal. If you think about it, viral content is what shapes our culture.

The idea of viral content has become rooted in Internet culture. It’s obviously something that most bloggers and marketers strive to achieve with their content.

Viral content can come in many forms and mean different things to different people.

For example, by some standards, I’ve written several “viral” articles—articles that were viewed by millions and shared by thousands. But when I compare my little blog article to other viral pieces of content, I see that its reach is tiny.

The underlying quality of a viral piece of content is that it circulates rapidly across the Internet and reaches a widespread audience in a short period of time.

It can go from obscurity to mass exposure overnight.

Whether it’s a meme, video, blog post, or commercial, viral content has a way of capturing the attention of people from all walks of life.

There’s something exceptional about it even if you can’t necessarily put your finger on it.

Although there’s no magical recipe that instantly makes a blog article epic and uber-sharable, there is certainly a formula you can follow to achieve virality. After all, virality is a scientific phenomenon, even if achieving insane levels, like 2.5 billion views, isn’t predictable.

You can engineer virality to a certain degree. You start by understanding a few factors and elements that unite viral content.

Here’s a sequence you can follow to engineer the perfect viral blog article.

Content type

First things first. Which types of content receive the most shares?

I think you’ll agree that it’s easier to watch a four-minute music video, for example, than to read a 2,000-word article.

I’m interested in written content for the purposes of our discussion, so I’ll stick to long-form articles.

OkDork and Buzzsumo analyzed over 100 million articles to uncover underlying patterns that contribute to virality.

Here’s what they found in terms of what content was shared the most:

When it comes to blog content, you’ll notice that list articles performed the best overall by a fairly large margin.

This is followed by “why posts,” “what posts,” and “how-to articles.”

So, in theory, you’d have the best odds of your article going viral if you created a list—more specifically, a 10-item list because it increases your odds even more.

According to OkDork, “10 item lists on average received the most social shares—on average 10,621 social shares. In fact, they had four times as many social shares on average than the 2nd most popular list number: 23.” The next best performing articles were lists of 16 and 24 items.

The exact number isn’t as important as the fact that it’s a list. BuzzFeed, the king of listicles, regularly produces viral listicles. When I checked on Buzzsumo the most popular articles in the past year, two of the top five were listicles.

The number seems a bit arbitrary. But the fact that it’s a list? That’s the appeal.

Keep this in mind when deciding on the number of items to include on a list.

Content length

The word count of an article is another huge factor in determining the potential for virality.

There’s a common misconception about long content.

It goes like this:

• If the content is long…
• …then nobody will read it.

Guess what? That’s totally false.

Obviously read is a slippery term, so I won’t get into the mechanics of what reading means to people.

Here’s what I do know: longer content gets more shares, backlinks, views, and all the good things that great content deserves.

Here’s what the study mentioned above revealed:

By analyzing this graph, it’s clear that the higher the word count, the better the likelihood of a blog article going viral: 3,000-10,000 words generated the highest overall number of shares.

And this totally makes sense if you think about it.

I’ve definitely noticed a pattern where long, well-researched, in-depth content kills it, while your average, run-of-the-mill 500-word articles achieve only marginal results.

Although people may not read a long article in its entirety, they’re still likely to scan it. To me, that’s important. I try to create articles so people can get value from them even if they don’t read every word.

Aiming for at least 2,000 words per post is ideal if you want your content to get shared across a wide audience.

Evoking the right emotions

Next, there’s the issue of getting readers to feel certain emotions.

The same study from OkDork and Buzzsumo revealed which content received the most number of shares based on the emotions it evoked:

According to these findings, the top four emotions to target are:

1. Awe
2. Laughter
3. Amusement
4. Joy

What’s the underlying pattern of these emotions?

They’re primarily positive emotions.

Although awe could be positive or negative, laughter, amusement, and joy are all emotions that make people smile and bring about good feelings.

You’ll also notice that negative emotions, like anger and sadness, don’t perform as well. What’s the takeaway? Positive content has a far better chance of going viral than negative content.

Capitalizing on trends

Striking while the iron is hot is also important.

If you can create blog content based on something that’s wildly popular at the moment, the potential for virality increases exponentially.

Although this approach is likely to have a fairly short shelf life and probably won’t be evergreen, you can still generate some massive exposure for a little while.

And if your content is epic, there’s a good chance that many readers will return to your site to see what else you’ve been up to.

Buzzsumo offers a great example.

They mention an article on Fox News Travel from 2015 that talks about a zombie-themed “Walking Dead” cruise.

This article managed to generate a whopping 1.5 million shares and over 400,000 comments. Not bad for a piece about undead brain eaters.

The lesson here is that writing content based on current trends can definitely work in your favor.

Visuals

People love visuals. They make even the most mundane content come to life and bring the points of a blog article into a cohesive whole.

So as you might imagine, images play a considerable role in virality.

To put it simply, including images in your content increases your odds of getting shares.

Skipping images reduces those odds.

Here’s a graph that shows the impact images can have:

As you can see, articles with at least one image greatly outperform articles without any images.

In fact, having just one image will theoretically double your number of shares.

However, I wouldn’t stop at just one. The more visual appeal, the better.

That’s why I always make sure I include at least a handful of images in every blog article I write.

Author byline

There’s also the issue of a byline, which briefly tells the reader who the author of an article is.

In this case, that’s you.

OkDork and Buzzsumo found that this is also a factor in virality:

Overall, content with a byline/bio receives more shares than content without one.

While there’s virtually no difference in terms of shares on Facebook, it definitely makes a difference on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

But why?

It’s simple. Having a byline lets readers know who the author is, which adds to the article’s credibility.

More trustworthiness = more shares.

Do yourself a favor and make sure to include your byline with each article, ideally with a professional-looking headshot.

Posting at the right time

One factor that’s commonly overlooked is the day of the week a blog article is posted.

Research has found that the odds of content going viral are increased considerably when the article is posted during the weekdays. More specifically, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are your best bets.

There’s a very clear drop off on the weekends, which makes sense, considering many people are out and about and less likely to be glued to the Internet.

For the best possible chances of your article going viral, it would be smart to post on a Tuesday.

The power of influencers

One last thing. If you can get influencers to share your content with their audiences, the potential for virality goes through the roof.

Here’s what I mean:

Even if you can get just one influencer to share your content, the results can be significant.

But if you can somehow get five influencers to do this, it can have a monumental, earth-shattering impact.

Of course, this is easier said than done.

But one strategy for getting an influencer on board is to first see which types of content they’ve shared in the past.

You can then base your article around a similar topic and reach out to the influencer once it’s completed.

Putting it all together

Here’s the deal.

You can never tell for sure whether or not any given piece of content will go viral.

There is a nearly infinite number of factors involved, and you can never fully predict how people will react.

However, you can follow a formula to give yourself the best possible chance.

Let’s recap.

• Create a “list article,” ideally with 10 items. Otherwise, lists with 23, 16, and 24 items work best.
• Make sure it’s a fairly long article with at least 2,000 words. However, the more words, the better. Pieces with 3,000-10,000 words receive the most shares on average.
• Try to stick with positive themes that evoke awe, laughter, amusement, and joy. Don’t kill the vibe of your audience with overly negative themes.
• Base your article around a popular trend that’s sweeping the world at the moment.
• Include visuals. One image is a must, but don’t be afraid to go a little crazy with your images. Your audience should respond favorably.
• Insert your byline/bio at the end of the article to boost your credibility.
• Post during the weekdays. Tuesday is ideal.
• Reach out to relevant influencers, and try to get them to share your article with their followers. If you can manage to get five influencers to share, your exposure will quadruple.

Conclusion

Just think of all the benefits a viral blog article can have.

You can create instant exposure for your brand, grow your social media following, generate a massive volume of leads, and increase your brand equity.

Along with this, it’s reasonable to expect that your sales numbers will increase significantly as well.

By understanding the key elements contributing to content going viral, you can devise a more effective strategy.

And once you “crack the virality code,” you can simply rinse and repeat.

What do you think the most important element of a blog article is in order for it to go viral?

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How to Use Humor to Power up Your Content Marketing

When I write content, I’m usually not that funny. My written jokes don’t go over too well, so I stick with solid, meaty stuff that helps my readers solve problems and achieve marketing goals.

But I know humor is important.

Some of you reading this article are funny people. You have a knack for creating content that makes people laugh.

I’m here to tell you that’s awesome. Humor is a powerful tool.

Have you noticed that more and more brands are incorporating humor into their marketing these days?

Old Spice, Geico, and Dollar Shave Club are just a few companies that come to mind.

Well, there’s a good reason for this trend. Humor sells. That’s why I applaud you if you’re able to insert humor into your content.

In many cases, making your audience laugh is the key to winning them over, boosting your brand equity, and creating the perception of authenticity.

There’s even hard data showing the appeal humor can have.

Nielsen conducted extensive research on which marketing themes resonate the most with a global audience.

Here’s a breakdown of how advertising appeal differs around the world.

As you can see, the European and North American audiences respond most favorably to humor at 51% and 50% respectively.

So, at least theoretically, throwing humor into your campaign should help you win over half of your audience.

If you do it right, you can use humor to propel your marketing and branding to epic heights.

Why is humor so effective?

The way I see it, there are three main reasons why humor works.

First, it forces people to lower their defenses.

Let’s face it. Many people are skeptical when it comes to advertisements.

And it’s easy to see why.

Because we’re so used to a constant barrage of ads, we tend to close ourselves off from hearing their messages.

Humor works well because it catches people off guard.

It’s like hitting them with a right hook. All of a sudden, they find themselves laughing, amused with the hilarity of a situation.

In turn, this often reduces their skepticism, and there’s a bit more openness to hearing your marketing message.

Second, you can use humor to connect with your audience.

Numerous studies have shown that humor acts as an inherent social bonding mechanism.

In an experiment, Dr. Robin Dunbar found that:

…laughter not only plays an important role in social and non-verbal communication, but it also provides evolutionary qualities that encourage group bonding and protects us from physical and psychological pain. 

In other words, humor brings us closer together and can make your brand more relatable to your audience.

Third, humor often leads to sharing.

Think about it. What’s some of the most shared content on social media?

It’s stuff like crazy cat videos and ridiculous memes.

Take Grumpy Cat, Condescending Wonka, and First World Problems, for example.

If a person comes across something that elicits a legitimate laugh, there’s a high probability they’ll share it with others.

If you play your cards right, a humor-infused content marketing campaign can go viral.

Leveling the playing field

In my opinion, humor is also a great equalizer and has the potential to bridge the gap between small companies and their much larger counterparts.

Just take Dollar Shave Club, for example.

This is a fairly small company specializing in razor blades and shaving accessories.

It’s a drop in a very large bucket of the shaving industry, and it’s up against mega competitors such as Gillette, Remington, and Bic.

But somehow they’ve been able to carve out a nice niche for themselves and, as of mid-2015, had a net worth of $615 million. Not too shabby.

I would say that a large reason behind the success of Dollar Shave Club is their humor.

Although they didn’t have the massive budget of their huge corporate competitors, they understood how to capture the attention of their audience with humor.

One of their most notable slogans is “Our blades are f**king great.”

Do some people find it offensive? Probably.

But guess what? The company crushed it.

As of October, 2016, this ad was viewed over 23.5 million times on YouTube.

This just goes to show that even obscure brands who are up against seemingly insurmountable odds can claim their piece of the pie (and more) by weaving humor into their content marketing.

Now that we’ve established why humor works, let’s talk about how you can use it to amp up your campaign.

It all starts with YOUR demographic

Humor is subjective. What may be funny to a high-schooler may be offensive to someone in their 60s.

For this reason, it’s critical you fully understand your audience and come up with an approach they’ll find legitimately funny.

You need an angle that makes sense and that will hit its mark.

What you don’t want is for your message to come across as being overly offensive, crass, or distasteful.

This obviously won’t do your brand reputation any favors.

The key is to come up with an angle that your specific audience is likely to respond to.

You don’t need to worry about pleasing everyone, but it’s absolutely essential to create (or curate) the right humorous content that’s going to stick.

Humor needs to align with your brand identity

Authenticity is another key ingredient in the success of humor marketing. It needs to reflect what your brand is all about.

Let’s look once again at Dollar Shave Club.

You could consider their brand of humor as edgy, blunt, and non-conservative.

They don’t fit the traditional mold of razor blade suppliers, and they’re totally fine with that.

In fact, they fully embrace their brazen and brassy behavior.

That’s why their humor-centric ads hit just the right note. The ads align perfectly with their brand identity, and people have responded positively.

To recap, you first need to know exactly whom you’re trying to reach and then align your content around your brand.

If you can do these two things, your chances of success will increase exponentially.

Keep it simple

The more complex and complicated your humor is, the more likely it is to miss the mark.

If it needs to be explained, it immediately loses its effectiveness.

In other words, people shouldn’t have to think too much about it. Why it’s funny should be obvious.

Keeping it simple and to the point is your best option if you want your message to resonate.

What kind of humor works?

Perhaps the most straightforward way to evoke laughter is to simply make a joke or snide comment about something.

Take this cynical blog post from The Onion, for example.

Most people immediately get the fact this is mocking the 2016 presidential candidates. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, and it’s quite humorous.

In fact, The Onion is an expert at being satirical—humor is woven into its very fabric.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to be funny in a classy, sophisticated kind of way, this is a good resource to check out.

Another option is to utilize a casual, tongue-in-cheek style.

Maybe you use ludicrous images or snarky pop culture references to grab the attention of your audience and form a bond.

Here’s another example from Wait But Why that pokes fun at the presidential race.

Notice how the simplicity of their content and their ridiculous hand-drawn image instantly resonates with readers.

Going this route typically requires a little more brainstorming than simply making a joke or comment but can have a really big impact when you do it just right.

A third possibility is to shock your audience into laughter.

This is where you create content that catches people off guard by being over the top.

It’s a technique that doesn’t necessarily require a lot of thought or effort. It’s more about taking things to extreme and being so ridiculous that people can’t help but take notice.

A good example of a company who does this well is Skittles with their “taste the rainbow” commercials.

Most of their ads are pretty far out there, e.g., a teenager confessing that he has “Skittlespox.”

A final note

Keep in mind that you don’t have to be a standup comedian to inject humor into your content marketing. You don’t have to leave your audience rolling on the floor laughing.

All you usually have to do is get them to smile and “get it.” That’s enough.

The key is to keep it simple while being authentic and relatable.

If you can win them over with humor, this should allow you to make a genuine connection and leave them more open to exploring your product or service.

Conclusion

Humor is no joke when it comes to content marketing.

It can be very potent and potentially help you win the hearts of your audience.

There’s even firsthand proof that humor can catapult a small, no name company into the upper echelon of its industry, allowing it to compete with big name titans in a way that would otherwise be impossible.

But in order to capitalize on this tactic, you need to do your homework and come up with a game plan that allows you to hit the sweet spot.

By taking the right approach, you can achieve some highly important goals, including building valuable rapport, boosting your brand reputation, and generating a high volume of leads.

Can you think of any other companies who have nailed it by being funny?

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A Thirty-Day Plan for Gaining 100 Authoritative and Relevant Backlinks to Your New Website

Link building. It’s the backbone of SEO.

The way we build links has changed quite a lot over the past decade, but links themselves are no less valuable.

Like me, you may remember the early days of online marketing, when generating backlinks to a website was as simple as requesting links from link farms and other sketchy sources.

Google put a stop to that, so generating backlinks for a brand-new website is a bit trickier these days.

That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, though. The sooner your site has a decent number of backlinks from authoritative, high-quality websites, the sooner its performance on the major search engines will improve.

Although this is largely a waiting game, there are things you can do right now to generate first-rate backlinks to your new site.

Follow the advice here, and you can easily generate upwards of 100 authoritative and relevant backlinks to your new site in just 30 days. 

Forget the old way of doing things

First, don’t even think about employing black-hat techniques to generate backlinks to your site. Google’s algorithms are far too savvy to be fooled, so such efforts are bound to backfire.

As frustrating as it may be, quality trumps quantity every time when it comes to building a top-notch link profile.

Link building has long been the most volatile field in SEO. There has been much misinformation and rancor over the best way to build links, how quickly to build links, which links to build, and even whether or not to attempt link building at all.

Google’s algorithm changes are less frequent and impactful than they once were. However, we’re still discussing algorithm changes around the subject of links.

The latest of these was the September 2016 update to the Penguin algorithm:

The most substantial change of the algorithm was that “Penguin doesn’t penalize for bad links.” The conversation among the SEOs suggested as much:

What does this mean for link building?

Link building today: What matters most

First, don’t be afraid of link building. No, you shouldn’t be pulling any old-school link wheels, but neither should you be afraid of creating and unleashing a link-building strategy.

Unlike in the past, when a link was a link was a link, effective backlinks today share a few key characteristics.

First, they occur naturally. Rather than being compelled to add a link to your site for whatever reason, website owners link to yours because your content is too terrific to pass up on.

Effective backlinks come from authority sites relevant to yours. I’ll delve more deeply into what constitutes an authority site later, but suffice it to say that your links shouldn’t come from just anyone.

As for relevance, a hundred links from sites that have nothing to do with yours pale in comparison with a single link from a highly relevant site.

What constitutes an authority site?

Authority sites usually share the following traits:

• They’re credible
• They enjoy a high ranking on major search engines such as Google
• They receive huge amounts of traffic and lots of shares on social media
• They’re influential

Additionally, they lack the characteristics of a bad website, which include blatant keyword stuffing, high link-to-content ratios, excessive numbers of ads, and low-quality content and website design in general.

How to find relevant authority sites

The first step in your 30-day plan is to identify authority websites relevant to yours.

You can easily use Google for this. Use search operators to zero in on suitable sites more quickly. For example, use site:.gov, .edu, or .org to limit your search to such sites.

Search for the keyword of your choice to find sites that rank highly for it, and go from there.

Another option is to use the Moz SEO toolbar, which is offered as a free extension for Firefox and Chrome.

It displays useful metrics and information about the site you are currently visiting, including its page authority, domain authority, links, and a general analysis of the page itself.

What to offer

Okay…so far, so good.

Here’s the rub, though: You can’t approach these authority sites without offering anything in return.

Since your website is brand new, what can you possibly offer?

I hate to break it to you, but you should ideally build up a decent content library before attempting to solicit backlinks from authority sites.

Luckily, the content doesn’t have to rank well. It just has to be top-tier in terms of the quality of the information it provides.

Prior to launching your site, devote a few weeks to developing a small arsenal of content. When the time comes to work on your link-building strategy, you’ll have stuff to offer other website owners.

After all, why would they link back to you if you have nothing for them to link to in the first place?

Making contact

When it comes to approaching website owners for backlinks, you already know what to do. Navigate the site in question to track down contact information.

If you can’t snag an email address, use a contact form.

Don’t be blatantly promotional. In fact, you might even hold off broaching the subject until you’ve had a few exchanges.

Flattery will get you somewhere, so try breaking the ice by complimenting the site owner on a piece of content.

Later, show them some of your stuff, and suggest swapping links.

10 tips for getting quality authoritative backlinks to your site this month

Okay, now that you got the gist of tracking down and soliciting relevant authoritative sites for backlinks, it’s time to get down to brass tacks regarding effective link-building strategies.

I have all sorts of tricks up my sleeve, and I’m sharing the very best ones right here.

1. Blog – A LOT

According to HubSpot, companies that blog on a consistent basis have up to 97% more backlinks than those that don’t. From day one, commit yourself to posting new posts consistently.

Quality still counts, though; so, create a schedule that allows you to post regularly while offering readers real value.

2. Offer free resources

You’ve got something to offer free, right?

Like you, other website owners are always looking for useful, credible sources of information. There’s no reason why you can’t provide it.

Create a library of white papers, e-books, and other pieces of content that provide detailed, useful, and well-researched information.

Offer these resources free, but make one small request: credit in the form of a link back to your website.

Alternatively, offer the content free as long as it’s directly linked to from your site.

3. Become a PR whiz

When they’re done properly, press releases can effectively plant seeds for new backlinks to your site.

By “properly,” I mean that they provide newsworthy information and that they include a non-promotional link back to your site.

Reserve press releases for truly newsworthy events.

You should have plenty to go on with a new site since so many things are in the hopper.

4. Create and share infographics

Breaking up text with high-quality images is smart.

Not surprisingly, there’s a strong demand for top-notch images online, and infographics are especially popular. Build a library of infographics that relate to your industry or niche.

Whenever possible, create an infographic for an important trending topic that affects your industry or business. Readers love to share newsworthy graphics and use them as a form of social currency on social media.

Source: youthnoise.com

Sprinkle in a bit of SEO to ensure your infographics are easily found through the search engines.

People will want to share and use your infographics. When they do, organic, high-quality backlinks to your site will ensue.

5. Develop charts and tables

Humans are visual by nature, so charts, tables, and other visual representations of data tend to go over very well.

Load your site with tables and charts pertaining to your niche to plant the seeds for more backlinks.

You don’t have to be a data scientist to make this happen. Find reliable sources of information, and put their data into graph or table form.

Use a site such as OnlineChartTool.com to quickly and easily create eye-catching charts and graphs others will gladly link to.

6. Build an image library

Website owners are always looking for images in general—especially if they are offered free.

Make sure the images are of high quality. If you don’t possess the skills to take excellent photos yourself, you need to be willing to hire someone who does.

Post each image on its own page. Include a detailed description, and use SEO best practices to increase the odds of it ranking well in Google Image Search.

Include a form for quickly grabbing the file and link code to ensure you get your links.

7. Repurpose effective content

A quick note: never, ever copy content from the Internet.

I’m not just saying this because plagiarism is wrong; I’m saying it because Google will penalize you so hard that your site may never recover.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with identifying useful pieces of high-ranking content from other sites and repurposing them to suit your needs. But make them truly your own by optimizing them to be relevant to your website.

And don’t just repurpose text-based content as text-based content.

Take a text-based piece and turn it into an e-book, an infographic, a video, or some other form of media.

8. Fill a gap

Yes, the Internet is jam-packed with content.

Chances are, much of what needs to be said regarding your niche or industry has been said. Still, others have surely overlooked important topics. Identify those gaps, and fill them with high-quality content of your own.

Similarly, look for gaps in the types of available content. For example, perhaps there’s an overload of posts and articles about a subject but no in-depth pieces or e-books.

Be the first to provide them, and you will reap all kinds of great link karma.

9. Interview influencers

Seek out influencers within your niche, and create a roundup post.

Such a post essentially includes several links to several different influencers while covering a specific subject.

A great way to round out this type of content is by interviewing the influencers in question. After finding key influencers, follow them on social media. Interact with them to establish a relationship, and then approach them about interviewing them.

Even very busy influencers can usually take time to answer a question or two via Twitter or another social media site, so this is a worthwhile option to consider.

10. Scope out the competition

What kinds of backlinks do your competitors have?

Chances are, you could benefit from receiving links from similar sources too. Do a little sleuthing to discover who’s giving them link love.

Use a site like SEMrush.com to track down your top competitors based on relevant keywords. Next, input each competitor’s URL into a site like OpenLinkProfiler.org.

You’ll get a list of links to your competitors’ sites, and you can follow them to see where you might want to concentrate your efforts.

11. Try broken link building

This technique is especially valuable for new websites.

Put simply, you seek out broken links on relevant websites and approach site owners with replacement content they can link to instead.

Since 404 pages can negatively impact a site’s ranking, website owners usually appreciate being alerted to the issue. Use something like the iWebTool Broken Link Checker to search a specific URL for dead links.

Contact the owner, but make sure you have something for them to link to instead.

12. Make useful comments

In the old days, conventional wisdom said to post links back to your site in comments sections to boost your link profile.

These days, that comes across as spam, so you need to take a subtler approach.

You need to keep up on industry news anyway, so get into the habit of regularly reading relevant blogs and websites. When you have a useful comment to contribute, do so.

When someone comments on your site, acknowledge the comment!

Chances are, they’ll remember the gesture and reciprocate in the future. Even if they don’t, it’s good karma.

13. Write guest posts

As you already know, generating enough content for a business isn’t easy.

Site owners are often happy to be offered free content for their sites, and you can do so by offering to create guest posts and articles for them.

Get to know a website or blog before approaching the owner. Make sure your content complements theirs. Have a unique angle or insight to offer, and then make your pitch.

One more thing: reciprocate by offering to let them guest-post on your site too.

14. Solicit backlinks in person

If it’s feasible, attend trade shows and other events within your niche to meet influencers in person. Face-to-face interactions go a long way.

When interacting with an influencer in person, make sure you know who they are and why you want a link from them. If the opportunity presents itself, ask about getting a link.

At the very least, you can forge a new connection that could pay off well in the future.

15. Harness the power of social media

Your site is new, so your social media game has to be strong.

Whenever you create new content, promote it across all social media channels. Even if each post generates only a few shares, the odds of backlinks being generated increase.

Later, don’t be afraid to promote old content on social media again. You may have new followers now, so it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Conclusion

The trick to getting backlinks from the tips provided above is putting them to work right away.

Again, before doing anything else, get a decent stockpile of quality content.

If necessary, pay good money for it. It will be worth it in the long run.

Which of the suggestions above are you likely to try first?

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10 Contact Page Techniques That Make People Get in Touch with You

Your website’s contact form may seem like the most mundane element of your site, but every marketer should pay attention to it.

In the past, I didn’t give contact forms much attention. It was a sub-secondary didn’t-care-about-it page when I had a lot more to worry about.

Then, I ran some tests on removing a single form field and found this one change boosted my conversions by 26%.

A 26% lift may not seem impressive to some, but from an annual perspective, that one change grew revenue well into six figures.

If you know anything about me, you know I’m obsessed with split testing. I kept testing, kept tweaking, and kept optimizing my contact page. With every test, I learned some new lessons.

Here’s my big takeaway: Getting people to contact you is valuable. Making it easy for them to contact you is even better.

Why? Because these are warm leads.

Anything you do to move qualified leads into your funnel is a smart move.

How do you turn your boring ol’ contact page into a massive lead magnet?

Let me give you the perspective-setting intro, then we’ll dive into some tricks.

Shift perspective to focus on the right things

When marketers are examining their funnels, they typically look at everything under a microscope, especially calls to action (CTAs).

There’s this huge drive to make sure CTAs are perfect. So we change, test, retest, compare samples, examine confidence levels, play with colors, and test some more until we feel like our landing pages are kicking ass and taking names.

Do a search for conversion optimization case studies, and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

I searched and came up with pages of landing page, sales page, e-commerce and opt-in case studies.

What you see less often is case studies on the performance of the contact page. Yet, it’s the one constant customers tend to be most familiar with and use for a variety of reasons:

• can’t find something on the site
• need help with a return
• custom order information
• wholesale request
• vendor inquiry
• press and media requests
• affiliate requests
• finding out hours of operation

That’s just a few things that funnel through the contact page.

The magic of contact page optimization

Given its potential for not only generating leads but also acting as a potent trust signal and delighting customers, the contact page should be in your top 5 list of conversion points to fix.

Here’s a case in point. Click Optimize took on a client that saw, on average, 3,800 monthly visits, which generated around 56 goal completions on the “contact us” page.

They tightened up the contact page and added a short-list contact form in the sidebar of the content. The result was impressive. Without any real change in the amount of traffic, the goal completions climbed to 175.

Imaginary Landscape relies on its contact form to generate new leads for the company. The original form on the “contact us” page contained a total of 21 fields and check boxes. Clearly, the company wanted to gather as much information as possible on leads.

The downside is the data-heavy form was seeing a conversion rate of just above 5%.

The company revamped its contact page, trimming it down to four fields to minimize the load on the visitor:

What I’ve consistently seen with contact pages is that less is more.

When you look at forms like the first one above, with all the extra information, a lot of those fields are extraneous. They provide little value in terms of qualifying a lead.

When you trim it down to just the information that’s important, conversions go up. In this case, they rose from 5.4% to 11.9%—an increase of 120%.

But I want to clarify something here because I don’t want to set a dangerous precedent and have you running to your “contact us” page and chopping fields from it.

Less is more, but just the fact that you have less of something doesn’t mean you’ll have more of something else.

It’s okay if that doesn’t make sense. I’ll clarify with another case study by Econsultancy. They shared a daring test from Kindercare.

Kindercare is a national chain with more than 1,700 child care centers throughout the United States. That means it has to maintain a careful balance of increasing contact conversions while gathering as much information from parents as possible.

In one split test, Kindercare decided to increase the length of its form:

Based on everything I’ve said up to this point, you would expect that to be a mistake.

To their surprise, conversions didn’t plummet. There was no drop from using the longer form, and they benefited by getting extra information for their sales team while the quality of leads increased.

That’s the point I want to make about this: It’s not always about fewer form fields.

It’s about collecting the right information and using fields that have a higher perceived value to the prospect.

If they feel that they’re forced to share pointless information, you’ll lose them.

Dan Zarrella researched the contact forms of 40,000 of their customers and found that conversion rates improve by almost half when the number of form fields is reduced from four to three.

Results vary, of course. You need to test what works on your contact page specifically, and that’s what this post is about.

Here’s everything else you should be looking at to design a contact page that creates more conversions and provides real value to you and your visitors.

1. Long forms or multi-step

Since we’re talking about form fields, there’s another point I want to address.

You don’t always have to chop the fields to simplify the submission process of getting in touch with you.

If you absolutely must collect information, but your conversions are abysmal because of the opt-in you’re using on your contact page, you should consider a multi-step contact page.

You’ll see this a lot with landing pages because it’s effective. It presents the visitor with a few basic fields—the most vital information you need to obtain.

When they click “submit,” they are taken to another form that gathers just a little more information. This gives you the extended information you need, but the visitor feels they are only making short submissions.

It reduces the chance for the visitor to feel fatigued or frustrated.

Vendio’s design is an example of it:

The version on the left was a bulleted list that led to the contact form in a multi-step submission.

The version on the right had the contact form embedded into the first page and was a single-step process.

In that case, the two-step process lead to a 59% increase in form completion.

2. Building trust with visitors

The people visiting your site have already taken time out of their day and spent it with you. They have some kind of a problem, and they’re hoping you offer the solution. When they’re ready to engage, they visit your contact page.

And that’s where they are met with fields asking for a lot of personal information.

If you want them to hand the info over, you need to establish trust and reduce friction. Achieving that is a lot like the way we engage people in the real world. It comes down to the little things you can do when engaging someone:

• Be clear about how personal information is used and the purpose of the form.
• Articulate that all information is kept private and link to your privacy policy.
• List your contact information on the “Contact Us” page; it’s easier for people to share information with other people and not some blindly labeled web property.
• Keep the user experience in mind; don’t use complex fields that require dashes or special characters.
• Place trust signals on your contact page: affiliations, certifications, awards, and membership badges.
• Show social proof with testimonials that include faces.

3. Be hesitant to use mandatory form fields

But we need all this information for our sales people.

Have you heard that before?

It doesn’t matter what you want. It’s what the customer wants. Don’t be one of the reluctant marketers who hate optional form fields.

Countless tests have shown you can get better data, and better qualified leads, by not requiring data in your form. Here’s an example:

The above form, void of required fields, converted 31% more visitors into leads. Not only that, the leads were actually more qualified buyers.

Trust goes both ways, and your prospective customers are more likely to respect you more and supply better information when they feel like you trust them.

4. Ask only for information that matters

Simply put,

if you don’t need to know it, don’t ask for it.

You’ll get far more conversions from your contact page by sticking only to the information you need to make an initial contact with a lead.

Everything else can be plugged into your CRM later once you have a chance to make a personal contact.

Right now, it’s just about getting them to click “submit.”

It’s amazing how much friction is generated by asking for unnecessary information. For example:

• Asking for age reduces conversion by 3%.
• Requiring a telephone number, or even asking for it, creates the implication that someone will be calling. This can drop conversions by 5%.
• Asking for targeted geographic data, like city and state, reduces submissions by 2%.
• Get even more specific with a street address, and conversions drop by another 4%.

Total it all up, and you’ll get a significant number. Depending on how much traffic you get, a drop of up to 15% in conversions can be pretty significant.

Every single item on the above list can be acquired after you make contact with your prospect.

5. Be responsive

By responsive, I don’t mean quick to reply. I’ve talked before about the importance of responsive designs and having sites that function well on mobile devices. This is certainly no exception.

Eighty percent of Internet users own smartphones and use them to browse the web, followed by 47% who use tablets.

If your contact page isn’t optimized for a mobile experience, you’re eliminating a huge segment of your audience who won’t bother wrestling with your contact form. They’ll simply leave.

This is especially important if you have a brick and mortar business and use maps or other identifying information on your contact page. When your visitors can’t manipulate, see, or interact with your local contact information, you’ll have a hell of a time getting them into your store.

To make sure your contact page looks and functions great on mobile, go to UserTesting.com and crowdsource UX testing. You’ll get unbiased consumer feedback on your contact process.

6. Reduce friction with minimal design

There are endless ways to design a contact page. Service-based online businesses can streamline the contact process by almost completely reducing friction on their contact pages.

InvisionApp doesn’t get flashy with its contact page. It asks the most basic information, and it gets the job done. Other than its drop-down menu, there’s virtually no friction on this page:

While drop-down menus can potentially cause significant friction, I don’t feel like it would be as limiting on this contact page due to a simplified form and effective use of negative space.

7. Match your brand

When you’re trying to create a branded experience on your site, don’t let your contact page feel like a blemish that ruins the overall experience. While minimalist contact forms can be an effective way to get submissions, you can also do well when your form is a seamless transition that supports the message you’re trying to send.

For example, Mostly Serious is a digital agency that provides great interactive experiences, covering content, branding, and site design.

Their contact page is a brilliant representation of their approach to branding and interactive experiences. While asking for a lot of information, the form reduces friction by breaking the information into segments. There are also interactive sliders that provide a kind of customization element that’s almost enjoyable to complete.

Browns Court Bakery is another good example of maintaining branding on the contact page:

8. Take a new approach

In a world filled with contact forms, it’s refreshing to see a different approach that works. Built By Buffalo provides a number of ways for their customers to get in touch with their team. Rather than clutter their contact page with all the methods plus a contact form, they eliminated the obvious form fields.

Instead, the company targets their primary communication channels as a means of making personal contact with the team. It’s a great example of how to include a lot of detail without clutter.

9. Change your call to action

There’s no shortage of lessons on the web about how to create amazing call-to-action buttons that maximize conversions. It’s not really necessary to go that in-depth on the subject with your contact page.

The best piece of advice for your call to action on the contact page is to stop using “Submit.”

In one study, forms using the CTA “Submit” showed a decrease in conversions of almost 3%.

Instead, use less-common action words and phrases. Using “Click here” resulted in a 30% increase in conversions, while “Go” showed a 25% lift.

10. Drop the Captcha

I get that security is important and you want to eliminate spam. It’s annoying when garbage comes through your contact form. But Captcha fields don’t stop the spammers from making manual submissions (and they will).

They will, however, stop your prospective customers from converting on your contact page. One study showed that Captcha can reduce conversions by as much as 3%.

Conclusion

Don’t spend too much time focusing on the design of your contact page. Your visitors won’t be wowed by aesthetics. That won’t drive them to contact you. Instead, focus on reducing friction to improve conversions.

No matter what you do with your contact form, the more friction you eliminate, the more goal completions and submissions you’ll see.

Make the experience a better one; test everything you do; and you’ll find that communication and conversion will improve overall.

What are some ways you’ve improved your contact page to generate more leads?

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