Last month, Google dramatically expanded indented results in organic SERPs. A recent study by Moz of 10,000 competitive keywords showed that up to 40% of SERPs displayed indented results on page one. Here’s just one example:
Google has determined that both pages are relevant to this search (for “how many algorithm updates per year”), but that the specific blog post is more relevant. Indented results are of particular interest to SEOs because not only can you double-dip, but the indented listing(s) can, in some cases, get pulled from lower positions and effectively get a ranking boost.
I’m happy to report that our STAT Product team has been hard at work implementing indented results in rank tracking and they are now available in SERP feature tracking. Here’s a quick walk-through of how to put indented results data to work.
Step 1: The SERP Features tab
You can quickly get an overview of indented results for your site by clicking on the “SERP Features” tab. You’ll see the indented results icon (two green rectangles, with one indented) in both the legend and the SERP Features graph, which you can view by share of voice or total count:
I’ve chosen “Count: Total” here, so that the feature doesn’t get dwarfed by organic results. You can use the legend to easily add and remove features from this graph.
Step 2: Filter on indented results
Just click on the double-rectangle icon, and you’ll automatically get back a list of all keywords in your current tracked site that have indented results:
Of course, you’re probably interested in either protecting the indented listings you already own or going after listings that someone else owns. We’ve got you covered ...
Step 3: Filter on owned vs. unowned
This is a bit easier if you zoom in on a single SERP feature, but the indented results bar is broken into two smaller bars showing both owned and unowned data:
Click on either section and the filter will automatically adjust to only show you keywords matching that choice. Here’s a sample screenshot for “owned” indented results:
What’s that you say? You want to track this data over time? No problem ...
Step 4: Tag and track data over time
Click on “Tag All Filtered Keywords” above the keyword list, and you’ll get a dialog box like the one below. Just select “Dynamic tag”, give your tag a name, and click [Save] ...
Now, you can easily track this filter from the “Tags” tab, and STAT will start collecting historical data for this filter, allowing you to see indented results that you win and lose over time.
Last month, Google dramatically expanded indented results in organic SERPs. A recent study by Moz of 10,000 competitive keywords showed that up to 40% of SERPs displayed indented results on page one. Here’s just one example:
Google has determined that both pages are relevant to this search (for “how many algorithm updates per year”), but that the specific blog post is more relevant. Indented results are of particular interest to SEOs because not only can you double-dip, but the indented listing(s) can, in some cases, get pulled from lower positions and effectively get a ranking boost.
I’m happy to report that our STAT Product team has been hard at work implementing indented results in rank tracking and they are now available in SERP feature tracking. Here’s a quick walk-through of how to put indented results data to work.
Step 1: The SERP Features tab
You can quickly get an overview of indented results for your site by clicking on the “SERP Features” tab. You’ll see the indented results icon (two green rectangles, with one indented) in both the legend and the SERP Features graph, which you can view by share of voice or total count:
I’ve chosen “Count: Total” here, so that the feature doesn’t get dwarfed by organic results. You can use the legend to easily add and remove features from this graph.
Step 2: Filter on indented results
Just click on the double-rectangle icon, and you’ll automatically get back a list of all keywords in your current tracked site that have indented results:
Of course, you’re probably interested in either protecting the indented listings you already own or going after listings that someone else owns. We’ve got you covered ...
Step 3: Filter on owned vs. unowned
This is a bit easier if you zoom in on a single SERP feature, but the indented results bar is broken into two smaller bars showing both owned and unowned data:
Click on either section and the filter will automatically adjust to only show you keywords matching that choice. Here’s a sample screenshot for “owned” indented results:
What’s that you say? You want to track this data over time? No problem ...
Step 4: Tag and track data over time
Click on “Tag All Filtered Keywords” above the keyword list, and you’ll get a dialog box like the one below. Just select “Dynamic tag”, give your tag a name, and click [Save] ...
Now, you can easily track this filter from the “Tags” tab, and STAT will start collecting historical data for this filter, allowing you to see indented results that you win and lose over time.
So, before getting lost in the sauce in the various metrics, it’s important you understand that your business goals are unique to you, so the way you measure your goals should reflect that. From there, the next steps are to get a better grasp of what quality traffic means for your website, and then evaluate how users engage with your content.
To get a better understanding of what’s considered “quality traffic”, we’ll look into various Google Analytics metrics that will help you create a rock solid SEO strategy.
Why does quality of traffic matter for SEO success?
At the end of the day, quality traffic is what accelerates business success, especially for post-publishing optimization.
For example, let’s assume your blog has 200 visitors per month with a conversion rate of 1%, generating two leads. By improving the quality of your traffic, your conversion rate and number of leads will also increase:
Traffic: 200
Conversion rate: 4%
Leads: 8
This indicates that “superfan” visitors are far more engaged and therefore more profitable than moderately excited users. Google’s new page experience algorithm update further solidifies this statement.
It’s become crystal clear that the way that consumers interact with your website contributes to your business growth.
How do you measure the quality of your organic traffic in Google Analytics?
We can go on and on about Google Analytics, but today we’re specifically looking at traffic quality. Here are the top metrics to keep an eye on:
Engagement metrics: time on site, pages per session, exit rate
Conversion metrics: conversion rate, form submissions, other goal completions,
Relevance metrics: bounce rate, user geo-location, new and returning visitors
Engagement Metrics
Time on site
The time on site is the measurement a user spends on a site, regardless of whether it’s being used or not. For instance, let’s say a user has multiple tabs open but isn’t necessarily using all of them at once — Google Analytics still counts the time the tabs were open.
In fact, Google counts sessions up to 30 minutes without a visitor clicking on other pages. But once the timestamp hits 30 minutes, that session will be counted as a bounce. Knowing this, it's clear that not every user who lands on your site is highly engaged.
Generally speaking, the more time a user spends on your site the better. This indicates that your SEO strategy has defined content that is worth their while. Furthermore, the way you have structured your site not only helps them find the information they need, but they also read more about other topics or services that you might be offering.
A good time on site indicates:
High-quality content
Good site architecture
Proper internal linking
Great UX design
High-quality traffic that’s interested in your products and services
To set efficient goals, you could measure time on site together with the next metric, pages per session.
Here’s a sample goal:
Users who spend an average of four minutes on your site, and at least two pages per session are more likely to be engaged with your content.
To find this metric, click audience (on the left side) > overview (underneath) > under overview, click average session duration.
Pages per session
To put it simply, pages per session is the average number of pages a user views in one session. It is one of the most important behavior metrics within GA, as it indicates how deep within your site a user navigates to. Essentially, the more pages they view, the more interested they are in what you have to say. Typically the first page a user lands on is your home page, but the goodies are on your service or product pages. With that said, to obtain quality traffic, you should aim to have at least two pages per session on average.
If you aren’t seeing these results, you need to start investigating what isn’t working. It might be that you're targeting the wrong keywords or your audience is in the wrong country, and therefore they bounce.
If they land on your home page and don’t move onto another page, it’s a possibility that your home page isn't properly linked to other pages, it’s too slow when loading, or the overall architecture of the site is confusing. Tweak this if necessary, and observe what happens. Often, the simpler it is to get around your site, the better!
Now, as you view your pages per session, I recommend segmenting pages per session based on channel, so you can see which streams have a greater impact and double down on that.
To find pages per session, navigate to GA, and then click “Acquisition overview”. Under the behavior bar you’ll see “pages per session”:
Exit rate
This one’s pretty straightforward. An exit rate tells you how often a customer has left your site from a page. Unlike a bounce rate (which I’ll discuss later), the exit rate tells you that a user left one page, and went to another. Let’s take a look at an example to illustrate.
Let’s say a new visitor enters your homepage, but they want to learn more, so they navigate to your blog. They spend some time reading your content and find what they want, so they exit. This shows up as a percentage under site content > all pages > exit rates.
(see image below to visually see where to find the exit rate on your Google Analytics)
Of course, if the exit rates are high you’ll want to assess elements like:
Website copy
Images/videos
Site load time
Page design
Start by tweaking one element at a time and analyze the results after each change until your exit rates start improving. Some pages will inherently have higher exit rates than others such as your privacy policy and contact us pages (usually users find what they’re looking for on Google without entering your site).
However, if you manage to decrease the exit rates for your services pages, blog posts, and/or product pages by tweaking the components we just talked about, you’ll find higher quality traffic and more conversions.
Now that you’re an expert in engagement metrics, let’s have a closer look at conversion ones.
Conversion metrics
Conversion rate
Google Analytics adds up all the goal completions of your site and calculates that as the overall website conversion rate. Nonetheless, consider looking at each goal separately to see how they’re performing so that you’ll know which goals you’re meeting and which conversion goals need to be adjusted.
To view each individual goal, navigate to “goals overview” and then pick the goal you want to assess by selecting it in the drop down menu. From there you’ll see your conversion rate overview for that particular goal. Here’s an example of goals in the below image:
Now let’s look at how organic traffic plays a role in this scenario:
How can we discover whether or not organic traffic on your site is helping you reach your conversion goals? If for example your conversion rate has gone down, while your organic traffic has gone up, it's possible that you’re targeting the wrong keywords, thus getting less qualified visitors to your site. From there, you’d need to analyze which keywords need to be replaced (hint: check Google Search Console for keywords that are bringing in the highest CTR).
By switching your perspective and looking at the conversion rate of each goal through individual traffic sources, you can make better decisions to optimize and therefore obtain higher quality leads.
Form submissions
To get the most out of Google Analytics, I suggest setting up event tracking for form submissions so that you have a clear overview of what users are doing on your website. Tracking your form submissions allows you to understand how users navigate to the form page and focus your marketing efforts there.
Coming back to SEO, the relationship between form submissions and quality of organic traffic is quite similar to conversion rate. A form submission is considered as a goal which users are prompted to complete. If a large percentage of your users don’t fill in a form, this indicates that they are not engaged and therefore are not the right kind of visitors you should be targeting. If this is the case, re-assess the kind of information you request, the usability of the form, and the overall UX of your form page to make it more relevant and engaging.
To track your form submissions, click on admin at the bottom left hand corner > click view > click goals.
Other goal completions
In addition to the metrics mentioned earlier, you can also set up goals like trial sign ups, newsletter sign ups, ebook downloads, or case study downloads (to name a few). You can track these goals by time, events, pages, or url.
For example, if you recently posted on your social media channels about a free download, you can set up a goal and pinpoint which social media post brought the most traffic and assess the ones that worked better.
As mentioned earlier, tracking your various goals helps you better understand your audience as well as how they engage with your website. You will be able to deep dive into the channels that work best for your overall marketing efforts, as well as identify ways to incorporate UX and content design into your SEO strategy.
False conversions
I’d like to mention that although tracking metrics in Google Analytics is important, it’s just as critical to ensure you’re not skewing your data through false conversions. Inaccuracies in your data set could cause several problems and lead you to the wrong conclusions about your traffic and its quality. Looking at such false data will be the reason to decide on and implement the wrong SEO strategy for your website.
To double check the goals you’ve set up, look for the conversions tab > goals > reverse goal path. Once there, you can identify where your goal conversions are occurring and if there are incorrect pages popping up that could be a sign you’ve incorporated the wrong data for a goal.
Check out the visual below for further direction.
Relevance Metrics
User geo-location
To find your audience’s geo-location, scroll to the audience on the left hand side, then geo, and finally location. Here you’ll find all the different countries that users are coming from, their acquisition, behavior, and conversion data. To get even deeper, you can click on a specific country and see state or city level data.
For larger and international businesses, the big picture geo location data will be most useful, but for smaller or location specific businesses, the granular data will be crucial. For instance, if you’re a boutique clothing store, the city view helps you understand what locations your customers are coming from so you can create more relevant content and optimize according to location.
By understanding the demographics of your audience, you can create highly relevant content to answer their questions and improve the quality of your organic traffic.
Bounce rate
We spoke earlier about bounce rates, but let’s unveil how to use this metric to help your company. The bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who land on your site and quickly exit without navigating to another page.
For example, if you have affiliate links on your site, a user might click on a specific link and go off onto a new browser window. Your bounce rate would be high but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this particular situation, as affiliate purchases are one of your business goals. If you’re a service based brand and you have a high bounce rate, this indicates that people can’t find the information they’re looking for on your site and exit.
Your bounce rate will depend on the goals you’ve set up on Google Analytics and what type of business you have. If you look at the acquisition overview section of your Google Analytics, you’ll come across the bounce rate. Here you’ll notice the bounce rate percentages from different sources of traffic. If the bounce rates are high for organic traffic, that could mean you’re targeting the wrong keywords or audience.
New & Returning visitors
To get more information on your new and returning visitors visit the audience tab, then click on behavior and “new and returning visitors”. Instead of looking at these metrics separately, it's a good rule of thumb to view them simultaneously as your company grows.
Over time, you should see both numbers increase. However, if there’s ever a drastic decrease in the amount of returning visitors, that could be an alarming metric. You’d need to deep dive into the reasons why this is happening (such as a recent change on your site or the wrong marketing tactic).
Benchmarking Google Analytics traffic data
Let’s be honest here… you need benchmark data to truly understand how well your website is performing. I get it, we’re humans and we need guidelines! So in this section, I’ll cover low and high percentage rates for metrics discussed above.
For example:
To add, the new versus returning customers metric varies by industry and type of business however 20-30% for returning visitors is a typical ratio to achieve.
How to use Google Analytics data to improve your website’s SEO traffic quality and user engagement
Google Analytics data is valuable because it helps us prioritize and strategize how to improve our SEO traffic quality. To truly see the benefits of using Google Analytics and to improve the traffic quality of your site, you’ll need to monitor engagement, conversion, and relevance metrics over a long period of time, but these are only one part of the puzzle. Sustainable growth will come from continuously researching, analyzing, and adjusting your site.
What to do if your engagement metrics are underperforming
On page optimization
Optimizing your published content is an easy way to improve the quality of your traffic and increase engagement. To do so, you want to look at applying keyword research that matches search intent. Group keywords with similar topics and identify the right terms to target through each page of your site.
Other specific on page optimizations include:
Incorporating your target keyword in the first 200 words of your copy
Your page title and meta description to have the acceptable Google length (72 characters for title and 170 for meta description)
Your target keyword is included in H1 and subheadings
Now, let’s focus on design.
Think of content design
Another quote for you from Ginny Redish, Consultant Specialist in Web Usability and Writing: “Content is the user experience”.
With that in mind, the layout of your website and the way visitors consume content has a gigantic influence on your user experience. Not only can creating human-first content design improve your SEO, it can consequently enhance your traffic and engagement metrics.
Here are some pointers on how to make this happen:
Avoid large images and videos that take up a lot of page ‘real estate’
Split your content into short paragraphs and headings
Emphasize important words and elements to improve readability
Use lists and tables where possible
Up next, what to include in your blogs to ensure an excellent website experience.
Write articles that provide the right amount of information
Articles should be comprehensive, not too long just for the sake of word count and not too short where information is missing. Users will know if you’re keyword stuffing or simply providing fluff content that doesn’t actually solve their problems.
To make sure this doesn’t happen check out these tips:
Create articles that match the word count of top-ranking competitors but also make content succinct enough so that it doesn’t overwhelm your readers
Create longer articles that can be promoted on other channels such as social
Create longer articles that increase time on site metrics
Use the right language
There should be a balance between SEO language and copywriting. Ensure you’re using the right language with these tips:
I said it before but I’ll say it again...Avoid keyword stuffing (user’s can smell a keyword stuffed article a mile away!)
Avoid language that is not understandable from the user
Use simple language with the right amount of keywords and spread those out evenly across your content.
Study the way your audience communicates, and model your content and copy after that. You want your audience to feel comfortable and drawn to your content, not confused and repelled.
Improve User Experience (UX)
Look at your website and assess how easy it is to read, navigate, find out key pieces of information, and perform any actions.
Here are some quick reminders:
Place CTAs in the right spots
Ensure readability is consistent
Make sure information is easy to navigate
Make sure the site architecture has a solid flow
Ensure the website’s design works well on both desktop and mobile
Ensure all elements are properly visible and readable on both desktop and mobile
Optimize image scale on mobile
Simplify navigation
Shorten your text
What to do if your conversion metrics are underperforming
Use direct-response copywriting techniques
Use compelling language that encourages users to take immediate action. Copy should be targeted and to the point. To support that statement, 54% of American adults read at a sixth grade level, or below according to the U.S. Department of Education. So the simpler the copy, the better.
Optimize call-to-actions
Make sure CTAs are placed in the right spots within a page, have the right color and the right text. Use powerful and emotionally driven words that’ll entice quick wins. You’d be surprised at how a single word tweak or color change can drastically increase conversions. Not to mention, this is the precise method to ensure that SEO is bringing in conversions and leads.
Avoid any elements that could distract the user
Although some may suggest pop-ups, let’s be real here— the majority of the time you scramble to click the x so you can get back to scrolling. With that being said, avoid pop-ups, numerous CTA’s, and banners. If people are always in a rush to leave your site, that certainly won’t help any element of your marketing strategy.
What to do if your relevance metrics are underperforming
Target the right keywords
Before creating a page or a blog, start with keyword research to identify which keywords you should target through your new piece of content. Think like your customer and identify exactly what their intent is and what’s trending in your industry. Also, pinpoint long-tail keywords that are highly specific to the niche you serve. This way, the content you put out will be for a very targeted audience, therefore conversion rates will be higher.
Review the topic and focus keyword search intent
If the keywords you have selected are not performing well, review whether you selected the right ones and if they match search intent. Research what competitors are doing, so that you can put your own spin on the content around these keywords.
Localize your content so you’re targeting the audience in your target market
Create content that’s relevant to where you’re located. For instance, if you own a pizza shop in Chicago, you might create a blog about the best places to get fresh cheese in Chicago. So instead of just developing random content, think about localizing content and examples that’ll attract the most qualified audience.
Work on site speed (slower websites have higher bounce rates)
In this day and age consumers want information at the speed of light, in fact 1 in 4 consumers will abandon a website that takes longer than 4 seconds to load. Tough crowd, right? To ensure speedy load times, visit Google’s Page Speed Insights to assess where the site stands in terms of page speed and to identify elements that slow down your website.
Use Google Analytics data to measure and improve the quality of your SEO traffic
At the end of the day, more qualified traffic = more money in the bank.
So your overall goal should be working towards creating the highest quality content, website, and user experience to convert those visitors into loyal customers.
To reach these goals, make sure to map out engagement metrics like time on site, and pages per session, conversion metrics like form submissions, and relevance metrics like bounce rate and user geo-location.
Now, in the beginning I said I’d end with a challenge, so here it is: Create a list of 3-4 priority metrics and craft a realistic goal for each of those. Can you do that? Great! And, for on-going reflection, bookmark this article so that you can refer back when need be. You’ve got this!
So, before getting lost in the sauce in the various metrics, it’s important you understand that your business goals are unique to you, so the way you measure your goals should reflect that. From there, the next steps are to get a better grasp of what quality traffic means for your website, and then evaluate how users engage with your content.
To get a better understanding of what’s considered “quality traffic”, we’ll look into various Google Analytics metrics that will help you create a rock solid SEO strategy.
Why does quality of traffic matter for SEO success?
At the end of the day, quality traffic is what accelerates business success, especially for post-publishing optimization.
For example, let’s assume your blog has 200 visitors per month with a conversion rate of 1%, generating two leads. By improving the quality of your traffic, your conversion rate and number of leads will also increase:
Traffic: 200
Conversion rate: 4%
Leads: 8
This indicates that “superfan” visitors are far more engaged and therefore more profitable than moderately excited users. Google’s new page experience algorithm update further solidifies this statement.
It’s become crystal clear that the way that consumers interact with your website contributes to your business growth.
How do you measure the quality of your organic traffic in Google Analytics?
We can go on and on about Google Analytics, but today we’re specifically looking at traffic quality. Here are the top metrics to keep an eye on:
Engagement metrics: time on site, pages per session, exit rate
Conversion metrics: conversion rate, form submissions, other goal completions,
Relevance metrics: bounce rate, user geo-location, new and returning visitors
Engagement Metrics
Time on site
The time on site is the measurement a user spends on a site, regardless of whether it’s being used or not. For instance, let’s say a user has multiple tabs open but isn’t necessarily using all of them at once — Google Analytics still counts the time the tabs were open.
In fact, Google counts sessions up to 30 minutes without a visitor clicking on other pages. But once the timestamp hits 30 minutes, that session will be counted as a bounce. Knowing this, it's clear that not every user who lands on your site is highly engaged.
Generally speaking, the more time a user spends on your site the better. This indicates that your SEO strategy has defined content that is worth their while. Furthermore, the way you have structured your site not only helps them find the information they need, but they also read more about other topics or services that you might be offering.
A good time on site indicates:
High-quality content
Good site architecture
Proper internal linking
Great UX design
High-quality traffic that’s interested in your products and services
To set efficient goals, you could measure time on site together with the next metric, pages per session.
Here’s a sample goal:
Users who spend an average of four minutes on your site, and at least two pages per session are more likely to be engaged with your content.
To find this metric, click audience (on the left side) > overview (underneath) > under overview, click average session duration.
Pages per session
To put it simply, pages per session is the average number of pages a user views in one session. It is one of the most important behavior metrics within GA, as it indicates how deep within your site a user navigates to. Essentially, the more pages they view, the more interested they are in what you have to say. Typically the first page a user lands on is your home page, but the goodies are on your service or product pages. With that said, to obtain quality traffic, you should aim to have at least two pages per session on average.
If you aren’t seeing these results, you need to start investigating what isn’t working. It might be that you're targeting the wrong keywords or your audience is in the wrong country, and therefore they bounce.
If they land on your home page and don’t move onto another page, it’s a possibility that your home page isn't properly linked to other pages, it’s too slow when loading, or the overall architecture of the site is confusing. Tweak this if necessary, and observe what happens. Often, the simpler it is to get around your site, the better!
Now, as you view your pages per session, I recommend segmenting pages per session based on channel, so you can see which streams have a greater impact and double down on that.
To find pages per session, navigate to GA, and then click “Acquisition overview”. Under the behavior bar you’ll see “pages per session”:
Exit rate
This one’s pretty straightforward. An exit rate tells you how often a customer has left your site from a page. Unlike a bounce rate (which I’ll discuss later), the exit rate tells you that a user left one page, and went to another. Let’s take a look at an example to illustrate.
Let’s say a new visitor enters your homepage, but they want to learn more, so they navigate to your blog. They spend some time reading your content and find what they want, so they exit. This shows up as a percentage under site content > all pages > exit rates.
(see image below to visually see where to find the exit rate on your Google Analytics)
Of course, if the exit rates are high you’ll want to assess elements like:
Website copy
Images/videos
Site load time
Page design
Start by tweaking one element at a time and analyze the results after each change until your exit rates start improving. Some pages will inherently have higher exit rates than others such as your privacy policy and contact us pages (usually users find what they’re looking for on Google without entering your site).
However, if you manage to decrease the exit rates for your services pages, blog posts, and/or product pages by tweaking the components we just talked about, you’ll find higher quality traffic and more conversions.
Now that you’re an expert in engagement metrics, let’s have a closer look at conversion ones.
Conversion metrics
Conversion rate
Google Analytics adds up all the goal completions of your site and calculates that as the overall website conversion rate. Nonetheless, consider looking at each goal separately to see how they’re performing so that you’ll know which goals you’re meeting and which conversion goals need to be adjusted.
To view each individual goal, navigate to “goals overview” and then pick the goal you want to assess by selecting it in the drop down menu. From there you’ll see your conversion rate overview for that particular goal. Here’s an example of goals in the below image:
Now let’s look at how organic traffic plays a role in this scenario:
How can we discover whether or not organic traffic on your site is helping you reach your conversion goals? If for example your conversion rate has gone down, while your organic traffic has gone up, it's possible that you’re targeting the wrong keywords, thus getting less qualified visitors to your site. From there, you’d need to analyze which keywords need to be replaced (hint: check Google Search Console for keywords that are bringing in the highest CTR).
By switching your perspective and looking at the conversion rate of each goal through individual traffic sources, you can make better decisions to optimize and therefore obtain higher quality leads.
Form submissions
To get the most out of Google Analytics, I suggest setting up event tracking for form submissions so that you have a clear overview of what users are doing on your website. Tracking your form submissions allows you to understand how users navigate to the form page and focus your marketing efforts there.
Coming back to SEO, the relationship between form submissions and quality of organic traffic is quite similar to conversion rate. A form submission is considered as a goal which users are prompted to complete. If a large percentage of your users don’t fill in a form, this indicates that they are not engaged and therefore are not the right kind of visitors you should be targeting. If this is the case, re-assess the kind of information you request, the usability of the form, and the overall UX of your form page to make it more relevant and engaging.
To track your form submissions, click on admin at the bottom left hand corner > click view > click goals.
Other goal completions
In addition to the metrics mentioned earlier, you can also set up goals like trial sign ups, newsletter sign ups, ebook downloads, or case study downloads (to name a few). You can track these goals by time, events, pages, or url.
For example, if you recently posted on your social media channels about a free download, you can set up a goal and pinpoint which social media post brought the most traffic and assess the ones that worked better.
As mentioned earlier, tracking your various goals helps you better understand your audience as well as how they engage with your website. You will be able to deep dive into the channels that work best for your overall marketing efforts, as well as identify ways to incorporate UX and content design into your SEO strategy.
False conversions
I’d like to mention that although tracking metrics in Google Analytics is important, it’s just as critical to ensure you’re not skewing your data through false conversions. Inaccuracies in your data set could cause several problems and lead you to the wrong conclusions about your traffic and its quality. Looking at such false data will be the reason to decide on and implement the wrong SEO strategy for your website.
To double check the goals you’ve set up, look for the conversions tab > goals > reverse goal path. Once there, you can identify where your goal conversions are occurring and if there are incorrect pages popping up that could be a sign you’ve incorporated the wrong data for a goal.
Check out the visual below for further direction.
Relevance Metrics
User geo-location
To find your audience’s geo-location, scroll to the audience on the left hand side, then geo, and finally location. Here you’ll find all the different countries that users are coming from, their acquisition, behavior, and conversion data. To get even deeper, you can click on a specific country and see state or city level data.
For larger and international businesses, the big picture geo location data will be most useful, but for smaller or location specific businesses, the granular data will be crucial. For instance, if you’re a boutique clothing store, the city view helps you understand what locations your customers are coming from so you can create more relevant content and optimize according to location.
By understanding the demographics of your audience, you can create highly relevant content to answer their questions and improve the quality of your organic traffic.
Bounce rate
We spoke earlier about bounce rates, but let’s unveil how to use this metric to help your company. The bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who land on your site and quickly exit without navigating to another page.
For example, if you have affiliate links on your site, a user might click on a specific link and go off onto a new browser window. Your bounce rate would be high but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this particular situation, as affiliate purchases are one of your business goals. If you’re a service based brand and you have a high bounce rate, this indicates that people can’t find the information they’re looking for on your site and exit.
Your bounce rate will depend on the goals you’ve set up on Google Analytics and what type of business you have. If you look at the acquisition overview section of your Google Analytics, you’ll come across the bounce rate. Here you’ll notice the bounce rate percentages from different sources of traffic. If the bounce rates are high for organic traffic, that could mean you’re targeting the wrong keywords or audience.
New & Returning visitors
To get more information on your new and returning visitors visit the audience tab, then click on behavior and “new and returning visitors”. Instead of looking at these metrics separately, it's a good rule of thumb to view them simultaneously as your company grows.
Over time, you should see both numbers increase. However, if there’s ever a drastic decrease in the amount of returning visitors, that could be an alarming metric. You’d need to deep dive into the reasons why this is happening (such as a recent change on your site or the wrong marketing tactic).
Benchmarking Google Analytics traffic data
Let’s be honest here… you need benchmark data to truly understand how well your website is performing. I get it, we’re humans and we need guidelines! So in this section, I’ll cover low and high percentage rates for metrics discussed above.
For example:
To add, the new versus returning customers metric varies by industry and type of business however 20-30% for returning visitors is a typical ratio to achieve.
How to use Google Analytics data to improve your website’s SEO traffic quality and user engagement
Google Analytics data is valuable because it helps us prioritize and strategize how to improve our SEO traffic quality. To truly see the benefits of using Google Analytics and to improve the traffic quality of your site, you’ll need to monitor engagement, conversion, and relevance metrics over a long period of time, but these are only one part of the puzzle. Sustainable growth will come from continuously researching, analyzing, and adjusting your site.
What to do if your engagement metrics are underperforming
On page optimization
Optimizing your published content is an easy way to improve the quality of your traffic and increase engagement. To do so, you want to look at applying keyword research that matches search intent. Group keywords with similar topics and identify the right terms to target through each page of your site.
Other specific on page optimizations include:
Incorporating your target keyword in the first 200 words of your copy
Your page title and meta description to have the acceptable Google length (72 characters for title and 170 for meta description)
Your target keyword is included in H1 and subheadings
Now, let’s focus on design.
Think of content design
Another quote for you from Ginny Redish, Consultant Specialist in Web Usability and Writing: “Content is the user experience”.
With that in mind, the layout of your website and the way visitors consume content has a gigantic influence on your user experience. Not only can creating human-first content design improve your SEO, it can consequently enhance your traffic and engagement metrics.
Here are some pointers on how to make this happen:
Avoid large images and videos that take up a lot of page ‘real estate’
Split your content into short paragraphs and headings
Emphasize important words and elements to improve readability
Use lists and tables where possible
Up next, what to include in your blogs to ensure an excellent website experience.
Write articles that provide the right amount of information
Articles should be comprehensive, not too long just for the sake of word count and not too short where information is missing. Users will know if you’re keyword stuffing or simply providing fluff content that doesn’t actually solve their problems.
To make sure this doesn’t happen check out these tips:
Create articles that match the word count of top-ranking competitors but also make content succinct enough so that it doesn’t overwhelm your readers
Create longer articles that can be promoted on other channels such as social
Create longer articles that increase time on site metrics
Use the right language
There should be a balance between SEO language and copywriting. Ensure you’re using the right language with these tips:
I said it before but I’ll say it again...Avoid keyword stuffing (user’s can smell a keyword stuffed article a mile away!)
Avoid language that is not understandable from the user
Use simple language with the right amount of keywords and spread those out evenly across your content.
Study the way your audience communicates, and model your content and copy after that. You want your audience to feel comfortable and drawn to your content, not confused and repelled.
Improve User Experience (UX)
Look at your website and assess how easy it is to read, navigate, find out key pieces of information, and perform any actions.
Here are some quick reminders:
Place CTAs in the right spots
Ensure readability is consistent
Make sure information is easy to navigate
Make sure the site architecture has a solid flow
Ensure the website’s design works well on both desktop and mobile
Ensure all elements are properly visible and readable on both desktop and mobile
Optimize image scale on mobile
Simplify navigation
Shorten your text
What to do if your conversion metrics are underperforming
Use direct-response copywriting techniques
Use compelling language that encourages users to take immediate action. Copy should be targeted and to the point. To support that statement, 54% of American adults read at a sixth grade level, or below according to the U.S. Department of Education. So the simpler the copy, the better.
Optimize call-to-actions
Make sure CTAs are placed in the right spots within a page, have the right color and the right text. Use powerful and emotionally driven words that’ll entice quick wins. You’d be surprised at how a single word tweak or color change can drastically increase conversions. Not to mention, this is the precise method to ensure that SEO is bringing in conversions and leads.
Avoid any elements that could distract the user
Although some may suggest pop-ups, let’s be real here— the majority of the time you scramble to click the x so you can get back to scrolling. With that being said, avoid pop-ups, numerous CTA’s, and banners. If people are always in a rush to leave your site, that certainly won’t help any element of your marketing strategy.
What to do if your relevance metrics are underperforming
Target the right keywords
Before creating a page or a blog, start with keyword research to identify which keywords you should target through your new piece of content. Think like your customer and identify exactly what their intent is and what’s trending in your industry. Also, pinpoint long-tail keywords that are highly specific to the niche you serve. This way, the content you put out will be for a very targeted audience, therefore conversion rates will be higher.
Review the topic and focus keyword search intent
If the keywords you have selected are not performing well, review whether you selected the right ones and if they match search intent. Research what competitors are doing, so that you can put your own spin on the content around these keywords.
Localize your content so you’re targeting the audience in your target market
Create content that’s relevant to where you’re located. For instance, if you own a pizza shop in Chicago, you might create a blog about the best places to get fresh cheese in Chicago. So instead of just developing random content, think about localizing content and examples that’ll attract the most qualified audience.
Work on site speed (slower websites have higher bounce rates)
In this day and age consumers want information at the speed of light, in fact 1 in 4 consumers will abandon a website that takes longer than 4 seconds to load. Tough crowd, right? To ensure speedy load times, visit Google’s Page Speed Insights to assess where the site stands in terms of page speed and to identify elements that slow down your website.
Use Google Analytics data to measure and improve the quality of your SEO traffic
At the end of the day, more qualified traffic = more money in the bank.
So your overall goal should be working towards creating the highest quality content, website, and user experience to convert those visitors into loyal customers.
To reach these goals, make sure to map out engagement metrics like time on site, and pages per session, conversion metrics like form submissions, and relevance metrics like bounce rate and user geo-location.
Now, in the beginning I said I’d end with a challenge, so here it is: Create a list of 3-4 priority metrics and craft a realistic goal for each of those. Can you do that? Great! And, for on-going reflection, bookmark this article so that you can refer back when need be. You’ve got this!
Email breathes easier than the social noise pollution of customers and brands trying to shout at each other through a disjointed deluge of disaster and dog photos. Ever notice how your brain feels switching from the overstimulation of Twitter to the one-on-one hush of a list of emails which you can either choose to open or delete? Do you experience a difference? Stats indicate that our private email inboxes are a sort of refuge we’ve come to count on, a quieter corner where people can experience satisfying customer service when done right.
When Moz and SMB email marketing software provider iContactjoined hands this past summer, I began looking for an opportunity to explore our shared goals of facilitating brand discovery and brand-consumer communication. Like you, I’ve absorbed years of steady statistics about the outstanding ROI of email marketing amid louder social media hype, but this was my first chance to sit down with an expert like Hank Hoffmeier, who is Strategic Insights Manager at iContact.
I believe reading Hank’s tips and talk on trends today will make 2022 the year you center email in your customer service strategy for its welcome privacy, usefulness, familiarity, cost effectiveness, and excellent conversion potentials.
The profit and popularity of email marketing
Miriam:A stat which stunned me is that email marketing generates$42 for every $1 spent, yet I sometimes feel like email has been presented as “boring” vs. the glaring busy box of social. What is your take on this, Hank?
Hank: According to Demand Curve, email marketing has a higher ROI than any other form of publicity, can drive 6x more conversions than Twitter posting, and is 40 x more likely to be noticed than what a company posts on Facebook. Email marketing allows you to send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, at a ridiculously low cost. Stop throwing money at PPC and social media advertising that takes longer to convert and costs so much.
Email marketing allows you to get personal with your subscribers. This is either not plausible or can be very challenging with other channels like social media that require you to follow customers to message or DM them. Email is where we obtain long form personal messages, obtain order and shipping information, and communicate at work.
With your email marketing campaigns, each message can feel like a one-on-one conversation by using segmentation and personalization. Subscribers can be greeted by first name and can experience content that matters to them on the basis of data such as survey information, purchase history, engagement history and more. Make sure to ask for information to help provide a better experience for your subscribers.
Miriam:Email open rates increased13.64% in 2020, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I was surprised to read that it’s actuallymillennials who are spending more time in emailthan any other group. What stats convince you most that email is popular, not just with brands, but with everybody?
Hank: A study from Pew Research says six in ten American workers who use the internet say email is “very important” for doing their job, while the Content Marketing Institute reported that 83% of B2B marketers use email newsletters for content marketing. Still not convinced? 95% of online consumers use email! In fact, to sign up for a social media account, you need an email address. The demise of email marketing has been reported year after year, but it is still a pillar in the content marketing world.
Email’s edge amid privacy concerns and consumer protections
Miriam: Consumer privacy has become a huge topic for SEO, and I’ve mentioned above my “quiet corner” idea about email, but I know it also faces challenges. What can you tell me about respecting customers’ privacy?
Hank: Data privacy is going to be trending next year. Email marketers are going to need to do more with less. We are seeing more of an emphasis being placed on data privacy. Apple in particular is creating a challenge in measuring email open rates and identifying subscriber location. For sure, we will see more email and technology companies follow suit. There is also the pending demise of third party cookies to worry about.
By collecting first party data, marketers will be able to continue segmenting, targeting and personalizing their emails for maximum effect. Things that will help marketers prepare would be updating sign up-forms, using surveys, and integrating with CRMs and e-commerce platforms to make better use of data being collected.
Miriam:I’ve talked about social channels being overwhelming, but complaints about groaning inboxes are common, too, especially when customers receive emails they don’t want. What can you tell me about double opt-in as a vehicle for respecting customers’ wishes?
Hank: Marketers should only send emails to people who want to receive emails from them. No exceptions. One way to ensure that subscribers really want your emails is to use a double opt-in process. This allows subscribers to confirm that they want your awesome emails and also helps them find your email in their inbox right away and dig it out from spam, should it land there.
Your double opt-in messaging should not be generic. Get potential subscribers excited to receive your emails and want to opt-in right away! Remember to offer value and entertainment.
More importantly, once subscribers opt-in, you need to send a welcome email right away, telling them what to expect and how often. It helps set expectations and allows you to start your relationship off right.
Miriam:So, what types of emails have you documented as being most welcomed by customers who have definitely opted-in, and have you noticed any differences in this between virtual and local business customers?
Hank: For the most part, the differences are small between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce emails. They are both similar in that brands are looking for conversions and the differentiation is that the conversion for brick-and-mortar can drive traffic into a physical location vs. e-commerce’s solely online purchases. The same email marketing best practices work for both entities.
According to the IDC, 80% of people check their email within 15 minutes of waking up. Email is still the preferred method of communication for consumers. We buy stuff and want to know when it will ship. We want to be entertained and inspired. Marketers need to educate and inform their subscribers using email.
Miriam:64%of small businesses are using email marketing, butone-in-five campaigns isn’t formatted for mobile use. This is a huge mountain of a problem! Both Moz and iContact care a lot about SMBs. What advice do you have to help them make the necessary mobile transition?
Hank: Let’s face it, we live in a mobile world. More than half of email opens are on a mobile device. If you are not creating mobile responsive email campaigns, you are creating friction with your recipients. It is a bad experience that will lead to subscribers ignoring your emails or worse, marking them as spam or unsubscribing.
Almost every email marketing platform will have a drag and drop email editor that inherently creates a mobile responsive version for you. iContact has an easy-to-use editor that provides inspiration and great results.
Let’s cover some basic items:
Email content needs to have the ability to stack elements on top of one another and images and text must conform to the size of the screen they are being displayed on
Avoid images with small details that will not render well on mobile, while also making sure that your content is not cluttered and allows for finger-friendly clicks and scrolling. Calls to action, such as buttons need to be legible and clickable.
Use larger font sizes, shorter subject lines, avoid stacking links, and the most important tip is to test, test, test!
Miriam:Sadly, abouthalfof marketers confess they feel the email campaigns they’re engaging in are only poor-to-average in quality. It’s definitely a “meh” state of affairs. What are the top mistakes you see in your day-to-day work in this field and do you have tips for improvement?
Hank: The biggest mistake I see email marketers making is thinking of their campaigns through their lens. They do not get to know their audience (avatar) well enough to send emails that matter to them and wonder why the results are lacking. Consider:
It’s important to find the right frequency of emails that resonate. Do not send too many or too few emails. Survey your audience or watch trends in your reporting to find out the right amount of emails to send.
The days of “spray and pray” are over. Many marketers fail to use subscriber segmentation. Segmentation allows for better-targeted emails. According to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), marketers can realize up to a 760% increase in ROI by using segmentation. How about that? Better results for sending the right message to the right person!
The most underutilized feature in email marketing is automation. By using workflows, you can create a powerful welcome or nurture series as well as have checks and balances along the way to drive better engagement and conversions.
Miriam:I do feel concerned for SMBs when I receive their emails with formatting errors or other problems that must be undermining the success of their campaigns. What are the bare minimum basics small business owners should look for in an email marketing tool?
Hank: Since email marketing has been around for a long time, whatever platform you choose should not be hard to use, should offer the most up-to-date features, and have good support. Look for these must-haves:
Segmentation
Automation
Easy to use email editor
Templates
Dependable support
Split testing capabilities
Email for welcome stability in 2022
I learned so much from chatting with Hank, and hope you’ve found good takeaways, too. As he says, email marketing has been around for a long time, and there’s something reassuring about that.
Make no mistake, email isn’t standing still. I’m interested in innovations surrounding AMP-style emails that turn mailers into microsites, enabling recipients to complete a checkout, book an appointment, or RSVP without having to leave their inbox. Dark mode email compatibility is another trend I’d like to know more about, and I’m always on the lookout for A/B split test developments that indicate how to prompt more engagement on matters of social progress.
But I think it’s the longstanding reliability of email that appeals to me most. As marketers and business owners, we feel constantly pressured to jump into the latest-greatest-new-thing. There can be fun in that, but also fatigue. Also, wasted client budgets when trendy experiments lack a foundation of proven results. Recently, I saw Rand Fishkin explain that email open rates are 252x higher than Facebook page engagements. Veteran marketers have been softly sharing this kind of wisdom about tried-and-true email marketing for years.
Do experiment! Do build the brands you market to converse everywhere. But don’t forget to take a breather when it’s so readily available, leaning on the steady edifice of email with its history of high conversion rates. Most companies, and most customers, have experienced more rapid change lately than we’ve wanted, and I’d say this should make the dependability of email communications all the more welcome to all parties in the year ahead.
Email breathes easier than the social noise pollution of customers and brands trying to shout at each other through a disjointed deluge of disaster and dog photos. Ever notice how your brain feels switching from the overstimulation of Twitter to the one-on-one hush of a list of emails which you can either choose to open or delete? Do you experience a difference? Stats indicate that our private email inboxes are a sort of refuge we’ve come to count on, a quieter corner where people can experience satisfying customer service when done right.
When Moz and SMB email marketing software provider iContactjoined hands this past summer, I began looking for an opportunity to explore our shared goals of facilitating brand discovery and brand-consumer communication. Like you, I’ve absorbed years of steady statistics about the outstanding ROI of email marketing amid louder social media hype, but this was my first chance to sit down with an expert like Hank Hoffmeier, who is Strategic Insights Manager at iContact.
I believe reading Hank’s tips and talk on trends today will make 2022 the year you center email in your customer service strategy for its welcome privacy, usefulness, familiarity, cost effectiveness, and excellent conversion potentials.
The profit and popularity of email marketing
Miriam:A stat which stunned me is that email marketing generates$42 for every $1 spent, yet I sometimes feel like email has been presented as “boring” vs. the glaring busy box of social. What is your take on this, Hank?
Hank: According to Demand Curve, email marketing has a higher ROI than any other form of publicity, can drive 6x more conversions than Twitter posting, and is 40 x more likely to be noticed than what a company posts on Facebook. Email marketing allows you to send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, at a ridiculously low cost. Stop throwing money at PPC and social media advertising that takes longer to convert and costs so much.
Email marketing allows you to get personal with your subscribers. This is either not plausible or can be very challenging with other channels like social media that require you to follow customers to message or DM them. Email is where we obtain long form personal messages, obtain order and shipping information, and communicate at work.
With your email marketing campaigns, each message can feel like a one-on-one conversation by using segmentation and personalization. Subscribers can be greeted by first name and can experience content that matters to them on the basis of data such as survey information, purchase history, engagement history and more. Make sure to ask for information to help provide a better experience for your subscribers.
Miriam:Email open rates increased13.64% in 2020, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I was surprised to read that it’s actuallymillennials who are spending more time in emailthan any other group. What stats convince you most that email is popular, not just with brands, but with everybody?
Hank: A study from Pew Research says six in ten American workers who use the internet say email is “very important” for doing their job, while the Content Marketing Institute reported that 83% of B2B marketers use email newsletters for content marketing. Still not convinced? 95% of online consumers use email! In fact, to sign up for a social media account, you need an email address. The demise of email marketing has been reported year after year, but it is still a pillar in the content marketing world.
Email’s edge amid privacy concerns and consumer protections
Miriam: Consumer privacy has become a huge topic for SEO, and I’ve mentioned above my “quiet corner” idea about email, but I know it also faces challenges. What can you tell me about respecting customers’ privacy?
Hank: Data privacy is going to be trending next year. Email marketers are going to need to do more with less. We are seeing more of an emphasis being placed on data privacy. Apple in particular is creating a challenge in measuring email open rates and identifying subscriber location. For sure, we will see more email and technology companies follow suit. There is also the pending demise of third party cookies to worry about.
By collecting first party data, marketers will be able to continue segmenting, targeting and personalizing their emails for maximum effect. Things that will help marketers prepare would be updating sign up-forms, using surveys, and integrating with CRMs and e-commerce platforms to make better use of data being collected.
Miriam:I’ve talked about social channels being overwhelming, but complaints about groaning inboxes are common, too, especially when customers receive emails they don’t want. What can you tell me about double opt-in as a vehicle for respecting customers’ wishes?
Hank: Marketers should only send emails to people who want to receive emails from them. No exceptions. One way to ensure that subscribers really want your emails is to use a double opt-in process. This allows subscribers to confirm that they want your awesome emails and also helps them find your email in their inbox right away and dig it out from spam, should it land there.
Your double opt-in messaging should not be generic. Get potential subscribers excited to receive your emails and want to opt-in right away! Remember to offer value and entertainment.
More importantly, once subscribers opt-in, you need to send a welcome email right away, telling them what to expect and how often. It helps set expectations and allows you to start your relationship off right.
Miriam:So, what types of emails have you documented as being most welcomed by customers who have definitely opted-in, and have you noticed any differences in this between virtual and local business customers?
Hank: For the most part, the differences are small between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce emails. They are both similar in that brands are looking for conversions and the differentiation is that the conversion for brick-and-mortar can drive traffic into a physical location vs. e-commerce’s solely online purchases. The same email marketing best practices work for both entities.
According to the IDC, 80% of people check their email within 15 minutes of waking up. Email is still the preferred method of communication for consumers. We buy stuff and want to know when it will ship. We want to be entertained and inspired. Marketers need to educate and inform their subscribers using email.
Miriam:64%of small businesses are using email marketing, butone-in-five campaigns isn’t formatted for mobile use. This is a huge mountain of a problem! Both Moz and iContact care a lot about SMBs. What advice do you have to help them make the necessary mobile transition?
Hank: Let’s face it, we live in a mobile world. More than half of email opens are on a mobile device. If you are not creating mobile responsive email campaigns, you are creating friction with your recipients. It is a bad experience that will lead to subscribers ignoring your emails or worse, marking them as spam or unsubscribing.
Almost every email marketing platform will have a drag and drop email editor that inherently creates a mobile responsive version for you. iContact has an easy-to-use editor that provides inspiration and great results.
Let’s cover some basic items:
Email content needs to have the ability to stack elements on top of one another and images and text must conform to the size of the screen they are being displayed on
Avoid images with small details that will not render well on mobile, while also making sure that your content is not cluttered and allows for finger-friendly clicks and scrolling. Calls to action, such as buttons need to be legible and clickable.
Use larger font sizes, shorter subject lines, avoid stacking links, and the most important tip is to test, test, test!
Miriam:Sadly, abouthalfof marketers confess they feel the email campaigns they’re engaging in are only poor-to-average in quality. It’s definitely a “meh” state of affairs. What are the top mistakes you see in your day-to-day work in this field and do you have tips for improvement?
Hank: The biggest mistake I see email marketers making is thinking of their campaigns through their lens. They do not get to know their audience (avatar) well enough to send emails that matter to them and wonder why the results are lacking. Consider:
It’s important to find the right frequency of emails that resonate. Do not send too many or too few emails. Survey your audience or watch trends in your reporting to find out the right amount of emails to send.
The days of “spray and pray” are over. Many marketers fail to use subscriber segmentation. Segmentation allows for better-targeted emails. According to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), marketers can realize up to a 760% increase in ROI by using segmentation. How about that? Better results for sending the right message to the right person!
The most underutilized feature in email marketing is automation. By using workflows, you can create a powerful welcome or nurture series as well as have checks and balances along the way to drive better engagement and conversions.
Miriam:I do feel concerned for SMBs when I receive their emails with formatting errors or other problems that must be undermining the success of their campaigns. What are the bare minimum basics small business owners should look for in an email marketing tool?
Hank: Since email marketing has been around for a long time, whatever platform you choose should not be hard to use, should offer the most up-to-date features, and have good support. Look for these must-haves:
Segmentation
Automation
Easy to use email editor
Templates
Dependable support
Split testing capabilities
Email for welcome stability in 2022
I learned so much from chatting with Hank, and hope you’ve found good takeaways, too. As he says, email marketing has been around for a long time, and there’s something reassuring about that.
Make no mistake, email isn’t standing still. I’m interested in innovations surrounding AMP-style emails that turn mailers into microsites, enabling recipients to complete a checkout, book an appointment, or RSVP without having to leave their inbox. Dark mode email compatibility is another trend I’d like to know more about, and I’m always on the lookout for A/B split test developments that indicate how to prompt more engagement on matters of social progress.
But I think it’s the longstanding reliability of email that appeals to me most. As marketers and business owners, we feel constantly pressured to jump into the latest-greatest-new-thing. There can be fun in that, but also fatigue. Also, wasted client budgets when trendy experiments lack a foundation of proven results. Recently, I saw Rand Fishkin explain that email open rates are 252x higher than Facebook page engagements. Veteran marketers have been softly sharing this kind of wisdom about tried-and-true email marketing for years.
Do experiment! Do build the brands you market to converse everywhere. But don’t forget to take a breather when it’s so readily available, leaning on the steady edifice of email with its history of high conversion rates. Most companies, and most customers, have experienced more rapid change lately than we’ve wanted, and I’d say this should make the dependability of email communications all the more welcome to all parties in the year ahead.
