Anchor Text SEO: Everything You Need to Know in 2018

There’s a lot of conflicting information about anchor text out there.

One site tells you to focus as heavily on your keywords as you can.

Another tells you to stay as far away from any kind of anchor text and backlinks as possible.

And another says anchor text doesn’t matter.

What are you supposed to believe?

Knowing what anchor text can improve your SEO strategy isn’t always easy – especially when you have a dozen conflicting messages trying to tell you what to do.

But in 2018, it’s essential to optimize your anchor text to attract more attention from search engines.

To help you out, let’s start from the very beginning.

Here’s what anchor text is, how it helps (or hurts) SEO, and what you can do to keep it optimized.

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the clickable words that appear in place of a hyperlink.

For example, this is anchor text.

Anchor text allows you to add links within your content contextually. It also gives readers – and search engines – a better indication of what they’ll find on the other side of the link.

The anchor text usually relates back to keywords associated with the contents of the link.

However, not all anchor text is created equally.

Let’s take a look at the different kinds of anchor text you might find online.

Exact Match

An exact match anchor text is when the anchor text directly matches the words or phrases associated with the link’s contents.

Here’s an example of anchor text within an article.

If the writer was hoping to target the keyword “chatbots,” this would be an exact match.

Partial Match

A partial anchor text match appears when your targeted keyword is within the anchor text, but it’s not an exact match.

Check out this example.

Say the marketer’s targeted keyword was “guest posting.”

Using “a series on guest posting” is not an exact match, but it does still include the keyword.

This means it’s still targeting the keyword you’re trying to rank for, but it seems more natural.

Branded

Branded anchor text is when the anchor text features the company or individual’s name.

Here’s an example.

This type of anchor text is frequently used when you’re linking to a company’s homepage.

Generic

Usually, anchor text is somewhat hidden within the content.

However, generic anchor text typically stands out and is obviously a link.

Here’s an example.

This kind of anchor text usually associates with a call to action.

Generic anchor text is also sometimes called “natural” anchor text.

Images

Images can also be anchor text.

This text occurs when you click on an image, and it brings you through to a link.

However, the actual anchor text associated with the image is the alt text that you include.

LSI Keywords

LSI keywords, or Latent Semantic Indexing keywords, are words or phrases that closely associate with the keywords you’re trying to target.

These might be different names for the same principle or product, or other keywords closely related.

Here’s an example.

The keyword “micro-influencers” is related to influencer marketing, without being a partial match.

Blog Title/Post Title

When the name of the anchor text you’re linking to is the full name of the blog title, page title, or content title, this is simply called Post Title anchor text.

Check out this example.

Like the example, this kind of anchor text usually appears when marketing a course, referencing a specific blog post, or showing off a page.

Naked URLs

A naked URL doesn’t have any anchor text at all.

Instead, it’s just a link to a page featured on your site.

Naked URLs may contain the “www” or might just be “Domain.com.”

Here’s an example from Sprout Social.

The anchor text for this link is the link itself.

This can still appeal to keywords because subdomains typically include keywords.

They can also appeal to branded keywords, including the company name in the domain.

How does anchor text influence SEO?

Anchor text helps search engine crawlers and readers identify what the contents of the link contain.

As more and more websites link to a particular page with various forms of anchor text, the search engine can begin to get a better idea of what kind of content the site provides.

In a way, anchor text is like a keyword that others use to describe your content.

However, it isn’t simple enough to just use anchor text directly associated with the keyword you’re trying to rank for.

In the past, Google relied heavily on anchor text.

Unfortunately, this allowed marketers, writers, and webmasters to do something called “Google Bombing.”

This led to pages ranking for keywords that weren’t related to the content that was appearing.

The most famous example of this is in 2007 when a search for “miserable failure” would result in articles about President George Bush.

In fact, now when you search “miserable failure,” you get results about the Google Bomb.

Google responded to this error in anchor text with the Penguin Update, which they launched in 2012.

Like most updates, the search engine released Penguin to help identify spammy listings and remove them from their rankings.

There are two particular triggers for Penguin.

First, links that seem to be purchased, resulting in a number of similar links appearing on low-quality websites around the same time.

Second, links that appear to use keyword stuffing.

This stuffing means that if your anchor text matches your keywords too directly, it could penalize you.

Julie Joyce from LinkFishMedia described anchor text’s importance to SEO by saying, “A site that has 75% exact match anchors has to look unnatural… when I overdo it and it works, it doesn’t stick.”

The idea is that if a website is linking to your content naturally, it will use a more diverse keyword phrase.

While keyword stuffing may help you get results quickly, any change in ranking will only be wiped away when Google discovers this strategy.

So, if you can’t link to the keywords that you’re trying to target, how should you use anchor text to improve your SEO?

Let’s take a look.

How to optimize anchor text for SEO in 2018?

When trying to control your anchor text, there is one thing you want to keep in mind – relevance.

To show Google that your anchor text and link is not black-hat, you need to prove it’s natural – even if it is strategic.

Let’s take a look at how you can do this.

1. Only include links when anchor text fits naturally.

One of the biggest reasons Penguin was first introduced was to stop website owners from adding anchor text just for SEO purposes.

This means they’re on high alert for anchor text that doesn’t seem like it fits.

With the Penguin Update, sites who over-optimized their anchor text saw severe penalties that hurt their web traffic.

To avoid this, you want each anchor text you include to fit naturally within the content.

For anchor text to be SEO friendly, it should be succinct and relevant.

You want your anchor text to describe the contents of the link as accurately as possible in as few words as possible.

Here’s how:

Using the anchor text “start a blog” then links directly to a page about how to start a blog.

It’s direct, to the point, and only features three words.

However, you also want to avoid using an exact match to your keyword as often as possible.

Are you confused?

You don’t have to be.

When trying to decide what to use for anchor text, consider what part of your sentence might spark your reader’s interest the most.

For example, if there is a statistic in your sentence, this would be a great place to include your anchor text.

Check out this example from a Kissmetrics article.

Both readers and search engine will know you’re linking back to that site because it backs up your claim – not because you’re trying to stuff results for that keyword.

The same idea applies to quotes.

As mentioned, anchor text should be direct and to the point.

If you’re linking to an entire quote, this is usually much too long for anchor text.

Instead, make your anchor text the individual’s name or the resource you pulled the quote from like Oro Inc does on this blog.

Here, we have two bits of anchor text.

First, her name is anchor text pointing the reader to her Twitter. Second, there is anchor text pushing the reader to Kate’s blog.

Again, this can show that you’re using that link to support your data or claims.

Relevance is also crucial for anchor text and links.

First, the anchor text you choose to display on your website will influence what Google believes your page is about.

While it’s okay to have a few links that may seem out of context to a search engine, you want most of your anchor text to be within your industry.

If you’re in the finance industry and all of a sudden you have anchor text about baking cakes, this might be a red flag to Google and Penguin.

When adding links and anchor text, first think if it is necessary.

Does it provide value and help make your argument stronger?

Or are you just trying to squeeze in another link to meet some imaginary quota?

Don’t add links just for the purpose of adding links.

Instead, work links into your content as naturally as possible.

2. Make sure you diversify your types of anchor text.

Anchor text variation might be one of the most significant factors when it comes to using links for SEO.

When all your links are one style, this could cause a red flag.

For example, if the only anchor text you use throughout your entire website is exact match keywords, it might seem like you’re not putting genuine thought into what you’re linking to.

A natural link profile will include many different kinds of links.

Let’s take a look at what you want your optimal anchor text profile to look like.

It’s essential to begin by saying that an anchor text profile should look different depending on if you’re a national or local website.

Your homepage and internal pages of a website will also look different.

Let’s cover a national page first.

Serpstat recommends you break down your anchor text distribution like this.

The majority of your anchor text should be branded.

In fact, over half of your anchor text should be branded. This includes anchor text that is branded with a keyword.

You should also notice that exact match anchors are incredibly small.

In fact, you only want exact match anchors to make up about 1% of your entire link distribution.

A partial match should only be about 2%.

Maybe surprisingly, naked links should also make up a sizeable chunk of your link distribution.

Now, let’s take a look at how your sub-pages should compare.

SEOJet breaks down a website sub-page link distribution like this.

Notice how branded anchor text is much, much smaller than the homepage portion.

For sub-pages, “page title” anchor text had a significant influence on top ranking pages.

This influence typically occurs because page titles usually include the keywords you’re targeting, but they aren’t seen as “exact match” anchor text.

This allows you to easily target keywords within your anchor text without penalties for seeming unnatural.

But you’ll also see that “exact match” keywords are used much more frequently within sub-pages than they are on homepages.

Now, let’s compare this to a local homepage anchor text profile.

For a local homepage, your anchor text profile can be much more diverse.

Unlike the national page, you only need about 20% of your anchor texts to be branded.

But you’ll also notice that your exact match keywords should still be incredibly low.

An internal local page should have the same anchor text profile as a national page.

Keep in mind that these percentages are just recommendations.

You may find that a different distribution brings you better results.

3. Stay away from low-quality or toxic websites.

Google loves high-quality websites.

When considering who to rank at the top of their results lists, they’re going to push sites to the top that they believe fit their list of important factors.

This means gaining high-quality links from awesome pages – and avoiding those that might hurt your “cool” factor.

Let’s break down what bad links are.

Mostly, bad links are links that Google believes you’ve gained unethically, either outgoing or incoming.

On the outgoing side, you have much more control over who you’re linking to.

However, you need to be careful of broken links or people leaving spammy links in your comments section.

If you don’t monitor your comments, they may become bogged down with low-quality backlinks that hurt your reputation.

But the real problem occurs when you have bad incoming links.

Unfortunately, these can be more difficult to control.

Because you can’t delete these links from your website like you can with low-quality outgoing links, you’ll need to find and eliminate your association with them through Google.

If you’re not paying proper attention to where your backlinks are coming from, you could ruin your credibility without even knowing it.

Now, let’s talk about how you can find these low-quality links.

The Moz Spam Analysis tool is one way you can check the quality of websites you connect with.

The Spam Score, which their Open Site Explorer features, gives you a ranking of each link.

The tool uses 17 different flags to identify links that might be seen as spam, including things like content strength, if there is contact info on the page, or if the domain name contains numbers.

If a domain has fewer than four flags, it is considered a strong link.

However, if there are more than seven, this could be seen as a bad link and should be looked at.

If there are links with over ten red flags, this could be severely damaging to your online reputation.

Google allows you to disavow any low-quality links that you believe is hurting your online ranking.

When you disavow a link through Google, you’re letting the search engine know that you do not wish to associate your website with that link.

To disavow your backlinks, you want to begin by finding the low-quality links that would be damaging your site.

If you’ve already done this with the Moz Spam Analysis tool or another backlink tool, you can move on to the next step.

Through the Google Disavow Tool, you can upload your list of links to disavow.

Keep in mind that it can take a few weeks before you start to see your links disavowed.

Let’s consider this case study IMPACT did on Udemy.

Upon doing a keyword audit, they found that just over 67,000 domains were linking to Udemy 6.35 million times.

If you break this down, it means that each site was linking to Udemy 94 times.

Unfortunately, this probably isn’t accurate and can bring up a red flag for Google.

With a bit of additional digging, they found that one website alone was linking to Udemy over 400,000 times.

This kind of unnatural linking may not be Udemy’s fault or intention, but it can still cause severe damage with search engines.

When determining high-quality and low-quality links, you’ll also want to consider something called co-occurrence and co-citation.

Co-occurrence happens when you use similar keywords to other sites across the web.

These are similar to LSI keywords.

However, it can influence your SEO by allowing you to rank for terms you may not have been targeting.

Co-occurrence goes hand-in-hand with co-citation.

Co-citation happens when two different websites mention the same brand but do not link to that brand or website.

Those two sites then get connected through the mutual mention of the third website.

Both co-occurrence and co-citation can help you become associated with other high-quality websites.

4. Go deep with your anchors.

Another critical aspect of anchor text and backlinks is what content you’re linking to.

Google wants to see that you’re linking to valuable pages within a website.

Not only does this improve relevance, but it also seems more natural than if you’re just linking to a homepage or product page.

When deciding what to link to, choose the most relevant page possible.

If linking to a study, quote, or statistic, pull the actual page that information came from – not just the homepage.

Always opt for shareable content over surface-level generic pages.

Here’s an example from Moz.

While the anchor text says “Moz blog,” you’ll see that the link pushes back to a specific blog – not just the blog page.

This kind of specificity pushes both Google crawlers and readers deeper into the page, creating more relevance and making a more genuine impression.

It seems much more natural to link to this kind of in-depth, specific content and will improve your credibility with Google.

However, it is okay to have some of your anchor text push back to a surface-level page.

For example, if you’re going to link to a specific brand, it’s okay to have that link push to the company’s homepage.

You don’t want these kinds of links to make up the majority of your distribution.

Conclusion

As with any SEO factor, you want to include anchor text and links within your content as naturally as possible while providing clear value to your readers.

If you’re merely stuffing links into your content, you can severely damage your reputation with Google.

This can make the already uphill battle of getting web traffic even more difficult.

Understanding anchor text and adequately optimizing each link can help improve your ranking while also driving traffic to your page.

Keep these four optimization tips in mind when creating your website and backlink strategy.

What anchor text strategies are you using in 2018?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/anchor-text-seo/

How To Use Google Images to Drive E-commerce Sales Before Your Competitors Catch On

What if the biggest source of your SEO traffic wasn’t from the front page of Google?

At least, not the front page exactly.

Imagine that there was a backdoor of sorts that could lead to a healthy amount of organic traffic.

It’s a completely legal, whitehat SEO backdoor too, so there’s no chance you’ll be penalized.

And if you leverage yourself correctly, that organic traffic can naturally turn into a sale for your e-commerce site.

If that situation were to exist, it could change the SEO landscape for quite some time.

It may surprise you then to learn that our imaginary backdoor example already exists.

Because with some of the recent changes in how Google allows image searches, the front page has gotten a little bit bigger.

I want to show you what’s changed, and then give you some quick hacks that can help you drive more e-commerce sales by focusing on optimizing for Google image searches.

The new and improved Google image search

Google’s image search has been a stalwart feature of the search engine since 2001 when searches for Jennifer Lopez’s green Versace dress broke the Internet.

Since then, the service has been improved upon in stages and built into a massive image library.

Best guesses estimate that Google has indexed around one trillion images to date, and that’s probably on the conservative side.

So in February of 2018 when Google and Getty Images announced that they would be partnering up, it turned some heads.

The reason given in the press release was that this change was meant to provide a better experience for both Google users and visual content creators.

And according to a tweet from Google’s Danny Sullivan, this was also part of a broader effort by Google to help connect search users with helpful websites.

That sounds a lot like normal, run-of-the-mill SEO talk on the surface.

And since most of the media coverage of this change centered around the fact that Google had removed the “View Image” option with this update, it was easy to miss the real change here.

To make the waters even muddier, Danny later tweeted that this particular change was part of a settlement with Getty Images.

Thus, it further cemented the idea that this change was just another ordinary Thursday for Google.

But when you look a little deeper at what actually changed, this transition has a more significant impact than what you may believe at first glance.

Because while it seems that removing the “View Image” option and replacing it with “Visit” is just meant to annoy desperate college students, it’s actually a shift in the way we search via images.

Or, to put it more plainly, it means you can now try to rank for the front page of Google image search to get organic traffic.

One of the less-heralded statistics from the last few years is that 72% of search engine users search for images before making a purchase.

That means that when someone comes to your site via a search engine, there’s a good chance their search started with Google images.

Before these changes, websites weren’t typically in the limelight.

The uproar that surrounded the removal of the View Image option seems to indicate that most users searched for images to use for another purpose.

But now, if someone wants to download or save an image, they have to click through to the website.

That means you have an opportunity to sell to them now, where before they would never see your brand.

So in a way, Google has created a new and improved channel for customer acquisition that flew completely under the radar.

Let me show you an example of how this could work.

Say you search for a pair of binoculars to take hiking this summer.

You search for binoculars and then decide you’d rather find a set that looks more compact.

Here’s the “front page” of your search in Google.

None of this is branded, there aren’t any ads, and it’s fairly simple to browse through and find a set of binoculars that meets your needs.

If you click on an image, a window will expand and display a larger version of the image.

You’ll also see an option to Visit, Save, View Saved, or Share.

If a user decides to visit this site, they’ll have generated traffic via a Google image search.

And since they’re in the mood to potentially buy, your best bet is to have these images attached to a product page like this one.

At this juncture, I want to point out that this is technically the “top ranked” image on Google.

It’s on a site for the brand B&H Photo Video, and very clearly linked to a product page.

So without knowing the actual stats of this site and page, I would say that there’s a good chance that more than a few sales have closed through the exact path I’ve shown you.

But the interesting aspect here is that this page is not on the actual front page of Google.

It’s not in the sponsored ads, nor is it competing with Amazon or Binoculars.com in the rankings below.

In fact, I scrolled through and didn’t even find this website in the top 10 pages on Google’s search results.

So it’s even more incredible that this image is at the very top of an image search, and it clearly displays an opportunity for more brands to do the same thing.

Especially considering that it wasn’t until my second visit that Google put sponsored ads into my image results:

With this new visit-oriented searching system, Google has created a backdoor for small brands to sell with organic traffic despite otherwise strong search results.

E-commerce marketing professionals now have a viable window to create a new and improved channel for generating sales.

By focusing on the SEO of the images on your product pages, you can now rank on an image search that can result in more revenue for your business.

So for the rest of this article, I want to share some quick hacks that you can start to implement on your images in order to capitalize on this development.

Hack #1: Optimize file names and alt tags

As Google crawls your site, it relies on your site’s code to tell you if there are any images on your pages that contribute to the overall value of the page.

So when optimizing your images for SEO, the very first place you should start is by ensuring that the products on your site have descriptive file names and alt tags.

Here’s a relatively simple example of a descriptive vs. non-descriptive file name.

If Google were to crawl your site and see a series of numbers followed by .jpg, all it can tell is that there is an image.

But with the keywords of corgi, puppies, adoption, and NYC added, Google can accurately assess the contents of the image and rank accordingly.

This is also part of what ensures that your image will appear in a Google image search to begin with.

From there, the next part of your image that you’ll need to optimize is your alt tag.

Much like your file name, alt tags signal to Google what your image contains.

Each alt text is embedded in the HTML of your website so that when Google crawls your site, it can “see” the image.

Here’s an example from the earlier binoculars page:

Notice that the alt tag, in this case, is the same as the product’s title.

It contains the keyword “binoculars,” and is an accurate description of the true contents of the image.

It’s a fairly straightforward bit of text that once again will make all the difference on a search engine results page.

And thankfully, it’s incredibly easy to set both your alt tags and change your file name if you’ve built your site on WordPress.

When you upload an image, all you have to do is select that image to see this menu:

From here, you can change your file name and alt text appropriately.

This will position your images so that when Google crawls your site, it can potentially rank you on its image search.

Without these simple elements, you’ll struggle to rank at all.

But image-based SEO that will help you truly stand out requires investing in some more complex techniques, like leveraging user-submitted images.

Hack #2: Use unique images

You may think that this point goes without saying, but the vast and repetitive use of stock photography online would seem to say otherwise.

Creating and using relevant imagery will ultimately help you draw a Google image search user in and convince them to click through to your site.

For example, if you were to search online for a lawyer in your area only to see something like this:

Chances are you wouldn’t click on that image.

So when in doubt, use a relevant and interesting image for every page on your site, and especially for your product pages.

Even if you have to invest in a professional photographer, the effort and money can be worth it.

The last thing you want is for someone to pass up your site because your image isn’t the most relevant to their search.

Hack #3: Leverage user-submitted images

The average Internet user is pretty skeptical, myself included.

That’s why so many brands now turn to social proof as a means to improve audience engagement and drive sales on their e-commerce sites.

But how can social proof help you get to the top of Google’s image search?

The answer lies in utilizing user-generated social proof image content strategically across your site.

Social proof is one of the best ways to increase trust in your brand and improve conversions.

Typically, this type of proof comes in the form of testimonials or case studies that brands leverage in various ways across their site.

But with how image-oriented our current social media lives are, we now see a vast amount of user-generated social proof content in the form of pictures.

Sites like Instagram and Snapchat have changed the way we interact with images, and can now further improve the way you optimize your images’ SEO.

The result means that you can start finding user-generated content by merely interacting with and incentivizing your social media audience.

The key to these images is that they have to be sincere and truly user-generated.

You also need to ensure that you integrate your user-generated images on the right page.

And of course, you need to ensure that you’re legally using the images you end up placing on your site.

But once you have all your ducks in a row, a great idea is to implement your user-generated images on your product pages.

As you can see, the bottom image scroll is comprised of user-generated images that used the #VPBeauty when posting on social media.

The company browsed these images for the highest quality options that it felt showed the best side of their brand.

Then, it embedded these images on their product pages to provide immediate social proof when a visitor sees them.

And since these images are on your website and can be optimized accordingly, they can rank on a Google image search and potentially bring more traffic to your site.

Hack #4: Reduce your load time

Fast loading images are one of the cornerstones of SEO.

If a user can come to your site and quickly load an image that contributes to their overall experience, Google has ways of noticing.

Recent studies have shown that images on websites are typically the largest elements that need to be loaded by a user.

In fact, images on average comprise more than half the data of most web pages.

So when you’re optimizing your product page, there’s a good chance that the image you use is slowing down your site.

And since bounce rates tend to grow rapidly with longer load times, Google sees image size as a significant SEO factor.

That means in order to rank your images on either the front page or an image search, you need to find a way to create a smaller image.

That is where image compression comes in.

Image compression is the practice of taking a large, bulky image file and effectively shrinking it to a fraction of its size.

When there’s less to load, your site loads faster.

Generally speaking, image compression can yield results like this:

This image is clear, sharp, and pleasant to look at.

If I weren’t telling you it was a compressed image, you probably never would have guessed.

But look at what happens when you take this same image and compress it even more:

The colors go all wrong, the lighting is poor, and it makes the image hard to look at.

This is the darker side of what can happen if you compress too much.

There isn’t too much difference in size between these two photos.

The first is about 350 KB, and the second is about 70 KB.

And when you compare that to a photo that may contain thousands of KB, then you begin to see how much this helps improve your load time.

So compressing images is a balancing act.

Go too far, and you get a bad image.

Don’t go far enough, and you’re undermining your SEO efforts altogether.

But how can you easily optimize your photos to ensure that they load faster and rank higher?

To start with, I recommend testing the speed of your site using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

This will let you methodically insert the URLs of your product pages to test how quickly they load.

If you see less than optimal results, PageSpeed Insights will give you a breakdown of which elements will improve your site’s load speed.

If you see the option to Optimize images, you can click the drop-down menu below to see what needs to be fixed.

PageSpeed Insights will tell you the exact file or files that need to be compressed, as well as how big of a reduction it needs.

Once you find out which files need to be compressed, I recommend using a site like JPEGMini to help you complete the task with just a few clicks.

Other options are TinyJPG or ImageOptim (Mac only). Choose lossless compression so you don’t lose image quality.

As you can see, there’s arguably no noticeable difference in the quality of these images to the naked eye.

But in Google’s case, it would notice a clear difference between the original file and the resulting compression that’s more than three times smaller.

This can drastically increase your load time, and even put you under the bar recommended by PageSpeed Insights.

All you have to do is upload your photo with a few clicks.

Then let their system work its magic.

You’ll have a compressed file that’s indistinguishable from the original that’s much, much smaller.

In one case, a brand had let its site load speed drop to abysmal levels in a way that started tanking its traffic.

It even got to the point where PageSpeed Insights showed a zero score for their optimization.

In a large-scale effort to combat this, it overhauled its image sizes and compressed the size of its web pages as much as possible.

As a result, it saw a return to “normal” traffic levels.

This is a clear signal that image size matters when it comes to your SEO.

If you let your images slow down your site, then you run the risk of turning away your users and decreasing the chance of a sale.

And if your image is too big, it’s very likely that Google will rank another image over it in its image search.

So if you want to drive your e-commerce sales with image search, it’s highly recommended to start implementing crisp, compressed images on your product pages.

This will increase the chances of organic traffic, and could ultimately help you edge out your competition.

Conclusion

Google image search has come a long way since 2001, and it seems the ride isn’t over.

With its new partnership with Getty Images, the way we search and use images on Google seems to have changed in favor of the brand that gets there first.

Sites that don’t even rank on the top few pages of Google can still have a fighting chance if its images are optimized and rank well.

And since the majority of e-commerce shoppers browse images before they buy, this development has clear implications for online sellers.

So to help set your brand apart, you need to optimize your images for SEO before your competitors catch on.

Start by ensuring that your alt tags and file names are optimized so that Google can “read” your images appropriately.

And of course, make sure that the images you use are both relevant to your search and interesting enough to make a user want to click.

Then, start leveraging your social media presence to build a pool of user-generated content.

These images will provide social proof and allow you to optimize even more images for SEO.

And finally, take steps to ensure that large image files aren’t negatively impacting your site’s load time.

If you approach your images correctly, you will have further optimized your site for Google’s image search and put your SEO in a better position altogether.

Has your brand seen traffic from Google image search? What worked for you?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-images-to-drive-ecommerce-sales/

Why Problem Solving Should Be The Only Value Proposition You Use

There’s more than one reason why people love brands like P&G, Warby Parker, and Apple.

But, can you guess what these three brands have in common?

They all solve consumer problems.

P&G invented a better way to mop with the Swiffer.

Warby Parker created affordable, stylish glasses.

Steve Jobs of Apple introduced the iPhone as a “smarter mobile device.”

These brands manufactured their own value propositions by solving problems. They are creative problem solvers.

In the spirit of these creative problem solvers, I’m going to analyze the concept of designing a value proposition by thinking outside the box with problem-solving.

But before we dig in, we first need to understand how we got to this point.

We used to live in a world where “marketing strategies” boiled down to bombarding audiences with messages about how your product was the best.

If that seems a bit simplistic to you, that’s because it was.

And that begs an obvious question: Did it actually work?

It absolutely did.

Why did it work? Well, it was largely because of the media channels that dominated consumer attention.

Television and radio promotion had a massive impact on the effectiveness of a brand’s marketing efforts. Television advertising alone accounted for 2% of the US GDP beyond 1950.

And if I had to point to one thing that made these kinds of marketing strategies so successful, it would be the culture of the traditional consumer.

Passive media channels were a staple of that culture. Television and radio were constantly interrupting the user experience to throw in some ads.

With no other options available, the traditional consumer got used to the idea of repetitive ads being a part of daily life.

But all of that changed once the Internet started gaining traction.

Embrace the nature of digital media

The marketing rules of engagement changed suddenly and completely.

The experience went from passive to interactive. The average person gained the ability to pick and choose what marketing content they consumed with a simple little search engine:

This transition would end up determining the future of digital marketing strategies and fundamentally changing the way businesses communicate with consumers.

And it’s not that surprising when you stop and think about it.

In a world where ads were the status quo, consumers didn’t have much of a choice.

But the moment consumers became aware of a life without ads was the moment traditional marketing began its quiet death.

It’s how we ended up here today with 615 million devices that use adblock and 59% of millennials skipping ads on YouTube.

With their 92 million consumers, Spotify has a large usership that doesn’t even mind paying extra for ad-free streaming services.

Of course, all of this speaks to a bigger issue.

To put it bluntly, the modern consumer plays by a different set of rules.

They reject the idea that a jingle or a self-promotional TV spot should be enough to earn their business.

If you want their attention, you’ll need to give them something that traditional marketing strategies can’t: real value.

Real value is about problem-solving

At this point, some small business owners might say, “Isn’t my product/service value enough?”

Well, the answer is yes and no.

Real value isn’t about how often you self-promote. It’s about problem-solving.

Having a valuable product or service is important, and it always will be. There’s no doubt about that.

Buffer didn’t become Buffer just because they had a nice interface. They built a brand around offering a social media solution for consumers looking for an easier way to share content.

There’s a reason Buffer has 82,156 paying customers. They have a 19-person advocacy team that helps their customer solve problems.

In this highly competitive, ever-changing digital media landscape, you need to stand out before and after the sale.

One of the easiest ways to convey the problem you are solving is with content marketing.

Particularly on social media, content is the key to developing a relationship with consumers.

Audiences are in constant need of new content that’s worth their time.

And when you’re trying to solve problems with your content, there’s one approach that just about every small business can get behind:

Educational content.

It’s the cornerstone of most successful brand blogs, and that’s for good reasons.

Sites like NerdWallet pride themselves on their ability to provide users with this kind of content.

NerdWallet ranks for more than 1.3 million keywords in the personal finance advice industry.

Here’s what NerdWallet’s VP of Content, Maggie Leung, explained during an interview:

“At NerdWallet we see content people as an investment.”

But getting here isn’t easy.

To begin content ideation to achieve NerdWallet-status, you have to understand your audience.

And, to better understand your audience, you’ll need to use tools and strategies to help generate content ideas.

Your content isn’t just convenient. It’s the backbone of online authority, and it gives you the opportunity to connect with consumers.

And that leads us to the most important reason to focus on educational content:

It effectively sells the brand without selling a product.

Think about the American Express OPEN forum.

Here’s what Courtney Colwell, Director of Content Marketing at American Express OPEN Forum, told Entrepreneur about the forum:

“It all stems from our mission of helping these businesses do more business. With our small business customers, their growth fuels ours. It’s a win-win if we can help them succeed.”

They have 109.9 million cards in circulation and a valuation of around $18.3 billion. They don’t need to worry about selling their brand. This forum does it for them.

Or, take Irene Pavico, a videographer and post-production professional, for example.

Irene created a course called THE iPhone Film School to help people get started with video marketing that only uses an iPhone.

She explains that those who are just starting out with making videos may not want to invest in an expensive camera. So, she wants to show you how to start off with the technology that everyone has: an iPhone.

Irene’s approach shows that she understands her audience. She breaks down pain points they have when getting started with video marketing and then solves them.

As far as educational content goes, there are typically two categories that you can focus on.

The most common one that businesses tend to tackle is the tangible solutions category.

Tangible solutions are all about the here and now.

No matter what industry your business is in, your audience likely has plenty of issues and questions that they need help with.

That’s why consumers are 131% more likely to buy from a brand after they consume educational content.

It may not be glamorous, but consumers need and appreciate actionable advice that helps them deal with these immediate problems.

Bux implemented a knowledge base, and it helped them improve their first call resolution by 18%.

It’s easy to follow, it doesn’t ask for anything from the reader, and it’s objectively valuable.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

While actionable, tangible solutions are important, there’s more to value-driven content than the immediate future.

Can you focus on solving specific problems for your audience? You absolutely can.

Is that all your content can do for them? It certainly isn’t.

The flip side of the coin is thought leadership.

If tangible solutions are all about the short-term, then thought leadership is all about the long-term.

This is the kind of content that you’ll see industry leaders like Gary Vaynerchuk post:

Gary is a thought leader that connects with his fans to inspire loyalty. He’s worth more than $160 million, and he employs more than 700 people.

When you’re creating thought leadership content, you’re not just looking to solve someone’s problem today. You’re looking to address the source of that problem altogether.

Just take a look at how brands are becoming thought leaders by addressing changes.

SEMrush does a weekly chat on Twitter where they talk about the latest SEO trends.

Or, consider Content Marketing Institute’s webinars.

With thought leadership, you layer educational content with a breakdown of marketing principles that small business owners should be adopting.

And don’t think that this is exclusive to digital media. Any business can benefit from thought leadership.

According to CEO Omar Sayyed, the tie company Ties.com saw a 30% growth in revenue over the last five years by earning trust with digital content.

Here is an example of one of their top-performing pieces of content on how to tie a tie.

Thought leadership doesn’t just pay attention to symptoms. It identifies the illness and helps your audience cure itself.

As you can probably imagine, this is the most difficult kind of content to create. It requires a strong understanding of industry-wide issues and, more importantly, how to solve them. But if you do it well, the results will be well worth the effort.

Of course, there’s more to problem-solving than just crafting blog posts.

You could create e-books and give them away in exchange for email newsletter sign-ups like Mike Gingerich does.

Or, you can build brand authority through your email list with help from your blog at the same time. After all, email marketing has a median ROI of 122%, which puts other marketing formats to shame.

Or, you can treat social media like an extension of customer support by focusing on one-to-one interactions and addressing customer issues directly.

KLM, Europe’s airline industry leader, used Facebook Messenger to increase customer interactions by 40%.

At the end of the day, your marketing strategy exists for one reason:

To convince people that they should do business with you.

And if you want to showcase just how valuable you are, you have to solve consumer problems more efficiently and more consistently than your competition.

Focus on understanding your audience

At this point, it’s pretty clear that treating marketing as an opportunity for problem-solving appeals to the needs of the modern consumer.

So far, I’ve only covered what that looks like in a general sense.

If you really want to get your hands dirty, you need to see what it looks like in action.

That’s why I’m going to take a look at three brands that have managed to create compelling, valuable marketing content.

More specifically, I’m going to analyze how their particular audiences dictated their marketing strategies.

Why? Because understanding your audience’s needs guarantees that your marketing content will be meaningful, impactful, and valuable to them.

Here’s how Seth Godin puts it:

“Trying to appeal to everyone is almost sure to fail, for the simple reason that everyone wants something different!”

So, how do you do this? My advice is to start by creating buyer personas.

You’ve probably already created them for your product or service. Now’s your chance to expand on them.

If you haven’t updated your buyer personas in a long time, you can use this template from Xtensio:

Overall, there’s a pretty clear correlation between your attention to customers and the success of your business.

In fact, one study found that 65% of businesses that exceeded their lead and revenue goals had updated their buyer personas within the previous six months.

The more information you have, the more you’ll be in tune with the problems of your customers. So, don’t be afraid to ask questions.

What social media platforms do they like to engage with you on?

Who are the industry influencers that they actively pay attention to?

What problem does everyone in your audience struggle with on a regular basis?

General digital media marketing principles are important, but they aren’t worth much if you can’t apply them to your unique marketing situation.

Businesses that have used problem-solving effectively

In this next section, we’re going to look at some marketing strategies from successful businesses. But as we do so, keep in mind that the goal isn’t just to copy them.

Instead, use them as a reference point for your particular marketing strategy.

No matter what tactics you choose, your content still needs to appeal specifically to your audience and provide them with value at every opportunity.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some businesses that have found success with problem-solving.

Mint

If you’re not familiar with Mint, here’s what their elevator pitch might sound like:

Struggling to keep your finances in order? Use our service to stay organized, get back on track, or start saving up enough cash to buy a house.

After the company started, it grew rapidly. They managed to acquire 1.5 million users in their first two years.

But marketing a service like this is actually a bit tricky.

After all, who couldn’t use more help keeping their finances in order? How do you make a marketing strategy that targets most of the population?

Mint came up with a solution: Market to their two types of users.

The first group is already relatively financial literate. They’re looking to build wealth.

The second group is trying to budget as efficiently as possible. They’re more interested in keeping their bank account in the green than anything else.

How can I tell that these are their two types of users?

Taking one look at their official blog tells me everything I need to know.

These blog posts target the extremes of their buyer personas, and Mint appeals to both equally.

With most of their audience likely falling somewhere between those two extremes, it’s fair to say that Mint managed to effectively cover their bases without diluting their message.

As for the content itself, it focuses on tangible, actionable advice.

And that makes perfect sense when you consider the audience they’re speaking to. People looking for concrete financial advice won’t appreciate vague tips.

Someone who’s struggling to manage their finances wants a roadmap to get back on track, not a study on the growth of a Fortune 500 company:

Mint’s content is a mix of blog posts, interviews, and infographics that target younger audiences who are beginning to manage their money.

Largely because of their blog posts, their SEO strategy drove 20% of their total site traffic.

Mint drives thousands of visitors from their budgeting templates and budgeting spreadsheets alone.

So, what’s the lesson?

You shouldn’t just make your content relevant to your audience’s problems in general. To make it as effective as possible, you have to be sensitive to their particular situation.

Slack

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the tech startup scene, you’ve probably heard people raving about Slack.

And it’s worth all the hype it’s receiving.

When you need a messaging app that prioritizes productivity and ease of use, it’s hard to find anything better (especially if you’re working with a remote team).

This is why they’re worth about $5.1 billion.

With all the tools and integrations they offer, it’s easy to see why their taglines are “be less busy” and “where work happens.”

In fact, instead of focusing on content marketing, Slack aims to rank for keywords related to their integrations.

With that in mind, you can already start to see what the Slack audience looks like.

You can picture a startup C-level executive looking for a credible solution to her workplace productivity issues.

Slack’s onboarding process is really where the magic happens. Slack has a deep insight into what their audience needs and they create a unique approach to onboarding.

Right off the bat, you’ll see content that they’ve designed to improve overall workplace efficiency.

Slack even has articles for advice on naming channels and email templates for introducing Slack.

Beyond that, Slack also opts to provide value with updates about their own product.

And, admin users can opt-in for weekly summaries of activities.

They also offer instant notifications.

Slack also keeps a blog with product updates, integration announcements, and tips for improving productivity.

The design their blog posts to ensure that the audience can use Slack to the best of their ability.

For them, it’s not about selling the product as much as it is about improving the user experience.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

Support consumers whether or not they’ve spent their hard-earned money on you. Always provide solutions to their problems as they develop.

Dollar Shave Club

At this point, you’re probably tired of hearing about how impressive the marketing strategies of Dollar Shave Club are.

But acquiring 12,000 customers in their first two days is a little too impressive to ignore.

There are plenty of digital media marketing experts who are fascinated with this brand, and I’m one of them.

Why? Well, mostly because it’s a success story that proves that sound marketing tactics, regardless of the audience in question, can help your business excel.

To put it simply, Dollar Shave Club excels in their ability to create a unique consumer experience in an industry that desperately needs it.

And their audience, which is primarily men looking for a stylish, playful, and witty brand, can benefit from the content on the Dollar Shave Club blog.

The articles have clear, eye-catching headlines, and they’re full of value — all while maintaining that unique DSC brand voice.

They even send personalized emails based on previous purchase history.

If you take nothing else from Dollar Shave Club’s example, remember that your ability to create compelling customer experiences is just as important as the advice you give in your content.

It’s not just what you say. It’s how you say it.

Conclusion

I get it.

Digital media marketing can be a bit overwhelming.

But there’s no getting around the fact that you need to stand out in your industry if you want your business to stay competitive.

The age of traditional marketing is over. Don’t waste time trying to plug holes in the Titanic.

Whether you’re new to the game or you’re trying to rebuild your marketing strategy, focus on the big picture: problem-solving.

Value drives sales. And if you want to increase sales, you’re going to have to find new and exciting ways to offer consumers more value.

With your blog content, be sure to address the problems of today as well as underlying issues that will lead to problems in the future. This will help you stay relevant while also establishing yourself as a thought leader.

In order to solve the problems of your audience, you need to understand your audience. You need to determine exactly who they are so that you can address the specific problems that they have.

And as you think through your strategy for solving the problems of your users, look to innovative brands for ideas. Just be sure to make each strategy your own and adapt them to your audience.

How have you focused on problem-solving in your marketing strategy?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/problem-solving-value-proposition/