While some freelancer jobs may not require a video, others like entertainment, web design, graphic design, and just about anything related to art and creativity do. In fact, it’s almost mandatory at this point to have a video that shows off your talents.

If you are unsure if you need one, simply take a look at other workers in your field, if you see any of them with one, it’s time to get filming.

What Is A Video Portfolio?

A video portfolio shows off your expertise in your field of business by showing off your skillset and previous work to attract new clients in a video format.

This is particularly important in industries that utilize video and graphics, like graphic designers.

With the rise of social media platforms, sharing video content with friends, family, and colleagues has become an integral part of our society. It is even more important if you are targeting millennials since they watch the most video content.

Are Written Resumes and Regular Portfolios Dead?

Absolutely not!

Written resumes are still used by every company to help sort potential workers and find the best fit. In fact, larger companies might spend a small fortune on powerful HR software to find the best talent available, especially when receiving hundreds of applications.

Thus, you must build a resume tailored for that specific job.

But what about regular online portfolios?

Online portfolios are still incredibly important. Not only do these provide examples of your work and show off your creativity, but they can also draw in customers through website ranking. This is especially powerful when combining it with a blog to boost search engine rankings.

And video portfolios can take this a step further by increasing the sharability of your profile and target the millennial age group.

The Types of Video Portfolios

1. Still Image Galleries

One of the most basic, but effective types of video portfolio is still image galleries. As the name implies, these are a collection of still images that are cycled through with some ambient music in the background or a short description.

These work well for artists and graphic designers who want to show off their work.

2. Demo Video

Showing off your skills live is an excellent choice. For example, a graphic designer could capture themselves creating something from scratch in Photoshop and then speed up the playback with some music in the background.

Not only is it interesting to watch a picture built from scratch, but it also shows off your skill at doing so.

3. Page-turner

A Page-turner is when a camera provides a top-down shot of a book and you turn pages to tell a story. This works very well if you have a collection of art sketches or pages of graphics or logo designs.

It’s an interesting style of video and does a terrific job of showing off your work.

4. Create A Commercial

This might sound a bit weird, but a commercial style video can show off a lot of creativity, as long as you were the one who made it. This is ideal when you are trying to show off video editing and filming skills.

And if it’s entertaining, it’s more likely to be shared with friends on social media.

5. Stop Motion

Stop motion is a well-known technique where you manipulate objects like figurines, models, or drawings in small increments to make them seem like they are moving. It’s perfect for those trying to show off their art skills.

And once again, these can be quite entertaining, which can help rack up views.

How to Make A Video Portfolio

Step 1: Hosting Your Website

The first thing you must consider is where you will be hosting your video portfolio. The most common way to host a video is through a platform like YouTube, and that’s perfectly acceptable. In fact, it’s encouraged.

However, you are a professional, and a professional should have their own website.

Thus, you are going to need a web host.

A web host is a company that operates and maintains the server your website is stored on. And there are a variety of factors to consider like uptime, speed, security, affordability, customer support, impact on the environment, and much more.

Step 2: Pick A CMS

You are also going to need to select a platform to build your website on. Luckily, it’s gotten extremely easy to build a website today.

Regardless of what industry you are in or your skill level, WordPress is the best choice to build a website on.

But don’t just take my word for it, it powers nearly 40% of the internet.

One of the main reasons it is such a popular choice is because of its large library of plugins to choose from. These are like apps for your phone. They add features to your website and can be used for just about anything.

And the best part is that you won’t have to write a single line of code.

You can also style your website using the thousands of free themes available. Themes dictate how your website looks and some of the features it has. In your case, you want to locate the best video portfolio themes and find the best fit for your website.

Step 3: Research the Competition

You may think your an expert in your field, but that doesn’t mean you are an expert at marketing in your field. Check out what other freelance workers have put together as a video portfolio.

After all, there are a lot of types to choose from.

For example, if you are a graphic designer, you might show off your editing skills inside of Photoshop and display a gallery with music at the end of the video. Perhaps you are a hairstylist, if so, there’s no better way to show off your skills than by showing before and after shots of clients.

There are a variety of types of video portfolios to consider, but some are better suited for some industries more than others. Thus, you need to research what works in yours.

Step 4: Purchase Video Editing Software and Equipment

This should come as no surprise, but you are going to need video editing software to make a video portfolio. Luckily, there is a lot of choices you may want to consider.

While you may not want to break the bank with top-line software, you need something that will look professional.

You may also need to get some equipment. This typically includes a camcorder, although if you have a really good 4k camera on your phone, you might be get away with it. However, you are definitely going to need a microphone.

The sound of your video can really make or break the presentation value of a portfolio. You don’t want your voice to sound muffled, or picking up the background noise. You need to sound smart and confident if you are speaking in the video.

Step 5: Create A Video Portfolio

With a website ready to go, filming equipment in hand, and video editing software, you are ready to create your profile. While the actual filming process is entirely up to you and different for everyone, there are some general tips you should follow.

If you are filming video, make sure that the background noise is not coming through. While in some situations, this is fine because it is unavoidable, like talking on a street. If your showing off your skills, you want them to be the focus, not the screaming in the background.

Avoid using too many special effects in the editing process. While having some is fine, overusing them can lower the value of your video. It can look like an amateur made it if there are too many.

Make sure the video shows off your skills. While this might seem obvious, this can easily be lost. The video must focus on you and your work. Don’t make a long list of credentials, show your skills.

And most importantly, make sure you have family, friends, and peers review your portfolio. The last thing you want to do is release a video portfolio and have clients spot obvious mistakes or witness bad editing.

This portfolio represents your business, and it needs to be flawless.

Should I Host the Video or Embed It?

Once you have the video made, you now have another choice to make. Should I upload my video on YouTube and embed it or host the video myself?

If you are planning on using the WordPress platform, I strongly recommend uploading it on YouTube and embedding it. This will result in it being on the YouTube platform, which can significantly help in Google searches and it will ensure faster load times on pages.

Keep in mind that if you do this, make sure you have a YouTube channel ready to go. Simply adding this video to an existing channel full of other videos from the past is not going to look good. Create a channel with your name or business name, add a YouTube banner, and consider other content you can include.

Videos hosted directly on your webpages can significantly lower the loading speed, which can easily scare away customers. After all, if your website runs slow, what does that say about you?

Besides, hosting the video on YouTube also gives you access to a variety of viewers and potential fans. It can open a myriad of doors you may not even realize.

Share Your Video

Once the video has been uploaded up to YouTube and embedded on your website, it’s time to think about marketing.

Share it on every available social media platform you can. Make sure it’s prevalent on your Facebook business page and LinkedIn profile. And make sure to put it on online work boards for your business.

For example, Fiverr.com is an excellent place to advertise if you are in the graphic design business. It has a variety of topics to help you find the right clients. Adding a video of what you can do can really help you out.

Consider Hiring An Expert

If video editing isn’t your forte and you feel that a video portfolio can really help you, you might want to consider an expert.

Just like there are plenty of businesses dedicated to helping you create a strong resume, there are plenty of graphic designers that excel in video editing. In fact, most professional YouTubers have editors on staff.

Keep in mind that this will significantly raise the price of building a portfolio, but it’s well worth it if you increase your clientele.

The post Why Every Freelancer Should Have a Video Portfolio on YouTube appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

So apparently it’s never too early for winter holiday marketing.

And online, 2018’s “Cyber Monday” was responsible for almost eight billion dollars worth of sales. Could that number possibly increase year after year? I think it’s a safe bet that it will. And remember, Cyber Monday happens almost a month before Christmas.

Whether we need retail access to a plastic Christmas tree in October or a huge online sale a couple of days after Thanksgiving is debatable, but when it comes to your website, the earlier you can get started on your holiday preparations, the better.

Even if you’re not selling a product or service, the things we’re going to talk about can help boost traffic to your blog or website during the holidays. There’s something here for everyone.

Okay, since time is of the essence, let’s jump right into the nine easy steps to boost holiday traffic to your website.

9 Ways to Boost Holiday Traffic

1. Ask Yourself What You Want to Accomplish

Do you want new or holiday visitors to purchase particular products? Maybe you want to add more addresses to your mailing list. Perhaps you just want to boost blog traffic that tends to sag during the holidays.

Knowing what you want your end result to be will help focus your efforts. It will also help you avoid spending time or money on changes or tactics that don’t get you closer to your goal.

Do you have a record of your holiday traffic over the past few years? If you’re running an established site, you should have at least a rough idea of your seasonal traffic spikes and dips.

You can use Google Analytics to take a closer look at holiday and seasonal traffic over the years. Use those as a baseline to gauge how well your efforts to boost traffic perform for those periods.

2. Consider a (Minor) Facelift

For your website, that is. You can’t really change the entire theme of a business site for a given holiday, but if you’re using WordPress, you can add a little zing to the proceedings with a holiday-themed plugin.

You can also make seasonal versions of your site’s primary header or logo, which will give the holiday effect without completely changing the appearance of the website.

In WordPress (or most major CMS), you might also take a look at your post tags and categories. When you are successful in attracting a visitor to a particular post or page, having a seasonal tag or category attached to it can increase your chances of the new visitor clicking the category to find similar articles and sticking around on the site.

While you’re at it, take a look at your site’s mobile accessibility. Mobile traffic hovers around 50% for most sites year-round, but during holiday seasons, it can increase. If you checked out the Cyber Monday article I linked to earlier, you know that three billion dollars worth of those Cyber Monday sales last year came from mobile devices.

3. Check Out the Competition

Take a look at what other sites in your niche are doing to attract holiday traffic. If they’re ranking high in search results for a holiday-related term, take a look at why that is and see if you can use similar tactics to increase the opportunities for your website.

I’m not talking about directly copying from other sites, of course. But instead analyzing what makes them rank highly in search results and then adapting it, or better yet, improving on it.

Can you tailor their methods to your target audience? Maybe you have a different demographic that can be targeted in a way other businesses can’t replicate. Look at what makes your site or business unique and focus your efforts on attracting the holiday traffic of that group.

To that end:

4. Start Digging Into Holiday Keyword Data

This is a necessary step if you want to have the best shot at gaining traffic around any holiday. Not everyone is a keyword research pro, but everyone can find keyword data if they have the right tools. If you can exploit popular keywords that are relevant to your products and services by making minor updates to existing content on your site, take the time to do it.

But you can also make an impact on traffic by targeting alternative, or “longtail” keywords. Depending on your niche, this can be a much more effective use of your time than targeting popular keywords.

Though, anything you can do as far as popular keywords are concerned will help.

The bottom line is, in order to attract visitors to your website, you have to know what they’re looking for. So, improve your keyword research game! Or get one started if the idea is new to you.

In fact, if you’ve never done it before, you’ll likely see more dramatic results at first than someone who is making incremental improvements to their existing keyword research and implementation.

5. Evaluate Your Website Hosting Platform

If your efforts to drive traffic are successful, your site has to be able to handle the action. A great deal of your site’s ability to handle holiday traffic is up to you since you (or someone you hired) built and maintain the website.

But in a more fundamental way, your site’s performance depends on the platform and servers that it runs on, meaning your web host.

It’s important that your hosting is flexible, and can change if necessary to accommodate increasing needs. GreenGeeks employs scalable computing resources, so you can add more RAM to improve your website’s performance whenever you need it.

And our PowerCacher technology can improve performance by leaps and bounds, especially if you’re running a WordPress website.

A stress test is a good performance indicator. Measuring what kind of traffic your site—and hosting company—are capable of handling. It bombards a website with multiple users (robots, actually, but a page load is a page load) and measures the response times.

To do a demonstration test, I set up a WordPress site at GreenGeeks and loaded it with Theme Unit Test data.

This graph shows the kind of response you want to see from a stress test.

You can see that as the virtual users and requests increase, the response time stays consistent (averaging 33 milliseconds). Adding more users did not increase the time needed to load a page. In the three minute test, 7216 page requests were made (an average of 41 requests per second).

There’s a momentary spike in the line showing response time, but the tip of that spike represents a response time of less than a third of a second.

If you run a similar test and see a slowly increasing response time or more than two or three spikes, it may be an indication that it’s time to find a new home for your site.

6. Evaluate Your Website Itself

The host is a critical link in the chain, but as I mentioned, much of the responsibility for your website’s performance falls on your shoulders. If you’ve never really tested your website’s performance, now is a good time to start.

Google’s Lighthouse is a great tool that will give you an impressive amount of performance data. Not to mention advice on how to improve areas that may be slowing you down.

Google’s Page Speed Insights is a lighter-weight performance analyzer that you can use if Lighthouse is too much information. Page Speed Insights also provides recommended fixes for areas that it finds lacking on your site.

Tools such as these can be a bit overwhelming to use. They look at everything, so tending to every issue that they highlight could take a very long time (and in some cases, may not even be possible). So remember that you don’t have to fix everything the tests recommend fixing.

Focus on the adjustments that will have the most significant impact.

7. Reuse and recycle

Just because an article is a few years old doesn’t mean you can’t highlight it and work to draw new traffic to it. Holiday-themed articles tend to be more timeless than other pieces, so take advantage of that fact by going through your site and seeing what can be reused.

The same goes for product spotlighting. Naturally, we want to focus on the newer products that may seem more timely or exciting, but old standbys and steady sellers can also be given a bit more prominence.

People still need the basics during the holidays.

8. Everyone Loves Free Stuff

Promotions and giveaways can always be relied on to draw a crowd. And of course, they are an excellent email address harvesting tool. If you’re not a merchant or you don’t have an appropriately holiday-themed product to give away, a gift card is always a hot holiday item.

If your site runs on WordPress, you can manage a giveaway using a plugin. There are also specialized services that can handle the mechanics of a giveaway for any website. I was about to recommend Amazon’s giveaway feature that was built-in to most product pages, but it looks like it’s discontinued, so pretend I never mentioned it.

Remember to post the name of the winner, and a little blurb from them if they agree to it. Also, email the results to your mailing list. That will make your first contact with new signups something they’ll have a personal interest in. A win/win (even if they lose).

9. Get Out Onto Social Media and Do Some Direct Promotion

As I mentioned, taking advantage of search keywords to gain more search traffic is a powerful tool. But just as powerful is a personal connection, and of course, that’s most easily done via social media.

Did I say “easily”? Forgive me.

It certainly can be done, but how easy it will be depends on your existing social media presence.

If your social media presence could use some help, consider using a tool that can centralize many of your accounts. Most of them also allow post scheduling and automation, and a bucketful of other features that you never thought of, but can save you a lot of time.

Of course, most of your social media interaction should be personal, not scheduled, or automated. But these tools can still be great time-savers.

Check out Hootsuite, CoSchedule, Sprout Social, and Buffer for starters. They all do similar things in different ways. You should be able to find one that’s a good fit for your workflow.

Good Things Come to Those Who Don’t Wait

The efforts required to make a holiday traffic boost happen can be a lot to tackle in a short amount of time. Ramping up your social media game, new keyword research, website improvements and updates – yikes! All at the same time, you may be knee-deep in holiday preparations in your offline life as well.

I started off this article saying that we should begin preparing for holiday traffic before the winter season arrives. If you want to increase your Christmas traffic in particular, advance planning is essential. Do yourself a favor and be prepared (to avoid being stressed)!

You don’t have to start making changes to your routine or your site in June or July, but you can start making notes months in advance.

Take advance planning seriously. Keep track of what you do and its effect on visitor numbers. You can use that research year after year, building on it with only slight modification. It can be a lot of work at first, but as time goes on you’ll learn what works for you and when it works best.

If you’re an online merchant, you know that holiday sales can have an oversized effect on your bottom line. And that’s true no matter what kind of products you sell. So putting yourself in a position to leverage holiday traffic is not only a smart play, it’s an essential one that can’t start too soon.

The post 9 Easy Steps to Boost Holiday Traffic to Your Website appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

A blog may seem like an obvious thing to have on a freelance writer’s website. But some of you out there don’t have blogs. Or you don’t keep the content updated (which may be worse than not having one at all).

So I’m here today, brothers and sisters, to encourage you to blog on the website that represents your services. You’re marketing yourself on a freelance website, not just your writing.

Blog posts about topics that interest you help present you as a person, not just a faceless writing machine.

You can also look at blog posts as additional writing samples, and you can’t have too many of those. Any way you look at it, if you’re a freelance writer, you should have a blog.

Let’s Back Up for a Minute – You Do Have a Website, Don’t You?

It’s certainly possible to get work as a writer without a website. But setting up your own freelancer site will give you a leg up. A website provides you with a platform to establish your brand and raise your profile.

And it isn’t as big of a commitment of time and resources as you might think.

All you need is a web host, a domain name, and WordPress. You can download and install WordPress for free. And if you use GreenGeeks as your web host, your domain name is free for the first year.

I know there are “free” websites available out there, but I wouldn’t recommend using them for a professional services site. Perception is reality, and a site on a free service gives the impression that you’re not serious about your business.

It’s a rookie mistake to send a potential employer to “yoursite.blogspot.com” or a similar address. Don’t make it!

The annual cost of your website can be offset by a few hours of work on a magnificent writing job. A job that you may not have come your way if not for the website. See, a site is symbiotic and usually pays for itself if the stage is properly set.

What You Should Include in Your Freelance Website

We’ll talk about blogging in a minute, but a few other things should be present on your freelance website.

• A list of the services you offer. For instance, can you do editing as well as article creation? Formatting? Uploading? SEO? Make sure everything you can do, as far as writing is concerned, is listed on your site.
• Writing samples. You usually won’t have permission to use the actual articles you’ve written for clients. So write a few sample articles on different topics that use the same requirements as a paid assignment.
• At least one picture of yourself. And not for nothing, but get dressed for the picture. I know you work in your pajamas, but prospective employers want to see something a bit less casual.
• Your prices. I know that can be difficult, but it helps weed out people who aren’t paying what you want to earn. Remember, perception is reality. If I’m shopping for a writer, I know I’m not going to get a professional article for $50. So sell potential clients by offering a quality service at a reasonable price.
• Testimonials or referrals. Those can be scarce if you’re just getting started. If you don’t have any professional reviews or testimonials yet, perhaps helpful friends or family can write something for you. If you go that route, be sure to replace them as you earn kudos or referrals from paying clients.
• An “about” page. Talk about your skills as an efficient, quality writer, but also add one or two personal points. Most people who will hire you are hiring a person, not a writing sample, or a rate.
• A “contact” page. Better still, contact information in the footer or sidebar of every page or post. Provide multiple forms of contact, email, phone, a form on the site, social media accounts – give the potential client choices.

That’s not everything that potentially belongs on a freelance website, but it covers the basics. Before you start your blog, pin down those essential sections. Once you’ve taken care of them, you can focus your attention on the blog.

Why Your Freelance Marketing Content Should Include a Blog

Aside from providing additional samples of what you can do, a blog also helps you in other ways.

Any of these benefits is reason enough to consider starting a blog. But the combination of all of them clearly shows the power of blogging for any freelancer.

Blogging Establishes Authority

If you’re trying to get work as a fashion writer, authoritative blog posts about fashion help make that connection. The same goes for any subject, topic, or niche. If you appear to be an expert in the field, you’re more likely to be hired (and justify your rate).

A valuable side-effect of such articles is that Google also likes to see authority. The more authoritative writing content you can produce, the higher your blog will rank in search results. Which, in turn, puts your content in front of more buyers.

Blogging Can Give Potential Employers Insight Into Your Personality

People who hire other people for jobs are supposed to be impartial and judge all applicants on their merits. But they’re still people, so their own preferences and biases will sneak into the process.

The truth is, you’re more likely to be hired if the person doing the hiring likes you. That’s a mistake on their part, but it still happens all the time.

As a freelancer with only a website to make a first impression, your personality is essential. If I’m looking for a writer, I have a lot of choices. If it comes down to a choice between someone who seems easygoing and someone who isn’t, guess who I’m hiring?

So, let the world see your personality. But if you’re generally disagreeable, dissatisfied, sarcastic, or otherwise curmudgeonly, try to put forth a personality without those traits.

Hey, you’re a writer, I understand. Sometimes a skewed world view comes with the territory.

There’s nothing wrong with that. But focus as much as possible on the cooperative and team-oriented aspects of what you do. The side of you that plays well with others.

A Blog Makes Your Website Dynamic

A list of your services, prices, samples, and contact information are crucial freelance website elements, but they’re also static. Once you put up an “about” page, it probably isn’t going to change very often.

But a blog changes your website every time you post a new article. When you add new articles regularly, you have a dynamic website. That looks good to potential employers and to Google.

What you want to avoid is a dead or inactive blog. When the latest post is two years old, it gives the impression that you have abandoned the site.

But even a few months since the last post doesn’t look good. You want anyone who comes across the site to feel like they’ve encountered an active, vibrant spot. That things are happening all the time, and the content is fresh.

I’m trying to convince you to start a blog, but ask yourself if it’s something you can maintain. Maybe you know that you can’t come up with a new article every couple of weeks (at least).

If that’s the case, the reality is a blog may not be for you. Or move forward with a blog, but don’t display the dates of the posts publicly.

Of course, if you go that route, you want to avoid topical or news-related posts. They’ll tend to date your content regardless of whether you attach a date.

A Blog Is Just Good Writing Practice

Writing is like playing a musical instrument. If you only pick it up when it’s time for a gig, you’re going to sound rusty. Writers need to practice the same way musicians or athletes do.

Regular practice keeps your skills at a professional level, so you’re ready when it’s time for your solo.

And what better practice for a writer than writing? John Steinbeck said, “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”

In other words, the act of writing feeds on itself. Writing leads to more writing. And of course, the more you write, the better writer you become. That’s a fact.

Keep an Eye on Quality

It’s easy to slip into informality or sloppy writing when you’re blogging. It’s generally a relaxed and unpretentious format. You want your personality to shine through, but be careful not to be too casual in your posts.

Use a tool like Grammarly to keep you on the right side of the road.

Don’t post immediately after finishing an article. Sleep on it and read it the next day. I guarantee you’ll find something to fix or improve. This holds especially true if you put in a lot of hours on a piece.

You need some distance, even if it’s just a night, to see any piece of writing clearly.

Proofread three times. If you already proofread three times, proofread four times. The worst thing you can do when you’re trying to sell your writing is to publish articles that contain mistakes.

Potential employers will zero in on any error on the page like laser-guided attack dogs. Don’t give them a chance to get off-leash.

Still Not Convinced?

Maybe you didn’t believe me when I said it was easier than you think to set up a website. I understand as I’m a skeptic, too. But what if I could show you how to install WordPress in a couple of minutes?

And setting up the website hosting account doesn’t take much longer than that. From start to finish, you can have a site up and running in less time than it takes to read this article.

And those pages I said a good freelance website should have? They’re easy to create in WordPress. If you’ve never used WordPress, sure, there will be a few things you must learn to do. But it’s not much more difficult than learning to work a new TV remote control.

Once you’re used to it, you won’t even notice it’s there. Or more to the point, it won’t get in your way.

Give Yourself Every Advantage

It seems like there are millions of freelance writers working today. Maybe because there are millions of writers out there. So how do you make yourself stand out? How do you communicate that there’s an advantage to be gained by hiring you?

It starts with a good home for your business. A professional and competent face. Putting the proper care and feeding into your site and blog can get you hired—that, and of course, good, authoritative writing.

Hopefully, I’ve shown you that the benefits of adding a blog to your freelance website pay a number of dividends. The sum of everything you do will be greater than the parts. Create an attractive package, and you’ll be ahead of 90% of your competition.

There’s no other single thing you can do to gain that kind of advantage. What are you waiting for?

The post Do You Even Blog? Why Every Freelance Website Should Have Content appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

But if you’re an artist, designer, or any other kind of creative type, there’s another social network that you should be using. It’s called Ello.

Ello is unique in that it focuses on creativity and creators. Unlike other more passive social networks, Ello actively works to provide connections and opportunities for creators.

If you’ve been looking for a social network that can actually do something for you, Ello may be it.

Say Hello to Ello

Ello launched in 2014, so it’s been around for a while. Initially, it was created as a response and alternative to Facebook. There had been (and continues to be) a lot of news stories about Facebook selling user data, and many users were concerned.

When Ello launched, the founders published a manifesto, and used the tag line, “You Are Not a Product.”

But as a new network, Ello was still small. Maybe purposely so. They did not (and still don’t) accept paid advertising. Its founders didn’t set out to create the next Facebook. It was a side-project, intended to be a social site for their friends, and whoever else was interested.

For a while, that’s what it was, peaking at around 30,000 users.

But then Facebook began enforcing a “real name” policy that angered (and even endangered) some users. One of Ello’s founders posted a criticism of Facebook’s policy, and that attracted millions of new users to Ello.

Eventually, creative users began to nudge Ello away from being a generic social network. When it became clear who the active core users were, Ello pivoted and began calling itself “The Creators Network.”

What Ello Can Do for You

Every social network provides a community for its users. Ello does that too. But, Ello’s users are generally much more involved than those on other platforms. When you cultivate good connections on Ello, those people will venture outside of Ello to see your work.

And Ello itself will elevate users it finds interesting. Not through the use of a black-box algorithm, but directly, through recommendations and giveaways.

Here are a few of the things Ello does to promote and benefit creators.

Arts Editorial

Every day, an Ello “curatorial team” features community members on their editorial homepage and their social profiles. Artists and their works and ideas are actively promoted across the platform.

To give you some idea of what that means, my partner and I joined Ello at the same time. A few months after we joined, an Ello founder shared one of her posts featuring her art.

Within days, she had ten times more followers than I did. For months, after just a single shared post, her follower count continued to grow by the thousands.

Since then, she’s racked up half a million post views. That’s not a huge number compared to celebrity posts on the major social networks. But what I find interesting about it is 59% of her followers view her posts.

That’s the sign of an engaged user base! Ello users appear to be much more engaged than users on the major social networks. The only way 59% of your Facebook friends will see your post is if you pay Facebook to force it on them.

And her experience was in the relatively early days of Ello. Back in 2014, just before it began gaining a lot of press attention. I can only imagine how many new followers featured artists gain now.

And the arts editorials aren’t the only hand-picked recommendations. There’s also a “community update” that features Ello artists both on the Ello blog and in a daily email newsletter.

So, you can see that Ello takes a very active role in boosting the profiles of their artists.

Not for Print

Ello prints (yes, on actual paper) an ironically-titled publication called, Not for Print. It’s published quarterly, and all Not for Print contents come from Ello user submissions. Issues follow different artistic themes, and they’re curated to showcase the creative talent on Ello.

They use creative briefs (more on that in a minute) to spell out guidelines and gather submissions. A vetted panel of impartial judges chooses the artists and works that are published in Not for Print.

Each edition of Not for Print is sponsored by an “artists-first” brand partner.

Underscore

In the art world, a monograph is a book that contains the work of a single artist. Underscore is a book/zine combination that Ello publishes quarterly.

Every quarter, Ello posts a creative brief that’s used to choose ten artists for publication in Underscore. One of the artist’s work is published in book form. A monograph featuring the chosen artist’s work and ideas.

Nine other artists are interviewed and published in a zine that’s published along with the monograph.

Most artists have to wait for a gallery or museum show to see a published monograph of their work. It’s quite an accomplishment and not something you’re ever going to get from Pinterest or Facebook.

Ello Art Giveaway Program

Every week, Ello buys three pieces of artwork from Ello artists. Then, the work is promoted and given away to randomly selected members of the community.

That’s right, Ello actually buys work from its members. Then they give the work away as prizes.

Well, more accurately, they find sponsors to buy the work, but the result is the same—a sale for an artist, and a free piece of art for a user.

Those giveaways drive members to the creator’s user account, resulting in more followers. Similar to what they do when they feature work on the editorial homepage.

If you land a spot in the Art Giveaway Program, not only do you make a sale, you gain followers. And like any social network, more followers equals more attention and influence.

Ello Artist Collective

The Ello Artist Collective is an invitation-only, curated group made up of Ello’s top professional creative talent. Established artists are represented, but the collective also includes many “emerging” artists.

Ello promotes its Artists Collective members brands, agencies, and publishers. Resulting in commissions for graphic design, photography, fine art, illustration, 3D, gifs, video, music, and other disciplines.

Ello Artist Collective members are invited to participate in projects (unlike the open-submission projects we’ll discuss in the next section). They receive financial compensation for their contributions.

The Ello Artist Collective is invitation-only, but you can give them a nudge in your direction by emailing eac@ello.co. They’re unlikely to select artists who aren’t active on the site, though, so get involved before angling for an invitation.

Ello Creative Briefs

I saved the best for last.

Ello Creative Briefs connects the Ello creator community with brands, agencies, and publishers via real-time creative briefs. The briefs are creative projects offered to Ello’s global community of artists.

It works like this: You submit your work to the creative brief you’re interested in. Then, a panel of judges chooses what they consider the best work that fits the criteria of the brief.

I don’t know if this is the same “vetted panel of impartial judges” that choose work for Not For Print. If they choose your work, you get paid.

The Creative Briefs are listings from companies and brands that are looking for creative work, usually for social media.

These are not small-time companies just getting off the ground. They’re network television shows, fashion brands, major motion pictures, book publishers, record companies, and other national and internationally-known brands.

Which Brands Post Opportunities in the Form of Creative Briefs?

It might be easier to list which brands don’t. 😉

The page currently shows offers from, among others, Disney, Marvel, DC, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Turner Network, Columbia TriStar, MGM, Universal Pictures International, United Artists, Bombay Sapphire, Absolut, Johnnie Walker, Ballantine’s, Miller Lite, Nielsen Research, Getty Images, The United Nations(!), Lindt, Pampers, Whirlpool, and POKÉMON.

I did a quick and dirty tally of the 60 most recent opportunities in Creative Briefs, and the average offer for accepted work or ideas is over $2,500 per piece, with $2,000 being the most common offer.

Granted, all of the assignments bear the caveat of “up to” the quoted price. And of course, you’re doing the work on spec. If they choose your work, you get paid. If they don’t, you don’t.

But those kinds of strings are attached to most spec work. The level of companies looking for work should reassure you that it’s a legitimate creative marketplace.

With companies like Warner Bros. Home Entertainment offering up to $7,000 and Premier League football club Watford FC £10,000, it’s safe to say this isn’t Fiverr we’re talking about. (No offense to Fiverr, that’s just a different kind of marketplace.)

Was Ello Lucky or Clever?

I mentioned earlier that Ello pivoted from its initial stance as the anti-Facebook. That’s true, but it may not have been a voluntary pivot.

After the initial flurry of media attention in 2014, a few million people joined Ello. But the platform was still in its infancy, so there wasn’t much for them to do. Many who joined during the first big wave of sign-ups quickly abandoned the platform.

If that sounds familiar, perhaps you remember Google+, which went through a somewhat similar experience. But unlike Ello, Google+ had no underlying beliefs or interests to take it in any specific direction.

Google certainly didn’t have a manifesto. It was a generic product from a huge company.

Full disclosure, I quite enjoyed Google+ and used it every day until it was shut down. I realize we were in the minority, but there were a lot of smart, interesting people on Google+. May she rest in peace.

Ello, however, had a small group of founders who did have a vision. And since they never intended to be the world’s largest social network, they were able to survive a mass exodus. Those who remained were the independent creators, and they slowly, lovingly, built Ello back up to what it is today.

What is it today? The world’s best niche social network for creators.

Give and Take

All of the different things Ello does to promote its users and provide opportunities for them are impressive. They certainly go above and beyond what most social platforms choose to do. But the real strength of Ello is its users.

I mentioned that they were engaged, and that’s the key. Ello users love art and creativity. They respond to it and support it. Not surprisingly, considering most of the users are creators themselves.

But that engagement spills out beyond the borders of Ello. Posting a link to your website will actually bring visitors to your content. You can’t say the same for most of the big social networks.

And those visitors don’t just hit your link and bounce. They tend to stick around and explore. Google Analytics “time on site” averages about three times longer than traffic from other referrers on my partner’s website.

That’s an audience that is interested and engaged and should be cultivated. Ello can provide that audience for you, too. Of course, you have to do your part and be active and engaged on Ello as well. That applies to any social network. You get out of it what you put into it.

But if you’re a creator looking for the highest return on your investment of time, look no further than Ello.

The post What is Ello and What Can it Do for You as a Creator? appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

Twitter now allows up to 280 characters per post. This is still a relatively short burst, but more often than not, it does give you a chance to express what you need.

In this article, we are going to look at some of the best Twitter tools available that you can use for your business marketing.

Best of all, the tools I am going to share with you are all available to use for free. This will allow you to get your message out, promote your products and services, and connect with people, all without having to pay any fees.

Let’s take a deeper look at Twitter and then we will go over some of the best free Twitter marketing tools available today.

Twitter and Marketing

With over 330 million users and 145 million daily users, Twitter is a fantastic platform to market your business. The social hub is a prime marketing spot for very desirable demographics as well.

For the reason above alone, it is a good idea to create a solid Twitter marketing strategy for your business. You want something that is easy to implement, many can follow, and works well with your overall social media marketing strategy.

So, where do you start? Here are some suggestions for you to put into play when you are figuring out your marketing strategy and how to implement all the Twitter tools available.

Audit Your Account and Set Goals

The first thing you may want to do is audit your business account. You can do this by performing tasks like:

• How often your account tweets
• What is the engagement rate?
• How many followers does the account have?

There are certain Twitter tools that can help you find out the data above. We will go over some of them below.

Once you have done an audit of your account, then go ahead and set some goals. Remember, success is measured in all sorts of ways. Set realistic goals with realistic time frames.

Things may go faster or slower than you originally thought. In that case, you can go ahead and adjust your goals.

Set “SMART” goals; things that are measurable and fair. Remember, something going viral does not count, as this can happen without intention. It usually does not happen every time you post. SMART goals include:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-Bound

Remember, an audit and setting up realistic goals are two of the most important things to do when setting up a Twitter marketing strategy.

Other things to consider when setting up a business marketing strategy for Twitter include:

• Checking Out Your Competition
• Assigning Roles
• Creating Guidelines
• Making a Content Calendar

Lastly, make sure your profile is fully complete and includes all relevant and professional information. This includes:

• Twitter Handle (screen name)
• Profile Photo
• Header Image
• Bio
• Company Website URL
• Location

Once all of this is in place, you should be ready to roll.

With that, here are 9 of the best Twitter tools that you can use for free.

The Best Twitter Tools

1. FollowFly

FollowFly is a simple, yet very effective tool. It allows you to search anyone on Twitter (individual, business) and see all of their best content posted in one place. You can also connect your account for an extended feed.

Having something like this will allow you to see what all your favorite accounts are posting. You can use this info as part of your strategy. See what type of content is popular and what is not, and use that to help you post relevant and engaging material.

While a very simple setup, FlyFollow is one of the best free Twitter management tools out there.

2. Daily 140

Daily 140 is a free platform that basically tracks all your daily metrics. If you want to learn more about your influencers, competitors, and followers on a daily basis, then this is one of the best Twitter tools you will find.

When you sign up, the app emails you once a day with all the details you need. This includes all the new people followed by your competitors and tweets favorite by them. 

Learn about trends, what’s popular, what your competitors are doing, and what others in your main network are exploring. This information can be very useful to tailor a successful Twitter marketing plan.

3. Hootsuite

Contrary to popular belief, Hootsuite actually offers a free plan that is quite extensive. In this case, we want to use it to easily schedule out the tweets you will be making from your Twitter business account.

Scheduling and tweeting at the right times can become time-consuming and difficult. Use Hootsuite to schedule out your business tweets on the right days and at the right times. This will free you up for other marketing-related tasks.

Then Hootsuite dashboard that you get with the free plan is also very helpful. Schedule different tweets at different times and find out what Twitter trends map works best for your plan.

4. Twitonomy

Another fantastic free Twitter tool is called Twitonomy. They provide you (your business) with a complete dashboard to analyze user profiles in detail. Twitonomy actually has plans that you pay for, but they also have a free version of the tool that is very complete.

Find out specific user likes, who they follow, and who they engage with on Twitter. Use this info to market specifically to them, knowing what they will interact with and like. The list of tools you get with this is vast, so give it a look and incorporate it into your Twitter marketing plan.

5. Twubs

Twubs allows you to index a hashtag for your Twitter Chat and then collect and see all the tweets from one single location. Find all your chats, hashtags, and conversations quickly and easily.

There are all sorts of chats on the platform, and it is a great way to keep track of all conversations you are a part of.

6. Nuzzel

If you are interested in finding out what topics are trending among the people that your account follows, then Nuzzle is a great Twitter tool to use. Basically, you should use this tool to help you find out what your friend’s friends are interested in and interacting with.

Nuzzle will also provide you with the top news as it relates to your industry. You can take these news updates and apply them appropriately to what is going on in your industry.

Subscribe to the Nuzzle daily newsletter and get daily news, updates, and information. It is included in this list of free Twitter tools because of all the information it provides.

7. The Latest

The Latest is simple and straightforward. It basically provides you with a live list of all the best and top performing links on Twitter. The website does this in real-time, so links can change at any time based on popularity.

Find out all the most interesting stuff happening at any given moment. You can also follow the most viewed viral links and be a part of the conversation.

This is solid from a marketing standpoint, as it will allow you to create certain tweets based on trending news, information, and happenings around the world.

8. Canva

Canva is a very easy to use graphic design tool that has a “forever free” plan. Unlike other online graphic design tools, Canva gives you enough to work with in the free plan to create amazing Twitter images and other marketing tools you can download and use.

There is a pro version of Canva as well that allows for some extra functionality. However, the free forever version gives you thousands of templates, pictures, fonts, and images to work with and use.

Use Canva to design Twitter ad images, blast your company name over images and tools, and post them on Twitter and link to all your business website products and pages.

Something like Canva can help you look bigger and more professional, especially when you are starting out and do not have a lot of marketing funds to work with. It is simply one of the best Twitter tools around.

9. Warble

Warble is a simple yet powerful tool that will send you email alerts every time someone shares content from your blog or Twitter. The program sends you the email even if the person sharing is using a link shortener or forgets to mention your business Twitter username.

This allows you to more easily track content that is being shared from your platform and is a fantastic Twitter posting tool to take advantage of. You can turn around and market to and interact with the people who are sharing all of your content.

These are nine of the best Twitter tools available right now for free. Please remember that a few of the tools mentioned above do have pro versions and plans available.

However, they all have a solid free version of their product that can be used with great success as free Twitter tools for marketing.

Conclusion

There are literally dozens and dozens of Twitter tools out there that you can use to boost the marketing plan you have been putting together for your business. The main issue becomes which one of the tools are free and available to use without having to pay monthly fees.

Oftentimes, when starting out, it is important to be able to access high-quality tools that are free to use. This is because most small businesses do not have a lot of money to spend on marketing right away.

Therefore a plan needs to be put together that will allow you room for growth without breaking the bank.

I hope the list above of free Twitter tools for marketing was helpful. Feel free to explore these and implement them into your overall social media marketing plan.

If used correctly, then you should be able to gain traction. Over time your audience will grow and you will have more of an operating budget for marketing on Twitter. Good luck on your social media marketing plan using Twitter.

Remember, set realistic goals and work up from there.

The post 9 Best Twitter Tools You Can Use Right Now for Free appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

Being essentially image-only platforms, Instagram and Pinterest take the social media preoccupation with images as far as they can go. Whether you use social media for promotion or just for fun, you’ve probably wondered about social media image sizes.

Every site has a different layout and image requirements. An image that fits nicely in an Instagram square may not fit as well on Twitter. And many sites have different requirements for different parts of a page.

Banners, backgrounds, profiles, and post images are all sized differently.

As a result, there isn’t a single image size that can be efficiently used everywhere. If you have a wide-reaching social presence, different versions of images will make the best impression on each platform.

There are some online image sizing tools you can use to tailor social media sizes to different sites. Canva is an excellent online tool with a lot of options. I like a little more control over image resizing, so I generate various sizes using Photoshop or Gimp.

Whatever you use to size your social images, knowing the dimensions for the different areas of the sites is useful. It’s a lot of information, too much to memorize, so bookmark this page and refer to it when necessary.

Social Media Image Sizes for the Most Popular Sites

Here is a site-by-site breakdown.

All recommended sizes are pixel values (200 x 200 is 200 pixels width and 200 pixels height). I’ve also included aspect ratios where applicable. You might be familiar with aspect ratios from your television or computer monitor settings.

If you have the proper aspect ratio, you can upload images larger than the recommended sizes. They’ll be automatically resized, but the dimensions will be correct.

It’s worth remembering that images on the web and in applications are always subject to resizing. Either when they’re uploaded, or depending on the viewport, or screen size. So uploading an image at the recommended size doesn’t mean it will always (or ever) be displayed at that size.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• TikTok

Facebook Image Sizes

Facebook has the most different image sizes to be aware of. If you were hoping for a single post image size, I’m sorry to disappoint.

You can upload JPG or PNG files to Facebook.

• Profile Photo – Recommended: 180 x 180, minimum: 160 x 160, aspect ratio: 1:1
• Cover Photo – Recommended: 820 x 312, minimum: 400 x 150, aspect ratio: 2.7:1, maximum file size: 100KB
• Timeline Shared Image – Recommended: 1200 x 630, aspect ratio: 1.91:1
• Timeline Shared Link – Recommended: 1200 x 628, minimum: 200 x 200, aspect ratio: 1.91:1
• Newsfeed Shared Image – Recommended: 1200 x 630, aspect ratio: 1.91:1
• Newsfeed Shared Link – Recommended: 1200 x 628, minimum: 200 x 200, aspect ratio: 1.91:1
• Highlighted Image – Recommended: 1200 x 717, minimum: 843 x 504, aspect ratio: 1:1.67
• Event Image – Recommended: 1920 x 1080, minimum: 470 x 174, aspect ratio: 16:9

Profile Picture is the square photo representing you (or your brand). It appears on your timeline overlaying the cover photo. It also appears when you post or comment outside of your timeline.

Cover photo appears horizontally at the top of your timeline, behind your profile picture.

Shared images appear on your timeline. They may or may not show up in your friend’s news feeds.

A highlighted image appears on your timeline but is larger than a shared link or image.

Instagram Image Sizes

When it comes to social media image sizes, Instagram is one site that does almost everything for you.

The only file format Instagram will accept is JPG.

• Profile Picture – Recommended: 110 x 110, aspect ratio: 1:1
• Photo Thumbnails – Recommended: 161 x 161, aspect ratio: 1:1
• Photo Size – Recommended: 1080 x 1080 (normal, aspect ratio: 1.91:1), or 1080 x 1350 (portrait, aspect ratio: 4:5)
• Instagram Stories – Recommended: 1080 x 1920, aspect ratio: 9:16

Profile picture appears in a small circle in several places, most notably (not surprisingly), on your profile page.

Photo thumbnails are the images in the grid on your profile page. They’re smaller versions of your Instagram photos. I’m not sure why they recommend a size for them since they are created automatically. You can’t upload a thumbnail.

Photos are the main photos that you upload to the app.

Twitter Image Sizes

Twitter allows uploads if JPG, GIF, and PNG files.

• Profile Photo – Recommended: 400 x 400, minimum: 200 x 200, aspect ratio: 1:1, maximum file size: 2MB
• Header Photo – Recommended: 1500 x 500, aspect ratio: 3:1, maximum file size: 5MB
• In-Stream Photo – Recommended: 506 x 253, minimum: 440 x 220, Maximum: 1024 x 512, aspect ratio: 2:1 (though they recommend 16:9), Maximum file size photos: 5MB, Maximum file size GIFs: 3 MB

Profile photo appears in a circle on your Tweets and on your profile, where it is overlaid on your header photo.

Header photo is displayed horizontally at the top of your profile page.

In-stream photos appear in your Tweets, your follower’s streams, and in their follower’s streams if retweeted. Twitter does change how much of your image is visible in your follower’s streams. If there’s something you want to be visible without clicking or enlarging the image, put it in the horizontal center of the picture.

Pinterest Image Sizes

You can upload JPG and PNG files to Pinterest.

Pinterest image size recommendations are a bit different. They only recommend a width for Pin images. That’s because the vertical nature of the layout allows them to display any image height.

They also display widths somewhat smaller than the recommended sizes. So I’ve included “display width” numbers for some of the images.

The recommended aspect ratio is 2:3 to 1:3.5.

• Profile Picture – Recommended: 165 x 165, Display width: 165 x 165, maximum file size: 10MB
• Main page Pins – Recommended width: 236, Display width: 192
• Board Pins – Recommended width: 236, Display width: 238
• Expanded Pins – Recommended width: 600, Display width: 735
• Enlarged Pins – Display width: 500 (infinite height)
• Pin Board (large thumbnail) – Recommended: 222 x 150
• Pin Board (small thumbnail) – Recommended: 55 x 55

Profile picture appears on your home page and various other places on Pinterest.

Pins appear on your board.

Tumblr Image Sizes

Is Tumblr a social site? I always thought of it as a blogging site. But, it’s commonly used in the same way as a social media site, so it’s included here.

You can upload JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP files.

Wait, what, bitmaps? Hey, who am I to argue. Tumblr parties like it’s 1999.

• Profile Picture – Recommended: 128 x 128, maximum file size: 10MB
• Dash Image Posts – Recommended: 1280 x 1920, maximum file size: 10MB
• Feed Image Posts – Recommended: 500 x 750, maximum file size: 10MB
• Animated GIFs – Maximum width of 540, maximum file size: 3MB

Profile picture appears most often as a small thumbnail attached to your posts in your follower’s feeds. Where it appears on your actual profile depends on which theme you use.

YouTube Image Sizes

YouTube may have the most options for a single type of image; the channel cover art. Four different sizes are recommended, some of which don’t translate to typical aspect ratios. Well, Google likes to cover all the bases, I suppose.

• Channel profile image – Recommended: 800 x 800, aspect ratio: 1:1
• Default cover art – Recommended: 2560 x 1440, aspect ratio: 16:9
• Tablet cover art – Recommended: 1855 x 423
• Mobile cover art – Recommended: 1546 x 423
• TV cover art – Recommended: 2560 x 1440, aspect ratio: 16:9
• Desktop cover art – Recommended: 2560 x 423
• Video uploads are 16:9 aspect ratio, and have to be at least 1280 x 720 to be listed ad “HD.”

The channel profile image appears on your profile and when commenting.

Channel cover art appears horizontally across the top of your channel page.

LinkedIn Image Sizes

Did I say Facebook had the largest number of different image sizes? I spoke too soon. LinkedIn has even more.

Like Pinterest, LinkedIn also displays some images smaller than the recommended sizes. So I’ve included “display size” numbers where applicable.

You can upload PNG, JPG, and GIF files to LinkedIn.

• Personal Profile Picture – Recommended: 400 x 400, display size: 500 x 500, maximum file size: 8MB
• Personal Background Picture – Recommended: 1584 x 396, display size: 1400 x 425, maximum file size: 4MB
• Company Logo – Recommended: 300 x 300, display size: 110 x 110, maximum file size: 4MB
• Square Logo – Recommended: 60 x 60, maximum file size: 2MB
• Company Cover Image – Recommended: 1536 x 768, display size: 1400 x 425, maximum file size: 4MB
• Banner – Recommended: 646 x 220, maximum file size: 2MB
• Hero Photo – Recommended: 1536 x 768, display size: varies depending on screen size, maximum file size: 2MB
• Shared Link – Recommended: 1104 x 736, display size: 552 x 289
• Shared Image – Recommended: 1104 x 736, display size: varies depending on screen size
• Company Photos – Recommended: 900 x 600

A personal profile picture appears, like other sites, on your profile in a circle overlaying your personal background picture. It also appears on your posts and comments and in various other locations.

The company logo serves in a role similar to your personal profile picture, only on a business profile. The square logo is the same image, and it appears when your company page is listed elsewhere on LinkedIn.

TikTok

TikTok may be the newest social media site on this list, but its popularity is incredible. Since TikTok is largely video-based, I will not only mention the image sizes to strive for but video as well.

You can upload .mp4 or .mov files.

• TikTok Profile Photo- Mininum 20 x 20, Recommended 200 x 200
• TikTok Video Size- 1080 x1920, Ideal Ratio 1:1 or 9:16

Profile Photo represents your TikTok account. It appears in a rounded frame and shows throughout your profile. It will also be displayed when you leave a comment on another user’s content.

Common Image Sizes

I intended to include a section here with common recommended social media image sizes or aspect ratios. But as you may have noticed, as you made your way through the requirements, there’s a lack of similarities.

There wasn’t a single case where a recommended image size was common between the two sites.

That’s not surprising, I suppose, given that there are no image standards on the web or in applications. Like most websites and apps, they were probably designed first, and where the images fit.

And that’s the problem with the many articles out there that claim there’s a single image size that’s “universal.” Or that adapts equally well to multiple sites. There’s just no such thing. I wish there were. It would make our lives a lot simpler.

In fairness, you could create a reusable image for a lot of banners or background images. But it would be a small image or logo floating on a big background. And you’d have to be okay with that background being cut wherever.

So while it may be technically possible, it isn’t what most of us want or practical in most cases.

Do You Really Need to Be Concerned With All of the Different Social Media Image Sizes?

That depends.

How important is your social imagery?

If you’re just posting for friends or acquaintances, you probably don’t want to spend much time fiddling with images.

But if you’re using social media as a marketing or promotional tool, properly sized images are essential. Your images represent your brand, so you want to get the most out of each platform.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to resize images manually, you can still create the proper image sizes. Just use an online tool. I mentioned Canva earlier, and you might also want to try Landscape from Sprout Social.

I hope this guide helps you put your best foot forward on your favorite social media sites.

The dimensions listed in this article are recommended by the sites and are the best options for most displays. Keep in mind though that some images and layouts are sized differently depending on device and screen size. Using these sizes will give you the best coverage across most devices.

The post What are the Best Social Media Image Sizes in 2022? appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

Let’s take a look at some more uncommon ways to increase website traffic.

In order to get web traffic to your eCommerce website, several things need to be in place. You need to make sure your site is built properly and employs a solid site structure and layout.

It should also be responsive, mobile-friendly, and optimized for search engines. That being said, we all know the common ways at your disposal for driving traffic to a website.

Yes, you can post on social media and run advertisements everywhere. However, what if you wanted to employ some of the more uncommon ways to increase website traffic?

Believe it or not, some of these techniques will actually give you a pretty nice boost in if they are implemented correctly.

What is Website Traffic?

Simply put, website traffic is the number of people that are visiting your website over a specific amount of time. This can be measured daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Perhaps the best baseline of measurement is to track monthly visitors. Google Analytics is a great way to track this data.

The idea behind driving traffic to a website is that the more traffic a website gets, the more likely it is to increase conversions. Whether those conversions are sales, link clicks, ad clicks, or affiliate marketing, the concept is the same.

Website owners try all sorts of things to increase website traffic. Some of these techniques fall flat because they are not implemented correctly or because they were the wrong process to use.

Another big problem that website owners face is gaining traffic but not conversions. A good example of this is an eCommerce website that posts on social media and gains visitors, but does not increase sales.

You see, an increase in website traffic doesn’t matter if you are not able to increase website conversions and make money.

What is eCommerce?

The term eCommerce means that you are selling a product online. Over the years, online stores have become wildly popular because it makes it easy for people to shop for products from anywhere.

There are several ways to set up an online store. The process you take will be based on the type of CMS platform you are using. One of the most popular options is WooCommerce.

This is a hugely popular online store platform that plugs directly into your WordPress website and gives you the ability to sell physical and digital products online.

One of the biggest issues online storeowners run into is trying to both increase website traffic and increase conversions. As stated above, you can try some of the more common techniques available to drive traffic to a website.

However, there are also some more uncommon methods you can use to help drive traffic to your eCommerce website and help with conversions. Even better, is most of the methods below will help you do this for free.

Let’s take a look at 11 uncommon ways to increase website traffic to your eCommerce website.

1. Build a Resource Page

A resource page is always a good thing to have on a website. However, this is also a great way to increase website traffic. You can do this in a few different ways. Add resources to the page, add thank you blurbs to companies you admire and have done work with, or add your favorite products and services.

A resource page just isn’t a good move for SEO purposes, though. It also keeps your current website users and customers engaged because it is considered new content going up. This leads to repeat visitors and an increase in conversion rates.

2. Overhaul and Restructure Your Old Blog Posts

If you have a business website, eCommerce site, or both, it is always a good idea to have a blog section. Starting a blog on your website gives you an outlet to post fresh new ideas. These can be product or service related, news and updates, stories, and other articles you may want to publish.

Over time, your blog posts can become stale, outdated, and may need some content and statistical updates. Things like new screenshots, new images in general, and specific content revamps can really help increase traffic.

If you add other SEO specifics like keyword optimization and meta descriptions, your old blog posts have a chance to skyrocket.

3. Guest Blog on Other Websites

Another uncommon and often overlooked way to increase website traffic is to guest blog. Guest blogging on other websites has a bunch of benefits for you.

Not only does it get your name out to people who would have otherwise not seen it, but it also gives you the chance to get important links going back to your site from other solid industry websites.

It is a good idea to guest blog on sites that are at least somewhat like your own. You want to hit an audience that will have an interest in what you are selling on your site.

Never be afraid to approach other website owners either. The worst answer you will get is a simple “no.” At which point you have lost nothing. More often than not though you will get a resounding “yes” because it is basically free content for other sites.

Remember, this will give you a backlink to your website, which is excellent in regards to SEO purposes.

4. Optimize Your Site for LSI Keywords

In order to do this, you need to know what an LSI keyword is. Once you do, you can put this practice into place. You see, LSI keywords are words and phrases related to your target keyword.

And don’t get me wrong, it isn’t exactly easy to rank high for any keywords without putting in the work. However, using an LSI keyword strategy is a fantastic way to help your article rank higher and increase website traffic.

If you are still a little confused regarding this technique, then take a look at this example.

Say you are writing a post or building a page about social media. Obviously “social media” or something close to that will be your main keyword. The LSI keywords would be words like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

5. Start Doing Content Transformation

Content transformation is simple. Basically you take your current content and transform it into another type of format. There are several different formats to choose from. Take that content and transform it into an eBook, video, infographic, or podcast.

When you transform the content and repurpose, it gives your audience more ways to interact with it and gives them several different ways to view and use the material.

These days, video content is extremely popular. Oftentimes, transforming or converting your text to a video piece will help increase website traffic right away.

6. Properly Submit Website to Search Engines

A common mistake website owners make is not getting their site properly indexed and submitted on the big search engines. Yes, once your website is up you can perform all types of search engine and website optimizations.

However, getting your website properly submitted to the big search engines if often overlooked. You want to make sure you have a proper XML Sitemap on your website.

Using tools like Google Search Console and submitting to Yahoo and Bing the right way will increase your website traffic because it helps the search engines properly index and list your site.

This is the next step to take after the common website SEO moves have been made.

7. Require Users to Share for Bonus Content

You should always have social sharing buttons on your website. This is a fantastic way to increase website traffic because it allows site users to share your content across social networks.

In order to take this a step further, you can also require users to share content in order for them to get more bonus content. The bonus content needs to be something that your users will want.

Something like an informative eBook, or maybe a file they might want. Maybe a specific file or audio download or other relevant info that will make them share.

This means your content is being shared by your users, and others are seeing it and getting interested as well.

8. Start a Podcast

Three simple words, Podcasts are exploding! As a matter of fact, 36% of Americans listen to a podcast every month. This number continues to rise as well, as both creating a podcast and submitting it for listeners gets easier and easier.

Not a lot of people who do podcasts create them specifically to increase website traffic. However, in this case, it is a great idea because whenever you gain a listener you will also garner interest in your website and other content.

Going on podcasts that others have created is also a good option. You can be the guest and plug your own website and gain traffic that way as well.

9. Ad Swap With Another Website

One of the more uncommon ways you can increase website traffic is to do an ad swap with another website. Ad swapping is exactly what you think it is…a relevant website runs an ad for you that links back to where you want, and you do the exact same thing for said website.

No money switches hand, but it is a great way to market your site on other websites and help increase traffic back to you. You can actually do this with as many other relevant sites as you want.

The more ad swapping you do, the greater potential you have to increase website traffic.

The best thing about ad swapping is it won’t cost you anything. So you can get some good online marketing in place for no cost to you.

10. Promote Your Site Using the Blogger Outreach Method

Okay, before we dig into blogger outreach for a second, it is important to remember that yes, oftentimes this can come off as spam (initially) and may not be your first option to increase website traffic.

However, if handled correctly, this can be a very powerful and personal way to get more traffic flowing to your website.

Basically, blogger outreach is a way of putting your content, product, service, website, etc, in front of relevant bloggers and journalists by sending them personalized emails.

The main goal here is, of course, to get these people talking about what you have sent them. This, if done correctly, will lead to increased website traffic.

The main problem here is that sometimes these emails can come off as spammy for some. But, if you take the time to personalize them (even if you are using an email template), then these emails can be very powerful.

Create a solid one and hit the right people, and your website or product will get more eyes on it in no time at all.

11. Run a Contest or a Giveaway

Running a contest or a giveaway is a good way to not only drum up some interests because users have a chance at something for free, but it is a great way to interact with site users and gain increased traffic.

You will notice that most of your favorite brands and other websites have certain contests and giveaways.

There is a simple reason for this. They work. They build brand recognition and build website traffic over time. There are several great ways to run a contest or giveaway from your website.

Whichever way you choose to go with it, simply interacting and offering something of value to your website users increases their interest in most everything else you do as well.

Final Thoughts

There are multiple ways to increase website traffic, both quickly and over time. Many of the more popular ways to increase website traffic are used by everyone, and oftentimes, you have to pay for them to be relevant.

By trying out some new, more uncommon ideas, you give your eCommerce website a chance to increase traffic and gain popularity over time. Furthermore, these ideas will not only increase website traffic, but will also increase website conversion rates.

Go over and try some of the ideas above. See what works for you and what may not. I hope the ideas are helpful and that over time, you see a significant increase in website traffic and conversions.

The post 11 Real Uncommon Ways to Increase Website Traffic to eCommerce appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

However, if you want to make Instagram work for your small business, you are going to need to take some steps to ensure you get the best results.

Find A Target Audience

The majority of the tips I will share with you really depend on promoting your content to your target audience. That means you need to actually know who your target audience is.

The simplest way to determine your target audience is to examine who is using your website. You can find all kinds of information by using various tools like Google Analytics. Some of the information you can collect is the age, location, gender, and much more.

Use this information to get a rough idea of who enjoys your content. It is possible you may discover that your theoretical target audience is very different from your actual one. In this case, you may even want to change the way you market.

If you do not have your audience in mind, there is no way to properly market to them.

Create Good Instagram Posts

I’m pretty sure everyone knows that if you want to be successful on a platform, the content your produce needs to actually be good. However, many beginners on the platform do not realize this.

And this is especially true when your Instagram account represents your business.

If the quality of your images and frequency of your posts is erratic, what does that say about your actual business? Nothing good, that I can assure you.

For this reason, I strongly suggest making sure the images you post are of excellent quality. This may require you to purchase a better smartphone or an actual camera to take better pictures.

But, it’s not just the quality of the picture that matters, it’s what you are taking a picture of. One of the most popular types of content is taking a photo of your pets.

Be honest, who doesn’t like seeing dogs and cats in funny or cute poses? Successful images in this category are achieved in two ways.

1. The creator spends hours finding the perfect pose for their pet.
2. The creator got lucky.

Seriously, you either put in a lot of work or get very lucky. And since you can’t control luck, you should always strive to make sure the images are top-notch. This can take a lot of time, especially when you are new to the platform.

Best Photo Practices

As I was a saying, a lot of work goes into taking photos, and there is a lot of useful information available.

For example, did you know images with faces are 38% more likely to receive a like?

Social media is all about connecting with others. Thus, it should not be a surprise that they want to see your face. However, you should also try to add action to your images.

Still images have a place, but images that capture someone in the middle of action often perform better.

And while there are many more tips on the kind of images you should create, it is worth mentioning the types of images you shouldn’t make.

On average, food images do not perform well. This is generally because people are just bad at taking images of food unless it is their niche.

It can also be found disgusting or even offensive if you post certain foods. For example, showing a picture of an extra rare steak to a vegan audience is not going to go over well.

Make Instagram Posts At the Best Times

When to post on Instagram is just as important as the content itself. Actually, it might be more important. Timing is everything, and this is the main reason you need to know your target audience.

For example, let’s say your target audience is in highschool. Posting during school hours Monday through Friday isn’t going to do you any good. No, instead, you need to post when this audience is most likely going to check Instagram – either first thing in the morning, or after school let’s out.

Each small business has a different customer base and as such, optimal posting time may vary. Luckily, most of the work has already been done for you as there are great collections of optimal post time available online.

According to HubSpot, the best hours to post on Instagram during the week are as follows:

1. Sunday: 10 AM – 2 PM
2. Monday: 9 AM – 5 PM
3. Tuesday: 8 AM – 6 PM, *7 PM
4. Wednesday: 5 AM, *11 AM – 3 PM
5. Thursday: 5 AM, *11 – 4 PM
6. Friday: *5 AM, 9 AM – 10 AM, *11 AM – 1 PM, 2 – 4 PM
7. Saturday: 9 – 11 AM

However, just keep in mind this is based on averages across the board, which means it may not work for your specific core audience.

Note: Consider what time zone you are in when posting as well.

The Right Hashtag Can Make A Big Difference

It’s a fact, posts with hashtags get more exposure than those without.

Hashtags on Instagram work as a type of sorting feature. If you want an image of a beach, most of this content will include #beach. These play an important role on the platform, and you should use at least one hashtag per post.

It is important to realize all hashtags were not created equal. Some of them are just more popular than others, and you should research what the most popular hashtags are on the platform.

Just remember, these constantly change.

But on the same point, your post can reach a more niche audience with less popular hashtags. That may get you more engagement than the more popular hashtags. Thus, it really is dependent on your brand and posts.

Hashtags also play a big part in the platform’s algorithm. Simply put, posts without hashtags will not appear where they belong in search results.

Understand Instagram’s Algorithm

If you own a website, you should be very accustomed to catering to Google’s algorithm. But Instagram has its very own.

It pushes the most recent content to the front of search results, which is a very big reason why the timing of your posts matters. Your posts will get the most traffic quickly after they go live.

Thus if you post at the right time, when your audience is most likely to check Instagram, you will get better results.

However, this goes even further because it can boost the engagement rating of your post. Engagement is a measure of the likes compared to your followers.

So for example, let’s say you have 10,000 followers, but your post only gets 10 likes versus 100 followers that gets 30 likes. The smaller 100 follower account has much better engagement than the larger one.

Recency and engagement are the two biggest factors in the Instagram algorithm, and they go hand in hand.

If you want to do well on the platform, you need to understand the basics of its algorithm.

Note: The Instagram algorithm is constantly changing. It is important to always look up the latest information when searching for tips on this matter.

Scheduling Your Posts in Advanced is Vital

If you want to be successful at Instagram marketing, you need to follow a schedule. Posting on a regular basis at the same time helps you out in multiple ways.

First, the algorithm really likes it. Consistency is another factor on a very long list, and scheduled posts make this an easy one to master. Just keep in mind that if you change your schedule or post frequency, Instagram will not like it.

Next, your fans will know when your posts go live. This ensures they will be more likely to check even before the algorithm recommends them. This significantly boosts the engagement of your posts.

This also is great for the poster. Let’s be honest, big Instagram accounts are not logged in 24/7 waiting to post. They will usually spend some time the night or week before setting up images.

This frees up a lot of time and ensures that if life happens, your account will still be posting content.

However, there is a downside to scheduling weeks in advance. Sometimes real-life events can make something you decided on posting a month ago be a PR disaster. You need to make sure you double-check what will be posted every day to ensure it hasn’t lost its charm.

Scheduling your posts is great, and if you are serious about Instagram marketing, you should be doing it responsibly.

Follow the Trends

Instagram is a pretty trendy place, and what’s in the spotlight can change overnight. This actually highlights the biggest flaw of setting up Instagram posts weeks in advance.

You simply have no idea what will be trending next week or even tomorrow, for that matter.

Instagram trends present a great opportunity to rapidly grow your followers if you can react fast enough. However, since trends are sometimes completely random, the only way to figure them out is to be on the platform 24/7.

But the growth potential is often worth the trouble.

You should try to follow trends that fall into your business spectrum. For example, let’s say there is a trend about cooking a burger.

If you were a restaurant owner, it makes complete sense to jump on that trend. But if you are creative enough, you can make it work for other businesses. For example, what if you owned an arcade and your image was you flipping a burger with one hand while using your other to play a game?

That helps you stay with the trend, but also promotes what your business is all about. If you follow a trend, apply it to your business.

Instagram Stories

And on the topic of trends, Instagram Stories is going to be your best friend. Stories have 500 million daily users and the engagement is off the charts.

If you’re new to the platform, you may be unaware of what Stories actually are. To put it simply, you take a few photos or create a video and use it to create a story using filters, text, and drawings.

However, what makes this content special is that it is only available for 24 hours after posting.

After 24 hours, the Story vanishes. This is the most important part of Stories because it forces creators to make something new and also ensures that visitors are not just looking at the same Stories every day.

Thus, it keeps the content fresh and makes visitors fear that they may be missing something if they do not check. Which is textbook FOMO marketing.

Use Other Social Media Platforms

Social media isn’t just about connecting people with each other. It’s also about connecting your various accounts together.

Instagram is a great platform to advertise on, but it is not the only one out there. And more than likely, you have another account on Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms that have different followers.

Getting visitors from those platforms to follow you on Instagram is essential.

A great way to achieve this is to reuse some of your best Instagram posts on other platforms as a reminder for them to follow you. It’s a great strategy and can help you consolidate your followers across multiple platforms.

Not to mention that you can connect your Twitter account to Instagram. So any time you post something new on Instagram, it can instantly be shared on Twitter.

It Is Not An Overnight Process

Unfortunately, many businesses have this misconception that social media accounts grow really fast. And while there are examples of extreme growth, I assure you that these only happen in extremely rare cases.

Every Instagram success strategy always includes a plan. Create small achievable goals that help you establish an audience and schedule. If you set unrealistic goals, like getting 1000 followers by the end of the month, your experience will not be great.

In reality, expect to grow very slowly at the beginning. It could realistically take months or a year to build a small audience. But once you grow your profile, the marketing potential is worth all of the work.

The post How to Make Instagram Work for Your Small Business appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

See, a heatmap tool works best if you have large volumes of data that you need to break down so it can be understood more easily. There are all types of analytics out there. So much so that analytics itself has become very complex, even for a professional.

It seems like every analytic tool has hundreds of reports that break down several different ways. Now don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. It gives marketers and small business owners a way to figure out an online marketing plan.

That being said, most of the data is so complex that many of us don’t understand it. This is where a heatmap online tool can come into play.

Let’s take a look at heatmapping, what it is, and talk some about the tools you can use to get a heatmap for your website.

What is a Heatmap?

Simply put, a heatmap is a type of data analysis tool that uses color (what looks like heat) the way a bar graph would use height and width. Basically, it uses the heat color as a visualization tool.

If you are looking at website heatmaps, then you are looking to see what part of the page gets the most attention. Heatmapping will show you visually what parts of the page are more engaging.

You can use this data to make decisions for your website on structure and how you want the page to be viewed by your audience.

With that being said, let’s go a little deeper into the explanation.

Heatmapping will show you data on where users have not only spent the most time on a page, but where they have clicked on the most. You can even see scrolling heatmapping taking place. This is basically data showing you how far down someone scrolled on a particular page.

Using a warm to cool color scale, the heatmap provides you with all the data you need in order to successfully build out a web page the way you see fit. This is based on analytics while using heatmapping.

How Do Heatmaps Work?

Now that you have a better understanding of what a heatmap is, let’s take a look at how it works. Heatmapping actually works by taking the data that has been collected from the web page and displaying that data over the page itself.

Heatmaps are actually used in day-to-day life on all sorts of things. A common heatmap you may see daily is the one that is displayed when you are watching the weather report on your local news station.

This is the exact same thing that is happening when heatmapping is used on a web page.

Heatmaps work by showing you the value of content a web page provides based on how users interact with it. As stated above, this data is valuable not from a site traffic standpoint, but from a standpoint of allowing you to see how you can better build a web page based on interactions.

When you perform heatmapping on a website page, you will be presented with very complex data that can be broken down and used in a much easier way.

When parts of the site show up in a darker red color, it means more people have interacted with that section. Blue, or sometimes white, indicates an area that people are not really engaged in within the content.

Types of HeatMaps

There are actually a few different types of heatmaps that are used for a web page. Here are three of the most popular ones and how they work.

Click Heatmaps: This type of heatmapping will give you data on where your site users click the most on the relevant web page. The darker the color, the more heavily the area was clicked.

Scroll Heatmaps: This type of heatmap is basic and easy to understand. It shows you how far down users scroll on your web page. The color scale goes from dark to light as the page scroll gets less and less likely. So if the color continues fairly dark down the page, you will be able to see that users are scrolling further.

Confetti Heatmaps: Lastly, the Confetti heatmap will show you all the data on clicks made by different segments of site visitors. It basically tells you what referral source clicks are coming from. You can then see what referral source works best and tailor your page more to it. The heatmapping data is presented using different color confetti dots. For example, different countries may be different color dots.

When Should Heatmapping be Used?

The short answer? Always. However, let’s go a little further with the answer and look into it some. If you are looking for analytics that are complex, but you can easily understand and break down, then heatmapping should be done on your website all the time.

The information is simply too valuable to pass up.

That being said, if you are looking at very specific instances where you should employ heatmapping, here are some to consider.

Website Redesign

Redesigning a website can be very time consuming and expensive. It is very necessary to do periodically because time, design, and standards change. When you are doing a redesign of your business website, the last thing you want is to have it come out too close as the original.

For this reason alone, it is a good idea for you or your web developer to use a heatmapping tool to understand how current behavior on your site looks. That information can then be taken and used to build new page layouts that are more appealing and more interactive for your audience.

A good example of this is when a web developer uses heatmapping to find out how web page behavior is impacted by things like color, contrast, placement, and elements.

Not running heatmaps and spending all that time and money to come out with a new design that doesn’t convert is not ideal. At that point, you have simply wasted a lot of time and money. Sure, your site looks updated and different, but is it going to convert better?

A/B Testing

At one point or another, all websites should be doing A/B Testing for various elements. This type of testing delivers results that can tell you the difference in conversion bumps. And oftentimes, it can make or break something that a business is trying to do.

Using heatmaps during the A/B Testing process can give you instant and usable insights on what your visitors are doing differently based on the different versions of your landing pages, blog posts, and homepage.

A heatmap will also show you different types of conversion rates when testing CTA (call to action) buttons and forms. Furthermore, as stated above, heatmapping shows how far a user scrolls down a page.

This can be particularly important for landing pages. Build too long of a landing page and conversions will drop. You can use the results the heatmapping provides to decide how long a solid landing page should be.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing. You hear this term thrown around quite a bit in the world of online media. It is very important to create excellent online content. Then, when you feel you have some solid content up and running, you need to mark it.

There are several ways to do this. One of the easiest ways to see and understand what type of content works best for your business is to use heatmapping. You can write and develop certain types of content (posts, graphics, pictures, videos) and then display it how you feel is best.

You can then take all the data that the heatmaps provide and use it to effectively market your content in a way where it will get the most conversions and interactions.

These are three of the most popular things you should use heatmapping for. That being said, you may also want to consider using it for UX and Usability Testing and Conversion Funnels.

Things to Learn From a Heatmap

As I stated above, there are several different types of heatmaps and a lot of different things you can learn from them. Here are some of the most important things you can learn:

• What headlines are the most clickable
• Images that attract the most attention
• What items distract site visitors
• Best conversions rates for different CTA buttons
• Do email newsletter opt-ins or buttons work better
• Is a particular type of navigation working
• Are visitors reading content or scrolling through
• Where to best place different types of content
• Where most users interact on a page
• Audience differentiation (men, women, old, young)
• What locations and referral areas are getting the most action

Basically, if you can learn to use heatmapping tools to perfection, then you will have all the data you need and more to make your website convert at the highest rates possible.

Heatmap Tools

At this point you should have a pretty good understanding of heatmaps, what they are, how they work, and how you can benefit from them. So, if you are wondering what heatmapping tools to use, I have put together some for you to take a look at.

Feng-GUI

Feng-GUI actually works much differently than most other heatmapping tools.

See, most tools take weeks to collect visitor behavioral data and get that data back to you so that you can use it for better conversion rates. However, Feng-GUI uses an algorithmic model that has tens of thousands of live eyes tracking results.

The kicker? They deliver these results instantly. This saves you valuable time. They are fairly priced, so give them a look.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is a heatmap tracking plugin that you can use to see where visitors to your WordPress website are clicking the most. The plugin is lightweight and very easy to install and activate. You will need to sign up for a Crazy Egg account, but this is free as well. A pro version of the plugin is also available.

Note: This plugin will work on WordPress websites only.

EyeQuant

The EyeQuant heatmap tool is another excellent heatmapping tool that uses leading neuroscience research and combines it with AI to accurately predict how people will react to your site. It uses the data it collects from large-scale, real eye-tracking studies conducted with thousands of different subjects.

If you want to quickly and effectively analyze current web designs and understand flaws, the EyeQuant is a heatmapping tool you have to checkout.

RealEye

RealEye is a simple heatmapping tool, yet it is very, very effective. The tool uses three simple steps to test your design concepts. The solution allows you to plug in your design, invite users to view it then and there, and get instant feedback on what users see and how they interact.

It is a fantastic tool to use so give it a look.

Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is another WordPress specific heatmap plugin that functions as a complete conversion rate optimization and customer feedback tool. It provides you with the fast one-click install and allows you to grab heatmapping data on how visitors click, move, and scroll on your website.

Note: This plugin will work on WordPress websites only.

Final Thoughts

Using heatmaps to figure out how to grow your business and conversions is one of the smartest things you can do. Not only will heatmapping provide you with a ton of complex data that you can use, but it will allow you to break this data down into a much easier to understand format.

If you haven’t been using heatmapping, now is a good time to start. You should have a pretty good grasp of what it is. Check out the tools above and see if any of them work well for you.

The post How Heatmapping Helps You Make More Money appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.

Search Console tells you which site pages are popular and whether visits come from mobile devices or desktop computers.

It provides a wealth of information, all of it is valuable to your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts. I’ll tell you about five of the most interesting and useful bits of data you can glean from it.

It’s free to set up and use, so there’s no excuse not to take advantage of the insight it provides.

If you’ve never used Google Search Console (or Webmaster Tools), you’ll have to add and verify your site. You’ll insert a bit of code into your website that allows Google to gather visitor data. You can manually add the code to a global site header or use (the more complicated) Tag Manager.

Once you’re set up with Google Search Console, you may want to wait a day or two for Google to gather data. Then you can take a look at the key items in this article. If you have an old Webmaster Tools account, you already have Search Console, and you can get started right away.

It’s Google, so You Know There’s Going to Be a Lot to Take In

Before you log in to Search Console, remember that it comes from Google. That means very little of what you can do will be evident at first glance.

We’ll go through the five important parts step-by-step to get you started. But the more time you take to get to know it, the more it will reward you with valuable knowledge.

How to Link Google Search Console to Google Analytics

At first glance, it may seem like Google Analytics and Search Console provide mainly the same information. But Analytics data is visitor-focused. How visitors are finding the site, how many are coming, time spent on site, those kinds of things.

Search Console focuses on internal website data. Which keyword searches bring up your site, which sites link to you, are there technical problems on your site, etc.

There are also differences in the way Analytics and Search Console parse data for what is essentially the same report. The “Audience Overview” numbers in Analytics may differ slightly from “Performance” in Search Console even though you might expect those reports to be the same.

Linking Search Console and Analytics merges some of the data and also gives you access to some new reports. You connect the accounts from Google Analytics. You have to have admin permissions for both Analytics and Search Console to make the connection, though.

While logged into your Analytics account:

• Click “Admin,” then click the property that you want to share Search Console data with.
• In the Property column, click “Property Settings.”
• Scroll down to Search Console Settings. If you see the URL of your website, the site is verified in Search Console and you can make changes. If you don’t see the URL, it means the site hasn’t been added to Search Console. Go back and add and verify your site.
• Under “Search Console,” choose which reporting views you want to include Search Console data.
• Click “Save.”

Okay, let’s get to those interesting parts of Search Console that can help our sites rise in search results.

Number One: Sitemaps

There are two ways to let Google know your site exists and should be indexed and included in search results. The first way is to submit a sitemap to Google. The second way? Wait patiently and hope that Google someday discovers your site through a link from another.

Guess which method you should use?

Submitting your sitemap to Google is one of the first things you should do whenever you launch a new site. But you can submit a sitemap any time through Search Console.

In the left navigation, click the “Sitemaps” link.

Enter the filename of your sitemap in the space after your domain name.

Click the “SUBMIT” button.

You should see a success message.

Then your sitemap URL will be listed in the “Submitted sitemaps” section.

Google will not immediately crawl your site after you submit a sitemap. Wait a day or two, and the crawl should be complete. Larger sites may take a bit longer.

It isn’t necessary to add your sitemap each time you update it. You do, however, want to come back and add any new sitemaps you create.

For example, if you add a WordPress blog to your site, WordPress may generate a separate sitemap. The same goes for other stand-alone software you might add to a website, such as a forum.

Number Two: Site Errors

If you wait for visitors to tell you about website errors, you may wait forever. People don’t generally take the time to help you out in that way. You can analyze server logs to see where errors are occurring, but that’s not always possible. And even when it is, parsing those logs is far from easy or convenient.

Google Search Console, on the other hand, makes it easy to find errors on your site.

Select the property to check from the drop-down in the upper left corner of Search Console.

In the left navigation, click the “Coverage” link.

The “Error” box should be selected by default. If it isn’t, select it.

Only one of the boxes should be checked at a time. The only time you want to check more than one box is when you are comparing multiple values.

Scroll down to the “Details” section and click one of the error rows.

Scroll down to the “Examples” section. There, you’ll find a list of URLs that returned errors when Google crawled them.

Click the arrow-in-a-box icon to open the page returning an error in a new tab.

If the error is really an error on your site, you can address it. But sometimes the errors are not site errors, but instead, a problem with the Google bot crawling your site.

If you open the URL and there is not a site error, here’s how to resolve the issue.

Click the magnifying glass icon to inspect the URL.

On the URL Inspection page, click the “TEST LIVE URL” button. The Google bot will try to fetch the page.

Since you just checked the page and know it’s there, the bot should be able to fetch it. When it does, you will get a “URL is available to Google” page.

Click the “REQUEST INDEXING” link.

Google will now index the page, and soon it will not be listed as an error.

Another Thing to Check in the Coverage Section

You can use the same process we used to fix errors to fix “Excluded” pages. Those are pages that Google crawled but did not index for one reason or another.

While we’re still in the “Coverage” section of the left navigation, check the “Excluded” box, then uncheck the “Error” box.

Scroll down to the “Details” section to see a list of pages that are not indexed by Google.

You can fix the following categories the same way we fixed the errors above.

• Crawl anomaly
• Crawled – currently not indexed
• Discovered – currently not indexed

You may see other types of exclusions as well. Fixing those generally requires website changes.

Number Three: Mobile Usability

Mobile usability is important because mobile devices account for about half of all web traffic. But it’s also important because Google uses it as a ranking factor.

Things are changing quickly, but it’s clear that mobile traffic is here to stay. So your site should perform well on a mobile device. Luckily, the Google Search Console can show you where you can improve your site’s mobile performance.

In the left navigation, click the “Mobile Usability” link.

The “Error” box should be selected by default. If it isn’t, select it.

Scroll down to the “Examples” section to view the error rows. The errors shown here in our example are the typical mobile usability errors you’ll see. “Text too small to read,” “Clickable elements too close together,” “Viewport not set,” and “Content wider than screen.”

You can’t fix any of these errors from Search Console; they have to be fixed on the site. But, Search Console will show you where they’re happening.

Click one of the error lines to get a list of URLs.

You can probably guess what the problem is on the pages, based on the name of the error. But, you can get details and even tips on how to fix the issues.

Click a URL in the examples list, and a popup window will open. Click the “TEST LIVE PAGE” link.

That will take you to the Mobile-Friendly Test page. All the error information is there, and if you scroll down a bit, you’ll find the “Additional resources” section. The links there will lead you to fixes and recommendations.

You can return to this section of Search Console later to check your fixes.

Fixing mobile issues can seem like a lot of trouble. Because it usually is. But, the benefit of doing it is that it can cause Google’s army of robots to take a more favorable view of your site.

And that’s a good thing (even if it sounds kind of creepy).

Number Four:

As much as I’d love to delve into the “Unparsable structured data” section here for number four, I fear that most of you probably don’t share my enthusiasm for structured data, so instead, we’ll look at “Links.”

In the left navigation, scroll down toward the bottom and click the “Links” link.

The Links section is just a list of the top linked pages externally and internally and the top linking text. But there are some things you can take from the lists.

Let’s look at the “Top linked pages” in the “Internal links” section and the “Top linking text” because those are links we control.

If you don’t have a lot of “Top linked pages” in the “Internal links” section, you should remedy that. Google values internal links. Meaning links that point back to other pages on your website.

Internal links may seem like an odd signal to use since you can create as many as you’d like. But Google doesn’t use internal links as a quality or relevance signal the same way they use external links.

Instead, it uses them to try to figure out the hierarchy and structure of your website. And that’s good for you because the more Google knows about the structure of your site, the more likely it will expand your search results.

So look for opportunities to create links to other pages on your site. One easy way to do this if you have a WordPress blog is to use a “similar articles” plugin.

The “Top linking text” section is another area that can help you with Google. You know which keywords you want your site to rank for, right? Do what you can to work those keywords into the text of your internal links.

Those keywords will spill over into the wide-angle Google view of your site, and they’ll factor in search results.

Number Five: Speed (experimental)

I believe this will become an integral part of Search Console, so I include it here even though it’s “experimental.”

In the left navigation, click the “Speed (experimental)” link.

The graphs here show you how your website speed stacks up for both mobile and desktop. It plots “Slow,” “Moderate,” and “Fast” page load speeds.

If slow results are listed, you can drill down the same way we did in previous sections. That will get you to get to the page URLs and more detailed information.

Making the Most of Google Search Console and Google Analytics

It should come as no surprise that we’ve only scratched the surface of the tools in this article. But I hope that going over the Search Console sections that we’ve covered makes you curious to learn more.

Google has built a lot of simple, easy to use tools. Search Console and Analytics are not among them. They are two of the more complex, complicated offerings. But if you care about how Google sees your site (and you should), learning these tools is time well spent.

When we talk about SEO, we’re talking about Google. So whether you love the company or hate it, it’s in your interest to understand it. Or at least to understand the tools it offers when those tools can benefit you.

The data in Google Search Console can help you. If you use it properly, you can make your site more visible in search results.

Search results aren’t everything, of course. We can’t optimize an empty site to rank highly in search results. There has to be something of value or interest on the site. If there isn’t, all the SEO in the world won’t help the site show up in search.

But for most of us, we can make use of as much Google knowledge and leverage we can get.

Everything else aside, we all want people to visit our websites. That’s why we built them. So let’s do all we can to make them stand out and be noticed.

The post 5 Important Parts of Google Search Console You Should Pay Attention To appeared first on GreenGeeks Blog.