The Beginner's Guide to Structured Data for Organizing & Optimizing Your Website

It’s Friday afternoon, and your team is jonesing for Happy Hour.

For the last few weeks, you’ve been going to the same ol’ bar by your office, so you decide it’s time to try something new. What do you do? Step outside and walk around until you find a new spot? No, you hop on Google and let it conduct the search for you.

Your ideal post-work pub is nearby, open right after work, and offers a few gluten-free options so your entire team can partake. You plug these criteria into Google, and you’ve got three viable options at your fingertips — in a handy map format to boot.

Pause. Have you ever wondered how Google can whip up such accurate, precise answers in so little time … and present them in such an easy-to-read way? Moreover, what are those restaurants doing to get featured so dominantly on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs)?

Heck, I’d love my business to pop up when consumers search for criteria relevant to me … wouldn’t you?

No one knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works — but, there are a few ways to organize and optimize your website content so Google knows what content to feature on the SERPs for the various searches people conduct to find you.

This is where structured data comes in. Structured data can make your organization more visible to potential customers and increase your click-through rate by up to 30%.

Not sure what structured data is? That’s OK. By the end of this guide, you’ll be a structured data wizard — and your website will reap the benefits.

We know that what searchers see online is much different than what search engines see.

While searchers see this...

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… search engines see this:

View the source code for any website by going to View > Developer > View Source.

This behind-the-scenes code tells browsers how information should be organized on the website (as part of its website development) and tells web crawlers what’s on the page.

Structured data is also at play here. Embedded tags of code (a.k.a. “markup”) throughout the HTML of a webpage tell Google and other search engines what information to display in the SERPs and what this information represents. It also helps social media platforms synthesize your social media posts into snippets that preview the content using Open Graph Protocol (which we touch on later).

This markup is important. It educates search engines on what specific content is on the page. This creates more relevant, informed searches and makes the site a candidate for enhanced results like featured snippets, rich snippets, image and video carousels, knowledge boxes, and more (which we'll touch on later).

Google’s SERPs weren’t always as easy on the eye as they are today. Don’t remember? Check out this Google result for “pool tables” from 2008.

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Let’s compare. Here’s the same result from today.

Wow. That’s a world of difference. Not only are these results easier to read, but the extra features make for a much more informative, intelligent searching — and shopping — experience. Between the sponsored content and live map (plus the product carousel, question snippets, and related searches not shown in the screenshot), Google provides pretty much everything I need to know about pool tables.

Heck, sometimes I search for something and find the answer right on the SERP — I don’t even have to click on a result. Does that ever happen to you? If it has, you can thank structured data.

How does structured data work?

At this point, you might be asking: How can there exist a language (markup) that is consistently recognized by search engines and people alike?

In order for this markup to be accurately and universally understood, there are standardized formats and vocabularies that should be used.

Let’s go back to basics for a minute. When conveying information, whether you’re communicating with a human or a computer, you need two main things: vocabulary (a set of words with known meanings) and syntax (a set of rules on how to use those words to convey meaning).

Most terminology surrounding structured data markup can be organized into these two concepts — vocabularies and syntaxes — and webmasters can combine whichever two they need to structure their data (with the exception of Microformats).

VocabulaRY	SYNTAX
Schema.org	Microdata
DCMI	JSON-LD
FOAF	RDFa

Okay … that’s enough of the fancy developer speak. What should you be using for your structured data?

Schema.org is the accepted universal vocabulary standard for structured data. It was founded and is currently sponsored by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex. It’s flexible, open-sourced, and constantly updated and improved.

Note: Schema is called such because it features markup for a wide variety of schemas — or data models — for different types of content.

Here’s an example of Schema Markup language (which is good for SEO) pulled from my article on branding.

"@context" : "http://schema.org",

"@type" : "Article",

"name" : "The Ultimate Guide to Branding in 2019"

"author" : {

"@type" : "Person",

"name" : "Allie Decker"

},

"datePublished" : "2019-04-02",

"image" : "https://blog.hubspot.com/hubfs/branding-2.jpg",

"url" : "https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/branding",

"publisher" : {

"@type" : "Organization",

"name" : "HubSpot"

As for syntax, there’s no correct answer. Google recommends JSON-LD (and defaults to that syntax when using its Structured Data Markup Helper — as you see below). JSON-LD uses Javascript code and embedded widgets to dynamically display your content, which is typically a simpler development process.

Google also recognizes Microdata and RDFa. Both of these syntaxes use HTML to identify properties within structured data. Microdata is typically only used in the page body, whereas RDFa is commonly used in both the page head and body.

On the other hand, JSON-LD is only placed in the page head, meaning, for certain types of markup, JSON-LD makes it so you don't have to navigate subheaders, supporting copy, and related styling that's included in the page's HTML. This is why JSON-LD is considered simpler than the other two.

Ultimately, it all depends on the data you're trying to implement, what the benefit is to your website, and what would be easier to share with your team.

Structured Data and Mobile

Structured data affects mobile a little differently — through Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Accelerated Mobile Pages is a Google-backed, open source project to help all mobile pages load quickly regardless of device.

Pages with AMP markup appear within Google’s special SERP features, such as Top Stories and News Carousels. Here’s how to create an AMP HTML page.

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Structured Data and Social Media

Structured data markup works a little differently for social platforms. This requires Open Graph Protocol and similar languages that ensure your website and blog content appear in an easy-to-read way when you promote this content on a social network. Two common social media features that use Open Graph Protocol are Pinterest Rich Pins and Twitter cards. We talk more about how to do this below.

Here’s an example of Open Graph Protocol language (which is good for social media) using the same source.

<meta property=”og:title” content=”The Ultimate Guide to Branding in 2019”/>

<meta property=”og:type” content=”article”/>

<meta property=”og:URL” content=”https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/branding”

<meta property=”og:image” content=”https://blog.hubspot.com/hubfs/branding-2.jpg”

<meta property=”og:admins” content=”Allie Decker”

<meta property=”og:site_name” content=”HubSpot”

<meta property=”og:description” content=”Discover how to create and manage a brand that helps your business become known, loved, and preferred”

Note: Unfortunately, structured data doesn’t impact your organic search ranking (besides helping you grab a spot in a knowledge panel or Featured Snippet at the top of the list). It also doesn’t change how your content looks or behaves on your website — it only affects how and where it might appear on SERPs.

Examples of Structured Data

To the average internet user, structured data can’t be seen. It’s hidden among the code that makes up our favorite websites and online platforms. So, how does structured data affect what we (and our customers) see? What does it look like to the “naked” eye?

When webmasters adhere to structured data standards, search engines like Google and Bing reward their websites and organizations by featuring their content in a variety of SERP features (another reason to use structured data).

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Let’s talk about those features — specifically on Google. Google SERPs display a wide variety of information, but the ones we talk about below are specifically influenced by structured data.

There are also a couple of ways that structured data can benefit your non-SERP marketing efforts on social media and email marketing.

Content Features

Content features appear as separate search results among normal search results.

1. Carousels

Carousels show up as images with captions related to a search, such as movie actors, cars, or news articles. Searchers can click through these images to access a separate SERP for that search. Here’s how to use structured data to show up on Carousels.

2. Videos

Videos function similarly to carousels but feature videos instead of images or other listings. Searchers can scroll through these results to directly access and watch each video.

Based on how you mark-up your content, you may also qualify for video enhancements such as LIVE badges and video host carousels. Here's how to use structured data to show up on videos.

3. Featured Snippets

Featured Snippets display information relevant to a query — and link to a third-party website (which sets them apart from Answer Boxes and Knowledge Panels, which draw from public domain databases). They don’t count as one of the ten organic results on a SERP, so if you “win” the Snippet, your website shows up twice.

Featured Snippets can also be displayed as quotes, tables, jobs, rich cards (for movies and recipes), or the question section titled “People may ask”. Here’s how to optimize your content for Google’s Featured Snippet box.

4. Knowledge Panels (a.k.a. Knowledge Graph Cards)

Knowledge Panels pull together the most relevant information from a search and display it as a separate panel on the right side of a SERP. They typically include images, dates, and category-specific information, such as stock prices for companies or birthdays for celebrities. You can use a structured data markup like Schema to tag your content with all of these categories, but there’s no guarantee that Google will reward you with your own knowledge panel.

In fact, structured data doesn't promise anything, it only makes it easier for search engines and social networks to interpret your content.

Also, Knowledge Panels aim to answer queries without requiring a click-through … good news for searchers, and bad news for businesses. Here’s how to make your site easier for bots to crawl (to increase your chances of showing up in a Knowledge Panel).

Enriched Search Features

Unlike content features, enriched result features enhance regular search results. They're also called rich search results or rich snippets.

1. Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs “indicate a page's position in the site hierarchy,” according to Google. Breadcrumbs appear on mobile devices, in place of a URL, above the title of the results page, and next to the site's favicon (as of 2019). They help searchers understand a page’s relationship to the rest of a website. Here’s how to use structured data to display breadcrumbs in your results.

2. Sitelinks and Sitelinks Searchbox

Sitelinks are additional links displayed beneath a search result that navigate to different parts of a website. Google pulls them into a SERP when it thinks additional results would benefit a searcher. Websites with intelligent anchor text and alt text that’s informative, compact, and avoids repetition have a good chance of displaying a result with Sitelinks.

Sitelinks Searchbox is like Sitelinks with a search bar directly featured in the result. That search box uses Google — not the featured website — which creates a brand new SERP. Sitelinks Searchboxes only show up in branded searches.

Here’s how to get a Sitelinks Searchbox for your website.

3. FAQ

FAQ can be used on any page that lists questions and answers — not just traditional frequently asked questions (FAQ) pages.

This feature allows searchers to access your questions and answers right from the SERP; it also extends your result vertically, taking up even more SERP real estate and helping your site stand out. Here's how to use structured data to display FAQ in your search results.

4. How-To

The how-to feature is similar to FAQ in that it displays a page's content (if it fits certain criteria) on the SERP so searchers can see that information. It walks searchers through a set of steps and can feature video, text, and images.

Unlike FAQ, the individual steps in how-to result aren't linkable; however, searchers can access the entire list of steps by clicking your results. These results can show up in two formats: standard accordion layout or rich result carousel, depending on the content. Here's how to use structured data to display how-to content in your search results.

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Non-SERP Features

Structured data can also be used to enhance to non-SERP features.

1. Social Cards

Social-specific markup doesn’t have a big impact on SEO, but it’s still important for marketers to understand. Not only does this markup enhance your social posts and ad efforts, but it can also be read by search engines — which could contribute to any SEO changes in the future.

Social cards display images and rich text when links are shared on social media. Any organization who uses social media to share content should be using proper social markup, such as Open Graph Protocol.

Here’s how you ensure your social content displays social cards:

• Open Graph Protocol (for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram)
• Facebook Validation Tool
• Twitter Cards
• Twitter Validation Tool
• Pinterest Rich Pins
• Pinterest Validation Tool

2. Email Marketing

Have you recently booked a flight or ordered something online? If you have Gmail, you might’ve seen your reservation or order details summarized at the top of the confirmation email. This is due to email markup.

If you send emails for orders, reservations, confirmations, or bookings, consider using email markup to make your email recipients’ lives easier. Here’s how to get started with email markup in Gmail.

The concept of structured data might seem confusing, but its implementation isn’t nearly as complicated. In fact, there are a number of structured data tools that can help you along the way, namely Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper and Testing tools. Sure, you can implement structured data by hand, but Google’s tool ensures accuracy — and makes your life easier.

It’s important to note that adding structured data markup on your website doesn’t guarantee a Featured Snippet or Sitelinks Sitebox. Google can take weeks to crawl your new HTML markup, and sometimes, the information doesn’t show up at all.

However, taking the steps to implement structured data is critical. Google might be smart, but it can’t (yet) understand everything on its own. It might seem like a lot of extra work, but using the correct structured data markup will ensure Google can make sense of your content and can help you potentially increase your click-through rates and visibility.

Here’s how to implement structured data by using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper tool.

1. Open Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.

Open up Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper tool.

2. Select your data type and enter the URL.

Make sure the Website tab is open. Choose the type of data to which you’d like to add the HTML markup. Plug the web page URL (or the HTML code) at the bottom, and click Start Tagging.

3. Highlight page elements and assign data tags.

When the tool loads, you should see your web page on the left side and data items on the right. Highlight different components of your web page to assign data tags such as name, author, and date published. (The tool will suggest different data tags for different types of data, i.e. Events or Book Reviews.)

As you select and assign data tags, you’ll see the information pop up under My Data Tags on the right panel. You can also add any missing tags that might not be visible on the web page; just click Add missing tags.

4. Create the HTML.

When you’re finished tagging and assigning data items, click Create HTML in the upper right-hand corner.

5. Add the schema markup to your page.

On the next screen, you should see your structured data markup on the right side. The tool automatically produces the script as JSON-LD markup, but you can change it to Microdata by clicking the JSON-LD drop-down menu in the top menu.

Click Download to download the script as an HTML file. To read more about adding structured data to your article (or any other data type), click Articles in the right corner above the markup.

To “publish” your markup, copy and paste the new HTML markup into your CMS or source code of your web page. Lastly, click Finish in the top right corner to check out Google’s recommended Next Steps … one of which will bring you to this next one.

6. Test your markup with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.

Open up Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. You can enter any URL of a web page you’d like to test, or you can enter HTML code. (In the example below, I’m analyzing the code previously produced by Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper Tool.) Click Run Test to begin.

7. Diagnose and fix any detected issues.

The tool will show you your HTML markup on the left side and the markup analysis on the right. Note any red errors or warnings. Click on any data row to highlight the corresponding markup on the left.

If necessary, you can edit any errors in the HTML directly in the tool panel before “publishing” the tested HTML markup.

8. Be patient.

This last step is simple but arguably the hardest — to sit back and wait. Google can take weeks to re-crawl new HTML, and even then, your content isn’t guaranteed to show up in rich snippets or other SERP features.

As long as you follow the correct structured data standards and markup, give Google all the information it needs to know, and be patient, your website and business can benefit greatly from structured data and enhanced SEO.

Structured Data Testing Tools

1. Google's Rich Results Test

Supports structured data in JSON-LD, RDFa, and Microdata. 

Price: Free

Google's tool is an easy, free option for quickly checking any web page — or even an individual snippet code — to ensure your site is structured correctly. The tool will flag any errors that could be preventing your site from ranking on search engines, and offer suggestions for improving your site or snippet's structured data. 

The Rich Results Test allows you to share the test results with anyone for up to 90 days, so if you need to send the results to your web developer or IT team, you can. 

Best of all, the tool shows you how your page might look on Google search results, which means you can make changes to your structured data in real-time and see how those changes positively or negatively affect how your page shows up on various Search results layouts, including both desktop and mobile. 

(It's important to note, Google used to provide a Structured Data Testing tool, but that tool is now being deprecated and replaced with the Rich Results Test.) 

2. Bing Markup Validator

Supports structured data in HTML Microdata, Microformats, RDFa, Schema.org, and OpenGraph.

Price: Free

Since Bing is the second largest search engine, it makes sense to try out Bing's own structured data tool to assess your website's health and performance and ensure you're following structured data protocol to get your website ranking on the major search engine. 

Bing's free Markup Validator is part of Bing's larger Webmaster Tools, which enable you to monitor the health of your site, see for which keywords you currently rank, and see how Bing crawls and indexes your website. 

Unfortunately, Bing's Markup Validator doesn't support HTML structured code, but it's still a good option to check out, particularly if you're looking to improve your ranking on Bing.  

3. SEO Site Checkup

Supports structured data in HTML, and offers website SEO analysis.

Price: $39.95/month 

This is the only tool in this list that isn't free (although it does offer a 14-day free trial for you to initially check a few web pages), but for good reason — it offers a more well-rounded, comprehensive SEO analysis of your website, as well. 

Along with offering feedback on your structured data (and competitors' URLs, if you're interested), you can use the tool to assess overall SEO health, including page load speed, URL redirects, broken links, mobile responsiveness, and much more. 

Apart from evaluating your site's standard data, the tool will check your website for SEO issues such as page load speed, URL redirects, nested tables, broken links, mobile responsiveness, and much more. It serves as a one-window solution for optimizing your site for search engine ranking.

4. Chrome Extension: Structured Data Testing Tool

Supports structured data in Microdata, Schema, RDFa and JSON-LD. 

Price: Free

If you primarily use the Chrome internet browser, this is a good alternative to Google's Rich Results Test, since it's essentially the same tool for Chrome users. The tool uses Google's Structured Data testing tool to scan websites, and delivers both warnings and error codes. You can then export these error codes to your clipboard. 

Best of all, you can use this extension on websites in the development or staging phases, or password-protected pages, to ensure your structured data is clean before launching your site. The extension will scan structured data and check your rich snippets, as well. 

Get Started with Structured Data Today

Google and other search engines continuously improve how they aggregate and present information. They offer enhanced, intelligent search experiences with the customer in mind. It’s up to you as a business to keep up, and you can do so through structured data.

Structured data benefits businesses — through increased visibility — and consumers — through better usability. Use this guide, tools, and resources to optimize and organize your website and make your customers' lives easier.

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

The Beginner's Guide to Structured Data for Organizing &amp; Optimizing Your Website was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

9 Product Category Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Own

Stores and websites aren’t a mishmash of products with no discernible organization for a reason. People want a sense of direction and a positive customer experience, even when they are “just browsing.” They also want to know they are in good hands when it comes to the product category they’re exploring — whether that’s kitchen tools, breakfast cereals, or winter coats.

Product category marketing helps your brand stand out among related items, so your company’s products wind up in the shopping cart — whether real or virtual.

What is a product category?

A product category is “a particular group of related products,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary.

Your distinct offerings and customer personas should guide the organization and grouping of your product categories.

For example, REI Co-Op offers a wide range of outdoor gear. To guide customers, they split their products into interest-based categories, such as running, climbing, and snow sports. For fashion retailers, it makes more sense to organize categories by product type, such as shoes, shirts, and pants.

Product category marketing amplifies why a company is the best choice within that group of products. Why should customers opt for your offering rather than your direct competitors?

Gaining brand recognition and appreciation across a product category means greater returns for your marketing efforts. When consumers have positive experiences with a specific product category it also builds brand trust, which often expands to other categories through the halo effect.

Product categories are sometimes confused with product classification. Both are organizational strategies and both help guide marketing decisions, but classifications are much broader (think convenience goods, shopping goods, and specialty goods).

Let’s take a look at nine product category marketing examples to inspire your own.

9 Product Category Marketing Examples

1. Fenty Beauty

Product category: High-end foundation makeup

Admittedly, it helps to have singer and business powerhouse Rihanna at the helm. But Fenty Beauty innovated the idea of foundation makeup “for all,” and its commitment to inclusivity made the brand an instant hit.

Image source

Beyond foundation, the Fenty Beauty Face products include bronzer, highlighter, powder, and concealer in shades that work for everyone. The launch was an industry transformer, with established brands expanding their foundation color lineup in response.

The marketing for Fenty Beauty Face products zooms in on the wide palette of available colors, and features models and influencers across the shade spectrum.

2. Orvis

Product category: Dog beds

This Vermont-based retailer has been a big name in fly-fishing and outdoor gear since 1856. But they’ve also carved out a product niche with dog gear — and dog beds in particular. The brand draws people who want comfortable dog beds for their furry pals in styles that enhance their home decor.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by The Orvis Company (@orvis)

The marketing images of dogs sleeping or lounging on Orvis beds is enough to inspire a nap. They’ve made their site a resource for dog health and behavior topics. And their social feeds are chock full of irresistible images and videos of dogs, including puppies in a hammock (!).

3. Ikea

Product category: Bedding

Putting together their furniture may be a tough task, but at least Ikea supports your relaxation too. The marketing of their bedding shows off playful sheets and prints for the kids and a mix of bold designs and neutrals for adults. The bed linens product category is grouped under ‘home textiles’ together with curtains, quilts, pillows, and towels.

Image source

A playful Ikea ad campaign in the UK even featured bottled bedding and pillows, connecting the dots between a restful night’s sleep and health. In the current pandemic, the company marketed the idea that comfortable bedding was essential — especially when your bed is doubling as your office.

4. Swarovski

Product category: Jewelry

For more than a century, Swarovski has put the sparkle in gowns, tiaras, jewelry, and decorative sculptures. For their jewelry product category, Swarovski puts luxury within reach with a mix of modern and classic crystal necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and watches.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by SWAROVSKI (@swarovski)

They sustain brand awareness with seasonal collections, collaborations with designers and celebrities, such as Karl Lagerfield and Penelope Cruz, and pop culture-inspired releases. This fall, their #SparkDelight social media campaign featured influencers sharing tips for finding joy in the little things since big events were off the social calendar.

5. Target

Product category: Grocery essentials

Target is known for its positioning across product categories, including affordable fashion, electronics, and cleaning supplies. Though they’re grocery section is smaller than most supermarkets, they cover all of the ‘must-haves’ on any shopping list — from milk to salads to pasta.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Target (@target)

In 2019, Target added its own brand of grocery essentials with their Good & Gather line, which includes frozen berries, cereals, snack foods, and eggs. Their Instagram Stories showcase easy snack and meal ideas, and feature foodie influencers like TikTok and Instagram sensations Tabitha Browne and Lisa Lin.

6. Dove

Product category: Skin care

Launched in 2004, Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign was far ahead of other brands in promoting body positivity and self-acceptance. Their ad campaigns for body lotions and soap have long featured women with a wide variety of body types and skin colors.

Rolls, wrinkles, cellulite, and stretch marks are all on proud and beautiful display across their social channels. Today, their skin care brand identity is equated with self-confidence, and Dove body lotions and soaps are frequent flyers on ‘best of’ lists for affordable skin care.

7. Michaels

Product category: Holiday and seasonal decor

The company known for DIY is also a go-to spot for holiday and seasonal decorating. Michaels stores transform every month or two with festive decor for spring, summer, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, July Fourth, Mardi Gras, and Pride Month.

Black Friday deals = an extra merry holiday haul 🙌 #SpottedAtMichaels
📷: @vickiboutin pic.twitter.com/dxmiIq9zbC

— Michaels Stores (@MichaelsStores) November 28, 2020

Their social media and weekly ads herald each season with ready made decorations galore.

8. Patagonia

Product category: Eco-friendly outerwear

Patagonia’s tagline is “We’re in business to save our home planet” and the company’s marketing efforts lead with their commitment to sustainability across product lines. Their website urges consumers to “Buy Less” and prominently features a section of “Used Gear.”

When you visit their Facebook or Instagram pages, you have to hunt a bit to find posts highlighting particular products. Instead, the feeds focus on pressing issues, such as environmental stewardship and fair labor practices.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Patagonia (@patagonia)

When you do need to purchase a new (or used) piece of outerwear, consumers know they are supporting a company actively minimizing their negative impacts.

9. Grove Collaborative

Product category: Green household cleaning supplies

Grove Collaborative is another company focused on sustainability. Their goal is to make it simple and affordable for people to choose green household products that are non-toxic, sustainable, and cruelty free.

The company offers eco-friendly cleaning supplies, including concentrated soap and detergent refills and reusable glass bottles, which they send out in recurring monthly shipments.

Their marketing reflects their minimalist ethos, with images of their cleaning products at the ready in pristine kitchens and bathrooms. Grove uses Instagram Stories to attract new customers with product images, cleaning tips, and even humorous videos.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Grove Collaborative (@grovecollaborative)

The company also shares ideas for holiday meals and decorating, and releases a monthly ‘Sustainability Snapshot’ of their environmental impact, such as the number of single-use plastic bottles they keep out of land-fills.

Each of these brands has clarified where their products fit in larger retail categories. This helps them market their distinct value to target customers and, ultimately, earn a greater market share within these product categories.

9 Product Category Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Own was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

8 Really Cool Ways to Use Video in Email Marketing

This morning, as usual, I started my day by checking my emails.

While this process doesn't usually excite me and is just my method for waking up, I came across a subject line that made my heart race with excitement:

Knowing that I would be starting my day with a new music video from one of my favorite bands made me smile. It also made me feel valued as a subscriber to their record label's emails — with just one video, Specialist Subject Records strengthened the consumer relationship I have with them.

This is why video email marketing is such an effective strategy. With a simple embed and subject line, you can build stronger relationships with customers, generate leads, and strengthen the content behind your brand.

Let's talk a little more about it.

What is video email marketing?

Video email marketing is simply including videos in email marketing. If you're unsure about how to do that, we have a quick how-to post here.

Because video is an extremely popular medium in marketing, (in fact, 83% of marketers feel its importance is only growing) including it in your email marketing can engage your subscribers and increase your conversions.

Additionally, did you know that over 80% of businesses use video in their marketing efforts? This is likely because of the results video implementation gives them. While using video in email can seem like a taboo topic, it can be very effective.

By using video, you can tap into the imagination of an audience that absorbs information visually — sometimes text just doesn't do it. With video, you have a chance to make dense topics more compelling for your audience.

Next, let's talk about ways you can use it in your next email campaign.

How to Use Video in Email Marketing

Videos can dramatically increase click-through rate (CTR).

For example, B2B software company Igloo Software decided to show off their workplace culture by creating 200 videos in three months for future email content. This approach doubled their CTR.

This is one way to use video in email marketing — showcase your brand in email and use it to increase CTR. We have six more, which we'll explore now.

1. Use video for bonus content to delight your subscribers.

Consider using emails to give subscribers bonus content. Email subscribers are likely to enjoy a variety of your content, so going the extra mile with a surprise bonus could delight your audience. 

For instance, if you share weekly newsletters about Instagram content, you can add a link for early access to a live webinar you're hosting about Instagram Stories at the end of the month. That way, you can build interest for the event, keep subscribers in the loop about things going on within your company, and give them an incentive to keep checking your emails. 

Alternatively, you can use emails to educate subscribers about the values that matter most to your business.

Patagonia often includes a video in a product-related email to tell the story of where their product materials originate. Since Patagonia values both the environment and supporting local businesses, it makes sense that they'd focus their content on highlighting both of these initiatives. 

In the video below, for instance, Patagonia includes links to some of its hemp-made products, along with a video of a farm in Kentucky that grows hemp, which helps regenerate damaged topsoil:

The email helps educate Patagonia subscribers' on the importance of purchasing products made of natural materials — and while it may help incentivize subscribers' to purchase, that's not the only impact the video has. As a standalone piece of content, it's also simply an educational tool to highlight Patagonia's deeper mission: to support local businesses and make a positive impact on the planet. 

2. Make emails a more personalized experience.

Do you have a backlog of video content on your website? Consider using that to your advantage and sending personalized emails.

For instance, let's say someone watches a portion of a video on your website that they don't finish, and you're noticing this is a pattern when you analyze your website data. Marketo's formula is to automatically send that video in an email to remind that user to finish.

By doing this, Vidyard reported that Marketo raised their CTR by over 144% due to the personalization of that email. If I were sent a video I meant to finish in an email, I'd surely open it to complete that video. I'd also feel pretty important to the company as a customer.

From a business perspective, this means more clicks for you, a better relationship with the customer, and more views on videos.

3. Display company culture with a video.

If you're struggling with thinking of out-of-the-box ideas for email content that shows off company personality, consider heading to YouTube. 

Yes, you read that right: YouTube. 

What better way to show subscribers the culture in your company than going straight to the source? Let's look at this email from Etsy to illustrate: 

This email embeds a simple video from an Etsy Trend Expert in a step-by-step hair routine. 

Getting a peek into how Etsy employees use Etsy hair products in their daily routines adds a sense of normalcy and relatability to the company. I got to see the people behind the marketing emails, and what I saw were employees who were just like me.

Email marketing doesn't have to be a blatant show of products. Sometimes, you can subtly promote your products within a display of company culture. Try experimenting with a blend of public-facing content to promote your brand, like Etsy. 

For example, let's say you want to bring attention to that new advertising metrics tool you've just launched. You might consider asking your marketing team to film a short video of the product's daily value. Then, you can embed the product page in the video's thumbnail. (Consider giving employees a heads-up that their response might be part of a marketing email). 

4. Announce an event with a video. 

If your company hosts events, whether internal or external, take videos of the events for a recap to send subscribers. This way, you can give subscribers a taste of how your brand works in-action and build interest in your company's events overall.

For instance, do you host or participate in quarterly industry mixers? Try including a video in an email about the most recent one, along with a CTA for subscribers to learn more about the next one. The video can also serve as social proof that these events are well-attended and informative for other people in your industry.

5. Announce a product line or launch with a video.

Confession: I'm a little obsessed with makeup company, Make Up For Ever. 

One of my favorite aspects? How Make Up For Ever includes influencers' testing out new products in their emails — seeing real women try new makeup products can help me determine which products would delight me most.

If you're launching a new product in the upcoming quarter, maybe it's a good idea to include email subscribers in the pre-launch phase. For instance, if you're launching a chatflow bot as part of a CRM update, let email subscribers know first. That way, dedicated customers can express their interest in the product and bring in that word-of-mouth marketing. 

6. Send out newsletters with videos. 

If you're giving subscribers scheduled newsletters with no video, you're missing out! There's a lot of ways to include video in newsletters so they can be effective. Video-heavy businesses can benefit from newsletter video embeds so subscribers can catch up on content they may have missed — especially if your subscribers prefer watching over reading.

Another way to use video in newsletters is to round-up popular videos in your industry. If your company doesn't do many videos, this is an excellent avenue for you. Alternatively, if a member of your team is interested in a routine video schedule, try filming a round-up of weekly content in video-form.

For instance, if there was a commercial that rocked your industry recently, include that video in your newsletter with a corresponding blog post about your thoughts to increase traffic on your blog.

7. Move leads along their customer journey. 

Email marketing isn't just limited to loyal customers — you can also use it to nurture leads. Just use workflows in your CRM to automate videos that will move them along the customer journey. This works with forms you can add right into that video. 

These forms might give your sales team enough information to follow up with interested customers. Or, give leads an opportunity to watch your latest crash course in SEO link building — in exchange for the completed form fields, of course. 

If you're currently thinking, "I'm no tech wiz, how do I do that?", don't worry. HubSpot's integration with Wistia makes it easy to add this widget into your marketing emails. Check with your CRM software to see if it offers something similar. 

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With this integration, you can add HubSpot forms into a Wistia video for higher engagement. If a lead converts within the video, their viewing data will sync with their contact record. This can be useful for future customer research with video marketing campaigns.

Think about piloting a video email marketing campaign for conversion. If you download viewing data, you can see how to tweak video content to further delight your customers. 

8. Include video in email subject lines.

Formatting is super important in emails and it starts with the subject line. As a consumer, if I see an email with emojis in the subject line, I'm immediately more interested in the email because emojis stick out to me and feel more inviting.

Try including "Video" or a corresponding emoji in your subject line to entice subscribers to open it. You'll likely want to A/B test a variety of subject lines in the beginning to figure out what your readers prefer.

Another important formatting tip is to embed the video in the email in a place that keeps readers interested. Putting videos at the beginning of an email is a good idea, but placing it near the end invites readers to keep reading to better understand the video.

Video is an incredible way to engage subscribers, old and new. I just received a new one in my inbox, and I'll prioritize that over other emails. If it sounds pretty hectic to produce new videos for email campaigns, think about using the ones you already have. You may be able to repurpose them into great content for your audience.

 

8 Really Cool Ways to Use Video in Email Marketing was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Predictive Marketing: What it Is & How to Leverage It

After months of working on a marketing campaign, nothing's worse than realizing you aren't seeing the results you expected.

Unfortunately, many of us have been there. We've put all of our creative effort, time, and numerous resources into a campaign that sounded like a great idea, but had nowhere near the expected ROI or engagement. Then, on top of watching our project fail, we've had to deal with the awkward scenario of sharing bad performance data with our teams.

No matter how hard you try, it's impossible to know exactly how well a campaign will do before you run it. However, there's a strategy that gets pretty close.

It's called predictive marketing.

While predictive marketing sounds like some futuristic technology you'd only see on a show like Westworld, using data to estimate an outcome isn't new.

Predictive marketing is fueled by predictive analytics, which dates back to the 1930s. It enabled mathematicians and computers to calculate and analyze the possible successes, failures, and results of various scenarios -- such as health or weather conditions.

Later, in the 1990s, when analytics tools became more available to brands, marketers at companies like eBay and Amazon began to combine marketing data with similar formulas or algorithms to predict and strategize around potential consumer behaviors, purchases, and marketing campaign performance.

In the early 2000s, with the presence of "Big Data" many more brands and online advertising platforms embraced predictive analytics and marketing technology.

Now, predictive marketing is all around us. Below are just a few common instances of it, along with explanations of how brands can leverage it.

Examples of Predictive Marketing

1. Predictive Product Suggestions

Have you ever considered buying a product, researched it, and then saw the same product -- or a very similar one -- in a promotion that showed up on a social media feed, in your email inbox, streaming platform, or another website's banner? You're not alone.

Ecommerce site algorithms regularly collect data about your product interests based on what you've viewed or purchased from them. Then, these algorithms use that data to predict which products you're most likely to buy next. This data is then used in the ecommerce ad or promotion a prospect sees.

Need an example? Below is an EyeBuyDirect ad that appeared on my Facebook News Feed.

As an EyeBuyDirect customer, I've bought many pairs of glasses with similar styles, shapes, or patterns to the pairs seen in the ad above. To compare, here are two of my recent purchases:

If I needed new glasses, EyeBuyDirrect's ad would be very appealing to me because it shows product offerings I'm very likely to view or buy.

Rather than presenting the same ad or product to every audience member, predictive marketing tools can help you to direct customers to products they might be most interested in.

If you're planning to bring your business online and want to use predictive marketing to make more sales, several affordable ecommerce tools enable you to send predictive product suggestions to your audiences. You can learn more about them here.

2. Predictive Lead Scoring

Predictive marketing doesn't just stop after you get a contact, customer, or lead.

Once you build up your list of contacts, you'll want to continue marketing to them or potentially direct them to a sales rep. But, if you try to market your brand continuously to every single one of your new contacts, you might waste serious time if they aren't serious about buying your product or signing up for more content.

To avoid giving too much time to unqualified leads, brands can use tools like HubSpot's Predictive Lead Scoring feature to analyze contact data profiles and estimate which prospects are most likely to make a deal in the future.

When you have a huge database of contacts with varying levels of interest in your product, brand, or service, predictive lead scoring data like that above can give you insight on which prospects to prioritize in your marketing or sales efforts first. In turn, this could give you a leg up on brands that waste crucial time and resources on deals that never happen.

3. Automated Social Media Suggestions

A handful of social media tools, including HubSpot Marketing Hub, use predictive analytics and audience data to estimate and suggest the best times to post your content on a given channel.

On top of simple content timing suggestions, some tools go even deeper with social media content predictions. For example, when social media managers upload two or more images to the social media scheduling tool, Cortex, the platform will use historical data to determine which photo's colors will be most eye-catching to followers.

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On top of the social media tools that can suggest strategies based on predicted outcomes, social channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest also offer some predictive tools within their ads platforms.

For example, in 2018, news outlets obtained documents from Facebook revealing that it secretly launched a "Predictive Loyalty" feature within its ads. The feature reportedly analyzes Facebook user behavior, interests, page likes, and other data points to circulate ads to people that had the highest likelihood of clicking them, rather than just directing ads to a brand's audience targets.

Since Facebook's predictive advertising news, Twitter's also acknowledged that it uses predictive ad algorithms specifically for movies, TV, and entertainment-related promotions.

Aside from predictive ad targeting, social platforms like Facebook and Pinterest also use algorithms to make predictions related to multivariate or A/B testing. With these types of tests, a brand will often submit two or more variations of their ad. When the ad goes live, the social media platforms will immediately analyze which variation is clicked on the most and predict which will have the best conversion outcome. From there, social media ads will begin to display the winning variation.

4. Customer Churn Prevention Tools

While many marketers focus primarily on gaining new customers, some might focus on creating content and offerings that continue to engage, retain, and even upsell current customers.

But, sometimes, it can be hard to tell when customers need new, engaging content or when they're likely to churn. That's why some major companies have implemented predictive analytics as well as marketing strategies to identify and re-engage customers that are about to churn.

Take Sprint for example. Back in 2014, when the cell-phone giant saw an all-time high customer churn rate, marketers and service reps began to use predictive analytics tools to determine which customers were most likely to cancel their service. Once they did this, they were able to target those customers with re-engagement communications, messaging, and special offers that would keep them signed up.

According to a case study, Sprint's predictive strategy led to a 10% decrease in customer churn, and an 800% increase in upgrades within 90 days of implementation.

While your brand might not be able to implement complex, customer churn prediction tools, there are other ways you can use data to predict and prevent lost audiences.

For example, by tracking email engagement data and which contacts are less likely to open or click on emails, you can create a list segment of contacts that are at-risk of unsubscribing and send a re-engagement email like the one below:

5. Predictive SEO Tactics

As a marketer, a major part of your job might involve creating blog posts, web pages, or other online content aimed to attract and convert audiences. Because search engines can provide major traffic wins and brand awareness to brands, you'll likely want to produce valuable content that shows up on page one.

But, once you've landed your high search result page position and gained solid organic traffic, you can use predictive data to prevent the future loss of your ranking and all the traffic that comes with it.

This process, called predictive SEO, is when content strategists use traffic and search ranking analytics to determine if a web page is at risk of losing its traffic momentum from search engines.

For HubSpot, our predictive SEO process involves using our At-Risk Content Tool -- which analyzes data from SEMRush, Ahrefs, and other software -- to determine when we're losing our ranking on search engine pages.

For example, if one of our posts shows up in the first spot on a Google search result page, then steadily goes down to spot three or four, our At-Risk Content Tool might flag the post as in danger of losing search traffic.

Here's what our At-Risk Content spreadsheet looks like. When a blog post begins to see declines that could potentially continue, a formula in the spreadsheet notes the blog post as "At-Risk" in the Status column on the right:

If you're a marketer who focuses primarily on web content, creating a strategy like this can proactively help you monitor the performance of many web pages at once, learn when old content really needs an update, or identify old content strategies or formats that need to be re-worked -- all before you lose major search traffic.

Want to replicate the predictive SEO strategy above? Here's a detailed post with the full step-by-step process we used.

What to Know When Using Predictive Marketing

While predictive marketing can be a handy tool for justifying a new tactic or strategy, there are important things marketers should keep in mind if they want to leverage it.

• It's not perfect: Even if an algorithm or marketing formula seems to give accurate estimates 99% of the time, the fact that marketing strategies rely on human engagement to succeed can cause a prediction to be wrong. While you can use predictive marketing data to justify investments or proposed strategies, you should have a plan for what to do if unexpected results occur.
• It can be pricey: While some predictive tools, such as HubSpot, can be affordable and easily accessible to smaller brands, other tools and predictive marketing projects that require analyzing large amounts of data can get costly. Be sure to start with scaleable affordable predictive tools or tactics first.
• It requires data: While some tools, such as ad or SEO software have access to historical consumer data, creating your own predictive marketing strategy from scratch might require you to have your own data set. Collecting, cleaning, and organizing this data so a predictive tool or algorithm can leverage it can take quite a lot of time which should be built into your predictive strategy.

Want to learn more about how predictive analytics and data can fuel your marketing strategy? Click here for a handy blog post, or download the free resource below.

Predictive Marketing: What it Is &amp; How to Leverage It was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Science-backed Tips for Mastering Public Speaking, According to 5 Mental Health Professionals

Welcome to The Science Behind Success — a blog series that explores the best ways to help our brains perform better at work. With psychological research and interviews with leaders in the field, we're showing you how psychology can help you overcome workplace obstacles and excel in your career. Because a little mindset change could go a long way.

If you're anything like me, there's little in this world that scares you more than the daunting idea of public speaking (besides spiders, of course, but that's another issue altogether … ).

However, as marketers, most of our roles require public speaking. Perhaps you need to report on monthly campaign numbers to your team, share the results of an exciting marketing experiment with the company, or make a pitch to an external team with whom you'd like to partner.

Ultimately, in the marketing field, public speaking is often unavoidable.

Additionally, even if you could hide from it, you probably don't want to — speaking to large groups makes you more visible at your company and strengthens your own personal brand, as well as your ability to network and be seen as a leader.

Over the past few years, I've personally come to terms with the necessity of public speaking. But that doesn't mean I still don't get sweaty palms and shaky breath moments before walking on-stage (or, in this case, turning my Zoom camera on ... ).

I spoke with a few mental health professionals to get to the bottom of why public speaking is so scary in the first place and am sharing their takeaways below. Plus, we'll dive into a few science-backed tips for mastering public speaking, so you can feel at-ease the next time you're speaking to a room full of people.

Now, as for spiders … that, I can't help you with.

Tip 1: Get Curious About Your Fears

Alexis Verbin, LCSW, LICSW, told me: "I always recommend taking time to self-reflect and approach fears without judgement and with curiosity. It can be difficult to reduce symptoms if you are unaware of why you're experiencing them or what is triggering this type of reaction."

The fear of public speaking occurs for a variety of reasons, such as:

• Biological fight-or-flight response that can get activated
• Past public speaking experiences
• Lack of experience or knowledge on the topic being presented
• Low self-esteem and/or imposter syndrome
• Audience makeup (i.e., high-level executives)

Verbin adds, "By identifying the 'whys' behind your fear, you can help alleviate some of the distress associated with the unknown."

"These 'whys' can also help you identify which specific tools to try to address your individualized needs. I would encourage the use of journaling to start this process of discovery. Write down your history of public speaking, past experiences (+, neutral, -), positive & constructive feedback, triggers, negative self-talk, somatic complaints, etc."

By identifying the reason behind your fear, you can start to tackle that more unique, personalized fear head-on. For instance, if you're dealing with a case of imposter syndrome, perhaps you can create a quick "Fact Sheet" of all your past accomplishments and praise you've received to glance at before making a speech.

Tip 2: Take Advantage of Familiar Surroundings

Jenna Halloran Karl, LICSW, says: "You are likely to feel less anxious when you are familiar and comfortable in your environment. If you are presenting virtually and working from home, use this to your advantage!"

"Try grounding yourself to the room you are in by noticing things that are soothing. Focus on what you can see in the room, hear, feel, taste, and smell."

"Focus on things you can control, like being prepared, being on time, and how much you practice your speech."

If you're presenting in an unfamiliar room, you could try to spend some time working in the room ahead of time to develop a familiarity with your surroundings. Alternatively, if you're presenting from your home office, take comfort in the picture of your family on your desk, or the plant you love in the corner. These little details can remind you that you are, indeed, safe.

Additionally, comforting internal phrases can help, as well. For instance, Karl suggests, "Develop 'coping thoughts' ahead of time to recite to yourself before and during your speech (examples: 'I am well prepared for this speech', 'I am doing the best I can right now', 'If I turn red, it will only be temporary.')."

Tip 3: Increase Acceptance of Your Fears

Alexis Verbin encourages anyone suffering from anxiety related to public speaking to try some methods related to ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which was developed by Dr. Steven C. Hayes: "This empirically-based model increases 'psychological flexibility' by using a unique combination of mindfulness skills with acceptance, commitment, and behavior change strategies. The goal is not to avoid or replace thoughts or emotions, but rather to change your relationship to them."

To do this, Verbin provides seven tactics you might try:

• Notice and Observe: Take a step back and just notice your anxious thoughts about going on stage, without trying to control them. Next, label them as just thoughts. Work on becoming an observer of your experience rather than staying stuck thinking about your anxiety-provoking thoughts.
• Visualize: Take time to sit quietly, close your eyes, and visualize yourself placing the unhelpful anxious thoughts on leaves. Then, take these leaves and place them on a stream of water where you watch them calmly float away into the distance. (Full version of this exercise here.)
• It's Just a Thought: Put the phrase: "I am having the thought that…" in front of your negative or anxious thought to remind yourself it is just a thought.
  • A. Unhelpful Thought Example: I'm going to mess up my speech.
  • B. Cognitive Defusion Example: I'm having the thought that I’m going to mess up my speech.
• Story Time: Anytime an anxiety-provoking thought comes up, kindly say to yourself "there my brain goes again telling that unhelpful public speaking story."
• Get Silly: Say your thoughts out loud in a completely different way. This can help reduce the level of seriousness you are placing on the thoughts so you can actually start to view them as thoughts. (For instance, you might verbalize the thoughts out loud using the melody of a funny song like happy birthday; use silly cartoon voices while saying your thoughts; or say your thought very slowly.)
• Be Mindful and Ground Yourself: Practice present moment awareness, try the five senses activity (below), and practice acceptance.

For the last technique regarding mindfulness, Verbin suggests three alternative methods you might try. Let's dive into those in more detail:

1. Present Moment Awareness: Before walking into the spotlight, look around and remind yourself that in your present moment, everything is actually okay, and that you are safe.

2. Five Senses Activity: If you are struggling to ground into your present moment, try the "Five Senses" Mindfulness activity. The goal is to help guide yourself out of your thoughts and to focus on your environment (i.e., what is actually going on outside of your head). *While taking slow deep breaths, notice and name the following:

• Five things you see
• Four things you touch
• Three things you hear
• Two things you smell
• One thing you taste

3. Accept: While public speaking isn't pleasant for many, remind yourself that fueling the negative self-talk and anxiety is not going to make the situation any easier. It will likely do the opposite. Instead, work on acceptance by creating a safe space for these unpleasant thoughts to come and go like the wind. Try not to give your thoughts too much undeserving attention.

Tip 4: Master Mental Rehearsal

Joann Toporowski, Psy.D., a psychologist and executive coach, suggests "A strategy that I speak to my clients about may sound counterintuitive, but it has an impressive impact on their mindset and performance. This strategy is called mental rehearsal. Once you have mastered this simple strategy, you can harness it to your advantage."

"We know from studies of professional athletes that the same regions of the brain will light up when quarterbacks imagine throwing a football and when they are actually throwing a football."

"This phenomenon has also shown to be present when professional basketball players watch footage of a basketball game — the parts of the brain that were activated are specific to hand muscles. Athletes have long known the positive effect of visualization and mental rehearsal."

To practice mental rehearsal, Toporowski told me: "There are two steps to using mental rehearsal. The first step is to see yourself in the meeting room or on stage before their company doing horribly, being pointed at, and then being fired — the more absurd, the better. Feel the embarrassment, the shame, and the rejection. A part of you will quickly realize how extreme this negative outcome will be, and at this moment, you can easily shake it off."

"Having mentally rehearsed the absolute worst outcome will allow you to deal with the outside chance that your talk did not go just as planned. If this should happen, you can at least say that you were not pointed and laughed at or fired."

"The second step is, after imagining the worst outcome, mentally rehearse the positive outcome. Picture yourself speaking eloquently and smoothly. Feel the pride, respect, and confidence well up inside of you. Imagine the praise you will receive from colleagues and management. If you repeatedly picture the talk going well, you move the needle towards a positive outcome in a small, yet inspiring, way."

Tip 5: Challenge Your Thinking

If you're preparing for an upcoming presentation and you feel yourself getting increasingly anxious, Jenna Halloran Karl suggests you notice and challenge those thoughts you're having.

She says, "Challenge negative and catastrophic thinking by checking the facts. Do you have any evidence to support these negative thoughts? What is an alternative, more realistic way to think about this situation?"

Karl adds, "Remember, worst case scenarios rarely ever happen."

For instance, if you're having the thought, "I'm going to fail and everyone is going to think I'm a failure", challenge that by asking yourself if a presentation has ever resulted in people saying to you, "You know, I think you're a failure."

Alternatively, challenge your perspective by asking yourself, "If someone else 'fails' during a presentation, do I really think they're a failure? Or do I just feel empathy?" Remember, most of your fears won't ever actually happen, and by challenging the validity of each, you can minimize your anxiety.

Tip 6: Move Your Body

When you walk into a gym and you're anxious about a stressful work day, have you ever noticed that by the time you leave, you feel much more rested and focused? There's a reason for that — so the next time you're gearing up to present, consider how you might tap into the physiological benefits of exercise. 

KieVonne King, LCSW, suggests, "Give yourself enough time prior to your speaking engagement to move your body. Many people have attested that physiological reactions to anxiety manifest in the abdomen region. Moving your body with the intention of releasing any physical discomfort can be helpful." 

"This can be done through dance, stretching and twisting, or any other form of physical activity that resonates with you. The most important thing is to couple movement with intentionality — what am I releasing and why — and deep breathing." 

Tip 7: Practice Your Breathing Ahead of Time

They say practice makes perfect … but have you ever considered practicing when, and how, you'll breathe during your presentation? 

Jonathan Walsh, LMHC, therapist, and coach told me, "What many of us experience as anxiety or panic around public speaking is actually hyperventilation due to altered breathing patterns at the beginning of presentations. The way to combat this is to write out and rehearse the first five minutes of the presentation out loud, with a particular emphasis on breathing at the punctuation spots."

"Keep practicing until you feel your breath normalizing and you have memorized both the text and your pauses for breath."

Additionally, he adds, "Remember that anxiety is not your primary identity. Work on shifting your internal language from an embodied 'I'm anxious' to 'I'm having some anxious thoughts right now.' Naming the emotion will remove some of the threat from it. Then commit to performing well, despite the presence of the inevitable anxious thoughts."

Tip 8: Remember Why You're Doing It

At the end of the day, you're presenting for a reason — and not just a superficial reason, like "I want to look good in front of my boss", but a larger, more meaningful reason, like "I want to help marketers grow in their roles."

Tap into your reason. As Joann Toporowski says, "Whenever I deliver a talk, whether it's to a small group of five or a room of hundreds, I think about what my goal is from the 10,000-foot view. As a psychologist and an executive coach, my overarching goal is perpetually to help and support others."

"This goal of helping others is at the forefront of my mind when I write my speech, practice it beforehand, set myself up for success by getting adequate sleep and eating well, and calming myself before I go on stage."

"My larger and more meaningful goal of helping others makes the anxiety, fear, and nervous energy so much more manageable."

"If you still feel like an imposter, or ill-prepared when the spotlight is on you, then pull your shoulders back, look people in the eyes all around the room, smile, breathe, and do the best you can do until the end. Good, bad, and for everything else in between, it is all going to be okay."

Ultimately, public speaking is scary for most people — but that doesn't mean you can't master it with some mindfulness, preparation, and perspective. Keep these tips in-mind next time you're presenting. Over time, you'll find what works for you. Good luck! 

Science-backed Tips for Mastering Public Speaking, According to 5 Mental Health Professionals was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Google Ads vs. AdSense: We Break Down the Differences

When it comes to generating traffic and brand awareness, digital advertising is the way to go. It's surpassing traditional advertising, and Google is a huge reason why. As one of the biggest digital advertising platforms, Google is responsible for 37.2% of total U.S. digital ad spending alone.

But how can you take advantage of the advertising opportunities on Google? By knowing how each of its programs — Google Ads and Google AdSense — work and evaluating which is right for you (or both).

In this article, we'll cover:

• Google Ads (Search and Display)
• Google AdSense
• The Differences Between Them

What Is Google Ads?

Google Ads — formerly known as Google AdWords — allows advertisers to make bids for ad placements to drive traffic to their websites. These placements can be in Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) or the Google Display Network (the network of sites, apps, and more that show Google display ads).

Search

The search ads that appear in the SERPs are a great option if you know there's a demand for your product and your audience is using search engines to satisfy it.

Display

The Google Display Network ads — also known as banner or display ads — are more visual, perfect for grabbing attention as you "rent" space where your audience hangs out online.

Google actually has another advertising program that they released three years after Google Ads’ inception. It’s called Google AdSense.

What Is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense allows publishers to place ads on their websites and other "real estate" in exchange for a "commission." These publishers make up a portion of the Google Display Network that advertisers can leverage through Google Ads.

In the image below, the recipe website uses Google AdSense to allow 2 advertisers to place banner ads on their site. The recipe site is paid by Google for the success of these ads. (More on this later.)

Image Source

Google AdSense is perfect for website publishers who are already getting traffic and want to monetize it.

Read on as we go over the main differences between Google Ads and AdSense, for whom they’re geared toward, and what their cost structure is like.

Ads (Formerly AdWords) vs. AdSense

While the Google Ads program is geared toward attracting advertisers, the Google AdSense program is geared toward attracting publishers. Advertisers use Google Ads to drive traffic to their sites, and publishers use Google AdSense to monetize their existing traffic.

Below, we've highlighted some core differences between the Google advertising options so you can make decisions on how best to distribute your ads budget.

Purpose

Platform	Purpose
Google Ads (Search)	Generate traffic to your own site from Google as a search engine.
Google Ads (Display)	Generate traffic to your own site from the Google Display Network of publishing partners, mobile apps, and video.
Google AdSense	Generate traffic for other sites as a Google Display Network publishing partner.

 

Strategy

Platform	Strategy
Google Ads (Search)	You know that your audience searches for your products or services on Google, and you want to show up in the SERPs for those queries.
Google Ads (Display)	Your audience may not know about your product or service and aren't searching for it on Google. However, a visual ad may catch their eye if you can show up on the sites where they do hang out.
Google AdSense	Your site is generating traffic, and you want to monetize it. You don't mind "renting out" real estate on your site to advertisers that your audience may find interesting.

 

Cost Structure

Platform	Cost Structure
Google Ads (Search)	You pay a fee every time a user clicks on one of your ads. This cost per click (CPC) can vary based on how much you bid, your ad rank compared to the competition, and your quality score. For this reason, more competitive keywords can have a higher CPC.
Google Ads (Display)	You can choose the right pricing for your goals: Paying by cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), or cost-per-action (CPA). CPC is better for generating traffic, CPM is better for generating awareness, and CPA is better for conversions.  According to Google, you bid for placement, and "the winner of the auction pays the minimum amount necessary to outrank the next advertiser in the auction." Competition drives up bidding, so industry and highly sought-after publications may cost more.
Google AdSense	Participation in AdSense is free, and you receive commission for the clicks, impressions, and other interactions the ads on your site receive from users. For this reason, your audience, the ad placement, and the ad quality will all be factors in how much you can make with AdSense.

As you can see from the table above, cost structure depends on a number of variables. We'll go more in-depth on it below, starting with Google Ads.

Google Ads (Search)

Naturally, there’s enormous demand for the top ad rankings, so Google triggers an auction anytime there are at least two advertisers bidding for keywords that are related to search queries that users consistently enter into Google.

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Advertisers can then categorize keywords and their corresponding ad copy and web page into groups, pick the group they want to bid on, and choose their maximum bid. Next, Google will select a keyword from the advertiser’s ad group that they deem most relevant to users’ search queries and enter it into the auction.

A Google auction isn’t like your typical auction for antiques, though. They want to level the playing field when it comes to leveraging the size of their reach, so instead of the highest bidder always winning the auction, the bidder with the highest Ad Rank always wins.

AdRank is calculated by multiplying your maximum cost-per-click bid with the quality score of your ad, which is calculated by measuring your page’s relevance to the keyword, user experience, and click-through-rate. This means organizations can’t acquire the top ranking for any keyword they want just because they have the biggest ad budgets. Their content has to be engaging.

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Google Ads wants to incentivize the best advertisers to advertise the best content on their search engine results pages, so they reward ads that have high quality scores with higher ad rankings and lower cost-per-clicks.

In the same vein, they also want to discourage bad advertisers from advertising bad content, so advertisers with low quality scores will usually only acquire a high ad position if they pay a huge cost-per-click bid. If they want to pay lower a cost-per-click, they have to settle with stooping at the bottom of the ad rankings.

If you win a Google auction, your actual cost-per-click is calculated by the second highest ad rank divided by your quality score, plus one cent. The only time you’ll pay your maximum bid is if you’re the only bidder in the auction or if you make the highest bid in the auction, but you have the lowest ad rank. In this case, you’ll acquire the last ad rank.

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Google Ads (Display) / Google AdSense

For display ads, just as with search ads, advertisers bid on publishers’ ad space in the Google Ads auction. They bid on certain keywords, and if a publisher's content has the same or similar keywords, Google will sell their ad space to the highest bidder and pay the publisher a small portion of the bid whenever people click the ad on their website.

However, AdSense doesn’t optimize the ads that they display on publishers’ website for a maximum return on investment like Google Ads does for its search advertisers when they want to optimize their ad campaigns. So, essentially, the amount of money a publisher can earn with AdSense hinges on how well they place the ads on their site and how well advertisers can craft their ads.

Publishers do have control over the types of ads that are displayed, though. They can choose from text ads, display ads, rich media ads, and more. They can also customize their ad’s style or create their own, which gives them the ability to change the size, color, textual, background, and border details of the ads that display on their website. Additionally, they can only place three content ads, three link ads, and two search boxes on each of their web pages.

Google Ads (both Search and Display) and Google AdSense are effective ways to generate revenue with digital advertising methods — the former as you drive traffic to your site and the latter as you use your site to drive traffic elsewhere.

Once you choose the program(s) that are right for you, you can begin your strategy and execution.

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

Google Ads vs. AdSense: We Break Down the Differences was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns