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subtlereferencetomyinterests · 4 years ago

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Master Post

My Master Post for Sanders Sides fanfiction! These are arranged chronologically from newest to oldest, measured by the date they were completed and uploaded in full, so that will reflect the quality here. (there’s a ton more under the cut btw).

Fast Friends - ao3... (15k Remus-centric intruality, lopsided enemies to friends to lovers, humor and a bit of angst with a happy ending. tw; emetophobes beware!) Patton doesn't like Remus, until one day, he does! Well, Remus isn't buying it. So Remus is not about to be friends with him just because he wants to (no matter how much it maybe, kind of wouldn't mind that).

I’m Not Sorry - ao3... (6k remus-centric intrulogical. continuation of Did You Miss Me. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.) Remus just wanted to get home safe to his wonderful, loving boyfriend. If some greaseball guy thinks he can screw that up, then Remus is perfectly willing to let the night take a turn for the vengeful.

Redamancy - ao3... (5k romantic prinxiety, fluffy friends to lovers with a smidgen of misunderstanding.) Virgil is undoubtedly excited about Nico. The thing is, that’s not the only person he’s excited about.

Did You Miss Me? - ao3... (13k romantic intrulogical, unhealthy relationship and mutual stalking treated light-heartedly. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat). Logan and Remus haven’t spoken in years. But that doesn’t stop them from keeping up with each other, through... various means.

The Down (and up)-side of Individual Expression - ao3... (8k romantic logince, angst w/ a happy ending, prosey and dealing w/ some kinda touchy subject matter vis a vis body image). As the sides have taken on vastly differing appearances over the years, Roman and Logan find themselves incredibly attracted in body and mind to each other. The issue is, Logan still has some trouble believing it.

Tree Bark and Fresh Fruit - ao3... (Fusion AU part six! romantic royality fusion returns for some prose and a lil bit of h/c). Patron doesn't come around often, getting lost in the excitement of Patton and Roman's new romantic relationship- so when she gets a shot to exist again, he's determined to make the most of it by figuring out just what the heck he's supposed to be.

Bitter Licorice and Bright-Blue Bubblegum - ao3... (Fusion AU part five! analogical fusion is back!) Logan and Virgil end up fusing much more regularly, much to Livril's satisfaction at getting to exist, and virtually every other side's chagrin at having to put up with them. Everyone, it seems, but Patton.

Scary Monsters and Family Bonds - ao3... (Fusion AU part four! Platonic anxceitmus with romantic dukeceit, short and mostly meaningless.) Rennet, freshly born like five seconds ago, is desperate to find some people to bother and/or amaze. But instead, Rennet finds an attachment that nobody quite expected to be so intense, but hey, it's not complaining, and neither is Virgil.

Acceptable Behavior - ao3... Remus is surprisingly concerned about his boyfriend's boundaries. (short & sweet intruality drabble. p/ much just cuddling)

On Truth and Untruth - ao3... Janus is allowed to participate in the group, and that is more than enough for them. Not too bad of a change up, really, and they aren't going to complain about it any time soon. Patton, however, insists on throwing a wrench into their system- their perfectly functioning, if maybe hypothetically a bit lonely, system. (28k word janus-centric romantic moceit and platonic dlampr, lots of angst and lots of yearning, with a happy ending. something of a character study.)

I Taste Honey but I Haven’t Seen the Hive - Chap.1, Chap.2, Chap.3, Chap.4, Chap.5, Chap.6, Chap.7, Chap.8, Chap.9 - ao3... (Finished!) Patton doesn't think of himself as misunderstood. More accurately, he's not very good at explaining himself. Remus explains himself perfectly well, succinct, confident. People are just bad at listening. Patton is lonely. He'd never say it out loud. No one knows. Remus is lonely. He says it in everything he does. No one knows. They're similar. They're different as can be. Contradictory, maybe; complimentary, definitely. They could be good for each other- they just need to explain it right. (hurt/comfort, eventual queer-platonic intruality, a healthy amount of angst).

Sharp Spikes and Glamour - ao3... (part three of my Fusion AU! a little angstier and racier than the others, but that’s thanks to the dukeceit dynamic, and its nothing too bad). Now, just a month ago, Remus could very confidently say that his and Janus’ relationship was perfect. And it still was, really, but that was before Roman and Patton had pulled some cartoon fusion bullshit that exactly no one had known was possible. There was no question. Remus was going to learn to do that.

Squishy, Precious Lil’ Baby! - ao3... Very short, platonic intruality fluff. Remus turns into a rat for a scare, but Patton is very unafraid of him in the new form.

Black Cloth and Star Systems - ao3... (Almost 4k fluff, part two of my Fusion AU! Very heavy on the descriptions, and also the Love that these two Have.) After Patton and Roman fuse, Logan can't help but feel desperately curious about this new discovery, and the possibilities of fusion between sides. But, his interest is a little more personal than he could stand to admit... Because what if- what if he could try it, too?

more under the cut

Flare Up - ao3... Human au drabble. Romantic sleepxiety. They are soft and in the rain.

Soft Walls and Roses - ao3... (Part one of my Fusion AU! Fluffy, sweet, and prose-y. Abt 3k.) On a nice, cheery day, Roman and Patton get a little lost in a dance <3.

Communication Issues (Alternative Title: Three Touch-Starved, Insecure, Metaphysical Beings Constantly Misinterpreting Each Other and Yet Somehow Falling in Love)- Chap.1, Chap.2, Chap.3, Chap.4 + Epilogue - ao3... (Finished!) What do you do when you find someone crying, and it’s all your fault? What do you say when you hear the muffled sobs and frantic words behind the blood-red door? When you know that, no matter how much you never wanted to hurt him- never wanted to hurt anyone- you still did. Is there anything you can do to fix it, when you��ve spent so long pretending that nothing was broken? When you’ve spent so long pretending that you didn’t care if things were broken or not? (Second Person, Present Tense. H/C slowburn. romantic analogince. Note: this is not an ‘x reader’ fic, it’s just 2nd person pov.)

A Study in the Pains of Romance as a Genre - ao3... Logan wasn’t 'insecure', by most measures. Sure, he wasn't exactly in love with himself, but he knew the harm that came of self-deprecation, and was careful to avoid it. At the worst of times, he could solidly be called 'self-neutral'. Therefore, it followed that Logan was being entirely objective when he said that he would not be a good enough romantic partner for Roman. (Friends to Lovers, abt 4k, romantic logince).

I Like You, Say It Back. - ao3... Short, sweet, slightly angsty first ‘I Love You’ between Virgil and Remus. romantic dukexiety.

A Misplaced Imbalance of Fear - ao3... almost 7k friends to lovers fastburn, in that this happens in a day. Set during/right after Putting Others First, a little peak into what Virgil and Remus were doing. Hint; being a little sad and very gay. romantic dukexiety.

The Ballroom - ao3... Every side has a room, but they also come with a special domain, completely individualized to each one. Of these Extensions, the only room that no side (other than its owner) has ever seen is Janus’. At least, until he falls head-over-heels for Roman and finally lets him in. (romantic roceit).

Hypothetically, - ao3... Nearly 7k friends to lovers, with a hearty helping of platonic logince. Logan likes to use the Imagination for experiments, but he can’t manage to use it on his own. The solution is obvious. (romantic intrulogical).

No Other Version of Me - ao3... Patton isn’t very happy about his new froggy features, but Janus finds him gorgeous all the same. Hurt/comfort! romantic moceit.

Complexities Unknowable- Chap.1, chap.2, chap.3, chap.4, chap.5, chap.6, chap.7 - ao3... (Finished!) Slowburn with pre-established Dukeceit, rivals to friends to lovers, with Background Analogince (plus some platonic anxceit and Creativitwins thrown in for funsies). romantic deintruality.

I’d Like To Stand By Him - ao3... Roman and Virgil listen to each other’s playlists. romantic prinxiety.

An Open and Honest Conversation About Our Feelings - ao3... hurt/comfort, shamelessly self-indulgent. Patton doesn’t come out of his room all day, so Virgil goes to check up on him. romantic moxiety.

Something to Uplift Us - ao3... Roman-centric (and Remus-centric) DLAMPR (platonic Creativitwins!). Quarantine shenanigans; the boys put on a show for their boyfriends!

Thursday Nights - ao3... Short fluff where Remus and Patton watch a horror flick together and cuddle. romantic intruality.

5 Times Logan Helped His Partners Get Their Shit Together +1 Time They Returned The Favor - ao3... Summary’s in the title on this one, Bud. Logan-centric romantic DLAMPR (platonic p & r), very hurt/comfort.

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personalityarchive · 4 years ago

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Mike Morton 7w6

[[28 August 2020

Originally written as a comment thread on PDB]]

I will admit that I did a double take seeing the consensus vote on Mike’s enneatype. I had thought it rather plain to see that he is a base type 7, but apparently that is not the case. Perhaps his career as a performer is what caused the mistype, but it’s still strange to imagine a type 3 Mike. (I also got a bit of a chuckle out of seeing Mike voted as chaotic good when he’s clearly a chaotic neutral character. More on that in its own thread.)

As a character with a full set of deduction targets, several costumes, and accessories, there is an abundance of information on Mike’s character that I feel is vital in discerning his true enneatype. From his deductions alone, it’s quite obvious that he cares less about personal image or professional success than he does about trying new things and having a good time. Especially the parts of the deduction tree written from Mike’s first person perspective, it’s obvious that image and career is a secondary consideration, tied more to the 7’s desire to be entertaining than from the 3’s desire to maintain a “good image”.

Mike’s second deduction target, entitled “The Secret of Juggling”, has this description line: “Throwing isn't just an interesting skill. It's what makes a juggler successful.” Now, if this was all it had to say about him, I would agree, a 3 interpretation wouldn’t be far-fetched at all. However, the deduction conclusion is what is truly significant here, as it is in fact a diary entry from Mike himself. The deduction tagline could be interpreted as a general statement on Mike’s career, or even as an opinion from Bernard himself. Meanwhile, the conclusion has this to say:

“Diary 1: Bernard said that the size and shape of the bag, as well as the type of filling, are critical. He refused my request to fill the bag with stones, stating that it was ‘hazardous’.”

We can see here that Mike is less interested in appealing to the expectations of others, and indeed, in maintaining a polished image, than Bernard is. What Mike is interested in is in fact trying out new things, even dangerous ones — his phrasing of Bernard’s response to his proposal shows that what he finds frustrating is feeling limited in his options. Mike doesn’t seem too convinced that his idea should have been rejected, and was less concerned with the practicality of it than he was in simply exploring the possibility. This is clearly far more indicative of a 7 than of a 3.

Now, based on what Bernard told Mike — namely, that he identified certain factors as “critical” to the bags used in juggling — we can infer that it is Bernard who is concerned about keeping up appearances, or doing things the “right way” (suggesting perhaps a base 1 or 3 for him). From this, we can further conclude that the tagline of this deduction target is indeed a reflection of Bernard’s thoughts rather than Mike’s.

This flows into the next deduction, “Artistic Acts”, with the description: “Creativity is what ensures that the stage performances continue to improve.” Again, this sounds like a statement from Bernard’s perspective, and perhaps offers us some insight into why Bernard treated Mike with the kind of leniency that permitted Mike’s later experimentation with acid and nitre. Since Bernard is the one in charge of the circus, he is the one concerned with constantly improving the show; because Mike’s creativity allows him to come up with new ideas (and gives him the natural charisma that propelled him into the position of audience favorite), Bernard is willing to let Mike get away with quite a bit.

Meanwhile, the conclusion for Artistic Acts gives us a summary for one of Mike’s own writings: “Notebook: The properties of Nitre and some ‘Test Records’ were recorded in detail.” The implication here is that Mike was not very concerned with how his experiments would directly benefit his performances; in fact, the notebook’s contents give a sense of unease, communicating a message in direct opposition to the deduction target summary. Not only is nitre entirely unnecessary in improving his performance as an acrobat, but Mike’s behavior seems rather secretive in nature. So, the purpose of this deduction target is to show a disconnect between the way Bernard perceived Mike and the activities that Mike was actually engaging in. Bernard saw Mike as an invaluable member of the Hullabaloo Circus, and assumed that the experiments and ideas Mike explored all went into augmenting said performances. Of course, by advancing along the deduction tree, it becomes increasingly clear that Mike’s area of interest had little to do with his professional success.

Taking a step back and analyzing the deduction targets for Mike from a more holistic standpoint, a certain pattern emerges. We can see that the first 5 deduction targets are separated from the last 5 in tone and perspective.

1) “Family: He's like a father; an ideal one.”

2) “The Secret of Juggling: Throwing isn't just an interesting skill. It's what makes a juggler successful.”

3) “Artistic Acts: Creativity is what ensures that the stage performances continue to improve.”

4) “A New Face: The circus is where people come and go. We always welcome new faces, and obviously, the beautiful ones.”

5) “ ‘Darling’: How people call each other often reflects the degree to which the relationship has developed.”

6) “Downcast: Watching a sad face can sometimes bring us some dark pleasure.”

7) “Carnival: Carnivals usually mean chaos, and chaos means opportunity.”

8) “The End: It's all over.”

9) “Encore: Audiences often say this hoping that the performer will continue performing on the stage.”

10) “Reappearance: Call their names and make them return to the stage once again.”

Laying them out side-by-side, it’s clear that the first five have summary lines that focus more on outward appearances, professional achievement, and success — all values of the 3. Key words can be picked out from each to support this conclusion: “ideal” from Family; “successful” from The Secret of Juggling; “improve” from Artistic Acts; “beautiful” from A New Face; “reflects” from “Darling”.

Meanwhile, the second half contain sentiments that are far more self-driven, or self-referential, yet less self-aware. Rather than seeking to appear a particular way in the eyes of others, there is an endogenously-generated drive based on the assessment of the appearances of those around the speaker. This way of approaching the self and others maps to the 7’s desire to forget the self through constant absorption in the external world. For the 7, there is a lack of consideration regarding professional success — real or perceived — and a greater emphasis on living in the moment. Plans for the future all funnel into goals that may not be practical or even fully fleshed-out, since stopping to examine their own thoughts and feelings can frighten the 7.

On top of this, the deduction targets undergo an overall shift in speaking style; while the first half of the deduction targets can be a bit longer, even bordering on long-winded, the second half are far more succinct but, again, less self-reflective. This displays the 7’s style of interacting with the world more than the 3, where focus can be more scattered in the search for instant gratification, although the analytical aspects of the mind center are still present.

What we see in the second set of deduction targets is the perspective of a more active, impatient person than the previous deduction summaries. There’s only one that contains a sentence with more than a single clause, and even then it’s to quickly connect two different concepts without having to go through the trouble of further explication. While indicative of a nimble mind, this cleverness manifests as an underlying impatience. Overall, the tendency in these deduction summaries is towards a more singularly outward-focused attention, with a desire to engage with the world without having to pause for self-reflection.

This pattern in turn suggests a split in the speaker for the first set of deduction target taglines versus the second set. While deductions one through four reflect Bernard’s perspective, six through ten are Mike’s. As for the fifth deduction, that’s the bridge; it’s where the speaker switches from one to the other, segueing into Mike being the deduction’s “voice” for both the summary and conclusion of each. Even more interesting, in fact, is the particular way the fifth deduction target implies an asymmetry in the perspective of the two speakers; the summary is a reflection of both Bernard and Mike’s understanding of the other, though the angle is skewed significantly when moving between the two.

While Bernard and Mike are simultaneously experiencing a shift in their relationship to one another, the directions of perceived development are not only incongruent, they’re fundamentally incompatible. The title and speaking style of this deduction further underline this imbalance; while the tone and pacing of the summary reads as Bernard’s voice, the conclusion and the name “darling” are clearly from Mike’s perspective.

The deduction conclusion is as follows: “Diary 2: I love Nitre! As long as it's mixed with water, even a hot summer's day can become refreshing! Bernard's reaction was hilarious, and he even called me ‘Dear Mr. Mike Morton’! Oh, Bernard, I want to hear it again. Next time, I'll make sure to put my cold hands down your collar.”

This casual and playful writing style is juxtaposed against the matter-of-fact — almost distant — statement on the nature of relationships in the summary, creating further dissonance within the deduction. It is implied, then, that Bernard’s opinion of his relationship to Mike has developed from one of paternal care (see the information given by the first deduction) to one of a more professional nature; Bernard is Mike’s boss, not his caretaker. Meanwhile, Mike has developed what appears to be homoerotic feelings towards Bernard, seeing the nickname “Dear Mr. Mike Morton” as a term of endearment rather than one of separation.

Referring back to the second deduction target, the subtle shift in Mike’s understanding of his and Bernard’s roles in their relationship can be further explored. While the contents of Diary 1 suggest that Mike does still see Bernard as a superior (one that he will listen to, if a bit begrudgingly), Diary 2 shows a significantly more excited response to what can be inferred to be reprimand from Bernard. Mike, it seems, has come to view Bernard and himself as interacting on equal terms, and thus, as eligible for developing a relationship outside the bounds of their previous connection. Similarly, Bernard no longer sees the power dynamic of their relationship as being defined by “guardian” and “child”; however, contrary to Mike’s interpretation, Bernard still very much sees himself as being the superior. In a sense, elevation from “child” to “employee” does put Mike on more equal footing with Bernard, but what Mike has failed to pick up on is the paradoxical increase in distance in their relationship, even as he is elevated to the status of “fellow adult”.

In these differing sets of expectations, we can see a clear conflict between a 7’s approach to relationships and that of a 1 (or a 3 with a strong connection to 1). While Bernard is concerned with the way the relationship is “supposed” to develop (e.g. the way a boss is supposed to treat an employee), the 7 is concerned with exploring possibilities and having fun. Further, the 7 is interested in relationships that are constantly changing, as a way of staving off boredom and maintaining investment in the other person. For many 7’s, the only way to preserve dedication to a single “other” is to NOT preserve some aspect of it. In other words, if he is to be limited in the individuals available for him to form attachments to, he must seek variety in the way the attachment functions.

Bernard seems to be interested in treating Mike as a proper adult now, one who has responsibilities and ought to know the proper way of behaving. His reaction to Mike’s experimentation with explosives is one of frustration, calling him “Dear Mr. Mike Morton” as a combination middle-naming of a misbehaving child, and a more professional way of addressing another adult. So, it can be said that Bernard appears to be straddling the line between criticism for a subordinate’s “improper” behavior, and a lingering fondness for his charge.

Mike, on the other hand, seems to have simply derived great amusement from the situation, whether or not he picked up on the remaining fondness Bernard held. His excited proclamation of love for nitre and his plans to put his cold hands down Bernard’s collar read solidly as a 7’s epicurean desire for pleasure and sensual enjoyment, rather than from any influence from type 3. In fact, it’s questionable if Mike was even consciously aware that Bernard was not as amused as he by the entire affair; indeed, his spin on being scolded is exactly the sort of reaction expected of the positive outlook of the 7.

Additionally, as opposed to the 3’s efforts to maintain a good image in the eyes of others, the 7 tries to hold onto a self-image of being okay through rationalization and positive reframing. As long as they don’t have to acknowledge negativity, they can feel comfortable and happy. At the same time, the 7’s rationalization goes towards thinking of what lies ahead, escaping from the limited present to a future with boundless possibility. What we can see Mike doing in his diary entry is just that: he chooses to see Bernard’s scolding as an expression of endearment, and has already skipped forward to thinking about fun or interesting plans for “next time”. Nowhere in this diary deduction is there even a whiff of the 3’s desire to appeal to the expectations of others, or appear competent and professional.

Following this split perspective, the deduction summaries fall squarely into the realm of Mike’s internal dialogue. Deduction six, Downcast, leads with the following: “Watching a sad face can sometimes bring us some dark pleasure.” When compared to some of the earlier deductions, the contrast is jarring. While the present or implied “others” were previously referenced in terms of interaction or as a source of expectations, here they exist solely as a source of entertainment. There is an absence of people-pleasing or even the sentiment that others are tools to be used; this falls far more in line with the 7’s desire to be entertained or to be entertaining, rather than the 3’s understanding of the give and take of unspoken social contracts.

More than that, the conclusion of deduction six gives us another glimpse into the shifting dynamic between Mike and Bernard:

“Diary 3: Bernard sent his regards to my beloved little ones. He thought the wounds on Joker's face looked more like ‘corrosions’. His suspicions really hurt me! Of course, I did lose a bottle of strong acid. Maybe I'll have to get another bottle before Bernard finds out about this ‘mismanagement’.”

While I admit to being unsure who Mike is referring to as his “beloved little ones”, the rest of this diary entry is fairly straightforward. Again, we see Mike’s bubbly and enthusiastic character, brushing off what are clearly well-founded misgivings from Bernard. Like with the scolding he received in the second deduction target, Mike — in a very characteristically 7ish way — responds with a playful attitude: “His suspicions really hurt me!” is expressed in a manner completely foreign to the 3, especially one who is experiencing a threat to their image in the eyes of someone they feel close to.

While it may be true that Mike is wounded by Bernard’s ability to suspect him of such a crime, he covers it up with humor, rather than going to the 3’s tactic of trying to prove his integrity or good character. Rather than indicating a wounded ego, Mike shows an avoidance of the negative; he distracts from a situation that could be emotionally difficult by covering it up with a joke, then quickly moving onto something else.

Now, Mike does engage in willful deceit (planning to cover up anything that may further implicate him), the ego fixation of the 3. However, the tone he takes is still one of measured amusement; his cheeky admission of incriminating evidence paired with his word choice “mismanagement” indicates an almost facetious attitude towards Bernard’s accusation, and more broadly, his concern with professionalism and image. After all, “mismanagement” is a term likely employed by Bernard in the past, as previous deduction targets indicate that he is a man who takes his work seriously. By placing this word in quotation marks, Mike expresses two things: first, that he is using someone else’s word; and second, that he himself does not hold the same values.

The following deduction, Carnival, starts with: “Carnivals usually mean chaos, and chaos means opportunity.” Again, there is a clear expression of the 7’s unstructured energy, always looking for the next exciting thing, chasing that high. While a 3 takes a more structured approach to reaching their goals and seizing opportunities, it is the 7 who sees chaos itself as being opportunity. In chaos, anything is possible, and the 7 finds this stimulating, even considering it to be an ideal situation.

Of course, when figuring out one’s enneagram, it is also important to consider the lines of connection. If the core type is uncertain, figuring out just one line can be enough to create a compelling case for one enneatype over another. The final deduction targets and the rumor about Mike, therefore, offer some vital pieces of the puzzle.

Deduction 8, “The End: It's all over.” Short, sweet, to the point, but overall somewhat disappointing. There’s not enough substance to really determine much more about Mike than we already know. But, when including the slightly lengthier conclusion, necessary context is provided. The conclusion follows thusly:

“Newspaper Clipping: The carnival killer remains a mystery. The public feels that the local police did not do a good job and has called for further investigations.”

Despite not being directly from Mike’s own diary or journal, this is still following his perspective; the framing of this information is key in our understanding of its significance. Clearly, this conclusion functions to tell the audience what sort of tragedy occurred at the circus, but also to include Mike as being a member of the public who holds this belief. This hints at the start of a 7’s disintegration into 1, where the focus goes from what is “fun” to what is “right” and “wrong”, edging into the unhealthy territory of becoming critical and punitive.

When faced with the death of his circus family, Mike, in an attempt to distract himself from the painful reality, jumps into action, hoping to escape the fears nipping at his heels. After suffering such a devastating loss, he wastes no time with mourning; he immediately goes to enacting a plan to deal with the perpetrator of the crime. We see in his next deduction, Encore, the following: “Diary 4: I scoured the city's mortuary and found everyone except the strange new couple. They were scheduled for the grand finale and couldn't sneak out.”

We see immediately another massive tone shift in the speaker, though we know that rather than crossing over from one character to another, it is Mike who is undergoing the switch in tone. In stark contrast to the chipper, playful mood of his earlier entries, this one is very matter-of-fact, very controlled. The 1’s desire to be objective and principled has overshadowed the 7’s energetic distractibility. From the rumor on his page, we know that: “Mike Morton is the most popular guy in the traveling circus ‘Hullabaloo’. After surviving the disaster, Mike Morton's only goal is to find the real killer who destroyed his home."

This solidifies the interpretation of Mike disintegrating into a 1. As a 7, his natural instinct when faced with the threat of loss is to reach for more, trying to gather close that which he feels is important to his survival and comfort. Unfortunately, this option has been denied him completely; he cannot have “more” of “nothing”, which is precisely what he has now that his entire way of life, his home, his family, has been destroyed. Faced with this harsh reality, Mike has dedicated himself to the single-minded goal of hunting down the one who dared to steal everything from him. The 7’s impatience is magnified by the 1’s resentment and anger, leading to his overpowering pursuit of a quite 1ish crusade against the wrongdoings of others.

This understanding of the text is only further supported by alternate translations of the original text, which provide additional information and insight into both the tragedy itself, and Mike’s perspective:

1) “Blonde curls, a lively spirit and clear blue eyes forever full of joy, Mike Morton was the most popular guy in Hullabaloo, the travelling circus. Hullabaloo was Mike's entire world, a world where slaughter should never have existed. Having survived from the tragedy, Mike would stop at nothing until he finds the one responsible for shattering his world.”

2) “Now desperate and having lost the only things that mattered in his life, Mike's only goal in life is to find the true murderer of those he cherished.”

In all three translations, we see the overwhelming sense of loss, devastation and panic driving him over the edge. Having found the bodies of his comrades, and having discovered what in his mind is the suspicious departure of the circus’ newest members, the last hopes of employing his instinctive response (read: avoidance) are dashed. All at once, Mike is forced to contend with problems and pain he is unaccustomed to coping with. He dips immediately into the unhealthy emotions of the 1, the 1’s feeling of being the only one who is Right and Good; he alone can know the Truth.

This reading is supplemented by the correspondence we have from Mike to a man by the name of Arthur Russell. Thanks to being included as content for both Mike and Murro’s character days, we have not one but two samples of his writing post-Hullabaloo disaster. Following on the heels of the Encore deduction target, Mike’s drastic tonal shift while writing stands in stark contrast to his earlier, livelier musings. Mike’s birthday letter is as follows:

“Dear Mr. Arthur Russell,

The investigation report you've sent last time was of great assistance to me. In regard to the animal tamer Natalie, also known as Margaretha Zelle, I wish to acquire further information on her upbringing as well as her life before the circus. Starting next week, I will be out of town for a while, and your salary will be paid in the same payment method per usual. There is no need to send in your report this time. I will pick them up at your residence.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours Truly,

Mike Morton”

We can see that he has adopted a very formal voice, adhering to proper etiquette and expressing his thoughts in an impersonal, emotionally distant way. Without knowing whose signature adorns this letter, one could easily be convinced that this was penned by Bernard. In fact, my first time reading this letter caused me a moment of confusion; surely it was a mistake, a particularly egregious error similar to the mistranslation of Priestess’ name. After all, how could Mike have been the one to write in such a clipped, formal style? Yet, here is Murro’s birthday letter:

“Dear Mr. Russell,

Due to unforeseen circumstances, your mission objective has been "eliminated" prior to the engagement of your employee.

Therefore, I regret to inform you that the remaining payment is beyond my obligation, as stated in our agreement. After all, no one could possibly uncover a fully-intact cranial remains within that pile of ashes.

I wish you well.

Your loyal customer,

Mike Morton”

There is no denying it, Mike did in fact send these letters. His playful, somewhat childish persona is just that: an act. Underneath it, he is incredibly capable and self-sufficient, and the letters seem to place a great deal of emphasis on the matter of “should” or “shouldn’t”, whether something “ought to be” or not. He must do the right thing, in the right way; he expects others to do the same. To the reader, there is a feeling that beneath the carefully controlled surface lies a mass of ugly emotions. There is anger. There is resentment. There is a gradual movement towards a breaking point. It is precisely this which led people to initially believe that Mike himself could have been the circus killer. The details are obscure, the content sinister, the controlled tone reading as hiding something — some dark secret. Murro’s birthday letter seems to imply that Mike has hired a hitman to “eliminate” somebody — likely Murro — but an incident (perhaps even one of his own making) has prematurely killed that person off.

What these letters show us is the 1’s methodical approach; they bear a striking similarity to Mike’s early deduction summaries, as though Mike were subconsciously attempting to borrow from Bernard’s more structured, 1ish mannerisms. With a professionalism and formality that is unassailable in its dignity, but with the base 7’s falsely cheerful tone and the 6 wing’s suspicious nature, Mike sends letters to this “Arthur Russell” character.

Why wing 6 rather than wing 8? Especially when given his apparent embrace of violent means? Well, despite his vengeful rage, he does display the 6 wing’s avoidance of conflict, when possible; as far back as the second deduction target, this is made clear. Mike’s reaction to Bernard denying his request was not to lash out, or argue; he simply moped about it later, when he was alone. Then, when Bernard suspected Mike of disfiguring Joker’s face, Mike’s response was again one of disappointment, not aggression.

The mere fact that Mike would say that Bernard’s accusations “really hurt” falls in direct opposition to the 8’s unwillingness to display weakness of any kind. Even in jest, exposing one’s own emotional vulnerability is not something a 7 with a strong 8 wing would be comfortable doing. On the other hand, the 6 wing is far likelier to allow this; one defense mechanism of the 6, after all, is to appear vulnerable in an attempt to elicit protective feelings from an authority figure. Further evidence is supplied by Mike’s Deduction Star 2020 quotes.

Quote: "Don't think I'll trust you so easily, you cute little thing."

Here, Mike is speaking with the playfulness of his base, 7, while communicating a 6ish difficulty in trusting others. Especially when directed at someone (or something?) “little” and “cute”, this suspicion really does play to the 6’s anxiety and doubt. Where an 8 may feel powerful and confident in the presence of something that appears defenseless, a 6 will be wary; it can’t possibly be so simple, right? Surely it’s a trap?

A 7 with an 8 wing would be more likely to find this mixture of traits endearing, perhaps even themself feeling some twinge of protectiveness. The 8, in general, tends to champion the underdog, desiring to defend that which is innocent or tender. Besides which, the 7w8 is far more blunt and forceful; if there is doubt of a person’s trustworthiness, the problem will be dealt with head-on. It is the 7w6 who will communicate a lack of trust in the lighthearted manner used in the quote; after all, the 6 wing doesn’t want to escalate the situation unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

What of this Deduction Star quote: "I won't let go of the person that destroyed Hullabaloo’.”? Does this not embody the 8’s ego fixation, vengeance? Well yes, but actually no. It’s easy to mistake his actions as being driven by this, as both the 7 and the 8 share an assertive Hornevian type. However, the 8 experiences threats as a challenge, a call to battle; the 8 will make their presence known, and the subject of their wrath will be aware that they have a target painted on their back. By contrast, the 7’s aggression is more of an entitlement, and need not manifest itself overtly all of the time. The 6 wing is what allows the 7 to readily employ the dishonest, underhanded scheming that Mike happily does.

8’s “holy idea” is truth, meaning a life-long search for truth and justice. Mike does not show any interest in such a thing until after the slaughter. His 7’s harmonic pattern of optimistic outlook is twisted into the 1’s focus of attention on what’s imperfect and must be made better. His active nature is turned toward a need to do the “right thing” in the “right way”, with the 1’s ego fixation of resentment driving his actions. But what is it that separates the 8’s vengeance from the 1’s resentment, and how does Mike display one over the other?

The 8’s need for justice calls for the righting of all wrongs, notably towards those they feel protective of, while the 1’s resentment stems from needing to do the “good work” that others won’t notice, won’t care about, or won’t make a “strong enough effort” to do. Not only did Mike not feel protective of his fellow Hullabaloo performers, but we see from the newspaper clipping that “insufficient effort” on the part of law enforcement played a significant role in Mike’s outlook. His search for the “truth” behind the killings, then, is the 1ish excuse for his own actions. His goal is “noble”, therefore, his actions are “right” or “necessary”. The final deduction, “Reappearance”, further solidifies this view.

Summary: “Call their names and make them return to the stage once again.”

Conclusion: “Invitation: Enclosed is a photo of a dark-haired woman with a name on the back - Natalie.”

We find out what he was sent that brought him to Oletus: the knowledge that Natalie is at the manor. Remember, now, that he has been investigating Natalie under the suspicion that she was involved; he had no real evidence. Still, he insists that he is after the “truth”. This falls in line with the 1’s strong sense of purpose, coupled with the need to justify their actions to themselves (and sometimes others as well). He has convinced himself that he is following logic and perhaps objective truth, when in reality, he is allowing his own judgements and unsubstantiated convictions to guide his actions.

Driving this point home is one of his dislikes being listed as “violent and rude people”. Yet, somehow, Mike seemingly hired a hitman, and may have had some involvement in Murro’s death. This is the hypocrisy of the unhealthy 1: it is evil and bad when others do it, but the 1 is exempt, since they are acting for a good cause. (On the other hand, a stronger influence from the 8 would allow for the admittance of double standards, but with justification along the lines of “law of the jungle” or “the strong devour the weak”.)

Considering all of this, Mike’s childish persona seems to be a product of a 7 base with a 6 wing; his desire to enact retribution upon the circus killer comes from the 7’s disintegration to 1, not from an 8 wing. Following the tragedy at Hullabaloo, Mike undergoes a transformation: his spirited, ludic nature turns condemnatory, moralistic, and ultimately, vindictive.

#long post #character analysis #identity v #mike morton #idv acrobat #enneagram #enneatype #ennea 7 #7w6 #idv bernard #idv murro #wildling #idv wildling #the full writeup was 15 pages long #so this is just the section about the enneagram #but without the appended skins information #which will be added in a reblog #plus the chaotic neutral essay #and the tldr

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analogscum · 6 years ago

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SCUM IN THE AISLES #4 (The House That Jack Built: Unrated Director’s Cut)

Sometimes, in order to seek out the weirdest discarded slices of celluloid trash that cinema has to offer, one must leave the confines of their crappy apartment, and go to an actual movie theater. This is a column recounting my excursions into the b-movie wilds. This is Scum in the Aisles!

PART 1: ANTICIPATION

“You’ve all bought tickets for a Lars von Trier film, so you know what you’re getting yourselves into.”

With this, Justin Timms, the founder of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, and our host for this evening in a dark and chilly corner of Greenpoint known as the Film Noir Cinema, ceded the floor to the film we had all gathered to experience, The House That Jack Built. A two and a half hour art house serial killer epic by perhaps the most controversial filmmaker alive. A film that prompted both mass walkouts (anywhere between a dozen and a hundred people, depending on who you ask) and a ten minute standing ovation when it premiered out of competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. A film which has since been decried as a gruesome, sadistic, mean-spirited slog by some, and praised as a beautiful, self-reflexive act of provocation by others.

Timms, for his part, had just seen the film for the first time along with the crowd from the first screening of the evening, and he looked positively shell-shocked. All around me, the crowd buzzed with nervousness and excitement. What sort of celluloid horrors awaited us? Would we be able to stomach what was splayed up on the screen? Would cinema’s angry Danish trickster god once again succeed in getting under our skin and raising our cockles? Or had his flagellations, both towards himself and the audience that improbably keeps coming back (myself included), grown tired and stale?

Our host had claimed that we knew what we were getting ourselves into simply by showing up to watch a Lars von Trier film…but did we?

PART 2: SYNOPSIS

The House That Jack Built follows Jack (Matt Dillon, turning in a career best performance) over roughly twelve years of a very eventful life. Jack lives somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, he’s an engineer who dabbles in architecture on the side. He comes from a wealthy family; his inheritance allows him to buy a large plot of land by a picturesque lake and build his titular house. However, what Jack really loves, his true passion in life, is annihilating other human beings. Jack is not just A serial killer, he is THE serial killer. Dude makes Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, both of whose real life exploits are alluded to via Jack’s activities in the film, look like slouches.

As von Trier likes to do, the film is divided into five chapters and an epilogue. The five chapters are each devoted to a specific murder out of the nearly hundred he commits that is supposed to make us understand why Jack does what he does. I’ll get to the epilogue later, because I have FEELINGS about it. Similarly, as von Trier also likes to do, Jack narrates these chapters in the form of a confession, in this case to a man named Verge (Bruno Ganz). With the first two chapters, von Trier catches us off guard by deploying humor. Aside from the violence, which is indeed quite brutal, von Trier manages to wring genuine laughs out of the absurdity of these situations. In the first chapter, Uma Thurman plays a rich woman with a flat tire who is so unpleasant and annoying that you can’t help but root for Jack to kill her. In the second chapter, Siobhan Fallon Hogan makes the mistake of believing Jack when he knocks on her door, first pretending to be a policeman, then incredulously switching gears and pretending to be an insurance salesman, before a comedy of errors involving Jack’s cleanliness-based OCD, a very annoyed local cop, and a telltale trail of blood ensues. The audience I saw it with tonight ate these moments up, partially laughing at the jokes themselves, then perhaps doubling down when we realized how inappropriate it was to be laughing in the first place.

However, the laughs quickly dried up once chapter three began. This chapter involved the shooting of children, and was the focus of much of the ire directed at the film after Cannes. Indeed, especially in a post-Sandy Hook world, the violence in this section was almost unbearable. Aside from seeing children gunned down in graphic detail, Jack then conducts some, shall we say, amateur taxidermy with one of the corpses, making for the second time in two films that von Trier has given us the nightmare image of a child with a horrifying rictus smile (shoutouts to the baby from Nymphomaniac Vol. II). Chapter four details the gruesome fate of Jack’s one and only girlfriend, played by Riley Keough. Von Trier ratchets up the tension here to near intolerable levels, foreshadowing a horrific act of mutilation a good ten minutes before it happens, and then showing it up close, in nauseatingly graphic detail. Most of the audience, myself included, watched this scene through our fingers.

Now, very quickly, I’ll say that, yes, for most normal moviegoers, the violence in this film will definitely be a lot. But speaking as a connoisseur of horror movies and weirdo genre experiments, it wasn’t anything outside of the ordinary. In fact, I found the violence in Antichrist to be way more upsetting and visceral than most of what you see in this film.

Chapter five sees Jack conducting a gristly experiment in his industrial freezer involving full metal jacket bullets. He also picks up a spiffy red hooded robe. This is where we catch up with the beginning of the film, and see Verge for the first time. As it turns out, Verge is here to chaperone Jack to the fires of Hell. This is where the Epilogue kicked off, and where the audience, myself DEFINITELY included, started to get a bit antsy. I seem to recall an old maxim that goes something like, you can do anything to an audience aside from bore them. Well, unfortunately, I found this Epilogue to be almost unbearably boring. Aside from some stunning imagery, it was mostly tedious and pretentious, straining for some sort of higher message that was just unnecessary. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be: Tarkovsky by way of Tim and Eric. Normally that would be a compliment coming from me. All the pretty pictures in the world means nothing if the audience is reaching for their coats.

PART 3: INTENTIONS

So what is von Trier trying to tell us with all of this madness? What does he want us to take with us once we leave the theater? If you follow his filmography, it’s not a big scoop to say that von Trier’s most recent work, starting with Antichrist and continuing through Melancholia and the Nymphomaniac films, have been somewhat autobiographical, sort of his version of State of the Union addresses. The House That Jack Built feels like the culmination of this stage of his career. In this film, von Trier puts himself on trial, with Dillon’s Jack as his surrogate. Just like with the Nymphomaniac films, there are many, many, MANY flowery, pseudo-philosophical digressions on a number of topics, accompanied by slides and bits of archival video (I’ll bet someone out there is kicking themselves for ever having introduced von Trier to Shudderstock), including the poetry of William Blake, photography, love, deer hunting, gothic architecture, and Glenn Gould. One especially epic digression finds Jack opining on dessert wines, the Third Reich architect Albert Speer, and finally the artistic integrity of von Trier’s own cinematic oeuvre, complete with clips from his previous films. Ballsy, no?

I would be lying to you if I said I understood everything that von Trier was trying to convey with these digressions. However, it is definitely clear to me that this film is meant to function as sort of a statement to the jury in the court of public opinion. Von Trier has always put himself at the forefront of his films more so than most directors, displaying his name alongside, or sometimes above his actors (hell, for this film, he even devoted an entire poster to himself). This, of course, means we the audience tend to read his films as glimpses into its maker’s psyche more than we would for most other directors, which is not entirely fair in my opinion, but it’s a blessing and a curse that von Trier has brought on himself. So what does he want us to understand about himself after we’ve seen The House That Jack Built? It seems to be something along the lines of, yes, every awful thing you’ve said about me is true, and you could never hate me as much as I hate myself, but I only answer to a higher power. Which, yeah, ok...but is that enough? Or, to put it more succinctly, is that even that interesting of a conclusion? We’ve now sat through nearly ten hours of von Trier’s cinematic therapy sessions over the last decade, and he basically ends it all by pulling a Tupac on us: only God can judge me.

PART 4: MISANTHROPY

The best and most succinct description of von Trier’s modus operandi as an artist that I’ve yet to hear comes from the excellent YouTube movie review show Welcome to the Basement. During their most recent episode, while giving a (largely negative) critique of Dogville, co-host Matt Sloan describes von Trier as “a provocateur that has the talent to back it up.” Indeed, if von Trier was entirely the sum of his detractors claims, then he would’ve been forgotten a long time ago. He does indeed have the cinematic bonafides, and they don’t let him down here: the camerawork in this film is gorgeous and intimate, the editing is kinetic and fast-paced, and as usual von Trier knows just how and when to perfectly deploy a pop song for maximum disarmament.

The most resounding jibe against von Trier is that he is a raving misogynist, due to the almost ludicrously awful levels of suffering that he puts his female protagonists through. For his part, von Trier has defended himself in the past by saying he is actually fighting against the patriarchy by showing the awful trials that women must endure in a society run by men. It’s a fair, if slightly dubious claim. Personally I’ve always been kind of dumbfounded that we seem to hold von Trier to these moral standards based on the fates of his fictional characters that we just don’t with other directors. What makes him an exception in this case? Wes Anderson and Yorgos Lanthimos depict gruesome animal deaths left and right in their films, but does anyone legitimately think that they hate pets? However, when it comes to The House That Jack Built, I cannot and will not defend von Trier against these accusations of misogyny. Almost none of the female characters in the film are even given a name, and the one exception, Keough’s “Jaqueline Simple,” is derided constantly by Jack and called stupid because of her last name. It becomes especially stark and uncomfortable when, at one point, Verge observes that the women Jack has discussed strike him as “unbelievably stupid,” as if they somehow deserved to die because of that. Jack just shrugs and says that he also killed men, but he just so happened to choose these stories of killing women “at random.” Mhmmm. Not buying it this time, bucko.

Then again, you could argue that, since this story is told from the perspective of a man who unapologetically murders women in the most gruesome and debasing of ways, it would be dishonest or nonsensical to show them otherwise. But that brings up a whole other can of worms: what does it say about von Trier himself that he seems to seriously identify with a mass murderer? At one point, the film alludes to, and seemingly tries to make excuses for, the infamous press conference following Melancholia’s Cannes premiere during which von Trier compared himself to and jokingly sympathized with Hitler, an act of provocation which earned him an unofficial “ban for life” from the festival (obviously this did not last). And perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but the scene where Jack experiments with killing multiple people at once with a single full metal jacket bullet reminded me of a director at work, setting up his shot, changing the angle, making sure everything is just right, except in this instance, the camera is replaced with a high powered military grade rifle. Jack does remark at multiple times throughout the film that he sees his killings as a sort of art. Does von Trier relate to this sentiment? Does he see the creation of art as an act of love, as Verge does, or more like Jack, as an act of decay and degradation? I’m guessing more the latter than the former.

PART 5: DAMNATION

As good as Sloan’s summation of his modus operandi on Welcome to the Basement was, I have my own go-to log line: von Trier’s story is the story of a man who got everything he wished for, but was still miserable. For the first part of his career, von Trier was determined to an almost psychotic degree to be seen as one of the great auteurs of cinema. Anyone who didn’t agree was the fucking enemy. When his 1991 film Europa, which was up for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, won the Jury Prize instead, von Trier lashed out, calling that year’s jury president, Roman Polanski, “the midget” during his acceptance speech, and later hurled his trophy into the French Riviera in anger. But then his luck began to change. His next film to play in competition, 1996’s Breaking the Waves, won the Grand Prix and was nominated for an Oscar, and 2000’s Dancer in the Dark finally won him his long sought after Palme d’Or. After years of angrily bashing the world cinema establishment over the head with his own inflated opinion of himself, von Trier was finally one of the most respected and discussed filmmakers of the day.

The thing is, once you’re on top, there’s only one way you can go. He never finished his proposed “Land of Opportunities” trilogy, completing only the first two installments, Dogville and Manderlay, both of which were met with mixed to negative reviews. Von Trier soon found himself spiraling into depression and alcoholism, twin demons that he has wrestled with cinematically over the course of the last decade. It would not surprise me if The House That Jack Built was von Trier’s final film. On one hand, it feels like the thesis statement, the grand summary, of what he’s been trying to say with all of his films. On the other hand, in recent interviews, the guy just looks terrible. He’s frail, he’s got the tremors, his hair is unwashed and ratty and his clothes look ill-fitting and dirty. Despite getting sober not long after the Melancholia press conference debacle, it’s clear that alcohol abuse has taken quite a toll on him. Perhaps its gauche and inappropriate to speculate from afar on von Trier’s mortality, but he’s already done it himself, by making The House That Jack Built.

EPILOGUE: FUTILITY

Now that I’ve reached the end of this jeremiad of a review, I have to wonder, what was it all for? You’ve probably already made up your mind about whether or not you’re going to see this film. You’ve probably already got a very strong opinion on Lars von Trier, both the man and his work. Some of you are probably judging me for even having paid money to see this film, which is your right. Odds are, whatever you think about this filmmaker and his films are not going to be swayed either way by anything I have to say. And even if you did want to experience The House That Jack Built like I did, you can’t: last night was the only night that von Trier’s “Unrated Director’s Cut,” the one that screened at Cannes, is going to be shown in theaters (a stunt that has apparently landed IFC Films in hot water with the MPAA), before an R-rated version is released next month. Was this a shameless promotional ploy? Yes. Did it still give us weirdo cinephiles the feeling that we were part of a super naughty super secret club? Absolutely. I didn’t know anyone in that dark and chilly corner of Greenpoint, but I feel connected to them for life, since we all went through this cinematic journey to Hell together. So, then, now that we’ve descended into the flames, how to describe The House That Jack Built? It is vibrant and stuffy and brilliant and maddening and hilarious and terrifying and pretentious and vulnerable and prescient and infuriating and awful and a masterpiece. In other words, it is a Lars von Trier film. You know what you’re getting yourself into.

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clarencenicholsonata · 4 years ago

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Pinterest SEO: A Guide for Businesses

70% of people on Pinterest use the social media platform to get inspiration on what to buy. This compares with only 17% of Facebook users who do the same.

Getting your product on this site provides an amazing opportunity to get your products known, loved, shared, and bought. But you need to get found to get noticed.

The search box is one of the most used features on Pinterest. To make sure your account, Pins, and Pinboards are displayed in Pinterest search (and clicked) you need to optimize them for top keywords.

And Pinterest boards are even showing up in search engines like Google. For great social media marketers, like you, that’s an incredible windfall.

Many owners - of large and small organizations - are capitalizing on the opportunity. Are you optimizing your account, pins, and boards?

In this article, I run through 15 Pinterest SEO tips for optimizing your Pinterest account, Pins, and Pinboard.

Pinterest SEO Tip #1: Make Your Pinboards Visible to Search Engines

The first Pinterest SEO tip may seem like an obvious step in search engine optimization, but is important, and that is to make sure you can be found by any search engine!

I really don’t want you to go through all the hard work of these optimization techniques, only to find that you’re not listed in search engine results.

This is a simple fix but check your account settings. In the “Search Privacy”, you will notice that you can hide your Pinterest profile from search engines like Google. As a business - you definitely DO NOT want this feature on since the whole point is for your Pinterest profile to appear in search engine results. Make sure your settings indicate “no”, as in this example:

Pinterest SEO Tip #2: Create a Business Pinterest Account

It might seem like an important Pinterest SEO tip, but if you’re on Pinterest for your business, it’s better to have a Business Pinterest account. The Business accounts were introduced last November, and even though Pinterest admits that right now the features are pretty much the same - there are a few differences.

Your website tends to easier to verify, and you get access to some important recently introduced features like analytics, and rich pins (I’ll talk about these a little later too). My hunch is that with the enormous growth in this site, there will be even more advantages for businesses in the future allowing you to tweak your Pinterest boards for Pinterest SEO.

Pinterest has business accounts that are free, and just as simple to utilize as a personal page. I’d suggest you use them if you’re harnessing the site for anything more than personal.

Pinterest SEO Tip #3: Make Your Business Page Name Optimized

Another seemingly obvious Pinterest SEO tip is to make sure your company is easy to search and easy to find on Pinterest. Include your full business name when you are setting up your account. You also want to claim your name in your Pinterest URL.

If your name has not already been taken (there are a lot of businesses on this electrifyingly social site), grab it. It will optimize your Pinterest a whole lot more.

If you happen to have a very long name, you’ll want to shorten it. The optimal username length is 3-15 characters if you want to be SEO-friendly. If you are shortening your name, make sure it is easy to recognize and type into the search bar.

Pinterest SEO Tip #4: Include Keywords in your “About” Section

Your “About” section can show up in searches and is a great place to optimize your Pinterest with relevant keywords. Use this opportunity wisely. You have a 200 character limit, so be clear, succinct, and include a few relevant keywords.

Check out how Carnival Cruise Lines cleverly words this limited space to convey who they are, what they do, and why a consumer should follow them.

This section uses their name, Pinterest, and one of their main keywords: travel. They even knock it out of the park by including humor, in keeping with their fun brand image.

Also, be sure to include your website. You can include your location too, to help with local search.

Pinterest SEO Tip #5: Verify Your Website

Pinterest allows you to verify or claim your website. This certifies that you are the owner of your website. It’s a simple few steps to get your site verified, and it can help your SEO rankings.

Sites that have been verified show up with checkmarks in the domain search results. This can get you more traffic to your website too.

Pinterest SEO Tip #6: Include Keywords in Board Names

When you are setting up new boards, you can name them based on keywords. Use this opportunity to increase your SERP (search engine results page) ranking.

3% of all Pinterest boards are named “For the Home”, “My Style” and “Products I Love”. These are the default titles Pinterest suggests for you.

If you want to get found on Pinterest, and through other searches, do not use these common board names. You need to be more specific and detailed for each of your particular board names.

See how Sephora uses keyword-rich, original, and specific words in the board titles to distinguish their Pinterest boards, improving their SEO:

Pinterest SEO Tip #7: Use Keywords in Your Board Descriptions

This SEO tip is pretty obvious, but Pinterest gives you the opportunity to add short, keyword-rich board descriptions. Use this chance to include specific, concise, and descriptive keywords for each of your boards.

Tip: When you are using keywords on your Pinterest board, try to think like your consumer! From your view, you may be enwrapped in certain words and ways of thinking. Your consumer likely doesn’t live and breathe your company like you do.

Do keyword research to find out what your target audience is searching for, and using on their own Pinterest pages:

Using the Pinterest search bar look for businesses and products similar to yours. You’ll be able to extend your descriptive vernacular and connect better with your consumer.

Another good option for keyword research is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You’ll be able to gather a bunch of new ideas and terms to use in your descriptive keywords.

Pinterest SEO Tip #8: Keep Your Most Popular Boards “Above the Fold”

You keep your best web content ‘above the fold’ on your website. Do you do the same on Pinterest? Only the top two rows generally show up above the fold on Pinterest. It’s a great way to optimize your pins.

That means users are most likely only going to see your top ten boards - and only the top five will be fully shown.

Make sure you are showing followers your best. Keep your five most popular and populated boards on top.

Additionally, if you’re running a particular marketing campaign, such as a Pinterest contest, keep the Pinterest board for the contest above the fold.

It’s easy to move your categorized pins. Just click the pins on your Pinterest board and move them.

Pinterest SEO Tip #9: Use Keywords in Pin Descriptions

Search engines can only read your ‘alt’ tags in images, so you need to describe your photos well. Pinterest gives you 500 characters to describe each of your uploaded pins.

I’d suggest you keep with the visual appeal of Pinterest and try to get your word descriptors to about half of the maximum space allowed. Some studies have suggested that pins with character counts of 200-300 get the most repins.

While you want to be concise and deliberate with keywords when writing your blurbs, you want to strike a balance, and always have your target audience in mind. You are marketing your products and brand, after all, so use language that’s relatable and relevant to your content.

Don’t neglect the chance to include your keywords and don’t overuse them. Companies that pump their descriptions with “keyword, keyword, keyword” are seen as spam by search engines like Google.

Focus on writing to connect with both your consumers and search results.

Check out how Home Depot uses their SEO opportunity to balance between dialoguing with their customer and still describing their products to be found in searches.

They use the product description of a “portable charcoal grill”. They tell that it is on wheels, and they include relevant search terms like “park”, “camping” and “friend’s house”.

Pinterest SEO Tip #10: Use Hashtags

Hashtags are a major component to being found within the Pinterest site. Hashtags on the site enable you to categorize your pins to engage with the 70 million Pinterest users.

They are also an amazing way to make your pins a lot more searchable within the site.

Include up to three hashtags in a pin post.

With these categorizers, you can get quite granular in your search results potential. Include very specific terms to be found by your exact market niche.

In this example, a homemade craft shop posted a pin about DIY ideas. Their niche market includes pet lovers and DIYers.

They included the hashtags #animallovers and #diypetprojects to better be found by this audience. This one pin has gotten over 141 repins, and 15 likes. Clearly, they are being found.

Pinterest SEO Tip #11: Link Back to Your Site

Always, always, always link your pins back to your site. Pinterest now has a “nofollow” rule (which basically means a repin won’t give you more inbound linking clout in search results), but you should still be linking your products.

That way pinners can always click on your pin and still be directed to your product page. The more hits your site gets, the better you are in search rankings.

Be sure you link to your own site, particularly after it’s been verified by Pinterest. Include the full URL when you are setting up your link. For some reason, Pinterest doesn’t like shortened links like bit.ly.

Additionally, be sure you are linking to the specific product or landing page on your site. This way your repinned pins will be directed exactly where you want them to be in your sales funnel.

Pinterest SEO Tip #12: Add Keywords to Your Image “Alt” Tags

Search engines can’t read images. They read the file names and ‘alt’ tags.

When you are saving your images to upload to Pinterest, use filenames with one or two keyword descriptors. In other words, don’t save an image with the default numbering from your camera.

Change it to reflect what your photo is about. Edit a “09345.jpeg” file name to something like “kidsinsprinkler.jpeg” (if your image is about kids in sprinkers).

Additionally, check your ‘alt’ tags when you are uploading your file to your own website. That way it already had the descriptions if you are pinning directly from your site.

Pinterest SEO Tip #13: Include Prices

Pins with prices get 36% more likes than pins with no prices. When you are pinning products, include your price. You can do this by simply including the price in your description. Or, you can photoshop it onto the image itself.

Pinterest has recently introduced Rich Pins. You need to apply to get this feature. Your website also needs to meet certain requirements. But, once you do have it, one of the benefits is that it automatically crawls your site for prices and availability. It shows your product prices on your pins. And it’s optimized for mobile.

Pinterest SEO Tip #14: Include Pin-it Button on Your Website Pages

The Pin it Button is an essential Pinterest feature. You’ve undoubtedly seen these buttons on numerous sites and pages:

The buttons are very simple to set up: go to the Pin it Button site on Pinterest, and complete the information. You choose the Pin it image you want, submit your URL, paste your image file, and build it. Copy and paste the code onto your website landing pages.

They can be a bit of a pain, as - at the moment - you have to set up a Pin it Button for each page.

Also, include cross-promoting options like a Pinterest tab on your Facebook Page.

Both of these techniques help with SEO, as they promote sharing. In general, the more your pages are shared, the better you rank in search results.

Pinterest SEO Tip #15: Use Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest recently introduced its own analytics! You no longer have to use a third party to determine what pins are generating the most repins, impressions, and clicks.

Get your Pinterest analytics, and use them! Check your dashboard for graphs that are broken down into pins, repins, impressions, and clicks. Tweak your strategies, monitor the changes, and keep improving your reach and SEO.

Can you really call yourself a marketer and not love using free analytic tools? To read more, and to learn how you can better use the tools, check out How Sephora uses Pinterest Analytics to Create Amazing PinBoards (and you can too!).

Conclusion

I hope you found these Pinterest SEO guide useful and that you’ll include them in your Pinterest SEO strategy. Pinterest can be a remarkable platform to market your wares on a global scale. Now that you know how to get your products found, you’ll want to learn more about marketing on Pinterest. Read these articles and resources to add rocket fuel to your pins:

Top 9 Most Common Pinterest Marketing Mistakes

How to Use Pinterest to Increase Sales

[Infographic] Why Pinterest is Good for Business

Pinterest Contest App

25 Creative Facebook Contest Ideas You Can Use Today

What do you think? Do you use Pinterest for marketing? What Pinterest SEO strategy do you follow? Are there any SEO tips you can share?

Wishpond's Facebook Contest Apps make it easy to create sweepstakes, photo contests, Instagram hashtag contests & more.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3tVLiMF via IFTTT

#IFTTT #RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801

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internetandnetwork · 4 years ago

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YouTube SEO: Tips to Optimize Videos to Gain Top Results

Not more than a decade ago, inbound marketing was introduced as a brand new concept. Marketers were starting to realize that they just can’t go publishing a sheer amount of content online – they also need to produce high-quality content and then optimize it in ways that made it as visible as possible across search engines.

There was also a time when content was confined to a text-only format, which of course isn’t the case anymore.

Today an all-encompassing content strategy comprises text-based content such as blogs, articles, and eBooks to multimedia such as videos, podcasts, and other visual assets.

However, the first one, i.e., the videos, are still flourishing. In fact, as per reports, approximately half of the marketers around the world have begun investing more in YouTube compared to all the other marketing channels available to them.

As the other content formats continue to grow, the need to optimize them for search is also on the rise. And when it comes to videos, YouTube, the second largest search engine and a top-rated video distribution platform, is one of the most influential places to start with.

That being said, a major question arises – how does YouTube SEO work?

How can YouTube channel owners optimize their videos to rank better on the search and gain top results?

That’s precisely what this blog will discuss. Here are a few proven YouTube SEO tips that will help you get started. Let’s begin!

Insert a Target Keyword in Your Video File

Just the way you use an SEO tool to pick out the target keywords that you want your written content to focus on, video content is no exception.

As soon as you identify your main or primary keyword, the first place where you should insert it is in your video file name, even before you publish it on YouTube!

Why? Because YouTube can’t literally “watch” your videos to determine their relevance to your target keyword(s). And as you continue to read this blog, you will find out that after publishing a video, there are hardly any places where you can safely enter your keyword on your video’s viewing page. However, YouTube can read your video file name and all the code that accompanies it once it is published.

Keeping that in mind, change your “video_ad_Final004.mp4” video file name and rename it by adding your target keyword in it. There’s nothing to feel awkward about; almost all of us have been there, done that in the course of post-production.

For example, if your main keyword is “cooking tips,” then your video file name should be “cooking-tips,” accompanied by your chosen video file type. Some of the most common video file types compatible with YouTube are .mp4, .mov, .wmv, etc.

Include Your Keyword Naturally in the Video Title

When users perform a search for videos, the first thing that they see is the video’s title. Usually, that’s what determines whether the user will click on your video to watch it or not, which is why your video’s title shouldn’t be just persuasive but also clear and succinct.

Even though your target keyword plays a significant role in your video’s title, it would be a lot more helpful if the title is a close match to what the user wants to see. As per recent research, videos that have an exact keyword match in their title only have a bit of an edge over videos that don’t.

Therefore, inserting your target keyword in your video titles might help it rank for that particular keyword. Still, the relationship between keyword-rich titles and search rankings is not invariably a solid one. Nevertheless, optimizing your video titles for your target keywords is a good idea as long as it fits naturally in the title and conveys what the audience will be seeing in this video.

Last but not least, try to keep your video titles as short as possible to avoid them from getting cut off in the SERPs. The best practice is to keep it within a 60-70-character limit.

Optimize Your Video Description

While YouTube provides a video description limit of about 1000 characters according to Google, and it’s fine if you decide to take up all that space, using it all doesn’t really make sense. Because the viewer probably came there to watch your video, not to read an article.

However, even if you decide to go with a longer description, remember that YouTube will only show the initial 2-3 sentences, roughly estimated to approximately 100 characters. If a user wishes to read the rest of the description, they’ll have to click “show more” to expand the section. Therefore, it is highly advisable to include all the crucial information, call-to-action, or links in the initial lines only.

Now considering the video optimization, it won’t hurt to include a brief summary of the video, particularly for those users who can’t watch it with sound on. Having said that, as per a study, there is no definite connection between a description optimized for a specific term and the rankings for that keyword.

However, this doesn’t mean you should discard optimized descriptions at once as they help your videos to show up in the “Suggested Videos” sidebar, which is a prominent traffic source for many YouTube channels.

Tag Your Videos With Popular Keywords Relevant to Your Topic

YouTube Creator Academy itself recommends the creators to use tags to tell the essence of their video to the users. However, by doing so, you aren’t just passing on this information to the users but also to the platform itself. YouTube uses tags to comprehend your video’s content as well as context.

In this way, YouTube deciphers how to connect your videos to other similar videos, which thus helps expand your video’s reach. However, be wise in picking your tags. Do not use an unrelated tag just because you assume it will help you acquire more views. This is frowned upon, and Google can even penalize you for it. In addition to this, just like your video descriptions, start with your main keywords and use a good mix of common and long-tail keywords.

Categorize Your Video Content

When uploading a video, besides the other options such as adding video titles, descriptions, and tags, you can spot a section “Advanced Settings.” Click on it to categorize your videos.

Categorizing your videos is just another way of grouping them with similar content on YouTube so that it lands up in multiple playlists and gets more exposure to more viewers that fall within your target audience.

However, it may sound simple now, but in reality, it is quite tricky. YouTube Creator Academy advises the channel owners to put some thought into this and follow a thorough process to ascertain which videos belong to which categories.

Upload a Custom Thumbnail for Your Video’s Result Link

Thumbnails are the images that users see beside your video’s link on the results page. Together with the title, the video thumbnail also conveys to the users what the video is all about; therefore, it impacts the total clicks and views your content receives.

YouTube also offers auto-generated thumbnail options once you upload the video. While you can find it pretty easy just to choose one of those, it is highly recommended to use a custom thumbnail image for your videos. Moreover, reports also suggest that most of the best performing YouTube videos have custom thumbnail images. The ideal thumbnail images should have a resolution of 1280×720 with a minimum of 640 pixels width and 16:9 aspect ratio and should be saved under the 2MB limit and in the .jpg, .png, or .gif formats. Following these guidelines will help make sure that your thumbnail shows up as the same high-quality image across different viewing platforms.

However, keep in mind that you can only upload a custom thumbnail if your YouTube account is verified. Therefore, be sure to complete your verification process with YouTube right away if you haven’t already to unlock additional features.

Add Subtitles and Closed Captions Using an SRT File

Similar to the most text-based optimization we have discussed earlier, adding subtitles and closed captions can help boost your YouTube SEO by highlighting the main keywords.

To insert subtitles and closed captions in your videos, you need to upload a supported text transcript or timed subtitles file. However, for adding closed captions, you can also enter the transcript directly into your video so that it auto-syncs with it.

The process of adding subtitles is also quite similar; however, you get the option to limit the total amount of text that you want to show up. To add either, go to your “Video Manager” then click on “Videos.” Locate the video to which you want to add subtitles or closed captions, and then click on the drop-down arrow present beside the edit icon. Click on “Subtitles/CC” and then choose how you want to add subtitles or closed captions.

Boost Your Channel’s Viewership With Cards and End Screens

Cards

Have you ever noticed a tiny white circular icon with an “i” in the middle displaying in the corner of your screen or a semi-transparent text bar asking you to subscribe while watching a YouTube video? These are called cards.

Cards can be described as preformatted notifications that get displayed on desktop and mobile devices, which you can set up to advertise your own brand and other videos published on your YouTube channel.

YouTube lets users add up to five cards to one video. There are six types of cards – channel cards, Fundraiser cards, link cards, fan funding cards, video or playlist cards, and poll cards.

End Screens

Just like cards, end screens also show similar information. However, as you might have guessed by now, these aren’t displayed until the video is over. Plus, end screens are a little more visually detailed inherently.

Adding end screens will depend upon the type of platform you want to design them for and the multiple content types YouTube has allowed for them.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that YouTube is continuously testing end screens in an attempt to optimize the user experience, so there may be times when the end screens you have nominated don’t show up. Therefore consider all these factors before determining whether you should use cards or end screens.

Conclusion

Although these tips might appear a little too complex and time-consuming, you need to remember that over the past couple of years, people have increasingly started spending more time watching YouTube, whether, on their TVs, laptops, or mobiles, and this “time” has more than doubled.

There is an audience present there yet undiscovered waiting for you to tap into, so when you optimize your videos for YouTube, you are actually increasing your chances of getting discovered by them.

So keep creating engaging videos, take time to perform thorough keyword research, implement these tips, and promote your videos as much as possible to boost its reach. You may also take the help of some free or paid YouTube SEO tools available online.

Hariom Balhara is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles for Tireless IT Services. Tireless IT Services is a digital marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC, and web development company that comes with massive experiences. We specialize in digital marketing, web designing and development, graphic design, and a lot more.

SOURCE : YouTube SEO: Tips to Optimize Videos to Gain Top Results

#YouTube SEO #Tireless IT Services #digital marketing #content strategy #YouTube #Keyword #SEO #SMO

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years ago

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Writing for SEO: How to Write Blogs That Rank on Page 1 of Google

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/writing-for-seo-how-to-write-blogs-that-rank-on-page-1-of-google/

Writing for SEO: How to Write Blogs That Rank on Page 1 of Google

If you’ve ever written a blog post before, you know how much time they can take.

From topic selection, to gathering research, to writing the post and pressing “Publish,” the process often demands hours.

That’s why, if your post doesn’t earn the traffic you expected, it can be a major letdown. All that work that goes into a post for less-than-stellar engagement is, no doubt, one of the most frustrating experiences.

Fortunately, there’s a way to combat low traffic and bring eyes to your writing: search engine optimization. SEO is a language that speaks specifically to search engines like Google to tell it your post deserves to be at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).

As marketers, we’re always aiming to write content that’ll rank highly on Google, and SEO is the bridge that’ll help you get there.

Of course, that begs the question: How do you write in SEO’s language?

For that, don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. In this post, we’re going to dive into 13 ways you can master writing for that high ranking your content deserves.

Ready to get started?

How to Write Blog Posts for SEO

Use headings to your benefit.

Take advantage of featured snippets.

Write to answer questions for customers.

Use meta descriptions to your advantage.

Add alt text to images.

Don’t limit keywords to the body of your post.

Identify highly-effective keywords when looking for post ideas.

Naturally integrate those keywords throughout your posts.

Link to influential websites.

Aim for scannable, longer posts.

Internally link words or phrases to other posts on your site.

Optimize pictures for the fastest possible page speed.

1. Use headings to your benefit.

Headers tell Google what different sections of your blog article will be about. In this post, for example, the header, “How To Write Blog Posts for SEO,” tells the search engine what this section is about.

Users who type search queries like, “writing for SEO” into Google will likely come across this post because of what the header tells Google. Ultimately, search engines are going to look at headers and snippets before they look at body text.

Think of Google as a reader who is skimming your blog. They’re going to focus on the main ideas — and that’s what headers, like H2s and H3s, display. Use headers to accurately convey the main idea of your section, but make sure each header uses accurate, high-intent keywords. When you use the right keywords (using keyword research tools) you have a much higher chance of helping your post rank on the first page.

2. Take advantage of featured snippets.

According to Google, “Featured snippets come from web search listings. Google’s automated systems determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet to highlight for a specific search request.”

Featured snippets on Google are the most direct answers to search queries. For instance, if I were to search, “How do you write a blog post?”, Google might use a featured snippet to show the most sufficient answer:

To earn a featured snippet on Google, you’ll want to answer the questions readers might have when they come to your blog post. For instance, if the search term is “how should I write a blog post?”, answer that question with a list, starting with “How to Write A Blog Post” as the header, accompanied by a list of items that are relevant and actionable.

If you’re wondering how to make list items actionable, a good rule of thumb is to write complete sentences and start each sentence with a verb, like “Write”, “Research”, “Create”. Additionally, make sure each sentence answers the question or challenge. For definitions, or paragraph snippets, make sure they’re succinct, but give enough background to explain the word or phrase.

3. Write to answer questions for customers.

One of the reasons we write blog posts is to diversify the content on our website. Another reason is to boost the credibility of our business. But if “to solve for your audience” isn’t in your list of reasons, you may be losing out on key SEO opportunities.

Google answers countless questions a day. For instance, I must’ve Googled about five questions in the last hour alone. When you frame posts to answer the queries of your audience, Google will see that and push your post to a higher page.

Earlier, we talked about the bells and whistles you can add to posts to boost rankings. But, additionally, you’ll want to ensure the content you’re beefing up is also working towards that goal.

If you’re stuck on trying to figure out what your audience is asking, you’ll want to perform keyword research. Sites like Ahrefs and Woorank crawl search engines for popular search queries. To organize the process, create different topic clusters to write about, such as “Instagram Marketing,” “LinkedIn Advertising” — subjects you can dive into that provide value to your audience.

Still stuck on keywords? Don’t worry — this keyword research guide is perfect for beginners.

4. Use meta descriptions to your advantage.

Are you adding meta descriptions to your post? If your answer is “No,” then you’re probably not giving your post the most exposure possible. Let’s get into why they’re important.

By now, we’ve talked about a couple of the ways a blog post can communicate with Google: with headers, keywords, and snippets. However, that’s not an exhaustive list.

Meta descriptions is another method Google leverages when ranking search results. Meta descriptions are the 1-3 sentence descriptions you’ll find underneath the title of a result.

Use meta descriptions to sum up what your post is about. Remember to keep it short, use keywords, and make sure it’s engaging. After all, there are going to be loads of posts similar to yours, aiming to rank at #1. You’re going to want yours to stand out above the rest.

Most blogging software have meta description boxes built into the toolbar or post formatting options, so you won’t have to look far to use the function. HubSpot and WordPress, for example, point out where to add meta descriptions in the post editor.

5. Add alt text to images.

With any image you add to your post — whether it be the featured image or a body text one — you’ll want to add alt text. Alt text describes what’s happening in the photo. Think of it as a closed caption for images.

Alt text helps Google, as well as those who are visually impaired, understand why the photo is in your post. This improves your article’s rank and accessibility, making it more shareable.

For instance, if you include an infographic about audience segmentation, the alt text should read something like, “A helpful infographic that explains audience segmentation.” Notice how this sentence uses keywords to appeal to Google even further.

Now let’s say you’re using a stock image as a featured photo, but it doesn’t necessarily depict anything that relates to your post’s content. For instance, let’s say your topic is click-through rate, and this is your featured image:

This doesn’t really have anything to do with audience segments, right? But what you can do to remedy the situation is to make a scenario. For instance, “A marketing team discusses audience segmentation strategy.”

This alt text uses keywords to describe a situation that fits into the theme of the post. That way, your image doesn’t bring down the ranking of your post, but works towards improving where it ranks. If Google sees alt text, it’s another box checked for a high position on SERPs.

6. Don’t limit keywords to the body of your post.

Ultimately, keywords should be used in nearly every part of your blog. We’ve talked a little about where keywords can be included in your post: snippets, photos, and headers, for example.

Keywords are so powerful because they’re the jumping off point for SERPs. Google will always take what browsers type into the search bar and search for web pages with those exact words. So it’s important to make sure every element, from the post title, to the calls-to-action, relate to your keywords.

That said, it’s also important not to keyword stuff your post. The goal is to make your page fully optimized, not overbearing. Find natural fits for keyword additions, but don’t force them so your content is illegible.

For example, if your keywords are “account based marketing,” “startups,” and “sales,” your meta description shouldn’t be something like:

“Sales for account based marketing startups.”

Instead, try focusing on one or two phrases to make the description more natural:

“Are you looking for killer strategies to boost your account-based marketing game? Find out our surefire secrets in this post.”

That way, you’re still using keywords, but you’re not oversaturating the post to the point where it’s illegible. Remember, even though Google is a search engine, it still has to comprehend your post in order to recommend it to website browsers. Additionally, a reader’s experience will determine how well your posts rank. If readers bounce from your webpage because it’s confusing to them, that will signal to Google that your post isn’t good enough to rank.

7. Identify highly-effective keywords when looking for post ideas.

Google handles over 40,000 search queries a second. Staggering, right? If you want to cut through search result clutter and outrank your competitors, you need to target the specific keywords and phrases your potential customers are searching. How else will they find your content and website?

To identify those hot keywords, head on over to the social platforms your target audience frequents and see what’s trending. Pay close attention to the exact phrases they use and monitor popular industry terms and topics.

Google Trends can also give you a feel for what keywords are popular at any given time. If you see searches are steadily declining over time for a specific keyword, you know that’s probably not the right keyword to target for your marketing and vice versa for increasing trends.

If you’re ever running low on keyword ideas, get inspiration from your competition. Use tools to see what keywords they’re currently ranking for — if these keywords are relevant to your business, consider using them too! SEMRush lets you enter a competitor and see the keywords they’re ranking for, their position in search results, traffic received for that keyword and other key metrics.

Keep in mind that the most obvious keywords aren’t always the best keywords. Searchers tend to use very specific “long-tail” keywords, keyword phrases and questions when they’re looking for something.

Long-tail keywords comprise up to 70% of all search traffic and can unlock the door to successful SEO. When WPBeginner, the largest WordPress resource site for WordPress beginners, adopted a long-tail SEO strategy, they increased their organic search traffic by 20% in just two months!

Because you face fierce competition for shorter, more general keywords, you often have a better chance of ranking in the top results for long-tail keywords. And, long-tail keywords allow you to zero in on higher quality website traffic that often knows what they’re looking for and may be farther along in the buyer’s journey.

Once you’ve done your research and built a list of what you think are the most valuable, relevant keywords, plug them into a keyword research tool like Google’s Keyword Planner, Moz’s Keyword Explorer, Ubersuggest, Keyword Tool and so on. Many keyword research tools give you the monthly volume for any given keyword. Test out different keyword tools — marketers are drawn to different ones for different reasons.

Depending on your business or industry (or budget or bandwidth for SEO efforts), it may be important to rank for high competition, short tail keywords. Still, try to also optimize for a healthy dose of long-tail keywords that are high in search volume but low in competition. You may find it’s much easier to rank for these words.

Remember that your focus keywords will evolve over time as trends shift, terminology changes or your product/service line changes. Be sure to conduct keyword research periodically to ensure you’re still focusing on the right keywords for your target audience and not missing out on vital ranking opportunities.

8. Naturally integrate those keywords throughout your posts.

Once you’ve decided on a list of target keywords, it’s time to write a blog post focused on one of these keywords. Brainstorm blog topics with your team and decide on a topic that will entice and engage your target audience.

Keep your buyer personas, their motivations, challenges, interests, etc. in mind throughout the brainstorming process. Choose a topic that will emotionally resonate with your potential customers and their needs, desires or pains.

As you write your blog, your keyword and natural variations should be regularly interspersed throughout the post. Your primary keyword should appear in these key places:

Title

Headings and subheadings

URL if possible

Image alt text (search engines can’t read images)

Meta description

Throughout the content

Remember that you’re writing for humans, not search engines. Focus on engaging readers with a natural writing style that takes their needs and interests into account.

9. Link to influential websites.

As you build out your blog post, don’t be afraid to link to other articles or blogs.

Linking to applicable and reputable websites not only offers blog readers additional reading material to expand their knowledge, but it also shows Google and other search engines that you’ve done your research. And the blogger or writer may even return the favor and link to your site.

Nothing strengthens a blog post like hard-to-argue-with, research-backed statistics from influential websites. Compelling stats help you build a more convincing and concrete argument that will get your readers thinking (especially when they’re from trustworthy sites they know and love).

10. Aim for scannable, longer posts.

In an age of short attention spans (average of 8 seconds for humans), you would think shorter blog posts are the way to go. But search engines actually prefer longer, in-depth blog posts.

The longer your blog post, the greater its chance of appearing in the top search engine results. SerpIQ found that the 10th position pages have 400 fewer words than 1st position pages. Longer posts will rank more easily for your target keyword.

Think about it: the more content on the page, the more clues search engines have to figure out what your blog is about. We recommend writing a minimum of 300 words per blog post. This length gives search engines plenty of keywords and text to crawl and helps them understand what your blog is about.

The downside to longer blogs is that they may scare off your readers. We live in a world of skimmers and scanners. In a heat map analysis, CoSchedule learned that only 10-20% of their readers were making it to the bottom of their posts. So, the million dollar question is, how can longer blog posts appeal to today’s online readers?

You can write scannable, readable blog posts that hook online readers by tightening up your sentences and paragraphs. Turn a long-winded sentence into two. Keep your paragraphs to 2-3 sentences max.

Also, take full advantage of bulleted lists and subheadings that grab reader’s attention. By following these tactics, you’ll create blogs that are easier to read (especially on a mobile device!) and less intimidating to the scanner’s eye.

11. Internally link words or phrases to other posts on your site.

Linking to other pages or blog posts on your website helps search engines crawl your website and create a more accurate sitemap. It also helps your audience discover more of your content and get to know you as a trustworthy, credible source of information.

Internal links to other valuable content keep users on your site longer, reducing bounce rate and increasing your potential for a conversion (and isn’t that what it’s all about?).

When linking to any pages on your website, or even outside sources, use natural language for your anchor text. Avoid using spammy or generic text such as “top-rated cheap laptops” or “click here.”

Instead, use descriptive keywords that give readers a sense of what they will find when they click on the hyperlink, such as a search engine optimization guide.

Never force feed links to your top webpages, featured products or discounted items. These types of links will only turn off readers and could lead to search engines penalizing your website.

A word of caution: don’t overdo your internal linking or any linking. We know it’s tempting to link to all of your blogs and webpages, but only choose the ones that best enhance the point or insight you’re writing about in any particular blog. Always think about whether or not these links naturally tie in with the subject matter and if they will offer significant value to your readers.

12. Optimize pictures for the fastest possible page speed.

Google rewards pages with faster page speed and places those that lag lower on its rankings. So, it’s important to make sure your page-load times are as quick as possible.

One of the leading culprits of page lag is large photos. If the photo you uploaded is too big, it will make the page take a longer time to load — even if the image doesn’t seem huge on screen. Luckily, you can keep your posts visually interesting without sacrificing crucial speed.

Once you pick a photo, use a free compression software, like Squoosh.app to make it as small as it can go before it loses any quality. Any removal of excess photo data will speed up loading times so readers won’t have to wait.

If you suspect that your SEO issues are related to low page speeds, Google offers a free tool that can score your page and give you suggestions for speed improvement. Here’s a guide on how to use it and boost your score.

7. Preform link building strategies.

Traffic from places other than Google is crucial to your search rankings. Why? Think of search results like a competition where the winners get the most votes. Each webpage that links back to you is considered a “vote” for your website, which makes your content more trustworthy in the eyes of Google. In turn, this will make you rise farther up on search results.

So, it’s good to write posts that other websites or publications will want to hyperlink within their own posts. You can also write posts on other business’ websites that link back to your website in some way.

To make your website’s blogpost more linkable, include valuable assets or information, such as your own data, original thoughts, infographics, definitions, or other facts that people might not find anywhere else.

Here’s an example of how this mindset could help you. If you write a post titled “How to Make a Video Tutorial,” or “13 Stats about Video Tutorials,” bigger sites that are writing about something similar might hyperlink words like “video tutorials” or “research from [Your Company Name]” to your post so they can give their reader more context without repeating your work.

Once you’ve written the post, you might want to start sending it to other publications or websites that might want to discuss it or link it to their other posts. This outreach lets other publications know of the post and might also help you grow link building alliances with them in the future.

You can also consider doing promotion, such as interviews or guest posts that link to your website’s blog post to further encourage link building.

These strategies can be key to your SEO success, but they can be time consuming. To help you, consider trying out one of these softwares.

How to Title Blog Posts for SEO

Even with a great, SEO-friendly post body, a bad title could hurt you in search engines. To title your post with SEO in mind, draft a clear understandable title that both shows the reader what they’re about to read and integrates the keywords you identified in the first step. As mentioned above, write something that pleases Google’s ranking algorithms, but is also understandable and enticing to humans.

Here are a few examples:

If you’re a beauty blogger and you see that people are searching “how to wear matte lipstick,” your post could be titled, “How to Wear Matte Lipstick: A 5-Step Guide.”

On the other hand, if your blog covers artificial intelligence and you see that people are searching a new AI app, you could write a blog post called “How to Use [Insert AI App Name],” or “We Tried the New [Insert App Name] App: Here’s What Happened”

If you blog about farming or sustainability and find out that “what to buy at farm stands” is a regular search, you might write a listicle titled “What to Buy at Farm Stands This Summer.”

You know how to write content audiences will love. Now, it’s time to write for what Google loves. SEO only heightens the chance of your post getting seen by the right audiences, expanding your reach.

It can sound tricky at first, writing for two audiences, but just remember these takeaways: keywords, snippets, and descriptions. Learning a new language takes time, but luckily, your blogging software can likely remind you of these SEO tips. I can’t wait to see your next blog post at the top of my search results.

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the-e-commerce-gryphon · 6 years ago

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The 2019 Pinterest Masterclass - Promote Your Online Store & Utilize Killer Strategy to Sell on Shopify, WooCommerce, Ect.

You may think it’s funny...

But Pinterest is becoming a serious force to be reckoned with when it comes to driving traffic to your new online shop. With the advent of Shopify, Dropshipping, e-commerce solutions in general; Pinterest will help you grow your audience in 2019. Weather you’re selling funny shirts or scintillating lingerie or even stylish corgi hats for the household dog. You’ve got some seriously killer things that you need to share with the world; naturally, you want people to know about and buy these things. So how do you do that?

You’re not going to like the answer.

Start putting in the work: a metric ton of it!

But like I said, this is a Masterclass and I’ve got your back! So bust out your bookmarks and share with your business minded friends, this is going to be a long and informative read.

Part One: Setting Up Your Pinterest Business Account & Confirming Website

If you’ve already done this, or know how to do so, you can go ahead and scroll down to Part Two. I also talk about connecting your other social media profiles to Pinterest.

Step One - Creating Your Pinterest Business Account:

Go to https://www.pinterest.com/business/create/ and make an account. You’ll need to put in an email, password, business name and business type.

Step Two - Selecting Interests / Creating Your First Board / Browser Extension.

Selecting Interests: pick up to 5 topics (or search for them) that will populate your home feed. Ideally, you want things relating to your business.

Browser Extension: After you’ve done that, you might be asked to get the Pinterest Browser Button which lets you quickly save things to your Pinterest. I’ve included Firefox and Chrome below.

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinterest/

Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pinterest-save-button/gpdjojdkbbmdfjfahjcgigfpmkopogic?hl=en

First Board: You’ll want to go ahead and make your first board while you’re here. Either from your home feed, or in the search bar, find a post that relates to things your audience will like. Click on the pin/image that grabs your attention and hit ‘save’. Creating a new board will pop up, so go ahead and give your first board a name.

e.g. Stunning Coffee Art would be the name of your board, where you pin pictures of cool coffee art made by baristas

Step Three - Profile Settings

Now head over to your profile settings, you should see it as the gear icon in the top right. If it doesn’t show up, try clicking the three ellipsis ‘...’ next to the notification bell, and go into Settings.

Once you’re on the new directory, go from Business Account Basics to Profile Settings. Upload a strong picture that relates to your business specifically, or a copyright-free image that evokes the spirit of your business.

E.g. I’m running Dave’s Awesome Coffee Shop and selling bags online; use this coffee image from Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/aroma-aromatic-art-artistic-434213/

Bonus - Copyright-free Image Repository: Like I just used above, Pexels is a fantastic place to find copyright-free pictures for your online and or business needs. It’s always better to spend money, but if you’re just starting it’s better to have something over nothing at all. https://www.pexels.com/

About You / Location / Website: Once you’ve found the perfect photo, add a quick and succinct description of your business in the About You section.

Then, put your location if applicable.

After that, copy paste your website into the Website tab. You’ll confirm that in a minute.

Showcase: These are up to five boards that people on Pinterest will see when they head over to your profile. Just below Website on the Profile page, hit edit on showcase and go to slot 1. This is where you will pick the board you made earlier. Make sure to hit save.

Step Four - Confirming Your Website

Melissa Megginson has written a clean post on how to do this and I can’t imagine doing a better job than her. Open the bitly link in a new tab and come back when you’re ready.

Read it here: http://bit.ly/2N2h86w

Step Five - Profile Optimization & Tricks

Connecting Other Social Media: Go into your profile settings and select Social Networks. Once inside, you can turn on any of the various buttons to connect your social media accounts to your Pinterest. This will give you access to friends / followers that are also on Pinterest; additionally, it will let you post on FB or Twitter the same time that you make a Pin on Pinterest.

Selecting The Right Username: You want to be as consistent as possible across not only Pinterest but all of your platforms. So if davesbestcoffee is taken you might try something like mmmdavesbestcoffee or RealDavesBestCoffee or even LoveDavesBestCoffee. Remember to KISS: Keep it simple stupid.

Relevant Keywords For Your Profile Description: When updating your profile description you want to include a few choice keywords that people might search. So instead of

#1 Dave’s Best Coffee: Home of Dave’s killer coffee shop where we sell beans, filters, cups and more!

#2 Dave’s Best Coffee: Home of Dave’s killer online coffee shop. Indulge in tasty espresso drinks, iced coffee, cold brew techniques, and foam art.

Remember to be honest with your description, and if you need help on keywords, simply go to the search bar and begin typing things related to your niche. So for example [Coffee] becomes ‘coffee bar’ ‘coffee table’ ‘coffee drinks’ ‘coffee deserts’

Part Two: Creating & Optimizing Pinterest Boards | Keywords For Titles & Descriptions.

Earlier you made your first board, so now we’re going to optimize it.

Pro Tip #1: Keep your Board Title to a maximum of 20 characters; anything longer will be cut off and thus become unsightly. Remember, you only have less than a second to make an impression.

Use Pinterest Board Keywords: Using our coffee example, we want to make a new board called Coffee Aesthetic. How do we know what keywords to use? Start by typing in keywords related to your niche in Pinterest’s search bar. It will suggest titles for you.

Broad vs Specific: When making new boards, and optimizing the one you have, you will want to have Coffee as a broad board. These are naturally harder to rank on. With Specific boards, you want to go with Coffee Aesthetic or Iced Coffee Aesthetic; these will have less competition and have a chance of boosting your Board boards.

How To Make A Killer Pinterest Board Description: The best way that I’ve found how to do this is to - once again - eloquently insert keywords. The research part of this is covered in Part Four below; but using our coffee example I’ve come up with this:

A perfectly simple way of researching is to type in the kind of board you want, pick some boards that have a description and a good size of followers (at least 1K) and modify it to fit your board.

DO: Include 1 - 3 emojis from https://emojipedia.org/

DO: Insert keywords that people will search.

DO: Keep your description about 2 - 3 sentences in length.

DON’T: Stuff a bunch of keywords into your description. The best kind of meta data is accurate and pleasant to read by humans.

DON’T: Use redundant keywords. In our coffee example, I tried to cut down on the word ‘coffee’ as much as possible. Why? Because 1 ‘coffee’ will also apply to ‘shop’ or ‘food’ or ‘drinks’. So when a user types ‘starbucks coffee’ your board will come up even though we didn’t type an exact match of ‘starbucks coffee’.

DON’T: Be dishonest with your keywords. People value integrity, there’s no need to be duplicitous.

Part Three: Creating Optimized Pins | Rich Pins | Give Value & Excite Your Audience.

DO: Pin 5 - 10 times a day. You need to schedule your pins and drip-feed them to your audience over time.

DO: Make sure you’re using vertical pins at a 2:3 size ration. Canva uses 735 x 1102.

DO: A combination of OC (original content) and RP (repins) because sharing is what Pinterest is all about. 70% repins to 30% original content is a good ratio to follow, but find what works best for you.

DO: Re-pin old content with a new image. You will want to do this with your best content once a week.

DON’T: Delete your old pins. When you re-pin / loop your pins, let the old ones remain since they could still go viral.

Filling Out Your First Board: Now that you’ve made an optimized board or two, I suggest you re-pin until you’ve got at least 5 pins on that board. Re-pin the top content in the niche your board falls under.

Then you’ll want to provide some valuable original content. So write a couple of blog posts or a nice infographic and start scheduling them. If you only have a few, just do 1 original content pin a day with your other pins being re-pins of good related content.

If you need ideas, just look through Pinterest and see what catches your eye. In this example, when I search coffee aesthetic, I’ve found a post about 10 cute cafes.

You can view the pin here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/554787247842956003/

You can view the article here: http://www.escapebuttonblog.com/10-cute-cafes-world/

So if you were Dave’s Killer Coffee online store, you’d make sure to include a Call To Action at the end of that blog post. That CTA could be: “Join our newsletter to get more free content just like this.” Or even: “Thanks for checking out these ten cute cafe’s. If you love coffee like we do, be sure to check out our own coffee beans.” With a product link to what you’re selling.

You could even do both of these things so long as you keep it short, simple, and sweet.

Rich Pins: Rich Pins allow people to see relevant meta-data right on the pin itself, which can be very useful and appealing to your audience. I’ve included two links to help you with this.

http://koehmstedt.tumblr.com/post/105273273762/how-to-enable-pinterest-rich-pins-on-your-blog

https://developers.pinterest.com/docs/rich-pins/overview/?

Giving Value & Exciting Your Audience: People are attracted to quality, and before people want to help or buy from you, you’ll need to give them something in return. So when you’re giving them something, give them something great. In depth articles, top ten lists, top 100′s, well-made infographics and recipes all do well.

Part Four: SEO and Research section.

Research With Pinterest: In the search bar, start typing things that belongs to your niche. So start with Coffee. Now type space and go through the alphabet from a - z. Pinterest will give you valid suggestions; aim for 2 - 3 words for your Board Title.

Make sure to follow boards and people that are popular in your niche so you can look at all the things they’re doing right. Examine what they’re posting, their descriptions, titles and anything else.

Research With Answer The Public: Type in keywords on this website for some great ideas on what people are searching. https://answerthepublic.com/

Research With Google: Similar to how you used Pinterest, just typing ‘coffee’ into google with give you a lot of ideas. Do ‘how’ ‘why’ before coffee or type a letter a - z. For example ‘ccoffee’ brings up Caribou Coffee, so maybe you would write a quick review or the history of Caribou Coffee along with a killer image on your pin.

Research With Keywords Everywhere: Install this app on Google Chrome and it will show you suggestions as well as monthly searches and how high the competition is for them. https://keywordseverywhere.com/

Part Five: Pin Looping | How & When To Re-Pin Content

Pin Looping: This is when you re-pin your popular pins to boards with new images or descriptions. I suggest you do this once every 4 weeks. I don’t suggest you re-pin all at the same time across multiple boards. So if you’re re-pinning 10 cute coffee cafe’s for example, re-pin it to board A after a month, and then board B an hour later, board C an hour after that... so on and so forth.

In Part Six I talk about Tailwind, which will permit you to schedule and automate all of this easily. This costs money of course.

Part Six: Paid and Free Resources To Help You Succeed

Tailwind: https://www.tailwindapp.com/ this comes with a free trial but it does cost money. Basically it’s going to save you a ton of time, give you audience insights, do scheduling and pinning across multiple boards. For a full list of features look here: https://www.tailwindapp.com/features/small-business

NinjaPinner: ninjapinner.com I suggest using this for the auto-follow feature. Neil Patel, a social media guru, recommends that you don’t use anything else from this software.

Part Seven: Other Tips and Tricks

Keyword Your Images: When you’re uploading images, make sure you download them and rename them. So if I downloaded say an image of coffee I wanted to pin, and it was named ‘abc123.jpeg’ we would want to save it as ‘coffee-foam-art.jpeg’ so it is more relevant to search engines.

Multiple Images For Your Post: If you’ve made some really good content like an article or a recipe, it is better to make 2 - 3 images for that pin. Each time you pin it, try a new image and see which one resonates better. This is something called A/B Testing.

Relevant Links and Sources

If you’re digging deep into today’s subject, I’ve watched, read, and suggest the following. Remember nobody can teach you everything, and you must always test and ask questions; feel free to contact me any time.

If you found this post helpful in any way, make sure you share, follow and help me grow. I’m doing my best to help people grow their online business every day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkwnQu5HHHk Pinning on Pinterest: The Secret to Capturing Buyers on Pinterest

https://louisem.com/251174/pinterest-marketing-practices Pinterest Marketing Practices.

Neil Patel is a Social Media Guru, if you’re curious what he has to say about Pinterest just go here: https://neilpatel.com/blog/get-free-traffic-pinterest-search/

https://www.pexels.com/ is a royalty-free copyright-free image repository. They’re totally free!

#pinterest #guide #2019 #SEO #search engine optimization #ecommerce #shopify #woocommerce #social media

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arplis · 4 years ago

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Arplis - News: Writing for SEO: How to Write Blogs That Rank on Page 1 of Google

If you've ever written a blog post before, you know how much time they can take.

From topic selection, to gathering research, to writing the post and pressing "Publish," the process often demands hours.

That's why, if your post doesn't earn the traffic you expected, it can be a major letdown. All that work that goes into a post for less-than-stellar engagement is, no doubt, one of the most frustrating experiences.

Fortunately, there's a way to combat low traffic and bring eyes to your writing: search engine optimization. SEO is a language that speaks specifically to search engines like Google to tell it your post deserves to be at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).

As marketers, we're always aiming to write content that'll rank highly on Google, and SEO is the bridge that'll help you get there.

Of course, that begs the question: How do you write in SEO's language?

For that, don't worry — we've got you covered. In this post, we're going to dive into 13 ways you can master writing for that high ranking your content deserves.

Ready to get started?

1. Use headings to your benefit.

Headers tell Google what different sections of your blog article will be about. In this post, for example, the header, "How To Write Blog Posts for SEO," tells the search engine what this section is about.

Users who type search queries like, "writing for SEO" into Google will likely come across this post because of what the header tells Google. Ultimately, search engines are going to look at headers and snippets before they look at body text.

Think of Google as a reader who is skimming your blog. They're going to focus on the main ideas — and that's what headers, like H2s and H3s, display. Use headers to accurately convey the main idea of your section, but make sure each header uses accurate, high-intent keywords. When you use the right keywords (using keyword research tools) you have a much higher chance of helping your post rank on the first page.

2. Take advantage of featured snippets.

According to Google, "Featured snippets come from web search listings. Google's automated systems determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet to highlight for a specific search request."

Featured snippets on Google are the most direct answers to search queries. For instance, if I were to search, "How do you write a blog post?", Google might use a featured snippet to show the most sufficient answer:

To earn a featured snippet on Google, you'll want to answer the questions readers might have when they come to your blog post. For instance, if the search term is "how should I write a blog post?", answer that question with a list, starting with "How to Write A Blog Post" as the header, accompanied by a list of items that are relevant and actionable.

If you're wondering how to make list items actionable, a good rule of thumb is to write complete sentences and start each sentence with a verb, like "Write", "Research", "Create". Additionally, make sure each sentence answers the question or challenge. For definitions, or paragraph snippets, make sure they're succinct, but give enough background to explain the word or phrase.

3. Write to answer questions for customers.

One of the reasons we write blog posts is to diversify the content on our website. Another reason is to boost the credibility of our business. But if "to solve for your audience" isn't in your list of reasons, you may be losing out on key SEO opportunities.

Google answers countless questions a day. For instance, I must've Googled about five questions in the last hour alone. When you frame posts to answer the queries of your audience, Google will see that and push your post to a higher page.

Earlier, we talked about the bells and whistles you can add to posts to boost rankings. But, additionally, you'll want to ensure the content you're beefing up is also working towards that goal.

If you're stuck on trying to figure out what your audience is asking, you'll want to perform keyword research. Sites like Ahrefs and Woorank crawl search engines for popular search queries. To organize the process, create different topic clusters to write about, such as "Instagram Marketing," "LinkedIn Advertising" — subjects you can dive into that provide value to your audience.

Still stuck on keywords? Don't worry — this keyword research guide is perfect for beginners.

4. Use meta descriptions to your advantage.

Are you adding meta descriptions to your post? If your answer is "No," then you're probably not giving your post the most exposure possible. Let's get into why they're important.

By now, we've talked about a couple of the ways a blog post can communicate with Google: with headers, keywords, and snippets. However, that's not an exhaustive list.

Meta descriptions is another method Google leverages when ranking search results. Meta descriptions are the 1-3 sentence descriptions you'll find underneath the title of a result.

Use meta descriptions to sum up what your post is about. Remember to keep it short, use keywords, and make sure it's engaging. After all, there are going to be loads of posts similar to yours, aiming to rank at #1. You're going to want yours to stand out above the rest.

Most blogging software have meta description boxes built into the toolbar or post formatting options, so you won't have to look far to use the function. HubSpot and WordPress, for example, point out where to add meta descriptions in the post editor.

5. Add alt text to images.

With any image you add to your post — whether it be the featured image or a body text one — you'll want to add alt text. Alt text describes what's happening in the photo. Think of it as a closed caption for images.

Alt text helps Google, as well as those who are visually impaired, understand why the photo is in your post. This improves your article's rank and accessibility, making it more shareable.

For instance, if you include an infographic about audience segmentation, the alt text should read something like, "A helpful infographic that explains audience segmentation." Notice how this sentence uses keywords to appeal to Google even further.

Now let's say you're using a stock image as a featured photo, but it doesn't necessarily depict anything that relates to your post's content. For instance, let's say your topic is click-through rate, and this is your featured image:

This doesn't really have anything to do with audience segments, right? But what you can do to remedy the situation is to make a scenario. For instance, "A marketing team discusses audience segmentation strategy."

This alt text uses keywords to describe a situation that fits into the theme of the post. That way, your image doesn't bring down the ranking of your post, but works towards improving where it ranks. If Google sees alt text, it's another box checked for a high position on SERPs.

6. Don't limit keywords to the body of your post.

Ultimately, keywords should be used in nearly every part of your blog. We've talked a little about where keywords can be included in your post: snippets, photos, and headers, for example.

Keywords are so powerful because they're the jumping off point for SERPs. Google will always take what browsers type into the search bar and search for web pages with those exact words. So it's important to make sure every element, from the post title, to the calls-to-action, relate to your keywords.

That said, it's also important not to keyword stuff your post. The goal is to make your page fully optimized, not overbearing. Find natural fits for keyword additions, but don't force them so your content is illegible.

For example, if your keywords are "account based marketing," "startups," and "sales," your meta description shouldn't be something like:

"Sales for account based marketing startups."

Instead, try focusing on one or two phrases to make the description more natural:

"Are you looking for killer strategies to boost your account-based marketing game? Find out our surefire secrets in this post."

That way, you're still using keywords, but you're not oversaturating the post to the point where it's illegible. Remember, even though Google is a search engine, it still has to comprehend your post in order to recommend it to website browsers. Additionally, a reader's experience will determine how well your posts rank. If readers bounce from your webpage because it's confusing to them, that will signal to Google that your post isn't good enough to rank.

7. Identify highly-effective keywords when looking for post ideas.

8. Naturally integrate those keywords throughout your posts.

As you write your blog, your keyword and natural variations should be regularly interspersed throughout the post. Your primary keyword should appear in these key places:

Title

Headings and subheadings

URL if possible

Image alt text (search engines can’t read images)

Meta description

Throughout the content

Remember that you’re writing for humans, not search engines. Focus on engaging readers with a natural writing style that takes their needs and interests into account.

9. Link to influential websites.

As you build out your blog post, don’t be afraid to link to other articles or blogs.

10. Aim for scannable, longer posts.

In an age of short attention spans (average of 8 seconds for humans), you would think shorter blog posts are the way to go. But search engines actually prefer longer, in-depth blog posts.

You can write scannable, readable blog posts that hook online readers by tightening up your sentences and paragraphs. Turn a long-winded sentence into two. Keep your paragraphs to 2-3 sentences max.

11. Internally link words or phrases to other posts on your site.

Internal links to other valuable content keep users on your site longer, reducing bounce rate and increasing your potential for a conversion (and isn’t that what it’s all about?).

Instead, use descriptive keywords that give readers a sense of what they will find when they click on the hyperlink, such as a search engine optimization guide.

Never force feed links to your top webpages, featured products or discounted items. These types of links will only turn off readers and could lead to search engines penalizing your website.

12. Optimize pictures for the fastest possible page speed.

Google rewards pages with faster page speed and places those that lag lower on its rankings. So, it's important to make sure your page-load times are as quick as possible.

One of the leading culprits of page lag is large photos. If the photo you uploaded is too big, it will make the page take a longer time to load -- even if the image doesn't seem huge on screen. Luckily, you can keep your posts visually interesting without sacrificing crucial speed.

If you suspect that your SEO issues are related to low page speeds, Google offers a free tool that can score your page and give you suggestions for speed improvement. Here's a guide on how to use it and boost your score.

7. Preform link building strategies.

Traffic from places other than Google is crucial to your search rankings. Why? Think of search results like a competition where the winners get the most votes. Each webpage that links back to you is considered a "vote" for your website, which makes your content more trustworthy in the eyes of Google. In turn, this will make you rise farther up on search results.

So, it's good to write posts that other websites or publications will want to hyperlink within their own posts. You can also write posts on other business' websites that link back to your website in some way.

To make your website's blogpost more linkable, include valuable assets or information, such as your own data, original thoughts, infographics, definitions, or other facts that people might not find anywhere else.

Here's an example of how this mindset could help you. If you write a post titled "How to Make a Video Tutorial," or "13 Stats about Video Tutorials," bigger sites that are writing about something similar might hyperlink words like "video tutorials" or "research from [Your Company Name]" to your post so they can give their reader more context without repeating your work.

Once you've written the post, you might want to start sending it to other publications or websites that might want to discuss it or link it to their other posts. This outreach lets other publications know of the post and might also help you grow link building alliances with them in the future.

You can also consider doing promotion, such as interviews or guest posts that link to your website's blog post to further encourage link building.

These strategies can be key to your SEO success, but they can be time consuming. To help you, consider trying out one of these softwares.

How to Title Blog Posts for SEO

Even with a great, SEO-friendly post body, a bad title could hurt you in search engines. To title your post with SEO in mind, draft a clear understandable title that both shows the reader what they're about to read and integrates the keywords you identified in the first step. As mentioned above, write something that pleases Google's ranking algorithms, but is also understandable and enticing to humans.

Here are a few examples:

If you're a beauty blogger and you see that people are searching "how to wear matte lipstick," your post could be titled, "How to Wear Matte Lipstick: A 5-Step Guide."

On the other hand, if your blog covers artificial intelligence and you see that people are searching a new AI app, you could write a blog post called "How to Use [Insert AI App Name]," or "We Tried the New [Insert App Name] App: Here's What Happened"

If you blog about farming or sustainability and find out that "what to buy at farm stands" is a regular search, you might write a listicle titled "What to Buy at Farm Stands This Summer."

You know how to write content audiences will love. Now, it's time to write for what Google loves. SEO only heightens the chance of your post getting seen by the right audiences, expanding your reach.

It can sound tricky at first, writing for two audiences, but just remember these takeaways: keywords, snippets, and descriptions. Learning a new language takes time, but luckily, your blogging software can likely remind you of these SEO tips. I can't wait to see your next blog post at the top of my search results.

Arplis - News source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Arplis-News/~3/DM7zZttChA0/writing-for-seo-how-to-write-blogs-that-rank-on-page-1-of-google

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thelmasirby32 · 5 years ago

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Capitalizing on paid social in B2B industries

Paid advertising on social media channels always seems to be growing, it’s a huge buzzword at the minute and everybody wants it to work for their business.

In B2C you’ll find endless ecommerce businesses who essentially make a living through Facebook ads alone and this makes sense, social media is very much a consumer channel. But this doesn’t stop stakeholders in B2B companies pushing for paid social to drive a volume of leads and clients.

And this is where it gets challenging. As a B2B marketer, you are advertising in an unleveled playing field.

When you advertise on Google Ads you have user intent, you still have competition but you are all competing for the same thing, an engaged user.

When you advertise on Facebook however, you are targeting the same users as businesses in fashion, electronics, homeware – and there is no intent.

It, therefore, becomes incredibly important that you pinpoint the right audience and target them with engaging creatives. If you don’t you will just be wasting ad spend.

There is so much you can do with paid social ads, so I’ve outlined a few that I have seen work well in the B2B space.

Customer Lookalike Audiences

There are so many audiences you can test across LinkedIn and Facebook, be that based on job titles, interests, company names – the list goes on. However, If you are new to paid social or just looking for a new way to generate leads, lookalike audiences are where I would start.

There are two ways to do this; – the first is to get a list of all the users who have enquired via your website, be that a form completion or a download – whatever you deem to be an inquiry.

The second, and better option, is to upload a list based on actual client data i.e. people who have paid for your service.

Creating these audiences is where AI and paid search go hand in hand. We are relying on the social platforms to analyze our data, our customer’s profiles, and behavior and then finding us users it deems to be similar.

The caveat, as with all AI like this, is that your lookalike is only ever going to be as good as the data you input, hence the platforms recommend you upload a significant enough amount of data.

The process of creating a lookalike audience is straightforward with both Facebook and LinkedIn.

How to create a lookalike audience in LinkedIn

Prepare a csv. file as per LinkedIn’s requirements (This can be done based on business name or contact email address)

Go to “Account Assets” and click “Matched Audiences”

Click “Create Audience” and select “List Upload”

Name your audience

Select the file you wish to upload and hit “Upload”

Wait 24 hours

Back in “Matched Audiences” click “Create Audience” and this time select “Lookalike”

Name your audience

Select the list your previously uploaded and hit “Create”

Again wait 24 hours

How to create a lookalike audience on Facebook

Prepare your data in a csv or txt file as per Facebook’s requirements

In Facebook Ads Manager navigate to “Audiences”

Hit “Create Audience” and select “Custom Audience” from the dropdown

Here you can pick different audience types, in this instance select “Customer List”

Select the “Use a file that doesn’t include LTV” option

Upload your file and ensure the identifiers match the fields in your data set

Name your audience and hit next

Back in “Audiences” select “Create Audience” and this time hit “Lookalike Audience”

Select the audience to base your lookalike on by searching in the “Other Sources” dropdown and select the appropriate location

Select the “Audience Size” percentage you wish to target and hit create

The difference with Facebook is that it allows you to select the size of your lookalike audience based on a percentage scale which ranges from one to ten percent. One percent is essentially the audience that is most alike your customer data and ten percent is therefore much broader. You are able to create multiple audiences and tailor your bidding appropriately.

The audience is one thing, but you still need to couple this with appropriate creative and compelling messaging.

Get “creative” with your creatives

Coming back to one of my original points, standing out on paid social is difficult for all businesses, given the fact there is just so much interesting content at a user’s fingertips – their friend’s posts, brands they follow, pages they follow and ads to name a few. So it is important that your ads stand out.

Further still, your B2B ad needs to work a little harder to stand out. On LinkedIn you get a bit of good grace from users; people are in the professional mindset and engaging with business-related content. However, with Facebook, it needs to be interesting, engaging, and most importantly stand out.

The best example I have seen of a business doing this well is Simply Business, a UK based business insurance company, who has a whole campaign around businesses with interesting names.

The social creatives all play on celebrity names as business names, “Steven Spielburger”, “Leonardo DiCappuccino”, and other such ones.

The reason I say they are doing this well is I first saw this campaign when browsing Instagram stories on my personal account and it made me look into what else they were doing.

Their campaign is utilizing this same kind of creative across Facebook and Instagram with image ads, videos, and obviously stories.

Some key things to do with different creative

Images

Design something that stands out and grabs people’s attention as they scroll up and down a feed. Bold colors and clear messaging are key to this.

Videos

Keep them succinct and avoid using overtly corporate or stock footage. Appearing natural is what is likely to drive engagement.

Gifs

Perfect for Facebook, focus on some kind of animation that relates to something people know, for instance, a gif of houses with “for sale” signs changing to “sold” might stick in the mind of realtors.

Top tip

Use tools like the Facebook Ad Library and the Ads tab on a company LinkedIn page to review the creative they are using.

Tailored messaging

Without a doubt, tailoring your message to your audience is one of the most important aspects of advertising on social media.

If social platforms allow you to pinpoint your audience to something as specific as Marketing Directors in finance businesses with 11-50 staff on the East coast you need to ensure you make the best use of that and tailor your creative to it.

Over the last few months, I have tended to split all social campaigns out by sector so I can pinpoint target customers who are realtors, accountants, and attorneys to target them with copy and creative that highlights why my service is of value in their industry.

This is incredibly simple to do, and while it may be more time consuming to set-up, you will see much better CTRs and much better conversion rates when that traffic comes to your site – even more so if your landing pages can reflect the audience too.

LinkedIn Text Ads

This seems like a really basic and dull tip, but it works.

Whilst there is nothing particularly glamorous or exciting about a LinkedIn Text Ad they can be incredibly effective in generating leads.

Simple to set up, they consist of four elements

An image: Generally your logo

A headline: 25 characters

A description: 75 characters

A landing page

There is no need for any complicated creative and therefore no need to go through the process of briefing into a designer and using their resource. You can get these set up in less than five minutes.

In setting up the ad you will also need to have created an audience; it makes sense that you craft your headline and description to reflect this audience. As I have said previously in this post, it is essential that your ad messaging is relevant to your audience, especially on social where there is so much content flying around.

Generally you will find that you get a high number of impressions and a very low CTR, however, with the LinkedIn audience targeting options, you know that this traffic will be highly relevant. In addition to this CPCs are often much cheaper on text ads when compared with other LinkedIn ad formats.

All in all, for very little effort you can set up campaigns which, in my experience, have tended to be fruitful in generating leads, and doing so at an effective cost-per-lead.

Conclusion

To summarise, there is so much that you can be doing with paid social in a B2B industry, but there are a few things that you definitely need to be considering:

Get your targeting right and make sure you try Lookalike Audiences

Make sure you get creative with your creatives

Tailor your ad copy to the people you are targeting

Don’t overlook the simple and dull things, they can be extremely effective

And as with all things digital, the most important thing is to test and share. There are always new features on social advertising platforms and you never know what will work until you give it a go.

Daniel Marshall is a Strategic Digital Marketing Manager with experience in international search marketing strategy across PPC, SEO, CRO, and social (paid and organic). He can be reached out on Twitter @digitallydan14.

The post Capitalizing on paid social in B2B industries appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/11/18/capitalizing-on-b2b-paid-social/

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michaeldhaskell6 · 5 years ago

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Five Tactics Buy guest posts Can Raise Your organization.

Strategy Building Suggestions To Improve Your Blogging Success

Blogging is already more popular than before. Blogging is part of our everyday lives. But, building a really successful and worthy blog takes a good plan and continuous input. Research your options and utilize the data and tips presented in this article to help you design the blog that you may have always aspired to create.

Will not overuse Adsense ads, plug-ins, images or keywords. Overusing your tools can cause search engines like google to mark your internet site as spam, that will put you behind. Maintain your writing organic, and allow it to flow smoothly.

Blog often and blog smartly. It is actually common for bloggers to start blogging as if they were attending a fire after which, with time, to gradually get caught in blogging less and less frequently. Readers is certain to get bored expecting new posts. To keep your blogging audience captivated, blog every week and forward the update in emails.

You need to update frequently to keep your blog fresh. If you wish to keep visitors coming back and attract brand new ones, your site needs to be updated regularly. By not posting new content, readers may have absolutely no reason to come back to your blog. At the very least, you ought to make at least one post daily.

It can be helpful to get a website address of your as opposed to developing a blog via a free blog service. It’s inexpensive and will make your blog look more professional. Having your own domain will make it easier for readers to not forget and find your website. Make use of your company name or possibly a related keyword inside your blog domain.

Your blog site should concentrate on something which will excite readers’ interest. Everyday chores like vacuuming and cleaning tend not to usually make good topics for blog articles. No-one will cherish any content linked to this unless you try to present it in a interesting manner. Instead, choose topics you are sure readers will discover interesting. Your goal in blogging, after all, is to draw individuals to your blog.

Your posts should be succinct. It is useful to have informative and detailed posts on the blog, but unnecessarily long ones will bore prospective customers. Readers don’t worry about lengthy descriptions, they need you to reach the point quickly to allow them to learn what they came to discover. They desire a readable blog that gets to the stage!

Stay patient and ultimately your readership will grow on its own. Building a following for the blog will take time. Also, there just won’t be so much content for readers to consider until your website has been established for awhile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF-Ie4VY_D0 The greater number of valuable content you may have on the blog, the better traffic you may drive to the site.

As was discussed earlier, bloggers are omnipresent now. There are lots of good reasons to establish a blog, but everybody has got the same broad intent behind conveying messages to readers. If you utilize what you’ve read here to help you out in designing and maintaining your blog site, you’ll reach every one of the goals you determine for your self and more!.

from 2000 Things I like To Do http://www.aac2000.org/five-tactics-buy-guest-posts-can-raise-your-organization/

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unifiedsocialblog · 6 years ago

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10 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Profiles in One Hour or Less

What? Improve all my social media profiles—in one hour. Really?

Yup.

I get it—you’re busy. Or maybe lazy (no judgement).

Either way, you’ve got posts to review, schedule, and publish. Campaigns to declare, launch, and manage. Emails to write and respond to. Countless deadlines for this and that.

And… a boss to please so they’ll feel at ease because ‘you got this’. So your brand shows up just right, for all your social media profiles.

This guide is for you.

Each tip should take only a few minutes. All together, about an hour. Schedule it for this week. You can do that, right?

Clock’s a ticking… what are we waiting for?

Bonus: Get the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

1. Make sure you’re using the right size images

So your brand face will look professional and beautiful—no matter where you show up.

Optimize your profile images on each network. Often, this only takes a quick crop, which you can do in minutes.

Think about, too… where else these images might show up.

For instance…

How will it look expanded? Or small, when showing up in people’s streams? How will it look on mobile compared to desktop?

Each social network states the optimal images sizes. Because they know all thy ways they’ll be seen. Trust them.

This guide tells all. But I’ll summarize a few since you’re on the clock.

Facebook profile picture: 170 X 170 pixels

Facebook cover photo: 828 X 465 pixels

Twitter profile photo: 400 X 400 pixels

Twitter header image: 1,500 X 500 pixels

Google+ profile picture: 250 X 250 pixels (minimum)

Google+ cover photo: 1080 X 608 pixels

LinkedIn profile photo: 400 X 400 pixels (minimum)

LinkedIn custom background: 1584 X 396

LinkedIn cover photo: 974 X 330 pixels

LinkedIn banner image: 646 X 220 pixels

Instagram profile picture: 110 X 110 pixels

Pinterest profile picture: 150 X 150 pixels

YouTube profile picture: 800 X 800 pixels

YouTube cover photo: 2,560 X 1,440 pixels on desktop

2. Use the same profile image on every network

Your brand logo or image should be consistent across all networks.

The more you appear the same in feeds across social networks, the more likely you’ll get and stay top-of-mind. People will think of you before your competitor when they need your product or service.

But if you use different photos and logos you’ll dilute your brand’s visual identity (and recognizability).

3. Make sure your handles are consistent, too

For photos, appearing consistently increases brand recognition.

Same for handles. Also… it makes it easier for others to search and find you.

Want to increases the chances for people mentioning your brand? And, help them find and follow you?

Then make it obvious when they type the ‘@’ sign.

With a simple handle, as close to your personal or brand name as possible.

Just about every social media platform drops down a list in place to help you be clicked.

Now how will you appear in such a list with a mishmash of name, city, area, and any other secret codes. That might work for 007, but you’re not in the spy game, you’re in the buy game.

4. Untag yourself from bad photos and inappropriate posts

Tags are great for talking with more fans. If used right.

But if you’re tagging inappropriate photos or posts, you’ll look like an amateur, instead of a pro. You might face legal woes too.

So… two approaches to make sure you’re using tags best.

Check your photo tag settings

Make sure your settings align with your social media policy.

For your networks you can do some of the following:

See where you’ve been tagged

See who can see your tagged photos and posts

Approve photos you’ve been tagged in before they appear

Remove tags from unwanted photos and posts

Restrict who can tag you in photos

Check each network for what’s available for your strategy.

Review tags regularly

Create a routine to check and review the posts you’re tagged in. Then untag yourself from any bad photos or inappropriate posts.

You might ask.. why not just shut down tagging?

Because:

It’s like hearing your name called out from the crowd

Tags elicit a response from others

You can jump into pertinent conversations

You’ll show up in more places

Tags exist for those reasons, so don’t cut yourself or brand off from being seen more.

5. Be discoverable in a search

Use the right keywords in your profile to be discovered for your business, industry, or niche.

When people do web searches, you want your brand logo to show up above the fold.

It’s easy (and fast) to add the right words to your social profile.

Here’s a couple ways:

Identify the right keywords

Find out what people search for most when looking for professionals in your space. Keyword tools like SEMrush and Google Keyword Planner will help identify the right words and terms.

Use those keywords

Update your social media profiles with the words and phrases identified above.

For: LinkedIn job title, description, experience, and skills sections. Do the same kind of thing for all your social accounts. In your bio, for photos, interests and more.

Don’t just stuff a list of keywords into these sections.

Work them in naturally, like how you talk. The search engine gods will reward and rank you higher. So you’ll show up, not down, the results page.

6. Fill in every field

While you’re adding keywords to your profile, make sure all the fields are filled in.

Why?

So readers won’t perceive you as unprofessional and lazy.

And don’t write gibberish. Write succinct and clear sentences, explaining…

What you or your brand does

What people who follow you can expect to see

Maybe even a clear call-to-action for what they should do next (but that’s outside this hour of power)

Make your words engaging, too, not boring. Here’s some tips I wrote for you.

Also, check this over time. Social networks remove, add, and update fields.

7. Cross promote

There’s probably a field ‘Website” for your social profile.

Most people enter in their website. Makes sense, right?

But you can do better. Use this field to link to your other social profiles—as another form of cross promotion.

Facebook allows you to add multiple website fields

LinkedIn allows you to add your Twitter account

Pinterest allows you to connect to Facebook and Twitter

For the social networks that give you only a single “website” field, mix it up. State a current landing or promo page. Or a new downloadable guide. Update and change it around over time.

8. Test your links

Hey, while you’re in there updating your links—make sure they work, too.

Typos happen. It takes just a sec or two to test them. Otherwise, you’ll confuse users and look lame. And worse, not get those cross promotion benefits.

Test every link on every profile.

That’s it. Next…

9. Build social trust

How? By asking friendlies for reviews, endorsements, and recommendations.

This includes friends, family, past and current clients.

It shows others you’ve succeeded. Readers trust that more than an ad.

You won’t get all these up on your profiles in an hour. This is about asking.

Here’s a few ways.

Use LinkedIn’s endorsements section. People can click to endorse your skills.

Even more powerful are LinkedIn recommendations. When you do ask for these (and you should) make it easier for them.

“Hey Joe, it was great working together on our last project. Think you could write a recommendation for my part? If so, here’s a few questions to make it easy for you.”

What talents, abilities, & characteristics describe me?

What successes did we experienced together?

What I’m good at?

What can be counted on?

Are there any other distinguishing features you think I possess?

What was my impact on you?

What was my impact on the company?

How did I change what you do?

What’s one thing you get with me that you can’t get anywhere else?

What are five words that describe me?

Pro tip: Give love, too. Use those questions to write a recommendation for someone, without them even asking.

For Facebook pages, use their visitor post section. So people can highlight the good work you’ve done.

For Twitter, pin positive tweets to the top of your stream. This allows you to control what visitors see when they first arrive.

There’s plenty of goodness you can create for you and your brand in a few minutes.

10. Pin your best content to the top of your profile

More about pins.

Unlike other posts, pinned one’s stay put. They are the first things people see when looking you up. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn support pinning.

This is your chance to showcase your best work. Choose wisely. Maybe a key message, a new landing page, a hot offer, or a cool video? Make the most of pinning.

How did that go?

Did you get all those done in an hour?

But I know it was still worth your time. Feels good, right, to have all your social profiles tidy and optimized for your business. I bet your boss will dig it, too.

Easily manage all your social media profiles using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can schedule and publish posts, engage your followers, monitor relevant conversations, measure results, manage your ads, and much more. Try it free today.

Get Started

The post 10 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Profiles in One Hour or Less appeared first on Hootsuite Social Media Management.

10 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Profiles in One Hour or Less published first on https://getfblike.tumblr.com/

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lindyhunt · 6 years ago

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18 of the Best Product Page Design Examples We've Ever Seen

If you look at how product pages take shape across different companies, it's clear they run the gamut. Some go for the direct approach, displaying an image of a product and explaining why someone should buy it.

Other companies create elaborate pages with moving parts and fancy, interactive elements.

Still other companies create delightful product pages that give users an authentic experience as they browse through what the company has to offer.

Believe it or not, not all of the most captivating product pages have enterprise-level programming behind them. To give you an idea of what's possible -- from the small business all the way up to the household name -- we scouted out 18 examples that we find truly admirable.

The pages below have mastered their messaging, value propositions, and general product descriptions such that these sites resonate with their unique buyer persona.

(And after checking out these pages, you might want to buy their products, too.)

18 of the Best Product Landing Page Designs

1. Bellroy

Bellroy sells thinner-than-typical wallets. There's value to that -- but what is it, and how do you get the consumer to understand it?

To answer those questions, Bellroy divided its product page into three stages of the buyer's journey -- understanding the problem, how to fix the problem, and how Bellroy can resolve the problem.

There's even an interactive section that shows how the skinny wallet will fill up in comparison to a different wallet. As users move a slider back and forth along a line, both of the wallets fill up with cards and cash, visually displaying the very problem Bellroy's skinny wallet solves.

[Click here to see Bellroy's full product page.]

2. Wistia

Wistia is a video hosting and analytics company that provides users with detailed video performance metrics. It might sound like a snooze-fest, but let's dive into what really makes this product page stand apart.

First, we're presented with five, colorful graphics illustrating their tools' value propositions. And in case that's all the user really needed to see, those graphics are followed by two calls-to-action.

But, if you continue scrolling, you'll see a video with information about Wistia's capabilities for that video -- calls-to-action, email collectors, video heatmaps, and viewing trends.

One of the best ways to explain a visual platform's features is to demonstrate them on a product page. This one shows users all of Wistia's features and how they work, day-to-day.

[Click here to see Wistia's full product page.]

3. Square

Square is a mobile transaction company that merchants can use to collect payment from customers -- anywhere, any time, as long as they have a compatible phone or tablet.

The product marketing challenge here is to show why Square is an easier alternative than a typical cash register -- and its product page displays those reasons in a visually captivating way.

Product Description

The main headline of each section of this product page has bold, succinct copy:

"Small credit card reader, big possibilities."

The rest of the page is clearly organized headlines -- which kind of read like answers to frequently asked questions -- plenty of white space, succinct copy, and appropriate images. Anyone looking into each section can understand exactly how Square works at every stage of a transaction.

[Click here to see Square's full product page.]

4. Rent the Runway

Some companies -- especially in ecommerce -- can have up to thousands of product pages. Rent the Runway, an online dress rental company, is one of them.

Rent the Runway has an individual product page for every dress it carries, with all the information a customer could want -- images, measurements, fabric, price, and reviews. So what sets them apart? The exceptional detail of the "Stylist Notes" and "Size & Fit" sections.

Product Description

These details are clearly and carefully curated from stylists and reviewers. They don't just explain what a dress is made of and how it looks -- they cover how it fits on every part of the body, which undergarments should be worn with it, and for which body types it's best suited. That kind of information not only delights customers and encourages their trust, but it also makes for a more confident buying decision.

Also, notice how there's plenty of white space surrounding the product images and description. According to research by ConversionXL, that white space creates a higher perceived value -- in this case, price -- of the product in the user's mind.

[Click here to see Rent the Runway's full product page.]

5. Daily Harvest

Daily Harvest develops superfoods in the form of smoothies, soups, and more, and delivers them to your doorstep. What makes these foods' product pages so outstanding? They show you exactly what makes these foods so super in a format that's both clear and digestible -- no pun intended.

Check out one of the Daily Harvest's smoothie product pages, below. Not only can you see what the smoothie looks like, but hovering over the lefthand preview icon, below the main image, shows you the foods used to create this drink. Scroll down, and you'll see each ingredient and a simple description of each one.

Product Description

The product description of this smoothie is just as creative as the landing page itself.

"Kicks fatigue to the curb. Leaves inflammation in the dust. Makes bloating a thing of the past. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Ginger + Greens!"

[Click here to see Daily Harvest's full product page.]

6. Oreo

If you've seen any of Oreo's marketing, you shouldn't be surprised they're on this list. But sometimes, being well known can actually make it harder to create a product page. So how did they do it?

The focus of Oreo's product page is how these simple, classic cookies can help people unleash their imaginations, dare to wonder, and become generally happier. It features a series of videos, one after another. One is accompanied by the lyrics, "It's so easy to let your imagination go when you play with Oreo," paying tribute to the age-old discussion about the "best" way to eat them. The page takes a creative, bold approach to marketing with what might otherwise be thought of as an ordinary snack.

Oreo also took a unique design to this page. Even though the cookies themselves are monochrome, the page is wonderfully colorful, from the videos, to the backgrounds, to the graphics.

[Click here to see Oreo's full product page.]

7. Fitbit Charge

When I took on this blog post, I asked a few people for their favorite product page suggestions. I was amazed how many people immediately recommended Fitbit -- and after checking out the site, I can see why.

The page below helped unveil the original Fitbit Charge -- now succeeded by the Fitbit 3 -- and starts off with a value proposition, rather than a list of features. It's a hero image of people hiking a mountain, who we can imagine are wearing Fitbits, with the copy, "Energize your day."

As you scroll down the page, it goes through four quick steps explaining how the product works. What's more, a lot of these are interactive -- the section under "Everything you need, all in one place" allows users to hover over different features to see how they appear on Fitbit's mobile app.

But the page also explains why these features are valuable. For example, one tracks everything you do from walking, to running, to sleeping. Why does that matter? Well, you can have your current records on hand, and try to beat them.

Knowing that users might not remember all of the specifics when they leave the page, Fitbit was sure to focus on how these features will actually make a difference in the visitors' lives. Well played.

[Click here for Fitbit Charge 3's new product page.]

8. Volkswagen

Volkswagen takes an interactive approach to its product marketing. Instead of listing out all of the features you can have in a car, the company walk you through the process of actually building your car. As you go through that process, Volkswagen highlights the different features you could choose, then gives you a preview of what the car will look like and how that will affect the price.

Even though I'm not currently in the market for a new car, I personally had fun tinkering with the different customization features on the page. What color do I want? Do I want premium audio? (Yes.) It's an interesting way for the brand to eliminate the notorious connotations of "car salesmen," by allowing users to learn about and select features independently.

Plus, there's a nifty matchmaking feature that allows you to see which nearby dealerships have the car with all of your preferences in its inventory.

(If you want to see a regular product page, they've got that, too.)

[Click here to see Volkwagen's full product page.]

9. Seattle Cider

The folks at Seattle Cider claim their cider is "not your standard cider." Well, neither is the product page. It reads like a story, beginning with attractive, high-definition images of the cider selection, which happen to have really cool label designs. As you hover, an explanation appears of what differentiates Seattle Cider's products from others, and what makes each variation special.

But my favorite part is what comes next: a really cool, interactive display of how cider is made from start to finish, which plays for users as they scroll. It's a surprising and delightful user experience that goes above and beyond the typical product page, because it doesn't just display the products. It shows where they come from, and how.

[Click here to see Seattle Cider's full product page.]

10. OfficeSpace Software

OfficeSpace sells facility management software to help folks manage, well, office spaces. Like the name, the product page is very clear and direct.

Each section of this product page is dedicated to a different feature of the software. The headline explains the feature, and the subheadline explains why this feature is important as you evaluate different software.

That makes it easy for prospects to quickly digest what the product offers, but also read more details on its value proposition, if they choose to. And, if someone wants to learn even more about a particular feature, there are clear calls-to-action to do so.

[Click here to see OfficeSpace's full product page.]

11. Orangina

This carbonated citrus drink has been around since 1935, and it has exactly four products -- original, red orange, light, and tropical. So, how does Orangina keep its product page both current and special?

For one, it's fun to explore. When you hover your mouse over any of the blocks, the picture or icon animates -- the bottles dance around, the orange slices in half, and the thermometer drops. The animated images and bold colors fit in perfectly with the Orangina brand's bold, fun personality.

Also, you might notice that some of the blocks are actual products, while the others are simply tips and details about their products. If you don't have a lot of products to sell, consider interspersing them with tips and information about the products you do have available.

[Click here to see Orangina's full product page.]

12. Mango Languages

Mango Languages creates "lovable" language-learning experiences for libraries, schools, corporations, government agencies, and individuals. Its homepage has illustrated calls-to-action for each of these buyer personas -- from public libraries, to government offices, to those who are homeschooling their kids. Each of those calls-to-action leads to a different product page that's colorful, clearly written, and very comprehensive.

Take a look at the example for homeschool teachers below. Like every other part of the website, it exudes Mango's friendly, approachable, and helpful brand personality. The video couldn't be more delightful. I mean, a guitar-playing mango in a top hat? Yes, please.

As you scroll, you're greeted with clear value propositions that use playful language that's true to brand. Everything about the page says "simple to use," "fun," and "effective."

[Click here to see Mango's full product page.]

13. Helix Mattresses

It's one thing to sell a mattress -- it's another thing to sell a good night's sleep. Helix Mattresses is laser-focused on the latter, having designed a product page that organizes each mattress by its level of plushness and support.

By looking at Helix's product line in chart form, website visitors don't have to examine each mattress individually to find the attributes they're looking for. Simply find the row and column that matches your bedding needs, and click through to your chosen mattress's product page to learn more.

Product Description

It can be difficult to know what "plush," "firm," or "supportive" really mean in a mattress -- they all seem so subjective. For that reason, Helix is all about brevity in its product descriptions, using evocative explanations of each category a mattress might belong to.

"Plush Feel: Soft top of your mattress that lets you sink in like a cloud."

"Balanced Support: Not too much, not too little. Best for side sleepers with thin to average body types."

"Firm feel: Firm top of your mattress with no sink or give."

[Click here to see Helix's full product page.]

14. Minwax

Minwax makes products to help people care for their wood furnishings and surfaces. Riveting, right? But the brand has managed to create a product page that's not only relevant, but also, helps users quickly and easily find what they're looking for.

That's thanks partly to the Minwax Product Finder module. It functions like a quiz, asking a series of multiple-choice questions, like "What kind of project is it?" and "What are you looking to do?" Once you answer the questions, the quiz generates recommended products, which includes a handy "Don't Forget" list with the tools you'll need to get the job done -- things like safety glasses, gloves, and sandpaper. Helpful tips like this go above and beyond a normal ecommerce product page.

[Click here to see Minwax's full product page.]

15. Ministry of Supply

Ministry of Supply specializes in comfortable formal wear, and it shows you just how comfortable in any one of its garments' product landing pages.

Take the product page for the Juno Blouse, below. Below the photo gallery of a woman modeling the product, Ministry of Supply gives visitors "proofs," revealing the blouse's thread count, materials, and other key qualities that make the product unique.

The product page's best trait might actually be its motion graphics, using basic looped videos that demonstrate the clothing's resilience and flexibility.

Product Description

Ministry of Supply describes its products' technical benefits but without sacrificing a friendly tone:

"Unlike silk, Juno is designed for everyday performance without the fuss. It's moisture-wicking, breathable, and wrinkle free, so you can dress your best without specialized care."

[Click here to see Ministry of Supply's full product page.]

16. Liulishuo

Liulishuo is a China-based startup that builds English language learning tools for personal development and test prep purposes. The company's mobile app product page offers a clean but media-rich overview of its curriculum.

As you can see below, the bottom of the page plays a crisp motion clip of the video-based coursework in action on a smartphone. It's essentially an app demo before users even download the app.

At the top of page, Liulishuo makes cool use of QR codes by allowing users to download the app just by scanning the app's QR code on their mobile device. Presenting a software product in this way is a smart effort to increase customer acquisition simply by making the product easier to get.

[Click here to see Liulishiuo's full product page.]

17. Metavrse VR Photobooth™

Metavrse, a virtual reality (VR) consultancy and product developer, has just about the most immersive product page we've ever seen. The company sells not just VR insight, but also VR tools to help modern businesses better engage their customers in their goods and services.

One of those tools, which has a killer landing page, is the VR Photobooth™.

Metavrse's VR Photobooth™ features both a VR headset and an actual cube-shaped room that people enter while wearing the headset for a 360-degree, branded experience. And what better way of demonstrating this experience than right there in the center of the product page? Check it out, below.

Metavrse displays its VR headset facing away from the website visitor, with a moving panoramic background that gives businesses a nearly firsthand demo of what's waiting for them (or, more specifically, their customers).

Product Description

Metavrse elaborates on its VR Photobooth™ via a full PDF, which website visitors can download for free at the bottom of the product page. Regarding the cube-shaped room itself, the company has some enticing but informative product copy:

"Up to 4 guests can enter the booth at once to have their photo taken among a dazzling display of video imagery and mirror magic."

[Click here to see Metavrse's full product page.]

18. Nfant®Nipple

Nfant®, an infant nursing product, takes the transition from breastfeeding to oral feeding seriously -- as is evident on the company's product page for the Nfant®Nipple.

What sets this small business apart from other nursing and parenting services is its use of data to attract customers.

The product page below touts several types of bottle top-shaped nipples, and each one offers a different level of flow when the baby is drinking. As involved as the conditions of each product are, however, the product page delivers the information gracefully using color coordination, a video demonstration, and even a graph comparing each product's flow range that nursing mothers can refer back to.

Nursing moms are always educating themselves on the resources they have for keeping their children healthy as they develop. With that in mind, Nfant's detailed but easy-to-understand product page knows its buyer persona well.

[Click here to see Nfant's full product page.]

Product Page Best Practices

So, what have these brands taught us about product pages? It boils down to a few must-haves:

Make it interesting and fun, especially if you have a less-than-riveting product.

Make it easy for visitors to find what they're looking for.

Make it personal. Allow users to "build their own" product, to show them that you can meet their preferences.

Make it informative. Without bogging it down in detail, be sure to include the right pieces of information that will show users what sets your products apart.

Want more website design examples? Check out creative 404 error messages.

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ricardomarketer-blog · 6 years ago

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When To Spend on SEO

How to Construct a Company Website

Appearance: black hat search engine optimisation methods are becoming significantly less effective through your day and SEO

is at a consistent state of development. Nevertheless, you have to realize that what

worked afew decades ago could be wholly unworthy or unworthy at the moment. For

essentially the absolute most crucial part, Google would waste almost no opportunity to punish your web site if it finds

that you've already been using black-hat search engine optimisation methods -- it can possibly be taken to the

final page of SERPs!

#### **Good Information**

As a little organization, you'll want to do all you can to become observable to people who

have an interest on your offerings. At this stage, you ought to be looking to make

it appealing for people on your area. This process of optimizing your website

to pull the eye of men and women near you personally is known as regional SEO. To get

example, in the event you promote outfits for ladies in a particular area, you are going to need to

work on making your retail store observable to local searchers looking to get their

on the job your offerings.

## How Does SEO Work?

It is also an Outstanding Notion to sign up for a Google My Small Business Account. If

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superior?

(Supply)

**Note:** don't forget to use all lowercases and hyphens to separate words when

refining URLs -- this really is very good practice.

#### **Local Search Engine Optimisation**

It's also great to know that backlinks will be able to enable you to receive favourable look for

engine ranks. It is critical to see, nevertheless, that high quality links

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opposed to back links out of ordinary sites. The bottom point: Publishing high quality

content and obtaining inbound links go at hand -- simply try to make it

youtube

function!

Hoping to figure out what meta-descriptions are all? Well, regardless just how

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articles of internet pages. It appears in SERPs beneath the blue clickable link and

URL.

When it comes to building seofriendly websites, you will need to stick to all the

top platforms available. The most notable programs to look at comprise Shopify,

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Here's what; material is and can be king. It is critical to see

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At this time, there exists a excellent probability your site is optimized for search

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which is a major portion of the plan.

## The way to Optimize Your Organization Website For Searchengines

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for them. Now you have established your own list, you're wish to make use of them at just

about every parcel of content on your website.

#### **Title Tags**

#### **Inbound Links**

If this happens, web-surfers can freely search for terms related to your

internet site and obtain replies for their own questions. Basically, when a person enters a

relevant search term, the Google algorithm starts off processing all of the

information that's been earlier gathered out of your website and related

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are most relevant to this search query, setting the most useful options near the very top and

least applicable at the bottom.

**Notice:** Try never to go overboard with all these keywords -- it's on your best

attention to target for approximately 2% keyword density. Search engines frown in any

information that looks black and having way too many keywords can generate content material look

spammy.

## What More Do You Should Know About Search Engine Optimisation?

Finally, strive as much as you possibly can exhibit your customers with unique content.

Only work on crafting material that's not available on other sites or use their own

suggestions to make yours out standing. Paste and copy is just a big nono!

That said, here are just five resources you are going to want to consider:

It is pretty simple; just help it become fresh, important and one of a kind! And also remember

to market.

Fundamentally, content that is fresh presents Google the belief that your site continues to be

active and that is tremendous. As for relevance, it is highly advised that your

articles is associated with your business and its own offerings. Straying off topic may

wind up confusing the visitors and crawlers.

Appearance: Your proper meta-description can give end users a better notion of everything you have

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to provide Google using a meta description when designing content for your internet site.

Failure to do this may create the search engine to produce random text from

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the copy under one hundred fifty to 155 characters also remember to bring a call to action.

With all that was mentioned, it's glaringly clear to find that small business

search engine optimisation can take your site to a whole new level. The absolute most important issue is

for you to make and execute a plan which works and never fail to make

it simpler compared to that of your competitors. & above all, usually adhere to

high-quality content. Here is to victory!

Appearing to produce a webpage with Lots of of copy? If yes, you can make use of the H1 label as

the headline and move to utilize the H2s to each and every sub-headline. Doing this

will mail related signals to Google crawlers and make it incredibly easy for

customers to browse through your content. Last but not least, don't forget to put your keywords in

the going tags -- which is fantastic for search engine optimisation.

Seeking to own a move all by your self? If yes, you are going to want to place a tool-set

collectively. These tools will even provide you with a better idea of what it's possible to maximize to

improve your website's efficiency. It is critical to be aware that a few of the major

resources on average include a monthly fee and subsequent payments may add up along with

even price just as far as a professional search engine marketing company.

## What Exactly Is Search Engine Optimisation?

#### **Fantastic Smallbusiness Search Engine Optimisation Equipment**

Following Is a blurb about each:

* **Alt Tag Text** Here really is actually the copy that users view once a graphic can't be exhibited for a single purpose or the other. It should be a succinct explanation of this image. A superb case in point is, "Course walking shoes for adult males." It is your choice to decide which kind works best.

Decision **Image Name:** The image title is meant to shed much more light on the alt label text description -- it typically appears whenever you put the cursor within an image. That said, an fantastic example is going to likely be, "White road walking sneakers for guys"

Decision **file-name:** This is actually the name that's utilized to save image -- make sure you allow it to be illustrative and consistently adhere to lowercases. Be sure to separate the words with hyphens.

Search Engine Optimization (search engine optimisation) is the practice of climbing the quantity of

quality visitors to your internet site via organic search engine results. In short,

search engine optimization will increase your website's possibility of rank in website positioning

Positions (SERPs) of search engines such as Google or even Bing.

#### **Meta https://pari.info/about Descriptions**

Here's what; search engine optimisation can be a bit difficult, but you can create the

all of it should you play your cards correctly.

Just how can you avoid this? Effectively, it's very easy -- consistently provide visitors

with useful and authentic info and stick to enhancing their

encounter. Whenever you try this, you'll be 100% sure your site is search

engine friendly.

Nicely, just envision the net since try your neighborhood library: The website is your

brand new novel on the shelf and also the Google robot is the librarian. Even the librarian

looks through your book along with characters out the very reasonable section to set

it in -- this will ensure it is a lot easier for visitors to discover your publication and that is

very important. Don't forget, people might need to research through several distinct

titles to obtain what they are searching for, of course, if things go very well and also the

librarian has placed your publication inside the suitable section, your publication might turn into

be just what the guest was looking for!

Additionally, it is good to know that URLs might aid display your key words to locate

motors -- you just must figure out how exactly to include them. For the large part,

you have to include the keywords in the resource path or the part of the URL

that employs the domain name.

Search engine crawlers read text however can't watch graphics. In essence, the bots

trust the code behind the picture to receive more thorough understanding of what's

being shown. That being said, you'll desire to use the alt label, picture

title, and file name.

3 critical things to Concentrate on across the way:

1. SE Ranking Search Engine Optimisation Computer Software

2. Google Services and Products:

Inch. Google-analytics

2. Google Alerts

3. Google Keyword Planner

3. Volume Search Engine Optimisation Calculator

4. Screaming Frog

5. SEM Rush

Nevertheless somewhat confused?

Properly, among other things that you should be aware that SEO is perpetually evolving

and online marketers have been attempting to learn how to make their sites ranking

in top search engines -- it has been this way as the nineties. As time went on,

a deceptive type of optimisation was created by some search engine optimisation practitioners -- it

was supposed to fool the Google algorithm right into believing their website was much

relevant as it had been. That really is known as "black hat search engine optimisation" also it's due to the fact

been frowned upon by internet search engine calculations chiefly on account of the

terrible user-experience it generated for internet customers.

#### **Pictures**

Following up could be the name tag. It is an HTML name element that clarifies this issue

and subject of the site's articles. As it acts because the name of each web page, you

can make positive that this implies a lot to search motors. For the large part, you

must ensure that each title label is one-of-a-kind and relevant to the articles of

your website (it must retain the ideal key words). What's more, it is essential for the

title label to obey a consistent format all through your website. It truly is amazing to

include a key word particular to the web page and make certain to add your ,

if at all possible. Distance to incorporate your name? If yes, work with a hyphen (-) or

vertical bar (

#seo #internet #marketing #online #business

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seo90210 · 7 years ago

Text

5 Storytelling Techniques Content Marketers Can Learn from the Classics

In my ninth grade English class, one of the very first things we read was Romeo and Juliet. While most of my friends whined about how hard it was to read and why the sentences had to be so long, I was mesmerized. The language, the characters, the setting — all of it. And it wasn’t just Shakespeare, I was captivated by other writers as well: Austen, Hugo, Bronte, Dickens, Hawthorne. Each one of these novelists had powerful, yet different storytelling styles that still completely arrest me with beautiful language and fascinating characters. So I started wondering: how much has that truly classic storytelling influenced my approach as a content writer, and what do classic novels teach us about content marketing in general?

If this all sounds a little squishy to the marketers and execs out there (and you didn’t tune out immediately when we got to Bronte), let’s talk about the psychology behind this quickly, and the opportunity. Studies have shown that our brains are hungry for stories: we crave them.

When we hear a story, the part of the brain that governs empathy and moral sensibilities light up. Perhaps not surprisingly then, brands that use their content to tell a compelling story either through words or images are typically the ones with a larger audience and a higher revenue.

Apple, National Geographic, AirBnb, and Nike are all brands that are crushing it when it comes to brand-driven storytelling. According to Forbes, each of these brands have created stories that engage, build community interaction, and elicit an emotional response. The result is a larger fan-base, customer-base, and at the business level a true competitive advantage.

Bringing it back: classic novelists are masters of creating stories that resonate deeply. This deliberate focus on creating a rich, engaging story is something we as marketers can use to improve blogs, articles, social media, and any other piece of content we produce. Take a look at five storytelling techniques you can use from classic novelists to help create a more engaging piece of content.

Jane Austen – Create relatable characters and stories

Based on the intro here, it’s probably no surprise that Jane Austen is my all-time favorite author. In fact, my most prized possession is Jane Austen’s collected works: one book that contains all seven of her novels in a beautiful, hardback cover (with gold-lined pages that give off an intoxicating smell). One of my favorite things about Austen is her ability to connect with an audience. She creates witty, smart, loyal, and independent characters who are realistic and relatable. Characters that even 200 years later readers see and can’t help but think – “that’s me!” Each character finds him/herself in dramatic (and sometimes silly) situations which Austen directs them through with clear, rational explanations and strong, gorgeous prose.

Great content should center on creating succinct, emotional, relatable stories, and characters when appropriate. Our language should bind readers with authors. If we can create personalized voices that recognize certain truths of the human experience, we’ll be able to relate to our audience. Each writer brings a different personality and voice to a brand’s story that can strike a chord.

Minnetonka Moccasins is a personal favorite example of creating this kind of relatable content. They’ve created a brand with a timeless appeal (just like Austen) and a story that is centered around giving customers quality shoes that are affordable, comfortable, and (now) popular. The Minnetonka brand story starts with a brief look at the company’s history, before delving into the brand’s belief and the secret to their success: their customers. The story continues with a short video describing how every shoe is made with the highest quality materials. User-generated content weaves throughout the story, informing the audience why customers love Minnetonka shoes. Minnetonka uses real stories from real people to convey their brand essence, which creates a stronger, more relatable brand story, and a believable bond between the company and its customers.

Victor Hugo – Inspire your audience to action

Victor Hugo once said:

“Every man who writes, writes a book; this book is himself. Whether he knows it or not, whether he wishes it or not, it is true. From every body of work, whatever it may be—wretched or illustrious, there emerges a persona—that of the writer.”

If there ever was an author who embodies this statement, it’s Victor Hugo.

His ultimate power lay in his literary personality, his ability to create beloved characters, and to inspire his audience to action. Hugo’s work is strongly associated with social liberty, as he incorporated this theme into many of his novels.

Take Les Miserables, for example (also, if you haven’t read this book, you need to). Throughout the entire story, Hugo openly and articulately shows disgust over the treatment of the poor and the incarcerated by developing flawed yet incredibly lovable characters. As one critic put it, the entire story captures the “struggles, heroism, and humanity of those condemned to marginality.” Hugo was inspired by the revolutionary spirit of his age, moved his readers to sympathy, and called them to action.

Hugo used many of his writings to remain politically active and much of what he produced helped to shape the course of French politics during the 1860s. He ultimately inspired opposition against the French empire or aristocracy and helped to reestablish a French Republic.

[Deep breath]. So, what do we take away as content writers and marketers doing possibly less sweeping work than Victor Hugo?

Content in all its forms is an opportunity to inspire. To create an impulse that requires action before it will fade. If you can create a sense of momentum, an aspirational vision of what’s possible, and tie that vision to your brand, you’re on the right track.

Hugo was a master at getting his audience to feel something—anger, misery, love, happiness, you name it—and inspiring them to join the fight. Not to say that content marketers should seek to incite revolution, but we can definitely take something from Hugo’s example. Creating a story filled with emotion, reinforced and catalyzed by a clear next step is critical to content and to marketing in general.

TOMS is one company, in particular, that embodies this. Most of their stories and subsequent CTAs are centered around how TOMS helps a person in need by providing them with clothing, shoes, or eyewear with every retail purchase. CTAs like ‘Learn How Shoes Help’, ‘Learn How Saving Sight Helps’, and ‘What We Give’ are all rich with emotion and can’t help but inform the customer why their purchase matters. They’re not just selling shoes—they’re changing lives. I’ll admit, I’ve been “coerced” into buying a pair of TOMS just for the feel-good feelings of knowing I gave a child in need a brand new pair of shoes.

Ernest Hemingway – Get to the point. But paint a picture.

Every, single word Hemingway wrote had a purpose—which is why he didn’t use very many. As an author, he was known for his concision, brevity, and clarity. He didn’t use flowery language or adjectives. He got straight to the point, but in a way that still told a remarkable story.

Not only was his writing succinct, but he had a talent for letting his readers find emotion and meaning through vivid description. Rather than “railroading” readers to an opinion about something, he gave them the rich detail they needed in order to arrive at the meaning of his stories.

The shortest novel Hemingway ever wrote was only six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Not once does this prose instruct or push a reader about how to feel. Rather, the language lets the reader naturally develop emotion.

Hemingway’s style is perfect for the stories we’re trying to create, as marketers. The content we produce should be so specific that it creates a natural response for the reader. Anything unnecessary or nonessential to the story we’re trying to tell should be removed. Further, our job is not to manipulate with our writing, but to hold out a natural path to a positive conclusion.

For illustration: Apple is great at the “show, not tell” technique. Think about an Apple ad. Is it full of technical jargon that goes on about how great the product is? Nope. You’ve got some techno music in the background, the product is shown from all angles (showing off a sleek, innovative design), and it ends with a quick slogan. That’s it. And it’s pretty damn effective, very Hemingway-esque: brevity and concision.

Mary Shelley – Weave your central theme through everything

If there’s an author who’s exceptional at creating a story within a story, it’s Mary Shelley. Frankenstein for instance rolls three different stories into one. Shelley’s complex narrative structure allows her to take readers further into the story. Which, in turn, makes them feel like they’re a part of her world.

Many of the most important moments in Frankenstein revolve around nature and romanticism, which Shelley deliberately weaves into the story. She shows these themes throughout the novel without using long descriptions or fluffy language. In short, she’s subtle yet deliberate about the underlying theme.

Similarly most of what we produce in content marketing should revolve around our brand’s story and the core themes and messages we need to convey. Our integration of these themes should never be heavy-handed, but deliberate, consistent, and natural.

Such was the case with Shelley’s writing. Even though her narrative structure was complex, it always focused on her central themes. This is exactly what great content should do: focus on a central thing, i.e., a brand or a brand pillar.

Look at AirBnb for a great example. While most hotel marketing is centered around comfortability as a tourist, AirBnb breaks away from that. Instead, AirBnb tells stories for a different type of traveler: one who wants to “feel like a local” and enjoy their destination as if they lived there. AirBnb’s major message is centered around how people can and should enjoy a different style of vacation. Instead of yet another spokesperson bragging about hotel amenities, AirBnb’s writers, actors, and narrators express how much better his/her adventure was because he/she was right in the middle of all the action. Similar to how Shelley used the creature’s point of view to convey the unfairness of his life, AirBnb uses real experiences and real people to show why their approach to travel is different—and awesome.

William Faulkner – Demonstrate empathy and understanding

William Faulkner was a novelist who broke all the rules when it came to storytelling. We wholeheartedly approve of more interesting writing at Portent, in case you’re curious.

Faulkner didn’t follow traditional rules of syntax, nor did he follow a chronological timeline. Instead, he approached his story in a more circular movement. Faulkner’s readers gradually become aware of events, facts, motivations, and emotions as the narrative progresses. He confuses readers until his prose eventually pulls them into the story. Using this structure allows readers to feel as though they’re the character(s), experiencing the novel’s events first-hand

Faulkner, like most crafty writers, wrote from a place of empathy.

As marketers, we should seek to create content from the same standpoint of writing sincerely and empathetically. Writing with empathy allows you to show your audience that you understand their struggles. And, also, that you have what they need to solve their problem(s). Communicating to your audience that you’re there for them (not to just make money) is one way you can create content that engages the audience, instead of just selling to them.

One brand that is excellent at creating empathetic content is Home Depot. They understand that the ultimate goal (for one segment) of their customers is to become master DIY-ers, but they understand each customer might need a little help getting there. The content Home Depot produces isn’t focused on exactly what they have in the store. Rather, Home Depot focuses on the end-goals they help customers achieve: building treehouses for children, or how to finish the bookshelf their partner’s been asking for. Home Depot gives customers plenty of encouragement with their content. Which, in turn, lets customers feel like the company is on their side.

Conclusion

While many might say that the techniques used by classic novelists don’t apply today, or that they’re far too idealistic for content marketing, they couldn’t be more wrong. Contemporary authors and content writers should laud their techniques. Writers can mimic Austen’s ability to create relatable characters in order to form an emotional connection with their audience. Hugo’s ability to sway the most stubborn hearts to feel compassion can inspire us to create stronger CTAs. Short, concise language like Hemingway’s can sharpen any social media post, blog headline, or traditional ad campaign. Emulating Shelley’s ability to weave overarching themes throughout our writing can help content writers subtly convey their brand message amidst a sea of similar and pushy content. And the empathy of Faulkner should be our guide in everything we produce for our audiences as we seek to add value to their work and their lives.

No matter what type of content you’re writing, it should offer a story. And that story should have relatable characters, beautiful writing, and a clear call to action. The classic novelists I know and love used all of these tactics for masterful storytelling. It’s now our turn, as content professionals, to make sure our craft is just as honest, human, and strong.

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