The Ultimate Guide to E-commerce Marketing: Where You Should Focus and How to Succeed

There are an estimated 12 to 24 million e-commerce stores. Online retailers can sell just about anything—from shoes or baked goods to software and coaching sessions.

However, with so much competition, standing out can feel like an impossible task.

Most e-commerce store owners have no idea how to effectively market their business. They either try to use the same strategies they use for their brick and mortar store (which will fail) or use strategies meant for blogs: not e-commerce stores.

Selling products or services online requires a special touch. The same strategies local businesses use just aren’t as effective.

If you’re looking to drive traffic (and sales) for your e-commerce business, this guide is for you.

I’ll walk you through why e-commerce marketing is different, what strategies to use, and we’ll even explore a few e-commerce businesses that are getting marketing right.

What Is E-commerce Marketing?

E-commerce marketing is the act of using marketing strategies to drive awareness and conversions for a business that sells products or services online.

E-commerce marketing can have a variety of goals, from building brand awareness to driving sales, and use a variety of approaches including SEO, paid ads, social media, and affiliate marketing.

E-commerce Marketing Vs. E-commerce Advertising

Aren’t marketing and advertising the same thing? Not quite.

E-commerce marketing covers every aspect of driving engagement and awareness of your brand. You want people to get to know who you are and what you offer. Advertising comes into play once they actually recognize your brand.

E-commerce advertising is the part of e-commerce marketing that focuses on increasing conversions by promoting specific products and driving sales. This can include display ads, banner ads, even dynamic ads.

Types of E-commerce Marketing

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to learn about digital marketing. I get it because I’ve been there.

The next few sections outline the different ways you can market your e-commerce business.

Don’t assume you need to tackle all of these strategies right off the bat. Read through this guide, soak up all the information, then start with one or two strategies.

Here are the main types of e-commerce marketing we’ll cover in the next sections:

• paid search
• SEO
• content marketing
• email marketing
• social media for ecommerce
• influencer marketing
• affiliate marketing

It’s a long list, but I promise to keep it simple. I’ll explain what each type is, give a quick rundown of how it works, then mention a few strategies you can use to get real results.

Paid Search Marketing for E-commerce

Paid search marketing, also called paid ads or search engine marketing, leverages paid ads on platforms like Google or Bing to drive awareness (and later sales.)

Here’s how it works:

1. You choose a platform to market on, such as Google Ads.
2. Sign up for their platform and create an account.
3. Create a campaign, which will keep similar ads together.
4. Upload an image and add a copy to create your ad.
5. Select your target audience. Targeting varies by platform but can include demographics, location, and user behavior.
6. Set your budget.
7. Publish your ad.

Paid search ads can show up at the top of the search results, like this:

They can also show up in banner ads and on other websites (called display ads.)

Paid Search for E-commerce Strategies

Paid search ads are a really effective way to build brand awareness and drive sales for e-commerce businesses. However, they often feel overwhelming when you’re getting started.

Here are a few strategies to help you leverage paid ads:

1. Sign up for Google Shopping Ads: These ads show up for high-intent keyword searches (like buy a prom dress, for example) and can be free. Sign up for the Merchant Center and upload your inventory.
2. Use retargeting: Retargeting ads allow you to reach people who have already interacted with you on social media, your website, or even through email. These ads have a much higher conversion rate.
3. Target your audiences carefully: With paid ads, you’ll generally pay for each click, so use targeting to limit your audience as much as possible. Use negative keywords to keep your ads from showing for unrelated searches.

If you need more help, there are plenty of other paid marketing strategies you can leverage.

Search Engine Marketing for E-commerce

Search engine marketing for e-commerce is a strategy focused on driving traffic from search engines to your e-commerce site. It includes paid ads, which we covered in the previous section, as well as SEO, (or “search engine optimization”).

Since we’ve already covered paid ads, this section will primarily focus on ranking in search engines organically.

Start by performing keyword research to understand what terms users type into search engines when looking for the products you sell. My tool Ubersuggest can help by showing you search volumes (how many people search for a specific term), competition, and related keywords to consider using.

Additionally, there are a lot of direct e-commerce SEO strategies you can leverage. I have listed a few of them below.

Search Engine Marketing for E-commerce Strategies

Gaining organic traffic isn’t just about keywords, though that is the main component. You also want to ensure your website follows Google (and Bing) best practices so you can enjoy that sweet free organic traffic.

Here are a few search engine marketing strategies to try:

1. Add original content to product pages: Don’t reuse content from other websites or suppliers. Create new, original content that describes your product or offering in the same language searchers use.
2. Check your site speed: Slow site speed can impact user experience and your search ranking. Use Google’s PageSpeed insight tool to see where your site stands.
3. Use unique metas for every page: It might be tempting to use the same or similar meta descriptions on pages for similar products—say a red pair of running shoes and a blue pair. This can show up as duplicate content, which won’t do you any favors with Google. Make sure all your content (including metas) is unique.

Brush up on some additional e-commerce SEO tips to get everything working right for your store.

Content Marketing for E-commerce

Content marketing is the strategic approach to creating, publishing, and promoting content for the purposes of driving traffic, building brand awareness, and increasing e-commerce sales.

Content marketing can refer to publishing content on your own website, guest posting on other blogs, creating videos, hosting webinars, and writing ebooks. Content marketing can be highly effective, but many e-commerce businesses struggle to create high-quality content.

That’s because many e-commerce brands dive straight into pushing for conversions.

Content marketing takes a more roundabout approach. Instead of writing why your product is the best, e-commerce businesses should focus on providing value to their audience.

For example, a fashion company might write an ebook about how to find the right prom dress, while a mattress company might write a blog post about why it’s important to replace your mattress regularly.

By focusing on topics your audiences care about, you build trust and brand awareness.

Content Marketing in E-commerce Marketing Strategies

Content marketing should be centered on providing value. For e-commerce companies, this can be challenging. Here are a few ways to leverage content marketing to grow your e-commerce brand.

1. Publish gift guides: If you sell consumer products that might be purchased as gifts, consider creating gift guides around the holidays. Don’t just share your products, though. Make sure to share a variety of options to add value!
2. Create product videos: One of the biggest challenges for e-commerce companies is overcoming hesitation. While online shopping continues to grow, many people prefer to be able to touch an item. Product videos are the next best thing! Show all sides of items, what it looks like on different body types (if you sell clothing), or how specific features work.
3. Share frequently asked questions: An FAQ page can enhance the user experience by providing information your potential customers need quickly. It can also decrease support requests for your companies. FAQ pages are even great for an SEO boost, making them a win all around.

There are lots of ways you can get started with content marketing for e-commerce. You just need to find the right fit for your brand.

Email Marketing for E-commerce

Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for e-commerce websites. In fact, you can expect an average ROI of around $42 per dollar spent on email.

That’s because nearly everyone uses email—and there are no algorithms to deal with like in social media. Every email you send reaches potential customers (as long as you follow the rules to avoid landing in spam folders.)

Email can build brand awareness, promote sales, launch new products, even host giveaways, or recover abandoned carts.

Start by building your email list. Offering site visitors a small discount or free shipping is a simple way to build your list.

Email Marketing for E-commerce Strategies

Out of all the e-commerce marketing strategies on this list, email may be the most effective. It’s also one of the more versatile strategies. Here’s how to leverage email marketing for e-commerce.

1. Use personalization to send more relevant emails: Segment your emails or leverage personalization to send users emails that are relevant to their interests or actions.
2. Send cart reminders to encourage conversions: One study found e-commerce businesses that send cart abandonment emails generate more than $60 million in extra sales.
3. Make sure your emails are mobile responsive: The majority of email users check their email on their phones. Avoid using too many images and test your emails on mobile devices.

I found this great additional resource by Opt-In Monster which may help you: 13 Simple E-commerce Email Marketing Tips to Skyrocket Your Sales.

E-commerce Marketing on Social Media

The average internet user spends nearly two and a half hours on social media per day. Even better, one in three consumers use social media specifically to learn about new products and brands.

That makes it an ideal place to promote your e-commerce business.

There are two main ways to market on social media—paid ads and organic posts. Organic posts include posts like this post from an e-commerce clothing brand:

Just keep in mind that organic posts, like the one above, don’t get as much reach as they used to. Unless your brand is very popular or quirky, you might not get much traction with organic.

However, paid ads can be very effective. For a few dollars a day, you can promote posts and reach thousands of potential customers. Like paid search ads, they can be targeted so you can choose to reach people who are interested in a specific show, sports team, live in a certain area, and so on.

Start by finding out where your users hang out. Do they prefer short videos on TikTok or long-form content on YouTube? Are they Facebook users?

The most popular social media platforms include:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• YouTube
• TikTok

Look at the demographics for each platform and see where your audience is likely to be. I recommend choosing one or two platforms to get started.

If you use paid social ads, start off with a small budget (less than $10 a day) and test copy, images, and tone. Once you find out what works, you can invest more of your budget.

To promote your e-commerce business organically through social media, share a mix of content. It’s fine to post your own content, of course. However, you may get more traction from posting content from other creators your audience will find interesting.

E-commerce Social Marketing Strategies

Social media can be a gold mine for e-commerce brands. These three strategies will get you started.

1. Choose the platform where your users hang out: There are dozens of social platforms, don’t try to do them all. Instead, find out where your users hang out and get active on those platforms.
2. Remember the rule of thirds: Social media is about building relationships, so don’t just post your own products. One-third of your content should be about you, one-third about your industry or content your users will find interesting, and one-third about personal interactions and brand building.
3. Use paid ads to retarget site visitors: Retargeting can be a highly effective way to drive users back to your website.

Discover more ways to use social media to your advantage here: The Ultimate Guide to Social Media for E-commerce.

Influencer E-commerce Marketing

Influencer marketing is a strategy where brands partner with well-known online creators, called influencers, to promote their products or services. It’s common on social media, with celebrities like Dwayne Johnson raking in millions by promoting products.

That might seem out of reach, but influencer marketing works for brands of any size. If you have a smaller budget, consider partnering with micro-influencers, who have smaller (and often more dedicated) audiences.

Start by searching popular hashtags in your industry on sites like Instagram and TikTok. Follow users who post about your industry often and get to know them. Pay attention to how much engagement they get from followers as low engagement can indicate most of their followers are bots.

You can also use an influencer marketing platform to find influencers in your industry. These platforms also help track the impact of your campaign and handle payments.

Influencer E-commerce Marketing Strategies

Influencer marketing campaigns build trust by leveraging people your audience already interacts with. Here are a few strategies to build an effective influencer marketing campaign.

1. Establish your social channels before diving into influencer marketing: Before you begin working with an influencer, take the time to build your own followers and create an effective social media posting schedule.
2. Find influencers who match your brand tone and style: Partner with influencers who already interact with your target audience and make sure they fit your brand.
3. Pay attention to their current engagement rate: Anyone can buy followers, so don’t assume an influencer will be effective just because they have millions of followers. Pay attention to the number of likes and comments they get.

If you want more insight before you get started, this blog post of mine will give you some guidance: Influencer Marketing: Examples and Strategies.

Affiliate E-commerce Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing where a site or influencer promotes a brand in exchange for a small percentage of sales. It’s a common strategy used by bloggers who promote Amazon products or websites that write about software, like hosting services or SEO tools.

It’s extremely effective and affordable for e-commerce sites because you only pay when you get sales.

To get started, you’ll need an affiliate link to track sales from each affiliate partner. G2 has a list of the best affiliate software solutions. There are also several WP plugins that generate codes and track sales.

Affiliate Marketing for E-commerce Strategies

Affiliate marketing is a common strategy used by e-commerce businesses. You can set up a full-fledged program using the tools above, or offer customers a custom coupon code to pass on to their friends and connections.

Here are three strategies for building an effective affiliate marketing campaign:

1. Research affiliate percentages in your industry: If your incentive is too small, no one will participate. On the other hand, too high of an incentive will cut into your bottom line. See what other affiliate programs offer and calculate your cost-per-acquisition before deciding how much to offer.
2. Get tracking in place: To know how much affiliates help you sell, you’ll need to track their sales. Coupon codes and UTM codes can help. Most affiliate marketing platforms handle the tracking for you.
3. Create an affiliate page on your site: Create a landing page with all the information potential affiliates need, including how to become an affiliate, commissions, and any rules or restrictions.

Here’s another additional resource for you: How to Set Up an Affiliate Program for Your Shopify Theme.

Examples of Great E-commerce Marketing Campaigns

Need some inspiration before launching your e-commerce marketing campaign? Let’s look at a few examples and explore why they work.

Google Shopping Ads Example

Google Shopping ads show up in the search results for high-intent keywords. For example, I searched for an Instant Pot and these are the ads that showed up at the top:

These ads are highly effective because they show up when users are ready to buy and show pricing, images, top features, and reviews.

While you can pay for Google Shopping Ads, they can also be free if you have your site set up correctly.

Paid Social Media E-commerce Example

Paid social ads come in a variety of formats. For example, you can post ads like these in the sidebar on Facebook:

These ads feature images and short, snappy copy that grab users’ attention. The bright colors stand out and the offer is enticing.

Boosted posts on Facebook and Instagram Stories also tend to perform well for e-commerce companies.

Email Marketing E-commerce Example

With email marketing, you’re in control—which makes it highly valuable for e-commerce brands looking to build brand awareness and drive sales.

This email from Osmo uses bright colors, engaging language, and an offer to draw in users who haven’t made a purchase yet.

Email marketing can also help launch new products, educate your audience, and win back those abandoned carts.

Content Marketing for E-commerce Example

This article is from Flexjobs, a platform that helps remote and contractors find jobs in their field. Notice the blog doesn’t promote their platform directly.

Instead, it offers tips and strategies freelancers can use to be more effective at finding work.

Audiences will begin to trust a brand that is providing them with extremely valuable content, and are more likely to look into the services you offer as a result. However, if you are wanting to write about or feature specific products—comparison posts tend to do best.

Affiliate Marketing for E-commerce Example

Here’s a great affiliate marketing example from Good Housekeeping. On the surface, it might seem like it’s content marketing.

It is about a topic their readers are likely to care about and provides in-depth research, including expert interviews.

In fact, it’s actually affiliate marketing. Each slow cooker on the list links to an affiliate link, and Good Housekeeping gets a small percentage of the sales.

All of this is something you can incorporate on your own e-commerce site.

Frequently Asked Questions About E-commerce Marketing

What is the difference between e-commerce and digital marketing?

Digital marketing refers to any marketing that occurs online, rather than in person. E-commerce marketing refers to any type of marketing used by businesses that sell products or services online. E-commerce marketing can include both digital marketing or in-person marketing strategies, such as direct mail, television ads, or billboards.

What is the best type of marketing for e-commerce businesses?

The most effective types of marketing for e-commerce businesses tend to be social media and email marketing. However, the best type of marketing for your business is the one that drives sales.

What is an example of e-commerce marketing?

An example of e-commerce marketing might include a social media post about a new product, an email welcoming campaign, or a paid ad in the search results.

What is the role of digital marketing in e-commerce?

The role of digital marketing is to build brand awareness and drive sales. The specific goal of a digital marketing campaign can vary by business or even campaign. For example, you might use paid ads to drive sales and social media to increase brand awareness.

Conclusion: E-commerce Marketing

Building a successful e-commerce website isn’t easy, but these e-commerce marketing strategies will guide you to reach a wider audience and drive sales. While every business is different, I suggest starting with email marketing or social media. These strategies have the greatest reach and are easier to get started.

Once you start driving traffic, choose a few other strategies and focus on increasing your sales.

Which e-commerce marketing strategy will you try first?

from Blog – Neil Patel https://ift.tt/uPbV1TSW6
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We Analyzed The Top 7,000 Websites in 22 Industries. Here’s What We Learned About Their Approach to SEO and Paid Advertising.

We analyzed more than 7,000 company websites across 22 industries to answer one question: what was their approach to SEO and paid advertising to help them do so well?

In this analysis, we only looked at companies that ranked well and had at least a 4-star review or higher. These businesses aren’t just liked by Google, they’re also liked by customers.

Where’s the Data From?

We used the consumer review website TrustPilot to select the 7,000+ websites with a review rating of 4-stars or more and then cross-referenced this data with Ubersuggest to see which were liked by both users and Google.

Through Ubersuggest, we learned more about their approach to SEO, traffic factors, backlinks, and more which you will see in the visualizations below.

What Industries Did We Look At?

The 22 industries analyzed in this report were:

• Education and Training
• Public & Local Services
• Home Services
• Animal & Pets
• Vehicles & Transportation
• Media & Publishing
• Sports
• Hobbies & Crafts
• Events & Entertainment
• Restaurants & Bars
• Travel & Vacation
• Shopping & Fashion
• Electronics & Technology
• Food, Beverages & Tobacco
• Home & Garden
• Business Services
• Money & Insurance
• Legal Services & Government
• Health & Medical
• Construction and Manufacturing
• Beauty & Well-being
• Utilities

Key Findings

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing. Black and white advice doesn’t work for every company.

You will need to take a different approach depending on the audience in your industry. That is why we included a wide range of industries in our analysis instead of just making blanket statements.

Here are a few key insights we found:

• Companies in all industries get more organic traffic than paid traffic. However, Restaurants & Bars and Travel & Vacation received more paid traffic compared to other industries.
• The average website authority score was between 30 and 40 for the companies in each industry analyzed. Some industries, such as Utilities and Animals & Pets, were lower than average.
• Public & Local Services face the highest average keyword difficulty for target terms. Beauty & Well-Being faced the lowest average difficulty for target keywords.
• More than 75% of total backlinks across all industries were text backlinks.
• Companies in all industries targeted more informational intent keywords, however traffic volume was driven by a mix of different intent keywords.

Analysis #1 – Organic Search Traffic vs Paid Search Traffic Volume

Does most of your traffic come from paid ads or organic search? We looked at the difference in volume between organic search traffic (traffic driven from search engines like Google) and paid traffic (traffic driven to your site via paid ads.)

These trends highlight where industry leaders are focusing their marketing efforts—and whether those results are paying off. We found several interesting trends in this data.

NOTE: the numbers below represent the average organic and paid traffic per company website, not a total of all traffic in that industry.

Public & Local Services received 216,861 visits from organic search and only 16,931 from paid search, less than 10 percent of total traffic. Public services, like a power company, are unlikely to use paid ads since people will generally just choose one of the few services offered in their area.

Focusing on SEO can benefit these companies more. That said, the low competition for paid ads could represent an opportunity to boost their presence.

Companies focused on Education and Training received the most organic searches at 230,075 visits per month. These companies should focus more on SEO and content marketing but also keep an eye on how to leverage paid ads since competition is low.

Restaurant & Bars sites, on the other hand, rely more heavily on paid traffic compared to all industries with almost 50% coming from paid ads.

People searching in this category are probably looking for somewhere to go soon so using paid ads to increase conversions makes sense.

Travel & Vacation sites also rely on paid ads that results in close to 30 percent of their traffic. Organic traffic is still higher but it looks like companies also boost their offerings through paid ads.

If you are new to the sector, focus on increasing organic traffic right away as it will take longer to see results. Paid ads are effective as well, but they can be expensive.

Shopping & Fashion only got a bit less than 10 percent of traffic from paid ads. This could mean companies focus more on social sharing and social media ads since a lot of content is visual.

The Sports industry received the least traffic from paid ads at under 4 percent. This was interesting since the industry includes a lot of ecommerce brands that sell sports gear, outdoor apparel, sports drinks, and team apparel.

This could indicate a trend towards more social sharing and social media ads as well. It could also mean impulse purchases are less common since customers are more likely do their research. Therefore, creating educational content might be the way to go.

Analysis #2 – Trends Related To Authority Score, Keyword Difficulty, and Average CPC

How does domain authority vary across industries? Does it correlate with how much you’ll pay for ads? Does keyword difficulty have an effect? We dug into this data to see trends for each industry.

Authority Score measures your website’s Domain Authority which also influences rankings. It grades the overall website quality based on the number of backlinks, referring domains, outbound links, etc.

Authority Score is also relative to your industry.

Average Authority Scores Across All Industries

This first chart shows the average website authority score for businesses in each industry.

The average authority score was between 30-40 for business websites in each industry.

Hundreds of business sites were looked at in each industry with a mix of higher and lower authority scores, resulting in the numbers above.

Media & Publishing had the highest average authority score of 44.62 followed very closely by Public & Local Services at 44.61. Business sites in each sector are usually more trusted sources so this makes sense.

On the flip side, the lowest authority score industries were Utilities at 28.09 and Animals & Pets at 27.08. A lot of factors could have led to this such as many new sites created in each industry.

There was close to a 20 point variation in authority scores across all industries in this analysis with the median score being 38.06.

• Websites between 40-50 are considered average
• Websites between 50-60 are considered good
• Websites above 60 are considered excellent

What does this mean for business websites and marketers?

This analysis looked at companies with high review ratings which means they placed a lot of emphasis on reputation management, maybe more so than SEO factors.

We can see that a business’s authority score didn’t really impact whether or not they got a high review rating. People-focused more on reviewing products and services than the business itself.

Average SEO Keyword Difficulty Across All Industries

Next, we looked at the average keyword difficulty for terms in each industry. Most content creators target keywords with low difficulty and high volume which is easier for some industries than others.

Industries with the highest difficulty were Public & Local Services at 49.02, Money & Insurance at 47.72, and Education and Training at 47.62.

To improve their search rankings, these industries will likely need to spend more time on their SEO strategy or invest more heavily in paid ads.

Industries with the lowest difficulty were Shopping & Fashion at 36.26, Sports at 35.12, and Beauty & Well-being at 33.75. It will be easier for these industries to find keywords to rank for.

Across all industries, the average keyword difficulty for SEO is 41.

What does this mean in practice? Relativity matters when looking for low-difficulty keywords.

For example, say you’re a business in the Money & Insurance industry and find two terms you’re not ranking for. One has a keyword difficulty of 45 with a search volume of 12,000, the other has a keyword difficulty of 40 with a search volume of just 6,000.

Understanding that 45 is below the average difficulty in your industry, targeting the higher volume term might not be a bad idea. You could also target related keywords as well and use paid ads to boost some of the more difficult ones to expand your reach.

For industries with low average keyword difficulty like Beauty & Well-being, target easy-to-rank-for terms to increase traffic, then use CRO strategies to leverage that traffic.

Average CPC (Cost-Per-Click) Across All Industries

The final graph of this section looks at the average CPC for each industry. We were curious to see if any correlation existed with the average authority score of company websites. Here’s what we found:

Very little correlation between the industry’s average authority score and their average CPC was found.

One factor affecting this might be the difference in acquisition costs and purchase value.

For example, a site selling $20 t-shirts won’t spend $10 per customer but an investment site whose average purchase price is more than $100 might.

In this analysis, Money & Insurance has the highest average CPC at $4.12.

Businesses in this industry might be willing to spend more on average for each click since the lifetime value (LTV) of each customer is much higher.

Hobbies & Crafts has the lowest average CPC of $1.12 across all industries.

They only receive about 5 percent of traffic from paid ads which could indicate that businesses focus more on social channels where many craft/hobbyist groups and influencers exist.

Home Services has a higher average CPC at $3.17. Business sites in this industry include plumbers, lawn care work, etc. Increased competition for local customers has likely led to the higher average CPC.

Shopping & Fashion had one of the lowest average CPC’s at $1.40.

This could be another indication that businesses promote their visual content more on social media. However, the low average CPC could represent an opportunity to get creative with paid ads.

Analysis #3 – Average Number of Backlinks Per Industry and Their Most Popular Formats

Backlinks matter—that’s nothing new. What about the format of those backlinks? Is a text backlink better than an image backlink? How many backlinks is enough?

That’s what we aimed to find out.

Average Number of Backlinks Per Industry

The average number of backlinks varies quite a bit by industry with the most belonging to:

• Public & Local Services at just over 6.5 million per site
• Media & Publishing at just over 6 million per site
• Education and Training at just over 4 million per site

These industries include more trustworthy business sites such as essential local services, news outlets, media publications, universities, certification platforms, and more.

The lowest average backlinks belonged to Beauty & Well-being, Animals & Pets, and Utilities. This could indicate each sector focuses more on social media or they have a lot of new business sites.

Money & Insurance coming in very low was surprising to me. I would have expected the industry to average at least as many backlinks as Shopping & Fashion at just under 1 million per site.

Distribution of Backlinks by Format

We also looked at the distribution of backlink types across each industry to see which performed best. The two backlink types that stood out were:

• text backlinks
• image backlinks

NOTE: the graphs below represent the total number of backlinks for each industry, not the average for each company website.

Text backlinks were the most popular across all industries:

• Public & Local Services received the most at just over 1.6 billion
• Education and Training was next at just over 1.5 billion
• Business Services followed at just over 1.3 billion
• Media & Publishing was the last with just over 1 billion

Image backlinks were the second most popular type. The two industries that used them the most were:

• Electronics & Technology at close to 180 million
• Media & Publishing at just over 100 million

The two other types of backlinks used were form and frame backlinks. However, both combined made up less than 5 percent of total backlinks across all business sites in this analysis.

What does this mean?

Text backlinks are the most popular for driving traffic across all industries but some industries will also rely just as much on image backlinks.

You should mix up your approach, leveraging different backlink types to reach different audiences.

Analysis #4 – Target Keyword Intent and the Intent That Led to the Most Traffic

Lastly, we looked at target keyword SEO intent in each industry based on the following categories:

• Commercial intent keywords: related to specific brands or services (“find a Starbucks near me”)
• Informational intent keywords: searching for answers to questions (“How to unclog a tub”)
• Navigational intent keywords: users looking for specific pages (“Comcast login page”)
• Transactional intent keywords: users are ready to buy (“buy converse shoes”)

Looking at different keyword intents when choosing target terms can highlight trends and opportunities in your industry.

So, what did we learn?

NOTE: The first chart indicates the keyword intent of target terms in each industry. The bottom chart shows which intent type resulted in traffic to each business site.

The most popular keyword intent was informational at more than 40 percent of target terms in all industries.

These are generally top-of-the-funnel keywords, meaning users are still early on in their journey.

The next highest intent type was transactional at between 15-20 percent of terms per industry.

These users are ready to buy so creating content that targets these terms or using paid ads is a good idea.

Next, we looked at which intent keywords drove the most traffic to company sites in each industry.

Like most industries, Utilities sites mostly target informational keywords. However, most of their traffic comes from navigational terms which relate more to specific pages and their brand name.

This is likely due to search behavior, rather than incorrect targeting practices.

For example, if someone wanted to pay a power bill, they might type “pay bill X” in Google to find the right page. You wouldn’t target this term directly but it does bring traffic to your site. Focusing on informational keywords that establish trust is still the right approach.

Similarly, Money & Insurance websites focus on informational terms but get most of their traffic from navigational terms.

This could be a combination of good branding as well as similar user search behavior patterns. Usually, for your navigational terms to be successful, users will have read your informational content before deciding you were the right fit for them.

On a different note, Construction & Manufacturing businesses target informational keywords but also target transactional keywords at a higher rate than other industries. Clearly, this strategy works as most of their traffic comes from transactional terms.

Lastly, Home Services target more commercial intent keywords than other industries. These are likely terms more focused on a particular location using phrases such as “near me” or “in [city]”.

However, we can see that just under 50 percent of their traffic comes from transactional terms. This means they might want to adjust their focus to include those terms along with their commercial approach.

Keep in mind that just because your website receives traffic doesn’t mean it is all converting. Make sure your traffic is directed right pages on your site and each page is optimized for conversions.

Conclusion: Summary of Findings

There were a few surprises in this data—and a few things that turned out exactly as we expected.

For example, backlinks matter. Google has been telling us that for years, so I wasn’t surprised to see the highest-reviewed business websites tend to have a pretty high volume of links.

What was surprising was the variation in the types of backlinks between different industries. This data can be incredibly valuable for sites looking to build a more effective backlink profile.

I was also interested in the differences between the types of keyword intent most sites target for SEO (primarily informational) versus where they are getting their traffic from. Depending on your industry, this data could highlight incredible marketing opportunities or gaps in your current strategy.

Which finding was most interesting or useful to you?

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Your Guide to Creating High-Performing Landing Pages

Looking to drive more conversions but not sure where to start?

Landing pages are a key component to increasing conversions online—no matter what your goals are.

What exactly is a landing page, and (more importantly) how do you create an effective one?

Below, I’ll cover landing page basics, including tips to create a better landing page design, and tools to streamline the landing page creation and testing process.

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a single webpage that serves a single purpose—usually to drive conversions. Unlike your homepage, which might list all the services your business offers, a landing page encourages users to take one, specific action.

Here’s a landing page example for my tool Ubersuggest:

The page’s main goal is to encourage users to try out the tool by entering a domain or keyword. I also included a short description of what the tool does.

I’ve decided to keep the navigational buttons at the top, but many landing pages will choose to omit those entirely. I recommend testing both ways to see which drives more conversions for your business.

Why You Need Landing Pages

The main benefit of landing pages is to keep the user’s attention focused on one goal. They block noise and distractions that might pull users away from converting.

Here are a few other reasons why you need landing pages to succeed in digital marketing:

• More Data and Insights: By tracking traffic and behavior on your landing page, you get unique insights into acquisition, user behavior, etc.
• Improve Paid Ad Performance: Most paid ad platforms use a “quality score” to determine which ad to display. Ads that lead to relevant landing pages tend to have a higher quality score and thus are viewed more often.
• More Conversions: Landing pages focus on conversions above all else. This sole focus helps lead users in the right direction without distraction. Use them right, and your conversions will go up. (We’ll talk more about how to do this later!)
• Increase Brand Awareness: Landing pages use the same colors, tone, and logos as the rest of your website. This helps solidify your brand in the minds of customers and prospects.

Landing pages are also highly versatile. You can use them to increase email signups, drive sales, improve paid ad campaigns, and much more.

7 Tips for Creating Killer Landing Pages

Ready to create a landing page that drives business growth? These seven tips will help you create the high-conversion landing pages you’ve been dreaming of.

1. Include Clear Calls to Action on Your Landing Page

Call-to-actions (CTAs) are the most important part of your landing page.

Your call to action should be specifically tied to your goal and should be supported by everything else on your page, from the headline and body copy to images and overall layout.

Keep your CTA clear and make sure users know the next step. Here are a few CTA examples to test:

• Buy Now
• Sign Up
• Get My (X)
• Start Your Free Trial
• Book an Appointment

Avoid bland CTAs like “Submit” that don’t tell users what the next steps are.

2. Keep Forms on Your Landing Page Simple

If your page includes a form, make sure it only asks for the most important information. If you’re trying to get visitors to sign up for an email newsletter, make sure you’re just asking them for their name and email address. Don’t overcomplicate things.

If you’re asking them to buy, then ask for billing and shipping information, and include a confirmation screen before they place their order. Wait until after they’ve placed their order to ask for additional information.

Asking for too much information early on decreases the chances a user will complete the action you want them to take.

3. Ensure Landing Page Copy is Clear and Concise

Leave the creative turns-of-phrase for your blog.

Landing page copy should be clear, easy to read, and make a specific point. Use bullet points, headings, and bold font to make content easier to read.

It’s pretty safe to assume that most people who visit your landing page already have some interest in what you have to say since they’ve clicked through from a PPC ad or email. However, just because they’re interested when they arrive doesn’t mean they’ll stay interested if you don’t get to the point.

Every single sentence and word on your landing page should serve a purpose, and that purpose should be to support your call-to-action. If it doesn’t do that, cut it.

4. Include Vital Information Above the Fold on Your Landing Pages

While there’s a lot of debate as to the importance of “the fold” in web design, landing pages are one area where the fold is crucial.

Your CTA should be located near the top of the page, where someone can click it without having to scroll.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that your visitors won’t scroll down the page to read more information.

Hopefully, at least a small percentage of your visitors will be ready to buy as soon as they arrive on your landing page. Either because the email or link that brought them there already persuaded them, or because it’s not their first time visiting one of your landing pages.

5. Ensure Your Landing Pages Have the Same Look and Design as Your Campaign/Ads

If your page is tied to an email campaign or PPC campaign, make sure the landing page echoes the look and feel of the ad or email.

If the designs of the two are wildly different, your visitors may wonder if they’ve ended up in the right place. The easiest way to do this is to carry over fonts, images, and colors from your campaign to your landing page. This is especially important for paid ads, as it can increase your quality score.

6. A/B Test Your Landing Page

Finding the most effective landing page design is a matter of trial and error.

A/B testing means running two different landing pages and changing just one element to see which performs best.

For example, you might use two different images and see which one drives the most conversions.

A few other features to test include:

• CTA
• heading
• button size and placement
• number of form fields
• images
• right, left, or center column design
• colors

Just remember to test each variant one at a time—if you change five different elements, you won’t know which impacted conversions.

7. Use Minimal Images and Large Font on Your Landing Pages

Aim to use one or two images, no more. Visual clutter detracts from the message and CTAs.

Larger font sizes are also a good idea to keep visitors’ eyes focused on what matters and reduce eye strain. Just don’t go overboard and put everything in a headline-size font—no one wants to be yelled at.

The ideal line length for copy readability is 39 characters, so size your font (and column width) accordingly.

Landing Page Creation Tools

You could create your landing pages from scratch, but most of us don’t have the time or the expertise to spend hours coding every time we need something new.

The good news is, there are several tools that make landing creation super simple. Here are a few of my favorite landing page builders and why I like them.

1. Swipe Pages

Swipe Pages is a landing page tool dedicated to creating high-performance landing pages. Where other tools include basic landing page creation in addition to other tools, Swipe Pages focuses specifically on building the best landing pages.

Features include tons of templates, a drag and drop editor, a countdown timer, and the ability to add features like forms, carousels, pricing tables, and more—without any coding.

They also offer A/B testing tools, dynamic text features, and faster loading times to give you an edge over your competition.

2. Hubspot

Hubspot offers a free landing page tool. Features include a library of mobile-optimized templates, drag and drop editors, forms, and plenty of customization options.

It’s worth noting the free version has limited features. You’re also limited to 20 landing pages with Hubspot branding, and can’t use a custom domain.

To get access to features like dynamic content, testing, and optimization features, you’ll have to pay for Hubspot. Paid plans start at $45 per month.

3. MailChimp

MailChimp is best known for their email marketing tools, but they also offer a landing page builder. Features include a wide range of templates, landing page analytics (such as visitors, clicks, and conversions), forms, and testing capabilities.

Mailchimp allows you to create unlimited landing pages for free, which is nice. But to access branding-free pages and additional features, you’ll need a paid plan, which starts at $11 per month.

If you already use Mailchimp for email marketing, it’s worth checking out their landing page tool.

Examples of Great Landing Pages

What makes a good landing page? The truth is, different strategies work for different businesses. Let’s take a look at three successful landing pages and discuss what works to give you some inspiration when creating your own.

We Can Code It

We Can Code It connects people with coding boot camps. This landing page is for an ad that displayed for the search “coding boot camps near me.”

The landing page keeps it simple, with only a few lines of text. The image is a little busy, but the bright pink button stands out. The copy is clear and concise—there’s no question what they are promoting. I also like the pop-up chat box where users can get more information.

I do think the button text could be shorter—it’s a little long and not super clear. However, they might have tested and found this text drives more conversions!

SEMrush

SEMrush is an SEO platform, so I figured they’d have pretty solid landing pages. Here’s one for their tool that showed up as an ad in organic search:

This one has more content than most landing pages, but the size differences make it easy to read. The button is bright (and on-brand) and makes it clear what your next step would be.

The main headline focuses on the benefit—grow your online visibility—and the third line focuses on another key benefit—you only need one platform. That’s appealing to marketers who are juggling a ton of tools.

Bullet Journal App

Here’s an example that breaks some of the rules, but still works well, in my opinion.

Bullet Journals are a popular style of journaling that helps users stay organized using lists. They also have a companion app. Here’s their landing page for the app:

Like other landing pages, the content is limited. They use a heading, CTA, and images to show how the app works. Their CTA is “watch the demo,” which is a bit softer compared with what other brands typically use. I suspect they’ve done the research and realized that people on this landing page aren’t quite ready to buy.

The content is pretty sparse; they don’t describe what the companion is or what it does, really. However, I suspect that’s on purpose—people are pretty obsessed with their bullet journals, so page visitors already know what to expect.

This landing page is a perfect example of why A/B testing is crucial—you might be surprised about what works for your business.

Frequently Asked Questions About Landing Pages

Should you optimize your landing pages for SEO?

Yes, landing pages should be optimized to increase organic traffic. Even if your landing page is for a paid ad campaign, focusing on SEO can increase traffic and trust in your landing page.

What should a landing page include?

The main components of a landing page are a headline, subheadline, and CTA. Depending on your goal and what A/B testing tells you, a landing page might also include images, bullet points, etc.

Does Google like landing pages?

Google doesn’t inherently like or dislike landing pages. Landing pages do tend to have less content and fewer links, which are main search algorithm ranking factors. However, a well-optimized landing page can still rank well in organic search.

How many landing pages should you have?

Landing pages focus on just one goal, which means you should have one landing page for each goal. For example, you’d want a landing page for a free trial, a landing page for webinar sign-ups, a landing page for ebook downloads, etc.

Conclusion: High-Performance Landing Pages

Landing pages are a core component of online marketing. Whether you’re trying to gather email addresses, host webinars to gain leads, or want to sell more products, you need to get familiar with landing pages.

Here’s the thing most people don’t realize—landing pages can be really simple to create. Don’t spend hours debating which heading to use. Instead, use one of the tools listed above, create two versions of your landing page and let your A/B test run.

Get a winner, create a new test, rinse and repeat. Eventually, you’ll have a killer landing page.

Have you created a high-converting landing page? What change had the biggest impact on conversions?

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Structured Data Vs. Unstructured Data: How to Make This Work for Your Website

When you’re starting a website, the first thing on your mind probably isn’t structured vs. unstructured data and how it affects your website.

However, the way your information is presented is important. Understanding the distinction and being able to use structured data on your pages can make a big difference to your success.

Here’s what you need to know about structured data vs. unstructured data.

Key Differences Between Structured and Unstructured Data

Structured vs. unstructured data isn’t just a phenomenon in SEO.

It’s a distinction that affects every type of data. For example, on your phone, your contacts are a form of structured data (the names and numbers are categorized into specific fields), but the photos (assuming they have no time or location tags) are considered unstructured data.

• Defined vs. undefined: Structured data fits into predefined models and formats, allowing other applications to understand it better. Unstructured data does not have a predefined model. In SEO, the model we use to interpret structured data is Schema.org, which enables all the search engines to better understand the data of a web page.
• Qualitative vs. quantitative: Unstructured data tends to be qualitative—social media interactions, interviews, images, etc. Structured data is more quantitative, using numbers and predefined fields.
• Differences in storage: Unstructured data can be very complex and require a lot of storage space (think about the images on your site). This unstructured data is normally housed in data lakes, whereas structured data, which is much easier to store, is housed in data warehouses.
• Ease of analysis: Because structured data fits into predefined models and formats, it’s much easier to analyze. In SEO, structured data signals to search engines what a specific piece of information is about so it can be easily understood and served to the public.

What Is Structured Data?

Structured data is data that fits a predefined model or format.

Think about when you pay for something online. You have to fill out a form with your name, contact number, address, and credit card details. You enter each piece of information into clearly defined fields, and each piece of information is saved as structured data.

This makes it easy to search, analyze, and ultimately pull information. If you want to find out how many customers have a 630 area code, you can quickly do that.

If this information was stored in an unstructured way, such as a photo of a person’s business card, then it would be much more challenging to analyze and group the data.

The same principles apply to SEO because Google and other search engines are trying to analyze and group the data on your website.

We already know the importance of structure for SEO when it comes to things like navigation, headings, meta descriptions, and alt texts, but structured data in the form of Schema.org takes this a step further.

If you’re not sure whether you’re using structured data properly, some handy tools like Google’s Structured Data Testing, SNIP WordPress plugin, or Yoast can help.

Pros and Cons of Structured Data

If you look at a search engine results page today, it looks very different from what it did 10 years ago. Back then, SERPs were mostly links and texts, but today, they’re much more interactive. They’re able to pull information from websites to offer you features like rich snippets, frequently asked questions, knowledge graphs, local results, and much more.

Getting your website to feature in these rich results can bring a lot of exposure to your website.

To show this information, Google has to be able to understand your data, and when it comes to structured vs. unstructured data, structured data is the winner. It’s a way of communicating with the search engines that means bots don’t have to assign meaning to every single word.

The search engine can then use this information on the results pages, giving you extra exposure and attracting visitors to your website.

There aren’t really any cons to structured data. The one thing that probably puts people off is the fact that we’re talking about code. However, as I always point out, you don’t have to know how to code to create a successful website today. Many apps and plugins can take care of structured data for you, without you having to worry about coding or HTML.

When to Use Structured Data

There are lots of scenarios where it can be beneficial to use structured data on your page.

For example, you can use schema markup to highlight information about a corporation or person, provide local business information, include important product information, and add recipe instructions. Google can then use this information in its results, allowing you to engage people with data that answers their questions.

Some of the most common uses of structured data include:

• recipe schema markup
• event schema markup
• video schema markup
• article schema markup
• breadcrumbs schema markup
• product and offer schema markup
• local business schema markup
• person schema markup
• organization schema markup

What Is Unstructured Data?

Unstructured data is undefined data that has no set format.

This makes up the majority of data in the world, and the challenge is, what do you do with it? Modern businesses store so much data, but if unstructured data is hard to analyze, then what use is it?

We are getting better at analyzing unstructured data like audio, images, and text that’s not been organized in a specific way, but it’s still challenging. To get insights from this data, we need advanced technology like machine learning and natural language processing.

Think about how driverless cars learn to navigate the roads. They go through thousands of hours of driving footage using machine learning to pick out hazards. It’s complicated stuff!

Google and other search engines have been working on analyzing unstructured data for a long time, sending bots to crawl your website and paint a picture of what it’s about. They’re getting better at this all the time, but unstructured data is still challenging.

Pros and Cons of Unstructured Data

There are lots of times when we use unstructured data because there’s no real need for it to be analyzed. When you send an email, take a picture, or create a voice note, the first thing on your mind isn’t structure.

When it comes to SEO though, you always have to have one eye on structure, because without it, Google is going to have a hard time understanding what your page is about.

How often do you come across a page that’s completely without structure, such as a page that’s just a big block of text with some images thrown in? You probably don’t see pages like that very often because they’re hard to index (as well as provide a poor user experience).

This is why even if we’re not using structured data in the form of Schema.org, we are using semi-structure in the form of meta descriptions, H1s, H2s (here’s how headers impact your SEO), alt text, and more.

Unstructured data is convenient because we don’t have time to structure every piece of data, and in many cases, there’s no need to do so. However, in SEO, we do need some level of structure, at least on a page level.

When to Use Unstructured Data

Not everything you put on your website is going to use structured data. You can’t mark up every paragraph and assign meaning to it; sometimes a paragraph is just a paragraph, and that’s fine.

Search engines do have the ability to understand what your text is about. It might not learn as much as it does through structured data, but it still helps it to assign value and understand what your pages are about.

The balance of structured data vs. unstructured data on your website is going to lean towards unstructured, just because everything you write doesn’t need to fit a defined model. Use the structured data to highlight the most important parts of your page, and don’t worry about marking up every little detail.

How to Prepare Your Website for Future Structured, Unstructured, and Semi-structured Data Best Practices

If we look at the evolution of the SERPs, it’s evident that structured data plays a much bigger role than it used to.

Structured data might not be a ranking signal, but it does allow Google to use your data to fill its rich features. These rich features appear on virtually every results page, so they’re something that’s going to have a big impact on your website’s visibility (the difference between featuring on a local business pack, or not, for example, can be huge.)

The good thing is that the nature of structured data, with its clear structures and formats, means best practices aren’t likely to change dramatically with time. All of the search engines work with Schema.org, and it’s a very accessible, collaborative “organization.”

If and when changes are made, you can easily find out on the Schema.org website and adjust your approach accordingly, and of course, the apps you use to help you with structured data will keep updating.

Likewise, semi-structured and unstructured data are always going to play a part. You can’t structure every single word on your website, so it’s about following established SEO best practices and focusing on what gives your visitors the best possible user experience.

How to Implement Structured Data

Structured data can help you organize information on your website and communicate more efficiently with the search engines, but how do you implement it?

1. Open Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. This is a free tool that will help you create the code for your structured data.
2. Select the data type you want to use and add the URL for the page. This will automatically collect any existing formatting.
3. Highlight page elements and assign tags. From this page, you can highlight elements like images, sentences, and paragraphs, and assign tags to them.
4. Create the HTML. The tool will create a snippet of code for you to add to the header of your page.
5. Copy the HTML and add it to your page. You can add the HTML into your source code or CMS.
6. Test your structured data using Schema.Org’s Schema Markup Validator. You can enter your URL or the HTML code to test whether the structured data is showing properly.

This process makes it simple to add structure to your data and helps Google understand crucial details about your pages.

Structured Data Frequently Asked Questions

What are some structured data testing tools?

The most simple tool is Schema.org’s Schema Markup Validator, which gives you a quick, easy analysis of how your page uses structured data. Other options include Schema App, Yoast, RankRanger, or a Chrome plugin.

What is a structured data example?

A good example of structured data is the recipe schema markup. This allows you to add ingredients and recipe steps among other information that can then be displayed in search results.

What is the use of structured data?

Structured data makes your data easier to analyze. In SEO, this means search engines can better understand what your page is about and use important information in the SERPs.

Is structured data good for your SEO?

Structured data helps Google understand what your page is about, which benefits SEO. It might not be a ranking factor, but it does help Google show your data in its rich results.

Conclusion: Structured Data

How you structure information is important in SEO. You want to make it as easy as possible for search engines to interpret what you’re talking about, and structured data can help you do this.

The format that we use to structure data in SEO is called schema, and many tools can help you use this “language” effectively. If you do, then your website will be able to show in rich results that can catch the eye of searchers and attract visitors to your website.

Structured data might be a small detail, but it can make a difference to the success of your website.

Are you using structured data on your site?

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