Snapchat is Growing Up: Everything You Need to Know About Snapchat’s Latest Update

Snapchat is growing up pretty quickly. What started out as a way to share photos that self-destruct in 10 seconds, has evolved into one of the most complete and engaging communication platforms on the market today.

On March 29, Snapchat unveiled a major overhaul of its chat platform, enabling a whole bunch of new multimedia options for users. For the first time, users can now make audio and video calls through the app, as well as choose from over 200 stickers to send in messages and simultaneously switch between calls and messaging.

Snapchat’s new-found versatility will help it compete with other popular private messaging apps like We Chat, Kik, Telegram and Facebook-owned properties, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

In this post, I’d love to dig into the Chat 2.0 update: how to use the new features and what this may mean for the future of Snapchat.

Everything you need to know about the Snapchat Chat 2.0 update

The Chat 2.0 update brought with it a plethora of new features and enhancements. In this section, I’d love to give you the lowdown on each of the key new additions.

Auto-Advance Stories

You can now swipe left during a Story to jump right into your next friend’s Story, or once a Story has finished playing the next one in your list will automatically start.

This makes consuming Story content much easier for users and could lead to an increase in the 7 billion video views Snapchat is generating daily.

Stickers

Stickers have become an integral part of many messaging platforms over recent years and Snapchat has created a pool of over 200 stickers to include in your conversations.

Video or audio calls

You can now make audio and video calls through the Chat interface. To make a call simply tap on the phone icon for an audio call or the video camera icon for a video call.

What makes calls on Snapchat unique is the ability to be on a call and simultaneously send photos that appear as an overlay in the chat window.

Video or audio notes

Within the Chat interface, you can send quick, sub-10-second thumbnail videos and audio clips.

Video clips loop, much like GIFs and when tapped by the receiver will also play audio alongside the video. Audio notes, play through as the receive taps on them.

From ephemeral photos to a vibrant communication tool

In 2014, Snapchat released Chat 1.0, and for the first time allowed users to communicate via text and video chat.

“When we first launched Chat, our goal was to emulate the best parts of face-to-face conversation,” the company explained in a recent blog post. “Chat 1.0 was all about the joys of being here — when most apps told you when your friend was typing, Chat let you know that your friend was listening.“ And it’s the listening and engagement aspects of social media where Snapchat has really been able to differentiate itself.

Whereas sharing on most social platforms now feels like shouting into an empty street, Snapchat holds user attention. If you have 100 friends, half of them are likely to watch your Story, and for direct Snaps and chat conversations the engagement is even higher.

Snapchat’s goal is “to be the best way to communicate — second only to hanging out face-to-face,” and of all the social media platforms and social networks out there, Snapchat is the closest relation to the way we interact in our day-to-day lives.

We love to share, chat, debate, and discuss with those closest to us and when we see our friends in real life, these moments disappear. Snapchat mimics that behavior far more than any other network.

With Facebook and Twitter, we give friends a glimpse into our lives. Snapchat allows you to share the whole picture in a more authentic way. It’s full-screen, immersive nature brings our friends much closer to use than any other network. Watching someone’s story means giving it your full attention, for a few seconds at least. Whereas scrolling through Facebook’s news feed or Twitter’s timeline, you will barely notice most updates.

With Chat 1.0 Snapchat made some large strides to further the authenticity of the platform and took a different approach to generating conversation, making exchanges between friends feel more serendipitous.

Instead of letting you know when a friend has sent you a message, Snapchat started to send a push notification to say that a friend has begun typing a message to you. Their hope was that by the time they hit send, you’re already in the chat, ready to respond.

Here’s how Snapchat has evolved since its launch in 2011:

Chat 1.0 was a pivotal part of Snapchat’s evolution from an ephemeral photo-sharing app into the private messaging space. Chat 2.0 will help move Snapchat away from being seen as a way for teenagers to send self-destructing photos into a major player in the messaging space alongside the likes of Whatsapp and Messenger.

A more familiar way to chat

Snapchat has always had a unique approach to messaging and communication, but this latest update brings with it a more familiar feeling. Chat 2.0 introduces features that have become common in other messaging apps, like Stickers and audio and video calling, but they’ve been included with Snapchat’s own unique flavor (simultaneously being able to video chat and send images, for example).

This move appears to further signal Snapchat’s intentions of moving more into the mainstream conversation when it comes to messaging.

When Snapchat first gained notoriety, like many almost every social platform, it was the teenage market that really started adopting it in droves. And today 41% of American teens are active on Snapchat.

To continue its growth, though, Snapchat needs to evolve and continue pushing for mainstream attention beyond the 18-25-year-olds who currently use the product.

Chat helps Snapchat to enter the conversation alongside apps like Messenger and Whatsapp and makes the value proposition much easier to grasp for many potential users. It’s no longer about sending disappearing content, it’s much more than that. It’s about connecting in genuine ways with those closest to use over whatever medium feels best.

What this means for marketers

Social media seems to be trending towards more private conversations. How this will affect marketers long-term remains to be seen. But what’s clear is that Snapchat is here to stay and marketers should be paying attention.

Chat aside, over recent months, Snapchat has continued to release important features to help aid its growth towards the mainstream.

In February, they released On-demand Geofilters.Geofilters are just like regular filters – a design you can overlay onto a photo or video you take in Snapchat – except they’re only available in certain locations.

This update created a new revenue stream for the company, but also made Snapchat a powerful marketing tool for brands and businesses of all sizes. Now anyone can create their own Geofilter in a selected area for a chosen time (starting at $5 per 20,000 square feet per hour).

Brands and businesses should definitely be looking to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Snapchat as it continues to move towards the mainstream. Those who jump on early may see a first mover advantage and receive the best returns for their organic efforts and on-demand filters alike.

Talking point: Have you tried using Snapchat from a business perspective or created an On-demand Geofilter? Any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below the post.

Over to you

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Snapchat’s Chat 2.0 update. Have you downloaded it yet? What are your first impressions? 

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments

P.S. if you’re on Snapchat, we’d love to become friends. Our username is buffersnaps, or if you’re on mobile you can screenshot and scan the below Snapcode:

The post Snapchat is Growing Up: Everything You Need to Know About Snapchat’s Latest Update appeared first on Social.

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Making Mistakes in the Establishment of Your Brand

If you are setting out as a business or personality with significant presence on the web, you’ve got an uphill battle ahead of you. The internet is packed with people and products that already do what you do, more or less. To make a place for yourself in hearts, minds, and wallets of the great unwashed masses, you’ve got to distinguish yourself in multiple ways. And you’re going to make some mistakes along the way. Some of these mistakes might stick with you, other might disappear. Still others might be forgotten for a long time, only to emerge years down the road at the worst possible moment. Knowing which is which, and dealing with them accordingly, is the key to long-term success in your growth as a business or personality. Here are the different kinds of mistakes, and how to deal with them.

1)     The Flash in the Pan. Most of your missteps will be of this variety. Just look at Donald Trump’s Presidential candidacy to understand how past mistakes don’t necessarily hurt, if you have the money and ego sufficient to ignore them. Most mistakes don’t come back to haunt you at all. This is an important thing to realize. As far as the internet is concerned, anything that has been out of mind for 48 hours or more is old news. In a world where every possibility is just a few clicks away, you’re floundering efforts to make a place for yourself will be quickly forgotten. Grow a thicker skin, give yourself a break, and move on.

2)     The Growing Concern. Of course, some internet misdeeds flare up into scandals. If you have one of these growing in your business, it’s time to assess the situation realistically. The worst problems have to do with the erosion of your reputation. If people think your business can’t be trusted, this perception will have a corrosive impact on your ability to grow. The competition that the internet makes possible makes businesses of all types an increasingly consumer-focused affair. A good Reputation Management Company can be just the thing to smooth some of these issues over. Let’s say, for instance, that you had a rash of poor service several months back, when your shipping vendor went out of business. Negative word of mouth online can fester and grow, and it can be really helpful to have a company like the one linked above to help scrub away some of the problems before they grow into big problems. This is especially appropriate if the problem has since been remedied.

3)     The Old News. If a forgotten issue from the past comes back to haunt you, take the necessary responsibility and press on. Resist the need to be defensive. Your future success depends on your ability to act like an adult during scandal and prove your worth by correcting the wrong and moving forward.

You will have a greater chance of success if you grow your business, while managing your mistakes well. Stick to it, and they won’t hold you back from achieving your goals.

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Facebook Now on Flights

A Dynamic Trio..

Want a universal messaging app? Well do we have news for you. Microsoft is unveiling a messenger app fit for a tripod, kind of. At this year’s Build 2016 Conference held in San Francisco, Calif., Microsoft dropped some atomic news. Their new mobile update (Microsoft 10) will include a messenger app functional with Instagram, Messenger and Facebook. This is a gigantic win for Windows 10 since the app will be universal, meaning it’ll adapt between PC, tablet and smartphones. Considering the current Instagram app for Microsoft looks like it was coded in the Stone Age, this should help Microsoft gain some much needed ground with the young folks. The update is currently available, and here’s what you can expect to see. (Source Mashable)

Facebook Now Available on Flights…

The social network just partnered with its first airline so the messaging never has to stop even if you’re on the go. Facebook messenger will now be available with KLM Dutch Airlines so passengers can check-in, make travel adjustments, and chat with customer service all from the messenger app itself. Facebook launched messenger for business last year as an effort to become more like Asian messaging service WeChat. If you’re not familiar, WeChat allows you to perform a range of tasks from hailing a cab to scheduling your favorite dentist appointment.

David Marcus the vice president of messaging products for Facebook stated, “You have so many different channels to communicate with services and businesses and all of those things are imperfect, but they all bring something. What we have been able to do is bring the best of each of these methods inside one conversation that happens in Messenger.” This is an effort on Facebook’s behalf to keep things simple and we like the sound of it. (Source MSN)

Worried About Your Tinder Date?
Well the worrying stops now. Mashable is helping you prep for your upcoming date by eliminating the jitters. In their three minute guided meditation video they teach you all the mechanisms to erase doubt and win prince charming or Mrs. Right. If you don’t believe us swipe right and plan a date for tomorrow. Happy Skinny. (Source Mashable)

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Google Fiber Introduces Fiber Phone

Google Fiber Introduces Fiber Phone
Google Fiber is trying to make landlines cool again. On Tuesday, Google announced FIber Phone. This isn’t your typical landline. Fiber Phone is modernizing the “home phone” as we know it. Fiber Phone costs an additional $10/month for Google Fiber customers and gives you unlimited local and nationwide calling. International calling is also available with rates similar to Google Voice. Fiber Phone is cloud based and can work with your current phone number (yes, your mobile phone number!). Calls from your mom can be received on the landline, through your laptop, or your cell phone. Fiber Phone bonus – Voicemails are transcribed into text messages or emails. #LandlineMakeover (Source: Google Fiber)

Sports Fans Meet Virtual Reality
March is coming to a close and so is March Madness. While everyone’s brackets have been destroyed (thanks Kansas and MSU), some are still hanging in there (looking at you, UNC). The NCAA has partnered with CBS and Oculus to bring you the Final Four in virtual reality. Presented by Voke, basketball fans will be able to use Samsung Gear VR along with the NCAA March Madness Live VR app for the ultimate viewing experience. What if I don’t have Samsung Gear VR? You can get a small sense of the immersive experience through NCAA’s Facebook page which will have 180-degree viewing. Your welcome for you 42” virtual vertical jump. (Source: Mashable)

That’ll Be $3 Billion
NTT Data, Japan’s former telephone monopoly has made their biggest acquisition this week. For $3.05 billion, NTT Data has bought Dell’s technology service business. The acquisition comes from NTT wishing to better their North American presence. The purchase is helping Dell smooth some of the $43 billion debt they acquired after their purchase of data storage company, EMC. (Source: Re/code)

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The 3 Necessary Steps & Tools to Successfully Launch a Mobile App

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Planning to launch a mobile app to promote your business? Be careful; a rushed app that offers no additional value to your target audience will only hurt your brand’s image. Keep in mind that developing a successful app involves a tremendous amount of effort.

After building a working app, you must carefully monitor how well it performs. This way, you can improve the usability of your app by identifying its strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, you need to develop a marketing strategy to make sure your app will be downloaded and used by the right people.

To help your app gain a solid footing in the mobile market, here are the essential factors you should consider:

Identify the Target Market and Gain Insights

No matter how well you design your app, not everyone will appreciate it. However, it is your job to those who will. One of the foundations of a mobile app strategy is to define your target market. This comprises of the people who will benefit from using your app.

By figuring out the particular group of individuals who will benefit from your app, you will give the development process a meaningful direction. Start first with the problem that your app is trying to solve. Along with solving for a problem you must also optimize it to align with the preferences of your target market.

You can use the Persona App to build audience or buyer profiles so you can better understand your target market. This tool allows you to create “Personas” that represent your audience based on their behaviours, demographic, and goals.

You should also conduct surveys using a tool like SurveyMonkey to gain valuable insights from these personas. Ask questions such as, what aspects of your app were disappointing, which design elements need improvement, and anything else that can help you set objectives for your development team.

Test, Test, Test!

Once your app works and fulfils the objectives based on your target market’s needs, it must undergo a series of tests to ensure that everything works as intended. This will also enable you to gauge the performance of your app so your development team can find room for improvement.

One of the best ways to test your app is to let actual users be the judge. You can use TestFairy – a mobile app beta testing tool – to help you obtain valuable user feedback. TestFairy also provides you with complete logs, crash reports, and recorded video clips to help you learn how an average user navigates through your app. This will help you detect its strengths and weaknesses firsthand.

To make sure all your app development goals are met, you can work with companies like BoxUK, who offer software development and usability testing services. This is an excellent way to go if you want the development of your app to be overseen by qualified professionals. Gaining assistance in your app development also gives you more time to focus on marketing.

Marketing

The next essential foundation of a mobile app strategy is marketing. By now, you should have a comprehensive profile of your target audience. What you need now is to establish promotion channels that will help them find your app.

First, you need to identify the unique selling points of your app. Why should users choose your app over similar competitors? These reasons should be clearly visible on your app’s page in stores. Your app’s page should be optimized for maximum discoverability. Include keywords/common search terms in the app name and description. Be sure these keywords are visible within the first two to three lines of the story.

Marketing your mobile app also involves several other promotional activities such as launching a beta testing campaign. If you’ve been following this article, then you should already be done with this. The rest of the activities include creating a preview trailer, blogging about your app (and the development process), outreaching to influencers, and promoting your app in social communities such as online forums.

Measure Performance

Apart from the performance of your app, you should also measure the performance of your marketing strategy. You need to keep up with post-launch marketing strategies that ensure you keep attracting new users while retaining the current ones.

For this part, you should consider paid marketing channels through ad networks and social media. Facebook Targeted Ads, Promoted Tweets; these are all great channels to target people with specific interests. Additionally, you can rely on cross-promotion networks for apps such as Tap for Tap to leverage the ad space present in other apps. If you following these steps and use the tools mentioned then your app should be well on its way to success. 

We hope you found the above promoted content as entertaining and helpful as we did!

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Telling Your Brand Story on Instagram – 3 Key Strategies

Good marketing means visuals. No one has ever argued about this. Since marketing began, in the 1800’s, advertisers understood the importance of visuals to enhance their advertising. Handmade flyers always had drawings on them, because visuals attracted attention. As newspapers and magazine came to the forefront, ads always had visuals. Fast forward to color and TV – advertisers took full advantage of visual media to promote their brands, and the visuals have always been more important than the words.

Today, advertising on TV is considered nothing more than an interruption, and commercials are either muted or fast-forwarded through. Online, however, businesses have the opportunity to use visuals in new and unique ways and to capture viewers with photos, infographics, videos, and more. ROI research, in fact, states that the results of a recent study show that readers and viewers are more apt to follow brands that use visuals and more likely to share those posts within their communities.

 Instagram is Totally Visual and Thus Surging in Popularity

In marketing, visuals are far more appealing than text. This is why even text content depends upon visuals to engage readers, as businesses court customers and tell their brand stories. Audiences what to “see,” not just read. Many marketers don’t stop to think that images all by themselves can tell a story too, even a brand story. In fact they can, if they are carefully crafted to convey the “plot.” And trust and relationships can be built just as well using photos and videos as they can by text – sometimes even more. Here are three key strategies to use your Instagram account for storytelling and promotional benefit.

 1. The Story and the Tone

Each time you post on Instagram, you will be telling a story through your images – a story that promotes your brand and you. You will need to clearly identify the story to be told and then carefully select those images, photos, videos, etc. that tell your story well.

•  Maybe your story is about happy and satisfied customers using your product and you have photos that they have shared with you. Maybe you will use a carousel with 4 separate photos.

• Maybe you have a great, enthusiastic team, and you want to highlight them to your followers.
• Maybe you have a cause, and you want your followers to know that you are socially responsible. Your story might be a video of your team at an event of that charity.

ModCloth, a women’s clothing retailer targeting the female millennial generation, does a great job of this. Daily, they have new posts of their customers modeling their clothes; they run contests regularly, such as this one below. Customers were invited to submit a name for this dress. To enter, they had to re-post the photo, tag @ModCloth and use #ModCloth.

Immediately, followers are engaged and excited. The re-posts allow ModCloth to connect with the communities of its current followers, spreading its brand and its story exponentially.

You will also need to determine the tone of your story – is it humorous, serious, highly technical, poignant or quirky? This may determine whether you use a video, photo, an infographic, or carousel. You might want a video if you plan to show your team involved in something; you might want a carousel if you show customers sporting your T-shirts; or you could just use a single photo as Toms Shoes often does to show its charitable work. This online shoe retailer donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes bought. And they often show photos of happy kids and volunteers, to remind followers how important their purchases are:

What a great feel-good story, and what a great relationship Toms is building with its customers, current and future. These posts are widely shared, as followers, particularly millennials, want to engage their communities. Stories can appeal to specific audiences, and Toms uses its knowledge of its audience to select its posts.

Millennials, who accounted for over $5 billion in Internet sales in 2014, have two very prominent traits. First, they rely on their communities for advice and recommendations on companies with which to do business; second, they want to do business with companies that have social responsibility. As long as Toms continues to tell its charitable outreach story, its brand spread is guaranteed among this highly important customer base. It is now a company worth $625 million, and growing daily.

A Note about Video: If you intend to use video as a part of your Instagram marketing strategy, you do not have to hire a professional videographer to create it. In fact, video with a “homemade” feel is more popular. But use a good tool/app to edit them. There are a number of great ones that allow you to edit wither in real time as you are filming of after you have finished. Videohance is one of these tools, along with many others.

 2. Promote Your Brand Using Any or All of the Following Tactics

•  Partner with influencers in your niche. You do this the same way you partner with influencers on your blog. Find those influencers, follow them, like them, and request to re-post their stuff on your account. Ultimately, you will be able to request a reciprocal arrangement, and they will re-post your content too. This helps you develop a much larger audience. And when an influencer re-posts your posts? Your brand gains credibility. These relationships and alliances that you begin on Instagram can then carry over to the same alliances on other social media channels.

• If there are related businesses that serve your demographic, pay for sponsored posts with those accounts. Their audience becomes your audience too. This is not a hugely expensive strategy, considering the benefit that you may get from inserting yourself into new online social communities.
• Put CTA in captions and visuals, instructing users to click the link in your bio to get something of value – then, gate that value to get an email address. This builds your target market and allows you to continue to grow your email marketing list, which you will use to promote your brand, your story, and your value to customers and potential customers. Often, email is the first step in moving readers/followers into your sales funnel.
• Put a link in your bio that takes followers to other valuable content that relates to your current post. This content is most often housed on your website and your blog. And be certain that the content to which you are pointing your followers is highly valuable to them. There is nothing worse than a viewer being re-directed to content that is boring, irrelevant, or useless. You will have lost those followers forever.

And how do you promote your Instagram business? Tweet me to share your thoughts!

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4 Indirect Ways to Improve Your Search Rankings

I know you want it…

More organic search traffic.

Who doesn’t want free, high quality traffic, that comes in month after month?

That’s why SEO is such a big deal and one of the main topics I focus on—here, on Quick Sprout.

I believe that most marketers should be dedicating a significant portion of their time and resources towards SEO.

There are many things you can do that have a direct impact on your search traffic.

However, there is more to marketing than just SEO, and you probably know that.

The thing is, they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Just because some of your marketing isn’t specifically done to improve search traffic, that doesn’t mean that it can’t.

And this type of situation is more common than you might think.

In this post, I’ll go over four ways that can indirectly improve your search rankings.

This means that the primary benefit of these marketing techniques is not to improve search traffic, but there’s a good chance that, if done right, they might help you with your search traffic too. 

1. Following up with customers leads to extra benefits

This is a great place to start because there doesn’t seem to be an obvious connection to SEO.

But I assure you there is.

Getting feedback from your customers is always a great idea, but it can eat up a lot of time.

Some businesses figure they don’t have the resources to follow up continuously with customers and would rather dedicate them all to sales/marketing channels such as SEO.

However, if you get customer feedback and use it correctly, it can lead to some great backlinks in a few different ways.

Here’s the simple 2-step process you’ll need to follow:

Step #1 – Contact customers immediately after the sale: You have very few opportunities to open up communication with customers without annoying them.

After the sale is one of them.

Once someone purchases something from you, they’re usually excited to hear from you and possibly want reassurance that everything went well.

Send them an email that confirms their order and lets them know whom to contact if they need help.

Step #2 – Follow up after they’ve had time to use your product: The more important part, when it comes to potential SEO benefits, is to follow up with customers again.

Once they’ve used the product, they can tell you if they’ve had any problems or complaints. This is the main reason why you’d want to follow up—these issues are important to address if you want to retain happy customers.

In addition, ask for their feedback on their experience.

If someone says that they’re thrilled, that’s great. Then you should ask them to share their experience with others. Since they enjoyed your product or service so much, you’ll get a high percentage of these customers willing to help you out.

You have a few options that can help with SEO.

If you’d like to ask for a simple favor, ask them to leave a review on a big review site in your niche. For most niches, this will include sites such as Yelp and Yellow Pages.

Let’s look at an example of a search for a carpenter in New York:

The top result is a Yelp business page, while the second result is Yelp’s internal search results for carpenters (another search listings page).

The second is most interesting here:

This page orders businesses based on several factors, e.g., the number of reviews they have and how positive the reviews are (in addition to price).

As long as you fall into the default filters, the more good reviews you have, the higher your profile will appear.

Why does this matter for SEO?

Because the more prominent (higher) a link is on a page, the more weight it has.

This page has a lot of search engine authority (that’s why it can rank at #2), and it passes that authority mostly to the top profiles that it links to.

Those profiles all have links back to their corresponding websites, which, of course, improves those websites’ search authority.

Not only will reviews get you more direct business on these review sites, but that extra link power can help your rankings in search engines. Not by a ton, but by enough that you will notice it after a while.

The second option, which is best for high priced products, is to create a case study of the results your customer got.

Brian Dean at Backlinko does it all the time, both for his readers and actual customers:

Case studies are typically really easy to promote, and they can get a ton of traffic and links.

I’ve created an extensive guide to creating effective case studies that you should read if you take this approach.

2. Get out of your shell and go to events

Just about every industry has several conferences throughout the year. No doubt you can find a few local events to attend if you wanted to.

Now, conferences can be a huge waste of time, but they can also be incredibly valuable.

Obviously, you go primarily to learn, but a huge secondary result can be the relationships you come back with.

Events are a great way to meet other people in your industry and explore opportunities to work together.

But guess what else happens?

When you email them down the line, asking them to check out your latest piece of content, most will be happy to read it and give feedback.

What’s even better is that if they have a chance to link to it within their own content, they usually do. These links can have a big impact on your search rankings if you make several connections per event.

Finally, even if your connections don’t manage their content, they can introduce you to the content manager for their business. You can explore collaboration opportunities or offer to create guest posts for them (which will give you more links to your site).

All of these potential benefits are important if you have to convince your boss that it’s worth sending you to conferences.

Finding conferences is easy: I won’t spend much time on this, but I’ll show you quickly how to find conferences.

Start by Googling:

(industry) conferences (year)

You could also try “events” instead of conferences:

Typically, you’ll find a roundup of all the best events, often multiple.

Each of these results will give you a listing of events, separated by date, location, and audience:

I recommend going through more than one list so that you don’t miss any good ones.

Remember that conferences can be either worthless or extremely valuable. The difference depends on how you spend your time at them.

That’s why I wrote the Beginner’s Guide to Conferences in the past. Give it a quick read.

3. Hire the best help you can get

If you’re truly creating “epic” content, chances are that you’re not doing everything on your own.

In most cases, you’re hiring freelance writers and designers to help fill in any gaps in your skillset.

Obviously, if you’re hiring the best freelancers you can afford, it’s because you primarily want to create great content.

That kind of content is the easiest to get to rank.

However, the very act of hiring freelancers will make it easier.

Let me explain…

Type #1 – Writers: Whether you hire a freelancer or offer them an attractive opportunity to collaborate, these relationships will often get you some extra high-quality backlinks.

A good set of examples are my ultimate guides (sidebar of Quick Sprout). For these guides, I teamed up with experts in each of the subjects.

I had some help from Kathryn Aragon writing The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing, for example:

When someone helps create a piece of content of that quality, they, of course, want to show it off.

How?

By talking about it and linking to it.

It makes them look great to say they wrote or co-wrote an amazing piece of content.

Because of this, I didn’t have to ask Kathryn to link to the guide; she’s mentioned it dozens of times in her posts on other sites and social media (linking to it most of the time):

Essentially, your writer will help you with the content promotion.

Type #2 – Designers: More commonly, marketers hire freelance designers to help create images for content.

The exact same principle applies here:

If you hire a freelancer to create something great, they will want to show it off in their portfolio, leading to great backlinks for your content.

Continuing with the example of my guides, I needed professional help to design them.

My designer had accounts on sites such as Behance and Dribbble, both of which are authoritative sites in the design niche.

Of course, they shared the images with links to those guides:

Those links are the indirect benefit of working with great freelancers.

4. User experience optimization is a great use of your time

Creating a great user experience on your site and with your products is valuable for many reasons.

Typically, the main motivation for working on improving your users’ experience has to do with the conversion rate. It’s a good reason.

What most don’t consider is that this often inadvertently plays a big role in improving search rankings.

There are a few reasons why, but most applicable here is the concept of pogo sticking.

Basically, if a Google user clicks on your page but then goes right back to the search results for another, it indicates to Google that your content didn’t satisfy the user.

Conversely, if most users stop on your page, you did a good job and are rewarded with better search rankings.

If you improve the user experience of your website, you’ll usually end up increasing the number of visitors that you fully satisfy, decreasing pogo sticking. This can indirectly improve your rankings.

User experience is extremely complicated, but there are three common factors we can focus on and look at the ways they affect pogo sticking.

Factor #1 – page load speed: Studies have shown that people will not wait for pages to load.

Even a fraction of a second can affect 5-10% of people who will leave before they even see your content.

Ideally, you want your pages to load in less than 2 seconds.

You can test page load speed by using the Quick Sprout tool or a tool such as GTmetrix.

Improving page load speed will have a huge effect on pogo sticking, but it’s also a direct ranking factor confirmed by Google.

It’s not a huge one, but factoring both of these aspects together, speed can make a big difference in rankings.

Searchmetrics found a huge correlation between a quick load time and the top Google positions:

Factor #2 – clutter: One thing that makes a big difference in user experience is the amount of clutter on the page.

Most people are looking for one specific thing, so everything that’s unrelated on the page only serves as a distraction.

Compare that to a site like Medium, where the content is essentially the only thing on the page:

It’s no surprise that Medium posts rank well in Google. When a user clicks through, they easily find exactly what they’re looking for, leading to less pogo sticking.

Try to declutter your layouts as much as possible, taking out anything that your visitors don’t need to see.

Factor #3 – site architecture: Site architecture refers to the way all the different pages of your website are organized in relation to each other.

For our purposes, good site architecture essentially means you have organized internal linking.

Here’s what a good structure looks like:

Everything is organized into topical silos.

When search engines crawl the site, it will be easier for them to determine the relevancy of your pages, which often leads to better rankings.

Conclusion

By all means, you should spend a lot of time and resources directly on SEO.

However, you can still focus on other areas of your business while also getting SEO benefits.

I’ve shown you four great business practices that accomplish valuable things plus give you indirect improvements to your search rankings.

I encourage you to incorporate as many of these as you can, without fearing that you’re neglecting your SEO work.

If you have any questions about the subject of this post, let me know in a comment below.

from Darlene Milligan http://ift.tt/1qiQjyh via transformational marketing
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