Month: January 2019

Categories
SEO

Conversion Optimization Made Easy

It’s one thing to drive traffic to your website; it’s another entirely to convince the people who visit your homepage or your landing page to take a very specific, desired action. Even the most sought-after products and hot ticket businesses struggle in this area sometimes; that’s where conversion optimization comes in.

If you’re not familiar with that term – or even, really, if you are – this article is for you. First, I’ll take it back to basics and describe conversions from the ground up. Then, we’ll stretch our wings a bit and get into some nifty tips to make 2019 your best year ever.

Let’s dive in.

What are Conversions?

“Conversion” is a marketing term defining when a consumer or audience takes a specific action. For example, if people come to my website and sign up for my newsletter, they have “converted” to a subscribing newsletter member. In the case of an e-store (like Walmart), a visitor “converts” if they buy a product before leaving the site.

Ultimately, goals are defined by the industry, business, and product or service being sold. They can and will differ entity-to-entity. You can simplify the idea down to just thinking of anyone who completes your goal as “converted.”

Conversions also come in different sizes depending on the goals you have for your business. You may start with a micro-conversion goal, such as getting someone to sign up for your email list, before moving onto a macro-conversion goal, like using a series of emails to convince a person to make a purchase.

Calculating Your Conversion Rate

Your conversion rate is calculated using a very simple formula. Take the number of people who “convert” and divide it by your web traffic statistics. If you have 100 visitors and 20 sign up for the email list, this leaves a 20 percent conversion rate.

You can also calculate conversions based on individual customer activity. Let’s say you have a customer who visits your website five times. The first two times they do not make any purchases; the third time they purchase a single small item. The fourth visit they buy 2 more items, and on the final fifth visit they buy several additional products. Three of the five visits converted into sales, giving you a 60 percent conversion rate.

Overhaul Your Content

Are your pages blabbing on and on about who you are and what you do (me! me! me!)? I see this often on pages that tout why they’re so fabulous without really telling people much about what they offer. Read your content over carefully; if you see “we” and self-praise in every second paragraph, you may need to tweak it to be more valuable.

Visitors love when companies share valuable information with them. Maybe you help potential customers solve a problem or show them how to DIY a simple fix. Either way, try to ensure your content contains a lot of subheadings and very short paragraphs. This one simple step lets your content shine (no matter its type).

Vary your content types, too! Videos are great – but only for people who like watching videos. Don’t force your visitors to watch a video to find out about your product or deal, and don’t force them to read text walls, either. Combine everything together in a way that lets the content stand for itself, including videos, stunning visuals, images, infographics, and yes, even text, too. 

Have a strong copywriter look over your text, too. Make sure your call-to-action includes a question, speak personally to your audience (you, you’re, etc), and don’t overthink your position. There is no reason to stuff your pages with unnecessary words. Say what you have to say and be done with it.

Include Video

Video is important no matter what other forms of content you decide to include on the page. Think outside the box. You don’t need to have a simple video of a person sitting behind a desk talking about your product, but videos showing how your products are made or offering customer testimonials can be very persuasive. Similarly, putting together a series of how-to videos to provide product use guidance shows you care about their enjoyment even after purchase – and that can be persuasive, too.

Eliminate Distractions

So how do we get awesome conversion numbers? It’s not as tough as you might think. Start by making a few tweaks to your landing page so that your potential lead stays focused on the task at hand.

How? Start by keeping your landing page very simple. There shouldn’t be a navigation bar like the one on your core website. Any links you do have should take your client directly to the task you want them to complete, whether that’s signing up for an email list or adding an item to a shopping cart. Never let your client navigate away from the page in error. Either have links, such as to privacy policies or terms, open in new tabs or appear in pop-up boxes.

Incorporate Split Testing

There is no reason to avoid split (A/B) testing. Start by running ads to one landing page to make sure everything is working well from a technical standpoint. Then start running ads to two different landing pages and keep track of which converts better.

Keep the one that’s running better and start working on a different version of the page so you can split the test again. You may need to modify your check-out process, add a sense of urgency, improve your product images, or even change your color schemes.

Also be on the lookout for issue points you may have missed. For example, your customers might be looking for a money-back guarantee; if they don’t find one, they aren’t spending any money because don’t see one on your pages.

Surveys and Data

It’s important to study your website’s traffic and data:

  • Which pages are performing well and which are causing visitors to bounce?
  • How do your landing pages rate compared to other pages?
  • What’s the difference between well-loved pages and well-hated pages?

Sometimes you can see what pages people are landing on most, but can’t get a clear idea as to why they aren’t converting. Real-time pop-up surveys let your visitors give you feedback in real-time; they’re excellent at gathering data.

Alternatively, you might try using radio dial surveys or text boxes to simply ask the question: why are you leaving? What could we have done better?

If you find you’re getting similar answers across the board, you’ll know exactly what needs to be fixed to increase conversions.

At the end of the day, conversion optimization isn’t nearly as difficult as some people make it out to be. Monitoring the numbers is critical, but so is taking intuitive action so you can constantly improve your results. Don’t be afraid to experiment, and don’t feel as though you have to limit yourself to a simple A/B test, either; you can run three or four at a time to keep things moving.

Once you start split testing and then making changes to your content and layout, things will start moving more fluidly for you. There is no reason you shouldn’t begin to see progressive changes to your conversions month after month.

Categories
Outreach

The Future of Crowdsourcing: How Start-ups Benefit

Many entrepreneurs feel like they have to do everything alone – including coming up with new ideas, making customer profiles, marketing and developing new products. The evolution of the internet and digital marketing makes it a lot easier for businesses to get input from others via crowdsourcing. No matter what your cause or need, this method of engaging the public can catapult a start-up to new levels.

What Exactly Is Crowdsourcing?

Let’s start by making a clarification. Crowdsourcing is when a business asks the public for help with just about anything related to their business. They could be looking for services to help them grow, information to help them develop new products, or ideas for future services or events. Crowdfunding is when a business asks for money. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing, but it is only one item that falls under the much broader crowdsourcing umbrella.

Crowdsourcing in general has been around for hundreds of years. We just never gave it a formal name until the Merriam-Webster dictionary added it in 2006. The original theory is that even though an individual may not have a correct answer or idea to solve a question or puzzle, the collective crowd can come together with an average that produces the desired solution. For example, a British scientist surveyed a group of 700 people, asking them to guess how much an ox at the county fair weighed. While no one person guessed correctly, the average of all of the answers was almost perfect.

Common Examples of Crowdsourcing

Businesses of any size can use crowdsourcing to generate ideas or to outsource tasks; both have unique applications in the right space. While crowdsourcing can save companies money, they also often force the company to give up control over their products.

Here’s an example: OpenOffice, a popular free alternative to traditional office processing suites, is a crowdsourced product that uses open-source concepts to maintain itself and grow. Open-source software allows any programmer to access the code and make changes or upgrades.

Waze is another great example of effective crowdsourcing. Users put the Waze app on their phone and can then report information on traffic jams, road closures, and even gas prices. People are more than willing to share valuable information when they know they will be able to get the same in return when they need it.

Even big brands like Lego are using crowdsourcing techniques to figure out what new design kits they should put out. Think about it — there are literally dozens on store shelves at any given time, ranging from small kits to huge box sets that run hundreds of dollars at a time. Lego lovers can submit design ideas on their website and the company then makes them all available to the public for voting. The best ideas get turned into products and the winning designer even gets a 1 percent cut of the revenue.

Crowdsourcing Disasters

Of course, not all crowdsourcing campaigns have had the results the organizations running them have hoped for. Take NASA’s campaign to name a section of the International Space Station, for example. While they were bright enough to anticipate some of other campaign’s issues, they still allowed people to write in their own suggestions. Word got to Stephen Colbert, who told his fans to vote for him. He technically won the vote, but NASA opted to reject the suggestion.

The story of Boaty McBoatface garnered international attention after the UK science ministry opened the polls to the public to name a research vessel. Imagine their surprise when someone submitted the ridiculous name and the public jumped on it. They, again, were smart enough to reserve their rights when naming the boat. The actual polar research vessel is known as the RRS Sir David Attenborough and the Boaty McBoatface name was set aside for future use.

How Start-Ups Can Benefit from Crowdsourcing

Start-up businesses can benefit quite a bit from crowdsourcing, especially in their formative weeks, months, and years. Let’s face it, a lot of start-ups don’t have a ton of money to spend; a limiting factor when it comes to growth. Business owners can use this technique to:

  • Find low-cost creatives. It doesn’t matter if you need a writer, video editor, or graphic designer. Sites like Fiverr offer lower-end options while groups like 99Designs allow you to source things like logos and branding materials for varied prices.
  • Social media management. New entrepreneurs are busy, so having someone available to help you get your social presence up and running is critical. This task may include not only page management, but the curation of user-generated content as well.
  • Brainstorm. Simply putting a question out to the public will give you an idea of what they want or what they expect. Campaigns like this can be run off of your website or off of platforms like Innocentive. Even social media works.
  • Problem-solving. Have a real problem that needs to be solved. The public may have great ideas. Not only will they have the right ideas, but they’re often willing to band together to help. A perfect example of this the community response that occurred after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Community groups and churches used crowdsourcing to gather supplies, deliver food and water, and even help with clean-up efforts.
  • Customer engagement. Engagement is critical right now. Crowdsourcing is a win in that start-ups get great ideas and information and, if run on the right social platforms, increased engagement at the same time.

A Note About Crowdfunding

While crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing, it has limited benefits. That isn’t to say raising money isn’t incredibly important, but any business looking to crowdfund should also find ways to ensure the communities contributing feel as though they have some sort of input. This is why you’ll see a lot of start-ups start with crowdsourcing campaigns for ideas before they launch their fundraisers. Sites like Kickstarter or Patreon even allow start-ups to offer rewards to those who donate or subscribe, giving contributors early-access to the newest products or services.

They key to any crowdsourcing campaign is to maintain control of your brand and how it ultimately appears to the public. Sure, asking people to contribute names is a great idea but only if done in a way that doesn’t pigeonhole your company into sounding silly if things go haywire. That said, the benefits of crowdsourcing far outweigh the risks and the potential for stellar new ideas to be born is definitely worth the effort.

Categories
Social Media

What 2018 Taught Us About Social Media

One thing is for sure: the social media world is ever-evolving and there is no sign of a slow-down in sight. There were a lot of changes in 2018, each providing a lesson and a great deal of insight on how the public perceives and uses available platforms.

But as far as changes go, some are always more impactful than others. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, for example, really impacted how marketers behave and interact with Facebook – but it also changed public perception of the platform’s safety.

Events like these permanently alter the social media world for users and businesses, but Cambridge Analytica is really just the beginning. I’ll cover this and many other major issues in today’s blog post.

Data Protection is Critical

This obviously isn’t a new concept, but it data protection certainly made headlines last year. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed the company harvested data from more than 87 million user profiles. Despite the way CA and Facebook attempted to frame the issue, the public viewed it as a purposeful breach of trust (and rightly so).

Later in the year, affected users were automatically signed out of Facebook on their devices. This time, it was another breach of privacy related to the “View As” function was found. Facebook has since disabled the button.

Facebook wasn’t the only organization with data protection issues. The dying Google+ platform had an issue with its API; developers were able to access user’s friend info when it was supposed to be kept private. Companies like FIFA, Uber, and British Airways all made the news for similar issues, too.

One of the biggest data protection changes occurred in May, when the EU implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) act. New laws enacted very strict personal information protection rules for European visitors. And while the laws apply to the EU, any business serving anyone from the EU had to change to keep up.

Social Interaction is Paramount

In the past, most marketers (and users) looked to social media profiles as a tool for information sharing. But that meant we were talking about people and ideas instead of speaking with people, which isn’t ideal.

That’s all different now. Social strategies in 2018 evolved to place heavier emphasis on brand awareness, social engagement and meaningful interactions.

What does that really mean to you? Two things:

  • First, your social media team needs to be consciously aware of engagement. They must also become more responsive. People want to know their favorite brands are listening to them, but they also desire action as a result of that feedback. You need to do more than just copy paste “thank you for your message.”

  • Second, you need to create your content in a way that encourages deeper levels of engagement. It needs to be truly valuable and worthy of conversation. Social platforms want to see follower shares on post bringing in engagement, too, not just existing for the sake of existing. The trickle-down effect is important.

API Protection

Facebook and Twitter made a lot of changes to their API settings this year, limiting the way you can use third-party apps to post to your profiles, pages, and groups. Facebook, for example, does not traditionally allow users to schedule posts to their personal profiles, but many people used Hootsuite to get around the limitation. Facebook removed this functionality to protect the integrity of personal profiles.

Twitter also made a major API change. In the past, a user could load multiple accounts into a third-party management app and then cross-promote the same exact post to multiple platforms at the same time. They made this change to protect the integrity of the platform and the posts, but it was also targeted at cutting down on spam and the fast spread of misinformation – including political propaganda.

Video is Still Top Priority

Content is still king and video content is by far the most popular and highly consumed form we saw in 2018. We saw a lot of creative marketing techniques blossom over the course of the last 12 months, including short videos that play on loop (think the older now-defunct Vine and Instagram videos). This format is ideal for capturing short attention spans.

So where are people marketing these shorter videos? Instagram and Facebook stories, Snapchat, Facebook Watch, and IGTV, mostly. YouTube is less popular; it’s better for longer-form content instead.

Dark Social is Growing

It’s not as ominous as it sounds — dark social isn’t like the black market or the dark web. Instead, it’s the interactions that take place behind the scenes on social media platforms. For example, someone shares your post but instead of publishing it to their public wall they send it to a friend via private message instead. 

This type of engagement isn’t bad for your brand; in fact, it can be a bigger motivator for conversion than even direct warm marketing campaigns. The problem is you can’t see the engagement or how much of it you’re getting, which makes it extremely difficult to measure. Trial and error is the number one method here.

In 2019, focus on creating shareable content with the knowledge that it may spread “in the dark.” Make sure what you create is valuable, clear  and self-explanatory. Your team won’t be able to see interactions to engage or answer questions, so the content needs to stand on its own as valuable.

Influencer Partnerships

The public trusts influencers more than ever before – maybe because they’re more willing than ever to destroy them if they do even the smallest thing wrong. But I digress; the big takeaway here is that you need to get super-creative at building relationships and partnerships with influencers of all sizes. Depending on your industry, you may have to dig a bit deeper to find a related niche. The work is worth the effort, though.

The trick here is to remember that influencer relationships are long-term, not one-offs. You want to partner with people who are seriously happy with your product or services, are willing to continue using them, and will then honestly promote them. What you absolutely do not want is someone who will lie on your behalf. Authenticity is key, even in sponsored relationships.

Think outside the box, too. Influencer marketing isn’t just about retail products like cooking supplies or deodorants. Do you offer an accounting or analysis product? Consider partnering with small businesses to create reports or data showcasing your features while highlighting their own successes. You’ll have win-win content that serves dual purposes.

In the end, 2018 taught me so much about social media, promotion, and the way users perceive their relationships with the brands they follow. The question now is whether or not you’re paying attention and are willing to adjust your strategies. Flexibility is your number one winning strategy for 2019.

Categories
Social Media

Is Your Ad Copy Facebook Compliant?

We’ve all had it happen at least once — the dreaded ding of a new notification that declares your Facebook ad was denied. It usually comes with a vague comment about following Facebook’s ad rules. Sometimes (if you’re lucky), you’ll get an equally confusing comment about what part of the guidelines you may or may not have violated.

Facebook can be a little obtuse and confusing about what they accept and deny, but there are ways to increase the likelihood of approval. Here’s what you need to know.

Facebook’s Brand

Facebook has specific guidelines for how you can use or mention the word “Facebook” in your ads. This would apply, for example, if you were advertising a new Facebook page you wanted people to “like.” It’s also a must if you need to show where the ad click-through will take your audience, should they hopefully click it.

Facebook’s advertising rules regarding Facebook-branded assets state that you can only use their assets at certain times. Here’s the basics:

  • You may never imply that your ad is in partnership with Facebook or Instagram, or that it is endorsed by either party. This is an instant decline.

  • You may not highlight or enhance brand terminology in a way that makes it stand out in the ad. For example, the font you use when mentioning Facebook or Instagram must be the same as the font (in both style and size) used throughout the rest of the ad.

  • You must write the words “Facebook” and “Instagram” with proper capitalization. You may not use the abbreviation of “FB” in any ad copy, nor can you use either word as a verb.

  • You may never use the corporate logo for any reason. Full-stop. Even if you’re advertising a page on Facebook.
  • You cannot use any screenshots of Facebook or Instagram that represent old functionalities. You may only use photos of features that are current and work properly.

Average advertisers don’t have a lot of reasons to incorporate Facebook or Instagram logos into their advertising campaigns. Rarely, people working in the internet marketing or social spheres may find it necessary to promote services or consultations, but the instances in which this is valid are extremely niche. Facebook and Instagram both offer brand resource centers with complete information on how the logos can be used; you should review and follow them closely.

Prohibited Ad Content

While all of this may seem cut and dry, Facebook does offer a list of content that is completely prohibited. Ads that mention topics that are illegal or discriminatory in nature can’t be promoted at all through the advertising system. In fact, you can’t even post this kind of content on Facebook without risking a ban.

Here are some other surprising blacklisted topics:

  • Tobacco products and paraphernalia (including vaping products).
  • Unsafe supplements (as per Facebook’s discretion).
  • Legal drugs, including over-the-counter or prescription products. This includes substances like CBD oil or marijuana, even where it is legal.
  • Anything related to weapons, guns, and even some tactical gear.
  • Adult products, services, or content (sexually suggestive or not).
  • Ads that depict or promote violence, as well as “shock value” content.
  • Items that talk about personal attributes. This can get complicated, but essentially, it means you can’t assume the personal attributes of your audience, including race, religion, or age.

While violence is a given, content with shock value sometimes trips people up. For example, Facebook may find a photo of a cancer patient or accident victim in a hospital bed “shocking,” whether there is graphic or gory content in the image or not.

Facebook also prohibits content that includes links to broken landing pages, the promotion of spy equipment, payday loans, actual multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes (not to be confused with network marketing), and other illegal services or activities.

Your ad will also be denied if it is poorly written with bad grammar or spelling mistakes. Do yourself a favor; take a few seconds to have it proofread or at least run it through Microsoft Word’s review tools. A well-written ad is always more impactful!

Certain other categories are listed as “restricted” in nature. For example, you may promote alcohol if you are complying with local laws, but you must also be compliant when it comes to your targeting methods. State-run lotteries may advertise via their respective government entities, but all other lotteries are prohibited. You can read Facebook’s full list of prohibited and restricted content here.

A Closer Look at Personal Attributes and Health

We’ve already mentioned that you can’t create an image or write ad copy that points out a personal identifying attribute. This includes asking questions about gender identity, criminal records, financial health, medical conditions, or disabilities.

This is one of the biggest reasons for declines, but advertisers often struggle with figuring out exactly when they cross the (very gray) line). If you’re in the wellness, weight loss, or beauty spheres, the risk is often much higher because the very nature of these products is that they exist to be targeted to specific attributes.

Does that mean you can’t advertise a service to someone with, say, a criminal record? No, not at all. It does mean you have to write the ad copy in an objective manner with more of a third-person voice that doesn’t speak directly to your potential consumer.

In terms of health and beauty, you can’t point out flaws. Ads for acne treatments need to talk about the physical attributes of acne and how the condition can sometimes make sufferers feel, but you still can’t necessarily write them in a way that suggests the reader of the ad has acne.

Here’s something else that may surprise you: you aren’t prohibited from posting before and after photos on your page. Yet, you are prohibited from using them in your ad creatives.

Need a few examples?

Lawyers can create ads that say, “Legal services for convicted felons.” They cannot write an ad that asks, “Are you a convicted felon?”

You can write an ad that talks about “Reversing acne scarring.” You cannot write an ad that asks, “Are you tired of your acne scars?”

Image and Text Guidelines

Facebook used to have a hard rule stating that an ad image can have no more than 20 percent text. They’ve since relaxed the rules a bit, but ads that are 20 percent text-heavy or less still do better than those with a higher ration.

This determination is based on a grid system. The grid is split into sections and no more than 20 percent of the grid can have even a portion of text within it.

Sweating? Confused? Don’t worry, help is available. Facebook has an Image Text Check tool you can use to review your image before creating your ad. Images that are “OK” will run normally. Low and medium text blocks may be restricted, while images with a high text ratio may still be blocked.

At the end of the day, it’s important to have an in-house or partnered ad writer and designer who is familiar with Facebook’s community and ad guidelines. The more creative you can be about presenting your product or service, the more successful your ads will be. You’ll spend less time trying to correct rejected ads and can focus on creating new objectives instead!

If you do run into problems, I encourage you to get in touch with me or book a consultation. Some situations are a little bit more complex and need a bit of a deeper dig to identify the problem. I believe there is always a fix.

Categories
SEO

14 of the Best Tools for Auditing Your Website’s Performance

Websites aren’t “set it and forget it” marketing tools. They need constant attention, ranging from technical function to the regular review of content. Speed, storage, SEO, and content relevancy are critical to ensuring that the right person sees your content at the right time — without becoming frustrated by endless loading delays.

In fact, a few short months ago, Google revealed their intention to start penalizing sites with slow speeds. That leaves you, the website owner or developer, in a perilous position; what if your message never makes it to your audience simply because your website’s performance suffers?

The best option for ensuring success is to partner with a professional consultant or marketing agency like Sachs Marketing Group. In the meantime, here’s 14 helpful tools to help you get started. 

Google Search Console

This is a free tool offered within the Google Webmaster app. It’s easy-to-use, which makes it great for those who are new to website management and auditing. However, Search Console only offers very basic information about page-load speed, broken links, and general errors in your HTML markup. While Google Search Console is a great place to start, you must switch to something more advanced as your business grows.

Screaming Frog

Admit it — just the name alone is intriguing, right? Screaming Frog is a tool that emulates search engine crawlers. This tool looks for technical errors that will impact your SEO, including duplicate content pages, canonicalization errors, metadata issues, and more. The free version limits you to 500 pages, but that should be more than enough for smaller and newer sites.

SiteAnalyzer

This is another free tool, allowing for up to 20 website checks per month. (You must upgrade to the paid version for more.) SiteAnalyzer reviews 50 separate parameter settings, including SEO, content, design, performance, and accessibility. Each section will receive a score, and the dashboard will let you know which items need attention while flagging the critical items for immediate review. This is an excellent tool, but there is one major drawback — it does not work well for multi-language sites.

MySiteAuditor

This is a helpful tool for agencies as it can be integrated onto a website and used to generate leads. MySiteAuditor is based on Google’s algorithms. While its features offer deep checks, much like the other tools on this list, it also completes extra keyword reviews to further enhance your SEO strategies and efforts.

Moz Crawl Test

The Moz Crawl Test tool works brilliantly for combining website functionality and SEO into the same neat little package. It’s great for identifying redirect issues with your server, and for finding problems that are preventing the search engines from crawling your site on a regular basis. Like the others, though, it isn’t foolproof – you still need to interpret the results and apply the appropriate fixes.

SEOPTIMER

SEOPTIMER is a Chrome extension you can download, install, and use from your browser. It takes a few seconds for it to crawl your website; then it passes along handy suggestions for improved SEO. SEOPTIMER is unique in that it provides information on SEO, usability and performance while analyzing site security and social integrations. If you use this tool to analyze your site, you can also download white-label reports loaded with helpful information.

HubSpot’s Website Grader

This tool is amazing for analyzing website metrics. HubSpot’s Website Grader looks at all elements of performance, mobile readiness, SEO, and security. Missing your SSL certificate? The grader will let you know. You’ll receive a score between 1 and 100 along with a detailed report with suggested updates.

SEMrush Site Audit

One of the best features of the SEMrush Site Audit tool is the historical analysis function. This browser-based tool saves reporting information after each crawl. You can then track what changes you’ve made and run a comparative report to identify exactly which revisions helped and which hurt. Use this auditing tool to identify (or even reverse) negative SEO influences.

Woorank

The free version of Woorank is limited (you can only run a certain number of reports), but it’s still useful. It analyzes website data and provides you with several presentation, creation, and slide organization options. It’s best for entrepreneurs or agencies who need to present clients with statistics or monthly reports.

Alexa Site Audit

Yes, Alexa…the one and only Amazon audit platform. She can turn on your lights, play music, and even conduct a SEO audit for your website, if you’re so inclined. Alexa Site Audit lets you schedule audits and then prompts you to review them – so you never forget to take action on a negative evaluation or performance. Afterward, Alexa will issue a report highlighting opportunities to improve best practices, suggestions for solutions, and tips for prioritizing your updates.

BuzzStream

BuzzStream is a great tool for monitoring your site’s link building efforts. It lets you monitor whether links pointing to your site are active or not. It also tracks communication and customized emails sent out to site owners. Use it to create and issue custom emails from within the platform or use the search function to find industry-related sites to approach.

Benchmark Hero Solution

Running an e-commerce site? Benchmark Hero Solution works well for managing online stores. It reviews your product pages to make suggestions with helpful improvements for both traffic and conversions. You’ll receive a site audit, a report comparing your site to top competitors, and a list of action steps. Best of all? It’s free.

DeepCrawl

DeepCrawl’s performance reports contain a ton of detail. It can also crawl hundreds upon thousands of pages at a time. Your dashboard highlights your domain’s overall score, page-loading times, and a myriad of other useful details that can help you make informed decisions about how to move forward. Use DeepCrawl to manage your entire SEO team, creating, assigning, and managing tasks right from the dashboard.

Check My Links

Check My Links is a simple tool for web designers that crawls internal and external pages to make sure they’re working. It’s packaged with plenty of capability; use it to review link-rich pages or quickly find which links on a page work and which are broken. Make corrections as needed before you make new pages go live.

There are dozens of great tools you can use to analyze your site’s performance. These are just some of the most promising on the market right now. Take advantage of some of the free options and trials before committing to a tool for the long-haul. No matter which you choose, you’ll be pleased with how easy they are to use and how quickly you are able to improve your site’s performance.

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