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Programmatic SEO: Is it one heck of a challenge or something you can master in three hours? Do you need a specific toolkit, or will a basic understanding of Google Sheets suffice? And most importantly, how do you tackle programmatic SEO if you’ve never done it before?
These are all valid questions — and I’m here to walk you through the answers and more. Plus, I’ll even share a step-by-step process of how to begin with programmatic SEO.
(Psst: If you want to learn more about programmatic marketing, check out Programmatic Ads 101: The Plain-English Guide to Programmatic Advertising.)
Table of Contents
With programmatic SEO (or pSEO), you are making pages that target keywords nearly automatically.
Thanks to programmatic SEO, you can generate hundreds to thousands of landing pages designed to target hundreds to thousands of keywords — but you don’t need to spend time creating those pages manually, which saves a lot of time.
To do this, you’ll fetch data from and use pre-programmed rules. So, where do humans come into the picture? Only to fact-check the data and fill in the databases.
But here’s a caveat.
“Many people confuse product-led SEO with programmatic SEO,” says Kevin Indig, author of Growth Memo. Indig is also a growth advisor and ex-director of SEO at Shopify. He says confusion makes sense. These concepts do overlap.
Indig says product-led SEO involves a company that exposes a part of its inventory to drive organic traffic. A good example is Instacart, which allows Google to index all of its category and product pages.
“Programmatic SEO, on the other hand, is a set of pages created by a company that doesn’t have an exposable inventory,” says Indig.
He points to Workable as an example, which lists job descriptions on its site.
Job descriptions are not part of the company’s product inventory. However, the content fits well with the product, so the team created pages with the same layout and content pattern.
“To do pSEO, identify query patterns related to your product and build pages with the same pattern around them,” Indig says.
Every pSEO case is somewhat unique regarding a toolkit and approach. To discuss the complete process, I’ll share insights from Juan Bello, founder of PorterMetrics, and Filippo Irdi, a growth marketing manager at Unmuted.
Let’s start with examples of pages you can design with programmatic SEO.
“At PorterMetrics, we started doing programmatic SEO to scale for Product pages and Templates gallery pages,” says Bello.
Tech stack you need to replicate Porter’s process:
Now, I’ll take you through 5 essential steps of setting up programmatic SEO.
When devising a pSEO strategy, Irdi suggests considering one of the following three or mixing them up together to scale your efforts.
A vertical approach focuses on targeting a specific niche.
For instance, if you have a CRM designed for accountants, you can create content that ranks for keywords related to that profession. In this case, you’d be looking for terms that have a similar structure and are possibly used by accountants.
For example, if you search for “Software for accountants” in Ahrefs, this is the first result that comes up:
Here is a very clear pattern.
The two terms, “audit software for chartered accountants” and “accounting software for a chartered accountant,” have decent search volumes and the same structure: {accountant need} + for chartered accountant.
Given the search volumes and the keyword difficulty (KD), it’s worth deepening the research. The search result for “for a chartered accountant” has 273 terms with a similar structure.
You can use programmatic SEO to generate a landing page to target each of these keywords. As you can see, with the vertical approach, you pick a niche and attempt to cover every topic of interest for that specific community.
Pro tip: Don’t overlook keywords with low search volume. These can be hidden gems that provide unique opportunities to target specific niches.
On the other hand, the horizontal approach involves positioning your content to capture traffic from different business types.
For example, if you offer booking software, you can aim to target niches that need your service. In the case of booking tools, you could think of terms structured like “booking tool for + {profession}.”
Following the same method, you’d search on Ahrefs for something along the lines of “booking software for.”
Here, the pattern is even easier to spot. All 499 keywords have the same structure: “booking software” + {business type}.
Pro tip: This is a great strategy if your product is highly adaptable and usable across industries.
An Account-Based Marketing (ABM) tactic involves creating a list of partners or developing landing pages dedicated to prospective accounts and highlighting the benefits of a potential collaboration.
Let’s say you have a marketplace to connect manufacturers and contractors. You can create landing pages for all your production partners to leverage their reputation and drive traffic to your platform.
Pro tip: Create a comprehensive strategy and break it down into small pieces. Execute one piece at a time; if you get positive signals (such as an increase in organic traffic or pipeline traction), then move on to executing the next one.
Next, visualize your potential topic clusters. According to Juan Bello, tables are an excellent way to do so.
“To do programmatic SEO, you should think of your marketing content as a table or spreadsheet, not as pieces of content,” Bello says. He then recommends the following layout:
“The use cases or topics are every piece of content you’ll create for a specific angle or category. These topics are determined by your business model,” Bello says.
Example:
|
Company |
Category |
Angle |
Clusters |
Page example |
|
Porter Metrics |
Marketing reporting software |
Use cases |
Report template |
Social Media report template PPC report template Agency report template |
|
Porter Metrics |
Marketing reporting software |
Integrations |
Dashboard software |
Social media dashboard software PPC dashboard software Agency dashboard software |
|
Booking |
Hotels listings |
Cities |
Best hotels |
NY best hotels Boston best hotels Toronto best hotels |
|
Yelp |
Restaurants listings |
Cities, neighborhoods |
Best restaurants |
NY best restaurants Boston best restaurants Toronto best hotels |
|
HubSpot |
CRM software |
Use cases |
Software/tool |
CRM software Sales software Service software |
|
E-commerce store example |
E-commerce |
Color |
Shoes |
White shoes Black shoes Red shoes |
To cherry-pick the topics without keyword research but with real interest from your prospective customers, PorterMetrics follows these four steps. Bello provided both the steps and the images of conducting this process.
Use Google Search Console to grab the keywords you’re ranking for. Categorize them or tag them into general topics to build use case maps.
Collect customer questions or topics from your customer service chats, calls, or emails to find the most urgent, common use cases people are trying to solve.
Use ChatGPT to analyze and summarize these conversations.
Scan other competitors’ and other websites’ robots.txt and sitemaps.xml to see how they structure their websites.
In Bello’s example, he learned how ClickUp structured their template pages by use case and then user type, ending up with +5K programmatic pages.
By following Porter’s pSEO example, create your table (or database) on Airtable.
Then, use WP Sync or Whalesync to sync the Airtable data on WordPress. These plugins would let you import this table to WordPress in a single click.
Every row creates a new WordPress page. Elementor lets you add dynamic elements so you can pull your Airtable columns as parameters on the webpage builder.
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Click on the live Airtable template for content filling to replicate the structure.
To fill the table with content, use three methods:
Stick to this tutorial to generate pages similar to Porter’s:
They are all nested under the Integrations category. creating
Destinations: (Integration name) for Google Sheets, (Integration name) for Looker Studio, (Integration name) data connector.
Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese.
Note: If you change the subfolder from /en/ to /es/, you’ll find the equivalent in Spanish. If you change the subfolder to /pt/ and /connectors/ for /conectores/, you’ll see the Portuguese version.
Example
English: https://portermetrics.com/en/connectors/facebook-ads/ (Facebook Ads data connector)
Spanish: https://portermetrics.com/es/connectors/facebook-ads/
Portuguese: https://portermetrics.com/pt/conectores/facebook-ads/
That’s all; you now know the steps necessary to help you generate hundreds of pages.
Now that you know how to do programmatic SEO, I’ll discuss some examples.
“We have produced 274 posts in nearly a year using programmatic SEO, which are converting at a 3x higher rate than our regular posts. You can see all the posts produced this way under our Tools category,” says Emilia Korczynska, head of marketing at Userpilot.
Korczynska says that these posts target the bottom of the funnel with keyword combinations like:
“The top benefit is that these posts convert at a much higher rate, and it’s not a traffic play. They drive relatively little traffic (less than 1% of our traffic),” Korczynska says.
Further, programmatic SEO contributed to large savings.
“It costs us so far $97 on average per programmatic post vs $275.09 per “traditional” ones,” continues Korczynska.
Now, you’re curious how it works from the technical side. Korczynska shares her working process. Her team uses post templates (a different template for every keyword pattern) built in Google Sheets, and two databases are also built in Google Sheets.
“The VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP formulas fetch info from the databases for each tool/use case and weave them into the template to produce a blog post. We then upload a CSV file with all the blog posts into our WP,” Korczynska says.
ClickUp went from 25 pSEO pages and scaled publishing to thousands of pages per month. Here’s how it started and crucial tips for pSEO from Mason Yu, SEO product and AI advisor at ClickUp.
Programmatic SEO can trip up SEO experts for two reasons, Yu says.
“(One,) they cringe at the thought of thousands of duplicate content adding no value to the internet,” Yu says. “They can’t find a keyword pattern that feels worthy of a programmatic campaign.”
According to Yu, programmatic campaigns should take an iterative, agile approach. You don’t have to start with ambitious plans to launch 10,000 pages at once, he says. Instead, validate that there are enough reasons to pursue a programmatic keyword set with maybe 20-30 keywords.
“That will safeguard you from sending a bunch of useless pages into the void and test your programmatic prototype for content-market fit,” Yu shares. “Once you have the foundations in place and users find the content valuable, you can always expand your keyword list.”
Yu’s team at ClickUp followed this approach.
“Each time we expanded our campaigns, our results came very close to our projects because we had enough learnings to get buy-in for further expansion,” Yu says.
Hal Zeitlin’s B2B marketing agency Candid Leap scales content marketing production for Tango with pSEO. Let’s walk through its workflow.
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The Created with Tango Gallery campaign is in its early days. However, it’s a great example of how a brand can show off its product’s value prop in a unique way when driven by a researched SEO strategy.
Let’s see what visitors can get in this gallery.
Zeitlin’s team showcases pieces of content for different filters, making the most of programmatic SEO.
Usman Akram, head of SEO growth strategy at Flying Cat Marketing, integrates programmatic SEO into clientele’s SEO growth strategies. Together with the team, they achieve astonishing results in terms of conversions and ROI.
Akram describes one client in the hospitality technology sector, which offered a middleware solution that links various tools to facilitate smooth operations. Think of Zapier but specifically for the hospitality sector.
Akram’s team created 1,700 BOFU pages for the company. These pages played a significant role, he says, contributing to around 45% of all their demo requests originating from organic search traffic.
“While our client’s website featured pages for direct integrations, our analysis using Hotjar’s session recordings revealed something intriguing,” he says. “Visitors to these integration pages were keen to understand not just the individual integrations but also how they worked together as a system.”
After some creative thinking, Akram and his team identified three types of scalable content that could be produced for each integration enabled by our client’s product:
“The execution of this Programmatic SEO campaign wasn’t a challenge: we created some template pages with custom variables, created a large database for all variables, and pushed them live using a CSV import plugin in WordPress,” Akram says.
However, Akram notes, ideation and planning were the real challenges.
“We were charting an unconventional path with our research, as there was no existing search volume data for any of the 1,700 pages we aimed to create,” Akram says. “However, with a deep understanding of the customer, we were confident that these content ideas would meet the users’ needs.”
Did Akram’s strategy work? Let’s look at the results.
Are you excited to start making use of programmatic SEO best practices?
I thought so. But before you do, I’ll share six tips for building out your SEO strategy by harnessing programmatic SEO.
Aleyda Solis, international SEO consultant and founder, Orainti, shares her tips on addressing critical issues of pSEO-generated content.
She started by noting some of the big issues of content automation.
Solis shared her tips to avoid these issues:
“(Make sure) that there’s enough search volume and potential traffic to be ranked by these pages to compensate for the efforts, and that the query permutations are actually relevant for you to target,” Solis says.
Solis suggests that teams check already ranking pages for the query variations. You can then identify the content type and format needed to rank.
“Define the rules to generate and index your programmatic pages to ensure content quality and relevance,” Solis says.
For example, generate pages for query permutations with a minimum search volume and index only when they feature a certain minimum number of products, services, or insights. This ensures that you deliver unique value.
“How are these pages going to link to each other and to the other type and level of the site content?” Solis postulates. “How can you configure the necessary navigation elements so they can refer users to the next stage of the funnel?”
Aman Ghataura, founder and head of growth at NUOPTIMA, says, “Create a dynamic system that automatically adds structured data (Schema.org markup) to pages based on their content type.”
To add structured data to your pages programmatically, Ghataura shared the following steps.
Code Example:
Ghataura shared a conceptual example using pseudo-code to illustrate how you might dynamically inject structured data into a product page.
“(Here) , , and other placeholders would be dynamically replaced with actual product data by your server-side code or templating engine.” Ghataura says.
<html>
<head>
<!– other head elements –>
<script type=“application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org/”,
“@type”: “Product”,
“name”: “”,
“image”: “”,
“description”: “”,
“sku”: “”,
“offers”: {
“@type”: “Offer”,
“priceCurrency”: “”,
“price”: “”
}
// Additional properties as necessary
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<!– Product page content –>
</body>
</html>
Here’s how it might look in the code.
Before diving deep into programmatic SEO, make sure it’s worth the effort and is cost-effective. If your project needs around 15-30 pages templated pages, pSEO likely isn’t the best option.
To resolve this issue, Emilia Korczynska from Userpilot developed the Combinations calculator.
It shows you the number of pages you can produce from each template based on how many entries you have in each database it uses.
Create a copy to start using it.
According to Tejaswi Suresh, director of SEO at Botpresso, “When you deploy content at scale through programmatic SEO, there will be missed opportunities in terms of critical on-page SEO elements.”
That may include truncated meta descriptions, incorrect schema markup, technical bugs leading to 4XX or 5XX errors, Suresh says.
“Have an alerting system in place that routinely monitors these pages for inconsistencies and immediate alerts to reach the optimal health of the site,” Suresh says.
“Tools like Quickblink, Testomato, and Little Warden help keep your pSEO sites alive and kicking.”
“I see a lot of marketers use Google Sheets and formal databases for programmatic SEO, I don’t like these,” says Hal Zeitlin from Candid Leap.
“Google Sheets is more like a make it once, upload it, don’t touch it solution. Formal databases are simply not easy for marketers to manage, maintain, and scale.”
Zeitlin team leans heavily on Airtable for programmatic SEO campaigns.
Now that you know how to do programmatic SEO, you can use it to your advantage. Hopefully, these programmatic SEO examples and best practices give you insight into how you can make it work for your brand.
منبع: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/programmatic-seo
Backlinks continue to be an important ranking factor in 2023 — and it seems it never changes. But what kind of backlinks matter most in SEO?
Editorial links, pillar links, sitewide links? What’s the difference between them? Which are worth the effort?
In this guide, I’ll share 20 different types of backlinks in SEO with examples. Additionally, you’ll read some expert tips and tricks to acquire high-quality links and gain better search visibility.
Table of Contents
An SEO backlink is a hyperlink from one website to another. They’re also known as inbound, incoming, or external links.
Backlinks are an integral part of search engine ranking algorithms, as Google uses them to determine the credibility, authority, and relevance of the website.
The more backlinks from authoritative sources, the better the chances of higher rankings.
Here’s how a backlink looks on a web page.
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Over 46% of SEO pros spend $5,000-$10,000 monthly on link building, a recent study found. However, according to Ahrefs, a whopping 66.31% of pages have no backlinks. And 90.63% of pages receive no organic search traffic from Google.
See the trend?
But let’s dive deep and see why backlinks matter.
Backlinks are known as the “vote of confidence” from Google.
If your website gets high-quality backlinks, Google sees you as a trustworthy source, thus elevating your ratings in the search results.
Ahrefs backs up this assumption with a study revealing the direct correlation between the number of referring domains and keyword rankings.
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Does it mean SEOs have to focus on acquiring an abundance of backlinks? Quite the opposite.
A plethora of low-quality backlinks won’t do in the long run, as Google may consider them spammy. That said, I suggest acquiring high-quality backlinks in fewer quantities rather than playing the numbers game.
But what defines a quality backlink? A high-quality backlink comes from a high domain authority website that is trusted by not only search engines but also people.
Here is a case study from Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH. Look how they managed to improve their rankings with the help of a few links.
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Acquiring backlinks from relevant and reputable websites gradually improves domain authority (DA). This metric, developed by Moz, scores websites from 1 to 100. Higher scores indicate that your website will rank higher on SERPs.
However, SEO folks rely heavily on Ahrefs’ Domain Rating — an altered alternative to Moz’s score. Check your website’s domain rating with this free tool.
Pro tip: Earn backlinks from quality sites with a DR of 40+. Target DR 70+ sites for maximum impact on your rankings.
Backlinks are not only about improving your website. In fact, they can bring you referral traffic and prospective customers. This occurs when someone clicks on links in an article and lands on the webpage of the linked website.
Note: In my experience, you never know what media outlet or blog post will convert better and how many leads will come to your website. I’ve seen my guest posts bring hundreds of demo requests while others resulted in a few clicks. So, don’t build links for the sake of referral traffic alone.
Consider it a nice side effect.
Learn the nuances of the 20 most fruitful backlink types with examples and how to earn them.
Editorial backlinks are organic links acquired when other websites find your content valuable and link to it. These are the most coveted in SEO as they are earned based on superior, relevant content rather than being paid or requested.
Therefore, editorial backlinks significantly improve SEO performance by signaling to search engines that your content is authoritative and credible. Usually, these links come from highly authoritative websites with a DR of 80+. Such websites include HubSpot, TechCrunch, Forbes, Vogue, news sites, etc.
To earn editorial backlinks, focus on creating authentic content with “originality nuggets.” Examples include thought leadership content, research, case studies, linkable assets, expert round-ups, and experiments.
A simple way to gain editorial links is to use services that connect journalists with experts like HARO and HaB2BW. Pitch your unique point of view backed up by data to get mentioned in industry publications.
These platforms email a source and a journalist with questions and answers every day.
HubSpot recommends: Find out which types of HubSpot’s blog post earn the most editorial backlinks.
Guest post backlinks are a type of backlink that you acquire by writing and publishing content on other websites, typically within your niche or industry.
Guest posts help improve your website‘s authority and relevance within your industry, offering both SEO value and driving targeted traffic at the same time. Choose reputable websites for guest posting, and ensure your content is well-researched and provides value to the host site’s audience.
Pitch your guest post directly to a media outlet’s content marketer, or look for the guest post submission form like we have at HubSpot.
The strategy involves identifying broken links on relevant websites and suggesting your content as a replacement. This way, you’re earning a backlink by providing a solution to the webmaster.
Use tools such as Check My Links or Broken Link Checker to scan relevant websites, find broken links, and then reach out to the site owner with your content as a solution. Brian Dean capitalizes a lot on this strategy to earn top-notch backlinks with one piece of content.
Explore how Brian pitches webmasters.
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Pro tip: Create astonishing content pieces to make webmasters link to them. As with editorial backlinks, content with originality nuggets shows the best results.
Dofollow backlinks allow search engines to follow them, passing on link equity to the linked page. By default, all links are dofollow and do not require a rel= “dofollow” attribute to be used.
Example:
<a href=“https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/covid-19-benchmark-data” target=“_blank” rel=“noopener”>How COVID-19 Is Impacting Sales and Marketing Performance</a>
When high-quality websites link to your content using “Dofollow” links, it enhances your website’s credibility and improves its position in search engine results. Your domain and page rating also rise.
Nofollow links contain the nofollow (rel=“nofollow”) attribute and instruct search engines not to follow them (not to pass link equity to the page).
Although they don’t directly impact authority, nofollow backlinks can still drive traffic to your site and contribute to a natural link profile.
Example:
<a rel=“noopener” target=“_blank” href=“http://www.blog.hubspot.com/” rel=“nofollow”> Head to the HubSpot Blog </a>
You might want to use “Nofollow” links when you link to a page you don’t want to endorse, the link is sponsored or is user-generated.
Comment backlinks are links that you acquire by leaving comments under blog posts. Likewise, forum backlinks come from forum threads or your signature.
While they are considered one of the easiest ways to acquire backlinks, they are often associated with low authority and relevance. Search engines are aware of comment spam and, in many cases, treat comment backlinks with caution.
The only reason I mention them is to warn you about the negative impact these links may cause.
Pro tip: Here are four well-known forums you can leverage for backlink building:
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Niche edits, also known as curated links or link insertion, are backlinks inserted into existing articles, listicles, or pages on a website, rather than creating new content as you would with guest posts.
The top benefit of niche edits is that you add contextual links to already indexed and high-ranking pages. This means you start getting link juice nearly immediately.
Conversely, when you build links from new content (guest posts, press releases, etc.) you have to wait for the page to be indexed, which takes anywhere from two weeks to months.
“At HubSpot, we’re really trying to take content that’s already out there, improve upon it, and make sure that it’s optimal to support driving referral traffic and signups,” says Autumn Witter, an associate account manager of SEO and link building at HubSpot.
To do so, Witter’s team finds content where HubSpot products are already being mentioned. They then ask webmasters to add more relevant links with more relevant anchors.
These links you obtain by distributing press releases about your business updates or events. If done right, it’s a great tactic to gain brand exposure, as well as give an additional boost to your SEO efforts.
Use them when you want to inform people about a big event that your company is organizing, announce the release of a new product or service, or simply when you want to get attention for your brand.
Choose any natural-looking anchor text. Naked URLs, branded or generic anchors, and CTAs work best.
Keep in mind that most press release links are usually “Nofollow.”
Learn how to carry out an effective press release link building.
Social media backlinks refer to any link from a social media website or page to your site. They can be placed inside a post, in the comments, on user profiles, or be shared directly on the feeds.
While social media links are “Nofollow,” they can indirectly improve SEO by driving traffic and engagement on your site. The latter translates into higher rankings, as it boosts “time on page” and improves user behavior. Both are ranking factors.
Share nice visuals, videos, and thought-provoking posts across your social media channels, and include a link to your web page.
Andy Crestodina virtuously invites its LinkedIn audience to navigate to his company’s blog posts by crafting enticing hooks, sharing diagrams, or video explainers.
Directory backlinks come from submitting your website to online directories or business listings, typically with a link to your site. They can enhance local SEO and diversify your backlink profile.
Don’t submit your site to hundreds of directories. Focus on reputable, niche-specific directories that are relevant to your business with an active audience.
Further, ensure your information is consistent across listings, as Google pays attention to this for local businesses. Some of the decent directories include:
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An image backlink is an image that is linked (attributed) to a site/page.
Why care about image backlinks? A Semrush study discovered that webpages using images earn 555% more quality backlinks.
Here are the most common types of images that tend to gain backlinks passively:
Use Google Reverse Image Search to identify where exactly your image is being used. If someone is using your image and is not crediting you, directly reach out to the webmasters and claim your backlink.
Pro tip: Create original, high-quality images and use descriptive file names and alt tags to enhance their discoverability.
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The links come from video descriptions, comments, or video credits when your videos are uploaded on platforms like YouTube. Every link from YouTube content is “Nofollow.”
While backlinks on YouTube don’t give you direct SEO link juice, they are still links that can be discovered within YouTube searches and generate traffic. Optimize video titles, descriptions, and tags for relevant keywords to maximize their SEO impact.
Paid link building is when a website pays a third-party domain for a dofollow backlink that points back to its domain. According to Authority Hackers, 74.3% of link builders pay for links, with the average amount being $83 for each link.
The numbers are impressive, but keep in mind that buying links is a black-hat SEO tactic. Google sees them as link schemes and a violation of search engines’ policies.
If engaging in sponsored link building, ensure the links are relevant to your niche and come from real websites, not PBNs. Ideally, they come from a commercial blog (some editors may sell links).
Domains with the EDU and GOV suffix are the most trusted extensions for Google, as these areas belong to government and educational institutions.
These backlinks possess more authority and are harder to get than regular backlinks, but they are worth the effort.
What makes this type of backlinks unique is that you can’t buy them. How to acquire? For educational institutions, try creating scholarships, internships for students, and events to grab their attention.
For example, AutoAccident regularly creates college scholarships.
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When it comes to .gov websites, they are super selective. Most often, you have to contact them to partner up on different initiatives.
If a website talks about your brand, a case study, or research but does not link to you, these are unlinked brand mentions. Therefore, they’re great opportunities for link-building.
Use Ahrefs to spot unlinked brand mentions:
Obtain backlinks by being a guest on a podcast or when your website is mentioned in podcast show notes. It’s a great way to build homepage links, enhance your online presence, and contribute to industry recognition.
Identify relevant websites and podcasts and reach out with personalized messages. Here are some popular podcast platforms:
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Earn links by providing testimonials or reviews for products, services, or businesses. They are a win-win situation both for the business and the reviewer.
For businesses, it’s a valuable form of social proof that adds to their credibility and reputation.
On the other hand, the reviewer will get a link-building opportunity. All you have to do is select products and services that you actually use, pitch them, and then create a testimonial.
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Footer links are sitewide links placed at the bottom of your website in the footer section. They appear on every page since the footer is static.
Use your footer to place internal links to important pages on your website so visitors can easily find information.
Google frequently checks footer links to make sure that you prioritize the user by providing value rather than for SEO purposes.
Though most of the time, footer links are internal, there are a few times when you might need to link to external sources, like credit a company that designed your site.
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Badge backlinks are a unique type of backlink that can be earned when other websites or organizations award you with a digital badge or emblem that links back to your website.
These badges are typically given to recognize achievements, certifications, partnerships, or contributions.
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Influencers have high authority, they are respected in their industries, and their recommendations are strong.
When they mention or link to your website in their content, Google views these backlinks as a vote of confidence, especially in the era of the E-E-A-T algorithm.
Collaborate with influencers in your niche for round-ups, joint studies, etc. Ask for a product review or recommendation, and run a creative contest on their social media channels or website linking back to you.
Still not sure how to acquire backlinks? This section covers 5 tips for backlinks shared by industry experts.
“A perfect backlink is an elusive goal. While you may strive to acquire backlinks that meet many metrics, your competitors are securing backlinks that intuitively fit their content, giving them an edge,” says Georgi Mamajanyan, CEO at SayNine.
As a result, Mamajanyan recommends focusing on quality over quantity. He also recommends identifying “the minimum metrics that meet your standards.” From there, you can build backlinks accordingly.
“The most critical metric isn‘t DR or DA, nor is it domain traffic; it’s whether the website represents a legitimate business (e.g., SAAS/Agency) or if it’s merely a platform created solely for selling backlinks,” says Mamajanyan.
Unlinked brand mentions are low-hanging fruits for both early startups that are just taking off and creating buzz and established companies. Monitor sites that don’t give you credit once per 30 days to strike while the iron is hot.
Securing these links usually comes with a low effort since media outlets already know and recommend your business.
According to Digital Olympus Founder Alex Tachalova, “The future of link building lies in acquiring links strictly through relationships.”
For example, Tachalova says, your team should ask industry players to share their thoughts on the topics you cover. This applies to webinars, podcasts, and virtually any marketing initiative that allows you to feature other companies.
“ Links are recommendations that can only be earned by connecting your brand meaningfully with other companies and individuals who may provide backlinks to your site. To achieve that, run co-marketing campaigns with other companies in your niche,” Tachalova says.
According to Tachalova building relationships with niche professionals unlocks various opportunities.
“Instead of focusing solely on transactions, consider the value you can offer other companies. This not only helps you gain links but also expands your brand’s visibility and puts your product or service in front of their audiences,” he says
If your services are limited to a city or a target audience, build links from indirectly related platforms.
Say, you have an online shop for vegan skincare cosmetics. Which are your target sites for backlinks? Top of mind, blogs about skincare and vegan products. However, you can also consider building links from environmental projects.
For example, write op-eds on how your company contributes to resolving social or environmental disasters. You can then highlight the cruelty-free, low waste you’re on.
When you grow, some competitors may take extra measures to make sure you fail in rankings by attacking your site with negative SEO. Usually, your site is subjected to link spam from PBNs, link farms, etc.
To maintain a healthy backlink profile, conduct a link-building audit once per month. Also, set up notifications about low-quality links pointing to your website using Linkody — a backlink monitoring tool.
Noticed unnatural links in a big quantity?
Google recommends disavowing all of them to prevent a negative impact on your site’s rankings.
Watch Matt Cuts from Google addressing questions about negative SEO in 2023.
SEO is complex. It’s essential to not only acquire backlinks but also to understand the nuances of each type. Make sure to combine different link-building types with other SEO initiatives to maximize your online visibility.
منبع: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/types-of-backlinks-in-seo
I’ve abandoned numerous websites that were crammed with excessive text and bulky images due to their challenging navigation and overly bookish appearance.
Being both a marketer and a customer in one, I naturally lean towards using icons. They are visually appealing, convey information and intent instantly, and make clicking effortless.
But not all businesses use icons to their full potential. So, I scrutinized dozens of websites and apps and talked to industry experts who’ve witnessed the “iconicness” of icons to gather their insights.
Explore how to use marketing and sales icons in the best ways possible. We’ll cover:
Photography and typography are limited in business communication, and generic stock photos rarely align with the accompanying text. Icons, in turn, make your messaging unique, appealing, and memorable. They facilitate the understanding of ideas and concepts.
Let’s explore icons’ use cases in marketing and sales materials.
The brain processes graphic symbols much faster than actual words by giving them meaning and turning them into words. When we see an icon, it helps us understand the intended meaning faster — making complex concepts and terms easy to digest.
For instance, a checklist or a chart icon in sales presentations helps visually represent goals achieved and company growth.
Get these icons for free.
Icons encourage and improve engagement. Adding clickable icons on social media, websites, or apps significantly increases users’ interaction with them. Similarly, when you add them to product guides, promotional videos, or sales playbooks, they bring in more responses and encourage readers to interact.
Some icons to use for engagement can be for simply displaying contacts, details, and info icons.
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Icons save space where text is excessively wordy. For example, if you’re listing the nutritional components of a product on a product guide, using icons for stating categories like 🍗 for protein, 🍞 for carbs, and 🍬 for sugar saves space and gets the point across creatively.
Icons provide additional context quickly and make the message more engaging and interactive. The “envelope” icon, along with the message “Contact us,” adds an inviting touch to an email or a web page.
Likewise, the “checkmark” icon grabs the target audience’s attention when used in pop-ups — see Semrush’s example.
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Nothing makes a sales or marketing report as boring as long, continuous pages of text. Breaking it up with icons adds a visual appeal and conveys your message better than generic stock photos. They’re also easier on the eyes, which makes them an excellent replacement for heavy images.
Learn how to make sales performance reports in Excel interesting with this video.
Using branded icons across different platforms and streamlining them with your marketing and sales materials helps you differentiate your brand from competitors and makes your material stand out.
Lavender.ai, an AI-powered tool for enhancing your sales emails, chose the “wizard” icon to be recognizable and memorable. Visit Lavender’s website, and the next time you think of an AI writing assistant, Lavender will pop up in your head. It happened to me at the time Lavender was just taking off.
You don’t need to translate an icon into a bunch of languages. They have a universal appeal and are instantly recognizable. Everyone knows a “bulb” icon means a “good idea.” A “star” icon shows certifications, and the ol’ right arrow button prompts you to keep going.
Get 30 customizable image icons for free.
Icons become a part of your brand’s identity, set you apart, and facilitate brand recall. They also provide a consistent visual element across different platforms, reinforcing your brand identity and creating a uniform look and feel.
This also works for personal branding or employee advocacy when used on a large scale.
Roman Pikalenko’s LinkedIn page makes for a great example. He uses the flamingo icon in his marketing materials, name, sales deck, posts, and even on his shirt. If you’ve stumbled upon Roman’s page, chances are high you started associating 🦩with him.
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When used on apps and websites, they improve user experience by making navigation and understanding of features and services more intuitive — making your brand user-friendly.
💡Pro Tip: Take the time to design well-structured and high-quality icons. I often associate a company that uses low-quality or poorly designed icons with a lack of authenticity and dedication to quality.
Learn how to design icons for your brand with this video:
Icons are used on websites and apps in a multitude of ways for countless reasons. Explore the prominent five.
HubSpot offers a range of free icons for you to use as you please. Use them on websites, apps, and marketing and sales materials for the range of benefits they offer.
The clock icon, for instance, can be used to show time sensitivity on a sale, for scheduling meetings and appointments, for different time zones, or even as a loading icon. The “chat typing” icon is widely used on websites and apps for chat options, comments, feedback, sharing, notifications, and, of course, text messages.
Get these icons for free.
Be it on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest, I find “sharing” icons incredibly convenient. They allow me to effortlessly share enjoyable content (like this post, wink wink 😉).
Add “sharing” icons to your website to allow users to distribute content across their own social networks. Plus, you get valuable data on popular content and platforms where the content is being shared. Use these insights to refine your content strategy.
These icons are commonly used for signing up, feedback, following, bookmarking, and downloading. They encourage website visitors to express approval, sign up, or ask questions.
For instance, Cognism uses the envelope icon to prompt the newsletter sign-ups.
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I particularly appreciate it when companies go the extra mile to include an icon when a page or website is under construction. Instead of feeling disappointed, I look forward to when the page goes up again.
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You can tell a story, or you can show it. Many companies now use icons to show processes and their brand story using icons. It sets you apart and looks appealing. But the best part is that icon usage makes your brand more likable and memorable.
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Regarding branding, communication, navigation, and relatability, icons are used for almost any project from logo designs to CTAs to infographics.
Connor Gillivan, Growth expert and CEO of Trio SEO says, “These seemingly small graphics are communication powerhouses, capable of transcending language barriers and instantly conveying messages in an aesthetically pleasing manner.”
Gillivan notes icons resonate with visual appeal and direct comprehension, making them integral for platforms where brevity and impact are essential.
So, we know icons bring lots of value to your brand, but how do marketing and sales gurus get the best out of them?
Read these tips to find out.
Use icons to creatively showcase your services without appearing pushy or overly assertive.
“We utilized marketing icons on our website’s landing page to highlight our core services: AI-Powered Search Marketing, AI-Powered Content Marketing, and AI-Powered CRO. Each icon was designed to resonate with the service it represented,” says Sergey Solonenko, founder and CMO of Algocentric Digital Consultancy.
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The use of icons is also a great solution for apps where space is limited. Uber relies on icons to succinctly convey information about its services and features with minimal text on their app. These icons cover a wide range of services while maintaining a simplistic and elegant look.
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Use icons on your ecommerce website and app to make the shopping experience quick and enjoyable. They provide customers with a one-click solution for giving a rating, viewing their cart, or deciding on a payment method.
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eBay uses icons to make their customer shopping experience easy. Customers can add a product to their wishlist or see the available payment options without going anywhere else.
Stuffing your emails with text is the fastest way to ensure unsubscriptions. Use icons for supporting links where you don’t want to use excessive text or in your email signature.
But make sure you add icons the right way. Adeline Knight, SEO Content Manager at Icons8, suggests using a special size.
“Maintain the right size. In email marketing, having undersized icons might lead customers to overlook key offers or information,” Knight says. “For better engagement, use distinct sizes like a 48x48px shopping cart icon. If resizing is essential, always scale in multiples, such as from 24x24px to 48x48px, to ensure visual quality.”
Look at this welcome email from Slack. It seamlessly incorporates these strategies to guide the reader without text.
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Infographics can be ، the eyes and confusing when stuffed with text and heavy images. Substitute icons for words or legends when labeling chart columns or bars, as well as for numbers and bullet points.
See the example by Insider Intelligence; they’ve managed to get that balance.
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Icons help you support complex ideas or concepts by linking the outcome (an icon) with supportive text. For example, Fingerprint for Success visualizes their business solutions to facilitate the understanding of each.
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Small details account for big impacts. Show your commitment to social causes with relevant icons. Organic skin care cosmetics manufacturer Meow Meow Tweet astonishes with the creative use of icons to highlight their core values.
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Icons give your information a clear hierarchy, save screen space compared to text labels, and make for a responsive design.
Species in Pieces, an educational website dedicated to endangered species, creatively employs icons to inspire exploration and engagement with vital information. Icons make them look sophisticated and minimalistic.
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“Prioritize alignment. Aligning icons evenly and spacing them consistently aids in creating a clean, organized layout that’s visually pleasing, making information more accessible and digestible for customers,” adds Adeline.
Icons have many benefits, yet there are instances where the use of icons may not be the best option.
Designing the perfect marketing and sales icons takes a lot of time and resources; explore free marketing icons from these awesome companies.
Use free marketing icons for websites, social media, email marketing, print materials, apps, presentations, advertising, infographics, product packaging, and marketing collaterals.
Use free sales icons for presentations, reports, emails, CRM systems, training materials, pitches, invoices and payments, promotions, and sales collaterals.
Blow away your customers by placing marketing and sales icons strategically and using them to enhance visual appeal, streamline information, and add value to your brand.
Provide a kick-، user experience and boost engagement with high-quality, creative, and smartly placed icons.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
منبع: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/free-icon-download-design-list
