For over 10 years, OptinMonster has worked with small businesses and top brands to boost their digital marketing efforts. Our customers include huge companies like Patreon and American Express, along with thousands of small businesses and startups. In short, we know what a great marketing campaign looks like, and we know how to help businesses improve their strategy.

In this article, I’ll look at 8 of the best marketing campaigns from iconic brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, and Barbie. I’ll discuss what makes them so effective and share what small businesses can learn from their success.

• What Makes a Great Marketing Campaign?
• 8 Best Marketing Campaigns to Inspire Your Strategy
  • 1. Nike’s “Just Do It” Campaign
  • 2. “What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar?”
  • 3. GoPro Awards
  • 4. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” Campaign
  • 5. The Pepsi Challenge
  • 6. Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
  • 7. Media Blitz for the Barbie Movie
  • 8. Dollar Shave Club’s Funny Videos

What Makes a Great Marketing Campaign?

The best marketing campaigns are so widely recognized that they become synonymous with the brand. But what sets these campaigns apart? Here are the key elements that make a marketing campaign truly impactful:

Memorability

Memorable campaigns stick in people’s minds long after they’ve seen them. They create emotional connections with the audience through a catchy slogan, a heartwarming message, or an unforgettable gag..

Think of Nike’s “Just Do It” or the “What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar?” ads, both of which I’ll explore later. Both campaigns are instantly recognizable and inseparable from their respective brands.

Cross-Platform Execution

A great marketing campaign isn’t confined to one medium. Instead, it’s strategically spread across multiple channels to reach a wider audience and present consistent messaging.

The key channels in cross-platform marketing include:

• TV: Traditional television advertising remains a powerful way to reach a broad audience.
• Print: Magazines, billboards, and flyers provide physical touchpoints that complement digital efforts.
• Radio: Radio spots are still effective for local and niche markets, especially when combined with online strategies.
• Social media: Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and LinkedIn allow brands to engage with followers, share content, and build communities. Social media is also key to any marketing campaign going viral.
• Email: Personalized email marketing campaigns can nurture leads, promote special offers, and drive engagement.
• Paid search ads: Targeted ads across search engines help capture traffic from interested customers.
• Brand, celebrity, and influencer collaborations: You can expand your reach through partnerships and notable spokespeople.
• Website: Your website is a central hub for campaign information, product details, and purchase opportunities.
• Onsite Marketing Tools: Marketing campaigns drive people to your website. Popups, lead capture forms, and personalized offers can convert those visitors into customers.

8 Best Marketing Campaigns to Inspire Your Strategy

I’ve chosen 8 famous marketing campaigns to discuss in this article. For each ad campaign, I’ll explore why it was so popular and share ideas of what you can learn from each brand’s success.

1. Nike‘s “Just Do It” Campaign

Launched in 1988, the “Just Do It” campaign transformed Nike from a sportswear company into an inspiring lifestyle brand. The campaign wasn’t just about selling athletic gear. It focused on motivating people to push their limits, regardless of their fitness level. With “Just Do It,” Nike positioned itself as a brand for everyone, from professional athletes to everyday people.

Why It’s Memorable: The simplicity and universal appeal of the slogan made it instantly relatable. Nike’s “Just Do It” ads have featured the most beloved athletes in the world, from Michael Jordan to Serena Williams. In the ads the athletes share how they’ve pushed through adversity to succeed:

“Just Do It” is now part of the brand’s DNA. In August 2024 alone, there were 141,100 internet searches for “Just Do It,” according to Semrush:

Platforms Used: Nike’s comprehensive campaign includes TV commercials, print ads, social media, celebrity endorsements, influencer marketing, and more.

What You Can Learn: The “Just Do It” campaign teaches the power of simple, universal messaging that taps into emotion. It also shows the power of consistency: “Just Do It” wouldn’t be as memorable if Nike constantly switched up its slogan.

2. “What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar?”

The “What Would You Do for a Klondike Bar?” campaign became iconic for its fun and quirky approach. Launched in the 1980s, the campaign asked people to perform silly, sometimes outrageous tasks in exchange for a Klondike bar. The ads showcased regular people engaging in lighthearted challenges, and they included a catchy jingle.

Why It’s Memorable: The campaign’s charm lay in its simplicity and humor. The company turned a simple ice cream bar into the ultimate reward for silly stunts. The campaign became so well known that it’s regularly referenced and parodied in pop culture.

To this day, the Klondike Bar YouTube channel is dominated by “What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar?” videos:

Platforms Used: Klondike’s campaign has spanned TV commercials, online videos, in-store promotions, social media, and website messaging.

In fact, the current exit popup on their website features the slogan:

With OptinMonster, you can have a popup like this up and running on your site in just a few minutes. Our exclusive Exit-Intent® technology detects when users are about to leave your site. You can ask for their email address before they go, or offer an enticing coupon to encourage them to buy.

What You Can Learn from Klondike’s Marketing Campaign: Today, the most successful marketing campaigns go viral. And Klondike went viral before the internet existed! Klondike shows the value of creating engaging, interactive campaigns that consumers want to be a part of.

3. GoPro Awards

The GoPro Awards is a long-running marketing campaign by the popular video equipment company. GoPro encourages users to submit videos and photos shot with GoPro equipment for a chance to win prizes. Winners are also featured across the brand’s social media channels and on their website. The campaign highlights the diverse uses for GoPro products, from surfing and skydiving to everyday moments. And they’re all captured by real customers.

Why It’s Memorable: The GoPro Awards is an example of user-generated content (UGC) done right. The professional quality of the winning videos shows what’s possible with a GoPro. With the potential to win prizes and gain exposure, GoPro users are motivated to share their most thrilling footage. This competitive challenge helps build community and brand loyalty among customers.

Platforms Used: YouTube, social media, the GoPro website’s dedicated GoPro Awards page, and influencer collaborations.

What You Can Learn: UGC can be a powerful marketing tool, especially when combined with incentives. That’s why I’ve written a complete guide to UGC to help small businesses use it in their own marketing strategies:

4. Coca-Cola‘s “Share a Coke” Campaign

In their “Share a Coke,” Coca-Cola replaced their iconic logo on bottles with popular names, encouraging customers to find bottles with their names or their friends’ names. The campaign sparked a wave of social sharing as people posted photos of their named bottles. This type of user-generated content is a powerful way to spread a brand message.

Why It’s Memorable: With these personalized bottles and cans, it became a fun challenge to find your own name or to find one to gift to a friend.

The aspect of sharing a Coke with friends taps deeply into the brand’s history, going back to the iconic “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial from 1971. Coca-Cola now uses the “Share a Coke” slogan beyond the named-bottle campaign:

Platforms Used: Social media, in-store displays, TV commercials, online ads, and a website that let customers order bottles with specific names.

What You Can Learn from “Share a Coke”: Personalization is key to driving engagement. You can strengthen your connection by tailoring your marketing to individuals. You don’t have to launch a huge campaign to take advantage of personalization. You can use special tags in your email campaigns and website popups to include your customer’s name, city, or other information.

Personalize your website messaging with Smart Tags by OptinMonster!

5. The Pepsi Challenge

Now that we’ve covered Share a Coke, let’s examine one of Pepsi’s most popular advertising campaigns. Launched in 1975, the Pepsi Challenge was a taste-test campaign where blindfolded participants compared Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The ads showed participants choosing Pepsi as the better-tasting cola.

Why It’s Memorable: The campaign stood out for its hands-on approach, directly involving consumers in the brand battle. By offering a blind taste test, Pepsi made the brand’s rivalry with Coke a central focus of public conversation. The Pepsi Challenge campaign isn’t currently a major focus for the brand, but they still occasionally bring it back, like in this video:

Platforms Used: TV commercials, in-store events, print advertisements, and social media.

What You Can Learn From the Pepsi Challenge: Try engaging your audience with interactive experiences. For example, you can offer quizzes, polls, or challenges on your website or social media.

6. Old Spice‘s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”

This wildly successful campaign gave Old Spice a fresh and funny makeover. The commercials introduced the now-iconic “Old Spice Guy,” who delivered quirky humor about “smelling like a man.” The ads revamped the brand’s image and made it relevant to a younger audience. The commercials targeted not just men, but also women who shop for their partners.

Why It’s Memorable: The combination of unexpected humor, charm, and absurdity made the ads highly shareable. The rapid-fire jokes caught viewers off guard, encouraging them to watch the ads multiple times and to share them with friends. I personally remember the week the first ad launched. Everyone in my office crowded around a computer monitor to watch the ad on YouTube, and “I’m on a horse” instantly became a catchphrase.

14 years later, the ad’s tongue-in-cheek, exaggerated masculinity is still central to Old Spice’s branding:

Platforms Used: TV commercials, social media platforms, website, and YouTube.

What You Can Learn: Don’t be afraid to shift or revitalize your brand messaging. Humor and bold content can resonate with audiences and make your brand stand out. Also, carefully consider your target audience. Old Spice’s ads also appealed to women, who then encouraged their partners to use Old Spice.

7. Media Blitz for the Barbie Movie

Summer 2023 was an exciting time for movie fans, as the Barbenheimer viral phenomenon brought post-pandemic audiences back into theaters. While neither movie studio predicted Barbenheimer, Barbie had one of the most successful and popular marketing campaigns in recent years. The Barbie campaign brilliantly combined nostalgia, memes, and brand collaborations to generate excitement for the film. They tapped into Barbie’s cultural significance and created a playful, inclusive atmosphere for all ages.

Why It’s Memorable: This campaign seamlessly blended nostalgia with modern internet culture. Every aspect of the marketing was carefully planned. For example, each time actress Margot Robbie promoted the film, she was dressed in an outfit inspired by a vintage Barbie doll, evoking memories of people’s favorite childhood toys. The market was also flooded with Barbie brand collaborations, ranging from swimsuits to rugs:

While the studio didn’t specifically plan Barbenheimer, it still tapped into it with a powerful viral strategy. For example, the Barbie Selfie Generator allowed users to put themselves on the Barbie poster. Social media quickly filled with these UGC images, each one promoting the movie’s release. In fact, I was one of the people who immediately participated by posting Barbie posters featuring my pets:

I was just one of thousands of people who provided free marketing for Barbie, simply by having a bit of fun on social media.

Platforms Used: Social media, press events, influencers, online ads, meme culture, and branded partnerships.

What You Can Learn from Barbie: Nostalgia is a powerful tool in marketing. Your brand probably doesn’t evoke as many memories as Barbie, but you can still look for ways to tap into past traditions or childhood memories.

8. Dollar Shave Club‘s Funny Videos

Back in 2012, subscription boxes for household products weren’t very common. Enter Dollar Shave Club, which made a huge splash with their brand launch video:

The funny, irreverent ad quickly went viral and has reached over 28 million views on YouTube. That’s a lot of people watching a video about an online razor company! This and other videos set the company up for success. It’s now a leading brand in the shaving industry, with products available in many stores.

Why It’s Memorable: The video’s witty, slightly crude tone resonated with viewers, making it highly shareable and helping turn a small startup into a billion-dollar company.

Platforms Used: YouTube, social media, website, and email marketing.

What You Can Learn: Video content is incredibly effective in marketing, especially if you create content that people want to share. If you’d like some help with developing a video content strategy, check out our guide to video marketing.

Do you already have a great brand introduction video? Embed it in your website’s welcome message so you can put your best foot forward.

With OptinMonster’s easy drag-and-drop builder, you can easily embed your video in a lightbox popup or fullscreen welcome mat:

You can use our OnSite Retargeting® display rules to show your welcome video only to first-time visitors. Then, you can retarget returning visitors with special offers like coupon codes.

Create a Great Marketing Campaign, No Big Budget Required

You don’t need a massive budget like Nike or Coca-Cola to create a successful marketing campaign. By studying some of the best marketing campaigns from big brands, you can apply their strategies to your own business, no matter the size.

At OptinMonster, we know that small businesses can achieve big marketing results. With the right tools and tactics, you can drive engagement, generate leads, increase sales, and grow your business. If you’re ready to start converting your website traffic into subscribers and customers, sign up for OptinMonster, with our 14-day money back guarantee.

Related Resources:

• How to Launch a Product: 14-Step Checklist for Your Next Product Launch
• The Ultimate Beginneer’s Content Marketing Guide
• 8 Digital Marketing Best Practices
• Product Promotion: How to Market a Product to Get More Sales

Keywords are the foundation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They are the words or phrases that people search for when looking for information online. By strategically adding relevant keywords into your website’s content, you can improve your search engine ranking and attract more organic traffic.

That also means if you get keyword use wrong, you’ll seriously hurt your business. No organic traffic means fewer leads and sales. No business can afford that, right?

In this article, we’re going to show you how to use keywords for SEO the RIGHT way so you get the traffic, leads, and sales you need.

• Understanding Keywords and SEO
• Keyword Research: How to Know What Keywords to Use for SEO
• Keyword Types: What Types of Keywords Can You Use
• Keyword Placement: Where to Integrate Keywords in Your Content

Understanding Keywords and SEO

Before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about keywords and SEO.

SEO is optimizing your web pages for better ranking in search results pages (SERPs). Part of the SEO process is using keywords: words and phrases that describe what your content is about.

For more details about SEO, please read our detailed Beginner’s SEO Guide

Then Google uses that information to determine which content is relevant to a particular search query, and how the page should rank in searches for a particular term. That’s what gives a web page its search ranking.

(It’s important to note that while keywords aren’t the main ranking factor themselves, their use in content and links, which ARE among the top ranking factors, helps Google with this process.)

Keyword Research: How to Know What Keywords to Use for SEO

An important starting point when using keywords for SEO is doing keyword research. That’s how you find the right keywords to include on a web page in the first place.

As we said earlier, the use of keywords helps Google assign the right search ranking.

Keyword research also helps you come up with your content strategy by creating content around the terms that you know your audience is looking for.

The best practice is to focus each piece of content on a different keyword phrase, and never use the same keyword more than once. That’s because you don’t want to end up competing with your own content for search rankings.

Lets find out how to know what keywords to use for SEO.

A. Identify Your Target Audience

Understanding your audience is crucial. Consider who they are, what problems they need to solve, and what language they use when searching for solutions. This insight will guide your keyword selection.

B. Use Keyword Research Tools

Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush can help you discover relevant keywords. Look for:

• Search Volume: The number of searches for a keyword each month. Higher volumes indicate more interest.
• Keyword Difficulty: How hard it is to rank for a keyword. Target a mix of low and high-difficulty keywords.
• Long-Tail Keywords: Phrases with three or more words that are highly specific, like “best SEO tips for beginners.” They often have lower competition and higher conversion rates.

C. Analyze Competitors

Check what keywords your competitors are ranking for. This can reveal gaps in your strategy and opportunities for content creation.

Keyword Types: What Types of Keywords Can You Use

Not all keywords are created equal. Here’s a breakdown of the different types you can leverage:

• Short-Tail Keywords: Broad terms with high search volume, but fierce competition (think “shoes” or “coffee”).
• Long-Tail Keywords: More specific phrases with lower search volume and less competition, attracting a more qualified audience (e.g., “running shoes for flat feet” or “organic coffee beans from Ethiopia”).
• Location-Based Keywords: If you have a local business, target your audience geographically! Include your city or region in your keywords (e.g., “best pizza in New York City”).
• Question Keywords: Address the burning inquiries your audience might have (e.g., “how to bake bread”).

Keyword Placement: Where to Integrate Keywords in Your Content

Now you have your keyword arsenal, it’s time for strategic placement. Here’s how to optimize your website for search engines:

1. Title Tags

The title tag is one of the most important on-page SEO elements. It appears as the clickable headline in search engine results and plays a significant role in both search engine ranking and click-through rates (CTR).

Best Practices for Title Tags:

• Include the Primary Keyword Early: Ideally, your primary keyword should appear at the beginning of the title tag. This not only helps search engines recognize the focus of your content but also increases the likelihood of users clicking on your link.
• Keep It Concise: Aim for a title tag length of 50-60 characters, including spaces. This ensures that your entire title is visible in search results without being cut off.
• Make It Compelling: While including keywords is crucial, your title should also be engaging and compelling enough to entice users to click. Consider adding power words, numbers, or questions to capture attention.

Example:

• Keyword: “How to Use Keywords for SEO”
• Title Tag: “How to Use Keywords for SEO: 7 Proven Strategies to Boost Your Rankings”

2. Meta Descriptions

The meta description is the brief summary that appears beneath your title tag in search engine results. While it doesn’t directly impact rankings, a well-crafted meta description can significantly influence CTR, which indirectly affects SEO.

Best Practices for Meta Descriptions:

• Include the Primary Keyword: Incorporate your primary keyword naturally within the first 160 characters to ensure it appears in the visible portion of the description.
• Highlight the Value Proposition: Clearly state what users can expect from your content and why it’s valuable. This could include benefits, solutions, or a unique selling point.
• Use a Call to Action (CTA): Encourage users to click on your link with a compelling call to action, such as “Learn more,” “Discover how,” or “Find out today.”

Example:

• Keyword: “How to Use Keywords for SEO”
• Meta Description: “Learn how to use keywords for SEO with our step-by-step guide. Boost your website’s rankings and drive more traffic today. Discover proven strategies now!”

3. Headings and Subheadings

Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) help organize your content and make it easier for readers and search engines to navigate. They also provide an opportunity to signal the structure and key topics of your content to search engines.

Best Practices for Headings:

• Use the Primary Keyword in the H1: The H1 tag is typically reserved for the main title of your page or post. It should include your primary keyword to clearly indicate the topic of the content.
• Incorporate Keywords in H2s and H3s: Use secondary keywords or related phrases in your H2 and H3 headings to further emphasize key topics and subtopics. This not only helps with SEO but also improves content readability.
• Keep Headings Descriptive and Relevant: Headings should be concise, descriptive, and relevant to the content that follows. This enhances user experience and ensures that search engines can accurately understand the content structure.

Example:

• H1: “How to Use Keywords for SEO: A Comprehensive Guide”
• H2: “Why Keywords Matter in SEO”
• H2: “Strategically Placing Keywords for Maximum Impact”
• H3: “Optimizing Title Tags and Meta Descriptions”

4. Body Content

The body content is where the bulk of your keyword optimization will occur. However, it’s important to strike a balance between keyword usage and readability. The goal is to include keywords naturally, so they enhance the content rather than disrupt the flow.

Best Practices for Body Content:

• Maintain Natural Keyword Density: Aim for a keyword density of around 1-2%, meaning your primary keyword should appear 1-2 times per 100 words. However, avoid forcing keywords into the text if they don’t fit naturally.
• Use Synonyms and Related Terms: To prevent keyword stuffing and improve content richness, incorporate synonyms and related terms throughout your content. This also helps with Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), which allows search engines to understand the context of your content better.
• Focus on Readability: Write for your audience first, ensuring that the content is clear, engaging, and informative. Keywords should support the narrative, not dominate it.
• Incorporate Keywords Early: Try to include your primary keyword within the first 100 words of your content. This helps signal to search engines what the page is about early on.

Example:

• Keyword: “How to Use Keywords for SEO”
• Body Content Snippet: “Understanding how to use keywords for SEO is essential for anyone looking to improve their website’s search engine rankings. By strategically placing keywords throughout your content, you can help search engines better understand your page and attract more targeted traffic.”

5. URLs

URLs are another critical on-page SEO element that should be optimized for keywords. A well-structured URL not only helps search engines understand the content but also improves user experience by providing a clear, concise link.

Best Practices for URLs:

• Include the Primary Keyword: Ensure that your primary keyword is part of the URL slug. This makes it clear what the page is about and can improve rankings.
• Keep URLs Short and Simple: Shorter URLs tend to perform better in search results and are easier for users to share and remember. Aim for a URL length of 3-5 words.
• Use Hyphens to Separate Words: Use hyphens (-) to separate words in your URL, as search engines prefer this format over underscores (_).

Example:

• Keyword: “How to Use Keywords for SEO”
• Optimized URL: www.yoursite.com/how-to-use-keywords-for-seo

6. Images and Alt Text

Images are an often-overlooked opportunity for keyword optimization. Search engines can’t “see” images the way humans do, so they rely on alt text and file names to understand what an image is about. Optimizing these elements with keywords can enhance your overall SEO and improve image search rankings.

Best Practices for Images and Alt Text:

• Use Descriptive File Names: Before uploading images, rename the files with descriptive, keyword-rich names. Avoid generic names like “IMG1234.jpg” in favor of more specific names like “seo-keyword-optimization.jpg.”
• Optimize Alt Text: Alt text should describe the image and include relevant keywords where appropriate. However, it should still be accurate and useful, primarily for users who rely on screen readers.
• Consider Image Titles: Although not as critical as alt text, including keywords in image titles can provide an additional layer of optimization.

Example:

• Keyword: “How to Use Keywords for SEO”
• Optimized Alt Text: “Illustration showing how to use keywords for SEO in website content.”

Bonus Tip: Unleash the Power of OptinMonster!

High-quality content attracts visitors, but how do you convert them into leads and customers? That’s where OptinMonster comes in!

Our powerful lead generation tools seamlessly integrate with your website, allowing you to capture leads through strategically placed popups, optin forms, and more.

By optimizing your website for search engines and converting visitors into leads, you create a winning SEO and marketing strategy.

Remember, keyword research and strategic integration are crucial steps in your SEO journey. By following these tips and leveraging the power of OptinMonster, you can unlock the magic of keywords and attract a flood of qualified traffic to your website!

Get Started with OptinMonster Today!     

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Earnings per Click (EPC) is a key metric in online marketing and advertising that measures the revenue earned for each click on an ad or link. It’s a vital indicator of a campaign’s profitability and overall effectiveness.

It can help determine whether or not a product is worth your time, money, and energy. And once you’ve learned how to increase your EPC, you can expect to drive larger profits from affiliate sales.

That’s why, in this post, we’re going to teach you:

• How to calculate earnings per click
• 7 ways to increase EPC for higher revenue

And by the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how to make more money through affiliate marketing.

Before anything, though, let’s get clear on what EPC means and why it’s so important to track.

Let’s get started.

What Does EPC Mean in Affiliate Marketing?

Earnings per click (EPC) is an affiliate marketing term that refers to the average amount of money you earn each time someone clicks one of your affiliate links. EPC affiliate marketing is, typically, run through pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

But the EPC affiliate meaning is the most important metric for being successful at affiliate marketing.

That’s because it concretely indicates your earning potential.

And this is true whether you’re running an affiliate program or sharing links from affiliate partners.

Here’s why:

Though many new affiliate marketers aren’t aware of EPC, what it is, and how to calculate it (which we’ll cover shortly), they know another popular marketing term: “Cost per click” (CPC).

So they search for products that have the lowest CPC, run expensive pay-per-click ads to that affiliate link, and hope that they’ll make enough money back to cover their advertising costs.

Oh, and they’d also like to make a small profit.

But if you can accurately calculate EPC, then you don’t need to rely on hope.

You can make data-driven decisions with predictable success and even target other affiliate products with higher CPC.

Because once you know your EPC, then the CPC is actually irrelevant. In other words, so long as you are always earning more than you spend, you’ll be profitable.

Which is why we find it funny when people ask us, “What is a good EPC?”

The answer is simple: your earnings per click are good any time they’re higher than your cost per click.

Because then you’re making money. Period.

Once you understand this concept, you’ll be on your way to increasing profits from your affiliate marketing strategy.

How is EPC Calculated?

Your earnings per click calculation is easy:

EPC = the total amount of commissions you earn divided by the number of clicks your affiliate links had.

That’s it!

So let’s say you were running ads for an affiliate product. Your total profit from the campaign was $100, and all of that revenue came from 50 clicks on your affiliate link.

That would mean your EPC is calculated by $100 (your profit) divided by 50 (your total clicks) for a total of $2.

Plus, many affiliate marketing sites have this information on hand for affiliate marketers. They’ll calculate the average affiliate EPC of their products for you:

This data is sometimes called “network EPC” because it comes from the affiliate program’s network of partners to create the average.

These earning per click affiliate programs give you this information to help you choose your affiliate products more wisely.

Now we can already tell what you’re thinking:

If you know your earnings per click and your cost per click, why doesn’t everyone just choose products with a higher EPC than CPC and pump ads to that affiliate link?

In the end, you’re bound to make more than you spend, right?

Well, yes and no.

The problem is that these are average earnings per click, meaning they aren’t the same for all affiliate partners. One person may link to a product with an EPC of $3.00 and another with an EPC of $1.00.

So you get the average of an EPC at $2.00.

But your marketing strategy may not yield that exact result.

This is why blindly choosing a product based on the highest EPC affiliate program isn’t as rock-solid a strategy as you may think.

The only way to know your EPC on affiliate links will be to test it yourself.

And that’s exactly what we’ll cover in the rest of this article. Because we’re going to teach you how to boost your EPC to drive more affiliate sales FAST.

Let’s turn our attention to 7 ways to improve your EPC.

How to Increase Earnings Per Click

In many cases, affiliate marketers run paid ads to their affiliate products.

But the following 7 strategies are ways to increase your profits without relying on paid ads at all. 

That’s because, for many of these tips, we’ll be using OptinMonster:

OptinMonster is hands down the best way to create a more profitable affiliate marketing strategy and increase your earnings per click. It allows you to make highly effective “optin campaigns” like popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, and more.

These optin campaigns are super easy to create and require zero coding or “tech” skills to get started.

Everything starts by selecting the right template for the type of campaign you want to build:

These templates save you time, energy, and headaches in the campaign creation process. They come with everything you need to boost affiliate sales out-of-the-box.

Plus, they look great across all devices: mobile, desktop, and tablets.

Once you’ve chosen the right campaign, you can easily make modifications to customize it to your brand and offer.

To change the text, for example, you can use OptinMonster’s inline editor:

This allows you to personalize your campaign’s messaging for higher conversion rates.

Want to add a new feature like images, videos, chatbots, and more? You can do so with a drag and a drop:

This makes it possible for anyone to create high-converting and professional-looking campaigns in a matter of minutes.

But once the campaign has been built, how do you show it to the right people to maximize affiliate sales?

You can use OptinMonster’s targeting rules and triggers.

These will ensure that your campaigns are shown to the right people, in the right places, and at just the right time in their customer journey.

A few of OptinMonster’s most popular rules include:

• Exit-Intent® Technology: Display a campaign, like a lightbox popup, as users are actively leaving your site to recapture abandoning visitors.
• OnSite Retargeting®: Show new campaigns to returning visitors to prevent “popup fatigue.”
• Geolocation Targeting: Create campaigns to appear to people based on where they’re physically located.
• Page-Level Targeting: Make your campaigns appear on specific posts or pages across your site.

These targeting rules can help you show the right affiliate products to only the most relevant portion of your site’s traffic.

This increases your conversions, boosts your EPC, and doesn’t require any budget for expensive advertising.

Ready to see it in action for yourself? Click below to start your 100% risk-FREE OptinMonster account today:

Now let’s dive into our 7 tips for increasing EPC.

1. Re-engage Abandoning Visitors With Exit-Intent

First and foremost, you’ll want to create a targeted popup for your affiliate product to display across your site.

In many cases, we would suggest using OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent® Technology.

This is what the marketing agency, Top 6 Digital, did to boost their client’s affiliate sales.

Here’s how:

When someone was checking out a post on car seats, they’d see this campaign when they tried to leave the site:

This grabbed the user’s attention and re-engaged them.

When a user clicked “See Amazon Deals,” it would redirect users to a product page with an affiliate link.

The result?

From this popup alone, 17.31% of their readers clicked through. Plus, they boosted affiliate sales by 30%.

But the best part is that they showed this popup to their site’s organic traffic. That means lower costs for paid ads, a higher total profit, and an increased EPC.

2. Share Affiliate Links With Popups on Your Site

For some affiliate marketers, exit-intent popups might not be enough. Does that mean you should ditch popup campaigns altogether?

Absolutely not.

Instead, you can create other targeted campaigns like timed popups on specific pages across your site.

That way, you can match your popup’s offer (the affiliate product) with the content of the page your audience is reading.

Imagine that your affiliate product is a pair of sunglasses. So you write a blog post and compare different types of sunglasses that would be most beneficial for your target audience.

When people begin reading the post (showing a high interest in the topic), you show them this popup after 10 seconds or so:

Since your audience is already reading your blog post on sunglasses, you know they’re a good candidate for this offer.

That means more clicks on your affiliate products. But since your cost-per-click (CPC) is now lower (because you aren’t running paid ads), your total EPC will be much higher.

How do you set up this targeting rule? This would be the combination of 2 rules:

• Time on page
• Page-level targeting

Both can be easily set up from OptinMonster’s Display Rules dashboard:

Targeting your affiliate product popup will go a long way to getting more affiliate sales with a higher EPC.

3. Create a Non-Intrusive Floating Bar

Some marketers don’t like the idea of using popups on their site. They worry that popups will harm the user experience (UX).

In most cases, this simply isn’t true. Online consumers don’t dislike popups; they dislike seeing the same popups over and over again.

This leads to something called “popup fatigue,” and it can train your site’s visitors to ignore the messaging on your popups.

That’s why it’s important to use a variety of campaign types to display your affiliate products. One that we recommend is a floating bar:

Floating bars are a totally non-intrusive way of giving your visitors information about your affiliate products.

It rests discretely at the top of the user’s page in a way that is impossible to ignore but doesn’t harm UX.

We still recommend targeting your floating bar by page, but it can work well for sitewide offers, too.

Regardless of where and when you choose to display the floating bar, this can be a great campaign for boosting your EPC and driving more affiliate sales.

4. Embed Affiliate Links in Your Blog Posts 

You can drive tons of organic traffic by creating reliable, quality content on your site. The most popular method for doing this is by starting a blog.

By following SEO best practices, you can start ranking on search engines like Google to attract more visitors to your website.

Then you can add your affiliate links directly to the content to get more sales.

OptinMonster uses this technique to boost affiliate revenue from the blog:

Then we sometimes add coordinated popups to get more attention to that offer, as we discussed in our first tip.

That way, your readers can click the affiliate link in your content, AND they’ll see the targeted fullscreen popup on the content page.

That doubles your chances of getting the sale.

This is a great way to increase your EPC. Plus, because you’re relying on organic traffic from your content strategy, your CPC is effectively zero.

Any purchases made from your content or the affiliate product popup will yield 100% of the commission (minus the time spent creating the content).

We’ve written extensively on how to create a killer content strategy. But for affiliate links, try to use the following types of blog or vlog posts:

• Comparative articles
• Product reviews
• Product list
• Resource pages

But whenever you add an affiliate link to your content, it’s sometimes useful to warn your readers.

WPBeginner is excellent at this.

They let users know that affiliate links are included but assure readers that they only promote products they actually use and love:

Your readers won’t care if you include affiliate links. However, they may care if it seems like you’re trying to trick them into a sale.

So be open and upfront about the fact that your article has an affiliate link, and your audience won’t so much as bat an eye if they see one.

5. Embed Affiliate Links in Your Email Series

Ok, we need to tread lightly here. Because adding affiliate links to email can go 1 of 2 ways:

• Super high profits
• Getting banned from your email service provider

It’s not hard to guess which outcome you should be aiming for. The difference between the two results is all in the approach.

Email service providers don’t like spam. It hurts their open rate percentages and, frankly, is just bad for their business.

So when they see affiliate marketers with huge email lists sending out campaigns loaded with affiliate links, they’ll step in and shut it down.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t add any affiliate links in your emails.

It just means you need to do it in a way that isn’t spammy.

You can do that by providing valuable content to your email list regularly. Then, add an email highlighting an affiliate product somewhere in your automated email series.

So your series may look something like this:

• Welcome email
• Content sharing
• Nurture the relationship
• Affiliate link email
• More content sharing
• More content sharing
• Nurture the relationship
• Affiliate link email

And so on. The exact email series will depend on you and your business. But the point remains the same: don’t spam your email list with tons of affiliate links every day.

One email service provider you may want to consider is Drip:

Drip is fantastic at creating email marketing campaigns. They have a drag and drop builder that lets you make stylish designs to capture your audience’s attention.

Plus, we have it on good authority that they allow affiliate links in your emails if used responsibly:

Other services with similar policies on affiliate links are Constant Contact and Brevo (formerly Sendinblue).

Regardless of the email service provider you go with, you should reach out to their marketing team. Get clarity on what their policies are with affiliate marketing and how you can avoid getting penalized.

After all, it would be a shame to go through all that work of building your email list only to have it shut down for spamming your customers.

But now for the big question: how do you grow your list with an engaged audience of qualified leads?

Growing your email list is OptinMonster’s specialty, and it’s the best tool on the market for doing so.

Just check out a few of these success stories that customers have shared with us in the past:

• Adam Enfroy Added 11,000+ Subscribers in 1 Year
• Crossrope Exploded Its List by 900%
• Cosmetic Packaging Grew Their Email List by 754%

You can see the same results with OptinMonster, too.

And once your list is full of an engaged audience, you can use this low-cost platform to drive more affiliate sales and maximize your EPC.

6. Test & Tweak Your Copy, Then Rinse & Repeat

Part of any good marketing strategy is A/B testing. Unfortunately, not enough marketers take the time to create solid A/B tests.

And they’re missing out big time.

If you’re adding affiliate links to your optin campaigns or in your emails, you absolutely need to A/B test.

Because the chances that you nailed your landing page or email copy on the first take are slim to none.

Getting the right message across to your audience takes time, effort, and, most importantly, testing.

OptinMonster helps you create A/B tests for your fullscreen popup campaigns. You can do this directly from your OptinMosnter dashboard with the click of a button:

That way, you can play with the landing page copy, add videos, test different images, or make whatever small tweaks you think would improve your EPC.

From there, you can track which campaign is getting you the highest amount of sales and refine your landing pages accordingly.

For more information, check out this article on how to create a split test and why you should.

When it comes to emails, though, you’ll need to work with your email service provider. The ones we listed earlier (Drip, Constant Contact, and Brevo) all make A/B testing incredibly easy.

You can get accurate reports on your open and click-through rates to make smarter, data-driven decisions about your email campaigns.

And that brings us to our final tip to increase your earnings per click.

7. Calculate and Track Your Metrics

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:

In the world of marketing, knowledge isn’t power. Knowledge is profit.

You need to keep track of the following metrics:

• EPC (yours, not the provided averages)
• CPC (yours, not the provided averages)
• A/B test results for your
  • Affiliate landing pages
  • Email campaigns
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) ads

These 5 metrics will be the difference between you succeeding as an affiliate marketer or failing epically.

The first two metrics (EPC and CPC) can guide your marketing strategy.

With that information, you can make small adjustments to how you approach affiliate sharing to make sure you’re never spending more than you earn.

The last three metrics (involving A/B tests) will help you perfect your web copy.

Consequently, you can adjust how you communicate with your audience to get the best results. This will, ideally, lower CPC costs and increase your EPC, and drive more revenue.

And that’s all for now! These have been 7 concrete and actionable ways to increase your earnings per click:

We hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you might want to check out the following resources:

• How to Make Money While You Sleep With Affiliate Marketing
• The Best WordPress Plugins for Affiliate Marketers
• Best Affiliate Marketing Tools for Every Marketer
• Affiliate Marketing Statistics All Marketers Must Know
• How to Use Social Media for Affiliate Marketing

These articles will have all the information you need to improve your affiliate marketing strategy, get higher earnings per click, and drive more profits.

FAQ

1. What does EPC stand for in affiliate marketing?

A. In affiliate marketing, EPC stands for “Earnings Per Click.” It is a metric used to measure the average earnings generated for every click on an affiliate link.

In this guide, I’ll explain the meaning of user-generated content, why it matters for your brand, and how to use it to grow your business. I’ll also share and analyze a few examples of how different companies use UGC. From collecting customer photos to featuring reviews on your website, UGC can enhance every stage of your marketing strategy and build stronger connections with your audience.

• What Is User-Generated Content (UGC)?
• Why UGC Is Important for Your Brand
• 3 User-Generated Content Examples
• Best Practices for Gathering & Using UGC

What Is User-Generated Content (UGC)?

User-generated content (UGC) is any promotional content that is created and shared by individuals rather than brands. With UGC, real-life customers and fans promote your product or service by sharing photos, reviews, testimonials, and videos of their own experiences.

UGC has a long history in digital marketing, and its importance has continuously grown and evolved. Way back in 2009, Burberry launched their “Art of the Trench” campaign. They asked real customers for photos of themselves wearing the brand’s signature trench coat, and Burberry featured these photos on their website and Facebook page.

The campaign was extremely successful. It contributed to a 50% increase in ecommerce sales and helped Burberry reach 1 million Facebook followers.

UGC is so valuable because it comes from real users who have no obligation to promote your business. That makes their endorsements more genuine and relatable. It also makes consumers part of your brand story, which increases engagement and makes them feel more connected to your brand.

Types of User-Generated Content

UGC can come in many different forms. Here are some of the most common types of UGC:

• Photos and videos: Customers sharing pictures of themselves using your product or recording video reviews.
• Social media posts: Posts from users, often with branded hashtags, that recommend your products or services.
• Reviews and testimonials: Written feedback on product pages or 3rd-party platforms like Yelp, Google, and Trustpilot.
• Blog posts: Detailed articles written by users, either on personal blogs or as guest posts, that discuss your products or brand.
• Forum posts and comments: Conversations and discussions on platforms like Reddit, where customers share experiences or recommendations.

To optimize your UGC strategy, encourage your customers to create a variety of content types and find ways to feature that UGC on your website and social media channels.

Why UGC Is Important for Your Brand

Your brand needs to invest in UGC for one important reason: the power of social proof.

Social proof is simply the idea that people look to others when making decisions. In marketing, it means that consumers want to know that other people are buying and enjoying your products. Social proof makes shoppers feel more confident about clicking that “Buy Now” button, and UGC is pivotal to providing that confidence.

Why USG Matters: A Common Use Case

Let’s say your company sells UV-protecting beachwear. One of your customers makes a social media post about the new swimsuit coverup they bought from your company for their vacation. One of their friends sees that post, and it catches their attention because they also have a beach trip coming up.

That friend then Googles your brand. They see video results of customers unboxing and reviewing your products. They also see Reddit discussions where users recommend your products as the best choice for UV-protective clothing.

When the shopper visits your website’s homepage, they see a live social media feed of customers who use your hashtag. The feed is full of photos of people happily and safely enjoying the sun while wearing your products. As the shopper continues to browse, customer reviews are displayed prominently on every product page. Some of those reviews include photos, so the shopper can see how your products look on different body types. The shopper selects a product, figures out their size, and places an order.

User-created content encouraged this shopper through every stage of the customer journey. From initial brand awareness to the final decision to purchase, they saw social proof that your product was the right choice for them.

While this is a hypothetical example, you’ve probably had a similar experience when deciding to buy from a new brand. For the vast majority of online shoppers, UGC is an integral part of reaching and converting your target audience.

Data-Backed Benefits of UGC

Let’s move away from the hypothetical and talk about hard data. Here are some statistics that prove the effectiveness of UGC.

Stackla (now Nosto) conducted a survey of 2,042 consumers to track post-pandemic shifts in shopping habits. Here’s what they found:

• 79% of people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions. Compare this number to brand-created content at 12% and influencer-created content at 9%.
• 66% of consumers have purchased from a new brand after seeing consumer-posted images on social media

Stackla breaks that last number down into generational categories. UGC images have a greater impact on younger Gen Z consumers, with 73% saying they’ve bought from a new brand because of them.

Not only is UGC driving purchases, but it’ll likely become even more important as Gen Z gains more purchasing power.

That study isn’t a fluke. Here are some more findings from a 2022 report by Yotpo on UGC:

• 52% of shoppers are more likely to purchase if they see positive reviews on social media.
• 50% of consumers are more likely to purchase an item if reviews and other USG are displayed throughout the brand’s site.
• 63% of consumers trust product reviews more if they include photos or videos.

In short, user-created content has undeniable benefits for businesses and marketers. It turns your customers into your biggest advocates, and it helps you earn the trust of shoppers who are still deciding whether to buy from your company.

3 User-Generated Content Examples

1. Instagram Hashtag UGC Campaign by Maurices

The women’s clothing brand Maurices encourages customers to post their new outfits on Instagram using the hashtag #discovermaurices. This successful UGC campaign has yielded over 315,000 Instagram posts.

Maurices’ customers have made well over a quarter-million posts promoting the company’s products. That’s a lot of free advertising!

In fact, Maurices’ own Instagram page has only posted about 7,000 times, so this UGC campaign has increased their social media presence 45x.

Maurices makes the most of this customer-generated content, featuring some of the Instagram photos on the homepage of their website.

That means every online shopper sees real-life examples of customers enjoying the brand’s clothes. Shoppers also learn that they, too, could be featured if they make their own UGC posts with the hashtag.

2. Reviews & Customer Photos on Etsy

When people shop on Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade products, they depend heavily on reviews. Etsy has over 6 million active sellers, so shoppers rely on UGC to determine the trustworthiness of sellers and the quality of the products.

On every Etsy product page, you can view reviews for that specific item or all reviews for that seller.

Etsy also allows customers to upload photos with their reviews, so shoppers can see exactly what the items actually look like. Each product page includes a gallery of customer photos.

For example, here’s the photo gallery for a shop that sells downloadable 3D printing files. These UGC photos show the results that customers have gotten when they printed the files:

Users can click each image to access its accompanying review. In this review for a customizable leather sign, visitors can see exactly what the final results look like:

Etsy is full of small businesses, startups, and individual sellers trying to win shoppers’ trust. UGC reviews and photos help accomplish this goal, by proving that other real customers are happy with their purchases.

3. UGC Testimonials for OptinMonster

Here at OptinMonster, we regularly collect testimonials from our customers. Those testimonials share real-life stories of how our lead-generation software has helped business grow their email lists and increase sales. Here’s an example of an OptinMonster testimonial from digital marketing expert Neil Patel:

We feature these testimonials heavily throughout our website. For example, we have a dedicated testimonial page:

We also showcase a testimonial right at the top of our pricing page:

We also regularly include testimonial quotes in our Exit-Intent® popups, such as this one:

When potential customers browse our site, they constantly see strong social proof of our product’s quality and benefits. This UGC has worked, helping OptinMonster grow to over 1.2 million users.

Want to learn more about testimonials? Check out these 2 articles:

• How to Ask for a Testimonial: 7+ Tips to Get Glowing Customer Quotes
• 10 Creative Examples of Testimonials to Win Customers

Best Practices for Gathering and Using UGC

Now that you understand the value of user-generated content, it’s time to implement a solid strategy for gathering and leveraging it. A well-planned UGC campaign can help you boost brand awareness, drive engagement, and build trust through authentic social proof. Here are some best practices to help you maximize the impact of UGC.

1. Set Clear Goals for Your UGC Campaign

Before launching a UGC campaign, you need to define your objectives. Is your goal to raise brand awareness, promote a new product, or increase subscribers? Knowing your goals will help you create a campaign that resonates with your audience and meets your marketing needs.

For example, if you’re looking to grow your social media presence, you could encourage customers to share their experiences using your product with a specific hashtag. This not only generates UGC but also boosts your visibility on platforms like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok.

If you’re focused on conversions, consider including customer-generated content throughout your website to build trust. Display customer photos, reviews, and testimonials on key landing pages.

2. Ask for UGC on Your Website

Your customers are already shopping on your site, so take advantage of that opportunity to ask for user-generated content.

By strategically prompting customers during their shopping journey, you can collect valuable UGC that builds trust and drives sales. Here are a few tips to get more UGC through your website:

• Include Review Requests on Product Pages: Allow customers to leave reviews and upload photos directly on your product pages. This is an easy way to gather authentic user feedback and real-life visuals of your products. Adding photos to reviews can boost trust even further. Be sure to feature a prominent “Write a Review” or “Upload a Photo” button to make it simple for users to contribute.
• Incorporate Call-to-Action Banners: Add a call-to-action (CTA) banner on your website inviting users to share their experiences. For example, a banner could say “Bought this product? Share your photo and get featured on our site!” This gentle nudge can motivate customers to submit UGC either through social media or directly on your site. You can create a banner in minutes with one of OptinMonster’s floating bar templates
• Use Post-Purchase Popups: After a customer makes a purchase, they’re at the peak of their positive experience. With OptinMonster, you can create post-purchase popups that encourage customers to submit UGC directly on your website or share it on social media with a branded hashtag.

OpinMonster has a popup template that’s perfect for getting short customer testimonials:

This is just one of OptinMonster’s 700+ pre-made templates, which you can easily customize in our drag-and-drop builder.

3. Use Email Marketing to Get UGC

Email marketing is one of the most effective tools for nurturing your customers and building long-term relationships. It’s also an excellent way to gather user-generated content from happy customers. Here are some strategies to encourage UGC through email marketing:

• Send Post-Purchase Emails: After a customer has made a purchase, follow up with a post-purchase email asking them to share their experience. Timing is key here. Send the email after they’ve had a chance to use the product, and include a direct call-to-action (CTA) asking them to submit a review, upload a photo, or share a testimonial. For example, your email could say, “Loved your purchase? Share a photo of your new [product] and tag us on Instagram to get featured!” You can even incentivize the request by offering a discount or small reward for sharing.
• Include a Review Request in Your Follow-Up Emails: If a customer hasn’t shared a review or UGC after their initial purchase, include a gentle reminder in your follow-up emails. These emails can remind them how valuable their feedback is to your brand and can include a quick link to submit a review or upload a photo.
• Feature User-Generated Content in Your Emails: Featuring UGC in your marketing emails can inspire other customers to contribute their own content. For example, include a section in your email showcasing photos or reviews from real customers. Then add a CTA encouraging readers to submit their own UGC for a chance to be featured. Seeing how other customers are recognized will motivate your subscribers to participate as well.

4. Run UGC Contests and Giveaways

Contests are an excellent way to incentivize UGC. By offering a prize, you encourage users to participate, creating a sense of excitement around your brand. The best part? You can gather a lot of high-quality content from your customers in a short period.

RafflePress, the leading WordPress giveaway plugin, makes it simple to host UGC contests.

With its Image Submission feature, participants can easily upload their photo entries, and you can manage submissions from your dashboard. It’s the easiest way to run viral contests that generate UGC.

Start Hosting Contests with RafflePress!

5. Feature User-Generated Content on Your Website

Now that you’ve gathered all this valuable UGC, it’s time to show it off! When potential buyers see real people using and enjoying your products, it provides powerful social proof that can drive sales. If you run an eCommerce store, make sure that your reviews are displayed prominently on all product pages. For other online businesses, you should feature testimonials on high-profile pages, such as your pricing page or subscription page.

If you really want to highlight your customer-generated content, Smash Balloon has a suite of WordPress plugins that let you easily embed social media and review feeds on your website.

These plugins include:

• Facebook Feed Pro: Display Facebook reviews and community posts right on your website.
• Instagram Feed Pro: Set up hashtag feeds to promote your UGC campaigns.
• Twitter Feed Pro: Embed X feeds based on hashtags or search terms
• Reviews Feed Pro: Create a feed of 3rd party reviews from platforms like Google, Yelp, TrustPilot, WordPress.org, TripAdvisor, and Facebook.

Learn more about these plugins in my complete Smash Balloon review. Then, you can choose to purchase the All Access Bundle or select 1 or 2 of these plugins.

Show Off Your UGC With Smash Balloon!

6. Always Get Explicit Consent Before Sharing

When gathering UGC, always ensure that you have the proper permissions to use and share customer content. Tools like SmashBalloon display feeds directly from the social media sites that users are posting to, so you don’t have to worry about asking permision.

However, if you’re going to share the UGC in other ways, you should always get explicit permission first.

For example, if you use an OptinMonster popup to ask for a testimonial, you can add a checkbox that says something like:

I agree that [brand name] can use my comment and first name for marketing

Alternatively, you can require an email address, so you can ask permission in a follow-up email.

Grow Your Business With User-Generated Content

User-generated content is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to brands today. It turns your customers into marketers, and it builds credibility, increases engagement, and drives sales. By incorporating UGC throughout your website, emails, and social media, you give potential customers the reassurance they need to choose your product.

Thankfully, there are several tools available to help you gather and showcase your UGC:

• Ask for reviews and testimonials with onsite popups from OptinMonster
• Use RafflePress to host UGC giveaways
• Embed UGC feeds on your website with Smash Balloon
• Add testimonials to your OptinMonster Exit-Intent® popups to convince abandoning visitors to complete their purchase

Related Resources:

• How to Get More Reviews (10 Tips)
• Social Proof Statistics: Powerful Facts That Will Help Boost Your Brand
• How to Increase Sales With Social Media: 9 Expert Tips
• 21 Best Social Proof Tools Your Business Needs for Growth
• Best Instagram Plugins for WordPress

Marketers have long used FOMO to influence consumer behavior and drive results. However, many still lack a clear understanding of FOMO marketing and how it can effectively boost eCommerce sales.

But there’s nothing to worry about because in this FOMO marketing guide, we will explain what FOMO means, what FOMO marketing is, and why it is so effective.

In the end, we will share FOMO marketing strategies and FOMO marketing examples so you can apply FOMO tactics in your marketing campaigns and enjoy the results yourself!

Here’s a table of contents for easy navigation:

1. What is FOMO?
2. What is FOMO Marketing?
3. Why Use FOMO Marketing?
4. FOMO Marketing Strategies
5. Best FOMO Marketing Examples

What is FOMO?

FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a psychological phenomenon that drives individuals to seek information, experiences, and social connections to avoid feeling left behind or excluded. This fear can influence decisions, behaviors, and emotional well-being.

According to a study published in Computers in Human Behavior, FOMO is

“a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.“

It is a psychological phenomenon characterized by the fear or anxiety of being left out of exciting or rewarding experiences. It stems from the innate desire to participate in social activities, events, or opportunities others enjoy.

Now let’s read about fear of missing out marketing.

What is FOMO Marketing?

FOMO marketing capitalizes on people’s fear of missing out to drive consumer engagement, urgency, and action. It typically includes messaging that triggers your target audience’s innate fear of missing out to make them more likely to convert.

By creating a sense of exclusivity, scarcity, and time-limited opportunities, FOMO marketing taps into the emotional response triggered by the potential loss of a valuable experience.

This marketing technique has proven highly effective because it captures attention, creates a sense of urgency, and compels consumers to take immediate action.

Why Use FOMO Marketing?

Let’s look at some FOMO statistics, as that’ll help you understand why FOMO marketing campaigns are so effective, especially with certain demographics.

A lot of data suggests that FOMO is most prevalent among millennials. Around 69% of millennials experience the phenomenon, and according to Strategy Online, 60% of millennials make impulsive purchases because of FOMO. In other words, they’ll buy something just because they feel they might miss out.

However, it’s not just millennials who suffer from FOMO. According to other data, more than half of people using social networks suffer from FOMO.

With more than 3 billion active social media users worldwide, according to We are Social, that’s a huge potential audience.

The bottom line: FOMO marketing is essential, no matter what age group or location you’re targeting.

FOMO Marketing Strategies

Let’s learn how to create FOMO in marketing by looking at the following FOMO marketing strategies.

A. Limited-Time Offers and Flash Sales

By offering time-limited discounts, promotions, or deals, businesses create a sense of urgency and encourage immediate purchase decisions.

• Countdown timers: Visually represent the urgency of the offer.
• Tiered discounts: Offer increasing discounts as the time limit approaches.
• Product bundles: Create additional value by bundling products for a limited time

Recommended Reading: 23 Stunning Sales Promotion Examples To Crush Your Sales

B. Exclusive Access and VIP Memberships

Providing exclusive access to special events, products, or content for loyal customers or members builds a sense of exclusivity and fosters customer loyalty.

• Loyalty programs: Reward repeat customers with exclusive perks and early access.
• Referral programs: Encourage customers to share products with friends for exclusive benefits.
• Tiered memberships: Offer varying levels of exclusivity based on membership tier.

Recommended Reading: What is a Membership Website? (7 Examples of Successful Membership Websites)

C. User-Generated Content and Social Proof

Showcasing real customer experiences and testimonials through user-generated content creates social proof and increases trust, thereby fueling FOMO.

• Live feeds: Display real-time purchases or interactions to demonstrate popularity.
• Influencer takeovers: Collaborate with influencers to showcase product usage and endorsements.
• Customer testimonials: Highlight positive experiences to build trust and credibility.

Recommended Reading: 30+ Proven Ways to Use Social Proof to Increase Your Conversions (Updated)

Recommended Reading: 18 Best Social Proof Software Tools to Boost Sales

D. Influencer Partnerships and Collaborations

Collaborating with influencers or industry experts to promote products or events can amplify FOMO by leveraging their authority and reach.

• Micro-influencer collaborations: Target niche audiences for more authentic engagement.
• Gifted products: Provide influencers with products to encourage organic promotion.
• Exclusive influencer codes: Offer unique discounts to drive sales and track performance.

Recommended Reading: Win Big at Influencer Marketing: An Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Best FOMO Marketing Examples

Now that we have gone through the FOMO meaning, FOMO marketing meaning, and strategies, it’s time to look at some FOMO marketing examples to see FOMO in action.

1. Show That People Are Buying

Some of the most effective FOMO marketing techniques trigger the feeling without even making a sales pitch.

These days, it’s not unusual to see live information on sales when you visit a website, as in this FOMO marketing example from SeedProd:

This shows a recent purchaser’s first name and location, so it’s clear it’s a real person. If visitors to your site know other people are buying, they’ll also want to buy.

SeedProd is using TrustPulse social proof notifications to create these popups.

Be sure to check out our guides on the best WooCommerce plugins and best Shopify apps for more useful tools like this.

Related ContentHow to Use a Recent Sales Popup to Boost Your Revenue

2. Display Best Selling or Top Rated Items

When website visitors are able to see what your best-selling or top-rated products are, it will give them a healthy dose of FOMO too. After all, when you see a cool product that other people are buying, you’ll want it for yourself.

So, be sure to display the best-selling or top-rated items prominently on your website. Here’s how the cosmetics company ColorPop does it:

You can easily display your best-selling or top-rated products in the same way with SeedProd.

SeedProd is the best drag-and-drop page builder for WordPress, and it comes with custom WooCommerce blocks. You can choose from a standard products grid, best-selling products, top-rated products, sale products, and more. Simply drag the product block and drop it onto your page.

You can even create a custom WooCommerce checkout page with a showcase of best-selling products. This is a great way to increase your average order value.

3. Highlight Missed Opportunities in Your Messaging

One site that’s great at using these FOMO tactics is Booking.com, which has multiple examples of FOMO on every page. In this tip, we’re focusing on ramping up FOMO by showing that visitors have actually missed out on a great deal.

Booking.com shows this with messaging showing when the property you’re looking at is sold out in big red letters:

As we move forward, you will see more FOMO marketing examples from Booking.com.

4. Show Stock Levels

Scarcity is a big component of FOMO marketing because if something’s about to run out, there’s a huge incentive to get it now. There are many ways to highlight scarcity.

For example, if you’re running an online store, you can show stock levels, as Amazon does:

Or, if you’re in the travel business, you could show the number of spaces left, as Booking.com does:

And you can ramp up the FOMO advertising with “while stocks last” messaging, that suggests that your product or service is about to run out or disappear:

For more inspiration, check out our article on scarcity examples.

5. Make Your Visitors Watch the Clock

When thinking about how to create FOMO, you can also look into urgency in marketing. It’s another tactic that triggers loss aversion, a fancy term for FOMO. If your visitors think they’ll miss out by running out of time, they’re more likely to reach for their virtual wallets and commit to a purchase.

You can do this by showing a countdown timer or even with messaging about when deals end, like in this FOMO marketing example on Amazon:

Or by offering different discount levels on different days, like the Chemical Guys:

Or by creating a countdown popup like this one:

Read How to Create Urgency in Marketing for more help implementing this tactic.

6. Stir Their Competitive Spirit

Not only do we not like missing out, but we hate the thought that others might get something great before we do. That’s why good FOMO marketing campaigns play on this feeling to inspire action. Here are a couple of examples.

Booking.com shows how many people are viewing a property. The underlying message is that if you don’t move fast, you’ll end up missing out:

Or you could show the number of people who’ve already taken a deal, as Amazon does:

If you’re in the software business, you could even show the number of users. Software companies often use FOMO with beta trials, where accepting limited numbers makes those few spaces seem very desirable.

7. Offer a One-Shot Deal With Exit-Intent®

OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent Technology® is a great way to deliver FOMO marketing campaigns. This powerful feature detects when people are about to leave your site and triggers a campaign just before they do.

It’s proven to work:

• Rich Page used exit-intent to boost conversions by 316%
• Ryan Robinson engineered a 500% increase in subscribers with exit-intent
• Podcast Insights combined exit-intent with our onsite retargeting feature to get a 1099% boost in conversions

To use exit-intent for FOMO marketing, follow our instructions for creating your first campaign, and create your discount offer. Enable exit-intent in the display rules section of the OptinMonster campaign builder:

Enable an additional display rule to specify which visitors should see the campaign. For example, you can show the campaign only to visitors on certain pages with page-level targeting.

8. Limit Free Shipping

Did you know that around 90% of shoppers list free shipping as their prime incentive for buying online? That’s one reason why FOMO marketing campaigns that limit free shipping can be really effective.

C’mon, we’ve all bought something extra on Amazon to get free delivery, haven’t we? If people feel they’ll miss out on free shipping by not making a purchase, they’ll likely make it, especially if the additional expenditure is relatively small.

Let your customers know how much more they have to spend to get free shipping, or simply place a banner at the top of your page, showing the threshold for obtaining that benefit. You can easily do this with one of OptinMonster’s floating bar campaigns.

Pro TipDid you know you can use the same floating bar campaigns to create custom alerts for your customers? Learn why you to create a website alert banner to keep your customers well-informed.

9. Be Explicit about FOMO

You don’t have to hide the fact that you’re using FOMO marketing. You can come right out and say it, as Rue La La does in this campaign:

Image Source

You don’t have to hide the fact that you’re using FOMO marketing. You can come right out and say it, as Rue La La does in this FOMO marketing example:

10. Let Your Content Expire

As a business, a lot of your content marketing strategy is about creating content that’ll stick around so you can use it to build authority, get inbound links, improve your search ranking, and win customers.

But there’s another way to pique visitors’ interest by using a FOMO marketing tactic: expiring content. Expiring content mixes urgency, scarcity, and exclusivity to ramp up that FOMO vibe.

Snapchat is the ultimate example of expiring content. One of the reasons Snapchat is so successful, and why teenagers can never leave their phones, is because if you don’t see the content while it’s there, you’ll lose your chance forever.

And here’s a thought: those early Snapchat users (the site launched in 2011) will soon be in their 20s, and they’ve grown up with this FOMO mindset.

Software companies use this same principle when they’re about to change their pricing plans, giving users an option to lock in the old price before it’s too late. Here’s an example from Iconica:

11. Use a Content Upgrade

While we’re on the subject of content, an opt-in content upgrade is a great FOMO marketing technique. That’s because gating content means there’s scarcity in our minds at least, and scarcity triggers FOMO.

You can use OptinMonster to gate content with our Content Lock feature to make visitors want your content upgrades.

OptinMonster customers have used content upgrades to boost conversions by 150% and increase customer retention by 72%.

To implement this, use your blog posts as content upgrades or try one of these ideas.

12. Trigger FOMO with Images

People respond to visuals, so when creating FOMO marketing campaigns, it’s essential to get the images right. An excellent FOMO marketing example comes from Express, which offers a rewards program.

As Stephan Brady points out, along with the “don’t miss out” messaging, the background image suggests that opting in will ensure you have a great time, which means you’re missing the party if you don’t opt-in.

To find the right images for your FOMO marketing campaigns, check out our guide to finding free images online.

13. Make Your Offer Exclusive

There’s nothing to trigger FOMO like exclusivity. As human beings, we love the thought of getting our hands on an opportunity very few people have. Don’t believe us? Check out any airport boarding gate and see how happy the people with priority access are.

Or think about how many people have signed up for Amazon Prime (more than 100 million!) to get deals other Amazon shoppers can’t get.

While those are great FOMO marketing examples, you can also use exclusivity by creating a limited-edition product or service. In the example below, Heinz combines this with time-based scarcity to make a compelling FOMO marketing offer:

14. Show Social Proof

Social proof is a highly effective marketing tactic, and not just for FOMO marketing campaigns. That’s because, besides the FOMO factor, social proof ties into our need to be part of a group.

If other people like us are sharing, engaging, or buying, we want to do it too, so we’ll feel a sense of belonging and won’t miss out.

The best way to leverage the power of social proof is by using TrustPulse. TrustPulse is a social proof software that can instantly increase site conversion rate by up to 15% by showing off real-time, verified customer activity right on your page in a little popup bubble:

TrustPulse also lets you show “On Fire” notifications that are great for leveraging FOMO on landing pages and checkouts:

Get Started for FREEYou can get started with TrustPulse for free!

You can also use social proof by showing the number of customer reviews a product has:

Or by showing huge numbers of people you’ve helped, as we do on our own site:

To use social proof as a FOMO marketing tactic, check out these social proof tips and examples.

15. Promote Experiences

Another way to use FOMO tactics is to let your users help. Using user-generated content (UGC) lets visitors and potential customers vicariously share in the experience of using your products and services, so they want to do it too. After all, real proof from real people is going to be much more compelling than any of your FOMO advertising campaigns.

Here’s an example of UGC from Wayfair, under the #wayfairathome social media hashtag:

And instead of leaving all of your UGC on social media, you can seamlessly integrate it into your website using a plugin like Smash Balloon.

With Smash Balloon’s Instagram Feed Pro, you can easily embed an Instagram hashtag feed anywhere on your site to showcase UGC.

It’s super simple to set up and you can completely customize your feed. You can choose from different layouts, design the feed to match your brand, hide or show likes and comments, highlight specific posts, and more.

Check out this guide on how to add an Instagram hashtag feed to WordPress for more details.

16. Offer Rewards for Early Decisions

Giving a freebie is a good way to attract customers. However, you can make it even more effective by limiting that freebie. Offline, you see this tactic when stores offer a gift or special discount to the first 100 customers, and that usually makes hundreds of people line up.

Online, you can follow the example of Huawei, and offer a gift for the first 100 purchasers:

Image Source

17. Boost FOMO Marketing with Email

Email marketing remains a great way to reach your customers. Our email marketing statistics roundup shows around 90% of people use it. So it’s an excellent tool for FOMO marketing campaigns.

You can effectively use email marketing with any other FOMO marketing examples we’ve listed. For example, you can send emails to:

• Let subscribers know about exclusive deals or rewards
• Tell them when items they’ve saved are about to run out
• Remind them about items in their shopping cart with cart abandonment messages

You can also combine FOMO email messaging with onsite retargeting to offer subscribers who follow a link a special deal via a popup marketing campaign.

Here’s how you can enable onsite behavioral retargeting with OptinMonster.

Recommended Reading: How to Grow Your Email List: 23 Proven and Simple Ways

That’s it! Now you can use these easy-to-implement FOMO marketing examples to get more FOMO sales from visitors and customers. Next, see how to boost sales on Shopify, and to increase average order value with upselling examples.

And follow us on YouTube,Facebook, and Twitter for more marketing tips and tricks and in-depth guides.

FOMO Marketing FAQs

1. What is FOMO in marketing?

FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, in marketing refers to a strategy designed to evoke anxiety in consumers that others are enjoying experiences or possessing products that they are not, potentially leading to a feeling of missing out. This tactic encourages consumers to make quicker decisions to purchase, subscribe, or engage with a product or service to avoid the feeling of being left out.

2. How to create FOMO in marketing?

To create FOMO in marketing, you can:

1. Limited Time Offers: Promote products or services as time-sensitive to create urgency.
2. Exclusive Content or Products: Offer special editions or early access to products for a select group of customers.
3. Social Proof: Use testimonials, user reviews, and social media shares to show how others are benefiting from your offerings.
4. Countdown Timers: Include these in your promotions to remind customers of dwindling time to act.
5. Highlight Popularity: Show how popular an item is, indicating high demand and potential sell-out risk.

3. How to use FOMO in marketing?

To effectively use FOMO in marketing:

• Segment Your Audience: Tailor your messages to different segments to make them more personal and relevant.
• Leverage Social Media: Use platforms where your audience is active to share user-generated content, testimonials, and live events.
• Email Campaigns: Send targeted emails highlighting limited offers, exclusive deals, and last chances.
• Remarketing: Remind visitors who left your site without purchasing about what they’re potentially missing out on.

4. Is FOMO marketing ethical?

FOMO marketing, or Fear of Missing Out marketing walks a fine line ethically. When used responsibly, it can be a powerful and legitimate marketing strategy. However, it becomes unethical if it deliberately misleads consumers, creates unnecessary anxiety, or exploits vulnerable individuals. Marketers need to ensure their FOMO tactics are truthful and not manipulative, maintaining transparency and integrity in their campaigns.

What does FOMO stand for in business?

In business, FOMO stands for “Fear of Missing Out.” It refers to the strategy of leveraging consumers’ fears of missing out on benefits, experiences, or products that others have. This concept is used to drive decisions and actions like purchases, subscriptions, and participation in events.

5.  What is FOMO in retail?

In retail, FOMO is used to drive immediate sales by creating a sense of urgency and scarcity around products. Retailers may implement FOMO through flash sales, limited-edition products, or exclusive offers that are only available for a short period. This strategy helps to increase foot traffic in stores or clicks online by encouraging consumers to act quickly to avoid missing out.

6. What are FOMO ads?

FOMO ads are a marketing strategy that exploits the human fear of missing out by creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity to encourage immediate action from consumers.

If you want to start a blog that makes money, it’s important to be in the loop with the latest trends so that you’re not missing out on any opportunities to increase your traffic or revenue.

Let’s dive right in!

Ultimate List of Blogging Statistics and Facts

We hope these blogging stats give you some insight and help you make healthy decisions for your blog’s future.

General Blogging Statistics

1. 7.5 million blog posts are published every day.
2. More than 409 million people view over 20 billion pages each month on WordPress.com.
3. On average, it takes about 4 hours to write a blog post.
4. The average reader spends 52 seconds reading a blog post.
5. There are approximately 600 million blogs in the world in 2023.
6. The average blog post length is 1,416 words in 2023.
7. Only 14% of bloggers write blog content that’s 2,000+ words in length.
8. 44% of bloggers publish new content between three to six times monthly.
9. 65% of content marketers say they have a documented content strategy.
10. 71% of B2B buyers consume blog content during their buyer journey.
11. A blog increases your chances of ranking higher in search by 434%.
12. 61% of Americans spend 3X more time-consuming blog content than emails.
13. Blog posts with 6-13 word long headlines tend to drive more traffic.
14. Odd-numbered headlines perform better than their even-numbered counterparts.

Blogging SEO Stats

15. Only 38% of bloggers are updating older articles.
16. 34% of bloggers say that updating content produces strong results.
17. Around 5% of bloggers don’t have access to analytics.
18. Titles with 6-13 words attract the highest and most consistent amount of traffic.
19. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.
20. 72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO tactic.

Want more SEO statistics? We got you covered.

Blogging Traffic Stats

21. Businesses that blog experience twice as much email traffic as businesses who don’t.
22. Having a hyphen or colon in the headline increased click-through rates by 9%.
23. Making your headline 6-8 words can increase your CTR by 21%.
24. Over 50% of bloggers report that it has gotten harder to get traffic from Facebook over the past two years, and nearly one-fifth say it has gotten harder to get traffic from Google.
25. Over the past year, there’s been a 93% increase in blogs using promotional techniques to drive traffic to their post including paid ads.

Guest Blogging Statistics

26. 60% of blogs write 1-5 guest posts per month.
27. 3% of blogs write over 100 guest posts per month.
28. Only 6% of bloggers publish the majority of their original content as guest posts.
29. 62.96% of readers perceive blogs with multiple authors to be more credible.
30. 79% of editors say guest content is too promotional.
31. Guest content is in higher demand in the summer months of June, July, and August.

Travel Blogging Statistics

32. 59% of travel bloggers run more than one travel blog.
33. Over 80% of travel planning is done through the internet and is growing.
34. 33% of US travelers use travel blogs for travel advice.
35. The majority of travel blogs are between 1-4 years old.
36. Most travel blogs use publication and sponsored posts as one of the main income sources.
37. The average travel blogger will charge an average of $200 per sponsored post.
38. 94% of travel blogs sell advertising.
39. Most travel blog’s traffic mainly stems from non-brand search with direct traffic a distant second.

Blogging Growth Stats

40. The number of bloggers in the USA is expected to grow to 31.7 million in 2020.
41. There are more than 500 million blogs that exist in 2019.
42. Tumblr has more than 440 million blogs.
43. WordPress has about 60 million blogs.
44. Blogging has grown by 12% since 2015.
45. At this moment, there are roughly 1.9 billion web pages. Judging by the growth rate, we will be hitting 2 billion in less than a year.
46. The average blog post is 1151 words, that’s a 42% increase in the last 5 years.

Social Media Blogging Statistics

47. 66% of marketers reported using blogs in their social media content in 2017.
48. 59% of people will share an article without reading it first, or ever.
49. LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform for delivering content and securing audience engagement.
50. 95.9% of bloggers promote their blog posts via social media.
51. Tumblr had 456.1 million blog accounts as of January 2019.
52. 69% of bloggers say they use social share buttons.

Blogging With Visuals and Videos Stats

53. Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals.
54. 71% of bloggers report using visuals as part of their marketing strategy.
55. Using photos of real people instead of stock photos can result in a 35% conversion increase.
56. 43% of consumers increasingly want video content from marketers.
57. 19% of bloggers are now including video in their typical posts.
58. 45% of bloggers who add audio to their posts such as podcast see better results.
59. Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search traffic than plain text.
60. 32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their businesses.

Blogging Statistics for Marketers

61. Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to have a positive ROI on their efforts.
62. 61% of the most effective B2B content marketers meet with their content team daily or weekly.
63. 64% of B2B marketers outsource blog copywriting.
64. Spending on marketing automation tools is expected to reach $25.1 billion annually by 2023.
65. 60% of marketers have a documented personalization strategy.
66. 57% of marketers say they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging.
67. 53% of marketers say blogging is their top content marketing priority.
68. B2B marketers who have blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t.
69. Around 60% of marketer will reuse blog content 2-3 times.
70. 60% of B2B marketers struggle with creating engaging content.

How To Ensure Your Blog Stays Relevant

The blogging industry has become extremely saturated. Ever since the first bloggers shared their success stories publicly, more and more people are getting into the industry.

As a result, competition has gotten higher, and surviving as a blog these days has become increasingly difficult. If you’re not putting in the effort, you’re more than likely going to fail.

But there’s one very important thing you can do that most thriving blogs are doing today. That’s to create “evergreen content”, which is essentially content that doesn’t have an expiry date. People can look back at it in years from now and still find it useful.

It’s also common for bloggers to revisit old content and update the information to provide a fresh take on the subject. Bloggers have stated that content that gets touched up like this is an excellent way to boost SEO.

Related Content13 Best Blog Sites: Which Is Right For You?

Blogging Predictions

So, now that you know this information, what do you do with it?

It’s difficult to know the answer to that unless we first look at where blogging is going, and if it’s still worth putting time and energy into your blogging efforts.

Like Bitcoin, we could be seeing blogging’s peak at the moment, and one day we could wake up to a huge crash.

But as the blogging statistics show, it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. It’s still totally relevant in 2024 and is steadily rising.

It might be hard to determine exactly how many blogs there are out there at any given moment. The blog marketing stats say about 600 million, although that number also includes inactive sites, which may affect the accuracy of the statistic.

Also, not all platforms choose to share their data publicly.

And although it may be hard to accurately gauge how many blogs there are, one thing’s for sure: At this rate, we will be celebrating 1 billion blogs in no time!

Let’s see what the future holds.

Sources (aka, “Everything We Went Through so You Didn’t Have To!” ? )
HubSpot | SEO Tribunal | TopRank | Content Marketing Institute | IsItWP | Jeff Bullas | Marketing Experiments | Social Media Examiner | Statista | Travel Memo | Professional Travel Bloggers Association | Referral Rock | SEJ | Junto | Orbit Media | Impact | Tech Client | ConversionXL | WordPress | Neil Patel | Red Website Design | Growth Badger | Hosting Tribunal  | Tech Jury

To make it worse, Google keeps alerting with the algorithm and occasionally drops updates, creating a living hell for an SEO professional.

But if you want your Google rankings to go from unseen to the top of the list, you have to be in the know.

Therefore, this guide shares the most essential and updated SEO ranking factors for thriving in organic search results.

We’ve created this handy table of contents if you want to skip ahead to the SEO ranking factors.

1. A Secure and Accessible Website
2. Page Speed (Including Mobile Page Speed)
3. Mobile Friendliness
4. Domain Age, URL, and Authority
5. Optimized Content
6. Technical SEO
7. User Experience (RankBrain)
8. Links (Backlinks, Outbound and Internal)
9. Social Signals
10. Real Business Information

Before we get into the details of each ranking factor, let’s take a quick look at the basics of search engine optimization ranking.

Stick around until the end of this article as we finally answer the question that plagues most beginner SEO learners: which is more important, pleasing Google or my audience?

Recommended Resource: Need more website traffic? Learn how to rank #1 on Google with our Ultimate Guide to SEO.

Understanding SEO, or “How Do I Rank Higher on Google?”

Many people wonder how Google rankings work. So before we get into the actual SEO ranking factors, let’s start by answering some basic questions most people have about SEO.

What Is SEO Ranking?

SEO ranking is a website’s position on search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords or phrases. The higher a website ranks, the more likely it is to be seen, resulting in more clicks and traffic to the website.

Appearing in the top 3 results is excellent because your click-through rates skyrocket the closer you get to #1, as shown in the image provided by Backlinko below:

Appearing on the first page within the top 10 results is also useful. That’s because 95% of people never pass the first page.

Hence the famous joke in the Google SEO ranking world: where’s the best place to hide a dead body?

On page 2 of Google.

What Does Google Look for in SEO?

Google aims to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Delivering relevant search results is a huge part of that. Here’s how they work:

First, Google’s search bots (pieces of automated software called “spiders” or “crawlers”) crawl the web. Sounds creepy, we know. But all that means is they visit web pages.

Second, they add correctly optimized and crawlable pages to Google’s index and catalog them.

Third, when people search Google, it shows what it thinks are the most relevant results based on the search terms they enter (out of the trillions of pages in Google’s index).

Google has various deeply complex algorithms to decide which content gets displayed and in which order. But we’ll get into all that fun stuff later.

Once your page lands on the SERP, you have to rely on your page titles and meta descriptions to get searchers to click your link and visit your site.

How Do Google Search Rankings Work?

When people want to find information, they type or say words related to what they’re looking for. Those are called keywords, and we’ll look at those in the content optimization section of this guide.

But keeping your website ranking on Google isn’t just about making the most out of competitive keywords. It’s also about the quality of information.

According to Google’s own search quality ratings, when it indexes the main content of each page, it checks factors like:

• Purpose of the page
• Content quality and amount
• Website info and info about the content creator
• Website reputation and content creator reputation
• User interaction with the page (time on page, bounce rates, and so on)
• Expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T)

In just a moment, we’re going to explore that last one (E-A-T) in more detail because it has become very important.

For now, it’s enough to know that all the factors listed above go into Google’s algorithm and help to determine SEO ranking.

Based on the rating guidelines above, Google shows searchers the most relevant, high-quality results related to what they’re looking for. The most relevant are shown first, with the rest shown over successive pages.

One of the goals of addressing SEO ranking factors is to let Google know when your pages on your site are relevant to particular search queries, so people will click the links and visit your site.

Before getting into two types of SEO, let’s explore the concept of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in greater detail.

What Is E-A-T and Why Does It Matter?

In August 2018, Google rolled out the “medic update,” which emphasized expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) as major Google ranking factors. They even changed some instances of “high-quality content” to “high EAT.”

The goal of this change was to ensure that users weren’t just getting the highest quality content but also getting the right information from that content. And this is super important to understand.

Google realized that most searchers come to their platform for just about everything. That means their users’ lives could be seriously impacted for the worse if the wrong results appear.

Websites that could lead to potentially life-altering results fall under the umbrella “your money or your life” (YMYL). Think about medical sites, financial planning sites, or anything that could change the status of someone’s happiness, health, and wealth.

When someone goes to Google for information that could have real-world consequences, Google wants to be sure it’s giving its users the most accurate information possible.

Part of this means evaluating not only a page’s content but the creator’s reputation as well.

So instead of focusing solely on what a site’s page says, Google now tries to understand who is saying it. This is particularly true for the YMYL sites.

That means looking at each category individually:

• Expertise: Does the author of a piece of content have the requisite skills and knowledge in their field?
• Authority: Is this the best source to answer the searcher’s question, or is there another “go-to” person who would be a better source?
• Trustworthiness: Does the author provide an honest, unbiased presentation of the topic in their content?

But what is Google’s exact formula for measuring E-A-T? Well, that’s the tricky part.

No one outside of Google really knows.

However, we know they have a large team of human searchers to make sure E-A-T is being measured as accurately as possible. As Ahrefs explains, Google measures E-A-T in three

steps:

• Engineers create an algorithm to improve search results
• Quality Raters (the human searchers) see search results with and without the changes made by the engineers
• Google takes feedback from the Quality Raters to decide whether or not to use the algorithm change permanently

It’s not a perfect system yet. But it is surprisingly accurate at measuring a site’s expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.

Now, some SEO-ers downplay the importance of E-A-T as an SEO ranking factor. And it’s hard to concretely argue with them because, again, no one truly understands Google’s complex ranking algorithms.

That said, some reputable people have documented strong correlations between E-A-T and ranking.

SEO expert Marie Haynes, CEO of Marie Haynes Consulting (MHC), sheds some light on how E-A-T affects SEO rankings:

“The team at MHC has seen quite a few websites that we believe have been negatively affected by Google Quality updates because they have a lack of E-A-T. We have also had the joy of helping businesses to improve their Google E-A-T with resulting traffic increases.”

Ok, but what does any of this mean for you, and how can you increase your E-A-T? Here are a few helpful tips:

• Create a detailed “About Us” page on your site
• Optimize your page for searcher intent (which we’ll cover later)
• Display any awards, certificates, or credentials proudly on your site
• Build your authoritativeness across the web with guest posts
• Respond to both positive and negative reviews
• Keep all the information on your page as unbiased and as accurate as possible
• Provide an easily accessible contact page with various ways your users can reach you or your team

These are all ways that people can increase their E-A-T for higher SEO rankings. And much of it boils down to using best practices to manage your online reputation.

Let’s be clear, though: there’s never a guarantee of a page one or #1 rank, and with SEO guidelines changing all the time, search engine rankings change with them.

But now, let’s better understand a couple of SEO terms you’ll hear a lot in the marketing world.

What is On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO?

Two terms you’ll hear mentioned a lot when talking about SEO ranking factors are on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO refers to factors on your own website that you can optimize, such as the underlying code and the content.

Off-page SEO refers to actions taken outside your site to affect your site’s trustworthiness and authority by building the right inbound links and social signals.

Both types are included in the top SEO ranking factors. Before we hit our top 10 ranking factors, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about monitoring and tracking ranking.

How To Monitor Search Engine Rankings

Before improving your SEO ranking, you’ll need to know your starting point.

There are a couple of ways to find this. First, search Google using the terms you think your customers will use. Use an incognito or private window in your browser so Google’s personalization doesn’t skew the results. See where your content appears.

However, this is impractical for larger sites with hundreds of pages, so you’ll likely want an SEO tool to help you out.

For example, with Semrush, you can type your domain into the search box, wait for the report to run, and see the top organic keywords you’re ranking for. Or, use their keyword position tracking tool to track the exact keywords you’re trying to SEO rank for.

But Semrush is just one of your many options. Check out our guide for some other keyword research tools.

Now let’s look in detail at the top SEO ranking factors and how to go about mastering Google search engine optimization ranking. After all, SEO is mostly about getting that #1 spot, specifically on Google.

Top 10 Current SEO Ranking Factors for Google

1. A Secure and Accessible Website

Unsurprisingly, the first of our SEO ranking factors has to do with having the right kind of URL. Specifically, that’s a URL that Google’s crawlers can easily reach and crawl.

In other words, Google has to be able to visit the URL and look at the page content to understand what that page is about. To help the bots out, you’ll need the following:

• A website created with a well-coded website builder
• A robots.txt file that tells Google where it can and can’t look for your site information
• A sitemap that lists all your pages

If you’re running a WordPress site, you can set up a sitemap via All in One SEO. If not, then you can use an online sitemap generator.

HTTPS isn’t a Google ranking factors in deciding whether or not to index a page, but Google’s own John Mueller has tweeted that it’s a “light-weight ranking factor” and that “having HTTPS is great for users.” We at OptinMonster agree.

If you still need to enable SSL security on your website, get to it.

2. Page Speed (Including Mobile Page Speed)

Page speed has been cited as one of the leading SEO ranking factors for years. Google wants to improve users’ web experience, and fast-loading web pages will do that.

Google announced a search engine algorithm update focused on mobile page speed that started affecting sites in July 2018. It could be penalized if your site doesn’t load fast on mobile devices.

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insight tool to see how your site stacks up.

And, if you’re using WordPress, check out these tips for speeding up a WordPress site from WPBeginner.

But the best idea is to start using Google Search Console (if you’re not already). This has an entire section dedicated to updating you on your site’s performance, including speed.

For a more in-depth overview, check out this guide on how to use Google Search Console to improve your SEO.

3. Mobile Friendliness

While we’re on the subject of mobile, mobile-friendliness is another major SEO ranking factor. More people use mobile devices than desktops to access the web, and that’s one reason there’ve been changes in how Google ranks search results.

Google’s mobile-first index is now a reality, which means it’s drawing its results from mobile-optimized sites first rather than sites geared to desktop computers. If your site is mobile-optimized, you can avoid getting needlessly under-ranked.

Many of the SEO ranking factors we’ll look at in this article will help you lay the foundation for a good search engine ranking, but you also have to look after user experience when people land on your site.

Things to look at include whether you:

• Have a responsive site that automatically resizes to fit the device
• Use large fonts for easy readability on a small screen
• Include accessible menus so your site is easy to navigate
• Ensure that ads don’t hide essential content

Get more tips on mobile-friendly design to improve Google search ranking in our guide to improving your mobile conversion rate.

If you have the team, the time, and the energy, you should explore Google AMP (accelerated mobile pages). The upside is that your pages load nearly instantly from mobile devices. There have also been rumors that Google ranks sites built with AMP more highly than others.

The downside is that you need to make another version of your site following AMP’s guidelines. Then, you need to maintain everything. As you can imagine, this can be a time-intensive project.

But whether you decide to try Google AMP or not, you still need to be sure that your site is 100% optimized for mobile devices.

4. Domain Age, URL, and Authority

Did you know that nearly 60% of the sites with a top ten Google search ranking are three or more years old? Data from an Ahrefs study of two million pages suggests fewer sites than a year old achieve that ranking.

So if you’ve had your site for a while and have optimized it using the tips in this article, that’s already an advantage.

In some cases, the domain name matters. Though Google has penalized exact-match domains (those where the target keyword is in the URL), that penalty is generally for spammy sites with thin content.

Research from Moz shows that exact-match domains deemed relevant, valuable, and high-quality can see a ranking boost because of it. However, if you already have an established website, you don’t need to go looking for an exact-match domain for your business.

What is the best route for choosing your domain? Focus on a URL that reflects your business and optimize the heck out of it instead!

When it comes to SEO ranking factors, authority matters. As you’ll see, that’s usually a combination of great content (see the next tip) and off-page SEO signals like inbound links and social shares. And thanks to E-A-T, it can also include the authority of the content’s creator.

Moz has codified this into metrics called page authority and domain authority scores, both ranked from 0 to 100, which tell you how likely a particular page or domain is to rank in organic search results.

Related ContentDomain Authority: What It Is and How to Improve Yours

You can check domain authority or page authority with Open Site Explorer. Just plug your URL into the onsite search box, and you’ll get a report showing domain authority, page authority, established links, and new links.

We’ll look more at linking practices to improve SEO ranking in tip #8.

5. Optimized Content

We’ve discussed content in this guide to Google SEO ranking factors. That’s because it’s one of the most important search ranking factors (right up there with user experience, links, and RankBrain, which we’ll get to in a while).

Now let’s dig down and see what optimizing content for SEO really means.

As our keyword research guide said, Google’s search algorithm relies on keywords. These are the words and phrases searchers use when seeking information. They’re also the words and phrases describing your site’s topics.

Ideally, those will match up. That’s why it’s so important to use keywords in your content.

One negative SEO ranking factor to be aware of is duplicate content. For SEO, fresh, original content is always best. And if you have similar content, tell Google which one should be ranked as most authoritative using canonical URLs.

But one of the biggest questions we get at OptinMonster is about how to use LSI keywords to optimize content. So let’s start there.

Understanding LSI Keywords and SEO Ranking

SEO isn’t just about the main keyword. It’s also important to include terms related to the main terms people are searching for. These are called LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords. They provide a kind of online word association to help Google know which results to show.

For example, using the right LSI keywords will tell Google that when searchers type in “mini,” your page is relevant to the car rather than the skirt, and vice versa.

It’s worth noting that as more people search by voice, content optimization includes optimizing for questions and natural language searches. That means some LSI keywords will be longer because people speak differently than they type.

Think about it: Let’s say you own a restaurant. And half of your customers type the phrase “best restaurant near me.” But then people also search for “what’s the best restaurant in Montreal” when searching by voice.

Even though both questions are targeting the same thing, Google’s results may show up differently. Using LSI keywords would be one way of making sure your restaurant ranks for both sets of questions. The more help you can give to Google to understand your content, the more likely your page SEO rank will increase in your niche.

Here’s an important point, though: keyword stuffing is outlawed because it will result in poor-quality web pages and will hurt your SEO ranking.

So make sure that once you’ve targeted your keyword, you’re only including it (and your LSI keywords) in an organic and natural way.

Understanding Search Intent for Content Optimization

Search intent is also important when optimizing content. That means understanding what people are really looking for when they type in search keywords.

For example, let’s say you’ve identified “Florida real estate” as a keyword you want to rank for. You might think that writing content for people looking for real estate in Florida is a good idea. But if the people searching for that term also include realtors looking to sell in Florida, your content won’t meet their needs, and your page won’t rank.

Through a series of low click-through rates and high bounce rates (which we’ll discuss more in a moment), Google will pick up on the fact that your content isn’t matching their user’s search intent.

Sometimes, it’s clear what people are looking for. For example, if they use the word “compare,” they’re likely trying to decide between buying a product. And if they use the word “buy,” they want to make a purchase.

The keywords they use will change depending on whether they want to:

• Find a particular website (navigational)
• Get the answer to a question (informational)
• Research information before making a purchase (investigational)
• Make a purchase (transactional)

Well-optimized business sites will include content for each of those search types.

So how do you make sure your keyword matches user intent? Go straight to the source!

Open a Google search in your in-private browser and type in your keyword. See which results are currently ranking and determine whether or not your content would be a good fit. If not, you need to restart your keyword research. If so, take this opportunity to see why certain pages are ranking.

You can do a competitive analysis of the top 10 results in the SERP to see how you can make your content even better! Then you can fully optimize your content by making it an improvement over the current search results.

Do you still need clarification? Learn more about keyword ranking, LSI keywords, and keyword intent.

Is Content Length an SEO Ranking Factor?

In a word, yes. Google wants content to be quality and have some length to it. While writing more words to stretch out the size is never advisable, if a subject calls for depth, give it depth.

The research suggests that content over 2000 words gets more top ten positions in Google search engine rankings.

This isn’t a rule set in stone, and there are certainly some exceptions. But as a general rule of thumb, your content should be around the 2k word mark or more if you really want to be competitive on the SERP.

Longer content attracts more links and shares too, which are two other important SEO ranking signals we’ll cover shortly.

SEO Ranking Factors: Answer Boxes or the “Zero Position”

Google’s increasingly delivering answers via answer boxes is another aspect of optimizing for better search engine rankings. Here’s what an answer box looks like:

Our experience suggests that optimizing for answer boxes means:

• Answering questions
• Including the questions as headings with properly formatted title tags (more about that in the next tip)
• Ensuring that the answers are correct, relevant, and not too long
• Targeting content to keywords that already have answer boxes
• Adding lists or tables

There is one downside to the coveted “zero position” however:

It sometimes hinders people from clicking through to your site.

Since people get the answer to their questions directly, they may have no reason to continue to the content. That means you may have 100,000 people see your slot in the answer box, but only 10,000 actually click through to the article.

But let’s be honest: getting that zero position rocks because it means Google thinks highly of your content (which is always flattering), you’ll get way more brand recognition, and you’ll also end up with more traffic than you would have.

Plus, if you don’t get that spot, someone else will.

Using Video to Improve SEO Ranking

Our roundup of video marketing stats shows that:

• People are watching videos across all age groups
• Some 79% of people would rather watch a video than read a blog post
• People use video to help them make purchase decisions (remember those transactional searches?)

The bottom line? Start to include videos in your content strategy. Video gets read, shared, and linked, providing plenty of signals to amplify your search ranking.

6. Technical SEO

We said earlier that getting the code right is one aspect of optimizing content for better SEO rankings. This can be intimidating, especially if you’re more of a wordsmith and less of a “techie.”

Here are some of the aspects you can control even if you’re not a coder:

• Add keyword phrases in page titles, which is where Google first looks to determine which content is relevant to which search
• Use header tags to show content hierarchy starting with your title at h1 and then use h2 or h3 for subheads
• Create a meta description that both entices readers and includes your keyword phrase
• Keep those meta descriptions short and catchy at around 160 characters
• Use keyword phrases in image alt tags to show how those images are relevant to the main content
• Include alt tags also help visually impaired people enjoy your site with screenreaders
• Use schema markup to tell Google what kind of content you’re producing

You can easily set all of this up with a plugin like All in One SEO; it’s the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market.

With All in One SEO, you can set a focus key phrase and additional key phrases, and the TruSEO on-page analysis will score how well your pages and posts are optimized. Plus, it gives you an actionable checklist you can use to make improvements.

The on-page SEO checklist also includes a smart meta tag generator to easily set your metadata, such as SEO titles and meta descriptions with dynamic fields like current year, month, custom fields, author info, and more.

Other powerful All in One SEO features include schema markup, smart XML sitemaps, robots.txt editor, SEO health check, and more.

7. User Experience (RankBrain)

Google’s been using artificial intelligence to better rank web pages for a while. It calls that signal RankBrain. This includes other signals that affect your search engine ranking. These include:

• Click-through rate: the percentage of people who click to visit your site after an entry comes up in search results
• Bounce rate (especially pogo-sticking): the number of people who click on your page and quickly go back to the search results
• Dwell time: how long visitors stay on your site after they’ve arrived

If people land on your site, don’t like it, and bounce away, then Google will think it’s irrelevant to their needs. If enough people do this, you might find your site more difficult to rank higher in search results.

This indicates that your content needs to match the searcher’s intent. You should go back and target a more effective keyword.

In contrast, if people click through to your web page and stick around for a while, that tells Google your content is relevant to their search.

So when you optimize titles, descriptions, and content to get the clicks and deliver value on the other end, you can boost your search engine ranking.

8. Links (Backlinks, Outbound and Internal)

As we said at the start, the web is built on links. So, naturally, links are a crucial SEO ranking signal. There are three kinds of links to think about:

• Inbound links
• Outbound links
• Internal links

All three are typically tied to a descriptive anchor text.

Inbound Links

Google uses inbound links to help determine your content’s authority and relevance.

The best-case scenario is where an authoritative site includes a relevant link to yours in a piece of their content. So, if the Content Marketing Institute has a link to your content marketing resource, that’ll be perceived better than if a random person with a low-quality site links to it.

You’ve likely heard inbound links referred to as “backlinks.” You aim to get as many highly authoritative sites to link back to you. That also means you want to have very few inbound links from low-quality domains.

You can find your inbound links using a tool like Semrush.

Outbound Links

At the same time, you want to show that you’re creating quality content for your visitors. That involves using outbound links by linking to relevant, authoritative sites in your niche.

So does that mean you should give out tons of outbound links to boost your authority? Absolutely not.

All it means is that as you’re doing research, you should only pull from reliable sources with high domain authority. To be honest, for your users’ sake, you should probably be doing this anyway to ensure you provide the most value.

Internal Links

Finally, linking to your own content can tie pages together for both Google and your visitors, making each page more valuable. If you have an authoritative page with a link to another page on your site, that helps your visitors find the other page and pass on some authority.

This helps that second page boost its search engine ranking.

As you create new content, build a solid web of internal links so your pages can support one another. Also, don’t forget what we said at the start of this section:

All three types of links are tied to descriptive anchor text.

When you add a link to a piece of text in your content, that text should describe where the link is headed!

You can use All in One SEO’s Link Assistant addon to speed up the internal linking process. It will automatically generate a link report for your site that gives you insight into the following:

• Linking opportunities: Suggestions of relevant pages you can link to and anchor text you can use.
• Orphaned posts: All of the pages/posts on your site with no internal links.

You can apply AIOSEO’s internal linking recommendations in 1-click without manually editing each post.

Related ResourceSee The Ultimate Guide to SEO Link Building to learn the tricks & techniques the experts are using to build quality links.

9. Social Signals

When people share your content on social networks, that’s another sign that it’s valuable. Cognitive SEO’s study of 23 million shares found a definitive link between social shares and search engine ranking.

Google’s official word is that social shares are not a direct SEO ranking factors. Links from Twitter or Facebook aren’t counted the same as links from other authoritative websites.

Still, there’s no denying that the highest-ranking pages in Google search results usually have a lot of shares. Though this is probably due to a few related factors:

• More social shares generate more traffic to the page itself
• More shares also make your content more likely to build backlinks

Because of that, getting more social shares does help your search engine rankings, if only indirectly.

Not only do you need to have a social media presence yourself, but you need to make it easy to share your content and amplify those social signals. We have some great tips for doing this in our guest blogging guide and guide to growing your email list with social media.

We also highly recommend using a plugin like Smash Balloon:

Smash Balloon lets you easily display your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feed directly on your site. Or, if you want to be more aggressive, OptinMonster recently created a popup campaign that is designed to grow your social media following:

This little campaign packs quite the punch when it comes to growing your brand on social media.

10. Real Business Information

This last tip is important for businesses targeting particular local areas. The presence or absence of business information is one of the most crucial local SEO ranking factors.

So it’s important to look after areas like:

• NAP (name, address, phone number)
• Business listings on Google My Business and Facebook
• Reviews on both those sites and relevant directories like Yelp and others
• The right local search terms

That’s it! Now you know the essential SEO ranking factors. For more helpful information, check out our other SEO and content marketing guides:

• SEO tips and best practices from the experts
• How to use SEO for lead generation
• Impressive Content Marketing Examples

And you’ll want to check out these SEO statistics to help you boost traffic to your site.

Exclusive Bonus Download the SEO Ranking Factors Cheat Sheet to boost your search rankings quickly.

But let’s wrap up by discussing the question in every new SEO-er’s and webmaster’s mind.

Should You Strive To Please Your Audience or To Please Google?

This is really what the essence of SEO comes down to. Is the goal to make content that Google can easily read and rank, or is it to make content that your users will enjoy?

Unfortunately, the answer is much less climactic than you’d probably like: it’s both.

Asking which of these two aspects is more important is like asking which side of a pair of scissors is the sharpest. Both parts of SEO need to be perfectly in place to rank well.

You should never sacrifice your user’s experience (UX) to make Google happy. Doing so will only annoy your audience, which will, ironically, get you penalized by Google!

Besides, you should keep in mind that while ranking on Google can help launch your business to the next level, Google will never be your paying customer. Your readers, on the other hand, might put money in your pocket.

So if you want to get the best SEO advice ever, here it is:

Create awesome content that your users will love. Then, with equal energy, optimize that content to help Google understand why your audience loves it so much. But always, no matter what, begin with your user in mind.

The multi-billion-dollar SEO industry simply boils down to that.

Finally, as awesome as your SEO may be, it certainly isn’t the only Google ranking factor you should consider.

Once that organic traffic lands on your page, you need to convert them. OptinMonster is the world’s #1 conversion optimization kit that helps you drive more traffic, grow your email list, and boost revenue.

So what are you waiting for? Join thousands of clever digital marketers by joining OptinMonster today!

The stats show that mobile has become increasingly important in generating leads and sales.

Plus, Google’s tweaking all of its algorithms—even for mobile search—to reflect this change. That means unless you align your SEO practices, your site could be virtually invisible in search results.

To help you keep your site optimized for mobile search, I have put together this guide to show you:

• What Is Mobile SEO?
• Why Is Mobile SEO Important?
• How to Check For Mobile Traffic
• How to Check If Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly
• Mobile User Experience
• Mobile Content Optimization
• Technical SEO for Mobile
• Getting Ready for Voice Search

By the end, you’ll be ready to capture more leads and sales from this important market segment and to future-proof your mobile marketing strategy against the next big change.

Recommended Resource Need more website traffic? Learn how to rank #1 on Google with our Ultimate Guide to SEO

What Is Mobile SEO?

Mobile SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to improve its rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. This process helps you improve organic traffic, which is traffic coming to your site from search results.

While there are several search engines, when it comes to mobile SEO, Google is the most important one. That’s because it accounts for almost 95% of the mobile search market.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Search Engine Market Share

Interesting, right? Check out more than 50 SEO statistics that will help you boost traffic to your site.

Why Is Mobile SEO Important?

Mobile SEO is important because

1. Mobile Search Is on the Rise
2. Mobile Content Determines Google Search Ranking
3. Mobile Search Drives Sales
4. Mobile SEO Affects Voice Search

Let’s expand on these four compelling reasons why mobile optimization deserves your attention now.

1. Mobile Search Is on the Rise

First of all, it’s about the market trend. For a while now, mobile searches have exceeded desktop searches, and that’s only likely to continue.

That means that many of your target customers are likely using mobile devices to find your content. Improving mobile SEO means they’ll be able to do that.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Platform Comparison Market Share

2. Mobile Content Determines Google Search Ranking

Plus, Google’s switched to a mobile-first index, which means it’s using the mobile content of a web page to determine its search engine ranking. So if you aren’t looking after mobile SEO, you risk having poorly ranked content.

3. Mobile Search Drives Sales

Mobile is also driving presale searches. Google’s research shows that:

• Mobile searches for product reviews have increased by 35% over two years
• People have spent the equivalent of 50,000 years of watch time looking at video reviews
• Mobile searches including the word “best” have grown by 80% over two years

If people are looking to buy your products, you want to be sure that the right search terms lead them to your site.

In addition, 40% of people prefer to use mobile devices to complete the whole shopping process, from researching the product to buying it.

Overall, looking after mobile search optimization will help you reach your customers where they are and create a better user experience for all your visitors.

4. Mobile SEO Affects Voice Search

Mobile optimization will also help you future-proof your SEO strategy. That’s because voice search is becoming huge, mirroring the rise of mobile search.

These days, voice search isn’t just on smartphones and tablets, but on home assistant devices like Amazon’s Echo, which means people will be able to find well-optimized content from anywhere.

And, using mobile SEO to optimize for voice search now could provide a competitive advantage, as 62% of businesses aren’t doing this yet.

Of course, not all businesses get a lot of mobile traffic, so it makes sense to check yours before you get started.

Don’t get us wrong: the changes we mentioned mean you’ll have to handle mobile SEO at some point, but checking your traffic will tell you whether you needed to do this yesterday, or if you can wait a few weeks.

How to Check For Mobile Traffic

So here’s where you find out how much mobile traffic your site gets.

Login to Google Analytics, and navigate to Audience » Mobile. You’ll see a breakdown of the numbers and percentages of website traffic using desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

Don’t stop there, though. Explore the data for different periods with the onscreen date selector.

We’re willing to bet that in most cases, the percentage of mobile traffic has gone up, as in this year on year comparison.

That means it still makes sense to look after mobile SEO and create a mobile-friendly site.

So, how do you make your website mobile friendly? Before you get started with mobile SEO, the first step is to check where you are. There are plenty of tools around to help you do this.

How to Check If Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

You can check if your website is mobile friendly through

1. Google Lighthouse
2. SEMRush

1. How to Check If Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly With Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is a free, open-source tool that generates reports and makes it easy to enhance the quality of web pages. You can run it via Chrome DevTools, Chrome extension, website, and Node Module.

Once you submit a URL to the automated tool, it will execute multiple page audits and create a report detailing how the page performs. You can then use suggestions from the report to improve your website.

The main focus of Lighthouse audits is Google’s Core Web Vitals, the essential metrics Google uses to measure web page speed and overall user experience.

Using Lighthouse helps you view your website the way Google does. The Lighthouse reports have five categories: performance, accessibility, SEO, best practices, and progressive web app. It also uses a 1 to 100 scoring system and tests sites against a simulated 3G connection.

Let’s explore how to use Google Lighthouse using DevTools.

Navigate to the webpage you want to audit. Next, right-click on the page and select “Inspect” from the toolbar. Click on “Lighthouse.” If you don’t see it, press the arrows and select it from the list. Ensure all five categories are chosen, select mobile if you want a mobile report, then press “Generate Report.”

Once Lighthouse finishes running the audit, you’ll find a score and section for each category. You can learn more about each by clicking on the scores at the top of the page. A good score is considered anything between 50 and 89, and an excellent score is between 90 and 100.

2. How to Check If Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly With SEMrush

Another tool that helps you identify crawl errors for mobile SEO is SEMrush. Here’s how to check mobile SEO with the SEMrush Site Audit tool.

If you’ve already got a site audit set up for your site, you can press the gear icon. You’ll see a dropdown menu. Click on User-agent: SEMrushBot-desktop.

Change the user-agent to the SEMrush or Google mobile bots.

SEMrush will generate a report.

Once you have the report, go to the Issues tab. SEMrush will give more details of issues found, and will suggest how to fix them.

It’s worth noting that while addressing desktop SEO will handle some mobile SEO issues, there are also some mobile-specific SEO issues to address. These include:

• Looking after the mobile user experience
• Optimizing content for mobile users
• Handling technical mobile SEO

We’re going to look at those in the rest of this guide.

Mobile User Experience

One area it’s crucial to optimize is mobile user experience. If you don’t get this right, people won’t stick around long enough to be wowed by your content, subscribe to your email marketing list, or grab your lead magnet.

A good place to start making improvements is the bounce rate. The mobile bounce rate is higher than the desktop one, according to Stone Temple Consulting.

Since dwell time (the time visitors stick around after following a link to your site) is a major SEO ranking factor, the more people bounce, the worse it is for your mobile search ranking. So here’s what you need to do.

Speed Up Your Site

The first step is to speed it up. According to Google, 53% of visits are abandoned if sites take more than 3 seconds to load. In addition, half of your visitors expect pages to load in 1-2 seconds. So, you can’t mess around with mobile page speed.

A good starting point is to use Google’s mobile speed test to see if there are any speed issues.

Type in your URL, and the tool will scan your site.

In the end, you’ll get a report showing how your site compares and suggesting fixes you can make to improve mobile page speed and mobile SEO.

Some commonly suggested fixes include:

• Compressing images as large image files can slow down your site
• Combining and minifying code to reduce the number of page requests
• Using caching to serve pages more quickly

WPBeginner has a guide to speeding up your site which includes fixes that work well for both desktop and mobile SEO.

Make Your Site Responsive

Next, make sure your website is responsive. What is a responsive site? It’s a site where the design elements resize according to the device to give users a great visual and browsing experience.

If you’re running a WordPress website, making it responsive can be as simple as installing the right theme. If not, ask your web developer to implement Google’s guidelines for responsive web design.

Create a Seamless Experience

People routinely switch between devices to research and buy, so it’s become more important than ever for their experience to be consistent.

According to Google, 63% of people expect this from brands, but only 42% believe they get it.

That means the days of having a cut-down version of your main site for mobile users are long past. Instead, make sure people can do everything they need to on your site, no matter which device they happen to be using.

Use Mobile-Friendly Popups

If you’re in business, you’re going to want to promote your offers, webinars, lead magnets, and other content marketing.

That’s fine, but it matters how you do it.

Especially with the advent of the Chrome ad blocker, it’s more important than ever to avoid ruining the user experience with zero-second popups or poorly designed marketing campaigns.

That’s something we really hate at OptinMonster, which is why our app includes device-specific display rules, behavioral triggers like Exit-Intent®, MonsterLinks 2-step optins, and mobile-friendly themes.

When you use OptinMonster, you won’t annoy your mobile visitors. In fact, you’ll have a great chance of turning those visitors into subscribers. For example, Salt Strong increased conversions by 185% with OptinMonster’s mobile campaigns.

Next, we’re going to look at some ways to encourage mobile visitors to stay on your site.

Mobile Content Optimization

Assuming you get people to stay on your site, then it’s important to optimize content for mobile visitors. After all, whether you’re talking about desktops or mobile devices, content is one of Google’s top three search ranking factors.

That’s why to improve mobile SEO, you need an excellent content strategy. Some of the mobile optimization tips are similar to regular SEO. For example, you’ll want to:

• Write appealing headlines that make visitors want to read more
• Understand how and when to include LSI keywords in your content
• Optimize your content for keyword intent
• Build inbound links to your content to increase your authority and relevance for particular search terms
• Make your content in-depth (over 2000 words) so it gets top search rankings, and so people want to link to it and share it

But there are some mobile-specific twists on the usual SEO advice.

For example, if you’re optimizing primarily for mobile, it makes sense to do mobile keyword research. You can do this with SEMrush.

How To Do Mobile Keyword Research With SEMrush

First, go to SEO Toolkit » Keyword Overview, and type your search term into the onscreen search box.

By default, it shows desktop search keywords. To change this and see mobile search terms, click the drop-down menu by the device button.

Don’t be surprised if there are differences, because mobile and desktop search behavior aren’t identical.

For example, Google’s latest research shows that many mobile searchers take advantage of location and do “near me” searches. In the course of a year, these searches grew 130%.

To make sure your content is showing up for these searches, you’ll need to fill out your Google My Business listing, and include name, address and phone number. This’ll also help with local SEO.

Optimize Titles and Descriptions to Improve Mobile SEO

When optimizing for desktop search, you already know about the importance of titles and meta descriptions. These tell Google – and searchers – what a page is about, and show up in SERPs as a way to entice people to click.

But on mobile, you may not see the entire title or description because of the smaller screen size. That makes it more important to put the most important part of your titles and descriptions at the start so searchers know exactly what they’ll get when they click.

There is some good news, though. Meta descriptions have got longer, so there’s more room for you to wow both mobile and desktop users.

Social Media and Mobile SEO

Although Google doesn’t list social media as a direct SEO ranking factor, other research suggests a strong correlation between social media and search ranking, as this graphic from Cognitive SEO shows:

According to ComScore, around 80% of social media time is spent on mobile devices. That means you can’t afford to ignore the role of mobile devices in improving social signals.

One easy way to boost this is to make it easy for people to share your content, with social sharing buttons. Since you’re targeting mobile device users, make sure you include sharing buttons for the top messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Technical SEO for Mobile

If you have a single site and have already taken care of technical SEO, then skip forward to the next section. If not, then here are some issues you need to pay attention to.

First, make sure you have a sitemap. This will help Google to crawl your site effectively. If you’re using All in One SEO, it’ll automatically create a sitemap for you.

If not, you can use XML Sitemaps to create one for free.

Secure your site with HTTPS, as sites that aren’t secure will be explicitly flagged. Most people won’t visit an insecure site. You can use SEMrush to check for site security issues that affect mobile SEO.

Within your content, use header tags, like h1, h2, and h3, to highlight content hierarchy. That means letting Google know which is the most important content on the page.

For example, if your site title is an h1, then your blog title will be an h2, and subheadings will be h3. This also makes it nice and easy for visitors skimming your content to have something to make them pause and look.

Use schema markup so Google knows what kind of content you have on your site. You can implement this with Google Search Console by following our step by step guide.

If you still happen to be running two versions of your site, then you need to make sure you specify canonical URLs. This tells Google which version of a page is the original or authoritative one, which is key for mobile SEO rankings.

Google’s trying to get accelerated mobile pages (AMP) accepted as a web standard for fast-loading, mobile-friendly content.

That makes it a great idea to set up AMP on your site, so you’re ready when it is. If it becomes a web standard, failing to meet it will definitely hurt your mobile SEO ranking. (If you use MonsterInsights to monitor your analytics, you can easily set up AMP on a WordPress website.)

Getting Ready for Voice Search

So what about the future of mobile SEO? The experts agree that voice search is going to be huge.

According to ComScore, half of all smartphone users use voice technology, and one-third of those use it daily.

In addition, half of all smartphone users expect to use voice technology more. Using voice technology on smartphones results in an increased desire to buy smart speakers, which means voice search usage is likely to increase.

As well as using LSI keywords and schema markup as outlined above, there are a few more things you can do to nail mobile SEO for voice search.

Google’s search quality ratings for what it calls “eyes-free voice assistants” emphasizes:

• Answering questions fully or delivering the right information in response to a voice search query
• Having answers that are the right length to answer a query (we’ll tell you what the research suggests below)
• Having correctly formulated answers

A good shortcut to optimizing for mobile voice search is to optimize for answer boxes and featured snippets. To improve mobile SEO for answer boxes, you need to:

• Answer questions correctly and relevantly
• Use the questions as subheadings
• Include lists or tables in the article

In addition, a Backlinko study says:

• Most voice search results are on average 29 words long
• Sites with a high domain authority are more likely to be seen in voice search results
• Content that ranks well in desktop search is also likely to do well on voice search

Keep these tips in mind so your content will already be optimized for the voice search revolution.

That’s it! Now you know the ins and outs of mobile SEO, you can nail mobile optimization for 2024 and beyond. Next, check out our articles on how to do an SEO audit and check those rankings, as well as our list of SEO ranking factors.

And follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more useful guides and tutorials.

These marketing podcasts are well-established, popular, and full of great tips and information. But more importantly, I included podcasts that approach marketing from a variety of angles. That way, you can decide which marketing podcasts will help you reach your goals and that you’ll enjoy listening to.

1. The Digital Marketing Podcast
2. Online Marketing Made Easy
3. Social Media Marketing
4. The Mindful Marketing Podcast
5. Marketing Over Coffee
6. Duct Tape Marketing
7. Perpetual Traffic
8. Marketing School

8 Best Marketing Podcasts in 2024

1. The Digital Marketing Podcast with Ciaran Rogers, Louise Crossley, and Daniel Rowles

Best for: A broad range of digital marketing topics
Average episode length: 20-30 minutes
Episode frequency: Weekly

If you want a marketing podcast that will cover everything from SEO and AI to email marketing and social media, then The Digital Marketing Podcast is a great place to start. It’s created by Target Internet, which is a hub for online digital marketing courses. You have to pay to access the courses, but the podcast is completely free. And it’s ad-free!

Here are just a few of the topics that The Digital Marketing Podcast has covered in 2024:

• Crafting Killer Titles: Hook, Rank, and Convert
• The State of Email Marketing
• How to Start a Digital Marketing Career
• Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing
• GA4 News, Tips and Tricks

This is just a glimpse of the podcast’s breadth. You can find an episode on just about any digital marketing topic, and the hosts keep the tone conversational. It’s a great podcast for anyone in the marketing field, and it offers value to beginners and seasoned experts alike.

2. Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield

Best for: How-tos and actionable tips (especially for course creators)
Average episode length: 25-50 minutes
Episode frequency: Tuesdays and Thursdays

Amy Porterfield is an entrepreneur who has built a $100 million business offering digital courses for other entrepreneurs. How has she accomplished this? By being an expert marketer and a great teacher. These attributes make Online Marketing Made Easy a can’t-miss podcast for digital marketers. Porterfield is a top-notch digital course creator, and she uses those skills to walk podcast listeners through each episode’s topic.

Online Marketing Made Easy does skew heavily toward topics related to online courses, with episodes like “How to Deliver a Digital Course Your Audience REALLY Wants.” Even though I don’t sell online courses, I still learned helpful tips about conducting market research and understanding your target audience. Plus, episodes like “How to Have Emails EVERONE Opens (Which Means MORE Money!)” are extremely helpful for any marketer. Even if you don’t plan to listen to every episode, Porterfield’s podcast is worth having in your subscription feed.

3. Social Media Marketing with Michael Stelzner

Best for: The latest in social media marketing
Average episode length: 45 minutes
Episode frequency: Every Thursday

Host Michael Stelzner founded Social Media Examiner way back in 2009, and he’s been a leading voice in the digital marketing industry ever since. In each episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, Stelzer interviews a marketing expert on a different social media topic. If social is a major focus of your digital marketing strategy, then this is the podcast you should be tuning in to.

Episodes include social-specific topics such as “Using LinkedIn to Increase Your Sales” and “Leverage Emotions in Your Facebook Ads for Better Results.” However, many episodes are broader. For instance, “Embracing Humor in Your Writing: The Funny Side of Business” includes tips you can apply to copywriting for any marketing channel.

4. The Mindful Marketing Podcast with Andréa Jones

Best for: Thoughtful discussions about the realities of marketing
Average episode length: 30-60 minutes
Episode frequency: Every Tuesday

The Mindful Marketing Podcast used to be called the Savvy Social Podcast. Host Andréa Jones rebranded to reflect her primary focus: the real people doing the marketing and the real people you’re marketing to.

Here’s an example: In the episode “Ignite Your Marketing Curiosity with Emily Aborn,” Aborn says that “Marketing is relationships.” Jones agrees and adds, “It’s not about trying to push something on someone. It’s about helping them in some way.” The episode goes on to provide plenty of specific tips to evoke curiosity and nurture new leads. However, the tips focus on how real people respond to marketing rather that just providing cold data.

Another episode I particularly enjoyed is “Marketing Automation Secrets from the Experts.” Jones leads a discussion with 3 different marketers, who share stories about how automation helped their business and made their lives easier. If you want to hear how real marketers reach their goals and avoid burnout, then you should be listening toThe Mindful Marketing Podcast.

5. Marketing Over Coffee with John J. Wall & Christopther S. Penn

Best for: Laid-back rundown on the latest in marketing, plus expert guests
Average episode length: 20-30 minutes
Episode frequency: Every Thursday

Listening to Marketing Over Coffee feels like chatting with friends. That is, if your friends were marketing gurus who sometimes brought other experts with them to your coffee meet-up. Not only will you learn a ton of great information, but you’ll also enjoy it, as the hosts maintain a friendly, casual tone and an easy-to-follow pace.

Wall and Penn cover old-school marketing topics, along with the latest marketing tech. For example, one recent episode features Katie Robbert, CEO of Trust Insights, a data and analytics company. Robbert discusses the very traditional marketing topic of creating ideal customer profiles. However, she also shares how her company built a large language model (LLM) to help clients automate and improve the process. That intersection of old and new is common in Marketing Over Coffee.

6. Duct Tape Marketing with John Jantsch

Best for: Expert insights into running and marketing a small business
Average episode length: 10-25 minutes
Episode frequency: Wednesdays and Thursdays

John Jantsch has been advising small and medium-sized businesses for 30 years, and he’s hosted Duct Tape Marketing since 2005. In each episode, he interviews a marketer or entreprenuer on a different helpful topic. For example, in “How to Master Product Launches,” Jantsch interviews Jeff Walker, the author of the book Launch. Walker discusses his recently revised edition of the book and the changes he’s made to his product launch formula.

Jantsch asks interesting questions to make the most of his interviews. In the “Marketing for Supervillains” episode, Jessee Wroblewski encourages small business to see themselves as supervillains who need to differentiate themselves from the big-business superheroes. Jantsch helps Wroblewski connect his ideas to real-life brand examples for the audience. Episodes like this make Duct Tape Marketing one of the best marketing podcasts for small businesses.

7. Perpetual Traffic with Ralph Burns & Lauren Petrullo

Best for: Lead generation strategies, especially through paid traffic
Average episode length: 30-60 minutes
Episode frequency: Tuesdays and Fridays

The hosts of Perpetual Traffic are founders and CEOs of their own marketing agencies. That means they’ve helped a wide variety of clients improve their marketing, and they share that expertise in each episode. Perpetual Traffic focuses specifically on lead generation. While this is a narrower topic than many marketing podcasts, it’s an absolutely universal one. They also regularly interview expert guests.

I particularly like Perpetual Traffic‘s focus on strategy and outcomes over vanity metrics. For example, one recent episode is called “How to Hire a Bouncer For Your CRM & Make More Money (Not Get More Leads).” That may sound counterintuitive for a lead generation podcast. However, the episode helps you learn how to make sure your leads are high quality, and it gives tips on filtering out leads who will never buy from you. Burns and Petrullo’s advice keeps businesses from wasting time and money trying to market to bad leads.

8. Marketing School with Neil Patel & Eric Siu

Best for: Brief discussions on the very latest in digital marketing, SEO, and AI.
Average episode length: 15-20 minutes
Episode frequency: Almost daily

Neil Patel and Eric Siu are big names in digital marketing. They publish on a near-daily schedule, and each episode covers a few precise topics. Marketing School‘s quick production schedule means you get insights on the most important things happening right now in digital marketing.

I’ve noticed one major flaw in Marketing School‘s approach: the hosts often focus on flash-in-the-pan controversies and their personal opinions on them. This can feel a bit indulgent and isn’t helpful to listeners who want actionable marketing tips. I suggest looking through each week’s episodes to see if any topics are relevant to your business, rather than listening to each daily episode in its entirety. Regardless, Marketing School is the go-to podcast when you want immediate analysis of the latest digital marketing news.

Learn Even More About Marketing

The best marketing podcasts are easy to listen to, cover the topics you want to learn about, and help you improve your marketing strategy. While there are plenty more great options out there, these 8 marketing podcasts are a great place to start.

Of course, podcasts aren’t the only way to learn about digital marketing. Here at OptinMonster, our blog and email newsletter provide helpful marketing tips to help you get more traffic, leads, and sales.

Here are just a few of our posts that will help you nail your marketing strategy and grow your business:

• Ultimate Beginner’s Content Marketing Guide
• 8 Digital Marketing Best Practices
• SEO Ranking Factors: 10 Factors to Help You Rank in Search
• 11 Proven Ways to Generate Organic Leads and Increase Traffic
• Make Your Site POP: 11+ Website Popup Examples to Boost Conversions

If you’re already driving traffic to your website, the next step in your marketing plan is to convert those visitors into subscribers and customers. OptinMonster is the best lead generation software on the market, helping you grow your email list and move leads through the customer journey.

Using OptinMonster, Storyly increased conversions by 80% and grew their email list by 45%! Find out how in our Storyly case study.

When you’re ready to see those kinds of results, give OptinMonster a try, with our 14-day money-back guarantee.

That’s a lot of videos to compete with. How can you get your brand’s videos to rank in YouTube searches? You’ll need to master SEO for YouTube, so you can boost your visibility, engagement, and subscriber base.

We’ve accomplished all of those goals and more on OptinMonster’s YouTube channel. Using the tactics I’m sharing in this post, we’ve reached a subscriber base of nearly 10,000. That’s a big accomplishment for a niche channel, and it’s exponentially higher than the channels for our competitors.

In this guide, I’ll cover everything you need to improve your YouTube video ranking. I’ll share YouTube SEO tips ranging from keyword research to advanced optimization techniques, and I’ll give actionable steps to rank higher and get more views on your videos.

Throughout the article, you’ll also see examples of how we implement these tactics at OptinMonster. That way, you can understand exactly how each tip works for a real brand.

• What Is YouTube SEO?
• Keyword Research: The Foundation of SEO for YouTube
• How to Optimize YouTube Videos for SEO: 10 Steps & Best Practices
• How to Generate More Leads With Your YouTube Videos

What Is YouTube SEO?

YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your videos to rank higher in YouTube search results. It can also include improving ranking in Google search results. Like traditional SEO, YouTube SEO involves keyword research, but there are also several platform-specific optimization strategies.

YouTube’s algorithm considers several key factors when ranking videos. Some of the most important factors are:

• Relevance: How well your content matches the user’s search query
• Watch Time: How long viewers watch your videos
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of people who click on your video after seeing it in search results
• Engagement: The number of likes, comments, and shares on the video and on the channel overall

Throughout this article, I’ll discuss tactics to improve these factors and increase your YouTube video rankings.

Keyword Research: The Foundation of SEO for YouTube

Before you can start optimizing your YouTube videos, you have to find the right keywords to target.

Keywords and search queries are the terms and phrases that users type into the YouTube search bar when looking for content.

By identifying and using the right keywords, you help YouTube understand the content of your videos. That makes it more likely that your video will appear in search results. Smart keyword research not only drives more views. It also attracts the right audience: people who have a genuine interest in your content, brand, and products.

Here are some of the best ways to conduct keyword research to help your YouTube video ranking.

1. Use YouTube’s Autosuggest Feature

YouTube’s search bar is an excellent starting point for keyword research. As you type a word or phrase, YouTube automatically suggests popular searches. These autosuggestions reflect what users are actively searching for, making them valuable keywords to consider.

This process helps you both:

1. Identify keywords for videos you’ve already made
2. Find keywords to make new video content for

Example: If your video is about “yoga for beginners,” start typing “yoga for” into YouTube’s search bar. You might see autosuggestions like:

• “yoga for beginners”
• “yoga for flexibility”
• “yoga for stress relief”

These suggestions show what people are actively searching for. This information provides specific angles or subtopics to focus on in your video. For example, a specific phrase like “yoga for stress relief” could help you reach a new segment of your target audience.

Tip: Try typing a few variations of your main topic into the search bar, and take note of the autosuggested phrases. These can often reveal niche keywords you might not have considered.

2. Use Google Trends for YouTube Search

Google Trends is a free SEO tool that helps you discover trending keywords and topics. It offers a dedicated section for YouTube search data, allowing you to explore the popularity of specific keywords over time. You can also find trending topics within your brand niche, along with seasonal search trends.

Google Trends also offers a comparison feature. You can enter 2 search terms and see how their popularity compares over time. This free YouTube tool can help you determine the best main keyword for your video.

Example: Let’s say you want to make videos for healthy smoothie recipes. You can enter that main keyword into Google Trends and select YouTube Search. You’ll see a line graph of the term’s interest over time. If you scroll down, you’ll find a list of related keywords. You can see both:

1. Top Related Queries: Similar keywords with the highest level of interest. For “healthy smoothie recipes,” I got results like “weight loss smoothie recipes,” “healthy breakfast recipes,” and “healthy breakfast smoothie recipes.”
2. Rising Related Queries: These are search terms that are rapidly growing in popularity. They help you take advantage of keywords that are on an upswing. For “healthy smoothie recipes,” the rising related queries were “healthy snacks recipes” and “healthy green smoothie recipes.”

Tip: Use Google Trends to compare the search volume of different keywords. Opt for keywords that show consistent or rising interest over time, rather than those that spike and drop quickly.

3. Use Advanced YouTube SEO Tools

The YouTube search bar and Google Trends give you a great starting point for YouTube SEO research. But if you want to dig deeper, you’ll need a more advanced tool. Here are my top suggestions.

Semrush & Rank Tracker for YouTube

Semrush is the most thorough and effective tool for SEO keyword research. In fact, we list it as #1 in our list of best keyword research tools. Semrush focuses on traditional web search SEO, so it can help you get your YouTube videos ranking higher in Google searches.

Semrush also offers the Rank Tracker for YouTube app, which includes these features:

• Keyword tracking for up to 200 YouTube keywords
• Competitor video analysis
• YouTube rank change monitoring

Both Semrush and Rank Tracker for YouTube offer free trials.

TubeBuddy:

TubeBuddy is a browser extension and app for YouTube. It helps you optimize your YouTube videos to improve search rankings and engagement.

Here are some of TubeBuddy’s top features for SEO:

• Keyword Explorer: See detailed insights on keyword search volume, competition, and overall score, specifically for YouTube.
• Tag Management: Quickly discover and copy your competitors’ best-performing video tags.
• SEO Studio: This suite of SEO tools walks you through the process of optimizing all aspects of your YouTube video.

You can try out basic features, including the Keyword Explorer, with TubeBuddy’s free version. For full access, you’ll need to sign up for one of TubeBuddy’s paid plans.

Tip: Use these tools to identify long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive. A long-tail keyword can be something like “what are the best ingredients for a protein smoothie.” This phrase probably has a lower search volume. However, if you’re selling protein powder, you want to target videos to people using that search term.

How to Optimize YouTube Videos for SEO: 10 Steps & Best Practices

1. Optimize Your Video Title
2. Write Engaging Video Descriptions
3. Tag Videos for Better Visibility
4. Categorize Your Video Appropriately
5. Add a Custom Thumbnail
6. Include Timestamps to Create Chapters
7. Add Subtitles or Closed Captions
8. Include Cards and End Screens
9. Group Videos Into Playlists
10. Track & Analyze Your Video’s Performance

1. Optimize Your Video Title

Your video title should include your video’s main keyword. That lets the YouTube algorithm understand your content’s topic. Additionally, your title needs to entice users to choose your video over others in the search results.

When users are searching YouTube, your video title is one of the first things they see. That makes titles extremely important for click-through rates (CTR). Giving your video a catchy title is essential for getting more people to click on it, just like having a good email subject line increases open rates.

Here’s an example of a title we’ve used for a video on OptinMonster’s YouTube channel:

The title starts with our keyword phrase: “Upselling Vs. Cross Selling.” It continues with a question that shows exactly what information searchers will learn if they watch the video.

YouTube Title Best Practices:

• Use keywords early: Use your main keyword early in the title. For example, if your keyword is “YouTube SEO,” a good title might be “YouTube SEO: 10 Tips to Rank Your Videos Higher.”
• Incorporate keywords naturally: Your keyword phrase should make grammatical sense in your title. Don’t force it in a way that sounds awkward.
• Keep Titles Concise: Aim for titles around 60 characters to avoid truncation in search results.
• Consider Using Numbers, Parentheses, or Brackets: Variations from regular text can draw a searcher’s eye. For instance, you can say “Top 5 Tips” instead of simply “Tips.” Or you can add “(2024 Update)” to a new video guide.

A well-written, keyword-focused title won’t magically rank your video content at #1, but it’s an important first step.

2. Write Engaging Video Descriptions

Video descriptions help the YouTube algorithm understand the content of your video and provide context to viewers. You can also include important links in your descriptions.

Here is the description we use for our “Upselling vs. Cross Selling” video:

The description starts with a long-tail search term: “What’s the difference between an upsell and a cross-sell?” After the brief summary of the video’s content, the rest of the description consists of links to related content and OptinMonster’s social channels.

YouTube Description Best Practices:

• Include Keywords: Include your main keyword, or an important variation, within the first few lines of the description. Avoid keyword stuffing.
• Include CTAs and Links: Guide viewers with clear calls-to-action (CTAs), such as “Subscribe for more tips!” Include links to relevant content. YouTube descriptions are also the perfect place to add affiliate links.
• Focus on the First Few Lines: The first 100-150 characters should be catchy and informative. This portion is what appears in search results and above the fold in the description box.

Remember, YouTube’s search algorithm prioritizes user engagement. So if viewers regularly click links in your descriptions, YouTube will see that you’re providing helpful content.

3. Tag Videos for Better Visibility

Tags are a type metadata. They help YouTube understand the context of your video and improve its discoverability. Essentially, you’re providing a list of topics that your video falls unders. While not as powerful as titles or descriptions, tags still play a role in ensuring your content appears in relevant searches.

For our “Upselling Vs. Cross Selling” video, here are some of the tags we used:

• upselling vs cross selling (always include your main keyword as a tag)
• upselling and cross selling
• upselling tips
• how to upsell
• email marketing
• email marketing strategy

As you can see, we included several keyword variations that relate to the content of the video.

YouTube Tagging Best Practices:

• Start with your main keyword: Make your primary keyword the first tag.
• Include Related Terms: Use tags that are semantically related to your main keyword.
• Add spelling variations: If your topic or product is regularly misspelled, include common misspellings as tags.
• Use a YouTube Tag Generator: If you use TubeBuddy, you’ll get tag suggestions as you fill out your YouTube video’s details. You can also try TubeRanker’s YouTube Tag Generator Tool, which is free for limited use.

4. Categorize Your Video Appropriately

During the publishing process, YouTube will ask you to select a category for your video. While that sounds simple, it can be tricky to choose the best one. YouTube only offers 15 categories, and not every video will fall neatly into just one of them.

For example, it can be difficult to decide between 2 similar categories, such as “Comedy” or “Entertainment.” Or, you might have a video that demonstrates how to use a piece of software. Should you select “Science & Technology” or “Howto & Style”?

These best practices can help guide your decision.

YouTube Category Best Practices:

• Consider your audience: Think about who your target audience is and which category they’re likely to browse or search within. For instance, you might have an educational video about eco-friendly beauty products, and you’ll feature affiliate links in your description. While the video could fall under “Education,” your target audience is more likely to search for “Howto & Style” videeos.
• Stay consistent across your channel: If you regularly post content on a similar topic, keep your videos in the same category. Consistency helps build a clear brand identity and makes it easier for viewers to find related content on your channel.
• Reassess over time: As your channel grows and evolves, it may be worth reassessing your category choices. Your audience may shift over time, or your content focus may change. Don’t hesitate to update the category of older videos when needed.

5. Add a Custom Thumbnail

It’s easy to just let YouTube select a screenshot from your video to use as a thumbnail. However, these images are rarely eye-catching or effective. Your thumbnail is your visual hook to get searchers to click on your video, and a well-designed custom thumbnail can significantly boost your CTR.

For OptinMonster’s YouTube videos, we always create thumbnails that are fun, attractive, and intriguing:

YouTube Thumbnail Best Practices:

• Stay on-brand: Use consistent colors, fonts, and design elements to make your thumbnails easily recognizable.
• Use faces and text: Thumbnails with faces tend to perform better because they create an emotional connection. Adding text can also clarify the video’s content at a glance.
• Choose high-contrast colors: Use bright colors and high-contrast images to make your thumbnail stand out. You want your thumbnail to be easy to see, even on small screens.
• A/B Test your thumbnails: YouTube has recently rolled out A/B testing for thumbnails. This feature lets you try out up to 3 thumbnails to see which performs the best.

6. Include Timestamps to Create Chapters

Timestamps are specific time markers added to a YouTube video’s description. They allow viewers to jump directly to a particular moment or section of the video. They’re perfect for longer videos or tutorials, where viewers might be interested in specific segments.

For example, we uploaded our webinar about A/B testing to YouTube and added timestamps in the description:

When timestamps are added to a video, YouTube automatically generates chapters, which are clickable segments on the video progress bar. Here’s what that looks like on our webinar video:

Timestamps help your YouTube SEO strategy in 3 ways:

1. Increased watch time and engagement: Timestamps and chapters make it easier for viewers to find the information they want, which leads to better audience retention and more clicks. In turn, that helps your videos’ search rankings.
2. More context for search algorithms: The titles of your timestamps give YouTube and Google more information about your video’s content. That can help your video rank for more search terms.
3. “Key moments” in Google search: Google uses your chapters to create “key moments” that show up in Google video search results. Here’s an example of key moments that display on an OptinMonster video in Google search:

Best Practices for Adding Timestamps:

• Identify key sections: Before adding timestamps, identify the main sections or topics covered in your video. These sections should be natural breaks in the content that a viewer might want to jump to.
• Use descriptive labels: When labeling your timestamps, use clear and descriptive text. For example, instead of just writing “1:23 – Tip 1,” give more information by writing “1:23 – Tip 1: Optimize your video title.”
• Start with a 0:00 timestamp: Always start your list of timestamps with “0:00” and use a label like “Introduction.” This sets the stage for the viewer and lets them know they can jump to other sections if needed.
• Be consistent: If you’re creating multiple videos with timestamps, try to maintain a consistent format. Consistency helps regular viewers know what to expect and makes your videos more user-friendly.

7. Add Subtitles or Closed Captions

Accessibility is the #1 reason you should add subtitles or closed captions to all your videos. It’s also helpful for your YouTube SEO strategy and can help your videos get higher rankings.

Subtitles increase audience retention by catering to viewers who prefer watching without sound. More importantly, they help non-native speakers and users with hearing impairments. Your subtitles also give YouTube and Google more text to index and rank your video for, which directly impacts SEO.

YouTube Subtitle Best Practices:

• Create Accurate Subtitles: If you followed a script for your video, you can always upload your script using these transcript formatting guidelines. Otherwise, start with YouTube’s automatic captioning feature, or use a third-party service to generate subtitles. Make sure you always review and edit the transcript for accuracy.
• Decide between subtitles and closed captions: Subtitles only include the words that are spoken during your video. Closed captions also include descriptions of any noises, such as sound effects, music, or even sighs and laughs. Use closed captions if your video includes non-verbal sounds that are important to the video’s meaning.

8. Include Cards and End Screens

Cards and end screens are interactive, clickable elements that you can add to your YouTube videos. They help keep viewers engaged, promote additional content, and guide them towards specific actions. Cards and end screens can encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel, watch another video, or visit an external website.

These in-video links let you encourage viewers to take a desired action. For example, the end screens for many of our videos include a link to sign up for OptinMonster:

Clicks on your cards count as engagement, which helps your YouTube SEO.

Best Practices for Cards:

• Focus on timing: Place cards during moments when viewers are highly engaged or when they might be interested in exploring more content. For instance, if you mention a topic that you cover in another video, that’s the perfect moment to suggest it through a card.
• Keep it relevant: Make sure your card is highly relevant to the current video. You might link to a related video, a playlist, or a poll to engage your audience further.
• Limit the number of cards: Too many cards can be distracting. Stick to a few that provide real value and are well-timed.

Best Practices for End Screens:

• Keep it simple: Use a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages viewers to take the next step, such as subscribing or watching another video.
• Make it look great: Design end screens that are visually appealing and consistent with your brand. Use contrasting colors to make buttons and CTAs stand out.

9. Group Videos Into Playlists

YouTube playlists are collections of videos on a particular topic or related to a specific interest. They help you organize your content and keep viewers engaged for longer periods. Playlists create a seamless viewing experience that encourages binge-watching. That will increase overall watch time and improve the ranking of your YouTube videos.

OptinMonster’s YouTube channel is organized into a number of playlists, including this one called “How to Grow Your Email List”:

YouTube Playlist Best Practices:

• Group related content: Organize your videos into thematic playlists, so viewers can easily find the content they’re interested in. For example, a fitness channel might have separate playlists for beginner workouts, advanced routines, and nutritional advice.
• Optimize playlist titles and descriptions: Just like with individual videos, use keywords in your playlist titles and descriptions to help them show up in search results.
• Use a logical order: Arrange videos in a logical order within the playlist. For tutorial or educational content, this might be chronological or step-by-step. For entertainment, it might be by popularity or release date.

10. Track & Analyze Your Video’s Performance

SEO for a YouTube video isn’t a one-and-done process. You need to monitor each video’s performance so you can continually optimize your YouTube search rankings. Analyze metrics such as watch time, click-through rate (CTR), audience retention, likes, comments, and shares. This data lets you know which strategies are working and which ones you need to adjust.

Best Practices for Analyzing Performance:

• Use YouTube Analytics: YouTube’s built-in analytics let you easily track key metrics. Pay specific attention to any spikes and drop-offs in your videos. That helps you understand what keeps your target audience engaged and where they’re losing interest.
• Experiment and test: Use your data to test different strategies. For instance, if your CTR is low, experiment with different thumbnails and titles. If your watch time is low, consider adjusting your video’s length or structure.
• Monitor Engagement: Keep an eye on likes, comments, and shares. These interactions play a significant role in video performance. Respond to comments to encourage more interaction.

Generate More Leads From Your YouTube Videos

When you apply these YouTube SEO tips and best practices, you’ll start getting more views and engagement on your videos. But if your YouTube channel is part of a larger brand, then getting viewers is just the first step. You also want to encourage those viewers to take another action, such as purchasing a product or joining your email marketing list.

In other words, YouTube videos are a powerful way to generate more leads for your business. You just need the right tools and strategy to make that happen.

OptinMonster is the best lead-generation tool on the market. You can use our popups, floating bars, and other onsite campaigns to grow your email list and offer enticing coupons and lead magnets.

If you want to convert more of your YouTube viewers into leads, I suggest using these 2 strategies:

1. Add OptinMonster campaigns to any web pages you link to in your videos or descriptions. You can use OptinMonster’s Referrer Detection to create special offers just for visitors coming from your YouTube channel!
2. OptinMonster lets you create MonsterLinks, which are links that directly open an OptinMonster campaign. In your video description, you can include text such as “Get more tips in our email newsletter,” “Download our free ebook,” or “Enjoy a 20% off coupon.” Use a MonsterLink to link that text to your OptinMonster campaign, which will ask for their email address to receive that perk.

That’s just a tiny glimpse at what you can accomplish with OptinMonster. Here’s a quick overview of our features:

Give it a try today with our 14-day money-back guarantee!

Related Resources:

• How to Create a Video Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business
• 27 Video Marketing Statistics You Need to Know
• Visual Storytelling: How to Build Powerful Connections With Leads
• How to Create a Popup Video: Step-by-Step Tutorial
• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing