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One of the phrases most often heard in advertising is “print is dead.” However, that’s not the case. Print ads are a valuable way to catch your audience’s eye by creating eye-catching artwork combined with strong copy. 

But in this digital age with everything web-based, can you still use print advertising to your advantage? 

To help answer this question, we’ll explain how you can use print advertising KPIs to measure your campaign’s success and gain valuable insights into your audience. 

KPIs You Can Use For Your Print Marketing Campaign

First, before you decide what KPIs to track, you need to determine what the goal of your campaign is. Your KPIs provide the measurable data you need to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy. You can’t know what to track if you don’t figure out what outcome you want to achieve. Some different goals you can have are:

  • Brand Awareness
  • Lead Generation
  • Sales
  • Brand Consideration
  • Website Traffic

Once you’ve determined your goals, then it’s time to assess which KPIs support them. Below we’ll explore common ones that are useful for measuring print campaigns.

Reach

When you decide to publish your print ad, you want to make sure the publication you’re using has a large enough circulation so you can reach as many people as possible. Another tip is to see where your ad is placed. 

Front, back, and inside covers are ideal placements as well as being located on a right-hand page. Or if you’re using brochures or rack cards as your advertising methods, you want to leave brochures in a high-traffic area where people are more likely to find and pick them up. 

Frequency

Frequency is the number of times a person is exposed to an ad or how many times the ad is repeated in a specific medium over a period of time. It’s often paired with reach since they are complementary. When you place a print ad, you want to know how many people (reach) are going to see your ad and how many times (frequency) they’ll see it. 

Cost Per Result

A print ad is a good investment when it works. Once you know what your reach and frequency are, you can do some basic math to find a rough cost per result. To do this, you take the cost of the campaign divided by the result, whether that is views, leads, or site visits. Your result depends on your campaign goal. This will give you an idea of whether the ad will be profitable or if it will just cost you money in the long run. 

Brand Recall

As a business, you want people to remember your brand when prompted. For example, if you own an Italian restaurant, you want someone to remember you when asked “Who has the best meatballs in the area?”.  

Engagement

Tracking engagement shows how many people interacted with your ad. By using tactics like QR codes or specific coupon codes, more on that below, you can see how many people were directed to your site from your print ad. 

Response & Conversion Rate

Another figure to track along with your engagement rate, is your conversion rate. This shows how many people completed their journey through the funnel and became customers based on your ad. You can track this figure using tactics like special forms for landing pages or specific phone numbers with call tracking on them. 

Ways To Track Your Print Advertising

Once you’ve decided on your goal and what KPIs to track, it’s time to select the correct tactic for your campaign. You need to think about what works best for your business. If it’s more call-based, a QR code might not work as well as phone calls. 

Special Phone Numbers

Another method to track where your leads are coming from is using a special phone number or vanity phone number in your print marketing. Everyone has heard the J.J. Wentworth commercials telling people to call “877-Cash-Now!” (Bonus points if you just sang that). That’s a vanity phone number—it contains a phrase that’s specific to your business and catches people’s attention.

Now if that doesn’t fit with your business style, you can create occasion-specific phone numbers through services like:

These companies allow you to create several temporary numbers you can use in your advertising. In particular, CallRail has phone call tracking, so you know where your leads are coming from and if your advert was successful.

QR Codes

Quick response (QR) codes are an easy way to access a website without typing a URL. They’ve become popular again in recent years since more public places have gone touch-free. 

Customers can scan a QR code in print ads using their phone’s camera to reach a specific landing page. When you create this page you’ll want to add a “noindex” tag, meaning that it won’t appear in search engine results. So the only way you can access the page is by the QR code. This gives you an accurate way to measure the effectiveness of your campaign material. 

Another way to attribute traffic from your campaign’s QR code is to direct traffic to a specific page via a URL that has UTM parameters applied to it. The five UTM parameters are source, medium, campaign, term, and content. The first three are required for tracking in Google Analytics and the last two are optional. 

Here’s an example of a URL from a campaign Strasburg Rail Road ran in June 2024 for their event “A Great Train Robbery: The Bonnie & Clyde Experience”

You can see the source (where they are running their campaign) is Penn Live, the medium is referral, which indicates what type of channel it is (referral from an ad, paid social, organic social, or cost-per-click ads). Finally, the campaign name is bonnie_clyde_june_2024.

Another benefit of using QR codes in print ads is that they generally do not expire. Once created, they can be used indefinitely unless the linked information is changed or removed.

Custom Landing Page Links

Custom landing pages are another tactic you can use in your print ads. For example, if you’re offering a free quote for work you offer, you can set up a landing page with a contact form.

Then you’ll want to add a “noindex” tag so this special landing page isn’t visible in search engines. You’ll also want to make sure it’s not added to your site navigation. That way no one can see the page unless they have the link you shared in your print ad. Doing this makes it easier to isolate traffic and only track activity from your print ad.

When it comes to creating a URL for this custom landing page, make sure you don’t create something that’s too long. You want to keep it short and easy so it looks good in the ad and is easy for users to input into their browser.

If you use Google Analytics for tracking, make sure to set up the custom landing page with a tag for the ad source (like a magazine name or brochure) so you can track your print campaign easily. This will also allow you to analyze it in GA4 alongside your other traffic sources.

Branded Hastags

A tactic that can increase your brand awareness is hashtags. Creating a branded hashtag can be an effective way to promote your business and drive conversations and can be as simple as using your company name or tagline in the hashtag. 

Hashtags can help you categorize your content so it becomes easily searchable. Including them in your ads allows you to join ongoing conversations on social media and allows your ads to be visible in those conversations.

This can lead to greater engagement, boosting your brand’s social media engagement through likes, shares, comments, and new followers.

A great example of a hashtag is Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke. Launched in Australia first, Coke removed the traditional Coke logo, replacing “Coca-Cola” from one side of a bottle with the phrase “Share a Coke with” followed by a person’s name. The goal was to find the personalized bottles and share them with friends. The hashtag was found on billboards and print ads as well. 

Specific Coupon Codes

Another method is to create specific codes for ads to entice people to visit your website and become customers. These codes can include the publication or ad name so you can easily track sales that result from them. 

An example of this could be if you owned a company and printed an ad in Clipper Magazine you could tell people to use code “CLIPPERMay2024” to get free shipping on your order or for a half price on a specific item. Or if you have a brick-and-mortar business, you can have someone bring in the ad, which acts as a valid in-store-only coupon. 

These codes can be customized to whatever objective you have for your campaign and you can run several at the same time. Just make sure you create custom coupons that don’t overlap with similar ones. 

Marketing Software

You can set up all the landing pages and coupons but if you don’t have a system in place, you’re spending money without getting your ROI. There are several programs that can help you with this task. 

One of the more popular tools is Google Analytics, which helps you build a complete picture of your audience while connecting key insights and traffic results. It also works with other Google products like Google Optimize. Plus, it’s a free tool, which is good from a cost standpoint. Also if you already have Google Analytics, make sure you’ve updated from Universal Analytics to GA4. 

Another popular tool is Semrush, which offers website traffic analysis for not only your website but for your competitor’s site as well. This can help you adjust your marketing strategy by seeing what’s worked and what hasn’t worked for the competition.

Hotjar is a similar tool to Google Analytics and Semrush in that it tracks who visits your site. However, Hotjar tries to give you the “why” behind their behavior. It allows you to visualize and map your audience’s actions while looking at recordings of their sessions. 

There are other tools on the market so do your research and see which one will work best for your business. 

Looking to improve your print advertising KPIs? Our content specialists can create authentic content that resonates with your audience.  

Contact Our Content Team

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but did you know a video is worth 1.8 million? That’s over 3,000 pages of text for just one minute of video. Visual content packs a punch and can elevate your brand by combining the impact of words with striking graphics. For a successful internet marketing strategy, you can’t forget about visual content marketing. 

What is Visual Content Marketing? 

Visual content marketing is when you use visuals such as videos, images, graphics, and other multimedia pieces in your content mix. Visual content helps explain concepts that would be difficult to understand with just text. Think about how you can provide value and tell your brand’s story through unique visual opportunities. 

Why is Visual Content Important? 

To grasp the importance of visual content, you need to understand how humans process visual stimuli. 

We are visual creatures.

90% of the information sent to our brains is visual, and we process these signals 60,000 times faster than text.

A study at MIT found that it takes only 13 milliseconds for our brains to identify a photo. Images also have a greater emotional impact than words, so they affect people’s behavior and memory. 

One thing is clear: there’s power in visuals.

The Benefits of Visual Content 

There are many benefits of visual content. However, that doesn’t devalue the importance of writing. Blogs and other text-based content help you rank for keywords and appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). But when combined with visuals, this elevates your marketing strategy in several ways. 

Boosts SEO

Google prioritizes websites with engaging visuals. By including these in your content mix, it helps you rank better on SERPs. When optimized for SEO, visuals also increase your visibility in image and video searches. 

Increases Engagement

Visual content is extremely shareable on social media. This gives you lots of opportunities to increase brand awareness and reach by driving traffic back to your website. 

Keeps People on Your Site

People prefer interactive and visual content. It grabs their attention, increases readability, and helps guide them through your site. Adding visuals improves the user experience and reduces your bounce rate. Videos are especially good at encouraging people to stay on your website longer and explore further.  

Triggers a Desired Action

One of the strengths of visuals is that they can impact your audience’s emotions. This gives your content the power to shape your reader’s mood and impact their actions. 

Establishes Yourself as an Expert

Use your content as a way to show your expertise and authority on a subject. Whether that’s visual case studies, white papers, ebooks, how-to guides, or more,  you can signal your expertise by providing high-quality information to your audience. 

7 Types of Visual Content (Pros and Cons) 

Visual content comes in all shapes and sizes, but here we’ll talk about some of the most common examples, and their pros and cons. 

1. Video

Video makes up the majority of internet traffic, and 91% of users said they want to see more online videos from brands. As short-form video is on the rise, it’s a great option to add to your visual content strategy. You can use videos for your business in many ways. Create a homepage video, product demonstration, client testimonial, animation, and more. 

Venture Lititz animated video

Pros: 

Cons: 

  • Time consuming and costly 
  • Hard to update once published 
  • Can be less accessible than other content 

2. Infographics

Infographics are a great addition to your content mix. They use data visualization to simplify complex ideas and make information easy to comprehend. Plus, they’re extremely shareable! 

Malvern Behavioral Health infographic on social anxiety in young adults. Includes 4 ways to overcome social anxiety and a photo of a woman looking sad.

Malvern Behavioral Health infographic 

Pros: 

  • Easy to understand and retain information  
  • Shareable 
  • Showcases your expertise 
  • Eye-catching 

Cons: 

  • Time consuming to create 
  • Often lack focus 
  • If the design isn’t good, they can be overwhelming for a reader

3. Gifs and Memes

Gifs and memes are a fun, casual way to add humor to your marketing content. You can use these to earn your audience’s trust and relate to them. Don’t just use them for the sake of adopting a trend. Always have a strategy behind it. 

Meme with two photo of leaves: one that's healthy and one that's patchy. Text above the two images says, "Waiting for that summer glow-up like..."

Root and Vessel meme 

Pros: 

  • Good way to stay relevant 
  • Do well on social 
  • Relate to your audience 
  • Can customize them for your brand 

Cons: 

  • Not right for every brand 
  • Potential copyright issues if you don’t customize them
  • Often have a short lifespan 

4. Printable Asset

Printable pieces can be anything from posters and flyers to checklists and brochures. As with most types of visual content, design is key to their success. Always keep these assets on-brand, with a clear call to action. 

Post with a blue background and a border of Easter eggs and tulips. A logo with Markets at Shrewsbury

Markets at Shrewsbury poster 

Pros: 

  • Targeted and hyperlocal 
  • Can raise awareness quickly 
  • Easy to produce 
  • Good for simple messages 

Cons: 

  • Printing costs
  • Need a good design to be effective 
  • Location restrictions
  • Hard to edit once printed 

5. Downloadables

Website downloads are a convenient way for your customers to get information on a subject. As a brand, it allows you to go more in-depth on a topic and continue the conversation offline. Popular types of downloadables include product guides, white papers, and ebooks. These can be free or gated. 

Audit Preparation Checklist with a blue header.

Centri Consulting Downloadable Checklist 

Pros: 

  • Lead to more engaged sessions on your site
  • Can assert yourself as an authority on a topic
  • Gated content is good for lead generation 
  • Ungated content builds trust with your audience 
  • More cost-effective than physically printing something 

Cons: 

  • Gated content may deter some people 
  • Your audience may not understand the value of the product
  • Ungated content means you can’t gather lead information 

Tips for Using Visuals in Your Marketing Strategy 

Developing a visual content strategy is key to success. Here are a few tips on how to optimize your visual content efforts to see long-term results. 

Optimize for Each Platform

When creating visual content, always keep in mind where the piece is going. Design for the platform where you are going to share it. For example, always reduce image sizes on your website so you don’t impact site speed. 

Repurpose Content

To incorporate visual content into your marketing strategy, you don’t have to come up with something brand new. Consider turning a high-performing blog into an infographic to share on social media. Or turn a web page into a short video. 

Be Strategic

As with any marketing initiative, you need to develop a strategy. In order to reach the right people on the right platforms, ask yourself: Where is my audience? What information do they want from me? What questions do they have that I can answer? These questions will be the foundation of your visual content strategy.  

Use High-Quality Images and Videos

Using low-quality images may actually hurt your brand’s reputation online. For companies that don’t have access to photography, stock images are a good place to start. However, keep in mind that stock images reportedly perform the worst out of all visuals.

Balance Text and Images

Everything works best in moderation. Know when to use text and when to use visual elements to enhance your message. When creating visuals, make them bite-sized and easy to consume so they complement the story you’re telling. 

Make Visuals Easy to Share

Create everything with an audience-first mindset. What does your audience want out of your content and what would make them share it? This will help expand your content’s reach. Make things easy to share by adding share buttons on your site or email. 

Stay On-Brand

The best way to stay consistent with your branding is by creating a visual content marketing style guide. This is especially important when people begin sharing your content on different platforms. That way, your brand is always front and center. 

Include a Clear CTA

Content is only as good as the action your audience takes because of it. Whether you’re creating a video, downloadable ebook, infographic, or beyond, always include a clear call to action. 

Need help creating visuals for your business? Take a look at some of our past projects to see visual content in action!

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Imagine this: you’re working on a campaign and have two ad versions. Both have targeted copy, engaging headlines, and eye-catching images but both have different call to actions (CTAs). Both actions serve your objective but you’re unsure which would resonate with your audience more, so what do you do? 

This is where you can use split testing to help answer that question. After we answer what is split testing, we’ll explore how split testing works and how you can use it to your advantage in your internet marketing strategy. 

What is Split Testing?

Split testing is a method of comparing two versions of a marketing asset to see which one performs better. It diverts your traffic equally to each asset so you get an accurate sampling. This can be a disadvantage since you need an audience big enough to get accurate results and the traffic to support it. 

When you’re testing elements, it’s best practice to only change one element, such as different headlines, layouts, or copy length, while keeping the rest the same. This allows you to see what specific change performs well and which doesn’t.

What is A/B Testing?

When you do a split test, you need to use an A/B test. A/B testing is a similar tactic in that you’re seeing which element performs better. Some of the elements you can test are headlines, call to actions (CTAs), images, text copy, and landing pages/web pages.

One of the biggest differences is with A/B testing you’re not always splitting your audience exactly 50/50. When you use any type of testing, you’re seeing which elements work best with your audience. Like split testing, it’s best to limit your changes so you can isolate what elements work best.

To run a successful split test, you need to have A/B testing. But to run an A/B test, you don’t need to always have split testing.

What Can You Split Test?

One of the best features of split testing is that it isn’t limited to just one area. You can use split tests across your digital marketing tactics and use the results to create or adjust your strategy. Learning what factors you can split test can help you design a more effective experiment.

Content Marketing

Considered a long-term marketing strategy, content marketing focuses on building trust and relationships with your audience through quality, and relevant, content. It can take the form of blog writing, script writing for videos or radio ads, and webpage content.

Marketers need to have patience when using content marketing because, for example, it can take online web pages 4-6 months before they start ranking in Google search results. So to make sure your content is in a position to succeed in search engines, marketers can split test: 

  • CTAs
  • Text length
  • Image-heavy copy vs. text-heavy copy
  • Headlines
  • Message intent 
  • Webpage layout

Split testing reveals valuable insights into your target audience’s preferences and behaviors. This knowledge empowers you to craft content that truly speaks to their needs and desires.

Social Media Marketing

With the rise of social media usage among people, social media marketing has become a favorite tool of marketers. It’s a great way for companies to reach their target audience and drive traffic to their websites. 

Social media marketing includes posts, captions for images or videos, and targeted ads. Different elements you can test are:

  • CTAs
  • Text length
  • Post content
  • Headlines 
  • Post time
  • Background sounds
  • Message intent
  • Link destination 
  • Images 

By taking your results, you can help build a social media campaign that resonates with your audience and that they engage with. 

Email Marketing

A form of direct marketing, email marketing has been around since the beginning of email. When done correctly, it can build relationships with your audience, increase brand awareness, and promote your business.

One of the toughest parts about email marketing is you need what you’re sending to stand out because people get so many emails in a day. You need to hook them immediately so they want to open your email and not automatically delete it. 

When you’re crafting your email, you can test:

  • Subject lines
  • Templates
  • Audience segments
  • Send times
  • Personalization vs. general messaging
  • CTAs
  • Text length
  • Image-heavy copy vs. text-heavy copy

Testing different elements allows you to pinpoint the variations that will get your audience to click on and open. This translates to higher engagement rates, conversions, and overall campaign success.

SEO Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing’s goal is to improve a website’s visibility in search engines, such as Google, by gaining qualified traffic. With Google users searching for information/products each day, search engines are one of the biggest traffic generators for websites. 

SEO plays a key role in improving your ranking positions since better rankings mean more traffic, which can bring more brand awareness. To improve these rankings SEO marketers use several tactics including metadata and ads. Areas they can test are:

  • Keywords
  • URLs
  • Landing pages
  • Schema markup
  • Linking strategies
  • Title tags/meta descriptions
  • Page loading speed
  • Mobile responsiveness

Split testing is a continuous process, like SEO, so by consistently testing and optimizing your website, you adapt to your audience’s preferences and maximize your long-term impact.

PPC Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a type of online marketing where advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their ads. Typically PPC marketing is through search engines, such as Google Ads, and marketers bid on keywords. However, PPC marketing is evolving and starting to look like paid social marketing.  

With that change, PPC ads can also include social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Elements you can test are:

  • CTAs
  • Headlines
  • Text length
  • Keywords
  • Text intent
  • Landing pages
  • Visuals
  • Dayparting
  • Ad objectives

Using split testing on PPC ads helps you gain a higher return on your investment or ROI. This means you’ll be spending your marketing budget on ads that you know will work and meet your goals.

How Do You Design Effective Split Tests?

To get accurate results in your testing, you need to set up an accurate test.

1. Define Goals & Target Audience

First, you need to determine what your goals are and what you want to achieve.  Knowing that gives your test structure and a direction to go in. 

Make sure your audience is equally split or as close to an even split as you can get it. This allows you to create a fair and unbiased split test.  

2. Select What to Test

As noted above, there are many different elements that you can test. However, to get the best results, you should only test one element at a time so you need to determine what’s the most important. Is it your CTA? Or do you want to see if a longer text piece captures more attention than a shorter one?

3. Create Variations

Once you’ve decided what element to test, now you need your variations. Make sure you’re creating clear differences for your team to compare. Otherwise, your test won’t yield any useful results.

When you’re creating your variations, you can create two for an A/B test or you can create more to do an A/B/C/D, or multivariate, test. Just remember to only change that one element across all variations and keep everything else the same. 

4. Set Up the Test

Now that you’ve determined your goals and what elements to change, it’s time to design your test. First, you need to determine how long you want to run your test. It needs to be long enough that you can collect sufficient data but not too long that it starts to skew the results. It’s a best practice to run a test for two weeks but you can add more time if you aren’t seeing results.

There are several tools you can use to help you set up your test and collect data. Some of them are HotJar (free), HubSpot (free), and Optimizely (paid). Research each one and see which options would work best for what results you want to gain. 

5. Analyze Your Results

Once you get your results in, it’s time to see what happened. Did one CTA perform better than the other? Or did changing when a campaign was launched make a difference? This is where you can use your analytics to track the key metrics related to your goals. 

Once you look over all your data, then you can reexamine your marketing strategy and implement what you’ve found. 

Two people sit at a desk and point at a tablet. The desk is covered in papers.

What are the Benefits of Split Testing for Me?

The obvious answer is to see which option resonates with your audience better, which is important. However, there are a few more subtle benefits you’ll get from split testing. 

Once you find out which option is best, you’ll be able to reduce your bounce rates. For example, you test copy length and discover that your audience responds better to shorter copy with more images. Moving forward, you can tailor your copy to meet your audience’s preference.

Another related benefit to reducing your bounce rates is you can increase your engagement rate. By being able to capture your target audience from the beginning, you’ll keep them on your site longer. This increases the chance they interact with your content more, whether it’s more blogs or other landing pages on your website. 

You can also use split testing to try a new marketing strategy before you launch it. You can see what works and identify any risks. Since this is just a test, you’ll have time to make any changes to your strategy and fix any issues you find before a launch date.

Once your launch occurs, you can use the split testing results in your reporting to show why these changes are necessary and how they can benefit your business. Having data to support your reasoning strengthens your argument and gives examples of why the changes are beneficial. This is especially helpful when you have an important launch and want to reach the maximum percentage of your target audience. 

You’ve learned what split testing is—now it’s time to contact our team today to integrate it into your marketing strategy.

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Planning a website redesign and launch can be overwhelming, especially if you haven’t had the experience of planning one in the past. In this blog, we’ll provide a website launch checklist you can use to get a better understanding of what the journey ahead will look like.

How Long Does A Website Redesign Take?

Every website redesign project is unique and involves many moving parts from start to finish. There’s no telling what obstacles or unforeseen circumstances will emerge during the process. However, typically a website launch timeline will consist of 6 main stages:

  • Planning and discovery (2-10 weeks)
  • Content and SEO (5-15 weeks)
  • UI/UX design (4-12 weeks)
  • Developing and coding (6-15 weeks)
  • Testing and review (2-7 weeks)
  • Official launch (1 day-3 weeks)

Remember, the timing of these stages will vary depending on your goals for the project and the scale of work required to reach them. Another component that will influence your website launch timeline is the number of stakeholders involved in the redesign process. For example, if every service team’s lead needs to review each piece of the project, it will take longer to finalize.

Pre-Website Launch Checklist

A lot of hard work goes into a website before it can be pushed live, and it can’t all be completed by one person. A successful website launch depends on the work of skilled individuals who all have a different role to play.

In the following sections, we’ll break down some of the main steps and roles that should be included in your pre-website launch checklist.

Web development stage of a website redesign project.

Website Relaunch Developers & Web Designers Checklist

The first part of a website relaunch checklist is dedicated to developers and web designers. These individuals will work to ensure the site functions smoothly on the back end as well as the front.

1. Check site speed.

Not only does a faster page load speed provide users with a better experience, but it also is an important Google ranking factor. Faster loading times mean higher rankings for your site in search engine result pages. Therefore, it’s important to check your site’s speed before launching to make sure it’s loading at a quick rate.

2. Create a custom 404 page.

404 error warnings are shown when a server can’t find what was requested by the user. This could be from typing the wrong URL into the search bar or clicking on a dead link. Setting up custom 404 pages for your site ensures visitors are made aware of the error, but don’t have to see the generic warning message.

3. Check your site’s compatibility on different devices and web browsers.

Before launching your site, take the time to see what each page looks like on different devices and when searched in different browsers. Doing this will help you identify and fix areas that could negatively impact user experience like text and buttons being too small or content falling off the page.

4. Validate code and CSS.

Validating code and CSS ensures each page on your site looks and functions the way it should. Before launching, developers can check for things like syntax errors, typos, missing tags, and other issues to confirm the site is compatible with all browsers, accessible for all devices, and complies with web standards.

5. Check that your site serves HTTPS.

Hypertext transfer protocol secure (or HTTPS), is used to keep information sent from a device to a website private. Once it’s set up visitors will know their sensitive information like IP addresses or credit card numbers won’t be accessed by unauthorized individuals.

6. Ensure your site complies with privacy laws.

It’s no secret that visitors are more likely to trust your site when they know you follow privacy laws. There are different privacy laws around the world such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

7. Review third-party tools and integrations.

Before launching, review all your third-party tools and remove any integrations that aren’t necessary or fix any that aren’t working properly. Doing this will improve UX, boost site speed, and lead to better search engine rankings.

SEO specialist checking Google Analytics.

Website Relaunch SEO Checklist

Next in our website launch checklist, we’ll introduce SEO specialists. These individuals work to keep your site relevant and showing up in search results for users to see.

1. Check for possible indexation and crawling issues.

Search engines collect data by crawling your site and then store it through a process called indexing. This affects what results appear when a user searches for something online. SEO specialists can identify indexing issues and manage crawler traffic before a site is launched, making it easier for search engines to identify and display your content.

2. Make sure URLs & redirects are search engine friendly.

We talked about 404 errors earlier, and one of the ways these can occur is if a link is broken. Before launching, all old site pages should be redirected to the new ones. Creating permanent redirects (known as 301s) will automatically send users to the new pages if they accidentally visit the old URL.

3. Install Google Analytics.

Analytics software, like Google Analytics, allows you to retrieve valuable insight into what your users are doing on your site. It’s important to set up analytic tools before your site goes live because you’ll want to begin gathering data from the moment you launch. If your old site had analytics set up, verify that they are still working properly with the new site.

4. Use keyword mapping.

Keywords will play an essential role in the performance of your site. Keyword mapping is an SEO strategy that helps assign target keywords to specific pages on your site. With the help of an SEO specialist, these keywords can assist in performing goals, driving traffic, and improving search rankings.

5. Optimize meta tags, titles, descriptions, and content.

As we mentioned above, your site needs keywords to gain visibility. Optimizing meta tags, titles, descriptions, and site content will help search engines index your page efficiently. Each page on your site should have a unique title and description in addition to the keywords SEO specialists provide.

6. Use schema to mark up content.

Schema is what tells search engines what your data means and helps represent it in a more user-friendly way. Using special microdata language, SEO specialists can tell search engines more about the content on your site and control how it appears in search results.

7. Check UX.

User experience (UX) is how a visitor interacts with your site. Having a good UX depends on a variety of factors. You want to make sure your site is easy to navigate and accessible to everyone, regardless of possible impairments or technological limitations. Adding alt text to images, captions to videos, and choosing the typography and font size are only a few of the ways you can improve your site’s UX.

Content marketing specialist editing website content.

Website Relaunch Content Checklist

The last few steps of our website launch checklist belong to content marketing specialists. These individuals take care of all the content that will be seen by users when they visit your site.

1. Make sure content adds value.

The content on your site should be valuable to any user who visits. This means not focusing purely on self-promotion, but also including expert advice, actionable takeaways, and resourceful information. There are many distractions online and offering valuable content is one of the best ways to keep users engaged and coming back to your site.

2. Proofread content.

It may seem obvious, but grammar errors happen more often than we realize, and while everyone makes mistakes, there’s no doubt that these errors will hurt a brand’s credibility. Proofreading content is a way to show visitors that you care about your brand’s image and their user experience.

3. Use proper formatting.

Proper formatting is an essential part of any content specialist’s writing and publishing process. Using SEO content writing techniques like headlines, lists, and high-quality images improves readability and makes your site more visually appealing.

4. Ensure content is factual.

As we mentioned before, your content needs to be valuable to your readers. In the same respect, it needs to be factual. If search engines find your content to be fake or misleading they won’t display it on result pages. Additionally, if a user notices misinformation on your site, they are less likely to return.

5. Keep content style concise.

Your content style will speak to who your brand is and how you should be perceived by others. Keeping the tone and voice in your writing consistent will make you stand out among competitors. Every piece of content, from blogs to videos to downloadable files, should reflect your brand’s message and personality.

Remember, this website launch checklist is only the beginning, many more pieces contribute to a successful site launch, fortunately, you can get help from digital marketing experts to ensure your site turns out exactly how you envisioned.

Interested in a website redesign for your company? Take a look at some of our website projects and see what we can do.

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Encouraging brands to embrace digital marketing opened the doors for new opportunities and success, however, it also brought along a new set of challenges, one of those being a constant flood of marketing industry jargon.

In this blog, we will help you cut through the clutter and provide basic digital marketing terms you should focus on when building a strategy that will help you and your business succeed.

What is Digital Marketing – And Why Should You Care?

Marketing is everywhere, but when people think of it, they often think of billboards, magazines, television commercials, and even ads on the radio.

These are what we refer to as traditional marketing techniques. However, like most things, as the world has evolved, marketing has too.

Digital marketing is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the Internet or other forms of digital communication.

According to the Pew Research Center, three in ten U.S. adults claim they are “almost constantly” online. This explains why businesses are choosing to focus on digital marketing rather than traditional techniques. Using the Internet allows businesses to reach more customers in a shorter amount of time and with less effort. In addition, digital marketing is known to be more cost-effective.

a woman types on her laptop, the screen showing charts and graphs

Digital Marketing Key Terms

For brands to get the most out of digital marketing services they need to have a basic understanding of digital marketing terminology and the ability to differentiate these terms with buzzwords.

Buzzwords are words or phrases that are trending during a certain period. These words, or jargon, won’t have the same effectiveness as those that experienced marketers use and know.

Below, we’ve broken down some important digital marketing terms to start with as you build your knowledge.

Organic

When it comes to digital marketing terminology, you should know the three primary terms marketers will often use when they are discussing how to drive traffic (a term we will cover below) and gain leads. The first term is organic.

If someone finds your site on a search engine without clicking on an advertisement or other type of promotional content, it is considered organic traffic.

This is a natural way of spreading brand awareness and generating leads. For example, sending out email newsletters, publishing monthly blog posts and social media posts (not advertisements), or other pieces of content that don’t require a set budget.

Paid

The second way to drive traffic and gain leads is through paid marketing techniques. These include advertisements or campaigns that require a daily or lifetime budget. For instance, running monthly social media advertisements on LinkedIn.

Typically, businesses will find that paid campaigns perform better than posting organically. This is often because platforms will allow you to use detailed targeting. However, having a balance of both paid and organic marketing is beneficial since you’re likely to reach more people overall.

Referral

If a user finds your site without organically searching or clicking on a paid ad, it’s known as referral traffic. When someone visits a hyperlink from a social network or website and ends up on your site, search engines can recognize this as a referral visit.

Many businesses will also use UTM codes to track exactly where these users are coming from. Doing this allows you to see which social networks or sites are bringing in the most traffic.

Traffic

As promised above, the next digital marketing term everyone in the industry should be aware of is “traffic”. Simply put, traffic refers to the number of users who have visited your website or social media profiles.

This metric is crucial for every brand, but especially those who are trying to increase brand awareness. It’s important for marketers to not only see that traffic is coming through but also to locate where users are coming from.

For example, in Google Analytics, you’re able to identify if a user came to your site organically (in a search engine) or through a paid ad. Determining this will help you build a marketing strategy that is aligned with your overall goals.

Session

As we mentioned previously, you can track the traffic for your site in Google Analytics, but to do that you need to understand another key digital marketing term known as sessions.

Every time a user visits your site, they start a session, and after 30 minutes of inactivity, the session ends. This means if someone is on your site for even a second, they are counted as a session. In the same respect, if a user leaves your site and comes back a few hours later or the next day, it’s counted as a new session.

However, most businesses don’t simply want to know if people are visiting their site, but also how long they’re staying. This is where engaged sessions come into play. When a user stays on your site for more than 10 seconds, completes a conversion (we’ll discuss more about this below), or has at least 2 pageviews, it’s considered an engaged session.

While sessions alone can be helpful, engaged sessions are arguably more important because they show businesses that users are absorbing information on their site and therefore becoming one step closer to becoming leads or customers.

Lead

The primary goal of any company or business is to gain customers and increase revenue. Marketers can assist them in this by creating strategies to bring in new leads. A lead is any user that shows interest in a brand, product, or service.

Depending on the company itself, the quality of leads may vary, however, for the most part, a qualified lead refers to someone who fills out a contact form, requests a quote, signs up for a trial, or takes any other action that pushes them closer to becoming a customer.

Conversions

We’ve mentioned the term conversions a few times, which is appropriate because, in many ways, these are some of the most valuable metrics in digital marketing. When creating a marketing strategy, marketers will break down a number of actions they want users to take.

Conversions can vary in importance, what the business is trying to achieve will greatly impact what types of conversions digital marketers decide to set up.

This could be viewing a landing page, clicking a contact button, or downloading a file, a conversion happens whenever a user completes a desired action.

Call to Action (CTA)

A digital marketing term you’ll hear frequently is a call to action or CTA. This refers to the next step a marketer wants the audience to take to push them further through the sales funnel.

Usually appearing at the end of a content, ad, or email, a good CTA will be clear and concise. Often CTAs will include a direct link for a user to click on.

Whether it leads to a contact form, product page, or another resource, the goal of a CTA is to keep the reader engaged and interested in a service or product.

A/B Testing

Also known as “split testing”, A/B testing is a digital marketing term that describes the process of comparing two variables to determine which performs better.

For example, if you are experimenting with email headlines and want to see what is more effective, you can send out two emails that have the same copy, and list but contain different headlines.

Based on how each performs, you can determine which headline is stronger. This is a technique digital marketers use in several areas to improve conversion rates and optimize their content.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Commonly referred to as KPIs, key performance indicators, are how marketers measure their progress against an objective.

There are two types of indicators to be aware of when creating goals: lagging and leading. Lagging indicators assess the current state of business performance while leading indicators work to predict future success.

It’s important to take into account both types because while lagging indicators aren’t helpful with making ongoing adjustments, they can help you shape your goals which should be based on leading indicators.

two people type on their laptops at a table. the table top is covered in pieces of paper and sticky notes

Tactical Digital Marketing Terms

Now that we’ve covered some of the basic digital marketing terms, it’s time to dive into the specifics.

Generally speaking, 4 main types of services go hand-in-hand with digital marketing. In the following sections, we’ll explain what these are and what terms are specific to the work they do.

Basic SEO Terms to Know

Search engine optimization, or SEO, refers to the process of improving a website to increase its visibility in search engines, like Google or Microsoft Bing. The main goal of SEO is to increase traffic and attract users who will become leads, customers, or an audience that continues to come back.

Title Tag– The name of a specific web page. These will appear at the top of a web browser or in search engine results.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)– The page of results users see when they type a word, phrase, or query into a search engine.

Meta Description– Tied to a specific page, these are used to describe web pages and encourage users to click on links in the SERP.

Keyword– A word or phrase a user types into a search engine to find what they are looking for. Using keywords in titles, headings, and body of texts will help improve a page’s ranking.

Ranking Factors– The criteria applied by search engines when evaluating web pages to decide where each page should fall on the SERPs.

Events– A metric that records a specific user interaction or occurrence on a website, for example clicking a button, submitting a form, downloading a file, and more.

Conversion Rate– Measures the number of users who converted (taken action) as a percentage of the total number of users who visited a site. This can be calculated by the total number of conversions divided by the total number of clicks.

Basic Content Marketing Terms to Know

Content marketing involves the creation and distribution of valuable and relevant online material that is intended to promote a brand as well as spark interest in its products or services. These materials include a wide variety of content pieces from blogs to whitepapers.

Buyer Persona– A detailed description of a business’s ideal customer, outlining their customer’s desires, pain points, demographics, etc.

Bounce Rate– The percentage of users who enter a website and leave rather than continuing to browse pages within the same site.

Landing Page– Any page on a website where traffic is sent to prompt a specific action or result.

Copywriting– The process of creating content for web pages, blogs, or social media posts to convert users.

Customer Journey– An outline of the different steps users will take to become qualified leads, customers, or clients.

Sessions Per User– The average number of sessions each user engages on a specific site or application. This can be calculated by dividing a site’s session count by its user count.

Basic Email Marketing Terms to Know

Email marketing helps you reach potential customers, increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and promote other marketing efforts. The messages in emails can include valuable content, updates, coupons, or exclusive offers.

Email Automation– An email marketing strategy that sends specific messages according to certain triggers or scheduled times.

Dynamic Content– Email content that changes based on a user’s data, preferences, and behaviors to show them specific messaging.

List Segmentation– A process of breaking down email lists into smaller segments to create personalized messages.

Email Deliverability– The ability to successfully deliver emails to users’ inboxes.

Drip Campaign– A series of automated messages or emails sent to leads regularly and over a scheduled period.

Open Rate– The number of email recipients who opened an email.

Click Rate– The percentage of people who opened an email and clicked on a link or ad within the email. This can be calculated by dividing the number of emails clicked by the number of emails sent.

Click-To-Open Rate– The percentage of people who opened an email and then clicked a link within that email. This can be calculated by dividing unique email opens by unique email clicks and then multiplying by 100.

Basic Social Media Marketing Terms to Know

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to interact with customers to build brands, increase sales, and drive website traffic. Social media can be shared organically and can be used for paid advertising.

Impressions– The number of times content has been shown on the feeds of social media users.

Engagement Rate– A metric that shows how much interaction a social media post or ad campaign earns from users. This can be calculated by dividing the total engagement by total followers and then multiplying by 100%.

Conversion Rate– The percentage of users who follow through a social media post or ad’s call to action.

Cost Per Click (CPC)– A metric that determines how much advertisers pay for social ads based on the number of clicks the ad receives. This can be calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by the advertisement.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)– The number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times an ad is shown.

a laptop is open on a table next to a row of cacti in cute pots along a windowsill

Staying educated about basic digital marketing terminology is beneficial for businesses because it gives them the ability to not only understand what other competitors are doing online but also the chance to create a marketing strategy that will put them ahead of their competition.

With this knowledge, you have the opportunity to build relationships with like-minded people who can help tell your brand’s story and achieve your goals.

Interested in learning more about digital marketing? Browse our case studies to see some of our recent marketing projects.

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This blog was originally published on March 30, 2021, and updated on November 1, 2023.

Writing a good headline is like being a well-trained chef plating a dish.

You can choose a presentation that’s purposeful and practical if you know your audience wants comfort food. But you also need to know when your audience wants a fancier garnish and presentation. (And alternatively, make sure you’re not delivering them a meal tossed in a greasy paper bag instead.)

At Tower, our Content Team writes a variety of marketing copy daily and we lean into a lot of tried and proven tactics. Keep reading to learn about our favorite headline writing techniques and some practical ways to strengthen your own copy.

What Makes A Good Headline?

While there’s no golden rule for every situation, there are some general guidelines you can use to gauge your headline:

  • Does it convey a clear message?
  • Does it put the reader first?
  • Does it entice the person on the other end to read it?
  • Does it use easy-to-follow, jargon-free language?
  • Does it feel easy to skim?

If you can check all of those off, you’ve likely crafted a strong headline. However, if one or two remain uncrossed, you need to do some more brainstorming.

The Principles of Headline Writing

As you’re getting started, here are some principles to keep handy and ensure you have a good foundation for your headlines.

A content marketer works on her headline writing techniques.

Take The Time To Research Your Audience

Don’t assume you know them. Even if you’re familiar with them, you may uncover some surprising insights from taking the time to research.

Look at reviews, online forums, social groups, and anywhere else your target audience is spending time. See how they’re talking about issues your product or service solves. Pay attention to what pain points they bring up and the way they naturally talk about them.

Make Sure Not To Skip These Questions

Take a moment to jot down your answers to the following:

  • What emotional response do I want/need to trigger?
  • How do I want to connect with the reader in this?
  • How can I speak to their struggle or pain point?
  • Is there an element of surprise I can use?

Proof Read & Edit Your Headlines

Both are equally important, and yes there’s a difference between proofing and editing. Look at your headline in context with all the other content and ensure it’s grammatically correct, but also logical in its strategy.

Get An Outside Perspective

Oftentimes the most difficult part of the review is to take off the lens of your company and put on the lens of your audience. However, if you don’t do this, you may accidentally cater to the wrong group. 

You should make sure you’re speaking like your audience, in order to speak to them. By reviewing from their lens you may notice internal jargon or phrases that need dropping.

6 Writing Techniques To Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines

1. Pick & Use The Right Headline Formula

There are plenty of advanced headline formulas you can find out there to test. Here are some of the basic tried and true ones to consider:

  • Question Statement: Position your headline as a question to entice your reader to find the answer in the content below.
  • Command Statement: Create a bold and punchy headline that grabs attention by attaching it to a strong action.
  • Social Proof: Let others talk for your brand and tease that out in your headline to intrigue your audience.
  • News Or Informative: Share information that’s interesting enough on its own and use that to pull in readers.
  • Direct Method: State the idea clearly when your readers need to know the practical purpose from the start.
  • Indirect Method: Present an idea creatively without spelling it out in a way that’s simple or boring.
Why headlines work-headline preferences

2. Lean Into The Right Mix Of Words

Ultimately, the words in your headline are under far more scrutiny than anything else. Your reader is judging the headline to see if they want to continue on or not.

Make sure you have the right mix of words to move them to read more. Avoid jargon and cliches. Stick to concrete words and ditch the vague ones that are hard to visualize (like optimize, leverage, or utilize to name a few of B2B’s favorite crutch words).

You should also lean into finding the right blend of word types detailed below.

For real-time feedback on how you’re using these words try using this nifty headline tool from CoSchedule.

3. Use Headline Psychology

If you want to brush up your knowledge here, this is a great read on using psychology in your writing. It has more detail on the concepts we reference too, along with visual examples.

Below are some of our psychology tactics to try and keep handy in your list of headline writing techniques.

4. Let User Intent & Behavior Drive Your Choices

Especially if you’re writing copy online, headline optimization is a must. Look at Google Trends or any SEO tools you have access to and determine what users are searching. 

Pay attention to see if any seasonal patterns or common trends are happening in search. This can be helpful insight even for headlines going on physical marketing materials. 

If you’re writing digital copy, make sure you optimize your headlines as well with relevant keywords, to ensure your content performs better in search engines.

5. Write ‘Visually’ & Consider Character Limitations

Think about the way your headline looks, not just what it’s saying. Does it lose its strength if it breaks into two lines instead of displaying on one line? Does punctuation enhance its presentation or detract?

Additionally,  consider what you’re writing copy for. If your headline is being displayed in an ad platform, write to fit the character count. 

Here are two helpful resources if you’re working on social media ads or PPC ads in particular.

6. A/B Test When You Can 

The perfect headline isn’t going to be the first one you write. And sometimes, it may not be the final one you write either!

Always A/B test different types of headlines when you can to see what works better to engage your audience. If you’re writing for your website, social, or PPC ads, A/B testing is easy. However, even if you’re doing traditional mail-out materials, you can always split them up with different headlines.

Just make sure you’re only changing the headlines and nothing else. Otherwise, it’s hard to isolate if it’s the headlines or a different element that performed better.

Watch Out For The Pitfalls Of Writing Headlines

Don’t Sacrifice Clear For Clever

If you focus too much on being creative or humorous, it sacrifices the clarity of what you’re trying to say. But being straightforward can also be boring if you have the chance to be creative. A good headline leans into the direction its readers would prefer or enjoy.

Don’t Create Something Inauthentic

To save time, or maybe even break out of the box, you may feel the impulse to use one of the many “headline generator” tools online or an AI writing assistant. They are a good starting point for brainstorming, but sometimes the results can seem a little “off.”

They often spit out outputs that may not hit the right tone or simply read generically (something likely to make your audience yawn). Use them for ideas, but take the time to polish those outputs and play with ways to make them shine.

Don’t Embrace Click-Bait Tactics

By now, we’ve all clicked on something that had a tempting title but didn’t deliver in the content. A sensational title may grab attention, however, you’ll sacrifice the trust of your audience and taint the reputation of your brand. It’s hard to get trust back — so we recommend you never embrace this tactic.

Enjoying the advice in this blog? Subscribe to our podcast or start a conversation with our team for more helpful marketing insights!

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This blog was originally published on June 28, 2017. It was updated on July 19, 2023.

As a web designer, you have a keen eye for detail. Creating color palettes and arranging elements in a visually pleasing way is your job after all!

But when you’re gifted with these abilities, it can be easy to forget that some people struggle to see what we’re able to perceive with ease.

Over 2 billion people worldwide (more than a quarter of the world’s population!) have some form of visual impairment.

Glaucoma, cataracts, and color blindness are just a handful of the challenges they face—the same challenges you should also be taking into account when creating an accessible color palette.

If you’ve been tasked with creating an ADA-compliant website, these five easy steps will help you create a user-centric experience for everyone.

1. Understand Compliance

Understanding ADA compliance can be tricky. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as a checklist you can reference when building your site. The law only states that you must provide “reasonable accessibility” to people with disabilities, like the ability to use a screen reader and fill out forms.

Although it isn’t a legal standard, most developers and designers follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), which include three levels of compliance: AAA, AA, and A.

Accessibility consists of so much more than color, but for the purposes of this blog, we’re going to focus on which level your site would fall into based solely on your use of color.

WCAG Levels of Accessibility

  • Level AAA
    This is the strictest level of compliance. Level AAA is often used by government agencies, medical providers, and organizations that receive taxpayer funding.
  • Level AA
    This is the median level of compliance. For the majority of companies, level AA provides a balance between meeting legal requirements for usability and having design flexibility.
  • Level A
    This is the lowest level of compliance and is not recommended in terms of color. Color combinations that fall below levels AA or AAA will be considered a “fail” by color-checking tools.

How Compliance is Determined

Your design’s level of color compliance depends on two factors: the contrast ratio between the foreground (text) and the background, as well as the point size of your text.

A contrast ratio of 7 or higher is considered AAA compliant, while 4.5 through 7 will meet AA standards.

A color checker example using Tower Marketing branded colors

An example of a color contrast checker using Tower’s brand colors.

Some color combinations will be AA18 compliant, meaning they are readable at 18px (or 14px bolded) and above. If you do choose to use “borderline” complaint colors like these, however, you should take into account that text may scale down for mobile and no longer meet this size threshold. 

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. If your client is using a font that’s unusually tall or narrow, you may need to find a contrast ratio even higher than the AA minimum.

2. Evaluate Your Accessible Color Palette Needs

Are you confined by your client’s strict brand standards, or do you have the freedom of a blank slate? We have tips for navigating both scenarios.

Working With an Existing Color Palette

With all the attention that goes into carefully crafting a brand, the idea of having to rethink a set of carefully-chosen Pantone colors can cause brands to balk at making updates for accessibility.

Luckily, there are minor tweaks (that no one except a designer would notice!) that can make a website fully accessible. Even slight alterations to a color palette can give you more viable background and text color combinations, making for a more dynamic and engaging site.

For this Tower client, minor adjustments to their existing red and black tones gave us twice the AA and AAA-compliant background and text color combinations.

A Tower client's original and updated color palettes

The client’s original color palette (left) vs. the updated version (right).

If you’re unable to modify a brand’s existing colors, you’ll have to get creative. Find a few key color combinations that pass as accessible color palettes, and then use photography, iconography, and infographics to add more color throughout the site.

Take Apple for example. Their fully-accessible homepage is bright, dynamic, and beautiful, and it utilizes only four colors in six combinations—proving that accessibility is only a restriction if you make it one.

Apple's brand colors and how they're used on their website

Building a New Accessible Color Palette

Being able to design from day one with accessibility in mind is a huge advantage—and it’s really no different from designing any other good color scheme. In fact, to make strong and accessible color palettes, you only need:

  • One or two base colors
  • A strong call-to-action color
  • A handful of neutral colors

Call-to-action colors are typically where designers struggle to remain compliant. If your CTA button is lighter (like yellow or light orange), try dark text instead of the more traditional white. You can also save fun, bright colors for hover states and opt for a slightly darker default tone. This can help buttons draw visual interest while still keeping them compliant.

Yellow and orange CTA button examples

3. Find a Color Contrast Tool That You Love

If you’re working on a new website or a website redesign, you’re going to spend a lot of time with your color contrast tool. So, take a moment and find the one that works for you. Here are a few recommendations!

  • Contrast Grid from EightShapes — This is our all-time favorite at Tower. It allows you to investigate not just one color, but all of your colors in context with one another. It also generates a unique link for every color palette, making it easy to share with clients, other designers, and developers.
  • Toolness — This is a similar tool that grays out non-accessible background and text color combinations. It can be especially helpful in visualizing and explaining compliance to those who are new to the guidelines. Since there are no non-compliant combinations shown, they won’t distract from the fully-accessible options.
  • Colors — We love this tool for its sheer inspiration and dozens of bright, exciting accessible color palettes. This can be a great place to start if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
  • Color Safe — This is another great option for creating an accessible color palette, as it also takes into consideration the specific typeface and font weight you’re using.
  • WhoCanUse — Finally, we recommend that you test your accessible color palettes with this tool that shows how people with color blindness, glaucoma, cataracts, and more will perceive the tones you chose (as well as what percentage of the population has these visual impairments).
The homepage of the color checker website WhoCanUse

4. Adjust and Iterate

Chances are, the first accessible color palette you try won’t be quite right. There may not be enough accessible options, and even if there are, the combinations available may not be a good fit for your client.

Context is Key

Play with your colors in the context of your design program. If you’re making minor alterations to an existing palette, check your new colors alongside old collateral. Is the difference noticeable? Is that a problem?

Consider print applications as well. Colors may look great online but horrible on paper, and vice versa.

Utilize the Right Design Tools

Having a powerful tool at your disposal is the key to working accessibility into your existing design process. At Tower, we use Sketch, a design program with a nearly endless library of plugins.

Stark is a color contrast analyzer that operates right inside your design file. It also has the unique ability to mimic different types of color blindness, from the most common to the very rare.

This is especially important when designing infographics and charts where differentiating colors is crucial to understanding the content. While colors may look completely different to you, if they are too similar in brightness or hue, they may be indistinguishable to someone with partial or full-color blindness.

The homepages of the websites for Sketch and Stark

Sketch and Stark are two tools we use at Tower and can recommend for others.

5. Remember Why It Matters

Designing through the new lens of accessibility can be frustrating at times, especially when working within an existing brand’s color scheme. It can be easy to get excited about a bright and edgy design, but the bottom line is that websites need to be both usable and beautiful.

Viewing ADA compliance as a challenge, rather than as a roadblock, can keep things in perspective and strengthen your design skills along the way. Plus, it will make the web a friendlier and more accessible place for everyone when we use accessible color palettes.

An older woman using a laptop in her office

At Tower, we work with many small businesses for whom individual customers are the prime focus, making visual accessibility, specifically accessible color palettes crucial for every site we build.

If you need to redesign or update your website to be ADA-compliant, our team of designers and developers is ready to help.

Explore Our Design Services

This blog was originally published on June 13, 2019. It was updated on July 6, 2023.

The big countdown to GA4 is finally coming to a close, and it brings a lot of changes, which include user engagement metrics. We’ve outlined the 8 key GA4 differences you can expect, but now we’ll explore how to use the engagement metrics in Google Analytics 4 to your advantage. 

Once you become familiar with user engagement in Google Analytics 4, you’ll be able to use these metrics to better define your marketing strategies and ultimately gain an extensive understanding of your audience.

What User Engagement Metrics Should You Track?

There are a lot of metrics for you in GA4, and trying to track all of them would be very overwhelming. On the other hand, if you’re not tracking the right ones, you might become more confused about what’s successful for your company and what needs work. 

As you consider what metrics to track, you should align this with the purpose of your website and your company’s marketing goals. For example, if you’re looking to sell your products or services online, your KPIs are going to look slightly different than a company looking to provide thought leadership to its audience. 

Below, we’ll outline some of the most influential user engagement metrics you can track to know the effect of your marketing strategies. 

In appropriate sections, we’ll highlight an industry average or target range. This may vary depending on what type of industry you’re in, so you can always use Google’s benchmarking tool to find specific averages on user engagement.

a screenshot of a reports column with sessions, engaged sessions, sessions per user, users, and new users.

Users

There are three different types of users that you should be aware of in Google Analytics 4. Each is similar but tells you a slightly different story about what your audience is doing on your website. 

  • New Users. In Universal Analytics, each device counted as a new user. However, GA4 will use cross-device tracking to recognize the same user on different devices.
  • Total Users. Similar to what you’ve seen before, total users let you know the number of users that had an event on your website during a specific period of time.
  • Active Users. Active users are a new metric you can track within Google Analytics 4. These are engaged users, or someone who stayed on the page for longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event or visited more than 2 pages on your website. Ideally, a good benchmark for active users is 60% – 70% of your total users. 

*Note that in Google Analytics 4, active users will be labeled as just “users”.

Why is this metric important for understanding user engagement? Increasing new users is a really great indicator that your brand awareness is growing. If you want to take this a step further, you can also see how many of these users are engaging with your website, viewing multiple pages, and spending more time on your site.

If you’re noticing that you have a lot of new users but not as many active users, it may be because your site needs some UX improvements so visitors are given a great first impression of your website.

Engaged Sessions

The engaged session metric will also be something new with Google Analytics 4. Just like with an active user, an engaged session is when someone spends more than 10 seconds on your site, viewed more than 2 pages, or completed a conversion. 

An additional, new metric in Google Analytics 4 is engaged sessions per user. This number can be found by dividing the number of engaged sessions by the number of total users. So, if you have 683 engaged sessions and 1,100 total users, your engaged sessions per user is 0.62, or 62%.

Just like your active users, a good benchmark for your engagement rate is anywhere between 60% – 70%. 

Why is this metric important? What we provided above highlights your entire website’s engagement. But you can also narrow this down to specific pages. By finding specific pages that have higher engaged sessions, you can continue to promote that product/service/insight on multiple platforms. 

On the other hand, you can find pages that aren’t performing as well and have lower engaged sessions. This could be a great indication to rework those pages, rewrite the blog, or to better promote the page across different mediums, like social media and email blasts.

Bounce Rate

Since engaged sessions are now an engagement metric in Google Analytics 4, you can use it to get a better idea of what your bounce rate percentage is. Simply inverse the percentage of engaged sessions to get your bounce rate. 

This bounce rate will tell you how many users stayed less than 10 seconds on your site. So, continuing with the example above, if the engagement rate is 62% that means that 38% of total users went to your site and then immediately left.

Average Engagement Time

This is an important metric to show you how long your active users are spending on your website. If you’re noticing that people aren’t spending a lot of time on your page, and aren’t converting, it’s likely that something needs to be adjusted. 

Again, use this metric to see where users are spending the most time on your site. If you’re noticing that your blog posts, case studies, landing pages, or other online materials are getting little engagement time, try creating evergreen, engaging, and authentic content.

Events

Now the main difference you’ll see in UA vs GA4 engagement metrics is it’s now tracking events rather than goals. Ultimately, this is going to help you see a more well-rounded view of your users and their engagement. 

An event now includes any activity on your website, from a form being filled out to a user viewing one of your pages. This is where it is essential to analyze what you want to know about user activity on your website. 

Make sure the events you are tracking are the most important for measuring your marketing strategies. So, if you’re an eCommerce website, you probably want to be tracking when users are browsing the inventory, adding products to their carts, and eventually checking out. 

If your website’s main objective is to disperse information and show yourself as an industry expert, you should be tracking events that occur on your blog posts or case study pages. Events like page scroll depth, video progress (if relevant), and clicks.

a screenshot of conversion examples in Google Analytics 4.

Conversions

In Universal Analytics, you had to set up goals that would then track your conversions. It’s going to look a bit different in Google Analytics 4. All goals have turned into events, and you can mark your most important events as conversions. 

Simply toggle the switch to indicate which events you’d like to mark as conversions. We recommend marking events like form submissions and phone calls as conversions.

two events that are showing they can be marked as conversions in Google Analytics 4.

Why is this metric important? No matter the purpose of your website, you’re going to want users to take action. Conversions are one of the best ways to track user engagement in Google Analytics 4. 

Not only can you see specific actions being taken, but you can see where these conversions are coming from. You may see conversions come from an email campaign you sent out, a social advertisement, or a pay-per-click campaign. 

Especially during a time when you need to reevaluate your strategies, being able to see where conversions are happening can help you focus your attention on those specific channels. 

How to Improve Engagement Metrics in Google Analytics

With a little time, specific tools, and website testing, you can make changes that will benefit users navigating your site. 

Explore the Why

In marketing, there isn’t usually a one-size-fits-all answer as to why things are happening. Here are a few tips you can explore to gain a more accurate depiction of ways to improve your engagement metrics. 

Depending on your industry, there could be multiple reasons for a decrease in engagement. If you work in an economically dependent industry, this could play a huge factor in site engagement. 

There will be similar effects if your business has a seasonality factor. If that’s the case, try comparing year-over-year data rather than month-over-month, so you can get a better view of what’s happening through each season of the year. 

If you are seeing dips in engagement, don’t panic! What’s important is that you’re continuing your strategies and creating engaging, evergreen content that can be used across multiple platforms to engage more of your audience.

Encourage Engagement Across Multiple Channels

It’s important to reach your audience where they are. Cross-promotions allow for your message to spread to a wider audience, nudging them to visit your site and discover your content. 

You can use various internet marketing tactics like content writing, email newsletters, social media advertising, and pay-per-click advertising to capture your user’s attention and send them to your website.

Test Your Theories

As we said, there sometimes isn’t a definitive answer to why engagement is increasing or decreasing. So, it’s never a bad idea to test what you think may be the reason for the fluctuation or try implementing a new strategy. 

When you’re A/B testing, make sure you’re not changing everything at once. You should only change one element at a time, so you can accurately identify the most positive effects on your user engagement in Google Analytics 4.

Need help analyzing your current strategies and pinpointing areas of improvement on your website? Contact our specialists today!

Reach Out

This blog was originally published on September 25, 2019, and updated on June 28, 2023.

Blog writing seems deceptively easy. Some people think that all you need to do is write new and compelling content, publish it on a consistent schedule, and new traffic will be generated. While that is a necessary part of the process, experienced content marketers know there is more to it. 

One way to drive traffic to your website is forum link-building. After reading this blog, you’ll learn why forum link-building is important, what forums you can use, and why it’s beneficial.

What is Link Building?

Link building refers to the variety of methods marketers use to increase the number of high-quality links that refer to your website. It often includes spending lots of time researching and reaching out to external sources. 

If you use the correct link-building strategy, you can increase your website traffic, boost your brand awareness, and increase your domain authority. 

What is Forum Link Building?

This type of link-building activity uses forums. By interacting on the forum and answering questions, you can establish backlinks to your website. 

These backlinks increase your page’s ranking in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) because you have more links pointing back to your site. This becomes important when you’re trying to outrank competitors in your industry. 

Why Should You Use It?

You want to be known as an authority in your industry and a brand people can trust. Every time you interact with a person is a chance to build a relationship with your audience. Creating quality content to share also demonstrates your brand’s expertise.

This content gives your audience something to refer to when checking your site. They might not have originally gone to your website for this topic, but they’ll remember you had a post on it. Since you’ve already built that trust with your audience, you’ve become a go-to resource for them, making it more likely that they will recommend your site to others or visit again. 

What Forums Should I Use?

If people discuss a topic, then there is a forum for it. There are forums for cars, travel, cooking, computer programming, and everything in between. But are all forums created equal? Below we’ll explore which ones are going to best benefit your website.

Quora

Quora is a question-and-answer forum. It covers over 400,000 topics and is used by 300 million people per month. 

Why Should You Use It?

While anyone can use Quora for advice on any issue, it can be more professional than other forums. Part of that is because the site is heavily moderated and any topics or answers that don’t adhere to the guidelines are removed. 

Since Quora is only for questions and answers, your answers are less likely to get lost in conversation threads.

Stack Exchange/Stack Overflow

Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow are online communities that allow users to ask and answer questions, mostly on technology and software. Stack Exchange is the overarching network and Stack Overflow is a specific community hosted in that network. 

Why Should You Use It?

Stack is one of the largest and most active programming Q&A communities on the internet, with a large community of users who provide help and support to other developers around the world. It is a well-known resource for programmers and software developers. If you’re a part of that industry, being involved with Stack is a good way to get your brand out there.

Reddit

Like Quora, Reddit is a social news and discussion website where users can submit content, such as links, text posts, and images, and engage in discussions with other users. It has 430 million monthly users. Where it differs from Quora is that Reddit shows the latest news as well. 

Why Should You Use It?

Since more people use Reddit, you can reach a larger audience. Reddit also allows you to discuss recent news stories and see what issues your audience is interacting with. 

There are questions on a variety of topics and different subcategories for more information/discussion to go more in-depth on an issue. 

However, something to keep in mind when you’re using Reddit is to do some research before you start using this platform. Discussions can get contentious fairly quickly on Reddit so it’s a good idea to do some research and understand your community before you start posting. 

Medium

Medium differs from the other platforms we’ve discussed as it’s a blogging platform. Once you create an account you can go on and either write blogs or you can repost ones already on your website. You can also determine if your articles are behind a paywall or not. 

Medium is free to everyone; however, non-members are limited to three free articles per month. To gain unlimited access, you can get a membership to the site.

Why Should You Use It?

While there isn’t as much interaction on Medium, you can still create content that links back to your website and help you become an authority within your industry. You can also still reach portions of your target audience and see what content matters to them. While not instantaneous, it can still be a good research tool.

Which One is the Best?

Deciding which forum is best isn’t easy. It depends on several factors including your overall content marketing strategy, your audience demographics, the industry you’re in, and what you want to achieve. 

For example, if you are a clothing designer, you might not use a forum like Stack Exchange that focuses on programming and software development. You might want to go somewhere like Reddit or Quora because you are more likely to find your target audience there. 

What Can You Accomplish With Forum Link Building?

Before you start on any project, you must establish what the benefits are for your business—what potential outcomes you would expect. When you start on your forum link-building journey, here are some of the potential benefits you can experience. 

Establish Your EAT

The acronym EAT stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. It’s a marketing theory that helps websites rank better in Google SERPs. However, it can be applied to just about any type of marketing, including forum link-building. 

Expertise

Being a go-to expert in your field will not go unnoticed on whichever forum you select. By answering many questions with useful and relevant information, you will gain followers who will recognize your knowledge of the topic or industry.

Authority

In this case, authority goes hand-in-hand with your expertise. Answering questions gives you the ability to position yourself or your company over your competition. 

Trust

By being a beneficial resource for users, you’ll work on gaining trust. That can then turn into loyalty, which means users will be more willing to use you or your company’s products and/or services over others.

Generate New Content Ideas

When you’re creating new content for your website, forums are an overlooked place to find content. Thanks to the vast amount of users using the platform each day, you’re bound to come across various patterns in the topics you see. 

You’re likely to see questions surrounding your industry that you haven’t thought of. You can then use this information to create new, unique content for your website.

Gain Insight Into Your Audience

As you’re looking through posts on the forum, you can get an idea of what topics your target audience is interested in or have questions about. The forum lets you speak directly with your audience and gain valuable targeting data. 

Drive Traffic To Your Website

The goal of using link building is to drive quality traffic to your website. If you have great content but no one’s seeing it, then you have a problem. 

Getting your brand out in front of your audience and answering their questions helps show them that you’re knowledgeable and should be taken seriously as a resource. 

How to Get Started Building Forum Backlinks

Now that we’ve gone over all the benefits of using forums for link building, the real work begins—using the forum. However, by using these simple steps, you can get started sooner than you think.

1. Create Your Forum Profile

Once you’ve created your content, the next step is to create a profile on your forums of choice. You can create an individual profile or you can create a profile on behalf of your company. It all depends on if this is for a personal project or for a business. 

2. Find Questions to Answer

Go through the forum and collect different questions you can confidently answer. When you’re searching for topics, you can bookmark topics so it will be easy to find them the next time you log in. 

Look for questions that speak directly to your brand and messaging. Don’t try to make questions fit what you’re saying—your audience can tell when you’re being disingenuous and that will lead to you losing credibility with them. 

3. Carefully Craft Your Answers

When you’re ready to begin answering questions, make sure your answers stand out from others. Don’t rush through your answers—take your time to think out your response and make sure that it’s beneficial. 

Using the suggestions below, your answers will be concise, clear, and useful for users.

  • Format answers
  • Use images
  • Create links
  • Make sure answers have value

4. Maintain Your Profile

Once you’ve started your profile, you’ll need to take time to maintain it. Some of the ways you can interact with your profile are:

  • Continue answering questions
  • Add content to your profile page
  • Interact with other members 
  • Create questions for other users to answer

Is Forum Link-Building Right for You?

Having relevant, SEO-optimized content already created eases your workload as you try to link build and connect with your audience. You’ve done the hard work, now you just need to share it with your audience. 

Remember, you want quality traffic over quantity. You are going straight to the source and talking directly to the audience you want to target. Since they’re searching for what you’re offering, they’re probably going to be interested in what you have to say. 

Using forums provides the ability to spread brand awareness and speak directly with your audience, which helps you understand them better. 

Want help reaching your target audience through forum link building? See how working with an experienced full-service agency can support your business.

Contact Our Team

Editor’s note: This blog was originally published on May 1, 2019. It was updated on June 9, 2023.