A simple guide to using semantic HTML5 to communicate the structure of your pages: What is semantic HTML5? Why do you need to use semantic HTML5? What does it look like? Here are some easy-to-implement examples…

We have 3 exciting new features from May‘s updates: Analyzing a Website’s Traffic Journey, Audience Overlap Between 5 Domains, A New Keyword Cannibalization Report, and Improved Domain Insights with Compare Mode.

This article includes a hand-picked list of resources that offer some of the best online courses out there in digital marketing, tech, and design. There are free and paid options, online digital marketing college programs, and MOOC platforms to learn from. See all of your options, and start learning today!

For the last few months, businesses around the world have had to rapidly adapt to the impact of COVID-19. In a time where it seems like things change every day, it can be difficult to gauge whether the challenges your business is facing are widespread. That’s why we’re publishing week-over-week benchmark data for core business metrics like website traffic, email send and open rates, sales engagements, close rates, and more. These core metrics are split by region, company size, and industry cuts, so you can explore data for companies most similar to yours. You can find the data, and more context on the dataset and sources, here. Because the data is aggregated from our customer base, please keep in mind that individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, may differ based on their own markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage, and/or other factors. These insights are refreshed every Thursday morning ET, and will be accompanied by this short writeup. You can find past writeups using this timeline. We hope to establish useful benchmarks to measure your business against, and serve as an early indicator of when short- or long-term adjustments may be needed in your strategy. What We’re Seeing Here are the three key takeaways from the most recent week’s data: 1. Deals closed rise significantly as May comes to an end. Deal creation remains flat with NORTHAM experiencing a small setback. Last week, we were deeply concerned that the positive momentum we were seeing for deals closed was lost. This turned out to be an aberration, as this week we saw a 24% increase in deals closed and posted the most deals closed-won since pre-COVID. Both the APAC and LATAM regions had a positive week, and are now at or just below the benchmark for deals closed. The industries leading the charge with the most closed-won deals last week were computer software, consumer goods, and manufacturing. They’re all now sitting at or just below the benchmark as we come to the end of May. See More On the other hand, global deal creation didn’t gain momentum last week hanging at 12% below pre-COVID levels. NORTHAM recorded an 8% drop in deal creation as every other region either saw an increase in deals created or remained consistent with the week of May 18. As the initial reaction to current events settle and more states in the U.S. continue to reopen their economies, we’ll look for this metric to bounce back in the coming weeks. The drop in deals created affected nearly all industries, except human resources and entertainment, which both saw small increases last week but are still below pre-COVID levels. As of now, the only industry that’s trending above the benchmark is construction, which sits 16% above pre-COVID levels. Consumer goods, computer software, and manufacturing have all fallen back below the benchmark after trending slightly above it in early May. These industries are now roughly 10% below pre-COVID levels. They’re still in a safe spot and are positioned nicely to have positive performances in June. 2. Sales teams send fewer emails, email engagement continues to grow slowly, and marketing metrics remain strong. While sales email volume is still trending 39% above the benchmark, it’s dropped 18% in the last two weeks. Sales teams sent fewer emails as they seemed to be focused on closing deals toward the end of May. Accordingly, email engagement increased 3% last week and continues to be on a slow — but steady — rise since late April. It’s now sitting at 26% below pre-COVID levels. See More After increases in early May, call prospecting continues to drop recording a 6% decrease following the Memorial Day holiday in the US. It’s now fallen back to 22% below pre-COVID averages as reps continue to struggle with connecting on multiple channels as well as bringing a balanced approach to outreach efforts. This is consistent across all company sizes and fairly consistent across global business regions. The only region that made more sales calls last was EMEA, which saw a 7% increase but this region is still making fewer calls than any other. While the number of meetings booked fell for the second week in a row, it’s sitting significantly above pre-COVID levels. Currently, meetings are trending 16% above the benchmark and have been above it since early April. As more businesses open up and companies master the art of social distancing, we should expect sales teams to continue booking online or in-person meetings as an effective way to engage their customers. Email marketing continues to be an effective channel for communication as open rates last week remained consistent with the week of May 18 and are still trending 15% above pre-COVID levels. Marketers did send fewer emails — likely due to the holiday weekend — but, despite this 6% dip, email volume still remains far above the benchmark at 26%. All of the industries we’re tracking are trending above pre-COVID levels, except for travel which seems to be sending fewer emails compared to the rest. See More Other marketing channels, like customer-initiated conversations and web activity, are showing strong numbers as well. The number of conversations initiated last week increased 6% and reached a year-high at 43% above the benchmark. Customers are clearly embracing live chat as this marks the seventh week in a row where global conversations have increased. Website activity is also performing well even though it has trended downward over the past two weeks. It still sits well above the benchmark at 17%. 3. In the United States, sales and marketing metrics fall during Memorial Day weekend. After three weeks of steady performance, deal creation fell 11% last week and is now sitting at 16% below pre-COVID levels. Though deals closed did improve last week compared to the previous one, it’s still trending 15% below the benchmark. Sales email volume dropped 14% while response rates dipped slightly at just 1%. Although sales email volume has dipped over the past few weeks, sales teams are still sending

The first time Amazon introduced me to the perfect book for me via their recommendation engine, I was completely awed. The idea that a website could not only recognize a return visitor, but also discern their interests and alter their site experience accordingly felt like nothing short of magic. For instance, when I check Amazon’s site, I can find numerous personalized recommendations just for me, and it still feels like a delight, every time. Since then, data-driven personalization has become more common, though not entirely pervasive in the marketing space — perhaps due to a lack of understanding around how it really works. I mean, just what drives all this highly adaptive content? More than that, how does adaptive content affect a lead’s decision-making process? That’s what we’ll go to in this post. I’ll break down the concept of “smart,” or “dynamic” content, explain what it is, how it works, and give you some strategies for incorporating it into your marketing. First, let’s explain what dynamic content is and why it’s important to use for your business. What is Dynamic Content? Smart content delights customers. When you utilize data-driven content, you can influence a lead’s buyer journey. Let’s talk about what exactly dynamic content means. Dynamic content creates an experience that’s customized specifically for the visitor or reader at that moment. One of the most well-known examples of smart content is Amazon’s recommendation engine, which we talked about earlier. Other forms, however, range from personalization fields in emails to entire images or offers on a webpage that shift based on who is looking at them. For example, let’s say I visit an ecommerce site for the first time. During this first visit, I browse around, click the “like” button on a few products, and maybe purchase something. When I come back a couple of weeks later, the home site has now changed to say “Welcome back, Kayla!”, and recommends items I might like based on my history. Suggested items were chosen based on what I purchased previously, and the information I gave while purchasing, such as my name, was stored by the website’s scripts to create a personalized experience the next time I visited. Dynamic content also works with ads. Earlier this morning, I browsed a cosmetics site I hadn’t visited before. After closing the website, I opened Facebook, and all of my ads were from that company I’d just visited. Facebook chooses ads to show users based on their browsing history and interests, so when I visited that makeup website, Facebook found the ads from that business and displayed them on my feed. Now that we have a deep understanding of dynamic content, let’s take a look at how it works. How Dynamic Content Works The key to dynamic content’s effectiveness is its relevance. This content is developed from data known about the user based on behavior. The data collection works by scripts in a webpage’s HTML that changes to make the page relevant to the user. This data is stored in the site’s database, and is what’s called a database driven website. If a website is database driven, it’s dynamic. This is because most of the content on these websites are stored in its database. The content being stored is user data that’s then used to create personalized experiences. Ultimately, dynamic content is collected from what the user gives the website, such as an email address, first name, or shopping history. This data will be organized and stored in database driven websites with associated values — think of this as a filing system. The website then assess the need of the page and shows the viewer content that’s relevant to the user. There’s two different types of content-based websites, however. Other than database driven, dynamic websites, there’s websites that have its content stored in HTML files, known as static websites. Next, let’s go in deeper about the differences between dynamic and static websites and how they work together. Dynamic content vs static content As we’ve learned, dynamic content is powered by a database driven website. Static websites are powered by websites where the content isn’t stored on a database, rather HTML files. Generally, most are used to static websites. To sum it up, static websites are the ones that don’t recognize user behavior and change to be personalized. Think of pages you visit that don’t change based on your past behavior, such as ecommerce sites that don’t give you suggestions and marketing emails that don’t mention you by name. It might be a good idea to use static pages if you don’t have the time to devote to creating dynamic pages. Additionally, if you want to get more comfortable with running a website, static pages take less time to create, and you can still create a delightful experience for customers if you manage your website using software to manage your pages seamlessly, like a CMS. Even webpages that have a section similar to “Based on people you follow,” like Twitter, are dynamic. There’s awesome benefits to using dynamic websites, for instance, the personalized aspect can help improve KPIs like conversions and return visits. Other benefits include an improved user experience, clean web design, and low maintenance. A page that’s dynamic doesn’t need to be constantly updated — it’ll always be active. Technology dynamic web pages uses to be dynamic include: A Centralized Marketing Database — Your marketing database is the brain behind your dynamic content. It stores your contacts’ download and interaction history with your site. A Smart Content Generator — Informed by the database, a smart content generator will show or hide content (blocks of images or text) based on rules you set. Malleable Web Pages — A dynamic site has to be one that is easily editable and typically marketing-controlled, rather than run through another department like IT. An Integrated Email System — Extending smart content to the emails you send will require an email system that is tied into your contact database. To sum

There are a few different avenues for sharing information on LinkedIn, but which one is the best method? And what if you’re not ready to invest in paid advertising? There has to be another option, right? The good news is that there is another option. In fact, there are a couple of ways that marketers can leverage LinkedIn’s platform for content distribution without having to pay for it. Looking to send out short, digestible content? Engage with a status update. Have something long and poignant to say? Publish an article.  To help you get a better handle on where and how to execute a content marketing strategy on LinkedIn, keep reading. I’ve covered everything you need to know from tips on content you should (and shouldn’t) share to how to determine the right frequency for posting.  How to Distribute Your Content on LinkedIn 1. Publish quick status updates. One of LinkedIn’s most underutilized features is the “LinkedIn Status Update” (also called your “Network Update”) in your LinkedIn Profile. This is one of the best ways to stay in front of your target audience on a consistent basis. And when used correctly, these little messages pack a big punch. Your status update “block” is a white box located just below your picture on your homepage. Whenever you share an update, your message is then broadcast to all of your network connections.  You can also control the visibility of your posts before sharing. This means that you can pick and choose which posts you want to share with everyone, share with just your connections, or share with both everyone and your Twitter network. While updates serve as a great place to share your thoughts, linking in a blog post or interesting website will help you to provide an even richer source of insight.  4 Tips for Sharing Updates on LinkedIn  Share links to interesting articles, websites or videos. Use words that grab the readers and encourage them to click the link. Attach a document to your status update. Your audience might appreciate receiving checklists, white papers, or case studies. Job seekers, this is a great place for your resume. Mention a person or situation that might be helpful to some of your connections. For instance, “I just met with @AlexPirouz from @Linkfluencer and found out they’ve just won the readers choice award from Anthill Magazine.” The “@” before an individual or company name allows the reader to click through to that person’s LinkedIn profile or company page. Talk about an event you are attending or have attended. This might encourage involvement and/or questions about what you learned there. 5 Things You Should Avoid When Sharing Updates on LinkedIn  Talking about what you had for breakfast (or your cat). LinkedIn is a professional network. Before you post, make sure that what you’re sharing is relevant to your audience and provides value. While your pancakes this morning may have been delicious, this isn’t the place for it.  Being a spammer. While it may be acceptable to post 20 times a day on Twitter, the landscape of LinkedIn is a little different. To avoid coming off as spammy, try to limit your updates to no more than a couple times per day. Talking about sensitive topics. I am too embarrassed to even think about, let alone share, some of the items I see posted as status updates. If your mother wouldn’t want you talking about it, don’t include it in your status. Continually pitching products and services. This takes people back to the days of big newspaper ads and screaming radio messages. This is not the purpose of social media, especially LinkedIn.  Don’t bother posting when no one’s looking. The update you posted at 11:30 p.m. on Friday probably won’t get much traction. Try to align your posting schedule with the business hours in which people in your industry operate. Of course, this varies if you have a global audience. 2. Publish and share an article on LinkedIn Another powerful way to distribute content on LinkedIn is through the publishing platform. With all members now having access to the platform, it serves as a great opportunity to expand your reach in a major way.  I was first made aware of this feature when a friend of mine posted an update on Facebook mentioning how his article on LinkedIn managed to achieve over 6000 views and 550+ shares in little over 10 hours. I was intrigued, so I decided to conduct an investigation to see how it all worked. I decided to test it out by publishing one of my articles, “5 Things All Great Leaders Have In Common.” Given that it was my first time publishing on the platform, I had no idea what to expect. However, what happened next totally blew me away … Within a matter of minutes I started receiving invitation requests and messages on LinkedIn from members who had came across my article.  Within a matter of hours the article had gone viral — achieving over 70K views, 11K+ shares, and close to 500 comments. Over the years, I have written hundreds of business articles but none of them had achieved the exposure and interaction that this one did.  In addition to the exposure, I also managed to secure a few speaking engagements and an opportunity to coach clients for our business advisory firm.  And while the article continued to gain traction as time went on, I couldn’t help but think that it was too good to be true. Unable to shake this thought, I decided to publish a few more articles over the coming weeks. Whilst none of them achieved the level of exposure my first article received, each article has now reached 10k+ views, 1000+ shares and 100+ comments on average. If my success story wasn’t enough to sell you on the value of this platform, maybe the following benefits will. 3 Key Benefits of Publishing Long-Form Posts  Targeted audience. Considering a majority of your connections are like-minded professionals, it’s easy select topics that will resonate. This type of shared interest provides an opportunity to

Marketing Margie. Sales Sam. IT Isabel. Accounting Alan. Do you know who your business’s buyer personas are? And if so, how much do you know about them? Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on data and research. They help you focus your time on qualified prospects, guide product development to suit the needs of your target customers, and align all work across your organization (from marketing to sales to service). As a result, you’ll be able to attract high-value visitors, leads, and customers to your business who you’ll be more likely to retain over time. More specifically, having a deep understanding of your buyer persona(s) is critical to driving content creation, product development, sales follow up, and really anything that relates to customer acquisition and retention. “Okay, so personas are really important to my business. But … how do I actually make one?” Ahh … the million-dollar question. The good news is, they aren’t that difficult to create. It’s all about how you obtain your market research and customer data, and then present that information within your business. Follow along with this guide and download these persona templates to simplify this process. Before you know it, you’ll have complete, well-planned buyer personas to show off to your entire company! Before we dive into the buyer persona-creation process, let’s pause to understand the impact of well-developed buyer personas on your business (most specifically, your marketing efforts). Why exactly are buyer personas so important to your business? Buyer personas help you understand your customers (and prospective customers) better. This makes it easier for you to tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to meet the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of the members of your target audience. Use HubSpot persona templates to easily organize your audience segments and make your marketing stronger For example, you may know your target buyers are caregivers, but do you know what their specific needs and interests are? What is the typical background of your ideal buyer? In order to get a full understanding of what makes your best customers tick, it’s critical to develop detailed personas for your business. The strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or as many as 10 or 20. But if you’re new to personas, start small — you can always develop more personas later if needed. What about “negative” buyer personas? While a buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer, a negative — or “exclusionary” — persona is a representation of who you don’t want as a customer. For example, this could include professionals who are too advanced for your product or service, students who are only engaging with your content for research/ knowledge, or potential customers who are just too expensive to acquire (because of a low average sale price, their propensity to churn, or their unlikeliness to purchase again from your company). How can buyer personas be used in marketing? At the most basic level, developing personas allows you to create content and messaging that appeals to your target audience. It also enables you to target or personalize your marketing for different segments of your audience. For example, instead of sending the same lead nurturing emails to everyone in your database, you can segment by buyer persona and tailor your messaging to what you know about those different personas. Furthermore, when combined with lifecycle stage (i.e. how far along someone is in your sales cycle), buyer personas also allow you to map out and create highly targeted content. (You can learn more about how to do that by downloading our Content Mapping Template.) And if you take the time to also create negative personas, you’ll have the added advantage of being able to segment out the “bad apples” from the rest of your contacts, which can help you achieve a lower cost-per-lead and cost-per-customer — and, therefore, see higher sales productivity. Different Types of Buyer Personas While beginning work on your personas, you may ask yourself, “What are the different types of buyer personas?” From there, it’d be simple to adjust one for your business — right?  Well, that’s not exactly how it works — there isn’t a set list of universally-recognized buyer personas to choose from, nor is there a standard for the number of personas you need. This is because each business (no matter how many competitors they have) is unique — and for that reason, their buyer personas should be unique to them, too. For these reasons, identifying and creating your different buyer personas can, at times, be slightly challenging. This is why we recommend using HubSpot’s Make My Persona generator (as well as HubSpot’s persona templates) to simplify the process of creating different personas.  In general, companies may have the same, or similar, categories for their buyer personas (e.g. a marketer, an HR rep, an IT manager, etc.). But the different personas your business has and the number of them your business requires will be tailored to who your target audience includes and what you offer your customers. Now, are you ready to start creating your buyer personas? How to Create Buyer Personas Buyer personas can be created through research, surveys, and interviews — all with a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside your contacts database who might align with your target audience. Here are some practical methods for gathering the information you need to develop personas: Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content. Use form fields that capture important persona information when creating forms to use on your website. For example, if all of your personas vary based on company size, ask each lead for information about company size on your forms. Consider your sales team’s feedback on the leads they’re interacting

To increase conversion rates on your ecommerce website, no part of the user journey can be overlooked. From your landing page to your checkout page, every aspect of your ecommerce website needs to be carefully designed. But building a user path that successfully balances an enjoyable shopping experience with a clear path to conversion is easier said than done. To help you design a more delightful and intentional conversion path on your ecommerce website, we’ve put together a list of some best practices to follow.  Design Your Ecommerce Website for More Conversions When designing your ecommerce website, consider the following tips to enhance its user experience for your visitors and customers.  1. Add clear CTAs. Having a clear call-to-action (CTA) is essential to convert website traffic into sales. Ecommerce website CTAs are often “Buy Now” or “Add to Basket” buttons that stand out on a web page to grab the attention of visitors and encourage them to click. This is typically done by using contrasting colors and unique design elements, among other tactics. And like the examples mentioned above, the wording in the CTA should be kept short and sweet. In addition, make sure your CTA is aligned with the intent of the web page it’s located on. For example, the CTA on your product page may read “Buy Now” whereas the CTA on a content page may be”Read More.” 2. Create a sense of urgency. Consider creating a sense of urgency on your ecommerce site. In one instance, by creating a sense of urgency on an ecommerce site, conversation rates were increased by 332%. This can be done simply by changing the way you word your CTAs — for example, changing the CTA from “Shop Here” to “Shop Now” may give your visitor the nudge they need to convert. 2. Offer simple, one-click checkout for all customers. By adopting a one-click checkout process, customers can skip the “add to cart” step and check out quickly and efficiently while still on the product page. In fact, by doing this, one-click checkout can shorten the checkout process by 90%. This is important because by eliminating extra steps required in a traditional checkout process, cart abandonment is less likely due to the streamlined and simple process. Even if you choose not to implement a one-click checkout, streamline your site’s checkout process as much as possible to boost conversions and lower cart abandonment. You may do this by requiring the very minimum data input from your customers to make the process efficient for them.  3. Add green-bar SSL. It has been found that shopping cart abandonment may decrease if you display the green-bar SSL on your website. Here is what this looks like on different search engines: The greenbar SSL helps convey a trustworthy and reputable website — it’s not only a visual cue to customers but it also plays an important role in the security of your site as well. Having a greenbar SSL encrypts the visitor’s payment information, which makes it harder for hackers and scam artists to steal their information. Simply put, users do not want to purchase from an unsecure website. In a test, two forms were created for customers to complete — one without a Verisign seal and the another with it. There was a 42% increase in conversions on the form containing the Verisign seal, demonstrating that visitors are more inclined to share personal data and convert when they are confident that it is secure. 4. Offer different payment methods. There are over 200 different ways to pay online that aren’t reliant on a card, including direct debit, bank transfers, digital wallets, e-invoices, digital currencies (like Bitcoin), and many more. Although it is impossible to have over 200 different payment methods on your website, it is important that you understand your target market and are able to offer payment methods best suited for them. For example, a website where the average spend is $50 may benefit from offering mainly credit and debit card-style payments, whereas a website such as overclockers.co.uk may want to push a financing option as the value of the products being sold is significantly higher. Try to provide the top three payment methods in your sector — doing so has resulted in an increase in conversion rates of 30% for businesses. Overclockers does a great job of this by showing all their available options to buy in the product description, and near the CTA. 5. Incorporate product or company reviews. Reviews are one of the most powerful tools to convert any interest in your product to a sale — potential customers want to hear from other buyers like them. Add customer reviews directly next to or below your products to demonstrate your trustworthiness. Customer recommendations drive purchasing decisions as customers tend to believe the reviews from customers they relate to. To do this, give customers opportunities to provide instant feedback on the quality of your product or service. Amazon manages their customer reviews well — in fact, one of the first things you see when searching for any product is a list of customer reviews. 6. Add well-selected imagery. Excellent imagery of the product or service you are selling is pivotal when trying to boost conversions online — as the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a 1000 words.”  Ensure you have high-quality photos of your product, covering all angles and details. This gives the buyer confidence in what the product is, its quality, and what they are to expect when they receive it. On the other hand, if you have low-quality pictures without a zoom function and a lack of detail, you’ll leave your potential customers feeling anxious and wondering what you have to hide.  Not to mention that data shows only 16% of site visitors actually go through the entire page and read it word for word — meaning your images can make an impact on a customer’s understanding of your brand and product. 7. Optimize your website for mobile.  Mobile

You know you’re a marketer when you’re sitting in traffic on the highway, it’s completely bumper to bumper, and all you can think about is “Why can’t I drive traffic to my website like this?“ If you’ve struggled with driving traffic to your website, you’re not alone. According to 2019 research done by Content Marketing Institute, 61% of content professionals are challenged with knowing what is most important to their audiences, 50% are challenged with knowing the goal of the audience at a particular stage of the customer’s journey, and 49% are challenged with knowing the steps in the customer’s journey. Between writing a new blog post, posting on social media, and strategizing for a new email campaign, it’s hard to look back and see what’s driving traffic to your site and what isn’t. The list below will help you increase the traffic to your website, generate more leads, and improve ROI. 1. Content Creation Inbound marketing focuses on attracting the right people to your company. One of the best ways to do this is by creating content through blogging. To come up with content that will attract the right visitors to your website, you should know your buyer persona. Once you know your audience, you can create content that will attract them to your website. But how do you write a good blog post that will attract the right audience? Follow these five steps: Identify your buyer persona: Find out more about your audience, from job title to pain points. Conduct SEO research: Learn what your audience is searching for on search engines so you provide the right content. Write a draft: Begin by drafting a post that answers your audience’s questions. Publish: Publish your post on your blog. Promote: Promote your blog post on social media and email newsletters to generate traffic. The more traffic your post generates, the higher it will rank in search engines. You can learn more about how to implement a blogging strategy here. 2. Topic Expertise Ranking higher in Google will increase the organic traffic to your site. At HubSpot, we do this by using the pillar/ topic cluster model. Google favors sites that are known to be topic experts on the subject matter they’re writing about. To be seen as an expert, you can create a pillar page, which is essentially a longer blog post that broadly covers all aspects of a topic. Then, you write “cluster content,” or supporting blog posts, targeting long tail keywords that show you’ve covered a topic exhaustively. Focusing on long-term traffic will help you rank higher on search engines Christina Perricone, team manager of HubSpot’s pillar page content, says, “The pillar cluster model organizes content on your site around a single topic and search term through internal linking. This organization helps search engines easily crawl and categorize all of the content that you have on a particular topic, thereby making it easier for you to rank for that search term. When the model is done right, it also helps visitors navigate your site and move through related pages, boosting traffic for all of the pages in your topic cluster.” Want to get started on pillar pages for your company? Learn more here and here. 3. Paid Advertising You can drive traffic to your website quickly with paid advertising. With search engines, you can run pay-per-click or retargeting ads. With social media you can run display ads or sponsored posts. Your strategy will most likely include a combination of different types of advertising. In fact, according to the 2020 CMO Survey, firms expect social spending to rise by 62% over five years. (Getting started with paid advertising can be a simple process — learn more about it here.) 4. Organic Social Media Organic social media is not a new strategy, but it’s still something marketers should pay attention to. Besides posting on social media platforms, you can also use Instagram Stories (Hello, swipe up feature!), live video, IGTV, or Facebook Messenger. The key with organic social media is to be an early adopter of new features For instance, Facebook is releasing an automated lead generation feature on Messenger, allowing businesses to create an automated chatbot experience within Messenger to link to content offers on your site. This is a great feature for sending traffic to your website. It’s also important to have a diverse social media strategy and use the right social media platforms — not just Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Platforms like YouTube or Pinterest generate a lot of traffic. Pinterest has great engagement rates — 66% of Pinterest users make a purchase after seeing a brand’s Pins. Henry Franco, a brand marketing associate at HubSpot, recommends two things regarding organic social media. “First, don’t spam your audience — it costs a user nothing to scroll past your post, and if you don’t offer them any value, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Know your audience, and craft content that speaks directly to them,” Franco says. “Second, stay active with community management. People love when brands like and reply to them — it’ll humanize your business, and keep people coming back for more content.” Check out our social media marketing guide to learn more. 5. Website Analysis Let’s do a little reverse engineering of our thought process. Before you drive traffic to your website, it’s important to learn about your audience. To do this, there are platforms that will analyze your website, such as Crazy Egg, to see where you’re losing visitors. With this information at your disposal, you can create the right content to drive the right traffic to your website. 6. Contests and Giveaways A simple way to drive traffic to your website is through contests and giveaways. This can give you a quick boost, while also rewarding your followers. You can host giveaways on social media, through your email list, or both. Implementing a strategy like this can be simple. Just follow these six steps: Decide what platform on which to host your