Congratulations!

If you’ve landed on this post, it’s likely that your resume has impressed the hiring manager(s) at the company you’re applying to work for, and you’ve now been invited to interview. That’s a huge accomplishment.

There’s just one catch — the interview is taking place over a video call, and you’ve never been in this position before. How do you complete a video interview? And, more than that, how do you pass one?

Never fear, we’ll go over all of that below.

If you’re looking for video interview tips, tricks, and best practices — or just want to know what in the world an automated interview is — you’ve come to the right place.

Passing Video Interviews

When you go into your video interview, what should you do to pass? How should you prepare? Above all else, prepare like you would for a traditional interview.

Video interviews are meant to be an accessible alternative for a traditional interview. Keeping that in mind will help you get into the right mindset. This is your moment to really sell yourself to the interviewer, and put a personality behind your amazing resume.

In fact, going beyond your resume is what impresses one of HubSpot’s senior recruiters, Shavon Bell. She says, “When recruiting senior talent, I look for the story beyond the resume. I recognize it can be challenging for a senior leader to fit all of their experience into a two-page document, so don’t leave anything to be assumed during exploratory conversations or an interview, tell your story the way you want it to be told — transparency is key.”

Telling your story is what will set you apart from others. But that’s not all. It’s also important to know the story behind the company you’re interviewing for.

Showing that you’ve done your research and have put thought behind how you would fit into the company, for instance, is something that impresses one of HubSpot’s campus recruiters, Kate Kearns.

Kearns says, “Make sure you’re doing your research before hitting ‘start’ on the video interview. You should usually have at least a couple of days before it needs to be submitted, so take some time to make sure you are prepared to answer questions testing your knowledge on the company and role.”

Using your time before the interview wisely will only help your interview. Think about what hiring managers want to know about you during your short time talking. They won’t get to know you on a level that’s as personable as an in-person interview, so making that connection seem natural will likely raise your interview score.

For example, explain how the role will help you reach your professional and personal goals. Identify what you can add to the company, and mention those superstar qualities about your talent that will make the hiring manager go to bat for you being the perfect candidate.

Next, we’re going to go over some tips you can follow for video interviews, but if you would like more information about preparing for an interview, check out this interview kit.

Traditional Video Interview Tips

It’s the big day. Or, as those in the theater call it, opening night.

The task at hand: sell yourself. Don’t let the screen interrupt the purpose of the interview. You know you have what it takes to land that role, and with these tips, you’ll knock that interview out of the park.

1. Dress to impress your interviewer.

As The Office character Michael Scott says, “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.” That’s where my lucky interview blazer comes in. Every time I have a video interview, so does my blazer: I never start one without it.

Even though your interview will be through a screen, dressing for the interview communicates to the interviewer that you still know how to maintain professionalism in a virtual setting. So, even though you might be in your bedroom, or sitting at your kitchen table, make sure you’re in your business best.

2. Keep your notes accessible.

If you’re someone who finds it helpful to refer to notes when interviewing, keep them in front of you. For me, it’s helpful to have my LinkedIn profile and resume open in another window, with sections I know I want to mention highlighted or bolded.

This helps to make a quick reference. Similarly, if the interviewer asks a question about a specific piece of content on LinkedIn or a resume, it’ll help to accurately explain that experience. By already having those reference points accessible, you won’t forget anything important.

3. Test your technology beforehand.

You will be notified of the software you need to have in order to successfully complete your interview well in advance. Maximize this time, download the software if you haven’t already, and make sure you understand the basics of how it works.

This is also a great time to test how your webcam interacts with the software. No two video technology services are the same. So, you’ll want to test your microphone, lighting, and camera to fix issues beforehand. You wouldn’t want to make it to your interview and find out your mic isn’t working.

4. Maintain eye contact with your interviewer.

Remember: The only difference between a video interview and a traditional interview is that you aren’t in the same room as your interviewer. That said, be sure to maintain eye contact with your interviewer.

You might have other distractions, things that are unavoidable when working from home, such as family or roommates. The best way to maintain professionalism regardless of the outside environment is to keep eye contact and make sure the interviewer knows you are engaged. After all, they will be keeping eye contact with you.

5. Minimize possible distractions.

Even though there might be uncontrollable distractions, there are distractions that you can control. For instance, keep your phone away from you. Turn it over and put it on silent or in another room.

Additionally, if you know the background of your video space is unkempt or tidy, take the time to fix it or pick another space. For instance, you wouldn’t want your interviewer to see half of your laundry hamper dumped on the bed behind you.

If you are in a room with a door, close it, as well as any windows. Make sure you’re taking the proper precautions to present the most professional space possible.

6. Set up proper lighting.

In college, I learned about the glory of three-point lighting. The general idea is that if you position different lights around what you’re shooting, you’ll deliver a properly illuminated message.

This isn’t to say that you should go out and buy a ring light, but do make sure that your face is visible to the interviewer. Don’t depend on natural light from windows — what if it’s raining on your interview date?

When I have a video interview, I turn the room light on as well as the lamp on my desk. Then, I make sure that the video software picks up the light the way I’d like. This helps eliminate another worry of video interviews: being seen in the first place.

7. Be early to each round.

This doesn’t mean that you have to sit around on Zoom or Skype 20 minutes prior to your interview start time. However, do try to be at least five minutes early to each round of your interview.

This is a chance to go over notes and take a few deep breaths to stay calm and motivated. It makes a big difference to go into an interview calmly and composed, rather than rushing to join the video call after a quick bathroom break.

8. Speak loudly and clearly enough.

If you have a soft voice, be mindful of speaking loudly enough so your microphone will pick up your voice. Video interviewers have a little less to go from, and if they can’t hear you, they won’t be able to assess your answers.

To prepare for this, record yourself saying the lyrics to your favorite song with the video software you will be using. Take time to separate the words, and listen back for volume control.

In essence, a traditional video interview is one that you can complete from your own space. Fixing up this space to be interview-ready can be a challenge, but you don’t have to completely alter the functionality of the room. Just be sure you’re communicating yourself and your professionalism.

But let’s say that the interview invitation in your mailbox doesn’t mention an interviewer. Instead, the invitation says the interview will be automated. Let’s go over what that means, and provide tips on how to master them.

These interviews take an in-person interviewer out of the equation. Instead, your interviewer will be a series of questions that you’ll have an allotted amount of time to read and comprehend. Then, you will record your responses via video or text, depending on the instructions.

How do you pass one? Let’s cover some best practices.

Automated Video Interview Tips

When the interviewer is merely represented by words on a screen, it can be an unnerving experience trying to prepare for the interview questions. But don’t fear, these tips will help you make sure you have all your bases covered to ace your automated interview.

1. Test your technology in advance.

When you receive your automated interview invitation, make sure you have the correct software needed. For instance, if your automated video is hosted using a third-party app that you have to download, make sure you have it beforehand.

Additionally, test your tools: Is your webcam working? Is your microphone turned on? Is your keyboard properly working?

All of these questions will be imperative to your success for an automated interview — there’s nothing worse than trying to complete a video interview with a webcam that’s not turning on.

2. Do a trial run beforehand.

Think about the questions you might be asked during the interview. Then, record yourself answering them on a time limit. Note: this will feel weird and unnatural.

However, timing your answers and analyzing your body language will help avoid those intrusive interview thoughts of, “Will I have enough time?” and “How am I coming across?”

Treat the trial as if it’s a real interview: dress for the occasion, and rehearse earnestly.

3. Speak steadily and concisely.

My biggest fear when I was interacting with my first automated video interview was having enough time to get all of my thoughts out. But trust the time limit. Chances are, most of your in-person interview responses take the same amount of time the automation allows.

That said, you’ll have more than enough time to speak steadily. When you practice, take note of your sentence flow and be mindful of how fast you’re speaking.

On the other hand, your answers should get to the point — avoid fluff so you can get to all the points of the question.

4. Be cognisant of body language.

During in-person interviews, you’re likely hyper-focused on body language. Automated interviews should be no different, especially if you are recording your answers with video.

Remember to treat these interviews as if they’re with another person (More often than not, real people will be grading your answers.) Make eye contact with the web camera or the screen in front of you and maintain a professional posture.

5. Don’t overthink the interview.

What? Now there’s another type of interview to master? That’s enough to make anyone nervous, right?

But don’t sweat it — automated interviews usually provide clear instructions and more than enough time to answer the question. In fact, automated interviews can be quite fun; you’ll have the opportunity to present yourself in a new way, and to do so within the comfort of your own space.

6. Make sure you understand the prompts.

Once you receive your prompts, you’ll have plenty of time to read them over and understand. Make sure you use the full extent of that time to read, comprehend, and form your answer before you record.

You won’t be able to ask the prompt for clarification on a question, and you won’t be able to re-record your answer once you send it in, so make sure you’re prepared before you record yourself.

On that same note, though, because your interview will be graded by hiring managers, they will take into account slight missteps. Just like in-person interviews, if you have to start a sentence over to clarify, or accidentally flub a word, don’t think you’ve killed your chances.

Mistakes are human, and they happen. 🙂

7. Always have an answer to the questions.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make during an automated interview is not answering a question. Even if you are unsure of what the question is asking, take your best shot. You can always restate what you believe the question is asking in the interview to clear up confusion.

If the prompt asks you to detail a situation you’ve never been in before, instead of leaving the answer field blank, or answering the question by saying, “I don’t know, I’ve never encountered that,” explain how you would approach the situation instead.

It looks way better hiring managers for an answer to start with, “I’ve never come across this situation in particular, but if I had, this is how I would approach it,” other than no answer at all. Remember, these situational questions are to demonstrate your problem solving skills in a work environment.

Overall, take a deep breath. Your resume has already impressed the company, and the purpose of the interview is to make sure you can back up your experience. Give the interviewer, whether automated or in-person, a chance to get to know you, your personality, and professionalism.

Good luck!

With the rise of marketing software and paid advertising, it’s no secret that social media platforms aren’t only a place for mutual connection and sharing among strangers — they’ve also grown into a place where companies can build a brand. 

Marketing campaigns on social media can expose companies to expansive audience members that could turn into leads. 

In fact, LinkedIn, a social media platform for professional engagement, has 303 million monthly active users.

Attracting an engaged audience on LinkedIn requires you to craft compelling content. But, if you don’t post your content at the right time, most of your followers will never see your updates. So how do you figure out the optimal time to post for your specific audience?

The truth is, there is no right answer. But you can use some research to make assumptions about the best times to post based on your audience. In the next section, we’ll go over the based time to post on the platform based on your industry or business goals.

The Best Time to Post on LinkedIn

Thinking about your audience’s behavior is key. It’s best to conduct some market research to learn more about how your audience uses the internet, or refer to your buyer persona if you’ve collected that information. If your ideal customer is someone who is a working professional, it’s safe to assume that during business hours, they won’t have time to check their social media feeds.

However, there are pockets throughout their day where professionals tend to check social media, like lunch hours and while heading to and from work. From there, based on your time zone, you can estimate when you’re expected to reach the most customers.

Also, think about the majority of LinkedIn’s audience: working professionals, higher education students, and college graduates. Typically, their web behavior would reflect being busy during regular business hours.

During the time periods above, people are usually getting ready for work, just starting their day, or taking an afternoon break.

But let’s say you want to post according to your industry. We’ll talk about how to come to the decision to post based on your business type, next. 

Maybe you’re a higher education student thinking about the best time to reach out to thought leaders, or a marketer for a B2B company.

There isn’t a set answer here either, but fortunately, doing some research about the type of audience you’re trying to capture based on your industry can lead you to make an informed decision.

You can infer when your posts will earn the most engagement based on the behavior of competitors in your industry, as well as audience members. 

• Software and Media Companies — It’s suspected that audiences of media companies tend to check their social media feeds in the morning, like some would read a newspaper. They’re likely to find success posting in the morning between Monday-Friday, while software companies are suggested to find similar success posting outside of work hours.
• Healthcare and Higher Education — Mid-morning, so around 10 a.m., to early afternoon, close to 2 p.m., are suggested for the best engagement. Higher education also seems to follow suit.
• B2B Businesses — For B2Bs, analyzing web behavior is the best indicator. Their audiences are most likely other professionals, so it’s best to catch them before they start working, during lunch hours, and during commutes.
• B2C Businesses — Similarly to B2Bs, these companies are likely to find success among audiences when posting outside of business hours, or during lunch breaks.

If you post content to LinkedIn when the majority of your audience isn’t online, you most likely won’t receive the amount of views and engagement you were hoping for.

So remember, if you want to build a brand on LinkedIn, it’s crucial to find out when your specific audience prefers to surf the site. You’ll have a better idea of how to nail the timing of your posts almost every single time you want to update your followers on the platform.

As marketers, we spend hours planning every detail of each campaign, crafting the perfect copy and agonizing over fonts, colors, and spacing. We talk through our personas, target audiences, and messaging. We build emails from scratch, or lovingly modify templates to put our best foot forward with our email campaigns.scriber

With all the blood, sweat, and tears that go into our emails, there’s nothing more heartbreaking than finding out the message never made it to our subscribers. No matter how carefully we plan our campaign strategy, design, and development, if the email doesn’t reach the inbox, you won’t delight subscribers or see ROI.

Making it into the inbox is one of the more ambiguous, misunderstood elements of sending great email. Marketers often mix up a key distinction: delivery vs. deliverability. Though the terms are often used interchangeably, they have very different meanings. Let’s distinguish the two below.

Email Delivery vs. Email Deliverability

Let’s start with the basics: What are we even talking about?

When it comes to understanding the difference between delivery and deliverability, ask yourself these questions: Can a receiver accept your message?”, and, Does it get to the inbox?”

To further explain, we’re going to dive into both a little further, below:

Email Delivery

“Can a receiver accept your message?”

This term describes whether or not a receiver accepts your email, which comes before the inbox or spam folder distinction, so be careful not to mix up the two. If your email doesn’t make it into an inbox, that means delivery wasn’t successful, no matter which inbox it would be displayed in.

Delivery refers to whether or not a receiver accepts the message you’ve sent. Does the domain or email address exist? Is your IP address blocked?

Imagine that, instead of being an email, it’s personified in a busy business traveler on her way to a conference. Successful delivery would mean that the traveler arrived at the correct airport. She then proved her identity with a ticket and passport, and airport security verified her as safe to pass through security to her departure gate.

Similarly, when an email is successfully delivered, that simply means it made it to the intended recipient’s mailbox — and that could be in the inbox or the spam folder.

Email Deliverability

“Does it get to the inbox?”

Also known as inbox placement, this is a term that describes where that message ends up once it is delivered: In other words, deliverability decides if your email will land in the inbox, spam folder, or another folder.

Let’s return to our travel metaphor. Our traveler has made it through security to the correct gate and now needs to get to her destination.

Deliverability is akin to where the traveler’s flight ultimately arrives. While most travelers safely get to their departure gate (delivery), severe weather or other mishaps may reroute them, for example, from Dallas to Houston, instead of the conference destination (deliverability).

Deliverability consists of three parts:

• Identification — This defines the set of protocols that prove you are who you say you are when you send an email, such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC).

  Each of these terms function like a passport, license, or background check. Are you Jane Doe, the hard-nosed lawyer from upstate New York? Or Jane Doe, the collegiate swim coach from southern California?

• Reputation — Your sender reputation is a score that signals how trustworthy your emails are. Each organization and internet service provider (ISP) might have different scores for you, but generating positive subscriber behavior, (which means users marking you as a trusted sender), is the best way to boost that reputation.
• Content — Is your message appropriate and relevant for your audience? Are you combining poor copy with poor formatting to deliver a less-than-inspired email experience to readers?

  Using weird formatting can impact your email’s deliverability based on your previous sending patterns. Think about it from your subscribers’ perspective: Receiving an email with the subject line “MAKE MONEY TODAY!!!!”, isn’t enticing to open. Tailor your message to what your subscribers care about to make the most impact.

Identification and reputation account for most of the reason an email lands in the inbox or the spam folder. Think about waiting in line for an airport security screening. If you don’t have a ticket, you won’t make it past the first desk. And if you’re on the no-fly list, you’re not going anywhere.

Delivery issues mean that something may be wrong with your infrastructure, you’ve got faulty email addresses on your list, or you’ve received enough negative user interaction to warrant a block. Deliverability issues, on the other hand, indicate that your sending and permission practices might be out of date, aren’t legal, or your subscribers are disinterested in your content.

If these descriptions worried you a bit, don’t fear. In the next section, we’re going to talk about how to improve your email deliverability so subscribers will enjoy your emails with every delivery.

How to Improve Email Deliverability

Now that you know the difference between email delivery and deliverability, what does this mean for your marketing strategy? Here are some best practices to ensure your messages make it to subscribers’ inboxes.

1. Configure a clean email list.

Even though permission-based marketing is essential, when it comes to emails, permission can expire. A large number of inactive subscribers can dramatically impact your deliverability because they offset your engagement metrics. Consider removing or suppressing inactive customers after a set time or automating a re-confirmation campaign.

If you’re having deliverability issues, it’s possible your list includes spam traps, which look like real email addresses, but are used to identify spammers. Sending to one can indicate poor list hygiene or spammy acquisition practices, like buying and renting lists or scraping email addresses off the internet.

Removing invalid emails on a regular basis and re- confirming your inactive subscribers can help declutter your list.

2. Provide easy unsubscribe options.

It’s a common myth that unsubscribes are a bad sign, but there’s no evidence to prove that unsubscribe rates affect deliverability. In fact, it can actually help if you’re boosting your subscriber engagement and cleaning up your email list.

Sending targeted campaigns to people who want to receive your emails is likely to increase opens and clicks and decrease bounce rate. But, if users do want to unsubscribe, make it easy. It can be as simple as adding a link at the bottom of your emails, like this example:

Don’t hide your unsubscribe button. Make it a clear find in your email, whether that be in the footer or at the top. Streamline the unsubscribe process so that it’s one step — otherwise, you’re fighting a losing battle against the dreaded “report as spam” flag.

3. Make your emails personal.

Marketers and subscribers often define spam differently. Subscribers don’t think in terms of spam filter testing or algorithms, but in terms of relevance. Are you sending content that matters to them?

This is ultimately the most important question to ask yourself before hitting “send” on any email, so make sure to read your copy for errors and relevance.

Email is one of the most personal channels in a marketer’s arsenal. Sending emails that resonate with your audience and leverage the 1:1 nature of the medium won’t just positively impact your deliverability — it will also boost reader engagement won’t build better relationships with your audience.

4. Add engaging text to emails.

When you make your emails, make sure your copy engages the reader. Subject lines are your emails’ first impression: Are the witty and enticing, like these examples?

Your email subscribers are likely already fans of your company, so the email experience should be as enjoyable as everything else your customers love.

Odds are, you have a pretty good idea of the language that makes your customers feel connected to your brand. To keep them interested, that language should carry over to emails — it’ll show readers that you care about catering to their needs outside of promotions and sales.

5. Check to see your emails’ legality.

If you use email marketing software like HubSpot, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Most email marketing software makes sure the emails being sent are compliant with web laws, such as GDPR. But if you make your own emails in-house, it’s important to double-check that you aren’t breaking any laws.

With these tips, you’ll be ready to get going on improving the email marketing experience for you and your readers.

Knowing the distinction between delivery and deliverability might be the missing link you needed to revolutionize how you’re approaching email marketing. And, by following these practices, all the hard work you put into your emails will show up in inboxes and make them unforgettable to readers.

Eight seconds — on average, that’s the length of a human’s attention span. This means that if you’re a marketer, your content has to inspire, delight, and be seen as useful by your target audience … in less than eight seconds.

Maybe social media-wise, your content is performing well. It’s resonating with audiences and earning you engagement. But it’s possible that when you look at website metrics, there’s a different story being told.

If your session time is low and your bounce rate is high, you may be taking more than 12 seconds to attract a visitor’s attention, which, for generating leads, isn’t the best.

You may be losing traffic because the content website visitors see when they first visit your page isn’t interesting enough to keep them there. Your landing pages might be compelling by the time browsers start scrolling, but if they aren’t dazzling and user-friendly right off the bat, browsers can easily click away.

This means that your content above the fold could probably be re-done to engage visitors.

If your website has compelling above the fold content, you’ll likely see higher conversion rates and lower bounce rates. If you’re unsure, try to self-test by looking at your website from a new perspective — if you were a new viewer, would you stay on your site at first glance?

If your answer is “I’m not sure,” don’t worry, we’re going to go over that, but first, let’s discuss what it means for content to be above the fold.

Content that’s above the fold is what’s going to pull the browser into your website. A webpage that’s slow to load, is congested with information, and hard to use will probably not draw the reader in the same way a page with the opposite design would.

Let’s talk about some ways to make sure your above the fold content stuns web browsers.

Above the Fold Website Design Best Practices

When you design your webpage, keep these practices in mind. They’ll keep broswer attention and encourage them to explore the rest of your website.

1. Keep your design simple.

Above the fold content shouldn’t be extremely busy — if it is, readers might not know where to look first and click away from the page. Alternatively, if they’re not able to find the answer to their challenge quickly, they’ll likely choose another website.

To keep your page looking professional, organized, and user-friendly, try adding one featured image or multimedia, such as a GIF or video, to your fold. Then, add a short headline that introduces your webpage, and a sentence below it that describes your page in more detail.

2. Make the content engaging.

Simple webpages are one way to keep a browser’s attention. But when they get there, take opportunities to delight them. For example, when you write your headlines and body text, they should echo your brand voice.

You don’t have to make huge changes to delight the browser. For example, if there’s a CTA button on your page, instead of it reading, “Learn more,” try “Ready to get started?”.

If the featured photo on your webpage is static, see if you can deliver the same message with a GIF instead. Additionally, if all of your copy is one color, try adding one or two more — a good rule of thumb is to incorporate your brand colors for professionalism and consistency with the rest of your website.

3. Design your content for usability.

Above all else, your content should be easy to interact with. For instance, if you’re working on the above the fold content for a product page. make sure your above the fold content is functioning as it should.

Let’s say your product page’s above the fold content is a video. Does it load correctly, include captions, and sound options?

Additionally, think about the experience of the user. If your above the fold content features a video that autoplays, will it interrupt the user’s interaction with the page? To combat this issue, make sure the video plays on silent and includes subtitles, if needed.

4. Solve challenges for the reader.

Your content above the fold should answer the challenge of the browser. To illustrate, let’s say you work for an email marketing service provider, and a browser searches “email marketing software” and lands on your homepage.

Your content, then, should include a few, if not all, of the keywords “automated email marketing software” in some form. For example, your headline could read “Email Automation for Marketers,” and expand on that in the supporting text.

So, those are a few guidelines to keep in mind when designing your content. Next, we’re going to look at examples of some websites with great content above the fold.

15 Compelling Above the Fold Content Examples to Inspire Your Own

1. Wistia

Wistia lets its users create dynamic videos for marketing campaigns. Their above the fold content introduces Wistia’s services using a mix of multimedia: GIFs, videos, and short copy, to show off the capabilities of the service:

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The homepage video stops the browser in their tracks. They’ll likely spend more time watching the talk-show inspired clip that explains Wistia’s services. As a consumer, when I see real people on a webpage, it’s inviting, and compels me to explore further.

A simple homepage like Wistia’s feels casual. The welcoming atmosphere of the simplistic homepage conveys a professional vibe. And, after the video, browsers will have an idea of the software’s offerings, straight from the expert marketers.

2. Velocity Partners

Velocity Partners, a B2B marketing agency, doesn’t have a company overview video for their above the fold content. Instead, the homepage has a fascinating interactive slideshow that explains why innovative marketers should leverage new content formats to tell more refreshing stories:

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“Great marketing moves,” describe what the business is all about, and is short, simple, and to the point, letting the slideshow do the heavy lifting when it comes to attracting visitors. Velocity Partners’ above the fold messaging sparks curiosity, and in turn, the incentive to keep scrolling.

It’s important to note, however, that if you want to use above the fold content similar to Velocity Partners, make sure the first few seconds of your slideshow, as well as your copy, are the most engaging. If they aren’t, the browser probably won’t feel inclined to stay on the site past reading the headline.

3. VeryGoodCopy

VeryGoodCopy is a creative agency that crafts articles, landing pages, web pages, and emails for brands. Above the fold, the website lets the copy describe what the company can provide for users:

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The headline conveys the opportunity for marketers to learn how to persuade by leveraging ample white space, an enticing headline, a brief description of their content topics, social proof, and a vivid call-to-action. This simple and engaging above the fold design ensnares their visitors’ attention and convinces them to check out their micro-articles.

4. Shopify

Images are how the above the fold content on Shopify’s website invite the reader to explore. Shopify allows entrepreneurs to begin their own ecommerce business, relying on them, rather than copy, to explain features of the software:

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The homepage includes artistic images and an alluring video to make a lasting impression on the browser. And, even though copy is sparse, the tagline is packed with purpose and compels visitors to click that green CTA to start a trial.

5. Ann Handley

This Wall Street Journal best-selling author and partner at MarketingProfs, Ann Handley, used the homepage on her website to impress browsers by highlighting marketing prowess. Hyperlinking and linking are heroes here — linking to other pages on a website can earn more clicks on various pages on a site, like Handley’s headlines:

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She also leverages white space, a welcoming picture of herself, a catchy tagline, compelling copy, and a vibrant call-to-action to persuade her visitors to consider working with her. From this homepage, the visitor knows what Handley looks like, what she has done and how to contact her. As far as above the fold content goes, it’s a home run.

6. Mint

Above the fold content can maximize on simplicity, like it does for Mint, a budget tacking & planning software. The simple, yet professional, homepage effectively conveys the company and how they can help customers.

Notice the copy in the headline — it emotionally connects to reader in two sentences, opening the door for them to explore the website of a company that knows them:

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Mint also has a photo of their app in action to catch their website visitors’ attention. This helps the browser visualize how the app will look if they decide to sign up.

7. InVision

How do you show customer stories dynamically above the fold? Let’s take a look at InVision’s sleek example:

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InVision is a digital product design company that helps users easily build sleek impressive websites, so the design team at the company knew the homepage had to impress visitors. It does, auto playing a silent version of the company’s overview video, complete with testimonials from decision-makers at companies such as Uber and Twitter.

The copy that’s layered above the video does a great job of concisely explaining what the company does for users, and the “Free Forever” CTA even entices me, a marketer who isn’t looking to design a website, to get started learning more about the software offerings. It also doesn’t hide the titles of those decision makers from the video — “Dantley Davis, Netflix Design Director” is a large enough lower third that can catch users’ eyes when they aren’t looking (Mine definitely were caught).

8. Animalz

Similar to VeryGoodCopy, Animalz is a content marketing agency whose website doesn’t bombard visitors with messaging about their services in the above the fold design. Instead, visitors are greeted with the headline, “The world’s best content marketing happens here,” which entices a marketer like me to read further to learn how:

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The CTA copy is different from run-of-the-mill CTA buttons. “Let’s talk,” rather than, “Click here to learn more!”, implies that when visitors click on the CTA, they will be taken to a real person who can offer them more information about the service.

The website also leverages white space, and uses simple, hand-drawn images to entice the reader to scroll down. The purple squiggle runs down the webpage to introduce Animalz’s top customers, and leads to a form to get in touch with the company.

9. Ahrefs

Maybe you work for a company that wants a no-nonsense homepage, that conveys the bells and whistles of the product without congesting page with an overload of information. If that description fits you, take a look at Ahref’s above the fold approach:

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The headline of the webpage describes what the service does: helps users improve their SEO. This is further supported by the smaller headline, and CTA communicates to browsers pricing information.

Satisfied customers are listed at the bottom, right before the fold, to give a rounded-out overview of how Ahrefs can be a benefit to successful companies. If you want your homepage to use more copy, rather than visuals, try presenting it in a simple way that doesn’t use more than 30 words, like Ahrefs did.

10. Twitch

After typing in Twitch.tv into your browser, you’re immediately immersed into what the website offers: live streams for gamers. This is because as soon as your browser accesses the website, a featured live stream begins autoplaying:

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While it can be a bit jarring to suddenly hear voices coming from your browser, Twitch’s above the fold design doesn’t use any copy to describe their services. Instead, users can jump right in and demo the content themselves, browsing streams without having to make an account or read anything. They can keep scrolling to see popular streams, click one, and explore the site’s capabilities from there.

Because of how the site works altogether, this above the fold approach works. Twitch offers visitors to trial their services without doing any reading. Visual platforms similar to Twitch can benefit from this method, pulling in visual learners and non-visual learners alike.

11. Skillshare

Skillshare uses video to explain the bulk of their services above the fold. Because the software offers online classes in a variety of subjects, the video displays an overview of what Skillshare can help you accomplish, learn, and feel:

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The video highlights confident-looking adults diving into their passions, which is what Skillshare helps users with. The layering text inspires visitors to explore their creativity with the software — and get started for free.

12. Flock

If you know that your company’s website will benefit from a media mix of content above the fold, consider approaching that like messaging app Flock does. The key to using a mix of content on a homepage is to design it so the information doesn’t interrupt the experience of a first-time visitor to your website:

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Notice how the gifs are used to highlight the changing text that displays the app’s features. The supporting hand-drawn image illustrates how Flock works, and the CTA text displays a little personality. Using a mix of media to spice up your homepage can be as simple as one moving image, a clickable button, and a drawing to display an overview of your company to visitors.

13. King Arthur Flour

The above the fold content of this Boston-based baking ingredient supplier, King Arthur Flour, is top notch. It gives visitors the choice to watch a video tutorial on how to make sourdough bread using the company’s offerings:

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I could get a feel for the company’s offerings: a Facebook Page (which houses the business’ baking show), recipes, a baking FAQ, products for purchase, and even a “Baker’s Hotline”, which works as a Contact Us page.

The slideshow features, equipped with a glossy photo and their own CTA, gave me a complete overview of everything the company can do for aspiring bakers. It goes outside of just the business’s products, and instead, offers helpful information for bakers in general, which is welcoming to someone who may be intimidated about bread baking.

14. Clarkisha Kent

Are you a freelancer wondering how to make your above the fold content stand out among your competition? If so, when you design your homepage, make sure it accomplishes two things: displaying personality, and easy navigation.

This is because, while your work has to precede you, so does your personality, especially as a freelancer. If you’re a writer, like Clarkisha Kent, your copy has to sell it, like her website does:

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The inclusion of a headshot and interesting headline quickly displays more of who Kent is as a writer, and the angle she is likely to take as a contributor to websites. Her navigation bar includes links to viral tweets she’s made and clippings from other publications, so her homepage doesn’t have to.

Instead, her homepage serves as an introduction, which can precede her before the rest of her website. When browsers are drawn in by a minimalistic webpage with cliffhanger text, they’re likely going to be interested in exploring the website to fill in that gap. For instance, when I read, “Chaos bringer,” I instantly wanted to know how, which prompted me to look at her past work.

15. Good Witch Kitchen

This is another example of how to convey the personality of your brand if you’re a freelancer or small business owner. Good Witch Kitchen is the name of holistic nutritionist, Kristen Ciccolini’s, business. Right below the fold is a quick slideshow of publications that have featured Ciccolini’s work, before diving into an introduction:

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Ciccolini’s logo, a bright image related to her craft, and copy accurately provide a quick view of the atmosphere Good Witch Kitchen conveys: A non-diet approach to nutrition management from an expert.

Now that you have some inspiration about how to keep your customers engaged on your landing pages, which strategy are you going to use for yours? I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Marketers have a secret — we hate our CMSes.

Research from HubSpot found that the vast majority of marketers are unhappy with their CMS, with an NPS of -65.

No, that’s not a typo. Let that sink in — negative 65. What’s going on?

When businesses are just starting out, website management isn’t prohibitively difficult. CMSes designed for very small businesses allow marketers to own their company’s online experience without a developer or IT team’s help.

But as businesses grow, our needs — and our organizations — change. As we expand into new markets, launch new products, and introduce new brands, new challenges emerge. Marketing leaders must coordinate with developers and IT teams to manage their website’s ecosystem, while ensuring frontline teams can make content updates and build pages. Layered on top of these considerations are a plethora of new technical requirements:

1. We need to connect our website with an ever-growing array of tools and technologies, via integrations, plugins, and custom development.
2. We need to use roles, permissions, and content partitioning to create clean workspaces for our teams as they become more specialized.
3. We need to ensure that site performance does not degrade as more visitors and more content expand our website’s footprint.
4. We need to personalize a rich end-to-end online experience for all of our website visitors, with capabilities like membership logins for customers, contextual content for leads, and ungated content for customers.
5. We need to be confident in our website’s security, incorporating functionality like SSO, SSL, and custom configured CDN to keep our business’s and our customers’ data safe.

The sheer weight of balancing these different priorities, teams, and workstreams makes it incredibly difficult for organizations to be as proactive in evolving their websites as they should.

Traditional CMS Is Failing Us

We need the CMS we’ve invested in to make our lives easier. But we’re consistently left disappointed. Not only do our systems fall short of supporting us as we scale, they often exacerbate the pain of website management, and in the most extreme cases, bring site evolution to a screeching halt.

Systems designed to be usable by marketers often lack the technological advancement scaling businesses require. Systems that do possess this functionality are limited by restrictive tools that make it remarkably difficult for marketers to make simple changes, and rigid processes that limit what’s possible for developers to build. And let’s not forget about IT teams, who are responsible for website maintenance and fixing broken site elements after other teams make edits, despite having their own projects to look after, according to research by HubSpot.

This tweet from co-founder and technical director Stephen Kenwright of SEO agency Rise at Seven sums it up all too well:

Marketing leaders are often forced into an impossible choice.

Should your IT team spend time on site fixes and maintenance, at the expense of integrating new apps with your site?

Should your marketing team test new content and risk creating problems developers need to fix later, or should they wait in a weeks-long queue to make simple changes?

Should you delay a go-to-market play because it will take months to implement and test within the limitations of your CMS, or should you move forward knowing your processes are incomplete?

These are tradeoffs you should never have to make.

You shouldn’t have to choose which part of your customer experience you’ll have to neglect just to keep the trains running on time.

Any successful leader has to make big bets to grow their business. Some will pan out, and some won’t — that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. What’s frightening about traditional CMSes is that the way they’re built transforms website management itself into a big bet.

Marketers at scaling companies are being locked out of their CMSes — and that’s a huge problem.

The Necessity of Nimbleness

When we lose the ability to manage our CMS, we lose the ability to manage our customer experience.

Ten years ago, businesses won by selling products that were 10 times better than the competition. But it’s not what you sell, it’s how you sell. Today, businesses win because their customer experience is 10 times better than the competition. In fact, companies that build hyper-relevant experiences deliver 11% higher shareholder returns than their competitors.

Customer experience is anchored by your website — it’s what ties it all together. According to HubSpot Research, 90% of consumers expect immediate responses to marketing, sales, and service queries on your site. But companies have allowed their systems, not their buyers’ behavior, to dictate their customer experiences — the average lifespan of a website is 2 years, 7 months, a lifetime in marketing. Painful CMS management has created a massive gap between consumer expectations and the experience businesses are actually able to deliver.

You deserve a CMS that can support you and your customers. It should be easy to rapidly iterate so tomorrow’s website looks and performs better than what you have today, to continuously use data to improve your site, and to adopt new technologies and tools.

Your CMS can’t be a system you do battle with daily, just to ensure your business can function. It’s time for marketers to take back control of their websites and the customer experience.

Introducing CMS Hub

We don’t think any growing business should have to choose between power and flexibility. That’s why we’re launching CMS Hub Enterprise, a scalable CMS that takes the pain out of website management, so you can spend less time solving for your software and systems and more time solving for your customers.

Website page creation and management tools enable marketers to focus on creating amazing content, not managing the content creation process. Developers can create flexible content structures that give marketers the ability to make quick updates and optimize performance.

Other capabilities, like multi-language and multi-domain support, lay the foundation for growing companies to scale their brands across new product lines and regions.

Finally, the things that you need to make your site secure and reliable come built in — automatic SSL provisioning, 24/7 security and threat monitoring, and permissioning and audit logging so you have full control over the teams working in your CMS — so you can focus on improving the customer experience.

CMS Hub is for rapidly growing companies that are tired of being held back by their content management systems. It enables marketers to customize and personalize their site experiences, allows developers to work the way they want, and gives security teams peace of mind.

Because your website should adapt to your brand and your customers’ expectations, not the other way around.

CMS Hub is now available in Professional and Enterprise tiers.

A few years ago I was at one of those Big Group Dinners with my marketing team and our clients. There were about 15 of us.

I liked the group, but I do not like Big Group Dinners — because at Big Group Dinners you eat and drink too much and you have to pretend you’re not tired and you wouldn’t rather be in bed sleeping.

At this particular Big Group Dinner, I was exhausted. I’d been back and forth from NYC to Seattle a million times that month and had a ton of work to do after dinner. So wining and dining clients and schmoozing with my team was at the bottom of my list of priorities, even though it was technically a giant part of my job.

That’s when I decided to be, “That Person.”

That Person: The annoying person who deviates from the group order at a Big Group Dinner.

I know it doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but we were at a Mexican restaurant and if you know anything about Mexican food, it’s communal. So you look like a HUGE jerk if you deviate from the group-ordering plan (and Margaritas! Don’t forget the Margaritas!).

But I knew that if I had one more drink and another plate full of chips, my health was going to suffer.

And if my health suffered, my performance suffered. And while client management was part of my job, the other part was marketing strategy, which requires a sharp and well-rested brain (at least, it does for me).

So, like a jerk, I declined the pitcher of Margaritas and ordered a salad.

And I sat there waiting for the snide remarks about my weight or the fact that I was being “too uptight.”

But … they didn’t happen.

Instead, one by one, at least five different people came up to me privately to thank me for opt-ing out.

They told me I’d given them the courage to opt-out, too.

They also wanted to be “That Person.”

And that’s the story of how I learned that when you take care of yourself, you’re actually taking care of others, too.

If you find yourself working from home more often these days, or you’re in a fully-remote job, it can seem difficult to opt out of social invitations. However, choosing to put your colleagues’ and team bonding ahead of your mental and physical well-being isn’t just a problem for you … it’s a problem for the well-being of your team, as well.

Here, let’s explore the bad remote work habits that could be inhibiting your mental and physical well-being — and, as a result, impacting your overall performance.

The Bad Remote Work Habits You Probably Think Are No Big Deal

Socrates said, “Know thyself,” and I believe he was speaking specifically to navigating the transition from working in an office to working from home.

Knowing thyself means understanding what your limits are, how you work best, and what support systems you need in place in order to function optimally (and prevent yourself from burnout).

For me, I need excessive amounts of alone time, some daily cardio, and copious amounts of morning coffee (no coffee after 12 p.m., though, that’s a rule so I’m able to sleep that night).

Point is: I know if I violate any of these basic tenets, it’s a downward spiral into anxiety and I’m at high risk for depression and a slew of other fun psychopathological symptoms.

You are, too. But, of course, your triggers and support systems are different than mine. That’s why you need to know yourself — so you can set yourself up to perform optimally at work without experiencing burnout or other mental health stresses.

With your body, it’s easy to know something’s wrong if you start to run a fever — but with your mind, it’s a little tougher to read the signs, especially when so many of the “Hey, something is not okay here,” signs are socially acceptable. (For instance, when was the last time you turned to a colleague and said, “I’m exhausted; I’ve been up all night finishing a report. This is my fourth cup of coffee this morning,” and they’ve responded, “Yeah, I totally feel that. You do what you gotta do.”)

Feelings should be considered data that can tell you when you’re working too hard, or simply ineffectively. So if what you’re feeling is tired, stressed, burnt out, ashamed, sad, depleted, insecure, or terrified, then your job is to listen.

Of course, the risk when you’re working from home is that a lot of the common triggers for people are hidden, and even sometimes disguised as “normal”.

For instance, here are some pitfalls of working for home for ambitious high-achievers that significantly affect your mental health:

• 24/7 accessibility and availability
• Never taking breaks
• Fear of looking “lazy”
• Getting minimal sleep
• “Just checking your phone one more time” before bed/a workout, etc.
• Refreshing your email right before bed (You probably tell yourself, “It’ll make me feel better. I just wanna check.” No, it won’t — it never makes anyone feel better.)
• Eating in front of your computer
• Never seeing my friends (or family)
• Hustling harder
• Sending “just one more email” after you’re supposed to log off for the day
• Agreeing at inconvenient times to take calls, simply to seem agreeable

… And other things we all regularly do because we think we’re “supposed to.”

When you behave in ways you think you’re “supposed to,” it creates a misalignment between what’s called your “ideal self” and your “actual self.” And the bigger that gap, the more pain and suffering we feel.

Plus, when your ideal self is an unrealistic and unsustainable version of success (which can happen when working remotely and connecting regularly with other workaholics), you set yourself up for failure, pain, and a whole lot of mental health problems.

Finally, I spoke with a few HubSpotters to explore some bad remote habits we all might do on a daily basis. 

For instance, Meg Prater, Managing Editor of the HubSpot Blog, says, “There are two bad remote work habits that stand out to me, which are:

1. Dishes, laundry, “starting dinner”, etc … It’s so easy to think you’ll just do one thing and an hour later, you’ve deep cleaned your entire closet. If you’re going to knock out some chores as a mental break, set a timer and hold yourself to a strict “back-to-work” time.
2. Holding yourself to the same high standard every day: It’s easy to feel guilty when you have an unproductive WFH day. Some days or weeks will be hyper-productive, some days or weeks will be a struggle. Don’t beat yourself up for those days when it’s all you can do to get through your inbox before noon. Allow yourself time to recharge, fail, or be distracted, decide what you can learn from those “off” days, and move on.”

Additionally, Pamela Bump, Audience Growth Marketing Manager and Staff Writer for the HubSpot Blog, provided two bad remote work habits of her own:

1. “Not physically separating work from life enough. When I started working from home, I thought I wouldn’t get distracted because I had a desk area already set up. But, I found that working at a desk in my bedroom still caused many distractions. At times, I found myself looking at my unmade bed and wanting to make it, wondering when I should plan to do the laundry, or glancing at my TV and thinking about a TV show I enjoyed even though it was off. Although I can’t always work in the common areas of my house due to roommates, I now try to work outside of my room whenever I can.”
2. “Letting your schedule get too flexible. When you work remotely, it can be tempting to say, ‘I’ll take a longer break and work later in the evening.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ll work ahead during the weekend since I have no plans.’ Ultimately, when I’ve done this, it only stresses me out and messes with my work-life balance. Because of this, I’ve begun to create a more structured schedule for myself where my work and non-work hours are clearly marked on a calendar in advance.”

It’s important to remember, mental health affects more than just you — it can also affect your workplace performance, marriage, parenting style, or ability to connect with friends.

When it Comes to Your Health, the Insignificant Things Matter

The reason I opened this post with a story about the courage to order differently at a client dinner is because often the things that make the greatest difference to our mental health seem really insignificant and minor.

That’s what I want you to consider as you think about your mental health when it comes to remote work.

It’s often the insignificant things that are the most significant. Like not checking email after 9 p.m., or making sure you have a real-life conversation with someone during the day, even if it’s just the delivery guy (half kidding, but also not really?).

When you “know thyself,” you’re better able to set appropriate limits in order to maintain your sanity while working from home. For example, if you know you perform best when you’ve had a well-rested 8-9 hours of sleep, then engineering your work-from-home office habits so you can sleep better is one of the most responsible things you can do.

Alternatively, if you’re someone who is good on 5-6 hours of sleep, but needs an hour of exercise each day to alleviate stress, you’ll want to ensure you work that into your schedule, as well.

Paying attention to the little things that make you function and feel better — and honoring them — is what will prevent you from spiraling into anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues while working from home.

There Is a Trickle Down Effect to Taking Care of Yourself

When you take care of yourself it doesn’t just help you — it helps everyone else around you, too.

For instance, if your team expects that you’re immediately available every time they call you, they’re going to continue to call you whenever they want. And if you work from home, where the lines between “work time” and “home time” are extremely blurry, that “immediate access” is going to dip into your quality time with your kids or friends.

When you are suddenly unavailable from 5-8 p.m. on weekdays, you’ve now made it so your team is also unavailable during that time.

And they can start to distinguish between real emergencies and client emergencies (it might feel like the end of the world, but it’s only a PowerPoint deck, you’re fine).

It likewise gives colleagues the opportunity to take a leadership role and figure things out without you — or they get permission to start making their own families a priority. You’ve just given them a gift, by giving yourself a gift. Everybody wins!

Point is, there’s a trickle down effect to taking care of yourself. We all benefit when you are brave enough to face the status quo and say, “Yeah, I’m not doing that.”

By opting-out of the “supposed to” behaviors and replacing them with behaviors that optimize your well-being and your performance, you’re able to take care of your physical and mental health, while ensuring your colleagues feel comfortable doing the same.

Nothing about running an ecommerce business is straightforward or easy.

The goal is, of course, to present a product on your ecommerce website, entice buyers to purchase through ecommerce marketing, and then process payments.

This is how even the most basic ecommerce site should run.

But, unfortunately, goals are often easier said than met. To meet your goals, you’ve got to put in work — especially if you’re working to build and grow your ecommerce business.

Whether you’re an ecommerce veteran or are new the world of ecommerce, here are four genius tactics to entice buyers and increase sales.

4 Tactics to Increase Ecommerce Sales

The world of ecommerce is always changing. These tactics are some of the most impactful for boosting sales and attracting new customers to your ecommerce website.

1. A/B Testing

Absolutely every aspect of your site could be tested for improvement — including images, headlines, product descriptions, and even the overall design. Even if you think you’re already doing well with your current website collateral, there’s always room to A/B test your content.

Before you start changing everything on your website to see what works, stop and create a battle plan. If you change everything at once, you won’t know what’s effective and what’s not. Plan two weeks for each change so you can gather enough data to make a decision.

Then, start with one component at a time. You could test something every two weeks and still find room for improvement years down the road.

2. Social Media

Are you sure you’re using social media to the best of your ability? What if you could keep an eye on what people are saying about your company and your products on all your social media outlets? With HubSpot’s social inbox, you can.

You’ll receive a notice any time you’re mentioned, which then gives you the opportunity to follow up, start conversations with followers, and potentially attract them to your website.

Use this feature to provide stellar customer service when buyers have a complaint, or simply answer questions when visitors ask. If you really want to have some fun, respond to even the most ridiculous of mentions with your own special brand of humor. Your customers will love you — enough to check out your ecommerce products.

3. Heat Mapping

What if you could track the parts of your website where buyers hung out for a while? Would that help you provide better information for the next time they stopped by?

With heat mapping, you can keep an eye on the pieces of your website that visitors really love. Tools like Hotjar pull together your website’s scrolling and clicking information to give you a full picture of what your buyers want to see and buy.

You can also track where your visitors come from and how long they hang around. In other words, if you use your social media for marketing, you can discover how many clicked on your offer and how long they stayed. This helps you determine which social media outlets you should focus on.

4. Exit Calls-to-Action for Lead Generation

The truth is that 99% of first-time visitors to your ecommerce site have no intention of making a purchase. You can accept this statistic and hope to get them the next time they stop by, or you can do something about it.

An exit call-to-action (CTA) with one last offer can be added to your site for last-minute lead generation. Some sites generate a pop-up the moment a customer enters the site. The exit CTA instead pops up just before customers bounce.

By providing the possibility of later savings, you might just convince those visitors to give you contact information so they can stay on top of things. If they’re interested enough to stop by the first time, potential discounts could bring them back and finish the job.

As you can see, these tools go a lot further than just offering products and accepting payments. If you’re ready to step things up a bit, consider any of the tools listed above.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Optimizing your website to generate leads is a no-brainer. But unfortunately, it’s not as simple as throwing a “Click Here” button on your home page and watching the leads pour in.

Instead, marketers and designers need to take a more strategic approach. In this post, we’ll go over some quick ways that actually work to optimize your website for lead generation.To understand how to optimize our website, we’ll have to first gain a basic understanding of the lead generation process.

What components are at play when a casual website visitor turns into a lead?

The lead generation process typically starts when a website visitor clicks on a call-to-action (CTA) located on one of your site pages or blog posts. That CTA leads them to a landing page, which includes a form used to collect the visitor’s contact information. Once the visitor fills out and submits the form, they are then led to a thank-you page. (Learn about this process in more detail in this post.)

Now that we’ve gone over the basics of lead generation, we can get down to the details.

10 Ways to Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation

Let’s unpack ten simple ways to optimize your site for lead generation.

1. Add forms to the pages that get the most traffic.

It’s important to benchmark your current state of lead generation before you begin so you can track your success and determine the areas where you most need improvement. Some of your pages might make excellent lead generators and you don’t even realize it.

To start, conduct an audit of where most of your online traffic and outreach comes from — your lead generators. Here are some common places a business might get visitors:

• Email Marketing: Traffic might come from users who click through to your website from one of your emails.
• Social Media: Traffic might come from users who engage in a campaign through one of your social media profiles.
• Live Chat: Traffic might come in the form of users who reach out to your customer service team through a live chat window on your website.
• Blog Posts: Traffic might come from your highest-performing blog posts.

Once you identify where your leads are coming from, you’ll want to make sure the pages they’re landing on are doing everything they can to nurture a visitor’s interest.

For example, if, through your analytics tool, you realize most of your potential leads are clicking on inbound links to your website from your Facebook page, your next step is to update the pages they’re visiting with content that keeps them on and engaging with your website. On your most visited website pages, add longer-form content that visitors can access through forms that solicit their contact information.

2. Measure the performance of each lead generator.

Test how each of your existing lead generators is contributing to your business using a tool like Website Grader, which evaluates your lead generation sources (including landing pages and CTAs) and provides feedback on ways to improve your existing content.

You can also compare landing pages that are doing well with landing pages that aren’t doing as well. For example, let’s say that you get 1,000 visits to Landing Page A, and 10 of those people filled out the form and converted into leads. For Landing Page A, you would have a 1% conversion rate. Let’s say you have another landing page, Landing Page B, that gets 50 visitors to convert into leads for every 1,000 visits.

That would be a 5% conversion rate — which is great! Your next steps could be to see how Landing Page A differs from Landing Page B, and optimize Landing Page A accordingly.

Finally, you could try running internal reports. Evaluate landing page visits, CTA clicks, and thank-you page shares to determine which offers are performing the best, and then create more like them.

3. Optimize each step of the lead generation process.

If your visitor searched “lawn care tips” and ended up on a blog post you published called, “10 Ways To Improve Your Lawn Care Regimen,” you’d better not link that blog post to an offer for a snow-clearing consultation. Make sure your offers are related to the page they’re on so you can capitalize on visitors’ interest in a particular subject.

As soon as a visitor lands on your website, you can start learning about their conversion path. This path starts when a visitor visits your site, and ends (hopefully) with them filling out a form and becoming a lead.

However, sometimes a visitor’s path doesn’t end with the desired goal. In those cases, you can optimize the conversion path.

How? Take a page out of Surety Bonds‘ book. They were struggling to convert visitors at the rate they wanted, so they decided to run an A/B split test (two versions of a landing page) with Unbounce to determine which tactics were performing better on each page. In the end, they ended up changing a link to a button, adding a form to their homepage, and asking different questions on their forms.

The result? A 27% increase in lead generation.

If you want to run an A/B test on a landing page, be sure to test the three key pieces of the lead gen process:

The CTAs

Use contrasting colors from your site. Keep it simple — and try a tool like Canva to create images easily, quickly, and for free. Read this blog post for ideas for types of calls-to-action (CTAs) you can test on your blog.

The Landing Pages

According to one HubSpot survey, companies with 30+ landing pages on their website generated 7X more leads than companies with 1 to 5 landing pages.

For inspiration, here are 15 examples of well-designed landing pages you can learn from.

The Thank-You Pages

Oftentimes, it’s the landing pages that get all the love in the lead generation process. But the thank-you page, where the visitor is led to once they submit a form on the landing page and convert into a lead, shouldn’t be overlooked.

Along with saying thank you, be sure to include a link for your new lead to actually download the offer on your thank-you page. You can also include social sharing buttons and even a form for another, related offer.

Bonus: The Kickback Email

Once a visitor converts into a lead and their information enters your database, you have the opportunity to send them a kickback email, i.e. a “thank-you” email.

In a HubSpot study on engagement rates of thank-you emails versus non thank-you emails, kickback emails doubled the engagement rates (opens and click-throughs) of standard marketing emails. Use kickback emails as opportunities to include super-specific CTA and encourage sharing on email and social media.

4. Start with a basic CTA on your homepage.

If your homepage’s design is what catches a person’s attention, the CTA is what keeps it. However, don’t bombard your visitors with an invitation to see the longest or most complex content you have.

Your homepage sits at the top of the marketing funnel, and should therefore offer either a free trial or subscription to a recurring campaign, such as a newsletter. Consider including one of the following CTAs on the front of your website:

“Subscribe to Updates”

In general, consumers want their browsing experience to be as non-invasive as their buying experience. Oftentimes they’re not ready to make a purchase when they first find your website.

To teach them about you with no effort or commitment on their part, invite them to subscribe to an email that notifies them of industry trends and product updates. Personally follow up with the ones who opt to stay on this mailing list to gauge their interest and eventually turn them into marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

“Try Us for Free”

Free trials and demos are a growing company’s bread and butter. They allow you to generate demand in your business and create a contact list of leads who are currently piloting your product.

On your homepage, have your product available to try for free for a limited time using a CTA and form where you can collect their names and email addresses. At the end of each active product demo, follow up with the user to see what they thought of it.

5. Offer e-books for download on specific blog posts.

Another non-invasive way to generate interest in your business is to create blog content that promotes an ebook or whitepaper, wherein your website visitors can learn more about the same topic they just read about on your blog.

This is where lead generation meets search engine optimization (SEO).

Blog content is your way of developing the page authority needed to rank your website on Google. Organic visitors who come from Google are often more intent on finding solutions to a problem you can solve — making this form of lead generation quite valuable.

To start, conduct keyword research on a topic that’s relevant to your industry, and create a group of blog posts around this topic. Then, draft a report that delves much deeper into this topic. Package this report into a PDF that your blog readers can download using their name, company, and email address.

Using the three-part conversion path described above, email each person their downloaded resource, following up with them through a kickback email that retains each lead’s interest in the content you’ve provided them.

6. Develop a live chat service for your website.

Live chat services are increasing not just in their sophistication, but in how many people expect them when learning about vendors they might want to buy from. This means you could be missing out on a major lead generator.

Source

To generate leads through live chat, audit your website to see which pages your visitors spend most of their time on. With the right development resources, you can install a live chat tool on the pages where customers need the most assistance or information. This allows you to casually collect and log insight on their product needs while answering their questions.

Depending on who starts the chat and the questions your visitors have, you can even integrate your customer service team with your live chat feature. This ensures every website visitor has their needs addressed no matter where the conversation goes.

7. Personalize your CTAs.

Dynamic content lets you cater the experience of visiting your website to each, unique web visitor. People who land on your site will see images, buttons, and product options that are specifically tailored to their interests, the pages they’ve viewed, or items they’ve purchased before.

Better yet, personalized calls-to-action convert 42% more visitors than basic calls-to-action. In other words, dynamic content and on-page personalization help you generate more leads.

How does it work? Here’s an example of what your homepage may look like to a stranger:

And here’s what it would look like to a customer:

Notice the “Welcome Back” header? Visitors who see website pages that remember them from an earlier date a more inclined to stick around and start a conversation with you.

To get dynamic content (or “smart content”) on your site, you’ll need to use a tool like CMS Hub.

8. Test, test, test.

We can’t stress this part of the process enough. A/B testing can do wonders for your click-through rates.

For example, when friendbuy tried a simple A/B test on their calls-to-action, they found a 211% improvement in click-throughs on those CTAs. Something as simple as testing out the wording of your CTA, the layout of your landing page, or the images you’re using can have a huge impact, like the one friendbuy saw. (This free e-book has fantastic tips for getting started with A/B testing.)

9. Nurture your leads.

Remember: No lead is going to magically turn into a customer. Leads are only as good as your nurturing efforts.

Place leads into a workflow once they fill out a form on your landing page so they don’t forget about you, and deliver them valuable content that matches their interest. Lead nurturing should start with relevant follow up emails that include great content. As you nurture them, learn as much as you can about them — and then tailor all future sends accordingly.

Here’s an example of a lead nurturing email:

This email offers the recipient some great content, guides them down the funnel, and gets to the point. According to Forrester Research, companies that nurture their leads see 50% more sales-ready leads than their non-nurturing counterparts at a 33% lower cost. So get emailing.

You depend on leads to close sales and grow your business. Using the tips above, you can take advantage of every opportunity without letting unsatisfied website visitors slip away.

Editor’s note: This post was originally written in May 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Throughout all of 2017, HubSpot experienced something that had never happened before — our blog’s monthly traffic flattened. Even worse, it started to decline. So after months of stressing over the mysterious cause of our blog’s traffic plateau, we decided to sit down, chug a bunch of coffee, and find the culprit.

What we discovered is that our editorial strategy of brainstorming topics and relying on our intuition to determine our audience’s content preferences didn’t suffice anymore.

Coupled with almost every social media platforms’ unwillingness to direct users off their website and the ever-growing mountain of emails piling up in people’s inboxes, we decided to pivot and focus our energies on the channel that has consistently generated the majority of our blog’s traffic for its entire existence — organic search.

Today, years after we adjusted our organic strategy, we’ve exceeded the majority of our monthly traffic goals and even broke some monthly traffic records. Needless to say, we’re thrilled (and relieved) that our organic strategy fueled our traffic boost and shattered the great traffic plateau of 2017 — and we’d love to share the essential SEO tips that helped us devise this strategy.

1. Spend as much time on the SERPs as you do in tools.

Even though an algorithm dictates the rankings of a search engine’s results page (SERPs), the algorithm is meant to reward web publishers that craft the best content on the internet.

That’s why it’s important to understand search intent. To accomplish this, we analyze a keyword’s search engine results page and determine the problems users are trying to solve when searching for this query.

Aja Frost, the head of SEO content at HubSpot, says “Yes, tools offer us a ton of information. But that information is often based on incomplete, out-of-date, or biased data sets. I encourage SEOs to combine the insights they’re getting from their tools with real-time clues on the SERPs. Every time you decide to target a new keyword, refresh a piece of content, or diagnose a page or section of pages with irregular traffic, take a look at what’s coming up for the main queries on Google.”

Depending on your goal, Frost says to pay attention to:

• Search features
• The type of content that’s ranking (product pages, listicles, tutorials, etc.)
• The websites that are ranking (databases, businesses, media sites, directories, etc.)
• How far down the page the first organic result appears
• How your page shows up (title, meta description, date, jump links, schema if applicable, etc.)

When you do this search, “Don’t forget to use an incognito window, frequently clear your cache, cookies, and history, and run your searches on both a desktop and phone,” Frost adds.

2. Master the SERP overlap test.

While you’re on the SERP, Frost uses this time to conduct the SERP overlap test.

She says, “I use this test all the time to determine whether or not to target two-plus queries with a single piece of content.”

Now, you might be wondering, “What’s the SERP overlap test?”

Frost details the steps below:

• Do a quick search in incognito for Keyword A and a separate search for Keyword B.
• If the SERPs look fairly different (i.e. the top ranking pages are different, or #1 for Keyword A is, say, #9 for Keyword B), that tells me Google is treating those queries as separate, with separate intents.
• However, if the SERPs have a lot of overlap, then I feel comfortable treating the two queries as the same.

3. Aim for the featured snippets on SERPs.

Featured snippets are what search engines use to display an answer to a query directly on the search engine result page so a user doesn’t need to actually visit another page to get the answer to their question.

As you can imagine, this has impacted organic search results. That’s why it’s important to try and rank in as many featured snippets as possible.

To do so, you should write specific posts that answer questions users might have. The semantic relevance to the keyword a user searches for is the most important element in obtaining a featured snippet.

Additionally, your blog post should be organized and formatted in a way that lets Google know you’ve answered a question. For instance, this could mean using specific coding so your featured snippet stands out on the page.

This is the strategy we’ve used at HubSpot.

According to Karla Cook, the senior manager of HubSpot’s blog team, “targeting featured snippets with consistently formatted sections has removed some (but definitely not all) of the guesswork when it comes to ranking for featured snippets. Matthew Howells-Barby, HubSpot’s Director of Acquisition, has stressed that clean and consistent code is a significant factor in winning snippets.”

4. Consider on-page SEO, but not everything you publish has to be search-friendly.

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing a page on your site with front and back-end components that can help you rank higher in search engines.

These components include:

• High-quality page content
• Page titles
• Headers
• Meta descriptions
• Image alt-text
• Structured markup
• Page URLs
• Internal linking
• Site speed

For today, let’s focus on the copy oriented elements such as high-quality content, page titles, headers, meta descriptions, and image alt-text.

To rank in search engines, that copy should be optimized. That means it should include your target keyword, be contextually relevant, and answer questions your user might have.

Ultimately, the goal is to indicate to search engines that you’ve answered questions a user might have about a query.

However, Victor Pan, a technical SEO and principal marketer at HubSpot, says that not everything you publish has to be search-friendly.

“This could be ad landing pages, thank-you pages, internal sales enablement pages, and login pages. Prioritize optimizing for search when the opportunity is greater than the time invested, and leave the rest on the back burner. Tackle the back burner once you’re able to build a process to reduce the amount of time needed to optimize,” he adds.

5. Target a variety of high and low volume keywords.

With an organic search strategy, it’s important to target keywords that span an entire buyer’s journey, including a variety of high and low volume keywords.

Braden Becker, a senior SEO strategist at HubSpot, says, “Broad, early-interest keywords tend to be higher in volume, while later-interest or even purchase-ready keywords tend to be lower in volume, because the audience is becoming more specific. Therefore, you shouldn’t be afraid to target low-volume keywords if they have a higher likelihood of turning traffic into leads or customers.”

At HubSpot, the SEO team does in-depth keyword research for our three onsite blog properties (Marketing, Sales, and Service). The team looks for search volume — some as high as 120,000 or higher and some as low as 50.

Then, they take into account gaps in our existing topic clusters and emerging topics we haven’t yet thoroughly constructed content clusters around.

According to Frost, it’s important to get creative with the high volume keywords you’re targeting.

For example, when she was the editor on HubSpot’s Sales blog, she assigned topics that may have strayed from our usual topics, but boasted significant search volume.

All posts answered our audience’s questions, aligned with our values, and were well-researched and comprehensive.

6. Consider pruning content after long periods of growth.

Pruning your content is the process of reducing the number of indexed pages by deleting old, low-quality content that doesn’t add value to your site.

Becker says, “Consider ‘pruning’ content after long periods of growth. As websites grow and scale, you’ll find some content fails to perform as expected. As that pile gets bigger, it can have adverse effects on the rest of your site’s speed and performance. Audit your site for pages that aren’t driving a certain level of traffic, backlinks, or conversions, and unpublish them.”

You can learn more about the content pruning process here.

7. Consolidate website pages using redirects and canonical tags.

When you conduct a site audit, you might also see pages with similar content.

If that happens, you should consider consolidating website pages using redirects or canonical tags.

Becker says, “After long periods of content production, a common byproduct is similar (or even duplicate) content. Nobody wants multiple pieces of website content serving the same purpose, because it can cause you to ‘cannibalize’ your own traffic on search engine results pages.”

To fix this, you can redirect low-performing pages to a better page on your site that contains related information.

Becker adds, “Besides redirecting, if you have exact duplicates, you may even add a canonical tag from the duplicate to the core page, which keeps the duplicate visible but tells Google to prioritize the core page when ranking your website. Be careful when deciding to canonicalize or redirect — these are delicate decisions, and should only be made when it makes perfect sense to.”

You can learn more about this process here.

8. Implement a historical optimization strategy.

In 2015, Pam Vaughn, the current Principal Marketing Manager of HubSpot’s Web Strategy Team and former Editor of HubSpot’s Marketing Blog, made a revolutionary discovery about HubSpot’s organic monthly blog traffic — the overwhelming majority of it came from posts published prior to that month. In fact, 76% of our monthly blog views came from these old posts.

Today, Pam’s groundbreaking revelation rings louder than ever — 89% of our monthly blog views currently come from posts that were published at least six months prior, and we’ve developed an entire strategy dedicated to refreshing and republishing these historical pieces of content.

We call these types of blog posts “updates”, and they comprise 35-40% of our editorial calendar. And by refreshing them with new information and SEO optimization and then effectively republishing them as new blog posts, we can build upon their existing organic value that they’ve accumulated through backlinks and user engagement and double or even triple their traffic. This process also helps us optimize our blog for efficiency, decreasing the amount of new content we have to create while increasing our organic traffic and conversions.

Historical optimization isn’t for everyone, though. It’s a strategy catered for a blog that generates a significant amount of organic traffic, has a considerable amount of blog subscribers and social media followers who can supply a surge of traffic, shares, and backlinks to your updates, and owns a substantial repository of old posts that are worth refreshing and republishing.

However, if you have all three of these things, we definitely recommend implementing a historical optimization strategy. To learn about the specific types of historical content you should update and the exact process of updating them, check out this blog post written by Pam Vaughn herself.

9. Train your website visitors to search for your brand.

Traditionally, SEO is used to increase the number of unbranded searches to your business.

Pan says, “The logic was that these were potential customers that would not have otherwise converted. This logic is good for a young business, but for mature businesses that have a good relationship with their customers, branded traffic is just as important.”

For example, platforms like Amazon have trained their customers to search on Google to append “amazon” to their searches.

Pan says you can do this too, by becoming the go-to expert on the topic tied to your brand.

To become the expert, you have to develop page authority. Which brings us to our next tip.

10. Develop page authority.

One factor that search engines use to determine its rankings is page authority.

This means that if you’ve been blogging about a topic for a long time and have cultivated a reputation as a go-to expert in an industry, your web page might rank higher than a page published by a new site.

That’s why it’s important to build your brand and authority in your niche. Consider blogging regularly, posting on social media, and guest posting for other sites. Being active in your industry helps build your reputation.

Additionally, you should write about tangential topics your customers are interested in. This shows search engines that you write about your industry in-depth.

All of these things will give your website authority and indicate to search engines to pay more attention to your domain as you continue adding topics that you cover in-depth.

11. Leverage the pillar-cluster model.

Since people heavily rely on Google to provide accurate and relevant answers for most of their questions today, the search engine needs to understand the intent and context behind every search.

To do this, Google has evolved to recognize topical connections across users’ queries, look back at similar queries that users have searched for in the past, and surface the content that best answers them. As a result, Google will deliver content that they deem the most authoritative on the topic.

To help Google recognize our content as a trusted authority on marketing, sales, and customer service topics, we decided to implement the pillar-cluster model on our blog. By creating a single pillar page that provides a high-level overview of a topic and hyperlinks to cluster pages that delve into the topic’s subtopics, we could signal to Google that our pillar page is an authority on the topic.

Hyperlinking all of the cluster pages to the pillar page also spreads domain authority across the cluster, so our cluster pages get an organic boost if our pillar page ranks higher, and our cluster pages can even help our pillar page rank higher if they start ranking for the specific keyword they’re targeting.

Another benefit the pillar-cluster model supplies is cleaning up our site infrastructure and providing a better user experience for our website visitors.

Before we implemented the pillar-cluster model, we spent most of our time writing blog posts designed to rank for specific, long-tail keywords. This resulted in thousands of unorganized blog posts, and some were so similar that they competed with each other on the same search engine results pages.

Now, not only is it easier for Google to crawl our blog, identify semantic relationships between our posts, and boost our search engine visibility, it’s also easier for our audience to search for the content topics they’re looking for, find related content, and spend more time reading our blog posts.

To learn how to implement the pillar-cluster model on your own blog, take a look at the steps we took to do it.

12. Create a link-building strategy.

Earning high-quality inbound links from websites and pages with high authority is crucial for boosting your domain authority. But, unfortunately, “If you write it, they will link to it,” is not a viable SEO tactic.

The main method we use to earn high-quality links is by networking with other websites that have a higher domain or page authority to link to our top content. We also make sure our content is relevant to the referring website’s content.

Another way you can earn quality backlinks is by using Backlinko’s skyscraper method. The skyscraper method is an SEO strategy where you find content that ranks well for keywords you want to rank for and then create content that’s better than the top ranking posts. Then, you use SEO tools to find all the sites that have linked to your competitor’s content and ask the most relevant sites to replace your competitor’s link with a link to your improved content.

In 2016, Backlinko asked 160 websites to link to their post about Google’s 200 Ranking Factors and they earned 17 inbound links. You might be thinking that 17 backlinks isn’t that much, but a lot of those referring websites had high domain authority scores, so the post’s organic traffic increased by 110% in only two weeks.

13. Don’t change URL’s.

The inventor of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, once said, “Cool URI’s don’t change.”

In fact, it’s a popular saying — “What makes a cool URI? A cool URI is one which does not change. What sorts of URI change? URIs don’t change: people change them.”

Pan says, “URLs, a subset of URI’s, should change as little as possible. The history of ‘why a URL changes’ is filled with good intentions that often get lost with time, so be sure to add a note the same way you should when you notice traffic anomalies.”

Note: You can do this within HubSpot’s constantly evolving URL Mapping tool.

14. Compress your images.

When you think about optimizing your content for search engines, compressing your images’ file size doesn’t seem like it should be a top priority. But, according to Becker, your images’ file size directly affects your website’s page load speed, which is one of the ten most important Google ranking factors.

“The bigger an image’s file size, the longer it takes your web browser to load that image, which increases your website’s loading time as a whole. And the longer your website’s loading time, the more likely Google will penalize you,” he says.

Compression blends similarly colored pixels into single pixels to reduce the image’s resolution, and in turn, file size. But since the human eye is more sensitive to light and dark detail than color detail, we’re not able to detect the color differences between an uncompressed and compressed image, so the perceived quality stays the same.

An uncompressed image’s file size could be four times bigger than the compressed image. Yet, the compressed image still has the same perceived quality as the uncompressed image, and it’ll load much faster.

To diminish our images’ file size as much as possible, boost your website’s page speed, and avoid risking a penalty from Google, we use Squoosh to compress individual images and TinyPNG to compress batches of images.

15. Add alt text to every image.

When search engines crawl your site, they can’t see images. For a search engine, your images are only text. They see the name of the file and the alt-text that you’ve added as a sort of caption to the picture.

This alt-text is one of the only ways to tell search engines what an image is about, which is vital if you hope to rank in image-based results. Additionally, alt-text is helpful for readers who can’t see your images.

Alt-text should be descriptive, contextually relevant to the page content, and short.

Ultimately, alt-text isn’t only helpful for your SEO, but also makes your site more accessible.

16. Maximize your CTAs.

Optimizing your page to rank in search engines is only helpful if that page is then optimized to convert.

You should plan for conversions by creating content offers for top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel readers.

Then, you can match those content offers with blog posts that are well-aligned.

Each page is a conversion opportunity, so each page should include a CTA that matches a searchers intent.

17. Form good relationships with your developers and designers.

Hitting your SEO goals isn’t a solo effort. You’ll need to work with your developers and designers.

That’s why Frost suggests forming good relationships with these people.

She says, “Get to know these people, learn their language (to your best ability), figure out what motivates them (usually it’s cool projects!), and most importantly, teach them important SEO concepts so, for example, they come to you before deleting an older page that has 500 backlinks. SEO isn’t just about keyword research, code, and content. It’s also about your relationships.”

18. Conduct a technical SEO audit.

One of the main components of SEO is the technical set-up of your site. When a search engine finds your page and goes to crawl it, it has to understand what it’s about so it can add your page to its index. If search engines don’t understand your page, they won’t display it on the results page.

However, search engines don’t look at web pages the way we do. They look for things like page speed, duplicate content, and URL structure.

To avoid technical issues, we recommend conducting a technical audit of your web pages.

The most important elements to look for are:

• Website navigation and links
• Simple URL structure
• Page speed
• Dead or broken links
• Sitemap
• Duplicate content

You can learn more about these factors in our ultimate SEO guide here.

19. Check, double-check, and triple-check your data.

The world of SEO is constantly evolving. That’s why, to truly succeed, you have to measure your success and check your data.

You should measure things like:

• Organic traffic growth
• Keyword rankings
• Conversions from organic traffic
• Average time on page
• Bounce rate
• Link growth

SEO is always adapting, and you should too.

Additionally, you should always check your data.

Becker says, “Growing organic traffic takes time, but it also takes a village. When performing keyword research, traffic analysis, or any performance-related audit, always have more than one source of data to guide you. If you see traffic drop in your content management system, check Google Search Console to see which pages that drop has affected. If the drop is concentrated on just a few pages or articles, use a rankings tracker to determine if you’ve lost position for any high-volume keywords. The smarter your diagnostics are, the better your decisions are in response.”

Even though we uncovered 19 tactics that helped us devise an SEO strategy that shattered a year-long traffic plateau and broke monthly traffic records, it’s entirely possible that they could become obsolete one day.

The moral of our blog’s story isn’t to glom onto these SEO tactics for the rest of your content marketing career. It’s to keep adapting and never settle for the status-quo, no matter how well you’re performing.

That’s why we recommend using HubSpot’s website grader tool, to help you determine how strong your website is.

Because one day, your once thriving work might stagnate and even sputter. And the only way to recover is to take a leap of faith and overhaul your entire strategy.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s can be difficult to find the ideal candidate for a specific position — in fact, in 2018 almost 75% of employers struggled to fill positions with the right candidates.

Regardless of the state of the economy and your talent pool, to succeed long-term, your business should be able to hire and retain the best, most talented employees.

But it can be a daunting task, which is why you need a talent acquisition strategy.

Your pursuit of top talent shouldn’t solely rely on traditional, short-term recruitment strategies like sending LinkedIn messages or attending job fairs. To ensure top talent acquisition and retention, you’ll need to devise a strategic long-term talent acquisition plan.

To succeed long-term, it’s critical you attract and retain talented employees regardless of vacant roles. Talent acquisition can help you do this, while solving for long-term organizational needs.

Here, we’ve cultivated four critical talent acquisition strategies to ensure you’re finding the best people.

1. Align with your business goals.

Consider your business goals for the next one to five years, and use those objectives to tailor your acquisition strategy to meet those needs. While recruitment tends to focus on filling vacancies within departments, talent acquisition is more about considering how your company is going to expand long-term, and then finding employees who can help take you there.

For instance, are you planning on expanding into Latin America? If so, perhaps your HR department should focus on attracting candidates with international or regional experience. Or, maybe you’re planning on creating a new product, in which case, your HR efforts should focus on attracting talented software developers and coders.

Certain roles might not even exist yet, but you’ll want to consider what type of talent you’ll need to hit your business’s long-term goals. Remember, investing in the right candidates will pay off for your company, long-term.

2. Use data and marketing to create better acquisition material.

You wouldn’t create a marketing campaign without data, so why should you recruit without it?

Talent acquisition should be treated with just as much importance as any of your marketing campaigns. Convincing people to join your company is just as necessary as incentivizing people to buy your products.

There are plenty of different opportunities to use data to strengthen your talent acquisition strategy. For instance, you might use data to figure out where your top talent came from, and use that information to focus your talent acquisition efforts on certain academic programs or professional networking sites.

Additionally, your HR team should partner with your marketing department to refine job descriptions, career pages, emails, and more.

Using data, you can figure out if certain questions are deterring candidates from filling out job applications, and eliminate those questions. Alternatively, perhaps you’ll find adding images or videos to highlight company culture incentivizes more candidates to fill out job forms. Or, maybe more candidates apply for a job with description A over description B.

By using analytics and data, you’re able to ensure your job descriptions and career pages aren’t deterring qualified people from applying.

3. Expand outreach strategies.

To find better talent, you’ll need to expand your sourcing strategies. Different skillsets require different methods of outreach. You’ll find your best marketers in a different place than your best programmers, so you’ll want to diversify your sourcing approach.

Rather than spending all your time on LinkedIn, consider other specialized job boards, academic programs, or networking events where you might find a specific group of talented professionals. For instance, to attract talented coders, Deloitte’s recruiters attended a hackathon and found prospective candidates.

It’s critical you identify where you can find the vast majority of your top talent, whether that be professional events, conferences, online forums, or social networks. Then, focus on strengthening relationships and networking with the right people — not only will you grow your pool of potential hires, but you’ll also grow brand awareness for your company, which will help you attract talent in the future, as well.

4. Focus on better employer branding.

Employer branding is critical for creating a successful talent acquisition strategy — in fact, a 2017 LinkedIn study found that 80% of talent acquisition managers believe that employer branding has a big impact on their ability to hire remarkable talent.

When talented candidates are comparing companies, they’re going to choose the one with the best values, culture, and work-life balance. By cultivating an impressive employer brand, you’ll attract better talent and find more long-term success.

To succeed with talent acquisition, you’ll need to be able to answer the question, “Why your company, over all the others?” This is why employer branding is a critical strategy for finding the best employees.

Consider how you can reframe your branding to focus on the best aspects of your company’s values and culture. It isn’t just about mentioning health benefits or compensation — you’ll also want to convey your impressive company culture, in which employees collaborate efficiently and enjoy spending time with one another. You might mention your flexible remote policy and other work-life balance perks, or your company’s emphasis on growth opportunities.

It’s important you broadcast these unique attributes through employee review sites like Glassdoor, as well as your “About Us” page on your company website. When highly qualified people are contemplating your company over your competitors, it just might be those reviews that end up convincing them.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.