Think about everything you’ve bought in the last six months, specifically the big purchases. When was the last time you didn’t start a shopping trip with a Google search? If your answer is anything close to “I can’t remember,” you’re in good company. Every year, over 2.8 trillion search queries are made on Google alone.

A strong SEO strategy will help your business generate more leads and get found by potential customers, but search engines are constantly switching up and tightening up their criteria for high rankings. If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of search engines and their algorithms, how will you know what steps to take to help your business get found?

Ryte and HubSpot have joined forces to bring you the answers you’re “searching” for with a 3-part Complete SEO Starter Pack. The kit includes everything you need to get your website and blog ranking on search engines, specifically:

• A 30-day SEO planner (with tips and strategies for each day of the month)
• Beginner’s guide on “What is SEO” and the new era of search engines
• A template for on-page SEO tips in excel
• The keys to gaining inbound links to your site for improved off-page SEO
• Which performance indicators to track when analyzing SEO performance
• How to structure your web pages for maximum on-page SEO
• How to identify the keywords your target audience is searching for
• And much more on a successful long-term SEO strategy

 

Click here to download your Complete SEO Starter Pack. 

Brands use social media for a lot of things: to distribute content, to share news, to provide customer service.

And sometimes, brands use social media for jokes, burns, and unmitigated sass.

When brand accounts share personality and humor on social media, it’s delightful — and it captivates the collective internet. It’s funny when brand accounts use social media like the real people behind the copy, and it breaks up the monotony of the negativity and mistrust that characterizes a lot of people’s feelings about their social feeds.

So we’ve rounded up 12 brand accounts to share the burns, the jokes, and the GIFs that make these sassy profiles some of our favorites online.

12 of the Sassiest Brands on Social Media

1) MoonPie

No list of sassy brand social media accounts is complete without MoonPie — the vintage snack cake that started garnering a lot more attention on Twitter for its quirky insights — and burns — after launching a Twitter beef with Hostess Snacks over whose treat was the official snack of the solar eclipse in the summer of 2017.

MoonPie is never afraid to wade into hotly contested debates, like the still-raging critique of Twitter doubling its character limit to 280.

This account has been asked to test Twitter’s new 280 character limit, but as a 100-year-old brand, we believe our fans most enjoy traditional tweets with brevity, so we declined. We hope to continue to provide a fun, positive place to discuss MoonPies moving forward. Thank you.

— MoonPie (@MoonPie)
September 27, 2017

But remember, it’s not all fun and games — MoonPie’s witty social media manager has feelings, too.

“You’re a social media manager who posts bad jokes about MoonPies all day anyone could do your job”

First of all I have feelings

— MoonPie (@MoonPie)
October 17, 2017

2) Helper

… as in, Hamburger Helper. Helper likes to wade into the social media muck by savagely burning people back when they try to make fun of the quick and easy meal brand — like so:

Simply put, Helper tells it like it is — and helps followers confront critical conflicts within their families and their kitchens.

I don’t eat hamburger, but even I can get on board with this level of hilarity from a brand on social media.

3) Tesco Mobile

Tesco Mobile is a mobile phone provider in the United Kingdom, and from what I can tell from customer complaints on Twitter, its cellular coverage might not be the best in the biz. It makes up for dropped calls, however, by coming back with hilarious takes and jabs in response to the haters.

Seriously, don’t make fun of Tesco Mobile lightly — be prepared for them to come into your mentions with a fiery reply that mocks everything about you.

4) Discovery

Normally, Discovery‘s social media content showcases stories about history, geography, and cute animals, like in this tweet:

Photo of the Day: Happy #HugABearDay! We don’t suggest hugging any real bears. Leave that to the professionals, like these polar bears. http://pic.twitter.com/7bp2BjCu0G

— Discovery (@Discovery)
November 7, 2017

Which is why it was so unexpectedly hilarious when, after the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team tried making a joke about the average height of a penguin to contradict Discovery’s estimate, Discovery came back with a vengeance:

For context, the Penguins had just been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs … ouch. We hope they had some ice on hand for that burn.

5) Brooklinen

Last week, Brooklinen sent this email to HubSpot Marketing Director Debbie Farese. At first glance, it appears to be a test email that Digital Marketing Intern Mark accidentally sent to Brooklinen’s entire list, advertising its upcoming sale on sheets.

Our team gawked at the email, lamenting what we were sure would be a swift end to Mark’s digital marketing career — until we did some investigation on Twitter and found this incriminating tweet.

Mark right now. http://pic.twitter.com/lNNnxAd2PF

— brooklinen (@Brooklinen)
November 17, 2017

We realized we had all been tricked by a clever marketing ruse designed to drum up attention — and give subscribers early access to Brooklinen’s sale.

Well played, Brooklinen. Well played.

6) Denny’s

Denny’s got in on a popular Twitter meme that tricks the viewer into repeatedly zooming in on spots on a picture to read secret messages — try it for yourself.

zoom in on the syrup http://pic.twitter.com/omRBupjrXq

— Denny’s (@DennysDiner)
March 1, 2017

But Denny’s also tweets clever remarks commenting on hot topics circulating — like the running joke of 2017, when social media accounts kept creating different ways to copy Snapchat Stories:

waffles in 2017 will now have stories http://pic.twitter.com/7ouQS75PSq

— Denny’s (@DennysDiner)
April 6, 2017

But they always find a way to infuse breakfast foods into their sassy tweets and memes — like this one.

you’ve heard of elf on a shelf now get ready for http://pic.twitter.com/NLYRvUw90n

— Denny’s (@DennysDiner)
September 18, 2017

7) Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster uses Twitter mostly to share interesting trends and articles about unique word definitions — but most tweets are usually accompanied by a very niche GIF or reference to pop culture, like this one:

‘Werewolf’ is the #WordOfTheDay https://t.co/0oM3GoFoWh http://pic.twitter.com/gqpTzRJw7f

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster)
October 31, 2017

The dictionary’s social media manager also likes to subtly comment-without-commenting on current events taking over the news by tying it into the context of word definitions — see what I mean?

📈Both ‘collusion’ and ‘indictment’ are among our top lookups today. https://t.co/zSfW3Cf2rK

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster)
October 30, 2017

What’s the definition of the word “shade”?

8) Charmin

Charmin has a hilarious series of tweets called #TweetsfromtheSeat about — you guessed it — sitting on the toilet. Its tongue-in-cheek bathroom humor will definitely make your day — and make you remember Charmin the next time you go to pick up some TP.

#WithoutMyMorningCoffee tweeting from the seat would take a lot longer. 💩

— Charmin (@Charmin)
January 19, 2017

But make no mistake, Charmin shares important news stories in its vertical, too.

If the #MadPooper turns herself in, we’ll give her a year’s supply of TP to help with her “runs” 💩 #EnjoyTheGohttps://t.co/GgEAyYp6aM

— Charmin (@Charmin)
September 20, 2017

Who says 💩jokes are just for kids?

9) Wendy’s

Wendy’s became famous this year for starting beefs (get it?) with anyone and everyone it could on social media. It all started with this innocent tweet, advertising its policy of only serving fresh beef.

Our beef is way too cool to ever be frozen. 😎 http://pic.twitter.com/QuXECJtlq5

— Wendy’s (@Wendys)
December 30, 2016

This Twitter user tried to start a Twitter battle with Wendy’s, and clearly, they had no idea what they were in for:

Owned.

And while Wendy’s sometimes uses social media for good, old-fashioned Biology 101 jokes …

 

Powerhouse babyyyyyy https://t.co/RTUZXyVuSq

— Wendy’s (@Wendys)
October 20, 2017

… its social media sass is best reserved for people (and other restaurants) that dare hint its food is anything but #1.

10) Bangor Maine Police Department

I’m from a little town called Portland, Maine, so when I started seeing news stories about Bangor, Maine’s charming Facebook account, I was overjoyed.

Police Sargeant Tom Cotton writes the Bangor PD’s lengthy status updates, featuring long-winded stories that feature jokes, some friendly mockery, and all-around laughs.

You can click to expand this one, or you can just read my favorite line:

“It’s your day on in the comment section of the world’s most marginally famous Police Department Facebook page. We heard that Zuckerberg reads it (that’s a lie).”

Or this one:

“For those of us in Maine? We will soon have the distinct privilege of leaving for work in the dark as well as returning to our homes in the dark. I also turn the analog bathroom scale back 10 pounds this time of year…or only look at it in the dark. Might as well make this enjoyable.”

These updates all contain stories, warnings, and advice for Bangor, Maine residents — all wrapped up in hilariously-written statuses.

“It should be noted that cats tend to come down out of trees when they make a decision to do so. Pleading with a cat to return to terra firma is done purely to please those standing around and looking up. It’s a public relations move which makes people feel warm inside, but cats are cats.”

11) BuzzFeed Books

BuzzFeed has nailed creating different profiles and outlet for its fans’ myriad interests, and BuzzFeed Books focuses on news and stories in the literary world.

For the most part. The account had some words (but only a few) about the expansion of Twitter’s character limit:

if you think 280 characters is exciting, try reading a book

— BuzzFeed Books (@BuzzFeedBooks)
November 7, 2017

12) Pop-Tarts

I love Pop-Tarts. (Did you know they’re vegan?) I also love the way the brand refuses to let anyone disgrace its name with unconscionable food preparation choices — like this one:

Or this one:

The robots are coming here.

We know — we’ve been over this. Messenger and live chat are quickly becoming customers’ preferred methods of communication. And for both, bots are often the first line of defense: the triaging system that connects the user to the right human being who can solve the problem … if it even needs to get to that point.

In other words, bots are eliminating some level of need for human labor.

It’s a hotly-contested point, one that’s met with a lot of questions rooted in concern.

“Is my job in danger?”

“Will I be replaced?“

“A bot can’t do everything — what about the creative stuff?”

Aha. It’s that last question that often sparks the most debate around here.

Is artificial intelligence capable of truly creative work?

As it turns out, there’s no truly definitive answer. There have been cases when the response is, “Of course,” and those where attempts to make an AI-powered presence creative fell completely flat.

So, we sought out to find instances of both. There are quite a few — some amusing, and some horrendous. Here are seven of the best examples we could find.

The Fails

1) Microsoft: Tay

Oh, boy. Where to begin, with this one?

Here’s the thing about machine learning: Typically, if it works properly, it’s designed to function based on its users. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, like when Spotify’s algorithm uses your listening behavior to curate playlists of songs it thinks you might like.

But in the case of Tay.ai, a Twitter bot designed by Microsoft to function like any “normal” teenage girl using the social media channel, things went terribly wrong.

The problem is that, as “smart” as it might be, AI isn’t quite capable of establishing its own ethics. Its only sense of right and wrong is what’s dictated by its algorithm, and even then, machine learning AI is still generally informed by the humans it’s determined to engage with. That’s why Russian ads on Facebook, for example, may have been so effective during the 2016 U.S. presidential election — based on users’ behavior on Facebook (likes, follows, comments, clicks, and more), its algorithm is “informed” enough for that content to accurately reach the people it was meant to influence.

Such was the case, somewhat similarly, with Tay. As the story goes, Tay began to emulate the behavior — or in this case, the language used in tweets — of the users engaging with it. Unfortunately, that language was charged with anti-Semitic and anti-feminist sentiment, causing Tay to tweet out such offensive content that Microsoft had to take it offline.

Source: Quora

2) IBM: Chef Watson

I like to call this one “The Great Chocolate Burrito Incident of 2015.” That same year, Watson — the IBM AI robot that once beat a reigning Jeopardy champion — became “Chef Watson” and released its first cookbook. Watson developed the recipes almost completely independently using its flavor algorithm, with only a bit of help from Institute of Culinary Education human chefs to make a tweak here and there.

There was reason to be optimistic. Prior to the cookbook’s publication, a few tech writers had been sent a complimentary bottle of BBQ that was also formulated by Watson, and earned positive reviews. But then came the Austrian Chocolate Burrito: a recipe with results that ranged from “a bunch of little balls of quasi-dryness in my mouth” to “so bad that I thought it had to be good.”

(It wasn’t all bad — the Washington Post, evidently, had better luck with the same recipe.)

We have yet to test the recipes ourselves, but in the meantime, um … bon appétit?

3) Research Scientist Janelle Shane: AI-Named Paint Colors

When someone pens an article about AI titled, “We’re Pretty Sure the Robot That Invented These Paint Colors Is a Stoner,” our guess is that it’s about an experiment that either went very well or very wrong.

In this case, it bordered on the latter. When research scientist Janelle Shane trained a neural network to create new paint colors — which are already so interestingly named, like my favorite, Benjamin Moore’s “Custis Salmon” — the results were … different. The AI was designed to create new shades, and assign names to them, but the two were often mismatched.

Case in point:

So, maybe that last one on the list is, um, fitting. But how does one explain the pinkish hue of “Grass Bat,” or the bluish-purple one of “Caring Tan?”

Maybe we just don’t have the artistic eye to appreciate these, but until we do, we’ll go ahead and categorize this one as “not quite a success.”

4) Oscar Sharp and Ross Goodwin: Sunspring

Have you ever wondered what would happen if scripts from classics like Ghostbusters and the original Bladerunner were fed to a neural network for the purpose of creating an original, entirely AI-written screenplay?

The results can be summarized by Sunspring, a short film that was acted and filmed entirely as the machine that wrote it intended. We’ll let the work speak for itself …

… as well as our team’s response when it was shared over Slack:

The Successes

5) Primordial Research Project: Hack Rod

Self-driving cars, are making many headlines these days and are even the stuff of high-profile lawsuits. But before the likes of Google, Lyft, and Uber began fighting over who would reign supreme in the area of autonomous vehicles, there was Hack Rod: one of the first artificially intelligent automobiles that had people talking.

The project began as a research-based side gig that was rooted in co-founder Felix Holst’s background at Mattel, where he worked on Hot Wheels toy cars. First, he and co-founder Mouse McCoy built a team to create a high-performance race car, which was later driven by a human through the Mojave Desert. That’s where the cool part comes in: The team was able to capture the driver’s brainwaves. That, combined with information collected from sensors placed within the vehicle itself, was converted into data that served as a foundation for the machine learning that would create what Fast Company once referred to as the car’s “nervous system.”

Hack Rod has been noticeably absent from recent self-driving headlines, but there’s little doubt that it paved the way — if you’ll excuse the pun — for autonomous vehicles to come. 

6) Manny Tan & Kyle McDonald: The Infinite Drum Machine

We’ve heard cases of AI-created musical composition, like Emily Howell, the classical-music-composing machine created by UCSC Professor Emeritus David Cope.

But we haven’t come across as many examples of AI-powered musical composition that allows the user to create its own audible masterpiece. That’s where The Infinite Drum Machine comes in: an AI experiment that uses machine learning to capture thousands of sounds we hear in day-to-day life, like a bag of potato chips opening or a file cabinet opening, and organizes them to create percussive patterns.

And thanks to Google’s AI Experiments site, everyday tech nerds like us can play with it. 

7) Google Creative Lab: AutoDraw

Okay, the jury might be out on this one. We’re calling it a win, because it makes for a fun way to pass the time, say, while putting off one’s blog-writing duties.

AutoDraw, another Google AI experiment, helps novice artists — er, those who like to doodle on the internet — create better quality images with the help of machine learning.

For example, here’s what happened when I tried using it to draw a picture of my dachshund-mix dog:

Cute! After about 50 seconds, AutoDraw figured out that I may have been drawing a dachshund. But here’s what happened when I tried to replicate its own work:

Granted, I’m not exactly a brilliant artist — but I did find it interesting that AutoDraw couldn’t recognize the subject of its own work being copied.

So, is AI capable of creativity? Sure. But in terms of its ability to completely replicate what a human mind might do — write a screenplay, accurately create and name paint colors, or emulate a teenage girl without offending the masses — it’s not quite there yet.

Are we on our way? Probably. But in the meantime, we’ll be preparing our popcorn and watching Sunspring on repeat.

Wanna see something scary?

That, my friends, is what I would call a definite downward trend — and for a post that, at its high point, received 10,000 views per month.

Maybe it looks familiar. And maybe it doesn’t, but it looks like something you want to avoid at all costs.

Either way — if you’re a marketer that plays any role in managing your brand’s blog — read on.

We’re going to go over some of the ways to avoid that big, scary traffic trend above — or to prevent it from happening again, if you’ve seen it before.

First, we’ll begin with the questions you should ask if you’ve noticed your SEO rankings drop. Then, once we’ve covered all those bases, we’ll get into how to proactively stay on top of your rankings, to get into good habits that can help you maintain your blog’s SEO health.

Ready to get into diagnosing those problematic blog posts? Let’s get started.

To demonstrate how this works, I’ll be diagnosing “40 Sales Interview Questions to Recruit the Best Reps in 2017,” which got nearly 24% fewer views in September than May.

You’ll need access to Google Analytics and SEMrush to follow these steps.

1. Is the search term itself losing traction?

Go to SEMrush and enter the post URL into the top search bar. Google Analytics (GA) doesn’t pull the “https://” part of a URL, so make sure you manually enter it. 

Find the highest-volume keyword the post is ranking in the top five for. It should be fairly general; for example, in September 2017, “40 Sales Interview Questions to Recruit the Best Reps in 2017” ranked #2 for “sales interview questions.”

Go to Google Trends and enter that keyword. The default time range is one year.

You may need to change the date to see more micro trends; I went with 5/1/2017 to 9/30/17 to see the May through September changes.

If interest in the term is steady — or up and to the right — it’s the post, not your audience.

2. Has the post declined in the rankings for a major keyword?

Go back to SEMrush and enter the post in the top search bar again. Change the date range under “Live data” in the top right to your highest-traffic month. (It should update to say “Historical data.”)

Export this list as a CSV. Don’t exit the SEMrush page with the rankings for the post you’re analyzing – you’ll be coming back to it in a bit.

Open the spreadsheet, and rename the tab “[High-Traffic Month] [Year]” (for example, “May 2017”.)

Delete Columns D-K.

Pull up the SEMrush window again. Change the date range to the most recent month.

Export this list as a CSV.

Delete columns D-K. Copy and paste the contents of this spreadsheet into a tab on the first spreadsheet. Rename the tab “[Most Recent Month] [Year]” (“September 2017”).

Go to the first tab. Add a Column D titled “[Most Recent Month] [Year] Rankings”. (For example, “September 2017.”)

Insert this formula into cell D2.

=VLOOKUP(A2, September 2017!A:B, 2, FALSE)

Click the small box in the lower right-hand corner to apply the formula to the remaining rows.

Add a Column E and call it “Up or down?”

Insert this formula into E2:

=B2-D2

Highlight Column E. Click “Apply Conditional Formatting” → “Highlight Cell Rules” → “Less Than” and insert “0.”

Now every negative rank change is highlighted in red.

Notice any particularly high-volume keywords you dropped in rank for. In this case, we went from #1 to #2 for “sales interview questions” (2900 monthly search volume) and from #1 to #3 for “inside sales interview questions” (720 monthly search volume).

3. How recently have you updated the post?

If you haven’t touched it in over six months, a fresher and more comprehensive link might be winning.

Action item: Update the post with additional content, more recent links, etc.

4. How recently have you promoted the post in an email?

A big bump in traffic from our email subscribers usually lifts rankings:

Action item: Include the post in an email send, either as the first or second link. (Any lower, and it won’t get clicks, rendering this strategy pointless.)

5. Are the posts that have surpassed it in the search engine results pages higher-quality; e.g., more comprehensive, more examples, better graphics/visuals?

That probably means their time-on-page is higher and bounce rate is lower. They may be getting more referral traffic than you as well.

Action item: Do whatever your competitors are doing … but better. If their guides feature a subject-matter expert, feature two subject-matter experts. (Because this is a time- and energy-intensive technique, don’t use it unless you’ve exhausted all the others, or this is a really competitive and important keyword.)

6. Are you getting fewer backlinks than your competitors/has your number of backlinks declined?

As websites disappear or change, you naturally lose backlinks.

You can find this information on SEMrush by entering the post URL in the top search bar and scrolling down until you see this:

Action item: Quote one or more influencers — either by pulling from something they’ve published, or reaching out for a direct quote — then, ask them to share the post with their audiences.

7. What if your ranking hasn’t dropped?

See if the keyword now has a search feature.

Search features include:

• Featured snippet (FS)
• People also ask (PAA)
• Carousel

Here’s an example of how a carousel result would look for a topic related to sales:

… and for the FS and PAA boxes:

These typically appear in what’s known as the “position zero” slot, meaning everything below is bumped down. Suddenly, the #1 ranking is in second place.

Action item: Try to improve upon the current FS. Can you provide the same information but with less jargon? With more detail? Greater accuracy? This obviously changes on a case-by-case basis, but usually, the snippet isn’t perfect.

See if there’s an ad — or several.

Paid results can also — sometimes simultaneously — be at fault.

Take a look at the results for “How to use CRM”:

Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done about these paid results — except to just accept the dip in traffic.

Use Google Search Console.

Google Search Console can also help diagnose the issue.

In the left sidebar, choose Search Traffic → Search Analytics:

Next, click “Pages” → “Filter Pages” → “URLs Containing”, then paste the URL of the post you’re analyzing.

“URLs Containing” is preferable to “URL is exactly” because you don’t want to miss any modified versions of that URL, i.e. one with UTM parameters.

Then, click “Dates” → “Set date range” → “Last 90 days” — that’s as far back as Google will go.

Here’s what those top checkboxes mean:

• Clicks: The raw number of clicks from the SERPs
• Impressions: The number of times the page showed up on the SERP
• CTR: Clicks divided by impressions
• Position: Average ranking for all the different queries this page shows up for. (Take this metric with a grain of salt — if you’re #1 for a low-volume query and #9 for a high-volume one, your Position will be 5, even though one rank is far more valuable than the other.)

It may be helpful to look at the changes in Clicks, Impressions, and CTR individually, as checking all of them gives you this:

A little overwhelming, no?

First, let’s look at clicks. (I’m still analyzing “40 Interview Questions.”)

Looks like clicks are going down slightly. (The valleys are the weekends, when far fewer people are searching for professional/educational content.)

Impressions are fairly stable.

Aha! Here’s the issue. In late September, clickthrough rate (CTR) started falling.

Analysis 101:

• If impressions are steady, but your clicks (and therefore CTR) are dropping, your rank is dropping and/or a search feature is pushing your result farther down the page.
• If impressions are decreasing, but clicks and CTR are constant, seasonality/declining search interest is probably to blame. Verify with Google Trends.
• If impressions are increasing and CTR is dropping, meaning clicks aren’t growing proportionally higher, check if you’re ranking for an image. You should also check whether your post has started ranking for more long tail keywords — ranking for more keywords, while a good thing (topics/over keywords), will always lead to higher impressions, but clicks may suffer as you may not always rank highly for those longer tail keywords.

Now scroll down and look at the most common queries leading people to your page. Does the content on the page reflect what they’re looking for?

I’ve highlighted the queries this post will not answer.

Decide whether it’s worth updating the post to address these content gaps. Since this one is about interviewing salespeople, not marketers, I’m not going to add marketing interview questions – that’d be too out of left field. And since “sales interview exercises” sounds like an entirely separate post, I’m not going to add that in, either.

However, sometimes you find a relevant angle that’s missing from your post. When that’s the case, by all means, go ahead and include it — it can only help.

How to Stay on Top of Your Rankings

If you’re a blog editor, writer, or manager, I recommend running a report at the end of every month to see which of your property’s top URLs have lost traffic.

Periodically reviewing these:

• Helps you rescue pages before they permanently slip in the rankings
• Reveals search trends
• Gives you a sense of your audience’s interests — both stable and changing

The first time you do this analysis, pick your highest-traffic month from the past half-year. Using a medium- or low-traffic month will give you a more conservative estimate of which URLs have declined in organic traffic, which may disguise pages in trouble.

In GA, go to the left-hand sidebar and click “Behavior” → “Site Content” → “All Pages.”

Add your segment and select your date range.

If you’re analyzing a property that doesn’t have a given segment, click “Advanced” and apply this filter:

“Include” “Page” “Containing” “[Property URL]”

Scroll to the bottom and change “Show rows to 500.”

Click “Export to CSV.”

Open your spreadsheet, name the first tab “[Month] [Year]”, then rename Column B “Views [Month] [Year]”, and delete all other columns.

Go back to GA. Change the date range to the most recent fully completed month (i.e. if you’re doing this on October 30, the date range would be September 1, 2017 – September 30, 2017.)

Your filter and the number of rows from the previous month you pulled should still apply, so all you have to do is click “Export to CSV.”

Open your spreadsheet, rename Column B “Views [Month] [Year]”, and delete all other columns. Copy the contents of this spreadsheet, then paste it into the second tab of your highest-traffic month spreadsheet. Name the second tab “[Month] [Year]”.

Go back to your first tab. Name Column C “Views [Month] [Year].”

In cell C7, insert this formula:

=VLOOKUP(A7, ‘Sept 2017’!A:B, 2, FALSE)

Click the box in the right-hand corner of the cell to apply this formula to the remaining rows.

Rename Column D to “15+% decline?”

Insert this formula into D7:

=IF(C7<(B7-(B7*0.15)), “YES”, ” “)

Apply the formula to the remaining rows.

Click “Conditional Formatting”, “Highlight Cell Rules,” “Text that Contains…” and set “Specific text” “containing” “Yes” to red.

And So, If You Remember Nothing Else …

Here’s a recap.

1. Every month, run a report to identify the top posts that have declined in traffic.

2. Determine whether the search term is declining in traffic (nothing you can do) or whether the post itself is dropping in rank (lots you can do).

3. If it’s the latter, diagnose the specific issue(s) using SEMrush and Google Search Console.

Yes, this process is a time- and energy-intensive one. But it’s easier to fix your car than buy a new one — and hope you haven’t gotten a lemon).

Performing maintenance on your blog’s greatest hits takes fewer resources than writing a net-new one … and is usually far more successful.

Not long after I began working at HubSpot, my manager introduced me to a term that was new to me: analysis paralysis.

How had I never heard of this concept before? I was certainly familiar with what it described: the paralyzing nature of habitually over-analyzing one’s work in an unrealistic quest for it to be perfect.

Breaking news: No one’s work is perfect. Okay, maybe Beyoncé’s is. But mine certainly isn’t.

It’s one thing to hold yourself to high standards. As marketers, we all know a thing or two about tearing something down and starting it from scratch again and again because there’s something about it that’s just not quite there. 

The problem is, as marketers, we also enjoy streamlined processes. And analysis paralysis? Well, that ain’t it, folks — especially when it comes to writing.

Luckily, the talented Henneke Duistermaat of Enchanting Marketing is here to help. Not only has she identified seven key areas of the writing process where our perfectionism tends to get the best of us, but she also compiled it into this extremely helpful — not to mention, adorable — infographic that explains simple ways to overcome it.

You’ve probably heard some buzz about Facebook Messenger of late, but most brands still don’t understand how to leverage it effectively. With 2.4 billion messages exchanged between businesses and people each month, it’s time to make the most out of the channel.

After all, 53% of people who message businesses say they are more likely to shop with a business they can message. And 67% of people say they plan to increase their messaging with businesses over the next 2 years. And, messages you send through Messenger will appear on a user’s locked phone screen — so your odds of reaching a user are greatly increased from sending a follow up email.

So, how can you make the most of this network? We’re outlining five quick wins you can start using today.

5 Ways to Get More Messages on Facebook

1) Optimize your page for messages.

Having a Facebook page that encourages users to message your page is the first — and easiest — way to encourage visitors on your business page to message your brand. It seems overly simple, but just optimizing your page to point users towards messaging you can have a huge impact on the number of messages you receive from interested or curious potential customers.

Try:

1. Setting your default Facebook Page CTA to Message Us.
2. Prompting visitors to message your page with the copy in your business description.

2) Setup response assistant.

Response assistant is Facebook’s own version of a “baby-bot” and can help you field incoming messages — even when you aren’t around to catch them personally.

Response assistant allows you to: 1) set instant replies 2) stay responsive when you can’t get to your computer or phone and 3) set a messenger greeting. In each of these you can use personalization tokens and greet those who message your page with a personalized message. You can also include a link to your contact us page, FAQ, or even your phone number in these messages.

3) Comment on posts with your m.me link.

Facebook has a new feature that allows you to comment on posts with your brand’s messenger link. If you run a Facebook ad that people are asking questions about, be sure to reply with this link to continue the conversation within Messenger.

4) Run a “Send to Messenger” ad.

Messenger Ads are Facebook’s newest ad type. They allow you to target audiences just like any other ad, but you can encourage them to message you directly from the Ad. Keep in mind, you’ll want to have your inbox modified to ensure it is money well-spent. But, as this is a new Facebook Ad type — the best time to experiment with these ads is now.

5) Commit to actually using it daily.

The best way to make the most out of Facebook Messenger is to monitor the channel just like you would monitor your own inbox, or your favorite Slack channel. The nature of the conversational channel encourages on-demand action, so the more responsive you can be, the better.

Finally, keep it light on the channel, after all, it is conversational. Messenger is a great opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality using GIFs and emojis that appeal to your audience.

 

I’ll just come right out and say it: The internet has a massive mess to clean up.

You may have heard about it. For instance, earlier this month, you may have followed the testimony from senior leaders at Facebook, Twitter, and Google that outlined, in detail, the quantity and nature of ads purchased and published on their platforms by operatives in Russia and other foreign states.

And yeah, of course — we all have our take on it, and many of us are clamoring to share it.

But my colleague, HubSpot’s own research boss Mimi An, had a better idea: Let’s ask everyone else what they think.

And so, in light of these recent events, An’s team ran a consumer study to gather sentiment data from 1,000 U.S. adults to find out just how they feel about this big, steaming internet mess. 

Here are the results.

A Few Notes on the Data

During the week of October 30, 2017,  three major online content-sharing and discovery platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and Google — testified before representatives of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Because those were the three companies present for the testimony, the questions asked of survey responses focused only on them, despite the possible involvement of other social media networks in ongoing election interference investigation.

When we distribute surveys, we describe in as much detail the exact issue that we want participates to respond to. The language used to phrase the survey questions describes what has taken place so far in a continuously developing situation as factually as possible within such constraints of online surveys as character limits and anonymity — and, therefore, an inability to follow up with respondents.

1. Ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Google are viewed with distrust.

 

On average, close to half of all respondents would describe ads these platforms as “very untrustworthy,” compared to an average of 5.5% who find them to be either somewhat or very trustworthy. Note that this is the sentiment around the ads appearing on these platforms, and not the platforms themselves.

2. Twitter’s response generated the least satisfaction, but the sentiment is low across the board.

While respondents were generally unsatisfied with network responses to political ad purchases on their respective platforms, it seems as though they have the least faith in Twitter. (The score for “somewhat satisfied,” for instance, was three percentage points lower than those for Facebook and Google.)

It’s worth noting that Twitter first testified before U.S. Congress about this same issue prior to the November events were all three companies were present, when it told representatives that it roughly 200 Russian-linked accounts — a figure that many found to be paltry and underestimated, including Senator Mark Warner, who called these initial efforts “frankly inadequate”.

How much influence that initial testimony (and Congressional response) had on survey respondents is uncertain, but it is an important historical point in the context of the particularly low sentiment toward Twitter.

Although the rates of dissatisfaction are fairly equal across the board, this survey was administered prior to a Recode report that Facebook filed comments with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that indicated its support of rules that would require the network to provide greater visibility and transparency around the political ads used on its site.

However, that support is limited in nature, in that Facebook only indicated that it would agree to these terms around ads pertaining to specific candidates, and not issues — and a significant portion of Russia-bought ads during the 2016 presidential election concerned such highly-contested and somewhat divisive issues as gun control and immigration.

Google, on the other hand, filed comments with the FEC that actively requested more detailed guidelines around issue-based ads, requesting further direction as to how those within its industry can and should better approach organizations attempting to promote propaganda.

Twitter, meanwhile, did file comments, but had little to say other than a request for the FEC to maintain awareness of the network’s character limits when establishing rules.

3. Trust in social media networks has been eroded by the political ads controversy.

In addition to ad content appearing on content-sharing and discovery platforms, it would appear that trust has fallen in the platforms themselves. Facebook was particularly hard hit here, with just shy of half of respondents saying that they find this channel to be less trustworthy.

However, an even higher amount of respondents answered with “none of the above,” signaling the possibility of no less trust in any of these channels. That data is once again reflected with our findings in other areas of the survey, including respondents’ plans to decrease or stop their use of social media — more on that in a bit.

4. 77% of Americans believe platforms need to vet the ads they sell and display.

Across the board, respondents stated a strong belief that it’s the responsibility of the platforms themselves to vet ad content purchased and displayed on their channels. An average of 77% of survey participants agreed with this sentiment, regardless of age, indicating that most social media users expect to see proactive changes in ad policies and best practices.

5. Though Americans are angry about the ads controversy, few plan on using the affected platforms less.

However, despite the general sentiment that these platforms are untrustworthy — as are the ads displayed on them — and need to do better about vetting paid or promoted content, the same respondents have indicated that, for the most part, they don’t plan to reduce their use of Facebook, Twitter, or Google.

In fact, despite being the least satisfied with Twitter’s response to the political ad crisis, less than a quarter of respondents plan to use it less. That number is even lower for Google, and only slightly higher for Facebook.

6. … and, even fewer Americans plan to stop using the platforms altogether.

Even if some intend to momentarily step away from social media, over 75% of survey respondents say they plan to leave these Facebook, Twitter, or Google altogether.

The last of the three is particularly difficult to give up entirely — after all, it’s commonly referred to as a “search giant” for a reason. But even so, a noticeably small number of survey participants would consider ceasing all use of Facebook and Twitter, as well.

But what does all of this information mean? What does it say about our online behavior and habits, and what are the implications for marketers?

The Takeaways

If nothing else, these numbers — and where they almost seem to contradict each other — illustrate a dependence on these contested channels.

Despite the overwhelming distrust in them, as well as the ad content published on them, survey respondents have no plans to curtail or cease using them — perhaps because they need to use them for work (after all, we are marketers), or because they simply enjoy them too much to step away.

That speaks to the power and influence they hold over users day-to-day. We spend a significant amount of time on these channels — about a third of Google’s visitors are based in the U.S., and on average, we spend about 35 minutes each day on Facebook (for context, that’s about 2.4% of the entire day). Thirty-five minutes may not seem like a ton of time, but when you think about how much time you spend on activities that are actually essential to your livelihood — like eating, for example — how does it compare?

The point is, the people behind this political content were likely aware of how much time we spend using the platforms where it was displayed. It’s no wonder that 126 million Americans were exposed to it — there’s a good amount of content to be consumed in a mere 35 minutes.

The main message to marketers, however, is this: These platforms are extremely useful and effective. In fact, that’s why people are highly concerned over the presence of Russian ads — there’s a very good chance that, if the intent behind them was to influence the U.S. presidential election in a certain direction, they worked. That’s why these representatives from these platforms are being summoned before a federal body. This level of effectiveness is a big deal.

By no means is this to say that marketers should cease using these channels to promote content and build brand awareness. As I said: It’s extremely effective and should continue to be used for growth. But with that effectiveness comes great responsibility, and that growth must be built with a commitment to transparency and truth.

That’s how I see it, anyway. 

As always, feel free to chime in. What’s your take on this data? Let me know on Twitter, or weigh in with any questions you have about it.

Disclaimer: This blog post is not legal advice for your company to use in complying with EU data privacy laws like the GDPR. Instead, it provides background information to help you better understand the GDPR. This legal information is not the same as legal advice, where an attorney applies the law to your specific circumstances, so we insist that you consult an attorney if you’d like advice on your interpretation of this information or its accuracy.

In a nutshell, you may not rely on this as legal advice, or as a recommendation of any particular legal understanding.

If you’re a marketer, we expect you’ve heard about the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) coming into force on 25 May 2018. The legislation will have a big impact on the way marketers approach their work and how organizations obtain, store, manage or process the personal data of EU citizens. This post will give some specific examples of what will change, how we’re thinking about it at HubSpot and the wider industry.

To start, we want to highlight research carried out by the HubSpot team, and unfortunately it’s not good news. Just 36% of marketers have heard of GDPR, while 15% of companies have done nothing, and are at risk of non-compliance. We would go as far to say there’s a worrying lack of action, and most companies are not ready for the GDPR. However, we’re optimistic this blog post will act as a conversation starter and inspire action within the industry.

There are two important parts of the Regulation that we want to highlight. First up, even if you’re based outside of the EU but you control or process the data of EU citizens, the GDPR will apply to you. Secondly, the potential penalties for falling foul of GDPR are going to be severe. Depending on the type of violation, companies will incur fines of up to €20 million or 4% of their global annual revenue (whichever is greater). These big penalties show that the regulators mean business and companies cannot afford to ignore the legislation.

On a more upbeat note, we think the legislation is a positive step. It’s an opportunity for good marketers to continue doing positive work in a way that puts people and their concerns at the forefront. It also means marketers will have to work harder to earn attention and gain the right to communicate with people on an ongoing basis.

But hard work won’t be enough: marketers will be forced to up their game and become more creative if they want to succeed. Again, we don’t see that as a bad outcome at all. Anything that gives more power to consumers and makes marketers get better is to be welcomed.

But those companies which have put their own needs ahead of consumers and indulged in shady or outbound tactics are in for a shock. Their world is going to change dramatically as the GDPR will hasten the demise of marketing tactics like buying lists, cold emailing and spam.

Not only are these tactics outdated, they provide a poor experience for the recipient and they’re becoming less and less effective by the day. Inbound marketing has always been the antithesis to these tactics — it puts the consumer first and attracts them with valuable content. But now, via regulation, others are going to have to adapt their marketing playbook.

Are you GDPR ready? Check out our GDPR checklist.

What impact will the GDPR have on my marketing activities?

You may be asking yourself, “where should I start with GDPR?”. There’s a lot to digest when it comes to the new Regulation so, to help you out, we’ve created a dedicated GDPR web page with a tonne of information about the GDPR, including what it is, why it came about, a glossary of terms and the most important of the changes the GDPR brings to EU data privacy legislation.

With that covered, we’re now going to work our way through the inbound marketing methodology and look at the GDPR principles you should consider at the various stages of the inbound marketing methodology:

 

 

Stage 1 – Data Collection

Transparency

The GDPR was designed to ensure that there will be more transparency between the organizations who collect and control the data (the ‘Data Controllers’) and the individuals whose personal data is being collected (the ‘Data Subjects’). This means that any organization which attracts people to its website and wants to collect data via a form must communicate clearly to that person what the data is going to be used for. The individual will need to give their consent to that use and the consent needs to be clear, in plain English and “informed, specific, unambiguous, and revocable“. Data subjects also need to be told about their right to withdraw consent.

Example: Meet Amy Meyer. She lives in Germany, has a passion for interior design, and we’re going to use her as an example throughout this post. If Amy downloads an ebook from The Paint Company to research what colours she can combine for the decoration of her new house, The Paint Company will need to make sure that they explain to Amy how they’re going to use her data.

For instance, if The Paint Company is planning to track Amy’s usage of its website, wants to send her more information via email, or is planning to share it with their affiliates outside the EU, they need to communicate that clearly and Amy needs to consent to that use. It won’t be sufficient for The Paint Company to pre-tick the box on a form to send information to Amy by email, as ‘opt-out consent’ will no longer be permitted under the GDPR.

Importantly, if The Paint Company decides they want to use Amy’s data for a new purpose at any point during the relationship, they’ll need consent from Amy to use the data for that new purpose. So while it’s clearly important to be transparent at the time of collection, it’s important that organizations remain open and transparent throughout the marketing process, and in terms of how it manages personal data after the relationship has ended.

Data Minimisation

When an organization is collecting data from an individual in order to convert a website visitor into a lead, they must remember that, under the GDPR, they are only permitted to collect data that is adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for the intended purpose of collection. Data collected by the organization which is deemed unnecessary or excessive will constitute a breach of the GDPR.

Example: The Paint Company created a landing page for prospects like Amy to download an ebook on living room colour schemes. Before Amy can download the ebook, she will need to complete the fields created by The Paint Company. It’s reasonable that they might want to collect her name, email address and even details about the project Amy is about to undertake. However, if they were to attempt to collect information about Amy’s family (for example, if she is married or how many children she has) or her health, this would be excessive as that data should not be required by a painting and decorating company.

Stage 2 – Data Storage and Processing

Purpose and Usage Limitation

organizations can only use the data collected and stored by them for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes. They’re not allowed to use it in any way that would be incompatible with the intended purpose for which it was collected. Also, if they plan to transfer or share the data with another company, they need to ensure they have consent from the person to do so.

Example: After Amy Meyer has downloaded the ebook from The Paint Company, Amy decides that she wants to enroll in an online course to learn more about painting and decorating. If the online course is being run by a third party training company on behalf of The Paint Company, they, The Paint Company will need to ensure that the training company have Amy’s consent to use the data. In addition, the training company will not be able to use the data for any other purpose other than the purposes Amy consented to.

Security

Once data is collected, the organization needs to ensure it is stored in a secure manner and in accordance with the Security provisions of the GDPR. This means they must use “appropriate technical and organizational security measures” to protect personal data against unauthorised processing and accidental loss, disclosure, access, destruction, or alteration. Depending on the type of data collected and the ways it is being used, companies may need to consider encrypting the data, using pseudonymization or anonymization methods to protect it or segregating the data from other data in their systems.

Example: Now that Amy Meyer’s data is stored in The Paint Company’s systems, it is the responsibility of The Paint Company to ensure it is kept safe and secure. Before collecting the data, The Paint Company should have assessed the types of data they planned to collect and work with their security team to ensure that it meets the standards of the GDPR.

These standards will differ depending on the kinds of data collected (for instance, security standards will be higher for sensitive data, biometric data or data about children) and how they’ll use that data. Only employees who need to access that data for the intended purpose have access to it and contracts with any vendors touching that data contain the relevant security protections.

Accuracy

People will now be able to ask organizations at any time to correct or update their data if the information is no longer accurate.

Example: Amy Meyer has bought some paint from The Paint Company and has also signed up to their loyalty program to receive discounts and new design ideas via email. Amy has moved to a new email service provider and wants The Paint Company to update her data so she receives emails to her new email address.

Accountability

The organization is responsible for ensuring they comply with their obligations under the GDPR. Not only will they need to keep records to prove compliance (for instance, records of consent for all of the data collected), they’ll also need to ensure they have policies in place governing the collection and use of that data.

They may need to appoint a data protection officer (DPO) and they’ll also need to ensure they implement a ‘Privacy by Design/Default’ policy, to ensure they’re systematically considering the potential impact that a project or initiative might have on the privacy of individuals. Controllers will have to ensure their vendor contracts are updated so that they include the necessary provisions to protect the data being processed by those vendors on their behalf.

Example: The Paint Company decides to run a marketing campaign targeting people like Amy, offering a place at an interior design webinar run by a third party training company. Before running the campaign, The Paint Company will need to ensure their system has the capability to not only obtain Amy’s and the other participant’s consent to all uses of their data (including sharing it with the third party), but also to record that consent. They will also need policies about how they will use that data, and ensure the contract with the training company includes the necessary provisions required in Processor contracts under Article 28 of the GDPR.

Want to find out more about GDPR? Check out our GDPR guide here.

Stage 3 – End of the Relationship

Retention

organizations may only hold on to personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfill the intended purpose of collection. So if the relationship is terminated for any reason, they need to ensure they have a data retention policy in place which outlines how long they will retain that individual’s data for and the business justification for holding on to the data for that specified period.

In drafting their retention policies, organizations will need to consider whether there is any law or regulation which obliges them to hold on to some of that data for specified periods. For example, they may need to retain some financial data for auditing purposes by law. While this is permitted, it should be outlined clearly in their retention policy and made clear to Amy. Again, the principle of transparency is important, even at this stage in the relationship.

Example: After ordering supplies from The Paint Company and decorating her home, Amy no longer requires the services of The Paint Company and closes her account with them. The Paint Company will need to ensure they comply with their own data retention policy if they want to hold on to any of Amy’s data after her account is closed.

Deletion

If the individual requests at any time that their data should be deleted, the data controller has to comply with that request and confirm the deletion, not only from their own systems but from any downward vendors’ systems who were processing that data on behalf of the organization.

Example: After ordering supplies from The Paint Company, Amy has now found out about a competitor that is offering better products and wants her data to be deleted from The Paint Company’s database. She sends an email to request the deletion and the company follows up quickly with the confirmation of her deletion. The company should ensure that Amy’s data is also removed from it’s vendor’s databases.

Why Marketers Should Welcome the GDPR

There’s lots that organizations must do to ensure they comply with the GDPR, but we welcome it. In fact, we see three big changes coming that will boost the marketing industry:

1) People’s attention will be treated with the respect it deserves.

For marketers to succeed when the GDPR comes into force, they’re going to have to focus on providing even more value to customers. This means the job of a marketer is going to get more difficult. They will have to work hard (really hard) to attract consumers and earn the right to speak with people. But they should — attention is a valuable commodity, and in truth it’s been abused by marketers over the years.

2) Greater transparency between people and the companies that hold their data.

If the GDPR is successful it will provide greater transparency and control to EU citizens over how their data is being used by organizations. Transparency is key. Today, few people see the benefits of sharing data, but they often do because they want to use a service or product. Forcing companies that collect data to become transparent means they will need to communicate and provide value to the person. We expect greater communication and transparency around data collection will lead to better understanding about why people should share data.

3) A higher bar for marketers has been set.

Let’s not fool ourselves — the GDPR is going to (forcibly) raise the bar for marketers. Tactics which don’t have GDPR-compliant consent mechanisms built in will be consigned to the history books. This means marketers will need fresh thinking and have to innovate. The end result is that to succeed in this new reality and comply with the GDPR, we’re going to see better, more creative and thoughtful marketing.

We see the GDPR as a watershed moment for the marketing industry. It’s rightly causing many organizations to rethink how they approach marketing, but it’s also a huge opportunity for businesses to articulate the importance of people sharing their data and how it leads to greater personalization, better products and services, and a more efficient data economy. For too long businesses have remained silent on this issue. A discussion is long overdue and we’re excited to help shape it.

Want to find out more about GDPR? Check out our GDPR website here.

There’s a lot of content out there about productivity — everything from hacks to shortcuts to tips and tricks for how to get more done in less time. It’s all about the sprint, the checking things off the lists as quickly as possible, and the downloading of software that’ll block out any and all distractions.

But what about those times when you just want to surf the internet aimlessly? Hey, no one can be totally productive all the time. In fact, studies have shown that taking deliberate breaks after periods of work is better for productivity.

The question is, how do you spend those breaks? You could check your email, but that still counts as working. You could check Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, but there’s something so mundane about haphazardly scrolling through your peripheral friends’ photos.

We have a few better ideas. Here’s a shortlist of the most wonderfully entertaining places to waste time on the internet outside of email and social media. Get ready to bookmark your favorites.

The 20 Best Websites For Wasting Time on the Internet

1) WaitButWhy

WaitButWhy is one of my favorite places to spend time on the internet. Every week or so, a guy named Tim Urban churns out one, really long, really awesome article. (Seriously, they’re canonical. You can kill a lot of time reading just one of them.)

His articles are always fascinating, in-depth, and really well written. His writing style is the perfect mix of informative and humorous — making topics like the Fermi Paradox (the what?) approachable for someone like me who’d never heard of it before in my entire life. He writes about relationships, religion, outer space … pretty much everything.

My favorite posts of his include “Everything You Don’t Know About Tipping,” “The Great Perils of Social Interaction,”  and “Your Life in Weeks” (which has some awesome graphics in it, by the way). He even wrote a great post on why procrastinators procrastinate, which anyone reading this article might want to check out.

2) Mental Floss

Mental Floss is a super addicting online magazine with articles covering a really wide range of topics. Their articles are really well written, really well researched, and usually on topics that don’t get a lot of airtime.

For example, in their “Big Questions” section, they tackle weirdly intriguing questions like why shells sound like the ocean and why yawns are contagious. Readers can even submit their own big questions.

3) xkcd

If you’re into nerdy humor even the littlest, tiniest bit, there’s a lot to love about xkcd. Each post features a short, stick-figure comic strip on humor about technology, science, mathematics, and relationships. The guy behind it is Randall Munroe, who worked on robots at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia before starting this blog.

Below is an example of one of his comic strips. (He always includes a joke in the comic strip image’s alt text, so if you look at the strips on the xkcd website, be sure to hover your mouse over the image to catch those jokes.)

Source: xkcd

4) The Oatmeal

The Oatmeal is another one of my absolute favorite places to spend time online. It’s a huge library of awesome content — some comprised entirely of graphics. Even if you’ve read everything already, it’s the kind of stuff you can read over and over again.

Some of my favorite posts include “Why Working From Home is Both Awesome and Horrible,” “How the Male Angler Fish Got Completely Screwed” (I think I legitimately cried laughing when I first read that one), and a whole manner of grammar-related posts like “Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling” and “You’re Not Going to Believe What I’m About to Tell You.”

5) Supercook

If you want to surf the internet in a semi-productive way — but not so productive that you actually have to leave the house — then check out Supercook.

Here’s how it works: You tell it which ingredients you have in stock in your home, and it’ll give you a big list of recipes you can make using just those ingredients. It’s a fun way to stay thrifty, clean out the fridge, and make sure food doesn’t go to waste.

6) Imgur

Imgur collects the most viral images of the week and collects them all in one place for your mindless scrolling and enjoyment. What I like about Imgur is it’s usually more timely than Twitter or Instagram — more popular sharing networks where funny pictures and memes might appear a week or two later. Use Imgur to waste time and introduce your friends to the funniest stuff on the internet first.wx1

7) BuzzFeed “Comments” Sections

You already know BuzzFeed is a great place to waste time on the internet, but we’re looking beyond the actual article here. Scroll down to the “comments” section of pretty much any article for a hilarious showcase of the crazy (I mean crazy) stuff people are saying. I find it especially entertaining to read the comments on benign topics that shouldn’t make people irate, but do anyway.

8) The Toast

If you’re into great (and hilarious) fiction writing, then you’ll definitely want to bookmark this site. Every day, writers Nicole Cliffe and Mallory Ortberg publish a post on “everything from literary characters that never were to female pickpockets of Gold Rush-era San Francisco,” reads their About page.

To get an idea of whether it’s up your alley, start with their post, “A Day in the Life of Seth MacFarlane, Human Male (Definitely Not a Swarm of Hyper-Alert Bees and a Metal Jaw.)” It’s just so good.

9) Animal Planet Kitten and Puppy Cams

Puppies and kittens. What could be better? I have this website bookmarked for whenever I need a pick-me-up. You can check out a live stream from animal shelters in the U.S. to see some of the adoptable cuties in action.

10) Zillow

It’s fun to check out real estate in areas you might want to live — and it’s just as fun to check it out in places you’ll probably never live, but would love to in a dream world. Go ahead and explore what’s out there. You can set up saved searches (some more realistic than others) to relive your discoveries later.

11) Google Maps Street View

In the same vein as Zillow, it’s wildly entertaining to go to Google Maps and zoom in on the street view in random places around the world. It’s so strange and thrilling to see what life was like at a random moment in time, on a random street somewhere you may never visit in your lifetime.

I recommend the Palace of Versailles in France, Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal, the Swiss Alps, and the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. (Yes, they have underwater cameras.)

12) HowStuffWorks

This website is dedicated entirely to — you guessed it — how things work. And by “things,” they mean everything: from airbags to regenerative medicine to velocipede carousels. They’ve covered so much on this website, it’ll be hard to run out of things to read about. 

Plus, they have a whole bunch of really cool podcasts that have branched off the main site over the years and are worth checking out. My favorites are “Stuff You Should Know,” “BrainStuff,” and “Stuff Mom Never Told You.”

13) The Onion

If you haven’t spent some quality time reading the online satirical newspaper The Onion, then you’re seriously missing out on a good laugh. (And you’ve kind of been living under a rock.) But seriously, I sometimes forget how consistently hysterical the articles are.

The publication started in 1988 and they’ve managed to successfully maintain a high standard for humor and writing ever since. Their headlines are laugh-out-loud funny in and of themselves — from “Free-Thinking Cat Sh**s Outside the Box” to “Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race of Skeleton People” to “Buyer Of $450 Million Da Vinci Painting Sort Of Assumed It Would Come With Frame.”

Of course, their headlines being hilarious makes sense, seeing as the headline is where each story begins. This awesome episode of NPR’s This American Life gives you a really cool peek into The Onion‘s editorial process. 

(Bonus: ClickHole, their sister website that makes fun of Upworthy-style viral content on the internet, is another great place to waste some time.)

14) Wikipedia

You didn’t think I’d write a post on where to waste time on the internet without including Wikipedia, did you? Of course not. You’ve gotta love spiraling into the proverbial Wikipedia black hole: Look up one thing, and then check out something that’s interlinked to it. Before you know it, you’ll have charted the entire Russian Revolution. (Read: This is an actual glimpse into my colleague Corey‘s Sunday morning.)

If you want to get more involved while wasting time online, remember Wikipedia is based on a model of openly editable content — as in, anyone can edit any unprotected page. So if you’re into editing and updating content in your free time, it’s yours to edit. (As long as you follow their guidelines.)

15) OCEARCH Shark Tracker

Tracking sharks as they swim around the ocean may not be the most conventional way to waste time on the internet … but it might be the coolest.

The Track Sharker tool by Marine Research Group OCEARCH lets you track tagged sharks — who all have names, by the way — as they travel all over the world. You can even zoom in on a specific location to see which sharks are hanging out there and where they’ve been swimming and traveling for the past year. Go, Hilton, go!

16) Giphy

When you need to find the perfect GIF, you can’t just stop at the first result you get for “dancing” or “awkward” or “animals being jerks.” I could spend (… and have spent) hours on Giphy looking for juuust the right GIF. How long do you think it took Ellie here to come up with all ten of the ones in this post? Totally worth it.

17) Wayback Machine

Feeling nostalgic? Check out what websites have looked like over the years via Internet Archive’s famous Wayback Machine. It lets you pick a date and see exactly what any website looked like at that time. (For a real trip, compare how Facebook looked back in the 2000s to today. Remember the wall-to-wall?)

If you just want to take a quick peek, check out this roundup of what nine famous websites used to look like. All the images in that post were taken from the Wayback Machine.

18) Apartment Therapy

If you’re even a little bit of a fan of home decor or DIY projects, this is a website you might find yourself spending hours and hours on. There’s a ton of awesome visual and written content on here. My favorites include their “before and after” series, their “small spaces” series, and the tours of people’s actual apartments and homes.

Plus, they have a whole lot of helpful articles giving tips on everything from how to redo your stairs to ideas for using that awkward space above your fridge. There’s no shortage of useful and fun information on here, making it prime for endless browsing.

One of our own was recently featured on ApartmentTherapy too — check out INBOUND Elijah‘s adorable spot here.

19) Lifehacker

Lifehacker is a hub of productivity tips, tricks, and downloads. It’s basically an archive of all the information it would be incredibly useful to know, but nobody ever really teaches you. Aside from productivity, they also cover topics such as money-saving tips, clever uses for household items, and so on.

For example, did you know you can buy alcoholic beverages at Costco without a membership? Or that you can peel a mango in under 10 seconds? Or that there are four lengths of naps that’ll benefit you in different, very specific ways? Along with the fun articles, they have some pretty awesome, in-depth articles, like this one on how to plant ideas in someone’s mind, as well as helpful listicles like the top ten obscure Google Search tricks.

There’s so much content on there that it can be hard to find posts on specific topics. Use the Lifehacker Index for an introduction to their top-performing posts and tips on how to find posts on any topic on the website.

20) The Oregon Trail

Here’s a little gift for those of you who made it to the end of this post: Internet Archive — yes, the same one responsible for the Wayback Machine — made it possible for people to PLAY THE COMPUTER GAME “OREGON TRAIL” AGAIN. I can practically hear all the Gen X’ers out there screaming with joy.

If “Oregon Trail” isn’t your cup of tea, the other games made available by Internet Archive include “Duke Nukem,” “Street Fighter,” “Burger Blaster,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “The Lion King,” and “Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer.” Check out the full library here.