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3 Best Practices for ADA Compliant Websites

MAY 31, 2022

Following ADA compliance for websites ensures your users can easily access your site and have good experiences regardless of ability.

An ADA-compliant website adheres to the Title III accessibility requirements of the civil rights law by making accommodations for individuals with disabilities. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), provide a single shared standard to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities.

While achieving full accessibility takes time and effort, there are several website accessibility practices you can check on your site now.

ADA Best Practices

Add alternative text: Use alt text within your HTML code to give meaningful descriptions of your web images’ function and appearance. You can typically add alt text through your Content Management System. Alt text allows people using screen readers to understand your web images’ context better. Bonus, it can also improve your SEO since alt text for your images provides context to search engine crawls.
Provide keyboard navigation: Ensure users can navigate your entire website using the tab key and other keyboard functions, rather than a tactile mouse or touchpad. Designing with keyboard navigation in mind ensures your IA, headings, menus, and other web elements are organized in a way that all users benefit from.
Use accessible colors: Ensure all your content’s colors adhere to the WCAG’s contrast ratio requirement for the visual presentation of text (especially text on images). It should be at least a 4.5:1 contrast ratio to be accessible and ADA compliant. Need a tool to check that? Try this Contrast Checker.

Check out more ADA tips and resources from Motley Fool’s article.

Choosing Between Gated vs. Ungated Content

MAY 30, 2022

Gated content requires a user to enter their personal information to access or download it. But that means it has to be good stuff for someone to fork over their info. It can be things like original research, exclusive data, or guides.

When should you put up gates around content? When should you not?

Pros of Gated Content

Ups a piece of content’s value.
Gathers user information to then track conversions and measure analytics.
Helps segment an audience based on interest or to serve different content.
Helps qualify a lead.

Cons of Gated Content

Deters some people from a site because they don’t want to enter their information.
People can share files with others, leading to untrackable leads.

4 Questions to Help Determine Whether to Gate Content or Not

How do you build trust with your audience? – Gated content is something that people will sign up for if they trust the source. Keep this in mind for people who are new to your brand.
What goals are you trying to meet? – Gated content should have a purpose to your journey and lead nurturing.
Is your content worth a gate? – As we said, people don’t give their info up for just anything. Your content has to be valuable enough for a user to want to grab it.
Can you do both? – Try a hybrid approach by previewing the most interesting parts of it then request user information for the full thing.

Check out the full post by Springboard for more ideas on using gated content.

16 Content Creation Tools to Know

MAY 25, 2022

We cover a lot of tips and tools for your workflows and inspiration. You may have heard of a lot of these, or you may have missed them in past issues. BuzzSumo put together a list of content marketing essentials, and we wanted to share some of our favorites.

Exploding Topics: Trend finding can seem daunting, but they all start somewhere. Exploding Topics is a content inspo source for emerging trends across all sorts of industries.
Answer the Public: Google loves to support content that answers questions. Answer the Public scrapes autocomplete search data from Google so you know what Qs are being asked in the first place.
Hemingway: This app not only checks spelling and grammar, but points out where your sentences could be more concise or places to use a more active voice.
Headline Analyzer: Get it right from your first impression. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer helps you craft eye-catching headlines.
Flourish: Data is beautiful. Flourish helps you make it even more visually appealing with unique, interactive, animated charts and visualizers. They can even make them mobile-friendly
Video Peel: We’re always saying how powerful social proof is for content. Video Peel helps you create user generated content with easy automation on review requests and video creation for your users.

Check out all 16 tools curated by BuzzSumo to get cracking on your content creation and proofing processes.

5 Steps to Becoming a Google Elite Partner

MAY 24, 2022

Platform partnerships can be extremely rewarding for more support and exclusive access. An “Elite” Google Partnership is an invite-only level of partnership that’s reserved for top-performing digital agencies. Each year, Google selects around 150 agencies.

Wanna join the ranks? Here are steps you can take to become an Elite Partner:

Get Certified: In every course you can, get certified in Google exams. Having your account strategists attached to your Google ads account certified is ideal, but only 50% need to be certified in at least one product area to make Google happy.
Strive for Results: Duh. But there’s more to it than just results. You should have a strategy and reporting process that is clear to Google when using their products. Always keep a close eye on Google’s best practices, and stick to using its recommended ad formats.
Diversify Your Products: Google loves diversification. Use different products and ad formats including Search, Display, Video, Shopping, and App ads.
Become an Industry Leader: This factor that Google looks for when choosing agencies to join involves staying up to date with best practices but also taking risks by trying betas and creating innovative processes.
Spend $: Google rewards ad spend. But don’t start fearing for your dollar signs. If you follow steps 1-4, your ad spend should increase organically.

None of these steps are necessarily easy as they all come with their own set of challenges to achieve, but they are great goals to have. Check out the full piece from The Drum’s Opinion section that pulls articles from digital marketing experts.

Keep Video Content Raw & Authentic

MAY 23, 2022

Lights, camera, action!

Actually…skip lights. And the studio. And all that editing business. When it comes to video content, you may be better off going all natural. This is especially true when it comes to eCommerce. Customers want to see how things really are, they’re not impressed by just the pretty, edited version of things.

Tips For Creating More Authentic Video Content:

UGC is always a winner – There’s power in real-person reviews! Leverage customer first-impressions, testimonials, and product reviews.
Get the team involved – Same with putting a personal touch on reviews, put a face to your offerings by showcasing your employees.
Mobile-shot videos are expected – Remember when you would be mocked for filming in portrait orientation? Well between TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, that’s now the more natural format.
Keep it on-brand – Some brands benefit from a little editing and polish. Others benefit from on-the-fly and raw footage. Think about how much editing effort your brand should have before going all-in on studio quality filming.

Check out the full Forbes article for more video shooting tips, stats on how customers react to video content, and ideas from other brands.

Dynamic Content Approaches for Personalization

MAY 22, 2022

Here’s a reminder with your Monday morning coffee on why dynamic content is awesome ☕️ sip, sip.

It’s not a secret that personalized content get the people going. As marketers, we have more and more resources to provide users more individualized experiences based on their data.

Benefits of dynamic content:

A more personalized experience
A more guided buyer’s journey
More relevancy
More automation
A higher chance of engagement

Types of behaviors to use for dynamic content:

Buying behavior
Pages visited
Events visited
Location data
Customer lifecycle
Buyer personas

Dynamic content strategies to try:

Guided Funnels: Use campaigns based on content the user previously visited versus new users to help guide repeat or warmed up customers differently than new ones.
New Content: Sometimes dynamic content is just about keeping your content fresh and new to returning visitors.
Targeted Ads: Dynamic content can create a custom ad experience that keeps more relevant content in front of them.

Check out the full post by Search Engine Land for brand examples more tips.

The Best Times to Post on Social Media in 2022

MAY 18, 2022

Now, we all know that there is nothing set in stone with it comes to social media. But that doesn’t mean it hurts to know what is working for thousands of other brands. Sprout Social audited these thousands of accounts so you don’t have to.

Here’s what they found:

Overall social media engagement is highest during mid-week mornings (9 or 10 a.m.).
The worst day to post on social media is Sunday.
TikTok isn’t included in this report, but TikTok has said themselves that they reward frequency so you gotta just keep on testing content when you can.

Best times to post on Facebook:

Mid-mornings or early (we’re talking the wee hours) during the week.
There’s an uptick in engagement on Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and noon.
The worst day to post on Facebook is Saturday.

Best times to post on Instagram:

Mondays at 11 a.m.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Thursdays and Fridays 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.
There’s also increased engagement on evenings and weekends.

Best times to post on Twitter:

Mid mornings and middays throughout the week.
But with the nature of Twitter, the faster you react to something, the higher your engagement can be.
The worst day to post on Twitter is Sunday.

Best times to post on LinkedIn:

Engagement on LinkedIn is highest during the US workweek, 10 a.m. to noon, and doesn’t extend too far out past 6 p.m.
Weekend engagement drops significantly.
The best days to post on LinkedIn are Wednesdays and Thursdays.

What’s been working for your posting schedule? Maybe it’s time to revisit the timing around your posts. Check out the full report for more stats and tidbits from Sprout Social.

11 LinkedIn Content Ideas in 2022

MAY 17, 2022

Don’t know what to post on LinkedIn? Wether it’s for a brand page or your personal branding, finding the right traction on LinkedIn can be tricky. Luckily, LinkedIn resources are out there. The platform has been growing in engagement, down-ranking engagement-bait, and even providing pocket guides.

PostBeyond has a handy guide of its own to give you ideas, too. Here are 11 content ideas to get you started:

Original, Long-Form Content – LinkedIn is great for white papers, guides, reports, case studies, and even LinkedIn-hosted newsletters.
LinkedIn Articles – We mentioned newsletters as one of LinkedIn’s new features, but you can also write articles natively into the LinkedIn platform.
“Adjacent-Industry” Content – Look at other, but related, industry content to your own. It gives you a chance to expand your network in those other areas.
Original Data – LinkedIn is about providing value and what’s more valuable than data? Investing in research helps with thought leadership and content to use across multiple channels.
Celebrations – Brands should be celebrating company-wide and individual employee achievements when they can.
Quick Tips, Hacks, How-Tos – If it has value, it’ll get eyes. If it’s bite-sized, it’ll get shared!
Clips from Webinars – Don’t forget to repurpose your long-form videos and webinars. Post highlights, teasers, and helpful clips from them.
UGC – Look for ways to use what employees and/or customers say about you.
Team Spotlights – Keep it human out there. Focus on the people that give your brand life. That way you can celebrate your team while also attracting more talent with a glimpse into company culture.
Discussions – This isn’t so much something to post, but something to take advantage of on LinkedIn. Seek out discussions and topics on other posts to put a spotlight on your expertise.
Customer Spotlights – If you don’t have testimonials about you, make one about your partnerships instead. Share the love and celebrate customer achievements or turn a relationship journey into a mini case study.

Check out PostBeyond’s full post for more examples and ideas for your LinkedIn content!

Website Design: Above or Below the Fold?

MAY 16, 2022

When it comes to anything visual in the world of marketing and design, you have probably heard the phrase “above the fold.” It’s old printing lingo meaning all the good stuff is above the fold of a newspaper. When it comes to digital design, though, the concept still applies.

How to Find Your Fold (aka, the Scroll)

Above the scroll is the content of a page that can be seen without scrolling. So it’s up to you to make sure the content is good enough to get them to scroll past it. How do you do it? Remember that 80% of time spent on a site is spent above the fold and attention often wanes as someone scrolls.

Ways to ensure your content is strong above the scroll:

Updating and testing your content often
Heatmap/Scrollmap tools
Helpful navigation cues

What to Include “Above the Scroll”

Your Brand Logo
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Navigation Tools/Menus
Calls to Action
Contact Information (when possible)

What About “Below the Scroll”?

Include captivating content throughout your page that is secondary to your above the fold content.
If you have secondary or repeating CTAs, include them below.
Contact Information again in the footer (as many people are accustomed to finding it there)

Above the scroll applies to almost every page on a site, but especially home pages and landing pages. Check out the full video and post by Thee Digital for more tips.