Author: Franz Malten Buemann

From blog titles to URL slugs, you might not realize how frequently you use SEO stop words. But, to be fair, if Google doesn’t pay much attention to them, why should you?
Research shows that 25% of blog posts are made up of stop words. However, these words have little to no relevance to the topic of the post. These are words that help you compose sentences and connect ideas together, and they don’t have much impact on Google’s search results.
But, excessive use of stop words can impact your brand in the long run. They make content harder for search engines to process which can end up negatively affecting how they index your pages.
In this post, we’ll walk you through exactly what SEO stop words are, how they can hurt — or help — your online presence, and which words are considered stop words by Google and other search engines.
What Are Stop Words in SEO?
We use stop words all the time, whether we’re online or in our everyday lives. These are the articles, prepositions, and phrases that connect keywords together and help us form complete, coherent sentences.
Common words like its, an, the, for, and that, are all considered stop words. While they’re important for communicating verbally, stop words typically carry little importance to SEO and are often ignored by search engines.
Let’s review some of the most common stop words in the section below.
Common SEO Stop Words
The most common SEO stop words are pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. This includes words like a, an, the, and, it, for, or, but, in, my, your, our, and their.
When people search for something online, search engines like Google omit these words in their results because they don’t relate to the keywords in the search. So, rather than looking up content that’s related to these words, Google removes them altogether and prioritizes the keywords.
So, the next time you’re trying to hit a word count when writing a blog post, try filling that open space with keywords rather than filler copy that doesn’t improve your SEO.
While it would be great to load up your content with only meaningful keywords, the reality is that stop words are needed for every type of copy. After all, even if you rank highly on Google, it won’t mean much if your content is incomprehensible or doesn’t resonate with your audience.
Are Stop Words Beneficial for SEO?
There’s a time and place for SEO stop words. First and foremost, stop words help the reader understand the content. It can be confusing to read titles and subheaders without stop words.
You also might find instances where stop words help you differentiate between two topics. For example, you can search ‘flamingos’ and you’ll see information about beautiful, bright pink birds. Add ‘the’ to the front, and you’ll be directed to YouTube to listen to the band, The Flamingos. This tiny, three-letter stop word makes a world of a difference in this case.
In the next section, let’s look at some other times when you should be paying attention to stop words to optimize your content’s search ranking.
Removing Stop Words
Should you be removing stop words from all of your content?
Like anything else, it depends on how you’re using them. If your titles, headings, URL slugs, and keywords make sense without them, then it can be beneficial to remove them.
SEO Stop Words in Titles
If your titles don’t make sense when you take out those articles or prepositions, then it’s best to leave them be. After all, you want your audience to actually click and read your content. If the most prominent parts — including the title — don’t make sense, the website could come off as unprofessional or even spammy.
It usually makes the most sense to leave stop words in titles and headings, as these are wayfinding elements for users navigating your content. Just keep in mind that the optimal character count for titles is 50-60 characters, as search engines cut off longer titles, which could omit important information for the visitor. If you have lengthy stop words in your title, consider rewriting them to balance brevity and clarity.
Stop Words in URL Slugs
When it comes to URL slugs, stop words typically don’t have much significance in SEO. They’re relevant, however, if they make your URL slug particularly long. Google ranks URLs based on their length, and longer URLs typically rank lower than shorter ones — as outlined by the chart below.

Image Source
Stop Words as Keywords
As we touched on in the last section, there are some times when stop words are crucial to keywording because they differentiate a proper noun from something else. For example, if you searched “Jets New York” you’d probably get a list of flights coming in and out of New York City. But, if you searched, “The New York Jets,” you would get content about the professional football team instead.
Now that we’re familiar with what stop words are and when we should use them, let’s look at a broader list of stopwords that you should be aware of when creating and optimizing content.
75 Stop Words in SEO
There are many, many more stop words out there, but here’s a list of some of the most common stop words to be mindful of when creating content online.

A About Actually Almost Also Although Always Am An And Any Are As At Be Became Become But By Can Could Did Do Does Each Either Else For From Had Has Have Hence How I If In IS IT ITS
JUST MAY MAYBE Me Might Mine Must My Mine Must My Neither Nor Not Of Oh Ok When Where Whereas Wherever Whenever Whether Which While Who Whom Whoever Whose Why Will With Within Without Would Yes Yet You Your

 
Using SEO Stop Words
SEO stop words are important if you want to create a strong SEO strategy and rank highly on search engines like Google. Overusing them can hinder your ranking, but avoiding them altogether will make your content confusing and unclear. By understanding what stop words are and which words qualify as stop words, you can craft content that works to your brand’s advantage.
For more ways to rank higher on search engines, read these SEO tips.

 

 

It’s been proven that pop-ups, if used wisely, may improve the conversion even by 44%. One of their advantages in comparison to, for example, emails, is that they can’t be ignored. They can also be widely customized. Our feature, Custom Modal Designer, is here to help you create innovative pop-ups that will grow your audience and engage them instead of irritating them.

 

This very useful tool allows for the creation of highly customizable and personalized pop-ups. It makes it possible for selected user groups to view pop-ups containing exclusive offers based on their website activity and CRM data. Thanks to an easy-to-use, intuitive designer, you can monitor where, when, by whom, and what offer is to be seen. Moreover, if you know some tricks, you can actually spice it up a bit and get better results.

 

Limit your Input Fields and adjust them thanks to our progressive forms

 

If your pop-up aims at gathering email addresses and subscribers’ data, it is vital to adjust the number of fields. The more fields you use, the smaller your conversion would be. The research shows that pop-ups with five fields have the lowest conversion rate of 0.81%. It also proves that using only two fields brings better results than using three fields with a crushing difference of over 206%. With Custom Modal Designer it is possible to create progressive forms in order to gather more data at a later stage. However, if the form is aimed at building up a new customer base, the higher conversion is, the better.

 

Custom Modal Designer allows for the creation of pop-ups including not only graphics and forms individually but also both of them combined, all in one program. Remember, that the pop-up that is visually attractive and not overwhelming creates more interest and makes it easier for its viewers to input the needed data.

 

 

As shown in the above examples, it is possible to modify the size of the fields, shorten them, and insert them wherever they are needed.

 

Use columns to show more information in a neat form

 

Not only form fields’ sizes can be adjusted by the columns. It is also possible to set the precise arrangement of your pop-up’s content and modify every widget this way. The column function allows for the placement of any widget in a fixed place. Graphics, texts, buttons, forms – adjust all of them freely, building up a highly customized and original pop-up.

Moreover, you can use one of the available column arrangements to add an additional background of a chosen color or graphics, set up desired margins, or shorten certain fields if needed. Thanks to the column settings, you can also add several widgets in one row by dragging them to the field of the selected column. Obviously, later on, you can adjust all of them individually.

 

Create a “Thank you” page that will speed up your conversion

 

A Thank you Page shows up to the viewers after they opted in for some addition at your website. It can include a simple confirmation of the taken action, such as subscription but it can also be used more creatively.

 

In your Thank You Page, you can ask a newly acquired contact for a referral or a social share. You can also offer a new-joiner discount or show some authority by providing additional knowledge about your offer containing a link to your most popular products or content. It is also a perfect place to conduct a survey and learn some more about the contact.  Lastly, it can be used as an information that email with the confirmation has just been sent to the customer with a small surprise inside of it, such as a new-joiner discount. As simple as that!As you can see, Thank You Page hides a lot of potential that can significantly grow your conversion if you get it right. Custom Modal Designer allows for the addition of the Thank you Page on the condition that a form is being used earlier. All its settings are analogous to the pop-up widget ones, allowing for the column view segmentation, adding links and buttons, and working around your graphics and tests.

 

Have an eye for detail – adjust your pop-up, add graphics and animation

 

One of the best characteristics of our Custom Modal Designer is how adjustable it is. Earlier we have already discussed the usage of column placement for general aesthetics. Did you know that pop-ups with images convert better than the ones without them by over 83 percent? 

 

Don’t be shy with the usage of graphics and animation in your pop-ups. It is also possible to tune almost every small detail of your pop-ups such as background and the level of its transparency, the frames, fonts, colors, and sizes of each widget.  You can easily transfer the style of your already existing website straight into your pop-up. Attention to detail and the constant sense of design will ensure your customers about your stability and professionalism.

 

 

 

 

No matter how your pop-up looks on a computer screen, you can always moderate separately the way it is displayed on the phone.

 

 

Know your target and act in a perfect timing

 

SALESmanago allows for scheduling of the display of a given pop-up for a set date and time or for when the customer behaves in a specific way – for example, leaving his cart behind or keeping coming back to certain products. Thanks to the Website Automation function, you can choose which of the previously prepared pop-ups to display in order to better adapt the content of the message to what we have already learned about the user based on their activity.

 

With Custom Modal Designer it is possible to schedule the display of the pop-up more precisely than ever before. The pop-up may be planned for the scheduled time zone, day, and time. It may be visible only for monitored contacts, anonymous visitors, contacts with opt-in status, or the ones which have a certain tag, such as for example “REGULAR_CUSTOMER” as shown on the below screenshot. In addition, CMD introduced a completely new feature allowing for the set up of the Display Pause Time. The function allows for the pop up not to be displayed ever again if the user clicks either the close button, the overlay, or a linked element.

 

Thanks to the aforementioned Website Automation Rule it is possible to combine the possibilities of the Custom Modal Designer with the automation processes. For example, you can prepare a discount offering pop-up that will be displayed only for contacts with the “REGULAR_CUSTOMER” tag, just as we already set it up in Custom Modal Designer in the earlier screenshot. Then, you can add an Automation Rule allowing for the display of this pop up only after a second visit.

marketing automation

marketing automation

You get out of social media marketing what you put into it. And to know how far your efforts are taking you, you need to be tracking your metrics. We get it: posting on social consistently is already a massive effort, and tracking your analytics along the way can seem like an even larger one.…
The post 6 Social Media Metrics That Matter appeared first on Benchmarkemail.

Last Updated on November 24, 2020 by Rakesh GuptaTo understand how to solve the same business use case using Process Builder and Lightning Flow. Check out this article Getting Started with Process Builder – Part 8 (Auto Sync Accepted Quote … Continue reading →

What do you do when you have a great message, an audience hungry for your content, a unique perspective…and a scalability challenge?
For sports publisher The GIST, the solution was simple yet elegant. The women-led media brand aims to make the world of sports more accessible and inclusive to all and challenge the status quo of a male-dominated sports and media industry.
The startup has seen meteoric growth since its launch in 2017, expanding to cover new markets and quickly nurturing a loyal subscriber base in Canada and the United States. But fast growth comes with growing pains, and the publisher’s small team needed a way to scale up and maintain their momentum. 
Campaign Monitor’s flexible platform and dynamic content capabilities were the perfect solutions to help The GIST sustain its growth and continue its mission.
The results:

Segmented campaigns developed in 25% of the time

Double the industry average open rate

Grew mailing list from 30,000 to 100,000 since joining Campaign Monitor, 233% increase

Scaling and growing with dynamic content
The GIST’s approachable, digestible spin on sports news and commentary has been a huge hit. 
But as email marketers in the media and publishing space know, reaching more and more people comes with its own challenges, especially as you push into new geographic markets. Sports is often an incredibly local experience, meaning each new market needs distinct, relevant content served to it.
The GIST succeeds through the quality, thought, and care it puts in to each of its newsletters. But scaling that amount of time, effort, and resources into a new email for each new market was unsustainable. 
“The permutations and combinations of all the different newsletters would be insane,” said co-founder Roslyn McLarty. “We’re in so many cities now compared to where we were before Campaign Monitor, and even that was getting out of hand.”
Thanks to clever use of Campaign Monitor’s dynamic content capabilities, the team developed a solution that served its growing community and media buyers. Dynamic content elements built into the newsletter can easily be adjusted to show content and stories relevant to the individual subscriber. The platform automates the menial manual work of building a new email for each segment, reducing the resources needed to send a newsletter down to 25% of what it would be otherwise.
“The dynamic content is super helpful because there’s some content that’s important to everyone, some stories that are important on a national level, and there are some city-specific pieces. It’s important not just for our subscribers but our advertisers that we can swap out content to be more relevant to different audiences,” said McClarty.

As automatic as Serena Williams
It’s one thing to acquire a new subscriber, and another to keep them coming back for more. Making a big first impression and nurturing a new relationship into loyalty is paramount to keeping engagement rates up and advertisers happy.
The GIST’s solution is a thoughtful automated email journey delivered to new signups. Campaign Monitor’s automated email journey capabilities make it easy to segment subscribers for the most welcoming and relevant possible experience.
Each journey is highly customized based on a variety of factors, including the location of the subscriber source and their sign up source (organic search, cross-promotion, referral, etc.). It includes a welcome email, an introduction to The GIST’s story and mission, a reminder about the referral program, and a survey email asking for feedback and input.
Testing the way to gold-medal results
Sports is not a new topic for a publisher to focus on. But The GIST had a new perspective and a goal to target an audience that previously has not been heavily engaged by sports media. The newsletter’s founders had to find out what their audience wanted and responded to on their own.
Campaign Monitor’s A/B testing feature was the perfect tool to gather data-backed insights and make incremental improvements in their email KPIs. It’s a large component of what’s helped them increase their average open rate an additional 5% since partnering with Campaign Monitor.

“Our open rates are very dependent upon the subject line and preview text,” McLarty explained. “The ability to A/B test is big. We’re moving into A/B testing for content as well to optimize getting people to share our newsletter, as a way to grow; testing buttons and copy options to optimize our referral funnel. And obviously, with ads, we’re trying to optimize the engagement we get for our brand partners so that we’re able to monetize better.”
Growing with Campaign Monitor
The GIST was using a different platform when first launching its newsletter program. But as they added new markets and expanded subscriber lists, they began to outgrow their email solution.
McLarty said several factors played into the choice to move to Campaign Monitor. 

The time-saving and scalability potential of dynamic content capabilities

The existing community of high-quality brands in Campaign Monitor’s email publishing space.

Superior email deliverability compared to the competition

A user-friendly, intuitive tool

“When we’re putting together the newsletters, it’s very user friendly for us,” she said. “We can just insert a section and determine which segments will get it. It gave us the flexibility to put together the email and set it up to go out to all our markets the way we need it to.”
Wrapping up
We love working with Roslyn and her team. And of course, we love The GIST! If you’re in need of a sports fix with an irreverent, fun, and female voice, subscribe to their newsletter (and tell them we sent you).
Are you a publisher looking to grow and scale your email program without the mess? Let us know!

 
The post Dynamic email content fuels dynamic growth for The GIST appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

Last Updated on November 24, 2020 by Rakesh GuptaTo understand how to solve the same business use case using Process Builder and Lightning Flow. Check out this article Getting Started with Process Builder – Part 8 (Auto Sync Accepted Quote … Continue reading →