Category: Marketing Automation

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Acquiring a customer is not an easy task. Convincing them to buy your product is a long, long journey consisting of several steps that need to be completed at the top-notch level to reach the longed-for success. To make your work a little more pleasurable, we have prepared an appropriate song, one for each stage of customer acquisition. Rest assured, the songs we’ve chosen are safe for work, so feel free to sing along under your breath!

 

1. Research in the beat of “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor

 

Welcome to the first step of customer acquisition. You still have a long way to go before the final, most exciting stage – closing the deal – full of phone calls, conversations, emails, and probably stress. But the perfect beat for this, really the initial part of the journey, would be the song “Eye of the Tiger”. 

 

Be the eye of the tigerrising up to the challenge of our rival and find your prey in the night, faster than the competition!

 

2. Contact them, while softly swinging in the rhythm of Adele’s “Hello”

 

Hello, it’s me! 

 

You, contacting a potential client is one thing, but them responding to you is a whole different story.  What to do when they aren’t replying? Do not overthink and simply ping them! Hello, can you hear me? Still nothing? If you try to contact them a third time, don’t worry, you won’t come off as a total Creep.

 

3. Convince them that your product is “A Kind of Magic” like Queen once sang!

 

If you are already at this stage, it means that your pitch to the customer has been successful! Congratulations! But if you think that you’re done, you’re wrong! Now, let the fun begin.

 

Show how your product is different, that it is one dream, one soul, one prize! Make them want to possess it, make them go mad for it! Show your customers the magic behind your product because it is the ultimate, one and only thing that a mortal man can win this day.

 

4. Following Linkin Park, it’s “One step closer” to the deal

 

Perturbations are a real pain in the ass. You think to yourself: 

I cannot take this anymore, I’m saying everything I’ve said before. 

 

But the prospective customer goes on and on: 

Everything you say to me takes me one step closer to the edge. And I’m about to break but I need a little room to breathe. 

 

Just hold a little longer and the next song you can sing is…

 

5. Queen’s “We are the Champions”

 

Yes, yes, and yes! You’ve got it! It’s been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise. But you got your deal. You are happy, your now, freshly minted client is happy and most importantly, your boss is happy too. 

 

Despite the fact that you had to go through so many conversations, and frankly that you had this agreement in your head even while you were asleep, you can now sing without interruption We are the champions, my friends!

 

Cherish it, enjoy it, think about what you would spend your commission on. …well actually, hold your horses, with another rising sun you have to make a new deal, and it’s like a Never ending story…

At the beginning of 2021, I was tasked with an assignment: Create a pie chart showcasing which types of content performed best on the Marketing Blog in 2020.
The question was an undeniably important one, as it would influence what types of content we wrote in 2021, along with identifying new opportunities for growth.
But once I’d compiled all relevant data, I was stuck — How could I easily create a pie chart to showcase my results?
Fortunately, I’ve since figured it out. Here, let’s dive into how you can create your own excel pie chart for impressive marketing reports and presentations. Plus, how to rotate a pie chart in excel, explode a pie chart, and even how to create a 3-dimensional version.
Let’s dive in.

How to Make a Pie Chart in Excel
1. Create your columns and/or rows of data. Feel free to label each column of data — excel will use those labels as titles for your pie chart. Then, highlight the data you want to display in pie chart form.

2. Now, click “Insert” and then click on the “Pie” logo at the top of excel.

3. You’ll see a few pie options here, including 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional. For our purposes, let’s click on the first image of a 2-dimensional pie chart.

4. And there you have it! A pie chart will appear with the data and labels you’ve highlighted.

If you’re not happy with the pie chart colors or design, however, you also have plenty of editing options.
Let’s dive into those, next.
How to Edit a Pie Chart in Excel
Background Color
1. You can change the background color by clicking on the paint bucket icon under the “Format Chart Area” sidebar.
Then, choose the fill type (whether you want a solid color as your pie chart background, or whether you want the fill to be gradient or patterned), and the background color.

Pie Chart Text
2. Next, click on the text within the pie chart itself if you want to rewrite anything, expand the text, or move the text to a new area of your pie chart.

Pie Chart Border
3. Within the Format Chart Area, you can edit the border of your pie chart as well — including the border transparency, width, and color.

Pie Chart Shadows
4. To change the pie chart box itself (including the box’s shadow, edges, and glow), click on the pentagon shape in the Format Chart Area sidebar.
Then, toggle the bar across “Transparency”, “Size”, “Blur”, and “Angle” until you’re happy with the shadow of your pie chart box.

Pie Chart Colors
5. Click the color paint palette, at the top left of excel, to change the colors of your pie chart.
Excel offers a range of complementary colors — including a few presets under “Colorful”, and a few presets under “Monochromatic”. You can click between the options until you find a color palette you’re happy with.
(Alternatively, if you want to change the colors of your pie chart pieces individually, simply double click on the pie chart piece, toggle onto the paint section of the Format Chart Area, and choose a new color.)

Chart Title
6. Change the chart title by clicking on the three bars graph icon in the top left of excel, and then toggling to “Chart Title > None”, “Chart Title > Above Chart”, or “Chart Title > Centered Overlay”.

Change Location of Data Labels
7. On the same three bar graph icon, click “Data Labels” to modify where your labels appear on the pie chart. (For instance, do you want the pie chart pieces labelled in the middle of each pie chart portion, or on the outside?)

Switch Row/Column
8. If you’d prefer to switch which data appears in the pie chart, click “Switch Row/Column” to see alternate information aligned from your original data set.

How to Explode a Pie Chart in Excel
1. To explode a piece of your pie chart (which can help you emphasize or draw attention to a specific section of your pie chart), simply double-click on the piece you want to pull away.
Then, drag your cursor until it’s the distance you want it, and you’re all set!

How to Create a 3D Pie Chart in Excel
1. To create a 3-dimensional pie chart in excel, simply highlight your data and then click the “Pie” logo.

2. Then, choose the “3-D Pie” option.

3. Finally, choose the design option you like at the top of your screen.

How to Rotate a Pie Chart in Excel
Finally, to rotate your pie chart, double-click on the chart and then click on the three-bar icon under “Format Data Point”.
Then, toggle the “Angle of first slice” until you’ve rotated the pie chart to the degree you want.

And there you have it! You’re well on your way to creating clean, impressive pie charts for your marketing materials to highlight important data and move stakeholders to take action.
Ultimately, you’ll want to experiment with all of excel’s unique formatting features until you figure out the pie chart that works best for your needs. Good luck!

To keep working from home from feeling like living at work, you have to adapt and create a great work-life balance, and give employees support.

The goal of this article is to help nonprofit organizations start using email marketing to its fullest potential. Email marketing campaigns can support all key goals of a nonprofit: from spreading awareness, building relationships with subscribers to turning supporters into donors.

Intent-based customer segmentation is a technique of targeting in marketing to predict the outcome of customer segments. For instance, if a customer browses through an eCommerce store, with intent-based customer segmentation, retailers can predict whether they would make a purchase or if they are merely browsing. Imagine that you have a loyalty marketing mobile app for your eCommerce store. Let’s say that your app has 50M+ downloads and has over 100M subscribers to date globally. Now, let’s say you want to launch a viral campaign using targeting in marketing. And maybe your goal is to maximize the signups in the next 30 days. So, let’s imagine that you need to get another 50K signups. First step in achieving this goal? You’d probably bank on intent-based segmentation for eCommerce to identify the audience most likely to meet the goal.
Frequency of user visits Clicks on a specific campaign A user’s most recent visit No. of user transactions in past

So, as you explore various data points and analyze them using targeting in marketing, you can come up with three potential outcomes for this intent-based segmentation:
Most likely segment Moderately likely segment Least likely segment
Investing in the most likely segment would help you to achieve your goal. Here’s an eCommerce Customer Segmentation Guide our team put up, cheers!
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Today’s youth is craving to be at the forefront of successful movements, tearing down and rebuilding structures and enacting positive change around the world. Increasingly, nonprofits are leveraging this desire and turning to younger generations to drive change and become the future leaders of the world. Their main catalyst of change? Social media.
This is the driving notion at Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), a young, vibrant, and growing organization that is pushing for bolder actions to make universal access to modern and clean energy happen by 2030. They believe that the younger generations are the driving forces of the current climate action movements; they ask the most challenging questions, are open-minded, and use their own network to reach new audiences of leaders and supporters. Through their platforms, SEforALL truly hopes to channel the right mindset and influence the future leaders of the world.
In this interview, you’ll hear directly from Meriam Otarra, Communications Specialist at SEforALL, and you’ll learn:

Why it’s important for nonprofit organizations to appeal to younger audiences nowadays
How to connect on a deeper level with younger audiences through reader-friendly, modern, dynamic content
The marketing tactics that work best to reach younger audiences
Tips on building awareness and community around important causes via social media

This post is part of the #BufferBrandSpotlight, a Buffer Social Media series that shines a spotlight on the people that are helping build remarkable brands through social media, community building, content creation, and brand storytelling.
This series was born on Instagram stories, which means you can watch the original interview in our Highlights found on our @buffer Instagram profile.
There are so many great nonprofits working hard to make the world a better place. We want to help a tiny bit when it comes to their social media marketing efforts. We offer a 50% discount to all registered nonprofit organizations. Here’s how you can apply for the discount!

Tell us more about you! What’s Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) all about and what’s your role there?
Hi my name is Meriam Otarra and I’m a Visual & Digital Communications Specialist for international organizations. I currently lead the creative communications and social media for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL). SEforALL is a young, vibrant, and growing organization that works with the United Nations, international organizations, governments and the private sector to ensure we achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) — access to modern, clean, reliable, and sustainable energy for all — by 2030. We’re soon celebrating a decade of SDG7 progress since SEforALL was initiated by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. Since then, there has been an increasing demand for SEforALL platforms and products, and that’s why as part of the communications team, I make sure that these digital products are:

Reader-friendly, modern, dynamic;
Reaching the right audiences!

Meriam Otarra, Communications Specialist at Sustainable Energy for AllTell us about the “This is Cool” campaign! What has made this campaign so successful?
From where I’m from, which is the Philippines, a day never passes by without hearing someone say, “It’s hot.” (Either that, or “Oh my god, it has been raining non-stop for 7 days!”) And without urgent actions to the climate crisis, the rural and urban poor in developing countries in Africa and Asia are getting more and more at risk of the consequences of heat, because they can’t access or afford whatever cooling technologies are available out there.
SEforALL started the #ThisisCool campaign last year after releasing one of the household reports called Chilling Prospects, which tracks the global development of delivering universal sustainable cooling. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the current cooling situation (last year it was found that around *1.02 BILLION* people are at high-risk due to lack of access to cooling!), its challenges, and what can be done across the world to make sustainable cooling for all a reality.
As part of the campaign, we created a microsite with Greenhouse PR, with different cooling case studies—from cool rooftops to farming innovations—and provided a nicely illustrated toolkit that can be used by anyone and everyone to start the conversation on sustainable cooling. Check it out at thisiscool.seforall.org!

People living in public housing rely on their governments to reimagine housing with affordable, safe & #sustainable cooling systems ❄️🌱An eco-town in Singapore🇸🇬 combines green design & smart innovative technology to bring #sustainablecooling to 42,000 homes! #ThisIsCool pic.twitter.com/3QwMShHh9l— Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) (@SEforALLorg) April 6, 2021

A 1.5°C ‘warmer world’ could see +350M people exposed to potentially deadly heat🌡️ by 2050. #Sustainablecooling is essential not just for public safety, but also for health💊 & food security🥬How hot does it get in your city & what #ThisIsCool solutions have you seen so far? pic.twitter.com/mmmtK3Lmgx— Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) (@SEforALLorg) July 28, 2020

Why do you believe it’s important for nonprofit organizations to appeal to younger audiences nowadays?
We’ve said it before at SEforALL (and we’re definitely not the first ones to say it!), but youth are the driving forces of the current climate action. They aren’t afraid to speak out and demand better policies or a better response to the pandemic that’s affecting us, youth, both short- and long-term. As social media managers, sincere engagement is what we ultimately aspire to build, and at least for what I can say as the frontline of SEforALL social media, youth are the ones who ask questions, are open-minded, share ideas, and use their own network to help SEforALL reach other audiences who may have otherwise not heard about SEforALL before. Through our platforms, we can only hope to channel the right mindset and influence the future leaders of the world.
As social media managers, sincere engagement is what we ultimately aspire to build, and at least for what I can say as the frontline of SEforALL social media, youth are the ones who ask questions, are open-minded, share ideas, and use their own network to help SEforALL reach other audiences who may have otherwise not heard about SEforALL before.
As a nonprofit international organization, how do you connect on a deeper level with younger audiences?
We’re not scared to dive into conversations with youth. That’s why we created the SEforALL Youth Summit last February, organized by the SEforALL youth representatives ourselves, to show that youth voices are needed to be heard and that SEforALL is here to listen. The outcomes of that Summit are also going to feed into the high-level meetings on energy happening this September.
What marketing tactics have you found work the best to reach younger audiences?
We found showing data and infographics that hit closer to home for younger people have had better engagement and reactions than most other content. Two good examples that we’ve pushed out during the Summit were (1) showing data through an infographic on the amount of energy the whole country of Senegal uses versus the amount of energy Californians use playing video games; and (2) no energy access, no internet.

Alarming #energy fact of the day: The ENTIRE country of Senegal uses less electricity than Californians use playing video games🎮We need to #EndEnergyPoverty to provide opportunities for better jobs, health, education & women’s empowerment⚡ Visit https://t.co/tuq91c10Wv #SDG7 pic.twitter.com/bVCfQ3XV4E— Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) (@SEforALLorg) January 25, 2021

We found showing data and infographics that hit closer to home for younger people have had better engagement and reactions than most other content.
For our #ThisisCool campaign, we also reached out to youth influencers in the climate action sphere in Africa and Asia by commenting on their posts related to passive cooling (see example below). And only when they follow us back do we actually send them a personalized message on Twitter telling them about our campaign and ask them for their emails so we can send the toolkit directly to them. It’s important for us to know that they believe in our message as we do with them before we bombard them in their inbox. With the support from Greenhouse PR, we selected them not just based on their following count, but also the quality of content that they put out.

Hi👋🏾 My name is Elizabeth! I’m a Kenyan🇰🇪 #climate activist, founder of @GGI_Kenya and an advocate for green spaces🌱Join me today for #EarthDay2021 as I tell you why planting trees🌳 is a sustainable, #passivecooling solution that will help us #RestoreOurEarth 🌍#ThisisCool pic.twitter.com/z3Qk10A6Tk— Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) (@SEforALLorg) April 22, 2021

Which social media platforms have successfully driven SEforAll’s missions forward and why?
As far as advocacy goes, our Twitter and LinkedIn profiles have had the most impact on SEforALL projects. Twitter is fast-paced and straight to the point and easy to connect with our audiences in the international organization sector. As we (and our partners) always have events, knowledge products to release, it’s usually the first platform we utilize for any campaign. And while LinkedIn is quite the contrary, we’ve used our LinkedIn to establish thought leadership in the energy access scene, as well as show value and appreciation to our staff. It’s also quite surprising but a lot of our youth audiences are mostly on LinkedIn.
We’ve used our LinkedIn to establish thought leadership in the energy access scene, as well as show value and appreciation to our staff. It’s also quite surprising but a lot of our youth audiences are mostly on LinkedIn.
What advice do you have for other organizations that want to build awareness and community around the causes they care about via social media?
Two words—timely and timeless. At SEforALL, we don’t want to be just quick, we also want our content to be relevant yesterday, today, tomorrow. It helps to create content that puts the cause into proper context, one that is straight forward, relatable, short.
At SEforALL, we don’t want to be just quick, we also want our content to be relevant yesterday, today, tomorrow.
We recently did a 2-minute explainer on why we need universal energy access or Sustainable Development Goal 7. It was also created to reach out to those who are not yet familiar with the Sustainable Development Goals in general. We talked about current events, why energy is needed for cold chains for vaccine deployment, why children need energy to access online education, etc. Art and copy have to go hand in hand. At SEforALL, I’m lucky to work with multimedia wordsmiths that make my work easier.

WATCH⚡ In 2 minutes, we explain why universal #EnergyAccess is crucial to achieve the 16 other @UN #GlobalGoals 🌐🎯#SDG7 #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/JiQ6lYsO0H— Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) (@SEforALLorg) April 12, 2021

What actions can businesses and individuals take today to make sustainable cooling a reality?
When we think about cooling, the first thing that comes to mind is air conditioning. But cooling for all depends on many different solutions and with the climate, economic, health crises that we are facing, we need to make sure we prioritize efficient and affordable solutions that (1) won’t spike energy demand, and (2) don’t have negative environmental impacts.
Business, corporations, individuals—all stakeholders—can think about cooling solutions in four ways:

Passive cooling solutions: no-energy solutions like trees that provide shade or natural ventilation in buildings
Policy solutions: governments prioritizing passive cooling in building codes or cities ensuring enough green space to keep the city cool
Financial solutions: making energy-efficient refrigerators and air conditioners easier to purchase by the mass public
Service solutions: training people and companies how to be more sustainable and how to create sustainable products

To find out where we are in delivering sustainable cooling for all and what the newest cooling innovations are out there, we’re having a virtual event on the release of our 2021 Chilling Prospects report this May 5!

We hope this interview with Meriam helps you get started with or double down on your social media efforts. You can follow Sustainable Energy for All on Instagram here and on Twitter here!

Despite the perception that people hate popups, the popup form remains one of the most popular ways to collect email addresses from website visitors and build your list. 
The reason? Popups work, often converting at a higher rate than traditional embedded signup forms. It could be that many website visitors don’t hate popups — they just hate bad popups. As one study found, 83% of people reported a desire to filter out “the really obnoxious” popups, but not eliminate all.
In this article, we’re sharing how to use popups forms to build your email newsletter list.
What is an email popup form?
Traditional email signup forms are embedded into the content of a webpage. They may appear in line with the text or at the end of the webpage. Just like any other content on the page, the signup form is fixed in place. 
A popup form, on the other hand, is a signup form that appears suddenly on a webpage and is not part of the webpage content. Popups are triggered by something, such as the behavior of the website visitor or how much time has passed. 
Why should you use an email popup form?
There are many reasons a popup form is a strategic marketing move, but the main reason is to balance out attrition rates and grow a list of permission-based, engaged subscribers.
When a visitor sees your signup form and enters their information, they’re actively giving you permission to send them content. In other words, they want to hear from you.
When subscribers want to hear from you, your attrition rate decreases, your open rates increase, and your conversions are more meaningful and robust. It’s a win-win, and one of the best ways to stay in touch with active and engaged subscribers.
Different types of email popup forms
As you’ve likely experienced as you’ve explored different websites, there are several different types of popup forms. 
Here are the most common: 
Lightbox
 A lightbox popup form is a small window that appears over the main webpage; as its name suggests, the small window is brightly lit, and the main webpage behind it grows dim. 
This type of popup form works because readers have no choice but to pay attention to the form. If they don’t take the opt-in, they can click to exit and restore their regular screen. 

Image source: Everlane.
Floating bar
A floating bar popup form appears in a full-page-width slim bar at the top (or bottom) of the webpage. This type of popup is less intrusive than lightbox popups, so it may be considered less annoying to some readers. 
This type of popup captures attention, but doesn’t cover up the main content on the webpage. It may also float across all webpages, remaining in the reader’s attention even as they click to different pages in your website. 

Image source: Campaign Monitor
Fullscreen
A fullscreen popup is exactly what it sounds like: A popup form that covers the entire screen. Like a lightbox, these types of popups are impossible to ignore, ensuring that every person will view them.
However, some website visitors may find this approach too aggressive. 

Image source: Neil Patel
 
Slide-ins
A slide-in popup is a signup form that usually appears in the corner of the screen and floats there as the website visitor scrolls down the page. 
This type of popup is less likely to attract attention than fullscreen or lightbox popups, but it also won’t hamper user experience, as website visitors can still read everything on the screen. 

Image source: Spruce CBD
Popup form triggers: Which is best?
A popup form trigger is the signal for the popup to appear. Choosing the right trigger is a delicate decision, as you must balance capturing as much attention as possible without hindering the user experience of your website. 
Let’s take a look at the most common popup form triggers. 
 
Entry triggers
Popups with entry triggers will appear as soon as a visitor enters a webpage. In other words, they are immediate. This type of trigger can be appealing because it means that your popup is guaranteed to be seen by every visitor, no matter how they stay. 
However, entry triggers can also harm user experience and increase your bounce rate, as one company found. This is likely due to website visitors feeling overwhelmed and annoyed at being asked for something before they’ve had a chance to receive any value from your website. 
Timed trigger
With a timed trigger, your popup will show on the webpage after a predetermined number of seconds the visitor has been there. This trigger ensures that visitors aren’t immediately bombarded with a popup before they’ve had a chance to read your webpage. 
Sleeknote analyzed 10+ million popup views and found that the best-timed trigger for conversions was 8 seconds. 
Scroll trigger
A scroll trigger signals your popup form to appear when a visitor scrolls a certain amount down your webpage. Like a timed trigger, this trigger ensures that the visitor isn’t overwhelmed with a popup before having time to engage with your website. 
A scroll trigger is advantageous because it will only show your popup form to those who have proven to be invested in your content (which means they will likely be more interested in joining your email list). 
Sleeknote’s analysis found that 35% down the page was the most optimal scroll trigger for conversions. 
Exit trigger
With an exit trigger, a popup form appears as the visitor moves to exit the page (either by exiting their browser or going to a different website or webpage). Sometimes, these popups are called “exit-intent popups.”
One company found that exit-intent popups out-perform other types of popups by at least 5%. While the research across all industries isn’t substantial, this finding makes sense: As visitors are exiting, a popup wouldn’t feel like an interruption, and they may be more likely to engage with it. 
For this reason, we view the exit trigger as the best popup trigger.
Principles of effective email newsletter popup forms
Here are some of the most important aspects of designing a successful newsletter popup:

Keep it simple: From the number of fields asking for information to color schemes and even vocabulary, your form should be straightforward without being boring.
Tell subscribers what they’ll receive: Clearly state what information you’ll be sending out as well as its frequency.

Respect user privacy: This is key to building trust as well as following General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines for user information privacy and use.

Include a lead magnet: Offer your new subscribers something tangible for signing up.
Integrate social proof: Prove the worth of your newsletter by showing how other subscribers find value in it.
Use a descriptive call to action (CTA): Be clear in your CTA about the exact benefits subscribers will receive.

For inspiration, check out these examples of email newsletter signup forms that perform.
How to add a popup form to your website
Adding popup forms to your website is easy using Campaign Monitor’s email newsletter signup form builder:

Click “Lists & Subscribers”
Choose the list you want the pop-up form to feed into
Click “Signup Forms” and choose the type of pop-up form you want
Customize your form
Click “Save” and publish
View the code and copy the script code
Paste the code into your website’s HTML before the closing </head> tag
Save and publish the updates to your website
As with the other Campaign Monitor form options, you can customize the form’s aesthetics, set privacy, and adjust your confirmation messaging.

Image source: Campaign Monitor
Wrap up
Popup forms are an excellent way to grow your email newsletter list through your website. 
There are different popup form types to choose from, including lightbox, floating bar, fullscreen, and slide-in. The type you choose will depend on how aggressive you want to be with website visitors. Floating bars and slide-ins are the least intrusive, while lightboxes and fullscreens grab attention more aggressively. 
When it comes to triggers, we recommend the exit trigger because it doesn’t interrupt the user experience and has shown promising conversion rates. 
To get started with popup forms, create your email newsletter signup with Campaign Monitor. 
The post Building Your Newsletter List One Popup Form at a Time appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

If you want to drive organic traffic to your website, you must understand two critical aspects of SEO strategy:

Relevance
Authority

With relevance, the key is knowing what your audience is searching for and providing the highest quality and most relevant content so it’s a no-brainer for Google to serve it up to them.
But this isn’t an exact science.

You could create the best content out there from your perspective, but it’s a competitive landscape, and Google takes myriad other factors into account when ranking pages on the SERPs. One of those being… how authoritative (or trustworthy) the provider of that content is.
You might think that “authority” is subjective, but Google has one critical way to measure it: backlinks.

Why are backlinks important?
While there are 200 known Google ranking factors, backlinks counts as one of the most important for Google search.
That’s because a link to another website is more than just a link — it’s a vote of confidence, a recommendation, a way for publishers to say to their readers: “Here’s a source I trust. Go check it out yourself.”
It’s incredibly difficult to get that kind of endorsement, especially for small businesses or startups. But if you want to boost your SEO performance, you need to make sure you consistently earn high-quality backlinks to your website, better and faster than your competition.
Additionally, Gabi Theard, Director of Marketing at Trujay, says, “A link building strategy doesn’t just increase your SEO score and visibility on Google. It also shows readers where your company falls in relations to other brands — and reminds readers that there is, in fact, a human behind the screen. Backlinks can demonstrate a relationship between two sites and how each site is working to help the other grow.”
“Plus, backlinks help readers get the highest degree of information that answers their questions.”
High-Quality Backlinks
Keep in mind, though, that not all backlinks are created equal. If you think of a backlink as a vote of confidence, it only makes sense to also evaluate the credibility of that vote.
In the past, tactics such as link farms, PBNs, and comment spam allowed black-hat SEOs to create vast backlink profiles and successfully game the system. However, these black-hat link-building techniques no longer work because Google has gotten savvy to them. In fact, too many “unnatural” links may even earn your site a penalty.
In other words, quality matters just as much as quantity when it comes to backlinks.
Earning high-quality backlinks is probably the most challenging part of SEO. You’ll want links that are:

Authoritative – The site has an authoritative backlink profile (many votes of confidence), generates a lot of traffic, and even ranks well in the SERPs itself. In addition, .gov and .edu sites tend to carry more weight, as do industry-leading sites.

Relevant – The referring page tackles a similar topic or niche. e.g. If your technology company’s homepage gets a backlink from a blog post on “how to golf,” this would not be seen as a relevant or quality backlink.

Unique – You will get an edge if the site refers to you but does not refer to your competitors. Otherwise, the backlink may be good to have, but it’s table stakes.

Natural – The link is not sponsored, the anchor text is not branded or spammy, and the referring page has a natural number of links on it.

As an SEO strategist specifically focusing on link building at HubSpot, I’m no stranger to the challenge of finding high-quality sources that will link back to your site. To help you improve your company’s SEO ranking, I’ve cultivated this list of creative and unique ways to earn backlinks.
1. Reclaim Unlinked Mentions
Reclaiming unlinked brand mentions is probably the easiest, quickest way to build high-quality backlinks.
All you need to do is keep an eye on who is mentioning your brand, on blogs or in the news. You can do that using something as simple (and free) as Google Alerts. If you want more insights into your mentions, like the number of shares or the domain authority of the website where the mention comes from, you can opt for tools like BuzzSumo, Ahrefs Content Explorer or Mention.

Image Source
Oftentimes, you’ll notice the author hasn’t included a link back to your website when they mention your brand, product, or service. That’s when you can send them a quick note, asking for a proper link attribution. This also allows the publisher to give their readers a better experience, letting them click through and learn more about the brand mentioned. It’s a win, win.
The creative part of this tactic is that you can use the same method to reclaim links for other mentions that are related to your brand — including events you organize, employees names, research reports, etc.
For example, you can keep a lookout for interviews that feature your company’s executives and ask for a link back to their profile page on your website. Or, you can look for mentions of reports or statistics you’ve published, and ask for a proper link attribution to the original source.
2. Get Contextual Links
Have you noticed how some articles feature additional resources, either recommended in text or inside a “Read more” section?
Here’s an example of a “read more” section from SEJ, where they link to a related piece:

These links embedded in the text of an article are called contextual links.
The key to getting contextual links is to find the right link prospect to reach out to. You can find them by researching articles that are related to the content you’re promoting and already have a “Read more” section.
For instance, let’s say you have a new study on email marketing. Try looking for articles that speak about marketing trends and recommend other articles.
Here’s how to find them using search engines like Google:

marketing trends inurl:blog intext:”Read more”
marketing trends inurl:blog intext:”Recommended articles”
marketing trends inurl:blog intext:”Recommended reading”

When you reach out to the author to pitch your study, don’t forget to mention why your content is worth getting featured. A persuasive boilerplate and a personalized email will go a long way.
Additionally, Theard says: “Once you get into the habit of earning backlinks, you may start to notice that other publishers come to you directly. With the right relationship-building strategy, publishers come to you rather than you inquiring to them.”
She adds, “Relationship-based backlinks are critical, as opposed to simple (and frequent) link exchanges. Google can, and will, pick up on backlink publications that are whimsy; a backlink for a backlink is not a good backlink. A relationship-based backlink is accepted by Google through relevant keywords, the credibility of websites, and genuine effort to have website referrals be at the top of calibers.”
3. Get “Best X” List Mentions
Today’s consumers look for all available options before making a purchasing decision. They often use comparison websites or articles, like “The 13 Best Free Email Marketing Tools in 2021” to see what others recommend.
To get a sense of how popular these Best X articles are in your industry, use a keyword research tool and check for monthly search volume. For instance, there are more than 3,400 searches per month for the query “best CRM for small businesses” (according to data from Ahrefs).
Getting mentioned on articles that list the best products like the one you offer is a fantastic way to reinforce your brand, get more people to try out your product and, of course, earn high-quality backlinks.
Alex Birkett, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, explains why getting featured on these lists is so important for your business: “If you look at these search results in terms of pure click-through rate, there’s an upper limit on how much traffic you can bring to your own product page by ranking on your own site’s listicle.”
Birkett continues to say — “As Nick Eubanks has mentioned, if you can broaden your view from trying to rank #1 to trying to monopolize all of the sites on the first page of a search query, you can multiply the amount of click-throughs to your site, your website traffic, and, down the line, your sales volume. And that’s not even factoring in the less trackable aspects, such as social proof and brand awareness.”

“In other words, this tactic goes beyond just link building and taps into acquisition and brand awareness potential, too.”

To get your product or service included in a list round-up, start with a simple Google search to find high-ranking blogs that write about your product or industry.
Here are some useful search terms to help you find relevant prospects:

Best [X]
Best [X] for [Y] e.g. Best CRM for entrepreneurs

Top [X]
Top [X] for [Y] e.g. Top 10 CRM for small businesses

Collect the most relevant prospects in a list and prioritize them based on domain authority (or Domain Rating if you’re using Ahrefs), backlink profile, ranking, and referral traffic potential.
Once your final list is ready, write a short pitch for the author to show them why your product or service deserves to be included in their list.
As per any outreach campaign, a short, persuasive pitch and a customized email will help you stand out.
4. Become a Source for Other Publishers
By using your expertise and unique data, you can become a source for other bloggers and journalists.
Every time someone quotes you, you’ll earn a backlink. But high-domain authority backlinks aren’t the only benefit of this tactic (although they are a huge benefit on their own). By becoming a trusted source, you’ll also increase your brand awareness and drive referral traffic to your website.
Best of all, it isn’t as difficult as you may think.
To start, simply subscribe to HARO (Help A Reporter Out). This is a free service that connects expert sources (like yourself) with bloggers and journalists who are looking for contributors.
Here’s how it works — every day, HARO will send you an email with queries from writers in your industry. You can pick the ones that resonate with your business and respond via email, including your credentials.
Speed is very important here, as most of these writers get many submissions. If you’re among the first to respond, you have a bigger chance to be seen and selected for the final piece. If you’re selected, you’ll likely receive an email from a journalist or blogger letting you know the article is live.
For instance, here’s an email I got a few days after I submitted a quote on HARO:

From my experience with HARO, it takes about four weeks for an article to get published after you send your response. Even if you don’t receive a follow-up email from the writer, keep an eye on the publication to see if your quote ends up making it into the piece.
I found that, on average, two out of 10 answers get picked up. That isn’t too bad, but if you’re like me, you don’t want to waste those eight other answers that don’t get to be published.
To ensure you still use those quotes elsewhere, I suggest you create a backlog of content and use it to answer similar questions on Quora, LinkedIn, or even your own blog or social channels.
5. Reach Out to Journalists
Bloggers and journalists are bombarded with emails pitching them information that is too promotional and doesn’t add value to their readers. That’s why many outreach emails don’t get any responses.
However, there are effective methods to make your pitch stand out. Paddy Moogan, Co-Founder of Aira, explains how his team uses this tactic successfully to earn high-quality backlinks for their clients:
“We take an individual from a client’s company, usually the founder, Managing Director, or CEO (although it can be anyone, really) and get them to provide us with their views and opinions on a set of topics.
These topics should be a sweet spot between what their company is credible to talk about, and general newsworthy topics. Classic examples at the moment are things such as what Brexit means for the X industry or what the future of X industry is in the world of AI or automation.
These broader topics are being talked about a lot in the press, so tying it to a topic that your client can talk about allows you to approach journalists and offer their comments for any upcoming articles. They often link to you because of this, and will also often link to profile pages on your client’s website, as well.”
Jeff Previte, Content Manager at Bluleadz, also shared with me a tip on how their agency stands out when pitching journalists: “When we conduct outreach for new link building opportunities, we like to use HubSpot video in our emails. We record a short video introducing ourselves and our company. After the introduction, we briefly explain how our content can deliver value to their audience and make some suggestions of what they can link to. This lends a human element. Most link building outreach comes from cold email templates. With a video, we give recipients a name, a face, and a voice they can associate with our company. That small touch helps us stand out.”
6. Update Old Content
If you find an article or a research report that hasn’t been updated in a while, check how many backlinks the piece has. If there are many publications referencing that content, then you found yourself a real gem.
You can simply go ahead and create a better, fresh piece, with more relevant data.
Once the content is live, you can then reach out to bloggers or journalists who’ve linked to the old content to let them know about your updated version.
Oftentimes, you’ll see the results of your outreach in a matter of days or weeks in the form of backlinks or social media shares. But there are also other benefits that come out of building that relationship in the first place. For instance, you might end up collaborating on other projects that can help you grow your brand, and your traffic.

Ultimately, when building your email outreach list, have a long-term benefit in mind and try building a relationship — instead of just focusing on the backlink.

7. Build Free Tools
Creating free tools, like calculators or template generators, is an effective method for earning links and even generating new leads.
In a nutshell, here’s how to get started:

Start with keyword research and see what comes up for “templates”, “tools”, or “generator” in your industry.
Check out what tools appear in Top 10 search results for those keywords.
Try to figure out which tool or generator receives the most backlinks right now.
Build something similar but way better, e.g. better design, more customizable options, etc.

For example, take HubSpot’s Email Signature Generator. There are over 29,000 searches for “signature generator” on any given month on Google, and our tool offers a very simple, aesthetically-pleasing solution.
Since we launched it, it’s been highly used and recommended, having earned over 5,520 backlinks from 1,168 referring domains.
8. Publish Ultimate Guides
An Ultimate Guide is a piece of content designed to be the best, most comprehensive resource on a given topic. It covers enough information that you don’t need to go elsewhere to learn more about that subject.
Here are two examples from our own blog:

The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing
The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing

The reason why these Ultimate Guides attract inbound backlinks is because they help bloggers and journalists reference a concept they mention.
For instance, if someone writes an article titled “How to get started with SEO”, they can focus on a few tips and tactics without explaining, in-depth, what SEO is — instead, they can simply link to an SEO Ultimate Guide, if their readers have further questions.
Here’s an example:

Image Source
Alex Birkett, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, uses this approach with his personal blog, as well. Here’s how he explains it: “An Ultimate Guide doesn’t have to explicitly tell you it is an Ultimate Guide. It simply has to go above-and-beyond in its utility or perceived value.”
“For example,” Birkett continues, “I recently wrote a 6,500 word guide on A/B testing. It ranges from beginner issues all the way through advanced topics and fringe cases. Basically, it’s a bookmarkable article for anyone who runs A/B tests. Not only did it get a really solid initial spike of traffic from social shares, but it consistently gains organic links month-by-month.”

9. Use Images to Earn Links & Mentions
Infographics are probably the most common visual asset used to earn backlinks. It’s always good to experiment with them, if you haven’t done it before.
However, if you feel infographics don’t work well for your brand, here are a few other visuals you might consider creating:

Charts and graphs with original data
Diagrams to visually explain complex concepts
One-page templates
Free photo galleries for others to use

To give you an idea of how other brands use free photo galleries, check out this creative campaign from LinkedIn: The Real Face of Sales. The brand has created a free downloadable library of photos that feature real, non-cliche salespeople.
The photos are also available on Unsplash and Pexels (where they got over 35 million views), which helped with distribution.

10. Use Directories (yes, Directories!)
Despite what you may have heard, directories aren’t dead. In fact, they are probably one of the best ways to improve your local SEO and help potential customers find your business.
Of course, I’m not talking about spammy directories that are there just for the sake of links. Those are more likely to harm your SEO performance than anything else.
The directories you need to be on are the ones people actually use — like Google My Business, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Beyond these famous ones, there are many other general and niche directories that can help your rankings and traffic.
Here are a few resources to help you find relevant directories:

21 Web Directories That Still Have Value (Search Engine Journal)

Top Local Citations by Business Category (BrightLocal)

The Ultimate List: 57 Online Local Business Directories (HubSpot)

600+ Directory Sites and How To Do Directory Link Building (Linkio)

11. Use the Broken Link Building Method
This tactic involves reaching out to a website that has a broken outbound link (a link to an external source) and suggest they update it with a link to one of your pages. Of course, your page has to be a good resource on the topic to which they were originally linking, so it makes sense to swap the broken link with yours.
The reason this tactic works so well is because it’s adding a ton of value to the webmasters — it helps them fix an error on their website and it improves the experience for their readers.
The challenge with this tactic is, of course, finding these broken links.
You have a couple of options here:

You can look for websites with broken links and find relevant resources on your website that you might suggest in its place.
You can look for one dead page (404) that used to get a ton of links, recreate that article or offer with better, more relevant content, and then reach out to those who linked to the initial piece.

Either way, you’ll need a good SEO tool to help you identify broken links. You can try Siteliner, which is free if you have under 250 pages to review, or Ahrefs, which also published a guide on how to use the broken link building method using their tool.
Once you identify the target websites and have your content ready, you can start working on your outreach. Make sure to keep your email short and sweet and focus on being helpful, rather than just getting a backlink.
Make Sure You Have The Right Backlink Checkers in Your SEO Toolbox
Now that you have a list of tactics to try out in your next link building campaign, it’s time to make sure you also have the tools you need to succeed.
Because there are so many options out there, I thought I’d end this article with a list of my top free, tried-and-tested backlinks checkers.
To make it easier for you to pick the right tool for your next project, I went ahead and tested each tool to see how many backlinks they can find, as well as other unique features they each offer.
I used our domain (www.hubspot.com) to test the capabilities of each tool and here’s what I found:
1. Ahrefs Backlink Checker

With the second most active crawler besides Google, Ahrefs has the most comprehensive backlink database, giving you up-to-date data. In the free version of the tool, Ahrefs shows you Top 100 backlinks, Top 5 anchors, and Top 5 pages. That’s enough to get a birds-eye view of your website’s backlinks.
If you’d like to get into more details, the paid version offers far more extensive data and access to other tools that might be useful in a link building campaign, like Content Explorer or Broken Outbound links, to name a few.
2. Backlinks by Neil Patel

It may not pick up as many backlinks or referring domains as Ahrefs, but this tool gives a lot of value in the free version. For one, you can export to CSV up to 5,000 backlinks and see the Source Page Title, URL, and anchor text. You can also filter the view by including or excluding domains, anchors or zones (.es, .de etc.). All in all, I’d definitely recommend checking out this free tool.
3. MonitorBacklinks

MonitorBacklinks picks up almost as many referring domains as Ahrefs. Additionally, what’s unique about MonitorBacklinks is that it offers details on the top backlinks that you can see based on Trust Flow or Citation Flow. However, to access more of their database, you need to switch to their paid version.
4. OpenLinkProfiler

OpenLinkProfiler is a great tool for analyzing your backlink profile. The downside is that their database of links is fairly limited compared to Ahrefs or MonitorBacklinks. Still, there’s a lot of insights you can gain (for free) by filtering the available backlinks by categories such as industry, TLDs, anchors, or LIS (Link Influence Score). That’s something I haven’t seen in other free tools.
This tool also provides charts to show you which pages get the most links, or which countries link most to your website.
5. RankWatch

RankWatch has a great Dashboard feature where you can visualize your backlink profile. Among other things, you can see your link acquisition trend for the past three months, referring domains acquisition, and anchor distribution. The overall summary charts are available for free. However, if you want to see the exact list of backlinks or referring domains you’ve earned, you need to switch to the paid version.
6. CognitiveSEO

CognitiveSEO is great for getting an overall view of the total backlinks and referring domains — and, most importantly, checking your link velocity. You can see the link acquisition trend for the past 6 months for free, even without creating an account. Another interesting visual report is the Top 5 website pages, where you can see how your website performs by backlinks or referral domains.
All of the above tools provide valuable insights that can help you get started with link building. They all give a macro view on your backlink profile, but each one comes with different additional information. Try them out and see which one is best for you.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.