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500 Internal Server Errors: What They Are & How to Fix Them

Technical SEO
July 30, 2021/by
500 Internal Server Errors: What They Are & How to Fix Them Troubleshooting an HTTP 500 internal server error is like solving a mystery. You don't know what exactly happened or why it happened — all you know is that something's wrong and you need to fix it. To guide you through the hassle of troubleshooting the dreaded HTTP 500 internal server error, let's go over what it exactly means and its most common causes and solutions. Here's what your 500 error page might look like in your browser: How to Fix a 500 Internal Server Error Unlike other server-side errors like a 502 code or a 503 code, a 500 internal server error is it doesn't immediately tell you what the problem is, nor does it tell you how to fix it. If the error persists for too long on your site, it could even negatively impact your SEO. So, let's dive into a few potential causes of the error. Then, we'll present some solutions so you can try to fix the issue. Potential Causes of a 500 Internal Server Error A 500 internal server error is, as the name implies, a general problem with the website's server. More than likely, this means there's an issue or temporary glitch with the website's programming. Some potential causes of a 500 internal server error include: Corrupted or broken .htaccess file A permissions error Faulty third-party plugins or themes The PHP memory limit...
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The Parts of a URL: A Short & Sweet Guide

Technical SEO
July 30, 2021/by
The Parts of a URL: A Short & Sweet Guide If your website is like a house, then your website’s URL is like that house’s address. It defines where your website lives online, similar to how your home address determines where you live in a neighborhood, helping your visitors easily find your site. URLs also help Google understand what your website's pages are about. There are technically five elements of a URL, and they’re discreetly important for optimizing your site’s user experience (UX) and SEO. To help you develop a concrete understanding of every part of a URL, let’s explore each of them in detail. Below is an illustration of the different parts of a URL.  Let's break down this URL structure below.  URL Structure Scheme The scheme tells web servers which protocol to use when it accesses a page on your website. Nowadays, HTTPS — which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure — is the most common scheme. It tells your web browser to encrypt any information you enter onto the page, like your passwords or credit card information, so cybercriminals can’t access it. This security protocol protects your website visitors and implementing it will help your site rank better on Google. That's why implementing SSL is a must-do on any technical SEO guide.  Other schemes you might see are mailto://, which can open your computer’s default email service provider to help you draft an email to the email address you entered in the URL, and ftp://, which...
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How RevOps and the ‘Rhythm of the Business’ Drive Alignment at HubSpot

RevOps
July 28, 2021/by
How RevOps and the ‘Rhythm of the Business’ Drive Alignment at HubSpot Educator and computer pioneer Alan Kay once said, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." If you work for a growing company, be it a startup or scale-up, you'll know that attempting to "invent" the future isn't a matter of waiting around for flashes of inspiration and eureka moments — rather, it requires proactive planning, excellent execution, and awesome alignment. You'll also know that these ingredients aren't easy to come by. Not by a long shot. That's why I swear by a simple, unique framework to help me and my team at HubSpot prepare for the future. It's called 'rhythm of the business,' and it involves visually mapping out the key events, milestones, and activities scheduled across the business year and ensuring that every team is intimately familiar with the plan — or rhythm — for the months ahead. As a member of HubSpot's revenue operations team, understanding the 'rhythm of the business' is critical for our success. Our team's north-star goal is to remove friction for our customer-facing teams and help them to pass that friction-free experience on to customers. The RevOps model sets us up for success because it breaks down silos between operations professionals, unifies them as a central team, and allows them to work collaboratively on the systems and processes that power a business. As a result, duplicative work gets weeded out, repeatable tasks get automated, and time is...
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How to Create a Wikipedia Page for Your Company

Brand Awareness
July 27, 2021/by
How to Create a Wikipedia Page for Your Company If you're anything like me, you probably mainly consider Wikipedia a good source for a behind-the-scenes look at the production of Game of Thrones, or a collection of random facts on Zebras. In short, you likely haven't given it much thought as a channel for brand awareness. But, if you think about it, Wikipedia is one of the best third-party sources for ranking on page one of Google. Typically, when you search an intended keyword, you don't have to scroll far before you see its accompanying Wikipedia page: Additionally, it's a recognizable website, so it's often one of the first pages someone will click on if they want to learn more about what your business does. If you want to boost your business's visibility online, take a look at this quick guide so you can create a Wikipedia page for your company, today. 1. Create an account. Go to Wikipedia's homepage and click "Create account" in the top right. Enter the necessary information, including username and password, then click "Create your account". 2. Get promoted to an autoconfirmed user. When you first join Wikipedia, you'll see a box pop-up that reads, "Help improve Wikipedia" with a link to start editing an article: Before creating your page, you'll need to become an autoconfirmed user. These are Wikipedia's typical guidelines for an autoconfirmed user: "Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances,...
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The Best 18 Online Quiz Makers for Boosting User Engagement in 2021

Lead Generation
July 24, 2021/by
The Best 18 Online Quiz Makers for Boosting User Engagement in 2021 Grabbing — and keeping — your audience’s attention has never been harder. Nowadays, people are bombarded with marketing 24/7, and yet in the last five years, the average attention span has actually dropped — to a mere eight seconds. Fortunately, there are fun and unique strategies you can implement to engage your audience — and one of those strategies is an online quiz maker. Similar to the addictive nature of Jeopardy, online quizzes are a fun way for people to engage with your brand. Additionally, consistent online quizzes can help you stay top-of-mind when your consumer is finally ready to buy. Online quizzes also help you gain a better understanding of your users, and help create stronger relationships with them. But, whether you’re looking for a professional survey tool or a more lighthearted quiz maker, there’s a range of options to choose from — which one will help drive the best long-term results? We’ll explore our favorite 18 quiz makers shortly, but first, let’s take a look at the key features of great quiz makers. Online Quiz Makers: Key Features Quiz makers come in all forms. Some are incredibly professional, while others are pretty casual. Some are intended for fun, and others are meant to drive real business growth. Whatever your goal, you should always look for the following key features in your quiz maker. Easy Promotion Options You’re trying to gather as many responses as...
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Waterfall Charts: The Marketing Graph You Need to Hit Your Goals

Business Insights, Marketing Reporting
July 23, 2021/by
Waterfall Charts: The Marketing Graph You Need to Hit Your Goals Last November, my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Maui. One of the main activities we wanted to do was a hiking tour near the waterfalls. We dreamt of swimming in the cascading water at sunrise. When you hear the word “waterfall,” that’s typically what you imagine. However, today, we're going to talk about a different kind of waterfall — the waterfall chart. Waterfall charts are a data visualization resource that can help you gather and track important data such as traffic goals and lead generation. Below, let's review what a waterfall chart is, how to read one, and how to create one. In marketing, a waterfall chart could display the number of leads, traffic sources, or blog views over a period of time. More specifically, you could use a waterfall chart to showcase how your blog traffic has increased or decreased in the last year, giving values month over month. You could potentially use line charts, bar charts, and even bullet graphs to show this type of data. But waterfall charts have the advantage of showing your gains as they’re impacted by losses over time. Why use a waterfall chart? You should use a waterfall chart instead of other types of charts when trying to visualize data that experiences both gains and losses. It’s especially useful if you want to see how a loss affects a subsequent value. One of the reasons that waterfall...
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The AIDA Model: A Proven Framework for Converting Strangers Into Customers

Marketing Strategy
July 23, 2021/by
The AIDA Model: A Proven Framework for Converting Strangers Into Customers In 1898, Elias St. Elmo Lewis, an eventual inductee of the Advertising Hall of Fame, anonymously wrote a column about three advertising principles he found useful throughout his career in a printing magazine called The Inland Printer, one of the most influential American magazines of the 19th century. In his column, he states that a successful advertisement should always follow a specific formula. “The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement.” In other words, copy is only good if it attracts attention, generates interest, and creates conviction, in that order. Over a century later, Lewis’ principles still ring true. They’re expressed as an acronym, AIDA, and widely used in the advertising industry. In the digital age, brands have even based their entire marketing strategy on the AIDA model. Before we cover how you can apply the AIDA model to your own content marketing strategy, let’s go over what it is and why it works. The AIDA Model The AIDA model describes the four stages a consumer goes through before making a purchasing decision. The stages...
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Marketing Qualified Lead: Everything You Need to Know About MQLs

Marketing Operations
July 21, 2021/by
Marketing Qualified Lead: Everything You Need to Know About MQLs By aligning team members and different teams, your business's employees are able to work together to create delightful experiences that make prospects want to convert and stay loyal to your brand. One example of a process in which this type of collaboration only improves your ability to convert prospects into loyal customers is lead qualification. Think about it this way: If your marketing team can align with sales on what makes for a high-quality lead at your company, then marketing can identify and handoff these leads to reps after a lead's initial interaction(s) with your brand. Then, once sales has these contacts from marketing, reps can also qualify them and nurture them accordingly. This leads to time being well-spent across the org and ensures sales reps aren't wasting their time trying to identify leads that marketing has already engaged and vetted. These leads that marketing engages, vets, and passes along to sales are called marketing qualified leads (MQLs). MQL In this post, we'll talk about what an MQL is, why identifying MQLs is worthwhile, and MQL criteria you can establish on your team. How does the qualification process for an MQL work? At a high level, a lead becomes an MQL, then a SQL, working their way down the funnel until they (hopefully) become a customer. As mentioned, if a lead becomes an MQL, they've been vetted by the marketing team. In other words, the marketing team...
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