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The 8 Best Books on Working from Home for Remote Work Employees

Remote Working
December 29, 2020/by
The 8 Best Books on Working from Home for Remote Work Employees Remote work is incredible. Goodbye soul-draining commute, uncomfortable "business professional" outfits, and expensive takeout salads. Hello leisurely mornings, hoodies and slippers, and delicious home-cooked meals. But remote work is also tough. You're hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from your colleagues; your home workspace probably lacks some of the bells and whistles of a traditional office; and your work-life boundaries can quickly become nonexistent. To learn how to conquer these challenges — plus many you haven't discovered yet — take a look at these books on remote work. 1. Working Remotely: Secrets to Success for Employees on Distributed Teams By Teresa Douglas, Holly Gordon, and Mike Webber Unlike many remote work books aimed at leaders and solopreneurs, Douglas, Gordon, and Webber focus on the front-line remote worker. This book is divided into seven chapters, each dedicated to a pillar of WFH success. You'll learn how to battle isolation and loneliness, work well with your peers, and manage your inbox. Along with concrete tips, the authors include examples and anecdotes to bring their points home (no pun intended). 2. Work-From-Home Hacks: 500+ Easy Ways to Get Organized, Stay Productive, and Maintain a Work-Life Balance While Working from Home! By Aja Frost On March 20th, I left HubSpot's Boston office with my monitor and keyboard. I thought I'd use them for a few weeks, a month at the most — then we'd all be back in the office....
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What is a Dofollow Link?

Link Building
December 26, 2020/by
What is a Dofollow Link? The easier it is for potential customers to find your site in search engine results, the more traffic (and sales) you’ll generate. As a result, there’s a kind of constant content competition underway as website owners and administrators look for ways to stand out from the crowd and improve search engine optimization (SEO). Gone are the wild, wild west days of the World Wide Web where keyword spamming and content stuffing were the norm to drive search engine interest. Now, brands need to focus on more tightly-controlled metrics — such as Google’s PageRank — to boost their online appeal and push their site listing closer to the first page, first result pinnacle. While part of this effort comes down to writing relevant, accurate, and interesting content, there’s another key component: Dofollow links. With the right approach, these links can help leverage great content into higher PageRank and better search results. Here’s how they work. What is a dofollow link? PageRank is effectively a weighted score that uses links to assign points — the more points, the better your site rank, and the better your SEO. Often referred to as “link juice” by online marketing professionals because of their ability to “flow” through websites with the right linking structure, getting these points is a priority for any site owner. The problem? Almost immediately after their introduction, getting points in any way possible became the strategy of many unscrupulous marketers. The easiest way to achieve this...
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Six Direct Response Copywriting Tips (and Examples)

Copywriting
December 25, 2020/by
Six Direct Response Copywriting Tips (and Examples) Connecting with potential customers is critical to boost interest in your website and drive sales conversions. But this is often easier said than done — while many site owners understand the value of compelling content, creating copy that resonates with visitors is more complicated than it appears. Here's why: Gone are the days of keyword-stuffed content designed only to drive up SEO values. When it comes to successful website marketing and sales campaigns, action is the driving force. But with the typical consumer now owning and using at least three digital devices on average, the amount of time content has to make an impact is diminishing quickly. To both boost up-front engagement and encourage immediate action, many businesses are leveraging a new approach: Direct response copywriting. In this piece, we'll dive into direct response copywriting details, offer some actionable examples and provide six tips to help boost the benefits of direct response copywriting. What is direct response copywriting? Direct response copywriting is all about right now. It's about inspiring consumers to action the moment they're done reading your copy. As a result, successful direct response content creators are highly valued (and well-paid) professionals since they're able to generate significant return on investment (ROI) for organizations. They accomplish this aim by combining a deep understanding of target markets with substantial writing skills to create copy that evokes emotional or logical responses from readers. From understanding key pain points to highlighting immediate needs or...
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The Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Density

On-page SEO
December 25, 2020/by
The Beginner's Guide to Keyword Density Keywords are a critical part of your SEO strategy. Along with relevant content and optimized website design, ranking for the right keywords helps your site stand out from the crowd — and get closer to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). So it's no surprise that a substantial amount of SEO advice centers on keywords: Doing your research can help you select and rank for top-performing keywords in your market, in turn boosting user engagement and increasing total sales. But how many keywords are enough? How many are too many? How do you know? And what happens if Google and other search engines determine your site is "stuffed" with keywords? In our beginner's guide to keyword density we'll cover the basics, dig into why it matters, and offer functional formulas and simple tools that can help make sure your keyword strategies are working as intended. What is keyword density? Keyword density — also called keyword frequency — describes the number of times a specific keyword appears on a webpage compared to the total word count. It's often reported as a percentage or a ratio; the higher the value, the more your selected keyword appears on your page. Why Keyword Density Matters Keywords drive searches. When users go looking for products or services they'll typically use a keyword that reflects their general intent, and expect search engines to serve up relevant results. While tools like Google now take into account factors such...
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How to Prevent Redirect Chains from Destroying Your SEO

Technical SEO
December 25, 2020/by
How to Prevent Redirect Chains from Destroying Your SEO Have a website? Then you’ve likely heard about search engine optimization (SEO) — the process of making your site easier to find, crawl, and rank for search engines. The better your SEO, the higher your website ends up on search engine ranking pages (SERPs) — as a result, the greater the chance of your site being noticed by potential customers. And with 68% of all website traffic coming from organic and paid searches — rather than through social media shares and other marketing channels — the right SEO strategy is critical. Many SEO techniques are straightforward: Don’t keyword stuff. Keep your content relevant. Improve your website’s user experience (UX) by cutting complexity and boosting speed. But other metrics also matter. Case in point? Redirect chains. These interconnected Internet issues cause problems for search engine spiders, frustration for users, and potential problems for your page ranking. But what exactly is a redirect chain? Why is it potentially problematic? And how do you find and remove these unintentional website course corrections? Here’s what you need to know. Learn about what web optimization is and how to do it with this free course.  What is a redirect chain? A redirect chain occurs when there’s more than one redirect between the initial link users click on and the eventual destination page. There are two common types of redirects: 301 and 302. 301 redirects happen when the destination page permanently links to a new...
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The Complete Guide to Firmographic Data

Buyer Personas
December 24, 2020/by
The Complete Guide to Firmographic Data Companies are still struggling to improve the reach and reliability of personalized data about potential clients and customers. Part of the problem is supply — bigger data volumes offer greater insight around B2B and B2C buying preferences both immediately and over time. But variety also plays a role. While information about individuals at a company (demographics) and the technology they use (technographics) can help enhance marketing and sales outcomes, there's also a place for firmographics, which are datasets that help businesses effectively segment organizations into meaningful categories. The challenge? Although this is a great high-level definition, it doesn't offer much in the way of specifics or actionable strategies. In this complete guide to firmographics, we'll define firmographic data with a look at key forms and functions, explore how it's used for segmentation, and dig into the types of questions that can help your company locate — and leverage — firmographic data. What is firmographic data? Demographic data focuses on information tied to individuals. Data such as contact names and customer purchase preferences are examples of demographic assets that can be used to drive targeted marketing campaigns. Firmographic data shifts the focus to organizations — or firms — to collect and analyze key information about the operation of enterprises themselves. Common firmographic data examples include: Industry type — From manufacturing or logistics organizations to financial, professional or legal service firms, industry type is a key vector for segmentation. Worth noting? Many companies...
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How to Detect and Eliminate Keyword Cannibalization

SEO Strategy
December 23, 2020/by
How to Detect and Eliminate Keyword Cannibalization Keywords are king when it comes to engaging users and increasing your search engine ranking. As a result, search engine optimization (SEO) has become a multi-million dollar business with a host of experts offering advice on how best to move up the search engine results page (SERP) and claim the coveted number one spot. Most actionable SEO advice boils down to a few solid suggestions: Do your market research so you know which keywords are relevant to your target audience, and create content that's timely and relevant. Something that doesn't make the SEO rounds quite so often is keyword cannibalization. While this unpleasant-sounding issue won't sink your website, it can cause your pages and posts to rank lower than they should and — if left unchecked — could harm the overall reputation of your site. Here's what you need to know about finding, evaluating, and eliminating keyword cannibalization. What is Keyword Cannibalization in SEO? Keyword cannibalization occurs when two or more pages on your website end up competing for the same keyword. Let's say your company sells roof shingles. Your blog content will likely include posts about how to extend shingle life through proper care and maintenance — with the right combination of authority and actionable insight, this kind of content can attract the attention of your target audience and lead them to purchase shingles from your site when their home requires repair or replacement. To ensure you're capturing the right audience,...
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The Beginner’s Guide to Setting Up a Blog

Blogging
December 23, 2020/by
The Beginner's Guide to Setting Up a Blog Did you know that there are more than 600 million blogs on the internet, and that 77% of web-surfers read blogs regularly? Blogging has exploded since its humble beginnings in the 1990s, and many people today interact with blogs frequently if not daily. By setting up a blog, you have the opportunity to make meaningful connections with other people, whether you want to share your recipes, talk about your lifestyle, or sell products and services. Whatever the topic, blogging serves as an outlet that can even become profitable. But before you see dollar signs, you'll need to set up a blog, which involves choosing a content management system (CMS), deciding on themes and color schemes, and reaching your target audience. This guide will help you navigate the process of setting up a blog successfully across various platforms. But before you set up a blog, you'll need to choose a CMS. Let's dive into that, first. How to Choose a CMS You can't have a blog without a CMS, or a content management system. As the name suggests, this is a system that manages your content. While you could certainly build a blog from scratch with savvy coding skills, a CMS does the hard work for you. This software makes it nearly effortless to switch up your blog's font styles, colors, and overall theme. It also means you can generate content much easier, simply clicking a few buttons to add photos and...
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7 Ways SEO & PPC Can Work Together in 2021

SEO Strategy
December 23, 2020/by
7 Ways SEO & PPC Can Work Together in 2021 If your SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click) teams exist in complete silos, it's time to change that. Commonly held opposing viewpoints are: PPC is too complex, and SEO is too slow. (For the record, I don't agree.) When these two teams collaborate, you'll be rewarded with magical insights, learnings, and results that neither team could get on its own. These channels aren't meant to be siloed, and getting them aligned is one of the most underrated ways to improve your overall digital marketing performance. PPC is one of SEO's most powerful tools — and vice versa. Here are seven ways to thrive in both SEO and PPC. 1. Avoid paid keyword traps. Sharing keyword intelligence is a standard best practice. Sometimes, certain types of keywords can have subtle differences, and end up aligning to the wrong intent. It's important to understand the intent behind search terms, because you want to avoid keyword traps. SEO-focused marketers are the masters of understanding search intent, and therefore collaboration between SEO and SEM is critical. For example, the restaurant POS software, Toast, is bidding on "phone systems for restaurants" but they don't sell phone systems! They're broad match bidding on terms containing "restaurant." This is why Google has become a modern day casino for advertisers. The marketing team at Toast is gambling on the mere possibility that restaurant managers seeking a phone system might also be...
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10 Common Copywriting Templates to Use in Marketing

Copywriting
December 22, 2020/by
10 Common Copywriting Templates to Use in Marketing Ask any marketer who's responsible for copywriting about their writing process, and you'll quickly find out that there's no specific process to follow. Additionally, copywriting varies depending on your audience, purpose, and format — copywriting for an Instagram post, for instance, is entirely different than copywriting for a press release. At HubSpot, we know the struggle. Copywriting demands creativity, inspiration, and hard work — and it can be difficult to find all three, day-in and day-out. To help with writer's block, we've put together 10 copywriting templates you might use for any of your marketing efforts, including blogging, social media, email marketing, and even internal memos. Let's dive in. 10 Copywriting Templates to Use in Marketing 1. Email Marketing First, you'll need to determine what type of email you're writing to ensure you're speaking to the right audience. Coordinate with your team to see if this is a one-off marketing email like a monthly newsletter, or if you're being asked to write for a series of emails, like a nurture campaign. As you're drafting your copy, consider how your email will encourage the reader to take a desired action, like clicking a link to purchase or scheduling a call with a sales rep to learn more about your services. If you're not aiming for the reader to take a specific action and instead just want to send a general update, like a company announcement, you'll want the copy to easily...
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