SEO
Five years ago to now: What’s changed?
Aleyda Solis is one of the most respected names in the SEO community. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, chances are you’ve come across her content at some point or another.
And just yesterday, she posted an interesting poll on her Twitter, asking the question:
“Were you doing SEO 5 years ago? Is it now easier, more difficult, or as difficult as 5 years ago to achieve results/goals in the SEO processes you work on?
With roughly 1k votes, these were the results:
- As difficult as 5 years ago: 17.7%
- More difficult: 44.3%
- Less difficult: 11.2%
- Just wanna see results: 26.8%
It’s not particularly surprising, but many SEOs are feeling the pressure these days as so much is changing in the online world.
On the optimistic side, plenty of comments pointed out that there are more resources, case studies, and tools out there than ever.
The Crew’s take: There are always hot takes in the marketing world. And while some of them are valid, the truth normally remains the same – it takes hard work to get results. To adapt to the times, you need to stay on top of the latest trends… So if you’re reading this, you’re probably on the right track.
CLUBHOUSE
No contacts required
Clubhouse made a couple of updates over the weekend that are promising for privacy-focused users.
Here’s a breakdown:
- The app no longer requires contact access to invite people. This is great news for those of you who’d rather not let Clubhouse access all of your contacts. Now, to invite someone, you can directly enter their phone number or use the iOS contact picker.
- You can now share links to your clubs. As reported by Matt Navarra, Clubhouse now lets you share links to your rooms – and to your profile.
Although Clubhouse has been off to a hot start, it hasn’t been without its issues. So, it’s good to see that the platform is taking some (baby) steps to securing privacy and making the app more accessible for users.
SPONSORED BY ZEYDOO
We do like to compete, but winning here is too damn easy
Are you an affiliate marketer?
Then lucky you! Or well, we better say Lucky Blue!
That’s a competition for affiliate marketers launched by the CPA network Zeydoo where everyone can get a prize.
What’s the catch? All you have to do is increase your revenue. You’re not competing against any affiliates. You’re just competing against the revenue you did in the last three months. If you can beat that, then you can get some awesome prizes:
- MacBook Pro (M1)
- Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
- Apple iPhone 12pro
- Apple iPad Air 10.9
- Apple iPhone 12
And the list goes on and on.
Everybody can enter the competition, which is active from March 1st, 2021 until May 31st 2021. There will be four different tiers based on your results:
- Super affiliate
- Gold expert
- Discovery of the year
- Success story
Where do you stand?
Join Lucky Blue to find it out.
COPYWRITING
How the New York Times tests their headlines
After reading this post, you’ll probably regret all the times you didn’t test the headlines of your landing pages, sales pages, ads, and everything else.
This issue from the TJCX newsletter analyzed how the New York Times tests their headlines.
To gather data, TJCX scraped the homepage of the NYT for one month to understand how headlines changed.
They found out that the NYT tests the headlines of 29% of their articles. And from the results some tests got, you can definitively say a headline can cause a dramatic change in engagement.
Look at these two headlines from an article about Biden’s governing style:
- Speak Softly, and Carry a Big Agenda
- Biden Is the Anti-Trump, and It’s Working
The second headline got 93% of the distribution compared to the first. And, let’s look at the result from an article about Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan Markle:
- Meghan Says Life With the U.K. Royals Almost Drove Her to Suicide
- Saying her life was less a fairy tale, Meghan Markle described the cruel loss of her freedom and identity.
- Saying her life was less a fairy tale, Meghan described the cruel loss of her freedom and identity.
- ‘I Just Didn’t Want to Be Alive Anymore’: Meghan Says Life as Royal Made Her Suicidal
Guess which headline won? The third one, getting 80% of the distribution. Now, not all tests got these obvious results, other times the improvement is smaller. However, there are a few things we can learn from this article:
- Always test the headlines of your blog posts, sales pages, and ads. A/B-tested NYT articles are 80% more likely to rank on a “most popular” list. Though you likely already know the importance of A/B tests, this post is a strong reminder.
- People like drama: It comes as no surprise that the emotionally-charged headlines performed better. So, don’t be soft when you write headlines – but make sure you don’t venture into clickbait territory.
A final tip from The Crew: study the NYT’s headlines, because the ones in the “most popular list” have been tested. Take inspiration!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
FACEBOOK: The company is testing a new post composer design, per Matt Navarra.
YOUTUBE: If you’re making money on YouTube, you’ll want to check out this article from Search Engine Journal about how the platform plans to deduct taxes, starting this year.
FACEBOOK: There’s a new, video-focused AI project going on at Facebook – and it’s pretty interesting.
GOOGLE: Incognito isn’t that incognito apparently. Google is facing a $5B fine for tracking users’ activity in Chrome’s incognito mode.
BRAIN TEASER
I sound like one letter, but I’m written in three. You can see things when you look through me. What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
These sponsorships are getting out of hand
March Madness is just around the corner.
(For the unacquainted, it’s an uber-popular college basketball tournament that takes place in mid-to-late March and generates endless excitement.)
And almost every year, the Michigan State Spartans make a strong entrance.
This year, though, the Spartans aren’t just the Spartans – the team announced over the weekend that the official name is now the ‘Michigan State Spartans presented by Rocket Mortgage.’
Good luck fitting that one on the bracket.