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When Lindy Alexander left her full-time job to give freelancing a try, she gave herself one year to make it work. In her first 11 months of freelancing, she made $100,000. Seven years later, she is an award-winning travel writer with an expansive portfolio on her business website, a steady stream of assignments and a six-figure income. On top of that, she runs her own online business, The Freelancer’s Year. What started as a career advice blog for other freelancers (across many types of businesses) has expanded to include a newsletter, courses, and private coaching. When I first started freelancing, I knew nothing about how to start a business or how to create a freelance website. Lindy’s course put me on the right track. Although she primarily works with writers, her strategies are applicable to all sorts of freelancers and digital nomads. So, I sat down with her to learn more about the secrets to her success and how you can use them to make it big. Wix: You made $100,000 in the first 11 months of freelancing, which is wildly impressive. What was your plan for your transition to freelance work? Lindy Alexander: My passion was in feature writing, but I didn't feel like I would earn the bulk of my money that way. I decided to get into content marketing. So, I zhuzhed up my LinkedIn profile and reached out to people I had written for before. I leveraged my health writing experience and asked health organizations if they needed a freelance writer. I sent out letters of introduction to everyone. Did you dip your toe into freelance writing while you were working full time, or did you just jump right in? It started as a side hustle. I took a feature writing course and published an article by the time it ended. I just kept pitching, getting gigs and writing articles. Eventually, editors started to come to me with assignments. Suddenly, my desire to be a social worker diminished. I started focusing on freelancing [and hit a] point when I wondered if I could sustain an income as a full-time freelancer. I was thrilled when people started paying me to write. But when I started doing it full-time, I had to look at it from a business perspective. I looked at all the work I had done over the previous 18 months and thought, “I can't spend six hours on an article that pays me $120 unless it’s a passion project.” I focused on getting work that would bring in the bulk of my income. The freelance path is so unpredictable. It’s either drizzling or pouring. How do you manage the flow of your business? I think those feast or famine times come from insecurity. A lot of freelancers don’t feel confident that they can charge what they want, say no to assignments, or push timelines back. Clients often hire freelancers with the perspective that it’s an emergency and we absorb that. I’m much better now at remembering that their emergency is not mine. Holding those boundaries is so difficult, but so important. This is my business, and I need it to work for me. What other factors do you think would make freelancers’ lives easier? Consistency. Freelancers come to me and say, “I’m not getting any traction with these letters of introduction.” But when I talk to them about it, they’ve only done it for a week or so. It’s a numbers game, so you need to keep putting yourself out there. Having a long-term view is really important. When freelancers are busy, they think, “I cannot possibly take on anything else.” But when things are quiet, the vehicle has totally stopped. It takes a while to get those wheels turning again, and people panic. You don’t have to be in full acceleration mode [all the time]. Just stay in touch and people will come back to you. I kept in touch with an editor over the last four years and never worked for him. But he called me last week with work. Some connections pay off quickly, but others take years to germinate. Many freelancers get anxious about quoting or negotiating rates. How do you navigate that conversation? An internal hourly rate makes it easier. Have an income target each month and each week. You need to know how many hours you want to work and how much you want to earn for each hour. Track your hours so you know how long it takes you to write a 600-word blog post or a 12,000-word white paper. You’re not just pulling out a number. You know exactly what works for you. If they don’t accept it, you can move on and pursue other opportunities. When do you forgo the high-paying jobs for passion projects? Usually, it’s travel or food writing. Next month, I’m going overseas for 10 days. I won’t get paid very much, but I’m going to have incredible opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise have. I just have to [plan to] have enough work to carry me through. I just had an editor [reach out with] 10 stories to assign. I told her I could only take on two, but I could help find other writers. It comes back to that confidence piece. I’m much better at saying to editors, “I can’t take this on,” or “I’m away, but I could take this on next month.” How do you manage the stuff like networking and blogging that doesn’t make money? For me, I work out how many actual hours of writing work I do a week [and base my rates on that]. When people want to make $100K per year, that is $8,333 a month, $400 per weekday. But you’re not working eight hours a day for 52 weeks. You have to give yourself breaks. And at least 30% of my time goes to bookkeeping, researching, pitching and blogging. It’s really about planning and keeping control of your time. It’s not sexy, but it makes everything so much easier. You’ve stayed in freelance for 11 years at this point. What makes the hard work worthwhile? If you have a salaried position, you have a cap on what you can earn (see how to start a service business). I’m not particularly money-motivated, but I can see the direct correlation between the [freelance] work I do and the amount I get paid. I love the flexibility, freedom and variation of freelance. I’ve written about parenting, health, business and education. Now, I’m in travel writing. There are so many opportunities to pursue what you love and to meet interesting people. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

As a small business owner, you know how important your online brand is to your business. A positive customer perception of your brand can lead to conversion, sales and bookings. But what do you do when a provocative comment makes its way to your website or social media feeds? Do you delete the comment? Argue back? Turn off comments altogether? Or block them? You’ve just been trolled—and you shouldn’t wait to see what will happen next, as it can lead to the internet becoming an unwelcoming and unsafe place. Thankfully Talya Adler, Wix’s online brand management expert, is here to help you develop a plan for dealing with online haters. Learn how to start a business and create a business website with Wix and grow your brand on a platform that protects against cyber threats—DDoS attacks and malware—and offers around-the-clock monitoring. Wix’s website security is fully managed by experts, so you can run your business with peace of mind. What are internet trolls? Before we dive in, let’s get on the same page about what we’re calling a troll. A “troll,” in internet slang, is someone who posts intentionally inflammatory and upsetting statements in online communities, such as social media, comments sections on a website, forums and chat rooms, to provoke unwary victims and delight in their anguish. They borrow their name from the original trolls of Scandinavian folklore. According to Jennifer Beckett, a lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne, trolling is “a specific act: throwing bait into the internet water in the form of deliberately provocative statements (not personal attacks, that’s ‘flaming’) and waiting for someone to bite.” Why are there internet trolls (and what impact do they have)? Trolling exploded after the advent of the social internet. While the internet doesn’t create trolls, it does give people predisposed to aggressive and unpleasant behavior a place to amplify and make visible their hostility, found an Aarhus University study published in the American Political Science Review. One of the study’s authors, Alexander Bor, tweeted: “...The people hateful on Twitter offend others in face-to-face conversation too.” The researchers, who polled over 8,000 American and Danish people, also identified being a status seeker as another strong characteristic among trolls. Businesses are often plagued with trolls on their social media feeds. For example, in 2019, Coconut-water brand Vita Coco playfully threatened to send urine to a man who trolled them on Twitter for their product's divisive taste. Vita Coco “won” the battle, according to the critic Tony Posnanski. And what started as individuals annoying people and businesses on the internet has turned into a strategic form of digital warfare over the past decade. Coordinated troll armies have played a large role in high-profile harassment cases, ranging from 2014's Gamergate, the 2016 American presidential election, and 2022's Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial. The Philippines even has a government-sponsored troll army. How to deal with internet trolls While you hopefully never have to deal with a troll problem, it's a small business myth that there's nothing you can do about it. There is a strategic response that can help minimize how it affects your business. In the words of Wix: “Don’t panic. Don’t answer impulsively. Don’t apologize.” While every internet troll case is unique, this workflow can help you figure out your next steps: Reread Research Respond 01. Reread Online communication comes without body language, facial expressions and a tone of voice. Make sure you fully understand what is being said to avoid any misinterpretation. It may be helpful to ask someone else to read the content for a gut check before moving forward. It’s good to check the timing of the posts—especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Perhaps you’re launching a new product/service or hosting a conference. While these seem like normal processes in business, they could become an open call for status-seeking trolls to attack your brand. For example if you’re streaming a live event, you’ll want to monitor in real time the comments coming in. An internet troll could also be fishing you into a spat about a topic far bigger than your business alone, whether it’s for political, cultural or religious reasons. Adler recommends avoiding these types of engagement altogether. Inform yourself about what’s going on in the world and be in tune with discourses taking place around you. “You don’t want to become the next internet meme,” says Adler. 02. Research After rereading the content, investigate the account and their history. You may find that your internet troll’s account has roped in other customer care accounts into online battles. If that’s the case, Adler says to keep your distance and don’t feed the troll. You could also discover that it’s a bot that simply needs to be blocked and reported. However, if a cursory check seems like there’s more to the story, use social network analysis to investigate further into the internet troll. Search their social media accounts to find how big their following is and how extensive it goes across platforms. Are they getting shared or retweeted? Do their posts get commented on and by who? Your next step will depend on how “influential” your troll is and how much damage they can bring to your business. Mega-influencers. These are celebrities with hundreds of millions of followers across the biggest platforms. Macro-influencers. These are influencers that have garnered between 100,000 and 1 million followers. Micro-influencers. These are influencers with a following between 1,000 and 100,000 people. Despite their size, Adler says, these micro influencers are among the most engaged with their audience. Thus their potential impact is higher than a macro-influencer, she adds. Nano-influencers. These are influencers who have fewer than 1,000 followers, but are highly trusted by their audience. Non-influencers. These are regular people who have fewer than 1,000 followers, but don’t have any regular engagement or trust built with their audience. 03. Respond If you’re dealing with a legitimate customer, Adler recommends taking the conversation privately. Ask them for additional information (proof like screenshots) to better understand their case. You’ll want to better understand their grievances in order to solve their issues. If you’re dealing with an influencer trolling you, it may make sense to consult with a PR or brand expert to help you get your response messaging right. And if your business is being accused of misdealings, you may need to go on the defensive. Depending on the severity of the case, you might want to bring in a lawyer to sue. Preventing trolls in the first place At the center of troll prevention is a thorough content moderation strategy. While you could hire someone to monitor content and delete comments as they arise, you can also just choose a website platform that lets you manage which site visitors can comment on your posts in the first place.

There are a lot of ways businesses and teams measure success. You can take a look at your profits month over month, or examine how your business has grown over a set period of time. However, if you want to get a well-rounded overview of how your company is performing in specific areas, then you need to look at KPIs. KPIs, or key performance indicators, can be used by any type of business, from self-employed freelancers to small business owners and companies with dozens of employees. There are many different types of KPIs that can be used across multiple departments and teams. For example, you might create a website and then measure the success of clicks or conversions using KPIs. Alternatively, your HR team can apply them to your onboarding process to see how many employees you’re retaining. Since there are dozens of different KPIs out there, it can be tough to know which ones to focus on if you’re just getting started. Here, we’ve gathered some of the most important KPI examples that you can use for your business. What are KPIs? A key performance indicator is a metric that measures the performance of a business, team, individual, or project. They’re one of the main ways of assessing whether or not you’re meeting your goals or target objectives. KPIs need to be measurable so that you can monitor change over time. In addition, they need to have a distinct goal as well as a clear source of data that can be relied upon for important decisions. This data needs to be looked at often so that you can continuously track your KPIs to see how close you are to your goals. While there are hundreds of different KPIs out there, there’s no need to implement all of them for your business. When looking at the overall performance of your business, stick with around five different KPIs to measure your progress (see business strategy examples to learn more). Then, you can also track more specific KPIs for each department, such as marketing, sales, HR, customer service and development. This will help each department work together towards a more clearly defined goal, while still working towards the overall company targets. KPI examples and definitions These are some of the most common KPIs broken down into industry or department. If you’re starting a business, understanding the types of KPIs available to you is crucial for assessing future success (see business strategy examples). You might want to use a few of them for each one of your teams, or just select a few important KPIs for your entire business. Sales KPI examples 01. Total Sales Volume: Measures the total volume, in dollars, of sales each month. Create a monthly or quarterly target so that your sales team has a goal, and be sure to adjust it regularly for dips or increases in sales which might occur around seasonal events or holidays. 02. Sales Cycle Length: Taking too long to complete a sale can negatively impact your bottom line and prevent you from reaching your quarterly goals. This KPI helps you measure how long it takes for a sale to be completed from start to finish. 03. Sales By [Metric]: You can break down where your sales are coming from by different metrics, such as region, age, sex, demographic, interests, etc. This helps you see which clients are bringing in the most revenue and which are underperforming. 04. Sales Cost to Volume Ratio: Making a sale is almost never free. A good chunk of your budget is probably going into each sale, with costs like salary or commissions, marketing costs, etc. That’s why it’s important to measure your sales expenditures vs. what your sales team is generating. This will help you see if your sales team is operating efficiently or not. Financial KPI examples 05. Revenue: In and of itself, revenue isn’t a KPI, but depending on your business, there are a few ways to measure this in terms of performance. Calculating your profit minus your costs is one of the main ways companies determine if they’re generating revenue. You should be measuring this KPI regularly by year, quarter and by month. Create a yearly revenue plan where you map out your expectations, then track your revenue over each quarter and month. Next, compare it to your yearly plan to see if you’re meeting your goals or if your initial yearly plan needs to be adjusted to meet more realistic expectations. 06. Free Cash Flow: This metric measures how much you can generate compared to your company’s operation costs. In order to calculate your free cash flow, you need to subtract your capital expenditures from your operating cash flow. This KPI is often used by investors to see if a business is profitable or not. 07. Gross Profit Margin: Get a percentage value of your total sales revenue. This KPI doesn’t look at expenses, but instead focuses mainly on profits. It’s a good yardstick to use when comparing your profits to that of your competitors. 08. Net Profit Margin: This KPI looks at the total percentage of your revenue after you deduct all your expenses, like operating costs, taxes and interest. Net Profit Margin is more helpful for internal comparison of your profits. Marketing KPI examples 09. Traffic: This is a pretty common KPI example. Here, you’re looking at the total number of visitors to your business, whether it’s traffic to your website or visitors in a physical location. You can measure the differences of this KPI over any amount of time, such as by hour of the day, day of the week, or month after month to see when you’re getting the most visitors. 10. Cost Per Lead: Once your traffic is converting into leads, you’ll probably want to know what each lead is costing. You might look at your cost of bringing in traffic or running your campaigns. This is a common KPI in online marketing and it usually measures how many people express interest in your business vs how many people see your ad or campaign. Many popular web analytics tools will allow you to set up this KPI to easily keep track of your progress. 11. Cost Per Phone Call: Sometimes the goal of your advertising campaign is to bring in calls. Calls can either directly be the source of sales or, if not, can be the start of a relationship between a potential customer and a business. When someone calls a business, they are likely very interested in what they have to offer, making cost per phone call a good metric. The complication, however, is that it may be difficult to track which advertisement brought in the call. Consider using a call tracking service to help you determine whether your ad spend was worthwhile. 12. Conversion Rate: A conversion rate takes things a step further than the cost per lead. This KPI measures how many conversions, or sales, you get compared to traffic. For example, if your website sees 1,000 visitors a month and you make 50 sales, your conversion rate is 5%. 13. Time on Site: This is one of those KPI examples that often stumps marketers since it can be tricky to optimize. You want to see how much time visitors are spending on your site before exiting or converting. If they’re leaving your site after only a few seconds, it’s likely that something is wrong with your website performance, usability, relevance, or content. Customer KPI examples 14. Customer Lifetime Value: Customer relationships are important, but it’s necessary to know how much value each client brings to your business. Customer lifetime value calculates how much monetary value you get from a client’s entire history with your company. To calculate this, you need to look at metrics like total purchase values and the number of purchases over time. 15. Customer Acquisition Cost: If you want to measure the effectiveness of your marketing, you need to look at how many clients it’s bringing you and whether it fits into the cost of your campaign. To arrive at this KPI, divide the total number of new clients you have by your acquisition expenditures. 16. Abandon Rate: This is an important metric for a customer support team since it can help you mitigate the number of unsatisfied clients. If clients are calling or chatting and then hanging up or getting disconnected before speaking to a representative, it’s important to understand why. Is your wait time too long? Did they find answers elsewhere? Abandon rates will help you understand your clients better and also optimize your customer support resources. 17: First Contact Resolution: Another important KPI for your customer support team is the rate of first contact resolution. Measure the number of clients who need to reach out to customer support multiple times for the same issue. This will help you understand where your team needs extra training to learn to resolve issues quicker, or where your process needs to be improved to avoid repeat contacts for the same issue. HR KPI examples 18. Employee Turnover Rate: The overall success of your business depends heavily on your employees, so it’s crucial to know how often your team is changing. Calculate the number of employees who have left in a period of time by your total employees. A high rate might mean it’s time to reexamine your onboarding process, employee expectations, or company culture. 19. Revenue Per Employee: This is another common KPI that helps measure efficiency. You want to see how profitable each employee is, so start by calculating your total revenue by your total number of employees. Many investors will ask for this KPI as well since it’s a good indicator of how a company manages costs. 20. Employee Satisfaction: Send out regular surveys or quizzes to understand how satisfied your employees are with your company and their jobs. This can be a challenging KPI to measure accurately, but it will help the health of your business by showing you which employees or teams need attention before they’re unhappy enough to quit and leave you with gaps in your operation. 21. Training Costs: You should be looking at how much you’re investing in each employee’s training. New hires will usually cost more, but there’s also the cost of ongoing training and education. A high rate of training costs isn’t always a bad thing. Investing in your employees can often lead to higher employee satisfaction and more productive workers. Tips for choosing the right KPIs for your business While it’s important to be aware of the many KPI examples, it’s even more important to assess which KPIs will help your business succeed. Not all KPIs will be relevant to every type of business, so take your industry, goal, and your company’s needs into consideration. For starters, ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with your business. You can break this down by year or quarter to focus on different aspects of your company and use different KPIs. Maybe one quarter you want to pay closer attention to generating more leads, in which case you’d use more marketing KPIs, and then the following quarter you want to turn those leads into sales. Your KPIs should follow your general goals, not the other way around. Here are a few things to keep in mind to help you select the right KPIs to use for your business: Make sure your KPIs directly relate to your goal. If your goal is to boost sales, look at things like site traffic and conversion rates. Focus on a few key metrics. Instead of measuring anything that can be measured just for the sake of it, focus on a handful of KPIs at a time. Only once they’re optimized, move on to a different set of KPIs. Consider what stage your company is in. Are you just starting out? Going to market? Rebranding? Each stage will have a different set of goals and metrics to measure. Stay away from vanity metrics. Some KPIs help your business look good, but don’t really mean much in terms of reaching your goals. Metrics like “likes,” views, or clicks might seem impressive, but don’t mean much in terms of whether or not you’re moving closer to your goal. Choose KPIs that help you move your business forward over ones that only look good on paper. Look at your competitors. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing a set of KPIs from your competitors. If you have a similar business model, products, or services, it can be really helpful to know how you’re performing comparatively.

You can be a seasoned company with an established business plan, or be starting out and create a website for your new venture. Either way, identifying and understanding your competitors at each step of the process can lead to building a better business strategy. This is where a SWOT analysis comes into play. It is a useful tool for making improvements and keeping your marketing goals on track. In this guide, we’ll explain what this method is all about and how to do a SWOT analysis of your own. What is a SWOT analysis? SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a strategy used by businesses for measuring and evaluating their overall performance, and that of competitors, in an objective manner. All these factors help business owners make smarter decisions for their company, such as if a venture should grow into a new field or rebrand itself. The first two parameters, strengths and weaknesses, involve internal factors such as your reputation, team, location and intellectual property. These considerations are not necessarily permanent, and can fluctuate over time. It’s within an organization's own control to keep or change them (which can happen for the better or the worse). So, assuming you want to make a positive change, you’re going to need to put forth the effort and time to see that happen. Opportunities and threats are related to external influences such as competitors, market trends, and prices of materials. Unfortunately, these are not within an organization’s control, and therefore you are not able to change them. That said, successful businesses and corporations learn how to work with these factors to their advantage, and also adapt their strategies accordingly in order to compete with others in the field. Why do a SWOT analysis As mentioned earlier, SWOT analysis is a lengthy process that can help different types of businesses draw conclusions by enabling them to see the bigger picture clearly. Once they have obtained valuable data and insight, only then can businesses formulate a clever and strategic plan accordingly. Furthermore, a SWOT analysis forces you to examine your business in new and interesting ways vis-à-vis your strengths and weaknesses. This preparedness enables you to not only be ready for any challenges that might impact your business, but also offers a deeper understanding of potential opportunities or threats within your target market. How to do a SWOT analysis SWOT analysis should be a collaborative and inclusive process, so before you can really dive in, be sure to assemble your partners, stakeholders and any other decision-makers who will bring their ideas to the table. This way you’ll ensure you hear multiple opinions and diverse outlooks that’ll enrich your overall SWOT discussion ahead. Below, we’ll walk through the stages of how to do a SWOT analysis for reviewing both your own company and competitors. For each one, grab a white board, sheet of paper, or another note-taking device. On this, create four sections for each company you’ll analyze. Label the sections with these parts: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And remember that when it comes to this type of analysis, leave out the bias. The more honest you are, the better and more useful your results will be. Steps on how to do a SWOT analysis: In order to get a better sense of what a complete SWOT analysis might look like, we’ve taken the example of a hypothetical massage therapist who is starting a service business. Identify your company strengths Be aware of your weaknesses Recognize business opportunities Understand potential threats Make a business plan 01. Identify your strengths Strengths are the big things that a particular company is doing well, which gives them a competitive advantage in their industry and benefits their customers. For your own business, identifying your strengths can help you leverage these by making them stronger. For competitors, consider their strengths a goal to aim for. Ask yourself, How can I do what they do, but better? or, How can I create my own twist on this idea that outsmarts theirs? Here are a few questions to consider as you begin your SWOT analysis: What are this company’s competitive advantages in the industry? What features do they offer that are unique and valuable? What processes are they excelling in? What draws customers in? Are they a market leader? If so, how did they get here? Is the organization expanding and hiring new employees? What strong assets does the company have, i.e., intellectual property, stakeholders, buildings, etc.? 02. Be aware of your weaknesses These are the aspects of an organization that could use some improvement. During this stage of a SWOT analysis, it’s especially important to be honest with yourself. It might be a bit uncomfortable at first, but if you don’t draw attention to a weakness, there won’t be room for you to make it better. Note that many of the points you analyzed from the strengths above can be addressed in this section as well, but with a reverse meaning. For example, a strength might be “expanding their business and hiring new people,” while a weakness could be “losing employees to competition.” So think about those as options in addition to these kinds of questions: What could this company do better? What processes could be improved? Is this company lacking an established reputation? What is this company struggling with compared to others in the industry? What do customers often complain about? Is the organization losing employees? What assets is the company lacking, from patents to funding to employee positions and more? 03. Recognize business opportunities Owning a business is all about seizing the moment. Opportunities are probably the same for yourself and your competition, if not very similar. Recognizing them is the first step, and taking advantage of them before your competition does is the second. Likewise, you should do so at the determined time that makes the most sense for your business, depending on what stage of development you’re in. Here are more questions for doing a SWOT analysis the right way: What is the latest trend, such as a green initiative to use recycled packaging or working with social media influencers for promotion? What are some upcoming events to take advantage of, such as a trade show, holiday or recent news release? Is there a loophole in your market, such as a cheaper supplier or opportunity to eliminate the middleman? Is there an opportunity to expand to a larger building or better location? Could the business be sold soon? Or on the other hand, could this business buy smaller, local businesses to expand? 04. Understand potential threats These are external factors which can put a business in a negative light. And just like opportunities, threats are often similar for both you and your competitors. However, some threats can be individual to an organization, such as a particularly bad PR scandal from an unhappy customer. It’s extremely important to learn how to mitigate these, and prevent them from turning into larger issues in the future. Although threats come last in the SWOT analysis, it might be a good idea to address them first off paper. Like a small fire, if you don’t act quickly, threats can sometimes cause irreplaceable damage. Here are examples of potential threats: Is a customer expressly unhappy with a particular product or service? Is the market fluctuating, i.e., are prices rising, are consumers purchasing alternatives, etc.? Are there new government regulations to watch out for? What is it that they are doing better? Do some market research to find out. Will new technology become available in the near future that could make this business’s products or services obsolete? Are consumers no longer expressing interest in these services? 05. Make a business plan Now that you’ve laid out the most important components affecting the success of your organization and your competition, you have the tools you need to develop a strategy. This plan will guide you to make improvements in your company, and compete on a level playground with your competition. Consider these five steps in working through your plan: Get feedback on your own SWOT analysis from your employees and other relevant stakeholders. Draw out a plan, which involves using your strengths to counteract your weaknesses, as well as finding opportunities through your threats. If you’re just starting a business, write out these components as a part of your business plan, too. Communicate your ideas to your team members, making sure that everyone is on board and held accountable. Prioritize your action items, starting with the most important factors first. (Perhaps these are your threats if they are urgent matters.) Execute your plan with a business proposal. Introduce the plan in the format of listed action items for your team, making sure to assign a designated person for each topic. As your business continues to grow and evolve, know that this is just a snapshot of a moment in time. Many of these factors are subject to change at a later date. It’s a good idea to come back to this exercise in the future so that you can properly assess where your business stands in your industry and how far along you came.

If you’re anything like me, spending even a few minutes away from your cellphone can feel like you’re missing a limb. With almost 2 billion smart-phone owners worldwide, a strong web presence no longer means having a great looking website alone, but one that functions as well on smaller screens as it does on your desktop. With mobile internet browsing about to surpass time spent on desktop view, smart business owners know that they need to make their website’s mobile view a strong priority. If you’ve got a Wix website, you’re already one step ahead of the game! Thanks to the Wix Mobile Editor, you’ll be able to customize all of the important aspects of your website to ensure that it looks and runs smoothly both on handheld devices and on desktops. Alternatively, you could even transform your website into a mobile app for an even smoother user experience. Here are the steps that you need to take to ensure that your website looks great no matter what type of screen you view it on. Consider the Mobile Mindset Looking to create one of the best mobile websites out there? The first thing to consider is user experience. While you may be building your website with the help of a mouse or trackpad, keep in mind that a large portion of your audience will likely be accessing your pages from a smaller touchscreen. Thankfully, the tech geeks at Wix have taken this into consideration when building the Mobile Editor. By adjusting your Editor’s view to a smaller screen size, complete with a true to scale mobile boarder parameters, the Mobile Editor gives you an accurate idea of what your site will look like in the palm of your site viewer’s hands. When considering responsive vs adaptive design debate, this adaptive solution is a great option for beginners. Mobile-Friendly Menus Your header menu may look great on your desktop site, but shrunk down, that same menu may be hard to grasp onto on-the-go. To make moving along your site easier on a touch screen, the navigation menu on the mobile version of your Wix site has been changed to a more thumb-friendly drop-down menu. Traditional navigation menus aren’t your only option, especially when you’ve got your mobile view in mind. One of the biggest trends in web design right now is using hamburger menus. Another option is to base your page menu on an image grid. The focus on large icons and dramatic buttons look great across all platforms and make moving along both your mobile & desktop pages a breeze. Check out this Tour Operator template, as well as these additional mobile templates, for some inspiration. Smartphone, Smarter Shopping: A new statistic shows that about 42% of smartphone owners compare item prices on their mobiles while they’re shopping in store. All that information at the tip of your customer’s fingers, means that if your business has a physical location, updating your website often with current pricing and promotions has never been more important. With mobile phones tagging along on shopping trips, you also might want to consider giving your customers a little extra love from your mobile marketing. Consider offering coupons via a QR code that can be easily redeemed right from your customer’s smartphone. You can also offer special email offers on-the-go thanks to Wix's great looking mobile viewing capabilities. eCommerce Business owners are not exempt from investing in mobile-first design. Purchases made by tablets and smartphones are consistently on the rise, meaning that the mobile version of your online store needs to rock! Make sure that all of the important information needed to sink your sale like strong call to action buttons, payment methods and contact forms look crystal clear and are easy to access on the mobile version of your site. Smart Social: Whether you like it or not, odds are that your customers already have their smartphone in the palm of their hands by the time they walk into your business. Take advantage of that mobile access by offering special discounts to customers who help promote your business online. Get your business noticed by giving your fans an incentive to check-in to your location on Foursquare or offer a special discount when they give you a review from Yelp. If your clients are known to take pictures of your great looking goods, let them know that you’ll be happy to share their pics on Instagram. Take advantage of those great looking photos by syncing your Instagram feed onto your website. The constant flow of new image content will look great both on mobile and on your desktop by way of this fully integrated social feed. Learn more about turning your website into an app for even greater functionality.

So, you’ve succeeded in bringing visitors to your website - great! You’ve even managed to turn some of them into paying customers - even better. But how do you now keep your business blossoming? One tried-and-tested method is marketing automation. This technology automates a variety of marketing activities, so you can rest assured that your customers are receiving the attention they deserve. Not only will you provide them with a personalized experience, but your business will also reap the benefits. In fact, out of the 284 million site visitors we tested, we found that the ones who received an automated response were 42% more likely to make a purchase on that website. Whether you already run a fully functioning business or are in the process of finding a professional website builder to bring your vision to life, this guide to marketing automation will explain how this method can greatly benefit your business, and which features you’ll want to use: What is marketing automation? Marketing automation is a platform that enables the automation of marketing tasks across different online channels. Businesses can use it to target users at strategic points throughout their customer journey, sending them automated messages via email, live chat or other modes of communication. While this marketing tool can be implemented across many different channels and campaigns, from social media marketing to landing pages, it’s especially common in email marketing. For example, you can send an automated email to a customer that has just purchased tickets to an event of yours, or follow up with them after the event to ask for feedback. Likewise, you can send automated email drip campaigns to engage new subscribers and drive sales. Marketing automation software, such as a CRM, can be used to make processes within your business run more efficiently, as it reduces the amount of time spent on repetitive tasks. It also lets you provide customers with content that is more personalized and specific to their needs. In turn, this can help you nurture leads, convert website visitors into customers and maintain positive relationships with existing customers. Main uses for marketing automation Whether you own an online store or a fashion blog, your business can benefit from this technique. While the offering varies across platforms, the following marketing automation features are all part of Wix marketing tools: Online stores: Automatically email your customers after they’ve made a purchase, with anything from a receipt, to a thank you note and more. Additionally, if a site visitor has added an item to their cart, but not proceeded to purchase it, you can send them a friendly reminder. By customizing the design of your email and nailing the copy to fit your brand identity, you can build a positive relationship with the customer, without being too forceful. Bookings: If your website enables online scheduling, you can utilize marketing automation to check in on clients that haven’t attended a class or session in a while. This extra bit of personal attention will make them feel valued. And if you want to go a step further, why not treat them to something special once they’ve participated in a certain number of sessions? Events: Hosting a party, conference or concert? If you have an events website, you can win your guests over by sending them automated emails once they’ve purchased a ticket, RSVP’d to an event or been added to a waiting list. Forms: Online forms are a known method of generating new leads. Whether your form encourages visitors to subscribe to your newly started blog, or functions as the main feature of your landing page, make the most out of it using marketing automation. Once a visitor has submitted a form on your site, you can send them an automatic message, welcoming them to your business. Member’s area: Have a special area of your site dedicated to members only? Treat your most loyal customers as VIPs by sending them automated messages once they’ve signed up for the first time, or each time they log in. What’s more, you can set triggers to automatically create a task for yourself or your team members, reminding you to follow up with a phone call, for example. Invoices: When it comes to making purchases online, people like to know exactly how much they’re spending for each item. You can use an invoice generator to keep your customers up-to-date on the status of their payments. After adding relevant details about your business, you’ll be able to create a fully customized invoice that can be emailed to your clients directly. Best practices for marketing automation You may have your email automation strategy down to a tee, but when it comes to marketing automation, there are different aspects to take into account. Here are a few tips on perfecting your automations: Tailor each customer’s experience to make them feel like an individual. Make sure you’re contacting them in the right context to keep it personal. For example, consider sending a welcome email to a new subscriber, or a follow-up message to see how a client is feeling after a yoga class. Keep generating new leads. While marketing automation is great for nurturing existing leads, make sure you’re not abandoning your inbound lead generation strategy (or in other words, the marketing activities you use to promote your website and bring more eyes to it). This way, you’ll keep your options open and grow your leads, while simultaneously tending to the leads you’ve already attained. Define goals that are specific, realistic and measurable. Ask yourself what you set out to achieve through marketing automation. Do you want to increase sales by 20% within the next six months? Or utilize an email marketing campaign to improve customer retention by 10% this year? Once you’re clear on your goals, you’ll be able to check your progress, instead of aimlessly sending out content to leads and customers. Measure your progress by checking your automation statistics. Are people responding better to a certain type of message? Have you noticed specific leads who are more regularly engaged? Or any that haven’t opened your emails at all? Insights such as these can help you adapt your strategy accordingly, to make sure you’re targeting the right prospects and optimizing your efforts by keeping things fresh and relevant. How to access automations on Wix Any marketeer will tell you that having a top-notch website design is one thing, but if you really want to grow your business, you’ll have to do more than that. As well as making use of these Wix marketing integrations, here’s how you can access automations on Wix: Head over to your site’s dashboard. Click ‘Customer Management’ on the menu on the left-hand side. Click ‘Automations’ to reach the marketing automation page. Use one of the recommended templates or create your own automation. You’ll then be asked to set a trigger (the event that initiates the automatic response) and an action (the reaction, for example sending out an email or a live chat message, creating a task for yourself and so on). Once you’ve created your automation, you’re good to go. Remember to analyze the performance of your automations so that you can keep optimizing and successfully growing your business. Marketing Automation FAQ

Search engine marketing, or SEM, has become a crucial part of marketing. As we search online for answers to all kinds of questions and queries, it’s become increasingly important for brands to know how to position their webpages above those of their competitors. If you’re looking to start a business or get found online, the ideal starting point is to create a website. Once you’ve done that you can pursue various avenues for site promotion. Some of the most important tactics to consider are SEO and SEM. While both SEM and SEO have similar goals and seem the same on the surface, they’re actually quite different. Here, we’ll take a deep dive into search engine marketing and look at how it differs from SEO as well as all the different elements that go into it. If you're looking for more advertisement examples, check out our guide. SEM acronyms you should know Before we dive into the topic, we wanted to help make sure that our terminology is clear and understandable. Adding another acronym to your marketing lexicon can seem daunting, so here’s a refresher of a few acronyms you should know in order to get a good grasp on this topic: SEM - search engine marketing SEO - search engine optimization SERP - search engine results page PPC - pay-per-click ROI - return on investment CTR - click-through rate What is SEM? The basics Search engine marketing is the act of using paid ads to increase a webpage’s visibility on SERPs. SEM can also be used as more of an umbrella term that often encompasses other types of digital marketing strategies, such as PPC and SEO. In general though, when we talk about SEM, we’re referring to advertisements and SERP optimization strategies that are paid rather than organic. Since Google is the most popular search engine, a lot of marketers work with Google Ads to create paid ads, but there are some other platforms you can use as well, which we’ll cover below. When you search for a topic on a search engine like Google, you often see text or product ads at the top of the page that is related to your search terms, and then below that, the organic results which are webpages that match your query. The ads at the top are what advertisers pay for. These are the first results a user will see on their SERP, making it a good way for brands to get their products, ads, blog, or promotions in front of an audience. PPC ads help drive conversions by directing traffic from motivated users directly to your website or dedicated landing page, so using SEM is often a preferred way for businesses to advertise online. While you are spending more money on ad clicks as compared with a more organic method of gaining traffic, like SEO, marketers often see a high ROI when using this type of paid online advertising. SEO vs. SEM: What’s the difference? So, if SEM is all about placing ads at the top of a SERP, isn’t SEO the same thing? Well, not exactly. SEO focuses mainly on organic search results, in other words, getting to the top of a SERP without paying for a click. With SEO, websites rank well on search engines by being the most relevant webpage for the user’s query, without spending a penny on the placement. That being said, there’s no reason why you can’t use both SEM and SEO strategies together. In fact, you might get better results by using the two techniques side-by-side instead of focusing all your marketing efforts on only one avenue of traffic. 9 SEM components to get familiar with There are a lot of different parts that make up search engine marketing. In order to ensure that your SEM strategy is most optimized, it’s crucial to have a good understanding of each one. 01. Keyword research The first thing to familiarize yourself with when it comes to working with search engines, whether you’re focused on SEM or SEO, is getting used to keyword research. Keyword research is the process of discovering the terms that online searchers are using that are relevant to your product or business. A keyword isn’t necessarily just one word, but usually, a short phrase that a user would use as their search query. The purpose of keyword research is to discover terms that are related to your business and that users typically use when searching online. If you do your research well, you can match the terms that someone searches for with targeted campaigns and ads and in so doing, gain a better shot of your website appearing on their results page. There are a lot of different tools you can use to conduct keyword research. You can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner or Wordstream’s Keyword Tool, or opt for paid programs like Ahrefs or SEMRush. If you’re just starting out, play around with the free tools until you’re comfortable, and once you want more specific data, opt for a paid research tool. 02. PPC marketing Pay-per-click marketing is when an advertiser pays every time someone clicks on their ad. PPC marketing can cover a number of different advertising directions including some banner ads and, of course, search engine marketing. This type of marketing differs from more static advertising with which you might pay a flat rate for your ad to appear for a specific amount of time, regardless of how many people interact with it. However, PPC is a little more involved than just paying for clicks. If it were that straightforward, brands with higher budgets would dominate by simply dedicating more money to their ads. Instead, PPC platforms like Google Ads, subject ads to an auction where they are vetted before being displayed on a SERP. In this way, more advertisers have a chance of getting their product in front of an audience. 03. Ad structure Depending on the search engine advertising platform you are using, there might be slightly different rules regarding your ad structure. However, generally speaking, SEM ads are composed of headlines, which are bold and easily visible to the searcher, and descriptions which sit beneath the headlines and provide more detailed information. Ads also usually contain a URL to let the searcher understand more about where they will land when they click. There is usually a character limit to all ad components. It is therefore essential that you utilize the limited space allotted to you wisely. Choose actionable words that clearly describe your product or service. Make it clear to the searcher why they should choose your business over the competition. We suggest utilizing CTAs to help get searchers clicking on your ads. 04. Ad auction and set up The auction an ad goes through is an automated process that begins every time a user searches for a query on a search engine. Essentially, the search engine considers numerous factors regarding the available ads for each query, and decides which ads best answer the searcher’s needs. In an auction, the search engine will determine which ads get displayed on the SERP based on a few different factors. For example, Google will pick winners of ad auctions based on the ads’ relevance, maximum bid and what they refer to as an ad’s quality score, or in other words how relevant and clear your ad content is. These factors together determine the chances of your ads showing up on SERPs. In order for advertisers to participate in ad auctions, they have to set up a few parameters. We touch below on setting up your Google Ads account, but generally speaking here are the essentials for getting your ads up and running. First, provide a list of keywords that you would like to generally compete for. Then, you must provide at least one ad that matches those selected keywords as well as set a budget that you are willing to spend for clicks on these specific ads. When making these selections, refer back to your keyword research. You want to ensure that you’re spending your ad budget well and your ads participate in fruitful auctions. Choose keywords that your intended audience is actually searching for so that you don’t bid on clicks that are irrelevant to your brand. This way, searchers that end up clicking on your ads, will be relevant customers or leads for your business. 05. Quality score for ads Your ad’s quality score, or essentially how on target your ad is, is a crucial metric that can be the determining factor of how often your ad gets displayed to the right users. Google takes both quality score and bid into consideration when placing an ad, so even if your bid is significantly higher than your competitors’, if your ad isn’t well written and relevant to the searchers query it might not get displayed as often. This also impacts how much an advertiser ends up paying per click as the stronger their quality score, the lower their bid may need to be in order to rank. A quality score is a rank given out of 10, and of course, the higher your score the better. It is based on three main factors: the expected CTR of a given ad, the relevance of that ad to the query's intent, and landing page experience, or how relevant your landing page is when people click on your ad. Therefore, to improve your quality score, focus on using keywords that are relevant and specific to the page you’re linking to, writing ads that relate to those keywords, and providing informative and pertinent landing pages. To create landing pages that display information clearly and help drive visitors towards conversion, we suggest using a landing page builder. 06. Ad account structure When opening an account on a platform like Google Ads, you’ll need to invest time into setting up your campaigns so that they’re organized and strategized. With Google Ads you have the opportunity to build a structure that ensures that your ads are placed in a thoughtful manner and helps keep your strategy well organized. You can create campaigns that are centered around a certain goal or alternatively a geographic region of your customers. Within your campaigns you’ll be able to set up ad groups which can revolve around a certain theme or type of keyword that you would like to target. Finally, within each ad group sit multiple keywords that you are targeting, as well as ads. These ads will be in line with the goals and keywords selected for your campaign and ad group. You can write individualized ads per ad group, or you can create a general structure for your ad and then substitute in certain themes or keywords to fit the specific ad group in which they are located. In this way you can create targeted ad copy to match specific goals. We also suggest trying multiple ads within each ad group. This can help you match more than one keyword that is placed in that ad group, as well as enable you to test different ad variations. For example, if you own a shoe store, you might want to focus one campaign on winter boots, and then an entirely different one on sandals for summer. The keywords, landing pages, and text you would use for each would be very different. You may also be willing to bid more money on one than the other, making it wise to split these campaigns up. It might seem time-consuming, but by getting your ads organized, you’ll have an easier time managing them. 07. Targeted ads A good strategy when it comes to creating relevant ads is to target them based on the audience you’re trying to reach. If we continue with the shoe store example, it is likely more lucrative to advertise stiletto heels to women than men, so when setting up your ad campaign, you can opt to not show that specific ad to men in order to make the most of your ad budget. There are a number of ways you can target your ads so that they’re seen by the right people, such as: By age: set age ranges to show your ad only to a certain age group. By gender: opt to display your ad only to men or women. By location: if you have a promo in a specific location, you can set your ad to be displayed to people in the same region only. By device: your product might only be relevant to a certain device, like a mobile app download, so set ads to be displayed to users browsing on specific devices. By schedule: set ads to only be displayed between certain hours so you don’t waste ad clicks during hours when you’re not available or the ad isn’t relevant. At first, you might think that you want your ads to be visible to as many people as possible, but the more constraints and targets you set on each ad, the more relevant they’ll become to the users who actually see them, in turn giving you a better ROI. 08. SEM platforms We already mentioned Google a few times here as a popular SEM platform, but there are others you can consider using as well. Here are some of the main SEM platforms you can use: Google Ads: as the largest search engine, it’s a no-brainer that running ads on Google will put you in front of the widest audience and generate a good ROI. Microsoft Advertising: formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft Advertising is Google’s main runner-up, and it’s worth investing time and budget into this platform alongside your Google ads. Verizon Media Native: what used to be Yahoo! Gemini, Verizon Media Native is now Yahoo!’s PPC platform and is a great alternative to Microsoft Advertising if you’re looking for a secondary SEM platform aside from Google. 09. Campaign and ad optimization Even after you’ve started to run your ads, you should be constantly monitoring and updating them. Take a look at your campaigns regularly to see how they’re performing and adjust your ad spend, keywords or ad copy accordingly. After some time, you’ll be able to see which keywords and ads are strong performers and which aren’t yielding the results you expected. The ones that are generating more clicks are the ones you should be paying more attention to, both because they’re gaining you more traffic and because you’re spending more on those ads. Once you’re comfortable analyzing your ad metrics and you can pinpoint where you’re succeeding, you can then set negative keywords. These are keywords you’re telling a search engine you don’t want to rank for because they’re irrelevant to your brand and eating up your ad spend budget. You can also narrow down your targets such as demographic or location once you get a better overview of who your audience is and where they’re coming from. How SEM is evolving While search engine marketing has allowed advertisers to create their own ads and optimize their campaigns as they see fit for years, they are now shifting towards a more automatic, AI marketing approach. For example, you can set Google Ads to only display your best performing ads, so you don’t waste your budget on ads that have lower ROIs. Google also provides the option for you to feed the system multiple ad headlines and descriptions and it will automatically combine them for the most ideal ad in any given auction. Another automated option is to give Google the landing page that you would like to lead searchers to, and allow Google to create the ad headlines for you. This is referred to as DSA, or Dynamic Search Ads. With this format, the search engine scans your pages, determines what they are discussing and then automatically creates related headlines to give searchers a true taste of what they are about to experience. These new options can free up time for search engine marketers and have the potential to shift the business going forward.

As someone who has chosen to create a website, you already know how crucial SEO is for your online success. By influencing how Google perceives and ranks your website in search results, you’re more likely to drive more traffic to your pages. It also helps to attract visitors with the right intention, meaning that they are actively looking for a business, product or service like yours. This results in higher chances of visitors converting. There are different levels of optimization techniques and features you can opt for when creating a website. For example, if you’re a business owner just starting out, you can take advantage of the Wix SEO checklist, which creates a personalized checklist of all the SEO elements you need to cover - on top of enabling instant indexing of your homepage by Google. However, if you’ve been in the game for longer, or simply want to take control of exactly how your pages are displayed in search results and on social networks, then keep reading. In an effort to continuously improve its offering and cater to professional users, Wix has several SEO tools designed to help you work more efficiently. From canonical URLs to structured data, let’s discover how to use these features to the fullest: How to use Wix SEO to optimize your site: Meta tags for social media share Structured data Canonical URL Image optimization Indexing 01. Meta tags for social media share You know the important role that social media plays in the success of your business. Ensuring that your brand remains consistent throughout all social channels is imperative to your image and reputation. So, where does this come into play? We’ve all experienced that moment when scrolling through Facebook only to see a shared link that looks a little ‘off’ - a cropped image or some automatically extracted text that makes no sense. It’s definitely not something you wish your followers (or potential clients) to see. With the Social Share panel in your Wix editor, you can control exactly how each page of your site looks, from the text to the image, when shared on the major social media platforms. Here are some helpful formatting guidelines: Image size: The recommended size is at least 1200 x 630 pixels. Title: The length should be 55-70 characters (including spaces). Description: The length should be 100 - 300 characters (again, including spaces). How to customize the social media meta tags of your Wix pages: 1. Open your Wix editor. 2. Click ‘Pages’ (on the left hand side of the editor). 3. Choose the page you wish to customize. 4. Select the ‘Social Share’ tab. 5. Upload an image and update the text that will show when your site is shared to any social network. 02. Structured data Adding structured data to your pages is highly advantageous for your website architecture and helps Google contextualize your content. For example, if you have a physical location, adding a schema markup on your contact page will help the bots understand that “123-456-789” is not just a series of numbers - it’s actually your phone number, and should be used to provide better and richer results to searchers. The same goes for your restaurant menu, postal address, opening hours, ratings and more. Structured data language was harmonized by Schema.org in 2011, which explains why we also refer to this as “schema markup”. Start using it as an excellent way to grab the attention of potential clients amongst an endless sea of competitors. How to add schema.org structured data to your Wix website: 1. Prepare your schema. You can generate the structured data using a tool like Schema Markup Generator. 2. Open your Wix editor. 4. On your panel, select the ‘Advanced SEO’ tab. 5. Under ‘Structured Data Markup’, select ‘Add New Markup’ and paste your schema in JSON-LD format. 6. After you’ve added your schema, use the ‘Validate Your Markup on Google’ button to check that there are no errors. Wix also validates the schema within the structured data field. It's important to note that you only get access to this tool if you have a Wix Premium Plan. 03. Canonical URL In the event that you create two pages that show identical or similar information you have to explain to Google which URL should be treated as the main version and therefore appear in search results. For example, if you write a blog article called, "Answering All Your Questions: What is SEO and how does it affect your ranking in 2019?" you will use the same keywords, structure and, for some parts, content as you did for your 2018 version. Although the original post is still valuable, you’ll want people to be directed to the newest one, every time they look for “web design trends” in their search engine. Implementing a canonical URL solves this issue. It’s important to note that Wix automatically adds a self-referential canonical tag to your site. Unless there is a good reason (like the example above) to change the canonical tag you should keep it as is. Additionally, you can customize your default canonical if you need to. 04. Image optimization Image optimization is an important part of optimizing your website’s performance. Good site performance is crucial for a great user experience on your site and anything that is good for the user is likely to improve your SEO as well. First of all, all images uploaded to your Wix site are optimized to fit the relevant screen, without sacrificing quality. Images can also be converted to WebP by Wix, which aids faster downloads. On top of this Wix websites use lazy loading and temporary placeholders - these make sure users get priority content first, while the rest of it loads. Along with automatic caching, which serves return users a saved version of your site and improves page load speed, by avoiding a long sever request, there are several ways in which your images are optimized for your sites performance. 05. Indexing Wix has a number of SEO features that help you control how your site is crawled and indexed by Google. The first is the auto create and submit sitemap feature - it creates and submits your site to Google, so it knows what to crawl. The editable robots.txt file allows you to choose which of your pages Google sees and crawls, and which it doesn’t. And, the Google Search Console integration gives you not only access to this popular Google tool and all of its data on your organic traffic, it also helps Google index your site or identify issues to fix that might be preventing your pages from being indexed. This is crucial to getting your business found on Google.

Climate catastrophes like droughts and increased hurricanes, wreak havoc on small business owners' finances. Yafa Cafe was just one of many New York restaurants that had to temporarily shut down their business after 2021’s Hurricane Ida. “[The flooding] was a hard stop on everything because we had just lost a bunch of our inventory,” says Hakim Sulaimani, the cafe owner and Wix user. While the Brooklyn cafe’s customer base and local community was able to raise $20,000 for the cafe in six hours after the hurricane, the “slow drip” of climate change—or the increased day-to-day costs that come from environmental changes — can hurt long-term financial outlooks just as much as the floods. For example, Yafa Cafe imports its main product, coffee beans, from Yemen which has been facing droughts for years. “Importing beans is already a process and from a war-torn country,” Sulaimani says. “But the supplies are low [due to droughts] and it makes it twice as difficult to create a space where this coffee is accessible to everyone. What happens is that coffee is sold at really expensive [prices], at least good coffee.” Sign up for The Wix Blog newsletter to get great reads plus helpful content about deciding to create a website and running your business in today’s online world— all delivered weekly to your inbox. A 2021 survey found that two-thirds of small to medium-size businesses worry they don’t have the right skills and knowledge to handle the impact of climate change in their industries. Even if they can recover from disaster, they’re not able to reach their own long-term sustainability goals due to a lack of skills and understanding (63%), funding (48%) and time (40%), the survey found. Initiatives like Climate Fit, a collaboration between several organizations like the United Nations and Oxford University, aim to bridge the skills gap. This hub brings practical tools and free online training courses (with 20 minute videos) to small and medium-size business owners. Topics include helping them secure green financing, promoting employee education and incorporating sustainable marketing into their strategy after they start a business. In terms of funding, many US businesses are seeking to build more sustainable operations. According to Bloomberg, sustainability-linked loans hit a 292% increase in May 2021 compared to all of 2020. There are current government grants—for example, the State of California has a directory of grants available to businesses who want to manage their emissions. Time, however, presents a more difficult hurdle. Shirel Berger, owner and chef of Opa Restaurant in Tel Aviv, says she’s spending more of her time figuring out supply chain substitutes for things that were once abundant. “The winter [in Israel] isn’t cold enough, so we don’t get enough olives on trees or nectarines and plums for the summer,” she says. So far, she’s mitigated this by working with organic small growers and developing a “dynamic menu,” never serving the same dish each season. But there’s the question of how long this innovative stopgap plan will remain sustainable. “I do think that it’s going to be harder to find produce,” she says. Berger’s plant-based menu keeps the fine dining restaurant’s greenhouse gas emissions down, however, this determination is not always compatible with her business’s demands: “We really try to source local and pollute as little as possible, but it’s not 100 percent.” Left with little choice, small businesses are adjusting to the effects of climate change, but Sulaimani says many owners are still missing an opportunity to better engage with their customers: “We live in an age of conscious consumers… I think most of our customers really appreciate understanding what’s going on around the world, supply chains, where their products come from, and what are the factors impacting that. It’s a learning lesson for everybody.”

If you have ever decided to create your own website , you probably have asked the question before, " What is SEO? " Even if you're still building your website SEO knowledge, you probably know that keywords are an important part of getting found online. Adding specific keywords to your website’s content can help it show up on Google when someone searches for the specific key phrase. So, how do you go about finding the best ones? Well, a keyword or key phrase isn’t just something you pluck from your brain and run with. In order to find the best-suited keyword options to get your website found on search engines, research is required. You'll want to keep your customer intent in mind during your research process. When it comes to how to do keyword research , you have more than a few options at your disposal. Since you’re trying to rank well on Google, it’s easy to assume you should use its own keyword research tools, and technically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, other tools can provide some context for you to see the bigger picture. Below, we’re going to show you 10 great keyword research tools you should definitely try when getting started with keyword research for your own DIY SEO strategy : 10 keyword research tools Google Keyword Planner Semrush Ahrefs Google Trends G-Trendalyser Google.com Incognito Moz Keyword Planner Google Search Console Keywords Everywhere (extension) Also Asked 01. Google Keyword Planner Let’s get the most obvious option out of the way first. Google’s own Keyword Planner provides a fairly easy to understand approach to keyword research. Simply type in the keyword or phrase you want information on, and boom: You’ll see the average monthly searches for your keyword, the competition of others using this keyword, and both the low to high “top of page” bid prices, giving you a range of how much you can expect to pay per bid if you decide to use Google Ads. Technically speaking, it’s not hard to access the Google Keyword Planner, but you will need to create an Adwords account and provide credit or debit card information before you can access it. While you won’t have to actually pay for anything to use the planner, it’s a hurdle some people jump over only begrudgingly. Changes to the planner have also made it less useful as a keyword planning tool - it no longer shows precise volumes for keywords, opting instead to show a range. This number can range between 1K- 10K on a single keyword. So it's not necessarily as accurate as it use to be. However this aside, according to Ofir Buchsweiler, SEO Content Expert at Wix , it is an important keyword research tool for understanding how Google's algorithm looks at topics and related user intents. We could argue this is more important when choosing keywords than specific volumes so we're definitely not ready to write this tool of just yet. Bottom line : This free option is for people who want a no-frills keyword research tool directly from Google itself. 02. Semrush Semrush is a favorite of many, thanks to its vast number of features it brings to its users. And if you’re looking for an all-in-one SEO platform, there’s a reason you’ll find this one at the top of many lists. Whether you’re looking into standard or long-tail keyword research, or even the keywords most used by your competitors, Semrush has your back. With its Keyword Magic tool, you’ll be able to get over 2 million results and have them grouped together by topic. These are just a few of the several features this platform has on offer. It also includes traffic analytics, advertising research, and much, much more. For Kyle Place, SEO Content Expert at Wix , Semrush is a go to because it shows the intent of the keyword, making it easy to get an overview of the keyword when exporting large data sets, especially into pivot tables. i love how semrush shows the intent of the keyword which makes it to get an easy overview when you export large data sets, especially in a pivot table Semrush is also great for making competitor analysis easy. Wether you want to delve in deep with its domain overview tool and get an idea of what other websites are ranking for and with what pages, or wether you want to use its keyword gap feature to compare what you are ranking for, compared to your competitors - including where you are ranking better or worse than them, and important keywords you may be missing out on. But even a simple keyword overview search on Semrush will give you a lot of information on your competitors, if they're ranking for a keyword you plan to target. You can see if they're ranking for it, and if they are just how many backlinks that page has, as well the precise number and other keywords the page ranks for, and how much traffic it generates. These are all important for understanding your ability to rank, and what you can expect from ranking. Let's use the example of the keyword 'create a website.' The number 1 ranking result is, https://www.wix.com/. It has 35.4K referring domains, 414.04K backlinks, 1.0M search traffic and 21.2K registered for the url. These metrics alone show how competitive this SERP and ranking here would be a tough task. If you’re just looking for a keyword research tool, you’ll find it here and there are a number of free searches you can do with Semrush but a paid plan is the best option. Bottom line : Semrush is best for those who want a full suite of SEO tools and don’t mind paying for it. 03. Ahrefs Another very popular tool for keyword research comes from Ahrefs , and it packs a punch in the features department. The Ahrefs keyword tool not only offers a great feature set, but it’s also likely the easiest on the eyes. With great charts to visually show you the strength of your keyword, it’s definitely a little less intimidating than some of the other tools on this list. One of the primary insights is the Keyword difficulty, which can provide suggestions on how to best take advantage of it, like adding backlinks. Ahrefs offers some flexibility for your research, specifically where your keyword is ranking. You’re able to search from a multitude of locations, whether it’s Google, YouTube, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, or Amazon. For Kyle Place, SEO Content Expert at Wix , Ahrefs is a leader in the keyword research tool field with features such as its position history graph, SERP overview and traffic potential. You can see the historical data on a keyword, who else is ranking for it and the amount of traffic you could expect to generate once ranking for it. From the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer tool we can glean a treasure trove of information about a keyword and how to target, but also how to build supporting content around it. Let's take the keyword ' start a blog ,' searched for from the US. Straight off, and all on the same page we can see that this keyword's US volume is 3.3K, global volume is 15K and its traffic potential if ranking first is 900. We also get its terms match and related questions - and this data shows us that 'how to start a blog' has a much higher volume for the US, 22K, and if we really want to go after traffic we should probably target this keyword as well as 'start a blog,' to maximize our organic potential. We can also see the top ten pages ranking for this keyword, both letting us know what kind of content we would need to produce in order to rank, but it also gives us an idea of the intent for this keyword. If the first page is filled with blog posts ranking, so this is the type of page we should create to target it. If its mainly product pages which take you directly to opening a blog - so this is the type of page we should target the keyword with. The same feature also gives us an idea of the keyword difficulty - a general feel of the competitiveness of the keyword in terms of our ability to rank with it. "Ahrefs is the 'Swiss Knife' version of SEO tools when it comes to covering needs. Probably the best in the industry when it comes to internal/external links tools, accurate KW research (compared to competitors) with a solid content explorer along with an underrated rank tracker and side audit options that are a viable option for people who want a one stop shop to run their SEO efforts." Ido Shazkin, SEO Content Expert at Wix. Ido acknowledges that "Ahrefs is not the most user friendly tool - but it meets the more savvy marketers needs when it comes to expanding features and discovering more practically & usable opportunities for research and growth (Calendar ranking, comparing titles to actual SERP etc...).It's also worth noting they have a very interesting blog worth following and their "how to" video's on using the platform are spot on." Bottom line : Ahrefs offers an all-in-one SEO suite that isn’t free, but brings a lot to the table. It's also evolving all the time, with new features being added and improved 04. Google Trends Google Trends can be fun to see what’s popular on the search engine, but it can also just as easily be used for your keyword research. Simply type in your subject and you’ll be presented with a timeline, showing the popularity of your keyword. You can apply filters for location, time (default is 12 months), category, and search type. The latter allows you to filter between a standard web search, YouTube, news, image, or Google Shopping search. Below the timeline, you’ll see a couple of charts that break down the popularity of your search term by subregions, which can be helpful for local SEO. Below that, you’ll see related topics and queries that may further help you optimize your keywords. It's also useful for planning seasonal content, if that's useful for your business - and to understand what keywords trends when throughout the year. This is important for eCommerce stores, for example, looking to make the most out of holiday and seasonal shopping searches and trends. The keyword ' christmas presents for men ' searched for from the US, starts to increase in volume from the end of October, reaching a peak by mid December, at which point it dramatically drops and plateaus until October the following year. New content or refreshing legacy content targeting on this keyword should e done in time to reach the wave of the search trend, in order to maximize on its traffic potential. Bottom line : Google Trends is 100% free and is great to get inspiration and optimization tips on keywords. 05. G-Trendalyser If you're looking for keyword research at the trend level, so G-Trendalyser is another great place to start. This free tool is great for understanding more about emerging rising trends pulled from Google trends, and is a great start if you're planning on targeting more trendy and topical keywords for maximum traffic potential. This might put you in direct competition with news sites but if that's your target, this is a good tool to use. This tool recommendation came to us directly from Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications at Wix. It's super simple to use, simply add your keyword or trend, choose your relevant country and then decide if you want to see trends from the past hour, past four hours, past day, past 7 days, 30 days, 90 days or past 5 years. It's a great way to track trends also and to help you get better a spotting trend peaks and falls. We added the keyword ' nft ', from the US over the past 30 days. We found out that the top trends around this topic (by order of value) are: nft meaning, what is nft, gamestop nft, nft marketplace, nft art, what is an nft, nfts, nft price . Our next step would be further research - what are the intent, volumes, traffic potential and competitiveness of these keywords? Could some of these be targeted with one article, perhaps ' What are nfts ?' Could there be potential for other articles here targeting nft price, nft marketplaces and nft art separately. 06. Google.com Incognito If you're looking to get started with keyword research and aren't sure where to begin, it can help to have an idea of what keywords you should be looking further into and which you should put aside. One of the easiest ways to do this is to search for keywords you may already have in mind, related to your site or business, in Google.com but in incognito mode. Searching in incognito means you aren't shown results based on your previous search history, online preferences and past actions or your cache . It gives you an unbiased look at the SERP and can show you what kind of website pages and content rank for a keyword (intent) and your competitors who are ranking for it. Right click on Chrome and choose a New Incognito Window. Make sure you're on google and then search away. Let's say I want to write a blog post targeting ' marketing strategies .' A quick incognito google search shows me that everything ranking for that keyword is a blog article, so the intent is informational and I should aim to create a blog article too. It also shows me who is already ranking for that specific term - and that my competition for ranking, the Shopify blog for example, is pretty tough. My blog article will need to be of the highest quality, meet the search intent incredibly well and ideally have strong, high value backlinks behind it. Based on this I might then choose to take my marketing strategies keyword into another research tool and understand if there is something less competitive I could rank for first, as I build up my site's authority in this field. You can also make use of Google's autofill in search to create new keyword ideas to then research further. A quick typing of 'marketing strategies' into google search sees e other keyword variations popping up - marketing strategies examples, marketing strategies for small business, marketing strategies to increase sales. Bottom line : a Google search in Incognito is a great place to start if you're looking for basic keyword ideas to drive more detailed, actionable research. 07. Moz Keyword Explorer Moz is a great resource for all things SEO, so it’s unsurprising that it also offers a fantastic keyword research tool. Your standard set of features are present, such as keyword search volume , as well as the ability to generate and save keyword lists, but that’s not all. You can do a deep dive into long-tail keywords in question format, optimize your keywords for your international audiences, and advanced competitive keyword analytics. Those are just some of the features that you’ll get with the Moz Keyword Explorer. While it’s probably not a complete deal-breaker, you’ll need to sign up for an account just to use the tool. Bottom line : The SEO experts at Moz have created a fantastic free tool for keyword research that’s not intimidating to use. 08. Google Search Console Google Search Console provides a wealth of information about the organic performance of your website and it can be very helpful for keyword research, just perhaps not in the way you’d expect. The Search Console will only provide terms that you’re currently ranking for, so if you’re looking to research potential new keywords, then another tool may be better suited for your needs. However, seeing what phrases people are using to find you on Google can help further optimize and expand on what’s already there. You can do this by finding more search terms around topics you already rank well for. Let's say you already rank well for ' create a website ,' and you can see this in Google Search Console. You might then want to research other related terms, using some of the other keyword research tools mentioned in this piece, to build on that ranking and traffic momentum. Ideas such as 'create a business website,' or 'create a tourism website,' might be good terms to target. You could even find that some key phrases could be performing better with a couple of on-page tweaks. To do this we recommend filtering your Google Search Console by Queries last 28 days and then by Position (remember this is an average for the time frame you've chosen) ordered from highest to lowest. Work through your non-ranking queries - can you figure out why you're not ranking, and what you could do to turn it around. Better content? Improved on-page optimizations? Google Search Console is also great for understanding how well you're ranking, and how much traffic you're generating for branded search terms. To do this choose New > Query > Queries Containing > Your business or brand name. This will show you the branded queries you rank for, with which page of your site and how well you rank, plus if they bring organic traffic and how much. You can then also plug your branded queries into any of the keyword research tools mentioned in this article to understand if your competitors are targeting them, and potentially ranking higher for them - it happens. It's also a great branding exercise and to make sure you're represented with your most relevant pages for branded searches. Wether it's a product page or a blog article make sure the content that ranks best represents the strength and value of your brand. Need some help getting off the ground with the Google Search Console? Check out our Ultimate Beginner’s Guide. Bottom line : The Google Search Console is a free tool that can help you get insights on your existing keywords and how to optimize them. 09. Keywords Everywhere (extension) If you’re sick of spending a countless amount of time on individual keyword research tools, you can lighten your load with the Keywords Everywhere extension for Chrome and Firefox web browsers. This freemium extension allows you to get useful information for keywords without needing to go to a dedicated site. A simple Google search will automatically yield related keywords to your search query as well as a “people also search for” section to the right of the search results. If you’re looking to mine more info on your search (and you probably are), then you’ll need to purchase credits to get details about search volume, CPC, and competition. These details will appear directly within the autocomplete box while searching and below the search bar after you’ve executed the search. Bottom line : Keywords everywhere is a paid extension that takes a lot of the grunt work out of keyword research since it’s built-in into your browser after it’s added. 10. Also Asked This is a great keyword research tool which you can use free for a set number of searches over a predefined period, or you can make use of their paid plans. Be warned this tool is highly addictive and useful, so if you're going to give it a try best to be prepared to add it to your SEO arsenal for good. First of when you enter a keyword to research, you can choose your language and geo - our default is the US but we love that we could also look from pretty much anywhere else in the world. It also currently supports searches in 44 plus languages, so for localization teams and both local and international SEOs, it's an important tool to know. The strength of Also Asked lies in how it represents the data - we love the visualization of the related search terms and questions from a keyword. It also breaks it down via a hierarchical graph which helps us understand the most important topics within an entity and which to prioritize with our keyword targeting and content. By plugging in the keyword ' what is seo ', from this tool we can understand that the next level of potential terms to target include: what is SEO and how it works , what is SEO in simple terms , what are the 4 types of SEO and what is meant by Google SEO . Any article writing about ' what is seo ' should probably then address these potential target keywords, assuming more in-depth research into the intent behind them and their competitiveness checks out. The never level of the chart then gives ideas for keywords that might work for new content creation ideas - how do you do SEO marketing, how much does SEO cost - which allow you to build authority around your SEO content. Bottom line: great for understanding keywords as topics, and for building hierarchy between keywords within a subject. A good first step for new topic ideas, although you'll need other keyword research tools to understand the intent, potential traffic and competitiveness of a keyword. Interested to learn more about SEO topics and techniques? Check out the Wix SEO Hub for the most updated and relevant content. You can also check out these tips to optimize your Wix website for more inspiration.

When you create a website for your business, you want it to do more than just inform prospective customers. While your website should educate, it should also actively help visitors achieve their goals. Your customer will visit your website with unique intentions, and you must consider how they’ll experience your site. To shape your site to create the best outcome for both you and visitors, user journey maps can tremendously benefit the design process. In the following guide, we’ll look at what a user journey map is and the benefits of using them for your website design—plus we’ll detail the steps you need to create one. What is a user journey map? A user journey map, also referred to as a customer journey map, is a diagram that depicts a user’s interactions with a product over time. Typically represented by a flow chart, user journey maps are a common UX design research and planning tool. Anyone designing a website can create journey maps to improve their site’s user experience. Typically, UX designers complete the research and planning involved in user journey mapping before they design a website for the following reasons: It’s a strategic exercise: User journey mapping gets you thinking about who your visitors are, their goals and what they want and need from your site to accomplish them. Helps visualize the user flow: By visualizing your visitors’ steps throughout the site, you’ll understand their thought process as they work to achieve their goal. What are the benefits of creating a user journey map? Designing a website with user journey mapping is a user-centered method that will help you empathize more with the user when designing your site’s content and information architecture. Because user journey mapping allows you to anticipate visitors’ behaviors, your design will result in a more positive user experience. User journey maps will also help you with: More confident decision-making Journey mapping allows you to remove inefficiencies and mitigate risks as you visualize your customers’ experience. Website optimization Business owners can use user journey maps to influence visitors to click on CTAs and increase site conversions. It can also help them build an intuitive website structure that people feel comfortable navigating. How to create a user journey map With user journey mapping, you should understand who your visitors are, why they’re on your site, and what’s going to help them achieve their goals. The steps below will enable you to create a user journey map that anticipates your visitors’ needs and how they browse it: Get an app to help you map out your user’s journey Figure out who your ideal users are Create user personas Define the scope of the user journey map List the key phases and touchpoints Think about user goals and actions at each phase Make an empathy map for the user journey Anticipate problems along the journey Think about opportunities for optimization Collect data, review and revamp your journey maps 01. Get an app to help you map out your user’s journey While you could use a spreadsheet or a flow chart maker to create a user journey map, it’ll take more time than using a UX tool built specifically for user journey mapping. Use these tools to add and remove fields to your map, rearrange the steps and edit its visual appearance. Many times, you’ll have the option of starting from scratch or using a pre-made user journey template that suits your needs. 02. Figure out who your ideal users are When starting a business, you usually have a general idea of your target audience. User journey mapping goes further to discover your niche. Typically, you’ll find your ideal segment of users at the intersection of what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, and where there’s a growing demand for what you do. Go ahead and fill in the blanks: Experience: _______________________ Passion: __________________________ Demand: _________________________ What sits at the intersection between all three? That’s your ideal customer. 03. Create user personas Once you’ve identified your ideal user, research them to better know who they are. Use your insights to create user personas that realistically communicate the people most likely to visit your site. User personas are fictional users who represent the needs, personality and goals of a larger archetypal user group. In addition to adding a “real” name and photo to user persona profiles, you’ll fill in details related to: Basic demographics Interests Professional or personal details Motivations Core needs Pain points Quotes that describe what they think or how they feel Many brands have numerous user personas. Create profiles for each of your target personas. When you’re done, choose one to start with and include them in your user journey map. If your brand is new or yet to launch, you might not have much existing data to pull from. You can use tools to learn about your ideal user, even if they’re not your current user: User interviews: Round up interviewees who represent potential users, and ask them questions related to your brand. Keep in mind that this information needs to help you learn more about your average or potential user, as well as what kind of online experience will encourage them to sign up. For example, What do you do for a living? Why did you start your business? Have you ever considered using a service like ours? Why? What would convince you to work with our services? Rank your top 3 reasons. Social media listening: Social media is a powerful tool when creating user personas, since it helps you know potential users more personally. By gathering data on what your target users talk about, you’ll understand what motivates them to engage with other brands and can apply that to your site as well. 04. Define the scope of the user journey map The more granular your user journey maps, the more precise your web design. You can (and should) create user journey maps for the different interactions customers have with your brand and your website. When mapping out the user journey for new visitors, focus on what their first site experience should look like as they discover more about your product. Once you have an initial interaction with a target user, build on it. With returnees, for example, think more about what long-term loyal customers want when they enter the site, such as checking out new products or rewards programs. Break down the scope of each interaction with the following details: User: This is a segment of our user persona. For example, “it’s a lead we targeted on Facebook.” Goal: What is the user’s goal during this particular visit? If the user found an ad advertising a discounted course, for example, their goal is to find out more about it. User Flow: Provide a basic summary of how you expect this interaction to go. For example, you anticipate that a user who landed on your site through a Facebook ad will want to first read more details and then purchase your product. What follows in the user journey map will help you figure out what’s needed on your website to increase the likelihood that they will complete their purchase at the end of the visit. 05. List the key phases and touch points By defining certain phases of the user journey, you’ll start visualizing in detail how users get to your site, why they arrived and how they’ll interact with it. Each phase outlined in your map should include the various touch points where these interactions happen. You can also think of these phases as your goals for their visit. Discovery: Visitors find your brand and site through a targeted Facebook ad. Video: Visitors are brought to a landing page of your site featuring a video that introduces your brand. Learn: Visitors read more information about what you do and what they’re going to get from your offering. Purchase: Visitors pay for your services with a simple two-step checkout process. Email phase: Visitors receive a “thank you” email with relevant details to get started and stay in touch. As you fill in this part of the user journey map, consider the following questions: What is the source of this website traffic? In other words, what lured in these users? You can optimize these off-site touch points to increase not only your quantity of traffic, but the quality of it, too. What is the first page they’ll see on your site? For this particular user journey, does it make sense for them to enter through the home page? Or is it better to take them to a dedicated landing page where they can focus on a specific product or service? Where should they end their journey? When considering the best (and most realistic) ending point for visitors, think about both their needs and your own goals. For example, after visitors learn about your brand, you probably want to take them straight to a purchase page with the goal of converting. However, what if a visitor isn’t ready to purchase? You can still hold on to that lead by leading them to sign up for your weekly newsletter. 06. Think about user goals and actions at each phase Now that you’ve mapped the various phases, write out the user's specific goals for arriving at this touchpoint and what actions they’ll take to achieve it. Objective-setting will help you understand what drives your users forward and anticipate what most visitors want to happen when they get to each stage. For example: Discovery: If I click this ad, I’ll see if this offer is as legitimate as it seems. Video: If I watch this video, I’ll get a high-level overview of this course. Learn: If I read through this page, the coach will address any doubts I have about this course. Purchase: If I click this “Buy Now” button, I’ll be directed to checkout. Email: If I open up my email, I can get started on the course right away. 07. Make an empathy map for the user journey A user’s emotions heavily influence their journey. If your website doesn’t elicit the right kind of emotional reaction—be it relief, joy, excitement, or something else—visitors might not end up where you want them to. A user journey map should reflect potential shifts in the user’s mood, behavior and thought process as they continue through each phase. This information allows you to determine the best way to use or influence that emotional state to help them accomplish their goals. An “Overall Sentiment” section can depict your user’s mood. You can describe these using text or visuals, including emojis and colors and descriptions to show how their feelings transform over the course of their journey. Additionally, a “Think & Feel” section is where you can write out quotes that represent how your users feel during each phase. To complete this part of the map, go back to the research you did earlier. Through user interviews and social listening, you should have some helpful soundbytes. Familiarize yourself with your users’ language so you can craft feelings that sound just like them. 08. Anticipate problems along the journey No website is flawless. Even leading brands that have been online for decades must consistently work on refining the user experience. Knowing this, add a “problems” section to your user journey map. This section helps you anticipate where your users may encounter friction, so you can solve these issues in the future. In some cases, it could relate to your web design. For instance, a lengthy checkout form might lead users to abandon your site. In other cases, the problem could be something larger—like a lack of brand reputation. Writing the problems that may keep users from moving to the next step, will help you critically consider and solve how to design your website around them. 09. Think about opportunities for optimization The “Opportunities” part of a user journey map is where you’ll hypothesize ways to optimize the user experience. Treat this section like a brain dump for all the things you can do to improve the user journey. Once you’ve got a list of ideas, you can look around for case studies and research to back up your hypotheses. Tap into what’s worked for others and load up your “Opportunities” section with data-backed ideas to improve your own users’ journey. 10. Collect data, review and revamp your journey maps Your initial research helped you get to know your users and how you can optimize your site for them. However, your live website’s data unlocks the next phase in designing the ideal journey. Once your site goes live, start monitoring traffic to measure your initial user journey mapping’s effectiveness. Identify the following data: The most visited landing pages on your website Which pages users most commonly visit next How the subsequent flow throughout the website looks Which areas of the site experience the greatest loss of users You can use website analytics or visualization tools to watch your user journeys play out in real time and historically, plus see what happens when different users enter your website. One last thing you can do at this stage is get feedback from actual users. By conducting user interviews, adding a feedback form to your site or running online surveys, you can gain real input about your site experience Once you’ve identified the problems along your designed user journey, return to your map and update it accordingly. This real user data can help highlight new opportunities and revamp your user journey, making solid, data-backed redesign decisions for your site far into the future.

When spearheading a new or updated content strategy initiative for your clients, it’s vital that you help them understand what’s driven their success in the past. That’s why content audits are such an important part of the content strategy process; it’s an opportunity to assess the value of each piece of content you currently have in your arsenal. Armed with this information, you can discard or revise outdated content, or craft a plan to fill gaps in your current content marketing offering. Looking to understand how to start a blog? Get started with the Wix blog maker. How to run a content audit for your blog or website Focus on performing content Locate all the content and prioritize new work Catalogue by desired KPI and key topics Asses whether the content needs updating Use analytics to find out what is (and isn’t) performing on search Determine where new content is needed Build a plan for outdated content Schedule regular content health checks 01. Focus on performing content A content audit helps illuminate content that’s already working in your client’s favor, giving agencies the potential to improve the site’s performance before new content is even created. In fact, more than half of marketers say that repurposing existing content can be one of a brand’s most efficient content marketing tactics, according to a survey by SEMrush. It also singles out pieces of content that are cluttering up their website and SEO ranking so you can take immediate steps fix or remove them. Cleaning out a site’s low-performing content helps Google recognize it as a reputable, authoritative source which can lead to improved SEO and traffic. For example, when Ahrefs cut 31.7% of their content in a recent audit and saw a 7.57% traffic increase in just 60 days. 02. Locate all the content and prioritize new work Depending on your company's content marketing journey thus far you might have just a few years of content to audit — or they might have a decade or more of material to wade through. Tackle the content from the past three-to-five years first, since it will likely be most relevant. See what content within that window best serves your key metrics. Prioritize those items and use them to model future content creation. When you look through the entire content inventory, you may find articles from before that five-year window that are still drawing traffic. Those pieces merit prioritizing along with the newer material. 03. Catalogue by desired KPI and key topics Identify which metrics matter most to your client’s audience, such as audience engagement, sales conversions or SEO. Then focus on the content that is best suited to boost those metrics. Some of it may already be performing well, and other content that’s currently underperforming might have the potential to become a success with a simple refresh. Once you solidify the type of data you are collecting why, use your audit to improve your client’s labeling and archiving process. Content should be easy to find and access by anyone on the content team who needs to use it. Create your audit spreadsheet with tabs that clearly label each data point. 04. Assess whether the content needs updating While some outdated blog posts will need to go, odds are there are plenty that can serve your goals — they just need a bit of sprucing up. Save your clients time and money by repurposing pieces of content that were prescient or performed very well and just need a few updates to keep them relevant. You may need to update stylistic aspects as well, in case your company's brand voice and terminology has evolved or shifted in the past few years. A few copy edits will ensure that older but still helpful content doesn’t sound dated or in the context of your brand's newer messaging and verbiage. 05. Use analytics to find out what is (and isn’t) performing on search Improve SEO by updating out-of-date internal links, optimizing your metadata and URLs, and tagging your client’s content. Look out for pieces that might be overstuffed with keywords or too short. This sort of content can still be very informative and beneficial to your client’s audience; it just needs a quick copy edit or expansion to perform better. Learn more about how to use Wix Analytics to audit your content. 06. Determine where new content is needed Are all key topics represented in your current content mix? Once you have a comprehensive inventory of your content and have made sure that their existing pieces are set up to best help them, you can structure your content strategy around the type of content that organically performs the best for them. For example, a developer of enterprise technology certainly should feature content that illuminates the need for the company’s products. At the same time, the company’s acquisition strategy will benefit from content that solidifies its industry expertise. To achieve that goal, your content plan might include a blog series that features company leaders’ take on the significance of recent news in enterprise tech. 07. Build a plan for outdated content For every piece of content you audit, ask yourself: Is this piece bringing traction? Should it be? If the answer is no, trash it. If it has potential, see if it would benefit from trimming away the excess, or if certain parts of the blog post might be beneficial in a different piece altogether. Revise, trash, or replace each piece of content with a fresh piece that can live under the same URL and capitalize on the SEO standing of the outdated piece. 08. Schedule regular content health checks While a thorough content audit will set you up to improve your content strategy, remember that it’s worth briefly analyzing any content library about once a year to make sure that an organization’s content strategy continues to align with its business goals. The best content in the world only works if the right people read it and it delivers the desired results, so set your clients up to ensure that their content is always working for them.