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Just like when you create a website , starting a YouTube channel means you've got to get a promotional plan in place early on. How else will you get the views you hoped for? Even with a handful of Youtube videos under your belt, you may not have dove into one of the most important aspects of the process as you should have: YouTube SEO. Getting high rankings on YouTube is a result of two things. First, you’ll need to appeal to the platform, but you’ll also need to appeal to your audience so you actually get higher view counts and subscribers. Start with a great YouTube channel name and you'll be almost ready to get started. Up to the task? Awesome, as we’ve got some great SEO tips to help you with your YouTube marketing and a few engagement strategies to reel in your viewers. How to go about Youtube SEO Keyword research Youtube optimization Appeal to viewers Viewer retention Don't forget your CTA 01. Keyword research After starting your YouTube channel , you’ve got to upload that first video to make it official. First you’ll be asked to fill out the title, description, and tags for it. Sounds easy enough, but this is one of the most important parts of the process and it’s not something you want to do haphazardly. However, you have some homework to do first. Before you even begin filling out your title or description, you’ll want to know what your focus keywords or keyphrases will be. Your first stop will be to see the competition surrounding the keywords you’re looking to use. Whether it’s in the form of Google’s own Adwords Keyword Planner or the many other free options it’s up to you, but this will allow you to see popularity and the competition you’ll be faced with. Short tail vs long tail keywords Had your heart set on “DIY crafts” for your keyword, only to find out that it’s incredibly popular already? Shorter keyphrases are referred to as short tail, and you’ll find this is where the greatest competition lies. If you think your fledgling YouTube channel can’t compete with short tail keywords, don’t worry, you have options… Long tail keywords allow you to get a little more specific, while still using the initial keyphrase you wanted to. So instead of “DIY crafts,” you could make it “DIY Crafts for beginners” or “DIY crafts for Valentine’s Day.” While it may be searched less-often, it also offers less competition, better targeting and if you’re looking into advertising, it’ll cost much less than short tail keywords. Are your keywords video-friendly? Think you’ve nailed it on your keywords for your video? While this may be true for YouTube itself, it may not be the case for search engines. The best way to find out is to actually search for your desired keywords in Google. Basically, you’re looking to see if videos appear on the first page when searching your keyword. If they do, you’ll have a better chance at ranking well in both YouTube and Google. Terms like “how to,” “review,” “hands-on” and “unboxing” all have great potential to show videos on the first page of Google, so you’re pretty safe if you’re using one of them. Still, it’s best to try it yourself with multiple keyword options before you settle on one. 02. Youtube optimization Now that you’ve researched your keywords, it’s time to apply all you’ve learned by putting your best foot forward. Title The content of your video will determine how your title is structured, but it’s important to have your keywords in the first portion of the title. If your video is about how to make doughnut ice cream cones , “How to” or “Do it yourself” would naturally fall in the beginning of the title, but that may not always be the case, depending on your keywords. It’s best to keep your title short and concise. Anything other than the essential words for the title can be put in the description section below. As along as the title showcases your keywords prominently and the point gets across, you’re good to go. Speaking of titles, a good practice when uploading to YouTube is to use your keywords in the filename of your video. Something like “YouTube_DIY_Crafts_Valentines_Day.mp4” should suffice. Description Much like Google bots don’t actually see your photos when indexing websites, YouTube doesn’t know exactly what your video is about when you first upload it. For websites, photos need to contain alt-text in order for search engines to understand what they’re about. For YouTube, the description plays this role, acting as the translator. It’s important to note that long tail keywords do well in your description, especially if long tail is the primary route you’re going in. Remember, the detailed approach may be less popular, but it’s more efficient (at least in the beginning). Why? Because writing a long description is beneficial for your video, as it gives more information to both YouTube and the viewer, and this can positively affect your ranking. In addition, the description section is also a great place to add links to your social networks and your website. Feel free to over-share here. Tags While there’s a debate on whether tags are still important or not, it’s another location to describe your video that YouTube offers, so use it! A mix of specific and general tags is suggested, allowing your video to span multiple avenues. You can use both your short and long tail keywords here as well. An older tactic for tags was that you should always put 20 tags per video, but this practice isn’t as popular as it used to be. While it likely won’t hurt your ranking if you opt to do this, it could also do nothing for you. The best practice is to add as many tags to properly describe your video as needed . If you feel that your clip  needs 20 tags, no one’s stopping you. 03. Appeal to viewers Now that you have your bases covered for your video to entice YouTube, it’s time to put your effort on the viewers out there that will actually bring you the success you’re looking for. The more viewers you get, the more fans you'll have - and the more you'll be able to make money on YouTube . Here are a few tips you can do that may not dramatically change your ranking for YouTube SEO but will catch the eye of viewers. A stand-out thumbnail If you have your key phrase for your video already, go to YouTube and search for it to see your competition. Now look at the thumbnails of each similar video. Do you see a common style or theme between them that you could pin point? Good, now do the opposite. YouTube viewers will naturally gravitate to videos that catch their eye, so having a video thumbnail that stands out from the sea of other offerings is important. If you see a common color theme between your competition, make your thumbnail contrast so it’s prominent. That said, no need to use every single color possible.  Hit them with your best shot (grab interest quickly) While this is something you’ll need to accomplish while you’re actually filming your video, it’s essential for keeping the attention of the viewer. Far too many YouTube videos suffer from the ‘long-intro syndrome’, which can make people lose interest and go elsewhere. To avoid this, you want to try to grab the attention of the viewer within the first 15 seconds. Keep your intro short and punchy. Tell the viewer exactly what they are about to see and get it to it. You can tell your “super interesting and only semi-related story” later. People usually come to YouTube to either learn something or be entertained, and if you’re not doing either of these in the first few seconds of your video, you’re doing it wrong. 04. Give them a reason to wait (viewer retention) Even if you’re able to grab the attention of a viewer quickly, it unfortunately doesn’t mean they’ll stay for the full video. Viewer retention weighs heavily on your video’s YouTube ranking, so you want people to watch as much of the video as possible. A tactic you’ve likely seen, quite a few times, on YouTube is the presenter giving a quick intro and then mentioning something interesting that they’ll show or tell you at the end of the video. There’s a good chance that if you mention that you’ll reveal something interesting at the end of the video that viewers will want to stick around for it. This tactic carries with it potential intrigue and allure, and could become indispensable in your YouTube toolkit. Engage engage engage! If YouTube sees a large volume of interaction on your video, its ranking will go up. Of course, you’ll need people actually watching your video to achieve this, but you can help get the ball rolling. This is where engagement is key. One thing you can do is ask your viewers to ‘like’, subscribe and comment on your video. It may sound simple, but this can really make a difference. To start a conversation, ask questions for viewers to answer in the comments. It’s your video, so don’t be afraid to ask away. Once you start getting comments on your video, be sure that you reply. Keep the conversation going by asking and answering questions. 05. Call to action Need to point something out to the viewer when they’re watching your video? Annotations, cards and end screens can make it easy for you! Cards are less intrusive than annotations, which provides a better experience for the viewer. They’re also more limited on customization options. Like annotations, you can set the type of card and the time it appears on the screen, but you can’t place it anywhere you want. Card types include video or playlist, channel, donation, poll, and link. Rounding out the helpful back-end features for your video is end screens . As the name suggests, end screens appear at the end of your video. You can add a call to action for viewers to subscribe to your channel and promote your website. Make sure this aligns with your marketing strategy. End screens are another great place to promote your other clips. Add a ‘suggested videos’ to your End screen to keep them watching content, even if it’s not yours. You just might be thanked by YouTube by getting a bump in your ranking. YouTube SEO may seem a bit tricky at first, but with the above tips at your disposal, you’re equipped to climb the ranks and to making it an integral part of your social media marketing.

Whether you’re looking to start a business or already went as far as creating your website and other promotional assets, marketing is a priority for you. That is, if you want to gain new and keep existing customers. You may need to create a fresh marketing plan or adapt yours to meet the needs of today’s shoppers, since these are constantly changing. In order to do this, your first step will be to conduct market research. In this article, we’ll explain what this term means, the difference between primary and secondary research, and how to do market research of your own in five simple steps. What is market research? Market research is the process of gathering information about your target market to determine the key to your business’s success amongst this crowd. It involves understanding the behavior of consumers, such as knowing where and how they are shopping, what factors influence their choices, and why they do or don’t buy your products and services. This data will allow you to best serve your specific audience. Through market research you’ll also be able to learn about your industry, such as spotting top trends, examining the market size, and getting to know your competition. By the end of this research process, you’ll be able to draw conclusions about your market and get super clear on your business’s value. Primary vs. secondary market research There are two main types of research that all of the different methods fall into. Understanding a bit about them will allow you to decide which one, if not parts of both, best suits your market research needs. Primary research In simple terms, primary research is the direct study of customers. It’s the firsthand information on your market. Methods of research include things like focus groups, interviews, and surveys. This strategy is mostly useful for establishing your buyer personas and defining your target market , which we’ll dive into more below. When conducting this kind of market research, you can do either exploratory open-ended conversations, or come prepared with specific questions you want to discuss. You can decide which approach best suits you based on your needs. Secondary research Secondary research is mainly comprised of information that outside sources have gathered, but it’s not limited to just this. It includes all the data and records available, such as trend reports, market stats, and industry-related content. To access this outside information, you can turn to public sources and commercial research agencies, including places like the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor & Statistics, trade and professional magazines, and even libraries. Internal sources are also reliable and useful. Look into sales reports to spot trends from the past. Also turn to digital marketing statistics, such as your website and social media account’s stats. How to do market research Following these five steps on how to do market research will allow your business to grow to new heights by being able to reach your customers more strategically: Define your buyer personas and target market Engage with your audience Determine the best methods to meet their needs Research your primary competitors Draw conclusions from your findings 01. Define your buyer personas and target market The very first thing you should ask yourself is ‘who are my customers?’ If you can’t answer this question, you can’t even begin to interpret their behaviors. This is where buyer personas come into play. Defining your own starts with creating a fictional representation of your ideal customers. Answer questions such as, ‘how old are they? ‘ ‘where are they located?’ ‘What kinds of jobs and hobbies do they have?’ You get the point, the more specific, the better the results will be. Likewise, it’s okay to have multiple buyer personas too - just make sure to specifically define each of them. Through your buyer personas, you’ll be able to discover your target audience. Your target audience is the real market you’re reaching. There is a specific audience size and available data you can find through both primary and secondary research on these people. As we’ll discuss more below, you can directly reach out to these people to engage with them and understand their buying preferences. 02. Engage with your audience Now that you’ve defined your target market, it’s time to pull a sample and pick their brain. Through primary research methods like focus groups, online surveys, user interviews and personal interviews, you’ll be able to get common opinions about your products and services. If you’re still in the process of starting your business, reach out to people that fit the common buyer personas you want to have as future customers. In order to find your sample, there are many different paths you can take. Ideally you’ll want to choose customers who purchased from you recently, as they’ll have a good memory of their experience. Also, people that almost purchased from you but didn’t in the end, such as abandoned cart shoppers. Other methods include turning to your social media accounts and asking coworkers and their friends. In all, you want to get a large variety of people. The more, the merrier. While conducting your research, have your goals in mind. Getting to that goal involves having planned questions or conversation topics. For example, you can ask your participants ‘how much are you willing to pay for our products/services?’ ‘do you prefer to purchase online or in person?’ and ‘how will you respond to the new product or service we are launching?’ At the end of your survey, make sure to reward your participants for giving you their valuable time. Offer compensation in the form of money, gifts, food, or something else. 03. Determine the best methods to meet their needs This step is pretty straightforward. Now that you have an understanding of your audience and have asked their opinions on your offerings, turn inward to yourself or your marketing geniuses at your company to determine the best methods to meet their needs. The practice of shaping your marketing efforts to fit your audience's needs is powerful for drawing customers toward your brand, and it lies at the core of an important practice called inbound marketing. An important thing to consider is your product branding, as the look and personality surrounding your brand will certainly determine your success. Likewise, promotional efforts including social media marketing and email campaigns have big impacts on your selling rate. Although there are tons of advertisement spaces online and offline, you’ll learn based off of your audience, as well as trial and error, which ones work best for your business. 04. Research your primary competitors This begins by classifying your business into one or multiple identifiable industries. Having your industry(s) in mind will allow you to determine who your competitors are. This is because you can download marketing reports for specific industries that list out this key information. Besides market reports, you can also turn to search engines like Google and social media channels like LinkedIn to search for industries and related companies. Note that the more specific you are about your niche market in the industry (step number one above), the more fluid it will be for you to spot your competition. Once you have your competitors in mind, the next step is to perform a SWOT analysis on them. A SWOT analysis is where you’ll write out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of each of these businesses. Make sure to address the prices of their offerings, the display of their products and services, and other specific information about their marketing efforts. After reviewing your customers in depth, you will be able to address how your business can compete with other companies in the field, what advantages you have in the industry, and what trends you should hop onboard with. 05. Draw conclusions from your findings So you have tons of data at this point regarding your target market, their buying and decision-making processes, how you plan to reach them, and who your top competitors in your relevant industry are. The last thing you need to do is pull all of these findings together into a formal report. Most of the time, this marketing report is part of a company’s business plan . That’s the case if you’re just starting out though. If you’ve been established for awhile or are using this information for one particular experiment, you can create an individual marketing research report. For both cases, you should lay out your background information, the purpose behind creating the report, and a summary of your findings for the four previous parts. Finally, end your report with strategic action items to meet your goals.

If you're a business who prioritizes staying "in the know," keeping up with social networks is just a part of the job in the online world. We’re not just talking about posting regularly either — even though responding to questions and concerns from customers is an important step for your online business presence. However, if you often find yourself semi-swamped with Tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram DMs, imagine how many people out there are discussing your business or product without directly mentioning you? There are so many conversations happening on social networks that several pertaining to your business can go unnoticed if you’re not mentioned or tagged within the post itself. If you’re missing these conversations, you’re missing potential opportunities to help existing and find potential customers, as well as resolve issues that may have risen for past ones. Moreover, these conversations can allow you to see how others feel about your business. This is called social listening, and it’s a vital tactic to improve the perception of your brand. From the way you choose to create a free website to all of your social media marketing strategies, below, we’re going to tell you about what social listening is and how you can apply it to your own business. What is social listening? Social listening is actively monitoring conversations that are happening across social networks about your brand, products, your competitors, or other industry-related and relevant keywords. Then, you try to find actionable responses to these conversations. These responses could be in the form of a literal response to a social post or an adjustment to your marketing strategy due to feedback you found. Social listening allows a brand to be proactive in conversations about it, improving reliability, social relevance, and trust with your audience. Social listening also allows you to see the social media sentiment, which is how people feel about your brand by gauging whether the responses (on either a particular post or a broader range, such as account as a whole) received are positive, negative, or neutral. Knowing this can let you respond accordingly by changing your wording, advertising strategy, and more, so you can increase your positive reactions. Social listening versus social monitoring If you’re new to the world of social media management for your business, the terms “social listening” and “social monitoring” may seem interchangeable, but they aren’t. While the two share similarities, each has their own purpose and benefits. Social monitoring is the act of responding to customer comments, questions, and issues as they’re received. This reactive approach is primarily in place to get the commenter from point A to point B — whether point B is a how-to guide, support article that solves the issue, or information, such as how to contact support. This type of social interaction is not only vital for customers, but also the minimum effort you should be putting forth on your social media branding . Social listening, on the other hand, is proactive. It zooms out on social monitoring’s macro focus and looks at the bigger picture: How are people talking about your brand in conversations you’re not tagged in? For many businesses that don’t take part of social listening, these conversations are as far gone as the dark web, and this valuable data is lost to the ether. It’s not just about your brand, either. Social listening zooms out to your entire industry, so you can identify trends, keep up with competition, and let your customers know you’re there for them when they need you. Why is social listening important? Now that you know the difference between social monitoring and social listening, it’s a little easier to discern why the latter is important. In a nutshell, it provides insight that social monitoring doesn’t and wasn’t intended to do. It doesn’t mean this reactive tactic is not important, but here are some of the things you can’t find with monitoring that you can with listening. Proactive tactic : Allows you to take initiative and create opportunities instead of waiting for them. Identify happy customers: Surprise and delight happy customers by thanking them, giving special offers or perks. Find unhappy customers : Address unsatisfied customers head-on, without being prompted, to direct them to the solutions they seek. Pinpoint influencers in your industry : Find social accounts that hold clout within your industry. Define trends in your industry : Provide relevant, on-the-nose posts that respond to a trending topic in your industry. Take note of potential customers : Chime in when people are looking for suggestions within your industry. Provide customer service: Offer help to customers or remind them that you’re available to help them if they need it. Avoid PR nightmares: Address potentially brand-threatening situations before they grow into a full day of damage control. Get a sense of what people think of your brand: Without adding a mention or tagging you in a post directly, people will tend to speak more freely about your brand, allowing you to get an idea of how people perceive your brand. This kind of customer feedback is invaluable. Social listening in action Sometimes seeing is believing, even if we’re talking about listening. While we can tell you all the ways social listening can be used, seeing real examples can be just as helpful. Below, we’ve detailed a few examples of the tactic in action. Netflix Socks: Sometimes, just showing that you’re listening can be effective. Netflix proved that in a big way. It received several complaints on social media from users that were falling asleep while watching Netflix, only to wake up to spoilers or rolling credits. So, the streaming service took action in the most hilarious of ways. It made socks. Not just any socks — socks with a built-in sleep detection system that will pause Netflix if you doze off. Falling asleep to Netflix is far from Netflix’s problem. Still, the socks it created were in response to the comments it received from its users. It’s funny, fairly amazing, and more than a little bit clever. The cherry on top? The socks won a Shorty Award for Best Creative Use of Technology. Samsung responds to competition: As mentioned earlier, social listening requires you to take a look at your industry as a whole, including your competition. When Samsung noticed that one of its competitors, Huawei, released a new smartphone and focused on its camera and slow-motion video capture features, it was able to respond by adjusting its marketing strategy and focus on its own phone’s slo-mo prowess. Morton’s Steakhouse delivers to airport for one traveler This one sounds too good to be true, but there’s enough coverage on it to shirk any non-believers. In 2011, Peter Shankman jokingly tweeted out to Morton’s Steakhouse, asking if they’d deliver a porterhouse at the Newark airport when he landed. Well, the steakhouse saw the tweet and a man in a tuxedo holding a bag was waiting for Shankman when he got off the plane. You can even read Shankman’s full rundown of the story here . Social listening tools After reading about the opportunities you can find via social listening, we’re sure you’re excited to start trying it out yourself, but it wouldn’t be right to send you off without knowing the tools to make the entire process easier for you. Hootsuite Insights : Not only does Hootsuite Insights offer a rich set of social media analytics tools specifically aimed at listening, they also include an analysis of sentiment, trend-tracking, and in-depth performance reports. Brandwatch : This is a “does it all” tool that may be overkill for many small businesses. Still, Brandwatch offers a fantastic set of tools for things like competitor analysis, brand management, influencer marketing, and much more. Awario : If you’re looking for a sophisticated suite of social listening tools, Awario can help. It specializes in social media monitoring, social selling, social listening for both teams and agencies, and influencer marketing. Audiense : If deep insights into your audience is what you’re looking for, Audiense Insights should definitely be on your list. Whether you’re trying to understand your audience, or looking to further develop it, Audiense will get you there. Sprout Social : To say that Sprout Social offers an elaborate set of solutions would be an understatement, but that’s very much a good thing. Whether it’s social monitoring, customer care, or data and analysis (including social listening), it’s really hard not to recommend. Starting with Sprout Social may be a smart idea if you plan on seeking out additional social media management solutions after you’ve become a social listening master. By Blake Stimac Wix Blog Writer

Not all that sparkles is gold. It could be a really beautiful Wix website with images of gold, like these jewelry websites we have here today. The exquisite taste of the Wix users who created these sites is evident not only in the jewelry, but also in the web design itself. Beautiful photographs placed just right, wonderful use of typography and great product display are just some of the niceties these sites have to offer. These websites, created with the Wix website builder, do a terrific job in presenting jewelry pieces as prestige and desirable objects. This is not bling, this is class.

In today’s sophisticated digital marketplace, people have more options and more opportunities to test and compare products and services before they make a decision. When you develop a marketing strategy , you need to take into account that your target market has more choices than ever. You have to adapt to a new style of marketing that is more authentic and more people-oriented. It’s time to stop making these marketing fails in your modern-day business because they have long stopped bringing any results and could be potentially damaging to your brand. Keep these marketing no-no’s in mind as you develop your marketing plan : Fabricating Telemarketing Direct mail marketing Spam Intuition Selling over dialogue Unreachable Poor content Fake testimonials 01. Marketing fail - fabricating In the past, online consumers were way more gullible; you could easily funnel them to your landing pages by playing on their fears and creating a false need. Today’s consumer can see right through half-truths in marketing messages and go directly to sites that offer real information, products or services. 02. Marketing fail - telemarketing Avoid this at all costs. You won’t even get one bite and you’ll embarrass yourself. Chances are your call will initially be screened thanks to caller ID and many times will go unanswered. Nobody wants to be read from a script about a new and exciting exclusive offer available only through you. 03. Marketing fail - Direct mailing Direct mail is completely ineffective unless you know everyone on your mailing list and their buying habits, which is highly unlikely. If you do send snail mail, make sure it’s in the form of a letter, not a postcard and be sure to offer something of value. Giving a free sample and a coupon still works, but not for every type of customer or business. 04. Marketing fail - Spam It’s crucial that your emailing list be streamlined to contain only members of your target audience. Segment your audience into different customer types, and send out only content that is relevant to their interests and needs. 05. Marketing fail - relying on intuition instead of relying on hard data and stats. Those who do not test and analyze are destined for failure. In order to produce results you need to focus on that which has proven to be successful, and you can’t do that without controlled testing of promotions and thorough evaluations of your available stats. 06. Marketing fail - selling over dialogue You must communicate with your audience, don’t just show them adverts. If you focus too much on selling, you won’t get very far. Open a dialogue with your audience and connect with them. 07. Marketing fail - being unreachable Never underestimate the customer’s need to reach you. Many clients will not even consider your business seriously if you don’t display at least two contact options on your website. By allowing them to get in touch easily you are creating reliability and loyalty. 08. Marketing fail - poor content Writing crappy keyword-stuffed content instead of providing worthy and useful information. Long gone are the days when search engines couldn’t tell good content from bad. Remaining in the top 10 search results requires top quality content with value being placed on the number of shares your articles have achieved as opposed to the number of backlinks as in the past. 09. Marketing fail - fake testimonials. It is essential to offer third party credibility. People need to know someone they trust recommends you as well.

CTAs, or calls to action, are ubiquitous on the web. Every banner ad, blog post and knowledge base article will finish off with a directive about where to click. When writing in the online realm, we not only want to inform and delight our users, we also want to show them what their next step should be – in the clearest way possible. Through tests, trial and error, and more than a decade of experience, we’ve honed in on some best practices when it comes to CTAs, and learned the hard way what doesn’t work. Following these guidelines – and steering clear of these pitfalls – has helped us create a consistent style when it comes to writing CTAs. It helps us streamline what we do, provide clarity to our audience, and – best of all – it helps us get clicks. Here’s an inside look at some of our rules of thumb when it comes to writing CTAs: 01. Don’t say, “click here” Though this call-to-action example is about as clear and concise as you can get, we’ve found it falls short because it tells users that they should click, but not why . Rather than go for this classic (and boring) CTA, we opt for benefit-driven CTAs that show our users where they’re going, why they should go there and what they’ll get from doing so. 02. The problem with, “Do this, this and this” A common error we’ve come across is too many ideas in one CTA. Not only does this make the CTA long and unwieldy, but it also confuses users. If you ask visitors to do 2 or even 3 things in a CTA, they won’t know which action to take, or why they should click at all. Write CTAs with just one directive. And if you need to provide more information, do it in your body text. This is not just great for the users; it will also help you when the time comes to measure the effectiveness of your CTA. 03. Embrace action words Convincing users to take action depends on many factors, from how attractive your offer or product is to the appeal of your design and text. But a good, action-oriented CTA can go a long way to giving your visitors the extra little push they need to click, call, or send you an email. Start your CTAs with a verb – an action word that helps to sell users on the benefit of clicking. 04. Match the tone and voice of your text It’s easy to write a CTA that’s cute, funny, or simply looks right in the space that the designer has given you. But your CTA should tell the same story as the rest of your text – and use the same language to do it. Otherwise, your users can get confused or annoyed, and they may simply give up and click away from the page without taking action. So while it may be tempting to make every CTA, “Click here for world domination,” stick to the story you’re telling. 05. Don’t try too hard to sell We’ve all experienced the moment when someone tried a bit too hard to sell us something. This makes most of us pretty uncomfortable, and oftentimes leaves us with a lasting, negative view of the brand. Moreover, it smacks of desperation and probably decreases the chances we’ll ever purchase from that business. At Wix, one of our core values is “tell, don’t sell,” and we carry this through to the way we write our CTAs. We want our users to make choices based on our products, their merit, and how we describe them. And we’ve found that trying too hard to sell them on a product can quickly backfire, giving them instead a feeling of suspicion or mistrust. While you may find that the CTA, “Buy It Right Now,” works for you, don’t overuse it. Instead, focus on what users have to gain. You can keep words that create a sense of urgency, however, particularly if what you’re promoting comes with an expiration date. Including “today” and “now” in your CTA makes a lot of sense when you’re running a sale. Let’s wrap it up The way you use CTAs depends on what type of material you’re creating and what you want to achieve. That being said, it’s vital that you measure your CTAs. Determine what’s getting your users to click and what they’re not interacting with. This will give you a really good idea of what works – and what doesn’t – for your brand. Did you like this article? Subscribe to the Wix Content Blog  for your dose of free expert writing tips, ideas and inspiration. You won’t regret it! You can also check out this guide for more beginner CTA tips. Ready to establish a powerful online presence? Create a website with Wix today !

A large part of email marketing is setting a good first impression and leaving with a lasting one. However, we can only get so much across these days in our often impersonal, digitally-driven world. So many people do business without ever meeting the person on the other end of the computer. These types of interactions aren’t going to disappear anytime soon, nor should they have to. Instead, as a business owner it should be your duty to leave a lasting impression in every online interaction with a professional email signature. That's why it is so important to connect your email to your Wix website . A well-written email signature can say a lot about a person or business without taking up too much space. It’s basically a digital business card . It provides a way for you to be contacted and also for you to share other important pieces of information like your business website . Below, we’re going to give you some top tips on how to write great email signatures to leave lasting impressions. What is an email signature? An email signature, sometimes referred to as a digital signature or signature block is a piece of text that is added to the end of an email. It contains contact information and sometimes other pieces of relevant content pertaining to a person's or brand’s online presence - such as graphics showing portraits or a logo design . Some countries have regulations that require that each business email has a proper email signature containing specific pieces of information for all company-related emails. Email signatures: Importance and benefits Even if you live somewhere that doesn’t require an email signature for business-related communications, it’s a very good idea to create one in order to place at the end of your emails for a couple of reasons: Shows professionalism and willingness to communicate further. Great resource for branding and recognition. Free promotional tool for your business, website, or other CTA . Sometimes serves as the last impression between you and the recipient. The perfect place to add social media icons so others can follow you or your brand. 9 tips on how to write professional email signatures: While it may sound like you simply need to write a couple of things about yourself or your business and slap it to the end of every email, there are some practices that will help you along the way. Below, we’ll give you some tips to consider while you’re creating your own email signature. Keep it simple: There’s nothing wrong with staying minimal with your email signature, foregoing a photo or a logo. An effective email signature can be simple as long as it’s approachable and provides the essentials. If you are going to go the minimalist route, just make sure that the information you do place in your digital signature has the most impact. An example of a great, minimalist email signature example is below, showing only the name prominently displayed in bold, along with the job title and two contact methods. Don’t write a book: Following along with the previous tip, remember that sometimes less is more. Don’t write too much information. If you have a lot of things you want to share, you can create a website and keep it all somewhere else. Then, insert a link to this information in your email signature. Adding a large block of text in general to an email signature will have the recipient’s eyes glazing over in no time. Use color to accent, not showcase: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with adding some color to your email signature. In fact, it’s encouraged. However, it’s important to note that the use of color can be used to both your advantage and disadvantage. It can show personality, or to highlight the most important pieces of information you want to share. However, with all of your text in one uniform color, no single element will stand out amongst the rest. Stay in the (font) family: While your favorite font combo of Comic Sans and Times New Roman works for your personal computer notes, believe us when we say no one else wants to see them, especially when it comes to your business. The fonts you choose should be legible and similar to one another. If you’re looking to differentiate your fonts, you can use different weights of the same font family to stay consistent and avoid any visual messiness. Whether it’s your website or your professional email signature, we have just the article if you want to know how to choose the best fonts . Use social media icons: While adding links to your social media profiles in your email signature is 100% optional, if you are going to do it, opt for using icons instead of text links. It should be a bit obvious as to why, but adding 2-4 separate text links to the end of your email signature will look cluttered. This also adds unnecessary bulkiness to your overall signature. Using small social media icons that have individual links allows you to avoid this. Having your social media linked in your email signature is a good practice in general for email marketing . If someone follows you on social media based off of clicking a link from your email signature, it’s a sign that you’re strengthening your relationship with that person. Add graphics: The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” can be aptly used here. Whether it’s your own photo or your business logo, a graphic will draw the eyes of a recipient to it and you’ll have a better chance of them actually reading your signature text. Be mobile-minded: Just like websites, it’s important to expect your email signature to be viewed and interacted with on a mobile device. This may require you to adjust the structure or design of your signature so it doesn’t have any alignment issues, given that the screens on mobile devices have a shorter width than that of a computer screen. Place the most important info first: Just because you’ve worked hard on your email signature doesn’t mean it’s going to be an effective one. We live in an age where ads are everywhere. So much so that we tend to tune them out without realizing it. Not only that, readers also tend to move on quickly after they’ve gotten the information that they want. This means it’s super important to get your message across as quickly as possible, which includes prioritizing your most crucial pieces of information at the top of your signature. It will more than likely be your name/title, but it could also be your business name. Follow this with something like your website address or contact number. However you decide to order the information is up to you. It’s all about what you want the reader to know most. Have your signature pieces fit together like a puzzle: After you’ve decided what your digital signature will consist of, you want to look at all the pieces and make sure they look like they belong together. This is not just in terms of alignment, but also that the information presented isn’t too dense or imbalanced. If it feels cramped, consider rearranging the placement of things for a bit more freedom. Get inspired by email signature generators and creation tools We can give you tips until we’re blue in the face, but you may need to get your hands digitally dirty before you get a good idea for creating your own. Here are just a few sites you can check out to create yours for free. Mail Signatures - This is a free, no frills, and straightforward generator for those who want a simple email signature. Design Hill - This digital signature generator offers some advanced controls, but also come with a few hoops to jump through to get a free email signature. MySignature - A very easy to use generator to help you create professional email signatures. It will come with a small, “Create your own signature” ad at the bottom unless you pay to remove it. Wisestamp - One of the more robust options available, Wisestamp requires you to create an account to receive your free signature. The paid option offers an assortment of additional features. So whether you want to play around with free options or pay up to make sure you have everything you need for your professional email signature, you’re not stuck without options.