We Used the Latest Holiday Selling Data to Create These Cyber Monday Hacks

I've always been a little skeptical of Cyber Monday. It always felt a little forced. Black Friday is a media bonanza as well, but Black Friday always seemed more discovered than created.

Cyber Monday on the other hand came off a bit manufactured. I figured that while there were certainly sales to be made from an ecommerce-centered selling holiday, the real money in online sales would be made on Black Friday as buyers become increasingly resistant to the Black Friday hype machine.

So, we pulled the data. We wanted to see how Cyber Monday works and what makes it tick. Inventory tracking is our bread and butter, so we maintain a multi-tenant database comprised of sales data from our ecommerce business owners. That's millions of sales. This gives us an overview of general trends within the industry across marketplaces, platforms, and niches. We extracted an SQL query of all sales data between November 25th and December 2nd minus POS systems, ensuring that our conclusions would be specific to ecommerce.

The goal? Discover what's fact and what's opinion behind the Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday debate and create a seller resource that allows retailers to be more methodical in their Cyber Monday strategy.

And I have to admit that looking at these data reports had me replacing my turkey with a big helping of crow. Cyber Monday is king.

Focus Your Efforts on Cyber Monday

The buying public is biting hard at the Cyber Monday lure. While Black Friday does stand tall with over 1.5 times the sales and transactions of the previous day, Cyber Monday towers over the entire week, sticking out like a pimple on prom night. Nearly 2.5x the sales and transactions occurred on Cyber Monday as on Thanksgiving Day. In fact, the Cyber Monday fallout stretching into Tuesday is nearly as good of an e-tail day as Black Friday.

But what does this all mean? How can you apply it in 2016 to increase your sales and maximize on perhaps the most important week of the year for your business?

Here are four actionable tips to get you started. These don't require any expensive software systems or a huge amount of expertise, but they go a long way on capitalizing off the data-proven buying habits of shoppers during the first week of the holiday season. I've also provided some great examples of Cyber Monday sales from throughout the years from deep in my inbox. For extra fun, I only picked examples that personally made me convert. Let's dive in.

Have Your Email Marketing to Inboxes by 6AM

The first thing I do every morning is check my email, and I'm not the only one. Smartphone usage for email spikes in the morning around 6AM according to data compiled by Movable Ink.

That explains why our data found that Cyber Monday begins at 7AM. People are waking up, immediately checking their phones, and making purchases. The sales eclipse the transactions for the next three hours, indicating customers may be more receptive to your email marketing efforts for big-ticket items in the morning.

Data found by Marketing Charts drives the point home further. Average email open rates begin their daily upswing at 6AM and peak at 10AM.

By the time your potential customers wake up, you need to have you email marketing efforts right in front of them. Why waste time? Feature your biggest ticket items and your best sales right off the bat. This example from Journeys hit my inbox at 2:10AM. It caused me to buy a pair of cream-colored Converse All-Stars. It shows us a couple of great ideas about how to cut through the sleepiness of someone's brain and claim an early morning conversion.

What I find really interesting here is that Journeys doesn't include a product photo. The email sells the deal rather than clothes. It reads as almost more of an announcement than an advertisement. There are three more replicable techniques for an early morning Cyber Monday email we can find here.

1. Make the offer provocative and enticing. Words like “free” and “X% off” are sure to wake up your customers.


2. Shove that offer directly and explicitly at your reader. Big, bold letters are a must.


3. Dark colors that won't blind your reader are a great idea. An email with a lot of bright colors might hurt their eyes and cause them to put down their phone.

Advertise a Lunch Break Flash Sale on Twitter

Going back to our hourly data, we can see that the most money is being made around lunchtime. 1PM to 3PM is the largest peak you'll see throughout all of Cyber Monday.

Conveniently, Hubspot has found that 12PM to 3PM on weekdays is Twitter's most active period. Launching a 12-hour flash sale on Twitter at 12PM is a great way to get a great deal in front of the most customers at the time when they're statistically most likely to convert. It's a trifecta of data-driven methodology.

Use the hashtags #cybermonday, #flashsale, as well as any other relevant hashtags for your brand. Include an image, especially if you're able to include it as an embedded link. I bought this wonderfully nerdy t-shirt for an English teacher friend of mine last Christmas. I was browsing the #flashsale hashtag on Twitter during my lunch break. The limited time offer and the fact my lunch break was also limited increased my urgency, leaving me less time to waffle and potentially abandon my cart.

#cybermonday #flashsale NOW 20% off Mark Twain tees (B&W/Color), til 11:59pm PST tonight. https://t.co/qsVmU6ocfG pic.twitter.com/DJXtBbavyR

- Fan of Walt (@fanofwalt) December 1, 2015

Perhaps you're a little wary of putting eggs into your social media basket. You've got that big fancy email list, but perhaps you've relied on it a little too much. Keep in mind that your customers are going to be bombarded all day with sale after sale in their inbox. You don't want to blend into the background noise. Moving some of your marketing efforts over to social media gives you an opportunity to attract new customers on an open platform, Type A buyers who are looking for Cyber Monday sales. With that in mind, apply these three tips.

1. Attach the flash sale to a lower selling item, or one in which you have excess inventory. Don't risk it on a high selling item, especially if this is your first flash sale.


2. Use Twitter's audience management tools to create a targeted Twitter ad to promote your flash sale.


3. The shorter the time for your flash sale, the more urgency you create for the buyer. On the other hand, they have less time to see the sale. It's a delicate balance.

Send Out an End-Of-Day Marketing Email

After the workday ends, customers begin to spend less money. The number of overall transactions spikes at 7PM as a result of people getting off work who perhaps are in jobs where they're not able to online shop on their lunch break. Similar spikes occur at 10PM and 11PM as the slowpokes among us suddenly remember its Cyber Monday, or finally have time to sit down and shop. That's why you should send out one more marketing email at the end of the workday to capitalize on this group of buyers.

“But what about bombarding my customers? Won't they get annoyed if I email them twice in one day?”

On Cyber Monday, they don't. MailChimp notes that the overload of email offers decreases open rates across the industry on Cyber Monday, but don't significantly increase unsubscribe rates. They go on to note that the best way to get noticed is to send more emails than normal. This is not the time to be quiet and hope you'll get noticed. There's too much money on the line to be timid.

(Image Source)

This sleek AT&T Cyber Monday sale landed in my inbox at 4:15PM. We were desperately trying to introduce some technology into my dad's life at the time, so this seemed like the perfect present. Notice how they lead with the FREE tablet. I also really like the messaging that this is where the holiday cheer is “starts,” as it implies a season's worth of deals and shopping is to come.

Another key takeaway here is bundling your items. Since people seem to spend less in the evening, but the total transactions increase, it's important that you can get as much as you can out of each transaction. Bundling items together means you can charge more for each transaction.

Did you know? With Kissmetrics, you can track the effectiveness of your online advertising. Optimize your marketing by knowing which campaigns perform and which don't. Check out our infographic to learn more.

AT&T is technically doing two different bundles here, one much subtler than the other. Not only are they bundling the tablet and the phone, but they're also offering a $200 credit. What could you use that $200 credit on? Maybe some of those wearables they advertise below. AT&T is not only bundling their products, but also bundling the sale itself. A three step series of purchases that starts with the headline FREE is great marketing from this mobile giant.

Getting one last email out completes a nice full days' worth of Cyber Monday digital marketing. Let's make sure we've got our Cyber Monday marketing timed out to perfection.

You've taken advantage of the early birds, the night owls, and the lunch… larks? Being an active seller throughout the day ensures that you're getting the most of out the holiday.

Allow Customers to “Earn” Free Shipping Rather Than Giving It Away to All

I'm a big believer in free shipping. What it does for ecommerce conversions is undeniable at this point. It's worth the cost. According to Compete.com, over 93% of customers cited it as a factor that would make them more likely to buy an item. The same study found that 38% of customers found the shipping cost to be the least satisfactory part of their shopping experience.

(Image Source)

Our own research, however, appears to suggest perhaps buyers aren't as sensitive to shipping costs as they say they are. We found that offering free shipping does not move the needle on your sales throughout the week of Cyber Monday.

I've got two theories as to why this is. The first is that Cyber Monday may be attracting some non-traditional online buyers. Those of us who shop online often throughout the year know that if one vendor isn't offering free shipping, it's probably worth the time to find a similar item with a vendor willing to ship for free. Cyber Monday shoppers may not be familiar with this, so it doesn't become a major factor in whether or not they convert.

My second theory is that the event of Cyber Monday is outweighing the normal aversion to paying for shipping. People want to feel as if they are a part of something. It could make them less prudent than normal and more prone to paying for shipping, especially if they perceive the deal as being worth it.

Either way, we can make a few data-driven decisions based on this info. We could of course just take away free shipping altogether for the week of Cyber Monday. Customers are willing to pay for it, so we might as well just take their money, right? That feels a little wrong though, doesn't it? After all, the benefits of free shipping outweigh the negatives. It's good for the customers and the sellers.

With that in mind, offer customers a chance to “earn” free shipping. Check out what WWE Shop sent me on a Cyber Monday a few years back.

WWE Shop set the free shipping limit to $15. Doing something similar with your business will allow you to increase the value of each transaction. Buyers may spend more to get the free shipping, and transactions that remain below $15 will be less expensive for you to process.

Consider other ways you can allow your customers to earn free shipping, such as in exchange for filling out a customer experience survey, registering on your site, or bundling the item with a less popular item.

Conclusion

Let me sum up all these graphs and examples for you as simply as possible.

• Cyber Monday is a phenomenon, not a flash in the pan.


• Be methodical about your digital marketing to capitalize on sales spikes throughout the day.


• Allow customers to earn free shipping rather than giving it away to everyone.

I think data is beautiful, especially data that makes us money. By going about your selling in a data-driven manner, you can take full advantage of Cyber Monday. We'll most likely see sales spike on this ecommerce holiday. But wasted motion is wasted money. Don't fumble around in the dark and hope you'll stumble on profit. Use these hacks instead, experiment to see which works best for you, and make Cyber Monday your best sales day of the year.

About the Author: Dion Beary writes about ecommerce for ecomdash, a software company that automates inventory management for small businesses selling online. His passions are Twitter, casseroles, and 00's rap.

Content Marketing: 10 Daily Habits to Create More Powerful Content

Marketing is a game of inches. We tweak a headline to get fifty more clicks. Add visual interest for ten more subscriptions. Change the button on the landing page to get five more conversions. All the little gains add up over time to generate real results.

Writing more effective copy is a game of inches, too. You don't write Twilight one week and Moby Dick the next. Instead, every day you can work to be a little bit better than the day before.

The tricky part is if you're not steadily improving your writing, you're actively moving backward. There's no such thing as maintaining the status quo-it's self-improvement or bust.

The following ten daily habits can help you make steady incremental improvement. Try as many as you can for 28 days, and be amazed at how those daily inches add up.

10 Daily Habits to Create More Powerful Content

#1: Read at Least One Marketing Article

There is a massive amount of informative marketing content out there, with more coming every day. These articles can help inform and improve your marketing, but that's not the only reason to read them.

How It Helps: Marketing articles are really content marketing targeted at marketers. And it's hard to market to marketers. We already know the ways copy can be persuasive. We soak in it. So effective marketing posts with thousands of shares are guaranteed to have top-notch writing.

 

#2: Read an Article about Literally Anything Else

As in any industry, it's easy to get stuck in the marketing “bubble.” You read marketing content. You write it, too. Over time, it gets hard to write anything that doesn't sound like it was written by marketers, for marketers. If marketers aren't your target audience, that's a bad situation.

How It Helps: Reading a good variety of content gives you different voices to try on for your own content. See how Harvard Business Review covers a story versus Mashable versus Buzzfeed. Browse Medium for hundreds of unique voices you can borrow tricks from. All this input is invaluable in keeping your writing flexible, and building your own voice.

 

#3: See What Your Audience Is Sharing

One way to make sure your content is worthy of being shared is to borrow tips from content already resonating with your audience. Check out BuzzSumo's trending content for your topic. See what the top SlideShare presentations are in your industry. Even a search for the most-watched videos on YouTube could be informative.

How It Helps: You can discover what topics are most valuable to your audience and see how others have addressed them in an effective fashion. You might even get ideas for how to write a better version for your audience.

 

#4: Do a Free-Writing Exercise

The hardest part of any writer's day is the beginning. The blank page is our worst enemy, sapping motivation, inviting self-doubt, and generally keeping things from getting done. A free-writing exercise eases your brain into content creation mode, while keeping the stakes low. Try these random prompts to get started.

How It Helps: Free writing gets you in productive mode faster, but it also allows you time to let your creativity flow and find new pathways for your thoughts to flow. That refreshed creativity will reveal itself in everything you write.

 

#5: Revisit Old Content

If I have a personal writer's hell, it's full of the short stories I wrote when I was 16. Or 18. Or 28. Heck, the stuff I wrote six months ago is embarrassing. It can be downright painful to look at your old content. But if you have the courage to go back and revise it, old content can help you improve.

How It Helps: First, it shows you that you're making real progress. If an old blog post makes you cringe, it's because you're so much better now. Second, the act of rewriting it up to your current standards is fantastic for reinforcing good habits. And hey, you might end up with a piece you can repurpose for a new audience, too.

 

#6: Watch a Viral Video

It's worth taking 2-3 minutes out of your day for the .gifs or Vines (RIP) or YouTube videos that everyone can't stop talking about. These new cultural touchstones are fascinating. It's a way to see what captures the attention of the widest swath of humanity at a time. And it keeps you from looking out-of-touch on Facebook.

How It Helps: Viral content got that way for a reason. Something about it compelled people to link to it. So watching a viral video or two is a window into the zeitgeist, and can contain swipeable ideas to make your content more compelling.

 

#7: Change Part of Your Routine

We've all heard about famous writers' routines. Nabokov wrote on index cards. Charlotte Bronte wrote standing up. Ernest Hemingway wrote in a pair of pink penguin pajamas. There's this idea that you need to find the magical combination of quirks that will produce great writing. Odds are your writing routine is nearly set in stone.

How It Helps: Hemingway wasn't a great writer because he wore pink penguin pajamas. The pajamas were within him the whole time. Truth is, if you're stuck in one particular routine, it can make your content start to come out routine as well.

Change it up: Stand up if you usually sit, or vice versa. Write before your first cup of coffee. Take your laptop to a different part of the office. Whatever it takes to shake you out of the status quo a bit.

 

#8: Drink More Water

If you work in an office building you are likely living in a state of perpetual dehydration. The air exchanges are drying your skin and throat to a papery crisp. Get a refillable water bottle and keep it on your desk at all times.

How It Helps: A lot of the headaches, fatigue, and fuzzy-headed feelings you get throughout a day can be caused by dehydration. Ditto the cravings for endless snacks even though you just had lunch (I can't be the only one). Drink water to stay sharp, be better focused, and improve your overall health.

 

#9: Write the Seth Godin version

Seth Godin has the gift of getting to the essence of a topic in 250 words or less. His micro-blogs are as insanely popular as they are concise. If you're looking to cut the fat from your writing, Seth's is a great place to start. Take the topic you're writing on and try to write the Seth Godin version. You can flesh it out after, but start with his get-to-the-point mentality.

How It Helps: We can't all get away with publishing 250-word blog posts. Most of my clients wouldn't stand for it. But writing the bare-bones version can help create better-structured, easier-to-read, more compelling content.

 

#10: Give Yourself Five Mindful Minutes

One of the most powerful things you can do for your marketing mind in a day is nothing. No screens. No phone calls. No email. Nothing to distract you from what you're doing-which, again, is nothing. Unhook your brain from as many entanglements as you can, close your eyes, and let your mind wander. You may have to work your way up to five minutes, though. It's amazing how long that seems in the age of smartphones.

How It Helps: The creativity that drives engaging copy comes in the quiet moments when you let your brain do its own thing. Most of us are adept at filling every waking minute, precisely so we don't have those idle moments. Your brain is likely starved for a nothing break. Let it bump out of its familiar ruts and you'll be surprised where it takes you.

 

Turn Inches into Yards

Becoming a better marketer is a lifelong journey, not a destination. Use these tips to continue your content creation development. Just think: In a year, you might read the post you just wrote today and be amazed at how far you've come.

Are you passionate about creating great content in an educational, supportive and fun environment? TopRank Marketing is hiring.

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Squarespace vs WordPress: The Ultimate Comparison

If you're trying to decide between Squarespace vs WordPress, you're in the right place. We're going to cover every important decision factor here, so you can make a decision and move on to the next step.

Most of us feel like the right website can go a long way to helping us get discovered. But most of us also don't have a large chunk of money lying around to pay for a beautiful custom website.

So, we have to do it ourselves. That usually means choosing between Squarespace and WordPress.

Putting together a great website can be a nightmare, and there's a lot riding on the decisions we make. So, here's what we will get into in this article:

1. First I'm going to tell you the concise summary.


2. Then I'm going to walk you through every important feature and question, one by one.


3. Then we're going to talk about the most important piece of this whole process and connect you to some resources for the next step.

But first: who the hell am I to teach you anything about this? My name is Chase Reeves and I've designed some of the largest blogs on the web.

I've designed and built websites professionally for a little under a decade, designing and consulting on huge sites along the way.

But over the past 4 years, through Fizzle's membership community, I've been involved in hundreds of new business and website launches, and I've seen first hand how transformative it is for non-technical, non-design trained people to get their own site up and running.

So, I'm a designer and developer who's worked with hundreds of people to get their idea out into the world and I'm here to help you decide which of these two incredible tools to go with for you project. Deal?

Let's get into it.

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Which platform? The concise summary:

Caveat 1: If you stick to a theme you like, making only minor customizations, you will likely be really happy with BOTH of these options. If you want to make a ton of customizations you're likely to get frustrated with either.

Caveat 2: If you want to switch later on, BOTH platforms can export your data for import into the other, so you're never stuck. It might take time and effort to do, but import/export functionality on both of these means you can always change your mind later.

1. Squarespace: beautiful, functional, managed for you.

• Beautiful free templates that are easy to customize without any coding skills.


• Loads of features built-in like blogging, image galleries, podcasting, mobile friendliness, etc.


• All the technology is managed for you so you don't have to worry about hosting, backups, updates, etc.


• 24/7 support via email and chat with phone support during business hours.


• Commerce tools built in for selling digital or physical products.


• Not as much control as WordPress. You have to play within the bounds of what Squarespace allows, but those boundaries are big enough for most of us.


• Compared to all the updates you need to buy for WordPress (backup and security plugins, professional themes, hosting that won't break), Squarespace will likely end up being more affordable for you.

“I switched from WordPress to Squarespace because I wasted so much time tinkering with WordPress themes, plugins, and more instead of working on actual content. When I first switched to SS I felt limited because doing custom CSS and code is harder, but once you figure out how to add them deep in the menus you can build almost anything you want. Unless you want to build and code a site from scratch there is no faster option for building a website than Squarespace.” ~ Caleb Wojcik, Squarespace User

2. WordPress: anything you want is possible, but you're responsible.

• It's free and, as an open source tool, it's powered by the goodwill of the internet!


• You'll have to choose and pay for a hosting provider, that's your responsibility.


• Thousands of beautiful themes exist made by people all over the web, but picking one that won't break over time is your responsibility. Also, the best ones cost money.


• Thousands of plugins available to customize your site and add features, but finding the right one that won't break your site or make it susceptible to hackers is your responsibility. Also, many cost money.


• Completely customizable, but the proper coding can take a good deal of time/effort/money.


• All of the updates, backups and technicalities are your responsibility. Updates are normally easy, but occasionally plugins can cause your site to break. recommend purchasing a professional backup and security plugin for WordPress.

“We built our entire website and business on WordPress. This includes our blog, our course software, our membership area and more. WordPress is extremely powerful, however, you need someone who knows how to code to make significant customizations. It's also nice to have someone to help with the occasional hiccup or error that can cause your site to go down.” ~ Corbett Barr, Founder of Fizzle.co

NOTE: Just to complicate things a little more, WordPress comes in 2 flavors. We think business builders should go with the “self-hosted” option (WordPress.org). Find out more: what's the difference between wordpress.org and wordpress.com?

Is that enough to make your decision? If so, skip the next part and head to the most important part.

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Detailed Comparisons

OK, if the concise summary above doesn't answer your questions, let's compare the important features of each. We'll start with this one:

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1. Can I switch to a different option later?

Yes, with both you can export your posts and pages for import into another platform. Remember this and trust yourself enough to make a decision because you'll be able to make a change if you want to later on.

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2. What's the cost?

WordPress itself is free but you have to pay for hosting (and probably a good theme and backup/security plugin). Basic WP hosting can cost anywhere from $4–40/mo depending on how much reliability and support you want. Here are some WordPress hosting recommendations. With WP you may also need to pay for a theme, which can add another $20-$200 to your initial cost. We also recommend you pay for a professional backup and security plugin because with WP you're responsible for everything on your website - errors and mistakes happen and you can lose years of work in a single moment.

Squarespace at the time of writing is $12/mo if you bill annually. Here's their current pricing. All their themes and features are included for this price, though you can upgrade to add more contributors, e-commerce features, etc. Backup, security, etc., are all taken care of.

	WordPress	Squarespace
What's the cost?	WP is free, hosting is $4-$40/mo depending, theme is $0-$200 depending, backup and/or security plugins can be $20–200	Starts at $12/mo

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3. Which is easier to setup?

Squarespace is easier to setup. Everything happens in the same place, there's an easy step by step process with 24/7 support if you get stuck.

WordPress is not terribly difficult to setup especially if you go with a host provider (like those here) which offers push-button WP installation for you. That said, it's still true that with WP you're going to need to be in charge of everything, so you'll need to understand hosting, installing a theme, etc.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Which is easier to setup?	Pretty easy but you will need to understand hosting, installing themes, etc.	Easy peasy

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4. Which will make my site look better?

Quick answer: both. They both have great themes.

WordPress has a huge ecosystem of theme developers. You can find loads of themes here, here and here, and a Google search will make your eyes bleed with several thousand more options. The challenge here is finding something you like out of the box when there are so many options. Another challenge is finding a theme that is not going to break on you in the future, something from a respectable theme creator. Each of the links above are from, in my opinion, respectable theme creators. Even so, WordPress changes over time, and you'll want your theme creator to stay up to date with those changes.

Squarespace has extremely robust and customizable “templates.” There are only about 30 templates at the time of writing, but each is profoundly customizable with the drag and drop page builder, built in Typekit fonts, google fonts, custom CSS, etc. Here's a helpful little tool to help you pick your SS Template. Squarespace themes, since they are totally owned and operated by Squarespace (not built by third parties like WP) will continue to work and be updated without any effort from you.

I have to say, the longer answer here is that with Squarespace you don't have to do a bunch of research on theme makers, checking to see if they're reliable or not, because Squarespace controls the quality of all their own themes. That's kind of a big deal if you plan on building a site you can count on. NOT a deal breaker for WP for me, just another thing you want to be intelligent about. Unless you're just starting a blog because in that case please just pick something and start blogging already! :)

	WordPress	Squarespace
Can it look pretty?	Yes it can	Yes it can
Theme Options	TONS in the WP community	About 20–40 templates at the time of writing
Theme Reliability	A reliable theme maker can be expensive, but it's worth it because the web and WordPress are always changing and you need a theme maker to stay responsive with updates.	Each template is owned and controlled by SS so you can trust the reliability over time
Design Perks	TONS of designers and developers make themes and plugins for WordPress because it's very popular	Free Typekit fonts, Google fonts, Forms, Mailchimp integration, built-in mobile websites
Can I work with a designer/developer?	Yes, there are so many people who earn their living by customizing your WP website	Yes, there is a growing number of people who you can hire to help you.
Is it very customizable?	WP is profoundly customizable, and some themes can be customized heavily without any coding. A skilled professional can do anything you want, but it won't be free.	SS is very customizable by a person with no design or code skills, but you may need a professional to make more drastic changes. Also, there are some things you just can't do in SS which you could in WP (like create a robust application like Fizzle's membership area, courses, forum, etc.)

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5. Can I make design customizations myself if I don't know how to code?

Squarespace: yes. SS allows you to add and remove and drag and drop and push and pull and grow and shrink all sorts of things as you create your site. It can take a little while to learn (you'll need to watch their instructional videos), but once you understand how things work you'll be very capable on your own (and support is there when you need it).

WordPress: that depends on your theme. Many themes include some kind of easy customization for typography, color, blog layout, etc. Some modern themes come with drag and drop “page building” features, which make WP work a lot like SS.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Can I customize my site without coding?	Depends on the theme	Yes you can

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6. How can I get help when I need it?

Squarespace wins on this one with 24/7 email support as well as live chat support during business hours and forum help center.

WordPress has a ton of answers in their support forum and on blogs across the web, so searching in Google can yield helpful answers. However, for every great answer there's about 10 wrong ones and 10 more you don't understand.

	WordPress	Squarespace
How do I get support?	Search and sort through the answers, ask in the forums and hope for the best, hire an expert	Email, chat and talk with SS directly, search through their help center

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7. Can I use it for blogging / podcasting / selling products?

Squarespace: Yes. Out of the box SS supports blogging, website pages, podcasting, portfolio websites, restaurant websites, e-commerce websites, etc.

WordPress: Yes, with plugins. Out of the box WP supports blogging and website pages. With plugins WP can do just about anything. There are great themes built for portfolio websites, restaurant websites, etc., and excellent plugins built for commerce, podcasting and more.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Can I use it for blogging / podcasting / selling products?	Yes, some plugins may be necessary	Yes

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8. Is search engine optimization the same with each?

The search engine optimization capabilities of these platforms are effectively the same. We agree with SEO industry guru Rand Fishkin on Squarespaces' SEO features:

I think they've done a solid job with SEO features and functionality. I actually consulted a bit (informally – not paid, just helping out because I want folks to provide good SEO, especially popular CMS') with the Squarespace team, and reviewed some of their implementations. It's good stuff, and Squarespace is a good company (good customer service, honorable folks, good about refunds, excellent with uptime, etc).

That said, you can certainly get more flexibility by hosting your own system. WordPress enables a lot of this, especially if you have a good developer making changes to it. Out of the box, Squarespace is friendlier on many aspects of SEO than WordPress, but with customizations, the latter can exceed the former. ∞

(You'll find more info on SS's SEO features here.)

Since both these tools code up your site in searchbot-friendly ways, and since your search rankings are largely determined by the number of inbound links (as well as social shares, page load time, etc.), and since that is typically determined by the quality of content you make, and since you can make excellent content on either one of these platforms, we rank their features exactly the same.

(If you want to learn more about our take on SEO, listen to this podcast episode: 5 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Site (Plus SEO Insights, FS057).)

	WordPress	Squarespace
How solid are the SEO features?	Solid	Solid
Possible to make great content?	Yes	Yes
Possible to get inbound links?	Yes	Yes
Custom titles, meta description?	Yes	Yes
Custom URL slugs?	Yes	Yes
Alt text for images?	Yes	Yes
Sitemaps, robots.txt?	Yes, with plugins	Yes
301 redirects?	Yes, with plugins	Yes

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9. Which one is most popular and which one do real businesses use?

WordPress is enormously popular with bloggers and online small businesses because for a while there it was the only intelligent option. Squarespace seems to be rapidly gaining popularity. But, as high school taught us, popularity isn't necessarily a worthwhile metric.

A lot of businesses rely on WP and SS for their essential businesses activities. Personally I've only ever worked on WP websites because it's been the industry standard for the past decade or so (though Moveable Type was also widely used).

So, when it comes to popularity and real business use, I'd say WP has the historical advantage and that SS is fast on the rise for business use.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Can you make a website that looks real good?	Yes	Yes
Can you make marketing webpages?	Yes	Yes
Do real businesses use this tool?	Yes	Yes
Can you make landing pages?	Yes, depending on theme or plugins/code	Yes
Can you sell products?	Yes, with plugins	Yes

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10. Are they safe from hackers/viruses?

Squarespace: Yes, your site is always safe. I can't find any stories of Squarespace sites being hacked. This is due, of course, to the fact that Squarespace is a controlled, proprietary technology.

WordPress: No, you need to be careful not to leave your site open to vulnerabilities. WordPress sites get hacked frequently because the plugins and themes users install can be coded poorly and leave your site open to vulnerabilities. Luckily there are yet more plugins you can install to help you keep your site secure. The best plugins and services for keeping WP sites safe cost money.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Will my site be safe from hackers?	Some plugins/themes can leave your site open to vulnerabilities. Be careful and use a plugin or service to keep your site safe	Yes

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11. If my site gets really popular will the servers crash?

Squarespace will likely not crash. They run on big technology. As they put it:

Although no platform can guarantee 100% uptime, we have a stellar reputation for serving high-traffic sites. For example, our own website is a Squarespace site, and it's served from the exact same infrastructure we provide to our customers. The massive traffic spike we've handled successfully following our Super Bowl ads is a good example of what your site is equipped to handle. ∞

WordPress: it depends on your host. This is yet another situation with WP where it totally depends on the host you use. Use that $4/mo Bluehost plan? You won't survive a huge spike in traffic very gracefully. But, lucky for you, these kind of traffic spikes don't happen very often… rather, they don't happen at all for most of us :)

	WordPress	Squarespace
Will my servers crash or my site be inaccessible?	Depends on your hosting provider	No

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12. What about ongoing maintenance of the site?

WordPress: you must update and maintain your site yourself. WP is growing and updating all the time, fixing problems, adding features, increasing security. That's one of the great things about WP: it gets better with the help of thousands of people on the internet. However, you are responsible for updating and maintaining your own site. This is almost always a really easy “one-click” process. However, sometimes a plugin or customization can cause a snag which can leave you in a tight spot. Also, you're on your own to regularly backup your WordPress website.

Squarespace: updates are rolled out for you. SS manages, updates and runs all the technology of your website for you, so there's no regular maintenance. They also keep a backup of your site for you (though less robust than some WP backup plugins). Occasionally SS updates their entire system. In that situation there's a larger process to updating your website to their latest version. (Here's an example.)

The steps necessary to keep your WP site running are not difficult, but this is another place where a managed platform like Squarespace wins.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Who's responsible for platform updates?	You are. It's normally easy to do though.	Taken care of for you
Who's responsible for keeping a backup?	You are, there's some great plugins out there	Taken care of for you

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13. Which works best for people browsing on mobile devices?

Squarespace: all of the templates are mobile friendly, even with the customizations you make. Not much more to say on that one.

WordPress: depends on your theme. There are tons of responsive themes out there for WP. Many of them cost money, but they're a hell of a lot cheaper than hiring a designer/developer like me.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Does it work for mobile browsers?	Depends on the theme you choose	Yes, always

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14. Can I update my site via a mobile app?

Both: Yes. Both WP and SS have mobile apps you can use to update your blog posts, pages, etc. Squarespace breaks up their apps by functionality. WordPress has a single app.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Can I update my site via a mobile app?	Yes	Yes

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15. What about migrating if I have a site already?

Both: Yes, you can import data from a different website (depending on the platform your current website runs on). WP and SS both allow you to import your site content from another site. It should be said importing from another platform can be cumbersome, but it's doable. I've had to do it many times myself, even between these two platforms.

	WordPress	Squarespace
Can I migrate from another platform?	Yes	Yes

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Wow, that was a s#$t ton of detail about WordPress vs Squarespace!

href='https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Wow, that was a s#$t ton of detail about WordPress vs Squarespace!&url=http://fizzle.co/sparkline/squarespace-vs-wordpress&via=fizzle'
title='Click to share on Twitter!'>Tweet This

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Squarespace vs WordPress is only the beginning. Here's the most important part.

I don't know which stage of your business or project you are currently in. (We've identified 9 stages in our small business roadmap.)

But you're here, on this article, so chances are you're doing some research, possibly a lot of research.

Now, research is important… up to a point. At some point what you need to learn can only come from getting your hands dirty.

Did you hear that? At some point we all have to stop planning and start doing.

Now, the comparison above won't give you 100% certainty about which platform you should choose. There's no article out there that can do that for you.

But, I want you to stop right now and explore this thought for just a second: Maybe I already have as much information as I'm ever going to get and I'm ready to take the plunge and pick one. After all, I can switch to another platform at any time.

Your website is just one of many important parts of your business. Remember what I said in the beginning about how your website can help you get discovered? The painful truth is that your website alone will almost never get you discovered.

If you're a blogger or podcaster your content will get you discovered.

If you're a designer, illustrator, freelancer, it's your work that will get you discovered.

Your website will help. It can help enormously. But it can't do what you're asking it to do on its own.

Which brings us to the most important part: to make a decision and move completely on to the next stage of your project/business.

The article above is probably the most comprehensive on the internet. You should have enough to feel confident picking one.

If you don't feel comfortable, that's kind of a red flag. It might be something about this project or idea, or something you're a little afraid to commit to maybe. Whatever it is, take it seriously ask it why it's not letting you feel comfortable. (Our roadmap training is exceedingly good at identifying issues like these.)

The big thing here is to make a decision and move on completely to the next stage of your business or project.

If you do make a decision, let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear what convinced you. Ask any questions you have as well.

Good luck and thanks for reading.

---

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5 A/B Test ideas for mobile gaming apps

We talk a lot about a/b testing here on MarketingExperiments. What we don't usually talk about is a/b testing for the mobile web…especially testing within mobile apps.

I thought we should change that. As I was scouring the web looking for mobile a/b tests, I found this 2-year old video by Amazon.

Apparently, Amazon Web Services (AWS) at one point had an a/b testing feature that is now closed.

When they had testing, however, one app developer used it extensively and shared their experiences in a promotional video for the feature on Amazon. The developers were behind the game Air Patriots. Russell Caroll was the Senior Producer for the game and Julio Gorge was the Game Development Engineer. The game is a kind of aerial take on the classic tower defense game genre.

Air Patriots

Now granted, this was a promotional video, but the content still speaks for itself. These guys had (and still have by the looks of it) a fairly successful mobile app and they ran some successful tests. It's a great starting place for what you can test in your mobile app.

By the way, while Amazon has shut down its a/b testing feature, there are a lot of other tools for testing mobile apps that will accomplish the same thing the developers talk about in the video.

Test #1: What is the impact of ads on customer experience? (1:34)

The first thing the team tested was the impact of ads are on their customers. They wanted to make sure the ads did not harm the customer experience. So they tested a single ad in the main menu near the bottom of the screen.

They found that the ads didn't affect customer retention. This meant that they could insert ads and generate more revenue without hurting their customers.

Test #2: Will in-game ad placement affect customer retention? (2:56)

In the second test, the team put ads in the game screen.

In both the first and second tests, the ads had a little “X” that the customers could tap to hypothetically dismiss the ads. When they tapped, a pop up came up that told customers they could eliminate ads with any purchase in the game's store.

In this test, there was again, no impact on customer retention, but there was a statistically significant increase in revenue.

Test #3: Simple game-circle icon test (4:20)

In this test, the team wanted to know whether an icon to the game-circle (Amazon's game stats and leaderboards portal) would improve performance.

It's not clear which icon won, or even why this particular test was useful for the team, but they did get a favorable result, and the lesson they wanted to drive home was that simple changes like icons can make a difference. We've, of course found that to be the case in a large number of our tests on MarketingExperiments.

Test #4: Does game difficulty affect revenue? (4:58)

In this 4th test, Caroll made a mistake. He accidentally changed the game difficulty to make it about 10% harder. As a result, every metric that was important to them tanked.

The team of course fixed it as fast as possible, but it gave them an idea.

What would happen to revenue if they made the game easier?

So they ran a test that had 5 treatments: The control and then 4 difficulty levels that were easier than the control.

It turned out that the easiest difficulty performed the best. By making it easier, they players playing 20% longer and revenue went up 20%.

Test #5: When is the best time to have push-notifications for re-engagement in inactive players? (7:43)

The team then tested a push-notification that offered inactive players and incentive for picking the game back up.

They wanted to know when the best time to send the notification would be. So they tested a few different variables and found that the best time was 3 days after the last game play.

They also found that sending the notification 7 days after the last game play negatively impacted their performance metrics.

With these 5 tests and probably a few more that have been happening off the record, the team was able to develop a great app for their customers and steadily increase their revenue. At the end of the video Carol gives a few key takeaways for marketers who are a/b testing their apps.

You might also like:

Email Research Chart: Email opens trends on mobile devices in 2015

Mobile Marketing Chart: Amount of revenue from the mobile channel, by merchant type

3 A/B Testing Case Studies from Smart Brand-Side Marketers

Game of Featured Snippets: How to Rank in Position 0

Posted by larry.kim

Google's Featured Snippets are amazingly powerful. We're seeing more snippets than ever before for more search queries. You need them.

We know this thanks to some brilliant articles and presentations from some super smart people in the industry, including Glenn Gabe (see: The Power of Google Featured Snippets in 2016 and a Google Featured Snippet Case Study – also, an extra big shout out to Glenn for helping me answer some important questions I had when writing this article!), Peter Meyers (see: Ranking #0: SEO for Answers), and Rob Bucci (see: How to Earn More Featured Snippets).

But even after reading everything I could find about Featured Snippets, one huge question remained unanswered: How the heck do you get these damn things?

All of this leads us to today's experiment: How exactly does Google's algorithm pick which snippet to feature?

Obviously, Google isn't manually picking them. It's an algorithm.

So what makes Google's Featured Snippet algorithm tick?

For example, if two competing domains both have great, snipp-able results, how does Google decide to pick one over the other? Take this one, for example:

Why does WordStream (in Position 4) get the Featured Snippet instead of Moz (Positions 1 and 2) or Search Engine Watch (Position 3) on a search for [what is link building]?

What we know about Featured Snippets

Before we dive into the unknown, let's briefly review what we know.

We know snippets, like unicorns, come in all shapes and sizes. Your content must provide the answer in the "right" format, which will vary depending on the specifications in Google's algorithm. Snippets can be:

• Text.


• Lists (ordered or unordered).


• Images.


• Charts.


• Tables.


• Knowledge Graph.

We also know that any website can earn a Featured Snippet. Large brands and sites have no advantage over smaller brands and sites.

Finally, we also know that winning a Featured Snippet lets you enjoy some spoils of war, including:

• You get more website traffic.


• You gain greater visibility in Google's SERPs.


• You earn trust/credibility.

So that's what you need to know about Featured Snippets. Now let's dive into the unknown.

Important disclaimers

Featured Snippets pose a few problems that really complicated the analysis.

For one, snippets are finicky. You can do a search right now and see the snippet. But sometimes you can conduct the same exact search an hour later and the snippet won't be there.

For another, we're all working with limited data sets. We're limited to analyzing just the snippets we have.

Finally, snippets impact your organic CTRs. Some snippets will increase the CTR to your site – for instance, if you're ranked in fourth position but you have the featured snippet. But other times a snippet can actually decrease your CTR because the searcher already got their answer – no need to click through.

Google isn't much help either. Gabe asked Google SEO PR spokesperson Gary Illyes and got this frustratingly funny reply:

@glenngabe speculation: ancient aliens? Or, we look at many signals for determining what should be featured @JohnMu
- Gary Illyes (@methode) October 23, 2015

Theory #1: Snippets aren't featured based on organic search ranking factors alone

This one is relatively easy to prove.

According to Gabe's data, ranking position played some sort of role in whether you get Featured Snippets. Every single snippet was taken from a page that was good enough to rank in the top 10 organic positions.

If you look at Bucci's data, however, he discovered that Google will take snippets from content that ranks on Page 2 of Google.

I found something a bit more incredible when I pulled a report of snippets – 981 in total – for my own website. Take a look:

• About 70 percent of the time, Google pulled snippets from pages in positions 1 to 3.


• About 30 percent of the time, the snippets “source” comes from positions 4 to as deep as 71 (wow!).

If Google's algorithm were relying just on traditional search ranking factors (e.g., keywords and links), then Google would simply pick the first “snipp-able” content fragment from the highest-ranking piece of content every time. Google would never have to go to Page 2 or further (Page 8!) for snippets when other there are other perfectly nice formatted snippets to choose from which rank higher.

Clearly, this isn't happening. Something else is at play. But what?

Theory #2: Having your content in a snipp-able format matters (but isn't the whole picture)

Is it all about being the most clear, concise, and thorough answer? We know Google is looking for something "snipp-able."

For the best shot at getting a Featured Snippet, your content should be between 40 and 50 words, according to SEMRush's analysis.

Without a doubt, format matters to Google's algorithm. Your content needs to have the right format if you're ever going to be eligible to be snipped.

But again, we're back to the same question. How does Google pick between different pages with eligible stuff to snip?

Theory #3: Engagement metrics seem to play a role in snippet selection

To figure out what was happening, I looked at the outliers. (Usually, the best way to crack an algorithm is to look at the unusual edge cases.)

Let's look at one example: [how to get more Bing Rewards Points].

This page shows up as a snippet for all sorts of queries related to “getting bing rewards points,” yet the source of the snip is from position 10. What's crazy is that our page ranks behind Bing's official site and all sorts of other video tutorials and community forums discussing the topic.

Why the heck is this happening?

Well, when I look at this page in Search Console, I notice it gets an unusually high CTR of 21.43 percent, despite a ridiculously low average position of 10.

This CTR is 10x higher than what you'd expect to see at this position.

The other thing I noticed was that the page had remarkably great engagement metrics. The time on site (which is proportional to dwell time) was an amazing 14 minutes and 30 seconds.

This time on site is considerably higher than the site average – by nearly 3x!

Note: This is just one simple example. I did this for more than 50 pages (unfortunately I was limited by data here because I was looking specifically for pages that rank poorly, yet generate snippets).

What I found was that the relative time on site for pages that were snipped from low positions on the SERP has incredibly higher time on page, compared to the site average.

Basically, what I think might be going on is something like this:

Supporting fact #1: Marissa Mayer said it worked this way

In addition to this data, there are a couple more reasons why I think engagement metrics may be playing a key role in Google's Featured Snippet algorithm. These examples indicate that Google has long-held beliefs around good engagement metrics reflecting quality content.

Does the past hold some important secrets to our current plot? Let's see.

First, we'll head back to 2007 for an interview with Marissa Mayer discussing the OneBox and how features like news, maps, and products would get promoted above the organic results into the OneBox, based on click-through rate:

"We hold them to a very high click-through rate expectation and if they don't meet that click-through rate, the OneBox gets turned off on that particular query. We have an automated system that looks at click-through rates per OneBox presentation per query. So it might be that news is performing really well on Bush today but it's not performing very well on another term, it ultimately gets turned off due to lack of click-through rates. We are authorizing it in a way that's scalable and does a pretty good job enforcing relevance."

Supporting fact #2: Google used the same algo in paid search a few years back

OK, now let's go back to 2008 – back when Google still had AdWords ads on the right rail. (Unfortunately, with the death of the right-side ad rail, all ads appear above the organic search results now – a moment of silence for the right-side rail).

Google would promote three ads to appear above the organic search results. How did Google decide which paid search ads to feature above the organic search results?

Here's what Google revealed in an AdWords blog post, "Improvements to Ads Quality":

"To appear above the search results, ads must meet a certain quality threshold. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, we may not have shown any ads above the search results. With this update, we'll allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. For instance, suppose the ad in position 1 on the right side of the page doesn't have a high enough Quality Score to appear above the search results, but the ad in position 2 does. It's now possible for the number 2 ad to jump over the number 1 ad and appear above the search results. This change ensures that quality plays an even more important role in determining the ads that show in those prominent positions."

What's important to know here is how incredibly important CTR is in the Quality Score formula. By far, CTR has the biggest impact on Quality Score.

So here we have spokespeople from both the organic search side and Google's own ad system telling us that CTR can play a vital role in helping Google ensure that a piece of content or an ad meets a high enough quality threshold to qualify to appear in the very prominent and valuable space above the organic search results.

That's why I strongly believe that Featured Snippets work very much the same way – with CTR and engagement metrics being the key element.

What does it all mean?

Featured Snippets give us yet another reason to focus on engagement rates. This year we talked about how engagement rates:

• Impact conversion rates


• Impact organic and paid social media post reach


• Impact rankings

Any one of these alone is good reason to focus on improving your CTR. But wait, there's more: I believe engagement rates also impact the selection of Featured Snippets.

So in addition to formatting your on-page copy to meet the snipping requirement, follow the guides on improving CTR and time on site.

A call to arms

One thing that's hard about doing research and analysis on Featured Snippets is that we're limited to the data we have. You need to have lots of snippets and access to all the CTR data (only the individual webmasters have this). You can't just crawl a site to discover their engagement metrics.

Why don't we team up here and try to crack this nut together?

Have you won Featured Snippets? What are your engagement rates like for your featured snippets – from the Search Console for CTR and Google Analytics for time on site? Do you see any patterns? Please share your insights with us in the comments!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

The Ultimate Homepage Planning Checklist [Infographic]

Where to begin when planning a website? Easy: the homepage. But what to put on that homepage? Suddenly, decision-making is not so easy. This infographic can help make that process less overwhelming. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

How To Set Google Conversion Code To Fire On Click Using Google Tag Manager

Google AdWords has been around for 16 years and I've been right there with them for the last decade. Which is why I'm still a bit surprised that AdWords native conversion tracking is behind the times. While Bing Ads, Facebook, […]

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How To Set Google Conversion Code To Fire On Click Using Google Tag Manager

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Written by Robert Brady, Righteous Marketing

The post How To Set Google Conversion Code To Fire On Click Using Google Tag Manager appeared first on Search Engine People Blog.