Using Images to Improve Your Content Marketing

Whether they are inserted into the header or placed within the main body of text, images are an illustration of your contents core idea. Including simple images that relate to as wide an audience as possible will help maximize the work your content can do.

Where Can I Find Photos?

There are a number of places on the web you can find royalty free images that are free to download.  Even more where you can pay to download. The easiest way to find the latest resources is to do a search for “Royalty Free Images.”

No matter where you go for images, it’s vitally important to give proper attribution when required. A good rule of thumb for attribution is to credit the contributor of the image and include the website where you found it, ie: “Photo Courtesy of ABCD from FreePics.com.”

The same goes for a registered trademark or trademarked product. For example, if Nike Swoosh or an actual Nike product is seen in the photo, include a statement like, “Nike, the Nike logo, and Nike Products are trademarks of Nike Inc., registered in the U.S. and internationally.”

Image SEO

According to most experts in the SEO field, Keywords appear to be the end all be all of SEO.  Primary Keywords, secondary Keywords, Google “Keyword” and the list of sources of info will probably go on forever.  With Image SEO the first location to use your primary keyword will be the image filename.

The right filename will let a search engine know what the image is about.  This means if your image is a women’s top in a specific abstract design, the file name shouldn’t be DSC12345.jpg.  Instead, you want to rename it “ann-monique-womens-top-abstract-v.”  This gives the search engine spiders something to grab onto and take back to their part of the web.

Start a file name with a lowercase letter or a number and remove all spaces.  For multiple words, join them with a dash.

Loading times can be crucial for websites to maintain traffic. The faster the site, the easier to visit it. Images can have a huge impact on this.   Standard resolution for a screen image is 72ppi and most web pages won’t need an image to be more than 1000-1200 pixels wide.  To put that into perspective, a typical smart phone camera today will give you an image at 72 ppi but the file will often be over 3000 pixels wide (or more).

There are a few online image editors that work quite well and often don’t cost a thing or have a minimal membership fee with added benefits.  Two are PicMonkey and Pixl.

When uploading your image, you will often be given an option to add “alt text” or “alt tags.” This is also another good place to use your keyword placement.

In most e-commerce catalog pages, the product is shown in a specific place on the page that doesn’t overlap any other image or text.  JPEG images are most commonly used for this.  I’m adding this quick highlight in case a need arises for you to remove the background of a photo.

JPEG images include a visible background showing behind any curves or irregular lines. If you’ve taken the trouble to remove the background of the photo of a product but save it as a JPEG (JPG), you will still be stuck with a background color when you re-open it.

PNGs allow you to make the background transparent so it can be used over any color, texture or other text.  This can be helpful if you decide to show multiple products in one virtual shot but don’t have the means to retake the photo.

GIF images are a much lower quality than JPEGs or PNGs. Best for small decorative images and icons it is doubtful you will have a reason to use them on a product page.   Most often they are used to float basic logos over pages or header graphics since they can be saved with transparent backgrounds, like PNGs.

Even if it takes extra time to find just the right image for a post, the increase in SEO and lead generation make it worth your time.

A Practical Guide On How to Get Out of Gmail’s Promotions Tab

Since Google rolled out its tabbed interface, many marketers started seeing a significant decrease in their email open rate.

The introduction of an automatic filtering system for emails into Primary, Social and Promotions categories was the culprit in most cases.

Sure, it’s a great way to organize your inbox. But sometimes valuable content is caught by that filter and never given the full attention it deserves.

If you’re someone who sends email newsletters out to your subscriber list, you may not even know that your emails are being filtered into your recipients’ Promotions tab.

But the below stats show that it’s time to start paying attention.

Why does it matter if you end up in Gmail’s promotions tab?

According to Return Path, a whopping 19.9% of Gmail users never check mail under the Promotions tab. Yet the Promotions tab placement rate is fairly high at 84.5%, and the read rate is only 19.2%.

So how do you shift your placement in Gmail from Promotions to Primary to increase engagement, opens and ROI? Do you know what elements make Gmail categorize your emails as Promotions?

In this blog post, I’ll share a case study and actionable tips to help you fine-tune your emails and send them to Gmail’s Primary tab instead of Promotions.

My case study is performed from a Gmail user’s perspective. I found this email in my Promotions tab and thought it was a good example for our purposes.



I used the GlockApps spam testing tool to test it, which provides the seed list of dozens of test email addresses including Gmail email accounts. It’s a great alternative to Return Path’s Inbox Monitor if you need a fast way to test your inbox placement.

Step #1 – Reduce the number of links

One of the most common reasons why emails are filtered down to the Promotions tab is that they contain a high number of images and links.

In the email I tested above for our case study, there is little text and lots of links including linked images and icons with links to social profiles.

I began my test by removing the “View in browser” header with its links, and images with links to social profiles.



I re-tested the email and got this:



The email still landed in Promotions.

Interesting, I thought to myself. I’ll try again.

Step #2 – Remove images

I hypothesized that the problem might be an image-to-text ratio. I deleted the company logo at the top and the big image in the middle.



I tested the email again.

No luck! I was still stuck in Promotions.



Okay, I thought to myself, let’s see what else I can do.

Step #3 – Change the footer

I shortened the email’s footer and made it sound less promotional.



The third test showed that the email was delivered to…  the Primary tab in all test Gmail accounts! Mission accomplished!

But that’s not the end of the story

I decided to re-add some of the deleted elements to the email to pinpoint exactly when it started getting categorized under the Promotions tab.

I added the big image and tested the email.

It showed up under the Primary tab. So far, so good.

I added the logo and tested the email.

Bad news! It landed under the Promotions tab.

My conclusion? The image-to-text ratio does matter.

I deleted the logo and added the “View in browser” header with the link.

Again, my email was sent to Promotions.

I then removed the link to view the email in the browser and left only the text.

It didn’t help. Gmail still sent the email to Promotions.

You see, it turns out Gmail associates the “View in browser” header with bulk promotional mail.

Getting out of Gmail’s promotions tab for good

So here are five straightforward ways you can increase the chance that your email is delivered to Gmail’s Primary tab and therefore increase the chances that it is opened.

• Watch your image-to-text ratio. It should be approximately 40:60. Too many images and too little text sends the email straight to Promotions.
• Watch your links. Include a reasonable amount of links, ideally 2-3, but remove social icons and links as they are characteristic of bulk mail streams.
• Watch your header and footer. Header text like “View in the browser” and footer text like “Unsubscribe from this mailing list” or similar, makes Gmail (and probably not only Gmail) think your email is promotional. If you are sending emails using an ESP, edit the default footer (if possible) and correct it. At the very least, replace “Unsubscribe from all future mailings” with a simple “Unsubscribe”.
• Make it personal. In my experience (our team investigated hundreds of test reports and messages), Gmail doesn’t like emails sent out as subscriptions to mailing lists. Personalize your email as much as possible. Write simply and clearly, as if you were composing a quick note to a friend.
• Keep it simple. Try to avoid fancy email templates provided by email service providers. Create a custom template associated with your brand. Keep the template as clean and basic without background images, scripts or complex HTML coding.

One final thing that Gmail looks at besides the email content is the level of recipient engagement. So the people you are writing to can actually help you get your email out of the Gmail’s Promotions tab!
Here are some bonus tips for capitalizing on this:

• Encourage a reply. Wherever possible, craft your email so that it engages a recipient in a conversation. Ask them to reply to you and share their opinion, thoughts or experience. The example below offers a great example.
• 
• Encourage the move yourself. Ask the recipient to drag your email from their Promotions tab to the Primary tab. Ian Brodie developed a good case study of how this method helped him get out of Gmail’s Promotions tab jail.

If you are able to achieve recipient engagement, it will show Gmail that your emails are wanted and should be delivered to the user’s Primary inbox. Over time, Gmail will learn from the recipients’ actions and will start sending your emails to the Primary Inbox straight away.

One last important thing to note is that if your email is purely a promotional newsletter, you should probably leave it to stay in the Promotions tab. Otherwise you may end up with multiple complaints and unsubscribe requests as recipients may think your content is irrelevant.

Wrapping up

The content of your email really does inform its deliverability and categorization. To investigate why your email goes to the Spam or Promotions folder, start by testing your email content as I did in the case study above.

Changing particular elements in content can often solve deliverability issues, provided that you are sending the email to a confirmed opt-in list and that other elements of your sending infrastructure are in order.

Deliverability is, by nature, changeable and unpredictable. You may never know how each mailbox provider will treat your email and where it will land, but with consistent testing and the above tips, you should be able to navigate yourself out of Gmail’s Promotions tab.


Source: http://www.jeffbullas.com/gmails-promotions-tab/

Increasing Sales Leads by Boosting Twitter User Engagement

Twitter is an effective platform for entrepreneurs that want to reach out and increase their online presence. But, these efforts don’t provide a lot of help if you can’t engage your followers.

Twitter user engagement directly impacts your ability to gain sales leads through this social media platform. Engagement refers to the number of followers, retweets, and messages you receive through your Twitter profile.

If you want to boost engagement, then take a moment to review these simple tips.

Shorten Your URL Links

Every entrepreneur should use a web-based program to shorten their URL links. Studies show that shorter URLs receive more clicks.

The programs that generate these shorter URLs also typically provide a method for tracking these links. You can see how many people followed the shortened URL.

Use Images in Your Tweets

Tweets that contain images receive more clicks and more retweets. If possible, all your tweets should contain an image.

If you’re sharing a link to a landing page or a web page that you own, you should set up Twitter cards. This allows Twitter to pull the featured image from your page and place it in the tweet.

You can also upload photos for each tweet. It’s time-consuming, but it can help you get more retweets, clicks, and new followers.

Ask People to Retweet Your Tweets

Sometimes you just need to ask people to do exactly what you want them to do. Ask people to retweet your tweets.

Including “RT” in your tweet can help you gain 10 times as many retweets. On average, including the word “retweet” in your tweet will result in 23 times as many re-tweets.

This only takes up a few characters of the space that you have available. Give it a try. Add “RT” to the end of all tweets moving forward.

Include Actionable Words in Your Tweet

Along with asking people to retweet your tweets, you should include actionable words. You may not have enough space to include a full call to action, but you can use actionable words to increase engagement. Examples of actionable words include:

• Download
• Free trial
• Subscribe
• Learn more
• Read now
• Gain access

 Engage Your Twitter Followers

You should also drive engagement by being more engaging. You can include questions in your tweets, to encourage people to respond. This drive engagement and could result in more followers.

If you haven’t already, you should set Twitter to send email notifications when you receive a new message and when your Twitter tag is mentioned in another tweet.

You should respond to questions and comments as soon as possible. Even if the comment is unrelated to the products or services that you sell, you need to be active on social media. Respond when people talk to you.

Tweet Late at Night

The final tip for increasing user engagement on Twitter is to tweet late at night. These late-night tweets obtain about 10 times as many retweets as similar tweets sent during the day.

If you go to bed early, you can use a social media management platform to automate the release of your tweets and social media posts.

In the end, using Twitter to increase your online exposure depends more on quality than quantity. The number of followers that you have is less important than how engaged your followers are.

Focus on engagement by responding to tweets, asking questions, and using these other tips. Increasing your Twitter user engagement will help you boost the number of followers that you’ve got, along with helping to increase traffic from Twitter to your website.

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