17 Hidden Facebook Marketing Tools That Will Increase Your Engagement by 154%

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Facebook engagement is easier and more valuable than you ever imagined.

I found this out the hard way.

At one point, I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on Facebook Ads.

Sure, I was getting some huge successes. But I was also wasting a ton of money.

For example, I once spent $400,000 on Facebook fan page likes.

I still feel dumb for that one…

The engagement just wasn’t there. I had a large number of fans but very little actual engagement.

I had no idea that hidden tools within Facebook’s apps, extensions, insights, tactics, and bots that could have made my Facebook ad spend 80 times more effective.

Facebook marketing is like an iceberg. Most people see the top part — Facebook ads. They spend their entire time optimizing that little bit of potential.

The real power is underneath. It’s hidden.

And that’s why I created this list.

I want you to know exactly what those hidden Facebook marketing tools are and how you can increase your engagement by 154% as I did.

Now before we get started, for the first few hidden tools you need Mobile Monkey to utilize all of the tactics (it’s free). In addition to that, some of the hidden tools that I’ll uncover are within Facebook… you just don’t know about them. 😉

Hidden Tool #1: Facebook Messenger Marketing

Okay, I’m starting out with a big, broad one.

It’s hiding in plain sight: Facebook Messenger marketing.

For some reason, not very many marketers are taking advantage of Messenger marketing, even though it’s the hottest opportunity in digital marketing today.

What does this mean for you? It means that you can gain first mover’s advantage.

Using Facebook Messenger for marketing is as simple as it sounds… you send messages to customers on Facebook Messenger.

What makes this channel different from other marketing methods like email marketing is the results.

• Facebook Messenger messages have an open rate of 50-80%.
• Facebook Messenger messages have a clickthrough rate of 20%, especially when using chat blasting.
• Facebook Messenger messages have a conversion rate of 3-5x higher than Facebook desktop ads.
• Facebook Messenger marketing costs 30-50x less than Facebook ad campaigns (when using Facebook Send To Messenger Ads)

Where else can you get engagement results like that?

I don’t know of any, and I’ve done quite a bit of online marketing.

The best way to get started with Facebook Messenger marketing is with MobileMonkey.

MobileMonkey is a powerful chatbot builder that I use personally. Chatbots are essential for scoring sky-high open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates.

And best of all, it’s free.

Hidden Tool #2: Comment Guard (Private Reply via Messenger)

A comment guard is a Facebook Messenger marketing feature that allows you to add new contacts to your contact list when they comment on your Facebook post.

It’s like a magic elixir for engagement.

It works like this.

1. You post something on Facebook as usual.
2. People comment on your post.
3. Anyone who comments on the post gets your automatic private reply in Messenger.
4. When they engage with this reply, they are added to your Facebook Messenger contact list.

The mobile screenshot below displays exactly what happens.

Someone comments on the post, and they immediately receive a Messenger message.

Imagine this. You post something on your Facebook page that has high engagement potential… a meme, a quiz, a contest, a question, whatever. All the comments that you rack up aren’t just comments anymore, they’re warm leads.

You’ll need to use MobileMonkey in order to pull this off, but it’s really easy.

1. Just click the “FB comment guard” button using the MobileMonkey app.
2. Create an autoresponder message.
3. Point them to your Messenger chat landing page.
4. Add the comment guard to your selected Facebook post.

Hidden Tool #3: Click to Messenger Ads

A Click-to-Messenger Ad is a normal Facebook ad with a twist. Instead of sending people to a landing page, you send them to a Facebook Messenger bot sequence.

It looks like this:

Once the person starts that Facebook Messenger sequence, they are a lead. And that’s when a chatbot takes over to bring them down the conversion funnel.

For example, you could have your chatbot ask users questions, and send them offers that they’re interested in.

It can be hard to manually respond to thousands of message inquiries. Instead, you can direct those chat sessions derived from your Messenger Ads directly to a MobileMonkey chatbot, which can ask qualifying questions and engage users at scale.

Check out this article, for step by step instructions on leveraging this ad unit

Hidden Tool #4: Chat Blaster

Chat blasting is a powerful method for getting your message in front of your entire Facebook Messenger list in minutes.

I’ve managed chat blasting campaigns that scored a 96.9% open rates in just sixty minutes.

With MobileMonkey you can schedule chat blasts, bulk send, develop interactive Messenger sequences, create special offers, and anything else that helps your marketing.

To start, just click “Chat Blaster” in the app.

One of the things that I like about the Chat Blaster is the ability to segment audiences. Many of the campaigns that I manage involve thousands of contacts, so I want to narrow down my contacts to just the right targets.

Creating segments is simple using MobileMonkey, which allows you to “Create Audience” with a click.

Your audience can perform self-segmentation when the chat blast sends.

Hidden Tool #5: Messenger Scan Codes

Remember QR codes? They didn’t really catch on that big, but the idea is gaining new ground with Facebook Messenger codes.

Anyone who’s on Facebook Messenger has a unique code.

• In Messenger, tap on your profile picture in the upper right.
• Then tap your profile picture again
• The image that appears is your Messenger code.

From this screen, you can also scan a code.

Your Facebook page’s unique scan code is an excellent way to add people to your Messenger contact list. A person simply scans your code and they’re part of your list.

I can see applications for this at conferences, on bulletin board ads, merchandise, or even business cards.

Hidden Tool #6.  Warm Engaged Invites

One tactic that I’ve used to build my Facebook audience is by personally inviting people who have engaged with my facebook page, to become a page fan.

From your business Facebook page (desktop), find a post that has engagement.

Using this tool, you view the people who engaged with your post and can invite people to like the page.

The reason why this is valuable is that you’re able to target engaged fans. If you have a lot of Facebook fans, but not a lot of engagement, Facebook’s algorithm will punish you.

Instead, identify those people who will be engaged and manually invite them.

Hidden Tool #7: Send Personal Invites in Messenger

A similar hack is inviting your friends to like your business page, and also sending the invite in Messenger.

This is the method that I recommend since you can also personalize the message and give them two touches instead of just one.

Click on the … button on your Facebook page, then click “Invite Friends.”

Here, you can invite friends and create a personalized message. Be sure to check the box at the bottom to send the invite using Messenger.

Hidden Tool #8: Invite People to Your Facebook Group by Email

I love hacks that combine two platforms. I can leverage one of my marketing channels by combining it with another.

You can invite people to join your Facebook group by sending them an email. Obviously, you’ll need an email list to do this.

Here’s how.

From your Facebook Group page, click “members” on the left side.

From the next page, you can add email addresses and personal notes to invitees.

Currently, the only way I know how to do this is manually. If you have a large email list, it could take some time. :/

Hidden Tool #9: Competitor Ad Espionage

I’m a huge fan of ethical espionage.

In the world of SEO, it’s not that hard.

Just plug in a URL to something like RankSignals.

Boom, instantly you have intel.

And some of it is really helpful.

But with so many brands now spending millions on Facebook ads, how do you get a handle on that kind of information?

You will not be able to get your competitor’s targeting info and ad spend but you can find out where, how often, and what the competition is advertising.

Let’s say I’m the competition and you want to spy on me. First, find my Facebook page and tap the “i” button on the right side.

On this page, you can find out if the page has ever changed names, when it was created, and where the page managers are located. This can be handy intel.

Tap on “Active Ads.”

If the page is running ads, you’ll be able to see them here.

Hidden Tool #10:  Page Competition Gauge

I like to have a solid understanding of who my competition is and what they’re up to.

But how do I know who my competition is? Thankfully, Facebook’s algorithm has figured it out for me.

To use this feature, go to your Facebook Page Insights. From Insights, scroll down until you see “Pages to Watch.”

By default, Facebook shows you five potential competitors, but you can view more by clicking “See More Suggested Pages.”

When you add a competitor to your watched pages, you’ll be able to keep up with their activity, growth rates, total likes, and the frequency of their posts.

This information will help you understand how you’re doing and what you might need to change.

Hidden Tool #11: Find Where You’re Gaining Followers

It is important for you to figure out where you’re getting your followers so you can know how to get more.

One helpful way to get this information is again through Page Insights. Tap “Followers” and scroll down until you see “Where Your Page Follows Happened.”

Facebook shows you follow quantities according to five locations:

1. On Your Page
2. Search
3. Uncategorized Desktop
4. Your Posts
5. Others

If a particular source shows large follow rates, try to reverse engineer what happened, then do it again.

Hidden Tool #12: Identify Audience Signals on Page Insights

One way that I use metrics to leverage my marketing efforts is to view my Facebook page insights, particularly the demographic information.

When viewing this information, I’m looking for strong positives — indications that my audience favors a particular demographic.

For example, this page demonstrates a strong positive for men and women between the ages of 25-44.

If you’re 21, there’s only a small chance you’re going to be interested in my page. By contrast, if you’re a 30-year old male, there is a far stronger likelihood that you will have an interest in this page.

This information helps me know how, where, and upon whom to focus my marketing and advertising efforts.

Hidden Tool #13: Pull Email Addresses

I love this hack.

You know how hard it is to get people’s email address these days, right? No matter how appealing your content upgrade, asking for someone’s email address is tantamount to asking for their social security number.

With Facebook Messenger marketing, that’s no longer the case.

You can create a Facebook Messenger chatbot that asks for an individual’s email address. Then, all they do is click a button to pre-fill their address.

Facebook does all the work for you.

Here’s what the bot looks like in MobileMonkey.

As long as you set the input type as email, Facebook will know to pull the user’s email address exactly as they’ve entered it when creating a Facebook account. No typos, nothing.

This is another case of using two different channels to get information and engage your users. When you use a chatbot, it makes the process automatic and easy.

Hidden Tool #14: Pull Phone Numbers

If there’s one thing harder to get from a customer than their email address, it’s their phone number.

Again, powered by chatbots, it’s a cinch. Using input type “phone” in MobileMonkey means that you’re guaranteed to get the user’s primary phone number as they provided when and if they stored their phone number in Facebook.

It’s understandable that people are hesitant to enter their phone number on an unfamiliar platform — a contact form on your, for instance.

It’s quite a different level of comfort when they are asked for a phone number in a familiar messaging app, and Facebook automatically adds the number.

Literally, all that your contact has to do is tap their phone number.

Hidden Tool #15: Website Chat Widget

This one seems obvious, but again it’s surprising how few websites are putting the power of a website chat widget to work.

Check this out. If you go to MobileMonkey’s website, there is a chat widget on nearly every page.

If you’ve logged into Facebook Messenger on that browser, all you have to do is click and you’re introduced to a Messenger sequence with MobileMonkey.

This sequence powered by a chatbot brings you further down the funnel.

One of the unique and powerful features of this funnel is that it is self-guided. You feel as if you’re in control — making choices and selecting options.

Regardless of your choices, however, you are making deeper connections with the product and the marketing funnel.

Hidden Tool #16: Track Specific Facebook Conversions

The good thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you have access to a ton of information.

The bad thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you also have access to a ton of information.

Take conversions, for example.

If you’re tracking them, good for you. But which conversions are you tracking? Here are the options:

I call this one “hidden” because true conversions are essentially in Ad Manager underneath a lot of other noise.

You have to narrow down your conversion tracking to just the conversions that you need to know about.

For one of my businesses, I only focus on five types of conversions.

Everything else is useless.

I’ve written about this before… when you get clarity on what to track, you’ll do a lot better at making real progress with your Facebook advertising.

Hidden Tool #17: Messenger Drip Campaigns

If you’ve been in Internet marketing for any amount of time, you know how potent a good drip campaign can be.

Imagine increasing this potency by 10x.

That’s exactly what a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can do. Again, the power is in the chatbot builder.

MobileMonkey’s drip campaign feature just takes a click to get started.

Unlike an email drip campaign which can take days or weeks to complete, a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can be completed in a matter of minutes or hours.

Plus, when you use a chatbot, the entire sequence can be interactive. You can create choices and engage the user on a far deeper level.

Conclusion

There’s way more to Facebook than meets the eye.

I have a strong sense that Facebook marketing isn’t going to decline in the next 2-4 years. It’s going to become exponentially more powerful.

There’s a reason why so many of the hidden marketing tools above focus on Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger marketing has fundamentally changed the game, and it’s done so in two  areas where marketing rises or falls:

• Interactivity or dialogue — Messenger marketing, even when powered by a bot, has a personal feel. Instead of bullhorn marketing — telling your audience to do, buy, read, visit, watch. You’re asking for their feedback and opening up a conversation.
• Speed of engagement — Unlike the glacial speed of email marketing (like drip campaigns), Messenger marketing has a much swifter cadence. Many people have a pavlovian response to the crisp ding of their Messenger notifications. They want to see who’s sending them a personal message. This means your open rates and click through rates are shooting up.

It’s not going to last forever. Like the banner ads of decades past, Messenger marketing will lose its luster as people become accustomed to it.

By engaging Messenger marketing now, you’ll have a far stronger advantage.

What Messenger marketing tactics does your brand or business currently use?

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Wix ‘SEO Wiz’ Stars in Big Super Bowl Ad, Fumbles with SEO Community by @schachin

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Wix claims you can use it to easily grab top search rankings. The reality? It barely does the SEO basics.

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New Study Shows How Much SEO Professionals Are Earning Per Year by @MattGSouthern

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A recent study on the local search industry reveals how much the average SEO professional earns in a year.

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Best WordPress Gallery Plugin – (Review Updated For Winter of 2019)

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If you search for “gallery” on the WordPress plugins page, you’ll see nearly 3,000 results to choose from.

To say that number is overwhelming is an understatement.

Who has time to go through all of those plugins to determine which one is the best? Fortunately, you don’t have to. I’ve narrowed down the list to the 7 best WordPress gallery plugins for 2019.

Why You Need a Gallery Plugin

Without a gallery plugin, you’ll be forced to use the basic image gallery that’s built into the core feature set of WordPress. Does this work? Yes. But it’s extremely limiting, and you’ll never be able to take your web design to the next level with this gallery.

To add visual elements to your website that will stun your visitors and provide them with a user-friendly viewing experience, you need to install a gallery plugin.

Depending on your needs, you can find free gallery plugins, as well as paid gallery plugins. I’ve done my best to identify the best ones for different purposes, so there’s something for everyone on my list of the top seven gallery plugins that I recommend for WordPress sites.

How to Choose a WordPress Gallery Plugin

Before we dive in and look at the list, there are certain things that you should keep in mind during your search for a gallery plugin.

• Speed — Adding lots of images to your website can impact your website loading time. You want a lightweight plugin that won’t slow your site down, even as you upload more photos.
• Features — Are you just looking for grids, or do you want slideshow options? Do you want to upload only photos, or do you need video and audio galleries as well? Will you need ecommerce integration? These are just a few of the feature sets you should think about when you choose a plugin.
• Usability — Sure, having a plugin that’s packed with features is great, but not at the cost of its ease of use. Some plugins are designed for developers and people who are a bit more tech-savvy, while others have drag-and-drop features that are really easy to use, regardless of your technical abilities.
• Price — The majority of gallery plugins have a freemium version. In most cases, though, you’ll probably have to upgrade to a pro version to access the top features. You’ll want to check the feature sets for each pricing level.

The 7 Top Gallery Plugins for WordPress

Now that you know how to pick the best WordPress gallery plugin for you, we’ll take a look at some of my favorites.

1. NextGEN Gallery

With more than 900,000 active installations, NextGEN Gallery is one of the most popular WordPress gallery plugins on the market.

It’s so popular because it offers a lot of gallery options. Unlike other plugins, there isn’t one typical or standard NextGEN gallery.

You’ll first choose between the two main styles: slideshow or thumbnail. From there, you’ll decide if you want a compact or extended album style. Then, you’ll have nearly limitless choices for size, transitions, effects, timing, and things of that nature.

As you can see from this example thumbnail gallery, this plugin is perfect for photographers and artists to showcase their latest work. You can add watermarks and hotlink protection as well, which is a great feature. The lightbox galleries have deep linking options too.

But NextGEN Gallery offers much more than that. They also have ecommerce functionality, so you can sell images on your website.

You can install this plugin for free, but to get advanced features like watermarks, you’ll need to pay for the premium version.

2. Modula Image Gallery

Modula Image Gallery is one of the lightest and most responsive image gallery plugins available on WordPress. I like it because you can create galleries that are unique and fully customizable.

In addition to images, Modula lets you share video galleries as well.

This plugin has a custom grid feature — you can manually change the size of each image within the gallery. Just navigate to the custom grid option and control dimensions like height, width, and aspect ratio by simply dragging the corners of an image.

Modula Image Gallery is great for beginners, as well as more advanced WordPress users. That’s because you can apply CSS to separate galleries.

The free plugin will be suitable for most WordPress users, but if you’re looking for things like hover effects, lightbox styles, and unlimited photos, you’ll need to upgrade to one of their plans, which start at $29.

Modula Image Gallery is just for grids. To create slideshows, you’ll need to get a different plugin.

3. FooGallery

FooGallery is another highly responsive plugin. These retina-ready galleries will enhance the user experience as they navigate and explore the pictures on your website.

It’s available for free but has a pro version with additional features and benefits. But unlike other gallery plugins, the free version still comes with plenty of variety in the templates. You’ll have plenty of template options to choose from with this plugin.

Here’s how the dashboard looks in WordPress.

As you can see, it’s very easy to add photos and change the settings of the responsive gallery.

You can customize things like:

• Hover effects
• Paging
• Captions
• Filtering
• Loading icons
• Border sizes
• Themes
• Shadows
• Loading effects

FooGallery also has custom CSS for developers. Another cool feature of this plugin is the infinite scroll, which is a nice option for those of you who don’t want to have photos on multiple pages within a gallery. You can also manage video galleries on your WordPress site with the FooGallery plugin. And it has tools for generating boilerplate extensions.

4. Envira Gallery

The interface of Envira Gallery is extremely user-friendly. You’ll be able to add photos with its drag and drop functionality. Similar to Modula, you can adjust the sizes of your visual elements as well.

You’ll start with one of its pre-built templates, then customize it to your liking. In addition to photos, Envira Gallery has options for video galleries.

I also like this plugin is because it’s easy to stay organized. After you add photos to an album, you can select cover photos and choose custom tags for sorting.

All of your galleries will be mobile-responsive, so site visitors won’t have any problems accessing, viewing, or navigating through content if they are browsing from a tablet or smartphone.

Envira Gallery has social media integration and is compatible with WooCommerce, making it easy to share your images on other platforms and get your social media users to purchase content from your ecommerce store.

If you’re a photographer, you can add password protection and watermarks to galleries as well. Slideshows and lightbox mode can be viewed on a full screen so that visitors can look at images in your gallery with a closer view. These features make Envira Gallery a popular choice for artists and photographers.

5. Flagallery Photo Portfolio

Flagallery Photo Portfolio has a feature that we haven’t seen so far on this list. In addition to photo and video galleries, this plugin lets you create music and audio playlists as well.

Another benefit of this plugin is the batch upload feature. It’s great for sites that want to upload a ton of content at once, while still staying organized.

It’s easy to manage all your visual content with one centralized dashboard via WordPress. From here, it’s a simple process to create collections that are fully customizable.

The plugin is optimized for SEO and compatible with all major Internet browsers.

6. Gmedia Photo Gallery

Just like Flagallery, the Gmedia Photo Gallery plugin lets you play music on your website, as well as displays photo and video albums. Gmedia Photo Gallery lets you enable comments on your albums, so website visitors can tell you what they think about your content and you can assign categories and add tags to your galleries to help you stay organized. It even includes editing features. While all of these features may not be important to you, I know some websites are definitely looking for an all-in-one plugin like this.

The drag and drop functionality is extremely user-friendly and the results are mobile responsive.

My favorite part though is the Gmedia iOS mobile app. With the app you can upload files to WordPress without having to transfer it to another device. If you’re using your smartphone to take business photos, which you probably are, this feature will save you a step in the process. You can take a photo from your phone and directly upload it. Super simple.

7. Photo Gallery by 10Web – Responsive Image Gallery

Photo Gallery by 10Web is a top choice to consider because it offers so many different options for showcasing images.

• Slideshow
• Thumbnails
• Image browser
• Masonry
• Mosaic

With slideshows, you have the option to add a filmstrip above the images, so users can jump ahead instead of being forced to view one photo at a time in order. You can completely customize the dimensions of each slideshow as well.

Whenever you click an image in the thumbnail view, a lightbox will be opened. Alternatively, you can redirect each image to a specific URL, but I like the lightbox version better.

Masonry view lets you display thumbnails with different dimensions, depending on the ratio of those images. This is ideal if you have lots of photos of varying dimensions.

But the mosaic view option is probably my favorite.

The mosaic view uses the concept of masonry view, but the thumbnails are resized, so the entire content area is filled. I love the effect that this creates on the screen, and I think it’s a great way for your website to stand out from the crowd.

It’s worth noting that you’ll need to pay for the premium version to access all of these view options.

Photo Gallery by 10Web offers social sharing, watermark protection, and ecommerce integration as well. Overall, it’s definitely a top choice to consider.

Conclusion

If you want to take your visual content strategy to the next level, I highly recommend installing a gallery plugin. Don’t limit yourself with the basic image gallery that comes standard with WordPress.

There are thousands of plugins available, but instead of going through each of those one by one, use this list as a reference and framework to help you narrow down your choices:

• What features do you want?
• Do you need the gallery to handle just photos, or do you use other types of media? Videos? Audio files?
• How much are you willing to pay?
• How important is mobile uploading to you?

Some of these plugins have more features than others; it all depends on what you’re looking for. No matter which option you choose, any plugin on this list will improve your site from the perspective of your visitors.

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What Is an SEO Professional in 2019? An Identity Crisis Averted

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Here's what being an SEO professional today means and some tips to help bring SEO success to your company.

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Optimal Blog Design: 11 Elements and Examples of Blog Layouts and Designs

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Are you trying to create the perfect blog design?

You know, one that encourages people to read your content and share it on the social web and, most importantly, gets high rankings in the search engines?

If you are trying to create a popular blog, here are the 11 essential elements (and examples of each) that you need within your blog design.

Element #1: Threaded comments

There are a lot of commenting systems out there. From Disqus to Facebook comments, the options are endless. But do you know what the best commenting system is?

Threaded comments like this.

“Why?” you may ask. Because threaded comments will typically increase the number of comments you receive per post by 16% to 33%. The more comments you receive, the more text you’ll have on each page. And the more text you have on each page, the more long tail keywords you will rank for.

Stick with threaded comments no matter what. Even if you have an active Facebook community, don’t use Facebook comments. Facebook owns that content, and it won’t help you get more search engine traffic.

Element #2: Snippets

Have you noticed that I don’t list the full post on the Quick Sprout’s blog homepage? I only show you a few paragraphs (a snippet), which prompts you to respond to the call to action “click to continue” to read the rest of the post.

You want to have snippets instead of full posts because of two main reasons:

1. People have short attention spans – you have an attention span of 8 seconds, and so do your readers. By only showing them snippets, you allow your readers to choose from a number of posts. They will scroll until they find a post that piques their interest, and then they’ll read it.
2. Duplicate content – if you place your full post on your homepage, you will create duplicate content, which will hurt your search rankings. This is another reason why you want to use snippets.

On your homepage, you can test the call-to-action text to find out which version maximizes the number of people clicking through and reading your post. I’ve tested the phrases:

• Continue reading
• Read more
• Click to continue
• Continue

The text “click to continue” outperformed the other variations by at least 10%. You should, of course, test this as what works on my blog may not work on yours.

For example, I noticed that GotchSEO uses “Continue Reading” on is blog and I would bet that he has tested many alternatives to find what performed best for him.

Element #3: Scrolling social buttons

I’ve tested a lot of social buttons on Quick Sprout. I have had buttons at the beginning of the posts and at the end, and I have asked people to tweet about a post from within the blog post. The one design that continually outperforms the others is scrolling social buttons.

Plugins like Sharebar and Flare have increased my social traffic by 27%.

Backlinko uses a nice share bar that is clean and scrolls nicely for an example.

When using a scrolling social plugin, make sure you limit the number of options to three. In other words, pick the three most popular social networks your readers are using. For me, it’s Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

If you add too many options, in my experience, it will decrease your social traffic.

Element #4: 11-point font size or larger

About a month ago, I wrote a blog post on how text size affects readability.

I did a test on 13 blogs, and I found that by increasing font size from 8 to 9, I was able to increase the time readers spend on site by 13 seconds. I saw another 8-second increase when I went to size 10. And I gained another 6 seconds by going to font size 11.

I have noticed that the Smart Passive Income Blog uses some nice large fonts in their headings and content. Check them out for another example I like.

Granted, this only works if you are using a readable font type like Arial or Times. If your font type is hard to read, increasing the size won’t help much.

When in doubt, use a bigger font size.

Element #5: A sidebar on the right

Have you noticed that some blogs have their sidebars on the left? Or even worse, some have two sidebars? I’ve played around with different layout types, and I’ve found that the optimal layout is to have your content on the left side and one sidebar on the right side.

This way people can focus on reading your content, yet you’ll have the flexibility of promoting other things within your sidebar. Just make sure the main content area takes up at least 60% of your design. People come to blogs to read, so you don’t want to distract them with other elements.

If you want to place your sidebar on the left-hand side, you can. But what I’ve found is that it typically decreases the number of people who read your content by 15% to 25%.

I prefer the look of a blog where a sidebar is on the right side, but it tends to convert better when it is on the left.

Here’s what I learned…

When you place your sidebar on the left-hand side, you will get more email opt-ins, and more people will read your bio and do whatever else you promote through your sidebar. But you will also get fewer people to read your content.

I’ve found that having a sidebar on the left side of Quick Sprout causes a 9% drop in people reading the blog posts. On the other hand, it increases the number of sidebar opt-ins by 13%.

Overall, I decided to place my sidebar on the right-hand side even though it generates 13% fewer opt-ins.

Why did I do it anyway? Because it increased the number of blog post reads by 9%. In the end, the purpose of a blog is to educate you through content… so why would I take that away?

Here is another simple, yet effective, example from the A Better Lemonade Stand Blog. They use their right sidebar to display their featured posts and offers in a way that is very user friendly and that does not take away from their content.

In general, you should consider keeping your sidebar on the right-hand side even though it will cause fewer conversions. People are coming to your blog to read, so your primary goal should be to make your content as easy to read as possible.

Although I recommend using a sidebar, you don’t need one on each of your pages. For example, the homepage of Quick Sprout doesn’t have a sidebar.

Consider not having a sidebar on the pages you are trying to improve conversions on or make money from. Why? Because it makes people focus their attention on the area you want—the area where you make money.

So, for my “money” pages, I tend to have no sidebars.

Also, for any page that has a defined goal, you should consider removing unnecessary distractions such as a sidebar.

Element #6: Your bio

Whether you have a corporate blog or a personal blog, you want to build a connection with your readers. Without that personal connection, people are less likely to comment or buy from you.

One way you can create a bond with your readers is by opening up. Within your sidebar, put a short bio of yourself, and then link it to your full bio.

Marie Forleo does a nice job of presenting her bio in her left sidebar (however, as mentioned above, I would suggest putting you sidebar on the right)

If you have a corporate blog, put the bio of your founders or the team that manages the blog in the sidebar. Make sure you include a picture right above your bio. People need to see you in order to connect with you.

Element #7: Email subscription options

I’ve mentioned this before: collecting emails is one of the most important things you need to do if you want to grow your traffic. Your options vary from an opt-in at the top of your sidebar to a pop-up if you want to be more aggressive.

I like the way that FireNation has their email box setup as a popup. It really grabs your attention and makes you want to input your email. Who doesn’t want financial freedom??

You’ll also notice that by offering a free e-book or a course, you’ll get a good number of email subscribers. You will also see that if you ask only for people’s email addresses instead of their names and emails, you’ll get roughly 10% more opt-ins.

For the month of June, emails made up 28% of Quick Sprout’s overall traffic. That’s not too shabby. Those users also generate the majority of my comments and social shares.

No matter what, start collecting email addresses of your readers. That way you can notify them when you publish a new blog post.

Element #8: Most popular widget

Can you guess what the most-clicked area on the blog is? It’s actually not the content.

Within my sidebar is an area that showcases all of my guides, my most popular posts, and my current hits.

That’s the most popular clicked-through area on the blog. Not only does it help drive traffic to my most important posts, but it also helps with search engine rankings because of the way I cross-link.

Check out how I Will Teach You To Be Rich uses their right sidebar to display their guides and most popular posts in the screenshot below.

You too can have this on your blog if you use the popularity contest plugin. You’ll have to get a developer to modify it so that you can have tabs similar to mine.

Element #9: Yoast SEO plugin

This is probably the simplest tweak you need to make to your blog. In the long run, you’ll notice that it will help your search engine traffic grow by leaps and bounds.

If you are running a WordPress blog, download and install the Yoast SEO plugin. If you are not running a WordPress blog, you’ll have to optimize your site for search engines manually by following the steps in this post.

Element #10: Keep your color scheme and design simple

Different colors have different meanings. Make sure you pick the colors for your blog carefully. They matter, and not just from a psychological standpoint. Some colors make it easy for your readers to read your content, while others don’t.

For example, red text on a black background isn’t as easy to read as black text on a white background.

Keep things simple by creating as much white space within your blog design as possible, and use black for your text color. There’s no need to make your design complex because at the end of the day people are coming to read your content. Your goal should be to make your content readable.

The ahrefs blog does a good job of this and keep an ultra clean blog design that is easy to read on any device.

Element #11: Images

Have you noticed that I place an image at the beginning of every blog post? I didn’t always do that, but from testing, I found that it increases the number of people who click through from my blog homepage to a post.

Can you guess by how much? A whopping 37%. All from just one image. If the image you are using is appealing, you’ll see good results. If the image you use sucks, fewer people will click through.

I prefer using stock photography images. You can also use royalty-free images, but the quality of those images typically isn’t as high.

The Duct Tape Marketing Blog usually uses some stellar images in their posts that I bet improve their click through rates as well.

Infographic: The blue print of an optimal blog design

For a visual roadmap I have also created this infographic that breaks down the blueprint of an optimal blog design. Use this as a guide to improve and optimize your blog.

Conclusion

Designing a blog that can boost your traffic isn’t that hard. All you have to do is follow the steps above. If you do, you should see an increase in traffic.

If you don’t have time to make all of the adjustments above, start with installing a scrolling social plugin and threaded comments. Those two simple changes will increase your social media traffic and search traffic in the long run.

If you implement the advice provided in this post and the infographic above, you’ll see an increase in your readership.

Trust me, it works. I’ve tested a lot of these design elements on Quick Sprout, and the tweaks helped me grow my readership to the size it is today.

if you really want to manipulate Google statehood you don't have to build a bunch of backlinks anymore

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An SEO Guide to URL Parameter Handling by @jes_scholz

the best old-school spam linking tool there is today

Learn six ways to avoid potential SEO issues with URL parameters.

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