By adecker@hubspot.com (Allie Decker)

Every marketing team is challenged to do more with less — especially nonprofit organizations. Often, resources are tight, and teams are small. Does this like your organization?

I want to help. That’s why I created this nonprofit marketing guide. Your organization might not operate for profit, but it can still get value from the traffic, funds, and awareness marketing brings in.

Bookmark this guide for later and use the chapter links below to jump around to sections of interest.

Inbound Marketing for Nonprofits

Your nonprofit organization likely takes up all of your time, and building a marketing plan might seem like an added responsibility that’s just not worth it.

We’re here to convince you otherwise. Inbound marketing is all about creating valuable experiences that positively impact people and your business.

Inbound marketing for nonprofits can help you attract new supporters for your cause, connect to valuable donors, engage your constituents, and inspire your community.

Boost your organization’s awareness and compel action. See firsthand how HubSpot can transform your nonprofit organization.

Here’s how else nonprofit marketing can help.

Nonprofit marketing raises awareness.

Your nonprofit organization is a brand. Therefore you need to raise awareness just like any other business or company. Marketing raises awareness, and brand awareness spreads the word about your organization and your overall cause.

Nonprofit marketing raises funds.

Nonprofit marketing and nonprofit fundraising go hand-in-hand. The more people know about your organization, the more potential funding you can bring in.

Nonprofit marketing drives donor memberships and recurring donations.

Many nonprofit organizations offer donation memberships and monthly giving programs, like this one from charity: Water. These programs are valuable because your organization doesn’t have to fundraise so actively and often. Also, they can actually help you raise more money — the average monthly online donation is $52 ($624 per year) compared to the average one-time gift of $128.

Marketing your nonprofit gets your cause in front of fresh eyes and informs your donors about how they can consistently contribute.

Nonprofit marketing recruits volunteers.

Nonprofit marketing isn’t just for funding. It also drives manpower (and woman-power!) to your organization. Regardless of industry or size, all nonprofits benefit from volunteers, and marketing your organization can help bring in new hands.

Moreover, volunteers are twice as likely to donate as non-volunteers.

Nonprofit marketing promotes your services.

Awareness, funding, and volunteers are integral to your nonprofit, but what about the purpose of your organization? What about the people, animals, or cause you’re helping? Marketing can help with that, too.

The more people who know about your nonprofit organization, the more people you can help.

These are just a handful of reasons you should invest in your nonprofit’s marketing strategy (particularly inbound marketing).

What is a nonprofit marketing plan?

A nonprofit marketing plan is essentially your playbook for successfully executing your nonprofit marketing strategy and achieving results.

Your plan will consist of promotional materials and initiatives, marketing channels you’ll use to engage your target audience, SMART Goals, and any other materials to aid your strategy.

Now, let’s discuss how to build a nonprofit marketing plan so you can start bringing in new funds, volunteers, and constituents.

Components of an Effective Nonprofit Marketing Plan

Components of an effective nonprofit marketing plan include the following, some of which I will dive deeper into when I explain marketing plan templates:

Marketing SMART Goals

What are the goals of your nonprofit marketing plan? What are you hoping to achieve? Once you figure out your goals, dig a little deeper to make them specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely (aka SMART, but we’ll get into that later).

Target Audience Information and Buyer Personas

Your plan should include relevant information about your target audience, such as their demographic, concerns, needs, and what channels they frequent.

Mission Statement

Your mission statement must include the purpose of your organization, the audience you serve, and how you serve them.

One of my favorite mission statements comes from the charity organization Cradles to Crayons:

«Cradles to Crayons provides children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive – at home, at school, and at play. We supply these items free of charge by engaging and connecting communities.»

Stakeholders and Staff Structure

Your plan needs a breakdown of internal and external stakeholders, such as board members, managers, directors, paid staff, volunteers, and donors.

Furthermore, your plan needs to make clear how everyone’s role comes together to carry out your organization’s missions and achieve its goals.

Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template

Download your free nonprofit marketing plan template.

Hubspot’s nonprofit marketing plan template can help you organize your nonprofit’s budget, team structure, and channels of choice to create your marketing strategy.

The nonprofit marketing plan template includes sections for developing your nonprofit’s summary, business initiatives, target market, marketing strategy, budget, marketing channels, and marketing technology.

Our nonprofit marketing plan template can help you:

• Complete a SWOT analysis for your organization.
• Develop a marketing strategy.
• Determine the industries and personas of your target donors.

Other Templates to Use

Trust me when I say your nonprofit marketing template will need to be thorough because you need to make sure everyone in your organization is on the same page about goals and your mission.

To make sure your plan is on point, here are some other templates you may want to consider incorporating into your plan.

Budgeting templates

Few things are free in this world, especially when it comes to marketing. So, make sure your marketing plan includes a budget and expenses. If you’re not sure how to organize your budget, check out templates like the one above by clicking here.

Customer Profile Templates

As I said earlier, knowing your audience is crucial to a successful nonprofit marketing plan. If you’re unsure how to set up customer profiles or buyer personas, then templates like the one above would be helpful to you.

Notice how the template includes information such as behaviors, demographics, and joyful/frustrating interactions.

Executive Summary

An executive summary briefly outlines to your stakeholders important information in your marketing plan, such as financial information, market analysis, and your organization’s mission.

Crafting a nonprofit marketing plan might not be too different from a for-profit marketing plan, but debatably, it’s more important. Increasing awareness and constituent engagement without exhausting your hardworking team requires approaching your marketing systematically.

That’s where a nonprofit marketing plan comes into play. Putting systems in place to produce and distribute your marketing content allows you to focus on operating and scaling your nonprofit.

Here’s how to create a successful nonprofit marketing plan.

1. Define your marketing goals.

Your nonprofit marketing plan exists to transform your organization’s mission and big-picture objectives into strategic, actionable goals.

For example, let’s say one of your objectives was to protect the welfare of animals in your community (like one of my favorite local rescues, ALIVE Rescue). I’d ask you to brainstorm three to five marketing ideas to advance that objective.

Some ways you could use marketing to advance that objective include:

• Creating and publishing content that educates your community on the state of animal welfare.
• Posting on social media about your organization and the animals you have for adoption.
• Sending a weekly email newsletter sharing your content, adoptable animals, and volunteer needs.
• Hosting a quarterly event with educational resources, foster training, and adoption opportunities.

Next, I’d ask you to turn these ideas into SMART goals. Let’s use idea number one as an example:

acronym	goal
Specific	Educate the community on the state of animal welfare by producing one blog post per week.
Measurable	Increase traffic by 15%.
Attainable	Our blog traffic increased by 10% last year when we upped our publishing frequency to twice a month. A 15% boost in traffic with a 100% increase in production seems attainable.
Relevant	An increase in blog traffic will boost awareness of our organization, educate the community, and alert more people of our adoption opportunities — thus, saving more animals and bringing in more funding.
Timely	We will start producing one post per week and the start of next month.

SMART Goal: By the start of next month, our blog will see a 15% boost in traffic by increasing our content production from two posts per month to one post per week.

This increase will boost awareness of our organization, educate the community, and alert more people of our adoption opportunities — thus, saving more animals and bringing in more funding.

See how I turned the organizational mission into a marketing objective and a SMART goal?

SMART goals are especially important when it comes time to analyze and measure your marketing performance (which I will talk about later), so be sure to finish this step before moving forward in your nonprofit marketing plan.

2. Understand your audiences.

Nonprofit marketing is different from other types of marketing because your organization is likely targeting multiple groups: constituents, customers, volunteers, and donors.

It’s imperative to define and understand each of these audiences (a.k.a. buyer personas) because your marketing will differ based on who you’re talking to. (We’ll get into key messaging next.)

For example, following our animal shelter example from above, an email targeting donors will have different messaging than an email calling for volunteers.

One easy way to organize your different audiences is using a CRM to segment the different groups. By separating contacts with tags and lists, you can easily send marketing messages to the appropriate groups.

3. Craft Your Key Messages

Key messages encompass the information you want your audiences to hear, remember, and share about your nonprofit organization. Crafting these before you employ your marketing is important for a few reasons:

• Key messages keep your organization aligned. No matter who’s doing the marketing, you can be confident the same thing is being said and promoted.
• Key messages simplify your marketing. With these created ahead of time, you already know what you will say in your marketing messaging.
• Key messages help organize your different audiences (as discussed above). As a nonprofit organization, you’re likely talking to donors, volunteers, constituents, and your community — more personas than a typical for-profit business. Developing key messages for each audience informs your team and your marketing to make sure you’re targeting the right groups.

Continuing with our animal shelter example, here’s a look at how you can craft a key message for different audiences.

Key message: We protect the welfare of animals in our community through education, adoption and fostering, and animal advocacy.

• For adoption customers/constituents: By adopting or fostering, or by alerting us of animals in need, you can help us protect the welfare of animals in our community.
• For volunteers: We protect the welfare of animals through round-the-clock animal care and advocacy.
• For donors: You can help us protect the welfare of animals by donating to support animal care, advocacy, and adoption promotion.

All of these key messages have the same purpose and undertone, but they vary slightly depending on your audience. Together with your nonprofit organization’s mission, vision, and goals, these messages will help effectively communicate and market your organization’s needs and purpose.

4. Choose, plan, and create your marketing strategies.

Many marketers jump right to this step — creating and publishing various marketing tactics. Marketing encompasses much more than an advertisement, blog post, or event. To execute successfully, you must complete all the steps before this.

Now that you’ve established your goals (what you want), your key messages (what you’re going to say), and your audience (who you’re going to say it to), you can determine your marketing tactics (how you’re going to say it).

Marketing tactics refer to channels like email marketing, social media, events, and more. We’ve dedicated an entire section to these marketing strategies. Read about them in detail below.

Regardless of which tactic you choose, be sure to conduct thorough planning before and as you execute it. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prepare:

• What will you do with this marketing tactic?
• When will these marketing activities take place?
• Why is this tactic important?
• Who will be responsible for these activities?
• How much do we plan to spend?
• How does this tie to our organization’s marketing goals?

Tactical planning is an integral part of your overall nonprofit marketing plan. How you approach your marketing strategies and how they impact your organization is just as important as how you execute them.

Before you hit the ground running on any of these strategies, be sure your team has a solid game plan and a full understanding of it.

Featured Resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

Download for Free

5. Analyze your marketing performance.

Your marketing probably won’t perform perfectly from the get-go. That’s OK. Routine reporting and analysis help you figure out what’s working and what you need to change.

As you choose and establish your marketing channels, pay attention to their measurable performance indicators. Here’s a list of examples from our list of marketing strategies below:

Marketing Strategy	Performance Indicator
Email marketing	Email opens
Event marketing	Ticket sales
Video marketing	Video views
Social media	Shares and comments
Website	Page views
Public speaking	Referrals
Content marketing	Subscriptions

Remember the goals you defined in step one? Measuring your marketing performance is essential to stay aligned with those goals.

You can track these performance indicators using tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and the analytics tools built into Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and other social media sites.

If you know what you want to measure before you start marketing your nonprofit, you’ll know exactly what to look for — and how to determine success and impact — when your marketing is in play.

You’ve created your nonprofit marketing plan. Now, let’s talk about executing that plan with actionable marketing strategies.

Many of these nonprofit marketing strategies will overlap, like sharing your blog content on social media or releasing an event invite over email. These methods can and should be used in tandem, but I highly recommend introducing each strategy slowly, so your team doesn’t overwhelm itself.

In fact, I recognize that your nonprofit is likely operating with a small (but agile) marketing team. For this reason, throughout these sections, I’ll recommend tips for doing more with less.

Ultimately, though, don’t hesitate to outsource your nonprofit marketing where needed.

Nonprofit Email Marketing

You might be using email sporadically to call for volunteers or confirm an online donation, but that’s not enough. Email marketing for nonprofits is a highly effective marketing resource. Why? It’s personal and powerful.

Here are a few ways to leverage email marketing to reach all of your audiences:

• Send a weekly newsletter with your newest content, updates about your organization, industry data, and volunteer needs.
• Send monthly emails with donation needs and opportunities.
• Set up an email sequence for new subscribers, thanking them for joining and educating them on your organization.
• Set up an email sequence for new donors, thanking them for their contribution and sharing how else they can support your organization.

Also, don’t forget to put information on your website about how to subscribe to your email list. Nonprofit organization, Acumen, does a great job of this by putting subscription opportunities on its homepage and in its main menu.

👉🏼Nonprofit marketing tip: Automate as much as possible. Email marketing automation (like HubSpot) saves precious time and energy for your team and can be the key to growing your email list, donations, and memberships. You can also automate an email sequence triggered by website visitor behavior indicating a high level of interest, such as downloading educational content.

Nonprofit Event Marketing

Event marketing is one of the most effective (and enjoyable) ways to grow awareness of your organization, connect with your community, raise funds, and garner support for your cause.

PAWS, which stands for Pets Are Worth Saving, is another local animal rescue I’m a fan of. They hold a PAWS 5K race every summer to raise awareness and funding for the organization.

This type of event is impactful for multiple reasons:

1. It inspires competition and physical activity. Runners raise money for the organization and participate in the run.
2. It brings people in the community together to celebrate the organization and bring awareness to the PAWS cause.
3. It provides PAWS a channel to promote their services and adoptable pets.
4. It’s fun to attend and be a part of! Many people go to the event to support runners, play with dogs, and simply be a part of the fun, all while supporting and sharing PAWS.

From fundraisers to auctions to competitions, you can organize many different kinds of events to market your nonprofit organization.

Nonprofit Video Marketing

Whether they’re consuming content for work, school, or fun, people prefer video content. As a nonprofit organization, video marketing is a surefire way to garner interest and support from all of your audiences.

Here are a few reasons video can help you market your nonprofit:

1. Video is visual. We process visual content 60,000 times faster than written content. We also remember more content longer.
2. Video is personal. It inspires empathy and emotions, which can’t be said about other types of marketing.
3. Video is educational. Many organizations need to educate their communities on their causes in order to garner attention and funding. Video can help you do that.
4. Video is shareable. Consumers love sharing videos, especially those that inspire and resonate with them.
5. Video is interesting. 60% of people report that video is a media they consume thoroughly. Keep your visitors, followers, and supporters engaged and interested using video.

The Girl Effect, a nonprofit that works to empower girls worldwide, is a great example of video marketing. The organization’s homepage is a video that captures visitors’ attention right away. Moreover, when you click «See more,» the site opens an informative video telling you all about The Girl Effect.

Nonprofit Social Media Marketing

Social media is a highly popular marketing strategy among nonprofits. Not only is it free, but it also provides an avenue for organizations to show their brand personalities and engage with their followers and supporters.

Here are some ways to use social media for your nonprofit marketing, as inspired by a HubSpot study of 9,000 nonprofits:

• Share news about your organization and cause
• Boost brand awareness and recognition
• Fundraise
• Recruit volunteers and employees
• Recognize donors, employees, and volunteers

Don’t forget to use the key messaging you crafted in your nonprofit marketing plan to keep your social media posts consistent and targeted. Also, make the most of each platform to promote your organization, such as the Donate button on Facebook.

HubSpot customer, FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a nonprofit organization that works to advance STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education among children.

FIRST makes use of social media in many different ways, such as using Facebook to post videos, news, fundraisers, and reviews, as well as making use of the Donate button. The organization has amassed almost 100,000 followers.

👉🏼Nonprofit marketing tip: Curate content from volunteers, customers, supporters, event attendees, and donors. Implementing a user-generated content (UGC) campaign lessens your workload and acts as strong social proof.

To enact your UGC campaign, put out a call for constituent stories, images, and videos. Create a hashtag that people can use to alert you of new UGC.

Also, let curation tools work for you. Use Google Alerts and social monitoring tools to alert you when your organization, hashtags, or relevant topics or keywords are mentioned. This provides opportunities to source UGC, get inspiration for new topic ideas, and participate in relevant conversations.

Nonprofit Website

Every nonprofit organization should have a website, which can be created on a CMS such as Content Hub or WordPress. A website serves as a digital home base for your organization and includes critical information — what you stand for and how visitors can participate and help.

Your website also houses important assets like your blog, social media streams, event information, videos, and the rest of your marketing strategies. Lastly, your website serves as a way to intrigue, inspire, and engage your audiences.

Nonprofit organization (and HubSpot customer), American Nursing Association (ANA), is an example of an organization with an outstanding nonprofit website. The site clarifies the ANA mission, shares news and educational content, and informs visitors how to get involved through memberships, events, certifications, or donations.

Nonprofit Public Speaking

People buy into other people, not products. The same can be said about nonprofit organizations. If consumers believe in the people behind your organization, they’re likely to buy into your cause and donate money or time.

Public speaking is one of the best ways for consumers to get to know your leadership team, not to mention spread the word about your cause and organization. Whether you speak at a local event of 100 people or a multi-day conference with thousands, the impact is the same: telling a powerful story to real people who may not yet know about your cause.

Scott Harrison, the founder of charity: water, spoke at INBOUND. While he shared information about the conception and organization of the nonprofit, he mostly talked about the people that his organization helps and how the audience can support the mission. Harrison not only moved an audience of thousands but also effectively marketed the charity: water purpose and brand.

Nonprofit Content Marketing

Content marketing and blogging are valuable marketing assets for any nonprofit organization. Here’s why:

• Content educates your audiences about your mission, cause, and industry news and trends.
• Content (and SEO) bring in new visitors, subscribers, donors, and leads.
• Content is shareable and serves as free PR among your audiences.
• Content can be repurposed and made into different types of media, saving your marketing team precious time and energy.

Creating a nonprofit marketing blog isn’t always easy. Teams are short-staffed, budgets are low, and time is precious. Thankfully, there are many ways around those blogging challenges, such as sourcing story ideas from volunteers, donors, and customers and implementing an editorial calendar so you can plan ahead.

One of my very favorite nonprofit organizations is called Blurt Foundation. This UK-based organization exists to increase awareness and understanding of depression and support those who struggle with it.

There are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about depression, so Blurt Foundation uses its blog content and other content resources to educate constituents and supporters.

It also incorporates these content assets into its emails, social media posts, and online store.

👉🏼Nonprofit marketing tip: Save time and resources by repurposing your content. It’s an appreciating asset you can reuse and re-promote repeatedly. Repurposing content to create new marketing assets costs far less than creating entirely new content.

Outline all the ways you could repurpose the content you produce. For example, you could create the following list for your blog content:

• Short versions of posts for use in emails or newsletters with links back to full posts.
• Groups of related posts for report
• Two to three visuals images to share on social
• Infographics with post information
• Reaction pieces to the original post

Since you’re not going to promote and distribute each piece of repurposed content immediately, your content pipeline is never empty.

Check out HubSpot’s free nonprofit content today.

Nonprofit Digital Marketing

You can market your nonprofit using search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). SEO is the process of optimizing your nonprofit’s content to get traffic from organic search results.

On the other hand, SEM is the process of getting traffic and visibility from both organic and paid search.

Nonprofits can use keywords in their blogs, videos, podcasts, and other digital content to improve their search engine rankings.

Image Source

The American Red Cross uses many forms of digital content in its marketing, including YouTube videos.

The organization uses keywords to help search engines rank the content for SEO and help their audience find their content through organic search.

For example, the above video uses the keywords “red cross” and “disaster” in its description to rank in search engine results.

Nonprofits can leverage search engine marketing to increase their contributions through search engine ads.

Google’s Ad Grants program gives nonprofits grants of up to $10,000 per month to advertise their organizations. Many nonprofits — including DonorsChoose.org, We Care Animal Rescue, and SOS Children’s Villages — use Google Ad Grants to attract donations, drive awareness, and recruit volunteers.

Strengthen Your Marketing, Promote Your Cause

Raise your hand if your organization has to constantly do more with less. 👋🏼

If that sounds like your organization, I suggest you use this guide to build a nonprofit marketing plan ASAP. Your organization might not operate for profit, but it can still gain value from the traffic, funds, and awareness that systematic marketing brings in.

These activities and strategies will help promote your organization and take a valuable load off your team’s and volunteers’ backs, freeing them to dedicate more time to your cause and constituents.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Puedes leer el artículo completo en: : The Ultimate Guide to Nonprofit Marketing in 2024

By ross@rosssimmonds.com (Ross Simmonds)

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

It’s the age of AI, and our job as marketers is to keep up.

My team at Foundation Marketing recently conducted an AI Marketing study surveying hundreds of marketers, and more than 84% of all leaders, managers, SEO experts, and specialists confirmed that they used AI in the workplace.

If you can overlook the fear-inducing headlines, this technology is making social media marketers more efficient and effective than ever. Translation: AI is good news for social media marketers.

In fact, I predict that the marketers not using AI in their workplace will be using it before the end of this year, and that number will move closer and closer to 100%.

Social media and AI are two of the most revolutionizing technologies of the last few decades. Social media has changed the way we live, and AI is changing the way we work.

So, I’m going to condense and share the data, research, tools, and strategies that the Foundation Marketing Team and I have been working on over the last year to help you better wield the collective power of AI and social media.

Let’s jump into it.

What’s the role of AI in social marketing strategy?

In a recent episode of my podcast, Create Like The Greats, we dove into some fascinating findings about the impact of AI on marketers and social media professionals. Take a listen here:

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the benefits of this technology:

Benefits of AI in Social Media Strategy

AI is to social media what a conductor is to an orchestra — it brings everything together with precision and purpose. The applications of AI in a social media strategy are vast, but the virtuosos are few who can wield its potential to its fullest.

AI to Conduct Customer Research

Imagine you’re a modern-day Indiana Jones, not dodging boulders or battling snakes, but rather navigating the vast, wild terrain of consumer preferences, trends, and feedback.

This is where AI thrives.

Using social media data, from posts on X to comments and shares, AI can take this information and turn it into insights surrounding your business and industry. Let’s say for example you’re a business that has 2,000 customer reviews on Google, Yelp, or a software review site like Capterra.

Leveraging AI you can now have all 2,000 of these customer reviews analyzed and summarized into an insightful report in a matter of minutes. You simply need to download all of them into a doc and then upload them to your favorite Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) to get the insights and data you need.

But that’s not all.

You can become a Prompt Engineer and write ChatGPT asking it to help you better understand your audience. For example, if you’re trying to come up with a persona for people who enjoy marathons but also love kombucha you could write a prompt like this to ChatGPT:

The response that ChatGPT provided back is quite good:

Below this it went even deeper by including a lot of valuable customer research data:

• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Consumer behaviors
• Needs and preferences

And best of all…

It also included marketing recommendations.

The power of AI is unbelievable.

Social Media Content Using AI

AI’s helping hand can be unburdening for the creative spirit.

Instead of marketers having to come up with new copy every single month for posts, AI Social Caption generators are making it easier than ever to craft catchy status updates in the matter of seconds.

Tools like HubSpot make it as easy as clicking a button and telling the AI tool what you’re looking to create a post about:

The best part of these AI tools is that they’re not limited to one channel.

Your AI social media content assistant can help you with LinkedIn content, X content, Facebook content, and even the captions that support your post on Instagram.

It can also help you navigate hashtags:

With AI social media tools that generate content ideas or even write posts, it’s not about robots replacing humans. It’s about making sure that the human creators on your team are focused on what really matters — adding that irreplaceable human touch.

Enhanced Personalization

You know that feeling when a brand gets you, like, really gets you?

AI makes that possible through targeted content that’s tailored with a level of personalization you’d think was fortune-telling if the data didn’t paint a starker, more rational picture.

What do I mean?

Brands can engage more quickly with AI than ever before. In the early 2000s, a lot of brands spent millions of dollars to create social media listening rooms where they would hire social media managers to find and engage with any conversation happening online.

Thanks to AI, brands now have the ability to do this at scale with much fewer people all while still delivering quality engagement with the recipient.

Analytics and Insights

Tapping into AI to dissect the data gives you a CSI-like precision to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what makes your audience tick. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing.

The best part about AI is that it can give you almost any expert at your fingertips.

If you run a report surrounding the results of your social media content strategy directly from a site like LinkedIn, AI can review the top posts you’ve shared and give you clear feedback on what type of content is performing, why you should create more of it, and what days of the week your content is performing best.

This type of insight that would typically take hours to understand.

Now …

Thanks to the power of AI you can upload a spreadsheet filled with rows and columns of data just to be met with a handful of valuable insights a few minutes later.

Improved Customer Service

Want 24/7 support for your customers?

It’s now possible without human touch.

Chatbots powered by AI are taking the lead on direct messaging experiences for brands on Facebook and other Meta properties to offer round-the-clock assistance.

The fact that AI can be trained on past customer queries and data to inform future queries and problems is a powerful development for social media managers.

Advertising on Social Media with AI

The majority of ad networks have used some variation of AI to manage their bidding system for years. Now, thanks to AI and its ability to be incorporated in more tools, brands are now able to use AI to create better and more interesting ad campaigns than ever before.

Brands can use AI to create images using tools like Midjourney and DALL-E in seconds.

Brands can use AI to create better copy for their social media ads.

Brands can use AI tools to support their bidding strategies.

The power of AI and social media is continuing to evolve daily and it’s not exclusively found in the organic side of the coin. Paid media on social media is being shaken up due to AI just the same.

How to Implement AI into Your Social Media Strategy

Ready to hit «Go» on your AI-powered social media revolution?

Don’t just start the engine and hope for the best. Remember the importance of building a strategy first. In this video, you can learn some of the most important factors ranging from (but not limited to) SMART goals and leveraging influencers in your day-to-day work:

The following seven steps are crucial to building a social media strategy:

1. Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals
2. Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions
3. Conduct Persona and Audience Research
4. Select the Right Social Channels
5. Identify Key Metrics and KPIs
6. Choose the Right AI Tools
7. Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

Keep reading, roll up your sleeves, and follow this roadmap:

1. Identify Your AI and Social Media Goals

If you’re just dipping your toes into the AI sea, start by defining clear objectives.

Is it to boost engagement? Streamline your content creation? Or simply understand your audience better? It’s important that you spend time understanding what you want to achieve.

For example, say you’re a content marketing agency like Foundation and you’re trying to increase your presence on LinkedIn. The specificity of this goal will help you understand the initiatives you want to achieve and determine which AI tools could help you make that happen.

Are there AI tools that will help you create content more efficiently? Are there AI tools that will help you optimize LinkedIn Ads? Are there AI tools that can help with content repurposing? All of these things are possible and having a goal clearly identified will help maximize the impact. Learn more in this Foundation Marketing piece on incorporating AI into your content workflow.

Once you have identified your goals, it’s time to get your team on board and assess what tools are available in the market.

Recommended Resources:

• How to Write a SMART Goal

2. Validate Your AI-Related Assumptions

Assumptions are dangerous — especially when it comes to implementing new tech.

Don’t assume AI is going to fix all your problems.

Instead, start with small experiments and track their progress carefully.

3. Conduct Persona and Audience Research

Social media isn’t something that you can just jump into.

You need to understand your audience and ideal customers. AI can help with this, but you’ll need to be familiar with best practices. If you need a primer, this will help:

Once you understand the basics, consider ways in which AI can augment your approach.

4. Select the Right Social Channels

Not every social media channel is the same.

It’s important that you understand what channel is right for you and embrace it.

The way you use AI for X is going to be different from the way you use AI for LinkedIn. On X, you might use AI to help you develop a long-form thread that is filled with facts and figures. On LinkedIn however, you might use AI to repurpose a blog post and turn it into a carousel PDF. The content that works on X and that AI can facilitate creating is different from the content that you can create and use on LinkedIn.

The audiences are different.

The content formats are different.

So operate and create a plan accordingly.

Recommended Tools and Resources:

• 18 YouTube Templates for Business
• How to Use Twitter for Business (+ Follower Tracking Template)

5. Identify Key Metrics and KPIs

What metrics are you trying to influence the most?

Spend time understanding the social media metrics that matter to your business and make sure that they’re prioritized as you think about the ways in which you use AI.

These are a few that matter most:

• Reach: Post reach signifies the count of unique users who viewed your post. How much of your content truly makes its way to users’ feeds?
• Clicks: This refers to the number of clicks on your content or account. Monitoring clicks per campaign is crucial for grasping what sparks curiosity or motivates people to make a purchase.
• Engagement: The total social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This metric reveals how effectively your audience perceives you and their readiness to engage.

Of course, it’s going to depend greatly on your business.

But with this information, you can ensure that your AI social media strategy is rooted in goals.

6. Choose the Right AI Tools

The AI landscape is filled with trash and treasure.

Pick AI tools that are most likely to align with your needs and your level of tech-savviness.

For example, if you’re a blogger creating content about pizza recipes, you can use HubSpot’s AI social caption generator to write the message on your behalf:

The benefit of an AI tool like HubSpot and the caption generator is that what at one point took 30-40 minutes to come up with — you can now have it at your fingertips in seconds. The HubSpot AI caption generator is trained on tons of data around social media content and makes it easy for you to get inspiration or final drafts on what can be used to create great content.

Consider your budget, the learning curve, and what kind of support the tool offers.

7. Evaluate and Refine Your Social Media and AI Strategy

AI isn’t a magic wand; it’s a set of complex tools and technology.

You need to be willing to pivot as things come to fruition.

If you notice that a certain activity is falling flat, consider how AI can support that process.

Did you notice that your engagement isn’t where you want it to be? Consider using an AI tool to assist with crafting more engaging social media posts.

Make AI Work for You — Now and in the Future

AI has the power to revolutionize your social media strategy in ways you may have never thought possible. With its ability to conduct customer research, create personalized content, and so much more, thinking about the future of social media is fascinating.

We’re going through one of the most interesting times in history.

Stay equipped to ride the way of AI and ensure that you’re embracing the best practices outlined in this piece to get the most out of the technology.

Puedes leer el artículo completo en: : How to Use AI For a More Effective Social Media Strategy, According to Ross Simmonds

By mbretous@hubspot.com (Martina Bretous)

You’ve seen that email marketing works wonders for your business. So, you doubled down and built a massive email list. However, you’ve now hit a roadblock. You can’t send bulk emails through providers like Gmail or Outlook.

Enter: Bulk email service providers.

Over the years of working as an email copywriter, I have had the opportunity to use some of these bulk email services. I was impressed to see how they are equipped to manage large volumes of email while offering top features to track performance.

In this blog, I have listed the key features to look for in a bulk email service and some of the top bulk email software available on the market.

Table of Contents

• What is a bulk email service?
• Reasons to Send Bulk Emails
• Best Bulk Email Services
• Top Features in Paid or Free Bulk Email Service

A mass email software helps you reach a large audience and nurture them one email at a time. In addition to getting direct access to your customer base, you can track how your emails perform and test various methods to increase clicks and conversions.

While traditional advertising methods, such as print ads and direct mail, can have a high return on investment (ROI), it can be challenging to understand how consumers interact with your materials. With a mass email software, you can find out what attracts consumers and what elements lead to more conversions.

Furthermore, many bulk email software offer automation tools — think workflows and sequences. You can more easily move leads down the funnel and retain your current clients.

My experience with email marketing has taught me that using a personal or business email can work in the first few months of starting a business but will quickly become ineffective as you grow. Bulk email services offer a long-term solution.

Reasons to Send Bulk Emails

Not sure if it’s the right time to try a bulk email software? The first question you should ask is, “Is our brand investing in email marketing this quarter/year?”

If the answer is yes, then I believe that’s your sign to invest in an email service.

Here are specific examples of when you would send out a mass email to your subscribers:

• Sales promotions. Say you want to promote discounts on specific products or services. Sending a mass email to your subscribers is a great way to generate sales.
• Newsletters. Do you want to send out exclusive content to your subscribers? Then, a newsletter is the way to go.
• Product updates. A great way to announce a new product feature or line is via email. You can include previews to build up excitement and include calls-to-action (CTAs) for conversions.
• Announcements. Are you updating your hours, prices, or services? Or perhaps there’s been a change in your policy. Notifying your subscribers in an email blast is an effective way to spread the news.

With every email you send to subscribers, you’ll want to remember your goals, audience, time and day, personalization, and compliance with data protection laws.

Best Bulk Email Services

1. HubSpot’s Email Marketing Tool

Start using HubSpot’s free Email tools.

I absolutely love how you can create, customize, and optimize your emails with HubSpot without coding or design experience.

Here is how you can do that:

You can send up to 2,000 emails monthly, which doesn’t include test emails to check functionality. In addition, the platform offers a user-friendly interface, tools like drag-and-drop to design your email easily, tokens to personalize every email, and an A/B testing feature.

This is how the drag-and-drop feature works on the tool:

You can also use their AI Email Writer to help you write copy for your emails. In addition, you can create custom reports based on the data you want to collect and analyze.

What I like: I like how this tool allows you to personalize your bulk emails based on each subscriber’s lifecycle stage. This enables you to deliver better content and effective CTAs that boost engagement.

Pricing: The best part? It’s free.

2. Sender

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Bulk emailing allows your brand to save time and effort by sending mass emails to your target audience at once. Leveraging your email lists increases sales and engagement with promotional offers, flash sales, product updates, newsletters, etc. You can do all that and much more with Sender.

You can not only send it to a large audience at once but also target the right subgroups with smart segmentation and automated triggers. That way, your audience will receive the message they want to receive and when they want to receive it.

This is an example of various automated triggers available in this tool. You can notice that there are different workflows for different events — for example, when a new subscriber gets added to your list or if an online store user abandons their cart.

You can also customize the automation workflow according to your needs.

Additionally, Sender provides premade, mobile-responsive templates for professional-looking emails with a drag-and-drop email builder. Their platform also offers various features such as SMS campaigns, high-converting popups, detailed analytics, a heatmap, and even more.

What I like: I’m impressed by Sender’s omnichannel approach. It combines email and SMS marketing to deliver effective campaigns that produce great results.

Pricing: Sender offers a free plan with 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month. Paid plans start at $15.83 a month, billed annually.

3. ConvertKit

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As their name suggests, the platform is designed to help you earn more conversions and generate more revenue. ConvertKit is known for its advanced automation tools, including custom email funnels, smart filters, and link triggers.

Furthermore, the platform has a 98% delivery rate, ensuring that your emails will always reach your subscribers. In addition, the average open rate for ConvertKit emails is an astonishing 30%, according to their website.

What I like: I love how ConvertKit provides a visual automation library of pre-designed templates. This helps you kickstart your email campaign with ease, without worrying much about the designs of the bulk emails.

Pricing: ConvertKit offers a free version of its platform for up to 10,000 subscribers. Paid plans start at $25 a month, billed annually.

Here is an example of the various visual automation templates offered:

4. Mailchimp

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I highly recommend Mailchimp if you’re just starting out in email marketing. The platform offers a user-friendly interface and over 100 templates to choose from.

In just a few simple steps, Mailchimp lets you get started with your bulk email campaign.

Using its prebuilt journeys, you can set up your email automation with ease.

With their free plan, you can send up to 10,000 emails monthly to 2,000 contacts — an ideal option for small to midsize businesses.

Then, as your business grows, you can scale to the premium version. Here, you’ll have unlimited audiences, multivariate testing, and advanced segmentation with up to 200,000 contacts.

What I like: I love how you can customize emails for your prospects based on specific factors, such as spending amount, buying patterns, or predicted characteristics. This makes sure your communications are always targeted.

Pricing: A free plan is available. Paid plans range from $9.18 to $274.30 per month.

5. Drip

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If you have an ecommerce business, I strongly suggest trying Drip for your mass email marketing. The platform offers pre-built email templates that you can customize and a user-friendly workflow builder for automation.

Here is an example of their “Welcome Series” template:

In addition, you can schedule automation based on actions your subscribers take (like viewing a product, abandoning their cart, and making a purchase).
With Drip, you can easily integrate your online store (like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce) to make gathering data easier.

What I like: Drip claims a 99.8% delivery rate, which I find to be very impressive for a bulk email software. Furthermore, I love the ease with which the tool creates behavioral and lifecycle segments that update automatically. This lets you send targeted emails to your audience easily.

Pricing: Prices start at $39 and go up based on your number of subscribers.

6. Insycle

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Insycle doesn’t fall under the email provider list. However, this software does work in tandem with providers like HubSpot and Mailchimp to keep your contact list clean.

In my opinion, one of the major downsides of having a subscriber list is the potential for duplicate contacts. This can impact your metrics and make it difficult to tailor your emails. Insycle allows you to clean your contacts in bulk, merge duplicate ones, and avoid overwriting data.

What I like: One of the things I like about Insycle is that it makes data exploration easy. Additionally, its Grid Edit is a great feature that simplifies data corrections, saving you hours of manual work.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $30 per month and scales up to custom pricing based on the services you want.

7. Brevo

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Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is one of the best bulk email software for small and large businesses. A drag-and-drop editor is one of the must-have features for a good email service, and Brevo features one of the most powerful editors on the market.

Aside from that, the service has segmentation features that let you send emails to a targeted audience. This feature helps to improve overall engagement with customers.

What I like: Brevo has a solid reporting system that gives insights about what your readers like. This helps you make better decisions and improve your bulk email campaigns.

Pricing: Brevo has free and premium plans. The free plan lets you send up to 300 emails daily, albeit with the Brevo watermark. The premium plan begins at $25 monthly.

8. Constant Contact

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Constant Contact is a bulk email service that’s great for small businesses and individuals. I love its simplicity and ease of use, features that make it great for beginners.

The service features built-in social media sharing tools, easy tracking and reporting, and integrations with ecommerce centers like Facebook and Shopify.

Its advanced features, like coupons, surveys, and event marketing automation, make it one of the best bulk email services.

What I like: Constant Contact has a wide range of email templates and design samples that fit every business. With just a few clicks, your email campaign will be ready to launch.

Pricing: This bulk email software offers a 30-day free trial, which you can upgrade to a premium plan. Paid plans start at $12 monthly for the Lite plan and can be further upgraded to the Standard plan or Premium plan for $35 per month and $80 per month, respectively.

9. Mailmodo

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Mailmodo offers a free plan that allows you to send up to 10,000 emails monthly, making it an ideal choice for individuals and small businesses. However, if you want more, you can choose from four premium plans that let you send more emails monthly.

Mailmodo’s no-code, drag-and-drop editor makes crafting emails a breeze. Additionally, this bulk email software offers users several customizable templates.

If you ever run into problems while using the service, Mailmodo offers 24/7 customer support.

What I like: I love the MailModos Building Blocks feature, where you can customize your own template for your email campaigns.
As shown below, you can select every section of your email, from the header to the final CTA and footer.

Pricing: A free plan is available. Premium plans start at $35 monthly.

10. AWeber

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AWeber is a flexible service that only charges users based on their number of subscribers. This flexibility is one of the reasons some users prefer this service.

AWeber also has one of the most extensive libraries of customizable, mobile-responsive email templates. These templates allow you to create and send emails very quickly and easily.

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The platform offers sales tracking and lets you check out the performance of your emails and subscriber information.

What I like: Apart from all their helpful features, their quick and efficient customer service stood out to me. I had some issues with signing up for the tool initially, and their customer service agent connected and assisted me in just a few seconds.

Pricing: They offer a free plan for up to 500 subscribers, and the paid plan starts at $12.50 a month.

11. Mailgun

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Mailgun’s email solutions for email marketing, tracking, parsing, and more make it one of the best bulk email services. In addition, Mailgun’s email API allows developers to easily integrate it into their apps. Furthermore, Mailgun’s email analytics feature ensures email delivery.

What I like: I am a huge fan of Mailgun’s Real-Time Email Validation API which makes sure that your email list always has valid addresses. This saves you time and money by letting you send bulk emails to just valid users. This will also boost your sender reputation in the long run.

Pricing: Mailgun offers a free plan that allows sending up to 5,000 monthly emails. You can opt for its premium plans which start at $35 monthly if you want even more features.

12. SendPulse

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SendPulse is an omnichannel tool that allows you to send emails, push notifications, Facebook messages, and more.

When it comes to emails, this service allows you to create responsive emails without writing a line of code. And if you prefer, you can use any of the 130+ templates available on the platform.

Additionally, SendPulse has a drag-and-drop editor that lets you design subscription forms that can then be integrated into a website.

Aside from regular websites, SendPulse also supports integration with PipeDrive, WordPress, Zapier, and other tools.

What I like: I find SendPulse’s user-friendly mobile app very useful. It makes managing and tracking your email campaigns effortless. The app lets you access all your reports and statistics from your mobile.

Pricing: SendPulse has a free version available, while paid plans start at $8 per month.

13. Stripo

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Looking for an all-in-one email design platform? Then, I highly recommend using Stripo.

This service offers hundreds of easy-to-use email templates that make your emails look better and help improve conversion rates.

Stripo gives users the tools they need to create all types of emails. After creating the email, Stripo lets you test how it’ll look on different platforms. You can also have colleagues or clients view potential emails before sending them off to subscribers.

What I like: While most tools offer just the drag-and-drop email builder, I love that Stripo offers both a drag-and-drop email builder and an HTML code editor. This lets you design email layouts while also allowing you to add custom code elements to the bulk emails.

Pricing: Stripo has four plans, from free to $95 per month, priced according to the number of recipients and features.

14. SendGrid

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SendGrid is the go-to choice for users looking to create and send transactional emails. It allows you to add contacts via CSV upload, signup forms, or APIs.

In keeping with its focus on transactional emails, SendGrid has features like anti-spam regulations to protect you and your subscribers.

What I like: SendGrid has the ability to easily handle high email volumes. I was really impressed to know that they processed over 64 billion emails during their Cyber Week and 148+ billion emails every month in 2023.

Pricing: SendGrid has a free plan that lets you send up to 100 emails a day. For more features, you’ll need to upgrade to either the $19.95 or $89.95 monthly plans.

15. Mailjet

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Our penultimate choice is a user-friendly bulk email software best for marketers and development teams. Mailjet has a drag-and-drop email builder that lets you quickly create emails and templates.

Mailjet also features an interactive design, so you can give team members access and let them work on it individually.

What I like: Mailjet offers email tracking, which lets you monitor how your sent emails are doing. You can check metrics such as email delivery, bounce rate, and open rate.

Pricing: If you decide to use Mailjet, you can choose between a free plan that lets you send up to 6,000 emails or any of the four premium plans starting at $15 monthly.

16. Omnisend

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The last, but not least, bulk email service on our list is Omnisend.

Omnisend combines emails, SMS, and other channels. You can also create customizable forms for collecting information from website visitors, as shown below.

Additionally, Omnisend makes it easy to divide subscribers into segments, improving the ability to send the right emails to them. With its all-in-one features, automation, and numerous template options, Omnisend is one of the best bulk email services of the year.

What I like: Omnisend offers pre-built automation for email marketing scenarios. From welcome series to abandoned carts and post-purchase engagement, these ready-to-use workflows allow you to create targeted bulk email campaigns easily.

Pricing: New users can use this service for free. However, to fully enjoy the tool, you’ll need to subscribe to a premium plan whose pricing starts at $16 a month.

So, you’re ready to invest in bulk email software. What are the top features to look out for?

I have listed the key features you should look for in a bulk email service. Some of these features will only be available in a premium package. Others will be included in the standard or free versions.

Here’s your complete guide to what factors to consider.

1. User Behavior Tracking

In my opinion, reporting capabilities will be the number one tool you’ll need in any bulk email service you select. What’s the point of investing your time in designing and sending emails if you can’t see how they perform?

You should be able to track key email metrics, such as:

• Open rate.
• Unique clicks.
• Click-to-open rate (CTOR).
• Clickthrough rate (CTR).
• Unsubscribe rate.
• List growth rate.
• Bounce rate.

Email providers with advanced reporting features also allow you to track revenue per subscriber and revenue per email.

2. Drag-and-Drop

A drag-and-drop tool makes designing your email easy. This intuitive feature allows you to select an element from the sidebar, like an image, quote, or button, and drag it to a section of your email.

This will save you time as you determine the best flow for your email and move things around.

3. Email Segmentation and Personalization

Segmentation ensures that your emails are reaching the right people at the right time.

You should look for a bulk email software that allows you to segment your subscriber list based on the following:

• Location.
• Actions taken in the email.
• Purchase history.
• Type of subscriber (e.g., prospect versus current customer).

You can get higher engagement rates when you segment your list, as the content will be more relevant to your recipients.

Furthermore, personalization is one of the key factors in improving email engagement and advancing customer relationships.

4. Split Testing

Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is a great way to understand what resonates with your audience.

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This feature is beneficial if you need help generating high open rates and converting subscribers.

By testing out different subject lines and elements within the body of your email, you can determine what works best.

5. Automation

When you’re scaling your email list, the name of the game is automation.

Say you have a content offer and want to send an email sequence to leads after they download the offer. With an automation tool, you can pre-select which emails will go out, in what order, and after how much time for each email.

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Once you complete the setup, the automation does all the work for you — nurturing your subscribers and moving them through the buyer’s journey.

This hands-off approach allows you to focus on strategy instead of the tedious work of sending out emails. With automation, you can take the guesswork out of the process.

6. Design Templates

If you’re like me, designing isn’t your forte. So, when designing an email, you’ll take all the help you can get.

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A design template based on the type of email you want to send can save you time and ensure you’re following email best practices. This is particularly helpful if you have limited experience designing emails and are just starting out.

What’s great about having a template is that it’s a foundation. You can customize it to fit your needs, but it provides a blueprint from which to work.

7. High Email Delivery Rates

Imagine you work so hard on an email campaign, and it never reaches your subscribers’ inboxes. Frustrating, right?

That’s why verifying your provider’s email delivery rates is essential. You’ll want to select a service with high email delivery rates, as close to 100% as possible.

Grow Your Business

Knowing what to look for in an email service is half the battle.

Now that you have a list of key features and a few tools to choose from, you can find a platform to grow your email list and generate revenue.

Puedes leer el artículo completo en: : 16 Best Bulk Email Services for 2024

By Editor

Are you wondering how to take your WordPress SEO strategy to the next level? If so, you’re in the right place!

Business owners and marketers across all industries must have a firm grasp on search engine optimization (SEO) if they want to stand out from their competitors, boost their visibility, and reach their target audience.

So, if you’re ready to learn more about WordPress SEO and how the right strategy can help you find success, keep reading because we have a lot of great information in store for you today.

Understanding WordPress SEO

Let’s start with a basic definition: SEO is about improving various aspects of your website to improve your position in search engine results pages (SERPs).

We would argue that SEO is one of the most effective and sustainable ways to drive people to your WordPress site and enhance brand awareness.

A properly optimized website is attractive to search engines like Google. And when you consider that Google receives around 105,191 searches per second, it’s easy to see the advantages of getting your content to show up in the SERPs.

The most notable benefit is when sites are easy for search engines to understand, Google can show it to more people.

So, if you target the right keywords and create valuable content, among other things, Google can help guide people to your blog and other key landing pages. That’s why marketers say their best leads come from SEO.

The bottom line is with the right SEO strategy, you can boost your ranking in search results, get more traffic, and have more chances to engage with your audience. This could lead to more subscribers, engagement, and sales.

Basic WordPress SEO tips

I know from experience that improving your WordPress site’s SEO can initially feel intimidating. There are a lot of places to start, and it can get confusing fast, especially if you’re new to search engine optimization and WordPress.

But don’t worry! Here are some simple, effective tips you can follow to get started:

• Check Your Site Visibility – In WordPress, there’s a setting that can hide your site from search engines. You’ll find this option under Settings > Reading. Then, scroll down until you see “site visibility.” Make sure “Allow search engines to index this site” is selected.
• Improve your permalinks – Permalinks are the URLs for your pages and posts. Before a post goes live, change each to include words that reflect your content (like the post’s title) instead of random numbers. This will help search engines understand the point of the page.
• Focus on content quality – Over 77% of people read blog posts regularly. So. you should always aim to publish content that’s useful and engaging for your audience. People are more likely to share and link to high-quality content, which is one of the foundations of a strong SEO strategy.
• Install an SEO-friendly theme – Choose a reputable WordPress theme that comes with plenty of flexibility and loads fast. This can greatly help your SEO efforts because Google looks at page speed and functionality when trying to figure out how to rank websites.
• Connect your site to Google Analytics – Linking your site to your Google Analytics account will help you track your performance and understand how visitors interact with your content. You can use this information to create new content and further optimize your WordPress website.

Best SEO plugins for WordPress

You’ll be glad to know that there are plenty of SEO plugins for WordPress that you can use to make life a little bit easier. Some of the best tools on the market can streamline the optimization process, help you discover the best keywords, and identify gaps you otherwise may have missed.

There are three WordPress SEO plugins that we would recommend to you based on our testing and years of experience.

Our first pick is Yoast SEO. It’s hard to find a more respectable name in the WordPress SEO community. Yoast was founded way back in 2010, and it’s still going strong to this day. Here are a few worth noting:

Aside from the paid version, there’s also a free version of Yoast for those with smaller projects or if you’re interested in trying it before you buy it.

RankMath and All in One SEO (AIOSEO) are two other strong contenders for the best SEO plugin for WordPress. They both offer features that can help you make the most of your search strategy.

For instance, RankMath comes with an impressive built-in SEO analytics module so you can see how your site is doing from your WordPress dashboard. We found this very helpful for tracking specific keywords and monitoring our optimization strategy.

AIOSEO also has impressive features, like their TruSEO On-Page Analysis, which will go through your page one step at a time and help you maximize your reach by using the right keywords, links, and structured data in the right places.

If you want to know more, check out our list of 7 more SEO tools every search marketer should use.

Advanced WordPress SEO strategies

Now that you understand a little more about SEO and how the right WordPress plugins can help, let’s look at a collection of more advanced strategies that you should know about if you want to find success.

• Create a Sitemap – A sitemap is essential for helping search engine crawlers navigate your site. It’s basically a path that flows from one URL to the next and explains to Google what your site is about. If you’re using one of the SEO plugins we mentioned above, you’ll have a much easier time building a sitemap – and the other advanced SEO strategies in this list. Otherwise, you’ll need to create a sitemap from scratch and submit it to Google.
• Use Robots.txt Files – Robots.txt files help search engines figure out which parts of your site to crawl and which to ignore. Establishing your robots.txt file correctly ensures search engines will crawl your main content first, which can drastically improve visibility.
• Optimize for Smartphones – With over 61% of searches now on mobile, your site must work well on smartphones. Google claims they are focused on mobile-first experiences, so it’s pivotal for SEO. Be sure to use a flexible page builder that lets you create and tweak your site for these users.
• Use Categories and Tags – Categories and tags are extremely helpful for organizing your content into main topics. A clear structure helps both your audience and search engines understand what you like to talk about on your site. For example, a marketing site might have categories such as ‘PPC marketing’ and ‘social media marketing.’ It’s a good idea to create a range of categories and tags to describe specific details of your posts. This seemingly small step ensures the right people discover your content.

What are WordPress SEO services?

Next, let’s talk about professional WordPress SEO services and when you might need them.

For starters, SEO services offer targeted, hands-on assistance that can give you the help you need to improve your website’s visibility.

SEO agencies will look at your site’s structure, content relevance, and keyword optimization to see where you have room to improve. Their services are far-reaching and can help by providing you with a detailed site analysis, which is crucial if your organic traffic is starting to plateau and keyword ranks are dropping.

They also compare your performance with your competitors, which can help you figure out what others are doing to generate organic traffic and clicks.

The best part about working with WordPress SEO experts is they will tell you what’s wrong and then work on fixing it. They often help with things like refining your keywords, optimizing your site speed, and enhancing your content for better search engine rankings.

Investing in professional SEO services can be costly, but there’s no doubt that it’s beneficial if you’re serious about boosting your site’s search performance.

How to optimize your content for WordPress SEO

There’s no question that creating clickable, optimized content is one of the best ways to increase your search position. A vast majority of people are not ready to make a purchase the first time they visit a website. The first thing they do is check out the company blog. If they like what they see, they may decide to join your email list.

But to get them to give you their email address, you need to add value to their lives. At the same time, it’s vital that your blog is perfectly curated for search engines so they know when to show others your site.

You’ll be happy to know that there are plenty of powerful and fairly easy ways to optimize content for SEO. First, make sure you’re using one or more keywords throughout your post. Every business is different, but as a general rule, use keywords that have a low to medium competition rating and a medium to high search volume.

Use these words and phrases naturally in your title, headings, and throughout your text. This gives crawlers a little bit of context around each page, which is important for deciding how to categorize it for people who type in your chosen keywords.

You’ll also want to use plenty of headings to ensure your content is easy to read. This is also a great opportunity to plug in an extra keyword or two since Google looks at H2 and H3 headings to learn more about a given page.

I also suggest using conversational language since this appeals to voice search users. When you consider around 30% of mobile searches are conducted without a screen, it’s easy to see why this step is so important.

On a similar note, don’t forget to add an FAQ section at the bottom of your posts. This step will help you rank for voice search, address common questions, and could even help you land a featured snippet for your chosen keyword.

The WordPress plugin Yoast SEO can be a big help here. It guides you through optimizing your post, suggests where to add keywords, assesses your content’s readability, and gives you a final score before you click publish. This feature is extremely useful for new marketers or those who simply want an ‘extra’ set of eyes on their work.

Technical SEO tips for WordPress

Technical SEO can sound daunting, but it’s actually mostly about making your site run smoothly and safely. Here are five relevant technical SEO tips that I believe all professionals should address to improve their search presence:

1. Improve Your Site Speed – Your site needs to load fast. If it doesn’t, visitors might leave before seeing your content. We found that the average person expects a page to load in 2 seconds or less. Any longer, the bounce rate starts to go up shockingly fast. In fact, 53% of people say they’ll leave if it doesn’t load after 3 seconds. Compressing images, hosting videos off-site, using lazy loading, and installing a caching plugin can speed things up.

2. Use a Responsive Design – It’s crucial that your site looks good and works well on all of the most popular devices and operating systems, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, or desktop. Most WordPress themes come ready to adapt to any screen size, but it’s always a smart move to test this out yourself. Just take a moment to see how your site appears on different devices. This way, you’ll ensure everyone visiting your site gets a great experience, no matter how they’re accessing it.

3. Make Sure You Have HTTPS – Secure connections are key to keeping your visitors’ data safe. HTTPS reassures your visitors that their information is secure, which makes it essential for building trust. If your website still shows “HTTP,” you should reach out and ask your hosting provider to get you an SSL certificate. This upgrade doesn’t just protect data; it also boosts your credibility with your audience and can even help your site rank better on search engines.

4. Develop an Internal Linking Strategy – Internal links connect your content and help search crawlers understand the structure of your website. They help you establish a hierarchy on your site, giving the most important pages more link value than others. You should make it a habit to link to your main pages when creating new content. As users browse your site, they can easily navigate to other relevant and informative pages on your site, which is great for providing an engaging user experience.

5. Run an SEO Audit – If you want to see how your site stacks up, consider running a technical SEO audit. Google’s PageSpeed Insights can help you see what you’re doing well and where you can improve. Also, Yoast SEO can quickly and easily highlight issues and offer fixes for individual pages. Here’s an example of one of their reports:

On-Page SEO techniques

Now, let’s go through and look at a selection of on-page SEO practices and elements that can help improve your ranking.

SEO Title

Think of your SEO title as a first impression — it’s the initial bit of information people see in search results. Craft it with care, ensuring your main keyword is toward the front of the title. This ensures you catch your audiences’ attention before they scroll away.

There’s no question that an optimized, eye-catching SEO title can increase your clickthrough rate, which signals to search engines what your content focuses on.

Meta Description

The meta description appears beneath your SEO title in the search results and gives a quick overview of your content. If you caught someone’s attention with your title, this is where you really win them over and share why they should click through.

I suggest finding a way to get your primary keyword into the meta description, but remember, your ultimate goal is to captivate the reader to click on your link.

Canonicals

Canonical tags are essential to manage duplicate content on a site. They guide search engines to identify which version of the page should be treated as the original. Without them, you might end up confusing the search engines because they don’t know which post to prioritize. So, be sure to add canonicals when it’s necessary to ensure visitors are able to find the right page on your site.

Redirection

Redirections essentially allow you to give your audience (and search engines) a detour if a page has moved. For example, if you decided to compile all of your statistic posts into one large article, the URL for all of the original articles would change. If a visitor makes their way to one of these pages, the redirect sends them to the current URL so they can continue their journey uninterrupted.

Slug

The URL slug is the address of a specific page or post on your site. Keep it simple, much like the sign outside a shop, guiding both customers and search engines. Additionally, injecting your keyword in the slug can prove helpful, but remember that clarity trumps everything else.

So, if you have a page with an article called How to Cook Homemade Waffles from Scratch, your slug could be Cook-waffles-from-scratch.

Keyword Density

Keyword density requires you to thoughtfully balance the words you use throughout your content. Include too many, and it looks like you’re stuffing your content (a no-no for search engines and readers alike); too few, and you may miss out on SEO opportunities.

The generally accepted keyword density is between 1-2%. In other words, for every 1,500 words, you can use it between 15-30 times. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that they should always flow naturally instead of feeling forced.

Excerpt

This is your chance to give a snapshot of each blog post on your site. Excerpts are often displayed on a homepage or main blog page and essentially let visitors know what the post is about. Many people decide if they want to read an article based on the excerpt. So, make sure it’s compelling and relevant to the title of the post.

Here’s an example of an excerpt so you can see why they are so helpful for readers and search engines:

Off-Page SEO techniques

We would say that off-page SEO is just as important for boosting the visibility and authority of your WordPress site. Unlike on-page SEO, which happens directly on your website, off-page SEO involves techniques to improve your site’s reputation and connection with other sites and users on the internet.

There are plenty of ways you can improve your ranking through off-site SEO. Here are a collection of our favorite strategies:

Create Linkable Content

Link building is like getting a vote of confidence. When reputable sites link back to your website, it signals to search engines that your content is valuable. If you followed our advice and decided to focus on creating quality content that others want to share, you’re already taking the first step.

If another content creator finds your work interesting or useful, there’s a good chance they will link back to your content in their post. This means you’ll score a backlink, which is essentially a seal of approval for search engines. The more people that link to your site, the more likely Google is to boost your site.

Start Writing Guest Posts

Put simply, guest posts are blog posts that you write for other publications. You can reach out to your network, publications in your industry, and even brands that sell complimentary products for guest blogging opportunities. Ask if they’re looking for content. If they say yes, pitch your idea!

Follow their guidelines to see how you can link to your content. Some publications allow you to have one link in the author bio, while others will allow you to link back to your blog multiple times in the same post.

The same rules about backlinks apply here. The more you build with reputable websites, the better.

Online Directories and Listings

Get listed on relevant online directories and platforms. This not only makes your website more discoverable but also provides additional backlinks. Ensure your profiles are complete and accurate — consistent details across directories will help reinforce your credibility.

If you haven’t claimed your Google My Business profile yet, do it right now so people will have an easier time finding your website. You’ll also want to check the Better Business Bureau, Best of the Web, Facebook Pages, and other places where you think customers might find you.

Social Media Engagement

Engaging with people on social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, will help increase your content’s reach and potential to be shared.

While these social signals don’t directly influence rankings, they can lead to more traffic and natural growth because people are visiting your website from all over the internet. If you want another reason to spend more time promoting your business on social media, consider this: nearly 60% of the global population has at least one social account. It’s safe to say that your target audience is out there and waiting for you.

Reviews

Did you know that 97% of people look at reviews before placing an order? This startling statistic shows just how powerful reviews and testimonials can be for businesses across all industries.

Aside from the obvious benefit of building social proof, reviews also encourage people to visit your website so they can learn more about your products or services. It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re using structured data for your reviews, Google can see what other people think of your business, which means it can push you up in the results if you consistently get positive reviews.

Monitoring your WordPress SEO success

Finally, keeping track of your SEO progress is as vital as the SEO work itself. If you’re not keeping an eye on your progress, you won’t know if your strategies are working or how you can improve. This could lead to stagnation in the search results as well as on your website.

Luckily, it’s easy to keep a close eye on your SEO with tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Google Analytics gives you a peek into how much traffic you’re getting and what visitors do on your site. At the same time, Google Search Console helps you understand your visibility and pinpoint issues that may be impacting your performance.

If you decide to try out Yoast SEO, you’ll find that they have a comprehensive tracking feature that helps you chart the best course of action for the months ahead.

Regardless of what you use to track your WordPress SEO, there’s no denying the importance of monitoring and understanding this data so you can continue to learn and grow.

Wrapping it up

Today, we’ve discussed SEO tips that range from beginner to expert; we’ve also gone over the best SEO services and plugins for WordPress and explored quite a few on-page and off-site SEO strategies.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a deep breath and remember that SEO is not a one-time job but, instead, an ongoing project that requires time and patience. Instead of feeling like you have to do everything at once, take a step back and think about what you can make time for in the days ahead. That could mean starting with beginner tips. Or it could mean seeking out an SEO professional to assess your site. There are countless other options that can occur in between.

The main takeaway is awareness, persistence, and a drive for improvement will ultimately determine if your SEO strategy is successful. We believe everyone is capable of ranking; it’s just a matter of making the right decisions along the way.

Guest Author: Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.

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