Category: Writing

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Wait a second. Did you just hear that?

Pick meeeee . . .

There it is. You heard it, too. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t. That was the sound of a semicolon in the throes of a self-esteem battle.  Poor semicolon, the most misunderstood punctuation mark.

If you’re not sure how to use semicolons in your writing, you’re in the write place (oops, sorry, bad habit). Read on for:

1. Semicolon definition
2. Semicolon mistakes
3. Semicolon examples
4. The 2 places to use semicolons correctly
5. Semicolon writing exercise

Semicolon Definition: What Is a ; (Also Known as the Super Comma)

The semicolon is sometimes called a super comma, and rightly so, because it can act as a kind of upgrade when just one comma isn’t enough or is confusing.

Why Most People Don’t Know When to Use a Semicolon (;)

If the semicolon were just a little less top-heavy, then it would be a comma, and rightfully used and appreciated.

Sadly, many writers have a confusing relationship with the semicolon, not really sure how or when to use them in their lovely sentences.

Some have rejected it outright, including Kurt Vonnegut, who said that the only reason to use a semicolon would be “to show you’ve been to college.”

Don’t worry, little semicolon. Your virtues will not be lost on this audience as long as I have a say in it.

Not sure you’ll ever figure out how to use a semicolon correctly? That’s cool! Consider using a grammar checking tool like ProWritingAid to tell you when you should and shouldn’t use semicolons. Check out our review of ProWritingAid here to see how it works.

The 2 Times You Can Use Semicolons Correctly

In all seriousness, the semicolon is probably the most misunderstood button on a keyboard (except for maybe whatever the heck the little hat over the 6 is). When it’s used properly, however, the semicolon can add beauty and sophistication to your writing.

There are two reasons you’ll need to use a semicolon. Let’s look at them both.

1. Use a semicolon to connect two independent clauses.

You know what an independent clause is, right? You’re a writer!

Sometimes, however, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the semicolon, and you’ll want to use it everywhere. Don’t.

If you’re going to use it, make sure that each clause can stand on its own as a fully formed sentence. If it helps, mentally separate the two clauses with a period to test their independence.

Justin didn’t walk; he ran.

Justin didn’t walk. He ran.

Or another example:

Martin squinted as he read over his news brief; he was in need of a good pair of glasses.

Martin squinted as he read over his news brief. He was in need of a good pair of glasses.

The semicolon in this sentence connects the two independent thoughts without bringing the narrative to a full stop in the way that a period would. A comma is completely inappropriate here because that would lead to a comma splice, and as we have previously discussed, comma splices are evil.

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2. Use a semicolon in a list to separate objects that also have commas.

Semicolons can also be used as a kind of super comma, and should always be used in a list when separating objects that also have commas. Take the following sentence:

Diana included Athens, Greece; Paris, France; and Vienna, Austria, on her list of honeymoon cities that were not to be confused with their American counterparts in Ohio, Texas, or Virginia.

If Diana had included Athens, Greece, Paris, France, Vienna, and Austria on her list, her travel plans would be way more confusing. Using semicolons indicates that we can think of “Athens, Greece” as a single unit, even though there are more commas to come and more items in this list.

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2 Essential Rules for Using Semicolons

In order to use semicolons properly when you’re not making lists, it’s important to remember a few things.

1. Each clause of the sentence needs to be an independent clause.

Let’s look back at Martin and his lack of corrective eyewear.

Martin squinted as he read over his news brief; he was in need of a good pair of glasses.

We need a semicolon here because the first half and the second half of the sentence can both stand on their own. Independent of each other, they’re both complete sentences in their own right.

What if we said this instead?

Martin squinted as he read over his news brief, wishing he had glasses.

“Wishing he had glasses” isn’t an independent clause. It can’t stand on its own without the first part of the sentence in front of it.

If you want to get technical about the grammar of this situation (and let’s face it, I always want to get technical about the grammar of a situation), “wishing he had glasses” is a dependent clause. There’s no subject in this clause, and so it needs the first clause, “Martin squinted as he read over his news brief,” to provide one (Martin).

In this case, where an independent clause and a dependent clause are connected, use a comma.

But if you do have two independent clauses (which you know, because you can split them apart into two separate, complete sentences), use a semicolon with confidence!

2. Use semicolons sparingly.

Okay, so this isn’t exactly about being right. You can use a dozen semicolons on a single page of writing, and if they’re all separating independent clauses or adding clarity to your comma-filled lists, they can all be correct.

But Kurt Vonnegut was on to something when he warned against the dangers of too many semicolons. I don’t think you should cut them all out! But do use them with care.

It can get exhausting for your reader if there is too much going on in one sentence. If there is too much going on in each sentence for a full paragraph, that may result in reader mutiny, and you’re going to have trouble bringing them back.

Use the semicolon to connect ideas that are related, but don’t try to connect every single idea in a paragraph. Periods are your friends (at least in this context).

Ellie subtly flared her nostrils; the smell of lilac and lavender filled the air; it reminded her of her summers in the hills of Ohio; she and her cousins would make crowns of daisies and give them to their mothers.

For the love of God and the sanity of your readers, do not do this.

Ellie subtly flared her nostrils. The smell of lilac and lavender filled the air; it reminded her of her summers in the hills of Ohio. She and her cousins would make crowns of daisies and give them to their mothers.

Put the Semicolon to Use With a Creative Writing Exercise

Don’t be afraid to experiment with semicolons. Sure, you might place a few incorrectly before you get the hang of it, but soon you’ll be able to use them with ease. It takes some practice, but you’ll start noticing places in your writing where a semicolon would add a welcome breath to the prose.

Do you like to use a well-placed semicolon, or do you agree with Vonnegut that they’re unnecessary and pretentious? Let us know in the comments.

The post Semicolon: The 2 Ways to Use a ; appeared first on The Write Practice.

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Marketing leaders are at the forefront of a seismic transformation that continues to play out as we enter a new decade. 

Organizational dynamics are realigning. Power balances are shifting. Trust – both internal and external – is emerging as the most essential crux in business success. For people like Adi Bachar-Reske, it’s an exhilarating time to be leading the charge.

Her history in marketing dates back multiple decades, so she’s been helping shape this evolution. “Twenty years ago, everybody’s in a suit. I was the only woman in the room, always,” she says. “It has changed a lot.”

Today, she finds that she no longer tends to be the only woman in the room (though the balance is still a ways from where it needs to be), and that’s far from the only change she’s observed in her marketing leadership positions — most recently at Provenir, where she served as Vice President of Marketing before moving into a solo consulting role late last year. 

Much of her experience, including at Provenir, has come in the financial technology (FinTech) space, so during my interview with her for the Break Free B2B series, we zeroed in on some key topics tied to the vertical: proving the revenue impact of marketing, staying on top of content consumption trends, and building trust with customers when sensitive data is in play. 

Break Free B2B Interview with Adi Bachar-Reske

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shbOttuRJeI]

If you’re interested in checking out a particular portion of the discussion, you can find a quick general outline below, as well as a few excerpts that stood out to us.

• 1:00 — Introduction to Adi
• 2:00 — Provenir’s marketing philosophies
• 4:00 — How are content consumption trends changing?
• 10:30 — Building trust in the financial industry
• 13:15 — How technology helps with personalization and trust
• 16:00 — Building trust in marketing internally
• 18:45 — Which types of content help sales most?
• 22:00 — How can B2B marketers break free?
• 24:00 — How to balance taking risks with playing it safe

Nick: What are you seeing from your end in terms of shifting content consumption trends and shortening attention spans?

Adi: I find that myself, I don’t read books anymore, my eyes get really tired and I just don’t have the time to sit down and actually read, but what I do do, I got addicted to Audible right? So I walk through a long airport, or I sit down and wait for my daughter to finish her guitar lesson, and I’ll just put it in my ears. I read at least two books a month that way and I love it because of the way Audible, they’ve changed too right? 

So you’ve got the authors now reading the story. It’s a bit like a TED Talk that lasts for a few hours, which is brilliant. And the same for blogs. Blogs were the big thing a few years ago, but again, we don’t have time to read, so we did this test here. We took some of the blogs and we kind of condensed them, shrank them up into a one-minute video. It was the same content, but obviously a lot less. And we captured the essence of it, and the engagement was just phenomenal. I think we’re all very curious people in the same way we were 10 or 20 years ago, we just consume information differently.

[bctt tweet="I think we're all very curious people in the same way we were 10 or 20 years ago, we just consume information differently. @AdiBacharReske #ContentConsumption #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"]

Nick: Being in the finance industry, I have to imagine that trust, data security, privacy, those are big issues. What are you seeing from your perspective as far as the condition of trust between customers and brands

Adi: Years ago the saying was, nobody’s going to lose their job for choosing IBM. If you were a big brand, you were safe, and the financial institution had an immediate trust in you. Easy peasy. But if you were a small brand then it was difficult to get in. They didn’t trust you. You were just small, maybe you’ll disappear tomorrow. It’s funny, things have changed. 

I speak to my customers, large institutions and small institutions, all the time and I ask them: why did you choose us? We’re not a big player, we’re not an IBM. In the past year or so, the answer I get is kind of surprising. They say, we chose you because you are small. We chose you because we wanted to work with somebody who’s nimble, who can work with us, who can focus on us, because all these large businesses, you know they have other things to worry about. They may not focus on us, they may not sit down, listen to what we need, build something special for us … 

So these days, the way you build the trust is showing how nimble and flexible you can be. Both in your development and your product, but also it has to be reflected in your marketing and your digital presence. You have to look accessible, you have to look open.

[bctt tweet="These days, the way you build trust is showing how nimble and flexible you can be. Both in your development and your product, but also it has to be reflected in your marketing and your digital presence. @AdiBacharReske #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"]

Nick: As a marketing leader who regularly interfaces with other leadership in the company, what are your strategies for building trust internally, across departments?

Adi: Numbers, numbers, numbers. So again, I’ve been around for a long time and marketers used to be the first one — when the quota hasn’t been met or something happened like that — the marketers were the first people out the door. Why? Because we couldn’t really show any numbers. 

You know, we spend all that money on an event, or we spend all that money on a beautiful site … What did it do for us? What did we get back for it? Nothing, nobody knows really. I mean there were anecdotes here and there but we don’t really know. So over the years they created all these beautiful technologies that help us measure that, and it’s up to us to create the KPIs that ensure the bottom line. 

So my strategy from day one was to show the bottom line. We spent X, and therefore as a result we had Y inbound leads that turned into whatever converted and whatever closed … With management, the way I grew my team is, I was able to show the numbers and how they grew, and with that I got more investment, and I was able to show more and more and more.

Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Break Free B2B interviews. Here are a few interviews to whet your appetite:

• Break Free B2B Series: Hal Werner on the Intersection of Marketing Creativity and Analytics
• Break Free B2B Series: Maliha Aqeel on How to Ace B2B Company Culture
• Break Free B2B Series: Amanda Todorovich on Creating Content that Pays Off

The post Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

https://econsultancy.com/what-impact-is-safari-itp-having-on-marketing-attribution/

After analyzing the actual impact ITP has had on 812 of the larger ecommerce stores working with us at Littledata, we’ve concluded that the cumulative impact is a significant 8% loss of marketing attribution for Safari mobile searches.

Littledata is now experimenting with a long-term solution to improve cross-session user tracking.

Recapping the changes with Safari in 2019

The Safari browser (from v12.1 onwards) deletes cookies and local storage used by Google Analytics (GA) and other platforms to identify the same user across multiple visits.

While this is apparently designed to protect user privacy, it actually hurts the ability of ecommerce stores to link their marketing spend to sales that occur in a subsequent site visit:

• March: Safari 12.1 rolls out, with Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) 2.1 wiping cookies set more than 7 days previously
• May: Safari 12.2 released with ITP 2.2 wiping cookies set from a cross-domain link after 1 day
• September: Safari 13.0 released with ITP 2.3 clearing any local storage workaround after 7 days

Google Chrome is also following with its own enforcement of SameSite cookie policies, further limiting first-party cookies which are really third-party in disguise.

What’s the impact so far?

Our team looked at a group of 4,131 websites in total, and also 812 larger ecommerce stores with more than 20,000 visits per month.

The metric we chose is the ratio of the new visitors % on Safari browsers to the new visitors % on all other browsers. This accounts for changes in channel mix or browser used on an individual store.

If Safari treats the GA cookie for tracking visitors roughly the same as other browsers, we would expect that ratio to be around 1.

As the chart shows, since March 2019 the average new visitor ratio for Safari has increased every time an ITP update is released.

This means the cumulative impact over 6 months is an increase in the ratio for Safari of 8% from 1.03 to 1.11.

What does this mean for your site?

Assuming the percentage of new visitors on other browsers has been stable over the same period, this 8% rise in the ratio for Safari equates to an 8% drop in marketing attribution for Safari mobile.

Safari mobile represents 46% of all browser usage in North America. If your site is “average” in terms of traffic and user behaviour splits by mobile and desktop, that means you lost 4% of marketing attribution / visibility on mobile.

The biggest drop would have been seen in June and July 2019 with ITP 2.2. But what worries us more is the direction of travel: if the drop has been 8% in 6 months, how might this change as Safari further tightens the security around cookies, or the Chrome and Android web browser join in?

What about Safari desktop?

Safari desktop has lower usage than mobile (just 12% in North America), so the impact of changes is lower. Yet we still saw a similar 8% increase in the ratio for Safari desktop from 1.02 to 1.11.

The longer duration of first-party cookies on desktop browsers means that ITP 2.1 (limiting all tracking cookies to 7 days) had more of an impact, but it seems the impact from ITP 2.3 hasn’t yet been felt.

The link to particular releases also appears to be less defined. This is likely because desktop users are not pushed to upgrade Safari in the same way they are pushed to upgrade iOS on their phone.

Are these changes permanent?

Apple has made a strong point of user privacy over the last few years. Their billboard ad at the CES conference in Las Vegas last year makes that point clearly!

Apple never shows up at CES, so I can’t say I saw this coming. pic.twitter.com/8jjiBSEu7z

— DaddyPizza (@chrisvelazco) January 4, 2019

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Apple develops Safari to provide a secure web interface for their users, and with Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) they intended to reduce creepy retargeting ads following you around the web. Genuine web analytics has just been caught in the cross-fire.

Since Apple makes none of its revenue from advertising or analytics directly, and makes a LOT of money from users trusting it’s device security we believe this assault on user tracking will continue. And what users become to expect on Apple devices may in time spread to all internet browsers.

How can you get the tracking back?

Most of the previous workarounds for Safari ITP 2.1 will not work for ITP 2.3, since they rely on using browser local storage to avoid cookie limitations.

Luckily, there is a way to improve Safari tracking. If the cookie storing the anonymous ID across different visits is set by a web server rather than JavaScript on the browser, this cookie is trusted by Safari. In this case, the cookie is treated like a login cookie set by your own servers – and so we believe this solution is future-proof

With the secure cookie safe from ITP’s purges, the number of new visitors on Safari would fall as more users are linked across sessions. Marketing attribution to campaigns would then rise (as opposed to direct traffic attribution) as the typical user journey grew longer.

How to implement improved Safari tracking

To make this work you would need to spin up a web server which accepts a request from the browser to set a more persistent cookie, and then adapt your Google Analytics tracking script to use the ID from this server-set cookie rather than letting GA create a new one. This will work with gtag tracking for Google Ads as well.

If you’re looking for a simpler way, at Littledata we have a ‘Trusted Cookie’ product in private beta. It provides an endpoint on littledata-cookie.yourdomain.com to set a trusted cookie, and an adapted script for GTM.

The same principle can also be extended to improve tracking for Facebook Pixel, Segment, etc. The only downside we can see in implementing this is having to maintain the adapted tracking script if Google makes another update (like they did for gtag), and the cost for running the web servers.

But in exchange, you get to link 8% more of your marketing campaigns to sales. If you spend more than ten thousand a month on traffic acquisition, just think what that could be worth to you.

The post What impact is Safari ITP having on marketing attribution? appeared first on Econsultancy.

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Building consistent organic search traffic is every digital publisher’s dream. But what does it really take to make your content SEO friendly?

The good news is it is not a rocket science.

On top of that, despite what many people think, it has nothing to do with “tricking” Google into thinking your content is high-quality or SEO friendly.

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, which basically means making sure a search algorithm can easily access and understand your content. There’s no dark art involved.

Here are the steps you should take to make your content SEO friendly:

1. Match Your Content Idea to a Searchable Phrase (Search Query)

So you have an idea in mind which you feel like writing about. This is where any content creation starts: “I have something to say on this topic, and I feel like it will be interesting and/or useful”.

Is anyone searching for this topic?

Chances are, if you have come up with the topic, there should be other people who may feel intrigued enough to research it in Google.

But how exactly are people searching for it?

This is the key question you should ask if you want to generate organic search engine traffic to your future content.

You need to know what people type in a search box when trying to find answers to questions you are covering in your content.

So your first step is to find those actual search queries.

This exercise is also useful because it helps research. Knowing what people are typing in Google’s search box will likely help you discover interesting angles, narrow your initial idea down to make it more specific and even structure your future article to make it more useful.

So even if you don’t really care about organic search positions, keyword research is useful to do.

But how?

The keyword research process — at its core — hasn’t changed much over the years. We do have much more data to work with, but the actual process is the same.

These days, we have a variety of tools that help you identify a keyword to focus on. Here are a few tools and approaches you can try:

1.1. Type Your Terms into Ahrefs

Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer is a great tool for that because it offers “All keyword ideas” tab that broadens your initial idea to related and synonymous terms.

So if you were to type [grow tomatoes] and click through to that section, you’d find both phrases containing the term (e.g. “how to grow tomatoes”) and related concepts (e.g. “when to plant tomatoes“):

This broadens your outlook and helps you come up with more words to include in your copy.

1.2. Discover What Your Future Competitor is Ranking For

If you’ve done at least some research on your content idea, you may have found some resources that are on the same or similar topic. So use those URLs to discover what they are ranking for.

Serpstats’ URL Analysis section is great for that:

Notice that Serpstat is also showing all “extra” search elements that show up for each query in Google, so you get a good idea of what your future target SERPs (search engine result pages) may look like.

Note that both of these platforms offer “keyword difficulty” metric signaling of the level of your future organic competition. Obviously, the lower the keyword difficulty is, the better.

On the other hand, the higher the search volume, the more clicks each SERP may drive. So you want to try and pick a keyword that has high search volume and low keyword difficulty.

Here’s a more detailed guide on keyword research for you to become better at it. And here are even more keyword research questions answered.

2. Put Those Keywords in Prominent Places

While the process of researching keywords hasn’t changed much, the way we use keywords within content has.

These days, we don’t sacrifice the quality or flow of our copy for the sake of keyword density. In fact, we don’t pay attention to how many times we have used those keywords on-page.

We do use those keywords in prominent places on the page to make both Google and our human visitors more comfortable and confident there.

To put it simply, upon landing on your page, your users should clearly see terms they initially typed in the search box. That will put them more at ease and prompt them to linger a bit longer.

Keyword prominence means making your keywords visible on the page. It helps both search engine optimization and user-retention. Both of these help rankings.

Basically, you want those keywords to appear in:

1. Page title
2. Page URL slug (which in WordPress will be transferred from your title anyway)
3. First paragraph
4. Page subheading(s)
5. Image alt text (Do make those alt text descriptive as it helps accessibility)

Many SEO plugins (like Yoast and SEO Editor) can handle a lot of these SEO elements, so it is a good idea to pick one.

3. Use Semantic Analysis to Match Google’s Expectations and Make Your Content More Indepth

As I have already stated before, Google has moved away from matching the exact query to the pages in its index. Ever since its Hummingbird update, Google has slowly but surely become better and better at understanding each query context and searcher’s intent behind it.

To match that context better and optimize for the intent, use semantic analysis, which is basically about clustering each query into underlying and related concepts and covering you in your content.

Text Optimizer is a tool that takes Google’s search snippets for any query and applies semantic analysis to identify areas of improvement. Text Optimizer can be used for writing new content from scratch:

You can also use the tool to analyze your existing content to identify areas of improvements:

As you can see, Text Optimizer also helps analyze whether your content meets the query intent.

To increase your score at Text Optimizer:

• Choose the most suitable words for your content and include them naturally into your article. Avoid keyword stuffing. Only choose terms that you find fitting your current context.
• You may modify sentences or write new ones until you reach at least 80%

4. Diversify Your Content Formats

Google loves textual content, but the Internet in general and Google in particular has moved beyond text-only. Web users expect to see more formats, including videos and images. And Google recognizes that demand for content diversity, so it will feature all of those content formats.

In my previous article for Convince and Convert I described how videos improve SEO on many levels, including more exposure in search engine result pages and better on-page engagement.

With that in mind, any time you work on your article, think which other content assets can be created to enhance its value and improve SEO.

Luckily, creating videos doesn’t require any budget or skills. With tools like InVideo you can turn your articles into videos in a matter of seconds:

• Select “I want to convert article into video” option
• Paste in a maximum of 50 sentences (I usually use the tool to turn my article takeaways or subheadings into a video)
• Pick the template and let the tool do the job
• You can upload your own images (screenshots), tweak the subtitles and select the music

You are done! Now, upload the video to Youtube, add a keyword-rich title and description and embed it to your article.

For images, you can use Venngage or Visme to create nice visual takeaways or flowcharts (in case you have instructions to follow).

5. Set up an On-Page SEO Monitoring Routine

Finally, there’s always room for improvement, so monitoring your organic traffic is an important step here.

The must-have tool for that is Google’s own Search Console, which will show you which queries are sending you traffic. Just check your “Performance” tab regularly:

Another useful tool to have is Finteza, which shows your organic traffic performance allowing you to dig deeper to see whether your organic traffic clicks engage with your ads.

… or whether each search query sends traffic that brings conversions.

6. Don’t Forget External (Off-Site) Signals

Obviously, it is more to Google position than on-page optimization. You still need those backlinks that would help Google assign some authority to your content. But that’s a topic outside of the scope of this article. Besides, there’s a lot of content already written on that. And here’s another collection of tips on how to build links.

Finally, the above steps apply to any kind of optimization, whether it’s a blog, product pages or lead-generating landing pages.

I hope this guide will help you optimize your content to make it easier for Google to understand and hence help the search giant’s algorithm assign search positions it truly deserves.

The post How to Make Content SEO Friendly appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.