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Magic Words for Any Website Content Strategy

DEV.co — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 21:26:33 +0000

Harry Potter is one of the most quotable movie series of all times.

And while there are plenty of good quotes to choose from - including clever quips from Severus Snape, Hermoine Granger, Hagrid, and Harry himself, it’s Professor Albus Dumbledore who often delivered the wisest and most profound statements.

One of his better quotes was delivered in a conversation he had with Harry in the _

Deathly Hallows Part 2 _
movie where they find themselves in a strange dream-like version of King’s Cross station.

In that conversation, Dumbledore says: “_

Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.”_

What Dumbledore means is that words, spoken or written, have a huge impact on people. And though you might think one word is a small thing, it can have positive or adverse consequences.

While Dumbledore was no professor of copywriting or user experience, his words ring true for website content strategies.

Words are a source of “magic.” And if you want to boost website traffic and increase conversions, you need to learn how to wield the right magic words. Why Words Matter

Words are powerful tools for change. They shape a customer’s first impression of your brand. They pre-frame sales conversations. They educate, inform, and influence. They have power and should be chosen wisely - whether written or spoken.

As psychologist Jack Schafer says

, “Words cannot change reality, but they can change how people perceive reality. Words create filters through which people view the world around them.”

All it takes is one word to make someone love or hate something.

As Schafer explains, using the word “untrustworthy” to describe one person to another immediately predisposes that person to think of the other individual as being slimy, manipulative, or unlikable.

Likewise, using the worth “friendly” predisposes that person to think of the other individual as being warm and relatable - regardless of what else happens.

That’s the power of a single word. And when it comes to building a website and driving visitors to it, sometimes a single word can make the difference between a prospective customer engaging and converting or avoiding your website.

But this isn’t an article in psychology. It’s an article in practicality.

We want to show you precisely how you can use “magic” words to build influence, accrue traffic, and drive conversions.

From blog post headlines and social media posts to email subject lines and CTA buttons, we’ve got it all.

What do you say...should we dive in? Magic Words for Engaging Headlines

The world’s best copywriters suggest spending at least half the amount of time it takes you to write a piece of content brainstorming the headline. In other words, if you spend an hour writing a blog post, you should spend 30 minutes perfecting the headline.

That might seem like overkill, but the reality is that your headline is going to get 10x the amount of visibility as the post itself. And if you want to convince people to click/read, the headline is your best weapon.

If you study viral posts, you’ll find that these words are often included:

Smart
Surprising
Science
History
Hacks
Huge
Critical
People
See
Man
Old
Dog
Guy
Video
Facebook
Awesome
Photos
love

Headlines that get shared often evoke strong emotions of anxiety, anger, awe, or surprise. Descriptive words that fit these categories tend to do well.

Sometimes it’s the combination of words that creates magic _

phrases_

. Research shows that the following phrases work extremely well (as measured by Facebook engagement):

Will make you
This is why
Can we guess
Only X in
The reason is
Are freaking out
X stunning photos
Tears of joy
Is what happens
Make you cry
Give you goosebumps
Talking about it
Is too cute
Shocked to see
Melt your heart
X things only
Can’t stop laughing
Top X songs
Twitter reacts to
What happened next

You obviously can’t use these words or phrases in isolation. It’s all about how you structure the headline. However, including some of these magic terms can dramatically increase engagement, clicks, and even conversions. Magic Words for Social Media Posts

Social media is one of the top referral sources for most websites. If you want to boost your website traffic numbers, you should be cognizant of the words you’re using in your Facebook and Twitter posts.

The following magic words and phrases work exceptionally well on Facebook:

Check it out
How to
Learn why
The most
Get exclusive
Remarkable
Would you
Will inspire you
Will surprise you
Will amaze you
Most amusing
Best deals
The world’s
Proven
New blog post
Please
Try this
Why did?
How did?
Tell us
Discount/deal
Magical
Warning

These words tend to heighten engagement and clicks on Twitter:

You
Twitter
Please
Retweet
Post
Blog
Social
Free
Media
Help
Please Retweet
Great
Social Media
10
Follow
How to
Top
Blog Post
Check Out
New Blog Post

Again, it’s all about how you string together words and what you’re linking to. But if you emphasize proven magic words such as these, it’ll have a positive impact on your engagement, clicks, and conversions. Magic Words for Email Subject Lines

An email list can be worth millions of dollars to a business. However, a list is only useful if you can actually get people to open the emails you send. And the best way to do this is by writing compelling email subject lines.

Subject line structure is very important, but before focusing on different formulas and conversion tactics, you need to know which words work.

OptinMonster has done a fantastic job of

curating the best email subject lines

from a variety of research studies (including studies that cumulatively analyzed over 60 billion headlines). And, according to these studies, these are the words and phrases most likely to boost email open rates:

“upgrade”
“just”
“content”
“go”
“wonderful”
“jokes”
“promotional”
“congratulations”
“revision”
“forecast”
“snapshot”
“token”
“voluntary”
“monthly”
“deduction”
“free”
“ICYMI”
“$ today, $$ tomorrow”
“free delivery”
“available”
“new”
“alert”
“news”
“update”
“summer”
“weekend”
“monthly”
“thanks”
“||*|”
“bulletin”
“golden”
“iPhone”
“breaking”
“order today”
“thank you”
“introducing”
“celebrate”
“buy”
“continues”
“get your”
“what…?”
“won’t…?”
“do…?”
“can…?”
“may…?”
“on orders over”
“orders over”
“off selected”
“your next order”
“available”
“brand new”
“latest”
“special”
“wonderful”
“great deals”
“sale starts”
“back in stock”
“stock”
“sale now”
“now in”
“Urgent”
“important”

If you’re active with email marketing and have access to the analytics behind your emails, you may also find it helpful to go back and analyze your own email subject lines from the past year or two.

Is there a correlation between the emails with the top open rates (or the ones with the worst open rates)? Can you identify words or phrases that are consistently found in these categories?

Every audience is different, so your list will respond to certain words that other demographics won’t (and vice versa). However, the terms highlighted above should give you a solid place to start. Magic Words for CTAs

Whether it’s a blog post, landing page, or email, the call-to-action (CTA) is the element that will make or break your results. The right CTA builds on the rest of the copy and motivates people to follow through by purchasing, registering, singing up, or learning more.

Here are some magic words that successful copywriters and website conversion optimizers use to get people to click:

You
Free
Because
Instantly
New
Create
Explore
Join
Save
Start
Upgrade
Find
Try
Stop

And here are some of the top CTA phrases:

Get started
Sign up free
Create account
View demo
Book a demo
Contract sales
Learn more
Join free
Shop now
Get X% off
Add to bag
Add to cart
New _____
Buy now
Enter now
Try for free
Join _______

As is the case with email subject lines, you’ll learn which trigger words your audience does and doesn’t respond to. Experiment around with the ones outlined here in this article, but let your data and analytics help you zero in on the best options. 6 Tools to Help You Find Traffic-Boosting Keywords

Magic words are only effective when they’re combined with the appropriate keywords. Thus if you want to be successful with blog posts, website copy, social media posts, email subject lines, CTAs, and any other element of copy-based marketing, you have to find and leverage the right keywords.

Not sure which keywords to use? Here are some keyword tools you can use to home in on the right ones:

Google Keyword Planner

While it’s fairly plain when compared to some of the other tools listed below, Google Keyword Planner is a good one to begin with. The data comes straight from Google, which means there’s one less transfer point for data to get shrouded, lost, or misconfigured.

The best feature of Google Keyword PLanner is the “top of page bid” column. This tells you precisely how much advertisers are bidding on keywords. The more expensive this number is, the more value it has as an organic keyword. (Advertisers don’t pay top dollar for keywords unless people are searching for it in droves.)

Kewyord.io

This free keyword research tool will help you find highly relevant keywords for Google and beyond. One of the best features is the different filtering options. You can search keyword suggestions for YouTube, Amazon, Bing, and even Wikipedia. There’s a pro version that costs a few bucks but has even more resources and features.

KWFinder

In terms of paid keyword search tools, KWFinder is one of the newer kids on the block. (Having said that, it’s nearly seven years old at this point.) It’s affordable, comes as part of a suite of five tools, is great for tracking keyword difficulty, and has a slick interface that makes it fun and easy to use. It’s not perfect, though. Some of the negatives of KWFinder include low limits for keyword suggestions, no integration with Google Analytics or Search Console, and minimal backlink analysis capabilities.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs is one of the classic keyword research tools. And while it’s been around for a while, the development team does a great job of keeping it fresh. They’re constantly adding new features and tinkering with different options.

The “keyword difficulty” tool is one of the best in the industry. Not only does it rate the difficulty, but Ahrefs tells you why. It gets as specific as telling you precisely how many backlinks you’ll need in order to reach the first page of Google for that keyword. (That’s awesome!)

Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz prides itself on helping users find the keywords that will generate the most traffic for them. It does this by finding “lateral” keyword ideas that line up with the search term you input. And Moz is pretty dang smart!

Let’s say, for example, that your keyword is weight loss. In addition to finding standard lateral keywords, such as “weight loss pills,” it’ll also find unique suggestions like “foods that help burn fat for men” or “men’s belly fat burning foods.”

Moz also has valuable features that find organic click-through rate and priority. These show you how many clicks you’re likely to get from a specific search term or keyword.

Keywords Everywhere

This tool is unique in that it displays keyword data from some of the top websites and search platforms. And its “people also search for” feature is really cool. This allows you to zoom in on the keywords that target customers search for when they’re not searching for precisely what you sell. This reveals new ranking opportunities for your content strategy. When combined with other tools, Keywords Everywhere can yield some very neat insights.

At Dev.co, we design unrivaled digital experiences by cohesively mixing strategic innovation with beautiful interfaces. We work with our clients to

design websites, mobile applications, and software that empowers and delights.

How to Manage Remote Software Development Teams

DEV.co — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 21:00:51 +0000

Working remotely has a number of advantages for both organizations and individuals. When hiring, you’ll have access to a much larger pool of candidates, while dealing with lower overhead expenses. As an individual, you can work anywhere (and in many situations, at any time). Accordingly, many software developers have turned to hiring remote teams to achieve their goals.

However, if you’re going to be successful managing a remote software development team, there are some additional considerations to bear in mind. Remote software development does have some disadvantages, but you can compensate for them with the right approach.

Core Concepts for Managing Remote Software Development Teams

Generally speaking, effective remote software development team management can be executed with respect to three main categories:

Building the best team. Everything starts with the strength and abilities of your team. With the most qualified, best organized software developers on your team, you won’t have to manage much; they’ll take care of most responsibilities on their own. Additionally, with the right ongoing teambuilding and strategic development strategies, you can make your remote team even better.
Staying organized. Even the best-trained, most knowledgeable candidates will struggle if they’re uncertain what their main priorities are, or if they don’t know where to find the information they need. Staying organized is about establishing proper hierarchies, organizing projects and tasks, setting goals, and keeping track of individual responsibilities.
Communicating. Finally, there’s communication. Good communication can prevent the vast majority of software development problems from ever occurring, and quickly resolve all the problems that remain. Good communication is about relaying instructions properly, actively listening to your developers, and resolving conflicts.

We will examine each of these priorities in turn.

Building the Best Team

Your first job is building the best software development team, which won’t be easy. This starts with the hiring process, but will follow you indefinitely with ongoing education and training options.

Full-time, part-time, freelance, or outsourcing?

One of your first big decisions will be debating whether to hire full-time developers, part-time developers, freelance developers, or whether to outsource your software development needs to another company. As you can imagine, there are advantages and disadvantages to each.

Part of your decision will depend on the size and scope of your current projects. If you’re working on low priorities, or if you don’t have much to do, part-time developers or freelancers may be plenty.

Full-time developers will give you the greatest possible access to your team, but they will also be relatively expensive. Additionally, if you’re hiring part-time or full-time developers, you’ll need to vet your options carefully before bringing them onto your team.

For many software development projects, the best option is to outsource your work to a software development firm. Outsourcing gives you access to a full team of software development specialists, for a relatively low price, and gives you flexible scalability, so you can add more resources as you need them.

Culture fit

Whatever option you go with, you’ll need to think about the culture fit of your team.

Consider:

Work ethic. You’ll want to hire people who genuinely care about the projects they work on. A better work ethic means your team will be more adaptable, more responsive, and more interested in making the best possible products.
Autonomy and independence. Working remotely means having little to no direct supervision. Accordingly, you’ll need to find team members who can operate with autonomy and independence; they should be capable of setting their own personal goals, managing their own time, and completing projects without constant reminders.
Collaboration potential. While some work can be done completely independently, you’ll also want to find software developers who work well together. You have to find team players who can share projects even when physically distant.
Communication. Of course, you’ll also have to consider communication skills—we’ve dedicated an entire section to the topic.

You can judge some of these aspects based on a person’s resume; if they have a lot of experience working as part of a team, or if they seem to value teamwork in their self-descriptions, you can count on them being a good collaborator. You’ll have to discover other aspects during the interview process; for example, their communication skills should be self-evident.

Recruiting and training

Finding the best candidates and preparing them for success is also a challenge for remote development teams. If you’re outsourcing your work, you’ll gain almost immediate access to qualified candidates, so you won’t have to worry too much about it. Otherwise, you’ll need to invest in an inbound recruiting strategy, or proactively scout for candidates online who fit your criteria.

From there, you’ll need to give your remote software developers the best possible chance of success by training them in your desired workflows and processes. They should already be familiar with basic best practices for software development, but you’ll need to instruct them on how you want them to communicate, your expectations for their scheduling, and other areas that may vary by employer/manager.

Teambuilding

Teambuilding is difficult when you’re managing a remote team, since you won’t be working in the same location. However, there are steps you can take to reinforce your collective work culture, better acquaint your individual developers, and cultivate team bonds for better collaboration. For example, you can host remote lunches and individual teambuilding exercises.

Ongoing development

Finally, you’ll need to spend time investing in the ongoing training, education, and development of your team. Giving your team members access to resources, support in their ongoing education, and direct mentorship will not only make them better employees, but will also increase their morale and satisfaction. You may not need to consider this point if you’re outsourcing your software development needs.

Staying Organized

Staying organized is all about creating the hierarchies, systems, and structures necessary for everyone on the team to function well.

Team hierarchies and individual roles

First, you’ll need to spend time establishing a clear team hierarchy. Who will be answering to whom? What will each team member’s responsibilities be? The more direct and unambiguous you are in these assignments, the easier the work will flow in the future.

Goals

Remote team managers also need to set effective goals, both at the team level and at the individual level. For example, you’ll need to decide how you want to finish specific projects as a team, while also encouraging individuals on the team to improve their strengths and balance their weaknesses.

One challenge here is to stay focused on high-level and mid-level priorities; if you spend too much time focused on low-level priorities and minutiae, your team won’t be able to work effectively. Remember, you’ve hired people in part because you depend on them to work autonomously and independently; don’t get caught up in micromanaging them.

Time zones

Many distribute software development teams involve team members from different time zones. This usually isn’t much of an issue, so long as you acknowledge it. Allow your team members to work independently whenever possible, and rely on overlap between shifts in different time zones to schedule meetings. Most issues can wait a few hours (or longer) to be resolved, so rely on email, project management systems, and other non-urgent communication channels to handle the majority of your issues.

Project and task management protocols

You’ll also need to have some project and task management protocols in place. Who will be responsible for creating new projects, and who will be responsible for claiming and assigning tasks? Who will be responsible for setting and/or updating deadlines?

Additionally, what details are required for a developer to begin working on a project? What steps should they take if details are insufficient?

Formally documenting these protocols will make it easier for your entire team to be on the same page.

Leadership styles

Different people respond better to different leadership styles. You’ll need to use a mix of different tactics to keep your remote team motivated. For example, some people respond better to a leader with a strong vision and a clear sense of direction, while others respond better to a minimalistic leader who maintains a hands-off approach.

Flexibility

One of the inherent advantages of working with a remote team of software developers is its flexibility. You can allow your team members to work from anywhere, and hire people from all over the world. Maximize your potential by allowing even more flexibility; let your team work during the hours that suit them best (when possible), and give them more control over their assignments. They’ll gravitate to the work that is most fulfilling and most productive for them to do.

Communicating

Arguably, communication is the most important factor to consider when managing a remote team of software developers. If you’re proactive and clear, your communication should prevent most issues from arising. When issues do develop, you can use communication to resolve them.

Transparency

One key aspect of good communication in a remote team is transparency; it’s important to explain your high-level goals, motivations, and thoughts related to different projects and tasks. For example, if your developer thinks they can finish a project in two weeks and you want them to finish in one, explain your reasoning behind advancing the deadline. If your developer asks why you follow a certain project management process, enlighten them.

Transparency is great for building trust, and will help your software development team better understand the inner workings of your organization.

Clarity

The details matter. When you’re assigning projects, outlining scope, creating bug tickets, or handling any other kind of in-team communication, you need to be as clear as possible. Define every element in your message with specificity, and avoid ambiguities that could be misinterpreted. Additionally, you should keep your messaging as simple, concise, and direct as possible.

It’s also a good idea to outline a bit of backstory when assigning new projects and tasks. This way, developers will be able to work with context.

Accountability

Good communication demands that individual software developers accept accountability and acknowledge their responsibilities in different areas—especially when working remotely. If you send an email to a developer requesting them to work on a task, they should follow up with a response that they’re working on it.

Similarly, you’ll need to have policies in place for follow-ups and check-ins. Even if you trust your developers to handle the work, it pays to get regular updates.

Communication channels

Remote software development is possible in part due to the sheer number of communication options available to teams. You can email, assign tasks in a project management platform, instantly chat, video chat, conference call, or text to get a message across.

Much of your success will depend on your ability to utilize these channels effectively. For example, texts are great for short, one-sided communications or urgent matters, but conference calls and video calls are much better for extended discussions. Make sure your team members understand how to use each of these channels to their greatest advantage.

While you’re at it, avoid wasting time with unnecessary meetings and irrelevant communications. Cumulatively, unproductive meetings cost billions of dollars every year, and they can often be replaced with much cheaper, faster forms of communication.

Conflict resolution

Inevitably, conflicts will arise in your software development team. Working remotely, you won’t have the opportunity for a face-to-face resolution. Instead, you’ll need to employ a series of tactics to manage conflicts remotely. The first step is acknowledging a conflict has arisen, which may be difficult if you’re simply gauging the tone of a written email, rather than seeing the expressiveness in a person’s face.

From there, you need to take a proactive approach. Either party involved should take it upon themselves to address the conflict, explain the perceived grievance, and offer a suggestion on what could make it better. With everyone working together to resolve conflicts quickly, you should have little to no trouble resolving disputes.

Feedback and improvement

One of the most important elements in your approach to communication is gathering feedback and remaining willing to improve. Periodically (perhaps during regular employee performance reviews), take the time to listen to points of employee feedback, such as systems that could be improved or conflicts that could have been handled better. Use these as learning opportunities to improve your management approach.

What Developers Should Know About SEO

DEV.co — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 21:20:06 +0000

If you want to be successful developing websites for clients, you should have at least a cursory understanding of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a set of strategies designed to help websites rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s considered a distinct online marketing strategy, but it draws from multiple disciplines.

Because SEO relies both on the technical factors of a site and the qualitative nature of the content on the site (not to mention offsite factors), a developer can’t reasonably tackle all responsibilities necessary for good SEO—but they’re still a necessary part of the process.

The Elements of SEO

In case you aren’t familiar, Google and other search engines keep a massive index of all the pages on the web. They send out bots to crawl the web (appropriately called “spiders”) and gather information to store in this index. Then, whenever a user searches for a specific keyword or keyword phrase, Google attempts to find the best possible pages to provide that user.

It does this based on the relevance of a page (how closely related it is to the query) and its authority (or how trustworthy it seems to be). Relevance is largely considered based on the type of content found on a given page. Authority is, in some ways, more complex; the quality of your content, the number and quality of links pointing to your pages, and other factors can all play a role.

Accordingly, most search optimizers split their attention into multiple separate strategies, including:

· Technical onsite SEO. Technical onsite SEO is all about how the site is built, and how it’s maintained. Good technical SEO is designed to make the site completely crawlable, so it can be indexed properly. It’s also designed to make the site more functional, and therefore more authoritative in Google’s eyes. This is where the majority of your responsibilities as a developer come into play.

· Onsite content. SEO also requires the generation of high-quality onsite content, which serves a number of simultaneous roles. For example, it provides keywords and contextually relevant content that can increase a site’s relevance for certain queries, but it also helps make a site more authoritative.

· Link building. With the help of link building services or by attracting links naturally, search optimizers can establish much higher authority for the site they’re working on. Google has gotten good at discerning spam from legitimate links, so these days, most links are built with the foundation of high-quality offsite content.

Technical Factors to Consider

There are many technical factors you’ll need to consider for SEO when developing a website, but all of them are part of the same overall philosophy. Google and other search engines preferentially rank sites that function well, optimizing for the best possible user experience. Accordingly, if you’re developing a site according to best practices, with user experience in mind, you should naturally be able to reap the benefits of SEO.
If you’re interested in more specifics about how development factors into SEO, these are some of the most important categories to consider:

· URL structures. First, you’ll need to think about how you’re structuring the URLs of your site. Basic best practices are usually sufficient here, including breadcrumbs pathing to make it easy for users to navigate your site, and making sure each page of your site has an intelligible description in the URL.

· Semantic markup. Next, you’ll need to consider the semantic markup of your site. Including the right meta tags for the right types of content is vital if you want search engines to “see” and index that content properly.

· Site speed. Site speed plays a major role in determining the rankings of a given site. In general, the quicker a site loads, the more authoritative it will be, and the higher it will rank. You can improve site speed with efficient coding, proper caching, and other simple adjustments.

· Content and compatibility. It’s also important for all the content of a site to load properly, no matter what type of device, operating system, or browser is accessing it. This is a basic best practice, but you’d be surprised how many developers miss it.

· Status codes. Setting up proper HTTP status codes, including 1xx informational codes, 3xx redirection codes, and 4xx error codes will help bots crawl and index your site properly.
· Robots.txt. You may also want to spend time optimizing your robots.txt file, which provides rules and instructions for how crawlers should operate.

As a software developer, you’ll play an important role in optimizing the sites you build for search engines. If you can master this, you’ll be able to construct more functional sites, and you’ll be able to market your services more effectively to companies interested in SEO.

The Future of Agile is Machine

DEV.co — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 18:01:47 +0000

As with any emerging technology, there is always more hype, talk and pontificating in the years leading up to implementation and full acceptance. I can recall a speech given by Jeff Bezos a decade ago where he compared the internet to electricity, concluding that we were in the stage of the early washing machine in when discussing how the internet would change our lives. That was 10+ years ago.

Today the internet is old news. We suck down topics relating to cognitive computing like machine learning, artificial intelligence. Then, there are the naysayers who claim we'll lose half the active jobs in the United States due to new technology. While this may be true, the future opportunities in this tech are astounding.

When it comes to machine learning, three phases of use, implementation and development exist:

Supervised Learning -- Where humans provide the assisted answers to machines with the right input/output parameters.
Unsupervised Learning -- Where we provide large data sets to a machine that is programmed to learn and then sit back and watch how the data is interpreted and processed.
Reinforced Learning -- Where we provide reward functions with positive and negative feedback to a computer that essentially rewards good and bad behavior.

Today, we're in the supervised learning phase of machine learning software development. Yes, unsupervised algorithms exist and are working, but they have not crossed the chasm into mainstream use and acceptance. Not until an elementary school child can scan his/her homework into the computer and have it cheat back the answers with relative ease will we be there.

When it comes to those of us knee-deep in the pile of agile frameworks, scrum meetings and continuous process improvement, the one area we are looking forward to is the implementation of machine learning algorithms to greatly supplement, if not replace some of the methodologies that call for the input of manual timestamps and updates by project managers and agile scrum leaders.

Whether front-end or back-end, no where is process automation more invited, tested and championed than in software development, but the future of agile will require many years of inputs and learning iteration techniques from humans to perfect in order to truly pass the baton to machines.

We're working to help solve issues like this at DEV.co, but these things take time, resources and patience to effectuate real change in process and personnel.

For agile software development and testing to truly be agile, we'll need to dig deeper into frameworks and the processes that ultimately improve them and make the code truly "deliverable." Until then, we'll work with the great tools and teams we already have, until of course they all disappear and machines take over.