YouTube rolled out several updates this week, including expanding search insights to more languages and a new layout for channel pages.
YouTube Search Insight In More Languages
Introduced in November 2021, YouTube’s search insights surfaces information about popular queries, which can help creators make more content people are looking for.
Search insights lets creators research what their audience is searching for and what viewers are searching for across YouTube.
Screenshot from YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, November 2022.
In addition, search insights highlights content gaps, which can help creators generate ideas for their next videos.
Until now, search insights were only available in English with the ability to surface searches from viewers in the US, India, Canada, and the UK.
Now, YouTube is experimenting with making Search Insights on desktop available in more languages, including Japanese, Korean, and Hindi, with more languages coming in the future.
New Layout For YouTube Channel Pages
YouTube is updating channel pages in two ways.
First, the navigation bar now sits below the channel information section.
Screenshot from YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, November 2022.
Channel information will remain at the top as users click through different tabs.
In addition to making this information more convenient for users to access, this change makes the ‘Join’ and ‘Store’ buttons more visible, potentially boosting creator revenue.
The second change is that videos are now separated into two tabs: long-form videos and YouTube Shorts.
Previously, all videos were grouped in the same tab, which made it hard to tell the difference between video types.
For more on this week’s YouTube updates for creators, see the video below:
During a live session at Brighton SEO, Google Search Advocate John Mueller makes a prediction about the future of backlinks.
Mueller, joined by fellow Googler Lizzi Sassman and guest Myriam Jessier, fields several questions during a live recording of the Search Off The Record podcast.
Since it’s a podcast, the questions are addressed as a group discussion, as the hosts answer pre-selected questions rather than interacting with the live audience.
Together, the hosts answer a question about how Google penalizes backlinks, which asks:
“As an SEO, we are interested in backlinks. However, actively working on backlinks often becomes a gray area in terms of link schemes. What are Google’s main criteria for penalizing backlinks?”
After some banter between the hosts, Mueller takes a direction with his answer that’s a slight departure from the original question.
Google representatives are often careful when answering questions regarding ranking and penalty criteria.
Generally, Google discourages any form of unnatural linkbuilding. Giving away too many details about penalties could encourage “grey hat” behavior or walking a careful line between what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
Instead of speaking about penalties, Mueller discusses the backlinks ranking signal in general and why it may become less critical to SEO professionals in the future.
Google’s John Mueller On The Backlinks Ranking Signal
As Google becomes more adept at understanding how content fits in with the rest of the web, Mueller suggests Google’s algorithm won’t have to rely so much on inbound links.
Mueller says:
“Well, it’s something where I imagine, over time, the weight on the links at some point will drop off a little bit as we can figure out a little bit better how the content fits in within the context of the whole web.”
Perhaps this is Mueller’s way of saying penalties aren’t worth worrying about because backlinks won’t be as valuable to acquire in the future.
However, suggesting backlinks are only helpful for understanding content disregards all the other information they communicate.
A backlink profile can tell you so much more abouta website, such as the extent to which it’s trusted by others, who it’s trusted by, and how authoritative the site is in its particular niche.
Is Google capable of determining all that from the on-page content alone?
Mueller doesn’t speak to the authority aspect of inbound links, though he does say they’ll continue to be helpful to Google for content discovery.
Mueller continues:
“And to some extent, links will always be something that we care about because we have to find pages somehow. It’s like how do you find a page on the web without some reference to it?”
But my guess is over time, it won’t be such a big factor as sometimes it is today. I think already, that’s something that’s been changing quite a bit.”
Hear the full discussion at the 13:17 mark in Google’s latest Search Off The Record podcast:
Substack has launched Substack Chat, a discussion feature allowing authors to communicate with their audiences directly via a mobile app.
This move positions Substack as a direct competitor to Twitter, which is experiencing turmoil in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition and subsequent firing of top executives.
The release of Substack Chat comes just days after the company began openly targeting Twitter users.
New Feature Allows Community Creation Without Outside Platforms
Intended to help creators cultivate a community of support, Substack Chat seeks to fill a need the San Francisco-based company has observed in its offerings.
“As the quality of writing on Substack has blossomed and comments sections lit up with intelligent discussions, subscriber communities began to take shape. Some enterprising writers have taken matters into their own hands, hacking together integrations with Discord, Slack and Telegram to cultivate communities of supporters.”
The release of this new opt-in feature provides the desired chat functionality without needing third-party platforms. Instead, newsletter creators can initiate discussions from their settings page or iOS app.
Designed more like a traditional chat app rather than a scroll-to-read timeline, it seeks to facilitate natural discussions while keeping authors in control over topics and tone.
Musk’s Twitter Role Causing Uncertainty
Twitter has been a popular social media platform for content creators since its inception, but its recent takeover by Musk has many users uncertain about its future.
The company is allegedly undergoing internal strife as employees brace themselves for widespread layoffs. Additionally, employees claim to have been under additional pressure as Musk pushes the company toward a paid subscription model.
According to an article in The Verge, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wants to raise the price of Twitter Blue from $4.99 per month to $19.99 per month.
In addition to giving users early access to features, the increased price will also include verification. According to reports, anyone who does not opt into the new subscription version will be stripped of their blue checkmark.
Twitter users and advertisers seem to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the platform, particularly regarding content moderation. This follows a 500% increase in tweets using racial slurs following Musk’s first weekend as the social media site’s owner.
Other Companies Seeking To Compete With Twitter
Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has also unveiled plans to compete with Twitter. Bluesky Social, his new company, is currently accepting beta testers for a platform that is intended to give users more control over their algorithm via what it’s calling the AT Protocol.
Mastodon, a decentralized Twitter competitor, saw more than 230,000 new users following the Musk acquisition.
The ongoing focus on consumer privacy has resulted in another Google Ads update, impacting similar audiences targeting.
This week, Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed that Google will phase out similar audiences targeting in 2023.
Read on to understand the impact and how to prepare for this change.
No New Similar Audience Segments Available Starting May 2023
If you are currently using similar audiences in your campaigns and ad groups, there won’t be a change to them.
While you can still use existing similar audience segments until August 2023, you can’t add new similar audience segments to campaigns and groups.
Image credit: Support.google.com, November 2022
Similar Audiences To Be Completely Removed In August 2023
The second phase of sunsetting similar audiences will happen in August 2023.
Google will remove any existing similar audience segments from all ad groups and campaigns.
Don’t panic though – advertisers still have access to historical reporting for these segments if needed.
Why The Change?
Google states that this audience change is a result of the following:
This is a change from Google’s original stance back in 2021.
After initially announcing they would not provide an alternative to third-party cookies, assertive feedback from advertisers helped change the landscape.
Google realized the importance of some form of user targeting is needed for advertisers to effectively market products and services.
Without an alternative, advertisers would have likely moved away from Google, significantly impacting Google’s advertising revenue.
Talking about similar audiences specifically, the change will transition similar audiences to a more automated targeting solution.
Ginny Marvin gave more context to the similar audience transition in this Twitter thread:
1/4 Today, we’re announcing an update on similar audiences and transition to more durable audience solutions. Here’s why we’re making a change and a look at the timeline (starting in 6 months):
With this change, Google offered advertisers a preparation guide based on campaign type:
Search and Regular Shopping Campaigns
Image credit: Support.google.com, November 2022
Display, Discovery, and Video action campaigns
Image credit: Support.google.com, November 2022.
Video awareness campaigns
Image credit: Support.google.com, November 2022.
How Much Does This Impact Advertisers?
While it may seem like similar audiences are entirely going away, that’s not exactly the case.
Fellow PPCers on Twitter were quick to chime in, asking for more clarity on how (and if) Google will merge similar audiences with other targeting options:
Screenshot: Twitter.com, November 2022
So, while similar audience targeting may not be available as a standalone option, other, more automated targeting and bidding solutions use similar signals, eliminating the need for the similar audience feature.
Marvin confirmed that Smart Bidding already considers these signals:
Existing added audience lists
Signals from first-party customer match lists to reach existing and new customers.s
Summary
Will this similar audiences transition make a significant impact on existing campaigns?
As of right now, likely not. But it is good for advertisers to understand what’s changing, why, and what alternatives are coming.
The Google support guide is a great way to understand better each campaign type’s complexities and how to prepare different campaign types for this 2023 transition.
In this day and age, page speed is everything. Not a day goes by without a new article, Google representative, or SEO expert telling us that optimizing for speed is among the most important things you should do for your website. And they’re right, of course! Page speed influences SEO in many ways. Here’s an overview of how page speed and SEO go together.
Table of contents
What is page speed?
“Page speed” refers to how fast the content on your page loads. It sounds simple; the faster your content loads, the quicker your page speed is. However, it’s good to understand that page speed is somewhat of an umbrella concept because there’s not a single metric that can define how fast your web page loads.
When discussing page speed in website performance, we should not consider it similar to how fast a car can go. A car can go 100km/h, and you can say that’s the car’s speed. But when talking about page speed, there is much more going on than just “this page loads in 4 seconds”. It’s much better to think of page speed as part of the user experience that your visitors will get when interacting with your website.
How to think about page speed
In an ideal world, you’d click a link in the search results, and the corresponding page would appear instantly. But we all know that’s a pipe dream. Over the years, pages have only increased in size, and the popularity of JavaScript made them even more complex and harder to load. Loading a web page can still be a drag, even with lightning-fast internet connections and potent devices.
Think about when you visit a web page. Do you wait for the page to load fully before interacting with it? Or do you start scrolling around and checking things right when you see content starts appearing? And if you start interacting with the page right away when there’s content, do you find missing elements (text, images, videos, buttons) when you scroll deeper on the page?
Here’s another question for you. Let’s say we have two pages. The first page quickly displays the first bits of content on your screen, but it takes longer before you can interact with things. The second page shows content a tad bit slower, but elements on the page, such as images and buttons, work properly. Between the two, which one would you say has better “page speed”?
As you can see, “page speed” is not necessarily about how fast a web page can load but more about how quickly it can provide a good user experience. Even if the page’s main content is quick to load, but other elements take longer to appear, you’ll still feel like the page is slow because you have to wait before you can interact with it.
There’s no single metric to define page speed
By now, you may understand that it’s tricky to define the “speed” of a web page or how “fast” a page is. Page speed is a multifaceted concept that can’t be determined using a single metric. Not to mention, many things affect the loading speed of a website, which we will get to later in this article.
When you click on a link to visit a web page, your browser has to make a request to the server of the website asking for content and other information. That content has to be loaded fully or partially on the browser before the user can interact with the page. At the same time, many things happen when a page gets loaded. You see things start appearing and popping up on your screen. After a brief moment, you can begin to interact with the page.
But when you take a step back and think about how we browse the web, we tend to interact with a page almost simultaneously when content appears on our screen. We tend not to wait for the page to load before we start exploring fully. At the same time, we don’t like it when we start scrolling, but things only pop up a bit later.
So to gauge the “speed” of a web page, we need to use several metrics in combination with each other to determine how fast and smooth the user experience on that page is. For that reason, Google introduced Web Vitals in 2020 – a set of metrics to measure websites’ speed and user experience. These metrics made their way into the Google core algorithm update in 2021, becoming the Core Web Vitals we know today.
Core Web Vitals give insights into your page speed
Core Web Vitals look at three aspects of a web page: loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. From those three aspects, Google defined the following metrics:
Loading – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This metric measures how long it takes for the most significant piece of content to appear on the screen.
Interactivity – First Input Delay (FID): This metric measures how fast the page can respond to the first user interaction.
Visual Stability – Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This metric measures the stability of visual elements on your page. In other words, does stuff move around on the screen while loading?
Metrics in Core Web Vitals
Google also set the standard measurements for each of these metrics and split them into three categories: good, need improvement, and poor. For instance, a page with a First Input Delay (FID) of below 300ms is considered poor, while above 100ms is considered good.
It’s worth noting that you have to meet or surpass the target performance in the “good” categories for 75% of your real-world visitors, in a 28-day period to pass Core Web Vitals. Generally speaking, that means three out of four visitors must experience the target level of performance or better.
If you’re looking to improve your page speed, it’s essential to know and understand these metrics. And with page speed improvement, you may also enhance your ranking on Google.
Differences between page speed and site speed
Some people use the term “page speed,” while others use “site speed” when discussing website performance. They are similar but surely not the same. Page speed only refers to the performance of a single web page, while site speed refers to the overall performance of a whole website.
It’s easier to measure the performance of a single web page as we have metrics in Core Web Vitals to work with. On the other hand, measuring the performance of a whole website is very tricky as a site can contain hundreds, even up to millions of pages. In addition, each of those pages behaves differently as they have different content and purposes.
Similar to “page speed,” you can’t define the speed of a website with a single metric. However, a website is just a combination of a bunch of web pages put together in a structured way. So let’s say most of your pages pass Core Web Vitals, then you can consider your site “fast.” If the opposite is true, you have slow “site speed.”
How important is page speed for SEO?
It’s a no-brainer that you want your website to be fast. A fast site means your pages load quickly. Of course, people come to your website for your content and your offers. However, that awesome and unique content must be accompanied by a good user experience.
Fast-loading sites have higher conversion rates and lower bounce rates
Attention spans are notoriously short. As the internet gets faster, they’re getting shorter still. Numerous studies have found a clear link between the amount of time a page takes to load and the percentage of visitors who will get bored of waiting. For instance, Google found out in their research that:
The probability of a visitor leaving a page without interacting increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds (thinkwithgoogle)
The probability of a visitor leaving a page without interacting increases to 90% as page load time goes from 1 second to 5 (thinkwithgoogle)
Your goal should be to be the fastest site in your niche. Be faster than your competitors. Having a site or an e-commerce platform that takes forever to load won’t do you any good. People hit that back button in a split second, never to return. With each bounced visitor, you are losing money and brand loyalty. Speed and efficiency are everything these days, so people won’t sit around waiting for your page when there are other alternatives.
By offering a fast site, you encourage your visitors to stay longer. Not to mention, you’re helping them get through their checkout journey faster. That helps improve your conversion rate and build trust and brand loyalty. Think of all the times you’ve been cursing the screen because you had to wait for a page to load or be running in circles because the user experience was atrocious. It happens so often — don’t be that site.
A fast page improves user experience
Google understands that the time it takes for a page to load is vital to the overall user experience. Waiting for content to appear, the inability to interact with a page, and even noticing delays create friction.
That friction costs time, money, and your visitor’s experience. Research shows that the level of stress from waiting for slow mobile results can be more stressful than watching a horror movie. Surely not, you say? That’s what the fine folks at Ericsson Research found a few years back.
Improving your site speed across the board means making people happy. They’ll enjoy using your site, buy more and come back more often. This means that Google will see your site as a great search result because you are delivering the goods regarding site quality. Eventually, you might get a nice ranking boost.
Frustration hurts your users and hurts your rankings
It’s not just Google – research from every corner of the web on all aspects of consumer behavior shows that speed significantly impacts outcomes.
Nearly 70% of consumers say that page speed impacts their willingness to buy (unbounce)
Nearly 50% of consumers admit they are willing to give up animation and video for faster load times (unbounce)
20% of users abandon their cart if the transaction process is too slow (radware.com)
The BBC found they lost an additional 10% of users for every additional second their site took to load
These costs and site abandonment happen because users dislike being frustrated. Poor experiences mean they go elsewhere, visit other websites, and convert to competitors. Google easily tracks those behaviors (through bounces back to search engine results pages, short visits, and other signals) and is a strong signal that the page shouldn’t be ranking where it was.
Google needs fast sites
Speed isn’t only good for users – it’s good for Google, too. Slow websites are often slow because they’re inefficient. They may load too many large files, haven’t optimized their media, or don’t make use of modern technologies to serve their page. That means that Google has to consume more bandwidth, allocate more resources, and spend more money.
Across the whole web, every millisecond they can save, and every byte they don’t have to process, adds up quickly. And quite often, simple changes to configuration, processes, or code can make websites much faster with no drawbacks. That may be why Google is so vocal about its education on performance.
A faster web is better for users and significantly reduces Google’s operating costs. Either way that means that they’re going to continue rewarding fast(er) sites.
Improve page speed helps to improve crawling for search engines
Modern sites are incredibly wieldy, and untangling that mess can make a big difference. The bigger your site is, the more impact page speed optimizations will have. That not only impacts user experience and conversion rates but also affects crawl budget and crawl rate.
When a Googlebot comes around and crawls your webpage, it crawls the HTML file. Any resources referenced in the file, like images, CSS, and JavaScript, will be fetched separately. The more files you have and the heavier they are, the longer it will take for the Googlebot to go through them.
On the flip side, the more time Google spends on crawling a page and its files, the less time and resources Google has to dedicate to other pages. And that means that Google may miss out on other important pages and content on your site.
Optimizing your website and content for speed will provide a good user experience for your visitors and help Googlebots better crawl your site. They can come around more often and get more done.
Page speed is a ranking factor
Google has repeatedly said that a fast site helps you rank better. So it’s no surprise that Google has been measuring the speed of your site and using that in their ranking algorithms since 2010.
In 2018, Google launched the so-called ‘Speed Update,’ making page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches. Google stressed it would only affect the slowest sites and that fast sites getting faster won’t get a boost, but they are looking at website performance across the board.
In 2021, Google announced the page experience algorithm update, demonstrating that page speed and user experience are intertwined. Core Web Vitals clearly state that speed is an essential ranking factor. The update also gave site owners metrics and standards to work with.
Of course, Google still wants to serve searchers the most relevant information even if the page experience is somewhat lacking. Creating high-quality content is still the best way to rank. However, Google also states that page experience signals become more important when many pages with relevant content compete for visibility in the search result.
The Speed Update, which enables page speed in mobile search ranking📱, is now rolling out for all users!
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) July 9, 2018
Google mobile-first index
Another significance of page speed for ranking is Google’s mobile-first approach to indexing content. That means Google uses the mobile version of your pages for indexing and ranking. This approach makes sense as we increasingly rely on mobile devices to go online. In recent research, Semrush found out that 66% of all website visits come from mobile devices
To compete for a spot in the search results, your mobile page needs to meet Core Web Vitals standards and other page experience signals. And this is not easy at all. Pages on mobile take longer to load compared to their desktop counterparts, while attention span stays the same. People might be more patient on mobile devices, but not a lot more. Take a look at some statistics:
The average website loading time is 2.5 seconds on desktop and 8.6 seconds on mobile, based on an analysis of the top 100 web pages worldwide (tooltester)
The average mobile web page takes 15.3 seconds to load (thinkwithgoogle)
On average, webpages on mobile take 70.9% longer to load than on desktop (tooltester)
A loading speed of 10 seconds increases the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing by 123% compared to a one-second loading speed (thinkwithgoogle)
All the more reasons to optimize your website and content if your goal is to win a spot in the SERP.
Factors that affect your page speed
Many factors affect a page’s loading speed, but we think you might know this already. Though there’s one thing you can’t control: the connection quality of your end user. Other than that, factors that influence your page speed include:
Your hosting service
Hosting services play a crucial role in the performance of your website because they provide the server where your site lives. So their server performance directly affects how your website performs. Factors influencing your host’s performance range from their server configurations, facilities, uptime, and specifications of machines running the servers. By choosing a good and reliable hosting, you ensure that your web server can process requests fast enough to accommodate all activities on your site. In addition, you’re eliminating one factor from the speed optimization equation.
Your website theme
Themes control the design of your website, from layouts and font to color scheme. But not all themes are created equally. Some themes are much cleaner and more optimized than others. They have a smaller file size, making them easier to load. That also means they have fewer bells and whistles (think of animation or specialized design patterns) compared to others that are a bit extra. But that’s a good trade-off if you want better loading performance.
Large file size
We’re talking about many types of files here, from your HTML file to CSS, and primarily JavaScript. Any bytes and kilobytes you can shave off these files will impact your page’s performance. In addition, modern sites use a lot of JavaScript to make the site dynamic. It’s what makes those flashy, cool animations and transitions you see on websites nowadays possible.
But JavaScript is also heavy, and overusing it makes a page clunky and difficult to load. You may have a low FID score in Core Web Vitals because processing these JavaScript files takes longer, especially on mobile devices, since their processing power isn’t as great as desktop computers.
Badly written code
Bad code can lead to many issues, from JavaScript errors to invalid HTML markups. Poorly-optimized code can cause significant dips in performance. Clean up your code, remove any errors, and eliminate any extra lines that do not add meaningful value.
Images and videos
Heavy images are the culprit of a slow-loading page. They take up a considerable chunk of your page’s weight (in kilobytes or megabytes). If your page has a large and unoptimized header image, you might have a low LCP score in Core Web Vitals. That’s because LCP measures how long it takes for the largest piece of content to appear on the screen, and your large image will surely take time to load. Image SEO plays a huge role in upping your site speed.
Too many plugins and widgets
If you’re running your site on WordPress, you’re undoubtedly using plugins and widgets to add functionalities to your site. Plugins are what makes WordPress such a powerful platform. But using too many plugins is counterintuitive because they slow your website down. Every plugin you install adds a bit of code to your page, making it heavier than it should be. Unoptimized plugins can also play a significant role in slowing down a website.
Absence of a CDN
CDN stands for content delivery network. It is an interconnected network of servers and their data centers distributed in various geographical locations. They can help with page loading performance, especially if you have an international audience.
A CDN saves your website’s static content, like CSS and image files, across various servers in the network. It does this so it can quickly serve these files to people who live close to one of the servers in the network. Let’s say your server is based in Australia, but you have many visitors from India. Instead of sending files directly from Australia, the CDN can send files from a server in India, making this process faster and more efficient.
Redirects
Redirects are a natural part of any website, and there’s nothing wrong with them. But keep in mind that redirects may impact your page’s loading performance if not configured properly. In most cases, they won’t significantly slow you down. But in the case of redirect chains, they will. By linking as close to the final destination as possible, you avoid creating too many redirects and thus, reduce your website’s load.
How to check if your page loads slowly
Unsurprisingly, some of the best resources for optimizing your website are from Google. We recommend that you explore their Web Fundamentals documentation to understand the techniques, tools, and approaches to building faster websites. Various tools are also available for measuring and monitoring the speed of your site. Here are a few that we recommend trying out:
Google PageSpeed Insights – A very powerful option that provides ‘real user metrics’ of your website, straight from Google. It’s also one of the most important tools you should know how to use.
The Page Experience report in Google Search Console – Don’t forget to check out this tool. It summarizes the user experience of visitors to your site, showing how many URLs pass or fail Core Web Vitals and other page experience signals.
Lighthouse, for Google Chrome – This is one of the most sophisticated performance measurement tools available and great for benchmarking.
WebPageTest – This tool provides a waterfall diagram of how all the assets load on your website. Great for spotting slow resources and bottlenecks.
Chrome Developer Console – This tool shows you exactly what’s happening as your site loads, on your computer and in your browser.
Optimize your site is more than looking at numbers
As you know by now, page speed is not only crucial for SEO but also for your sales, retention, and brand loyalty. Create great content, optimize your website and pages to meet Core Web Vitals’ standards, and aim for that top spot on the first page of Google.
It’s good to note that optimizing your site for page speed is not as simple as getting a good score in all those speed test tools. Don’t blind yourself to scores and metrics as those numbers are not representative of all your visitors. Every user is different. Every visitor uses another type of internet connection, device, and browser. Find out who your users are, how they access your site, and what they do while they’re there.
Combine tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest.org, and Lighthouse with analytical tools to get a broad overview of speed issues on your site. Use the recommendations to get started on improving your page speed, but do take these with a grain of salt. They are great starting points, but there is so much more you can do!
Page speed optimization resources for you
To get started with optimizing your page’s performance, check out these articles and documentation:
Jono is our Head of SEO, and part of our leadership team. He’s a digital strategist, marketing technologist, and full stack developer. He’s into technical SEO, emerging technologies, and brand strategy.
Tumblr is one of those social media platforms that everyone has heard of, but few know anything about.
While many may not know exactly what it is, Tumblr is one of the most popular blogging platforms. You should check out the platform if you haven’t heard of it before.
Regarding personal branding, Tumblr offers some unique advantages to bloggers and businesses alike.
For example, the platform can help showcase their creativity or build an audience through quality content and customization options.
In this article, we’ll discuss what Tumblr is and take a look at the top features and benefits of using Tumblr, from writing tutorials to creating podcasts.
What Is Tumblr?
Tumblr is a microblogging platform for sharing photos, music, video, links, quotes, GIFs, text, and other multimedia. The site also has a “Reactions” feature, which allows users to express their feelings about something posted on the website.
Unlike other platforms, Tumblr profiles are highly customizable. Brands can customize their theme, layout, colors, fonts, and more. Users can also follow each other’s updates and create custom RSS feeds based on their interests.
Creating an account on Tumblr is free and easy to set up. All posts on Tumblr are public, and all users have the option to follow you. There are no private profile options like on Instagram and Facebook.
Users can create different widgets for their profiles.
Tumblr has become more prominent with its free mobile app, rich API, custom design tools, and vibrant community.
50 Tumblr Facts And Statistics
Tumblr started in 2007 as a blogging platform that allowed users to share photos, videos, text posts, and more.
The service gained popularity after being acquired by Yahoo! in 2013 for $1.1 billion.
From 2017 to 2019, Oath took over ownership of the platform before being bought by Verizon Media.
In 2019, ownership transferred again to Automattic, a parent company of WordPress that retains ownership today.
Tumblr is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
45.94% of the traffic on Tumblr stems from the U.S.
For those new to Tumblr, they offer a guide on how to get started posting.
The trending topics on Tumblr are diverse, just like any other site, from Legend of Zelda to U.K. politics.
Regarding interest categories, most people discuss video games, consoles, and accessories. They also discuss computers, electronics, news, and topics regarding universities.
Some of Tumblr’s top competitors include Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
There are numerous advertisement opportunities on Tumblr, including native ad experiences and custom opportunities.
Tumblr is a privately owned company.
In a recent survey, 70% of users stated that they were satisfied by the functionality of Tumblr. The top two rankings above this were Pinterest and YouTube, with a 76% customer satisfaction rating.
There is also a Mass Post Editor function on Tumblr, allowing users to edit or delete multiple posts simultaneously.
Users can easily add inline images from the web to their posts by pasting the image’s URL into the post.
Tumblr also has keyboard shortcut options which make it easier to create posts.
Some of Tumblr’s top competitors include Ghost, Hexo, and Medium.
There are over 2,000 posts created every second on Tumblr.
Regarding traffic leading back to Tumblr, 28.48% of that traffic comes from Twitter, and 20.25% comes from YouTube.
On average, users visit 6.47 pages when they use the platform.
Final Takeaways
Tumblr is an online community where anyone can create compelling and unique content.
As you can see, it is also highly customizable, allowing users and brands to create their ideal profiles. It’s also a great space to find and cultivate new audiences.
There are almost endless possibilities with the platform, and it’s worth checking out to see if it’s right for your brand.
If you’re looking to integrate more blogging options and are considering incorporating Tumblr, check out this post.
Meet Sonya: A content marketer who’s keen on all the latest fads, like snappy tweets and seven-second TikTok videos.
With all that 7-second content consumption, it’s no wonder Sonya is hesitant to start tapping away at 2,000-word blog articles. She thinks to herself, “Is long-form content dead?”
Then, she reaches this very article that you’re reading right now, and just like you, she’s curious.
From my perspective, fluffy and boring long-form content is dead, yes.
But, valuable long-form content that works – that truly stands the test of our ever-decreasing attention spans – is all about creating engagement, not length.
So, how can you create content that engages your audience like a 10-hour Netflix marathon?
Let’s now take a deeper look.
What Is Long-Form Content?
What comes to mind when you think of “long-form content?”
Is it a never-ending blog article? What about a book?
In fact, long-form content is also:
40-minute podcast episodes. (Am I the only one who’s binged marketing episodes to get pumped for my day?!)
20-minute YouTube tutorials.
60-minute webinars.
Longer carousel posts on Instagram or LinkedIn.
The more you think about it, the more you realize we actually consume a ton of long-form content on a daily basis.
Long-Form Content Vs. Short-Form Content
Let’s tackle the “is long-form content dead?” debate once and for all.
So when you’re in a dilemma about how long to make long-form content, consider these factors:
It’s more about how well you engage your audience and the value you provide rather than simply making long content.
The channel you’re creating content for heavily influences the length (for example, a blog article may be the ideal length at 1,500 words because that’s how much space you need to cover the topic, while a book may need 250 pages).
After analyzing 11.8 million Google search results, Backlinko discovered the average first-page result contains 1,447 words. Considering that Google’s goal is to provide the most helpful results that users prefer, this highlights that users enjoy longer content.
For short-form content:
Again, the channel influences the length. For instance, especially with email marketing, the message needs to get across immediately, or you’ll decrease the chance of getting attention.
With social media channels like Twitter or TikTok that have been made with conciseness in mind, character limits force you to keep your message short and sweet.
Not all landing pages need to be short, it’s more about conveying the important information your audience needs.
“Worried that your copy is too long? Don’t. If somebody is ready to buy after just a brief skim (having just read ~20% of the copy), they can just skip ahead and click “Buy.” No problem.
But if somebody reads all the text on your site and still has questions and doubts, then you’ve got a problem. This is why long-form copy works well for sales pages.”
So, while there are certainly times and places where short-form content is a must, long-form content is still alive and well.
How To Write Long-Form Content
Remember Sonya from earlier?
We’ve included Sonya because she’s likely a lot like you: A content marketer that’s struggling to determine how to incorporate long-form content into her marketing strategy.
She creates the story within this article because she’s relatable. As a content marketer myself, I am constantly debating over how long to make content, so I completely understand her dilemma.
So when it comes to your own content, how can you craft a story that brings the whole piece to life?
And how do you successfully incorporate long-form content into your marketing strategy?
Let’s now dig into that.
Step 1: Find Your Content’s Purpose
There’s something I need to make abundantly clear: No matter the length, don’t create content just to create content.
Every content piece needs a specific intention for a specific audience.
So, think about these questions before creating content:
What problem does this content help my audience solve?
What type of person would read this article?
How does this content align with, and support, the rest of my marketing strategy?
Which channel am I promoting this content on?
Once you’ve got clarity there, what you need within the content becomes much clearer.
Step 2: Create A Story That Drives Engagement
Unfortunately, long-form content has a reputation for being boring, but when it entertains people, they’ll be eager for more.
When in doubt, always remember: If Netflix can create a story like Squid Games, where subscribers have watched over 2.1 billion hours since it was released, then you can create long-form content that keeps your audience glued to the screen, too.
You can do this by creating relevant content that engages people with a story to pull on their emotions and connect with their deepest challenges.
The same goes for B2B because, at the end of the day – you’re still selling to people.
In fact, the hook (the attention grabber) is one of the most important parts of content; so when you can weave in a story throughout, it keeps your audience scrolling until the end.
The intention should always be to add value, insert fresh ideas, clarify challenging concepts, and ultimately make people’s lives easier.
For example, think about your favorite marketing podcast – even if it’s 60 minutes long, you’re likely eager to continue listening and won’t stop until the very end (even if it takes a couple of days).
If content matters to your readers, they’ll stick to it until it’s finished.
Step 4: Break Up Text With Visuals And A Well-Designed Page
Readers will lose interest almost immediately if you don’t appeal to their needs visually.
Humans like things broken up by bullet points, italics, short sentences, and visual imagery.
Just like when you were in 1st grade learning to read, a whole page of text with no imagery seemed daunting.
The same concept applies today. Often, people like to scroll through the entirety of a blog article to view the main points before consuming the whole thing.
So, by keeping it snappy and well-designed, you’ll increase your chances of them reading the entire blog.
Here’s an example:
Eddie, the owner of VeryGoodCopy, does an exceptional job of keeping his content short, sweet, and to the point:
Screenshot from VeryGoodCopy, October 2022
By adding images, large dialogue, and short sentences, he’s built his subscriber list to over 48,000 marketers.
It’s more than likely your readers are tuning in on their phones, and if it’s wonky, they’ll exit immediately.
Step 5: Promote And Repurpose
Now comes the fun part – promotion and repurposing.
The whole point of creating content is for people to read it. So, shout it from the rooftops, and be sure to promote it multiple times across multiple channels.
A great way to do this is to break up the topics within your article into micro-content.
For instance, I could create:
A carousel post summarizing the points made in this blog article.
A Twitter thread.
A short video on LinkedIn.
3 High-Quality Long-Form Content Examples
Most learn by example, so here are a few of my favorites for highly engaging long-form content.
Example 1: Refine Labs’ Podcasts
Screenshot from Revenue Vitals Podcast, Refine Labs, October 2022
Why it’s so awesome:
Highly engaging episodes, up to an hour or more.
Features live commentary from CEO Chris Walker and questions from the audience, which builds a strong community.
Not focused on selling, but rather informing the audience to truly improve how marketing works
Repurposed heavily on LinkedIn.
Educates his audience about methods to truly improve their marketing strategies, regardless of whether or not they ever work with Refine Labs.
Example 2: Orbit Media’s 2022 Blogging Statistics
Screenshot from Orbit Media, October 2022
Why it’s so awesome:
It compiles real data based on surveys rather than just summarizing other people’s research.
The surveys are from real people who work on blog articles, so the data is trustworthy.
It’s updated on a yearly basis, so information is always up to date.
The helpful visuals with infographics summarize the most important information in an easily readable manner.
If you’re new to the web, in a digital role, or are modernizing your business’ presence online, you likely hear a lot of acronyms and jargon.
Content management systems (or CMS) are talked about often and have become a standard aspect of most websites.
I’ve been working in the digital space since the early days of content management – and even before it was standard practice to have it – so I’m excited to share the details based on where we are in current times.
In this article, I’ll unpack what a CMS is, its importance, how they work, the different types content management systems, and how to consider the best options for you.
What Is A CMS?
A content management system is a functionality that allows administrative users to update, maintain, create, and manage their own content without having to get into the code or have a developer do it for them.
Usually, to access the CMS functionality, admin users will have a private login page or area to authenticate and navigate to a separate menu or portal that has options for the specific content that can be edited.
There are a number of types of CMS platforms and ways that this can look. I’ll get into some of the best systems for your consideration later.
No matter how custom or standardized the system is or how limited or robust, the ability to administer your site and have control over content without coding is powerful and can be crucial in how you manage your web presence.
Why Is A CMS Important?
A content management system is a powerful thing that saves time, money, and effort when it comes to being able to add and update text, images, videos, pages, and important page elements and structure to your website.
It’s essential that you are able to edit everything you need within your website.
Even in corporate environments or industries that require compliance reviews, approvals, and other steps for specific content before it goes live, a CMS can be very helpful with those steps built in.
How Does A CMS Work?
At the highest level, a CMS works by giving you the power to influence the live content on your site through editor boxes, upload options, and other behind-the-scenes features.
When you edit text, you’ll do so in an editor box that often has functionality similar to a program like Microsoft Word. Some systems have more controls and options than others.
Whether you’re editing text, uploading images, or creating pages, you’re doing so through user-friendly controls in the admin that make edits in the site databases and allow you to publish them to the live site.
This takes the place of having a web developer make the edits directly in the code.
In some cases, if you don’t have the controls you want or need, you can have them added by your developer or the platform itself.
In other cases, you might experience limitations of the CMS and may need to look at other options to land on the right platform for your site overall.
Screenshot from WordPress, October 2022
How Many Types Of Content Management Systems Are There?
Depending on what types of content you want your site to feature, what level of security you need, how integrated your site needs to be with back-end systems for fulfillment or customer access (e.g., online banking), or how flexible you want the content you manage to be, you have options for finding the right technology and CMS platform.
Additionally, there are content management systems based on open-source technologies or platforms (WordPress, Drupal, etc.), those that are built on closed platforms or SaaS-based products (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, etc.), and opportunities to have your own custom CMS built.
Note that roughly two-thirds of all websites utilize a CMS.
This alone should validate the importance of a CMS for so many businesses and organizations around the world.
CMS Features
There are a number of specific content management features that are big reasons why CMS are so valuable, including:
Create pages.
Manage navigation.
Edit text.
Upload and manage images.
Upload and manage video content.
Manage product information.
Contact forms.
Blog content.
Style and theme management.
Analytics and reporting tools.
Dashboards.
SEO and marketing tools.
Integrations.
Content staging.
Approval processes.
Private content.
Third-party security and support.
There are many more as well.
Depending on what the biggest priorities are for your content management needs and the custom nature of those needs, you may prioritize some factors over others.
Should You Build A CMS From Scratch Or Use A Popular System?
Twenty-plus years ago, your options would have been limited, and you would have likely been looking at a custom CMS as your best (or only) option.
The explosion of options and adoption rate of content management systems has shifted the decision from “if” to “what type” when CMS planning.
In many cases, an open-source CMS is best for content sites, shopping sites, and those that don’t have an unusual level of customization needed.
Even open-source CMS can provide a lot of options to customize through plugins or custom code to create features, functionality, and integrations needed.
However, if you have a very unique product, service, or web-based application, you may be best suited to create a custom CMS.
Reasons may include a lack of the necessary open-source technology in existence, unique integration needs, unique customer or user features, or the need to limit access and have closed systems for security reasons.
Challenges That Companies Face With CMS
CMS of all types (like pretty much all websites or web-connected interfaces) require specific oversight and action to maintain a secure site.
Custom code and CMS can have code and database risks if not updated and maintained to stay ahead of any known vulnerabilities.
Open-source CMS can have similar exposure with outdated CMS cores, plugins, and versions, and without proper monitoring to ensure versions are up to date and patched immediately when possible.
Beyond security, there’s also the potential challenge of having too many plugins, extensions, or add-ons to manage properly. Changing a setting in one plugin can break something elsewhere on the site, for example.
It can be challenging to properly QA and manage plugins and third-party aspects of a CMS.
Additionally, it can sometimes be difficult to scale on a CMS. Often, building a new feature requires removing old plugins and code and rebuilding – or risking having conflicts and not being able to fully get something to work as desired.
The Best Content Management System
It is hard for me to objectively tell you what the best CMS is.
As I noted earlier, the goal, and my desire for you, is to find the best one for your online presence and content needs.
The most popular CMS in the world is WordPress. It happens to be my favorite and the primary technology that my team uses to build websites, so you can note that if you disagree or think I’m biased.
What we have found with WordPress is that it is robust enough to do nearly anything we need.
Yet, it is user-friendly, allows for doing all the SEO optimization we need within it, and can be integrated with a wide range of other technologies. It has a higher ceiling than platforms like Squarespace, Wix, and more basic content management systems.
However, there’s a place for lighter-weight systems – much like there is a place for more enterprise and heavier systems.
While WordPress is great for ecommerce with WooCommerce, there’s a case to be made for some companies to be on another ecommerce CMS, like Magento, or a lighter/easier-to-onboard platform like Shopify.
Again, the “best” CMS is subjective. You’ll want to determine the right fit in terms of features, functionality, scalability, ease of use, and cost for you and your digital presence needs.
Ultimately, you need to weigh specific factors related to your situation:
How well the CMS is supported/updated (for open-source or how you will handle for custom).
The number of plugins or extensions available and/or that you need to manage.
Hosted vs. self-hosted.
The cost of licenses, hosting, management, and overall ongoing maintenance, both in the short-term and ongoing.
Your ultimate goals and return on investment that the site can provide.
Opportunities and limitations for SEO, marketing, customization, and scaling by specific systems.
Other unique aspects related to your business or organization.
The Best CMS For Marketing
When it comes to marketing–if you’re doing any type of digital marketing, you need to make sure that the CMS you select can support your campaigns.
Questions to ask include: How easy is it to create landing pages with this CMS? To integrate conversion and event tracking? To implement analytics? To do technical and on-page SEO?
If any of those things are important to you, then be careful and select a platform that doesn’t limit you.
For example, I often encounter clients frustrated by limits on the simpler content management systems who end up having to reinvest in a new site and platform (e.g., moving from Squarespace to WordPress).
This is what can happen when you don’t think far enough ahead or ask the right questions in advance before fully building out a site on a specific platform.
Conclusion
Understanding how content management systems work, why they are important for your business, and how to choose the right one for your business needs is very important.
It can be time-consuming and costly to change platforms after establishing your site and content.
I recommend going through a thorough process to determine which is right for you, and thinking both short and long-term, so you make the best investment and decision for your business.
Screenshot from YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, November 2022.
Screenshot from YouTube.com/CreatorInsider, November 2022.
