Best Ways to Do Market Research For Your Business

In their book Write Your Business Plan, the staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. offer an in-depth understanding of what’s essential to any business plan, what’s appropriate for your venture, and what it takes to ensure success. In this edited excerpt, the authors discuss the whys and hows of conducting market research.

Market research aims to understand the reasons consumers will buy your product. It studies such things as consumer behavior, including how cultural, societal and personal factors influence that behavior.

Market research is further split into two varieties: primary and secondary. Primary research studies customers directly, whereas secondary research studies information that others have gathered about customers. Primary research might be telephone interviews or online polls with randomly selected members of the target group. You can also study your own sales records to gather primary research. Secondary research might come from reports found on the websites of various other organizations or blogs written about the industry. For your plan, you can use either type of research or a combination of both.

The basic questions you’ll try to answer with your market research include:

Who are your customers? Describe them in terms of age, occupation, income, lifestyle, educational attainment, etc.

What do they buy now? Describe their buying habits relating to your product or service, including how much they buy, their favored suppliers, the most popular features and the predominant price points.

A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you’ve already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.

Why do they buy? This is the tricky one, attempting as it does to delve into consumers’ heads. Answers will depend on the product and its uses. Cookware buyers may buy the products that offer the most effective nonstick surfaces, or those that give the most pans in a package for a given amount of money, or those that come in the most decorative colors.

What will make them buy from you? Although some of these questions may seem difficult, you’d be surprised at the detailed information that’s available about markets, sales figures and consumer buying motivations. Tapping information sources to provide the answers to as many questions as you can will make your plan more convincing and your odds of success higher. Also, the business plan software programs have detailed research included and online research available. Utilize this functionality if you’re using such software, and add additional data you find elsewhere. The reason to add some of your own unique material is that everyone using the software program is tapping into the same database and you want your business plan to differ from that of the last entrepreneur in your field.

You can also find companies that will sell you everything from industry studies to credit reports on individual companies. Market research isn’t cheap. It requires significant amounts of expertise, manpower and technology to develop solid research. Large companies routinely spend tens of thousands of dollars researching things they ultimately decide they’re not interested in. Smaller firms can’t afford to do that too often.

For companies of all sizes, the best market research is the research you do on your own. In-house market research might take the form of original telephone interviews with consumers, customized crunching of numbers from published sources or perhaps competitive intelligence you’ve gathered on your rivals through the social media. You can gather detailed research on customers, including their likes, dislikes and preferences, through Facebook, and use Google Analytics to sort out the numbers as they pertain to your web visitors. People are researching and making their opinions felt through their actions on the web, so you can gain a lot of marketing insight by looking closely at what is going on electronically.

You’ll also want to do your due diligence within your industry. When looking at comparable businesses (and their data), find a close match. For comparative purposes, consider:

Plugo, e-commerce platform for D2C brands

Singapore-headquartered startup Plugo has secured $9 million in a Series A funding round. The company offers a complete spectrum of e-commerce support services for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, from making a website, setting up a payment system, and managing marketing to handling shipping, warehousing, and logistics. In other words, Plugo enables D2C merchants to focus on their products and supports other processes.

The Series A round was led by Altos Ventures, with participation from BonAngels Ventures Partners, Access Ventures, Mahanusa Capital, Prodigy Investment, and Pearl Abyss Capital. The company did not disclose its valuation when asked.

The startup plans to use the proceeds to beef up its R&D team and hire more engineers, Plugo co-founder and chief executive officer KyungMin Bang said, adding that it currently employs about 30 people.

Bang founded Plugo two months ago with five founding members. Approximately 200 D2C brands have already started using Plugo’s beta service in Indonesia. The Singapore-based startup with offices in Indonesia and South Korea intends to launch its service officially in Indonesia in the first quarter of next year.

The company wants to focus on the Indonesian market, one of the largest markets in Southeast Asia, for the next 12 months, then expand to other Southeast Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, Bang told TechCrunch. It has partnered with an array of logistics companies, including Indonesia-based JNE Express, SiCepat and J&T, and a payment outlet such as Nicepay Indonesia, Bang noted.

Bang, a serial entrepreneur, was inspired to offer an end-to-end management system for D2C brands and merchants in Indonesia to set up online stores after realizing Indonesia’s D2C market, which accounts for less than 1% of the total e-commerce in the country, is nascent but growing fast.

Indonesia’s D2C market is expected to have a vast potential to grow, with the fourth-largest population size, including the rising young population in coming years and rapid penetration of smartphone users in the country, Bang pointed out.

“Local businesses [in Indonesia] have accelerated their adoption of digital technology due to innovation in the e-commerce ecosystem and dynamic changes in consumer behavior,” Bang said. In Indonesia, D2C platforms have become a new trend in the e-commerce industry from business-to-consumer (B2C) platform that has predominated the e-commerce market over the last decade, Bang explained.

The startup looks to challenge e-commerce players like Shopify in Southeast Asia. “I believe we have enormous potential because there is still much room for growth and huge gaps [in the D2C business] that big e-commerce behemoths like Shopify couldn’t address yet [in Southeast Asia]. For example, we can offer customized services, particularly for small merchants like MSMEs in the region, and empower them to sell online,” Bang said.

“We believe the timing is perfect for the birth of Plugo as the e-commerce landscape is experiencing turbulence that will nurture positive disruption, benefiting both aspirational sellers and consumers,” said Charles Rim, founding and general partner at Access Ventures, said in a statement.

Bang previously exited two startups: Indonesian e-commerce enabler TokoTalk operator CodeBrick which Singapore’s e-commerce Sea bought in 2021 per Pitchbook, and Korean PC online game J2MSoft (J2M), which Electronic Arts acquired in 2008. (According to a report by Tech in Aisa, Sea has shut down the TokoTalk service since October in an effort to reduce costs amid broader economic uncertainty.)

“Plugo’s mission aligns with our own mission of creating significant economic value while contributing positively to society,” Moon-Suk Oh, partner at Altos Ventures, said in a statement. “Plugo offers an unmatched suite of digital capabilities that will transform the future of e-commerce in Indonesia.”

Google Analytics 4 Rolling Out Built

Google Analytics 4 Rolling Out Built-In Landing Page Report

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is rolling out built-in functionality that allows users to generate landing reports.

Used to determine the effectiveness of landing pages, these reports collect data about visits to a site, allowing webmasters to test and optimize their landing pages.

Officially released in mid-October 2020, GA4 is the replacement for Universal Analytics (UA), which is being sunsetted in July 2023.

Before this update, which is being rolled out to users gradually, landing page reports had to be manually constructed. This was an unintuitive process, which required multiple clicks.

Landing Page Reports Available in Dashboard

You can find the landing page report in the Engagement section of the left navigation in your GA4 dashboard.

The default, automated report includes metrics for Views, New Users, Average Engagement Time per Session, Conversions, and Total Revenue. However, these fields can be changed and customized to each webmaster’s individual needs.

Creating custom reports is a straightforward process:

1. Click the “Custom Report” icon in the upper right corner.
2. Click “Metrics” and add or remove the ones you want in your report.
3. Hit “Apply” and generate your report.

4. GA4 Provides More Functionality Than Past Platform

   One of the major upgrades from UA4 to GA4 was the ability to combine both web and app data into the same property. Google’s previous analytics program tracked screen views separately for mobile-specific properties.

   GA4 added a new “Event” segment while also adding new metrics, including “Engaged Session,” “Average Engagement Time per Session,” and “Engagement Rate.”

   Whereas UA offered a wide range of standard reports, UA4 has far fewer. Analyzing data in GA4 has generally required additional work, either via the creation of a custom “Exploration” report or by exporting the data. Overall, the functionality of GA4 seems to be geared towards collecting and monitoring events on a website rather than tracking pageviews and sessions.

   GA4 Focused On User Data And Data Sources

   Another significant change from UA to GA4 was in data collection and privacy. Unlike its predecessor, GA4 does not collect or store IP addresses.

   It also simplified the process of deleting data while providing users with options regarding how long their data is stored and if their location is recorded.

Top 5 search marketing trends, 3 must-haves for 2023

Here’s a look at significant search, digital marketing and consumer trends, along with the must-haves for digital marketers in 2023. 

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2022 and welcome 2023, it’s a great time to review notable changes to search and consumer behaviors and plan our key digital marketing initiatives for next year. 

In this article, we will discuss the most significant search, digital marketing and consumer trends, along with the must-haves for search marketers in 2023. 

Search trends: Experience and relevancy

First, let’s understand the biggest changes in search this year and what we can expect next year. 

Google released several algorithm updates in 2022. These algorithm updates can be classified into three broad categories. 

• Core updates: Updates released to make search better and safer. 
• Helpful content: Updates released to make search results useful and relevant. 
• Experience: Updates released to make user experience across all devices better. 

Clearly, Google wants to reward websites that offer excellent user experiences.

That means your content must be relevant to their query. In other words, experience and relevancy are key to winning in search today and beyond. 

As we write the perfect recipe for search marketing strategies and must-haves for 2023, let’s keep these two critical ingredients in mind. 

Consumer trends and insights: Reevaluating priorities 

As we reviewed this year’s top search query data and helpful insights shared by various organizations, we realized how critical it is for brands to win the trust of their customers. 

While many data points and trends are being discussed, we are focusing on five of the key consumer insights you will need to remember while creating your search marketing strategies for 2023.

• Privacy and peace of mind: Consumers are concerned about privacy and look to brands to ensure their data is not shared. 
• Advertising with a purpose: Consumers are gravitating toward brands including sustainability initiatives as part of advertising and marketing efforts. 
• Personalization: Google Shopping is a great example of personalizing experiences based on location, preferences, search history, etc. 
• Direct to consumer: A more visual and interactive experience is critical to engage the consumer. 
• Predictive analytics: Making informed decisions based on several data points is also critical. 

When we understand consumer trends and insights, we are better equipped to evaluate marketing priorities – giving us peace of mind that our advertising is purposeful, personalized and helpful for consumers.

Next, let’s dive into five key marketing trends and then how to leverage these trends in 2023. 

Top 5 search trends for 2023 

As we begin a new year of marketing, we must step out on the right foot and shift our mindset. Long gone are the days of keyword density and the concept that content is solely king.

“More” is no longer “better.” Quality over quantity is the name of the game. We need to re-evaluate our priorities and rise to our customers’ expectations. 

After reviewing search queries, consumer and search insights, and the biggest releases of 2022, below are five key trends and the three must-haves to consider for a successful 2023. 

Trend 1: Multisearch – helping you search outside the box 

Consumers typically spend more than 82% of their time on discovery. Google launched multisearch and released several supporting algorithms this year posed to change the way we all do discovery and receive information. 

Google constantly tests different formats to display relevant search results coming from diverse sources, which reflect how people are exploring myriads of topics. 

The good news: We can now search between various assets, including videos, images, PDFs, text, languages, etc.

Multisearch has opened the biggest untapped opportunities for marketers and we can see the direct benefit. Consumers can take any image and use Google Lens to explore everything about the image. 

By leveraging entity data along with high-quality, relevant and contextual images, Google can get to the most relevant search results faster. 

In 2023, we will see savvy search marketers leveraging all types of assets, Google Vision API and entity data to provide the most relevant and qualitative assets. 

Futureproofing your digital assets for discovery is your key to unlocking doors and winning in 2023. 

Trend 2: Helpful content – relevant, qualitative, accessible, authoritative, experiential 

Google recently updated its quality raters guidelines and helpful content system. The easiest way to evaluate whether your content is helpful is by covering critical touchpoints and micro-moments.

Helpful content is content that is readily available for your customer across all the digital touchpoints, minimizing the need for them to search somewhere else. 

Google’s helpful content update is a machine learning algorithm that keeps getting trained based on search result datasets. It is a sitewide signal, so if too many pages of a domain are low quality (e.g., duplicate, thin or created solely to rank in search engines), there is a serious risk that your organic search performance could suffer. 

In 2023, search marketers must ensure that discoverable content is relevant, informative, qualitative, authoritative, and experiential.

Search engines will reward businesses for sharing high-quality and informative content. Brands should enhance online visibility significantly by sharing topical entity-first content. 

Content strategy should include all types of content, including videos, product review information, FAQ, relevant images, PDF, and expert advice.

Brands must also map current content across the customer journey touchpoints and strive to fill all the content gaps. 

Trend 3: Omnichannel experience 

Most consumers shift between various devices, so a consistent and unified experience across all touchpoints is important.

Centralizing critical information about the business and distributing it across all marketing channels is necessary for a seamless omnichannel experience in 2023. 

The speed of change across channels builds trust with consumers. For example, website information should change right away when, as a business, you decide to change your Google Business Profile or social profile information. 

With the release of Google Analytics 4, Google is gently training marketers to focus on customer behaviors and attribution from various channels across the customer journey rather than the last-clicked channel. 

Discovery of content, good website user experience, and site health will also become must-haves for 2023. 

If information cannot be crawled and indexed, it will not be available to consumers making it useless. As the economy slows and budgets become tighter, search marketers must prioritize technical SEO initiatives to yield good results. 

Trend 4: Personalization and localization

Consumers are looking for information based on interest, location, and other known and unknown factors. Online shoppers are likelier to buy from brands with a strong local presence and engagement with their consumers.

We must ensure our global search marketing strategies are customized for location.

Google matches images to searcher intent because today, approximately 36% of a mobile screen is occupied by images. As a local business, consider:

• Responding to frequently asked questions.
• Providing relevant local information and images.
• Ensuring awesome omnichannel experiences for consumers. 

Local search continues to be highly strategic for Google, according to local SEO expert Greg Sterling. But the search engine is shifting away from local search as a moneymaker (ads driver) and focusing more on product search. That means even thinner support for local SEOs and local businesses. 

Google will further develop and build out product search and SERPs to better compete with Amazon and drive more product-search usage. Retailers are the number one advertiser online and Google wants to keep and grow those dollars. We’ll see more real-time local product inventory online, including from smaller retailers. 

While localization is super critical, I also think that for 2023, personalizing information based on consumer preference will become a must-have. Using customer data platforms to secure preferences and create content and campaigns based on customer data is also key in this area.

Trend 5: Influencer marketing and expert community building

Influencer marketing is growing rapidly and even faster than social media marketing.

Savvy consumers curate information and follow expert opinions from influencers they trust before making purchase decisions.

We’re already seeing various social channels posting information around expert reviews /community and interactive videos are doing well. 

In 2023, brands will benefit by:

• Building an expert community of influencers.
• Providing the most informative, helpful content in the most interactive format.
• Aligning various KPIs such as engagement and clicks to measure success. 

Sterling noted that some of Google’s SERP changes are driven by TikTok’s popularity, including the push to make search more visual.

Accordingly, we will see Google emphasize more visual content and potentially de-emphasize reviews (though not for ranking purposes.) 

Google will intensify its recent crackdown on review fraud, which will continue to catch “innocent” reviews on its net.

Local marketers will need to keep a continuous stream of Google reviews coming and simply be prepared to lose a percentage of reviews to Google’s AI filtering.

Top 3 strategy must-haves to stay ahead

Next, let’s discuss the top focus areas in our strategy to leverage the above trends. 

1. Business intelligence

The global economy is showing slow down. Deriving business insights and actions from the most relevant data points will become critical in 2023.

Keep an eye on market trends, competitive benchmarking, customer behavior, channels and goals prioritization, among others. 

More savvy businesses will pivot toward business intelligence to find the most critical information, prioritizing quality content and assets and basing those decisions on what is most critical based on real data. 

2. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/Ml) 

In 2023, AI/ML will become a must-have strategy to solve complex marketing problems. AI-generated content (e.g., ChatGPT) has become a much bigger feature of digital and content marketing, including for local search. 

Google is also leveraging machine learning to auto-translate any language quickly. From visual search to auto-generation and translation of content, we will see several AI models, such as GPT-3 (soon GPT-4), used excessively to solve complex problems. 

3. Your success plan

Last but not least, less will be more in 2023. 

The key to winning will be defining and aligning your business objectives, key drivers (channels), important metrics to track, and the solutions that will help you get to those metrics. 

Email Marketing For Small Businesses

Marketing to customers via email is an art, but it’s one any small business can master and use to achieve impressive ROI.

Most forms of marketing are expensive.

Direct mailers can cost up to $1 per target, while billboards could run you $14,000 apiece in major cities. And television commercials can run into the millions, once you include the cost of production and placement.

Let’s face it: most small businesses can’t afford that.

But what if there was a way to reach your desired audience for much less – perhaps as little as $9 a month?

You don’t need a fairy godmother. You just need to harness the power of email marketing.

Why Use Email Marketing For Your Small Business?

When it comes to reaching new audiences, heating up cold leads, or staying top of mind with existing customers, there’s nothing quite like email marketing – and not just because it’s cost-effective.

The main reason you need to be using email campaigns is that they’re extremely effective.

The average open rate for marketing emails in 2021 was a whopping 21.5% – a growth of 3.5% in just one year. That makes it by far one of the most effective ways to advertise.

Professional marketers know it works – that’s why 41.5% consider it a very critical factor in their company’s success.

In 2019, email marketing provided a return on investment (ROI) of an unbelievable $52 for every dollar spent. That means you can’t afford not to use it.’

While price and effectiveness are two key selling points for running email marketing campaigns, one that tends to appeal to busy small business owners is that it’s something you can do yourself.

You don’t have to outsource your email campaigns to an agency or hire someone in-house.

With a little elbow grease and the information you gain here, you’ll be able to create and launch your own effective campaign in no time.

Ready to get started? Let’s go.

How To Start Email Marketing For Your Small Business

1. Choose The Right Email Marketing Platform For You

Having the right tools is an essential part of any job, whether it’s carpentry or marketing. And for business marketing, that means selecting the right email marketing software.

You could forgo this step and build all of your lists and campaigns manually in Gmail, Outlook, or whatever other email service provider you’re using, but you have a business to run.

Manual list building is a tedious, time-consuming process that takes your attention and energy away from other areas.

Plus, an email platform gives you the opportunity to personalize your messages while collecting performance metrics. These things alone make it worth the investment.

When deciding between the dozens of programs available, you need to find one that has the right functionality for you.

Some features you should consider are:

• Personalization features – Targets are 26% more likely to open personalized emails. Look for a platform that can parse your list for names and automatically insert them into emails.
• Custom branding – Your customers associate your small business with certain colors and a logo. The software you choose should make it easy for you to customize your emails with your brand.
• A/B testing – Version testing is one of the pillars of modern marketing. You should select a platform that allows you to try different subject lines and other content to find what works best for your field.
• Drag-and-drop – If you don’t know how to code, you’ll want software that lets you create great-looking emails without a thorough knowledge of HTML or CSS.
• Responsive design – 81% of emails are opened on mobile devices; Make sure your email builder automatically scales them to different screen sizes.
• Segmentation tools – To get the best results, you’ll want to target different groups with different messages. Look for a platform with a segmentation tool that allows you to divide your list into smaller groups.

Some of the most popular email marketing platforms include:

• Constant Contact
• HubSpot
• MailChimp
• Aweber
• Sendinblue

2. Build Your List

Successful email marketing depends on getting your messages in front of the right people. To do this, you need a good marketing list.

There are a few ways you can get one.

The first is to build it yourself.

Go through your contacts, pull out the business cards you gathered at industry conferences, and comb the internet for the contact information of the people you want to reach. This can be time-consuming.

To expedite the process, add a signup form to your website. This makes it quick and easy for interested visitors (who are hopefully hot leads) to get on your mailing list.

Consider offering a discount to encourage those who are hesitant. You’ll be shocked by how many new emails you can generate just by adding an interstitial to your site offering a 10% discount in exchange for an email address.

You should also leverage the power of your social media accounts to generate subscribers.

Create interesting, relevant content that will attract the right type of people. Put a link in your profile bio that directs to a signup landing form.

People who are following you on social media are probably already at least a little interested in your offering. It’s up to you to get them on your mailing list.

Another option is to buy a list.

Ranging from $100 to $600 CPM (cost per mille, i.e., cost for 1000 addresses), there are a number of places to buy these lists available with a simple Google search. Just be aware that there can be variable quality to these lists.

Furthermore, it’s very easy to run afoul of spam guidelines when you’re buying lists. In some places, it’s illegal to send people emails without their consent.

You may also end up hurting your sender reputation, which, in some cases, can even result in your IP being blacklisted.

If you’re buying email marketing lists, you do so at your own risk.

3. Plan Your Campaign

Now that you have your targets assembled, it’s time to start figuring out what you want your email campaign to achieve.

What are your goals? Do you want to send promotional emails promoting sales and special offers? Do you want to send transactional emails like abandoned cart messages or upsells? Are you soliciting referrals or reviews from existing customers?

Once you have decided what you hope to accomplish, it’s time to create your campaign. There are five common types of emails that will suit most of your needs:

• Blast emails – used for general announcements to a large audience.
• Monthly newsletters – to keep your business top of mind and update your audience about new developments.
• Welcome emails – For new subscribers or customers.
• Promotional emails – offering sales, benefits, or incentives to encourage transactions.
• Reminder emails – encourage targets to complete purchases or make another.

One of the more common sequences consists of a welcome email after initial signup, one or several promotional emails enticing sales, followed by promotional emails or reminder emails.

Email marketing is also an effective way to re-engage past customers or warm up leads who have gone cold.

A typical sequence for this consists of a reintroduction email, reminding them of your brand, followed by a “we miss you” message that offers a discount or other incentive to use your business again.

There are many other uses for emails, too.

Perhaps you’re hosting an open house and want to invite the recipients. Maybe you have a monthly newsletter that helps establish your credibility and authority.

The beauty of this medium is its versatility. All you need to do is customize your messaging to your goals.

4. Create Your Emails

This is where your emails become reality.

A common mistake many inexperienced marketers make is wanting to add too many bells and whistles. Not only does an overly elaborate design distract from your key message, but it also confuses customers.

Keep your design clean and simple. Some businesses opt for plain text emails, which contain no graphics aside from maybe a logo in the signature.

This may be too extreme for you, however.  It’s okay to brand your emails, just make sure you keep them simple.

Once you have settled on a design, it’s time to focus on messaging.

The first battle is getting your message opened, and that means a compelling subject line.

Try to inspire curiosity or offer some other motivation, e.g., “You won’t believe this deal,” “25% off sitewide,” or “Mistakes that can cost you.”

Now that you have your reader’s attention, it’s time to make your case.

Avoid overwriting and keep it simple. Explain what you’re offering or hoping to achieve, then include a call to action (CTA).

Any salesperson worth their salt will tell you, you have to ask for the sale. CTAs in emails and other collateral are the marketing equivalent.

While writing your emails, keep in mind your target demographic and write to them.

Some people find it helpful to imagine writing to a specific customer they know well.

5. Send The Campaign And Analyze The Results

The email platform you selected back in step one should provide you with all the information you want about how your messages are performing – and this should give you an idea of where you can improve them in the future.

Are you not getting enough opens? You could have a bad list or maybe you need to try a different subject line.

Are you getting opens, but no conversions? Try changing your content.

Are you seeing a lot of unsubscribes? You could be sending too many emails and becoming annoying.

If your results are poor, don’t worry. Email marketing is an art and no one gets it right the first (or second, or third) time. That’s why you want to take advantage of A/B testing.

But if you put in the work, you’ll get a feel for what does and doesn’t work in no time and start generating the results you want.

Bonus Tips

Here are some additional ideas to help you maximize your email campaigns:

• Focus on quality, not quantity.
• Encourage signups wherever it makes sense (social media, on your website, etc.).
• Segment your list so your messages are more targeted.
• Automate messages where you can. This includes welcome messages, purchase confirmations, and re-engagement emails.

Email Marketing Is A Powerful Tool For Small Business

Email marketing provides the opportunity for a massive ROI, without a lot of upfront costs.

But you can’t just send out messages willy-nilly and hope for results.

Plan your strategy, do the work, track your results and tweak your messages (in other words, follow the tips provided here), and you’ll find your campaigns getting great responses in no time.

Shopify Embraces Rust for Systems Programming

Shopify builds internet infrastructure for commerce to serve the needs of millions of merchants. Doing that requires building both flexible business logic and robust, high-performance systems. In addition to our commitment to Ruby for its flexibility and expressiveness, we have recently adopted Rust as our official systems programming language. As part of this, we have joined the Rust Foundation, and we’re excited about participating in the Rust community.

Systems programming is a demanding area of software engineering, and the language selected for it can have a massive impact on the success and effectiveness of systems software. A language used for these problems needs to be fast, productive, and safe. In addition, Shopify prefers community-driven open source projects when possible.

Rust’s growing industry momentum and Shopify’s expanding base of systems programming projects made this the right time for us to standardize on Rust and join the Rust Foundation.

Shopify builds internet infrastructure for commerce to serve the needs of millions of merchants. Doing that requires building both flexible business logic and robust, high-performance systems. In addition to our commitment to Ruby for its flexibility and expressiveness, we have recently adopted Rust as our official systems programming language. As part of this, we have joined the Rust Foundation, and we’re excited about participating in the Rust community.

Systems programming is a demanding area of software engineering, and the language selected for it can have a massive impact on the success and effectiveness of systems software. A language used for these problems needs to be fast, productive, and safe. In addition, Shopify prefers community-driven open source projects when possible.

Rust’s growing industry momentum and Shopify’s expanding base of systems programming projects made this the right time for us to standardize on Rust and join the Rust Foundation.

Systems Programming at Shopify

Since its founding, Shopify’s primary server-side application programming language has been Ruby. Ruby’s flexibility and expressiveness has allowed Shopify to develop a powerful commerce system that meets the needs of millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of buyers. Ruby was, is, and will be the first tool we reach for when building the server-side components of modern commerce.

For systems programming, such as high-performance network servers or extending Ruby with “native” code as opposed to defining business logic, Shopify developers have historically used languages including C and Go. Recently, we decided to standardize Rust as our systems programming language. Because of this, we’re working to better support Rust in our development and deployment processes, and help Shopify engineers develop expertise in Rust programming.

Systems Programming at Shopify

Since its founding, Shopify’s primary server-side application programming language has been Ruby. Ruby’s flexibility and expressiveness has allowed Shopify to develop a powerful commerce system that meets the needs of millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of buyers. Ruby was, is, and will be the first tool we reach for when building the server-side components of modern commerce.

For systems programming, such as high-performance network servers or extending Ruby with “native” code as opposed to defining business logic, Shopify developers have historically used languages including C and Go. Recently, we decided to standardize Rust as our systems programming language. Because of this, we’re working to better support Rust in our development and deployment processes, and help Shopify engineers develop expertise in Rust programming.

Why Choose Rust?

There are a number of aspects of Rust that make it an attractive choice for our systems programming language. These combine to give us confidence that Rust will be a powerful and welcome component of our software stack. Other companies might weigh different attributes of languages differently and come to a different choice; our evaluation led us conclusively to Rust.

Consistency

Shopify’s systems programming needs to cover a number of domains, and that number will likely grow over time. They include high-performance servers, Ruby extensions to improve performance or bridge to other libraries, and compiling to WebAssembly. We very much want to leverage investment in a single language into those many domains, which means identifying a language that can be used quite flexibly. The relevant types of systems programming will have a strong influence on an organization’s choice of language; we take quite a broad view of the landscape here.

Performance

Shopify needs to be able to scale efficiently and sustainably in order to support the world’s commerce. Rust provides us with predictable native-code performance, including fine control over memory usage, which makes it suitable for the lowest levels of our stack. Rust isn’t the only language that can provide or approximate this performance capability, of course. On this basis modern C++ might also be considered, or Go if the garbage collector’s allocation behavior and performance are acceptable.

Of course, while Rust has a high performance ceiling, it doesn’t inherently raise the performance floor. An application or component is not magically fast just because it was written in Rust; a programmer still needs to design and measure for performance, and we need to make sure that Rust developers at Shopify have the necessary tools to do that work easily. That support will be an important area of interest for Shopify as we engage with Rust and its community.

Community

The Rust language and ecosystem are driven by a healthy community, and we intend to participate in that community as we have with Ruby, Rails, React Native, and other open-source projects. Rust’s RFC process and governance structure provide a strong basis for inclusive, thoughtful discussions to drive the future of the language and tools. Our contributions will hopefully not only make Rust even more productive for Shopify’s uses, but also improve things for all Rust developers.

This is why Shopify is joining the Rust Foundation. We want to support Rust’s excellent governance model and maintenance of the “Rust commons”, and to bring our knowledge and perspective into the greater Rust conversation. The Rust Foundation’s work to ensure the health of the Rust community and ecosystem is essential, and we’re proud to join in their mission.

Productivity

In some circles, Rust has a reputation for being hard to learn and use, but developers within Shopify and without have found that—after an initial learning period—they are very productive and comfortable building with Rust. Rust also has a robust ecosystem of libraries (“crates”) and good tools for IDE integration, plus of course really very nice compiler error messages. The power of the type and macro systems allow for very expressive APIs and syntax, focusing developers’ energy on saying what they mean, rather than juggling a lot of state and invariants in their heads. Go also has a good reputation here, C and C++ less so.

Safety

Rust provides many facilities for having the compiler help ensure that programs are correct, including that they safely manage memory, and can be “fearlessly parallel”. As we become more sophisticated in our use of Rust, we will find more ways to use Rust’s type system and safety rules to preserve invariants in our systems. From our initial projects, we’ve found that Rust exposes more errors at compile time rather than runtime, compared to other languages we evaluated. This contributes to the “confident to deploy” sentiment that is often expressed by Rust developers.

Of all the languages we considered, Rust came out strongly ahead on safety elements: not just memory safety in terms of lifetime management, but also eliminating most data races in parallel programs. There is room for improvements even in Rust, of course, such as static deadlock prevention, but that is true of all production languages. We believe that Rust’s commitment to static safety makes it the most likely to further this goal over the years to come. There is already interesting work in this area, such as Ferrocene.

Interoperability

Systems programming often involves interfacing with existing “native” libraries, such as those written in C. Unlike Go, Rust does not have a garbage collector, which makes it easier to plug in anywhere that C can be used. More specifically, Rust has good support for integrating with existing C code with tools such as bindgen, while crates such as rb-sys and magnus allow Rust to safely interop with Ruby. C++ integration is somewhat awkward still, but crates like cxx can help bridge the language barrier. We do not have a large C or C++ code base, outside of things like the Ruby VM proper, but this interoperation was nonetheless an important consideration for us.

What’s Next?

At Shopify we’re at the very beginning of our Rust journey. We have work to do on developing educational resources and our internal tooling, and learn how best to participate in the Rust community and ecosystem. We’re excited to be part of Rust’s mission to empower everyone to build sustainable, memory-safe, efficient software, and grateful to be welcomed into the Rust Foundation.

If building systems from the ground up to solve real-world problems interests you, our Engineering blog has stories about other challenges we have encountered. Visit our Engineering career page to find out about our open positions. Join our remote team and work (almost) anywhere. Learn about how we’re hiring to design the future together—a future that is digital by design.

Squarespace Review (2022) – Worth The Hype?

Building a website from scratch can be quite intimidating for beginners. It requires an investment of a chunk of time and resources, along with help from professional web designers. All of this can be quite expensive.

But what if you could design your entire website within a few hours all by yourself? This is possible with website builders. I have previously reviewed various website builders like Zyro, Carrd, Dukaan, and SwipePages on my blog.

And when I recently came across Squarespace, I decided to test it out as well. After testing out all the features of Squarespace for a few weeks and designing a few websites with it, I am here with its detailed review.

In this Squarespace Review, we will begin by discussing its user interface, editor, template collection, pricing, support, blogging, and eCommerce features. Later, we will also discuss its major pros and cons along with suitable alternatives.

So how good is Squarespace? Should you use it to build your professional websites and blogs? Well, let’s dive right in and find out in our detailed Squarespace Review. Let’s go!

About Squarespace Website Builder

Squarespace started as a website building platform that was developed by Anthony Casalena for his personal use. Noticing the increased liking of the site from his family and friends, he established Squarespace as a do-it-yourself website builder in 2003.

It is headquartered in New York but serves its software all around the globe and has shown tremendous growth since its inception. Building a website requires one to fulfill three primary criteria.

• One needs to create a domain name that helps to locate the website.
• A web host that helps your website to be accessed by others.
• A catchy design to attract web surfers.

Keeping in mind these requirements, Squarespace helps to set up a website and provides all the basic requirements for managing and growing it. The program also comes up with creative and professional web templates, visual designs, SEO-friendly web pages, and simplistic and heavy content sites that are all easy to use for beginners.

Squarespace can be used by a company or an individual who needs a platform that helps them to create a website for their business. Even for personal use like setting up a blog space or professional service like a business page, Squarespace provides an end-stop solution for all.

Getting Started With Squarespace

You can sign up for a free trial on Squarespace. To help you design your website, Squarespace takes you through multiple steps where you need to select what your site is about and choose your aim and top goals with the site.

Then, it offers you a relevant collection of modern templates according to the choices made in the previous stages. Once you find a template that you like, you can click on ‘View Demo Site’ to view a pre-designed website using that template.

If you’re satisfied with it, you can click on ‘Start with this design’ and sign up with your email or Google/Facebook/Apple account to design your website.

Squarespace Test Website

For testing out the features of the Squarespace website builder, I have used its Personal plan along with the Lakshi template.

The Personal plan offers access to all the important tools like pre-designed templates, SEO features, website metrics, and more. Your website stays as a sub-domain under Squarespace.

However, you can also connect your custom domain or get a free sub-domain by opting for a yearly subscription to Squarespace.

Squarespace User Interface

The user interface of Squarespace is commendable. It offers a clean, minimalistic, and spacious design to allow users to easily navigate different options and settings with no hassle.

The left panel lets you switch between the Squarespace dashboard and domains. The main screen features your website, along with options to edit or tweak its settings. Finally, you can access the Squarespace support and account settings from the top right corner.

Overall, the interface is easy to use and understand for beginners and might be a piece of cake for professionals!

Squarespace Templates

For website design, let’s come to the templates. Squarespace provides excellent styles that have been broken down into various categories based on the requirements. They range from Online Stores and Portfolios to Memberships and Blogs.

Squarespace has received good feedback for its template variations. It has 140+ high-quality templates. All of those templates offer a choice of customization. The professional-looking templates are quite helpful for small businesses, as their attractiveness brings in a lot of customers.

Squarespace Editor

While building a website from scratch, it is necessary to have functional features that are helpful when navigating through the website.

The editor offers nine crucial elements through which one can create a website. The preview button takes the editor to the front end of the page, allowing a sneak peek of the website.

All the other options provide a back-end development. These include:

• Pages tab lets you create new pages and edit the existing ones.
• Design tab lets you customize fonts, colors, browser icons, error pages, etc.
• Commerce tab helps you manage your store’s orders, customers, inventory, etc.
• Marketing tab lets you manage your email marketing campaigns and run promotional material like Instagram stories, pop-ups, etc.
• Scheduling tab serves as an online assistant for making plans, adding tasks, and syncing with popular calendar apps.
• Analytics tab lets you track and analyze your sales, traffic, products, search keywords, customers, etc.
• Profiles tab lets you view a list of your subscribers, customers, leads, and donors.
• Settings tab helps you toggle and change the comprehensive settings of the website.
• Help tab lets you access Squarespace’s knowledge base, videos, webinars, etc.

 

Talking about the website editor, Squarespace offers its latest editor called Fluid Engine. It is a drag-and-drop editor with a beginner-friendly interface.

With this editor, you get a live editing functionality. This means whatever edits you make will be visible right away on the template. Unlike other website builders, Squarespace lets you edit right on top of the template.

 

When editing a template, you can directly drag and drop elements into it. These include text, buttons, forms, images, videos, audio, integrations, business products, and many more. You can also add different sections like Intro, Contact, People, Products, About, Quotes, Menus, Forms, etc.

But a downside to the Fluid Engine editor is that you cannot place images or text wherever you want. Unlike the Wix website builder, you can only place the editor elements in pre-made positions defined by grid lines on the page.

 

The editor also takes longer to load. However, there are tricks to make your site load faster, like you can reduce the size of the images, avoid adding too many plugins, and use a few fonts.

An impressive feature of the Squarespace editor is its responsive mobile design tool. The changes you implement on the desktop mode are automatically reflected on the mobile version and vice versa.

However, this might also serve as a disadvantage for professional users who prefer customizing their websites separately for desktop and mobile viewing.

Squarespace Extensions and Integrations

Extensions help you extend the functionality of your website builder platform. Squarespace provides 30+ powerful extensions to cater to your website needs. However, some extensions are available on a monthly subscription basis.

 

You can find integrations from the following categories.

• Shipping and Fulfilment Category: Shippo, ShipBob, Order Desk, Ship Station, etc.
• Finance Category: TaxJar, Dext, FreshBooks, etc.
• Inventory and Products Category: Trunk, Spocket, Printify, Art of Where, etc.
• Sales and Marketing Category: Mailchimp, SmartSEO, Judge.me, Channable, Outfy, etc.

I like the integration of Squarespace with Mailchimp (for email marketing), Google Analytics (for tracking website stats), and Stripe (for payments).

Squarespace Blogging Features

Setting up blogging websites is one of the significant services provided by Squarespace. Based on the theme of users’ blogs, Squarespace proposes an endless list of templates to select through.

It has beautiful and aesthetic-looking web pages that help you represent yourself. Talking about limitations, you can publish up to 1000 pages on your website along with unlimited blog posts, which is fantastic for a website builder.

In order to edit your blog, you need to use the Squarespace editor and head over to the Blog page under the Pages tab. The blog layout pans out with the header, followed by many sections you can add. Each section can accommodate many blocks.

These blocks can range from basic elements like text, audio, video, and forms to integrations like social media accounts. For stock images, they have inbuilt support from the Unsplash image library that makes the process smoother.

 

But the best part about Squarespace Blog is again its live editing feature. It has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. This means that while you are editing, it displays the text and elements exactly how they would appear on being published.

Squarespace SEO Features

Squarespace is the best solution for bloggers, as it makes their work simple. Talking about the SEO features, it lets you optimize both your website pages and blog posts.

 

You can add a featured image, image alt tags, post excerpt, post URL, social sharing options, etc. It also offers built-in mobile optimization, metadata editing, automatic markup, and the provision of sitemaps.

The SEO tools also give out an SEO checklist, which makes it easy for an individual to learn to optimize their site. Overall, Squarespace is a reliable platform for SEO features.

Squarespace Marketing Features

Email Marketing

Squarespace offers its native email marketing feature where you can create detailed marketing campaigns for your business.

Here, you can select your email templates from their collection, create mailing lists or import them to Squarespace, draft emails, and even automate them.

However, Email Marketing is a paid feature of Squarespace starting at $5/month. The Starter plan allows you to send out 500 emails/month on an annual plan, which is quite good when starting out.

Analytics

With Squarespace Analytics, you can track the performance of your website along with the behavior of your audience. This feature helps you analyze and track how your audience is interacting with your website.

 

You can get detailed insights and reports on your sales, revenue generated, website traffic, products sold, orders, traffic sources, traffic by location, and more.

Squarespace eCommerce Features

Squarespace is a great option for building eCommerce sites and online businesses. It can help you quickly set up an online store for your business.

Let’s look at all the eCommerce features of Squarespace, from adding products to your store to selecting a subscription plan.

Adding Products

The first step to setting up your eCommerce store is deciding what product you want to sell.

 

Squarespace offers you six different product options to choose from. This includes physical products, digital products, services, gift cards, memberships, and scheduling services. On selecting the product type, you can add products along with their images and descriptions.

 

You can also set the price, stock, sale price, and related products, and customize the checkout pages. If you already have products listed elsewhere, Squarespace lets you import them from Etsy, Shopify, and Big Cartel.

Squarespace also offers SEO optimization for your product pages. You can add product categories, and tags, customize the URL and add social sharing buttons on your product page. Overall, it is quite effortless to add a product to Squarespace.

Setting up Payment Methods

Squarespace provides a limited number of payment options. Users living outside the US can connect Stripe and PayPal to collect payments from their customers. Whereas, users residing in the US can also opt for Square Payments.

 

You can also choose a currency for your online store from a list of 25+ currencies. Another thing to note is that if you opt for the Business plan, you are charged an additional transaction fee of 3%, which is eliminated on the higher plans.

Choosing Fulfillment Options

Under fulfillment options, you can specify the method according to which your shipping would be calculated.

 

It can be a flat rate, according to rate, or as per different delivery services like FedEx, UPS, etc. You can also set shipping zones if you wish to sell your products in specific countries.

Finally, under pickup options, you can specify the detailed address where your products will be picked from for delivery to customers.

 

The eCommerce options provided by Squarespace are really efficient and would help you sell a variety of products with ease. However, you can also look at Dukaan and Zyro as potential alternatives for building eCommerce stores.

Squarespace Pricing Plans

Access to such good websites and beautiful templates come with a price! Here is the Squarespace cost breakdown, so you can choose which Squarespace plan will be the best for you.

	Personal Plan	Business Plan	Basic Commerce	Advanced Commerce
Pricing (paid annually)	$16/month	$23/month	$27/month	$49/month
Free Custom Domain (1 year)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unlimited Bandwidth	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Video Storage	30 mins	30 mins	30 mins	30 mins
Premium Integrations	N.A.	Yes	Yes	Yes
Contributors	2	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Squarespace Video Studio	Limited Access	Unlimited Access	Unlimited Access	Unlimited Access
Fully Integrated eCommerce	N.A.	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transaction Fee	N.A.	3%	0%	0%

The paid plans of Squarespace are on the expensive side compared to other website builders like Zyro or Weebly. They can be purchased on a monthly or a yearly subscription.

Squarespace also has an option to switch between plans, thus allowing users to upgrade or downgrade their subscriptions conveniently.

ChatGPT For Content and SEO?

Here are six things to know about ChatGPT before using it for SEO and content

Highlights:

• Algorithmic watermarking may reveal ChatGPT content
• How to use ChatGPT for SEO
• Research on detecting AI content
• ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot that can take directions and accomplish tasks like writing essays. There are numerous issues to understand before making a decision on how to use it for content and SEO.The quality of ChatGPT content is astounding, so the idea of using it for SEO purposes should be addressed.

  Let’s explore.

  Why ChatGPT Can Do What It Does

  In a nutshell, ChatGPT is a type of machine learning called a Large Learning Model.

  A large learning model is an artificial intelligence that is trained on vast amounts of data that can predict what the next word in a sentence is.

  The more data it is trained on the more kinds of tasks it is able to accomplish (like writing articles).

  Sometimes large language models develop unexpected abilities.

  Stanford University writes about how an increase in training data enabled GPT-3 to translate text from English to French, even though it wasn’t specifically trained to do that task.

  Large language models like GPT-3 (and GPT-3.5 which underlies ChatGPT) are not trained to do specific tasks.

  They are trained with a wide range of knowledge which they can then apply to other domains.

  This is similar to how a human learns. For example if a human learns carpentry fundamentals they can apply that knowledge to do build a table even though that person was never specifically taught how to do it.

  GPT-3 works similar to a human brain in that it contains general knowledge that can be applied to multiple tasks.

  The Stanford University article on GPT-3 explains:

  “Unlike chess engines, which solve a specific problem, humans are “generally” intelligent and can learn to do anything from writing poetry to playing soccer to filing tax returns.

  In contrast to most current AI systems, GPT-3 is edging closer to such general intelligence…”

  ChatGPT incorporates another large language model called, InstructGPT, which was trained to take directions from humans and long-form answers to complex questions.

  This ability to follow instructions makes ChatGPT able to take instructions to create an essay on virtually any topic and do it in any way specified.

  It can write an essay within the constraints like word count and the inclusion of specific topic points.

  Six Things to Know About ChatGPT

  ChatGPT can write essays on virtually any topic because it is trained on a wide variety of text that is available to the general public.

  There are however limitations to ChatGPT that are important to know before deciding to use it on an SEO project.

  The biggest limitation is that ChatGPT is unreliable for generating accurate information. The reason it’s inaccurate is because the model is only predicting what words should come after the previous word in a sentence in a paragraph on a given topic. It’s not concerned with accuracy.

  That should be a top concern for anyone interested in creating quality content.

  1. Programmed to Avoid Certain Kinds of Content

  For example, ChatGPT is specifically programmed to not generate text on the topics of graphic violence, explicit sex, and content that is harmful such as instructions on how to build an explosive device.

  2. Unaware of Current Events

  Another limitation is that it is not aware of any content that is created after 2021.

  So if your content needs to be up to date and fresh then ChatGPT in its current form may not be useful.

  3. Has Built-in Biases

  An important limitation to be aware of is that is trained to be helpful, truthful, and harmless.

  Those aren’t just ideals, they are intentional biases that are built into the machine.

  It seems like the programming to be harmless makes the output avoid negativity.

  That’s a good thing but it also subtly changes the article from one that might ideally be neutral.

  In a manner of speaking one has to take the wheel and explicitly tell ChatGPT to drive in the desired direction.

  Here’s an example of how the bias changes the output.

  I asked ChatGPT to write a story in the style of Raymond Carver and another one in the style of mystery writer Raymond Chandler.

  Both stories had upbeat endings that were uncharacteristic of both writers.

  In order to get an output that matched my expectations I had to guide ChatGPT with detailed directions to avoid upbeat endings and for the Carver-style ending to avoid a resolution to the story  because that is how Raymond Carver’s stories often played out.

  The point is that ChatGPT has biases and that one needs to be aware of how they  might influence the output.

  4. ChatGPT Requires Highly Detailed Instructions

  ChatGPT requires detailed instructions in order to output a higher quality content that has a greater chance of being highly original or take a specific point of view.

  The more instructions it is given the more sophisticated the output will be.

  This is both a strength and a limitation to be aware of.

  The less instructions there are in the request for content the more likely that the output will share a similar output with another request.

  As a test, I copied the query and the output that multiple people posted about on Facebook.

  When I asked ChatGPT the exact same query the machine produced a completely original essay that followed a similar structure.

  The articles were different but they shared the same structure and touched on similar subtopics but with 100% different words.

  ChatGPT is designed to choose completely random words when predicting what the next word in an article should be, so it makes sense that it doesn’t plagiarize itself.

  But the fact that similar requests generate similar articles highlights the limitations of simply asking “give me this. ”

  5. Can ChatGPT Content Be Identified?

  Researchers at Google and other organizations have for many years worked on algorithms for successfully detecting AI generated content.

  There are many research papers on the topic and I’ll mention one from March 2022 that used output from GPT-2 and GPT-3.

  The research paper is titled, Adversarial Robustness of Neural-Statistical Features in Detection of Generative Transformers (PDF).

  The researchers were testing to see what kind of analysis could detect AI generated content that employed algorithms designed to evade detection.

  They tested strategies such as using BERT algorithms to replace words with synonyms, another one that added misspellings, among other strategies.

  What they discovered is that some statistical features of the AI generated text such as Gunning-Fog Index and Flesch Index scores were useful for predicting whether a text was computer generated, even if that text had used an algorithm designed to evade detection.

  6. Invisible Watermarking

  Of more interest is that OpenAI researchers have developed cryptographic watermarking that will aid in detection of content created through an OpenAI product like ChatGPT.

  A recent article called attention to a discussion by an OpenAI researcher which is available on a video titled, Scott Aaronson Talks AI Safety.

  The researcher states that ethical AI practices such as watermarking can evolve to be an industry standard in the way that Robots.txt became a standard for ethical crawling.

  He stated:

  “…we’ve seen over the past 30 years that the big Internet companies can agree on certain minimal standards, whether because of fear of getting sued, desire to be seen as a responsible player, or whatever else.

  One simple example would be robots.txt: if you want your website not to be indexed by search engines, you can specify that, and the major search engines will respect it.

  In a similar way, you could imagine something like watermarking—if we were able to demonstrate it and show that it works and that it’s cheap and doesn’t hurt the quality of the output and doesn’t need much compute and so on—that it would just become an industry standard, and anyone who wanted to be considered a responsible player would include it.”

  The watermarking that the researcher developed is based on a cryptography. Anyone that has the key can test a document to see if it has the digital watermark that shows it is generated by an AI.

  The code can be in the form of how punctuation is used or in word choice, for example.

  He explained how watermarking works and why it’s important:

  “My main project so far has been a tool for statistically watermarking the outputs of a text model like GPT.

  Basically, whenever GPT generates some long text, we want there to be an otherwise unnoticeable secret signal in its choices of words, which you can use to prove later that, yes, this came from GPT.

  We want it to be much harder to take a GPT output and pass it off as if it came from a human.

  This could be helpful for preventing academic plagiarism, obviously, but also, for example, mass generation of propaganda—you know, spamming every blog with seemingly on-topic comments supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, without even a building full of trolls in Moscow.

  Or impersonating someone’s writing style in order to incriminate them.

  These are all things one might want to make harder, right?”

  The researcher shared that watermarking defeats algorithmic efforts to evade detection.

  But he also stated that it is possible to defeat the watermarking:

  “Now, this can all be defeated with enough effort.

  For example, if you used another AI to paraphrase GPT’s output—well okay, we’re not going to be able to detect that.”

  The researcher announced that the goal is to roll out watermarking in a future release of GPT.

  Should You Use AI for SEO Purposes?

  AI Content is Detectable

  Many people say that there’s no way for Google to know if content was generated using AI.

  I can’t understand why anyone would hold that opinion because detecting AI is a problem that has more or less already been solved.

  Even content that deploys anti-detection algorithms can be detected (as noted in the research paper I linked to above).

  Detecting machine generated content has been a subject of research going back many years, including research on how to detect content that was translated from another language.

  Autogenerated Content Violates Google’s Guidelines?

  Google’s John Mueller in April 2022 said that AI generated content violates Google’s guidelines.

  “For us these would, essentially, still fall into the category of automatically generated content which is something we’ve had in the Webmaster Guidelines since almost the beginning.

  And people have been automatically generating content in lots of different ways. And for us, if you’re using machine learning tools to generate your content, it’s essentially the same as if you’re just shuffling words around, or looking up synonyms, or doing the translation tricks that people used to do. Those kind of things.

  My suspicion is maybe the quality of content is a little bit better than the really old school tools, but for us it’s still automatically generated content, and that means for us it’s still against the Webmaster Guidelines. So we would consider that to be spam.”

  Google recently updated the “auto-generated” content section of their developer page about spam.

  Created in October 2022, it was updated near the end of November 2022.

  The changes reflect a clarification about what makes autogenerated content spam.

  It initially said this:

  “Automatically generated (or “auto-generated”) content is content that’s been generated programmatically without producing anything original or adding sufficient value;”

  Google updated that sentence to include the word “spammy”:

  “Spammy automatically generated (or “auto-generated”) content is content that’s been generated programmatically without producing anything original or adding sufficient value;”

  That change appears to clarify that simply being automatically generated content doesn’t make it spammy. It’s the lack of all the value-adds and general “spammy” qualities that makes that content problematic.

  ChatGPT May at Some Point Contain a Watermark

  Lastly, the OpenAI researcher said (a few weeks prior to the release of ChatGPT) that watermarking was “hopefully” coming in the next version of GPT.

  So ChatGPT may at some point become upgraded with watermarking, if it isn’t already watermarked.

  The Best Use of AI for SEO

  The best use of AI tools is for scaling SEO in a way that makes a worker more productive. That usually consists of letting the AI do the tedious work of research and analysis.

  Summarizing webpages to create a meta description could be an acceptable use, as Google specifically says that’s not against its guidelines.

  Using ChatGPT to generate an outline or a content brief might be an interesting use.

  Handing off content creation to an AI and publishing it as-is might not be the most effective use of AI if it isn’t first reviewed for quality, accuracy and helpfulness.

  Featured image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi

Freelance workforce is more highly skilled & educated

According to new data from Upwork, 26% of U.S. freelancers have a postgraduate degree, up from 20% a year ago.

So, you’d like to animate the display property

The CSS Working Group gave that a thumbs-up a couple weeks ago. The super-duper conceptual proposal being that we can animate or transition from, say, display: block to display: none.

It’s a bit of a brain-twister to reason about because setting display: none on an element cancels animations. And adding it restarts animations. Per the spec:

Setting the display property to none will terminate any running animation applied to the element and its descendants. If an element has a display of none, updating display to a value other than none will start all animations applied to the element by the animation-name property, as well as all animations applied to descendants with display other than none.

That circular behavior is what makes the concept seemingly dead on arrival. But if @keyframes supported any display value other than none, then there’s no way for none to cancel or restart things. That gives non-none values priority, allowing none to do its thing only after the animation or transition has completed.

We’re not exactly interpolating between, say, block and none, but allowing block to stay intact until the time things stop moving and it’s safe to apply none. These are keywords, so there are no explicit values between the two. As such, this remains a discrete animation. We’re toggling between two values once that animation is complete.

This is the Robert Flack’s example pulled straight from the discussion:

@keyframes slideaway {
  from { display: block; }
  to { transform: translateY(40px); opacity: 0;}
}

.hide {
  animation: slideaway 200ms;
  display: none;
}

This is a helpful example because it shows how the first frame sets the element to display: block, which is given priority over the underlying display: none as a non-none value. That allows the animation to run and finish without none cancelling or resetting it in the process since it only resolves after the animation.

This is the example Miriam referenced on Mastodon:

.hide {
  transition: opacity 200ms, display 200ms;
  display: none;
  opacity: 0;
}

We’re dealing with a transition this time. The underlying display value is set to none before anything happens, so it’s completely out of the document flow. Now, if we were to transition this on hover, maybe like this:

.hide:hover {
  display: block;
  opacity: 1;
}

…then the element should theoretically fade in at 200ms. Again, we’re toggling between display values, but block is given priority so the transition isn’t cancelled up front and is actually applied after opacity finishes its transition.

At least that’s how my mind is reading into it. I’m glad there are super smart people thinking these things through because I imagine there’s a ton to sort out. Like, what happens if multiple animations are assigned to an element — will none reset or cancel any of those? I’m sure everything from infinite animations, reversed directions, and all sorts of other things will be addressed in time.

How To Get More Followers On Instagram: 22 Tips To Try

Learn how to get more Instagram followers without having to pay by following our 22 tried and tested tips that work.

Are you looking to get more followers on Instagram, but don’t know where to start?

There are many ways to increase your followers on Instagram – some people buy them or boost posts, but these tactics only work temporarily, and can backfire over time.

Instagram has become the go-to social media network for sharing photos and videos with more than 2 billion active users today.

As a result, Instagram marketing and having a high follower count can boost exposure and visibility for businesses looking to reach their target audience.

Here are 22 strategies to get more followers on Instagram without breaking the bank. From increasing likes to posting high-quality images, all of these tips are tried and tested:

1. Have A Plan & Create A Content Calendar Full Of Great Ideas

We usually focus on ideas, delivery, and optimization when we create great content.

It should be no different when we share photos and videos on a business or brand’s Instagram account.

It’s important to take time to brainstorm engaging content ideas that align with seasons, holidays, your business’ upcoming events, and (most importantly) your overall traffic and sales goals.

Although, you can still be flexible and post spontaneously as ideas come to you.

But having a library of ideas and a (tentative) schedule will keep you ahead of the game instead of scrambling for something to post.

And depending on your business, you could post several times a day or several times a week.

So, make an Instagram content plan and stick to it.

2. Only Post Well-Composed Images & Videos

Businesses should only use high-quality photos and videos when posting to Instagram.

By high-quality (I mean crystal-clear) unpixellated shots. Instagram, above all else, is a visual platform.

Businesses can’t post blurry photos or images that have part of the image cut off.

Of course, it doesn’t need to be to a National Geographic standard. It just needs to be in focus.

Low-quality content won’t get engagement and might even cost you some followers.

3. Experiment With Different Filters & Dimensions

Just because you’re a business doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with filters and use different dimensions.

In fact, you should use filters on your content.

The more creative and original your photos are, the more likely people will share and follow your account.

You could also download photo editing apps to touch up your photos.

When it comes to dimensions, don’t feel relegated to the square – use the landscape and portrait options.

4. Use Instagram Analytics To Feed Your Persona Research

With an Instagram business account (which is free), you’ll have access to analytics that shows when your audience is most active.

Use that data to optimize your posting schedule.

Instagram also gives you insights into your audience’s age, gender, and location breakdown, which can be a starting point for your customer persona research.

5. Tag People In Your Photos Who Interact With Your Brand

Another way to be discovered by people who aren’t following you is to tag relevant accounts so that you show up in their tagged feed.

If you own a fitness studio, you could take a group shot after a Body Pump class and tag every person in the photo. Then it’ll populate all their tagged feeds.

Their followers will see the post and discover your studio.

But this strategy also applies to other brand and business accounts.

If you can share the spotlight and tag others, do so. It’ll circle back to bring you more Instagram followers and leads.

6. Optimize Your Instagram Bio With Branded Hashtags & CTAs

Your Insta bio should be used to feature branded hashtags, a link, and a call-to-action, which is crucial when looking for new Instagram users.

This section lets users discover who you or your brand are and whether they will follow you.

But don’t sound desperate or come across as spammy.

You want to let users know who you are and why they should follow you.

Make sure this section is updated when needed.

7. Ask Questions In Your Posts & Include CTAs

At the end of each post, include a clear call-to-action or a question to boost engagement.

CTAs include things like:

• Learn more – link in bio!
• Double tap if you want to see more videos like this!
• Follow us so you’ll never miss an update.
• You can also post questions. This will help keep your audience engaged, show that you care what your audience wants to see, and give your ideas for what to post in the future.
  

  8. Add A Link To Instagram To Your Website & Email

  Make sure existing clients and customers find your Instagram by adding an icon to your social links or embedding Instagram content on your site.

  You can also link to your brand’s Instagram account from your email signature.

  And use a plugin to feed your latest Instagram posts directly to your website.

  This can be a great way to promote your new account to people who regularly visit your site, building your following of clients.

  9. Cross-Post Your Instagram Content to Facebook & Twitter

  Cross-posting Instagram content to Facebook and Twitter can drive users back to your Instagram profile.

• Users who didn’t know you’re on Instagram and following you on other platforms will also discover that you’re on Instagram since the post will note it was shared from Instagram.You can adjust your settings for every post to cross-post automatically, or you can do it manually for select posts.
  

  10. Run Contests & Campaigns To Increase Brand Reach

  Once you’ve started growing a follower base, you can hold contests and campaigns that can attract more users to your page.

  For example, you can drive traffic to your website or sell your product by running an inspiring Instagram contest.

  You can either ask users to like, comment, use a specific hashtag, or ask your followers to tag a friend.

  When you ask users to tag a friend, it exposes your brand and page to more Instagram users online.

  It is an effective way to increase your brand awareness and reach and a key hack to get more Instagram followers.

  11. Look At What Your Competitors Are Doing

  Another best practice for how to get followers on Instagram is to look at what your competitors are doing and learn from it.

  Researching their accounts might reveal hashtags you didn’t think of, influencers you have yet to reach out to, or other strategies that can inform your own.

  Also, note which of their posts are performing the best – that can serve as another clue as to what can work on your account.

  12. Interact Across Instagram (Follow, Like & Comment On Other Posts)

  Strategically engage with users who will potentially like your profile.

  Practically, that means interacting with potential customers and brand allies by liking, following, and thoughtfully commenting on their posts.

  Start with your hashtags: Click on your frequently used, relevant hashtags to discover others posting similar content.

  Another good practice is interacting with those who are already following you. You should follow them back and like their content.

  The more you engage, the more you’ll show up in others’ feeds and get noticed.

  Plus, it shows you’re an authentic, real account who believes in reciprocity!

  13. Don’t Use Too Much Text In Your Photos

  In general, you want to save the words for your captions. People go to Instagram for visual content.

  So, posting a lot of text in an image is outside the norm.

  A short, positive quote or statement is excellent but only attempts to fit a partial product description or long message in the image.

  If you’re looking for ways to add text to photos, Canva is a free tool that comes in handy.

  14. Never Include Logos & Watermarks On Your Images

  Stamping your logo onto your Instagram post disrupts your content and users’ experience.

  People don’t expect to see logos or watermarks on Instagram posts. While it’s not advised to put a logo on your content, you can include branding.

  For example, if you’re a B2B company posting a behind-the-scenes shot of your employees, have them wear shirts with your logo.

  Or, if you’re a fashion retailer, you could occasionally include a strategically placed bag in a photo with your store’s name.

  Keep it subtle, or you’ll risk being unfollowed.

  15. Use The Right Hashtags To Capture New Audiences

  Using hashtags on Instagram will get you in front of new audiences searching for the type of content you’re posting, whether they’re following you or not.

  If you have a local business, make sure to include local hashtags, as well.

  Take the time to research hashtags and find the best ones for your particular content.

  It’s easy to identify which hashtags get the most traction.

  When you start typing # and your word, Instagram shows how many posts have been done around that word.

  Hashtagify.me is also an excellent tool for finding hashtags that are getting much traction.

  You can type in your primary hashtag, which will show you its reach, related hashtags and their reach, all the hashtags related to those, and so on.

  How Many Hashtags Should I Add To An Instagram Post?

  It’s common to stick to five to seven to avoid looking spammy. But you can add up to 30 hashtags.

  Where Should I Add The Hashtags On An Instagram Post?

  You can add them directly to the post or in a separate comment immediately after posting – it’s an aesthetic choice.

  Some users prefer to add single periods separated by line breaks after their caption and then add hashtags.

  Whatever you choose to do is fine, but keep it consistent across posts, so you have a streamlined, professional look.

  16. Use Geotags To Reach Local Audiences

  Another way to get found in by users who aren’t already following you is to geotag your content – but not necessarily with your store location.

  Try using your city or a nearby (relevant) landmark that gets many searches.

  When people are searching for that nearby location, they can now come across your content.

  If your content is doing exceptionally well, it can even be featured at the top of the search.

  17. Only Add Links To Your Bio

  Any link you include in an Instagram post will not turn into a clickable link – instead, it will just serve as an annoying and lousy experience as your audience tries (and fails) to open it.

  Rather than including an unclickable link, direct people to click the link in your bio.

  They can easily click that and head to your site to check out all you have to offer.

  Be sure to put your link in the “link” section when you edit your bio, and mention that in your post.

  And, because space is limited, use a link shortener like Bit.ly to save room.

  You can optimize the link further by customizing it, so it’s not a random string of characters but a meaningful word or two.

  18. Tag Products In Images & Videos To Drive Conversions

  Take advantage of Instagram’s tagging feature if you’re selling a product.

  Businesses can tag photos or videos with product links.

  To use this feature, you must have a business page on Facebook complete with a product catalog.

  It’s a great user experience for users, and it’s a huge win for businesses looking to drive conversions seamlessly.

  19. Create A Branded Hashtag For Your Events

  Create a branded hashtag for your next event.

  It will give your brand exposure and curate a unique stream of all the content from your event and allow others to connect and engage with your brand and other people at the event.

  Leading up to the event, you can use your branded hashtag to promote the event, and after the fact, you can use it to post follow-up content.

  20. Repost When You Get Tagged To Showcase Positive Reviews

  Whenever a user tags your business or brand, get extra traction from it by reposting it directly to your feed.

  Showcasing positive reviews and mentions is a great use of Instagram for business.

  Make sure to reach out to the user and thank them for their post and ask if you can have permission to repost it (Instagram’s terms of use note that you should obtain written permission to repost a user’s content).

  Most likely, the user will agree.

  You can repost manually or use an app like Repost for Instagram.

  Either way, remember to credit the original poster in the caption and tag them in the photo.

  21. Use Instagram Ads To Get In Front Of Your Audience

  Consider devoting ad spend to promoting your Instagram profile.

  You can create effective carousel ads through Facebook’s Power Editor and promote your content.

  If you’re running a specific contest or marketing campaign, you can use Facebook advertising to push the content in front of more audiences.

  With the ability to target your customers based on their interests and behaviors in Power Editor, you can ensure that your posts will be viewed by Instagram users who will be interested in your business.

  While some of these strategies may work better than others, find the ones that work well with your business or yourself.

  22. Get Your Account Verified 

  Getting verified on Instagram (or any other social media platform) never hurts your engagement.

  The little blue tick gives your brand credibility, trust, and authenticity.

  While only some will qualify for Instagram verification, it’s something to strive for.

  Getting verified is one more way to stand out from your competition and deliver a trust signal that your business is real.

  To be considered, your account must be:

  • Authentic (you must prove you are, in fact, the brand or business you claim to be).
  • Unique (only one account per brand can exist).
  • Public.
  • Complete (with a bio, profile photo, and at least one post).
  • Notable (Instagram must deem your brand “well-known” and “highly searched for”).

  Final Takeaways

  If you want more followers on Instagram right now, take advantage of these tips.

  Make sure you utilize Instagram analytics, research your hashtags, post high-quality images, and create engaging copy and CTA.

Power of OpenAI ChatGPT for product designer

Using the GPT3 AI model, this AI chatbot can change our design process

It is more than evident that AI technology will change how product designers work. One side is tools launched this year, such as Dall-E-2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney for images, while the other is AI tools that help write text, such as Wordtune or Lex.

As a product designer, I always look for new technologies and techniques to speed up my work. This year I shared an article about AI Image generation, and in that article, I wanted to demonstrate some use cases for using the new ChatGPT.

Following a brief description of ChatGPT, I describe some tests I conducted to test its capabilities to understand how product designers can use it.

What is OpenAI ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI-powered contextual chatbot developed by OpenAI. A user can ask the chat to perform a task or to answer questions, and the chat will respond with an answer.

For example,

I asked this question:

Who is Elon Musk?

This was its answer:

“Elon Musk is a business magnate, investor, and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX, and the founder and CEO of Tesla, Inc. He has also been involved in several other ventures, including Neuralink and The Boring Company. Musk is known for his innovative and ambitious approach to business, and has often been described as a visionary entrepreneur. He has a reputation for taking on complex and challenging projects, and has been instrumental in advancing the development of electric cars, space travel, and artificial intelligence.”

Another example:

This is what I asked:
Can you explain to me what machine learning is?

This was its answer:

“Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) that focuses on the development of algorithms and models that can learn from and make predictions based on data. These algorithms and models use statistical techniques to find patterns in data and to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so.

Machine learning algorithms can be divided into two main categories: supervised learning and unsupervised learning. In supervised learning, the algorithm is trained on a labeled dataset, where the correct output is provided for each input. This allows the algorithm to learn the relationship between the inputs and outputs, and to make predictions on new data based on that relationship. In unsupervised learning, the algorithm is not provided with labeled data, and must discover the hidden structure in the data on its own.

Machine learning is used in a wide range of applications, including image and speech recognition, natural language processing, fraud detection, and recommendation systems. It has become an essential tool for businesses and organizations looking to gain insights from their data and to automate decision-making processes.”

The chat is free for now, and I believe it is because Open AI wants to get user feedback on it. You can start using it right away.

What can a product designer do with the ChatGPT chatbot?

I want to show you the experiment I did with ChatGPT. The tool can be used for many tasks, including helping you think creatively. Below are some examples.

Write messages for an app

If you’re not working with a UX writer, you know that writing messages can be another task. However, because there are not always clear writing guidelines, we do not always know how to do it well. Here are the messages ChatGPT wrote for me.

This is what I asked:

Write a short message to explain to a user that the image cannot be uploaded because the system only accepts PNG files.

This was its answer:

Here is a possible message to explain to a user that the image cannot be uploaded because the system only accepts PNG files:

“Sorry, but the system is unable to upload your image because it is not in the PNG format. Our system only accepts PNG files, so please make sure that your image is saved in that format before trying to upload it again. If you need help converting your image to PNG, please contact our customer support team for assistance.”

Also, if you want more options, you can ask ChatGPT to give you more than one answer, like this:

This is what I asked:

Write five very short messages to explain to a user that the image cannot be uploaded because the system only accepts PNG files.

This was its answer:

Here are five very short messages to explain to a user that the image cannot be uploaded because the system only accepts PNG files:

1. “Sorry, only PNG files are accepted.”
2. “Image must be in PNG format.”
3. “PNG format only, please.”
4. “Invalid format. PNG only.”
5. “PNG files only, thank you.”

Create SVG visuals

Because ChatGPT can write code, you can ask it to generate icons or other visuals. It will generate a code you need to convert to see the results. I believe that in the future, we will be able to see the images directly in the chat. In any case, for now, you can convert the code to an image on different websites.

To be honest, the results here are not the best. It works well for easy tasks like creating a circle but doesn’t give great results for more complex visuals.

Here are some examples; I’ve also added the code. You can use this page to test it if you want.

What I asked:

Make a 100px green circle SVG.

This was its answer:

<svg width="100" height="100">
  <circle cx="50" cy="50" r="50" fill="green" />
</svg>

This is the Image:

This is what I asked:

Make an SVG of the USA flag.

This was its answer:

<svg width="300" height="200">
  <rect x="0" y="0" width="300" height="100" fill="#002664" />
  <rect x="0" y="100" width="300" height="100" fill="#FFFFFF" />
  <circle cx="150" cy="50" r="30" fill="#B22234" />
  <circle cx="150" cy="150" r="30" fill="#B22234" />
</svg>

This is the Image:

Create a prompt for AI image generators

If you played with some AI image-generated tools, you know that writing a clear prompt and getting a good image or AI art can be challenging. Of course, you can look at pages like Lexica to get an idea, but I wanted to see if ChatGPT makes this task easier.

This is an example, and the image was generated using Stable Diffusion.

This is what I asked:

Write a prompt for an AI image generator, and ask it to show me an image of a chef cook pizza in Rome.

This was its answer:
Please generate an image of a chef cooking a pizza in Rome. The chef should be wearing a traditional Italian chef’s hat and apron, and the pizza should be a classic Margherita pizza with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil. The background of the image should show the city of Rome, with iconic landmarks such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon visible in the distance.

This is the Image:

Response to HR recruiter message

Sometimes I receive job offers from HR recruiters. I respond to all of them because it’s polite, and I don’t know when I’ll need them. But instead of writing a message yourself, save time and let ChatGPT do it.

This is what I asked:

Respond to this email and explain I’m fine in my current position and I don’t want to move.

Dear Sami,

I’m writing to you because I saw your Linkedin profile and believe you could be an excellent fit for our company’s senior product designer role.

We are a rapidly growing company with exciting projects in the pipeline in the financial B2B space.

We offer a great salary for this position, and you can work remotely.

Are you open to hearing more?

This was its answer:

Dear Sami,

Thank you for reaching out to me about the senior product designer position at your company. I appreciate the opportunity, but I am currently very happy in my current position and am not interested in moving at this time.

I wish you and your company the best of luck in finding the right candidate for the role.

Best regards, [Your Name]

Writing code

Okay, so this isn’t a pure task for product designers, but if you need to write some code, you can ask Chat GPT to do it.

This is what I asked:

Please write a code for an HTML blog page.

This was its answer:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>My Blog</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>My Blog</h1>
    <h2>Recent Posts</h2>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <h3>Post 1</h3>
        <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi at sollicitudin magna. Donec auctor, nisi eu sagittis efficitur, enim nibh feugiat nunc, quis cursus massa mi quis erat.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <h3>Post 2</h3>
        <p>Suspendisse euismod risus eu risus placerat, ut pellentesque purus fermentum. Nullam vel porta dolor. Nulla facilisi. Nam nec lacus vel metus rutrum luctus.</p>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </body>
</html>

Do you need to fix errors in a text?

It is possible to use Grammarly or Wordtune, but the advantage here is that ChatGPT fixes the text in one action rather than word by word.

This is what I asked:

Please fix the spelling and grammar errors in this text:
I was so excxited when I heard I was going to New Yok City for the week. I had been planning tsis trip for mosths, and it was finally here. When I arrived in the city, I was immediately taken aback by the sheer energy that plsed through the streets. Everywdere I went, I felt like I was in the middle f a bustling metropolis.

This was its answer:
Here is a corrected version of the text with the spelling and grammar errors fixed:

I was so excited when I heard I was going to New York City for the week. I had been planning this trip for months, and it was finally here. When I arrived in the city, I was immediately taken aback by the sheer energy that pulsed through the streets. Everywhere I went, I felt like I was in the middle of a bustling metropolis.

Do you need to translate a text?

While Google Translate is great, you can also try ChatGPT.

This is what I asked:

Translate this text to Spanish:
A strong team is built on effective communication. This kind of communication makes teams collaborate well, leading to successful product development.

Need help brainstorming?

This is a highly effective and powerful tool to work faster and generate ideas. You can ask the chat for ideas, and it will provide them. Of course, you can take it as is, but I believe we need to polish the ideas to fit our needs.

This is what I asked:

Give me five ideas to solve this case:
My company gets many calls every day to ask about our products. How can I reduce the calls so people can find the information on our website and not call the company?

This was its answer:

Here are five ideas to help reduce the number of calls to your company about your products:

1. Create a comprehensive and easy-to-navigate product information section on your website, with detailed descriptions and photos of all your products. This will make it easier for potential customers to find the information they need without needing to call your company.
2. Add a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section to your website, where you can provide answers to common questions about your products and their features. This will help to address common queries that people may have before they decide to call your company.
3. Use social media to share product information and updates. By regularly posting about your products on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you can reach a wider audience and provide them with the information they need to make a purchase decision.
4. Consider implementing a chatbot on your website, which can provide instant answers to common questions about your products. This can help to reduce the number of calls your company receives by providing customers with a quick and convenient way to get the information they need.
5. Train your customer service team to provide detailed and accurate information about your products when they receive calls from potential customers. This will help to ensure that customers get the information they need and are less likely to call back with additional questions.

To summary

I wanted to share my experience with the ChatGPT chatbot in this article. Playing with this AI bot made me realize that this technology is just starting, but we can use it today to improve our workflow.

Below is a list of the experiments I conducted:

• Asking questions.
• Writing messages for an app.
• Creating SVG visuals.
• Creating a prompt for AI image generators.
• Response to HR recruiter message.
• Writing code.
• Fixing misspellings and grammar errors.
• Brainstorming.

UX Copywriting: Powering Digital Customer Experience

Delivering stellar customer experiences across the customer journey – both print and digital — is a critical ingredient in effective copywriting. UX copywriting, however, is a narrower field, specializing in copy that serves as a virtual how-to manual for using digital media, such as apps, software, and websites.

Successful user experience (UX) copywriters can help guide even the most tech-averse among us into the 21st century with easy-to-follow explanations and directions that even your technophobic grandma can use with confidence.

Whether it’s navigating a website or setting up a digital device, great UX copywriting is essential to transform audiences into fans, fans into customers, and customers into brand advocates. It empowers users — the magic sauce that positions your brand as a helpful guide to the digital universe.

Why Do We Need a UX Copywriter?

Companies that make digital products often assume too much about their consumers. Just before I sat down to write this post, I received a new Bluetooth-enabled speaker for my iPhone.

While I will admit that temptation won out over work (I fiddled with it for about an hour before I sat down to the task at hand), it turns out that the experience was just what I needed to introduce the topic. The darn thing had a warranty card a mile long in every language known to humankind.

But where were the directions? Nowhere in sight.

Since I do work in the digital space, I finally figured it out. But not before I experienced more than a bit of frustration.

That experience was precisely what I needed to illustrate my point. Imagine if I were my elderly neighbor, who only recently “upgraded” to a flip phone and doesn’t even have a laptop in their home.

That gentle soul would have probably morphed into a “Karen” over her frustration. The five symbols that ran along the device’s top were all the clues I had to decipher how to use it. My neighbor wouldn’t have a clue as to what that funny-looking angular “B” was.

She’d probably have returned it to the manufacturer, along with a “bless your heart” – the genteel Southern lady’s trademark putdown. Don’t think she would buy another, nor would she trumpet the brand’s wares.

If only they had hired a UX copywriter or two.

Get UX Product Copywriting Right

Engineers, developers, and designers — their brilliance is legendary. However, their ability to distance themselves from their knowledge and put themselves in a neophyte’s shoes makes them the butt of nerd jokes.

The UX copywriter forms the bridge between these people’s technical savvy and the consumer’s experience.

So, the first thing is to engage in content collaboration with your engineers, developers, and designers. Listen to their instructions and try to use the product yourself.

Write down all the snags you experienced — all the terms you had to Google before you proceeded. Then, put yourself in your target customer’s shoes. Think about how they would feel if they experienced your frustrations.

Now, go back to the backend folks and get a better explanation of how to use the product. Repeat as necessary. Once you (in your target customer’s shoes) can easily understand how to use it, simplify and clarify the instructions in laypeople’s terms.

Next, test your instructions on ordinary people. Not your employees (who might be more familiar with your products than the general public) but rather people from the same demographics and other characteristics as your target customers.

When test subjects rave about how easy it was to follow your directions, only then should you release your product — and your how-to manual — to the public. Finally, sit back and enjoy the content analytics numbers as sales pour in.

Rock UX Copywriting for Apps

Almost every time an ad for an app pops up on my phone while I’m playing my favorite game, I shake my head in disbelief at the horrendous writing I see from the app’s developers. From non-native English to glaring typos, it’s a wonder why anyone would download them.

Don’t let this be your company. Think of your app’s description as your company’s elevator speech. Make sure it spells out what it does, and the benefits your audience will have when they download it. Above all, check it for grammatical errors and typos before you launch your app.

As with digital products, whether they be Bluetooth speakers or software, make sure that your app’s tutorial gets users up to speed quickly and accurately. Nothing frustrates a new user like being unable to use the app due to garbled directions. User testing, too, can iron out any rough spots before you spring your app on the public.

Even if you use an AI writing tool to compose copy for your app, run the text by your editorial team before you publish it. These tools are great for first drafts — but if you’ve ever winced at one of Grammarly’s “suggestions” for alternate wordings, you’ll know why it’s critical to double-check.

Finally, your copy for app descriptions and tutorials needs to be as brand-forward as any slick ad you run on TV or radio. We recommend Writer, an AI content creation and governance tool that not only recommends grammatical changes but, more importantly, nudges content writers to substitute words from an approved list of words that best reflect your brand voice.

Make Your Web Copy More User-Friendly with a Conversational Tone

Whether it’s static content on your website or your social media pages, users want inviting copy that engages them in the experience. Work with your UX design team to create the perfect pairing of visual and textual elements that draw them into the conversation.

Asking questions that invite your audience to respond (and providing them the opportunity to do so within the page’s design) is a great start. Using the word “you” as you would in an actual conversation, too, will make users feel right at home, as Jenna Bunnell advises.

Calls to action — especially for hospitality brands — as UX copywriter Scarlett Payne advises, should invite, not intimidate. However, brand voice also should factor into the copy equation.

For instance, as Payne points out, research showed that “Check availability” performed better than “Book a room” for a hotel chain. However, for a criminal law practice where clients already feel intimidated by their circumstances, “Book your free consultation” might feel more like relief than intimidation for people looking to avoid incarceration.

Using storytelling to guide users through your web pages, too, enhances the on-page experience. However, consider the context.

While blog posts can accommodate a long-winded tale, doing so on a how-to page can be a recipe for disaster. If you’ve ever tapped your fingers in impatience while a recipe writer rambles on and on about their grandma’s cooking or their trip to France, you know what I mean.

Instead, introduce how-to pages with a short paragraph detailing the benefits of the finished product and get right into the directions for using it. A customer-centric approach that puts yourself in your audience’s shoes is always the best choice.

As with other UX copy, usability testing is a must for web copy.

Testing should include:

• Testing various versions of your copy for understandability using an A/B approach
• Looking at how easy it is for users to find specific information quickly
• Checking to see which calls to action work best with each page

Finally, upgrade your UX copy as often as you do other content. Frequent refreshes along the content lifecycle, as Bunnell recommends, are essential for enhancing your audience’s user experience.

Having a content marketing platform with robust metadata management can help in the updating process. Including keywords in that metadata can help you quickly identify outdated terminology, allowing you to update your UX copy easily.

Divvy HQ’s content platform does just that. Additionally, it makes collaboration with other UX teams, such as your design and development teams, a seamless process; your UX writers never have to leave the piece they’re working on to consult with them.

From Freelance Writer To In-House Leader: Meet Aja Frost

HubSpot’s Director of English Growth Aja Frost shares how she built a rewarding SEO career – from being a freelance content writer to becoming an in-house content strategist.

To work freelance or to go in-house? That is the question.

And the question is trickier now more than ever – especially for content marketers.

According to our State of SEO 2022, freelancing is an increasingly attractive path, with almost 45% of freelance and contract respondents earning salaries above $75,000 per year.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the only viable career path for content marketers.

In fact, the future looks bright for in-house professionals as more businesses are finding ways to integrate SEO into broader marketing efforts.

So, which way do you go at the fork in the road?

Gain new insight from this Q&A-style interview with Aja Frost, who started her marketing career as a freelance writer making a monthly income of roughly $6,000.

Now, she’s the Director of English Growth at HubSpot, where she helped its Sales Blog break an 18-month traffic plateau by employing an “organic-first” strategy.

Read on as Frost shares her experience of becoming an in-house content strategist, go-to SEO techniques, and tips for building a rewarding SEO career.

Becoming An In-House Content Strategist

What has it been like transitioning from an established freelance writer to an in-house content strategist?

Aja Frost: “My transition from freelancing to in-house was six years ago, but I remember it was challenging.

I had to relearn a lot of my instincts – for example, your manager and teammates tend to want more frequent/detailed updates than your clients, who typically only care about the high level. I was far less autonomous than I’d been as a freelancer.

In addition, I had to figure out the dynamics of working inside what, at the time, felt like a big organization (~1,700 people). Now that sounds small, as HubSpot has 7,000+ employees.”

What unexpected skill or experience has helped you as a marketing leader and SEO strategist?

AF: “Active listening and observing is probably my most-used skill.

I spend five to six hours per day in meetings, and being able to interpret how someone is feeling, what they’re saying versus what they’re not saying, if they’re convinced or skeptical, etc., is incredibly valuable.

To facilitate this, I make Zoom full-screen, hide my own box so I can’t get distracted by my face, and turn off all notifications.

If I’m in a larger group, I keep scanning faces, so I’m gauging everyone’s reactions. And I consistently repeat back what I’m hearing so I can challenge my assumptions and make sure I’m interpreting clues correctly.”

Go-To Content Tools & Techniques

What is your favorite feature within the HubSpot platform, and why?

AF: “I’m so excited about the free website builder HubSpot launched a few months ago.

It’s actually a drag-and-drop website builder that’s super easy to use (I’ve built a few test sites for fun), and it offers free web hosting and no cost for connecting a custom domain.”

What trends are you seeing in how AI impact keyword research? How do you take and turn these trends into topic-cluster-driven search strategies?

AF: “AI-driven keyword research is helpful as a foundation.

It’s far faster to use a tool to come up with relevant longer-tail keywords than manually dig through the SERPs or even Ahrefs results.

However, nothing beats an SEO’s intuition and expertise for figuring out which keywords belong together in an article and how those articles should be grouped into clusters.”

How does globalization affect your planning for content strategy?

AF: “Content that has traffic and demand potential in multiple markets will be created in English first and then localized into Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and/or Japanese for our regional blogs.

Our localization team is incredible; for every piece of content they localize, they’re translating not just the words and meaning but matching HubSpot’s style and voice to the target audience.

For example, when localizing an English post to German, the team will replace “greatest,” “best in class,” “incredible,” etc. with “it’s good, and it will help you.”

A lot of content is created in-language (meaning the keyword research is done in Spanish, and the content is created in Spanish). This ensures we answer the questions unique to our target market.”

What’s the most effective SEO technique you’d recommend to someone wanting to improve the results they are getting from organic search?

AF: “Focus on quality over quantity. It’s far more effective to publish one well-written, in-depth piece of content with unique insights and original research than 10 higher-level, derivative pieces.

If you’re not getting the results you should be when you look at your keywords’ target MSV (monthly search volume), slow down and spend (way more) time on each post.”

Helping Women Run The SEO World

Any tips for SEO freelancers who have a tough time selling themselves with no past clients under their belts for reference?

AF: “Create samples for hypothetical clients, ask another freelancer if you can do some free keyword research or content creation for them in exchange for training and your name on a project, and make sure your website looks professional and your own content strategy is impeccable.”

What advice do you have for a woman pursuing a career in SEO? For a woman aspiring to a leadership role in the industry?

AF: “Being a woman in the SEO industry and a female leader in tech is getting a lot easier… but it’s still tough!

My support group has been invaluable for helping me vent when I experience sexism, pushing me to take on new challenges, and brainstorming strategies to get more airtime in meetings, get people to take me seriously, and advocate for myself.

I highly, highly recommend building your network of peers (both inside and outside of your company) to call on.”

What empowers you as a strong female leader?

AF: “I’m empowered by the trust and respect I share with my wonderful (or, for German readers, “good”) colleagues and manager. And, of course, the live version of Beyonce’s Formation.”