Improving visibility for B2B content

Hi Ezra,

Took me a while to get to this, but here we go. :)

First of all, I think Appointlet looks pretty nifty. I know there are similar services but it's not exactly like sales is a small niche, is it? :D Happy to hear it's going well.

This is perhaps not the kind of feedback you were specifically looking for, but I hope you will find it helpful regardless. I'm sure you're aware of much of this already.

I only looked at your blog, btw, not the main Appointlet website.

----------------------
Highlight content on your main blog page
----------------------
On the blog main page you're presenting things old-school with full articles one after the other. I don't think that's very optimal since visitors can't easily get an overview of what you're writing about. You're writing meaty articles (with some excellent GIF choices, I must add, haha), so there would be a ton of scrolling involved.

It also makes that page much more heavy than it needs to be.

Consider using a more summary-like approach for your main blog page that also lets you highlight selected material. E.g. Hubspot does this really well if you want an example of what I mean: https://blog.hubspot.com

----------------------
Sell me on that newsletter :)
----------------------
The newsletter subscription box at the top, is it only for existing customers or is it for people who want to get better at sales, sell more, etc? If it's the latter, say that in the copy, instead of just "Subscribe to get our latest news, updates and tips right in your inbox!" which is too generic and doesn't explain the benefits and why I should care.

----------------------
Yes, do promote to your mailing list
----------------------
As you noted in your original post, a newsletter is an excellent way to promote your content. :) Being able to email people when you have a new, helpful article out can signal-boost a ton if you have engaged readers. And, well, it can be a good lead generation tool, too. You're clearly well aware of this already.

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Speeeeeed!
----------------------
Both from a UX perspective and your SEO efforts, I would seriously look into optimizing page speed for your posts. Your latest post only gets 11/100 for mobile performance in Google Pagespeed Insights:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.appointlet.com%2Fhow-to-build-a-high-ticket-sales-funnel-with-online-scheduling%2F

For example, that single post is almost 10MB (all those images and GIFS are not free :) ). You can mitigate by adding lazy-loading (there's even native support for it in Chrome: https://addyosmani.com/blog/lazy-loading/ ). Also, I'm guessing you can adjust the dimensions of your images and compress them more with tools like TinyPNG and TinyJPG. That can lead to some huge savings.

There are other things, too, but that would be an easy win.

Remember that Google's index is "mobile first" these days, and performance is an increasingly important ranking factor.

----------------------
Consider removing / disabling comments
----------------------
This is as far as Ahrefs can tell your most popular post in terms of organic traffic:
https://blog.appointlet.com/how-to-position-your-book-now-button-on-a-website-to-maximize-engagement/

Scroll down and look at the comments. Just comment spam.

Build up an audience and only then reconsider enabling comments, if you want them at all. At least that's what I would do. Posts with zero comments (or spam like in the example above) are not a good look.

Instead, encourage your visitors to engage with you on social media, which is kind of what you want anyway, from what I understand?

----------------------
Add your face
----------------------
At the bottom of each post there's just a blank image next to your name. A profile pic would do wonders here, I think. :) Maybe even with a short description of who you are (and hence why people should listen to you).

----------------------
Refresh caches for social sharing previews
----------------------
Speaking of that post... I was going to quickly check it in Facebook's sharing debugger and noticed it was cached since September, when it was still missing Open Graph tags apparently. A refresh ("scrape again") solved that.

You can use Facebook's batch invalidator to force a cache refresh for a bunch of URLs at once if you want to make it easier: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/batch/

Maybe put in your blog posts there and make sure they're not showing old data when people share on Facebook.

Sadly, Twitter and LinkedIn don't have batch tools like this, only their standard sharing debugging tools for one page at a time, but it's better than nothing. (Twitter's is so bad, but it's the only one we have, so...)

You may also want to start handcrafting your Open Graph descriptions. They seem to be auto-generated now. Which leads me to...

----------------------
Add meta descriptions (and great page titles)
----------------------
Title tags and meta descriptions are your way of controlling how Google presents your search results. I'm sure you know this, but here's an oversight: You currently don't have meta descriptions in the HTML code for your pages, which means Google will auto-generate them for you (usually not great).

Maybe it's just something you missed or haven't gotten to yet? They're pretty vital for SEO success so in case you're not deep in the weeds of on-page SEO, here are some best practices courtesy of Moz:
https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag
https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

Bonus: You can usually reuse these for Open Graph, although the target audience will be slightly different. At least the meta descriptions can often be the same.

----------------------
I'm out of time!
----------------------
There's quite a bit more you could do, I think, especially from a technical SEO perspective. I've barely scratched the surface here. I just don't have time to dig into the nitty-gritty stuff right now and do a deeper analysis.

I know some of this advice is only tangentially related to what you asked, but I also think that for your content marketing and SEO efforts to be successful it pays off in spades to look over your site. (I'm in the process of remaking my own site as we speak, haha.)

Hopefully this was helpful. Have a great day over there, Ezra!

Say something nice to Ebell…

2

Hi Ezra. :) Mind sharing the site? Easier to give relevant help then.

ptrei

·
7 years ago
·
1. 1
  
  Hey @ptrei, thanks for showing up. Yes the website is blog.appointlet.com if you would like to take a look.
  
  Ezra Sandzer-Bell
  
  ·
  7 years ago
  ·
  1. 1
    
    Ah, good. Yeah, if you don't mind some feedback here I do have some thoughts on this. I'm in the middle of a bunch of things but can have a look this weekend and write a proper reply then. I hope that works for you. :)
    
    ptrei
    
    ·
    7 years ago
    ·
    1. 1
      
      Of course, take your time. Thank you!
      
      Ezra Sandzer-Bell
      
      ·
      7 years ago
      ·
      1. 2
        
        Hi Ezra,
        
        Took me a while to get to this, but here we go. :)
        
        First of all, I think Appointlet looks pretty nifty. I know there are similar services but it's not exactly like sales is a small niche, is it? :D Happy to hear it's going well.
        
        This is perhaps not the kind of feedback you were specifically looking for, but I hope you will find it helpful regardless. I'm sure you're aware of much of this already.
        
        I only looked at your blog, btw, not the main Appointlet website.
        
        ----------------------
        Highlight content on your main blog page
        ----------------------
        On the blog main page you're presenting things old-school with full articles one after the other. I don't think that's very optimal since visitors can't easily get an overview of what you're writing about. You're writing meaty articles (with some excellent GIF choices, I must add, haha), so there would be a ton of scrolling involved.
        
        It also makes that page much more heavy than it needs to be.
        
        Consider using a more summary-like approach for your main blog page that also lets you highlight selected material. E.g. Hubspot does this really well if you want an example of what I mean: https://blog.hubspot.com
        
        ----------------------
        Sell me on that newsletter :)
        ----------------------
        The newsletter subscription box at the top, is it only for existing customers or is it for people who want to get better at sales, sell more, etc? If it's the latter, say that in the copy, instead of just "Subscribe to get our latest news, updates and tips right in your inbox!" which is too generic and doesn't explain the benefits and why I should care.
        
        ----------------------
        Yes, do promote to your mailing list
        ----------------------
        As you noted in your original post, a newsletter is an excellent way to promote your content. :) Being able to email people when you have a new, helpful article out can signal-boost a ton if you have engaged readers. And, well, it can be a good lead generation tool, too. You're clearly well aware of this already.
        
        ----------------------
        Speeeeeed!
        ----------------------
        Both from a UX perspective and your SEO efforts, I would seriously look into optimizing page speed for your posts. Your latest post only gets 11/100 for mobile performance in Google Pagespeed Insights:
        https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.appointlet.com%2Fhow-to-build-a-high-ticket-sales-funnel-with-online-scheduling%2F
        
        For example, that single post is almost 10MB (all those images and GIFS are not free :) ). You can mitigate by adding lazy-loading (there's even native support for it in Chrome: https://addyosmani.com/blog/lazy-loading/ ). Also, I'm guessing you can adjust the dimensions of your images and compress them more with tools like TinyPNG and TinyJPG. That can lead to some huge savings.
        
        There are other things, too, but that would be an easy win.
        
        Remember that Google's index is "mobile first" these days, and performance is an increasingly important ranking factor.
        
        ----------------------
        Consider removing / disabling comments
        ----------------------
        This is as far as Ahrefs can tell your most popular post in terms of organic traffic:
        https://blog.appointlet.com/how-to-position-your-book-now-button-on-a-website-to-maximize-engagement/
        
        Scroll down and look at the comments. Just comment spam.
        
        Build up an audience and only then reconsider enabling comments, if you want them at all. At least that's what I would do. Posts with zero comments (or spam like in the example above) are not a good look.
        
        Instead, encourage your visitors to engage with you on social media, which is kind of what you want anyway, from what I understand?
        
        ----------------------
        Add your face
        ----------------------
        At the bottom of each post there's just a blank image next to your name. A profile pic would do wonders here, I think. :) Maybe even with a short description of who you are (and hence why people should listen to you).
        
        ----------------------
        Refresh caches for social sharing previews
        ----------------------
        Speaking of that post... I was going to quickly check it in Facebook's sharing debugger and noticed it was cached since September, when it was still missing Open Graph tags apparently. A refresh ("scrape again") solved that.
        
        You can use Facebook's batch invalidator to force a cache refresh for a bunch of URLs at once if you want to make it easier: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/batch/
        
        Maybe put in your blog posts there and make sure they're not showing old data when people share on Facebook.
        
        Sadly, Twitter and LinkedIn don't have batch tools like this, only their standard sharing debugging tools for one page at a time, but it's better than nothing. (Twitter's is so bad, but it's the only one we have, so...)
        
        You may also want to start handcrafting your Open Graph descriptions. They seem to be auto-generated now. Which leads me to...
        
        ----------------------
        Add meta descriptions (and great page titles)
        ----------------------
        Title tags and meta descriptions are your way of controlling how Google presents your search results. I'm sure you know this, but here's an oversight: You currently don't have meta descriptions in the HTML code for your pages, which means Google will auto-generate them for you (usually not great).
        
        Maybe it's just something you missed or haven't gotten to yet? They're pretty vital for SEO success so in case you're not deep in the weeds of on-page SEO, here are some best practices courtesy of Moz:
        https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag
        https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description
        
        Bonus: You can usually reuse these for Open Graph, although the target audience will be slightly different. At least the meta descriptions can often be the same.
        
        ----------------------
        I'm out of time!
        ----------------------
        There's quite a bit more you could do, I think, especially from a technical SEO perspective. I've barely scratched the surface here. I just don't have time to dig into the nitty-gritty stuff right now and do a deeper analysis.
        
        I know some of this advice is only tangentially related to what you asked, but I also think that for your content marketing and SEO efforts to be successful it pays off in spades to look over your site. (I'm in the process of remaking my own site as we speak, haha.)
        
        Hopefully this was helpful. Have a great day over there, Ezra!
        
        ptrei
        
        ·
        7 years ago
        ·
        
        1
        
        Wow, I can't thank you enough for the feedback. I'm currently on thanksgiving break but when I am back in office next week, this will get my full attention. Have a great weekend!
        
        Ezra Sandzer-Bell
        
        ·
        7 years ago
        ·
        
        1
        
        No worries. You too! :)
        
        ptrei
        
        ·
        7 years ago
        ·
        
        1
        
        Ptrei, just took detailed notes and sharing with our developer. It seems like a lot of this would be solved with a better blog template, so I'm researching envato to see if they will be compatible with our main website. Many thanks for your feedback, I'll keep you in mind for paid work in the future!
        
        Ezra Sandzer-Bell
        
        ·
        7 years ago
        ·
        
        1
        
        No worries. Appreciate it. :)
        
        Sounds like a good strategy, btw. A good blog template should definitely take you part of the way there. Might well be the easiest way to approach this, as a first step. Good luck, @Ebell!
        
        ptrei
        
        ·
        7 years ago
        ·