Paul Carl Digital

05/21/2021

Take Google’s SEO link building guidelines with a grain of salt.

So many successful companies break these guidelines and have had long term success.

For example, “Powered by” links like from WordPress, Shopify, Intercom, Crisp, etc. etc. are things Google says to avoid.

You’re not supposed to buy automated links or link building services yet companies like Moz and Yext have been selling these services for years.

One last example, you’re not supposed to offer goods or services in exchange for links yet there are tons of major sites like Unsplash and Pexels that give away from stock photos in exchange for a link back to credit the service.

05/17/2021

The best color to use for buttons on your website is a complimentary color to the main color of your website.

You want your buttons (your calls to action) to be clicked. Before they can be clicked, they must be noticed. The factor that makes things most noticeable (visually) is contrast. Therefore you should use a complimentary color for your buttons to maximize contrast.

Take my website for example. In the gallery, there’s a fake screenshot with blue buttons (matching the rest of the site’s blues) and the real screenshot with the orange buttons. You can experience the impact of the contrasting colors there.

The full article with links to free tools to help you is in my bio.

05/16/2021

Most SEOs gauge the competitiveness of ranking for a keyword based on the Google Keyword Planner data that shows competitiveness for bids on the target keyword. This usually works good enough, but there is a much better way to find the low hanging fruit. It's called the Golden Keyword Ratio.

Using Google's "allintitle" search operator, you can see exactly how many pages are optimized around your keyword and calculate your own metric for competition by monthly search results. Full details in my newest article, visit my website in the bio link.

05/07/2020

Based on Google Trends (a measurement of the popularity/frequency of a search), nobody is searching Google for information about the Corona Virus anymore. The peak of corona virus searching was about a month ago and the queries have dropped back down to the baseline.


Seriously.. someone teach me how to Instagram :P

10/04/2019

Now THIS is how you up sell during your checkout process.

The image of the truck triggers the user's imagination and inspires thoughts about everything that could go wrong. Showing the prices for repairs creates high anchor points for price comparison. Having the insurance price in a smaller font than the large, bold repair prices is another subtle psychological trick to make the $42 seem even cheaper.

Naming the insurance "Safemove" also creates the subtle sense that opting out is taking a large risk (especially with copy like "immediately reimburse" and "up to $45,000" making the risk seem bigger). They make "Safemove" the default selection too so instead of selling you on selecting it, they're persuading you NOT to decline it.

I recognized exactly what they were doing and I still purchased it. Such a great example of a well designed up sell.

Any other psychological or CRO tricks that I missed?

09/20/2019

One tactic I always use when writing ads and creating competitive advantages is to read reviews in the industry. This tactic helps me know what customers love and hate about the industry. It also lets me write the way they speak.

09/19/2019

Competitive advantages answer the questions “why should I do business with you?” and “what are you offering that the other guy doesn’t?” Your competitive advantages should be communicated using plain English and quantifiable, objective claims. To learn more about creating and promoting your competitive advantages, check out my notes here: https://www.paulcarl.com/what-are-your-competitive-advantages-68-specific-marketing-tips-from-jaynie/

09/18/2019

From the book, Confessions of an Advertising Man.

09/18/2019

Thanks for the plug!

Get some ideas on how to sell and market your catering services better from a marketer who is currently shopping for a caterer. Here are my catering marketing ideas and more!

09/18/2019

I started an SEO case study series to give a behind the scenes look into how I create content and optimize it. Here's the first video of the series.

In this video I take some notes I wrote down as an idea for a blog post and do keyword research, write a blog post, post it to my Ghost CMS website, and do s...

04/06/2017

https://youtu.be/gNq1EKzdim8

10/13/2015

Make your mom proud and your clients happy; write thank you notes!

Stop Browsing for 30 Minutes & Write Some Thank You Notes! by Paul Gallipeau | Oct 13, 2015 | Marketing, Self Improvement | 0 comments Make Your Mom Proud, Write Thank You Notes! And if you don’t actually care about your clients, well… You guys wanna know the “secret” to my business success? Write t…