Entrepreneurs and professionals like you use Colorpeak's services to complete their online marketing game and expand their businesses. With modern web design, advertising and viral marketing, your story will carry on like never before.
It's a fact that visual content helps with engaging potential customers on social media, but did you also know that brands that use videos and other visual content can help with conversions? Whether you're just trying to get people to sign up for your newsletter, take a survey, or make a purchase, you're probably looking for sure-fire ways to build your conversion rate. Better visual content can do just that; here's how.
How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions
First of all, your conversion rate isn't necessarily how many of your site visitors end up buying something. If you're trying to get people to your website, you could have any number of goals, like trying to convert a visitor into a lead (i.e. get them to request a free quote). Conversion rates are heavily tied to the effectiveness of your marketing; effective marketing can help convince a person that they need what you're selling.
Visual content can do that in a way that words often can't. Humans process visual images much faster than a block of words, so even though good copy is critical, you can get a lot more customers through visuals (which is one of the reasons you should spend some time creating a great logo with a free tool like Logo Creator). Couple that with more and more people spending more and more time watching videos online, and you can't afford not to create engaging content.
Convincing you to boost your conversion rate by incorporating visuals into your marketing is easy enough, but that leaves the question of how? Here are five quick tips on creating engaging visual content for online marketing.
5 Top Tips on How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions
1. Choose a consistent colour palette - Your visuals should align with the colour you choose for your logo, to create a consistent message for customers. Pay attention to the colours you choose, because colours elicit different emotions for people.
2. Practice with design apps - You're probably not an expert on visual design, but luckily, there are free apps out there to help you. The only way you'll get better at using them is to practice and work with them on a regular basis. You also should have a basic idea of visual design, like the Rule of Thirds.
3. Stay on your brand message - Hopefully, your business is adopting a specific voice and tone, particularly in your marketing. You might adopt a more humorous voice or a serious, scholarly voice. The actual voice doesn't matter, but your visuals should capture that voice. You should also pay attention to keeping a consistent message to help your customers trust you.
4. Engage your customers - Creating engaging content that people want to interact with online can help build conversions for you as well. Humour is almost always a win, but it's also important to stay on the message (see number 3). You can achieve this by being creative, incorporating animations, using stunning imagery; anything to get people to share your content and spread your message.
5. Use videos - You've probably heard the statistics on videos on social media, but they keep getting more popular every year, and there's no reason to think that trend won't continue. A helpful video to help explain your product can help convince a potential customer that they want it, which will drive them to your site and turn them into a conversion. If they don't understand what you're selling, why would they buy it?
Conclusion
Putting together better visual content is easier said than done, but it's not impossible, and it can really pay dividends in converting clicks into action. Great visuals should be a cornerstone of your marketing strategy.
This review of Frase was originally posted on AppSumo, and since it made it to the top 3 of the most helpful reviews, I thought it’s worth sharing here as well. Especially since it became our main copywriting tool since then.
From an SEO Agency perspective, this is truly a no-brainer. Learning about many different workflows and content optimisation techniques over the years and using several “mainstream” content-creation tools we’ve realised that – regardless of anyone’s approach – you will arrive at the same point as everyone else – content briefs, planning and research.
Frase attempts to tackle all three of them. And they’re doing an amazing job at it.
Frase interface
Frase Pros
Clean interface and no-fluff
Super intuitive and clear FAQ/Tutorials (as they should, given what the tool is for… )
I can’t see any apparent bugs and the tool looks robust – all the features I tried worked immediately
Within the first minutes of use, I already know that I will be saving 80-90% of my time on the research, planning and briefs
“Paste Brief” options – wow, just wow!
Frase Cons
I am missing Google Ads scraping. You got everything you need to add “Ads Writing Assistant” feature – I hope the developers will consider it…
Same as a current one-click option “Paste Brief”, the tool should have “Paste Content” with an adjustable keyword count, where H2-H4 headers (including Questions) are all added automatically from the brief. It would be a perfect one-click article generator ready for rewriting or spin.
Tools/workflow we’re using currently and where I see Frase replacing them:
Google (obviously…) – Frase will replace manual searches and scrapes;
Grammarly Pro – works with Frase;
CognitiveSEO – I don’t think Frase can replace that yet (CSEO is on another level);
PageOptimizerPro – same as Cognitive, not going anywhere;
Ahrefs Keyword Research – I’ll probably still use it, but Frase does a good job in providing the most relevant keywords/questions;
Keywords Everywhere/Answer the Public (for “related searches”/questions) – Frase replaces that;
Ahrefs Content Explorer (and SocialAnimal) – maybe not as good as Ahrefs but for content writing, Frase is excellent;
AutomaticScript.com – I’ll keep using it for Ads and newsletter content, I guess…
and
SEO Content Machine NEXT: SCM’s “Article Writer” comes closest to Frase but you don’t get a brief, and the scrapes are just too overwhelming in my opinion – even with filtering, provided snippets require a lot of manual sifting through. SCMN is amazing for other SEO-things, and it’s a subscription with a desktop-only application (no cloud, no extra “seats”).
Use case:
Last Monday I was assembling content for a solar panel company and using all tools above it took me a total of 12 hours to put together a medium-size company website with additional services, silo structure and MVP-keyword research.
For fun, I’ve plugged “solar panels” to Frase’s “OpenWeb” – and right away, I can see that I could gather almost everything I need in 2-3 hours tops. That is 9-10 hours of free time I’d be getting using Frase.
If you’re doing SEO and don’t see a value in this tool – you’re either using a better alternative tool or… you’re doing something wrong – in which case I recommend you trying Frase – it might be a game-changer for you. It is for us.
Spott is very similar to Vistag that we reviewed by in 2018, which has been shut down. Spott is already ahead offering video tagging (as opposed to Vistag, that only allowed to tag photos) and shows a lot of promise in future roadmap development.
I originally posted this review of Spott on AppSumo, and if you're interested in purchasing Spott, I would encourage you to read more reviews there after you finish our take on it.
What is Spott?
Spott is a unique tool that can change your entire e-commerce, sales landing page as well as your social media marketing strategy - to name just a few. Picture tagging and tooltips are underutilised in digital marketing, and the available tools (WP plugins) are either buggy or limited. That is why Spott stands out even harder, as there is nothing quite like it that I know of.
Spott in action
Spott Pros
video tagging - wow, that opens a lot of possibilities in gamification and making your videos and ads actually producing a sale,
the tags are responsive and consistent across the board - this is a massive issue for the majority of the other "tagging" tools I've tried in the past,
tags are very flexible and allow for plenty of different info to be input in the popups or tooltips - different types of URLs and additional CSS in styles help in nailing the design - again that amount of (somewhat common-sense) flexibility has never been the case with Vistag or other similar tools I've tried,
"Asset Feed" - looks to be an extremely interesting feature I will have to dig into - for now, extra tacos for attempting to automate some of the copy-paste tasks - such an approach always strikes confidence in the founders' vision for the SaaS,
intuitive interface and enough documentation to get you up to speed in less than an hour,
reporting will help in gauging the engagement and updating clients.
Spott Cons
I don't see any workarounds for the lost SEO due to hosting pictures on Spott servers... Alt tags, picture title and description - would be nice to see input fields for those in your embed code at least,
more trigger options: currently only static or hover, but it would be nice to have an option for a timed trigger, e.g. "wait for 10s and open a popup", or on exit intent, etc..
The future of Spott
I was waiting for something like it since Vistag literally pulled DOA on all of us in the SEO industry. This time the team behind the tool is set on the development and looks much more established. Contrary to what I see in some of the startup SaaS that never invested in SEO, Spott Team brand is ranking very nice and is targeting keywords that point to their long-term commitment and outside-of-LTD growth.
There is one more thing that needs to be said here - our graphic designer will have to change her processes. And our agency will have to incorporate Spott to our entire design/video/CRO strategy moving forward. And this is a lot of work and changing things around.
So, if you have an established way of making images, videos and ad-clips using some tools, your process will need to encompass Spott somehow - an extra step to do for your designer, so be mindful of that.
At Colorpeak, we understand the importance of identifying new and upcoming trends in our area of expertise, web design, which s why we review them every year. Heading into a very different 2021, we’ve decided to compile our list of the future trends you should be aware of to continue to innovate and expand your marketplace through your website.
2021 Website Design Trends by Colorpeak
Rather than focus on the comeback of Dark mode in website design, we’ll be looking at the more practical aspects for 2021 website design trends, based on the knowledge your website should be first and foremost, an effective lead generation tool. The visual aspect, whilst important for branding and recognition, is far more effective when driven by data and content creation based in UX design.
So why not check out our list of 2021 website design trends based on the newest design ideas and some of Colorpeak’s extensive experience-driven insights:
2021 Website Design Trends by Colorpeak
Effective, responsive design needs to be mobile-first oriented
Smartphones are designed to grab peoples attention, and your website should have the same approach to make it a successful lead generation tool. Both your existing and potential customers now expect to access information, products and services through their mobile as the first point of contact. If your website isn’t designed for this type of access, you’re missing out on potential business and invaluable data insights. Delivering your information to the market on a smartphone means the navigation should keep the customer engaged, images and text will need to be adjusted to fit this format, so the user doesn’t get lost in unnecessary information. The average human concentration span is now just 8 seconds compared to 12 seconds in the year 2000. It’s vital your website delivers your message clearly and concisely, to maximise the 8 seconds of engagement you have available to you.
Data driven content for 2021 website design trends
Data-driven content
Accessing your customer information is key to building a successful content-driven strategy and is at the forefront of 2021 website design trends. Neil Patel (SEO Professional) defines this data as:
“Factual information generated from experiments, surveys, or testing that is used as a basis for forming conclusions.”
This information builds customer profiles and establishes a digital relationship built on their personal preferences and interests. By making your website a place to come for industry expertise or guidance, through things like ebooks and how-to guides, your business becomes more than just its products or services. It can start to define you as an industry leader and reputable resource, building brand recognition and ensuring returning website traffic.
Especially after the recent pandemic, video content and interaction have become a mainstay of communication and engagement. Your website should recognise and deliver insightful and thoughtful video communication and content to capture valuable data and build customer relationships.
Simple navigation with calls to action
At Colorpeak, we understand there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. A simple, effective menu with contact or cart details should be available to click at any time. The buying process should be as straight forward as possible. If it appears to be too complicated, you’re likely to lose that business.
Navigation directly affects the interactions your website creates and delivers, organising your information into the most effective workflow process can maximise the potential of your website.
Each website will have its own set of objectives, and at Colorpeak we’re best placed to inform your design process and to deliver your unique data and communication objectives. Although this seems like this should be standard practice, many website designs miss this critical element, which is why it’s made our list of 2021 website design trends.
Mobile design oriented navigation
Next level Lead generation solutions (chatbots and AI)
Chatbots have come along way since their initial inception and can be a brilliant tool for gathering information and answering general queries. Their advancement has come from machine learning and the ability to ask questions in a more ‘human-like’ manner. Also, consumers have become more used to seeing and interacting with chatbots. If the information is delivered in the right way, more and more people will continue to utilise this type of feature. AI is moving forward and even has the ability to create advanced algorithms based on an initial set of code. More and more technology is removing the need for humans to carry out more mundane tasks such as gathering basic information. This may be a 2021 website design trend but it’s also a trend which is set to grow exponentially over the coming decades. At Colorpeak, we work with you to make sure your website has the most up to date features and capabilities. We have a proven record of our AI bot generating 6% leads within industry averaging around 1.7%. Get in touch if you want to find out how our AI technology can help your business grow.
E-commerce solutions do decrease cart abandon rate
Our insights drive many of our approaches to website design. One of our key findings is the ease of purchasing a product or service is crucial. We make sure that ‘add to basket’ buttons are accessible from every page. This saves time searching for a specific page of an item to make the purchase, you can add it to the cart from any category page which displays multiple items. This delivers a seamless and frictionless shopping experience, which decreases the chance of cart abandonment due to customer frustration. According to a recent survey, the rate of cart abandonment of online shoppers stands at 75% across all industries. This is truly an astounding statistic. E-commerce solutions should be factored into your website design to ensure your business isn’t one of the ones needlessly losing sales and customers.
2021 web design trends
Multi-language solutions
We’re increasingly operating within a global marketplace, so you need to capture and inform your customers no matter where in the world they might live. Translators can be an effective tool to reach someone in their language and increase your market share. The more languages you speak, the more people you reach, and your website is the best platform to generate leads and interest across the globe. As one of 2021 website design trends communication with the wider marketplace is an easy and straightforward way to ensure your reach goes further than you ever expected.
2021 Website Design Trends Conclusion
At Colorpeak, we work with you to deliver the most effective website for your organisation’s needs. We continue to be leaders in our field as we ensure we adapt, change and utilise technology that’s delivering new and exciting insights, information and most importantly, the growth of your business.
Building an engaged social media audience is one of the most rewarding marketing tasks that your business can achieve. It’s through these channels that you build a rapport with your customers and establish trust so that when you are ready to ask for a sale, they’re ready to provide.
Here are some helpful tips to guide the process of creating engaging social media content.
Tell a Story
Social media is about storytelling, using both visual components and words. To do so effectively, you need to consider what story you’re trying to tell people about your business.
When you create a video or graphic, consider how it ties into your brand. What thoughts and emotions do you hope to invoke when you hit post? How do you want your customers to feel and respond when they see a photo?
Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. When you write captions, start with a hook. You have one sentence to get your follower to stop scrolling and keep reading. Consider your goals for this story: are you trying to make an emotional connection or share valuable information?
Every post you create should be intentional. Focus on quality over quantity to boost your engagement.
Engaging social media
Create a Consistent Aesthetic
Creating a consistent aesthetic goes hand-in-hand with good social media content strategy creation. Your aesthetic is what creates consistency across the various social media channels while increasing brand recognition.
Your colours and tone will play a significant role when developing a brand aesthetic. For example, if your business strives to be perceived as fun, bright, and lively, your colours, photo editing, and graphics should emulate that goal. Conversely, if you’re more serious and moody, having darker images and richer colours makes sense.
Planning is key when creating a consistent aesthetic across social media channels.
Highlight Other Users
User-generated content (UGC) is when brands encourage customers to share content featuring their purchases using account tagging and hashtags. In return, the user gets featured on the brand’s page. This is a fantastic opportunity for brands to curate content without having to create it from scratch.
Sharing UGC also creates social proof, showing the audience that other people are happy with your business, thus boosting engagement.
Asking questions shifts the focus from your business to an individual on the other side of the screen. This focus encourages them to interact and share the spotlight. It generates a feeling of recognition and value. As a result, your engagement increases.
Get creative when asking questions to see what works and what doesn’t. Mix it up with topical questions, inquiries that are relevant to your core offering, and conversation starters.
Break Up Text
One of the easiest things you can do to start improving social media engagement today is to break up blocks of text. If necessary, use a line-breaking app to prevent everything from posting in one overwhelming word jumble.
You can also use emojis to intersperse visual stimulation within long-form social media content.
Cater to Your Audience
Remember that creating social media content isn’t about what you want to share; it’s about what your audience wants to see and hear. Catering to your audience will ensure that you’re providing value rather than being scrolled past every time you post an update.
Take time to analyse your insights and determine which posts perform best and why. Then, shift your efforts to incorporate similar content. If you want to continuously engage your audience, you must always be open to adapting.
Use this guide to start creating engaging social media content that gets your audience talking and your customers buying.
Somedays, freelancing can be a struggle between trying to find new clients and getting actual work done. Using the right platforms and a standardized approach to pitching can help streamline those efforts.
If you're a freelancer with goals of expanding your business in 2020, here are some expert tips and fantastic platforms to guide the process.
Important Considerations for Freelancers
Before you start scaling your business, there are a few key areas of your business to tend to. First, plan to have your banking streamlined for your business needs. Processing payments through Amaiz and taking advantage of the freelance-oriented set-up is one option for getting your financial ducks in a row.
Another consideration is your approach to pitching potential clients. Ensuring you have consistent profiles crafted and your best work highlighted is a must.
Create a standard pitch template and tracking sheet to record:
who you pitched,
when you reached out,
what platform you used, and
when you should follow up.
With those core business issues in mind, here are the five best freelance platforms for growing your business in 2020.
5 best freelance platforms for growing your business in 2020
CloudPeeps
CloudPeeps launched in 2015, as a response to the shift toward more remote work and freelance opportunities. The goal of CloudPeeps is to connect determined, goal-oriented freelancers with reputable businesses to form a productive working community.
CloudPeeps offers a variety of freelance opportunities, ranging from content writing and social media management to SEO and keyword research. This broad approach allows businesses to put together a team of freelancers in one centralized platform.
CloudPeeps offers a tiered subscription plus commission membership option. The free version takes a 15% commission while the top-end option costs $29 per month and takes a 5% commission.
Toptal
Toptal is the cream of the crop when it comes to freelancing platforms. If you manage to secure a spot on Toptal, you'll open your business to exciting and profitable new opportunities. The platform pairs freelancers with big corporations and world-renowned startups, like Airbnb and Shopify.
To become a freelancer on Toptal, you'll need to go through a rigorous screening process. The platform is currently open to developers, project managers, and financial freelancers. The screening process includes everything from skills tests to interviews. If you think you've got what it takes, it's well worth applying as you can earn thousands of dollars a week on certain projects.
Aquent
A common challenge freelancers face when using a platform for finding clients, is tagging relevant experience. The incorrect use of tags can result in mismatches or missed opportunities. Aquent aims to solve that problem using an organic AI-driven approach that takes a deep dive into your portfolio and does the tagging for you.
Aquent is for freelancers in the marketing and creative sectors and allows members to set their rates and negotiate accordingly. If you're unsure how to charge a competitive rate, they provide a guide to help you ensure you're getting what you're worth.
PubLoft
PubLoft is a platform that focuses specifically on content marketing and freelancers who work within the B2B market. This robust platform helps you find clients, and it also helps you manage client relations in one centralized location. Additionally, PubLoft offers financial snapshots that can help you plan ahead.
PubLoft handles invoicing and payments, paying freelancers biweekly. In return, freelancers pay a monthly subscription price.
SolidGigs
SolidGigs takes a multifaceted approach to support freelance business growth. Their weekly roundup sends the best new freelance jobs of the week directly to your inbox for review. On the other side of things, SolidGigs offers a rotating collection of courses and templates to help you build your business. These tools cover everything from setting your rates to spreadsheet templates for tracking your progress.
In this post, I’m going to explain how you can add some custom text below your items in any Collection Page specifically in Flex Theme by Out of the Sandbox. I will start with some explanation behind the idea, and I will talk you through simple principles to copy and amend existing collection Shopify template. Having said that, if you’re here looking for a step-by-step guide, simply jump to the end of this post.
Why should you include any text below Collection page?
As all SEO experts know, good content syndication is a key to promote your website on Google. This principle seems to be even more critical now after recent Google core algorithm update rolled out on May 4th, 2020 that caused quite a stir. Shopify has a high number of adjustments that allow you to optimise your content for better ranking results. And some themes like Flex enable you to design your store in no time with some additional customisations. However, there are still a few options that are essential to optimise your content that Flex is missing and one of them is the ability to add custom text underneath your items Collection.
There is, of course, an option to include all your SEO tailored content with H2, H3 etc. elements in a standard page description, but you will end up with a massive block of text at the top of the page. This is not very UX friendly as your visitor is on your page most likely to view your products and not necessarily read a 1000 words description of the Collection. This is why the idea is to keep the top description short and sweet and move all the content that Google bots are after, below the collection items feed.
Using a custom Theme template for Collection
Initially, I thought to hire somebody to code this option into Flex theme so it can be easily accessible from the Collections customisation page. After further thought, I realised that this custom code would somehow amend the collections input space (where you usually adjust your title, description and meta description). And then a custom code would have to be created to pull that information from the page and display it below items Collection feed. Although this is a more elegant solution, I have decided that since I only have several collection pages to update, a more straightforward solution can be put in place. And that’s where the idea to use Shopify theme templates came from.
Collection template structure
Every Collection in Flex Theme is put together from the following sections that you can adjust for your needs:
HOW TO ADD TEXT BELOW COLLECTION FEED IN SHOPIFY FLEX THEME?
The general idea is to use the main Collection template (collection.liquid) and duplicate it for every custom Collection in which we want to include the custom text. We will then insert a code that includes the custom text below Sidebar section. You can use basic HTML elements like H1-H6, paragraph, bold text for example, but if you want to include unsorted list you will have to create custom CSS styling as well. You can do that by creating custom.scss style sheet in the Assets folder or amending styles.scss.liquid file (remember though to back up it first before you make permanent changes). Once the custom collection template is created, you can simply go to your Product > Collections page and change the Theme template to your custom template. You then repeat that action for every Collection in which you want to include the custom text below collection feed.
HOW TO ADD ACCORDION BELOW COLLECTION FEED?
If your content is long adding text with simple styling might not be enough. In such a case, hiding paragraphs in toggles is a perfect solution. Fortunately, somebody smarter than me already came up with the ideas, so let me simply send you to this article by Leighton Taylor ‘How to add an FAQ accordion to your Shopify store‘. The tutorial includes a super easy 5 step guide, including a quick video and a demo of the solution that you will be implementing on your site. All you need to do is tweak CSS a bit for your needs and voila. And before you ask, the image was added with basic img tag.
By combining the three solutions with adding text, image and toggle below Shopify Collection feed in Flex Theme, here’s what I was able to achieve in one of our client’s stores.
Custom text in toggle with an image below
Step-by-step guide on how to add unique text below every Collection Page in Shopify Flex theme:
1. Log in to your shop and navigate to ‘Online Store’ in ‘SALES CHANNELS’ section listed on the right-hand side of the screen;
2. Hover over ‘Actions’ button (located in ‘LIVE THEME’ section) and select ‘Edit Code’ from the drop-down menu;
3. Locate ‘Templates’ folder click blue command ‘Add new template’. In the pop-up window, select ‘collection’ after ‘Create a new template for’ and give it a name (stick to short names or if you need to use more than one word use dash instead of space bar). In our example we’ve chosen the name ‘coffee-tables’; then click ‘Create template’ button;
Creating custom collection
4. Go to your newly created Collection tab and scroll down to the bottom and locate last two lines of code
</section> </div>
5. Copy and paste the following ‘Custom code’ and paste it just before those two lines and after ‘Collection sidebar’ section (in example below the code is pasted on line 58); then Save
6. From right-hand side panel go to ‘Products’ > ‘Collections’ and look up your custom collection
7. Once the collection is loaded, change ‘Collection template’ in ‘THEME TEMPLATES’ section in the bottom right corner from default ‘collection’ to ‘collection-your-collection-name’ (in case of this example ‘collection.coffee-tables); then Save
Changing Collection theme template
8. When you view your Collection page, you should now see ‘Your custom text’ below images.
Custom text placement below collection feed
I hope this tutorial gave you a better understanding on how to create custom collections. If you have any questions on how to add text below collection page in Shopify Flex Theme, just drop me an email and I will do my best to help you out.
TODAY I AM REVIEWING DIVI PIXEL PLUGIN FROM OCTOLAB OÜ. THIS IS NOT AN AFFILIATE REVIEW; HOWEVER, I HAVE BEEN GRANTED ACCESS TO THE EARLY VERSION OF THE PLUGIN FOR FREE FOR THE REVIEW PURPOSES. OK, SO WITHOUT ANY FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE MY THOUGHTS UPON TAKING DIVI PIXEL FOR A SPIN.
Divi Pixel Plugin for Divi Wordpress Theme
Divi Pixel is one of those tools compatible with Divi Builder by Elegant Themes that makes your life easier when it comes to customising basic settings. In an ideal world, Divi should have implemented them a long time ago. Furthermore, Divi Pixel offers some advanced styling solutions that can only be achieved with custom CSS. I also think this plugin will save you some money since there is no need to purchase separate plugins to improve or speed up your design process. It combines many great solutions that are available as different plugins in one. The most important thing, however, is that if you do not need some of the options that Divi Pixel offers, then you can disable them and no additional scripts will load on your w website to slow it down.
User Experience with Divi Pixel
Upon Divi Pixel plugin installation, you will be able to access all its features through the left-hand side panel (Dashboard > Divi > Divi Pixel). Right of the bat, I can see that the developers knew exactly what UX is. That is how to design with user experience in mind. I would be surprised if anyone ever had to skim through the documentation file as the set up of the plugin is pretty much self-explanatory. The design is great for the eye but most importantly, very clean and straightforward. You can jump onto customisations right away.
Divi Pixel Options
When you open Divi Pixel panel, you will see that the plugin has seven main features or control settings if you like:
General
Blog
Social Media
Mobile
Modules
Layout Injector
Settings
Divi Pixel plugin Settings Panel
General Settings in Divi Pixel
General settings take care of some basic items that allow you to make your website ‘yours’ or in other words, apply some branding in a sense. It also has some options that I am only guessing did not fit into any other category. However, they remain handy none the less.
In terms of mentioned ‘personalisation’, you can adjust the login page, add a page preloader, custom browser scrollbar, change logo on scroll and zoom on it as well as customise back to top button. If you use Google API for maps instead of embedding them, you will appreciate an option to add Custom Map Marker. There are several options to customise your footer and one that allows you to upload SVG files which are blocked by WordPress by default.
Blog adjustments
The Blog adjustments in Divi Pixel are a bit of a hit and miss for me. The reason being some of the options are already available in Divi Theme builder. For example, removal of sidebar or adjustment of Archive pages. But where the Divi Pixel Blog adjustments stand out is the Customisation of comments section that currently requires custom CSS, so it makes for a great addition. It gives you some additional customisations for Archive pages as well so if you want your blog related pages to look a bit fancier than the standard, this functionality will help.
Example of Blog adjustments in Divi Pixel Plugin
Social Media
Social Media section will come in handy for those of you who are not graphic pros, and you would like to customise social media icons. Divi Pixel gives you more options when it comes to where you can display social media icons – be it the header, footer or mobile menu. It also gives you control over individual icons, so that you can choose the display location for them separately.
Mobile Settings
Divi Pixel Mobile adjustments allow you to modify some essential mobile view settings, including making it full screen (make sure to Enable Custom Mobile menu Style first, so you don’t miss it ;). Yes, some options are available in Theme Builder already, like fixed position and swapping logo in mobile view. But the plugin gives you an opportunity to change breakpoint for mobile menu, collapse submenus on mobile and animate hamburger menu icon among others. Mobile menu settings are one of the best features of Divi Pixel plugin.
Example of Full screen mobile menu in Divi Pixel Plugin
Modules
Where Divi Pixel stands out is the Modules section which adds 17 custom modules to the Divi Builder. You can, of course, review all of them directly on their website, so let me just mention my picks: before and after effect, tilt image, typing effect, masonry gallery, and my absolute favourite image hot spot and floating images.
IMAGE HOT SPOT BY DIVI PIXEL
Divi Pixel is not the first plugin to have this feature, but I have yet to see one that does it so well. We once reviewed Vistag tool that allows you to tag any element on an image and display more info upon hovering over selected points, but the company closed in February 2020. So, I was pleased to see that the idea was implemented by somebody else. I would say the room for improvement is in expanding options for tablet and mobile view, but with the right mindset, you can make it work. And I hear further enhancements are in the development stage.
Divi Pixel Image Hotspot Module
FLOATING IMAGES
Yet another feature that will make your website stand out among others. Floating images allows for a subtle animation of your images. In fact, the subtle animations trend started back in 2019, and it continues to be quite popular in 2020. A great feature to present your team photos, locations on a map or product highlights.
Layout Injector
Divi Pixel allows you to inject any saved section in Divi Library where by default it was not possible. For example, before or after the navigation section, footer or on specific pages only. There are also several options for blog pages.
Settings
If you decide to return to default settings on your website, you can reset them in plugin Settings. Do not worry if you ever want to retrieve them, as Divi Pixel plugin allows you to import and export said settings. And if you would like to remain up to date with future developments, you can enable Beta Updates although you probably don’t want to use that option on your client websites.
I have not listed all the options that Divi Pixel provides as I wanted to focus on those functionalities that I find most useful. So if you would like to learn what is the full scope of Divi Pixel Plugin, please head over to their Documentation page.
Divi Pixel Review Summary
Upon using Divi Pixel I can state with confidence; this is a very handy plugin that will save you a lot of time when developing a website. It provides certain basic solutions which Divi should already have, in my opinion. If you often find yourself injecting the same template codes to disable footers, adjust menu breakpoints or blog layouts in your websites, Divi Pixel will save you a lot of time.
In addition, Divi Pixel offers 17 design solutions that will take your website to the next level and help you build a unique design that does not look like thousands of other Divi websites.
Before wrapping up, I think it would be a great addition if the developers included some templates to go along with this plugin, which would further speed up the design process. Time-saving and unique design options are my biggest takeaways from using Divi Pixel, and I would recommend it to those who are looking to speed up and improve their website design process.
CognitiveSEO provided me with access to their SEO tools, and I thought I'll do something productive and review the entire tool collection. I like to look at the SEO tools from a purely pragmatic angle or with the entrepreneurial mindset: "Get me the SEO data fast - the less friction, the better. And have some of it quickly copy-pasted/shown to my clients such that they understand it without me explaining too much."
Use CognitiveSEO all-in-one SEO software suite to rank your business on top of SERP with Keyword Explorer, Content Optimizer, Site Explorer, Site Audit and other SEO Tools (TL;DR)
After running my SEO errands through entire CognitiveSEO Tools Suite, I've concluded that founders successfully built a highly specialised all-in-one SEO toolkit, especially for technical SEO and link building, organic ranking and affiliate marketing.
Practical SEO uses you're getting with CognitiveSEO Tools:
detailed website analysis that can work for an SEO expert but also stand as a beginners guide to technical SEO (it can replace Screaming Frog SEO for most important SEO analysis)
Keywords Rank monitoring lets you see the direction your SEO strategy is heading toward - all accessed with nifty data slicers for a super-fast ranking assessment and SEO analysis
inBound Link Analysis follows the suite and presents all the data you may want to analyse your/competitors backlink profile and their relationship with your domain (note: the link explorer is surprisingly accurate - more on that below)
(my personal favourite) Content Optimizer & Keyword Tool will make your content rank your pages and keywords better with half (or none!) of the backlinks that you'd normally need - super easy to use and built for 100% practicality in mind
BONUS: they also have a reporting tool that alerts you on Google Search volatility, algorithm update changes and potential ranking alterations. In essence, it's great not only to make you aware of the "search algorithm updates", but you can also use it to inform your online marketing endeavours. And let your clients see that you have your finger on the pulse (by the way, that feature should be added to Google Webmaster Tools or Google Search Console by default).
CognitiveSEO Tool can help you monitor the Google Algorithm updates and its impact on the Search Ranking and SEO
SEO Campaigns
In-depth metrics for advanced SEO and search engine optimizing
After the initial step-by-step campaign set up - I must say, it's very quick and to the point - the SEO Campaigns Dashboard welcomes you with "Quick Overview" modules similar to what you'd seen in other SEO Tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs and others. You got a standard set of:
Crawled Pages
Referring Domains
On-Page SEO errors
Traffic/Sessions
Data about Keywords and SEO Visibility
And scrolling below you'll see a selected data from your Google Search Console and Google Analytics (providing you've plugged them in during the initial campaign set up).
Dashboard overview of all CognitiveSEO SEO Tools
So how can I use the data, and what is the point of those SEO metrics?
I would mainly use it for the client meeting and to support the overall direction of my... well, SEO campaigns. The Dashboard could also easily replace separate premium data analysis tools like Reportz.io. Having everything in one place is convenient and greatly reduces the time you would spend on putting the entire SEO campaign together for yourself or your customers. CognitiveSEO even lets you add widgets or change the placement of the modules and shown data. For me, however, the default dashboard is spot on as I lean towards a quick general overview of the stats that it gives me right away. The Dashboard's reporting aspect is then further expanded under Reports & Schedules tab where you can plan and build branded PDF documents that get automatically delivered to your clients' inboxes (note, the full Whitelabel Reporting feature is only enabled with the Business Plan).
Site Audit
You can use the On-Page SEO Auditing Tool as a beginners guide to technical SEO
During the SEO Campaign set up, CognitiveSEO recommends to also sent an SEO spider to analyse a targeted domain thoroughly. So upon the first launch of the campaign, the spiders went and shortly after returned with expected large-number of in-depth data that they grabbed from my website. For any project I'm working with, I prefer to build websites correctly right from the beginning, and for any out-of-the-ordinary project, I use Screaming Frog SEO, which means that I use my on-page auditing tool sparsely.
Use CognitiveSEO Site Audit and start your Google Search Rank domination
However, I was pleasantly surprised by CognitiveSEO's website analysis and the way it sorted out and displayed the data. They're doing that in a very concise and task-oriented manner. I can easily see myself just launching the Site Audit and after several minutes taking it for a spin squashing most of the "SEO bugs" on my sites:
- all meta tags, title tags, image alt tags, etc.
- broken link and duplicate content checks
- XML sitemap and structured data review
etc. etc.
And if there is something I don't understand they've sprinkled informative tooltips all over the place so you could easily use it as a beginners guide to SEO analysis (and any SEO expert should also benefit).
The PageSpeed Insights tab was also available, but "the data was missing" - this is possibly one of those SEO analysis tools that they still working on.
For a to-the-point fast SEO website audit software, I actually prefer CognitiveSEO over Screaming Frog SEO. The latter gets overwhelming sometimes. So well done CognitiveSEO.
Schedule and auto-send whitelabel SEO reports via CognitiveSEO Reporting feature
Rank Tracking
Organic keyword rank tracker with a direct comparison to your competition keywords positioning
CognitiveSEO goes in lengths analysing Google Search results to assess the daily keyword standing, and it does help you see if your SEO rank strategies are making dents in the search results grid. They also implemented "data slicers" or a type of quick view tabs that filter out the keywords in the areas of importance. For example:
Keywords Ranked in top 1-3 positions or 4-10 / 11-20 and so on until 100
Keywords you're "not ranking" yet
Only the keywords that "improved ranking" and also the ones that remained "static"
and below the chart, you can find a timeline slider to narrow down to a point in your ranking project instantly
Monitor and measure how your domain ranks on Google Search Engine with targeted keywords, and compare your SERP positions against your competitors
These slicers are amazing, and with provided search volumes, you can quickly predict your expected organic traffic. The tracking tools also lets you pin the competitors' tabs with their keywords rankings and, later, check up on them and see if they're working on the same keywords positioning. However, it would be even better if there was some way of a direct side-by-side comparison between my focus-domain and my competitors. Maybe CognitiveSEO will figure it out at some point.
To summarise CognitiveSEO Rank Tracking tool is decent for what it is, however, I'd like to see them expanding it into more automated organic keywords data gathering. A type of advanced SEO tool that encompasses LSI and recent Google's neural network-based technique for natural language processing (NLP) - BERT update from the end of 2019. I think this is the future of keyword tools.
CognitiveSEO Site Explorer and inBound Link Analysis
A great contender to Ahrefs Site Explorer
Their backlink database and crawling scope are surprisingly accurate and resemble Ahrefs backlink checker that is often touted as the "backlink gold-standard" in the SEO industry. I've made several side-by-side random domain comparisons, and in most instances, CognitiveSEO came very close in showing the number of backlinks to that of Ahrefs Site Explorer.
Check your domain SEO score and analyse linking performance and anchor text distribution with CognitiveSEO Site Explorer
Although, this small sample is by no means a comprehensive study of "which SEO site analysis software found more backlinks" but a pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting to see. And the Ahrefs Site Explorer was still slightly better in any case.
What is also interesting is that you can upload your own backlinks to increase the accuracy further. I can't recall that backlink feature with any other Site Explorers I've used, and I found it worth exploring.
In summary, CognitiveSEO is a reliable source of SEO backlink analysis for sure.
Link Rank Checker
It's worth mentioning the CognitiveSEO Link Rank (measured from 0-100). This is a more targeted SEO website grader that we already know from Majestic SEO Trust Flow (TF), MOZDomain Authority (DA) or AhrefsDomain Rank (DR).
InBound Link Analysis helps you dive deep into the domain on-page and off-page SEO data CognitiveSEOLink Rank is influenced by a host of different SEO metrics as calculated by their link explorer, website audit and other SEO analysis tools. The score I got my domain was the harshest of the above-mentioned research tools (and probably closest to Majestic SEO). Also, the Link Rank score is only accessible at the SEO Campaign level. When you research via the CognitiveSEO Site Explorer, the score is replaced with vague Page/Domain Influence score marked as either "Low", "Average" or "High".
Peek at your competitors' websites, assess page and domain authority scores and check backlinks and SEO ranking performance
Among the other SEO metrics, the most prominent are:
- Referring Domains
- Total Links (note, they cap their backlink checker showing up to 20 strongest backlinks from any given domains)
- Link Velocity with Visual Explorer that can stand as a link building guide
Then there is a boat-load of SEO data, filters and slicers.
Among all CognitiveSEO optimization tools, this one is the most overwhelming and requires a lot of time to familiarise yourself with. I'm using Ahrefs Site Explorer already, and I have a tough time to switch - its mechanics and the interface is much different than to what I'm used to.
Side note: I suspect that as Ahrefs grows more and more popular, their web crawler bot will become a persona non-grata blocked now by various hosting providers in an effort to save server load. In such circumstance, the multi-source data agglomerates like CognitiveSEO may take precedence and show more accurate SEO stats in some areas.
How can Site Explorer help you in your SEO positioning?
To me, the whole backlink checking option serves one purpose - recognise the general trend. Meaning, I want quick info on whether a particular domain/page holds any SEO authority or not. And also monitor what, if any, spam attach to my website backlink portfolio. I won't bother making sure the tool finds every single backlink. Why? Because it NEVER will.
Use Link Velocity and backlink analysis to build an effective link building strategy
All SEO Tools will always just attempt to follow Google, but they will never be 100% accurate or even close to being correct. It has always been just a guestimation at best - and the Traffic Estimators, Backlink Checkers or Keywords Ranking tools role is just to show us the general trend and pointers for the next step in our SEO strategies.
And same goes for CognitiveSEO Site Explorer - I use it for:
domain authority assessment (they have this great and straightforward Page Influence and Domain Influence at the top bar - by the way, it's NOT vague, it's perfect for showing your SEO clients and prospects on a sales meeting)
backlink analysis and anchor text redistribution as a quick link building guide or to simply check my links health
BONUS! Broken Pages: this is a unique feature most push to SEO Site Analysis only; I love that CognitiveSEO shows the 404-data in the Site Explorer, and they're making it a superbly useful to quickly analyse outdated content or subjects you could attempt to revive or repurpose. All without resorting to a tedious SEO Audit.
There is a slight difference between Site Explorer and inBound Link Analysis wherein the latter CognitiveSEO seems to combine multiple tab views from the Site Explorer detailed overview under one. The inBound Link Analysis appears only under Campaign SEO for a given project where the tracking and data measurement is also updated in real-time from several sources at the same time (including Google Analytics and Google Search Console if you've connected them).
If you're doing some search engine positioning work and focusing on a particular domain, it would be advisable to launch a full-fledged SEO Campaign and monitor things that way rather than searching the Site Explorer each time.
Content Optimizer & Keyword Research Tool
A secret SEO tool that gets your pages and content ranked on Google without link building
I was raving about the CognitiveSEO Content Optimizer in another post already. And I'm also planning to shoot a video about it soon. Here I just wanted to summarise quickly what it is and why I like it so much.
What is CognitiveSEO Content Optimizer all about?
CognitiveSEO Content Optimizer is a web text editor that scans your submitted text (article) and lists tons of supporting keywords and topics to improve your article and, ultimately, your content marketing strategy. The tool bases its recommendations on Google's complex algorithms (mostly LSI, NLP, and large data comparisons). Content Optimizer starts with a regular Keywords Explorer that we know from many other SEO tools.
As per usual, you plug your main keyword idea (seed keyword), set the country and off you go.
Search and analyse best performing keywords with CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer suite
Keyword Explorer
I like the fact that CognitiveSEO decided to trim the fat, leaving us with the most important factors related to the Keyword Explorer:
Content difficulty from 0-100: it's calculated based on the top-performing articles on the subject - highly relevant score based on CognitiveSEO's LSI and sophisticated article scanning; this is one of the best keyword difficulty metrics I've seen around; as it informs you with what you'd be doing next - namely, optimising your content
Links Difficulty 0-100: same as before but you should consider the amount of backlinking efforts that will go into the project
Monthly Searches: a Google Trend graph to see the overall search volume course over the years
Relevancy score 1-5 "stars": i.e. how close the (long-tail) keyword is to your seed keyword - this is great for a quick "search intent" assessment
No. of words: you can check the "long-tail"-ness factor of any given keyword
Search Volume: CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer uses "from-to" brackets rather than absolute numbers - this is also my preference
CPC $-value: this one is something I wouldn't expect there, and I'm a bit unsure about its ultimate purpose in that space - possibly to know if the keyword is monetised via PPC ads (?) (but what impact that would have on your optimisation decisions, I don't know...)
Research & Analyse thousands of money-making keywords, pick the most relevant and export on CSV
Similarly to the Keyword Tracking approach, CognitiveSEO implemented a lot of data slicers to filter out the most important SEO bits from a substantial volume of keywords. So other than the filters referred to the data points mentioned above, you can refine your keyword search with:
Search Suggestions
Focus Keywords
Questions
And then you can also:
Group by Topic
Copy All or
Export All to CSV spreadsheet
I must say, the keywords research is comprehensive and lands a lot of keyword suggestions to look at. On the Standard plan, it may not be the biggest keywords database out there (Ahrefs lands about 10-30% more depending on the query), but CognitiveSEO keyword analysis serves you the most relevant SEO keyword ideas you should be considering on your website. And apparently, you can also expand the results count up to 3x on higher paid plans.
There is so much more to keyword analysis than you could ever see on Google Trend or Keyword Planner from Google so give it a go.
Side note: the "search intent" behind the keyword is one of the most important factors in generating revenue from the content that many SEOs struggle with, and I find CognitiveSEO's Keyword Explorer makes it a little bit easier.
Rank Analysis
CognitiveSEO also lists top 20 articles/pages that currently occupy the top search grid for a given "seed keyword". This is the next logical step (tab) in your SEO Content Optimization journey which reveals who you are up against via the following self-explanatory data points:
Content Performance
Focus Keywords
No. Of Words
Domains To Url
Domains To Site
Date Published
SERP Analysis SEO tool helps you see who ranks what, where and why
The most apparent is the Content Performance progression bar from 0-100 that you can eye-ball and immediately grasp who makes an SEO effort and where. I also found myself using the tool as a unique content curator:
The grid is a swift SEO checker and gives me a quick insight into the web pages that comprise of the juiciest content.
While using it as a rank checker, I can filter-out a blog post or two that ranked due to backlinks alone, got a low number of keywords or were published a long time ago (and are possibly outdated).
I can also click on the given record and analyse the LSI keywords that are prominent in the article! In any case, CognitiveSEO Ranking Analysis equips me with the most important data points that allow me to see what's behind the Google Search curtains.
I'd love to see CognitiveSEO expanding on that content curation theme a little bit more and provide the full top-100 pages breakdown with data slicers and filters. Note, you can expand to the top-100 articles on their higher-paid plans (but I'm not sure if it comes with any additional features).
Again, they offer so much more than what you can find in other keyword explorer tools or even SEO toolbar and Chrome extension widgets. And definitely more than plain keyword suggestions you get out of Googles Keyword Planner.
Content Optimizer
Once you know what you are writing about or you already have something that needs optimizing, you can go ahead and fire the Content Optimizer tool.
Again, I've devoted a few good words in an attempt to perform the Content Optimizer's detailed analysis in my other article, so definitely check it. Here, I'll just quickly recap why I find their SEO optimizer so essential to my digital marketing activities.
Content Optimizer helps you to create better articles by providing LSI keywords, long-tail keyword suggestions and NLP data from Google Search index
Firstly, the Content Optimizer interface is superbly intuitive. With the use of colours and strategic layout, it takes very little guesswork on what you need to be doing there. This is essential for speed of implementation and handing it over to VA or someone who might not necessarily want to learn some complex SEO-tool (i.e. non-SEO content marketers) but would greatly benefit from it anyways. For any ambitious content marketer or resourceful digital marketing strategy, that tool is a must.
Secondly, I've ranked unbelievable keywords for my clients on top of Google completely without launching any link building campaigns. Simply by using Content Optimizer and producing a great article. This isn't to say that "tHe bAcKlinKing iZ DeAd". I'm saying that there is more to the keywords LSI (and now Google BERT updates) than one might conclude from following a basic "beginners guide to SEO" or "SEO keyword research tutorial" on YouTube. Slapping all your H1-H3 with "{marketing consultant|consultants of marketings}", duplicate content and a broken grammar is slowly but surely a practice that Google is working hard NOT to reward anymore.
And last but not least, I truly believe that with the proper use of Content Optimizer in your online marketing you're going to produce a much better, juicer and, what we like to call, well-researched articles. With this tool, I often find myself deriving new ideas as I'm optimising the content within the tool. The "Keywords you should use" or "you should use more often" suggestions, as well as "content ideas via questions people ask" are a fantastic resource in and of itself. Many times I found pointers to the new ideas and avenues about the subject that I've missed or not realised before I sat down to write the piece. To simply put, optimization tools like Content Optimizer make the Internet a better place.
Content Optimizer can help you rank your website on Google Search Engine without backlinks
What I'd like to improve about Content Optimizer
The one thing that is apparent in the keywords software is how detached it is from the rest of the platform. It almost seems like it's done as a side-kick to the main SEO Campaign tools. At the moment, the articles are mixed up all over the "Continue Where You Left Off" section, and it would be nice to have them at least categorised or assigned to different projects (domains).
So what I'd love to see is better integration with the rest of the SEO toolkit. For example, it would be nice to be able to launch an SEO campaign project and have the selected pages and articles listed for "content optimization". And while we're at it, why not have a trigger button for the tool to scrape the existing content from the selected pages for you to optimise it.
Further, have it automatically calculating the improved LSI performance - listing the organic keywords ranking that are popping up on Google Search. This could be similar to the Site Auditor step-by-step SEO guides but for all your projects content optimisation instead.
CognitiveSEO Review Summary
As Google Search Algorithm becomes more and more complicated and new layers of complexity are added on top of an already intricate network, an all-in-one SEO software companies will have to make a choice.
Either they'll attempt to predict and replicate what the biggest company in the world is up to next. That means pouring resources in an attempt to the ultimate SEO toolkit by combining everything there is while trying not to sacrifice baseline user experience (think how convoluted Google Analytics Dashboard is - and that's just analytics!).
OR they will take a specific direction and put all their efforts to help their customers achieving targeted results (think MOZ Local)
From a pragmatic point of view to the whole SEO, I see the second possibility much more compelling. And fortunately, I see CognitiveSEO taking precisely that direction - to become a highly specialised SEO tool for organic SEO projects and affiliate campaigns. And this isn't to say they don't have their bases covered - quite the contrary.
The software interface is very responsive and didn't take me long to learn the basics (apart maybe from the Site Explorer). I found all the SEO features highly practical and aligned to make a substantial difference in my organic SEO rankings - whether for my domain or my clients. There are also Free SEO Tools available to take a look but they are very limited. If you're an SEO beginner and you're looking for free SEO tools at CognitiveSEO you will need to supplement them with something else like Answer The Public.
The entry-level CognitiveSEO package cost $129, which is $30 more than popular SemRUSH or Ahrefs basic packages (or Majestic SEO / MOZ Pro). However, neither SemRUSH nor Ahrefs provides Content Optimizer, and eventually, you'll have to look for it somewhere anyway. Maybe it would be a good idea for CognitiveSEO to offer it separately for a smaller price?
CognitiveSEO Paid Plans Pricing - Monthly or Yearly (30% off) with 7-day Trial
Additionally, big "all-in-one" marketing agencies and everyone who also require PPC analysis, social media marketing or some complicated data associations while exporting hundreds of spreadsheets with unlimited data to play around with - those will need additional solutions anyway.
Still, if you specialise in organic SEO or in search of fast and practical SEO guide both for SEO experts and beginners (even to jump start their SEO training), I recommend investing in CognitiveSEO.
It'll be worth it, and the software will pay itself back faster than you think.
