Author: Christopher Morris

How to Create Anchor Links in WordPress: A Complete Guide
Running a website is a big responsibility and knowing how to create anchor links in WordPress will be an important skill as you create content your visitors love to read. Anchor links will help you direct your readers to the exact place they need to be on your website. Using anchor links can also improve user experience and even give you a slight SEO advantage.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create anchor links in WordPress and in what situations you might want to use them.

Here’s what we’ll cover:
What Are Anchor Links?

Technically speaking, an anchor link is a link (or hyperlink). In fact, in HTML, the anchor element (represented as the a tag) is common for all links that make the web as we know it possible. That said, the term “anchor link” is commonly synonymous with the term “jump link”, a link that jumps to a specific element on a page. So the main difference between anchor links (or jump links) and regular links is the destination. Traditional hyperlinks send users to a page while anchor links send users to a specific section of a page. Anchor links can link to a section on the same page or to a section of a different page. But it seems the former is more prevalent.

Anchor links are often useful for long-form articles. But, they can also be used for single-page navigation menus or for creating a table of contents on posts or pages.

The Anatomy of an Anchor Link

Image Elements by Vector Stock Pro and Paul Craft / shutterstock.com

Similiar to any hyperlink in HTML, there are two major components that make an anchor link work.
- An element with a specific anchor ID (the anchor). This is the element you wish to jump to on the page.
- A Link to the element with the corresponding anchor ID (the anchor link). This link will “jump” to the anchor element wherever it is on the page.
To link to a specific piece of content (the anchor), you’re going to have to give that anchor element a unique ID so that the anchor link has a location to jump to.

This is an example HTML snippet for a heading (h2 element) with an anchor ID that we can use for an anchor link (ID in blue):
```
<h2 id="your-anchor-link-id">Example Heading</h2>
```
With this, we can create an anchor link that jumps to this heading element. The key to an anchor link is the unique href attribute value. Instead of a normal URL, you must include a pound sign “#” before the corresponding anchor ID. In HTML, that would look like this:
```
<a href="#your-anchor-link-id">Click Here to Jump to Heading</a>
```
Notice that when linking to the anchor ID you are must include a “#” at the beginning. But when naming the anchor element with an anchor ID you do not include the “#”. Furthermore, the anchor ID name should be exactly the same for both the link and the heading (besides the “#” of course). If it’s not, the link won’t work.

Also, if you wanted to add an anchor link to a specific section of an external page, you would need to include the URL of the page before the anchor ID as follows:
```
<a href="https://website.com/page/#your-anchor-link-id">Anchor Link</a>
```
That’s the basics of it.

There are various ways of accomplishing this same effect in WordPress and will depend on the configuration of your site. Before we look into how to create these anchor links (our favorite way being anchor links in the Divi Builder), let’s look at why you’d want to consider using them.

Why You Should Create Anchor Links in WordPress?

We’ll take a closer look at a few major reasons for using Anchor Links in WordPress including:
User Experience

When creating a website, it’s important to think about the user experience (UX). One way to improve UX is by using anchor links.

Anchor links help improve user experience (UX) because they allow users to navigate the page more easily. They help users find specific information on a page with very little effort. When used properly, anchor links can make your website more user-friendly and improve the overall experience for visitors.

One Page Site Navigation Menus

Anchor links are commonly used on one-page websites and stand-alone landing pages. There are a few reasons why using anchor links can be beneficial in these instances.

First of all, it can be a little jarring for a visitor to visit a website with no menu navigation. Even on one-page sites. Since people are so used to seeing this element it is a great idea to still include one even though there are no other pages to link to.

Anchor links to the navigation menu are also helpful for getting people down the page to the appropriate content very quickly. Landing pages often employ this to take potential customers to the exact information they believe they are missing.

Anchor links are used as a navigational tool on websites and can improve your website’s click-through rate. CTR is an important metric for website optimization and conversion rate optimization (CRO). By adding anchor links to your website, you can improve the user experience and make it easier for users to find the content they are looking for. This will ultimately lead to improved CTR and ROI for your website.

Table of Contents for Posts or Pages

Anchor links are used to quickly jump to specific sections within a long document or web page. By clicking on an anchor link, the reader is automatically brought to the section of the page that the link corresponds to. This can be extremely useful when navigating through a table of contents (TOC) with many chapters and subsections.

A table of contents without anchor links is helpful in allowing the site visitor to scan the content quickly. But using anchor links on the TOC itself allows them to quickly summarize themselves and dip into the content that they need most.

Overall, anchor links are a helpful tool for organizing and navigating long-form content. By providing quick and easy access to specific sections of a document, anchor links can help make complex information more accessible and user-friendly.

Anything we can do to help out visitors and customers!

SEO Advantages

Anchor links can also play a role in your SEO linking strategy. They are important for SEO content because they provide context for users and search engines and help with understanding the content of a page at a glance.

By using anchor links, you can help users find the content they are looking for quicker. This may have a positive impact on bounce rate which may improve your website’s overall ranking. The better a page is at capturing the attention of real users, the more SEO-friendly your content becomes. For best results, make sure those anchor links have optimized anchor text so Google will know how to index it properly.

Anchor links may also be used by Google and other search engines to create a more interesting and useful rich snippet for SERPs.

When Google finds that an internal anchor link is helpful to display to searchers, they may include popular anchor links in the search snippet. This lets the visitor have more information to make the decision to look at your article or web page.

The more useful Google finds your website, the better it can rank â€” which is good news for you.

Plus, equipping your page with anchor links gives other sites the option to link to a specific piece of content on your page that is more relevant to their readers. This is perhaps more useful for third parties than providing a link to a long-form blog post that users have to scroll through to find the relevant information. So, in a way, anchor links could aid in your link building strategy for more backlinks.

Pros and Cons to Using Anchor Links

The main consideration in using anchor links is knowing if they’d be helpful to your visitors within a particular piece of content. If it isn’t helpful then the pros and cons of using anchor links do not matter. But, if they would help site visitors navigate your article or page then it is worth knowing the pluses and minuses.

Pros:
- Using Anchor Links makes it easy for visitors to navigate your content
- Using Anchor Links adds more detail for Search Engines to use in understanding your content
- Using Anchor Links makes your content more skimmable
Cons:
- Anchor Links take more time to set up after you are finished writing your content
- Users may get lost in the content if they jumped to a section but did not find what they were looking for
- Displaying Anchor Links without context could confuse site visitors who expected to see a different web page
How to Create Anchor Links in WordPress: 6 Ways

There are different ways of creating anchor links in WordPress.

Below, we’ll explore 5 different ways that you can set up anchor links no matter how your website is configured. We’ll show you how to create them on single pages, across pages, in your navigation, with plugins, and very easily using Divi Builder.

1. Create Anchor Links Manually with WordPress Block Editor

An anchor link is a link that allows you to jump to a specific section on a page. To create an anchor link in the WordPress block editor, you will need to do the following:

In the WordPress block editor, add a heading block and type in your heading text.

In the heading block settings (found on the Advanced tab of the Headings Block), add an HTML ID to the Heading field. This will be used as the anchor link target.

Once the ID for the heading element is set, we can select some text and add a hyperlink. Instead of a web address, we can add a pound sign (#) plus our element ID. Press enter and the link will apply to that text.

Save your changes and preview your page to test out your new anchor link.

2. Create Anchor Links Manually in HTML in the WordPress Classic Editor

If you want to create an anchor link in the WordPress classic editor, you’ll need to add a bit of HTML. But don’t worry, it’s not difficult. First, you’ll need to find the heading you want to link to. In the code for your post or page (text tab next to the visual editor tab), look for the heading tag around the text you want to link to.

For example, if you want to create an anchor link to a header that says “Learn About Me”, you would look for an H2 tag (heading two) around that text.

Look for:
```
<h2>About Me</h2>
```
Once you’ve found the heading tag, add an id attribute to it. The value of the id attribute should be unique, so choose something that won’t be used anywhere else on the page. For our example, we’ll use “about-me”.

Change the heading tag to:
```
<h2 id="about-me">About Me</h2>
```
Next, you’ll want to find the text that you want your visitors to click on that will take them to your anchored section. You have the option of typing out the HTML for the new anchor link or you can use the Classic Editor’s add a link function. We’ll use the WYSIWYG editor found on the Visual tab to quickly create the link.

Select the text (or image) that you wish to add the link to. Click on the chain-link icon in the editor’s toolbar. Add “#about-me” to the link input field and press enter to finish creating the link.

Click “Publish” or “Preview” to see your anchor link in action.

3. Add Anchor Links Automatically with Anchor Link Plugin

There are quite a few plugins in the WordPress repository that may help you quickly create a Table of Contents with automatically created anchor links. You can find Table of Contents plugins in the repository.

Though you can choose from a few different options, we’ll work through how to use Easy Table of Contents by Magazine3.

Installing Easy Table of Contents right off the bat gives you a Table of Contents based on Page and Post headings. No need to configure any settings to see how it will look. Load up the plugin and then take a look at your most recent post.

After looking at what it can do, it’s smart to jump back into its settings to tailor them to your needs. For most people, only enabling the TOC to show up on Posts is probably all you’ll need. You’ll see that Easy Table of Contents recognizes all your custom post types and various templates which you can toggle on/off for.

There is a score of other options for you to try out, but that is all dependent on your website and needs. We’d suggest starting out by creating TOCs using only H2 through H3 or maybe H4 headings. If there are too many items in the TOC then it won’t be as helpful as you had hoped for.

They offer a pro version with more features. It also works perfectly with Divi!

Again, there is other “Table of Contents” plugins that could serve you well. Do your research and test a few out to get the best features that fit your needs.

4. Add Anchor Links to Your Navigation Menu

One-page websites and landing pages with limited navigation menus can pack a lot of punch. Oftentimes, site masters use anchor links in the navigation menu to jump visitors down the page.

This is very useful when a website doesn’t have a need for many pages but still wants to give the visitor a chance to look at exactly the information they need.

Creating anchor links for navigations is exactly the same as we’ve already worked through except for the actual link. The link will go into your navigation.

Before adding anchor links to your navigation, you will still need to add the anchor ID on the heading (or anchor element) you want to jump to. Reference the how-tos above for inserting an Anchor ID in the WordPress editor.

Once you have that set, you are ready to add your link to the menu navigation.

Open Appearances > Menus to see your site menus. Make sure you are editing the correct menu, then select “Custom Links”. In the URL field, add your first HTML anchor ID preceded by the “#” (#example-anchor-link). Give your menu item a name by filling in the Link Text field. This will be displayed in the menu itself. Click Add to Menu and Save Menu.

Repeat the process of adding additional unique anchor IDs to headings and anchor links to your menu as needed.

You can see your changes on the front end of your website to see how it looks.

5. Create Anchor Links to External Pages

If you want to add an anchor link to a specific section of an external page you would need to include the entire URL of the page followed by the “#” and the anchor ID.

An anchor link to a specific heading on an external page would need to be structured like this:
```
<a href="https://website.com/page/#your-anchor-link-id">Anchor Link</a>
```
This would redirect the user to the page and also to the specific heading on that page.

6. Create Anchor Links in WordPress with Divi

Divi is an incredible theme and page builder that makes it easy to design a website in WordPress. In Divi, you can create anchor links to any element with ease and without having to worry about HTML.

To add anchor links in Divi, open your page editor and Divi’s visual builder. The first thing that we’ll do is assign a section an anchor ID. We do this by opening the section settings, navigating to the Advanced tab, and clicking on “CSS ID & Class”. You can add an anchor ID to any Divi element, but linking to a section can be a better user experience than linking to a header tag.

We’ll add our ID to the CSS ID field and save our changes. For this example, we’ve given our section the ID of “offer”.

Once we have set up our section with an ID we can link to create our link. In this example, we’re using our main CTA in the hero section. This button will scroll the user down to the “Subscribe for Special Offer” section.

Edit the button and click into the section labeled “Link”. For our link, instead of a URL, we are adding an anchor link. Do this by typing in the pound sign (#) and our wanted CSS ID. For this example, the link will be “#offer”.

Publish the page changes and then navigate to the page on the front end. You can click your button and watch as it scrolls down to the desired section. Here is our example in action:

As you can see, it is very easy to manage multiple anchor links on a single page with Divi. Assigning sections and individual modules an ID is a snap.

Sometimes the scroll-to position may be inaccurate. Divi has a Theme Option that you can toggle for Divi to use an alternate method. Open up the Theme Options, go to the Navigation Tab, and Toggle the “Alternative Scroll-to-Anchor Method”.

To learn more about what Divi can do with Anchor links, check out these cool things you can do with Anchor Links!

Conclusion

Every second a visitor spends on your website is precious. People have short and demanding attention spans. The competition for all the same attention is constantly growing. You only have but a mere few seconds to hook readers and get them the content they were looking for. Otherwise, you are delivering a forgettable website experience and bouncing traffic.

As we’ve learned, anchor links are a great way to direct your readers to specific parts of your content. You can keep your site visitors’ attention with the content that they want most want to see. These anchor links may even link to other parts of your site, or to external sources that have specified HTML IDs.

You can now create better user experiences for your customers and improve how search engines understand and rank your web pages. And anchor links in WordPress help you do this!

Have you had experience using anchor links in WordPress or have some helpful tips? Let us know in the comments below!

Featured Image via BestForBest / shutterstock.com

The post How to Create Anchor Links in WordPress: A Complete Guide appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
12.10.2022
How to Get Started with Email Segmentation
Email segmentation is key to a successful email marketing strategy. In fact, selling to or engaging with your email contacts effectively is impossible without developing a list segmentation strategy. Email list segmentation enables you to break down your audience’s key characteristics so you can have personalized communication with them.

This one practice will make your email marketing many times more effective. In this article, we’ll show you how to leverage segmentation to truly get the most out of your email marketing.

Let’s get to it.

What is Email Segmentation?

Email Segmentation is the practice of collecting data in ways that allow for ultra-targeted email campaigns to your contacts. It is the exact opposite of a newsletter “blast” sent to all your contacts in one bulky batch. While a newsletter sent to everyone is easy to manage, the results you want are in the details, especially that of your audience.

Email segmentation is usually a built-in feature of popular email marketing platforms which also include automation tools to make it easier to manage segmented campaigns.

In short, Email Segmentation breaks your audience into smaller clusters which allows you to send more relevant messaging to each. This, in turn, can significantly improve your marketing strategy and returns.

Benefits of Email Segmentation

If you are a website or business owner who needs to grow your business, email segmentation is something you should absolutely look into. Email marketing starts out as one of the best marketing channels for ROI (Return on Investment). Current figures peg its ROI at 36:1. That is $36 made for every $1 spent on email marketing.

Campaign Monitor, a leading email marketing platform published a statistic that should make you pause and reconsider the rest of your day (and marketing strategy). They found that marketers who segmented their email campaigns saw a 760% increase in revenue. Revenue. We’ll leave you alone with that for a moment.

Image by Photoroyalty / shutterstock.com

Not only will segmentation improve your results, it lets you get to know your customers at a more granular level. You’ll find new buyer/customer personas and address their needs more easily. You can even use these segments off of email. Having dialed-in segments can help your remarketing efforts by being able to (for instance) create a look-a-like audience in Facebook Ads based on segments versus every last one of your contacts.

60% of consumer goods and services companies are using data-rich insights to create both personalized and segmented email content. Keep reading to see how you can set up Email List Segmentation for your company.

How to Segment Your Email Lists

How you choose to segment will depend on your business needs and the tools you use to capture user data. Segmentation comes down to creating categorical data on your audience. Specifically, this data will need to be relevant to your business and to the communication you have with your customers.

Ready to increase your email marketing performance with segmentation? Read on!

1. Welcome Emails for New Subscribers

This type of segment is best for pretty much any business that sends out regular newsletters. This is the chance to tell them what they can expect from your emails and also possibly contain something that they want. Typically businesses will use a signup form on their best landing pages or in a strategic part of their site. Segmentation comes in when they have multiple different signup forms and contextualized signup offers. This means that the welcome email they get is catered to the exact signup form (and more importantly, the context) by which they signed up with.

Once users fill out your signup form, including an automated welcome email can help your new subscribers get up to speed with your brand and newsletter. It is very important to set the expectation for your newsletter’s sending frequency (weekly, monthly, daily) so that they won’t get inbox fatigue. Also, clarify what the newsletter will cover. If the topic changes too much you are bound to get unsubscribes often. Set these expectations.

Also, show them where to go to see some of your best past material. Maybe they sign up on a Wednesday but the newsletter won’t come out until the next Monday. Maintain their interest in the meantime with relevant content from past newsletters.

New Subscriber Welcome Emails yield 3 times more clicks than regularly scheduled newsletters. So, it is important to make your first email count!

Capturing new subscribers can be done on your website using an email opt-in and lead generation plugin like Bloom that integrates with platforms like Campaign Monitor or GetResponse.

2. Drip Campaign / Automated Series

This type of segment is best for getting new subscribers up to speed with information and/or leading them through a sales/marketing funnel.

Drip Campaigns help drive marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales, demos, and other business objectives. They are particularly helpful for businesses with a longer sales cycle. Drip campaigns start off slow. It’s important to not go straight for a sale or major conversion but rather nurture the new contact slowly. Assuming they stick around for the whole series, they may be a very good lead for sales to call out to.

3. Segments by Lead Magnet Opt-In

This type of segment is best used when you offer a lead magnet from a landing page. The email typically includes the download or a link to the resource.

The important thing with these emails (and the lead magnets they offer) is that they deliver the goods. There is nothing that erodes brand trust like a weak offering. Make it compelling and make it easy for them to use! The email itself should be clear (Here’s your copy of “14 places to Jet Ski in The Keys”).

Once you have someone opted-in for a specific lead magnet, you should know what general topic they were interested in. If you offer multiple different lead magnets you have built yourself segments based on interest with a fairly high intent to engage within that category.

Also, landing Pages that offer a webinar as their lead magnet can get an even higher conversion rate typically.

4. Segment by Birthday

This type of segment is used for creating a personal occasion to connect with your audience.

Birthday emails give businesses another excuse to slide into the inbox of their subscribers. If there is a good enough offer or celebration in the email, it might just be one they look forward to all year. Many retail businesses employ this segment strategy.

Birthday or birth month emails are oftentimes considered an “automation” in email marketing platforms. However, considering that this automation requires additional data, it might as well be considered a segment. And a segment you should use!

The hard part about birthday automation is collecting your contacts’ personal information. Here are a few tips for collecting birthday information:
- Only ask for Month and Day, it feels less risky to your contact.
- Only ask for Birthday information in a context that makes sense. Better to ask it in an account creation workflow rather than in a popup form asking people to subscribe.
- Make your privacy and data policies noticeable and stick to promises you can keep in regard to people’s data.
In 2014, Birthday emails generated more transactions at 481% the rate of an average email. This figure is likely much lower now, but the fundamentals of personalization work.

5. Website Behavior Segments

This type of segment is used for SaaS products and businesses with steep sales cycles or that are in highly-competitive niches.

Wouldn’t it be ideal if you knew that a potential customer went to your pricing page 4 times over the last 17 days? You could have a Business Development Representative (BDR) call out to them to answer any questions and help push the sale.

That’s the exact scenario where Website Behavior Segments come in. Some Email Marketing platforms were built around this entire idea (like ActiveCampaign). The features for this behavior gathering are usually called Lead Scoring but the idea is that you can create email automation based on common actions performed on your web and app properties.

It is safe to say to most (more like 98%) of website visitors, on a given day, are not ready to purchase from you. So trying to convert a sale too early could sour the relationship. Website Behavior segments take time to set up, but if your business relies on a sales team to close deals, then this is the ideal way of creating multiple segments.

6. Email Engagement Segments

This type of segment is best for re-engaging disinterested contacts and maintaining interest with your best contacts.

Many platforms may break your entire contact list into segments based on engagement with email campaigns. The more opened emails, click-throughs, and re-opens increase the engagement score of that contact. Less engagement lowers their engagement score over time.

You can use these email engagement segments to your advantage. You can email engaged contacts to stay top of mind. For un-interested contacts, you can try an urgent offer (50% Off a Year’s Subscription, Today Only) to get them to take action. The trick is to not over-incentivize your contacts. Offering 37% Off to your most engaged contacts would likely lose money over time since their chances of purchase are much higherâ€”notably without incentivization.

Ultimately, you can try re-engaging your lowest-performing contacts and eventually cut them from your list. You don’t want to send to (or pay for!) contacts that have a very, very low chance of bringing your business value.

7. Segment Mobile vs. Desktop Users

This type of segment is used by marketers to optimize each campaign for maximum CTR. Especially if they notice under-performance in their emails for certain device types.

Layouts and images can operate very differently from device to device. Some layouts don’t render well on Mobile and may be costing you precious results. Most email marketing platforms offer basic reporting on Open Rate and Click-Through Rates based on mobile/desktop. If you notice a huge discrepancy between the two, it is worth segmenting these audiences and building emails that cater to their device type.

To avoid this (as much as is possible) it would be important to make sure your emails are responsive (they scale up and down depending on device screen resolution) and that you are testing how different variables affect performance on each. Some of the best email marketing services will provide split testing (or a/b testing) for this reason. The biggest things to watch out for are image aspect ratios and text sizes as those can make the biggest differences.

8. eCommerce Purchase Behavior

This type of segment is best for leveraging eCommerce data in your email marketing to drive sales and create repeat customers.

eCommerce Purchase Behavior has been the gold standard for behavior-based email segmentation. eCommerce businesses and the platforms they are built on are data-rich. Many of these platforms have direct integrations with the leading email marketing solutions on the market which make this one of the easiest ways for advanced segmentation.

We all have heard of Abandoned Cart emails. But there are many segments that can be based on purchase frequency, purchase dollar amount, product category, and other details made in the purchase flow.

Constant Contact, for instance, connects with WooCommerce to create (automatically syncs) segments for your best customers, customers to upsell, big-ticket spenders, and even potential customers who weren’t ready to purchase on their last visit.

AI is in the mix here as well with Email Marketing companies like Retention Science (ReSci) constantly taking in users’ website and purchase data to send the most timely and relevant emails to make a sale.

According to Statista.com, eCommerce emails drove 24% of all online sales in 2019. By 2040, it is projected that 95% of all purchases will be made via eCommerce channels.

9. Location Segments

Next, this type of segment is best for online businesses or wide-footprint businesses that reasonably have contacts from many different geographic locales.

In real estate, it is all about location, location, location. And the same can be true with your email segmentation.

Building segments based on location can oftentimes bring you that much closer to your customer. Think about an airline that can try to sell plane tickets to anyone in the country. Knowing if they are in warm weather or cold weather climates could make all the difference in the images and copy used in an email for a Winter Vacation. Chances are people in cold climates are dreaming of a beachside vacation more than a cabin in the mountains in the dead of winter.

10. Segment by Custom Fields

This type of segment is best for any business that is doing email marketing.

Segments by Custom Fields are powerful. That is because they are custom to your personal marketing strategy. You decide what information to collect and how to tailor your email marketing to those data points. Notice how the example email from GasBuddy pulls in avg. driving speed and the average length of trip? Those are custom figures unique to that person.

The trick is to keep your data uniform when collecting custom field data. It is best if you create automation based on various interactions (form submissions, surveys, in-email click segmentation, etc.) to fill in your custom fields. This way those fields are automatically populated as the data becomes available.

What custom fields should you create? The sky is the limit but you can start with: gender, language, business category, company size, job title/level, email frequency preference, content format (video, infographic, written) preference, buyer/customer persona, psychographics, education level, and many more.

The biggest thing is to only choose things that would actually move the dial. An online cookie retailer probably doesn’t have any business asking about political affiliation whereas a grassroots cause and change maker could get away with it.

Ask yourself two questions: Does this custom field make business sense to me? and Does this custom field (in the form of the question you’d ask) make sense to my customers?

Once you’ve done that, you can test and experiment. Keep a watchful eye on how your segments perform. Do segments outperform or under-perform compared to your master list averages? If they under-perform you can first tweak your messaging but also get rid of that custom field segment if it isn’t providing value to anyone.

Best Tools for Email Segmentation

There are actually a few different types of tools for us to take a look at. Some platforms include multiple tool sets and others specialize and do one thing particularly well. Quickly, here are the basic types of tools you need for success in segmenting:

Email Marketing Software – These platforms allow you to build and send emails, as well as manage your contact lists. Make sure to pick the provider that matches your budget, and feature needs, and that integrates with your CRM software (if it doesn’t itself offer CRM). A second consideration is if it integrates with your WordPress form plugin. Luckily for Divi Designers, Divi integrates with all the big email playersâ€”making your life much simpler. Some hosting providers, like Cloudways, make it easier to create email marketing campaigns as well.

Opt-in/Signup Form Software – Your choice of opt-in form is going to make a massive difference in your on-page conversions. You’ll want to look for something that has 1) ease of use, 2) integrations, and 3) design customization. Here are some of the best newsletter email option plugins for WordPress.

Behavior Capture Software – Other than the behavior that your Email Marketing provider has built-in, you may want to capture website behavior as an email segmenting option. To do this, you need something that can “listen” for certain events and automatically update email contacts with the most up-to-date information.

Here are the best tools for Email Segmentation that incorporate some or all of the above categories.

1. Bloom

Bloom is the go-to Email Opt-in plugin for thousands of WordPress site owners. It gives you the ability to create beautiful and highly functional opt-in forms to capture your visitor’s contact information. From detailed targeting and triggers to integrations with all leading email marketing platforms, Bloom brings your marketing to another level. It offers full design customization and hundreds of templates to get you started- no fuss included.

Bloom Key Features
- 6 different display types (Popup, fly-in, widget area, etc)
- Triggers to capture folks after particular events (timed delay, after visitor comments, etc.)
- Robust Dashboard to manage all your Opt-In Forms
- A/B Test forms to find what works
- 19 Integrations so you get the powerful feature of Bloom with any marketing platform
Bloom is for you if you own or work on a WordPress site and collect email signups.

2. RightMessage

RightMessage is a website behavior monitoring platform that looks at how people come to your site, which content they viewed, and pushes surveys â€” all to segment your email lists and even personalize landing pages for those same site visitors. It boasts several powerful integrations which connect to your marketing email service provider of choice.

RightMessage Key Features
- Email List Segmentation with Email Provider Integrations
- Website Personalization (Increase Conversation Rate Optimization)
- Survey/Quizzes that inform your segmentation efforts in a non-obstructive way
RightMessage is for website and business owners looking to personalize their website experience while also pulling that into your email marketing software. The powerful features, while intuitive, take some setting up so this tool is for businesses with a marketing team where one person can continuously optimize the settings.

3. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a total CRM, Email, Marketing & Sales Automation platform. It boasts powerful email marketing, SMS, and transactional email abilities. All these functions are connected to the AcitveCampaign CRM (no outside CRM needed) for strong data integrity. What’s unique about ActiveCampaign is that its sales tools are built-in which include Lead Scores based on website behavior, email behavior, and baked-in automation workflows.

ActiveCampaign Key Features
- Built-in CRM connects directly with your marketing machine
- Automations for Emails, SMS, and Lead Segment Progressions
- Integrates with WooCommerce
- Ability to handle Transactional Emails as well as Marketing Emails
ActiveCampaign is for you if you need one powerful platform to handle your owned marketing efforts. If you do not have the personnel to spare an expansive platform with endless customization (and setup) this might not benefit you.

4. Retention Science

Retention Science (ReSci) is the premier AI email and SMS marketing automation system for large eCommerce brands. They power some of the biggest retail brands by scaling email marketing personalization and segmentation based on their AI platform. Their AI pulls real-time data from potential customers to offer them the best marketing to get them to make a sale. This goes way beyond Abandoned Cart emails.

Retention Science Key Features
- Segments based on user behavior using Churn Scores and LTV metrics
- Predicts buyer intent to send relevant messaging
- Integrates with WooCommerce Stores
- Takes these AI learnings and puts them into Facebook Custom Audiences for targeted ads outside of the inbox.
Retention Science is for you if you are an established eCommerce with an established customer base and want to scale your eCommerce operations. Smaller brands won’t be able to handle the setup and the price point.

5. HubSpot

HubSpot is ubiquitous with sales/marketing automation. It is most similar to ActiveCampaign on this list as it boasts a built-in CRM and includes Sale team-specific features â€” while also catering to non-sales-oriented businesses. It has a large and healthy ecosystem of connected apps and offers a generous CRM and Marketing package for free.

HubSpot Key Features
- Marketing software is built on top of HubSpot’s CRM for maximum data integrity
- Great toolset for lead scoring for sales teams
- Many connected apps including chatbots and Landing Pages
- List segmentation, even with their Free CRM package
Hubspot is for you if your business needs advanced tools. As such, you can start out with their free tools as you work your way into their more advanced paid features. They also offer world-class support to help you along the way. (If you want to grow in your digital marketing career and skills, we also recommend HubSpot’s courses and Certificates which are free and a top-tier resource).

6. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is the first email marketing platform that many small business owners gravitate towards. In fact, they offer a full suite of digital marketing tools to make digital marketing accessible to busy business owners and their staff. They are known for their free plan for accounts with less than 2,000 contacts. They offer segmentation and eCommerce integrations that get the job done.

Mailchimp Key Features
- Landing Pages, email/SMS automation, and segmentation.
- Direct Integration with WooCommerce sites
- Free plan to get you started. Paid plans come with more features and higher limits.
- One of the most integrated email marketing platforms on the market. All your CRM and marketing tools probably connect with it.
Mailchimp is probably for you if you need a budget email marketing service that has room for you to grow.

7. Divi Contact Form Helper

Divi Contact Form Helper is a community extension on our Divi Marketplace that adds more features to Divi Contact Forms. The additional features may prove to be helpful in your segmentation efforts.

Divi Contact Form Helper Key Features
- Include Date Picker of forms. Could be used for birthday and anniversary segmentations.
- Send Confirmation Emails (double opt-in) which is a best practice in email marketing
- Message Pattern Tags
- Save entries to your WordPress database as a backup
Divi Contact Form Helper is for you if you want a few more features to the native Divi Contact Forms but don’t want to replace them.

8. Yieldify

Yieldify is a full-scale website personalization platform with advanced form and email targeting. It turns eCommerce websites into revenue-making machines. Advanced rules trigger personalized and contextualized forms. For customers who have filled out a lead gen form, it will send remarketed emails based on user behavior on the website.

Yieldify Key Features
- Advanced personalization on webpages
- Trigger remarketing emails to increase conversions
- Easy installation via one tag (code snippet)
Yieldify is for those operating larger-scale eCommerce businesses who want to increase on-page personalization to increase conversions or off-page email segmentation using rules and AI.

9. AutomateWoo

Last on our list is, AutomateWoo is an advanced workflow manager for WooCommerce stores on WordPress. It handles many different types of automation â€” they call them workflows. There are automated behavior-based email workflows that you can set up to increase conversions to your store.

AutomateWoo Key Features
- Advanced workflows for email based on shopping behavior
- Full control of your automation (no 3rd party email provider needed)
- Session tracking for accurately attributing user actions with user emails
- Unlimited email sending
- Essential email analytics built into your dashboard
AutomateWoo is for WooCommerce store owners looking for an “all WordPress” solution for growing their store. The cost to use is a one-time payment instead of recurring payments. Additionally, it is ideal for those who don’t want to learn a different UI and like the feel of WooCommerce.

Conclusion

As we wrap up and send you off to explore segmentation on your own, take these facts with you. Segmenting your contacts and sending catered emails to those segments outperforms email “blasts” by 760% in revenue. It’s that important.

Segmenting is all about data collection. Strategize about where and how you can ask for and collect data. This data is specific dataâ€”not random data. As you use this specific data to build your segments, test out segmented messaging to see what strikes a chord with your audience. If it does not work; rework it or get rid of it and move on to the next idea.

Most modern email marketing platforms have built-in segmentation features (some with a level of automation mixed in as well), so utilize those tools to your full advantage.

In closing, your business performs better when you segment your lists and tailor content to your audiences. Come back to this article often as you start to build out your segmentation strategy. There is always more to do but at least you know that this is at the top of your list.

Have you implemented email list segmentation as a part of your email marketing strategy? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

Featured Image via magic pictures / shutterstock.com

The post How to Get Started with Email Segmentation appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
05.10.2022
WWW vs non-WWW: Which is Better for SEO?
Your website’s domain and overall URL structure are based on a few technical elements. In this article, we are going to explore using www vs. non-www on your website’s URL and which is better for SEO.

Both www and non-www have their pros and cons, but ultimately you need to know the implications of what you are choosing. If you aren’t careful, you could create duplicate locations of your website which can hurt your site’s SEO and ranking in the SERPs. Here’s how you can keep the flow of visitors coming by having a properly configured website URL.

Understanding the Structure of a URL

It is important to understand that there are many seemingly insignificant details that go into building your website’s URL. Each of these details changes the location of your website and also how search engines, like Google, crawl and index your site.

HTTP and HTTPS

HTTP is the standard language protocol to help browsers communicate between clients and servers. Most URLs start with http://. If your site has an SSL Certificate or Transport Layer Security (TLS), the URL will start with https:// instead.

http://domainname.com
or…
https://domainname.com

Domain Name

Domain names are a critical part of the internet, allowing users to navigate between websites. This is what you purchase and register at domain registers like Godaddy or Namecheap. Domain names act as human-readable (and rememberable!) addresses. If we didnâ€™t have them, weâ€™d be surfing the web memorizing IP numbers instead of company and brand names.

In a URL, the domain is a substring that follows the initial http:// or

https://domainname.com

WWW Domain Prefix

The WWW prefix is used to help identify a web address or location. Basically, it is a subdomain (similar to ftp.yourwebsite.com or blog.yourwebsite.com) to identify a more specific location. This is mostly used on larger websites. However, unlike traditional subdomains, it is not necessary these days to include the WWW prefix unless you have a specific reason to do so. In a URL, the www prefix precedes the domain name:

https://www.domainname.com

What are WWW and non-WWW?

When we talk about www vs non-www, we are referring to websites that include the www prefix in the domain name or not.

Here is a www domain:

https://www.yourwebsite.com

And here is a non-www domain:

https://yourwebsite.com

The WWW (“Word Wide Web”) prefix has traditionally designated websites that are accessible online. For most of the history of the internet, most websites used a â€œwwwâ€ prefix followed by a domain name. Nowadays, it is treated more as a subdomain, making it optional for those looking to streamline their URL with a non-www version of their domain.

Differences Between WWW vs non-WWW: Pros and Cons

The internet is a very specific place. At least in terms of web standards. Adoption of new ways of doing things is slow since there are billions of internet users and breaking the internet is in nobody’s best interest. The differences in www and non-www domains may cease to exist someday but there are some user experience and technical differences to understand right now.

First, it is important to understand that a website URL using WWW is technically an altogether different location than the same website URL using non-WWW.

For example:
https://www.yourwebsite.com will take you to a different location than https://yourwebsite.com.

That is why it is important to be consistent with what you choose. And, use redirects and canonical URLs to make sure you are not getting duplicate content.

WWW’s Cookie Handling

Cookies, once a staple of the internet, perform more or less the same whether you use www or non-www on your website.

That is, for one exception. Websites using www help restrict cookies from transferring across many sub-domains.

So, if your website uses multiple sub-domains (app.example.com, login.example.com, or help.example.com) and you want cookies to be distinct per each sub-domain, it is better to use the www prefix for your website.

Image by BadBrother / shutterstock.com

WWW CDN Configuration

CDNs are also easier to set up with www domains. There are some CDN providers that don’t handle non-www well at all. But this is a shrinking occurrence.

Non-www Domains are Better for User Experience

Using non-www domains is more intuitive on the end-user side of things. Non-www websites are often typed in by internet users by default (even for websites that use www). This means fewer redirects occur when using non-www URLs for sites with plenty of direct traffic. People more or less ignore “www.” prefixes when talking about or referencing URLs.

How Browsers handle WWW

Also, modern browsers are starting to hide the www part of websites in the search barâ€”creating a cleaner way of looking at the site URL. The browser doesnâ€™t strip the URL of www. It simply doesnâ€™t display it unless a user clicks into the URL bar to edit or change the URL.

Is hiding that element a sign of things to come? Maybeâ€”but for now, browsers are interested in making things as simple as possible for the average internet user. They aren’t concerned about displaying the www prefix since there is no technical difference between them choosing to show it or not.

How to Check if You Are Using WWW vs non-WWW in WordPress

Website building platforms, like WordPress, let you view and change the www or non-www version of your website URL. This choice is an awesome benefit of using WordPress but comes with the added responsibility of making informed decisions around its use.

Important!: Before checking or changing anything. We do not recommend changing previously established websites’ use of www non-www. Whatever you choose while building your website (and when search engines started indexing it) is workable. Only change this on established websites if you are confident with what you are doing and understand how it affects how search engines index your site.

To check if your site is using WWW or not, go to your Admin Dashboard in WordPress. Navigate from â€œSettingsâ€ to â€œGeneralâ€. This will pull up a new page with the options â€œWordPress Addressâ€ and â€œSite Addressâ€.

Make sure both of those are the same (in almost all cases) and in accordance with the domain you purchased for the website.

If you want to make changes and are unsure about what you are doing, it is best to contact your hosting companyâ€™s support team for answers.

SEO Benefits of Using WWW vs non-WWW

Search engines don’t prefer www or non-www nor take it into account as a ranking factor. So for SEO, choosing one ahead of the other isn’t important. What is important is the proper configuration of ONE of the options â€” never both. Misconfiguring www or non-www can result in SEO penalties.

SEO Risk of Duplicate Content

Having both www and non-www URL versions of a page or post can be considered duplicate content and hurt SEO.

Duplicate content is content that is repeated on the same website (and in some cases other websites). Some content overlap is always going to happen on any website. However, using both www and non-www creates two full, exact versions of each page, post, and archive location. This essentially creates a duplicate of your whole websiteâ€”one at www.example.com and one at example.com. This is further complicated if you are also allowing both HTTP and HTTPS protocols on your website.

Image by hilderifi / shutterstock.com

This might not seem like a big issue but it can have drastic consequences. Put simply, having two versions of your website will confuse search engines. Search engines will index some of your pages on the www domain and others on the non-www domain.

You donâ€™t want half of your domain authority building on one of two versions of your base URL. Not only will it get confused about which version to index and rank, but it can also penalize both versions and tank your rankings. This will lead to diminished search traffic and performance for your website.

If you do have both or have a concern, you can set up 301 redirects. This can redirect the unwanted URL version to the wanted version. For non-WWW domains, many hosting providers will have a redirect to the WWW version of your domain set up by default to avoid any conflict. If not, you can always perform the necessary redirects with a plugin.

For more, check out our ultimate guide to duplicate content and SEO

The Importance of Setting a Canonical URL for SEO

A canonical URL is a self-declared preference submitted to Search Engines of your preferred URL version for a page or domain location. When you have multiple versions of a web page, as we’ve learned is possible, it can cause problems with search engines. This is because they may not know which version of the page to index and show searchers. Indexing issues are made worse by the search engines seeing duplicate content, which can hurt your ranking in search results.

Setting a canonical URL tells search engines which version of the page you want them to index. This helps them crawl your site more efficiently and prevents duplicate content issues.

The canonical URL can be set up with Yoast SEO for WordPress. Yoast SEO is a plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines. On each Page or Post of your website, scroll down to the Yoast SEO Section. Under “Advanced” you will see a field to add that page/post’s canonical URL. This will tell search engines which version you prefer.

Yoast isn’t the only plugin that this. Check out some other WordPress SEO plugins that can help with canonical URLs.

It is worth noting that canonical tags are your last line of defense for telling search engines which version of your website to index. Canonical tags are also helpful for duplicate content that exists for reasons other than having both www and non-www versions of your website.

For more, check out our ultimate guide to canonical URLs.

Overview for Fixing Mixed WWW and Non-WWW URLs

If you think you have an issue with multiple versions of your website:
1. Contact your hosting service provider. They should be able to help identify any issues on the server side of things.
2. Configure your WordPress site to use only one option. This can be done manually or with a plugin.
3. From there, you can set up 301 redirects from the unwanted version to the desired version. There some great redirect plugins for WordPress to help. This tells Google (and other search engines) that if theyâ€™ve indexed the unwanted URL that those pages have moved elsewhere. This process is similar to how you would redirect your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPs.
4. Lastly, you can set up canonical URLs to make it explicit which ones are to be preferred by search engines.
WWW vs non-WWW â€“ Which One Should I Use?

As we’ve discovered, it is a stalemate in terms of SEO. Using www or a non-www URL won’t affect your site’s SEO. Using a www URL may have some technical benefits in a few areas and maybe for that reason, it should be considered over non-www. The main thing is to be absolutely consistent with your use. Once you choose www or not wwwâ€”stick with that choice.

Conclusion

SEO is an important consideration for any website owner. Choosing to use www vs. non-www in your URL isn’t a major consideration for your site’s search ranking. Just remember to follow the best practices above and you’ll be able to spend your time worrying about other areas of SEO.

Featured Image via Yasir Design / shutterstock.com

The post WWW vs non-WWW: Which is Better for SEO? appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
01.09.2022