Brad Barrett: Financial Independence and 1.3 Million Podcast Listeners

Brad Barrett is co-host of the enormously popular ChooseFI podcast, which features stories of financial independence and reaches over 1.3 million listeners a month. On today’s episode Brad shares how he grew the podcast, what financial independence is, and what it means for entrepreneurs.

Listen to the episode:

Subscribe to The Fizzle Show in your favorite podcast player:

iTunes | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Spotify

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The post Brad Barrett: Financial Independence and 1.3 Million Podcast Listeners appeared first on Fizzle.

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How to bring the in-store experience online with social: An interview with Philz Coffee

Coffee is the start of the day for so many. Meaning coffee brands have a pretty big target audience. Being able to recreate the positive experience those people have at their regular coffee shop on social is a unique accomplishment. And that just so happens to be the mission of Philz Coffee, according to Jolie Meschi, Philz’s Marketing Communications Manager.

“One of the things I love most about my job is that I get to carry the interactions that our customers have in-store, online.”

Jolie has been with the company for six years and throughout that time has been responsible for running the coffee chain’s social platforms, influencer strategy and PR. She’s even dabbled in the brand’s events management. Across its three main social channels, Philz has a combined following of just over a hundred thousand. Those hundred thousand online coffee-lovers are reflective of close to 60 stores in over 50 communities.

“If you can’t connect with people face-to-face, the next best thing is to be on devices where they are,” Jolie said. “It allows us to bridge that gap and reach those customers anywhere.”

As Philz has grown and expanded into new markets, the importance of social media marketing has become a vital part of its business. Even more so during the pandemic. With that comes the task of demonstrating social’s value as an arm of marketing to the rest of the company. It’s a task that Jolie welcomes.

“Social media has become the go-to spot for customers to give us feedback, whether they realize it or not,” she said. “Showing people how you can create authentic relationships through engaging posts or sharing content that tells the story of the brand, then showing the impact it’s having on our customers is really important.”

Here’s a look at three key ways Jolie is social’s biggest champion within her organization.

 

1. Build trust across the business

Building trust is an important part of any relationship. For social media managers, it means creating contact points with different departments across your organization. According to Sprout data, 47% of all social marketers, from interns to the C-suite, say developing a strategy that supports their organization’s goals is their number one challenge. That may be due in part to a lack of trust and close working relationships within organizations.

Luckily, for Jolie that’s not the case. While companies across the world are adjusting to remote collaboration, trust-building was already a pretty natural thing for the team at Philz.

“It’s in our culture,” Jolie said. “It’s trying to create contact points throughout the week, throughout the day, with different departments, whether it’s our recruiting team to check in on what they need from us just so that they understand it’s a revolving door. I’m always here to help them with their needs.”

Because cross-collaborative relationships are such a normalized part of the culture, it’s easy for Jolie to schedule consistent, weekly meetings to share feedback and dive into what’s working (and what’s not) on every front of the business.

“I definitely feel like I get more buy-in when I have face time and one-on-one conversations and relationships with people in other departments,” Jolie said.

The strong working relationships mean team members feel comfortable being a partner to her.

“You’d be surprised how many people I get emails from saying, ‘Hey, do you want to post this on social?’ Or, ‘Hey, I’m speaking at this event in case anybody’s interested in learning about that on social!’” she said. “It makes my job a lot easier when people are engaged.”

Jolie discovered another benefit by embracing a less orthodox approach to fostering trust between team members, prior to pandemic.

“Every quarter we actually get to work on bar with our baristas,” she explains. “It really builds trust across all levels of the company, and also kind of levels the playing field.”

They also made it a habit to stay up to date on the in-store experience in order to adjust. Taking their laptops into the cafe, working from any shop they live near—that kind of connection behind the scenes is reflected in front of their customers. With a grassroots, personalized approach to marketing, Philz has become the fun environment that coffee-lovers know the brand to be. Now it’s up to Jolie to ensure that same environment remains on social, despite the limitations of a post-COVID world.

 

View this post on Instagram

#fridayphilz starts with your barista and a smile. . What else makes your #fridayphilz great? . 📷 : @lyssawalks #baristar #smileoftheday #fridayfeels #fueledbyphilz #tellafriend

A post shared by Philz Coffee (@philzcoffee) on Feb 7, 2020 at 10:23am PST

 

Try this: Scheduling consistent touch bases is one way to communicate. But fostering an open workflow creates the environment a company needs to go beyond consistency and build trust. If you have brick and mortar stores, spend time with the people behind your in-store experience. Even if operations are different now, there’s still valuable insight to gain in order to build the kind of community and understanding that informs strategy.

2. Share what success looks like

A natural extension of the cross-collaborative environment Jolie has built is communicating insights more broadly. Her social team of two often shares out reporting on social, email and all digital efforts. And at Philz, success is all about progress.

“It can be difficult in the retail coffee space to find a benchmark of good social metrics,” Jolie says. “Obviously, we love to see high engagement, we love to see customers commenting, saving, sharing posts. But to really prove that we’re moving the needle on our end, we usually benchmark against ourselves.”

With that focus in mind, she makes it a point to tie back every win to hard sales in the store so she can help others involved in the work visualize if and how they’ve moved the needle. This way, when her team shares results, they’re able to celebrate wins as a company.

“At the end of the campaign, we’ll do a wrap-up,” she explained. “We’ll include customer highlights, then hard data and how it all compares to a similar campaign or the last campaign we did.”

Data shows that 39% of marketers struggle to demonstrate the importance of social media marketing to the rest of their organization. The numbers show that even in a time when social is the most accessible and most engaged with channel where consumers reach brands, its value is downplayed because of the historical disconnect between social and bottom-line business metrics. Jolie conquers that challenge at Philz by sharing insights regularly and widely.

She admits it can be overwhelming to maintain a regular cadence for breaking down campaign data and sharing it out. But the environment of open communication at Philz makes it easier. Sharing social results went along with other project update schedules their team had in place in different departments.

 

View this post on Instagram

Thursday Office Vibes. Do you have a favorite Philz to work from? #wfp #workfromphilz #officeoftheday #philzway

A post shared by Philz Coffee (@philzcoffee) on Jul 18, 2019 at 10:44am PDT

“There’s usually a kickoff meeting, check-in meetings, then a wrap-up meeting,” she said. “So we naturally followed the cadence that way. But also tactically, it’s an easier way to digest data.”

Try this: When you wrap each campaign, take all your social metrics and compare that to historical sales. Draw correlations where you’re able in order to tie results back to hard sales in the store, for example. Then set a quarterly, cross-functional meeting to share those insights, not only informing but educating other members of your team.

3. Tap social for innovation

There’s no feedback forum more honest than social media. It’s where consumers refuse to hold back.

“They assume that somebody isn’t on the other side looking at it,” Jolie says. “So it’s really satisfying to respond to somebody like that, in a positive, courteous way. They’ll immediately change their tone and attitude because they realize there is a human there that actually cares.”

That’s all people ever really want, right? To be heard. Which makes it extra satisfying to Jolie when they’re able to gather social feedback and turn it around into action items for Philz.

“One of the biggest things that has come from a collection of social media feedback is that we have a slow-down coffee process, and the wait time can be a bit longer than a normal coffee shop,” Jolie explains. “We heard all about it on social—people running late, missing buses, missing trains. When we were trying to figure out ways to innovate and make ourselves faster and more accessible to all people, that really helped birth our mobile app.”

Listening to your community on social helps you drive innovation and enables companies to think outside of their own perspective. It not only gives you the opportunity to repair rifts in your relationships with customers, but drives social media’s impact on business. Jolie’s mobile app example illustrates how powerful social is in product development and improvement.

During the pandemic, while many companies grapple with how to leverage social to stay connected, Philz found the perfect way to meet coffee-lovers where they are. The team launched an IGTV series called “Philz At Home,” where team members show how they uniquely prepare coffee at home, continuing to inspire customers and meet them where they are.

 

 

Try this: Aligning your brand with consumer needs in a two-step process. Start by meeting with team members to understand their goals and department needs. Then pass social feedback on to those team members and say, “Hey, you’re trying to solve for X and I’ve heard a few people on social talking about this. Would you like me to share those insights with you?” Invite social into those projects and make its value intrinsic to product and marketing development.

How will you champion the influence of social?

It’s clear that the secret ingredient to championing social at Philz is trust. From team members to customers, Jolie understands that building relationships is a slow, but rewarding process (kind of like great coffee).

Her story comes down to the importance of companies embracing social media and a social-first environment. She wears many hats, taking her time to comb through data, listen to her customers and communicate with her peers, but every step of the way she and her team have found balance in work, trust and life.

The results aren’t just happy coffee lovers. The result is getting to see social, and the powerful insights it provides, take center stage.

To connect with other social marketers who are always on, join our Facebook groups, The Social Marketers’ Exchange or The Agency Exchange. And share with us if you’re planning to try any of these tips.

This post How to bring the in-store experience online with social: An interview with Philz Coffee originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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Social media managers, you matter now more than ever

The start of the new decade brought on a whole new set of challenges for social media managers. Between COVID-19 and the growing movements for racial equality worldwide, social media managers have had a lot on their plates and left many to wonder, “Does what we do matter? Does social media marketing matter?”

Does what we do matter?

Not does it build brands.
Not does it generate leads.
Not is it customer service.

Does. It. Matter?

— Jenny Wear A Mask Kosek (@JennyLovsGov) June 17, 2020

The answer is yes, for a myriad of reasons.

Social media managers’ skills and responsibilities are essential

Raise your hand if you’ve had a family member, friend or colleague underestimate your responsibilities and assume your job in social is fun and easy 24/7.

It’s true that social can be really enjoyable, but social media management is much more than that. Social media managers are creators, analysts, community moderators, digital strategists, writers, the list goes on. The many talents and skills they have are critical in supporting overall marketing goals. But you already know that.

A social media manager’s job is to provide expertise, build strategy, craft engaging content, and decide if that content fits into the current overall conversation on social media–not to just blindly post when someone says “post this.”

— Jon-Stephen Stansel (@jsstansel) June 16, 2020

What you might not know is that 70% of consumers say it’s important for brands to take a stand on social, and 66% of that group say it’s because they believe brands can create real change. Behind those brands taking a stand are the social media managers crafting the messaging, fielding the feedback both good and bad, and answering hard questions. They play a key role in helping brands use their platforms to stand up for their values and share important messages with whoever needs to hear them.

That’s not to say that if your brand isn’t taking a stand, your job isn’t important. If you spend your days connecting with your audience, answering hard questions (whether they’re about a stance, customer service or a community issue), developing new creative approaches, you’re helping move something forward. The knowledge and experience you’ve gained from social can be used as the fuel to build a brand people love and look to during trying times.

Social media managers are “digital bodyguards” for your brand

Unlike many other marketing disciplines, social media managers listen and talk to their audience every day, which is why marketing leaders should look to you for the voice of the customer. You know firsthand what concerns are on your audience’s minds, the expectations they have of your brand and how the current state of the world is affecting them. Be transparent with leadership about what’s happening. Let them know what people are angry about and what you want to do to help.

Social Media Managers, want to be a better ally?

Have conversations with leadership about allowing your brand to be more vocal in times like this.

Bring data, let them know how outraged and hurt your audience is. Remind them that this is what comes with being more "diverse."

— Azad Yakatally (@AYakatally) May 29, 2020

Unfortunately, not every social media manager has the final say about what their brand does or does not post. Many brands have joined conversations about Black Lives Matter, voicing their support or announcing contributions to the cause, some garnering praise, while others get called out for performative allyship. On the flip side, some brands have simply chosen silence. In both scenarios, social media managers become the “digital bodyguards” of brands.

Social media managers are the digital bodyguards of your company. They take all the hits for your brand, from the abuse of drive-by trolls to meaningful backlash when your company makes a bad decision.

— ella dawson (@brosandprose) June 16, 2020

As hard as it might be, you need to share how the public responds with your leaders. If your audience demands change and action, communicate that. You have a chance to be an advocate for your followers, shake things up and highlight the ways your company can make change from within. Use social to gather industry intel and other brand examples to build your case, then report back to the people who are making final decisions or developing messaging for your brand.

Social media managers can make an impact both inside and outside their organizations

If 2020 has confirmed one thing, it’s that social media is a major piece of the average person’s news diet and fuels the circulation and amplification of major stories as they develop. Many people will look to your brands for community news and updates. This is a chance to build trust with your audience, educate them and let the human side of your brand shine through.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth. Here are some things you should know about the 155-year old holiday.https://t.co/OsXlGRtlr1 pic.twitter.com/TCLx6bNLLG

— City of Columbus (@ColumbusGov) June 18, 2020

It’s not just government social media managers who can do this. Spending all your time on social media means you’re most likely a news-absorbing machine. You constantly dig through trending topics and public discussion so you can do your job well. Consider how you can bring that knowledge into your strategy and turn it into education for your followers.

Ben & Jerry’s is one of the standout brands actively advocating for racial and cultural equality. While you’ll still see an occasional plug for a new ice cream flavor, they’ve continued to use their platform to educate their followers on historic injustices or cultural movements, while still serving it in a way that’s relevant to their brand and industry.

There’s something special about the folks who make our delicious cookie dough chunks: Many of them are refugees who came to the US in search of a sweeter life, and we’re proud they’re part of the Ben & Jerry’s story. Learn more: https://t.co/GrIl8AqJoO #WorldRefugeeDay pic.twitter.com/nOdH74QoYC

— Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys) June 20, 2020

Not every social team has the same resources or freedom to follow in Ben & Jerry’s footsteps, but if you’re inspired, it’s worth a conversation with leadership about how you might incorporate more meaningful resources into your brand’s content.

Social media managers, you are not your brand

It’s easy to slip into an existential crisis while the world goes through crises that feel out of control. As we continue to ride the turbulent waves of 2020, remember this: you are not your brand. Your worth is not measured by the decisions your brand makes. If leadership directs you to post something that doesn’t go over well or chooses to take a path you’ve warned will get social media backlash, that’s not on you.

When you finally close your laptop or put down your phone and disconnect from work at the end of the day, it’s your personal happiness, values and fulfillment that matter most.

Social media managers: We see you, we hear you, we appreciate you.

If you need moral or professional support as you face the frontlines of social this year, join The Social Marketers’ Exchange Facebook Group—we’ll see you there.

This post Social media managers, you matter now more than ever originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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How to bring the in-store experience online with social: An interview with Philz Coffee

Coffee is the start of the day for so many. Meaning coffee brands have a pretty big target audience. Being able to recreate the positive experience those people have at their regular coffee shop on social is a unique accomplishment. And that just so happens to be the mission of Philz Coffee, according to Jolie Meschi, Philz’s Marketing Communications Manager.

“One of the things I love most about my job is that I get to carry the interactions that our customers have in-store, online.”

Jolie has been with the company for six years and throughout that time has been responsible for running the coffee chain’s social platforms, influencer strategy and PR. She’s even dabbled in the brand’s events management. Across its three main social channels, Philz has a combined following of just over a hundred thousand. Those hundred thousand online coffee-lovers are reflective of close to 60 stores in over 50 communities.

“If you can’t connect with people face-to-face, the next best thing is to be on devices where they are,” Jolie said. “It allows us to bridge that gap and reach those customers anywhere.”

As Philz has grown and expanded into new markets, the importance of social media marketing has become a vital part of its business. Even more so during the pandemic. With that comes the task of demonstrating social’s value as an arm of marketing to the rest of the company. It’s a task that Jolie welcomes.

“Social media has become the go-to spot for customers to give us feedback, whether they realize it or not,” she said. “Showing people how you can create authentic relationships through engaging posts or sharing content that tells the story of the brand, then showing the impact it’s having on our customers is really important.”

Here’s a look at three key ways Jolie is social’s biggest champion within her organization.

 

1. Build trust across the business

Building trust is an important part of any relationship. For social media managers, it means creating contact points with different departments across your organization. According to Sprout data, 47% of all social marketers, from interns to the C-suite, say developing a strategy that supports their organization’s goals is their number one challenge. That may be due in part to a lack of trust and close working relationships within organizations.

Luckily, for Jolie that’s not the case. While companies across the world are adjusting to remote collaboration, trust-building was already a pretty natural thing for the team at Philz.

“It’s in our culture,” Jolie said. “It’s trying to create contact points throughout the week, throughout the day, with different departments, whether it’s our recruiting team to check in on what they need from us just so that they understand it’s a revolving door. I’m always here to help them with their needs.”

Because cross-collaborative relationships are such a normalized part of the culture, it’s easy for Jolie to schedule consistent, weekly meetings to share feedback and dive into what’s working (and what’s not) on every front of the business.

“I definitely feel like I get more buy-in when I have face time and one-on-one conversations and relationships with people in other departments,” Jolie said.

The strong working relationships mean team members feel comfortable being a partner to her.

“You’d be surprised how many people I get emails from saying, ‘Hey, do you want to post this on social?’ Or, ‘Hey, I’m speaking at this event in case anybody’s interested in learning about that on social!’” she said. “It makes my job a lot easier when people are engaged.”

Jolie discovered another benefit by embracing a less orthodox approach to fostering trust between team members, prior to pandemic.

“Every quarter we actually get to work on bar with our baristas,” she explains. “It really builds trust across all levels of the company, and also kind of levels the playing field.”

They also made it a habit to stay up to date on the in-store experience in order to adjust. Taking their laptops into the cafe, working from any shop they live near—that kind of connection behind the scenes is reflected in front of their customers. With a grassroots, personalized approach to marketing, Philz has become the fun environment that coffee-lovers know the brand to be. Now it’s up to Jolie to ensure that same environment remains on social, despite the limitations of a post-COVID world.

 

View this post on Instagram

#fridayphilz starts with your barista and a smile. . What else makes your #fridayphilz great? . 📷 : @lyssawalks #baristar #smileoftheday #fridayfeels #fueledbyphilz #tellafriend

A post shared by Philz Coffee (@philzcoffee) on Feb 7, 2020 at 10:23am PST

 

Try this: Scheduling consistent touch bases is one way to communicate. But fostering an open workflow creates the environment a company needs to go beyond consistency and build trust. If you have brick and mortar stores, spend time with the people behind your in-store experience. Even if operations are different now, there’s still valuable insight to gain in order to build the kind of community and understanding that informs strategy.

2. Share what success looks like

A natural extension of the cross-collaborative environment Jolie has built is communicating insights more broadly. Her social team of two often shares out reporting on social, email and all digital efforts. And at Philz, success is all about progress.

“It can be difficult in the retail coffee space to find a benchmark of good social metrics,” Jolie says. “Obviously, we love to see high engagement, we love to see customers commenting, saving, sharing posts. But to really prove that we’re moving the needle on our end, we usually benchmark against ourselves.”

With that focus in mind, she makes it a point to tie back every win to hard sales in the store so she can help others involved in the work visualize if and how they’ve moved the needle. This way, when her team shares results, they’re able to celebrate wins as a company.

“At the end of the campaign, we’ll do a wrap-up,” she explained. “We’ll include customer highlights, then hard data and how it all compares to a similar campaign or the last campaign we did.”

Data shows that 39% of marketers struggle to demonstrate the importance of social media marketing to the rest of their organization. The numbers show that even in a time when social is the most accessible and most engaged with channel where consumers reach brands, its value is downplayed because of the historical disconnect between social and bottom-line business metrics. Jolie conquers that challenge at Philz by sharing insights regularly and widely.

She admits it can be overwhelming to maintain a regular cadence for breaking down campaign data and sharing it out. But the environment of open communication at Philz makes it easier. Sharing social results went along with other project update schedules their team had in place in different departments.

 

View this post on Instagram

Thursday Office Vibes. Do you have a favorite Philz to work from? #wfp #workfromphilz #officeoftheday #philzway

A post shared by Philz Coffee (@philzcoffee) on Jul 18, 2019 at 10:44am PDT

“There’s usually a kickoff meeting, check-in meetings, then a wrap-up meeting,” she said. “So we naturally followed the cadence that way. But also tactically, it’s an easier way to digest data.”

Try this: When you wrap each campaign, take all your social metrics and compare that to historical sales. Draw correlations where you’re able in order to tie results back to hard sales in the store, for example. Then set a quarterly, cross-functional meeting to share those insights, not only informing but educating other members of your team.

3. Tap social for innovation

There’s no feedback forum more honest than social media. It’s where consumers refuse to hold back.

“They assume that somebody isn’t on the other side looking at it,” Jolie says. “So it’s really satisfying to respond to somebody like that, in a positive, courteous way. They’ll immediately change their tone and attitude because they realize there is a human there that actually cares.”

That’s all people ever really want, right? To be heard. Which makes it extra satisfying to Jolie when they’re able to gather social feedback and turn it around into action items for Philz.

“One of the biggest things that has come from a collection of social media feedback is that we have a slow-down coffee process, and the wait time can be a bit longer than a normal coffee shop,” Jolie explains. “We heard all about it on social—people running late, missing buses, missing trains. When we were trying to figure out ways to innovate and make ourselves faster and more accessible to all people, that really helped birth our mobile app.”

Listening to your community on social helps you drive innovation and enables companies to think outside of their own perspective. It not only gives you the opportunity to repair rifts in your relationships with customers, but drives social media’s impact on business. Jolie’s mobile app example illustrates how powerful social is in product development and improvement.

During the pandemic, while many companies grapple with how to leverage social to stay connected, Philz found the perfect way to meet coffee-lovers where they are. The team launched an IGTV series called “Philz At Home,” where team members show how they uniquely prepare coffee at home, continuing to inspire customers and meet them where they are.

 

 

Try this: Aligning your brand with consumer needs in a two-step process. Start by meeting with team members to understand their goals and department needs. Then pass social feedback on to those team members and say, “Hey, you’re trying to solve for X and I’ve heard a few people on social talking about this. Would you like me to share those insights with you?” Invite social into those projects and make its value intrinsic to product and marketing development.

How will you champion the influence of social?

It’s clear that the secret ingredient to championing social at Philz is trust. From team members to customers, Jolie understands that building relationships is a slow, but rewarding process (kind of like great coffee).

Her story comes down to the importance of companies embracing social media and a social-first environment. She wears many hats, taking her time to comb through data, listen to her customers and communicate with her peers, but every step of the way she and her team have found balance in work, trust and life.

The results aren’t just happy coffee lovers. The result is getting to see social, and the powerful insights it provides, take center stage.

To connect with other social marketers who are always on, join our Facebook groups, The Social Marketers’ Exchange or The Agency Exchange. And share with us if you’re planning to try any of these tips.

This post How to bring the in-store experience online with social: An interview with Philz Coffee originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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via IFTTT

Are Marketers Friends With Their Coworkers on Social Media?

Most marketers say they are friends with their coworkers on social media, and most also say they have felt left out after seeing social media posts of their coworkers socializing, according to recent research from Igloo Software. Go to the full version at MarketingProfs

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The Role of Customer Empathy in the Future of Marketing

As marketers, we know that effective marketing puts the customer first. But how do we do that? How can we harness our most human of superpowers to deliver real value both to the customer and to the business? Start using empathy in marketing. Go to the full version at MarketingProfs

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Underrated Link-Building Tactics That Work Surprisingly Well [Infographic]

Boosting your rankings on Google is vital: It means more traffic to your site and an increase in leads. One of the most reliable ways to rank well is the use of link-building tactics. But it's not only the most popular tactics that perform well. These lesser-used tactics are just ... Go to the full version at MarketingProfs

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Find and Fix Mix Content Issues with This Free Tool

Among newer SEO issues that have become a widespread problem is so-called “Mixed Content” issue.

Let’s find out:

• What mixed content is
• How to spot and fix the mixed content issue

---

What Is Mixed Content?

---

Mixed Content issue occurs when a secure page serves non-secure content (images, videos, but also scripts, styles, etc.)

Mixed content occurs when initial HTML is loaded over a secure HTTPS connection, but other resources (such as images, videos, stylesheets, scripts) are loaded over an insecure HTTP connection. This is called mixed content because both HTTP and HTTPS content are being loaded to display the same page, and the initial request was secure over HTTPS.

Source: Jo-el van Bergen (Google)

There are two types of mixed content:

• Passive mixed content: insecure videos, images,and audio files, and other resources that cannot interact with the rest of the page.

• Active mixed content: non-secure iframes, scripts, stylesheets, flash resources, and other code that a browser can download and execute.

---

The issue has become a widespread problem after lots of sites switched to HTTPS protocols, following Google’s persistent recommendation (when it was confirmed as a ranking factor).

Mixed content hurts the website’s security and speed, but most important, it causes Google Chrome (and probably other browsers) to block your non-secure content.

Put simply, previously Google Chrome would show an error when a secure page loads non-secure content, but now the browser would quietly refuse to load it

While this may be better for the user (they will not rush to leave your site when being alerted of some weird security errors), this also makes identifying mixed content harder for the website owners.

Does Mixed Content Impact Your SEO?

Google doesn’t say that there’s any direct impact on organic rankings for pages that serve non-secure content. We do know that Google is over-protective of security and usability of pages that show up in Google’s SERPs.

Since Google defines mixed content as

degrading the security and user experience of your HTTPS site.

Source: Google

On top of that, as mentioned above, HTTPS encryption is an official Google’s ranking factor, so a partial absence of it must one too.

So it is safe to assume that Google may be flagging mixed content as something they may not want to on the very top of Google

How to Spot and Fix the Mixed Content Issue

---

Now that identifying mixed content by using a browser has become harder, how to go about finding and consequently fixing it?

Secure Checker is the free SEO tool that will alert you of any mixed content issues.

The free Secure Checker uses a headless Chrome browser to load each URL which is entered.

What this means is that the mixed content errors displayed by the tool are directly pulled from the browser console, hence these are the same errors that a live Google Chrome browser would identify:

This is exactly the content that will be blocked by Google Chrome.

Conclusion

Mixed content should be part of any SEO audit or usability audit from now, so this free tool will hopefully turn helpful. Please do let us know if you have any feedback or feature requests in the comments below!

The post Find and Fix Mix Content Issues with This Free Tool appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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Are Marketers Friends With Their Coworkers on Social Media?

Most marketers say they are friends with their coworkers on social media, and most also say they have felt left out after seeing social media posts of their coworkers socializing, according to recent research from Igloo Software. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

from MarketingProfs Daily: Social Media https://ift.tt/38bSOJY
via IFTTT

Underrated Link-Building Tactics That Work Surprisingly Well [Infographic]

Boosting your rankings on Google is vital: It means more traffic to your site and an increase in leads. One of the most reliable ways to rank well is the use of link-building tactics. But it's not only the most popular tactics that perform well. These lesser-used tactics are just ... Read the full article at MarketingProfs

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Best WordPress Backup Plugin – (Review Updated for 2020)

Imagine waking up one morning only to discover an error with your WordPress administrative dashboard.

You contact your web hosting company, and they inform you that the website crashed — the handiwork of a hacker.

In addition to missing out on website traffic and sales, you also lost your databases and website content.

Now what?

This hypothetical example might be a bit on the extreme side, but it’s not completely implausible. Things happen. Your website could become the victim of user errors, vicious attacks, or malware.

If this happens, you need to get your site back up and running as soon as possible. Failure to do so will crush your SEO ranking, and damage your relationship with customers and website visitors. On top of rebuilding your website, you’ll also need to run campaigns to improve your online reputation.

But there’s a way for you to avoid this catastrophic scenario in the first place: backup plugins.

A backup plugin can restore all of your WordPress website content if you ever have any problems.

So what’s the best WordPress backup plugin?

There are tons of options to choose from. The last thing you want is to install a backup plugin as a fail-safe and have it cause more problems. That’s why I narrowed down the list to the six best WordPress backup plugins for you to consider. Use this guide as a reference to help you find the right one for your website.

1. BlogVault

BlogVault is trusted by 400,000+ websites for their backup needs—and for good reason. In between its affordable pricing ($7.40 / month) and it’s great features, it’s sure to give you everything you would need out of a WordPress backup plugin.

On top of being very easy to use, it also comes with equally easy migration for if you ever want to change hosts.

One other very nice feature is the fact that BlogVault backs up your website even if your website is down. You’ll be able to access any backups via your BlogVault dashboard while you wait for your site to go back up.

BlogVault also creates multiple backup copies of your website, allowing you to upload them into a third-party storage site like Google Drive or DropBox for even more protection against lost data. And with daily automatic backups, you’re sure to have the most up-to-date backups as possible.

Recovering your website is a snap too. With just one click, you’ll be able to restore your backed up website and return it to what it was the day before the hack or loss of information occurs.

BlogVault allows you to add sites to their service to. You’ll be able to manage all of your website backups on one dashboard, and generate reports and analytics for each one.

Pricing for BlogVault starts at $7.4 / month and includes real-time backups, a 90-day backup archive, and one site. Try BlogVault now.

2. BackupBuddy

The BackupBuddy WordPress plugin has been around for nearly a decade. Other backup plugins on the market only backup your database, but BackupBuddy covers the entire WordPress installation.

• Website pages
• Posts
• Comments
• Widgets
• Users
• Database
• Core files
• Custom posts
• Categories
• Tags
• Images
• Videos
• Plugin files
• Settings
• Themes

All of these components will be backed up with this plugin. The files are backed up and stored off-site in a location that’s safe and secure. Each time a backup is completed, you can download a zip file to have another copy on your hard drive. You can also send backups to remote storage locations such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and BackupBuddy Stash.

If you ever have a problem and need to recover content, BackupBuddy makes it easy to quickly restore your entire WordPress site.

While this plugin can back up nearly every element of your WordPress site, that doesn’t mean you have to do so. For one reason or another, you may only want to backup certain components, like a database or specific files. You can completely customize the backups to fit your needs.

Another reason why BackupBuddy is a top choice is because you can schedule automatic backups, so you won’t have to remember to do this manually.

BackupBuddy is extremely helpful when it comes to user error as well. If you accidentally delete a post, you can restore the content in just a few clicks.

If you ever need to change domains or hosts for your WordPress site, the BackupBuddy plugin will help you do so with ease. The WordPress migration tool makes this plugin a popular choice for developers who create custom websites for clients on a temporary domain before moving the site over to a domain that’s live.

BackupBuddy also runs malware scans, which can potentially identify any problems before they happen.

All of these features make BackupBuddy one of the best WordPress backup plugins available.

3. VaultPress

For those of you who are looking for backups, migrations, and security features all in one plugin, VaultPress will likely be your best bet. It’s built by the same team that builds WordPress itself, Autommatic.

We use VaultPress on Quick Sprout and have since 2011.

Once you install this plugin, you can easily set up automated backups. Everything is stored in a digital off-site vault. In addition to backups, you can use VaultPress for site migrations, file repairs, and restores.

VaultPress also has a calendar view option, making it easy to locate, view, and restore content from previous backups. But the dashboard of VaultPress is different from what you’re used to with other WordPress plugins. This minor navigation flaw doesn’t affect the performance and usage of the plugin itself.

I also like the built-in security features. The file scanning and spam defense will help you identify and eliminate malware, spammers, viruses, and other security vulnerabilities. The added security reduces the chances that you’ll actually have to use the restore functions due to an outside threat, but it’s nice to have the backups available just to be safe.

Pricing plans for VaultPress start at $39 per year, so it’s a cost-effective way to back up your WordPress website.

4. UpdraftPlus

Over two million active websites have installed UpdraftPlus as a WordPress backup.

UpdraftPlus gets my vote of confidence because it’s so easy to use. Even if you don’t have much technical experience, the interface is very straightforward. The simplicity allows you to backup and restore content in just a click or two.

The free version of UpdraftPlus lets you run full backups, manual backups, and scheduled backups. You can also back up and restore your plugins, themes, and database with the free version.

Automatic backup options range anywhere from hourly to monthly. If you want to manually manage UpdraftPlus, you’ll clearly see the restore, clone, and migrate options in addition to the backup buttons. You can access all of your current backups directly from the dashboard. It’s easy for you to restore or delete older versions that you no longer need.

Like other backup plugins, UpdraftPlus gives you remote storage options to places such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and many more.

UpdraftPlus is fast. So it uses up fewer server resources. This is a great feature for those of you who are using shared web hosting services.

It’s comforting knowing that there are free WordPress backup plugins out there with so much functionality. With that said, you can upgrade to a premium plan that’s extremely affordable, starting at $42 per year to get these additional features and reports:

• Incremental backups
• Migrator
• Multisite/multi-network compatible
• Backs up non WP files and databases to multiple remote destinations
• OneDrive, BackBlaze, Azure, SFTP storage destinations
• Database encryption
• Advanced reporting
• Dedicated expert support

The incremental backup feature is one of the best reasons to upgrade this plugin. Instead of having to back up your entire site when you make a change, such as adding an image, this option only backs up those new files.

If you have any issues with this plugin, the customer support team is exceptional.

You can tell that UpdraftPlus is a reliable plugin just by the sheer number of active installs on other websites. The plugin wouldn’t be so popular if all of those people had problems.

5. Duplicator

With over one million active installations, Duplicator is another popular choice. As the name implies, the primary function of this plugin is to migrate, move, or clone a WordPress website between domains. This can be accomplished without any downtime, which can’t be said for other plugins out there. You can also use Duplicator to transfer your WordPress website between hosts.

This plugin lets you duplicate a live website to a staging area, or duplicate your staging area to a live site. Duplicator allows you to execute a full migration in WordPress without having to import and export SQL scripts.

This plugin is a great option, but I can’t say I’d recommend it to beginners. It’s definitely better for those of you who have some technical knowledge. Don’t get me wrong; you don’t need to be a coding expert, but you should have a basic understanding of how things work before you attempt to use the Duplicator plugin on your website.

It’s great for developers who are tired of manually configuring themes and sets of plugins each time they build a new site. You can just do this once and bundle it with Duplicator, then just use that as your template by migrating it over to different locations for each client.

Here’s how it works: All of your website content, plugins, themes, and database get bundled into a zip file, which is referred to as a “package” by Duplicator.

In addition to these features, you can also benefit from scheduled backups by upgrading to Duplicator Pro. The pricing is pretty affordable; it starts at $79 per year.

Backups can be stored locally, or in remote locations. You can also set up email notifications for updates on the status of your backups.

I’d say this WordPress plugin is more suitable for developers who have the need for migrations and things of that nature. So if that’s what you’re looking for, Duplicator can fulfill the requirements. It’s great for developers who are tired of manually configuring themes and sets of plugins each time they build a new site. You can do this once and bundle it with Duplicator, then just use that as your template by migrating it over to a different locations for each client.

But if you just want a basic backup plugin, you’ll probably be better off with one of the other choices on our list.

6. WP Time Capsule

WP Time Capsule seamlessly integrates with your cloud storage applications. This WordPress backup plugin is definitely one of the easiest options available. So unlike other options that we’ve seen, even a novice user can handle all of the features. Once the plugin is installed and set up, it’s pretty hands-off moving forward.

After you install this plugin, the first thing you’ll need to do is connect it with one of the cloud storage locations:

• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• Amazon S3
• Wasabi

Once that happens, the plugin will automatically start creating your first backup.

Next, you just simply have to set your backup schedule and the WP Time Capsule plugin will take care of the rest.

Another great feature of the WP Time Capsule is the calendar view option. This is extremely helpful if you want to restore content from a specific date.

As you can see, this is very straightforward. All you have to do is click on the date, and decide if you want to view or restore files from your selection.

Since WP Time Capsule backs up your site incrementally, you won’t have multiple copies of files. This means less disk space will be used. WP Time Capsule doesn’t create zip files either, so fewer server resources are used compared to other backup methods.

If you want a backup plugin that’s simple, straightforward, user-friendly, and easy to use, WP Time Capsule is a top choice to consider.

Conclusion

What’s the best WordPress backup plugin?

I narrowed down the top six options for you to consider. Each of these plugins is slightly different from the others, so what’s best for your site will depend on what you’re looking for.

For those of you who want to go with a popular choice for WordPress backups, then you should take a closer look at BackupBuddy and BlogVault.

If you’re a developer, a bit more tech-savvy, and plan to use a backup plugin for cloning, migrations, and moving content between servers, you’ll want to consider Duplicator.

Maybe you just want a simple backup plugin that’s easy to use, has automatic backups, and stores content in your personal remote storage accounts. In this case, you’ll want to go with WP Time Capsule.

If you want added security functionality in addition to WordPress backups, VaultPress has what you’re looking for.

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