The Best Website Fonts That Go Together in 2019

There are so many components to a killer website design. But all too often I see people overlook minor details, like typography.

I know what some of you might be thinking. How important can a website’s font really be?

Believe it or not, something as simple as choosing the right font can have a major impact on conversion. Plus, website fonts affect the overall appearance of your site.

Now it’s unlikely that you’ve been on a website and thought, “Wow! I absolutely love this font!”

This just isn’t something that our minds are trained to look for and I’m not expecting you to find a font that’s going to “wow” your website visitors. But, I can guarantee that you’ve been on websites that have fonts that were generic, unappealing, difficult to read, or felt out of place. You obviously don’t want people to have that impression of your website.

Why your website font matters

Here’s something to consider: different website fonts can change the reader’s perception of a particular topic.

Errol Morris conducted a survey in an article published in The New York Times in 2012. He included a passage from a book that claimed we live in an ear of unprecedented safety, and followed the passage up with two questions:

1. Is the claim true? (yes or no)
2. How confident are you with the answer? (slightly, moderately, very)

As it turns out, Morris didn’t care about anyone’s opinion. He just wanted to know if the font could influence their answers. Forty thousand people unknowingly participated in this experiment. While everyone read the same passage; they did not all see it in the same typography.

Check out these results.

This graph shows all of the respondents who agreed to the first question. Morris took their levels of confidence in the second question and assigned a weighted value to each response.

In doing so, it’s clear that there was a difference between how confident people were in agreeing with the claims being made based on the font they were presented in. Now let’s look and see the results of respondents who disagreed with the passage.

Compare the two graphs. Do you notice any similarities?

As you can see, the Baskerville font was ranked highest for weighted agreement and lowest for weighted disagreement. Comic Sans font ranked lowest for weighted agreement, and ranked high for weighted disagreement.

Based on this data, Morris was able to conclude that fonts can influence the way people perceive information. Basically, the typeface can actually affect the credibility of your website.

In short — yes, website fonts matter.

The best Google Font pairings for 2019

You don’t want to have the same font everywhere on your site; that’s too boring. Mix it up! But make sure you pick fonts that go well together. I created this guide to help you do just that.

There are plenty of platforms for finding free fonts, but Google Fonts is my favorite. I identified the top Google Fonts pairings for 2019. So check out my list, and pick out a combination that works best for your website.

Open Sans and Roboto

The header of this screenshot is Open Sans semi-bold. The paragraph below it is Roboto regular. I think the semi-bold header just ads a bit more punch than the regular weight of Open Sans, but it’s fine if you go with that option as well.

The reason why these fonts work so well together is because they are both crisp and extremely legible.

You’ve got lots of different options here to consider for your website design. This combination could be used to convey the value proposition on your homepage. Use the Open Sans header as a point of emphasis, and then elaborate on the subject using Roboto.

These fonts work well together if you swap them as well. You could use Roboto as the header, and Open Sans for the paragraph. In this case, I’d recommend going with Roboto medium, and Open Sans regular.

Playfair Display and Montserrat

This font combination works best for shorter text on your website. I wouldn’t necessarily use it on a blog post or something like that.

However, this pairing is perfect for a product title and product description, especially for ecommerce shops in the fashion industry. The lighter weight font, like Montserrat light, gives the text a certain level of elegance that fits with a luxury brand persona.

Interestingly enough, if you swap the two and use Montserrat as the header, the persona changes to something that feels futuristic or techy. That combination can work well for some of you who are promoting a game, or even on a landing page to download your mobile gaming app.

Either way, these two fonts work well together. It depends on the theme and overall message that you’re going for on your website.

Lora and Alegreya

Lora bold is strong and legible, which is why it’s perfect for title pages. While the typography is powerful, it’s still friendly and inviting.

Alegreya regular compliments Lora really well, especially when used for captioning images.

While Alegreya is definitely legible, it can be challenging to read for long stretches, which is why it’s better for short text like captions or quick descriptions. I would not recommend experimenting with any other variations of Alegreya. Adding weight or italics to this font loses the legibility.

Now if you swap their positions, Alegreya bold works fine for title and header text. Lora regular is legible, so you could consider using it for longer text. I think this combination would be perfect for something like a customer testimonial or short case study.

Merriweather and Lato

Merriweather light and Lato regular is a very clean and professional combination.

It’s a popular choice because the options are so versatile. Merriweather light is modern, tasteful, and appealing. When it’s followed up with text written in Lato, the pairing feels trustworthy.

I’d recommend using this combination on your homepage. For those of you who have a design that involves scrolling to learn more information, this text combination will work perfectly. I’m picturing a website visitor scrolling down your home screen, seeing an image on the left side of the page and this font combination on the right. When they continue scrolling, the next image will be on the right, and the text will be on the left.

If this sounds like your current design, definitely consider using this combination to add a touch of professionalism to your content.

Amatic SC and Josefin Slab

The font combination of Amatic SC bold and Josefin Slab italic is definitely not for everyone. I can’t say that I would recommend it to the majority of websites, but it’s an ideal combination for artsy websites. If you’re a musician, painter, or photographer, these fonts can be used sparingly on your pages.

The key here is to make sure that the text has plenty of space to breathe. I’d recommend using it against white or very light backgrounds. So check out my post on the top trending website color schemes of 2019 as well.

If you sell ceramics or sculptures, this font can be very appealing to your audience and fit nicely with the overall theme of your business.

Just make sure you don’t go overboard. Using too much of this on the screen is unappealing and challenging to read. So pick something else for longer blocks of text, such as your biography or about me pages.

Cinzel and Raleway

Cinzel is a bold font (no pun intended). It’s all capital letters, which makes it more suitable for short text as opposed to long blog posts or things of that nature.

It’s complemented really by a font that’s a bit more traditional, like Raleway. These two fonts are perfect for websites in the food and drink industry.

You could consider using this to spice up your online menu. Have the menu categories in Cinzel black, the meal titles in Cinzel bold, and the description of the item written in Raleway regular.

If you really want to be unique, you can swap the two and use Raleway for headings and Cinzel for the body text. This could work well for local coffee shops that update their website with daily specials or weekly brews.

PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans

PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans is a classic combination. This versatile choice will work well for nearly any website in 2019.

Since both fonts are so legible, you can use it for text in short-form, as well as long-form content such as blog posts.

I like these fonts because they are easy to read, but not too generic and boring. PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans are inviting, so consider using them on home screens and landing pages.

How to pick the best website fonts

Now that you’ve seen some of the best Google Fonts combinations of 2019, how can you decide which one is best for your website?

The first thing you need to do is determine what type of content the font will be used for. Decide if the fonts are for your blog, homepage, landing page, product description, or navigation menu.

You’ll also want to consider the type of business you have, as well as the audience you’re targeting. Does the font need to be professional? Or do you have some room to be a bit unique?

The key to pairing two fonts together is contrast. The fonts should be different enough that each is distinguishable, but not so different that the reader is distracted.

You may want to use a few font combinations on your website, but don’t go overboard. Keep it simple. Each page should just have two fonts; three at most. If you want to use more, consider using variations of the fonts already on the page (light, italic, medium, bold, etc.) instead.

Conclusion

Fonts are important, so it time to get rid of the default. Google Fonts is one of the best resources for free website fonts. The platform has some of the top site fonts that go together.

• Open Sans and Roboto
• Playfair Display and Montserrat
• Lora and Alegreya
• Merriweather and Lato
• Amatic SC and Josefin Slab
• Cinzel and Raleway
• PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans

I tried to provide a little bit of something for everyone. Keep in mind, not all of these fonts will work for every website. So go through these and see which fonts fit best for your business, industry, audience, and theme.

Which website font pairings are you using in 2019?

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The Ultimate Guide for Your Product Page Keyword Research

Search traffic remains one of the major sources of traffic and conversions to any website. Keep your organic search visibility in mind when working on your most important “money pages” (i.e. those that drive direct sales).

In this article I’ll go you through both basic and advanced keyword research tactics for your product pages that will also positively impact conversions.

Keyword research lies at the heart of any marketing campaign, whether it’s a local or an international business. And despite what many business owners may think, keywords are not for search engine optimization only.

Keyword research helps a marketer:

• Analyze your competition and learn from it (what is it they are doing that seems to work for them?)
• Identify market gaps (what is missing and where does my opportunity lie?)
• Understand your customer better (what is it they are searching for and how can I help them?)
  

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Think about keyword research this way:

Behind each search query there’s a human being with an actual problem. Whether your (product) page is able to solve that problem well defines how successful your business is.

In order for keyword research to be able to provide the required amount of insight, you need to:

1. Group those keywords by relevancy (Providing a solution to each group)
2. Group those keywords by search intent (What is it your customer is going to do when searching?)

Let’s see these two in action!

Step 1. Identify and Group Your Keywords by Relevancy

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The first step of keyword research is running your core term through tools like Spyfu, Majestic, Ahrefs or Wordstream and downloading hundreds of phrases your target customer is typing when searching for solutions, answers and/or products in your niche.

How to make sense of those enormous lists? There’s no way you can create as many landing pages to match all those search queries.

The solution is: Keyword clustering

Identify groups of keywords by relevancy and optimize your product page for the group of keywords instead of each individual one.

Serpstat’s clustering feature is a great way to make sense of huge keyword lists. It breaks your lists into meaningful groups based on how they are related:

How can this research help both rankings and sales?

Grouping your keywords helps you maintain focus: Instead of trying to target each individual query, it allows you to create landing pages that can get ranked for a variety of keywords within one group and capture all those potential leads.

On the other hand, keyword clustering gives you a better understanding of your niche, types of queries and questions your target audience tends to ask online. This provides you with more structured and organized ideas on how to serve them better.

Step 2: Group Your Keywords by Search Intent

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Search intent analysis is the most important aspect of keyword research. It defines all your further actions when it comes to content creation and search engine optimization.

Search intent reflects the most probable kind of action a user is likely to take when searching. In other words, it helps you identify what your target customer intends to do when searching.

There are three main types of search intent: Do – Know – Go

• Do: Commercial search intent, also known as “transactional” search intent (your target customer intends to buy)
• Know: Informational search intent (your target customer is exploring the topic)
• Go: Navigational search intent (your target customer is searching for you or your competitor)
  

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Now, with our step above in mind, instead of assigning intent to each individual query, we try to identify search intent behind our keyword groups, which is much more doable:

So what’s next?

Match Your Landing Page Content to Search Intent

Now that we know what people are searching, create and implement your keyword optimization plan:

Search Intent Type	Landing page type	Sales funnel
DO	Use these keywords on your product pages (especially in the title and in the subheadings (H1, H2)	Use your primary call-to-action / sales funnel
KNOW	Create articles, guides and tutorials (Linking to product pages from within context as one of the solutions)	Use your lead generation funnel to tie these searchers to your brand
GO [Your brand]	Use these keywords on your product pages	Use your primary call-to-action / sales funnel
GO [Your competitor’s brand]	Create additional landing page demonstrating the selling point / advantage of your offer/product (Example: Here’s a subtle explanation how Vimeo on Demand is better than Youtube)	Use your primary call-to-action / sales funnel: Get creative here!***

How can this research help both rankings and sales?

Search intent helps you understand your customer better and consequently serve them better. There’s no point in trying to sell right away to someone who has no intention to buy: This will result in page bounces (sending poor signals to Google and losing your leads).

Matching your page content to the search intent results in higher conversions and better page engagement (which is also an important search ranking signal)

Step 3: Create Content Matching Google’s (and Customers’) Expectations

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The first two steps may have taken you a couple of days of work. On the bright side, this research will last you for a year or so (before you’ll have to re-address your search positions or introduce a new product)

Now that you know which keyword group refers to each product page, and which action is intended (“buy”, “research” or “research, then buy”), it time that you start creating content.

Google generates these search snippets based on what it is they have found to be serving the user best. We can reverse-engineer Google’s editorial decision and build the product page that matches both Google’s and users’ expectations best.

That is exactly what TextOptimzer is doing: It grabs your query, searches Google and using semantic analysis extracts related terms and categories for you to build the best product page around:

[Text Optimizer urges to create a better copy by suggesting what Google and its users expect to see on that page]

You can use it before you create your page as well as for your existing content (in which case it will compare your content to Google’s SERPs and suggest areas of improvement).

How can this research help both rankings and sales?

Like with search intent, this is another level of matching users’ expectations better, this time using Google search result page analysis.

The idea is, Google has already found that these terms tend to do a better job satisfying their users, so our task is to add them with in the copy to engage those people better, once they land on our page clicking through the search result.

Step 4: Ask and Answer Questions

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Niche question research gives you even more insight into your target audience struggles and your own content opportunities. With Google’s “People Also Ask” boxes this research is easier than ever.

Notice those “People Also Ask” boxes all over search results offering users a list of related questions on the topic they have just typed:

Whenever you are working on your product page copy, take note of those “People Also Ask” results and think how they can be utilized.

It makes perfect sense to address popular questions on the landing page. This will accomplish several goals:

• Improve the page organic rankings (more optimized content generally helps rankings)
• Get it featured more (Most of those questions trigger “Featured Snippet” results when typed into Google’s search bar)
• Improve conversions+user engagement by giving your target customers good answers to their questions (and showing how your product can help)
  

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Featured Snippet Tool helps you research People Also Ask opportunities for any page: It checks your domain’s and/or URL’s important search queries and generates “People Also Ask” results for all of them:

How can this research help both rankings and sales?

Questions are highly engaging: Asking a question triggers an “instinctive elaboration” reflex in human beings prompting them to stop and look for an answer. And higher engagement results in more time spent on a web page, more time to consider your offer and a higher likelihood of the conversion.

Putting it All Together: Creating a Search Optimized Product Page

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So to make it easier for you, here are your basic steps:

1. Identify keywords people may be typing into a search box when looking for products and/or solutions you offer (using tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Spyfu)
2. Group those keywords by meaning using Serpstat clustering
3. Identify search intent behind each group to map out which group should applied to which landing page
4. Build content implementing the chosen group of keywords as well as related and neighboring terms using TextOptimizer

Further reading:

• 5 Elements of a High-Ranking, Better-Converting Product Page
• Growing Your Organic Search in International Markets [INBOUND Presentation Write Up]

And how do you research keywords for your product and landing pages? Let’s discuss!

The post The Ultimate Guide for Your Product Page Keyword Research appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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Honoring the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today, we’re taking time off from writing for our respectful acknowledgement of an American hero. It’s the U.S. holiday set...

Continue Reading

The post Honoring the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Top Marketing Resources for CMOs in 2019

A seat at the executive table for marketers in the form of the CMO role has not come without costs. CMOs have half the tenure of CEOs and the spotlight is on marketing leadership like never before. While it’s undoubtedly a tough job, there's plenty of opportunity. More than 25% of CEOs at large publicly traded companies have a marketing background. A CMO title has become the ultimate goal for many marketers and those that make the grade have to continue working hard on advancing their knowledge, skills and staying on top of industry trends. To help CMOs and aspiring CMOs connect to strategic, useful and engaging information, here are 5 of the top resources worthy of a CMOs time. 1. CMO Moves - Nadine Dietz, aka “The Beyonce of CMOs”, has created a new site and interview series that shares what she calls the human side of game-changing CMOs. CMO Moves asks CMOs at brands ranging from Ameritrade to Ford to Walmart questions like, How did they get to the top? What rules did they have to break along the way? Who do they see as their role models? How do they inspire and grow their teams to greatness? CMO Moves was recently acquired by Advertising Age with 52 podcast episodes plus articles and resources. The site is a great opportunity for CMOs and fast tracking marketers alike to learn from their peers. 2. Marketing Industry Influencers of CMOs - Of course resources for marketing knowledge come in many forms and we all know that peers are far more influential than brands, including the topics tracked by CMOs. Speaking of tracking, Forbes has reported on the top influencers of CMOs citing research from Leadtail and their tracking of nearly 1,300 North American CMOs. Here is a list of the top 10 influencers of CMOs:

• Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar): Chief Digital Evangelist, Salesforce
• Tamara McCleary (@TamaraMcCleary): CEO, Thulium.co
• Scott Brinker (@ChiefMartec): VP Platform Ecosystem, HubSpot
• Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee): CEO, Vayner Media
• Kim Whitler (@KimWhitler): Former GM / CMO, Forbes contributor
• Evan Kirstel (@EvanKirstel): Cofounder, EviraHealth
• Brian Solis (@BrianSolis): Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group
• Michael Brenner (@BrennerMichael): CEO, Marketing Insider Group
• Margaret Molloy (@MargaretMolloy): CMO, Siegel + Gale
• Jay Baer (@JayBaer): Founder, Convince and Convert

While this list is from 2017, I have found lists of this type to be fairly consistent year after year. Hopefully Leadtail will publish an updated report in 2019 or maybe we should. CMOs also learn from their peers. Here is a list of the top 10 most influential CMOs according to 2018 research from Forbes and Sprinklr:

• Keith Weed (@keithweed): Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Unilever
• Linda Boff (@lindaboff): Chief Marketing Officer, GE
• Leslie Berland (@leslieberland): Chief Marketing Officer & Head of People, Twitter
• Antonio Lucio (@ajlucio5): Global Chief Marketing Officer, Facebook
• Raja Rajamannar (@RajaRajamannar): Chief Marketing & Communications Officer and President, Healthcare Business, Mastercard
• Ann Lewnes (@alewnes): EVP & Chief Marketing Officer, Adobe
• Phil Schiller (@pschiller): Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Apple
• Dean Evans (@Hyundai): Chief Marketing Officer, Hyundai
• Kristin Lemkau (@KLemkau): Chief Marketing Officer, JPMorgan Chase
• Marc Mathieu (@marcfmath): Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung Electronics America

3. Websites - There are many marketing publications but not that many websites specifically focused on content for CMOs. Here is a list of 6 industry publications dedicated to the chief marketing officer.

• CMO.com (Adobe)
• CMO Today (WSJ)
• Chief Marketer (Access Intelligence)
• CMO Survey (Deloitte, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and The American Marketing Association)
• Harvard Business Review: Marketing
• Forbes CMO Network

4. Podcasts - When you’re as busy as a CMO is, you have to use every spare bit of time as efficiently as possible and podcasts on a commute, on a plane or similar time are just that. Here are 10 of the top podcasts recommended by CMOs via the CMO Club:

• Start with Why: David Mead and Stephen Shedletzkyv inspired by Simon Sinek's book.
• HBR IdeaCast: Harvard Business Review features leading thinkers in business and management.
• No Agenda Show: Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak discuss recent news and media memes.
• Tim Ferriss Podcast: Interviews with celebrities and experts.
• Gary Vaynerchuk Podcasts: Gary's keynotes on marketing and business, interviews.
• Disrupt Yourself Podcast with Whitney Johnson: Interviews with disruptive innovators and personal disruptors.
• Masters of Scale: Reid Hoffman shows how companies can grow from zero “to a gazillion.”
• This Week in Startups: Jason Calacanis & guests discuss stories in tech entrepreneurship.
• How I Built This with Guy Raz: NPR podcast featuring stories behind some of the world’s most famous companies.
• Renegade Thinkers Unite: Drew Neisser on marketing innovators and their ongoing success.

5. Special Interest Groups - Communities for senior marketing decision makers.

• CMO Council
• CMO Club

Of course there are many more useful resources ranging from industry conferences to executive education to special analyst reports but hopefully this post has provided you with links to information and communities that are helpful. It might take some trial and error to find the right sources for your specific needs and interests, but one thing is certain: there will alway be a need to feed a marketing executive's brain with up to date analysis, insight and trends. If you are a senior marketing executive, what resources would you add?

The post Top Marketing Resources for CMOs in 2019 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Is Content King or Is Data King?

In the modern media era of TV and Internet, there has always been a fundamental tension between content and distribution. Is it better to own the content, or is it better to own the platforms and distribution mechanisms to get that content to the customer? For now, content is king, but there’s a new contender to the throne: data.

Of course, data in its raw form is useless. It’s just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s. But when you are able to analyze that data, it can become very powerful. That’s especially true since we are moving from an era of “structured” data to an era of “unstructured” data.

Structured Data vs Unstructured Data

From a marketing perspective, the easiest way to think about the difference between “structured” data and “unstructured” data is by thinking of the typical customer survey that you might send out after someone has purchased a product or visited your store. Most of the questions will be simple “yes/no” questions. Or they will ask customers to rate you on a scale of 1-10. All of that is “structured” data. It’s easy to put into a database and then analyze for insights. You can perform all kinds of statistical calculations very easily.

But then comes all the “unstructured” data. And this is where organizations are really stepping up their game. For example, that same customer survey might ask a question like, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us that’s not included here?” That prompts a customer to write an open-ended response. Just a few years ago, that would have required a human to analyze it. Now, thanks to the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence, it’s possible to have a computer analyze it and add it to a growing database.

And the type of “unstructured” data that’s available today is growing at a prodigious pace, primarily thanks to all the digital devices out there. Your mobile phone is a potential treasure trove of data that grows by the minute. What company wouldn’t want to know the precise GPS location of every place you’ve visited during the day?

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence

Moreover, the type of analysis that’s possible today is becoming quite impressive. There’s a whole new field called “predictive analytics,” which essentially promises to predict future customer behavior based on known data. You can literally predict how a marketing campaign will do, based on what you know about certain types of customers. Companies like Salesforce are coming up with AI-powered marketing solutions that promise to help companies find the proverbial needle in the haystack.

So, it’s no surprise that so many companies have jumped aboard the Big Data bandwagon. It promises to streamline just about every part of a company and create new revenue opportunities. As the analytical tools become more and more powerful, it’s leading to real excitement about the potential ability of AI to transform organizations.

Data Is the New Oil

Within the mainstream media, in fact, it’s now fashionable to compare the role of data in the digital economy to the role of oil in the analog economy. Back in 2014, WIRED magazine breathlessly proclaimed that, “Data is the new oil of the digital economy.” Earlier this year, The Economist remarked that, “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.”

If you follow this analogy to its logical end, it would seem to imply that companies best able to harness and extract this data will become the most valuable in the world. Just as oil companies like Exxon Mobil became the most valuable and powerful in the world until the rise of Silicon Valley’s Internet champions, it’s plausible that new artificial intelligence (AI) companies will become the most valuable in the world, once they’ve truly figured out how to harness the remarkable power of data.

And when that day comes - the day when an AI company is worth more than an oil company or a Silicon Valley tech giant - that’s when Data will be King.

Find out more about what you can do using data with “Go Further with Data Management.”

Read the guide

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Weekend Favs January 19

Weekend Favs January 19 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

• Storrito – Manage your Instagram stories from your desktop PC.
• Key Passages – Take digital notes on physical books using your tablet or phone camera.
• Convert Calculator – Build and incorporate a calculator form on your website.

These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

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New report: B2B digital transformation is more focused on customers than on efficiency

A new report from CPQ software provider FPX indicates more companies understand the best way to drive sales is boosting customer experience. The post New report: B2B digital transformation is more focused on customers than on efficiency appeared first on Marketing Land.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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