A Day in the Life

Emily had been working at the local fast food restaurant for over three years. Like many young adults, she started her job to earn some extra cash while attending college. Her days were filled with the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, taking orders, preparing food, and serving customers with a smile. While she enjoyed her job and the camaraderie with her coworkers, Emily often dreamed of a more glamorous life—one filled with creativity and excitement.

Every day was a blend of routine and responsibility. She juggled shifts, coursework, and studying, all while trying to save for her future. Despite her ambition, she felt stuck in a cycle, unsure of how to break free from the monotony of her fast food job.

The Unlikely Opportunity

One ordinary Wednesday, everything changed. Emily arrived at work, ready for another typical shift. Little did she know that a celebrity chef was scheduled to visit the restaurant for a promotional event. The news sent shockwaves through the staff, and excitement filled the air.

As the chef arrived, cameras flashed, and a crowd of local influencers gathered. Emily was initially tasked with serving food, but as fate would have it, she found herself in the right place at the right time. The chef noticed her enthusiasm and genuine personality while she interacted with customers.

“Hey, would you like to help me with the cooking demonstration?” the chef asked, a smile on his face.

Stunned but thrilled, Emily agreed, and her life was about to take an unexpected turn.

Stepping Into the Spotlight

During the demonstration, Emily showcased her culinary skills, assisting the chef as they prepared a gourmet burger. The event was streamed live on social media, and viewers were captivated by her natural charm and passion for cooking. The chef praised her talents, which led to a flurry of comments from viewers expressing their admiration.

By the end of the event, Emily had become an overnight sensation. Videos of her cooking alongside the chef went viral, attracting attention from food bloggers, local news stations, and even producers from a popular cooking show. Suddenly, the girl who served burgers was now the center of attention, with opportunities flooding in.

A New Path

As the days unfolded, Emily found herself receiving invitations to participate in cooking classes, food festivals, and even collaborations with local restaurants. Her social media following skyrocketed, and she quickly became a beloved figure in the culinary community.

With newfound confidence, Emily decided to pursue her passion for cooking more seriously. She enrolled in culinary school and began experimenting with her own recipes, sharing them with her growing audience online. The fast food job that once felt like a dead end now served as a stepping stone to her dreams.

The Impact of Change

Emily’s journey inspired many, especially her coworkers, who watched her transformation with a mix of pride and awe. She remained humble, frequently returning to the restaurant to share her experiences and encourage her colleagues to chase their own dreams.

The support from her former coworkers and regular customers was immense. Emily often reminisced about her time at the fast food chain, crediting it for teaching her essential skills like teamwork, customer service, and resilience. She never forgot where she came from and continued to advocate for those in the industry.

Conclusion

Emily’s story is a testament to the power of seizing opportunities and the unpredictable nature of life. What began as a typical day in a fast food restaurant turned into a life-changing experience that allowed her to embrace her passion for cooking.

Her journey reminds us that sometimes, all it takes is one moment to change everything. For those feeling stuck in their current situations, Emily’s story serves as a beacon of hope. Keep your eyes open for opportunities, embrace change, and you might just find that your life can transform in ways you never imagined.

In a world filled with challenges and uncertainties, remember that dreams can come true—even from the most unexpected places. Whether you’re flipping burgers or following your passions, every experience holds the potential for growth and transformation.

Despite its prominence as a global semiconductor company, MediaTek remains relatively unknown among consumers. While the company has quietly become a significant force in the semiconductor space, it does not possess a brand that rolls off the tongue of most consumers.

As with any large company in a rapidly evolving industry, the question of an “identity crisis” can be multifaceted, involving public perception, market positioning, and internal strategy. This discussion explores whether MediaTek is experiencing such a crisis and, if so, what the implications might be.

MediaTek’s History

Founded 27 years ago and headquartered in Taiwan, MediaTek initially focused on producing chips for home entertainment products and optical storage solutions. Over time, the company expanded into the mobile phone market, a shift that significantly increased its global footprint and prominence.

MediaTek has predominantly focused its strategy on offering cost-effective solutions for mid-range and budget devices, which helped it gain substantial market share in emerging markets across Asia and Africa.

In contrast, competitors like Qualcomm have traditionally dominated the high-end smartphone market, particularly in Western countries. This divergence in market focus is crucial to understanding MediaTek’s brand identity, which the public often views as a more affordable, less performance-oriented alternative to Qualcomm.

Alleged Identity Crisis

The notion of MediaTek experiencing an identity crisis stems from several factors. Recently, the company has made significant efforts to challenge Qualcomm in the high-end smartphone market, notably with its Dimensity sub-brand, which offers competitive performance and features like 5G connectivity.

This move has indeed expanded MediaTek’s global market share. The company maintains more than 40% of the Android market in North America and Europe and a 40%- 50% TAM (total addressable market) share of the Latin America and Pacific Rim markets.

The company also points out that it has more than 30% TAM share in the ruthlessly competitive market in China. MediaTek could not realize accomplishments like this with purely lower-cost, lower-performance solutions.

Nonetheless, MediaTek suffers from public perception and branding challenges. The company has historically been less vocal about its achievements and innovations than Qualcomm, which has a robust marketing strategy that includes significant advertising spending and collaborations with high-profile brands and carriers. This relative silence has contributed to MediaTek’s weaker, or at least more ambiguous, brand identity.

Despite significant advancements, competitive products, and technological innovations that should enhance its industry stature, MediaTek has sometimes struggled to shake off its image as a budget chipset manufacturer. This reputation affects its ability to compete in the premium chipmaker segment, where branding and consumer perception play crucial roles.

There’s also the issue of geographical market dynamics. MediaTek’s stronger presence in emerging markets than established ones like the U.S. and Europe has further complicated its identity. Although it is a leader in several regions, the company has not gotten the respect it deserves.

How MediaTek Is Trying To Course-Correct

To address its identity issues, MediaTek hasn’t stood still and has been making several strategic moves. The company has increased investment in its marketing and branding initiatives to elevate its brand perception globally. For example, MediaTek’s “Incredible Inside” campaign is a worthy effort to associate MediaTek-powered devices with high quality and innovation.

Going one step further, MediaTek is collaborating with renowned brands and companies that can help the company enhance its reputation. In addition, partnerships, such as those with Intel for 5G laptop modems, have helped position MediaTek as an innovative and versatile chipmaker.

The company has also realized that focusing on cutting-edge technology is the only way to upgrade its brand image. Markets like IoT, automotive, data centers, Chromebooks, smart TVs — and even the smartphone space, which remains a huge market from a volume standpoint despite its slow growth — demand differentiating solutions, particularly AI capabilities that create new and compelling usage models.

These actions could help redefine MediaTek’s brand as a leading innovator across various tech sectors, not just mobile phones.

AI a Key Factor in MediaTek’s Future Growth

Last week in Arizona, MediaTek briefed the analyst community at an event that focused on the company’s ongoing efforts to fine-tune its appeal in multiple end markets to allow it to optimize its presence in the mobile, smart edge, and power IC markets that have respective CAGR growth of 5.3%, 6.8% and 6.3% in a TAM that MediaTek believes will be approximately $180 billion by 2028.

At the conference, MediaTek dedicated considerable attention to the untapped potential that generative AI will drive over the next ten years. The company sees gen AI as the impetus for meaningful growth across its portfolio of products — which translates to more semiconductor content per device.

Moreover, MediaTek believes it has the technology attributes to bring gen AI to the edge and push innovation in a differentiated manner to its customers.

While these megatrends imply a bright future for MediaTek, the company must dedicate more marketing resources to message its view on compelling usage models.

MediaTek’s Platform Solutions

With seven distinct major sub-brands that span the gamut from smartphones, automotive, Wi-Fi, Chromebooks, smart TVs, IoT, and even industrial applications, MediaTek must expand its marketing spend to compete with the likes of Qualcomm and others who have made branding and go-to-market initiatives a priority.

(Image courtesy of MediaTek)

While MediaTek does face challenges in terms of market perception and branding, particularly as it attempts to transition into higher-end markets, labeling these challenges as an “identity crisis” might be an overstatement. Instead, MediaTek is in a phase of identity evolution, both necessary and inevitable, as it seeks to diversify its offerings and compete globally across different segments.

MediaTek Must Assert Its Thought Leadership Marketing Potential

The company’s ability to navigate this evolution successfully will depend on its strategic marketing, partnerships, and technological innovation choices. As MediaTek redefines itself, it may overcome the perception hurdles and emerge more potent, with a more distinct and respected identity within the global semiconductor industry.

For MediaTek to position itself as a thought leader in AI, it must confidently articulate usage models at a highly detailed level. While the company has strong executive leadership and has demonstrated impressive business results, there is noticeable hesitation at analyst events to present detailed applications. This reluctance may stem from a concern that these models might not fully align with its customers’ perspectives.

Embracing a role as a thought leader involves guiding the industry with innovative ideas and frameworks, even if they initially diverge from customer expectations. OEMs will respect MediaTek’s input on these usage models, even if they choose to implement them differently. By defining clear, visionary strategies, MediaTek can build and enhance its brand leadership persona and drive the adoption of its solutions, fostering alignment over time.

Admittedly, this kind of messaging leadership involves risk. In the final analysis, MediaTek must proactively increase its marketing investment and refine its messaging on usage models to assert control over its market perception, differentiate its offerings, and clearly communicate the unique benefits of its solutions so that it remains competitive and, most importantly, relevant in the rapidly evolving tech industry.

This post was sponsored by SE Ranking. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Wondering why your competitors rank higher than you?

The secret to your competitors’ SEO success might be as simple as targeting the appropriate keywords.

Since these keywords are successful for your competitors, there’s a good chance they could be valuable for you as well.

In this article, we’ll explore the most effective yet simple ways to find competitors’ keywords so that you can guide your own SEO strategy and potentially outperform your competitors in SERPs.

Benefits Of Competitor Keyword Analysis

Competitor keywords are the search terms your competitors target within their content to rank high in SERPs, either organically or through paid ads.

Collecting search terms that your competitors rely on can help you:

1. Identify & Close Keyword Gaps.

The list of high-ranking keywords driving traffic to your competitors may include valuable search terms you’re currently missing out on.

To close these keyword gaps, you can either optimize your existing content with these keywords or use them as inspiration for creating new content with high traffic potential.

2. Adapt To Market Trends & Customer Needs.

You may notice a shift in the keywords your competitors optimize content for. This could be a sign that market trends or customer expectations are changing.

Keep track of these keywords to jump on emerging trends and align your content strategy accordingly.

3. Enhance Visibility & Rankings.

Analyzing your competitors’ high-ranking keywords and pages can help you identify their winning patterns (e.g., content format, user intent focus, update frequency, etc).

Study what works for your rivals (and why) to learn how to adapt these tactics to your website and achieve higher SERP positions.

How To Identify Your Competitors’ Keywords

There are many ways to find keywords used by competitors within their content. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of the most popular options.

Use SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a complete toolkit that delivers unique data insights. These insights help SEO pros build and maintain successful SEO campaigns.

Here’s the list of pros that the platform offers for agency and in-house SEO professionals:

Huge databases. SE Ranking has one of the web’s largest keyword databases. It features over 5 billion keywords across 188 regions. Also, the number of keywords in their database is constantly growing, with a 30% increase in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Reliable data. SE Ranking collects keyword data, analyzes it, and computes core SEO metrics directly from its proprietary algorithm. The platform also relies on AI-powered traffic estimations that have up to a 100% match with GSC data.

Thanks to SE Ranking’s recent major data quality update, the platform boasts even fresher and more accurate information on backlinks and referring domains (both new and lost).

As a result, by considering the website’s backlink profile, authority, and SERP competitiveness, SE Ranking now makes highly accurate calculations of keyword difficulty. This makes it easy to see how likely your own website or page is to rank at the top of the SERPs for a particular query.

Broad feature set. Beyond conducting competitive (& keyword) research, you can also use this tool to track keyword rankings, perform website audits, handle all aspects of on-page optimization, manage local SEO campaigns, optimize your content for search, and much more.
Great value for money. The tool offers premium features with generous data limits at a fair price. This eliminates the need to choose between functionality and affordability.

Let’s now review how to use SE Ranking to discover the keywords your competitors are targeting for both organic search and paid advertising.

First, open the Competitive Research Tool and input your competitor’s domain name into the search bar. Select a region and click Analyze to initiate analysis of this website.

Depending on your goal, go either to the Organic Traffic Research or Paid Traffic Research tab on the left-hand navigation menu.

Here, you’ll be able to see data on estimated organic clicks, total number of keywords, traffic cost, and backlinks.

Upon scrolling this page down, you’ll see a table with all the keywords the website ranks for, along with data on search volume, keyword difficulty, user intent, SERP features triggered by keywords, ranking position, URLs ranking for the analyzed keyword, and more.

What’s more, the tool allows you to find keywords your competitors rank for but you don’t.

To do this, head to the Competitor Comparison tab and add up to two websites for comparison.

Within the Missing tab, you’ll be able to see existing keyword gaps.

While the platform offers many benefits, there are also some downsides to be aware of, such as:

Higher-priced plans are required for some features. For instance, historical data on keywords is only available to Pro and Business plan users.
Data is limited to Google only. SE Ranking’s Competitor Research Tool only provides data for Google.

Use Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free Google service, which you can use to find competitors’ paid keywords.

Here’s the list of benefits this tool offers in terms of competitive keyword analysis:

Free access. Keyword Planner is completely free to use, which makes it a great option for SEO newbies and businesses with limited budgets.
Core keyword data. The tool shows core SEO metrics like search volume, competition, and suggested bid prices for each identified keyword.
Keyword categorization. Keyword Planner allows you to organize keywords into different groups, which may be helpful for creating targeted ad campaigns.
Historical data. The tool has four years of historical data available.

Once you log into your  Google Ads account, navigate to the Tools section and select Keyword Planner.

Now, click on the Discover new keywords option.

Choose Start with a website option, enter your competitor’s website domain, region, and language, then choose to analyze the whole site (recommended for deeper insights) or a specific URL.

And there you have it — a table with all keywords that your analyzed website uses in its Google Ads campaigns.

Although Keyword Planner can be helpful, it’s not the most effective and data-rich tool for finding competitors’ keywords. Its main drawbacks are the following:

No organic data. The tool offers data on paid keywords, which is mainly suitable for advertising campaigns.
Broad search volume data. Since it’s displayed in ranges rather than exact numbers, it might be difficult to precisely assess the demand for identified keywords.
No keyword gap feature. Using this tool, you cannot compare your and your competitors’ keywords side-by-side and, therefore, find missing keyword options.

So, if you want to access more reliable and in-depth data on competitors’ keywords, you’ll most likely need to consider other dedicated SEO tools.

Use SpyFu

SpyFu is a comprehensive SEO and PPC analysis tool created with the idea of “spying” on competitors.

Its main pros in terms of competitor keyword analysis are the following:

Database with 10+ years of historical data. Although available only in a Professional plan, SpyFu offers long-term insights to monitor industry trends and adapt accordingly.
Keyword gap analysis. Using this tool, you can easily compare your keywords to those of your competitors using metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, organic clicks, etc.
Affordability. It’s suitable for businesses on a tight budget.

To explore competitor data, simply visit their website and enter your competitor’s domain in the search bar.

You’ll be presented with valuable insights into their SEO performance, from estimated traffic to the list of their top-performing pages and keywords. Navigate to the Top Keywords section and click the View All Organic Keywords button to see the search terms they rank for.

Yet, this free version provides an overview of just the top 5 keywords for a domain along with metrics like search volume, rank change, SEO clicks, and so on. To perform a more comprehensive analysis, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

When it comes to the tool’s cons, it would be worth mentioning:

Keyword data may be outdated. On average, SpyFu updates data on keyword rankings once a month.
Limited number of target regions. Keyword data is available for just 14 countries.

Wrapping Up

There’s no doubt that finding competitors’ keywords is a great way to optimize your own content strategy and outperform your rivals in SERPs.

By following the step-by-step instructions described in this article, we’re sure you’ll be able to find high-value keywords you haven’t considered before.

Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for SE Ranking and get the data you need to deliver great user experiences.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by SE Ranking. Used with permission.

The Core Web Vitals technology report shows that five out of six of the most popular content management systems performed worse in April 2024 when compared to the beginning of the year. The real-world performance data collected by HTTPArchive offers some clues about why performance scores are trending downward.

Core Web Vitals Technology Report

The rankings for Core Web Vitals (CWV) are a mix of real-world and lab data. The real-world data comes from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) and the lab data is from an HTTP Archive public dataset (lab data based on the websites included in the CrUX report).

The data is used to create the Core Web Vitals technology report which can be sliced and diced to measure the mobile and desktop performances for a wide variety of content management systems in any combination, as well as provide data on JavaScript, CSS HTML and image weight data.

The data reported in the Search Engine Journal articles are based on measurements of mobile data. The scores are in the form of percentages which represent the percentages of website visits that resulted in a good Core Web Vitals (CWV) score.

This is the background on the HTTP Archive scoring for CWV:

“Core Web VitalsThere may be different approaches to measure how well a website or group of websites performs with CWV. The approach used by this dashboard is designed to most closely match the CWV assessment in PageSpeed Insights”

This is the background information about the HTTP Archive lab data:

“HTTP Archive measures individual web pages, not entire websites. And due to capacity limitations, HTTP Archive is limited to testing one page per website. The most natural page to test for a given website is its home page, or the root page of the origin.”

Source of quotes, HTTP Archive.

Top Core Web Vitals Performance

The highest performing content management system (CMS) of the six CMS under comparison is Duda, a closed-source website builder platform that is used by agencies and developers for creating and managing large portfolios of client sites. 71% of website visits resulted in a good core web vitals score. Duda’s score is 13 percentage points ahead of the second place winner, Squarespace, another closed source website building platform.

Sites built with Duda consistently have higher CWV performance rates than any other CMS, by a wide margin. Squarespace, Drupal and Wix are bunched together with similar performance scores, with the Joomla and WordPress scoring in fifth and sixth place.

WordPress Is Faster But Other Factors Slowing It Down

Although WordPress is ranked in sixth place, it’s performance did not drop as much as the other leading content management systems, quite possibly reflecting the many performance improvements inpresent in each new version of WordPress. WordPress 6.5, released in early April 2024, featured over 100 performance improvements to the backend and the front end.

The performance score for WordPress was slightly lower in April 2024 than in the beginning of the year, but less than one percentage point. However, that percentage drop is lower than the top ranked CMS, Duda, which experienced a drop of 5.41 percentage points.

Chrome Lighthouse is an automated tool for measuring website performance. The Lighthouse scores for WordPress in January of this year was 35%, which means that 35% of measured WordPress sites had a good Lighthouse CWV score. The CWV score took a dip in February and March but it zipped back to 35% in April, perhaps reflecting the many performance improvements in WordPress version 6.5.

The scores for the average Page Weight is likely where the performance lagged. Page Weight is the average number of bytes sent over the network, which could be compressed. The average Page Weight of WordPress sites started out at 568.48 in January and increased to 579.92, an increase of 11.44.

The average download size of images when compared from January to April 2024 increased by 49.5 Kilobytes but that’s something that has more to do with how publishers use WordPress and not how WordPress is being used. These could be contributing to the essentially flat performance change this year. But again, virtually no change in performance is better than what’s going on with other content management systems which experienced larger drops in their performance rates.

Top CWV Performance By CMS

The list of CWV performance represents the percentage of sites using a given CMS that has a good CWV score. Here is the list of the top performers with their respective percentage rates:

Duda 71%
Squarespace 58%
Drupal 54%
Wix 52%
Joomla 43%
WordPress 38%

Performance Drops By CMS

Comparing the performance drop by CMS shows a weird trend in that four out of six content management systems had relatively high drops in performance. The following is a comparison of performance drops by percentage points, indicated with a minus sign.

List By Performance Change

Wix -7.11
Duda -5.41
Joomla -2.84
Drupal -2.58
WordPress -0.71

As can be seen above, WordPress had the lowest drop in performance. Wix and Duda had the steepest drops in performance while Squarespace was the only CMS with an increase in performance, with a positive score of +3.92.

Interaction To Next Paint – INP

What probably happened to the scores, a likely reason, is that Interaction To Next Paint became an official Core Web Vital, replacing First Input Delay (FID). FID had limitations to the breadth of what it was measuring (the first input) whereas INP covers the entire user experience better.  INP became an official Core Web Vital in March 2024 and that may play a role in the dips in CWV seen in some of the scores.

Core Web Vitals Scores – Takeaways

Duda is clearly the Core Web Vitals performance champ, outscoring every content management system in this comparison. Squarespace, Wix and Drupal are close behind in a tight pack.  Out of the six platforms in this comparison only Squarespace managed to improve their scores this year.

All of the other platforms in this comparison scored less well in April compared to the beginning of the year, possibly due to increases in page weight, particularly in images but there might be something else that accounts for this anomaly that isn’t accounted for  in the HTTP Archive reports.

The WordPress performance team continues to score notable improvements to the WordPress core and the slight performance drop of less than one percent may be because of how publishers are using the platform.

It’s safe to say that all the platforms in this comparison are winners because all of them show steady improvements in general.

Explore the HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals report here.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi

By Sean Tinney May 28, 2024

We’re huge fans of using interactive content in email. Whether you’re trying to improve your campaign, tell a story, or simply add a bit of flair to the inbox, interactive content is the way to go.

And one of the easiest ways to do so is by adding animated GIFs to your emails.

In this article we’re going to help you create some more excitement in your emails by helping you learn:

What is an email GIF?Ways to use GIFs in your emailsBest practices for using GIFs in emailsHow to put a GIF in your emailHow to add a GIF to an email using AWeberHow to make GIFs for your emailsWhere to find GIFs for emails

What is an email GIF?

GIF is short for Graphics Interchange Format. It’s a popular image format that’s been around since the 80’s. An email GIF uses a series of images to create the illusion of motion (sort of like a flipbook) within the body of an email. 

Example of an email GIF

Ways to use GIFs in your email

GIFs add personality to your emails. You can highlight a product in motion, show a demo, or even add a relatable reaction. There are many engaging and practical purposes for a GIF.

Let’s take a look at some ways that brands are using GIFs in their marketing emails (and how you can steal those ideas for your next campaign):

1 – Illustrate a product

GIFs don’t have to be all for show. They’re actually a great way to tell a story in a simple, impactful way.

This Canva email shows how easy it is to create a design using their platform.

Pro Tip: GIFs are great for illustrating complex ideas in a simple way. Give subscribers a sneak peek of your latest product launch or to share a unique use case.

2 – Tutorial on how to use a product

Check out how we used a GIF to highlight how easy it is to add a video to your landing page:

Rather than relying on heavy copy, this animated GIF shows the process in just seconds.

3 – Create intrigue

Want a great way to entice your readers? Take a cue from this Kate Spade campaign:

The animation adds another level of intrigue to the email, prompting subscribers to click through to see what’s inside.

Pro Tip: Sometimes the simplest bit of animation can have a big impact. The next time you’re looking to add some oomph to your emails, try adding a GIF to the mix.

4 – Add a sense of urgency

GIFs can be a great alternative for traditional countdown clocks to emphasize urgency in your messaging:

This example from LOFT shows how a little animation can make a bold statement.

Pro Tip: Your email doesn’t have to imitate the Vegas strip at 2am. Adding a little bit of movement is sometimes all you need.

5 – Simply delight

GIFs can be added to add fun and excitement for your emails, like this one from charity: water:

Their smart use of a GIF showcases the personality and people behind the brand.

But be mindful of context when using GIFs in your emails. Does it feel appropriate and strengthen the message you’re trying to send? Or does it take away from it? These are good questions to ask yourself before you hit ‘send’.

Pro Tip: Use GIFs sparingly. If you’re using them just because, it can get old.

6 – Highlight a call to action

Check out how we use a GIF to highlight the Learn How call to action.

The key to using GIF for the CTA is to not get carried away. If the GIF takes away from the main message, it won’t matter how much attention you put on the CTA, your subscribers won’t read it.

7 – Tell a story

Peacock used a GIF to tell their subscribers a story of all the new shows their streaming service has to offer in October. 

Best practices for using GIFs in emails

While GIFs are great for grabbing your audience’s attention you don’t want to overdo it. To help, we’ve put together a list of best practices you should be following when putting GIFs in emails.

1 – One GIF per email

One GIF is perfect for adding an exciting, attention-grabbing element to your email. More than one and your email is getting too distracting. 

2 – Enhance the main message

Your GIF should serve a purpose. Don’t include a one that doesn’t relate to your content and the action you want your audience to take.

3 – Add a link to your GIF

People may try clicking on the GIF itself, so take advantage of this and direct them to a relevant landing page.

4 – Keep the GIF file size small

Aim to keep your GIF file size under 40KB. You don’t want your email to be so large that your audience won’t even receive it.

5 – Test your email

Always test your emails. Most email clients will display GIFs, but there are some exceptions. In these situations, the GIFs will display as static images.

6 – Add alt image text

In those situations where a GIF may not render make sure you add alt image text so people understand what the GIF was about. Be as descriptive as possible.

How to put a GIF in your email

To insert a GIF in your email:

Step 1: Compose your email

Step 2: Click on the insert photo button (this is sometimes represented as a paperclip)

Step 3: Locate your GIF in your folder and click insert to add to your email

How to add a GIF to an email using AWeber

Step 1: Download your GIF and save it to your computer. If you find a GIF online, you can simply right click the image and select “Save Image”.

Step 2: In your AWeber account, drag the image block into your email builder.

Step 3: Select the Upload Image button to add your GIF to your email. That’s it!

How to make GIFs for your emails

GIFs are easier to create than a video, especially if you’re trying to illustrate something short and to the point. The skill level bar is a lot shorter with a GIF.

You can create GIFs in Photoshop, or you can create them out of video footage you already have using a tool like GIF Brewery, GIFMaker.me, or Instagiffer.

These types of tools make creating GIFs easy, even with little to no technical knowledge.

And don’t think that you have to be a designer or know how to code to use GIFs in your emails. We love sites like Giphy or r/gif for their large selection of ready-to-use GIFs.

Where to find GIFs for emails

You can also create a GIF for your email yourself, or find a premade GIF from a variety of different online sources. Here are two of my top options:

GIPHY

The name says it all. I love GIPHY because they have a huge library of GIF to choose from. Plus they allow you to create or upload your on GIF.

AWeber

Our amazing team of designers create some incredible GIFs geared towards grabbing an email audience’s attention. Here are the links to our seasonal email marketing GIFs.

Valentine’s Day GIFs

Holiday GIFs

Fall GIFs

Summer GIFs

Get started…

Now that you know how to use them effectively, GIFs can be a great way to elevate your email content. If you’re promoting a product or service, they can really emphasize a use case and serve as an educational tool. (Or simply delight your subscribers.)

Google announced on Tuesday that it’s joining the AI laptop party by baking new smart features into its new generation of Chromebook Plus computers.

The new features include “Help Me Write,” AI-generated videoconferencing backgrounds, Magic Editor for photos, and direct access to Google’s gen AI agent Gemini directly from a Chromebook’s home screen.

Help Me Write uses AI to help a user create text from scratch using a prompt or rewriting existing text to change its tone, modify its length, or recast it entirely.

The background feature will work with any videoconferencing app and includes a variety of prompts to build backgrounds.

Magic Editor is accessible within the Google Photos app. Users can edit objects in a photo by tapping or circling them, then dragging them to reposition or resize them with a pinch. In addition, contextual suggestions can be used to improve the lighting and background in a photo.

On the new Chromebook Plus, Gemini can be called up with a tap of an icon on the home screen. Google is also offering new Chromebook Plus users a 12-month free trial of its advanced Google One AI Premium plan. It features access to Gemini Advanced, 2TB of storage, and Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, and more.

“This is about Google embracing AI and defending its primacy as a way to access information and get things done online, which has been challenged by OpenAI and Microsoft’s investment in AI,” said Ross Rubin, the principal analyst with Reticle Research, a consumer technology advisory firm in New York City.

“As Google develops these AI tools, it makes sense that they’re going to deploy them on their main platforms, Android and Chromebooks,” he told TechNewsWorld.

Rejuvenation Needed

Google had to do something to rejuvenate the Chromebook category, maintained Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research in Las Vegas. “The Chromebook experience has become long in the tooth,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“Chromebook Plus laptops are a step forward for the Chromebook category, but I think the Microsoft/Qualcomm approach has a big advantage,” he added.

Last week, Microsoft announced its Copilot+ laptops powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors, which include powerful neural processing units (NPUs) to optimize AI operations.

“The Chromebook experience has always been a cloud experience,” Vena explained. “The path that Microsoft and Qualcomm are going down is to build AI into their chips so you have a better AI experience locally than in the cloud. You can run a lot of this AI stuff locally without having to depend on an internet connection.”

“The other advantage is security,” he added. “No matter how secure Google says its cloud is, there’s no substitute for doing things locally.”

Unprecedented AI Integration

Rubin noted that Google’s announcement does not compare to Recall, the signature feature of the CoPilot+ laptops.

Recall enables users to find information they’ve previously encountered on their PCs via natural language and contextual search. For example, a user could ask CoPilot+ to “Find an article I read last week about Dr. Who,” and it would. Images and screenshots can be found, too, simply by describing them. Context can also be added to searches, as Recall remembers interactions across applications and time.

“The Chromebook Plus shows that you can do a lot with AI even if you don’t have a super-fast, leading-edge chip with a neural processing unit, which was a key element of Microsoft’s announcement,” Rubin said.

“Chromebook Plus is a combination of some things that are new, some things they introduced in other forms before, some things from other platforms like magic photo editing, along with some of the tightest integration we have seen from Google,” he said.

“It’s tying together a lot of Google products,” he continued. “They’ve done integrations in the past, but this is notable for its breadth.”

Power and Flexibility

Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore., questioned the announcement’s timing. “They should have announced this at I/O earlier this month,” he told TechNewsWorld. “It appears they decided to go after Microsoft Build and position against what was announced there.”

“This all seems very rushed, likely because Google was caught flat-footed when Microsoft announced the expansion of Copilot,” he said. “Google’s smartphone efforts are far more interesting, and if they can bridge the features between both device classes, they could have something that could expand their market share.”

“The Chromebook Plus appears to be targeting the AI PCs shipping next month, but it’s feature-light compared to those machines,” he added, “However, they should also be far less expensive.”

“Chromebooks have traditionally had a significant price advantage,” Rubin noted, “but with the Chromebook Plus, you’re starting to overlap more with mainstream Windows laptops.”

That was evident in two Chromebook Plus models announced Tuesday by Acer. Its two-in-one Chromebook Plus Spin 714 (shown above) will sell for US$749.99, and its 516 GE gaming model will sell for $699.99.

The Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE features a gaming-centric design and utilizes generative AI productivity tools for creation and collaboration in ChromeOS and Adobe apps. (Image Credit: Acer)

“The fact that these two new Acer Chromebook Plus laptops could not be more different yet both deliver an elevated Chromebook Plus experience points directly to the power and flexibility of the ChromeOS ecosystem and the importance of user-centric Chromebook Plus laptop design,” Acer General Manager for Notebooks James Lin said in a statement.

Rubin added: “Google is trying to push people toward the Chromebook Plus so they can have a better Chromebook experience. That’s also more palatable to the PC makers, so they can get better margins from these products.”

Chromebook Plus Goodies in the Wings

In its announcement, Google also teased some upcoming features for the Chromebook Plus:

Help me read with Gemini for summarizing websites or PDFs using a right click.
Pick up where you left off every time you log in, so instead of getting lost in a sea of windows every time you open your laptop, a screen will show you what you had open across your windows, tabs, and apps. Suggestions from across your devices on other operating systems will point you in the right direction, so if you start reading an article in the Chrome browser on your Android or iOS phone you can finish reading on your Chromebook with a click.
Concentrate more easily with Focus, which allows you to choose a window of time, a Google Task you want to finish, and a YouTube Music playlist, and a Chromebook will automatically turn on Do Not Disturb and count down your progress.
AI-powered hands-free control with face and gesture tracking.

“Those features are not bad,” Enderle noted. “However, both Copilot and Gemini have had serious quality issues which they will need to correct, or the market may cool on this entire class of devices.”

By Sean Tinney May 30, 2024

As we write our email content, the inevitable question of “how long should my email be?” may pop in your head.

Personally, I tend to get a little wordy with my emails, it’s just the way I communicate.

So the team at AWeber wanted to learn once and for all – how long should your email be?

To get that answer we analyzed 1,000s of emails from 100 of today’s top email marketers. Our goal? Gather email marketing statistics that will answer how long an email should be.

The 100 experts we analyzed are the best of the best. Their email strategies engage thousands and drive millions in revenue. Many of them see unheard of results (like 80% open rates and 30% click-through rates).

The average email length

Of the 1,000 emails we analyzed, we found that emails have 434.48 words on average. 434 words takes approximately 3.3 minutes to read.

So that’s it, your email length should be exactly 434.48 words long. Not exactly.

Truth is, it really depends on your audience and what you’re trying to communicate.

Why shorter emails

More than 50% of the emails we analyzed contained 300 words or less (a 2.3 minute read time). With people receiving more emails than ever before, it makes sense these email experts are sending shorter emails. One might argue that to stand out to captivate your readers, shorter emails might be a good strategy for doing so.

Henneke Duistermaat is the founder of Enchanting Marketing and one of the 100 top marketers whose emails we analyzed. She often sends emails with less than 300 words.

“Have you ever heard someone complaining they’re not getting enough email? Everyone’s inbox is overflowing. We’re all time-starved. So, we love succinct messages that help us make a quick decision: whether to reply or not, whether to click through or not”

Henneke Duistermaat is the founder of Enchanting Marketing

Why long-form emails

Yet, 24.1% of the emails we analyzed contained 601 words or more. And 11.4% of them had more than 901 words, a read time of approximately 6.9 minutes.

These experts stand out by sending long emails packed with valuable content, like Ann Handley. Handley is the Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs, a marketing education company, and another one of the top 100 marketers we included in our research. 

She sends her newsletter TotalAnnarchy via AWeber. On average, her newsletters contain 1,838.5 words, which takes roughly 14 minutes to read.

“It’s not that long-form emails are effective. Rather, what’s effective is emails that have value for the people on your list. I don’t set out every other Sunday with a goal of writing the longest email I possibly can. But I do have a goal of writing an authentic, valuable, fun letter to each and every subscriber on my list. I put my heart and soul into it, and that’s why people respond.”

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs

Matt Kepnes, author and founder of travel blog Nomadic Matt, is also on our list of top marketers. He sends long-form emails as well. On average, they contain 802 words. Instead of linking off to posts on his blog, he includes entire articles within his emails. These messages see high open and click-through rates.

“People will read longer emails if the topic is important enough.”

Matt Kepnes, author and founder of travel blog Nomadic Matt

How to choose your email length

So how do you decide whether to send short or long emails? 

It depends on your unique business goals, according to Andy Crestodina, a top email marketer and the founder of website consulting company Orbit Media.

“If your goal is simply awareness, long or short is less important. If subscribers see it, like it, smile, you met the goal! If your goal is traffic, then give the recipient the minimum amount of information needed to decide to click. The CTR (click-through rate) is everything and more text just means more noise in their inbox.”

Andy Crestodina

Here are a few ways you can learn what email length your audience wants to receive from you.

1 – A/B split test

Our recommendation is to test. Your email length strategy should be based on data. So perform an A/B split test to see what length email performs best with your subscribers. 

2 – Ask your audience

Every Thursday, we send a weekly newsletter and in each email we have a sentiment widget where we ask our audience “what did you think of this email”.

We get incredibly valuable feedback. Not just on the content, but on the length. Check out what this reader of our newsletter had to say:

It’s not that the email is bad for the content, but it’s just too long. If I’m being honest I see these emails every week and just open and delete because I see the amount to read and my brain shuts off. 

This constructive criticism helps us make sure we’re being as concise and to the point as possible.

Email length guidelines

So where do you start? The one common theme we got from all our marketing experts is your email needs to provide value to your readers. If you can say the same thing with less words, then do so.

You shouldn’t be too concerned about making sure your emails fall within a certain word count. Bottom line is if your emails contain valuable content or offers, your subscribers are going to want to read your email despite the length.

You may also find the length of your email varies by the type of emails you’re sending. Here are three types of emails and some guidelines you can follow:

Email newsletter

Your email newsletter length could end up being your longest. Why? Because you have a lot of content to share. But don’t overshare, your goal with a newsletter should be driving traffic to your website or landing page.  

The key to a good newsletter length is to keep each section brief. Check out this example from Search Engine Journal. Overall the email is long, but each section only has 1 – 2 sentences. To read more of the content, you need to click to their website.

Promotional email

I would recommend keeping your promotional email’s short. Use images and a strong headline to help communicate your offer. Get to your offer quickly.

Here’s a great example from Grubhub. This email only contains 3 sentences. They’re trying to drive an action based on the image, exclusive offer, and call to action.

Welcome email

Your welcome email could be short or long format, it really depends on how much information you want to share with your new subscribers.

Here are two examples that show both a shorter version and longer version, that both work.

Courtesy of ReallyGoodEmails

Courtesy of ReallyGoodEmails

Start creating your emails today

Here’s some additional information that can inspire you to write amazing emails:

Ready to start using this information to send better emails? Get started with AWeber Free today.

This guide intends to teach you Ubuntu 24.04 XAMPP Setup Installation and Configuration. XAMPP is a free, open-source, and cross-platform web server stack package. It includes Apache, MariaDB, PHP, and Perl programming languages. Also, it includes other useful tools like phpMyAdmin for managing MySQL databases, FileZilla FTP server, and Mercury Mail Transport System for email. XAMPP is designed to be user-friendly with easy installation and pre-configured. You can use XAMPP for your web development, testing, and learning.

Now you can proceed to the following steps to start the Ubuntu 24.04 XAMPP Setup installation.

Step-by-step Guide for Ubuntu 24.04 XAMPP Setup

Before you begin your Ubuntu 24.04 XAMPP setup, you must log in to your server as a non-root user with sudo privileges. Then, open your terminal and follow the steps below to complete this guide.

Step 1 – Download and Install the XAMPP on Ubuntu 24.04

First, you must run the system update and upgrade with the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Then, you must visit the official downloads page and download the latest package for Linux with the latest PHP version. In this case, you can use the following wget command:

sudo wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/files/XAMPP%20Linux/8.2.12/xampp-linux-x64-8.2.12-0-installer.run

Once your download is completed, you must make your file executable by using the following command:

sudo chmod 755 xampp-linux-x64-8.2.12-0-installer.run

This will launch the XAMPP setup wizard on Ubuntu 24.04. Follow the instructions and install XAMPP.

Start XAMPP From Terminal on Ubuntu 24.04

Note: Uncheck if you don’t want to launch XAMPP from the setup wizard. Then, you can start XAMPP from the terminal command line by using the following command:

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp restart

With this command, your XAMPP must be opened and started. If you get the following error with the above command, it means that your Net Tools package is not installed on your Ubuntu 24.04.

To fix this error, you can easily install the net-tools package with the command below:

sudo apt install net-tools

Then, rerun the XAMPP command to restart your service.

Step 2 – Allow All To Access XAMPP on Ubuntu 24.04

To allow everyone to access XAMPP, you must open the /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf file and add a line ” Require all granted” and comment out or delete the line “Require local“.

You can use your favorite text editor like Vi editor or Nano editor to open the file:

sudo vi /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf

Your file must look like this:

Once you are done, save and close the file. Then, restart XAMPP to apply the changes:

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp restartStep 3 – Verify XAMPP Installation – Access it via Web Browser

At this point, you can access your XAMPP via the web interface by typing localhost or server’s IP address in your web browser:

http://localhost

You will see the welcome page means that your XAMPP is successfully installed. Also, you can click on the phpMyAdmin tab to open it. Or you can use the following URL:

http://localhost/phpmyadminStep 4 – Stop and Uninstall XAMPP From Ubuntu 24.04

Now you have learned Ubuntu 24.04 XAMPP Setup installation and configuration. If you want to uninstall XAMPP from your server, you can follow the steps below.

First, use the following command to stop the service:

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp stop

Then, navigate to the XAMPP installation directory with the following command:

cd /opt/lampp

Next, run the uninstall program command:

sudo ./uninstall

You will be asked to delete XAMPP and all the modules, if you are sure, press yes. Wait until the process is completed and press OK.

Finally, remove the XAMPP directory with the following command:

sudo rm -r /opt/lamppConclusion

XAMPP is a powerful tool for anyone looking to set up a local web server environment quickly and easily. At this point, you have learned a complete Ubuntu 24.04 XAMPP Setup installation and configuration. Hope you enjoy using it.

Also, you can increase your Ubuntu system security by using AppArmor. For this purpose, you can visit this guide on AppArmor Setup on Ubuntu 24.04.