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SEO helps businesses keep their website visible to people looking for what they offer. 

It’s a technical specialty that requires understanding its foundational processes, continuously monitoring performance, and staying on top of search algorithm updates and new requirements. 

The person at a business who monitors trends and helps sites remain visible is an SEO expert. In this post, we’ll discuss exactly what they do and advice from experienced HubSpotters on how to become one. 

What is an SEO expert?

An SEO expert monitors search trends and uses analytics to help businesses build websites that rank highly in search engines, reach target audiences, and meet business objectives. The optimized websites they help create generate leads and drive conversions to support business growth. 

A successful SEO expert: 

Has a well-rounded understanding of on-page, technical, and off-page SEO and how each impacts site performance independently and together. 
Understands how search engines and SERPs work (like indexing and crawling)
Can do SEO-focused research (like keyword research or competitive analysis)
Can understand, analyze, and report on SEO analytics (like clicks, conversions, etc.) to make data-driven decisions and recommendations
Use SEO tools (like Ahrefs or Google Search Console)
Understand how to make SEO-focused content
Stay on top of search trends and algorithm updates that might impact site performance.
Create SEO-focused strategies (like a keyword strategy)

Some SEO specialists don’t start out with the intention of dedicating their careers to SEO. 

Braden Becker, SEO Lead at Faire, along with other SEO and historical optimization experts at HubSpot Aja Frost, Victor Pan, and Amanda Sellers — offered their advice about what it takes to become an SEO expert and the paths they took to get there.

1. Develop your skills.

“Getting a job in SEO ideally requires two things: content creation skill and analytical skill. Most SEO professionals today have one of those and develop the other,” Braden says.

SEO experts are skilled writers with creative instincts, so it’s helpful to have a strong writing background to optimize content in a way searchers will comprehend. Becker noted that his writing background helped him get his start in SEO:

“My background in writing and editing helped me get my foot in the door, but a willingness to focus on the structure, mechanics, and intent behind my writing is what I think secured my role as an SEO specialist for HubSpot.”

Before Frost became an SEO strategist at HubSpot, she was the editor of HubSpot’s Sales Blog.

“I taught myself how to do keyword research and competitive analysis as the Editor for HubSpot’s Sales Blog,” Aja says. “The Sales Blog’s traffic had been flat for a year and a half — I noticed that the only posts that consistently generated views for us were getting all of those views from search. So I began looking for sales-related keywords we could rank for that would help boost organic traffic.”

Resources:

So, how do you start developing your skills to be SEO-ready? Here’s what Frost did to keep her SEO skills sharp.

“To refine my SEO expertise, I constantly read. I’m really interested in technical SEO, so I look for blog posts, white papers, and research about site architecture and navigation, website speed, and everything that goes into that, including structured data,” she says. “SEO by the Sea, Sistrix, and Blind Five Year Old are all great technical SEO resources, along with (unsurprisingly) the Google Webmaster Blog. I’m a member of a few SEO subreddits (/seo and /bigseo are the most active). And I follow a ton of SEOs on Twitter — they drop random factoids or insights all the time.”

Whether you’ve got an analytical mind and want to start a blog to practice writing, or you’re a seasoned writer looking to train your technical mind, balancing both will help your SEO career. 

2. Take a course and get certified.

Earning a certification ensures that you have the proper knowledge to successfully practice on your own.

It also gives you credibility when you network on professional sites such as LinkedIn. When doing initial SEO research, Aja found courses she could take in order to get a certification for SEO, which opened up more doors. “I read a ton of blog posts and eventually got my Google Analytics certification.”

If you decide to take a course, pick one that helps you build the skills to advance your SEO career. If it doesn’t go in-depth into subjects you need help with, it’s probably not the best course for you. 

Resources:

HubSpot’s Free SEO Courses
Moz’s SEO Learning Center
Google Analytics Academy

3. Understand how search engines crawl and index content. 

SEO is meant to increase visibility in search engines so people can find your content. While it should always be created with your audience in mind, they won’t find your content if search engines don’t know what to make of it. 

Search engines have three primary functions: 

Crawl – Finding new content by following links, reading sitemaps, etc.
Index – Understanding the page and storing and organizing the content.
Rank – Provide the best content for relevant queries.

Increasing visibility is directly tied to rankings but comes after crawling and indexing. 

According to Amanda Sellers, “Becoming an expert SEO means understanding those functions and optimizing content in a way that serves users… while keeping best practices in mind for crawling and indexing.”

Resources: 

The Ultimate Guide to Technical SEO by HubSpot

How Search Engines Work by Moz
How Google Search Works by Google
Crawlability and Indexability by SEMrush
What Are Crawl Errors? by Yoast

4. Gain perspective on what search engines value. 

While the inner workings of each search engine will vary, keep in mind that each one has a single goal: Always retrieve the best results for each query. 

There are many factors that can go into what makes a particular result the “best,” but for the most part, it comes down to a few key things (as of 2023):

Meaning – the intent behind someone’s search query and how it matches the most useful content
Relevance – if a page contains information related to the searcher’s intent (like relevant keywords)
Quality – uses the EEAT model (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) to assess pages and surface the most helpful, people-first content
Usability – the page experience, like whether a site is mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, page load speed, etc. 
Context and settings – uses a searcher’s past behavior and settings (like location) to surface the most context-relevant results. Very impactful for local searchers.

“The better you understand these big ideas, the better you’ll be able to understand the role ranking factors and SEO tactics play. With this context, the more effective you’ll be at implementing SEO initiatives and diagnosing problems when they come up,” Sellers says.

Resources: 

The Three Pillars of SEO: Authority, Relevance & Trust by Search Engine Journal
The Ultimate Guide to SEO by HubSpot

5. Understand SEO strategies and tactics and why they matter. 

“Once a search engine can crawl and index a website, it then uses ranking factors and signals to gauge relevance, authority, trust, and experience. These then translate to the strategies SEOs can use to improve their content,” Amanda adds.

These strategies and disciplines help inform SEO tactics:

Technical SEO – This refers to optimizing the technical aspects of a website for search engines. This may include rectifying sitemap and linking errors found in technical site audits. (Indexability and crawlability)
On-Page SEO – Content that provides the searcher with valuable information while going above and beyond what’s already out there is more likely to rank. In addition, following on-page SEO best practices can help the search engine determine how relevant the content is to the query. (Relevance and search intent)
Keyword Research (part of on-page SEO) – By analyzing keyword data, you can get a better idea of what your audience wants to discover, which can then inform your strategy as you create content discoverable based on that data. (Relevance and search intent)
Off-Page SEO (Link Building) – Search engines use several factors to determine a website’s popularity, one of which, and one of those is the number and quality of the external links pointing to its content, also known as backlinks. (Authority and Trust)
Other Ranking Factors – Factors such as mobile usability, page speed, etc., are important to search engines as they deliver the best results possible. (Experience)

“Knowing the basics of each is important in determining whether you want to be an SEO generalist or an SEO specialist in one of these disciplines, and they can also increase the effectiveness of your efforts.”

Resources: 

The Ultimate Guide to Technical SEO by HubSpot
How to Do Keyword Research for SEO by HubSpot
The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO by HubSpot
Link Building for SEO [Free Lesson] by HubSpot
Off-Page SEO: What It Is & Why You Need It by HubSpot

6. Research the field.

In addition to initial research into SEO, it’s also essential to keep up with Google’s SEO updates and changes so you’re employing the latest optimization techniques that search engines require. 

For example, when Frost noticed the Sales Blog traffic was flat, starting SEO research helped her uncover why: she wasn’t delivering the content audiences searched for.

SEO is always changing, so staying on top of it is crucial.

To build his fundamental knowledge of SEO, Victor Pan cites reading as one of the best habits he’s gotten into.

“I used to be a voracious reader on all publicly available information on SEO. I had an RSS feed of search-related blogs and news websites I would go through for a whole hour every day,” he says. “Mere exposure to ideas makes unknown problems in SEO easier to tackle when you have other people’s experiences or frameworks to build from.”

7. Find a method/tool that works for you.

Similar to finding resources that work for you and your skill set, finding an SEO routine or tool that will become your foundation is imperative. For keyword research, SEOs like to reference their personal arsenal of tools.

For example, in addition to HubSpot’s SEO tools, some of HubSpot’s experts also use SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google Console for additional research. Find a tool that works for you and make sure it helps you accomplish your goals. 

Resources:

“My reading led me to experiment with SEMrush, AnswerThePublic, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and of course, HubSpot’s own SEO tools. I read a ton of blog posts and eventually got my Google Analytics certification.”

If you need help finding tools, here are eight you can check out. In addition:

32 of the Best SEO Tools for Auditing & Monitoring Your Website in 2023 by HubSpot 
16 AI SEO Tools and How to Use AI in 2023 [New Data] by HubSpot
The 25 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO by HubSpot

8. Get familiar with data. 

You’ll notice a lot of data when you dive into your SEO tools. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to measure performance and know exactly where and how to improve.

Some (but definitely not all) important SEO metrics include: 

Positioning – How close to the top your page shows up on the SERPs. 
Impressions – How many times your page was seen on the SERPs.
Clicks – How many times your page was clicked on from the SERPs. 
CTR – The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. 
Organic Sessions – The number of times the page was viewed in a browser.
Conversion Rate – The percentage of users who clicked and took an action (like downloading your offer)

According to Sellers, “Because each of these things measures a different aspect of search behavior, you can use them to gain valuable insights that can drive your strategy. In addition, it’s important to drill down and filter so that your data tells a more complete story.”

Resources:

Which SEO Metrics Matter Most to Marketing Leaders, According to Semrush’s VP of Brand Marketing by HubSpot

How to Use SEO Data to Make Better Decisions by HubSpot
Tracking SEO Performance by Moz
The Ultimate Guide to Google Search Console by HubSpot
Actionable Insights from Google Analytics by Moz
The Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics by HubSpot

9. Regularly test your SEO knowledge.

Putting theory into practice gives you the practical knowledge and experience needed to level up as an SEO. In this way, SEO is kind of like playing a sport. You can read all about hitting a baseball or throwing a football, but if you never practice, you’ll never reach your full potential.

Reading the latest news and research is hugely beneficial to stay ahead of the curve in any industry. But as an SEO, when everything is constantly changing, reading isn’t enough. To gain the practical experience that’ll truly take your SEO skills to the next level, you need to constantly test industry assumptions and your new ideas.

“I test a lot of things to refine my SEO expertise. Should your brand be in your title tags? Is internal anchor text worthwhile to still do in 2020 to move rankings? What happens when you purchase fake social “signals” — do you see an increase in organic traffic?” Pan says.

“Failed experiments taught me just as much as successful ones, and it made me a much more confident SEO whenever I would make any improvements to content. Just because, in one instance, making a change resulted in an improvement, doesn’t mean that change in another place will also result in an improvement— which is why we have to test and grasp causation over just correlation.”

Resources: 

Running list of Google’s Latest Search Updates by Google 

SEO Experiments That Will Blow Your Mind by WordStream
SearchPilot for SEO A/B Testing

10. Grow your network.

Becoming an expert in SEO also means growing your network of fellow SEO professionals. There are SEO groups on LinkedIn you can join, subreddits Aja mentioned, like SEO, and conferences you can attend. Broadening your circle of SEO experts grows your knowledge and credibility.

If you become enough of an expert, you can also speak at conferences in the industry. For example, Braden and Victor led a session at INBOUND — their presentation, “How to Grow (Your Organic Traffic) Better” introduces SEO changes, how to adapt to them, and how to use some basic SEO methods to optimize content.

To start building your network, look at your available resources. If you have a LinkedIn account, you can start making those industry connections. You can also watch YouTube videos for quick SEO tips and engage with other learners in the comments to pick up tips from peers.

Based on the stories and tips from these HubSpot professionals, becoming an SEO expert doesn’t mean you have to start and finish your career as an SEO. Pivoting from one role to an SEO role and developing your expertise from then on is entirely possible — you just need to be willing to learn and adapt.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Right now, AI does what we want. But what if it gets to the point where it only does what it wants?

The current AI gold rush might leave many thinking about what AI might look like as it develops.

In this post, we’ll discuss sentient AI, what it could look like, and if we should be worried about a world where robots are conscious (with scientific insight, too).

What is sentient AI?

Sentient AI can feel and have experiences just as humans can. Sentient AI is emotionally intelligent, conscious and can perceive the world around it and turn those perceptions into emotions.

In short, sentient AI thinks, feels, and perceives like a person.

M3GAN, the robot from the movie of the same name, is a great example of sentient AI. She has emotions and can perceive and understand the feelings of those around her, so much so that she builds a friendship with a human girl and eventually becomes murderously protective of her.

Concerns About Sentient AI

Some of the main concerns and questions about sentient AI come from science fiction movies, books, and TV shows that paint the picture of a dystopia with super-intelligent machines that have autonomy and eventually build an AI-ruled society where humans become their compliant subjects. Many of these scenarios also involve these machines developing sentient abilities without human input.

Aside from that, the questions about sentient AI center around control, safety, and communication.

Control – People can see the correlation between losing control of AI and other machine learning entities if they become sentient because they can think on their own, could ask questions about their autonomy, and eventually break free from the ‘control’ developers, scientists, and researchers currently have

Safety – If humans lose control over sentient AI, will we be able to trust it once it has sentient abilities?

Communication – Humans are ruled by emotion, while AI is logic-based. Will communication with sentient AI be challenging because of this difference?

Is AI sentient?

Current applications of AI, like language models (i.e., GPT and LaMDA), are not sentient.

Language models can seem sentient because of their conversational style, but the catch is they’re designed that way.

They’re meant to use natural language processing and natural language generation to replicate human speech, which can seem like a form of sentient cognition, but it’s not. They can’t experience, much less have, emotions.

What if AI becomes sentient? Will it ever?

AI has progressed rapidly in the last year, so it makes sense to think that sentient AI is right on the horizon. Most experts agree that we are nowhere near that happening, or if it will ever happen.

For one, scientists and researchers would first have to define consciousness, which has been a philosophical debate for centuries. They would also need to use that definition of consciousness and translate it into exact algorithms to program into AI systems. Human emotions, perceptions, etc., would have to be deeply understood in a way that makes it possible to give that knowledge to a computer system.

Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Applied Ethics Center at UMass Boston said people’s worries about sentient AI are groundless: “ChatGPT and similar technologies are sophisticated sentence completion applications – nothing more, nothing less. Their uncanny responses are a function of how predictable humans are if one has enough data about the ways in which we communicate.”

Eisikovits thinks people believe sentient AI is closer than it is because humans tend to anthropomorphize, giving human qualities to things that don’t have them, like naming a car or assigning objects pronouns.

Enzo Pasquale Scilingo, a bioengineer at the Research Center E. Piaggio at the University of Pisa in Italy, also said this. He says, “We attribute characteristics to machines that they do not and cannot have.”

He and his colleagues work with a robot, Abel, that emulates facial expressions. He says, “All these machines, Abel in this case, are designed to appear human, but I feel I can be peremptory in answering, ‘No, absolutely not. As intelligent as they are, they cannot feel emotions. They are programmed to be believable.’”

“If a machine claims to be afraid, and I believe it, that’s my problem!” he adds.

Sentient AI Is Part of the Not-So-Near Future.

It might be helpful to understand the far-off ness of sentient AI by understanding where it stands today. Out of the four types of AI, all systems today are part of the first two: reactive or limited memory AI.

The next type is theory of mind AI, a significant advancement where machines can understand human emotions and have social interactions based on this understanding.

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There are also three stages of AI, each defined by how closely it replicates human abilities. Despite how long the field has been around, AI is currently in stage one, narrow AI.

The next stage is AGI, which are systems with human-like intelligence that think abstractly, reason, and adapt to new situations. There is debate that language models are AGI, but some say that any indications of abstract thinking or reasoning are learned from its training data.

No existing system has grown beyond theory of mind AI or fully surpassed narrow AI, and there are a lot of lines to cross before it does.

Over to You

Any feelings that AI is sentient can be chalked up to algorithms doing what they’re programmed to do. But, that being said, it’s always important to stay on top of the trends, especially with technologies with short-term high growth.

To stay ahead of the curve, check out this helpful learning path with all you need to know about AI, from AI ethics to cool jobs created around AI (and to be the first to know when AI does become sentient).

Post Content

You’re leaving money on the table by not using effective call-to-actions (CTAs) in your marketing campaigns.

To help you create irresistible CTAs and move a higher percentage of people down your marketing funnel, we’ve compiled a list of 15 relevant call-to-action statistics.

We scoured the internet for the latest research papers, reports, and case studies. Then, we interviewed experts to assemble this comprehensive list of call-to-action statistics.

These statistics will help you understand how to craft and implement effective CTAs that drive conversion and action. Let’s explore each of these CTA stats below.

1. Email CTAs get an average click-through rate (CTR) of 3-5%. (Databox)

CTAs are the bread and butter of email marketing. Over the last few years, the Databox team discovered that email CTAs got an average click-through rate of 3-5% for over 40% of their contributors.

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However, this doesn’t imply that surpassing the 5% CTR is impossible. Although challenging, over 15% of Databox’s contributors mentioned that email CTAs helped them achieve a click-through rate of more than 10%.

2. 43% of marketers use only one CTA per email, whereas 30% use two per email. (Databox)

If your first instinct is adding as many CTAs to your emails, you need to rethink your strategy. According to Databox’s findings, more isn’t always better.

Of marketing respondents, 43% mentioned using only one CTA per email. On the other hand, 30% said that they use two CTAs per email.

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A similar finding by Wordstream indicates that emails with a single call-to-action can increase clicks by over 371% and sales by around 1617%.

Last, Omnisend’s analysis of 229 million emails sent during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday period revealed that emails with three or more CTAs have lower click-through rates than emails with less than three CTAs.

3. Personalized call-to-actions perform 202% better than basic CTAs. (HubSpot)

After analyzing and comparing more than 330,000 CTAs over a six-month timeframe, we discovered that personalized CTAs convert 202% better than basic CTAs.

That’s because, when it comes to personalized CTAs, you’re putting content in front of your audience that aligns with their buyers’ journey and resonates with their interests.

4. Customers are 16x more likely to share news about their purchase on social media if they see a CTA button on the post-purchase page. (Digital Oasis)

There’s nothing better than customers spreading the word about your business. And if you want to encourage customers to share news about their latest purchase on their social media handles, ensure they can do so within a few clicks.

Embedding a CTA button on the post-purchase page can be highly effective. Customers are 16x more likely to share news about their purchase on social media if a CTA on the post-purchase page asks them to do so.

It’s a great way to encourage customers to spread the word about your business.

5. The red CTA button consistently outperforms the green one. (CXL)

The color red is often associated with negative emotions. Despite that, red CTAs outperform green ones consistently.

CXL covered this comprehensively in one of their articles, where they referred to several studies, including ones conducted by Dmix and HubSpot (that’s us), and VWO.

But don’t go painting your CTA buttons red just yet.

What if the red CTA button looks forced on your landing page? What if it doesn’t go well with the design? That’s why it’s critical to consider the page’s visual hierarchy.

6. Michael Aagaard, a conversion optimization consultant, increased the conversion rate of a long landing page by a staggering 304% by placing the CTA button at the bottom. (CXL)

In marketing, the golden rule is to position your call to action above the fold. However, that shouldn’t always be the case, as having only one CTA at the top of the landing page may be too early for the user to take action.

Huge, in one of their reports, mentioned that regardless of the design cues, almost 91-100% of people scroll beyond the fold.

There’s very low engagement at the top of the page, so having just a single CTA at the top of the page may not be the most effective strategy for driving conversions.

Michael Aagaard, a freelance CRO consultant, loves experimenting with call-to-actions. In one of his experiments, he placed the CTA button at the bottom of a very long landing page.

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Doing this helped him increase the conversion rate by a staggering 304%.

However, it’s important to note that what worked for Michael won’t necessarily work for you. As with all things in the conversion optimization world, testing different variations of CTAs yourself is highly recommended.

7. PartnerStack increased its conversion rate by 111.55% after tweaking its homepage CTA copy from “Book a Demo” to “Get Started.”

PartnerStack, a partner ecosystem platform, managed to increase its conversion rate from 6.66% to 14.09% (+111.55%) by tweaking its homepage CTA copy from “Book a Demo” to “Get Started.”

Before:

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After:

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Joe Kevens, director of demand gen at PartnerStack and Founder of B2B SaaS Reviews mentioned:

“My best guess as to why ‘Get Started’ delivered better results than ‘Book a Demo’ is that ‘Get Started’ feels like we’re trying to help our customers solve their problem, whereas ‘Book a Demo’ feels like we’re trying to get them into a sales cycle.”

By tweaking its CTA copy, PartnerStack shifted its focus from a sales-driven approach to a customer-centric one.

8. Grow & Convert conducted a comprehensive study on conversion rates of an email capture form across different locations on a landing page (Grow & Convert).

Recently, Grow & Convert explored and estimated rough conversion rates by placing email capture forms across different locations on a landing page. See results from the study below.

Placement

Rough Conversion Rate

Sidebar CTAs 

0.5% – 1.5%

Generic end of post CTAs 

0.5% – 1.5%

Pop-ups 

1% – 8%

Sliders and bars

1% – 5%

Welcome Gates 

10% – 25%

Featurebox

3% – 9%

Navbar

Varies

9. Including social proof under its landing page CTA helped Augmentive increase its conversion rate by 68%.

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Ryan Scollon, a freelance PPC consultant and CRO specialist, implemented a simple review widget under Augmentive’s landing page call-to-action button.

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After a few weeks of testing, it was clear that including social proof under their landing page CTAs contributed to the increase in conversion rate by 68.02%.

This indicates that adding social proof below your call-to-actions can be a great way to build trust.

10. Including doubt removers under CTAs helped Nomad Cooks increase their conversion rate by up to 124%.

Including doubt removers under call-to-action buttons can be a game-changer.

If you’re wondering what a doubt remover is, it’s a small piece of text below a call-to-action button to remove any concerns or potential points of friction that may be stopping your audience from taking the desired action.

It can also be a great place to mention the emotional benefits of your product/service.

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After implementing doubt removers under call-to-actions, Nomad Cooks witnessed increases of up to 124% in conversion rates, with the original conversion rate of 9.5% jumping up to 21.3% over four weeks.

11. CTAs surrounded by less clutter and more white space can increase conversion rates by 232%. (VWO)

As reported by VWO, Open Mile witnessed a whopping 232% jump in conversions after removing the clutter and adding white space around their landing page CTA.

Removing distractions and unnecessary elements from the surrounding area around your CTA can help create a sense of clarity and focus.

12. Getting rid of the email field helped Kommunicate increase clicks to their CTA button by 25.5%. (VWO)

With people being picky about who they share their emails with these days, removing the email submission field from your CTA button is advisable.

Kommunicate did the same.

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As reported by VWO, Kommunicate witnessed a 25.5% increase in clicks on their “Try for free” CTA after removing the email submission field from the CTA button.

13. Switching from text-based to button-based CTA and making it more visible helped The Vineyard increase their CTR by 32.12%. (VWO)

The Vineyard, a luxury hotel based in the UK, wanted to increase the number of people visiting their room booking page.

Initially, their call-to-action was in text-based format and hidden at the bottom of their page, making it very hard to be noticed by potential customers and visitors. So, they decided to make the CTA more visible by:

Switching to button-based CTA.
Moving it up, making sure it’s more visible.

Before:

After:

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This slight change helped the Vineyard team increase click-through to their room booking page by a staggering 32.12% – which is an impressive number.

14. Making their CTA button larger and darker helped Demio increase its conversion rate by 57.79%.

Demio helps businesses create, manage and launch live, recorded, and automated webinars.

In February 2023, the Demio team implemented a test on their thank you page, which is put in front of people after they attend a webinar or event hosted on Demio.

They made their CTA larger and darker for the variant. They ran an A/B test for 13 days, and the results were incredible.

The original version had a 1.59% conversion rate, whereas the variant had an impressive 2.53% conversion rate. Ultimately the variant had a 57.79% higher conversion rate than the control.

This is another case of making your CTA button easily noticeable and visible.

15. Adding a human touch to their CTA copy helped Mailmodo more than 2x their conversion rate.

The Mailmodo team has been experimenting extensively with their CTAs to improve their conversion rate. Recently, the team changed the generic “Book a demo” on the brand’s homepage to “Talk to a Human,” which delivered impressive results.

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Mailmodo witnessed a 110.35% increase in conversion rate, from 0.29% to 0.61%. Tarun Agarwal, VP of growth at Mailmodo, mentioned, “I believe adding a human touch to your CTAs tends to work better than using transactional copies.”

In short, it’s a good practice to level up your marketing game by switching your focus from the same-old transactional and generic CTAs and giving them a human touch.

Crafting the Perfect CTA

A well-crafted and implemented CTA can distinguish between a visitor bouncing off your website or taking the desired action. The tiniest details can have a severe impact, whether it’s the color, placement, or text.

By taking the fifteen CTA statistics mentioned in this post as inspiration and with continuous testing and optimizing, you can significantly craft effective CTAs that’ll help you improve your click-through and conversion rates.

With 500 million daily active users on Instagram, it’s not enough to just rely on the 24 standard filters and tools available within the app anymore.

Fortunately, there are many apps for Instagram posts that will help your content catch the attention of your target audience.

We’re not just talking about editing tools and filters. The following apps and tools for Instagram can help you gain followers, attract likes, and analyze your performance.

Best Apps for Instagram

Instagram Photo Editing Apps

Instagram Apps to Track Followers

Instagram Apps for Likes

Instagram Analytics Apps

Types of Instagram Apps

There are several kinds of Instagram Apps you can use to improve your brand’s performance on the platform. The most common and most helpful ones are:

Apps for photo editing 
Apps to track followers
Apps to boost likes
Apps to track analytics

Photo editing apps can make your photos look cleaner and more attractive by providing tools that improve color, contrast, saturation, and more. Photo editing apps also provide filters that are not available on the Instagram app.

Apps that track followers are great for learning why some Instagram users may unfollow you. They’re also excellent for ensuring your followers are legitimate and not bots. 

While an app can’t generate more likes for you, there are plenty of apps that can improve the quality of your content so that more users are compelled to like and engage.

Finally, there are various apps out there that can help you track your content’s performance so that you can optimize your posts and stay aligned with what your target audience wants to see. 

Now, let’s explore different apps within these categories that can help you reach your goals.

Instagram Photo Editing Apps

Instagram’s in-app filters leave something to be desired. If you’re looking for an easy way to make your photos look more professional and unique, try out one of these alternative photo-editing apps.

Whether you’re looking for a wider selection of filters developed by professional photographers, or just want to remove blemishes from selfies, these will do the trick.

1. VSCO

Price: Free for Starter package, $29.99 for Plus, $59.99 for Pro
Available on: Android and iOS

VSCO provides free filters that often beat Instagram’s in-app options in terms of quality and professionalism. VSCO also offers plenty of editing tools, so you can fully tweak your photo before exporting to Instagram.

What We Like: Similar to Instagram, VSCO offers its own social capabilities: you can follow people directly on VSCO, and post and share photos from within the app.

2. Priime

Price: $2.99
Available on: iOS

Priime offers a selection of over 100 filters created in collaboration with professional photographers. If you aren’t sure which filter will look best, you can even receive recommendations from Priime’s Smart Suggestions.

What We Like: Not everyone has an eye for filters or aesthetics, so being able to collaborate with professional photographers is an excellent feature for marketers struggling in that department. 

Images via App Store

3. Snapseed

Price: Free
Available on: Android and iOS

Sometimes, your photo has varying degrees of darkness and brightness and you don’t want to auto-enhance all of it.

Snapseed’s brush tool allows you to selectively adjust for exposure, saturation, and color temperature, which is ideal for situations where you’d rather selectively edit.

Snapseed also gives you plenty of control and fine-tuning and even provides tools to remove small blemishes or unwanted objects.

What We Like: Snapseed makes “photoshopping” images simple for people who are unfamiliar with or don’t have Photoshop.

4. Pixlr

Price: Free, $0.75 for Plus, $4.90 for Premium, $9.91 for Team
Available on: Android and iOS

With Pixlr, you can build your own filters with effects, overlays, and textures. When you’re happy with a filter you’ve created, you can save that filter and use it again.

Pro Tip: This can be particularly useful if you’re trying to build a unique brand image. Pixlr also lets you selectively adjust your brightness and sharpness. It includes a red-eye fixer and an array of photo-editing tools.

5. Canva

Price: Free, $199.99 a year for Pro, $149 a year for Teams
Available on: iOs and Android

Canva boasts a variety of tools to improve your Instagram photos and edit them to your liking. Furthermore, Canva allows you to edit videos for Reels and Instagram Stories.

With Canva, you can:

Brighten photos
Blur
Increase or decrease contrast
Create photo collages
Apply filters

What We Like: While premium options are available, the free version of Canva boasts many excellent features for photo and video editing. This makes it an economical choice for marketers on a tight budget.

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Instagram Apps to Track Followers

There aren’t many automated ways to gain followers, which makes the task a tedious challenge for any social media manager. Fortunately, the following tools can combat this challenge.

Although the apps won’t let you buy followers, they offer legitimate options to gain and manage followers organically.

You can decipher why people unfollow you, how to improve your social media visibility, and how to keep your followers long-term.

With the help of these tools, you can attract a larger following and ensure your current followers are happy.

6. Reports for Followers

Price: Free
Available on: Android and iOS

Reports for Followers shows you accounts that unfollowed you, accounts that haven’t followed you back, and accounts you should follow based on similar accounts you already follow.

You can use this data to strengthen weak relationships, make your followers happier, and understand the reasons an account might unfollow you.

You might find that accounts are unfollowing you for simple, fixable reasons — like posting infrequently. Hopefully, fixing these issues improves your relationship to your Instagram audience long-term.

What We Like: If you’re an account with a large following, it can be hard to notice followers trickle away before it’s too late. Reports for Followers allows you be more proactive.  

Images via App Store

7. Crowdfire

Price: Free
Available on: iOS

Crowdfire identifies your inactive followers. If you know your inactive followers, you can delete them from your follower pool and fix your ratio to get better analytics.

What We Like: Crowdfire also provides automated DM messaging, recognizes when people unfollow you and helps you find new followers.

Images via App Store

8. GhostHunter

Price: $54.99 per month, $32.99 per month when paying 6 months
Available on: iOs and Android

GhostHunter evaluates the followers on your Instagram to determine if any of them are bots or spam accounts. The tools can remove inactive followers and commercial accounts as well as protect your accounts from scams and phishing.

What We Like: The app is great for brands and influencers, because success on social media isn’t just about the quantity of followers — it’s also about the quality.

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Instagram Apps for Likes

On Instagram, likes are the strongest indicator we have when evaluating whether our audience is happy. Plus, the more likes your post gets, the higher it’ll appear on people’s feeds, and the more popular it’ll become.

While there are no apps that allow you to buy likes, there are apps that help you attract more likes by offering suggestions, popular hashtags, and favorable captions.

9. MagicLiker – Tags for Likes

Price: Free 
Available on: iOS 

MagicLiker helps you search multiple tags at the same time, find popular tags suggested by the app, search through daily suggested tags, or search posts by category like, “only videos,” or “only photos.”

What We Like: It also provides captions that are currently popular, for additional caption-writing inspiration.

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10. Hashtag Expert

Price: Free
Available on: iOS

Finding the right hashtags to boost your brand can be difficult. Fortunately, Hashtag Expert is an app offering a suite of tools to help influencers and companies boost their brand on many social media platforms — including Instagram.

Hashtag Experts has a hashtag generator to help you create custom hashtags or find existing hashtags that suit your needs.

What We Like: Hashtag Expert has a unique feature that allows users to view the top trending hashtags by country and language, so you’ll have all your bases covered.

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11. Photerloo

Price: Free, $60 a year for Unlimited Yearly plan, $8 a month for Unlimited Monthly plan
Available on: iOS, Android, desktop

Photerloo generates hashtags and keywords to help your photos reach more people and garner more likes on Instagram. 

Pro Tip: This tool is especially helpful if you’re a professional photographer or work with professional photographers who post content on multiple photography platforms. The AI-powered app helps you upload your photos quickly and efficiently to other sites.

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Instagram Analytics Apps

Regardless of where you are in your Instagram strategy (i.e. still creating it, or have been implementing it for years), it’s important to gather analytics to figure out how well you’re doing, and where you could be doing better.

With the right Instagram analytics tools, you’ll be able to improve your strategy, attract a larger audience, and make your existing followers happier than ever.

12. Instagram Insights

Price: Free
Available on: Android and iOS

Instagram actually does offer its own native analytics tool. Instagram Insights does require you to have a Facebook Business profile, but if you don’t have one, it’s a simple four-step process to get set up.

What We Like: The tool offers powerful insights, including how many times people use the Send Message option on your Instagram story, how many people have saved your posts, and how well your Instagram advertisements are doing.

Image via Buffer Blog

13. Hootsuite Analytics

Price: Free 30-Day Trial, $99 a month for Professional, $249 for Team, $739 for Business
Available on: Android and iOS

Along with metrics like audience growth and traffic, Hootsuite gathers insights like how people react to your posts according to language or gender, and what types of action your followers are taking.

Pro Tip: You can also customize the insights you collect, which is particularly helpful if you’re testing out unique engagement factors or collecting specific data.

Image via Hootsuite

14. Iconosquare

Price: Free 14-Day Trial, $52.91 for Pro, $85.31 for Advanced, $150.10 for Enterprise
Available on: Android and iOS

While the above two tools focus on your business alone, Iconosquare also examines the community (and competition) by identifying the most important Instagram influencers in your industry.

This is great if you’re interested in hiring influencers to promote your brand, but aren’t sure where to find them.

It’s also helpful if you’re just starting to build your Instagram strategy and want to see what other brands are doing for inspiration.

What We Like: Iconosquare also provides analytics on engagement and analyzes hashtag growth and popularity.

Images via App Store

15. Later

Price: $18 per month for the Starter plan, $40 per month for the Growth plan, and $80 per month for the Advance plan
Available on:  iOS and Android

Later offers a variety of tools to help you track analytics, optimize performance, get more Stories views, and improve Reels performance. 

What We Like: Later’s Best Time to Post tool takes the guesswork out of figuring out when you should post to Instagram. It does this by learning when your followers are most engaged and active on the platform.

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Making your brand stand out among a sea of account on Instagram can be daunting, but the above tools can give you a competitive edge help you achieve your goals. 

Now that you know about the best Instagram apps at your disposal, you’re ready to take your brand to the next level.