All this and more in this week’s edition of The Hypha Wire, from Hypha HubSpot Development.
Happy Friday folks!
I hope everyone had a lovely Halloween and is sufficiently full from candy.
I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating: Election Day is upon us. For my U.S. subscribers, please take the time on Tuesday to head to the polls and cast your vote!
Now, I’m sure everyone is sick of hearing about polls by now. But I want to turn your attention to a different kind of poll.
The great thing about a newsletter is that I can communicate with people all over the world who work in this industry. But the communication is typically one-way.
I’d love to hear more from those of you reading this newsletter, and a great way to do that is through quick polls.
Today I’m launching the first one, and I’ll publish the results in subsequent newsletters. I would love your participation, and additionally, if there are any questions you have for the greater audience, let me know! I’ll make sure they make their way into future editions.
Poll: What SEO software do you use most frequently?
-Sage Levene, VP of Marketing, Hypha HubSpot Development
Open Mic
No Fear This Spooky Season
By Dillon Friday, Director of Client Services, Hypha HubSpot Development
My nephew got married on Friday, October 13, 2023. He, like me, is a Friday. Superstitions be damned. The venue was available, the date lined up with the happy couple’s calendar, and they threw caution to the wind.
They now have an anniversary that is easy to remember, and I’m glad to report they’ve settled nicely into marriage (excuse me while I throw salt over my left shoulder and knock on wood).
I’ve learned to approach HubSpot challenges with the fearlessness of my nephew eschewing convention to get married on the unluckiest of dates, rather than be swayed by invented scenarios.
Let me give you an example. Last week, one of my clients asked for a workflow that would:
Enroll customers who’ve left 5/5 reviews on their service page
Send an email to enrollees requesting an additional review on Trustpilot
The trick was that the customer service team requested to review all enrollees before they received the review request. Team members shared that sometimes someone’s positive public review didn’t match up with their experience. For example, they loved the product but maybe balked at one aspect of the service: it arrived a little later than expected, they were dismayed by the communication, etc.
Although these instances are rare, customer service doesn’t want to invite these contacts an opportunity to share their negative experience on a third-party site.
All of that considered, I was left with several options to add the manual check step, all of which required a varying level of HubSpot knowledge on the customer service team: maintaining a suppression list, adding and managing a contact property that says ‘Trustpilot’ eligible, bending the deal object to fit this use case (note: you can trigger review requests in Trustpilot through the HubSpot integration, but it requires tickets or deals, neither of which my client uses for customer service), etc.
I was trying to find the ‘best’ way to accomplish something that could be accomplished in different ways—which can prevent someone from starting in the first place. You may invent scenarios of how something will go wrong or of building a system that may work, but adds unnecessary complexity.
Ultimately, I considered my options and pursued the path I felt asked the least of the customer service team:
Include a step in the workflow that adds enrolled contacts to a static list called ‘5-Star Ratings, Trustpilot Review Eligible’
Send that list directly to customer service to review the names and ask them to remove any contacts that shouldn’t be included
Set a delay in the workflow of 3 days to give the customer service team time to review the list
Check list membership–only contacts still on the list receive the Trustpilot review request
I pitched that to my client, and we have a follow-up meeting scheduled with the customer service team lead to confirm the process with them.
One of the things I appreciate most about HubSpot is that it’s incredibly customizable. This particular request highlights that. It may be easier if there’s only one path to success, but you learn more when you pursue four or five possibilities. What may not work this time could be useful down the road.
Further proof that having a Reddit presence is a great way to get your business out there. The key is to be strategic, not spammy.
“People are going to Google with the intention of ending up on Reddit...And I think what’s happening is people know that Reddit has answers, advice, perspectives on just about whatever you’re looking for.”
The search world is abuzz about a potential Google update on the horizon. We’ll stay apprised here and report back if/when the update is confirmed.
“The chatter began yesterday [10/31] late morning and has continued throughout the day. There are also some of the tracking tools picking this up, in fact, SimilarWeb spotted the volatility in a big way yesterday, showing its most heated day in over a month.”
Hypha Highlights
Creating an accessible email signature that is screen reader friendly is often overlooked. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15 percent of the world’s population live with a disability, including at least 2.2 billion who have a vision impairment or blindness.
The most common oversights when it comes to email signatures are images missing alt text, links devoid of destinations, hard-to-read typefaces, and using colors with low-contrast ratio. Follow these tips to make your email signature more accessible, or feel free to use our template as a reference.
As the sole member of my org’s marketing team, I was a bit overwhelmed when confronted with our need to rebrand, build out a new CMS, and deploy a new website, but Hypha turned out to be exactly the creative team I needed to get the work done in a timely, effective, and professional manner. They are always available, quick to respond, and generate exceptional content. Very happy with our partnership and can’t recommend them highly enough! -C. Ritger
Having launched in May (in the U.S.), Google is now expanding their AI overviews to 100 different countries:
“The feedback we’ve received for AI Overviews has been highly positive. People prefer using Search with AI Overviews, and they find their search results more helpful.
“So now, in our largest expansion yet, we’re launching AI Overviews in more than 100 countries and making them accessible in more languages — helping you search in a whole new way, no matter what questions are on your mind.”
I’m choosing to look at this in a neutral/positive way. We know that the AI Overviews can interfere with SERP performance—for example, an AI Overview might not accurately credit a source, or even if they do, a user may get the answer they were looking for without clicking off of the search page.
However, it just means that we as SEOs need to stay on top of our game, and continue iterating and expanding upon our strategies.
“Learn how to leverage AI to boost your productivity and accelerate your career. Join 700,000+ readers who work at companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and more.”
How can we help you?
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Thanks for reading! We’ll catch you in next week’s edition. -Team Hypha
Hypha Development, 56 School Street, Floor 2, Glen Cove, NY 11542
