Keyword Volume is an estimation of the number of searches per month for a certain keyword or key-phrase.

Higher search volume means more potential traffic to your website, but really high volume keywords can often be more competitive as well as more broadly targeted.

You may think that you should always pick the highest volume keyword possible, but that’s not always the case!

Here are some important considerations for keyword volume:

High Volume Keywords

High volume keywords are often very competitive and broadly targeted.

Although ranking for such keywords can send a lot of traffic to your website, it may not be worth the effort because they are too competitive and will require too much time and money to rank.

For example, let’s take the keyword “computers”.

You can see that although the search volume is high, the keyword difficulty is “high” according to this tool from ahrefs.

High volume keywords might also not be worth it because the keyword phrase is too broad and often won’t lead to conversions on your website.

In this case, the search intent isn’t explicitly clear.

Some people searching for that keyword might be looking for information about computers, while others might be shopping for a new computer.

People searching for this keyword are less likely to actually buy a computer than someone searching for a specific brand or type of computer.

High-volume keywords might be worth targeting if you have the resources to outperform the competition.

Such keyword phrases can take longer to rank for, but they can drive a lot of traffic to your website.

Medium Volume Keywords (Medium-Tail Keywords)

Medium tail keywords can drive a significant amount of traffic to your web pages and can also be specific enough to drive targeted traffic and conversions.

Although there is no strict definition, medium tail keywords generally contain 2-3 words.

For example, if you are selling a specific type of computer like business laptops, then ranking for “business laptops” might be more worthwhile than trying to rank for “computers”.

Although the search volume is lower, the phrase is more targeted towards someone likely to buy what you are selling.

The keyword phrase is still competitive, but probably not as competitive as “computers”.

Long-Tail Keywords

Keywords that have 3+ words are often referred to as long-tail keywords.

Although these keyword phrases can be lower in volume in comparison to short-tail keywords, they often send highly targeted traffic that is more interested in what you have to offer.

For example, if you are selling a specific type of computer, like a Dynabook Toshiba Terca, then you might be better off targeting the phrase “Dynabook Toshiba Terca” instead of “computers” or even “laptop computers”.

You will receive less traffic for that search term, but the traffic you do receive will be much more likely to buy and you will also have less difficulty ranking for that lower volume keyword phrase.

When creating informational content like blog articles, sometimes you can get traffic for long-tail keywords by simply including them on the page.

Some long-tail keywords have very low search volume, but the cumulative traffic from lots of long-tail keywords can add up. In fact, an estimated 70% of all search traffic comes from long-tail searches!

Conclusion

Keyword search volume is an important factor in keyword research, but you won’t always want to pick the highest volume keyword possible.

Finding the right match between search volume and user intent is vital when selecting your keywords!

The good news is that you don’t need to get hung up on picking the “perfect keyword.”

By writing long-form content, web pages tend to rank for multiple keywords, even keywords that you are not intentionally targeting. Ranking for multiple keywords can result in additional traffic to your web page.

www.byter.com

Search intent is understanding what type of information users are searching for when they enter a search phrase.

Understanding this is crucial because to rank a web page in the search engines, the type of content you create must match the content that the searcher is looking for.

Otherwise, your chances of ranking and attracting the right traffic are low.

Yes, that’s right, even if you have your optimisation perfect, you still might not rank.

Here’s how it works:

Understanding What Users Are Truly Looking For When They Search

When people search on Google, it’s not always clear exactly what they are searching for.

For instance, if someone searches “pool,” what are they actually looking for? A swimming pool, or the game of pool (billiards)?

If someone types “cookies,” are they looking for a recipe for cookies, or are they trying to understand the cookies that are stored in their browser?

You can see how a search query could mean many things!

Search engines tweak their algorithms to make sure they are displaying the results for what people want – even when it’s not explicitly clear.

These are just some simple examples of disambiguation, but search intent goes further.

Categories of Search Intent

We can categorise search intent into several categories:

1) Informational Intent

Information intent means users are looking to get more information on a topic.

For example, if someone searched “how to ride a bike” they are looking for a guide. The search results will display articles or videos about how to ride a bike.

2) Commercial / Transactional Intent

Commercial or transactional intent refers to when a searcher is looking to purchase something or compare prices.

For example, if someone searches for “buy blue trek bike” they are likely looking to purchase. The search results will often display product pages, because this search is so specific.

Note: Just because users are looking for products doesn’t always mean your product page will rank! Google often prefers review-type content or lists of the best products to actual product pages!

3) Navigational Intent

Navigational intent occurs when a searcher is looking for a specific website or destination.

For example, searchers might type in a brand name “Ebay login” into the search engines when they want to find the login page to Ebay.com.

Why Is Search Intent Important?

The reason this is important is that it will be very difficult to rank for your chosen keyword if your content doesn’t meet the search intent for that keyword.

This is one of the biggest mistakes in trying to rank!

Google often changes the search results for a keyword based on what they think the correct search intent is, and often display more informational type pages vs transactional pages.

As an example, in the past, if someone searched for a health supplement, Google might have seen the search intent as “transactional” meaning people wanted to buy the product, and therefore displayed product pages.

It was easy for a brand that sold the health supplements to rank their product pages for that keyword.

But then Google changed the keyword intent to “informational,” and now only articles about the supplement are ranking. Now it would be very difficult for a brand to rank a product page there.

It’s the same keyword, but because Google determined the search intent differently, the type of content you’ll need to create will change!

This is a very common scenario, and why creating long-form content around your products or services gives you a higher chance for ranking versus trying to rank your product or service pages!

So how do you make sure you understand the search intent of the keyword?

It’s easy:

How To Determine Search Intent

The simplest way to determine search intent is to perform a search on Google and see what results come up.

For example, let’s take the word “email marketing software”.

A quick search shows that most of the results are lists of the top email marketing software.

If you’re running a business that sells email marketing software and you want to rank, you’ll need to create a piece of content that matches what Google is currently ranking.

www.byter.com

The Next Step

Going a step further than the brand awareness and engagement stages of marketing, it’s a good idea to take a look at social media lead generation. Collecting leads on social media has huge advantages. For one, it will aid you in finding people interested in your company, but what’s more, it will ensure you can keep in touch with potential customers.

You might be asking what a social media lead even is? Good question. In fact, let’s take a look at some key terms that will be useful to know before we go any further.

Key Terms to Know

Social Media Lead

A lead is any information someone shares that you can use to follow up with them. This may include names, email addresses, occupations, employers, or any other information that a social media user shares with you.

Social Media Lead Generation

This is simply any activity undertaken on social to collect new leads.

Social Media Lead Nurturing

This includes taking new leads through the customer journey, or as marketers would say: ‘through the sales funnel’.

Social Media Lead Converting

This is the process of turning potential customers into paying customers. Naturally, this is the final stage of collecting social media leads.

Quality or Quantity?

Your specific industry, campaign and goals will all contribute to what can be considered a quality lead. As a good rule of thumb though, quality leads will include useful information and clear signs of intent of engaging with your business. Try to think quality over quantity.

To Facebook and Beyond?

Of course, generating leads can be done most effectively on the platforms being used by your potential customers. As well as having the sharpest tools to collect leads on its platform, Facebook’s 2.45 billion user network stands alone and so is the natural first place to look. But is it the only place? Certainly not. The golden rule here is to ensure you are familiar with the demographics of the different platforms available to you before starting your campaign. Do they line up with your target market?

Let’s now turn our attention to how we can generate more leads on social media.

Tactics to Get More Leads on Social Media

1. Optimize Your Profile 

Make sure you don’t shoot yourself in the foot here. Everything should be in place to collect leads organically. Consider the following as a checklist: 

Contact Information Provided

Supporting customer enquiries is essential, so ensure your contact details are available on your profile.

Call-to-Action Buttons Created

With different platforms offering different profile features, make sure you use the ones that fit your specific goal. Own a restaurant? Make use of a ‘Reservation’ button if the platform has one available and so on.

Link in your Bio Added

Along with the likes of “comment down below” and “don’t forget to like and subscribe”, “link in bio” seems to have been added to the current cultural vernacular. Easily and often taken advantage of on Instagram, try to add a call-to-action so people know why they should click and what they should expect to find.

2. Create Compelling Content

Whether it is brands looking for sales or like-hungry selfies, everyone’s competing for attention on social media. Furthermore, once you factor in diminishing attention spans, your content will have to be as click-worthy as possible. It’s really the only way to collect leads. Think sharp images, sharp copy. With the likes of Shoppable Instagram Posts, just make sure they have a place to click!

3. Create User-Friendly Landing Pages

Great! Someone’s clicked on your link. But wait! You’re landing page is a mess, so they’ve clicked again, but this time straight off. Keep things seamless, relevant, easily scannable and as personal as possible. If forms are vital, pre-fill as much as you can and keep things as unsensitive as possible to reduce the obstacles to completion.

4. Use Social Lead Ads

Facebook Lead Ads

These are pretty much promoted forms, through which leads are collected and synced either straight to your customer management system or to you sales team. Facebook’s retargeting tools are especially handy when it comes to lead nurturing. Just make sure your website has Facebook Pixel installed to facilitate lead tracking and cost measurement.

Instagram Lead Ads

Partially filled in forms (email address, full name…) can all be pre-completed in these ads designed to aid marketers collect information.

LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

According to Wordstream, the typical website conversion rate stands at 2.35%, whereas the average LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is as high as 13%. Now available as Message Ads and Sponsored InMail, the platform again uses pre-fill sections. What’s more, to help generate leads, LinkedIn Dynamic Ads feature direct call-to-actions.

YouTube TrueView for Action Ads

Loaded with prominent call-to-action buttons linking to a site of your choice, these ads were designed to help advertisers drive a specific action, not least generating leads. Simply select “Leads” as your goal.

Other Options

While other sites such as Pinterest and Twitter, don’t have specific formats for lead ads per se, both platforms offer ad options that can boost social media lead generation.

5. Incentivise Appropriately

People need a reason to share their information with you. Depending on the type of lead you’re after, here are some incentives that could do the trick:

Contests or sweepstakes

These can work especially well when teaming up with a relevant influencer or brand partner. For entry, just ask participants to share whatever information you want to know.

Discount code 

Newsletter sig-up for a discount code. Sounds simple enough. Just make sure you have a strategy in place to convert your newly nurtured leads.

Gated content

Industry depending, the likes of invite only webinars and access to private Facebook Groups provide compelling incentives. The information exchanged, such as emails and job titles, can be invaluable in your marketing and business efforts. There are many great incentives at your disposal along with the aforesaid webinars. How about email newsletters, leadership articles, whitepapers, sales emails or customer content like case studies? Just make sure that whichever route you go down, you always remember to tell customers what’s specifically in it for them.

6. Personalize Your Offer

With a Heinz Marketing study showing that personalized content helps with lead generation more than any other marketing goal, be sure to make the most of the targeting tools available on various platforms. Taking gender as an obvious example, why not run two campaigns for different audiences in tandem, tailoring the message accordingly? As well as pre-filled in forms, LinkedIn Dynamic Ad format takes a user’s name, picture and job title to ensure they can be addressed directly, well worth it when we consider that it results in a 19% higher click-through rate and 53% higher conversion rate than those that don’t.

7. Measure and Refine with Analytics 

Collecting social media leads is all well and good, but you really need to be collecting analytics insights along with them. You can monitor which social platform is the best source for your business, once you’ve set up goals in Google Analytics to track leads on your website. It’s then simply a case of adjusting accordingly. Be sure to keep an eye on social analytics tools to help you identify the type of creative and messaging that perform best.

Whether they know it or not, social media lead generation is part of every marketer’s strategy. To ensure yours stays on the right track, be sure to keep these seven tactics in mind and, as always from the Byter Team, good luck!

www.byter.com

First Things First: What Even is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent.

Sounds complicated? Let’s come up with an imaginary example.

Let’s imagine you want to buy some trainers from (the very imaginatively named) Trainer Zone. Ordinarily, you’d go to their website and browse at your leisure until you’d found a pair you’d want to purchase. Well, if Trainer Zone decided to make a bot then you could replace this process by instead simply messaging them on e.g. Facebook. Having asked you what you were looking for, a conversation opens up much akin to an actual in-store experience.

‘But what about things other than trainers’ I don’t hear you ask but will answer anyway…

Want to find out the weather? Need help picking out next week’s groceries? Fancy some financial advice? You’re covered. Weather bots, Grocery bots and Personal Finance Bots all exist and are ready at your convenience. Heck, in China there’s even a bot called Xiaoice acting as nothing more than a friend to over twenty million people. Pretty crazy right? But it’s true, with bots the possibilities are endless.

But Why Make a Bot in the First Place?

Yes, they technology seems impressive enough, but what’s the big deal? Is it really worth a company spending their valuable time and energy on them? In short, absolutely!

For the first time ever, messenger apps are being used more than social networks, so if you want to build a business online, you’ll naturally be drawn to where the people are: inside messenger apps.

As Aaron Batalion from Lightspeed Venture Partners writes:

“Major shifts on large platforms should be seen as opportunities for distribution. That said, we need to be careful not to judge the very early prototypes too harshly as the platforms are far from complete. I believe Facebook’s recent launch is the beginning of a new application platform for micro application experiences. The fundamental idea is that customers will interact with just enough UI, whether conversational and/or widgets, to be delighted by a service/brand with immediate access to a rich profile and without the complexities of installing a native app, all fuelled by mature advertising products. It’s potentially a massive opportunity.”

In short, it comes down to those last two words: it’s a ‘massive opportunity’.

So How Do They Work?

Surely, it’s Artificial Intelligence? That must be incredibly complicated? How on earth can they talk to people and answer questions? I can’t do that myself, can I?

All good questions and in answer to the final one, yes!

There are two types of chatbots. Let’s take a look at each of them now.

Chatbots that function based on rules:

This type of bot is only as intelligent as it is programmed to be, responding only to very specific commands.

Chatbots that functions using machine learning:

This type of bot is far less limited, with its AI enabling it to understand language rather than just commands, thereby becoming increasingly intelligent with each and every conversation it has with people.

What doesn’t change, though, is the fact that companies create each with a purpose, whether that be to facilitate a purchase or answer customer support queries. Either way, it seems the days of ringing up businesses are numbered.

Artificial Intelligence

Some good news…Thankfully, you don’t need to be an AI expert to create a great AI chatbot. It would though be recommended to apply the old adage of not trying to run before you can walk. Try not to over promise on your application’s abilities and even hold off until you’re ready. Anyone with the ability to code can certainly incorporate some level of artificial intelligence into their products, so it might be worth keeping this in mind when listing the ‘required skills’ in your hiring process!

Building Chatbots

Before you delve into the how, you’ll have to take a look at they why. In other words, what problem is your bot going to solve? Once this question has been answered, it’s time to choose which platform your bot is going to live on. Next, you’ll need to set up a server to run your bot from and then decide which service you will use to build your bot.

As Matt Hartman, the Director of Seed Investments at Betaworks, writes:

“The difficulty in building a chatbot is less a technical one and more an issue of user experience. The most successful bots will be the ones that users want to come back to regularly and that provide consistent value.” 

Don’t worry. There’s no gold rush leaving you behind. As is usually the case, it’s worth taking your time and remembering that quality wins in the end.

Time to Join the Chatbot Revolution?

Chatbots are not an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, they’ve been around for decades. It’s only due to recent advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning that the aforesaid “huge opportunity” has arisen. Whether you’re currently building or wanting to learn how to build a chatbot, as always from the Byter Team, good luck!

www.byter.com

Increasing brand awareness, perception, web traffic and sales. Pretty essential stuff. But which digital marketing route will you be taking to make it happen: organic or paid? Well, before we come to any decisions, let’s take a closer look at what our two options even mean.

Organic Advertising

Essentially, anything that isn’t paid for can be considered organic. If you have a strong grasp of the needs and concerns of your buyer personas, it’s time to get creative and utilise social media to raise your brand awareness amongst your likely target audience.

All clicks generated from the likes of Google without paying for them can be considered organic search traffic. Likely? Well, making sure your site works well on all devices, has all the relevant content and lots of quality inbound links from other trusted websites will go a very long way to ensuring this is the case.

Paid Advertising

As the name suggests, this is when your content appears as a result of paying a publisher such as Facebook, Google etc. Having specified your desired associated search terms and pay-per-click amount, your posts are ready to go, soon to be sitting alongside and looking deliberately like organic results.

Certain ads appear on your social media channels due to the advertiser considering you their target audience, whether that be due to your age, occupation etc.

Organic Pros and Cons

Let’s now take a closer look at our two available routes, by weighing up the pros and cons of each in order to help us make a decision.

Sometimes being as simple as setting up and using a Twitter account, organic marketing is available to all companies no matter their size. However, though you’d think most of the world’s marketing budgets could afford this, what is far more costly is the time required to make it worthwhile. Time on social media, writing blogs, SEO and email marketing unfortunately do all add up. And that’s not even taking into account time spent analysing data from Google analytics, Google search console, your social media scheduling tool, email marketing platform… do we need to go on?

Paid Pros and Cons

With paid advertising comes great control. Whether it be the actual message published, the people who see it, or the time at which they do, paid advertising is far more targeted than its seemingly inferior alternative. Another tick in the pro box for paid advertising concerns its instant results. Once the payment has gone through, paid results sit at the top of users’ search feed.

As you have no doubt guessed though, this doesn’t come cheap and marketing budgets of smaller businesses of course create natural barriers. Perhaps even worse are those companies with the necessary marketing financial stretch, but without the required knowledge of the likes of Google Adwords or Facebook Ads to utilise them properly.

So, if you’ve got a bit of cash to spare, how about a combination of the two? Start organic and then start running the two side-by-side?

Let’s now take a look at when might be considered a good time to use each.

When is Good Organic Timing?

It’s never a bad time to go organic! Of course, for businesses in the real starter stages, waiting up to a year for real leads to open up from social media or organic rankings is pretty unappealing to say the least. However, enough time and persistency can certainly help to snowball things down the line.

When is a Good Time to Pay?

If you have products you want to get rid of quickly, such as during sales periods, then the likes of Google Ads could be a great option. Similarly, new product and brand launches can benefit hugely through paid advertising. Social media ads bring with them brand exposure, which can run concurrently with the Google ads homing in on the people searching the problems you can solve.

Just one thing first though. Although it sounds almost too obvious to say, do make sure your website is live and functioning as it should. You may be surprised at how many companies dip into their marketing budget to sit proudly atop Google’s search lists, with users just a click away from a website that doesn’t convert. As such, test first. And then test again!

Decision Time

Well, when it comes down to it, neither is essentially better or worse than the other. In fact, an effective marketing strategy is created when the two work in tandem. Dipping into the marketing budget can certainly boost your traffic and brand awareness in quick-fire time, but there’s no reason why you can’t then run a more cost-effective organic search marketing campaign in the background.

Ultimately, it’s your business and it’s up to you to weigh up what suits your specific situation best, so as always from the Byter Team, good luck!

www.byter.com

Beauty Basics

From websites selling products or services to those sharing a portfolio of work with potential employers, it’s vital to remember that as many of 38% of people will click off if they deem the site unattractive.

You’re not a professional web designer? Not a problem. Let’s take a look at some tips and tricks you can use when creating a beautiful website.

Four Web Design Do’s

1. Do Use Cohesive Colours and Fonts

Some psychologists suggest that whether a user either accepts or rejects a website is 60% down to colour. Try to stick to two or three carefully colour-guide chosen fonts throughout the site. Remember, even seemingly subtle changes can have a large impact. Let’s take the company ‘Performable’ as an example. By simply changing its call-to-action button from green to red, it saw a 21% increase in sales.

2. Do Use Simple Navigation

Always keep the following statistics in your mind when designing your site:

• 86% of visitors are immediately looking for information about your products.
• 60% of visitors want to find your contact information.

Increasing website sales comes down to ensuring a quick and easy user experience. A clear and concise navigation and search bar towards the top of the page will help to guide your customers to what they’re looking for and what you want to sell.

3. Do Use Certifications and Testimonials

With 85% of users trusting testimonials and product reviews in the same light as personal recommendations, ignore including customer testimonials at your peril. For example, five-starred ratings can increase your conversion rate by as much as 28%. For an added touch, why not try something similar to what the online restaurant ordering system ChowNow have done? Here, customers upload a short video of themselves actually speaking.

Crucially, would you expect your customers to share their financial information on a website without a seemingly flawless level of security? For this reason, make sure to add often overlooked certification logos such as security badges or third-party reviews of your business, proving to new customers the legitimacy of your business. 

4. Do Use Infographics

With people being 80% more likely to respond and interact with visual content, it’s certainly worth considering the general amount of text on your website. Some site content leads itself naturally away from text, such as statistic-driven content which is instead best displayed though the use of an infographic – as much as thirty times more likely to be read in its entirety than a wall of text.

Four Web Design Don’ts

Let’s now take a look at some pitfalls to avoid when constructing a beautiful, sales-increasing website.

1. Don’t Use Too Many Elements

The old adage of less is more applies in abundance here, so be careful with the GIFS, text, videos, pop-up ads and the like, which can quickly become distracting, lowering both time spent on your site and the all-important conversion rates. 

2. Don’t Use Jarring Colour Schemes

As mentioned above, your website’s chosen colour palette is of huge importance. Stay away from bold, headache-inducing colours that don’t complement each other. That’s no way to encourage a customer to stick around long enough to make a purchase.

3. Don’t Use Cluttered Navigation

Another way to boot the customers off your site without lifting a finger is to make things confusing and cluttered. No transactions are made when scrolling through a string of pointless nebulous web pages.

4. Don’t Use Loud Multimedia Set to AutoPay

A loud unexpected burst of audio and video can often do more harm than good. Sure, it’s good to grab your customer’s attention, but in this instance, it’s not the way to go.

In Design They Trust

When people arrive at your website, make sure you’ve got them on your side from the first click. A mixture of cohesive colours and fonts, five-star testimonials, along with a simple layout and uncluttered navigation should not only do that but also keep them coming back again and again.

As always from the Byter Team,

Good luck!

www.byter.com

You’ve heard the story a thousand times. The protagonist embarks on an adventure, makes some new friends, overcomes obstacles and returns home a changed person. In short, the Hero’s Journey.

This classic story structure is shared by stories around the globe from Theseus and the Minotaur to Rocky Balboa and as a result is lodged firmly into our cultural DNA. It was, though, Joseph Campbell, the academic who first coined the term way back in 1949, who provided its original structure:

• The Departure Act: The Hero leaves the “Ordinary World”.

• The Initiation Act: The Hero ventures into the unknown “Special World” and is birthed into a true champion through various trials and challenges.

• The Return Act: The Hero returns in triumph.

A little over half a century later, screenwriter Christopher Vogler released his book The Writer’s Journey, in which he refined Campbell’s three phases by identifying the 12 steps that make it up. 

Though they are not necessarily always carried out beat-for-beat, let’s now take a look at Vogler’s 12 steps in more detail and see how the Hero undergoes inner and outer transformation in each one.

The 12 Steps of the Hero’s Journey

1. Ordinary World (we meet our Hero)

This opening leg sets the stage, showing the Hero’s mundane, relatable reality. It provides the juxtaposition with the strange new world yet to be discovered.

Example: Rocky Balboa working as an anonymous debt collector and underground boxer in downtown Philadelphia.

2. Call to Adventure (the adventure begins)

This stage takes the Hero out of their comfort zone, confronting them with an unignorable problem. The catalyst can take several forms. With the stakes of the adventure set, the gauntlet is thrown down for our hero: will they rise to the challenge?

Example: Dorothy being swept up in a tornado in The Wizard of Oz. 

3. Refusal of the Call (the Hero digs in their feet)

It’s certainly not always a simple case of our Hero putting on their shoes and heading out the door. Often, they require quite a nudge. 

Example: Luke Skywalker initially refusing to join Obi-Wan on his mission to rescue the princess, only changing his mind once he finds out stormtroopers have killed his aunt and uncle.

4. Meeting the Mentor (the Hero acquires a personal trainer)

With the Journeys carrying with them significant dangers far too risky for our as yet unproven Heroes, we are often introduced to a mentor. The mentor ensures our Hero has the tools to carry out their adventure, usually through a mixture of practical training, seemingly limitless wisdom and some, let’s say, carefully chosen words of tough love. Although, the mentor can be something as faceless as a map, preparation for the Hero’s next step is still the case.

Example: Mickey Goldmill in Rocky. The time-worn, but not time-beaten old trainer, who takes Rocky under his wing in preparation for his world title fight with Apollo Creed.

5. Crossing the First Threshold (the Hero enters the other world in earnest.)

The central conflict has been launched, the theme has been established and the characters are developing nicely.

As Vogler writes: “This is the moment that the balloon goes up, the ship, the romance begins, the wagon gets rolling.” Our Hero is ready and there’s no going back.

Example: Stitch crashes on Earth in Lilo & Stitch.

6. Tests, Allies, Enemies (the Hero faces new challenges and gets a squad)

Our Hero has stepped into the Special Word and begins getting to grips with their new reality. Usually one of the longest stages, it makes a prime hunting ground for a series of tests to be passed. In this stage, we often are introduced to aliens, enemies, friends and foes.

Example: In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Spencer, Bethany, Fridge, and Martha don’t get off to the smoothest of starts when they bump into a herd of bloodthirsty hippos.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave (the Hero gets closer to his goal)

The stage is all about the Hero’s approach to the most dangerous spot in the Special World, where the ultimate goal of the adventure is almost always located.

Example: The Death Star in Star Wars. Obviously, use of the words ‘Inmost Cave’ aren’t necessarily literal.

8. Ordeal (the Hero faces his biggest test of all thus far)

Described by Volger as a “black moment” and Campbell as the “belly of the whale”, this eighth stage is by no means fun for our Hero. Their greatest fear must now be faced, bringing with it their biggest test. Survive and they become transformed, and according to Volger, thereby informing every decision they make from then on. Though not necessarily the story’s climax, the Ordeal finally provides the opportunity for our Hero to be worthy of such a title.

Example: Sam carrying Frodo on his back all the way up Mt Doom in The Lord of The Rings, using Samwise Gamgee as the Hero.

9. Reward (Seizing the Sword) (the Hero sees light at the end of the tunnel…)

The “reward” is the object or knowledge of which the Hero has spent the entirety of their journey fighting. The time to reach out and grab them is now!

Example: Dorothy can finally escape from the Wicked Witch’s castle with the broomstick and the ruby slippers.

10. The Road Back (… but that light is a little further away than expected)

We’ve reached the beginning of Act Three. With the reward “in hand”, it’s time to return to the Ordinary World. However, obstacles can and do still arise.

Example: Before Neo can leave the Matrix again, Agent Smith kills him.

11. Resurrection (the last test is met)

Referred to by Volger as the protagonist’s “final exam”, we see if our Hero has “really learned the lessons of the Ordeal”. It’s a stage known for miraculous near-death escapes. Queue the sweet music…

Example: Simba learns that Scar killed his father and throws him off Pride Rock.

12. Return with the Elixir (our Hero has a triumphant homecoming)

… because, finally, the Hero gets to return home. They’ve grown. They’ve matured. All in all, they’re returning to the Normal World a different person, with the “Elixir” won during the journey in-hand.

Example: Proving that some Hero’s Journeys can conclude elixir-less, Peter recalls his Uncle Ben’s words and embraces his role as Spider-Man.

Rigid Rules?

The 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey were created to help readers dissect a plot by fostering a stronger understanding of story structure. But remember, they’re not a set of handcuffs. As long as your understanding of the basics is sound, feel free to experiment and bend it in ways that defy reader expectations. 

As always from the Byter Team,

good luck!

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