You probably know that the vast majority of Googlers never make it past the first page of search results. But if your website is buried like a dead body on the second, third, or thirteenth page of results, you may be a little perplexed about the mystery behind a well-ranking web page. Although there isn’t a magic formula, there are certainly some guidelines that will maximize your web page’s chances of being prominently featured on Google. Here are some of our best tips and tricks on how to improve search engine ranking!

Improve Your Metadata

Incorporating SEO keywords that internet users are searching for online is crucial to increasing Google’s ranking. While the keywords your readers can see on the web page itself are important, you also want to make sure you’re optimizing the listing that a reader will see on Google. This is part of your site’s metadata. It includes the meta description and the meta title (also known as the title tag). These are the two things that appear when a user first gets their search results.

Because the title tag is the very first thing potential visitors will see from your site, you want to make it count, for the benefit of search engines. If you can, try to make the very first word or phrase in the meta title keywords.

A meta description may be your most important sales copy. It should be short (160 characters or less) yet descriptive. You want it to be unique enough to stand out among other top searches as a web user is likely to check your meta descriptions before choosing which website to visit. Because you’re selling your page, it should also include your SEO keyword or keywords you’re trying to target.

Be Consistent

Ranking well will not happen overnight. It takes time. But you must be spending that time wisely. If you want to see your website climb in the ranks, keep posting fresh, high-quality content on your website. One of the best ways to do this is through a blog. While you don’t necessarily need to be posting every day, posting once a week or once every other week can be very beneficial to helping your website rank.

That being said, make sure you aren’t falling into the trap of posting content simply for the sake of posting content. Each blog should be surrounding a topic that’s relevant to your audience and provides helpful information, not just the same old same old. If it’s not quality content, you run the risk of Google thinking it’s spam which will hurt the rank.

Make Sharing Your Content Easy

You want as many people as possible to share your content on social media. Although this does not have a direct impact on your rank, it will expand your content’s reach and help you get new visitors. The more views your content has, the more highly it will rank.

To get more shares on your content, you first and foremost want to make sure you’re producing high-quality, valuable content on a consistent basis. But you also want to make it as easy as possible for others to share your content. That’s why you should have all the share buttons front and center. This will remind people to share your posts and help out any viewers that may be a little less technically savvy.

Improve Your Linking Game

Incorporate outbound links (links that lead to other sites) as well as internal links (links from one page on your site to another page on your site) in your content to further optimize your position on Google. That being said, there are some important guidelines to be wary of when you are choosing to include links on your page.

For outbound links, make sure you aren’t linking to random blogs and websites that aren’t the most reputable. You want sites that are authorities in your industry or at the very least are producing authority content. Because Google knows which sites are reputable, you’re essentially earning Google’s trust by linking to these websites. Just don’t overdo the links or you could actually be hurting your site’s rank on Google.

Make sure that the phrase you are using as an anchor to a link is descriptive and, preferably, includes keywords. Using the phrase “click here” as your anchor text is meaningless and won’t help your search rank. Because broken links could harm your page’s rank, you also want to make sure all the links you include in the content lead to something.

Check Your Content’s Readability

One of the least technical yet most important things you can do for any of your content is to make sure it’s readable. A high bounce rate (meaning that visitors quickly leave your web pages) will harm your site. And one thing that gives you a high bounce rate is content that’s not very engaging or just plain hard to read. All the content you post should be simple for the average person to read.

Not only should you have images and headings to make your content easy to navigate but the text itself should also be engaging and never overly complex. One commonly-used measure of readability is the Flesch Reading Ease. This scores your content based on how old the average person needs to be to understand it. You can paste your content into an online tool or plugin to see how it does. Ideally, you want something in the 90 to 100 range, meaning the content can be easily understood by an 11-year-old.

Improve Your Search Engine Ranking with Strong Estate Marketing

Following all of these tips to improve search engine ranking can seem almost impossible. As a business owner, you may not have the time to devote to improving all your web pages. This is exactly why you should hire Strong Estate Marketing! We can rewrite your existing content, create new pages, or write blog posts to share with your audience regularly. All of these services can your business!

Place an order with Strong Estate or get in touch with us today!

Do you have a new business blog that’s struggling to take off? Writing a blog is a great way for your company to advertise what you do and gain web traffic. However, gaining popularity for your business blog can be complicated. To help, we’ve provided seven blog promotion tools and ideas to help get your business blog booming!

Showcase Your Content Across Multiple Platforms

One of the best marketing tips for small businesses is to utilize your content in multiple ways. Each piece of content that you publish can be repurposed into something else. By publishing your content across multiple platforms, you can reach a wider audience.

Some ways you may consider transforming your blog content include:

• YouTube videos. Some audiences prefer to watch content rather than read it. YouTube videos are more engaging and they’re perfect for publishing on social media platforms that are focused on visuals.
• Podcasts. Like YouTube videos, podcasts are great for audiences who don’t like to give their undivided attention to a blog post. You can also post podcasts on platforms where blogs cannot be published such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
• PDF summaries. Another way you may be able to reach a wider audience is by creating a PDF summary of your blog. PDFs can be short, sweet, and visual, and they can be shared over email and social media.

Give Readers the Opportunity to Share Your Blog

When you publish your blog on your business site, is there a “share” button visible for readers? Simply providing a share option is one of the best blog promotion tools. This allows readers who visit your blog to share your content on their own social media with ease. It’s a great way to gain free promotion and visibility!

Be sure that you draw attention readers’ attention to their ability to share the blog. Not only can you do this by predominately displaying the “share” button, but you may also want to include a sentence or two at the end of the blog that encourages readers to share the content.

Use Social Media as a Blog Promotion Tool

One of the easiest marketing tips for small businesses is to leverage the power of social media. Since there are so many different social media platforms, you can repurpose the same content across multiple sites, therefore reaching multiple audiences.

Be sure to consider who the main social media audience is when publishing your content. For example:

• Instagram audiences are going to be expecting photos or videos with minimal text.
• Twitter audiences may be more prepared for links or written content, as long as it is short and to the point.
• Facebook audiences may be willing to read longer posts, as long as they are easy to read. Visuals and links are helpful for drawing attention to your Facebook posts.

Advertise Your Blog Professionally

There are many professional platforms that are great for advertising all that hard work you’ve put into your blog. These platforms are for professional use and may help you network, find additional advertising options, and gain traction from other professionals. LinkedIn and MeetUp are two great examples. Try to utilize multiple sites to maximize your potential reach.

Google Business is one of the best professional platforms to use for a business blog. You are able to advertise and share your blogs directly to your Google Business account, as well as link other information. You can also list your business officially through Google, which helps you advertise and achieve higher Google rankings.

Network With Other Bloggers

Other bloggers understand the struggle of promoting a blog. Networking with other bloggers, especially those who have been doing it for longer than you have, is a great way for you to find tips and tricks for promoting your blog content.

In addition, when you network with other bloggers, you may get the opportunity to cross-promote each other’s work. Through cross-promotion, you both are gaining free advertisement and may expand your audience.

Guest Post on Other Blogs

Did you know that many blogging sites or business websites allow for guest posting? Guest posting is a great way to gain traction with new audiences. If you have the opportunity to write a guest post, the host website may provide the topic or they may just give you certain guidelines to follow.

To find guest posting options, you may want to:

• Contact sites that post content like yours. Try simply contacting sites that post the type of content you write. Send a message through the site’s contact form (or an email, if one is provided) and offer examples of your blogs as well as details about what you’re interested in writing for them.
• Find where your competitors are posting. If you notice that your competitors are guest blogging on certain sites, reach out to these sites as well. You may gain the opportunity to reach this same audience.
• Advertise yourself on different platforms. By using social media, freelance sites like Fiverr, or business sites, you can also advertise that you are looking for guest posting opportunities.

Use SEO for Higher Google Rankings

One of the most important factors in determining how well your blog posts perform is your Google ranking. Google determines rankings based on several things, one of the most important being SEO (search engine optimization). While SEO encompasses many things, one important element is to make sure your blogs incorporate certain words or phrases that your target audience may be searching.

Writing SEO content can be difficult, which is why it’s important to hire an SEO professional for your content. At Strong Estate Marketing, we stay up to date with the best SEO practices and are prepared to write exciting blog content that may raise your Google ranking!

Don’t Let Your Business Blog Flop

Blogs are an excellent tool for any business, but they’re only helpful if they do well. Promoting your blog is important, and with these seven tips, your blog will be booming in no time. To ensure that your blog content never flops, order your writing from us today!

We get it. Building a website from scratch can seem unreasonably expensive. It’s tempting to want to take care of everything on your own. However, without the help of professionals, your business website may experience lower engagement rates, fewer visits, and major technical difficulties.

Hiring a professional will save you time, effort, and even money in the long run. You deserve a successful website! We’ve outlined the three most important website-building professionals you need to end up with a website for your business that flows seamlessly and drives sales.

Who to Hire When Building Your Website from Scratch

1. Website Designer/Developer

Before you can start filling your website with amazing content, you need to create the appearance of your site and get it up and running. Website designers are going to be your first stop. Designers create the idea of what the website should look like including the color scheme, fonts, widgets, images, and more.

On the other hand, website developers take the ideas that the designer has created and turn them into reality. Developers write the code and create the website itself. They work with your budget to make your website function as flawlessly as possible.

While website designers and developers are typically two different people, you can sometimes get lucky enough to find someone who specializes in both! Both designers and developers are equally important to get your website up and running.

2. SEO Specialist

Did you know that you have a way to make your website more likely to show up in Google search results? Websites don’t magically appear in someone’s search results. They get there—in part—because of SEO!

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It encompasses a variety of methods for increasing a website’s chances of organically showing up in search results. Hiring an SEO specialist can help:

• Increase your visits and engagement
• Raise your website’s Google rank
• Optimize your advertisements
• Make your content more interesting to readers
• Keep your content trendy and up-to-date

3. Professional Writer

Once you have your website designed and developed, it’s important to add written content. It may seem tempting to take care of writing the content on your own. However, it’s best to hire a professional that understands how to write content that’s engaging, easy to understand, and incorporates the keywords that your SEO specialist has suggested.

Professional content writers know what customers want. They’re able to produce unique, polished content that not only gets clicks but also helps convert visitors to paying customers. Professional content writers like Strong Estate Marketing can take care of your landing pages, blogs, product descriptions, and more.

Where to Find Them

So now you know what professionals you need, but where on earth do you find them?! The hiring search may seem like a monumental task, but don’t worry. We’ve got answers for that too!

1. Freelance Sites

Freelance sites are websites that host a variety of freelance professionals. This means that these individuals are self-employed and set their own rates. Some may be full-time freelancers, while others may work traditional 9 to 5 and be on the site to support their side hustles. You’ll be able to communicate with professionals directly through these websites.

Freelance sites are great because you can often read reviews, message multiple professionals to compare quotes, and get a pretty quick turnaround at an affordable rate. In addition, freelance sites often feature professionals from all over the world so you won’t be limited in your options. Some of the best freelance websites to browse include:

• Fiverr
• Upwork
• Toptal
• Guru
• PeoplePerHour

2. Recommendations From Other Businesses

Entrepreneurs tend to flock together. If you know other business owners in any industry, they’re a great resource when you’re building your website from scratch. Asking other businesses for recommendations is helpful because you’re able to view the work that has already been completed. Know someone with a business website you love? Ask them who did it! See a killer business blog? Ask what writer they’re using!

Even if you don’t have a lot of entrepreneur friends, it’s worth spending some time searching through websites that you like. Contact the owners of the business and ask what professional they hired for the part of the website that you like. If they’re another smaller business and they aren’t a direct competitor, they may be happy to help a fellow entrepreneur. You can contact multiple businesses and owners for the different professionals you are looking for.

3. Referrals from Other Professionals

One, final, easy way to find professionals in the areas you’re looking for is to ask other professionals for referrals. There are three ways you can go about this:

• Ask a professional you know. If you have a connection with a designer, developer, writer, or SEO specialist, you could ask them for referrals to other professionals. Sometimes you may already know one of these pros but they can’t take on your project because they are over-booked or they specialize in a particular niche. Rather than getting frustrated by this, simply ask them if they know others that may be taking on work right now.
• Ask the professionals you’ve already hired. If you’ve already hired one of the three professionals that you need for your website building, you can ask them for referrals for the other tasks. For example, if you’ve already hired a website designer, ask them if they know any good SEO specialists. Since all of these jobs go hand-in-hand, the odds are pretty good. Even if they don’t have a specific name, they may have some resources to help you find someone.
• Ask past professionals you’ve worked with. It’s also okay to reach out to individuals you’ve worked with in the past. Maybe they’ve moved on to a different job or they’ve even retired but they still may have valuable connections.

Set Your Business Up for Success by Knowing Who to Hire for Your Website

Website building isn’t easy. Designing the perfect look, developing the technical pieces, writing perfect content, and optimizing the site for SEO are huge, daunting tasks. However, when you know who to hire for your website and where to find them, your website will be up, running, and successful in no time!

If you’ve just created an e-commerce business or moved your brick-and-mortar store online, you’ve probably devoted a lot of your time to determining the building blocks of a perfect website. Your revenue depends on it. But how do you build a business website? What actually matters and what bells and whistles are meaningless? Here are five essentials for a business website you must have to be successful.

1.    A Good URL

Perfecting your brand is one of the most important parts of having a successful business, and your URL is a crucial part of that brand. The cornerstone of every successful URL is twofold: simplicity and memorability.

You don’t get points for a long URL filled with SAT vocab words. In fact, anything that’s too long and complex could be off-putting to potential customers. You should keep your domain name as short and simple as you can. Succinct URLs without dashes or unnecessary words are the easiest for people to search for.

You also want customers to be able to remember your URL instantly. URLs that include your site name or something that clearly relates to your business will be the easiest for people to remember. This makes customers more likely to not only visit the site but to come back to it as well.

2.    A Clear Description

The homepage of your website needs to have a clear description that explains what your business does, what products you sell, or what services you offer. Wordiness and big blocks of text are huge turn-offs for customers. You also want to avoid anything that’s too vague. Be sure to stay concise and descriptive.

Read through the description as if you’re the customer. Would this make sense to the average person? Or does it contain a lot of jargon that would probably only make sense to someone with a lot of experience in your industry? You could also seek the help of friends and family who may not be industry experts like you are. Get their feedback then edit and re-edit your description until it’s perfectly concise yet descriptive.

3.    A Predominate Call to Action

One commonality you’ll find in virtually every successful website is a prominent call to action (CTA). A CTA is an action step you want your customer to take. What exactly do you want a visitor to do when they visit your website? Do you want them to buy a product? A service? Do you want them to contact you and set up a meeting? Your CTA should address this. Push the customer to do exactly what you want them to!

Even if your CTA isn’t necessarily directed at contacting you, you need to make sure that if a visitor were to need your contact info for any reason, they could easily find it easily. Your homepage should have your contact information clearly visible. However, you should have a separate page dedicated to contact information as well. Make sure to have this linked to your homepage for easy navigation.

4.    Fresh Content

Websites that don’t regularly post fresh, original content won’t rank highly in Google search results. One of the essentials for a business website is to regularly update your content and post brand-new content. The problem is this is one of the more time-consuming elements of a business website since the content needs to be put out on an ongoing basis. Using a blog writing subscription will allow you to provide visitors with valuable content on a consistent schedule without any extra effort on your part.

5.    Your Unique Selling Point

What makes you special? Why should customers buy from you and not one of your many competitors? One of the most important essentials for a business website is showing off what makes you special, aka your unique selling point (USP). Don’t hold off on showcasing your USP on your homepage. It’s important for visitors to see it right away! You can convey why visitors should choose you over the competition in your design or your content. Having a section of your homepage devoted to customer reviews can also be a way to show social proof and your USP at the same time.

Build a Better Business Website with Strong Estate Marketing’s Help

Although building the perfect business website isn’t impossible, it definitely requires a lot of work. If you need any help filling your website with valuable, informative, eye-catching content, you can always hire professional writers to do it for you. At Strong Estate Marketing, we offer content writing services to help your website stand out and attract the customers you desire. Get started by ordering writing for your business website today!

Is your site struggling with low engagement? Online engagement is essential to having a thriving 21st-century business. However, it’s hard to build website engagement at the onset. Here are some common signs of poor engagement and a few effective ways to increase engagement on your site.

Why is Engagement Important?

Engagement is a sign that your website is flourishing and your content is being interacted with. In simple terms, engagement is the number of people who visit your site, how long they stay on your site, and whether or not they interact with your content. You’re able to measure your engagement in several ways, including how many pageviews your site receives and how much time visitors spend on those pages.

The first step to boosting your engagement is identifying signs of poor engagement.

5 Signs of Poor Engagement

1. Low Number of Pageviews

If you are finding that your site frequently has a low number of pageviews, you have poor engagement on your site. The number of pageviews is one of the easiest ways to identify engagement on your site, as it shows you how many people are truly visiting each page, no matter how long they stay there. If you aren’t getting pageviews, it’s impossible for people to be interacting with your site. Identifying which pages are struggling to get views can help you identify other problem areas that may be causing low engagement.

2. Low Amount of Time Spent on Pages

The amount of time spent on each page is extremely important—without much time spent on a page, your visitors have no chance of actually interacting with your content. Some businesses may look at their pageviews and not think they have an issue with engagement. But then they struggle with getting sales and wonder why. The source could be the amount of time visitors are spending on individual pages. If people are viewing your pages, but are spending a limited amount of time there, that’s an engagement problem that needs to be addressed.

3. Low Number of Pages Interacted With

Similarly to identifying the amount of time spent on each page, you also need to look at how many pages on your site are actually interacted with, not just viewed. If you are seeing a pattern of engagement occurring only on certain pages, then you know which pages have problem areas that need to be fixed. These problems could be with the page’s content or structure.

4. Pages with High Exit Rates

A high exit rate means that visitors are clicking off the page quickly after visiting it. These pages are good enough to be clicked on, but not good enough to actually hold the attention of visitors. Pages with high exit rates tend to be struggling with content, structure, or navigability.

5. Poor Social Media Engagement

Your social media engagement is almost as important as the interactions on your website itself. Engagement with your social media pages is a pretty good indicator of the popularity of your content and your website. For example, maybe you share blog posts on your business page on Facebook. But if people aren’t sharing that post or liking and commenting on your post, it means not many people are going to be seeing the content in their feed.

5 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your Site

1. Better, Engaging Content

Having content that’s higher quality, more interesting, and more engaging can keep your visitors on your site longer. It can also encourage them to interact with more pages rather than quickly clicking off.

Fixing the content on your site to improve engagement can be done in a few different ways. First, you can simply add more text to each page. This encourages visitors to spend more time on the page, as they have to spend more time looking through the content. However, too much text will bore your visitors. That’s why it’s important to break up your text with headings and media such as pictures or videos. Including popular, trendy content in your blog posts can also help increase engagement.

2. Make Your Content Flow

Increasing engagement means having content that flows together. Content should link together, make sense within your site’s layout, and be simple to navigate. If your content doesn’t link together, it can cause confusion and lead to a higher exit rate. In addition, if your content doesn’t make sense within the layout or it isn’t easy to navigate, users tend to leave the page. Try changing your content layout so visitors don’t have to spend much time figuring out how to navigate your site.

3. Up Your Social Media Engagement

Increasing your social media engagement may help you gain more website visitors. By posting more, replying to comments, and sharing good info on your social media accounts, you’ll be able to increase engagement with your followers. Not only will this help you build relationships with customers online but it will also send more people to your site.

4. Increase Load Speeds

Users are more likely to stay on a page if the load speed is short and are more likely to leave the page if it’s slow. Look into programs online that can help your website load more quickly to hold the attention of impatient visitors. Google Analytics offers a simple solution for the user, letting them choose the site speed and change it as they need to.

5. Make Your Site More Mobile-Friendly

More and more users are choosing to interact with websites through their mobile devices. Since people are rarely without their smartphones, it’s easier for users to access web pages on their phones. Make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. This may mean having a mobile version of your site, or simply changing the layout so that it is easily viewable on both mobile and the web.

Fix Your Low Engagement Today!

Good engagement generally means that your content is being interacted with and you have a higher chance of gaining business or interactions. As your engagement goes up, so does the popularity of your site. Use these five methods to identify your problem areas and improve your engagement!

Every good business strategy should incorporate blogging and well-written website content. Although great writing doesn’t necessarily come cheap, it’s not an area where you want to skimp. When you go the cheap route, you risk your reputation, your customers’ opinions, your website’s rank, and more. Here are some of the biggest problems you might encounter if you settle for a cheap content writer.

Cheap Writing is Less Readable

One of the main goals of your website should be readability. You aren’t going to get bonus points for using SAT words and long, flowery sentences. In fact, this will deter website visitors and ultimately harm your conversation rate. Your content needs to be readable by a wide group of people to attract the most customers.

Readability isn’t just important for clarity. It’s also important for your website’s rank. Readability has actually become an essential part of how Google ranks you. When your website ranks highly, more people will be visiting your website. Your conversion rate will also go up. On the other hand, if you’re relying on someone who isn’t a very experienced writer to create content, you’re harming your bottom line.

Writing clear, concise content is second nature to a professional writer. Although you can argue that readability is subjective, there are some benchmarks for readable content. One time-tested tool is the Flesch reading ease score. This tool shows how readable the content is based on the average number of syllables in the words and the average length of the sentences. It scores the content on a scale of 0 to 100 with 100 being the easiest to read.

Ideally, content from a professional writer should fall in the 90 to 100 range. This means the content can be easily understood by someone as young as 11 years old. In contrast, a writer who overcomplicates content is limiting their audience.

Web content in particular needs to be easy to read. People who are looking for products or services online don’t want to read a graduate thesis. They want compelling content that’s easy to read and will hold their attention. That’s exactly what they’ll get when they hire a professional writer!

A Native English Content Writer is Worth Paying For

The internet can be so useful for hiring service providers, including professional writers. But, unfortunately, this can make it more difficult to spot writers who aren’t actually as great as they claim to be. Sometimes you may hire a person that you think is a formally-trained native English writer, but the content they produce is poorly-written English content.

If the writer you’ve hired delivers poorly-written content, you’ll have to edit it to ensure it makes sense to customers. In the end, you’ll have lost money in addition to the time you spent editing by hiring an amateur writer.

When your website isn’t written in clear English, it obviously hurts readability. Once again, that makes your customers have a harder time understanding your content and damages the SEO rank. But it also makes you unprofessional. If you want to present yourself as an authority on whatever it is you’re selling, you must hire a native English writer.

SEO-Optimized Content Improves Your Website’s Rank

If you’re paying someone to create content for your website, it better be SEO-optimized! Incorporating SEO keywords into your website is one of the most important things you can do to improve your website’s rank. Make sure that whoever you hire to write your content has a firm understanding of SEO.

A good copywriter will also know how to avoid over-stuffing your content with keywords, a.k.a. “keyword stuffing.” Using too many keywords can actually be a problem that harms your search rank. A professional writer will strike the ideal balance of just enough keywords without it being overkill.

SEO isn’t just about keywords. A good professional writer knows how to properly format a blog with headings and concise paragraphs. This will also help your site rank better on Google.

Professional Writers Deliver 100% Duplication-Free Content 

Perhaps the worst outcome of buying cheap writing is plagiarism. It may shock you to know that plagiarism isn’t just something students do when they’ve slacked off in class. It’s something that writers will deliver to their paying clients. If you aren’t careful about the writer you hire, this could happen to you!

Plagiarism makes you look bad. You need to make yourself look credible. Your content should position you as a subject matter expert that your clients can trust for high-quality service or products. If you’re stealing content from other sources, you’ll look like the opposite: a fraud.

Plagiarism is, of course, illegal. You shouldn’t be doing it period, and the writer you might hire to work on your website definitely shouldn’t be doing it. But you might be thinking, “Who cares?” No one will know if you’ve copied someone else’s content. But the truth is Google knows, and it will penalize you for having duplicate content by lowering your SEO rank.

A quality professional writer will be able to give you 100% duplication-free content. You should be able to verify this using the site Copyscape. This is the industry standard for checking whether or not the content has been duplicated. Plagiarism may be an easy way to get content on your website, but it’s not worth the risks you’re taking to put it up. Duplicate-free copy is worth paying for!

Choose Your Content Writer Wisely—Or Suffer the Consequences

Clearly, quality writing is essential to your business, and it’s worth paying for! Does your website need content? Make sure you invest in an experienced content writer who knows what they’re doing!

We would love to create website content for your business or help you refresh your website if it’s in need of a facelift. No matter what you’re looking for, we promise to deliver content that’s readable, SEO-optimized, and duplication-free. Because we’re native English writers, you’ll also never have to worry about us delivering copy that doesn’t quite make sense.

Summer can be tough for businesses. Customers taking time off or leaving for a vacation can mean decreased sales. You’re probably tempted to cut back on your digital marketing strategy as the weather gets warmer. However, you have the potential to increase summer sales with the right digital marketing strategy. Here’s how!

Use Summer Holidays as Excuses for Sales

With summer comes holidays, and that can mean great things if you’re looking for how to increase summer sales. Holidays such as Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day are perfect opportunities for you to host sales. Consider hosting your sale entirely online, as most people spend their sunny months surfing the web!

Show Off Your Love for the Season

While traditional, in-person stores and companies can plant flowers, run a fountain, or decorate with props for the warmer months, you can still make some summery changes to your online storefront. Keep customers engaged by changing your profile and cover photos to summer-themed images.

You want your customers to think that you’re having a blast at your company. It’s a great, upbeat way to interest customers in what you’re selling. Some small details and theme ideas to consider this summer include:

• Sunglasses
• Fresh flowers
• Pool-themed props and photos
• Red, white, and blue
• Fireworks

Keep Your Blog Content Fresh

We want everything in summer to be refreshing from our drinks to our pools and even the content that we read. Customers don’t want a repeat of the same information they’ve been seeing all year. If you want to capture their attention, you need to introduce fresh, new blog content.

Hiring a professional to keep your content exciting and on-trend is exactly what you need. Strong Estate Marketing is a great choice for trendy, customer-focused SEO blog content. To drive up your engagement, contact Strong Estate Marketing for your content writing needs.

Make Your Social Media All About Summer

While making your marketing mobile-friendly is always a good idea, it’s especially important for summertime when your customers will be spending lots of time on their phones while outdoors and on vacation. Target your digital marketing strategy on social media platforms and ensure that your other typical digital strategies are mobile-friendly. Customers like upbeat, trendy content in the summertime. Whenever you can, consider using summer-y emojis, including fun sayings, hashtagging trendy themes, and even using summer-appropriate adjectives like “hot” and “sizzling.”

Be Interactive

Summer can be one of the hardest times of year to interact with customers online because fewer customers are typically engaging with your social media and your online content. You may need to encourage your customers to interact with your content a little more during the summer so your engagement doesn’t suffer. Publish polls on your website, ask questions, host online giveaways, or kick off conversations on your social media stories.

Don’t Let the Heat Get the Best of You

It’s easy to give in to the summer’s most enticing temptations and relax as much as you can, but you don’t want to do this at the expense of your marketing strategy. When you use these ideas, you’ll keep your digital marketing hot all season long.

Have you noticed changes with how your website is ranking or how well your SEO is performing recently? Google releases regular Google algorithm updates which change how your website ranks among other things. Keep reading to learn more about the June and July updates and how these may impact you!

June Update

Google released the first part of their June/July Google core updates on June second. This was the first update since December 2020, and the updates finished rolling out on June twelfth. The June core updates included:

• A change of position for SEO keywords
• Both higher and lower rankings
• Major fluctuations with SEO keywords and rankings

Google is relatively secretive regarding what the Google algorithm updates exactly entail, but they went on to release more updates throughout the month of June, such as:

• A Google page update, which started rolling out on June 15 will continue rolling out through August
• A spam update, was released on June 23
• A second spam update, released on June 28

July Update

The Google updates in July 2021 were released on July first as the second part of the June updates. This global core update will officially finish about two weeks into July, although Google may release other updates throughout the month.

Some updated features that Google planned to release in June did not meet the deadline and so they pushed them ahead to the July rollout. Until Google fully rolls out the core update, there is no guarantee on what it will entail. However, at this point, we’ve seen:

• A positive impact for those that experienced a website boost with the June 2021 release
• A negative impact for both those that did not experience an impact in June 2021 and those that experienced a negative impact
• Recoveries from the June 2021 core release

What Does This Mean for You?

Almost any website developer, owner, or user may find themselves impacted by a Google update. You may find:

• Your website will rank higher. With a Google update, the algorithm is adjusted, meaning that the ranking system is affected. Depending on the SEO keywords you are using, you may see your website ranking improve.
• Your website will rank lower. Unfortunately, Google cannot guarantee that you will not be negatively impacted by the updates. If you find that you are ranking lower or your website is struggling, you may consider visiting Google’s page for advice. Alternatively, hiring an SEO specialist can help you make the necessary adjustments to raise your ranking again.
• Nothing will change. For some, there will be no major changes. Not all Google updates have a noticeable impact on every user or business owner.

Don’t Let the Google Algorithm Updates Be Your Downfall

Google updates can be great, but they can also be harmful. One way to set your website’s rank up for success regardless of the Google updates in July 2021 or any upcoming updates is to get website content that’s professionally written by Strong Estate Marketing. You can order your content and start working toward improving your SEO today!

In today’s complex, ever-changing job force, networking is one of the most important skills to have. Connecting with others who are in your same field of work can help you learn valuable skills that strengthen your business. Partnering with other freelancers may also give you the opportunity to take on larger volumes of work and more clientele. This phenomenon is known as teamlancing, and it’s rising in popularity!

What is Teamlancing?

This term was developed by ClearVoice to refer to a collection of freelancers or several teams of freelancers that work together to produce a product or service for a client. Each freelance member (or team) provides a unique set of skills that will contribute to the final outcome. Writers, videographers, and editors are some common examples of freelancers that can work together in these networks.

Why is Teamlancing Beneficial?

Teamlancing is beneficial not only to the freelancers themselves but also to their clients. Teamlancing leads to the creation of a polished, well put together product for the client in a timely manner. Since the members are all working together and able to communicate freely, it’s also extremely efficient.

If you’re a freelancer, it can feel like the opportunities to expand your skillset and find new clients are limited. You don’t have the same resources as a big company, and you don’t have an employer who’s paying for you to attend conferences or trade shows. Working on a team of freelancers gives you the chance to meet and collaborate with others in your field or a related field. It creates the ultimate collaboration experience!

Even when you’re consistently producing quality content, freelancers have less name recognition and resources to leverage when searching for new clients. Teamlancing helps you get more work through your fellow teamlancers without putting extra time and money into marketing yourself. Teamlancing emphasizes collaboration over competition so that everyone benefits.

The life of a freelancer can feel isolating and difficult. However, with the introduction of teamlancing, this barrier is a lot easier to break. You’ll discover a whole new world of other freelancers who are dealing with a lot of the same challenges as you are, and you can all glean from each other. You’ll feel less isolated when collaborating with other freelancers for a common goal.

How Do I Start?

If you want to become a teamlancer, you should network with other freelancers or look for companies that encourage teamlancing. Platforms such as ClearVoice and Fiverr provide the opportunity for freelancers to work together in teamlancing jobs. ClearVoice specifically created the idea of teamlancing to connect freelancers and better service both the worker and the client. Working with ClearVoice or Fiverr makes freelancing with a team easy!

Freelancing is constantly evolving, and teamlancing is just one of the latest evolutions. Whether you’re a brand-new freelancer or you’ve been doing it for many years, teamlancing is definitely worth trying to experience these ample benefits!

In the past decade, brand activism (aka cause marketing) has steadily been on the rise. Brands from Ben and Jerry’s to Nike to Starbucks are incorporating brand activism into their marketing strategies. While this can be a strategic move for some companies, there can be pitfalls with implementation. If you’re considering using brand activism in marketing for your company, make sure you do your research first so you can do it successfully. Here are some things to keep in mind when forming your brand activism strategy.

What is Brand Activism?

Brand activism is the incorporation of real-life issues into a company’s marketing and advertising. It involves advertisements, company policies, blog posts, products, and social media posts reflecting the representation of a real-life issue. As a concept, brand activism isn’t necessarily new, but the rise in popularity is fairly recent. Brand activism requires an understanding of what social issues are important and how they can be properly represented.

While there is no shortage of social issues and movements to care about, some of the ones you’ll commonly see in current brand activism efforts include:

• The Black Lives Matter movement
• Sustainability
• COVID-19
• Women’s rights
• Ethical production
• Minority rights

Benefits of Incorporating Brand Activism in Marketing

There are many benefits to incorporating brand activism into your marketing strategy. Some of the biggest ones include setting your company apart from others, gaining new customers, and creating a positive company image.

Set Your Company Apart

Using brand activism shows your current and potential customers that you are knowledgeable about today’s issues and recognize the importance of taking part in social activism. It also tells your customers that you care about them. For instance, companies who accurately understand and fight against racial injustice show their customers of color that they care about people and not just dollar signs. This may give these companies the upper-hand over their competitors who do not represent anti-racism when appealing to minority groups.

In a world where social activism is important to many, acknowledging and advancing social issues creates a strong, positive image for your company.

Gain New Customers

According to some surveys, brand activism is important to more than two-thirds of consumers, meaning that people are more likely to interact with a company that participates in cause marketing. People who are interested in the social issue you are engaging with will be encouraged to interact with your company. On the other hand, if you aren’t engaging in any kind of social cause, that could mean you’ll miss out on their patronage.

Create a Positive Company Image

Brand activism can create a positive image for your company, especially in comparison to competitors who do not incorporate social issues into their marketing. Showing that you as a company believe in representing important social topics shows that you are not only aware of what’s going on in the world but that you also care about it.

If you’re a clothing retailer, you may want to practice brand activism by showing that you represent sustainability, ethical production, and body positivity. Target has exemplified this through their equality and inclusivity advertisements. The store has received much praise for its Halloween line, which included accessible costumes such as wheelchair-friendly clothing, zipper-less costumes, easily removable items, and even hidden inner pockets for those with abdominal accessories.

Pitfalls of Brand Activism

If brand activism isn’t executed correctly, it will fall flat. Brand activism can turn customers away if it isn’t authentic, doesn’t appeal to their demographic, or doesn’t accurately represent the social issue at hand.

A lack of authenticity or accurate representation can create a major problem with brand activism. For example, the representation of breast cancer awareness has begun to stray away from an honest participation in the movement and instead turn into a profit-making strategy. Catering to an audience without actually believing in the activism looks bad for your company, and it turns away potential customers. Incorrect representation similarly turns away customers that see inaccuracies and inauthenticity as a turn-off.

Additionally, brand activism may be too polarizing depending on the issue. Polarizing topics such as marriage equality or other political issues can cause potential customers to not want to do business with your company depending on the demographic.

How to Properly Use Brand Activism

If you want your brand activism to be effective, you need these three essential components:

• Authenticity and Accurate Representation—your brand needs to be open, honest, accurate, and authentic with its representation of the issue.
• Alignment with Your Company’s Values—whichever social issue you are representing should align with your company’s core values. This means that if you are supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, your company should put diversity and equality front and center in all its practices.
• Relevance—the issue that you are representing should be relevant and important. Choosing a relevant topic shows that you understand what is important to your customers.

Examples of Brand Activism Done Well

One of the best ways to figure out how to incorporate brand activism into your marketing strategy is by looking to companies that have done it well as examples. Ben & Jerry’s, Adidas, Patagonia, and Lyft have all successfully incorporated brand activism into their marketing.

Ben & Jerry’s has chosen to represent the Black Lives Matter movement. Through factual and accurate blog posts, social media adverts, and the introduction of a “Justice Remix’d” flavor line, Ben & Jerry’s showed that they truly believe in what they were representing. While some did not support Ben & Jerry’s outspoken activism, the marketing strategy was widely praised.

Patagonia represents environmental activism and sustainability. Similarly to Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia represents their activism in their products, advertising, and social media. They believe in protecting the environment, using safe, sustainable products, prioritizing conservation efforts, and having a “green” impact.

Is Brand Activism the Right Choice?

Ultimately, brand activism is an excellent way to take part in today’s important social issues. However, whether or not it is the right choice for your company will depend on your demographic and whether or not you properly incorporate brand activism in marketing. It can have a major impact on your company, and with cause marketing, your company can have a positive impact on the world!