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In-House Marketing vs. Agency Teams: Build a Strong Strategy Together
This post was updated by Paula French on 2/28/25 to reflect recent trends and best practice. It was originally published on 12/6/2018.

Key Insights
- As brands grow, marketing demands increase, making it difficult for internal teams to execute strategy, create content, analyze performance, and keep up with industry shifts all at once.
- Agencies provide specialized expertise and resources that complement in-house efforts, allowing internal teams to focus on core business priorities and guide overall strategy.
- Combining internal marketing strengths with agency support creates a scalable, results-driven strategy that adapts to changing needs without overloading your team.
Internal marketing teams are often expected to manage it all — strategy, execution, and analysis — on top of keeping up with regular day-to-day tasks. But as the workload grows, so does the risk of burnout, missed priorities and deadlines, and campaigns that don’t perform as expected. The faster the industry evolves, the harder it is for stretched-thin teams to keep up, leading to outdated strategies and missed opportunities.

While outsourcing can help lighten the internal load, some in-house teams hesitate to seek out agency support, fearing they’ll lose control over their marketing strategy. In reality, internal teams and agencies don’t have to compete. They can leverage their respective strengths to create an agile, focused, and impactful marketing approach.

If you’re deciding between keeping all of your marketing in-house or partnering with an agency, here’s why you don’t have to choose just one, plus how to balance both for the best results.

How Can an Agency Help Me If I Am a…

Single-person marketing team

Instead of feeling like a one-person show, you’ll have a team to bounce ideas off, refine strategies, and make sure nothing slips through the cracks while improving your results.

Single-person marketing “teams” can feel isolated and underappreciated. Your organization’s leaders expect you to handle it on your own, but as you’ve tried to run campaigns, manage vendors, write content, plan the strategy, update your website, and still get results, you find two challenges:
1. There isn’t enough time to do it all yourself.
2. One person rarely has the skills to be strategic, create graphics, update a website, monitor results, and evaluate and manage vendors.
A marketing agency takes the weight off your shoulders by acting as an extension of your team. They bring the time, skills, and experience to tackle everything from strategy planning to execution and performance tracking, so you’re not stuck doing it alone.

Business leader

No more juggling ads, content, and campaigns on the fly. Partnering with an agency ensures your marketing is always working, even when you’re too busy to think about it.

When you’re responsible for driving the business forward, marketing is just one of many things competing for your time. Whether you’re managing it all yourself or working with local media vendors, it can be difficult to stay strategic and aligned with your goals.

You may often feel that:
1. Marketing takes a back seat when business operations call for urgent attention.
2. You got into your field to do what you love, not market what you love.
3. You are reacting to promotional ideas as they cross your desk, with no real strategy about how to best reach your customers.
Being a leader means wearing many hats, and marketing often ends up as an afterthought. An agency helps shift it from a scattered, reactionary task to a well-planned strategy that actually supports your growth.

Medium-to-large marketing team

Even with a well-staffed, in-house department, keeping up with every aspect of marketing can be a challenge. Between aligning team members, executing campaigns, and adapting to industry updates, it’s easy to get stuck in the weeds and lose valuable time for strategy. You may find that:
1. Your internal marketing team needs support in strategy and direction.
2. The time it takes to execute tactics gets in the way of strategically analyzing what is truly working (and what is not).
3. You struggle to keep up with new and changing marketing technologies and ideas.
Partnering with a marketing agency helps bridge these gaps by bringing fresh insights, specialized expertise, and extra hands where you need them most. Whether it’s adjusting your strategy, handling time-consuming execution, or keeping your team ahead of evolving trends, they’ll keep your marketing in check and on track without overloading your internal resources.

Higher education marketer

Instead of constantly shifting from one urgent task to the next, an agency’s support helps you be more intentional with your marketing.

Higher education marketing is a constant balancing act. One minute you’re fine-tuning messaging for a new degree program, the next you’re trying to boost student engagement — all while keeping an eye on enrollment goals. With so many priorities commanding your attention, it’s easy to feel like you’re always in reactive mode and that:
1. Your marketing efforts are spread too thin. You’re trying to serve prospective students, current students, and alumni all at once while balancing multiple degrees and programs.
2. Data analysis and performance reporting fall by the wayside due to time constraints.
3. Meeting ambitious enrollment goals feels unattainable without additional resources or expertise.
An agency will take on recruitment and retention efforts, ensuring you reach the right students at the right time. With deeper data insights, you’ll make informed strategic decisions, focusing your time and budget on what drives real results.

Want to find out if partnering with an agency is right for your institution? Take our Higher Ed SEO Quiz to discover your best staffing approach based on your current resources, strategy, and performance.

In-House Marketing vs. Agency Partnerships

Balancing in-house marketing with agency support lets you stay involved while tapping into advanced expertise. Your team knows your brand best, while an agency brings the skills, strategy, and execution power to amplify your efforts.

At Search Influence, many of our clients handle routine tasks internally while relying on us for more strategic, high-impact initiatives. The key is knowing which responsibilities are best handled by your in-house team and which most benefit from external support.

What work should my in-house marketing team handle?

Identifying unique stories that can be included in marketing

Great marketing starts with great stories, but you can’t share what you don’t know.

As part of your internal tasks, build relationships with departments and stakeholders across your organization. This ensures you stay informed of exciting news and developments that bring your marketing to life.

For example, let’s say you are marketing for a university, and one of your instructors learns that one of her students won a research award. Would your marketing team hear about it?

If you educate your staff on your marketing goals and build vital relationships, you’ll be less likely to miss valuable stories that strengthen your outreach.

Serving as spokespeople for public relations and media opportunities

Having the right people represent your organization in the media bolsters your brand’s credibility and reach. Instead of scrambling when a press opportunity arises, establish a roster of internal experts who can confidently speak on key topics.

Identifying multiple spokespeople prevents over-reliance on a single person, speeds up media responses, and ensures you always have a knowledgeable representative prepared to engage with the public.

By designating these spokespeople internally, you streamline the process and create a sense of ownership within your team. When staff members are prepared and empowered to speak on behalf of the organization, it fosters consistent messaging and a proactive approach to media inquiries.

Creating day-to-day organic social posts

Social media is where you build a genuine connection with your audience, and staying consistent is what’s key to maintaining that bond. Hubspot reports that social media is the preferred means for product discovery among consumers aged 18 to 44, making routine posting all the more important.

For businesses with the right in-house resources, managing daily posts can be straightforward. But when time or expertise is limited, outsourcing certain aspects to an agency — like content scheduling, caption writing, or hashtag strategy — can help maintain consistency without adding to your team’s workload.

You may find that capturing photos or videos in-house and passing them along to an agency for posting works best. This ensures fresh, timely content without the hassle of managing every detail.

When should I hire a digital marketing agency?

To improve your website’s SEO and increase organic traffic

If your in-house team can’t keep up with the nuances of SEO, it’s time to bring in the experts.

SEO is fundamental to getting your site seen, but it’s far from a one-size-fits-all solution. It takes ongoing attention, work, and a deep understanding of both on and off-site SEO tactics to rank high and stay ranked high.

An agency will create a comprehensive SEO strategy that aligns with your specific goals, covering key areas like:
- Deep keyword research to target the right audience
- On-page optimization to improve visibility, from meta descriptions to header tags
- Content creation that considers what your audience is actually searching for
- Site performance improvements, from navigation to mobile optimization
- Building valuable backlinks to boost your site’s authority
- Performance tracking to refine strategies and stay ahead of the curve
When an agency handles these technical details, you free up your team to focus on bigger-picture goals, knowing that your SEO is in the best hands.

To manage and optimize your digital advertising campaigns

With an agency managing your digital ads, you’ll rest easy knowing your budget is being spent efficiently, your ads are reaching the right people, and your strategy is always evolving to stay competitive.

Digital advertising is one of the fastest ways to get your brand in front of the right audience. However, making the most of it is no easy feat. If you’re struggling to create effective campaigns, manage budgets, or keep up with performance tracking, an agency will give your campaigns the focus they need.

Applying their specialized expertise, an agency positions your brand for paid advertising success by:
- Crafting targeted campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and Meta
- Selecting and optimizing keywords for maximum visibility
- Writing engaging ad copy and designing eye-catching visuals
- Leveraging advanced targeting to refine audience demographics and interests
- Setting and managing budgets to ensure your ads reach the right people without overspending
- Testing different ad variations to identify the most effective strategy
- Monitoring and adjusting campaigns to keep things running smoothly
To monitor campaign success through advanced analytics tracking and reporting

Let an agency take the guesswork out of ad management, using data to refine and enhance your campaigns for maximum performance.

Analytics and lead tracking require more than just simple data collection. It takes advanced know-how to make sense of your metrics, assess your performance, and use the insights as fuel for your future strategy. If you’re feeling lost in a sea of metrics, an agency will interpret the numbers and guide you toward smarter decisions.

Trust your advanced tracking and reporting to an agency when you need support with:
- Tracking leads from forms, calls, and other inquiries
- Identifying the top-performing marketing channels to allocate resources effectively
- Analyzing lead quality to improve conversion rates and maximize ROI
- Conversion tracking set-up to measure sales, sign-ups, and other key outcomes
- Making sense of your data with customized reports and KPI dashboards
- Conducting an ROI analysis to showcase the effectiveness of your efforts
- Optimizing your campaigns based on performance data
To craft and execute customized email marketing strategies

With an agency’s guidance, your email marketing will be a well-oiled machine that consistently delivers high-quality, results-driven campaigns.

Email marketing often gets treated as an internal “check the box” task without much thought beyond getting the message sent. But when the average cold email open rate is only 27.7%, it’s clear that every detail matters to help your emails stand out in a cluttered inbox.

From timing to content, getting it right from the start is how you improve opens, reads, and conversions. An agency helps support your email strategy by:
- Developing the right mix, whether that’s newsletters, nurture campaigns, or frequent email reminders
- Curating relevant, targeted content that aligns with recipients’ interests and needs
- Crafting compelling subject lines designed to increase open rates
- Designing visually appealing emails that work across all types and prompt clicks
- Segmenting your audience to send the right emails to the right people at the right time
- Timing emails to ensure they land in inboxes at peak engagement times
But I Don’t Want to Give Up Control! How Do I Balance In-House and Outsourced Marketing?

Still debating between in-house vs. agency marketing, or a hybrid approach?

For the aspects you are currently handling internally, take a moment and ask yourself if it’s the right responsibility for your business. As you go through each item, think…

Yes, you CAN do it, but…
1. Are you doing it well?
2. Are you doing consistently?
3. Are you monitoring results and making adjustments?
4. If you were not spending time on this, what else could you be doing?
If you’re worried about losing control over your marketing when you outsource, rest assured. While your agency will take the heavy lifting off your plate, you’ll still have the head seat at the dinner table. The best agency for you will integrate themselves as part of your team and include you in the strategy and reporting of results, at a minimum.

Find Your Right Approach to Working With a Marketing Agency

Are you feeling stretched thin in your marketing approach?

When your in-house team partners with an agency, you create a dream duo that distributes the workload, increases your day-to-day efficiency, and grants you the extra bandwidth to achieve sustainable success.

If you’re a higher education marketer interested in further assessing your ideal marketing approach, check out our Higher Ed SEO Quiz. This 5-question quiz will help you determine whether to outsource your work, keep it internal, or take on a hybrid strategy. In just minutes, you’ll have personalized insights to make informed staffing choices.

See how Search Influence can help you develop a marketing plan that works for your team today!
February 28, 2025
Are Wix Sites Bad for SEO?
Wix is one of the most widely used website builders in the world, with over 150 million users as of 2019. Despite being so popular, it’s not exactly a secret that Wix sites have a bad reputation within the digital marketing community. It got so bad that Wix tried to prove a point by holding a contest to see if anyone could outrank them for the keyword “SEO hero.” Spoiler alert: they didn’t win. But does Wix deserve the flack it gets? And is it realistic for people to expect a (mostly) free website builder to outperform more robust platforms?

Why are Wix sites bad for SEO?

So what’s wrong with Wix sites? In short, there are several technical aspects of SEO that Wix sites don’t mesh with.
- URL Structure: Free Wix sites have a URL structure of username.wixsite.com/siteaddress. As an address, that’s hard to remember, and it’s not exactly something you’d print on a business card. Wix users can have more control over their domain name by using the paid service, but if Wix’s entire shtick is being a free website builder, then it’s not a good look to charge people for something as basic as a regular-looking domain name.
- Google Analytics: Google analytics can’t be implemented on free Wix sites because they technically don’t have unique URLs.
- Site Crawl Issues: Wix sites don’t allow users to edit their robots.txt files, which can make it more difficult for search engine crawlers to index sites with dozens or hundreds of pages.
- 301 Redirects: Free Wix sites do not support 301 redirects. If you take down a page for any reason, you can’t redirect users to another page, and you will lose the original page’s link equity.
- Site Speed: Google has started to place more and more emphasis on site speed as a factor for keyword rankings. Wix sites tend to load slowly because they require hundreds of Javascript file requests before rendering a web page. This affects pages’ keywordrankings and offers a worse experience for users.
- The Templates: Once you’ve selected a template for a Wix site, you’re stuck with it. You can’t pick a new one or make major edits to your current template without losing all of your content.
It’s Not All Bad

Despite their issues, Wix sites have some benefits. Users can still use fundamental site optimization tools, like title tags, meta descriptions, blogs, H1s, and H2s. Business owners can customize their site’s design (to an extent) with Wix’s templates. They also support e-commerce in their premium plans. So if you’re trying to establish a client base online, Wix isn’t the worst place to start, especially if you have a decent following on Instagram and just need a website so users can make purchases.

To be fair, Wix’s premium plans are reasonably affordable. Their prices are comparable to what other providers, like Squarespace, offer. All of this makes Wix a somewhat decent starting point for small businesses and entrepreneurs who can’t, or don’t want to, invest money in a website. Wix doesn’t allow users to implement highly technical aspects of SEO, like editing their robots.txt file, because they don’t expect people who use a free website to know about them. That may be shortsighted, but that’s clearly the assumption they’re making.

Most new businesses will outgrow a Wix site once they’ve reached a certain level of success. Attracting new customers, and keeping the ones you already have, will get increasingly competitive. At that point, you’ll need to have a well-defined SEO strategy. Moving on to a more robust CMS like WordPress should be a priority.

If you have a Wix site and aren’t satisfied with its performance, Search Influence can help. Since 2006, we’ve provided hundreds of clients with digital marketing services like SEO, paid search campaigns, and more. Our team has handled a variety of site migrations, and we can help you build a new website. To learn more about what we can do for you, contact us at (504) 208-3900.

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Wix on Laptop
September 12, 2019
Which Social Media Platforms Should Insurance Companies Use?

In a world where a new social media platform gets launched every other week, it can be difficult to know which platforms to embrace and which ones to ignore. This can be particularly difficult when trying to identify the platforms your audience is already on. As a rule of thumb, you should try to be active on the platforms that matter to your clients. However, as I am sure you know, this is not realistic for everyone, especially a small team or a one-person operation. As an insurance provider, here are the top social media platforms you should be focusing on. A carefully crafted strategy for each platform can boost both brand awareness and lead generation.

Facebook

We’ll start with the big one, Facebook. According to Statista there are 2.32 billion active users on Facebook as of 2019, meaning your audience is probably on this platform. If you don’t already have a free Facebook Business page, this is where you should start. You want your Facebook Business page to be in line with the messaging that you’ve established with your current branding. Once your Facebook Business page is set up and optimized, you‘re ready to start sharing content with potential clients.

When writing posts for Facebook, you should aim for a mix of promotional posts, informative posts, and engagement posts. You do not want your feed to be purely promotional posts where you’re constantly pushing your products or services. While this is an important aspect of posting on social media, it can get repetitive. Adding in informative posts, such as industry updates, breaking news, and fun facts, or engagement posts, such as polls and questions, can help break up your feed and encourage customer interactions and sharing. Engagement metrics are one factor Facebook considers when prioritizing your content within the newsfeed.

While having a good organic presence is a great start, it’s not always enough. According to Hubspot, organic post reach has dropped to 6.5%, meaning that the majority of your audience (and even fans of your page) is not seeing your posts. To combat this, you need to have a strategic promotion schedule in which you methodically choose key posts to promote with ad spend behind them. This will help with brand awareness and will likely result in new fans of your Facebook Business page, as long as you’re targeting the right audience.

YouTube

Another giant in the field is YouTube. Statista reports there are 1.9 billion active users on the platform. Videos are the most engaging form of social media content, so YouTube is a great place to promote your agency.

Some might think of YouTube as a platform exclusively for hair and makeup tutorials; however, it’s a great platform for placing easy-to-digest content in front of potential customers. For example, if you are an insurance provider that provides coverage from multiple insurance companies, then a video that analyzes all of your insurance companies and their plans might be the best and most efficient way to get this information in front of your customer instead of making it a long page of website content. A video is more digestible and you can let your creative juices flow when it comes to the direction of the video.

By being active on your YouTube channel and posting videos, you can share your content on different social media networks. Hosting videos on YouTube also lets you embed video content on your website or in newsletters. Content on YouTube can be shared easily, which is great for utilizing assets across platforms.

Twitter

There are 3.3 billion users on Twitter according to Statista. While Facebook prioritizes what users are seeing, Twitter does not. Newer or smaller business with less engagement might have a better chance of getting in front of their audience or a new audience on Twitter. Twitter is known for being a text-based medium, but don’t limit yourself to just 280 characters. Twitter is also a great space to share videos and infographics that are centered on your top products and services.

If you’re wondering if Twitter is the right platform for your business, you should know that your target demographic is already there. The mascots of the major insurance providers, Flo (Progressive), the Gecko (Geico), and Mayhem (Allstate), all have their own Twitter accounts. They’re also on pretty much every other social media platform.

You Have to Start Somewhere

In a perfect world, you’d have a healthy presence on every social media network, but being active on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter is a good jumping off point for building a productive social media strategy. As your business grows and you get a handle of the networks you know are suited to your audience, you should expand to other networks, like Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. However, be conscious of stretching yourself or your team too thin. Being consistently active on a few social media channels is better than having a sporadic, unplanned presence across every platform. If you’d like more information on leveraging social media to generate more business for your agency, contact our team at Search Influence for a digital marketing analysis.

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Social media users

June 18, 2019
THANK YOU to Our Small Business Clients!

Happy Small Business Week from the Search Influence team!

We were founded in 2006 with the goal of helping small businesses succeed online. Today, we work to optimize the potential of businesses of many sizes, but this week, it’s all about our small business clients!

Today we share with you five small business clients and a little bit of their story—it was hard to choose just a handful to feature, as we have so many that inspire us each day to help them grow their businesses.

Nugget Markets

California

Nugget Markets is the grocery store we all we wish we had right down the street. Their 12 locations in Northern California offer specialty items and “Gourmet to Go” at lower prices than conventional grocery stores. No wonder they’ve been thriving since 1926!

Pascal Architects

New Orleans, LA

Pascal Architects is a well-established architecture firm in New Orleans. The company and its principles have been involved in some of the most impressive projects in the city, including the original construction of the Superdome, the restoration of the Cabildo, and the creation of the Ritz-Carlton from the historic Maison Blanche department store.

Paisano’s Pizza

Virginia and Maryland

Paisano’s Pizza is a Virginia-based local pizza chain. We began working with them in 2011 when they had 10 locations. They now have over 40 locations across Virginia and Maryland, and even one in Florida! Talk about a small business success story.

Oracle Lighting

New Orleans, LA

Oracle Lighting is a New Orleans-grown auto light manufacturer, specializing in premium LED halo lights,owned by husband and wife Justin and Tiffanie Hartenstein. They have hundreds of resellers across the country and were named Exporter of the year by The Small Business Administration!

Caluda’s King Cake

New Orleans, LA

Caluda’s began focusing on direct-to-consumer king cake sales in 2018. They were breaking into a crowded market with lots of long-established competitors. With some smart branding, relationship building, and targeted advertising, Caluda’s is now a top tier king cake in New Orleans!

We express a sincere THANK YOU to all our clients and those we’ve had the honor of supporting in the past. We truly wouldn’t be Search Influence without you!

If you’re looking to grow your small business and become one of our success stories, start a conversation with the digital marketing experts at Search Influence.

May 9, 2019
How Small Businesses Can Build Quality Backlinks in 2019 and Beyond

Backlinks have traditionally been one of the most important ranking factors in Google’s mysterious SEO algorithm. So what exactly is a backlink, and why is it important? A backlink is simply a link on someone else’s site that leads to your site. Google values them because your site must be reputable and authoritative if lots of other sites value your content enough to share it. The classic ways to acquire backlinks can still be useful, but the landscape of link building is changing.

What Makes a Good Backlink?

The main thing about link building is that quality and quantity both matter. Google values links from sites with strong domain authority (think national sites that everyone in your niche has heard of) and relevance to your industry. For example, if a small business gets a backlink on The Wall Street Journal, they’re getting a top-notch link. That being said, a handful of great links won’t necessarily outweigh hundreds of decent links. For SEO purposes, a “follow” link is better than a “nofollow” link, as nofollow links are not technically backlinks. However, while they shouldn’t be a large focus of a link-building campaign, nofollow links help with branding and shouldn’t be discounted.

Beware of Spammy Link-building Tactics

Before Google’s Penguin algorithm update, the quantity of backlinks was most important, so businesses invested tons of money in “black hat” link-building tactics that placed backlinks on random sites with software. Though some sketchy SEO companies still employ software to build links, Google is not only aware of this tactic, they will actively punish a business’s rankings if they find that most of their backlinks are bought.

The Penguin update came out in 2012, so the “quality over quantity” issue is well known throughout the SEO world, but many small businesses or recent start-ups aren’t aware of it. If you are paying a company to build backlinks for your site with software or other black hat methods, you are paying to penalize your search engine rankings.

What Are the Tried-and-true Ways to Build Links?

Building quality backlinks isn’t an easy task—that’s why links are still highly valuable in Google’s algorithm. These link-building strategies have been covered ad nauseam, so we won’t go into too much detail here. Most of the ways to get links back to your site start with an outreach campaign to other website owners and businesses.

One of the simplest ways to find a potential backlink is searching for business mentions of your site that are unlinked and asking the site owner to add a link. Another straightforward tactic is to use competitive research, wherein you find who links to your competitors’ sites and target those businesses with your outreach campaign. A similar strategy, which we’ve already delved into, is to search for broken links on relevant sites and either ask them to replace the broken link with one to your own content or point out the error and ask for a different backlink on the page.

How Do I Build Backlinks in 2019 and Beyond?

The digital marketing industry received confirmation that SEO trends are changing when Moz published their survey of 2018’s local ranking factors, which found that interacting with Google My Business is one of the most important factors in Google’s local ranking system. So while this may mean that backlinks hold less value than they have in the past, link building is still crucial to a well-rounded SEO plan, as we explained in our analysis of Moz’s survey. The traditional methods of link building still apply, but, in today’s world, businesses need to remember that…

Content Quality Is King

Link building nowadays relies heavily on getting people to share your content, and the main way to get people to share your content is—wait for it—to have great content that people want to share.

So, then, what qualifies as great content?

One of the biggest factors for Google, and your audience, is that your content meets Google’s E-A-T guidelines. This means that your content demonstrates expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. It should thoroughly cover the topic and answer your audience’s questions, especially because most people find sites through indirect queries. In addition, useful content that draws people in is one of the main principles of inbound marketing. There are some more specific tactics to create fantastic content, but the main goal is that it helps your audience with their pain points.

Once you’ve got high-quality content, how do you get people to share it?

Include images or video. Articles with an image receive up to 94 percent more views than plain text articles, and social media posts that include an image or video get up to 10 times more engagement than content without one. Of course, you need to find a good image to include. You should also focus the content on channels targeted to your audience (so making your content easily shareable on Instagram is going to be different from posting it on YouTube).

It should go without saying that you should share your awesome content on all of your social media channels (and get your friends to do so, too). However, sitting back and hoping it goes viral and is featured on Ellen isn’t exactly practical. You need to build networks with influencers in your niche, reach out to them, and ask them to include a link to your content.

Optimize Your Outreach Strategy

The businesses that you target for your link building campaign should find your content useful—as in, their audience will find it useful. You need to demonstrate to them why it’s worth their while to share your content or link to your site. And, while it’s best to have backlinks on websites with strong domain authority, don’t ignore smaller businesses that are relevant to your industry. Smaller businesses may be more likely to include your link in their content, and any backlink will help build brand awareness, which is a growing part of modern SEO strategies.

Don’t Be Impersonal

No one wants to read spam emails, and if your outreach emails have obviously been carbon-copied and sent to 200 people, it’s likely that the recipients won’t want to take their time to help you. Sending emails to tons of people does take a lot of time, so it’s fine to use the help of a template, such as these from Hubspot. But you should still make sure that the contents of your email are specific to the person you’re sending it to. Better yet…

Find Content on Their Site That Could Use a Link to Your Content

You’re going to be more successful building links if you find a specific article that would benefit from including your link in it, rather than just sending an email saying “Hey, I wrote this. Can you stick it on your site somewhere? Thanks!”

Let’s say you’re a smoothie company, and you’ve written an amazing, super-detailed article about the nutrients in common smoothie ingredients. After scoping out businesses that would benefit from this information, such as a nutritionist’s website or a lifestyle blog, see if they have any pages that relate to your article. Maybe you find a parenting website that has a blog about making sure kids are getting enough vitamins from their food, and you know that your article would provide helpful additional information. The writer will likely be more receptive to including your link because you’ve shown them exactly where it should be on their site.

Reciprocate the Link Love

Website owners love seeing their name and work out there as much as you love seeing yours, so including relevant links to another business’s content on your own site is a great way to open the door. At the very least, they are more likely to share the article and could help create a partnership. You can offer to guest blog and invite them to guest blog on your site. You can even syndicate your content to get the most out of your work while maintaining a good relationship with influencers in your field.

Link-building Tips for Local Businesses

To bolster their local SEO strategy, small businesses need to ensure that they create brand awareness, both on- and offline. You should build relationships with other related businesses. For example, a restaurateur could reach out to a local farmer’s market. Try to go even further and create strategic local partnerships, where you and another business leave reviews on each other’s sites and share each other’s content. You should also network and reach out to influencers in your industry.

Link building can be one of the most challenging aspects of boosting your search rankings, but it doesn’t have to be. At Search Influence, we can help you find the right link-building strategy through both tried-and-true methods and by creating quality content to build brand awareness. If you’re ready to take your link building to the next level, start a conversation with one of our SEO experts today.

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Mind Blown

Internet, So Helpful

No, Thanks

January 10, 2019
7 Qualities of an Effective Marketing Agency (and How to Test for Them)

I often joke that, in digital marketing, you’re an expert if you know more than the person you’re selling to. This was recently brought home to me while attending a startup conference: a member of the photography team, who was still an undergraduate in college, said he hoped to open a marketing agency upon graduation.

This may seem like shocking hubris to anyone who’s been in the industry for any length of time, but many customers, especially smaller businesses, don’t understand the value of experience. They presume instead that since the marketing is digital, youth is a qualification in and of itself.

We know, however, that regardless of the industry, experience improves effectiveness. I’m sure we’d all rather have an experienced mechanic, doctor, or plumber, and that experience—i.e. a bigger pool of knowledge on which to draw—helps assure they’re not misdiagnosing or reinventing a perfectly good wheel.

When thinking about which agency to choose, we thought it would be helpful to break down the decision-making into a number of key areas.

We’ve also put together a printable checklist for you when you do get into the decision-making process.

Fit

Company Culture

At Search Influence, we use the acronym “CHARGED” to define our values. We live these values every day, and they are reinforced in our office, our incentives, and our hiring. In fact, even our employee assessments are based, to some extent, on how CHARGED the employee is. You can read more about our CHARGED values and how we came to them.

Team

Whether they are executives empowered with maintaining this strategic relationship or line employees executing the deliverables, it’s important you have confidence in your team.

Because Search Influence started at a time when there were few available educational resources, we’ve developed extensive training internally. We also take advantage of best-of-breed third-party resources—mostly from our vendors, like Google, HubSpot, and Facebook.

And finally, for the team which will be working on your account, who are they? What’s their experience level? Who are they supported by?

Contacts

On a day-to-day basis, who will be managing your account, and how are they supported? Do you know who their manager is? Do you have access to leadership in the company?

We make a point of having our Team Leads and our Director of Account Management reach out to new clients to assure they know whom they can go to if they need more support.

Qualifications

Areas of Specialty

One of the challenges of smaller agencies is that they either have to be a Jack & Jill of all trades or they have to outsource specialized skills. It’s easy enough to claim to be an expert in content marketing or paid search, but these fields are richly nuanced and oftentimes require years of study to execute well.

Certifications

On the topic of specialization, certifications are a great way to prove knowledge in a given area. When the bar is so low to call oneself an expert or even an agency, it’s important to have evidentiary proof. Certifications are a great tool for that proof.

Speaking and Publishing

There’s no greater proof than the peer review required for both speaking and publishing. Our team members speak regularly to audiences in both digital marketing and in the industries of the clients that we serve.

We are complimented when asked to share our knowledge from both the podium and in other media. Equally instructive as the thought leadership of an agency are their publications, whether written or via interview, in educational resources like blogs and podcasts.

Process

Processes

Every account and engagement requires a unique approach. Within those unique strategies, there are naturally a number of repeated tasks. If an agency doesn’t have processes for common practices, there is a lot of wasted effort.

Search Influence’s early years included supporting very large partners like Yodle and Advance Digital. We had to think about how we execute more than most agencies. When you are called upon to produce tens of thousands of pieces of content per month, you need a process. Our clients, even the most creative, benefit from our process-focused approach.

Internal Communication

We’ve heard the horror stories of traditional agencies and their “Job Jacket”—in essence, a folder that moves from department to department. While multitasking may not be all it’s cracked up to be, there are plenty of times when teams have to work in parallel to deliver work.

As a nearly 13-year-old agency, we’ve had a lot of time to develop both processes and software systems to support the many stakeholders in delivery. Some of our systems are custom and some use modified open-source software. At any time, we can see both where a project is in the process and what’s left to be delivered.

External Communication

“What have you done for me lately?” is a common refrain in the service industry. As an agency, we are most responsible for answering that question to our clients.

Nearly a decade ago, we realized there was too much data to manually report, and we built a platform that pulls analytics, leads, and advertising effectiveness into one seamless interface. Our platform and our processes have ingrained a practice of monthly review and report that helps both our internal team and our client teams focus on the metrics that matter.

The Challenger Agency

Can You Learn From Them?

In The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson show us that the best salespeople know as much, or more, than their prospects about their target industry.

One of the benefits we can bring to our clients is to educate them about their own industry from our perspective, working with a number of their peers. Face it, when you’re head-down in your business, it is not always easy to keep on top of trends and industry news.

Do They Push You?

It’s OK. We all get comfortable doing the same old thing.

A great marketing agency should push you. Sometimes the ideas we bring make our clients a little uncomfortable. Especially in traditional, conservative industries, or in those where there’s been a recent leadership transition, it can be hard to take on initiatives that feel risky or out of character.

Einstein is often attributed with the saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” But you may know it more accurately as, “Do the same things, and expect the same results.”

Are They Experts?

Google says an expert is “a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.”

This is hard to test for. How do you know it’s comprehensive? How do you know it’s authoritative? Ultimately, unless one is also an expert in a particular area, one must look to third-party endorsements and results.

We are fortunate at Search Influence to have a number of industry authorities who refer us business and will vouch for the quality of our work. We also have a number of clients who credit us with their business success. Hopefully, any agency you’re thinking of hiring can say the same.

Industry Variety

Broad Experience

Entrenchment in an industry is not necessarily the same as specialization. And specialization may not equal expertise.

In order to have the broadest view of our craft, we need to see how it is executed in multiple industries. Pioneers make discoveries and are often on the fringe. As such, it benefits all of our clients that some of them are in niche industries that call for new, creative tactics.

Adjacent Industries

Medicine offers great examples of the value of adjacency. Historically, some areas of medicine have been less likely to be eligible for insurance reimbursement. These “cash” specialties have had a greater incentive to be pioneering in marketing as a whole.

Examples of leading-edge specialties in the medical industry include plastic surgery and weight loss surgery. The medical industry has changed, and we now know that most practitioners need to consider the impact of marketing—most especially ratings and reviews.

Your Industry

It’s great if the agency you’re vetting knows your industry directly. You will likely save some time educating them.

That said, people are people and marketing is about people first. We don’t need to have worked in your exact industry to be able to drive customers through your doors.

Confidentiality

Contractual Confidentiality

Even if your industry doesn’t mandate confidentiality, you certainly don’t want your business on the streets.

With over a decade in highly regulated industries, not to mention being responsible for thousands of OPCs (other people’s clients), we take confidentiality very seriously and even include it in our contracts. Even with our contracts, we’re sometimes asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and we’re happy to do so.

Data Security

Nobody is immune to a data breach. Some of the biggest names in industry, including Target, Macy’s, and many more, have been affected.

What most don’t know is that some of these cases are the result of sloppy data management by vendors. In the case of Target, the breach occurred when hackers used a third-party HVAC provider’s stolen credentials to break through from a “billing, contract submission, and project management” platform.

Employee Confidentiality

Many misunderstand the intent of employment agreements. A key component of the agreement every Search Influence employee signs is client confidentiality. We have access to sensitive business details of our clients and it is critical our employees understand their role in that.

In many cases, especially in law and medicine, we have a legal responsibility to protect not just our client’s information, but their clients’ and patients’ as well.

Results

Tracking/Reporting

John Wanamaker (1838-1922) is credited with the now-famous phrase, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

The sad part is that many agencies still survive on the wrong half of that equation. It’s understandable. Quantifying the impact of ad spending on- or offline is hard. There are many factors that affect a customer along their path to purchase.

We see it as our job to identify which half is wasted and to stop it!

And to put our money where our mouth is, we invest in assuring that our team members are experts in a number of analytics packages through third-party training, as well as on the job. If you want proof, ask about our certifications.

Metrics That Matter

Reports suck. The main reason reports suck is that most of them don’t tell you what you really want to know. We find that, for each campaign, there are usually only a few metrics that matter and the rest is noise.

We try to work closely with our clients to understand their goals, and from those goals, to understand what metrics will show we’re on track.

ROI

It’s hard to believe, but some agencies don’t understand that marketing is an investment. A defining characteristic of an investment is that one should expect a return.

In other words, how does a dollar spent lead to many dollars earned? We believe marketing has to earn its place in the budget. The way we do that is by making marketing accountable to dollars earned.

If your prospective agency isn’t comfortable talking about how they will make you money, walk away.

And call us.

Search Influence takes pride in exhibiting our CHARGED values. Start a conversation today by calling (504) 881-1597.

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Teamwork

Do Something Great

December 11, 2018
How to Set S.M.A.R.T. Marketing Goals
Once you’ve identified the metrics that matter most to your business (download our guide: “Marketing: What Metrics Matter?” for our 4-step process), goal setting is the next step in achieving success. Setting business goals can be a daunting undertaking for some, but it’s much simpler if the right method is followed. Don’t set goals just because you feel as though you should have them—goals are only beneficial when there is value in achieving them.

What Are S.M.A.R.T. Goals?

S.M.A.R.T. goal setting is a simple, trackable method that allows people to create clear and achievable business objectives, instead of vague resolutions. It is one of the most effective tools for achieving goals in the corporate world due to its scalability, ease of use, transparency, and proven success.

What Does S.M.A.R.T. Stand For?

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Time-bound

6 Step Process For Establishing a S.M.A.R.T. Goal

Step 1: Make it Specific

Goals should be written simply and clearly define what you are setting out to do.

Answer the Following Questions:
- What do you want to accomplish?
- How will you accomplish it?
- When will it be accomplished?
- With whom will it be done?
- Why do you want to do this?
Example:
- Increase the average number of prospective student leads by deploying a Facebook Lead Generation campaign in order to ultimately enroll more students and increase revenue to the school.
Step 2: Make It Measurable

Having a measurable goal means that someone can see, feel, hear, or identity in some way when it has been achieved. This may sometimes mean breaking your goal into several measurable elements.

Answer the Following Questions:
- By what metric will you know the goal has been reached?
- What precise amounts can you include?
- Can you use words like “increase by X %; improve by X amount”?
Example:
- Increase the average number of prospective student inquiries (through phone calls or website form fills) to 325 per month.
Step 3: Make It Attainable

Review your specific/measurable goal to make sure it seems reasonable with a little bit of stretch. Are you confident this goal is achievable and sets realistic expectations?

Answer the Following Questions:
- Do you have enough time to reach your goal?
- Do the involved parties have the tools and skills they need to accomplish it?
- What obstacles would prevent me from reaching this goal?
Example:
- The average number of prospective student inquiries is currently 290, so an increase of 35 leads seems achievable.
Step 4: Make It Relevant

Making sure your goal is relevant assures it is aligned with the broader business goals. Reaching goals is only beneficial when they contribute to the company’s success in some way.

Answer the Following Questions:
- Why am I setting this goal now?
- What is the company’s overall objective?
- How it this goal aligned with the overall objectives?
Example:
- The school has decreased the cost of tuition, requiring an increase in enrollment to 100 total students. If the “close rate” of prospective students remains constant, then the total number of prospective students must increase to 325 per month in order to ultimately enroll 100 students.
Step 5: Make It Time-bound

Goals should exist in a timeframe that creates a practical sense of urgency appropriate to the importance of achieving it. If the end date is many months down the road, set milestones throughout the period to evaluate progress.

Answer the Following Questions:
- When is the deadline?
- Do I need additional milestones to keep this goal on track?
- Do I have enough time to accomplish it in the given time frame?
Example:
- The deadline is January 30th, giving us 90 days to increase the average number of prospective student inquiries.
Step 6: Finalize Your Goal By Putting Them All Together

Review what you have written, and craft a new goal statement based on what the answers to the questions above have revealed.

Example:

By January 30th, increase the average monthly prospective student leads to 325 per month by deploying a Facebook Lead Generation campaign.

Putting S.M.A.R.T. Goals Into Action

Now that the goal is defined, create an action plan by asking:
- What strategies will you deploy in order to achieve this goal?
- When will you deploy them?
- How will you keep track of its progress?
- Who needs to be notified of its progress and how often?
S.M.A.R.T. Goals Worksheet

Wondering how to put this into action? Download our Marketing Goal Setting Guide, which includes a S.M.A.R.T. Goals Worksheet as well as a 4-step process to setting Metrics that Matter.

Need some human support? Contact us today to speak with one of our strategists about how we can support you in setting marketing goals for your business at (504) 208-3900 or fill out the form to the right.

Images:

Chalkboard
November 29, 2018
How to Align Your Marketing Team Around a Successful Strategy
With the explosive growth of the marketing technology landscape in the last several years, it can be easy to get completely lost in tactics, technology, and metrics. “Digital marketing is so awesome,” they say, “because you can track everything,” they say.

True, but what’s also true is that the 6,000+ vendors of MarTech platforms overwhelm us with SO. MUCH. DATA. How does a company know they are making the right decision when one can easily twist and turn data and draw correlations to tell a desired story? Confirmation bias is a real thing, and it can plague the effectiveness of any given marketer’s plan.

So how does one manage to take advantage of the right data and make strategic marketing decisions without finding themselves adrift in a sea of marketing bologna? It’s easy to say, but less simple to execute: start with a solid strategic plan.

In this post, I’ll review the essential steps to creating a highly organized and well-researched marketing strategy, which should then serve as the anchor for all future decision-making in your marketing journey. That is, until the next time you review and update your strategic plan (a bit of foreshadowing: it’s an ongoing process).

How to Create a Successful Marketing Plan

Start With Gaining Alignment

The most successful marketing plans we’ve developed for clients have started with gaining alignment from all the stakeholders involved in marketing the business. From the top of the marketing department to the most front-line sales executives, making sure all parties are heard is important to gaining an understanding of the current state of sales and marketing and gathering input on the future ideal.

Get an Outside Perspective

Bringing in professionals for the research and development of a strategic marketing plan can help to make sure your plan is truly objective. Wrangling a lot of stakeholders, some of whom are more dominant than others, can leave you feeling like you’re chasing your tail and not making progress. When you hire a marketing agency for the development of your marketing plan, the third-party perspective can help to ensure the project not only stays on track, but also that all voices are heard.

One way we’ve done this is to host workshop-style meetings with all stakeholders, facilitating discussions of their ideas on strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, as well as their best customers, gaining insights on what marketing tactics were perceived as successful or not in the past.

We bring to the table some initial research, like competitor profiles and trends in their marketing, as well as data analysis of existing customer profiles, if provided in advance. This information serves as the foundation for the discussion, and we prompt the stakeholders with specific questions to get them thinking more deeply about where and how marketing can help the business grow. In this process, we’ve seen clients experience some internal revelations and uncover operational opportunities for improvement, which are incredibly valuable to identify.

We take away all the inputs and begin the fun part: planning a strategic marketing plan that accomplishes a measurable goal. And on that note…

Define a Measurable Goal

It’s critical for a marketing strategy to be informed by a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Digital marketing is indeed awesome because it’s measurable, but you have to know WHAT to measure up front. Otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time on the wrong tactics and pulling reports on the wrong metrics.

It’s critical for your sales and marketing stakeholders to be aligned on this measurable goal. If you have enough data to understand your sales pipeline, you might be able to identify a specific number of inbound leads that marketing should deliver per month or week. As a part of planning your marketing strategy, make sure you align everyone on how you will determine whether the marketing strategy was successful, at both a high level and an individual-tactic level.

What to Include in a Marketing Plan

There are tons of resources out there regarding what to include in a marketing plan, but the key elements are:
- Competitive Analysis
- SWOT Analysis
- Buyer Personas
- The Buyer’s Journey
- Strategic Tactics
- Key Performance Indicators
Competitive Analysis

In order to know where you stand in the marketplace, it’s important to take a close look at the competition your prospects are likely considering. Typically, we like to note basic business information for context, such as the number of employees, revenue (if available), years in business, and how they compare from a pricing perspective. Next, we review their marketing and brand presence, specifically noting key differentiators, how they’re appealing to the audience via messaging and measurable-goal visual communication, and, of course, the products or services for which they are a true competitor.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are meant to look inward, whereas opportunities and threats look to the external marketplace, industry, and geographic landscape. An in-depth analysis here on the state of your business, not just marketing, can be incredibly insightful from the top down, and the key to a successful SWOT is stepping back and being as objective as possible. Questions you can ask yourself and your team include the following:

Strengths
- What advantages does your company have?
- What do you do better than anybody else?
- What unique resources can you draw on that your competitors cannot?
- What are the reasons your clients choose you?
Weaknesses
- For what reasons might your prospective clients not choose your company?
- What do other companies offer that your company does not or cannot?
- What could be improved about the products or services that you offer?
- What types of clients are you at risk of not serving well?
Opportunities
- What opportunities do you see in the marketplace?
- What new ideas could you be taking advantage of?
- What trends are popping up in your industry?
- What positive changes in the market do you see?
Threats
- What obstacles does your company face in growing sales?
- What are competitors doing? Is competition increasing?
- What negative changes in the market do you see?
Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is intended to serve as a representation of a business’ “ideal” or target customer. It should be based on research and data about your existing and prospective customers, including their demographics and psychographics. The best process for buyer persona development involves surveying or interviewing actual customers, asking them deeper information than simply gender, age, and household income. An ideal buyer persona may include the following: background, demographics, identifiers, goals, challenges, how you help their challenges, and what marketing messaging will speak to the persona. You may find that you have several personas, or maybe you have just one. There’s no hard and fast rule about what a buyer persona should include or how many a business should have.

The Buyer’s Journey

When the Search Influence team develops a marketing plan for a client, the buyer’s journey is where we spend the majority of our time and is what informs the strategic tactics and key performance indicators (KPIs). Once your buyer personas are identified, the buyer’s journey maps out your prospective customer’s behavior at each stage of the marketing funnel, which allows you to think strategically about how you can reach the audience at each stage. When complete, our buyer’s journeys typically look something like this:

Strategic Tactics

Specific marketing tactics you hope to employ to achieve your goals are outlined here. This may include everything from traditional media and print collateral all the way through your digital campaign strategies and creative direction. It’s a good idea to spend time evaluating these tactics and considering a realistic budget required to deploy them all. Perhaps you will need to do a phased implementation due to your budget or internal resources. Now’s the time to make that plan.

Key Performance Indicators

In addition to outlining a marketing plan’s overall goal and objective, we recommend that your plan defines Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each phase of your marketing strategy and, if necessary, specific tactics. Defining this up front will help ensure that all stakeholders fairly evaluate the performance of a given tactic as time goes on and keep them anchored to the ultimate goal.

Finish With Gaining Alignment…Again

Remember the work you did with your team to collect their input early in the process? Call another meeting with them and present the finalized plan. Use this as an opportunity to set expectations for ongoing roles and responsibilities and get the team moving on the plan. They’ll enjoy seeing how their input shaped the finished product and be more willing to pitch in to make it happen. Trust us, you will need their support!

We’ve led the charge through this arduous process several times with our clients. I say WITH our clients because, if you couldn’t tell by now, it requires a lot of collaboration and partnership. If you are looking for full support in leading this endeavor or even just some hours consulting with our team on the process, we’ve got your back! Speak with a strategist today at (504) 208-3900 or fill out this form to ask for a consultation within 24 hours.
November 8, 2018
The Travel Marketer’s Guide to Capturing the Romance Market

With the right targeting and audience intelligence, it can be easy for travel marketers to sweep romantic travelers off their feet. Many businesses in key travel markets are missing the opportunity to market to romantic travelers. The latest data shows that romantic travel trends go beyond the obvious honeymooners and destination wedding travel, though those segments shouldn’t be ignored! According to the Travel Industry of America, romantic getaways are trips “with a spouse or other love interest without children to rekindle the romantic feelings in the relationship.” From outdoor adventure travel to “foodie” trips, today’s couples are doing things differently and travel marketers should take notice. Whether you market a destination city or you’re a business within a destination city, positioning carefully to appeal to romantic travelers is a good idea for 2018 and beyond. Read on for more details on the latest romantic travel trends all marketers need to know.

Top Romantic Travel Trends in 2018

Romantic travel is booming, and it’s more than just the honeymoon. According to statistics from TripSavvy, a quarter of all American weddings are destination weddings. On average, couples who plan destination weddings are a little older with more disposable income compared to other newlyweds. With travel to a beach or somewhere overseas, the average budget for a destination wedding is $28,000. The added expenses make for a shorter stack of invitations, but the guests who attend destination weddings also plan to spend more than $600 on average.

After the wedding, couples currently spend three times as much on honeymoons as they do on other vacations making honeymoons a$12 billion dollar industry. Other popular trends in romantic travel surfacing in 2018 include would-be grooms planning getaways around the proposal (thanks to social media for the increased pressure for the perfect proposal!). All kinds of couples enjoy “foodie” trips, choosing destinations with the best dining options as a top priority. Where entertainment and music drew travelers in earlier decades, cuisine is a top priority for today’s travelers.

Not Just for the Newlyweds: Who Are Today’s Romantic Travelers?

While family trips need to balance the different preferences of all the kids, couples traveling romantically tend to spend more on dining and activities when it’s just the two of them.

Marriage drives a high percentage of the travel in America, but households with children travel less often, shocking, right?! While single households were responsible for 21 percent of trips, married households took a whopping 61 percent of trips, according to the same research from TripSavvy. Couples without children have taken an average of 3.1 trips in the past year, compared to couples with children, who took 1.9 trips indicating the sweet spot for the travel market is married couples without children.

When planning a romantic getaway, a strong majority of those surveyed said that they traveled to a particular city for the local cuisine and entertainment. The next most popular getaway option was bodies of water, such as lakes or beaches. Other common, but significantly less popular plans centered around gambling, outdoor sports, and cruises. Romantic couples are interested in local attractions, but they also want a setting where they can enjoy each others company. By emphasizing a quiet, relaxing atmosphere, nearby nightlife, and quality restaurants, most cities have something to offer couples trying to unwind.

Romance For All: LGBTQ Travel Trends

Now more than ever, it pays to be inclusive. LGBTQ travelers are especially aware of the attitudes in different parts of the world. Just as some countries still require a marriage certificate to share a hotel room, many regions still have laws and prejudices against homosexuality and other lifestyles. Because some travel agents are unaware of those nuances in different regions, many LGBTQ travelers use agents who specialize in serving clients with similar priorities.

If there are festivals like Pride Parade in your area, think about whether your business can participate in some way. Decorating for the occasion, offering special discounts, and sponsoring a local non-profit are a few ways to show support. Make sure to share the ways in which your business shows support via your social media channels and look for ways to make your imagery more inclusive by default.

Most of these travelers want a safe place where they won’t be excluded on the basis of their orientation, identity, appearance, or anything else. That said, your employees have a big impact on the perception of your brand. Employees who bring prejudices into the workplace can be a complicated problem, especially in politically divisive times. While it’s impossible to satisfy every customer, a negative review that implies intolerance can be especially impactful. The best course of action is prevention, making sure that you create a safe and inclusive environment both for customers and employees. In the event you suffer a negative review from a customer, make sure to respond publicly stating that your company does not share the views of this individual though feedback is appreciated.

Not A Tropical Oasis? “Romantic” Doesn’t Have to Mean Bikinis

Commercials have marketed beaches as the “ultimate” romantic getaway, but there are loads of alternatives for landlocked businesses. = With employment up and cautious optimism about the economy, Americans are looking to travel frequently, and in smaller doses. Over the past 12 months, Google Trends has shown an increase in the search terms “weekend getaways” and “couples getaway near me,” Indicating growing demand for this information online. With the help of local SEO professionals, you can dominate the search results for travelers within driving distance.

All kinds of activities and attractions can be adapted for a romantic audience. Historic districts, museums, festivals, and even agriculture can be romantic. With a scenic overlook and the right photographer, your area’s cotton fields start to look as romantic as a vineyard or a country album cover.

In all, romantic travel is about a lot more than honeymooning couples. A growing number of adults are looking at travel as an investment in their relationship and their own quality of life. At Search Influence, we have everything you need to market to those couples and drive leads to your business. If you’re interested in honing your local SEO strategy, then request your marketing analysis today to get started.

Images:

Couple at a Scenic View

Couple Walking in Hand

September 18, 2018
Non-Secure Site? Prepare Your Website for the Google Chrome 70 Rollout

Since last year, we have been explaining what HTTPS means and the important updates announced by Google. Let’s do a brief refresher course.

What Is the Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS?

HTTP and HTTPS protocols both fulfill the same core function to transfer data over the internet. HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure and is the most secure protocol that enables data transfers. It allows for security because it applies encryption on the data being sent. This makes you far less vulnerable to attacks on your information.

HTTP isn’t encrypted, therefore snoopers with access to a network could look at and modify your precious data passing between you and the website.

For a more in-depth look at the importance of security, check out our blog post on the topic of “Internet and Security” by our web developer Jared Jones.

What Are Google’s Upcoming HTTPS Changes?

The current version of Google Chrome shows a “not secure” sign alongside the web address bar for any websites that still use the HTTP standard.

With the upcoming release of Chrome 70 in October 2018, Google announced that they will begin to shout out the “not secure” notification even louder. All websites still being served via HTTP will receive a negative visual indicator in red that reads, “not secure” beside the URL in Chrome’s address bar.

“Eventually, our goal is to make it so that the only markings you see in Chrome are when a site is not secure, and the default unmarked state is secure. We will roll this out over time, starting by removing the “Secure” wording in September 2018. And in October 2018, we’ll start showing a red “not secure” warning when users enter data on HTTP pages,” according to Emily Schechter, the Chrome Security Product Manager.

In other words, now is the time to think of HTTPS as mandatory!

How Do You Add HTTPS to Your Website?

An SSL certificate is needed to convert your site to HTTPS. When you install this certificate and migrate your website to HTTPS, it facilitates the important encrypted connections.

Google’s SSL requirements are crucial to your website because they provide authentication and establish trust when customers visit your pages.

Brush up on our detailed explanation of SSL Certificates by reading Influencer, Alison Zeringue’s blog post.

We Have Your Back!

The majority of internet users tend to trust Google when it tells them something isn’t secure. Be prepared for all the new Google Chrome changes and keep your website secure. Call our team at Search Influence today at 504-595-1623 to help you protect your clients and provide encryption of all sensitive information on your website.

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Not Secure

We Got This

September 4, 2018