May was busy and beautiful — the unofficial start to summer, my favorite time of year. I took a trip to North Carolina to see my parents and their bouncy baby goats, then got to babysit my new nephew. I wrapped up the month finishing my Google Search Console mini-course, the first of many courses I’ve been talking about for years that has finally come to life… more on that below.
Somewhere in between, I got to launch the new website I’ve been building with The Cairn Project. I’ll get this site in my portfolio in the next few weeks, but I couldn’t resist sharing it. The Cairn Project has a variety of programs that increase outdoor access for girls+, one of which turns women’s outdoor adventures into fundraisers so they can “get out to give back.” It’s a wonderful organization worth checking out!
Monthly Tip: Hire someone to help you with your branding.
If you’ve done any branding work (or website planning work with me), you’ve probably been asked questions about your ideal client, your unique selling proposition, your strengths, what you love to do, etc.
I go through this process often with clients but I’m rarely on the other side. My colleague Jeane Bope offered to do a branding session with me since I’m considering changing my business name.
I’ve been thinking on my own for a while, but having a branding pro take me through his process was invaluable. It opened a bunch of doors I hadn’t yet considered and gave me a vision for my business’s brand that I can keep working out on my own.
Just like a good website, good branding work is an investment, but it’s well worth it. A good brand strategist asks you the right questions, then seamlessly connects the dots to turn your answers into something tangible that perfectly represents your business.
Jeane offers branding services (and is excellent at business name brainstorming!), and I have a few other brand designers I recommend as well. If you spring for high-quality branding guidance, I promise it’ll pay off.
Related post from my blog: How Much “Branding” Do You Need Before Building Your Website?
Website & SEO Updates from Around the Web
The 2023 Google algorithm ranking factors
I love how this pie chart breaks down the long list of what goes into SEO and this firm’s best guess on how each piece is weighted.
The AI takeover of Google Search starts now
Bit of a dramatic title, huh? I mostly think it’s interesting to glimpse how this new generative AI feature may work on Google.
Repurposing content: a guide with 5 examples
If you’ve created content (videos, blog posts, etc.) it probably took a lot of time. Repurposing it can get you a lot more bang for your buck. I’ve heard you should spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% sharing or repurposing it.
Podcast rec: The Three Legs to Better Search Visibility
You need a baseline understanding of SEO to digest a lot of SEO info, but this podcast episode is super approachable for DIYers.
Happy birthday, WordPress! Squarespace will be 20 next year. Wix and Shopify both launched a few years later.
New Course Available: Your Guide to Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a frequent source of confusion for my clients, so I created a mini-course walking you through everything you need to know about setting up and using GSC.
The course costs $49, has just over an hour of video content (all content included as text as well), and you’ll only need a couple hours following along to get your GSC set up and feel good about using this tool.
