We’re over halfway through the year and the summertime months are starting to heat up. Folks start taking more time to reply to urgent emails, lunch hours turn into lunch afternoons, and the weekends start on Thursday. Basically, things get a bit more relaxed and slower-paced.

And that’s cool for the most part. We all deserve a break from the constant content churn, so we can enjoy some barbecue and a little bit of heartburn. But even when things chill out and the beach sun beckons you outdoors, you still want your company’s brand to stay relevant through the sweaty season.

That’s what these seven summertime content marketing SEO tips are for:  

1. Make sure everything’s optimized. You’ve heard of spring cleaning. But just because you did some tidying up in the spring doesn’t mean things can’t get a bit grimy in the summer. Put on your SEO apron and start optimizing your headers, your meta descriptions, and your URL. Businesses that rely on foot trafic and local customers should include their city or region, too, so Google picks up their geo locale. You don’t want to go too crazy with keyword re-shuffling, but you do want to ensure headlines, image captions, and alt-text all use relevant keywords. And make sure there are no broken links, and that your site is easy to use and has a fast load time.

2. Get active on social media. Some brands get lax about posting on social during the summer months, but social media (and all content published and shared by your brand) needs to stay consistent. Roughly two-thirds of Americans, young and old, use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram daily. Social media helps your SEO by building an audience that shares, tweets, and retweets, and links back to content hosted on your website. Get folks sharing by playing nice with others: Share the content of others and ask them to share back. Give a shoutout to major influencers in your niche. And use social to start casual conversations about happenings in your industry.

3. Highlight summertime fun in the sun. Welcome to late June/early July, prime grilling season. During the hottest months, activities and interests of customers change so why not tailor some useful content related to your niche with summer fun in mind? B2C companies will want to focus on content related to outdoor activities, gear, holiday cooking, or weddings with things like gift guides, infographics, or recipes. B2B companies can focus on product guides other businesses will be interested in and ways to optimize strategies for the season—like this article.

4. Write attention-seeking titles. In the Twitterverse, you usually have a split second to capture someone’s attention. That’s why headlines and titles are so important. Be sure to include the all-important keywords, and wrap them in an exciting, curiosity-sparking and emotional hot dog bun. Boldness means a greater potential for shares, but you don’t want to cross the line into clickbait territory or you risk the loss of credibility and respectability. That “mislead the reader” stuff is so 2014.

5. Highlight current events. There is a lot going on in the world. Perhaps a little too much? But if you have a connection to a current event or trend, strike while the iron’s hot. Take advantage and write a blog post about it while tying it to your brand in a—tasteful—manner. Avoid blowback entirely by avoiding controversial subjects. On the other hand, if you want your brand and your company to take a stand, then take that stand. For example, more video game companies are embracing diversity and they’re not afraid to tell off naysayers in interviews. If you’re unsure how to tackle a subject, here’s some extra eternal advice: Read the room. Or just stick to posts about July Fourth and Bastille Day.

6. Create new content. There’s no getting around it: The best way to increase your SEO is to make more piping hot fresh high-quality content using the right keywords. Check out your analytics and see how your pages are doing. If you notice that one page is ranking well for other keywords, then formulate more content for those search terms. For example, maybe your search term was “top five barbecue brushes” but it also ranks well for “top five barbecue brush holders.” Or something. Then, you can make a page about brush holders.

Once the kids go back to school and the leaves start turning you can see if all this optimization has paid off. The real key is to publish fresh (read: quality) content as often as you can so search engines pick it up and improve your site ranking. The more you update, the more you’ll get noticed and if you want any help in that regard, give us a ring. Summer’s just getting started.

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