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Most experts are predicting that the 2021 holiday season will be one of the best yet as many Americans are more emotionally invested this year than in years past. According to a recent survey conducted by Quantum Metric, online sales are expected to continue to rise as the first half of this year has already seen a 16 percent increase in quarterly sales.

We all know that searchability and ranking rely upon keywords, but that can be tough for a small or new business. In order to beat out the competition, you will need to set yourself about from the common, general keywords. The best way to do this is by using long-tail keywords to increase your traffic and conversions quickly and effortlessly.

A few years ago Forbes published an article about how to find brand success in the digital world. This article was written in 2017; let’s fast-forward to 2021 and the mass amount of ads have increased significantly. My search for the actual number of ads the average person sees every day came up with a variety of answers but nothing that could be quoted as factual. All sources researched most commonly stated the average person encounters between 6,000 and 10,000 ads every single day. While that may seem excessive, it probably isn’t if you think about television, social media ads, search engine ads, and the list can go on for days. The Forbes article challenged its readers to count the number of brands they encountered a day by counting how many brands the reader interacted with as soon as they got up in the morning and started their routine. They named a plethora of products from the Apple phone to the Colgate toothpaste used and that’s even before the day gets started. For whatever reason, those products stuck out to the consumers, and the marketing behind it did its job.

You’ve got your website and social media platforms looking great and content is consistently being posted on your accounts, but did you overlook one area that could make a big impact on your readers? What does your FAQ section say about you? The Frequently Asked Questions section can be one of the most lackluster elements of a business’s website or marketing efforts. Rather than an afterthought, the FAQ should be viewed as an opportunity to make a direct connection between you and the customer. The majority of consumers, especially Gen Zers, typically gather information about a product or service from the company’s website and/or social media platforms rather than making a phone call to find out information. Although I am much older than a Gen Zer, I would say that calling a business is usually a last resort for me. I am much happier if I can research and make decisions with information from a company’s website or social media page. I very often use the FAQ section and if a business has a good one, it puts them a step ahead of the competition.

The Better Business Bureau published an article in May 2019 titled 7 Ways to Build Trust with Your Customers and Why It Matters. Although this was published nearly two years ago, I can’t think of a more relative time than now. It begins with discussing how, at that time, authenticity was the latest buzzword, as younger generations want authentic connections and transparent corporate practices with businesses they use.  Two years later, authenticity is still around; however, it is no longer a buzzword, but rather, an expectation from consumers. The most effective way to prove your authenticity is from being a business known for its trustworthiness by building trust among your customers. Being able to truly say you are trustworthy will make your business stand out from the rest, especially with such fierce online competition.

We’ve made it through the first quarter of 2021 giving a bit of an insight as to the trajectory of the remaining nine months. For some, sales have never been better, but others are struggling to keep the doors open and pay employees. Regardless of which side you are on financially, it’s a good time to evaluate your social media and advertising strategies. It’s important to look at each quarter as if they are a mini year-end review. This allows you to make necessary tweaks and adjustments before they become huge issues later on. My quarterly mini year-end review steps are as follows:

No matter what type of business or service your company offers, the pandemic has catapulted the e-commerce side several years forward. We have seen it coming for a while now, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced all of us to re-think and adapt to meet the needs of our clients. I have said it before and I will say it again, the resilience of small business owners has astounded me. As the vaccine rollouts continue, we can hopefully reach some kind of pre-pandemic normalcy or a new and improved version of normalcy. Personally, I like the new and improved option because I love having the option to do my grocery shopping online and have them delivered to my home (boy, what I wouldn’t have done for that when I was raising babies and my husband traveled for work) or to see a home virtually before deciding on an in-person showing. Businesses that continue to evolve with the new and improved normalcy will be the winners when the pandemic dust settles. Follow these tips to get your business ready for the new and improved normal:

If you were still on the fence as to whether or not social media and influencers had any impact on business, the last week in January 2021 should have removed any doubts. On Tuesday, January 26, GameStop Corp’s stock began a wild ride surging 93%. In a nutshell, had it not been for social media none of this frenzy would have ever happened.