SEO for Pool Builders in Reading

Pool building is a hard fit for the city of Reading itself, and saying so plainly helps you plan well. Most homes are attached brick rowhouses on narrow lots with small rear yards or concrete pads, only about 40 percent of households own their homes, and median household income sits near $45,599. Few city properties have the space or budget for an inground pool. Being honest about that saves you from paying for clicks that never turn into projects.

Trusted by local businesses across the U.S.1,200+ pages optimizedWeekly content & GBP postsPowered by Claude AI

Watch the overview of our products and services

Watch this video for a breakdown of our products and services

Drew, our founder, walks through the plugin, the 27 AI agents, the done-for-you agency packages and G Money, and who each one is for. Jump to the part you need:

Prefer to read? Explore what we do →

Want help choosing? Tell us about your business.

First, how does your Reading site look right now?

Free instant scan of your actual page. The same checks Google and the AI answer engines run.

Local SEO in Reading

How pool builders get found in Reading

The realistic market lies in the surrounding suburbs and townships of Berks County, where larger lots and higher home values make pools more common. Reading can still serve as your headquarters and a source of reviews, but your search work should focus on location pages for communities such as Wyomissing, Exeter Township and Spring Township, where buyers actually have yards to dig. Each of those pages should describe the typical lot sizes and permitting process in that community. Reviews from customers in those areas support those pages.

Inside the city, there are smaller opportunities. Above ground pools, compact plunge pools, and hot tubs fit some yards, and a few larger properties near the city edges or on the slopes of Mount Penn may suit an inground installation. A page addressing small yard options honestly helps those buyers and keeps your expectations realistic. Hot tubs in particular suit compact yards and appeal to residents who want a smaller project.

Cost transparency is the strongest content you can publish. Buyers across the region want to know what a pool really costs once excavation, permits, fencing and finishes are included. A guide that explains local variables, from rocky soil to township permit steps, will rank and draw serious prospects who are ready to talk. Include a sample project budget with clear assumptions so buyers can see how costs add up.

Trust is the other key. Pool buyers fear delays, change orders and builders who disappear partway through. Publishing a clear timeline, explaining inspection waits, and showing finished local projects builds confidence that no glossy photo gallery can match on its own. Updates on current projects, posted on your profile, show that you finish what you start.

Service work can bridge the gap. Opening and closing pools, liner replacement, and hot tub repair bring in customers across the area, including some within city limits, and those relationships often lead to referrals for full builds. Because Reading produces few pool searches, treat the city as a base and expand outward. Bilingual service information also helps you reach more of the region's families.

The Reading search market

What it actually takes to get found in Reading.

Real numbers for this city, not a sales pitch.

Local search demand

Pool Builders: what customers in Reading search for.

Real monthly Google searches in Reading for the phrases people use when they need pool builders, and what one click costs in Google Ads. Ranking for them organically costs nothing per click.

What they searchSearches / monthCost per click
inground pool20/mo$5.45
pool builders near me10/monot enough data
pool installation10/monot enough data
pool contractors10/monot enough data
inground pool cost10/monot enough data
pool remodeling10/monot enough data

About 70 searches a month in Reading for pool builders. Every one of them is a customer looking for a business like yours.

Google Ads Keyword Planner, geo-targeted to Reading, measured October 2026.

See done-for-you packagesScan my site free

Monthly searches

Where Reading pool builders start: the homepage phrase and the rest

The largest number behind SEO for pool builders in Reading belongs to inground pool: 20 searches a month. Counted together, 70 searches a month run through six phrases. Behind the top figure sit pool builders near me, pool installation, pool contractors, inground pool cost, and pool remodeling tied at 10. The Business Profile answers pool builders near me on the map. The homepage takes inground pool as its head term. Every other phrase gets a page of its own, so no page carries two head terms. Some of these phrases come from property owners ready to call one of the pool builders, others from people still reading up. This page is for you if you are comparing a digital marketing agency for Reading pool builders.

Reading at a glance

94,836people
32,899households
$45,599median household income
$109,800median home value
1938median year built
40%owner-occupied

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year (2023).

What kind of business are you?

We tune the playbook to the trade, the search behaviour is completely different.

Don't see your trade? Tell us what you do and we'll look at the real search demand for it.

Browse every trade we cover

Nearby

We also help pool builders in cities near Reading.

Crews based in Reading take calls from these cities every week. Each has its own page with local search demand and a plan built for that market.

Looking for more than pool builders SEO? See all SEO services in Reading or across Pennsylvania.

Four ways to grow

However you're built, there's a Vibe that fits Reading.

Hire our team, run the plugin yourself, unleash the autonomous agent team, or let AI run your Google Ads. Mix and match as you grow.

Done-For-You · Agency

No marketing team?

Hire ours.

Hand your SEO to a team that lives in it. We run rankings, content, GBP, technical fixes and links end-to-end, and report your rankings, traffic and calls every month.

  • A full SEO department, no payroll
  • Everything handled for you
  • Clear monthly reporting
See packages →
Do-It-Yourself · Plugin

Have a team?

Give them a superpower.

The Vibe SEO plugin puts an AI assistant (Powered by Claude) in WordPress. Describe a change in plain English and it ships live, plus bulk generation, audits and schema tools.

  • Ship 10× faster
  • Enfold, Elementor, Divi + more
  • Mirrors to Yoast / Rank Math
Explore The Plugin →
Autonomous · AI Team

Want it hands-off?

Unleash 27 agents.

Agentic bolts a team of 27 AI agents onto your plugin, writing, fixing, optimizing and expanding your site every day, inside guardrails you set. The plugin, self-driving.

  • 27 specialists working daily
  • Writes, fixes & expands automatically
  • You approve the big moves
Explore Agentic →
Paid Ads · Automated

Want leads today?

Put G Money on it.

SEO compounds; G Money brings leads this week. It is Google Ads run by AI: it builds your account, then moves budget every day toward the ads that bring qualified leads.

  • Just set a budget
  • Never stops split-testing
  • Optimizes to qualified leads
Meet G Money →

Everything under one roof

What we optimize, and why it matters.

Modern SEO isn't one lever. It's a system. We work all of it, so nothing quietly holds you back.

Keyword & Rank Strategy

We find the exact phrases your customers type, from "near me" searches to the long-tail questions your customers ask, and engineer each page to own them. One page per intent, so you catch traffic from every angle without competing with yourself.

See the numbers for your market →

On-Page Optimization

Titles, meta descriptions, headings, internal links, image alt text and copy, all tuned on every page so Google understands precisely what you offer, where, and to whom. The unglamorous work that quietly wins page one.

Scan your site for this →

Technical SEO

The plumbing Google grades you on: site speed & Core Web Vitals, crawlability, indexation, XML sitemaps, structured data, mobile-first, HTTPS, canonicals, and clean redirects. If Google can't crawl it, it can't rank it.

Check your site now →

AEO: Answer Engine Optimization

Search is moving to AI. We optimize you to be cited by Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, through entity clarity, structured data, FAQ & how-to schema, and authoritative, quotable content. Be the answer, not just a blue link.

Included in every package →

Google Business Profile

Win the local map pack, where the calls actually come from. Full GBP optimization: categories, services, photos, attributes and Q&A, 3 to 5 posts a week, plus review generation and professional responses to every review, good or bad.

Local & GBP, in our packages →

Content & Blogging

Weekly, original, search-targeted articles that answer the real questions your customers ask, build topical authority, and give Google fresh reasons to rank you. Written to sound like an expert in Reading, never spun filler.

Or let 27 agents write it →

Authority & Backlinks

Press releases to 500+ outlets, local citation building, and a clean, white-hat backlink campaign that pushes your Domain Rating up. Authority is the trust signal that separates page one from page five.

In our packages →

Reporting & Audits

Monthly SEO audits, error resolution, and reports that track your keyword positions, traffic and calls against a baseline, so you can see what moved. No fluff, no mystery, no "trust us."

Common questions →

Conversion & Trust

Rankings only pay when they convert. We tighten calls-to-action, surface reviews and trust signals, and make sure the customer who finds you actually picks up the phone or fills out the form.

Get started →

Done-For-You SEO

Want us to run SEO for you?

Every package delivers the same complete SEO system, done for you. The tiers scale how many markets we target and how often we run press, and the plugin is included in every one.

Economy
$750/mo
Get found locally and build momentum.
  • Up to 5 target cities
  • Weekly blog content
What’s included ▾
Foundation & Technical
  • Full technical audit & fixes: speed, crawlability, indexation, mobile, HTTPS, canonicals
  • XML sitemaps, robots & breadcrumbs; schema on every page
  • Redirect management + 404 monitoring
On-Page
  • Keyword research & mapping: one page per search intent
  • Titles, metas, headings, internal links & image alt tuned on every page
  • Homepage optimized for your core terms
Local & Google Business Profile
  • Full GBP optimization: categories, services, photos, attributes, Q&A
  • 3 to 5 GBP posts every week
  • Review generation + professional responses to every review
Content & Pages
  • Weekly blog content
  • We use your homepage as the template and expand it out to up to 5 target cities, each city gets its own primary landing page + up to 6 service pages
Reporting
  • Monthly SEO audit + error resolution
  • Monthly report: keyword positions, traffic & calls
Get started
Most popular
Standard
$1,500/mo
Expand across services & nearby cities.
  • Up to 25 target cities
  • 3 blog posts / week
  • Quarterly press releases (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct)
What’s included ▾
Foundation & Technical
  • Full technical audit & fixes: speed, crawlability, indexation, mobile, HTTPS, canonicals
  • XML sitemaps, robots & breadcrumbs; schema on every page
  • Redirect management + 404 monitoring
On-Page
  • Keyword research & mapping: one page per search intent
  • Titles, metas, headings, internal links & image alt tuned on every page
  • Homepage optimized for your core terms
Local & Google Business Profile
  • Full GBP optimization: categories, services, photos, attributes, Q&A
  • 3 to 5 GBP posts every week
  • Review generation + professional responses to every review
  • Local citation building + NAP consistency
Content & Pages
  • 3 blog posts / week
  • We use your homepage as the template and expand it out to up to 25 target cities, each city gets its own primary landing page + up to 6 service pages
Off-Page & Authority
  • White-hat backlink campaign
  • Local citations across the directories that matter
  • Quarterly press releases (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct) to 500+ outlets
Reporting
  • Monthly SEO audit + error resolution
  • Monthly report: keyword positions, traffic & calls
Get started
Premium
$3,500/mo
Dominate your market, aggressively.
  • Unlimited target cities
  • Daily blog posts
  • Monthly press releases
What’s included ▾
Foundation & Technical
  • Full technical audit & fixes: speed, crawlability, indexation, mobile, HTTPS, canonicals
  • XML sitemaps, robots & breadcrumbs; schema on every page
  • Redirect management + 404 monitoring
On-Page
  • Keyword research & mapping: one page per search intent
  • Titles, metas, headings, internal links & image alt tuned on every page
  • Homepage optimized for your core terms
Local & Google Business Profile
  • Full GBP optimization: categories, services, photos, attributes, Q&A
  • 3 to 5 GBP posts every week
  • Review generation + professional responses to every review
  • Local citation building + NAP consistency
Content & Pages
  • Daily blog posts
  • We use your homepage as the template and expand it out to unlimited target cities, each city gets its own primary landing page + up to 6 service pages
Off-Page & Authority
  • White-hat backlink campaign
  • Local citations across the directories that matter
  • Monthly press releases to 500+ outlets
Reporting
  • Monthly SEO audit + error resolution
  • Monthly report: keyword positions, traffic & calls
Get started
Custom Premier
from $10,000/mo
For multi-state & nationwide businesses.
  • Uncapped, multi-state / nationwide
  • Daily blog posts
  • Monthly press releases, per district / site
  • Dedicated account manager
What’s included ▾
Foundation & Technical
  • Full technical audit & fixes: speed, crawlability, indexation, mobile, HTTPS, canonicals
  • XML sitemaps, robots & breadcrumbs; schema on every page
  • Redirect management + 404 monitoring
On-Page
  • Keyword research & mapping: one page per search intent
  • Titles, metas, headings, internal links & image alt tuned on every page
  • Homepage optimized for your core terms
Local & Google Business Profile
  • Full GBP optimization: categories, services, photos, attributes, Q&A
  • 3 to 5 GBP posts every week
  • Review generation + professional responses to every review
  • Local citation building + NAP consistency
Content & Pages
  • Daily blog posts
  • We use your homepage as the template and expand it out to uncapped, multi-state / nationwide, each city gets its own primary landing page + up to 6 service pages
Off-Page & Authority
  • White-hat backlink campaign
  • Local citations across the directories that matter
  • Monthly press releases, per district / site to 500+ outlets
Reporting
  • Monthly SEO audit + error resolution
  • Monthly report: keyword positions, traffic & calls
Your Team
  • A dedicated account manager who knows your account
Call 866-VIBE-SEO
🏗️ One-time add-on New Website Build starting at $2,000 Some sites need a fresh, purpose-built foundation to hit maximum results. Pricing starts at $2,000 and scales with the size and complexity of the site. If we recommend a rebuild and it's declined, results may fall short of what you're hoping for.
See how we build your site →
Not sure which package fits?Call us and we'll talk through your goals, and the best path to hit them.
📞 Call 866-VIBE-SEO

We do the work

SEO for pool builders in Reading: what the agency handles each month

The agency's first month goes to the site's technical repairs, and every month ends with a report a real person walks you through, for pool builders in Reading as for any client. The agency audits and fixes your pool builder site's speed, phone layout, crawling, indexing, HTTPS, sitemaps, canonicals and redirects in month one, and adds schema to every page. Each thing property owners search for gets one page through keyword research, which stops your pages competing with each other. Per city, the agency builds one landing page and up to six service pages, each on the template of your homepage. The Economy plan covers five cities, Standard covers twenty five, and Premium has no limit. On the blog, the plan decides the schedule: weekly, three times a week, or daily.

The Business Profile gets its categories, services, photos and Q&A set up properly, then three to five posts a week and a professional reply to every review. With Standard and above, the agency builds citations in the directories that matter, runs white hat backlinks, and has press releases sent to more than 500 outlets quarterly or monthly. Each month's report covers rankings, map pack position, traffic, calls and form fills against baselines recorded first, and a real person who knows the account walks you through it. Everything built is yours, and the work runs month to month from $750 a month. For the owner who would rather serve property owners than run a website, pool builder marketing in Reading gets done, with the report walked through each month.

🧩 Do-It-Yourself · The Plugin

The last SEO plugin you'll ever install.

Yoast and Rank Math color a dot green and call it a day. Vibe actually does the work: it spins up unlimited local landing pages, pulls real keyword demand, fixes your technical SEO, and builds your schema, a complete SEO toolkit living right inside your WordPress admin.

🏙️

Unlimited local pages

Turn one template into a ranking landing page for every city you serve, hundreds of unique pages in minutes, not months of copy-paste.

📊

Real keyword demand, built in

Pull live Google search volume for your services and towns, so you build for demand that's provably there: not vanity keywords.

🔧

Six scanners, one-click fixes

Speed, schema, meta, links and more. Vibe finds what's holding your rankings back and fixes it for you, it doesn't just flag it and shrug.

🧬

Rich-result schema

Automatic structured data that earns stars, FAQs and rich snippets in Google, no code, no stacking five plugins to get there.

✏️

Edit in plain English

Describe the change you want and the built-in assistant makes it live. It's a power tool you drive, you stay in control the whole time.

🔌

Fits your stack

Enfold, Elementor, Divi and more, and it mirrors cleanly to Yoast or Rank Math if you're already running one.

Explore the plugin → Free version available · no credit card

Hands on SEO

Reading pool builders can find and fix their own SEO problems

Website upkeep for Reading pool builders tends to sit with the owner or a trusted member of the office staff. Unlike most SEO plugins, which color a dot green and leave the rest to you, Vibe SEO was built by running an agency on it. Keywords reads your own Search Console: page two queries with real impressions, pages seen but not clicked, and questions no page of yours answers. Each of the six scanners, for links, AI, grammar, SEO, Google Signal and duplicate text, pairs its findings with a plain explanation and a fix on the same screen. Two service pages that open with the same paragraph are what the duplicate scanner points out. The plugin works beside Enfold, Elementor, Divi and most other builders.

Bulk SEO is one screen for fixing titles and descriptions across a hundred pages, Image SEO writes alt text and converts images to WebP, and Redirects catches 404s. Your pool builder site can start free, and paid plans start at $45 a month for one site. Through GBP Automation, posts reach your Business Profile on a schedule and reviews get a reply in your voice, with anything below a star floor you set held for your approval. Service Areas pulls the places you serve from OpenStreetMap, and Virtual Pages and Generation make a real indexable page for each, with Block Variations rotating the wording. Inside the admin, the Vibe AI assistant, powered by Claude, takes instructions in plain English. In house means no waiting on anyone else to fix a page for your Reading business.

🤖 Autonomous SEO · Add-on

A team of 27 AI agents, powerhousing your SEO every single day.

Agentic supercharges the plugin with 27 specialized AI agents that write, fix, optimize, and expand your site around the clock, each an expert at one job, all working together inside the guardrails you set. It's an entire SEO department that never sleeps, never forgets, and gets smarter every day.

They publish fresh content, repair technical issues, target new keywords, build out your service area, watch your Google Search Console results, and double down on what's working, while a built-in adversary and safety officer reject anything that isn't right before it ever touches your live site.

Add Agentic → $250/mo: founding price, locked in for life · add-on to any plugin plan
Your agents · today27 working
✍️Author published "Spring maintenance in Reading"live ✓
🔧Fixer repaired 3 broken links + 2 thin metasdone ✓
📍GBP posted today's update + replied to a reviewdone ✓
🎯Strategist targeted a high-intent keyword clustermapped ✓
🛡️Adversary rejected 2 weak drafts pre-publishsafe ✓
📈Analyst: a "near me" keyword #12 → #4+8 ✓

Writers

Daily blogs + unique page content written to the phrases Reading searches.

Fixers

Scan and repair broken links, weak titles, thin metas and missing schema.

Strategists

Cluster the high-value keyword + its long-tail cousins onto one page.

Expanders

Build new city & service pages to cover your whole area, safely.

Stalkers

Study local competitors and surface the gaps for you to take.

Analysts

Learn from Search Console outcomes and double down on what ranks.

Local / GBP

Daily Google Business posts, review replies and profile hygiene.

Guardians

Adversary review, spam-safety and self-monitoring so nothing bad ships.

Inside your rules

Agentic, the add on that runs the plugin daily for pool builders in Reading

Every pool builder in Reading is up against other pool builders that keep posting and updating, and the owner rarely has time for that. Agentic is an add on that works through the plugin, and every change stays in your own WordPress site, visible and reversible. The team is 27 specialized agents. Six of them, the Analysts, run the scanners and write work orders. Fixing what the Analysts find is the Author's job, along with writing original copy for each page's target phrase. The Keyword Strategist gives each page one head term and its long tail phrases, so no two pages chase one search. The Expander builds the pages your site is missing for the services and areas you cover. The Stalker keeps an eye on competitors' public pages, never copies them, and turns the gaps into a brief for the Expander or the Author.

Your Business Profile gets a daily post from the GBP Agent, which routes negative reviews to you; the Authority Builder audits citations and drafts link outreach for you to send. Before anything publishes, the Reviewer, also called the Adversary, tries to reject the draft and removes any claim you did not verify at setup. With the Search Safety Officer in place, new pages go out at a set pace and doorway spam is vetoed. Approval is automatic or one click, you choose which pages the agents may touch and how many changes a day, and one switch pauses the agents. The plugin alone is a toolkit; at $250 a month on top of the plugin, month to month, it becomes a department that works whether or not you had time. Staying visible as a pool builder in Reading takes daily work, and the controls above keep that work yours to approve, cap and pause.

How it works

From "where do I even start" to ranking in four steps.

1

Audit & Strategy

We analyze your site, your competitors, and what Reading is searching for, then map the keywords worth winning.

2

Build & Optimize

Technical fixes, on-page optimization, new service & city pages, schema, and a fully tuned Google Business Profile.

3

Publish & Promote

Weekly content, GBP posts, reviews, press releases and backlinks, the steady signals that move rankings.

4

Measure & Grow

Monthly audits and plain-English reports show what moved and what's next. We double down on what works.

The scoreboard

Results you can measure: page by page.

Rankings, traffic and calls are tracked from a baseline set before any work starts, so you can see what moved.

+38
avg. positions gained per tracked keyword
3.1×
more pages ranking in the top 10
Weekly
fresh content & GBP posts published
50+
Domain Rating target on Standard+
Before → After · 90 days
"near me" searches#41→#4
your top Reading keyword#28→#2
"best in Reading" terms#33→#6
buyer "pricing" searches#52→#9
urgent "now" searches#19→#1
💰 AI-Automated Ad Campaigns

SEO wins the long game. G Money wins you leads today.

Google Ads, run by AI. Tell it a weekly budget and G Money builds, launches, and optimizes your Google Ads from scratch (keywords, AI-written ads, bidding, and conversion tracking), then learns from real qualified leads and revenue, not just clicks. No agency retainer, no dashboards full of knobs. Just a budget.

Here's the part that makes it unfair: it's never done testing. From day one it runs dozens of split tests in parallel (different headlines, descriptions, audiences, bids and channels all at once), measures each one down to qualified leads and closed revenue, then kills the losers, scales the winners, and writes fresh ad creative to beat its own best. Every day the budget shifts toward whatever's producing the cheapest real customers. And because it learns across every account on the platform, your campaigns launch smart on day one and only get sharper.

Just set a budget. No setup, no knobs
Launched already optimized, day one
Search, Local Services & Performance Max
Optimizes to qualified leads & revenue
Hard spend guardrails, self-monitoring
Gets smarter across every account
Weekly budgetoptimizing live
$1,000 /week
Local Services Ads$420 · $18/lead
Search$330 · $24/lead
Performance Max$180 · $31/lead
Remarketing$70 · $12/lead
Budget flows to the cheapest qualified leads52 leads · $19 avg
01 · TEST

Split-test everything

Dozens of ads, audiences & bids, head-to-head.

02 · LEARN

Measure real outcomes

Scored down to qualified leads & revenue.

03 · IMPROVE

Reallocate & rewrite

Winners scale, losers cut, new creative added daily.

Questions pool builders in Reading ask us

Can I find pool customers within Reading city limits?
A few, mostly for above ground pools, hot tubs or larger properties near the edges of the city. Create a small yard options page to serve them, but direct most of your effort to surrounding communities where inground pools are far more common. Mention any financing options, since budget is a major factor in the city.
What pool cost details should I publish for Berks County buyers?
Explain the main factors that change price, such as size, shape, finish, excavation conditions, fencing, and permits. Give realistic ranges and explain why projects vary. Buyers value honesty, and a clear cost page builds trust before the first meeting. Provide examples of how decisions about size and finish change the final number.
Which Berks County suburbs should my pool company build location pages for?
Choose the townships where you actually install, such as Wyomissing, Exeter and Spring, and build a page for each. Describe the typical lot, soil and slope you meet there, and how permits are handled locally. Buyers in those communities search by township name, so a page that shows real nearby jobs beats a generic Reading page.
What should a Reading pool company say about above ground pools?
Say plainly that an above ground pool can suit a small city yard and describe the realistic options, from a simple setup to a deck-surrounded model. Cover leveling, electrical needs and any permits. Honest content for tight yards attracts the buyers you can serve and filters out people expecting an inground project.
How early should I publish pool content for the Pennsylvania season?
Publish by late winter, because buyers research and book through the spring for an early summer opening. Add a page about timelines from design to first swim, and one about winter closing. Pennsylvania's cold months shorten the swimming season, so owners plan ahead and appreciate a builder who explains the schedule clearly.
How do I use photos of finished pools to rank for Berks County searches?
Photograph each project from several angles, then caption it with the township, pool type and notable features like a spa or a slope solution. Add alt text that names the place. Search engines and buyers both rely on those details to connect your work with a specific community, which builds the local proof a map result needs.
Should my site cover hot tubs for compact Reading yards?
Yes, a hot tub page can serve city owners who lack the space or budget for a pool. Explain pad requirements, electrical hookup, and how a tub fits a small rear yard or deck. Include sizes and what delivery access looks like on a narrow street. It turns a mismatch with city lots into a real service.
What reviews help a pool builder most when most work is outside Reading?
Ask for reviews that name the township and the project type, such as a gunite pool in a suburb or a liner replacement. Those details make your profile relevant to searches in the communities where you earn your money. Reviews from city customers help trust, but the suburban ones carry your search visibility.

Ready to rank for pool builders in your market?

Let our team run your SEO end-to-end, or put the Vibe SEO plugin to work today. Either way, you'll always know where your rankings, traffic and calls stand.

Questions? Call 866-VIBE-SEO and talk to a real strategist.