Archives for 2014

DaBrian Marketing Group Chosen to Redesign Local Law Firm’s Website

February 14, 2014 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

A West Lawn, PA-based law firm has chosen DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC to lead in the development, implementation, and configuration of its website redesign project.

Reading, PA – February 13, 2013 – Miller Law Group, PLLC, a law firm located in West Lawn, PA, has chosen Reading, PA-based DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC, a full service digital marketing agency, to redesign the firm’s website.

With experience spanning over 40 years, Miller Law Group, PLLC has built a reputation of providing clients with devoted, passionate, and professional legal service. Where other law firms may concentrate solely on a rapid legal resolution, Miller Law Group chose to differentiate itself by forming a personal connection with each person or business it represents. In support of the firm’s mission, Miller Law Group’s founding partners resolved to focus on marketing themselves in lieu of doing so with the overall brand.

“The Miller Law Group has grown tremendously over the last 13 years based upon our individual reputations as lawyers. However, as we have now begun to expand the firm and offer the same personalized service throughout multiple attorneys, it became apparent that we needed to market our extremely reputable brand itself, to get across the message that we now have a full firm offering the same excellent services,” said Larry Miller Jr., Esq., managing partner of Miller Law Group, PLLC. “DaBrian Marketing Group has been instrumental in getting that message across, and we are excited to be working with this innovative company.”

Through initial discussions, it became clear that the firm’s brand must be able to stand on its own in order to make any progress from a marketing standpoint. With that in mind, DaBrian Marketing Group designed, developed, and programmed an all-new website built upon the flexible, open-source WordPress content management system. Throughout the process, DaBrian Marketing Group adhered not only to the most current web design best practices, but also considered Miller Law Group’s digital brand identity.

“Making the transition from primarily traditional marketing to digital often poses many challenges,” said Daniel Laws, principal of DaBrian Marketing Group. “For Miller Law Group, we worked to create a website design and write page content that reinforced key branding components and, at the same time, supported the traditional marketing efforts that the firm conducted in the past.”

The new Miller Law Group, PLLC website can be found at millerlawgroup.net. You can also check out our past design work in our new portfolio!

No SEO or New SEO?

February 5, 2014 by Dabrian Marketing Group 1 Comment

Is SEO No More?

Google’s Hummingbird algorithm update has created quite a stir in the realm of SEO. Some have even gone as far as to say that SEO is dead. In reality, SEO is far from being “dead”, in fact, SEO has changed quite drastically. Google and other major search engines are shifting away from isolated keyword-centric relevancy and run-of-the-mill directory submissions and are focusing on broader keyword categories as well as quality, shareable, and relevant content.

Relevancy of Keywords

With the recent algorithm change, many have questioned whether keywords still matter in the process of SEO. Keywords are still a significant part of the overall SEO process; however, search engines will not be looking for them in isolation.

When we mention keywords, the idea of a specific search-term may come to mind. With the implementation of Hummingbird and the other algorithm changes, the idea of keywords encompasses a broader category. Keyword qualifiers are an important aspect to consider when researching keywords. Qualifiers refer to the words in a keyword phrase that specify time, quality, location, and user intent. Though you want to keep a general category in for keywords, qualifiers will be important in more specific landing pages. For example, if you’re operating an online store for shoes, searchers will most likely be looking to research/purchase a specific product and will use query a specific term, such as, “buy canvas shoes.”

Are Content and Linking all That Matter?

As mentioned earlier, content is king of the SEO and digital marketing realm. Is this all you have to do? Just create content and share it? Even though this is a keystone of the new SEO strategy, it’s not an “end-all-be-all” solution. Though the SEO process is changing drastically, it’s still a complex machine that requires several working parts to produce results.

Long gone are the days of simply just submitting URLs to directories. Linking now focuses on creating unique and shareable content and disseminating it through reliable sources. Rather than thinking of this process as link building, it should be thought of as link earning. Links can be earned through sharing unique content that provides value to the reader, such as how-to-guides and infographics (ensure that they are relevant to your topic).

Conclusion

Despite the SEO world being shaken, it is here to stay. The entire SEO process still maintains traditional elements such as keywords, linking, etc., but they must be looked at from an updated viewpoint. Keywords must be imagined in broad categories that can encompass a variety of keywords rather than one specific term. Link earning strategies should focus on creating unique and shareable content that provides value to the reader and that is disseminated to reliable, trustworthy sites. With these parts in play, you’ll be able to produce a workable SEO plan for the updated digital space.

Have any questions about the new SEO process? Contact us today or leave a comment!

Native Ads: A Blessing or Curse?

January 29, 2014 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

First, in case you have not heard, Native Advertising is creating and placing ads to match the content surrounding it, in that the users’ experience is not disrupted by the presence of the ad. Examples of Native Advertising online include PPC Ads on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), Twitter’s promoted Tweets, and Facebook’s Sponsored Stories. In all three of these examples the ads look and act very similarly to the non-ad content on the page.

On One Hand, Native Ads are a Blessing

Since Native Ads do not stand out as ads from the surrounding content, it is less likely that users will ignore these ads, which is currently a problem with typical banner ads. This will in turn increase the interaction rate (i.e. Clicks and CTR) of these ads. This is a huge blessing to the online advertising, specifically display advertising, which has a very low average CTR over the years. Advertisers are hopeful that Native Ads could help revive display ads and spur on additional growth of online advertising.

On the Other Hand, Native Ads are a Curse

While resolving some problems, Native Ads are dangerously deceptive and could result is much worse problems. These ads could easily be mistaken as content rather than a paid advertisement. In the IAB Native Ad Playbook, they recommend that a disclosure is prominent so that users clearly know the difference between ads and content. In my opinion this distinction is a must. Online advertising is already fighting an uphill battle for users’ trust – Thank You Pop-ups, Pop-unders, and malware spreading via ad clicks. Now, if we as online advertisers begin to disguise our ads as content, the little trust we have regained will once again be lost.

Conclusion: Native Ads Good or Bad?

Native Ads have a huge upside and have already made a big impact to online advertising. As more websites build in spots for Native Ads, it becomes increasingly important to clarify the distinction between content and paid ads. As advertisers we decide whether native ads will be a blessing or a curse to online advertising. Personally, I think that marking Native Ads as paid advertising will not cause them to be ignored like other banner ads, and would still have the higher CTR. I think the potential of these ads is far greater than the down-side, and that the down-side can be completely avoided. We as advertisers need to use these ads wisely to reap the benefits, but not suffer the curse and loss users trust in online ads.

We would love to hear your thoughts and insights on Native Ads. Are Ads become too close to content? Is that a good or bad thing for PPC Advertising?

Sequential Messaging in Digital Advertising

January 15, 2014 by Daniel Laws 5 Comments

Defining Sequential Messaging

If you’re a follower of @DaBrianMarket or @DanielLawsJr, you have most likely seen our past tweets about sequential messaging. Sequential Messaging is generally a technique where messages are recorded in a preset order and executed individually based on the each activation of a device (tablet, smartphone, etc.).

So, What’s the big deal with sequential messaging?

Sequential Messaging has an opportunity to leverage the initial user interaction into a micro-conversion and target high quality leads. As an example, a shopper would click on a banner ad on a newspaper site for a new tablet. This action identifies the shopper as being interested in a new tablet and generates a series of sequential messages specific about the new tablet. The series of sequential messages could be on banners, emails, and perhaps in search engines. In some cases, the ad mix can be modified based on the shopper’s engagement with them.

What are the Future Possibilities of Sequential Messaging?

I think the future of sequential messaging is positive but contingent on the availability of technology to executive effective campaigns. I think there’s an opportunity to “connect the dots between digital advertising, TV advertising, mobile and gaming consoles.” It’s going to get easier to customize messages across devices with online tool-based logins, smart TVs, mobile devices, and gaming consoles offering more functionality and capabilities.

Take me for example. I’ve got a Samsung smart TV, Galaxy S4, Kindle, and more. My cell phone, which is connected to my Kindle, can change my TV channel. Thus, there’s no reason advertisers can’t create customized sequential messages across multiple devices. The capabilities of ad technology will be important to align with customer behaviors across multiple devices in order to customize the user’s overall experience with the brand. More specifically, it’s important that we obtain insights from sequential messaging to increase the effectiveness of marketing budgets and the ability to increase lead generation or sales.

What are the Challenges of Sequential Messaging in Digital Advertising?

In my opinion, one the main challenges will be measuring the effectiveness of sequential messaging in digital advertising and optimizing the process. In addition, the measurement of sequential messaging along with A/B or Multivariate testing across multiple devices. With the increasing importance on customer privacy, it will become increasingly challenging to track prospective customers, and with the recent Target data security breach, customers are becoming aware of the negative aspects of data collection and value their privacy. Furthermore, the tracking of sequential messaging will most likely require the tracking of customers’ unique logins as well as combining the data on their behaviors across multiple devices. Without educating customers on the benefits of doing so, it could be seen as intrusive and encounter a legal backlash from customers.

What about Measurement?

Last month in AdWeek, I read an article from Garett Sloane of Omnicom Digital which spoke of “sequential messaging as digital advertising’s next act.” I agree with Sloane’s point that sequential message could be the next step in digital advertising, but the execution requires powerful technology as well as perfect coordination. I think there will be a few businesses that look at sequential messaging as the next buzzword (right next to “big data”).

No matter the approach, it still needs to solve a business problem. Without measureable ad technology and the capabilities to collect the data, we’re going to have challenges measuring whether or not a message is resonating with the “right” customers. The right message, right person, and right time require the right analytical approach to improve the impact that sequential messaging has on delivering return-on-investment.