DaBrian Marketing Blog: News, Insights, and Digital Marketing

6 SEO Tips for Businesses

February 22, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

As online search continues to increase, so does the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Almost every business (big and small) in America today has some sort of online presence. Here are 6 SEO tips for businesses every owner should follow.

1. Have Web Analytics in Place

Business owners are always looking for ways to increase their overall success. Well, how can you improve something you don’t measure? You can’t. However, by using analytics business owners can see everything they need to know about their business. It allows you to see the users visiting your site and their actions. It also shows you which pages are popular, which aren’t, and potential errors with certain pages. In analytics, you can define your business goals and track to see if you accomplish them. These goals could be a user filling out a contact/registration form or even making a purchase. Having analytics set up on a business’ site is absolutely essential for a successful SEO campaign.

2. Take Advantage of the Tools the Search Engines Give You

Many business owners share the misconception that online diagnostic tools are too expensive. This is not the case. In fact, Google and Bing offer these tools for free. By using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, a business owner is given the ability to see how search engines view his/her website; seeing which pages are eligible to show as results when someone does an online search.These tools also show search traffic, technical errors, and will offer tips on how to improve your online presence.

3. Start a Blog and Join One Too

An effective way to improve your SEO is to create a blog. Search engines love fresh content. Regularly updating your blog will improve the reach and visibility of your site. With that being said, why should you do all the talking? Join in on other industry related blogs and discussions. This not only allows you to see what is being said about your business/industry, but it also allows you to establish yourself as an expert in the field. The more user engagement, the better. If users feel that there is a relationship between them and the business owner, they are far more likely to visit your site, recommend you to others, or even better, purchase your product or service.

4. Earn Links and Build Relationships

Link earning and building are extremely important aspects of SEO. Obtaining links from other reputable sites tells search engines that you too are reputable and most likely have something important to offer to users. While this task may sound simple enough, it can be a difficult and lengthy process. Start by acquiring foundational links from trusted directories such as DMOZ. From there, try to earn links for trusted sites in your area, such as the Chamber of Commerce or a local business directory. An effective way to receive these links are by releasing newsworthy press releases. This also helps your business develop a relationship with news stations and the local community.

As you continue to gain high-quality links, your domain authority will increase. At this point, start looking for link opportunities on authoritative sites within your industry. For example, a link from MOZ would be huge for a digital marketing agency such as ourselves.

5. Dominate the Local Market

Local SEO is becoming more relevant and important than ever before. It is absolutely crucial that a business performs well locally. To do so, there a few steps you have to cover. First, make sure the name of your business, address, and phone number are prominent on each page of your site and consistent. The next is that you need to be listed and verified on local listings (Google My Business, Bing Places, and Yahoo Local). These listings will prove the validity of your business to users and search engines. The last step is to take advantage of your local directories. Being listed in your local business directory will help you gain more visibility which in turn should drive relevant traffic to your site.

6. Include and Update a Sitemap

What’s the point of consistently adding content if search engines can’t find it? Sitemaps are a way to tell search engines about pages on your site they might not otherwise discover. In its simplest terms, an XML Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that search engines know about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by their normal crawling process.

If creating a sitemap sounds far too technical for you, don’t panic. Simply go to a sitemap generator and it’ll take care of all the work for you. Once created, submit your sitemap to Google and also submit it to Bing.

Having an effective SEO campaign for a business is absolutely crucial for their success in today’s digital world. By following the 6 SEO tips for businesses listed above, your business will gain visibility, customers, and a leg up on your competition.

For more tips and information regarding Search Engine Optimization, Contact Us today!

By: David McDowell

5 B2B Web Design Trends to Consider in 2016

February 15, 2016 by Mark Mapp 1 Comment

Introduction:

Back in March 2015 I wrote a blog which covered “Five New Web Design Trends for 2015”. Although several of these trends have managed to survive 2015, there are some additional trends that could affect the usability of your B2B website. In this blog, I will go over five (5) additional trends that can help improve usability, increase website traffic, and help drive conversions.

1. More Unique & Creative Typography

With the emergence of affordable or free web-safe fonts options like Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit, typography is becoming much more unique, and creative. On many B2B websites, headers are becoming much bolder and body text is appearing much larger in size. In addition to latest evolution of the Cascading Style Sheets language, CSS3, styling typography will offer unlimited options on how it’s presented on the web going forward. Sites like StephenCraver utilizes great use of typography to carry the layout of the site.

According to HTTP Archive, the use of custom fonts has increased over the past year. Bolder, more unique typefaces will continue to be used in B2B web design going forward. While designers may still play it safe when it comes to choosing fonts for readable type and body copy, expect to see more unique and experimental font being used for website headers and supporting text.

2. Cards, Cards, and Even More Cards

As you browse the web, you may notice that many B2B companies are leaning more towards a card design look. This web design trend is most common on social media platforms, and most commonly associated with Pinterest, however many companies have adapted this trend and you should see more of it in 2016. Several other notable sites utilizing this trend are ESPN, Dribble, The Guardian, and Amazon.

3. Less Photography, More Illustrations

Before 2016, they were plenty of B2B websites that were overloaded with stock images as means of telling their brand story. If the appropriate images aren’t chosen, this direction could cause a big disconnect between your business and potential clients. In 2016, you will notice that many businesses will move away from stock photography (especially if they are not personable) and rely more on illustration graphics to tell their story.

You will find illustration being implemented in a variety of ways such as, large-scale, hero images and backgrounds, or on much smaller scales such as icons and user interface elements. Two nice examples of websites utilizing illustrations as it’s main source of graphics are McWhopper and Ice & Sky which combine large background illustrations and animation to tell their brand story.

4. Bolder use of color

In 2015, B2B companies who implemented flat design into their website more than likely utilized a color palette which was just a flat as the design itself. With that being said, 2016 promises to be much more colorful than years past.

Color has always been one of the most single important tools for expressing a company’s brand story or message. In prior years, many B2B companies stuck to “web-safe” palettes because of the some technology limitations. If you are looking for color inspiration websites like Adobe Color CC, Paletton, Coolors can help you put together some interesting color palettes. A couple examples of good color implementation on their websites are Bose and History Of Icons.

5. Keep On Scrolling and Less Reloading

To scroll, or not to scroll. This has always been a highly debatable topic for many. It seems that more people are finding it easier to scroll down a page rather than clicking, and loading another page. This is more relevant to smartphones users browsing on slow or limited data networks. Whether on mobile or desktop, scrolling can be a very effective way of telling a company’s brand story. If your B2B website is accustom to getting a high volume of mobile traffic, scrolling would be a much better user experience than a page refresh on any device.

Websites using a Parallax scrolling effect are often implemented as a way to tell a story and make layouts more dynamically appealing. Scrolling allows the content to be incrementally readable, allowing more options and visibility to other Micro Interactions. One of my favorite scrolling or parallax designs is the Lexus website. This website implements an excellent one-page design with sections that lead to other Call To Actions (CTAs) or micro interactions.

Conclusion

While it may not be necessary to implement every new trend into your website, many of them have the potential to improve user experience. Before following new trends, it is best that you have some knowledge of what they are and how they can affect your business. Once you have a strategy in place, implementing new trends and having the ability to test them will help you streamline that process. This will help you adapt to a trend that best reflects you and your business goals.

DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC Hires Director of Business Development

February 8, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC has further expanded its full-time staff to include a Director of Business Development, Doug Crawford. Doug is native to the Reading area and brings over 25 years of experience in marketing, management, sales and customer service.

“I’m excited to work with such an expert team that’s very dedicated to their crafts,” said Crawford. “Everyone’s involved in all aspects of the business and everyone can truly impact every decision.” “I’m eager to help make DaBrian Marketing a prominent agency in the local market and be able to showcase the expertise of the individuals that make up this agency.”

Daniel Laws, Jr., principal owner of DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC, said “We are excited to have Doug on board, and are committed to attracting and retaining local talent, like Doug. As point of our agency’s growth, we want to continue to service the digital marketing needs of the market. We believe that by adding a Director of Business Development, this positions us to address the needs of the market and solidify a critical role with DaBrian Marketing Group. It’s one of many exciting changes going on with our agency.”

For more information about our new Director of Business Development, Doug, visit dabrianmarketing.com

DaBrian Marketing Group Designs Local Coffee Shop’s Website

February 3, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

DaBrian Marketing Group Designs Local Coffee Shop, American Coffee House, Ecommerce Website

Reading, PA-based American Coffee House has selected full-service digital marketing agency DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC to design and develop its company’s ecommerce website.

American Coffee House is situated in the heart of downtown Reading, PA. They provide their café menu items with the freshest ingredients hand-picked from our talented local vendors. They have over 29 years of coffee experience, and they work to bring a smile to their customers and provide a warm environment to share with your family and ours.

Jennifer Kovacs, from American Coffee House stated, that “DaBrian Marketing Group is a wonderful company to do business with, they kept us informed of every step and created a fantastic website for our company.”

The new American Coffee House website can be found at americancoffeehouse.org

6 Ecommerce & Retail Store Metrics to Improve Sales

February 1, 2016 by Daniel Laws Leave a Comment

Put Your Retail Metrics & Ecommerce Analytics Into Context

There are so many metrics to help businesses improve sales, but there is so little time for the VP of Marketing or Sales. Let’s take a look at a few retail marketing metrics or ecommerce analytics to help you gauge success and improve your sales in-store & online. I recommend that you look at these metrics in the context of your product categories, marketing tactics that lead to visitors, geography, and your types of customers.

Sign-ups or New Accounts to Grow Your Customer Base

The growth of new sign-ups and new accounts gives you an opportunity to nurture the customer relationships and to ask questions to improve the business’s ability to cross-sell or up-sell your existing customer base. It will give you more details on the demographics new accounts or new customers. Ask in-store and online customers to sign-up for your newsletter, coupons, and notifications on upcoming ecommerce promotions or retail store events.

Coupon Redemption Rate for Insights & Sales Revenue

You are offering customers discounts, coupon rates, or rebates but are they redeeming your offerings? Improving the redemption rates will provide insights into which incentives lead to more (profitable) customers, in-store visits, online visits, and increase overall sales revenues. You will also discover whether or not in-store or ecommerce discounts lead to higher average order/in-store purchase value. If you don’t already know the answer, run a test to gather the information to identify which components are helping to increase your revenue.

Percent of Assisted Revenue Contributing to Market Share (dollar)

Assisted Revenue is monetary value of sales a channel (Direct, Email, or Organic) assisted in earning the sale. You want to know which marketing channels are contributing to the business’s revenue to guide the marketing budget allocation and future decision making. For example, if a customer initially comes to your website via paid search and later purchases directly on your website, you would attribute some of the sales to paid search as well as direct traffic. By identifying the marketing channel that is increasing the market share, you must use the information to evaluate opportunities to grow the market share while increase profitability. Start using the data import features within Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics for a complete picture of your retail marketing metrics or ecommerce analytics.

Average Order Value or Value Per Transaction for More Sales Revenue

You will generate more sales revenue by increasing your average order value or value per transaction. In addition, you will have insight into the Product SKUs and Product Categories that are increasing the overall value per transaction. With information on Product SKUs and Categories, you can make recommendations to increase your profits and return on investment (ROI). Identify the best mix of products to maximize your profits.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate for Better Conversion Rates

You worked hard to get a new account and have given the new prospective customer a coupon, but the product is still sitting in the shopping cart. Reducing your shopping cart abandonment rate means more sales and revenue. So, work to get better conversion rates by identifying the sale process and simplify the process for your customers.

Conversion Rates That Go Beyond Just Transactions

You always want to increase sales transactions, but consider the process that customers take before making a purchase. It often includes downloading some information, clicking on product reviews, signing up for a newsletter, sharing a product via social media, searching onsite for product details and more. You can and should capture this information as a conversion or an event, both online and in-store whenever possible. Have an internal discussion on questions the business has and the metrics that help you get answers.

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Top Trends for Social Media in 2016

January 25, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

With nearly 2 billion active social media users and with nearly 9 out of 10 companies in the US utilizing social media for marketing purposes, it is almost impossible for your business in today’s world to not be apart of the social media world in some regards. Here are some top trends for social media that could help to increase your company’s overall goals.

Allocate More To Video In 2016

In case you are living under a rock, social video exploded in 2015. Last year Facebook users around the world posted 75% more video than they did in the previous year, and with SnapChat tripling its daily views since May and reaching 6 billion daily video views, video is now one of the strongest contenders in 2016. Those numbers will steadily increase throughout the year and with most social networks like Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter seeing increases in 2015, other social networks are hopping on board. It was reported that Pinterest could also be hopping on the video advertising bandwagon in 2016.

Not only have video views and shares exploded on these social networks, but the use of video for advertising purposes has also steadily increased. A video can engage with your current audience and potential customers like never before. If video is not somewhat apart of your content strategy in 2016, it might be time to re-evaluate and allocate more efforts in creating relevant video content.

Allocate More Resources and Budget To Social Media

With the increase of users on every social media channel, advertisers are taking notice and increasing their advertising spend on these social channels. Not only are advertisers spending more but they can reach their audience like never before. Now advertisers can not only set up their target audience using their age and gender, but they can also target their audience by interest and location. The ability to now target your audience more specifically can help your business get the most value from your ad spend by reaching only the people that matter to you.

Employee Advocacy

For larger companies having a team dedicated to marketing and social media can have its benefits, but any company, no matter the size can benefit from your employees being advocates for your company. When it comes to sharing the latest and greatest news about your company and or products or services, who knows your brand better than your employees? Content first relayed by your company and then shared by your employees has the potential to reach more current and potential customers. But be careful, you will want to connect with your employees who will be doing this and create viable content for them to reuse so that your brand message and the image will stay consistent.

Communicate With Your Customers

With so many people on social media, your company can respond to questions, comments, or concerns that your customers have in a timely fashion. Even if you have an angry customer commenting or posting a question, engaging with that customers and staying on top of comments and questions will get your company out in front of those negative comments. Not only does this engagement help to answer your customer’s questions, but it can also help to create meaningful relationships with your customers and your timely response could have the potential to create a customer for life. These few social media trends in could help improve your company’s reach, brand awareness, and overall goals. Will your company be on board?