Inbound Marketing

5 Steps You Can Take Today to Bring More Traffic to Your Website

July 23, 2020 by Daniel Laws Leave a Comment

Website traffic is an important business indicator and a driver for growth. You get to see how your marketing is working while gathering insight about your target audience. More traffic to your website builds your credibility on the web. It’s important to drive quality traffic that will impact lead generation and sales.

Create a Blog Editorial Calendar & Write Your First Blog Post

A blog is a regularly updated web page that is typically run by an individual or small group and is written in an informal or conversational style. Create a blog schedule or an editorial calendar that zeros in on your target audience questions, concerns, and challenges.

I recommend that the blog editorial calendar include who is responsible for writing, idea topics, and due dates. Start out small with 1 blog per month then make adjustments based on your goals. Consider how you will distribute the content to increase the likelihood that it will get into the hands of potential customers.

69% of businesses attribute their lead generation success to blogging. (Source: HubSpotⓇ)

Develop a SEO Plan to Increase Traffic from Google & Bing

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. SEO techniques include content creation, linking, site navigation, local business listings, site speed and more. Develop a SEO plan that is specific to your business situation.

Start by getting an SEO or website audit. The website audit will provide information on website issues that are hurting your position in the search engine results. You can get a free evaluation of your website:

The local business profiles on Facebook®, Google My Business®, Yelp®, and Bing Places® also attract more local customers. These business profiles should include reviews, maps, services, a link to your website, and a description of your business. This information is used to populate local listings and provide directions to your local business.

Try the Yext business listing scan to review your business listings.

According to consumers, businesses that respond to reviews are 1.7X more trustworthy than businesses who don’t (76% vs. 46%) Source: Google

Start Social Media Posting on Relevant Platforms

Social media enables users to create and share content, career interests, ideas and to participate in social networking conversations. What social media networks are your existing customers using? Share information that is useful to your customers. Use polls to get their feedback on your products and services.

Use social media as a distribution channel for your blog editorial calendar. I recommend adding a post to your Google My Business profile so that it stands out from others. Use social media management tools such as Hootsuite®, Buffer®, and SproutSocial® to schedule your posts.

LinkedIn’s number of users in the U.S. reached 160 million, making it the country with the most users in the world. (Statista, 2020)

Launch a Paid Search or Social Media Campaign

Paid Search or pay-per-click (PPC), search engine advertising, and sponsored listings are often used to define ad types such as Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Google Product Listing Ads, Google Shopping Ads®, and Bing Ads. Paid social media display advertisements or sponsored marketing messages on popular social media platforms and target a specific sub-audience.

Define the goals of the paid search or social media campaign before starting your campaign. Consider the type of ad campaign that would be most likely to succeed. For example, if you are selling ecommerce products, I recommend a shopping campaign. Create the campaign for your target audience that minimizes cost and improves results.

If you are already running a campaign, get a free paid search audit to improve your return on investment.

In 2019 the U.S. was the largest global market based on mobile advertising spending. (Statitsa, 2019)

Create Content for Your Target Audience

Content is high quality, useful information that communicates a story presented in a contextually or visually relevant manner with the goal of soliciting emotion and engagement. The content can be used as part of social media posts and added to your website for SEO.

Create content that is useful to your potential customers and target audience. For example, I recommend video demonstrations, product guides, flyers, and brochures. These content pieces must be accessible via a mobile device.

70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. (HubSpot, 2020)

Combine Tactics to Increase Your Web Traffic Today

The increase in website traffic provides businesses with more opportunities to sell products or services. A one-size-fits-all model will not achieve your target results. All of these ideas are connected and will have a greater likelihood of achieving success when used in combination with each other

Understand where your business is going and measure if and how you are increasing traffic. Look to understand what is working and the impact that it is having on your sales. If you need any help, give us a call or check out our other blog posts on these topics.

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Drive Web Traffic With Paid Digital Advertising

February 28, 2020 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

You have a great looking website, but this is not Field Of Dreams. Just because you built it does NOT mean people will come. So, how do you increase traffic to your website? Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Email Marketing, Paid Advertising, etc… Where should you start???

Here are a few questions to consider:

Is your website mobile-friendly?
Is your content clear and concise?
Is it easy to achieve the end goal on your website?
Do you have a budget to acquire more traffic?
Do you need web traffic immediately?

While all of the above listed options are valid methods to increase traffic, some take time (SEO), or require an existing audience (Email and Social Media.) However, if you answered “Yes” to all the above questions, then you are ready to run Paid Digital Advertising. Running Paid Ads isn’t quite that simple. What kind of ads – Search, Display, Video or Shopping? Where will these Ads be shown – Search Engines, across the internet, on Social Media? And very possibly the most important how will you reach your desired audience (targeting settings)?

While this blog will never answer all your possible questions about Paid Digital Advertising, let’s at least tackle some of the big ones.

1. Type of Paid Digital Ads

Search Ads – Context based ads that appear above and below Search Results. These ads consist of Headlines, Body Copy, URL and often various Extensions (ie. location, phone numbers and other additional information.)

Display Ads – Image ads that show on various sites above, below, next to, and among a websites content. Since these ads are not the primary reason a person comes to the given website, they need to grab their attention and give them a reason to click.

Video Ads – Often shown before, after or during a desired video similar to a tv commercial. Again, this ad needs to distract a person from their desired video and give them a reason to click.

Shopping Ads – Product focused with the goal for selling typically via an ecommerce site.

2. Placement of Paid Digital Ads

Search Engines – Seems obvious, but Search Ads are shown on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP.)

Display Network – Display Ads can show almost anywhere on the web. There are several Display Networks with the most popular being the Google Display Network (GDN) which boasts to include over 2 million websites,videos and mobile apps. Since videos are included in the Display Network, your video ads will show on this network along with your display ads

Shopping Ads – These ads mostly shown on Search Engine Shopping sections (Google and Bing). However, depending on targeting setting your shopping ads could also be Display ads and therefore be shown across the Display Network.

Social Media Advertising – Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and several other social media platforms have their own Advertising platform. These ads are often similar to display ads, since they are often shown along the side of the page and are not based upon a search, but rather other targeting settings (geographic, demographic and more.)

3. Target Audience

The success of your Ads ultimate starts with your targeting settings. Even with the greatest Ads (search, display or other) shown to the wrong audience will never succeed, While Search Ads are primarily targeting and shown based on what a user searches, there are several other targeting settings involved. A short list of setting that can (and should) be setup on most, if not all, Paid Digital Advertising campaigns:

Geographic Location
Day Parting/Time of Day
Demographics (Gender, Age, Parental Status, Household Income)
Interest/Topics (for Display Campaigns)
Bidding Strategy
Device Targeting/Bid Adjustments
ReMarketing/Similar Audiences/In-Market Audiences

Following this very oversimplified process to setting up your Paid Digital Advertising will help put you on the path to not only driving web traffic but also growing your business and bottom line. However this is only getting you setup, you will still need to monitor and optimize your Paid Advertising campaigns on a regular basis.

Ready to Start your Paid Digital Advertising? Want Help setting up, monitoring and optimizing your Advertising Campaigns, or just have additional questions – Contact DaBrian Marketing Today.

Grow Social to Build Your Brand

March 12, 2018 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Social media has exploded exponentially the past few years. It started off as a way to share a conversation with a colleague (Facebook), share music with a friend (MySpace), or write all of your personal thoughts in a public diary (Every platform?). But, it has grown into a marketing tactic to allow businesses to get their products or services seen and in the right hands. With how simple it is to click “Buy”, it’s now crucial for businesses to maintain active social media accounts. If you haven’t come to this realization, you’re falling behind.

Creating an account and “posting” just isn’t enough. How do you create worthy content for your customers? How do you portray that your brand is the best to new customers? How do people even find what you’re posting!? With the right advice, this can all happen in no-time.

First Things First: Build Your Organic Reach

With Facebook’s new algorithm, it has become harder to build your organic reach, but doing so will only expedite your social success. Share a mix of intriguing content letting users discover not only helpful tips or information about your industry but allow them to get to know your business and your employees. Customers want to get to know YOU, your employees, and your personality. Any business with a strong company culture can soar on social media, no matter which industry you’re in. If your not an old, bland company, prove it.

Poor Big Mac®, stuck with frozen beef. pic.twitter.com/0r5beTPQfo
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) March 6, 2018

Wendy’s strong social media presence gets everyone talking, even their competition.

— If people like your content, this can also help your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, too! Social posts can be found in search results. —

Make It Known You’re There to Help

When someone messages your company on social media, do you reply? Do you wait days to respond? Do you have an automated message setup and think that’ll suffice? Customers want to speak with one individual, real human being NOW. A bot or automated response may be a time saver and at times, helpful, but it won’t do anything for the customer and in turn, your business. Most feel more comfortable writing to a business rather than calling about a question. Make it known that no matter how they reach out, you care enough to respond. So start getting those responsiveness rates up on Facebook!

Spend Money Where It’s Worth It

While growing your accounts organically is important, there’s nothing wrong with putting money behind the posts that are worth it! In fact, it’s important! There are several opportunities across all platforms that, depending on the scenario and the goal, you should put a few dollars behind. Facebook advertising can benefit almost every business. For this reason, Facebook offers many opportunities to do so such as Boosted Posts and Facebook Advertising. There even is a special, additional way for local businesses to expand their reach. Before you start spending money, think about what you’re trying to accomplish, what will resonate with your audience, and how much should your company spend on this ad? You’ll be surprised how little that cost could be.

Build a Brand Worth Talking About

Building your online presence is an ongoing process and takes a lot of time. While these tips will get you started, there’s much more you can do! If you still don’t see that you need to combine social media with all your other marketing efforts, let’s have a chat – especially if you’re a local business.

Why Your Brand Should Be Using LinkedIn

January 31, 2018 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

In an era of ever-increasing online interaction, social media is one of the most easily-accessible and useful tools in your business arsenal. While Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have rightly earned their status as social media heavyweights, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of LinkedIn’s punch when it comes to promoting your business and boosting your sales. From lifting the lid on internal talent, to curating content: here are some key reasons why your business needs to embrace LinkedIn.

The Right Audience

Over 500 million professionals are on LinkedIn, and as it’s a social channel created for business interaction; its users are already there with their business hats on. On other social media channels, users might have primarily logged on for amusement, friendship etc.; on LinkedIn they are already in the right networking mindset, so it’s the perfect place to execute your business marketing strategy.

Not only are these people switched on and engaged, they are also probably more likely to be key decision-makers and engaged industry professionals. The perfect people your business should be talking to…

However; that doesn’t mean that you should go overboard and hard-sell, or forget the human side of business. Following top entrepreneurs will give you a good yardstick to follow, as they often balance business updates with engaging inspirational posts and stories.

Showcase Your Brand

LinkedIn lets you create a company page for free, which includes space for your company logo as well as a description about the brand. From here you can publish and share content — the first step for getting noticed.

It’s an easy, simple, and pain-free way of getting your message out into the world — and can also become a central spoke for employee engagement and content curation efforts. Use LinkedIn updates to welcome new team members, share company milestones, and cover any relevant industry events.

As well as being an excellent platform to highlight your brand ethos and vision, 64% of social referrals to company websites come from LinkedIn, so it’s also successful at directing potential clients/associates to your homepage.

Clever Content Marketing

Great content marketing material should educate, inform, or entertain your users. LinkedIn is ideal for promoting informative blog content or useful, practical advice about running a business. You will also find that inspirational people stories or anecdotes do well on LinkedIn, as does any relevant event coverage.

When planning out your LinkedIn strategy, make sure you mix up post formats and messages so as not to not have a brand that’s on social ‘autopilot’. You need to get to grips with brand storytelling, not broadcasting.

Just remember that images and links are key to well-performing posts on LinkedIn – 98% of posts with images receive more comments and posts with links in have a 200% higher engagement rate.

You should also encourage team members to publish native content on LinkedIn. The platform gets a lot of engagement, and it’s a fantastic place for events roundups, and short, reflective posts.

Connect with other experts

80% of all B2B leads come from LinkedIn. If you run a B2B company, LinkedIn provides the perfect opportunity to reach out to potential clients and form strong business bonds. It’s a great way to give back to your community of clients and associates — you can share their content, endorse them, and generally keep in touch.

Even if you have a consumer-facing company, you can still utilize LinkedIn’s large wealth of contacts by forging alliances for things like partnership marketing. It’s also ideal for scouting out new suppliers and distributors if you run an e-commerce business.

The rules of social networking are shifting, but the basics still ring true: listen, be authentic, and connect with meaning.

Another level of interaction

LinkedIn prioritizes relationship building. Whenever you send an invite to someone to ‘connect’ with you, instead of a blanket request being whizzed straight out, you can fully personalize the invite to explain why you’re getting in touch, where you found their details etc. You can also use the ‘cold’ mail option on LinkedIn: this is a scalable sales channel.

There is also the groups section where you can opt to meet with people who have similar interests. By joining groups that are populated by your target audience, you can then use this as a forum to promote your content. (But again: have respect for community).

A useful research tool

LinkedIn not only helps you promote your company and engage with clients and consumers, it’s also the perfect place to suss out the competition, talent spot, and generally keep your fingers on the industry pulse. If some of your rivals have a bigger presence, you can observe what they do and which circles they operate in.

LinkedIn is a place where many interesting conversations take place, but you run the risk of missing out on them, if you don’t engage. It’s a good idea to earmark some ‘engagement’ time in your social calendar, to help you unearth conversations that are worth listening too. Don’t forget that a roundup post of content found on LinkedIn is a quick way to leverage the channel elsewhere.

Whether it’s for building your brand reputation, making important business connections or distributing your content marketing, LinkedIn can truly transform your company. Leverage the power of LinkedIn for your marketing strategy and you’ll see increased engagement, SEO clout, and sales. If what we’ve said isn’t enough to convince you, just check out how these successful CEOs use it to their advantage.

Victoria Greene is a content consultant. On her blog, VictoriaEcommerce, she shares tips on how companies can improve the way they represent their brand. She is passionate about using her experience to help brands improve their reach across a variety of different social or content channels.

Social Media Marketing: An Effective Sales Tool For B2B Companies

September 12, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group 1 Comment

Social media marketing initiatives do not have to be strictly for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. Yes, social media is used for connecting with loved ones, watching dog memes (because who doesn’t love doing this?), and sharing cool activities you’ve done recently, but we can’t forget one important detail. These same people have day jobs that your company could do business with.

Business-to-business (B2B) companies have the same opportunities to create relationships and leads with other professionals to grow business and increase revenue.

Where to Start with B2B Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ are all social platforms a B2B manager should utilize.

LinkedIn is clearly the one platform that has the reputation for being for professionals. It includes tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator and advertising methods like Sponsored InMail that assist with targeting the right prospects.

Twitter

Some may find this surprising, but Twitter falls second in generating leads. Most of my clients, whether B2B or B2C, are actively engaging with other businesses on Twitter. This on-the-go app makes it easy to share quick snippets and enticing phrases that lead to content and strengthen the case to work with you. Google also takes into consideration Twitter signals where individual tweets have the potential to be linked directly on the search and help your rankings. Plus, posting a few times per day is accepted here, so share as many articles, stories, or images as you’d like!

Facebook

Facebook is the head honcho of social media, but it’s mostly considered as a B2C marketing channel, however, this needs to be part of your social media marketing strategy as a B2B company. Use photos and videos to catch the attention of users on your latest new content, industry statistics, or share expert advice.

Facebook Live is another great visually appealing way to start the conversation with prospects by having them comment during the stream. There are multiple other ways to target B2B prospects such as social advertising or as simple as engaging with another business’ content. Experiment to find out what works for you.

Google+

Google+ has over 300 million users as of 2016 – believe it or not. While many businesses don’t take advantage of this platform, it has its perks for any B2C or B2B company. Forming communities on G+ will help start the conversation with customers and prospects. These communities can serve as forums to aid with customer service or chat with leads. On top of this, the search engine optimization (SEO) benefits are also exceptional since Google search and Google+ integrated. Google has slight favoritism for its own social platform.

You might as well get used to using it now because it’s not going anywhere. By 2050, it’s reported that every business will have a Google Plus page.

Share Relevant Content Consistently

Grasping the concept of reaching out to prospects through social media is easy, however, what to post may not be. Content marketing is critical when utilizing social media for your business. Show your audience and your prospects that you are an industry thought-leader and know what you’re talking about! And hey, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. All it takes is the time and knowledge to create a piece of material that’ll convince your future customers to sign on with you. Drive people to your website. Make let them learn more about what you have to offer. Get people talking about your brand!

Monitor Your Online Brand and Reputation

People always have an opinion about your work or company. This could be from your employees, customers, or competitors. Unfortunately, social media is typically the first place people go to complain or share negative feedback. Being the first to respond and to react to these situations will only allow for a better outcome.

But don’t forget to thank those who give you the 5-star reviews, too! Appreciating your customers for taking the time to share their experience will go a long way.

Regular Social Monitoring Helps With:

– Voluntary Feedback

– No matter the sentiment behind the review, it can only improve products/services, attract customer, and allow for additional customer service.

– Employee Actions, Images, and Posts

– Some companies have strict social media policies that restrict an employee in engaging in certain behaviors online.

– Handling an Immediate Crisis

– Negative feedback can spread like a wildfire in today’s online world. Be the first to address the situation and hopefully, convince the user to take it down.

– Attracting New Customers

– When your content is shared, you have the ability to get in front of new prospects you might never have thought of.

– Tracking Competitors and Industry Trends

– What are you competitors talking about? What’s trending? What should you be addressing in your feed?

Social Media Marketing is Right for Your B2B Company

Social media marketing works hand-in-hand with content marketing, search engine optimization, customer service, brand management, and so much more. Skipping out on this marketing tactic is a mistake. When you find the right platforms and strategy for your business, your sales will reflect this. Your hard work will pay off as long as you keep at it.

Interested in learning more about the tips and tricks to social media for growing your business?

2017 Social Media Updates

June 27, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group 4 Comments

In my younger years as a millennial, there seemed to always be a new social media platform. From Xanga, to Myspace, and then finally to Facebook, none of them seemed to stick around and keep our attention. However, Facebook started a new trend – consistent updates and new features. Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram also utilize this method to stay relevant and appealing to its users. These updates are critical to their survival.

As a millennial, these changes were simply… fun. But, now as a social media marketer, they are important to keep your audience’s attention. Only half way through the year and we have seen many updates thus far! Here are a few of the latest.

Twitter - Live From The Twittersphere

Twitter has been having an identity crisis. Competing with the ‘almighty’ Facebook could leave it feeling lost and distressed. Last year, began its outcry to rebrand itself. They began to reiterate the fact the Twitter is for what’s happening right now around the world. This led to the recent launch of the #SeeEverySide campaign. This will feature tweets from real people across the globe of every point and perspective. Check it out:

Who’s your greatest of all time?#SeeEverySide https://t.co/x3g3fHVur1
— Twitter (@Twitter) June 26, 2017

In addition to its fight to stay top-of-mind, they’ve recently unleashed its ‘refreshed’ look. Some features were initially on Android last year, but after a lot of approval, it is now on IOS, too. The Twitter updates include:

Reorganized navigation
Articles open directly inside app, so a user stays logged in
Bolder headlines and refined typography.
New symbols – Many new users complained the old reply button looked like a ‘back’ or ‘delete’ button.
Live updates on likes, retweets, and replies proving Twitter is providing you real-time information

At the request of its users, major improvements have made the user experience great. Most people are pleased with how it looks. Next, Twitter needs to listen to the businesses, those connecting with their users, to provide each “Tweeter” an even better (local) experience.

Snapchat - “X” Marks The Spot on Snap Map

Snapchat, another “real-time” social media platform not only has consistent updates, but very unique ones at that. The latest update, which has been stirring up controversy, is their Snap Map. You can explore any event around the world and see exactly where your Snap-friends are at that moment. Snapchat wants you to see where your friends are or local events nearby, so you can join in on the fun, too! This worries parents, but the company assures anyone who does not want their location visible to friends, the user can turn on ‘Ghost Mode’ to disable the Snap Map.

A business update Snapchat has implemented is that every business now has its own geofilter. It shows the business name along with the city it’s located in. This screams to me, “Brand Awareness!” and I like it, a lot.

Instagram - Helping Businesses Tell Their Story

Since being bought by Facebook, a lot of what you see on Facebook is also on Instagram which now makes it a major competitor. Instagram’s recent updates focus more on businesses who use platform than their audiences. Instagram Stories now has business tagging and linking. From someone’s story, a location can be found on a map or an external link can be clicked on. Instagram Story ads also have new objectives (not simply to build brand awareness). We can now track reach, video views, traffic to a website, conversions, and mobile app installs which will be great to track future performance of a particular ad.

Facebook - The Older You Are, The Wiser You Get

Lastly, my absolute favorite to manage – Facebook. As soon as I finish writing this, I am sure that Facebook will be soon releasing another new feature that we will have to get up-to-speed with (and personally, I am completely okay with that – hence why, I love social). If you currently are on Facebook or are running a Facebook account get ready for:

GIFs in comments – However, I can’t wait until these are added to posts
More control over ad placement – The location of ads will change slightly
Soon-to-Come Cover Videos along with new text headlines – How fun is that?!
Target a particular post to a specific audience
Facebook Live updates coming soon – I highly recommend your business use Facebook Live
New Photo Album Features

Phew! This is a lot of to keep up with and this isn’t even all of it. In a few years, Facebook will release an augmented reality component. There are many things this will allow a user to do. One in particular, you will be able to leave secret messages for friends a bar or restaurant. By using the app, the message will appear exactly where they left it on the table or bartop.

Overwhelmed? This is why hiring a social media marketer makes your life easier.

While it might be a pain to constantly update your applications (and clear more room on your IOS system), your business’ social account must stay trendy and relevant. Your competitors may find new features to grow their business before you and you’ll be forgotten just like Xanga and MySpace.