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The 5 Questions Everybody’s Asking About Shopify

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Increased internet access means one thing for your business: it’s easier than ever to make money online. A variety of ecommerce platforms are now available to connect merchants with potential customers. Popular choices include WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, and X-Cart, but which one is the best for you?

The most popular ecommerce platform on the Internet is Shopify. Shopify is great if you’re just starting out in ecommerce. The platform makes setting up your online store simple and painless. With Shopify, anybody can become successful selling products online. Here you can find the answers to some of the most common questions people have about Shopify.

Shopify

How Shopify Works

Unlike other retailers, the Shopify merchant (you) doesn’t need to have their own inventory. Instead, you’re able to buy a product from another retailer after the customer places an order for it. This is a model called drop-shipping. This is great if you are starting out with little in terms of money or products. The retailer ships the products to the customer without you ever coming in contact with them. Shopify then pays you the difference.

What if you already have an existing line of products you want to sell? Great! Shopify can still work for you. Also, if you’re worrying whether or not the platform is secure, worry no longer. Shopify uses the most advanced security features in the industry, meaning yours and your customers’ money is safe. Shopify is a fantastic platform for getting a website up and running to give your business an online presence.

What To Sell On Shopify

The most important decision you will make for your Shopify store is picking a product to sell online. If you already have products, you can use what you know about your business and transfer it to ecommerce. If you’re going with the drop-shipping model, we recommend choosing a specific niche. For example, sell men’s golf clothing instead of all kinds of men’s clothing. This will keep your store from being buried under all the others selling broad categories of products.

How To Make Money On Shopify

You need to take the different products and prices of your competitors into account when running your ecommerce store. You should also put your best foot forward in terms of marketing. This is in order to attract enough clicks and impressions to keep your sales numbers up. Social media, SEO and Google Ads are all good ideas in terms of marketing since competition in ecommerce is high.

Make Money on Shopify

How To Set Up A Shopify Store

The Shopify platform makes it very easy and intuitive to start building your store. After creating your Shopify admin account, the first thing you need to do is start adding products. You add a product by going to the Products page, clicking “Add Product,” and entering a title and description.

Once all your products are added, you then need to pick a theme for your site. Pick a theme that you think best represents what you’re selling. For example, you don’t want to use a black-on-black theme to sell flower seeds. Finally, you must choose a URL that your customers can reach your store from.

DaBrian Marketing recommends that you use words in your URL that are relevant to what you are selling. If you want to sell flower seeds you should include either “flower” or “seeds” in your URL. This is so customers who click on a link to your site know what they’re getting into. There are detailed instructions on all of these steps on the Shopify website.

From this point, it’s all about organizing your ecommerce store for the customer. You should make your site as easy to use as possible so customers can find exactly what they’re looking for. This is an extremely important aspect of your online store. You’ll miss out on a ton of sales if the customer can’t find what they’re looking for.

You also have to think about making your website mobile responsive. A mobile-friendly design is extremely important in today’s market. Nowadays more people surf the Internet on their phones than on a desktop! Making your site the best it can be requires knowledge of web development and design. You can find free tips and resources for these areas in other DaBrian blog posts such as our recent articles on WordPress and Content Management Systems.

How To Find Shopify Stores

For the potential customers reading this, there are countless stores on the Shopify platform that sell a variety of products. You can find anything from clothing, watches, and eyewear to teas and electronics — and that’s just for starters. There are plenty of blog posts and resources available to help you find the perfect store for your needs. If you want to open your own store, it’s also a good idea to check out others that are successful. Shopify even gives out awards for the stores it considers the best in specific categories.

In conclusion, Shopify is a great option for people new to ecommerce. It’s simple, effective, and popular with people looking to shop online. With good marketing and strategy, you too can become an ecommerce success story!

Still have questions about Shopify or ecommerce as a whole? Contact us today or leave a comment below!

Increase Your Business’ Brand Awareness With SEO

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You have a great business that does fantastic work and offers quality products or services. So, why don’t more people know about you? Why isn’t your phone ringing off the hook and your email full? You have a website, that’s enough, right (it’s not)?

In order to increase your business’ brand awareness online, you need to be investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). According to a study by MarketingDive, 82% of participating marketers see SEO becoming more effective and 42% of this group stated its effectiveness is increasing significantly. This means that other businesses will be devoting more efforts towards SEO, which only stiffens the competition.

Build your business’ brand awareness and outperform your competitors online by utilizing the SEO tactics listed below.

1. Get In Front Of Your Audience With the Right Content

Unless you’re a large national brand, like Walmart® (if so, why are you reading this?), most people aren’t searching directly for your brand. Rather, they are typing in product/service related keywords.

To ensure your business pops up front and center amongst your competitors, you need to optimize your content to include the keywords and verbiage that your target audience and industry uses.

In addition to including the most relevant, trending, and traffic driving keywords, you also need to be cognizant of the forms of content you’re producing. Is your audience more susceptible to read blogs, articles, and white papers? Or, are they a younger, more visual audience who prefer videos and infographics?

By creating the appropriate content in the form most suited for your audience, users will be more likely to find and share your content. Thus, increasing the digital exposure your business receives.

2. Dominate the Local Market With Local SEO

For over a decade, Google and other major search engines have been placing a heavy emphasis on the importance of locality. Like your business, search engines also have a product and service, and their goal is to provide the most relevant and useful information to their users. While there are hundreds of factors that influence their results, the location has a massive impact, especially in regards to business-related searches.

To enhance your business’ local performance, there are a few tactics you’ll need to pursue:

Optimizing Your Site Locally

  • Have your name, address, & phone number (NAP) consistent throughout the site.
  • Embed Google Maps on your contact page.
  • Develop localized content.
  • Link to local partnerships, memberships, and affiliations.

Being Listed, Active, and Optimized on Popular Local Platforms

Many of these platforms (like Google, Facebook, and Yelp) have a review functionality. Meaning, customers can leave reviews about your business directly on their platform for the public to see. By owning these accounts, you are able to clearly see what people are saying. This allows you to get in front of any potential negative situations that may occur.

By being on top of things, you have the opportunity to improve your business based upon feedback, and resolve the situation. Showing that you’re listening to your consumers and taking action will actually help improve your brand’s online public perception.

According to a study by Moz, online reviews have been shown to impact 67.7% of purchasing decisions. Being uninformed of your online reputation can potentially spell disaster for your business.

3. Build Links Through Local Influencers

Link building, or link earning, is the process of obtaining backlinks from other websites that lead back to your website. While many owners may not see the value or understand fully the impact link building has, it is a hugely important component of a local seo strategy.

To improve your business’ brand awareness in your local market, you should target the following sites in terms of link acquisition:

  • Local Business Directories
  • Local Chambers
  • Local Businesses
  • Local News Stations
  • Local Bloggers/Social Influencers

Being listed on these sites will send local signals to search engines and place your website in front of your local audience.

Build Your Brand Organically

Increasing your brand awareness through SEO can take some time, but it’s well worth it. By following all of the steps and tactics mentioned above, you’ll set the foundation for your business to flourish digitally within your target market.

Ready to improve your brand awareness online through SEO? Schedule a FREE consultation today!

By: David McDowell

Right Start Children’s Services Seeks Digital Marketing Support from DaBrian Marketing

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Reading, PA – October 25, 2017 – Right Start Children’s Services has enlisted the help of DaBrian Marketing Group to help parents and families find information about early intervention and pediatric therapy services available in Pennsylvania.

Many parents find their family therapists through a doctor’s recommendation. In a rush to secure help for their child, parents often accept the first recommendation they receive, sometimes traveling to a nearby county. While immediate care is always beneficial, finding the right therapist in the right location is essential for the health and development of a child.

Right Start Services came to DaBrian Marketing in search of a website redesign to provide easy access to relevant information and resources to help parents make informed decisions. The experts at DaBrian Marketing responded with a search engine optimization (SEO), local SEO, and content marketing strategy to help parents find appropriate services in their area.

Right Start Children's Services website

DaBrian Marketing performed extensive content optimization to help build awareness of Right Start’s brand, services, and service areas. They also gave the website a modern look and feel, with features like a sticky header, which is a common feature that allows the user to navigate the site without scrolling to the top to choose a different page or option. Other features, such as a Google map with polygons that indicate service areas, improve user accessibility by clearly displaying the appropriate information. The new Right Start Children’s Services site is mobile and tablet friendly so it fits correctly on screens of all sizes.

About Right Start Children’s Services

As an Early Intervention and Pediatric Therapy provider agency established in 2005, Right Start Children’s Services is a therapist owned and operated provider agency offering pediatric therapy services in a child’s home, school, daycare, or community setting. Services include behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, special instruction, and speech and language therapy. Right Start serves Berks County, Chester County, Lebanon County, Lehigh County, Montgomery County, and Schuylkill County Pennsylvania. Right Start Children’s Services is located at 204 Cameron Drive in Douglassville, PA. For more information, call 1 (888) 532-4671 or visit rightstartservices.com.

Healthy SEO Leads to Effective Healthcare Marketing

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Healthcare marketing can be very challenging. In fact, many healthcare facilities share the notion that new patient acquisition should mainly stem from referrals. While this certainly can be an effective method, it’s not a sustainable or very trackable method to gage success. To truly grow and expand your facility or practice, you’ll need to invest in additional marketing tactics, such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Attract New Patients With Optimized Content

So your healthcare facility has a website. That’s enough, right? Wrong! A non-optimized website is about as good as outdated or broken medical equipment. Sure, you have it, but it’s not really helping.

According to Google, 1 in 20 searches in Google are for health-related information. To ensure your website is capturing this audience, you need to have the appropriate content. Your content needs to:

Contain relevant, high-traffic driving, and trending keywords.

– The medical terminology you use, might not be the terms your patients are using. Do your research!

Answer popular questions

– When people search for healthcare related information, a lot of their searches are question based. Whether they are trying to find where you are, or what medical condition they have, you want to have that information on your site.

Discuss relevant and popular procedures/conditions

– Give users the background information they need so that they don’t have to look elsewhere.

Be The First Found When an Emergency Happens

When people have a medical emergency or issue they’ll often look for immediate help within their area online. If you’re not listed locally and your site isn’t locally optimized, you’re allowing you competitors to capture patients in need. To combat this, you’ll need to ensure the following:

NAP Consistency On Your Website

– Your business name, address, and phone number need to be listed accurately and consistently throughout your website on every page.

Your Local Listings are optimized

– Along with your website, your healthcare facility needs to be listed across the top local listings. Similarly to your website, the contact information needs to be consistent and accurate, too. However, just being listed isn’t quite enough. You’ll need to:

– Select relevant categories

– Add images

– Fill out descriptions

– Encourage Reviews

 – Aside from the fact that 90% of users read online reviews before visiting a business, reviews have also been discussed as a ranking factor. Although it has not been announced officially by Google, there have been studies (like the one done by Darren Shaw) that show a direct correlation amongst reviews and rankings. Reviews will also help to build trust before the first encounter.

Make It Easy To Schedule an Appointment or Contact You

According to KoMarketing, 51% of people think “thorough contact information” is the most important element missing from many company websites. To ensure your healthcare facility is providing the best user experience, your website should include:

– Your phone number, prominently placed towards both the top of the page, and within the footer. If you can make this number click-to-call, even better.

– A simple schedule an appointment and/or a contact form that asks for the least amount of information needed. According to Accenture, 66% of US health systems will offer digital self-scheduling by the end of 2019. Don’t get left behind!

– Your hours of operation/availability.

Connect Through Various Forms of Media

It’s 2017, people aren’t just reading text anymore. Most users want to see images and videos. It provides a good user experience and reaches users who are searching on other platforms such as Youtube. These images and videos allow you to show off your office, show your personality, and put a face to your practice. Often times, many people are hesitant or just downright scared to go to a healthcare facility. These will help create a relationship before it really begins.

In fact, users are becoming so comfortable with video that 64% of Americans would be willing to have a video visit with a doctor.

Final Diagnosis:

There’s a huge opportunity for your practice or office to grow and expand with healthcare marketing tactics such as SEO. With search interest and competition continuing to rise, you need to make sure your healthcare facility is out-in-front.

What marketing challenges has your Healthcare facility faced? Let us know in the comments below!

By: David McDowell

Penske Racing Shocks Receives Marketing Assistance from DaBrian Marketing

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Reading, PA – August 23, 2017– Penske Racing Shocks hand builds high-performance shock absorbers tailored to customer’s needs, and they wanted their website to match that performance. Perpetually driven to be the best at everything they do, Penske Racing Shocks gave DaBrian Marketing Group the green light to create a new Ecommerce website design and revamp the digital marketing strategy for the famous manufacturer.

web design services in Reading PA

DaBrian Marketing put a substantial amount of energy into giving the website a sleek new design. A combination of web design and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques made the new website a well-oiled machine for both Penske Racing Shocks’ customers and employees. Many of the updates were aimed at providing a smooth user experience while increasing the speed of the site.

After an in-depth analysis, the site was reorganized to allow potential customers to reach their destination quicker and easier based on specific racing style and environment. The ecommerce site’s product feed was also optimized to enhance user experience, help visitors find products easily, and increase product visibility.

Product feed optimization - ecommerce marketing

Today, the Penske Racing Shocks website is easy to use, pleasing to look at, and features live price updates, clear tax and shipping information, as well as convenient and secure payment gateways.

View the updated website at: https://www.PenskeShocks.com.

DaBrian Soups-up Penske Racing Shocks’ Ecommerce Marketing to Boost Sales

While the project has consisted mainly of web design, the professionals at the digital marketing agency have executed on other marketing initiatives as a part of Penske Racing Shocks’ Ecommerce marketing strategy. In fact, the first assignment DaBrian Marketing completed was a redesign of Penske Racing Shocks’ branded and product-descriptive flyers. The design of the flyers was the basis of the website design to ensure brand consistency.

DaBrian Marketing Group then provided a one-time social media marketing consultation to help Penske Racing Shocks reach more fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Aaron Lambert, Director of Competition, expressed his satisfaction with the partnership,  “Penske Racing Shocks number one goal is our customers. Whether it’s understanding how to rebuild their own shocks, tune their vehicle at the racetrack, or just find some information that will help them understand what they are buying. Here at Penske Racing Shocks we build championship winning suspensions, so we teamed with DaBrian Marketing to help give us that same quality in our marketing, website, and social media platforms. It’s been a great experience so far, and we are very excited to see our new website launch, as well as other exciting ideas coming down the line.”

As the relationship continues, Penske Racing Shocks plans to execute on email marketing campaigns for their Ecommerce website. Emails will be used to send newsletters, announce product updates, discuss maintenance availability, and remind users of forgotten items in their online shopping carts.

About Penske Racing Shocks

Penske Racing Shocks is the global leader in suspension technology. Formed in 1988, Penske Racing Shocks have a worldwide reputation for producing quality shock absorbers. Their mission is to supply customers with the best suspension technology and technical support available. Penske Racing’s office is located at 150 Franklin Street, Reading, Pennsylvania, 19602. Contact the company with questions or inquiries on their website, www.PenskeShocks.com or call 610.375.6180.

About DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC

Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency that provides original strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses. DaBrian Marketing Group’s services include email marketing, digital branding, search engine optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, web hosting, web design, web analytics, social media marketing, and more. Company headquarters is centrally located at 500 Penn Street, Suite 201, Reading, Pennsylvania 19602. For more information about DaBrian Marketing Group, visit DaBrianMarketing.com or call 610.743.5602.

The Importance Of Optimizing Your Business’ Local Listings

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Local listing creation and optimization is an essential part of an effective SEO strategy for local businesses (businesses targeting their local market). For over a decade now, locality and local SEO has continued to grow importance and influence digitally. While many business owners understand this at a basic level, several fail to maximize their efforts.

When it comes to local listings, a lot of businesses take the “set it and forget it” approach. To ensure your business isn’t leaving money on the table, you not only need to be listed on the top platforms, but you need to continuously optimize your account on a regular basis.

local SEO in Reading, Pa

Below are performance metrics for some of our clients on two of the top local listing platforms – Google My Business and Yelp.

Yelp

With nearly 150 million annual users and over 100 millions reviews since its inception, Yelp is a very important platform for your businesses to be listed and active on. It allows your business to showcase its products/services, information about the business, and is known for its reviews. Customers can voice their opinions/experiences first hand.

1. If not handled well, this can be a nightmare for a business.
2. If handled well, it can help boost your business past your competitors.

Below are screenshots of one of our client’s Yelp analytics. Prior to us managing their account in August of 2016, our client was simply listed on Yelp. There were only a few images, business information was incomplete, and reviews were left unattended.

Yelp User Views:

Local listing management in Reading Pa
  • 11 months prior to optimizing = 172 views – which is 15.63 views per month.
  • 11 months after we optimized = 574 views – 52.18 per month.
  • A 70% increase of views per month! 

Yelp Leads:

Yelp account management and optimization
  • 11 months prior to optimizing = 25 leads – 2.27 per month.
  • 12 months after optimizing = 79 leads – 6.58 per month.
  • A 65% increase in leads per month!

Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) is the most important local listing platform to utilize. Seeing that Google owns the lion’s share of the search engine industry, it’s important for your business to be on their local listing platform. Unlike other local listings, GMB results appear clearly with Google search results in either a widget form (for branded results) or within Google Map listings (for industry-related keywords).

We compared the 5 months prior to us optimizing our client’s account, to the 5 months after. Below are the results.

Google My Business account management and optimization
  • 5 months prior to optimization = 322 total actions* taken by users.
  • 5 months after optimizing = 1986 actions taken – an increase of 33.43%
  • 5 months prior to optimization = 12697 total views.**
  • 5 months after optimizing =  14520 – an increase of 12.56%
  • 5 months prior to optimization = 13191 total searches.***
  • 5 months after optimizing = 15274 – an increase of 13.64%
*For GMB, actions are defined as visits to your website, request directions, calls, and online chats.
** Total views includes both search views (views within Google Search) and map views (views within Google Maps)
***Total searches include both direct searches (branded searches) and discovery searches (industry keyword related searches).

To Wrap Things Up

Local SEO is a (as Donald Trump would say) YUGE digital marketing tactic for small/local businesses. With that being said, having a successful local SEO campaign takes consistent maintenance. Optimize and update your local listings to ensure your business crushes the local market.

Interested in local SEO? Contact DaBrian Marketing today!

By: David McDowell