Web Design

Three Considerations When Building an Ecommerce Website

June 19, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Building an Ecommerce website requires extensive planning to account for every detail; the product feed, the filtering system, and just the right amount of bandwidth to power a large site. From personal experience, many unknown issues may arise especially depending on the size of the business’ inventory. So, plan for the known and for the unknown you can’t control. Understand what you are diving into and what vital pieces that will make or break your Ecommerce website before you dive in head first.

The Three Ecommerce Website Considerations:

Product Feed:

The product feed is by far the trickiest piece of the puzzle unless you are lucky enough to be given a properly formatted one. Unfortunately, you most likely to need to scrape and reformat the file. To make things more difficult, you may need to build a product feed from scratch! Regardless, this can be a very complex process. It may involve stripping out unnecessary code. Any unused categories, tags, and images must be removed to speed up the site. This can take a significant amount of time depending on the size of the file but it’s mandatory to revise it.

Filtering System:

A filtering system won’t always be necessary depending on the amount of variations. I recommend a filter once you reach about 25 different products or variations. A filtering system can make for a much better user experience (UX) because it gives the consumer the ability to slim down their search to exactly what they’re looking for. In most cases, I like to rely on the product tags and categories to build filters which connects directly back to the product feed. Tagging should start with high-level categories and break down to very specific attributes of the product to ensure they can use the filter effectively.

Bandwidth / Power:

So, you have a couple hundred products and feel ready to build it on the first low-cost option. Will this work?

What seems like a simple build can easily blow up exponentially. Consider which platform is the best option for your Ecommerce site. You could start with Woocommerce, BigCommerce, or Shopify, also consider your website host. A few options you could use are WPEngine, Rackspace, or Amazon. With many products and variations, you will find that you don’t have enough power through certain databases to load the products fast enough. With slow load times, you are ruining the UX and in turn, your sales numbers.

To Wrap Things Up:

There are so many unknown issues that can arise when building an Ecommerce site. We, as developers, designers, and decision-makers, need to prepare and plan for the unknown as best we can. Do your research and study before you bite off something bigger than you can chew. If you do, you may end up hurting your own reputation as well as the others involved in the project.

What are the biggest issues you have with Ecommerce websites? Let us know in the comments below!

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

June 19, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Reading, PA – June 19, 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 not in hopes of growing their business, but rather in search of a website redesign to provide easy access to relevant information and helpful resources to help parents make informed decisions. The experts at DaBrian Marketing responded with a search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing strategy, and social media consulting to help parents find appropriate service in their area.

Right Start Children’s Services has an existing presence on social media, specifically Facebook, which continues under the management of one of the company’s owners. DaBrian Marketing provides account optimization and recommendations for Right Start’s Facebook page, on-going consulting, and analytics reporting on their performance. DaBrian Marketing also assists with guiding Right Start to take the appropriate actions that will benefit their social media presence.

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, 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.

About DaBrian Marketing

Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency. Focused on providing original and strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses, DaBrian Marketing Group offers a number of essential services, such as include content marketing, social media consulting, web hosting, local SEO, email marketing, digital branding, search engine optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, web design, web analytics, social media marketing, and more. For more information about DaBrian Marketing Group, located at 500 Penn Street, Suite 201 in Reading, Pennsylvania, visit dabrianmarketing.com or call 610.743.5602.

DaBrian Marketing Redesigns Grove Dental Group’s Website

May 2, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Visitors to Grove Dental Group’s new website benefit from improved usability as well as enhanced accessibility to research and register for dental services.

March, 2017 (Reading, PA) – In coordination with managing their digital marketing to reach new patients, DaBrian Marketing Group noticed that Grove Dental Group’s website needed a new layout and structure to rank higher on search engines and improve usability.
The website’s new design and architecture improves both the business’ visibility on search engines and allows customers to easily learn about Grove Dental’s services. This involved organizing the content of Grove Dental’s former website into an updated structure. This enhanced the indexability and significantly improved the value of Grove Dental’s content to search engines. Overall, users on major search engines, such as Google and Bing, are now more likely to find and visit Grove Dental’s website.

Visitors to Grove Dental’s website also experience an increase in speed when they navigate through pages. The new, simplified design decreases the time that is required for each page to fully load. After a visitor finds the service in which he or she is interested, a newly created registration form allows that person to immediately contact Grove Dental’s staff and schedule appointments. DaBrian Marketing Group placed these registration forms on the new website to expedite people’s next step from learning about Grove Dental to actually requesting their services.

Megan Link, Director of Projects, Marketing, & Financial Operations at Grove Dental expresses excitement over the improved capabilities of the website and DaBrian Marketing Group’s services:

“Partnering with DaBrian was a no brainer for us and we couldn’t be more pleased with the service they provide. DaBrian is like your best friend, always has your back and looks out for your best interest. They are really an extension of our team, and the transition was smooth and effortless on our part. Our new website is living proof of my statement. They knew when to ask questions about what we wanted, but really I had very little to do with the new website other than giving the final a-ok. I recommend DaBrian to any business looking to change their online appearance.”

Grove Dental’s precise branded guidelines made the redesign of their website a simple project without complications. Grove Dental concretely identifies its brand – from the personnel’s attitude and level of patient-engagement to the overall mission of the company. This allowed DaBrian Marketing Group to create a layout and structure that effectively communicates Grove Dental’s digital brand to potential patients. This redesigned website complements the organic (search engine optimization or SEO) and paid (pay per click or PPC) search engine marketing efforts as well as the social media marketing efforts that DaBrian Marketing Group continues to perform for Grove Dental.

Visit Grove Dental Group’s website to experience the latest web design project by DaBrian Marketing Group.

About DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC
Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency, focused on providing original and strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses, that want to create digital awareness, increase return on investment (ROI), and identify insights that not only will help achieve goals but will also help to increase your business’s efficiencies. DaBrian Marketing Group’s services include email marketing, digital branding, search engine optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, 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.

Why Your Business Might Need a One Page Website

March 6, 2017 by Mark Mapp 1 Comment

Among businesses throughout the world (and, possibly the universe), one page websites are becoming increasingly popular. Just take a look at this list of one page websites
from Awwwards. They go by several names – including “single page” and “pageless” web designs.

While there are lots of benefits to using this simple, visual, and text-light design, this doesn’t mean that a one page website is always the right choice, though. A perfect example is Parallax Scrolling – an often-used pageless layout. It emphasizes flat design and responsivity of background images. However, its use is limited to certain templates because of technical aspects of its programming.

Before you implement a one page website, decide whether or not it is right for your business and your unique marketing goals. If the following attributes sound like your business, you will most likely benefit from a single page or pageless web design.

1) Your Business Tells a Story

A continuous scrolling experience creates the perception that you are actually reading a continuous narrative or story. Each section naturally leads to another section because the bottom of each is a cliffhanger to the opening of the next. MayeCreate Design would agree with us on this one.

As a result of no links to other pages, it is necessary to develop interactive features on your website – such as animations or lightboxes. Digital Telepathy discusses this in a recent blog post. Since users are always contained within that single page rather than multiple pages, you can easily concentrate their focus to engaging features. This means that your website is really a funnel to a contact form, subscription, or purchase that gets you in contact with users (UXPin Studio’s blog post). Every story leads to an ending.

2) Limited Content

For businesses with a small number of major products or services, a one page website would definitely be a helpful way to display that information. Without numerous offerings or plenty of content, save time and money by conserving the amount of space on your website (UXPin Studio’s blog post).

Also, straightforward or proprietary service-related strategies benefit from a one page website. If you technically or legally can’t talk for pages and pages about your business, use what suits you. Like shopping for clothes, a small amount of content needs a right-sized website to maximize users’ engagement.

3) Selling Your Business a Whole Experience

Often, businesses sell products or services that nearly always go together. A single page layout is perfect if you usually end up selling your offerings as a package rather than as individual choices.

Users read about all of your offerings on “one page” or within the same space. This emphasizes that your products or services go together.

4) You Want Your Customers to Get Through the Website Fast

It is rarely the case that a business wants users to spend hours or even days visiting and returning to a website. The point is most often to drive profitable traffic to your office or phone, ASAP.

Pageless web designs are effective ways to quickly escort users through a brief introduction before generating meaningful interactions and conversions. WholeGrain Digital will tell you the same.

5) You Want Your Website Cheap

Finally, what probably matters the most to you: the cost of one page websites. Good news! They are often dramatically cheaper than traditional layouts because of the consolidated amount of space and streamlined content (Digital Telepathy’s blog post).

On the Other Hand...

Again, be mindful that a one page website is not right for every business. This kind of web design might make it difficult to track data in Google Analytics and make the time to load your website longer (WholeGrain Digital’s blog post). So, if you’re focused on measuring or analyzing your website’s performance, a single page web design might not be your cup of tea.

In the end: you don’t want to make the decision to use or not use a one page website without the help of digital marketing experts (you know, like the folks on our team #shamelessplug). There are lots of aspects of your business to consider – including those listed, above.

Seen any well-designed one page websites? What do you look for in an interactive website? Let us know what you’re thinking in the comments, below. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get more digital marketing advice.

DaBrian Marketing Group Hires Nick Davies as Web Designer

March 1, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Nick Davies contributes his expert-level knowledge, skills, and abilities to creating and implementing web designs, photography, and videography for clients of DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC.

1 March, 2017 (Reading, PA) – DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC hires Nick Davies as the full-time Web Designer to collaborate with rest of the agency’s team members to create diverse digital marketing materials for clients.

As a graduate of Full Sail University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science & Graphic Design, Nick delivers creative ideas and innovative work to the team at DaBrian Marketing. His daily tasks include formulating new designs for clients’ websites and downloadable content, creating and implementing photography into advertising campaigns, as well as filming and editing video marketing.

Nick operates as a valued member of the Creative department at DaBrian Marketing. He most often collaborates with the Creative Director, the Copywriter, and the Inbound Marketing Manager to ensure that all visual elements of clients’ digital marketing match their goals and generate profitable results. This involves Nick in every stage of the development of marketing materials – from brainstorming, to web design, to copy fitting, to implementation.

A welcomed new addition to the office, Nick gave the following statement:

“I’m excited to be part of the DaBrian Marketing team and I am looking forward to creating some great work with them.”
With additional experience in print design and social media marketing, Nick is a flexible team member that aids in not only designing websites but also the materials that lead users to those websites. This results in a consolidated, streamlined creative process for the rest of DaBrian Marketing’s team. Whether it is a printed brochure, a paid advertising campaign, a promotional eBook, a fun video, or an entire website, Nick devotes his unique and varied skill-set to the collective efforts of DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC. This allows the digital marketing agency to create work that increases brand awareness and improves user-experience.

About DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC

Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency, focused on providing original and strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses, that want to create digital awareness, increase return on investment (ROI), and identify insights that not only will help achieve goals but will also help to increase your business’s efficiencies. DaBrian Marketing Group’s services include email marketing, digital branding, search engine optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, 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.

Hot Web Design Trends of 2017

February 13, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group 3 Comments

Here at DaBrian Marketing, we love to make predictions on hot web design trends you’ll see in the upcoming year. In the past, our own Creative Director, Mark Mapp, has made predictions in both 2015 and 2016. Heading into 2017, it’s time again to see what has survived and died in the past few years of web design.

Web design is always evolving to keep up with the latest technological advancements. What started in 1989 with just text on the screen, has now progressed to complex websites that can auto adjust to any size while also having all sorts of bells and whistles. Today, we are looking towards the future as designers and developers as we begin to create the next great innovation in the web world. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest trends carrying into the new year.

Flat Design

First catching fire in 2010, we haven’t let flat design go since. We ditched the glossy buttons and shadow effects for vector icons and images. In doing so, we went back to our design roots to focus on layout hierarchy and content structure. Some debate has been made that all flat designs look the same, thus killing the creative aspects of web creation. I actually believe that it is simplifying the design-process. In turn this opens up more opportunity to be creative in other areas of web design. Not to mention: looking similar isn’t always a bad thing. As stated by Forbes Steve Widen: “Familiarity creates confidence.” When it comes to websites, familiarity makes users feel that they can trust the site. For examples of the best flat design websites, go to awwwards.com and check out their nominies.

Material Design

If you haven’t heard of material design yet, then it is about time. Material design is Google’s answer to the next step in the evolution of web design. Like most things that Google does, material design is making waves in the web community and everyone is following in the wake. The goal is to “Create a visual language that synthesizes classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science.” Material design is a spin-off of flat design that focuses on the fundamentals of design while taking it a step further by adding subtle gradients and motion to provide more meaning within designs. The driving force behind this style of design is an emphasis on user actions. This makes the core functionality immediately apparent and provides waypoints for the user.

Mobile Ready Responsive Design

The most important trend that will continue to carry into 2017 is creating mobile-ready responsive designs. As mobile continues to gain importance, you will see websites increasingly dropping the classic, heavy, top navigation in favor of a slimmed down mobile version. Having mobile at the forefront of your design will not only improve your site’s ease of use, but also increase site speed. When you consider that “Mobile devices now account for nearly 2 of every 3 minutes spent online,” it’s no wonder that we are going in the direction that we are.

On the Horizon: Virtual Reality?

Looking back, you can see that many trends we have today have evolved, and continue to do so, as technology advances and new challenges arise. New ideas arrive out of a changing consumer-based, interactive environment. It seems that we have grasped a solid foundation to hold onto in web design and are now beginning to refine our approaches in building and designing. With exciting new innovations like VR (>Virtual Reality) becoming more common, I am thrilled to see what possibilities this will bring to the web. Who knows? Maybe a virtual space to visit “the internet” is right around the corner.

What websites stick out to you? Do you have an example of another well-designed website? Leave a comment, below! Or, if you have hilarious examples of poorly designed websites, we’ll take those too.