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Ecommerce Tips To Ensure Success on Cyber Monday

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CYBER MONDAY IS HERE!

And, it’s expected to be the largest shopping day in US history (for the 7th straight year). It is imperative that your Ecommerce is locked down, functioning properly, and ready to go. You may think your company’s website is ready for the rush simply because you have a shopping cart built onto your page, but there’s much more to think about. Use this checklist to see if you are prepared to conquer and surpass your competitors’ numbers on the largest shopping day in HISTORY.

Mobile Friendly = Money Friendly

  1. Cyber Monday is predicted to surpass $1 billion in mobile sales for the first time.
  2. Mobile traffic has surpassed desktop.

Having a mobile friendly site is a necessity. Learn tips for designing and optimizing your site for mobile.

Does your shopping cart and discount codes work?

A functioning cart is the most important to closeout the purchase. When your customers leave items in your shopping cart, they should be able to return without losing them. They should also be able to to view these items across all devices.

Tie in your email marketing efforts with abandoned shopping carts, too. Send an automated reminder email later that day with, “There’s still time left!” or a few days later saying, “We’ll give you a second chance!”

Site Search and Filtering Plug-ins

When someone lands on your site for a particular product or service, it should be easily found right away. To do this, use a site search bar or filtering plug-in. Properly tagging each product with its brand, name and specific features will get your customers what they want and get you another sale.

Optimizing Your Pages and Products

Having products alone won’t drive traffic to your site, and will certainly decrease the chance of a purchase. Adding comprehensive product descriptions that include all necessary information along with image alt tags, captions, and descriptions will increase the search visibility of your product. If you want to rank well in search engines for a specific product or service, this is a. You also want to limit the amount of questions a customer has. By providing this information, your customers will feel confident in making that final purchasing decision.

Reviews and Rating System On-Site

According to BrightLocal, 88% of consumers will trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Reviews on your website could boost your Cyber Monday sales. (or hurt them if not handled properly, ?)

ecommerce marketing tips for cyber monday
Image from Brightlocal.com

24/7 Customer Support

Resolving an issue or answering customer questions immediately can save some headaches for both your company and customers. Offer multiple ways for anyone to get ahold of you. A “live chat” feature on your website can help customers make a purchasing decision faster. Your customers are less likely to make a purchasing decision if they still have unanswered questions. If you can’t answer their questions, your competitors will.

Monitoring social media on a day-to-day basis is also a great opportunity to connect with your customers. When there is an issue, a customer is more likely to head to social media first to bad-mouth your brand. Be part of that conversation; don’t avoid it.

Local SEO: Can They Find You?

Today, mobile is our new local directory. Your customers aren’t pulling out their phone books and local guides anymore, they are searching for your product or service online. The most popular search engines today have algorithms that heavily favor locality. Here are some tips to ensure your business is appearing atop the local search results:

  • Have your name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistently accurate all throughout your site (I suggest in your footer).
  • Embed Google Maps (viewing your location) on your contact us page.
  • Be listed on major local listing platforms such as Google My Business, Facebook, Apple Maps and Bing Places.
  • Use local Business Schema markup.
  • Use local keywords in your URLs, TTD’s, and content, where appropriate.

Appearing at the top of local search results often lead to sales. According to Think With Google, 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day. Of those 76% of searches, 28% result in a purchase.

PPC Remarketing to Remember

So your site functions properly and you’ve optimized it well enough to bring a lot of people to it, is that enough? Not quite. Just as you would shopping in person, your digital customers are going to weigh their options. This means either checking out your competitors, or visiting other websites for additional information about a specific product or service. Make sure you stay top of mind with PPC Remarketing. Remarketing allows you to basically “follow” users that have previously interacted with your brand, and place ads on other websites.

Now after today has come to an end and all the shoppers have gone to bed… Go to work tomorrow and compare your numbers from today to any other day of the year. Did you not see a significant difference? (Eh, or maybe you don’t even have the analytics to compare.?) Either way, that’s when you’ll know your business was not as prepared as it should and could have been.

If you didn’t check all of these items off, you can have better luck next year (and throughout the year) when you work with us. 😉 Give us a call and we can chat about how to grow your company and your Ecommerce website.

What else do you find important for an Ecommerce site to have? Let us know in the comments below!

Ecommerce Tips for Marketing to Millennials

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Millennials, we’re the worst, aren’t we? A generation full of young people that seem to be disconnected from the real world, and more entranced in the digital realm. A generation who is associated with being anti-social in person, but obsessed with social media. A generation, that many businesses are missing out on. As we (millennials) grow older, our economic impact and purchasing power increases. Targeting millennials is imperative to your business’ success. The most common way to reach them is to utilize Ecommerce on your website. Follow these SEO tips to get started.

1. Need and Availability Override Brand Loyalty

Millennials, known for challenging the status quo, can be a challenge to market to. We’re not worried about staying loyal to specific brands. We want a product/service, and we want it NOW. In a society engulfed by a ‘hustle and bustle’ mentality, we don’t have the time to extensively search, and we don’t want to settle on an alternative option from a familiar brand. Make sure your website is optimized, and your products are readily available. This will not only increase your search visibility (the amount of times you appear for a given search), but also your probability of sales.

2. Local SEO and Mobile: Can I find you on the go?

In 2016, it may surprise you that , most businesses don’t just exist online. Shocker, right? With that being said, finding your store is a lot different than how Grandpa used to do it. Today, mobile is our new local directory. Before we even think about leaving the sanctity of our homes and experiencing the unknown (aka the outdoors), we use our smartphones to find stores within our area. That means local SEO is extremely important. If you don’t rank in your backyard, how can you expect your business to show up anywhere? Still not convinced? Well check out these statistics from Think with Google.

SEO Tips for Ecommerce business Marketing to Millennials - Reading, Pa

Optimizing your website for locality is an extensive an ongoing process. Here are some tips and techniques to follow to help you dominate the local market:

  • Have your name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistently accurate all throughout your site (I suggest in your footer).Embed Google Maps (viewing your location) on your contact us page.
  • Be listed on major local listing platforms such as Google My Business, Facebook and Bing Places.
  • Use local Business Schema markup.
  • Use local keywords in your URLs, TTD’s, and content, where appropriate.

3. Does Your Website Function properly?

As many of you know, Millennials aren’t known for having a great attention span. In fact, our attention spans are now down to 8 SECONDS! We’re basically a bunch of goldfish with smartphones. That means if your site does not work properly, or we can’t quickly find the product/service we want, we’re on to the next one (your competitors). To prevent that from happening, make these tips and issues a priority.

  • Technical errors:
    • Have redirects set up properly for pages with 404 errors.
    • Resolve duplicate content issues.
    • Learn more about technical issues that impact your organic search.
  • Have the following function properly to ensure a smooth purchasing process:
    • Search Site functionality
    • Discount/Coupon Codes (Please, we’re broke.)
    • Shopping cart works – Being able to add as you shop, and return to shopping without losing products.
  • Customer Service:
    • If your site doesn’t function properly, or a potential customer has questions, you need to have someone readily available to provide assistance and secure a sale.

4. Matching the Online Experience With the Real Deal

If you want your online store to perform as well (or better) as your physical location, you need to treat them the same. Don’t be that parent that has a favorite child, Dad. Your customers expect the same experience online, as they receive in person. To do so, make sure all of your in-store products are online and offer customer support. The better experience your customers have online, the higher probability that they will either purchase the product, and/or visit your store in person.

Ecommerce Tips For Marketing to Millennials - Reading, Pa

Wrapping Things Up

We, millennials, are more than just a target demographic. We are your business’ future. Make sure your business prospers for years to come. For more advice about Ecommerce, watch our 5-Step Guide to improving your Ecommerce website (my mom thinks I look handsome in it) or download the ebook!

Still not enough? Feel free to drop a comment below or contact us today!

By: David McDowell

Web Design Without SEO: If You Build It, Will They Come?

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In the film Field of Dreams released in 1989, Kevin Costner is famously told, “If you build it, he will come.” While this may hold true when it comes to attracting Shoeless Joe and the rest of the 1919 Black Sox team to your Baseball field, it does not apply to attracting visitors to your website.
Eh, not so fast there, Ray. Without proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO), not many people are going to come. Designing a website that is aesthetically pleasing is not the be-all and end-all for an effective digital marketing campaign. It’s merely the first step. Without SEO, you have a better chance of Joe Jackson actually wearing shoes than your customers finding your site. Below are five reasons why SEO and Web Design are needed together for your site to perform well.

1. SEO Basics: Tags, Titles, and Descriptions

Sticking with the Field of Dreams theme, let’s say your potential fans that attend your ballpark are equivalent to those using search engines. How are they supposed to find your new park if no one has heard about it or can find it? Tags, Titles, and Descriptions (TTD’s) along with content tell search engines what the pages on your site are about. Below is an example of proper implementation of TTD’s for this blog specifically (blog inception).

The keywords you intend a specific page to rank and draw traffic for should be represented within the TTD’s. For example, this blog’s main points of interest are SEO and Web Design, so those keywords are placed within all aspects of TTD’s and the content naturally (non-spammy). Don’t forget to include any other related sub points (digital marketing, link building, local SEO, and content optimization) wherever you see fit.

2. Content is the Experience

Just as sports venues are judged off of the overall experience they offer, so is your website. The content on your site not only helps people find your site, but it ultimately dictates the user’s experience. Great content means a better chance the user will perform an action beneficial to your business. Whether that means fill out a contact form, share your site via social media, or purchase a product, none of those are likely to happen without the right content for your audience. With that being said, content is not a once-and-done event. In fact, search engines actually prefer sites with fresher and more up-to-date content. That’s why it’s a great idea to start a blog and to write about topics relevant to your audience. Not only with this further establish your business as “in the know” within your industry, but it also allows you to place more of the keywords you wish to rank for on your site.

3. Technical Issues: Take Care of Your Ball Park

When sports teams build new stadiums, they don’t just leave it alone, do they? No, of course not! Constant maintenance is required to ensure everything looks perfect and that it functions properly. This is the same when designing a website. Technical issues are bound to happen. If these aren’t taken care of, it could potentially have a negative impact on your user’s experience. That ultimately translates to a decrease in rankings, leads, and worst of all, sales.

4. Local SEO: Where are you?

What’s the point of having a ball park, or any business for that matter, if no one can find you? This same logic should remain true when dealing with your digital presence. After several algorithm changes, Google’s search results are now heavily personalized. This means they take into account the searcher’s history, social signals, and most of all, locality. If that’s not enough to prove the importance of local, Google’s research on local consumer behavior found that, “50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day, and 34% who searched on computer/tablet did the same.” So what can your business do to ensure you capitalize on this opportunity? Without proper local SEO, your business could be lost within the metaphorical cornfield that is the search engine results.

5. Link Building: Generating Buzz

Link building or link earning is a huge part of SEO. When search engines evaluate your site to determine where you rank for a specific subject, they don’t only look at your TTD’s or content, but also the other sites linking to you. The more reputable industry related pages linking to you, the better your site will perform. To put it in sports terms, links represent fans and leading figures within the sports realm. Here is how to rank them:

  • Fans: Fans telling other fans about your ballpark represent low level links from either directories or sites with low domain authority.
  • Local Sports reporters: These represent the middle level links. These are trusted sites in your area, such as the Chamber of Commerce or a local business directory.
  • Major league coverage: These represent the top level links from industry leaders. For example, a link from MOZ would be huge for a digital marketing agency such as ourselves

So what’s the best approach to earning these links? Well in the past, many people obtained links via “black hat SEO” methods, all of which now result in a penalty according to Google’s link scheme guidelines. Your best (and safest) bet is by creating great, original content and developing authentic relationships with those within your industry. The goal is to naturally earn high quality links.

Conclusion

An effective digital marketing campaign needs both a well designed website, along with proper SEO. So when it comes to digital marketing, If you build it (and continually optimize it), they will come.

For more information about SEO, Web Design, and the other Digital Marketing Services we have to offer, contact us or leave us a comment below!

By: David McDowell

Giving Thanks to SEO

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Thanksgiving is a popular Holiday for many Americans. The abundance of delicious foods and the gathering of family and friends is certainly something to get excited about. Traditionally in most households, members are sitting around the table saying what they are thankful for in their lives. Here at DaBrian Marketing, we wanted to give thanks for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by offering some tips to assure your website performs well.

Cover the Entire Table of Local Listings

When you think of Thanksgiving dinner, you imagine a table covered in food, right? The same is true for an effective SEO campaign in regards to local listings. Local listings are becoming an increasingly important ranking factor. People are frequently using search engines with local intent. In fact, a study by Google shows that 4 in 5 consumers use search engines to find local information such as a business’s address, hours, and products/services offered.

Imagine your listings as different dishes. Being listed on Google my Business, Bing Places, and Yahoo Local listings should be your top priority. This is the main dish, the turkey. But don’t forget about the side dishes either. Being listed on other platforms such as Yellow pages, Yelp, Foursquare, etc, help as well. These are your stuffing, your mashed potatoes, and your cranberry sauce. The more you have covered, the better your meal (website’s performance) will be.

When preparing your Thanksgiving feast, you want to make sure everything is perfect. Before you place the food on the table, you should give it a taste test just to make sure. Similarly to SEO, you need to make sure your listings are perfect as well. This means claiming and verifying your listings, as well as making sure the listings are completely filled out and are consistent with each other.

Know Your Audience: Invite Relevant Traffic to Dinner

Thanksgiving isn’t just about food, it’s also about spending time with those who matter the most. When planning your celebration, you invite the most important people in your life. The same is true for SEO. As a business owner, those who matter most to your business’s success are your customers. So how do you invite them to your site? Well, it all starts with your content. If you regularly develop great content that speaks to your audience’s interests, relevant traffic will increase.

Besides stuffing our faces at the dinner table, we also engage in conversations with our family and friends. They speak to us, and naturally, we respond back. This same formula should be followed for social media. As stated in my previous blog about SEO predictions for 2016, content marketing and SEO have merged. This means that businesses must be active on their social media accounts, providing great content frequently, and engaging with their followers. An effect social media strategy will help develop relationships with your followers, which typically leads to them sharing your information with others, increasing your brand’s awareness. All of this comes back full circle to an increase in customers and sales.

Stuffing? - Yes; Keyword Stuffing - NO!

Now we all know stuffing is a must have dish at Thanksgiving. However, for SEO, keyword stuffing is a must avoid. In April of 2012, Google released the algorithm change known as “Penguin” designed to penalize for keyword spamming. While there is technically no optimal percentage for keyword density (how often your keyword appears within your content), your content should sound natural. Here’s an example of what not to do:

“At DaBrian Marketing, we offer Pay Per Click services. Our Pay Per Click services help businesses drive traffic to their site. For more information on Pay Per Click, please contact our Pay Per Click consultant.”

The use of Pay Per Click is obviously being overused. Not only does it sound spammy to the user, but your site will be penalized by search engines. Here’s an example of how to adjust your content to avoid keyword stuffing:
“At DaBrian Marketing, we offer Pay Per Click (PPC) services that are proven to help businesses drive traffic to their site. For more information, please contact our PPC consultant.”

SEO Tips - keyword stuffing

Invite Your Guests Back and Tell Them to Bring a Friend

So the dinner went well and you and your guests had a great time. More than likely you are going to send invites to those guests again. The same mentality should be true for SEO. You should send follow up emails to users that request or fill out any information. This will give you an opportunity to give more information about your business and to set yourself apart from the competition. If done properly, these will more than likely lead to more conversions.

People usually do not wish to hear others critique their cooking, but as a business owner, you want reviews. Traditionally, business owners have cringed at the thought of their customers giving reviews out of fear that they’ll be negative. While a negative review may not shed the best light on your business, it offers you an opportunity to humanize your brand by listening to your customer’s concerns, which leads to trust being established. In fact, A study by Reevoo, a social commerce company, found that 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both positive and negative scores, while 30% suspect censorship or fake reviews when they don’t see anything negative at all. Reviews give business owners an opportunity to adjust their recipe and make things right through great customer service.

Conclusion:

An effective SEO campaign is something a business will be thankful for. Not only will it help a business’s site perform well in search engines, but it will also help increase traffic, as well as sales. From all of us here at DaBrian Marketing Group, we hope you and your loved ones have a Happy Thanksgiving!

For more advice or information about SEO, please Contact Us today or leave us a comment below!

By: David McDowell

5 SEO Predictions for 2016

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an on-going and always evolving process. This year we saw several updates such as Google’s Mobilegeddon. With this year shortly coming to an end, here are 5 SEO predictions businesses can expect to see in 2016.

1. Mobile is Key

According to the Pew Research Center, 64% of Americans have a smartphone and 42% own a tablet. With continuous technological advancements, smart technology is becoming more readily available. Due to this, mobile traffic has been steadily increasing and you can only expect it to go up. In fact, Google announced this year that more Google searches take place on mobile devices than computers in the US.

What does this mean for your business?

First thing’s first, you need to have a responsive design to comply with Google’s mobile- friendly algorithm change. That means that the layout of your site will change depending on which device the viewer is using it on, so that it will be visually appealing. Besides the technical aspect, you also must think with a mobile mindset. Give your viewers a better user and visual experience by utilizing spacing, highlighting the most important parts of your site, and increasing the size of touch buttons to help improve the ease of use.

2. Local SEO will be HUGE!

A study by Google shows that 4 in 5 consumers use search engines to find local information such as a business’s address, hours, and products/services offered. The study also shows that 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day.

Screen Shot 2015-10-21 at 3.46.10 PM

How to make sure your business isn’t dropping the ball

One of Google’s and other search engine’s biggest ranking factor is your company’s NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number). Search engines want to see your contact information clearly stated and consistent not only across your site but also in other listings across the web. To make sure your site performs well, update and verify your local listings across platforms such as Google My Business, Bing Places, and Yahoo local.

3. The Increase of Voice Search

Voice searches have become increasingly popular thanks to the emergence of Apple’s Siri, Google’s voice recognition, and other voice recognizing software. As they become more useful and efficient, people will begin to voice search more often as opposed to typed search.

So how is voice search any different from typed search? Well, voice searches are usually longer and more question focused whereas typed searches are typically straight to the point. For example, a voice search may be, “Where is the closest pizza restaurant in Reading?” A traditional typed search would most likely, “Pizza restaurant Reading.” Voice searches tend to start who, what, when, where, why, and how.

This not only means your local listings should be up to date and verified, but you should develop your content with these questions in mind. If your content answers these questions, you’ll have a satisfied user which tends to translate to a lead or sale.

This also changes your keyword selection and management. Long tail keywords are now more important since voice searches contain more words. For example, instead of just having the keyword “SEO,” you should also look into “how to improve your SEO.” Below is a chart from Microsoft showing the difference between voice and typed searches in terms of keyword length.

Voice Search SEO

4. Merge SEO Strategy with Content Marketing

In the past SEO and Content marketing have been separated. SEO was thought to have been more technical whereas content marketing was creating high-quality content with the intention of retaining customers. Google and other search engines have put a huge emphasis on the user experience and will continue to do so. If you want to have a successful SEO campaign, you’ll have to understand that content is king, and the user experience is what matters the most. Thus, businesses must become active bloggers and also become active on social media. They should share their content and other helpful content as well. This will help build organic links from reputable sites which will increase your brand reach and visibility. All of this comes back full circle to an increase in customers and sales.

5. Bing is on the Rise

While it is obvious Google owns the Lion’s share of the search engine market, do not forget about Bing. Bing is now integrated will Apple’s voice assistant Siri and on top of that, Google and Apple’s search contract for Safari is coming to an end. Bing will have a great opportunity to land that contract. Bing is also integrated with Cortana, Microsoft’s voice assistant, which is packaged with Windows (8.1 and 10) PC and Mobile as well as Xbox 360. According to Netmarketshare.com, Bing is integrated into over 17% of operating systems. If they are able to lock in the Apple search contract, that would push them over 22%. This means that businesses must be aware that there are more search engines than just Google. To avoid missing out on Bing, update and verify your listings on Bing Places to make sure they’re accurate and consistent.

Conclusion:

The main takeaway to help prepare your business for 2016 from an SEO perspective is to be mobile-minded and to be listed accurately and consistently across all platforms with content based around the user experience. If your business can accomplish that, there is no reason why your SEO campaign won’t be successful.

Contact us today or leave us a comment below for more advice or information!

By: David McDowell

3 Reasons to Fire Your Local SEO Service Provider

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Clicking the send button for the third time, you’re starting to wonder if your Internet is down. Or if you spelled your account rep’s email wrong. Or if a sinkhole opened up beneath the city where your local SEO agency is located.

In any case, this lack of communication is the straw that’s about to break the camel’s back. And that’s not even the half of it. It’s time to cut ties with your local SEO service provider. Open up your company letterhead and start that strongly-worded termination notice, because…

1. They’ve been trying to game the system

local SEO services in Reading, Pa - DaBrian Marketing Group

It’s no secret that there are companies out there that disguise unethical tricks and aggressive techniques as “premier local SEO services.” The bottom line? They might be able to provide temporary boosts in rankings, but you shouldn’t expect those incremental shifts to stay for very long. In fact, if you haven’t seen your organic search performance take a nosedive as a result of your local SEO agency’s work, you should consider yourself lucky.

What else should throw a red flag? If you notice any of the following:

  • Inaccurate or non-specific local listing information
  • Too many Google reviews you don’t recognize
  • Multiple listings for your single business location

It’s very likely that the agency providing your local SEO services is more concerned with compensation than actually helping your business’s local visibility. And if you haven’t heard from them in a while, it’s probably because…

2. They’ve Left the the “O” out of “Local SEO”

Because the local SEO space changes so often, whether from the perspective of user search trends, algorithms, or the platforms themselves, it’s in a local SEO service provider’s best interest to stay up-to-date. And really, that’s what it’s all about. It’s called “Optimization” for a reason; it’s a process that must change and adapt as the search engines do. No business can hope to succeed if their agency is taking a “set-it-and-forget-it” approach. If you suspect your vendor is guilty of this, here’s a great way to evaluate their approach:

Simply ask: “What does your roadmap for local SEO services look like for the next 3 months?”

If your agency rep either A) has no idea what you’re asking them, or B) makes no mention of a specific change made by Google, Yahoo, or Bing, your Spidey senses were spot-on. And while you have your agency on the line, it might be worth asking about why…

3. They’re not measuring progress in a meaningful way

If you can remember the last time you got an SEO report from your agency, you’re off to a good start. The better question is, “When was the last time you took that report and actually did something with it?”. In reality, local SEO services shouldn’t stop at the services themselves. Without a transparent culture where the client is fully aware of the progress of a local SEO campaign as it relates to your business as a whole, there’s an immediate disconnect. A disconnect not only between what your local SEO agency has promised and the results you should be seeing, but also between your marketing budget and what led to a measurable return on investment. A professional local SEO report should contain:
  • Key measures of success that you’ve seen before and/or approved
  • A comprehensive data set without any big gaps or inconsistencies
  • Action items and/or a timeline of next steps that they will take on your behalf
A good way to determine whether it’s really time to pull the plug on this agency of yours? Do some research on your own and challenge them to see if they’ve done theirs. If they don’t have data to back up what they’re doing or a culture of measurement to prove that what they are doing is effective, it’s time to show them the door. That is, as soon as they answer one of the emails you’ve been sending.
Is your local SEO agency helping or hurting you? Share your thoughts in the comments!