seo

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.

Get an Inbound Marketing Assessment!

6 Essential Shopify Apps For Medium Size Retailers

October 24, 2018 by Dabrian Marketing Group 1 Comment

If you’re an online store owner using Shopify, there are so many ways you can make your life easier.

There are plenty of Shopify apps to help you with all aspects of ecommerce entrepreneurship, but with so many to choose from that it’s hard to know where to start.

Luckily for you, we’ve come up with a list of 6 essential apps to have if you’re a Shopify store owner. Check out our list below to get inspired.

Recommended reading: The 5 Questions Everybody’s Asking About Shopify

Mailchimp for Shopify

Email marketing is an effective way of connecting with your customers — once you’ve got them subscribed to your mailing list, you can grab their attention with awesome offers and direct them to your store.

Having an email subscription tool like Mailchimp is super handy if you’re a medium size retailer. By now, you’ve climbed a few rungs up the entrepreneurial ladder, grown your store a bit more, and now you’re looking at ways to maintain existing relationships and build new ones.

Email marketing is a great way of doing this, and Mailchimp is the best of the best when it comes to email marketing tools.

The Mailchimp for Shopify app lets you integrate your Mailchimp account with your Shopify store easily. From here, you can import your customer information and use purchase data to create targeted email and ad campaigns that boost sales.

Facebook Store

You’re definitely missing out on potential leads if you leave out social media as a selling platform for your store. Facebook isn’t just good for advertising you know!

If you’re an established medium size retailer, then the Shopify Facebook Store app is perfect for you.

Sometimes people just won’t want to click through to your site. This is detrimental to your conversion rates — you’ve spent the time generating leads, and now you’ve fallen at the last hurdle.

Facebook Store lets you showcase your products or services on your store’s Facebook page and post collections to your timeline to highlight products. You can also build engagement around your items by tagging them in photos, which shoppers can click on to buy.

It’s an awesome app because it lets you reach more potential consumers, drives more traffic to your store, and provides an easy online shopping platform. Shoppers love it because they can browse, share or buy directly from your Facebook store.

Yotpo

Yotpo is a cool — and free! — Shopify app that helps store owners to generate and leverage product reviews.

The majority of US customers consult reviews or ratings before making a final purchase. In this digital age, consumers want to know how they can trust online retailers, and how the quality of the product they are purchasing will be guaranteed. It’s fair enough — after all, you can’t physically inspect the product until you’ve received it, and that’s after you’ve parted with your well-earned cash.

That is where customer reviews and testimonials come in. They’re essential to building trust, and help to advise customers on the details and quality of your items. Yotpo helps you collect reviews, photos and Q&A from your customers, and compiles it into content for your site. This is essential for building trust in your store and increasing your online sales.

ReferralCandy

Apparently, every happy customer will tell nine more. Using a referral app to make the most of this lead generation opportunity saves you from missing out!

ReferralCandy is a really interesting Shopify app which you can use to incentivize customers to refer their friends to you. You decide what your referral incentive is — whether it’s coupons, exclusive offers or cash.

The app contains a dashboard where you can track referral information and metrics, as well as optimize your referral program. They’ll also chuck in automated reward delivery and referral reminder emails for good measure. (ReferralCandy integrates with Mailchimp so that you can track emails and referral campaigns).

Plug in SEO

This free Shopify app is essential to any medium size retailer. Maybe you’ve started up your own small online business, or you’ve bought a Shopify business and you want to scale up?

Plug in SEO is the difference between your business successfully growing or stagnating as a small online store.

You might sell the most awesome products at an incredible price, but unless your online store is search-friendly, you’re not going to generate enough web traffic to your site to make a decent profit.

Luckily, PIug in SEO can help to optimize your site to ensure that you’re ranking as high on the search engine results page as you can..

The app automatically checks for SEO problems with your page titles, descriptions, structure and much more, and flags them for you. They then give you clear and simple explanations, fix instructions and code to sort the problems out. A must-have for any medium size retailers out there.

Data Export - Reports

If you want to be successful in ecommerce, then you’re going to have to invest in a decent accounting app for Shopify.

As a small business owner, you’ve probably downloaded Xero or QuickBooks Online to sync your orders and refunds and run some financial reporting. These are brilliant for small retailers but can quickly become expensive for medium size retailers because of extra costs such as payroll services.

If you want to up your accounting game, then try out Data Export.

Data Export has received many great reviews on the Shopify app store. It’s got some great accounting and reporting features, and you benefit from setup and customization by Data Export’s reporting experts. For scalability, it’s a lot more friendly than other apps, and has a load of awesome features perfect for midsize businesses.

As you can see, there are some amazing Shopify apps available to you as a medium size retailer. These are 6 of the best — ones that we think are essential to your success as an ecommerce entrepreneur. They can help you with everything from SEO to accounting to marketing and more — all things that you need to get right as a midsize store owner.

Are there any that you’d add to our list? Let us know in the comments below.

Victoria Greene is a freelance writer and branding consultant who is passionate about sharing her knowledge and helping store owners get the best return on their ecommerce businesses. For all the latest on developments in ecommerce, marketing, and design, check out her blog, Victoria Ecommerce.

What to Look for in Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

May 1, 2018 by Dabrian Marketing Group 5 Comments

In the age of digital marketing, it’s hard to know where to begin or even the different avenues you can take to market your business online. In most cases, digital marketing requires businesses to hire specialists in all areas of digital marketing including PPC, SEO, Social Media, Graphic Design, and Programming, just to name a few. This process can not only be time-consuming for you but costly. By selecting the right digital marketing agency, you can not only cut down on in-house costs of hiring and maintaining staff, but you will be working with experts who stay up to date on the latest developments in the digital world.

So you’re ready to start looking into agencies, but not quite sure what to look for. Here are a couple tips in order to help you select the right one for your business.

Selecting the Right Digital Marketing Agency for You:

You might think that hiring the right agency will strictly depend on performance-based work and the culture of the company doesn’t matter, right? Wrong! Before selecting the right agency, it is important to meet with them and get a feel for their company’s culture. Make sure that it aligns with yours. Ask to meet or speak with the team members that will be working on your account to get a sense of their background and that their vision aligns with what you want. They must take your company’s culture, values and mission seriously.

Figure Out What Kind of Client You Are

A good digital marketing agency will understand each client is different and has different approaches to their marketing and goals. An agency will tailor a marketing campaign that is catered towards your business but first, figure out what kind of client you are and want to be.

“Do It All” Client– Once you have chosen the right agency, your motto is, “Just get it done”. You want all the work done by your agency with little input.

“Do It My Way” Client– These clients have a definite vision of what they want and are hiring an agency to deliver those visions. They are less interested in feedback or collaborating.

Collaborators– These clients want an agency that will sit down with them and strategize the best approach to reach their marketing goals and conversions. The agency and your business will go back and forth to collaborate the best strategy for your business.

Do Your Homework!

If you have never worked with a digital marketing agency, you will want to make sure you do your homework and learn a few things about them. There are many digital marketing agencies out there that will promise their clients the world, and deliver lackluster results. While most businesses are not like this, there are some things to be cautious of when researching a potential agency. To make sure you are hiring the most reliable agency, there are a couple things you can do:

Be cautious of hiring overseas agencies
Hiring the cheapest agency isn’t always the best choice. Sometimes the cheapest equates to low-quality services
Look up agencies on the Better Business Bureau
Reach out to clients in a potential agency’s portfolio and ask questions about their service
Check their credibility: Do they work with similar industries as yours? Do they have an eye-catching website?
Request case studies: Ask to see specific examples of how they have helped their current or past clients achieve success. What did they do to help their clients reach their goals? What steps did they take? What were the results?

Make a List of What You Want

Every client wants something different out of their marketing agency. make a list of must-haves when hiring an agency and follow some of these guidelines when doing your research. There are many different tools a company needs to be successful, but online marketing is definitely the most effective.

To learn more about what DaBrian Marketing can do for your business, schedule an appointment today with our marketing consultant!

Increase Your Business’ Brand Awareness With SEO

April 2, 2018 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

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

October 25, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

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.

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

October 11, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

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!