Digital Marketing Tips and Strategies to Grow Your Business

Google Plus for Local Business: Getting the Most + For Your Time – EXPANDED

Google Plus: Google’s Gift to Local Area Businesses – EXPANDED

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared on 216digital’s Cleveland Plain Dealer blog. It was such a hit there, we’ve expanded this version to include a few more helpful details.

Have you noticed that local search has changed? What’s going on? Instead of local business sites alone, Google now shows Google Plus results alongside websites. If you don’t have a Google Plus page, or if your page is in bad shape, it won’t pop up in SERPs (search engine results pages). Whoa. This is serious. Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to optimize Google Plus for local business. In this post, we’ll cover some of the basic techniques, as well as point you towards some in-depth resources.

Google Plus and SEO: A Little Nepotism Never Hurts!

At this point, you’re probably wondering if Google Plus affects your search rank on Google. You bet it does! Claire Abraham, social media manager at 216digital, stresses the importance of Google Plus for SEO to every client we get. As she puts it, “The more of Google’s toys you play with, the more it likes you.” In other words, Google favors its own product, Google Plus, in considering what to show in search results. Now, before you start yelling, “unfair,” consider this: Google is a corporate business entity. As this post from Copyblogger reminds us, Google can do whatever they want. They don’t owe any of us anything! The trick is to figure out what Google likes—and just do it.

The real gold that Google Plus offers is that G+ pages display in Google search results when the user is logged in to their Google account. This gives users a direct chance to interact with your business’s page if they’re searching for your business or something that you rank for.

As a social media platform, this is where Google Plus really integrates with SEO efforts. Facebook posts don’t show up in Google SERPs. That puts Google Plus in a great position to integrate your social efforts with your SEO efforts.

Every social media platform has its own quirks, and Google Plus is no different. It’s not simply Google’s version of Facebook or Twitter. Google Plus is its own space with its own rules and best practices. You’ll need a thorough understanding of how Google Plus works before you start leveraging it for your local business.

Getting Your Local Business onto Google Plus

This is easy. Simply sign up for a Google Plus account. One important note—do not use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name (for example, you@yourdomain.com). This will help greatly when you go to verify your page in the future.

Linking Google My Business and Google Plus

While My Business and Google+ are separate Google products, local business owners should link them to get the most out of Google’s presentation of their businesses. For business owners, that means logging into your Google Plus account (or creating one, if you don’t have one), then finding your My Business page and claiming it. Note: you’ll have to verify your business by phone or by postcard. This is critical! An unverified page won’t show up in SERPs.

Another critical step: you’ll need to determine if there are any duplicate Google My Business pages for your business. If there are, you must delete them. Also, you’ll need to ensure that your My Business page hasn’t been penalized. Duplicate pages and penalties will kill the SEO contributions which your My Business and Google+ pages should be making.

Your Business Info: Get It Right!

Just about every point we make in this article is critical. This one is no exception. You mustensure that your business name, address, phone number, and hours of operation are 100% correct. If not every bit of information matches up between your website and your My Business page, Google sees a problem.

Also, take note of this. As Casey Meraz writes on the Moz blog, you can’t use a PO box as your address, and you can’t list an 800 number as your phone number. If your business has a physical address, you need to list that address. You also need to list a phone number with a local area code.

You’ll find a Categories field as you’re filling out your profile. This field is extremely important. You’ll want to use all the Categories that are allowed for your industry. Note: these categories reflect what your business is, not what it does. If your business is Dave’s Dry Cleaners, your category would be “Dry Cleaners,” not “dry cleaning.” Also note—there are no custom categories! You have to choose from the available options.

Your Profile: Complete It!

An incomplete profile will only hurt your Google Plus page. Make sure you fill out every bit of information until the profile says it’s 100% complete. There’s a lot to do, so pay attention to the details. For example, you need to fill out your intro description. Make sure it’s relevant, engaging, and at least 250 words long. You’ll also want to upload high-quality photos of your business location.

To really round out your appearance on Google, consider hiring a Google-trusted photographer to do a 360-degree shoot inside your business location. Google calls this Business View, and it’s quite possibly one of Google’s greatest gifts to local businesses. Business View gives online users the chance to see what your restaurant or store looks like on the inside before they even leave the house. This is an especially great opportunity for retail establishments with a unique, well-branded décor.

Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name (like you@yourdomain.com).

[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up for #GooglePlus. Use an address from your business domain name. #localseo” quote=”Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name.”]

Remember how almost every point in this article is critical? Here’s another one. You need to link your website to your Google Plus page. This will allow your Google Plus page to appear in SERPs.

Along those lines, you’ll also want to claim a custom URL for your Google Plus page. This is your opportunity to have a URL that matches the name of your business. For both users and Google, this custom URL will look better than a string of numbers and letters.

You’ll see a section of your profile called Links. You’ll want to put as many relevant links in this area as possible. Relevant links include your blog(s), your social media pages, and any other online properties which make up your business’s digital assets.

Google Plus Circles

Circles are unique to Google+. Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan, licensed under CC 2.0. Modified by 216digital.

Among social media platforms, the Circles function is unique to Google Plus. Circles are a way of organizing your connections—say, into groups like Personal Friends, Industry Leaders, and Coworkers. While Circles are primarily a backend organizational feature for your benefit as a user, they do affect your connections: when you post to Google Plus, you can choose which Circles see that post.

Like many aspects of Google Plus, Circles really have no analog on Twitter and Facebook. As Cassy Hicks Kerr (@modernmktgspark) writes on MMSpark, “The key to building circles is not to focus on the numbers but on the relationships you have with the people you circle.” On Twitter and Facebook, you might try to get as many relevant followers as possible. In Google Plus Circles, it isn’t the number of people in any given Circle that bring you marketing value; rather, it’s the people themselves and their position in your niche. Think of it like “less is more.” You want to get the right people in the right Circles. Rather than a broadcast perspective, trying to hit as many random readers as possible, this is “niche-casting”: hitting a few people in your niche who will find your content insanely valuable.

In this respect, the structure of Google Plus is far more optimized for digital marketing than the structure of Facebook–or even Twitter.

Posting to Google Plus

Google Plus has some quirks. For example, when you post to your Google Plus page, the first 45-50 characters get pulled like a title in SERPs. Weird, right? You’ll just have to work with it. That means writing the first 45-50 characters of your G+ post like a titleand like the first line of a post at the same time.

If you want to include a link in your Google Plus post (and you should), make sure you use the Link function rather than adding the link manually to your text. This Link function is SEO gold.

How often should you post to Google Plus? Well… the answer is, “regularly.” We recommend posting every day. However, if this simply isn’t feasible, shoot for once a week. Whatever you do, stick to it.

Getting Followers on Google Plus

To get followers, you should join relevant Communities and stay active in them. That means posting every day. However, take note: no one really scrolls through the Google Plus newsfeed like they would on Twitter or Facebook. You can choose which Circles see your posts, thereby targeting your information to the most interested parties. You should take advantage of this function. It will increase the content value of your brand in your followers’ eyes.

Communities and posting aren’t the only way to gain followers. Social media is all about networking. Since you’re using Google Plus for local business marketing, why not start leaving excellent reviews on the G+ pages of other local businesses? Whether you do this out of the blue, or for a longstanding partner of your business, you can’t measure the value of this act of good will. Don’t be surprised if some businesses reciprocate the favor and start leaving excellent reviews on your page.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t just dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. #googleplus” quote=”Don’t just dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. “]

What shouldn’t you do to gain followers on Google Plus? For starters, don’t simply dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. That’s unprofessional, and it’s unlikely every contact in your list will find your business relevant.

The Bottom Line

Google Plus is essential to the toolbox of any small business. Like Facebook and Twitter, it offers great social networking opportunities; but unlike them, it also integrates easily with your Google SEO efforts.

If your small business isn’t using Google Plus yet, sign up now and start interacting with your customers. If you’re already using Google Plus for local business, we want to hear from you. What’s working? What’s not working? Leave a comment below, and let’s continue learning together.

Greg McNeil

August 11, 2015

Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing
Choosing The Right Ecommerce Platform – Pt. 3 of 5 – Magento

Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 3 – Magento

Welcome to Part 3 of our ecommerce platform comparison series! In Parts 1 and 2, we examined WooCommerce and Shopify. We discussed each platform’s strengths as well as its weaknesses. We concluded that WooCommerce is excellent for basic, low-budget ecommerce startups. We also noted that Shopify’s transaction fees could seriously hamper business models that forecast high growth rates. In Part 3, we’ll examine one of the biggest players in ecommerce: Magento. Let’s get started!

Magento:

Magento occupies a unique place in the ecommerce software market. The platform is available in two major divisions. The Community Edition, or CE, is a free, open-source download with a vibrant user and developer community. It’s a robust framework, but it requires thorough knowledge of code to get it running (and keep it running).

Magento Enterprise is a subscription-based service aimed at high-volume online retailers. Enterprise prices start at around $18,000/year and may range up to $70,000/year. Note that a custom quote for the Enterprise version can only be obtained from the Magento Enterprise sales team.

Magento Maintenance: Sold Separately

This guy can’t help you update your Magento installation. You’ll have to do it yourself. Photo courtesy of Pedro Ribeiro Simões. Modified by 216digital.

While Magento CE is free, maintaining a Magento CE store isn’t free. It will cost you, either in time (if you’re already a professional developer) or in money (if you’re not). Since the software is open-source and hosted on your server, Magento doesn’t help you with upgrading its software, fixing problems, or keeping your backend architecture in good shape. If you don’t have the time or expertise to do all this yourself, you’ll need to hire a developer, potentially on a recurring basis.

However, you get what you pay for. Businesses that can afford ongoing professional web development will find great value in Magento. The platform is powerful, scalable, and ready to integrate with countless 3^rd parties.

How Big Is Big Enough For Magento?

That’s a great question. Some sources say Magento provides value for stores doing $500,000/year and above in gross sales. However, some developers who work with Magento don’t recommend it for stores doing under $1 million/year in online sales. Needless to say, Magento is not for the bedroom entrepreneur with a laptop and a dream. For startups on shoestring budgets, WooCommerce for WordPress may be a more reasonable solution—as long as WooCommerce’s fairly basic functionality is sufficient for the business model.

Support is part of the ongoing development cost associated with Magento. Magento itself does not offer phone or email support for its CE users. Magento forums are available, with a large community of users and developers posting regularly. However, as with any online forum, it’s “buyer beware” with regard to the quality of any given answer. In this regard, hiring an experienced development team is a great solution for firms that can afford it.

Because Magento is free and open-source, it doesn’t come with PCI compliance out of the box. You’ll need to work with a 3^rd party solution to achieve PCI compliance. However, Magento’s $0 price tag comes with benefits, too. Unlike Shopify, Magento doesn’t charge transaction fees—though of course, you’ll still pay transaction fees with your 3^rd party payment gateway. Lastly, as a free product, Magento CE offers another advantage over more “user-friendly” platforms: it has no inherent restrictions in bandwidth or number of products.

The Bottom Line

For larger firms with the development budget to get the custom store they need, Miva and Magento are the most powerful options. A Magento license is free, while Miva is an SaaS (software as a service) subscription. However, Miva may be cheaper in the long run, since more features come bundled into that subscription and won’t require custom development.

Ready for more? In the next post, we look at Bigcommerce.

Greg McNeil

August 10, 2015

Ecommerce Platforms, Magento
Miva Customization: Retro ReadyTheme

Miva Retro ReadyTheme Customization: Tailored To Your Needs!
Miva users know that Miva is the ecommerce world’s best-kept secret. With Miva now offering responsive ReadyThemes free with every license, it’s easier than ever to put a functional, beautiful skin on your Miva store. In fact, most of our clients agree: Miva ReadyThemes really nail it after just a little customization. Bee Bald Man Care Products sells skin care products for the head. Their products offer incredible value for bald and non-bald men alike. But men aren’t the only ones who love Bee Bald; women use their products, too. Bee Bald has a developed a great brand. Clearly, they needed a great website to match. When Bee Bald came to us for a redesign, we knew that the Miva Retro ReadyTheme was perfect—well, nearly perfect. Bee Bald founder Dennis Fisher wanted to make a few changes to the theme. He had some ideas on how to optimize this theme for his business, and we were happy to help. The fact is, a pre-loaded theme is rarely a perfect fit for a business owner’s vision. Every business is unique, and themes are designed to please a wide user base. Bee Bald needed something unique. We agreed that Dennis had some great ideas to take his online store to the next level. So how did we take the Bee Bald store to the next level? Let’s dive right in.
Miva Retro ReadyTheme Customization: Homepage Layout
Dennis liked the Retro ReadyTheme overall. “As a template, it was great,” he says. “But it’s not all things to all people.” Specifically, he wasn’t happy with the theme’s homepage layout. The stock layout was functional and looked great, but that functionality didn’t quite fit his product line. We adjusted the homepage product offering template, replacing the stock configuration with a product carousel. We also tweaked the colors and the copy to match Dennis’s specifications. As you can see, the resulting Bee Bald homepage looks stunning. Dennis has developed an amazingly cohesive brand—one that really sells his product to his niche. Clearly, Dennis’s design decisions were one key part of building that awesome brand. Honestly, we think a lot of marketers could take a cue from Dennis. It’s obvious that a great ecommerce design appeals to online shoppers. However, a great design coupled to a cohesive brand also makes a great impression on other businesses. In Dennis’s case, as he hammered out relationships with distributors the old-fashioned way, his website turned into a stellar asset. Dennis could throw someone a link with confidence, knowing his website design would showcase the excellent quality of his product line.
Responsive Web Design: Critical In Today’s Ecommerce Market

Ouch. Looks like non-responsive design. (Original photo courtesy of Jan Vašek; modified by 216digital.)
Dennis was getting a lot of mobile traffic on his old site, but mobile users weren’t converting. Dennis thought that mobile users were leaving the site because it wasn’t resizing to the small screens of phones. We agreed—and the same is true for all non-responsive sites today. If you’re not serving pages optimized for mobile devices you’re losing sales. For ecommerce store owners, mobile website design isn’t an option. It’s a necessity. The Retro ReadyTheme is fully mobile responsive out of the box. However, when you add custom extensions to a responsive theme, you have to ensure that the customizations look great on mobile, too. Dennis needed a store locator module for his site. We integrated a powerful store locator module into the new Bee Bald site—but we knew that that alone wasn’t enough. We made sure the store locator module was fully mobile responsive and integrated into the look and feel of the theme. That way, customers could find a Bee Bald store on the go—and they wouldn’t be distracted by a clunky store locator experience.
Bee Bald looks great on mobile.
We believe it’s the little things that count, so we also tightened up the overall look of Dennis’s Retro ReadyTheme installation. These incremental changes added up to a great overall brand impression—on mobile and on desktop.
The Cleveland Connection: A Local B2B Partnership

photo by: Rick Harris
An entrepreneur often wears all the hats. When Dennis started gearing up for the launch of Bee Bald, he was learning about the ecommerce world from scratch. Since the technical aspect of ecommerce was so new to him, he realized only shortly before launch that he needed to make changes to the proposal he’d submitted to his developer. The developer was local to the Cleveland, OH area, but they weren’t quite prepared to deal with the nuances of changing a Miva project on the fly. While Dennis’s relationship with his original developer had showed initial promise, he began to realize it wasn’t till-death-do-us-part. He needed a dedicated Miva developer. Enter 216digital. Justin Sims, our lead web developer, took over Dennis’s project. When we asked Dennis to reflect on his experience with us, we could hear the genuine appreciation in his voice. “Justin did a terrific job,” Dennis said. “He was accessible and responsive. He helped streamline the process.” Now that’s an aspect of responsive web design that you don’t hear about every day—responding right away to a client’s needs and concerns. In the process of working with us, Dennis learned a lot about Miva. We didn’t keep any secrets from him. Dennis can now perform many store updates himself, meaning we’re billing him less. A lot of companies wouldn’t do that. Why give away the secrets that build value into your services? We simply don’t see it that way. Dennis is our client, and it was our job to build the best ecommerce tool we could for him. Dennis was equipped to learn Miva, and we were happy to teach him.
The Bottom Line
At 216digital, we have a passion for all things Cleveland. Cleveland beers, Cleveland sports teams, we’re 216 all the way. (That’s the area code around here, by the way.) It was exciting to help a Cleveland-area entrepreneur achieve his business goals. Of course, our clients come from all over. If you aren’t from the Cleveland area, we’ll show you the Cleveland work ethic as we create a stellar ecommerce site for you. So, when you’re ready to start that next project, remember 216digital. With 15 years of experience as a Miva certified partner, we can make your Miva ReadyTheme nail it!

Greg McNeil

August 5, 2015

Ecommerce Platforms, Miva, Responsive
Digital Marketing Round-Up: August 4th, 2015
In this week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up we’re going to talk about ways to ramp up your social media marketing.
August 4th, 2015
7 in 8 Messages to Brands are Ignored on Social
The Sprout Social Index found that 7 in 8 social messages to brands go unanswered within 72 hours.

According to Sprout Social we should be moving towards reacting to social messages the way we react to customer service messages. We would never let 7 in 8 customer service emails go unanswered.

Further highlighting the problem, the index shows social messages sent have increased by 21% in 2015, while response times have increased by 4%.

To combat this problem, Sprout Social says your business should be instituting a fully functioning social communication strategy by

using the right tools

listening and providing timely answers

and being authentic

Content Marketing for Local Business
Content marketing can be a bit of a buzzword, but it means more than ever when we are talking about local marketing strategies.

Interruption-based advertising is losing all it’s power with the ability to record TV, the ability to mute ads, or use AdBlock on YouTube.

What’s great about content marketing is that it isn’t advertising. It is relating.

Local businesses have the leg-up over national brands when it comes to content marketing, because they can relate to their audience on a personal level.

When you are a local business you can implement an online / offline strategy. For example, sponsoring a charitable event and offering a coupon for posting a picture from the event.

3 Social Media Marketing Basics to Review Constantly
To keep your social media strategy fresh, it is important to keep up on the latest trends and best practices. Social Media Today put together a quick list to keep you on track!

First, keep up on etiquette and ethics. One major rule to social etiquette is to not broadcast all your own content. You should be sharing relevant content from other sources as well.

Second, you should be customizing your content for each social platform. What works on Twitter will probably not work on LinkedIn without having adjustments made to it.

And lastly, you should be continuously researching your target audience’s preferences. Your audience’s interests may change, or more importantly their priorities can change, so it is important to know what they care about.
Greg McNeil

August 4, 2015

Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Choosing The Right Ecommerce Platform – Pt. 2 of 5 – Shopify

Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 2 – Shopify

If you search Google for “ecommerce platforms,” you’ll find a lot about WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. If you do a little digging, you might find Miva, a longstanding ecommerce platform that’s not as well-known. Each platform has its own selling points and drawbacks. For some businesses, hidden drawbacks to any given platform may eventually overshadow that platform’s selling points. In this in-depth series, we’re examining the benefits and drawbacks of 5 major ecommerce platforms. In Part 1, we talked about WooCommerce. In Part 2, we’ll look at Shopify. Let’s dive in!

Shopify:

Shopify is a major player in the ecommerce game. With 150,000 active stores, Shopify is responsible for an incredible amount of online commerce. Shopify offers a range of responsive themes, Paypal integration, blogging functionality, a CMS (content management system) and a fairly basic abandoned cart email integration. In that regard, Shopify is generally competitive among ecommerce platforms. However, Shopify has some serious drawbacks which entrepreneurs should consider before committing.

Watch out for those transaction fees!

The biggest problem with Shopify is its transaction fee schedule. This is tied to your choice of payment gateway. If you go with Shopify’s own gateway, Shopify Payments, you’ll be charged 1.8%-2.4% plus $0.30 on every transaction. The percentage charge depends on your plan tier. If you want to use Shopify Payments, you’re in luck. But if you want to integrate with a 3^rd party payment gateway, you’ll pay two transaction fees every time you make a sale: one to your 3^rd party, and one to Shopify itself. In this scenario, Shopify’s fee goes down to 0.5%-2.0%, depending on your plan tier. Keep in mind that you’re already paying Shopify for the software and hosting. If you’re considering Shopify, you should really crunch the numbers on your projected sales and margins and see how this all adds up.

Shopify’s discount functionality is also limited. The only discounts you can apply are percent off, dollars off, and free shipping. Clearly, these are the most common discount types; but what about scenarios where you need a different type of discount solution? Miva’s built-in discount functionality is far more robust. Without add-ons, Miva offers volume pricing, add-on products, basket discounts, buy product X and get product Y, product discounts, and two types of shipping discounts—entire order, or per-product.

Some developers have claimed that Shopify’s code is not lightweight. Shopify contains in-line javascript at the beginning of the page. Experts generally recommend using external javascript or putting it at the end of the page. Note that Miva in stock configuration has no in-line javascript at the beginning of the source code.

Shopify gives you two shipping methods out of the box. However, carrier-calculated shipping rates aren’t available in any plan below the $179/month tier. This puts smaller operations at a disadvantage. In Miva, shipping options are in no way tied to your website hosting setup.

Overall, Shopify provides a good value to startups and small online stores that don’t need unlimited functionality and have big enough margins to take the transaction fees. Shopify is feature-rich, and those features will work just fine for many smaller operations. However, the limitations we discussed could hamper a store that starts to take off. That’s a key question that entrepreneurs should ask themselves when considering an ecommerce platform: will this software still serve me well in 3 years? In 5 years? In 10 years? And in the case of Shopify, as business grows, how will those transaction fees add up over the years?

The Bottom Line

Shopify offers excellent functionality and features. However, its transaction fee schedule represents a serious drawback for businesses doing larger sales volumes. In this regard, Shopify is more suited to small operations that will stay small. For larger operations, or for fast-growing stores, Miva and Magento offer more freedom and flexibility and have no inherent transaction fees. Note, however, that they may be more expensive than Shopify to get off the ground.

Greg McNeil

August 3, 2015

Ecommerce Platforms
Choosing The Right Ecommerce Platform – Pt. 1 of 5 – WooCommerce

Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 1 – WooCommerce

Google “eCommerce platforms,” and you’ll probably find a lot about WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. Dig a little deeper, and you might find a longstanding platform called Miva. Each of these platforms has its strengths and weaknesses. For some businesses, the weaknesses of any given platform may heavily outweigh that platform’s strengths. In this in-depth series, we’ll take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of 5 major eCommerce platforms. We’ll also look at what kind of business each platform is most suited for. As one of the Top WooCommerce Developers, we’ll be kicking things off with our analysis of the WooCommerce platform.

WooCommerce: Great For Startups With Small Budgets

WooCommerce is an online shopping cart plugin for WordPress. As such, WooCommerce can only run on WordPress installations. WordPress is the web’s most popular blogging platform and content management system, and it’s only gotten better in the last few years. With the WooCommerce plugin installed, it’s a great option for anyone just starting out in online selling.

The WooCommerce plugin itself is free, making it even more optimized for startups with low budgets. However, the free plugin lacks some extensions. Certain shipping options, payment gateways, extension of product fields, and other functions require add-ons. Some of these plugins are free, but most require a purchase. For more complex online stores, WooCommerce isn’t free at all, due to the number of plugins that must be licensed.

Because WooCommerce was developed by WooThemes, it allegedly runs best on one of their WordPress themes. Most of those aren’t free. Because the plugin is open-source, WooCommerce users do not have access to phone or social media support. However, users who purchase a WordPress template from WooThemes do have access to the company’s support forums.

For simple operations, and for entrepreneurs with simple requirements and zero budget, WooCommerce can’t be beat. However, for larger stores and established operations, WooCommerce can’t provide the full functionality and flexibility of Miva or Magento. Magento requires extensive 3^rd party development to reach the level of functionality that larger ecommerce firms will require. Miva requires less development to get a new store to market, but it may still require some, depending on the new store’s business model. Though development costs more than plugins, larger stores see the value in having storefronts, checkout procedures, and product features optimized to their exact market needs. Because WooCommerce is WordPress-based, WooCommerce users depend on existing plugins to modify site functionality. In Miva and Magento, the possibilities are almost endless.

The Bottom Line:

WooCommerce is great for simple operations and low-budget startups. However, it doesn’t have the extensibility of larger and more expensive platforms like Miva and Magento. As such, it may not be suitable for low-budget startups with complex storefront needs. But for bloggers who already use WordPress and want to start a basic online store on the same domain as their blog, WooCommerce is perfect.

Next up: in Part 2, Shopify is in the hot seat!

Greg McNeil

July 27, 2015

Ecommerce Platforms
Digital Marketing Round-Up: July 21st, 2015
In this week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up we’re going to analyze ways to improve your social media marketing along with taking a look at SEO from a local perspective.

July 21st, 2015

Get Your Local SEO Right in 2015

Local SEO has some of it’s own rules compared to national SEO and it is important to recognize the difference.
- When you’re talking local business, even when it is SEO, you always want to think about the people. If your business has a positive reputation in your area, then that alone can drive traffic to your social media or blog.
- Join local directories and engage reviewers online. If your area has a local business directory make sure you are listed!
- Make sure your logo is on point. Google pulls logos of local businesses and lists them along side of regular search results accompanied by phone numbers and hours.
Content Marketing on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great platform for sharing your content with your target audience because of the B2B nature of the social media.
- When sharing content on LinkedIn use words to grab the readers attention. If you convey the benefit of the link to the reader, they are more likely to click through. You can also mention (or tag) a person in the post that the information might be relevant to, or tag an event you are attending.
- Timing: avoid spamming, the landscape of LinkedIn is different than Twitter. You should only be posting to LinkedIn 1 to 3 times a day.
- Long- Form Publishing: while this option is not available for publishing from company pages, if you promote your content from your personal LinkedIn this is a great opportunity. Long- form publishing has a larger reach than normal posting.
Multi- Product Facebook Ads

There is a Facebook ad functionality called multi- product ads (MPAs). These ads allow users to scroll through items before clicking to a landing page.
- With these MPAs you can do more than offer a line of products, which is great news for Digital Marketing. These ads have the ability to show case multiple offers, multiple locations, or multiple pieces of content!
- What is great about the multi-content ad is that people don’t share ads, but they do share content. So with one ad you got the visibility of 3 ads.
- The pieces of content that your promote should relate to each other that way your target market is seeing all relevant information and not just 1/3 relevant information.
Greg McNeil

July 21, 2015

SEO
Miva Customization: Suivant ReadyTheme

Miva Suivant ReadyTheme Customization: The Sky’s The Limit!
If you use the Miva shopping cart platform, or if you’re looking to start a Miva store, you’ve probably heard of Miva ReadyThemes. These themes offer beautiful, functional styling right out of the box. However, they look even better with a little customization. Here at 216digital, we regularly customize Miva ReadyThemes for our clients. One of our favorite recent projects was a redesign via ReadyTheme for D’Andre New York, a seller of fine shearling coats. In this post, we’ll talk about that project and explain the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization that we performed.
D’Andre New York: A Great Product Deserves a Great Website
D’Andre New York sells fine shearling coats. These jackets feature beautiful, understated styling. Since they’re made of real wool, the moisture-wicking property of the material gives the wearer natural climate control. That means shearling coats can be worn comfortably in summer or winter. With this natural flexibility and their finely-tailored lines, shearling jackets are the pinnacle of outerwear style. Of course, high quality comes with a price tag. Shearling jackets typically range in price from $1000 to $3000. D’Andre New York’s target customer is affluent, style-conscious, and expects high quality. If the product itself delivers on all these—which it certainly does—then shouldn’t the website that sells the product display that same excellence? That was our reasoning, and Tatiana, owner of D’Andre, agreed. She wanted a redesign of her website, something that would showcase the beauty, durability, and value of her shearling products.
D’Andre’s Legacy Site
D’Andre New York’s old site had excellent functionality, and it had served the business well for years. However, the site was built in the days of low-resolution screens, and it looked a little small on today’s larger monitors. Worse, the site was built long before the mobile responsive revolution. It was awkward and cumbersome to use on a mobile device. With more and more customers shopping and purchasing products directly from their phones, D’Andre stood to lose out on potential business. With each sale worth a few thousand dollars, D’Andre needed to convert every prospect who came their way.
D’Andre New York’s legacy site in mobile simulation. Get ready to zoom and scroll!
It wasn’t just the resolution and lack of mobile responsiveness that worried us. D’Andre sells a fine product to an affluent market. We believed that D’Andre’s old site didn’t quite convey the level of luxury and comfort that wearers could expect from a shearling jacket. We thought the site ought to display the excellence that D’Andre’s shearling coats provide. Clearly, it was time for a redesign.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme: Almost Ready To Rock And Roll
Miva ReadyThemes give Miva store owners beautiful, functional online stores right out of the box. But as with all cookie-cutter solutions, ReadyThemes leave a bit to be desired in the details. A little customization takes a Miva ReadyTheme to the next level. D’Andre New York had chosen the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme. We agreed that this theme was perfect for a retailer of fine shearling jackets. It just needed a few tweaks. For starters, the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme has a large header. This isn’t necessarily a problem—except that by default, that header anchors to the top of the screen when the user scrolls. It’s not too noticeable on desktop, but on a mobile device, that pinned header eats up a lot of real estate. For every client using the Suivant ReadyTheme, we routinely recommend customizing the header. In D’Andre’s case, we changed the header so it wouldn’t stick to the top of the screen. We reasoned that users know where the header is. They know to scroll up if they need to use the navigation bar. This change significantly improved the user experience of D’Andre’s new website. The header wasn’t the only tweak that the Suivant ReadyTheme needed. With the ongoing evolution of SEO (search engine optimization), Google now values good content more than ever, and many web users find value in useful, informative content. Blogs and magazines can display the entirety of a piece of content without compromising other organizational goals. However, in an ecommerce setting, selling product is critical. Too much content on a product or category page could keep the all-important buy buttons hidden from site visitors. Yet content is critical for SEO! What’s a webmaster to do? For all our clients doing customized ReadyThemes, it’s a simple fix. We custom-code an option to display the first 150 characters or so of the content, followed by a “read more” button. This gives us the best of both worlds: 300+ word content for SEO purposes (and for those readers who want to educate themselves fully), and product imagery and buy buttons still displayed above the fold for users who are close to making a purchase. For D’Andre New York, this solution was a no-brainer.
Optimizing D’Andre’s Onsite Content
Speaking of content, it’s one of the most important components of branding. Content that doesn’t convey the right brand impression negatively affects marketing. In the case of D’Andre New York, we recognized at once that Tatiana’s great luxury brand needed content that created an opulent, luxurious impression. With Tatiana’s permission, our SEO content writing team began writing new copy for the D’Andre website. Our process was simple. We researched other luxury brands, such as Rolex and Mercedes-Benz, to get a feel for the appropriate voice and tone. We settled on two points of focus for D’Andre. For Tatiana’s women’s collection, our content revolved around the word “elegance.” For the men’s collection, we chose the word “achievement.” These words matched D’Andre’s brand perfectly. With these two ideas in place, the rest of the content flowed. The result was a unique, memorable brand identity in all D’Andre’s onsite content.
Image Optimization: A Key Element In Ecommerce Marketing
Customers want to see what they’re buying. In the case of D’Andre’s fine shearling coats, customers want to see not only the overall look of the jacket, but also the elegant details of accents and trim. With D’Andre’s old site, product images looked small on larger screens, preventing customers from getting a complete picture of the jacket they were considering. Every product image on the site existed in two separate files: a tiny thumbnail version, and the full-sized version. Since the thumbnail had to be created manually in an image editor, and since both images had to be uploaded manually, the old system required double the work on catalog updates. Enter the Miva Image Machine. This state-of-the art functionality dynamically creates multiple image sizes from one image file, eliminating the need to create thumbnail sizes manually and upload them separately. The Image Machine also allows alternative images. These show up as thumbnail images below the main image on a product page. Users can click on any of these alternative images and view the full-sized image in a popup. This allows store owners to provide multiple views of a product, giving customers a sense of what the product looks like from different angles.
The Bottom Line
We saw at once that Tatiana’s company offered a great product. We wanted to improve the overall value of her brand by optimizing the impression her company made on web visitors. With a little Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization, Tatiana’s redesign was ready to go, clearly communicating the luxury and style that customers could expect from D’Andre New York. It was a pleasure to work with Tatiana. Through deep market analysis and ongoing communication, we formed a partnership with her to improve the marketability of her brand. We think you’ll agree—the new D’Andre New York website looks beautiful, fully matching the luxury and elegance which D’Andre offers its customers. If you’re considering a responsive Miva design for your ecommerce store, get in touch with us today. We specialize in Miva design and development, and all our work is fully mobile-responsive. Whether you need tweaks to a Miva ReadyTheme or a ground-up custom design, we’ll turn your vision into a reality. Drop us a line, and let’s start talking about your next big thing.

Greg McNeil

July 17, 2015

Miva, Responsive, SEO
Digital Marketing Round-Up: July 14th, 2015
In this week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up we’ll cover tips to optimize your conversion rate, how to make your SEO content writing stand out, and whats next for the Penguin update.

July 14th, 2015

Conversion Rate Optimization Tips

So you’re getting visitors to your site but they aren’t converting. What can you do to turn those visitors into customers? Start optimizing your acquisition strategy for conversions.
- Message Match – Make sure your ad copy is true to what your product or service offers. If a consumer gets to a landing page and finds what they expected to find, they are less likely to bounce from your page.
- Help Your Customer Be Successful – Conversions are more likely to occur when a customer is confident in the quality of the product. This confidence can come from a variety of things, but offering support and customer engagement can make a customer feel secure in their purchasing decision.
- Keep your landing pages short and simple – Provide enough information to the consumer for them to act on the CTA. Consumers who are in the purchasing phase of the sales cycle don’t want to read more information than the information they need to buy.
Targeted SEO Content Writing

Great research is the key to SEO content writing.
- Nothing destroys readers trust like factual errors in a piece they were using to help make a decision in the purchasing process. That is why research is at the top of the list when writing content for SEO, get your facts straight and then start writing.
- Divide your readers into segments. For example, customers who are researching your product, customers who are getting to know your product, and customers who have a long lasting relationship with your product.
- As long as you are putting your audience first then your consumer will put trust in your knowledgeable and relevant content.
The Penguin Update is Still Months Away

While the Penguin refresh isn’t knocking on our door step, it is still important to be complying with all the best practices (cough cough mobile responsive design).
- Currently Google is dealing with a slow running Penguin algorithm, which is far from the goal of an algorithm that runs in real time.
- Google is working towards a continuously updating Penguin, versus what they have now, which is data that has to be manually refreshed.
- Until then we will abide by rules like easy to crawl site link structures, mobile responsive designs, and well thought out content.
Greg McNeil

July 14, 2015

SEO
Digital Marketing Round-Up: July 7th, 2015
This week’s Digital Marketing Round-Up is all about staying ahead of the curve. Make sure your eCommerce marketing efforts are aligning with the best practices.

July 7th, 2015

Promoting Content Over Producing It: Another SEO Story

Link building authority Brian Dean, put out a how to guide for promoting your blog content. While it sounds simple, it is more than just throwing it into the social universe.

Good influencer outreach email
- Promoting your content takes time. This time should be spent identifying influencers in your industry, and once you know the names, reach out and ask them to share.
- As you reach out make sure that the influencer’s audience will be interested in your piece, if the content is relevant to their audience they will be more inclined to share your content.
- With promotion, you are not only putting your content in front of more people, but building valuable links for your website.
Making Your eCommerce Marketing Future Ready

It always seems that once you get a grasp on a new marketing trend, it is the way of the past. Start playing by the rules of the future, and your marketing mix will stay creative and up to date.
- Personalize your online shopping experience – customers are more likely to provide you with personal information if there is incentive. For example, free shipping on their next purchase if they create a customer log-in.
- Make your mobile advertisements targeted towards discounts and deals. This is important to the two-thirds of U.S. mobile shoppers who are comparing and checking prices.
- Don’t let your social strategy fall to the wayside. Social marketing is becoming increasingly important with the mass adoption of the “buy button” bringing one click shopping to the consumer.
Creating Demand For Products With Low Search Volume

It is hard to do keyword targeting when there is no search volume for your keywords. But as the Moz Blog points out in their latest White Board Friday video, SEO can be a channel for opportunity.
- When there is no search volume for your product or service it is important to take a step back in the SEO process and do in depth keyword research. For example, what else is your target audience searching for?
- When you identify what else your audience is looking for, you can optimize content for those key phrases, even though they might not directly promote your product or services.
- Building brand awareness is also important when a product has low search volume. Build your brand awareness through a combination or organic and paid advertising on sites that your audience is already visiting.
Greg McNeil

July 7, 2015

Content Marketing, SEO