If you are a business owner and you have been following our blog, this is your sign that it is time to start a blog of your own! Often, we hear people say that they don’t have time for a blog or think that their audience might not be interested in what they have to say. There are so many great reasons to start a blog and we are going to share them with you!

1. Website Traffic and SEO
Blogs are an amazing way to boost your SEO ratings. Text plays a huge role in SEO and including relevant keywords to your business in your blogs will help increase traffic. Often a blog is shared on a variety of platforms because of the type of content it provides. This increases visits to your website and many times those visitors will explore other areas of your website before leaving, giving you more of a chance to catch their attention.

2. To Share Your Expertise
Sharing your voice and your experience in the field will build your customers’ trust with your brand. People will start to look to you for upcoming events, news in the field, and even just as a place of entertainment. This will get your website a lot of return visitors which helps show that your blog is a relevant place for customers to find answers to their questions or learn more about your product.

3. Blog Content Can be Repurposed
One of our favorite things about blog content is how it can be repurposed for a variety of different areas. Blogs can easily be turned into social media posts, newsletter and newspaper articles, email campaigns, and press releases. Even if the content needs to be shortened you can link to your blog for access to the full article to drive website traffic and provide the best information possible to your customers.

4. It is a Place for Important News to Live on your Website
How many times do you have information that you want to share or needs a place to live on your website, but it doesn’t quite fit anywhere? Your blog can be a place to host all those things and gives you links to direct traffic to from other platforms like social media. Blogs are flexible and can provide you with a little more freedom to include information you want to on your website without having to add a new page.

There you have it! This list is just a few of the ways that having a blog can benefit your business. Take that leap and start your blog today.

January is a time for reflection on the previous year and to think about the coming year. It’s a time to assess what went well for you and to address anything you want to work on changing. It is the fresh start of a new year, and we are so excited you are here with us on this journey! During 2021 we made some amazing moves within our business to support the growth we have seen throughout the pandemic. As we continued to push forward into the unknown, we brought on two new team members, Mckenzie and Danielle. Mckenzie joined our team as a Web Specialist and Danielle joined our team as our Project Manager.

With the growth of our team throughout the year, we were able to bring on 60 new clients. Each one has been essential to our growth, and we have had so much fun bringing all their ideas to life and getting to know their businesses. The experience of trying to expand our business, and help others do the same during a pandemic have helped us develop our skills and strengthen us as a team. We were so blessed to not only survive but thrive this year!

Looking forward to 2022, we have no plans of slowing down. Our growth and development as a team is one of our top priorities. We want to push each other to the next level in everything we do. When we support each and our individual growth, the entire will benefit from it, and we can continue to grow together as a business. Another major goal for the year is to create new business and community partnerships. We focus on small, local businesses, and love being able to be part of their growth. We also want to help all our current clients meet any goals they have for the year. When we strengthen the businesses around us, we strengthen the community, making it a better place to live, work, and visit.

By Chelsea Bray- Elle A. Design

“I encourage you to listen to your body. Don’t wait if you feel like something’s not right. Don’t explain away pain and discomfort that is persistent. 
 
January 2019 Pain began - I assumed it was from beginning to wean my last baby from nursing. 
 
March 2019 Pain so excruciating I stopped driving. 
 
March 2019 Misdiagnosed at the ER as costochondritis (pain of the chest wall). No one bothered to even check my breasts. 
 
March 2019 Another trip to a different ER revealed several large masses in my left breast, as well as enlarged lymph nodes. 
 
Mammogram, ultrasound, biopsies, genetic testing, bloodwork, MRI’s and bone scans were all completed within 6 days of the last ER visit. Diagnosis given of Stage IIIb (later changed to IIIc) ER/PR+ HER2- breast cancer. I was 38 years old.” - Erika Berry via Facebook 
 
Hear the whole story about Erika’s diagnosis, treatment, and inspirational journey that came along with it all here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ektePahm2bhJ1hvVVfxO9 ​

My business is pretty straightforward. We help other small businesses leverage digital technology. Looking back, it was no surprise that this is the business I ended up starting. My stepdad worked in IT, and I remember building our first computer with him in our living room. By ten years old, I was helping my friends’ parents pick out and set up their computers, learn software, programs, and utilize their new machine best. It was clear helping people with technology was my passion.

In 2012, I moved back to West Liberty, OH, a three-stoplight town, and started a company doing what I love. Today, we have 11 employees and help more than 200 clients reach customers all across the country.

We know firsthand that large digital companies have been a boon for small businesses. We use many of the leading tech companies’ free and low-cost digital tools to promote our services. For example, we use Google Ads to help us find clients that need computer repair or SEO help. In addition, we run our entire digital infrastructure on Google Workspace. Not only do we use these tools in our own business, but we advise our clients on which tools will help them most and how to get the most out of those tools.

Digital advertising has been an especially fantastic tool for us and our clients. The data and algorithms that help with targeting and the fact that you only pay when someone clicks on an ad makes advertising worth the cost. And Google Analytics ensures that digital marketing, ads, and social media are optimized to maximize return on modest investments. It has been a game-changer for many of our clients.

Small businesses couldn’t compete with large companies’ billion-dollar ad budgets and teams of consultants in the past. Now, with a modest investment, they can reach their target audience quickly and cheaply. Moreover, for businesses that operate using e-commerce, their market is now national or global instead of limited to our small town.

During the past 16 months of the pandemic, digital tools’ value has only become more apparent. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and tools like Google My Business allowed our clients to communicate directly with the public quickly and easily. In addition, for companies that operated brick and mortar stores that were forced to close or limit occupancy, we helped them transition quickly to e-commerce, online shopping, and direct-to-consumer shipping.

Obviously, we would not be in business without the various digital tools and services that we help our clients leverage. But many of our clients wouldn’t be in business or would not be as successful without them.

When lawmakers set their sights on big businesses, their actions almost always have repercussions for small ones. New regulations could mean more expensive and less effective tools for my clients’ businesses. That means less room on my clients’ balance sheets for my companies’ services and less revenue for me to continue to invest in growing my business. It’s past time for Congress to consider what their actions will mean for small businesses and not rush into passing laws that will inevitably harm their futures.

Ryan Berry is the founder of Berry Digital Solutions in West Liberty, OH, and a member of the Connected Commerce Council.

My typical day includes working in my home office updating websites, posting to social media, and brainstorming ideas for Berry Digital Solutions. When the workload slows down, I enjoy spending time with my fiancé, Parker. Parker and I are high school sweethearts. We both attended Triad High School and have been together since 2014. We are getting married on October 23, 2021 and we are beyond excited! We have two fur babies that we adore so much! We have a cat named Trixie who we adopted in January of 2020 and most recently, we adopted a Miniature Australian Shepard named Odin who is now seven months old.

Most of my free time is spent with my fiancé. We both enjoy nature hikes in Yellow Springs, fishing, playing video games with our friends, watching anything and everything Marvel, binge watching The Office for what seems like the millionth time, and having Harry Potter marathons. One of our favorite memories is attending the renaissance festival which we plan to attend again this year! Another fall favorite of ours is watching Ohio State University football on Saturdays. This has been a tradition of ours since we started dating almost seven years ago!

Family is the most important thing in my life. I enjoy spending time with my family any chance that I get. I have three siblings; Macie, J.T., and Addison. I am also a proud aunt of Owen (6), Connor (4), Quinn (2), Hailey (4 months), and Elias (2 months). Being with my nieces and nephews is the best, and it's even better when we are all together at once! I could not imagine life without my family and I am so lucky that we are all close knit.

This past year has been very eventful with my fiancé and I moving into a new place in February, planning a wedding, two new additions to our family in April and June, getting a puppy at the end of May, to leaving my job of two years and starting a new career on June 7th. I have been very blessed with the life I have been given and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for helping me along this path. I still have a lot of learning and growth to do, but I am surrounded by love and happiness that has given me the motivation to always be my best self. I am so excited for what the next few years will bring and I look forward to all that the future has to offer.

We have all been in those meetings before where one person in the room sounds like they are speaking in a different language. We want to make sure when you meet with us you are as prepared as you can be and have a good understanding of the basic terms we will be using. Read through this list of website design lingo that we think everyone should know.

1. Content

Content refers to any text, photos, graphics, videos, and anything else that will live on your website. When developing a new website, all the content that goes on it will have to be created. Copy will need to be written for each page, photos will need to be shot, videos will need to be created and even icons and graphics will need to be produced. If you are refreshing the look of your current website, some of the content can be reused or refreshed to fit your new site.

2. Favicon

A favicon, also known as a shortcut icon, website icon, or bookmark icon, is the small graphic that accompanies the name of your website in the address bar on your web browser. It makes your site easy to identify with just a small image. The favicon will show up in website favorites, bookmarks, and on some browsers even in the history.

3. Resolution

Resolution is a word used when talking about photos or videos. The resolution of an image is the detail in which it holds. The higher the resolution of an image, the more detail you will be able to see. If the resolution of an image is too low, you will start to lose detail and the image will become pixelated and blurred.

4. Responsive Layout

A responsive layout is something that has become more of a standard in the past decade. When your website has a responsive layout, it will render well on a variety of different size screens and devices. The rendering is based on percentage rather than size and can help make your website accessible to anyone, no matter what device they are viewing it on.

5. Back End

You will often hear people refer to the back end of the website. The back end of a website is a portion of the website not viewable to the public. This is where website changes and updates can be made. Once they are made and published on the backend, they will appear live on your website.

6. Hosting

Hosting is a service that allows your website to be searchable on the internet. Buying hosting is basically buying space on a server where your website can store its files. Every website that you have ever visited is hosted on a server somewhere and takes up physical space! There are different types of hosting, and we can help you figure out what is best for your site.

7. Below the Fold

“Below the Fold” is a term that started in the days of newspapers. It literally means below the fold of the newspaper’s front page. Nowadays, “Below the Fold” refers to the portion of your website that is not visible unless you scroll down the page. As a good rule of thumb, the most important information you want people to see first should live above the fold on your website.

8. Domain

Your domain is what people will type into their web browser to view your website. Your domain name generally should be the name of your business, but sometimes you might find that someone else already hosts a site with that domain. You will want your domain to be easy to spell and easy to remember so people can find you easily!

9. Navigation

Navigation refers to the menu often found at the top of your website, although side navigation is currently on trend as well. These are linked to other subpages on your website that visitors will require quick access to. If your navigation is confusing or too complex it will make it hard for people to find what they are looking for and ultimately they will leave your website unsatisfied.

By Chelsea Bray- Elle A. Design