Now, we look forward to inviting friends, community partners and current clients to our new space year-round for #CoffeeWithRyan. Let us help you solve your digital problems with our digital solutions...over a cup of coffee on Ryan!

Click below to  schedule your #CoffeeWithRyan  directly on his calendar. 

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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.