Author Archives: Brian Rants

Tortoise vs Hare – Why “Steady” Wins the Online Marketing Race in Small Business

tortoise-hare

In the famous fable, the steady tortoise wins over the flashy hare with steady, consistent effort. Too often companies approach launching a website as the finish line, when it is in fact the starting line. A website gets you in the race, but then you have to start running! Here’s some tips on how small business owners can get ahead with steady, consistent marketing efforts. Create a Marketing Plan (Quickly) For most small business owners, having a Chief Marketing Officer or dedicated marketing team is the stuff of dreams. That [...]

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Shotgun vs Sniper Rifle – Why “Focus” is Key to Online Marketing Success

overwhelmed-by-social-networking

“The key to online marketing success is a good blog. Also a Newsletter. And Facebook. I mean Twitter….errrr, or maybe LinkedIn? Ok, it’s Pinterest, I promise! What, what’s this Google+ thing?” The media and the business “experts,” whoever they happen to be, love shiny things. And Silicon Valley is happy to constantly churn out the next “great idea” (with a flimsy if discernible business model) that is certain to “revolutionize online marketing forever!” (Take a breath). Ok, let’s have some straight talk: the only thing that revolutionizes online marketing is [...]

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The New & Improved Google Analytics

Google Analytics Real-Time

If the last time you looked at Google Analytics was around the last time you cleaned out your basement, it’s time to meet this powerful (and free) tool all over again. What’s New? Google has done quite a lot to the old version of Analytics. The interface has been completely redesigned and is now faster than ever. There are also multiple dashboards that allow you to create a custom dashboard for each department. You can track Event Goals and you can even configure two-minutes of play time on a video [...]

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Consistency + Simplicity = “Winning” in Website Design

Denver Web Design UI Example

As a business owner you might groan when your designer talks about “white space” and “branding consistency” (as this video parodies so well). However, consistency and simplicity are indispensable ingredients to a site that is not only attractive, but effective. Simple User Experience A website is a business tool, a means to achieving ends including lead generation, new product launches, and providing support to end users. Therefore the primary goal is not a “pretty” site, but a “useful” site. Design elements like colors, textures, and fonts should support the business [...]

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What’s the Chemical Composition of SEO Success?

Clients often ask which are the most important factors for ranking well in Google or Bing search results, and how to optimize their site (search engine optimization) to create the best chance for search success. Being “lab rats” ourselves, I was delighted to see SearchEngineLand.com put together a “Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors.” There is an art to SEO, but here’s the science: View the full size:

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What 3 Months of SEO Can Achieve

Screen shot 2012-02-27 at 11.39.21 AM

When times are tight, how should you spend your marketing dollars? Companies are increasingly coming to us to leverage the varied tools of online marketing such as automated marketing and SEO & PPC marketing. We provide weekly reports, but after 3 months I like to prepare an aggregate report showing what we’ve accomplished. While manufacturing isn’t as mature a vertical as something like software sales, what we achieved in three months is pretty darn remarkable, wouldn’t you say?! 2012-02-27 Example Rankings Report

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Modern Manufacturing Miracle – RLE is live!

Leak Detector - RLE Technologies - Water Leak Detection Equipment

Ok, so maybe “miracle” is overstating it, but what else do you call what we achieved for RLE Technologies website? Designed a site that tied together products, applications and resources for an intuitive and informative user experience Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click: Cost Per Click down 23% while simultaneously raising Click Through Rate 1900% (nope, not a typo) Content management system that allows them to efficiently maintain their sizable product catalog and resources database 31 keywords in the top 30 of Google and rising Creating custom post types specific for their needs, along [...]

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Copywriting that Wins Clients

marketing-copy

Blue Riot Labs received some flattering praise for our copywriting from Design Shack in their article “The Ten Commandments of Writing Copy That Wins Clients” (we would like to thank our  Moms, Apple, and Starbucks lattes). Here’s what the pros at design shack liked about our approach to copywriting: 7. Everyone Loves a Catchy Headline Sometimes you can really nail that first impression with something simple and memorable. The site above uses the phrase “contagiously creative.” It’s an alliteration so it rolls off the tongue nicely, it speaks to what [...]

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The future is here. EconoManey is live.

EconoManey

What do you do when a collection of crazy-brilliant economic futurists need a website? Well, you add: 70ml of pure user interface 175ml of refined WordPress integration 45ml of videos, blog posts, and more Then you pile the mixture into the BRL beaker, spin it at the speed of light, and you get: an uber-smart, geeky-cool site of smart people we are still trying to understand. It will come (we hope). Check the site out, the latest web design and development creation from the BRL WordPress lab.

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FPA.org goes live!

Foreign Policy Association Cropped

The Foreign Policy Association is one of the world’s most lauded policy organizations. Formed in 1918 to support Woodrow Wilson’s effort to achieve a just peace, its “fans” include names like Reagan, Bush, Clinton,  and Kennedy. The only problem: as far as the website went, FPA “looked their age.” Checkout the polished, refined website we gave them. The Foreign Policy Association…yes, we are name dropping.

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