• 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 with “post-to-post” capabilities

A reputable Web Developer will have the expert knowledge and training to:

• Guide your visitors’ eyes properly up, down or across the page.
• Utilize the proper spacing that makes a web page easy to read and navigate.
• Make your website and various web pages easy to navigate.
• Design your website so that it fits perfectly on the screen and in all the right colors.
• And all the other details that go into an effective website

Expertise
A reputable web developer in Denver will study the competition, your business, industry and your prospects and customers in order to come up with a highly effective web strategy. This comes from years of study and experience and all with a focus on local Denver wants and needs.

Quality
A reputable web developer is always striving for the best. Nobody is going to recommend one who doesn’t take the time to do everything perfectly the first time. When you are lucky enough to find a good web developer, you’ll be assured a professional look and feel that will make visitors want to return again and again.

Promptness
A reputable Denver web developer is sure to be quick on the draw when it comes to returning emails and phone calls. Nothing is more frustrating than not hearing back from your consultant when you’re paying him or her good money. A reputable developer understands this and will never leave you hanging.

Reliability
Along with promptness, you can always count on a good developer to come through for you. When you want to add to your order, change your website or even if you have a question, you can rest assured that your developer will always find time for you. And if the web developer promises you something, you can be sure the promise will be followed through with. After all, a wishy-washy developer isn’t going to be very highly recommended, right?

Research
A reputable web developer in Denver is going to always be on the cusp of the latest technologies and processes. This requires constant research and study and the desire to remain one or more steps ahead of the competition.

Your Reputation
A reputable web developer has a vested interest in seeing you succeed. If you succeed, you’ll give them great online and offline reviews and you’ll be more likely to spread the word about the professional’s expertise and professionalism. That’s free advertising for your developer and you get the professionalism you paid for, and customers get a professional looking and easy-to-navigate site to visit. Everyone wins!

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.

Salesforce

Salesforce is considered the number one platform for tracking and monitoring any sales or marketing team. The platform is used by millions of businesses worldwide. And with the Salesforce API, developers can custom-design any application that integrates Salesforce functionality. This allows salespeople the ability to create, retrieve, update and delete records, maintain passwords, perform searches and more.

UPS

For any company that routinely sends packages via UPS, this API is a must-have. With the ability to integrate address validation, pickup information, shipping information and even signature and delivery information, a company can now provide even more value for the customer.

MailChimp

With MailChimp, you’ll be able to easily communicate with your subscription list. With this API, you’ll be able to manage your lists and stats for your campaigns on your own website or application. You can also sync subscriber information between your database and the MailChimp database and this means that you’ll have a cleaner list and, most of all, it means no more importing or exporting of subscriber information.

Freshbooks

Freshbooks makes billing and invoicing extremely easy, and now you can send invoices and manage all of those invoices right on your own site or application. The Freshbooks API offers a single point of entry and is derived right from your own account URL.

Amazon.com

With Amazon’s API, you have access to a wide selection of Amazon products and product descriptions. But you also have access to Amazon’s product reviews, which are incredibly influential when it comes to increasing buying behavior.

These are just a few of the APIs currently available, and they allow you to transform your website or application so that you don’t have to ‘reinvent the wheel’, so to speak. You can access the developer software of the platform of your choice, allowing you to mold it to your specifications and needs. Use these APIs to empower your sales force, inform your prospects and consumers, send out invoices, send out communications and much more. And, with WordPress powering everything, that API just got even stronger. You’ll be able to create a custom-made application that does just what you want it to, and we’ve already given you five APIs to get you started. All you have to do is choose the ones that are right for you, mold the APIs to your specifications and you will have the functionality you need in less time, with less effort and for far less money.

What is the Roots Theme?
The Roots theme comes packed with additional features that won’t be found in other themes and plug-ins. This makes Roots fast and the theme comes with some of the cleanest code available. Plus, it’s made for hardened WordPress veterans and novices alike, which means all developers should find something they enjoy in Roots. But what sets the theme apart is the combination of other themes and frameworks that you may already be familiar with.

HTML 5 Boilerplate: This is a template for HTML 5 development that includes all the bells and whistles developers could ask for with complete cross-browser consistency.

Starkers: A ‘bare-bones’  WordPress theme that acts as a great starting point for new theme developers.
Blueprint CSS (960.gs): This framework provides a grid-based layout system that works on new and old browsers alike.

The result is a new and improved theme framework that provides all the bells and whistles you could ask for, with the simplicity and ease-of-use that, as a developer, you’ll absolutely love. And the theme is constantly being updated. It’s also completely customizable. Simply take out what you don’t want and go. It’s that easy.

Updated Often
The theme already has a growing collection of documentation and there are frequent updates to the code and manuals. The Roots theme also comes without that cookie-cutter feel that you get with some themes. With a variety of layouts and looks, you’ll be able to add your own creativity to your projects using this simple framework that allows you to build your own killer themes in a short period of time.

Once the Roots theme is installed, you’ll instantly receive:
A Home Page Complete with Filler Content
Changes to the Uploads Folder and Options
Auto-Created Menus with Set Locations

This makes it easy to get up and running right away, which makes Roots not only user-friendly but also incredibly convenient. Roots is also multilingual-ready and comes with a list of recommended plug-ins to that will maximize the theme’s customization and power.

So if you’ve been on the lookout for an ultra-modern WordPress theme framework, or you’re just ready to start using HTML 5 in your WordPress blogs and sites, Roots is the theme you’ll want to try next.

Ben has put a lot of work into Roots and he is constantly adding to it, and we are very happy to promote it. We highly recommend that you add Roots to your own websites and blogs. You can download your own version of Roots on GitHub, a social coding platform. To read and learn more, and for complete download instructions, visit the Roots Theme website at http://rootstheme.com/.

WordPress
As you know, it’s the world’s most popular content management system. It is used by millions of websites, it’s simple to use and it’s free. The thing that makes this open source CMS platform so great is that fact that it is supported by a ton of plug ins that make it completely customizable. With WordPress, you can turn any website into an online store, a blog, or anything else you desire.

Mozilla Firefox
Firefox is a web browser that is used by nearly 30% of internet users and the number continues to grow every year. Most web professionals would rather use Firefox than any other browser and that popularity is only increasing thanks to a  number of add-ons made by third parties that, like WordPress with its plug ins, make the browser completely customizable.

Other open source applications you may have heard of or used include:

• Mozilla Thunderbird
• File Zilla
• Open Office
• And many more

Open Source and Schools

Businesses aren’t the only ones using open source software. Now many schools are jumping on board. Open source allows students to freely share information and ideas so as to create a better learning environment. By not placing any restrictions on the software and how that software is used, ideas can flourish and that always leads to great and powerful things. This is the force behind the ‘open source movement’.

Open Source vs. Private License

Thanks to the widespread use of the internet and the growing popularity of the open source software movement, there are now open source solutions for operating systems, word processing and spreadsheet programs, email management, image editing accounting, and more.

The main benefit of open source software is that it’s free, as in you don’t have to pay to use the license. With WordPress, there is a public license that allows you to download and use the CMS for your own personal use. If you were to use a private license CMS, you would have to pay for its use and possibly for any upgrades.

With open source software, you never pay for upgrades, you don’t need expensive hardware upgrades and online support is always readily available. Not only that, but when you use open source software, you support a movement that is moving away from proprietary restrictions. Going along with the freedom of the internet, the open source movement seeks to make all computer based applications equal and free for anyone to use.

If you are currently using private license software, you may find that there is an open source version of that software that works just as well or even better. Take Open Office and Microsoft Office, for example. Open Office has a word processor and a spread sheet program that rivals Word and Excel. The two open source versions were clearly based on Microsoft’s versions, but the open source versions are said to be superior in a number of ways. So if you’ve never tried open source software and you’re not yet part of the open source movement, you now have plenty of free software applications to download in order to begin your initiation.

We had the opportunity of working with a client that asked themselves just that and came up with a simple solution that has revolutionized their business.  Quality UPC is a company that buys UPC Barcodes in bulk and offers them to their customers, smaller businesses.  Wanting to pursue her music career and needing the extra time to do so, they came to us at Blue Riot Labs, a reputable development shop in the Denver area.

At that time, when their customer’s orders were complete, they had to manually process each order by generating the unique Barcode Skus, create a certificate of authenticity, and zip them all into a folder and email it herself.  Fortunately, they had a busy website with plenty of orders, but unfortunately they had to be on stand-by, all the time, in order to insure excellent customer service and a timely delivered product.

When finished, Blue Riot Labs, delivered yet again another awesome project.  Our client now enjoys a “hands-off” approach. When ordering from their website, upon checkout, all barcodes are now dynamically generated, a certificate of authenticity is dynamically generated based on the customers profile information, and are zipped up and available for download as soon as payment is accepted.  What used to be a manual process, now is completely self sufficient.

Not only has our client eliminated what did take several hours a day, and is focusing on pursuing other interests, but has also seen an increased number of sales by advertising the convenience of their new checkout. We can proudly say, Quality UPC will see a positive ROI in month three of their original investment.

Software is used all of the time to automate some kind of work and complete it efficiently in less amount of time. Chances are, you are already using an automation software like this to make your life easier. There was a time when different companies belonging to different industries used one kind of software. However, today the trend has changed and individual companies look forward to getting software designed to optimize their process.

So, this is my challenge to you.  Carefully analyze your current practices for your business. What is taking the most time? or money? Now, step outside of the box, and brainstorm ideas that you can use to simplify or automate your current process. This could be bookkeeping, marketing, order processing etc.  If you’re having trouble with this, contact us today.  Here at Blue Riot Labs, we’d love the opportunity of talking with you and generating innovative ideas with you.

If you can dream it… We can build it!