888.800.9101

Below is an SEO Timeline I created based on requests by people I’ve talked to who wanted to understand what to expect:

Many of our web design or SEO clients in Los Angeles and Seattle ask about what they can expect from our SEO efforts. We always walk them through the process and try and establish reasonable expectations for great results. Since our approach is much cleaner, standards compliant, and at the cutting edge of SEO, the results don’t always happen overnight.

Some SEO companies will guarantee instant results, but what they aren’t promising is long term results. That’s where we come in.

Once you’ve signed up for a Coalition SEO campaign, you’re always getting pushed to the forefront of your competitive keywords and we’re always seeking out new opportunities to improve your revenue. We don’t just focus for a 1 month, temporary SEO ranking. We look to get you to the top of the heap and keep you there for years.

That result is more achievable because of the way we go about our campaigns and helping your business. SEO is more then just keywords and links and we know it. We’re able to significantly help our business partners in the long term.

If you’re curious about how we do SEO, or would like us to assist your business. Give us a call.

Everyone knows that there is money to be made online. Whether its with ecommerce websites, or with mobile applications, or search engines, or social media, there is no shortage of cash flow aimed at the web.

As with every bubble and trend, people are always curious how they can get in and get their piece of the pie. A lot of people are already identifying ways that they can use their existing profession and experience to push their products online. Either they already own a traditional retail store and are now contemplating putting their items up for sale on the web, or they are looking at having a promotional brochure site that will enable them to reach new clients and advertise around the clock.

The big question to many of these people is how to market the business online. How do you get eyes on the page, and how do you get people to start generating revenue?

As experts in online marketing in Los Angeles and Seattle, Coalition Technologies has significant knowledge of a few of the marketing channels below:

1. SEO: Search engine optimization is still the major traffic booster for most sites, and if you follow Google’s best practice guidelines, you can reliably count on strong traffic, leads, customers, etc for years to come. Remember SEO isn’t a passive process that you do one thing and voila! you’re number one. Its ongoing, and its active, and its aggressive. Your competitors all want the same spots you do.
2. Adwords (PPC): Google and other major search providers afford you the opportunity to buy ad space on SERP. IF you can afford it. Its important to be very focused with an Adwords campaign and to make sure you’re not wasting money on needless clicks. We’re a Google Adwords Certified developer in Seattle and Los Angeles.
3. Social Media: The number of social networks available to businesses keep growing and growing. Facebook, Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. We don’t recommend buying ads on any of them, but it is useful to use their profile pages to engage your audience more personally.
4. Blogs and other Directories: Find people who talk about what you do and ask them to review your site, service, etc. Offer free giveaways to their readers and special discount codes if applicable. This ensures that you get meaningful PR and that you are scoring valuable links.
5. Daily Deals Sites: If you’re selling something, it can be a good idea to use a Groupon or Living Social to generate a lot of interest very quickly. Just make sure you carefully analyze their terms and conditions and make sure your business is properly equipped to handle the influx of clients.

We hope we’ve piqued your interest and gotten you on the path to joining the internet revolution! If you need professional assistance or would like to talk through a strategy more, call us at 888. 853. 7280, or check out our services page for more information before contacting us.

I’ve been getting quite annoyed lately with the number of big sites that aren’t coded to operate on all major browsers.

Most frequently, I experience the issues using Google Chrome-

We’re a small web design company working for small to mid-size businesses (most of which are not exclusively web based) and our website designs are still fully browser compatible. Its ridiculous to have a website recommend that I switch to Internet Explorer to use their full feature set.

C’mon guys, get with the program!

Coalition Technologies in Los Angeles can do it, why can’t you!

As the web spreads and spread, and more traditional brick and mortar retail businesses are caught up in the growth, lots of people are trying to figure out how to get in on the action. But the question as always, is where (and how) to start? For many, the front end of the web (user side) is what they’re familiar with. Web addresses, social media, back buttons, refresh, favorites, email, are all commonly used and as much a part of our daily lives as eating. But that means next to nothing when it comes to creating a concept, thinking through all its pieces, picking a web design company in Los Angeles, building and designing a website, and then finally launching and managing it.

We’ll try and provide you with a quick overview of some ways that you can create your own online store. Of course, if you’re interested and have an idea, we’d love to be the team that helps you out.

1. What to sell? If you’re already familiar with a particular product group and have a source, you’re ahead in this area. But picking an item to sell is really one of the most difficult and important things to consider. Generally, if you’re starting from scratch and you don’t have significant investments ready to put into something, you’ll want a product that has a long shelf life (things that expire or go out of fashion can be risky), something small if you have to store, or something that can be shipped directly from the distributor. If you’re responsible for shipping and are offering free returns, pick something that ships easily with little chance of damage. Socks for instance


Ship well? Check.

2. Now you’ve decided to sell socks online! Okay, maybe not. But we’ll use that as an example. The next big step for you is to find your supplier. This should be done carefully and should be done thoroughly. The wrong supplier could mean delays, low quality in products, or poor profit margins.
3. So you found a sock wholesaler from Kansas who hand knits them all in the US and offers a lifetime guarantee, and a full refund to their retail partners if they don’t ship in a timely fashion? Great. Next up is to start the branding search. Is the company going to be geared toward younger people, stay at home moms, nerds? Come up with a great name for the company, a color scheme that coordinates, and start looking at any other site aimed at your audience. Ideally, this is not too trendy. A lot of advertising, print, and design dollars are going to be based off this branding so make sure you don’t limit your audience or your growth by an ill-fated decision here.
4. Now you’re ready to start selling the product but you need a website. Spend the time to VERY VERY VERY thoroughly examine each of the options here. Look for references, BBB ratings, Yelp reviews, and more to verify up front, that a web design company is as good as they say they are. Examine their portfolios, looking for similar projects. The problem with web design is that there aren’t any regulations, so many people simply throw up new company names every couple months after their lack of ability and follow through shines through. You want a web design company that has been around for a while (under the same domain, name, and location) and that has demonstrated experience with what you’re looking for. Don’t miss this- THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP IN YOUR PROCESS. Good ideas come often, but good execution does not. IF your short on budget, save, save, save. Going cheaper doesn’t mean you can fix later, usually it means more costs up front and less flexibility down the road. Why is it so important to pick the right company? Most of the time, you’ll have to take what they say as the truth. Unless you want to learn PHP, Perl, C+, HTML, CSS, Flash, Javascript, jQuery, etc, you’ll need someone to guide you.
5. Once you’ve picked Coalition Technologies, spend the time with us working all the way through the designs. Do you want contemporary? Traditional? Themed? Feminine? Masculine? Young? A good LA or Seattle web design company like ours talks a lot about marketing, SEO, conversions, usability, and is always consulting you on what’s best for your business. You can choose to ignore it, but you’re better educated and more likely to succeed as a result.
6. After designs, its development. You’ll have a few opportunities to review and test as things progress, so be sure to spend the time to look over everything and be vocal with any questions, comments, or concerns. We don’t mind! Feedback and dialogue are critical. While we’re working on custom coding your site on BigCommerce or Magento or Volusion, you should be gathering content- there is lots to write and lots of photographs and other information that is necessary. Most projects miss deadlines because content wasn’t ready.
7. Finally launch! All that hard work deserves a break! Celebrate with friends and family. Make it a big deal. Its not every day you set out on your own and start a business. Word of mouth can be a valuable way to promote your business.
8. This really isn’t the end- its just the beginning. Now you have to think about marketing, customer service, shipping, promotions, returns, payment processing, SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and more! But keep your chin up. You’re a business owner now, and the business you own is part of the greatest change in our economy since the invention of money.
As we mentioned above, we’d love to hear from you. We’re based in Los Angeles and Seattle and have a great team to address your needs. I can’t assure you that we’ll be the cheapest, but we will be the best value. We look forward to helping you through this process. Call us at 888.800.9101.

Google + represents a big leap forward in the settings and control users have over their content, their profiles, and other aspects which seem quite important to their privacy and safety online. But do they really matter?

Probably not.

The biggest obstacle to people’s security online really isn’t the capability of the technology that they’re using. Its what they do and say on their own- user error. Many people fall into the trap of social networks, believing that they can add friends to different groups or circles based on a thin connection from the past. In truth, they don’t really know anything about that individual, and in some instances they don’t even know them at all. In fact, the US military tried to play on this in an espionage effort a while ago- generating automated profiles on Facebook so they could monitor specific individuals. They essentially created a profile to spy on a specific private individual. Neat, huh?

IF you really want to be secure online, don’t post things that you wouldn’t want a whole world of people knowing. Most people on social networks tell other users where they live, where they’re going, what they’re doing there, and when they’re going to be back. Its provided sufficient ammo for enterprising thieves to get in and get out, before you’re vacation is over. Things like birthdays and anniversaries are also frequently used for passwords and also frequently publicized to a wide variety of other groups on social networks. Allowing that data to be publicly available is just inviting risk, and there is almost no way to participate on social networks without letting something of that nature slip.

And, as the recent reign of terror brought on by LulzSec pointed out, often your information is never really secure! The worse offenders are the companies who are constantly monitoring, aggregating, and storing your information online. Think about how much information Google has on you after years of storing email, using its applications, and visiting its search. I can guarantee you, some of their data tracking has picked up what banking institution you use, perhaps some of your vital statistics, credit card numbers, etc. They say its all anonymous and secure, but the fact of the matter is that it really isn’t.

As long as you’re online, you have to understand that you’re being tracked and monitored (which isn’t healthy for conspiracy theorists). Google + is publicly a social network. Privately, its just a chance for Google to capture more data on the users of the web to better sell advertising (and plot a world dictatorship?). All these wonderful services and great methods of communication that we’re provided online, are all there to devour your information. If that doesn’t make you feel insecure, you’re ignorant.

Does that mean that we should disconnect and move into the woods? Only if you’re out of your meds and your psychologist isn’t answering. But above all, be careful, and operate under the assumption that no amount of privacy features, terms of use, or careful watching is going to prevent your life from being perfectly available to a huge number of people, companies, etc.

Sleep well!

Google Plus (+) is getting lots of publicity.

It is Google’s biggest, and most viable, challenge to Facebook after repeated flops and missteps into social networking.

What is it? Its essentially Facebook, integrated into the myriad of Google products, applications, and functions. Is it a big leap forward from Facebook? No. Is it going to revolutionize the way that we engage on another on social networks? Probably not.

The social circles feature is really the most important feature offered by Google in its development, allowing a more segmented breakdown of content reception and distribution, so you can ensure that you’re seeing what you want to see, and sharing what you want to share, with your friends, coworkers, family, etc.

This doesn’t really seem like that big of a jump forward however in social network development. People (lay people even) have been complaining about Facebook’s lack of this feature since its inception. The fact that Google was the first one to really build it out points to a more glaring flaw in the design of Facebook then to any sort of real innovation by Google.

What is strange about Google + is the surprising lack of ads. There are a full two, very tiny ones, to the right of the screen encouraging me to get Google + for my mobile device or to invite others to use it.

Will that change? Google is an ad whore so I can’t imagine that they’re long term plan is to subsist without extensive ad incorporation throughout Plus. IF they do, I think it will demonstrate a greater desperation on Google’s part to leap in front of the freight train that is Facebook. We all know that Google has been deathly afraid of Facebook for the last five years and has very much wanted to capture its user base to no avail.

By circumventing Facebook with a rather extensive (and expensive) development, a significant push to get publicity and new users, but not effectively monetizing it, Google is saying one of two things:
1. We make enough money elsewhere and Google + will act as a gateway drug to our other products that are revenue generators.
2. Facebook is taking enough money from us on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis that there is $X.XX in trying to strangle them out. Avoiding a loss could be considered a + (even if it does cost some money to build up front).

The question then becomes, how will Google + affect the social networking landscape. I think we’ve already seen that people really have limited interest in duplicating the same efforts in two locations- look at MySpace and its woeful demise. MySpace did some things much better then Facebook, and offered quite a bit more functionality in some regards to its users. But Facebook trended better and now we have no more MySpace.

So what happens to Facebook now? Google is estimated to have already hit the 10 million user mark and is rapidly climbing. The extensions that allow you to share your Google + updates to Facebook will allow users to localize their efforts on one network and vicariously share to another. Of course, this also means that the secondary social network doesn’t get the impressions, visitors, or the ad revenue that they used to. Facebook needs to retain buzz and momentum, and needs to get Google to become the wannabe. I guarantee you that almost everything Google does, Facebook is going to try and counter by incorporating into their offerings. They’ll also need to innovate substantially to prove that Google has a lot to learn yet about social networking. If they can’t do those things, without coming across as a ‘me too’, they’ll flatline. Based on MySpace’s demise, they could do it rather quickly too.

And what about Google itself? Plus isn’t the revenue generator yet. They still are search ad dependent for most of their income and earnings. They have a great suite of widely adopted features and a huge segment of the mobile phone market (to all you Apple fanboy’s, you are little better then RIM at this point). But they’re putting a lot of dependency on their social network, quite publicly (the talks about bonuses being based on Plus performance, etc). If they fail at this, we might see a gradual decline of one of the internet’s founding fathers. I know that they didn’t actually found the internet, but without Google, we may not see it as widely adopted as it is today. Like Microsoft before them, Google could remain a household name, but a consistent shadow of its former glory. Google has to knock off Facebook or at least significantly divide the social networking sphere. If it can’t do that, how users search, come to businesses, generate ad revenue, could all become something different.

Bear in mind that change is good, only if you’re not the one who benefits from the status quo.

Rest assured, that our web design and marketing teams in Seattle and in Los Angeles are carefully watching our related industries to best discern how things will pan out and how they will affect how you do business.

Coalition spends a lot of time advising its clients on what they need to do to help improve their ranking for their sites and how they can be more proactive as they seek to generate revenue for their businesses. We do quite a bit on our own end, but there is still a valuable area where we’ll never be able to match up to our clients’ contributions.

What’s that?

Content.

Content is the one thing that is greatly benefited by experience. And since you, as a business owner, and industry specialist, know more about your business then we could ever hope to learn, content writing and creation is key.

We have professional content writing services that target SEO keywords on hand, but the overall volume of content needed to make a site viable these days is enormous. Simply doing one post a week is not enough. Google wants to see dynamic, constantly updated sites.

Get out there and write some content. Focus on specific products, keywords, and other terms that are important to your business. We’ll help get people there you just want to make sure its worth their while once they do.

If you have any specific questions on how to write SEO content give us a call. Or if you’d like a PR campaign, reputation management, or use of our SEO services do the same.

Here at Coalition Technologies, our web design and development team is quite used to building successful ecommerce sites for a number of different vertical industries. We’ve build extensively on BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify, Volusion, OSCommerce, and Zencart. Our clients, regardless of platform, received the same attention to deal, custom layout and design creation, and a significant focus on SEO and conversion optimization.

Today we wanted to review the pros and cons of two of the biggest ecommerce platforms out there. BigCommerce and Magento. We enjoy working with both of them although they present different challenges and benefits as we plan our clients businesses. We felt a review would be helpful for you, the consumer/business/client, to understand why we might recommend one or another.

We’ll start with BigCommerce. This shopping cart platform scores huge marks from us for its core featureset. As a supported and backed ecommerce shopping cart, BigCommerce has a great tech and development team who manage the growth and updates to the features and options that are available to its users. They also provide A+ customer support to ensure that if anything goes wrong with outside APIs, payment gateways, distribution partners, that they get them addressed quickly. Not only that, this is one of the few shopping cart sites built with a significant emphasis on SEO. It helps even the most basic of ecommerce businesses establish themselves with an online presence and ranking that captures traffic and sales right from the get go. Between the support of the BigCommerce team, the ease of implementation, and the massive suite of marketing features, this shopping cart is a winner. It is especially great as a solution for businesses that have traditionally sold through retail stores or are looking at generating business with as little technical knowledge and cost as possible.

Magento is a different animal altogether. Recently purchased by eBay, Magento is an open source shopping cart platform that focuses less on providing the features to its users, and more on encouraging outside developers and programmers to build the functions so that they can be easily implemented on our clients’ sites. Because they don’t have a support team backing it up, and there is less emphasis on providing the product direct to businesses, Magento can be more difficult to manage, update, and upgrade for most of our clients (if they’re on their own). But if a client is looking for an opportunity to constantly be adding new features, tweaking old ones, or customizing existing options to the site, Magento is a great selection. It requires more development time to get up and running, and more development cost to keep it going as you look for upgrades, but its powerful features and extensive options all make for another winner.

So which should you pick?

If you’re looking for a great first foray into ecommerce or if you’re looking at moving to a more user friendly shopping cart, BigCommerce is the way to go. It takes minimal time for you to get a grasp on the CMS and minimal time to get your business off the ground. The downside? You have to wait for some new features to be released by the BigCommerce development team, or have them programmed outside of the shopping cart. (This could be a negative for an enterprise etailer). But if that is not you or your business, you’ll love BigCommerce. Great core features, powerful marketing, and impressive support for a low cost.

If you’re looking at rapid growth and you don’t mind learning a bit more to keep the site going, then Magento is a good pick. You can customize your features on a daily basis if you want, and modify functionality just as frequently. There are thousands of different combinations of extensions and plugins already available, so you’re never without an option for some feature or another. It does take more money to launch (usually around 25% more then BigCommerce) and generally more development time to keep up to speed and fully functioning (no support means that if USPS changes their API, your developer has to make the adjustments).

Let us know if you want to see what we’d recommend. Use the contact form above, call us, or visit our portfolio.

We hear this question a lot from our clients because we talk about mobile devices a lot when we’re planning a website or a new web development project in Los Angeles or Seattle.

The answer isn’t complicated at all- the fastest growing number of internet users are getting online via a smartphone, tablet, or other web enabled device. When you look at the actual numbers that are being put out by the mobile device industry, its easy to understand why this is such an important part of the web and any businesses’ approach to succeeding there.

Android recently announced that they are activating over 500,000 devices A DAY. That’s right- 500k smartphones and tablets being activated a day. And based on the last numbers I’ve seen, that represents only around 40% of the smartphone and tablet market. Throw in Apple’s estimates of 300,000 a day (which includes all iOS devices), and this is a staggering volume of people who could be accessing a businesses’ website online.

Any business I know would be delighted to have 500,000 visitors to their store in one day. They also would be in a panic trying to prepare for that kind of traffic. While many websites won’t actually experience that huge of a volume of traffic in a day, it is important to try and capture as much of that user base as possible when designing and building a website.

How do you prepare for that?

1. Create websites with mobile friendly tech, coding, and layouts. No mouse over features, no Flash (Apple still has a grudge with Adobe), and faster loading times.
2. Build websites with special rules for smaller screen sizes and resolution, or based on particular browser types.
3. Make your content useful for people on the go- directions, clear phone numbers, maps, bigger buttons
4. Engage with applications. There are dozens of great ideas out there that haven’t been built yet. Creating a mobile device app to promote a product or industry isn’t for everyone (they can easily run over $20k) but they can have huge impacts.

There are a lot more things that we do, but your website should be able to handle them all. Some web design companies with a lesser skill set will build two versions of a site on different domains (.com vs .mobi for instance) and call it being mobile ready. Not! People want to visit the same site at home that they could on their computer and playing games with domains is just a cop out.

Give us a call if you’re in Los Angeles or Seattle and are looking for a great website design company to help you build your mobile friendly websites.

We say it all the time in office, but very rarely outside of our walls do we announce it. So we’re saying it here- web design is fun!

Its not just fun because we’re growing rapidly and have a great team. It isn’t just fun because we’ve got great clients (although they do help). It isn’t just fun because our industry is on an exponential growth curve. It isn’t just fun because we’re situated in two great cities with very different business cultures and personalities.

Web design is fun because its one of the few places that left and right brain meet, and a dozen different industries converge in a powerful way. We’re part time concept developers, part time marketers, full time coders and programmers, full time designers, and full time business consultants. We get to study what drives user behavior, what the latest trends are (and will be), and are constantly pushing to make sure our customers are at the forefront of those leading edges.

Its a great business and its a lot of fun!