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  • 1

    1. Strategy

    We listen to you and learn your business in order to plan a tailored campaign.

    2. Design

    Our designers collaborate intensely with our user experience and conversion optimization teams.

    3. Technology

    Large-scale development initiatives including integrated shopping carts or 3rd party solutions with our custom programming.

    4. Marketing

    Coalition deploys some of the most innovative & successful marketing strategies online.

  • 2

    Building Business

    Swim Spot
    • 3.9 times as many total visitors
    • 15.8 times as many visitors from Google
    • 3.1 times higher conversion rate

    Bottom Line:

    • 11 times as many transactions
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  • 3



    Design, Development
    & Marketing

    • Web Design
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Google Adwords
    • Email Marketing
    • Conversion Optimization
    • Programming
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  • 4


    Custom Design & Programming

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  • 5




    Certified Google Adwords Partner

    Coalition Technologies is a Certified Google Adwords Partner.


    Learn more about how our Google Adwords specialists can help you build your Adwords campaigns and landing pages in the best way for your bottom line.

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Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

Hiren: Coalition Technologies’ King of the Week

April 29, 2011 by Jordan
Posted in Design

Coalition Technologies is proud to award Hiren, our lead designer, with the coveted King of the week prize! Hiren has been with the company for a while now, and has done some amazing things.

Hiren Patel, web designer, laughing in the face of alien invaders

See how relaxed Hiren is in the face of grave danger?

Hiren has been a huge asset to the company and has quickly adapted his skills and experience to focus on marketing, conversions, and on usability. We hired him because he was already one of the best web designers in the Los Angeles area, with a significant portfolio and a broad range of coding abilities. Adding the elements of SEO and marketing to those talents has created an unstoppable revenue generating machine.

In the image above, Hiren isn’t actually defeating the Predator. He is just receiving congratulations from the monster after he rebranded Predator with a new website and a successful reputation management campaign, in which the Predator became the most popular children’s television show character, just ahead of Hannah Montana and Sponge Bob Squarepants.

Hiren doesn’t get much time in the spotlight since he’s usually hunched over his computer evaluating HTML5 or a style sheet. This award should change that.

Thank you, Hiren, for the excellent work. We’re excited to have the opportunity to work with you!

Facebook vs. Google Marketing

April 6, 2011 by Jordan
Posted in Conversion Optimization, Design, Facebook vs. Google, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Marketplace, Website Design

Fortune did a good post on a topic that I’ve been covering fairly extensively here on the blog.

Its just another example of how Facebook and Google’s epic warfare is moving to the surface and out from behind the curtains. I think the companies are still largely driven by personality cults centered on the founders, and as such, I perceive these fights to be a bit more high school and juvenile then what major corporations might usually do when faced with a strong competitor. Here’s an image, documenting my perception of Facebook vs. Google and Google vs. Facebook:

Google throat punches Facebook

Google Ads winning over Facebook Ads?


Invariably, this is only going to increase the pressure on the companies from their financial partners and stakeholders to ‘do something’ about the other one. Whether this means that Google is going to amp up its efforts to out +1 one the competition, or will try and leverage stronger social network creation internally remains to be seen. It is also curious to see if Facebook is going to be able to push their product offering more broadly without assuming the Google approach- buying more products.

And just so we’re clear, I’m not on either of these guys’ side. My business is largely dependent on them, and many of my personal activities involve their services, but I don’t particularly like either Facebook or Google. I think both have lost their ‘edge’ and their creativity in the process. Instead of being innovative, they either have to buy innovation or sue for it, which only hurts invention and advancement.

Coalition Technologies is interested in where we should guide our clients’ dollars and from some of the statistics that the Fortune article is quoting, we’ve been wise to caution them to extensively invest their marketing efforts with Facebook. Google still seems to have a clear hold on the online marketing dollars. Here is a few of them:

  1. The World Federation of Advertisers is saying that less than a quarter of companies that advertise with Facebook are happy with their ROI.
  2. Despite accounting for 20% of online advertising traffic, Facebook (and MySpace to a dying extent) cost an average of $.56 per thousand impressions (which is below most search engine averages.
  3. Previous number sounded good, right? Well, the click through rate (CTR) for Facebook ads is half of the general web advertising average. Yeesh. Means you have to spend $1.12 per click through out of a thousand.
  4. Overwhelmingly, consumers were more likely to visit a companies website (and search for it) rather then visiting their Facebook profile.
  5. Company direct emails (yes, those spammy ones), were considered a better more trusted form of communication then a company’s Facebook page.
  6. Twitter and Facebook don’t even rank in the top nine advertising forms by users for frequency of use. Yikes!
  7. In key demographics, ranging from 25 to 45+, Facebook is less effective at reaching customers then PRINT ADVERTISING (this surprises me), company text messaging (yuck), and the age old email newsletter!

Undoubtedly, Facebook will continue to find new ways to become an advertising platform for the future. Is it the advertising platform for now? No. Not yet.

Coalition Technologies has long advised our Los Angeles SEO & SEM clients about how to spend and direct their revenue. And so far, we’ve encouraged them to carefully use Facebook and Twitter as a means to reach clients, and not to invest the majority of their time or dollars in them. Why? Read all the facts above. Our own SEO/ Search Marketing/ Social Media Marketing data shows the same thing across a broad range of vertical industries. Having an attractive, unique Facebook page that directs clients to your website is great, but don’t invest half your time in trying to go viral on FB or on Twitter.

As always, we will be tracking the trends and see how they change so we are better able to provide our services in the Los Angeles and Seattle area.

The Dangers of Cheap Web Design and Cheap SEO

March 30, 2011 by Jordan
Posted in Design, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design

First and foremost, I write this article with a very biased opinion. Coalition Technologies is not a cheap web design firm, and is not a cheap SEO company. With good reason. While we provide high quality web design and affordable SEO services, they are never the cheapest, because we actually know what we’re doing.

Lately, there has been a crusade against SEO (search engine optimization) in the media with articles accusing its practitioners of being borderline criminals or outright cheats. But lets set the record straight. The SEO companies that they are talking about, are the ones advertising free consulting work or $199 a month services on Craigslist. They are sketchy individuals/companies most of the time (some of them overseas and outside of US jurisdiction) who have a very limited knowledge of what search marketing really means, and how to do it without damaging their client’s business.

A few good rules to start with for SEO and low cost website design firms- ALWAYS REMEMBER that you are responsible for what they do for your website. IF they use bad, ‘black hat’ SEO or beginner SEO, your company website is what will be punished by Google and Bing. This can mean loss of ranking (JC Penney recently lost an average ranking of 3 for its products and fell all the way to the 8th page of Google, because of cheap SEO work), or it can mean deindexing. Which is like Google wiping your business off the map of the internet. The SEO gets to walk away with your cash in hand, or they may require that you continue to pay them under a contract that was activated once they spammed you to a number one ranking. Of course, there was no clause in there for what happens if they got you into trouble.

And on your website, cheap design can be an even bigger liability. How much bigger? FCC and US government bigger. Since the internet is considered a public communication method, you as a website and domain owner are responsible for the content and security of your website. Hire that cheap website designer who uses templates that they bought in bulk from India, and you could be one of many business owners paying thousands of dollars in fines because they failed to protect their customer information. Getting your own information hacked off of your website would be the least of your worries. We’ve seen news stories of business owners who had to come up with $25,000 to pay the fines, and then lost their ability to bill clients through all of the major credit card companies because of those bad website designs.

So what is it that you should look for in your Los Angeles website design partner or your LA SEO?

  1. Custom website design work- from an experienced firm like ours, this means better technology and more security for your business.
  2. Regular reporting and consulting- A good web design firm knows how to build websites that are found in search results and helps you build your online reputation.
  3. Legal search engine optimization and marketing- At all times, the company should be guaranteeing that its work falls within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for best practices. If its not in your contract, watch out!
  4. Transparency in SEO efforts- At the drop of a hat, your SEO should be able to tell you how it is improving your ranking, and document those efforts. If they say link building to your site, ask for URLs or website addresses to see those links. If they aren’t relevant to your business, you’re in trouble.
  5. Standards compliant web design- W3C sets out the guidelines for code and programming for websites. A validator should show that your site is error free.

If you want these things and more, contact us at Coalition Technologies. We’re a Venice, California based firm that is thorough, experienced, and completely above all standards, laws, and guidelines.

Coalition Technologies & Aerial Finance Company?

March 16, 2011 by Jordan
Posted in Application Development, Design, Website Design

Coalition Technologies, (we’re a Los Angeles web design firm), was recently presented with the opportunity to design a web site and a custom application for a financial group that handled backing for aerial technology development.

Its always fun to have the chance to address these types of challenges- three or so different fields, several different business models and target demographics, and a deadline to figure it all out in.

What do we know about aerial technology? Not much. Can I tell the difference between a Boeing 747 and a Cessna or a Piper Cub? Absolutely. Can I tell you how the different fabrication elements and electrical components differ from one another? Absolutely not. Do I know what the major navigation equipment manufacturer is for most of our modern jets are? I do now.

During the course of creating our proposal we were able to study up on the various aerial technology elements that our client was interested in backing financially, who the major players were, and where they operated out of. Once that was all said and done we had to look at the potential customer’s business model- how did they generate revenue, what was their conversion rate, and how much their average closing was worth to the business.

After that was all done, we still had to do our own jobs. Come up with branding for our customer, talk through the various website design elements that influenced their company image, and then look at building a custom site application to help set them apart.

What a fun job.

WordPress Tip: Setting up Category Specific Templates

March 11, 2011 by Hiren
Posted in Design, Website Design

Recently I had to develop a WordPress blog that has multiple categories. We wanted to be able to show different design elements on the category template for specific templates.

It would seem like you need to create some custom code to show a different template based on the category ID or slug. Actually, it’s pretty simple. WordPress has a template hierarchy that is used to find which template file to use. All you have to do is create a category file with the following file name structure:

category-[slug].php
category-[ID].php

Just fill in the slug or category ID from your WordPress and you’re ready to go. For example, category-news.php would be used only for posts using in the ‘news’ category. If you do not have a category-[slug].php, WordPress will look for category-[id].php

Simple!

To take it one step further, we wanted to be able to load a different template for a single post in a specific category.

First you need to edit your single.php file. I would recommened creating a backup of your current single.php since this step will remove all code from your current version.

WordPress looks at the single.php file to display the content of a post. Based on the category ID we will redirect WordPress to a custom template instead of using the standard single.php. Here’s how it would work:

    <?php
    $post = $wp_query->post;
    if ( in_category(‘2’) ) {
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/news.php’);

    } else {
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/blogpost.php’);
    }
    ?>

In short, the first two lines setup a query. The second line tells WordPress that if the post is associated to category 2 then load the new.php as the template file. The next line tells WordPress to load the blogpost.php as the default.

Creating multiple templates is easy! Just use the “elseif” conditional tag and we can add an extra template file. You can use as many “elseif” statements as you need to match up your templates.

    <?php
    $post = $wp_query->post;
    if ( in_category(‘2’) ) {
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/news.php’);

    } elseif ( in_category(‘8’) ) {
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/events.php’);

    } else {
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/blogpost.php’);
    }
    ?>

Quick and painless!

Gas prices got your customer down? Get your LA business online!

March 7, 2011 by Jordan
Posted in Adwords Management, Business Management, Conversion Optimization, Design, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design

$3.50 a gallon? Yikes. I remember when I first started driving and the price per gallon crested over the $1.00 mark. I remember my parents telling me to drive less or get a job. Everyone was griping about a buck. Now, this summer, experts are saying $4.00 per gallon of unleaded fuel is almost guaranteed. Certain large metro areas will definitely paying more.

What do the economists say is going to happen as a result of the increase in prices?

Start car pooling and eliminate unnecessary trips out? Absolutely. Avoid traveling? Yup. Monitor their expenses more closely? Right on.

I know that as small business owners, those things can seem quite frightening. A lot of you depend on your customers to visit your store to generate revenue. Most of you have been relying on word of mouth or location to draw you the crowds.

The notion that those crowds may not be coming out as frequently, or in as large a number, could be frightening.

But of course, there is an answer, and the fact that you’re reading this here means that you probably already have an inkling to what it is.

GET ONLINE!

Its not just a tired mantra from a business consultant. The reason the internet is so huge, and keeps on growing, is that it is convenient. For the most part, you’re not charged by miles per gallon! It doesn’t matter where you live in Los Angeles or Seattle or the surrounding neighborhoods. If you’re online, your customer can find you, reach out to you, and make a buying decision without having to spend the extra gas.

I know that for me to drive 25 miles in rush hour traffic costs over one gallon of gas. Depending on where you’re located, and if most buying decisions require more then one visit, you could be costing your customers an extra twenty bucks per trip! That starts to factor into the buying decision at some point.

Coalition Technologies will help you eliminate that cost for your customer and create a high ROI with a custom coded website that focuses on your business model. Don’t just look for a cookie cutter templated site that says nothing new, and fails to engage your clients. Have us create that unique marketing campaign that is always looking for ways to pull a new qualified client in through the door.

Whether you want to transition your Santa Monica storefront to a Los Angeles ecommerce site, or if you just want to inform your prospects about your services and prices with an informative web design, we can help. And since social media marketing is beginning to play more and more of a role in search engine rankings, let us help you get a Facebook and Twitter account set up. We won’t just link to those profiles with a ‘like’ button. We actually can create a meaningful user experience on each, and provide coaching on how to build up a following that translates to money.

If you’re in the LA area, and want support for search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media, or Adwords, we’re here. Give us a call (you won’t even have to drive anywhere)!

Collection of Creative Print Ads

March 1, 2011 by Hiren
Posted in Design