Partners

Humility: Urgent Kidz Care & Its Marketing Plan – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

A healthy humility reminds you of what you don’t know on the regular. It’s all to easy to become overconfident and trip. Despite over twenty years of experience, we begin every project with a blank sheet of paper before we craft the perfect marketing plan for the budget, and we endeavor to ask the right questions. We aim to arrive at the fundamental requirements of the project, and build out from there.

With an clear understanding of the fundamentals, we can then build out an entire marketing plan. We can employ humility to attack unsolvable problems with childlike imagination. We can find creative ways to attack business with humility and at the same time, confidence that comes from repeated success. We know we’ve figured this out before, we know we’ll find a way to do it again.

There are some pieces of every business problem that don’t require humility. They don’t even really require confidence. With experience, we know how to handle the fundamentals without over-complicating the project.

But there are some business problems that arise – a tighter budget than you’d like, a limited resource when you’d really prefer an ample supply – that require creativity and humility to solve.

When you approach every business as if it were your own, you find the motivation to dig deep and make things happen.

Urgent Kidz Care: Humility Powering Success from Day One

You want a great example of humility? Check out J. Craig Gordon, owner of Urgent Kidz Care in Savannah, Georgia. He knew there was sufficient demand in the Savannah market for an urgent care center for kids. And he found a way to make it happen.

Craig has a massive resume including a multifaceted viewpoint on healthcare that spans decades. He’s worked on all sides of it. He knows how troubled the whole industry is. People are already on edge when their kid isn’t feeling great, and on top of that, the whole medical industry is a scary and expensive one to deal with. So he aimed to make his neighborhood – Savannah – better, by using his imagination and doing his part. He created a child-friendly urgent care facility. One that wasn’t so scary (for kids or for parents). One that was fun. And welcoming. And had popcorn. With kid-friendly staff. One that both kids and parents would look forward to using.

Urgent Kidz Care in Savannah Georgia - UKC

So when UKC asked us to handle their marketing, we were thrilled to be a part of such an important and innovative project. We brought our confidence along with our humility and got to work.

We started with a full marketing plan. We bring all our skills to bear for this project. We spent time getting to know the client, as we always do, no matter their budget. Our on-boarding process takes time, but it’s so important. We’ve had our discovery meetings take 45 minutes, but we’ve also seen them take much, much longer. It’s all up to the client. (And often, we find they learn a lot about themselves!)

From there, we created a full marketing plan at a few different budget levels so the client could feel comfortable with both the budget requirements and the expected results.

First, we began our marketing plan with assessments. We looked at every aspect of the business and competition. What do their competitors look like? What are they doing well? Where are there holes in their marketing plans we can exploit? We looked at strengths and weaknesses exhibited by their SEO results, their social media marketing strengths and weaknesses, and their overall marketing. It’s a lot of work, but did it pay off! We gathered all sorts of valuable intel on the market our client was diving into.

And with that data in hand, we knew where to focus.

You, too, can get SitReps from Interfanatic. They’re one of the most valuable tools we offer in our digital marketing quiver. We have SitReps available for businesses with budgets of all sizes.

Then we crafted an SEO plan for UKC. And it’s working. Our implementation was so good – I don’t mean to brag, we came at it with humility – that the site was ranking on page one for critical search terms before the doors even opened. We continue to work on this to ensure the site stays high in the search rankings as time goes on. With our ongoing Content Marketing plan, paired with our Social Media program, we’re able to target key phrases and key community issues – like the hurricane that shuttered many businesses recently in Savannah. UKC was lucky enough to keep their doors open, and we were able to tell the community that resource stayed available to the children of Savannah, Georgia.

Again, we can do the same for you.

For those important search terms for which the site doesn’t rank, we crafted and executed a Search Advertising plan. We’re keeping the project under budget while getting the eyes of a small market focused on our customer, UKC. We run search advertising programs for businesses with budgets of all sizes.

We’re also executing a consistent social media program, including a social ad spend. It’s proven to be an invaluable tool for informing Savannah about their new neighborhood business.

We of course worked hard to cover the local search setup for Urgent Kidz Care, and it’s working. Along with that, we’re also doing Digital Reputation Management. We have a plan, and they’re following it.

Last, we’re working an email marketing program for them. Again, it’s working in lockstep with our SEO, content, local, social media, rep management, and other marketing programs.

That’s not all. We paired with the brilliant designer Jessica Johnson of Creative Edge, Atlanta, and genius PR agent Mindie Barnett to make sure we knocked it out of the park in all aspects of marketing.

Opening a business to breakeven isn’t easy. The customer trusted us and got out of their own way. The results keep rolling in for them. You have to be humble enough to know what to delegate.

Our competitors would likely charge 4-5 times as much as we have for this program. But we know all about keeping expenses low and revenues up for new businesses. Our passion to treat their business as if it were our own – because it is – makes all things possible.

And still, tomorrow, with this project and the next one, we wake up with humility at our side, paired with confidence to know we’ll figure out the next obstacle.

We got UKC to breakeven upon opening. It’s a humbling experience, and one we don’t take for granted.

UKC Grand Opening Post - Urgent Kidz Care in Savannah, Georgia

Humility: An Interfanatic Quality

“Ego kills knowledge,
as knowledge requires learning,
and learning requires humility.”

Rolsey

Make businesses work, we do. That’s confidence, but it’s confidence inexorably paired with humility. To know that there is much we don’t know, but we have the experience – almost 25 years – to make great things happen for our client.

Interfanatic Service Focus: An Interfanatic Marketing Plan for Any Successful Budget

We sharpen the axe before taking any swipes. We like to learn as much as we can – we employ that humility to help us learn what we don’t know. With over 20 years of experience, we’re versed on the fundamentals. We’ve seen a lot go wrong and we’ve fixed a ton of problems. But with the ever-changing world we face daily, new ones pop up.

So what’s a successful budget? You tell us what you want to invest and we’ll show you how to make that work.

Let us use our experience to help you craft a winning long-term plan. Tell us your project budget and we’ll tackle it as if it were our own project: trying to keep revenues up and expenses down. Our marketing plans cost just a few hours of labor (the fee and labor involved reflect the budget of the project), and you’ll find it a very worthwhile investment. When we’re finished, either we can execute that plan for you, or you can take it to any of our competitors and have them enact it. Or, if you’re in start-up mode, you can try to implement yourself and we’ll stand by – always available to consult or train for a fee. And, if your budget is tight it’s possible that if you let us handle the execution for you, part of the cost of the marketing plan will apply to your first invoice.

“We bring our confidence, but that confidence is always propped up by humility.”

We take time to get to know you, your hopes, your dreams, your tastes, and your fears. And if you have us execute your marketing plan, we’ll take even more time to really get to understand the nitty gritty details. It’s what we do. We bring our confidence, but that confidence is always propped up by humility. We know we have what it takes to make great things happen for you.

Interfanatic: We humbly serve the greater good.

So what are you doing? Let’s get after it.


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Sincerity: The Precis – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

How can there be any sin in sincere? Well, there’s not so long as it’s genuine sincerity. So we bring sincerity to website maintenance. As all business, we take it seriously.

That’s our focus this week, sincerity. How can we ensure our customers understand we’re sincere and have their best interests in mind? We’re not just looking for money, we’re not just in it for profit. We’re sincerely here to help them achieve their goals. (And, of course, our hope is that if we do a good job, we’ll achieve our’s along the way.)

I think of a recent customer we just helped a little bit with her website: ThePrecis.com. It’s a neat business! When you lose a loved one, unless you’re a writer the last thing you want to do is try to prepare a eulogy or obituary. The owner of business is a professional journalist, and she’ll gently guide you through the process of giving her the information she needs to write something beautiful and poetic. What more sincere business is there than that!?

The Precis: Sincerity in Word

The Precis has been in business now for quite a while, and they not only write the obituaries and eulogies, they host them on their site, too. That way, loved ones can come and offer tribute to the departed.

They do pre-obituaries, too. So if you know how you want to be remembered, you can have something nice professionally written, so when nobody else will say anything nice, at least you’ve got that. (Kidding!) But it’s a great way to exert a little bit of control over the memories people have of you, which is helpful when you feel you’ve lost control and are just on a ride, whatever and wherever it may go.

Last, if you have a beloved pet, they handle pet obituaries, too. This can be helpful closure for those members of the family that pass quicker than we want, and can be especially helpful to little ones who don’t know yet how to process loss.

A 30-second website demonstrations video of ThePrecis.com.

It’s hard for me to think of a more sincere business. The Precis is just about as sincere as it gets.

We helped them with a few things in a short period. One, their obits and eulogies each have a comment form for loved ones to add memories. We helped them reduce the amount of spam they were getting through the form by over 90%, just the way they wanted it. After that, we hid their email address and phone numbers (prominently displayed throughout the site) from bots, meaning their information is less likely to end up on new spam lists now. Last, we helped them get their search ads restarted. There were some mandatory changes to the ads they couldn’t figure out, and since this is what we do, we made the changes for them.

Sincerity: An Interfanatic Quality

Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.

George Henry Lewes

A good quote, even though it’s from an over-quoted dead white guy. We try to mix things up a bit and find inspiration from all ilks, but given our client this week, Lewes words are just too apropos. Sincerity, even in error, is strength. That’s true. Insincerity will eventually reveal your weakness. And perhaps that’s why we appreciate the vulnerability of humor.

The point is we’re always sincere when it comes to work. We’re sincere when it comes to making things happen. We work hard at it, and when we have weaknesses, we try to be transparent about them. But it’s certainly hard to fault doing business with a sincere and honest person.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Website Maintenance & Development Work

Last week, we highlighted our SEO content services, showing you how we help our customers climb the search rankings with inexpensively, yet effectively, with our Interfanatic Basic SEO Content. But this week, we’ll change our tune to something a bit more mundane: Interfanatic Website Maintenance & Development work.

Websites break. Websites need updating. In fact, if you haven’t updated your site (ensuring the software is up-to-date or it has fresh content), it’s hurting you. The problem is it’s impossible to find somebody who will help you and do so reasonably.

“We’re here to do the project correctly, with lasting effect.”

That’s why we’re here.

We have two levels of service. Before I explain more, understand that we do all our work in-house. We don’t outsource to some less-than-reliable outfit halfway around the globe. It’s part of our business culture to hire talent local to the project whenever possible, that way that community builds its own. And also, we’ve found ways to be extremely frugal for our customers. We’re not here to do fast nor cheap. We’re here to do the project correctly, with lasting effect.

It used to be that you could build a website and let it be. It is no longer that way. Hackers continually grow in skill and sophistication, and the more visibility your website has, the more it’s a target for them. To counter this threat, websites need be maintained constantly. The software used to build websites is constantly updated, and that means that if you own your own website, your website needs to be constantly updated. That’s why we have affordable management plans that all include some monthly labor – to keep things safe.

But what happens when you need something fixed and the person who built your site is less than reliable? Call on us!

We charge a minimum of $75 for the first half-hour of labor, and after we bill in quarter-hour increments. Our standard fee for Interfanatic Power Website Maintenance & Development is $150/hr, and our Interfanatic The Works Website Maintenance & Development is $300/hr for after-hours (9-5, M-F), rush, or custom coding that requires extremely special skills.

And you can call on us any time and we’ll get you fixed up.

I’ve spent a long time doing this (over twenty years, ya know) and I sincerely feel this is the best way to do things – for us, for you, for a healthy business and healthy business relations.

Interfanatic: Sincerely here to help.

We’re here to help. We have the answer. We’ve been there before, and if somehow we haven’t, we’ve been close enough to know what to do. Don’t panic. Sincerely. Call us. We’ll get your website or digital marketing fixed up. We have the answer.


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Tenacity: West Coast Jewelers – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

You have to keep at it. As Isaiah Rashad and West Coast Jewelers both know, no matter what faces you, you must push forward. Even if you’re falling backward as you go, so long as you’re tenacious your not falling back more than you can.

That’s the theme this week: tenacity. Keep working, keep setting goals and working toward them. Even if you fall short, at least you’re progressing. This week’s inspiration conjures brothers Seyegh of West Coast Jewelers.

The term tenacity also conjures one of their favorite customers: Isaiah Rashad. Rashad, like most, didn’t have it easy growing up. Trying to break through in the rap game is extremely tough. Competition is harsh. And, like most people, he at times had setbacks. But he didn’t let those setbacks keep him back permanently. He was tenacious, he persevered, and he is now a highly acclaimed rapper and artist.

West Coast Jewelers: Keeping On Keeping On…

As West Coast Jewelers wraps their first year in business, they have had many ups. First, they’ve made it through one year – this is a difficult milestone for any business.

They keep filling orders for custom jewelry, thick, blingy flash cuban links (gold chains), and buying and selling and repairing jewelry. While most business owners wouldn’t look at one year as a sign of tenacity, remembering your first year in business you might remember the incredible stress, which time has somewhat muted. It’s an accomplishment.

It’s also an accomplishment that they’ve landed some very interesting customers, including one Isaiah Rashad. Rashad is under the Top Dawg Entertainment label, along with Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar and other huge names in the LA rap scene. We recently helped them write a release about their experience with Rashad.

Isaiah Rashad orders and buys high-karat custom gold chains from West Coast Jewelers. He loves WCJ’s products, and of course the Sayeghs of WCJ love working with such a great and talented character as Rashad.

A 30-second video showing a basic content piece we did about Isaiah Rashad and his working with West Coast Jewelers.

It’s a good fit. The Sayeghs and Rashad are tenacious players in a tough game.

Temperance: An Interfanatic Quality

Tenacity is the mother of progress.

Valerie M. Hudson

As we look at twenty-two years, I know we have been lucky, but I guess a bit tenacious, too.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Basic SEO Content

Last week, we told you about Chris Locke, Checkered Past Productions, and how we helped him get his small business started with our small cashflow option Interfanatic Basic Website Production. This week, it’s about content. Specifically, our Interfanatic Basic SEO Content.

If you have a digital presence (a website, a social media account for your business, et cetera), all content is SEO content. Or rather, it has the potential to be, if you craft it properly.

“We custom write different lengths of SEO Content (involving different amounts of labor) for different levels of budget.”

There are many businesses who offer to write SEO content for you. Some of it is actually good – but not much. We produce excellent content with SEO in mind. Pair our content production (one of our management plans, or a standalone digital marketing content plan we put together for you) with a couple of SEO Situation Reports and we’ll get you moving down the right path.

We have different levels (lengths) of content for different levels of effectiveness. Get some links into that content (from your social, email marketing sends, et cetera) and now with our properly prepared SEO Content, you’ve got useful results coming your way.

So have a look at our SEO Content – see what we can do for you. We could transform your entire website into something useful with just the right content and digital marketing.

Interfanatic: Tenacity is why we’re known.

You know how many millions of website companies have come and gone? They’ve gone because they straight up disappeared on their clients. We didn’t. We’ve fired clients, and yes, we’ve been fired – but we figured out what was wrong so it wouldn’t happen again. We stuck with it so we can be here for you, so we can be here to help. And, our many customers know very well how effective we have been for them. Call us now. We’ll get you on the right track with digital marketing and SEO. We have the answer.


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Temperance: Checkered Past Productions™ – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

When the going gets tough, the tough stay calm – that’s temperance. It’s easy to be faced with an overwhelming mountain of tasks or mishaps and to crumble under the pressure. It’s easy to lose your cool. But there are those experienced enough to know how to keep getting up, prioritize, and move forward. They use their temperance to their advantage to make progress through adversity.

That’s why we celebrate temperance this week. It’s easy to think of the best-tempered people on whom our lives depend: the veterans. As we thank them for their service, we think of all the adversity they pushed through and have to push through every day. May hard-learned temperance keep them healthy.

I immediately think of Chris Locke, of Checkered Past Productions. Locke is a living example of temperance.

Checkered Past Productions: Calm During the Storm of Production

Chris Locke is one of our favorite clients. (Wait, we say that about all of them, don’t we? Well, it’s true!) One of the key things you notice about Chris immediately is his calm demeanor. This is a key advantage when things get a little bit nuts. And during any kind of production (film, event), things get a little bit nuts. There’s little that can be done. As deadlines approach and pressures mount, some people lose their cool, at the very least they start to get excited.

And that’s where Locke makes a difference. He’s the calm one. Everyone else is frantic, but Locke knows how to put the right people in place, and trusts the process. He knows it will come together, because he’s done this before. And even when he hasn’t (it happens rarely), he’s been around this rodeo enough to know how to react and adjust.

Locke is a consultant for production companies engaged in the historic motorsports scene. “Vintage Racing” is another circus that travels the world that, if you’re not in the know, you may not know exists. But to the women and men who participate, it is a focal point of deep passion.

They just want to have fun. They just want to share their passion – to show their friends why they’re excited about their piece of the puzzle. And Locke helps them do that. Whether it’s creating a historic racing event or recreating an authentic, historic motorsport experience in-person or for film, Locke has done that. That’s what Checkered Past Productions is – it’s the tempered enthusiasm that keeps things moving smoothly.

A 40-second video showing a simple website we built for Chris Locke and Checkered Past Productions.

We like to have that influence, too. We like to be the calm in the storm. When a client is having difficulties with everything else, at least they know they can count on us, and our systems and processes, to keep our part of their project under control.

We did this very simple website for Chris Locke. As the pandemic finally starts to wane a little bit and everyone who wants to be is finally getting vaccinated, events begin again. Expect some changes to the site over the coming years.

Temperance: An Interfanatic Quality

Temperance to be a virtue must be free, and not forced.

C. A. Bartol

A couple of years ago, we highlighted a Sam Clemens quote about temperance. C. A. Bartol makes a similar point Clemens did: don’t force it or overdo it. Bartol’s point is that it’s best when it comes naturally. For it to come naturally, it must become habit, a part of you.

That’s why we try to build out our systems and processes. That way, there is temperance built into our work. Fewer surprises, fewer excitements – our projects just work.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Basic Website Production

Last week, we told you about Charmy Harker, The Penny Lady® and how she created a fantastic business with her quickness. We worked together with her to create a wonderful ecommerce website for business with Interfanatic Power Business Website Production at its core. This week, I’ll tell you about how we sometimes start small with clients. A place they often start is with our Interfanatic Basic Website Production.

Most businesses prefer to start small. Many successful people find it’s better to limit your outlay until you’re established. Once established, you can reinvest. Often, we deal with clients who are ready to grow, and their current team isn’t. But we’ve been involved with projects at every stage, and we love helping small businesses grow.

“We’ll put together a basic website for you for only $500.”

One of the things I like most about my business is our ability to work with clients through all stages of development. It’s how we’ve kept great customers for so many years.

So if you’re just starting out, you have probably put a lot of thought into how you want to do things and the story you want to tell. You can’t afford much yet until you have a few clients keeping you going. For you, there is Interfanatic Basic Website Production. We’ll put together a basic website for you for only $500.

This doesn’t have anything. This is bare bones! As with all our Basic products and services, it’s minimum cost and value packed. You have to trust us on design as there isn’t a budget for much adjustment. You have to give us all your content as there’s no budget for us to create it for you. There isn’t our typical strong SEO or lightning fast load because there’s no budget for it. (That said, there is some SEO built-in because we always do whatever we can with your budget – it’s just not nearly as strong as the Power build we do that is built around strong SEO). But it’s a solid start to get you going. If you want those other things, the price is $1,500 and up, which is just not acceptable to many very small businesses when they’re just starting out.

But the best news is that we can work with you. And over time, as you’re able to reinvest in your business, we’ll help you grow your website to reflect your needs.

Interfanatic: Tempered to last.

If you’re tired of hearing stories, or listening to excuses, or getting unwelcome surprises, we’re here to help. We don’t like those things either. We do everything we can to avoid them. Stuff still happens, but with Interfanatic systems and processes in place, it’s less often and less extreme. Temperance built right in to all our project. So call us now. No matter your budget, we have the answer.


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Quickness: The Penny Lady ® – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Quickness is necessity, the Penny Lady ® knows; just a few percent can be the difference between success and failure.

We’re here for your success. So we act as quickly as you do to bring about the results you need. And we’re not alone. There are a number of our clients who inspire us with their quickness. This week, I’ll tell you about Charmy Harker, The Penny Lady®.

The Penny Lady ®: Quickly Adjusting to the Needs of Coin Collectors

Charmy Harker, aka, The Penny Lady®, is a serious collector and coin dealer who has found ways to quickly adjust to the ever-changing coin market. Collectible coins (like anything traded for money) go through ups and slumps, and as a dealer perhaps the best way to counter those swings is to keep your inventory fresh. That’s one of many things that Charmy excels at – keeping her inventory new.

Harker branded herself as The Penny Lady ® after following a new-found passion for coins. She was very successful in the legal business before coins – she didn’t need coins. But looking back now, coins sure needed her.

When you go to a coin show, two things strike you immediately if you know anything about coins. One: holy crap, these coins aren’t the slightest bit rare. Two: there sure are a lot of old white guys dealing.

That’s not to minimize the recent resurgence of collecting with younger generations: Instagram has helped that immensely. And there are a number of dealers in their forties and fifties. That’s also not to minimize that if you look around, you’ll see collectors of all colors and walks of life.

But there are very few women. Mostly, we see the wives of dealers.

And that’s changing, in large part due to people like Charmy Harker. A successful female coin dealer is a breath of fresh air on the bourse.

And her inventory, which is expansive, is always fresh. She’s always quick to get new material for her avid collectors, and she’s always quick to get that new material professionally (and uniquely) photographed for her site.

Her customers’ favorite thing to do is view her new inventory. So she gives them what she wants with speed, consistency, and excellent service.

Check out a recent inventory addition on ThePennyLady.com – an 1856 Snow-9 Flying Eagle Cent!

Here, you can see some recent changes made on The Penny Lady. Charmy just added some new inventory, including the desirable impaired proof S-9 – an original 1856 Flying Eagle Cent. Check it out!

Quickness: An Interfanatic Quality

There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action.

Martha Graham

What a beautiful quote by a woman who created and traded in the artistic beauty of choreography. There is a force that drives all of us, and if we harness it quickly, the results of our effort may be beautiful.

That’s what we’re trying to do here. We bring beauty and data together quickly to produce results. The site in the video above is just as Charmy wants it. This is her translation of business beauty harnessed into action. We’re proud to be a part of it.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Business Website Production – Ecommerce

In my previous post, I told you about our Interfanatic Marketing Message Situation Report. In this week’s post, we’ll talk about our Interfanatic Power Business Website Production, which often includes eCommerce.

All the Power Business Websites we build include exceptional SEO. But when you need to do business over the Internet in a safe and secure fashion, we include that in our Power Business Website Production.

“We’ll help you choose the right solution and get your site up and running quickly.”

We’ll transfer products from your old site, or we’ll create new products for you – all with your approval. In Charmy Harker’s case, we also included our exclusive Coin Entry software which allows you to quickly post certified coins. It’s a real time saver that pays for itself very quickly.

We work with all the major eCommerce platforms: WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, you name it. We’ll help you choose the right solution and get your site up and running quickly.

Interfanatic: Quick Answers and Quicker Action

We’ve been around the block a few times. We’ve seen it all! Please don’t be embarrassed at the current state of your website. We’ve all been there. Trust me: WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. The most important part is that you know there’s an issue and you know you need help. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to help. So give us a call. We have the answer.


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Humility: Mobile Tech Tutor – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Humility can be hard to remember. When you’re doing well and everything seems easy, it’s easy to forget that you’re only a master of your tiny universe. That if you were thrown into somebody else’s, you’d likely drown if not for the help of good humble people who remember being where you have been.

I chose to celebrate humility this week, and there are many confident yet humble customers I think of quickly. But for whatever reason, the one who came to mind most quickly is Julian Macias, the Mobile Tech Tutor. He’s such a kind and gentle soul. And a humble one, helping people just because he enjoys helping people.

Mobile Tech Tutor: Humbly Helping the Unfamiliar with Newfangled Tech

Julian Macias came to us a few years ago to learn more about his website traffic. He’d done his website himself and because this business is but a side gig for him, he didn’t want to spend a ton of money but rather learn what he could do himself. Of course, we obliged.

Macias’ customer base at Mobile Tech Tutor is the retired folks around him. He helps them to better understand their mobile phones, mostly. But all technology. Tech changes so fast, it’s very difficult to keep up! In the world of telephone tech alone, we had live operators for quite a while, overlapping with rotary phones in popular Western culture from the 1920s through the 1970s. Then came dial-tone phones, and they lasted through the ’90s and today. So imagine being accustomed to changes that happened over generations, and now there’s a completely new phone and interface you have to learn every few years. It’s a big change! And not only are these phones making telephone calls, they are, of course, miniature computers that were basically Star Trek tech just two decades ago. They do everything! It’s quite intimidating for somebody who learned to type in the ’30s or 1940s.

So Julian helps them out with kindness and humility. It’s a beautiful gesture, taking his spare time to tech past generations how to use their phones for a nominal price. When a proud man or woman doesn’t want to nag their child or grandchild, the answer is Julian Macias, the Mobile Tech Tutor.

When Julian came to us, his first website was a start. We helped him with suggestions and concrete actions and he has now implemented them into his second website, which is a drastic improvement. We began with our Interfanatic SEO SitRep to see what his competition was like. Later, we moved on to an Interfanatic Marketing Message Situation Report, and helped him hone his message such that it would resonate with his target market.

For us, it’s what we do – it’s not hard. But we do it because we’ve spent decades working at getting good at these things. We don’t take our talents and skills for granted – we share them with those who need help.

A 30-second video showing the improvements to Mobile Tech Tutor, based on our Marketing Situation Report.

And we do that with humility. Because there are so many things YOU are good at that we’d love to learn. We’re here to help.

Have a look at Julian Macias’ improved Mobile Tech Tutor website. We didn’t make it, but we consulted on design, messaging, and content for SEO.

Humility: An Interfanatic Quality

The best of people is the one who humbles himself the more his rank increases.

Prophet Muhammad

It’s very easy to get swept away in your own success. But, as the prophet Muhammad tells us here, it makes a better person when you instead appreciate the gifts that come your way from hard work with gratitude and appreciation.

There are many who don’t understand that Muslim ideology includes humility as its one of its most important qualities. With over 3 billion practitioners around the world, Islam is an important religion to understand. I like to find the beauty of the best teachings and focus on them.

And so, though I’m not Muslim myself, I appreciate these words and their wisdom. I have seen successful people become arrogant, and I have seen successful people stay humble. I want to be around those who remain humble. And that’s how I want to be.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Basic Marketing Situation Report

Last week, it was all about Interfanatic Website Management. This week, it’s about one piece of that, a service which can be handled separately from management if you wish: our Interfanatic Basic Marketing Situation Report. (As with all our SitReps, we have a Power and a The Works versions also, for more in-depth reporting.)

We do a few different Situation Reports (SitReps) and we’re quite well-known for our SEO Situation Reports – our customers love them! But we also do performance and marketing situation reports to make sure your website messaging and design is on track to connect and resonate with your best customers. This is just another an incredibly valuable and inexpensive service we provide for businesses of all sizes around the world.

“We’ll give you all the recommended steps to achieve a better performing business website.”

So what is a Situation Report..? It’s a professional look at your website’s performance. We have three: SEO (both local and global), Marketing, and Performance. SEO is to figure out how your website stacks up against competitors for important keywords and keyphrases. Performance is to have a look at how your website is loading and how people are using it. But the one we’ll talk about today, Marketing, is to determine if your site messaging and image are in line with what your customers want.

We’ve all been to and had to use websites we hate. We’ve all been to websites we don’t understand. Perhaps the website was done by somebody in their spare time, or by a relative. And perhaps the messaging was thought out, but it still doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot of jargon and many industry-specific acronyms that make a site inaccessible to a new user. We cut through that and make sure your website makes sense to your customers, and inspires them to take the next step.

We have one customer now – her site gets a decent amount of traffic, but not many buyers. We’re going to work with her to understand why her site is the way it is and help her understand what buyers want. Sometimes the steps are confusing. Sometimes they’re not confusing, but they’re not clear. And sometimes you just have to ask your customer. If the steps are clear to you, but they aren’t clear to your customer, you’re not going to get enough sales.

And, if needed, we’ll fix up her site so that buyers are more inclined to take the next step with her. If not needed, she can handle it herself, but we’ll give her – and you – all the recommended steps to achieve a better performing business website.

We don’t do this because we’re know-it-alls. We’re not. But we have been doing this for over two decades. And as professionals in our industry, it’s a place we can lend a hand.

Interfanatic: Humbly at your service.

We’ve been around the block a few times. We’ve seen it all! Please don’t be embarrassed at the current state of your website. We’ve all been there. Trust me: WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. The most important part is that you know there’s an issue and you know you need help. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to help. So give us a call. We have the answer.


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Honesty: ACE Racing Engines– Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

It’s impossible to do business for long without consistent honesty. You know who knows that? Engine builders who have lasted. You know who doesn’t know that? Fly-by-night racing folks.

You want a 2000hp engine for your drag car? No problem, go to my man Stef at ACE Racing Engines. I have no qualms recommending him because he’s honest. Not all engine builders are.

ACE Racing Engines: Producing High Horsepower Drag Racing Engines, Honestly

Stef Rossi is extremely passionate about his work: creating reliable yet powerful racing engines. In recent years, he’s begun to focus on LS and LSX drag racing engines for extremely fast quarter mile runs. Does your car need a two thousand horsepower engine? No problem, Stef will build it for you. Are you looking for three thousand hp? Stef at ACE Racing Engines is your man.

They recommend you call before ordering. That said, his website is set up to take orders to get exactly the engine you want, the way you need it. Racing engines are finicky, so it’s probably a good idea to call Stef or Laura to hash out the fine details and make sure what you want will get you where you want to go in the time you want to get there.

We help them by managing their site and helping them work on SEO a bit. When Stef came to me, he was already doing a great job on SEO. But we had a look at some of the terms he finds important and found ways to tackle those keywords and keyphrases to move his site up the SERPs.

A 1-minute video showing ACE-Engines.com’s performance in search.

Just like Stef is, we’re honest. We’ll give you an honest take and help you get your site where you want it to go. We work with budgets of all sizes, and we maximize that budget for your performance – just like Stef does.

Check out this quick video that shows their site’s performance for important keywords in search.

Honesty: An Interfanatic Quality

Honest people don’t hide their actions.

Emily Brontë

Hiding from the truth will get you places for a little bit. But not for over twenty years. There’s no benefit in dishonesty – not if you want long-term results. And we want long-term results.

A 7-second quarter mile may not seem like long term results, but getting that seven second pull every time you go out with a decent launch is the holy grail from some drag racers. For that reason, Stef Rossi of ACE Racing Engines is honest with his customers and provides reliable and complete dyno sheets so there’s never a question they’re getting what they paid for.

We’ve had to deal with dishonest people through the years – from both sides. It’s not pleasant. We want to create a welcoming, productive environment with which we can thrive with our customers. For that reason, we stick with honesty.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Website Management

In our last blog, we told you about some of the Google Search Advertising we do for our customers. In this blog, we’ll cover our business website management – affordable performance Interfanatic Power Website Management.

Our Basic Management is great for most simple websites. But when you need a little performance on your side to help boost your site in search results, our Power Management is the most reliable and cost-efficient option. Not only do you get a more powerful server, you get more labor and some premium website management work, including a staging server for rolling out updates first.

There’s a lot more work involved in operating this website server for you, but it’s a more consistent, reliable, performance-based answer. And if you want some SEO built-in with that, well yeah, we do that, too.

“…when you need a little performance on your side to help boost your site in search results, our Power Management is the most reliable and cost-efficient option.”

We’ve just added a version of this service that our clients very much need this year – Management+ SEO. We offer it at all levels. We keep your website alive by combining our management with our content marketing services and SEO Situation Reports. It’s a great way to ensure your website keeps performing or even climbs the ranks for those all-important keywords and keyphrases. If you don’t have time to blog or write important articles, we do the heavy lifting for you. We come up with the ideas, we write and edit until you approve. And we track our performance with the SitReps.

So if you want a website built to perform in search, we’re your people. And if you want a website that keeps performing in search, we’re your people.

Interfanatic: Honestly here for you.

We’re here to help. We’re here to perform our expertise at a consistent, high level so you can count on us and you can count on your site. We exist to help your business every day, with honesty, integrity, and the gumption to make things happen for you. Call us: we have the answer.


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Resolution: D&G Paving – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

A great idea is nothing without the resolution to see it through. That’s the resolve we celebrate this week: follow through.

When I think of a business person resolved to succeed, I think of Dan Ash at D&G Paving. That man won’t quit. We don’t quit either, but with Dan, the inspiration often gets an extra step or two. It’s always easier to perform for a person who leads by example.

Dan’s passion is evident in his resolution. We strive to be the same.

D&G Paving: Resolved to Help the Local Community as Paving Experts

Dan Ash is very specific about where he operates his business: South of the 105 and West of the 605. And for that South Bay Los Angeles community that he and his team serve, they are resolved to do excellent, lasting work for a fair price.

The pandemic hit us all upside the head a bit. Dan’s business was no different. He’s got his regulars that keep coming back, but he needs fresh leads coming in for his team, so that his business and his team and their families are a little more self-reliant. Ash always steps up to extra work, but he wants his team to pick up more so they don’t have to count on him forever. He’s been training them hard and working them hard, inspiring them to be better and do better paving work all over Southern California.

Ash needs a solid lead source to feed potential customers to his sales team. One option is Google Ads.

We got D&G Paving‘s Google Ads account back under control and it’s producing regular leads for them at a competitive rate.

A demonstration of D&G Paving’s performance in search advertising.

It’s a really great feeling to be part of a successful team. We got D&G Paving’s site producing leads and work for Dan’s guys, and it feels good to be a part of that. We took inspiration from Dan’s resolve and adopted his “never quit until it works” attitude. We do this with all our projects, but it’s even easier working for Dan Ash because he just doesn’t have any quit in him. He’s got resolution.

Check out this quick video that shows their Google Ads campaign at work.

Resolution: An Interfanatic Quality

Use a mirror in difficult times. You will see both cause and resolution.

Deng Ming-Dao

We don’t quit. But when things get rough, we know we have to look at ourselves to find the root of the problem. Sometimes it’s not us, at least not directly. But when we really look deep, we often find we played a part.

And we stand resolved to do better.

Often, we find that the answer comes from putting ourselves in another’s place. We try to understand the situation from their perspective. When you work with successful people, they’re often stubborn. “It’s my way or the highway” certainly reflects resolve, but it does not result in resolution.

We’re here to help. We have tremendous experience doing what we’ve done for over 20 years. So that’s what we do. We help. And we’re resolved to do that.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Search Ads Management

Only last week we told you about website management. Well, we manage a lot more than that. This week, we’ll tell you about Ads Management.

We manage all kinds of digital ads for our customers – Social Media Ads, Video Ads, Phone Call Ads, and perhaps the most importat: Search Ads. Right now, Google has over 80% of the search traffic on the Internet. When your site is new and you’re not using our services for SEO, you need to find a way to get your business found.

That’s where we come in. We do that.

And when your site is performing well in the search engines, you can dominate your competition even more by filling the search results page real estate with your name even more using search ads. If you want to be perceived as number one for what you do, there’s no better way on the Internet than to have the top local search result, the top organic result, and the top paid result for an important keyword. Nobody will doubt they found the authority.

“If you want to be perceived as number one for what you do, there’s no better way on the Internet than to have the top local search reseult, the top organic result, and the top paid search result for an important keyword.”

Search Advertising is extremely complicated. It always has been. It’s really easy for Google to swindle you for a ton of money if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. Heck, we’ve been doing this for over a decade and we still have to keep Google at bay!

There are simplified services, but they don’t often work and even the simplified interfaces can be tough to understand. Or, you can have us handle it. This is what we do. We know all about the complicated interfaces and how to interpret them. We’ll fill you in and get things moving in the right direction in no time.

Interfanatic: Resolved to be here with the answers.

By now, you’ve seen our new motto: We’ll be here, and for over 20 years we have the answer. We didn’t get here by being squishy or retreating. We’re here to help, and we remain resolved to help our clients make a positive impact on their communities. That’s what we’re here for. Not sure what needs to be done? Call us: we have the answer.


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Adaptability: German Coins – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Adapt or die!

Ron Guth has a numismatic career spanning decades as a pinnacle expert. He’s an author, an experienced executive, an auctioneer, … and proprietor of German Coins.

Guth built his first website around the same time we started our business – around 1998. (We started in 1999.) And as the Internet has changed, Ron Guth has changed with it.

As most of our successful clients, Guth embodies our quoter’s thought. Jessica Hagedorn is a bit of a maverick and found success in many ways – all of them through knowing how and when to adapt.

German Coins: Adapting to the Market

I had the great honor of working with Ron Guth when we did some marketing work for PCGS (Collector’s Universe) and handling the marketing for the second tranche brought up from the Ship of Gold. We worked together on more than that, too. It was always great working with Guth. He’s such a pro! Soft spoken, self-effacing, kind, and one of the most knowledgeable and sharp individuals you will ever meet.

And you have to be to take on the niche of numismatics that is German Coins! Coins of most countries are complex and intricate. There are entire libraries dedicated to the two-hundred denominations of U.S. Coins through history.

But German Coins encompass not only the intricacies of the modern era (West German, East German, and Unified Germany), but the upheavals of the 20th century and going back through the German States. Forget 200 denominations, how about 200 States, each with it’s own unique set of non-decimal denominations! And then there’s porcelain coinage, notgeld, precious metals coinage, territories – it’s insane. For reference: if you’ve ever seen the phone book size Krause “Standard Catalog of World Coins”, you know that of the three inches of material, US coins inhabit… maybe 1/8th inch of the 1900-2000 volume. For the 1800-1900 volume, twice that. German States comprise a full inch of the 1700-1800 Krause.

Ron Guth is one of the few sharp enough to take on such a daunting task.

But if you want a deep and rich niche of numismatics to delve into, German Coins are for you! That would be one helluva type set.

We began helping Guth with GermanCoins.com a few years ago. We added a shopping cart to his site, and gave it a quick redesign at that time. More recently, we relaunched the site with an all-new design that makes the site easier and faster than ever.

This quick video shows the changes the site has seen through its life.

Check it out now to see the latest design: https://germancoins.com

Adaptability: An Interfanatic Quality

Adaptability is the simple secret of survival.

Jessica Hagedorn

To survive and yes to thrive, we have to change. We have seen so much change through our 20 years in business. From Netscape to Google, from MySpace to Facebook, from Nokia to iPhones, from AdWords to Yelp, we’ve seen so many fads come and go.

One thing that hasn’t changed: having your own website to tell your story the way you want to tell it is the way to go. You’re not reliant on some external force presenting your message. It’s on you. You get what you want.

“I don’t need a website, I just use Facebook.” Now that facebook is the home of fake news and toxicity on the Internet, that may not be the place for you. Plenty of businesses use facebook successfully. But if you want your message shown without distraction, it may not be the best place to showcase your products and services.

“I don’t need a website, I just use Yelp.” Which is great, so long as you have 5-star reviews! But what happens when Yelp doesn’t prioritize your correct reviews, but rather chooses to showcase some nutjob’s? You have to pay their fee, and even then you may not get what you want.

Websites are not the be-all, end-all, but I’ve heard so many times through my career that “websites are a thing of the past”, and yet here we are.

Kinda like Ron Guth and German Coins. They adapt.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Business Website Production

Last week, I told you about our Website Management services, which keeps sites running strong and keep the surprises away. Today, let’s talk about our Power Business Website production.

We’ve adapted this service multiple times through the years. The main thing you get in any service is labor – our prices are determined by the time it takes to properly complete the service you need. In the case of Power Business Website Production, we build a proper business website for you with either a focus on SEO (which most businesses care about) or speed (which is important, but not always the priority.) If you want both, look for our The Works service, which includes both incredible SEO, incredible speed and performance, and more. If neither are critical, look at our Basic Site Production.

Most customers we’ve experienced are most focused on SEO – getting traffic to their site. We’ve always done some SEO service in our builds, it’s just a requirement of the times. But to really focus on SEO in 2021, there’s considerable extra labor involved. And the results are always worth it – especially in the long run.

“…we invest extra time with our SEO-focused builds, we invest extra time in lightning performance for speed-focused builds.”

Some customers are not interested in SEO, (surprisingly.) For those customers, we emphasize the speed and performance of their website. When you have a business that is not concerned with SEO, it’s because you have enough customers – you just want referrals to have something sharp to see when they check you out. As we invest extra time with our SEO-focused build, we invest extra time in lightning performance for speed-focused builds. We have a couple of options here, including headless website builds, that might work best for your application. Talk to us about your needs and we’ll guide you.

If you focus on speed with your Power Business Website Build, there can still be some SEO done. If you focus on SEO with your Power Business Website Build, there will still be good performance. But getting those last few percent of each are labor intensive, so that’s what we do. We invest the labor on your behalf to get you the website you want.

Interfanatic: Adapting to Thrive

Our business changes every second of every day. We don’t do the same thing we did in 1999. Our systems and processes have evolved to adapt to the current business model that works best for our clients. What hasn’t changed is our commitment to excellence. We haven’t changed our willingness to what’s needed to ensure we do everything in our power to help them be successful.

You see, some things need to be adapted. Others, like doing what’s best for our customers, do not need to change.


Adaptability: German Coins – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Gratitude: Checkered Past Racing – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Every day, remember gratitude. Be grateful for what you’ve got rather than avarice for that which you do not.

I always think of Chris Locke. Not only is he a grateful guy, I’m personally very grateful to him. He is a dream customer. He’s the kind of customer every business wants.

And the quote we focus on is a good one. I feel like it’s been beaten into cliche, but Sterling Brown gets credit because he quoted it to a popular rag. I’m guessing it may have been passed down to him, but regardless, it’s a great sentiment.

Being thankful isn’t hard when you have so much to be thankful for in life. It can be easy to lose focus when things aren’t going your way. But gratitude is a great way to get your head on straight again.

Checkered Past Racing: A Grateful Life, Fulfilled

Locke and I met through our mutual passion – racing. Long ago, in a galaxy far away, Chris and I used to race together, albeit he up the track further than I, usually. He created CheckeredPastRacing.com so many moons ago to share his schedule with his friends and family. If they wanted to come watch, they have an easy, memorable website to go to to find his whereabouts.

When we did the original project for Chris – so long ago – man, that was a fun one. We did a Flash intro animation, which was all the rage at the time. My friend and colleague Zane Kohler was the cartoonist behind it, and it was awesome.

Time moves on, Flash is no longer en vogue; now it’s all about big pictures and simple UI. So that’s what we went for when we redesigned the site for Chris a couple of years ago. It serves its purpose now better than ever.

A demonstration of CheckeredPastRacing.com.

Last week, we spoke about how all of our fresh websites are responsive. It was one of the chief design requirements when we did this site a couple of years ago to ensure it works well on mobile devices. The old site worked okay – you could find and see stuff. But we designed this site from the get-go to work on desktop and mobile.

Check out this quick video that shows some of the highlights of the site: https://checkeredpastracing.com

Gratitude: An Interfanatic Quality

Always have an attitude of gratitude.

Sterling K. Brown

No matter what’s going on, you’re here. That is quite likely better than the alternative. This, too, shall pass.

And when things are really going well, remembering gratitude keeps your attitude in check.

Gratitude at times comes easily. But we choose to combine this week’s quality with last’s: diligence. It’s important to be diligent with gratitude. We try to ensure we work it into our daily routine over here. Not obnoxiously, but such that it is always there.

We are so grateful for our wonderful customers, upon whom we have built this business. We work hard for them as our way of showing gratitude.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Basic Management

Last week, we reminded you about how all our fresh design/build projects use responsive design. This week, I’ll remind you one way we express gratitude for our clients daily: by managing their websites effectively.

When I say we manage your website, I mean hosting, SSL, email, and labor. We have management plans for customers of all sizes. If you want excellent, active and adaptive SEO, we have management plans with that built right in, too.

“That’s what our management is. It’s active, rather than passive. It’s preventative, rather than reactive. That way, our customers sometimes even forget we’re there.”

See, we’re always working for our customers, whether they know it or not. We’re always on, trying to ensure we take care of any problems that arise before they even know something’s happening.

That’s what our management is. It’s active, rather than passive. It’s preventative, rather than reactive. That way, our customers sometimes even forget we’re even there. Which is, really, how it should be. We do our thing for you so you don’t have to worry about it.

Interfanatic: Grateful, always hungry to be more grateful.

We’re here for you. We appreciate you. We’re grateful our customers are in our lives. And we work hard to make sure they know it, whether they see it or not. And we’re always willing to do more for them. Ask, and we’ll answer the call. We’re here for you, and we’ll do our best for anybody you recommend.


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