Now that we’re moving along in 2015, it’s time to look back on 2014 – the year that was.
2014 was a pretty big year for us. We experienced a lot of growth – by every measure of the word, won a few awards, added to our ever-evolving list of services, and got ourselves on top of Google. Let’s journey back to 2014…
We Launched A Bunch of New Projects
Hey it’s what we do. In 2014 we had bigger, deeper, and more robust projects than ever before while working with a pretty diverse list of clients. We added new clients in the following sectors:
- Business to Consumer
- Non-profits
- Government & Associations
- Business to Business
- Technology
- Education
- Agencies
We did more business to consumer projects last year than ever before and our non-profit worksoared. 2014 was a banner year for work on government and association projects as well.
North Hills was easily one of our favorite projects last year. It’s not often you get to redesign Midtown Raleigh. We did. And we’re thrilled with the work.
We’d like to extend a special thanks to our agency partners for their perpetual support and friendship. We love partnering with each of our agency clients and look forward to continuing our partnership and forging ahead with new things in 2015.
We Picked Up A Few New Pieces of Hardware
Our work with our friends at Brooks Bell, a Raleigh company that specializes in A/B testing and works with multiple Fortune 500 companies, won a Gold Hermes Award and a Silver Davey Award. The Hermes Award is special for us, particularly for its recognition as one of our industry’s top award contests. And, not to brag, but it’s a pretty nice looking trophy, too.
We’re not sure how many more awards we can actually fit on the shelves in our office, but we call that a personal challenge to fill it up.
New Blood in 2015
After several years of keeping things small, O3 is growing at a rapid pace. Last year was a breakout year for us, and in turn, we outgrew our office in downtown Raleigh’s Historic Oakwood neighborhood (miss you, Gringo A Go Go). Our new team members are Donny Rhoades, Matthan Heiselt, and Kerry Ferguson.
With Donny’s expertise, we expanded our services and added SEO and Internet Marketing to our list of core service offerings. Donny joined O3 as our resident contract SEO guru in July and recently joined our staff full time. He has years of experience with his craft, and has worked with some notable national brands during that time. Don’t trust us when we tell you he’s good. Google Raleigh Web Design.
Matthan joined O3 as Senior Web Developer adding another steady hand at our development tasks. Matthan relocated to Raleigh from Suffolk, Virginia and comes packed with 10+ years of experience in web development. Previously, Matthan worked for BCF Group in Norfolk developing websites for the travel industry. He’s not from North Carolina – so we’re getting him used to the local fare and flair.
Kerry Ferguson joined O3 as our Business Development Manager. Kerry comes with a background in business development, marketing, finance, and entertainment and spent some time doing branding and strategy for a top NC tech CEO. Kerry is originally from New York, where she was born and raised, and has found herself in the loving embrace of the American South. The weather is much better here.
The Climb to the Top of Google
We started the march to the top of Google for our primary keywords in 2011. O3 Strategies, as it was known at the time, took some digging to find on Google. A simple search for Raleigh Web Design would have placed us somewhere between page 2 and 4.
We revamped our website and brand in 2011 and it went over swimmingly. Next, we embarked on a link acquisition campaign. We got our new site, and some of our clients, placed on multiple web design galleries and won some awards for our work. We released a few WordPress developer tools and started watching the traffic climb. By the end of 2013, we were comfortably on the first page. But we wanted more, and we knew that we needed an expert to help get us there.
Last summer, we worked with Donny Rhoades to help get us there. And he took us to the top. We reached #1 for many of our keywords and we couldn’t be more proud of where we are.
2015: A Glimpse at the Road Ahead
We want to grow even more. As we continue to earn the trust of new clients everywhere, we are always looking for fun, fast-learning, and talented people to join our team. We will undoubtedly add more to our staff in 2015. Maybe it’s you. Check our Careers page for some openings.
We want to continue to develop our service areas. All of our websites are custom (no templates here) and they’re responsively designed and developed as a standard. We have added SEO and Internet Marketing as a core service to help position our clients on search results. It’s hard to find a trustworthy SEO partner – but we’ve made the moves to make your next decision easier. We hired the guy that we trusted to get us there. You can’t have more of a ringing endorsement than that. You’re in good hands with the people we’ve acquired and our results-based process. We establish benchmarks early on. And we hold ourselves to them.
Do more internal projects. You’re looking at our brand-spankin’-new website for 2015 that we just released last week. We’re still tweaking (we really never stop). We spent a lot of after-hours work to get it done. Internal projects are the first to go when we’re lined up with new and exciting clients. You know what they say about the shoemaker’s son… he’s the only kid in town without shoes. In 2015, we’d like to create some new ways to continue to solidify our brand and expand our presence.
Let us be a part of your journey in 2015. Get in touch with us. We’re friendly.
