The Gray Dot Company

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Digital Marketer of Encore Business Solutions

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Encore Business Solutions is a trusted Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner with over 800 customers across North America, whom we serve with implementations, ongoing support, strategic guidance, and training for Dynamics 365 and the rest of the Microsoft suite.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gray Dot Company to accomplish?

• Strategic guidance on SEO

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gray Dot Company?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select The Gray Dot Company over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from The Gray Dot Company were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Gray Dot provided us with in-depth analysis and actionable recommendations covering: (1) technical SEO (from hosting through to specific site features and page templates) (2) backlink strategy tailored to our industry, including competitor comparisons (3) conversion-optimization recommendations for our large library of content (4) reporting dashboard blending our own internal metrics with SEO metrics (5) training, templates, and guidelines to empower our own team to increase our pipeline impact 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

From the start, Gray Dot was able to clarify and focus our wide range of strategic options down into a set of focused, prioritized, and impactful actions. They provided us with guidelines, templates, reports, and strategies that our team now uses to improve the pipeline impact of our content and technical efforts. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Their project management was run by Heather, and it was magnificent throughout. Deliverables and timelines were clear, and in the one case where something was delayed, she informed us ahead of time. Also, over time our needs changed, and Gray Dot adapted agilely to that, giving us the service and strategy we needed at every step.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gray Dot Company?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Our offerings, target audiences, and market position are complex. However, Gray Dot was able to quickly understand and align with our values, goals, and tactics, and tailor their advice to that. Furthermore, they were able to distill very complicated SEO issues into the relevant information essential to our growth as a business. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gray Dot Company could have done differently?

At one point, there was so much actionable advice from Gray Dot on the table that we needed to ask them to synthesize and prioritize it all. However, they were then able to help us through that overwhelm and select our most important next steps, aligned with our goals and resources. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Emotional ABCs, a social emotional learning program. We’re used by teachers in more than 55,000 schools across the country, and we’re used by parents and teachers worldwide.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Gray Dot Company?

After getting our website live online, we hired The Gray Dot Company to handle the SEO efforts for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team handles all of our SEO needs. They work on content creation efforts, creating briefs, news, and tags for all of the content. They also support keyword research efforts. 

What is the team composition?

Tori (Founder) is my main point of contact, but there are others working with her now.

How did you come to work with The Gray Dot Company?

They were recommended to us by our software developers. Their services weren’t as expensive as other companies, so we felt we’d really be getting good value and it was reasonable. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent in the ballpark of $5,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement started in March 2018 and we’re still working together. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

With SEO, it’s hard to tell the impact since we were starting from scratch. In terms of her work, it’s extremely timely and thorough. We like things to be perfect, and her work is specific, clear, and concise so we’re happy. 

How did The Gray Dot Company perform from a project management standpoint?

She primarily manages the project and communicates with us through email and Trello. Since she’s working with us and our other team, there is back and forth on different pieces of the project. She will sit down with us and listen to what we need. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

She’s fast, detailed, and thoughtful. Since we’re targeting kids and different paid and free audiences, she gives us very thoughtful insights which we appreciate. She’s never vague and is always on the ball. 

As we’re a small company, the value for money she provides is also important. Sometimes she even gets back to us too quickly, bringing a full task back to us within a day before we’re even ready for it. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

If anything, her speed is almost too fast, but that’s not a criticism.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a premium photo goods company, specializing in photo books, framed prints, and albums. I am the Senior Content Marketing Manager overseeing content development and SEO for the brand.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gray Dot Company?

We hired the Gray Dot Company to conduct an audit of our site and help us identify key optimization opportunities following a larger site migration initiative.

What were your goals for this project?

After seeing non-brand traffic remain relatively flat over the previous 12 months, as well as ranking declines amongst key queries, we knew we needed to dig deeper into some of the issues that were stalling what had been a prolonged period of organic traffic growth. The goals for the project were to execute a comprehensive audit, identifying any technical SEO issues and implementing a strong tactical plan for prioritization and execution.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had the pleasure of working with the founder of The Gray Dot Company, Tory, at a past company. I had also hired the Gray Dot Company for a previous project with a B2B SaaS brand in late 2018. Thanks to their expert partnership, we were able to achieve some exciting organic traffic growth in a hyper-competitive space.

Describe the project in detail.

After meeting to identify our goals and priorities for the project, The Gray Dot Company executed a comprehensive audit through the lens of our immediate business needs. Following the audit, they mapped out a tactical plan, complete with prioritization ranked by potential impact and LOE. Along the way, they have helped us break the project down into distinct areas of focus to help maintain momentum and efficiency. We started with major crawl budget issues, moving on to canonicalization, and will finish out the project with metadata and on-page optimizations.

What was the team composition?

I worked directly with the Owner and Founder, Tory, to identify next steps, vet recommendations, and outline implementation. She then communicated that information to her team, who took care of execution where possible.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Three months into the project, we are beginning to see YoY organic traffic from non-brand queries grow for the first time in over a year. Our rankings are beginning to improve in aggregate leading to improved search visibility and ultimately more traffic. We have also identified issues in our internal processes that we were unaware of, setting us up for future success long after the project with The Gray Dot Company is completed.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their team couldn't be more responsive. Honestly, I can't name a single instance where a deadline was missed and work was most often delivered ahead of schedule. Their team also did an incredible job helping us track our workflow, communicate with our engineering team to implement optimizations, and build a business case for resources when necessary.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Aside from the expertise they brought to the table, I was really wowed by the way in which they took that expertise and mapped it to the unique nuances of our site and business. Oftentimes, agencies and consultants will lean on a one-size-fits-all approach of blanket best practices, but that was far from the case with The Gray Dot Company. They took the time to understand the inherent opportunities and limitations that were distinct to our business, crafting their recommendations and approach accordingly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are instances in which The Gray Dot Company made recommendations for tools or tactics that were outside the scope of our resources or immediate tech stack. However, they were always receptive to our feedback in these instances, which were often the product of due diligence. Instead of pushing, they were quick to help us right-size and prioritize.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tynan's experience has been anchored over the last seventeen years in the technology consultancy he founded, CKD Technology Partners, which builds enterprise mobile & web-based software.

The technology group has won multiple awards under Tynan’s leadership, and has supported innovative new healthcare platforms for Allscripts, DaVita, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Envision Healthcare, and US Oncology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gray Dot Company?

Gray Dot was hired to transition a healthcare startup's technology from MVP state to enterprise ready. The core of the platform under development required robust API calls to move large amounts of healthcare data from electronic health record systems into patient-facing native iOS applications, for easy consumption

What were your goals for this project?

The goals of this initiative were to move protected patient data securely, under HIPAA guidelines, from a cloud environment to iPads located in a hospital network. The data had to be real-time, load-time short, and user experience well developed.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed five different vendors for this work, and Gray Dot was selected because of their deep competency in API architecture, modern design patterns on both the data intake and data presentation areas, and overall professionalism. There are a lot of options for iOS development out there, but Gray Dot had the experience for complex, enterprise projects.

Describe the project in detail.

The Gray Dot company was hired to first perform a thorough analysis of the MVP infrastructure. After two weeks, we received a highly detailed report on the state of the iOS code base, along with performance metrics and a prioritized list for code improvements.

This helped form the backbone of a roadmap we could use to deploy the changes that were quickest to complete with the highest impact. From there, we dove into deeper refactors that doubled the speed performance of the application, and made future updates much easier to deploy.

What was the team composition?

The team composition was six members: Delivery Manager, Product Owner, Senior API Developer, Senior DevOps Engineer, Senior iOS Engineer, Data Security Officer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The outcomes of this project were everything we hoped for: the speed of the application doubled, and the effort to make future changes was halved because of how intelligently Gray Dot refactored the code. This made our customers happier, implementation quicker, and team performance more trusted.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The Gray Dot team folded seamlessly into our team, and worked professionally within our rigorous scrum schedule. Gray Dot would flag critical issues, and bring to the table new suggestions that could improve the outcomes of the project. They were a joy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were most impressed by a few different things, but the combination of experience and professionalism is hard to find. This is a team that both knows what they're doing and is easy to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Gray Dot should consider working with us full time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I do digital strategy for Cherry Creek Mortgage Company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Gray Dot Company?

We needed help creating a plan to manage and grow our local SEO from an enterprise level. We also wanted to increase our web presence.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tory (Sr. Digital Strategy & SEO Consultant) sat down with us to discuss our SEO issues and digital marketing goals. From there, we collaboratively reverse-engineered a schema, content made for indexing, and a full database to push the data into branch pages and have breadcrumbs to be crawled correctly.

They’re currently working to help us build more of a presence nationally. This involves taking keyword data they’ve pulled for us to find what is most relevant to us, finding which searches will give us the most ROI, and making content from that.

What is the team composition?

Tory is the main point of contact, and Greta has helped transition content, build new pages, and create a deeper template structure in the branch pages.

How did you come to work with The Gray Dot Company?

My boss heard of them through some networking in the mortgage space.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$180,000 ($3,000 $5,000/mo.) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around March 2017, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The last time we pulled numbers, visibility had gone up 524% since we launched the new site. We’re obviously happy with that.

How did The Gray Dot Company perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great, very on top of it. We email frequently and have bi-monthly phone calls to brainstorm and catch up on everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Tory looks outside the assigned project to be part of bigger conversations. She asks us to look at where we want to go over the next few years and helps us strategize on how to make SEO easier, to structure it so that it’s useable across departments (PPC, social media, etc.). They put a lot of time and effort into that, which we appreciate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We’ve loved everything they’ve done so far.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Vice President at a legal services/ Investigation company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gray Dot Company?

Handle ongoing SEO, Reputation Management, Content creation and Strategy for a multi-billion dollar client in need of better strategy.

What were your goals for this project?

Create solid online content to push down false online information & engage readers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Referral, test projects.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

see above

What was the team composition?

n/a

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Accomplished all goals

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their team was very knowledgeable and on-point.

Are there any areas for improvement?

no

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

II run a video production company located in Denver, Co that specializes in marketing, promotional and corporate creative video projects. My position here at Zerosun is owner and Executive Producer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gray Dot Company?

We hired The Gray Dot company to do a full security and website audit so we could improve our SEO.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to figure out what types of security and backend coding issues were leading us to poor results for SEO on Google. We needed a company that had a lot of experience to help us figure out the problems, develop a solution and give us the tools necessary to get our issues fixed!

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We selected The Gray Dot company on a referral from Fusion Box, a software company located in Denver, CO.

Describe the project in detail.

The Gray Dot company had an initial kick off call with Zerosun to determine what our needs were. After that they developed a plan to audit our website and helped us fix a lot of underlying security and coding issues that weren't allowing us to place high within Google search results for video production companies in Denver, CO.

They also gave us action items that we had to act on as we develop our new website and SEO plan so we can start placing higher in future search results. Finally, The Gray Dot consulted Zerosun on future content and wireframe structure for our future website.

What was the team composition?

I worked directly with Tory, the team lead at Gray Dot Company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

So far a lot of the security and technical HTTPS issues have solved some the initial SEO problems we were having. We are currently taking care of all the suggestions that were made to us so we can have a stronger SEO presence moving forward.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was mostly through email and a couple initial project kickoff phone calls and went extremely smooth.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their experience and knowledge with SEO are as good as it gets. They are extremely thorough and timely with their responses and deliverables.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None. We hope to continue working with them in the future as we build out our new website and proceed to strengthen our SEO presence in the video production world.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice president of Fusionbox, a custom software development consultancy. We build software for all kinds of clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Gray Dot Company?

We were doing a redesign of our website and shifting our keyword strategy and we didn’t want to lose rankings. We hired The Grady Dot Company to gain ranking on new ones.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first thing they did was keyword strategy for our new targets: all the redirects, all the metadata for the main site. Then, they did a technical audit of our site. After the launch, they’ve monitored, sent improvements. They’ve done keyword, link-building, and content strategy development on an ongoing basis, as well as performance reporting.

What is the team composition?

We mostly interact with Tori (Owner, The Grady Dot Company) directly, but I know the other team members. I’ve worked with them before.

How did you come to work with The Gray Dot Company?

Tori used to work for us, providing SEO services to our clients. We knew her work really well, and I knew she would provide great quality.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $500 per month with them. That fluctuates depending on what we want to do.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve gained the number one spot for some of our really important keywords, and that was after the relaunch. It was a big deal. We were targeting a national brand niche, and we’ve ranked for that. It’s been pretty great and resulted in our leads going straight up.

How did The Gray Dot Company perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Kanban, where we post tasks and communicate. We also use email and have a monthly phone call.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Tori and her team are always coming with ideas, and they’re very proactive. Whenever we talk, she’ll send me several smart, quality ideas for changes. Instead of just a checklist of what they need to do, I’m getting big-picture thinking.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m really happy with their work. it’s all been great and effective for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be really clear about your goals and what success will look like, so they can track to it. Also, take their recommendations and implement them. It’s a challenge for us to put all of them into practice.