Orbit Media Studios

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Communications of Fieldwork

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Fieldwork provides recruitment, management, and facility support for virtual and in-person qualitative market research.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Orbit Media Studios to accomplish?

• Improve site navigation
• Update overall appearance
• Clearly convey what we do and how we do it

SOLUTION

How did you find Orbit Media Studios?

Referral

Why did you select Orbit Media Studios over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Orbit Media Studios were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We partnered with Orbit Media to create a brand new website for Fieldwork. We wanted an updated look to our branding while keeping the brand recognizable. Our main interest was creating a new navigation that was intuitive while maintaining our hard earned SEO. Orbit worked with our team to develop copy, design the site, and develop the site.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our goal was to launch a new website that our clients were happy with and we did just that!

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

Krista, our Orbit Project Manager, was a rockstar. She kept the project on time and on budget. Weekly meetings were kept on track with an agenda and served as a touch point to address concerns. All emails were promptly responded to.

What was your primary form of communication with Orbit Media Studios?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The way they listened to us was refreshing. They graciously accepted feedback and implemented changes as needed.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Orbit Media Studios could have done differently?

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Manager of Marmon Utility

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Marmon Utility is the parent company of Hendrix and Kerite, and manufactures overhead and underground cable, as well as polymer insulators for the T&D industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Orbit Media Studios to accomplish?

• Create a fresh, modern look for our website
• Build a new web platform that positively positions Marmon Utility to potential visitors
• Execute on-page SEO best practices and preserve ranking of existing web pages
• Create a mobile (and tablet) friendly experience through responsive web design
• Allow for easy maintenance and updates

SOLUTION

How did you find Orbit Media Studios?

Referral

Why did you select Orbit Media Studios over others?

• Pricing fits our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Detailed Proposal

How many teammates from Orbit Media Studios were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Scope and Requirements Orbit is responsible for implementing the following: 

• Content Planning o Conduct a kickoff interview to understand the target audiences, goals, and messaging strategy for the website o Create a sitemap and content plan within a Content Workbook o Write Draft Copy for 20 pages including the home page and 2 key product or service pages with one round of revisions per page 

• Design o Design the home page and product catalog pages with the Marmon Red (#A32829) and Marmon Black (#000000) color values o Design a responsive WYSIWYG table 

• Programming and Implementation o Deploy the staging environment o Apply design color palette changes from the design to the HTML and CSS for the following templates and features:

▪ Mega menu 

▪ Page block tools 

▪ Product catalog 

▪ Rep locator 

▪ Web forms o Program responsive WYSIWYG table styles o Update the logo, organization name, and favicon o Enter up to 20 pages of content o Import product and rep locator databases o Train Client administrators to enter and revise remaining content o Conduct Accessibility Compliance review for up to 16 hours of effort total 

• Testing and Deploy o Create and implement a testing plan o Configure Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Tag Manager o Configure the Data Privacy Compliance tool o Install SSL o Launch 

• Project Management o Coordinator internal and external communication to ensure all project requirements are completed as expected o Coordinate the project meetings

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Increased web traffic Positive feedback from employees, customers and reps Number of web conversions

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

Orbit Media Studios' project management was phenomenal! They are extremely detailed, organized, and efficient, and always made sure I was aware of what they were working on and what was coming up next. They had 100% follow-through during the entire process and were extremely responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with Orbit Media Studios?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I was extremely impressed with their organization and prompt email responsiveness.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Orbit Media Studios could have done differently?

I can not think of anything that would have improved this process.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the chief of staff for a medical group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Orbit Media Studios, and what were your goals?

Our website was built for a single location and was no longer adequate for our growing, multi-specialty and multi-location medical group. We wanted to maintain our simple, online booking, while also conveying the breadth of services we offer. Our goal was to create a clean, modern and easy to navigate web experience that communicates what we offer, while making booking an appointment easy for our patients.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We researched several web development and design groups in the Chicago area and interviewed a few teams before deciding to work with Orbit Media. Their clear communication, thorough proposal, organization and rave reviews helped us reach our decision.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The Orbit team was tasked with integrating an online booking system into a clean and modern design. A kickoff meeting was held to walk through our main priorities and goals. The Orbit team listened, rose to the challenge, and created a site outline that would maintain the simple user experience, while also telling a story to allow patients to learn more about our key service areas.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a dedicated project manager who was always available to us. She, along with a designer and two content managers led us through the project from start to finish.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Patients and employees have been raving about the new site design. It tells a story, looks professional and most importantly, is simple and easy for patients to navigate so they can book an appointment. Our Google scores have improved and we have experienced no issues since launch.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Orbit was incredibly organized from start to finish. They created a timeline, used a client portal to communicate progress and next steps and held regular calls with our team to ensure things were moving in the right direction. In addition, the project manager was always availble to us and extremely responsive.

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

They heard us. It's clear that they listened intently to our unique needs and built a site to meet those needs vs. a cookie cutter site. The site they built is also easy for us to update and maintain.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We were thrilled with our experience working with Orbit Studios and we would absolutely hire them again.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Higher education institution focused on integrated health and wellness. My role: Vice President of Marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Orbit Media Studios, and what were your goals?

Our website was in need of a major overhaul. It has been built on an old and outdated platform, was difficult to update, the user experience was poor, it was not search engine optimized, and it was difficult to get any meaningful metrics. Our goal was to partner with a professional organization with expertise in website development and enhancement, and then to help us with our ongoing needs as we continued to grow and expand.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We researched and talked to several vendors, inviting them to participate in a RFP process. We then invited leading candidate firms to our office to meet with multiple stakeholders. Orbit Media presented us with a strong proposal, and extensive knowledge and exceptional leadership, and were visionaries. We felt they would be a strong partner for us, and they were.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We held a kickoff meeting to discuss goals and objectives. The team delivered mock-ups and wireframes for our site. After several discussions with marketing, IT and key stakeholders, the team developed our WordPress site. They updated the content to reflect our products and services, and guide the customer journey.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked closely with a project manager, who had multiple developers and writers they were working with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We saw a measurable increase in traffic, and a significant boost in organic SEO. We were able to more effectively track metrics including length of time on site, conversions, etc. The team was extremely helpful in recommending enhancements and opportunities, which continued to be beneficial.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Exceptional communication by project manager. Used a variety of tools including reports, verbal and written communications, phone calls. Very timely.

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

The depth of talent. They are lead by an exceptional CEO who is a Thought Leader, visionary and understands the continuous evolution of digital technologies and the consumer experience. All individuals we worked with over multiple years and in various disciplines were talented, strong communicators, had superb recommendations, and I always felt they had our best interests in mind.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing. They were great partners and we valued them. I always felt they were a seamless extension of my marketing team. They were an absolute pleasure to work with. I was impressed from my very first contact, and that continued throughout the years we've worked together, I have always had great confidence in the talent and expertise of everyone on the team I've encountered, and all work has always been completed with the highest of standards. Additionally, I could always rely on forward-looking insight and recommendations, which I greatly valued. A true testament to their CMO's leadership and vision.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior marketing manager for PLZ Corp. We’re a manufacturing company specializing in servicing household and automotive cleaners, industrial air carriers, and more. I oversee all the digital and marketing efforts, as well as our websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We wanted a website that better represented our current values and organization. We wanted to modernize it and ensure it was technologically sound and up to date.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we contacted Orbit Media Studios to help with a website redesign. They’ve built the WordPress website from scratch. They’ve rewritten the existing content and reorganized the page and its flow. Also, they provide maintenance and hosting services.

What is the team composition?

We work with 5–10 people, including a project manager, a copy manager, and the technical team.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

We found them on Clutch.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2022, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback internally and externally about the website's new look, feel, and navigation.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent. They use an internal intranet for control, and we communicate through email, phone calls, and Zoom meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to merge creativity and website strategy is outstanding. They’ve been able to create a pleasant-looking website while keeping the Google Core Web Vitals compliant and prioritizing the navigation and UX.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing at the moment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be as specific as possible about what you’re looking for on your new website.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an industrial equipment manufacturer that produces grinders, conveyors, and plant designs for the coffee industry. My position is the director of digital marketing. I’m in charge of bringing in leads and helping craft our digital marketing strategy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We needed a company with SEO experience to build our website. Our goal was to have a website that could compete organically within our space.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Orbit Media Studios developed an SEO-friendly website for us on Drupal 7. They started by scoping out the project, estimating how many pages we’d need, considering how we wanted to use them, and then walking us through the design. 

The latter was a collaborative effort. They presented three mood boards that detailed the overall look and feel. Once we gave feedback, we worked to align on a direction. When the site was operational, they walked us through the site map and trained us on how to craft our content.

The team also did a lot of SEO work in preparation for the site, which mostly involved keyword research. They looked at behavior flows and informed us of analytics that we should take note of. It was really about finding opportunities for us to grow. If I even ran into a plateau regarding our organic rankings, they would help us do better to move past it.

What is the team composition? 

Jay (Project Manager) was our main account person, and Sarah (Web Strategy Director) managed the project. I also worked with Andy (Co-Founder & CMO). 

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

We searched for web development agencies in Chicago in Google, the logic being that whichever company ranked first had a good SEO strategy. That’d be a sign that they knew what they were doing and could get us to the top position, too. 

Orbit Media Studios was one of the most promising agencies that we saw. We got a good vibe from them when we reached out, and they understood our company. Not only could they craft a website for us, but Andy was an SEO guru. It seemed like a promising start to have him and his team working on our site.

What is the status of this engagement?

They worked on the site from January–June 2017, and then we had them host our site for the three following years. The engagement ended in 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a great project overall. Before working with Orbit Media Studios, our site left a lot to be wanted. We had a lacking contact form that didn’t provide much information to our customers. 

Their team then developed a new site that had far better tracking and lead conversion capabilities, which resulted in us getting more prospective customers through our site. Users were also satisfied with the better usability and information. We definitely saw organic improvements, but that’s probably due to a combination of their contributions and the marketing work that I did. 

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Jay did a great job of keeping things on track, and Andy would also step in to see how the project was going. They gave us access to a client portal where we could log in and see their progress. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Orbit Media Studios was definitely a premium offering. Everyone on their team was really talented — we weren’t dealing with people who were just getting their start. These people had a lot of experience under their belt in each of their individual silos. That was pretty unique. I lot of agencies these days try to cut costs, but I never felt that way toward Orbit Media Studios. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind. I was always happy to work with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared to put in some work yourself because you really want to work collaboratively when building a website. Of course, you pay for an agency to bring their expertise and be honest with you, but you also need to know when you have to step up. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an editor for a nonprofit environmental ethics group called the Center for Humans and Nature. I work in the publication wing, mostly digital publications on our website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We needed a website and publications platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orbit Media Studios initially developed our website, humansandnature.org. They also did a major redesign of the site about four years post-launch. They continue to manage all the technical support for our web platforms as well.

They use a CMS called Mighty-Site as the project interface. It's similar to WordPress but it's custom designed and developed for their clients. They use that to work with us and to manage the content.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with a designer, a dedicated programmer, and a couple of people on the business and account side.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

They were hired to develop the first website before I joined the organization. I know that we were looking for someone in the Chicago region so that we could meet in person as necessary.

How much have you invested with them?

The redesign was around $75,000, but I don’t know the amount of the total spend.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2011 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Orbit Media Studios won a Webby award for the design of the initial website. It was great to see it recognized outside of our community. Internal feedback has also been positive. The custom pieces that they created increased engagement with our readers. They did a good job helping us understand what we needed in a website and what was possible. They involved some members of our board in terms of feedback on the final design. It was such an exceptional experience developing the initial website that it was an easy decision to return to them for the redesign.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

They provide a very collaborative culture. During our engagement, they introduced a new online troubleshooting platform. They use it to track any issues on the website or projects in development. I can log into the platform and see ongoing work orders. We also use it to communicate. It's an elegant system compared to sending many emails back and forth. Their team is responsive, professional, thorough, and careful. Our team doesn't have much web or technical expertise so we really appreciate how helpful they are. They’re good at translating programming terms into language we understand.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Andy (co-founder, Orbit Media Studios) is an expert in content marketing. They invite us to workshops and events where members of our team can learn directly from him. Particularly for us as publishers, he's been an amazing resource. We really appreciate how generous they are with their knowledge and expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the content marketing analyst for Rent Like a Champion, which is a sporting event-based home rental service company that helps mainly college football, PGA Tour, and NASCAR fans find rental homes close to their event. I handle all external communications, inbound marketing, and SEO efforts. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

I’ve been with Rent Like a Champion since February 2017. One of the things on my docket is to come up with an SEO plan for the company’s website. We’re basically an e-commerce website, and SEO is particularly difficult for us with duplicate content and figuring out where exactly we want to drive leads. We were looking for some advice from a seasoned digital marketer to lend some direction in terms of good places to start for restructuring our website. We’d had some consultations before, but our meeting with Andy [Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Orbit Media Studios] was probably the most in-depth of the consultations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orbit Media Studios provide detailed consultation. We sat down with Andy and talked through our plan to get his expertise as far as the strengths and the weaknesses of our plan. He also offered us a new direction moving forward. We approached our plan from both a design/UX standpoint and an overall structure standpoint and looked at how those aspects would interact. We explored the technical side of the SEO on our site and its impact on our larger SEO efforts. While there aren’t necessarily any deliverables involved in that process, the consultation was really what we were after. The results will guide us forward as we work with our developers and tech team, transforming our internal efforts into reality in the long-term.

We wanted to know specifically where we should focus and which pages on our site we should send potential leads towards. Our site is event-focused, so we have a lot of different places where we could send people potentially. We could send people to our home page and a search portal. We could send them to specific city pages. We could send them to specific event pages. We could send them to individual properties. We really didn’t know which strategy would be best. We had ideas, but we really wanted to know first and foremost where we should be driving leads to maximize the likelihood of a conversion.

What is the team dynamic?

For this particular project, we worked directly with Andy.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

My director of marketing, Dave, knew Andy as a mentor in the space. Dave has been in the marketing world for a little longer than I have. We attended a Wine & Web event at Orbit Studios. I was really taken by Andy’s perspective and ideas, as well as the discussion points he was guiding us towards. I knew that he was a well-respected thinker in the space, so we reached out to see if he’d be willing to sit down with us. After our first meeting, we decided to go with them. We didn’t have a long shop-around period.

How much have you invested with them?

I’m not privy to that information. It’s been a significant portion of our development budget the last few months. I’ve heard what Orbit Media Studios usually charges for their rates, but I’m not at liberty to discuss that because they’re friends of mine.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2017, and the project is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We use Moz to measure our search visibility and SEO efforts. When we started talking to Andy, we were hovering at or just below about 2% search visibility, which meant that the likelihood of getting picked in a Google search was not high organically. We were really depending on our search efforts. Andy’s expertise took us from a little under 2% up to 7%. Of course, we want our search visibility score to be higher than that, but literally a week later we saw that bump and got ourselves on the right path. We’ve also added keywords in the top 10 search results. Twelve keywords are now in the top 10 that were not there before just based on Andy’s direction. Those are the main metrics that matter to us.

Time will tell in terms of final conversion rates. We have a longer sales process for a lot of our services. But, hitting those metrics right away was extremely encouraging. Given what I know about Google’s algorithm, that’s been leading to more sessions on our site and ultimately more conversions.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Andy has been great. He’s highly respectful of our time, focused on the right things during our time with him, and made us feel comfortable throughout the process. He redirected us in a major way. He took my suggestion and completely rearranged it, explaining how we could be more effective. A lot of people would approach giving that kind of feedback with a certain air, but Andy was so relatable, kind, and understanding that he never made us feel ignorant or insufficient. He just focused on finding proactive solutions to the problems at hand. We felt completely taken care of throughout the process.

The initial consultation lasted an hour. From there, Andy gave us a to-do list, and we kept him in the loop about the changes we were making. Overall, that was pretty much our interaction. I can’t stress enough how well spent even that short amount of time was with him.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Compared to others in the industry, Andy really had a clear understanding of what would be best for our unique sales process. A lot of people who claim to specialize in SEO and mention general rules and checklists that may or may not actually affect your bottom line. Their tips for B2B companies that are not applicable to B2C companies. Andy tailored all of his guidance and thoughts to our goals. He didn’t just share how much he knew about SEO and the industry. Instead, he said, “What problem do you have, and what tools can we use to fix it?” That simplicity really impressed me.

The whole company has a phenomenal understanding of the industry. They’re on the cutting edge but don’t move too quickly into unproven areas. They love catering solutions to clients’ unique problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m racking my brain to try to think of anything. I wish we’d had more time to chat with Andy. If I could go back and do it again, I would ask for more time, but that really speaks to the great level of service that he provided. Any time spent with Andy is valuable. 

BACKGROUND

I’m a content marketing analyst for Rent Like A Champion, which is an online platform that allows college football fans to rent homes near campus during game weekends. Based in Chicago, Rent Like A Champion has been growing rapidly from just 1 campus to more than 20 in a few years. Soon, we will be active in 40 markets, and we've expanded our operations beyond football to partner with PGA [Professional Golfers’ Association] and racing events across the U.S.

I handle all of the company’s email marketing, communications, social media strategy, and long-term SEO [search engine optimization] and content growth. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We’ve made SEO a major priority for the next few quarters. I’m responsible for looking at our inbound marketing processes and figuring out where SEO fits best into our overall marketing strategy.

As an e-commerce site that is balancing SEO strategies for 2 different sets of users (homeowners listing their homes and renters looking to book homes), figuring out a way to keep our strategy simple was essential. We used SEO tools to figure out the technical and UX [user-experience] issues that would be most profitable. But, as a startup without an in-house development team, discerning our priorities moving forward was of vital importance for us.

I reached out to Andy [Co-Founder & Strategic Director, Orbit Media Studios] and his team while looking for ways to improve our technical SEO by resolving many of the duplicate content issues we were having. Since we're offering vacation rental listings in specific markets, we have tons of product pages with similar content. I thought this was hurting our overall SEO efforts and needed to know how to view our site from a broader perspective in order to guide Google and point visitors in the right directions.

SOLUTION

The whole Orbit Media team was absolutely incredible during our sit-down. Andy took a look at our strategy and helped us keep it simple by guiding us to user-relevant solutions that would help us make the most impact on the pages for which we were looking to rank.

Initially, I wanted to reduce our duplicate content in order to improve our rankings. However, I'm not ashamed to say that after meeting with Andy, I realized my strategy was completely wrong for us. He pointed out that none of our rental pages contained ranked content, and users searching for homes wouldn't be able to discern between our individual homes for rent. Instead, Andy said, we needed to view the market pages themselves as our ranking goal. This would allow us to attract qualified users and give them the experience they want.

Andy's constructive criticism indicated what needed to be changed in a way that made me feel respected, valued, and heard. Additionally, his advice made sense and immediately helped our SEO efforts. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Based on Andy’s advice, we've pivoted our SEO strategy to focus on market pages. We’ve seen an immediate spike in rankings and visibility. Next, we’ll further optimize those market pages as a part of our overall site strategy.

Above all, Andy's guidance allowed us to create a large-scale vision for the future of our site, helping us allocate resources easily and prioritize site changes moving forward. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing for Rent Like a Champion, a vacation rental platform focused on sporting events. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We had trouble figuring out how to marry our web design and user experience [UX] with our marketing. We wanted the site to be intuitive, user-friendly, and not frustrating, but we also needed to make sure we were driving conversions and showing up well on Google. We needed SEO that was on-par with best practices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orbit listened to the unique problems we were facing, determined what our real issue was, and shared their expertise in SEO and web design. It’s easy to become outdated in these areas, and many of our strategies were no longer effective. Orbit provided valuable clarity in that respect.  

One of our biggest issues was redesigning our market-specific pages. We are hyperlocal; even though we’re present in 100 locations, only 25 of those are actually core locations. We’re focused on sports fans, so every detail about a local market needs to be targeted and not a watered-down presentation for football fans, for example. This involved everything from showing up in search results correctly and ensuring we were targeting our audience to the UX of our site. We can’t afford to be general, so we optimized our market-specific pages, making sure that our SEO and general digital presence (from paid, unpaid, and social standpoints) appeared correctly.

We had some technical SEO issues related to website mods and other tools, which were affecting us negatively. Our in-house content manager and I worked closely together and debated different approaches. He proposed redirecting to a single page for every market, while I wanted to 400-error the pages we had and tell Google not to follow them. Orbit told us that neither of those approaches would work and showed us the actual problem: our specific market pages weren’t even built correctly. They walked us through a redesign and gave us a list of page elements. This simplified our issue tremendously.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

I’ve known Andy [Co-Founder and Strategic Director, Orbit Media Studios] for a couple of years and was referred to him by a colleague when we were facing our initial design and marketing issues. From my experience with Orbit, this is where they provide the most value. I reached out to them a year ago about the issues we were facing. I knew our criteria, but it was difficult to find someone with the right technical chops who could build a website and apply marketing skills. Every designer should have conversion-science knowledge in order to make a user convert on a page. I’ve met very few developers who have this, but Orbit’s team does.

How much have you invested with Orbit Media Studios?

Most of their work has been in credit or trade form. For the most part, this hasn’t been a large financial investment for us. To finish this campaign, we will likely engage Orbit financially.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our most recent campaign with Orbit started 3 months ago. We plan on working with them again at the end of 2017, after we’ve ended our busy season and when we have the resources. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

Orbit helped us figure out our direction and the best approach utilizing our limited startup resources. We’ve already seen big improvements, but the largest effort that Orbit helped outline won’t be implemented until the beginning of 2018.

We had an immediate jump in our rankings for a chunk of our keywords, after making the changes suggested by Orbit. We’ve added elements to the page, which amounted to a boost for a number of terms without affecting any of the others negatively. We’ve made it to the bottom of page 1 from the middle or bottom of page 2 for many keywords. That’s the difference between life and death for our business.

We haven’t seen any negative or positive changes in user engagement, but we have seen an uptick in the time spent on pages. It’s probably too soon to make a conclusion, but it’s a good leading indicator. The additions created a better UX and keep people on the page for longer, but these are still early results. We’ve seen no negative user behavior and have an uptick in SEO, which was our original goal.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily worked with Andy, who led the whole conversation. We traveled to Chicago to meet him once every 2 months for the last year. Most of our visits have been around the work I discussed, but he’s clarified other major overhauls around strategy in person.

What did you find most impressive about Orbit Media Studios?

I appreciated the accessibility of Orbit’s leadership. Their generosity and openness made us feel that we partnered with the right people. It’s rare to find someone who can build a business solution who actually has business sense.

I don’t think I’ll ever go to anyone else for web development because I feel that Orbit will lead us to the best product that can serve a business function. I’ve worked with too many designers who are proud of their work from an artistic standpoint but butted heads with us from a marketing standpoint because they didn’t deliver ideal designs for conversion. They excel at making professional and aesthetically pleasing designs that drive conversions. They merge business and technology perfectly.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Orbit Media Studios?

Before starting an engagement with Orbit, try to learn about SEO and user engagement from the team so you can engage in the conversation and understand the value being provided. Any software shop can build an online business card, but driving business is the hard part.