california Archives - Interfanatic Digital Marketing with Web Site Maintenance & Design

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.

Tenacity: West Coast Jewelers – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Honesty: ACE Racing Engines– Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

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.

Honesty: ACE Racing Engines– Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Resolution: D&G Paving – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

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.

Resolution: D&G Paving – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Kindness: The Human Equation, Peter Getoff – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

Kindness changes the world. In our society so quick to cancel, so quick to judge, so quick to call out, a little calling in with kindness has a greater, more lasting impact. Empathy, effort toward understanding, and the reward of kindness will improve our world. Kindness is much more powerful than telling people you disagree with they’re wrong.

Everyone makes mistakes. Glasses houses and all that.

So I think, “kindness”, and I think of Peter Getoff. He has dedicated his life to making the world better, one person or one organization at a time. The result is a man of experience, of knowledge, and of kindness – a role model for everyone.

The Human Equation: Let’s solve your problem together.

Peter is a problem solver. Through his business, The Human Equation, he solves problems at the organizational level. (We didn’t design his website, we just manage it for him. A redesign is in the works.) And we know from experience: there are few problems that cannot be solved with kindness. But for those problems that cannot be solved, Peter adds his experience and his keen insight to his kindness to find the root of the issue and resolve it.

Peter Getoff works mainly with nonprofit organizations all over Southern California. But he also brings his brand of problem solving to for-profit organizations when needed.

When we began working with Peter, it was with the goal to help him find more business. He wanted to regain control of his website (he had lost control) and make a few changes on it. That was a few years ago, and we have done so much together.

First, we got him control of his website. We negotiated with the person that set up his website for him. Since we’ve been doing this so long, and we know how to speak their language, it was a much easier process for us than it was for him. He had tried, but didn’t know how to ask. (This is something we have to do often.)

Then, we found low-hanging fruit with our Local SEO Situation report, and increased his local search presence dramatically. We did a Local Search Setup for his business and site. It wasn’t difficult with Getoff as he has a permanent physical address. Nonetheless, we had to do the work – all of the steps – to properly list his business. Sometimes people don’t understand how to do this Local Search setup properly. But we do it all the time, and for all the major services. Getoff didn’t want us to produce content for him, so we went through his content and suggested courses of action.

With our help, Peter is now a regular blogger and is even trying his hand at video. We created a branded YouTube page for him and The Human Equation, and have been helping him make more impactful blogs and vlogs.

It’s been a long road. Peter is an excellent practitioner, but he’s not used to these types of professional communications. Blogs, vlogs, expert articles with the right kind of SEO – it’s all a little foreign to him.

And then, one day recently, it happened. He wrote a beautiful piece of work explaining to nonprofits how to attract and keep the best talent. We barely had to edit it. It was filled with useful information, and it’s very nicely written. It’s very well done.

The result is outstanding. It’s been a long time working with Peter – reinventing the image of your business is a process. And Peter is making progress every day.

In this short video, I show you how to find Peter’s articles. Of course, this is the Internet, and we’re Internet Fanatics so I can just give you the link here. It’s hard to imagine how much progress Peter and his site have made in the past few years – it used to be so difficult to find! Now, you can find Peter Getoff’s website easily. And it’s filling with excellent information.

To read Peter’s article about How Non-Profits Attract and Keep Staff in 2022, go to his website. And check back in once in a while! There’s going to be more good information on the way.

Kindness: An Interfanatic Quality

“Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.”
– Annie Lennox

Peter Getoff is a kind man. Which is great, because his clients come to him needing answers, and kindness is almost always the answer (or the key to it.)

Innate kindness is, in my opinion, a great deal of the reason Peter is successful. He uses his training and background as a psychotherapist, consultant, coach, and trainer to help businesses (nonprofits and otherwise), all with kindness on his mind.

We try to work with the same ideals. We attempt to bring kindness to every conversation. We’re here to help! When we are treated with disrespect, we try to answer with kindness. We know that any client behaving in this strange manner is not behaving normally, that they are feeling persecuted or upset – not because of what we did, but they happen to be talking to us at the moment. We always do whatever is possible and fair for our customers, so we lead with kindness.

And when things are not working out for someone, our answer is to help – to bring kindness back into their mindset. It’s difficult, but it’s what we try to do.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Basic Content Piece

A week ago, we talked about George Huber and our SEO Management plans. Included in our Interfanatic+ SEO Management is are Interfanatic Basic Content Pieces – fundamental building blocks for ongoing on-site SEO. Fresh, well-produced, engaging and interesting content is the way to keep your website relevant and maintaining or enhancing performance in SERPs.

(Why do you think we post these articles weekly?)

We work with our customers to understand their business goals. We learn the keywords and key phrases that are important to them and their business. Then we weave those into fresh, relevant content their customers want and need.

“Our Basic SEO Content Pieces consistently weave keywords and key phrases important to our customers’ businesses into fresh, relevant content their customers want and need.”

When you do this enough, and when you do it consistently, you become a go-to source for that information. And voila, the customers see you as the expert you are, and they come to you for your expertise, for the work you do.

We’re here to help. We help you by writing fresh content or editing your freshly created content so that it helps you meet your business’ SEO goals. It’s a long-term process. Learn it on your own by studying what we do, or trust us to handle it for you.

Interfanatic: Bringing it with Kindness

We’re here, and for over twenty years, we have the answers. And we do – we’ve done – all that with kindness. Or at least we tried! Kindness requires practice every day. The beauty of kindness is that the more you practice it, the more you receive it. Just like Peter Getoff and The Human Equation: he practices what he preaches, and he does it all with kindness. The result is kindness toward Peter manifested in his success.

Kindness: The Human Equation, Peter Getoff – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Goodness: Green Ink Marketing – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.”
– Chanakya

Chanakya, an early Indian philosopher and statesman, knew good from bad. He saw both sides of humanity throughout his life. He celebrated the proliferation of goodness.

It’s a beautiful sentiment. But I think, if there’s no wind, the fragrance of the flower permeates its surroundings in all directions. When there is wind against a person, what becomes of their goodness? Does it go with the wind, or against it?

Regardless, we appreciate the goodness of people. And we celebrate it. We try to share our goodness, and let it permeate all the work we do.

Goodness: An Interfanatic Quality

We love working with good people. In fact, we won’t work with people we don’t consider to have good hearts. Life is too short, and we need to apply our talents in a way that will improve the world.

Everyone has bad moments. But if they’re good at their core, the law of averages will right the situation and bring things back to a positive balance.

This is when work is worth doing. It’s easier to work hard for good people.

Green Ink Marketing – The Good Idea of Good People

Many years ago, Green Ink Marketing came to us for website consultation. They had the idea to do printing on recycled paper, with eco-friendly and sustainable inks that also were brilliant and lasting. All decisions are based around using the least environmentally impactful method whenever possible. It was a good idea, and we’re pleased to have helped.

It’s wonderful to work with new, small businesses who feel they can make the world better – if just a tiny bit. It’s encouraging and inspiring.

That’s the kind of goodness we love to work with. When doing good permeates your every move, as it does for Green Ink Marketing, it ripples outward, attracting like-minded individuals and their businesses.

Green Ink Marketing: a small, local company, doing good for their community and the businesses that surround them. It was our pleasure to work with them, even if just for a little bit.

“When doing good permeates your every move, as it does for Green Ink Marketing, it ripples outward, attracting like-minded individuals and their businesses.”

We’re always looking to assist other businesses like Green Ink. If you have a good idea and you need help getting started, reach out to us. Let’s see what we can do together. We work with customers of all types and budget sizes.

What’s Good: Interfanatic The Works HackSecure Dedicated Business Hosting with SSL

For serious business websites, we have our The Works series of products. A great example of a business that could use our The Works HackSecure Dedicated Business Hosting is a high-traffic eCommerce site. It’s got all the bells and whistles you need to run a safe, secure website that’s not limited by resource.

All of our management and hosting plans come with use-it-or-lose-it labor included to keep things running even when problems arise. Because, let’s be honest, no matter what you do, stuff happens. The labor is designed to ensure the websites run safely, and to take care of any little changes you have for your site. If you have more changes or labor required (including The Works Advanced or Rush labor), you have to pay for it, but at least you start every month with some in the bank.

We keep the lights on for ya, so you can go about your business.

Interfanatic and Goodness

Chanakya is one of history’s interesting characters. He put himself in positions that gave him a fascinating collective experience to draw on. And his observations, I find, are often keen. (Of course, they should be taken in context.)

But this one – about the flowers and the goodness of people… It’s universal. Our goal, every day we go to work, is to spread a little goodness and hope a little comes back. The endeavor is to spread goodness whether the wind is with us, or against us.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Goodness, an Interfanatic Quality. Interfanatic Digital Marketing founder Ryan Delane takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Ah, a lovely and intricate succulent. The water’s surface tension interacts with the cuticle in repulsion, giving the water a gem-like, glassy quality. Sometimes it’s the little things, you know? Succulents are beautiful in California, a way to see greenery in a State plagued by drought. And, in line with the green theme of this week’s customer spotlight. And, our The Works hosting is like a succulent, in that it rarely runs dry on resources and it’s spiny to keep the baddies out.

Goodness: Green Ink Marketing – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Justice: Ace Process Service – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
– Cornell West

Public love. That’s a beautiful sentiment for justice.

But, as West knows better than I may ever know (if I’m lucky), justice is only truly love when it is true and pure. When justice is tainted, justice isn’t love; it’s hate.

But I digress. Justice is fairness to all and it is the quality we celebrate, this week’s virtue at Interfanatic.

Justice: An Interfanatic Quality

A critical component of society – and of business; justice. Businesses must treat their customers with justice or they will be spurned. This has never been so apparent as in the Age of Social Media.

It began with Yelp. Businesses had to suddenly become accustomed to passive-aggressive behavior from customers, and only after there was nothing the business could do about it.

It’s been an uncomfortable transition for some. “The customer is always right”, well, yes – but what if the customer is unhappy and doesn’t bother to speak up until after they have left the building? How is that fair to a business? How is it fair to criticize anybody in public without first giving them the personal opportunity to fix the situation. There is no honor in slinking around, bad-mouthing others when you don’t have the guts to tell them to their face, first.

But Social Media has been the great equalizer. Some have adapted, some have not. In the end, it makes everything work a little better – so long as it’s true justice.

Manipulated reviews: that’s how society’s customers and their interaction with the businesses that serve them can become unjust.

(Which is why we work very hard to keep an open dialogue with our customers.)

Ace Process Service: Administering Justice

Which brings us to Ace Process Service. Their job is to administer justice – to sometimes unsuspecting individuals, unaware they had treated others unjustly.

Jeff Levine of Ace Process Service works, well, all over California, but mostly in Southern California. Ace Process Service is based near El Segundo’s LAX, which means Levine has gotten to work with some interesting people.

You wouldn’t know it if you talked to Levine but briefly. But once you get to know him, you know he has stories. Stories of famous, fortunate people. Stories, of course, he cannot share, but still – it’s clear his experience is immense.

Which means he’s the perfect person to handle this business. His deft hand, honed through years of dancing through sticky situations, means he’s great and handling himself. And your business.

“Levine’s deft hand, honed through years of dancing through sticky situations, is great at handling … your business“

So next time you need to service papers, know you should work with Ace Process Service.

Interfanatic Basic SEO Situation Report: A Website Performance Check

A few months ago, we worked with Levine to do an SEO Check up. We’re now calling this service the SEO Situation Report. A lot of work goes into understanding your site’s performance in search. It’s an extremely valuable asset we provide to small businesses with websites.

If you’ve ever wondered why your website isn’t getting much traffic or why your customers aren’t finding your business easily online, we give you the answers.

From there, we can craft a strategy to cost efficiently improve your sites ranking for the keywords and keyphrases you care about. There are plenty of ways to help a website, and we work through all of them to give you results.

One of the pieces in our arsenal to improve search results is the Interfanatic Power SEO Business Site Preparation. We go through your entire site and bring it up to speed on SEO, focusing on keywords and keyphrases that matter to your business. The SitRep and Site Prep are a pretty incredible combination for either older sites, or sites not done right.

But the focus here is Ace Process Service. We really have enjoyed working with Levine. He and Ace Process Service provide a valuable service to the people of Southern California, and if we ever need that kind of service, it’s great to know where to find him and his team.

Interfanatic & Justice

We work hard to treat our customers fairly. Our goal is excellent value for their money. We work hard to give them results: justice for money well spent and time invested.

We work hard to do what’s right.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

I remember being struck by this Olympic moment a few years ago. There is no justice like the stopwatch. And they had done it! Ultimate justice in payment for years of training. It was an inspiring moment. So inspired, I took a picture of the TV! (So yes, not one of my greatest photographic accomplishments.) And, when I selected this picture, it had just come out that the Olympics were to be postponed… Not exactly justice, but a reminder that Mother Nature is in charge, and we’d best do our part to keep her happy. Mother Nature administers her own justice.

Justice: Ace Process Service – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Love: Laguna Seca Raceway – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
– Aristotle

A single soul inhabiting two bodies. A beautiful thought… It reminds of marriage vows… and of racing a motor car.

You probably have a different thought when you think of racing a motor car than I do. But doing it well is especially reflective of a beautiful love affair.

When you’re racing a car, when you’re in the zone, you feel the cars tires as an extension of your own body. The two of you become one and glide fluidly through space, without drama. Everything else disappears and the lap times fall, relentlessly.

At first, it’s just you, and your car. Then, the car becomes you, and it’s just you. It all just happens.

So it is with Laguna Seca Raceway. I think they call it WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca these days. But when we designed and built an incredibly high-tech, forward thinking website for them fifteen years ago, it was Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

The track, at the time, was run by SCRAMP: love for motorsport and the cherished circuit inhabiting many bodies. Now, there will always be protagonists and antagonists, but the fact remains: everyone does it because they love racing.

Love: An Interfanatic Quality

We designed and built an incredible website for them. It was incredibly high-tech and advanced for its time. Some thought too advanced. Perhaps a little before its time. But we created Laguna Seca’s site with love.

“Interfanatic created Laguna Seca’s site with love.”

If you don’t know Laguna Seca, let me try to explain it to you.

In the middle of an Army ordinance range, some crazy folks decided to create a racetrack. They ran a ribbon of gray asphalt around a small brown mountain. Then they hurled their bright red, blue, orange, yellow, and silver sporty cars around that ribbon of asphalt. And it became racing. And it was good.

Laguna Seca has a character all its own. If you know what I’m talking about, skip ahead. There are only so many descriptions of the corkscrew a real racer can take. But if you don’t…

After coaxing your beast up the back of the hill, it reaches the top, breathless. It’s time to dig your heel hard into the binders and dance your hands and feet into second gear. A hard left and the world disappears beneath you as you lift off the brakes and accelerate. Your steed searches for footing, you gently coax her right and catch third in the air. When she settles in, you’re heading to a fast left with all hell screaming behind you.

When Phil Hill first hit that fast left in the Chapparel 2J, everyone held their collective breaths. There was NO WAY he could make it through Turn 9 at that mach number. But he did. And Jim Hall was right, and ground effect in motorsport was borne.

It’s a track filled with history. Young James Dean passed on driving his Porsche to Laguna Seca. Mark Donahue hustled the mighty “if you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower” 917/30 there. And Alex Zanardi gadzooked Bryan Herta, turning his IndyCar into a rally machine to make a nutty pass stick for the win.

It’s a place I kinda grew up.

Laguna Seca Raceway: A Project We Cannot Forget

So when Laguna Seca approached Interfanatic (nee Web Site Maintenance & Design) after hearing Carroll Smith crow about our site, it was a thrilling moment.

We love doing cutting edge. We love doing what can’t be done. And we, like the people behind Laguna Seca, love racing.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

To make up for last week’s screenshot, this week we have a real photograph. An image of love. I took this slide with love; love for my father, love for motor racing, and love for photography. This, for me, has everything. I took this photograph at a dinky little throwback track called Moroso. It was phenomenal. I remember there wasn’t much in the way of safety back then. As I recall there were gators in a culvert at one of the turn exits. You didn’t want to get upside-down there (not that you would want to get shiny-side down anywhere). But apparently some guy got himself eaten after tipping over there the month before. But the lack of guardrails and corner-workers who gave a damned what I did allowed me to do this. To get the image I wanted. And, for me, it remains glorious.

Love: Laguna Seca Raceway – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Honor: Ace Small Claims Service – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“Life every man holds dear;
but the dear man
Holds honor far more precious-dear
than life.”
– William Shakespeare

Going back thousands of years, it is almost an axiom of writing that the honorable hold honor more precious than life itself.

We at Interfanatic do not disagree. We love to work with people who do as they say they shall. Therefore, we model that behavior in all we do.

Honor: More Precious-Dear than Life

A great way to earn trust is to do what you say you will. The best way to lose trust is to not.

When people choose to work with Interfanatic, they do so because they want to take some burden away from themselves and let us take it on. We want our customers to know: we got you.

Ensuring Honor

Jeff Levine of Ace Small Claims Service ensures that businesses and individuals do as they say they will. Of course, the best way to do this is to model that behavior. Which is why we trust and enjoy working with Ace Small Claims Service. We did not create his website for him, but we aid him in understanding his site’s performance. We choose our customers carefully so that we don’t need to worry – but when things go wrong (and they do) it’s nice to know we have Jeff to trust.

Levine was curious how his website performed in Search. So we did an Interfanatic Basic Local SEO Check-up for him and he learned a lot. We also helped him understand what he needed to do to improve his site’s performance – how to make it work better for him.

And, if a customer ever decides to stiff us (it happens, but rarely), we can rely on Jeff Levine’s honor through Ace Small Claims Service to get things straightened out.

Honor: Ace Small Claims Service – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

Value: Peters Realty Center – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

Price is what you pay; value is what you get.
– Warren Buffett

In this fascinating, terrifying and often delightful world, it’s difficult to know the price of a dollar. Nick Peters (now of Engel & Volkers) knows value.

We do on-going consultation with Nick. He’s one of the best Real Estate Agents in South Redondo Beach and Torrance, CA. All RE Agents claim to have superior customer service, and they all claim to really care about their clients, and they all say they really work hard for them. And many do.

But Nick takes it next level. Nick puts his money where his mouth is. He is constantly investing in his business to bring his customers value. And it works. And his customers know it. That’s why, in a flooded market, they stick with Nick and his team.

We at Interfanatic are attracted to Nick’s business because we do the same thing. We’re always brainstorming new ways to get value to our customers; to improve ROI; to help their business be better.

Nick and I sometimes just sit and chat and it’s amazing what comes out of our little sessions. It’s always valuable. And we’re happy to share what we learn from each other and pass it along.

Because to us, sharing what we learn… that’s value.

Value: Peters Realty Center – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight Read More »

The Bitter Chef brings Food and Fun to Long Beach, California!

Cool Stuff on the Web, Partners, Site Launches

What are you looking at? Great food, that’s what the heck you’re looking at, buddy! Acclaimed Chef Andrew Lord – The Bitter Chef – has made another phenomenal hit in the heart of Long Beach, CA, offering beautiful food at a fantastic value.

The Bitter Chef, food and fun in long beach, California — The Bitter Chef brings food and fun to Long Beach, CA

Chef Lord has created more than a few successful restaurants, and his latest creation brings the right kind of American Classic infused with modern Italian to really give Long Beach something fresh to eat. And it’s GOOD. He could probably charge twice as much for the dishes he’s perfected here, but he chooses to make the prices friendly to the economy because he has a big heart. Yeah, right. He just wants you in there eating his food regularly!

Join his mailing list so you can be notified of deals especially for your birthday or because or for that rare moment when he’s in a good mood. We know Andrew, so we can jest about his sarcastic sense of humor – and a sense of humor is required for dining at The Bitter Chef, not just because the food is ridiculously good. The atmosphere is all about good fun, and Yelpers are already proclaiming their affection for this new Long Beach gem of a diner.

Check out The Bitter Chef and his new Web Site, www.TheBitterChef.com today and head on down to LBC tonight for a breakfast, lunch, or dinner you won’t forget soon, but your pocketbook will.

The Bitter Chef brings Food and Fun to Long Beach, California! Read More »