Rare Earth Interactive News

Rare Earth Interactive Acquires Working Solutions
Web Business

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0500

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Buffalo, NY - Rare Earth Interactive Design, Inc., a Buffalo, New York eBusiness solutions and online marketing firm, today announces that it has acquired the website client list and related assets of Working Solutions, LLC, also of Buffalo, NY.

In the acquistion, Rare Earth welcomes 15 new accounts. Among them are: NYS Assemblymember Sam Hoyt, Community Music School, Aléthea's Chocolates, Elmwood Village Association, Quaker Bonnet, Bronstein Auctions, Richard the Thread, and Kolken Law.

"Though competitors in the strictest sense, Rare Earth and Working Solutions have enjoyed a years-long, collaborative relationship...many of their former clients have already had some involvement with us, which is making the transition very smooth," said Craig C. Chapman, Rare Earth's founder and Creative Director. Chapman added, "for Working Solutions, it was all about giving their customers the most flexibilty, the greatest number of options, and helping their businesses thrive in the tough economic climate we find ourselves in. Now, like each of our other existing accounts, Rare Earth can be 100% committed to their success, too."

In a separate announcement to Working Solutions customers, founder Richard Levy called the move "a very a positive development," for the future of his customers' online success, citing Rare Earth's design, marketing expertise and production capabilities, in addition to the firm's solid record of achieving success with their online initiatives, as pivotal factors.

The the transaction was completed on October 31, 2009. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Welcome to our new Website!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:15:00 -0400

Rare Earth Interactive Design, Inc., a leading provider of eBusiness solutions for SMBs, NFPs, K-12s, CPGs, and MLS (plus a few other acronyms that we can't print here), released its newest website today.

The seventh iteration of Rare Earth Interative's corporate site features a sleek, new Web 2.0 design that changes with the local weather in the Buffalo, Niagara region of New York State, and is also based on the same best practices that have proven so successful for our accounts. These include social media feeds, CSS (with jQuery support), AJAX and customizable Meta Tags (translation: all good for marketing a website and getting noticed on search engines).

"After about 18 months of making all manner of cool SEO-friendly sites for our customers and professional services clients, we decided it was time to catch up with them," said Craig Chapman, the firm's founder and Creative Director. He added, "you can now follow us on Twitter, or visit our Facebook page, right from our website. And, thanks to our production team we finally have a portfolio, that properly shows off our work. You can even vote for your favorite designs."

"We feel this new site demonstrates the state-of-the-art of web site design for 2009," Chapman concluded.

The site is located on the World Wide Web, at www.rareearth.us.

Rare Earth and BNAR introduce WNYProgressNow.com

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Rare Earth Interactive today released a revolutionary new tool for homeowners!

Conceived of by the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors, the Western New York Progress Now website provides a vital bridge between homeowners (and future homeowners) in the Buffalo/Niagara region of Western New York and their elected officials. Rare Earth in coordination with BNAR, researches and monitors both emerging and active legislative issues that have the potential to affect the quality of life and home ownership in our region and our community. In turn, WNY Progress Now keeps its members informed through timely, targeted email communications and through their website.

Through the Western New York Progress Now website, members are able to use a quick, easy channel to contact and voice their concerns to their representatives in their local municipality, city, town or village, in addition to important information and talking points to make their voices heard.

Update: 2-Dec-2008

WNY Progress Now scored a convincing victory on one of the issues the site launched with: the 2009 Erie County Budget.

By a vote of 11-to-4, the Erie County Legislature supported our client's position, after site visitors send over 2,000 emails to legislators in under 6 days.

Effective SEO: It's simple - but not necessarily easy

craig@rareearth.us (Craig C. Chapman) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:03:00 -0500

Many of our clients come to us wanting to improve their Search Engine Rankings, or what we in the industry call Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Indeed, clients who have engaged Rare Earth for our SEO expertise have seen impressive results. Take Aléthea's Chocolates for example, whose 2007 Holiday Season website sales more than tripled from their previous year and increased their average dollar-per-order by almost 50%, as a result of their campaign.

Unfortunately, some clients believe that achieving these results requires little more than a few keywords and some copy changes. You might even think so, too.

Respectfully: this is 100% wrong.

In fact, a recent article from Internet.com's Small Business Computing Channel provides validation to what we've been advising our accounts for years:

Effective Search Engine Optimization is hard work, and has to be approached diligently, vigilantly and on an ongoing basis.

A few of our accounts have been understandably resistant when we tell them they're going to have to work a bit, in order to get the results they want to achieve. One account, frustrated by their lack of advancement, even went so far as to hire a new employee who had SEO experience, only to end up hearing more of the same things from her that we were telling them for more than a year.

So what does it take to get good results from Search Engine Marketing?

Here's a simple guide:

Take the time to research keywords: Proper keyword research is the absolute foundation of everything we do in search engine marketing. It often means we need to rely on our client to help us figure them out. Good research is literally like gold: treat it the way you would a new employee that's learning the ropes of your business.

Too often, companies continue to focus on the words they sell their products and services by, when it's far better and ultimately more effective to focus on the terms and phrases your buyers are using to find you.
Change your website architecture or execute a redesign: It's essential that the key areas of your site be present in the main navigation. This is the main menu that appears on every page of the site. Search engines know that the most important parts of your site are in your main structure. As a result, those pages carry extra weight in their results.

Moreover, your site needs to be visually designed in a way that is appealing to your visitors, makes them want do go deeper and gives the important parts of your site special prominence.

Finally, there need to be specific "conversion points" or, points on the site where your visitors do something that you want them to do, such as: request a quote, contact you or purchase a product.
Don't skimp on your site's content: Using your researched keyword phrase lists, review the key pages of your site and develop between at least three phrases that define each page. Optimizing a page centered around only one keyword phrase results in a page that has poor readability. As you'll read in #4, poor readability can be as deadly to your rankings as poor research.
Write your content like a marketeer, or hire someone who can: Many people are surprised to learn that Google and the other major search engines use both spelling and grammar checkers in their indexing. These tools help them determine who has good content that is relevant to their searchers.

This means that sites that use their keyword phrases in a grammatically-correct, readable way [including correct spelling and syntax], lead to better rankings. By the same token, sites that are poorly-written or riddled with misspellings are penalized.
Measure your SEO/SEM success by conversions and traffic to targeted pages, not just rankings: A common error committed by both uneducated SEO practitioners and the clients they mis-serve, is to focus solely on the ranking positions of their preferred search phrases as a means of defining the success of their SEO programs. Doing so is like saying that good gas mileage alone makes a good car. In reality, what is "good" depends on what the driver expects out of the vehicle. Specifically comfort, speed, towing capacity, cargo capacity all go into the definition of "good." But in the end, any "good" car has to accomplish its primary function - getting you and your stuff from Point A to Point B.

As a business owner, the reigning function of your website is to make money, or to make it easier for you to make money. I often say that visitors and page views don't sell products or services. The same holds true for your search terms and phrases: good rankings don't necessarily sell, either. What's more, rankings can vary from day-to-day, hour-to-hour or even minute-to-minute. I've personally witnessed a site drop from the second position to the eighth position and bounce back up to the fifth position within 10 minutes.

Like the car that reliably gets you from one place to another, the ultimate determining factor of whether your Search Engine Marketing program is effective or not, is if you're getting more conversions and making more money with (or thorough) your site.

Like the title of this article says: it's simple. But simple does not always equal easy, especially considering that many companies are already running very leanly in terms of available time.

Consider this fact, though: accounts who actively participate in this process with Rare Earth or whomever their SEO practitioner is, will invariably achieve great results. Moreover, if you accept that your business benefits from what you devote your attention to, then more quality time spent on your website will lead to more revenue (and presumably making your life ... just a little bit easier).

Sweet! Local Chocolatier Launches Groundbreaking New Website!

craig@ rareearth.us — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:	CRAIG C. CHAPMAN, Creative Director/President
	RARE EARTH INTERACTIVE DESIGN, INC.
	(716) 883-1601, ext. 100

BUFFALO, NEW YORK - If you're from Buffalo, you know all about our great culinary heritage. If you're from outside Buffalo, you might only think of the Anchor Bar's Chicken Wings or perhaps the iconic "Beef on Weck."

One local chocolatier though, is set to make the rest of the country also think of fine chocolate.

Enter Aléthea's Chocolates (pronounced "ah-LEE-thee-ahhs") new Custom Chocolate Box™, where website visitors can select from more than one hundred gourmet, premium-quality, hand-crafted truffles, creams, dipped nuts, fruits, jellies, crunches and caramels to create their very own custom 1-pound box of forty Aléthea's chocolates.

If a visitor wants say ... 20 milk chocolate caramels and 20 dark chocolate ginger slices. Or maybe they're nuts for pecans, but soft on marshmallow. Maybe they're keen to select one of each of their over 100 items (it'll take 3 boxes to do it though, since only 40 fit in one box). No problem! Aléthea's patent-pending Custom Chocolate Box™ lets them just click on what they want and order right from the website.

Moreover, Aléthea's Chocolates is the only chocolatier online that offers the convenience of online shopping with the freshness and flexibility of actually coming to their Williamsville store or calling in an order. They're calling it their "All ooh ... Zero eeuw!"(sm) option for holiday shopping.

(if only we could figure out a way to broadcast the intoxicating aroma over the Internet...)

Rare Earth Interactive, creator and developer of the Custom Chocolate Box™, used its unique combination of technology, entertainment and marketing skills to develop a solution that website visitors have characterized as "brilliantly designed," "super-easy to use," and "[making them want] to buy a ton of chocolate." They accomplished this, while giving the non-techie website owner the ability to easily add, edit and remove available products through the already-familiar interface he's used to manage the rest of the store's website for the past three years.

Craig C. Chapman, Creative Director of Rare Earth Interactive remarked that "this technology is applicable to any business that has a customizable product." He added, "it's a simple matter to create a directory of accessories that can be combined in myriad different ways, then forward that request to a shopping cart or customer relationship management application. The capabilities are literally limitless."

Aléthea's Chocolates is in its third generation of family ownership, specializing in premium quality chocolates from their Williamsville, NY location.

Their website is located at http://www.aletheas.com/

Rare Earth Interactive Design, Inc., is a leading provider of innovative eBusiness solutions, online marketing and search engine optimization services. Rare Earth currently has over 85 customers in 17 states across the U.S.

Their website is located at http://www.rareearth.us/

-#-

REI Presents Internet Marketing to SCORE Clients

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:30:00 -0400

Rare Earth Interactive was again invited by Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) to present its signature Internet Marketing Workshop to SCORE clients.

Attendees to the workshop learned the fundamentals of Internet Marketing including:

What makes a good website
How to get your site noticed on Search Engines
How to gauge the performance of your website and
How to turn visitors into customers [a.k.a. where the Internet makes you money]

This is the fourth workshop presented by REI to SCORE members and their clients, since November of 2006. It is also the third such workshop this year and was presented in the SCORE Conference Center in the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library's Central Branch at Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY.

The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) is a division of the United States Small Business Administration. Its corps of volunteers are dedicated to "entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business" throughout the United States. Local SCORE chapters provide small businesses with counseling and low-cost workshops to provide both new and experienced business owners with powerful tools to build and grow their businesses.

Rare Earth's principal speaker, Craig Chapman, is available to speak before your business association, marketing committee or at your next corporate function.

Rare Earth Moves to New Offices

Staff Reporter — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

More than eight and a half years after opening its doors, Rare Earth Interactive has moved from its inaugural location to a brand-new office suite at 170 Franklin Street in Buffalo.

"We evaluated more than a half-dozen locations in the City before selecting [the Crosby Building]," said Craig Chapman, president and founder of Rare Earth Interactive. He added "we were looking for a location that was both convenient to the best of what City working had to offer and a developer who would build to suit our needs. Ellicott Development made that happen for us."

Rare Earth's new offices are convenient to the Convention Center and City Hall, as well as both the Theater and Chippewa entertainment districts and summer events at Lafayette Square.

Out-of-town customers who visit can stay at the Hyatt and get to our offices by stepping out-of-doors only twice to cross Pearl and Franklin Streets - which is very convenient during the notorious Buffalo winters. Employees can likewise park in a nearby ramp and take the same indoor path - protected from the elements.

In the coming months, Rare Earth will also make its state-of-the-art conference room available to nearby businesses for teleconferences and multimedia training sessions.

Rare Earth Interactive Selected for Buffalo/Niagara Catholic Schools Development Program

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0400

BUFFALO, NY - Rare Earth Interactive, a local eBusiness Solutions firm, today announced that it has been selected to provide technological and logistical support or the internet component of the Catholic Schools Development Program.

The program, also known as the CSDP, is a combination of marketing services being provided to Catholic Schools in a concerted effort to improve community visibility and enrollment at selected schools operating under the auspices of the Department of Catholic Education and the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Rare Earth Interactive will utilize its core StetNet Admin Premium eBusiness application suite to empower individual schools participating in the program with the ability to update, manage and maintain their own individual sites - each with its own design. Each CSDP school will be able to manage Web Pages, Events, News Articles and Photo Albums, in addition to the ability to send targeted Broadcast email campaigns to their communities. These services are being provided at no cost to participating schools, thanks to a grant by the CSDP.

The solution will be made available in up to 5 phases and is expected to continue through 2008 to encompass up to 70 schools in the Diocese.

Funding for the program is being provided by the Robert T. Healy Foundation of Camden, NJ and is administered locally by the Foundation for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Local eBusiness Services Firm Exceeds Growth Expectations

Staff Reporter — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0500

BUFFALO, New York, January 9, 2006 - - Software upgrades in its exclusive Stet Net Admin platform and the resultant increased usability and productivity for its national clients allowed Buffalo, NY-based Rare Earth Interactive Design to increase its client base by a company record 30% in 2005 versus 2004, as it was announced today by Rare Earth Interactive Design’s President Craig C. Chapman.

As a result of the firm’s unprecedented growth, the eBusiness services and consulting group added nine staffers in 2005 primarily in the internet technology and sales and marketing departments. The increase in capacity was the direct result of the addition of new clients and increased engagements with some of Rare Earth Interactive’s current clients.

“Software will get you in the door with many prospects but our successes in getting new deals and expanding our engagements with existing clients is a direct result of the extraordinary talents of our staff,” Mr. Chapman said. He continued, “The internet is a tool for increasing sales through e-commerce, or creating brand awareness through design and interactivity. However, its impact can be a waste of resources, unless you have experienced technologists and creative professionals who know how to harness the internet’s power and funnel it into the overall objectives of the client.”

Some of the clients Rare Earth has recently welcomed include Taiyo Birdair, Elixsure, Kerasal and the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors.

The internet company’s year in review announcement was distributed via the company’s website http://www.rareearthinteractive.com

New Additions, New Products and Services

craig@rareearthinteractive.com (Craig C. Chapman) — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:00:00 -0500

What a year! 2005 represented many important milestones in the resurgence of Rare Earth Interactive as a premier provider or solutions to the Small-to-Medium-Size Enterprise (SME). We added more customers, upgraded our servers to give customers more disk space, memory and bandwidth, undertook major upgrades to our core SNAP software, as well as our StetNet Exchange Extranet applications, and began development on the StetNet Active Management Suite.

A bigger community of happy customers, a bigger community of happy employees
With more customers and more solutions to manage, we obviously needed more people to do the work of Rare Earth Interactive to support them. Indeed, many of you have had the pleasure of working with Greg Awarski (ext 708), our customer-friendly software engineer, as well as production and technical support specialist Christopher Keller (ext 709) and our new quality control manager Dee Fowler Chapman (ext 710).

October saw both Peter O’Connell (ext 711) join our sales team and 16-year-old wunderkind Raederle West (ext 713) come on board as our latest design intern.

New Productivity Solutions and New Services
Since March, we’ve been making major upgrades to our core applications to better serve your eBusiness Management needs. Here’s a review of what we've been up to:

Upgrading StetNet Admin Premium from 5.2, with its Internet Explorer, Windows-only Editor, to the cross-platform version 5.5, which works on Mac, Windows and Linux systems, in concert with a host of other new features. The formal announcement is coming shortly.
Upgrading StetNet Exchange extranet application from version 2.0 to version 3.0, with the capability for nested folders, more flexible user management and superior messaging tools.
Development of the StetNet Active Management Suite v1.0 is nearing completion. The solution platform allows businesses to train, qualify and empower their employees to self-schedule their own working hours, as well as the ability to conduct comprehensive online surveys. Together, this applications suite promises to deliver the next generation of productivity enhancement tools to our customers - and in turn - their customers.
An enhanced phone system, with dial-by-name directory, conference center and technical support queue, to ensure you're never far away from answers to your questions.
And coming in January, 2006: look for the announcement of long-awaited Rare Earth Continuing Education Program. Through eye-opening online seminars and question-and-answer sessions covering subjects covering eBusiness Strategies, Search Engine Optimization and Human Resources Management, this program is designed to better enable all of our customers to use the pure power of their solutions, in ways they might not have ever considered before.

If you have any questions about any of our past, present or future initiatives and how they can benefit your business, please call us. We're ready and eager to help.