Celebrating 15 Years – The Evolution of Electric Bricks

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Founded by Keith Paul in the spring of 2008, Electric Bricks began as strictly a “web design” company, originally providing only graphic web design services. But since that time, EB has continued to expand its service offerings and has evolved into the full-service digital marketing agency we are today. In celebration of our 15th anniversary, we’ll look back at some details that enabled us to reach this milestone.

Electric Bricks Digital Marketing 15-Year Anniversary

Building Websites “As Long as There’s Been an Internet”

During the early nineties, while working full-time for one of the largest graphic communications and commercial printing firms in Manhattan, Keith started his first web design company in his spare time: Storm’s Eye. He designed and built dozens of small business websites while also building his knowledge of databases, software development, and website programming at the newly-started “interactive media” division at his full-time gig in the City. The world wide web was in its very early stages back then, and Keith grew with the industry as the web evolved into what we have today.

From Freelance to Full-Time Endevor

In March of 2008 (15 years ago this month), Keith started Electric Bricks Web Design. Still a part-time effort, he focused on continuing to expand his skillset and growing his reputation as a knowledgeable and reliable resource for his clients. His primary goal was to help them understand the internet’s potential and leverage the ever-improving technology that could help them grow their own businesses. Known for not trying to confuse his clients with technical jargon or silly acronyms, Keith made it a personal mandate to educate as well as provide exceptional quality and timely service to all his clients, regardless of size – a mandate that still holds true today and is expected of everyone who works at Electric Bricks.

WordPress

At this time, Keith also adopted WordPress as the standard platform for all website projects for EB clients. While WordPress was still relatively new at the time, Keith’s experience developing sophisticated content management systems gave him the insight to see the potential WordPress had to offer, and history has proven that correct. With its ease of use, virtually limitless expandability, superior dependability, and strong commitment to developers, WordPress now powers well over 40% of the world’s websites and still stands as one of the best business decisions Keith ever made.

Eight years later, in the spring of 2016, Keith took the leap and launched Electric Bricks Digital Marketing. Over the coming years, Electric Bricks expanded its team and service offerings to meet the needs of its growing list of clients. What started as a one-man website design company has evolved into a comprehensive digital marketing agency that offers everything a business needs to get found and do business on the web:

Since 2016, the client list has grown exponentially in size and in the diversity of clients. Our portfolio includes businesses and organizations of every size and type, including: public libraries and non-profit organizations, manufacturers, retailers and e-tailers, sports organizations, large corporate entities, and professionals of every type. All rely on Electric Bricks to help build trust in their brand, get found on the web, and do business better with their clients and customers.

A Brick & Mortar Digital Agency

Another important milestone was the opening of our first office location on Main Street in Patchogue, Long Island, NY. Keith understood that in a world of less-than-reliable freelance web designers and fly-by-night startups, establishing a physical presence to engender trust and show a commitment to present and future clients was an important next step.

Over the spring and summer of 2019, we renovated and remodeled Suite 105A at 180 East Main Street to accommodate our Long Island client base and give employees a modern, comfortable environment to work in and grow with the company.

EB executive office
Electric Bricks signage
Electric Bricks Office After Renovation

Extending Our Reach

In 2021, Keith (and his wife of over 30 years) moved to Maryland, just outside of DC. While Electric Bricks works with clients throughout the U.S., our presence in the Washington metropolitan area will further our ability to accommodate clients nationwide.

Plans for a second office in the Washington DC area are well underway and should be opening later this year. There are no plans to ever close our New York office, and that remains the company’s headquarters.

Expanding Our Crew

Shortly after opening the Patchogue office, we began scouting and hiring full- and part-time digital marketing professionals to form the foundation of our team. A prerequisite for every team member was an eagerness to learn and an expectation to represent the core values of Electric Bricks. Using a suite of sophisticated online tools, the diverse team collaborates daily, and all benefit and learn from each other’s unique knowledge and perspective.

Along with frequent internal training sessions, Electric Bricks offers all employees access to online learning tools and continuing education courses, enabling our crew to fine-tune and broaden their capabilities and stay on top of emerging technologies.

In addition to a host of reliable, part-time freelance talent, Electric Bricks has arguably the best crew of regular staff and full-time employees in the business. These professionals are well-versed in their respective disciplines and bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to every project we tackle.

Chloe McGeehan

Project Management & Social Media

Russ Silberman

Digital Content Manager

Matt Hogeboom

Website Design & Development

Kyle Ritterman

Google Ads & PPC

Steve Greco

Website & Graphic Design

Gus Gonzalez

Blogging & Copywriting

Megan Quinn

Blogging & Copywriting

The Present & Future of Electric Bricks Digital Marketing

Helping our clients gain and maintain a competitive edge has always been, and always will be, a tremendously important aspect of what we do. With that in mind, Electric Bricks has always looked for ways to use technology to make helping and communicating with our clients even better. Here are just a few of the initiatives put in place over the past few years:

  • 1st Quarter 2021: Adoption of a world-class project management system designed to track every aspect of all client projects, including resource and time tracking, task management, and goal monitoring.
  • 3rd quarter of 2022: For clients who need it, the integration of Cloudflare CDN and WAF services to offer best-in-class website performance, protection, and security.
  • 4th quarter of 2022: Improved website backup solutions for all EB hosting clients.
  • 1st quarter of 2023: Launch of a new Client Portal where EB clients can review comprehensive performance reports for all of their digital marketing efforts, including PPC (Google ads) and SEO (search engine optimization) performance. The portal also gives clients access to important company policy information and client-only content to help them do business with Electric Bricks.
  • 1st quarter of 2023: Conversion of all Google “Universal Analytics” accounts to Google Tag Manager and the new-and-improved GA4. This very important update was performed for EVERY EB CLIENT at no charge to ensure they have access to mission-critical website analytics to help them understand their own customers.
  • 2023 and beyond: Stay tuned! We’re just getting started!

We Are Nothing Without You!

This article was contributed to by several of the EB crew, but this next section is all mine. It goes without saying, that Electric Bricks would not exist without the trust and dedication of all of our wonderful clients. Your support while we grew (especially in those early days!) has helped us to become the dependable partner you deserve. Since the beginning, our mission has been the same – superior quality and service with no smoke and mirrors. I can assure you that that will never change. I speak for the whole crew when I say THANK YOU! Know that we are here for you, wherever you are now and wherever business takes you in the future. We want to be a part of your success as much as we want to succeed. It has been an amazing 15 years, and I personally am looking forward to the next 15 (and beyond). Let’s keep building something together!

With love and gratitude, Keith

 
This entry was posted in Company News. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.