Digital Natives. Small Business Focused. Minnesota-Based.
Blue Ox Websites & Marketing is based in Minnesota, with remote employees across Central Minnesota and the Twin Cities. We love helping small businesses, startups, and nonprofits get found online so they can spend less time worrying about their website or marketing and more time serving customers.
We’re dedicated to strengthening our local economies and communities, which calls for resilient businesses. Most of our team members stay with us for 8 years or more, not just because we build great websites, but also because we value learning, teamwork, remote work, and family.
What Drives Blue Ox
Mission
We build innovative websites and honest marketing strategies to help small businesses and nonprofits grow—and make a bigger impact in communities.
Vision
We’re here to grow alongside local small businesses and nonprofits, building lasting partnerships that help communities thrive.
Guiding Values
Creativity: Custom solutions, not cookie-cutter.
Reliability: We show up and follow through.
Approachability: No jargon, no gatekeeping.
Community: We grow with the businesses and nonprofits we support.
Remote First
At Blue Ox, we prioritize flexibility and choice while focusing on making meaningful connections with our coworkers and clients. While we’re primarily virtual and WFH, our teams meet in person a few times per year to celebrate accomplishments and brainstorm big, new ideas.
Benefits & Perks
Flexible PTO & Company Holidays
Prioritized work-life balance, with flexible PTO and 23-25 observed days off.
Family Planning
Paid family and medical leave, including for adoption.
Employer-Matching 401K
50-100% retirement matching.
Perks & Stipends
Monthly internet and equipment allowances to support remote work.
Learning & Development
Mentorship from senior team members, conferences, certifications, and online learning opportunities.
And More!
Meet the Blue Ox Team
Meet the team! We’re a small, local crew of real people who care about helping businesses succeed online.
Employees
Logan Gruber
ReFounder / Marketing Director
Base: Sauk Centre, Minnesota
Tenure: 2016
Katie Carlson
Designer / Developer
Base: St. Cloud, Minnesota
Tenure: 2015
Kelsey Meyer
Designer / Developer
Base: St. Joseph, Minnesota
Tenure: 2017
Jonathan Gamble
Writer / SEO
Base: Cottage Grove, Minnesota
Tenure: 2024
Zeineb Kadhkadhi
Social Media / Designer
Base: St. Cloud State University
Tenure: 2018
Jen Gruber
Social Media / Designer
Base: Sauk Centre, Minnesota
Tenure: 2024
Careers At Blue Ox
Application
What Can Internet Marketing Services Do For My Business?
/in SEOStay with me folks, this might be a bit of a longer blog.
Internet marketing services are basically anything a firm like ours does. Cohlab in particular offers an array of services, from reputation management to email marketing, responsive web design to content marketing.
But how do these activities affect your bottom line in the real world? Let’s take a look at a number of internet marketing services Cohlab offers in detail to see what we can do for you.
Drive Organic Traffic With SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) drives organic traffic to your website. In essence, this is free advertising.
An internet marketing services provider like Cohlab is hired to execute a myriad of SEO strategies, including content marketing and backlinking, both described below, in order to increase the ranking of your website for search terms relevant to your industry and services.
In general, the higher ranked and more frequently a website appears in relevant search results, the more valuable visitors it will receive.
Find Customers With SEM
Search engine marketing (SEM), or PPC, is a great way to quickly locate customers who are searching for your industry or services. While SEO can take time, SEM is faster but more costly.
This type of internet marketing service creates advertisements within Google searches, either at the top or bottom of a search results page, targeting whichever relevant keywords we choose.
These ads are extremely effective at driving traffic to your website quickly.
Keep Them Interested With 10x Content
No matter how nice looking your website is, or how amazing your ads are, if you have nothing to entertain or educate your visitors, they won’t stay on your site long enough to have an impact on your business.
Content refers to anything on your website which is consumable: text, audio, videos, photos, graphics, etc. 10x content is content which is impossible to improve on. It is created by observing the competition in the keywords a company wants to rank in searches for, then creating content which is 10x more interesting than anything the competition has.
Bring Them Back With Email Marketing
Sometimes, customers don’t bring you their repeat business. Maybe they’re too busy, or it’s inconvenient to get to your store, or some other reason.
Email marketing is a great way to bring them back in, by creating a compelling call-to-action for them to grab onto, whether it’s a used car trade-in, or a 30% sale. These emails are going to a group of people who you know will buy from you, they just need a reason to get back in the habit and email marketing is a great way to bring them back.
Build Trust With High-Quality Links
Link building is a huge part of how well a website ranks in Google searches. Creating high-quality links between your website and others great websites, both back and forth, means Google believes your information is worth sharing or talking about, which means they will want to show it to people who are searching for the keywords you rank for.
Increase Traffic By Getting Responsive
A responsive website is one which fits whatever screen size it might be displayed on, whether that is an iPhone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer.
The website won’t look exactly the same in every case; it will respond accordingly and adjust itself at certain size intervals, displaying the most important parts of the website where the viewer is most likely to need them. Having a responsive website will also increase your search engine ranking, and will make people on mobile devices more likely to stay on your site longer and utilize your services since it will be easier to navigate.
Thanks for staying with me through the whole blog, and I hope you have a better understanding of what internet marketing services can do for your business!
At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success with internet marketing services. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, just let us know!
What Can Internet Marketing Services Do For My Business?
/in SEOStay with me folks, this might be a bit of a longer blog.
Internet marketing services are basically anything a firm like ours does. Cohlab in particular offers an array of services, from reputation management to email marketing, responsive web design to content marketing.
But how do these activities affect your bottom line in the real world? Let’s take a look at a number of internet marketing services Cohlab offers in detail to see what we can do for you.
Drive Organic Traffic With SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) drives organic traffic to your website. In essence, this is free advertising.
An internet marketing services provider like Cohlab is hired to execute a myriad of SEO strategies, including content marketing and backlinking, both described below, in order to increase the ranking of your website for search terms relevant to your industry and services.
In general, the higher ranked and more frequently a website appears in relevant search results, the more valuable visitors it will receive.
Find Customers With SEM
Search engine marketing (SEM), or PPC, is a great way to quickly locate customers who are searching for your industry or services. While SEO can take time, SEM is faster but more costly.
This type of internet marketing service creates advertisements within Google searches, either at the top or bottom of a search results page, targeting whichever relevant keywords we choose.
These ads are extremely effective at driving traffic to your website quickly.
Keep Them Interested With 10x Content
No matter how nice looking your website is, or how amazing your ads are, if you have nothing to entertain or educate your visitors, they won’t stay on your site long enough to have an impact on your business.
Content refers to anything on your website which is consumable: text, audio, videos, photos, graphics, etc. 10x content is content which is impossible to improve on. It is created by observing the competition in the keywords a company wants to rank in searches for, then creating content which is 10x more interesting than anything the competition has.
Bring Them Back With Email Marketing
Sometimes, customers don’t bring you their repeat business. Maybe they’re too busy, or it’s inconvenient to get to your store, or some other reason.
Email marketing is a great way to bring them back in, by creating a compelling call-to-action for them to grab onto, whether it’s a used car trade-in, or a 30% sale. These emails are going to a group of people who you know will buy from you, they just need a reason to get back in the habit and email marketing is a great way to bring them back.
Build Trust With High-Quality Links
Link building is a huge part of how well a website ranks in Google searches. Creating high-quality links between your website and others great websites, both back and forth, means Google believes your information is worth sharing or talking about, which means they will want to show it to people who are searching for the keywords you rank for.
Increase Traffic By Getting Responsive
A responsive website is one which fits whatever screen size it might be displayed on, whether that is an iPhone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer.
The website won’t look exactly the same in every case; it will respond accordingly and adjust itself at certain size intervals, displaying the most important parts of the website where the viewer is most likely to need them. Having a responsive website will also increase your search engine ranking, and will make people on mobile devices more likely to stay on your site longer and utilize your services since it will be easier to navigate.
Thanks for staying with me through the whole blog, and I hope you have a better understanding of what internet marketing services can do for your business!
At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success with internet marketing services. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, just let us know!
How A Responsive Web Design Firm Improves Your Search Ranking
/in SEO, Web DesignA web design firm, especially a responsive web design firm, can help your business in a lot of ways, from helping choose fonts and colors, to organizing your menus and content.
But certain things a responsive web design firm does have a huge impact on your search rankings. So when you are choosing a new designer, make sure they can help you out in the following ways.
How Does A Responsive Web Design Firm Increase My Ranking?
Speed
Studies show that if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 57% of your visitors will move on. Those users either close the window, frustrated, or hit the back button, looking for a different, faster answer or result.
As a business owner, you want to serve your customers well. If the doors to your business had a 3 second wait before opening, you’d probably have a lot fewer walk-ins. The only people who would come in are those who are already determined to buy something; it would be hard to get new business.
Check with your web design firm and make sure the speed of your website is up to par.
Future Proofing
A responsive website design effectively “future proofs” your site. Whether someone comes to your website on a desktop, iPhone, laptop, tablet or any other device, your website should automatically adjust to properly fit the screen your visitor is using.
This responsiveness is not “set in stone;” in fact, it’s the opposite. No matter what type of device your website is seen on, even a device which has not been manufactured yet, your website should adjust in size appropriately.
Most Google searches and browsing time is now done on mobile devices, so having a responsive website for the many sizes of screens out there is important so you don’t exclude any potential customers.
Clicks Beget Clicks
Having a responsive website design which is also fast will help improve your rankings, which means more people will be able to visit your site. Those visitors will have a better experience, staying on your website longer and possibly sharing or linking to your content or merchandise. This will also improve your ranking!
Having a responsive website with a good rank is very important, because 95% of people do not go past the first page of search results, and 60% of clicks happen within the top three search results.
“Cohlaboration” With Cohlab
At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their responsive web design efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.