Hi, I'm Colin. 👋
If you didn’t already guess from the URL, my name is Colin Tahsuda. I’m an established digital marketing professional with 15+ years of experience in website management, SEO strategy, and analytics. Over the years, I’ve worked with (and for) companies ranging from small B2C eCommerce businesses to large-scale B2B industrial solutions providers. Recently, like most other marketers, I’ve been taking a deep dive into learning everything there is to know about AI – especially generative AI – which has been awesome. I’m excited about the potential it has to change our lives (for the better!) I’ve dropped my full professional bio below but here are a few fun “get to know me” things before jumping into the professional stuff.Â
I live in North Carolina
My wife and I moved to North Carolina (from Oklahoma) in 2016 and we love it! We bought a house in Greensboro and spent the first several years renovating pretty much everything. Living between the ocean and the mountains is great, and some of our favorite times are weekend trips within our state.
Price Tower – Bartlesville, OK
I love architecture
I’m a big fan of architecture and initially intended to go to school for design. I ended up in business school and then got into digital marketing but I still enjoy drawing and designing things. I think that’s the heart of my love for website design, and I’ll work a fun Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired creative element into my sites here and there.
I Build Stuff
I’m convinced that I’m just a license or two away from being a contractor rather than a digital marketing professional. On the weekends (and some evenings!) I’m usually working on projects around my house. Whether it’s a renovation project, landscaping, or even just a minor repair, I’ve probably spent more time at Lowe’s (yeah, I’m a Lowe’s guy) than the average person. I even worked there for a short while when I was younger.
I love a good craft beer
I’m no connoisseur, but I do love a good locally brewed pale ale or pilsner. Tap that into my love for architecture and a local brewery is where you’ll find me on an ideal weekend.Â
I'm a Millennial
I’m in my thirties so I grew up in the ’90s and early ’00s. Like a ton of other millennials, I love all of the typical nostalgic millennial junk that goes along with it…Â also, at one point in time, I may have been known to ride a scooter around the office. It’s fun, don’t judge me.
Professional Bio
While I think I’d be a great person to have a craft beer with (at least my friends do), you probably aren’t here to get to know me personally as much as what I bring to the table, so here it is. As with anyone in the middle of their professional career, it’s continuously evolving (at least I hope!)
How it Started
I began my professional journey in 2006 during college, partnering with a colleague to create an e-commerce business called Cool Relief. The company sells medical supplies through outlets such as Amazon, Overstock (now Bed Bath and Beyond), Walmart, and of course, an e-commerce website of it’s own (coolrelief.net). In learning search engine optimization as a startup business owner, I got a crash course in what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t! I realized early on, the benefit of good quality SEO and how to design a user experience that drives revenue. The biggest bang for my buck turned out to be the hardest work I put in, learning and writing technical articles, handcrafting metadata (waaay back before AI), and maintaining site performance, among other things. But over the years I’ve added a lot to my skill set and can manage just about every facet of the digital marketing process.
My First Website!
Accurate Laboratories
Fast forward to 2012, and I was hired by a company called Accurate Laboratories, a regional calibration laboratory in Oklahoma City. My goal was to improve the digital presence of the company and drive sales, both for services and high-value metrology equipment. I helped the leadership overhaul the brand, working with a design team to create a new logo, build a new website, and develop materials to improve the sales process. (Check out the before and after!) This was a fantastic experience as I got to learn the ins and outs of metrology and calibration – something I would have never imagined I’d learn – but more importantly, this gave me a great opportunity to develop my technical writing skills.
J.A. King
In 2015, Accurate Laboratories was acquired by a larger regional metrology company, J.A. King. There, I was offered a full-time role that led to my position at their corporate headquarters in North Carolina as a digital marketing manager. In that role, I spent my time focusing on content development. J.A. King had a wonderful creative agency (Drum Creative) which I still work with today. They had done an excellent job developing a WordPress site. It was just low on content. I worked with Drum to merge the website I had built into jaking.com and got to work learning and writing (even more) about metrology.
With 17 laboratory locations across the U.S. and over 150 individual services offered at the time, I had my work cut out for me. In addition to website development, that role also allowed me to work on other aspects of branding, such as location signage, vehicle wraps, and materials for events such as popup banners. From 2015 to 2018, I built somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 pages and improved annual lead generation by 250%, strategically publishing content geared toward increasing service revenue.
Cross Company
In 2018 J.A. King was acquired by a nationwide industrial solutions provider, Cross Company. Cross has a diversified presence across multiple industries with groups in Automation, Hose and Fittings, Mobile Systems Integration, Process Solutions, and Precision Measurement (J.A. King). And yes, my position was then acquired a second time! I yet again found myself merging websites, this time with sites on separate platforms (WordPress and Drupal) and both sites with hundreds of high-value pages generating real revenue. One of the larger projects in my career thus far, you can read more about this in my projects section “Merging a Drupal Website and a WordPress Website“.
Needless to say, turning highly technical (and somewhat boring) content into revenue is an art. It’s pretty hard to give a two-minute “elevator speech” for five companies all rolled into one. But since 2018, I’ve been working with a pretty awesome marketing team at Cross – with talent across all parts of the marketing spectrum – and we’ve been doing just that. My role continues to center around website content management, improving user experience, and driving revenue through lead generation. Take a look at some of my recent projects…
Cross Company (crossco.com)
Latest Projects
Each experience has been an amazing learning opportunity. I’ve been lucky enough to create a career out of something that barely existed when I graduated college. And I’ve been fortunate enough to get pretty darn good at it (see my references… I promise I’m not the only one who thinks so!). Like most other millennials, I’m looking to promote what I can offer, when and where I can.
Whether it’s a website overhaul, technical writing and content creation, website hosting and management, or anything in between, I’ve got a proven track record and am happy to do what I can to help my clients succeed. Again, check out my full list of projects, take a look at my creative philosophy, and reach out if you’d like to have a discussion about your project today.
Brands Page for Industrial Solutions Provider
Created an interactive gallery to showcase brands offered by an industrial solutions provider with over 100 suppliers.
Custom Analytics Filtering in GA4
Developed a series of customized filters in GA4 to improve metrics for an industrial company.
Industrial Terminology Glossary
Created an industrial terminology glossary to boost SEO and offer supporting material for both customers and employees.
Sitemap Development for Midsize B2B Company
Developed a site plan for a midsize B2B industrial solutions provider with over 3K pages of content.
Form Setup and Lead Capture for B2B Company
Built a series of dynamic forms for a B2B industrial solutions provider to increase conversion rate and streamline lead capture.
Google Business Profile Setup for B2B Company
Built and optimized Google business profiles for a network of 20+ locations for a regional industrial solutions provider.
Customer Persona Development in ChatGPT
Development of a customer persona using ChatGPT to create content optimized for a B2B company’s customers.
Dynamic WP Templates With Advanced Custom Fields
Designed a series of dynamic templates to populate an Elementor page query based on custom fields.
Custom WP Post Type for Reviews
Built a custom WordPress post type for location reviews which is fed through review submissions from a Gravity Form.
Interested in a collaboration?
Reach out and let me know! I’m always happy to look at a project and see how I can help!