Thursday, July 10, 2008

Search Engine Optimization

So there you are ready to implement "my own business" dream in the Land of Opportunity. Whatever that business might be you will get nowhere if you don't have Internet presence. Internet can give you limitless opportunities if you know where to find them. For that you need to address 2 issues:
1. Internet marketing strategy for your company
2. Your website SEO (search engine optimization)

Getting an MBA in Marketing, successfully running my own 2 businesses, thorough research and subsequent work with my clients and NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) members where I sit on the Advisory Board as a Marketing advisor made me an expert in Internet Marketing and if you ever need help on that side of the business my company will be very glad to assist you: http://www.emadvice.com/marketingtools.html

But the SEO dilemma was never really solved for me until yesterday. "SEO" is now a buzz word and plenty of companies claim to be the best in the field. Unfortunately many of them don't go beyond the claim. I read many articles about SEO scam where you pay a lot of money but don't get real results or the methods used by the SEO company are not always ethical.

However, yesterday I found a company that really stood out of the crowd. They are simply called The Search Engine Guys http://www.thesearchengineguys.com/ I don't normally write about for-profit companies but I believe this is the one useful resource all small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs should know about.

What did I like about them? First of all, their principles and exclusive partnership policy: they work only with one client per practice area, per geographic area, i.e. they won't work for your competitors. Second of all, they were the first company ever that didn't tell me: "We can do it, you just pay". They honestly said that the service I wanted would be too expensive and having analysed my business they saw it would be hard for me to bring enough income to make a profit. Instead of ripping me off they game me some great free advice on what I can do instead of investing money in the service I thought I should get. They could have landed a great project but they were concerned about my budget, not theirs. How often do you see that?

Starting a new business is a stressful matter. It requires substantial investment and along the way you will have to rely on certain partners who will work together with you: your suppliers, your legal advisors, your business consultant. You'll need to find the ones you trust and I am glad I could share with you the information about one of such trustworthy partners.

P.S. The Search Engine Guys is a Austin based company but they do have an office in Chicago. Here are the contact details:
Graham Smith
Partner, Web Strategist
The Search Engine Guys, LLC
312.480.5840 direct
800.267.1704 office
312.896.1443 fax

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Most helpful Chicago guide
http://www.legalaliensguide.com

4 comments:

Amanda Vega said...

That's a great post and callout for that SEO team. I admire that from an oldtimer-in-the-industry perspective. It's nice to see that some people still have morals in the SEO space. We have done the same sort of turn around to potential clients. The honest answer is that SEO and the price associated with it in some industries makes it not only prohibitive (in terms of costs to outrank the competition,) or in some cases the reality that the buyers they are trying to reach only use the web for information in a very small market (like some b2b plays) makes SEO a poor allocation of dollars to some. And when that's the case, any good marketer (and all SEO's should really understand marketing as a practice,) should offer up some alternatives for the overall business success.

Anonymous said...

Hey great article. Thanks for providing this amazing resource on search engine optimization. SEO works seems pretty complex. I do read http://www.searchengineoptimization.com.sg too.

Bijendra Thakur said...

This was a very informative article. I will read your blog often.

Bijendra Thakur said...

I was great to read such an interesting post.Graham Thanks man it was an great information.It seems that SEO is an complex procedure.Graham i would also like to know what do you think about Web Analytics?

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