The Business Of Search Engine Optimization

Although it is important to advertise in the right places, if your looking to do business online, then you will need the right amount of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to ensure your website will get the visits it deserves. Although that isn’t knowledge that comes naturally to most of us, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Angela Moore is the Director of Link Development with intrapromote. They specialize in helping companies optimize their website for the best exposure through search engines. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Angela and learn a little more about SEO.

What is intrapromote and what does this company do? When was it established?

Intrapromote was established in 1999 by Doug Ausbury and John Lustina. We are an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firm that caters to a variety of clients. In the simplest language, we take our clients web sites and help them rank in Google, Yahoo, and other search engines for keywords that are relevant for their business. For example, if a client of ours sells a variety of insurance products, then they will want to rank for things like “car insurance,” “health insurance,” etc or phrases like this that relate to their products.

The tagline, “Search Agency for the World’s Biggest Brands” is quite the claim. What businesses have gone through intrapromote?

We have represented and currently work for a wide variety of clients including Fisher-Price, HSBC, Build-a-Bear, and Honda who awarded us with a Premier Partners Award. This was monumental as this award from Honda has never gone to an SEO firm before.

In what areas do most businesses seem to fall short when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for their website?

Two of the biggest areas that we commonly see mistakes in are keywords and links. Keywords are vital to any SEO campaign because this is how you want your potential customer to find you. A lot of companies think they know what their consumers are looking for, but are off the mark the majority of the time. For instance, if you sell furniture, you may want to optimize for the phrase “sofa” because that is what you refer to it most in the industry. However, people search for “couch” four times more often than they search for “sofa” in the search engines. The second area is links, which is one of the biggest factors that search engines look at in terms of ranking sites for keywords. The more high-value links from relevant sites you can get the better. Additionally, when those links have valuable keywords in the anchor text, it boosts your rankings even higher. The biggest area we see in the industry where businesses are missing the mark are trying to get “quick links” that don’t have a lot of value or are not well optimized.

Why should businesses seek assistance from companies such as this one? What are some of the benefits for utilizing the services offered?

SEO is one of the fastest growing industries online, with companies spending more and more money trying to get their sites to the top of Google. That means your competitors are doing it. Secondly, most users go to Google.com to get the information they need whether it be shopping, research, networking, or any other online activity. The great thing about SEO, when it is done right, is that your online business can increase so much that it basically can end up paying for itself.

What kind of growth have you noticed within the business as time has passed?

The growth has been astronomical. I haven’t been involved in it from its inception, but if you think about it, Google has only been around for 10 years. And now you have tons of businesses realizing how valuable a tool Google is for reaching their potential client base.

What are some of the specific services offered and how much do they cost?

Our SEO packages vary on the size of the project. We also offer services in social media marketing, link development, and other forms of online marketing that can be coupled with SEO efforts or they can be done separately. We also have a dedicated Pay-Per-Click team that represents an additional client base.

There are so many other SEO consulting businesses on the internet, what is it about intrapromote that separates it from the competition?

Intrapromote is focused on customer service. We cater to our clients. We are smaller than a lot of other SEO firms which allows us to give more personalized service. We also customize our strategies to each client and their industry to address their ongoing business goals. We do not believe in a cookie cutter approach to SEO. We realize that each site and each business is unique with its own advantageous selling points and we use this information to reach the best group of consumers. Our departments also work really well together. Our Senior Campaign Directors, link development team members, pay-per-click team, and social media team are in constant communication about what is best for each client.

How do the people behind intrapromote decide on what is needed to improve the services offered and how has that kept this business on top of the search world?

We all are passionate about what we do, so learning is important to us. We share Google news feeds, talk about tools that we are testing, interesting articles and trends that we are noticing and blogs that we like to keep up with. We are strict on being “white hat” or ethical in the SEO and PPC world so we make sure that what we are doing lines up with best practices. The SEO community online provides a lot of information. We work to be experts in our respective fields so that we can quickly identify what are good ideas and what are not.

If you were to offer only one tip on improving search engine rank, what would it be and why would it help?

If you’re doing it in-house, make sure you have the right tools for the job and read up on industry news for the latest best practices in the space. If you’re hiring a firm to do your SEO for you, do a lot of research into the company. Make sure you’re getting the right level of communication, the best people available that understand your business, and a company that does things in line with best practices. Both of these tips will save you lots of money and prevent potential headaches in the future.

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