Once upon a time, you hired a marketing firm to promote your new blue widget. You are proud of your widget, and you believe this marketing firm to be the best in the area.  You meet, go over your widget, and they come up with a great plan to help you promote your widget.

After a few weeks, your phone calls are up, your website visits are up, but its still not what you expected.  You still are the #2 widget company in town.

How would you feel if you came to find out that the same marketing firm is marketing another blue widget for your competitor? What if your competitor was spending more than you?

It’s no wonder you’re still #2, but what’s more important is that there is definitely a conflict of interest here.

There are many SEO companies who take on several clients from one industry. Personally I just don’t see how it’s possible.  If you hired us to rank your website number one for ‘blue widgets’, and so did your competitor, where would our allegiance lie?  With the one with the bigger budget? The one who hired us first?

Neither.  We won’t do it.  We will not take more than one client from any particular industry.  We will not overlap targeted keyphrases.  It’d be against our ethics, yet plenty of SEO firms do it.

Now, there are plenty of cases where our firm will have several clients from similar industries, but not competing ones.  For instance, we could have a family dentist and an orthodontist. They are in the same general industry, yet seeking different customers and targeting different keyphrases.  We couldn’t take on a new orthodontist, though, unless they were physically targeting a different area.

Before you hire an SEO firm, make sure you ask if they already have clients in your industry.  Get keyword specific and make sure they’ll be focusing to get you to number one!

Are you a St Louis Entrepreneur that is looking for ways to increase your business?  Are you wanting to get into Internet Marketing but not sure where to start?

WIMB will be expanding its seminar series in 2009 to include more areas in the St Louis area.  We are looking to have events in St. Charles, West County and Jefferson County.

We are also looking for people who would like to speak at these events.  Are you a specialist in an area of Internet Marketing? Would you like to speak at our seminars this year? Contact us and tell us what you’ve got in mind!

As always, our SEO Seminars will be listed on our website as they are announced.  Keep an eye on that page!

I just got off the phone with a client who has signed up for our call tracking and he is just ecstatic.  This week he logged into the admin side that we offer and he listened to some of the calls that he has taken over the last week.

While listening, he did an objective critique of his own interacton with his callers (ie potential customers) and he noticed several things.  He was talking too fast.  He over-explained some things.  He cut off the customer as they spoke.

What’s cool is that he used our service to improve his customer service.  He’s going to handle things a bit different, and as a result I’m sure his ROI will continue to increase.

In this particular case, my client actually works at the family store with his father.  His father isn’t as excited about the Internet (although he pays us every month, so he must like the sales we are driving to him).  So he (the son) did his critique with his dad there, which accomplished several things:

• It exposed the call tracking software to his dad
• It gave his dad an opportunity to critique the call and get some pointers on his own (without being critiqued on his own calls, which may have resulted in a defensive attitude)
• It improved the overall business and how they handle certain orders and questions

I love that our service is helping this business grow and expand – and it can do the same for you!