First Page SEO Ranks Among Top 30 North American Companies


Reprinted from The Communicator Newspaper

If you happen to be one of 500 companies selling widgets…. And if you also happen to rely on the Internet for 80 percent of your business…. And if your business also ebbs and flows with the tide of your placement on search engines like Google and Yahoo and MSN…. Well, as a budding widgeteer, you better be on good terms with your Webmaster; and you better hope that he or she has a solid handle on what Google wants.

Because there are 499 other companies out there who are building better websites and blasting and hacking away in a veritable backlink jungle in an effort to grab a top ranking on the world's number one search engine.

Mark Coles is the Principal Owner of First Page SEO and it's one of the leading edge companies committed to getting your widget empire on the map.

And in the world of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, on the map, means placing your widget site on the First Page of Google, Yahoo, MSN, WebCrawler or one of the other ubiquitous web search engines out there in the ether.

If you want your widget empire placed highly on Google or Yahoo, Mark Coles is your man.

Visibility Magazine, in its July 2007 issue, ranked First Page SEO as one of the top Internet marketing companies in North America. First Page SEO ( www.first-page-seo.com ) was ranked as number 25 of the top 30 Internet marketing businesses doing organic search engine optimization. First Page SEO is the only Ontario-based marketing organization to break into this elite club of Internet marketers.

Visibility Magazine is a monthly journal featuring "Internet Marketing Strategy Unplugged" and is circulated to business leaders, Marketing executives and academics across North America.

Coles says that Search Engine Optimization of SEO has come a long way since he first dipped his keyboard into the SEO waters some 6 years ago.

Many business sectors are reporting that up to 80% of their business can come from web search. Increasingly, the Internet is the tool of choice for business and consumers shopping for services or products on a retail or wholesale basis. "Most businesses have realized for some time now that Internet marketing is pivotal to their business success, " says Coles.

What is unusual about the Visibility Magazine published ranking study is that, generally, few Canadian companies break into the USA Internet marketing scene with any degree of success. USA marketing expenditures in California alone are equivalent to all of Canada.

"First Page SEO does Internet marketing and web sites for customers from all over the world and considers Canada as only one of many geographic market opportunities, " says Coles.

Coles says the fact that a small Minden firm can compete with the large California-based SEO conglomerates probably rests with the nature of the beast. The beast being the changing trends in Search Engine dynamics.

Coles says that North American companies are still maintaining their edge in the area of Search Engine Optimization.

North American companies are leading the charge in the multi-billion-dollar Internet search industry. Search engine optimization is one marketing segment where American firms have entrenched themselves as leaders across the world, as measured in evidence by placement results.

While many new businesses have set up in India to outsource some of the search engine marketing work, the real leading-edge marketing gurus continue to conduct their business in-house with highly skilled and innovative employees, capable of keeping up with or staying ahead of the complex search engine algorithms.

"You have to stay on the leading edge of technology… all of the time," says Coles, whose background is in Information Technology (IT) and Marketing. His first career was as Head of IT of Ontario Hydro Retail. During that time he set up marketing websites and strategies for Ontario Hydro before it morphed into Hydro One.

It was during his tenure with Ontario Hydro that he also purchased and ran - with wife Roberta - Ogopogo Resort. As an aside, Coles admits to setting up the first website in Haliburton County. "Of course it looked like The Flintstones when you look back today," chuckles Coles.

His Ogopogo Resort website was also one of the first resort websites in Ontario.

So Coles was there from the beginning, dabbling in the Internet when it was still donning its bona fides, just after it emerged from spooky offices buried deep within the antiseptic bowels of the Pentagon and CIA Headquarters.

So Coles has a certain Karmic link to this technology. He took early retirement from Hydro and slowly has ensconced himself in the burgeoning world of SEO. "I've been involved in SEO from the beginning," says Coles.

The technology has literally exploded he adds.

Search Engines are now looking at context as well as content says Coles and that can probably best be explained in the simple example Coles offers.

"Hot air balloons."

Say what?

It's actually a great example.

There was a time, back in the dark ages, when a search engine would parse all three words. It would start with hot and provide results, then add hot air and produce results and then maybe come up with a few sites selling birthday balloons. A frustrated searcher might scan 10 pages of results before finding all three words in context.

It's the reason that many Internet pioneers reverted to drinking and spent a good deal of their formative years in Rehab.

Nowadays, type the phrase hot air balloon into Google and the context is understood and all the results refer to the phrase in context. OK, I'll save you the trouble. Wikipedia ranks first and a Canadian Company ranks second offering balloon rides across the prairies.

It may seem like a small thing, but if one is making a living providing businesses with good placement, understanding how Google parses info like 'hot air balloons' is very important.

Coles says that when setting up a website, some companies concentrate on the look, while neglecting the content. And it's the content and context today which will place your website and subsequently your widgets at the top of Google. That and backlinks, but we'll save that for another day. (OK backlinks are links to your site from other sites and play an ever-burgeoning role in SEO today.)

"Some companies will spend 20 to 30 thousand in website development. The site looks great," says Coles. "A flashy website looks great, but the key to a 'successful' website rests in people being able to find it."

"Some of the largest SEO players in California have large staffs and charge large prices," says Coles.

"We deliver all of the same services, but we don't charge as much."

In a recent press release, Coles allowed that "First Page SEO has consistently ranked number one on Google for many years for search terms such as 'Ontario search engine marketing' and 'Ontario search engine optimization' where competing indexed pages can number almost two million.

"In its customer base of some 400 clients, First Page SEO has more than its fair share of top-ranking websites. In a world where search engine listings come and go with each search engine algorithm change, staying on top of the pack is part art and part science. As a result most companies that are good at search engine marketing command fairly high professional fees and have waiting lists. First Page SEO currently has a six-week waiting list for search engine optimization work or website design."

Coles says the fact that First Page SEO ranks at the top of keyword searches speaks reams for the efficacy and efficiency of their work.

"Chances are, if a marketing company can't place its own site - they probably can't get your website ranking anywhere near the top either," says Coles.

He says that First Page SEO will build websites from the ground-up as well as putting together search engine marketing, media releases and mail flyer creation. "We do all of the other web-related stuff as well, but we concentrate on search engine optimization."

"We've been hired to look at expensive sites. They look great, but they don't place," says Coles.

"There are a lot of fabulous sites out there that don't get found… they come to us and we will redo the site."

He says that once a site is built or revamped First Page SEO will do the requisite testing to ensure its placement on the Search Engine rankings.

"At present we have about 400 customers and if their sites start to drop in the rankings it doesn't take too long before the phone starts ringing, " says Coles. Once that happens, Coles says he will look at the parameters and search out a solution.

Coles adds that First Page SEO is doing business worldwide and business is good today.

"We are getting results and in SEO results produce business," says Coles.

Of course keeping pace with the ongoing changes in technology is the key.

So, if you ever get the hankering to sell a widget or two, you might want to start with First Page SEO.

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