Search Engine Optimization, Site Usability and Internet Marketing

Our SEO, website usability and internet marketing director took his first company, a furniture store, from a position of weakness, spending 1/3 of its budget on advertising in local newspapers with no internet business at all, to spending nothing on local advertising with 50% of his business now coming from across the nation on the internet. This move from just advertising to the local market, in the dwindling economy of Michigan, to the internet saved his business and made it profitable again. It also brought customers in from a wider area within Michigan, some driving as far as 125 miles to reach his retail store.

In his own words ..”We lowered your overhead and advertising budget while reaching a wider market with the internet. We found that our ROI with traditional paper advertising, which worked for years had stopped working, and it got to the point where we were actually losing money instead of making money with it. I had no clue about the internet but I knew we had to do something or lose our business, our livelyhood. That’s when I set out to see what the internet was all about and learned everything I could about SEO and search marketing.

I spent long hours reading and trying everything I could find in the SEO forums and various optimization related websites. After lots and lots of mistakes and getting scammed a few times I found out what works and what doesn’t. It was hard, confusing and at times very frustrating but eventually things started to make sense.

Once I understood things and applied everything properly it worked amazingly well. I can honestly say the internet saved our store. We were even able to expand our floor space by 1/3, up to 4200 sq ft which has in turn increased our local business. While we had to change the way we run the store a bit, from keeping furniture on the floor for display so customers can order it to more of a cash and carry idea, the internet allowed us the time to do it. Now the store can be profitable even in these hard economic times and it’s attracting more people from farther away. Which has really allowed us to diversify our customer base.

Once things stabilized my wife started running the business and now I can concentrate on providing the same services to other Michigan companies that saved my business.

Recently I have taken an interest in learning python.”