Search Engine Optimization Success

I don’t mean to brag, but search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the funnest things I’ve ever been involved with, and MWI is doing a fairly good job at it. I believe a SEO firm isn’t worth much if they don’t rank anywhere themselves, the same way a design firm isn’t doing a good job if they can’t do good self-promo work.

As of this morning, MWI ranks in the #1 spot on Google for over 50 keywords or keyword combinations that we’ve identified as words that bring us business and we’re on the first page of results for well over 100. Granted, most of these search terms include geographic parameters such as “utah” or “salt lake city” but it’s still a challenge to become #1 and what’s more, it’s still fun.

But we even rank high for some non-geographically limited terms, like “email company newsletter,” “newsletter system,” “web design firm,” and “website content management firms.”

But things can change quickly. Between running the report about an hour ago and checking just now, our ranking for “web design firm” has dropped from #7 to #13. In fact, many of our rankings change on a daily basis. Our position for “utah web design” has been an interesting one for me to watch. Two other firms were in the #1 and #2 slot for a long time while we were #3. About six months ago we moved into the #2 spot and stayed there for a while. But for the last month we’ve been trading between #2 and #3 on an almost daily basis. Why? Now that’s hard to say. There are so many factors involved that it’s almost impossible to track down what makes the difference. In this one case there are at least three parties involved–MWI, the other firm we keep trading places with, and Google. MWI changes something, and the ranking changes. The other firm changes something and the ranking changes. Google changes something and the ranking changes, or a combination of any two or three.

What makes SEO fun is that while we may know a lot of “tricks” there are no silver bullets (other than changing your title tags or having a domain that matches a popular keyword search term), and so you try the tricks that have worked in the past and stay current on what everyone else is doing so you can try new tricks, and then somehow it all works, and at least in MWI’s experience, it’s all working quite well.

The most challenging factor I’ve found is staying current. You’ve got to be visiting websites, reading blogs, getting newsletters, and performing experiments, otherwise you drop behind. Playing the SEO game successfully is a bit like answering the question “If you and your friend are being chased by a bear, how fast do you have to run to escape?” to which the answer is, of course, that you have to run faster than your friend.