The last time I wrote about the state of the Utah SEO industry was in May of 2006, so it’s probably time for an update, especially after all the activity going on just within the last month or two.
There have been a number of Utah SEO firms that have popped up, along with a collection of blogs managed by SEO professionals who are either freelance SEO consultants or work for SEO firms in Utah. All in all, the search engine optimization landscape in Utah is starting to become more competitive, and that means there must be more demand in the marketplace.
Not that I need to see more SEO firms popping up in order to know that more Utah businesses are on the lookout for SEO services. We’ve been signing up clients left and right and turning away half of the requests we get.
From my perspective, what’s scary, but also kind of fun and exciting, are the three following items:
1. Blogs – Blogs are competing for the terms I want my SEO company to rank for. Guys like Jordan Kasteler, Jose Nunez, and the guy running Utah SEO Planet (which appears to be down at the moment) have really been giving me a run for my money on terms like “utah seo”, “seo utah”, “utah search engine optimization”, and “search engine optimization utah”.
2. Speaking of giving me a run for my money, there are a bunch of companies that continue to chip away at my ranking empire. There are the old staples like Convina and 97thFloor with whom I’ve been playing leapfrog for some time, but then there’s Vizad and Utah Web Services who have sneaked up and taken some of the top rankings I thought I had wrapped up tight.
3. But what’s really occupying my waking hours these days are companies like SEO.com and Orange Soda. SEO.com simply because I don’t know what they’re going to do with that amazing domain name they snagged, and Orange Soda because from what I hear they appear to have taken the initiative in launching a service very similar to one I’ve been working on getting launched for the past 18 months. Orange Soda isn’t so much a competitor of MWI right now since we seem to target different markets, but we will soon be launching The SEO Consultants which will target the sub-$1,000 per month SEO market, and it looks like that will put us squarely on track for a showdown with Orange Soda.
Of course it’s nice to have a market all to yourself, which is virtually how it’s been the past 2-3 years, in that I haven’t had to deal with more than a small handful of competitors, but I’ll take it as a good sign that more people are getting into the market. It might mean I need to refine my pitch a bit and work harder to maintain MWI’s rankings, but on the other hand it might mean more business coming my way.
I’m glad to hear you’re thinking about us, Josh
We’ll be launching a new site design soon and have big plans for this business, so stay tuned.
Josh,
Really candid blog post Josh. One of the reasons why l love to read your blog is that its a mix of entrepreneur, manager, web dev, and internet marketing.
I have OrangeSoda running through my veins now instead of SEO.com. But would love to use all find a piece of the SEO pie.
I’ll be at SMX Local & Mobile in Denver Monday and Tuesday. Perhaps I’ll see you there. SEO.com has been to a couple of them maybe we’ll have all the heavies from Utah
at this bran new SMX
Cheers – Bart
Thanks for the plug, Josh.
More business is definitely coming your way. The market is growing rapidly and “SEO” is no longer a mystery word.
I’m most interested to see how pricing and services evolve in the industry as competition continues to explode. It should be fun.
Can you change my anchor text to “Utah SEO” please? haha. Just kidding. The SERPs for these terms tend do dance around a lot.
Josh,
Just wanted to say thank you mentioning the blog. As a SEO Consultant living here in Utah as part of an international team, I am really glad to see this state growing the supply for demand of these services from different directions
Josh,
Have you tried Orange soda? They really are a terrible business. I would sugest you try them. I have and I was so underwhelmed that I will never use them again. I feel totally ripped off. It was only after two and a half weeks and me ___ing that they did anything then they say they did their work. Well after 700$ and a month on there site. I cant even find my page going 35 pages deep. I would expect a little more for 700 Bucks.
Since Orange Soda and my firm are competitors I haven’t tried them, no. I have heard similar sentiments from some other former Orange Soda clients, but I’d like to give OS the benefit of the doubt at the moment, because I’m sure I have past clients who thought my firm ripped them off too. They’re probably the same clients I feel ripped me off. No company is the right fit for every type of client, and some companies can do the best job imaginable and still end up with dissatisfied clients.
Jon,
I am sorry to hear you had a bad experience with OrangeSoda’s SEO services. SEO is an investment and takes time. 4-6 months is an appropriate time period for results to really start coming in. As a company that practices White Hat SEO, we are invested to ensure the best long lasting results which means clients will rarely see results in their first month. – I also apologize if you were given a different expectation.
We want to make sure we don’t risk short term gains for advancement- because they usually incur long term penalties by the engines. Part of that is to ensure that each month we don’t overload the engines with spammy work – that it looks natural and provides the best value for your business.
If you would like – please contact us and ask for me, to see if there is anything I can to do assist your or answer any more questions or concerns.
Josh, I’ve heard good things about MWI and appreciate the wisdom into the internet marketing service review part of the industry.
Don’t get me wrong I had every intention of using an Orange Soda for the long term. I was dissatisfied at the disorganization, inability to tell me if any work had been done, and the differing stories on what had been done Vs what was going to be done. It seemed nothing was being accomplished until I called and complained. Three hours I would get a call back with some work(meta phrases). I can’t keep track of An SEO Company to make sure they are doing what was promised. I may have caught Orange Soda at a bad time or was one of the few that fell through the cracks but I was very frustrated. They finally would do some work such as meta phrases and redirects then in the next conversation would tell me that next month when they do my redirects and meta phrases I should notice a difference. It seemed I was talking to a different company with every conversation. I hired them because I heard good things. After being promised updates to tell me what work had been done. I was told in the next conversation that I would need to pay for next month before I received my updates on what had been done in the previous month. I never paid for the second month and never was told what was done, it was left at that.
Similar story to that above – after months and several hundred dollars – they did NOTHING with a site they DID NOTHING – they did nothing for BPAPERS that currently ranks #1 in GOOGLE for “college help service” in front of many edu’s. They are a COMPLETE ORANGESODA SCAM. They promised us a blast of 1000 submissions but yet to see 1 single active link LOL – WE ARE DEF better at seo than them lol. We are also #1 for “buy nfl picks” in google for our other site nflfreepicks.com. THEY pitch personal service but they send ONLY form letters – PLEASE do not utilize their orange soda scam “services” – we are also NOT a competing company – I have used my real name and am just a NY law student/nice jewish guy that runs a college help website that got ripped off by the Fizz of the ORANGE SODA SCAM.
I love it, Orange Soda Called me a couple of weeks ago and said that my credit card didn’t work. I told them I never got my updates on work done and that I stopped using them a couple of month ago. “Oh No one ever told us” was her reply. Great going guy. Great organization! At least I didn’t pay for several month of nothing. This company is a true Joke.
Hey Jon – glad to see you had their “services too” lol- amazing – once I started showing one of mys skills – (SEO) and got ranking for “Orangesoda scam” and “orange soda seo” – Yes that is me on page one of google for “orange soda seo” lol- I got a call from Bryan Phelps -the manager of all seo no – i mean seo at fizzy. I asked how it was that I got “terms” related to the industry when they STILL could not show even an active link for me – WE thought we were hiring better seo guys – if you ever need seo tips – contact me as its free and I Do know about seo. My partner Rick who worked for a while at a “real” seo company Prime Visibility out of Bethpage, Long Island (I have never worked their and have no affiliation) thinks that their bix model involves utilizing the funds of smaller clients to fund the “important” accounts to get them ppc clicks etc – bc they cannot do real seo for sure – The “manager” clearly knew less than me and I am being honest – everything I learned I learned from Rick who learned from Andrew Hazen and I just spent so much time around it that I can feel it out – I knew as soon as I spoke to Bethani that there would be a prob – but I took their word and waited for the blast i paid nearly 300 dollars for initially – Bryan says he CAN show me two links lol. Get a full refund or (do not threaten) merely state your intention to post this wherever you can as truly as it happened – your moral and legal right – I am waiting on my FULL REFUND – as soon as that happens I will stop this – I don’t like being stolen from.
I tried to get my 700 dollars back. Yea right!! That was for one month. Believe me I wish I could. I don’t like talking bad about people but these guys stole from me and my nephew. He was using them for several months and didn’t do anything except give him meta tags . They said they were going to do link building and list him in directories. NOT ONE. Nothing. It is a crime what they did. Don’t worry they will hang themselves. People won’t put up with this kind of crap for long. IF you are reading this and using Orange soda I ask you to have them show you what they are doing for you. They won’t be able to. They will say we need to call you back. Then they do a little work so they have something to show you. I have been posting my experiences with them also. But thanks for the reminder. I have to get back to work on it. When they give me my money back I might stop also. What else can you do?
Orange Soda is a horrible company that cannot verify their work. I dealt with Orange Soda as a consultant for a small company which was paying for their services through a third party vendor. When I asked my client to show me the work Orange Soda has done, he couldn’t show me. So I asked Orange Soda to prove to me that they have lived up to the contract under which they said they are performing. The answer was NO. Orange Soda told me they would not show their work because their work, in this case posting my client’s information on blogs, because it’s proprietary information. Posting to random blogs is not proprietary. So, instead of giving me a complete list of the 15 blogs they promised to post to, they gave me the name of just ONE blog.
I checked out this post. It was spam. Without identifying itself as a marketer, Orange Soda posted a comment on some random blog about something somewhat similar to the blog post’s topic. With a link back to my client’s website. This does not help search engine results. This is SPAM. I asked Orange Soda to remove the post, they have not done it. Needless to say my client is no longer paying Orange Soda. As a matter of fact, because Orange Soda couldn’t prove their work, my client got a 100 percent refund from his credit card company and the third party vendor provided my client with a generous compensation package for its trouble. The third party vendor also suggested that they are reevaluating their business with Orange Soda.
Orange Soda gives the term consultant a bad name. There are much more prudent and effective ways to spread a company’s name and spend hard earned money.
I used to work for them and honestly I can’t tell you what they do. Why would you spend 400 a month plus a setup fee for something that can’t be proven. It is all outsourced to India and they went from no contracts to 6 month contracts overnight. Funny because people could leave whenever they wanted. Now its 6 months over the phone with verbal terms and conditions. Nothing is in writing. The best part is on of my good friends who still works there is on a team in house that roams these sites to find the bad press and remove it. They are a scam and are bunk. Stay away.