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.

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Comments

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 :)

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