Visibility is the biggest challenge for any business. No matter what your business type, the goal is to first get seen. It used to be that just having a website and email address concluded everything you needed to do for an online space – but a lot has changed since then. The end goal always comes down to a three fold system, which includes social media marketing, email marketing and search engine marketing. The latter is a monster of a task that tends to overwhelm both small and big businesses. If you’re facing the same obstacles, then consider giving the pros a shot…
iProspect – Catering to natural search engine optimization (SEO), iProspect offers development, implementation and management for high level campaigns. Natural campaigns are really a gold mine for increasing search engine ranking, which can be time consuming and require a full time commitment from a small team. iProspect also offers pay per click advertising and paid search advertising campaigns. Their strategy seems pretty focused; they include web analytics, keyword research and relevant content endorsement/enhancement.
USWeb – If you’re looking for a company that does more of it all, then you should check out USWeb. In additional to SEO, they also service media buying, website development (with an emphasis on e-commerce), link management and social media marketing needs. USWeb clients are usually interested in increasing traffic but also in gaining market share and nurturing customer relations that result in increased sales, repeat clientele and customer loyalty. In that regard, one of their specialties is “conversion optimization,” which focuses on taking the visitors that arrive to your site from search traffic and making sure your landing pages are optimized to turn visitors into customers.
iCrossing – The benchmark of any digital media advertising company is to look at how they treat their own business. Here iCrossing meets the mark. They recently re-invented their own business to further excel in online publishing by developing technology that helps leverage real-time data, which is where any successful platform should be looking after Twitter decided to first offer real-time tweets. Focusing on industry/customer research, iCrossing stems a solid research foundation to offer clients a digital marketing strategy that includes social media marketing, mobile marketing and website development. iCrossing comes across as a pleasant hybrid between iProspect and USWeb, offering the bigger consumer-focused picture of iProspect by focusing on brand development but also catering to more specific needs that reach beyond just SEO.
eVisibility – A running competitor that offers much of the same as iProspect, eVisibility is another service that’s worth checking out. However, the company exceeds the above competition by adding a facet that no one else here has covered – online reputation management (ORM). ORM is a big factor in branding that any growing business needs to keep in mind. But eVisibility goes further still by helping clients tap into TV, radio and print advertising and by offering internet marketing consulting, which is something budget-strapped businesses should consider.
On a closing note, I recommend running through TopSEOs, which helps crunch some of the data for you by comparing similar businesses and offering a complete directory that would be useful to any marketing department.
