How To You Get Top Ranking On Google Tutorial Part 12 ( Setting the scene )

The Get to the Top on Google case study

Throughout the rest of this book I will be using a case study to illustrate the techniques involved and bring them to life. There is no single choice Of industry or type of business that will readily surface all the challenges in search engine optimization. However, my chosen fictional example brings together the local vs. National optimization and both business-to consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) aspects, so it manages to cover the bases quite well.

Meet Brad Chambers, brother of Matt Chambers, of Boise, Idaho. Older brother Matt took over the family printing business, Chambers Print, some five years ago, and it continues to deliver a healthy (although hardly spectacular) profit. The increased penetration of home PCs, decent laser printers, and the internet has made printing a more challenging market than in the good old days when their father, Ted, Founded the company. Matt has to work harder and harder to maintain his top line and control his cost base. You can imagine, therefore, his mixed feelings at the news that Ted wants younger brother Brad to join the family business.

Brad, a recent marketing graduate from the University of Michigan, has a number of ideas about how to take the company forward. In particular, he wants to meet the challenges of the internet age head on by Expanding the services offered via the Chambers Print website. As Brad puts it, “If you can’t beat ’EM, join ’EM.”

While Chambers Print sells standard stationery items, it makes most of its profits (90%) from bespoke printing; 55% of the profits comes from small and medium-sized (SME) businesses and 15% from a single
Contract with one very large local law firm (Boise Law). The remaining 20% of profits come from the small or home office (SOHO) market, essentially a business-to-consumer space.

Almost all of Chambers Print’s sales are made to customers within a 12-mile radius of Boise and most new business is gained by word-of mouth recommendation. Matt has always focused on the B2B part of the business and, in particular, on winning larger contracts. However, it’s now almost two years since the company won the Boise Law contract and there have been no new contracts of a similar size. More
Worryingly, the three-year contract comes up for renewal next year and Brad thinks it likely that Chambers Print will have to cut prices to retain the business (hurting its profitability).

In a nutshell, Brad thinks that Chambers Print could expand its operations over the internet to serve both businesses and consumers Across the United States and Canada. He has an innovative idea to offer website users the ability to upload their own logos or artwork – something he has seen other sites doing with some success.

We will see how Brad develops the business – and calms his brother’s misgivings – through the power of decent proposition development, search engine optimization, and more traditional marketing techniques.

So, now it’s time to get cracking. The following seven steps (each containing four sections) walk you through the nuts and bolts of the art of search engine optimization – how to get to the top on Google and stay there!