The Internet is a strategic asset in today's business environment. How effectively you use this incredibly powerful resource is up to you. That's where we come in. We are the best at what we do.

This is a business where there is no substitute for experience. It’s not only knowing what to do, it’s knowing how to make things happen in a complex, fast-changing environment, with both analytical and creative processes. We are not a company filled with layers. The person you see here is the person who will work with you on your project. Shea brings vast and diverse experience. We partner with a variety of design and development teams from all over the world including the U.S. to India to China to Eastern Europe and all places in between. We bring the optimal resources to each project to best meet or exceed the expectations of our customers.

Our organization was founded by Shea Ellison, a gentleman who has been in the Information Technology field since the 1970's when he was an entrepreneur and a pioneer in the fledgling electronics and computer industry. His career has spanned computer hardware, software, telecommunications and multimedia. He has now been focused on Internet Consulting since the start of the 21st century.

Our primary focus today is on sharing our knowledge and expertise of the dynamic inner world of organic search engine optimization, Internet marketing and website conversion rate optimization. We continually stay abreast of the near infinite changes occurring in these three areas. There are many intricate ideas, strategies, tools and techniques one can implement to achieve their objectives of converting website visitors into paying customers. However, there are also a set of fundamental concepts and strategies that must be understood and applied before one can begin to delve into subtle nuances of search engine optimization.

Internet marketing is a wide open field today with literally millions of people who each have their own ideas of what works best for them in their particular situation. Again, there are a set of generally accepted fundamentals that must be understood and applied before one can begin to apply the many variations of strategies and techniques.

So what are some of these fundamentals?

Identify your niche. You can't be everything to everybody. If everyone is your market – then no one is your market.
Know who your prospects and customers are. Get inside their head and understand what it is that they want. Find out how they go about solving their problems. Learn what means they use to find a solution to their problems. It's not about you. It's about them and their needs.

When your prospects encounter your marketing message – whether it be online of off, all they are interested in is 'WIIFM' (What's in it for me). Therefore your message needs to immediately address their hot button – how your product or service is going to resolve their problem. Their problem is your opportunity.

What is the purpose of your website? Why does your company have a website? (Now let me clarify; I'm referring to an external pubic site on the Internet.) I believe any public-facing website's purpose is to attract prospects and converting them into a lead or customer. It's all about conversion.

How do you define what is a conversion on your website?

If you are selling a commodity in an e-commerce environment, then your 'conversion' is a sale of one of those commodities. If you are selling a unique product, then your conversion is a name and email address. If you are selling a service, it could be either one of the above. The fundamental to take away here, is to clearly define what a conversion on your site is.
Again, it's all about conversion – converting a visitor into a lead or a customer.

Shea is the Director of Internet Strategy and Operations. He is a graduate of National Louis University with a B.S. in Management and a Master of Science in Electronic Commerce (MSEC). He is also certified Project Manager Professional (PMP) as well as a Certified Internet Webmaster. (CIW)

Member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), Independent Computer Consultants Association (ICCA) and the former Chairman of the TAG Consulting Society of the Technology Association of Georgia. (TAG) He is the past President of Northpark Toastmasters Club - A President's Distinguished Club for the past seven years in a row. He is currently Area Governor for Division G, District 14 of Toastmasters International. He is an Advanced Communicator Bronze and a Competent Leader. He is also an Associate member of the National Speakers Association - Georgia Chapter and serves as the Technology Supervisor to the Board.

Questions are the answer – or to be more precise, it's not the answers that are nearly as important as learning how to ask better questions. Web searchers have become more and more sophisticated over the years and that's a good thing for everyone. Time was, when people would enter one or two word search queries and be able to get reasonable results. Today, users have learned how to be more specific with their searches and therefore have created the long-tail (keyword phrase) market opportunity for more precise, more relevant search results. For instance, five years ago a typical user might have entered "color TV" as a query in a search engine and was able to find reasonable relevant results. However, it one conducted that same search today, they would be presented with such a wide variety of results – many of which would not be what they actually wanted. Today, the savvy user might enter a search query more like "lowest price Samsung 52-inch digital LCD HDTV". Now the user will be provided with very specific and very relevant search engine results that they can act upon immediately.

Did you also know that you can enter full questions into a search query box on Google such as "Where can I find Levi jeans in Atlanta", NOTE that the double quotes surrounding my query are intentional and included in my search. By putting double quotes around your search queries, you are telling the search engine that you are looking for that exact string of words. Google will tell you that the double quotes are implied in all of their searches, but that is not true. If you don't use the double quotes around your search query, search engines will return results where 'any' of the terms in your query exist in the title or description of a given web page. Often when entering these long-tail keyword phrases, if you surround your query with double quotes, you may not receive any results – as I did not in my previous search. However, I was presented with seven 'Sponsored' ads… and one of them was for Reunion.com; I suppose they thought perhaps I might have had a former classmate named Levi…

Linking strategies – building high-quality inbound links is the single, most important task you must do to improve your search engine ranking – period. One way inbound links. Too many people have put a lot of focus on reciprocal links. However, I see reciprocal linking in the near future being like factors on opposite side of a mathematical equation. When you have an outbound link to a page on another site, and there is a link on that page back to your site, the two cancel each other out. To picture it in a metaphor, it is like two gunfighters who shoot each other at the exact same time – they both lose.

Building one way inbound links will be the most challenging task you face as a website owner/marketer, but it will also be the most rewarding. The challenge for most sites will be to acquire enough quality inbound links to dominate your niche without tripping any of the spam filters that trigger the penalties being charge to sites that cheat.

Speaking of Linking strategies, why not link to us as a valuable resource for Search Engine Workshops and Teleseminars.