The Search Engine Optimization industry was born from the exploding commercial and social Internet development movement of the early ‘90s. Just ten or so years ago, at the time of the World Wide Web boom, businesses were only beginning to respond to the obvious need for developing a marketable web presence – what is now the realm of the SEO Consultant. Nobody seemed to talk much about what made for the most effective web sites – outside of easy page navigation, cool design, and fast-loading pages. That’s because few seemed to fully comprehend the depth and grandiosity of the opportunities. And most new web development firms were more than busy enough just building web sites without needing to care much if those sites were actually paying off for their clients.

Let’s fast-forward through a brief Internet history. As the Internet boom rippled out across the world, hundreds of thousands of businesses were literally online within days. Or maybe millions within months. Let’s just say it happened so quickly, nobody could keep track! (I’d be more than willing to revise this statement if anyone out there has a reputable source for factual data on the matter!) Anyway, it’s safe to say that today, there are millions upon millions of web sites out there. And today, if your business doesn’t yet have an online presence, you already know that you can barely exist outside the range of your own home community.

Impressive Industry Growth

Back in 1995, the United States had less than a thousand web development firms. Now, there are more than 40,000, and the affordable SEO services industry is widely expected to grow another whopping 20 per cent over the next two years. This is encouraging news, despite recent speculation among governments, small and large recession. Fueling the tremendous growth in the industry, in large part, is the relatively fast emergence of smaller web development companies, and the continued automation of medium and large business selling virtually any sort of product imaginable around the Earth. Yet another contributor in the success in the industry is the obvious decline in the cost of web development fees.

The past decade has seen an incredible transformation in communication, with the Internet driving e-commerce, led increasingly by more and more sophisticated web development. With the rise in e-commerce comes a natural curiosity about how to create web sites that can track visitor activity and report on commercial advertising results in much the same manner as other forms of marketing. Beyond that, web site owners also want to increase numbers of random searchers who are targeting their web site.

When a potential visitor goes to Google to find, say, a screwdriver, Bill’s Hardware wants to be the first company that comes up on the search engine list. This is where organic SEO comes into play. Search Engine Optimization is the science of establishing, for any given website, a higher ranking in the search engine results than their competition.

A web consulting firm can help small, medium, and big businesses improve their search engine rankings, traffic, sales, and overall profit. These firms can develop professionally customized SEO programs that guarantee results.