Learn How to Google Your Way to the Top

SEER Interactive can get you on the first couple pages of search engines

        by Adam Stone Special to the Business Journal

Wil Reynolds' job is to get you maximum search-engine visibility, to boost you to the top of the Google heap. This is done with a combination of computers and magic. Hence the name: SEER Interactive. "Seer" as in mystic, shaman. (Why the all-capital-letters? "I liked the way it looked," Reynolds says.)

Reynolds and his staff of 10 wizards have built a $2 million-a-year enterprise helping clients position themselves on the Web. It isn't really magic, just a careful algorithmic analysis of the interstices of page links and the weighted relevance of connecting sites and ... aw heck, it's magic.

Point is, Reynolds is awfully good at it. Google "SEO agency" (the industry term for what SEER does) and Reynolds' firm typically will come up on the first page of results. That simple fact -- the ability to score primo placement for his own company -- has been Reynolds' most potent selling tool since founding SEER in 2002.

"That in itself is instant credibility," he said.

Credibility comes, too, from Reynolds' willingness to share his spells and potions with anyone who cares to listen. He has posted numerous lectures on YouTube, explaining the ins and outs of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. He gives in-depth tutorials at industry conferences.

"He is very sharing with his information, and people really love him for that. They consistently give him the best review among 40 or 50 speakers," said Shawn Collins, co-founder of the Affiliate Summit Conference, which addresses the affiliate marketing industry. "Some speakers are self-serving, where he is nothing but altruistic, so it shows him as just a very helpful person who isn't going to be pushy about things."

Knowledge-sharing is but one of Reynolds' fundamental business principles. Equally important is his commitment to the notion that business isn't always first in line.

"I started SEER in part because in my previous job I felt that I didn't have the time to volunteer for the organizations I care about. My employers wouldn't give me time to go and play with kids at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia or to work with homeless youth," he said. "All the business stuff aside, I want to make sure I leave a mark on this world."

Ah, to be young and idealistic. But wait, it gets better. Reynolds' next rule of business? "We don't work for jerks," he said. "There are too many great people out there to work with, we are not going to let the almighty dollar tell us who to work with."

It's true, said Drake Newkirk, a vice president and creative director with LevLane Advertising in Philadelphia. "I have seen Wil walk away from business. They want to be able to provide results at the end of any campaign, not just for the client but for themselves, so Wil only wants to take business when he knows that he can do something for them."

When he does get down to business, Reynolds plays hardball. What does he love best about the job? "It's the freakin' challenge!"

"There's only one company at No. 1, only one company at No. 2 [in the Google returns]. So it is extremely tangible and extremely competitive, and I love competition. I don't lay down easy and I will fight to the end," he said. "In most businesses, being No. 30 in 100 million is a win. In our business it is a loss. If you are not on those first two pages of search results, you don't have anything."

Along those lines, he likes that SEO is a straightforward game. The competition can say anything it wants, but at the end of the day the numbers talk.

"Where were you before you started working with us? How much traffic did you get? What kind of sales did you get? There is very little spin. The numbers are right there."

To manage the numbers -- not just the search results but also his own bottom line -- this young entrepreneur has turned to those older and wiser, assembling an advisory board of savvy friends from around the business community. They give of themselves freely, lunch and Christmas gifts their only rewards.

"You are not going to know everything, so you had better get people who are seasoned, who want to help you out," Reynolds said. In one recent example, the board helped to put in place a system of financial oversight within the company, making it possible to go beyond the bottom line in order to observe profit centers on a more granular basis.

It's something Reynolds likely would not have managed on his own. "You are running the company, you are hustling, so you look at the top line and the bottom line, but you don't always look at the individual projects," he said.

Meanwhile, the wizard wields his wand, holding his own against the metaphorical beasts of the Internet age. "We are riding a bull," he said. "We don't control our clients' Web sites and we definitely don't control Google, yet Google is constantly putting things in and taking things out. So our job is to constantly try to understand which direction this bull is jumping in."

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