Beginnings
The origins of Ideal Positions can be found in the humble setting of a small studio apartment and the ambitious vision of founder and entrepreneur Kelsy Anderson. In the beginning, Kelsy and a small handful of employees sold online advertising exclusively to real estate agencies and realtors on what was then the largest search engine on the internet, Yahoo!. What happened from there eventually flourished and grew into the bustling, successful company that Ideal Positions is today, boasting over 40 dedicated employees, multiple departments collaborating in their expertise, and countless clients who have seen their own businesses flourish and grow alongside our truly unique company. What follows are some of the sea changes that led to where Ideal Positions is today and where we are still going. You will find that Ideal Positions is a company that has adapted to the changes of our industry, stayed ahead of the curve, and yet never sacrificed the integrity and personal touches that make our company special.
Any business that has been involved in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as long as Ideal Positions remembers the days when Yahoo! was king. Ideal Positions began by advertising exclusively on the Yahoo! and MSN search engines using the Overture Pay Per Click (PPC) platform. In these early days, Ideal Positions’ focus was solely on marketing for real estate professionals. As the success of the company grew and our top-notch marketing was proven with scores of realtors, it was time for Ideal Positions to expand its services beyond the real estate market. Over the years, Ideal Positions has brought expert marketing and campaign management to a wide variety of different industries, including attorneys, photographers, plastic surgeons, locksmiths, bail bondsmen, carpet cleaners, electricians, contractors, counselors, therapists, dentists, plumbers, wedding planners, and countless other industries too numerous to mention. Ideal Positions continues to expand into new verticals, building experience and expertise with a vast diversity of businesses.
As the Internet evolved, so did Ideal Positions. It wasn’t long before Ideal Positions realized that the Yahoo! and MSN search networks were no longer reaching enough users to deliver the volume of traffic our advertisers needed. At the time, Google AdWords was emerging as the dominant platform for Search Engine Marketing, and Google eventually overtook Yahoo! as the most popular search engine in the United States. Ideal Positions took note, incorporating Google AdWords into its existing Search Engine Marketing services, expanding to encompass the two largest search engines on the Internet and bringing our clients incomparable web presence in the process.
With the adoption of Google AdWords, Ideal Positions dedicated itself to the mastery of the Google AdWords Pay Per Click marketing platform. Concurrent with our ever growing proficiency in Pay Per Click account management, our rapport with Google grew and Ideal Positions became a Google AdWords Qualified Company.
In 2009, Microsoft launched the successor to MSN and Live Search: the bing search engine. Ever on the bleeding edge, Ideal Positions immediately adopted the new Microsoft adCenter Pay Per Click platform (currently known as bing Ads) and began offering Pay Per Click marketing on the bing search engine network. A client of Ideal Positions could now be found on the most popular search engines in the world: Google, Yahoo!, bing, and their innumerable search partners!
From the beginning, Ideal Positions focused on Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing over Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for many reasons, among them speed, potential Return On Investment (ROI) for our advertisers, and reliability. However, as the Internet and the search engines continued to evolve, a third major element of online marketing came into play: Local SEO. In early 2010, Ideal Positions took note and began to offer a new service, branded as Local Listings Optimization (LLO). LLO focused on optimizing and managing a businesses’ presence and reputation across many search directories and Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), providing a new way for our clients to be found by the users searching for their services. The local ecosystem has gone through dramatic changes over the years, and Ideal Positions has adapted and evolved LLO every step of the way to keep the service robust, flexible, and effective.
One of the biggest developments in the history of Ideal Positions was the introduction of the Web Development Department in the first quarter of 2010. Our talented web developers have used their expertise to build better websites for many of our clients, not to mention Ideal Positions’ websites as well. Perhaps the best testament to Ideal Positions’ web developers is the site you are currently on. As you can see from the screenshots of our past websites, the skills of our Web Development Department have consistently elevated Ideal Positions and our clients’ online presence to the next level, keeping up with the cutting edge of web design on the Internet.
In February of 2011, Ideal Positions began offering a level of transparency still unheard of in Internet marketing to this day. Utilizing Google AdWords’ user invitation system, Ideal Positions granted clients access to their Google AdWords accounts, giving advertisers the ability to see exactly how their campaigns were being managed, how many clicks they were receiving, and much more. Providing this level of access extended far beyond the norm for SEM agencies, most of whom still provide reporting only in the form of third-party tools whose data cannot be easily checked against Google AdWords’ own reporting.
In July of 2013, Ideal Positions made a significant change to our service, advertising all clients on Desktop Computers, Mobile Devices and Tablets. Whereas the mobile network had been offered in the past, Ideal Positions now incorporated all of the networks into a single package, anticipating Google’s introduction of Enhanced Campaigns, which integrated all devices into the same campaign. By staying ahead of the curve, Ideal Positions’ clients were advertising on mobile devices and tablets ahead of their competitors and got the edge on Google’s Enhanced Campaigns before they were rolled out to the general populace.
Ideal Positions has always placed the client’s needs first, customizing each advertising campaign to the specific needs and nature of each business. Years of experience in Search Engine Marketing have proven that the more time we have to fine tune a campaign, the better the results. The bright, Google AdWords Qualified Individuals that work with Ideal Positions’ SEM Team are dedicated to developing these long term campaigns to optimize for the lowest cost per click and cost per conversion for our clients.
Every step we have taken along the way has been in the best interest of our clients and together we have grown. As our industry continues to change with every passing year, Ideal Positions will continue to adapt and evolve to meet the needs of the people and businesses we serve. The future looks brighter than ever!