By Dan Dwyer |
On Thursday April 3rd, I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Chris Sheehy, the founder of Sidewalk Branding Company in Rumford, Rhode Island. Sidewalk Branding Company is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company. The goal of an SEO company is to get their clients viewed online as often as possible and to differentiate them from the competition. Chris discussed the importance of SEO as well as how he became a founder in this industry. “SEO is the water of business” was the quote that stuck with me when I left the office on Thursday. Without a website and without the website being optimized effectively on search engines, your company will never get noticed.
Chris started Sidewalk Branding Company in 1997 during the boom of the World Wide Web. With the internet consistently growing, the SEO business becomes more and more popular. Chris has direct local competition, but all of these companies have started within the past few years and do not have the experience and long standing reputation of Sidewalk Branding. The key to an internet startup is learning and improving from inevitable failures. It is very easy to fail so all businesses must be prepared to change course when necessary.
The key to building a startup business is marketing. The majority of businesses fail because of poor marketing strategies and the lack of customers recognizing their product or service. When using the internet, keywords are the essential marketing scheme and the marketer must put their feet in the shoes of the customer and think about what specific keywords they would type in to find their business. The example Chris and I discussed was a college student looking for a pizza place in Providence. For that local mom and pop pizza shop to get recognized they must think what keywords that student will use to quickly find their shop and to order their midnight treat. Keywords are what will get your company recognized and the more hits received on the website, the greater opportunity for sales and increasing the consumer base.
Meeting with Chris was a wonderful opportunity for me and my fellow classmates. He expanded on the internet startup community and was an encyclopedia of knowledge. He is an experienced entrepreneur and the key to sustainability is experience. The more failures you experience the more likely you will be to succeed in the future.
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Originally posted on May 8th, 2014
Visit http://sidewalkbranding.co/ for more about Sidewalk Branding Company
Breaking Green Boundaries 