Looking smart. Boulder firm helps companies boost search-engine ranking.

November 7, 2005
By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News

Let's say you own a business that has its own Web site. So how, among the billions of sites on the ever-expanding Internet, are customers who have never heard of you ever going to find you?

Enter SmartSearch Marketing…

The Boulder-based company specializes in helping companies vault higher on the rankings of Yahoo!, Google and other search engines. To do that, SmartSearch employs a combination of advertising on search engines and tweaking of the wording on the client's Web site.

"A lot of people inadvertently aren't including on their Web site the words that people actually search for," said Patricia Hursh, founder and president of SmartSearch.

For instance, a company might describe itself online as a "systems integrator," while potential customers might search only for the synonymous term systems reseller, she said.

Hursh, who graduated from the University of Colorado with an undergraduate degree in business and an advanced degree in telecommunications, started SmartSearch in 1999. She first realized the potential market for search engine technology when she created and promoted Microsoft's online city guide, sidewalk.com. She then worked as an electronic marketing specialist for e-commerce management company XOR Inc.

When that company folded in the tech implosion, she decided to offer search marketing on a freelance basis.

Once it became clear there was sustainable demand, Hursh decided to form her own company. She partnered with her husband, Dale, who in the past two decades had owned his own business - process control solutions provider Sierra Technical Products - and worked in sales and management positions for hardware and software companies such as Rational Software and Advanced Systems Group.

"We had a lot of complementary skill sets," said Dale Hursh, Smart Search's chief executive and general manager.

He has an undergraduate degree in engineering and a master's degree in business from the University of Missouri-Rolla. The couple have been married 12 years.

SmartSearch has grown from two to 10 employees with a client list that includes Time Warner Cable, Breathe Right Nasal Strips and Illinois Tool Works. Last year, the company earned the Boulder County Business Report's ranking as the second-fastest-growing company in Boulder and Broomfield counties. This year, SmartSearch is on track to earn more than $3 million in revenue, up from $1.3 million last year.

Now the company, which historically focused on leading consumers to businesses, is bolstering its business-to-business offerings with SmartSearch B2B. Nearly 64 percent of businesses first search online to research products or services they want to buy, and the business-to-business e-commerce market is 15 times larger than the consumer market, according to research firm MarketingSherpa.

But there are key differences from consumer marketing - notably that "whatever you're selling to a business has a higher price tag" than the typical consumer transaction, Patricia Hursh said. Because of that, most businesses use search engines to generate leads, but the sales often take place offline.

"It's really eye-opening for a business to see exactly how many people are searching online for what they do," Patricia Hursh said.

davisj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2514
Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on November 7, 2005 03:42 PM

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