Diane Mastrull: Bucks businessman finds success in search-engine optimization

Lance Bachmann entered the working world when consumers relied on thick, softbound books filled with yellow pages to find businesses they needed. Remember that?

It was 1995 - just four years after the birth of the World Wide Web, and still a few years from anyone in need of a plumber, florist, or restaurant being able to find one via an Internet tool with a goofy name that rhymed with bugle.

Bachmann, 21, one of 14 children in a single-parent household in Northeast Philadelphia, had accepted a job selling advertising space to businesses in the Donnelly Directory because "I was broke and needed money" - and because of a promising sign in the employee parking lot. It was filled with "nice cars."

As it turned out, the special-education major at Temple University - who had been quickly cured of a desire to teach after trying it for two weeks - was a natural at sales. He won rookie of the year at Donnelly, he said.

Now, at 37, he's a millionaire "a few times over" at the helm of a small Bucks County company devoted to getting businesses noticed without the telephone directory.

His 1SEO, based in Southampton, is what the acronym suggests - a search-engine optimization company. Its specialty is getting businesses prominent positioning on all search engines - Google being the dominant one - without buying ad space on them. Such results - from such actions as article and directory submissions, link building, blogging, press releases, and the addition of fresh, relevant content to the site - are known as "organic."

SEO is a complex marketing tool based in mathematics, the workings of which are largely not understood by the average person but are considered increasingly essential in the crowded world of e-commerce, where more and more business is being transacted.

"I have started to see more blue-chip and Fortune 100 companies reach out to us," said Ken Wisnefski, 39, founder and chief executive of another locally based SEO firm, WebiMax, formed in Mount Laurel in 2008.

He contends that companies well-positioned on search engines through organic means also enjoy higher credibility.

"It seems to be more of a trusted source," Wisnefski said.

Not that the field is beyond controversy. A New York Times investigation revealed in February that retailer J.C. Penney had an astonishingly dominant search-term performance for several months because of thousands of paid links placed on hundreds of websites. All of those connections, which the Times said included a J.C. Penney link affixed to the bottom of a site called nuclear.engineeringaddict.com, were paid for by an unidentified person or persons. J.C. Penney denied any involvement with the so-called black-hat services.

They are unethical tactics to attract human searchers as well as automated programs that browse the Web to provide data to search engines. For example, a black-hat SEO might pack a client's website with a long list of key words that are not relevant to what the site really offers in products or services - but that will ensure the site a higher search ranking.

Such tactics are not illegal, but, when discovered, often result in "corrective action" by Google, usually leading to dropped status on its highly regarded search pages - if not removal.

Bachmann said he tolerates only legitimate search-engine ranking practices, such as linking to blogs and other sites related to a client's business. He would not divulge his methodology for determining what changes to websites and other steps 1SEO takes to achieve higher search rankings for its clients, which total more than 500, about half of them local companies, the others from New York and Washington.

1SEO, with 20 employees in the United States and 90 in India, expects $4 million in revenue this year from month-to-month contracts with clients. It is planning a move to new, bigger headquarters in Bristol this fall, with local staffing expected to double by Jan. 1, Bachmann said. It is a reflection of the growth potential of what is still a young industry, he said.

"Only 7 percent of all businesses play online truly," Bachmann said. "Ninety-three percent just don't either understand it, they don't get it, they don't believe in it."

They frustrate him, because he considers that lost business opportunity. Not just for 1SEO, but for the company or professional that is losing out on what Bachmann said is a proven method of "making your phone ring, getting you e-mails, or making someone buy your product online." It also provides valuable consumer- and industry-analysis data.

Benny Lomas, owner of Action Heating and Air in King of Prussia, said he understands any business' reluctance to embrace SEO.

"I thought he was full of hot air," he said of his initial meeting with Bachmann nearly three years ago. "But I thought I'd give it a shot. He wound up delivering what he said."

In search rankings, that means Lomas' company, which has typically spent $500,000 a year on advertising in Yellow Book and was virtually invisible when it came to Internet searches, now pops up first on Google when more than 400 key words related to its contracting work are used in searches.

Even more important to Lomas, who is paying 1SEO $5,000 a month: "I'm getting results. Big results. I get a couple thousand calls some months."

Lance Bachmann talks about getting a business noticed on the Web at www.philly.com/business

For more coverage of the region's small businesses, go to www.philly.com/mastrullEndText