Internet Marketing and Website Promotion

Dan Sehlberg - Getupdated Internet Marketing

January 20, 2009

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Biography:

Previously Dan was the CEO for the Citat group a company with 400 consultants and leading software innovations which creates competitive advantage for companies such as H&M, Pfizer, Volvo, Ericsson and Dagens Nyheter.  Prior to the EVP position at Citat, Mr. Sehlberg was the Managing Director at one of Europe's largest IT consultants, LinneGroup/Cell Network, registered on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Mr. Sehlberg has also worked within the Bonnier media group, as Director of New Media for the leading daily magazine; Aftonbladet and as Creative Director at the Miami based Advertisement agency; Precision Media.

Dan Sehlbergs holds a MBA degree from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Background and role in the company

Scandinavia's leading financial newspaper, Dagens Industri, listed Dan Sehlberg as one of the ten most wanted speakers in Sweden. Mr. Sehlberg talks about marketing strategies, competitive advantage, change management and business development. Mr Sehlberg is frequently invited to strategic discussions and management development for companies such as SEB, Ericsson, Aftonbladet, PWC, KPMG, ICA, Hewlett Packard, Xerox, The Swedish Government and various business schools in the Nordic region.

As the CEO of Europe’s leading SEO company I am setting the agenda for our route forward. We are a high growth enterprise with a very creative and competitive culture. With more than 300 high performing individuals in the group my job is to align all that energy with our corporate ambitions which is all about maximizing the value we bring to our clients. Since we are a listed company, my role is also about delivering high share holder value.  As I see it, these two goals; generating the highest client and shareholder value, goes hand in hand, and in that order.

Main Services:

Our main services are Search Engine Optimization along with Search Engine Marketing, which stands for most of the company’s direct turnover.  We also see the internet as a conglomerate of services which serve one ultimate goal: conversion, it is why we have acquired and offer expertise around Display Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Online Video Advertising, Lead Generation, Web Analytics, Usability, Web Communities, Website Design and Content Management services.

What makes your firm different from competitors?

To start with we view our clients as the main reason we exist! It is our work to make a clients brand stand from the rest while maximizing their return on investment. Secondly Getupdated has from 300 employees, 150 of them dedicated to Search Marketing; potentially making us the largest SEM in Europe in terms of dedicated employees towards this vertical.  We have a record of around 5,000 clients who constantly select Getupdated as the Search Engine Marketing agency of choice in Europe. We’ve built solid partnerships will all the search engines which further extent their trust and ethics with our company. Finally we are an award winning agency with a burning passion for Search and with a track record that only our competitors would dream of. With cutting edge knowledge in all leading disciplines within SEM we can deliver superior results for our clients.

Firm’s success story:

The start of Getupdated Internet Media started with just about 2 people in 2006. With a great spice of interest in the industry we’ve successfully grown the company to over 300 employees within 2 years. Most of our focus is around search marketing, were we’ve established offices in different parts of Florida, Sweden, Norway, London, Manchester, Paris and partnerships with Spain and Poland. We’ve done over 13 strategic corporate acquisitions which in the end makes us one of the indisputable agency leaders in Search Engine Marketing in Scandinavia and in a very short period one of the largest Search engine marketing agencies in Europe.  We are registered as a public company in First North (NASDAQ OMX).

What are the questions potential customers should ask you before choosing a vendor?

The Search Engine Optimization process, is not necessarily a simple one, it’s a work that should be left to the experts. It is important that these experts are reputable in the market. With that said I always suggest a few key questions:

• Can you provide example of successful campaigns?
• Which way are you analyzing performance?
• How many search engine marketing campaigns have you been involved with?
• What is your opinion on SEM best practices?
• Are you a Search Engine qualified SEM?

What are some of the myths in the field?

There are many myths around Search Engine Marketing and it is our job to educate the consumer towards this understanding. Here are some:

• SEO agency experts are too expensive
• You should resubmit your site frequently
• You should only focus on Google

How do you develop your skills in a continuously changing environment?

Keeping up with search engines is not an easy task. In Getupdated we created a research and development department. Their job is to constantly update themselves with the algorithmic changes across all search engines. Our approach and methodology uses the latest developmental tools to keep Getupdated on top of the game and to that of our competitors. We also work together with the leading search engines to bring up the relevancy, value and overall quality of the web.

What do you see as the future of the industry? What will be the challenges; do you anticipate any drastic changes?

The future of Search requires deeper knowledge of the user behavioral patterns, better understanding of your audience from a more localized and personalized search point of view. If Search Engine marketing follows the consumer patterns needs, we see a future whereby every company will be obligated to consider search alongside their marketing mix.

Search Engine Marketing foresees many challenges; if we take paid search for example we will see a massive growth towards the importance in the highest bidder dominating the paid search results. At the same time if we continue to see this pattern, we will see a higher growth towards an increase in Search Engine Optimization expenses where agencies such as Getupdated will take the leading role towards providing more competitive results for the consumer. As the war on attention increases, we will also see a growing need for companies to combine paid search tactics with more long term SEO strategies in order to achieve optimum results. Full service SEM agencies like Getupdated will then become even more valuable for our clients.

Where do you see your firm in the next 5 years? What about you personally?

Needless to say I see Getupdated as the number one Search Engine Marketing agency worldwide. Today we are not far away from that dream. Myself? The CEO of this leading SEM agency.

In the bottom line it is the users who want all information to be accessible, they want more of it, and they want it fast and above all; relevant. Search engines of the future will be personal guides, "the bartender", the “dream encyclopedia”; they will provide potential answers to our inner most deepest questions. With that said the SEM agencies of the future will help change many more aspects of these principles as our lives become more accessible, personalized and localized.