Function Eight SEO Case Study

Martin Abert from the IT outsourcing company, Function Eight, explains the benefits SEO in Auckland has had for him and his clients…

Q. Martin can you tell us about Function Eight?

Function Eight started in 2000. We are an outsourced IT department, so we handle all the IT requirements for small to medium businesses. This includes everything from infrastructure, cabling, firewalls, server, hardware and software purchases, computer maintenance as well as website maintenance and hosting.

Q. So companies can outsource their entire IT support requirements through Function Eight?

Absolutely, we take away all the headaches. We also handle all communication with other third party vendors as well, telephone companies, internet service providers, it doesn’t matter we handle it.

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“We were outside the top 100 in the search engines

and within less than two months you got us to number

three.”

– Martin Abert

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Q. What motivated you to look into SEO as a way of promoting your business?

It’s quite interesting actually. We have clients that are IT companies as well, and while they have their areas of expertise, they will have an appalling website for example. Even though they have the technical ability to do it, they simply don’t get around to it. The fascinating thing is we have had our website up since we rebranded in 2006. The website just sits there; we generate business through referral and not through search engine traffic. But as part of providing a website service for our clients, we have to focus on search engine optimization for them. When you guys popped up on the same floor as us it was the perfect opportunity to look at a relationship. The results have been absolutely astounding in terms of our own Function Eight website.

Q. Where were you ranking before for your keyword terms and where are you ranking now?

We picked three keyword terms. Even after your advice we knew the most competitive one right from the start was website development. The obvious assumption is that a company who can do website development can focus on search engine optimisation. We were outside the top 100 in the search engine results and within less than two months you guys got us up to number three.

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“My technical staff couldn’t conceive how it was possible to

change the ranking within such a short time. So you have

proven us wrong!”

– Martin Abert

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Q. You’ve got great results now, but were you ever skeptical about what we could achieve?

Of course I was skeptical because it’s such an incredibly competitive sector and we’ve applied some of the basic rules ourselves. We’ve never done it in a decent, sustained manner which is why we were never successful at it. So I was skeptical, no questions about it, as were my technical staff. They couldn’t conceive how it was possible to change the ranking within such a short time frame. So you have proven us wrong!

What is the next step for your website?

Again on the advice from you guys. Now that we have achieved these rankings and are number one for outsourced IT support, number two for IT outsourcing and number three for website development. What we can do now is take our foot off the pedal slightly for those key phrases and start focusing on others. We’ve sat down today and picked another three, we have also picked some pages that will promote those keywords. That’s the program for the next couple of months, and then we will continue to work on different keywords until we’ve raised the profile of the entire website.

Q. So it’s an ongoing SEO strategy?

It’s absolutely an ongoing online strategy and it’s an ongoing learning curve for us. If we can turn every referral we get from Google into business that’s a great result. But it’s also about our own learning and passing that knowledge onto our own online reputation management clients.

Q. What would you say to any other business owner out there looking to optimize their website?

It’s a bit like driving a flash car that no one gets to see. You can develop a lovely website but if it’s not going to be found by people then there isn’t much point. So as we have already done, we brought you guys in as our experts, and it’s all to the benefit of us and our clients.