Directory:SearchGuru
| SearchGuru | |
| Type | Private Company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Malaysia |
| Key people | Larry Lim, Head of Sales & Marketing YC Ng, Head Of Operation |
| Industry | Digital Marketing Online Marketing |
| Products | Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Online Reputation Management (ORM) |
| Employees | 5 (2012) |
| Subsidiaries | larrylim.net seo.larrylim.net ibizclicks.com seocompany.my |
| Owner | Larry Lim |
| Contact | Level 30, The Gardens North Tower, Mid Valley City, 59200 Kuala Lumpur. +603.2035.9667 Web: SearchGuru |
| Reference | NAICS: 32311, 32312 Region: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Latitude: 3.11938 Longitude: 101.67590 |
SearchGuru was founded in 2011 by Larry Lim, one of the leading SEO Consultants in Singapore and Malaysia. It is a culmination of 6 years of providing SEO, ORM and AdWords services on a freelance basis. The formalization of SearchGuru is almost compulsory, in order to take advantage of the sterling reputation and bring the business to a new level.
Growth has been phenomenal and we’re receiving more than 150 enquiries a year from Singapore alone. That number does not even include phone-in and walk-in clients. Over the years, Larry has handled a variety of projects in different verticals, and for SMEs all the way to multi-nationals …even a personal project for a billionaire! He has been interviewed by the likes of Frost & Sullivan, trained C-level marketers and been invited to speak at industry events like Ad:Tech.
SearchGuru is a premium Search Engine Marketing company that puts our clients’ interest before profit. It will be like having your own SEM department, complete with technical consultants to link-builders and copywriters. The only difference is you only pay a fraction of the costs. Larry Lim also consults behind-the-scene at a number of big agencies and service providers – working as “consultant to the consultants”. For example, he is Technical Consultant at Locus-T Sdn Bhd, an ISO-certified Internet Marketing company that was established in 1999. Larry also plays an advisory role at SigMax eServices Sdn Bhd, an MSC-status company that has been around since 2002.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Looking for a reliable SEO Company? At SearchGuru, our SEO methods have been developed, tested, refined and constantly updated since 2005. We are so good that we have put websites in the top 3 of local search results, for even one-word keywords like property, cars, jobs and lasik. In fact, we do not stop at just getting you good rankings, but ensure they translate into INCREASED traffic to your website!
Our SEO services includes the following:
- On-page SEO recommendations.
- Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools and sitemap setup.
- Google Places listing and optimization.
- Content writing of articles for link-building.
- Access to over 2,000 article directories.
- Access to a private network of over 1,000 blogs.
- Access to over 1,500 social accounts and 30,000 forums.
- Monthly reporting, including rank-tracking for up to 50 keywords.
- Up to RM2,000 credit for paid submissions.
- If companies like iProperty.com, Knight Frank, Singapore Press Holdings and Edelman can trust us with their website’s SEO, shouldn’t you?
SEO Services | The Process
Basically, SEO involves optimizing your website for better relevance and building backlinks to make it more “trustworthy”. The typical process:
1. Background research – study your industry, products/services and target market.
2. Keyword analysis – determine the best keywords to target.
3. On-page optimization – analyze website and recommend improvements.
4. Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, sitemap and Google Places – setup.
5. Backlink analysis and strategy – analyze client and competitor backlinks.
6. Content writing – write articles for link-building on content sites.
7. Link-building – build backlinks on web directories, article sites, blogs, etc.
8. More Link-building – build backlinks to your primary backlinks.
9. Monthly reporting – Analytics data, backlinks and website rankings.
Why Guaranteed SEO Services Is Bad
Many years ago, SEO was well regarded in Malaysia. The SEO Consultants that existed back then were real specialists, and they optimized client websites as if it was their own business. As the awareness picked up, more and more SEO “wannabes” joined the industry because they saw a business opportunity. Since these wannabes were more interested in making money than actually providing good SEO, they started slashing prices to attract clients …fast!
The more desperate ones went one step further and offered Guaranteed SEO. Soon, almost every SEO company in Malaysia joined the fray and offered their own version of rankings guarantee (yup, there are many versions), to stay competitive. As a potential SEO client, it is naturally difficult to pass up on cheap SEO combined with money-back guarantee. You would likely tell yourself: if it works, I’ll save money. But if it doesn’t, I’ll take my money back and THEN go to a real consultant.
Firstly, it’s unethical for anyone (other than the search engines themselves) to provide any form of guarantee. Even Google’s SEO Guidelines says this: “Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings…”. Secondly, the SEO Company will logically want to keep your money regardless of the outcome, because they would’ve spent time and money on your project. And to ensure that happens, they will play safe by targeting only easy to slightly difficult keywords. Hence, you are missing out on BIGGER opportunities.
Things get worse if they charged you a low fee. Because the lower they charge, the less time they have for your project – it’s simple business logic! They will have no choice but to use automated methods to save time and effort. Your articles are outsourced cheaply to India, Philippines and Vietnam, and your company is associated with poorly-written articles on content sites. In extreme cases, but which have happened before, a website can get penalized (i.e. pushed backwards by 50, 100, 150 positions) or banned (totally removed) by the search engines – an irrepairable damage. So, do you still believe in Guaranteed SEO?
How To Choose An SEO Company
With everyone and their neighbour offering SEO services in Malaysia these days, clients are having a headache deciding which SEO Company to engage. Here are some pointers to help you (hopefully) choose a good SEO Company:
1. Company Background & Track Record
- Ask the SEO Company how long have they been providing SEO services. You don’t want to engage a fly-by-night company that’s here today and gone tomorrow …along with your hard-earned money.
- Are they truly SEO specialists? If you’d look around, you’ll notice that even web hosting companies and web designers are providing SEO services these days, either to join the new Internet “gold rush” or to look for new sources of income because margins for their traditional business is being compressed.
- Ask for examples of websites that the SEO Company has worked on – see if they’re big clients or mom-and-pop shops. Check if those websites were optimized for the best keywords or easy keywords.
- Check the SEO Company’s own rankings. Any SEO Company worth their salt should be able to rank well for keywords like seo malaysia, seo company, seo consultant, seo services or even seo.
2. SEO Methods & What’s Included
- Ask the SEO Company how will they optimize your website. I have come across an SEO Company whose only method for link-building was by commenting on blogs. Seriously!
- Will their methods involve link exchanges or link buying? Will you need to put a backlink to their website?
- Ask if they will just give on-page recommendations or will they implement for you too. Will they set up Analytics and Webmaster Tools, install sitemaps and create/claim your Google Places listing as well?
- Which search engines is the SEO Company targeting? How long can you expect before seeing any results?
- What reports will the SEO Company be providing? Does it include monthly keyword rankings report, and for which search engines?
3. Fees, Guarantees & Payment
- Ask about extra charges. Some SEO Companies have low service fee but charge you seperately for directory submissions, article writing, SEO maintenance, etc.
- If the company provides a ranking guarantee, ask exactly what are they guaranteeing. I have come across a company that guarantees to get x number of keywords (from a customer-chosen y number of keywords) into the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing – combined! Considering that Google receives 80% of the total search volume and the top 4 organic results get more than 70% of the clicks, doesn’t the guarantee sound like marketing gimmick and nothing more?
- What is the payment schedule like? Most SEO Companies will require you to make full or partial payments upfront. Will you be comfortable paying upfront?
Conclusion:
It is not easy choosing an SEO Company in Malaysia, especially with so much “noise” in the market. Almost everyone claims to be the best or no. 1 SEO Company, and most provide money-back guarantee too. What’s worse is, “taking a chance” on just any SEO Company can get your website penalized (-50,-100, etc. type penalty) or totally removed from the index, in a worse case scenario.
Hence, you should take your time to evaluate the companies – use the guide above. Get a few quotes and see which ones fit your budget but also sounds reasonable. Definitely do NOT just engage the cheapest because real SEO work requires many man-hours, lots of content and advanced tools.
A desperate SEO Company may accept your job for a ridiculously low fee, but they will cut corners in the end – remember that these companies are also running a business.
SEO Tools
Research, Tracking & Reporting Tools, FREE for SearchGuru Clients
We have a special private area for clients, where you can access a variety of advanced tools – a first in Malaysia and Singapore! View your site’s Analytics, research competitor backlinks, track keyword rankings, monitor brand mentions and more.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing receive over 1 billion searches a day. SEM lets you promote your business to search engine users in your TARGET MARKET and who are already INTERESTED in your products and services. You can optimize your website for increased visbility in the organic search results with SEO, or advertise through PPC programs like Google AdWords. Got damaging content about your brand in the search results? Fix it with ORM.
AdWords
AdWords is Google’s online advertising program that lets you advertise on their search engine, as well as, affiliated content sites. It is arguably the biggest online advertising platform, allowing you to reach out to 80% of the Internet population.
The advantages of AdWords are:
- Target by keyword and location.
- Text ads are cheaper and faster to produce.
- Publish your ads and start getting leads in under 1 hour.
- Charged only for action (pay-per-click) and not eyeballs.
- Set your own daily budget and maximum Cost per Click.
- Stop anytime – no commitments.
- Detailed campaign statistics.
Setup, Manage, Optimize & Report
While AdWords was designed as a DIY service, it takes knowledge, skills, experience and lots of time to create an OPTIMIZED campaign. If you don’t understand Keyword Matching or have a CTR below 3%, you should consider outsourcing. At SearchGuru, we help you setup and manage your Google AdWords campaign for a flat monthly fee. We also optimize your campaigns to ensure that you achieve high ad positions, low CPCs and great conversions. Then at the end of every month, we send you a campaign performance report.
Our Google AdWords services include:
1. Background research – study your industry, products/services and target market.
2. Keyword analysis – determine the best keywords to target.
3. Setup – set up the campaign, including Ad Groups and Ad Text.
4. Landing page – advise on creating better landing pages.
5. Optimize – optimize the campaigns for higher ad positions and lower CPCs.
6. Reporting – provide monthly campaign performance report.
SEO vs AdWords - Which is better
Sometimes we get asked by clients whether it’s better to spend money on SEO or Google’s AdWords. SEO is about optimizing your website to increase its rankings in the organic search results (left), while AdWords lets you put ads under the Sponsored Links area (right and sometimes, top).
First let us look at the advantages of SEO over AdWords:
1. Possibly cheaper in the long run and if you’re in a competitive niche.
2. People trust the organic results more than paid ads.
3. Organic receives roughly 75% of click distribution.
Now, lets look at the advantages of AdWords over SEO:
1. With AdWords, you get to choose any keyword to target.
2. You can get your ads out in minutes, compared to months for SEO.
3. There is more “certainty” of your ads showing up, compared to SEO.
We see SEO and AdWords as complementing each other. For example, we would run an AdWords campaign to mine for keywords to target for SEO (because Google’s Keyword Tool is not always accurate). We would also advise the client to let the AdWords campaign continue running, until the SEO starts to show results. In addition, you’d also maximize your visibility in the search results by running both. This is because some search engine users only look at paid ads, while others may have developed “ad-blindness” and only look at the organic results.
Naturally, you’d have to consider the CPCs and whether you’ll still be making money if the CPC is too high. For example, it’s not uncommon for the CPC to be RM5/click or higher for property-related keywords. This is the main reason why many property companies put in a lot of effort into SEO for their website.
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