InfoSearchMedia Goes Public - Now Trading on board

[Brett_Tabke]

The first major SEO/M company to go public in quite some time:

[quotes.nasdaq.com...]

[biz.yahoo.com...]

[ebound]

Is anyone thinking of investing? Any thoughts on this as long term investment?

[fredw2005]

Hmmm....very interesting. I'm glad to see some positive search industry news that doesn't involve Google or Microsoft. Hopefully this trend will continue. As for Infosearch Media, they seem to have a sound business model, experienced management, and some solid product offerings in an industry that is poised for big growth. Sounds pretty good to me.

[Shak]

do we have any of their CLIENTS in da house?

Shak

[EliteWeb]

Ive seen some of the money these firms can bring in as far as investment it seems like a good choice. However I dont have any more money to spend on stocks yet :D

Congrats for maken it there :)

[ogletree]

That is weird. They don't even own infosearch.com. Why would they change their name when they don't own the root of it. They don't rank for any of the terms in their name. Also they don't presnet themselves as an SEO company they present themselves as content writers at $250 a page.

[stuntdubl]

From the press release on yahoo:

Finally, the company provides web analytic software and other tools to help online marketers analyze their site visitors and improve their return on investment

Sounds like they also have some analytic systems ogletree. Having an in house analytics system that can be more easily customized and automated is a big plus.

Really only a handful of things (in my mind) you could valuate an SEO/ Internet marketing company on.

-Human resources/ intellectual property (good people)
-Quality of Analytics/ Automation of systems
-"Network" reach (content, ad inventory)
-Client base
-Vision (good management)

It looks to me like they are very strong in all these areas in comparison with the other large firms. The future of SEO is simple (much more than we'd like it to be probably): content and links. They realized this quite a while ago, and have been hoarding both as much as possible.

[johnser]

They're great on the content side for sure ("200 writers")- but what do they do for links?
Their main offering that we've encountered when speaking to clients is a content-rich subdomain on articleinsider - seems to work fairly ok.

Hope they do well
J

[ogletree]

The only reason I said that they mainly do content is that I have seen them at 2 conferences now and that is their marketing stratagy. They say they write content that is search engine friendly. They never told me they are an SEO company or that they can do my stats. The main focus of their marketing is that they are writers.

[MatthewHSE]

If I invest in this SEO company, will Google penalize my site? ;)

[moe2000]

I've been an Infosearch Media client for about 2 years now - back when they were still a small firm called Traffic Logic. Speaking from a client perspective I have been very happy with them. I've dealt with a lot of SEO/M companies in the past and most have left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but Infosearch Media is the only one who I still do business with. I've bought both traffic and content from them and they have always delivered. Back when I signed up they were just a small "boutique" company, now it looks like they are on their way to becoming an industry leader.

Good luck to them.

[christopher w]

Ended up for the day - nice job folks and good luck.

Last Sale $ 3.40
Change Net / % 0.09 2.72%
Best Bid / Ask $ 3.32 / $ 3.35
Today's High / Low $ 3.40 / $ 3.30
Share Volume 197,850

[Slone]

<snip>

Interesting site and information... Maybe going public will help them develop their site more.
Good evening

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:39 pm (utc) on Jan. 9, 2005]
[edit reason] offtopic [/edit]

[garyr_h]

<snip>

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:40 pm (utc) on Jan. 9, 2005]
[edit reason] want new topics - start a new thread [/edit]

[moe2000]

McMohan,

Organic SEO is what they did for me and I think they did a great job - most of my traffic comes from their organic listings.

As for the Firefox/Safari/Opera compatibility issue, I checked out their sites this morning and they all looked fine to me. Must have just been a fluke.

[FridayNight]

What now? To invest or not?

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, they changed their name to InfoSearchMedia - don't confuse it with similar names.

>anyone thinking of...

yes.

It is clear that seo/sem is a confusing business. The public needs to be continually educated. SEO/M firms will serve the same niche as ad agencies once did (hence the name infosearchMEDIA).

[nate_king1]

I don't get what the heck they do? They write content and sell it? Clueless.

[moe2000]

I'll try to answer as best as I can from what I know:

Infosearch is an internet marketing company that brings targeted visitors to your website. They do this in several ways:

1. You can sponsor a relevant section of Article Insider (an About.com style site covering practically every topic under the sun)

2. You can have them write content for your own website

3. You can have them build you a search engine friendly site from scratch

That is about it as far as I understand it. I have personally used them for numbers 1 and 2 and they did a good job on both in my opinion. You should check out their website for more info. They can probably explain themselves better than I can ;)

[nuevojefe]

Their sites do receive plenty of traffic however questionable their practices may or may not be. (Mostly just knocks on the claim that the article contributors are in fact "experts" on their given subject(s))

Their staple offering seems to be pay per click referrals from their Article Insider property along with copywriting services.

Originally they had many small niche sites but eventually abondoned them (with some healthy 301s AFAIR) in order to consilidate everything on Article... Nice move before the google-freeze.

[ogletree]

Like any other business you don't have to be good at what you claim to do. You just have to convince the general public that you do. You would be surprised how many people make purchases and business decisions based on perception rather than hard facts. I'm not saying they are bad just that don't have to be good. All they have to do is be famous. These guys are very expensive so they only deal with people with deep pockets.

[oilman]

>>These guys are very expensive so they only deal with people with deep pockets.

quite the contrary - if you buy traffic on a per click basis they are consistently far cheaper than Adwords or Overture

[moe2000]

I agree with oilman. The reason I originally signed up with these guys is that they weren't expensive.

[GorgiasPR]

I really liked the concept when I spoke with a salesperson at SES in Chicago. MOstly that they don't charge you for traffic that the articles hosted on their site send to you. What did not appeal to me (I was asking about their article writing service) were the fees. If I remember correctly, it's a few hundred dollars per optimized page which takes me out of the mix as I suppose it will do for most SMBs.

[tonyjackson]

Long time reader, first time poster (love the site). I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. I've had ISM working for me for a while now and I can tell you that they are pretty stand-up guys. Way cheaper than Overture.

[barcelona]

I am thinking of using their services? anything I should know before I sign on the dotted line?

[tonyjackson]

Good guys. I recommend them. If you have any concerns, just ask them detailed questions until you are satisfied. That's what I did.

[tictoc]

I am really caught up on their business model. I use InfoSearch Media for PPC on Article Insider and they expect you to just sit money there with no return with no interest for months until you start getting clicks to your site.

This doesn't make sense to me because you are loosing interest from your bank account with money tied up with them. Why can't they just have you guarantee money by a small deposit and the rest of the amount negotiated by a contract (LIKE MOST MEDIA ADVERTISING BUYS). I used to work in radio buying advertising and all advertising buys were done by contract and invoice billing. There has to be a better way for Infosearch. The reps there keep saying "we have done it for three years" and are not flexible at this point.

They will have to start showing more flexibility to compete.

[barcelona]

That is Exactly the problem I have.... give them 2-5K and let it sit there!

If the model is so successful why not just charge me monthly or accroding to the expected traffic?

[tictoc]

I am glad I am not the only one that thinks this.. They act like I am nuts for saying it on the phone. I think the company has potential but HEY do one thing - LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMER!