Colorado success stories: Page 1 Solutions

Editor’s note: This is another in a series of Colorado company success stories as told by CEOs and business owners.

When Dan Goldstein left a Denver law firm in 1993 to join an area marketing firm as general counsel, he never expected to one day be president of an online marketing company. But in the mid-1990’s, Dan began to see the need of many professionals – doctors, dentists, and attorneys – to help them navigate the issues of website marketing and search engine positioning.

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2011, Page 1 Solutions has grown to 54 employees. Page 1 Solutions offers its professional clients the full breadth of online marketing, including website design, writing, search engine optimization, video, blogging, reputation management, and social media. Page1 Solutions was recognized as one of the 2010 Colorado Companies to Watch. Dan Goldstein, founder and CEO, and I recently met to discuss the company’s growth.

You’re competing with legions of website developers and online marketers. What do you do differently?

Our approach is to outwork the competition. Content is the key to success on the web. We get better results because we develop more -and better content. Our competitors typically do search optimization, list the site on some directories, and then they stop. We work with clients, month-after-month – to continually add content and interest to the sites so that the clients are getting top results. The result in our business is measured not just by high positioning on a search engine. It means more qualified leads for clients.

Why have you focused on doctors, dentists and lawyers?

We know what works in their professions and can help direct their efforts to avoid common pitfalls. We can do a better job and get better results than a generalist firm. We work continuously to help doctors, dentists, and lawyers develop content. In many ways, due to our focus and expertise, we have transitioned into marketing “consultants,” advising our clients on specific strategies so that they can achieve their objectives.

Doctors, dentists and lawyers are very smart, very busy, and can be very demanding. They also tend to be data-driven. It is important for our team to gain the client’s respect and confidence. Our staff has deep experience in these professional fields. We spend a lot of time training our staff, teaching them how to respond to clients. We also arm them with data to backup and support information to present to clients to reinforce the recommended direction.

How have you seen online marketing change over the past 15 years?

In the early days, it used to be a matter of adding meta tags to the website so that you could receive high rankings on search engines. Google changed all that. Today, our biggest challenge is to keep content fresh, updated and relevant so that clients remain highly placed. Video has become very important. Our clients who have video content on their websites experience a better lead conversion (close rate) of new patients and clients.

One of your services is “reputation management.” What is that?

Reputation management has become a big issue. In any professional field, your reputation is key. Patients, clients and prospects will comment on blogs, ratings services, etc. We help our clients solicit opinions and comments from their happy patients and clients so that we can build a positive profile. All of us eventually will have a dissatisfied customer – possibly one who felt they did not receive good service. We help our clients try to resolve the issue with the patient and then post the resolution alongside the complaint. Prospective patients (clients) can then see how the professional deals with a problem. Without proactive reputation management, only the dissatisfied customers make their opinions known, causing a potential problem for the professional. By providing a “balance,” the professional can take a positive role in managing his professional reputation.

What are your biggest challenges?

Our biggest challenge is the 800-pound gorilla – Google. When Google changes its search algorithms, we have to check through all of our clients to verify their positioning. Fortunately, our clients have remained well-positioned through the various Google changes and updates.

Tell us about the acquisition you made last year.

We acquired MegaHunter, which develops websites across all industries. This acquisition has helped us learn to develop websites faster and more cost effectively. Ultimately, it will enable us to spend less time on design and development and more time on strategy and lead development for clients.
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