Digital Marketing Firm Exceeds 1,000% Growth in Less than 5 years: SocialSEO

“We work with businesses in a variety of industries that look to dominate the Search Engine results and Social Media Channels.” 

In today’s ever-changing and ever-expanding digital world, every marketer faces one challenge or another while trying to establish a market for his/her brand. Digital marketing and advertising are important tools for reaching customers in the modern age. However, finding success can prove to be a real challenge thanks to the shifting landscape and changes in the way consumers interact online. Specializing in SEO, Social Media and PPC marketing, is the unique digital marketing agency SocialSEO. 

The company works with entrepreneurs, marketing executives and global brands seeking to dominate their industry on the web. With a team specialized in specific areas of digital marketing, SocialSEO is headquartered in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado. SocialSEO’s customer base has a strong national and international presence, and as a Google Premier Partner, it has been involved in many of Google’s first beta test and product rollouts. SocialSEO offers a refreshing approach to digital marketing, and provides a complete package of an integrated approach, blending Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Pay-Per-Click (Paid Search) marketing and Content Marketing. 

Meet Greg Walthour, Founder and CEO: 

What led to the inception of the company?

I started my career as a commercial real estate broker. My boss asked me, “Can you get our website listed higher in Yahoo?” (this was before Google) and I started taking an online class to learn how the search engines worked. I quickly learned of the potential impact SEO could have on a website’s ranking in the search engines. This made me passionate about internet marketing. I resigned from my real estate job, and started offering SEO from my basement. I was motivated to set up the company because I felt I could bring a great value to businesses wanting to have a strong Internet presence.

Tell us about your first product launch.

Text link ads and basic search engine optimization is where it all started. We were working with the early search engines like Yahoo, Web Crawler, Alta Vista and Northern Lights. What started as a simple algorithm has now become a much more complex process. We’ve come a long way over the last 20 years and Digital Marketing has really grown up. 

Enlighten us about your first project. How successful was it?

My first project was SEO for a plastic surgeon. It’s where I learned that SEO was not a “one and done” project. SEO is an ongoing process and a website needs constant improvement, more of a long-term investment. “If you sit still too long, your competition will outrank you.” Ultimately, the project was very successful and the doctor stayed with us for many years, until he retired. 

What attributes to the expansion of the company, as you approach 60 employees?

• A strong set of values - we hire, train and promote based on these values. It’s important that the whole company be ethics and value focused.
• Clients’ success and happiness- if we aren’t growing our clients’ businesses, we don’t get to grow either.
• A great culture for our employees - our success is built on their success. If you do right by them, and give them a fantastic place to work, employees will stay with you long term.

Justify your organization’s consistent growth.

We put the customer first and we work hard at making them more successful. Being in the marketing business, we were also able to grow our business and produce our own leads. “Leads, for any business, are Gold.” Since the company’s inception, over 97% of our leads have been “inbound leads” generated from the internet. Very little cold calling has ever taken place. Customers find us through Google, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube and Twitter – and then they call us. It’s a salesperson’s dream. We transfer this exact lead generation model to our Clients and they tend to stay with us for a long time.

What were the life principles that guided you?

I learned great work ethic from my dad. He has always treated people right regardless of what that meant to the bottom line. He taught me to treat customers well and to value relationships. He was, and still is, the hardest working person I’ve ever met. He also taught me to never quit. I have had my share of setbacks along the way and those values instilled early on have paid off. I could never thank him enough.

What’s the roadmap ahead for SocialSEO?

Video is huge and will continue to be a big focus and growth area for SocialSEO. Video spans across all platforms including: Websites, SEO, Social Media and PPC. We are excited about the possibilities. I see us continuing on our mission to improve the lives of our Clients and Employees and growing on the journey of helping other businesses succeed.

Mastermind Behind the Growth 

Greg Walthour, Founder and CEO: A pioneer to the search engine optimization industry, Walthour has over 20 years experience in digital marketing. He founded the digital marketing agency in the late 90’s – now rebranded as SocialSEO. He is joined in business by his wife, and President of SocialSEO, Darcie Walthour. Greg is a graduate of Georgia Southern University with a degree in Business Administration. He enjoys camping, ATVing, traveling and photographing Alaskan brown bears, bald eagles, tornados and the Northern Lights.

“Our passion is helping businesses generate more traffic, more leads and more business by improving their online presence.”