FourEyesSquad

About a month ago, I was introduced to Ambit Energy by one of my colleagues.  It is supposed to be the next big thing since the deregulation of phone companies back in the mid-80s.

First I was hesitant to do it because let’s face it, I suck in selling.  But I also realized that selling is not just for salespeople.  We do sell ourselves regularly to our boss, our co-workers, in a job interview, heck even to our kids (or parents).  The only person that I do not have to sell myself to is to my wife, that’s because she bought me wholesale along with some coupons for savings therefore I’m fully paidoff (lol). Anyway, I myself have to sell technology solutions to my clients in a regular basis.  So selling is really part of our lives, whether you like it or not. 

The problem that I see in this Ambit Energy Business is the negative conotation that comes with network marketing.  A lot of people won’t even give it a chance because of the undesired perception of this kind of business.  Some people also says that the only ones that makes a lot of money are people on the top.  My rebuttal on that is even in McDonalds, the executive management makes more money than the pimply face 17 year old that works as a cashier.  That’s nothing new!

In addition, the fact remains that you will probably have a better chance seeing in your lifetime companies like Enron, MCI, Arthur Andersen and the likes cheating their employees’ and stockholder’s hard earned monies than a Network Marketing company running off with your enrollment fee.  But nevertheless, I took the Ambit Energy challenge and coined it M.S.C., which stands for MLM-SEO-Challenge. 

On Sunday, November 18, 2007 I signed up to the network marketing business.  My past experience with network marketing businesses weren’t really, well, let’s just say I kept my technology day job.  After signing up for $400 and the $20 monthly website that they provide to consultants (http://cedcas.goambit.com), I started reviewing the business model and payouts.  Looking at the consultant site, I kinda’ started formulating a plan to optimize it.  If I can bring enough traffic for certain keywords and phrases, I should be able to get the ball rolling without taking too much of my time from my clients by calling people to sell this, not to include the avoidance factor that it can eventually create.

With the help of Jolly my dear project manager based off Manila, we were able to

replicate the consultant site, but this time it can be modified for on-page optimization.  The following are our checklist of things to do:

1.  - On-page Optimization
2.  - Keyword Research and Domain Acquisition
3.  - Competitor Research
4.  - Off-page Optimization which includes Link Building Strategy

We also picked up several domain names that will eventually help bring in traffic.  We’ve chosen ConsumerEnergySavings.com (Consumer Energy being one of the main keyphrases) along with other specially selected domain names.

By the following Thursday, November 29, 2007,  our proof of concept site is up and running and it contains all the necessary meta tags, keywords, titles an the needed on-page optimization for Consumer Energy Savings website.

The main keywords for this AMBIT ENERGY SEO challenge are: Ambit Energy, Ambit Energy Business, Consumer Energy and Consumer Energy Savings. 

Google results as of December 4, 2007:

• ambit energy #71 (not bad for less than 2 weeks)
• ambit energy business #not found
• consumer energy #37 (not bad for less than 2 weeks)
• consumer energy savings #2 (whoalla!)

Google results as of December 6, 2007:

• ambit energy #69 (welcome to the PAGE 6 of SERP!)
• ambit energy business #44 (whoalla!)
• consumer energy #39 (slipped 2 positions - have to do something about this)
• consumer energy savings #2 (still the same)

Only 2 weeks of work with those results, I really think that this will be an awesome ride.  There are still lots of work that needs to be done, a lot more competitor research and a lot more of sleepness nights.  So if you’re reading this and  want to pick up some SEO basics in a real world scenario, hang-in there for I will do my best to provide a regular status as we progress through this MLM-SEO-CHALLENGE.

 UPDATE (12/9/2007 | 12/12/2007 | 12/16/2007):

GOOGLE (keyword ranking)

• ambit NF | NF | NF
• ambit energy 44 | 39 | 33
• ambit energy business 39 | 46 | 38
• ambit energy business model NF | NF | 6
• consumer energy 34 | 32 | 37
• consumer energy savings 2 | 2 | 2
• join ambit 7 | 14 | 10

YAHOO (keyword ranking)

• ambit NF | NF | NF
• ambit energy 22 | 23 | 23
• ambit energy business 12 | 12 | 12
• ambit energy business model NF | NF | 5
• consumer energy NF | NF | NF
• consumer energy savings 6 | 6 | 6
• join ambit 83 | 83 | 82

ALTA VISTA (keyword ranking)

• ambit NF | NF | NF
• ambit energy 18 | 19 | 18
• ambit energy business 9 | 9 | 9
• ambit energy business model NF | NF | 4
• consumer energy NF | NF | NF
• consumer energy savings 5 | 6 | 5
• join ambit 47 | 50 | 48

NF stands for Not Found.  As you can see, it’s starting to propogate and our site is now becoming known to major Search Engines.  We are working daily in building relevant inbound links going to our site.  Until next time and please keep the questions coming, I’ve been getting great questions since we started this MSC journey. 

If you have any SEO Projects or initiatives for your web presence, don’t hesitate to email us at foureyes@foureyessquad.com or call 800-406-4522.