Icon from the AMC show MadMen

You might be surprised. You’ve worked on your company’s SEO and are feeling pretty good. (Or moderately good.)

But hang on a minute… you may be missing something.

Take our own firm’s experience as an example. Differentiating a marketing firm in a few words (e.g. search terms) can be surprisingly difficult. Standing out in online search engines from the four zillion competitors within Western Massachusetts (even just greater Springfield) is an ongoing, albeit fun, project.

One reason? The search terms people use to search for a firm like ours are not always words vSA would first or ideally use to describe itself. In MadMen days, a firm like van Schouwen Associates was almost always called an advertising agency. Despite the fact that now vSA provides value through more holistic business-to-business (B2B) strategic marketing including interactive, public relations, media relations and a whole host of other stuff that is more effective than ads alone, we find that many prospects still type in the search term “advertising agency” or “ad agency” when they Google. Even though they don’t want 20th century-style straight-up advertising, but instead maybe a grassroots communications program, or eblasts or consulting. Even though they may be searching for what vSA does.

Do you know what search terms your missing prospects are typing in – and then finding your competitor? There are many tools you can use to find out – or, hey, just ask your “advertising agency”!

A little background: van Schouwen Associates is not a New York advertising agency. van Schouwen Associates makes its home in far-less-visible Longmeadow, Massachusetts, right outside Springfield, close to Hartford, CT and reasonably adjacent to Boston. While it lacks Madison Avenue glamour, it boasts easy parking and two Starbucks outlets and is therefore an excellent location from which to serve clients up and down the eastern seaboard. We do a good deal of marketing and sales outreach, which is only right, since van Schouwen Associates is, after all, a marketing and public relations firm.

Still, every unexpected incoming inquiry is refreshing and welcome. In fact, we’re often surprised by the companies that find us, and by HOW they find us. We learn from their experience, and by learning, we can provide better support to our clients.

Aside from referral business, most prospects who find vSA find us on the Web. Like most of our clients, we want this to happen increasingly often, and to involve increasingly attractive prospects. Here’s what we’ve learned…

Lesson 1: SEO is tough when you’re in an overcrowded field and when the words often used to describe your services also have other meanings and are all over the Web (take marketing, public relations, consulting, strategy, and B2B as just a few examples of terms nearly as common as pizza or gas station).

Lesson 2: It’s sometimes surprising what prospects are looking for, and the very specific terms that allow them to find you. We’ve had people call from across the country because they Googled B2B Web applications for mobiles.

Lesson 3: Sometimes prospects find your company because they’ve asked Google a question and you’ve already put the answer online! Prospects will likely Google questions about how to solve a problem that your company’s product or service can indeed solve, and therefore your content marketing should be sure to ask that question, maybe even in an FAQ section on the company Web site, or in your corporate blog.

Lesson 4: Blogs, editorial/media coverage, social media, and other non-sales-promotion-y outreach are credible, well-read and visible, both in real life and on Google (vSA generally focuses on Google for SEO because it certainly holds the lion’s share of the search market; sorry, Yahoo).

Think content first, sales second. When you offer value and credibility, sales opportunities often follow.

Lesson 5: Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman) said it all the time. He didn’t benefit a bit from it, but your company may derive a modicum of wisdom from the classic phrase: “I was always well-liked.”

Be well-liked… or at least well-known. Show up on incoming links on the Web. Comment on relevant blogs and link to your business site. Get listed in directories. Use relevant affiliate links (relevant ones only please).

Lesson 6: Content rules. Make it meaningful. Make it authentic.

Lesson 7: Keep tweaking your online presence. It’s a rare company that can’t show up better than it does online. Except maybe Facebook or Google.

Work well independently?

Telecommuting, flex time and virtual business models are all the rage. Outsourcing projects rather than committing to long-term staff additions is popular now, too. No surprise there. The current state of the economy (I can barely wait until we’re no longer using that phrase quite so often!) demands efficiency, forces uncertainty, and makes available some stellar candidates with whom to work. In other words, a lot of great people are out of their former 9-5 salaried work routines. Even the 2010 census work is moving faster than expected because of the availability of outstanding temporary labor. Oh, that’s not much of a silver lining, perhaps, but there it is.

These new ways of working bode well for some businesses, and for some individuals. Streamlined processes, virtual meetings, work from anywhere (okay, let’s not text from a moving car – work from almost anywhere) are a boon for the highly motivated, organized and talented. But what about everyone else?

One of the concerns many thought leaders express about the new economy is that it yields work for the best, brightest and most driven (now including all that consulting, flexible positions, telecommuting, and other non-traditional arrangements). It also continues to offer a range of service work that, at least for now, requires a human presence (from health care to fine cooking). And there are still a number of U.S. manufacturing jobs, although that number continues to dwindle.

But what else? There’s a gap, likely to continue broadening, where there used to be more jobs for the rest of the workforce. As the economy continues to shift, what happens to the worker who needs the structure of an office to maintain motivation? The person who shows up for the assembly line? Where are the jobs for the capable person willing to work steadily all day or night but simply not constituted to come up with lots of big ideas, manage time completely independently or work alone? If you’ve ever been an employer or a manager, you know that these people make up the majority of many a workplace – that’s the way the world is and probably always has been.

This week, Time magazine’s article The Workforce: Where Will the New Jobs Come From? provides hope that there will be new jobs. That’s good. But for any leader or citizen who hopes to see the economy truly thrive again, there’s that other question, not so easy to answer. Will there be enough jobs for the great majority of working class and middle class Americans who do well working for a company, who respond to expectations set by management and who would like to put in a good day’s work for decent pay, then head home to their real lives? That’s a lot of people, and we all need to put our imaginations to work to make sure our economy continues to fully employ and value what continues to be the majority of the population.

Continued funding programs for better roads and bridges? Encouraging young people to go into trades such as plumbing or electrical work, in which shortages are predicted? Putting more adults in the schools to work with the kids? Opening more child care centers, which require staffing? Offering real live tech support? Human cashiers at the supermarket?

What could work and be valuable? What do you think?