Search Engine Optimization Success Story

How a repo company in Houston got noticed on the web by using WebWeaverUSA
and SEO Houston

The Automobile Recovery Bureau, Inc., of Houston, Texas is not an upstart new company. It is not an experiment. ARB was founded in 1947, and today has 32 full time employees. It is clearly the most established, professional repossession company in Texas.

In 2002 Google, Yahoo and MSN did not seem to care. If you typed the phrase Houston Repossession, or Houston Repo, into any search engine, the ARB site could not be found.

You could find little repo companies that had been in business a few months, you could find people selling repossessed mobile homes, and newspaper articles about repo men, but you could not find the ARB web site on a search engine. ARB President Brian Long wanted that to change.

He contacted John Michel, who owns the web design firm (WebWeaverUSA) that provided the ARB web site. Brian was told that the Internet is constantly changing; the search engines are always changing the algorithms they use to rank web sites, and he would need the services of a Search Engine Optimization specialist.

Both Brian Long and John Michel knew Jacob Wissler, who does Search Engine Optimization in the Houston area (SEO Houston). It was decided that ARB would purchase a new, upgraded web site from John Michel, and Wissler would go to work, promoting the site.

Jacob Wissler also gave John Michel input on the words used in the text of the site, and suggested changing URL. Both Wissler and Michel put in a lot of hours, working and reworking the text of the site.

Search engines attempt to deliver the most relevant search results. Search Engine Optimization is about providing a site which has the content that the search engines will identify as relevant to the search terms. In this case, the desired search terms were Houston Repo, and Houston Repossession. The goal was to create a site that would contain content relevant to those search terms.

In other words, the site needed to focus on that subject, if it was to be found under those search terms. A site that tries to address many different subjects does not rank well on any subject.

Directory listings are very important. ARB had been in Open Directory for years. The Yahoo directory is also very important. All of this works together, to show the search engines that a site is worthy of a good ranking.

The decision on how to rank a specific site is not made by a human. No one sits down at Google and says, hey, let’s make this site #1. It is all done by computer algorithms designed to evaluate many criteria and list the most relevant site first.

It worked. The new site was ranked #1 by Google, #1 by Yahoo, and #1 by MSN for the desired search terms - Houston Repo, and Houston Repossession. ARB had never thought of the Internet as a marketing tool, but now the phone was ringing, with calls from banks and finance companies all over the nation, that needed vehicles repossessed in Houston, Texas.

Repossession companies do not solicit business from the general public. They work for lenders, who normally find repo companies in directories, published by the major repossession trade associations. The idea of getting business from a web site was a new idea – an idea that was working.

In the spring of 2004 disaster struck. Brian looked on Google and his site wasn’t listed. He was still #1 on Yahoo and MSN, but Google had apparently changed their algorithm, and his site no longer ranked. This happens a lot. Search Engines are always trying to improve their system, and results change by the hour.

For the next month, Wissler worked very long hours, requesting changes in the ARB site, trying to find the right formula to please the new Google algorithm. After a month of trial and error, Wissler and Michel got it right. The ARB site was once again listed first on Google.

Many thanks to John Michel of WebWeaverUSA who was willing to get email from Wissler at 4:00am, and act upon it at that hour, to make the changes that needed to be made, and thanks to Brian Long of ARB who remained loyal to the men he had hired to do the job, and Jacob Wissler (SEO Houston).

In the end, results speak louder than words.