AN Osborne Park-based web site optimisation company is literally punching through its office walls to accommodate increasing growth.
AN Osborne Park-based web site optimisation company is literally punching through its office walls to accommodate increasing growth.
Next month, ineedhits.com will remove a wall to an ad-joining office space in order to gain an extra 80 square meters – the third time the company has required additional space in the past two years.
Ready to move in is a new management team that includes an online media manager, an IT manager and a segment manager (to work with major partners). They will join a recently appointed HR manager and an in-house accountant.
The company is also in the process of recruiting several web developers.
ineedhits.com chief operating officer Roy Pinto said the company’s strong growth began two years ago and was at the point where managers were required.
“We employ 50 people; two years ago it was 20,” he said.
“It has mainly been in IT. That area has grown from four people to 14 in two years.”
The company posted a $5.3 million revenue figure last financial year and Mr Pinto expects that to reach $9.5 million in the next financial year.
ineedhits.com was started by 21-year-old Clay Cook in his parents’ house seven years ago. It has grown significantly since, coming fifth in BRW’s recent ‘fast 100’.
Mr Pinto said a consolidation in the search engine market was helping ineedhits.com.
“What we do is make sure that the formatting, from a coding point of view, is up to scratch. There are thousands of search engines but we are largely concerned with the top 20. That is where 99.9 per cent of people search,” he said.
“Each search engine has its own algorithm. We look at the coding of key words and meta-data and make sure it meets the requirements of several search engines. We work out what the search engine requires in terms of formatting.
“If you do not have the right wording then your website won’t be found. You want to make sure your website has key words so it will be easily found through searches.”
innedhits.com has been se-curing relationships with major search engines for a number of years and most recently was able to sneak into Yahoo’s coding system, thanks to its buy out of Inktomi.
“Inktomi is a major database that we got into a while ago. It’s a major database that many of the search engine use,” Mr Pinto said.
“It was just bought out by Yahoo and now we’ve got a back-door listing. It gives us greater scope. We can get more hits for more people.”
He said the company’s recent growth has largely come through brand recognition in the US.
“We hit the mainstream in the US. We sponsor major search engine strategies conferences and have become very well known,” Mr Pinto said.
“We play their game. We’ve got the yoyos, the pens, the caps, the notepads. Our website is designed to be a get in, buy, and get out. That’s how they like it.”
Although 90 per cent of ineedhits.com’s business is in America Mr Pinto said the team was happy operating from Perth.
“We did look at opening in the US. It has its advantages and disadvantages,” he said.
“The labour costs and doing business in Australia is much cheaper.
“The technology that we are introducing is worldclass.”.
