‘Oldest’ SEO firm celebrates a milestone

Staff at a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company in Ipswich are celebrating its 15th anniversary.

iMarketing is thought to be one of the longest-running – if not the oldest – SEO firm in Suffolk and was formed at a time when there were few firms in the UK offering such a service.

Since then, the firm has gone from strength to strength, working with businesses across East Anglia, London and Europe and delivering integrated marketing campaigns to help businesses succeed online.

Founder Rachel Manning said: “I am delighted to mark this milestone today. This is a really exciting industry to be working in and every day is different.”

“I set up this company in 2001, having just finished college, to fill a gap in the market. It was a leap of faith at the time, as no-one really knew what SEO was. Now SEO is a fundamental requirement for nearly all businesses – large and small.

“Competiton back then was very low. Now it is fierce. Our job is to find the best way to promote client’s products or services to reach their target customers and compete against the big players.”

Mrs Manning began as the firm’s sole employee, operating from her father’s office in Alder Carr Farm, Needham Market. He was running a web design company at the time, and saw that search marketing was developing as a new service in America. Rachel worked for him for a year, promoting this new service to his client base, and then split it off as a separate company in 2001.

Since then, the firm has risen rapidly and iMarketing now has a staff operating from offices at Basepoint Business Centre in Ipswich.