SEO and Ads

I worked in a clean-tech start-up several years ago. The life in a start-up is a roller coaster. That was an exciting experience that let me do something new and something I had never experienced everyday.

In 2011, I launched a carbon offset service as a new business in that company. The carbon offset was a bit buzzing at that time due to the end of the Kyoto Protocol. Not only regulated companies with massive CO2 emissions but also consumers and individuals started to buy carbon-offset products. We tried to get into that business as a new player, who provides carbon offset credits (emission reduction credits) to help the companies who want to sell carbon offset products.

There was another first-mover in the market, who had a famous advocator as a CEO of the company. Because of its well-established brand image, the first mover always had been featured first in the media. If people googled "carbon offset," then you could see that company coming on the top of the list.

We, as a follower, initially had no presence in the market. That was when we primarily focused on SEO to brought our page ranks higher. We also spent significant investment in Ads.

That eventually made our service coming on top of the google search result.

Interestingly, this web search result impacted our real business. From a certain period, we became known as one of the most successful carbon offset service companies in Japan. The google search results boosted by the SEO and Ads reinforced our brand and created enormous business opportunities in reality. It was a great lesson that taught me the importance of SEO and Ads. Not only for the companies who live in online businesses but also off-line businesses can benefit from search results tremendously,