Welcome to the Joomla SEO Club and Book

Scoreboard Media started me on this train of thought about six months ago by asking:

Last year, we pointed out that very few Joomla companies employ more than five people, and don't see anything changes this year, next or in fact any time soon. The simple fact is, there is a new business model emerging:

Companies have a core of 1 to 4 people, often equal in status. They specialize in a particular niche and then they rely on partnerships with other similar, small companies to cover their other bases. Actual hiring seems to be a thing of the past.

Some Thoughts On Why This is Happening

• The stigma is gone. No-one really bats an eyelid anymore at small companies spread thinly. Maybe the turning point was 37 Signals having huge success with a dozen people in eight time zones.
  


• The online economy is going great. If you can design, if you can code or do SEO work, then the opportunity is there for anyone with a modicum of business sense to be their own boss. If the online economy takes a turn for the worse, people may start hunting salaried jobs again.
  


• Why do you need to be in the same office? Get an great looking website, online Project Management, an online fax number, a virtual PBX and you suddenly not being in the same office as your colleagues.


• The skills you need are so diverse. A company may need 3 designers and no coders one week and three coders, no designers the next. Hiring full time is highly capital intensive, especially in the U.S.


• Multiple revenue streams. There are lots of ways that companies can gain extra revenue that simply weren't available in the past. How much money did webdesign companies make from advertising ten years ago? Now its easy to whip up a network of Adsense sites and make enough to pad a company's income and ride out bad months.
  


• Freelancers are untrustworthy. Not personally, but in general. Why not strike up a partnership with another company that you know and trust? Plus, partnerships may have lost their stigma, but I'm not sure outsourcing has.
  

Who Can or Needs to Still Hire?

Small companies with a compelling brand will still be able to attract good talent. Good examples are SEOMoz and 37Signals. If you have an exciting, resume-building company name, plus venture capital funding and are located in a big city .... the world is still your hiring oyster.

Over to You...

I'm really interested in comments on this one. Am I blinkered working in the SEO industry where people can generate their own work rather than relying on clients? Are there still web design companies taking on staff in any quantity?

Comments (6)

AdSense?
written by Doug, September 28, 2007

Can you elaborate more on the AdSense comment? "Easy" to whip up income from AdSense? Can you point to another article or some examples / numbers about what really goes into doing something like this?

I was a freelancer for years, but have recently put together a small team to do exactly what this articles is talking about: small team, virtual office, niche, all in Joomla. This article sounds dead on accurate from my own experience. Everyone on the team will be doing a little of everything, but then in crunch or critical time, those with the best skills in a given area rise to the occasion and do what they do best, not forcing those less skilled in a given area to compete. While one might be busy, the other might get some r&r, but it all evens out in the end over multiple projects. You can't take the view of a Joomla biz as one site at a time, but distributed workload over many sites in the context of relationship to one another.

Great post! Great articles as usual. I always read every Alledia blog entry, which is not the case for most Joomla blogs!

Doug

i agree
written by jansie, September 28, 2007

i did a quote for a customer last week. my first really big one. if i land the job, i'm getting the help of an experienced coder in, to help with the site. i made peace with what my strengths and my weaknesses are, and i know i can serve the customer better if i don't go it alone. long live working for self!

...
written by steve, September 28, 2007

Hi Doug

Thanks for the comments and kind words.

My goal with a Adsense networks is to find a niche and hit it really, really hard. There aren't too many blogs saying "I just build MFA sites and heres how" but a really good place to start for those with coding skills is http://www.bluehatseo.com/

We do slightly less "Blue Hat" (ahem!) variations on this - much less automated. Even if you can bring in $10-$30 a day its makes life just a little easier for people launching a new business.

Network of small companies
written by Ben Hornedo, October 03, 2007

Great article. Does anyone know of a place where small companies get together to establish those relationships you spoke of? I have a small web development company (also specializing in Joomla) and I would love to find a place where I can find some other trustworthy small companies to strengthen up my weak points on specific projects. I know I would pay to participate in a network like that if I knew the other companies could be trusted.

Fantastic
written by Dave Davis, November 17, 2007

Fantastic article! This really needs to go hot on sphinn.
You mentioned: "If you have an exciting, resume-building company name, plus venture capital funding and are located in a big city .... the world is still your hiring oyster."

That's all well and good but your point is extremely bias to large COUNTRIES as apposed to large cities. We have been looking for staff to fill suitable online marketing positions for almost a year now but to no avail. The reason is two fold on top of your already valid points. We are based in Ireland. It is a relatively small country compared to the US for example. There are simply not enough people in the industry here that know what they are doing. The second reason is that colleges do not teach the skills we are looking for and until a college has an online markting degree or SEO module, many people simply see it as a "fad".

...
written by Steve Burge, November 19, 2007

Hi Dave - thanks for the kind words

You're absolutely right. These skills aren't being taught in universities. That means the only people will those skills are those with enough initiative and drive to teach themselves ... they kind of people that enjoy being their own boss.

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