Search Engine Marketing with Microsoft

Search Engine Marketing with Microsoft is an initiative from the Redmond company's Office Live Small Business in collaboration with The Search Agency. The partnership will be beneficial to small businesses, which will receive specialized consulting services designed to lay the foundation for marketing a website. Taking a business online and making it successful is a process that automatically has to involve both search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Without SEM and SEO, a website will be anonymous, anodyne and lost in the volume of online competitors.

"As more and more small businesses get online, marketing their Web sites is crucial to business success," said Baris Cetinok, director of project management and marketing for Office Live Small Business at Microsoft Corp. "Our goal is to make search engine marketing and optimization accessible to the small-business owner who recognizes their importance but may not be sure where to start."

"We are very excited about providing Microsoft Office Live Small Business customers with three unique services that provide them with terrific access to search engine marketing expertise in a cost-effective way," said David Hughes, chief executive officer of The Search Agency.

The initiative is also designed to advertise the new Microsoft Office Live Small Business, rebranded recently with a stronger focus on its target audience. Under the Office Live Small Business, Microsoft has bundled a comprehensive suite of services and tools, set in place to streamline the process of creating a website and with it an online presence for businesses.

Via the Office Live Small Business website, users will get a free domain name, company emails, web design applications and also marketing tools under the Office Live Basics package. Microsoft is also making available paid offerings with Office Live Essentials and Office Live Premium. The Search Agency through Office Live Small Business is offering customers online training modules for SEM and SEO, in addition to dedicated marketing and optimization services and support.