Since 1994 Mike Russell has been considered a leader in the field of Internet Marketing. Mike began Internet Marketing in 1994 when the Internet was in its infancy with respect to its availability to the general public. In this early period there were but a few “web pioneers” and only one directory for web sites to be found on. This directory was an MIT directory. By 1995 Mike had 20% all sites listed on the directory including the first politician with a site who was running for Congressman in Maryland in 1996. This garnered a story on the front page of the Baltimore Sun for the politician.
In 1995 Mike also taught one of the first Internet Marketing courses in the U.S., a CEU course offered jointly by Johns Hopkins and Howard Community College outside of Washington DC.
Mike has always thought of the Internet as a way to attract new business. He came to Internet Marketing with a background working for two Fortune 500 companies in sales and marketing prior to 1994. This sales and marketing experience gave him a site user’s mentality going into Internet Marketing.
Mike’s sales and marketing mentality showed with the sites he Web Mastered (over a hundred in all) for a variety of companies from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies (including Cummins, Navistar, USF&G and others). During that time he collected numerous International Advertising awards for some of those websites including ACE, Mobius, and write-ups in Time, Fortune, Wall Street Journal and other publications.
He spent years as a consultant to AT&T in 12 states helping their business customers get the most of the web by first helping them develop online applications and then promoting them to the market place. With AT&T he worked with hundreds of companies and organizations.
The core of good SEO/SEM has always been a strong site with a clear funnel to generate leads and sales.
A common theme since 1994 for all of the projects that are consumer-facing has been to ensure they are found by the target audience on the web. It is because of this that Mike has been doing SEO since 1994 and SEM (Pay Per Click) since its inception in 2000. His work in this area has generated millions of dollars in sales for companies of all sizes.
Mike has been lead on SEO/SEM projects with some of America’s largest corporations including multiple divisions of GE for ten years, CIGNA, Assurant and others. His work has driven millions of visitors to sites per month generating billions in sales.
It is said experience is the building blocks of wisdom. In the world of the internet, wisdom is hard to find.
