Simon Nixon, MoneySupermarket and Simonseeks
The serial entrepreneur on his SEO strategy, why advertising in print is difficult and his new venture, Simonseeks.
Simon Nixon worked as a mortgage adviser before he started price
comparison website Moneysupermarket.com in 1999. The company made
headlines when it floated on the stock market for a reported £1bn
in July 2007, prompting the Telegraph to name him the richest young
entrepreneur in Britain. Although Nixon continues to play an active
part in running the company, he has recently launched a new
venture, SimonSeeks.com, a travel community website.
Nixon outlines what was required on launching his new business-
from PR to portal partnerships to search engine optimisation. He
also talks of the marketing strategy used by Moneysupermarket.com,
last years TV advertising costs for the company came to somewhere
between £18 to £19 million, and why printing advertising isn't an
affordable option. Nixon relates to his experience with Google and
the importance of avoiding the "black hat" tactic. The fact
that the fate of Moneysupermarket.com is tied to the banks due to
the nature of its work makes this company an interesting case
study.
In this interview Simon Nixon also gives expert advice on how to
make redundancies in the most efficient way and the issue of
recruitment.