Taking Stock: Sage steals Xero’s thunder

TS loves a wee bit of cheekiness – after all, what are we if not cheeky?

Don’t answer that.

Anyway, while scrambling about in the rabbit-hole that is the internet, TS decided to check out the world of accountancy software.

‘Cause, y’know, we’d already done all the cool stuff on the internet.

Anyway, having entered ‘Xero accounts’ into Google, TS was surprised to see Sage turn up at the top of the page.

Indeed, it was a paid advert for Sage inviting us to check out Sage One at www.sageone.com/xero that caught our eye.

It was flagged up on Twitter, and it’s safe to say Xero CEO Gary Turner took it in good spirits.

A cunning move, and one that made TS smile.

As it turns out, Sage have plenty to say. Seehead of marketing for start-ups and small businesses at Sage UK & Ireland Geoff Phillips’s response below:

“Optimising search tactics to present brands as far up in the results as possible is nothing new. Even as the market leader in the UK and Ireland in accounting software we make sure new and existing customers can find us as easily as possible by following commonly used search practices.

“Search is something so agile and fast moving that businesses of any size can be experts if they know what they’re doing. Indeed, search can often belie the true size of a business. We take our online presence very seriously to ensure we reflect our standing as market leader in the UK and simply replicate practices that we see across the industry from smaller competitors to maintain that presence. Organic search presence can take years to establish and intelligent paid search activity helps us to build on our already strong equity in top accounting software terms.”