Online marketing company Yodle celebrated the opening of a 100,000-square-foot office in North Austin that will allow the company to grow from 375 to 750 employees in the next five years.

CEO Court Cunningham said during that time, Yodle also will spend a projected $100 million in payroll and other investments, which he feels will contribute to Austin's economy.

"We found that it is a town that is really in sync with our company culture," Cunningham said. "We are high-energy, we're positive, we're can-do, we're hard-working and culture is a really important thing here, and it was just easier to find people here that fit that culture."

Representatives from the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Austin Community College, the governor's office, Mayor Lee Leffingwell and City of Austin staff gathered among blue-shirted Yodle employees for the Sept. 19 ribbon cutting in the parking lot of the new office at 12234 N. I-35.

Leffingwell thanked Yodle during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for helping local small businesses succeed and emphasized the "joint effort" it has taken for the company to come to Austin.

Yodle was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in New York City. The company focuses on helping small businesses flourish. The company is ranked No. 26 in the Forbes Magazine list of America's most promising companies, according to a news release.

The company aims to provide an affordable marketing platform by giving small businesses a website, higher volume in search engines and an overall strong Web presence, according to Yodle's website. Yodle has more than 30,000 small business customers.

Radley Moss, director of corporate communications for Yodle, said Yodle's customers are primarily small businesses with fewer than 10 employees. As 85 percent of consumers find out about local small businesses via the Internet, there is a strong need for prevalent online marketing, Moss said.

In 2011, Yodle acquired ProfitFuel, a search engine optimization company, and has since doubled in employee size.

"This really was a marriage made in heaven in terms of comparable growth, comparable culture and a perfect fit," Cunningham said.

Mike Carter, training and development specialist of the National Guard Job Connection Education Project, said he hopes to help soldiers find careers at Yodle after deployment.

"We want to help them find a career, something they'll be able to do for the next 20 years or more," he said.

Although Yodle's CEO had never been to Austin before the acquisition, he said Austin's "funky" and "hard-working" culture fits in well with the company.

"To win in the market, it's going to take high-energy, a positive attitude, creativity and innovation, because the market is changing, and we have all of those attributes here in Austin," Cunningham said.