About seOverflow

seOverflow is an interactive marketing firm specializing in providing outsourced search engine optimization and pay per click management services to web designers, marketing consultants, SEO companies, and directly to businesses. Our services include search engine optimization, keyword research, site audit reports, pay per click campaigns, viral marketing campaigns, content distribution and website analytics. Our full range of interactive marketing solutions has helped our clients produce positive results including increasing website traffic, improving website usability, and converting more visitors into customers.

Job Description
seOverflow seeks an organic search engine optimization specialist to join our expert internet marketing staff. This position will focus mainly on on-page optimization including keyword research, site architecture recommendations and implementation, optimization of content, and other related activities.

Job Responsibilities

- Understand each client’s business model, culture, organization and objectives.

- Develop target keyword lists.

- Perform competitive analysis.

- Analyze website architecture, content, linking and other factors to identify issues and opportunities for SEO.

-Implement on-page optimization tactics by editing HTML on client sites.

- Provide detailed, written recommendations to clients to improve website architecture, content, linking and other factors to improve SEO positions for target keywords.

- Work flexibly with clients based on their needs, which may involve team-oriented, development approaches as well as traditional document deliverables.

- Continually work with clients to assist with implementation of recommended changes, answer questions, develop SEO strategies, review planed projects for SEO factors, run and analyze reports, and other tasks that will drive ongoing improvement in client SEO positions.

- Monitor and research industry trends related to SEO to continually improve knowledge and skills, and communicate new ideas and trends to clients and co-workers.

-Write and assemble custom monthly reports for clients.

Qualifications

- 2+ years of SEO experience

- Confident with technical skills including html, css and some javascript.

- Track record of analyzing SEO issues and opportunities, and providing and implementing recommendations to improve ranking positions.

- Knowledge of SEO techniques and factors that drive long term success, and awareness of “black hat” or other techniques that might damage customer success.

- Knowledge of technical aspects of SEO, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTTP, URL structures, keyword analysis, content optimization, search engine spiders, indexes and algorithms, website session management, and other factors that can impact SEO.

- Excellent oral and written communication skills.

- Ability to be self directed, highly motivated and have fun while working hard in a startup environment.

Engines have script that use the following factors

• Country level tld
• IP Address
• Link Analysis

Be careful of where you host your site especially if you are using a dot com.

If you have a .ca and a .com for example, the display URL will revert to the strongest domain in regards to links.

When translating, tone down English marketing copy into ’soul-less’ doc about what you want to say. Then translate that doc. Next, have that doc rewritten by native copywriter. Lastly you can re translate to double check.

• Look for Industry Heavy weights
• Look for Charitable Opportunities

.edus are not special, but typically they are authoritative and high quality

The Negatives of .edu’s

• not well linked to
• link pages maybe link fests
• non-expert pages are where most links are located

Commands to find .edu links pointing into industry heavyweights

linkdomain:example.com site:*.edu “bookmarks”

You can also use

bookmarks
links
favorite sites
your product or service

————————————————————–

Jay Young

Places to get links

• Directories
• BOTW
• Yahoo
• DMOZ (buy off a DMOZ editor)
• Joe Ant
• Blog Catalog

Non-profit Sponsorships

• arguably editorial
• tax deductible
• good neighborhoods

Other Techniques

• Join the SEOcialists
• Digg, Reddit, Stumble

Brokers

• using brokers still works(smaller brokers)
• blog advertisers
• specialty brokers (build pre-sell pages)

Link Bait

do it - call Rand, ok to be immoral

BUY LINKS!!!

• vary anchor text
• be natural
• vital for competitive campaigns
• use co-citation

Darker Methods that Work

• comment spam (manual)
• trackback spam (don’t forget to turn engine off)
• recip link ( not to pages with recip pages)
• Three ways

Outside the Box

• widgets
• templates(sites and blogs, myspace)
• contests
• content trades

Other Tips

• hire bartenders
• avoid sites with hidden links
• modertation

————————————————-
Stephan Spencer

go for the higher power links (80/20) rule

tons of other good stuff - he speaks really fast and I’ll have to review the slides and post the notes later

build link spiders (tools), start with Google Directory

register for Wordcamp,Lockergnome ($25.00) get link on attendees page
cloak affiliate links (like Amazon)

We are seriously considering putting on some more in depth training sessions in the near future, so please let us know if you are interested. If you download the presentation or you just enjoyed the presentation, please leave a comment below. We’d love to hear from you.

And it should also go without saying if you have any clients in need of SEO whether you’d like to offer the service through your own company or simply send over a referral, we’d love to help out!

The class was interesting in that the Social Media strategies were presented with the application being geared towards small businesses that were looking to do some Social Media work for themselves. Most of the people in the room, I would learn, were indeed from smaller business and were attending the seminar to try to get a grasp on how they could better position their own business in the online world. By the end of the class I myself had a better grasp of just how many companies need SEO outsourcing to enjoy all the fruits of the process while maintaining their sanity!

It was interesting watching the reaction of many in the class as they didn’t have much of an idea about what exactly Social Media entails. Some seemed overwhelmed as our instructor, Liana Evans of Search Marketing Gurus, went through the material and all the time and energy it really takes to effectively utilize Social Media in a way that is beneficial to a business. I on the other hand already had a good grasp on the time and effort part, since Social Media is something we utilize for each of our clients as part of our Link Building service.

As the Social Media explosion continues, there is little doubt that the days of simply getting by with on page optimization and pay per click to obtain top rankings are over. It is not just “computer people” using these Social Media sites- it’s everyday people. It’s not just computer centric businesses that need a solid Social Media strategy- it’s attorneys, homebuilders, and doctors. Even traditional PR firms need to harness the power of Social Media to supplement their existing business structure.

At first I was a bit disappointed that the session was geared towards individual business as opposed to an SEO company. However as I reflected on the afternoon and my conversations with others in the class, I think I came away with a better understanding of just where business owners are on the Social Media map. They know they are in the right place, but need a compass and a guide that knows what they are doing to make sure these businesses have a customized Social Media strategy to suit their specific business. For many, I could tell, the best way to effectively accomplish this will be to utilize Social Media as part of their outsourced SEO programs.

Next we noticed inside Google Webmaster Tools we were being told the last visit to the homepage was April 30, 2006!!! Holy crap. This had to be some type of penalty though I didn’t know why the site had been penalized. I purchased the domain from my good buddy Everett who runs a brand comparison site among other things, and happens to be one of the best SEOs I know.

Should we file a reconsideration request even though we couldn’t fess up to any wrong doing or provide any juicy details to Google? After speaking with a couple of other trusted SEOs including Mary Bowling and Andrew Shotland we decided to file with Google.

Whaddya know? About a week later (with no direct communication from Google of course), the homepage is back in the index and we rank #1 for our name among other things including our most important keywords. Now I am not going to sit here and complain since the process didn’t take all that long and we received the end result we wanted, but Google could improve the process by opening up some communication lines. Thanks for letting us back in Google, we appreciate it!

Brett, thank you for joining me today. Today I’d like to tell our readers a little more about online reputation management and its importance in the world of search marketing. I’d also like to get into how online reputation management is applicable to small or local businesses.

First, can you tell us a little about your background?

I have been online since 1989. I have been involved in countless communities, groups and forums – and I’ve seen a lot of interesting issues, scandals and changes over the years.

I got a degree in sociology (my thesis was on measuring social acquaintanceship networks) and a post baccalaureate certificate in interactive marketing. After college I worked as an English teacher in Japan, and then I spent a couple years traveling around the world. I have since worked professionally as an advertising copywriter, an online PR specialist, and an in-house SEO for a Web development agency. This year I started my company, Copy Brighter Marketing, so that I could focus on my internet marketing passions: social media and online reputation management (OLRM). I spend several hours a day researching and studying while taking on a limited amount of client work.

Sounds great Brett, can you expand a little on ‘online reputation management’? Who are typical consumers of this services and why do they need it?

Once upon a time, reputation was a tribal thing. You were known by your family name what the neighbors thought about you. When the industrial revolution kicked in and credit bureaus and law enforcement agencies started keeping records on everyone - credit scores and criminal records. Employers, landlords, courts, insurers, lenders now judge you based on this information alone.

Now in the information age, search engines are a primary form of media. What shows up in the search results for your name or brand is a cornerstone of your reputation. Online reputation management (OLRM) is the art and science of creating and sustaining desirable, accurate information about a person or brand online. It’s building robust, defensible portfolio of online identities for a person or brand that can’t easily be compromised by a little bit of smack-talk by a random website or anonymous person.

Online reputation management requires a combination of three main skills: SEO, public relations & social media marketing. It really helps to also have an advanced understanding of RSS and news monitoring technology, legal knowledge, and strong negotiation skills.

The typical consumer of online reputation management services is business owner who has been stung by negative feedback in the search engines. For instance, I’m currently working with a business owner whose only direct competitor has taken to actively bashing his product online - and he is being rather unprofessional and mean-spirited about it.

However, anyone who has a career or runs a business needs to think about online reputation management. Say you have a SEO company called “WizzBang Search Marketing.” All it takes is one disgruntled employee or pushy prospect to go on some high-ranking blog or social site an say you “suck” or are “rip off,” and it is going to be much harder to get business. One off-color blog comment can make it harder to land a corporate job, because HR is going to Google your name. One good side of this new transparency is that real scams and cults are now longer able to operate as effectively as they once were because people can call them out. The bad side is that innocent people can be subject or extortion and libel.

An SEO campaign usually focuses on getting one or two listings to the front page of the search engines. A popular kind of online reputation management strategy is to fill up the entire front page of the search engines with a mixture of positive links about you from a variety of sources (profiles, press releases, news sites, wikis, blogs) that look very credible and “organic.” - and is also very hard to penetrate by a low-ranking blog or Web page.

There’s also more to consider than just the search engines: blog comments, responding to reviews, participating in social communities and friending people online, getting inaccurate content and copyright violations removed, negotiating with Webmasters, and rewarding and encouraging positive coverage of your brand.

What are some steps you take to manage reputations online? Is there any suggestions you could give to a company looking to do some OLRM in house?

Well, social media sites offer a plethora of options for creating an extensions of your name or brand. However, one tip I’d like to throw out there is to not rely too much on creating profiles, as some online reputation management firms do. It doesn’t look very “organic” to look up a company and see a page full of Mixx & Friendster profiles – so people will tend to dig deeper to find the real “dirt.” I really like to work on building links to the existing natural pages (that you don’t control) that rank for your name - bona fide news articles, government sites, high-school reunion listings - building them up to making them stronger. I try to make my campaigns stealthy by working with a lot of the positive and neutral information that is already in the search engines.

Online reputation management is very strategic, like a slow-moving game of SERP chess. After deciding on the strategy and PR angle, the hardest part is often building the right links to need to push entrenched negative results onto the second or third page.

I do a lot of high-level link building myself and I work with overseas link builders to help with some of the ancillary stuff. The good thing about building links to ancillary profiles and sites-you-don’t-own is that since they are not your own primary domain, you can really experiment and find out what kinds of links and ranking factors work best. If something goes wrong or doesn’t work, you can always delete the profile and try another.

Getting highly-trusted, one-way links to online profiles, press releases, blogs and properties can be a challenge, but there are always ways to entice people to link out to where you need them to.

How about small businesses (SMBs) or local businesses? How does online reputation management affect these types of companies? What should they be doing?

Small businesses need to be aware that they are plenty of review and user generated content sites (like Yelp or RipOffReport.com) that are going to capitalize their reputation online if they don’t do it first. They also need to treat every single customer and prospect they contact with new respect, as if they were an influential media reviewer, because the individual now has a very amplified voice. Small businesses should be proactive and build up a reputation first, before it is “too late.”

Anyone with web savvy can do their own online reputation management, but the bigger your brand is and the more online conversations and comments there are about it, the more difficult and time-consuming of a job it becomes. That’s where a specialist can help.

Thanks again for your time Brett. I think we all learned a lot today about the importance of online reputation management and how it is applicable to many different kinds of businesses.

We always recommend to clients if possible to make some video a part of their search marketing mix. Congrats to eLocalListing for being able to pull this one off on such a large scale! You can read more about this on Greg Sterling’s post about eLocal Listing, or the Kelsey blog post on eLocal Listing.

This is a great opportunity for me as I have been playing fantasy football since I was about 12 years old. Before the internet came around we used to calculate fantasy scores manually using the newspaper box scores every Monday and Tuesday mornings. To be able to combine SEO and fantasy sports sounds like great fun!