Online Reputation Management, Local SEO, Google Maps in 2013 - Q & A and Discussion

tnhomestead said:

There are times to say hey -- what your doing is stupid, do you want someone reading the manual while they do brain surgery on you? Or fix your fridge, plumbing, car or anything else?
Telling someone they need to learn more before they lose their shirt is not stomping on dreams, its offering a different path -- one that leads to (hopefully) more success.
If you dont have the tools or knowledge, buy a domain and seo it. A lot of the warrior stuff is junk BTW, although some is good. Read more here, and try it. In a few months you have the basic skillset to success. Would it not be a good idea to outsource this first job and use it as a learning experience?
Congrats on the gig, and good luck

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I 100% agree there are times to say you are doing something stupid, but word as such bare no meaning if you don't aid in helping them with their problems. SEO or ORM is not brain surgery nor repairing a car. You don't need to read a book or go to school for many years to learn how to put on a shirt. You know where everything needs to go and if something goes wrong you fix it.

Anyways we are taking away from the op, I want to see another update Sono!

Jumbo_Refill said:

I 100% agree there are times to say you are doing something stupid, but word as such bare no meaning if you don't aid in helping them with their problems. SEO or ORM is not brain surgery nor repairing a car. You don't need to read a book or go to school for many years to learn how to put on a shirt. You know where everything needs to go and if something goes wrong you fix it.

Anyways we are taking away from the op, I want to see another update Sono!

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I kind of wanted to stay out of this conversation due to all the negativity. I have been too busy making money.

For those of you who think I'm stupid to market something when I don't know everything about the subject... Well I say you can bite me. First, I used to be in a Dan Kennedy mastermind group and one with Perry Marshall and can tell you the gurus never even start making a product until after they start promoting it. Offen they don't know what they are talking about until much later. David Sprague has trained thousands of people to sell ORM. His system specifically instructs to sell your services BEFORE you learn how to fulfill them. I have an MBA and have been management consulting for almost 15 years. I have worked with some of the top consultants in the world (McKinsey, DeLoitte, etc.) and can tell you that the lead on any given project only has a general idea about the work that needs to be done. They outsource EVERYTHING (either in-house or out). In case you haven't checked, there are dozens of white-label ORM firms out there. There is no need to know a thing about implementation.

As far as getting sued goes, anyone can sue you at any time for anything. The big thing is... Nobody will ever have cause to sue me because I never promise results. I tell people what I am going to do and that's it. I tell them that I will build a website, target keywords x,y, and z. Build social media profiles, track social mentions, submit a google + profile, create and post 10 pictures and 5 videos, create a recommendation posting system for clients, create 50 structured and 200 unstructured citations.... Do you get where I am you going here?

i never claim that this will double their business or anything like that. All I have to do is show them what their competition has and they figure that their online presense must be at least equivelant to the competition if they hope to win. If they demand guarantees, I can outsource to a private label firm that has guarantees or just reject the job.

My aim is to do what I can, outsource what I can't do and learn as much as I can as fast as possible. I started this thread to help myself and others shorten that learning curve. A big thing is that the experts really know nothing. One guru tells you to address negative reviews immediately. Another expert says to ignore it. Somebody is very wrong.

Also, most of my local seo firms rank terribly in most relevant local search terms for seo. In fact, alocal seo firm with only a handful of backlinks an a year old website managed to get multiple first page google local listings with the same address. On that same search, an opera theater ranked above all the seo firms.

i am figuring a lot of really cool grayhat and blackhat tricks that nobody in my market uses... Or else they would be using them and ranking better. Gone are the days of backlink spamming for local seo. These guys can't even get on page three with 10 year old domains and 756,746 backlinks.

It's a brave new world.

THANK YOU sonotony, for the first productive addition to this thread in a while...
I can't believe how off-topic this thread has become. It's a shame because I know there's a lot to be learned from this. That being said, let's get back to the conversation.

I'm assuming you use contracts when finalizing deals with these customers. So in your contract do you explicitly state that you do not guarantee results, just the action?
Did you ever figure out how to tackle the issue of searching from different areas, and getting different search results?
Also, can you share these black-hat and grey-hat techniques? Are you just posting this handful of backlinks on very high-PR domains, like business directories?
I'm curious how much you actually know about ORM. Not in a critical way - I mean that as a question. Do you know how to run social media campaigns, and get a business's Google Places listing in the top 4 rankings?
How exactly do you study your competitors, past Googling keywords?
I'd love to have a conversation on Skype, if you have time for it. oneartvandelay
Thanks!
Art

ArtVandelay said:

THANK YOU sonotony, for the first productive addition to this thread in a while...
I can't believe how off-topic this thread has become. It's a shame because I know there's a lot to be learned from this. That being said, let's get back to the conversation.

I'm assuming you use contracts when finalizing deals with these customers. So in your contract do you explicitly state that you do not guarantee results, just the action?
Did you ever figure out how to tackle the issue of searching from different areas, and getting different search results?
Also, can you share these black-hat and grey-hat techniques? Are you just posting this handful of backlinks on very high-PR domains, like business directories?
I'm curious how much you actually know about ORM. Not in a critical way - I mean that as a question. Do you know how to run social media campaigns, and get a business's Google Places listing in the top 4 rankings?
How exactly do you study your competitors, past Googling keywords?
I'd love to have a conversation on Skype, if you have time for it. oneartvandelay
Thanks!
Art

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Hi Art,

I'm glad someone is interested in bringing things back on topic instead of debating who is stupid and who is going to get sued, etc. As far as what I know..

Some things are based on experience.
some things are based on observation.
Some things are based on reading.
Some things are based on theory.

Just like most people around here, I'm afraid to give away my secrets, even though this is usually paranoia because 99.9% of the people around here never actually implement anything they see. The bigger fear is that I make Google aware of these blaring loopholes and they fix them pretty easily.

Also, I don't know if some of the things that I have discovered are effective universally or just in the markets I work in. That being said, I'll start by offering a few pieces of advice.

Read read read. Some of the best ideas and advice can be found on seomoz. A big thing many people ignore is the impact of the Venice update on organic results for local seo. There may not be a places pack for a search, but google will give strong presence to highly relevant local sites over global sites. This way, you might have two page one results for a term like "marketing consultant" (one local and one places pack).

The best advice on seomoz usually begins with "you shouldn't do this..." The sentence often continues with "because is violates Google's TOS" or "You will end up with multiple listings for the same business". Now can someone tell me why having multiple page one listings for the same business is a bad thing?

Something that I have heard very little talk about is the fact that you can (and should) target different keywords for places vs. organic optimization. For example, lets say you are a web designer in Dallas Texas. If try to optimize your business around "web design" or even "Dallas web design" you will be waiting forever for the phone to ring if you are depending on your places listing. The reason being is that google does not (and probably will never) return blended results for searches related directly to SEO or web design... so why waste your effort? You CAN, however, rank locally for "small business consultant" or "marketing consultant". Now you can optimize your places page and citations based on that keyword. Your website domain name or title don't necessarily have to contain any of your places keywords, but it helps. Now you can optimize your website for "web design" or "Dallas web design" so you can take advantage of localized organic results in addition to places results. Of course, you can use language like "we are web design marketing consultants working with small businesses, etc"

I have a couple other things to share, but I have to switch to my computer. I'm typing this on my iPhone and my thumbs are getting tired.

Can't wait to hear more from you.
Where are you at with your original customer? Have you been outsourcing everything like you detailed? (I know it's only been 13 hours - take your time on this one, haha)
Your keyword targeting interests me. Sorry if I sound like a noob here - let me know if I have this right. So if you're doing web design in Dallas, you don't optimize your page for that keyword for your Google Places listing, but you do for your website (which is linked to your Places listing), and in that way your Google Places listing ranks for all your website's keywords, and the more specified ones in your Google Places page? Or are you ranking both the GP listing and website listings separately?
Does this still apply for business like 'plumber in Dallas', or is it only for businesses that are able to operate from a non-local area (e.g. web design, SEO, etc...)?

I wanted again to apologize for derailing your thread, I have a pet peeve against people who make assumptions about other people without actually know their skill/ability/knowledge.

What are your thoughts on joining local chamber of commerce as a means to obtain SEO/ORM work? I am starting my own SEO/ORM firm and have thought about joining a few local chambers while also doing 7878's method.

Jumbo_Refill said:

I wanted again to apologize for derailing your thread, I have a pet peeve against people who make assumptions about other people without actually know their skill/ability/knowledge.


What are your thoughts on joining local chamber of commerce as a means to obtain SEO/ORM work? I am starting my own SEO/ORM firm and have thought about joining a few local chambers while also doing 7878's method.

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Not a bad idea, but I have found more success with other types of networking groups. Sometimes it takes awhile to find good ones, but they are out there. I am in a big metro area, so there are tons of chambers with tons of events. Most of them let you come at least once or twice before joining. There are some referral groups like BNI that can be really good. If you can speak, there is a lot of opportunity. People love to hear techy how-to stuff... How to use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, build a website, etc. Check out meetup dot com and you should be able to find some good ones. It may take awhile to find the right groups and events. I got caught up in the networking circuit for about a year and realized I was seeing the same financial advisors, realtors, insurance salesmen, and marketing consultants at the same meetings. Everyone was trying to sell stuff and nobody was buying. I got a ton of leads nevertheless. Word got out that I was in the top ten most connected people on LinkedIn in my state and all of the sudden people wanted to be my friend.

Once you start mingling, you will be shocked about how ignorant people are about web design, social media, seo, etc. There are a to of "experts" out there that are complete idiots. These guys didn't take tmhomestead's advice about learning something before doing it. I met a guy who made a living writing linkedin profiles for people. His profile was crap. Meanwhile, my profile that I didn't even work To hard on was getting 50-100 hits a day. One lady went around speaking as a Twitter expert and selling her Twitter boot camp for like $2,000. She only had like 2,500 followers and had no authority. Meanwhile I wasn't claiming to be an expert, but had over 100,000 followers and my twitter profile page was PR6 (has fallen since).

Anyway, there is a ton of opportunity out there. Most of the real seo geniuses out there are hiding behind there computers and never venture out. Most of the people who do go out are a bunch of fakers and are only a threat by virtue of the fact that they are well connected.

Go get 'em!

Subbed.

Pretty much all I do is Local SEO and a little rep management. I'll offer up help when I have time.

On your topic of keyword research, don't underestimate the results of ranking well for terms that show little to no search volume. Go after many many variations of a keyword and look for terms that pull up local specific results either with or without blended or a 7 pack. As mentioned a lot of people will just type in the keyword but still get local specific results. Also there are lots of variations you won't think of that searchers do. For less populated cities I used to sometimes look up dozens of variations of terms in larger cities to get an idea of how people searched. Anymore I just use a basic idea of how many monthly searches the main term gets.

I honestly think getting clients could be the ultimate ass kick for speed SEO learning. Ethic-wise you should probably charge a lower fee since they are basically your guinea pig. Then when you get good enough to call yourself a moderate practicioner of the ever-shifting alchemy of SEO, you can justify charging new clients more.

As for local keyword research, yeah definitely don't believe any keyword tool about search volume. I got a real estate agent to the top of the 7-pack for 2 keywords with 390 and 210 local searches/month broad match. They had 350 organic traffic visits about halfway through this month. So that would come out to 700 visitors in one month from keywords that supposedly only had 600 searches. That would be one hell of a godly CTR! Point is, local search keyword volume predictions don't account for geo targeted generic searches. When you link build, just mix up anchor text across a wide list of keywords and focus about 40% of the anchor text distribution on the big volume keywords. Then 25% generic/naked url, 15% long tail and 20% citation-style link. I obviously dont' use hyper-precise link build but its the general number that I use in my head when I do it.

Another thing that NOBODY in local is doing is using rel=author to get your client's beautiful mug to show up IN the 7-pack. Huge CTR benefits and it presells by putting a face to the website and what it offers. If you want help with implementing it, shoot me a PM.

Good luck to you!

this thread was getting better but long time since no up date

I have just started reputation management. What would be the best tactic for pushing a yelp review page off page one. I have already made a bunch of social media profiles( the keyword is a doctors name), but they haven't started ranking yet. I made them a week ago. Any suggestions?

sonotony said:

I'm learning this business is HIGHLY competitive and there are a ton of blackhatters out there. I have learned a lot by studying my competitors and trying to reverse-engineer their tactics. You can learn a ton by studying SEO firms, plastic surgeons, and lawyers.

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Local isn't as bad as national keywords, and is a lot easier.

Yanni6 said:

I have just started reputation management. What would be the best tactic for pushing a yelp review page off page one. I have already made a bunch of social media profiles( the keyword is a doctors name), but they haven't started ranking yet. I made them a week ago. Any suggestions?

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Seriously, how many threads have you posted this in? lol

3, I got some helpful info though.

any one run into an problems with the panda update?

A good read. I am jumping into ORM and a few meetings are scheduled in next couple of days. Does anybody have a document for "agreement" in case I get any new clients?

Thanks.

Hey guys,

I am a Bail Bonds in Los Angeles and I cant find anyone to optimize my Google Local Listings. This is the hardest area on earth but the number 1 company uses a place Back East and they specialize in plumbers not Bail Bonds so what are they doing so special?

How can i remove negation comments from complaintsboard. Can you help me please.

hi there
how are you ?

i am looking to get bulk order of google maps for our business in toronto canada

please let me know if you offer this kind of service without fiscal address


thanks and have a great day

regards

Since your desktop is not mobile like your phone the results continue to be different according to your location when you make a search.

bailbond said:

Hey guys,

I am a Bail Bonds in Los Angeles and I cant find anyone to optimize my Google Local Listings. This is the hardest area on earth but the number 1 company uses a place Back East and they specialize in plumbers not Bail Bonds so what are they doing so special?

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SEO is like make up,can be used by everyone! Dentist, lawyers all use it.