Forums and Blogs are quite an amazing thing.
They can both contribute to your success and damn your reputation.
Imagine your testing out your rank with a Google query “yoursite.com”. Right on the first page is a blog post that complains about your lack of customer service. Or a disgruntled employee that can not grasp a concept or dismissal.
What do they do?
They post to a blog or forum with their complaints.
Now your going to deal with everybody who uses these keywords to find you, finding this.
This is unacceptable and fixable .. however .. just like insurance and the police.. within the first few hours of an incident,. we need to be there and on top of it so the remedy may be applied very quickly. The longer the problem is left to fester, the longer it takes to clean up.
Since the search engines just love these blogs and forums for the fresh content, they get indexed fast, and hold rank. thus leaving the door open for other like-minded individuals to collaborate and banter, “In Public” with ongoing discussions that can possibly retain rank for the keywords and even outrank your website.
Getting into the top ranks of Google, Yahoo! and Bing are always paramount,
Although SEO and Reputation Management are never specific, there are a few things i can do for you, and your website that will continue to resonate throughout search engine land,. thus saving having to do the same SEO and PR over and over again
I wear many hats while doing SEO, depending on the time frame given, and the ethic involvement of the company of my employ.
Knowing and studying all methods, including White, Blue, Grey.. and Black Hat SEO gives my customers and I a slight advantage over the competition simply because SEO and SEM methods are as unique as the customers needs.
My Suggestions for “White Hat” SEO and SEM
1. Beat them to the Punch.
(accessing the very forums and blogs that may later prove to be useful)
2. High PR Business In-links
3. 150 Social Bookmarks per month – or more..
4. Traffic Blast.
2500-4000 hits.. 6000-10000 page view per day
This is ongoing, global traffic to make your website look ridiculously popular
5. PPC Campaign set up and Optimization <-till you rank organically
– even with a budget of $5 a day.. this associates you and your Google places account to your niche faster
6.CPM Campaign set up and optimization to begin driving targeted traffic to your new site right away from the millions of sites across the Google Display Network.
7. Microsoft Adcenter CPC Setup and Optimization – Generally cheaper than Google,. the results from Bing and Yahoo will be combined to cover all bases
8.10-15 .edu back-links per month ongoing.
The Reputation Management will kick in should there be any unfavorable results returning for the keywords of choice and/or your company name search return.