Is my SEO guy bad news?

[blitzna10]

Hi All...

I have had an SEO guy doing some  work for us (link building etc) over the past few months.

In the last week or two, I have been receiving emails from a few website owners complaining that our SEO guy has been spamming their sites (either through blog comments or forums posts etc).

Now, to clarify, it's not spam as in "come and buy our awesome product" - it is spam as in he makes (for example) blog post comments that are relevant to the topic, that sometimes don't make perfect sense (due to his english skills). So, they do seem perhaps, extra spammy... (it is all hand written... not an automated scripts)

My questions

• Im not out to do the wrong thing, so, is this approach bad news?
• Apart from annoying people, are there are other downsides?
• If I were to pre-write him comments/posts that actually made perfect sense, would that be a better approach?

I don't want to annoy people, and I don't want to do the wrong thing, and I don't want our rankings to be effected, so... what is the consensus?

[MarieHaynes]

In most cases, blog commenting is not terribly helpful in terms of SEO.  I have a few websites that consistently spam my blogs in hopes of me publishing a comment and it is terribly annoying.

Is your SEO building any quality links?  If you're paying him for a certain number of links and all you are getting is blog comments and forum sigs then it's time to get a new strategy!

[EGOL]

I would hire someone else.  This guy is stinking up your brand.  He is also defacing other websites.

Your question is intelligently worded, reads easily, perfect spelling and more.  I bet you have some really nice sites.  So, you would probably be irritated if someone posted illiterate crap all over them.

[CouponCactus]

I have competitors in my vertical that comment for rank and I have actually seen a small percentage work. This method is usually done in a way that doesn't but when done effectively to gain ranks they usually get destroyed in branding.  People don't like when you comment for rank so I would suggest finding a new tactic with less risk of backlash and damage to your brand.

[ShaMenz]

Hi blitzna,

It is highly unlikely that any of the comments he is submitting will ever be posted anyway, since most bloggers either hold them for moderation and would delete without approving, or they constantly monitor comments and immediately delete anything spammy.

The very first thing that you should do is share your SEOmoz referral link with your guy so that he can sign up for a PRO Trial. At the very least, he will get exposure to all of the content on SEOmoz (including Q&A) and learn some good things about link building. Even better if he sees the value of the membership and decides to sign up - and earn you $100 Referral!

With regard to your question:

The only time that blog commenting is really effective in link building is when you are able to make real contributions to build your authority and reputation. The prerequisite is always that you have something of value or interest to say and that it is totally relevant to the content of the post. Of course, for this to be effective, the blogs (or forums) you choose to comment on must be high visibility and seen as authoritative.

If you think that the problem is really just his inability to write well in english, then you could try another way of approaching the problem:

1. Get him to send you his responses for editing before he posts them (if you feel he has the knowledge to make a valuable contribution on your behalf)
2. Get him to identify posts that you might be interested in contributing to.
   He could either find the posts and send you the links so that you can drop by the blog and add the comment yourself, or if it is difficult for you to do that - perhaps you are likely to be interrupted, don't want to spend time reading other comments etc - he could send you the content of the post and you could type your comments at a convenient time and return to him for posting.

The value of the links themselves will not have a huge impact for your site, but the fact that you become more visible as an authority in your industry is quite likely to result in people becoming interested in you and your business. The overall outcome is that you will quite possibly gain links naturally through increased visibility of your content, social sharing etc.

In addition, I would point him to the SEOmoz SEO Web Directory List and this post from Cyrus about using SEO Link Directory best practices.

If Local search is important for your business, you could also suggest that he try the free version of Whitespark Local Citation Finder to identify any other local citation sources that might be relevant.

With some good exposure to the resources available here on SEOmoz and a good team approach, it is quite likely that you can improve things for your site as well as for your SEO guy

Hope that helps,

Sha

[AlanMosley]

Bad english? Did you hire someone from india?, i have been down that road, I finaly found one that understands what a quality link is.
Blog posting is next to useless i believe.

I think it was Matt Cutts or Duane Forrester who stated that blog posts were not worth it, but good relevan of local directories were when mixed with a few quaility links. This is the path i am following untill i have evidence that differs

[KeriMorgret]

If you were to pre-write him comments and posts that made perfect sense, then you are either a) writing comments that make perfect sense but are so general that the person reading them knows that they could apply to hundreds of posts out there or b) you're reading the post and writing the comments so why are you bothering to hire him?

I agree with the advice that EGOL and Sha have given, and would add that reading through the Beginner's Guide to SEO could also be helpful.