Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Yeah I'm not leaving as most agencies can't afford me so I am staying just to take over the market at a place that everyone said is dead. Not while im there.

I appreciate the advice,

I don't want to come off as a jerk I know who you are and respect you and your partner for having the agency but the way you started your last comment wasn't cool and I want to be very clear that I am a player in this Search Marketing and web development scene and combine the two with a can't lose attitude and that's how I win long term regardless of where I'm at.

However I'm not thinking of leaving it was just a "what if" thought. The fact that you compete against us and win is OK to hear however I must say that you haven't been beating me, as I have been there only 90 days and have spent that time cleaning house and developing top notch programs that I'm sick at executing as well as having the resources to do so. In the past 90 days I have helped bring in 2 national partners that will be disclosed in the media over the next few weeks, a new website, a new team structure, altered our reporting schedules along with completely new reporting metrics,we got rid of Raven as per my request because I am throwing out the very mention of "Ranking" and reporting on Metrics that actually matter with a new Reporting company. My Content Marketing plan has depth and reach, my Outreach program is up to every industry standard and more, Local Program that can't lose, voice search optimization..yes im a bit of SIRI Algorithm expert, Video Optimization plan with a focus on Accessibility issue and more items that will quickly be weeding out the folks in town who aren't up to par.

Oh I also brought in two dev teams that I manage overseas that have been with me for years, we just came off of developing an enterprise system for TravelClick a quarter of a billion dollar company. These dev teams are not only building custom applications that I have developed for .Com, we are also working on an entirely new system that quite honestly will change the game with regards to Social Brand Engagement. I also have a great network of Multi lingual SEO analysts experts in specific dialects with certain demographics and have developed the most comprehensive Multi-Lingual search marketing plan ever directed at a non English speaking demographic oh right and just inked a deal with an Orlando NBC affiliate that wants to back my new program.

So again I appreciate the advice, maybe we can sit and do lunch one day and you can apologize for starting our relationship off on the wrong foot and I can apologize for being a hot headed Italian kid from New Jersey who won't lose...

I have had folks tell me about SpyFU  and keywordspy

I use wordstream on our team to manage our PPC efforts

That's a great start and those are incredibly important questions to ask. Here is what I would say

1. How do we know that the content we're writing isn't getting lost in the noise of our own webpage, and the world at large?

Answer - well for starters when you write content or have content created by a 3rd party you have to answer a few questions such as

• Am I covering the subject in a way that is uniquely valuable and original? This is very important to understand that even if someone rewrites content from someone else and technically has original content, the content will add no value to the reader as the results will show content that essentially says the same thing. You want to be creative, think of every nut and bolt of your business and topics will start tom fly out that you hadn't thought of.
• Is this topic of significant interest to the readership?
• Does my content do this topic justice; providing unique, valuable strategies and action items for the readers, and is it technically accurate?

2. How do we know if the content is actually relevant to our goals (ie clients)?

Answer -  Again the same thing applies here when it comes to client goals. Tear their business apart nut by bolt and see who out there is talking about those pieces of the business that stands out. For instance I have a national client that runs 55+ mobile home communities. Not exactly the most exciting stuff to build a content plan around. But after brainstorming with my team and my client and seeing what was out there we came up with everything from retirement topics and energy savings to mobile home safety, hurricane proofing and even pets and mobile homes.

If you want a good free way to see what is being talked about make a copy of this Google doc of mine its a great way to get ideas and see whats being discussed on the web. Oh and its free. Just type in a keyword and it will populate also you could try Ubersuggest to get some free ideas. Next you need a great editorial calender again you can use one I have built here its pretty comprehensive and you should be able to start organizing you content marketing with that. we use it for over 25 clients at any given time and hundreds of articles.

Next once you have some valuable content and remember valuable content is share-able content. Start sharing on all of your social networks, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook any and everywhere you can tell people about your new posts do it. tell you staff the same thing. Sharing isn't duplicate content as all the sharing will lead back to the original article.

Next we can talk about outreach and how to effectively and safely get your content out there. Remember the ultimate goal is to create an Echo Chamber on the web of mentions, citations,chats,posts,articles and more. So when someone searches for something relating to whatever your goals are Google says "Hey all of these people are talking or mentioning this so lets show that.

Hope that helps so far, ill be on in a few if you want to continue also my email is campolattano@commarketing.com if you need anything off of SEOMOZ.

Yeah now I wanna go buy a Red Bull!

Hi I would be glad to help you in any way I can. The process can be daunting if your not focused. You asked how we know what we are working on the right thing. Well the right things are pretty easy to know we need its the execution of those strategies that separate the pack. If you are looking for some guidance on a strong content marketing plan I can help and no i don't want anything in return, just a chance to grow my network and help someone else. You never know someday I may need a favor. So lets connect and start out by asking me questions and we can go from there.

What about content marketing do you want to know?

Yeah I think on my next reviews I am gonna bring up the topic

Well political campaigns would be fun cause of the speed and nature of the product and it really wouldn't be a best practices scenario as once the elections over its over so no time for penalties..Muhahaha

Maybe it can just be some sort of relation system. Where even if I leave the relation to those old posts and answers and blogs still carry some weight but maybe you lose some points in the process.

Another way is to have a "Posted By" like I can on Facebook where I am an admin of a page and can post as any number of different identities such as just the company or me. That way I couldn't keep relations to posts and items set forth by the company but anything historical in my name transfers along with any pints you garnered off of those items. In this industry making a name is it and it takes a while to do so.

Agreed but at my agency I am the only one who puts the time into gaining ground in our industry and quite frankly I do it because it builds my reach as well as theirs. Your name is what matters in Search and if I work hard to get a name I want to make sure I keep it and not have to start over I do most of this at home off company time as well so I don't get paid for the extra community building I just love it.

So first what is the budget you have for the work. I only ask because that would tell me what type of process you should start. But first and foremost plan. The site needs a redesign for starters, you can go to places like ThemeForest.net and get a nice new template either standalone or for any CMS you may be using for great prices. I would suggest WordPress as Google loves them and you will have your site up and running in no time as well it's an easy machine to manage content. If you use WP make sure you download "SEO by Yoast" and "Better WP Security" plugins as well as a good captcha plugin

Then once site is looking refreshed here are steps you could start taking

1. Read and reread SEO for beginners here at SEOMOZ
2. Decide on paper who you are and who your target audience is
3. Decide on paper who your competitors are and their URL's
4. Create a Google Drive account and learn to love as it is great for a bunch of strategies moving forward.
5. Create a Trello account and start managing you daily tasks
6. start doing research on you competitors using free tools like opensiteexplorer.org which will give you a good snapshot of where you comp set stands
7. If you are a pro member here there are a bunch of great tools at your disposal but you will have to get familiar with the execution.
8. Start finding the community, go to Followerwonk and start looking for people on twitter who are influencers and talking about your niche. Follow them and start interacting with good information that is valuable and ultimately share-able. Do not buy Twitter followers. let them grow organically and if you posts are relevant and add value your followers will grow.
9. Make a copy of this Google Doc sheet to get quick information on who's talking about your niche on the web as well as to start getting good content ideas
10. Start planning your next few Blog posts and start posting to your own blog
11. Setup a Google Plus page and start joining communities and interacting
12. Make sure that everywhere you setup accounts online they have your correct contact info and site descriptions
13. Make sure each page of your site has Unique Title Tags and meta description here are some best practices to follow for both and more best practices as well
14. Never ever use Meta Keywords on your site
15. Make sure images all have ALT tags that represent what is on the page
16. Use only one keyword per page with up to 2 variations. Keywords are Like Quarterbacks if you have 2 you have none.

Well i'm winded so there are some items to start. Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions

I think about Political Campaigns as well, that might be fun in a ruthless way.

Agreed that would be cool to build.

Ok so yes this my idea of having fun when I think about SEO. For me it would be Coca Cola as they only have fast moving consumer goods and their whole brand just SCREAMS "please take me viral". Maybe Disney or a Gaming company..

Yeah now you have to roll up your sleeves and start from the beginning. I would do a comprehensive audit of the current site and a fair amount of competitive research as well. Unfortunately from there the strategy can be many things based a number of different criteria.

Just from an eyeball test the site seems incredibly outdated and does not follow remotely any best practices as they currently stand. There is nothing unique or valuable content wise to speak of and you basically have a bunch of keywords stuffed on the home page which is not going to get you anywhere. You have a domain authority of 9 which means the site is not considered trustworthy along with only 2 inbound links.

I don't want to be a downer here but there is a ton of work to do but f you are serious about the site then it's gonna take a good amount of focus from you and or your team to bring up to current standards.

No this will not help any other pages except the page the title tag directly correlates to. Also you only want one key term per title tag and the title tag should:

1. Read like an organic sentence such as if your key term is "Boston Dining" and your company is the "Boston Harbor" your Title Tag should read to the effect of "Experience fine Boston dining at the Boston Harbor Hotel"
2. If you are going to use breaks stay away from the "|" symbol as using this will cause your site to be non ADA complaint. Use dashes instead because they create a better experience for accessibility
3. Do not exceed 70 characters in order for your title tag to read best across the search results.

Here is a great read over at Acumium if you want some more meat

No prob good luck

The only downside to changing a URL is if you don't 301 and the crawl path gets changed. Here are a few tips to remember when changing URL structure

1. Setup 301 Redirect
2. Make sure URL is SE Friendly (If your selling organic dog food on the page the URL should read like so - http://www.domain.com/organic-dog-food) Remember a good URL is meaningful and a great URL is obvious

So that's my 2 cents hope it helps

Thanks Eric

yeah I was afraid of that, so now I need to start my own account I guess. I would think that SEOMOZ would consider this issue since mostly companies have SEOMOZ accounts.