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Just tell them you want a link inside an article or at the end of an article (up top is best). See if they have any paid text link advertisements on the websites. Usually just asking is the best method. See if advertising in the print magazine will result in some sort of advertisement on the website, usually if you do the print magazine, online is a bonus, etc... they're using that as upsells nowadays since print is taking a hard hit.

I understand where you're coming from, I really do. However, you're always better off going the harder route. I know that isn't what you wanted to hear because your client is paying you to do a job.

However, how pissed are they going to be when one day they pull the switch on the EMD's and they lose their ranking overnight? You're back at square one and your client will feel like a bait and switch was pulled on them.

There is absolutely no reason why you cannot rank a brand website within a few months. It's just a matter of high quality content, on-page optimization, and then link building. Work in the social aspects and you'll easily get them up there with the big dogs.

If you chase the algorithm, you'll be left high and dry.

Just my 2 cents!

I think people need to stop fearing Panda. If you have high quality content and are unique, there is no reason that you will be affected. Remember, the sites affected mostly were sites that had tons of dupe content, scraped content, and horrible content.

Craigslist is a classifieds site that wasn't affected at all. If you don't scrape stuff and the content is original, you'll be fine.

Focus on being a brand, focus on user-generated content that is unique, and then just don't scrape!

I've honestly had better results with SlideShare, but Scribd is also good. Use both SlideShare gets indexed really fast, though Scribd can as well. I would say choose whichever you prefer and then just work the system. If it fails, use both. It doesn't hurt to have your content all over the web!

Do NOT go with an Exact Match Domain. Focus on building up a brand. EMD's will one day be going by the wayside and you'll be left with nothing. Trust me, building a brand is the best method to use. You won't get the SERP boost an EMD will give you, but you can easily compensate by using super amazing content that is relevant and doing some nice link building.

Focus on the brand, amazing content, amazing links, and they'll be ranking in no time. Seriously!

I don't use any tools, I manually check the top 5 Social Media sites and run thru a manual audit process looking for specific KPI's (Key Performance Indicator's) to gauge if they could benefit from social media services.

What they're using is rich snippets.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html

You can read about it there. I would recommend using it if possible, they do make it nice for the end-user and result in higher CTR's in my experience.

I would set your post title as the H1. That is my personal preference and what i do for my clients.

H1 gets a little more weight than an H2, though it is not much simply because it's too easy to stuff.

I do not keep an SEO blog. Our company blog is just for generic info that we use to bring in new clients and also for existing clients to see us sharing information openly about the best practices and tips. Honestly, since we redid our website, we have one or two blog posts and never blog and didnt even finish our website, we are too busy with client work. Speaking of that... we need to finish our site lol.

The benefit a SEO blog would bring is fresh content (Google loves it), attract new clientele, share information to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, city, and client list!

I think the only way to do it properly is with your clients full permission and knowing that they understand the full ramifications. Honestly, my clients would never go for it. The last thing they want is their strategy or their secret weapon (my company) to be known to their competitors. The link juice is minimal unless you have an exceptional blog.

My rule is to never expose a clients name, URL, or strategy unless it's completely anonymous and literally no chance of it getting back. However, you may find some clients okay with it, in that case... GO FOR IT

I'd love to post some of my best work but my clients are pretty strict on me releasing that information, so for now I'll have to keep my trap shut.

In my experience and opinion, it's because Google tries to cover and hide backlink counts from them.

To try and gauge it, use this command:

"yourwebsite.com" -site:yourwebsite.com

Exactly as it appears there, copy that line, switch out URL, and paste into Google. Not 100% accurate, but can give you a general idea. You can also look for code with ahref tags and your website, etc... otherwise use Linkscape, it's been working amazing for me and my clients!

I understand exactly what you mean. Like underneath the product there is a box that has basic info and 5 tabs that say "Reviews - Detailed Info - Etc..." and when you click on the tab it shows you more content. This is perfectly acceptable for SEO. Just make sure that the tabs work in a way where all the content is there in the HTML and the tabs use Javascript to hide it/show it, so Search engines see it no matter what. Make sense? In other words, set your user-agent to googlebot and turn off everything and take a peek at your site and see what content you can see. YOu can do this via Webmaster Tools as well!

You can try reporting the bad links to Google. Communicate with them, it'll help. What kind of links are they where they'd cause a penalty? Generally, you can't penalize a site for links otherwise I could do that to a competitor...

Give me a few examples of the links?

Outbound links don't really help in SEO. However, if it adds relevancy to the end-user, it WILL help. Instead of focusing on what you think SEO should be, focus on your end-user. Be RELEVANT.

For your type of website, I would honestly focus your attention on social media and user-engagement/interaction. Having your trailers shared on FB 300 times would GREATLY improve your SEO, traffic, and relevancy more so than any type of link, whether it's inbound or outbound.

Does that make sense?

Can you give me an example of "tabs"? Generally, drop downs and other forms of navigation do not hurt you. But please show me an accurate example so I can give you reliable information.

Google Calendar?

http://www.coffeecup.com/web-calendar/

They MIGHT do the job. Are you by chance using WP or Joomla? Good calendar systems for those out there.

If you ping the links you've built, generally see SERP movement within a week or two.

There is nothing wrong with using a third party service for link building (it's the same thing as having an internal SEO do it for you, regardless of what people say). However, you need to make sure they're building WHITE HAT links. There IS a difference between a white hat authoritative link that is RELEVANT and links that are spammy. Get samples of their work and test them out on a dummy site first and see if it's XRUMER type linking or real manual links. That's my thoughts on it.