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I think this is a great plan. You are doing a lot by giving a longer strategy with hourly rates. That lets your clients feel like they are getting more for their money.

Hourly rates, especially when you break them down and show detailed information about what you did allows your customers to "see" the work. This is by far the biggest struggle with SEO work.  Your clients don't want to take the time to learn the stuff, but they also don't want to be hosed. Find a way to streamline this part because your time tracking can easily eat away 5-10 minutes of every hour if you aren't careful. They want to see what you've been up to but nobody wants to pay you to write down what you did

Long term businesses always do best when they over deliver so I wouldn't worry about giving away everything...unless of course if you truly have only one comprehensive report's worth of knowledge, lol. In that case you shouldn't really be charging for SEO at all right, so i am sure that isn't true

As long as you are completely up front about the limited scope of work and that anything else will be charged extra you should be good. Don't be embarrassed or glide over it, it's going to be the biggest headache down the road fi a client claims they didn't understand.

I run a content generation firm so I know all about the low ball clients. Don't undersell. Period. You have to decide what your services are worth and prove that to your audience. If they don't want to pay, thank them for touching base and send them along. No harm, no foul. I'm also a huge fan of firing clients that are disrespectful. After a while you get a sense for who is going to be a problem client, and you just cut that off from the start. Having a smaller group of clients that bring you joy is way better than a ton of clients that make you hate your job!

Sorry I went off on a tangent there. Yes! This is a good plan

I'm sorry Michael, this is all bad news. The introductory video emphasizes multiple IP addresses, spinning pieces, etc. Keep in mind that the vast majority of social backlinks are not dofollow. I think it's one of those each time there is a new service they provide dofollow while they are gaining steam but eventually cut that off.

The price is what $7? For 750 backlinks a month? That's a huge no-no.

If you are looking for a legitimate service to help with your social bookmarking I suggest OnlyWire. That service is a bit more expensive, will require you to create legitimate social media profiles for all your feeds and if you are smart...you should check in with those profiles once a month or so just to keep up appearances.

Backlinks beyond the low hanging fruit like directories and comments are difficult to get. That's why places that sell "quality" backlinks are scams.

Let me clarify - this is a black hat service. No doubt. Unless you have the knowledge to keep up with black hat maneuvers I would avoid this service.

That's a great way to find blog ideas and kudos to you for doing the hard work of guest posting

Syndication has its place... look at AP news for example.

Spinning is a whole other issue and is absolutely duplicate content and should be shamed.

Hey Ben

Yup, you can do that to help the search crawlers know where the original piece came from. Keep in mind that this will not necessarily keep the syndicated copy from ranking. For example, most of my B2Community posts rank better on their site than mine because of their DA. That's because the rel="canonical" is a suggestion, not a directive for noindex.

The only way to truly make sure that the stuff you syndicate will not outrank the original is to put in a meta robots "noindex" tag in the head of the content pages.

If your stuff is getting syndicated though.. there isn't much you can do. Personally, I get enough traffic from my syndicated stuff that it is more than worth it to ride their coattails. If you don't find syndication mutually beneficial you can always contact the site directly and request a noindex tag. Keep in mind this will probably mean they will drop syndicating your stuff altogether.

Hope that helps

I would use Compete.com for stuff like this Hope that helps

Great question You can always syndicate content... just be sure to provide an attribution link. For example, my company gets a lot of traffic via Business2Community because they syndicate our blog on a regular basis. I have attached their standard attribution link.

I know that duplicate content is scary but just follow these two rules:

1 - Give credit where it is due

2 - Make sure Google can spot an attribution link

Remember that content creators want you to share their stuff, and obviously you guys want to share your own stuff. Don't assume that Google is going to check to see the relationship, make it obvious. Just a simple "This piece was syndicated with permission from X" will do the trick. Be sure to link to the piece itself Of course, it's doubly nice if you use the direct link and a main link too

Hope that helps!

attributionlink.jpg

I'm with Nakul that you definitely do not want to just copy the articles. You don't want to nudge into duplicate content if you don't have to - even if you have permission, the search crawlers won't know that.

From a purely user experience POV I would create a page with some great design elements that includes excerpts of her posts with links to the full articles. And if she has been syndicated by big names, I would include their logos on the page. This will instantly build trust for her via her samples.

And when you use excerpts with additional fresh content you won't need to worry about dup content issues.

Hey Sean,

First... I'm insanely hungry now from watching your videos! Second, I'm wondering why you don't have a link in your Youtube videos back to your site. Remember that YouTube is a powerful search engine itself so if I were you I would use those videos for double duty. Optimize them and make sure there is a link back to your site so the traffic comes from You Tube in addition to your site.

That might also solve your problem of the YouTube video landing in search. I would spruce up the description so that it appeals both to people coming from your site and from YouTube.

Full Disclosure: I haven't used Youtube in 11 months so they might have changed their protocol...

Unfortunately, I don't think you are going to be able to switch out your video for a site on the SERPs - but I could be wrong. I'll be looking forward to one of our amazing Mozzers to answer this more directly. In the meantime, I hope that what I shared will at least help a little

This question was answered in an awesome way here - http://www.seomoz.org/q/open-site-explorer-facebook-likes-accuracy

I hope that helps

As a general rule, never blame something else for a terrible bounce rate. It's your site or your copy or something you are doing. In the case of a forum link, maybe you aren't being descriptive about what sort of link it is.

Ian Lurie made a stellar point in his most recent Moz PRO webinar about how to give people what they are looking for in order to lower bounce rates.

For example, if you have a forum signature that reads "check out my site" and your site has nothing to do with the forum you are guaranteed to have a pitiful bounce rate. On the other hand, if you are on an A/V forum which is closely related to your site and your forum signature reads, "for more information about how to set up A/V cables click on my site" - you'll have a much better bounce rate. Especially if that link goes to a super helpful link about setting up A/V cables.

Is there a reason you aren't considering a sub folder? Check out this resource from Moz - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain

"5. Subdomains or Sub-folders

Since search engines keep different metrics for domains than they do subdomains, it is recommended that webmasters place link worthy content like blogs in subfolders rather than subdomains. (i.e. www.example.com/blog/ rather than blog.example.com) The notable exception to this is language specific websites. (i.e. en.example.com for english)"

It should be pretty easy to add a sub-folder like www.clientrul.com/blog for a WP blog for easy SEO

I hope that helps!

Great question You can always syndicate content... just be sure to provide an attribution link. For example, my company gets a lot of traffic via Business2Community because they syndicate our blog on a regular basis. I have attached their standard attribution link.

I know that duplicate content is scary but just follow these two rules:

1 - Give credit where it is due

2 - Make sure Google can spot an attribution link

Remember that content creators want you to share their stuff, and obviously you guys want to share your own stuff. Don't assume that Google is going to check to see the relationship, make it obvious. Just a simple "This piece was syndicated with permission from X" will do the trick. Be sure to link to the piece itself Of course, it's doubly nice if you use the direct link and a main link too

Hope that helps!

attributionlink.jpg

1. Agree wholeheartedly with Stevej24 about the one link. Unless there is an option for a social link or something. The best answer to this is to see what other posts are doing. Remember that each website is its own community so to get the best traction comment wise or with guest posting is to see what's already there and mold yourself

3. Again, this depends on the community of the site. For example, a small site with a strong following might be a PR1 but you'll find tons of quality traffic. Whereas a PR 5 or a huge DA site might just send you spammers. In general, a thoughtful mix is always wise.

4. The only negative I've had is a lack of response, which is pretty common if you submit to huge sites. Be sure to read everything you can about guest posting on a site. For example, hbr.org tells you flat out not to expect a response before 4 weeks. If you have a time sensitive post (which you should) you are better off going to a site that is going to welcome you with open arms

BTW, as a real estate person are you interacting on ActiveRain? We write for real estate and have only heard great things about that community. I keep trying to get us on there for interaction but it is too far down my to do list

I don't have a "limit" answer for you, just that consistency is the key. Whether it is 1 or 100 a day (or week or month), just be consistent.

Remember that Google wants to see signs of life not signs of spam. So "working" 1,000 links one week and then nothing till the next month will get you the wrong type of attention.

And I concur with Casey, we started a huge linkbuilding campaign a couple months back and we just this past week are seeing all the links come through.

If you are building your links by actively participating and generally being a helpful person you don't have to worry - Google (and the rest of us) like that!

I'm with Nakul that you definitely do not want to just copy the articles. You don't want to nudge into duplicate content if you don't have to - even if you have permission, the search crawlers won't know that.

From a purely user experience POV I would create a page with some great design elements that includes excerpts of her posts with links to the full articles. And if she has been syndicated by big names, I would include their logos on the page. This will instantly build trust for her via her samples.

And when you use excerpts with additional fresh content you won't need to worry about dup content issues.

Rand did a great training webinar about branding symbols. He mentioned BBB specifically as a way to increase your value in Google's eyes.
Plus... I seem to remember an awesome youmoz post about a site that went up like a rocket just 18 days after they were BBB accredited. Lots of link juice on that one

Someone more organized than me can probably find those for you The webinar is still in the Pro zone.

Hey Sean,

First... I'm insanely hungry now from watching your videos! Second, I'm wondering why you don't have a link in your Youtube videos back to your site. Remember that YouTube is a powerful search engine itself so if I were you I would use those videos for double duty. Optimize them and make sure there is a link back to your site so the traffic comes from You Tube in addition to your site.

That might also solve your problem of the YouTube video landing in search. I would spruce up the description so that it appeals both to people coming from your site and from YouTube.

Full Disclosure: I haven't used Youtube in 11 months so they might have changed their protocol...

Unfortunately, I don't think you are going to be able to switch out your video for a site on the SERPs - but I could be wrong. I'll be looking forward to one of our amazing Mozzers to answer this more directly. In the meantime, I hope that what I shared will at least help a little

Hey Ben

Yup, you can do that to help the search crawlers know where the original piece came from. Keep in mind that this will not necessarily keep the syndicated copy from ranking. For example, most of my B2Community posts rank better on their site than mine because of their DA. That's because the rel="canonical" is a suggestion, not a directive for noindex.

The only way to truly make sure that the stuff you syndicate will not outrank the original is to put in a meta robots "noindex" tag in the head of the content pages.

If your stuff is getting syndicated though.. there isn't much you can do. Personally, I get enough traffic from my syndicated stuff that it is more than worth it to ride their coattails. If you don't find syndication mutually beneficial you can always contact the site directly and request a noindex tag. Keep in mind this will probably mean they will drop syndicating your stuff altogether.

Hope that helps

Right, it does cost something... and, if you are active on SEOmoz you are probably more advanced than the SEO training they provide. On the other hand, they pretty much spoon feed great link juice to your content.

It's one of those "digital sharecropping" issues but if you plan accordingly you can leverage their sites high authority to get your posts ranked well on Google (your posts that are hosted on their site) that have links back to your main url.

The good -

If you are doing the writing, you obviously can choose the best anchor texts

Since you are doing the writing, you still get the reputation bonus of your content

It's much easier to rank with them as opposed to yourself when you are starting out because they have so much authority

The bad -

Your building their empire, not yours (unless you leverage it correctly)

And... I'm off on a tangent. Sorry

You're so welcome! It's pretty simple to do as well so come back if your web designer wants to charge you an arm and a leg