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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!

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 would use Linkscape and Majestic SEO and then just compare the data month over month to see what results are new. Make sense?

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.

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?

Hi Samuel,

In my opinion it is easier for a Fortune 500 company to get authoritative links than a new company. Personally, I think blog commenting and forum marketing is not that effective.

If I had to do SEO for a Fortune 500, here is what I would do:

• Write amazing content. Write content that provides huge value! Being that you're a Fortune 500, it's very easy to get media exposure and as a result, links. Providing high quality content is where its at!

• Next, definitely implement a company blog and start engaging your potential customers, existing customers, and anyone in between. Write blog posts that provide value and are insightful for your industry, typically you can get a good amount of links for a valuable blog post. Look at SEOmoz

• Press releases through a top-tier distribution wire like Vocus are great. They're expensive but do work well. For a Fortune 500 company, it shouldn't be an issue.

• Donate to universities or sponsor them in some way, shape, or form. Generally you can get a nice .EDU link in exchange! (In a relvant and contextual manner too!).

• Donate/sponsor a bunch of non profits or well-known organizations, they generally have a lot of authority and a link back could be huge from them.

I hope this helps?

I would first, choose which version you want to use going forward. You have three versions: subdomain, non-www, and www. Don't use the subdomain, that is a given. I personally like using WWW instead of non-WWW, however there are reasons to use non-WWW over WWW. But, given this scenario, it makes sense to use the WWW version. I know that the non-WWW version has more pages indexed, but pages indexed doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Given that WWW has good rankings and is more identifiable to a user, I would choose that. Of course, if you choose non-WWW my advice below will remain the same.

Now that you have chosen what version you want to use going forward, you need to do a few things:

• Implement a .htaccess 301 server-side redirect and redirect non-WWW to WWW (or vice versa if you so choose), make sure it's permanent. This way going forward, it'll fix your non-www and WWW issue.

• Next, you need to redirect all non-WWW indexed pages and URLs to their WWW version. This is not easy, especially with thousands of pages. However, it must be done to help preserve the PR and link-juice so it passes as much as it can through. What I recommend is seeing if there is a plugin or extension for whatever forum software you use that can aid you in this effort, or hire a programmer to build you one. It's actually not that complex to do and I have done it before in a similar situation and it does work. If you need more advice on that, PM me.

• You need to take care of the subdomain by setting up a permanent redirect to the main WWW version if someone goes to the subdomain, and also setup redirects for existing subdomain pages/URLs that have PR/Rank/LinkJuice.

• From there, make sure that you are utilizing sitemaps properly, that can greatly increase your indexing rate and volume.

I hope that these help, if you need anything further please do not hesitate to PM me or post here.

Good luck!

You sure can!

Try this tool out: http://www.majesticseo.com/reports/compare-domain-backlink-history

Just enter your URL, and it'll show you in a nifty little chart how your link building strategy appears over the course of time.

Enjoy!

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.

If you change your architecture, properly 301, and do it the PROPER way, you wont see much difference. Within 30 days, you'll be back to normal, in my experience. I've done this quite a few times with a Joomla site and WP site(s).

I personally like using /%category%/%postname%/ --- but to each his own

You'll be fine. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

First, stop worrying. It's not that easy to get someone slapped for paid links. Chances are, Google isn't even aware. I doubt the client is the size or notieriety of JC Penney

Second, start link building heavily and getting a large diversification of links.

Third, you need to do some high quality link building and get organic links from better sources. Bury these top 3 links in a sea of even higher quality links that are organic and I guarantee it wont affect a thing.

Get some press releases out there with PRWeb and get some links from large media outlets, should easily replace those links!

Good luck.

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.

YES!!!

This is critical and a common mistake many SEO's overlook. Make sure you use a number that is trackable so you can see the kind of return it generates and go from there.

You can even put it in the title, depending upon the circumstances. I have specific experience utilizing both of these methods and they both worked well for generating leads for my clients!

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.