Is my SEO guy bad news?
-
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?
-
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.
-
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
-
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:
- 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)
- 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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best SEO Structure For E-Commerce With Products Using Multiple Categories
Hi all, I am in the process of re-structuring my e-commerce website for better SEO and user experience. I have done some keyword research and would like some advice on how best to structure my site around those keywords. For example, my site (All Things Nature) sells a brand of wooden sculptures (Woodsculp) and I would like to rank for keywords related to that brand, the brand by animal, the brand by collection and the brand by release date.
Content Development | | nb2e4fg
Examples of keywords could be: Brand by Animal: Woodsculp Dogs, Woodsculp Cats, Woodsculp Elephants
Brand by Collection: Woodsculp Pets, Woodsculp Safari
Brand by Release Date: Woodsculp Christmas 2023, Woodsculp Summer 2022 I would create each of these keywords as a category so that they can be found by a search engine and by users. I would then structure as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Pets
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Summer 2022 The only problem with this structure is it would take more than 3 clicks (4) for the user to reach a product. How critical is this for good SEO and user experience? Would I be better off getting rid of the ‘Woodsculp by Animal’, ‘Woodsculp by Collection’ and ‘Woodsculp by Release Date’ categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The only thing with this is there would be a lot of categories under the brand name which might make it more difficult for search engines and users to logically follow. Would I be better off getting rid of the brand category and replace them with the keyword categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 This would organise things more logically but I would then lose the brand category (and the potential of the brand keyword ranking?) Would I be better off choosing one main keyword to use as a category and then use tags for the other categories? Categories: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants Tags: Woodsculp Safari
Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The next issue I have is that I have products which could fall under several different categories. A product called Elijah Elephant, for example could fall under Woodsculp Elephants, Woodsculp Safari and Woodsculp Summer 2022. In previous e-commerce sites I have never assigned multiple categories to one product (I instead have used tags). Is it good practice to organise products under multiple categories for an e-commerce site? Thanks in advance for any help and advice.0 -
Free websites that are good for seo
I am looking to create some one phrase specific sites. Are there any free instant sites that are good for seo? I know WP but for speed wanted to go for an instant thing. http://wordpress.com/ ? or something else?
Content Development | | Agentmorris0 -
Is it possible to have news from two sites going into one wordpress site
Hi, i would like to know if it is possible to write original content on news on one site and then have it appear on two other sites as an introduction. I am using wordpress so i am very knew to it as i normally use joomla. I am looking for a rss feed that will show the image and allow the intro articles to appear in a category of its own, for example, other news any help would be great
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Author Rank for news portals
Hello SEOmoz community 🙂 I would like to discuss the option of implementing AuthorRank on news portals where content changes daily and the importance and the ''weight'' of that content is measuerd mostly on the breaking news factor. Content changes multiple times through out the day and there are many authors / journalists who write for that portal, so my questions would be: can AuthorRank have impact on this kind of site? Did any of you have any experiences with AuthorRank on a big scale sites like news portals and if you would be kind to share some insights. Thank you in advance! sincerely, sinisa
Content Development | | TataSinke0 -
Are there any tools available for wordpress that can help with SEO?
I'm looking for a wordpress plugin that that keeps current/updates with all the changes that constantly take place on various search engines. Is there such an addon that meets this criteria?
Content Development | | uofmiamiguy0 -
Should we be using a blog for news
Our domain has/had a blog on a seperate subdomain. However we were a little slack in always keeping this up to date when we are particularly busy. Rather than reinstating the blog, I have been adding all our new articles directly onto the website rather than as blog posts. Is there any advantage from an SEO perspective to posting articles to a blog rather than as content on a site?
Content Development | | dsmdesign0 -
Can you have too many words on a page for SEO?
One line of thinking is that you can not have too many words on a page because the more words you have the higher the chances that a long tail phrase will attract traffic. But can you go overboard with this? Is there a limit to the number of words on a page in terms of SEO?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
Adding a new wp client to subdirectory - SEO?
Im working with couple of clients in the travel business. Im building up a network of blogs that add content, internal contextual links and so forth to clients websites. What I want to do is to install a fresh wp client to a subdirectory e.g. www.mydomain.com/blog for every and each client. This way I can get my outsourcing workers to log-in there and write content, add internal contextual backlinks etc. This also solves the problems of letting them learn on various different local CMS systems that are often just in the local language - that nobody understands:) So either I install it as an additional wp client if the clients has a wp client for the root domain. Im wondering what effects this will have on SEO and what is important to do?. E.g. do I install a new sitemap for this new wp client in subdirectory - or do I merge it with the one for the root domain. How? In regard to GA tracking - do I add the same tracking code to the new wp install or somehow merge it into the root domain? Are there some issues I need to worry about especially when using this approach?
Content Development | | rrrobertsson0