As we all know, Google has been and continues to be the premier search engine.  In 2013 they controlled over 69% of the search market, and haven’t really given up much of that share in the past several years.  Due to this incredible market domination, SEO has primarily been focused on obtaining results specifically with Google in mind, and for good reason.  But, as a child gains more knowledge while it grows and experiences more, so does Google and its search engine algorithm.  We have seen some very impactful updates over the past 3 years; from Panda to Penguin and Hummingbird and hundreds of unnamed updates in between.  In fact, some people believe that Google makes updates to their algorithm on a daily basis, which wouldn’t surprise most of us.  So, lets see if we can draw from the past to help better understand the future.

Panda

Before we can adequately understand why the Panda updated occurred, we have to go back in time to just before it was released.  In January 2011, Google handed down some severe penalties to both Overstock.com and JCPenney.com for shady or ‘Black Hat’ SEO practices.  During this point in time a large number of websites and companies from big to small were taking advantage of the immature nature of the Google algorithm, which valued sites higher who had more backlinks pointing to their domain.  In the case of Overstock, the penalty they incurred stemmed from the fact that they were encouraging websites of universities and colleges to backlink to Overstock in exchange for discounts on purchases made on their online store.  In this case, the backlinks created that were pointing to Overstock were from an .edu extension, which has historically been given more value by Google.  The result was that Overstock.com was raking near the top of thousands of search results ranging from ‘microwaves’ to ‘vacuum cleaners’.  Once Google was tipped off about this practice they immediately penalized Overstock.com, resulting in their rankings falling from the top three to between 40 and 70.

Next came JCPenney.  This penalty was more to use JCPenney as an example than it was to penalize practices that the company directly had a hand in.  JCPenney had hired an outsourced SEO company to help rank them better for keywords most associated with their business (which is probably just as many as Overstock.com).  Google wanted to send the message to other companies who were considering spending money on Black Hat SEO services that this was not an acceptable practice.  All in all, any type of effort to ‘manipulate PageRank’ was looked down upon and would be dealt with accordingly.

This is where we get to Panda.  Panda (aka Farmer) was the algorithm update that Google had been planning on releasing, even before the incidents with JCPenney and Overstock.com.  This major algorithm update came in the wake of the previous scandals and affected up to a whopping 12% of search results.  The results were absolutely devastating for many online retailers, causing many to lose all of their sales and others to go completely bankrupt.  The aim of this update was to reward those who were practicing ‘White Hat SEO’ (or proper outreach and link building) and penalize those that were buying thousands of backlinks at a time, had too many ads on their site as opposed to actually content, or who simply did not have enough relevant content on their site to begin with. The direct effect this update had to those who relied on the Internet for their livelihood begs the question – is Google too powerful, too omnipresent, too dominating?  The fact that one corporation, in one fell swoop, could affect so many thousands of people in a direct, financial way really makes one think whether or not this is the way the Internet was meant to be.

As a result of all the tens of thousands of negative effects that Panda had on Internet sellers and consumers, Google subsequently released another update almost twice a month or more for the next 10 months.  This practice seemed to set a precedent – Google now releases various updates MUCH more frequently, with each updating seemingly having a lesser impact at one time than Panda did.  That is, until we got to Penguin.

Penguin

As the practice of building backlinks on a massive scale was penalized with the Panda update, Google then set its sites on reigning in and controlling various spam activities being utilized as a replacement to building backlinks.  After Panda, many companies shifted their practices to building higher quality links with ‘exact match anchor text’.  What this essentially meant was that SEO companies were writing content to have posted on guest blogging sites with good ranking factors.  When they submitted the article to one of these sites, somewhere in the content would be an exact match link to something the company was hoping to rank for.  For example, if you were the owner of an AC repair company, you would submit an article to a guest blog and have a link built from the exact words ‘AC repair’ to your website.

These practices eventually culminated in the creation of a link profile for that particular company to become too heavily focused on these exact match anchor text.  Most of the links pointing to their site would be tied to exactly what that site wanted to rank for. Additionally, many SEO companies also visited the article that they wrote once it was published and left more links to their clients as comments about the blog post. As Google continued to grow and change, they became aware of these tactics and immediately set out to address it.

Because this update was for Google’s entire search results, no website could ask for a reconsideration to this update.  If you are manually penalized for practices that go against the Google Webmaster Guidelines, you can usually contact Google directly and ask for them to review your site after you have removed what they penalized you for.  Many webmasters were up in arms about this due to the massive effect it had, just like Panda, on the search results for many companies.  The only solution to this update was to try and go through yourself and manually delete or un-follow all of the ‘spam’ links that were built to your site.  This could prove to be tedious or even an insurmountable amount of work.  Many web masters were forced to buy completely new domains and start from scratch!

What Does The Future Hold?

What can we pull from all the information provided above?  Simply put: Google is an ever changing, mutating company that aims to provide the most relevant search results to its users.  What does this mean to website owners who are looking into SEO?  Be VERY careful how to decide to pursue your SEO going forward.  As we have seen, practices that are acceptable today can lead to utter disaster tomorrow.  These update are immediate and can affect over 10% of all the search results that Google returns.  Make sure that you find a company that only practices White Hat SEO, and is future oriented.  There were some companies, such as Rank Executives, that did not practice any of these ‘spam’ tactics in the past and thus their client base that they serve did not experience the impact that these updates had on other websites.  We anticipated the changes coming and made sure that our tactics going forward would only compliment your website and link profile.

Matt Cutts, director of anti-spam at Google, recently came out with some comments that caused quite the stir in the Search Engine Optimization community.  One of the more safe practices in the past for building a link profile has been to offer guest posts on various blogs.  Cutts came out not even a month ago and said that ‘you should probably stop’ if you are using guest blogging as a means to acquire links in 2014.  As usual, Cutts did not speak in absolutes, but we can expect a change in the way guest blogs are valued by Google in the near future.  For now, the practice remains fairly safe, as long as you aren’t writing awful content, laden with grammatical errors and sending back links to you or your client’s site with this poor material.  Google is looking for high quality, well-written content and will likely start to penalize guest blogs it views as being ‘spammy’.  While banning all guest posting as a means to gather new links will likely not lose all of its value, you should move forward as if any guest post could eventually be analyzed and deemed as poor quality content, thus resulting in a penalty for your backlink.

As we can clearly see, the world of Search Engine Optimization is one that is always mutating into another monster, day after day, month after month and year after year.  It is best to try and keep foresight in mind when building and accepting links early this year.  A change is coming, and as we have seen before, those who are on the receiving end are likely not to be happy campers.

Brenton Squires
COO Rank Executives

The post The Ever-Changing Landscape of Search Engine Optimization appeared first on Rank Executives.

My name is Jesse Leimgruber, I am studying at Stanford University and co-founder of Rank Executives.

Rank Executives is a full-service internet marketing company based in Orlando, but at the end of September, we’re opening an office in San Francisco. Unlike our Orlando office, our San Francisco office is solely devoted to developing startups, brainstorming cool ideas, and working together on interesting projects.

Our top developers and marketing professionals are moving to San Francisco with us to facilitate the growth of any startup project that requires their help. (Including your startup)

If you’re reading this, you probably have a startup, or are thinking about making one.

Joining this project will provide you with:

• A Marketing Budget
• Use of Our Office Space
• Free Access to Professional Developers & Designers
• Free PR & Marketing Consulting
• A Place to Brainstorm & Work With Other Like-Minded Students
• And In Some Cases: A Small Amount of Funding From Rank Executives

We do not require equity or payment. Instead, we require teamwork and support. However, we do hope to create an environment that allows everyone to be rewarded for their contributions. (i.e., It is up to you to distribute equity to the people you feel earned it.)

What’s in it for us? Networking, meeting talented people, the opportunity to partner with early-stage startups.

What’s in it for you? Assistance with development & marketing, office usage, networking, meeting talented people, the opportunity to partner with early-stage startups.

You DO NOT need an idea to join the project.

Since coming to Stanford, I’ve come in contact with tons of awesome, brilliant people. The Stanford Design School created an open concept, shared work environment. My dream is to create a similar environment for startups, allowing students to work together in a way that is beneficial to everyone. We were a startup not long ago. Since then, we’ve been fortunate enough to work with some awesome clients which has afforded us the opportunity to fund a project like this. Now, we want to share our resources and everything we’ve learned with new startup groups.

This is not an incubator, an accelerator, or a corporate endeavor. I am not trying to create the next Y-combinator, nor do I plan on directly profiting from this venture.

I want to find a few like-minded people that want to pool resources and help each other. In addition to helping everyone, the goal is to create the next BIG project. We are planning on working with no more than 25 students, half of those spots are already filled.

Please comment below if you have any questions, comments, ideas, or suggestions. We LOVE input!

How To Join:

Again, this is not intended to be an extremely exclusive application. To apply, fill out the form below or reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’ll be back at Stanford in September if you would rather chat in person. Note: This is open to anyone, not just Stanford Students.

Feel free to call our office: 407-878-6667 if you want to talk to me more about your ideas.

Some Facts About Us:

1. In August 2013, Rank Executives was ranked the #2 Enterprise SEO Agency in the United States by TopSEO’s.

2. We’ve worked on projects for a number of major companies including: Philips, Bain & Company, Salesforce, Rue & Ziffra, Kid Rock, David Guetta, Glenn Miller Orchestra & Kayak.

3. We recently acquired Boston SEO Experts, one of the leading SEO companies in Boston. We’re also taking over their internet marketing bootcamp conference this year.

4. Our free SEO grader has been used by over 2000 companies.

5. P.J. and Jesse Leimgruber also created Rage Hats Inc, one of the leading distributors of Neon Hats. Rage Hats operates NeonHats.com, MericaHats.com, and RageHats.com. The company earned a number of celebrity endorsements and sponsors some of the biggest music festivals across the United States, including Ultra, Identity, and Northcoast.

Other Ways You Can Help:

Obviously, joining the program is the easiest way you can help. That being said, we are also looking for more developers and designers to join the team as paid employees. We are hiring both full-time and part-time developers. If you know any developers looking for a job, send them our way.

It’s worth noting that this project is entirely self-funded. I’ve created profitable businesses, but the open startup project is costing all of our profit, and much of our savings. While we don’t “need” an investor, it would be nice to have some financial support.

Please share this with anyone that has a startup or might be interested in joining. They have no way of knowing about this opportunity unless you tell them.

The post Stanford: Are You Ready For The Open Startup Project? appeared first on Rank Executives.

What is White Label SEO?

Not to be confused with outsourcing, White Label SEO is a recently developed practice in the SEO industry that has rapidly grown in popularity. What a lot of clients do not realize is that increasing a site’s rank—especially one that basically has zero optimization already—requires an insane amount of work. The White Label SEO practice refers to when a certain SEO agency has too much on their plate, and passes off the work to a fellow company for a share of the client’s allotted expenditures. This process allows agencies to never get stuck when rankings stop because of algorithm changes. An entire new set of methodology will be done by another agency’s experts to help keep your client satisfied and paying. If a client is not satisfied with the SEO from the White Label agency, the original reseller can still do their own SEO to supplement it, giving a substantial boost.

Why Use White Label SEO?

Google’s algorithm updates have given a lot of SEO agencies trouble, as the methods and loopholes that previously worked to rank sites have been filled in. However, some companies have stayed on top of the updates and developed new techniques to replace the old ones. Companies that are overbooked with clients can not always balance the increased work effort, so they turn to fellow agencies to pick up the slack. Rank Executives offers White Label SEO Packages for any company that wants to instantly get top results. Our packages are customized for each client and are some of the greatest available.

Benefits to Both Sides of the White Label Service

Either end of the service spectrum, reseller or White Label agency, receive positive results from the service. For the reseller, they no longer have to be help accountable for the site as another agency is doing the work. All strenuous SEO work is removed, as the reseller becomes the middleman for the service—easily managing profit margins. Since the reseller charges the clients, they determine the set fee to the White Label agency, determining the margin of profit they will gain.

On the other hand, the White Label companies that do the work receive plenty of benefits as well. Besides receiving the business and gaining a solid part of the pay, smaller White Label agencies are able to get their name out there, and build professional relationships with potential clients. The practice of White Label SEO creates a mutually beneficial relationship between SEO companies, as well as generates excellent results for the client sites.

Trust a White Label SEO Agency

There are several methods that White Label SEO companies use for their optimization processes. Utilizing guest blog posting, SEO agencies write articles which they submit to a large database of posts, from which bloggers around the world can pick them up for their site. These articles have a link back to the client site embedded in the content which creates a natural backlink once the article is posted somewhere else. Along the same lines as guest blog posting, content creation for the site plays a large role in boosting the rankings for sites. By adding pages of content, the sites crawl rate increases allowing Google to index the site faster, and give more ranking power for the keywords in the text.

Directory submissions are not a popular method used by many SEO agencies; however, RankExecutives utilizes these directories to gain several natural backlinks to client sites. By submitting a site to a directory, Google receives the site faster and is able to index is quickly. Press releases are another less popular SEO method, but they can be extremely powerful for link building. Gaining a backlink from an authoritative news site not only helps the link building process, but also drives natural traffic to the site.

Be careful when picking a white label agency. Ask for a valid set of results and a history of past clients. With RankExecutives, you get only white label services. The tactics listed above are only the tip of the iceberg in what methods we use to rank sites.

The post White Label SEO Service appeared first on Rank Executives.

 5 Facts about Organic SEO

1. Organic SEO is the only way to ensure LONG TERM results.
2. Buying links and paying for “sponsored listings” are not organic methods.
3. If it is automated, it is not natural. Natural SEO is all done manually.
4. Organic SEO is not a one time process, it takes time to develop.
5. You can not rank a site with “spun” content—high quality articles are crucial.

Natural SEO does not come as easy as Black Hat SEO. There are no simple buttons in organic SEO that get you links or create content for you; however, there is an even more powerful element behind it—the human element. Bots and programs might work for some Black Hats, but these tactics lack the longevity, perseverance, and ingenuity that allows for Natural SEO to develop successfully and stay on top. There is no guarantee that other methods of cheap, effortless link building/buying will pay off long term. Any of the sites webmasters buy links from can be shut down for violating Google’s terms and agreements, and can cause a website listed on that site to be removed from the search engine all together.

Buying links or sponsored listings are not proper ways to increase site rank or traffic. Just because a site payed for a listing at the top of the search results, does not mean it has any ranking value at all. The fact is, those sponsored listings are nothing more than ads that the majority of internet users feel unsure about clicking on. The conversion rate for most pay per click ads is startlingly low, coming in at under 1%. Paying for these listings can be extremely expensive, and when compared with the cost of practicing Organic SEO, are terrible cost effectively.

Investing in Natural SEO does not lend amazing results in a day—good things take time. The processes of Organic SEO are not individualized tactics, everything builds up together. Rushing or spamming any part of the it can set a site up for future complications. Taking short cuts such as automated link building or using content spinners to help speed up the ranking process will only hurt your efforts down the road. Although it may seem a little dry sometimes, the natural approach to site rank has more benefits than most people care to work for. Many turn to Black Hat tactics over Organic SEO, and they will deal with the repercussions eventually.

Black Hat: It MIGHT work…for now.

The only reason SEO agencies that use Black Hat tactics even get clients is because they generally can get a site a ranking quickly, without much work. By utilizing spam tactics such as Xrumer blasts and blog commenting bots, they flood your site with thousands of unnatural links that will spike your ratings quickly, but only momentarily. They force you to keep paying them, warning that your rankings might drop when the SEO is done. If you stop these Black Hat methods will harm you. There will be no more flow of links to your site from their bots, causing your rankings to drop. These tactics temporarily inflate your ranking but include no long term benefits to your ranking or toward the quality of your site as a whole.

Organic SEO: Future Proof

Sites built and ranked around the spam methods of Black Hat optimization lead to falsified, inflated rankings that can disappear just as quickly as they came around. The downfall of Black Hat tactics lies in their solely temporary fix, and the riskiness of the strategies a a whole. Google specifically looks to find sites utilizing these shady methods. If you do not practice Organic SEO, Google will have no mercy when they ban your site permanently from the index. People run a huge risk when they try to optimize their site with these methods, and even if they make it through Google’s scrutiny, the links they create have no long term anchor to keep the ranking they forcefully created.

Natural SEO offers secure link building and strategies that will help your ranking continuously increase. The base methods used by White Hat SEO’s focus on the creation of unique content and the slow acquisition of natural links to real websites. Read more about our White Hat SEO methods to see why they are so crucial to a successful website.

Organic SEO’s Focus: Content

Perhaps just as important as solid link building, writing organic SEO content for your site has significant implications for not only increasing your site rank, but keeping it ranked. The differing results that come from building spam links using Black Hat tactics and updating your site with content is that content, once written, will not disappear or lose value. Old links in blog comments will be indexed and then lose value as time goes by. Quality, natural content stays on site and can get links built to it, that won’t disappear or lose value. Given, writing impressive, fresh content on a consistent basis may get difficult; however, the results will speak for all the hard work put in to it.

Social Sharing and its Effect

Great content provides the website owner with the opportunity to gain backlinks to their site from other authoritative sites that find the content worth sharing. Coupled with social shares via social media, writing good content costs nothing and will pay out over time. The great part about social media promotion of a website’s content comes from its potential to gain real followers to the site. These people are not interested in links and SEO, but rather the actual site as a whole. The domino effect of focusing on content creation for SEO purposes will lead to social shares, and eventually to loyal traffic from people who love the site because it’s something they actually care about.

What It Means for the Future

Creating stellar content that generates tons of social shares and drives organic traffic to a site sounds easy to achieve, in theory; however, the fact of the matter is that not all site owners can pull it off. This does not mean that webmasters looking for SEO results should give up on Organic SEO tactics and switch over to the dark side, though. Creating this content and posting to guest blogging sites can help you gain these natural backlinks and traffic, if you aren’t confident in your writing ability or viral potential. There is no doubt that the White Hat tactics focused on the generation of natural content will have great SEO successes regardless of your potential or knowledge of the inner-workings of the optimization process.

Time is every website owner’s vital ally in their fight to increase rankings, and the benefits of content creation come hand in hand with this aspect. Building up a site with a continuous flow of words and building links to these posts/pages at a steady rate while doing so, shows Google’s crawlers that this site is growing and should be given higher authority. Using Black Hat SEO to force a thousands links to a site in one day will look good at first to Google, but after about a week it will look obviously spammed and almost immediately lose value. When using the Organic SEO methods, the site’s original pages and links will be there forever. As the site posts more content and builds more links, the old pages will be indexed again and given equal or possibly even more value because the site is still growing, not just fading off after one massive spike in growth. These content pages with links built in to them become the anchors to the site while trying to grow and increase its rankings, and will always maintain the solid, natural links the webmaster worked hard to attain.

The post Organic SEO appeared first on Rank Executives.

The Orlando SEO scene is taking off. With the grand opening of our new office, we can now take new SEO clients from all across Florida. We will closely focus on Orlando, as we can work hand in hand with business owners, but we do take national clients. Businesses in Orlando need to get found on Google, just like all other small businesses. We would love to be the agency that takes your company to the top! Our Orlando office is staffed with over a dozen highly trained, highly qualified SEO Consultants ready to work on your project!

Our new address is 189 S Orange Ave, Suite 1200 Orlando, FL 32801

Orlando Search Engine Optimization

All companies need SEO. We are launching our new office in Orlando to help optimize companies for the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. We have already worked and performed local Orlando SEO for dozens of companies across all of Central Florida. Recently, however, our new office has allowed us to reach an even wider audience. SEO in Orlando is quite powerful, since there is a fairly high person to business ratio.

Come Meet With Us, Anytime!

Web Design for Orlando Businesses

Rank Executives has an extensive portfolio of web design for Orlando based companies. From small businesses, to large retailers, we have worked with companies across the entire United States. Our web design team is extremely professional and has experience working with sites of all levels. Recently, we completed the SEO and web design for an entire social network project. Our social web connections top over 100 million, our resources are unlimited, and we can use these same resources for your company.

Orlando SEO Company

We are an Orlando SEO company. Coffee shops, lawyers, independent retailers, car dealerships, schools… nearly all types of companies in Orlando can utilize our internet marketing and digital strategies. If you think you can be helped by Orlando SEO Services from one of the top companies in the industry, give us a call. We provide free consultations, no obligation information sessions, and pressure free quotes.

Before our call, we will compile a comprehensive SEO report for your website, detailing your current strengths and weaknesses. We’ll carefully review this report to see exactly what needs to be done. We want you to feel comfortable before signing up, so you’re welcome to talk to us as much as you’d like, for free. Let us prove our skill and expertise to you first!

National Vs. Regional Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a science. Most of the time, our local campaigns are focused around Orlando SEO. That being said, we have launched brands, skyrocketed companies, and seen incredible ROI with our nationwide campaigns. As a full service internet marketing company, our rigid structure and full service team has every skill and necessary expertise to take your business to the next level. If you need to see a quick profit jump, or just want to slowly build your customer base, our search engine optimization and orlando internet marketing office can make it happen!

Come Meet With Us, Anytime!

The post We are an Orlando SEO Company appeared first on Rank Executives.

The post Our new Orlando SEO Office appeared first on Rank Executives.