The whole premise of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) is to make your Web site appear higher in search results when people search for different keywords.

However, the SEO and SEM movement has led to a rogue band of manipulators. Some are your competitors, who are trying to steal traffic from you. Others are money-hungry opportunists, who are trying to claim a high SEO spot and then get you to pay them off so that you can have it. I think this practice is shady, but some of you may have a different opinion.

Today, Gina Six Kudo (or Gina6k on the forum) has penned a great blog entry on the topic and her experiences with it. I encourage you to check it out:

http://www.insideselfstorage.com/blo...avid-wolf.html

Anyone else have experience with this or found yourself victim to some of the things Gina writes about? What have you done about it?

__________________
John Carlisle
Community Manager, Self-Storage Talk
Online Content Editor, Business Solutions Network
VIRGO
jcarlisle at vpico dot com
480-990-1101, x1214

The biggest part of the problem is relying on competing virtual media aggregators to advertise and not understanding how SEO and local SEM work in the realm of local search.

I just read an article in Search Engine Journal about a developer’s explanation of what it took to ‘build out’ a directory of storage facilities across the United States at StorageSeeker.com. Note his discussion about why having a site map is so important in search. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/s...ge-test/12336/.

Hop over to GetListed (http://getlisted.org/), a useful free resource for small business owners to learn more about the way their businesses are listed online, enter your company name and zip code and hit enter. If your results are similar to Gina’s company, you’ll probably find that there are some simple changes you can do to just get the major search engines to even find your company for local listing.

Now click on http://blog.getlisted.org/how-local-...-engines-work/ and listen to (or read) the ‘whiteboard’ explanation behind the technology enhancements recommended at GetListed.

David Mihm of GetListed and Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz do an excellent job explaining local search methodologies in simple, easy to understand language. Rand has a whole series of short ‘Whiteboard Friday’ video presentations that he’s posted at his website to help inexperienced users with understanding SEO.

Fair enough assessment, Bob. I’d probably feel the same way if a complete stranger sat down at my table unannounced.

I’m new to these forums and your side of the business, but I’ve spent nearly four decades in upper management within the full service moving and storage industry at both the local and national level.

Last May I added the Inside Self Storage feed to my blog at RELO Roundtable http://reloroundtable.com/blog/?p=2799 because old school movers aren’t into social networking and don’t have any place to share their thoughts about the trials and tribulations within the movin’ industry in a mutually supportive but commercially neutral learning environment. In my opinion, both the full service and self service sides of the industry are experiencing many of the same challenges in this economy. I hoped by including the link to regularly update the content on the page that I could use your community as an example to show what’s possible when business managers share information in a cooperative instead of a competitive environment.

I also host the national Moving and Relocation page http://bit.ly/K0jMg at Examiner.com http://bit.ly/11CvVf – a new type of online journalism. Again, I hope that by experimenting with this novel type of customer engagement I can use some of my industry experience to help the relocating public make good buying decisions by avoiding the confusing information they often find when shopping online.

As a result, there are several self-service moving and storage vendors that have signed up to follow my feeds and Self Storage Talk and Inside Self Storage now has several full service mover browsing your topics and information. Personally I gain absolutely nothing in the exchange.

I’m an Ops guy. I have absolutely NO experience with either SEO or SEM. But I have overwhelming curiosity to learn it because, as David and Rand discuss their video, if I you aren’t aware of what’s going on within local and national search arena, your competitor can hijack your site without you even knowing it.

I apologize for the fact that I wasn’t aware of your introductory requirements before posting. Please forgive my intrusion.

Thanks for introducing yourself, ReloRick, and welcome to the forum! I won't repeat myself from the e-mail I sent you, but we're glad you're here. I'm also very glad to hear you put the ISS feed on your blog. We ALWAYS appreciate that

This is an awesome group of people to chat with, and I apologize if we came off a little bristly at first. I have all of these moderators primed to look for promotional posts and spammers, so that was prompted the reaction. Once again, welcome.

Back to the topic of the thread, though, Gina is specifically concerned about Web sites posting all of the information about her facility, even though they are not affiliated. The posting isn't a friendly link, like "Hey, this is a good storage place, go check it out!" It seems to be a malicious attempt to steal traffic and, perhaps, even discredit her facility.

Have any advice for her, Rick? Have you run across smear campaigns like this yourself? Others, please chime in.

__________________
John Carlisle
Community Manager, Self-Storage Talk
Online Content Editor, Business Solutions Network
VIRGO
jcarlisle at vpico dot com
480-990-1101, x1214

Giggle! Welcome ReloRick! Okay, so the moderators got a bit excited as a few previous abusers had us all questioning your post. Sorry.

That said; WELCOME!!! Yippee, another lurker has joined us!

At least now, I'll check out those links you posted and see if anything is helpful for us directly and like you I am interested in any tools to combat the problems that exist!

You wrote: "But I have overwhelming curiosity to learn..." That's one reason we're all here, to share and learn. Welcome to the pool and if you come up with any solutions to help those of us in my shoes, I for one am all ears. Thanks, and again welcome!!!!!

__________________
Gina 6k
CochraneStorage dot com
Morgan Hill, California
twitter.com/CochraneStorage

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!
I am not an attorney, just an experienced manager who is willing to share what I have learned. Your thoughts, practices or opinions may vary and neither of us may be right.

Since I seem to be the idiot here, please continue to use this great resource in conjunction with your activities. Not every one is as duh as I am.

Moving and storage is closely connected to what we do and can, I'm sure, learn from you more about your industry. As you don't know about ours, we don't know as much about yours as we should.

Welcome to the group.

Bob (Astro)

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Bob Taylor (Astro)
Blue Ridge Self Storage
Cashiers, NC

Disclaimer: What Gina said....'cause the the cheese fell of my cracker.

Excuse me?! Who says you get the title all to yourself Bob? Play nice and share. We all have our moments when we're less than a shining star, yours just happened in the wee hours this morning when normal people are asleep... hey, wait a minute... I was here too, and thought the same.

ReloRick, thanks for posting, I've already learned things from your site to help customers! Awesome!!

__________________
Gina 6k
CochraneStorage dot com
Morgan Hill, California
twitter.com/CochraneStorage

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!
I am not an attorney, just an experienced manager who is willing to share what I have learned. Your thoughts, practices or opinions may vary and neither of us may be right.

Bob, I had no objections or felt any ill will to your reply to my first post. I’m active in several consumer oriented communities that deal with relocation and am usually just as leery as you were of first time visitors who add self-serving content to existing threads. It was presumptuous on my part to think my post wouldn’t receive the same kind of scrutiny. While your comments are very much appreciated, you have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. It's me who needs to apologize. Thanks for the welcome.

As I understand it, link aggregators ‘hijack’ visitor traffic by collecting a lot of small business information and posting the company details correctly or incorrectly at their websites. That’s what’s the developer explained in his explanation Search Engine Journal of how he ‘built out’ his directory of storage facilities across the United States. Multiply his efforts for his client by five or times and the impact can be devastating on small businesses especially in secondary market areas.

Search engines like links because it represents the possibility of increase visitor traffic so they index those sites higher in organic search results than they do the individual local companies.

I bent the drive shaft on my Sears mower this weekend. Like most people, I googled the local Sears store (“Sears, My Community”) find out if they offered a repair service. The first organic listing in the SERP was a Yellow Page listing showing a phone number for the store up the street.

I dialed the ‘Lawn and Garden’ department and was immediately transferred to an automated attendant that informed me that the ‘Service Deliveries’ department was closed until Monday. The second organic result was from CitySearch got me the ‘Sears Tire and Automotive’ department at a store in an adjacent town.

I’m sure neither of my ‘customer’ experiences was intentional or malicious but it shows that even big, national brands can have their company information hijacked if they don’t pay attention.

The reason that I included in the information from GetListed is because they offer some fairly simple things that owners/managers can do to protect their company identity. If you have the inclination click on http://blog.getlisted.org/danny-sullivan-on-local/ and listen to the humorous explanation that Danny Sullivan offered to a worldwide collection of SEO and SEM experts about my experience.

Then you might want to confirm that the contact phone numbers you found online for emergency or protective services or will actually connect you with where you want to go.

One thing that you can do to fight back if you find a site using deceptive means to gain ranking is to report it to Google. They have guidelines for fair play, and you can report a site that blatantly violates them. They can remove a site from the search engine if they confirm it.

Here's a link to the guidelines:
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35769

There's a link to the spam report within that page.

Steve Hajewski
Trachte Building Systems

Thanks ReloRick! Haven't had a chance to read through the links yet from your earlier post, but they are on my list. Next week, I'll start fighting this again and use all the resources you all have suggested.

Steve, would you believe I did file a complaint with Google about six months ago and it worked! Then the company was purchased and the new owners did the same thing. I've had no response from Google on this last one. It's been over three weeks this time around. I may file again to make sure someone notices.

You guys are awesome, keep the ideas flowing please.

__________________
Gina 6k
CochraneStorage dot com
Morgan Hill, California
twitter.com/CochraneStorage

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!
I am not an attorney, just an experienced manager who is willing to share what I have learned. Your thoughts, practices or opinions may vary and neither of us may be right.