My path into SEO was more of a progression. My computer related background got my IT consulting jobs. Those consulting jobs needed web design help. The websites needed SEO. The SEO clients needed online reputation management (ORM) help. In the shortest form possible, that’s how I got to where I am now!
My first client was pro bono
Pro bono just means I wasn’t paid and I helped a guy who deserved help. We’ll call him Nick.
Nick was at a party during his senior year of college and was 2 months from graduating. There were about 20 people at this party and some of them were in the front yard while others, including Nick, were inside watching a movie.
Over the course of the evening, police officers began questioning a guy outside. This guy had been on the campus police radar for a few weeks and when they found him they asked him about selling fake ID’s. He denied it, but they found a bunch of fake ID’s in his pocket. That’s about as conclusive as evidence can be!
Of course this fake ID seller claimed they weren’t his and he was holding them for a friend who was inside. The police went inside and when 10 people denied knowing anything about fake ID’s, they were all arrested. 10 people, including my client Nick, were taken to the police station, booked and released. No charges were ever filed against any of them because it turned out they were telling the truth and none of them knew anything about the fake ID’s.
That’s when trouble for my client began. He applied for a job with a local firm and got a job offer contingent upon him graduating. Two months later he graduated and called his future employer only to learn the offer was rescinded! When he inquired, he was told they have a very strict no tolerance policy against criminal behavior.
His future employer Googled him and saw a mugshot and he called me. With no job and looming college debt I felt bad for Nick and offered to help.
I knew SEO and ORM couldn’t be much different, right? Wrong.
SEO is not ORM and ORM is not SEO
One of the very first lessons I learned in ORM was that you need more than one “money site”. In SEO we’re typically focused on promoting a single site for one or more keywords. ORM is almost the opposite, you’re targeting multiple sites with (usually) one keyword.
I quickly learned which sites ranked well and which sites were a waste of time. Buying SEO services were out of the question as I wasn’t willing to spend a lot on a campaign that was bringing in literally no income. I started exploring what I could do with a smaller budget that would actually drive results.
ORM Should Always be Results Based
Will McAvoy (Newsroom character) was on a mission to civilize. I’m on a mission to show people that reputation management should be about results. It’s part of the business that is often overlooked. Most people are concerned with closing a deal, after that’s done they’ll try to figure out how to go about completing the work.
To be successful in reputation management, you must be able to move rankings and successfully clear the first page.
If you can’t complete the work, which is a clean first page most of the time, you have no business taking money for reputation management. After I did my first deal with “Nick” I did a second ORM campaign at cost so my client paid me no fees, just the cost of the actual work I paid for.
I wanted to be sure that I could successfully complete a reputation management campaign, that was a few hundred campaigns and 10 years ago.
And that brings us to today wherein I play the role of captain and point the ship in the right direction. I hire capable people and train them to know what to look for. I always interact with every client and am the first point of contact for every client. They all have my personal cell phone number and know the can call or text at any time.
No matter what changes, my favorite part of this business is engaging with my clients.