In one of the biggest SEO headlines in recent months, JCPenney was publicly outed as a practicioner of black hat SEO. The company, whose uncanny organic results have been manually downgraded by Google, was allegedly unaware of the sketchy tactics used by SearchDex, a third party SEO vendor acting on their behalf. Before webspam engineer Matt Cutts and the rest of the Google team took action, JCPenney had front page rankings for multitudes of product-specific keywords, like “comforter sets” for months.

How they did it:

SearchDex used a paid links network that compensates website owners for the placement of links on their sites. By optimizing the anchor text (the text that appears in the underlined hyperlink) with a given keyword for a large number of pages, it did not matter that the pages they used had little traffic on their own or were not contextually relevant. In a specific example shown by Search Engine Land, JCPenney’s landing page for “comforter sets” had 700-plus of these junk sites linking to it, which included sites dedicated to Eastern Medicine, car modification and “How to hack Friendster Private Picture” (I was not personally aware Friendster was even still in existence).

If you have any hand in your company’s search marketing efforts, regardless of size, you should learn from this. Yes, the ROI from their dark alley campaign was probably phenomenal. However, was it worth the mess their PR and marketing people have to clean up now? Google has manually demoted their search results to obscurity. For a company that is trying to transition from its “Big Book” catalog to e-commerce, is a few months of SEO glory worth the work it will take to repair the damage from this fallout? Fortunately for JCPenney, sales driven by organic SEO are only a small part of its revenue. But for any legitimate business seeking long-term online marketing success, pure black hat SEO is just not worth it.

As if it were any surprise, Verizon is currently asking legislators from Virginia and Maryland for permission to stop delivering the local white pages to everyone except those who explicitly request it. One of the country’s premier phone service providers, Verizon has already been granted these permissions by five other states. By early next year, the company hopes to have these changes made in all twelve states in which it offers its services.

What director of public relations Harry Mitchell calls a shift to “on-request delivery” heralds the inevitable death of the phone book. According to the Washington Post, about 2 percent of residents are actually requesting phone book delivery in states where forced delivery is out of practice. While also citing environmental benefits, Mitchell also noted that “the nature of the way people are getting information is evolving.” Both Verizon and AT&T–who has reportedly pursued similar permissions–say that “most people search for numbers online,” according to the Post.

This news has immeasurable implications for your business. Though these changes only affect delivery of the white pages at this time, rest assured that the yellow pages are on their way out too–well after people have stopped using them entirely. This is especially important if you are wasting money on advertising in the phone book or have not established a visible online presence for your business. Talk to a small business specialist at Outrank.com to see how you can achieve this at a fraction of the cost of other advertising methods.

This week, Outrank.com brings you some compelling data to prove how effective SEO is for small to medium-sized businesses. The study I’d like to discuss today was put together by Bain & Company (one of the world’s most prestigious consulting firms), in collaboration with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (whose members account for over 85% of online advertising).

The findings of this study (located here) reinforce the power of advertising on the internet for businesses interested in closing sales as quickly as possible. The figure below illustrates this potential:

In this chart, we can see five “brand objectives”–in other words, the effects that TV, magazine, newspaper and internet ads have on potential consumers. Clearly, most small business owners (including everyday contractors, photographers, insurance agents, landscapers, etc.) are more interested in using their hard-earned advertising dollars to drive actual sales. When comparing internet advertising (most notably, SEO) against these other mediums, we see that the internet is the most effective way to turn your advertising dollars into “purchase intent”, A.K.A. profit.

The chart also indicates that, in 2008, companies spent over $35 million on TV ads that were only successful in “Creating Awareness”. Only a minute amount of TV ad spending was shown to result in actual sales. Think about it from the consumer’s perspective. We are all aware of the commercials we’re subjected to when we are watching our favorite shows, but that doesn’t mean we have any intention of buying their products.

With an extremely low cost and access to a large number of customers that are actually looking to buy products and services, SEO empowers the little guy more than any other advertising method. Call Outrank.com at (877) 332-4321 to learn more.

At all companies, even Outrank.com, complaints from customers can happen. When it comes to staying on top of your company’s reputation, the internet is a great resource.  Aside from family and friend referrals, which are rare, the internet is the #1 place that people go to find out the “truth” about a company they’re interested in.  There is no hiding what people want to know.

The bad news is that you can’t control everything, so you should expect that some of your customers will become unhappy no matter what you do.  The good news is that you can be proactive about turning the complaint into a discussion by addressing the customer’s concerns in a professional but apologetic manner.  Let them know that you are concerned.  You can offer the customer something to try and regain their business, like offering a free lunch if they come back.  Customers think highly of business owners who work hard to make things right. At Outrank.com, complaints are handled with care.

Customers post ratings of businesses on various sites around the web, such as Yelp, sharing their experiences with one another.  Many times, business owners will respond to negative reviews they receive in an effort to explain the situation or take responsibility for the mistake.  While this is not always effective, I’ve seen it turn disgruntled customers into loyal customers once more.

Make the extra effort to reach out on the web, like we do at Outrank.com. Complaints are just the first step – now you need to resolve them!