By Jason Knapfel

Certain professions just have a bad reputation. While there may be an element of truth to some of the criticisms, the vast majority in those fields obviously don't deserve to be lumped into the small group who stain the industry.

While I'll leave the aforementioned professions anonymous (I think we all know them anyway), the SEO industry is the proverbial new kid on the block. The fresh face with a foul odor, thanks to a very aggressive underbelly who are not only terrible at what they do, but inundate everyone on the planet with spammy propositions. 

But if you're willing to weather the bad pub and prove to your clients you are different and worth hiring, you need to start by practicing ethical SEO.

Avoid the Love 'em and Leave 'em Approach

"One night I came home. I figured, let my wife come on. I'll play it cool. Let her make the first move. She went to Florida." - Rodney Dangerfield

Are you happy just to collect money from a client, even if it means they'll be leaving you in a few short months? You should always serve your clients' best interests first... but let's talk about you for a minute. If you want to be successful, I mean really successful, focus on building long-term relationships with clients.

That's not what unethical SEO types do. They're happy to churn and burn 'em. That's not only bad from a moral perspective, but you're building an unstable business with a growing bad reputation that will eventually come back to haunt you.

Establish Realistic Expectations

But you also need to set the right level of expectations with your clients. You can start on the right foot by not over-promising. In other words, tell your clients what they need to know not what they want to know. Never "guarantee" #1 rankings in Google, when it clearly doesn't work that way. Of course, hitting number one in rankings for targeted keywords should be a goal, but remember this is a fluid thing. You may be number one for a while, for certain people, then the next month number three.

by Wes Button

When developing a new website with mobile we take into consideration the various modern technologies we can leverage to serve the site to mobile devices. There are three ways we can approach creating a mobile website, all with various strengths and weaknesses.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design (RWD) is a method of designing and developing the front end of a site to allow a site to naturally scale down and reconfigure itself for smaller screen sizes, from a maximized widescreen desktop browser, to a tablet, and down to a smartphone. RWD utilizes CSS (cascading stylesheet) and media queries to apply a different set of design rules based on a user's screen size: such as the width of an image, the arrangement of the navigation, and the size of the page's text. Using CSS, you can even hide and show elements only on mobile browsers (such as a Call Us button). Because you are serving the exact same site to mobile and desktop, just styled differently, you don't even have to think about duplicate content or canonical URL issues for your mobile site.

by Chelsea Terris 

We don’t need to tell you to make your website look professional. You wouldn’t get dressed in the dark on the morning of a big interview, right (just say no)? Your website auditions your business for new clients all day, every day. Keeping it bright, shiny, and optimized is your #1 priority if you want to appeal to potential customers online.

These days, though, a great website is not enough. Mobile is the new whiz kid in town, and in our increasingly connected culture, he’s here to stay. So what can you do to get your website ready for the mobile boom?

Get specific:

Mobile users are looking for specific information delivered at lighting speed. Your mobile page should be a condensed - not watered down - version of your regular site, offering up a one-two punch of targeted information with simple navigation that leads them to your door for the solutions to their problems. Anything more general and you forfeit customer retention and increase your bounce rate.

Social media users have an innate desire to talk about and share things that they think are compelling, relevant and/or hilarious, and they are competing for a captive audience with millions of other users.

When marketers prepare social posts they have to ask themselves, “What makes my brand so interesting that it will stand out amongst a sea of tweets. What will make people will want to click my links, read my blog and share my content with their friends?”

It’s incredibly difficult to succeed in social media unless you have something valuable and captivating to say. It’s not enough just to have a profile on Facebook and Twitter. If you want your social strategy to be the magical force your brand needs, you’ll need to make it a vehicle for your content strategy.

By Chelsea Terris

Your business is doing great. You have clean listings across the web and customer calls are pouring in. Now all you need is a little user participation to beef up your online presence; namely, stellar user reviews. 

How do you get customers and clients to review your services on sites like Yelp, Google+, Insiderpages, and Citysearch?

IT'S ALL ABOUT YOUR REPUTATION

Before you get excited and start directing your clients to your listings,  first consider how Google looks at reviews.

Google sees reviews as a way to gauge your reputation. When was the last time you went to restaurant that Yelp said was sub-par? You want current and former clients to share their positive experience of your services in a place where potential clients can see them. In turn, Google will rank these reviews through search, putting your business closer to the top as positive reviews pour in. 

If you are a small business and looking to boost local interest, obtaining reviews is even more important. Google looks at the following when ranking your reviews: