Hello, YOUmozzers!

I have a quick "feel good" story I'd like to share with everyone. This is a true story about an experience I've had during the last few weeks, when I was able to generate business leads for my SEO consulting services... by being nice. I know... weird, right? Who would've guessed that being nice actually has perks!

The story begins about a month ago, when I posted my forgettable article about SEOmoz's top 100 profiles in Google. That post was mostly just an excuse to try out Google's embeddable spreadsheet feature from Google Docs, but it ended up generating some interesting comments. Most of them said something to the effect of "This post is teh suck." However, one comment in particular caught my attention--not just because it was a nice comment, but also because it was actually helpful and it contributed to the post. The comment was from khilley, whom I didn't know at that time and had never spoken to before. The comment included this:

"I've been going nuts trying to get my site back on page 1 for one of my keywords. It dropped off last week and I am losing sleep over it."

Since khilley had taken the time to read my post and help me out, I figured I could repay the favor by offering some free advice from the Worlds greatest SEO [note from Rebecca: I'm assuming you want to try and rank for grammatically poor searches, so I'll refrain from editing the anchor text] (plus I was curious to find out what the site and keyword were). I asked khilley to PM me the info and offered to investigate the situation. Khilley (which I had assumed was supposed to be some kind of cute nickname for a serial killer) turned out to be a woman named Kristen Hilley, who works on a website called CapeGuide.com (assuming she's not preoccupied with billable client assignments, serial killer projects, etc.). The keyword that Kristen wanted to rank for is [cape cod]. Her site provides a bunch of information to Cape Cod tourists and vacation planners. (When I said "vacation planners" just now, I was referring to "people who are planning Cape Cod vacations." Some of you may have thought I was referring to printed vacation planners that you can find at gas stations and hotel lobbies, in which case you may be wondering if an inanimate paper object has come to life and is out to get you. As far as I know, that has not happened, so relax. If you're still not sure which one I'm referring to, please see the diagram below.)

(Wow. I can't believe I just spent so much time on that picture.)

Anyway... I headed over to Kristen's site and started looking for ways she could improve her rankings. The site didn't really have any glaring on-page issues, so I focused on inbound links. The nice thing about Kristen's site is that it is entirely dedicated to everything and anything located in Cape Cod, so virtually any local business or organization with a website is capable of providing a relevant link.  I found several websites that might benefit from linking to Cape Guide, so I listed them in a word document to send to Kristen.

One of the more significant opportunities I found was the fact that CapeGuide.com is actually just one of many websites that are owned and operated by Kristen's employer--a company called c4.net Internet Services (a division of Cape Cod Computer, Inc.) --and almost all of these sites are relevant to Cape Cod in one way or another. Usually in a case like this, I would expect all of these websites to be ridiculously cross-linked, since most companies love to promote all of their properties every chance they get, whether it's relevant or not. However, in this case, the cross-linking between the c4 sites was actually pretty sparse, especially considering how almost all of them were relevant to Cape Cod. So I added a list of "missed opportunities" to Kristen's word document. This list included several URLs from the c4 sites that should have been linked but weren't, and I also made a few notes about some technical issues on those sites. In other words, I was not only making recommendations for where to add links, but I was also making recommendations for how to optimize those linking pages.

Total, I'd say I spent maybe 4 hours looking through the site and writing the document. That may seem like a lot of "free SEO consulting," but I really didn't mind, especially since Kristen turned out to be such a genuinely nice person (and not a serial killer). I didn't ask for anything in return--I just felt like helping out a fellow SEO/internet marketer. However, she was very grateful for my efforts and has shown her gratitude by offering to forward me SEO leads that she may come across (plus she's sending me a "thank you present," which I can only assume will contain an assortment of diamonds, precious gems, and ancient gold coins). So in the end, I volunteered just a few hours of my time, and in return, I got a piece of the Cape Cod SEO market... and possibly some treasure!

So what's the moral of this story? I don't know... how about... "be nice"? I really don't know. I just spend so much time pissing people off... I figure I'd take the time to share something positive for a change. I guess this story is just a little reminder to everyone that the SEO industry isn't always the evil creature that people make it out to be. There's still some good left in it... which is more than I can say about that demon-possessed paper vacation planner. That guy seriously creeps me out.

[UPDATE:  Before I submitted this post to YOUmoz, I sent it to Kristen so she could review it first. After all, I did make jokes about her being a serial killer, so it's only fair that I give her the opportunity to object. She didn't mind the jokes (well, at least not enough to ask me to remove them), but she did ask me to include a comment from her. Normally, I would have said, "No way! Comment on your own damn articles! This is MY blog post! Get away from me!" and run away screaming, but in this particular case, the comment makes me sound like a nice guy, so I'll allow it... just this once.]

Kristen's Comment:

"Part of the moral of the story, at least from my perspective, is that you can always find opportunities to improve when you have someone else (who’s qualified) review your web site. The CapeGuide.com and related Cape Cod themed web sites are ones I’ve worked on off and on for 3 years now and I’d not spotted the issues Darren brought to light. Having another pair of eyes to review was worth its weight in pirate gold and dazzling diamonds. I can’t thank Darren enough for his kindness and time he spent in reviewing my web sites and providing such detailed documentation on areas of opportunity!"