Utah SEO, Bryan Phelps and Paid Links
Bryan Phelps has ranked #1 for “utah seo” for the past few days. He recently posted about it and seems to be surprised by the results.
Obviously this isn’t some huge dent in the internet marketing world as the search phrase barely gets any traffic. And that limited traffic is most likely composed of others in the field, but it’s still interesting to discuss.
Bryan’s site was started early 2007. He posted about random topics early on. Then, about a month ago he changed his title to “utah seo specialist” and was able to acquire some links. Now for the past few days he’s been ranking over firms that have put much more time into their rankings. Some of these firms were ranking well because of content (blog posts, age, good internal linking/cross site linking, etc – the guys at MWI always do well in these areas, especially blogs), while others are using purchased links plus the other stuff (check out the sponsored links at SEORoundtable. Utah firms have a strong presence there.
Will Bryan stay on top?
I highly doubt it. (Bryan, can we still be friends?)
In the past year I’ve seen many in the top spot including Vizad, Chris Sandberg, 97th Floor,MWI and UtahWebServices. In the end, the firms will knock Bryan down.
Which practices will win in the end?
Some of the search engines have come out and said they don’t like the paid link route and have even provided ways for others to report them. I personally don’t buy links for my own sites, but I’ve never reported anyone and never will.
I’ve enjoyed following the competition for the key phrase “utah seo”. It will be fun to see what happens next. For now Bryan Phelps is the champ. (Don’t let it get to your head or you could find yourself the newest member of the OrangeSoda link building team ;-) )
Update – 8/10/2007 – BryanPhelps.com fell to #2
HA HA
August 8th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Disrespect! Sadly enough, I do believe that some Utah SEO firm will beat me out soon. Hopefully for Google, they will. I can’t say that they are providing the most relevant results for that search term.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I’d be happy if you kept the ranking, Bryan. Especially if you have a nice “sign up for OrangeSoda” call to action on the top-left corner of your site. Enjoy it while it lasts.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
What do I get if I’m the one to steal the #1 spot away? Don’t mock me, cause I’ll do it!
August 8th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Stu,
Go for it. Bryan will take you out to lunch if you knock him off the top.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
That’s false. Now someone is actually going to optimize for [utah seo] and take me out…dang your semi-annual blog posts.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
I got your Utah SEO right here!
There’s no backing out now Bryan. Free lunch, here I come!
August 25th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I took Bryan’s place for a few days but like Bryan, it was short lived. There after, my employer, Utah Web Services took it but today it looks like MWI’s back on top. We’ll see what the future holds.
January 5th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Jordan is winning this keyword battle currently. The rat race for SEO terms is insane.
May 13th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Honestly i believe ranking in the top spots of google is easy, once you have figured it out.