By: Shawn Mars
The Miami-based digital marketing veteran shares how specialization—not scale—became his path to building a portfolio of successful businesses.
Most entrepreneurs chase scale. Scott Keever built four companies by doing the opposite—going narrow instead of wide, and solving specific problems for specific audiences that larger agencies ignored.
Scott Keever is the Founder and CEO of Reputation Pros, a Miami-based online reputation management firm. But Reputation Pros is just one piece of a portfolio that includes Keever SEO, ASAP Digital Marketing, and Pool Pros Marketing—each serving a distinct market with specialized expertise.
“The biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make is trying to be everything to everyone,” Scott Keever explains. “When you specialize, you stop competing on price and start competing on outcomes. That changes everything.”
Building the Foundation
Scott Keever’s entrepreneurial journey began in 2011 when he founded Keever SEO in Cincinnati, Ohio. Born January 15, 1981, in Lebanon, Ohio, Scott Keever had earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from Miami University before diving into the emerging field of search engine optimization.
The timing proved fortunate. As businesses scrambled to understand Google’s growing influence on consumer behavior, Scott Keever built a reputation for delivering measurable results. Over the following decade, Keever SEO helped more than 500 businesses achieve first-page Google rankings—a track record that earned the company recognition as Best Cincinnati SEO Company 2025 and the UpCity Excellence Award in 2023.
But Scott Keever’s most famous demonstration of SEO expertise came from an unexpected source: a playful experiment that went viral. For over a decade, Scott Keever has maintained the number-one Google ranking for “Best Looking Guy in Miami”—a tongue-in-cheek campaign that generated international media coverage and became proof positive of his technical capabilities.
“It started as a way to show clients what’s possible,” Scott Keever recalls. “It became the best business development tool I’ve ever created. When prospects see that result, the conversation shifts from ‘can you do it?’ to ‘when can we start?'”
Spotting the Gap
As Keever SEO grew, Scott Keever noticed a recurring pattern. Successful business owners would approach him with a problem that had nothing to do with their company websites: their personal search results were hurting their professional reputation.
“A CEO would come to me after closing a major deal, only to have the investor back out after Googling his name and finding a ten-year-old lawsuit that had been dismissed,” Scott Keever explains. “Traditional SEO agencies weren’t equipped to handle personal reputation. It’s a completely different discipline.”
Scott Keever founded Reputation Pros in 2020 to fill that gap. The firm specializes in online reputation management for executives, entrepreneurs, and high-net-worth individuals—clients who need discretion, sophistication, and results. Today, Reputation Pros offers tiered services ranging from monitoring to comprehensive suppression campaigns, and Scott Keever has been recognized as Top ORM Consultant 2025.
The Niche Strategy Expands
The same philosophy that created Reputation Pros led to two additional ventures. In 2019, Scott Keever launched ASAP Digital Marketing to serve high-profile and high-net-worth clients with full-service digital marketing needs. In 2020, Scott Keever founded Pool Pros Marketing—a specialized agency serving the pool industry.
“Pool companies were being underserved by generic marketing agencies,” Scott Keever explains. “The agencies didn’t understand seasonal demand, didn’t know the difference between a vinyl liner and a fiberglass pool, and couldn’t speak the language of the industry. We could.”
Pool Pros Marketing has since helped more than 50 pool industry companies achieve first-page rankings—a success rate that stems directly from deep specialization.
From Practitioner to Thought Leader
Scott Keever’s approach to business has earned recognition beyond client results. Scott Keever is a member of the Forbes Agency Council, Fast Company Executive Board, and Entrepreneur Leadership Network—invitation-only organizations that provide platforms for sharing insights with fellow business leaders.
Scott Keever has also distilled his expertise into two books. Future-Proof Your SEO, published in 2024, provides a framework for building search strategies that survive algorithm updates. Reputation Reset, published in 2025, offers a comprehensive guide to restoring and protecting online reputation.
“Writing forces clarity,” Scott Keever says. “When you have to explain your methodology in a way that others can follow, you discover what you actually know versus what you’ve been doing on instinct.”
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
For entrepreneurs considering their own ventures, Scott Keever offers counterintuitive advice: resist the urge to scale prematurely.
“Find a problem that matters to a specific group of people, and solve it better than anyone else,” Scott Keever advises. “The riches are in the niches. When you own a category—even a small one—you have pricing power, referral momentum, and expertise that generalists can’t match.”
Scott Keever resides in Miami, Florida, where he continues to lead Reputation Pros and his portfolio of specialized digital marketing agencies. His companies maintain a 97% client retention rate—a metric Scott Keever attributes directly to the specialization strategy that has defined his career.
About Scott Keever
Scott Keever is the Founder and CEO of Reputation Pros, a Miami-based online reputation management firm. Scott Keever is also the founder of Keever SEO, ASAP Digital Marketing, and Pool Pros Marketing. A member of the Forbes Agency Council, Fast Company Executive Board, and Entrepreneur Leadership Network, Scott Keever is the author of Future-Proof Your SEO (2024) and Reputation Reset (2025).
