I'm really surprised they've managed to beat her in google ranking.

Not when I search for 'Zephoria'.

.org (her site) has the first 6 spots; .com (them) has the next 4; and then it's her twitter and flickr accounts.

Why? They're a social media consultancy. They must be familiar with SEO.

because she really has content and they are relative nobodies. maybe i'm just not cynical enough when it comes to the effectiveness of SEO.