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Good perspective.  I can see you have a very different economic reason for keeping your content on site and it would have to really make sense to give it to another publisher so that they can monazite it.

We're probably along the same lines as Marie in terms of what we're looking for.  We're a marketing company - traffic is great and would love to have tons of it, but ultimately we're looking to attract a moderate amount of high quality middle/bottom of the funnel traffic and gain one or two clients from our effort.

Hi, Marie.  Thanks for your response and agree with everything you wrote here.  I am not looking at this exclusively as a link building campaign - I see a lot of potential benefits.  Our focus has always been more inbound oriented, with a focus on quality content, value, etc.

That being said, it is one of my goals to increase our site authority and I am looking at different ways to do that.  As Egol said, if we develop great content, it will eventually get shared, linked to, etc.  We have seen some of that over time, but I am wondering if the strategy of publishing some content externally might accelerate our efforts, and if so, I am really curious to see to what degree.

Do you see a correlation between your posts on Moz and SEW and your site authority over time? Very curious to hear your perspective on if/how it's helped.

Thanks much! Andrew

Hi, Egol.  Thanks for your perspective and totally agree with what you're saying in terms of giving away content for free and investing on your own site versus others.  In my mind there is some return for gaining exposure to larger audiences as well as building authority for my site through off page links.  If you had the capacity to do both, do you think that external posting would help accelerate the development of your site authority and ultimately traffic/following or do you just keep the content all internal and let it build?

I'm planning to begin contributing to several different media outlets and blogs on the net, and hoping that I can get some decent placements for me and a few of my colleagues. Looking specifically at legit media outlets and corporate blogs with a structured and considered editorial process where we can contribute thought leadership pieces.

In light of all of the Google algorithm changes surrounding guest blogging, I am curious if this would be viewed as legit editorial placements, or as guest posts that would either carry no weight or be penalized?

Secondly, what are the considerations and value of including a high quality in-article link back to our site vs. a byline link, or both.

Does anyone have any data or experience with this? Thanks in advance!  Andrew

and wondering if anyone has any experience or insights

Thanks, Mariam.  It's a legitimate expansion of our business that I'd like to take advantage of with local search - especially since the purpose of our satellite offices is to expand our range and put boots on the ground.  But it does make me nervous.

A lot of businesses game the system when they don't have a legitimate presence and I want to make sure that I don't end up getting blackballed for mistaken appearances.  It sounds like a lot of grey area, as you said, and I may just have to use my best judgement.

Do you think it would be less risky to create local landing pages and relevant local site content, but not pursue a google listing?  I'm wondering if that would be effective, or if the google listing is really necessary to make it work the way that I want it to.

Thanks for your thoughts.  Andrew

Hi fellow Mozzers!  Our marketing agency (based near SF) has partnered with 3 individuals in NYC, LA, and Seattle.  I would like reflect our expansion on our site and local listings, but want to make sure we're on the up and up, since it's not a traditional brick-and-mortar expansion.  Many people have used similar tactics in a black-hat way, so just want to make sure we don't get grouped in there.  Is pursuing local listings in advisable in this case?

In the Field/Home Offices - What is the best practice for listing a location in the field with home office - but no official B&M office?

Business Centers - How does Google treat business centers where we have a part-time presence?  (We legitimately use, can receive mail/phone calls, have an office share allocation, and host meetings in their boardroom.)

Local Numbers and Addresses - Will a local phone number forwarding to our main HQ work?  We'd prefer to filter all of our calls through our HQ since we have the infrastructure there.

Other Considerations - Other than setting up our address and phone numbers on our site and major listings, is there anything else that should be top priority or concern?

Thanks for your help here!  Andrew

Thanks, Dave. Great points. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks, Justin.  Good advice.  The important thing to me was the ability to deliver unique brand and user experience, including navigation menu, content, colors, logo.  I've been putting things together on my own thus far without the technical programming know how, but now that you bring this up, I am sure that my developer will be able to help me build this out under a single theme and install, no problem. Appreciate the thought!  Andrew

Hi, Eugene.  Thanks for the response.  I'll try to explain it better.

I would like to create a website experience that is specific to several sub-specialties of our marketing agency (tech, medical, legal, etc). Each "microsite" has unique brand messaging, navigation, styling, case studies, blog.

I am trying to figure out the best practice for hosting and site architecture. For instance, here are my considerations:

Main Parent Site: www.abcmarketing.com

Separate Sites Option:  www.abcmedicalmarketing.com
Sub-domain Option: medical.abcmarketing.com
Sub-Folder Option: abcmarketing.com/medical

The Sub-folder option seems to be the best way to consolidate efforts and maintain authority for one domain, as you said.  But I'm not sure if there are any other considerations that I'm missing here.  For instance, will the sub-folder hosted microsites rank as well as if they were hosted and maintained separately?  Is there anything that Google will potentially not like about this? Or is this simply and clearly the best way to proceed?

Thanks for your help!

Hello, fellow Mozzers!  Been racking my brain. Thanks for your help on this one!

I am in the process of putting together several microsites for our marketing agency.  The sites feature similar theme and design elements, but are focused on delivering a customized industry-specific visitor experience with unique navigation, brand messaging, services, case studies, etc.

I am struggling with whether I should host as entirely separate websites, as subdomains of the parent site, or as separate WP installs in subfolders of the main domain.

I have been leaning toward the sub-folder option to share domain authority and keep our SEO efforts consolidated.  But I am also concerned that the microsite "home pages" will underperform as sub-folder pages, versus being an actual home page of a unique domain or sub-domain.

Is this a six-of-one or half-dozen of the other situation, or are there some important considerations I'm missing here?

Thank you for your help here!

I'm planning to begin contributing to several different media outlets and blogs on the net, and hoping that I can get some decent placements for me and a few of my colleagues. Looking specifically at legit media outlets and corporate blogs with a structured and considered editorial process where we can contribute thought leadership pieces.

In light of all of the Google algorithm changes surrounding guest blogging, I am curious if this would be viewed as legit editorial placements, or as guest posts that would either carry no weight or be penalized?

Secondly, what are the considerations and value of including a high quality in-article link back to our site vs. a byline link, or both.

Does anyone have any data or experience with this? Thanks in advance!  Andrew

and wondering if anyone has any experience or insights