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Are you sure they're exactly the same? An address with www. is considered a different page to one without the prefix, as is one with or without a trailing stroke e.g. www.randomwebsite.com compared to www.randomwebsite.com/ - and so is a URL with different letters capitalised that is otherwise the same.
I noticed a few strange crawl errors in a Google Webmaster Tools account - further investigation showed they're pages that don't exist linked from here: http://404checker.com/404-checker-log
Basically that means anyone can enter a URL into the website and it'll get linked from that page, temporarily at least. As there are hundreds of links of varying quality - at the moment they range from a well known car manufacturer to a university, porn and various organ enlargement websites - could that have a detrimental effect on any websites linked? They are all nofollow.
Why would they choose to list these URLs on their website? It has some useful tools and information but I don't see the point in the log page. I have used it myself to check HTTP statuses but may look elsewhere from now on.
You need to show Google why the homepage is most important for that term. I haven't looked in depth, but here are a couple of things...
Has Google added your brand name to the title tag here on the SERPs? "Store info : Football Shirts, Kits & Maglia - Calcio Italia Shop_" - _www.calcioitaliashop.com/store_info.htm
I notice it's not the same within your coded title tag. If you've recently removed the brand from your About Us page that could help. See here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization
I haven't checked your link profile but is it possible there are more links (or more powerful links) to your About Us page, rather than your home page? If so, getting this reversed will help, or as it's a new site, perhaps this hasn't happened yet. Setting up profiles with social networks and adding the link to your homepage will help show Google that that is the most important page. You could also create a Google Places profile with a link to the homepage, if you haven't already. Bolding "Calcio Italia Shop" on your About Us makes it look like that page is important for that term. You could remove that bolding or change it to "Calcio Italia Store" (there seems to be some confusion over what your brand name is?) and add "Calcio Italia Shop" to a H1 tag on your homepage.
These little things will help send the right signals, but I don't think it's something you need to worry about long-term - I think Google will eventually figure out the homepage is best to rank for the brand name as that should naturally build up more page authority.
Also, I'd make it readable and put your brand name in the meta description of your homepage. The meta description isn't there to stuff keywords into, it's there to encourage people to click through from the SERPs. It should be around 155 characters max, the search engines chop more off.
An SEO who thinks adding thousands of useless pages will do a website good? Get rid of them, or (preferably) get them re-educated!
I don't know, but making it more keyword focussed can't do any harm either way. 
I see the value of associating anchor text with content links rather than navigation, but I agree with EGOL more than Ryan on this one. What if users are viewing the site with CSS disabled? Maybe because it's easier to view with a screen reader for blind/partially sighted people - it's not very user-friendly having the main navigation links only at the bottom is it?
This is something a lot of websites do and something the crawlers can recognise. If you have say, a 150 word block that's the same on every page, and 400+ words of unique content elsewhere, you won't have any problems at all. There's no particular science to those numbers by the way, I'm just pulling them out of the air - but there's a helpful quote below from here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda
Here at SEOmoz, our PRO platform uses a 95% threshold to judge duplicate content. This means if 95% of all the code on your page matches another page, then it’s flagged as a duplicate. To check your own ratios, try this nifty duplicate content tool.
What you suggest in the last paragraph is cloaking. You need to be very careful when you're serving different versions of the same page to crawlers and users.
I suppose the main problem could be a lot of similar (even duplicate) content. To avoid this, after a certain time period it might be worth 301 redirecting the old pages to their most relevant category pages. If you 301 redirect to the new archive ad, and then 301 redirect that to the next archive ad and so on, you'll have endless 301 redirects for ever and ever! Perhaps it isn't worth the effort of doing what I suggested initially and it might be best to 301 straightaway. It's worth testing on separate categories if you have the time.
If it looks spammy to your eyes then don't do it at all, it'll probably look spammy to the ranking algorithm too. This could also be considered a black hat technique as you're trying to fool the search engines...
.com websites can still be hosted in Australia, anywhere in fact.
I'd focus your H1 tag more towards a phrase you're targeting - something like 'NLP Training in California'. You can also optimise your images more - calling the header image something like nlp-institute-california will help, as will adding to the alt tag.
The On-Page optimiser within SEOmoz PRO is excellent, you should run your pages through that.
According to Google's Adwords Keyword Tool, "austin plumbers" gets more search volume (go for Match Type 'Exact' in the left-hand column). Neither offer much volume though, so the results might not be that accurate.
In your title tag (and everywhere), I think you should use whatever makes most sense for the user, with SEO secondary. Your text should look and read naturally otherwise it'll come across as spammy.
It's good to use variations of your keywords, and not always right next to each other, e.g. "plumbers from Austin". Take a look at this for example: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization - it's an old-ish post, you might not want to include as many repetitions of the keywords - natural text is the key.
You do lose some, but I believe most of the link juice will flow if you 301 redirect the page. I'd probably do what YouON suggests and leave the page intact with useful links to elsewhere on your site.
I saw what look like some good recommendations on this post I was reading a couple of days ago:
http://www.bizboxteam.com/2011/08/why-you-should-use-multiple-web-analytics-tools/
Are the titles relevant to the page content? Are they well over 70 characters (or really short in some cases)? It is possible Google has changed the title display on the SERPs if any of those things apply. They sometimes use a H tag, ODP listing, anchor text from links or some content within the page...if they're only showing the keywords in your case I'd guess the titles might be too long.
If it's only started to happen recently perhaps they're doing some testing...
Here's a useful link: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35624 - Google also say they might change the title tag if the same title is used multiple times across a site - something I missed! There's also some info on preventing the use of ODP data in tags.
I've just had a very quick look and my first thoughts are you're committing a lot of keyword cannibalisation - basically you have the same phrase competing against itself over multiple pages (useful link:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization). These two pages for example:
http://www.healthchoices.ca/article/yoga-for-osteoporosis
http://www.healthchoices.ca/video/yoga-studios/yoga-for-osteoporosis
As you know, they have exactly the same video - why don't you put the article on the same page as the video? The video pages themselves aren't unique content from a crawler's point of view - they look like a search results/archive page. It makes more sense from a usability point of view (important for SEO) to do this too, and I wouldn't have the videos play automatically either. The navigation around the site seems slightly confusing as a whole.
You seem to have loads of superfluous code in your HTML, and far too many HTTP requests; can some of those script files be combined?
It's not essential but still useful to have the canonical tag, it doesn't redirect but tells the crawlers the preferred address if you have more than one page/address containing the same content. It's particularly useful for duplicate content like print versions, or results pages based on query strings.
What you've actioned could improve the rankings to your homepage as before, the search engines will have seen the two addresses as separate pages, therefore competing against each other. When the redirect comes into effect the page authority and other metrics of both will be combined into one.
Ah, I thought it seemed slightly unusual for SEOmoz to go with a UK-based company; so they have an office in Seattle as well as London (and now New York too, I see). Seattle is a good place to be if you want to hire a local company. Bear in mind that if you've been unhappy with some of the services you've hired before, you might be paying more than you have from now on - but that's because who we've recommended are amongst THE BEST!
When SEOmoz stopped being an SEO consultancy, they passed their business over to Distilled, who are a UK-based company I believe. It might be worth checking them out. I've also had MeasuredSEM recommended to me.
I don't know if they take on business, but Ryan Kent and EGOL are two of the best posters on here, so find out if they do from their profiles.
I've been able to add Google Analytics tracking code to Facebook and Tweet buttons. The only one I haven't is Google Plus but activity on that can be monitored in Webmaster Tools.
It depends how often the website is crawled and how deep the pages are within the site. A site I work on with a Domain Authority of about 60 took less than two days. Another one with a DA of 20ish was changed almost two weeks ago and still hasn't updated.
Just change the keyword at the end of this URL:
You'll also see related tags to the right.
Give people a discount/loyalty points/competition entry or something like that if they share an item?
Couldn't you track it using a query string on the link that goes back to the page? Or add tracking links to the share buttons on your website?
Google Blog Search is good; you can view related blogs for a keyword and set up alerts. There's a good list here: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/20-essential-blog-directories-to-submit-your-blog-to/5998/
You can also do tag searches for your topics on places like Wordpress.
I didn't think about going that far back, but definitely - a surprising random fact or two in there could be worthwhile - thanks!
A news website I'm working on has pages for various sectors, much like any major news site (in this case for example - defence, energy, trade & finance etc.). I've been asked to add content of 150 words or more to each sector, containing keywords we're targeting. I can see the value of this SEO-wise but can't see how we can write anything that adds value for the user. I don't want to add some rubbish for the sake of keywords, I want the information to be useful.The best idea I can come up with is to write an overview of the challenges and topics making the news in each sector, perhaps a bit of historical detail - but I don’t think this will add much value from a user-perspective, and it's not something where there will be the resources available to update often (or to provide some 'best on the web' type info). Any other ideas? Or do you think my idea is a great one? ;-)The pages in question are like the majority of news pages; each item with a synopsis and the usual extra things like a poll and 'most read' box. I've looked at other news sites and can't see one that has any extra content in the way we require.Thanks.
Rather than writing an article and then asking the blog owner if they'd like to use it, it might be best to ask them if they're looking for any particular content first - if they are you won't be writing as blind and it might even give you some ideas you wouldn't have otherwise had.
Install the SEOmoz toolbar and you'll be able to see the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) of the sites within your Google results. The higher the better - a DA of 70+ is pretty good, 90+ is wowsers. Alternatively have a look at SEOmoz's www.opensiteexplorer.org to analyse individual blogs - you can see the DA and PA on here too.
That's what I'm after ideally, a company we can work alongside. Rand recommended Link Fish Media (a US company) who do offer this, but they're too busy to take on a lot of new business at the moment.
Yes, they're different. Stick to one or the other and specify it in a canonical tag.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html
I've read that Raven SEO Tools have excellent link building tools and reports, but I'm not sure if they do specifically what you want.
If you're trying to target other countries with a website that already exists in a different country you'll find it difficult. At the moment it's only really possible to optimise a website fully for one particular country.
Here are some general best practices I'm aware of:
Has anyone had any experience working with any? Are there any you'd particularly recommend/avoid?
Thanks.
I agree that it's better to add it to your own site. What if people like your blog and link to it, but it's not on your site? You've lost some link juice there. You can submit it to blog directories too - more direct links to your site. For ecommerce sites there's a lot of content duplication with other sites when the same products are sold, so like you say in your last sentence, a blog adds regular unique content.
Guest blogging is a better idea. I'm sure there are plenty of quality related blogs around who would be willing to take great content with a link back to your site.
Or is there some way of getting these catering services reviewed in return for a link? Perhaps offer some free services or a discount? As well as the link, if you choose the right places it'd be advertising your services to relevant people, so you could attract more business that way.
Can this company offer solutions to any particular problems the internet population might have? If so, search forums and a thoughtful answer with a link to the recommended solution on your site could go down well - just make sure it doesn't look like you're spamming if you do anything like this. You could even just help people out without mentioning your company, and have a link or two in your signature. There are ways to find 'dofollow' forums.
I don't believe you'll get 'penalised by Google' if the title tag is too long - as you know your full title just won't display in the search engine results pages (SERPs). If your site name is well-known and/or might improve click-throughs it is worth having it visible in the title tag. Personally I don't see a problem with the site name cutting off on some occasions - it's not going to stop people clicking is it...?
The meta description should be geared more towards getting click-throughs - as you probably know the words people search for show bold on the SERPs so as long as it reads naturally and doesn't look spammy, it's worth having other keywords in there too. Just remember it's there to encourage people to click to your site.
I'm not an expert on this, but I know the 100 links thing doesn't matter anywhere near as much as it used to, or I'm not sure if it ever did in terms of being penalised. I think it was just a guideline that said if a page had more than 100 links, Google might not crawl them all, or PageRank might not be passed to anything over the 101st link...something like that. Google's crawling is a lot more sophisticated now, so as long as your site doesn't look like a link-farm I think you'll be fine.
I haven't read it yet, but I've just found this, it looks like it'll help: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-many-links-is-too-many
Not unless you want to rank for more information on the search engines. Anchor text is one of the most important ranking factors; if your page is about brilliant bacon, and you want to rank for brilliant bacon, good anchor text would be brilliant bacon - that's if that keyphrase isn't too competitive and it makes sense to the user.
It also depends what you mean by a 'normal link' - if the normal link contains your keyphrase e.g. www.randomwebsite.com/brilliant-bacon - then that will hold more weight for keyword targeting than 'more information'. There should be a good mix of anchor text linking to your pages though, as would naturally build around the web, so there's no harm having 'more information' or 'click here' linking to your page on occasions.
Here's a brief overview: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/anchor-text
What web server are you using?
Without - it's more user-friendly and if you ever change the coding behind the website the URLs will remain the same. It doesn't matter whether it's a 'normal' website or a blog, without is the way.
If it's an article or blog post I think it's wise to have them at the start and end of the content. If someone has read and enjoyed the article, they're more likely to click the share icons if they're there when they've finished, rather than scrolling back to the top.
How about adding an indexable version of the navigation and then hiding it with CSS? The crawlers would see that. I haven't thought about whether that'd be a good idea, just a quick thought.
You can optimise titles for both. It's best to have your prime keyphrase near the beginning of the title - and make sure the title is not too long.
The way you suggested does make it look like you're just stuffing the keywords in for the sake of it though...again it depends on your keywords but something like this would look more natural with the downside of not having one of the phrases nearer the start:
"Green Apple seller: the best Green Apples"
Make sure the language you use is natural. You might be able to rule out one or the other if it wouldn't be natural in your content.
Advice I've read in the past has recommended to optimise for both, though it depends on the term of course; some might be better as plural, some might not. Compare the search results for each and if one is more competitive than the other. Each might bring up completely different results, I think one example I read was that the singular showed e-commerce sites whereas the plural showed descriptive sites - I can't remember the example that was used.
Optimising for the plural is more likely to help with the singular than the other way around, but I think Google can usually tell they're related e.g. www.google.co.uk/search?q=red+bull+sticker - in more cases a longer tail keyphrase will probably show for both plural and singular, even if you just optimise for one of them.