It's likely to be of little or no help for SEO but could help with conversion/bounce rate figures.
Posts made by Chris.Menke
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RE: Maps on landing page for SAB
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RE: Are sliding text SEO friendly?
Taysir, I'm not sure what you mean by sliding text--I don't see anything on that page that I would call sliding text. I see the drop down navigation, though and if that's what you're talking about it is seo friendly.
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RE: Copying contents from a blog site (External) to a company blogsite (internal)
I'm not so sure the main site would be "penalized" because of duplicate content--I think more likely the content just wouldn't count for anything and the pages that contain it won't rank for anything. That's not to say I would recommend moving forward in that direction.
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RE: Link Diversity
Hey Francisco, my understanding is that what you described above is called "deep linking", rather than "link diversity".
Also, Chris, the web could probably do without another keyword rich page of anything--certainly us users could. Rather, think creative, think engaging, think audience, think business objective when you put your pages together.
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RE: Link Diversity
Link "diversity" describes the degree to which a site's back link profile is spread among sites on different IP addresses, as opposed to all of them coming from a single site or IP address. Link diversity is important because a site with any number of links would most naturally get them from a variety of sites on different IP addresses. If all the links come from one domain or one IP address, then there is the appearance that manipulation may be taking place.
It is believed that Google's algorithm is able to throttle the value of a site's back links if their diversity is inconsistent with the pattern of links displayed by similar sites.
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RE: What Content to Write - Hot Topic or More Niche Related?
I think you may be looking at your topics too broadly and perhaps without enough creativity. Who's never heard of the teenybopper who wanted to grow up to be a fashion model in high heel designer shoes? What shoe designer hasn't had a model who's little sister didn't want to grow up to be just like her? How many different ways can a teeny bopper save her dollars to buy those shoes she saw in the magazine at the grocery store? What teeny bopper doesn't have an opinion on the shoes her mom has in her closet or on the shoes her aunt bought her for her birthday? And what writer, worth their salt, couldn't write a tear-jerking, funny, or uplifting piece on any of those topics that that target audience that they wouldn't share among themselves?
This is the best part about Google freeing us from the oppression of the "keyword" and letting relevance be more categorical and thematic. Google's listening less intently on what we have to say about ourselves through our content and more so on what those in the social world are saying about us. This frees us to be more creative in the content that we create for our clients and lets us think more about creating content that our audience will engage with.
I think you're better off today writing about topics that are tangentially related to your niche and about ways your audience relates to those topics. I think audiences today are becoming dead tired of copy that has any scent of SEO and that they are more likely to click through to and engage with that which is fresh in it's perspective. Learn your audience, write stuff that they're going to like, and don't forget your back channels to algorithmic visibility--like structured data, authorship, co-citation, UGC, and, oh yeah, links.
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RE: Separate Email for Separate G+Local Listing?
I can say that I've "claimed", maybe, a couple dozen businesses for clients over the years using my account--just as anyone else can. The Google Places for Business is just a dashboard where you can claim and request updates for a business record and and a place where Google can keep the person who requested the changes informed of the status of that change.
When you "claim" a business, what you're really doing is telling google that you claim you're authorized to make changes and that when google sends the PIN by phone or mail to the company's phone number or address, that someone at the company is going to share that PIN with you so that you can enter it in the dashboard and make the changes take effect.
If you did accomplished all that, then the next day, you got fired, someone else (or the business owner) would simply be able to go their own dashboard add the business, make any changes were needed, and wait for the validation PIN to be sent by phone or mail, enter the PIN into their dashboard, and then what ever changes they made would take effect.
Business pages don't belong to accounts, they're tied directly to the name address and phone number of the business itself.
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RE: Looking for feedback about "look-ahead" navigation
I think developers think too much about how their code impacts search results. It's the visual content that is most important to google. As long as it can crawl it, you're generally in good shape with the code.
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RE: Separate Email for Separate G+Local Listing?
It's just a tip-there's not real reason to need to share the account.
Remember, after you add the company and make changes to it and have verified that you are allowed to make changes, any other other person can update that same business page by going through the same process--your client, your neighbor, me-- Their changes will just have to be verified with a post card or a phone call to the business.
Businesses are not assigned to an Google account, they're assigned to the business name, address and phone number. Any account can update the business information but it has to be verified by means of google communicating directly to the address or phone number before the change is implemented.
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RE: Separate Email for Separate G+Local Listing?
Just go to Google Places for Business while logged into your Google account, follow the directions to add a business , make changes to it, get it verified via a phone call to the business (that you set them up for in advance) (it takes place in a matter of seconds) , or via a post card. and you're done!
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RE: Looking for feedback about "look-ahead" navigation
I'm not sure it does any of those things. It does create additional code but not much. I think it's kind of cool. Would be nice if the display block were clickable, though.
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RE: Are Some Websites "White Listed"?
If that were the case, I'd certainly apply for white listing. I could charge my clients for getting them white listing too. I might even start a poker site and see if I could get that white listed!
No, really, I've never heard of such a thing. It's all algorithmic.
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RE: Local Listing Question
John,
Not quite sure what you're asking there, homey. What is your definition of a network?
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RE: Separate Email for Separate G+Local Listing?
The business name, address and telephone number belong to the entity. Changes to the information or claiming the business are verified via a google phone call to the company's phone number or a postcard sent to the company's address. Anyone can make changes or cliam to a places page but the changes are not actually implemented until they are verified by the business via a phone call or postcard.
So, if you make the changes or claim a business while logged into YOUR google account, that company will forever show up in your Google places dashboard (until you delete it)--even if someone else makes changes to it from their account in the future. I have, for example, many, many companies that show in my dashboard. Each of them I've coordinated with to set up or revise their places page. I make the changes, prepare them to be ready to get the automated phone call with the PIN (it happens in less than 20 seconds) or to be on the lookout for the postcard with the PIN (takes about two weeks) and when they get the PIN, they give it to me, I enter it into my dashboard, and the changes take effect. You don't need to be in the client's google account to do this
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RE: Can using an exact sentence from your content as meta description hurt?
Nope. Your description should help enhance your click through rate, though, so orient it towards a call to action.
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RE: Does Google consider very similar keyphrases the same?
You'll see that Guru Ellis has a post over here that discuses keyword or city first in local SEO. I know I've seen that the geo-term + city tends to get more traffic but that's not always be the case. Other keyword tools, like wordtracker can give you more granular info than the adwords keyword tool.
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RE: Paying for RSS Syndication
Unless you've got good content, it won't be worth the money.
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RE: Build New Site Without Losing Rankings
Webby,
Here is some additional reading. Website makeover without losing rankings
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RE: Is .PW domain is good for SEO?
Oh, I see that it now stands for "professional web", not for the country of Palau. Poor Palausians lost their TLD to a bunch of investors.
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RE: Is .PW domain is good for SEO?
I wouldn't buy just for any SEO value a direct match .pw domain might have 'cause it won't have much. If you're buying it for your main site, because it matches your company name, you're still better off going with a dot com or dot net. unless, maybe, you live there--which apparently only about 21K people do.
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RE: Not sure what its called - a jump page?
It looks like a 307 redirect on a link that opens a new page. The 307 is a variation of the 302 temporary redirect. Not sure why they do it but I don't think it's helping them with anything.
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RE: Is page rank lost through a 301 redirect?
John,
301 redirects are the appropriate way to transition content from one url to another if you are concerned about preserving the algorithmic footprint of the former page because it has the least impact on that footprint. A link and a 301 pass approximately the same link juice but they're used in different ways. The link goes from one existing page to another, while the 301 redirect is implemented at the server level to send all visitors requesting a particular page to a pre-selected alternate page. Make sense?
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RE: Not sure what its called - a jump page?
A meta refresh? What's the URL?
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RE: Guest bloggers on your own site
If you have an appropriate strategic vision for your blog's content and the guest bloggers are helping you achieve that, it's good. If their posts take your content in uncontrolled, undesired directions, it's it's bad.
Work out a strategic vision for your blog by coordinating what you want it to accomplish for you with how much time/resources you want to put towards it. The narrower the better if your only putting up one post a week, or so. I'd suggest that, although Facebook advertising, SEO, and web design posts are certainly complementary, that your focus is a bit broad for it to be able to gain traction as a destination for readers, or to build community, or to get elicit engagement in worthwhile amounts.
Narrowing down the focus of your blog to a single, supremely niche area of expertise will certainly limit the audience it appeals to (which is why you want to be sure that you've worked out an appropriate strategic vision for the blog that coincides with your niche) but you'll get more engagement out of it and that engagement is ultimately what's going to provide the your site with what you were looking or out of you blog in the first place--some oomph for your domain and your brand.
So anyway, back to the guest blogger. Once you engage with the community of bloggers in the micro-niche you ultimately decide on you'll have a clear understanding of the value their guest posts will bring to your site and a greater sense of responsibility to write even better guest posts for them.
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RE: How to explain to a client that link building doesn't get fast results?
And that brings us back full circle.
"Creating links in well-ranked directories using his specific category is still a SEO strategy even after all those penguins and pandas."
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RE: How to explain to a client that link building doesn't get fast results?
Point is, he's not going to see any results from you doing "link building" from those directories. The experienced SEO shows disapproval of such a plan by not taking on such a project.
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RE: How many keywords should I target?
Your decision on how many keywords to focus on at one time could depend one how much content your site already has, what time frames your business objectives call for, and how many woman-hours per week you have to put towards it.
Often, it is better to be spending money that you do have than money that you don't, which would lead you towards going after low-hanging fruit first (option 1) so that you're seeing the faster ROI that that can bring. Then prioritize the creation/optimization of content for the rest of the project in segments according to remaining business objectives or product/service profitability,
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RE: How to explain to a client that link building doesn't get fast results?
Sorry about that.
While setting rock-solid client expectations may be difficult for the experienced SEO and the rookie alike, a client coming to you at just 45 days into a project looks like the expectations were more far more on the loosey-goosey side than anything close to solid. That tends to be a rookie mistake.
Also, someone holding out promise that the client is going to get any ROI whatsoever from "submitting to free directories, social bookmarking sites and also writing and submitting articles to free article websites. Since I only use free and non-paid websites" and then asking his peers to back him up on that could be seen as a rookie mistake--either that or the mistake of someone who has been away from the practice of SEO for a good many years.
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RE: Why do hallmarks from web design companies carry so much ranking weight for the recipient website?
There may be value in the domain diversity that they provide. There's no need to put them on more than a page or two of the client's site. The fact that they're in the footer reduces their value. the fact that they're on irrelevant websites reduces their value. That many web design firms hammer on the exact match anchor text may be the worst thing about most of them.
Be modest in how many you put on the client's site and diversify your anchor text and you'll be OK.
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RE: How to explain to a client that link building doesn't get fast results?
Sometimes, it's hard to know who may be more at fault: the client who's looking to get their SEO work done so inexpensively that they'll put faith in someone obviously new to the field to do their link building for them or the person who's new to the field that tells the client that they can accomplish the client's goals without knowing much at all about what should be getting done.
I'm with you on the getting annoyed part, blablabla, but you really have to bone up on your SEO skills before you can start dissin' the client for what they don't know. You should take a few moments to fill out your profile, as well.
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RE: Is it risky to be on too many .edu link lists?
If your online business is being propped up by tons of spam links--I mean .edu link lists links---be aware that the crutch could be pulled out from under you at any time. The likelihood of it happening will grow over time. Time to get started on building some real brand equity.
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RE: Why would so many links be appearing in the source code of this page - but not on the page itself?
Well, I'm no html expert but it looks like there should be another level of navigation that shows when you flyover an item in the grey dropdown and it's not coded correctly.
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RE: Why would so many links be appearing in the source code of this page - but not on the page itself?
Not sure I'm seeing what you're seeing Dana. What I see looks OK at first glance. Can you upload a screenshot?
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RE: Title Tags in 2013
Jason,
Think of how many individual blog posts you're going to need to write in 2013, 2014, and beyond (one hundred, two hundred, more?) and how much social outreach you'll have to accomplish over that time in order to build the blog into a really effective marketing tool for your company. Then you gotta wonder how you can maintain interest and focus writing all those posts on the specific subject of "atlanta plumbing company" or "choosing an atlanta plumbing company". On top of that, gotta wonder how many of those social profiles you reach out to week after week after week who are going to want to share your content on the specific subject of "atlanta plumbing company" or "choosing an atlanta plumbing company". And then you gotta wonder about the readers and how their interest will be maintained while you're writing only on the specific subject of "atlanta plumbing company" or "choosing an atlanta plumbing company".
I'd say that you're on the right path in thinking that your titles seem a bit spammy, but you've gotta get off the path and get on the highway. On the highway, your blog can reach its greater potential--a vehicle that can reach and engage a community that is hungry for a wide variety of topics within your theme.
As someone here at SEOmoz is fond of saying, content needs to be exceptional, inspirational, unique, credible, fun, and beneficial to share in order to accomplish it's goal of being an effective marketing tool. I would start with that, when contemplating your titles, and then write your posts accordingly.
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RE: Switching site content
You could possibly get away with it it if the topic of the new site was in some way related to the content on the old site (the closer the better). However, the further away the new site topic gets from the context surrounding the back links that were created for the old site, the less less value it's going to get from them.
Regardless of your domain name, it still takes effort to build solid links. Going through the exercise of getting good links makes the company a better company, a better competitor, and a better search result and will most likely give a better ROI than a bait and switch tactic.
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RE: How to start to improve a keyword?
Start a new question and ask:
"Is there an seomoz Pro User Guide that comes with my subscription? Something like and overview of all the tools and how a new user would employ them to begin optimizing their site?"
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RE: How to start to improve a keyword?
Well, that's a good question--There may be such a guide but I don't know of a current one on the site. There is an seomoz pro guide that you can pay for over on scribd . Not sure why it doesn't seem to be available here.
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RE: Multiple domains?
Additionally David, do your best to step out of the mindset that there may be some sort of shortcuts that you can use to get more traffic. For the new website owner, building traffic is an exercise in being a solid business person. You want to understand what you need to do to keep your shop in order (on-page seo), then learn all you can about your customers and competitors--who they are, where they are online what they like, and who they follow socially. Follow them, give them a reason to follow you by interacting with them and demonstrating to them why your company is the right one for their job..
Minimally, several hours per week, every week, spent on those activities will pay off for you and your one domain--and think about it, if that's what it takes to get one domain off the ground, would you have time for two? What working person does?
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RE: How to start to improve a keyword?
Hi Mirco, SEOmoz has just the thing for you: The Beginner's Guide To SEO. And you can translate it over here.
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RE: Ranks moving up & Down for a certain keyword search
Remember, that was an opinion based on a very small amount of information. Your mileage may vary.
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RE: Google+ account
Any chance you could copy and paste the letter here? It could help inform us on how to answer.
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RE: What are the benefits of the URL meta tag?
Why don't you list your tags here and we can let you know which one's we'd toss?
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RE: Ranks moving up & Down for a certain keyword search
Without knowing anything more that what you've describe, I have to ask if you've done any work on the site in the mean time. Off hand, it sounds like you may have come back into the rankings at approximately where Google thinks you should and it is time to get to work with some solid content and social outreach to begin building your rankings.
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RE: Has anyone experienced a dramatic decrease in Google rankings followed by a dramatic increase in the past few days?
I haven't seen anything unusual with my clients--what vertical are you in? Sometimes that's the precursor to even greater change. Anything you want to get off your chest at this point in the hopes that it might prevent the worst case scenario? Sorry, couldn't resist asking.