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Yes, page load time is a ranking factor. Optimizing pages so they load quickly is listed as a best practice in Google's Webmaster Guidelines. So yes, increased page load load time may decrease rankings. It should definitely decrease traffic. Eight seconds is a looong time these days to wait for a page to load! Have you seen any changes in the SERPs since making these changes?

On the positive side, you must have some fantastic content if users are willing to wait that long for a page to load -- and stay on it for over half an hour I am curious, are you having a lot of repeat traffic?

No, bounce rates do not affect rankings. Matt Cutts has said that if a user visits only one page on a site and finds the information they need, this is a positive user experience. High bounce rates aren't positive for every site, don't get me wrong. If you have an ecommerce site for shoes and you have a very high bounce rate, meaning customers aren't browsing your offerings, writing reviews, and going through checkout, you aren't likely selling very many shoes on the site. The bounce rate is measured in GA to give you the information you need to analyze your site performance in this regard, not for the purpose of ranking your site.

Increased time on page correlates with increased user engagement. Users engage with, and engage longer, with quality content. Or at least highly entertaining content While it is not as clear-cut as to weather this is a ranking factor as is the case for page load time, Google is measuring it and they are all about rewarding websites that provide a great user experience, right?

I agree with James in that directory listings still have a place in link building; that is, when used in moderation. You pointed out yourself, Brandon

Here's what I look for: Highly relevant niche directories that are human curated and selective. (Submissions are hand-edited and not everyone gets approved.)

Look at other listings in the directory you are considering. Do they look like they naturally belong in the directory? Do they link to high-quality, authoritative sites that you would want to be associated with? The same goes for the directory's brand, as James noted. Do you want to be associated it?

All listings should add value to the directory and its users. If yours belongs there as well, it will too. Good luck!

There are many reasons why Google may decide to change your title tag in the SERPs besides the length, however. As your example shows, Google likes titles that are keyword rich, concise, and branded. The closer your titles match the search query -- and your page -- the less likely they are to be rewritten. You aren't using boilerplate templates for your titles are you (or auto generated ones)?

Would you mind sharing some examples of titles that have remained intact as well as ones that have been changed by Google?

The title tags are actually at risk of being truncated (or, in some cases, replaced) when they are too wide now. So a title of around 100 character can in theory show up in the SERPs without being cut off if it uses primarily thin letters. The ideal pixel width, however, is still somewhat of a mystery -- somewhere around 500px.

Can you say what niche your website caters to? What kind of content is your website producing that others might be interesting in sharing -- so that you naturally acquire backlinks? Are there any trade organizations in your industry you could leverage? I know that you say your audience is not the most active online. Well, where are they spending their time online when they do log on?

Hi there - The SEOmoz Beginner's Guide to SEO at http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo might be a useful starting point for you.  Chapter 7 focuses on linkbuilding. You mentioned local SEO. Do you have questions specific to local search?

If I were to put a site map at the bottom of a page, I would not list every single page but only the most important category and page links, along with the links required for legal purposes. You don't want footer links to drain your page of link juice, nor overwhelm your page design. What's more, placing a ton of the same links on every single page of a site is definitely considered spammy these days.

For news sites, yes, the lead story should be the first thing a user sees. For most other sites, though, a few links in a well-designed top nav bar should be placed near the top of the page or directly underneath a branded banner.

So how would you block spiders from crawling social media sharing icons? Or is there another workaround?

Will having 401s on a site negatively impact rankings? (e.g. 401s thrown from a social media sharing icon)