Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Well first thing is to ask yourself these questions

1. Who is my target audience? (Marketing 101 but it's amazing how many people skip this)
2. What am I relevant to? (How relevant is your site content within industry or niche?)
3. What problems am I trying to solve? (Every search query generated is someone looking for a solution to a problem)
4. Does my site require localization? (if the site has any relevance to location that will play a big part in your Optimization strategy)
5. What are my goals and KPI's? (Knowing what the "R" is in "ROI" for you site and or campaign is essential to planning for it's success.)
6. Who are my Organic competitors? What are they targeting? (Knowing the competitive landscape in and out will give you a clear indication of routes currently explored my others in your space and will help you determine you KW path)
7. Who are my Paid competitors? What are they targeting? (Don't forget to research the paid media targets & spend of your competitors. PPC will give you great insights into high converting terms and will provide you with a great snapshot of you competitors mindsets when placed side by side their organic plans.)
8. And last but not least, Who do I want to rank for and where? (Here is the question that every optimization guru needs to ask themselves when trying to "rank". Searches are tailored now to an individual and results can and will be scewed by a searchers location,social interactions,search history and more. So understanding the who, what, why and where is essential to your long term sustainability and ultimate success)

Finally let say that while keywords are still a relevant piece of planning your campaign and should get some focused attention, they are losing relevance by the minute as Google has gone almost completely to not provided now anyway. Also you don't want to get into the habit of having your reporting be Keyword focused. Start researching new and exciting metrics that can show real return. SEO's trying to hold onto reporting heavily on Keywords will be out a job soon.

So focus should be put into planning a relevant, valuable, content rich website that takes it's intended audience on a specific journey resulting in whatever your "R" is. Focus on your audience and being hyper relevant with solid best practices and you will be fine.

In good conscious I cant think of how that would be a good ongoing process to move forward with. What I would do is start an overhaul and merge scenario where you identify the most valuable unique content within the site and start merging less valuable content pages with stronger ones. As well as 301 any old pages to like items or the home page as well as make sure 404's and 410'are in place as well.

With that many pages I know it can be a daunting task to think about but if you truly care for the site and it seems that you do I would not take this approach as it can lead to further damage down the road. I would be trying to make sure I do not get hit again by P & P.

In the end if it seems like a spammy or fishy tactic it probably is or will be at some point.

Good luck my friend

That's a great start and those are incredibly important questions to ask. Here is what I would say

1. How do we know that the content we're writing isn't getting lost in the noise of our own webpage, and the world at large?

Answer - well for starters when you write content or have content created by a 3rd party you have to answer a few questions such as

• Am I covering the subject in a way that is uniquely valuable and original? This is very important to understand that even if someone rewrites content from someone else and technically has original content, the content will add no value to the reader as the results will show content that essentially says the same thing. You want to be creative, think of every nut and bolt of your business and topics will start tom fly out that you hadn't thought of.
• Is this topic of significant interest to the readership?
• Does my content do this topic justice; providing unique, valuable strategies and action items for the readers, and is it technically accurate?

2. How do we know if the content is actually relevant to our goals (ie clients)?

Answer -  Again the same thing applies here when it comes to client goals. Tear their business apart nut by bolt and see who out there is talking about those pieces of the business that stands out. For instance I have a national client that runs 55+ mobile home communities. Not exactly the most exciting stuff to build a content plan around. But after brainstorming with my team and my client and seeing what was out there we came up with everything from retirement topics and energy savings to mobile home safety, hurricane proofing and even pets and mobile homes.

If you want a good free way to see what is being talked about make a copy of this Google doc of mine its a great way to get ideas and see whats being discussed on the web. Oh and its free. Just type in a keyword and it will populate also you could try Ubersuggest to get some free ideas. Next you need a great editorial calender again you can use one I have built here its pretty comprehensive and you should be able to start organizing you content marketing with that. we use it for over 25 clients at any given time and hundreds of articles.

Next once you have some valuable content and remember valuable content is share-able content. Start sharing on all of your social networks, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook any and everywhere you can tell people about your new posts do it. tell you staff the same thing. Sharing isn't duplicate content as all the sharing will lead back to the original article.

Next we can talk about outreach and how to effectively and safely get your content out there. Remember the ultimate goal is to create an Echo Chamber on the web of mentions, citations,chats,posts,articles and more. So when someone searches for something relating to whatever your goals are Google says "Hey all of these people are talking or mentioning this so lets show that.

Hope that helps so far, ill be on in a few if you want to continue also my email is campolattano@commarketing.com if you need anything off of SEOMOZ.

Yeah now you have to roll up your sleeves and start from the beginning. I would do a comprehensive audit of the current site and a fair amount of competitive research as well. Unfortunately from there the strategy can be many things based a number of different criteria.

Just from an eyeball test the site seems incredibly outdated and does not follow remotely any best practices as they currently stand. There is nothing unique or valuable content wise to speak of and you basically have a bunch of keywords stuffed on the home page which is not going to get you anywhere. You have a domain authority of 9 which means the site is not considered trustworthy along with only 2 inbound links.

I don't want to be a downer here but there is a ton of work to do but f you are serious about the site then it's gonna take a good amount of focus from you and or your team to bring up to current standards.

I would just 301 that URL to similar products that are as close as possible and or the home page of the site as this would be a better user experience than returning a 404. Although If some URLs on your site 404, this fact alone does not hurt you or count against you in Google’s search results.

You could 410 them as 410's tend to drop out of the index faster.  If the page  has gotten a lot of traffic, then I might want to NOINDEX it. All in all there isn't a real one size fits all thing here, especially for eCommerce.

At our agency we run outreach programs and are very clear who we represent and are very open to the person on the other end and 99% of the time they are fine with the scenario as it's understood that real, clean organic outreach is an immense job that should be handled by experts, which is usually not the client. So that part is OK.

The whole anonymous thing rubs me a bit wrong only because if you are anyone trying to show credibility usually you want your expertise out their as industries look for thought leaders to build communities around. I understand wanting privacy but really..are the Paparazzi gonna show up at your door for the blog post you wrote? I think their privacy is safe all in all.

So first what is the budget you have for the work. I only ask because that would tell me what type of process you should start. But first and foremost plan. The site needs a redesign for starters, you can go to places like ThemeForest.net and get a nice new template either standalone or for any CMS you may be using for great prices. I would suggest WordPress as Google loves them and you will have your site up and running in no time as well it's an easy machine to manage content. If you use WP make sure you download "SEO by Yoast" and "Better WP Security" plugins as well as a good captcha plugin

Then once site is looking refreshed here are steps you could start taking

1. Read and reread SEO for beginners here at SEOMOZ
2. Decide on paper who you are and who your target audience is
3. Decide on paper who your competitors are and their URL's
4. Create a Google Drive account and learn to love as it is great for a bunch of strategies moving forward.
5. Create a Trello account and start managing you daily tasks
6. start doing research on you competitors using free tools like opensiteexplorer.org which will give you a good snapshot of where you comp set stands
7. If you are a pro member here there are a bunch of great tools at your disposal but you will have to get familiar with the execution.
8. Start finding the community, go to Followerwonk and start looking for people on twitter who are influencers and talking about your niche. Follow them and start interacting with good information that is valuable and ultimately share-able. Do not buy Twitter followers. let them grow organically and if you posts are relevant and add value your followers will grow.
9. Make a copy of this Google Doc sheet to get quick information on who's talking about your niche on the web as well as to start getting good content ideas
10. Start planning your next few Blog posts and start posting to your own blog
11. Setup a Google Plus page and start joining communities and interacting
12. Make sure that everywhere you setup accounts online they have your correct contact info and site descriptions
13. Make sure each page of your site has Unique Title Tags and meta description here are some best practices to follow for both and more best practices as well
14. Never ever use Meta Keywords on your site
15. Make sure images all have ALT tags that represent what is on the page
16. Use only one keyword per page with up to 2 variations. Keywords are Like Quarterbacks if you have 2 you have none.

Well i'm winded so there are some items to start. Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions

I consult on a few eCommerce sites and over the last few months I have led them in doing a complete overhaul of their product descriptions and their linking structure. Their issue was they had so many products and for years just relied on description feeds to populate the content on each product. So after getting them to understand the whole valuable unique content idea we got to work. That's a check for panda safety now for the penguin.

Ok so yes this my idea of having fun when I think about SEO. For me it would be Coca Cola as they only have fast moving consumer goods and their whole brand just SCREAMS "please take me viral". Maybe Disney or a Gaming company..

I agree @Takeshi Young as well as make sure the icons you use have no redirection and allow sharing, liking, and tweeting directly from the page without taking you off the page.

Yeah no benefit at all they should just have the on-site blog and focus on building engagement around it. If their posts have value and are unique they will be fine in the end

Place them in the header of the site and footer. However the 2 sets of icons need to have different functionality

HEADER ICONS: These should be smaller in size and allow your site visitor to Like, Share, Tweet, Plus without any redirection at all. (Meaning they click like page and it likes it without taking them away from your site to your social site.)

FOOTER ICONS: These can be a bit larger and allow the visitor to be taken to your Social presence. (Please not your footer icons should open in a new window)

You should try Local Business Schema and Geo-tagging. The your information will come up when and how you want it.

You can also geotag your location (or “Place” in Schema.org lingo) by including your geocoordinates with your LocalBusiness code.

No this will not help any other pages except the page the title tag directly correlates to. Also you only want one key term per title tag and the title tag should:

1. Read like an organic sentence such as if your key term is "Boston Dining" and your company is the "Boston Harbor" your Title Tag should read to the effect of "Experience fine Boston dining at the Boston Harbor Hotel"
2. If you are going to use breaks stay away from the "|" symbol as using this will cause your site to be non ADA complaint. Use dashes instead because they create a better experience for accessibility
3. Do not exceed 70 characters in order for your title tag to read best across the search results.

Here is a great read over at Acumium if you want some more meat

Greetings,

A couple of items at first glance

1. The URL structure looks awkward not sure what the "98" or "-s" is

If i were to do this it would be something like

lumber2.com/western-saddle-pads/leather-sadles.html

Ok so here is what i see

**Here is your site **

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-Wv-W7WC-lgJ:www.lumber2.com/Western-Saddle-Pads-s/98.htm&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

and this is your number 1 ranking competitor

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kj5rZUJZdgoJ:www.chicksaddlery.com/page/CDS/CTGY/1060&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

get rid of the tables and you probably could rank.

Here is your site on Opensiteexplorer

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.lumber2.com

Here is ChickSaddlery on opensiteexplorer

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.chicksaddlery.com%2Fpage%2FCDS%2FCTGY%2F1060

and almost everyone of their links are internal links which speaks volumes.

so honestly you could move the needle in these 2 ways:

1. Improve internal linking strucutre
2. 10 - 20 solid organic links with relevent sites

You could try to use tools like SEM Rush and or get a Moz pro account as these will be able to show your current ranking statuses. Also run your competitors websites and see what they are ranking for as well as what they are targeting in Paid media.

Randal,

I think in this instance first and foremost lets talk about url structure.From an organic search perspective structuring urls in this way (http://michigan.2keller.com) will hinder any positive seo you do on your main url. Google would view your current url structure as individual domains, therefore none of the seo strategy done on 2keller.com will transfer to the other domains.How the url is structured should not have any affect on how your add the content. We deal with national clients with multiple locations all the time. How you want to structure this is http://www.2keller.com/Michigan or http://www.2keller.com/newmexico. This would allow your team to only have to do search marketing work once and would add efficiency's to your work flow.

I know your main concern is the amount of state specific content. You can still create the pages the exact same way as before from a content perspective. Just have a solid internal linking structure on 2keller.com guiding people to the proper relevant pages or you could use geo targeting allowing the site to recognize IP address and auto-direct people to the right area. Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any questions.

The case of exact match domains is a quirky one. As Allen stated above

_"Google will penalize your site if it has site links from sites that are not indexed by Google, and Google wont index a site with no content." _

I would launch those domains with good quality, relevant content that links back to your main site. Also exact match domains are frowned upon by Google anyway as many exact match domains have been penalized the past year. In the end take these domains and have them add value o your niche and you won't lose.

No problem I love this stuff!

Hi I would be glad to help you in any way I can. The process can be daunting if your not focused. You asked how we know what we are working on the right thing. Well the right things are pretty easy to know we need its the execution of those strategies that separate the pack. If you are looking for some guidance on a strong content marketing plan I can help and no i don't want anything in return, just a chance to grow my network and help someone else. You never know someday I may need a favor. So lets connect and start out by asking me questions and we can go from there.

What about content marketing do you want to know?

If you work for an Agency and build a strong profile here at SEOMOZ, what happens if I leave and get a new opportunity but my profile is tied to my last business? How do I transfer all the hard work I've done being involved and gaining those super awesome MOZPOINTS to my new spot?

The old agency can just swoop in and the new guy will benefit from my work in the community. Is there anyway to safeguard your name.

The only downside to changing a URL is if you don't 301 and the crawl path gets changed. Here are a few tips to remember when changing URL structure

1. Setup 301 Redirect
2. Make sure URL is SE Friendly (If your selling organic dog food on the page the URL should read like so - http://www.domain.com/organic-dog-food) Remember a good URL is meaningful and a great URL is obvious

So that's my 2 cents hope it helps

Agreed that would be cool to build.

Thanks Eric

yeah I was afraid of that, so now I need to start my own account I guess. I would think that SEOMOZ would consider this issue since mostly companies have SEOMOZ accounts.

On my team we cringe when we here the words "Keywords" and "Rankings" like a kid at Hogwarts hearing "Voldemort"

I say take the time that the rankings are not showing to focus on other more productive items like ROI and coming up with new core metrics to show value.

Rankings are becoming less and less important..so take the time the future SEO Gods have bestowed on you and plan past KW rankings

Great info Marie, and that's why I love this community. Yeah I think the moral of this story is that if you think your site needs an overhaul it probably does. I think that Panda and Penguin have the names so are always the first to be spoken about, but your post did something great it brought me back to the little things that I missed in the above post. The devil is in the details I guess.

I appreciate the advice,

I don't want to come off as a jerk I know who you are and respect you and your partner for having the agency but the way you started your last comment wasn't cool and I want to be very clear that I am a player in this Search Marketing and web development scene and combine the two with a can't lose attitude and that's how I win long term regardless of where I'm at.

However I'm not thinking of leaving it was just a "what if" thought. The fact that you compete against us and win is OK to hear however I must say that you haven't been beating me, as I have been there only 90 days and have spent that time cleaning house and developing top notch programs that I'm sick at executing as well as having the resources to do so. In the past 90 days I have helped bring in 2 national partners that will be disclosed in the media over the next few weeks, a new website, a new team structure, altered our reporting schedules along with completely new reporting metrics,we got rid of Raven as per my request because I am throwing out the very mention of "Ranking" and reporting on Metrics that actually matter with a new Reporting company. My Content Marketing plan has depth and reach, my Outreach program is up to every industry standard and more, Local Program that can't lose, voice search optimization..yes im a bit of SIRI Algorithm expert, Video Optimization plan with a focus on Accessibility issue and more items that will quickly be weeding out the folks in town who aren't up to par.

Oh I also brought in two dev teams that I manage overseas that have been with me for years, we just came off of developing an enterprise system for TravelClick a quarter of a billion dollar company. These dev teams are not only building custom applications that I have developed for .Com, we are also working on an entirely new system that quite honestly will change the game with regards to Social Brand Engagement. I also have a great network of Multi lingual SEO analysts experts in specific dialects with certain demographics and have developed the most comprehensive Multi-Lingual search marketing plan ever directed at a non English speaking demographic oh right and just inked a deal with an Orlando NBC affiliate that wants to back my new program.

So again I appreciate the advice, maybe we can sit and do lunch one day and you can apologize for starting our relationship off on the wrong foot and I can apologize for being a hot headed Italian kid from New Jersey who won't lose...