Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Csaba

No you cannot pause your account but you can cancel and restart. In that case Moz archives your data and brings out of cold storage so to speak when you resubscribe.

You can see someone asked the same question a little while back: http://moz.com/community/q/can-i-pause-my-monthly-subscription

Peter

Hi David

I'm not sure there is a way to give visibility to your blog fast unless it is remarkable and, for example, you get PR through the media picking up on it.

Apart from being fortunate to get the above, I would give one word for my recommendation: Google+, but, with a big caveat..

Getting people to engage with your blog content through social media, and in particular Google+ starts when you engage with their content. Just turning up on to Google+ and posting your blog will not work. Instead, seek out communities that would fit the target market you want to reach, and join them. But again, don't push your own content to start with. Instead get to know the people there and allow them to get to know and trust you. They you will have earned the right to share what you have to say.

In truth, unless you are fortunate as I said above, I don't think there is a quick way to get your blog content out fast. As good as your content may be, your best route to success will be to put give time to doing so - which sometimes requires putting into some hard miles to get there.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Dustin

You don't say what you have been doing to raise domain authority for these sites. I assume you are referring to Moz's Domain Authority metric.

Moz states: "Domain Authority is Moz's calculated metric for how well a given domain is likely to rank in Google's search results. It is based off data from the Mozscape web index and includes link counts, MozRank and MozTrust scores, and dozens of other factors. It uses a machine learning model to predictively find an algorithm that best correlates with rankings across thousands of search results that we predict against."

Whilst links to your sites will have an effect in raising domain authority providing the linking sites themselves are trusted, the single most important factor in improving the authority of a domain in my opinion is to build quality content on the domain site itself.

With search changing then the measurement of a domain's authority is also likely to change. As Moz states in the first sentence above: _"Domain Authority is Moz's calculated metric for how well a given domain is likely to rank in Google's search results." _ By increasing the quality of content on a site by creating content that answers the intent of people's searches it will mean that pages on that domain are more likely to rank well in Google's search results.

I am not saying offsite optimisation is no longer important but growing the authority of a domain has to start with what you do on the domain's site.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Kade

I think it depends on the two words really. There was an example the other day of a company called ConvertMedia that didn't rank in the search results for Convert Media for the reason that the intent of a search like that is to find answers to how to convert media. So in that case the one word brand name worked against them, but the very fact of having a one word name identified them as that brand.

The brand name of my business however is two words: Cracking Media. If however you search for CrackingMedia we still turn up top in the search results, but it does ask do you mean "Cracking Media".

In terms of what your SEO friend has said I am not sure that gives you a conclusion, but I hope the thoughts above may help.

Peter

Hi, if possible I would change the **product-320 **to something more human and search engine understandable.

I would suggest something like: www.example.com/casual-shoes/plimsolls where plimsolls is product-320.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Bob

Looking at the page on your site, my first thought is that there is far too much text and information at this initial stage of your conversation with your potential customer for them to be able to process.

I would look at breaking down the page into a series of simpler bullet points outlining what you provide and avoid going into lots of detail.

Whilst I appreciate your motive for doing this will be the desire to be transparent with your potential customer, I think in many cases, they will neither understand or be concerned with how you are going to do their SEO (including the details of how many hours you will be spending), but will be more concerned with the benefits you will provide them with and the outcomes of your work for them.

I'm not sure that is what you want to hear and others may disagree with my thoughts, but I hope my thoughts are helpful.

All the best to you. Peter

Hi Kim

Moz's On-page grader tool is used to give you an understanding of how well optimised the page is for SEO. As you will have seen, it covers a range of different tests checking each one against the keyword you have told the tool you are optimising that page for, and gives it a score A to F based on how well optimised it is for the technical on-page SEO factors.

However, a grade A score does not give you any guarantees of how well that page ranks on Google. What it means is that most if not all things on page that are set up correctly for SEO. How highly a page ranks in Google is based on over 200 elements some of which are covered by the on-page grader but many won't be such as off-page ranking factors including back links, social etc. Consider the on-page grader as one of the tools in your SEO toolkit.

In terms of worse pages than yours that rank higher, it can be confusing and frustrating, but there is no simple answer. However, I recommend looking at doing a competitor analysis for the keyword to compare your page with what competing pages are doing. Look at the keyword difficulty tool to do this: https://moz.com/researchtools/keyword-difficulty.

You may also find this Whiteboard Friday by Rand Fishkin useful: Why You Might Be Losing Rankings to Pages with Fewer Links, Worse Targeting, and Poor Content.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Linck

I think it is extremely unlikely that doing this would have killed your rankings in two days.

It's more likely a coincidence with something else that has happened. Think through anything you have done in the last 2-3 weeks that could have had an impact, check your Webmaster Tools Reports and make sure Google are not reporting any issues.

Peter

Hi Sarah

I would always be concerned at hearing a company dissing another company in a public event. I have never used Wordtracker personally, but with a long track record as it has I wouldn't dismiss it. Also, in the latest search environment I think information giving you insight and context would probably be quite useful.

What examples did the company who hosted the event give that their tool was better?

The problem with any keyword research tool for search now, the data is not going to be as rich as it was. Also, with personalised search how do you measure what is 'normal'? Bing will give you search data yes, and most tools I think use that data. So if you keep in mind that the numbers are not the same as you will get with Google they will at least give you an idea of the higher volume keywords in proportion to those that are likely to be less. By using that data alongside other metrics and competitive analysis, you have a better chance than having none.

If there is a silver bullet tool out there I would be delighted to know about it.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Mike

I think this is unlikely just because they have an exact match domain.

The domain you have given as an example is nearly 5 years old so it is likely they have had their site working for them for some time. There are a decent number of pages on the site with information all based around the same subject and they have a registered address in Birmingham AL.

There's likely to be other factors at work too, but as I said, having an EMD won't be the main factor.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Tom

Along similar lines to Shane's answer but the critical questions is do you own the current domain?

If you do, then you can change the nameservers for that domain to your where your new website will be hosted once that website is ready to go live.

If you are keeping the same domain for your new site, that will be even easier, because your new developers will be able to capture a sitemap of your current site with your current developer and create a list of 301 redirections needed to point the current URL to the new URL for each page. Then, prior to the new site going live when the nameservers are switched to your new host, as long as the 301 redirections are active on the server where your new site is hosted, everything should work smoothly.

I hope that helps based on the info you have given, but do post back if you have more info or need more explanation.

Peter

PS. And as far as I know there is no legal requirement for a developer to provide 301 redirects.

Hello Robert and welcome to the forum

The recent Hummingbird update has no doubt shifted the SEO horizon, but that is true for all of us, Within that, I guess there will inevitably some re-tuning of the Moz tools and their analysis of data, but that is also true of other tools.

Fundamentally, Hummingbird is about Google increasing their focus on ranking information based on a more intelligent understanding of search requests. But Google has been heading that way for some time so there's not been anything totally revolutionary about the Hummingbird update. It's more evolutionary.

Just as there may need to be tweaks to competitor analysis for keywords, there will likely be tweaks to the way on-page optimisation is graded, but to reiterate, this will be true across the whole breadth of tools available on the Internet.

From my perspective, I respect Moz's position and the expertise and comprehensive analysis which both their tools and their team provide.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Bob

Is it black hat to encourage +1s in return for a voucher? These are Google's thoughts on what a +1 is for:

+1 is how you signal your appreciation for anything that grabs your attention on Google+ or on your favorite websites. When you read a post that makes you want to cheer, +1 is your applause; when you watch a video that has you in stitches, +1 is your laughter; when you see a photo that perfectly captures that special moment, +1 is your 5-star review.

I guess on that basis that technique is not exactly white hat but perhaps more grey hat!

To answer your question re white hat tips, it is producing anything that fits Google's definition of a +1. I remember 10 years or so now Seth Godin wrote a book called The Purple Cow. The story is that when you see a field of cows you might mention it as you drive past the cows are soon forgotten. But as you drove by if you saw in the middle there was stood a purple cow, you would stop your car, jump out take a photo or a video to tell your friends and the world about it (also via likes, tweets and +1s) because a purple cow is remark-able!

So I'm not sure there are any tips other than that. It's finding the purple cow in your business, in the products or services you sell, in the way you treat your customers or the great information you provide on your blog. If you do then people will want to "remark" about it and tell their friends and the world!

So I don't think there is any secret sauce. Just be remarkable!

I hope that helps,

Peter

Hi Kristin

I have no experience of this happening, but I would suggest that you create a full sitemap and submit that to Google Webmaster tools asap.

Peter

I think people are more likely to search for Red Armani Jeans Coat than Armani Jeans Coat Red, but I don't think that means you should necessarily structure your Title tag as "Red Armani Jeans Coat" - but I am more than happy to hear otherwise.

Google is always trying to understand the searcher's intent and the question they are asking irrespective of whether they write their search short or long. The question the person is asking in this example is "Where can I buy a red Armani Jeans Coat?", but that doesn't mean a web page with the Title tag "Armani Jeans Coat - Red" will not rank well for that search.

Google will understand that first and foremost they are looking for an Armani Jeans coat and not a red coat. So, by structuring a Title as "Armani Jeans Coat - Red" makes the title unique and makes it clear that the page and ultimately your site (because you will have other Armani Jeans pages) sells Armani Jeans clothing. That also fits with Google's Hummingbird update as that is looking at the breadth of the site for a search and not just individual pages that they list in their results.

I'm not sure how much my ramblings above makes sense, but I hope it helps.

Peter

Hi Catherine

I am really sorry to hear this and it's obviously been very distressing to yourself and your family.

If you go to the user's profile page there is a little down arrow underneath their picture which allows you to Report/Block them and then gives you a range of options to say why. That may be a start and hopefully Google will be able to respond to you.

But if you think the approach was possibly a criminal offence I would also take it up with your local police

I hope that helps - a little.

Peter

Hi Julian

I would use whichever tagline reads and sounds the best for your website visitors.

Whilst the proximity of keywords does have an impact on the SEO value of those words in page Title tags, I don't think proximity makes a difference in H1 or other heading tags. If it does, the impact is likely to be negligible. Go with what works for your brand and your target market.

By optimising the content of your pages for people first you will create more relevant and therefore more important content for search engines.

Hi Ron

I like the page a lot and the graphics look really good. There's a good amount of content which is good for indexing of course.

From a readability point of view, I think it needs some work though. You make a good point at the start that people are not that motivated to read about insurance and you are absolutely correct. But I don't think you need to say that - especially in the opening sentence. For me it's a negative start. I would lose that first sentence completely.

To make the page more readable I think you need to break it up a bit. You have done that well with the sub-headings, but I think you need to condense the paragraphs or split them to make them more bite size. Consider using bullet points in places to cover the points you want to make in some paragraphs - and use bolded text where you want to emphasise something - it will give the page a bit of a lift visually.

Having said there is a good amount of content which is great for indexing, it may be worth reading through and seeing if there is anything you can cut out. I know that sounds counter-intuitive from an SEO indexing point of view, but sometimes less is more even for search engines. More text, doesn't mean more relevance for Google, but clearer more understandable sentences would do.

All in though, good job. I hope my comments are helpful.

All the best to you with this,
Peter

Hi Bryan

Have you tried reporting through Google's web spam report?

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport

It's not quite the issue you have but it may at least bring the issue to Google's attention.

Peter

Hi Jorg

As the old site has URLs with .aspx I assume that was using a Windows server. Is the new site also on a Windows server.

I don't work on Windows server sites myself but I believe you can set up 301 redirects on your server using IIS.

For each old URL you would need to set up a 301 redirect to point it to the new URL. By doing that, bookmarked pages and links on the Internet to your site will resolve to the right page on the new site, plus search engines will also be redirected to the correct page and at the same time you will retain some but not all of any SEO value links to those pages are passing to your site.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Muhammad,

An exact match or partial match domain can help yes, but it is not such an effective strategy as it once was because Google has tweaked its algorithm against it a little, plus people tend to be a little bit suspicious of those type of domains these days.

If you have an older domain for your business then you are better off using and optimising a site with that which can include using search engine friendly URLs which can be just as effective and of course can be different.

I hope that helps,

Peter

Hi Muhammad

Your link building and SEO strategies to a large extent should be no different than before Hummingbird. To qualify that I would say that is true if before Hummingbird you were already creating content that focussed on answering the needs of people for questions they were asking and information they were looking for.

I would recommend you read a recent blog post on Moz by Gianluca Fiorelli about Hummingbird entitled "Hummingbird Unleashed" in which Gianluca very much explains what has changed and what those concerned with marketing online should be doing about it. For me the quote I found to be very helpful was "We should stop focusing only on keyword optimization and start thinking about topical optimization" and that I think at the heart of the Hummingbird update.

With regard to link building, your strategy (which hopefully it was before) should be to make sure that links are built from other sites and pages that are relevant to the topic of your site and pages. Gone are the days when any backlink was good and the more inbound links you could build the better. A lot of site's ranked well using that strategy, but one by one those sites are falling by the wayside.

So set a foundation to build topical content that people want to read and share and you will be heading in the right direction.

I hope that helps,
Peter

I agree with Kevin. Those sort of tactics will not work and will ultimately bring your site more pain.

No, link building is not dead, but it has changed.

If your blog posts and articles are good and target information that people are searching for your pages will rank well and people will link to them either through social media or via their own sites.

Consider also backing up what you are doing with content on your site by making sure you include authorship that is connected to a Google+ account. Then use content sharing platforms like Google+ and LinkedIn (possibly specific LinkedIn groups if they exist for your industry) to place snippets of your articles with read more links to your articles and posts.

Peter

Hi Gordian

I assume the traffic drops you are seeing are from organic search?

Often with a redesign there will be a change in the page URLs for the site. Did that happen with your site? If so, then you need to make sure that you set up redirection from the old URLs to your new URLs. This will be an important thing to address if this has been the case.

Other than that, there are sometimes bumps due to re-indexing of pages but if the content has remained unchanged then you shouldn't see much change and any change you do see should recover.

If the code is cleaner and the user experience better, then you should begin to see some improvements. The latter is that is likely to take longer because it will be based on things like reduced bounced rates feeding back to Google and thereby creating better results due to the perceived better user experience.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Yes, it would show up in your analytics as an active user but the fact that the query returns no results means it's not been indexed. All good.

Peter

Typically, press releases are issued by companies not people, unless the person is representing their own brand.

So in the case of a company, I would say no, because whilst you may have written it a press release is really a statement and not something you would consider as 'authored'.

For blog articles however, definitely yes. Link the article to the individual's Google+ account in the page code by using the rel=author tag in the page to do that.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Oren

Yes, it is a little bit whimsical!

Unless the speaker shouldn't really be speaking because he says the word super excessively I don't believe you would have an issue. Google states the following regarding keyword stuffing:

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose)

Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:

We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en

Does your speaker speak as unnaturally as that? It would be very odd if they did.

I think it will be OK.

Peter

Hi Kieran

I definitely think you shouldn't scrap the content as I am sure there's been a lot of work put into those posts over time.

If it's not worked, then first look at how you can improve it in the light of the knowledge you now have (including also by doing some fresh keyword research), then get to work on it.

Maybe there will be some content that is beyond redemption so in those cases retire the articles. But with some re-working of your existing blog content combined with re-marketing of it through social channels, then you should begin to see some return on your investment.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi,

If I am really honest I wouldn't vote for any of them, mainly because I think there's too many words and they all feel pretty complicated.

Maybe I don't understand your market (which is very possible!) but does anyone search for "authentic designer vintage bags"? However, I can understand someone searching possibly for "vintage designer bags".

I think for your URLs to be useful for search engines and humans alike, then simpler is better. So, I would suggest something like "/designer-bags/vintage-clutch".

A thought regarding the surplus "product-category" part of the URL you should be able to rewrite that out with a line of code in your site's .htaccess file - if you have the option to modify it.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Bill

Yes, those two pages are competing with each other, but then so are all the other results on that page. The fact that those two pages are yours makes no difference. By removing one of them won't push the other up. Instead it would allow another result to come in its place.

So, yes, be glad you have two results turning up on the first page. Now see what you can do to push them both up a peg or two higher.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi David

To create a Facebook business page you have to first have a personal account.

I would say every time that if you want to represent your business and Facebook is the right channel to be on (for some B2B businesses it may not) then create a Facebook business page. The only reason to share your personal page is with genuine friends who could be business contacts as well, but my general rule is to keep them separate.

The page you linked to is a business page shown by the reference to the product/service.

I hope that helps,

Peter

That's a really good comprehensive answer Miriam - for everyone! Thank you.

Peter

Hi, first up, if you haven't read it already, I recommend reading Moz's guide here: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

The other thing I would say if you are not clear on it already is first understand the strategy of SEO (i.e. that it is do with provide good relevant content that answers a site visitor's questions) than focussing too much on SEO tactics.

That said, to ensure your content is good and relevant to answer a site visitor's questions that means you need to know what questions they are asking. To do that I recommend doing keyword research to find the the keywords and phrases people are searching for so that your pages can be targeted correctly. When you have done that, make sure the content is well written and optimised correctly for those searches along the guidelines Moz recommend.

As your site is the focus of the attention you want to create then only when you have done those stages above should you be concerned with promoting the site elsewhere through social media etc.

I hope that helps,

Peter

Hi Nathan

No, that is not correct. Only 301 redirects will pass value and they don't guarantee to pass all of the value. As 302 redirects nothing is passed.

There is information here on redirects: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Cindy

Providing you can change the URL of your existing page you don't need to create a new page, just update the URL. If you cannot update the URL however, then yes, the only way will be to create a new page. In either case though you must create a 301 permanent redirect from the old URL to the new URL.

In terms of the traffic drop of the page, then that would have been due to the page dropping from #3 to #7. As Doug said, had you made any changes prior to that which could have caused the drop. In terms of anything Google may have done, it's possible, but difficult to pinpoint for relatively small drop like that.

How do you check where your page is ranking? If just by testing yourself in Google then you cannot be sure of that because of Google's personalisation of search results, so it's worth checking In Moz Pro by signing up for a free trial (if you haven't done that already) and using the Rank Checker tool. That will give you a much better view of where your page ranks for the country you check it from.

Peter

Hi Bob

If they're opposed to link building then they are going to have to work hard at creating as you say "stellar targeted authoritative content" and then make sure they engage on social media to sharing their content that will hopefully encourage others to create links for them.

Looking at the make up of the current top 10 for those search phrases there is a lot of hard work ahead to compete and be number 2.

A couple of brief things about their site currently and in particular their articles.

I would recommend finding a consistent way of creating their page URLs. Some are hyphenated but many are not (e.g. http://www.nlpca.com/DCweb/dcwebdynamicspinreleasearticlehtml.html) and as such they are not clear to read as humans even if a search engine can probably makes sense of them. Some are to PDFs and some are to external websites, but you don't know what you are going to get when you click the link. The articles need to be better organised.

Also, scanning their articles those I looked at seemed to contain no links, i.e. referencing other articles on the site or even citing external experts.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Cindy

If your current site at enchantingquotes.com is ranking well for your the main keyword for your business then I would not change anything.

IMHO_, m_oving everything over and then setting up redirects is not going to be worth it for the time it will take to do it and the result could be a possible negative impact. By the fact that you are ranking currently means your current site is trusted for the search phrase. Moving everything could undo that trust.

For your other domain  enchantingwallquotes.com rather than just redirecting it you may be better using that as as a blog site or something like that has useful content on your target market and which then links to your current site.

I hope that helps<
Peter

There appears to be some sort of redirection loop happening, but I don't know what could be the cause. Possibly a faulty cookie?

If you paste moz.com/logout into your address bar and hit return, I find you can then login correctly.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Jeseph

Yes, duplicate content can be an issue especially if your sites has lots of it, plus you will get the situation where Google will only index one instance of each page.

The best way around is in your situation though is to have one instance of each product, but to use that instance in multiple locations from a browsing point of view. If done correctly, each product will have a unique URL, but the page it is on can be referenced from a variety of locations/categories.

So, for example, a page about a shiny blue pen could be linked to from a pens category and also a gifts category, but the URL of the shiny blue pen page can be the same, e.g. yourdomain.com/blue-shiny-pen.html so one page and not a duplicate.

In terms of the facilities within Wordpress to make that happen I am not a Wordpress expert but I know there are many on this forum who are, so I am sure someone will give you some guidance on that.

Peter

Hi Ivan

You say "what I have been doing up to now..." which suggests you have already been doing this. What success have you seen on bloggers being willing to tweet to their followers your offer? If you have already offered this to quite a few bloggers, then you should already have some indication on (a) the percentages of bloggers who are willing to tweet for you and (b) the take up rate from their tweets.

I would be interested to hear if it is proving successful for you.

My strategy if wanting to offer these free audits is to build a list of contacts myself through my own outreach in social media. It's not a quick strategy but something you need to build and grow over time. Go on to the social media channels and engage with people, listen and try to answer their questions, share with your own followers any good things they are sharing. Then, as people build up more trust and authority in the places you are engaging people will begin to respond to you more and be more willing to share the good things you put out.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Laura

You can do a search of Google's index for a site by doing the following:

site:electric-heatingsupplies.co.uk

but that won't tell you which URLs have redirections on them. However by clicking each link you will at least see if they are going to the correct page or a page not found (404) error.

Peter

I don't think the Hummingbird update was specifically targeted at to improving Google Instant, but I guess it is likely that will receive an improvement because of Hummingbird. It's not something I have noticed to be honest, but it makes sense that it would.

Peter

Hi Ryan

There's a lot going on here, but from the sound of it, I think you are going the right way with it by not just focussing on the URLs (which are important) but backing it up with good content using various media.

I think the structure you have for the URLs is good too as domain->location->product. All I would say is to be careful on the product part of the URL (alo relating to your page Title tags) that it is a term that people understand and would use. For example, I have no idea what a Jet Park is, but it is possible I have been living in a cave on this and it is an understood term by your target market.

As I said in the paragraph above, make sure your page Title tags are correctly optimised as that is probably more important than the page URLs.

Finally, if you changing URLs, don't forget to create a set of 301 permanent redirects or add to the set for each page address you change and make live. You will get a small loss in current SEO value by using the 301 redirects, but by better optimising which is your reason for doing this you will gain back the ground and more.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Guy

Giveaways are definitely a good thing to encourage inbound traffic and help to raise the profile of your brand, but that does not necessarily correlate to a higher rank in organic SERPs.

Pages in search results are delivered on the basis that the page is relevant to the search query, but where a page ranks in SERPs - if relevant to a query - is also dependent upon the competition for that query and a lot of other metrics.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Guy

Whilst you have said you are using all new inbound marketing practices, it's a difficult question to answer with limited knowledge of the details of what you are doing for an eCommerce site you have not said what it sells. You may be doing some of the inbound things well but others not so well.

You've heard it before I am sure, but high quality unique content is very important - even for an eCommerce site, Does the site have a blog? Have you written articles about how to best use the products the site is selling, or how to look after them, or what people are saying about them, or the story behind how the products are created?

In terms of the sites ranking above yours, take a look at what they are doing, Can your site do it better than them?

And what about the site's brand identity? Are there ways you can grow the brand's fan base or a community of followers around the products you are selling.

Depending on the sector your site is supplying to, some or none of the above may apply, but primarily it is important to get inside the head of you customers, understand what questions are they may be asking and shape what you do on the site for them and not for the search engines.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi

Effective backlinks to a page are essentially votes of approval for that web page. If the pages you are trying to rank have poor/basic content then you are really going to struggle.

Gone are the days when you can just create backlinks all over from anywhere to point to your pages and give your site a boost in the rankings. With Google's latest updates to their algorithms and the advent of Penguin and Panda in the last couple of years, building backlinks from thin sites or to thin sites is not going to work and is likely to get your site penalised.

My advice would be to go back to your clients with citations from SEO experts that underline the issue they will have if they don't improve their sites with good quality content that engages with the people who would be looking for it. I'm sorry to say this, but the reality of this is that if they continue to ignore how SEO works and advice you have given them then they will continue to lose online.

I hope that helps,
Peter

It really depends on how big your site is and how complex your CSS. On a small site or if it has minimal CSS one is perfectly adequate. On a larger site with lots of pages and CSS it makes sense to break down the the CSS around their function.Peter