HI Brent,

Thanks for the reply.  As of last week the phone numbers were different on the rogue listings, but I just checked...and guess what...both now have MY phone number.

So it looks like I could claim them.  It was advised that the best way to deal with these listings would be to just report them to Google, opposed to claiming them.

They mentioned it was against the rules for me to have more than one listing(even if my intention was to nix the two rogue listings.)

Care to share your input?

Unfortunately, Google has taken bits and pieces of my business and combined it with non-existent businesses and other rogue information.  So now my business has 3 locations.

One proper listing that I created and manage.

One that uses my website address but nothing else is correct in the listing.

One that contains my name(incorrectly), but the address and everything else about it is incorrect.

I have reported these places many times but they continue to hang around and I am lost/confused on what to do next.

Please advise.

I've read varying things regarding the juice of the image alt text, and would have to believe that the h1 headers carry more influence overall.

I am specifically talking about the

tags being off page or behind the header image, and understand this to be against the best practices.

This is my opinion as well, but due to some of the minimal designs out there, it would be difficult to fit an appropriate

without disrupting the design.

I took a quick look a quick look at the plugin and it seems to explain what each area is for right below the boxes you are asking about:

Canonical: "The canonical link is shown on the archive page for this term." This allows you to modify the canonical output on the archive page for any specified category.

Breadcrumbs: "The Breadcrumbs title is used in the breadcrumbs where this category appears." You are able to modify the breadcrumb output accordingly for SEO purposes in regards to the specified category.

While I like the vast majority of the functions on the Wordpress SEO plugin, some of these options seem redundant, or would only be needed if poor site structure/naming was implemented originally implemented.  If that is the case your time may be better spent correcting that.

There is a good chance it would be best to contact Joost directly since this is more of a support question for him than SEOmoz, but I hope my answers clarified a few things for you.

That would be a serious long tail.

Can someone please clarify whether hiding

tags behind the image header is an accepted best practice or is frowned upon by Google?

I was doing some competitive analysis and noticed some websites were doing it, but it certainly wasn't egregious.

I would currently rate Ezinearticles extremely low on the authority of their content and links according to Google.  This is simply based on the Panda update backlash that devalued ezine and similar article databases.

While it was extremely popular in the past, the popularity and spamming of content/links is what also led to the demise and devaluing.

You time and effort would be better spent elsewhere.

I would like to change my sites structure to be more efficient for SEO.  I have a fear that the changes will have a potential impact on my current rankings, but know this would be a good long term decision.

My site is wordpress, so the changes are relatively easy to make.

What are some ways to change the site structure without damaging your rank?  I would have to have to clean up a bunch of errors, so is the best way to simply do 301 redirects on the old pages?

Yah it says it right here.  Thanks.  I must've missed it when I was reading it earlier:

You may create one listing per practitioner, and one listing for the office.

If I am understanding Rand and Todd's opinions correctly regarding this subject:

Rand believes it doesn't matter.

Todd believes it does matter and can be beneficial.

To me that would say to err on the side of caution and choose Todd.  Not because he is correct, but because there is no harm in doing so either way according to Rand.

Hey...

Unless these articles are going to extremely reputable sources, I would not bother with any article submissions.  I would concentrate on adding content to the website and/blog, and consider doing guest blogging on other sites you may be networked with.

Article submission for the sake of SEO is not the best idea following the drop in rank of many of the large article databases.

Also, every article submitted to these places should be unique if you were still choose to use them. Often times the sites will check for dupe material.  While I have read that there will be no punishment for the dupe content by the search engines, it may not help your cause.  It would just be a waste of time an resources.

If you were to publish an article that goes viral, or possibly a higher end press release, I could see how this might be more powerful and well worth it.

If the buttons are slowing down your page loading time to that significant of a degree, you might take your Commodore 64 into the shop.

If the load times are actually that slow, I would take a hard look at who is hosting the websites in question.

Hi Mike,

Your question is extremely valid, since much of the time to know that an answer is valid, you'd have to already know the answer.  Especially with SEO information that continues to change so quickly.

A recent example: I looked up a reference to use utilize for an answer I was giving, and found out it was "in the shop" according to SEOmoz.  They now consider it invalid, but I had thought it was gospel for about 15 months.

The biggest thing would have to be the continuity with the other answers and familiarity with the poster over time.  As a non-professional SEOer with excellent results for the projects I have taken on, I try to be careful to judge the source too quickly.  In my case, I do not want to share my website publicly since it is my own business that has nothing to do with SEO, so in my case it's not a great way to judge my answers I believe.

Good question.

Hi Marcus,

I have switched all of my websites to Yoast Wordpress SEO exclusively, and would highly suggest not using both SEO plugins at the same time.  I chatted with Joost at length via Skype about a similar situation, and I can assure you it is against your best interest to try and use both.

While I am a fan of AIOSEO, I have found the Yoast plugin does everything and more and love it.

They are not meant to work together so your time would be wasted attempting to do so.  Just make sure you are maximizing each plugin.  I would recommend working with Yoast.

HI Justin,

If I were in your position I would first take a look at the competition for the keyword or keyword phrases to try and assess the level of difficulty to surpass them in the rankings.

Once this is known, you will have a better understanding of their popularity, related backlinks(quality, quantity, targets) and at that point should consider your best course of action.

I personally do not trust the links done by the vast majority of services that offer link building.  Again, depending on the level of competition, I like the concept of trying to personally build a number of links each day that are of substantial quality.  That way you know you will not be punished at some point for being found in a bad area, and will also have a complete list of your presence on the web.  Over a 30 day period, you would have the ability to build 300 quality links, and will not put the future of your online presence(or lack there of) into the hands of somebody else.

It might take some time, but it would be worth the effort.

In addition to that, you might be able to build some quality connections with people within your industry, and start a network that could help your SEO a great deal in the future.

Hi Jason,

Just keep on working as Rome was not built in a day.  Pay no attention to the overall rank until you have completed the transformation.  If it has been done properly rank should improve.

My best advice is to try to stick with a single project until completion.  Try not to mix up the work you are doing since you will just be left with problems all over the place with no end in site.

Once you have completed them, add a blog.  It is most likely not THE reason nor the ONLY reason things seem to be dropping.

Stay the course.  1000 points of light.  Stay the course.

As wtih everything, the size isn't what matters.  It's what you do with it.  Anywhooo...

The CSS attributes should not effect any legitimate style choices, unless the search engines detect hidden text due to size, placement, or color.

Hi Steven,

While I don't feel it's necessary to defend SEOmoz, or SEO for that matter, it is impossible to know exactly what do to implement perfect SEO techniques and rank in the top spot for each industry.

However, SEOmoz is one of the few places I have watched webinars that collect vertical data, and process the statistics to made heads and tails of it.  I do remember reading a Google Best Practices Guide from 2010 that did something similar, but not as well as SEOmoz.

The more I read and learn from this site, the more I realize that SEO is not abut tricking Google and other search engines.  It is about relying on the best practices to create high quality, relevant websites that Google will appreciate.  I continue to believe that if SEOers stay consistent in their practices, Google will end up changing their algorithms to suit SEOmoz's standards.  Search engines will be chasing our sites, and our clients sites based on the excellent product we are helping produce.

SEO can be an extremely frustrating if you are looking for black and white answers.  I find the best practices approach to be much less frustrating, and easier to manage in regards to expectations and results.

Edit

I also wanted to mention that I wish people would have more ideas to consider in reference to best practices and techniques.  This is how SEO will evolve, and rarely do people have a chance to be in on the ground floor with cool stuff like this.

The strategy I feel works best is to make sure the anchor text is variable, and targets not only the homepage but deep linking which will bring value to other pages in the site. I am of the opinion that repeated anchor text to the same page could actually be harmful if misused, and that the variances of anchortext with appropriate geo modifier will be just as if not more beneficial in the long run.  Google is quite dynamic and its ability to connect the dots in the future will only increase.

Keyword research is also important when deciding which keywords and keyword phrases to target.