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Not saying these are best... just how I do it....

1) How do we optimize the URL structure? For ex... We have keywords aa, ab and ac, where a is the base keyword

I use most searched keyword.

2) How do we go about mentioning the multiple targeted keywords in meta description.. We've read the articles at SEOMoz.. but would want opinions

I do something like this.... formal name: blah blah slang name

Brass Widgets: Also know as gold widgets are kickass....

3. What about H1, H2 and H3 Tags? how do we go about optimizing these for the multiple keywords

I optimize H1 for formal name and use slang (highest search volume) in H2

4) Is it a good idea to put up these multiple keywords on the sidebar of our website... we're basically referring to breadcrumbs all over over website for the targeted keywords...

I just include them in the text of the page.

I have heard many times that Adwords and organic SERPs are not linked in any way.  I believe that in my heart.

However, my brain tells me that if Adwords detects something that it really really does not like a signal will be sent to the organic quality control.

Google has not, in my knowledge said that they do this.  But if you were Google would you?

I agree with Ryan.

Those spammy links will cost you time and money - and it is a gamble that they will work long term.

Invest that money in a quality attack that will benefit you long term and beyond.

If this is a site that is just starting out I would invest in the listing. It could help get you off to a faster start.

However, if this is an established site with thousands of quality links already then I don't think that this one link will make much of a difference.

Just how I would view it for my own sites.

Let's say that you get an attribution link in the footer of a PR7 domain with hundreds of PR6 pages and thousands of PR5 and PR4 pages.  That would probably propel your site forward.  Would you do the design work or the SEO for free if that were the deal ?

I think that this is more of a customer relationship question than a search engine question.

Most designers believe that designer links are customary in the footer.  Some people think that a "design by XYZ Marketing" without a link is proper attribution.  In any case such links or attributions should be clearly mentioned in the design contract.

Some webmasters simply don't want links in their footer and the designer should be willing to accept that but charge a little more for the loss of attribution.

Some SEOs think that if they do SEO on a client's site that they are entitled to sitewide links in his footer.  My personal opinion is that the SEO should be doing everything possible to help the client instead of sucking his linkjuice.  SEOs should be able to build their own links.

I sell a product that has a formal name, a slang name that is used by most customers, an archaic name that is used by old-timers (like me) and an ignorant name that people who are unfamiliar with the product often use.

The slang name has most of the search volume, followed by the archaic name.  Our best customers are professionals who use the formal name.

I have made a point to use each of these names somewhere on every page of the site.  However, I optimize for the formal name and the slang name. My site ranks well for all four of these terms.  However, I give Google the credit for these rankings instead of saying that it is my expert optimization.

If I go to Google.com and search for the formal name, google bolds the slang name, the archaic name and the igonrant name in the SERPs.

You can test this for yourself... go to google.com and search for 'celebrity pics".   You will see that "photos", "pictures" "pics" "celebs" "celebrity" and other terms are bolded in the SERPs.

If this is happening for your keyword variants then your optimization work is going to be easier.

I had a competitor that used to make sites like this.  The top navigation would have links to other keyword-rich domains. All of these domains would have identical design so if a  visitor was not paying close attention to the URL he would think that he was still on the same site.

This guy had several of these little site clusters.

They all disappeared from Google.

It sounds like you have a bit of an investment in this site.  So, I would not walk away from it.

Have you made any changes, done a redesign, changed your URL, changed your category names, created new navigation links, any other changes?

If I had a site with a lot of good content and a lot of images I would have somebody smarter than me look at it before I toss it away.

Go look at image search.  Maybe you have a pic showing there.  I get a little traffic for "kitchens" too and don't have an article about "kitchens"... but do have a couple photos.

Since you own both of these websites you are the boss.

I work on a few websites that I own and I work on what motivates me at the moment. 

Sometimes that means I work on what I enjoy the most and sometimes I work on what I think will earn the most money.

If I was forced to work on something I wouldn't get as much done and the quality would be lower.

The only way to scale is to find an assistant or another writer.

I bet if you advertise on craigslist for a person who holds a degree in English - graduated with honors -  you will get some bites.

The "sold items gallery" would not be redirected and if this gallery was filled with photos of attractive photos and descriptions of the most interesting items that you have sold it could attract links, traffic, likes, tweets and more.  I know of some antique dealers that have huge "sold item galleries" that attract a lot of traffic from interested people.

Yes.  You understand it correctly.

For an example search Google.com for "tempered windshield glass"

You might see wisegeek with two listings at #2 and #3

I would create a "sold items gallery" for each product category.  These would be pages that contained photos and descriptions of many similar widgets that you have sold in the past.  If you have several photos and descriptions on the page these would be rich content that might attract links, likes and tweets from your fans.

After you have these galleries I would redirect all "sold out" pages to either your current category page for sales items or to these gallery pages - whichever you want to receive that power.  I have a site that redirects thousands of pages per year - we place them in folders by date to make redirecting a lot of pages easy.

I would write in natural language without regard to SEO.

If you do that you will probably be fine.

The only exception that I would  make to the above statement is don't let your marketing guy write the copy because they tend to write in a chest-thumping style that uses the company name twice in every sentence. 

If you are going to make this site enormously popular then owning the .com will allow you stop the loss of type-in traffic to the .com domain.

For popular .org .gov .net and other domain extensions, lots of visitors instinctively type .com as the domain.  I do it often myself when attempting to visit some .gov and .org sites.  I am usually surprised at what I find there.

I know of a couple .com domains that get thousands of visitors per day because visitors don't type .gov as the extension.

There are at least two problems with this....

1. Most news articles are owned by someone and copyright.  You can't republish them without permission and most likely will have to pay a really steep fee.

2. If you republish those articles they will be duplicate content that appears on other sites that are probably a lot more powerful than yours.  As a result they would be filtered from search and you would likely have panda problems.

They will both compete against your enemies.

Let's say you can get one of them to position #2 and the other to position #10.  If you can do that you will be rewarded with positions #2 AND #3 - which is kickass for pushing your competitors down the page.

A lot of people believe that having two or three pages optimized for same keywords is a huge sin of keyword cannibalization.  I believe that it is an opportunity to really dominate your SERPs.

If you really want to do damage to your competitor's sales get #1, #2 and #3 above him simply for the price of earning #1, #9 and #10.

I agree that there is more risk moving an older site than a newer site.

If you lost 10% of a little it would not be much... but if you lost 10% of a lot then that would be disappointing.

lol... thanks for that report.

Should we go back and read for the laughs?

If you redirect you will probably lose a small amount of linkjuice and possibly some anchor text value.

Do you have your closest competitors soundly beaten?

If you are clearly the dominant site in your niche then your risk of loss is lower but still possible.

(I would go after that .com.... I would be willing to pay quite a bit for it)

Offer sweet deals that blog readers will think are exclusive to them - and put a time limit on them.

"Today only, for our dedicated blog readers you can buy half a pair of pants for just $10"

We don't know where your links are located but here are two possible reasons....

The pages where your links are placed are not able to be crawled.

The pages where your links appear are in such a far off part of the web that crawlers have not discovered them yet. 

** In that case you can use “li” and “ul” tag, moreover Google doesn’t penalize for repeating words under these tags.**

ha ha... that is B.S.   

The author of that does not know how Google handles

• and

  I can imagine Matt Cutts telling people ... "Its OK to stuff the

  • tag guys"  

I agree with Mozo.  I would not do that redirect.

I would sharpen the optimization of the homepage for keyword z - but keep the rest of my business represented there.

I would also improve optimization of the keyword z page and create a few more pages of substantive content for keyword z then  link to them from the keyword z page.  I would want to look like a deep content source for keyword z.

I would then see where the homepage ranks.  If it defeats the keyword z page I would build links to the homepage.  If keyword z page ranks higher I would build links to it.

I have never heard that

• are safe for anything.

  Don't bet on the behavior of Google.

  Also, I don't pay any attention to the number of times that I use a word in copy. None.  I try to write naturally without regard for search engines.

If they are not linked to then spiders will not find the noindex code.  They could suffer in the SERPs for months and months.

I removed some pages from the index and used the same line of code...

name="robots" content="NOINDEX" />

My pages dropped from the index within 2 or 3 days - but this is a site that has very heavy spider activity.

If your site is not crawled very much or these are low PR pages (such as PR1, PR2) it could take google a while to revisit and act upon your noindex instructions - but two months seems a  bit long.

Is your site being crawled vigorously?  Look in webmaster tools to see if crawling declined abruptly when your rankings fell.  Check there also for crawl problems.

If I owned your site and the PR of these pages is low I would wait a while longer before doing anything.  If my patience was wearing thin I would do the 301 redirect because that will transfer the linkjuice from those pages to the target URL of the redirect - however, you might wait quite a while to see the redirect take effect.  That's why my first choice would be to wait longer.

For some webmasters, Google has been mysterious for the past year.

Duplicate content, thin content, spun content, lots of ads above-the-fold, ugly design and other site characteristics are blamed for reduced rankings.

I have a site that contains some republished government content and some very short blog posts.  Some pages on that site saw reduced rankings in October.  We noindexed the duplicate and thin content in November plus cut back on some ads and most rankings recovered in January.

Lots of very experienced SEOs are guessing at what factors Google is using.

Anybody who tells you what to do based upon the minimal information that you provided is guessing.

Anything that you can do to strengthen your content to a unique and substantive position would probably be time well spent - even if it is not your current problem.   You say that you don't have ads, so you can eliminate that as a potential problem.

the question is what's your long term strategy.

This is a very good point.  If the doctor plans to have an extended practice then a website other than his personal name could be better long term.  Of course his personal site could always be redirected if needed.

he is well-known in his industry

This could be an advantages that is far more powerful than a domain.

I would use it over a domain  "that includes the keyword"

The question was what do I really need?

You need expertise or money.  Your choice is expertise and I salute that.  It is the method that I have taken.

However, since you are a beginner you are going to need a lot of time to learn, make mistakes, recreate and build the popularity of a site from scratch.

Your reply could make me jump off the cliff and give up. That’s not me thought and the question remains.

"That’s not me..."  Good, you are a fighter.  You will need that.

What do I really need apart from the desire to succeed.

My advice above is simply..... Pick a fight that you can win.

We don't know what you are planning to attack.  We know that your financial resources are thin and that you are a beginner at SEO - starting from scratch.

Just as a boxer must work his way up from amateur to the ranks of heavyweight champion.  As your trainer at this moment I would not send you into the ring against the heavyweight champion.

Pick a fight that you can win.  Not one that will defeat you at a time when you can't afford to lose.

Developer comments would not survive on one of my sites.

I would be moving my hosting.... or getting a new CMS that allows my blog to run in a subfolder.

The critical question that is not often asked by people placing a new store on the web:

"Do I have the resources to become competitive?"

Selling a very niche product line is where you have the best chance.  However, if you are going to sell something like "gift baskets" from a rural location then you will face enormous competition.  There are already a ton of people selling them and thousands of tons of people trying to sell them.

Are you attacking a specialized niche or are you going out with a potato gun to challenge the United States Navy?

Although I love to cheer the little guy on to victory I would advise a lot of them to become more focused and niche.  If you almost fell out of your chair at the cost of SEO for twelve months then maybe you don't have the resources to become comeptitive?  I am here working seven days a week with employees doing nothing other than the work that is needed to keep a couple small websites competitive.

Another important question....

"Do I have the ability and time to write expert product descriptions and content for the site?"

That is the downfall of most people who want a business website.  They never deliver the content to the developer and the site never gets a good launch.

Great!

I see that you made the design wider.  I think that is an improvement.

Thanks for the report.

Some companies/organizations dominate with multiple domains.  If you search for "national geographic' you will see multiple domains.

I doubt that anyone could earn the #2 spot.

István, I said "I agree" and gave you thumbs up.

You can compete for the position below ALL of the BritishAirways.com listings.  To do that you must beat Wikipeida.

This is very difficult turf.  Let us know what you eat for breakfast if you make it to that position.

Here's a dumb question...

Why are you buying this blog post? Which one of these?

A) you have a message to get out and you hope this blog post will show it to a lot of people

B) you hope people see that blog post and think that it is so awesome that the have to visit your site

C) you think that a link in that blog post is going to be valuable

======================

DA doesn't mean anything for two of those answers.

======================

And for the one that does maybe you should pay a lot less for the DA90+?  Because it is going to compete hard against your main biz.

I agree.  If you want to paint a target on your back produce a lot of content that contains "dry cleaners Birmingham".

Yes, if I was Google I would be zapping those sites.