Wiki and About can be hard to beat.  Amazon and eBay can be hard to beat in the retail SERPs.

It is possible to beat them.  I beat them on many good keywords and they are beating me on many good keywords.

Here are the two situations where I have success beating them....

1. When I have a page on an established domain where my content is clearly a LOT BETTER than their content.  I can't name one keyword where I beat them with lower quality content.  Usually when I beat them my content is an article that is.... "the first page of information that a person should read about that topic".

2. When I have an entire website about a topic that competes against their single page about that topic.

Neither of the two situations above guarantees that you will beat them.  I have sites that have hundreds - even thousands of pages that are all about a topic with many articles, videos, .pdfs and more that are clearly superior - 100 times over for that topic - than wiki, amazon and about, however they simply have so much domain authority that unquestionably superior content - in enormous depth - can not beat them.

I hope that all of my competitors are putting lots of their time and money into these methods.

Instead of looking at how you can fool google consider what you can do that will build the quality, credibility, reputation and value-to-visitors of your primary site.

The best way to defeat a competitor is to do something that is clearly superior.

Google is smart... this will be recognized as "manufactured links".

trying to be humorous here... read with a smile on your face

People who own popular blogs get a lot of requests from "marketers" who are trying to place a link, a shout out, a mention or any other form of detritus that connects to their website on that popular blog.  Usually these people are simply trying to mooch on the bloggers popularity and effort.

Occasionally the marketer will offer a blog post or some other type of content that is usually among the worst   chest-thumping grammatically-incorrect crap that the blogger has ever seen, mentioning the product or the website at least once in every sentence surrounded by superlatives that are typically misspelled... and if the blogger does a search he finds this detritus has already been published on at least a hundred other low-quality websites.

Very rarely the blogger receives a genuine gift of content that will not stink up his blog and that he is actually willing to publish.  These rarely come from marketers and usually come from people who simply have a message that they want to spread.

So, if you have genuine, unique, substantive and informative content that the blogger enjoys and is motivated to share with his visitors you have a chance of seeing it published on a high quality website.  If that happens the blogger or webmaster will certainly be  open to future messages from you and be receptive to additional gifts of  genuine, unique, substantive and informative content.

.... oh... one more thing... be really careful if you are going  to hire a PR company to help you with this... The blogger knows that most of them are nothing more than spammers and their messages generally have a higher density of crap than is allowed by law.  There are a few exceptions to this rule.    

Normally... if I had a choice between a link on a relevant PR2 page and a link on an irrelevant PR5 page I would opt for the PR2 link.

However, if I had a choice between a relevant PR7 page and a PR2 page on the Pope's new site (which would not be relevant to my site for sure! )... I would take the link from the Pope.

... just sayin' what I would do.... no proof on what would really happen.  I think that the Pope would give a kickass link! 

These are just observations... I have not done a detailed study....

I have blog that ranks #1 for a moderately competitive term.  One day my #1 ranking disappeared... but a video from one of the blog posts  was displayed in universal search results.  I deleted the video and the #1 ranking came back a couple weeks later - when the video result disappeared.

So, if organic SERP rankings and universal search results compete - one displacing the other - then someone with #1 rankings could lose that position from a video.

On your second question.....

I am only placing my videos on YouTube because I believe that the number of views and embeds that they receive contribute to favorable rankings in a YouTube search result.  I'd like to know more about how they rank videos.. if this is not correct let me know.

Yes... all of these are true... Good thinking!

Any suggestions about getting my links indexed?

I would go have a beer or an anti-anxiety pill and forget about them.

I usually try to make the first image on the page highly relevant to the primary keyword and use that keyword in the alt.  However, if the image was not well described by that keyword I would use something more appropriate.

It might help you with longtail and image search... but I doubt it will hurt much for the primary query... why not get a second image that matches the primary query?

One hour?

Ask your mum if she will link from her blog. 

Great suggestion... I use Excel every day... but I also use the Google Document Spreadsheet because it does most of the same things as Excel and is in the cloud and you can share documents with other people..

At my office we share keyword research, ecommerce databases, profit margin calculation, inventory, adwords data... all of that with google docs.

Very valuable.

Great suggestion... if you can increase the conversion rate of a site by 50% your client will be IMPRESSED!

I would start learning about code.... and I would start building my own website.  Pick a subject that you know well and start to write about it and make a little money from it with adsense.

This way you will have a stake in your work - you will learn better that way.  And when you see a little money coming in it will give you incentive.... it could become a profitable hobby and then develop into a nice business over time.

Do something that pays.

Hide them in thick content.

Just did a search for BB... and the ammunition usage is only represented in the first few pages of the SERPs by a wiki disambiguation page.

BB King, BlackBerry, BoingBoing, BedBreakfast...  BB could be way way too many other things.

when you get the rare one that understands content is King - and have egos to match - and that is when it is really fun.

That would be great... if the leadership at such a firm decreed that every staff member would write a substantive document about the single most hot button topic in his/her field of expertise... that could pull in a lot of traffic and a lot of social sharing.... or they could hire new graduates and give them the job.

They would get bragging rights content that would showcase the expertise of their firm.  Isn't that what they are selling?  They should be strutting their stuff without askin'.

Surely you have built up your readers, twitter account and email list over time and are at a stage where people are just ready and waiting to reference your posts.

Not really... but I have a lot of pages out there.

The key to getting payback is selecting topics that are related to commercial products.  For example, if you produce content that tells how to solder stained glass then visitors who visit your page might be inspired to purchase glass, solder, tools and more.  The income from an article like that can be a few dollars per day.. so you can get pay back quickly when your content is successful.  And if it is successful you drill into that niche with lots of related articles that allow you to expand your presence in a profitable niche. '

It's like looking for gold... you can find a little gold in a lot of places... but you don't open a mine until you have found a rich vein - then you mine like crazy.

I want to hire people that know what they are writing about, someone that is an expert in the niche, someone like Rand Fishkin and Dr.pete for SEOmoz,

I have attempted to hire “good bloggers” before. $25 an article sound reasonable?

These two things are way way out of whack!  You want to hire Rand and DrPete and your budget seems to be $25/post???

speechless

Here's what works for me...

The content that I produce is being used in one of two ways... 1) informative "how-to-do-it" articles for a retail site in a very tiny niche, or, 2) informative "first thing that a person interested in a topic should read" articles for educational sites.

I usually try to make my content the best on the web in its niche.  This takes time.  I typically spend between one day and one week on a single page of content and usually have an employee helping me with photos, charts, data, video and research. RICH content is needed to compete.

These articles are very expensive to produce.  They are unique, substantive, heavily illustrated and I hope that people say "wow" when they click into them.

Before I start producing content I go out to the SERPs where it will compete and decide if I can blow the existing content out of the water.  If the answer is "yes" then I begin.. if the answer is "no" I usually look for a different topic.  Best-on-the-web content gets linked, tweeted, liked and emailed.  Pedestrian content doesn't get that kind of attention so it is not going to attract traffic and its not going to rise in the SERPs.  You are not going to get your investment back.

Most of the content that I produce does not rank well the first week or the first month... when I check on it a year later I am often surprised to find it on the first page of google sometimes attracting hundreds of visitors per day - or more - but sometimes they are in very low traffic niches where 10 visitors per day is a lot.  Some of the visitors are from head terms but the majority are from long tail queries that interact with one of the two thousand words that appear on the page or one of the six images that illustrate the articles.  To make these articles pay they have to be about something that attracts great ads or something that we sell that pulls in some good profit.

I don't focus on word count, I ignore PA, DA, etc... I decide if I can beat their content by a substantial margin and if the answer is "yes" then i go for it.  Over half of the content that I produce does not make a profit but some that I produce does really well.  I am learning.

I have a blog that gets about six to ten posts per day.  Each of those posts has a link to another website.  All of these links are do-follow.  I do that because the sites that I am linking to are all very high quality and have better content for that subject that I have on my site.

I believe that when you are "linking up" to sites better than yours for a topic that the outgoing links are valuable.

However, I also believe that if you are "linking down" to trash sites and pages of unrelated content then the links can harm your site.

I would never give control of outgoing links on my site to strangers and even when my employees post content I always review the target of every outgoing link myself.

my client owns the industry domain name. e.g. liposuction.com.

That's fantastic.  There is no better domain to have for this type of site.  I have a couple of these too.

What would you do with the local city pages?

I compete in local SERPs with pages that have lots of local facts, statistics, graphs, maps, links to local sources of services and information.

In an effort to create authority for the domains I have authored lots of content about the most highly searched topics, obtained content contributions from experts in the field (if you own liposuction.com there might be experts in that field who would write an article for you simply because it will be published on the KW.com and visible to a lot of people.  These are not SEO articles from people who want a link they are informative content from people who have a message to spread.  Most of this content is written to be "the first document that a person interested in learning about a subject should read".

Owning this type of domain gives you an enormous advantage over your competitors.

I see lots of shuffling in some of my SERPs.  Rankings going up and down several places.  Sites jumping back and forth between first and second page.  This has been going on since mid-November.  These are mostly retail product SERPs.

And is it really that necessary to write meta descriptions?

Your boss is a marketing man?

I can't imagine a marketing man who is willing to give up control of the sales pitch.

He needs a kick in the pants. 

Why are we paying him... just let google do it.

There is some serious competition for the main service keyword (this is not the real keyword) e.g. “liposuction” and over the past year we have seen rankings fall significantly (from top 3 to 13-15).

As local businesses become SEO savvy and aggressive your job is going to become more and more and more and more difficult.   To hold your rankings you must be able to respond to SEOs attacking your SERPs in every city where you want rankings.  If you have a root keyword similar to "liposuction" then you are going to be under major major attack from doctors who are willing to invest big money for an ongoing web visibility campaign.

If I was in that niche I would be looking for one of two things.....

1. a sustainable plan that will create and continuously increase a  massive level of  authority for my website.....  an enormous library of best-on-the-web liposuction articles that attracts thousands of links from med schools, physicians, bloggers, government health sites, etc.... that thousands of people post to facebook and tweet about....

or....

2)  I would start working on a project that will diversity my income

Are these links going to other great sources of aviation content... or are they simply people linking to personal websites, websites who pay them to grub links, and websites who paid somebody who paid these people to grub links on your site?

My question is... are these people turning your site into a linkfarm?  If they are then you better keep the nofollow or heavily moderate.

If you remove the nofollow and word gets out that you have a "do follow" forum then that could be like painting a target on your own behind.

Does AAAFurniture.com have any existing content, traffic, links, likes, youtube channel or other assets?

If it does not you can  redirect AAAFurnitureStore.com to it if you want to simplify the name of your brand (and you are willing to sacrifice some of the effectiveness of your existing links and anchor text.

If AAAFurnitue.com has existing content, traffic, links, likes, etc then you must study carefully to take maximum advantage of these assets.  Not a simple question.

Yes, I am jealous too.  I normally spend several days on a single page of content - so seeing someone with hundreds of pages makes me green with envy.

How will visitors to your site react to such an avalanche of content.

Visitors will not see the avalanche....  Instead they will see a fantastic library of content that is wonderfully organized.

My worry would be that if you publish too much the individual articles can get lost and don't get the eye-balls they deserve.

As for "giving it the eyeballs it deserves"... you can promote it slowly... but it will immediately start pulling traffic from the organic SERPs.

Another thoughtI have is if you're publishing 1000's of articles - are you revising/pruning old articles too?

Sure, we do that all of the time... and publishing new ones tomorrow.

If all the content is dissimilar and each page focuses on some different writing item: sports-football, baseball, basketball, etc. and medicine, etc. and you have no content showing that, I would put it all up as well.

yes, I agree completely... this is the best situation possible.

I challenge anyone to prove putting up 1000 pages of content overnight, with no further description of it, will increase site performance appreciably.

When I put up new content it starts making money the next day.  It makes money from pulling visitors from search, makes money from visitors from other destination, and makes money from people who landed on my site from other pages.  That is guaranteed money.   Holding the content back because dripping it out over time might produce a freshness boost is a gamble.

Wow!  In my opinion, not publishing valuable content immediately is like owning a machine that vacuums up money and refusing to use it.

If somebody gave me 1000 articles written by the Pope I would be breaking a leg to get them on my site.  I would actually pay my webmaster overtime to get them on the site as fast as possible... I would be working with him to get it done fast.

I am salivating just thinking about all of that content!  OMG!

I challenge anybody to present proof that holding back content is a better strategy that blasting it out right away!

If you register blackboots.co and make it a huge success and I own blackboots.com... then I am going to enjoy a nice amount of your traffic.

If I felt that I could make a significant site for "black boots"... I would be willing to pay a good price for blackboots.com.  If I could not afford to buy it I would create a site on another .com domain.

revising...

This is a really good answer... should be copied and pasted everytime someone asks this common questioin...

My PA and DA are higher but I am getting beaten!

$1300 isn't much money.

How much do you think you would make if you rediesigned the site?

We can't give you a good answer with such skimpy information.

Also the decision on the 301 needs more consideration.  You need to think about relative rankings, traffic, unique link sources,  duplicate content issues, keyword reach of the sites.

Will links from blog directories to our subfolder-located blog within our website help the ranking of our overall site?

Yes, absolutely.   However, the greatest benefit will go to the specific pages where the links are connecting.

Based upon watching my own sites for a long time, I believe that if you get a link from an authoritative "widgets" site it gives some boost to widget content all over your site. (This is not 'linkjuice" it is something even better).

Then if you get a link from a world class site such as whitehouse.gov vatican.va  cern.ch  kids.gov ... the trust delivered through a link like that will kick up your SERPs everywhere - even if the link is on an obscure page.  (This is not 'linkjuice" it is something even better).

I am betting that it is triggered by the amount of fresh information hitting the index for a topic (such as newt gingrich)...  and accelerating search volume.

There are a lot of different factors that can produce different SERPs for a single query.

First... you probably know about "personalization".... If you are logged into a google service your SERPs will be influenced by your previous browsing.

Second... google is constantly running a lot of experimental SERPs.  These can deliver very unusual results and could account for 10% or more of the SERPs served on any given day.  (Read the book "in the Plex" if you want to learn more about this - great book BTW - will help you understand Google)

Now, here is my experience....

I can search at my office using different browsers on same computer (chrome, firefox, internet explorer and safari) and see different SERPs.   Then I can remote connect to my home on the other side of a small town on a different ISP and get still different results.  Then get out my iphone and see different results there...and different results still on my ipad (different ISPs).  I can see many different SERPs without leaving my chair.

Results are most similar using generic informational queres such as "mars rover" and vary enormously  when I search for something that might have local variations such as "pizza".

There isn't a "standard google SERP".

I use the SEOmoz ranking reports to track progress over time, knowing that most people will see something different when they query.

Our most important landing pages have also dropped, but just a few spots on page one.

When I hear this the first thing that comes to my mind is a couple of hungry competitors or a single hungry competitor with two sites.

So, my question is.... Who is beating you today that was not beating you six months ago?

You could be experiencing soft hits from the Panda algo.

Do you have problems with....

--- duplicate content

--- thin content

--- heavy ad density

--- very little content above the fold

--- slow response

This is a very complex question.  It depends upon rankings, content, visitors, conversions, links, brand recognition, profits, products and many other things.  Any answer not based upon careful consideration by a smart person who understands SEO and has a deep understanding of your site is not reliable.

What is the best practice to use amazon affliate links in blog posts?

Place them within or next to relevant, rich, substantive content that inspires the visitor to start a craft project, read a book, buy a tool, look for a gift, cook something.

Your choice of links and their placement are critical...   Links below a large and very enticing image in the right column or floated within content - right at the inspiration point of the content are most effective.

...with lots of affiliate links on it...

I don't like the sound of this... Do you mean loads of links on every page... or loads of pages with one or two links each?

I'm want to be sure I'm using best practices when adding links like this.

There is a huge difference between "adding links"... and making a presentation that motivates action.  Which are you doing?

Should not matter... people move registrars frequently.  I have moved established website domains from Asian registrars to a USA registrar without any problems.

A couple questions...

Was this competitor homepage optimized for this term before the redesign?  Where did they rank for this term?

You say that this site is pretty well branded... often a site like that can decide to use the homepage to go after a term and.... BAM... they will be there the next day.  Also, powerful sites can add a new page an.... BAM... be at TopSERPs for a brand new term the next morning.

Sites like Amazon can do a lot of damage when their sellers move into a product line.

About the

and KW stuffing.  I don't think that will hurt them.  Lots of people use

for design reasons so I don't think that google will whack them for it.  A year ago one of the strongest sites in the "hosting" niche had their persistent navigation links all as

... the dominated with that and when they removed it in a redesign their rankings didn't change.

A few years ago I purchased the #1 site for a competitive KW.... I ran the site for a couple of months before doing anything - just to get an understanding of the site and the people who visit.

This is a very complex question.  Any answers given here will be guesses.

I am not trying to insult those who reply... just letting you know that you need a very in-depth study of many things including SERPs, products, goals, content, site strengths, site assets, and more.

Can free article sites damage my reputation

In my opinion they are mainly a waste of time.

I want to know if this is going to spoil my reputation

If they have you sounding like an idiot on the web.. .then yes.

i would like to know why people use these programmes when they do not even make sense.

They think that they convert your article into their money.

I am not going to tell you what I "would do"... I am going to tell you what I "have done".

Within the past year I have redirected all subdomains into folders in the root directory of the main site.  Most thin content was thrown overboard, some thin content is being improved, the rest of the thin content is temporary and has been noindex, followed.

If your main site is already dominating the SERPs  for every keyword that your blog will cover it might make sense to put this content on a subdomain or a secondary site..

However, if your main site is not killing the SERPs and the content that you will be publishing is worthy of links, tweets, likes, and other forms of sharing then I would place it in a folder on the primary domain.  You want to focus this attention on the primary domain because this attention is what drives rankings.

I would not do such worrying over the Keyword Cannibalization issue.

If you have multiple pages in the SERPs for a certain keyword is that not a wonderful thing?  IMO it is a sign that you are kickingass.