Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks, Benjamin. That's a great way of looking at it. All of the images I looked at did have "golden retriever" in the beginning of the file name.

Plus bonus points because I got to look at puppies.

You've gotten some great responses here. I just wanted to add my gut reaction to your question.

If a keyword ranks #1 but no one is around to click on it does it really matter?

My advice would be to take a look at the keywords again and determine if they are the most valuable words you should be ranking for.

Sometimes the best targeted words don't bring the traffic and the best trafficked words don't bring the qualified visits.

Thanks for everyone's responses! I believe I have solved the mystery.

I went into my analytics and found that traffic had been sent from cnn.com, edition.cnn.com and weather.cnn.com. EGOL had mentioned the widgets that news sites will often use to link to relevant stories. Turns out I found a widget on the weather page that is administered by outside.in - a service that localizes content. I added our blog's feed to outside.in months ago and completely forgot about it. So, I'm assuming, someone who was searching weather or news in the Portland area perhaps would see our most recent post on Portland food carts.

I'm assuming these widgets don't pass any link juice, but I'm so glad to have the traffic and exposure. I suggest anyone who ever writes localized content should sign up for outside.in - your post might just show up on cnn.com.  

I agree with Syed. If I'm understanding the situation correctly, you are worried about a single page linking to a different page multiple times. This should not be a problem at all. Google will not penalize.

I have a feeling you would do well with Mommy bloggers. Offer a giveaway to their readers or send them product for review. It's an excellent way to get exposure and links back.

Not sure where to start? I suggest finding those sites that rank well for the keywords you want and see who links to them. You may find a lot of great opportunities there.

If it is a small local business I'd definitely invest a few of those hours in getting local profiles set up. Taking the time to do consistent, quality listings can prove invaluable for a local business. Here is a great list of local business directories:

http://websuccessdiva.com/blog/local-business-directories/

Other than that I agree with Ryan that project mapping is very important. But that is assuming you will eventually have more than 8 hours to work on the project.

Not an unintellegent question at all. You are right that you can't message a fan page (as far as I know!) and that someone must follow you in order to DM on Twitter. However, don't be shy about reaching out. Post on the fan wall or @username message the site owner on Twitter. You don't have to spell out that you are looking for a link, just say something like "@username Hey, Have a question about your site - can you DM me?"

I'd think most webmasters wouldn't mind this sort of communication. Social media is all about communication, afterall.

Hope that helps and good luck with the link.

Usually about 6 weeks. The last update was at the beginning of June and the next one is scheduled for next Monday.

I think "success" in social media is determined by different variables for different companies. I work for a food manufacturing company and for us the most important variable is credibility. We implemented FB last July and now have over 18000 fans. Have our consumer sales gone up tremendously? No, but now we can show big stores that we pitch to that our product is so popular we have over 18000 fans. It's all about perception. It even got us on Groupon's radar, who had intitially turned us down for a national campaign because we were "too small". Our company is the same size now, we just have the ability to show off our 18000 fans.

Point is, you may want to step back and consider variables other than sales. Some would argue that using social media to leverage brand awareness and credibility may pay off more in the long run than an X% sales increase.

Another good indication is whether or not they link to your competitor. I mostly find directories from looking at competitors' back link profiles. Most of them are industry specific and, assuming they are still maintained, worth the couple of minutes it takes to submit.

Jake's approach is right on. Key is building that relationship and reaching out in a personalized way.

Some people on the SEOMoz forum disagree with this tactic, but I also check who is linking to my competitors for the keywords I want to target. You can use OSE for this. It's a great way to find relevant linking opportunities. Some would argue that getting the same links as your competitors is fruitless. I agree if that is all you are doing. Combine it with Jake's strategy and you will be on the right path.

I think Anthony's response was perfect, but I just wanted to add that I think that ranking with a DR of <40 is very doable. It's a great tool for relative difficulty.

Daniel,

I second John's suggestion with FB ads. You can target by interest. Because you have a natural/organic product I'll bet you can reach a nicely targeted audience. Within your ad give them a reason to like you: a discount, giveaway, promises of useful updates...sometimes even just a pretty picture will draw people in.

I've had a lot of success with FB ads (18,600 fans and counting) and I think with proper targeting you can too.

I agree with Anthony. This is a great topic. I went to nlpca.com and it wasn't until 2/3 of the way down the page that I actually read what NLP stands for.

Granted, your target demographic may not be as naive, but a great infographic right off the bat would be a great opportunity to make it clear for people like me.

I don't have any advice for making it spectacular, but you are on a great path. Let us know when you finish because I would love to see it.

Wes,

I had a similar problem with getting a fresh ranking report and was told there was a server crash. Some data was lost. I suspect you fell victim as well. I just received an updated report so I'm assuming you will too. HTH.

Greg - That actually is a great suggestion. We've used FB questions in the past for feedback on flavors and recipes. It is my fall back solution if I cannot find an apps that

a) Allows photos

b) Allows a link to individual "recipe" pages

Unfortunately, for now FB questions doesn't offer this sort of functionality. Thanks for the suggestion though!

In my experience, the best return you get is when you send your press release to individual editors/influencers. I have used PR Web, but have not found nearly as much value as actually contacting individual editors. Time consuming? Yes. But we've gotten some great press/links back.

In my experience that means that the report is still computing and should be ready on the day posted.

I agree with Bryce that it probably doesn't affect Google's perception of the page at all.

However, from a user standpoint an "outdated" copyright could work against you. I see it as a sort of trust signal. I was on a page earlier that said "Copyright 2001" and I just couldn't get over it. If they can't bother to update the date on their site, why would they bother with having me as a customer?

Just something to think about. Great question.

I'm sure someone on here can tell you the technical reason why index pages are created (I have just kind of accepted that they exist), I can tell you how to fix the problem. You will need to set up a 301 redirect from either xxx/index to xxx or xxx to xxx/index. I'd point the redirect to the page with more backlinks.

That should fix your duplicate content problem.

When I google "Aphrodite Desserts" I get the site (and the new SERP 12-pack!) as number 1 as well. Is this your first report? If so, give it a week or two and it should start showing up. Sometimes it can be stubborn.

I agree that there is probably next to no SEO value for using the **tag here. What I do like is that it works from a usability standpoint. To me it is natural for that line to be bolded because it is the name of the product. It makes the name stand out a bit and makes it easier for the user to know what they are looking at. For that, +1. **

I actually tweeted about this problem a few weeks ago and got the following response from the SEOMoz team:

"It's a known issue with the AdWords API and we're working on it as fast as we can."

I've been using the search volume within Google Keyword Tools in the meantime.