Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for your opinions and experiences.  Just a question.. did you 301 redirect all your http pages to https?  If so, you still lost indexed pages?  Thanks for your help.

Hi adamxj2, thanks for trying to help me out!

So I too am aware of the "Map & Search Photos" section of GMB.  In our case, one of the photos that was uploaded in this section is being used currently.  However, there is no way of designating which one should be used as the main Knowledge Graph image on searches.

A lot of platforms use either the first or last image uploaded as the default image, but it appears the one that Google chose to use in our selection of photos we uploaded is one that was uploaded in the middle of all the others... in other words, it wasn't the first or last photo uploaded.

So in lieu of deleting everything and ONLY uploading the 1 photo you wish the knowledge graph to show (which isn't ideal), we are still left trying to figure out how to tell Google which image to use.

If you find out anything more or know anything more about this, would love to hear!  Thanks again.

How can one change the image that Google shows in a business' knowledge graph in the SERPs?

And the image I am referring to is the one that typically appears to the left of the map within the knowledge graph box, above the business' name.

The current image that is being used in my client's case is an image that was uploaded in their Google+ My Business profile, but there doesn't appear to be any particular reason why that one was chosen (it wasn't the first or last image uploaded, nor is it selected as the profile picture).

As user-interaction increasingly becomes important in rankings, I would like to change this to something more attractive.

Thank you for any help and guidance!

I am cleaning up some spammy backlinks for a client and will be submitting a disavow at Google.

This particular company website has 2,000+ backlinks from the domain wn.com which appears to be "World News". If you go to it, it appears to be nothing more than scraped content from other sites.

Here is a recent example, where my client is linked to (I don't even see the backlink on the page, but it is in the source code!):
http://article.wn.com/view/2013/11/22/Hungarian_Woman_Sentenced_to_One_Year_in_Prison_for_Her_Role/#/related_news

But when I look at Moz metrics, WN.com has a domain authority of 90! So I don't want to disavow something that could POTENTIALLY be helping us.

The client's website gets zero traffic from wn.com and I've never seen my client linked to in anything worthwhile... it kinda looks spammy to me.

If you were me, after looking at WN.com and taking everything into account... would you disavow it?

This client really needs to create a healthier backlink profile.

Thanks!

This question is about the new custom URLs for Google+ Local Business pages:

Has anyone heard any success stories with requesting a custom URL different than the two reserved ones offered by Google via contacting a Google Rep by phone?

And what advantages might there be for a local business to go with a very long custom URL such asgoogle.com/+rosenbergAndDalgrenLLPFortLauderdale as opposed to just google.com/+RdLawyers?

Does having the city name in the URL offer any <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> benefit?

Thanks!

Hi Guys, thanks so much for some great insights and thoughts on how best to proceed.  I am going to try some of your suggestions and I will be sure to report back on any findings and results.

Miriam - I am using a closely similar, albeit fictitious name, because I had to sign an NDA with this law firm.

I do have a final, somewhat related question for you two...

When building citations, should the law firm list their business name as...

Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP (notice us of comma before LLP)

• or -
  Rosenberg & Dalgren LLP (notice no comma before LLP)

Does it even make a difference whatsoever?

Thanks!

One of my clients is a law firm with a Business name like the following:
Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP

They get A TON of organic search traffic on their brand name above, but most people (95%) search "Rosenberg and Dalgren" instead of "Rosenberg & Dalgren". **Notice use of ampersand being used and alternatively, the word "and" being used. ** Currently, their local citations across the Internet (G+, YP, Yelp, etc) use the business name, "Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP" (with ampersand).

Here is the dilemma we are in...

When someone searches "Rosenberg and Dalgren" in Google (which the majority of our search traffic does), Google does NOT show our local one-box on the right hand side of the SERPs (see example of a one-box I am referring to here http://blumenthals.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-28-at-9.59.58-AM.png).

But when someone searches "Rosenberg & Dalgren" in Google, it does trigger our local one-box with photos, review ratings, links to our Google+ Local page, etc. WHICH IS GREAT! They have AWESOME reviews that command powerful social proof. We want that local one-box to show up!

So my question is, what can I do to trigger that local one-box for both brand name searches for "Rosenberg & Dalgren" as well as "Rosenberg and Dalgren"?

I am considering changing our NAP citations to have the business name be "Rosenberg and Dalgren" since that is what 95% of people search in Google to find them. I am guessing Google doesn't quite understand that "Rosenberg and Dalgren" is linked to "Rosenberg & Dalgren" via what it sees in the knowledge graph of the Internet (citations, website, etc).

So how best should I handle this and get that local one-box triggering for the majority of our branded search traffic?

Lastly, what is the best advice for including company/corporate designations in the NAP citations? (ie. LLP, LLC, Inc, etc)

Thank you for any help and guidance! We appreciate it!

There is a new website design trend that utilizes large format content that requires lots of vertical scrolling, often with the use of parallax scrolling effects.

A good example of this new design trend can be found at:
moz.com/products

I was wondering if there were any insights as to the effectiveness of this new design trend in regards to conversion rate optimization, persuasion, etc. Has anyone seen or heard of measurable improvements switching to this new style and design format that uses bigger visualizations and requires more vertical scrolling?

Thanks for any insights!

Hi Everyone,

One of my clients I am doing marketing consulting for is a big law firm.

For the past 3 years they have been paying someone to write blog posts everyday in hopes of improving search traffic to site. The blog did indeed increase traffic to the site, but analyzing the stats, the firm generates no leads (via form or phone) from any of the search traffic that lands in the blog. Furthermore, I'm seeing Google send many search queries that people use to get to the site to blog pages, when it would be much more beneficial to have that traffic go to the main part of the website.

In short, the law firm's blog provides little to no value to end users and was written entirely for SEO purposes.

Now the law firm's website has 6,000 unique pages, and only 400 pages of the site are NON-blog pages (the good stuff, essentially).

About 35% of the site's total site traffic lands on the blog pages from search, but again... this traffic does not convert, has very high bounce rate and I doubt there is any branding benefit either.

With all that said, I didn't know if it would be best to delete the blog, redirect blog pages to some other page on the site, etc? The law firm has ceased writing new blog posts upon my recommendation, as well.

I am afraid of doing something ill-advised with the blog since it accounts now for 95% of the pages of the website. But again, it's useless drivel in my eyes that adds no value and was simply a misguided SEO effort from another marketer that heard blogs are good for SEO.

I would certainly appreciate any guidance or advice on how best to handle this situation.

Thank you for your kind help!