Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Yoseph, the first question I usually ask myself when starting planning a content strategy around a keyword is - "What information would I be looking for if I entered that search term?" So, for example, someone searching for an online wildlife biology degree is probably interested in course content, structure, accreditation, price etc. Make sure you include these basic elements.

Then I'd use keyword research to help shape other content ideas (FAQs, keywords optimised around specific modules and topics etc.). Google auto-suggest in searches and the Adwords keywords tool and two basic places to start.

I'd measure the audience's response to this content carefully in Analytics  - which pages are most popular; where are readers spending longest; if you have a site search, what words are readers searching for; if you have a sales funnel, whereis it leaking. This data will inform your content strategy for providing content that will match your cusomters' needs. Good luck..

Hi Ron, yes well-placed, relevant links with well-written, non-spammy anchor text should help your other pages to rank higher.

Hi Rais, Google are, or plan to, penalise sites that are heavy on ads. Some SEOs believe this was part of the Panda algorithm update and others believe it is or will be part of a separate algorithm.

For example, Matt Cutts has said: "If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it. Do they see content or something else that’s distracting or annoying?"

Advice on the Official Google Webmaster blog reads: "Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?"

... just something you might want to consider. Good luck.

Hi there, I agree with SEO5 that much of your content seems to be over-optimised and is unlikely to rank well as a result. Over-optimised sites also tend to be less user-friendly and unpleasant to read and as a result attract less links.

Please bear in mind that Google are inherently suspicious about this niche of site: to rank for keywords such as "make money online", "earn money online" etc., your site has to be legitimate, valuable and very high quality. Because your site has a high concentration of paid links, you risk being labelled as arbitrage.

A good starting point would be to look again at your use of keywords and your use of Infolinks.

Hi Robert, two good answers above - it depends on your aims and intent (i.e. is it solely about links or would you like to built up reputation and readership?).

I would second the point that Debdulal made - is it possible for you to put the content on your own site? That way you could get the best of both worlds - reputation and readership, plus inbound links if the content is high quality and you work to promote it.

Good luck!

Hi Vikas, I think there are a number of factors. I would agree with Explainafide about the main one - lots of webmasters don't even consider SEO or keywords. Also as Christopher says, the potential ROI could make a low volume, highly competitive keyword worth optimising for. And as you say, the keyword tool isn't totally accurate and webmasters may be seeing different results from what Google estimates.

Unless the keyword is highly valuable with a good conversion rate,I wouldn't put too much effort into optimising for low volume, highly competitive keywords. However the worth of that keyword is different to different sites.

Hi Arlene, I agree with Mark: I would make filing a DMCA takedown request a priority. Good luck.

Hi Joao, yes a 301 redirect would be preferable to a canonical. A 301 is more "absolute" - it lets search engines know that they should ignore the redirected page. A canonical is more like a piece of advice for search engines.

Canonicals are useful if you don't have the development skills or resources to implement a 301, and they can also be used when it's not practical to add a 301 to lots of web pages.

In short - use a 301 if practical

Hi Joao, some good advice from Duke here. A 301 redirect will solve this duplicate problem and help to consolidate the authority. However it's worth investigating to see what caused the problem and whether it is a wider issue, in which case canonicals might be more appropriate. Good luck!

Hi Vikas, I would be very cautious about this... it's a grey-hat area. If you're providing good quality content and including relevant links, you may see some benefits at first. But as ITRIX suggests, they're likely to be recognised as a blog network.

And of course, each blog would have to gain link authority before being able to pass much link authority on. A better strategy would be to dedicate that time and effort into putting quality content on your own site and earning links to this.

Good luck.

Hi Ryan, I agree with Moosa here. Thoughtful and valuable comment posting can help you to gain authority among niche audiences, but adding your URL before you've earned this authority is quite spammy and might get you penalised by Google. If I had an extra four hours a day for SEO, I would spend:

• 30 minutes - Commenting and interacting with influential bloggers and communities in my niche
• 30 minutes - Keyword/trend research
• 2 hours - Content creation around these trends and keywords
• 1 hour - Promoting that content and managing social media profiles. Even if your assistant isn't skilled is social media management, it shouldn't take too long to get him up to speed.

Content creation and promotion is the best and most sustainable way to earn links, if that's what your primarily concerned about.

Good luck!

Hi Tom, generating a good range of longtail keywords is going to be more difficult without local or branded keywords, but it is still possible and it's a good way to gain a foothold in a competitive market. So terms like "oak table and four chairs", "antique oak bed" etc. may help to drive traffic. SEOMoz has a really thorough guide to keyword research here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

If you haven't set up a blog, it could be a really good way to capture longtail queries, build your reputation as an expert in the field and improve your brand visibility.

Good luck!

Hi Joel.

Where possible it's always beneficial to write unique product descriptions. It can be tempting just to copy and paste the manufacturer's nice, professionally written description, but unfortunately this is problematic from an SEO perspective.

Penalisation for using the manufacturer's descriptions is unlikely, but pages containing duplicate content aren't likely to rank well. If you want to rank above your competitors (and hopefully gain some deep link juice to those all-important product pages), you have to offer something unique.

In an ideal world you'd have completely unique, appealing descriptions for every product. At the very least, focus on producing great descriptions for your best sellers or best earners.

It's definitely worth harnessing the potential of user-generated content through reviews and questions and answers. This is a great, low-cost way to add unique and useful content.

Good luck!

Alice

Hi Yoseph, the first question I usually ask myself when starting planning a content strategy around a keyword is - "What information would I be looking for if I entered that search term?" So, for example, someone searching for an online wildlife biology degree is probably interested in course content, structure, accreditation, price etc. Make sure you include these basic elements.

Then I'd use keyword research to help shape other content ideas (FAQs, keywords optimised around specific modules and topics etc.). Google auto-suggest in searches and the Adwords keywords tool and two basic places to start.

I'd measure the audience's response to this content carefully in Analytics  - which pages are most popular; where are readers spending longest; if you have a site search, what words are readers searching for; if you have a sales funnel, whereis it leaking. This data will inform your content strategy for providing content that will match your cusomters' needs. Good luck..

It is a high authority domain, and one of the few paid inclusion links that doesn't seem to fall foul of Google (probably because the fee is for an "editorial review" rather than the link itself). I've rarely seen a click coming through from the directory, so listing would be for SEO purposes only.

I've never seen any significant ranking increases as a result of listing with Yahoo (I'm based in the UK), but it can help increase trust. I would say that if you have a large budget it's worth a try, but if you're working with a small budget the cost probably doesn't justify the returns.

Good luck!

Hi Fraser,

I think the best strategy for internal linking is to keep things simple and consider what would give the best user experience for your customers. So, for example, linking from towels to bath sheets is logical and helpful, as it's closely related.

The same applies to anchor text - let the customer know what's on the other end of the link, and don't try to slot in unnatural phrases and keywords for SEO benefit. It's likely that excessive internal anchor text linking triggers a penalty (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/testing-the-value-of-anchor-text-optimized-internal-links), so try to keep anchors natural and vary them if the context requires it. So you might use "bath sheets" on one page, "buy bath sheets" on another, "our range of bath sheets" on another and so on.

In terms of keeping track of links, a site map or a spreadsheet should easily accommodate the information you want to track.

You might also want to consider page rank sculpting, which uses internal links to channel the page rank towards high priority and high value pages. However a well-structured site channels page rank naturally and doesn't require any sculpting. Matt Cutts deals with the practice here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

Good luck!

Optimising multiple pages for the same keyword can be detrimental. This can lead to "keyword cannibalisation", where pages are forced to compete with each other for the same query. This can result in lower overall rankings.

Ideally each page should be optimised for a different keyword - e.g. your homepage could be optimised for "leather shoes" and your category pages could be optimised for "men's leather shoes", "women's leather shoes", "kid's leather shoes" etc,

Having one page for each topic/keyword and making it as useful and comprehensive as possible will attract more links than having three or four different pages about the same topic.

If you're worried about keyword cannibalisation you can use internal anchor text to indicate which page should be considered the authority for that keyword - e.g. your "men's leather shoes" page could have the anchor "leather shoes" that directs back to the home page.

Hi Riyas, using multiple H1 tags shouldn't have any significant effects on SEO efforts. Because HTML5 uses powerful sectioning elements, it's quite common to see H1s used for each section of a page.

However headings are also used to show hierarchy, and most pages will have one clear heading that takes precedence. There are exceptions - such as blogs.

So using multiple H1s is fine, and it's not a major SEO issue (unless they're stuffed with keywords), but most of the time it's unnecessary.

Hi there, it sounds a bit shifty to me... I don't believe that there's any such thing as a Google Preferred Agency. They might be referring to the certification programme that you mention (http://www.google.com/adwords/partnerprograms/), but then they should be using one of those badges rather than the Google logo.

As you say, these badges link back to a verifiable profile page on Google Partner Search. If the logo isn't verifiable, it's probably not authentic.

Hi Joao, some good advice from Duke here. A 301 redirect will solve this duplicate problem and help to consolidate the authority. However it's worth investigating to see what caused the problem and whether it is a wider issue, in which case canonicals might be more appropriate. Good luck!