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Speeds up the download time of the page - good for Google and good for users. Helps browsers cache objects and speeds up future page views and pages from the same site.

Look at the source code to see if you're linking to a CSS/JS document or displaying it on page.

Easy to change if it's on page - stick it in a new document and link to it. Google around for help.

Great thoughts Doug.

Of course there's no quick and easy fix with this. I've dedicated very little to link building, so that's a clear area where I need to devote time now. And you're right - I need to understand the reasons why those links exist and replicate that high-level strategy rather than just chasing to get the same links.

I was considering building a widget that'd allow webmasters to embed lyrics on their site and then I could create a backlink within the display. I'd love to think of an incentive for link-building, but struggling so far to come up with creative ideas.

Show the MPU (square) unit on the left side of the content, not the right. Just have one unit, not the double-decker. Remove the left sidebar unit. Pace sitelinks in the sidebar or top navigation. Have a wider unit at the bottom of the content page. Split test 4 different colour palettes to see what works best.

That's a good starting point.

It's all about experimentation and testing for results. There's no real golden answer - you have to find it out for yourself by seeing what works for your site.

Good luck.

(I'm a former Google AdSense employee).

Site: bussongs.com

I have a fairly successful (400k visits/month, 1.2m PV/month) site which features a directory of kids songs.

kididdles.com is my archnemesis. Slight edge in PVs with better ranking on many long-tail KWs (song names mainly).

What are the top 3 things I should do to knock out my competitor? I feel I've nailed the on-page stuff - I have checked all the major items and produced superior content.

The big thing that shouts out to me is that my competitor just has many more backlinks, especially from unique domains and that's lifting up everything.

Thoughts? Can't wait to hear your ideas!

Site: bussongs.com

I have a fairly successful (400k visits/month, 1.2m PV/month) site which features a directory of lyrics-style content. The bulk of the content is not unique and exists in many places across the web.

I figured adding commenting would help add more bulk to each page and give some long-tail on-page KWs. The comments are non-AJAX and Google is crawling the information. There's 10k comments across the site.

I have some automated filters to remove profanity and junk but otherwise comments are published in real time. Because of the niche I target, the quality of spelling/grammar is very low. I don't have any pagination at the moment so some pages are now quite long and the quantity of UGC content is considerably larger than the main content of the page.

Traffic went down post-Panda and has picked up slowly over time - almost back at normal levels. But I feel I could better manage comments and that they do have an impact on SEO.

Do these comments have value? Should I use AJAX to stop crawling? Implement pagination to limit page length? Use plus/minus ranking to give prominence to the better comments?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.  Thanks!

Speeds up the download time of the page - good for Google and good for users. Helps browsers cache objects and speeds up future page views and pages from the same site.

Look at the source code to see if you're linking to a CSS/JS document or displaying it on page.

Easy to change if it's on page - stick it in a new document and link to it. Google around for help.

Show the MPU (square) unit on the left side of the content, not the right. Just have one unit, not the double-decker. Remove the left sidebar unit. Pace sitelinks in the sidebar or top navigation. Have a wider unit at the bottom of the content page. Split test 4 different colour palettes to see what works best.

That's a good starting point.

It's all about experimentation and testing for results. There's no real golden answer - you have to find it out for yourself by seeing what works for your site.

Good luck.

(I'm a former Google AdSense employee).