Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I have a packaging product site, and they sell products from various manufacturers. What can we do with the product detail pages? As of now, the client has copy pasted content straight from the "About" sections on the manufacturers' sites. Obviously, those manufacturers want my client to sell their products, and the products need to be described. How much of a no-no is this copy pasting, and how can I fix it?

Hi Thomas-

Thanks for your response. I like Author hreview - easy and seems to work nicely. I'm still keeping my eyes out though. I'm definitely going to check out GD star rating. Thanks for the tip.

Cheers!
Lisa

Hi Mozzers-

Just curious - what is everyone using for schema and microdata plugins for WordPress? I've tried a few different plugins but I'd love to hear what other Mozzers like.

Thanks!

LHC

If you have a contact page on your website that talks about your location you could also mention that you serve the areas of .....I've also added cities/ counties in Google Places in the additional areas.

Yes, I agree with the other answers about optimizing your local listings. You may even want to get citations too. One thing that I've done is to create content that is optimized for the cities. You could even add something in the footer that links to that interior (local) page.

Hi Corey-

Thanks for the response. No, there wasn't any malicious code found on the site. Yes, I agree about the trackbacks not a high priority. I just don't like seeing those errors.

Best,

Lisa

Hi Mozzers-

We started a WordPress blog for one of my clients to help improve the domain authority, increase visits, etc. a few months ago. I ran a crawl report a few days ago and noticed that the /trackback/ pages are getting redirected to the appropriate page using a 302 redirect not a 301 redirect.

I've search through the forum looking for other similar questions and found one. The answer suggested that I use the TAC plugin and check for any malicious code. I did this and found nothing.

Another response suggested using the Redirection plugin. I haven't tried this yet.

Has anyone encountered this and if so, how did you deal with it.

Thank you!

LHC

Hi-

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I agree, Whitespark's Citation Finder works great. Have you tried Citation Labs?

Thank you!

Hi Mozzers-

I just watched the recent Webinar on Google Places optimization. Unfortunately I missed the live broadcast.

I have a couple of questions:

• It was advised to use an email at the domain for claiming the listing. What about a Gmail address with the company's name in the address? I try to use an email at the domain, but sometimes I'm not able to get one setup.
• One of my clients provides a service where clients don't necessarily have to come to their location. I used the radius option within maps but they are still not coming up in other locations. I should note that they have very good visibility in the metro area where there is more competition. Some of their competition is showing up for lots of locations and they have offices in one location. Tips?

Thanks in advance!

LHC

How about writing some content about cleaning, organizing and sourcing some good mom bloggers to guest post on? Love the idea of doing an infographic too. You could probably do something pretty funny given the topic.

Thanks - Excellent point about remarketing.

Hi Mozzers-

I have a client who is interested in running a PPC campaign. We are all setup to go...Here's my dilemma.

The client provides moving services - household and commercial.

I'm torn whether or not to launch the campaign during the holidays.

Pros:

We're not paying for impressions so it won't cost us any more $$.

Cons:

It probably won't show the best outcome over December - clicks/conversion.

Thoughts? Pull the trigger and launch or wait until January?

Thanks!
LHC

Unfortunately no. I've made some changes and now I'm just waiting for Google to come around...tips for expediting the process?

Thanks!

Hi, Mozzers-

I know that it's still in Beta but I'm very curious about how http://www.silkapp.com/ can help me with a project I'm working on. I signed up for an invite but haven't heard anything yet. Just wondering if anyone has a connection.

Thanks in advance!

LHC

I like myblogguest.com & <cite>www.blogsynergy.com/</cite> too.

Otherwise, I suggest cultivating a really good RSS platform of good blogs. Get to know them - what is the tone? What type of content do they generally write about? Do they have guests? Is it a subject you are knowledgeable about? Join a local group for bloggers in your area. There are also a ton of groups in LinkedIn.

Good luck!

LHC

Hmm...remove the "gate" - interesting idea! The demographic is mainly families, women, more affluent (can afford pro movers), etc.

Thanks on the music! Just getting ready to play a gig tonight!
Lisa

Thank you! Yes, definitely promoting to their current/past clients via email marketing - good idea!

Hi, Mozzers-

I'm running a contest for a client of mine via Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/barrettmoving. The prizes are great an iPad2 and an iPod Touch! The contest is pretty cool too. Basically it's a papercraft / travel thing that appeals to a wide range of people. Anyway, here's my question - I've started promoting the contest via social media, the website, online contests...like to get to promoting it on relevant blogs too. I'm in the beginning stages.

Any other ideas? Has anyone had luck with PPC or FB ads?

Thanks in advance!

LHC

oVThP5PcRvo

Thanks, Mike!

Hi-

I was recently forced to migrate my Google account. After going through the process my Google Places profiles associated with this email was suspended. I've read the quality guidelines and I'm pretty certain that my account was suspended because:

--
Account Email Address: Use a shared business email account, if multiple users will be updating your business listing. If possible, use an email account under your business domain. For example, if your business website is www.google.com, a matching email address would be you@google.com.

There seems to be no way to change the email address associated with a Places account. I've pretty much resolved to obtaining emails at the business domain and setting the profiles up again from scratch. Before I do this does anyone have any other ideas? I've posted the question at Google webmaster forums and have only found other similar unanswered questions.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

LHC

Hi, Mozzers-

I'm re-evaluating my SEO WordPress Plugins. What are your favorites and why? Are there others that you avoid and why?

Thanks!

Thanks, Malachi! I think the issue came about when we moved the site to the cloud. It looks like the old site was inadvertently moved too.

Best,

Lisa

Thanks, Chris! I think the issue came about when we moved the site to the cloud. It looks like the old site was inadvertently moved too.

Best,

Lisa

Hi, Mozzers-

I've noticed pages that are getting 301 redirected are staying out there longer. It used to be that you would implement a 301 redirect and then after a couple of months the old page would disappear out of Google's index. Over the last couple of months I've noticed pages lingering, popping up....

What gives?

Thanks in advance!

LHC

That's pretty much what I suspected. I was thrown off by Sarah Copeland's positive review. Thanks!!

Hi,

I was recently approached by LinkWorth about their services. I've never used them or services like theirs before.

Does anyone have recent experience with them? I haven't thoroughly reviewed their services yet but I'm curious.

I'd love to hear from you if you've worked with them.

Thank you!

LHC

You can start by claiming & completing your listing. Make sure that it is complete, with a good description, images, special offer, relevant categories, etc.

Next, start compiling citations. I like Whitespark's Local Citation Finder - http://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/. He's a fellow Mozer too! Make sure to be consistent with how you list your business.

I'd recommend reading http://www.davidmihm.com/. David Milhm's site offers some great insight to local search.

Also, take a look at the sites that have high visibility. What citations do they have? How many reviews, what does their profile look like?

Good luck!

LHC

SEMRush.com is a quick place to start. I like SpyFu.com too. You can also get a pretty good idea of the terms they're trying to target by reviewing their content and backlinks (anchor text).

Good luck!

LHC

I agree with EGOL. Look at the SEOMOZ video transcripts. Lots of times I'll just read through the transcript so I can get to the "nugget" of info really fast. We've been in the habit of doing video transcripts and lots of times those pages will outrank lots of other pages. How about just adding a link - "Read the Video Transcript" and going to a new page? Simple but effective.

FYI - you can use up to 5,000 characters in the YouTube description. Use all of it!

Good luck!

LHC

Hi, Ian-

Additional Ideas:

Write a press release & distribute it.

http://www.thecharitydirectory.org/ & other "Charity" directories

Social Media - Use social media to help get the word out about your cause. Use iFrames to setup a nice Facebook page that goes to your donation form.

Leverage the Board's relationships. For example, are any of them members of ADA, dentists at a clinic, alumni, etc.

Get do-follow social bookmarking links.

Create a nice looking logo with well-optimized anchor text, attributes, etc and ask for links.

Good luck!!

LHC

Thank you!

Hi, EGOL-

Thanks again for your help with this issue! Just one followup question, due to the site's construction it will be difficult adding a blog at http://www.mydomain.com/blog. It would be very simple to create http://blog.mydomain.com. Thoughts?

Thank you! You confirmed my suspicions.

Hi, Mozzers-

I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area.

I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate.

2 Questions:

1. Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site?  Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud.
2. Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons?

If you need additional info, please PM me for details.

Thank you, friends!

LHC

Hi, Andrés-

They weren't running any AdSense - no advertising at all and the site isn't spammy.

I met with a new client last week. They were very negatively impacted by the Panda update. Initially I thought the reason was pretty straight-forward and had to do with duplicate content. After my meeting with the developer, I'm stumped and I'd appreciate any ideas.

Here are a few details to give you some background.

The site is a very nice looking (2.0) website with good content. Basically they sell fonts. That's why I thought there could be some duplicate content issues. The developer assured me that the product detail pages are unique and he has the rel=canonical tag properly in place.

I don't see any issues with the code, the content is good (not shallow), there's no advertising on the site, XML sitemap is up to date, Google webmaster indicates that the site is getting crawled with no issues.

The only thing I can come up with is that it is either:

Something off-page related to links or

Related to the font descriptions - maybe they are getting copied and pasted from other sites...and they don't look like unique content to Google.

If anyone has ideas or would like more info to help please send me a message.

I greatly appreciate any feedback.

Thank you, friends!

LHC

I've experimented around with this quite a bit - below are some of my conclusions.

Title tags and descriptions are quite important. Use the "auto complete" suggestions to help assist with your keyword phrases and descriptions. Use all of the "characters" allowed. For example, you are allowed 5,000 characters for the description - use it!

Obviously, creating good quality videos with useful or entertaining information is critical. Even if you get your video to show up on the first page, people will still need to be compelled to watch it. Keep it short!

Give YouTube context in which your video should be viewed. If your video is about learning how to play the piano. Subscribe, like comment on other relevant videos. Doing so gives YouTube added insight about your video. Be active and authentic.

Good luck!

Great, thanks Adam! You confirmed my suspicions. Just wanted a second opinion.

A client is debating housing two websites under one URL. The sites would offer similar services at different price points. For example, if a user was coming from a San Fran IP they would be presented with the "high-end" packages while another user coming from Dallas would get the "low budget" content. What are the SEO implications? I know that auto geo-targeting can sometimes be risky. It seems like IP locators aren't accurate all the times (especially from a mobile device).

Advise?  Basically, the client wants to make sure that a Dallas user will be presented with the "right" keywords in the SERPs. What would you recommend?  Thanks!