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my research has been pointing to them all being useless if not damaging now.

It's the lack of content on your main site that is causing your issues. Your satalite site has much better titles and content for tour keyword.

assuming you want to move the traffic to your main site I would move the content to my main site and 301 everyting from the satalite site to the corespondent page of your main site.

We have seen a massive drop in traffic this year and i am contemplation using banner ads to try to increase sales and also to help with marketing. the problem is i know nothing about doing this. I have used it in the past but to limited success and i was just stabbing in the dark.

I have a few questions.

• Am i better to target keywords related to the product or to the people who may buy my products?
• Is it better for direct sales or brand awareness?
• What kind of ROI can i expect if i get it working well?
• Is it better to pay for the big keywords or pic all the low hanging fruit?
• Does it work?
• Should i employ an expert, are they worth it?

Any insights into the world of PPc would be a massive help.

Its not a thing I spend many work hours on, its more just a thing that interests me.

Interesting answer.

As myself and the other top 3 sell quality big name brands (big in the UK horse world anyway) we can't really do the SALE SALE SALE selling style as you will get dropped as a stockist if you do. But then again just because you sell the good stuff doesn't mean you are making more money.

As things move on will links be worth less as recent updates including the hummingbird update are moving further and further in the direction of content and social signals being the important.

On the other hand good links are becoming so hard to find, that may make them become more important than ever.

I'm trying to split my time up between content creation and link building/PR. which area should be focused on most. we have more quality content than we do quality links. our link profile is good but far to small. any suggestions what to focus on?

I would keep them on my main domain but make them content based landing pages that are helpfull to users in their own right. No need to hide them then. This may not work in all cases but in my site it works well.

not 100% sure what you are after with your hidden button but I would stay away from all forms of hiding stuff. Tends to be a bit grey hat.  If you could clarify it may help me understand what you mean.

They do but as with all retail.

But if you are for instance an Apple reseller and you buy and iPhone for say £100 and they sell them for £500, you will get away with say 10% variation on MSRP but if you think im happy making £50 profit ill sell them for £150 and make a killing it will not take long for Apple to get shot of you as you are devaluing the brand it for everyone else.

Thats why its good practice to compete on price but not go nuts as if you do its just a race to see who is out of business first. A sale in my opinion should only be when the new version comes out or you need to cash the dead stock up. The problem these days is in the tough times that we are in, people are desperate and will sell things with very low margin just to survive. Its more like a game of last man standing, if you can pay your staff less and run a mega lean business you can win.

I think that's answered my question with a resounding no!

Thanks.

I think its important to have multiple pages about the selected keywords. Not pages that are the same but to use the kiln dried logs example I would make pages like below.

Why hey our kiln dried logs work so well in wood burning stoves.

Hardwood kiln dried logs

softwood kiln dried logs

how we make our kiln dried logs

sustainabley sourced logs

why are kiln dried logs better

I would link all these to your page that actually sells the logs and if you make sure that each article is specific to its title and they are all different yet relevant then they should help you keep on topic without dilution.

I have found pages with 1000 plus words and various pics references and a video or animation rank very well. I'm sure if you hit 5000 words it may get a bit out of hand but in my experience more is better within reason. It's the video or animation that I find really makes the difference. I still count 300-400 as a bare minimum.

Your flagship site seems to have pretty good stats. Depending on the quality and traffic going to your other sites i'm not sure i would do anything with them.

If the hundreds of site you have are not ranking and are say PR0 with little to no incoming links I would just leave them as dead and move on without linking or 301ing to your main site as it may look like link spamming or other black hat tactics.

On the other hand if they are more worthwhile useful sites with traffic and ranks etc I would either pick the best few and work on them and make them better or 301 them into your main site if the admin is too much. if they are worth 301ing but not worth anything else i would put them in at top level for simplicitys sake if there is a good number to do.