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I woudn't be as concerned about making it more difficult to pick up citations as I would be about it being perceived as spammy, prompting them to dump my listing. This is specifically addressed in the Places quality guidelines:

"Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business in the business name field."

_(source: http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528&_rd=1)

If that's how you refer to your business offline then it's probably OK.  Otherwise, I wouldn't.

From the Google Adwords blog adwords.blogspot.com  (emphasis mine):

"You don’t have to make adjustments to your advertising strategy based on +1 buttons, and the way we calculate Quality Score isn’t changing (though +1s will be one of many signals we use to calculate organic search ranking)."

So it definitely IS going to be used as a signal.

And they're going to keep people from gaming this ... how?

There was a pro webinar on this in February - you might want to check it out. http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/what-signals-could-make-you-a-brand-in-google

Verified/verifyable address and phone (claim your local listings - Google/Bing/Yelp/etc.)  - also Business affiliations (BBB, Chamber of Commerce etc.),  being in an official business (recorded by civic/government registry), citations, branded searches,   social presence (active and well-followed FB/Twitter/etc.) - to name a few.

Go from one of your keywords to an abbreviation which (imo) is kind of casual sounding to save 5 characters and a syllable?  And lose link juice and probably some rankings for a period of time in the process?

If anything, keep your site on smallbusinessdoer.com and 301 redirect smallbizdoer to that.  You lose nothing that way, and this also enables you test out if one name gets a better response from people than the other.  Can't send Adwords to the redirected domain (because your display URL needs to be the domain where the visitor ends up), but other ways of advertising could test the waters.  THEN, if numbers indicate that the change is warranted, flip the switch the other way - in that case, you would have more of an idea of what you stand to gain in the process.

This is an easy one:  You have a meta robots tag on that page set as "noindex".  It's the last line in the head section of your page source.

Fix that and make sure it isn't on any other pages where it shouldn't be!

If they're footer links on the entire site, then they ARE sitewide links.  Part of the problem is, how is Google (or Bing, or any other SE) to know that they're your clients and not paid links or your own little private link network (which they are ... sort of)?  That's why the links don't pass much value.

Aside from the SEO implications, It also gives people the ability to "footprint" your entire client list. That may or may not be something you want.

If your clients are really happy with your work, and it wouldn't be out of character with the web site, they might be amenable to giving you a "shout out" somewhere else on the site or perhaps a mention on the "About us" page.

FYI, this may help filter out some of those inaccurate results:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/location-targeting-on-adwords-now-with.html

How do others utilize keywords and preserve branding in the title tag for clients with a REALLY long name?  Two examples.

Example 1:  Business name is 38 characters long in the following format:

[Firstname] [initial] [Lastname] [Businesstype] Services

38 characters is workable, but  the keywords for what he offers and this industry in general are long too.  He abbreviates to his initials in the domain name  - I don't love doing that as the acronym has a meaning of its own. (We unintentionally acquired at least one very amusing if useless backlink thanks to that.)  Leaving off "Services" saves a few characters.

Example 2:  Business name totals 58 characters and references their two related lines of business.  Similar to:

Rogers Institute of Robotic Studies and RIRS Robot Repair
or (saves a few characters)
Rogers Institute of Robotic Studies and Robot Repair

How would you handle that?  Use the appropriate half of the name on pages related to that particular LOB? Only use the brand on some pages?  Abbreviate more?  I've been using their full name on the more "general" pages of the site and omitting it in favor of keywords on the more specific pages .

Suggestions?  Other ideas?

I'm assuming the keywords in these domains are generic in nature?

There are two ways to go - 1) Build other sites on the domains and leverage them in some manner.  This can become a huge task to manage - instead of promoting one site, now you have a whole group of them to deal with. If that's your plan, IMO this is a risky time to make a big investment - at least, not until we see how Google is going to implement the keyword domain changes iNET referenced.

2. If the domains get direct navigation ("type in") traffic, they could be redirected to your primary domain.  In that case, search becomes a moot point.  But buyer beware - only the top quality domains get this kind of traffic in any volume -make sure the seller has reports to back up any claims and beware of traffic-boosting scams.

loc: is a Google search operator that returns results for your search query near a particular location. The average searcher wouldn't be familiar enough with it to use it deliberately.  I wonder if those could be Google Maps searches?

How do citations on their listing compare to yours?

I have to wonder if some clickstream data is coming into play somehow, but that's pure speculation on my part.

Have you checked out the Beginner's Guide to SEO on this site?  You may find Chapter 5 particularly helpful - http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research .

At the risk of being picky, "PR7 site" is a bit of a misnomer.  Google ranks pages, not sites.  SEOMoz has a Google Toolbar PageRank 7 on the home page, inner pages are probably a couple of steps removed from that.  The link you get would get PR from the linking page, not the home page.

It would bring along good trust and authority from a unique source, but probably of higher value to a site with related subject matter.

I think the results of such a test would be very site-dependent, with things like site/page layout and design, visitor eyetracking on a particular page, degree of visitor engagement with the page content, length and reading level of the content, embedded links in the content vs no links, etc.  having a bearing on the outcome.  Tests on my site may be totally irrellevant to yours.

I don't like showing numbers if there are only couple of  tweets or likes (or none at all) - can send a message that the page is NOT popular.

Toolbar PageRank can be faked with 301 or 302 redirects and user agent cloaking.  It's frequently done to sell links for inflated prices or to sell the domain.

As Wissam said (we replied at the same time) since Toolbar pagerank is only updated periodically, they can leave everything in place until the toolbar updates, then remove the redirect and everything looks totally innocent and legit.

There are some tools online - look for Fake Pagerank Checker.  Looking at thatt site, I would be very surprised if it WASN'T fake.  The backlinks and the site content are a dead giveaway.

You should be OK as long as each business has a unique phone number.

As RichardGetz said above, also make sure your citations match up across sites - always a best practice, but in this case you really need to be as clear as possible.

Years ago, the performance advantage of relative urls made them the better choice.  These days, that's not a major issue.

One advantage to absolute urls:  If your content gets scraped there's a chance that they won't bother looking at the links, so any traffic they pick up will be directed back to YOUR site instead of to another page on the scraper's site.

(Also makes it easier to find the thieves...)

If you have multiple locations, you can create a places listing for each location.

If they are multiple businesses with different phone numbers, they can co-exist at the same street address and each have their own places page.  Think of businesses having suites in an office building.

One business with 3 different web sites is still just one business.  You offer 3 different services - why not use categories for the services?  Use your primary business website as the url.

The meta description doesnt affect ranking.  It does affect click through  - use it to get your visitor's attention and interest.

Aside from that, watch out for using the same word or words too many times.  Not only will search engines view that as spammy, people won't like it either.

Although the hiding of those headers is a little odd, I doubt you'd get hit for it as the hidden h2's are all consistent with the displayed content - it doesn't look (to me, at least) like anything's being done in a spammy manner.  H2's are a very weak ranking factor to begin with, and It's not like you're keyword stuffing or trying to rank for irrellevant keywords.  Of course, if you can find someone who can tweak things and treat those elements appropriately, all the better.

Off topic, but you may also suggest to your friend that they optimize their images.  Those image files on the first page you mentioned are very large for the sizes at which they are being displayed and needlessly add to the page load times.

Inbound Marketing:  Modern strategies for promoting your business

Search Gets Social: Leveraging the power of inbound marketing

Keyword usage, as EliasAQ describes, is a best practice.  However focusing on keyword density (the idea that a keyword ideally must comprise x percentage of the page text) is essentially a myth.  This document explains this in more detail: http://guides.seomoz.org/chapter-4-basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development.

I use keywords in strategic parts of my page but aside from that I just try to write naturally and for the target audience.

Keyword density is important in the sense of never "overdoing" it. Hammering on a keyword over and over is likely to get your page flagged as spam (and scare off your visitors.)

#1 - Agree with Gary in that your time would be better spent getting links to your own site.

#2 - The article will at some point be archived - take advantage of the current popularity.  I would make sure I was giving the influx of visitors every opportunity to further engage with my site - subscribe, become FB or twitter followers, etc.

#5 - As the linking page changes over time (# and authority of links to the page, outbound links on the page), the amount of "link juice" it passes will change also.

Is it a fast bounce or do they spend some time on the page first? Sounds like perfectly normal behavior the way things are - do you have reason to believe that the bounce rate is actually harming them? Or is sending traffic to site #2 affecting your conversions in some way? If not, I'd be inclined to leave as-is.

Should be easy enough to test any of your scenarios...

#1 shouldn't be a bounce if part of the contents of the page are pulled from the other site, but the target url itself is on site 1.

#2  I'm inclined to think this would work, but would the 5" wait annoy your visitors?

#3 Definitely would work.

This is a good place to start: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml.

Also, I think there was a Whiteboard Friday on it a few months back (I think November or December.)

They're one and the same, fundamentally. DMOZ was the original name, it was later renamed to the Open Directory Project. Google Directory has google search technology layered on top of the ODP data.

TLA may be doing more harm than good. Ditto for the multi-topic free reciprocal link directory.

Also in the Diamond Education subtopics  - I'm seeing  some duplication when I search on random text strings. Is it your original content or syndicated feeds?

No concrete answers - just trying to identify things that might be displeasing to Google ...

Google Places (formerly, Google Local) isn't the right solution for a situation like this - you need to have a bona-fide address at each location to list there.

Some people USED to get around the PO box requirement by using mail centers that provide you with a street address instead of a box number, however I don't recommend this. Not only would it be an unreliable tactic on a large scale, but it would be way too easy for Google to identify and block these providers (if they aren't already.)

At the risk of stating the obvious, make sure the location is in your page titles. Local directories are a start, but try to get backlinks from local businesses and resources.  What are your competitors doing that you can do better? Lots of web sites post local weather links - the trick is in getting them to post YOUR link.

Hope this helps!

To address the other half of your question: I'm quite certain that if your site is hosted in the US and your host were to receive a spam complaint, they'd be obligated to address it according to the laws of their jurisdiction, which means you would have to abide by the US CAN-SPAM regulations.   I'd definitely run this by your company's legal counsel to be on the safe side.

A couple of others which could be in the top 10:  Poker, Gambling ...(those won't show up on Adsense top lists because of content guidelines), Downloads, Loans, Free ... I would put those ahead of Homepage or Click Here because nobody's likely to be optimizing for the latter two (at least, not on purpose!)

If your prospective insurance client is a local business, expect to be up against a LOT of competition - from other locals and the big, national brands.  Choose your battles wisely :).

They already recognize page sectioning (headers, footers, navigation sidebars, content area), regardless of doctype.  This is why links in some parts of a page carry more weight than others.

Target the actual location on your site. If you can fudge a few other related geographic keywords into your content in a non-spammy way, do so, but focus on building up local search (listings and citations).  As your local search rankings take hold, you will start appearing for proximity searches on Google Places.

Newark is a bit out of range - nothing much to be done about that. BUT if they search for "real estate lawyer Garfield" or surrounding towns, you want to show up in that Places map.

Great local search resource: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml.  There was also a WBF on optimizing for local a few months back.

Hope this helps!

Using an 800 number may have a negative impact on local rankings - especially if it's the only phone number.  http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml#62

Cell phone number shouldn't be a problem - especially if the area code matches the address.  Per Google's own Places quality guidelines:

"Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location.
Use a local phone number instead of a call center number whenever possible.
Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or “refer” users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business."

(http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528)

A business cell phone should meet that criteria.

The basic steps outlined below should work. CAVEAT: I'm a linux/apache person I don't know the specific implementation details for a windows/.net environment (but I believe it IS do-able - hopefully someone else can verify or expand on that)

1)  Copy the default index (default.aspx) to a new name (example: mydefault.aspx)

2. Make mydefault.aspx the directory index for the root directory

3. Modify the original default.aspx so that all it contains is a redirect to http://www.outsolve-hr.com/

4)  NOW default.aspx can be 301'd safely

5)  Don't ever build any links to "mydefault.aspx" or you'll just re-create the problem!

Existing links to default.aspx would then be resolved safely and it's highly unlikely new ones to  mydefault.aspx will appear.

Probably worth looking into, since a 301 is more powerful - rel=canonical is viewed by some search engines as more of a "suggestion."

Local search is a bit different than universal search and yes, you there are things you can do off-site to optimize the results.  This Whiteboard Friday touched on the basics: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-basics-of-local-seo-whiteboard-friday.

You may also want to check out the list of Local Ranking Factors on David Mihm's site http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml.

Hope this helps!

I generally would try to mix them up - keeps your link profile looking more "natural".  I would also focus on optimizing for local search (Google Places, etc.), if it's a local business.  For many verticals, the Places results take up a LOT of real-estate on the results page.

Interesting that Google mentions absolute and relative urls, but  they don't specifically address root relative  urls (what this is, since it begins with the "/") or show it in their examples.

Agree with Shailendra Sial - the home page is more convincing to me.

• Home page clearly explains process (the landing page focuses on the benefits, but it wasn't clear to me exactly what this was or how it worked.).

• Home page is simple and the graphic elements make everything stand out.  To me, the landing page is a little crowded and sections seem to blend in with each other ...

-  Trust signals more prominent on the home page. I didn't notice the "100% guarantee" at first on the lander ... or the form when you click through, because it's in the upper right and the white-on-light green at the bottom of the page.  On the home page it's right in the middle of the page and the green header text and icon make it stand out more. At least, to me.

-  The first CTA on the lander appears a little bit "lost" under the checkmarks.  You're only asking for one piece of information, I'm thinking why even make them click through to a second page?

-  Re the video:  I run FF with Flashblock so it doesn't load and run immediately for me (another, albeit small, demographic to consider besides the proxied users).  When I played it, it not only drew my eyes away from the benefits list and the CTA but the video itself didn't feel dynamic enough to capture my attention and make me want to whip out a credit card.  Maybe the video should be an optional "See how it works" link?

No concrete answers, but a few things you can test - hope this helps!

In theory, I believe Google drops PR if the domain expires.  In practice, people have been successful with this tactic in the past...

A safer bet would be to buy the domain at auction before it actually expires.  Word of warning:  Some sellers resort to blackhat tactics to falsify TBPR and artificially boost traffic/Alexa stats so they can "pump 'n' dump" the domain. Do your homework and make sure what you're buying is the real deal.

Agree with the other two replies - as long as the link goes to a respectible and useful resource, I would leave it as "follow".  My reasoning being:

1)  People have linked to useful sites since the beginning of the web - It's the more "natural" thing to do.  Google tends to like "natural".

2)  There's always the chance the site owner will notice the link on my site and link back to me.