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The easiest thing to do in this situation would be to add negative keywords or advanced operators to your google alert that prevent the new pages from triggering the alert. You can do this be adding advanced operators that exclude an exact match phrase, a file type, the clients domain or just a specific directory. If all the new pdf files will be in the same directory or share a common url structure you can exclude using the "inurl:-" operator.

I believe the tools are focused on a minimum number of instances of the phrase and not the %. Keyword density as an important ranking factor is a myth.

Here are two great links that will help shine some light on the subject for you:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-myths-that-scare-seos-but-shouldnt-whiteboard-friday http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines

If you're only targeting these two terms and your main goal is lead gen, I'd be targeting both terms on the home page since your base keyword "stairlifts" is already in the domain name. They are closely related terms and you can easily create content that works for both phrases on a single page.

You should always write content for users and not search engines. Trying to achieve a specific percentage of keyword density could do more harm than good if it messes up the natural flow of your content. Instead you should use the on-page optimization tool to make sure your following best practices. It will of course let you know if you should try and include a few more instances of your targeted keyword. Adding additional content sections to the page can sometimes help you find better places to work in your keywords, try adding testimonials, lists, pull out quotes or excerpts of the main content, etc. There's also data that suggests partial match and related terms can help influence your on page relevancy so be sure you're working in these types of terms as well.

I appreciate the insight. I've been consistently #2, though the #1 spot bounces around quite a bit- I've had at least 5 different competitors there at one time or another. My favorite though was when the long time double-hyphen .tv domain that ranked #1 got knocked down to page 4 after Panda.

I’ve been running a web design business for the past 5 years, 90% or more of the websites we build have a “web design by” link in the footer which links back to us using just our brand name or the full “web design by brand name” anchor text.

I’m fully aware that site-wide footer links arent doing me much good in terms of SEO, but what Im curious to know is could they be hurting me? More specifically I’m wondering if I should do anything about the existing links or change my ways for all new projects, currently we’re still rolling them out with the site-wide footer links.

I know that all other things being equal (1 link from 10 domains > 10 links from 1 domain) but is (1 link from 10 domains > 100 links from 10 domains)?

I’ve got a lot of branded anchor text, which balances out my exact match and partial match keyword anchors from other link building nicely. Another thing to consider is that we host many of our clients which means there are quite a few on the same server with a shared IP.

Should I?

1.) Go back into as many of the sites as I can and remove the link from all pages except the home page or a decent PA sub page- keeping a single link from the domain.

2.) Leave all the old stuff alone but start using the single link method on new sites.

3.) Scratch the site credit and just insert an exact-match anchor link in the body of the home page and hide with with CSS like my top competitor seems to be doing quite successfully. (kidding of course.... but my competitor really is doing this.)

Great ideas, thank you! The reason I've been sending them as one-offs is to keep the flow steady and add these types of links each month, but I really like your ideas about promoting great content. Easier said than done of course...

It's working OK, but it's hard to justify the cost. My goal was not to get the attention of the press, although I have on rare occasions, it was to get the releases picked up by authority domains for some decent links. It's certainly a case of diminishing returns since it seems to be the same sites that pick up the releases each month. I prepaid for a year with PRweb so im trying to get the most out it.

Im looking for tips or best practices when sending out PR for link building.

I send out at least 4 press releases per month using prweb’s advanced release which allows anchor text. For the past few months I’ve been rotating branded terms, exact match keywords and full URL’s as the links, but always linking to my home page or to one particular subpage. Most of the releases are to announce upcoming projects or to announce a recent website launch for a client, less often we’re highlighting a service or special we want to promote.

Im wondering if I should be linking to more sub pages to spread links around, and if I should be focusing more on branded terms vs. exact match anchors. Due to the cost involved I just want to be sure im getting the most out of it.

I've been playing around with OSE and found one of my competitors has a decent link coming from a post created in 2008. It only has two comments, one from my competitor with a link back to his site. The page has a PA: 55, it seems like an easy link but since the post is 3 years old im not sure its appropriate even though commenting is open.

Any thoughts?

You should always write content for users and not search engines. Trying to achieve a specific percentage of keyword density could do more harm than good if it messes up the natural flow of your content. Instead you should use the on-page optimization tool to make sure your following best practices. It will of course let you know if you should try and include a few more instances of your targeted keyword. Adding additional content sections to the page can sometimes help you find better places to work in your keywords, try adding testimonials, lists, pull out quotes or excerpts of the main content, etc. There's also data that suggests partial match and related terms can help influence your on page relevancy so be sure you're working in these types of terms as well.

I believe the tools are focused on a minimum number of instances of the phrase and not the %. Keyword density as an important ranking factor is a myth.

Here are two great links that will help shine some light on the subject for you:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-myths-that-scare-seos-but-shouldnt-whiteboard-friday http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines