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@alexbiertones

Unfortunately there is not a great solution to get data for your exact list of keywords but you can use SEMrush or Ahrefs keyword index to get an idea of how you were ranking for at least some of your keywords over the last 6 months. They both have a huge keyword index and you can type in your domain and it will give you a list of keywords and your ranking position for at least one day out of each month. You can choose a different date from the drop down menu to analyze the last 6 months.

-Boyd

@sammecooper I'm a huge fan of testing several different Title Tags for each important page.

The first thing you need to, if you haven't done so already, is to create a keyword map. This map will tell everyone on your team which page is going to be optimized for which keywords.

Then, you take the most important phrases that have been mapped or assigned to a specific URL and try and figure out how to get them in the title tag while still writing something catchy that someone will click on.

Don't be afraid to test longer title tags that are even more than 65 characters; just keep in mind that humans will only see and read what's in the first 65 characters when looking at your listing in the SERPs so that part is the most important.

So change your title tag, wait until Google comes to recrawl the page and the changes have been cached, then check your rankings to see if you moved up or down for all the keywords in the keyword map for that page. If you are on page 1, you can monitor the CTR of that listing in Google Search Console to get an idea if your click through rate moved up or down as well.

Then every so often test another title tag variation for that page and rinse and repeat until you find the best title tag that results in the best rankings for the mapped keywords with the highest CTR.

-Boyd

When you say it fluctuated between 6-7 for a couple days are you meaning position 6-7 on page 1 or pages 6-7 in the SERPs?

Also, it's possible that your new pages are better optimized for the phrase than your homepage was and so Google shows those pages now instead.

Would you be willing to share our domain so I can give you a more specific answer?

Google typically only shows one page per domain for each query but sometimes will show two or more for keywords with less competition.

The page has not been blacklisted. If you search "site:https://missionquest.org/how-to-choose-a-missionary-service-agency/", you can see that Google has that page indexed because they list it in the results. You can also click on the little drop down arrow and see that Google last crawled that page on May 15th, 2020.

Also, I see that you added an internal link to https://missionquest.org/how-to-choose-a-missionary-service-agency/ from https://missionquest.org/what-is-a-missionary-service-agency/. I suspect when Google re-crawls that page and sees the addition of the internal link, that  https://missionquest.org/how-to-choose-a-missionary-service-agency/  will start ranking for "how to choose a missionary service agency". Google last recrawled that page on June 8th so it may take a week before Google re-crawls that page.

I second what Chris said. You don't need to worry about that new domain hurting your SEO efforts.

I manually searched in Google for "missionary service agency" and found that you are ranking in positions #1 and #2. The pages that rank though, are https://missionquest.org/missionary-service-agency and https://missionquest.org/what-is-a-missionary-service-agency/ respectively.

The reason why the specific page you mentioned is not ranking is because Google finds these other pages more relevant for this phrase. If you want that page to rank first over the other two, you're going to need to de-optimize the other pages a bit. Also try linking to your new article from the two ranking pages using the phrase, "missionary service agency" as the anchor text.

Can you please clarify? When you say you are moving a page from example.com to example.com/keyword it sounds like you are moving your homepage content to a sub-page. Is that what you are doing or are you moving example.com/something to example.com/keyword? And do you want the first URL or the new URL to rank for the phrases that the first URL currently ranks for?

Answering my above questions will help me to give you a more specific answer but the following will start to answer your question.

Either way, if you move the content from one URL to a new URL and don't do a 301 redirect because you will be keeping the first URL and just adding new content to it, yes, you will drop in rankings.

The first URL will not rank as well anymore if the new content changes too much and therefore isn't optimized for the phrases it was ranking for.  If it still is going to be optimized for the same phrases but just with updated content, then it might be fine depending on how much your optimization changes.

The new URL will not rank as well for the original content because it will not have any of the links pointing to it that the first URL had because you will not be doing a 301 redirect. At the very least though, you could change all your internal links to point to the new URL instead of the first URL though.

Jessica,

If you are referring to the Moz Keyword Explorer tool not showing any ranking keywords when you are on the "Ranking Keywords" page exploring https://www.el-well.com/helping-your-parents-declutter-their-home/, then you just need to be patient. When you are on that page, you can read at the top right, "Keyword Data Updated Every Two Weeks" which means that you probably have more rankings than the tool currently shows because it's not showing real time data.

I did use that tool just now to explore your root domain and I see that Moz shows that your site is ranking in the top 50 for 85 phrases.

For example, you are ranking #4 for "self playing games for old people" and #13 for "putting on socks" and #18 for "staying fit for adults".

Also, I analyzed your site in ahrefs.com and semrush.com and found that their indexes show that you are ranking for 318 and 220 phrases respectively, in the top 100 in Google.

If you continue adding content to your site, optimizing that content, adding internal links to each piece of content, and building links in general to your site, you'll continue to improve existing rankings and gain more rankings for more keywords.

For example, on https://www.el-well.com/help-putting-on-socks/, change the alt text of the image from "Physiotherapist sitting down using a sock aid" to "Physiotherapist sitting down using a sock aid to help put on socks". It may help your rankings for "help put on socks" which is at #15 right now and "help putting on socks" and other similar variations.

It's a good idea to audit each page and improve upon the optimization if needed. I agree that editing the URL is not needed in most cases.

First, make sure you follow a keyword map that shows which pages should rank for which phrases. So assign each keyword to the correct page.

Then, decide which keywords from the map for a specific page should be in the title tag, heading tags, content, alt text, and from internal links to this page from other pages.

For any keywords currently ranking well, you should test a few optimization tweeks to see if you can improve your ranking a little bit.

My thoughts are that it won't give you much additional benefit, if any at all.

I wouldn't worry about changing it if it was my site. But if you decide to change it, it probably won't be a bad thing either.

****I just went to your site and saw that you decided to change the URL and implemented a 301 redirect. I'd be curious to hear if you have seen any ranking movements, positive or negative?

If the idea is to put more focus on the brands, I would roll them out onto their own separate branded domains.

Especially since they have different price points and demographics, it doesn't seem like you want a visitor of one demographic/price point being able to click to the other subdomains to see info for another demographic/price point.

Any combination of any of those words used in the title tag would be keywords that that page could potentially rank for in the SERPs.

So all of the following are some of the keywords in that title tag that you are optimizing for:

• linear shower drain
• shower drain
• 40" shower drain
• 40" long linear shower drain
• etc.

Changing themes should have no negative impact on your rankings especially if you are using either the Yoast SEO or Rank Math SEO plugins which handle most of the onsite optimization issues for your site independent of the theme you are using.

I've changed themes dozens of times over the years and never had a negative impact in rankings as a result.

Would you be willing to share your URL so I can take a look at some things?

Patrick wrote a list of reasons why Screaming Frog might not be crawling certain pages here: https://moz.com/community/q/screamingfrog-won-t-crawl-my-site#reply_300029.

Hopefully that list can help you figure out your site's specific issue.

Use Screaming Frog to crawl your site. It is free to download the software and you can use the free version to crawl up to 500 URLs.

After it crawls your site you can click on the Sitemaps tab and generate an XML sitemap file to use.

It is best practice to separate all words with dashes but it's not going to make or break your rankings.

The search engines are smart enough now to decipher that underarmourfire-basketballshoe is really "under armour fire basketball shoes". Just type in the former into Google and you'll see that Google asks if you meant the latter.

Also, you can find hundreds of examples of "messy" URLs that rank top ten proving that that one factor alone isn't going to make or break your success.

If it's a simple fix for a programmer to make it so your URL's use dashes between all words then I'd say fix the problem. But if it's a big deal that would take a lot of time/resources, the argument could easily be made to pass on this issue for the time being to knock out other more important items.

Interesting idea. I've never even considered this before.

But how often do people look at the browser tab to remember which page they are on?

And for people like me, who have 20-50 tabs open at almost all times (I know, it's an issue I have), it wouldn't be very helpful since all the tab widths are so small.

I wouldn't go the route of creating new root domains. I wouldn't want to worry about having to renew all those domains each year.

I always advise to go with subfolders if you can for SEO purposes if at all possible but I understand that sometimes for technical reasons, subdomains are necessary.

I've seen many subdomains rank just as well as subfolders so I wouldn't worry about it if you need to go that route.

The first thing to look at is if those new pages and the new changes to any pages have even been crawled yet by Google. If not, then that is why you aren't ranking in the top 100 yet.

To check if the page has been cached yet, paste that URL into Google.com and if there are no results, then it is not cached. If Google shows that page as a SERP listing, then it has been cached.

To see the last date that Google cached that page, click on the green drop down arrow next to the URL and then click "Cached". Then you'll be able to see that last date that Google crawled that page.

I need further clarification to answer you properly.

Is domain (b) now redirecting to domain (a) since it was acquired?

What do you mean exactly when you say that domain (b) is linking to domain (c)? Links within the content of domain (b) are linking out to domain (c)?

Link to the 'tour page' from the post-sale pages using keywords in the anchor text that you want the 'tour page' to rank for. You could also de-optimize the title tag  of the post-sale page whenever you find that it is ranking higher than a 'tour page' for a specific keyword.

You shouldn't noindex your blog or shop pages.

But I am confused on what you are saying about your blog and shop pages being archive pages. Can you explain further please?

Your login pages will not affect your website's rankings one bit. You don't need to worry about optimizing your two login pages at all and it's okay that they have duplicate titles and content.

As an example, look at Hubspot's login page here, https://app.hubspot.com/login. Their title tag is "Hubspot Login" which makes sense. They don't have a meta description tag. The page has no H1. It is a thin content page.

You're going to see similar results for almost any login page you look at. https://moz.com/login has similar "issues" as well.

Just ignore the tool's recommendations for this type of page.

To continue to rank better for the term "fitness equipment names", you need to optimize the page a little bit better for that phrase and continue to build links to that page.

Here are a few things I'd recommend:

• Change your title tag to "18 Gym/Fitness Equipment Names, Pictures, and Prices for Full-body Strength".
• Add "fitness equipment names" to the content once or twice. I'd probably just change "gym equipment names" to "fitness equipment names" two times because you have the former phrase in the content 6 times.
• Add "fitness equipment" to the end of the alt text of some of the images. For example
• Add a few more internal links from other blog posts to this page
• Go look at all the backlinks to all 10 pages that rank on page 1 for that phrase and try to acquire some of the same links from the same root domains

Well essentially there were 3 major changes that happened at the same time (in Google's eyes): the url change, overhauling your content, and getting rid of the site-wide link from your navigation.

I know you said that the navigation link drop happened a month ago, but you have to remember that no change on your website affects your rankings for good or bad until Google comes back and crawls your page(s) and sees the change.

Some of your main pages probably were crawled within a few days of the navigation change but the majority of pages weren't re-crawled for a few weeks after that change. I can still find some of your pages that haven't been crawled since before the navigation change.

Now, I don't think that the content change is what's hurting you because you added more useful content. Although maybe you have over optimized it a bit for "travel medical insurance" since that exact phrase shows up 48 times.

URL changes with proper 301 redirect implementation can drop your rankings temporarily but my experience has always been to gain back the temporary loss soonish afterwards.

If it were my site, I'd do the following:

• Immediately put back the link pointing to that page in the navigation with the same anchor text it had before
• Wait about two to three weeks after that to see if any ranking recovery has happened
• If no change, I'd drop that exact match phrase several times from the article (then wait for it to be recrawled to assess if it helped or not)
• Then if no change still, I'd test changing the content back to the old page keeping the new URL
• Then if no change still, I'd change the redirect back

My hope is that you'll recover the rankings after just putting the navigation link back.

Good luck

Domain Authority is a Moz algorithm that measures both link quantity and quality.  Google's metric is PageRank. Since Google doesn't show us the PageRank of our pages, metrics like DA can be used as guidelines but you need to know that it is not used by Google. (Read the third paragraph of this recent Whitboard Friday: https://moz.com/blog/seo-processes-easier-increased-pagerank-domain-authority)

But the way you improve your DA or your PageRank is by increasing both the quantity and quality of the links pointing to as many pages of your site as possible. And then you can also use internal links to pass that authority around your website.

Some clarifying questions:

• For the ranking drop, are you talking about the phrase "travel medical insurance"
• How many content changes did you make? From looking at the wayback machine, it appears that you added a lot of content. But the most recent date the wayback machine shows is from March 14th, 2019 so I need clarification on what changes you made in addition to changing the URL.
• Did you change the title tag?
• Did you make a change to your navigation? The wayback version shows you had a sitewide navigation link pointing to the Travel Medical page under the "Plans" drop down but I don't see that on the current site. Was that change just made along with the 301 redirect?
• Did you get rid of any other internal links to this page around this time?

Right now I am seeing that Google has recrawled the new page and has recognized the 301 redirect because when you do a "site:https://www.travelinsurancereview.net/plans/travel-medical/" search, Google lists the new URL in the results and the cached version's most recent date is 2/24/20 at 21:21:18 GMT.

I wouldn't change the redirect back just yet. But I need answers to the above questions before giving you my final opinion.

Here are some quick things I noticed for onsite optimation:

• You don't have any title tags. You need to fix this before anything else. Title tags are very important for onsite optimization.
• I would noindex all of your tag pages. These are low quality pages and don't need to be indexed.
• I clicked on at least a dozen blog posts and didn't see one internal link within the content (links pointing to other pages on your site). You should add internal links where it makes sense.

Also, there is no way around it; you also need to build a lot more links to rank for some of the phrases that your blog posts are optimized for.

Yes, I would noindex them if Wix gives you the option.

There is no need for concern. It's not going to forever taint your site. I've had many pages over the years with no content or with lorem ipsum content get indexed before I was ready to launch. You don't get a penalty, the page just won't rank for anything while it looks that way because it's a crappy page.

You could literally do nothing except add the content that you want to the homepage and when Google crawls your site again they'll put the new content in their cache and everything will be fine.

But you might as well go to Settings > Reading inside wordpress and check the box next to "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" and hit Save. This will add name='robots' content='noindex,nofollow' /> to all your pages and will cause Google to deindex your homepage the next time they come crawling.

Just make sure to uncheck that box when you're ready to launch your website.

Well it looks like links from Pinterest are nofollowed so I would link to the place that got me the highest conversion.

If you are not capturing any sort of email or running a retargeting campaign then I'd send the traffic from pinterest straight to the affiliate link.

But if you are building a retargeting list from people that land on your site and trying to collect email addresses by offering them something AND you are getting more sales because of your retargeting efforts and email blasts then I'd send the traffic from Pinterest to your website.

It appears that hashtags in Wix work just like tags in Wordpress do.

It's best practice to robots noindex tag pages if you are going to use them at all.

I agree with EGOL, if you have the choice, use subfolders instead of subdomains.

I know sometimes, there are development reasons why a company decides to move forward with subdomains. And those can rank just fine too. It's just best to let decision makers know that the SEO department is voting for subfolders.

Also, although I would also be curious to know if a subdomain inherits DA from the main domain, it probably doesn't need to be a part of the decision making process for choosing between subdomain and subfolder.  As EGOL said, "ranking ability and DA are different things", so the DA passed through or not passed through to a subdomain will not be the reason for ranking well or not in Google.

Yes. Create the new product page and make sure to 301 redirect both of the old URL's to the new URL.

Even though you'll have the redirect setup properly, it's still a good idea to change any internal links that point to the old URLs to now point to the new URL.

They swear the meta descriptions were unchanged, what about the title tags?

Search engines still read the whole title tag no matter how long it is. The 50-60 character recommendation comes up because that is what people will see in the SERPs.

I'm all for testing different lengths of title tags to see which version gets me the best rankings for the most phrases that are mapped to that URL along with the highest conversion rate.

I've even tested and kept title tags with 80-100 characters because they performed better for me than shorter ones.

Don't be scared to test title tags. You can always change them back and get your rankings back if the test made things worse. One example: I made a change last year to a title tag that dropped the rankings from #3 to not in the top #100 for the main phrase and so I changed it back. As soon as Google recrawled the page, my rankings came back.

DA is not a ranking factor but it is a nice metric made by Moz to help us get an idea how we're doing compared to our competitors in terms of quantity and quality of links. So having a higher DA doesn't automatically mean you should rank higher than your competitors.

Also, since the EMD (exact match domain) update back in 2012, sites can't rank better just because of the keyword in the domain name if their site authority and optimization isn't great.

My main suggestion for you would be to acquire more backlinks with "dental emergency" as the anchor text (making sure they are linking to the correct page on your site, of course). Obviously, don't over do this and build hundreds of links with exact match keywords in the anchor text but don't be shy about it either.

As an example, one of the owner's of my company has a personal site and I asked him to change the anchor text of the link in his footer to our company's homepage from "Nozzle" to "Keyword phrase - Nozzle".  After Google recrawled that page, our rankings jumped up 10 spots. To be fair, I'm aware that jumping 10 spots while on page 3 is different than trying to go from #4 to #1 though. My point is to not be afraid to use exact match anchor text sometimes.

Also make sure that your page that is ranking #4 also has internal links from other pages of your website pointing to it with the keyword in the anchor text.

Test out things like moving that phrase to the front of your title tag and even trying to get it in there twice if at all possible. These will be tests and can be changed back if your rankings drop, so don't be scared to test. Pay attention to your CTR as well inside of Google Search Console to make sure you don't drop in CTR because of the changes too. Also, test out adding that phrase more times in the content of the page.

Good luck!

Are you wanting to track the changes in rankings on the first page of search results for one specific site or are you wanting to be notified when any change happens in the SERPs?

Either way, you can use any rank tracking tool to monitor your website ranking changes for a list of keywords that you care about.  Some of these tools take screenshots of the SERPs and give you the raw data to be able to analyze any movement for all URL's on the first page of the SERPs.

A couple good rank tracking tools are:

• Nozzle.io (I work here)
• getstat.com (Moz purchased them a year or two ago)

There are also plenty of other rank tracking tools that aren't as robust but will monitor your keyword list just fine. And if all your looking for is to track a few hundred phrases and you're already using their other tools you should just use one of the following:

• Moz Pro
• Ahrefs.com
• semrush.com
• agencyanalytics.com

First, the correct answer for each page is to test different title tags over time to see which version gives you the best rankings for a handful of phrases that are mapped to that page along with the best click through rate.

Second, don't be scared of testing longer title tags. Google still reads everything after the ellipsis.

Third, I'm a fan of putting more keywords in a title tag wherever possible (or at least testing it). So for example, on a page that talks about drupal development services, I would test a title tag like, "Experienced Drupal Developers - Drupal Development Company & Services for Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York - Brand Name".

Now to answer your questions specifically:

1. Should brand name be last in this structure? Does it matter? The length of this is obviously causing truncated Title in search results, so which is more useful?

• I always push to put brand name last because it doesn't help rankings or CTR (in most cases) to list it earlier. If a client is adamant about it, then I let them have their way.

3. Is using a keyword intended for site ranking like "Web Services", "Digital Agency", "SEO Specialist" useful for every page to have or damaging? Is this cannibalizing that keyword?

• I believe it is a waste of precious title tag space to include these words on all pages because there is only one page you are trying to rank for "Web Services", for example. It's better to include more focused keywords that are relevant to that specific page in the title tag than these generic terms. In my example title tag above, that page is now going to rank better for all of the following keywords:

• drupal developers

• drupal developer

• experienced drupal developers

• experienced drupal developer

• drupal development

• drupal development company

• drupal development services

• experienced drupal development

• experienced drupal development company

• experienced drupal development services

• and all these phrases with those city names attached as well

5. Is having multiple locations on every page title helping, hurting, or neutral

• It's probably neutral. I would suggest testing with and without them and monitor your rankings for the local terms to see if it makes a difference. Typically if it's only 1-3 locations, I don't have a problem throwing them in at the end to where they won't even be seen by a human because it'll be truncated. But again, test, test, test.

I just did a site:boxesmaker.com search and Google has indexed around 100 pages of your site. The specific URL that you included is indexed as well. Sometimes you just need to wait a day or two for Google to get around to indexing your new pages.

After looking over your site's situation, I have a few comments and suggestions.

Many times I see that not following a keyword map precisely, is part of the problem. What I mean is that you should have a keyword map that lists all your URL's and assigns keywords to each URL. You want to be very clear which page you are trying to rank for each phrase. The map then guides all of your optimization efforts including: title tags, page content, alt text, internal link anchor text, backlink anchor text (although don't over do it), etc.

Your site is doing mostly just fine following a keyword map but it could do better when it comes to the divorce phrases.

Current homepage optimization:

• title tag's first main keyword focus is "Orlando Divorce Attorney"
• title tag's second main keyword focus is "Family Law Attorney"
• breadcrumbs on all 30 navigation pages use "Orlando Family Lawyer" as the anchor text to point back to the homepage
• logo alt text is "Orlando Family Lawyer" (keep in mind the logo links back to the homepage from every page is the first link in the code of every page linking to your homepage even above the main navigation)
• "family law" shows up 15 times in the content
• "orlando family lawyer/law" shows up 3 times in the content
• "orlando divorce attorney" shows up 12 times in the content
• alt text for both images in the main content area is "orlando divorce attorney"

Current Divorce page optimization (https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/orlando-divorce-lawyer/

• title tag's first main phrase is "orlando divorce attorney"
• title tag: doesn't contain second main phrase. But does add modifier words "experienced" and "dependable"
• breadcrumbs from 5 divorce subcategory pages use "orlando divorce lawyer" as anchor text
• "orlando divorce attorney" shows up 5 times in the content
• "orlando divorce lawyer" shows up 4 times in the content
• anchor text in main navigation is the word "divorce" across the whole site

Suggested changes based off of the above bullet point lists:

• Homepage title tag changed to something that focuses more on the "family law/lawyer/attorney" phrases like: "Distinguished Family Law Attorney - Orlando Family Lawyer - Sean Smallwood" (You can continually test different title tags over time to find the best one that helps you rank high and gets the best click through rate)
• change alt text of one image to "orlando family law attorney" and the other to "orlando family lawyer"
• make sure to include "attorneys" and "lawyers" at least once in the content and any other modifier words that go along with "family lawyer" terms that this page should rank for
• Divorce page title tag change to "Orlando Divorce Attorney - Experienced & Dependable Divorce Lawyer in Orlando, Florida"
• Don't make the word "Divorce" in the navigation clickable but in the drop down menu add a link to the Divorce page with the anchor text "Divorce Attorney" or "Divorce Lawyer" (whichever one you want to rank the most for
• From within the content of the homepage, link the phrase "divorce attorney" to the divorce page

Other suggestions:

• go through all of your blog posts and make sure any existing links link to the proper page based off of the anchor text and the keyword map.

• Example: https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/average-cost-of-divorce/ links to homepage with anchor text "the average cost of a divorce case" which is what this post is optimized for, not the homepage. So I'd remove that link and link some "divorce attorney" phrase from this page to the Divorce page.

• add more internal links from within your blog posts using the right anchor text to the Divorce page and other pages your working on

• deindex your blog tag pages and archive pages (this is easy to do in wordpress)

Obviously track your rankings for all your keywords and to monitor what effect these changes have to the divorce phrases and the family law phrases at the very least.

Finally, these suggestions all assume you want the Divorce page to ultimately rank for divorce phrases and not the homepage. If after making these changes, the Divorce page doesn't rank as high as the homepage did and the homepage no longer ranks, it'll probably be because the homepage has more backlinks, and therefore, authority. In this case, I'd actually consider optimizing your homepage for the divorce phrases and pushing that to page one while still link building to the divorce page and then down the road trying again to get the divorce page ranking. That's all assuming that your divorce page will have a higher conversion rate from site visitor to call-in/form fill out. But if your homepage converts the same or better, maybe you just push that page because it's already top of page 2. But keep in mind that it could hurt your family law phrases if you push the divorce phrases too much on the homepage.

The canonical version of the page is the only one that gets indexed and only an indexed page can pass link authority. In this case, only www.mysite.com would be passing link authority.

If a link is on a page that can be crawled by search engines, then it has potential to provide SEO value.

Boyd

I haven't seen this issue before.

But if you can't get it to change anytime soon, my recommendation is to add more words to the title tag so that Google generates an elipsis in the SERPs. Then if Google continues to add "London" at the end, no one will see it in the SERPs because it will come after the elipsis.

Boyd

There is no penalty for using the same keyword twice in a URL, especially if it's part of your domain name.

There are many examples of sites that have a sub folder that contain the same keyword as their domain name that have no problem ranking including your competition:

• runningwarehouse.com/mens-running-shoes.html ranks #2 for 'running shoes'
• seo.com/seo ranks #5 for 'professional seo'
• overthetopseo.com/professional-seo-services-what-to-expect/ ranks #2  for 'professional seo' (in fact only 3 url's that rank for that phrase don't repeat the term 'seo' in their url.)
• contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing ranks #1 for 'content marketing'
• etc.

**Ranking the correct page: **

Whenever you have an issue with the wrong page ranking better than the one you want, you just need to work on tweaking your onsite optimization for those pages. (And you may have to continue building more links to the page you want to rank.)

Here is a list of things that I'd make some test changes to: (Keep in mind that you can always revert things back if a test makes rankings go down.)

• Test different title tags on the two pages making one less optimized for the keyword and the other more optimized.
• Add more copy to the page you want to rank.
• Do an internal link audit. You want to make sure that anytime you are linking from one page to another with a specific keyword as the anchor text, that it links to the page that you want to rank for that phrase.

After you make a change, you need to wait until Google re-caches that page and sees the update (which can take a few days or more sometimes) and then check your rankings after that to see if there was any movement or not.

Boyd

I always start with creating a location page for each city your business is located.

If you only have one city location then think about what is the most useful page for visitors to land on when searching for what you do. If it's your homepage, then promote that, but if it is the information you'd put in a location page, then promote that instead.

Honestly I tend to always create a location page no matter what and then push to rank both the homepage and the location page see which one Google likes best.

Boyd

I've never seen ranking drops because of bolding too many words. As long as it looks good to a human, I wouldn't worry about it.

You are correct, it is a waste of time to republish duplicate content across the web.

Write great unique content for your own blog and promote it wherever you can and then write unique content to submit to other websites for link building.

I would say that writing content with high link intent (that people want to link to) is the most powerful backlinking process. It's not easy though.