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"What does the client wish to accomplish with this site?" and "The meta description MUST answer the query."

Excellent advice. But, as they say, common sense is not common practice. I hope your badgering (Oops... I mean encouraging) will change that

Hello Tommy
This is the type of site I'm talking about. It's full of good content, ranks highly and looks professional.

http://www.seomark.co.uk/how-many-backlinks/

But the pages that have what look like subheadings are just CSS classes. Many of the pages don't have any sub headings at all.

The person who made the site obviously knows what he's doing, I wondered if he knew something I don't.

Thanks Tommy, Kevin and Mike.

Everything you say is just how I've been taught and sites like SEOmoz and Wordtracker agree with this approach. Just as importantly, user experience and common sense say that proper use of subheadings is the right way to do things.

What I'm not sure about is why some top rate SEO consultants don’t use subheadings at all. Sometimes they've gone to the trouble of making it obvious (using CSS) that some lines are headlines but don't use h2 tags etc.

I was wondering if there were any benefits in doing this.

I've found several good quality, high ranking pages with excellent content, 500 to 1000 words. These pages are made by people who obviously know what they're doing.

These pages only have one headline the h1 at the top of the page.

Some of the sites use CSS div boxes and other things to make text look like a heading but do not have h2 or h3 tags or bigger font size.

Could it be that a single headline tells Google that this page is about a single topic and that several sub headings muddy the water and so reduce page rank.

Do multiple headings or subheadings affect page rank or is it just a personal style choice?

Hello Robert

First, thanks for taking the time to provide such detailed replies. As you say “experience is a dear teacher”, and yours is much appreciated.

My new plan...
Forget about articles and concentrate on helping local businesses get on local listings like Yelp etc.

I wasn’t thinking in terms of bribing people, my plan was to help local businesses in a tight economy when every little helps. I can now see how this could look a bit fishy.
“My concern would be the quid pro quo would cause you problems with Google and Yelp specifically.”

The Google seven pack...
“We strive to show them ways to get the reviews put on Google, CitySearch, Yelp, etc. This is because it will help them rank better in local search.”

This makes a lot of sense, I'll rethink my plans and try help them get on Yelp etc.

Cautionary: words like "valuable link" are subjective.

I live in Bradford England, many small local businesses have basic websites and make no attempt to optimize them. I've come across several websites with no inbound links at all. These are the people I was hoping to help.

My new plan...
Forget about articles and concentrate on helping local businesses get on local listings like Yelp etc.

Thanks once again Robert
Best wishes
Philip.

Hello Robert
Thanks for the help, sorry about the confusion.

I want to make a win win situation for people who provide testimonials.

If you give me a testimonial, I write an article about you and link to your website.

I'm not talking about Yelp etc. just my own website (or a site I make for my customer).

I hope the graphic below makes it a bit more understandable.

Image

I want to help people who give testimonials by writing an article about their business including a good quality link. This will be on the site that received the testimonial, possibly linked from an our customers page.

I want to make each customer profile testimonial into a separate page.

I don’t want to compete with the customer who gives the testimonial for their keyword phrase but I do want to boost their page rank if possible.

What would be the best formula for title tag, headline and linking keywords etc?

"What does the client wish to accomplish with this site?" and "The meta description MUST answer the query."

Excellent advice. But, as they say, common sense is not common practice. I hope your badgering (Oops... I mean encouraging) will change that