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Hi Pragnesh,

In terms of creating goals, there are multiple options.

First, there is a misconception that you need to create a "thank-you" page in order to track goals. There's a pretty neat way to get around this by adding some code to your submit buttons. Raven Tools has a pretty sweet tool that provides your with a plug-and-play version:

https://raventools.com/marketing-reports/google-analytics/event-tracking/contact-form/

Or you can use the Contact Form 7 plugin (there are other options) which allows you to set up this code automatically:

http://contactform7.com/tracking-form-submissions-with-google-analytics/

However, if you are determined to go ahead with a Thank You page, you can find how to take care of that here:

http://www.brightervision.com/thank-you-page/

Simpy put, follow these steps:

1. In GA, go to "Admin"
2. Go to "Goals" (right column, 3 rows down)
3. Click "+New Goal"
4. Click "Custom" in 1st section
5. Click "Destination" in 2nd section
6. Type in URL addition (only the part that comes after your domain)

i.e. if your domain is www.example.com and your thank-you page is www.example.com/thank-you, then you would enter "/thank-you" into this section.

After that you just have to make sure that your submission forms are redirecting visitors to your Thank You page and you're all set.

Hope this helps, feel free to reach out if you have any further questions or need clarification.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Marco,

The short answer to this one is:

1. As long as the links you are creating to your site come from valid, authoritative sources, they won't hurt you.

• BUT-

2. They will not help you as much as they might if they were created from a French resource for your French blogs (based on pure relevancy).

The big issue you face is ensuring that your link sources are reliable, relevant and authoritative. If you can check off those boxes, your link profile will be just fine. Try to avoid anything that does not fall into these categories, since that might be viewed as spam (although Google is smart enough to know the content topic is the same, even if the language is different).

To summarize, I would go ahead and build those links (assuming they come from solid domains).

Hope this helps and feel free to reach out with any additional questions or for clarification.

Cheers,

Rob

Hello Puneet,

There are a few options here which may be in play:

1. Rank Hopping

While rank trackers are typically pretty accurate, there can be a delay between crawling, indexing and ranking for your posts/pages. I have seen this myself with several clients in the last 2 weeks - there is a huge drop off in rankings for several days before they rebound and either return to normal or improve. This trend usually follows a round of link building or improving content, so it stands to reason that might be the cause here. I would give it another couple of days to determine if this might be what's happening in your case. (Typically my rankings have rebounded within 7 days or so)

2. Outbound Links

A post is generally considered to be valuable when it provides information to visitors that they take in and provide signals of satisfaction for (low bounce, time on page, scroll % and so on). However, there can also be a technical risk in providing tons of outbound/internal links on a post that don't particularly improve the value of the content. For example, increasing the number of tips you have in your content - I don't know what the page looked like before you updated it, but you have effectively added 30 "internal" links to your content from the last update which limits the effectiveness of linkbuilding to the page itself. Google likes to see direct lines of thought and access and increasing the number of links on any particular page can have a negative impact on the rankings. In this case, it's a great UX addition, but it may be hurting you on the ranking front.

3. Redirect

Any redirect will reduce the effectiveness of the links on a page. The estimates vary, but it is somewhere in the single-digit %'s. (i.e. somewhere between 3% and 10%). This means that you will reduce the impact of your link profile when you redirect and this may be influencing your post's overall rankability.

4. Follow-Up Question Regarding Targeting

When you say that your rankings have dropped, do you mean for a single keyword or for multiple keywords?

If you are only tracking a single phrase or keyword, this sounds like a simple case of rank bouncing and you should expect it to return to normal pretty quickly.

If you are tracking multiple terms and they have all dropped off, this may signal a penalty, or, more likely, you have altered what Google believes the post is about and it has to reconsider the new content before assessing new rankings for new terms.

Overall, my bet is that it will return to its normal position in a couple of days. If not, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me and I would be happy to help find a solution with you. In the meantime you might consider fleshing out your content with more succinct targeting, re-thinking your redirect, or reducing the number of internal links on your page. Personally I think it's a great post, so I doubt you will be stuck without rankings for long.

Cheers and don't hesitate to get in touch!

Rob

Hi Pragnesh,

It'll require a bit of work on your part, but you can go to your GA and select your "Thank You" page to see what kind of traffic it has received (since people aren't likely to navigate to it directly, there are good odds only people who converted will be represented here). Compare that to the number of goal conversions you have tracked and that should tell you what you need to know.

If your event tracking is set up properly, you will know that your customers are coming through because only those who click through will be represented as goal conversions. If you are not increasing your goal conversions, it means that:

1. Either your tracking isn't set up properly

OR

2. No one is clicking through

Check the traffic volume of your "Thank You" page to figure out which it is - if people are getting to that page, but your conversions aren't increasing, then you know tracking isn't set up properly.

Hope that answers your question.

Cheers,

Rob

I'm using a combination of tools but the ones that returned errors were Avast and McAfee - basic options but still worth having a look at. It's a better explanation than the alternative!

Links are indexed with every crawl cycle. It usually takes 2 weeks or so to register new backlinks on your site.

The content will really help, and from what you are telling me it sounds as if you are on the right track - just keep finding those relevant blogs and continuing to be a helpful poster in those communities. The links and the trust will come from that.

All the best!

Rob

Hey Puneet,

Well, the update may have removed the canonical tag from your site with respect to the content, assuming you created a new URL for it to rest on. It just depends on how you went about making the change. If the page remains live but is simply redirecting to another with the update, you wouldn't lose the canonical reference to your content regardless of what someone else did in terms of putting it on their site.

Your post wouldn't lose rankings even if it was duplicated on another site - Google now only removes benefits from duplicating content, it doesn't penalize you for it.

While it's annoying that someone would copy your content, I think that's a red herring here. Give it a couple of days and I bet it will come back with similar rankings to what you're familiar with - maybe even improved with the new content.

Keep in mind that the new page your content rests on does not have a link profile to speak of, whereas your old page had lots of time to build up user review information and links. In effect, Google thinks it is looking at a brand new page, not a revision of a previous one. It will take time to recover rankings (a couple of days) but it will happen.

Last thing I hadn't considered - April 1 there was a renewed rollout of the Penguin algorithm - is it possible that there are some spammy links pointing to this page that might be influencing its rankings? I had a couple of clients that saw similar drops on April 1st but they are rebounding now.

All the best,

Rob

Hi there,

This is going to be a long response to answer so many questions but hopefully you will have your answers:

1. Tiered Linking

While this is a regularly discussed topic in many SEO forums, I have personally found that link building using this method is more time and energy than it's worth. Think about it - Google is looking for a natural link profile. The question therefore becomes:

How do people naturally link web pages and content?

They link to interesting things and this linking process can be completely chaotic or follow a pattern. There really isn't a "best" way to create a link profile or structure since these things are always so random in the "real" world. If you send all links to your landing pages on the same day, this is obviously not natural. You want to spread out your incoming links across many days. They can be directed towards your landing pages, your home pages, or category pages depending on what you want to put the most emphasis on. Remember that link juice trickles down through your site from pages closer to your Home Page so linking to your Home page or category pages will create small improvements to your landing pages while linking only to your landing pages will create more authority for those pages without helping the rest of your website.

That's a choice you will have to make.

2. How Many Backlinks Do I Need To Beat A Competitor?

This is an age-old question and one that isn't going away any time soon. Long story short, it's best to think in terms of authority, relevancy and metrics when contemplating links rather than sheer numbers. Start with a link audit of 3 of your competitors. Create a link report which showcases websites and domains which link to several (if not all) of them. This gives you a basic list of domains which have shown an inclination to link to domains that are in your niche. This is your link-building starter's list. After that, any domain you can get a link from which is relevant to your website's material and has decent metrics means you will be 1 step ahead of your competitors.

It's important to remember that there are other things out there which impact your rankings beyond your link profile. It's a significant chunk, but things like content, page load speed, responsiveness and on-site factors are equally important. Don't get caught up in your link profile - build links that you can from your link audit report. Anything after that is gravy.

In terms of indexing a page - that's not really your call. You can make a crawl request but Google will get to you in  its own sweet time. Internally-linked pages will allow crawlers to get through your entire site, so don't worry - Google will index these links when it gets a chance. As far as indexing links goes - you don't really have a choice. In order for a link to exist on your link profile, it must be indexed. The time frame for this is typically 2-4 weeks. Be patient, it will happen.

3. What Types of Link Building Should I Use?

The links you are describing are typically NoFollow links. These counts as links on your profile but they do not pass on much in the way of link juice. Regardless of the metrics, relevancy and authority of the website you generate the link from, this doesn't necessarily give you any benefits. Follow links are what you want to generate rankings, but you need NoFollow links in order to balance out your profile and make it look more natural.

In terms of social media marketing - if you are looking at purely SEO benefits, social media only has significance for rankings on the Local level. On a national level (I assume this is what you're working with), social media marketing functions as a traffic builder but does not confer SEO benefits. It may still be useful to you, but maybe not in the way you are imagining.

4. Keyword Research

Chances are many of your keywords are related to each other. These are called LMI keywords and establish relevance for Google. For example, if I use the word "balls" as my keyword, it's unclear what type of ball I am specifically looking for. By adding "glove" or "bat" or "bases" it's clear I'm probably looking for baseballs. That is how Google establishes context. When it comes to your keywords, you probably want to keep them on your site and establish context for Google since this is becoming more prevalent as a ranking factor.

I would say you want to use long tail keywords as your "moneymakers" since specific queries typically suggest higher buying intent while large search terms are typically used for gathering information. You can implement both into your site to combine traffic and customers, but keep in mind that even with a 1st place ranking on SERP's, you will only be getting about 40-50% of those searchers into your website. This means you probably want to ensure that you are targeting keywords likely to convert, especially if you are putting this much effort into your link profile.

Hope this answers your questions and feel free to follow up with me. I'll help out as best I can.

Cheers and best of luck!

Rob

Hi Carla,

A couple of questions to consider:

1. Is the main site also operating in the UK?

If not you probably don't want to link them as there is lost relevancy unless your e-commerce service area includes the UK and wherever your main domain is targeting.

If they are both in the UK, you are good on this.

2. Are the sites both hosted on the same DNS?

If so, you are risking a red flag from Google. 1 or 2 links this way won't hurt, but over time you are leaving footprints which run against Google's best practices and you are risking penalization.

3. Do the main site have a page that would be a viable 301 redirect target from the UK site?

If so, you are in pretty good shape and I would consider the redirect. You will be losing some link juice in the process, but traffic will be coming to the site you prefer.

4. Just how serious do you want to get about your technical SEO?

EMD's are not the be-all and end-all of SEO. In fact, if I were you, I might be looking at a way to improve the content on the .co.uk site before conducting the 301 redirect in order to boost its rankability as much as possible to give my main site as much of a boost as possible. It's all about how much you have to dedicate to it in terms of resources.

Hope these questions and answers have helped to give you some perspective into how to handle your situation. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Arnold,

It's all a matter of how your sitemap is set up. Generally speaking a trailing slash (example.com/) has been used for directory pages while open URL's (example.com) represent files. The answer to your question hinges on 2 factors:

1. Which of these pathways exist on your site?

• If only 1 exists and you use the right version (slash or no slash) you're golden.
• If only 1 exists and you use the wrong version, the disavowal tool will identify an error and search for the alternative (aka you're golden)

Here's where it gets complicated...

2. If both exist, do they feature the same content/link profile?

• If both feature the same content, you're fine.
• If there is different content on both options (slash and no slash), then you have a problem. The disavowal process will still roll out, but you will disavow one pathway and not the other. If you choose wrong, then you are effectively disavowing nothing.

As a general rule, if you are working with a current CMS (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.) you are fine since these platforms automate the pathway as a file (no slash) which is largely why Google suggests using no trailing slash. If you have a custom site or something based on HTML (example.com/category.html) then you have to be more aware during the disavowal process.

Hope that answers your question - let me know if you need clarification.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Satish,

There are so many factors that could be impacting this situation. If you can answer the following questions I might be able to provide more help:

What industry does your website focus on?
Is it something nationally/locally relevant or do you work globally? (i.e. Delhi web design vs. Web design India vs. Web design)
Do you have pages of your site dedicated to India/US?
What language are you using?
Are there any redirects? Which direction do they go?
Are the reclaimed links you mentioned from US/Indian sources?
Is the domain based in India or the US?

Based on these questions it could be a number of things - what it sounds like based on what you have provided is that you are utilizing a single domain to rank in multiple countries, possibly using the same keywords in different languages for the same pages. If there are redirects present, they may not have been set up properly, or there may be disconnects or improper linking practices.

If you can give me more information I'll see if I can provide you with better insights.

Cheers,

Rob

Hey there,

Other than the general move towards HTTPS which has been going on for over a year now, there is no strict need to move to HTTPS by January 2017. That is to say, there are no additional reasons.

Obviously there is a small positive correlation between HTTPS and slight benefits to ranking potential from Google, but that just about does it.

I don't know what the speaker's push for HTTPS by January 2017 was all about, but I haven't seen anything that indicates it has any merit.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Isaac,

In terms of relevance, this article is still pretty good. As it says, it is oversimplified but the lesson still holds true:

If you have useless links on your pages (i.e. they lead to irrelevant information/pages) and this creates poor user signals (higher drop-off rates, poorer user metrics), then your rankings will suffer.

To be clear, it's not a penalty situation, you just aren't benefiting from your site's content as much as you might if your internal structure were clean, simple and relevant to user queries. E-commerce sites typically struggle with this problem but Amazon still does extremely well with respect to organic rankings because it is a trusted brand.

This leads me to a point I have seen proven with my clients:

Positive user metrics can overcome "issues" that have traditionally plagued on-page SEO. If you can create a good user experience (shown in Analytics through good user metrics) then your link structure is probably pretty good, and having a ton of links on the page is less problematic than if it leads to huge drop-offs because people are getting confused and lost on your site.

A specific point to your question: Diluted links and FAQ's

I'd strongly suggest that you retain FAQ's on sales pages or ranking pages. They answer user questions and require your visitors to jump pages far less frequently while keeping them on-site for longer periods of time, cushioning your metrics. I don't know if this is accurate in your case, but try to consolidate your "info" (i.e. FAQ pages) into your sales/ranking pages to simplify your user experience. This will help you in 3 ways:

1. Keep folks on your site longer
2. Satisfy their needs
3. Reduce the number of internal links on your pages

Hope this helps! If you want clarification or just want to talk shop feel free to reach out!

Cheers,

Rob