Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi vtmoz,

It's very common for Google to change its algorithm in response to user trends. The thing to remember is that users have different forms of intent when they use certain words or phrases, and Google is constantly altering their ranking methods to reflect this.

While LSI keywords tend to remain static, there can be alterations and shifts within the industry or in how people observe and interact with it. However, these changes would not necessarily occur because companies begin using them more frequently.

More likely, Google is dipping into its reservoir of big data to determine that user queries leading to certain pages were not producing user satisfaction (i.e. bounce metrics were high on pages that were previously identified as supplying relevance via LSI keywords) and therefore made a change to better reflect what users were searching for (and interacting with) from their SERPs.

A couple of questions to ask:

1. Has anything changed within your industry that would cause an LSI keyword shift? (new products, new competitors, new rules and regulations, etc?)

2. Is there a pattern in terms of the keywords that have changed? Is it industry-wide or a specific segment?

3. Are there new ways users may be interacting with the industry? New queries being used?

4. What is the impact on your rankings for general terms related to those LSI terms/phrases?

Based on the answers to these questions, you can better identify whether it's a shift from Google altering the LSI algorithm for your industry, or simply an indicator of a developing industry. My guess is the latter.

Hope this helps - feel free to reach out any time if you need a clarification or just want to chat!

Thanks,

Rob

Hi Becky,

As always, the answer may depend on your situation. For example:

What are you trying to achieve?

• Rankings?
• Traffic?
• Leads?
• Awareness?

What is your target audience?

• B2B? B2C?
• Local? Regional? International?

What resources are available to you?

• Content team?

In my experience, guest blogs and outreach articles committed to relevant sites are still effective for generating interest and communication in a B2B atmosphere. They may not translate directly to leads, but they put you in a position to receive communications from a variety of contacts assuming you choose the right method, message and influencers.

As a general rule, the more condensed your target audience, both geographically and industry-wise, the more effective a content campaign will be. It works wonders if you can establish yourself as an authority.

On the flipside, that will require time and resources, so the question is whether or not you can afford this both cost-wise and time-wise. I would shy away from social media unless your business specializes in visual products/services. Technical SEO is always valuable to have (especially on-site) but beware of anything involving PBN's and linking strategies involving purchased links (obviously).

To answer your question directly:

1. Get your site in good working order to receive visitors/leads
2. Find influencers in your market and see whether they offer options for guest posting
3. Look for relevant communities - if you can produce high-quality content, then give it a shot! It might take a couple of months but it's a good investment.
4. Look into linking opportunities while pursuing #'s 1)-3) above. If you can't get direct traffic and leads out of the deal, perhaps you can gain on the technical SEO side!
5. Technical SEO is a faster solution than content marketing, but will not get you far on its own. Content marketing will take some time, but it has enormous benefits if you do it right. The balance is key, but I would absolutely not sacrifice the production of content and value in order to gain links.

Hope this helps! If you need clarification or a follow up (or just want to talk shop) feel free to reach out!

Best of luck,

Rob

Hi there,

Absolutely not. In fact, I believe content in accordions outranks content on a page, although not for technical reasons.

Accordions are easier to fit into a page and can answer multiple user inquiries at once without throwing a wall of text at your visitors as they browse. Google reads accordions just the same as it reads open text. The difference comes with user interactions, metrics and satisfaction metrics.

Think about it like this:

You are browsing for pricing of a product. You also want to know shipping details and whether said product is safe to use for your 4-year old.

Your search returns 2 companies in your area that provide said product.

The first website throws 3,000 words at you in blocks, requiring you to scroll for what feels like hours without a clear indication of where to find the answer to your questions.

The second website can be scrolled in about 2 seconds and features an accordion which features headlines and direct answers to your questions without the need to view other content. Now we're cooking with gas.

In addition, accordion content lends itself to direct-answer formats which in turn lend themselves to showcase on SERP's. So not only will rankings improve, but so will traffic (there are tons of studies showing that Top 10 rankings = traffic, but few people realize that meta data and snippets can improve your odds of trapping 1st page traffic better than positioning).

Over time, this website will generate more and more authority for this product and relevant search queries, overtaking the other.

To answer your question directly - Google treats both forms of content equally, but (all else being equal) user metrics will provide greater link building potential, greater readership, more shares, etc. for the one featuring an accordion setup.

Look forward to what others have to say on this,

Rob

Hi Issac,

To your 1st point:

"Google says it does not use GA as a way of measuring user behavior.  Regarding GA, do you just mean we should use it provide **us **insight that Google will 'pick up' in others ways?"

Yes, this is a more succinct way of putting it. While GA metrics are not the be-all, end-all of algorithmic rankings, they do go a long way in explaining why certain sites/pages/content outperform others in SERP's. I know that improving my "time on page" or "bounce rate" has resulted in higher rankings for various pieces of content I have created, although with so many factors in play it can be hard to narrow it down that far.

To your 2nd point:

That's how I choose to operate. I have found that reducing internal links is a good start when it comes to improving user experience assuming that each link provides value or answers a question. The simplest way I can explain my process is that I sit on a page, look at the links and think,

"If I were one of my customers on this page, what questions/needs would I want answered?"

Based on the answer to that question, I have an idea of how many links I should have on the page. The "magic number" of 100 isn't something I pay attention to, although it is a good place to start - if you have more than 100 questions (see: links) coming from 1 page, you are probably not condensing your pages enough.

Hope this helps!

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

Hi Adam,

Based on what you have said here, it sounds as if these links are harmful and could be disavowed. A few things to look for:

1. Are you the target of harmful/negative SEO?

This is my first thought on account of your loss of #1 rankings and the upsurge in spammy leads - it's not as common as it used to be, but negative SEO still exists and some folks would rather go that route rather than try to outrank you naturally. Some clues might lie in when the links were created (how close to one another) and whether they come from an established PBN (look at hosting cues). If sites linking to your site are showing C-Class hosting then you may be the target of negative SEO and should disavow.

2. Have you changed anything on the site that would lead to the drop?

You mentioned you haven't done any link building, but you were continuing with a content strategy. Has anything on the site changed with respect to architecture, pathways, etc.?

3. Check for a manual penalty

I assume you have checked your Search Console for notifications of a penalty. If not, do that.

4. How long has this been going on?

It's not abnormal for rankings to adjust for a few days while SERP's are being compiled. If this has been going on for less than a week, I would give it some more time before you start making significant changes. My wait period is about 14 days before I start worrying.

5. Local SEO Factors

Are you seeing decreases in rankings across the board, or is it for a specific geographical area? If general decreases, you are probably looking at a disavow. If localized drops, then it may just be a case of local SEO factors acting against you.

TL:DR

You can disavow, but if those links are actually helping you then you can't retract your request and you'll have lost them forever. Make sure it's actually the links causing the harm before you go that route. Disavow should be your last choice.

Feel free to follow up - always happy 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

Hey vtmoz,

Short answer: It will probably help your rankings for that keyword/phrase.

Longer answer: It won't put you on the 1st page, but it will go some distance in helping your rankings along with other established factors.

Potential issue: If your brand features other products or services for which they wish to rank that are irrelevant to the keyword you wish to rank for, be careful that you do not gain rankings for your selected keyword at the expense of others on your site.

For example, say you want to rank for "keyword 1" so you target "Brand" "Keyword 1". If you also have "Keyword 2" and "Keyword 3" that are not relevant to "Keyword 1" you have just shot yourself in the foot for those keywords in order to gain ground with "Keyword 1".

This may not be a problem for you, but something to be aware of.

Personally, I'd be more inclined to make internal pages for keywords I am attempting to rank for, and introduce the brand and specific keyword to those pages to help Google with context. The last thing you want to do is switch up Google's understanding of your site by "traffic hunting" (i.e. putting keywords into your site content to increase traffic rather than to serve your visitors). In this way you might even lose traffic by making the change you have highlighted.

Let me know if you'd like clarification on the above - always happy to help!

Cheers,

Rob

The above advice is good, but also check the hosting situation for each of your sites. Anything but Class A hosting will leave a footprint which can be traced back to each of your sites - this is why PBN's are really getting crunched now.

It probably won't hurt you if you do it a couple times for each of your websites from a single source. After all, that is pretty common. However, if you are planning on repeating this strategy from multiple link sources for all 3 of your sites, this is a very noticeable PBN linking strategy and has been under fire for the last couple of years.

The only way to avoid this is to ensure your sites are hosted on separate servers (Class A hosting). This will eliminate most issues related to "paid" links, PBN's and the like. It isn't a guaranteed fix, but it's your best bet if you haven't taken other precautions and plan on using this kind of strategy on a large scale.

After that it's just a matter of making sure your websites are relevant to the pages linking to you, and your content is worth reading. Follow the above suggestions (no over-optimization, etc.) and you should be fine.

Hey Roman,

Thanks very much for your response - our issue is not so much with multiple currencies within the same website (we're only selling in $CAD). The issue is that our products ship out from various warehouses located across the country.

Promos and special deals are available, but they can be different in different provinces.Since we want to reduce shipping costs and it's important that customers see deals that are relevant to their regions (provinces), we need their postal (zip) code in order to give them relevant products and promos.

The problem is that asking someone for their postal code reduces our conversion rate and lowers our sales, so we are looking for a way to geographically locate a visitor to the site without them having to fill in their postal code.

Hope this helps to clarify!

Thanks,

Rob

Hi Mozzers, this may be more of a web development/analytics question than SEO, but hopefully someone has the experience to help me out.

My company is currently conducting an Adwords campaign targeting B2B clients for products and services across Canada. Ideally each customer is registered as a client in our system when they make purchases, but this limits our customer base to those willing to create an account with us and wastes our Adwords budget.

Now we are moving towards a "walk-up" e-commerce platform which would allow non-members to make purchases without setting up an account first. However, pricing for our products and services differs based on province (different taxes, transportation costs, etc.) and the system currently requires a user to login in using their postal code (zip code) to help the platform generate products, services and pricing specific to their area.

This has caused an enormous bounce rate and I am looking for a way to generate said product/service/pricing lists based on some form of automated system which identifies their location and reacts accordingly. In other words, I want our system to recognize where a user is searching from and provide them with the relevant information without them having to input any data (in this case, their postal code).

I had thought that using a Google Geolocator API might do the trick, but I'm unsure as to whether it is useful for what I have in mind.

Has anyone had this experience before and if so, what solutions did you come up with?

Looking forward to any insights and suggestions!

Rob

I see it ranked #7 for that term

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

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

Hi Whitney,

A couple of things:

1. I went to check your site and my security software has returned a malware warning. I would consider taking a look at the security of your site with your hosting company or asking an IT expert to give you a hand.

2. From what you describe, your lack of rankings is almost certainly attributable to your link profile. I won't say that's the case 100% since there can be other factors, but links represent a major factor of any page ranking on Google. They are effectively "votes of confidence" in your content since they suggest that visitors found your content noteworthy enough to link it to their site/blog/social media, etc.

The reason you are probably not ranking is that you either:

a) Have insufficient links to your page
b) Have weak/irrelevant links to your page
c) Have competitors with stronger link profiles
d) Have poor anchor text procedures that are reducing the impact of your links

You will likely need a link profile audit to determine which of these is the culprit.

3. You Have Weak Content

If the content on your page is weak, you will not rank. That's pretty well known by now. However, if your content is strongly weighted towards more long-tail keywords (outdoor wicker furniture perth vs. outdoor furniture perth, for example), then you will rank for long-tail keywords before generic ones. This is called "semantic keyword ranking" and is something Google is using to help consumers find specific products, services, information, etc. that they are looking for.

You may need to diversify your page with new content targeting the terms you are looking for. Changing titles, headings, etc. is not enough any more. It is also the reason why your blog post (with outdoor furniture perth in the URL) outranked your Home Page for your chosen keyword - Google determined it was more relevant to the keyword search than your home page was.

If you would like a hand with any of the above points, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'd be happy to go over it with you and help you get moving in the right direction.

Cheers and best of luck!

Rob

Hi Rena,

I don't think the duplicate issue is being called out with regard to the pictures/titles on your pages. I think Yoast is picking up on the images representing your awards below the images of your cards. Depending on how you have developed these pages that would be my guess - are these images being uploaded according to a tag system/structure (i.e. are they being automatically uploaded as placeholders for each page?). If so, I have seen that register as duplicate content.

The titles and images of the products themselves shouldn't be returning duplicate content issues. If so, I wouldn't worry about them since there's nothing wrong with how the pages are created as they are. The only addition I would make would be to add some short descriptors and perhaps some Alt-Text on your images to differentiate them from one another.

Let me know if I can be of further help!

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 there,

You will be fine making this change in terms of technical SEO - as long as there's a link featuring anchor text and an equivalent H1/Title tag set up (along with other SEO considerations of course), this is no different than having your internal link navigating through your header. The only impact might be as a result of having your internal links indexed lower down the page than they might be on your header, but at that point you're talking such a small impact that it effectively doesn't matter.

On the other hand, however, is your user experience. I'm sure you've already considered this, but relocating your link structure from your header to another area may impact your visitor's ability to find what they are looking for on your site.

For my money, your priorities with regards to this question aught to be:

1. Can my visitors find what I want them to find?
2. How is the content set up to give my pages the best chance of ranking?
3. What link building strategy will best support my choices in 1) and 2) above?

If you are making this decision based on aesthetics, I would give it another look. If you are making it based on technical SEO strategy, there isn't much basis that it will help or hurt - just a different way of going about it. E-commerce sites represent a difficult SEO problem, so you probably have bigger fish to fry.

Hope that helps and clarifies the situation a little bit - if not, feel free to reach out any time and I'd be happy to discuss.

Cheers and best of luck moving forward!

Rob

Hello,

There is no discernible difference to Google whether your internal links are located through buttons, icons, or the sidebar. The primary navigation bar is held as a slight priority over internal links on your pages, but only because of link juice flowing through your site.

If your links are tracking through your services page, your primary concern should be around user experience - are users more likely to use the buttons that are currently there, or would a sidebar create easier transitions from page to page? The answer to that question should determine whether you decide to change up your page.

Personally, I think you are better off with buttons and/or images to help visitors find exactly what they're looking for when they transfer to your services page.

Hope this helps and feel free to get in touch if you have further questions.

Cheers,

Rob

Hello,

It probably won't hurt you too much since e-comm pages have a lot of similar links tracking from different pages and they are still capable of generating some powerful rankings. You probably won't be harmed by the number of links or their duplication, but it isn't doing your link juice any favors.

Limiting the number of links on a page helps to focus the link juice from your Home or main Category pages to improve page rankings. Having a ton of links will minimize the benefit you get from them. Therefore, not necessarily "harming" your site, but it will impact your rankings to some degree.

The main consideration here is whether or not the links on the side nav bar help or hinder user experience on your client's site. If someone finds it handy, you may as well keep it there. If it's just extra fluff, I'd remove it.

Hope this helps and good luck moving forward!

Rob

Hi Tim,

To answer your question - you can combine both methods. I've done work for several clients (including business lending and financial advising) with locations based all around a given country (Canada, US, UK, etc.) who also provide service inquiries on a national level. For this type of campaign, you want to create a geo-specific silo on your page and then focus on ensuring that your content is creating relevancy for the keywords you are targeting.

Additionally, your link profile will play a huge role in this campaign since you want to ensure you are generating local links for your local pages while simultaneously targeting national links for your national services. It's very important that you structure this type of campaign well before you dive in, because it can be a mess if it isn't rolled out properly.

I think this is a better strategy than creating multiple websites, since you aren't forced to track all of your campaigns spread across different regions, which can be a disaster in terms of organization. I would also add that you can certainly outrank a home page with an internal landing page based on content, links etc. Wikipedia does it all the time.

Sound like you'll have your hands full with this rollout, so feel free to touch base with me any time and I'll be happy to impart any knowledge and experience I have to help you out.

Cheers and best of luck!

Rob

While you may not be able to compete directly with the big dogs immediately, you aren't doing yourself any favors by sticking pages you wish to rank deeper inside your site. Even though the content may be more specifically relevant, the reality is that once you are targeting traffic on a national scale, you are probably looking at your link profile as the defining factor of success rather than your content.

Content still retains power in terms of generating relevancy, but link building is what you need to compete with those long-standing enterprises. In my opinion, content location is secondary in this situation.

A better way to go about this might be to run some competitive analysis on a wide range of keywords to determine:

a) Where are your customers coming from?
b) What are they looking for?
c) Where does your competition rank?
d) Why are they ranking where they do?

Once you can answer these questions, you have the ability to make a strategy that will work regardless of where your content is located. Additionally, adding more pages will just make work for your web dev team without any discernible increase in your potential rankings, and will take time. Given the size of your site and the variety of products you carry, this may be an ineffective use of time when you might just be building a significant link profile to a couple of major landing pages.

Whatever you decide, learning why your competition is succeeding needs to be your priority. Then you can decide on a content-driven strategy or a link building strategy.

Hey Andrew,

The 1st site is a no-brainer based on the term you're trying to rank for. Google will interpret anyone searching for "churches in_____" as someone who is open to finding multiple churches. As a result, Google will return a resource site over an individual location almost every time. For example, if I search for "gas stations in (city)", Google will return multiple stations rather than a specific brand of station, much less a specific location. Beating this site for this specific term is going to be next to impossible for a single location, so I would be looking for search terms that are not as broad.

For example, you might consider looking up terms for the specific denomination of your church. (i.e. "Anglican churches in bloomington in" and so on).

As for the other 2 sites - it sounds as if you have placed most of your attention on changing your site's on-page ranking factors without much attention being paid to your link profile. My bet is that your link profile is a bit smaller, less diverse or less powerful than your competitors, and that this difference is making the difference in terms of ranking behind them.

However, if you are competing for spot 3 with these minor changes, it suggests to me that their link profile isn't very powerful either, so it shouldn't take you much to get over that hurdle.

My advice, therefore, is to place more importance on generating some links to your site in order to overtake your competition.

There are tons of linkbuilding tips and strategies out there, and the Moz Blog is a pretty good resource as far as link building goes. You might start there if you want to do it yourself.

Feel free to reach out to me any time and I'll do what I can to help out.

Cheers,

Rob

Hello,

I would say that from a user experience standpoint, this is a terrific idea. You give you prospects everything they are looking for upfront and without them having to go to multiple websites. It is, of course, more advantageous if/when you can show that you are a better option than your competition, although showing that you are better across all fronts might leave some people suspicious of your brand.

It can be a bit of a double-edged sword, although I personally believe it is a risk worth taking if your products/services are comparable in quality and cost to your competition. I've been down this road with several of my clients with mixed results - as long as our content marketing strategies were controlled and reviewed for quality, we never had a problem. If people fire from the hip without fact-checking, you can run into real trouble.

Legally speaking, the waters are a bit muddier. For one, if you are copying anything from a competitor's site and showcasing it on your own, you are (at the very least) plagiarizing. If you misrepresent them in any way, you are liable to legal action, which can get messy. You also put yourself on their radar for future events and time periods, so it is best to have your ducks lined up before you go this route assuming you are competitive to them.

That being said, there is nothing in the law stopping you from price comparison tools, etc. Using a company's logo is gray territory. I would also add that you make sure you are not trash-talking your competitors if you are going to compare your products/services with theirs. Make sure you can back up literally everything you are saying with demonstrable facts, and you will be okay.

Hope this helps! Feel free to reach out to me at any time and we can put our heads together on how to make your new campaign work!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Paul,

You're right - any click from X.com that takes someone directly to portal.X.com would indeed count as a bounce. There are a couple of ways you might proceed:

1. Use Adjusted Bounce Rate

You can read this great post about adjusting your GA code to interpret users that spend a certain amount of time on a landing page as "engaged" and therefore not a bounce even if they click through to portal.X.com.

https://moz.com/blog/adjusted-bounce-rate

This probably won't solve your problem if people are specifically coming to your site and immediately clicking through to the subdomain, but it might help if your blog posts are ranking and being considered bounces.

2. Redirect Through An Intermediary Page

If you have the ability to create a page through which you can transfer any clicks, that would solve your problem. For example, you create a "placeholder" page and redirect it to your subdomain. You then make the "portal" link direct to the placeholder page.

In other words, the following would happen:

1. User lands on Landing Page
2. User clicks "Portal Page"
3. User goes to placeholder page (considered "engaged" at this point)
4. User redirected from placeholder page to portal

It's not the cleanest solution but it will accomplish what you are asking for. The placeholder page is just there to redirect the user, nothing else.

More important than these 2 strategies, however, is the question of why bounce rate is so important. Are you simply trying to differentiate your portal users from other traffic on your site? Are you worried about negative SEO impacts of having a higher bounce rate than usual? Or is it being used as a KPI of some sort?

Feel free to reach out any time and I will be happy to lend a hand if at all possible.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi there,

I would also add that you don't have to use your home address in order to show up on Google Maps (Matt alluded to it with SAB's). You can provide an address to Google without having to showcase it to the public and it will rank similarly.

I have several clients who work from home but don't conduct any business there as a brick and mortar location. The only time you run into trouble here is if you try to show yourself appearing in multiple locations without concrete addresses, which it doesn't sound like you're doing.

Also really like Matt's suggestion of the hidden address citations. That's a neat resource I haven't seen before.

Feel free to reach out any time and we can discuss further if you like.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi there,

In general, Google is moving towards providing an all-questions-answered approach to content, particularly for sales-oriented (e-comm) sites. The algorithm uses content to determine relevancy using semantic keywords. In your situation, you would probably need to adjust a couple of items to improve your SEO before you develop your content strategy.

For example, your filters include everything from grades to brands, screws, bolts, etc. You might take a look at the sub-categories of products you carry, and determine if you can lump several of them together to make the ranking process a bit simpler. All "Fasteners" on your sidebar could probably be lumped into 1 category page, which would rank more easily than having 7 or 8 different pages, as an example. This may not be a handy way to do things, based on your customer base and the architecture of your site, though.

Your content strategy will also be impacted by your link building strategy. Do you have a lot of time and/or a huge budget of time and money to chase links for individual pages, or do you have to be a bit tighter in your spending on this front? If money isn't an issue, smaller pages may be worthwhile over the long term. However, I have yet to see the project where money and time aren't factors.

SUMMARY

To answer your question more directly, a long piece of content on a single page tends to outrank smaller pieces of content spread across multiple pages. If you can provide your users with everything they need on 1 page, you will outrank your competitors. That being said, you need to balance this approach by ensuring that you are not over-stuffing your pages and driving user experience into the dirt.

My opinion is your first link is a better way to go than the next 3, although I think there are other factors here you might want to spend some time on for full SEO benefits.

Feel free to reach out to me any time and we can put our heads together for a more complete strategy.

Cheers,

Rob

If you have the capability, definitely go for it.

Since Google is looking more and more at semantic rankings for relevant keywords, "powdered donuts" or "decadent delicious donuts" will naturally follow if you are producing content that ranks for "donuts", especially if you make special reference to these specialty keywords.

The competitor that is ranking for all of these keywords is likely doing so because they have produced content and generated links to an architecturally-fitted site for your industry. If you can replicate and improve on that process, you will out-compete them.

In terms of strategy, you probably want to assign 50% of your monthly workload to "donuts" and another 50% to long tail keywords relevant to "donuts". This way, you can make quick gains on long tail keywords which are easy to rank for, and longer-term gains on your major industry keyword over several months. This strategy helps you double-down on long tail keywords while also building up relevancy and authority for your major keyword.

Looking forward to seeing what other folks have to say on this.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Virginia,

The TLD is country specific - example.co.uk specifies the UK as the country of origin, so they are already gaining the ranking benefit this provides via their current TLD, particularly for searches coming from the UK.

The subdomain idea they are proposing will hurt them in 2 ways:

1. If you formulate a 301 redirect (assuming they don't want the .co.uk TLD anymore) then you will lose link juice from your current link profile (estimates vary between 2% and 10%) which will negatively impact your rankings. That's why I tell my clients to only redirect if they are absolutely sure they are okay with losing a little bit of their current traffic.

2. If you don't redirect, and retain both domains, you will begin splitting links coming into your website among your subdomains. Each subdomain has its own link profile and the more you split the incoming links, the weaker both become relative to what your primary domain could have been if you had just stuck with it.

The only way what they are suggesting makes sense is if you want to attract more of an American audience, or your business has separate offices stationed both in the UK and in the US. Even then, you would be better off creating a completely separate domain (example.co.uk and example.com) rather than breaking your link profile up among sub domains.

I see what their thought process is, but you can tell them that, in terms of ranking potential, this move will put them forward about 1% and bring them back by at least 10%, if not more. This will depend on what strategy they employ when they make the switch.

I hope this makes sense. If not, feel free to PM me or reply here and I will help out as best I can. It's always important to help clients from hurting themselves!

Cheers and best of luck,

Rob

Hi Fabrizo,

I think I understand what you are asking here, but if not please feel free to rephrase or correct me.

Based on what you are saying, you seem to be going for exact match keywords linked through image alt text for maximum relevancy to your targeted search terms. There aren't really any "problems" with this, but you may be going after a red herring here, even if your competitors are doing well with this tactic:

a) There is no guarantee that this tactic is what is generating the ranking results for their targeted search terms

b) Alt tags and exact match keywords don't carry much weight in terms of your overall ranking potential. That comes from links, content, architecture and various other factors.

I think that you may be expending a bit too much energy on relatively minor factors when you might consider beefing up your link profile, expanding your content base, improving your user experience, etc. This is especially true when you start getting into sub categories - if you are constantly working on the small details you lose the forest because of the trees.

So, to answer your questions directly:

1. No, I don't think there is anything "negative" that will come from this strategy.

2. Yes, I think that this strategy will move the needle but in a very small way compared to building a few powerful, genuine links from relevant sources in your industry. Build up your content, give readers something about violins to be interested in. I took a look at your site and the first thing I would consider is replacing the example music videos from your specific instruments pages to your home page so visitors know what kind of quality they are getting if they subscribe.

It's an uphill battle since your site is effectively an e-commerce store and therefore features a lot of images and uncrawlable content in videos, but adding some content about the value of your service, building links to your category/subcategory pages and improving the user experience is probably where you will get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of rankings.

Hope this helps - I'm always available if you would like to discuss further. Feel free to PM me at any time.

Cheers,

Rob

Hi there,

Easy answer here - Google has moved well beyond Exact Match Keyword Targeting. I believe it's been going downhill since 2012, and very few SEO's use it as a ranking mechanism any more.

Additionally, don't overuse any particular phrase. Just write as if you were speaking normally to someone describing your service or business. You don't need individual pages targeting each specific keyword either. Semantic keywords (phrases that are similar but not the same) are a much better way to go.

For example, for "driver education course michigan", semantic keywords are:

michigan drivers ed
drivers ed michigan
driver course michigan

and so on. Use each of these semantic phrases sparingly in your content on a page you wish to rank for your chosen term, and you are well within best practices.

The guy suggesting you should use exact match keywords is probably hurting your ranking capability and is living in the past. Exact-match means practically nothing any more and anyone who claims it is the way to go is not aware of the changes search engine algorithms have been undergoing in recent years.

Long story short, if you read your H1's and H2's and the inner grammar nazi in you cringes, you are probably SEO-ing wrong.

Hope this helps and good luck convincing him!

Cheers,

Rob

A lack of blog functionality can be an issue, but only if you are counting on your blog content to generate interest in your products/services. If you are only using your blog as a ranking mechanism for your store, and don't need your visitors to go there in order to influence them into a buying situation, I wouldn't be terribly worried about how UX-friendly your blog is. In this case, the pros definitely outweigh the cons in terms of switching over.

However, if your blog is very interactive and your products  require review videos or "how-to's" to help potential customers make a purchase decision, then it is probably a better idea to retain a UX-friendly blog platform and forego the ranking benefits.

Rebuilding the site is likely the best option in light of the information you have provided, although if resources are tight this may not be an option. If you would like, I can take a closer look at your site - feel free to shoot me a PM and we can take a look at steps you might take to improve your SEO as cost-efficiently as possible.

Cheers,

Rob

Hello!

Great question and one many SEO's still struggle with.

Here's a great article I read recently on just this topic - it covers a lot, but the first thing it tackles is the use of subfolders vs. subdomains when creating blogs for ranking primary domains (your situation).

http://seopressor.com/blog/subdomain-vs-subfolder/

Personally I think there are benefits and problems with creating a subdomain for SEO purposes to boost rankings of a primary site. What you are describing in terms of what your analytics is showing makes sense - the subdomain still acts as part of your primary domain when it comes to passing on links, but it ranks on its own as subdomains do. Therefore, the SEO of your site is not going to be improved as much by a blog on a subdomain as it might as part of a subfolder.

(i.e. example.com/blog is a better way to go than blog.example.com when it comes to pure link juice and SEO)

In fact, the way you currently have it set up, you may be shooting yourself in the foot since the link juice that is passed from your subdomain will be reduced, and only your blog will rank organically, meaning people might not even make it to your store (as you have created a barrier from a UX perspective, requiring them to browse through a middle point to get there).

You might look at migrating everything to a subfolder instead of using a subdomain, although I would be cautious of this approach if you have a ton of content on your subdomain currently. Here's a post from a while back where Rand spoke to this procedure:

https://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday

While some things have changed, this is still pretty solid advice. As a general rule, I try to show my clients the value of subfolder blogs for primary domain ranking purposes, and will only move forward with a blog on a subdomain if there is an extremely good reason.

Hope this helps and feel free to reach out if you want to discuss further.

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 there,

I would proceed with caution with any of those options. First off, what is the hosting situation with each of these URL's? You are going to have to be careful since inter-connected websites linking to one-another is going to give Google plenty of red flags and might suggest a PBN is in use, which may bring on more scrutiny of your main domain.

301's are not ideal in this situation since they are used primarily for re-branding purposes. In other words, for when the content of a website is being shifted to a new domain. This is a pure link scenario, without the same brand change. 301-ing multiple domains to a single domain just isn't how they are supposed to be used. Will you be penalized? I'm unsure. Is it risky? You bet.

a) If you do go the redirect route, definitely don't link everything to the Home page - 301's are meant to be page-to-page changeovers meaning your Home Page redirects to the new Home Page, the Category Pages redirect to the Category Pages, etc. If each of your websites have the same structure, then it's not such a big deal. I'd still be wary of going that route, though.

b) Linking all the domains to the Home page is probably the best option assuming you aren't hosting each of these websites on the same server. If you have anything but a-class hosting (i.e. shared, etc), I wouldn't go this route.

c) Linking domains to internal pages is probably your safest option, since it spreads the links around in a more relevant manner and won't impact your entire site the way the same links would on your Home page. This is due to the new updates to to Penguin. If you go this route, you will be able to test whether or not these links are hurting or helping you for rankings on specific pages without risking your entire site.

d) Again, probably not ideal to 301 redirect any of these websites to your new site. The only benefit that would have would be to redirect traffic to your main site. If that is your ultimate goal, then try to use best practices outlined in a) above. However, if this is for a link juice and ranking purpose, then redirecting will not be as effective as linking. Keep in mind that redirecting also impacts the strength of that domain's link profile, so 301's are actually going to take away from the strength of the links your other websites produce.

I would go with option c), rolled out gradually, opting for a couple of pages and measuring ranking fluctuations as a result over a couple of weeks. If you see gains, keep going. If you see losses, you know what the problem is and you can fix it easily. Before I did that, however, I would investigate the hosting situation and relationships between these sites to minimize the potential impact of link spam suppressions and penalties.

Hope this helps provide you with some extra information. Don't be afraid to reach out if you have any further questions or need clarification. Good luck!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Pragnesh,

Not sure if I understand your questions, but I will give it a shot:

1. Sounds like your customized report and the Events tracking aren't looking at the same data - sounds like one is tracking just the event you are looking at while the other might be page views or some other form of interaction.

2. If the E-commerce rate is 0%, either your tracking isn't set up properly, or conversions aren't occurring. Since you have another set of metrics showing 3.3%, it sounds like it's a tracking issue.

3. Same as 1) above.

4. This completely depends on what you are trying to measure. I'm sorry but without the data in front of me it will be tough to help you out. Maybe try helping us out by telling us exactly what you want to measure. With that information I can help you create some strategies for analysis and tracking.

Feel free to reach out any time,

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

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

Hi Cassie,

I would agree with the article - I have been doing this for months now. In fact, I have found that accordion content not only improves UX but also SEO - since Google can read all information on tabs/accordion layouts now, you can put a heck of a lot more information above the fold for better UX and for improved SEO (since tab titles and content give you options for relevancy and semantic keywords).

My favourite uses for this are in the e-commerce industry, since ranking product pages or category pages can be extremely tricky, especially if you or your client want to use duplicate content. Content placement can be difficult to decide on, but accordions and tabs give you the option to front-load your content without forcing your visitors to scroll for an era to find your products.

Long story short, tabs and accordions improve UX (all information present, but visitors choose what to view) and SEO (easier relevancy, answer all questions for better user metrics, decrease bounce rates, etc.). Every time I have used this strategy it has resulted in ranking improvements and better user metrics on GA. I would try split testing it for yourself if you are still unsure - try using this method for 1 page with similar metrics to another page on your website. Track both pages for rankings, drop-off rates, etc. and see which works better.

Hope this helps and feel free to reach out if you have further questions or need clarification!

Cheers,

Rob

Hey Sean,

Left a message for you in your private inbox, feel free to reach out any time!

All the best,

Rob

Hi Toni,

Hosting location isn't going to play a big role in your rankings. Server stats are going to have more to do with that (i.e. is it shared/private/dedicated etc.). You won't have any difficulties or problems with Search Console.

In terms of rankings, you will have the traditional issues of ranking a subdomain (split link juice, the need for unique content, etc.) but nothing out of the ordinary.

If you are targeting a UK audience, the domain should probably be set up as a .co.uk domain, and you should ensure that you are following SEO best practices in setting it up. You will also want to ensure that you are generating backlinks from UK sites to show relevancy.

If you stick within those guidelines you will be just fine.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

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

Hi Andy,

Just took a look at your site - Kelly was on the right track when she suggested inbound links. An issue this particular page has is that it does not feature any backlinks while other pages on your website do. If you conduct page-by-page searches in open site explorer you will see that each page (with the exception of the one you have noted above) has some form of backlink profile.

Backlinks function as "votes of confidence" in the search engine world, so no backlinks says to Google "no one trusts this page" even if other pages on your site have proven trustworthy. Aside from the backlink issue, your on-site is in good shape and I can't detect any significant issues that would impair your ranking ability. I would use Moz to check your rankings for your targeted keywords and build a few quality backlinks to each page and see what that does to your rankings.

Page authority is predominantly a metric to help you determine the quality of your backlinks to a specific page, so it makes sense that it would be a low number when you don't have any for that page.

Hope this helps to provide some insight - please feel free to reach out if you have further questions or need clarification.

Cheers!

Rob

Hi Andrea,

To answer your questions:

1. The redirect you mention will impact your rankings for keywords that are locally based (New Zealand copywriter, for example) or for folks using specific search engines (google.co.uk/google.co.nz) which will identify your website according to relevancy (UK to UK, NZ to NZ). The redirect should probably point from your UK site to your NZ site, since your contacts in the UK can still find your site using google.co.uk, which will redirect them to your NZ site. Meanwhile, your NZ leads will be able to find your NZ site more easily if it is optimized for New Zealand. What that redirect is currently telling Google is that you moved from NZ to the UK, and are carrying forward your domain, which is essentially the opposite of what you have actually done.

2. There are a few ways to move forward:

a) You create 1 website which optimizes for both NZ and the UK. Create a "locations" page of sorts which optimizes the same keywords for different geographic areas. (i.e. have  a "New Zealand copywriter" page and a "United Kingdom copywriter" page). You can remove the redirect if you like, or keep it. This would be best utilized on whichever page currently has better rankings, although ideally you would use your NZ domain since that is where you are based. Not an ideal answer since keyword relevancy will be lacking for one country or the other depending on your choice of domain.

b) You cancel the redirect and optimize both websites. This is probably your best option but requires twice as much work. Duplicate content is an issue to some degree, but it won't really hurt you. Duplicate content is more of a "you won't gain any benefit from your content, but it won't hurt you" issue. You can use canonical tags to minimize the damage you do to your rankings for each site, or you can create unique content for both sites (this is your best case scenario). It would probably be best to separate your hosting (at least have these 2 sites on different servers) in order to avoid any cross-contamination if/when you conduct linkbuilding for your site.

In an ideal world, you create unique content for both sites. In a pinch, you duplicate your content from the site you plan to use most to the site you plan to use least, providing canonical tags for content on your main website.

There will be a lot of work on your plate when it comes to optimizing both sites, but that is the best way to move forward, in my opinion. I'm sure other Mozzers will have more to say on that.

Hope this helps and feel free to follow up with me if you need any more help!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Bob,

Great points across the board - you are definitely on the right track.

• Category tag issue makes much more sense when you explain it that way

• You are moving in the right direction with unique content. A strategy I have used in the past with e-commerce clients is to choose products 10-20 at a time based on how well they sell (top-sellers first, moving down the list) and creating unique content, reviews, analysis etc. to help visitors make a purchasing decision. This lets you solve the content issue steadily and with maximum ROI without it taking up all of your available time. I would strongly consider creating video reviews of general characteristics of frames (my client features glasses of different materials which allow for different artistic displays, for example) and linking the video in iFrames on each product page to give visitors something to interact with on the page.

• Regarding keyword stuffing, a general rule I operate by is that only 1-2 sentences in 10 should feature anything that could be related to the keyword you are targeting. Use semantic keywords (cheap, affordable, cost-effective, low-cost, inexpensive, etc.) instead of the same expression (cheap glasses, cheap sunglasses, cheap frames, etc.). This isn't an exact science, but basically make sure your pages features 300+ words, and only 2-3 sentences are keyword targeting. Also make sure the H1's and Title Tags are in line with the keywords you are targeting in the content.

• I can take a look at your rank tracking if you would like to see if there's a better strategy you could be using. I know trial and error can produce good results but it can also be extremely frustrating (trust me, I've been there).

• As long as your website is being indexed, there is no need to manually submit links. Google will catch up with what you are doing, typically within 2 weeks. This isn't something I would worry about.

• If it's a cliff-drop scenario in terms of sales, and traffic is decreasing by the same order of magnitude, I would be inclined to say there is some form of penalty involved. Sometimes what you see in situations like this is your rankings take a temporary hit as Google struggles to re-index your new pages. You typically see a 2-4 week drop-off in rankings followed by a resurgence 2-4 weeks later as your new pages rank.

Basically, Google may be struggling to attribute the same level of trust to your new pages as opposed to your old pages (which were trusted due to the time they spent on SERPs).

I would take note of when you first saw the drop-offs. It's hard but try to remember that Google operates with a 2-4 week lag behind work you are conducting. Sometimes you have fixed the problem but it hasn't come about in Google's index yet.

Cheers!

Rob

In that case I would definitely be separating them for 2 reasons:

1. The client is moving in that direction and a separation now is easier than once the campaign gains traction. Less upheaval to potential visitors and clients, etc.

2. You can directly monitor the benefits of your work as a case for your client to keep you on based on your success. If you are only responsible for 1 part of the business, separate them and show that your work is beneficial when compared against the part of the business you are not working on.

Not exactly a technical SEO approach, but definitely pragmatic and a good move for both you and your client to separate and increase the timekeeping aspect of the business.

Hi Bob,

A couple of immediate questions that spring up:

1. When you instituted page URL changes, did you eliminate old pages entirely or simply alter URL permalinks?
2. At what point did you notice the drops you mentioned (before, during or after the web dev work was done)?
3. Obvious question - have you ensured that each of the new pages is being crawled?
4. What products are being sold on the site? Are there sales guides (review videos, content, blogs) that might help with purchasing decisions?

A few things got my attention immediately:

a) Removing category/product tags in the URL

Not necessarily a good thing. Depending on what you sell, a lot of people use "layman's terms" to find something online via search. Having a product category for relevancy to search queries can improve your organic rankings (especially if people don't know to search for your specific products). I noticed that your pages are directly attuned to exact-match products and keywords but there are shortcomings such as:

• Lack of unique content
• Not enough content on product pages
• Keyword stuffing

The unique content isn't a huge issue since a lot of e-commerce sites have the same problem. However, if you only have keyword-stuffed, short content on each of your product pages then Google won't look favourably upon you. For example, on the "Cheapest Glasses" page, I counted 10 references to "cheap, affordable, discount, knockdown" etc. in 5 sentences. Using semantic keywords is fine, you probably want to spread it out a bit and increase the word count on the page.

b) Backlinks

Having a weak link profile probably isn't the culprit here. Depending on the scope of the service area you have, backlinks may not even be a huge factor in your digital marketing campaign. Basically, if having few backlinks wasn't hurting you 3 months ago, chances are it isn't the cause for the problem now. That being said, having relevant, powerful links to your site isn't going to hurt.

c) Rank tracking

Sometimes adjusting on-site aspects of your website means targeting specific keywords that aren't necessarily what you are tracking. This can make it look like your traffic is dropping while in reality you are just much more optimized for keywords other than what you are tracking. In addition, traffic drops aren't necessarily a bad thing if the targeted traffic you are bringing in is more likely to buy than a larger amount of generic traffic. I would consider what you are attempting to rank for and whether those keywords are what you are tracking.

d) Sales drops

This can be the result of your work on the site, or it might be a natural lull in sales in the industry over the last quarter. I'm sure you've considered this and if these numbers are significantly lower than they were in a year-over-year comparison, then this is something to be worried about. Keep in mind it is coming up to Christmas and a lot of people are looking at stretching their pocket books in the near future - reading glasses are something that people do individually so it is natural to see sales decline in the months leading up to Christmas. I have a client in the optician industry and they see this trend every year, without fail.

e) Title Tags

Last but not least, I noticed a lot of your Title Tags feature pricing for the products listed on the page. It is rare that anyone would search based on pricing so I would be looking to minimize the wording in these tags to maximize your relevancy for organic search. Example:

Currently: Cheapest glasses to fit your prescription from just ......
Could be optimized to: Cheap glasses in the ____ area

The biggest problem I am seeing site-wide is the keyword stuffing. I wouldn't be surprised if you are suffering a Panda penalty rather than a Penguin penalty for your link profile. I would be looking at the content on your site first then the link profile as a distant second. This makes more sense when you consider the only alterations to the site in the recent past were its architecture and content.

I hope this helps by providing some insight - surely there are other potential issues and hopefully others can point them out to help you get over this hurdle.

Feel free to reach out if you would like clarification or extra help. Best of luck moving forward!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Jeremy,

There isn't really a "correct" answer to this one.

Links help with your rankings regardless of where they are sent. The fact that these links are coming from high-authority sites is probably the biggest benefit, regardless of anchor text or link pathway.

On the flipside, you probably want to try to create relevancy between the page you are linking from and the page you are linking to. For example, as a fitness expert, if you are providing information on proper stretch technique or diet, then you may want to target pages on your website that feature stretching or diet respectively. Your author bio links might link to an "About" page on your website since people who click on your author bio might be looking to learn more about you (creates UX as well as website traffic since they are finding what they are looking for with 1 click). The Home Page is also an option since it provides greater link juice throughout the site, but your referral traffic drop-off might increase as a result.

As for sites that allow links within the content itself, you can go the Home Page linking route if you want since that helps with general rankings across your site. That being said, Home Pages don't convert people, landing pages do.

My personal opinion is you choose link pages on your site according to keywords you want to rank for and based on their relevancy to your guest post topics. It's better to drive targeted traffic to relevant pages rather than bring general traffic to your home page.

There are a lot of different ways to look at this, but technical SEO is giving way more and more to user experience and relevant link channels, so I would be less worried about pounding your home page with links and more about ensuring your users have a good experience on your site - that's how you get returning traffic and repeat visitors.

Good luck moving forward!

Cheers,

Rob

Hi Donald,

The first question I have in response to yours is:

What is your strategy regarding the social aspect of your campaign?

If it is going to be the bedrock of your campaign AND your client wishes to keep their services separate, then you probably want to have separated social pages for each service provided (especially if you have different websites for those services).

If social is secondary to your campaign beside SEO, PPC, etc. then I think you can keep them together. Either way, your social signals aren't going to have a huge impact on your campaign from a rankings perspective. They may help with incoming traffic but it sounds as if they are starting pretty small for now.

On the flipside, a combined page makes sense if the business uses the same branding, logo, etc. under an umbrella service (i.e. business administration services) instead of separating their services under "payroll" and "attendance". What you do should be influenced by what your client wishes to do with their branding and services provided rather than any technical needs on your end as their digital marketing rep.

Again, all of this depends on what you are trying to accomplish with this aspect of your campaign - maybe you can help by shedding some extra light on the situation?

Cheers,

Rob