Welcome to the Q&A Forum

In general terms the effectiveness and the SEO effect related to the pop up is all about how you implement it. As referred to in this article http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/conversion-heroes-chris-goward/

A pop up is employed by the NYT newspaper that is on the side that draws you into something more interesting thereby increasing their chances of conversion without damaging the brand or upsetting the person experiencing the pop up. This is not likely to have an SEO impact as this will not cause traffic to exit the site as quickly as possible and the user is more likely to return.

The other end of the spectrum is what i'll call the "As seen on TV" popup.  These tend to be minor brands that do not care or even think someone will come back again.  They know they have one shot and they want to convert at any cost. This type of pop up is more akin to a thug standing in the doorway.  It is very invasive and makes it very hard to leave the web site without buying anything.  Some people may not mind this but most people will.  This type of approach is going to return a negative user experience which will track to your site performance and may affect your SEO.  If Google flags your site and does a manual check your site will probably be downgraded.

So in my opinion the trick is to figure out what the fine line is between being so unobtrusive that the popup is ineffective and being so invasive that you get what you want on conversion but lose a customer or referral.

Here are some things you may want to consider doing with the page and the pop up as you implement it.

1. I would use a tool like Optimizely to optimize the page itself before implementing the pop up. You may be able to get an acceptable conversion rate without implementing the pop up.

2. If you still need to implement the pop up I would set up several off line variations along with the optimized page without pop up.  I would use a paid service like Ask My target Market ( http://aytm.com ) to get feedback from a target group that fits your visitor profile.  If there is not a conclusive result or if there is a lot of feedback that initiates changes I would consider making modifications based on the first survey and running a second survey.

3. I would then use Optimizely again to set up a series of scenarios based on what you have learned so far to test on paid traffic.  I would set up a simple advertising campaign that will drive clicks to these off line pages. Again based on responses and conversion rates I would make a another set of modifications.

4. Finally I would test the winning scenario on your live page and monitor your conversions. based on how the traffic converts you may want to consider doing anther set of A/B testing on the page itself.

There are extra steps in here to avoid a negative impact to your target market. Based on the value of your brand, market size, and product price point you will need to evaluate how aggressive you want to be in each of these steps.

The main pice of input I would give is that it is important to test multiple scenarios and follow the measurable numbers. What we think the result should be is not what people actually do. Remember if you can't measure it; it is not true ;).

To have or not have breadcrumbs does not affect SEO directly it affects it indirectly.   Part or what is monitored when a site is ranked is the user experience.  The analytical way that this is monitored is through your bounce rate, exit rate, time on site and your visitor flow.  Anything that makes these stats better and improves your user experience is going to improve your rankings.   So even if you don't have breadcrumbs but have very good navigation that eliminates the need for bread crumbs you will have the same positive effect on your SEO.  So it is not this type navigation in particular that is important it is providing the best navigation for your traffic.  Happy traffic = good rankings

Hope this helps,

Ron

I think that nothing but good things can come from the kind of activity you are seeing.  The key is relevance and value.  It sounds like you have some posts that are helpful and relevant to others...This is the ultimate goal with social media. In my opinion this type of activity only sends positive social signals.

The trick is to understand that every post you make is not going to get this type of response. My belief is that the fastest way to get into trouble is engaging in tricks or spammy behavior to replicate the lightning you have created with these posts. Even though it is harder it is important to stay the course by slogging out future contributions knowing that many will not get a huge response. As long as these more minor posts are relevant to your audience you will slowly build up a base and over time your will develop a solid base that is engaged with your social media outlets.  This is the long term goal as well as the long term value you want to develop.

Enjoying lightning in a bottle when it happens is good Planning on it is not ;( Building an audience that is a constant power source is the goal

Hope this helps,

Ron

Personally I would not trade links unless I knew exactly who I was dealing with.  In general I am not a huge fan of trading links unless there is a direct relationship.

Graham,

I would just verify that they are actually from Google. There are some firms out there that represent themselves as Google when they are not. So verify and then trust.

Ron

Robert,

I see our interns as our top people down the road.  We use our internship as a way to support people as they save for or go to college. We want top notch people working with us who are engaged in building the business. It is hard to get most people real engaged unless you are compensating them in some way.

I think it is appropriate to pay them at or near minimum wage to start as the company needs to invest in them to get them up to speed. As they start to contribute more and learn more we structure their compensation so that they can make more.  In my opinion one of the best lessons you can teach someone is that,"you eat what you hunt and kill" in the work place.  I think a performance based compensation and a clear path of advancement encourages growth.

Anyway that's my two cents.

Ron

I think Chris had some good suggestions.  I would add the following comments.  1) I would encourage your CEO or a ghost writer to start doing blog entries.  I would add this as a blog category.  In this way it is not going to look bad or screw things up if he does not always get a blog out.  Once your CEO has built up a few blog entries it might be good to add a list of prior blog entries next to his profile.  This would be a good way for people to get a feel for how he thinks and what he believes in.

I do think it is a good idea to hire a ghost writer(I admit I am biased as that is one of the services my company provides). However I would strongly recommend that your CEO participate in the process and approve the final blog so that the blog has his voice.

Even though you did not ask about this I thought I would also mention that you might want to add a newsletter archive as a category as well.  This is a good way to keep old newsletters as a reference for those that are interested and increase your content at the same time.

Ron

Lily,

If your target market is localized you may want to consider doing some local off page SEO.  Getting these directories set up has created some dramatic results for our clients. A simple first step is to use the get listed.org tool to get the basic local directories set up.

Ron

Sarah,

I have been working on this exact same problem for another client.  As a disclaimer I am always going for the maximum traffic and conversion for my clients and on the aggressiveness scale I am an 11.

That being said here is what I would recommend.  1) Create a separate navigation for each sub branch.  This would include all the basic information you would on the main site except this should focus on the branch. 2) Manage a blog for each branch with Google authorship set up. 3) Create content about the branch that has the unique feel of the branch along with anything special about the branch or it's employees.  4) Do competitive key word research for each branch and make sure that you include any content that is needed to grab searches from the local competition. 5) I would reflect the unique navigation or location of the information on each branch specifically in your off page SEO.

This approach will get you more local traction while improving the experience and conversion for potential customers for each branch.  This also alleviates the "mega" company feel and helps the branch feel more local.

Ron

Well I would do a few things:

1. go to get listed.org and sign up for all the local directories.

2. I would use the Open Site Explorer tool to find inbound links on your competitors and sign up for any applicable directories and start following(and providing useful comments) on blogs that relate to what you are doing.

3. Utilize your G+ account to engage your client base in a Google Air web seminar and publish a recording of this to Youtube.

4. Use Presenter on the mac (or a similar program) to create a presentation with voice overs and export to video and upload to video.

5. Create an engaging infographic that people will share on the web.

6. Get 10 reviews on Yelp, google, and Bing.  These reviews create in bound links as well as improve your overall local search rankings.

What I am saying is that links are created by doing a variety of things over time.  You have to be creative, have fun with it ;)!

Ron

MOZ links to your Google Analytics so there is no snippet to install.

Mark,

The knowledge graph is driven by schema.  I would go to schema.org. Learn it, live it, love it ;). If you are on the word press platform there are several plug ins that will help you set up your schema for you. If you have not read this link it does a good job explaining why this resource wad created and what Google's goals are: http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html

The other source of this information is the Google+ Page for the company.  I strongly recommend that you fill this out completely. I would strongly recommend your client upload relevant pictures with good alternative text for each shot.  This information can get replicated to  the knowledge graph as well.

Hope this helps,

Ron

Sarah,

I thought the graphic on this link would help you visualize what I am talking about:

https://getlisted.org/static/resources/local-search-data-providers.html

Ron

No archived campaigns do not contribute to your key word count.

Alec,

As stated above the length of time vs results depends on budget, key word difficulty as well as a host of other factors. I would suggest that you get them to let you know what they are doing as well as what their overall plan is.  If the SEO is not willing to tell you what they are doing I would suggest you run. If they are willing to discuss what they are doing and what their plan is, this is a good sign. I would find out what challenges they are having as well as how they plan to address these issues.  I would also ask them what they think is a reasonable time frame for results. This is usually at least six months. The other thing I would do if you have not done so is get clearly defined goals along with a clear definition from them of  what they consider a win. You may want to find out if any of these wins can be converted to measurable conversion events in google analytics.

If what the SEO firm is saying makes logical sense I would give them some time. If they are telling you to "trust them" and not disclosing the things mentioned above consider moving on.

Hope this helps,

Ron

Sam,

There is a common misconception among clients that SEO is not real work. If you explain everything you need to do most will figure out that it is not something they want to do. If they still will not be dissuaded you might consider a small support contract to answer questions up to a specific time limit. Again after working with someone on the things they need to do they often will figure out that they would rather pay you and do their real job that they like ;),

Ron

Not really sure of the question here.  This has been around awhile.  Like all these schemes they really do not add any long term value.  Talk to newt Ginigritch ;). http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/04/newt-gingrich-twitter

As said above you need different targets and objectives for the site. You also need to write new content with whatever your new positioning is.  To avoid duplicate content penalties you should also use different pictures and descriptions as well.

This is an interesting problem.  I would take your Yelp idea a few steps further by creating a full set of local directory listings for both entities either through Moz local or manually.  If one of the entities is wholesale and the other retail I would definitely consider highlighting this when you write up the descriptions for these directory listings. If they are addressing different markets I would highlight this as well.

Another thing you may consider is signing up both businesses with one of the USPS business services as these require you to put in a unique FEIN number for each entity.  The fact that these are different entities will be highlighted in the USPS database as a result. The USPS database is key reference point the search engines utilize. So making it clear that these are separate entities in the USPS database should be helpful as well.

thank you Sam. I'll look more closely at the alternates. I thought I had covered the bases there but I see, like anything, there's going to be a learning curve to get the most out of the service. Thanks again for the response.

I have a client who has five locations.  Their current web site was structured very well for the pre-penguin and Panda world. However it does not seem to do as well after these changes.  I believe it would serve them both with their customers as well as on Google if they localized the site for each location.

Currently all the content on the site if focused on one location that is in the largest metro.  On the content side we have a plan to produce local content and blogs for each location.  My questions are how to go about structuring the site map and blogs to provide the most local juice.  I was also wondering how to properly mark up a site with a main trunk  and five local branches.  I am also trying to figure out how to structure the tags on the blog.

On the site map itself I was planning on maintaining all the content as well as the older blogs in the main trunk of the web site.  Under this trunk there is a locations page that currently goes to five pages that simply have an address as well as a bulletin board of upcoming events. The blog is directly off the main page with no tie to any location.

Here are my thoughts on what I think we should do:

1. I believe we should create a mini web site starting at the location page that has specific content and navigation related to each location.  That the content should focus on the specifics of that area and what would serve that clientele the best. We should add to each branch location based on the key words and competition in that area.

2. The blog off the main web site should continue to house the general categories that are already there as well as any other general posts. I think we should add a link to each store page with a location specific blog in each mini location site.

3. Each mini location site should have it's own blog with specific blogs targeted towards the local market. This local blog would also feed in the general blogs from the "trunk" as they are posted.

Relating back to my original questions:

1. is what I outlined the right approach or is there a more effective way to do this?

2. Is there any special mark up I should do to tell the directories what to do?

3. How do I structure the tags for the blog?  I was thinking of a structure like this:

General blog/category/subject

under the main structure : local blog/category/subject

Any ideas of input on this?

Ron

Chris,

We ran into this with another firm in the Seattle area.  They were using all the names their competitors in their meta descriptions and they did go so far as to include specific pages dedicated to each competitor.  In the end several of the companies went after them for copyright infringement as they violated their copyrights to create these pages. This is a more aggressive path but it is one you could consider.

Ron

Dustin,

I would not try to game the system in this way as you may have unexpected side effects and actually hurt your rankings. Instead I would look at these subjects and ask the firm if there have been changes or updates relative to these posts.  Where there have been changes I would suggest you evaluate the value for each post based on possible revenue if they get a client, search volume and how this positions them against their competitors.  I would prioritize this updated content based on this.

I would add in a plug in that shows all the blogs on a subject and sorts them by date.  This way you may be able to simply write an update blog and then refer to the previous blog (the prize you should go for is to get comments on both ).  If the changes are significant enough I would write a new blog on the subject.

On all the blogs that are out of date I would have someone go in and add a comment in this regard with a reference to the update.

On the blogs that are older and not out of date I would add an amended post simply stating that the blog has been reviewed and that the information is still relevant.

This is not the only way to do things but my experience is that this more labor intensive approach that creates content is always the best approach.  With this approach my clients had an average of 45% traffic growth last year while increasing their conversion rate.

Let me know if you have any additional questions,

Ron

They usually gather information for the reports on Wednesdays or Thursdays. My guess is that you will need to wait until then.  You might want to e-mail tech support to see if anything else is going on.

As suggested above good keyword research provides good tools as well as creativity.  I would recommend the following:

1. I like Spyfu and they do have a 30 day trial if you want to check them out.  What I normally do is run a report with the competitors the client mentions.  Then I look at the the top guys on the key word searches the client wants to show up on and run a report with these.  I like to limit the competitors to 2-3 even though you can add more (sometimes too much data reduces clarity). I export the words that come up to CSV.  I delete any non applicable words and create a master key word list out of this.

2. If by any chance you don't have an overwhelming amount of key words at this point(unlikely) you can put the most interesting words into another tool Spyfu has Keyword groupie to get more.

3. Related to the answer above I like to sit in on a few sales calls and/or act as a temporary sales floor rep for a few hours if the business is retail.  If this is not possible another option is to call a list of customers and leads as a quality assurance person(or whatever other title works for the client) to find out how their experience is/was and ask them what they were looking for when they purchased and what features caused them to buy. During the conversation the clients will often give you several good value propositions and key words.  As a side note this is a great time to surf for case studies, references and reviews for the client as well.  All of these option do require the clients permission and trust. If they are OK with things like this you can get a lot of information.

4. I add any new key words out of this exploration to the list and review with the client.

5. Once I have a list I input this into my Moz campaign.

6. After the ranking report has run I evaluate the low hanging fruit and focus my content development on these words/phrases.

7. Once I have mastered the universe on this first set of words I repeat the process.

Hope this helps,

Ron

Laurie,

This is an interesting problem.  This is how I would look at it.  If these were bead and breakfast's with separate web sites and addresses Google would not penalize anyone for setting up multiple Google Local accounts.  On the other end if you had a single property and listed each condo as a separate entity and they all had the same phone number you would probably be penalized.  As you say this is in an undefined area so what I would suggest is this:

1. if there is a separate phone number and address for each location I think you are OK setting up separate listings. If they all have one office and one phone number coordinating the rentals I think you might run into problems.

2. If this is not the case what I would do instead is set up a sub page on the web site with appropriate schema mark up (schema.org) for each local address.  The pages themselves should have localized content for each address. It would serve you to have video as well as pictures with localized descriptions.  If oyu are doing blogs at a minimum I would set up your tags so that there is a tag for each location and create blogs specifically for each location. I would also consider setting up google authorship on your G+ page so that your localized content for each property is distributed in this way.

As far as the G+ profile this is is easy to set up under the Google account by simply filling out the profile information in the account.

Let me know if I am on track with my answer or if you require further clarification.

Ron

If this link is relevant to what you do and is useful to your target customer base do it.  A baseline rule I have is that anything that helps users get the information they need or makes their internet experience better it is worth doing.  I can't see how this would hurt as it looks like a credible link.

On a side note pay attention to the description you put in.  If it makes sense include references to your area or the areas that you like to provide services.  This will help this listing show up where you want it to:).

Brent,

What I would suggest is moving the blog from the blog site to the main domain.  I would set it up so that people are automatically redirected to the main web site when they hit the blog (I think both Word Press and Blogger will do this for around $20 per year). I would import the content from the old blog and update the tags to make are they are consistent and that you do not have any duplicate content on the main web site.   This way you do not lose your old following and you start building inbound links and following on your main web site.

Hope this helps,

Ron

An aspect of the software people do not utilize enough is the key word tracking combined with the page grader. If you look at the keyword tracking you may notice a URL on the right hand side to some of the key words.  That is the specific URL that is ranking for that key word. I use this to see what key words I have ranking and then use the page grader to optimize pages for each key word or key word set and make sure that each key word I care about is ranking on a specific URL. just keep going through this process until you are ranking on all the key words you are targeting.

As SEO is a "no one thing" art form you need to fix all the crawl errors on the site as well as build up your domain authority in the background. An aspect people often do not think about on the front end is bounce rate and conversion. Right away I would set up conversion events on the web site itself and tie these to Google Analytics.  I would also add Crzyegg heat mapping software to your pages, While tracking the traffic to your web site look at what that tracking is doing once they are there.  i

Harry,

My guiding principle on all this type of thing is will this provide a better experience for end users.  In my opinion your URL set up would as it logically lets people find what they are looking for.  I would just make sure the navigation for the site takes advantage of this set up and gets users where they need to go.  So I do not believe this URL structure would hurt you.  it might actually help you as long as the content is relevant to the URL, meta description and tags.

Ron

I believe this would resolve the issue.

I think you are referring to long tailed keywords. So instead of "exterminators" you might say "Portland organic exterminators".  This more detailed phrase targets your customers while creating a phrase that people are going to actually type in.  With the hummingbird update using natural language and descriptions as well as citing places in your area if you are a local business has become increasingly important.

I would define your goals and budgets.  You need to ask them if they are members of the Google engage program.  This is kind of a square zero level of competence(almost anybody can get in if they know enough to join)

I would discuss how they are going to measure success as well as what activities they are going to do to manage the key words.

You should pay around $100 per hour for a qualified person.

Jessica,

I would suggest some off page SEO if you have not done this already.  I have had phenomenal results in a situation like this.

Ron

You know one thing you may consider if you have not already is using Google voice so you can track calls for lead generation stats.

Like everything it depends...If the domain has good quality links, has generally performed well and is relevant to your category it might make sense.  If you are considering this you should evaluate the links closely to make sure that there is not a predominance of spammy ones.

If this is a locally relevant domain Local directory links are OK as long as they are relevant. Links from blogging or other attractive content are more valuable.  I would value the domain based on how much time it would take to get your domain to the same place versus what you think your time is worth.  A directory takes about 22 minutes and a higher value link(attractive content)  takes at least one hour on average.  I would add up the time and multiply this by your least expensive hourly rate and see if it makes sense.

I know this is a somewhat general response but the situation is somewhat fluid and requires some judgement calls.

All the best!

Ron

Jessica,

I would look at a few things.  First I was not clear on my earlier comment.  Have you set up all the local directories? This would be both Google and Bing local, yelp,text,merchant circle, etc...

Second I would look at relative review strength.  Your quantity and quality of reviews can be up to 40% of your ranking if everything else is equal.

Finally I would look at your competitive position on key words.  I would use a tool like Spyfu to find out how your content compares. If there are some short falls you can expend your content in these areas.

Ron

Sarah,

This is correct. Be sure to add local citation to each  G+ page if you have not done so already.  You may want to discuss google authorship with whomever is doing your content plan as this is a great way to get visibility in each area.

To set this up you will need to identify someone who is going to be the face of each branch,  You need then to set up a personal g+ page and set their attribution to the G+ page associated with their branch.

These steps could create some nice visibility if the content is written and attributed for each branch.

Otherwise you are right on track.

Ron

I do not believe adding a second landing page with zip plus city is a good idea.  i think you might even run the risk of a Google penalty. I think a better place to focus your efforts would be long tail key word sets related to the cities you are targeting.  I would include references to local landmarks as well as any video or photo content you have that support the desired key word set.

Jon,

I am willing to help as well but I need the data.   One other thing that I thought about based on Miriam's comments is you may want to use open site explorer to look at the relative in bound links, specifically local directories on the HQ vs the branch.  One thing that might have happened is whomever set up your directory listings gave a URL for HQ rather than the URL for the branch.

Ron

Jessica,

I was referring to on line reviews.I was specifically referring to Yelp, Google, and Bing.   I tell all my clients that their goal should be 10 reviews on each platform. I get a lot of pushback on Yelp because of the filters.  There is a perception that Yelp does not publish positive reviews. This is not true as ar as I can tell. What is true is that they do filter people out who do not write reviews on a regular basis.  Unfortunately the guys that review all the time often had a bad childhood ;).

So along with getting them to review I would encourage them to have their clients write multiple reviews while they are on Yelp.  A way to encourage people to write these reviews is that Google is using these local "citations" as evidence of a local establishment.  This will give companies a boost on mobile if people from the company are writing reviews on a regular basis.

Ron

Sarah,

It is absolutely worth filling everything out.  Google is coming out with several different ways to display the information outside of your G+ account. Google is a source that other data aggregators get their information from.  This information propagates to these other directories. This creates additional inbound links and local visibility.  So yes it is very worth filling this information out.

Nathan,

I would always recommend this.  This techniques gives you a higher quality score on pay per click while indexing on search.  As you build out your content and links your performance will get better and better.  This is also a good format for running software like Optimizely for conversion optimization.

I think this pruning process makes sense. Although this will potentially decrease key words it will streamline the navigation for the content that is actually getting traffic.  This will provide a better flow and potentially a lower bounce rate. Staging these cuts and monitoring the changes seems like a good way to manage your risk.

You did not specify how many links or what type of links.  If you are a local company the fastest way to improve results is to focus on your major local directories.  Once this is done you should look at Open site explorer to explore the directories and links your competition has to see if there are any that are applicable to you.  You might also want to check out Whitespark's tool for finding appropriate directories or links. On this type of thing more is better especially as stated above you make sure your links are high quality.

Bob,

It looks like you are doing a good job on link building.  Here are some other things you might consider:

1. Use Spyfu recon files to find out what content is getting clicks for your competitors.  Adjust your content plan to reflect this.

2. Up to 40% of your ranking can be reviews. Get at least 10 reviews on Yelp, Google and Bing

3. Do a case study on successes and give some sort of incentive if the blog gets 25 or more comments. For example a wedding photographer I know gives a $100 discount if the featured wedding party blog gets 25 comments.

4. Have owners and staff set up Yelp, G+ accounts with their workplace set up and get them to review other local businesses (the search engines are using these reviews as minor citations; strange I know ).

5. Set up google authorship.

Hope this helps,

Ron