Hi Jeff.

A few thoughts after looking at your site.

• your trust seals are in the footer, very small and almost impossible to see as the color matches the background. Knowing information like your site is a member of the BBB and you have "Certified Angus Beef" can only benefit your conversion rate. The primary reason I advise clients to add trust symbols to their sites is for conversion rates. Double their site and use colors. An example I like is www.vzw.com.

• Consider adding a special offer or some incentive for customers to order? "Free shipping on your first order". I realize shipping is a large expense for the company, but if you are offering an exceptional product and service, then it's a small price to pay for earning a customer who could potentially re-order on an ongoing basis.

• Perhaps a bit of salemanship on your front page. I don't specialize in marketing but I feel your home page lacks any clear incentive to order. Why should a consumer pay a minimum of $185 and fill their freezer with a lot of meat when they can purchase fresh meat from the grocery store every week? I am sure you have a good answer but perhaps you should let potential consumers know on the home page.

• I read the shipping information and learned you have special containers which somehow keeps the meats cold for 48 hours. I feel some form of education on this topic may be needed upfront. As a consumer, I am not educated on your product and I don't understand how you can keep meat properly chilled as it ships for 48 hours. I am sure you can educate me but it's important you educate potential customers upfront and not make them dig for the information.

I very much agree with Jason on the A/B testing and CrazyEgg.

Mike, the one point to clarify is whether you feel that Thomasnet.com is performing well? or whether the sites which pay Thomasnet.com for links are performing well?

If Thomasnet.com is not paying for any links themselves, then there is no reason for them not to perform well.

My understanding is that Google would penalize the BUYER of any links by removing the value of any paid links. There is much speculation about whether Google takes any additional steps. They could penalize the seller and they could further penalize the buyer, but I am not aware of any confirmation to either point.

Paid links do not pass link juice. What is causing you to believe otherwise in this case?

Also, I took a quick look at the site and noticed a Free Links link in the footer. I didn't investigate it but they may offer both paid and unpaid listings.

Take a look at the traffic on each version of the keyword phrase. Your primary focus should be the version of the phrase which generates the most traffic. I would also try to use each variation of the phrase throughout the article when possible.

Placing the navigation code at the bottom of your HTML is preferable from a SEO perspective.

I have never heard of any system that "had" to place the nav code at the bottom. I've always had to specifically request the nav code be moved to the bottom of the page. I am curious. What software are you working with that requires the code placed at the bottom?

Presently crawlers read your site's HTML code from top to bottom. By placing your nav code at the bottom you can associate anchor text with your content links rather then your navigation links, which is generally preferable. This reasoning is why I position the nav code at the bottom of the html code.

In the future that may change with HTML and other semantic markup offering the ability for crawlers to easily identify content, but for now your approach is preferable in my experience.