Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Neil,

Yes use rel=Canonical, by using this code you are telling Google which page to count.

Hi Chris,

The on-page factors are based on the keywords you want to target for each page. You can optimize them here.

Your site does not have many backlinks, I would recommend building a blog on your site with content that others will want to link to. The key here is to get traffic to your site that can learn from it, get entertained by it, or simply just find what they are looking for. I would also recommend getting involved with others in the same or similar niche. Follow them, interact with them, buy them a drink, and then ask them to help you share your article or contribute to it.

The design of your site looks good to me but I don't eat cheese. Unfortunetly there is no set it and forget it when it comes to design... It's more of a test it and then test it again to ensure that its converting. I like to use visualwebsiteoptimizer.com (A/B Testing) for this.

I also noticed that you don't have canonicals set up... I would recommend adding canonical codes to your pages.

Hope this helps.

The campaign tool is not guessing, it is taking the pages that rank for the term and showing.

If you want to check each page simply use this tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new

with the tool provided you can manually check the pages you want and the keywords on them.

It is impossible to get the card to 100% for more then one term however you can get it close.

** I just wish there were a way to tell the system what keyword we're trying to target with a particular page, rather than the tool pulling a keyword from the list and giving us an unwarranted "F."**

The "F" you are receiving for a page is only there because that page is already ranking in Google for the term you have selected.

For example:

If you set your keyword to "blue cat" in an SEOmoz campaign, it will check your entire website within Googles index. Every page of your site will be checked to see if it ranks in Google for the term "blue cat". SEOmoz will then return your results for the term "blue cat" if you by chance have a random page ranking for the term "blue cat" even if you did not specify the term on that page(target the term) it will show you the page where that term is ranking on the search engine. It will also grade the page for the specified term on the ranking page.

It is not pulling random data.

Lets say you wanted to rank for "blue cat" having your page set up like this:

URL: http://www.brand.com/blue-cat

Page Title:blue cat

H1:blue cat

body: blue cat

link on page: blue cat

This is considered over optimizing

Having your page set up like this:

URL: http://www.brand.com/blue-cat

Page Title:blue cat from the Brand

H1:Welcome to blue cat - where we painted our cat blue.

body: the blue cat has many friends and smells like paint. lorem ipsum etc. etc.

link on page: learn more about the blue cat

This is a page that uses diversity and still includes your main keyword phrase. This is how you protect your site prom the over optimizing.

This is not selecting random keywords... It is selecting keywords you chose for your campaign. Then it is telling you where you rank for each of those terms and which page's of your site are showing up in the SERP.

It also gives you your report card grade, just in case you would like to make some additional changes to that page, since it is already ranking for one of your selected keywords.

So your SEOmoz campaign takes your keyword, pulls the page that is ranking for that term and then grades it on which ever page is ranking. Not up to you rather up to the search engine.

I recommend using the report card tool for your main keywords and only targeting one keyword per page... Two max.

I like to think from a users perspective. When you type something into Google many times you will click on the title that shows exactly or close to the exact thing you were looking for.

SEOmoz report card recommends that you place your keyword as close to the beginning of the title. However do not use exact keyword in your URL/title/H1/Body, use diversity.

This does not really matter as much as it used to. I would not worry about having 120 links as long as they are there to help the user rather then manipulate the search engine. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday

Search engines look at your: URL / title tag / H1 / Body  but do not place your exact keyword in each of these because that is over optimizing.

If you keyword is "blue cheese" your title can be "blue cheese is my favorite dressing."

As far as meta description: this does not help SEO with spiders however having your keyword within this will result in having that term bold when searched.

Meta keywords are outdated, Google does nor count them and Bing consideres this a form of spam. Also having meta keywords will givre your competition your terms.

Just use this tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new

I would recommend focusing on one keyword per page. Two max..

I like to use this report card and only target one or two phrases max per page. just type the keyword phrase you want and which page you want that keyword phrase to rank for, just follow the instructions.

Tip: getting two keywords A's for one page will be extremely challenging.

By using them properly. Getting people in similar niches interacting with your profile (retweeting and commenting).

Follow industry leaders and interact with them, add value to their social presence and they will add value to yours.

We are working on a reputation management case and we learned that in order to help give more authority to a social media site is by using it properly.

Blog commenting is not a direct approach to a link. In other words majority of comments you make will allow you to place a link as your name (tip: use your name or company name), This is usually a no follow link which does not count for SEO. However, if you build relationships with other by commenting/contributing (adding value) on their posts (make them your friends) and interacting with them you can earn good quality links and mentions to your site/articles.

If you read an article and you disagree with it or want to add a bunch more value to it, you can write a post on your blog and in the comments of the article you want to contribute to you can leave that link. Although it's a no-follow link it adds value to the user and they are more likely to share it or link to it.

I would not recommend using social bookmarking services..

Someone asked this in the past and here's the endorsed answer: http://www.seomoz.org/q/social-bookmarking-2

I would highly recommend it and there are a handfull of opportunities available when utilized properly.

Three good articles.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-google-strategy

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/authorship-google-plus-link-building

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-plus-the-ultimate-you-sourced-search-engine

@EGOL lol/lmao..  @lifeQuotes I would focus on one site and add the SEOmoz blog feed to your RSS for some ideas : )

It's challenging but not impossible.

I would resubmit it : ) it's been 5 years.. A Directory link from DMOZ is very strong. Just make sure you place it in the correct category and follow their guidelines.

I clicked on the renters insurance tab however I don't see the 67 links. However I see the quick links to instant quotes which link to external sites like lifequotes.com.

I've never really heard of a microsite campaign however in my opinion yes it's bad because it's spread out.

I do know that having a URL structure of www.brandname/keyword allows you to build a brand rather than a bunch of micropages. Google wants to rank sites that will help their users.

I see,

However these are not exact match domains.

An exact match domain must be exact:

If I wanted to rank for cars and I had cars.com or cars.net those would be exact.

These are you links...

• Auto Insurance
• Business Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Health Insurance
• Home Insurance
• Renters Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Travel Insurance
• Long Term Care Insurance

These are your URLs:

online renters insurance - 210

Disability quotes - 480

consumer insurance guide - 58

life quotes - 301,000

renters insurance illinois - 46

e health insurance - 2,400

You have a gold URL out of all of these...

I would forget all the other URLs and invest all my time on lifequotes.com

You can still have lifequotes.com/auto-insurance and that counts as having the keyword in your URL. In fact Lifequote is your brand name in this case and all your anchored text which are [exact] will also look natural.

All have unique contact (about us, why us, benefits...).

Unique means exclusive one of a kind...

Type the URL you provided into: http://copyscape.com/ Seems like you have some duplicate content.

Also, I don't understand why you built soo many microsites.. You're better off having one quality website with all of the targeted keywords. It's easier to get ranking to a page that also has some Domain Authority.

AI agree with alice, I also like to add that the reasons for these updates is to fight search engine manipulation. SEOmoz is pro natural looking sites. These are guidelines however they are not rules.

If you look at a site like Zappos you can see that they do not follow the best practices for the report card however they are branded well and they built their site for users not bots.

I would recommend doing whatever it takes to find the contact information. Also take a look at these two articles they will help you:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/broken-link-building-guide-from-noob-to-novice

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/outreach-letters-for-link-building-real-examples-14902

It's probably a new domain that was 301 redirected from another site... Page Rank is passed to individual pages, therefore the PA can be higher then the DA. If my DA is 5 but NASA/CNN/ESPN links to one of my pages they pass their link juice to that page...

Yes it did become more complex and will continue to do so. However SEOmoz has always for the most part suggested building for the users within Googles guidelines.

I like to think of Google as the God of information and its rules as a bible that SEOs need to follow... Just like the bible everyone interpits it in their own way and tries to be good...

IT depends on your site design. I've seen a white board froda from Rand Fishkin on this and he mentions that it is great to create unique buttons for you social media links. i would put them around content that people like and want to share.

this should help:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/improving-social-subscription-calls-to-action-whiteboard-friday#comments

Sweet glad it worked out.

Yeah this makes sense, it's ok to have links within articles to other sites that help the users. However thousands of links appearing at once is playing rush and roulette with a fully loaded gun. IMO you are better off taking their content down then giving them thousands of followed links in one shot.

This is very tricky.. Giving them thousands of backlinks in one shot might raise a flag. However, are these links all anchored the same or would it look like natural links? (natural link profile = mostly URLs/brand mame some with exact/diverse anchor text.)

IMO they do deserve the credit for their work (do follow). However, doing all this in one shot with a thousand links is going to look like you sold them links/that they bought those links (NOT a natural progression). This may negatively influence both parties. I would recommend asking them if they are ok with a few links so it looks naturalt and let them pick the links they want. Also, let them know that by you giving them thousands of links in one shot can hurt their site...

Pretty sure http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com lets you do all that and they will give you a 30 day trial.. Try it out : )

First off a 301 redirect takes a few weeks (2-12) to fully work.

Second off you can send google a letter of reconsideration if you feel you were penalized. However I would give the 301 redirect a little boit of time to transfer your link juice. Also when you do a 301 i've heard that only 80% of your link juice will transfer. I like to contact my best links and have them link directly to the new site.

Yes : )

You can add the SEOmoz tool bar. http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar

This will show you DA (domain authority) PA (Page Authority) and it has many other options for your research.

Then it is a followed link and will pass the link juice.

As long as the link has a "DO Follow" attribute it will pass link juice. If you do not want to pass link juice use the "no follow" attribute. In other words. However usually affiliate links do not pass the link juice only direct.

Do a who.is search on the blog and it will show you any name/email associated with this account. Once you have the email kindly request a link removal.

My favorite is Wordpress with the Yoast plugin. here is an article to help you set it up for best SEO results: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success

Actually no. I checked and both sites are in google.com the .ie and the .co.uk

I don't know if this will be considered duplicate content. However the fact that google automatically detects this in their webmaster tools makes me think that this will most likely be ok he way it is.

No because Google already knows that this site is the same for two different Google search engines. A good test to ensure that this is not looking like duplicate content is by taking some content from one of the sites (that is exact on both sites) and pasting it into Google.ie to see if it is duplicated.   If both sites come up then it may look like duplication. However i'm not 100% sure about this.

I deleted it myself.. Sorry I deleted after I reread the question : )

I found this article it should help:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-international-versions-of-websites

If they offer 10 services I would use this URL: domain.com/lawn-mowing.html however you may want to link to it from a services page (domain.com/services.html ---> domain.com/lawn-mowing.html) here is a good WBF on internal linking : http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday

It depends,

Doing a 301 will transfer the search engine/user from Page A to Page B which is fine. However, if Page B and Page C have a similar URL structure like the first example you gave I would recommend using a canonical tag.

I would recommend using a canonical tag in any case, to let the search engine spider know which page you want it to crawl. If the content/URL is very similar on two pages or more I would highly recommend it to avoid duplication.

Did you do a 301 redirect from one site to the other?

Many directory sites were affected by penguin..http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-directory-submission-danger

First look at the link profile of the site you are linking to here OSE Once you do a search click on the Anchor Text tab and see how the links are pointing in. Google wants your links to look natural: 50-70% branded/URL and 30-50% linking with diversity/exact anchor text (the keywords you are after)...

Yes I agree, If you cannot get all the features with a dedicated CMS as Rand suggests a static site without a CMS is better.

Hi Krista,

If the old data is useful to users I would update all of it. If the old data is useless to the users I would create good new data and optimize the newer posts.

Now when you say optimize... are you referring to just adding links to the existing content? If so.. I would also be careful having a bunch of links pop up all at once will not look natural : ) If all your doing is adding some links I would not do it all at once... Space it out, maybe do 1-3 a day..

Their are many CMS platforms available...It all depends on how you plan on using your site: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/choosing-the-right-cms-platform-for-your-website-from-an-seo-perspective

Oh yes and this SEOmoz article really breaks it down: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-links-with-video-content

There was a WBF on transcripts for videos a while back: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/video-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday-11080