Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
Having the blog on a subdomain, e.g. blog2.site.com also runs the risk of not benefiting the primary domain, in terms of inbound links to the blog.
The best bet is to have the blog at site.com/blog or have it anywhere and setup a reverse proxy so it resolves at site.com/blog.
Here is a great article/infographic on the reverse proxy: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-is-a-reverse-proxy-and-how-can-it-help-my-seo
I hear there is a cool site with a bunch of great SEO resources. It's called SEOmoz. 
Agreed. From a branding/UX perspective it is key. I'm just making sure there isn't anything that can hurt things. Like you said though -- if it's for the user and natural it should be fine.
Many of the big guns like 1800 Flowers, Diapers.com and others all have their sister sites in tabs at the top.
Example: http://www.diapers.com/ with their 3 other properties.
Since all properties link to one another on every page, it's really a wash, right? No real gain as engines know they are connected and it's the same link multiple times. No real problem either as it's natural for the user experience to have reciprocal links here between the brands.
Any additional thoughts here?
Ha, I agree, though I think it gradually starts skewing in one direction.
Keys things to consider:
1. Video sitemap is key
2. You don't have to physically host the video assets to accomplish this. Most of the legit platforms (BrightCove, LiveClicker, Wistia) have a feature where they still host, but you indicate the URL of the page the video resides on, for the same effect.
3. The platforms (Wistia in particular) make it very easy to automate the site map and specify meta info for each video.
4. At the end of the day, you have to have great video content. (solid content and solid quality). Too many people right now are producing really bad video, and this will come back to hurt them. With great content, video can be a fantastic tool in the arsenal.
See my comment below. Just saw this note: There may be some stuff you still need to tweak, but it should save a lot of time. I'll post again after we dig in a bit. Again, on first glance it looks pretty clean and well worth it.
Hi Kevin,
Interesting timing. We JUST made the decision to switch from BigCommerce to Magento, and last Wednesday I discovered Ultimento. On first glance a lot of the customer reviews looked fake, but there are hundreds so I'm hoping that's not the case.
Long story short, from my research it looks like a lot of the features can be accomplished individually with different Magento extensions and such. That said, it looks like it can save you time. We have a lot of moving parts (which I'm guessing you do to) so went ahead with it and opted for the middle package (I think it was $300 or so) if it saves at least some time it will be well worth it for us. Plus, Magento can be finicky so I'm hoping it makes things a little less painless. This is our first Magento project so we are looking to reduce any pain points. (I've done a lot of research on speed enhancements and hosting if you want to discuss).
Ultimento also appeared to have some helpful features (not SEO related) that we will take advantage of. Again, doable with different extensions, but I like how it's all packaged up.
My developer is testing out Ultimento as I type this. My main question is if there are any customization limitations with it. We're doing some fairly custom stuff, so hopefully not.
I can circle back later this week with some more input on it after we test it out a bit. On first glance it's very clean though and the install was pretty quick.
Feel free to send me a message if you want to talk further about it (or other Magento items) offline.
Good luck!
Ha -- SEOmoz should offer a license/white-label of the forum technology. I'm sure there are many others (have not shopped yet) but I like this one.
Agreed with Simon. Look at tons of huge online retailers like Zappos. Just needs to be done right and you're fine.
Have you already gone through all the SEOmoz PRO resources? If not, I'd definitely start there.
Hi Kevin,
Interesting timing. We JUST made the decision to switch from BigCommerce to Magento, and last Wednesday I discovered Ultimento. On first glance a lot of the customer reviews looked fake, but there are hundreds so I'm hoping that's not the case.
Long story short, from my research it looks like a lot of the features can be accomplished individually with different Magento extensions and such. That said, it looks like it can save you time. We have a lot of moving parts (which I'm guessing you do to) so went ahead with it and opted for the middle package (I think it was $300 or so) if it saves at least some time it will be well worth it for us. Plus, Magento can be finicky so I'm hoping it makes things a little less painless. This is our first Magento project so we are looking to reduce any pain points. (I've done a lot of research on speed enhancements and hosting if you want to discuss).
Ultimento also appeared to have some helpful features (not SEO related) that we will take advantage of. Again, doable with different extensions, but I like how it's all packaged up.
My developer is testing out Ultimento as I type this. My main question is if there are any customization limitations with it. We're doing some fairly custom stuff, so hopefully not.
I can circle back later this week with some more input on it after we test it out a bit. On first glance it's very clean though and the install was pretty quick.
Feel free to send me a message if you want to talk further about it (or other Magento items) offline.
Good luck!
Ha -- SEOmoz should offer a license/white-label of the forum technology. I'm sure there are many others (have not shopped yet) but I like this one.
Agreed with CafePress.
You can still focus on long-tail, but on your own domain. So www.familysite.com/long-tale-insurance-page.html etc
I'd definitely focus on long tail and also local modifiers. Insurance is probably one of the top 5 most competitive (from an SEO perspective) businesses. Would recommend not focusing your entire marketing portfolio on SEO. may be some great social opportunities, especially if you're local/regional.
My 2 cents.
Take the time spent on thinking and researching purchased links and spend it on developing great content and building solid relationships.
You may find some helpful comments on a discussion I started last week. We were in a situation where we are starting a new video/content blog with issues putting it on the root. Finally made the decision to move to a platform that allows us more flexibility with this (for this and other reason).
http://www.seomoz.org/q/a-blog-structure-dilemma-we-re-facing
Why not build engagement and recommend growing a profile?
Is her business located in Canada (e.g. she has a physical Canadian office address that will be on the site)?
I would recommend that, along with the .ca, plus dozens of other factors to specifically target Canada.
