Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I use Wordpress and recommend it to clients. As well as the advantages already listed you will find it very easy to set up author/contributor accounts for your regular writers in order to streamline the publishing process.

You need to comply with UK consumer law - the main laws which apply are the Sale of Goods Act and Distance Selling Regulations. This page has links to guidance on both issues http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/advice-business.cfm

Local Trading Standards offices, who deal with customer complaints in their areas, can be very helpful in making sure your Terms & Conditions comply with UK law. As our business developed we liaised with our local Trading Standards team on these issues, but I'm not sure who you would deal with if you don't have a UK office.

VAT is at a flat rate with the exception of some offshore areas where there is no VAT, and a lower rate applies to certain products/situations. I'm no expert on this but some of our customers have mentioned lower VAT on heating appliances for newbuild properties. You're best off going direct to the UK tax office for information on VAT - http://www.uk-tax-office.co.uk/

Also the European law on cookies is just coming into force, so you need to make sure you're okay on this front as well http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx

If you take the premise that the most valuable links are acquired by forming real relationships with people the strategy you propose seems short-sighted as you would be building relationships on a basis of deception.

As you haven't provided a URL I can't make any evaluation of how off-puttingly commercial your site appears. However, there is an alternate approach open to you, albeit one which requires more work.

My instinctive response to this problem would be to look for a way to make my site more attractive to the non-profits rather than hoping to get away with deceiving them. Perhaps this could be accomplished by dedicating part of the site to provision of free resources. Perhaps there are ways you could help the non-profits, or natural ways to show that you are about more than just the bottom line. There are many ways you can get what you want by giving people what they want - the non-profits may have a different agenda to you but there are probably ways to foster relationships by serving their needs http://www.seomoz.org/blog/99-ways-to-build-links-by-giving-stuff-away-and-improve-your-brand-too-14029

Suppose you use your "neutral" page to get links and it works. What happens when a potential customer clicks through to your neutral page? You miss the opportunity to convert engagement with your free resource into awareness of your product offering. It's like inviting people to the opening of a store with the offer of a free buffet then covering up all the products.

Although this strategy could bring some link juice to your root domain, it would be directed to a page you really don't want to rank or even for normal visitors to see. Seems like a waste to me! Personally I would be reluctant to devalue a linkbait page by "neutralising" it or to employ deceptive practices to promote a website. People don't like deception, search engines don't like deception, and if linking sites realise you've deceived them you are likely to lose the links.

I went through a phase of getting really frustrated about seeing competitors succeeding with dodgy link tactics. Then I decided to focus on differentiating our sites from competitors with great content, great usability and outreach into relevant communities. This wasn't just some random mission - I analysed site performance before and after SEO  began (we were late adopters of SEO) and realised that we are now converting and generating revenue much more effectively even though we don't yet dominate the SERPs quite to our heart's desire! With 13 retail sites to look after I simply don't have time to start a crusade against competitors employing dubious tactics.

Black hat SEO can help a site to achieve high rankings, but it can't make visitors buy. If you are selling any product you still have to make shopping a comfortable experience, present your products well and most of all gain the trust of your visitors so they will take the plunge and complete an order.

By all means report as you go along if you come across something Google might take seriously, but stay focused on developing and promoting your own site.

I found this really helpful for getting started with link building http://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professional-guide-to-link-building-2011

Other than the general issue that it can take weeks for the changes you make on site to have an effect on rankings, I've found with Wordpress that a large batch of tweaks seems to have a negative effect for a couple of weeks (trial and error is such fun!). Wordpress is really good about pinging the search engines, so more than a handful of tweaks at any one time can look like ping spam even if you're actually improving your site.

You don't say anything about off-site work. If you are being beaten by competitors with better link networks then the on-site tweaks simply won't be enough. If you haven't already done some competitive analysis for your most important keywords I would do that next to see where your weaknesses are.

People won't be able to access the data using the link you gave - it's within your secure user account.

How to fix the problems (and even whether they are fixable) varies depending what platform you are using. Also, multiple issues can cause the same warning or error. You have to look at the pages generating the errors and warnings to work out what the problem is and choose the right solution.

You're more likely to get the help you need if you focus a single question on a single type of warning or error and make sure you mention what platform you are using as well as giving a couple of URLs for affected pages. That way people can help you go through the problems one at a time and give you answers relevant to your situation.

For judging site quality I find it helpful to look at domain level metrics such as mozRank, mozTrust and domain authority, and I also use Alexa to check traffic levels. I also physically look at sites to see if they seem professional/trustworthy/usable.

I think you just have to try to get a feel for what is more or less natural then take a common sense approach. For example

• A link which you don't control looks more natural than a link you do control (such as a directory with a non-refundable review charge vs a directory which charges for inclusion)
• An editorial link from a blog which links to many sites looks more natural than an editorial link from a blog that only links to your site
• A moderate selection of comment links on relevant blogs looks more natural than a huge amount of comment links on random blogs
• A moderate selection of links from quality directories looks more natural than a huge amount of links from spammier directories
• A link from a relevant site looks more natural than a link from an irrelevant site
• A link given in an editorial context looks more natural than a link originating from a links page
• A link from a relevant professional organisation looks more natural than a link from a random club
• A link profile with a broad mixture of link types looks more natural than one heavily skewed towards one link type

I'm importing traffic data for several websites from a single Analytics account which contains most of our profiles. I just followed the normal procedure for setting up Analytics access then selected the correct profile within the Analytics account.

I have a mixture of on-site and off-site blogs, which were all set up in the last 9 months. Time and time again I've seen upward SERP movement for keywords recently targeted in on-site blog posts, but I haven't seen comparable shifts for sites which just have an off-site blog.

It really annoys me when off-site blogs attract organic links which I would prefer went to an on-site blog. That said, I can't quantify whether it is more appealing to link to a blog which refers traffic to an eCommerce site rather than to a blog on an eCommerce site - I think it would influence the choice to give a link in some cases, but I can't prove it.

We may find over time that the off-site blogs attract enough links to pass decent link juice. We do know from customer feedback that some people are buying from us rather than competitors specifically because they found the blogs helpful, even when the blogs were off-site only.

Although I lean towards predominantly using on-site blogs, I think there is a place in a marketing campaign for having a presence in other places whether through external blogs or careful article placement.

I think what's really important here for SEO is that you've got an on-site blog, and the blog is on a decent platform. And what's the alternative to your Wordpress blog - a Magento blog module?

I've been asking our technical team for ages to change the blogs on our Magento sites from a Magento blog module to a Wordpress platform (should be done in the next few weeks :D). I've found our current blog module such a pain to work with that I would cut off my arm and eat it before I would use it on any site of my own.

When you have to update a blog regularly you need a comfortable and flexible user interface, and Wordpress gives you this. When you need to present articles in a professional and attractive way on a commercial website, Wordpress makes this easy. When you need to make SEO tweaks like global changes to a tag name Wordpress makes this easy.

If you have good content and the blog is accessible you should be fine.

Can it cause cannibalism? It depends on the words you use.

We don't currently use short descriptions but it's a proposal that's on the table. I think that when it's done well it can add real value to site users, with potential to improve click-through from category pages. If we go ahead I won't be keyword stuffing those short descriptions - I'll be using them to differentiate different (but similar) products within a category and trying to work in references to the benefits and advantages of products. It's like the poster campaign for a movie - ideally you want a good image, a memorable title and a catchy strapline that gets you interested in finding out more.

We've had this on a move from osCommerce to Magento. We had a scary drop in rankings and traffic then everything gradually picked up again. I'd say we were back to normal within 2-3 weeks. We made the move at our quietest time of year - this was a good decision as the impact on cash flow was minimised and we had plenty of time to deal with any problems. We'll be going through it again in a few months for one of our other sites, but again we will make the change during our quietest period. Unless there is some urgent reason for them to make the change now I would advise them to hold off until a quieter time - this sort of project can throw up unexpected delays and technical issues, and you want to prevent consequential financial losses as far as possible.

Answering this question "to be found in search engines" is not the right way to go with a client who is concerned about their bottom line. The answer they need to hear is "to make more money", so you need to answer in terms of financial benefits such as

• Reduction of PPC costs
• Increased revenue from long tail search
• Increase in unpaid traffic
• Increased revenue from unpaid traffic
• Increase in Per Visit Value
• Improved conversion rates

SEO doesn't just improve SERP performance - it can also improve website usability and make a better impression on site visitors, thereby having a positive impact on conversions. When our original SEO specialist, who I had been assisting, left the company I had to make a solid financial case for continuing in that role myself. A trawl through Analytics provided an abundance of evidence of financial benefits on all the above points.

Quality content is great so long as people see it. Quality content will attract links effortlessly so long as people see it. People are more likely to see your great content if you rank well in the SERPs. SERP performance improves when you build links. Essentially, spending time link building will make it easier to attract organic links because more people will see your content in the first place.

When asking if link building is worthwhile try looking at the full keyword difficulty reports for any important keywords for which you are outranked, and do a point by point comparison between your site and your competitors for each keyword. If you find you are being outranked by sites whose main advantage over you is stronger link profiles that tells you it is worthwhile to build links.

People won't be able to access the data using the link you gave - it's within your secure user account.

How to fix the problems (and even whether they are fixable) varies depending what platform you are using. Also, multiple issues can cause the same warning or error. You have to look at the pages generating the errors and warnings to work out what the problem is and choose the right solution.

You're more likely to get the help you need if you focus a single question on a single type of warning or error and make sure you mention what platform you are using as well as giving a couple of URLs for affected pages. That way people can help you go through the problems one at a time and give you answers relevant to your situation.

No, but I found this very helpful for getting started http://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professional-guide-to-link-building-2011

Other than the general issue that it can take weeks for the changes you make on site to have an effect on rankings, I've found with Wordpress that a large batch of tweaks seems to have a negative effect for a couple of weeks (trial and error is such fun!). Wordpress is really good about pinging the search engines, so more than a handful of tweaks at any one time can look like ping spam even if you're actually improving your site.

You don't say anything about off-site work. If you are being beaten by competitors with better link networks then the on-site tweaks simply won't be enough. If you haven't already done some competitive analysis for your most important keywords I would do that next to see where your weaknesses are.

If you take the premise that the most valuable links are acquired by forming real relationships with people the strategy you propose seems short-sighted as you would be building relationships on a basis of deception.

As you haven't provided a URL I can't make any evaluation of how off-puttingly commercial your site appears. However, there is an alternate approach open to you, albeit one which requires more work.

My instinctive response to this problem would be to look for a way to make my site more attractive to the non-profits rather than hoping to get away with deceiving them. Perhaps this could be accomplished by dedicating part of the site to provision of free resources. Perhaps there are ways you could help the non-profits, or natural ways to show that you are about more than just the bottom line. There are many ways you can get what you want by giving people what they want - the non-profits may have a different agenda to you but there are probably ways to foster relationships by serving their needs http://www.seomoz.org/blog/99-ways-to-build-links-by-giving-stuff-away-and-improve-your-brand-too-14029

Suppose you use your "neutral" page to get links and it works. What happens when a potential customer clicks through to your neutral page? You miss the opportunity to convert engagement with your free resource into awareness of your product offering. It's like inviting people to the opening of a store with the offer of a free buffet then covering up all the products.

Although this strategy could bring some link juice to your root domain, it would be directed to a page you really don't want to rank or even for normal visitors to see. Seems like a waste to me! Personally I would be reluctant to devalue a linkbait page by "neutralising" it or to employ deceptive practices to promote a website. People don't like deception, search engines don't like deception, and if linking sites realise you've deceived them you are likely to lose the links.

You need to comply with UK consumer law - the main laws which apply are the Sale of Goods Act and Distance Selling Regulations. This page has links to guidance on both issues http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/advice-business.cfm

Local Trading Standards offices, who deal with customer complaints in their areas, can be very helpful in making sure your Terms & Conditions comply with UK law. As our business developed we liaised with our local Trading Standards team on these issues, but I'm not sure who you would deal with if you don't have a UK office.

VAT is at a flat rate with the exception of some offshore areas where there is no VAT, and a lower rate applies to certain products/situations. I'm no expert on this but some of our customers have mentioned lower VAT on heating appliances for newbuild properties. You're best off going direct to the UK tax office for information on VAT - http://www.uk-tax-office.co.uk/

Also the European law on cookies is just coming into force, so you need to make sure you're okay on this front as well http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx