Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi James, don't worry everyone's gotta start somewhere.  This is normal if you 've just had a brand new site built.  You want links from other domains, and the best kind of links aren't the kind that you have any control over (someone links to you naturally because the content is useful). This stuff takes time

You may want to start by submitting to some reputable directories related to your niche.  Check out SEOmoz's directory list.

...oh and btw, open site explorer gives some great insight, but it's not as accurate as your own Google webmaster tools.

This may not be the most productive Q&A discussion, but I've had some really interesting experiences this last month that have made me even more distrusting of "SEO" companies.

I can't help but think of this post (not much has changed since '09).  Even though it takes a pretty extreme stance, I agree with the core of it -

_"The problem with SEO is that the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work, and it’s poisoning the web."   _

I didn't start doing this type of work wanting to have such a negative opinion of SEO companies, but I just keep having the same experience:

I'll get referred to someone who isnt' happy with their SEO company.  They send me their web address, I check out the site, and seriously can't believe what I find.

MISSING PAGE TITLES, EVERY CANONICAL URL ISSUE IMAGINABLE, AND 10'S OF THOUSANDS OF BOT SPAM EMAT LINKS FROM PAGES LIKE THIS...AND THIS

and just recently a company a called one of my clients and conned him into paying for this piece of spam garbage, obviously scraped from the site that I made for him. 

and what's worse, sometimes for whatever reason these companies will have all the client's FTP and CMS logins and it can be hell trying to get them to hand them over.  There's no webmaster tools set up, no analytics, nothing....

These businesses are paying a good chunk of change every month, I just can't believe stuff like this is so common...well acutally, it's what i've come to expect this point.  But I used to think most SEO companies actually had their clients best interest at heart.

Does every honest consultant out there run into this same type of stuff constantly? How common is this type of stuff really?

Now, on to the positive.  This community rocks, and I feel like it represents real, ethical, solution-oriented, boundary-less SEO.  So thank you Mozzers for all you do.  and I love using the tools here to help businesses understand why they need an honest person helping them.

If anyone has thoughts on the topic, I'd love to hear 'em...

There's two sides to SEO.  Primarily, like you said it should be making improvements that help search engines properly crawl and idex the site.  On-page SEO is easy in sense, because the best practices are well established.

Off page SEO is where everything gets shady, way too many SEO companies automating link building, dummy sites with all scraped content, article spinners, the list goes on....
I just fixed up a site that an SEO company had been "building links" for over the last year.  The site didn't have keywords in the title tags, had tons of duplicate url issues, repeated content all over the place, etc.  Stuff like that just blows my mind, seen it quite a bit.Good SEO should be a solution based on what a client actually needs.  Most of the time they won't know, so it's on us to do our research and find out.  We need to research the niche, the competition, the whole 9 if we wanna actually provide value.

At first glance I would not be worried about it.  I tend to think those types of links won't hurt unless they're extremely excessive/abusive.. else negative SEO could really get out of hand.  And you're website has some very strong relevant links pointing to it already.

GoogleBot does obey the rel="nofollow" attribute.. as for rel="follow" - I don't think so.  The only other place I've seen that is in spam blog comments (as a desperate attempt to override the blog's default "no-follow")....

Theme developers normally provide direct support for the themes they sell.  So it really depends who you purchased your theme from.

If you bought it directly from a vendor like woothemes, themify, etc., then you will definitely find support options on the website where you made the purchase.

If you bought your theme from a marketplace like themeforest.com, then you'd need to log back in and look for the developer or theme author - they will have some sort of theme support option through they're author profile.  If they don't, then they're probably not the most reputable vendor.

Also many SEO improvements won't be theme-dependent and are easy to make with the help of plugins like YoastSEO or All in One SEO pack.

What kinds of things are you trying to do? I may be able to point you in the right direction...

Thank you Nick, you make some really great points.  I may complain, but ultimately it just means there's a huge opportunity to provide value, which is great for guys like us. I'm not exactly having trouble finding work these days.

It' just really too bad that business owners have had it drilled into their heads that enough links pointing to their site with the right anchor text = serp domination.  I've even heard the retort from these SEO goons - "well, if that wasn't true, why does Adobe reader rank so well for "download now"?...too funny.

I think you're right, in the long run the truth will prevail, and business owners stop getting royally ripped off.  Have good weekend Nick!

Any link that points to an external url technically has the http protocol, it just may be inferred or added by a browser/visual editor, etc. - so it's all the same to a search engine.

There is a difference between http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com, or any other time a single resource has multiple URL's...and this does matter. You don't need to try to control how you're linked to (cuz you can't) but make these duplicate url's are canonicalized (rel="canonical") or 301 redirected, so that search engines don't see it as duplicate content.

Here's Mr. Cutts explaining 301 vs. rel="canonical" in case you're headed down that road.

Hi Larry,

I don't think you'll find any "plugins" on Moz.  This site is one helluva of a bootstrap based custom solution.

But if you're looking for a nice social plugin for wordpress - I like simple social icons.

You backup your database from "tools" in the dashboard, and make a copy of your wp-content folder, reinstall wordpress, replace the new wp-content with the old, import the database file...no quicker way as far as I know.

But you can always ask in a wordpress forum and see what people say, or consult the wordpress codex.

Thanks for chiming in.  and this is more than a difference in quality of work we're talking about. One of 2 things is going on in these situations: honest business owners are being conned, or these SEO companies really are that incompetent.  I have trouble believing it's the latter.

Let's say I took my car into a mechanic.  He tells me I need a new transmission, blah blah - charges me 5K, and I pay it.  Then he doesn't touch my car, parks it out back for a week, and calls me back saying his guys worked extra hard, I only owe 1K more, but everything is golden.  This is criminal, and it's exactly what's happening in our industry.

I also believe it's absolutely useful, ODP data still gets aggregated by smaller search engines, other directories, etc...but like Robert said it's not gaurunteed, pay close attention to make sure you choose the most appropriate category and the listing description/title is quality for the best chances.

Good luck!

Hey Tyler, I deal with this same type of thing quite often.  and I'm with you, I wish companies like dex would leave my clients alone.  IMO you are absolutely right,  and I always recommend having 1 single domain - unless there's a darn good reason to do otherwise.

It will hurt traffic/rank to the main domain, or in a best case scenario just be absolutely pointless.  Your client's a local biz - which site will they link to from all their listings, social profiles, and all that?  Let's say someone writes an article about them in a local blog - which site should they link to?  Multiple domains for this type of business will either dilute your SEO efforts or be a waste of resources.  Not to mention be confusing for visitors and install a lack of trust like you were saying.

A website is not inherently an owned asset...you have to own the domain name, the content, etc. for it to actually be valuable to a business.  So you're definitely advising correctly

and yea, that link they sent you has nothing to do with organic search.

You know, I think you have your keywords in the right places that it shouldn't be an issue of relevance.  Just about every popular news site would be given an on-page "F" by the grader for general searches like that.  But popular news sites also have large amounts of natural backlinks/socialshares/etc...

Hope I'm not being too harsh here, but don't expect a magic wand in your situation.  A quick link profile comparison between you and your competitors is enough to raise an eyebrow, and the ad-banner/logo combo in your header kind of begs a bounce.

Not every improvement that effects rank is an "SEO" improvement.  If I were you I would focus on making my site the absolute best experience it can be for my visitors - both in user experience and quality of written content.

Ok, I'm not gonna put anyone on blast by name, but this imgur album outta give you a better idea of the kind of nonsense we're talking about here...

wait...or did I just stumble upon the hottest new SEO secret?  Time to add some "Google pages" to my clients sites.  Ay yay yay....

iuRm3

You are definitely approaching it right.  Like you said, there has to be something in it for them. It seems like a good idea to me, but also seems like some serious work.  Getting 'em designed, printed could get pricey...and since it's not digital, how would you modify the bakery listings as time goes on to reflect which bakeries link and which ones don't?  Seems like you'd almost need a monthly publication...it's a tough one.  If you can somehow digitize this idea I think it'll be a lot easier for you.

When you use the on-page grader from "within the campaign" (sub-navigation below the campaign name, you'll see a drop-down of your keywords)....it updates once a week, but not instantly.   If you go to the page grader tool from "research tools" up in the main nav, you'll have the option to manually enter any keyword -  and this is where your grades will update instantly.  But just know that for the grades to be saved and updated weekly in your campaign, you have to grade from "within the campaign."

As for keywords maybe optimize for "digital marketing phillipines" and "phillipines digital marketing agency" - having your keywords in the title is pretty darn important.  This way you can target both keywords while only having your location in the title once...hope this helps.

I would go after a synonym or some long-tail terms.  If your home page targets "example apartments," you could target a phrase like "model apartments" or "types of apartments" - and of course do a little research into search volumes and related keywords.

Hi PJ,  to make sure the sitemap actually gets crawled, its a good idea to have it linked.  This way search crawlers hit that link and then the sitemap - which obviously has links to all pages,  categories, etc. as well as info about how important pages are and how often they change.

The point is just to make sure your pages and images get properly indexed - you can also submit xml sitempaps and check up on indexing in google webmaster tools.

I would assume it's a combination of what you mentioned, how long that listing page has existed, and how well it's linked to internally.

I am surprised what OSE doesn't pick up sometimes, but it's still the best thing out there for competitor analysis.  I'm sure it will continue to improve and it may very well pick up those links in the future.

Out of the 4 sites I help that have BBB listings not a one shows in OSE.  And the listings have existed for years.  Google Webmaster Tools shows them though, so assume they're not going unnoticed by Google.

click on "research tools" on the very top navigation.  From the research tools page click on the page grader.  From here you can run it over again and the info will update.

Hi Houses, and your GA code is probably fine.  It's javascript, so nothing wrong with it being before closing body.  I actually don't even think it matters as much with the asynchronous tracking codes.

and my first reaction to this read was the same as EGOL's.  Permalinks changed, old ones didn't get redirected. This is essentially like starting over (for those pages, not entire domain), if it's a new url, it's a new page to search engines.

and just so you know, most CMS' make it darn easy to implement redirects, or usually your hosting account will have some kind 301 tool.  It's literally as easy as typing the old url, the one that replaced it, then clicking "ok".

I've seen a lot of un-optimized competitor sites get pushed back to page 2 and taken over by listings in the past couple months.  But, the sites I take care of that don't have dupe content issues, mass spam links, and silly keyword stuffing are doing great!

I don't think engines are favoring anyone....I just think things are evolving, and local business websites need work!  They tend to be crippled with technical issues,  and have over-optimized copy and no real backlinks.  And a lot of businesses are linking to their own Yelp or directory profile from the homepage of their website, sometimes anchored with the keywords they want to rank for.  Lot's of issues going on here.

Hi Gary,

You'll want to verify Pinterest just as the instructions say.  Google doesn't actually use the Pinterest verification for anything - verifying just allows you to link to your domain from your Pinterest profile - google's gonna crawl and index it either way.
So google will know the link is there, but honestly, don't count on social profile links like this making much of a difference for SEO.  However, if you're active and connected on that network, pinterest can sure drive some referral traffic to your site. Hope that helps!

Honestly it would be very hard to tell just based on that screenshot.  Links are a quality over quantity thing so the numbers alone won't tell us much.  By errors do you mean on-site errors? - duplicate content, missing metainfo, etc.  Getting those taken care of should be a prerequisite, so sounds like your on the right track.

If you want to tell us the domains I might be able to be more helpful....Best of Luck!

You could always customize a report and have it emailed weekly to your consultant.  Not quite the same, I know - but an easy way to share data with someone without having them log in as you.

Do you want the "clients" page to rank/pass rank back to your clients?  I don't think there's much value in a page of outbound links for rankings, but It shouldn't hurt you - as long as its just one page to a site of real content.

A list of clients can be valuable for visitors though like was said - establishing credibility, etc. Keep the page for visitors but don't count on it mattering much to search engines or passing rank.

It's not something you'll be penalized for, but you may find it naturally harder to build value for a second site.  Which one do you list on your business/directory/social profiles?  Which one would you refer customers to? or tell someone else to link to you with?  It's easy to wind up diluting your efforts.  Not saying you shouldn't do it, but just make sure you're confident it's worth your while, and obviously rewrite content and you should be fine.

I wouldn't worry about consistency with unstructured citations (loose mentions of your company), because it can be hard to ensure anyway.  You want to make sure your "structured citations" are consistent.  So your directory listings basically - places, yahoo, etc.  This is what you definitely want to match up with your NAP.and I would def use the correct schema.org markup. which makes it easier for crawlers to understand your structured data. Hope this helps you out!

You don't have to set up wordpress on a subdomain.  And I probably wouldn't unless you're just looking to add a blog to your an existing site.

My opinion is that wordpress is hands down the most SEO-friendly CMS out there, and much less time-consuming to optimize than anything else.  You can create clean permalinks in 2 clicks, it basically handles the .htaccess stuff for you.  Also, the wordpress SEO plugin from Yoast makes it real easy optimize.

There was a good Wordpress SEO mozinar the other day that you might find helpful also.

http://moz.com/webinars/hands-on-answers-to-the-most-asked-wordpress-qestions

Hi Scott - does the url on your places listing point to the same page that dropped out of the organic serps?  This is pretty normal, Google just doesn't give an organic and local spot to the same page of a website.  But the authority of that page is still helping you earn your places rank.

For phrases that have any competition at all, it's nearly impossible to appear in the local pack with an address that doesn't correspond to the city of search.  It's just kind of the way local works.

Hi Jason,

Check out how the skirmish site's incoming links are anchored.  The majority use the exact keyword "paintball nottingham"....  A natural link profile most of the time that means your anchors are your brand name or actual URL - with just a dash of the keyword related phrases.

and do you know about these? - http://www.skirmish-site.co.uk/venue/paintball-chesterfield/wsdindex.html

Hope that helps

Yea you want to run a "self-hosted wordpress" to get the real SEO value out of it.  It's totally different than wordpress.com

http://wpmu.org/wordpress-org-vs-wordpress-com/

The benefit of wordpress is you won't have to be programmer to fix duplicate url issues and a lot of the technical stuff.  It's not that a wordpress site "ranks better" or something...it's just easier to keep technical issues from holding you back in my opinion.

I wouldn't say you've "stuffed keywords" because there's really not enough written copy for them to be stuffed into.I would get a little more detail in those product descriptions. Give them crawlers a little something to sink their teeth into.

The page grader is useful but it's really more of a guideline.  especially when you're optimizing for long-tail phrases like that. Dont' feel like you need an 'A' for that page to do well in search.

I've actually seen this happen quite a bit.  I work with a lot of service area businesses who take this same strategy.

I think the pigeon-holing comes into play because of the off-site signals (maybe a bunch of listings with a Dallas address and link to your homepage?)  ...I don't think hcard, schema, etc. do much to keep it from happening.

So what I wind up doing most of the time is optimizing the home-page for their primary high-traffic city, or headquarters.  Unless they're actually trying to rank nationally and it seems possible, it's the way to go.  I've seen huge advantages doing it this way - especially if you have the off-site signals to go with it (which I would guess you do).

So if you had "Dallas, TX Widgets" somewhere in your home-page title, you may wind up ranking well for just "widgets" when searched in the Dallas area.

In my opinion, optimize that homepage for Dallas, then watch and see.  To me, Google already kind of preferring that page is a good sign.