John,

41 links for a footer area, whilst it is a large number, isn't too many really. You should be careful on the total number of links on the page however. I believe you should try to cap it at 100, but I think I've read somewhere 200+ is classed excessive

Hope this helps!

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/maps-archive/thread?tid=4fa32594aadb2e9f&hl=en

It looks like you'll have to use the real address!

You'll need to assess which keywords are actually a possibility for your site. Ranking isn't down to just the keyword you're going for. Domain age, authority, trust etc are all factors used in calculating your position in the SERPs. Don't get scared off by a 'Highly Competitive' keyword though!!

Well if you want a keyword you have to just go for it! If your site has loads of unique content, the likelyhood is that you'll start seeing benefits from long tail searches coming in with not too much work.

Check out the PRO campaigns on here, I'm assuming you're aware that SEOmoz utilizes some Google API's to serve up their own keyword difficulty score. Unfortunately the site I'm link building to is in a super competitive market!

Hope this helps.

Tom

Great advice Rishi

They're still good for links! Plus, as a company you need to be producing Press Releases weekly anyway to give to other various sources. For the extra 10 minutes it takes to upload it to the site you may as well just for the high PR links!

Perhaps some form of viral campaign will push up the searches for 'your keyword'... It's definitely an interesting topic!

Our site is customer facing, and we need to keep the content low in some cases, so we use different JQuery plugins to 'hide' some content from the viewers.... but not search engines

I wouldn't say it's black hat as the content is 100% original and very authoratitive (optimised oviously), it's just a way of getting your content on the page without having the old CSS margin: -10000000000000px trick I bet you all know!!