Hi Iain

If you have at least one core keyword you can translate easily (let's use tennis for this example, which is "tenis" in Spanish), then Ubersuggest might be of use to you.

Popping in "tenis" in ubersuggest and setting it search Google.es will give some keyword suggestions.  The best thing about ubersuggest is that these are the keywords that other people are actually searching for - they're real user queries.

With this, you can see what people are searching for when typing in "tenis" as part of their query - it lists the results alphabetically and numerically.

Hope this helps, would also like to hear of other ways from other people.

This is a fascinating question.

Regarding your question about 404 pages getting a 200 status. So obviously, Google doesn't index 404 pages, and de-indexed pages do not pass on link juice.  However, like you say, some people and sites link to 404 pages and so, were these ever to go live, you'd imagine it would have some sort of strength/authority.

But how could you practically accomplish this? If you make the 404 page a 200 page, you've now got no 404 page for your website, which could be very bad indeed. So, you'd probably want to substitute that page with a new, fresh 404 page. But if that sits as the 404 page and gets marked as a 404, wouldn't the links become void again?

If you then moved the old 404 to a new page, it loses the links once pointing to it.

The hongkiat webpage is a really clever idea as it takes all those pages and makes a shareable hub, which of course then gets all the links and strength.

Hi there

You could also try these websites:

PostJoint

GuesBlogIt

Guestr

BlogSynergy

Also, I'd really recommend using this Google doc spreadsheet found here - you can insert a single keyword and it will use a whole bunch of Google queries to pull up guest blogging opportunities directly on blogs.

I don't think you can put a general % on keyword density.  So long as it reads well and doesn't appeared to be stuffed, it should be fine.  Mention it as many times as you can without it appearing forced.  There's no doubt that having a keyword appear more times on the page will help Google deduce what the page is about, but similarly anything that would compromise a user experience or attempts to over-optimise for the algorithm can easily be penalised. Saying what number this is though is highly dependent on context, so you can't put a broad figure on an "optimal level"

If you haven't changed the density on the page, I don't believe that your density level would have caused a fall in your rankings (unless it was overdone, as said before). The strength this signal has on your rankings would be small at best, so there's very likely another reason for the fall.  I'd start looking at other on-page factors and especially what sort of links you might have earned recently (or indeed lost).

This is a really good question, Lenia. Really, really good, in fact.

Let's break this down into a number of factors:

Having localised URLs (by that I mean URLs, written in the country's language) -  From an SEO perspective, I do believe there is some correlation that having localised URLs helps to rank higher, in the same way that having a keyword in the URL may help - having this keyword in the country's language would, by default, work the same way.  However, the SEO benefit of doing so isn't that big, I'd see it as only a little boost, so I wouldn't let the SEO side weigh too heavily on your decision.

Now, having localised URLs for a user perspective is something that I think is very useful. I'd see it as a bigger plus for a user than I would for SEO purposes.  I think having localised URLs shows the user that you're a part of that country, not just a larger corporation with an international presence but no real interest in the country for example.  I think it helps users recognise and anticipate what the URLs would be for their user journey as well.  Also, (I don't know how relative this might be for you) but having localised URLs can definitely help for offline campaigns and promotion.  Say you were running some newspaper or billboard ads and you wanted to track how many people were then visiting your site as a result, you might want to setup a custom URL or search term for the campaign.  So, you're newspaper advert would have "Visit www.domain.com/customURLhere/" on it.  This would look infinitely better if it was written in the localised language (although I suppose you could always setup a 301 redirect for the URL).

Ultimately, however, I think you're decision should largely be influenced on the technical implications.  The SEO value would be slight, but not that significant whichever method you choose.  I would go with whatever solution would be easiest for you technically - it sounds like it would be easier to accommodate user and SEO factors, rather than having to accommodate technical factors for a slight SEO gain.

Just my input on the issue, and so I'd love to hear more from others on it - as I think it's a great question which could do with the input of some of the talented folk here.

"I am compltely transparent and this blogohblog link isn't supposed to be sitewide and it is currently under investigation.

I don't think i've got any serious TOS violations here to be honest as this is probalby the only or one of the only greyhat links that we have."

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here.

http://www.blogperfume.com/ - Optimised anchor text in "friends" section, looks very much like a bought link, violates TOS

http://www.psdeluxe.com/ - Looks to be another bought link - violates TOS

http://ilearntechnology.com/ - Random anchor text heavy link at the bottom of the page, clearly out of place, probably bought, violates TOS

http://www.blogherald.com/2008/03/24/easiest-website-builder-ever/ - Low quality blog commenting

http://www.designknock.com/ - Blogroll link (actually separate from the blogroll, making it look even more suspicious). Likely bought, violates TOS

http://www.webstreamingsmania.com/ - Questionable article hub

http://jawbreaker.hardware-one.com/forum/read_msg.php?tid=368&forumid=feedback - Low quality forum signatures, looks to have been done for link diversity

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/onlineenvironments/2012/01/11/kates-experience-and-expectations/ - Edu comment spam

http://clubs.uci.edu/fada/?p=1674 - Edu comment spam

Do I need to go on?

Look, I'm not doing all this to be evil, come across as holier than thou or even to victimise you - but just by going through the first 2 pages of your OSE report I found these links which are either likely violations of the TOS or low quality.  If I can see that, there's a decent chance that Google has seen the same.

It's not to be cruel to you, but it's to bring about the magnitude of the potential problem. I know what the warning signals look like because I've worked with a number of sites that, upon auditing their link profile, have had similar links and have been penalised.  Whether you're aware of these links or not is not the point, all I wish to do is make you aware of the potential minefield you're in so you can start actioning on it and perhaps ask some serious questions to any SEO agency you might have worked with in the past.

With the greatest respect, if you want advice, you need to be completely transparent.  To say your website does not have any blackhat or even greyhat SEO is just not true.

Literally the first thing that stood out for me in your OpenSiteExplorer links were you website appearing on a site-wide blogrolls such as these: http://www.blogohblog.com/wordpress-theme-businezz/

Whether you built them or had any knowledge of them or not, you need to understand that if Google is seeing your website appear in site-wide blogrolls, all with the same exact match anchor text, surrounded by completely irrelevant website links to diet/workout sites that look so obviously a paid network - you site couldn't look any more blackhat.

Throw in some random blog comments and some .edu spam to boot and I am beginning to see why you may have been slapped by Google.

You've got some serious TOS violations here. If you've been employing a company to do your SEO for you, or any other company that has been working on your website, I'd suggest you contact them ASAP and demand an explanation.

Oh I completely see your point - it's a frustrating conversation I myself have had a number of times with previous clients.

I mean, you could say that with 20 high authority links, you should expect to see movement in the SERP after 2-3 months.  But again, that's so dependent on a number of factors, such as how authoritative your competitors' links are, where you get those links from (associated niches etc.) and so on.  It might take more links, it might take less links, it might not be the defining influence at all.

What I'd do is audit your competitors and compare their Moz metrics with your site and see how far apart you may be.  Then approach it to your CEO with how much work you can do month on month.  So if you say, I will be able to do x number of articles, y infographics, z number of press releases, x number of doc shares and y high quality directory submissions in 1/3/6 months.

It simplifies things massively and doesn't take into account any Google updates that might come our way and slam certain sites - which may require you to do a whole bunch of link cleaning due to the previous SEO's efforts.

The reason why content marketing is so popular is that it allows you to earn links from a number of places, hopefully influencing your SERPs, but if not - at the very least you've developed great contacts and have hopefully introduced great content for relevant users, increasing your brand awareness and maybe even referral traffic via links to your site.

With that in mind, it may be the place to start with your CEO.

Hi Andrew

Well, there is some sort of correlation between backlinks and SERPs position.  More specifically, there is some correlation between high quality, authority backlinks and SERPs.

However, it should always be remembered that correlation =/= causation.

Don't approach link building in the sense that "If I get x links, I will get y" - it simply does not work that, well, simply, and you'll only end up being frustrated.

Instead, ask yourself the kind of authority sites that people in your industry are getting links from and think "How can I get those links too?" - Maybe it's producing a quality blog post, producing an infographic, some white-label documents. The possibilities are endless.

I'd have a good look at the SEOMoz guide found here, as it can explain how the algorithm works in much more detail, while helping to build your all-round SEO knowledge.

Just as Jon says, it does pass on a little value - but you're time/resources would be much better off invested elsewhere if all you're looking to do via blog commenting is increase your SEO value.

Presuming they have html tags enabled, as well as <a>tags, this should work:</a>

<a></a>

<a></a>YourWordsHere

To make the link appear in a new window, add target="_blank">

Just a quick bit of advice, I'd seriously only recommending blog commenting when you're adding value to the blog and the discussion, and never for pure backlink purposes.  However, relevant blog commenting can be a great traffic and conversion tool.

I'm fairly sure that Screaming Frog would be able to do that for you.

First of all, for the benefit of the discussion it's worth pointing out that the Googlebot will ignore the CSS code and read whatever is in those tags.

Using tags like "display: none" and other similar ones will not by itself result in the Googlebot sounding the alarm.  It is sophisticated enough to recognise that many web designs use the tags for a better look at the website and UX experience.

Where it might start getting angry (and you won't like it when it's angry) is when it finds links within the tags - particularly those that point to completely irrelevant webpages and/or spammy ones.  If that happens, it's quite a big no-no, as it will think you're trying to hide these links from Google for nefarious reasons.  Similarly a whole bunch of content that could be duplicate and/or is being used for keyword stuffing etc would also sound the alarm.

Provided you avoid that, I wouldn't worry about using the tags, as it can be useful for a number of reasons.  Worth remembering, however, that the Googlebot will crawl and see whatever is hidden in their anyway.