Hi Ron,

The first thing to ask is when you were seeing your website ranking around 4th how did you do this? Did you use a ranking tool or your browser. The reason I ask is that when using a browser your search results can be personalized to you. So if you often go to your website then you may see it for a keyword search when really it isn't placed there. To be sure exactly where you rank use a non-personalized search or a ranking tool like the one on SEOMoz.

Second, it doesn't look like you are doing anything odd on-site (i.e. no black-hat seo tactics) so that's good. And, your backlinks are low so not sure if that would be the case but you need to have a look at Google Webmaster Tools to confirm.

Thirdly, a drop in rankings could be due to competition. If your competitors are actively optimizing their website and building quality links and you aren't then they can knock you off the rankings.

Hope that helps some.

Davinia

If each page is targeting a keyword phrase that is unique and the order of where 'stairlifts' is placed varies then it shouldn't be a problem, this would require the content of the pages to be very unique.

If you are concerned that a search engine will see this as duplicate content and only index a small % of your pages perhaps revise your keyword target. You can use variations and synonyms of 'stairlifts' while still being a correct description of the product. Keyword research will help you find the terms or use the symbol () before the keyword on a google search e.g. stairlifts, anything bold with be a synonym. Some quick examples:

stair-lifts
stair lifts
home elevators
platform lifts

Hi all,

Is there a way to be notified (to my personal email address) when I get sent a private message?

Thanks,
Davinia

Yes.... and good luck getting on it.

I've been waiting near 6 months for three submissions to be added (all different categories as well).

Hard to say unless we can see your site but it could be that your robots.txt file is blocking the URLs or perhaps duplicate content. If you have Google Webmaster Tools have a look through there, it may give you some ideas.

I would use the keyword in a keyword phrase and limit to 2-3 words, so something like "Man with osteoarthritis" or "Osteoarthritis affects everyone".

Remember alt tags are also used for usability, so if someone say has a computer that reads them the on-page content (e.g. a visually impaired person) you want your content to clearly and accurately explain what's on the page.

When you do your 301 redirects as outlined by John don't forget to 301 redirect your non-www URL version to your www URL version (or visa-versa).

Here is an example of all the URLs that could be on your website.

http://www.domain.com
http://www.domain.com/index.html
http://domain.com
http://domain.com/index.html

The joys.... good luck!

302 is temporary and 301 is permanent

Personally I'd only use https on pages that actually needed it, like a payment page but I'd recommend you go with a 301 redirect for each respective page.

And don't forget to redirect your non-www URLs to your WWW URLs as well.

I haven't come across this issue before so can't comment on which alternative but I'd be looking for Google's best practice and select one from there (from Google dev website or perhaps Matt Cutts has covered this in a video).

It seems interesting that your dev team could use an alternative like ~ or + but not (-) a hyphen. Maybe push back for the use of a hyphen!

Good questions. For me DA is when I'm evaluation a website as a whole (either my client or doing competitor analysis), I also use it as a benchmark. If I'm doing link building I'll be looking at the PA of the page I want a link on.

I can't see the listing, can you add an image please?

I'm thinking it's either achieved via schema mark-up or via a Google property (e.g. Google Places)

Agreeing with everyone here, text is vital. Perhaps the non-text sites that rank do so because no other sites compete with them meaning links alone are placing them up high (i.e. no SEO optimization). Imagine being able to add some nice text to a well designed page and quickly gaining great placement.

As well as permanent introductory text I'd also recommend adding text that will change out, like a placement for the hottest fashion accessory and another for the hottest designer. Have these change out regularly and also link through to lower level pages. This will also give people another reason to come back, just like a womens gossip magazine, people buy them week after week because they know content is updated often.

I've found it interesting reading this thread and seeing 'these' links from a different point of view. When auditing client sites I always recommend removing the web designers link from the footer (or at least from the homepage) because that link doesn't help my clients.

If you are trying to get a link from the client it is going to be much better for you if the page is thematically in line with your website. You'd need to think creatively for this because I'm sure if they had web design ability they wouldn't need your services so similar content will be tricky! A couple of ideas: Perhaps your clients have a section/page of 'random' information where you can supply a paragraph of text about your website and add the link there. Perhaps they have a cool graphic or infographic that you created and they wouldn't mind adding a paragraph under it in smaller font? Perhaps you could do a contra deal, a page about you for 2 hours labor.

But, to make a choice from your options a single homepage link is going to be more worthwhile than footer links and I wouldn't use the same anchor text for all of your links.

I use broad to get a feel for the type of keywords out there but when it comes to actually selecting keyword targets I use 'phrase' for keyword phrases and 'exact' for singular keywords.

I also cross reference my keyword choices with another keyword research tool (depending on which country changes the tool I use). This might be a useful thing for you to do given that you target the whole world. I'm in New Zealand and at times find the Google Keyword Tool doesn't give specific enough information for monthly search volumes.

I'm thinking along the same lines as David, having no internal links could be a development issue and if this is the case then yes it could affect your SEO.

If a Search engine can't reach your pages via internal links (and if there are no other links on the web that point to your lower level pages) then the search engine can't find them meaning they won't get indexed.

This won't help with the image question but you can see Google Property data in Google Analytics by going to:

Traffic Sources>Search Engine Optimization>Queries and then selecting the secondary dimension of 'Google Property'.

I go to Google Image search (http://images.google.com/) and then do a site search and then look through each image, e.g. do this in the search field
site:www.yourwebsite.com

If the website has thousands of images indexed and it's not possible to look through all entries then do the site search and then add a word from the file name e.g. like this
site:www.yourwebsite.com pillow

Alternatively, post the image URL and I or someone else here can check for you!

Basecamp is great and not only can you assign tasks to internal staff but also assign to the client for sign-off on each task. Helps keep everyone on track.

Hi Hal,

I like your site! On a quick review here are a couple of things you should consider doing:

1. Your

   and

   headers don't contain your target keyword and they really should.

2. You don't use alt tag for images and you could. Just add 2-3 keyword targeted words to each.

3. Your logo uses the brand name as the alt tag, you should add the keyword in here as well.

4. Build quality links to your website from relevant websites.

Davinia

Dana provided the answer above. Good luck.

Adding text to a page for search engines but not people is a black-hat technique that can get your website penalized. It is not recommended.

However, you may have a legitimate reason to want to do this like if you have flash/javascript running with words as an image you could add alternative text to the flash file, provided it states exactly what's on the flash images then that is acceptable.

Agreed, if you are keyword stuffing this could have a negative effect. I have seen individual frames indexed before so I'd recommend just using an image, plus it's less development time.

An * added to the end! Great thank you!

I'd focus on doing new content myself before outsourcing (provided it is relevant). Firstly I'd create a plan to work out what kind of content is needed and how much time/resource is required to produce it before going ahead, some ideas:

• Clients can provide a review of the design work you did for them, they may write the whole thing for you and in return they get a link back to their website
• Are there any current pages that cover multiple themes (i.e. target multiple keywords). Perhaps these could have their own pages (make sure you have enough content on both pages!). Doing this might only require 30% of the time to produce than writing for a new topic from scratch.
• Do you have time to blog (on your website) - make sure it's relevant to your website.
• Are there quick wins from pages under optimized; like does your homepage need more indexable content? What about your company page? Perhaps if your staff have specialties you can have a individual employee pages where the content is there bio followed by 'relevant' information about their skill set (keyword target) and how your company can help the client. Don't forget the call-to-action as well.
• Start up your link building again but maybe focus on content (try guest blogging or press releases). You can use www.odesk.com for quick and cheap content writers. I use them from time to time and provided I select the right person I'm pretty happy with the site.

Good luck,
Davinia

Hello.
Just wondering if anyone has come across this and can tell me if it worked or not.

Goal:
To block review pages

Challenge:
The URLs aren't constructed using folders, they look like this:
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1234
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1235
www.website.com/default.aspx?z=review&PG1236

So the first part of the URL is the same (i.e. /default.aspx?z=review) and the unique part comes immediately after - so not as a folder. Looking at Google recommendations they show examples for ways to block 'folder directories' and 'individual pages' only.

Question:
If I add the following to the Robots.txt file will it block all review pages?

User-agent: *
Disallow: /default.aspx?z=review

Much thanks,
Davinia

The links are in the YouTube video description.

"Access the feature here:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main"

Normally I just use https for the pages that require it, like during the cart process. That means the top level pages are http only and SEO isn't affected. Could you do that?

What's the anchor text of the over-optimized link used?

I believe it only counts ranking placements from Universal search results. Have a read of this page http://www.seomoz.org/help/rankings

Great response, thanks Paul. That's answers all my questions!

Thanks Jared,

Yes I do need to use a filter over an advanced segment but the article doesn't tell me if I can see the data straight away (it does for segments but not filters).

Hello,

Quick question, when I create a custom filter on a profile that already has data collected will that filter apply to already collected data or will the filter only apply from the day it was created?

Am doing a custom exclude IP filter.

Much thanks,
Davinia

You should also inform Google of your change of address via Google Webmaster Tools.

It's really important that you add a permanent 301 redirect from http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm pointing to http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com (as mentioned by Marisa). Otherwise SEO goodness can be split between the two domains making it harder for you to get the sites ranking.

At the moment the homepage is accessible via 4 URL versions:

http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/
http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm
http://cascadevillagehotel.com/
http://cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm

ALSO, when you send the request you should also be requesting that a 301 redirect is also placed on the non-www URL version pointing to its respective www URL version - you'd want to have this done for every page e.g. http://cascadevillagehotel.com/hotel should redirect to http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/hotel

Note - I often have the same discussion with web developers, from their point of view it is the same page and I understand that but you just need to state that Google treats it as multiple versions (do some research are canonicalization).

Always tricky....

I'd set the client expectations first - let them know that in your professional opinion there needs to be a content strategy and without one they won't reach their desired goals - and then just let it be (for now). Move on to implementing the rest of your SEO strategy. During reporting time where rankings are slow or making no improvements you can just mention that it's due to lack of content and suggest a content strategy again but this time just trial one or two pages and track progress (rankings, conversions, bounce-rates perhaps....etc). After 2-3 months of the content (working alongside your link build and on-page optimization) the results should speak for themselves.

Good luck!

Hey Keith,

I did the same search and the keyword in the URL was not bold. Agreed don't use hyphens in the root domain (I do believe they help in folder paths), but anyway I feel that you and I could go on forever having a fun debate but I think we have made our points and from this Wendy will be able to make an informed decision, or at least our information has helped her to look in certain areas so she can do additional research.

Best regards,
Davinia

The URLs don't have to be keyword heavy, they should be semantically in line with the content of the page and also be relevant, not only will this help as a ranking factor but it also allows for better authored search engine result page snippets (i.e. the keyword's will display in the URL on the SERP snippet), which in turn should help with click through rates.

A search engine isn't going to know that "medicalcallcenter" is "medical call center" so the URL doesn't include the keyword. Therefore adding the keywords to the file paths will get the keyword into the URL.

Agreed, building links to the homepage (and other important pages) would be a good idea.

I'd go for a branded root domain and when creating the file paths use keywords separated by hyphens, example:

www.medicalcallcenter.com
www.medicalcallcenter.com/medical-call-center
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice/colds-flus

Provided the content on your lower level pages is unique by going for option 2 you can widen your reach on search engine result pages; leading to more traffic for your website. Rel=canonical will make lower level pages pretty much redundant for gaining ranking, so if the content is valuable (to a user and search engine) wouldn't you want to optimize that opportunity? I vote option 2

You should also set up Google Webmaster Tools for your old and new domains and then tell Google about your change of address. Log-in then go to Configuration>Change of Address

And here is some other information from Google that is useful to follow https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105

Your site is assessable via a www and non-www URL version. Goodness from building links to your site will be split. Easy fix - place a 301 permanent redirect from the non-www version to www version (or visa-versa), do this for all pages within your website (not just your homepage).

Product pages definitely need keyword targeted copy if you want them to rank and yes I agree with Mat, there doesn't appear to be a clear keyword theme throughout the website.

When checking results I use a ranking tool such as the one on SEOMoz, but if I want to do a quick look up for just a couple of terms I use the Ad preview tool in Adwords (you can set by country and it's not personalized).

https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview

I wouldn't go jumping into paying people to do lots of the same search. Check out the link Broadbeach Media supplied below, it explains in more detail about search suggest but also check out the Q&A's, some good additional points there about the searches coming from the same IP address as well as location.

You could use something like Tweetdeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/ (or something similar) and be logged into multiple accounts at the same time.

I think there is a lot of grey areas when looking at black hat vs. white hat techniques. But at the end of the day if what you are doing is against Google guidelines and there is a risk that what you are doing can negatively affect your clients rankings then you shouldn't be doing it...

In addition to Oleg's comments I just thought I'd mention that in my experience mom bloggers (mainly based in the USA) are a tight network and communicate amongst each other daily. So my advice is offer the same deal across the majority of blogs and be selective when offering one blogger additional products for review etc.

Hi Celine, How are you checking your rankings?

As long as your content is well structured amongst the sub-domains and root domain I can't see why there would be any issues. When making the change ensure that you:

1. Tell Google that the URL is moving (do this via Google Webmaster Tools)
2. Add permanent  301 redirects from the old URLs and point to their respective URLs on the new domain (this is to ensure that any backlinks the old websites had will pass some link juice through)
3. Don't stop hosting the old domains for say 6 months.
4. Run a backlink check on the old URLs and try get those websites (provided they are of good quality) to update the link to the new sub-domain. For those that don't update the 301 redirect will help.

Have fun!
Davinia