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Thanks Francisco.  I have tried that but have unfortunately had to give up because my WYSIWYG website making program, for whatever reason, can't accommodate, so have decided to forfeit (it seems to have problems with the widgets that are graphically like PNG files).  It can manage widgets that are contained within a box so I'm limited to the little addthis horizontal bar.  My site and pages from it gets 5 to 7 social shares a day on places like FB, G+ and Pinterest, is this good?

I don't really do much on my FaceBook business page.  Yes social shares.  Like when someone goes through the "addthis" widget on your site and shares your website / webpage.  I'm sure no amount is too little!

As the title says.  What is your idea of a good amount of social shares to be given per day or week or month for a website?

You have my sympathy.  I'd bet that this is a scam in which bad links have been deliberately made in order to manipulate you into paying money to have them removed.  If you do pay to get them removed, then your category in this criminal organizations chart might change to "sucker" and you will see no end to it.

Surely Google must have known that the penalties themselves would be manipulated.  It seems pretty obvious to me this would happen and could be added as the "criminal one" to the new spin-off industries...   http://www.seroundtable.com/link-removals-15349.html

If I was a Search engine and this kind of thing was going on I would like to know about it, especially knowing that prime targets for extortion are going to be those who rank high and have search traffic, in other words the fruits of Google's many years of tweaking their algorithms.  I would tell Google and maybe other engines about this, you may not get a reply but I think they like to know the statistics.

I like your site (and agree about the DSM-5).  Pardon me for not directly answering your question or if you've thought about this already; I notice you have your own Face Book and Twitter pages linked top right, but I can't see any social sharing buttons for people to share your content on places like their own Facebook profile to friends, Google+, Pinterest and the like.

Search engines rank social factors, they are now one of the main pillars of SEO, ergo, when someone shares your content that's like a link.  I use "ShareThis" for my social share buttons, they have a range of styles.  They have a hover button on the left side of their page here http://sharethis.com/   that one might look good on your site without affecting the presentation or useability.

Thanks, yes I agree.  I meant as in my domain name and Title text that I am "Keyword already".  I have been making sure to vary my anchor text, but probably too much mixing keywords in different orders, rather than partial and different so I do intend to vary it more.  If I get linking momentum from others without my doing then they will likely choose the exact match knowing that that is my domain name and titles, if that happened I think I might avoid all exact match if getting my own (relevant) links.

Social shares are good, as far as I know they are mostly http//: URL's which aren't judged the same way.  Rhetorically, if social sites decided to use page titles in people's mentions to make it look nicer, and you became really popular, I wonder if you'd get Penguined.

I used to get Total Guitar.  Don't worry I won't be using Guitar World as anchor text.  I have noticed a couple of others have given themselves similar names as bigger already established brands, such as TotalGuitar dot net which seems to be a different company than TotalGuitar, I guess when a brand itself creates the keyword it's going to be pretty low competition for spin offs, kind of clever I guess.

Perhaps I should change my surname to Gibson? lol (I won't) but everything below gibsons own site for "Gibson" is not guitar related and "Gibson Guitar" is just large retail sites with one relevant page that isn't specifically optimized.

According to google, Guitar world gets 27,000 global exact match per month whereas "Guitar Techniques" (also another magazine / site) gets only 4,400, this of course being an actual word people would search for regardless of whether a magazine is called that.  I'm in the "key word already" category too.  I wonder if a "Keyword already" name like Guitar techniques would have problems with an anchor text pattern similar to Guitar Worlds anchor text.

You'd have to have more text on your home page to optimize for all three.  My home page has about 250 words which is the least amount of words for all pages of my site.  As a general summary / introduction without being specific, I think it's harder to get more on home page, especially without making it look contrived or convoluted.  I notice some of your other pages have plenty more text.  I'd say leave it as it is or go for 2 at most perhaps, but not 3 or else you have a real mind-bender to make it look natural.

A competitor of mine is ranking 1 step above me for a my exact match domain keyword they aren't optimized for.  They have a similar amount of linking domains with similar anchor text style proportions (i.e. between exact and partial match etc.)  Their DA is a little lower than mine and their PA is the same.

The main difference I suspect might be that I have only 3 facebook shares compared to their 47, I think that could be why, I have read that search engines are ranking social shares even a little bit higher than links.  I actually have 16 shares but according to addthis not all of them can be crawled due to factors like social sharing privacy settings.

Some of the editors on Dmoz (and other authority sites) are there explicitly to allow their own sites and mates sites in but not others (anyone can apply to be an editor).  Hopefully search engines will realize this soon enough and prioritize good content over closed shop and kick them to the curb.

Content because that is link bait as well as future proof through being the most likely thing for search engines not to discount in the future and pick up on more as their algorithms improve (content already goes hand in hand with genuine social likes and bookmarks of human approval).

"Coupon Huntnig" instead of "Coupon Hunting" for no. 7. on the plagiarized version.

As the title says.  What is your idea of a good amount of social shares to be given per day or week or month for a website?

I woudn't use that place it can't be possible for them to vet standards.  If you click on any of those big company names it seems to take you to media coverage about freelancers not that those companies use that site.

I found your site from its name within your profile,  you have no page descriptions and all your page titles are the same which is keyword cannibilization.  http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization

You need to get onsite as best as you can before you do offsite (e.g. link building).  I would suggest that SEO moz is a good source of information to learn to be able to do it yourself if that's an option for you.

"Open Site Explorer" tool on SEOmoz finds links. The starter guide PDF is a good place to start, I got to about chapter 7 then most of what I learnt is from the search box on here for the relevant terms like "exact match domain" or "meta tags" etc.

I’ve decided to do guest blogs. I have written 10 tutorial articles, most are 500 - 600 words and none less than 300 words, there’s no fluff or padding, and I have ideas for 7 more. Is it best to spread your work across various sites and blogs? (assuming they are all good / high PR etc.) or could this make me come across as bit of a content whore?

If one place likes my work and asks for more, are there any more benefits to me other than just ones internal to their site (that being increased exposure on their site)

I’m also thinking about including my guest post tutorials on my own website as downloadable PDF’s with short descriptions so that the content remains original where my guest posts are. I also want to make video versions of the tutorials to put on youtube and embed within the guest posts too, but also my own website. Is all that a sound idea SEO wise?

On other question if that’s OK.  I have seen the following in google’s guidelines…

“The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results: sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link.” http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356

That’s a bit of grey area for me knowing that normally a professional book reviewer receives a free review copy, in this case perhaps a blogger receives a free review copy. This has never been seen as suspicious so long as interests are declared. Do you think those google guidelines include this kind of activity?

Regards,

I don't know but I had a look at your website and I think the background is begging for a seamless Ice cube background like this one...

http://www.commentnation.com/background.php?MyFile=seamless_ice_cubes.php&ID=C113.php

Like your site is a fresh catch of tasty Salmon adorned by Ice cubes in a freezer keeping it fresh and ready to consume....well, maybe, but seriously I think it would look pretty cool.