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I previously gave an opinion on this here.... https://moz.com/community/q/how-to-handle-annual-content-2018-2019

There are two reasons to optimize an image... you can use file name, alt attribute and captions to improve the SEO relevance of your page with the goal of ranking in the organic websearch results for a specific keyword. you can use file name, alt attribute and captions to improve the SEO relevance of your image for ranking in the image search results. How many images should you use?  Again, we have two goals... 1) ranking the page in the organic search results, and 2) ranking the image in the image search results. For goal #1, I would not start manufacturing images just to increase the number of them that you have on your page.  Just as I would not publish a ton of yada yada yada text just to pad the word count. However, if you have a lot of good relevant images that people will actually appreciate, then you should use as many as you think will be useful for your visitors or as many as is needed to properly illustrate your articles. For goal #2, there are two things to consider.   First, image name, alt, and caption will qualify you for image search but they are of minor importance for ranking you.  The amount of searcher engagement is what will rank you.  So, tossing up a bunch of crappy images isn't going to do any more for you than publishing yada yada yada text on your page.  You need images that people will engage.  How many?  I would publish as many as you can economically produce and that can be justified with what you can do with the traffic that they will pull.  If you have two highly competitive images google will rank both of them.  If you have five, six, seven highly compeitive images, google will rank all of them.  If you are not capable of producing highly competitive images then don't bother producing any more than you need to illustrate your article.  They have the same value as yada yada yada text.  But, you can publish images optimized for the same keyword on different pages of your website and all of them have the potential for ranking for their optimized keyword in image search - if they are competitive enough in terms of searcher engagement. I firmly believe that if your images perform well in image search that will help your page rank better in web search.  Google knows that people who have access to good images often are the same people who have the experience and knowledge to rank well in websearch.  That is a personal belief.  Some might argue, but I am convinced.

That certainly makes sense Kevin - good point.

Does that hurt me trying to rank for the keyword I want which is now showing at the end of the title instead of the start. The start of the title it is showing my business name which i rather have at the end. Thanks

No, create original content, it's a beast, but it's worth it. KJr

Good morning! Great question, and a little history on this may be helpful. In 2015, Google drew attention to the fact that users were increasingly using "near me" as a modifier for searches, and in an effort to prompt local results. According to Google the use of such terms as "near me" and "nearby" had doubled within the foregoing year. As a result of this, the use of "near me" terms became the subject of optimization experiments. However, fast forward a couple of years, and Google came out with an update on this topic, which you can read in full here: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/local-search-mobile-search-micro-moments/ To sum up, these near-type searches had begun to subside. The obvious answer to the "why" of this is that users are becoming increasingly aware of that fact that Google will automatically localize a huge variety of searches to which they assign a local intent, without the user having to modify their search at all, with "near me" or even with a city name. You look up "pizza" on your phone in downtown San Francisco and you can be pretty sure Google is going to show you pizza places nearest you without you having to add a modifier of any kind. So, does this mean that brands should no longer be including terms like "near me" in their website optimization? No, it doesn't mean that, as, according to Google, people are still searching this way. It's just that fewer of them are, so whereas in 2015 SEOs might have advised quite a good sprinkling of near-type language in a website's tags and text, in 2018, the recommended sprinkling would likely be quite a bit less. And I'll add an it-depends on this, too. There could be some demographics, perhaps by region, or age, or level of technological sophistication, or even business type where use of "near me" could still be quite prevalent. And let's not forget about voice search, and whether more natural language patterns might be leading folks to be asking their assistants, "Where's the best pizza near me?" instead of just saying "pizza". Which brings me to why I'm voting in major favor of your A/B testing! It will help you identify which language best matches your customers' style of search. It would be really nice if, after your test, you might come back to this thread and let the community know how it went. Good luck!

Unpublished?   404's? I would not delete them.  Instead, I would enhance them (with permission of the bride and groom).  Ask the bride, groom and family and attendees, the photographer, the baker, the florist, the officiant, the catering service to contribute photos, memories, and more.  If you provide good reasons, people will share these pages, link to them, revisit them, browse them and more.  Imagine links from the photographer's site, bakers, florist, etc... As your collection for a specific destination grows you have more cred in search, more in bound links, more type-ins and direct traffic to your website.  Allow people to sign up to receive a message a few weeks after the wedding when the page has some enhancements. Yes, this will take a lot of work but it might be worth it.  It might be an add on that you can use to earn an extra fee. You might be able to get an interface where the bride and groom or their friends can help build and take the work burden off of you.  This might be used in advance of the wedding to communicate. Just wild ideas as I am not in this business but know how many people like to build things and share stuff.

Thanks for your thoughts...I played it safe and changed it back to About with a 301.

Good news is that after I did the same tedious process myself, my SEO results went up!

Roman, Good info here... still studying to try to make sense of how the "boxer" example (with very similar products) translates to "taxes" or "retirement" where every article is (supposed to be) very different. Thanks again. John

Thanks Andy - that was my first instinct. I've had a look around at some large sites such as Amazon etc for a little inspiration. As it wasn't something I've implemented before I wasn't sure if it would be bad practice.

The URL https://makitech.no/ventilasjon/ventilasjons-pakketilbud was correct on the 05.02.2018 (google cache time) and did at this time not have any rel canonical set. When looking at the Google cache all i se is a white page, but when clicking on "view text-version" and "view sourcecode version" i se the content. Not sure why google cache shows only a white page on "view full version". Quote: "the more redirects you have in place, the slower the load times get". The way it's working now, there is no redirect. The shop is fetching the correct content but serving it on the "old/wrong url" instead of doing a 301. But it appends the rel canonical to the correct url. So i'am wondering if this is okay seen from Google's SEO eye

Hi Patrick, The best thing I can suggest is try starting here with Google (if you haven't already): https://support.google.com/business/?hl=en-GB#topic=4539639 From here you can use the Community Forums (very knowledgeable people) or click on Fix Issue. Both options in the top right corner of the page. Sorry I can't offer advice on this directly. -Andy

Thanks, Paul! We'll try disabling RocketLoader.

Absolutely agree with Egol. This might not help with the SEO per se, but such a big SEO factor is how happy people are on the page itself. You might find by adding important bullets that you retain someone for longer, make them want to read further and then go on to make a purchase. Make the pages as good as is possible. -Andy

Have you considered a guest registration/checkout, whereby the user creates the account by filling out the checkout options and enters required details - e.g. post address for delivery, email for confirmation / username and once check out is complete and the transaction is done you can simply ask for a password to store this registration for later use. By removing the barrier or creating the option of a guest checkout conversion rates may be improved. for those that want to register first have this as an additional option at checkout.

Both are important, but it depends on your keyword targeting strategy, if you are trying to rank your Specific Product pages on Google, whenever someone searches for the specific product, then I would spend my time and energy there for SEO. However, if your specific products have no search volume or include long model numbers or something that people don't usually search by, then try to work on getting your product pages to rank for non-specific keywords related to that product. You can then also use the "Specific Product" pages to internal link to the "Product" page.

There is no set word count that will help rank. It is the quality and depth of the content you are providing. Keep the searches intent in mind when developing content. Be engaging and educational, answering the searchers query. i have pages on my website that rank with as little as 300 words and as much as a1000. so as you see its not the word count. its the quality. Thanks, Don Silvernail