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Lots of people say that you should target low competition keywords because the competition there is less.   In a general way that is true. However, I have found that it is a mistake to fear your competition and instead of targeting third- and fourth-class keywords go ahead and attack volume.  Why? Because where there is volume there is usually a lot of search and where there is a lot of search there is usually money to be made.... and if you attack with unique content you will automatically get your site in position for a lot of low-volume long-tail keywords that are easy to rank for. So in my opinion, it is a mistake to target something that nobody is searching for... I mean that is a fantastic way to waste a lot of time.

After implementation, I saw ranks improve, decrease and being the same. The amount of PageRank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of PageRank that dissipates through a link.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw. So a small decay may occur resulting in a different rank. On a second note, what happens many times is that the 301 redirect goes to a page that has more/less content, different template and so on as the original landing page. Since the content is different, the position in the serps may go up/down in organics (this happens even if the page is the same as a competitor's page may become more relevant for a query based on algo changes, content changes and so on). The most successful migrations are the ones that have the majority of the pages 301 to a landing page that is roughly the same (all other things being implemented properly). Key is planning. It's stressful, but feels great when implemented properly. Good luck!

Hey Ruben, I am seeing your page on the bottom of Page 2 on two different ISPs.  #19 I think that it will go a little higher.

I'll post the same response as I did below: Yes - I need to clarify. Both pages are indexed, but not showing up in search. Jneel is an accountant in Boise - they do not show up in the Top 200 in for Boise CPA - there "services" page shows up instead. For EchelonSEO - the homepage is set up for Boise SEO, but also does not appear in the Top 200 - instead a deep Boise SEO page appears. Why do the homepages not appear in the SERPs?

Hi Gregory,  A and B are quite different. B has a lot of written content, pictures and a few MLS thumbnails and a "see all condos for sale" type link leading to "A".  A shows 10 thumbnails per page and has a large Google integrated map and an H1 and breadcrumbs. Basically, A offers exactly what users want: quick view of property details on a thumbnails and when scroll over they can see a map with location. If click a thumbnail they are taken to the specific property. Perfect for users. B is OK too, but the written content is mostly behind a "Read more" so users have option to read, list some thumbnails (but not many, to keep page as original and unique as possible). that is the structure and I can see search engines prefer these pages with more written content.  If I interlink to B I imagine I will more quickly rank well because search engines like the page to start with. So if I instead interlink to A I may risk creating a scenario where A and B are both doing OK, but none are great. That is a concern I have. I am basically looking for a solution where search engines can see that all the "greatness" of B should be transferred as power to A.

Hey Dave, It's unfortunate but very much true. I have experimented this with dozens of site Deleting thousands of artificial links Disavow links Fixing Anchors but recovery is always not  measured up to expectations. I tried different with couple of sites (Penguin 2.1), I never remove back-links Just build more quality links and recovery is far better. I feel, deleting even spamy links leads to loss of link juice which brings things further down for a while.

Matthew, ...it sounds like you think Google can handle multiple sets of markup on a page? With a few exceptions yes. For example we regularly use schema for Local business on the same page that we have review markup. This markup is used by the search engines to provide the best results on the serps. I am sure there is a way you can go overboard, but I am not sure there is a penalty for that if all of it were true. For product reviews, you do not want review markup on a page for more than one product is an example of not having multiple sets of markup. (But you could have local business markup on that same page. I don't think the WP sidebar markup hurts (but it is of no value to your site IMO). Hope this finally clarifies, (sorry I did not see the question after my first response) Robert

Hey There Unfortunately I have seen the same issues as Chris and Anthony describe - and that is it's never clear how updated the data is in WMT. In theory I believe Google needs to crawl the page(s) the backlinks were on, see they are no longer there, and propagate that to your WMT account. I do know that for the disavow tool, Google has said it can take them up to 6 months to process all the sites in your file. So who know, perhaps it's an equally long time range for removing links and seeing them disappear from the link report. Anyhow - I do have a small tip. For any link cleanup we have done, we keep a very detailed spreadsheet of all the links and a status on action and result. So when you pull new link reports from any tool (WMT, Moz, Majestic etc) you can compare that to your spreadsheet and eliminate duplicates or links you have already dealt with. Also, one fast way to check several hundred links at once is to put the links in a .txt file, and upload to Screaming Frog in 'list' more - and crawl all of them with a filter looking for your domain name. This will tell you a) what linking pages don't even exist anymore (404) and b) if you still have a link on them. If you want something even more robust at managing links, perhaps look into BuzzStream - http://www.buzzstream.com/ - I haven't used it myself (yet, but may do so soon) and I hear it's good to keep track of links. -Dan Hope that helps!

Hey There It's also tough to help with the language difference - but I would also recommend building up your social media and even become active in various communities. I have found these two avenues to not only help my company site, but to also generate the best form of leads. I experience pretty poor leads from organic search actually, and the best from referrals, social and networking online. It looks like you so some nice work based upon your portfolio. I'd see if you can leverage some of that for things like case studies which is content you can post on your own site and spread with social. Hope that helps!

Tks for your help ! I'll try different option to see what's the best !

How would you force google to recrawl them?

Tyler, just so we're clear: it's the first TIME the link is mentioned on a page that counts, not just the first link on the page. So, if you have several links on the same page to page1.html then only the first time counts--the other mentions (if they have different anchor text) don't count. If you have a link that's useful (like a link to site's home page) then having the logo on your page link to your home page at the top is useful. Then, having a link on the sidebar to the home page might be useful for users, as well. Then there is the link to the home page in the footer. Those are all useful.

Hi, As everyone had mentioned, I would also suggest using Yoast. With this plugin, you can simply go to SEO >>> Tags & Metas >>> Click on either Post Types / Taxonomies / Others and check the box to noindex/nofollow tags, pages and etc.  By doing so, it will help you avoid having duplicate content in a lot of ways. Another way to avoid duplicate content is go to Appearance >>> Editor >>> Go to both Category and Tag php and search for the_content and change it to the_excerpt.  This will make all the articles in your category into excerpts instead of showing the whole article.  This might be a little advance so be careful when editing the code as it can mess up your whole website. Now as for recommendations, I would suggest the following: Remove the meta widget on the right Remove the Menu widget on the right and add it to the top navigation.  As it will help visitors navigating the website. I would optimize the title tag.  I would include primary and secondary keywords in the title tag. I would also use descriptive text for the image alt

Hi Varun, It's great to have you here in the forum! As Matt-Antonio and ClaudioHeilborn have correctly stated, the business name you enter when you create your Google+ Local page must be your real business name, with no additional keywords of any kind. This advice is based on what Google states in their Google Places Quality Guidelines: Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business in the business name field. The guidelines are the best place to go to understand the rules Google has published regarding the use of their product. Here's the link: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en Hope this helps!

Yep, I guess they probably wish they could change it! Have a look at their corporate website and you'll see that they just drop the ampersand from their domain name.

I tend to agree with James in terms of bounce rate. Google tries to segment the most relevant result by country, so a low bouncerate outside your target market hopefully wouldn't hurt you much. That said, you can specify a target country in Google Webmaster Tools. Instructions are here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en Using this setting doesn't ensure your website wont appear in foreign results, but it does give a "hint" to Google that the content isn't targeted for that region. Hope this helps! Cyrus

Check this article which pretty much covers everything related to micro-formats https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/99170?hl=en If you're using WordPress then you can use this plugin which has support for pricing and rating but keep in mind that they are not visible to the user. http://simplemediacode.com/wordpress-pugins/itemprop-wp/ I usually add them manually so I can format them and display them nicely to users while still showing micro formats.

I guess you have to go with option 1 and 2 remove the links and at the same time build some new links with the keyword branded term! Hope this helps!

Your gut instinct is correct. Yes, it's entirely possible to crawl javascript. Is it still difficult to crawl? As far as I know, yes. So why put up that barrier if you don't have to?

Hey Federico! Thanks for your note about the images linking from a site to the author's site with a NoFollow link. We thought that was the answer, but wanted to get confirmation and appreciate you reassuring our gut feeling. I may have not been too clear in my question, but we aren't trying to rank images for SEO as we know the original authors will get top priority (hopefully). Per the stock photo accounts, we have spoken with the copyright teams from iStock/Getty and 123RF and they are of the same nature. If we, the company, buy images on behalf of our clients, then we are not allowed to send the client the raw file or a copy of the raw file, as that would break their copyright rules. However, we can use that said image for any number of websites or blogs as we choose since we have the royalty free rights to that file. It really is such a grey area, but when we talk with clients we inform them that if they want any images for the website/blog and wish to use those same images for any print material (brochures, magazine ads, flyers, etc) then we ask them to open an account with the respective site and purchase the images, so they hold the rights. We then upload the images and then delete from our systems. It's too much of a hassle. I will review the link you shared for the FlickR CC images. Thanks for sharing that! - Patrick