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Thanks all for the answers. Yes EGOL, It looks like I need to do the Jolt (rate of change of acceleration) rather than just acceleration or speed as I am up against entities having $10b+ market cap(s). These guys love to mop the serp floor using small competition. Are there any other factors you guys consider relevant in off-page SEO, in addition to rate of increase of links/day and quality/relevance of links?

Not to speak for Casey, but both those comments are definitely linked together. If Google thinks your content is thin or too similar to other content, it's going to index what it deems worthy or interesting to searchers. Retail sites often have this problem due to the conundrum of "how much can you really write about a table lamp" and that category and product pages often have similar content. I'd focus on making your content on the pages more robust so Google seems it as awesome and indexs it.

Well said, I agree. There's too much uncertainty. I'd be shocked if anyone could guesstimate (at the keyword-level) with any decent level of accuracy. Overall % improvements are a bit easier to ballpark guesstimate.

I agree with EGOL and would add my belief that you should use any text you feel is most beneficial when using internal linking. Generally it will be exact match. I would make no effort to vary the text unless it was helpful for users. Why? The entire concept of varying anchor text is based on Google knowing that links which are earned naturally are not under your control and therefore the anchor text will vary. Since all the links on your site are 100% under your control, the rules for external links should not apply. Let me clarify this is my logical thinking on the subject and I have no evidence to support this statement, but I do follow it myself.

There are many routes you can take with your new blog to drive traffic. One of the most cost and time effective strategies is to determine your most effective keywords.  These are ones that are driving traffic and sales to your site already. If these phrases are low on the first page of results, or on the second page AND sending you leads, these are the phrases to target first in a blog post to get them higher in the search results. The duplicate content will only happen if you copy exact product descriptions from the main part of the site onto the blog.  As for categories vs. products, it really depends on your top keywords and your goals.  If you are in a micro niche, it may be better to lean towards products. Don't let these choices freeze you up, though.  Make related original content as you flesh out a plan and stay consistent!

I was able to single handed start my business in my back bedroom with a dell PC and £400 in a business bank account. I took my company site to the Top 5 for Internet marketing in the UK in competition with companies with thousands of investment. I think you have to look at the positives a single guy or smaller team has over a larger organisation. You can act right away without waiting for a boards decision or internal decisions on budgets. In the longterm you will learn that as EGOL mentioned you need to start building a team where people can cover different skills. No one person can cover all areas or has expertise in all.

I understand that multiple links fro a site dilute link juice. Some people think that Google still operates this way.  Nobody knows for sure. However, multiple links to excellent external targets could have benefits that are enormous when compared to linkjuice loss. On important pages I don't hesitate to place multiple links to authoritative, relevant and trusted targets. I wonder if there is an ideal ratioof tgese two items. No. One should maximize both within reason and do what will impress the visitor.

Hi Stephen Thanks for your thoughts. Personally I don't think we need this but people from corporate communication somehow got stuck on this idea. See if I can scare them out of it by mentioning load time...

You will see that in GWT. Go to GWT > Crawler Access > Remove URL. It'll de-index that 404.

I am still researching a bunch of sites trying to figure out a way to get the product ID name at the end which would be great as that is the page title.  I just thought I would mention that I am working on it and see if you thought that it was not possible as you mentioned due to Cartweaver's limitations.  It's funny that I have spent so much time trying to get my urls to show up how they should... seems this could have been configured into the original product.  Beggars can't be choosers.

Great extension for one page, but what about checking a site with 50000+ pages? Any suggestions?

@Ressler - thanks for weighing in. My gut instinct is the same as yours regarding the exact-match approach. To further support the argument from a customer perspective - it may also benefit future Adwords Marketing or Link Building strategies to be able to read it as one piece. Any other opinions out there?

Hi Franck - Thank you for your response.  I totally understand that strategy for an e-commerce site and for other types of sites.  You need those corporate pages to establish brand trust and information for someone who is wondering who you are. However, for us, our content is really our value -- people don't purchase anything on our sites.  Only a few of our sites see, or expect, any branded traffic.  Our traffic is driven mostly by people looking for help with various financial aid issues and our content is the solution we hope they find.  Obviously if they search for "sitename + privacy policy" we want our page to come up, but other than that, we just need it accessible on the site.  Does anyone else have a site where they don't want to rank for these pages and have stuck them in a more appropriate place within the site architecture to match the value they bring?

For an overall ranking perspective, exact match is going to be better (all other things being completely equal).  However, websites are never perfect vacuums of comparison.  Regardless of which format you choose, you will still be able to overcome your competition through proper on-page optimization, and great link building.

I'm listing categories and sub-categories in it. If I wanted to create another page, what is the best practice for doing that?

Alan is exactly right. Direct links are better but google will discount them if you switch too quickly.