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Awesome response! Thanks a ton Patrick. There is no room left for a follow-up question

If you could just show the 404 error and custom message on the original URL it would save you a redirect. Otherwise, that sounds like a good plan.

That's really helpful - thanks Keri

I already enabled Demographics data some time ago

Hi Justin, I can see that you already got good answer from Dirk & Christy. I would also like to share few Google Analytics resources on my personal experience http://www.lynda.com/Google-Analytics-tutorials/Google-Analytics-Essential-Training/160343-2.html http://www.lynda.com/Analytics-tutorials/Google-Analytics-Tips-Tricks-Tutorials/135364-2.html Currently 10 days free trial available on Lynda.com** Thanks

I would guess it has to do with a lack of any actual content on the main page, and all of the other pages "content" being aggregated from other sites where it was originally posted.  A site like this would need either a large amount of advertising to drive traffic or in my opinion a complete overhaul and reevaluation of the content strategy.

Hello Robert, First of all thanks for the quality of your answer. When i first wrote this question i was thinking of a "real human" reading all the keywords and determining an intent for each of them and not of an algorythm :). I'm actually working on my keyword study with this goal in mind : -> i try to be in my "persona's shoes" while reading each keyword and i ask myself "what's the intent behind this keyword". Then i write a little user story and link it to several keywords. This way of processing makes me feel like a "re-humanisation" of keyword study ; i don't only group the keywords semantically (like a robot could do) but i try to dig and discover what's behind and ie: how to please my visitor.

An aspect of the software people do not utilize enough is the key word tracking combined with the page grader. If you look at the keyword tracking you may notice a URL on the right hand side to some of the key words.  That is the specific URL that is ranking for that key word. I use this to see what key words I have ranking and then use the page grader to optimize pages for each key word or key word set and make sure that each key word I care about is ranking on a specific URL. just keep going through this process until you are ranking on all the key words you are targeting. As SEO is a "no one thing" art form you need to fix all the crawl errors on the site as well as build up your domain authority in the background. An aspect people often do not think about on the front end is bounce rate and conversion. Right away I would set up conversion events on the web site itself and tie these to Google Analytics.  I would also add Crzyegg heat mapping software to your pages, While tracking the traffic to your web site look at what that tracking is doing once they are there.  i

I would prefer some more details- which keywords, why do you chose them, higher rankings means what? Two, Three or 20 Positions? How often is it searched and how much klicks do you have. Whats the Keyword trend? Maybe the chosen Keyword is wrong, maybe the topic isn't as hot as last year, maybe its an ugly search snippet ...

No problem, glad I could help!

Hi there! Just a quick note to let you know that we now do track local rankings in Moz. Check it out at http://moz.com/blog/local-rankings-in-moz-analytics.

Hi, This is an interesting question and I was just looking it up a few days ago. Answers to your questions: Yes, google can and does read ampersands and plusses and does show slightly different results depending on which you use. Maybe, if you check the SERPs for ‘black & white football’ and ‘black + white football’ are they different? When I took a quick look they were different - so once your ‘black & white football’ page starts ranking, check SERPs for ‘black + white football’ – you may be in the same place for this keyword, or you may be much lower. If you’re at the same position there’s no need to optimise another page, if you’re lower then maybe you should create a page. Be sure to check search volumes first though, there’s no reason to spend time creating a unique and optimised page for the keyword using a plus instead of an ampersand if nobody is searching for it. Yes they notice and treat each one slightly differently. Take these 3 example searches for ‘design and branding’: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=design+and+branding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ip=0.0.0.0&pws=0&uule=w+CAIQICIA&gws_rd=ssl https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=design+%26+branding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF- 8&ip=0.0.0.0&pws=0&uule=w+CAIQICIA&gws_rd=ssl https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=design+%2B+branding&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ip=0.0.0.0&pws=0&uule=w+CAIQICIA&gws_rd=ssl We’re seeing a lot of the same domains showing up - with a lot of the same pages - but in different positions as well as some sites sneaking onto page one for one term, and halfway down page 2 for another. Take www.steve-edge.com – currently at 7^th for ‘design & branding’, 16^th for ‘design and branding’ and 20^th for ‘design + branding’. So there’s the answer - yes Google can understand plus signs and ampersands, and yes they do treat each query slightly differently. You may be found at the same position for all variations, you may see fluctuations between each SERP, but what’s most important is checking to see if people are actually searching those terms with plus signs or ampersands before going to make the page - because there’s no point creating and optimising a page that nobody is looking for when the page they are looking for is being found fine. Hope that helps! Tom

without a price, how can I determine if you are making the best offer...this IMHO is so important for commodity products...

Google had some caching issues for awhile that even John Mueller commented about.  They should have cleared up by now: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-cache-updated-19509.html I see that your cache date is now Dec 9th so I'm assuming things are normal with your site & traffic and it was just part of this same issue?

Thanks for the response, I have taken your suggestion into account and swapped the position of the brand and the keywords. I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks Chris

Hi there, I would suggest you specifically look at competitive intelligence tools like compete.com or semrush as they can provide somewhat accurate estimates. But there are a lot of online tools and services that provide traffic volume estimations for keywords. They differ in many aspects – different solutions have different interfaces with different additional options available. They also use different data sources. Therefore, the best option would be to check your keywords with several solutions and compare the results. If you have no time for that – you should select the most reliable source for your estimates and stick to it. First of all, these estimates do not take into account click distribution between different TOP positions. Even if you are ranked TOP 1 for some particular keywords, you won’t gather 100% of the traffic. Some part of the traffic will go to Google Local Business. And one more thing that cannot be predicted in advance: any keyword traffic estimator gives data about how much time a particular keyword was entered into the search field, but it cannot tell between real users and automated seo tools that check positions of a particular website for a particular keyword. Hope it helps!

Hey NYWA, It's hard to tell based on the information provided. I suggest you experiment a bit with the keywords and locations you're trying to rank for. For example, if you're trying to rank for "Southampton automotive repair services" and there's very little competition, then there's probably no need to try to rank separate pages for engine repair, heating and AC, brakes and rotors and so on. Just optimize for "Southampton automotive repair services" and be sure to include keywords when describing the different services offered in your page copy. If, on the other hand, there is a lot of competition and they have gone all-out to optimize pages for each of these distinct services, then you'd be best to do the same, only better. Make sense?

Moosa, I am currently looking into it. One thing I know for sure is that a lot of my links dropped, because I stopped using the individuals that were building links for me. I know what needs to be done on that end. Thank you for your insight

Hi Have you noticed that you can access industry benchmarks again in Google Analytics? Make sure you activate anonymous sharing in your GA-account settings. The report becomes available in Target Audience > Benchmarking. Hope this helps

Tks ! That's the kind of website I was looking for. Do you know any with special focus on Social Media Trends Analysis ? It can be a good help too.