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Nice distillation here Justin, thanks.

Hi Ben, So glad to help!

A competitor to one of my clients split into to companies (and two websites).  They had invested a lot of money promoting their original domain, and there were loads of good links in.  They 301 redirected all pages in their original site to their original home page.  That page is still up but has an explanation of the split and one link to each of the two new companies. I believe their attempt was to take all the "linkjuice" and split it evenly between the two companies.  Then it is regular SEO on the new sites. It was probably important than the old name stays up, and the new companies have new names.

Thanks, I do agree that giving away our service for free is probebly not the best way to go.

Thanks. Will move ahead now with more confidence. BigJoe

Thanks for the reply, I just though I would check before I said to the company that it was ok. Thanks

Hey Eric, Here are a couple resources and thoughts: seomoz.org - take a note from Moz's community building approach, it's one of the best, imho. Also check this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ecommerce-seo-making-product-pages-into-great-content-whiteboard-friday Which reminds me of Zappos.com Hope this helps and good luck!

Hi JP, I believe what you are describing is Google+ Business Pages and Google+ Local Pages (the pages that replaced Place Pages a couple of months ago). If I've misunderstood, please correct me. Right now, multi-location businesses are having all kinds of trouble because Google has not yet truly clarified their policy on this. According to Google employee, Vanessa Schneider: "“Be sure to choose the Local category so that we can bring your multiple pages together to create one listing later on.” See: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/05/31/google-local-qs-and-some-as/ As I read this, Google intends, in future, to offer easy management for multiple locations businesses from a single account, but how they will do this is still really up in the air. If you will look at the Google and Your Business Forum, you will see tons of business owners asking about this. Example: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/multiple$20locations/business/A5Itcap9y0I/il_B2XnjeAYJ Now, the one aspect of your question about which I'm not totally clear is your concern about Google presenting local results to user groups based on their country of origin. Google should do this. Maybe you could describe what is currently happening with your Canadian vs. US-based searches. If there is a problem you are noticing, could you please describe it as fully as possible? Thanks! Miriam

Hi Networkelites, If I am understanding the scenario correctly, your client is no longer receiving mail at the major city address, but would have a different locale name on his envelopes in the post. Is this correct? Please let me know if I've not understood you correctly. If I'm on the right track, then the work ahead of you looks like this: Update the footer, contact page, tags and copy of the main pages (home, about, etc.) to reflect his new location...meaning the city name at which he now receives postal mail. Update your Google+ Business/Local accounts to reflect the change of address. Begin searching the web for every reference you can find to the old address and update these citations to reflect the new address. If the client is no longer receiving mail at the major city address, Google will no longer view him as a legitimate result for such searches and you must educate the client so that he understands this. Additionally, I strongly recommend that you do not use any geographic terms in the business description field of the client's Google+ Local page as Google has historically treated this practice as spam. The address field is where location info belongs. The business description should be a sales pitch...much like a meta description. It's a great place to include information like: Voted Reader's Choice by the Washington Post! First visit free with affordable care for your whole family. Get ready to smile! That's just a really rough example, but you want to think like this in writing your Google+ business description. Hope my list of points gets you started on the right foot. Good luck to you and your client. Moves are a big deal in local. Miriam

Ahh I see now! I was just reading that incorrectly. I thought the author was referring to those distribution services as the "standard newswire services". Thanks again!

Its a book based on a high profile situation in Iraq, so I think it could but I'm not a judge of writing quality so I have no idea. Those ideas are food for thought though, I wonder if I do something with free chapters on the most interesting parts and see how if that works. Seed it in various locations and see what happens.. But you're right, I think I need to go get the Pope to be the official sponsor, know any cheap deals to Italy??

The only way this would really be beneficial at all would be if the content did not already exist on the internet. You should ask your client to allocate some budget for media, if that's the route they want to take!

thanks for the insight

This is what Google are calling "knowledge graph" - their own rather cynical take on the semantic web. The idea is to pull data on known entities from a number of sources and present them in once place. The main sources of information are: Wikipedia Freebase Google's own search data a multitude of data-specific sources I am afraid I have no idea what the actual sources are for band information. However if some is wrong on the knowledge graph results you might be able to find out: Look for other authorative sources where the data is wrong. The important thing to remember is that little (any?) of that data is unique to knowledge graph - it is pulling data from elsewhere. Correct those sources and it should follow. Start with checking wikipedia.com and freebase.com  - then look for other high authority sources that are likely to be used. Where would YOU look for that information? Sorry I can't help more with the specifics.

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Some good suggestions here. I'd add a few more. First and foremost, make sure it's very clear who is expected to do what. Some designers are great at coming up with a concept and creating the basic layout of the interior pages. But they fall down at the detailed execution level. Some designers think it's the job of the client or consultant to actually populate the pages, position the images, and futz around with fonts. One designer said to me: "You know WordPress. Just go ahead and insert the content." Umm, no. I do know WordPress, but I'm not a designer. That's why I hire designers. My understanding of the scope of work is not "some assembly required." I want to buy a furnished and decorated house, not plans and a pretty picture of what the finished product MIGHT look like. But: my bad for not making this clear. The designer in this case was an honest and competent guy. He just had a different idea about the scope of work. You should also try to get a feel for whether the designer will be doing the coding himself or subcontracting to others. Sometimes the subcontractors do shoddy work. Many are offshore and are paid a pittance. Finally, I would never hire a designer until I had detailed  telephone conversation with two or three previous clients (who are NOT friends or relatives.)

Hey Alex, Did you end up using Sponsored Tweets? How were the results?

What about content related to used cars? Why you should buy from a used car lot rather than an individual dealer What to look for in a used car Why buying used is better than buying new (depreciation, etc.) Is it time to buy a new (used) car instead of repair my current car?

I've considered and researched this as well. With social media blooming and bloggers left and right, PR is less effective as it was back then, when journalist look for content to publish. I think it is safe to say and majority will say that press releases depend on what you are trying to accomplish and what you are releasing to the press. Pros: Link from PRweb Immediate exposure to search engines and journalist More authority, paying for a service like PRweb shows you have the money or are serious. Cons: Could be expensive Not that effective if content is not intriguing and informative Could result in no views or no links from other sources other than PRweb. This was just some general things I was able to come up with off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of other pros and cons. Bottom line if the content is not that extravagant, use that content to guest blog or use it on an article on your own site. If it is truely worthy, you will get links automatically anyway..