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Thanks Ryan. I've been submitting but it is a process. Our rss feed doesn't seem to be accepted in blog rolls I've tried. I'm playing with feedburner to try and get one that will work properly. I'll work on the blog sitemap as well, thanks.

Sounds like you are agreeing with me, Ryan. As I mentioned, if you go overboard with "optimizing" you end up having a site that is not linkable or attractive enough for other people to link to you naturally, so although you will get traffic for using the keyword rich content, title, etc, you are getting it at the cost of future links. That's lacking a long term strategy. I would never link to a website that looked too keywordy or spammy even if it wasn't one and I am confident there are many others like me. That being said - if you have smaller "satellite" sites, and those sites are meant to cater to a specific niche and their main objective is to get traffic to your main website rather than create new leads/sales on their own, then its a different story - I would go for optimizing first in this case. I would make sure most keywords that I care for are covered. User experience is still important (or they'll bounce) but not as much as it is for your main MOTHER site.

If you are using any paid search services other than Google or Bing, I would strongly look into click fraud detection. The easiest way to do this is on your own end... First, you want to make sure that it is a real user, not a bot. You can check the following... 1. Does the user carry a referrer? 2. Does the user accept cookies? 3. Does the user allow javascript? 4. Does the user allow flash? The above are some simple tests - neither of them individually conclusive - that can test if it is a bot. Secondly, you want to make sure it is not the same user over and over again, by tracking IP addresses. Third, you should make sure that your clicks aren't being generated in small iframes or popunders - the easiest way to do this is with javascript and capturing the window size and/or whether self.window = top.window. Fourth, you should track what users are doing once they reach your site. If your conversion rate is less than 1/10th of Google AdWords or Bing, you should be concerned. You can always use a third party software like AdWatcher, which is pretty good. It can get buggy in large volumes though. Good Luck.

Awesome, yes Matt Cutts in that video does imply what you are saying. I also agree with higher CTR (another thing I hadn't thought of!) Ryan, this is great. Thank you.

Agree with EGOL.  if you can create some amazing linkbait content - think viral, creative, or awesome infographic you could in theory leverage this to a short burts of traffic, inbound links etc.  depending on the site and content you could leverage on digg, reddit, stumpleupon, etc. the problem with these social sites is that you typically have to be an active member to start leveraging links and information for real value.

Far, far more than 3kb. Somewhere halfway this blog (http://www.finishjoomla.com/blog/41/does-source-code-ordering-still-matter-for-seo/) you'll find some references to sources on this same issue, they might be helpful for you.

GREAT!

You might also consider writing the redirect so that you don't have any extensions (see the SEOmoz URL for an example). That way, whenever you next change technologies, your URL will still stay the same.

Interesting tool. Do you have any plans to extend it to the UK? Thanks

It depends on the competition level for those keywords. If its high, you might want to focus on one mother keyword phrases and couple of child keyword phrases. Trying to rank for more than 1 keyword phrase in 1 page in a high competition scene is not something I'd suggest.

Thanks!   Interesting that newegg is bidding on its own brand to make this offer.

thanks both, both very interesting links and articles.  How about something I can put in quotation marks with a maven's name behind, thinking like "I think SEO is great!" Avanish Kaushik - google.

Just to pick up your point about keywords in the title. Yes, all the new business listings have keyword rich titles - e.g. Dagenham Waste Removal, so you could be right about that being the source of the problem.

Just a thought... Ever think about looking around for a few days and find someone who has something similar to what you are looking for, then approach them about purchasing it? Then alter it to your own specification. I know the pitfalls, but this may be a quicker and cheaper solution.

I see. We have set up a blog on their own domain.

Hi James, Thanks for your reply. I've just done this The websites hosted on Amaxon AWS. I thought it was where the domain was registered was important not where it was hosted. Not sure what you mean could you explain further? Many Thanks Mark

PPC and organic ranking does NOT go together. Read as little or as much into that as you want.