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Hi Melissa! A few thoughts on this: I understand that the owner wants to rank as highly as possible - of course. Nevertheless, in order for him to be keeping current with the way search works, he needs to understand that there are no universal #1 rankings. Due to personalization and the user-as-centroid phenomenon, what the owner sees on his cell phone is not going to identically match what his customers see on theirs. Rather than obsessing over rankings, the owner would be strengthening his business by focusing on conversions. Are the pages being created by this business causing phones to ring? If yes, conversions are high. If no, conversions are not what they could be. We've already identified that the page you've shared here is weak. Rather than focusing too much on rankings, the owner needs to start at the beginning by focusing on quality. If he can't invest in this or wait for a careful effort to pay off, he should simply invest directly in PPC. There are 2 ways to approach a multi-service, multi-location business: A: You have a page for each service and a page for each location. You do not develop a page for every possible combination of services/cities. This is the best approach when funding, creativity or commitment to quality may be in question. B: You do create a page for every possible combination of the cities and services. So, you have a shredding page for city A and a shredding page for city B. You have a page for data management for City A and another for the same term for city B. While this approach is possible, it should really only be undertaken where there is sufficient commitment to quality and sufficient funding, otherwise you'll end up weakening the site with thin/duplicate pages instead of strengthening it. Whichever approach is taken, you should always link obviously to all pages. Don't hide them. If they are pages for the public, they belong in a high level menu. Right now, it seems like the business is experimenting with option B, but not doing a really great job at it. So, the business is at a critical point here and needs to decide whether they can continue with option B in a way that adds value and strengthens the site and is fully public, or, if they actually would be better off going with option A. The website is only 1 aspect of rankings, but it's an extremely important one, and a key factor in conversions. Hope this helps

Hi Jordan Thank you this has completely cleared things up. Thanks for your help. Claire

Definitely check out our Ranking Factors survey.  As far as Accessibility, many good practices such as providing transcripts for videos and alt text for images are just good SEO too.

I agree, you shouldn't lose much if any on DA and PA, but if you are on a GoDaddy holding page you will start losing those links. I'm sure you realize the need to get some relevant content up there fast

Hi Dirk, Thank you very much for your answer!

Hi Rebecca - Thanks for the fast reply!  In my example, how would you structure the "find a business" URL's vs. the "specific business location page" URL: website.com/anxiety-treatment/co/denver to browse a directory to allow users to work backwards to find a location in another city website.com/johnson-anxiety-treatment-center-denver-co as the link to the one specific office in denver named "Johnson Anxiety Treatment Center"? Do you feel that the specific office page needs to be in the same URL structure as the browse a directory? If so then it would be super long like this: website.com/anxiety-treatment/co/denver/johnson1001 Appreciate your thoughts & reply.

Hey Donald, What I'm understanding is that your clients use "I offer estate planning services" as opposed to "At Adams Law, comprehensive estate planning services have been designed to help you ..." And that you feel the second example seems more professional. I can see where you're coming from. I can also see that overuse of the word 'I' can start to look rather narcissistic. There's an anecdote about Teddy Roosevelt writing a book so full of the word 'I' that his typesetters had to purchase more of that letter! And, interestingly, this same topic has been coming up in the 2016 primary cycle in which pundits are counting the number of times one Democratic candidate is using the word 'I' vs. the other using the word 'we'. The upshot is, at least in my view, that pronouns definitely set a tone and say a lot about a person or a business. Here's what I think: Legal firms are supposed to sound professional because they deal in matters of serious import for their clients. Most people would not want to entrust their legal affairs to a law firm that seems sloppy or careless. So, a small but significant signal of professionalism is the company's name. Adams Attorneys At Law sounds very official, right? More so than "I do law and stuff like that." would. Then, too, web copy should always be modestly optimized with a brand's name, just for the sake of associating the brand's content with the brand's name in the user's mind. However, mention of the brand's name does not need to exclude use of personal pronouns like 'We' or 'I'. As in, "I want every client of Adams Law to be empowered with accessible, affordable counsel." Or "We will make sure you feel comfortable at Adams Law from your first phone call, to your first meeting, to your final settlement." You can use both. A key point of using first person pronouns is to indicate that a human being or group of humans are communicating something. This is meant to engender a sense of approachability - of someone manning the ship, right? "We are here to help you" is more indicative of a personal communication than "Adams Law exists to help clients". But how far you go with with this depends on the culture of your business. A lawyer who deals with family law may want to project more personal empathy than one who deals with taxes. Or, one who is managing wealth may want to project more of an energetic, hip vibe than one who is trying to appear aggressive because he takes criminal cases. I've written copy for so many different industries over the past 10+ years and my preferred pronoun for nearly all business models is actually not 'I' or 'We'. It's 'YOU'. For most business models, I advocate that 'you' be the most frequently used pronoun, and that 'I' or 'We' come second to that and the brand comes third. How you finesse this relates to how formally a business interacts with its customers. From stuffy to downright laid back, knowing the preferred tone of a client's culture is what should set the tone for all copy, creating consistency and a clear message. Hope this helps!

Hi Danny, Since product variants on the same detail page probably won't work for you, I think this is going to come down to how creative you can get. There are plenty of phone case manufacturers out there that all have different descriptions of their products which are essentially the same thing. Try to approach it from that angle, treat them as though they are different and start with a clean slate for every product. You might want to have different people in your organization tackle similar products, so they're written from a different voice. When the same person writes all the descriptions, they end up using the same adjectives and thinking about the content in the same way, so it's hard to break the pattern on the 2nd, 3rd, etc. product descriptions.

Implementing those right away, hope it will work

Woo Hoo! Another tools post! ...I jest. SEMRush Moz & Moz Bar Screaming Frog SEO Profiler AHREFS

Yes there is! But the specific query string/parameter GCLID is mostly ignored by the search engines as it's a parameter that is often used by search engines to identify users. For example, every link from Google Adwords will contain this parameter.

Sure. Thank you so much for confirming the same. For the first time today, my recommended solution for a problem was supported by you. I'm really happy about it. "Moving in the right direction" feeling

From looking at your site, your niche is "quirky gifts", so that is a decent umbrella topic to drive the content you're producing. I think the "10 Best ______" format is one you should keep doing regardless of the links. Over time they could get links from people referencing gift occasions and things like that. The next content types I'd be focused on would be topic related. "Star Wars", "Wine Lovers", "Science", etc. These don't have to be posts about gifts for those audiences, just anything related to those topics that fans would want to read. These types of posts will be your broader strategy for building awareness with your target audiences. The better your production value and promotion efforts, the more likely you'll see links from this type of content. Your overall blog may or may not attract subscribers. You're more likely to get them if you focus on an angle, eg "nerdy stuff" like www.thinkgeek.com. That's probably the best route to go in order to get a following over time. Otherwise you'll always be trying to build traffic without a developed fanbase. And, your blog can speak to 60% of the categories you sell and still be successful. You don't have to publish about all products in the same blog.