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For the question that you asked, yes, to rank for a term you need a good relevant page of content with very strong social signals (links, likes, etc.) to promote it.

Yeah, I'd agree with you. I wouldn't touch traditional article sites. I certainly have nothing against posting content on external sites that are high quality. I have seen, for example, a lot of really good industry-specific "article" sites that have a strong editorial review, high quality standards, and real readers. Especially for small site, it can definitely be worth posting some good content to quality external sites, whether the site focuses on articles, blog posts, or something else.

My response would essentially be the same for this question as your other question about article directories. Do the most important/niche directories first. Check/find directories where your competition is listed, specially the ones that are outranking you in the SERPS. But again, don't do just a ton of those directories in one day. I would pick the niche ones, do them randomly amongst other link initiatives.

Its basic purpose is to allow search spiders to better understand what is what on your site. For instance, if you are selling a product and implement your product markup correctly Google can tell (and somewhat understand) what is what from the price, to quality (customer reviews), to what it should tell people it does (description) and looks like (image). Some of these are already integrated into the SERPs others are expected to be integrated at a later date. Cooking seems to be one that has been a test bed for markup for Google. Look at the differences between this page and this page. It is not really intended for browsers, just for search spiders. People do not require markups to tell us what is what because we can make logical sense of what is on webpages. If you are just starting to markup your site use this: http://schema.org/

What I like to do is occasionally research, work on, and perfect a solution to a problem. Then I will have plenty of material for both internal and external content. You can first write a blog post or article on your site. And edit it a bit and have it looking good. Then show it as the example to other webmasters and podcast hosts. They get an idea of how you feel, know if they want your content on the matter on their site and then there is a natural page to link to for any story they do on you. It seems like a good way to go and this then has otehr strong pages with links to you that are ontopic, relevant, and different content than the first article. The second, third, or fourth article get easier and easier to write. And doing a podcast is a walk in the park after all the research and reporting.

Presuming both the sites hosted in UK share the same or similar interests/categories/niche, it's definitely the UK hosted site to the UK hosted site. Sounds like you already knew it, just wanted to make sure

Anytime. Please feel free to mark the question as answered hahaha! On a side note, not sure why anyone would thumbs down your comment thanking us for our input :S due to this I have added my thumbs up to your comment thanking us.

That's great, Activitysuper, Just stage the project in a reasonable manner. Your copywriter can't do it all at once, but he/she can do it over time. Good luck! Miriam

Yes, exactly - if you see a blog post with 100 comments and they're all using exact-match anchor text to 10 different interests ("Free Casino", "Cheap Viagra", etc.) it's a pretty clear sign that blog's been spammed to death. Admittedly, it's not always so obvious, but you can usually spot quality problems pretty quickly.

It certainly won't hurt, as long as you keep the following in mind: Not every directory link is right for your site. Be selective and don't go for every link out there. Pace yourself. A good hint I got from Ian Lurie's Fat Free Guide is the 2:1 rule: for every two directory links you build, make sure to build one genuinely natural link. This helps to keep your link profile looking “natural”. Research. Understand where your link will be placed before you go after it. Check Google’s cache of the page to make sure they are indexing it. Large directories are often plagued by bad SEO, and not every link carries the weight it should. Seek relevancy. Ask yourself if this link has the potential to send qualified traffic to your site. Even if it's a small amount of traffic, it's probably worth the effort. I originally wrote these tips in a blog post published a few months ago. According to rule #2, you should be safe with a couple of directory links - but if you are just getting started I wouldn't push it further than this. To really add value, try to ensure they are related to your niche. The harder it is to get into a directory, the more value it adds.

First off, make sure to keep the 2012 url.  It has generated links that will benefit your site as a whole. Secondly, I would create the 2013 page as soon as possible, and post the movies that are supposed to come out in 2013.  Make sure to update every so often to keep it up to date.  This will allow you to start generating links to the new url.  This will then improve your site as a whole, and give you a step up for ranking high with the new page.  If you find a movie estimated for a 2014 arrival, slap up another page.

I think it would have some effect. How big that is I don't know. I am sure a 301 to any page doesn't carry 100% of its worth to the new page. So I think that may be the case with each page. However, if your getting clicks to your new site from 4 domains and all those visitors in the one place. Then maybe it would have a positive effect on the site.

Cheers Phil, Nice reply and very helpful. I've taken this on board regarding my guest blogging activity. Cheers again.

Thanks! I am on it

mmm I do agree to disagree from the testing I have done, I have seen better rankings for (emd).co.uk against (emd).org.uk from index. To the point where .co.uk would rank page 1-3 and .org.uk would rank page 5+ But everyone does things differently, I tend to take .co.uk over anything else when im taking ranking factors into account.

You are right about your recent comment. Buying individual CLD's is definently alot easier, however you can buy a .com to use as your global and create subfolders to geo target specific countries. There are also other options you could do. This blog post clearly states it - http://dejanseo.com.au/one-domain-multiple-geo-targets/ Hope this helps, Vahe

That's not my experience, and it's not what this data suggests: 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors Pages don't compete in isolation of any other factors...

LOL that is funny!

Hey, Are these sites still legit or are their any new ones that you all would suggest?

We would actually have to see the results to give a specific analysis of the situation, as well as the stats of the website/url/domain you're trying to get to rank.  If your domain is relatively new, with no stats, it may be somewhat difficult considering the domain authority of the results.  On the other side of that, you may very well be able to get some excellent quality links and boost your stats and it may not be too difficult.  It's all very hard to say without specifics.  Could you provide more information?  If not, you're more than welcome to DM in private about it.