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One step at a time = long term success.  I wish you the best with it Jordan.

I'll also add this - if the link and it's surrounding text are NOT directly related in a laser-focus manner to the content topical focus of the article itself, it's not even an ideal link from a "pure" SEO perspective, even if it's high up in the content area.

Which just reinforces the whole "don't get lost on this being such a big deal" concept.

From a pure SEO perspective, the higher up in the page's main content area the better.  However once you introduce overall inbound link profile factors, if all you have are top of content area links, it looks unnatural.  So eventually it becomes a negative.  That's why it's vital to not get hung up on any single particular SEO tactic.  Aiming for "perfect" SEO ultimately causes you to end up with "flawed" SEO.

Every site needs a variety of inbound links from a  variety of sources, with a variety of "footprints".  So don't turn down a high value site opportunity just because you don't get the kind of link profile you think you need from it.

Not only is it good for SEO to have such a variety, it's good for visitor click-through traffic, which in turn can lead to more interaction, more engagement, and more buzz.  Those then in turn bring back even more value from an SEO perspective in full circle.

Jordan,

Others might have a different view, however that's exactly what I recommend to clients.  but only if you've got other html link based ways for bots to get to all the content in a direct manner, and have a good sitemap.xml file to reinforce that.

I am happy to see that you have a sound overall site architecture, however I see no robots.txt file at your root so I'm not sure what's up with that.  Also your sitemap.xml file only has 43 URLs in it.  that's a problem not because google can't find content by other means, it's just that I've found Google likes that reinforcement, and Bing especially does a better job discovering content with a proper sitemap.xml submitted through their webmaster system (they're less efficient at discovering content by other means).

I'd also suggest you have a big push ahead in dealing with near-duplicate content.

For example:

http://www.durafaucet.com/mk850-orb.html

http://www.durafaucet.com/kitchen-faucets/mk850.html

Sure, these are unique products.  Except there's already so little unique content on either page that the common content compounded by the site-wide replication of top, sidebar and footer content means the total weight of uniqueness is on the very minor end of the spectrum.

And then there's the issue of a complete lack of inbound link authority - OpenSiteExplorer.org might be wrong, but currently shows almost no inbound links.  Not only will you need inbound links to the home page, but also to as many inner pages as is realistic in terms of implementation capabilities go.  This is especially true for category level pages. (including a variety of inbound link anchor text - brand, domain, keyword phrase and generic text).

So if you don't address those type of issues, removing all the dupes that show up in search now won't result in as much long-term value as you'll need.

If you don't have proper pure HTML links, search bots can not be guaranteed to be able to properly crawl the site & discover all the content, search algorithms are less likely to be able to properly assess content relationships.  Proper HTML is fully capable of providing accessibility - it's a core function of HTML based navigation.

If someone needs to use alternate means of navigating beyond a mouse, it's those very pure HTML links that are most likely to provide functionality to special browsers designed to meet accessibility guidelines.

Client education is critical to setting expectations.  Help them understand that quality sustainable rankings both take time and effort.  Also, that even if you are able to do all the SEO you believe needed, there's no guarantee that at the same time, other new sites aren't also being optimized, or that the sites already securely in top ranked positions aren't doing additional ongoing work.

These concepts are why it's important to focus on a mix of low but refined, mid-level and high value phrases.

And it's critical to have a contract where you put in writing the outline of the services you will be providing as well as a paragraph about the challenges inherent in SEO.

You're partially correct.  To get actual value, the page should not simply be a page with links.  It should be a full blown "top fifty" type article, with extensive commentary on the reason why each is on the list.

By going this route, the page itself becomes more valuable from an on-site content perspective; the outbound links have more value (each link is integrated within descriptive paragraph based content targeting that business' specific offerings (thus keyword and brand relevant); and any inbound links in turn equate to higher value inbound links to an inner page on your site.  Links to inner pages are vital in today's SEO best practices when done properly.

While not as valuable as a full blown content piece with only a few outbound links, it's still more than what is essentially a doorway page.

"That will probably not happen here because signature links are not allowed and the ability to post here must either be paid for or earned."

And people like you, Jennita, me and a bunch of others would instantly turn those to toast the minute they're spotted

In theory, you're correct - the premise being they'd not want to risk penalizing innocent site owners.

In reality, Google makes mistakes all the time.  Some bounce back, others don't.

Also, Google is constantly changing their rules.  And based on rule-changing patterns I've studied over the past several years, if a technique even appears to be in the shady category today, it's very likely to be a primary target tomorrow.  Because of this, I prefer to focus on methods and tactics I believe to have a much more resilient long-term potential.

The PRs are all 4 or higher? really?  You called Google and asked?  Because if you didn't, you're relying on that mythical TBPR (ToolBarPageRank) that is a) wildly inaccurate b) several months old c) a shiny object that routinely causes people to lose focus on what matters regarding SEO.

Whether the boost will stick is not something any of us can know - every site, every link and every market is unique.  All I know is in my own personal experience working with clients, it's not a high quality long term strategy, and if it is done, should only be a small portion of the overall link building effort.  If too many links come from this source type, search engines will see a big red flag and you will suffer as a result.

EGOL, I was just thinking today out of all the people who answer questions in Pro Q&A, you're at the top of my "pay attention to" list.  So thanks for the compliment. 

As long as it's set up with SEO in mind at the admin level, for blogs and for building core sites with integral blogs, I recommend WordPress to my clients.

Thomas that's an important distinction.  The quality of the article to target page relationship is critical, and mostly for attracting new visitors regardless of primary SEO value.  Even though visitor clicks do add to SEO as well, there's so much more to the process that if comment links are an intentional and significant part of an SEO campaign it's really more likely to be a timesuck.

Lets go beyond the excellent input EGOL has provided for a moment.

How relevant are the articles you're dropping links in the comment area of to the site you're linking to?  How relevant is the topic to the target topic?  How much of your link building energy is focused on this as a link building tactic?

Comment links offer such little value even when all conditions are ideal that it's really not a prudent use of time and resources.  At least not from an SEO best practices perspective.

Consider the source. Is it a profile on a site that's highly relevant to the target web site?  Is the link in the profile tagged with a nofollow?  How popular is the site the profile is on? How well optimized is the site? How well optimized is the profile page?  How far down the link structure is the profile section?

All of these are factors in determining whether it's worth it to even bother if you're just looking for links.  And even with all other factors considered, profile pages should always only be considered a minor link building opportunity.

Joe,

I've done extensive SEO work and numerous audits in the real estate market.  This is a situation where you're comparing apples to Honeycrisp apples.  (yeah, apples to oranges wasn't appropriate for a Minnesota site )

Consider the shear volume of search and number of sites competing for the very generic "real estate" related phrases.  Then do the same for the much more refined focus "short sale" related phrases.

JoeAndCindy.com is competing in a much more difficult market online, and it's trying to target many more keyword variations.

I'd like to offer recommendations where the existing site could possibly just have an SEO problem that won't go away just by getting the new domain value, however when I went to rocketproblems.com just now, I got a "server not found" message.

So without seeing your site, I'll offer insight on what to consider doing if you do the switch.

Exact match or partial match domains do offer value.  They are, however, on Google's radar for possibly getting less value than they do now, though Matt Cutts' exact language in a video earlier this year was they're considering a minor / slight reduction in value.

I wouldn't go by the competitors visible actions.  Just one month is not long enough to determine value of such a transfer.  It could easily take a couple months or longer to rebound and build the proper new trust factors that the new domain name will require, including links to the new domain.

Links to the existing site should be examined to find out which ones you can request being changed to the new domain name as well, since 301 redirects (vital to ensure these are implemented across the board and tested for verification) do take a hit on passing value.

I would also recommend a full press release through PRWeb.com or PRNewswire.com upon change to the new domain, as well as a social media campaign to promote the new domain.

So if you are prepared to wait out the potential drop over an extended period of time, do a full-court press.

My standard procedure is to have clients include the company name on any "About" related pages, as well as "Contact" related pages, "press", or "media" related pages.  It's important to do this so as to ensure the best chance of outranking other sites that have information on the company. I also don't believe it's necessary to do this with the domain name, since the domain name is already in every internal and external link.

Cindy,

I come up against this challenge frequently.  The solution I've come to rely on for a few years is to swap out the location for the next bigger location closest or enveloping your target location.

For example, if I am looking for "Restaurants Sausalito", and if no results come back for that or any of the variations I think are most relevant, I expand it to "Restaurants Marin" (Marin County is where Sausalito is).  Or I'll step it up to "Restaurants San Francisco Bay area", the immediate region.

Once I go through that exercise, I'll take the top X phrases that come back and just to be sure, go back and swap in my ultimate intended location.

This process serves a couple purposes.

1.  It establishes a base that legitimately works even when there are language nuances across various regions.  For example, I've found that people do in fact search differently from one geo-location to another even here in the U.S. for some things.  And this method targets the words that are used in the immediate location surrounding my target, which is more accurate than non-location based guesses in some situations.

2.  it also helps me target the larger region if it turns out there's search volume for that larger area that I would have missed had I only optimized for the smaller location.  So I do quite often optimize with the larger area in my content.

You'd be surprised sometimes at the number of people who search based on those larger areas.  And if nobody seems to be searching for "Restaurants Sausalito" (or very few are), then I get those bonus eyeballs from those searching for "Restaurants Marin" or "Restaurants San Francisco Bay Area" or "Restaurants Bay area".

Another method I use includes doing actual searches to see what comes back in the Local Result set when I leave off local identifiers in Google.  I not only look to see what sites are optimized for Google Places, but what sites spend money on PPC specifically targeting that local area.  The more PPC competition in the local results, the higher the potential value for a phrase that doesn't even include the local designator.