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Adding to what Michael said, I will also say that keyword infused domain names increase the potential for the site being more rigorously held up to the Exact Match Domain algorithm system which means your site will need to be even more trustworthy, overall to avoid getting penalized for attempting to artificially rank for that or related phrases.

IF all you are doing is changing a graphic image banner, and if that is done solely based on country of origin evaluation there would be no negative SEO impact.

The best practice here is to create a sitemap index - a single sitemap XML file that lists each of the individual sitemap files.

That then becomes the sitemap you reference in your robots.txt file and to help speed up the process of crawling, submit that through Google and Bing webmaster tools. (You only need to submit that index file - their systems will then "discover" all the individual files listed in it).

See Google's sitemap index how-to.

Actually it MAY BE RADICALLY different than building a site in "traditional" HTML as far as SEO goes.

If site navigation goes away or is radically reduced for responsive (fluid) design reasons, your code needs to embed URLs in the position where it would traditionally appear in the flowing/scrolling content. This also includes ensuring proper category funnels exist at the code level as well.

Also, site speed is a CRITICAL factor (just as it is with any other technology) except its more challenging to ensure your speed is truly maximized depending on the type of code base or framework you use for the responsive design, as well as the optimization of the CDN code and delivery pipe as well.

User WebPageTest.org to thoroughly test each template type (you can choose desktop or mobile device types), along with URIValet.com (the 1.5MBPS speed best reflects what Google tends to see).  The key is this isn't about "time it takes a user to see the content" as much as it is "time to process the code that drives the presentation" - page PROCESSING speed.

I really like Dana's response - it covers the primary consideration - how much time would it REALLY take to write unique Meta descriptions? If the TRUE answer is "unrealistically too much time", then a template COULD work. The trick though is addressing the issues Dana talks about.

If you only use a primary product name as the variable, you run risks. If you have a 2nd database field you have that includes some differentiation between otherwise identical products, that can help.  As long as you understand total length as a consideration.

When you say "table text", do you mean a process where you consolidate many pages into fewer pages, and where the content is presented in a way that gives one page much more depth of content?

If so, consolidating many pages into fewer pages is helpful in certain situations.

If individual pages themselves do not have enough text as a stand-alone page, you can consolidate them into fewer pages as long as the primary focus (topic /main keyword) across each of those is very much similar.  If there is too diverse a focus across pages, consolidating them can cause topical confusion on the consolidated page.

That's the primary consideration I go with when evaluating content for SEO.

Also, what about user experience - is it better with many pages, or is it better with consolidated content? That too matters and in fact, helps reinforce the issue of topical focus quality or harms it by making things confused (a page trying to do too many things for too many reasons).

Glad to hear you are helping them - they need it from the quick look I just did...

It would be helpful to add those three to the main navigation in a drop-down (as long as it functions across devices).  These are the primary product offerings and it would help visitors know right away that they offer these specific solutions without having to first click through, then scroll through the poorly constructed pages the main nav currently links to.

The problem with that scenario is "are these the only products they want to be found for?" If not, that would confuse anyone coming to the site for other solutions.

A better solution would be when someone clicks on the main navigation links for "accounting" or "oversight", that should take the visitor to a page that specifies each of the different products or services they offer in that bucket.  They would benefit from having a "sub-navigation" bar in each section unique to that section that appears on every page in that section.

On the home page they can have a paragraph describing those most important offerings and linking directly to them.  And on each main landing page they can have a paragraph describing each product/service in that section and linking to that specific product/service as well.

The problem with footer nav is it's just that - footer material - meaning "not as strong" as main navigation or in-content navigation. Loading it up with links to "all the things" is not helpful, even with a nofollow attribute, becuase it still has those words on the page, which can dilute topical focus of the main topic on individual product / service page.

Footer links should be streamlined to only a few "standard / common" links most sites have in footers.

The blog is best served with a main nav link as well, for the reasons you described.

Nofollow should really only be used when linking to a page you don't want indexed, or in rare situations, it can be used (with moderation) for other reasons It is NOT a panacea.

LOL Paul - I don't know you as well as I hope to in the future, however you have already through the multiple interactions we've had, proven you're trustworthy, friendly and a good person by nature (your actions have spoken).

So yes, this is a great example of how to build a valid professional relationship.  Because even if you hadn't made that referral, the interactions themselves beyond that have been high quality and "trustworthy".  So I am already inclined to be of help should the situation arise.

LOL Dana,

I was going to mention Annie since she's the best in the business when it comes to tapping data in spreadsheets, but didn't know (or more likely didn't remember) she's got a Mozcon Presentation on the topic and didn't mention her because I didn't want to make it seem like I was promoting her business.  Yet she really is my own go-to resource for advanced spreadsheet work...

CleverPhD has great tips - and is 100% spot on with regard to establishing a connection first.  I have found its vital to first establish a trust basis - proving through action that I am a respectful human being.

For me it starts out with social media - following someone on Twitter, sharing their content when I genuinely find it valuable, engaging in dialogue politely and not in a forced "doing this for a future link" manner, being helpful...

If I can connect with them at a conference or meetup where we both have a valid reason to be at the same place in person separate from "going there to get a link from that person", it allows the POTENTIAL for in-person real world reinforcement of that genuine connection.

NOTE - I have had people do that with me but then when they heard I was going to be at such-and-such conference, invited me to dinner.  I played along out of respect, and it turned out they were just looking to suck my life-force, it wasn't as genuine as they led on to believe.

Don't be that person.

I don't do much in the way of competitive research anymore given that the majority of my work is now doing strategic audits (competitive analysis is a tactical level effort).  However, when I do, I like SEMRush - several different comparison charts and spreadsheets you can get including keywords they rank for (along with relevant data), organic visibility comparison (up to five sites in each chart and you can run through that for as many as you want), and other great data.

Oliver,

Thank you for pointing out this "exception" to the Schema placement rule.  As is the case with any structured markup solution, there will, from time to time, be cases where certain, specific elements go in the "head" section of the code.  Anything that applies to an individual page in its entirety, and does not limit itself to an element of content within the page does, in fact, belong in the "head" area of the page code.

The most important factor here is the notion that you can go to one source for a high volume of links where the cost per link is next to nothing.  We can argue about what "next to nothing" means, however essentially if any link is not placed on a site or directory where the quality, uniqueness, authority, relevance or trust of that site / directory are strong, that individual link is suspect.

While it can be argued that a new site / directory doesn't yet have authority and thus such a site /directory can still be okay to get a link from, it means the other four signals need to be that much stronger to compensate for that lack of authority.

If the company claiming to offer these services is willing to provide you a spreadsheet listing all the directories they intend to get links for you, go ahead and look at some of those and judge for yourself.

Directories are held to an even higher standard in regard to relevance and trust because the overwhelming majority of "directories" out there are craptastic bogus scams created purely for SEO.

Of the hundreds of thousands of links I have reviewed during client audits this year, I can assure you only a small fraction of links from directories were real, and even a smaller fraction of those provided any value.

Do not get caught up in marketing nonsense.  Everything you listed in their claims about why you should trust them is a massive red flag to me that you'll get ripped off.

On a final note, while I am delighted that the previous answers here paved the warning way before I joined this discussion, I need to speak up about the potential for harm.  The potential for a penalty here is ALARMINGLY HIGH.

Relying on directory links from a company like the one that pitched you is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS in 2013. Most of the site owners who hire me to do a forensic audit have been penalized manually or algorithmically and most of those have had ugly directory link based inbound link profile madness.

I'm with Ash on the Internationalization strategy. I would also suggest that if you go with domain.com/countryspecificsection/ then each country specific section should have it's on country / language specific structured markup and Meta data assignment. This will help ensure Google doesn't have to figure it out on their own (because they are a gambler's nightmare as to how they can get mixed signals wrong).

Drew,

Thanks for emphasizing the resource allocation consideration. I mentioned it only in a minor way, yet it really is a critical consideration.

Digging a little and it looks like a totally fake site by some hack SEO.

Any time you see a link in a suspicious site's footer that says "SEO xxxxxx xxxx" (in this case "SEO Company Perth" that's a massive red flag.

To the left of that link is a link "LEF" - that points to a Link Exchange site. How obvious is it then that this is a bogus site?

Other clues:

No other navigation links of any value that communicate "this is a legitimate web site".

The "Remarkable US Presidents main navigation link has links in it that just point to another hack site "MTI-USA.com" and THAT site, even though it's got "USA" in the domain, links to a Perth "digital agency"...

Bottom line, it's a mess. And the lesson here is don't get caught up examining competitor links assuming you see something that could be helping them unless you know what you are doing. All it will result in is your site being slapped with penalties.

Canonical tags are only a bandaid and not the best practices solution as a single action.  Search engines require that multiple signal points all reaffirm and reinforce other signals.  While canonical tags can help, if a high volume of links (either from other sites or even from within the site itself) point to other versions, this can cause confusion within the multi-algorithm eco-system.

I have seen many sites that have linked to their home page using three different URL variations right within links in their own site so don't discount that concept.

The founding principle to SEO is brand identification. The more you do to model your web presence after successful major brands, the more you will naturally earn trust and authority big brands earn. That in turn boosts all other aspects of SEO.

To achieve this specific to subsidiaries, you establish a parent company corporate site, and a stand-alone domain for each subsidiary.  Every site however, needs to utilize the most sustainable SEO methods possible. You can't just slap up sites with a few pages and expect them to rank or pull in highly qualified visitors without serious focus.

Only link back to the parent company site and other subsidiary sites from your "About", and "Contact" sections unless you believe it's valuable from a visibility perspective to link from every page. HOWEVER if you link from every page, they should be nofollow links. if you do mass volume links from site to site and they're not nofollowed, that leaves you highly exposed to potential algorithm penalties.

If you want each subsidiary to succeed as its own brand you will need separate social channels for each as well.  Again though, they'll only be helpful long-term if you have the resources to maintain them in quality engagement ways.

There are many other rules and guidelines (like "keep duplication of content to as near zero as possible") however that's the core concept that addresses your question here.

Google is supposedly now merging multiple listings.  Check out an article on this update.

I know the feeling and concerns, Marshall.  Glad I found the question here!