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Yep the latter makes perfect sense, but so many sites are scared of offering post opportunities because of what is going on with Google, that there are not many that will do it. Those that do are unlikely to be offering do-follow links.

I would try things like Help a Reporter Out and getting in with Journalists to get good inclusion. This is more like PR than it is link building.

Andy

Hi,

It is more a pixel-width limit than the number of characters, and this width can change depending on the width of the characters used. I believe this is still at around 580 pixels wide.

That equates to around 65 characters as an average but can be a little more or less.

I would try and stick within that threshold to avoid the page titles being truncated (cut off).

Moz gives some good tips here...

Andy

Hi,

I would advise you stay away from using guest posts to build backlinks - it is a bit of an old strategy and anyone can post an article on a site and then place a link in it. I have seen less and less value from these as time has gone on - to the point I stopped offering this as a service altogether some time ago.

If you are placing a sponsored post on a site now, Google advises that you add a no index or rel=sponsored tag to the link(s) coming out from it.

There is no substitute for good old honest editorially aquired backlinks - they just take more work.

Andy

Hi Nathan,

If you have no-indexed your pages, it is perfectly normal to then see no-index flags. They aren't necessarily an issue if you are expecting them to be there.

Cheers,

Andy

Try not to focus too much on this, but are you planning on the keyword for a page title or something similar?

If it is just part of the content, as long as it explains what you are talking about, then you are all good.

If it is for a page title, then it needs to be something you want to rank for and that also explains the page well.

-Andy

Hi,

I wouldn't worry about where they keywords are positioned - I would be looking at how relevant the keyword is to the page.

Google naturally looks for a range of keywords when evaluating a page, but of course, we don't know exactly what that formula is.

Keep everything natural and just use whatever words make sense to the article - and remember, write for your audience, not Google.

-Andy

Hi,

The best think you can do is head over here:
https://support.google.com/business/?hl=en-GB#topic=4539639

Those are the Google My Business support pages and from there you can diagnose issues, but also have access to the community with a lot of very knowledgeable people. I am sure you will find someone to help you, but in the meantime, you might get other ides from members here as well.

-Andy

Hi Ryan,

One thing to be careful of - even though a page is no-indexed, Google still reads it and if there were a penalty (or fear of a penalty) there, this can still go towards it.

Happy to take a peek if you want to drop me a PM?

-Andy

Hi Daniel,

I don't know how best these should be generated (will be a coding thing that needs writing perhaps) but I can tell you that doing this isn't an issue, as long as you get it right.

If you think about some of the huge sites out there on the web, they don't hand-write each page description.

Have a look at sites like Amazon and Ebay or any other online retailer - they will all be automated.

-Andy

Well, if the pages are being indexed, you have an eye on speeding things up and you aren't losing any customers because of it, then I can't see any real harm in it. I can't deny that it seems a bit of an odd way of getting there - perhaps other sites do something similar but I just haven't seen them - the Internet is a big place

I am very much of the opinion, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

-Andy

If I could add an animated graphic right now, it would be of someone waving their hands and shouting 'NO!'

Paid or free, you can't entertain anything like this if you don't want to get hit by a penalty or want to gain anything from Google.

Sorry, this is a big no-no.

Spend time on either writing or having someone write content for you. You might not get as much done if you are on a budget, but it will be unique and something that people will want to read.

-Andy

That sounds to be your problem right there. This isn't a viable linking solution any more and will do you more harm than good.

In order for links to succeed now, you need to be thinking linkable assets (what does your site have that people want to link to) and outreach (contacting site owners to inform them of this).

When looking at links back into the site, you don't want to be using keyword rich anchor text either. This will draw unwanted attention from Google, so always use neutral anchors such as the domain, brand or something as simple as a 'click here'.

I would stop doing what you are right now though and focus on quality over quantity.

-Andy

Hi Duncan,

I personally wouldn't be doing it like that. Have a read of this article on .htaccess rewrites to redirect upper case to lower case. It should give you a copy & paste solution to what you wish to achieve.

-Andy

Hi Sunny,

Aside from cleaning up bad links and removing thin pages, are you doing anything positive for link building? Great content can make a huge difference, but remember that you are competing against thousands or millions of other sites / pages, who also want those coveted top places. You need to share what you are creating; reach out to industry specialists and thought leaders and see if you can get links that way.

Link-building and outreach is a huge subject, but it starts with creating something great - don't stop just at content.

-Andy

Absolutely no reason why not - you can read more about how DA works here:  http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority

-Andy

I quite enjoy some of these calls because I can run rings round them when they call. Before now I have asked them to hold on and I leave the phone next to me and have a game of Angry Birds or go and make a brew - bit of light entertainment

Hi,

Do nothing until Google has rolled this out and confirmed that they are going to go with it. You don't want to make lots of changes if you only have to change them all back again - this could cause you a number of issues.

-Andy

Hi Travis,

There is never a problem with buying a domain and then just pointing it to your primary site. Problems only arise if you were to buy a domain and then populate it with spam / duplicated content that then linked to your main site.

However, I am a little unsure by the example you gave above, as this looks like just a subdomain of your site, in which case, you won't need to purchase anything and it just requires setting up. Again though, fill it with content (unique) and SEO it as a new site.

-Andy

Hi Rosemary,

I'm not too sure you can use 'bone fide' and 'distribution networks' in the same sentence

Quite seriously, I would be looking to make some headway in their market niche rather than trying to make use of networks. I am sure that between your client and yourself, you can find top industry influencers to engage with and start to build their brand a bit more.

I would be trying to take a more natural approach to this and find forums, discussions, questions (Quora?) and Social Media to make a start with this. Perhaps some of the older articles can be checked to see if they are still relevant and if not, update them with something more current.

I hope this helps.

-Andy

I am completely with George here.

There is nothing that you can't learn, given enough time, but when I 'went it alone' all those years ago, I realised just how much time and effort had to be put into communication with clients.

OK, it might seem like just a part of what you do now, but what makes you stand out from the crowd, is being able to empathise with the clients issues and help control any situation that might come your way in a professional manner.

Take the time to understand their frustrations and take your time when replying - no good ever came from a hasty reply that ended up as a slanging match.

Remember, if a client keeps coming back looking for more clarification on something, it could simply be down to how you are explaining it.

-Andy