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I understand. Good reminder.

It also supports Google's "above the fold" algorithm update. Get your relevent content above the fold (links too). Think of the fold as the area of your monitor that you can see without scrolling down the page. That's why the top of page 1 pays the money and value diminishes as you go down the page.

Google ran a series of tests last year where AdWords in the right space on the page alternated with space at the bottom of the page. We structured AdWords to be at the top of the page on the right and were pissed off when they moved our ads to the bottom of the page. We wanted our ads to be seen without people having to scroll down the page.

Granted there's a lot of different monitors and Webmaster Central has tools for testing how pages look, but consider your own browsing habits.

People tend to take the path of least resistance (and viewer patience is growing shorter and shorter as the months go by).

Here's one I've got bookmarked:  http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

And another:  http://pointblankseo.com/creative-link-building

Hi Miriam,

I've experienced what you described from a user perspective and I think it depends on the service being provided.

For me, web and phone type services do not require a physical location and it does not bother me to get local results from an outfit that does not have a physical presence.

Services like floral and candy type stuff may make a difference and may not.  If I needed to stop somewhere on the way home and get some goodies for my wife, I obviously need a walk-in store and will get peeved while looking if I see a bunch of virtual stuff.

On the other hand, I needed to send my daughter some chocolate covered strawberries for Valentines day so I Googled an outfit near her home assuming they would get it there quickly. Well, they could do it but their prices were outrageous. I found an outfit based in California with a virtual page one organic listing in the same city that guaranteed next day service so I bought from them.

Finally, if I need a roofer, plumber or heat and air guy I want somebody with a physical location in or near my city. No virtual stuff.  I came across a virtual, type service of this kind that may or may not have had a physical franchise in my city but even if they did I would not use their service. I wouldn't trust them.  It smacks of fly-by-night.  But that's just me.

In sum:

1. Depends on the service. If I'm looking for a geo location with a local street address and can't find one - I don't like it and will skip it.  If I'm looking for flowers, candy, phone service etc. where an email or no physical or vocal service is needed I don't mind it at all.  For example, I was looking for a Mister Sparky in Dallas and I found a site with a map of the dallas area but no street address pinned or stated. Just a city and phone number. Yuck.

2. Thin or duplicate doesn't really matter for me. I went with a heat and air guy who's been doing business in my sub-urb for years. He had a very basic website on a yellow pages cms site. It was about what I expected for a smaller local guy. However, if I was looking in the big city like you suggest, I would expect a better presentation where quality of content would be more of an influence.

3. I wouldn't recommend a virtual company target a bunch of sub-urbs and small cities. I would target 2 or 3 of the major cities in each state and create impressive landing pages.

Your examples suggest you're considering microsites with the intent to game Google keywords which will get you penalized.

If you're in the pool building business there's no problem at all with having the word keyword "pool" in your domain name and in my opinion it could help - especially when your domain authority is in its infancy.

There are dozens of "pool" related terms such as pool table, office pool, pool parties and cesspool (which could be an argument as to why a pool keyword in your title would not matter any more than the term "gizmo.")

What will determine your success will be your qualifiers ahead of and behind your keyword and the content you build for it: cost of building a pool, above ground pool installation, inground pool care, swimming pool maintenance, salt water pool benefits etc.

The examples you give could easily be pages on your site with geo targeted titles.

Is the keyword necessary to have in your domain name? No. Would it help? Yes it can. Will you still have to do the work to rank? Yes you will.

I hope Google is reading and adjusting social algo indicators accordingly.

Thanks Dr. M. We are like a Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Target and Feed Store rolled into one and we rank well locally across the categories.

I'm inclined to believe you are correct in that signalling city keywords would not automatically or significantly diminish ranking outside the city.

However, considering the input from others, specifically the volume of search as found in Google Insights/AdWords etc. and the length of the title and how it affects the other keywords, I'm inclined to think I should take the local tag off of those products that don't need to be sold locally - and we can identify those pretty easily.

Would others agree? Thumbs up if I should take it off or thumbs down if I should leave it as it could only help and not hurt.

We've submitted our sites to the reputable local directories and update only as needed.

Looking through our backlink profile I've found our store on ooodles of local directories I have nothing to do with and never signed up for.

I'd direct the money elsewhere.

I submit every product and category I add.

Do I have to? No. Is it necessary? No - we have an xml sitemap generator. Google is like Big Brother - he will find you. Fetch is a tool that you can use or not use.

Will Google find it faster and will you show up more quickly in search results if you submit it? I don't know.

Hi Mike. Right click on Dr. Oz page with your link on it. In the popup, select "view page source." It will open up a page with a bunch of code on it. On line 9 you will see the no index tag.

When checking links, I typically check the profile in open site explorer and Webmaster tools in Analytics.

I've asked the same thing in the past and told by authoritative users in this forum the following: "If your site is structurally sound, you shouldn't need a sitemap."

I've bought into that principle.

If customers scroll to the bottom of my pages without finding or keyword searching what they need, I've probably not done a good job of setting it up.

Put into practice, we're in the process of revamping to a top navigation with search suggest features and left nav filtering functionality.

I posted a link to Rand's recent Moz Blog in another forum.

One of the users posted a link to this article as a counter point.

Thoughts?

[title edited by staff for clarity]

Todd Malicoat teaches the SEO course at marketmotive.com. He and Rand share teaching love on some videos too!

The avatars are getting caught in the cloud.

Not a dumb question.  I had a lot of issues trying to find my way around this site when it first opened.

To some extent, still do.

I go with whatever format provides the cleanest appearance in the smallest file size.

If you shoot the image - shoot the image in the best quality at the lowest file size. I shoot with a professional grade Canon camera in a medium file size which produces a 2mb file. I can render it down from there.

If you have no control over the original file, create a new file in Photoshop at 72 to 100dpi. You won't need to go over 100 dpi on the file as you prepare it. If the image you are working with is poor keep the file at 100dpi while you work with it. If it is a clean and crisp image you can work with it in 72dpi.

Once you have your image ready to save for the web, click "save for web devices". Then, you can choose how you want to save it. For instance, JPEG will allow you to save it at maximum to very high to low. You can watch the file size change as you move from jpeg to gif to png in the lower left corner of the page. We try to keep all of our images at about 10k to 15k. Watch the quality of your image as you render it to different sizes. If your website allows users to enlarge an image for details, you will not want to render the file so small that it compromises the crispness and clarity of the image.

Keep in mind that naming your file is important for SEO purposes. Don't just give your image a generic combination of letters and numbers, but work your keyword into the name of the file. For example, don't load the file to your site as ABC Blue, but rather Carhartt S209 Blue.

Hi Activity. Your question is interesting in that the two search terms you presented suggest two different types of business - or perhaps one business offering two types of service.

"Flowers delivered" suggests search results would produce florists specializing in delivery (who knows some of these businesses may not even take walk-in business). "Flowers by post" obviously suggests this business would mail them to you before they wilt and turn brown.

Alan's keyword "florist London" suggests to me I would find a florist in London that I could walk or drive to and buy some flowers on the way home from work.

Perhaps the first question is not whether you can conquer the giants, but what is the business model you or your client intend to pursue?

Once you've identified what kind of business you intend to run, do your keyword research for your niche/approach and build it from there. Giants were babies once too.

Unless a person has a boatload of cash to spend on PPC, then felling the giants or taking some of their business will be challenging in the timeframe you suggest.

Include in your research a little work in Google Insights after you've identified your business model. You may get some good keyword ideas for localizing your SEO at startup.

Finally, check out this thread on creating the perfect website: http://www.seomoz.org/q/seo-list-for-creating-the-perfect-website.

Hi Stephanie,

I took the course last fall and recommend it if you have the basics down. It is pricey, but you get a LOT of information to digest that is immediately actionable. I'm an in-house SEO and told the boss if we're going to go to the "next level" I needed some training. Soaking up GWT best practices will only get you so far in my opinion and eventually you'll probably feel like you've plateaued. Here's a few observations on the course:

1. If you have a basic understanding of SEO and need more comprehensive and advanced training - it is very thorough. Almost too much information and in some cases not enough depth when needed. On-page optimization, site hierarchy/structure, local SEO and link building strategies were excellent.

2. The information is actionable. You can implement what you're given as you're getting it.

3.  Yes, some of the information/techniques are dated and could be fresher. It might be easier to keep it fresh if the scope was not so broad. Having said that, I like the breadth of the training.

4.  They have a support program where course instructors can answer student questions on-line. It's a great concept, but could be better executed in my opinion. I felt the instructor's were too busy with their own jobs, clients, life, etc. to provide timely answers and depth to students inquiries.

5. One hour a week we get to have a live chat webinar with the course instructor. I liked it but I could have spent a half hour myself asking questions that came up from the course due to its volume of strategies.

6. I would have liked more current "real world" examples of sites using the practices so we can see the tactics in action.

Now, I feel like I need advanced Analytics and CRO training to compliment the SEO training I've received. There's a lot to do and do well.

I wish something showed on hover.

Hi Diane. This is timely, we just finished up rendering a bunch of our images to improve page speed.

I'll also throw this in there. Sometimes you won't be able to reduce a file size sufficiently by "save for web devices." When this happens, you can open Bridge in Photoshop and use Photoshop's image processor to render it to a smaller size and then save it for the web.

From Bridge, select the file (or files - you can do it in bulk). Go to tools>photoshop>image processor. From there you can select three ways to save it (jpeg, psd or tiff). If jpeg is acceptable for your situation, select jpeg and choose to render it to low, medium or high.

We were able to render them to 1 or 2 (low) without the image becoming too lossy. Then you can open up the image and "save as web devices" and reduce the file size to a more acceptable size.

Keep an eye on the quality of the image as you go through the steps. I'll trade off some speed for quality appearance.

Be careful when processing files in bulk. You may have ten images and 3 of them won't be able to be rendered down as low as the others and you'll spend time re-doing things.

Good luck!