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There have been several high profile law suits over theft of web content http://theartnewspaper.com/news/instagram-model-and-makeup-artist-sues-richard-prince-over-copyright-infringement/

Hi Bob, 14 is a real good number to be honest. Now, I think you should start focusing on pushing it to your target audience. So, that they get to know about it (and ultimately about your site/ product). So, when you launch, it finally converts for you. Few quick things: I personally love reading long articles full of action items / insights. But, there are few things that I hope you have checked: a) What is the ideal length of posts in your niche?? Just because Google loves long posts ( Here is a support article for this) your all posts should be lengthy. Writing for search engines is good. But, writing your target audience will drive better results for your content marketing efforts. b) If possible, talk to 2-3 people (who you think belong to your target audience) and ask them: What types of posts they like to read --> lengthy / short/ medium What all types of topics they like to read about?? Use tools like Hotjar to see how readers are interacting with your posts? This should give you fair idea. BTW, an ideal number would be 4-6 posts ( because these many posts are good enough for readers to decide whether they want to follow a blog or not) Hope this helps

I looked up IMDB, seems to be that movie/celebrity/TV website. It is well interlinked, but I don't know if that's it. I guess the more (with great relevance) the better. I like the never twice rule, why do you do that? Thanks.

Hi Bob, I want to clarify that I'm not suggesting you write about a specific company (as in Green Tree Medical center has title tag problems). Rather, you want to look at major local industries to discover their most common failings/needs. For example, you might do an audit of dental offices in Boise, and discover that a problem that seems to be plaguing half of them is multi-practitioner duplicates. So, then you could begin addressing that audience, talking about how Boise dentists are losing reputation and revenue owing to this situation, as they fail to rank well. Then, you'd explain about how to fix this. And then, of course, you'd offer to be the go-to agency to undertake the work, as many of the dentists are unlikely to have the time to do so. That's just a scenario off the top of my head. There may be industries in your town which particularly interest you, and that you'd enjoy serving. What I'm suggesting might be an approach to starting to make headway, proving your authority in your target markets.

I looked at those. I don't really think the whiteboard style is professional.

Hi Bob, I do agree with Krzysztof that an audit would help see what it going on, but something else to keep in mind is that if a side does get hit with a penalty, then they rarely just go back to where they were beforehand. Check the dates in a little more detail to see what they correspond with. -Andy

Hi Bob, Like so many things in SEO, I'd be looking at this from a UX point of view first and foremost, then do a quick revision through your SEO glasses before implementing. Will making this H1 change help or hinder your user experience? To offer my own opinion in response to this question, I think the answer is 'hinder'. As a user I would much rather see just the name of the shoe both on the category page and in the H1 of the product page. It's clean, succinct and doesn't feel like someone had an SEO agenda when they crafted it. I'd even go so far as to say I'd think twice before handing over my credit card details to a site that used product titles like "Adidas Action Series Shoes size 5 through 10 for running, walking, and hiking" rather than simply "Adidas Action Series". Even the word "shoes" is quite redundant here in my opinion. To give you an idea of a website that ranks very well in this field in Australia, check out HypeDC. They're not our client, nor have they ever been but they deserve that link because they do a great job in most areas and they highlight my point. They sell shoes (and all things shoe-like... sneakers, boots etc) and yet they don't jam the word(s) into every title, heading and paragraph they can. If you're looking at the Nike Air Huarache Ultra shoe, that shoe's product title on the category page is simply "Nike Air Huarache Ultra". That's it. No mention of shoe, shoes, running, walking, hiking, footwear etc. The page title is almost identical and even the content on the product page has no mention of the word shoe! While I wouldn't necessarily recommend avoiding the keyword like they have, it's a clear demonstration that Google understands your website as a whole so there's no need to go jamming all those keywords everywhere. Craft a pleasant user experience and make sure your website in clear, as a single unit, what you do. You may be wondering how the hell HypeDC ranks so well without using the keyword even once? All I can offer is external suggestions but I'd say it's a combination of the following: They don't sell 'cheap shoes' so they know their target audience are "shoe people" who are pretty likely to know what they want already so I'd expect the search volume of specific shoe models is quite high. Just referencing the specific model on a product page likely works in their favor for these searches. Their link profile is highly relevant, as is their anchor profile. This means from the link profile alone Google can start to understand that HypeDC = shoe store. They have no shortage of pages on the site that relate directly to things in the shoe industry. A "shoe size guide", a bunch of shoe questions in the FAQ, a page for each of their shoe manufacturers etc. I'm sure there are plenty more but this post is already getting long (sorry!) but you get the picture. Don't get caught up in "where and how exactly should I place my keyword in this element to appease the Google Gods?", just make a user friendly website and 9 times out of 10 you will have made a well-optimised one by accident! I realise shoes is possibly not even your vertical but I'm just working with the example at hand. Everything I've just said can be applied to any industry because the core principles don't change. I hope this helps!

Hi Bob Tons of unique content but optimized? Tons but focused on keywords you want to rank? Good backlinks but are you sure? (Im not talking about seo metrics only). Etc etc... Btw whats the domain name (can be in pm)? Krzysztof

This resolved. It was internal link anchor text

Thanks Rand, really appreciate it!

This is just wildassguessing... When you metrics are overwhelming, and your content is greatly superior by formal industry standards... but these little cottage industry sites with informal content and a tribe of visitors are beating you.... your best prayer of getting to the top is to be patient and allow Google to observe that your visitor metrics put enough weight on the scale to make your site more credible. Google will believe rubbish for a while but strong truth can still prevail.

Sounds like you have a good awareness of where to start looking. Without seeing what you have it will be difficult to diagnose. Can you PM me the URL? Could be another external factor besides the links that is causing the ranking issues.

Some good stuff! I am wondering about the other SEO factors you recommended... Backup info: Since there are very few informational keywords I am just writing (yes unique! good point!) very helpful high quality articles on topics that people need help with. Then refining them to 10X when there is competition. We let our customer service team provide most of the meat of the articles, then rewrite them for quality, visuals, etc. They are very experienced The only cost is our time. I've made a list. We can probably squeeze out 20 unique topics Question: What can I do besides just post topics and post them (for free) on Facebook? I thought I needed to focus on 10X content and just earn links. Please explain what you guys mean by other SEO factors. And any more feedback you have based on my refined information. Thanks.

I was actually looking for articles, how-to-videos, resources, and suggestions.

I hope you'll receive further feedback from the community, Bob! It's exciting that you're planning your business.

Hi Bob, If by national, you mean virtual (you don't meet with clients face-to-face) then local business directories would not be a good fit. But, if your national business does meet face-to-face with clients, then it may be eligible for inclusion in local business directories. Without more details, it a bit hard to say.

By placing a single square ad on each page, either CPM, rented out, or click based, I would like to gain revenue for these terms. EGOL and others on this Q&A make money like this. I was trying to get some good advice from people like EGOL (I'm sure there are many of you) with experience with informational keywords as to if these would make money or not.

It really depends on the website, the content, and the types of ads. Most large content sites I've worked with we're in the range of $0.10 to $0.25 cpm in AdSense.