Welcome to the Q&A Forum

We focus on data driven content with an info graphic as we have had amazing successes.  Have you considered same?  The topic you are discussing is topical... something I might type in. We find consumers are chasing hard data. For free data sources jump onto google trends and google correlate and see if you create a newsworthy story backed by some stats. You will need some way of amplifying your content. Have you got a strategy for same? I try and start with the amplification question first as that may dictate the content strategy. Hope that assists.

I like gathertruth.com I would go with that one. Hope that helps some. Good luck with the new website.

Ha! Well, thanks Glad to hear it was useful.

Hi Bob, This isn't really the best place to ask this question since the valuable contributors here aren't here to self-promote or actively pick up work from what is essentially a help forum. To point you in the right direction, Moz does have a Recommended Providers list which is working checking out.

Hi Bob. Are these sites duplicating themselves in the same niche? It sounds like you have one main site, and two that are secondary to that. Is that the case? There's a lot that goes into a decision like this, but it may be that the multi-site approach is diluting your brand.  If all three sites have their own distinct voice, social media interactions, branding, design, and so on, then keeping all three as separate entities and addressing the issues within each would be fine. On the other hand, if the other two sites serve as doorway and paid link portals pointing towards the main site, you should really consider making the one main site the best resource and store within the niche. Broadly, the traffic increase options are standard: paid advertising where applicable or ROI appropriate, funnel improvements which pay dividends when traffic increases, improved rankings, link garnering content, and so on. A classic blog post by Oli Gardner on the subject is here: https://moz.com/blog/the-noob-guide-to-online-marketing-with-giant-infographic-11928 Cheers!

I see. I guess the question is whether to nofollow them and disavow them both. They had a spammy footer linking everything together, got rid of the footer, and kept a few of the links except transferred them to the body content somewhere. Make sense?

Hi Bob, I don't believe the price of what you are selling has a significant impact on the cost of ad clicks. The audience definition you use along with the relevance score of your ads is what will have the most significant impact in determining how much you will pay for ad clicks. Whether or not your ad campaign will be successful in selling a $50 product, I cannot say. There are a lot more factors that go into this. Generally, I like to use social ad campaigns to promote content or even just as a remarketing campaign so I know I am only reaching users who are familiar with the brand/website I am promoting. Let me know if that helps, I may have misunderstood your question!

I mean domain name. I really doubt there is a way to have not spammy domain, but spammy page. So, for example, you have a backlink from this page: site.com/page.php Use MOZ OSE for the whole domain and see what spam score it has. If it's not bad (i say lower than 4) - don't disavow link.

I just wanted to say that EGOL's and Fuel Travel's post are the most excellent responses I've ever received for our site. Fuel Travel, we don't have many (maybe any?) competitors that are like us. We have competitors that compete with different aspects of our site (competitors for orgone products, competitors for shamanism, competitors for supplements) but no-one ties them together like us. How can we use this to our advantage, and what in the heck do we use for home page keyword - not that you can tell us but give us some clues on how to come up with them since we are so unique and almost too cutting edge in our field. There's not really a path set in Google and searchers for our site as a whole, just as pieces. Please any more advice from anyone is also appreciated.

I'm sorry to say, there really is no way to speed it up without cutting corners! Link removal is a painfully slow process but one that needs to be done if your link profile is terrible. I don't use exactly the same process as that guide but it's pretty close and it's going to be about the same speed. There are automation tools out there and maybe a little Excel trick or two that could save you seconds but if you've got a big, low quality profile, there really is no way to save any significant amount of time without risk of missing some.

It is hard to predict, but I always say go with a .com if you can get it. The thing to remember is: will the .org rank better due to having more of the keywords placed in it? I thought for sure that Google would have discredited EMDs years ago, but yet you still see them ranking, very much so with local businesses. Here is what I would ask myself if I was in your shoes. 1. What is working for businesses already ranking high for that area/service? If the EMD seems to be working, is the .net version available? I think people would prefer a .net over a .org unless the site was strictly educational or informational. If it is service-based or product based I would use the .net 2. If the EMD .org is available, was it owned before and does it have any history that could be harmful in the short-term? 3. What is the EMD .org site being used for? An add-on domain or site, or as the main company website? 4. If the .com covers the most important two of the three KWs, are they the most important two? Think of webdevelopmentsoftware.org vs developmentsoftware.com. If the 2 keywords are the most important two that cannot be misconstrued or misinterpreted by Search Engines then I would say use the .com In the example above the .org domain specifies WEB, meaning you would be targeting a certain type of software, whereas the .com leaves the interpretation more open-ended and open to misinterpretation. Moz did a study about EMDs and what was used the most often. I think it's worth a read in your case: https://moz.com/blog/bing-vs-google-prominence-of-ranking-elements Hope this helps! https://moz.com/blog/bing-vs-google-prominence-of-ranking-elements

If it's related to your industry and most of your competitor sites have the same type of links, that may be what Google expects to see. I think site speed & backlinks are two places where every niche is unique to itself. In a site speed example, I've seen photography keywords where every page 1 result the site takes over 8 seconds to load. Now, in an informational, mostly-text niche like say "george bush biography" that would be really, really bad. I think Google would expect to see sites in that niche load very fast. But photographers all have these full screen images, large portfolios, they're showing off the work, etc. I think the algo rightly realizes that if MOST sites that return a keyword are slower than average, site speed probably counts for a bit less overall as the distinctions are smaller. Same with backlinks - if your competitors all have these borderline links and they have authority, and you remove yours, I would fully expect your site to drop rather than rise in the rankings. Disavow is good for removing authority but doesn't often give you a positive bonus. It just keeps you from negative problems. To beat a competitor you don't need to avoid the negative. You need to add positive. I would focus on that side of the equation to see the best results.

This sound like a completely fine idea from the search engine optimization stands point. I mean Google can’t ban you for selling the same product on two different websites J Good Luck with that!

Hmm, I'm not a huge fan of clients who refuse to implement their marketers advice, but photos are at least a start, accompanied by stories. BTW, Bob, this would be a good article to share with a client in this market: https://www.ethicalseoconsulting.com/25-email-lead-generation-tips-from-social-media/ Some good marketing ideas in there that your client might latch onto, given the visual nature of his business.

Got rid of the pervy quest. How do you recommend we organize the site? And what do you mean by URLs are all over the place? We have one blog because some people are going to want a wide range of topics - the theory of everything - but maybe I can feature each separate blog at the top of the single blog and tie them together. I'll tie together the home page and get rid of the stock images. What would you recommend for the design of the home page? After you answer and I adjust, will you take a second look? Appreciate it if you would Thanks, good response, Bob

@Peter basically nails it. None of these tools will be completely accurate to what Google determines is a "bad" link, so it will be very subjective. You really should use a variety of tools (even link detox is a good one) to get a list of sites linking to you. The reason being is that all these tools have very different indexes, so you'll get a more comprehensive view of your profile... however that will be a little more expensive since you would need multiple subscriptions. Like Peter said, you'd then want to download all the links into excel, dedupe, and review. I usually look at aHref Rank below a certain threshold and Trust Flow below a certain threshold (you need to either use a VLOOKUP or an INDEX/MATCH formula to combine the lists from all sources). After that you review those links manually, and add the "bad" ones to a disavow file. The "bad" ones are those that you would agree violates the Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines that fit into a link scheme definition. Once again, this is a subjective process so you'll really need to review the guidelines. To do this analysis to the full extent that you'd want... I don't think there are free tools that will give you any meaningful data. Remember they need to maintain bots and their own software to expand their indexes, so the free trials will be very limited data (usually with no way to export). I'll also say this is a very tedious process and depending on the size of the site I would allocate anywhere between 5 (small site) and 40 hours (larger site) to tackle this process. Buffer in a little more if this is the first run, since there will be a learning curve for the tools and it will take time to put together a professional looking report.

Hey Bob, I'm sorry for your loss. I would start by taking a look at your past months traffic reports. Check your google analytics and webmaster tools/search console to see where the traffic was coming from the past 3 months pervious to this one. You are looking for traffic from keywords in organic search, but also for traffic from refers like Facebook or other social networks or sites. Compare the average of the previous 3 months to the current month to see where you are losing traffic from. In search console -> search analytics, you can turn on all the values: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Avg. Position and then download that for each of the ways you can check: Queries, Pages, Countries, devices, search types. Get them all for the custom date ranges. Then compare the data, you should be able to see when you lost a bunch of traffic, and you may be able to see where you lost that traffic from, keyword positions you have lost, or channels that are not sending you as much traffic anymore. In Google Analytics, do the same kind of investigation to cross check with your info from search console. Pay close attention in GA to traffic sources, and time on site, bounce rate... If you lost some traffic from specific sources see how you can repair that. If your time on site went down, maybe your latests posts are not engaging, if your bounce rate is now super higher, what dod you change on the landing pages that has caused that... If you can identify where the loss in traffic came from by using the data from these 2 tools, you maybe able to identify why you lost that traffic. Example if you lost search position for your best keywords, go fix that. If you lost traffic from lack of engagement from specific social channel, go fix that or find a new social channel. Lastly, if you happened to take part in some link building in a certain time frame and lost traffic then, fix that. Hope that helps. Hit me up if you need any help.

Hey Bob, Okay, I won't tell you to sell but remember, you're a business person, and there's nothing wrong with selling a service that's genuinely of high quality. You can be proud of what you have to sell if you know it's really going to help your customers! But, a blog that just plugs your services isn't likely to be of much interest to read, so I'm with you on that, for sure! I have a couple of thoughts on this: First, let me show you something. One of my favorite bloggers in the Local SEO space is a fellow named Phil Rozek. He has become a favorite of mine because of the regularity with which he covers very important industry topics. He's thorough, generous and dedicated to sharing what he knows. And, though his blog isn't updated daily, it's updated frequently enough for me to find it worthwhile to check it out every few days in case there's something new there. Now, with that background in mind, check out this recent post of his governing a pain point all Local SEOs and local business owners are experiencing right now surrounding Google based reviews: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2015/11/18/asking-customers-for-google-reviews-in-the-new-google-plus-what-are-your-options/ I recommend that you read through the post, actively evaluating it for friendliness, generosity and authority. I think you'll come away with the feeling that this is a fellow who not only knows what he's talking about, but that he understands the needs of his readership and is sharing everything he can think of to help them. Now, there's one other thing I want you to notice as you read through that post. It's this statement: "I’ll probably have to update my battle-tested instructions for the 4th or 5th time since 2011, at which point you can order a slick one-page PDF that makes a frustrating process simple as possible for customers." So, there's a little bit of a potential sale going on in the post, but it is totally inoffensive, in my view, because Phil's blog is about 99% free tutorials and about 1% mentioning that you might want to invest in something he's offering. Given the way he is continuously demonstrating his authority, letting you know he's going to make something you can buy feels more like doing you a favor rather than pitching a hard sell, doesn't it? Buying something Phil has created could save an agency or company a lot of sweat and time. So, I suggest you thumb through Phil's blog over the past year or so and see how he's demonstrating a spirit of giving while also positioning himself as someone any local business owner would be very fortunate to consult with. Imagine if you could do that for your own business. My other thought is that you have a special opportunity if you are dedicated to focusing only on Boise as your market. In addition to penning those Phil-type tutorial posts you'll be looking at, above, your blog can become a showcase of your participation within your local business community. There will be opportunities you can either latch onto or create from scratch to put you in one-on-one contact with local business owners. Think workshops, conferences, seminars, classes at Park & Rec or senior centers, visiting high schools or community colleges, church group events, etc. If you have business knowledge to share to help your neighbors market what they do, then showcasing your participation in events on your blog will be simultaneously marketing what you do. Event by event, you will be building Boise-based blog content as you are also getting your name out there in the business community as a resource for your services. You'll be giving Google a reason to pull up your posts in Boise-based-or-related searches while also giving the plumber you built a site for a reason to tell his friend the dentist about what you did for him. So, these are the 2 things I'm thinking of off the top of my head, and I hope that you'll get lots more feedback from the community.

Very good, I'll go with the redirect map. Thank you.

"Maybe we could say that we pull from a variety of sources off the web through this consumer reports article combined with interviews." I would probably go that direction. Or, you could mention a list of the locations you pulled information from, but not link to them. I might word it as something like: "Our review data comes from primary sources including our own internal recorded data, interviews, [whatever else] as well as secondary sources including consumer reports, and the following other sites: [list competing sites you pulled data from but don't link]. Fact is, if you are pulling data from competitors mentioning them and letting people know where your data is coming from is the right thing to do (as you've been saying). However, I probably would withhold the link and just list the site name in this situation. If there is a way to generate more reviews from other sources that you wouldn't mind linking to (like bloggers, other consumerreports type sites, perhaps look at niche forums/communities for users reviews, etc.) I would certainly pursue that route as well. Good luck!