Welcome to the Q&A Forum

So, just to make sure, will it merge with what I already had there?  I was just concerned that it would make a duplicate listing.

That is what I did.  It now says

You don’t have any listings that need Foursquare authorization.

You have 1 listings managed by 1 account.

Hi!  I hope I didn't just mess myself up.  I signed up for Moz Local, but I already had a foursquare account. I did authenticate it...  but then I read that maybe I shouldn't have done this.  Did I mess it up?  If so, can I correct it?

I had a feeling that my keyword focused pages were causing my site not to rank well. I do not have that many keywords.  I have 2 main keyword phrases along with 6 city locations.  For example (fake) "tea house tampa" "tea house clearwater" "tea house sarasota" and "tea room tampa" "tea room cleawater" "tea house sarasota".  So, I don't feel that I need that many pages.  I feel like I can optimize my home page and maybe 1 or 2 topic pages.  Right now, I have a keyword for each of those phrases.  These are all internal pages on 1 domain.  Not multiple domains.

Sooo... I tested it by 301ing a few of my "tea house" KW pages to the home page.  And low and behold... my home page rose BIG TIME!  Major improvement!  I'm talking like 13th to 2nd!

Here is my question... how should I proceed?  My SEO has warned me against 301ing too many pages all pointing to the home page.  He says that will negatively impact my ratings.  Should I 404 some pages? Should I build a "tea room" topic page and 301 that set there?  What is worse?  301 or 404?  How many is too many?

I'm really excited by these results, but I'm scare to move forward and hurt what has happened.  Thanks in advance!

I've been hands-off for since February because my dad has been really sick.  So, no major changes.

What I am seeing is this:

1. In Google Webmaster Tools, the impressions were 3000 per day and dropped to 1000 per day to never return. The clicks averaged around 70 per day then dropped to average around 50 per day. I looked at the keyword lists and did not see anything significant change accept for overall lower volume.

2. I looked in Google Analytics and it shows around 1000 impressions per day before 3/11 and 500 per day afterwards.  I DO NOT see any drop in clicks AT ALL.  The total number of clicks is WAY higher each day than in Google WMT since I do a PPC campaign.  So, if I choose organic only, I still see no change.  It is also different numbers day by day than WMT.

So, I guess my question now is... which one do I trust?

I went back and looked through webmaster tools.  I had around 3000 impressions per day leading up to 3/10/2014. Then on 3/11/2014, I dropped to 1000 impressions per day.  Is there a good way to figure out what happened? Anyone know if there was a google update that day.

These two links are so very helpful!  I've already found a lot of great ideas in here:

http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

Thank you everyone!  I will be building a site for one of our other companies soon... maybe I'll try wordpress to give it a chance.  

Please help me understand link building.  I've read the articles on Moz, but they seem vague to me. Specific questions:

1. How do I get my webpage on good quality sites?

2. Guest blogging?  Good or not?

3. What about when people pick up one of our blog stories and publish it on their site with a link back? Is that bad now because it is duplicate content???

4. Forum posts with a link in the signature?  Good or not?

5. Directories - I get it that these are no longer good... are they severely negative? Should I take them down.

6. PR - Looks like this is bad... right???

7. Youtube - any value?

8. Pinterst, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram?  Any value to backlinks here?

9. What about sites like redit?

10. Anything else I should consider?

Jane, thank you for taking this time to respond to me.  My head is just spinning!  I am so new to SEO.  I know how to build a good site.  I know how to do good social media.  I can follow the google webmaster guide just as well as anyone else. What I don't know is how to do good link building and some of the nitty gritty details about what ranks and what doesn't.

My keyword pages look nice, but they are written specifically to attract that keyword page.  I'm afraid to take them down. How long would it possibly take me to recover taking them down?  Should I do them all at once, or one at a time?

Will I forever be penalized by google for directory submissions? Some are really good... like city search or mapquest. But, some are for the sole purpose of link building. Should I take them down?

I am working on getting my husband to write "fishing reports" (We are an deep sea fishing company) and have them published on the top florida fishing websites.  Will this help?

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me.  

1. I have a really good website experience.  A lot of my customers tell me what a great website I have, how well laid out it is, they love the content... that was what drove them to call me.  My husband and I run this business together.  (I used to work full time and he was getting it started). A few years ago, he paid some company to create these keyword-focused pages. I HATE them! But, they have always ranked.  Are you suggesting that I delete these pages? (Please say yes lol)

2. What do you mean by publish?  Are you talking Press Releases?  We have a blog that we publish to WP and then syndicate to FB, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

3. I have a really good social media following... best out of all of my competitors (in my opinion).  We have the most page likes, the most user engagement. We are the only of our local market to have all of the social media outlets covered.  (Most don't even have FB). We are ranked #1 on TA (have been for well over a year, maybe 2-3) and have earned the 2014 Certificate of Excellence. The TA links about my business actually outrank my website many times.

4. Understood

5. Yes, that's the goal!!!

Okay... talking about link profile.  I'm not really sure to be honest.  This is my weak link (pun intended haha).  I'm just not sure what to do. I've requested to be added to 50-60 directories (yelp, city search, etc.). I have links on all the major social media sites. I add weblinks on the content I put out on youtube and Pinterest.  Our blog has been shared quite a bit. My SEO says he's done press releases, but I don't know if he used anchor-text or not.  I have never used anchor text, just used http://www.mydomain.com as my links.

(Also, I get most of my traffic through Google PPC and my campaigns are really well crafted (high conversion rate and CTR) and we get most of our traffic and business.  I'm looking to rely less on PPC and more on organic search).

Thank you  I'll stick with writing my own code for now.  Thanks for responding!  I am really trying to understand all of this and improve my SEO.  I'm good at making a lovely website... just not so good at getting it to rank.

Is the practice of having keyword focused pages a thing of the past?  Here is what I am seeing.  My biggest competitor ranks #1 or #2 in most of my relevant keyword phrases (about 20 that I consider most important).  They DO NOT have keyword focused pages.  They have a PA of 42.5 and a DA of 33.8. They have 72 root domains that link to them. Their home page is fairly lite for content.  Only 1 paragraph of text really... and a few reviews local to their page (not TA or anything). Socially, we we have the same FB following... but I also have  blog, G+, twitter, pinterest, flickr, instagram, youtube, and linkedin.

My keyword pages will rank #8 or #9. My home page hardly ever ranks. My home page has a PA of 40.3 and a DA of 29.1. I have 60 root domains that link to me.

BUT... my keyword pages fall much lower.  For instance, one has a PA of 16.1 and only 1 root domain link.

So, my question is... are my keyword pages actually hurting me?  Meaning... is google seeing my keyword page as more relevant content wise (because they are perfect for keyword placement, % of keyword to text, etc), but they rank them lower because of PA and back-links?

Should I take down my keyword focused pages (one at a time maybe???) and work on building my home page?

My current SEO has always recommended that I take my site to wordpress.  I really don't want to move to wordpress.  I don't like it... I just like writing code in raw html, css, and script.  I feel like I have more control that way. Wordpress just seems like a platform for blogs (I have my blog in wordpress).

My question is, do wordpress websites typically rank better? Is there benefit to moving to it?

Thank you for your responses!  Looks like I have some work ahead of me.  A short term fix and a long term fix.  My site is somewhat responsive now, but not all the way down to mobile size.  I need to look at taking it further.  Thank you!

I'm very new here... been reading a lot about Panda and duplicate content.  I have a main website and a mobile site (same domain - m.domain.com).  I've copied the same text over to those other web pages.  Is that okay?  Or is that considered duplicate content?

Thank you for your response!

I have done a lot of directory focused links (yp, yelp, citysearch, ect).  (I know, not the best).  I have also done a lot of local directory websites. I do feel like I need a good strategy to get good quality links.

My SEO has done press releases, but I'm not sure where or with what content.

According to Open Site Explorer, I have PageAuthority of 40, MozRank of 4.58, MozTrust of 5.75, 98% equity-passing links.  The metrics are better than my competitors, but yet, they still outrank me.

My husband is the "face" of the business.  His blog is new, but he's a great story teller.  We have been getting great reach on facebook with his stories.  How do I get them posted elsewhere? If we start posting on forums, will that help?

My niche is deep sea fishing charters. My target audience consists of tourists looking to book a fishing trip.  My husbands blog is about stories of interesting trips or people he has encountered along the way.

Hi!  I have been attempting to make my business website good for quite some time (5+ years).  I was doing my own SEO and do have 1st page ranks... but toward the bottom.  I pay a lot for Google Adwords and would like better organic ranking.  I hired an SEO and haven't seen much improvement.  I think I need to take it back over.  I am very overwhelmed.  Can anyone point me to where to start?  I don't have a large budget, so hiring an expensive SEO is out of the question.  Plus, I am scared to use someone that may do more harm than good in attempt to use sleezy techniques to get good short-term rankings.

I'd like to add that I have read Google's webmaster guide and have done every.single.thing recommended.  I have a facebook page, blog, google+ page, twitter, pinterest, instagram, and linkedin account. I use sprout social to post to all of these at once.  I have competitors that don't pay attention to SEO and have never hired one that outrank me.  I have keyword focused pages, and I have looked at keywords as a percentage of over all text.  I have all my headers setup according to moz.  Its been 6 months and I have actually lost a little rank.. not gained.