Welcome to the Q&A Forum

According to Google, here's when rel="alternate" hrefland="x" is recommended:

• You translate only the template of your page, such as the navigation and footer, and keep the main content in a single language. This is common on pages that feature user-generated content, like a forum post.
• Your pages have broadly similar content within a single language, but the content has small regional variations. For example, you might have English-language content targeted at readers in the US, GB, and Ireland.
• Your site content is fully translated. For example, you have both German and English versions of each page.

Hey Lawrence,

"Unique content" isn't necessarily what you should be shooting for. Rather, unique**,** exceptional, inspirational, credible, fun, and beneficial to share, is the ideal.  If you're creating that, you might as well put it on your main domain and forget about blogger for the time being.

I don't think I've seen any tests on that but one way to test would be to put link to three separate but very similar pages from three other pages of very similar strength--one of those would have a link to one of the target pages from the footer, one would have a link to the second target page from the body, and one would have a link to  the third target page from the navigation bar.  All links would use the same nonsense anchor text.  Once all the pages percolated, you'd expect that a search in google for the nonsense term would show that the top result would be from the strongest link.

That's not a problem I've heard of often. I might wonder about your internet connection.  A lot of searches being done from a single IP address could be the problem.  Multiple internet access circuits may solve or help isolate the problem.  Maybe there are automated searches being done over that circuit?  Is anyone running local software to do ranking reports--like webceo or something like that?

First thing I'd do is look at their traffic history if possible.  Look as far back as you can and see if there are significant drops in traffic. It would be a good sign if there were not any significant drops.  If the terms they're getting their most traffic for now were the same terms they were getting their most traffic for two or three years ago--and they rank down on page 2 or 3,  it could be a sign of fixable under optimization.

If, however, you don't see any significant drops and you examine a page (maybe their homepage) and it looks appropriately optimized for appropriately competitive terms but the page is not showing up anywhere in the results, I'd hesitate.  There could be a penalty far back in it's history that you're not able to see.

Take a look at the wayback machine and see what the site looked like prior to the analytics history you're able  to view.  Was it the same site? Maybe the people you're buying it from bought it from someone else who'd spammed and jammed it. If that were the case, maybe a simple reinclusion request could fix the problem--if there is one.

There are a lot of possibilities and they're all worth looking into.  Of course, the smart buyer might do exhaustive research, keep the results close to their vest, and push the seller hard on the lack of traffic issue to suppress the price.

In this field, it can take some time to learn what an "expert" is or isn't.  One may learn from trial and error or from copious reading but in either case, it requires an open mind, an understanding of your own level of knowledge as compared to those who are providing input, an ability to absorb a lot of information and relate it to a foundation of knowledge that regarded as the law of the land.  A sound understanding of marketing is a big plus, too.

I sense from your question that you may be new to this forum, although I see you've been a member for a few years.  I also sense by your subsequent replies that you may doubt the wisdom of a recognized authority here.

If I may do so, I'd like to offer a bit of wisdom myself: The senior people in this forum are not trying to sell you anything and will not steer you wrong. They give good advice and are worth listening to.

You know what I do when I want to get sense of whether or not a directory page might be worth it?  I go to the directory page that I would expect to get a link from, click on a link, then run a OSE report on the page I land on to see how it shows in the report.  Do that for a few more links on that and other pages and you'll get an idea of it's value.  Keep in mind that directories are often not a good choice when it comes to long-term link value.

You've got a few issues with this client:

1. They are telling you how to do SEO. If I felt I had to defend what should be put in the description tag, I'd leave a client in a heartbeat. I mean, what are they hiring an SEO for?  Why not just dictate their wished to their web designer and save a few bucks?

2. They are telling you to do the wrong things.  Almost 4 years ago, Matt Cutt let us know that Google doesn't use the meta keyword tag any longer (except, now for Google News) and Bing uses it to help identify spammers (like your client?).

3. 50 cities?  Why stop there?  Why not drop in all 50 states--and each of their major cities? If they don't all fit in the description, you could put them up in the title tag! The client doesn't understand algorithmic search or the value of your guidance and that make for an uncomfortable work relationship.

If the client wants to serve fifty cities, they should first begin to engage customers in fifty cities.  The client shouldn't count on Google to introduce him/her to those markets. The client introduces himself/herself there, begins engaging clients with content through social channels and then Google reflects that engagement that in their search results.

If the client actually has offices with physical addresses that can recieve mail in those 50 cities and phone numbers that can answer a phone call in those 50 cities then the client needs to invest in local search marketing to assist with their visibility in the local results.

Basically, you're SOL (siht out of luck), as we said in the Navy.  There was a good discussion on this topic here some months ago here.

In google analytics, select a week, or month that you were getting good traffic and select compare to the past and then compare organic search sources against a week your traffic was off.  The ones with the biggest changes will show at the top of the list.  You'll be able to see if some of your terms are losing traffic or if all of your terms are losing traffic equally.

James, have you set up a google account with that email address?  Have you successfully been made a user of other client's analytics with this gmail address?

I  see you have google analytics installed--are you spending any time reviewing your stats?

Juana Maria are you monitoring which keywords have the traffic that is going up and down?

Sorry to all, I shouldn't have replied in that manor.

For question #1: You don't have that many direct competitors for those search terms and the overall strength of the homepage isn't bad, compared to those that you do have.

For question #2: If you weren't already being overwhelmed by traffic for keywords like "online grocery shopping Dallas" you may look to branch out and try to get traffic for terms like "online grocery shopping", "buy pistachio and cherry tart online", "online gourmet foods", etc. Someone in that scenario might look to eliminate all possible hurdles that stand in the way of ranking for those terms. Such a person might add some additional content to those pages, as well.  But, if you're happy with how things are going for you now, then there's probably no reason to worry about any of those things.

My initial thought was a snide 'Well, what changes were you expecting to notice?".  But, while I was out searching to see if maybe there was some hitherto unknown-to-me legitimate reason for you to expect something, Guru Fisher beat me to the punch.  I guess that's why he's a guru.

Anyway, I didn't find anything that changed my mind and had someone done even the little bit of searching that I just did, there'd probably be no reason to ask the question you asked. Additionally, I'm wondering about the logic of going ahead and paying for a service that may not have been providing you a perceived value as a free tool.

I'm not big on the keyword-overstressed /redundant keyword titles.  I think this is just  as effective:

Plastic Flower Pots  [brand]

or

Flower Pots - Plastic [brand]

and use "free delivery in your description. If that's too trim for you, I'd go with #2 or #3 - minus the "with" or "from".

I think those keywords are all too similar to try to differentiate them on separate landing pages.  I mean, with well written homepage copy and a few links,  that one page should rank for all three terms-- "movers", "moving company", and "moving companies" when combined with "Tulsa".  Do some additional keyword research to help you know what concepts you should center copy on for your other pages--it seems like your focus is very narrow, to me.

If you're going after local, focus a lot of effort on your G+ Business Page and on building that profile.

I'll tell you, I have to wonder why a company with such a major problem is requesting that a "newbie" fix it for them. Nothing against you, Ramon, but my first thought is that they're hoping to get someone to spend a bunch of time on it for cheap, which could have been what got them in trouble in the first place.

If they're coming to you for advice and they know you're new to SEO, be up front with them and say your best  advise is that they move all the content (minus any low quality outbound links) to a new domain and start over. I wouldn't even redirect the old site to the new one.  Unless they're going to pay you well for all the time your going to take learning everything you need to learn to make a serious effort at solving a difficult problem such as this, cut to the chase and see what they say.

If they go for  that, then you can spend your time fixing the problems you know you can fix and help them build a better link profile.  That's my two cents.

Jerrod,

Use the g+ (email) account you want to be most closely associated with your name.  Down the road, it is going to be how google identifies Jerrod David online. It will include a history of your interaction with Oxford Cloth Button Down, as well as any other interactions, posts, comments that Google can assign to that identity and that identity may bring strength to any domain to with which it's been verified. (Verification is going to be the topic of your next question.)   It's more difficult to maintain multiple identities in Google these days so chose wisely and maintain your online identity as you would your real identity--always think about what you're doing and remember that any action may reflect on you for a long time.