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Hi,
Maybe consider this approach. The purpose of Alt text is to provide an alternative method to convey information rather than visual. In summary Alt text is for the visually impaired. Someone using a screen reader. The Alt text you have detailed above appears to fit that precise mold. So without seeing the images I would suggest you are on the right track.
No stress whatsoever. What you have done is identified an issue, to be monitored. If no sudden change in rankings or even a slow decline you are in a strong position. So no need for concern.
We are getting a lot of wins, by improving schema markup for our clients, perhaps do a schema review. Keep ahead of the pack.
Go get em, Regards
What your describing is not uncommon. Large companies often have interdependent websites interlinking.
The larger picture is whether google sees the structure as a PBN.
So first question is, how are the sites ranking, or at least the primary site? If the site is ranking well - then no urgency and need to change anything. So can you clarify?
Regards
Hi Natalie
We chase featured snippets for customers, not rankings, ie position 0 delivers a huge ROI for the right customer query. It is great branding exposure as well if it a zero-click snippet. Featured snippets are not a huge amount of work, more training and guidance. We start with the below and work from there.
On schema again, not huge on time but high on impact.
Go get em.
Each case is different. That said can give you some general rules we use. If the Brand name is short ie 6 characters or less.
We use Brand in all Title tags. - ie | Brand
If long - some Brands 2-3 words we always use Brand on Home Page, Contact Page, privacy pages etc.
Product pages - often go with the product only. Then after that we just look at individual pages and determine what is best for the consumer and search engines.
Hope that assists.
Hi
Yes, in many instances it is better to use other words besides Brand name. We recommend the brand name in title tag on home page,
I am not 100% in agreement with Alick. Google struggles a bit with subdomains, it sometimes treats them as separate websites sometimes as the same website. John Mueller informed Distilled of same circa 12 months ago.
I would be cautious going down the path suggested, can you not migrate the content and re-direct?
Hope that helps.
Am not 100% clear but design and differing templates are 100% not an issue for SEO. In fact clarity on pages vias content and design is preferred.
The sub-folder should be stronger than the sub domain in the instance described.
Not sure if answered question but reach out if not.
Go get em.
They do not see your query in this forum, email Moz direct, they are v good.
You cannot beat high quality contextual earned links.
That said schema makes search easier for search engines, so review the schema mark-up and help feed structured data to google in the best way possible. So start with a schema audit.
Hope that helps.
To optimize SEO outcomes the short answer answer would use your current domain.
However a counter argument could be you own an exact matching domain to keywords so that maybe push you to a new URL. Big marketing budget or maybe you just want a clean start - because of pigeon or panda issues plaguing teh current site.
That said using Tesco & Sainsbury as examples both have in common "big wallets". So they would have planned multi million dollar marketing campaigns around the new products/URL's. Hence they can drive backlinks. So if the company is a monster - with a massive marketing spend for the launch you may think a new brand and URL are in order.
I am old school - a brand new domain to start from scratch - new domain, no history and no backlinks is a far harder task, but certainly not unachievable. I would steer form it. Personally I believe you should try and limit new domains as practically it increases your required SEO output in this case by double. Have to review two lost of GA and Webmaster each day... So just to keep level you need to work extra hours each week with a new domain...
They are my views but there is plenty of info on moz heading the other way.
The below link is from google direct. Buying backlinks is an unacceptable practice.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
The community view would be not to do it.
There are so many ways to get links with a little bit of effort, it is far smarter to head down that path. Plus and most importantly it lets you sleep at night. If you go down the dark side of a PBN etc. it will only be a timing issue until your site is penalized. Google is undertaking manual penalties it is doing whatever it can to thwart the practice. Some SEO companies will tell you they "outsmarted google"... 10,000 stamford graduates -v- a guy why just left his job as a security guard... I know who I would back.
Hope that assists...
No - there is no industry benchmarking. It is a matter of budget and value proposition. EGOL is correct in many instances PPC is a spend that does not appear to deliver on its value proposition.
That said there are always instances where PPC is a benefit. It is simply a matter of tailoring your PPC to your clients/websites needs. If you do not have much traffic then PPC is great because you can load up on traffic for two weeks - then analyse how the customers interacted with your site. Learn about consumer behavior. Find out site weaknesses.
Long tail "purchasing" keywords may deliver sales. Owning your "brand" maybe needed whilst you search for rankings. PPC is a valuable tool in the tool kit however it is just that a tool. You need to think about above the line advertising as well and branding your website.
In short do not discount PPC but do not over rely on it. Ranking your organic search results is the best method, but that takes time. The one thing I do know is that companies that focus on PPC to the detriment of all other mediums for advertising - invariably fail.
In short the rankings will go down - as the juice being passed from the links will no longer flow.
However if I was you, I would undertake a link audit immediately. Then create an outreach program targeting the most important links and seek to get those backlinks pointed directly at your new website. If you do this quickly and well it will devalue the old site when it is relaunched, making it less relevant. Additionally it will let you try and maintain rankings. It is almost the perfect detox link program... in some way.
Hope that assists, and I hope I understand your exact dilemma.
There are alot of lists out there. There is no correct answer to your question as every website has its own unique seo issues. So each website likely needs a different focus and a different tool. That said for ideas:
https://moz.com/blog/100-free-seo-tools
www.website-tools.net - this just lists them.
The fundamentals for us are:
Moz, Semrush, Similarweb & Blackdot & the tools pingdom/webpagetest for page speed. Though it depends on each seo adventure you are about to embark on. If starting, I would have moz (plus read each blog daily) and semrush. I have nothing to do with moz but it is the most wide ranging informative seo platform globally - when you add up all its parts.
Hope that assists.
The first one, www.mysite.com/blog - is the way to go. Many articles on it, but in short maximizes backlink juice...
Michael
Interesting question. No I have not heard of it for Adwords specifically, but I checked a few sites we monitor for Adwords and the privacy policy sits at the footer of each page regardless. I would guess and say it certainly can't hurt, but I cannot see it as a significant QS factor. Adwords really cares about money and in my experience CTR is the overwhelming factor on QS. I have had Ads move from position 6 to the top 3, purely on the Ad content (better CTA) when the actual landing page is substantively uncrawlable...
That said the privacy policy is a ranking factor in google's algorithm - absolutely in organic - that has been canvassed in plenty of articles. http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors - see item 72.
So perhaps the anecdotal evidence is the inter mesh of organic with Adwords.
I am just writing down thoughts as in many ways it is a open question.
The one component that seems to be absent is social media. Are the blogs being published on twitter, google + facebook etc.? Are the blogs posts topical, educational "the 10 nastiest things we find in your carpet?" etc. Do the customers connect with the blogs.
Given the high bounce rate that means a lack of a strong connection with a customer... a survey - just a simply one of what your customer is missing may uncover some gems - and a path to deepen that connection.
When all else fails ask the customer? Do a site survey.
Site speed is an absolute killer - a study I saw a year ago (cant recall where) states every second over 2 second for page loading you drop 7% of customers. That adds up. Also it is a significant ranking factor.
If I have one priority when I fix a site it is loading speed & usually a tidy up of title, H1's - H4's. Perhaps conduct a site audit - pretend looking at for the first time - be super critical.
So in summary - fix the loading page speed and do some customer research or ask your client to do a customer survey... also everything sounds a little bland.. you need to aim to twice as good as the best... are you doing that?
For your own site - 100% absolutely not. Do not touch, delete the site from your url history. The url attached gives you a taste on how to work with backlinks. https://moz.com/ugc/dos-and-donts-bad-link-building-and-useful-alternatives
You appear to be considering easy options on backlinks - there are none left really, it is just plain old fashioned hard work. Make sure you know where every backlink you have comes from. That should be your starting point. Do not buy off link farms, ie you have posed a question which is a recipe for disaster. There is plenty of information out there on this topic. Google "penguin penalty" and you will learn some more.
The Mozscape index is updated circa every 2 months. The next update is on 9 October 2015, so check on the 10th and see what impact your new links have had.See the below link,
https://moz.com/products/api/updates
Additionally it often takes a couple of updates for all additional links to be included in the index. Sounds like you are on the right track, it just takes a bit of time for everyone else to catch up..
Hope that assists.