Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Edward

The question you face is almost the classic SEO conundrum. Execute the consolidation poorly and you end up losing a lot of rankings and traffic. So it has risks and the first rule is do no harm.

I am what you call a hardliner however. I would consolidate. An eCommerce site doing well www.cottonon.com may be worth viewing. Same issue - global in different markets. One domain. Killing it.

Focusing on one domain long term will have significant benefits.

https://moz.com/blog/2-become-1-merging-two-domains-made-us-an-seo-killing

https://moz.com/blog/rebrand-or-redirect-my-site-consolidate-multiple-sites-whiteboard-friday

That said you have to consider it carefully - map out pro & cons etc. Move slowly and execute brilliantly. Certainly worth keeping on the radar. I would educate myself - talk to more people and then make a decision.

An Australian start up we act for has Vote Trump appearing in Google Analytics. Is that happening for anyone else. It is very strange.

43rvF

That literally happened 25 minutes ago, good pick up.  You can not do on webmaster anymore. Google did say the transition was in August. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/new-search-analytics.html

On tools - none are accurate to the level of webmaster. You could try similarweb, ahrefs etc. but I would not recommend.

I suggest you still use WMT's - Though 1000 is the limit - you can partially get around it, on the actual keyword. If you go to queries and look for any keyword ie a keyword containing "travel" - your limit is still 1000.  So the 1000'th word for travel would likely the 20,000 word for the website.  Does that make sense, so it has to be done by keyword category now.

Hope that assists.

1. Direct, personal considered contact with highly relevant websites to the keyword seeking to improve ranking for.

2. To obtain backlinks - use several two main ones are Moz and Similar Web (for referral traffic, can lead to backlinks).

Benefits are massive. You should be able to focus all your link buildings efforts to one domain - ultimately obtain a higher domain authority. Think of it this way you are now presently dividing your time between three sites. You may even feel guilty working on one site and forgetting the other two.

If you think of your websites like houses. Right now you need to maintain, clean and pay for three houses. Also travel between them. If you make one big house - sure you might have to change some rooms so the New Zealanders feel at home. But it is alot easier being in the same house...  Plus fix one room and it adds value to the whole house...

The big global brands - one big house... lots of great rooms accommodating different cultures.

Hopefully not too esoteric!  ps main benefit long term is Domain authority, time and cost..

Hi Dan

The words or makeup of your brand name are relatively ubiquitous. Google may have served up GMB for a little while - to check on CTR etc. as it considered a brand then "little action" or "authority" and you are no longer served up.  It is relatively common for new websites or businesses.  Sometimes get lucky and stick.

Would suggest built up some domain authority and see if that is enough to get you back..

Charles

This is where moz is great - as anyone in the US who needs that data - now knows they have till midnight tonight to capture it.

Susan

Can you publish the url? I love a site with traffic though not appreciated by google. They are my favorites. If not then it is old fashioned hard work, but very rewarding - which you have to do at some stage regardless.  I would suggest you work through the below site audit.  It is a great Moz article.

https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015

Do you publish all your articles on google+ another easy win, if not doing already. On backlinks, are many of your blog posts being re-published?  With that many blog posts it is hard to understand why you are not earning many backlinks.

Hope that assists.

I would have the H1 as you state - "online psychic readings".

And yes on the final paragraph do there later. make sure you use the URL  zenory.com/psychic-readings - has great SEO value.

Backlinks! Backlinks and more quality backlinks!

Tough one, this site ranks above etc. www.shop21live.com/, facebook etc so still believe it is a brand strength issue, it could almost be part of an address for a shop in any shopping center globally...

But you rely on inside knowledge - gut instinct.

All the best.

Tough question, but each category usually has a niche data provider for a field. ie a Data company that is a specialists in shopping centre traffic for Landlords.

Am based in Australia, and for a generalist our clients use a http://www.experian.com.au/  That said there is likely a niche data analyst type company particular to your area.

Hope that assists.

As you have been hit by the latest penguin update - you should not expect improvement until the next update.  I am not sure when that is.  What is integral is disavowing all the bad links and ensuring the website is perfect. It is critical you understand what "poor" practices your website adopted and ensure that you go over board in eliminating them. That includes links with optimized anchor text on top of the spammy links.

It is not a great situation you are in, but nothing can change until the next update.

here is a reasonable article that may also help. http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2355513/youve-been-hit-by-penguin-should-you-start-over-or-try-to-recover

Hope that assists.

Nicos

A couple of things. The 5 reasons why people click on a typical SERP in order are:-

Page Rank

Brand

Title

Description

URL

The Title is far more important to clickability than the description.  Not suggesting disregard the description as it is important as well - where you have fun and place your CTA.  When targeting traffic it is always best to take a "beach head" first.  Most people go to Semrush or Adwords - and choose the word with most traffic and target it - and then never rank for it. Because it is too competitive.  If your website has a high DA do what you are doing - if it is a start-up then slow down - take a beach head. It might be "Luxury Apartments Chelsea" instead .

Next question what is your DA?  ie is over 25?

Kosta

No probs you have a few H1's I think I saw 7...  teh first listed is:-  "Over 25 Years Providing Entertainment Solutions For Perth Weddings".

http://www.writingforseo.org/how-many-h1-tags-can-you-have-on-a-page/

I was trying to suggest that maybe wedding is not the word to lead with. It is better take a beach head and move up from there.

Go get em.

Benjamin is correct.  Also check https://moz.com/blog/external-linking-good-for-seo-whiteboard-friday for a video version.

External links are considered a small ranking signal by some, I think it is more important. The integral part to external links is it allows google to contextualize your site.  So a page focused on selling note books could be benefited if is linked to a website selling stationary. However if the note book page links to Air Jordan shoes - that may confuse google.  External links are not  a tenth as powerful as a relevant backlink but it is a signal worth using as it has no real cost.

I personally like external links as it gives a customer trust in your website, if you are linking to reputable authoritative sources and arming them with better information.

Hope that assists.

A strong DA. Are you ranking for those keywords already? or are you building a new page?

In short - do not concern yourself about negative SEO.  Yes it can happen - but if you monitor your site the way you are - ie using moz diagnostics to regularly crawl back links etc. you will identify spam links and then can go through the procedure to disallow.  So you have that covered.

However you should appreciate that if someone creates a link for you, an editorial article - generally you want a follow link.  I spend time for clients trying to turn no-follows into follows. Then you get the link juice and the bump hopefully in rankings.

Clear as mud? If not let me know. Good question your on the right track.

Yes, we use freelancers for specific tasks.  There are 1000's of great people out there, much better qualified than you  think...  We use freelancer.com, elance etc.

That said the first and safest place we have found and start looking is stay at home parents (usually mum's). Start in your own backyard.. they often only want to work 1-2 days a week and at their convenience.  But they deliver in spades, over qualified, better contacts than you... etc etc.. and in expensive ...

Hope that assists.

Lesley is correct it is important to understand why the issues before you move forward.

I am not sure if you are familiar with tools.pingdom.com - but free test your site on tools.pingdom.  Then review the performance tab - and see what your loading problems are.  Also .2 of a second is best in class - if you can get below 2 seconds I would be happy with that. Not suggesting you do not go for .2 - just that it is onerous and likely not time efficient.

The positive is I have seen several times dropping a site from 6 seconds to 2 seconds gets me an uplift in rankings without doing anything else!

Hey

I have attached two links to dmoz

http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

http://www.dmoz.org/help/search.html

which may assist. They lay out a clear path for you.

As each application to dmoz is curated - i would focus on listing one blue chip website. Getting one web listed would be a win. I would also review your original application, what has changed and then re-submit. If you cannot find it, i would not be concerned. You simply will have to re-submit.  Dmoz is no longer as strong a ranking signal as was a few years ago.

Let me know if any can assist further.