Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Yes I agree. By all means have something on the general site pages that the company supply "oak furniture", but on the products pages themselves it will be enough to have something like oak sideboard, oak cabinet, oak table etc as appropriate.

Peter

Hi Bob

People will +1 because they think that something is remarkable, by that I mean that it is something that they want to tell others (i.e remark) about. Google themselves talk about the +1 button being for "w_hen you read a post that makes you want to cheer, +1 is your applause; when you watch a video that has you in stitches, +1 is your laughter; when you see a photo that perfectly captures that special moment, +1 is your 5-star review"._

In terms of how you can encourage people to +1, I think you need to think about where you place +1 buttons. If people read or see something that gets their attention enough to tell others and there is a +1 button adjacent, then they are more likely to click it.

With an ecommerce site it depends on what products you are selling in terms of determining what is "remarkable", but it could be alongside a snippet of positive media reviews, in response to a celebrity's endorsement, an engaging product video, or you could just display something like "if you love this product and think others should too, then +1 it!".

You could also create some very good value time-limited offers around a couple of sought after products which act as loss leaders. You don't necessarily have to make a loss on them, just a very small margin. The important thing is that they are seen as very good value by the consumer compared to where else the product can be bought. People like to tell others that they bought a bargain, so a +1 button alongside a very special offer could work very well.

Peter

Hi Bob

I'm not sure any tactic as far as the search engines are concerned can be considered to be 100% safe forever. Looking at how the tactics around SEO have had to change over the last 15 years or so leads me to think that anything that could be perceived as even slightly "off-white" could be under threat. I would say this tactic falls into off-white group.

Google outlaw that type of thing with their Google Adwords program for advertisers with their policy on "Social interaction incentives" saying that an advert that encourages someone to click a +1 "isn't allowed because it offers incentives in return for clicking on the business' +1 button" - see: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1187836.

Whilst I would say I think there is no doubt your proposed incentive is a whiter shade of grey than that (because you are bearing the cost of the +1, Like etc not a third-party), it still has that element of doubt for me.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Kade

I think it depends on the two words really. There was an example the other day of a company called ConvertMedia that didn't rank in the search results for Convert Media for the reason that the intent of a search like that is to find answers to how to convert media. So in that case the one word brand name worked against them, but the very fact of having a one word name identified them as that brand.

The brand name of my business however is two words: Cracking Media. If however you search for CrackingMedia we still turn up top in the search results, but it does ask do you mean "Cracking Media".

In terms of what your SEO friend has said I am not sure that gives you a conclusion, but I hope the thoughts above may help.

Peter

Hi Vjay,

There's a bit more info here too from an earlier question on this back in June:

http://moz.com/community/q/how-can-you-leverage-google-s-knowledge-graph-to-gain-more-visibility-in-the-serps

Peter

Hi Matthew

The darker the green the higher the value of that metric. Lighter green are mid-range, white are low-range.

The ticked metrics show you the top-rated metric for the column.

A screenshot is attached as an example.

I hope that helps,
Peter

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I love your whimsical answer Dana

Peter

Hi Oren

Yes, it is a little bit whimsical!

Unless the speaker shouldn't really be speaking because he says the word super excessively I don't believe you would have an issue. Google states the following regarding keyword stuffing:

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose)

Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:

We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en

Does your speaker speak as unnaturally as that? It would be very odd if they did.

I think it will be OK.

Peter

Hi Ben

Without seeing your client's current site it is difficult to say how it could be improved in look. Would you be able to post a link?

In general terms, I would suggest looking at what other sites for similar businesses are like both local to them and nationally. Pay particular attention to the top ranking sites for search phrases that would apply to your client's business. What is good about the sites? Could you do something similar for or even better?  What do these sites lack - is there something missing which you could do.

Successful sites get to where they are for a number of reasons, but was a usability perspective, content will answer the questions visitors customers are asking in clear language. Bigger images are more in vogue today so use strong visuals. In terms of structure make sure navigation is clear and the design is clean and engaging.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Adnan

To answer you firstly on Hummingbird and SEO Guru's opinion, yes, it's correct in part, but your client should not get caught up with idea that responding to Hummingbird requires a new SEO magic trick. Hummingbird is the evolution of what Google has been doing for quite a while meaning that today SEO is not so much about saying how do I target this or that keyword, but rather how you answer the questions your target customers are asking.

So whilst including keywords or phrases into a page Title tag is still relevant, it's not about top loading pages, but making sure the whole page is targeted which actually could mean, in terms of that page's content, that you are targeting multiple key phrases.

You are right in saying you shouldn't just be repeating one key phrase such as "oak furniture" across all pages. A Title tag is like the title of a page in a book. It tells the visitor and the search engine what that page is about which then of course needs to be backed up by the content on that page. So all pages on a site cannot be just about "oak furniture".

Having said that, it may be that your client's site could do with an SEO makeover and as such that may mean updating some page Titles and consequently the page URLs. If that happens, you will need to use 301 redirects to make sure old page URLs are redirected to the new page URLs.

I hope the above helps,
Peter

If the path to the images has not changed in your code and the robots.txt file has not changed either then I don't have an explanation.

Is it possible that you have changed the way the search engine friendly URLs are created and therefore that has changed the query path to the images?

Ultimately though, if there is no reason to have that disallow in your robots.txt then I would remove it and re-submit a sitemap.

Peter

Hi

Just checking your robots.txt file you have this line:

Disallow: /ProductImage.aspx

As your images are served from a query running from: http://www.repsole.com/ProductImage.aspx, e.g. http://www.repsole.com/ProductImage.aspx?File=pi-server-cabinet-42u-mesh-door-cab42810-svr.jpg&Size=200 then I think that is the source of your problem.

Peter

Hi, it will be interesting to hear other feedback on this also, but in my view just spend time building the responsive site and making it work well for various sizes and don't spend time on the specifically mobile site.

This blog post at Distilled may help too: http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/responsive-web-design-distilledlive/

Peter

PS. Following on from my reply on this earlier, it may be helpful to you to see the video that Google's Matt Cutts published about Responsive vs Mobile sites for SEO on this today. Click the link below.

watch?v=D03wRb4s7MU

Hi Cindy

If your current site at enchantingquotes.com is ranking well for your the main keyword for your business then I would not change anything.

IMHO_, m_oving everything over and then setting up redirects is not going to be worth it for the time it will take to do it and the result could be a possible negative impact. By the fact that you are ranking currently means your current site is trusted for the search phrase. Moving everything could undo that trust.

For your other domain  enchantingwallquotes.com rather than just redirecting it you may be better using that as as a blog site or something like that has useful content on your target market and which then links to your current site.

I hope that helps<
Peter

Hi, it can take Google extra time to index images, but I would also suggest you check the following:

1. That you haven't got a line in your robots.txt file that is disallowing indexing of your images folder. I have seen that happen before.
2. That your images are well named, i.e. not just something like "img_1234.jpg".
3. That your images have alt text linked with them on the pages they are used on.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Bob

I am not sure I understand the question you are asking. Please can you give some more information and perhaps an example.

Peter

Hi Gina

I agree with Jeff's comments. If it's a good design and works well then both your current and future customers will all benefit.

Peter

HI Sidd

My thoughts won't give you the full answer but hopefully they will help fine tune some things.

1. I would look at changing the structure of your site's Title tags. Currently, they are "site name | product name". Is it more important to promote your brand or the products for SEO? If the products, then reversing this order will put more focus on the product and help it rank better. The closer your targeted phrase is to the start of the Title tag, the more weight it will have and the more likely it is that someone searching for it will click on it.
2. On the page I found for your example: http://www.liveyoursport.com/products/dunlop-biomimetic-evolution-130-squash-rackets, it mentions "squash racket" in the Title tag, but that is it. I would look at enhancing the copy of your page to include the phrase at least once. For example, rather than saying, "the Biomimetic 130 is excellent for a player looking to play attacking shots on the volley..." say, "the Biomimetic 130 squash racket is excellent for a player looking to play attacking shots on the volley...".
3. If it is important for you to qualify searches for India, then there probably needs to be more reference on your site to your location in India. For example on your "Who we are" page there appears to be no mention of India. You need some references to the fact that you are Indian based and provide sports equipment to the Indian market. It may also help to include the word "India" in your page Title tags. So as above "product name | Live Your Sport India" or something like that.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Bob

If they're opposed to link building then they are going to have to work hard at creating as you say "stellar targeted authoritative content" and then make sure they engage on social media to sharing their content that will hopefully encourage others to create links for them.

Looking at the make up of the current top 10 for those search phrases there is a lot of hard work ahead to compete and be number 2.

A couple of brief things about their site currently and in particular their articles.

I would recommend finding a consistent way of creating their page URLs. Some are hyphenated but many are not (e.g. http://www.nlpca.com/DCweb/dcwebdynamicspinreleasearticlehtml.html) and as such they are not clear to read as humans even if a search engine can probably makes sense of them. Some are to PDFs and some are to external websites, but you don't know what you are going to get when you click the link. The articles need to be better organised.

Also, scanning their articles those I looked at seemed to contain no links, i.e. referencing other articles on the site or even citing external experts.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Ash

The value of anchor text for internal links doesn't change as far as I know dependent on where they are used. It's more a case of making sure you use anchor text appropriately.

By that I mean particularly on pages where you have article body text. It's good to have links in your body text, but not too much. Only link text which will help the visitor navigate to where they want to go, not for the benefit of search engines to spider your website. Too many links just disturbs the reader and diverts them from linking through to stuff that's important. It also looks spammy to search engines.

Peter