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That's a great illustration Jeff.

Peter

Hi Zulfiqar

Yes, it could rank. Just because a site doesn't have external links it doesn't mean it won't rank. The critical factor is the site content and whether or not that content is relevant and useful to the people looking for that content. If it is Google will list pages from it in their search results.

That said, with a site that has good relevant and useful content it's really a circular thing and without external links (i.e. votes that confer authority), a site can only rank so far.

By that I mean, if a site has good relevant and unique content it will appear in searches and because it has good relevant and unique content, people will share and link to it. That will give more authority to the site and so it will appear higher in search results. If it appears higher in search results, more people will visit and share and link to it and so it goes on...

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi, the video sitemap needs to be in XML format not text.

Are the videos hosted on YouTube? If so, there is a free generator for YouTube videos here:
http://www.canadaseozone.com/web-services/xml-video-sitemap-generator/

If on other platforms then this blog post from Distilled may help you:
http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/creating-video-sitemaps-for-each-video-hosting-platform/#youtube

Peter

I agree with Kevin. Those sort of tactics will not work and will ultimately bring your site more pain.

No, link building is not dead, but it has changed.

If your blog posts and articles are good and target information that people are searching for your pages will rank well and people will link to them either through social media or via their own sites.

Consider also backing up what you are doing with content on your site by making sure you include authorship that is connected to a Google+ account. Then use content sharing platforms like Google+ and LinkedIn (possibly specific LinkedIn groups if they exist for your industry) to place snippets of your articles with read more links to your articles and posts.

Peter

Hi Luke

PHP is a scripting language not a sitemap format.

If you mean a PHP page, e,g sitemap.php showing a sitemap with clickable links then that will be the same as an HTML sitemap - so good for humans but not the ideal for search engines.

You can get PHP sitemap generators, but that means that they will generate a sitemap by using PHP scripting rather than creating a PHP sitemap.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Luke

HTML sitemaps are suitable for humans because you can then put them up as a HTML page that can be viewed and clicked from. XML sitemaps are really for search engines and are the standard that Google, Bing and Yahoo all prefer. See more info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemap#XML_Sitemaps

I hope that helps,
Peter

With that sort of sample per month you should be able to get some interesting data from tracking the clicks from links that have a title and comparing to links that don't.

Peter

Hi Ben,

I don't know of any specific studies. From a usability point of view there is no question the Title attribute could have an impact on CTR. A well written and helpful title could encourage visitors to click a link the title is associated with, and a badly written one could dissuade them.

As such a small part though of a page and often not used at all, I doubt there are any studies.

There is an older blog post on Moz discussing them though which you may find useful:

http://moz.com/ugc/link-tilte-attribute-and-its-seo-benefit

I hope that helps,

Peter

Hi, the Moz assessment of keyword difficulty for "send SMS online" is 62% which is defined as follows:

Highly Competitive
Powerful sites with strong pages tend to dominate these results. Links in quantity and quality (at both the domain and page level) are required to earn top rankings.

I think if you don't have a site established and a track history for this already, then your chances of ranking well enough to earn traffic from search engine clicks is small to zero. If you have a product to sell for this term then my advice is that you are better off spending any money you have to pursue this by using Google Adwords. But then at the USD 2.12 cost you listed, then it's possible you won't see a return there unless you are hoping to sell packages for sending SMS online in high volumes.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Matthew

To a large extent, ranking well for a search term will depend on how competitive that search term is, i.e. based on how many other sites and pages are being optimised for it. If the term "second hand cars" is the term you are targeting, then that will be quite a challenge, but not so much if you are targeting a smaller geographical area, e.g. "second hand cars Miami".

However, I realise that doesn't answer your specific question. Even more these days since the Hummingbird update, it's not just about optimising pages - although you are right still to do that - but making sure your site is well targeted. So if you are targeting "second hand cars" for your site (bearing in mind you want your home page ranking for that), then the site as a whole needs to be optimised well for that term.

In terms of pages ranking higher, the anchor text and links you are adding will, to some extent, pass SEO value to the pages they link to. So by creating great content on pages about cars that links to your home page about "second hand cars" each page that is linked will pass on value to the page being linked to. Cumulatively the that page will accrue value, providing the page itself has good content.

This page in the Moz guide may help you further: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Mariano

Congratulations on landing this job.

I had a browse of the site. One thing that I think would help with regard to the actual property pages is to improve the Title tags on them which, from what I have seen, seem to be automatically populated with the address of the property, but that is all. For example this one:

http://www.aldodavico.com/info/property/residential/A1858022/

It would be better I think if it actually said the type of property that was for sale, i.e. Penthouse and an abbreviated address, e.g. South Beach, Miami and then maybe the Zip code to close so you make sure the Title is unique.

So, with this example the Title could be something like: "Penthouse for sale, South Beach, Miami 33139".

The URLs could be a whole lot better as well... /A1858022 doesn't tell human or search engine anything that may be useful either to click or to rank higher.

I realise though that you may be subject to the limits of the CMS you are using and its automation on Title tags and URLs, but if you could tweak these then it would help you.

All the best,
Peter

Hi Kieran

I definitely think you shouldn't scrap the content as I am sure there's been a lot of work put into those posts over time.

If it's not worked, then first look at how you can improve it in the light of the knowledge you now have (including also by doing some fresh keyword research), then get to work on it.

Maybe there will be some content that is beyond redemption so in those cases retire the articles. But with some re-working of your existing blog content combined with re-marketing of it through social channels, then you should begin to see some return on your investment.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Donna

The schema should definitely not show up in the page. Either you have miscoded something or the editor in your Content Management System is messing up the schema code.

The most common thing that causes code to display as content is when a preceding block of code is not finished off correctly, maybe a missing quote (") on a class statement or a tag (e.g. ) not closed by its tag pair (e.g. .

So I recommend you look at the source code to check if there's something missing and if you're still stuck post a link back here so it the page can be checked by another pair of eyes.

Peter

Yes, with that many links I think that is the best thing to do. Peter

Hi, it is just one site then I don't think it is going to have an impact on your site, especially with the links being in the footer, unless you are talking about lots of them.

If you did want to do anything then yes, just add a nofollow to the footer link. If the footer link is contained in a common block of code that is included on all the site's pages then it's a simple change to do. But there is no need to do a disavow.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi, I would say firstly that it depends on who your app is for and as such who may want to link to your site.

Is it an app that businesses will use or for Joe Public, i.e. consumers? If the latter then it's likely that many of them won't have sites to link to yours anyway. If the app is for businesses, then you may get some traction for sites willing to link, but unless these are sites that have relevance to your app site, then they could just be seen as spammy links, especially with the same anchor text repeated.

In my opinion, if you are already having some success with social likes and shares, then you are better to work on growing that, thereby increasing visitors and raising the currency of your site that way.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Muhammad,

An exact match or partial match domain can help yes, but it is not such an effective strategy as it once was because Google has tweaked its algorithm against it a little, plus people tend to be a little bit suspicious of those type of domains these days.

If you have an older domain for your business then you are better off using and optimising a site with that which can include using search engine friendly URLs which can be just as effective and of course can be different.

I hope that helps,

Peter

Hi Csaba

No you cannot pause your account but you can cancel and restart. In that case Moz archives your data and brings out of cold storage so to speak when you resubscribe.

You can see someone asked the same question a little while back: http://moz.com/community/q/can-i-pause-my-monthly-subscription

Peter

Hi Aaron

If the website is new I would still encourage you to build a blog of articles on the site showing your expertise for the products the site is selling. Also share the articles in social media channels including Google+ by publishing snippets of each one (i.e. headline + intro) with a link through to read the full article on the website.

Peter

Hi Aaron

With the way search has been changing it's difficult to say 'this' is comparable to 'that'.

I assume you are already blogging on the eCommerce site and creating good quality content there? If not, then I would recommend starting with that and I certainly wouldn't recommend paying to guest blog. In fact it raises the question how can a guest blog be a "guest blog" if you pay for the privilege. Sounds more like a paid link which I wouldn't recommend.

If you have expertise in an area to share and blogs in your space value that expertise then they will offer you the opportunity.

Peter