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Hi Jonathon, Excellent question! I expect you'll get two or three opinions on this. Here's mine, but keep in mind, depending on your goals, it may or may not be the right thing for you.

Don't be a link hog.

What do I mean by that?

I mean, don't be so tight with your concern about leaking link juice (God I hate that term!) out of your pages by linking to another site. Instead, think about it this way:

Is linking to this other resource or site helpful to my readers/site visitors? Does the fact that you are linking to a valuable resource enhance the value of your content/page and end up making you even more authoritative than you would have seemed without it?

If the answer to that is "yes!" Than, by all means, link to that other page or resource and be polite and respectful and for heaven's sake make it a "followed" link.

On the other hand, are you linking to the other page simply as a conversational, maybe even a one-off mention, like a link to a manufacturer from an eCommerce site? or worse, is someone paying you for a link back to them? Or perhaps it's a link contained in a comment on one of your posts.....Sure, go ahead and link if you want to, but use the rel="nofollow" attribute for those types of links.

It's certainly a judgement call, but I try to look at things this way, if I thought highly enough of a resource to mention it or include it for my visitors/readers, then I probably should link with a followed link. Just my two cents! Hope that helps

Dana

Hi there,

Every time I get into the "trailing slash vs. non-trailing slash" discussion with my clients I go back and read this excellent post in the Official Google Webmasters Central Blog by Maile Ohye: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html

Problem for SEO: Both URLs are producing 200 OKAY status codes, resulting in duplicate content. This can interefere with crawl efficiency and fragments link equity.

Solution: Ideally, rather than relying on canonical tags to achieve what you want, 301-redirect the non-preferred versions of your URLs to the preferred version. Only one URL should return a 200 OKAY status code. The other should 301-redirect. This is a better solution than relying on canonical tags.

Hope that helps!

Dana

For the most part Alan, I'm with you. I like the "homey" low-tech nature of the site. The only thing I would say you could improve would be making it easier to read (maybe larger fonts on a white background as opposed to light blue)....maybe keep your layout but improve the quality of your header image, fix some spacing issues in your CSS. These are all just little "housekeeping" details that really wouldn't change the overall look and feel, but would just tidy it up a bit.

You might also want to consider an update because a lot of platforms like WP include some nice built-in functionality that make your website easier to read and navigate on mobile devices.

I'd address the housekeeping issues first (for example, you have the Google+ like button twice at the bottom of this page http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/endeavour-cottage.html). You might find that alone produces more bookings, simply because it's easier for your visitors to read your information and they'll be more inclined to trust the site if it appears to be well cared for.

Hope that's helpful! The cottages look really cute!

Dana

I think this entirely depends on the nature of your business. All I can share with you is my own experience with this. I do SEO for several sites, one is a very small, very tight niche business. I have identified about 264 keywords that are key to the business. Out of those, probably only 10 show any search volume in the Google keyword tool at all. However, every single one of them has produced revenue (that's how they ended up on my final list). How much revenue could one possibly get out of a site that only focused on 264 keywords and only 10 of them showed any search volume in Google? What if I told you it was possible to do over $3 million a year?

Remember, Google's Keyword tool is just that, a tool. It can't replace intimate knowledge of your customers and your products. If you know those things inside out, trust that knowledge and go after the keywords you know your customers are going to use to find you. Let your competition obsess over broad keywords that do show search volume. They'll miss the mark and you'll hit it out of the park.

All that being said, it does depend on your business model. Obviously if you box yourself into a niche that's too tight, you just might be putting yourself into a place where there just isn't enough demand for what you're offering to make it. Then, you might need to broaden the scope, or select a niche that isn't quite as limited.

Just my take - I hope that's helpful!

Dana

Hi Joel,

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule here. The length entirely depends on the subject matter and your audience. If your page is a product page on an e-commerce site and the product is a microphone clip, 2000 words would be silly. If your page is a blog post targeted towards audio-video professionals and is about how to mic specific instruments in specific situations, 2000 words might be too short.

Remember when you were in school and you inevitable got that professor who answered your question of "how long should my paper be?" and they answered "As long as it needs to be to express your point.." ?  It's like that.

Good luck Joel!

Dana

I'm probably going to take some heat for this answer, but it's just an honest answer, so I'm hoping the SEOMoz community will go gentle with me.

If your keyword is "Indian bridal sarees" and that is the best, most natural combination of those words, then for the sake of all that is holy in this world, use it. Don't make ridiculous iterations of it just because you think it's what Google wants.

Perhaps you could use these variations if you had to: "Indian bridal saree" - "bridal saree" - "wedding saree" or "Indian wedding saree."  But if you start using anchor text that is like "saree bridal wedding" or "saree bridal Indian" I think it's just silly.

Take advantage of synonyms by all means, but don't feel like you have to start moving words around for your anchor text to the point of not making sense.

Does that help a little?

Dana

Hi Andrea and Jason,

I highly, highly recommend MozCon. I attended last year and, because it was the first time I had attended any SEO event, I made a point of asking everyone I talked to about what conferences they attended and which ones were the best. Hands down, without question, everyone I asked said MozCon. They liked SMX too, for the most part, but said that MozCon was different (and better) because everyone had the opportunity to attend all of the presentations. This is in contrast to SMX where you have to pick and choose what you want to attend and if two things you are interested in are going on at the same time, you end up having to choose. MozCon is also great because it's not about selling you anything. In that way, it's not like a traditional convention because there aren't 100's of vendors also vying for your attention.

While I think both are probably great for networking, if you really want to leave a conference feeling like you've learned some seriously important things related to SEO, I have to believe that MozCon is going to be hard to beat. Please don't tell my boss, but if the company didn't send me, I'd pay for it out of my own pocket....That's how valuable I think it is.

Hope to see you both there!

Dana

Hi all,

Because I needed to educate myself on how to get the most out of the new Keyword Planner versus the old Keyword Tool, I wrote a blog post last week on the subject located here:

http://www.danatanseo.com/2013/07/google-keyword-planner-vs-keyword-tool.html

Dan, you are correct the new default is exact match, while the old was broad, and yes, now you can toggle between "exact" "phrase" and "broad" with one major caveat, these are based on your specific Adwords account targeting settings. So for example, in my case, we target only the USA, so now my results when researching are only the USA....which may not be appropriate at all if I am doing research for a client that targets more that just the US. I'm sure you can see how that could pose some significant problems for accurately targeting high-opportunity keywords for other countries.

As Jeff says below, yes, you can still get global monthly search volume by targeting all locations. For me, the only way to reasonably do this without fear of totally screwing up the settings on my existing Adwords campaigns is to open a completely separate Adwords account just so I can do research. Yuck!

Fortunately, there are some alternatives to the old Google Keywords Tool:  Wordstream's Keyword Tool, UberSuggest, SEMRush, SEOBook's Keyword Tool

Larry Kim has also written a good post on the differences between the old and new Keywords Tool/Planner....but it's a little daunting (IMHO), so read it first thing in the morning when you are wide awake with a fresh coffee at your side.

Hope this helps guys!

P.S. The other thing that really sucks is you can no longer check a box next to specific keywords and export just those. You now have to export the entire list and filter through them in Excel. This drives me nuts!

Hi Reeves,

You are right. Staying focused on the right things for your business in terms of SEO can be a challenge because your business is going to be different from someone else's. Personally, the way I make that decision is this: Is what I'm doing going to have an impact on my company's bottom line business goals? In my case, we are an e-commerce site. So for me, everything is about revenue. If I increase traffic, but revenue stays flat or decreases, then my traffic building isn't accomplishing the goal. If I increase conversion rate, but revenue stays flat or declines, then my conversion optimization work isn't contributing...etc. For us it's all about revenue.

It sounds like your website is more about lead generation. I'd say it's even more specifically, about generating super high quality leads.

You asked a couple of great questions:

1. How do we know that the content we're writing isn't getting lost in the noise of our own webpage, and the world at large?

2. How do we know if the content is actually relevant to our goals (ie clients)?

My answer would be: Ask them.

UserTesting.com gives you the ability to watch people, real people specific to your type of business, interact with your website. We try to do 3 user tests every quarter. If you've never done it, grab a copy of Steve Krug's book "Rocket Surgery Made Easy." [The link is to a live Demo on YouTube] You can read it in a couple of hours (no kidding!). He's got a simple guide there on how to set up simple usability tests. Trust me, you do three 20-minute usability tests and not only will your mind be blown, but you'll know the answers to your questions. Now, this isn't just about whether or not your site is technically working, it's also about whether or not the content you've written is having the effect you intended, or if it's doing something you didn't expect (i.e. turning people off, or even being completely ignored).

Trust me, it won't take a lot of time and you'll get answers from the people who matter to you the most...potential leads.

Hope this is helpful!

Dana

Agree and thumbs up to Sara. Also, it's important to understand that, while you can change the setting to show broad match instead (which used to be the default), you are only going to see search results based on your settings in your Google Adwords account. This is potentially a huge difference because, while the tool used to show global & local results in two different columns, what you are now seeing are searches based on your Adwords settings. Which mean, if your campaigns only run in the USA, you will only see USA search volume.

I wrote about the changes in a blog post a few weeks ago located here: http://www.danatanseo.com/2013/07/google-keyword-planner-vs-keyword-tool.html

Larry Kim did a more exhaustive post on the subject here: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/04/25/keyword-planner

Hope that helps explain in more detail the discrepancies you are seeing! Cheers!

I wish our CMS would make siren sounds, flash the lights and throw a pie in the face of every person (or thing) who initiates anything that will cause us duplicate content issues. Maybe then they would stop!

Hi Endlessrange, I love SEOMoz too! Pretty much I agree with everything you just said. Is cold-emailing people to try to get them to link to your site worth your time? No. But I'm willing to bet there are tons of people who you haven't emailed already, who you have some kind of connection with. Those people are definitely worth emailing. But, if you email, maybe a better approach would be to have something specific in mind. Maybe you want to announce something. Maybe you just want to share some information. If you email them, make sure something's in it for them, maybe something more than just a link back. Maybe you offer them a guest blog spot. Maybe you interview them. Maybe you send them a gift. I don't know, be creative.

I personally discard all emails from people who don't have an "in" with me. By "in" I mean, they know enough about me to use my first name, perhaps know someone I know, or know enough about me to know what I'm really interested in.  They have to talk to me in my language, and they better not start their email with "Greetings dear friend."

That being said, just today I contacted 4 editors of industry-related Web publications with whom I have had prior business relationships with. I had a press release I thought they might be willing to post on their sites. All four of them said yes. All four said yes because they know if I say it's a press release it's really a press release, not a badly disguised piece of marketing drivel. I also never presume anything. I don't contact them expecting them to do anything for me. I ask them really really really nicely, and I accept the fact that they just might say no.

Do everything you mentioned and always be on the lookout for an opportunity to contact with someone new. Then, do some research and find out how you might already be connected to them (6 degrees of Kevin Bacon right?). Figure out where the connection is and then email them.

Good luck and make the most of Q & A. It's awesome!

Hi BigBlaze,

I have sympathy for your situation. Is there a tool that will tell you if these nefarious links were done intionally? No

Can they hurt your SEO? If they are from bad neighborhoods online or questionable sites? Yes

How do you remedy it? Use Google's new disavow tool. Here's info: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-new-tool-to-disavow-links.html

I don't think anyone here can tell you to disavow one link or another. That is something better determined by you in the context of what you know about your business.

Dana

Hi, I understand your frustration because there are so many posts saying "all that stuff you used to do doesn't work any more so stop it and do something else...like RCS." I totally and completely agree with the RCS part. In my opinion if there isn't RCS going on, then SEO strategy shouldn't even be talking point. That being said, let's say you are doing SEO for a company that does do RCS. Then what? Are you still not to do any of these things?

I would argue that every element on your list still work, even directory submissions (okay, nobody shoot me...but hello...Yahoo anyone?)  And Press Releases still work too...when you have real news. In fact, just today YouMoz put up a post I wrote about how blog commenting can actually still work and work really well, even post-Penguin.

I'd approach everything on that list and create a strategy and schedule for each one, but one that is driven by connections, relevance and newsworthy events instead of quotas like "I need to build 50 links this week." We get so fixated on the idea that someone has the "secret plan" the "formula" to a special SEO potion that's going to work for everyone. There is no such thing. The reason people go around proclaiming that any one of the things on your list don't work is probably because they beat them like a dead horse, and dead horses don't run.

There isn't a secret combination or plan or strategy...the only one that's going to work is the one that custom made by you for your site. What works on one site or for one business, may most likely not work for another. Try things. Experiment. Some things will work, some things won't. The great thing about SEOMoz is that you can ask such a huge variety of people in so many different areas of businesses what's working and what's not. Here, you will find enough ideas to keep you occupied trying new things for a long time. But don't let anyone tell you all the old things don't work any more. They work, just maybe not quite like the cog wheels of some big SEO machine some were hoping to turn and have links come flooding out.

Hope that's helpful. Just my take of course

Dana

Hi Cenk,

Yes, it is better to use relative paths when linking on your site to your internal pages. This reduces the number of server calls on a page and can increase your page speed and efficiency. Now, does that factor specifically factor into algorithm? I don't know. But page speed is part of the algorthm, so I suppose you could say that indirectly it does have an effect on algorithms and how your site potentially ranks.

One caveat: Use absolute URLs for your canonical tags. Search engines have problems interpreting relative URLs when they are in a canonical tag. I learned this the hard way!

Hope that helps!

Dana

Yes, there's definitely an awesome way to do this in SEOMoz. You need to set up a campaign, and then associate keywords with that campaign. If you have several different categories of keywords you can separate them with tags to group like words together. I would highly recommend also putting in as many competitors as possible so you can see where they rank for the same terms. Once you've put in your keywords, SEOMoz will crawl once a week and track the rankings over time. You will also be able to export complete history for keywords over time. THis is extremely helpful in determining if you are going up or down for your most important terms. Every site is a little different, so the best thing to do is just get in there and play with it and you'll soon find what works best for you.

Hope that helps! Being able to track keywords like this, together with compeitors' rankings is what make SEOMoz Pro worth every penny (IMHO).

Dana

Experiencing a drastic drop in traffic immediately after and often for several months after a redesign/replatform is extremely common. I have seen scenarios where traffic dropped as much as 75% for as long as 4-5 months before beginning to recover. There are so many issues involved in a re-platform and so many possibilities for why and where things may have gone a little astray that pin-pointing any one thing may just be impossible.

That being said, I feel your pain! As a fellow in-house SEO I am sure there is a lot of pressure on you from stakeholders to "fix the Website."  We are going to be re-platforming within the coming months and one of my main jobs has been to educate everyone on the potential hit we will take.

If it's any consolation at all, I have seen companies power through that dip and come out way better on the other side. But I've never seen it happen instantly. You may want to discuss strategies like possibly increasing PPC or other paid marketing campaigns to get the company through until things start improving. Ideally, this is a discussion you have before the replatform takes place, but it sounds to me like to came on board after the move had already taken place.

Do what you can to find any potential technical SEO problems, but also encourage your colleagues not to panic and to develop some other campaigns that can bring in traffic until things start to improve.

That was more of a pep talk than anything concrete in terms of help. I know. But Sometimes it just helps to know that what you are experiencing is par for the course for any platform change or site migration.

Hi Stu,

I'm going to say this at the risk of being struck down with slings and arrows by my highly-esteemed friends in the SEOMoz Q & A forum. Research and pursue high-quality directory links. Create a budget, research the directory's history, PageRank, check them in OSE, and vet them completely. You will be amazed at what's left. There are a lot of good directories out there and they still matter (ouch! I think an arrow just hit me).

I had a brand new niche site last January. In one year we've moved from PageRank 1 to PageRank 3 and we are little bitty teensy weensy. We are on track to quadruple organic traffic and sales in 2013. We have some good "earned" links, but nearly ALL of our first links were from high-quality directories.

Just be smart, research them, and never pay for more than one year. Next year, that directory could be gone. If you aren't in Yahoo.dir, pay the money and get listed (if you can). Also get into Business.com and JoeAnt.com...there are many many more good ones.

I'd love to raise my hand and charge you a consulting fee to do it for you, but I think you can do this yourself and save a lot of money and get decent results.

Good luck! [and I'm putting on my armor now to deal with the comments that come after this one, lol]

Dana

Yes, there is something you can definitely do to help the SEO and the accessibility of your site. You need to write "alt" attributes for all of your images. Right now they all say the same thing "image description" - That's really bad. They should each be unique and describe the content of the image. This is the very first thing I would do, and the sooner the better.

Hope that helps!

Hi Mike,

I don' t think 50 keywords is too many at all, but of course it depends on the scope of your campaign. I have one niche site that I run a campaign for and it has about 250 keywords. That pretty much covers every possible nook and cranny broad and longtaiil search term for the whole site. On the other hand, I have another campaign containing about 750 keywords for a much larger site, and it doesn't even come close to covering the whole site. It maybe covers two main categories.

One thing I will caution you on is SEOMoz campaign keywords are case-sensitive. I don't really know why. They just are. So, if you have one keyword listed as "This Is My Keyword" and another as "this is my keyword" SEOMoz is going to count that as 2 keywords. So just to be on the safe side make sure all of your keywords are lower case before you upload them to your campaign.

My only other piece of advice is that if you have a long tail keyword, or perhaps even a branded search term that you know you are going to rank #1 in Google for (or perhaps already do), it might be worth leaving that one out and tracking other keywords that are more challenging to rank for.

Oh, one more thing, use the tagging capabilities to breakdown your campaign keywords into more specific groups. It makes reporting on specifics way easier later. For example, if you have several different specific brands inside your campaign, break it down by brand.

Hope this is helpful!

Dana