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Magician London - Tom London is the overall headline for the home page. But it makes no sense to human beings and looks like a typographical error.

Your name is Tom London and you are a magician in London? Is that correct? It's certainly not obvious at first glance.

I'm afraid there's more.The site contains a large number of typographical and grammatical errors. Some words are randomly capitalized; it's country's, not countries; it's wit not whit; etc... The overall impression is poor and may be costing you clients. The whole site needs to be reviewed and corrected word for word.

I'd also recommend making the testimonials more prominent, either as a separate nav bar item or perhaps on a few of the interior pages. The footer mentions being a member of the Magician's Circle. Is that a big deal? If so, say so in a prominent place.  Have you ever received media coverage?  Again, say so. Do you have any videos? Include them, perhaps embedded in blog items.

None of this has much to do with SEO. But I think it will help with conversions. It would be a pity to have people actually find the site, but then not contact you because the site doesn't do a good enough job of representing who you are and what you do.

Update: Just saw that there is a video on the home page. I completely missed it, mistaking it for still,  because the play button is so small.

It's really difficult to comment intelligently in the absence of more information about the overall relationship with you SEO Provider or what is spelled out in the contract.

But my gut tells me you are right to raise your eyebrows....

(to mix metaphors and body parts)

Ummm, this isn't what you asked....

...but is it out of the question to re-consider this:

"However, we're going to keep the site on the current domain while we ease customers into the new **name."**This is a mistake, IMHO,  and you should do everything possible to persuade the client to re-think the plan.

Best practice, as I'm sure you know, is to do page-level redirects from each page on the old site to its closest corresponding page on the new site.

Is the company name changing...or just the domain name?

In any event, I can't see an elegant way of doing what you propose...only of mitigating the damage and confusion that will inevitably result.

I'm sure others, more technically knowledgable than I, can weigh in on damage control. But why damage yourself at all?

I don't think this is really a technical  SEO issue at all.

It's a fundamental marketing and branding issue, IMHO. So much better to zoom up to 30,000 feet and address the larger issue.

**Bottom line: the way to make the change is, well, to make the change! All at once. **

I completely missed the "valuable content" including the tutorials the first time around. I spent 10 minutes on the site -- about 9 minutes and 45 seconds longer than most people will spend. Which highlights the problem. The good stuff is buried. The initial impression is of a very dubious site.

It is not at all clear what the purpose of the site is at first glance. So users are forced to try to find out who created it. But they will fail because the information is not there.

**Constructive Suggestion: **Include a Mission Statement near your logo. Something like: "Your independent expert guide to website hosting." (If that's what you're doing.)

**Constructive Suggestion: **Completely reorganize your navigation and UX. Eliminate extraneous material.

The most important page on any website of this kind is the about page. You don't have one. See this article on About Pages. (Note: by de-cloaking, I simply meant revealing who you are on page.)

Try looking at this website by my client Jon-Erik Kawamoto for an example of a good About page that establishes the site owner's credentials. The site also surfaces valuable content. It uses a blog format and the right hand column sorts content by category and also recent highlights.

The other part of the right hand column includes some affiliate marketing stuff.

Along the same lines, take a look at this site by my former client Jon Goodman. There is a wealth of free material, along with some premium products and affiliate promotions in the right hand column.

Constructive Suggestion: Try highlighting your best tools and content on the home page, perhaps in promtional boxes.

Thanks for the response, but we'll have to agree to disagree.

I maintain my position: cold calling is wrong. I would never try it.

Most sensible people already hang up. More people should.

And then fewer people would cold call.

And the world would be a better place.

Sheesh.

I get them every day. But this one takes the cake. It's from a woman I met once in my life on a long run with my running club. That was two years ago. Now she wants me to endorse her -- even though I know nothing about her professionally.

But wait, there's more. She's not much of a runner. As it happens, I know a thing  or two about fitness -- having edited a fitness magazine and worked on websites for many top fitness and nutrition pros. The idea of an MSW doing fitness programs for people with medical problems raises all kinds of red flags.

She sent this Facebook IM:

Hi Daniel - hope all is well! I was wondering if you can share my page with your friends, with the following message (or something similar). Thank you so much in advance!

My friend XXXXXX, MSW, has been running XXXX Personal Training for the past 18 years. She specializes in exercise programming for people who have medical problems, everything from heart problems to chronic pain conditions. She works on site in her clients' homes in midtown and downtown XXXXXX. Please contact her if you know anyone who would benefit from her expertise.
http://www.facebook.com/pagesXXXX
XXXX Personal Training
We specialize in helping people who are experiencing medical issues incorporate exercise into their treatment plan. We work as a team with all other professionals involved in your care, whether that is your medical doctor, naturopath, physiotherapist, osteopath, chiropractor, massage therapist, or...
Page: 141 like this

[note from SEOmoz staff: we ask that you keep this post TAGFEE and not include specific names, URLs, or phone numbers in your response. Thanks!]

Right. In a previous life, I headed the news dept. of a TV station.

I would regularly get calls from clueless PR people who asked the question: "Did you get my press release?"

What I always felt like saying (but usually was able to restrain myself from saying) was:

"How the hell would I know? And please F&*% off and die a slow painful death. We receive hundreds of press releases every day and 99.99% of the time it's a waste of our time to have even the most junior staff member read them. You have cost me time and money -- and how dare you? I resent it, I hate you, and I have now made a mental note of the idiot company dumb enough to have hired you. BTW, I'm wondering how this call even eneded up being routed to me. Something went wrong."

You can remove the links from PR Web press releases, even after publication. No need to disavow unless they have been picked up by other sites and do-followed.

That said, I seriously doubt they can get you into trouble...unless they are part of a sustained pattern of misconduct, say dozens or hundreds of press releases from spammy press release sites (not PR Web, which is reputable.)  Your backlinks from PR  Web may even be helping.

There is much confusion on this subject. Two general and casual remarks Matt Cutts made years apart have been taken out of context and widely misinterpreted. The conventional wisdom seems to be that all backlinks from all press releases are always and everywhere useless or harmful.

This suffers from the defect of being untrue.

And it's s just as silly as saying:

"All directory listings are useless -- or harmful."

or

"All guest blogging is useless -- or harmful."

or

"All infogrpahics are useless -- or harmful."

Life is complicated. Context is everything.

And much depends on your overall link portfolio.

I agree.

Run for the hills.

SEO for $5? It's a bit like the guy offering a genuine Bulova watch in Times Square for $5.

I can't imagine any sensible person ever buying anything from someone who cold calls.

It is not a practice associated with reputable businesses, IMHO.

I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on the Internet.

But I am a former TV and publishing executive who dealt with these sorts of issues all the time.

And I can tell you that your proposed use of copyrighted material for your own commercial benefit raises every possible alarm bell. My advice: don't even bother consulting a lawyer. You will just waste a lot of money for a statement of these obvious alternatives:

1. Forget the whole idea

2. Negotiate with with the copyright holder to license the material (with little chance of success, even if you are willing to pay a hefty fee)

If you use the material without licensing it, you will almost certainly be served with a takedown notice. The matter will likely end if you take down the material. If you don't take down the material, you will likely be sued and incur substantial legal fees on the way to a settlement.

Little known fact: Roger's antennae  have invisible extenders that reach above the clouds.

Another problem with Yext is that you are locked in to a very high annual fee.

If you don't renew, Yext threatens to "release" your listing and says you have to manually "reclaim" each one.

Not a good solution and not the most noble of business practices, IMHO.

Now that there are better alternatives, I would use Yext only for big businesses with deep pockets. Its only advantage is its speed. If I had a reputation management client who need to push negative stuff down quickly...I might consider Yext. But that's it.

Why is this even a discussion? It should go without saying that you always want to put your best face forward.

Why risk your reputation with a "good enough" post that gets you the link but could engender a neutral or negative reaction?

The way I was brought up, when someone was nice enough to invite you into their house...you were on your best behaviour.

Of course,  it's reasonable to expect a skilled professional who is actively seeking work to spend some time on the company website learning about company culture.

But most of your top prospects won't be in that category. They already have good  jobs. If they hear about you opening at all, it will be from a seeing the posting elsewhere. As written, the description will discourage them from even clicking through to your site.

Please see this Moz job posting for an example of a well written developer posting. It stands on its own, but also includes links to specific places on the site. So it works equally well on site and offsite,

I've also  had very good experiences with PR Web. I agree that going through Vocus can yield big discounts. Let's just call their pricing "flexible." Once you get an account exec on the phone, a world of possibilities opens that isn't apparent from the website.

But I agree some people have unrealistic expectations about what press releases can and cannot do -- in terms of both SEO and branding.

You hit the jackpot when major mainstream outlets -- or authoritative blogs -- write their own stories. I've gotten pick-ups from the Wall Street Journal, NBC, and the Columbia Journalism Review. Maybe it helps that I'm a former TV News Director whose clients include writers who can create great content that is then "promotable" in press releases.

Here are some examples of press releases that will go nowhere:

• Joe Blow appointed VP of Widget Production
• We're Having a 20% Off Sale Until Friday, So Buy Now!
• We Re-launched Our Website And We Think Someone Cares
• Version 3.17 of The Super-Duper, XML Rocket Fuel Suite of Enterprise MiddleWare CMS Plug-in Do-Hickey Has Been Officially Launched and It's Really Great, Because We Say So In Incomprehensible Business Speak and At Great Length

OTOH, I got great pick up from fitness sites and magazines for a gym client last week. In an update call, I asked the client how his new boot camp was going. He said great and mentioned a new member was a professional MMA fighter. I nearly fell out of my chair! That's a story: professional athlete works out alongside soccer Moms. I interviewed the athlete, wrote a story, and posted it to the client's blog and Facebook page. Other gym members responded saying they had no idea who "that nice guy" was. So I worked all this into a press release that got the great pick up.

But the whole project took many hours. I typically spend 3-10 hours on a release and follow up. The idea that you can toss off a press release in 15 minutes and expect to see big SEO benefits falls under the heading of "Ain't gonna happen," IMHO.

I worked as a non-profit executive long before I ever got involved  in SEO.

So I appreciate the difficulties with budget, staffing, and training.

That said, I really think the long-term answer is to take more of the work in-house. Given the Rip Van Winkle timelines that can prevail in non-profits, this could be a one or two year process. All the more reason to get started right away!

If you are on another platform, migrating everything to WordPress, for example, is not a small task. But it could probably be done for $1,000 to $2,500 by a developer whose mandate also includes training a staff member or intern for all future updates short of a major redesign. The developer could then lurk in the background, ready to be called on rare occasions. I have been though his process for both for-profit and non-profit clients.

I really think the days of delay, dependency and paying $50-$150 for every minor text or graphic change need to die.

Try to get the cartoon published on other sites.

Make it an explicit requirement that any such publication also include a link back to your site -- and preferably to a page on which users can take a further action (e.g.. subscribe to a newsletter).

If can make the link one of the keywords you are trying to rank for, so much the better.

So if the cartoon were about the crazy world of office furniture:

• the cartoon would appear on the other site
• It would include something like: Courtesy of Mac's Furniture Warehouse. Check out their blog about office furniture for the inside story about how this cartoon was created
• this leads to your blog, which includes the cartoon and the details about how it was created
• your blog page might also include an email capture field at the bottom (or perhaps a discount offer)

This is quite a bit of work. You will have to contact the sites individually with a well-crafted and polite invitation.

But it sounds like the effort may well pay off in this case.

Thanks for the courtesy.

Not to belabour the point (so this will be my last response):

But I never said cold calling was ineffective.

I just said that it was wrong.

In the grand scheme of the universe, it annoys people, gives business a black eye, and invites government regulation that over reaches.

Happy New Year!

It's now been almost six weeks since the last update.

I realize we got an extra bonus...

...and I realize that even robots celebrate Christmas.

All that said....

...and having exhausted my limited repertoire of diplomatic politeness...

WTF!

When is the next update????

Just asking. Nicely. (Kinda)

Thanks.

-Daniel