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If you want the most accurate traffic report possible, then I would set up a custom goal in analytics using your landing page URL. Depending upon what you are trying to do, you could set up a page that is targeted directly to your YouTube refferals, and focus on promoting conversions. Or another option is to just clone the home page to a different URL and set it to NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW and have them land on that when they click the link.
I am for adding the company name at the end. If a person is searching for a brand or company, you should have more than a few places where that name or brand is mentioned.
I understand that branding involves much more than this, but due to how the site is set up, I don't see anything wrong with it. You are not extending your title past the character count, not putting your name at the beginning of the title, etc. The page titles are already very short, so I see no harm in it.
With is being so easy to rip off anothers brand name with a domain or URL, I personally agree with using using a company name in the page title, unless your company name is extremely long, and jeopardizes the character count displayed.
Then, there is always this:
http://searchengineland.com/quantifying-brand-bias-search-results-rand-fishkin-moz-189824
I'm sure some will disagree with me, but that's what makes the internet such a great place. Being able to agree to disagree 
You can submit them separately. One for video, one for images, one for URL's. This may be a more effective approach at getting things indexed, as it separates them into their own category. If you are already having a high load time, wouldn't hurt to try.
To answer your original question:
"Sitemaps should be no larger than 10MB (10,485,760 bytes) and can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs. These limits help to ensure that your web server does not get bogged down serving very large files."
But wait, there's more!
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021559.html
"Google has changed the number of Sitemaps you can reference in a Sitemap index file. The number use to be 1,000 sitemaps can be referenced in a Sitemap index file, now the number is 50,000 Sitemaps. This is a huge increase in capacity.
Still, each Sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 URLs, so technically 50,000 multiplied by 50,000 is 2,500,000,000 or 2.5 billion URLs can be submitted to Google via Sitemaps."
There are a lot of ways to save money, and do your SEO for less cost.
FaceBook: What are the details of your ads? Do you target local or nationwide? Are you promoting the page or a certain post? Advertising on FB can be tricky, and may take you a few ad runs to find out what resonates with your audience. $50 a day isnt that bad, considering that most FB ads don't use the full amount. Could be you just need a few killer posts to really get your page promoted and more likes. I don't see this as a big conversion source platform, (unless your posts are conversion-focused) but it could help to raise better brand awareness.
Google Adwords:
What type of campaign are you running? Do you target only a few keywords, or are you running multiple ads? You can keep the cost of your ads lower by getting a higher ad rank. This is based on the quality score of your ad and landing page. Better quality can lead to lower costs Learn more here: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2454010
If you are looking for direct conversions, (I'm assuming you are since you state that "However, the conversion rate isn't ideal... only less than 2%") I would add more into your Adwords budget and diversify your keyword targets. Decide on a set amount you want to spend daily per keyword, and keep track of your ads and performance. Create a separate page for goal tracking from PPC in analytics to see what ads are worth keeping, and which ones need to be modified.
MOZ:
The more you help people, the better it works out for you. The points system works in your favor. You help the community, you gain points. If you gain more than 200 per month you get a free month of MOZ pro. I'm guessing this is their way of saying "you scratch our back, we'll scratch yours"
Since you are trying to learn more about SEO, here is a post we did about how to analyze your competitors. This can be the fastest way to see what works for your industry, and how your high ranking competitors get conversions. A few other sites to learn (besides this one) are Search Engine Land and SEO Roundtable
Hope this points you in the right direction! If you need additional help, feel free to shoot me a PM.
Search Engine Land and Matt Cutts spoke about this recently.
They removed the on page link restriction, but stated that they will still take action if it is too spammy. Makes sense, as sites are getting larger.
"That being said, Google said if a site looks to be spammy and has way too many links on a single page — Google reserves the right to take action on the site.
Matt also explained that your PageRank is divided by the number of links on a page. So if page A links to page B, C and D, that PageRank is split into three. If you have hundreds of links, it is divided by hundreds, and so forth."
If you are meaning setting up new profiles, perhaps a few hours. A full 8-10 hours if they are taking advantage of all the features from that social platform. Setting them up is fast and easy. Making them stand out and being creative is what takes the extra time. You get what you pay for.
If you are meaning backlinks, it really depends. Backlinks you actually want and canthe authority help your site will take time. Backlinks you don't and won't can take minutes lol. Quality backlinking is in my opinion the most time cosuming part of SEO, and often the most worthwhile. I would estimate between 20-40 hours for a good head start into getting quality backlinks for 11 keywords.
Again, it comes down to quality. If you are referring to ciatation sites as a directory, then I would estimate between 8-10 hours, with spending about an hour on each. If you are referring to paid directories, I would avoid that approach unless it's a trusted source such as BBB or Chamber of Commerce. Google is on a rampage against paid directory listings right now. Matt Cutts even blogged about a way of submitting paid links directly. Blog Post
Are you asking to validate a price you were given by an SEO? I wouldn't focus on any given number of items, or pay for any SEO "package" from a provider. All the items above can help you, but usually it's an ongoing process to improve rank and authority. How accurate is the back end SEO? How good is the content? Make sure to look at all areas of your site.
Do it through the menu items, rather than the main dashboard. Much easier. This will also allow you to add a custom title, and meta for each menu link you have, which will help your rankings if done correctly
If it will not let you over ride the setting, I would install RSSEO, which will allow the page title over ride. Out of curiousity, why is it required that you have that tag attached to the home page? Doesn't really offer you any benefit.
Best way to obtain the link is to have content that is linkworthy. After having what you feel is a great post created, contact the site owner of the desired linking domain. Do not approach them in a saleman type of tone, as this will most likely turn them off to anything you have to say.
Simply state that you have created content that you feel is beneficial to their users, and would like to know if there are any opportunities to have your content posted on their website. You need to create a mutual business relationship, and focus on how your content can benefit their website then use that to market yourself to them. If they refuse, dont worry. I'm sure there are plenty of other high ranking sites that could help.
This can help you get started:
http://moz.com/blog/5-strategic-steps-to-big-content
btw, I would train your mind not to use terms like "linkbait". This process is not about baiting people into clicking your links, but providing benficial information that is likeable, sharable, and linkworthy.
Is the content that will be added readable? Looking in SEO browser, it doesnt seem that it is. Check out the report here:
If the content cannot be read by a search engine, any content you add will no have any effect on your rankings.
The boxes that slide out (if your plan is to retain that design), should link to sub pages of focused, relevant content.
I think you should also take a very close look at the way the pages/URL's are set up.
print-printer-printing/
with a page title of "PRINT, PRINTER, PRINTING! | DEEPDESIGN"
Very spammy, and even if Google allows it to rank I doubt a user would be compelled to click that result out of one that states something like "Graphic Design and Printing Services -YOURCOMPANY"
I would look at all aspects of the site, even if their budget is low. Doing SEO work just for the sake of getting paid will not get the company the results they are looking for. I would check the template to see what is readable text, then focus your efforts on cleaning up the on page and off page SEO.
Really technical in here lol.
Just wanted to say I could see why they would do it, but it's kind of silly to run out and grab one. Most server and site security can be locked down from the server side if you have your own root account. My guess is that they partnered with someone who sells ssl certificates, and is now saying this to strengthen that alliance or help them make money. I could see this being worth the time and effort if you took sensitive information, but to dangle a carrot saying "we will rank you higher if you use an ssl on your roofing/plumber/seo/etc" website is just silly.
I'm all for security and protecting people's information, dont get me wrong, but it seems like another attempt to control things.
After looking hard at rankings after every algo update, we always see strange results while Google is still "rolling it out". I wouldn't take much to heart while they get the algo in place. It would be better to let things stablilze, then go back and see what rankings changed. I think the week of the update is the worst time to analyze what is going on.
From Matt Cutts blog:
https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/468891756982185985
"Google is rolling out our Panda 4.0 update starting today." Rolling out, starting today are the things that stand out to me from that statement, meaning "its not done yet" lol
I will say that we have seen our rankings improve, with multiple links now showing on the front page for our main keywords. Whereas authorship was not displaying, it now is, combined with our schema reviews.
Perhaps you didn't do anything wrong, but didn't do anything right..?
It's really important to look at ALL the factors as you mentioned. I looked at the site, and here is what I found in about 5 minutes.
1. IMPROPER VISUAL CUES: The site is about * removed per member request *, correct? On the home page, nothing immediately pops out at me and says * removed per member request ! Visual engagement can be the first thing that makes a user interact, or leave your site. Look at analytics to see where people are leaving, and see if there is a trend.
2. UNCLEAR TARGETING: What is your goal? Are you trying to rank locally, (since you mention the location) or nationwide? Perhaps since it is unclear on the site, search engines are also unsure.
3. BROKEN REDIRECTS: Notice that you can access the site from multiple ways, both with www. and without. Doing with prompts a security error which I'm guessing is a incorrect setup cpanel redirect or SSL, given the visual cues. Does a search engine even know what version to index? (www. vs. non-www) To word it better: have you told them what version to index, and submitted that version to the search providers? Don't just do an SSL because an SEO says it will improve your ranking. Make sure you understand how to implement said redirect, and all website pages to the proper version.
4. IMPROPER KEYWORD TARGETS: We hear people say every once and a while, that they don't show up for keywords. But we also see that they get a ton of traffic and leads. Targeting what people are actually searching for vs. what you think they are searching for can be a huge difference in perceived success and failure. What keywords have you seen improve? What keywords have you seen drop off since you mention you went to a lower ranking? How is this tracked? What keywords fell off? Did you gain in rank for any keyword variations?
5. IMAGE SEO: Went through and checked some images. Noticed that none of them are titled specifically what you want to rank for. You never know what a user will type in, as there are many thousands of variations, but you can be sure to cover your bases from the very base level. A user might search in the web view, but could also use the images tab to see what they are getting. I can assure you, * removed per member request * will rank better than * removed per member request * almost every time.
6. H TAG MADDNESS! Might want to see how your site renders out in the eyes of a search engine: removed per member request *
Lots of H tags make it hard for a search engine to determine what your page is about. Sure, lots of things have changed since the introduction of HTML 5, but the basics remain in place. Think of the pages on your site like a document you would write for college. You would have a header, secondary header that elaborates your opening header statement, and so on. The page layout in the eyes of a search engine is confusing, and needs to be cleaned up a bit. Contact your coder or CSS person to have some of the headers render out as
text rather than <h1, h2="" h3,="" h4="">tags.
7. PROPER ROBOTS SETTINGS: Did a site search and found 99 results. Might want to check and see if 99 URLS are how many exist for your site. if not, you may have other links from server and database generated wordpress pages. Overall, the pages of results I looked through looked legit, but most were a bit generic in terms of basic SEO. Example:
This is just a basic analysis, and there are plenty of other places to look/ data to analyze. I hope this helps to give you a wider scope of where to start. I have this thread on auto-alert so any reply you post will email me.
Have you done a comparison month to month, or year over year since you received the penalty and after it was lifted?
Analytics can tell you where your visitors are leaving. Even if the content was revised, or changed completely, that doesn't mean it's connecting with your visitors. Check your exit pages, and on page time comparison with the following period to see if there are any negative changes that were made. I would look at your impressions as well.
Also, look at your competitors ranking closer, not just using tools. Tools only show a portion of data. If your competitors are using rich snippet markup, even if you outrank them, chances are their listing could stand out more and be getting more clicks.
I agree with EGOL. I see what you are trying to do, but I would try and capture that traffic and content for your own site, then to give it away to Wikipedia.
Could not get the site to load, so I could not take a look at what you have going on. I'm guessing you are messing around with some redirects.
But I can help with the MOZ and Yoast graders. The tools you are describing are only tools. If you look at the report that MOZ gives you, its only there to point out any areas where there may be missed opportunities, or if there are any standout errors. If the report is showing the page to have an F grade, it most likely is not set to target the correct keyword, or is trying to check multiple pages for the same keyword phrase. People often have issues with the MOZ grader, but don't understand how to set it up. I hope that one of the Admins on here can direct you to a tutorial, as I did a few Google searches and didnt find any worthy results.
Yoast is a great tool and plugin. One thing you have to watch out for is again: its only a tool and will recommend best practices based upon the settings you enter. If you have followed its recommendations to a perfect degree, that may get you a green bar and a nice score, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the page is well optimized for that keyword. For most SEO-graders, as long as you stay with a set character limit, and make sure the URL is search engine friendly and all fields are filled out, you will get a high grade. This can have nothing to do with the content that populates those areas, only that you met the predefined requirements to get you a high grade.
Once you fix all these redirect errors, I would resubmit the entire site and sitemap to Google, as they probably have a mixed idea of what the real destimation URL's are after all the issues.
Yes, I added it into OSE. That's actually where I found so many of them. You should see what is linking to this site, as it's truly scary. I would never want our domain to be a part of that. BUT, somehow it is working for them. Almost every link is something questionable, and not related at all. It's funny how Google will penalize hotvsnot and the like, but not this type of activity.
They only use that as a guideline, not to establish ranking. Your content will speak louder than any webmaster setting as to where you are located, along with the rest of your citations.
We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage.
A few ideas that were mentioned:
HURT:
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines.
HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose.
So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.
Anyone can edit a Wiki page = bad for your business. If you can't control it, or constantly have to edit what people type it's not worth the time investment.
Wiki outranking your main site = bad for your business. Here's why: Wiki often has a ton of references and links on a page about a business. The chances that a user will click one of those and navigate away from your page is very high. Worse case would be that a user clicks a similar business, that is a competitor of yours. Think of it like having the "related videos" displayed at the end of a youtube video. They click, they leave, you are not thought of again. One thing to remember when advertising on the internet; It is your job to convince people to use your services. People that do not know your business don't owe you anything, and have no brand loyalty to your company.
In addition to parking the domain, did you add a parked domain htaccess rule? In addition to search engines, make sure your visitors are getting to the right place, without duplicate content.
After a while, all the new urls should replace the old ones, but I have seen this process take up to 6-8 months.