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I would do a competitive link analysis to see where he is actually getting the links to his site, and how they are positioned in the linking platform. Manual link building can be extremely tedious, but it is ultimately a very powerful tool in getting Google to notice your site. Linking out to relevant sources and topics can help, as Google does not like to see sites that do not provide a larger resource to a user. We wrote an article on how to do a competitive link analysis. Might help you getting started.

For the reporting of F vs B, what tools are you using to analyze the date? Moz? If you are using the MOZ page grader, pay attention to what page you are actually grading, and for what keywords. The reports are helpful in pointing out errors, but can give a false positive in the event they are analyzing multiple pages for the same keywords.

I agree with DJ on covering it separately, but only from a paid search perspective.

If you are clever enough with your on-page content writing, and page titles/descriptions/keywords you should be able to cover both relatively easily. Optimize a bit more heavily for the stronger search query, or the one that has the most searches. This can be found using the Google Keyword Planner.

People are not going to want to read two separate pages of lawyer and attorney worded info. Could also get you into trouble with Google if the pages are similar to one another.

1. How long has it been since the site was hacked?
2. Have all linked been resubmitted in GWT (fetch as google) and in sitemap?
3. How long has it been since links were disavowed?
4. Have you tried uploading the site under a new (dedicated) IP address after all the fixes were put in place?
5. Have you checked using site search to make sure pages are indexed, just not ranking?
6. Are there any robots rules in place blocking pages, and are the pages set to index, follow?
7. Was there a manual action made against the site by Google? If so, was a reconsideration request completed?

Can you provide the url, so that I can have a closer look?

Lots of questions, but I think this will point you in the right direction of where to start.

1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page?

If you are going to target that area specifically, then yes. If you still want to maintain a focus on national or boader match keywords, then no I would not modify the whole site.

2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations?

You have to remember what the landing page's purpose is. You are trying to rank for one or a few things in a very specific area. One challenge I forsee in just having the landing page is that you are going to be up against companies that focus their whole effort to that one given area.

Depending upon what your long term goals are would determine how you move forward. To answer your question, yes it could hurt you on your national focus if you change your entire site to focus on that one given area.

Another aspect to look at is PPC and AdRank. Since you will have a local page that is highly targeted, your ad score will most likely go up for that ad if you choose to go the paid route. More on that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBmPtduElkM. If you are going to run some ads, the landing page could work well for you, and not be that expensive.

So what are your options? Well, IMO the landing page may accomplish what you are trying to do if there isnt a lot of competition for the phrase and target area. If you have competition whose main goal in life is to rank for that one area and phrase then I do not see the landing page carrying enough weight to make a difference.

If there is strong competition for that area, you may want to investigate a exact match domain, and place your content on that site. Many people discount the value of EMDs simply because they do not understand the value and their purpose. True, an EMD will not be easy to get to rank for a lot of keywords, but that is not their purpose. An EMD is to target one specific area and keyword. Will one page be enough? Probably not, but by setting up 5-10 pages on an EMD could get you ranking very high if the content and site are put together well. You could also link to your local site from your main national focus domain, and help them both out since they are relevant to one another.

By having the other domain, you dont risk sabotaging your main sites traffic by changing to a local focus. This will also allow you the freedom to create local profiles (citation sites, Google+ personal and business, etc) for your new domain. I know it sounds like a lot of extra work, but I dont think that having the subpage on your main site will be enough unless the competition is weak, or you have a lot of ways to promote the new page through marketing.

Use the main domain for your promotional items. If the site is not currently set up for that, I would invest your money and time into making the main site as good as it possibly can be. Install a blog, add in content, promote from within.

Your existing domain most likely has weight and authority, and will have more than a new domain registration. Depending upon how you structure the site, you may not even have to brand or constantly remind people it is about or being sponsored by a personal injury law firm. What you are wanting to accomplish is additional exposure whether it be through backlinks, additional visits, etc. When you are planning out your strategy, think of what type of content you are going to include, and where people search for that type of information. Then, go out and participate in those areas or forums/sites/blogs/discussions. This will save you a lot of time from wasted effort in places that have limited exposure or people that are not willing to share.

And I know the links are not followed. I'm not trying to get exposure, it's just easier to let you see the video and the bullet points we touch on then type it all here from my mobile. Let me know if this helps! If you need more, I also can get our main PPC manager to chime in and help.

"Do I need to include all of their references and would that be duplicate content."

Do not include large sections of content from the source, have the sources quoted at the bottom of the page as links. I would imagine you are putting your own spin on some of the information contained on those sites? You can make each one be its own line, and have a few links related to each section. Here is an example:

http://moz.com/blog/illustrated-seo-competitive-analysis-workflow

If you look at the bottom, she links out in a very organized fashion, so a user can find the source link they are looking for easier. You can also link out as you mention certain sites, or subjects.

For better distribution, use a few less costly press relesases to judge how well the article will be received. Once you see it gaining traction, or the attachment rate with users, then I would possibly look at doing a larger PR.

For your infographic, show a lower resolution version on your webpage, both for fast loading times, and also to have the full image downloadable as a file. This will allow you an extra URL where the image is hosted, and you will be able to track users that come to read and view the graphic, and also those that want to download what you display. This should give you some extra insight if the infographic is truly successful, and people find it useful. You could also add this as a destination URL goal in analytics.

I dont think that registering a new domain is the best plan of action.

Currently, the domain has been registered since October 29, 2012. Starting over means he loses the domain age. Granted it's not been registered that long, but most of the issues on the site seem to be seo/content related.

He stated that he did not get hit with a manual action, and already disavowed the links. I think that with setting up better content and optimisation, new sitemap, moving site to a dedicated IP, (hosted in Provo, Utah so I'm guessing hostgator), and resubmitting all after revisions in GWT as fetch as google and html highlighting, he will be fine. See my post on this page regarding his on/off page issues. It is very likely the site just got slapped with an algorithm update, and that his original presumption of the hack causing ranking loss is not entirely accurate. I think he could gain all the ranking back within a month if all is corrected and submitted properly.

Most SSL providers provide the same exact service. The difference in cost is from the levels of insurance, brand name and provider of the SSL, and trust factor of the badge. For example, you can buy a SSL from GoDaddy right now for around $70. As far as I can see it offers no insurance against identity or infomation theft. If you want a SSL from Verisign, its around $1000 and offers a $1,250,000 warranty. Most people know the verisign badge, and trust that their information will be encrypted and secure. When you purchase an SSL from them, you also get daily malware scanning and other features.

It really boils down to what are you getting the SSL for, if you require the additional insurance, what other features you would like to have, and if you think the badge will be the deciding factor of conversion for your users. If I remember correctly, the more expensive SSL's use a different bit rate. For example 128 bit vs 256 bit.

Hope this helps!

As long as you have the redirects in place and they are working, you should be good to go. The only case where I could see this being a slight benefit is if you were using a keyword-driven domain, as you could see some slight exact match help in ranking (but I doubt it).

On the flip side, it is nice to have everything matching, so I would look at the time involved in getting all the links updated and see if is worth the time investment.

We have been round and round with this as well. Most likely it is from the user having just created an account, and with no other activity left a good review for your business. When we have people leave reviews for clients on Yelp, we always ask that they go out and leave a few for places they like before leaving a review. This helps the account to be seen as more "realistic".

I remember a case where companies began suing people that left reviews.

And I'll just leave this here:
Link

"John may sound paranoid, but he's got company. During interviews with dozens of business owners over a span of several months, six people told this newspaper that Yelp sales representatives promised to move or remove negative reviews if their business would advertise. In another six instances, positive reviews disappeared — or negative ones appeared — after owners declined to advertise."

In my opinion, get people to leave reviews for your business on Google places. Yelp's review system and business practices seem to be driven more towards monetary gain.

*edit BTW, I would not advertise on Yelp. We have tried it many times, using different techniques and it never pays for itself. The truth about Yelp ads is: unless people are seaching on Yelp for your services, they won't find you. It's true that your Yelp profile might come up in organic Google search results, but paying for ads on Yelp wont help that any. Most are going to search on Google, and I would dedicate my focus to improving your position in those results.

Webspam comes from so many sources, I would highly doubt you are going to see a negative effect from just one URL. If you are really concerned about it, check the server settings, enable Spam Assasin, and country IP blocks. We have seen the worst cases of spam come from Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, India, and China.

If you dont trust the URL, see if there is a page where your link is listed, and create a disavow request in Webmaster tools.

Please dont immediately freak out.These updates when they are just beginning can mess with all kinds of rankings. The last thing you want to do during an update is to go and change all of your content that has "been rock for around 2 years". That would probably be the worst thing you could do, unless you already know of areas on your site that need improvement.

I understand that it sucks to see a competitor soar above you, when their site is "worse" than yours. Sometimes, we see a competitors site as worse, because we want ours to win so badly, rather than looking at the facts. In some cases our competition may beat us in a few areas. It would be more beneficial to you to look closely at the high ranking sites, see if they stay in a high position, and if so, see what you can learn from them. We did this about 6 months ago, when we noticed rankings slipping a bit. We closely analyzed what the other sites strengths were, (they had a few ideas that were awesome) and implemented our own custom strategy, and have been doing great since. You stated that your rankings have been consistantly well during the past few years, does this mean that your site was and content was left stagnant, perhaps while the competition was updating and working hard to out rank you?

Rankings change, it will happen all the time. Sometimes it will be one spot, sometimes it could be many. This is the fun part of advertising and marketing on something you dont own aka Google. A few things to remember are: optimize logically, dont make rash sudden decisions when you see ranking changes, focus on your users, and partner with trusted sources.

@dennis "Each time an algo update (a major one) happens, crap sites will always show up and in many cases, rank better than good sites. " I have seen this also. Maybe this is Google's way of giving the crap sites a break on their PPC budget for a while  

As long as they are all listed in the sitemap, dont worry about it. William is correct in that Google lifted the 100 links per page limit. The question is, do the links serve a purpose, or are they there to increase the page count? Perhaps you are not seeing the engagement or seo results you want due to the organization of the site structure?

BTW, who or what told you there was a need to reduce the link count? Unless you got manually penalized, why is there a need to do this?

Its a tough call. Honestly I think it comes down to "Is it worth the time to optimize every page?" I would say yes, if you have the financial ability to do so. I don't think that Google looks at pages individualistically, and looks at the entire site as a whole. If you increase the entire quality score of your site, that will help you more than optimizing a few, or even in your case a few hundred pages. Chances are your competitors will not be going through the same amount of SEO work, and your site ranking will improve. We have tested this theory on many ecommerce sites hosted by us, and seen excellent results. Many smaller websites out rank the leaders like Home Depot, Ebay, Amazon, etc consistantly.

For your meta descriptions I would do something more like:

I know Matt Cutts states that meta descriptions don't have an impact on ranking, but I just flat out don't agree. Depending upon what you search for, you can clearly see the bolded and highlighted words in the link URLs, description, page title etc. Look at the bolded words in the sample above to think of what the description covers.

1. Childrens face paint
2. Halloween face paint
3. Black face paint
4. Face paint

If you so choose, you could also leave the descriptions blank, as long as your on-page descriptions absolutely rock. One rule we always follow internally: "You never know where Google will pull content from, so make sure anywhere they can is awesomely optimized" This would include titles, meta, on page, keywords, everything. Hope this helps!

"I want to build a review widget to display our reviews on our contractors' websites."

If you are going to be displaying it as a widget on their website, I'm not sure what duplicate issue you are expecting. You would not have the same reviews across mutiple sites if you are adding contractor-specific reviews to a contractor-specific site. Unless you are referring to having the review content displayed on your siet where they sign up, and also on their site as a widget. Even if that is the case, you will have so many differences between the two pages and surrounding supporting text I doubt you would see any if at all negative effects.

Duplicate content penalties are aimed at people who use multiple pages of exact or highly similar content to try and manipulate search engine rankings. Just by having a few reviews that are the same across a few pages I dont think you would be grouped into that.

Wouldn't be worth doing, as it could have the opposite effect of what you are wanting. Instead install a markup plugin for opencart like this one.

I understand you don't have a lot of reviews, but if you can get the images of your products showing up, or even any kind of product data to make your links in the SERP stand out more, it couldnt hurt

I dont think you would have an issue with page speed, just by adding a few links.

Think about it from a consumer point of view. If your users want to see your social profiles, they will have to search for them manually, which they probably won't, or worse case scenario, they could find a competitors social profile instead. I would add the links or icons towards the bottom of the page, depending upon how your page renders. Once you have added them, minify your CSS and code to decrease page load time.

"Each site has about the same authority including the group site."

Since they are already setup and working/ranking, why do you want to get rid of them? I'm curious as to how that will help you save money. If the main site links out the the sub sites in a natural fashion, and helps the user find a location closer to them, I would leave it alone, especially if it is a driving factor of business.

Having the sub sites I think will work to your advantage, as you will be able to specifially optimize around that location and geographical area, including all sub towns and local areas.

I am guessing you are trying to increase the authority of the main site by combining them all into one? Perhaps the solution is to leave the sub sites as they are, begin to expand the main site, and link out to the others where it makes the most sense. There is nothing stopping you from expanding the main site just because the mini sites exist.

Another think to think of is the local factor of the mini sites. Each one can have its own LBL (local business listing) tied to it, and linking out or embedding that info on that site. Might help the mini sites have a bit more authority that you might lose be combining them all into one mega site.

I'm guessing you are doing this to add data to a snippet?

I would check these three places. Most WP themes have them here:

index.php (main Blog Page)
single.php (single Post Page)
archive.php (archive Page)