Welcome to the Q&A Forum

If you are starting from scratch, I think it is extremely beneficial to have a keyword rich domain that includes the name of the city.  This of course depends what other words you have go with the rest of the domain name of course.

I do not believe you will win with a keyword rich domain name alone, but again...it's a fantastic place to begin.

I can't see how you could beat MozCon.  While I am not in the business of SEO, I asked my wife if I could go to Mozcon for my birthday gift.  She laughed and said I have serious problems, but it would be a kick to listen to an meet the people who are so far ahead of the curve.

I would most likely focus attempt to utilize the geo modifier as often as possible, but may not do so EVERY time.  There are enough variations as well so they don't become redundant.

IT services in Boston, MA

Boston IT Services

Information technology services Boston

Just a few examples of how they can change, and they should be built with each targeted area.  You may consider doing IT services occasionally, but you have to figure out if you have the means of defeating the large budgets of IT Service companies you may be competing with.  Their size and budget towards SEO may be insurmountable.

Analyze your competition too, and try to dissect what they have done, and try to catch up.  Follow that up with solid networking, SEO, and back links from reputable sources.

Sounds like a big job, and one that is hopefully lucrative and successful for you.

While this isn't a scientific answer, based strictly on my opinion, I would use a .ca for a local site, and a .com if organic is more important.

I have never tried it, but when a person in Canada types in Google.com are they automatically redirected to Google.ca?

Lightbox should have zero negative impact in regards to SEO, providing you have effectively labeled your photos.  I love the look of it, and although has a similar effect to flash, they have nothing to do with eachother in regards to negative SEO.

I would purchase both the .com and .ca if I were in your position.  If they are not available I would probably consider purchasing a .co which are becoming a bit more popular.  The .ca and .com's are a no brainer, and owning both is essential.

The strategy I feel works best is to make sure the anchor text is variable, and targets not only the homepage but deep linking which will bring value to other pages in the site. I am of the opinion that repeated anchor text to the same page could actually be harmful if misused, and that the variances of anchortext with appropriate geo modifier will be just as if not more beneficial in the long run.  Google is quite dynamic and its ability to connect the dots in the future will only increase.

Keyword research is also important when deciding which keywords and keyword phrases to target.

It all really depends I guess.  Is Johnston a city or suburban community?  If I sent something to your address and put Des Moines on it, would it arrive?

How many people search for hotels in Johnston versus Des Moines?

Either one you choose, you'll have to get everything to match.

Hey...

Unless these articles are going to extremely reputable sources, I would not bother with any article submissions.  I would concentrate on adding content to the website and/blog, and consider doing guest blogging on other sites you may be networked with.

Article submission for the sake of SEO is not the best idea following the drop in rank of many of the large article databases.

Also, every article submitted to these places should be unique if you were still choose to use them. Often times the sites will check for dupe material.  While I have read that there will be no punishment for the dupe content by the search engines, it may not help your cause.  It would just be a waste of time an resources.

If you were to publish an article that goes viral, or possibly a higher end press release, I could see how this might be more powerful and well worth it.

While Des Moines may not be a metropolis, I'd imagine that the keyword "hotel" and city modifier is competitive in any/every market.  It may not be New York or Las Vegas, but well established sites who have spent a bit of time optimizing their sites would have a leg up.  In addition, the larger chains with their 1000's of backlinks and power PR's would also be tough to get ahead of.

The listing/description is lacking, as there is not much information on the page you are trying to optimize for.  This could be greatly improved with better copy speaking about Des Moines, the attractions, location, and that specific hotel.

Backlnks are a must, and my analysis would revolve around that, including where the higher ranking competition is listed.  You need to be there too.  In the meantime start building them in reputable directories.

Make SURE that your name, address, and phone number are EXACTLY the same everywhere in all of your listings.  Not having this together can create serious problems.

Make sure you are registered properly in the local search engine areas: Google Place, Bing Local, Yahoo Local.

Familiarize yourself with the new edition of:

Local Search Ranking Factors Vol. 4 by David Mihm

Best of luck.

I am fairly confident that Google doesn't go around slapping websites with linkfarm status unless they are certain that they are up to no good.

I would recommend doing proper navigation with appropriate subdivisions.

If you did a website about Animals, which is obviously a huge subject, you would start with:

Animals - Homepage

Aardvark - Antelope - Bears - Birds and so on

You would then follow up with the proper subdivisions sorted by species of said animal, or by color, or whatever.  There is a chance that on each subpage you may choose to not have subdivisions in the main navigation, but actually in the body of the main text for that animal.

If things are done properly how could this even be considered a link farm?

You do mention 100 links per page, so if it is appropriate that is fine, but I do not know of many subjects that are worthy of 100 links or more per page.

Hi Jason,

Just keep on working as Rome was not built in a day.  Pay no attention to the overall rank until you have completed the transformation.  If it has been done properly rank should improve.

My best advice is to try to stick with a single project until completion.  Try not to mix up the work you are doing since you will just be left with problems all over the place with no end in site.

Once you have completed them, add a blog.  It is most likely not THE reason nor the ONLY reason things seem to be dropping.

Stay the course.  1000 points of light.  Stay the course.

Hi Ryan, So what do you think the best future content and interaction with search engines will take us? Ray Kurzweil spoke about the fact that he uses his models to predict the future of technology before we have the ability to create it.

While some might see this as a pointless exercise, it has kept him on the cutting edge of tech, and allowed him to hit the ground running as our technology advances. Social Media and Web 2.0 are ones that seem to be currently at the forefront but may not be 100% utilized by everyone. This seems apparent to me, and I wouldn't consider it "chasing" Google by implementing the use in an SEO or marketing strategy.

This is also not predicting, but simply following a logical game plan of what should be done based on Matt Cutts comments and testing. I personally see the use of optimized video as playing a major role in the future, and many people who have been utilizing it for years already are just ahead of their time.

I am wondering what impact the "Semantic Web" or Web 3.0 will be playing, and how to prepare appropriately, and possibly in advance.

I just finished watching a documentary on Ray Kurzweil, Transcedent, and began to familiarize myself with his book, The Singularity is Near.  During Ray's explanation of prediction through data gathering and extrapolation, he predicts that by 2029 AI and humans will have merged.  We can debate this at another time, but I was wondering if any of the statistics/data is used by SEO professionals to predict where SEO may be going in the next 12-48 months.

It has been my experience that SEO is very reactionary, and very few put their neck out on a limb to predict where it is going.

I was just hoping that some of you may share your thoughts on what you are focusing on and where you are steering your clients in order to be ahead of the curve without hurting current placement.

Anyone care to share?

Hey Mike,

While this might be what it is meant for, it has been more often used for the backlinks in the author profile area.  The more articles, the more links.

Hi Mike,

Your question is extremely valid, since much of the time to know that an answer is valid, you'd have to already know the answer.  Especially with SEO information that continues to change so quickly.

A recent example: I looked up a reference to use utilize for an answer I was giving, and found out it was "in the shop" according to SEOmoz.  They now consider it invalid, but I had thought it was gospel for about 15 months.

The biggest thing would have to be the continuity with the other answers and familiarity with the poster over time.  As a non-professional SEOer with excellent results for the projects I have taken on, I try to be careful to judge the source too quickly.  In my case, I do not want to share my website publicly since it is my own business that has nothing to do with SEO, so in my case it's not a great way to judge my answers I believe.

Good question.

Could you possibly reverse the changes of the robots.txt to a previous "working" version where your site was getting indexed quicker?

What about 100 drunk Popes?   Good analogy.

It has to do with the severe decrease in value and trust that Google once gave article sites like ezinearticles.com.  Once beloved, Google chose to recalibrate their level of importance.  Once this occurred, the value of the content, links, and everything related to such sites plummeted.

While I do not want to go as far as calling them a graveyard, in which if a link of yours is found in them you get demoted, it was and is extremely close.

Links from quality sites are still vital, however the strategy has changed.  This should be a lesson to anyone who puts their eggs in one basket, doesn't diversify their link building, or treads in areas that may one day be considered suspect by the big search engines.

It ultimately comes down to which site has the better content, is ideally optimized for your keywords and phrases, and has the best linkage presence.

All things being equal, its most likely a 1-2 scenario.