Hi ATP,

There are a some post here on the forums, unfortunately with somewhat different points of view about multiple H1's. I have a feeling nobody knows for sure. However if we take Matt Cutts' word on it, you don't have much to worry about for 2-3 H1 tags on a page on Google. I can't say much about the other search engines. Apple.com uses multiple H1 tags.. but then again when has Apple ever followed the norm.

Post 1 (3 years old, okay multiple h1's for html 5)
Post 2 (1 year old, not so great multiple h1's)
Post 3 (1 year old, mixed point of view's staff endorsed)

I know all search engines behave in their own way. With that in mind, it is of course advised you always use you best judgement. If Bing drove 90% of our traffic I would be very leery of pushing the envelope with them, and if I did I would watch the results very closely.

I am not currently developing any HTML 5 site, but I do try to stay up to date on the current SEO trends. Recently a user asked about his site and view points, which I answered in similar fashion here.

Hope that helps you as well,

Don

Hi

I agree with Andy here.

Our manufacturing site used to block "right click", "copy" and "paste" short cuts simply because they were worried about their images or content from being used against them. After I started I put an end to that, mostly because it was absolutely pointless and not user friendly.

The truth is any scraper or person with basic webdesign skills can easily get that content if they want it. The trade off simply is not worth it when you consider we live in a social media world. Who knows how many links they missed because somebody wanted to copy & paste an answer to a question from our site to a forum, blog or other outlet. Instead I started harnessing this ability for links by using the site Tynt.com which helps track this type of copying and tries to drive traffic back to you by adding referral info to the copied text.

Hope this helps,

Don

Hi BT2009,

While ATP's advice is generally the accepted advice there is reason to actually use more then one H1 tag. Most specifically in HTML5 pages which actually uses the H1 tag to break up sections of content within an article tag. This is an important distinction to the old rule. You can read a lot about this new methodology here on Tutsplus.

There are other cases in which one may use more then one H1 tag, like when changing view points for multiple devices. The basic rule of thumb in such case is the purpose of the additional tag for the users benefit? In both of these cases I still would lean more towards minimal use of multiple H1 tags.

Okay so now that we know that lets move on to the question about Bing. First, we all know that Google has way more invested in the search engine software & hardware than any other company including Bing. Bing may still be using the 1 tag rule. This may not actually be a direct penalty but as ATP points out a simple confusion point that the search engine hasn't yet adapted too. Google has flat out said it does not penalize for multiple H1 tags, but I have not seen the same comments from Bing.

Whats more is each search engine will act in its own way to a website redesign, most focus on Google since it drives most people's traffic, but in fact Bing, Ask, Yahoo, Baidu all treat new content, urls, design differently. I have seen cases were a site redesign takes a couple months before traffic gets back to normal and another few weeks before I know for sure if the redesign actually helped.

There may also be some other issues we didn't discuss here, however since you mentioned the multiple H1 tags is was obviously a concern of yours so I hope we addressed that adequately for you.

Don

Hi Kashif,

Following this structure should get it done.

RewriteRule ^subdirectory/(.*)$ /anotherdirectory/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

For your example it would be like

RewriteRule ^FolderA/FolderB/(.*)$ /FolderA/FolderC/FolderB/$1 [R=301,NC,L]

For less then 100 redirects it "may" also be prudent to do them individually. I say this because it makes it very obvious what is going on if you ever need to edit it again. I would use Excel or OpenOffice to create a spreadsheet then just concatenate the cells together, following this example;

Redirect 301 /path/to-old-url    https://www.mydomain.com/path/to-new-url

Ref site: http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/redirecting-a-web-folder-directory-to-another-in-htaccess/

Hope this helps,

Don

Hi Noob,

I can imagine how frustrating that could be. What you have is a site that offers a service, and that service itself will generate a ton of links. So the question is how do you attract both buyers and sellers (listers and lookers) right?

In cases like this it may not be the best to focus mainly on building backlinks, rather focus your efforts on other marketing avenues. This could be email marketing, community type engagement (Local Area Websites, Industry Specific Websites, Charities), print (Newspapers, Magazines), Radio, Online Advertisement (Facebook, Twitters, Google, Yahoo).

Without knowing exactly what type of classifieds you plan on running I can't be very specific. However, I will say the "classified" type website is nothing new and as I'm sure you're aware you're up against some pretty big names (Craigslist, Ebay, Angieslist, LocalAreaNewspaper/classifieds.com) Which means if you're going to fight in this arena you should be doing something they aren't doing, or whatever they are doing better.

This type of website is one that is very good at generating its own links as many "sellers" will post links to their items on Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter and so on. You could take advantage of this to get a main link to your domain by offering new posters a quick code grab which includes a link to the specific product they just posted along with a link to the site itself.

Of course if you're talking personals that is a different animal in where you approach people but the theories are still the same.

The things you can do in either case is to focus on making sure the site is as easy as possible to use for both listers and lookers. They both should have a great experience. Make sure they are completely informed about fees and how the service works. Along with that offer lots of back end features that allow both sides to ease of use, in the areas of tracking and searching.

In all cases how these sites stay around by being relative. Ebay is still around because people still buy stuff from there, despite the ridiculous fees and issues sellers have dealt with over the many years. If eBay were to lose sellers that would have a direct impact on lookers and vice versa. Keep both sides happy, you need them both.

Hope this helps in some way,

Don

HI Travis

Yes, you can use your .htaccess file to fix this. (This file should be located in your home directory)

A simple example would be

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^YourDomain.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.YourDomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

What this does is looks for any request for non-www urls, if found it 301 redirects it to the www version of the page.

Hope this helps,

Don

Hello,

This is a very common challenge in Ecommerce.

You have a couple options to consider.

1. Keep the existing format but add more unique content to each based on the type. For example on the Powerpoint template you could add at least a paragraph on PowerPoint and how this template works inside the program, a video of you downloading it, opening it, and modifying it with some test data.

2. As you pointed out, one page with 3 different download options.. you can even use this option to up-sell a bundle which includes all 3.

As it is now Google is going to pick one of those pages and index it and basically ignore the others as duplicate content. You may actually have further issues throughout the site due to the shear volume of similar content on each page (the bulk of the page's content is exactly the same baring the item's description). You may need to evaluate how you present all the other info on this page (how it works, what others are saying, whats in this template, whats included etc..) all this is leading to many pages with a lot of the exact same content. If other of your pages are displaying all this info as well, the one paragraph description may not be enough to make the page unique to a search engine.

You can review your site on Siteliner here.

Again this is a big challenge for most Ecommerce sites, especially those with a lot of products. However, for smaller sites with less products it is important to focus on each one of these products and write unique, compelling, informative content that sets you apart from the larger sites.

Hope this helps,

Don

Webmasters love of sub-domains... shake fist!

I agree with Michael here.

I will add that is also important to know if you have the ability to maintain a blog. If you're in a low value market then the effort maybe wasted. Making a industry leading blog, and maintaining it at levels above the competition may be challenging; depending on who you are up against.

Alternatively, simply achieving top ranking pages for these low volume keywords maybe adequate. Again as Michael points out it is all relative to the market you are in. A low volume keyword that drives a $100,000 sale may be worth extra effort to achieve, while a $1.00 sale wouldn't.

Hope it helps and good luck

HI Edward,

I'm not sure the "best way" but I can share 3 ways I know of.

Competitor Research
Check your competitors see if they actively participate or simply get links from domains which are forums. Usually a doing a search on their backlink profiles for "blog", "forum" will identify these quickly.

Search Engine Search
I sometimes find relative forums simply buying going to Google typing a broad keyword + forums. At this point I have to evaluate the forum to see if it worth trying to engage with.

Industry Engagement
If you are actively engaged daily in the industry talk you will pick up on what people are posting. For example following industry leader's Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram profiles will lead you directly to some post and the places they are referencing.

Once you have at least one location worth engaging with, you can also watch those places daily as many times people will re-post information from a similar site / forum. Take for example here.. we oft see info from SearchEngineLand.

Hope this helps,

Don

HI Dino,

I don't see any issues. It is okay to use multiple H1 tags for reasons such as this. Google has confirmed multiple H1 tags are okay.

My example above was probably more alarming to you then I could have realized. My effort was to point out a simple case of how to use css for multiple device types. In your case having different text is for the benefit of the user which is exactly as it should be.

Good job,

Don

HI Dino,

Before I said to much I had to look at Visual Composer. Spent about 10 minutes there and didn't really see how the code turns out. Perhaps if you like to post a link to the webpage or just message me if you don't want it public. I'll be happy to review the source and offer a thumbs up or any suggestions I can.

Good luck,

Don

Hi Dino,

Is your code something (basic) like this.

I love lamp!

I love lamp!

Then you use a switch to determine which view to show?

If so, the correct way would be to use the switch to select which CSS to load instead. Thus you can use the same class but it will show up different based off of the users view.

I love lamp!

Here is a nice article about switching CSS based on views.

Hope that helps,

Don

HI Stacy,

Dayton Ohio here!

I know the amount of information about SEO can be overwhelming; some of it which still ranks well is outdated...FRUSTRATING!

Any advice I can give will be tailored by my past experience, as I would assume most of everybody else’s will be as well.

To start with there are basically 4 things I will touch on.

1.) Your website.
Are you building it by hand?
Or are you using a CMS (Content Management System); WordPress, Blogroll, Joomla...?

This is an important decision to make. Each pre-built CMS system has some perks and disadvantages. Most are simple to get published but maybe more popular targets for hackers simply due to the platform's popularity. Even with decent web designer skills they can present a challenge to get past the learning curve to do any personal customization.

If you are building your own site, you may have a lot of work ahead of you in non SEO related categories. Depending on your design and coding skills this may not be a huge hurdle.

Either option is valid. But you'll want to fully familiarize yourself with the platform you choose and its SEO's effectiveness.

2.) Know the basics (Moz Guide To The Basics)
When building a site, or choosing a platform you'll want a firm understanding of these concepts. If choosing a platform these will allow you to adequately evaluate each one. If building your own site you can easily write the content with the basics in mind.

3.) Mobile Friendly is a must for new sites
The amount of people using tablets, and mobile devices is only going to go up each year. If you are starting a new site ensure your content is mobile friendly. Established websites may get a little leeway due to the amount of authority they have built up in the years before you, but starting out better than them is important. This year Google starting differentiating mobile search results based on their mobile friendliness.
Read:
9 This You need To Know About Google's Mobile Friendly Update
Basic Mobile Optimization
Responsive Web Design

4.) Content is Key
Having the best content for your industry is key to top search results. You may be able to take a good content approach at first to target long-tail, niche market keywords, but your end goal should be the best content. This is one of the most important aspects not oft talked about in SEO. You can have a great page with all the right SEO practices and never see page one search results. This is because you when you're on the internet you are competing with everybody in your industry. First page results = money for just about every industry!

If you don't bother with any links I posted here, please at least watch Rand Fishkin's Whiteboard Friday on Good Unique Content Needs To Die

To answer your question about picking keywords, while this is an important process and though long tail keywords may not bring a lot of traffic they will bring in the right traffic if all is done correctly you can start ranking for broader keywords, even without trying!

In summary, know the basics, and understand why mobile optimization is important, this will help you choose your design platform and finally remember writing the best content is one of the most important things you can do.

I really hope this helps,

Don

Thanks for sharing.

This is an interesting case for me. On one hand by writing technical no keyword content he likely drew a lot of technical links to the site due to depth. Links from high authoritative sites like Colleges and Government sites.

On the other hand it may have limited appeal to the general population due to the technical nitty gritty, where they just want to know if "X" firm handle said type of cases and what kind of cost is associated with it. But I could also see how more important high profile clients may find the technical stuff more important as cost is less of an issue.

All and all this was a good read.

Thank you,

Don

An engineer at work told me about this. Its like Amazon Echo with kung fu grip.

Hello Ben,

That is a very good question. I don't think I've seen this type of issue here before but I would imagine others have at some point been in the same boat. The inherit problem as you likely know, is the word Free.

I cannot offer you an absolute solution, but I can provide some ideas that I hope will lead you to an informed solution. I think you have made a good decision to try and combat the email filters from auto marking you as spam. Now the question is how do you market the actual brand without the negatives associated with our problem word? My thought would be to consider a parent company for internet re-branding purposes. I don't suggest abandoning what is likely a long cherished company brand, simply rolling it into another corporation / llc / company for the sole purpose of internet marketing.

The first step you have taken is changing your domain name; this probably has saved your emails from going directly into the customers spam folders more times than we can count. The next step would be re-branding your online presence. This is not to say you abandon your original company brand, rather you forgo using it exclusively when doing online marketing and everything that encompasses. Like websites, social media, AdWords etc. I would point to probably the most high profile case on these forums is SEOMoz becoming Moz, and why that happened. Here the reasons maybe slightly different, but the reason why you re-brand isn't set in stone.

Thinking this through, I would first start by picking an online brand name. You probably have more insight as to what that could be, than I. The next would be to do the research, how do we re-brand ourselves. Again Moz has been through this and has gone that extra step detailing some of good and bad of re-branding. If you decide this strategy may work for your situation, I would like to point out to avenues I see as viable.

1. You re-brand under new name. But keep your old brand name alive on a sub page. (I.e. newbrand.com/living-free-travel)

Benefits:

• Your long time clientele can still find you online all-be-it on a sub page
• Focused marketing can now mostly forgo negative keywords
• Fresh brand built on the backbone of a trusted brand
• Ability to offline market old brand

2. You re-brand under new name with a simple reference to the old brand.

You inform your clientele of the change and how it can positively affect your services to come. For example a well written article detailing why you are changing brand names can give you exposure. See my first link to Rand Fishkin's "SeoMoz becoming Moz" post above. This would be trying to get the best out of a bad situation. It really is not your fault your brand has come under unwanted scrutiny but you would be showing that the company is adaptive and responsive to the changing market place.

That is what I had running through my brain; I hope it helps you and anybody that comes across this in the future.

And as always I hope to hear from others to get you even more help,

Don

Hi Nancy

Does this subdomain "new" actually exist on the kbc.de domain? If so I can't access it from the US. I would imagine that Rogerbot (Moz's crawler) is having the same problem.

Hope this helps,

Don

Hello,

To answer the question, the footer links are likely not serving any purpose on your homepage. Based on a couple factors, one you stated most traffic is coming on the landing pages, and second links that are in the footer and pages with over 100+ links pass little link authority to each of the corresponding pages.

There really is only one legitimate reason to keep more then 100+ links on any given page. That would be user experience. But as you say people aren't actually arriving on your homepage, and even if so they could easily get to a location page from your top navigation. I would say, remove them.

Bryan touched on the FB issue.. so I will touch on one that I would personally turn me off (since we are talking about user experiences). That is the "Trust Tags" in your footer. They are not links, they are simply images. Had I stumbled upon the site and noticed that, I would have simply left without investigating it further. It is as if you are trying to trick me into saying yes we are GeoTrust, Authorize.net. ExoticCarRental verified, but we aren't able to prove it. All those logos should be links to third party verifications.

Hope it helps,

Don

Hi Verve

It maybe possible to use "mod_rewrite" depending on how the URL structure was.

If each of these items were parameter based have a look at mod_rewrite cheat sheet and see if you can match an expression or condition for the various products that are moving.

Hope it helps,

Don