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A couple of things to keep in mind: (1) Our authority metrics factor in link strength and try to model ranking ability, but they don't model things like spam factors. If you have a lot of links that look strong on the surface but have been devalued or penalized, we often won't catch that. We're working on spam modeling, but it's extremely complex. (2) As soon as you add "sydney" to the mix, this becomes as much a local SEO puzzle as an organic SEO puzzle. It's entirely possible that the competition is weaker on things like links or social signals, but has solid local ranking factors (like reviews and citations).

No problem.. I'm sure you can get a ton of help around here this community is awesome. I'm going to write a rushed response because I'm hurrying to wrap up for a 4 day weekend (woot woot!) so --- Start by getting a list of all referring domains. Use multiple tools. Open Site Explorer, ahrefs.com, Google Webmaster Tools. Check all you can and get this list. Maybe into Excel. (there are some great articles on parsing this data and how to setup excel sheets to help determine Domain Authority and Page Rank value, but I'm not able to grab links at the moment check around these forums and seomoz blogs..) What you'll be looking for is low DA and irrelevant domains. If you have a bunch of links coming from autism-savior.com/forums/ it probably is spam. Some of them will jump right out at you. If these links don't look like they would help somebody to learn more then they are poison... etc. I'm assuming somebody along the way used a link building service. Something like $75 for 1,000 links, etc... If so maybe you can contact the company that did this and ask for a full report with logins/passwords. I did this with some success. Removed about 1/5th of paid links once... Wasn't great but at least got me closer. These are just a few ideas. Hope they helped. Keep asking questions, maybe start another thread (since this one is marked answered it might get less clicks.)

I would think it would be difficult to rank locally if you do not have a physical office; however, depending on the competition, you may be able to do so if your page is really optimized and you get some decent backlinks pointing to it. Now... for clarification, I am not talking about a localized SERP where it has local businesses and addresses, but a search where someone is including the location in the query and Google returns a regular 10 item SERP. (if that makes sense) And cracking those top positions can be difficult. You just have to keep at it. Create a better website, create better content, create a better following than your competitors - you may not get into positions 1 or 2; however, if a prospect clicks through 1 and 2, then gets to your site, it will be a no-brainer for them to choose you if your site and content are better. Don't fixate on ranking, worry about building your brand Good luck. Mike