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Thank you!

Great info.  I will look into these more deeply.  Thank you!

Hi Adam,

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "modifying your theme to display your category description as visible text on the page"?  I don't understand what this means.

Also, thanks for the heads up on the Title Tag Plug In

Eric

Hi Dunamis,

Does the plug in allow you to make the Title Tag different than the category name?

Eric

I’m helping a client optimize a word press blog, and I’m not that familiar with Wordpress.  The site is www.athleticfoodie.com.

At first I was treating it like a normal website, where the categories would be optimized like pages on a website.  However, I now realize that categories don’t have any content on them, so I can’t really optimize anything other than the names.

Are the following things the best way to handle on-page optimization for a blog?

• Optimizing the homepage & domain: Find ways to incorporate the most important keywords into the elements on the main frame of the site: Navigation menu, Widgets, Category names, Alt Images.
• Optimizing the categories: For the posts within the categories (i.e., photos), work to make sure the category keywords are worked into the post titles (but not too much to seem spammy)
• Optimizing specific posts. Work keywords into the text and images.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Dunamis,

Thanks for the feedback.  That is how I started; I took on a couple of pro-bono clients to get experience.  Always nice to hear what others are doing.

Eric

Great advice.  Thank you.

This is great feedback, Vinnie.  I wake up in the middle of the night fearing that I will put all this work into a site and then the results won't be there.  It's helpful hearing how someone else handles a situation like this.

Egol, thanks for the guidance.  I appreciate your perspective as always.  Quick follow up question regarding your comment "It is probably best to take easy projects in light competition at first and then accept more difficult work."  Any thoughts on how to accomplish this?

I typically spend a great deal of time on keyword research, which I do after I've already accepted the job.  Should I ask them in the inital meeting for a few phrases  they might like to optimize for, so I can determine if they are going to be an easier project?

the keywords are moderately competitive.  (somewhere around 40% on SEOMoz's keyword diffiiculty tool)

I'm just starting to provide paid consultation to a few clients who have approached me for SEO help. As I've not completed a lot of projects, I'm looking for guidance on how to set expectations.  I get the feeling that one of my clients is going to expect that once our initial work (keyword research, addressed their primary technical issues, fixing on-page issues) that they will automatically appear on the first page of Google.

In a project with 50 keywords, I believe this may be true for a few keywords where there isn't a lot of competition.  However, I believe that for many of the keywords, we won't be able to achieve ranking on the first page unless we do an on-going link-building program.  Is this assumption accurate?

If I'm hearing you correctly, you are saying that while not recommended, it's possible to have a good SEO program for deep pages, while not optimizing the home page.  Is that accurate?

Thank you Egol.  How do you determine which keywords are most profitable?  Is it something that the client figures out overtime, or is there a way to determine "profitability" before the SEO process begins?

I'm helping a client redesign their website and they want to have a home page that's primarily graphics and/or flash (or jquery).  If they are able to optimize all of their key sub-pages, what is the harm in terms of SEO?

Dunamis,

I started out on a trial after a friend recommended SEOMoz, and began a paid subscription shortly after that. Honestly, it's been the best business investment I've made. There are so many tools -- open site explorer, keyword difficulty tool -- that make SEO a great deal easier.  The weekly webinars are also very insightful.  My favorite, however, is the Q&A forum.  It's almost worth the price of admission -- this community is extremely active and helpful.  I've learned so much; not only from asking questions, but also following questions others have asked.

If you want to get better at SEO, you should become a Pro Member.

Eric

I'm trying to gain a better understanding of the concept of flat-site architecture, especially with larger sites.  I'd like to see how larger sites accomplish getting their visitors to the majority of their pages within 3 to 4 clicks.

Does anyone know of any actual websites that exemplifies the practice of flat-site architecture?

Steve, I agree.  This is fantastic!  I am on this daily; not only to ask questions and provide feedback to others, but  to see issus what other SEOers are facing.

Just to clarify, if I'm trying to optimize a page for people interested in learning more about how vitamins impact on exercise; then would I be correct to use the "and" (as in "exercise and vitamins")?