Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi

As far as Facebook, make sure you have the Open Graph meta tags in place on your website.  It not, any clicks of the like button on your website might not count as a "share".

Documentation here

-Dan

My guess would be social sharing volume could be playing a huge role, and this could especially be true in the last few years.  Tests by Rand and SEOmoz have shown that sized quantities of tweets or facebook shares, especially very rapidly have had significant effects on ranking.

Also, I don't dispute the fact that people probably are buying links, but I would also think there may be a bit of natural back linking happening, in the news sites (high authority), blogs, etc surrounding the on-season.

-Dan

Hi

It appears as if many of the links in your menu are nofollowed at the anchor tag level.  That was the first thing I noticed after looking real quick.  I don't know that this would have to do with your question, but since its quite important I thought I'd point it out!

To really dig in, I would suggest running a full report with the keyword difficulty tool and have a look at all the metrics.  (You can add your URL if not showing in the top 10) That would be a good place to start!

-Dan

Hi Adrian

In regards to the other tags, I take it back, it was Chrome's view source code coloring, made tags look broken at quick glance. Sorry!

As far as the canonical, I was just curious why there are two URLs for that page to begin with? Is it that you need the '1850' in the URL to provide the GET call to the database?

It appears as if all your category level pages operate this way?  You should be able to get a singular, clean URL and make your category call without the need for duplicate pages at all.

If this is not the case, you may want to 301 Redirect the '1850' page to the other page. There doesn't seem to be a need for both pages to be accessible by users.

Hope that helps!

-Dan

It appears as if you have two versions of the page indexed;

http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/Collectibles-for-Sale/1850.page

and

http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/Collectibles-for-Sale/

The rel="canonical" cites http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/Collectibles-for-Sale/1850.page as the page that should count in the index, however on your site its the other page which is linked to from the menu.

It would require a deeper look at things to tell what is going on for sure, but having duplicate versions of the same page in the index is certainly something of concern.

At quick glance I see a few other things that should be addressed when I view source; including a style tag and title tag not closing correctly.

-Dan

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Gianluca said it very well, so all I'd like to add is:

If you're asking in terms of RANKINGS (which will help you rank better?) use likes on your website.  And be sure the proper Open Graph meta tags are installed on your page.  The amount of Facebook Likes and Shares from your website can improve rankings.

You can generate the meta code here.

-Dan

Hi, sorry, can you define "article jam"?

Thanks!

Hi

The only thing that matters, is that page is not being indexed.

1. Go to your WordPress login page

2. View Source

3. Be sure this meta tag is still in place: name='robots' content='noindex,nofollow' />

You can also do a site search in Google: site:www.mydomain.com/wp-login.php  -  if it is not in Google's index then you are file.

What type of "prowling" report was this, an SEOmoz report?  I don't think your admin pages should be showing up in there, does anyone else know?

-Dan

Hi

Did you 301 Redirect the old pages to the matching new pages?  Anytime you change URLs you have to do this, it redirects your link juice as well as anyone trying to access an old page with a link or bookmark - they'll arrive at the new page instead of getting a 404 (page not found).

You do 301 redirects in your .htaccess file (insert them after the wordpress info) in this format;

Redirect 301 /oldpage/  http://www.mydomain.com/newpage/

One line for every page you're redirecting.  If you are using the new Yoast WP SEO plugin, you can edit your .htaccess file directly from WordPress, otherwise you have to edit it via FTP

BONUS: An easy way to get your old and new URLs so you do not have to type them all out, is run something like Screaming Frog SEO Spider or Xenu Link Sleuth on your site, and export the URLs into excel.

-Dan

I believe the recommendation is to have the title only be strictly the business name (with no keywords in it.)  As long as all the offices are real locations and you've verified them either by phone or mail, I don't think that's ever been an issue.  You may want to do other things to differentiate the locations from one another, such as unique photos, unique names of staff members and so forth.  And if each location has its own page on your website that's even better.

-Dan

I think this is a definitive as it gets.

Also, its not too surprising they weren't caught stuffing keywords, I've seen that go unnoticed before.  What I do see getting penalized more is trying to list the same business in multiple locations, duplicate listings, that sort of thing.

Hi

Acquiring links requires the marriage (no pun intended) of creating great content AND pro-actively going after links in an ethical way.  And actually, it can even be that the need for a link for a certain topic can inspire you to create a particular blog post, for the sake of getting that link.

So yes, a blog is a great place to start, because you're creating fresh content, and hopefully if its good enough people will naturally want to share it.

One tip (I think I was able to find your site).  You have a Facebook share button on your blog posts but not a Twitter button.  I'd HIGHLY recommend adding one, since getting your site tweeted is crucial to sharing as well.

-Dan

Forgot your second question:  Your menu at the top supplies the link to the homepage.  Put internal links where it makes sense from a user standpoint, and just use natural looking anchor text, with exact or partial keyword match.  But don't go overboard, you don't want it to look spammy.

Hi

The best place to start isn't far from general good business practices and marketing practices, with just a bit of common sense SEO sprinkled in.

• Define a good solid brand.

• Clearly define your product, and its unique selling proposition - what is it, why is it different? And what are its benefits that will make someone want to use it?

• Then keyword research... what are the non-brand generic terms that people already use to talk about what your product will offer?  Us this page on seomoz to get started with ideas.

• Let your keyword research help dictate your information architecture, navigation, and site architecture. Each page should target 1-3 keywords, with the homepage being your main product keyword.

• Use the beginners guide to SEO and this on-page optimization tool to help optimize each page correctly.

• On launch day you should begin tracking with analytics, webmaster tools and track rankings.

• Then you can start backlinking and social sharing. Use this page for ideas.

...the list goes on, but the MOST IMPORTANT THING is getting your architecture right from the beginning.  Even Matt Cutts himself says if you get architecture right from the beginning you'll save yourself tons of time and aggravation later on.

Good luck!

-Dan

Hi

Is that a page where the homepage shows up instead of the desired page?  I didn't see anything from your domain on the first 1-20 results.

But see the screenshots.  That's a highly competitive term.  And then check out your client's domain's backlinks and facebook shares.  Very sparse. That clearly needs a lot of work.  Ryan's right, it does seem you've got your on page SEO down pretty good.  I'd take a look at your backlinking and social sharing metrics now, especially building links to those inner pages you want to rank for.

Maybe there's a better example where the homepage shows instead of the menu page?  That was the original question you had, yes?

-Dan

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Hi

Can you give an example of a page and the search you'd like it to show up for?

I am able to get "menu" pages to show as long as the query is specific enough and they all seem to be in the index.

-Dan

Hi

Ryan is exactly right about this.  Go to the facebook developers page to create the OG meta data. Specify whatever page you want to show up as shared within the OG meta tag.

-Dan

Hey Derek

First, check this out to be sure of your understanding of broad, phrase and exact match: google documentation

I almost always use exact match to gauge search volume.  A search for "how to be a freelance" counts as a broad match.  Even "freelance" or "writer" counts as a broad match.  These aren't relevant at all, so thus a very bad assessment of search volume.

Even phrase match is misleading. "Hire a freelance writer" could count as a phrase search, totally not relevant and therefore shouldn't count.

It is therefore, I ONLY want to know how many people are searching, exactly for "how to become a freelance writer".  Its guarenteed to be that exact search, which guarentees relevance.

If you optimize and rank for "how to become a freelance writer" you may also rank for similar or related phrases, like "how to be a freelance writer" or "be a freelance writer".

Exact match is your best bet when judging search volume, because phrase and broad are way too unpredictable, as to whether the search variations are going to at all relevant.

So choose a good phrase with a decent amount of exact search volume, optimize for that, and you may also naturally rank for related long-tail more specific phrases as well - like "how to become a freelance writer from home", etc.

-Dan

I know, it seemed odd to me that after they had been up for a few weeks (and apparently for everyone, not just certain people's serp's) that he would say it was "still a test".  He himself even said he thought Google was overdoing it a bit because of how much space it took up.

Hey Pete

I'm seeing 6-pack also.

At the SEMNE (searche engine marketing new england) event the other night, Jordan Rost from Google did the presentation, and he said that as far as he knew the 12 pack has always just been a test, and he wouldn't be surprised if it went away or changed somehow.

-Dan

I would structure the URLs in how the users are going to be navigating your site.  How will they GET to the specified page?

Homepage>click

Category>click

Brand>click

Model ?

Is yes, than your first option is the best choice.

The user should be able to look at the URL and deduce the hierarchy of the site from the "folder" structure (even though those folders may be virtual)

Hope this help!

-Dan