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Hi Gavo, If you are talking about local business citations, most of these exist on business profiles on local business directories. If you have a national/virtual business, then local business directories aren't really the right match. However, if you do have something like a corporate headquarters that accepts walk-in traffic during stated business hours and makes face-to-face contact with customers there, then you can certainly create local listings for that office. But, it sounds to me like you are describing a national/organic SEO campaign for a non-local business, in which case, citations are not the right fit for what you are doing.

Hi Gavo, While what Marcus points out is true (you can prompt local results for web design companies by adding 'in' to your query), it's important to understand that Google does not view web design companies as being truly local, hence their lack of inclusion in the results for the most common service + city or city + service queries. To my understanding, Google's thinking on this is that most web design (and SEO) companies operate virtually (don't meet with clients face-to-face). So, you can add your web design company to Google's local index, and you can build citations for it, but it's likely that your overall organic rankings will hinge more on other forms of marketing in which you engage. Think content development, earning links, social outreach, etc.

You have to remember the point of your website is to communicate something or to sell something. Commenting in relevant forums or blogs, with useful information, is always going to be beneficial as the quality of traffic will be high--even if the link is no-follow. The most important thing is that you get qualified visitors.

The bigger question should be -- is it worthwhile to do automated social bookmarking at all? Generally, it's better to let it come naturally as users find the content, and not to submit to hundreds of bookmarking sites that may be off topic.

Thanks heaps Dan, really appreciate it! Made most of the fixes you've prescribed and will do the others. Content is unique on each page, however thin and lacking substantive value... certainly requires some more work. The Onpage Grader also eventually seems to have caught up and no longer displays non-problems as problems as it did initially. Looks like I just needed to give it some time upon making a remedy. A few quick questions if I could trouble you to answer them. You've been extremely helpful already though and gone well above your call of duty so don't worry if you're too busy. What do you think is the best way to approach a location-based campaign that targets different localities? Is it a good idea to create a different location page for each location targeted? You've suggested to make the title tag - Dental Care in Cairnlea - Family Dental Care. However, how detrimental would that be for targeted keywords like "Orthodontist Cairnlea" or "Fillings Cairnlea" if it were to be targeted on that page? Is Google smart enough to know that Dental care covers the wide array of dental services like fillings braces, orthodontist etc. and so a broad descriptive title tag is most effective? Specific targeted keywords like "Orthodonist Cairnlea" are then considered highly related or a subset and therefore, are not extensively affected, so long as the keyword (eg Orthodonist Cairnlea) is appropriately prevalent in body content? Do you think the Moz Onpage Grader places too much value on keywords appearing a number of times in body content, when some thought leaders claim that Google is moving away from this as a key metric? Just answer if you have the time. Thanks abundantly.

I think the problem with this strategy is that you are at a big disadvantage compared to building links direct to the page, if we take for example you blog - how many links are on the page, now divide 100 / number of links on the page and this is how much power (%) you will gain compared to building the link direct. The big gain with building links to a blog is that it looks more natural and with the right content can be much easier than a product page to build links, but it should be part of an overall strategy like most things in SEO.

Do you have the penalty in available in your Google WT? What exactly does it say? Most penguin penalties I've seen are partial matched and affecting only some incoming links. Removing pages won't help as you don't know which ones are affected. Doing a link cleanup by going link after link asking for removal and then requesting a reconsideration may remove the penalty (in conjunction with the disavow file), but there's been several polls online and over 80% of the people who did this and got their penalty removed didn't see their rankings back. This is obviously true, as probably those manipulative links were the ones causing your high rankings and now gone you need to get some REAL, EARNED links to gain positions. Truth be told, no one can tell what will happen, and you can only try. The ultimate question always become: Is it really worth it? Or do I just start fresh (new Website, unrelated to the old one)?

If directories are all you can think of, this list should get your head buzzing with new ideas: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

Correct to assume but incorrect to think that's enough to get ranked. "Link juice" decays rather rapidly as it spreads out across your site. So yes, your rankings will fall. What you need to do is get a marketing campaign going. Build content, gain organic links, and continue to grow engagement. You've got the technical aspect sorted (it seems) so now it's time to get people coming to your site. Social/blog/etc to build your community. Good luck!