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Thank you so much for this answer Tyler. I have a bunch of tumblr blogs and one has a spam score of 9.  It looks like the reason for the spam score is that it reblogs one post from a very legit blog with a spam score of 8. That blog is written by the type of guy who headlines social media conferences, so I certainly wouldn't want to disavow him.

If you've owned Binders.com for a long time and it ranks really well in the SERPS, you might think that creating and ranking a new domain won't be difficult. If your company execs think this, they are potentially in for a big disappointment.

If you start a brand new website from scratch, you could wait a long time before it ranks well enough to bring you any sales. Ranking a subdomain on your current site would certainly be quicker.

I would definitely recommend consolidating. Currently you're competing against yourself - if 2 properties are in the same neighborhood, they'll both rank poorly because you're not sending all your juice to the same place.

I created a Pinterest board with pins displaying a particular type of home (Craftsman Bungalow) in Sacramento and it ranks on page one. I did it as an example for realtors on how social media can give them multiple rankings on a page.

It's not all that exciting, but if I were a realtor I think I could make it sing! https://www.pinterest.com/juliemarg/craftsman-bungalow-homes-for-sale-in-sacramento/

There have been several high profile law suits over theft of web content

http://theartnewspaper.com/news/instagram-model-and-makeup-artist-sues-richard-prince-over-copyright-infringement/

Thank you so much!  I suspected this, but wanted to make sure by asking the Big Brains at Moz. You always come thru!

It's harder to rank on the map without an address, but I see people all the time who are. I would look at different search phrases on the various sites like Yelp, Apple Maps, etc. and see if you can find examples of businesses without an address.  What kind of citations do they have.

Especially with local search, you frequently have to do the research yourself. Different cities and industries don't have the same power citations. You have to find the ones that are right for you.

Dot Com!

When I started my business 7.5 years ago, the dot com was unavailable so I went with dot us.  Since then I have had to repeat the phrase "that's dot us, not dot com" several thousand times.  When I don't receive a promised email, and I call to follow up, they frequently have sent it to dot com.

In the SERPS it doesn't matter. I dominate, but I think I would have picked a different url if I'd realized how hard it was for the average consumer to remember. And my clients are biz people!

Perhaps you could say to him that Avvo has domain authority of 81, SuperLawyers also domain authority of 81 and Justia domain authority of 76. We could get similar high domain authority links by donating $2500 to the ballet, symphony and animal rescue. What would you like to do?

I love Robert's advice.  I would also suggest adding some long tail keywords. Finding a church is very personal and I'd guess that lots of your prospects are searching things like "Bible based church" "church with active single group" or "church with great music".  Don't put all your emphasis on generic phrases.

I have had no problem with subdomains and SEO. I have ranked several somewhat difficult keywords and believe that it was easier using the subdomain. I didn't A/B test, so I have no proof, but I am pleased with the result.

For user experience, I think a subdomain is significantly better. The product-geography.com domain looks very spammy to me and doesn't carry the brand's credibility. With the subdomain, I'm certain it's the official site.

According to my Moz bar, you don't have any backlinks.  How many do your competitors have? Do you have a solid plan to get quality backlinks?

Thanks very much. It was easy to set up.

You put your contact info in the description area. Sometimes Google will pick up the description word for word for the serps.

I got the items from past sales at Trulia, but you could easily put your own listings up.  Or you could use Trulia, then put your own live listings at the top, remove them after they've sold.

In each pin's description, even the ones from Trulia, you can put your own description, including a link back to your website.

Pinterest used to pass on page rank, but it no longer does.

Throw a bunch of anchor text links and Voila! there you are.

I have lots of different Pinterest pages ranking.  I have a huge Pinterest following, so that might help, but I have seen small followings rank also.

I think you could spend a ton of money and time on a strategy like this just to discover that it was a disaster.

Google is smart. They can figure out when content is just churned out and is the same as every other website out there. You can use some filler content, but pages without any unique content rarely rank, are often penalized, and don't convert customers very well.

It's best to offer something that the consumer can't get elsewhere, so that they buy and refer friends to you. If you're same same, why should they return?

I have a couple questions. How long have these subpages and their backlinks been live? When you use the Moz tools, have your backlinks been indexed?

You've left off a very important fact.

Are you trying to go from 0 to 20 or from 20 to 40. The time required is completely different.

I believe social influences SEO, but even if it doesn't right this minute, will it?

Do you anticipate changes to the way people search for businesses like yours?

I believe that Facebook is working on grabbing some search share from Google. As that happens, that social investment will pay off even if it's not paying off now.  Already I can use Facebook to search for something like Hotels in NYC and get true personalized results - I'll see the names of my friends who like those pages. Knowing my friends, it will let me know which hotel is swanky, which one is cheap, depending on which of my friends liked it.

Have you asked the customer to describe their ideal customer? Often they say something completely broad like "everyone who wears shoes" but your task will be much easier if you know exactly who they want to walk in the door.

I think it's easier to do this with small business because they know their customers. Ask them to describe, in detail, their 4 best customers. How old are they, what do they do for a living, their hobbies - the more detailed the better. Then think of those people when you're selecting your keywords.

I certainly think it would hurt you in your link building activity. Many websites will state that they don't support content related to alcohol, tobacco or gambling.

Unless it is a huge money maker for you, I would purge that content.

I think the Amazon program looks really cool and imagine it would be successful, because people already buy things from Amazon. Yelp seems like it would be the least effective, because it currently has no shopping function and most prospects don't have Yelp accounts.  They may use Yelp to do research, but they don't participate.

My own experience is that subdomains don't hurt. I have several subdomains on my own site, and pages on that site are top ten in Google. Despite everything that I've read saying that a subdomain doesn't benefit from being attached to a strong domain, my experience has told me otherwise.  Perhaps it's because most SEO advice is geared to Big Biz SEO vs. Local SEO. That's why I love MOZ so much, they don't ignore the little guys.