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That's a good point. It's a residual, so the first year may not be horrific. However, if I compile over 5 years, I could definitely see where we could better target our efforts.

Thanks for the insights and the clarification!

• Ruben

I appreciate your response, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the first point. While l agree with the idea that if I can pay for it so can anyone else, and therefore it wouldn't help me against anyone who already has that link. However, my problem is that if the link passes value, (and according to OSE it is a quality link) and I don't have it, so doesn't that mean it's hurting me vis-a-vis my competition?

So I called that number, pressed 5 and all it does is tell me to visit their website...

Awesome, I'll try both. Thanks again!

You actually got through with this number....that's amazing. I was on hold for so long I gave up. Alright, I'll try it again. I guess it must not be an elaborate tease just to annoy me.

Thanks Bryan!

I'm aware of how most directories don't matter and/or have lost significance over the past few years, but in the legal world, it sure seems like this one does: http://www.martindale.com/ I doubt we will ever get many cases from this directory, but it would be a nice link to have...I think. The DA is 88 and the page we would be listed in is a 39. Almost all of our competitors who outrank us have this link as well. Granted, it's not the only link, but it's one I could afford to obtain. Any thoughts or experiences?

***If any of you market for attorneys, and you're outside the Tampa area (don't want to cause any professional conflicts) have you recommended this directory to your clients?

Thanks,

Ruben

Thanks Bryan. Do you mind sharing with me what number you called? I've never been able to get through to Google. I did talk to someone about this, but they called me, and I foolishly neglected to write down the number...though I doubt it would have been returnable anyway. Either or, I'd really appreciate it.

Over the last few months, I have done everything other than drive out to California and bring google flowers to get them to edit the stupid zipcode for our downtown Tampa office. Does anyone have any experience getting these types of situations corrected? I'm at a total loss, and I do not know what else I can do.

Extremely frustrated...but always grateful,

Ruben

Yeah, it was a little paranoid, but I had to make sure. Thanks everyone! I appreciate it.

• Ruben

I'm wondering if I need to go through all the various bio's our firm has on all the various legal directory and client review sites to make sure they have unique bio's? I really, really don't want to do that, but if they are going to flagged as duplicate content, I will. I'm hoping sites like "findlaw," "avvo," etc, have some built in rel:cannonical or something that says these bio's aren't to be seen as unique content and therefore conflict with what's on our site.  Anybody know?

Just to clarify, any of the sties that have asked for unique content/bio/about us, I have complied with that. However, a lot don't specifically state it has to be unique, so I've just copy and pasted from our site in those cases.

Thanks,

Ruben

I have no personal experience with this, but I do know of people who have received penalties without WMT messages. I guess you're best bet would be to go through your web analytics and see where there was a drop. Though, you probably already figured that one out.

Best,

Ruben

Continuing on what EGOL said, we have had very good experiences with County + keyword for areas outside of Hillsborough County (outside of Tampa). You will not find Pasco + keyword or Hernando + keyword ever showing up on any mainstream keyword tool. They just don't have the search volume...however, we get conversions on those landing pages all the time.

Frankly, I don't know how you would even do county vs city research, because you (most likely) will not find search volume for counties even though conversions might be there. However, as William said, they are the same name. So, in your particular case, it really shouldn't matter.

Best,

Ruben

I've heard spyfu.com is good as well, though I have never used it. One of the easiest ways (and it's free) to check your competitors keywords is to just go through their title tags. Sure, it's more labor intensive, but it is effective.

Best,

Ruben

I'm trying to find (and evaluate) blogs in my area, but searching for them via google has been pretty tedious so far. Does anyone know of a website where I can locate blogs in my area? For example, ideally, I'd like to go to something like www.blogfinder.com, type in Tampa and get a list of all the blogs dedicated to this area. Anyone know of anything like that?

Thanks,

Ruben

It could be that Google just hasn't yet re-crawled the site to take the changes into account...?

Do you know how to check that? If not, type your company into google. Then, in the SERPs, you'll see your company's site. At the far right of the url for your site, you'll see a little arrow. Click the arrow. There will be a chose of "cached" or "similar." Select cached and at the top of page, you will see that last time google indexed your site. Then, at least you'll know if the changes haven't worked at all or just haven't been indexed.

Best,

Ruben

I agree with you that it can be very frustrating in the beginning; it was for me a year ago. I also think it's a little absurd to not have a phone number, nor a chat for emergencies...unless you can promise a same day (within hours. really) email turn around...which they can't. However, most people in this forum can help you with the basics and you can ask an unlimited amount of questions, so that will help.

Another thing you can do is to ask Moz via social media. At least with me, when I really needed something addressed, it wasn't till I brought it up on Twitter that I got a response. It's the only way I've found to talk to Moz in somewhat real time.

Good luck and keep your head up! You'll figure it out.

• Ruben

Hey paddyaran,

Welcome to the community! I agree with ApOG about the beginners guide to get started. While you can jump right in, at best you'll get pretty lost and at worst, you could really hurt your client's site.

Other tips:

1. I'd go through the q/a forum and write down terminology that you are unfamiliar with. Sometimes this industry feels like a foreign language to me, so it's always helped me to try to at least get the definition of what people are saying, even if I can't follow passed that point.

2. I would focus on keyword analysis to start. What are you ranking for now? What do you want to rank for? Where are you in relation to your competitors? If you're familiar with google analytics and webmaster tools, this can help. If not, get familiar with them.

3. If you don't focus on keyword research, try to pick one aspect of the site that will net you the greatest return and then ask for help with that project.

4. Always remember, rankings don't matter; conversions do.

I hope to see you around the forum again soon!

Good luck,

Ruben

Some other model?

Our firm has been approached by people who charge a monthly fee with a contract, a monthly fee without a contract, and I think someone else wanted to charge us a monthly fee + percentage of ad spend.

Best,

Ruben

For the first question, the answer is...possibly. It all depends on how other people link to your site. If they link to it via www.yoursite.com, then the redirect will lose you some link juice. If they link to you via yoursite.com, then no. However, considering moz, doesn't use the www, I have to think it's really not that big of a deal.

I read this post in the Moz blog awhile back, and I thought it had some excellent ideas on finding topics for difficult niches. It has helped me...hopefully, it will do the same for you. Oh, and while gambling is the focus, it's just a case study. You can apply a lot of what he discusses to a variety of different businesses. http://moz.com/blog/case-study-whitehat-link-building-in-the-gambling-industry

For example: NLP + television could lead you to all sorts of content like "Did the Mentalist use NLP accurately in season 2 episode 4," etc.

Best,

Ruben