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Make sure you 301 redirect as many pages as possible (if not all) to the proper landing page (see Moz's redirect tutorial). In most cases this will pass the majority of link juice (over 90%). Once launched, do a site:domain.com and click on each page to make sure it was redirected correctly. Also, monitor your webmaster tools for any alerts.
Yes, it's good to only have one H1 tag. However, will you get penalized for having more than one? No, just use them sparingly (according to Matt Cutts here).
Jason, I couldn't get whois.org to pull up your domain, so was just taking an educated guess since you said "with a site I started last year". I took a look on archive.org, and saw it being a lot longer! Thanks and good luck!
Faster load time and a potentially better ux (specifically on mobile) caused by switching to div's is definitely a plus. The content sounds like it will remain the same, so I would not expect to see much or any organic fluctuations. IMHO, I would do it sooner than later.
One factor is that brainyquote has been around for many years (the domain was registered in 2001, but how long they had a site up--not sure). The age factor (IMHO) has a decent weight in the algo, and a Google patent states:
(1) … the date that a domain with which a document is registered may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document.
(2) Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. … Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.
Just keep plugging along. Good luck!
I took a look and looks like they do have an extension:
https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/Modules/Sitemap_XML.aspx
Yes, the content is indexed (specifically if the spider can read the text--ie not embedded text inside an image). However, they are not optimal for a variety of reasons. Alex Fusman had a blog post on this a few years ago where he summarized optimizing pdf's for search. Here is his checklist:
Checklist for PDF Optimization:
Yes, it is a factor in which countries SERPs you show in (from Matt Cutt's video).
Try to push more informational content and be the subject matter expert on what you are passionate at. If you have valuable content, it will act as link bait and people will find that content when trying to find a solution to an issue. If you are the expert, they will be more inclined to hire you to do some consulting. IMHO, that's the best way to differentiate you and your team and get additional business. Good luck!
Most of the time I use screaming frog (as suggested above). I have also used Xenu in the past and it's free.
There are many ways to optimize gallery pages (optimize H tags, optimizing file size of images, adding short descriptions, good page titles, implementing proper tags on the image, good ux and so on). There is an excellent tutorial here. Good luck!
I haven't been seeing a large fluctuation in ecommerce conversion rates for us this year compared to previous years. As you know, it's always about conversion optimization. Improving UX (as Max was stating) is a LARGE part of increasing your conversion rate. So test/measure/implement on a regular basis (part of a continual improvement process). Also, here's a decent article from March: Ecommerce Conversion Rates.
In GWT: Crawl=> URL Parameters => Configure URL Parameters => Add Parameter
Make sure you know what you are doing as it's easy to mess up and have BIG issues.
Matt summed it up nicely. If you rank for a keyword, and that keyword is not in the meta description, Google will sometimes pull the snippet of where the keyword is featured in your content. So, if you decide not to change your meta description you can still try to optimize that snippet to increase ctr in serps.
If you don't have concrete requirements, you are right do it hourly as scope creep will eat up a fixed budget quickly. Some of the tasks have different market rate ranges (based on what Cole/William stated)--but if you are comfortable at $50 an hour and have capacity, go for it.
There are many ways. I typically start at Spy Fu and export an inventory of keywords. I Identify relevant ones and eliminate the rest. Now I have a base list, and begin building permutations/synonyms that are relevant. For example, the query "Where is the best yoga studio in Doncaster" I would identify:
as objects and run it through a permutation generator. For synonyms, I would run it again. For example, I would eliminate best for favorite and keep on adding the results into kw inventory.
How are you planning on using this info?
9 hours seems reasonable for implementation and testing of this. There is a bit of logic/validation involved as well, and setting this up is definitely more involved than implementing a plugin and walking away.
Don't know if this helps or not. Acme Video Fireplaces & Stove is/was a real place and was located in Harrisburg, VA.
Sometimes Google will rewrite or add the brand to your url and in this case, it changed your title tag w/this brand. How to fix it? I'm guessing you will need to increase your use of brand signals until Google catches on.
Donna--Good point. I revised my previous answer to include that meta descriptions as a display factor that could influence ctr's but not rankings. Meta KW/Descriptions do not influence rankings--instead can help to increase click through's. By including a good unique one increases chances that Google will use it and, more times than not, will have a higher ctr than the auto generated one if the meta description is not included. Great clarification.