Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Generally speaking, if a page's content isn't specific to one location, I'd advise against putting location information in the title of that page. You mentioned that you're aware of the option to make pages specifically for locations - that's really a much better solution than to stuff your title tags with city names. Rather than the title tags, however, maybe you could add content that specifically targets some or all of those locations (depending on quantity of course).

You could also add a footer section that links to each location page. The point is that there are many ways to up your rank in different cities. Using title tags on general pages may not be the best option, though. I realize this doesn't directly answer your question, but it's what I'd advise a client if they were to ask the same thing.

Even if you don't add news too often, it may be best to treat each news post like articles. Meaning, show the most recent 5 (just an example number) on the initial page, from which visitors can view older or "previous" news articles. That creates an organized and simple system for visitors to view the happenings of your company.

It's hard to say without knowing the specifics and how these two measure up regarding their import, but I'd say give the landing page a go. After a month or so, if it still hasn't started ranking as well as you'd like, maybe consider tweaking the content even more on the landing page. Assuming this landing page could really move some KPIs for you, it's a semi-risk worth taking.

When a page is a continuation of content, or a "set" of content - so to speak - the best practice is to use tags that signify it being this way. The most common occurrence of this is search results.

The way that's done is through elements like rel="prev" or rel="next" or similar - and as such, relays to search engines that the pages with these elements marked are within that content set. Because of this, it's likely beneficial for titles and meta-descriptions to be similar if not the same.

While your site looks very nice and clean, there are a handful of things that are hurting it:

1. There's no header navigation on the initial page (the left-hand widget isn't "initial" in this sense).
2. There's barely any text on the homepage.
3. There doesn't seem to be an H1 on the page (certainly not at the top - even though it might seem that way, the slider content may not be getting picked up by Google as such).
4. Effectively, your homepage is a long list of products. Take a look at Amazon and even smaller ecommerce sites. Your site, and specifically, homepage, is lacking content.

I'm sure with a genuine audit, you could get loads more information, but these are all things you may wish to consider looking into.

I'd suggest doing that, yes. Not only would it be more beneficial to users to have information based on their location (as most people would search for trainers near them, not just search for trainers and the sort the data by location) - it's also good for SEO to have location-specific urls and such. That's assuming that you're both concerned about local search, and are making efforts in that area already.

Do keep in mind, however, that the rest of your site (both in terms of structure and content) should reflect this change. Not just links, but the way they're presented, and possibly even the order by which you present content on base pages. Furthermore, if you go this route, be sure to take advantage of locale-based terms (including name, NAP, etc.)

I don't believe there's any legal action that can be taken as it's not actually illegal for someone to link to your website; regardless of what harm it might cause you. Unfortunately, there's too much truth to the saying that law is always 10 steps behind technology.

However, I do believe that if the problem persists, you have the option of emailing Google support and reporting the website(s) in question - stating your case and the specifics may go a long way in ensuring that it doesn't happen again.

100% saturation is impossible to achieve while maintaining any semblance of value. Not only because any proper page inherently has navigation, internal linkage, and myriad other elements, but because to write content about a subject in that amount of detail, one would invariably need to write about sub-topics and related topics. It's just not feasible. But, and here's the kicker, you wouldn't want 100% saturation anyway.

Rich, dynamic content incorporates that which is related to it. Strong pages link out to others, and keep visitors within their media cycle, if not churning them lower down. Good content is content that holds information that's both detailed and general to a topic. I would say, at most, the highest saturation point that still remains within strong SEO and content optimization is about 85-90% when taking into account all page content - and even that's pushing it, really.

I've checked the source of that page, and your tag is in the body of the page rather than the head. Specifically, the tag is on line 937 at the start of a paragraph, while your head ends at line 107. I suggest reading this article to learn a little more about the syntax of this particular tag and it's uses. It can be a little tricky, but that article should point you in the right direction.

I'd say your gut feeling is right - in fact, you may want your first post to be a simple "apology" for being absent due to being busy (or something to that effect), and alerting people that from now on you'll be posting often. Address the issue, and present the solution you've already come to.

Without knowing your website's url, it's hard to say. But generally speaking, generic keywords like "lights" are always going to be in a weird flux. So many different companies, mediums, videos, and everything else use that word in some aspect. It's possible that something time-specific (think "holiday lights" for instance) could be taking over the search temporarily, or that your site simply isn't as optimized for "lights" as new-comers. Even news articles and musicians will come up when searching for that term.

Another thing to consider is whether or not whomever's searching has their personal search data enabled in Google. And let's not forget location-based search, which will assuredly have an effect on SERPs. The bottom-line is, there are so many factors in play when it comes to generic search terms that it would be very difficult to tell without a lengthy analysis of your data and that of others.

The good news is, as you mentioned, "lights" likely isn't the most useful search for potential customers. People typically search for something product/service specific when it comes to something like that.

Hi Rachel,

For the first, I'd suggest telling her that the methods by which the other company is ranking is not only dying, but is something that Google consistently and vehemently disapproves of. Keyword stuffing works well until you're caught, and then you're basically done. Good SEO is like getting fit - the longer it takes to do, and the more focused the work, the more permanent the results (more or less).

For the second, I'd say that they need to understand not everyone can rank #1 for every keyword. Moreso for short, non-specific ones. The good news is that more specific keywords are not only less competitive, they tend to garner higher conversion rates. Basically, tough cookies.

For you, I think you just had a coincidental collision of melt-down customers. I'd prescribe tea and a good book.

I'd say this depends entirely on time vs. reward. If you have the time and resources, there's no reason these shouldn't be included - especially if they're still ranking. They may very well continue to do so, even after the new structure you've implemented is recognized in crawls. However, if time is a factor and you need to prioritize only what's truly necessary, I'd suggest figuring out the actual worth of these pages and making a decision. What role they play in your sales / related, how many users and conversions they generate, etc.

I would strongly recommend removing the one that's not doing well locally and adding the content to the structure and content of the other website. Your client should also consider condensing the two businesses into one.

I say that because from what you said, it sounds like he views the two service types as different businesses that only share a name. This is very likely counterproductive, and I'd have to assume means that both websites are competing against one another in SERPs regarding branded keywords.

Touting all of his services as one business would have a lot of different benefits; but is there any reason he's treated them as separate businesses? If so, my advice may not be prudent - but it seems unlikely that there's a good reason to do so.

Your 404 page is a great way to serve visitors links to the pages that would be most relevant in general to them. It's also a great opportunity to show your brand and personality - and yes, as you mention - blog articles are a great next step for these pages. However, make sure that it makes sense for them to be there. If a visitor is within your blog domain / subdomain, then go for it. If they're not, consider a combination of things.

And yes, you can have more than one 404 page. Whether having multiple versions makes sense is up to you.

Prashant,

You could be told many different things depending on who you ask, but I'd say from my experience working at a company that makes websites, the answer is that there is no definitive answer.

That being said, there ARE helpful tips I can give you:

• "How many links?" is a less important question than "What kind of links?" Consider the position of each page in regard to where it is in your sales funnel (if at all). The closer to the bottom of the funnel (bottom = conversion), the more straightforward your navigation and direction should be. For instance, you wouldn't put a link to your "About Us" page on a landing page or contact form, because it directs traffic away from conversion and the flow of your site.
• The modern design tends toward simplicity - which means that while it's not necessarily a problem to have so many links, it will be confusing to your customers and lead people away from the content they were initially searching for. People are inattentive and fickle, so you want to guide them.
• Links need to fit logically with the content. If a page is about a service X, don't link to service Y unless it relates to service X, and you write your content in a way that makes sense.

I hope that's helpful for you!

3 points you should make to your bosses:

1. There's no such thing as "blocking" another site in that way - and in fact, you're **only blocking your own sites **this way. You're competing with yourself, which is silly to do.
2. The more rich, unique, and well-rounded content you have on a website, the better it'll do. These should absolutely be consolidated into one website. Think of it this way: instead of using 9 smaller sites that are getting 11% of your effort each, making one site that gets 100%, and will absolutely do better in SERPs, is the way to go.
3. You're much more likely to make mistakes, have errors, and duplicate content if everything's across different websites instead of one. That's a huge potential issue.

I can think of dozens of other reasons you should centralize everything into one site, but these are probably the biggest ones.

Of the 4 points you mention you've seen, I'd say the only one that's entirely incorrect is #3.

1. Only use H1 once: True. Think of it like a book title. That's the most important thing, so nothing else should share that prominence.

2. H1 is crucial for SERP: **True. **This is what Google looks to, after your title tag, for information about your page and the content therein. This reaffirms that your metadata, keywords, title, content, etc. are all related - while also showing visitors what this page is about (Google values visitor experience more and more with each update).

3. Use H1s for subheads. False. Think back to #1 - H1 should be reserved only for the 1 absolute most important thing (which should be your title).

4. Google almost never looks past H2 for relevance. Kind of true. Google DOES look beyond this (and even parses your body-text), but with each lowering of prominence / heading, Google gives it less weight. #4 is true in the sense that this weight is lessened significantly, but it's incorrect generally - your content is still very important.

I hope this has been helpful to you! Good luck!

It's showing as duplicate content because aside from an image and caption, there's no content on this page. Low-to-zero content pages that follow the same template / structure will often be seen as duplicate content. Sorry to say, but these pages should either have content added to them, or deindexed. The latter is much easier, of course, and both are almost guaranteed to improve your site. But adding content would be the better solution. It'll add value to those pages, you won't be removing the pages from indexation, and it can incentivize engagement.

Nope. You're in no way required or expected to tell someone why they've hit a 404. As long as you have a page with content, you're doing OK. Any effort beyond that will only benefit you.