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Or at least the url to whatever view you're talking about.

Hi Ikkie,

If you mean a companion site, then I would say it depends on what content you plan to host on it and how that content will not only differ from your main site, but how it'll add to it.

If you mean a campaign site, then I'd say so long as the campaign is strong and you're doing a lot with social media to promote it, then I can't see it being a bad idea.

I hope that helps, and if not, please provide more details so we can help you out as best as possible.

I don't see any reason why those would be harmful, since they're not actually links - they're references to JavaScript itself. That means that it's not going to affect rankings or anything of the sort. But it also seems unnecessary to use JS for a menu in that way. Users aren't going to notice or care, but I think it's an odd choice from a UI perspective.

Could you show us an example of what you're talking about? Depending on what kind of link, it may be innocuous (like example.com/# for referencing a different section of a page) or pointless and harmful (like if the page example.com/X has an in-text link to example.com/X).

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.

To answer your questions:

1. Not necessarily, but I'd be very careful. Content that's very similar isn't far from content that's duplicated.
2. I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but that's not an area I'm well-versed in.
3. What I can tell you is that you may want to consider having 1 website rather than hundreds. That one website can have a primary, large navigational section solely for locations and information about locations and varying services. This is probably something you'd have to discuss with the franchise owners and many others, but the fact that you have many sites and not one, means that you're missing out on SEO. It may benefit you greatly to consolidate everything into one - especially if you're trying to strengthen your brand. I did this with a client of mine recently who has several locations across the country, and they're doing much better in terms of SEO and conversion. But the most important thing to say is that measuring and preparing is often a good step.

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.

I can think of 3 options that may help:

1. This is the sort of thing for which a secretary or assistant is really best. They can assess which calls would be necessary to forward to her, while taking the secretary's/assistant's time to explain what's on the site for those that aren't. Growth comes at a price, and it sounds like your client is at that point.
2. Your client gets a second phone line, which would be used as the number shown on her website's contact section (or wherever those who've parsed the site would see it). Those calls could be forwarded to her original number, and so long as she gets a service that tells her which of her lines is getting the call, she can know (to some degree) which calls are more worthwhile.
3. She can set up an automated message that directs callers to visit the website for information before following through with the call. This may deter some business, however, so this option would require weighing the current time lost with the possible lost business.

I hope that helps you out!

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.

Search engines will see "Structural Steel Fabricator" as one keyword, not as all combinations of words therein.

When it comes to short vs long-tail keywords, the main question is about whether or not the loss of searches is made up for by specificity in regard to longer keywords. For example: let's say your business is home construction. In 1 day, 1,000 people search "construction" on Google, whereas 200 people search "home construction". While "construction" gets 5x the visits to your site, it's assumed that those who visit from searching "home construction" will be more likely interested in your service because they were more specific and therefore, your service is more tailored to their search.

Odds are that less people will generally search "home construction", but there's also less competition and the leads are more likely to become customers. So, I suggest comparing your conversion rates, the amount of visitors for both, and the competition for each keyword.

Ah, I misunderstood what you were saying. But yes, that's correct. You can, however, build up a certain degree of reputability as long as your base domain has a history of reputable behavior and ranking - but I wouldn't advise making this a regular method for your site.

A different domain will always have different stats, regardless of how you connect it to other domains. You CAN pass some of your link-juice, but that will only take your subdomain so far.

I recently oversaw a website redevelopment for a company that has several locations. We stuck with one website that has pages and content targeted to each of its locations. Each location has its own page and unique, location-based content that - while not a huge draw for the pages specifically - does add to the overall ranking for those locations in search. I've seen many other big sites doing the same, so it stands to reason that this is probably the best method.

Under your "About" or analogous navigation item (assuming you have one), a "Locations" page would be a great place to start something like this. One thing to be wary of - make sure that you keep both locations in focus. Don't just create content for one over the other, as it may create imbalances and issues in rankings.

Hope that helps!

Yes, doing that is cheating, though not inherently "black-hat". However, it's also foolish to do that for a number of reasons: one of which is that you're putting an entire website in a sub-folder of the actual website. Another is that even with the canonization, they're forcing competition between these pages/sites. Even if they're not being penalized for it now, Google, Bing, and Yahoo will all eventually catch it and that'll be the end for them.

A general rule: if you have to question the morality of something, it's probably wrong.

I actually had to do the same thing for my business about a year ago, and I don't believe I received any penalization. Google wants more accurate data, so if the person who maintain's the business' G+ page, listing, etc. requests a change be reviewed and made, then you're essentially helping Google do better, not hindering.

If I recall, all you need to do is go to your location page, edit the location in maps (and the street view), and in 6-8 weeks (I think that was the timeline) your changes will be reviewed. Good luck!

In the short-term, even using 301 redirects may have a slight negative effect on the weight of your links, but in the long-term, they shouldn't be affected by it really.

I would say that example.com/category/postname is the better way to go. It's good for SEO and, as an example. many popular (and even marketing-specific blogs like Hubspot) use categories before a post name in their URLs.

The only real downside is that the URLs themselves will be longer. Though, unless you expect posts to end up on SERPs. that shouldn't matter too much. Another thing to consider is: if some of your posts would fall under multiple categories, then you'll have to choose between them each time. Again, not a huge issue, but one to consider.

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.

Descriptions don't really count when it comes to unifying your brand across different platforms/sites in the sense about which you're asking, but I would still try to keep your descriptions similar. If nothing else, it clarifies to users that your page on abc.com is the same business/etc as your page on xyz.com.

If this happens to you often, I'd suggest you either:

1. Highlight your entire answer and copy it before you click "Post Response". Even if you get an error, you can just return to the question and paste your response.
2. Write your answer somewhere else, and then paste it into the Response box in Moz Q&A. That way you have it somewhere else and can't actually lose it.

This is assuming the error you're receiving is a timeout. If it turns out that it isn't, I'd email help@moz.com.