Welcome to the Q&A Forum

It is a tough question.  We have been down this road, and found that in the end, it has to be unique content. It's really challenging to ask a client who is not a writer to write, just as it is difficult to ask a writer to be a dentist.

We use a combination system at times.  We send a q and A sheet to the client on different topics. We then have a professional writer turn it into a page or article.

Good discussions from everyone, thank you!  I had several motives in asking. One was of course to get all of your views, and they did confirm my intrinsic thought process, and the second was the test the assumption that only individuals who where pretty good at all this would answer (this proved to be true) and therefore giving me some insight into feeling more confident when I read your responses on here, and the last was to get more points, because I really like free stuff*.

• the later statement is a a partial truth.

Matt Cutts once said that "A" link can not hurt your ranking. What he didn't say was your link profile, or a bunch of links can not hurt your ranking.

Here is a good older discussion on this from Q.A.

http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/37193/are-paid-links-from-prsites-and-directories-bad

There are valuable directories. You have to be pretty picky. There are a lot of posts and training on this in the site. Picking up a DMOZ listing and Yahoo directory are great (as noted).  I think one thing you want to watch is the c-blocks they are on.  One directory company may have 100's of sites on a c-clock, and this can harm your trust ranking.

Long story short,  make your link profile as natural as you can.  Paid directories can fit into that, as well as blogs, forums, press releases, no follow and follow links. But do try and go for quality at all times.

The Citation needed made me laugh out loud for real.

I see a lot of answers to questions in here that I would consider pretty umm, well, not all that great, not that I am one to judge, but when I ask a question I am looking for answers from experienced professionals.

How do you decide which answers to take more seriously?  I check the persons profile and follow it all the way out the their site and blogs (if listed).  Sometimes I see sites that have a SEmoz of 10. How can you give advice when your site has no Ranking?

I know there are going to be exceptions, and that this isn't the one and only indicator, but how do you decide how much confidence you can put in an answer here?

EGOL,

I know how Google values a link.  Leave 1 billion dollars in unmarked bills in the public parks waste basket at 1:00  A.M.  and I will send the exact method to you...

Or...  just pay me $129.00  a month and we will guarantee you the FIRST PAGE of Google.

Good discussion. I have a time crunch, so right to my 2 cents.  Isn't the real point of publishing on E Zine is to have a well written article republished on other sites, and therefore the juice is not from e zines but the sites that pick up the article?

Do you use a word press platform? If so do you use a SEO plug in.  Different plug ins can effect the index time.

Do you use a word press platform? If so do you use a SEO plug in.  Different plug ins can effect the index time.

We have lot's of clients with in home businesses. We either list the home address, and then in the places account request that it is not shown, or we encourage an executive office location if in fact they will use it as a place to do business. Having real contact information is not just important to Google , its important to their customers.

Our company has been using executive offices for 10 years.  They are a great cost savings, and give us a nice environment to meet clients or hold meetings. Most executive or virtually offices also give you an option of renting an individual office on a short term basis, which we have used many times.

Millions of businesses are home based. Google doesn't care if your address is residential or commercial, I think they care that it's listed.  Your client must have an address for  contact for customers that includes email, phone and address on their site.  They should also have it registered with the correct government agencies (the address )  and any valuable business associations in town, like a Better business bureau or Chamber.

Our reports still show 5-06-11, so I assume we are all still waiting.  You can use several free back link tools to see if your links are indexed.  Try link diagnosis.com  ( you need firefox and the plug in) or link back watch.  Links will show up there pretty fast (same day if Google indexed it). Google web master as well of course, and yahoo site explorer.

Great questions.  I am sure many of us are watching how the Panda update is changing linking.

Here is the answer everybody hates (including me at times)  I think the big change in 2011, and 2012 in SEO has to be in building better content on sites, and building better social signals to sites. And for most of us that's a real change in course.

Adding calculators, tips, Forums, FAQ, and funny stuff along with Quality promotion for links. We still use Directories and Articles, but only when we we do it because it makes promotional sense, not just SEO.

This is one of the more difficult challenges.  Here are a few things we have done to help with the Geo challenge on maps.

You may notice that the top ranked sites have huge domain scores, but the third place does not.  Look at that site and the first thing you will notice is the address is the first title.  Add you address on main pages. Maybe on top. It's very difficult to find an actual address on the site.  This is very important.

Encourage your reviewers to use the term Hotel on the Isle of Wright, in the first paragraph or title.

Do you sue the term in your meta title and description?

Do you have a page with that title and URL?

Have you run a keyword report on your home page to grade its optimization grade for that term.

Have you built strong quality citations and links.  You are competing against  of t some well optimized sites.

And last thing for this post. Look at top sites and ask your self, why are these showing up?

We have been successful in overcoming the geo marker challenge, but you do have to stay at it!

Kevin,

I have had more success than failures with report a problem.  Just make sure you are logged in when you report it. And, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Ei Yi Yi.  That is  a mess.

I have delt with many duplicate listing issues.  Here is what I would do in your case. Go to the Google places help forum.  List your issue with as many details as possible and hope you get the attention of a google employee.

Q.  Do you have access to all these accounts? Passwords?  Have you used the  Report a problem feature under the more tab on the places account?  Make sure you are logged into the account when doing so.

Be very detailed when you report the problem in this manner.

Duplicate listing issues are heck.  I hope this help some.

Trying to force a search engine into indexing a page is a losing tactic. Having been down the social media profiles path, in my opinion, (and based on our limited research) it's far better to focus your energy on a few high profile social sites (Twitter, face book, linked in)  and do so from the non SEO approach. Give great information, interact,  and meet interesting people and businesses.  The SEO effect will follow.

Having your clients Face book comments shared is far more important than having 250 social profiles.  Let's face it, if you can buy 100's of social media profiles for $5.00  how valuable can that really be?

One of our major challenges with clients is convincing them that the easy road in SEO  may head up for a while, but always seems to end with a long slow and ugly decline. (a mountain road metaphor)

Go for Quality!  Think like there is no Google or Bing and your SEOo will produce better and longer term results.

While I have seen temporary rating boasts with social profiles,  unless the account is used as intended,  and grown, those ratings disappear pretty fast.

Just a additional thought. We use both, for different topics.  Our on domain Blog will focus on one theme.  and we can wonder around a bit on the word press hosted blog.

Excellent question.  The answer to this (at least for me) is that big statement you hear so often about the most important tactic and principle of SEO. Developing great , interesting and unique content.  Our entire SEO process is evolving to start with a creative approach, using content  and then moving to what I would call traditional SEO tactics.

The gaming concern is one we all share, but can not control.  We are hoping that by helping our clients develop better and more interesting information, 1+ will take care of it self.

We have several clients that need this type reach.  Using an "in your Area" navigation link, and then as stated bt EGOL  and bookworm,  doing a community page for each city works pretty well.  So one page listing the communities, and a page linked to that page with each cities information.

The only other point I would make is you will need to add some serious link's and citations to the site, and the individual pages will need some attention as well.  Reviews from customers noting the city are very helpful as well.

"Trying to improve my Google Places page".  Not sure if you are trying to improve the places accounts rankings, or the look and feel of the page itself?

You can add up to ten photos on the places page, I would utilize as many as possible.  You can also add you tube videos, and those can be very effective.

As for rankings, I would encouage customers to review the business directly on the Google places account, and add an Angie's list business account, as these show up on the places listing and can help rankings.

Hope this is helpful.