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I just wondered if Mozcon 2012 will be available as a video bundle at some point (for us that couldn't make it!)? If so, any ideas when

Sorry for the delay Carin! Been crazy busy with meetings

I appreciate your offer of help, and will sned you examples later today!

Kind Regards,

Mike.

Hi Carin,

Thanks for the reply!

I have a few meetings today, but I will dig out the example this evening, and fire over by tomorrow morning at the latest, via email.

Thanks again for your reply and your help - it is much appreciated!

Mike

Hi David.

Okay, unfortunately this is around the time of some major Google tweaks, making it possibly harder to figure our what went wrong, as we need to try to rule out Penguin/Panda issues (feel free to take a screengrab or csv download from GA with a chart, so I can cross-check against Google's updates, and see if any of the big drop-off dates tally with major algo changes for you, as this could help rule Pegnuin in/out).

I have had a quick look at your site, and done a couple of quick Google queries, and found the following (I am NOT saying this is the cause, but this is something that should definitely be looked into).

• LOTS (circa 1,900) of pages indexed in Google, with pretty much duplicates of your homepage title tag (I will private message you a link, rather than publishing here)

• Possible canonicalisation issues (need to check).

David, I have triggered a crawl test of your domain, and will cast me eye over the findings when it is finished, and let you know if I see anything that may be useful.

I am leaving the office soon (especially as it is sunny! VERY rare for Bristol!), but I will check to see if the results of the crawl test are ready tomorrow, and fire you a reply once I know.

Cheers David,

Mike.

Hmmmm, and, was this change made in isolation, or were other on-page changes also made?

When you say the rankings have been going down for around 4 months, do you know what sort of date the decline started? - I ask as it may be wise to broaded the net a little in looking at the cause of this.

I am not saying the title tag changes didn't cause it, just that it would be wise to not restrict ones research... for example, did the decline start around the time of any major Google updates? (Panda/Penguin refreshes, etc).

Also, do you know how long the gap was between changing the title tags, and the drop-off becoming apparent?

So really, 3 questions:

1. Do you remember the date you made the changes

2. Do you remember how long until the drop-off was seen

3. What date did your traffic start to go down (checking Google Analytics data could show you this, switching to a 6 month view).

Sorry to answer with more questions, but I wouldn't want to put forward an opinion of what could have caused this without all the facts!

Thanks,

Mike.

Just a quick comment about the social buttons...

I doubt that just adding social buttons to the site will help in itself, however the fact that the sites has the social buttons on their site 'may' indicate it is more likely that they have social activity based around their domain (although this isn't always the case!).

My own opinion is that the buttons just being there won't help, but if the webmaster is also interacting on a social level, getting tweets/likes and opening their social discussion somewhat, then I would say that this can certainly help, and maybe those social buttons are making it just that much easier for folks to share the content on the webmasters site, and so helping their social metrics?

People are pretty lazy online, so you need to make it as easy as possible for your website visitors, whether that is making it easier to buy something, fill out a form, or indeed, Tweet/Like your content!

That's my take anyway!

[EDIT] - I note you say you pulled the social buttons because nobody was using them... in which case rather than pulling the buttons off the website, I would look into WHY nobody was using them

If you can figure that out, you will likely increase the usability of your website, make it more 'people friendly' and interesting, and decrease your bounce rates - all of which 'could' help your rankings (and revenue!).

Things to look out for:

• Overly heavy text (text is good, boring people to death isn't! Break the text up with images, YouTube embeds, etc)

• Too many above the fold ads? Folks won't want to share a site full of ads (not saying your site is like this!)

• Social buttons not obvious? - Are they placed where the reader needs them? Some form of CTA at the start, and at the end of content is a good idea 'usually'.

• Any signs of life? - Do you get decent comments, have you got a Twitter feed or Facebook box on the site? - People like to get involved in active sites, try to show signs of a community based in/around your website. If you haven't got one, try to leverage one!

Phew! That was a big edit, sorry!

Just to check the obvious, you didn't change any URL structure (of the pages) did you?

How much optimisation did you carry out on the pages, please show an example, as it is possible to 'over optimise', especially these days.

Thanks,

Mike.

Quick question regarding this issue (I also saw the corrupted anchors)...

Now when I view anchors to a URL in OSE, the data still looks corrupted, but even stranger, when I create a .csv download, the data is very different, with different anchors!

Is this a new issue, or just a variation of the existing one?

I have several reports that I need to create, and they require the OSE anchors data... Any ideas on when there will be a fix for this, as 'soon' isn't a good thing to tell our clients

To be honest, I love SEOMoz, but I really think that as this is a paid membership that is also targeted at professionals, then there should have been email updates etc about this issue, to keep us all in the loop... Come on Moz team, you can do better feedback than this, I know you can coz your great!

Have you seen the 'business case' template files that Econsultancy have? They have one for SEO specifically... Maybe a help? (Although it is from 2010 it seems! So maybe update any stats!)

http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/sem-search-engine-optimisation-seo-business-case

It does cost though, unless you or anyone in your company has a membership there?

Personally, I find that working out some basic figures on traffic increases with existing, and forecast conversion rates can help.

In addition, do you track what the leading competing brand is doing?

I sometimes find that whilst some folks further up the food chain will be convinced by the figures and stats, others will be convinced by seeing that their leading competitor is spending on SEO (this can be proved by measuring various metrics, checking out their social profiles, etc). I guess nobody wants to be the last kid in the playground chosen for the team? <-- Even with this though, having some stats on projected ROI is a very good idea, and yup, as Promoteam said above... presentation matters!