Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Should I still try to rank my page even though the image is ranking as the first image displayed in the google results. Absolutely YES.  I have lots of first image in the SERPs and first listing in the organics.  Both of these bring traffic.  That traffic is generally not as valuable as traffic from organic web search but you can still make money from it.  (Visitors to Google image search are given the option to view your image or visit your page.  Sometimes when they view your image that viewing is done on Google's website, sometimes the visitor is moved to your website.  Google is known sometimes to frame your website within Google image search.  Google changes how image search works from time to time and some of their configurations produce almost no traffic for the owner of the image.) Will this count against me by Google if I do? Absolutely NOT.   It may actually increase your opportunities.  You then have great content from web search and great content from image search.  They should want to show that page to everyone! Or should I try to make the image being ranked more enticing for google searchers to try to increase traffic? Absolutely NOT.   Get two images on that page and attack with both.  Three would be better.  Four or five, better still. As in other things, much of this depends upon how much time you have to spend on it, how valuable the traffic might be and whether you are reaching for the competitor's throat or farting around. 

Thanks for the response, the article already had these so I guess I'll just chock this one up as a "natural link from good content" win!

Thanks!

FYI, the "keyword I'm trying to rank for in my link example" is referred to as anchor text. Don't worry, I didn't know it either until someone told me. Also, you need to be careful with anchor text. The safest way is to get your brand in the anchor text, not a keyword. Too much anchor text targeted at a keyword could get you in trouble with the google. However, obviously, some matching keywords will definitely help your cause....as long as it is balanced and natural. In terms of creative ways to get backlinks, I would suggest you read Paddy Moogan's http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building. It has a lot of helpful information and ideas. Best, Ruben

Wow that actually worked!!!! Thanks you have solved the issue!

I just found another 1100 links from 800+ domains! This is getting ridiculous!

I'm not quite understanding the purposes of having two pages here. I took a quick glance, but it looks like the 2 pages are two different views of the same content. I would just consolidate the pages into one by 301 redirecting the text-based view to the graphical view that way everyone wins. -Mike

It takes at least a month in my experience to see changes showing in search results. I also see a lot of fluctuation in client accounts, so definitely look at average ranking trends over a longer period of time. Also, there are few external links to your website for the term "kayak fishing" http://awesomescreenshot.com/03112whz3f It's true the other domains all have kayak fishing in their urls, but you also have links with that term in your URLs too site:yakangler.com/kayak-fishing I would recommend trying to get links from quality domains using anchor text Kayak fishing and other phrases incorporating Kayak Fishing ("submit kayak fishing stories" for example), and linking back to the relevant pages on your website plus a few links to the home page. Just don't overdo it and keep it natural. You may even want to check in with a few Chamber of Commerce websites or local city/town websites, as they may be looking for content or resources for people who want to kayak in their area. Best of luck to you!

I have "Kayak Fishing Ultimate Resource" in my meta title, should it just be "kayak fishing"? lol and the " blahblah " was a fat finger which is fixed.

Links are the answer. The question is: How many links are you getting from the quality content you produce? http://www.yakangler.com/articles/news/events/tournaments How many of those people are bloggers? Do you have backlinks from them? If the answer is no, go get the low hanging fruit!

Yes, SEOMOZ search feature is powered by Google Custom Search.

Wow lots of different views on if they count or not...

You can do this via RedirectMatch statements. There is an example of different match types you could use here. Basically, you create a pattern and then the code is smart enough to redirect based on that pattern. http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/301-redirect-with-mod_rewrite-or-redirectmatch.html#301_Redirects_RedirectMatch Your redirect might look something like this though you might want to adjust the pattern match the directory in between /reviews/ and /item/. Mine is just a basic alphanumeric catch all. RedirectMatch 301 ^/articles/reviews/([-A-z0-9]+)/item/(.*)$ http://clients.qwconsulting.com/reviews/$1 I hope that helps.

I agree one hundred percent with Irving and Joseph. I would also ask you how your site is ranking and how old is the site and these URLs. You loose the age aspect of the URLs when you change them. You do gain the advantage and that's what you have to measure, the risk vs reward. Also, do you have inbound links / deep links to these pages ? And I am pretty sure you have the 301s in mind, I thought I'll mention, just in case. I hope this helps.

My simple advice: Create the best page you possibly can around a few of those topics. Make the page compelling and informative and then see what it ranks for. If you are focused on the basic topic (kayak fishing) the keywords will find their way in naturally. After a bit, you may notice one of the pages ranks well for 'kayak weight limit' and decide to make that a more prominent headline and include the exact phrase when editing. Some content ideas: Essential Gear for Successful Kayak Fishing Top 5 Kayaks for Fishing 8 Tips for The Beginner Kayak Fisherman Rigging Your Kayak for a Day of Fishing Make these pages be awesome. Put some nice pictures in there. Don't make them just because you want to include keywords. Awesome pages will earn shares and links. Helping you eventually rank for more competitive terms such as 'kayak fishing.' In the meantime, you will get quality long-tail traffic that you didn't even try to target.

Thanks for everyone's input!

You're welcome

I would suggest nofollow/noindex your tag pages.  A search for site:www.yakangler.com tag yields 73,800 pages.  In my experience G does not like tags.

Yes it looks like a technical issue with SEOMoz, about 2 hours later I received a new campaign report and analysis. Thanks for your input Paul and Keri.

On the OSE home page click the _View update calendar _link. The next OSE update is scheduled for  June 27th. Depending on when the issue was resolved on the linking site, the results may be removed on that update or the following one.