Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Bob

These are just suggestions, but I would focus on the following (more than 5, but they all help):

• Site structure - Make sure that your site is laid out and categorized in a logical format, with products/services being a short amount of clicks away. Don't make users work and make sure search engine crawlers can easily crawl and find important pages on your site. Here's a great resource from Search Engine Land.
• Product page title tags - Make sure your title tags on your site are using keywords or phrases that users are searching for. Do NOT overdo keywords and stuff them in. Make sure the titles are descriptive of the content with keywords or phrases at the front of the title. Also take advantage of branding in every title tag.Take a look at Moz's Title Tag best practices page.
• Schema markup - WebMeUp has a great article on Schema for eCommerce. This takes time and effort but pays off in dividends in the long run. You will need a web developer if you are not code savvy. Read more about Schema here if you are interested.
• Use meta descriptions - You'll hear repeatedly that meta descriptions are no longer ranking factors, and that's true. BUT, they still hold a ton of weight when it comes to users clicking through to your site from search. Think of your meta description as your sales pitch when a user sees you in search. HubSpot offers a great article on meta descriptions and Moz has a great best practices page.
• Social media - Make sure you take advantage of all relevant social media platforms for your business; meaning use the ones where your target audience is and engage in that community. Make sure you use a brand name, link to your URL in your bio, and also make sure that all relevant contact information is correct and up to date.  Here's a great Inc article to help get you started, as well as Moz's Social Media for Beginners guide.
• Business listings / Local citations - this is more if you have a physical store but it's also good for listings in business and niche driven areas. Use Moz Local or Whitespark. I have used both and they do great work.
• Partnerships / certifications - Make sure you take full advantage of partnerships that you may have and also find certifications that are relevant to your business. Both of these items signal trust to users and search engines, and can greatly influence both. This includes items Better Business Bureau, shopping cart or checkout safety certifications, and any industry certifications that separate you from your competitors.
• Secure site - This is especially important if you are collecting user information or transactions on your website. Google recently announced that they do use https as a ranking signal and give a little more weight to websites using https as opposed to http. Again, this is important because you are an eCommerce website. Make sure your site is either one or the other, not both.

Again, these are just suggestions to get you going. I listed relevant resources, so discuss with your team and web development team as these items take time and need to be prioritized based on your website and capabilities.

Hopefully these help - let me know if you need anything else, Bob. Good luck to you and yours!

Hi there

I would double check the following:
Internal links
Sitemap
Run a ScreamingFrog crawl and see if any URLs are redirecting to a subdomain page

I would also look into:
You can utilize the change of address tool through Google's Search Console
You can also request a removal through Google's Search Console.

When did you remove the subdomain? Are these Moz errors or Google Webmaster Tools errors?

Let me know - thanks so much!

Hi there

Here's what I would do. Conduct a backlink audit...

• Get a list of all your backlinks

• Majestic

• Moz Open Site Explorer

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Assess your backlinks

• What ones are obviously spam?

• What are your good backlinks?

• Do any of those good backlinks link to your old spam pages?

• You can use LinkRisk to assess your profile

• Reach out to websites with links you want to keep

• Have them correct the URL to a new relevant page

• Try removing links that are from spam sites

• Reach out and ask for the link to be removed

• Do NOT pay to have links removed

• Keep a spreadsheet of sites/pages you reached out to and those that removed links?

• Here's a good resource from Moz.

• Disavow backlinks that are obviously spam and could potentially penalize you

If you have trouble identifying bad links, ask yourself the following...

• Does this link help my website?

• Does it send quality traffic?

• Is this link relevant to my website?

• Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?

• Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?

• If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

• Are the links from directory templates? (example)

• Inspect URLs with blatant spam words

• Free

• Porn

• XXX

• Submit

• Directory

• Paid

• Links

• URL

• Sex

• etc.

• Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs

• This can usually show link farms or spam

• Don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag

If you have issues doing any of the above, look at Moz's Recommended List as there are a ton of qualified professionals that can assist.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

You can also go through old backlinks that point to the old URLs and update those accordingly so that your new URLs are getting the full effect.

Hope this helps - good luck!

Hi Peter

I am a big advocate for Schema.org. I have seen great return in the areas I have invested into it and so have others based on this Search Engine Watch article.

Here is the blog markup for schema.org and it's various properties, including BlogPosting.

Here is a resource from w3resource on implementing Blog schema and one for BlogPosting from Jeremy Walker.

Overtime, Schema.org tends to get more and more granular, so please do read through the schema.org site so you can take advantage of all it has to offer and discuss with your web development team. Remember - while every BlogPosting is an Article, not every Article is a BlogPosting - as shown by the Article variations on the Full Hierarchy page above.

Also - after implementation (preferably on a staging site), you can use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to test your markup and see if everything is being read properly.

Hope this all helps - good luck!

Hi there

I am going to echo Martijn's question here - it's kind of hard to follow what you mean.

For me, making sure information on your social profiles are up to date, correct, and verified helps search engines connect information back to your brand's online presence.

If you want to track the performance of your social platforms you can take a look at Social Analytics, tagged URLs for posts, Buzzsumo for performance and competitor research, and Followerwonk for Twitter analytics.

I would also make sure you learn more about Facebook Insights and Google+ Insights so you can learn more about your performance on those platforms.

Again, you're not using social for link building, you're using social to build brand awareness and engage directly with your target audience. You're humanizing your brand.

Hope this helps a bit! Good luck!

Hi there

Well the canonical tag would help Moz understand that this page isn't duplicate, that's why I mentioned that tactic.

As far as Search Console, I was just trying to help get you other angles covered.

I would try canonical tags and see how that goes over on your next report.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

I would look into the following:
SEMRush - You can check out competitors in different regions / countries, how they rank, and what content of theirs in performing best. You can break this down by Google properties in different countries.
Majestic - See what kinds of links competitors are getting in different regions / countries, and what their top linked to content is. This will help you prioritize what content is working best and least for others in different regions.
International Keyword Research - A great webinar from Moz that discusses different tactics and processes for international keyword research. Lots of good information here.

Understand the basics of international SEO:
International SEO - Get the basic understanding of international SEO and how to approach your efforts.
International SEO Checklist - A great checklist with everything from strategy to measurement of your efforts.
Establishing Your International SEO Strategy - A great resource from SEER Interactive discussing different tips and ideas to have a successful internation SEO strategy. Includes content and understanding your audience.

Telling search engines regional targets:
Country Targeting (Google) - Target your region specific URLs for Google.
Geo-Targeting (Bing) - Target your region specific URLs for Bing.
Hreflang (Google) - Helps Google understand your alternate region website variants and how they relate to your main site.
Language Tags (Bing) - Helps Bing understand your alternate region website variants and how they relate to your main site.

Hope this all helps you! Good luck!

Hi there

Your site will be crawled based on the weekday that you started the profile. As far as I know, there is no way to reschedule your crawls.

If you want, you can look into ScreamingFrog to crawl your site live as it stands.

Hope this helps - good luck!

Hi there

If you have unique products, you should make sure your on-site SEO is unique as well.

That being said, Inflow has a great resource regarding duplicate content for ecommerce, I suggest you check it out.

Hope this helps a bit! Good luck!

Hi Faye

I would focus on the following:
On-Site SEO (site seems to be heavy anchor text optimized - no branding in titles)
Local SEO (Moz)
Content audit (Moz)
URL structure (no site structure or hierarchy)
Internal links (you have quite a few redirects happening)

When was the penalty lifted? You can check out this post from Moz called After a Link-Based Penalty is Removed, Will Your Traffic Increase?

Things like this can take time but it sounds like you're on the right path. I would review the resources above and stay on top of your backlinks. Hope this helps somewhat - let me know if you have any other questions or comments - good luck!

Hi there

First, nofollow links are not a waste of time, if they pass the following questions:

• Does this link help my website?

• Is this link relevant to my website?

• Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?

• Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?

• If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

• Are the links from directory templates? (example)

• Inspect URLs with blatant spam words

• Free

• Porn

• XXX

• Submit

• Directory

• Paid

• Links

• URL

• Sex

• etc.

• Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs

• This can usually show link farms or spam

...then that is a link I would consider obtaining.

Second, I would take a look at this resource from Moz. Going through this will help you in the following ways:

• What your user looks / act like
• What kind of content they like
• How they digest that content
• Where you should share that content
• How often you should be writing
• Where you should look to link build based on your audience

Here's another great resource on personas to help you. What it comes down to is knowing the type of content your audience wants/needs, and where to find them to get it to them. Once you get that figured out, the rest is just finding a way to keep up!

Hope this helps you! Good luck!

Hi Bob

I am just speaking from the safety aspect - if you have site-wide links coming from multiple websites, however you want to handle it is upto you. I am just speaking from the experience aspect where a client had a large portion of their backlink profile were from development links.

Remember - you are inheriting potential low quality metrics from other sites if you leave links follow. If client sites have spammy metrics or backlinks themselves, you could potentially be attached to that. While it's unlikely your clients will build spammy links or black hat SEO, the possibilities are there, and I'd rather ere on the side of caution.

Just something to think about! Good luck!

Hi there

There's no right answer for this. You'll see homepages and sites ranking with little to no content, and some with novels. If you have images on your homepage, talk to your web development team about bring the text out of the images to live on top of it so it can be crawled. Also, mind your image optimization.

I would focus more on your bounce rate - if it's high, maybe you need some persuasion. Your analytics are your best friend here. You can also test different content or layouts.

Quicksprout has some great tips as well that don't discuss the length, but how much it takes you to persuade the user - there's no "best practice" length, it's just what you need to get your point across and what you need to get the user to continue to move through the site - check it out here.

I also highly suggest this resource from SEOBlog.

You should read through this ranking factors study from SearchMetrics where they break down the average amount of text/content on pages for the first ten results, just remember that this isn't universal or gospel, your audience and what they are searching for is a unique ballgame.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi Nico

As you said, ideally this would be a /blog situation, but as you can't do that right now, here is what I would do:

• Apply the rel=publisher tag

• Link to the blog from the main site

• Make sure the main site is linked to from the blog

• Preferably the company logo up top

• Keep the design and experience consistent

• Same colors / logos / company information

• Make sure you have cross domain tracking set up

• You can utilize schema on the blog with references to the main company/site

• Publisher

Right now, as far as I can tell based on your question, this is the best you can do. Hope this all helps! Good luck!

Hi there

Take a look at Hotjar and VWO, they have different surveys and poll opportunities for you to explore.

Good luck!

Hi there

I would utilize reviews on applicable product pages that have reviews. If I am looking at a stereo and your showing me reviews for TVs, I'm not really going to find it useful. I would find a way to display reviews to the right product. I wouldn't worry about duplicate content at that point, since the product descriptions should be the bulk of the content on the page and those should be unique to the products.

I'd also talk to your team about implement Schema for enabling rich product snippets. That will help tie proper reviews to the right product and display in search.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

This is more from a search standpoint and how much of your title will show. If your titles are getting the main point of the content across in SERPs, with keywords toward the front of the title, then you should be fine.

That said, I would not add too many or repeat keywords as this could be consider over optimization and keyword stuffing, which can trip spam filters, and it will also make your titles long.

Here are some tips from Moz on title tags, there is also a tool to test your title tags and their appearance.

Hope this all helps! Good luck!

Hi there

You want to showcase your work and versatility as a web designer and developer, so yes, you want those pages indexed. Keep in mind - people aren't on your site to buy products from your clients, that's not your site's purpose; they are there to view your work and see how you can help them.

If for some reason users are coming to your site to view your client's sites for window shopping purposes, something is very wrong somewhere.

If you have multiple portfolio types, use keywords relevant to those portfolios, as well as the industries your client's are in - "auto website design" / "ecommerce web design" / "sports web development" - be natural, be authentic, be honest with your tags. Make sure your on-site SEO is spot on when it comes to the content that is contained in your site. Talk about what your clients wanted, how you helped them, and the results that came from it - you're selling people on buying from you as a web designer/developer - it's your time to shine and brag!

There's a great guide from Yoast on SEO with their product, please read it.

This is my two cents on the topic - hope it helps a bit! Good luck!

Hi there

Follow backlinks are links that pass equity to your website. Nofollow backlinks do not, although sometimes search engines ignore this, although rarely.

Here's what I would review if I were you:
Learn SEO (Moz - your website needs a lot of work) Learn Academy (Moz)
Follow Links Vs. No Follow Links: Should You Care? (Wordstream)
Beginner's Guide to Link Building (Moz)
The Hidden Power of Nofollow Links (Moz)
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Nofollow (Moz)

One thing I will say - do NOT ignore getting links because they are nofollow. I really want you to know that. Reason being, a "good" link comes in many forms - one of those forms might potentially be "nofollow". I highly suggest reading this post from Rand Fishkin regarding link building, a lot of it still stands. I added some of my thoughts on this subject in another question and answer on this forum, please read.

Again, as your site needs a lot of work, I would heavily focus on your design (especially responsive), your architecture & internal linking, and looking at your analytics / Webmaster Tools to learn what is bringing users to your site, so you can have a guided strategy.

Now, there is a LOT here. You have a lot to catch up on - that's totally fine! But please, read everything here, learn as much as you can, and don't be completely set on only doing link building out of the gate.

Let me know if this all helps! Take your time, have fun, and good luck!