Welcome to the Q&A Forum

This overall was a great question and removes a bit of anxiety I'd been having. However, Donnie I have a followup - can you please elaborate on not using the exact keyword? Do you mean like "cat" in the url, "cats" in the title, "felines" in the H1... ?

Is this a known ongoing problem? My client still has weeks-old reviews that aren't showing up on his + Places page. I'm under the impression this problem is widespread? I wonder why it affects some businesses while others rake in the ratings?

Thank you,

Stephen

Craig,

Thank you for your response. I do get a lot of use out of the Optimization Tool, it's very helpful. As I noted in my above reply, I'm curious is a light index page can have a negative impact on a content-rich site, other than the obvious missed search opportunities that might come from additional content on the homepage.

EGOL,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I think we can all agree that investing in more quality content can help generate additional traffic/conversion opportunities. I'm curious though if that effort overall is hampered by a minimalist index page.

To use your story as an helpful example-  let's say you have a site loaded with pages with 2k+ word articles. Would a lightly-populated index page (less LA Times, more Big Background) have a negative impact, beyond the obvious missed opportunity for having that page have more content as well? We can assume the minimalist index page would have appropriate page optimization, including some content (just not lots).

Best,

Stephen

Curious for your thoughts on this - are there any SEO downsides to not having any substantive content on the home page (big background design)? We would obviously have appropriate page titles and link structure, etc.

Our guess is that if the home page doesn't have much copy, that odds are that other specific pages will tend to perform better for non-brand search terms, which seems OK.  If people DO find the homepage, it would likely be a brand search or an ad referral, in which case the minimalist, non-copy design would be conversion-friendly. Does that theory hold any water?

I suppose a middle ground might be a single H1 line unobtrusively on the page.

Thanks in advance for any insight, guys!

Sincerely,

Stephen

I'm seeing a lot about how SSL sites can negatively affect SEO from the analytics perspective, but if duplicate content issues are addressed and load times are OK, what else is there to worry about? Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you!