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5000 words on one page is, to me, too much so it's a good thing that you are shortening it.

1000 words should be enough to write the informative content you need, with the appropriate keyword content What I wouldn't do is try and talk about too many things whilst sticking to a stringent word limit. Rather than that seperate them out into seperate pages as you see relevant. That way your content will still be relevant, good and focussed.

Something to think about regarding effects on page rankings. If you cull your content too much, so much so that it is no longer good content, then I could see this affecting your bounce rate significantly. Be careful about over do-ing it, but I would much rather see a page with 1000 words of content than 5000.

It would be the knock on effects of shortening your text I would look at, rather that the sole issue of 'less text'.

Danny

In an ideal world you wouldn't have to seek directories, however we aren't there quite yet and so they will give you a small boost in the meantime (whilst you are trying to build up other links).

I noticed that they were payable when I looked at them, I think from the point of view at SEOMoz, they are saying 'if you are going to use directories, these are the best'. Obviously the people that run them know that and thats why they can charge.

It would all depend on what you can afford. If $150 for a small, but likely, boost seems worthwhile to you then go for it.It's something that depends on the business you are working for and the situation (are links the thing what are letting you down)

It's more grey than black, there are much worse tactics you could employ towards link building.

I would say take a look at this first http://www.seomoz.org/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization. It's a great You Moz blog which will deal with exactly the questions you are asking.

Hope it helps!

Dan

I don't know if I would agree with the point that people using it would also be against clicking through paid links. I use it and am not adverse to paid links in any shape or form. To be honest I wouldn't even see them as spam. My using of it was for ad's popping up on videos, etc. Intrusive adverts.

I would like to think I know my way around a computer, but if I didn't even realise it will block the paid ads then I wouldn't even think of 'allowing' it. You would have to know that to notice and allow! I take the point though, I just find it curious that it would even class sponsored links as an Ad to block. They aren't an inconvenience.

Been wondering for a while why sponsored links were not showing on my firefox browser, I had previously been running Adblock as an addon to stop ads on youtube, etc.

As a test I disabled it and like magic adword links are showing again. Assuming programmes like this will get larger, and seemingly include adwords in the ad's it targets, would that be the end of effective PPC advertising? I have run other ad-blockers before and not lost the paid links.

It's not an unpopular program, and the target audience reduces everytime somebody new installs it. Mountain out of a molehill or a genuine future problem?

Hi David,

Forgive me if this answer is totally wrong/simple.

Could you not click on the links for a certain page using the Moz toolbar? It gives the total site links but also an option to open up the OSE for that particular page. Problem would be that you have to get to the page first!

Dan

If you use 'page elements' found in the Moz toolbar there is a good chance it will bring up their Meta Keywords data (LOTS of sites still think it works). Should give you a good idea of what they are optimising for.

Hi Simon,

Whilst having an 'A' on page grade is great, it isn't too difficult to achieve and by no means guarantees rankings on it's own.
Look into improving your PA/DA, work hard on improving the quality of links to your page and domain, with good anchor text as a start.

Also don't forget about the Google products (which are featuring on the first page). Interact on review sites and get your company listed. There is a blog post below which should help.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-rank-well-in-google-products-search-a-big-list-of-places-to-get-reviews

SEO is a sum of many parts, pay attention to them all, not just one.

Good Luck.

Danny

Thanks for all the response guys, it's been really helpful.

It looks like I will be heading into this meeting with a much more informed decision.

Cheers for the reply Gareth.

Assuming our domain authority wasn't impressive. Would tailoring 4 websites towards each specific service actually allow us to increase our domain authority? Essentially allowing our content to be much more specific on each domain? Or would it still be better to keep everything under one umbrella in your opinion?

I would say take a look at this first http://www.seomoz.org/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization. It's a great You Moz blog which will deal with exactly the questions you are asking.

Hope it helps!

Dan