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Well,

Sorry, your understanding is incorrect. Domain authority is just that, an overall value for the domain. So, if you go to a site where the links all come to a home page or the vast majority do, you are going to see a high PA for the home page PA. If that same site has 50 pages with few links you are going to see a lot of PA=1.

So, while the home page is important it does not outweigh the fact that overall the site is not that highly trafficked. This is a reason sites have trouble with conversions of inner pages sometimes.  All the value is placed on the home page and someone then has 500 internal links from that page so it does not even help the inner pages.

Remember this in the search engine world pages are ranked and not sites. So, PA is more important from that point of view.

Hope this clarifies,

Best

AWCthreads

I hate these kinds of discussions ... because I just have to respond. Its as if I have the angel on one side and the devil on the other - move on dude, no, no, say something (you know you have a perfect opinion)... etc.

But, what I find interesting about the post of VC is that it is only meant for one thing: to sell him and his stuff. The "I only did this because my 0 page rank two page sites were outranking my ..." etc.

When he talks about the 6 clients he has with 50 websites, and he says to people like me:  "I’m a huge fan, but what Rand recently advocated on his blog is just…totally misguided the total opposite to what is really working right now." and

"While I can understand that preaching “build good content, focus on growing your brand’ sounds great and it’s what people want to hear, for a HUGE percentage of search phrases, this is just no longer relevant. I just can’t take anyone seriously who mentions these things anymore in 2013"

Really? You can't? What do you take seriously? I have copywriters on staff so you can guess where I fall in the content debate (I did not realize there was one). At the end of the day, any site, any page is subject to one thing that rules the day no matter how super clever you are with SEO: If you answer a query in the meta description and then you give the person who clicked on it exactly what they wanted, you are going to do just fine with ranking at some point and probably some point soon. 
People make statements like this guy does to drive traffic. That is what he is doing. He mentions not using Rand's surname as if he is a stand up guy, but do a non personalized search on Rand and tell me what you come up with. Then do Rand, SEO and tell me. There are so many Rand's in the world...not.

So, let the guy have his few seconds to sell him and his knowledge. The easiest way to sell knowledge is to tear down others. Someone will always listen. So, quit listening to the dummies who say things from the Franklin mint will not appreciate, go by that coin set they just made - you are gonna be rich!!!!

Best

Edmond,

Having read your question and the response above I have one thing I would add based on years of marketing experience (not just digital): With any ppc campaign you should always be running A/B testing as a mechanism to either improve conversions or validate what you are doing. I think this is the most under utilized tool in all paid search. 
Running an agency I can tell you that we occasionally fall into the trap of not doing this regularly with clients who are being very successful. To me that means we are complacent and due to have a fall. So, I urge A/B testing.

Robert

It is really quite a simple answer. In WMT, Google gives you the answers for targeting a specific country. Frankly, Google did not require your server to be in the country you were targeting in 2012... Remember, Google is not saying any of these is the end all or be all of geo targeting. They state clearly each is a signal and each signal has a given weight.

The first indicator if you base it off of what Google says (and your question seems to be anchored by the search behemoth)... ccTLD is the first indicator they mention. Google further states it is a STRONG signal. Next is geo targeting. The fact that there is an option to tell them where you want to target and that it is second would seem to indicate that server location was less relevant than you waving a flag and screaming: Hey Google! Hook me up in Russia please! 
The third (But not last) signal is... server location, but they are very clear about this being not as strong a signal when they state, "Some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so it is not a definitive signal."

And, finally, there are other on page signals that Google can use to determine where you are targeting like phone and addresses on the pages, language, etc. (If your server is in the US, your site is a generic TLD, you have not geo targeted in WMT, and the entire site is written in Urdu, it is likely not going to rank well in Lithuania, but would have the ability to rank in Pakistan or Bangladesh).

Now the winner is ... sorry, YOUR PARTNER. Please by him a nice 5 button, 2000 vintage, Tokaji as a compliment to his SEO prowess...this time.

Best,

Robert

I have not used scribeseo but have looked at it. We hire and train copy writers regularly and our methods are simple. First we require a writing sample from all applicants and then we have any we select write a two to three paragraph piece on a topic we choose. This lets us know if the candidate can write prior to SEO.

Once we have them on board, it is our job to train them in basic SEO and we start with the SEOmoz Beginners Guide to SEO. The reason is that it provides a good background without us having to rewrite anything. It also gives them good page structure, etc.

Since we are an agency, keyword research is done by an SEO pro and when we start a copywriting project our url structure, etc are already fixed. When copywriters start out they are often first tasked with improving content on a given site or page and they are not allowed to post it until it has been edited. At every turn they are given feedback on what they have written. Frankly, I never thought I would have worked at a newspaper, but there are days I feel as if I am the city desk editor.

I am open minded, but do not believe there is an out of the box program that can create great content. Today the need is on being differentiated from a competitor. In order to do that we search for writers who have talent (often, this will be someone who has been writing a long time without even realizing they are driven to write). Once you have that, then you train, train, train. Eventually, you learn, learn, learn as they become good.

Lastly, you have to teach them that it is not about writing similar to other sites, etc. in the vertical. It is about differentiation and mechanisms to achieve it. On Friday I met with a group of copywriters on a new project we have that is rather large. Watching them light up at the thought of writing something truly compelling and new and then seeing emails roll in about, "What if we...." or "I was thinking about changing this around to look at it from ____ perspective." is really exciting. It makes me want to get up in the mornings.

Best

Yes you have. First, your content is the same on every page except for adding the city info. That is duplicate content and not good. You would be better served to use your home page as you are and mention the other three cities there. You can even use a link to a page telling how you have a truck in San Luis Obispo on every Tues,/Thurs. etc. 
Also, you need to go into Google and set up a Google Places account How to for Google Places. Go into Bing and set up a Bing Business Portal Account,  and then set up with Angies list, BBB, merchant circle, etc. These are going to help you a thousand times more. You can only set up an account for a business where you are located in that city. You can't do Atascadero and then set up accounts in other three cities. But it will help a lot in Atascadero.

Hope this is helpful.

edit added links

Chammy,

The KDS as with PA and DA are "relative" and are arbitrary to those creating the metric. PA and DA were created by Moz and not by Google. A pure example of this (and I swear I am not lying) is we have a client we have worked with that sells... hoes as one of their products. When you search on "hoes" and are not restricted by any geolocator, they rank well for the term against the same types (and many of the same) large big box retailers you see for hose. So, yes you can rank, but you have to be clever: Are you using structured mark-up (Schema) for your product, do you have aggregate review schema or an accepted review site streaming reviews to your site/page? Do you produce unique hose content? Do you have a hose video? Are your pictures ones you created and do you have correct alt text, etc.?
Never believe that DA alone means you cannot beat them; there are tons of Moz members who beat the big boys daily!

I hope this helps.

Robert

Hello Marie,

I don't think it is a bad idea and I have no opinion as to how well it might work. I had to smile when I read the first sentence to the webmaster. Knowing a few, I would have to say you might want to slightly reword it. It could be perceived as a bit of: "Noticed your ugly FB page and thought you might want to learn something; I will teach you for a link!" So, soften it a bit and try being a bit self effacing in the beginning. 
Hello webmaster, I am just learning the value of web masters and of linking and am trying to offer something in return for a little help. (Think of me as the internet version of the person on the street with the sign: Will work for food.) I have been told I am good at developing FB pages for business and if you had an interest, I would be more than willing to assist you with one for a simple link to my site. My FB page is here and my site is here........

So, that's my two cents worth. Let me know how it goes.

Best.

Fred,

I enjoyed your query here because it is something we have all faced either ourselves or when doing client work. NOTE: That your query is about Local but you immediately go to a State + KW which is not a Local issue. What you are doing in this respect is very good and keep it up. I will tell you a couple of things that we don't talk about as much that I think are very helpful as well: A quality meta description (please no one tell me about it not being part of the algorithm) helps you in that it brings traffic to the site. I stress with our team that you must always "answer the searcher's query" in the meta desc. Another key item is the URL structure in my opinion. If Solar Installation is important for ranking for you, I am going to do my best to have a URL with that early in the structure. But...

I think you answered yourself a bit when you said, "Based on data I don't actually think keywords like "solar + state name" are actually that powerfully but frankly it is bit embarrassing to get crushed by 1-2 person companies when you have a 150+ company with a three-person in-house digital marketing team." I would say a search for Texas Solar Installation would be worthless in Houston, TX. People don't search that way on the whole.

But the bigger thing is worrying about what the other guy is doing / where they are ranking and how many resources she or he has. I have had clients drive me up the wall because, "XYZ company is ranking above them for these 10 terms... " What is hilarious is the one that stands out the most was a large regional firm that we helped increase traffic, recover from huge Penguin issues, and increase revenues by double digits year over year and they could only focus on rankings for KW's.

I urge you to focus more on what you are doing and what business results you are achieving than worrying over where Bobs Solar truck ranks against you for Michigan Solar Guru.

Best

Gregory,

I will tell you that your dumb questions have been asked by others, me for one. So, where to get the answers: You are here and there are answers here. If we cannot give you what you need, you will find that Moz has a help hub. I tried how to set up branded keywords and it does provide some answers. Short of that, you simply ask the team. Now, you may end up on the Seattle VS. Portland SEO cage match page where you just have to decide which is the one that will offer hope. Well, having  been to both cities, I would suggest you choose based on the pics. With Seattle you have a whole crew coming from a fish market (if you like fish, well never mind re the smell), or with Portland, you have the answer to the question "touch or tackle?" ... figure it out, these cats can tackle some SEO.

But, I digress. You are in the Moz analytics section and under keyword rankings you need to click on add and manage keywords. Then manage brand rules. For your brand, I would suggest this: click include each that you have above. (one at a time). For my company, drumBEAT Marketing, I have it as drum beat marketing, drumbeat, drumbeat marketing, drumbeat marketing houston, drumbeat houston, etc. The reason is I know that if they are searching for anything related to drumBEAT, they already know we exist in some way and by virtue of that, it is a branded term. So, drumBEAT SEO, drumBEAT Copywriting, etc. are all branded terms.

I do it the same way for clients. I include their brand name, geo locator + KW + brand name, etc. If it is a domain, I include that so drumBEATMarketing.net, www.drumBEATMarketing.net, etc.

Last, you state: "I find these sort of unanswered questions almost every time I try something new."

Fantastic, now you can learn because you have questions. So, each time come to Q&A and ask the question. I promise you will learn more this way than by having example after example. You will be forced to think about what is the question and how do you communicate it. You will be nervous about asking the wrong question and you will force yourself to stretch a bit - before you ask the question - just to be sure you tried everything. (In doing that you may actually find answers we do not know of and we will learn from you.) You will see that SEO and using the myriad tools available for it means you are going to be asking questions for the next....few years at least. (I am still asking questions.)

I will also tell you that I in no way work for Moz, am not compensated by Moz (ok, thanks for the Tshirts Megan), and I do disagree with Moz and its team occasionally. Really. But, I can tell you I learn more here than anywhere so you are in the right place. Ask another dumb question, I dee double dog dare ya!

Best,
Robert

James, 
I noticed no one had even attempted to answer you and it has been 7 hours. I think there are a couple of reasons for this: the technical level required for url rewriting, the vietnamese language makes understanding a little more difficult (and good move on the url format in english), and there is no reason given as to "why" for the rewrite. So, what do you want to accomplish in making this change?

No one wants to give direction that could potentially lead a site like this down the wrong road. From looking at it, you are getting traffic to it and it seems to do well for you. One note, you might want to get some of your bilingual members to assist google in translating vietnamese as I am sure from using Google Translator, they need the help;)

Here is a link to a post in youMoz that appears to have some excellent info on rewrites. Note that you should also read the comments below as they seem to add a lot to what was posted.

I am fully open to any of the more technically skilled to smack this down, but I wanted you to at least have some direction. Note: If this is your first time at this level of technical change, you might want to consider at least hiring someone to assist you who has been down the road before.

All the best, I hope this provides you with at least a bit of assistance,

Robert

PS - If you do not get what you need here, as a pro member you can use a private question straight to moz. As you will notice from many of the associates to moz that answer here, their level of expertise is very good and they have assisted me on several occasions with good direction to a source or other info.

Craig,

Your issue is not uncommon but I would first suggest you reconsider your Title Tag structure and go with either product | location | brand (best IMO) or location | product | brand (OK IMO). Typically the keyword closest to the front of the Title Tag is attributed as receiving the most weight. If you want to optimize for searches on the company name, I would put it first. The cautionary here is that you really need to have a lot of searches on your company name if that is what you are doing. (In other words, companies like Nike, etc. should have brand first.)

The URL structure you have using sub folders is how I would go, but if you can take /product/ out as a sub directory that would be even better. This will typically depend on items such as your menu structure, CMS, etc. and is not hyper-critical.

Your concern re duplicate content is astute and there is a fix that is easy to implement. What you want to do is use a rel=canonical for the actual product you want to display. Google provides easy to do instructions in WMT/Canonicalization. You already have the url structure correct and for each you will choose which is the canonical for that product so you end up actually having the urls as you have here, and they all point to the canonical. With rel=canonical you are telling google, no matter what is here in the url, this is the page.

You stated that your problem as in some areas you can rank well for a given product/service and in another not rank as well. You also state you implemented Schema markup for each location that carries the item on product page. So what markup Type are you using: Place, Event, Product, Review...? If you are using product markup where you are having trouble ranking locally, and you are not using Place markup for a local business, you are missing an opportunity to help yourself.

If you have a B&M location you can obviously utilize that markup. You stated you have claimed the listings in Google Places for each location, is each location showing in maps? is each location showing in a seven pack (or whatever # pack is showing)? Make sure that you have correctly optimized each locally. Make sure you have not thrown in superfluous categories or geotarget KW's. You can make mistakes here that will work against your product pages showing. 
The moral of the story is the SEO moral: It is not playing a flute well, it is making sure all in the orchestra are playing well and at the same time and to the same tune. (OK, I just made that one up, gotta go copyright it!)

Hope that helps you out. This is a good question and I hope to see others respond as well.

Best

Good discussion Felicia.

As an agency we tell all of our clients that SEO is a tool within a larger toolbox. With a question like this there are myriad approaches based on what the business type is. For example with Service Area Businesses (SAB's) everyone realized with the recent changes at Google and with Amazon Services, that the world is much more dynamic than they wanted to believe it is. 
If you were in the 7 pack for plumbers at number 5 today you may not be in it at all and need someone to look at "More Places" in order to see you Locally.  With changes to GMB Local listings, changes to Adwords, the advent of Google Services, Amazon Services, etc. you have to start to ask: "What are you willing to pay to be found?" 
For any client we are optimizing for Google, pay some attention to Bing and, well, don't worry much about the others. We are suggesting things like Yelp with caveats where in the past we would not. Today one also has to consider app advertising, etc.

IMO as Google moves to monetize more and more of their property, they edge toward being the YP of this era. I mean this in the sense of 20 years ago many businesses felt they were forced to advertise with YP.  With that growth for Google and people potentially feeling marginalized by it, many more advertising mechanisms will open up and we need to be open to what those will be and to being willing to test them.

Thanks for good discussion question.

Jesse, I think Ray-pp does you a great service in pointing you to Moz recommended companies because obviously there are a lot of people who will immediately reach out to you as the result of this question. I am going to go an entirely different track for you and I will point to a firm that is not mine and explain why they would be a good choice. I also want to ask that you quit looking for a recommendation and start looking at what companies do.

Everyday, we talk with clients and potential clients about web development. Almost all have a story about the website that took a year or more to build or was never really completed. You have to quit looking at the companies that fail and ask yourself, "Why are they failing?" Those companies that fail will tell you it is because YOU did not get them the content. (Just think about that, "If it weren't for client's, they could be great at business!!")

You not getting them content is so much BS. It would have to be an extremely rare occurrence for content purely to halt the completion of a web dev project. The reason a project (for you, building a new or replacement site) does not go on schedule is because the company doing the project does not have a process for their dev team. Or, if they do have a process, they do not follow it. Understand if you call or walk in and ask, "Do you guys have a process?" they will all say yes. Ask simply, how do you go about building the site for me? How long will it take? Then wait for them to show you a process. Failure to show a process means: They do not have one.

When I started in SEO I never intended to go into web development or integrated marketing. Our company got into web dev out of self defense: I got tired of fighting "webmasters" or overlords over territory when trying to take care of someone's SEO. So, before I started hiring web developers I went to Distilled's website because I respected them, I respected things Will Critchlow had written - because they made sense, etc. I wanted to see what they did given they had to have experienced the same issues I was about to face. As a former critical care RN, I was sold on them. Because they had PROCESS. PROCESS. PROCESS. If a firm has a solid process, they will get the job completed on time. BUT - and this is a big BUT: They will be on you to produce as much as they are on one another. I got it from them, I have used it, and what Distilled does works.

I would ask anyone I was considering engaging a few questions: (First, call the company do not email. Call during business hours. Does a human being get to the phone to talk with you? If so you may ask these questions of them. If no human speaks to you during business hours, IMO they are not interested in your business right now. Sorry if that offends someone.)

1. Is your development team in-house or do you outsource? IMO - you cannot have the quality control with outside developers that you can when they are integral to the team that includes SEO's, PPC pros, copywriters, other marketing pros, Local experts, etc. That is a strong IMO. You must have an in house dev or dev team.
2. Do you have clocks? Yes, I am serious. A firm that is not tracking where every project is (projects on the clock) doesn't know when there is a failure. We are all going to have failures (including Distilled), the great company is going to know of it before the client does and they are going to practice something else I learned here from the Moz team - TAGFEE. In other words if they have a failure, they will report it to you before you discover it and they will have a plan of action to correct it and keep it from happening again in the future.
3. Are you active on any forums and if so, which? How active is active? - In other words are they learning every single day? EVERY DAY? If their team members are not on Webmaster World, Moz, SearchEngineLand, Linda Buquet's Local forum, etc. and ad infinitum, then they are not going to be up to date. That will cause failures and my guess is... they will not know it.
4. Who will run the project? (This is a trick question; do not tell others about it please!) - if they say you, I would take a pass. You are not a web development expert; why in the hell would they want you to run the project? why would you want to? You want input at every step (Distilled can show you a great input process at every step); they should want your approval at every step (I guarantee you Distilled will want your approval or they are going to let you know that your project is in some way sidelined). And that wanting your input and that wanting your approval will be the reason the project is done on time. Trust me please on this. When you get a sitemap or wire frame and you do not give approval, you are going to get an email that says, essentially, that your project is not moving forward until you either give approval or submit changes. If you submit changes, they will then ask again for approvals of their new sitemap, wireframe, comp, copy, etc.

So, that is what it should look like and that is a better answer for you than anyone telling you who can. Yes, I still believe that Distilled is a great choice, but now you can go out wherever and ask the questions that will allow you to choose even with no recommendation. Make sure you are all over them about process. Make sure there will be someone who you are going to be talking with all the time who is managing your project - ten people cannot manage a project.

I have to add this last part. IMO if you are wanting someone to beat a price or give you a lowball estimate, etc. that company that wins won't get it done for you. A good developer(s) costs money. You cannot build cheap great websites.

I hope this helps you out,

Robert

A while back when things had really gotten over slow, I asked the opposite. Today I go on Q&A and the feel is quite a bit different. I also notice other cool little changes.

I am wondering if moz did it just for me or is everyone seeing it???

As usual, steady improvement from the folks at SEOmoz. You guys are on.

Thanks

PS (For any who require uber speed, yes it takes about a second and a half for the response to load... I can live with that).

Lesley,

I know you and like you but this is TERRIBLE advice.

Google is fully aware of Regis and most larger virtual office suppliers. They are also aware of the street address look of UPS stores. I understand that people are doing it; I can show you a client who is large who cannot get his main office into the Local Pack in a major city due to trying to play games with this. He is a service area business in a major US city and he is the largest by double the next two competitors. This is a very competitive vertical. (Like wedding chapel Las Vegas.)

Because we are friends I know your business and I know that you are likely talking about an ecommerce company and that is a totally different issue from a wedding chapel. That wedding chapel will live and die with Local. An ecommerce site by its very nature does not; yes, local may help it and you may be able to game the system for a while, but that does not mean you should do it if you have a true bricks and mortar business.

Trust me this advice you are giving is the most dangerous kind there is with Local. I urge anyone who is considering this to stay far away from it. Do not believe because a few have gotten away with it that you will. If you are a service business and being in a Pack is important, you must consider with the recent update/change/Pigeon poop from Google that some industries in some cities have critical KW terms that now show a one pack. What if that business must be in the one pack to be successful and Google discovers the office is not real? It can affect everything Local.

Please do not give advice like this. Local is a true sub specialty of SEO and if you are not living it daily you should pass your clients to some firm that has a pro.

That is just pure experience talking,

Robert

Gareth,

This seems to be the question of the day. How to link, etc. By asking about link building companies, usually, people are looking for easy as opposed to quality. (I am not saying this about you, but drawing a distinction).

The main reason is that most people do not want to take the time or expend the effort required in good link building. The only other option beyond time and effort is $$$. For anyone to do a quality link building program it will cost you. So, if you are looking to pay some amount like US $ 500 or $1,000 and get quality link building, I am not aware of any who do it. I am open to seeing some though.

The other option is to go to a directory listing company that is trusted/somewhat trusted and have them list you with directories. (Not great option, but an option). Here is a list of directory sites: SEOmoz Pro Directory List, which was recently updated.

To assist you with linking and all that goes into it, here is a link to SEOmoz Professional Guide to Link Building. This will give you some perspective on why finding a quality link building company that provides a lower cost service is difficult.

We build links daily for our clients and there are days that I think we are still under charging (and we are not cheap). The reason is that it takes people to make all of this happen and good people cannot be had at a cheap rate. We have to pay good people well to do what is necessary to get the clients the quality links. We continually have to look at the clients and find new quality link sources based on what they do.

Good Luck, let us know how you work it out.

I found it! I know how they did it. Look at his desk!!!!!

There he is for the world to see! RogerBot !!!!! He's trying to hide behind the blue phone and the perfectly placed valentine shaped picture frame.

Roger Did It!

Ahhh, Juice vs. Rank....

Imagine Page Rank as the orange of the Internet. (The fruit;not the color

So, a given orange (page) only holds so much juice. A page may have as many straws as is possible so long as you understand that the more straws there are the less juice to go through each straw. Soooo, if an orange holds 10 ounces of juice (roughly 300 ml. for my more metrically inclined friends) and, if there is only one person with a straw.... lucky lady gets the whole orange worth minus just a tad that sticks in the straw.

But, imagine a lot of people are needed to make the orange grow and develop juice and they all get a straw. So, now there are ten people with straws. They each get a bit less than one ounce (again, some sticks to the straw).

But wait, there is more to this breakfast time analogy..... Imagine there is one person who is really loved by the oranges! And the oranges each give that person a straw! Well, that person becomes Minute Maid (Big orange juice company) as it has a thousand straws from oranges that hold an ounce of juice to ten ounces. As the result they have the most orange juice in the world. Notice Chris' picture....that is orange juice! Really!!!

Sitelinks are totally at the behest of Google. So, they may or may not come to you. Typically, it takes a bit of time but not always by any means. Are you seeing them when you search on your domain: your domain is HotTamaleFactory.com. If you search on Hot Tamale Factory .com and it comes up are you seeing sitelinks?