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He was talking of links to the Facebook page. Thanks

Big showoff!

Just kidding, well done!

Robert

No, it does not matter what you choose so long as you choose one. In my opinion (I am one of the last baby boomers), my generation is more apt to use www than millenials. But, I have used non www since I knew it was irrelevant a long time ago.

So if you type in drumBEATMarketing.com in the search navigation you will see our site resolve as www.drumBEATMarketing.com. If we had originally set the preferred domain as non www, and you type in www.drumBEATMarketing.com, it would have resolved without the www. Just choose one in search console - (GWMT) and all will be well with the world.

No better UI/UX either way.

Best

I am not sure how he is getting backlink data for the facebook page or if it is in some way real what value that has as a social media page. I took two very well known companies and tried to run backlinks for their facebook url and in both open site explorer and ahrefs cannot get that data.

Do you know how to get backlink data for a Facebook page?

I look forward to hearing more.

It doesn't matter which you use. When you set up the preferred domain in the search console (GWMT), if you set as www, it will resolve as www. If you set as non www it will resolve as that.

Either way, when you type in www if it is non www as preferred, you will land on the preferred domain.

Best

Josh, 
You knew the answer before you wrote the question but it is a smart question. As someone who works daily in an agency and is responsible for most of our proposals, I see this regularly around link building, ranking, website development, etc.

Client comes in and says we need a new website and we quote $15,000. Client says we have someone who can build the same website for $5,000. "Fantastic, you will save $10K!"

Someone says we need to be ranked in top three of Google for our terms, how much will that cost? "I don't know as we do not guarantee rankings of any kind." Yes, you can add more to that, but you understand.

So, with link building if you know the others are guaranteeing X amounts of high quality links I am assuming the client told you this. If so, my answer would be "That is great, I have been doing SEO a long time and am unable to make those kinds of guarantees. I wish you the very best." Of course, you could be tacky, "Once that is finished, should you run into trouble, we do penalty recovery!"

I had to write this as it really is funny that people still don't get this stuff. Matt in our UK office said something the other day that cracked me up about a potential client who had a huge huge huge SEO problem and said they would pay $3k one time to get 2 million pages indexed within a month after they had gotten most of their pages to disappear somehow. He said, "Pay peanuts, get monkeys!"

Sometimes the monkeys will beat you out for a client; let it go and move on.

Best

Rafi,

Did you mean 20,000 likes? If so, then I am not sure what the worry is unless there is a ton of engagement on the Facebook page. I am not a social media expert but know a bit. I will tell you that there are thousands of companies that have bought gazillions of likes and they are not an accurate measure of anything IMO for that reason. If you look at things like amplification, conversation, applause, etc. you get a better idea as to the value of your social media campaign.

Before I change the page, I would investigate to see if people are truly engaging with the content on the page or if it is simply a company that heard they should be "doing social media." All too often that is the case and the social media has little real value for them. If they are in that category and a new name makes sense then change it and go for engagement.

Hope that helps,

Robert

Sorry I couldn't help.

From above DA is a factor and one that is very difficult for you to catch up to or surpass - BUT certainly not a massive % of the ranking algorithm.

If you did not want constructive suggestions, why even ask? You obviously already knew the answer you wanted.

Best

Magusara,

I think you are taking this a bit personally. Yes the pages above you are ultimately owned by someone even if that someone is a stockholder in the company that owns the page. The link you provide (https://www.gumtree.com/removal-services/bournemouth) has a page authority of 29.

When you complain about the authority reference with the Facebook example, you are missing the point. The issue is not 100% DA and you are fixated on that. Sorry, it is simply my opinion that you cannot fixate on the thing you say is insurmountable (increase your DA above theirs) and then say any other way to deal with the roadblock is in some way not relevant or that whomever supplied the suggestion is just wrong.

You are wrong about keyword difficulty. You say: And I disagree, who ranks above you is a reflection on keyword difficulty. Obviously if you are trying to rank #1 for the keyword "dog training", you are currently 2nd but no.1 is occupied by Facebook deciding to have a specific dog training page target for your area, it would be next to impossible to overtake them. Hypothetical situation but you get what I mean.

Who ranks above you is NOT a reflection on keyword difficulty. If today I erect a page that is purple dog jellybeans and I add content weekly to it. If in three months you erect a page that is purple dog jellybeans and index it, most likely, it will initially rank below my page. That doesn't mean that the term purple dog jellybeans is a competitive keyword.

That is determined by the keyword within the context of all the competition in a given vertical for that term. It is not determined by the site above you with a lot of DA.

Everyone involved in SEO on these Q&A pages have faced the same hurdles you are experiencing and all we can give you is our experience. Yes, DA is a factor and one that is very difficult for you to catch up to or surpass - BUT certainly not a massive % of the ranking algorithm.

The points we were making were to suggest you quit looking at that one roadblock (DA) and go about developing everything else that your competitor cannot. You KNOW the area the directory participates in. Use what your advantage is against them and quit being argumentative with those who only want to assist you. Focus is where we place our gaze and apply our energy. You are focusing on the roadblock of DA. We are suggesting you focus on everything else and make the roadblock cease to exist.

I will apply a golf analogy and then say goodbye:

If you are faced with water you must cross to get to the green with your shot, you can focus on the water or on the green. Ask any golfer where the ball goes if you are focused (caught up with avoiding) the water. Just a fact of life for me.

We wish you the very best,

Robert

Ryan

It appears you are wanting to choose where the reviews show in spite of where the reviewer left them and I fully understand why you would want to do this. I urge you not to do that. The reason is that the review was left where it was for a lot of reasons and moving it could truly mean that you changed the intent of the reviewer.

Place your markup on the page with the reviews then make the home page available to also leave reviews. Sooner or later you will get reviews there if that is what you want. 
This is not unlike an ecommerce site with multiple products, you can leave reviews on any of the products, but you don't want your review moved if you do.

I get that the page you are using will have the review content, I just do not believe it is a good practice to move it.

Robert

Magusara

In my opinion, if you wish to outrank anyone, you should first take a step back and not draw conclusions without first researching. You state, "...obviously the pages would have low PA and they are top based on the high DA of the site." If it is obvious, then why research to see what exactly they are doing? 
If you have spent any time on Moz's Q&A you will have seen ton's of "How is this page outranking me?" questions. The key to combatting those pages is to learn more about them than they know about themselves. You cannot do that if you assume or believe anything to be obvious.

Yes, I hate directories (when it serves me to not work with them) as much as any other SEO professional, but they do get many things correct. One thing you can do is grow your DA and yes, it will take a bit of time. But look closer, is everything as it really appears?

My point is this: Knowing they have an advantage is not going to assist you in combatting them, knowing what the advantages and disadvantages they have will help you fight them if you choose to exploit them. So, is it worth the time to fight it? If it is, then know your opponent and leverage your own advantages.

Hope that helps,

Robert

PS the keyword difficulty does not change based on who is above you.

Christy,

This is a very good discussion question. I think we have to look at the test Tom Coad did and ask is it more about Brand Awareness or more about a longer-term test of "pogo-sticking?" Tom is careful to explain the limits on any test like this and his data is certainly quite interesting. The fact Tom is looking in this direction says a lot about his thinking and I like it. For me, I just don't see it as a branding awareness experiment.

I would see that type of experiment as more where we take a branded product and see how their click through rate is for non-branded searches around their products. Once you had a baseline, you would do television and radio or print, etc. over a week in a given market. Then measure two or three weeks later to see if there is an increase in searches on the branded product or an increase in click through choices of the branded product (assuming the SERPs were the same as pre test). So, having been exposed to the brand over a limited amount of time, were people more likely to now choose that brand when it appeared in non-branded searches? Note: we are not even asking did they purchase it; simply, did they choose it in search more frequently than it was being chosen prior to the brand awareness campaign?

I think Google does take into account click-throughs to sites and if being a known brand on some level is possible, one should certainly work to that. I don’t want to get into an argument on CTR and ranking here as it is not the point, but if suddenly thousands of people are searching on a given subject and going to a specific site in that search, that site page does increase in the rankings for that search query. The ranking changes even if the increase happens in a day or period of hours in the case of news events, etc. IMO.

Working in a marketing firm that does branding work, etc. along with SEO and other digital marketing I am still amazed at how few companies understand or care about branding. For me this says a lot about how aware and forward-thinking Tom Coad's research is. It would be great if more SEO firms pushed companies beyond SEO or SEO and PPC. Many companies, if not most, would rather throw large sums at PPC, etc. and mechanisms that provide an immediately measurable return than to worry about tomorrow and what having a strong brand can provide. Coming from an area years ago that was all direct marketing, I fully understand why it is difficult to want to focus on branding. I have come full circle and we constantly push more and more of our clients to consider their brand and what it means in the marketplace.

For those who might be less about general marketing, when I say the client’s brand I mean more than name, tagline, and logo. What does Nike mean? What does Jaguar mean? What does Chase mean? What emotional connection does it create when people here it? Frankly, even if I am not a fan of Chase, (assuming I have no past experience with them) if I am in a new town and looking for a bank and the only familiar name I see is Chase, I have to believe I would be inclined to at least check them out (click on their result in the SERP).

To me, building brand awareness is not unlike SEO; it is longer term, but the dividends pay off over time and can be considerable. They are both a hedge against less active advertising times, etc.

This is certainly a great question and I look forward to other discussion on it.

Best

First, the assumption is that you are saying you have a page that is ranking for the term Blue Applesauce but it is ranking below the Red Applesauce page when searching on Blue Applesauce.

There are a lot of factors that can go into this: recency of content of one over the other, links to red applesauce may be stronger or more prevalent, the poorly ranking page may need to adjust on page SEO, etc. Also, while the readable content on the page may be the same, does one have better markup than the other, get more traffic, etc.

There is no one answer and certainly no one cause. Look at the content understanding that when you know your pages very well, sometimes you "miss the forest for the trees." So, have someone else go over it to see if they see it differently. Also, be clear that not all keywords are the same... So ensure the query you are using is very specific to what you want to find in search results. Adding any modifier like cold, great, tasty, etc. can impact which page ranks for Blue Applesauce based on the content and on page seo.

Now, if you are speaking about you have a page and are being outranked by a less relevant page that is someone else' you have opened an entirely different discussion: beyond the issues above, this one pulls in the subjective idea of what is relevant issue.

I hope this assists you to some degree.

Robert

Always happy to see an EGOL response. For me the issue really is one of credulity. When regularly I am approached by those who want to put something on one of our websites or client's websites I am always struck by how blatant they are and how assumptive they try to be. These we can call content marketers, but I like EGOL's reference - they are solicitors. They are not unlike when I was in another business and had a lot of customers; regularly people would approach with the world famous ... "VALUE ADD!" We were supposed to let them market to our customers for free because there world changing product or service was so massively valuable. I think my sarcasm tells you my answer to them was the same as my answer to any content marketer, good bye. Please stop the spam.

With requests to write something I am fairly cautious but do have a couple of known business or marketing blogs that I infrequently contribute to. Since they are publishing media on the web, I am fine with calling them publicists.

Interesting discussion you started Felicia,

Robert

Jon,

Given the issue you are having: Brand Confusion, I would consider changing the domain. If KauaiWeddingPhotographer or is not available, I am sure you can come up with a good domain name using variants on that. In fact if all else fails try GardenIslandWeddingPhotos or try a domain using hyphens. The closer you get to an exact match domain will not hurt you and I won't bother with arguing whether or not it helps. 
When you get the domain you simply need to follow the rules with handling the page to page 301 redirects, but if you have issues or questions, ask them here or PM me and I will assist gratis. (HI is a massively cool place to dive and I have done a bit there.)

Aloha,

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

I appreciate this and that you added two to three minutes. I was trying to avoid detail for fear of contaminating people's opinions. My discussion came up with a service business that wanted what we call an explainer video. In other words: this is the problem, this is the solution, and this is why we are the choice. 
Typically, I do not like these to run beyond 90 seconds and feel like anything closer to 60 seconds is better. The one for this client is animated, but we have another client who does videos and "stars" in them. They tend to be longer and, in agreement with your first point, I think they lose people.

Thanks again, EGOL,

Robert

I found your work on this quite interesting and I have wondered about it from time to time myself. A couple of things to consider are that many of us who have been on Moz a while have had points in time where we were able to be more engaged and others when we are less engaged. So the longer someone is on MOZ, they are less likely to have a consistent input. (Also, I appreciated Keri's input about former employed Mozzers, etc.) 
For me, as someone who has been on Moz a while, the real value has come from relationships I achieve as the result of contacting other Mozzers who posted or answered questions. Really, there are too many to list, but I can say there are at least a half dozen people that I met through Moz who are regular contacts for me. There are several of those with whom I have contracted out SEO work to who did/do a great job.

Another thing someone may have mentioned already is that if you were answering questions 3 or 4 years ago you would have gotten less thumbs up, etc. versus today as Moz has improved things like getting people to say yes or no their question was answered.

Thanks again for taking the time to aggregate all that data, it is quite interesting.

I agree, this is excellent. So, assuming that it is about their services how long are you willing to endure? Obviously, if they are not getting to a point, etc. you are going to leave before it ends no matter what. My interest in this is in trying to get clients to understand what works vs. what looks good to them. 
Do you look at video length when you begin to watch it or before you hit play? Does a certain length make you less likely to go forward?

Thanks as always EGOL,

Robert