Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Martin,

I think Slick plan is a great tool. This makes it more of a drawing operation to create a site map .  Once the site map is completed you can export this out to XML.

Rin

Thomas,

These guys look good! Is their service as good (or preferably better) than Rackspace?  Are there areas where they fall short?

Always looking for good hosts!

Ron

This is an interesting problem.  I would take your Yelp idea a few steps further by creating a full set of local directory listings for both entities either through Moz local or manually.  If one of the entities is wholesale and the other retail I would definitely consider highlighting this when you write up the descriptions for these directory listings. If they are addressing different markets I would highlight this as well.

Another thing you may consider is signing up both businesses with one of the USPS business services as these require you to put in a unique FEIN number for each entity.  The fact that these are different entities will be highlighted in the USPS database as a result. The USPS database is key reference point the search engines utilize. So making it clear that these are separate entities in the USPS database should be helpful as well.

We are good at this. I have looked at your web site and have a lot of ideas of how to improve your performance.

Ron

503-208-0076

Chris,

We ran into this with another firm in the Seattle area.  They were using all the names their competitors in their meta descriptions and they did go so far as to include specific pages dedicated to each competitor.  In the end several of the companies went after them for copyright infringement as they violated their copyrights to create these pages. This is a more aggressive path but it is one you could consider.

Ron

Mark,

One of the mistakes I believe people make on e-commerce sites is a lack of content.  I would not look at a percentage I would  look at how many potential searches you can pick up with each page you add. If you have social media set up look at the benefits of marketing this content through these platforms.  An area people often forget is Video and picture content.  This may be a good way to show up on searches your competitors are not showing up on.

If you have competitors you want to get click share from you might want to look at Spyfu.  Their recon files program will allow you to see the key words and content that is actually getting clicks. They also have another tool that lets you look at your competitors paid advertising over time to see how their advertising has evolved. This might give you some good clues on your on line messaging and/or ideas for your own advertising or other marketing campaigns.

Hope this helps,

Ron

I took a look at the code and it looks like this would count to me.  One thing you could do to ensure there is a signal to analytics on these shares might be to track this as a conversion.

Laurie,

This is an interesting problem.  This is how I would look at it.  If these were bead and breakfast's with separate web sites and addresses Google would not penalize anyone for setting up multiple Google Local accounts.  On the other end if you had a single property and listed each condo as a separate entity and they all had the same phone number you would probably be penalized.  As you say this is in an undefined area so what I would suggest is this:

1. if there is a separate phone number and address for each location I think you are OK setting up separate listings. If they all have one office and one phone number coordinating the rentals I think you might run into problems.

2. If this is not the case what I would do instead is set up a sub page on the web site with appropriate schema mark up (schema.org) for each local address.  The pages themselves should have localized content for each address. It would serve you to have video as well as pictures with localized descriptions.  If oyu are doing blogs at a minimum I would set up your tags so that there is a tag for each location and create blogs specifically for each location. I would also consider setting up google authorship on your G+ page so that your localized content for each property is distributed in this way.

As far as the G+ profile this is is easy to set up under the Google account by simply filling out the profile information in the account.

Let me know if I am on track with my answer or if you require further clarification.

Ron

Dustin,

I would not try to game the system in this way as you may have unexpected side effects and actually hurt your rankings. Instead I would look at these subjects and ask the firm if there have been changes or updates relative to these posts.  Where there have been changes I would suggest you evaluate the value for each post based on possible revenue if they get a client, search volume and how this positions them against their competitors.  I would prioritize this updated content based on this.

I would add in a plug in that shows all the blogs on a subject and sorts them by date.  This way you may be able to simply write an update blog and then refer to the previous blog (the prize you should go for is to get comments on both ).  If the changes are significant enough I would write a new blog on the subject.

On all the blogs that are out of date I would have someone go in and add a comment in this regard with a reference to the update.

On the blogs that are older and not out of date I would add an amended post simply stating that the blog has been reviewed and that the information is still relevant.

This is not the only way to do things but my experience is that this more labor intensive approach that creates content is always the best approach.  With this approach my clients had an average of 45% traffic growth last year while increasing their conversion rate.

Let me know if you have any additional questions,

Ron

If this link is relevant to what you do and is useful to your target customer base do it.  A baseline rule I have is that anything that helps users get the information they need or makes their internet experience better it is worth doing.  I can't see how this would hurt as it looks like a credible link.

On a side note pay attention to the description you put in.  If it makes sense include references to your area or the areas that you like to provide services.  This will help this listing show up where you want it to:).

Darren,

I am not sure what industry you are in but I would suggest localizing the content.  This will help you avoid duplicate content  while providing a richer user experience and some local SEO juice. So I would incorporate references to local landmarks as well as anything in the area that affects how the category might be implemented. So for example a page about tomatoes in southern California might focus on fertilization to maximize production while a similar page in Anchorage Alaska might focus on how to grow tomatoes indoors hydroponically.  This is an extreme example but I thought this might give you the idea.  You want at least 65% on the content to be original even though it might talk about the same things.

Ron

Steve, What are you trying to accomplish with this type of directory? Ron

I believe this would resolve the issue.

Brent,

What I would suggest is moving the blog from the blog site to the main domain.  I would set it up so that people are automatically redirected to the main web site when they hit the blog (I think both Word Press and Blogger will do this for around $20 per year). I would import the content from the old blog and update the tags to make are they are consistent and that you do not have any duplicate content on the main web site.   This way you do not lose your old following and you start building inbound links and following on your main web site.

Hope this helps,

Ron

It does not help but I am experiencing the same thing.  It seems like they are doing an update or something.

Tammy,

First of all this is not a silly question, it is very astute. The problem/opportunity is that the search engines are in transition and location is just one consideration on your ranking in any given search.  The answer depends on what your ultimate goals are as well as where your client is at now.

What I have observed is that long tailed key words like SEO Phoenix are in relative terms easier than general terms.  As you improve your ranking factors in general relative to your local competition you will start showing up higher in the rankings. As these other factors improve more you will start showing up everywhere on more and more general terms.

So if your goal is just local listings just track the long tailed key words. If your goal is to rule the rankings universe on the searches your client wants I would track the general terms as well as the more specific long tail strings for your area.

because of my own megalomania issues I always track both ;).

Ron

They usually gather information for the reports on Wednesdays or Thursdays. My guess is that you will need to wait until then.  You might want to e-mail tech support to see if anything else is going on.

You know one thing you may consider if you have not already is using Google voice so you can track calls for lead generation stats.

I think you are referring to long tailed keywords. So instead of "exterminators" you might say "Portland organic exterminators".  This more detailed phrase targets your customers while creating a phrase that people are going to actually type in.  With the hummingbird update using natural language and descriptions as well as citing places in your area if you are a local business has become increasingly important.

Harry,

My guiding principle on all this type of thing is will this provide a better experience for end users.  In my opinion your URL set up would as it logically lets people find what they are looking for.  I would just make sure the navigation for the site takes advantage of this set up and gets users where they need to go.  So I do not believe this URL structure would hurt you.  it might actually help you as long as the content is relevant to the URL, meta description and tags.

Ron