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This often happens if there is a redirect inbetween the sites and so the referrer gets lost which would account for that difference. It could also happen if you have a 404 or slow page so no GA visit is recorded but that would lead to less of a difference.

I would suggest adding active tagging to the link and as above reply, ask for a free extension. By active tracking you just need to add the following 3 query parameters with meaningful values such as: ?utm_source=DirectoryZ&utm_medium=PaidLinks&utm_campaign=FooterLinks

The traffic would then be tracked accurately and you can see it in the campaigns report.

It is certainly good to use descriptive names and alt text for images.  Partly because of google images searches that can bring in traffic extra organic traffic.

I find the Rank Tracker tool really useful for this. Put in the keywords you are interested in then tick "track history". It make take a while for things to change but you can see what has happened. You are also not restricted to the weekly ranking update so you can do it now and capture the current rank of your old site before launch.

Unless your domain is really strong on car keywords I would include car in the URL, assuming the URL is not that long. Although Google is moving away from exact match into symantic search it seems to be happening slowly and we have certainly seen improvements in ranking by having some exact matches.  So I think as longs as you don't have the exact same phrase in all places on the page there isn't much danger. However, the best pratice is to test and learn, make the change and see if it improves the ranking.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need anything more?

Hi

Google for privacy reasons have stopped passing the keyword for organic search.  There are some ways around this and MOZ have done a White board Friday on it: http://moz.com/blog/100-percent-keyword-not-provided-whiteboard-tuesday

If you have Google Webmaster tools you can see the clicks and impressions for keywords in that.  You can also use landing pages report in Google Analytics (with an organic search segment) to give a clue to the keywords used.

Hope that helps and let me know if you need more?

Thanks Chris and ImWaqas, I'll keep plugging away.  Is it fair to say that with some keyword optimisation to get to grade A and some internal linking it's easy to get to page 2 but to get to page 1 there needs to be some out reach or social programme?

I've found a lot of times it does not take much activity to get a keyword from ranking on page 3 of Google or further down to page 2 but there seems to be a hurdle from page 2 to page 1.  It is very frustrating to be between 11 and 15 but not being able to make that push to 9 or 10. Has anyone got or seen any data to justifiy this?

I like the way Amazon puts a few of the most helpful reviews as a lot information in a reviews is pointless with lots of them just saying great or rubbish.  It also puts the latest in a side bar so you still get those. Amazon also gives a balance of critical and favourable.

I think a 1000 on a page would be too much and I can't see how that wouldn't slow the page. I'm also not sure how Google deals with high words counts.  I know that keyword density as a key factor is long gone but it is still a factor so it you swamp the page with unhelpful reviews it might negatively impact the page.

Hi

Have you tried adding a text link to the page from your home page? You could have some SEO links at the bottom to "popular" pages you want Google to take more account of. We have seen small improvements when doing that. A few external links to that page would help event more. We've also had sucess with social sharing of pages, particulary on Google+.

Hope that helps?

Ok one is to get user reviews and questions/answers for products. With lost of products it can be hard to get enough content for each one, but getting buyers to add content saves time and helps with keywords you would never have thought of. There are a few software vendors that can help with reviews, bazaarvoice is one.

Hi

Google for privacy reasons have stopped passing the keyword for organic search.  There are some ways around this and MOZ have done a White board Friday on it: http://moz.com/blog/100-percent-keyword-not-provided-whiteboard-tuesday

If you have Google Webmaster tools you can see the clicks and impressions for keywords in that.  You can also use landing pages report in Google Analytics (with an organic search segment) to give a clue to the keywords used.

Hope that helps and let me know if you need more?

They are called site links and I'm sorry to say you can't control if they appear. Google gives them to popular sites. See Google info on it if you need any more https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/47334?hl=en

Hope that helps?

Unless your domain is really strong on car keywords I would include car in the URL, assuming the URL is not that long. Although Google is moving away from exact match into symantic search it seems to be happening slowly and we have certainly seen improvements in ranking by having some exact matches.  So I think as longs as you don't have the exact same phrase in all places on the page there isn't much danger. However, the best pratice is to test and learn, make the change and see if it improves the ranking.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need anything more?

We've also found putting the google+ button on the page helps to get it indexed faster.

I suspect Google have lumped it in with Iraq and/or turkey.  The next level down from country is city, so you might be able to work out the traffic from Kurdistan by summing the cities traffic.

Hope that is of some help.

Some of the social media icons can slow the page load down which is a conversion rate optimisation no no. So it is best to put at the bottom in my experience, so that it doen't hold up above the fold content loading. This is particuarly true as, unless you have uber cool content, don't expect too many interactions.  I would certainly include google+ though as you may get some SEO benefit.

This often happens if there is a redirect inbetween the sites and so the referrer gets lost which would account for that difference. It could also happen if you have a 404 or slow page so no GA visit is recorded but that would lead to less of a difference.

I would suggest adding active tagging to the link and as above reply, ask for a free extension. By active tracking you just need to add the following 3 query parameters with meaningful values such as: ?utm_source=DirectoryZ&utm_medium=PaidLinks&utm_campaign=FooterLinks

The traffic would then be tracked accurately and you can see it in the campaigns report.

You might have to wait till MOZ crawl again. Google crawls a lot faster.

What are peoples thoughts and ratings on SEO agencies in London. There are so many of them it is hard to understand which are the best.

Yes good idea to add code before going live.  Worth creating two views (profiles) one where you filter out the local hostname (domain) traffic and the other where you only include the live hostname traffic. This means you won't mistake testing traffic for real traffic.  Let me know if you need any other help on doing that.