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Link to the most relevant part of the website, which may well be to the home page. If it is to the homepage, I'd suggest linking to www.northamericahvac.com and seeing if there is anything you can do to avoid the redirect.  Changing it will help your SEO in more ways than one - when people link to your homepage, it's not likely they'll link to the redirect and will just use the domain.  SEO aside, from a usability point of view, I think it needs to be fixed.

You can still get useful data directly from the AdWords keyword planner. In addition, you can see limited historical data from the Webmaster Tools report (CTR, Impressions etc), but be warned that this isn't the most accurate and reliable tool in the world. Sometimes the best keywords come from thinking about what your audiences' needs are and then using instinct to think about what search terms they might use to find your content. I will often use the AdWords tool to pick out a few keywords relating to the page and will then create variants that I believe are likely to be searched and are semantically relevant.

Often, content that is well thought-out and created from the sole perspective of quality (without keyword research) can perform amazingly. With semantics, it's becoming easier for content to rank based on the overall theme of the content, as opposed to individual keywords. Do consider the long-tail keywords that pop up in good quality content, too (this has always been hard to research anyway).

Good luck!

My advise would be to remove or improve anything of low quality, even if it has a good page rank/page authority. With search optimisation, I always think about the brand first and holding content of a low quality on your website will not help you in the future. Be sure to always think about content that will captivate, inform and provide value to your audience first.

Perhaps consider improving the content instead of deleting? And if you do delete it, redirect the URL to the most relevant blog post on your website and you'll keep some of that page's authority.

Making sure that each image has alt text would not be considered over-optimisation. With a site like yours, I would suggest using alt tag keywords that appropriately describes the image, instead of using specific targeted keywords too heavily. When creating your alt text, consider what the user might be searching for - and perhaps do a little research - but make sure that the text you're using really is directly relevant to the image, as opposed to the overall landing page.

Hi Gregory,

I like your thinking, but Google would then need to rely heavily on other ranking factors in order to establish higher authority between websites that have equally strong links in their top 100. There's plenty of websites that have equally fantastic, relevant and followed links in their 100 - how would Google decide which one is most relevant  and authoritative?

Thinking about it, it could become quite problematic. A new startup entering an established market with a strong product or USP might be able to acquire 100+ high-quality press links and suddenly level up with a competitor who's been in the game for years - perhaps even a heritage brand - and has the extensive portfolio of good quality links to prove it.

I like the idea, but I don't think Google uses its other ranking signals enough yet to take such drastic action.

Don't you think?

Hi there,

I don't seem to have that issue.

Are you clicking into the individual campaign then Search > Keyword Rankings? Or are you going into Research Tools section?

Agreed! I'm sure this update will come as a big sigh of relief to many. The giant image was completely incongruous with the rest of the site and quite jarring.

There's a lot of empty space on pages, though - especially the profile page. Don't you think?

It definitely takes more time, and can be hard to setup initially, but in the end it'll make life easier.

Outreach to bloggers can be really tough. With this method, you've got a foot in the door before you ask for something.

It's also great for general social development - who better to engage with than the people who have the audience!

Hi Rich

Tom's method is good, but I find that a lot of opportunities arrise from smart interactions and engagement with bloggers on social media channels.

I always find that you're more likely to be allowed to do a guest post for a blog once you've built a relationship first. It's a good idea to research blogs you want to reach out to and then engage with them without asking for anything first. Then, once you/ your brand is on good terms, float the question.

This is also a powerful way to drive blog publicity in a more general way, without even needing to provide a guest post.

I have had a few clients come to me about bad backlink profiles / google penalties.

Aside from manual removal and the disavow tool, I try and invert the ratio of bad links to good links. This can be a real challenge as there are often thousands of bad links to contend with, but I'm pretty sure that a link from an authoritative website helps to dilute the bad links a great deal.

If you change your domain, you're starting from scratch. But at least you're not fighting a penalty. This is something I'd suggest if there wasn't a single good link in the profile and if the change of domain name wouldn't cripple your business.

Thanks Nakul.

I'm quite aware that as long as Google can see the links, it's all good My frustration stems from a reporting point of view - a major reason why I have SEOmoz.

I'm finding that SEOmoz often doesn't pick up on many of the links my client's websites are attaining.

The links do appear in search engine and often have a high domain authority (often PR links, which I why I follow up to see if they've been picked up). I do tend to see many of the links appear in webmaster tools, so it's a little frustrating that they don't appear, even after months of pages being live.

Thoughts?

Wordpress - you can't beat it for most websites.

Wouldn't have expected Ashton Kutcher to ever think about SEO

Sorry, you were looking for ranking factors - I misread the question.

It is always best to think about what will be easier and more helpful for your visitors. However, you are more likely to rank faster with the strong domain with links to it.

I think you'll struggle to find somewhere that covers everything because good SEO's will be able to find unique and creative ways to get links all the time.

yes, that's right. I never put trust in Google PR anymore ; I don't trust the websites that give the rank. Stick to Moz metrics...

I don't focus too heavily on directories to be honest. If you add your site to any, pick relevant or local directories that haven't been built for the sole purpose of increasing a websites rank.

Yep that works, or just follow the link that says 'Go to Google.com'.