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Many thanks Alex, already on all of the points mentioned above but always nice to get some validation for plans of action... half the time that's more satisfying than coming up with them!

Sorry again I should have been clearer it is not really the meta data I am concerned about at this point more the benefit of on-page content. I think the bigger issue is that for organic search traffic card pages are almost redundant and focus, as Mike says should be on the range pages which should encourage browsing.

Although in additon there is the issue about the card page lacking in enticing content which could reduce the chance of a conversion. Becuase this is a predominently visual subject pehaps I am just worrying about the lack of text as it fundamentally goes against usual SEO rather than benfitting usability.

Apologies, I should have said greetings cards, so this is indeed very helpful, thank you

We are redeveloping a website for a card company who have far too many products to write unique descriptions for each. Even if they could I don't think it would be beneficial to the user. However they do have unique descriptions for each range which is useful for users viewing an individual card.

Which is better practice:

a) Ignore the duplicate content issue and supply the user with info about the range

b) Provide clear enticing links to find out more about the range which will leave the individual card page a little void of content.

Many thanks

Thank you for your response I understand and always try to follow your points so I suppose my questions is actually: Is the duplicate content of the title describing the company/ site detrimental i.e pages from the same site competing for the same search? So if all pages contain the phrase "commercial estate agents" because that is what they are, would it be seen as spammy and would the pages compete against each other?

For one of the core service searches I have three consecutive results for different pages including the homepage. Is this a good or a bad thing?

My point about humming bird is whether further explanation of the page would be more beneficial than explaining the website? For example is

Birmingham Commercial Property Tips | Commercial Estate Agents

Better than

Birmingham Commercial Property Tips | Help find the perfect premises (ignoring length)

This latter solution has better contextual information making each HTML title completely unique but does this weaken the site's ranking for Commercial Estate Agents?

In light of Hummingbird and that HTML titles are the main selling point in SERPs, is my approach to keyword rich HTML titles bad? Where possible I try to include the top key phrase to descripe a page and then a second top keyphrase describing what the company/ site as a whole is or does. For instance an estate agents site could consist of HTML title such as this

Buy Commercial Property in Birmingham| Commercial Estate Agents

Birmingham Commercial Property Tips | Commercial Estate Agents

In order to preserve valuable characters I have also been omitting brand names other than on the home page... is this also poor form?

A client has found another SEO agency promising various things to do with link building. Most of these promises are based upon links from sites with allegedly high page ranks. So my questions:

1. Page rank seems to be fading out am I safe to stay with PA and DA metrics instead?

2. I don't agree with link building tactics and feel that it should more a networking activity to provide USEFUL links to users... am I being too white hat and missing opporunities?

3. The other company have promised long list of links including 100 SEO friendly web directory listings, 200 PR 8 back links from Pinterest (which i thought was no follow) & 10 long lasting and high quality mini web sites (with three pages/posts, video and pictures). Am I right that this all sounds a little spammy or is this really what I should be doing for me clients?

Many thanks, that is what I have been trying to explain to the client but they really are concerned about the penalty even though I can not see any evidence of it.

I am in the process of sorting out the their blog and a useful guide area so this will really help my argument.

A client has recently switched to us for their SEO and is hugely concerned about their previous company's link building efforts.They say that they have recently removed over 300 links but OSE still lists 160 links.So three questions:

1. How long will it take for OSE to recognise if the links have been removed?

2. How great could the effects of this be on the site's rankings?

3. If we continue to struggle with getting the links removed would Google's disavow tool make much of a difference or are there negatives that sould be considered first?

This does indeed seem like an excellent solution that we can use for the featured item on the homepage. Thank you

I do, however, have this pending sense of doom that I am not going to be able to convince the client. I suspect that they want it permanently visible on the homepage if not in the footer.

These links are fundamental to the current site goals will I get penalised if they are added to the footer? If so then it will definitely help persuading the client.

Thanks again for your help

We are redesigning this site http://www.crystalshop.co.uk/ but not reinstating the ecommerce yet so the primary aim of the site is to increase foot traffic in the shops. The list of shops on the RHS of the homepage is really messy  but is useful. I would like to move these to the footer... is this a bad idea?

If this is, is it a bit of a gamble to move it to the bottom of the homepage rather than higher up as it is? We are already featuring a link to the shop finder page but I want to get the locations in as prominent place as possible but it's quite a long list!

For the specific client I had in mind, although the enquiries have doubled in the past year they still only get less than 70 a month which I don't think warrants the weeding. 100+ and I completely agree. The phone number is the most prominent, as the only method of contact featured in the page header.

This is a usability question more than SEO but I thought this community would be the one to ask.

Are completed conversion rates generally higher for contact forms or email enquiries?

I try to encourage our clients to have short contact forms where possible to ensure the first contact (ask questions later).

Personally an email seems like a giant daunting and potentially irrelevant enquiry that could get lost in the plethora of spam emails flying around. Also half the time I start the email and then give up.

Many thanks! I have tried with custom segments in the past but got confused and gave up. In doing this it has helped me clarify how I evaluate the data.

My keyword ranking have dropped and it is the perfect incentive to give them a kick up the behind to right some new content! I will also talk to them about a link building budget as currently their investment is far too low for a site of this size.

Thanks again for your help very much appreciated.

I do a lot of work for a large estate agency based almost solely in London. They get a considerable amount of traffc and all other stats, on the whole, are always positive. The only thing that is decreasing regularly is the percentage of new traffic.

My understanding of user behaviour for this market is that no one in their right mind would make an enquiry or arrange a booking without a) looking at the property at least twice themeselves (once to before the enquiry and once before a viewing) and b) more than likely show a partner. Plus the site is well laid out and useful so I believe users are favouring our site over the comparison sites.

So  questions:

1. Should I be panicing

2. What is the most efficent way of increasing new visits?

Things to note:

The HTML titles throughout the site are a bit of a mess - key word rich but too long and inconsistent. Could this be a contributing factor to the CTR?

Also in the past month we appeared in over 4k different queries but our non branded impressions are down 22%. Could more concise, less keyword stuffed HTML titles help this? Do I need to look at the page titles to ensure that they contain the exact phrases that are in decline?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

It really is bizarre, the number of unique keywords or queries is as follows:

Google Webmaster Queries (in webmaster) - 77

Google Webmaster Queries resulting in clicks (in analytics) - 18 (406 in total)

Keyword clicks to the site (in analytics) - 125

There must be something I'm missing!

I understand about the Google log in but, unless I have misunderstood your response, this also applies to the keywords that have driven traffic to the site.

Why are so many more keywords showing in my analytics than queries that resulted in click? Is this not the same data? Is this where I am going wrong?

Can anyone clarify why my list of queries from google webmaster tools varies so much from the keywords that have resulted in clicks?

I have a site that, according to Google analytics, has had clicks from 125 key phrases where as in webmaster tools (via analytics) allegedly only 17 queries have resulted in clicks. Is it becuase GA can't handle less than 5 clicks from the webmaster data or is it something else I am missing?

The site I am researching for has very little traffic from other search engines.

Thanks for your help. A lot of the pages that are showing up with these errors relate to search results or to the submission of a contact form so it's not about attracting traffic more making sure nothing detracts from the site as a whole.