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I too also agree with the above.

To me the best solution is serving images of different sizes and resolutions based on device and connection speed, this way the customers should get a balance between speed and quality.

E.g. serve a x2 res image on retina or retina equivalent if the speed dictates that this is an option. alternatively, if it is a slow device connection, say via limited broadband speed, serve a lower resolution/file size to ensure at least something is delivered in an optimised speed.

I would suggest playing and finding the right balance for your site and market.

Finally, I find that using SVG images is the best for gaining a speed advantage.

Cheers

Tim

Great answer from Roman about how no-follow links work, also of note is what the purpose of the link is. On numerous occasions I have opted for a no-follow link on a great blog or page, if I feel it will help add relevant information and thus help users who may be reading the content.

If you feel the no-follow link does not provide value to the article and will not drive additional traffic then it is probably not worth it.

Cheers Tim

I have found this .htaccess solution on Shortstack - it may solve the issue, but you will have to check as I have as yet not had the chance.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^\xC2\xA0/?$ / [L,R=301]

Or if you have to use mod_alias:
RedirectMatch 301 ^/\xC2\xA0/?$ /

Let me know if it works.

Tim

I currently use rank tracker from  seo powersuite as i can track everything I need in there against 5 of my competitors. Another good alternative is SerpFox.

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Hey Judd, I also agree with Martin.

I would suggest reducing the number of articles on your homepage. The homepage is more of a gateway to introduce further primary content, services and products of your site. A space to sell and entice your audience. I think by having so many articles you are potentially causing more distractions that necessary.

More content about your business and services would also be more beneficial than the blog content.

Maybe just have a single row for your blog, featuring a single article from each of your categories. That way hopefully you will enable your services to shine a little more whilst still retaining some peripheral related content seo value.

If people are searching for your blog content and you rank well, the articles themselves will predominately be the landing pages rather than your home page.

Hope that is of some use.

Cheers

Tim

First of all nice new site, I love the look and feel....

As far as content goes, is it a fresh approach or have you used the exisiting body content and meta details from your previous site. As for what I can see via MOZ, the majority of the key indicators suggest your site is in an already strong and healthy shape. Personally I can only assume it is a particularly difficult market to be in. Especially in London. have you done some research into the top 10 to see just what they are doing different from yourselves? And have you considered trying to do more local search techniques to see if that helps.

Cheers

Tim

Personally I have not heard of these guys... but if you have reservations I would probably not bother. After all they have no genuine web content of their own and cannot even update their website footer with a real address and phone number.

Have you got anyone performing any monitoring on your site?

I cannot personally, but my brother-in-law's agency has gained a gold partner status with them here in the UK. He has been talking them up to me for a while and has never had a bad word to say about the platform. If you have any particular questions - would be happy to get his thoughts without any sales pushes etc.

Agree with the above, if you are generating better, more relevant content that expands on your topic and answers the frequent questions your audience asks, (maybe checkout GSC for these questions) then it should be fine. Make sure you monitor your site closely for a period to ensure nothing is tripping up.

If you are looking to rank your home page rather then specific pages for both current and newly targeted keywords, I would suggest these are set up to be tracked so you can monitor multiple ranking movements both prior and post change. Hopefully with better content you will move in the desired direction.

I have done a few bits in Magento before and found it relatively easy to develop further and include new elements, pages or blocks.

At the end of the day Magento is a hugely customisable and very good e-commerce platform, so I don't think the system is the problem, it would sound like you are being held back by your developers. As per Franciso, I would suggest looking for a few new developers to help you with the system.

If you are constantly trying to further optimise your site such as with a/b tests, better UX, UI, SEO and more then I would consider setting up an in-house team that can concentrate on it full time and that way you update as and when required not months down the line.

Hi Barry, further to your note about volume, whilst it is good to be adding new content, short or long is not necessarily best. I would rather focus on genuine quality and answering a users intent over adding lots of content that may not serve or fulfil a users needs. Have you performed an audit on your competitors site, are they answering topics or user queries better? And what content are you serving? Are you in a niche market?

I agree, that it shouldn't really hurt from a content perspective providing existing elements remain in place, but make sure you consider that by adding a barrier to the downloadable files, this could lead to a higher bounce rate for the page.

Bounce rate I believe has been considered as having a potential part to play in the algorithms for a while now. As such monitor what affect the changes have and you can always look to roll back should you see any signs of a drop taking place.

Possibly not solely for Brand but there is one for organisation which could be interpretted as brand in some instances. Maybe have a look into utilising it. Organisation Schema

Personally I am not massively familiar with Alibaba, however, if it is anything like Google in the organic SERPS, then just because you have your star rating in place does not mean it will be displayed. Keep the ratings scheme on the chance things change and it gets displayed in the future.

You may not be merging sites like I am contemplating doing but you are looking to change domain names etc and fullfilling a rebrand.

Thomas has provided me with some great points when performing the move to compliment what I already knew. A move does not simply involve changing your Google+ local page, but a whole host more which has to be considered.

Might be worth reading.

http://moz.com/community/q/seo-considerations-for-merging-two-brand-website-into-one

You can get a bit from www.semrush.com, but you are limited a bit with the free version to a number of sessions per day.

Good luck, hope you find what you need.

According to Barry Schwartz over at SEO Roundtable, he has had it confirmed that Penguin rolled out on Sunday Afternoon... official announcement is due to be today.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-3-19313.html Lots of people are apparently taking a hit, so far in my niche it has remained relatively stable, but this maybe due to it still rolling out. Only time will tell, but I am hopeful that I will see some gains.

I don't normally tend to put a time-scale on being competitive, for me it is more a case of if you site is built and optimised to the best of its ability then you should soon begin to climb. There is no reason why it could not be a as little as a few weeks if you nail all of your items down well.

Ensure you follow some of the quality guides that you can find on Moz, to get your site in the best condition possible to give you the best opportunity to climb well.

1. https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo 2. Moz guide to link building - Paddy Moogan
3. How to Rank - Cyrus Sheppard
4. Lots more in here and all over the web. 

Some great points from Roman.

Also of note! How old is your site? Are you providing rich unique content that serves the customers needs? Office supplies if a very competitve market and can take time for your SEO to take effect.

What are you looking to rank for? your brand name or products anc product categories?

I used to work for VOW  (Then - Post Office shop, Caboodle, FindMySupplies) and Mamas and Papas here in the UK and invariably the home page was pretty much reserved for brand traffic. I would imagine you ideally would want your category and product pages to be the main ranking pages giving the customer the quickest route to basket.

Cheers 
Tim