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Mcarle, the blog post you reference only mentions issues with the rank tracker and the Pro reporting system.

There were issues with OSE that delayed the release of updated metrics - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/linkscape-index-delay-explained - but the most recent Mozscape data was released on May 1 - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/mozscape-update-our-largest-index-yet-159-billion-urls

IKHO, with the delays in the release of the new Mozscape data, it's very likely that the data is a little old and SEOmoz just hasn't had a chance to index the links you created for you new site. The next index update is schedule for the end of this month - http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/25141119/Linkscape%20Schedule

I work for a company that manages websites for several hundred small businesses. We do a good job with on-site optimization but don't do any link building for our clients.

Occasionally, clients are in desperate need of links and ask us for recommendations. I've had a tough time finding a balance between quality consultants and affordable prices. I understand that link building campaigns, in general, carry a hefty price tag, but of our clients can't afford any of the big name agencies.

We've also had a few of our clients get burned recently by bad link building and I don't want to point them in the wrong direction.

Does anyone have any recommendations for companies or freelance consultants that do good work without breaking the bank?

Thanks!

Tim

Hi Reda,

Not exactly. Google doesn't determine rankings just by looking at how well optimized a site is for individual words. They look at many other factors both on and off the site, so it's really hard to say why you're ranking slightly higher for one.

To be honest, I wouldn't stress over individual keyword rankings too much. You'll end up driving yourself insane. With so much personalization in search results today, what you see in search results isn't necessarily what someone else will see. I think its better to look at overall trends and just make sure you're moving in the right direction.

Tim

I also like the Google Analytics IQ Lessons. They won't teach about the principles of SEO, but understanding your analytics is a huge part of quantifying the performance of your SEO work.

Hi Marty,

I wouldn't worry about it too much. It doesn't mean that Google thinks your website is all about dollars or that you'll start ranking for dollar-related keywords. It's just a list of the most common words Google found on your site, and in my experience, it's not a very useful feature in Webmaster Tools.

There's also a "Significance" bar next to each keyword. I would bet that "dollar" might have a lot of occurrences on your site, but Google has assigned a low significance to it.

If you really want to get into analyzing the content on your site, you might want to look at something like the the Moz Page Grader (https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader) or Scribe (http://scribecontent.com/).

Tim

Thanks, Tom! We try to do our best with educational stuff, but a lot of our clients tend to feel overwhelmed or just don't have the time to do link building themselves.

I've recommended companies from the SEOmoz list, but they're usually too expensive for our clients. Maybe I just need to do a better job of setting pricing expectations when I recommend a company and explain that quality work comes at a premium.

Has there been any research done on CTR for written descriptions vs. snippets grabbed by Google? Personally, I hardly ever look at meta descriptions when searching for something. My judgement is mostly based on the title tag.

Logically, it makes sense that a well-crafted description would be better, but I'd like to see some hard evidence to back that up.

Hi Bob,

Marcin has you on the right track here. You first need to decide what the objective of the website is. The Thank You page used after a PayPal transaction should definitely be used as a destination URL goal, but you might also want to track smaller goals like contact form submissions and email newsletter subscriptions. Both of these could easily be tracked through Thank You pages as well.

Tim

Raven is a good tool for various SEO strategies, but I'm not sure I would recommend it for rank tracking. Raven just grabs their ranking data from your Webmaster Tools account and puts it in a pretty chart for you. You can get the exact same data for free by logging into Webmaster Tools.

We use Authority Labs for our rank tracking. It's really powerful and flexible and keeps your historical data so you can watch your ranking trends over several months or years. Pricing starts at $49/month - https://authoritylabs.com/pricing/

The Keyword Rankings tool in Moz Analytics is also very good. It can pull in data from Google Analytics so you can see how rankings are directly impacting your traffic.

On the free side of things, SEO Book's Rank Checker extension for Firefox can cover your basic needs - http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

Hope this helps!

Tim

Hi Bob,

Looking pretty good, but there are a couple things I would change. First, move SEO at Current Employer above Web Designer. I usually show my most recent job first and then go back through my employment history in reverse chronological order. However, if you're specifically looking for web design work, it would make sense to keep Web Designer first since it would be more relevant.

Next, I'd try to make your Major Accomplishments sound more...exciting, for lack of a better word, by replacing standard words like "used" or "learned" with strong action verbs. Some examples:

• "Got used to a lot of very useful tools..." could be, "Conducted research and analyzed campaign performance with expert knowledge of various industry tools including..."
• "Bob is a fast learner and kept up to date by being active with Moz" could be, "Maintained and expanded SEO knowledge base through active participation in the Moz community."
• "Learned that content is #1" could be, "Gained valuable insight into the importance of content as part of an overall Internet Marketing strategy."

Here's a good list of resume power words that might give you some ideas. It can be a little cheesy sometimes, but when you're looking for a job, every little bit helps.

I'd be happy to give my input on your other Major Accomplishments if you'd like. Just let me know!

Tim

Hi Arthur,

I believe you're just talking about management of your Places pages, right? If that's the case, it's totally fine manage both under one Google Account. In fact, this would be preferable since you'll be able to view stats about your pages and make edits in one location.

Tim

Hi Joel,

There have a been a couple great articles on the SEOmoz blog this year that should be able to give you some ideas. You should definitely check them out.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-links-with-video-content

Hope this helps!

Tim

Hey Tommy,

I don't think no-indexing and re-indexing a page will have a negative effect on its ability to rank. As long as all the same ranking signals are in place (links, mentions, on-page optimization, etc.), once it is added back to the index, it should have the same strength as it did the previous year.

As you mentioned, the algorithm will most certainly change over the course of a year and you might have new competitors surface during that time, so I wouldn't expect it to rank in the same position. But your plan for dropping it from the index and re-adding should be fine.

Tim

Hi Hardley,

Yes, you can! In Moz Analytics, go to Search > Keyword Rankings in the sidebar. Once that report loads, go to the Ranking tab (see attached). This will bring up a list of all your keywords. Click on one of your keywords and it will take you a report that shows the historical rankings for that keyword over the last several weeks.

Tim

dgwa1GG

Hi Jeroen,

I'd be very careful about placing sitewide links on all your client sites that point back to you site. This could easily end up hurting you. Here's an example where WPMU.org was hit because they were doing something similar - http://moz.com/blog/how-wpmuorg-recovered-from-the-penguin-update.

I think the best thing for you to do is add a "nofollow" tag to all the links from your clients' sites that point to your site. This should help protect you and then moving your site over to Server A won't be a problem either.

Hope this helps.

Tim

I think you should always share your guest blogs over social media as a best practice. The blog owner is doing you a favor by post your content (and hopefully giving you a link). The least you can do is help drive traffic to their blog through social media.

As Erik said, "Most of the time i'm proud to have an new blog post, so i post it also to facebook." I couldn't agree more. If you're not proud enough of your work to share it on your social media accounts, you need to rethink your guest blogging strategy.

You could also take an extra step and submit the URL to social bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon.

I doubt you have to worry too much about articles getting indexed. As long as you're dealing with a fairly reputable site that has their basic SEO in order, your article should get indexed pretty quickly.

Hi Paul,

You're not able to get any keyword information out of "not provided" keywords not matter whether they are branded or not.

One work around that can give you a rough idea of branded vs. non-branded keyword traffic is to look at what page your "not provided" traffic landed on. If they landed on your homepage, they probably search for a branded term. If they landed on a product page, they probably searched for a term based on the product name.

It's not perfect, but it can help give you understand what's going on. You can find instruction on how to look this info up here - http://www.prontomarketing.com/2013/09/unlock-your-not-provided-keyword-data/

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Tim

I go for the agency representing a client position, but I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say about this. I've often wondered if a message directly from the client would be more effective.

Hi Bob,

It probably wouldn't be hard for Google to go after sites with over-optimized alt tags - although I'm not sure they would think it's worth their time.

What I generally do with alt tags is try to describe the image and if possible, include keyword(s) naturally. If you're picking out relevant images for your site, this shouldn't be too hard, but I wouldn't try to stuff keywords into every little icon.

For example, if you have a computer repair website and the main image on your homepage is a technician working on a computer, you could use "computer repair services" as the alt tag, or if you wanted to be really descriptive, "technician repairing computer" wouldn't be bad either. But you probably don't want to force a keyword into a phone icon next your contact information.

The point of alt tags is to describe images that search engine bots can't see. So as long as you are being descriptive and not stuffing keywords for the sake of stuffing keywords, you should be fine.

Hope this helps.

Tim

Hi Gary,

You can find a really good answer to this here - http://moz.com/community/q/can-geographic-location-of-web-server-affect-in-seo#reply_66282

In short, it is best to have your server in the location that you're targeting, but it won't have a huge impact. I would imagine that as the years have gone by, server location has become an even smaller factor. Tons of websites use CDNs and host internationally and Google is smart enough to figure out the location that they're targeting. You can (and should) set your target location in Google Webmaster Tools as well.

Hope this helps.

Tim