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Hi,

I am also doing the same with my blog and Social media.  I share articles I find interesting on Twitter.  As you are establishing yourself as someone who shares good stuff, maybe you can throw in one or two articles of yours, generate some traffic and let others people learn more about your website.  Furthermore, people would appreciates that you share their stuff and might follow you on Social Media platforms and if you do throw in some of your articles in the mix, people who followed you might do you a favor and share your articles or link to it.

I think what you are doing will help benefit you in the future as you are establishing your own image.

Thank you for voting my answer as good answer.

You can simply Google "Free Wordpress Responsive Themes" and you will find a bunch of recommendations.  However, in my opinion, I like the following themes:

• Free Structure Theme
• SilverOrchid (I think there is a problem with their recent update)
• Designfolio
• Unique Theme
• Twenty Ten
• Eclipse
• Yasmin
• iTheme2

Hope you like the themes above.  Enjoy!

As long as the directory is not spammy and have a decent authority, the link from it wouldn't hurt.  However, majority of the directories on the web are usually spammy; therefore, I suggest not doing it and try other backlinking strategies to earn your backlinks.

Furthermore, if you content is unique, then submitting to directories would cause duplicate content.  Overall, provide unique contents and titles if you are really planning to do directory submission.

Hi,

I would suggest WPTouch but since you used it and seems like you didn't like it, maybe try WordPress mobile pack.  However, most of these plugins will convert the layout to posts. I believe most of the free plugins works that way as well unless you get a developer to develope one for you.

If you want people to view your website on the mobile and look something similar to the desktop version, I suggest you find a responsive theme.  When it detects someone viewing in mobile, they will change the look of your website and make it more simplify.  This will be the best way to go or pay someone to create a mobile version of your website for you.

Hi,

You should not do directory submission at all due to the low authority links it passes on.  However, if you do decide to do directory submission, I would suggest having evertyhing unique or close to unique meaning different title, different description, different content, and etc.

As long as you have a chunk of similar content, Search Engines will pick it up as duplicate content.

Hope this helps a bit.

Hi,

Based on the OpenExplorer Tool, it seems like the sites are linking to them on the keyword "Blue Nile."

However, based on Rand's prediction on Google using Co-Citation, it seems to make sense.  It may be because other sites are mentioning Yellow Diamond by Blue Nile without linking to them and Google sees that or used Blue Nile as anchor text and linked but Google is still picking up that Yellow Diamond is associated with Blue Nile.  Therefore, it is ranked 4th.

Hopefully this solve your curiosity.  I actually learned something new as well.

Hi,

I took a quick look at the website and actuallly did the search on Google.  Although the word "Yellow Diamond" is never mentioned in the text ,but they did use yellow "text text" diamond (such as Yellow Radiant Cut Diamond) and from what I see, Google is picking up on that.  Furthermore, I see that they also used Yellow "text text" diamond for the Image Alt Texts and Image URL  which are also factors for on-page SEO.

Furthermore the keyword yellow "text text" diamonds are mentioned a lot of times in the related items section.

I understand why you wondering why although they didn't use  "Yellow Diamond" on any on-page factors, but since you are familiar with SEO, you should know that backlinks are really important to ranking factors as well. I just used SEOmoz's research tool to check on bluenile.com's linking and saw that they have a lot of backlinks from high authority sites.  I believe that is the reason why it is ranked 4th.

Edit: I just saw the video that Tyler mentioned in his answer and it seems like it applies to this situation as well.

Hope this helps!

Hi David,

Your home page might be receiving more backlinks than the keyword targeted page and Google might think that your home page is a better result to the searchers.

Another thought I have from what you described about the theme you used, the posts pops up on the home page.  So does that mean it is part of the home page and it doesn't have its own page.  If that is true, then it might also be a reason why Google is showing your home page and not your targeted page.

First hypothesis might be a better guess.

Hi Steve,

Could it be that while you are cleaning up your website for SEO such as changing the Title Tag and H1 headers that you removed the keyword "purple bananas'?  Did you have these keywords on some of your on-page factors and recently removed it?

Hi Mark,

If A,C, and E's page is similar to B,D, and F's page it is still consider dupllicate content.  Based on Webmaster's definiton:

"Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar"

Each of your pages should be unique and different from other pages.

I suggest you to continue providing quality content and target the long tail keywords.  That alone will help you generate more traffic.  Furthermore, out ranking is not a problem.  You should focus on getting to the frist page (providing quality content with long tail or regular keywords) and when you are on the first page, try to get searchers to click on your link using Title tag and Meta descriptions.

Out ranking just means they are ranked 4th and you are ranked 5th, 6th but as long as you have a better title tag and meta description. I believe searchers will click on the more attractive results.

Hi Mark,

Creating 100,000 pages is definitely good for Search Engine because you have a lot more contents for them to crawl and have more chances your pages might show up on related keywords.  However, the problem is do you have enough unique contents you can post on all those 100,000 pages.  If you use similar content, I am afraid it will be duplicate contents.  You may think changing up the town names will be enough but it might be risky.

If you can create 100,000 unique contents, Sure go ahead.  If not, don't take the risk of duplicate contents.

Hi Joel,

There are not much more specific things you can do.  The type of SEO you do that target US will also work in UK like creating content with keywords, on-page SEO, joining UK's social networks, sharing, backlinks and etc.

One suggestion I can give is the language you use.  Although people speak english in UK but the way they spell may be different; for example, "optimize" and "optimise."  Same meaning but different spelling.  SO make sure your content includes the spelling people use in UK since that might be the way they search.

Hi,

I see it that diversifying the anchor text will make things look more natural instead of looking like trying to target a specific keyword.  Furthermore, by mixing up the anchor text linking to the a targeted page, you are targeting multiple keywords that are related to that page.  Hopefully, that page can be ranked for multiple keywords.

Directories may not be a game changing strategy but to a certain degree it might still help.  I would suggest staying away general directories that is very crowded or looks busy but submit to niche directories or professional directories that can send quality traffic to your website.  Even if it doesn't help with SEO, increasing traffic is a good thing.

Hi,

I don't believe paid links are bad and you shouldn't be worried about whether those link are considered as paid.  However, why people believe paid links are bad is because paid links are usually low quality links that may harm your website.  However, if that single "paid link" is from a high authoirty, non spammy website, then Search Engines will see the link as high authority.  They won't know whether it is paid or not.  I believe that is one of the myths about link building.

In your case, if you provice a sample to a blogger and they decide to write a review about your product and link to you, I believe it is ok and won't harm your ranking IF the blog is relevant to your theme and the blog is not a spammy blog and have some sort of authority.

What you should be worried about is not "buying" spammy and low quality links.  Spammy and low quality is the keyword.

Hi,

1. Blog links are still important in a way so I believe you can say it is worthy. However, since most blogs have no=follow tag, you don't get any link juice but by providing good and informative comment, it helps build your brand and direct peopleto your website.

2. Off Page strategy is not simply build backlinks.  By commenting on blogs and participating, it helps your brand build awareness and possibly increase traffic as i mentioned above.

3. As I mentioned above, majority of blogs don't give link juice in comments but people still comment because they want to participate in the community.  It is another way to help your website or brand indirectly.

I believe you get the point from the answers above.  Comments don't affect SEO but it still plays a role in marketing strategy such as building brand awareness and recognition, making yourself look like expert in a field., hopefully increase traffic via links and simply like to participate and network with other smart people.

Hi Simon,

Setting up a ccTLD is definitely the best approach but it seems like it is anot a solution.  How about creating subdomains or subdirectories for each location and use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tag and Google Webmaster Tool to Geo-target?  The tag and the tool will tell Search Engines that these content are for people in these location in these languages.  It should avoid duplicate content and you don't have to use 302 redirect.

Do you think that will be a possible solution for you?

Hi,

Do you have different sites targeting different countries? Or do you have a main site but with different folders or subdomain for different location?  If it is the former, you should purchase a new ccTLD that targets that country.  For example, if your site targets people in UK, you should buy a .uk domain.  If it is the latter, you should include rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tag and use geotarget.  These two methods will help you avoid duplicate content issue.

I believe the bigger sites that you mentioned are doing this thus they are still safe from search engines and are ranking pretty high.

Google understands sometimes you just can't rewrite something and thus they offer the rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tag.  Check out the following article from Google Support http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077

Hi Nikolas,

I wish seo is like 6th sense to me.  I believe you have more traffic from Google to your Squidoo page in the past and not your site is because Squidoo has higher authority than your new site.  Squidoo has more backlinks and content under Squidoo's domain and as you might know backlinks is an important factor in SEO.  Furthermore, your site is still new.  Squidoo has been around for a while and Google also look at the domain age as a ranking factor.  I don't think you can simply create a new site and hope to get as much traffic as Squidoo.  You will need more time, create more content and earn some links.

HI Harvey,

Like Rafi said, I don't believe domain registrar location will affect SEO but the host location will affect SEO.  It will be best to host based on where your domain is targeting.  For example, it is recommended to host in UK if you have a .uk website.  Search Engines will see your host location is in UK and assume you are from UK.  Furthermore, the load time will also be faster if host location is the same.

Rand had an amazing Whiteboard Friday that explains where to host

international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday