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We are no experts on Affiliate marketing/linking, however, we have been working to implement best practices when doing so. Maybe not on the scale you want, but nonetheless, still working to gather and distribute affiliate links.

Per the Google not "counting footer links", that would be false. Google counts ALL links, so be careful nothing is being stuffed. Look to structure your content and pages in order to present an organized link setup. Most affiliates we are researching use a number of styles, ie: logos, graphics, call to action buttons, full written reviews of a product with affiliate hyperlinks, product/service pages with 100% unique content to differ from the source.

We are still researching all of this and continue to learn new tricks, read more articles, listen to podcasts, watch videos, etc... so you're on the right track. Scratch their back and they will scratch yours, just always be mindful of Google's updates and best practices so not to get penalized.

Patrick

ryanryan,

In our experiences, building dedicated mobile sites is still something a lot of companies still want. Yes, responsive is the new trend and will continue to evolve, but when it comes to mobile... people want their info fast. Who you are, what you do and how to get in touch asap. We have mobile sites on both subdomains (m.domain.com) and also in folders from the root domain (www.domain.com/m) and all sites optimized. We haven't seen much of a difference to be honest, however, we aren't optimizing huge, national websites on those set ups either. More local companies, dentists, contractors, etc.

Go with what is easiest for you to setup for your clients/yourself, BUT, when you talk anything SEO with your clients, your content all needs to be unique. Can't stress that enough. Google sees all. Quickly rewrite whatever is on your main mobile site to be different from your main website, yet provides the same message. Target your keywords as you would normally with on-page best practices in the mobile site. Integrate social media into, especially Google+ and install a separate Google Analytics tracking ID into your mobile sites too for more Google points and measuring! Implement, test, analyze and modify as needed to meet your expectations.

Hope this was insightful. 
Patrick

That is great to hear, Keri! You are right. They are showing for Google, so ultimately, that is what is important

Jesse,

The type of anchor text (keyword) used for your link building should be diverse based on some important factors.

What type of links are you going to build - Social bookmarks, Directory, Guest Post, Press Release, Citation, etc... Based on what type of link you are going to build, you should switch up the general "service" keyword with geo-specfic keywords "city + service" and "service + city". Do some keyword research also to determine variations of keywords in how a service is being searched and if state names or abbreviations are being used like "service + city + state abbrevation" (appliance repair los angeles ca).

Just remember, Google is looking at original content, diversified links and diverse anchor text when considering to build rank and authority of a domain. Local SEO loves local citations, so look into this to begin building your link strategy. Keep in mind NAP (Name, Address, Phone) as well. If you are only based in LA, then you're going to have a tough time ranking locally in Google Maps for searches in San Diego or the like. Test the waters without being spammy and analyze. Also consider blog articles on the website www.domain.com/blog/article-title-here/ which can help you target more city specific terms, content and links so you aren't creating 1 page per city if that would be too much work.

Hope this helps. - Patrick

I second what Tom said on all accounts, Virginia. We've turned down a couple projects for clients wanting to use SquareSpace or helped convince them we could do the same work with a self-hosted WP site using cool parallax features.

Tom, thanks also for the link to ThemeForest. I haven't seen those parallax designs yet, so going to take a peak now!

Vince,

I agree with Federico on this one. Yahoo is a paid link directory, so they may provide some traffic and help your site out in their search engine, however, directories are and have been for a while a problem in ranking sites. Because many of them are designed and built poorly it ruins any value the good, reputable ones may offer, unfortunately. We could start a new directory site tomorrow in WordPress site with a WordPress plugin and scraping other directories for content to pump in. It's just too easy and there's no value.

Here's another thread from Mar 2011 (2 years ago) which may help you decide
http://moz.com/community/q/yahoo-directory-listing-still-relevant

Hope I was helpful! - Patrick

Hey there! Their pages are pretty cool and built really well for content flow. In looking at the source code, they are using WordPress, but seems to be custom design and coding to display the graphics, colors, buttons, tabs, links, content, etc. It would be no different than designing an HTML web page the exact way you want it to look and function, then convert it into a WordPress page.

I don't see they are using any specific plugins to build those pages, and if they did, it is hidden from the source. Get a good graphic/web designer to make your pages similar and then have a WordPress programmer work to on the design to convert and make functional.

Hope this was a good answer Cheers! - Patrick

SteveTG,

Unfortunately, many directory sites are tied into a larger umbrella company who has a "network" built to provide "value" for their users. Yext is one of the bigger ones. CitySearch and Local.com is others. When you post to them, they can take your listing and pump the info and content into all of their other sites. Aside from what you are trying to do, it's going to be a tough battle, but not impossible... Just could turn into a lot of research to find where you are listed and then to manually get access to your account for edits or manually contacting the site's admins for edits.

We have used UBL.org before, but again, they take your info and send it out to a bunch of places on your behalf (removes work for you and what you pay for essentially).

Hope this was helpful, even though doing this manually (or hiring someone to do this for you) isn't probably what you'd want to hear. - Patrick

Hey Courtney,

I'd recommend looking at WordPress for this, especially if it sounds like they want something up fast, which can be scaled easily in the future to support Ads, coupons, reviews, sub-categories, etc.

WordPress has tons of plugins for building nicely designed directories. Take a look at the below for WP directory reviews. Albeit, these are subjective to the author's point of view, but nonetheless, can help you with business submissions, maps display, features, and much more. http://www.wpvirtuoso.com/7-best-wordpress-directory-plugins/

Then, there are full blown WordPress directory themes. These are basically out of the box directory sites, such as this one http://www.appthemes.com/themes/vantage/ or this one http://themeforest.net/item/directory-portal-wordpress-theme/3840053.

Hope this was helpful! Sounds like it could be a fun project for you! - Patrick

We are getting more and more of this same question from marketers and consultants who "heard" about Hummingbird a couple weeks ago and I agree 100% with Dan and Kevin. I may add...

As we are learning to adapt as well, since we work with smaller businesses focusing on typically 1 location in 1 major city or a couple towns, our conversations are a bit different than most larger SEO companies. We still do talk about keywords, however, we are now including more information about content. For example, instead of just talking about "cosmetic dentists City A" as the keyword which is very broad, we may look at more of what people are "asking" Google , like "how to fix a broken tooth" or "getting teeth whitening" or "benefits of dental veneers" and so much more. They may not be exact questions, but they are proving they are wanting a more specific answer. In comes content served up on a web page and blog articles. The more topical content you can push out there addressing these questions from searchers, the more chance you have in the future to be found.

• Patrick

In my opinion, keywords will forever be able to be ranked as not everyone asks Google specific questions. Someone may just enter "general dentist in City"  to find out where a dentist is to make an appointment. That would be a keyword and not so much a topic.

In terms of potentially getting more exposure for what people are searching, you could adopt the strategy of quality topical content as well, so you are working to target both individual keywords and topics together.

Thanks and assumed that was the case, Chris. Actually, I emailed them from their contact form, then saw a direct email link on that Contact page, so I emailed Tarek as well. He replied by email and also then called our office to apologize for the inconvenience and let us know the link was removed and we have confirmed this.

Now, if every other webmaster would respond this quickly and politely, it would make our jobs a LOT less frustrating. Thanks for responding Kevin and Oren! - Patrick

To answer your question bluntly. Nope!

For $10K, you could get a lot more for your money and would be a longer term investment. Your link on that PR9 site wouldn't be on the Home page the whole time, which I assume carries the highest PageRank. You would eventually fall into an inner page carrying much lower PageRank OR, worse, you get bumped from the site altogether.

Better ways to invest that same amount in organic SEO efforts. Fun question to start my day!

• Patrick