Much in the same vein as Monopoly - you can have a special themed Scrabble board.

There's 1000s of Monopoly ones out there - I'm sure you could come up with tonnes of unique/(stupid) ideas!

You say "Basically I see all the time the main navigation repeated in the footer, sometimes as almost something to just fill the footer up." - you have to remember that only the first link on the page to a specific URL is counted. So if a link is repeated in the footer, it's worthless (from a SEO point of view, it may be beneficial for user experience/navigation).

The days of linking key terms in the footer are numbered, don't think SEO, think user experience.

I agree with Doug - I would never have the H1 containing a logo. It should include 3-5 words that are you main targeted keywords/phrase for that page. (Be it company name, blog name, what you are offering etc)

Change the template so the logo isn't inside a H1 tag. I think nearly every SEOer would agree with this.

Hi,

My advice to you would be to link to the separate top level categories if it is useful to the website user. Build the website for the user, not for search engines, and the rankings will come.

E.g on the green widgets page you could have a clear funnel to each type of green widget and then some text such as "Prefer red widgets? We've got a great range of red widgets available for purchase." Again, I would only use this if it was useful to the website user.

Another example might be if green widget 2 is exactly the same as red widget 2 except for the colour. You'd obviously want to link these 2 as they are related items and the user might want to visit the other colour widget.

Thanks

Hi Erin,

Sub directories are the preferred method. This has been asked many times on SEOmoz so I'll post a few links so you can have a look at some of the responses and exactly why they are preferred:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-vs-blog

http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-place-for-a-blog-blog-mydomain-com-or-mydomain-com-blog

http://www.seomoz.org/q/subdomains-vs-subfolders

Hope that helps!

Brad

Great answer by Robert - 100% agree.

This question has been asked a lot on SEOmoz, here's some previous examples:

1. http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-vs-blog
2. http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-directory-or-subdomain-for-a-blog

I would agree with everything that danatanseo stated regarding H2 and H3 tags. However, I would never use multiple H1 tags.

As stated in SEOmoz's own on page optimisation reports:

"Best practices for both SEO and accessibility require only a single H1 tag. The H1 is meant to be the page's headline, and thus, multiple H1s are confusing. Consider employing H2, H3 or CSS styles to achieve the same results with text visualization."

Hope this helps!

From my understanding it's pretty rare to keep old jobs on an employment agency site?

Can't you just redirect each URL to a similar job, job category or other relevant section on the site? Better than getting a heap of 404s!

Hi All,

Are there any similar sites to CrunchBase in that you can submit your blogs, websites, social profiles etc all to one central 'People' type page?

I'm after high quality directories like this that allow you to create profiles to link to all your other profiles. Only after quality sites like CrunchBase, not spammy ones.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks

Hi Derek,

I have had a look at the backlink profiles of both sites. While yours is certainly much better than theirs in terms of number and quality of links - keep building links. 400 or so inbound links isn't a huge number. I suggest getting some high quality links from places like BBB.org (paid) or http://www.aboutus.org/DoFollow (free).

Now - looking at your on site analysis, you do pretty well for trophy terms like 'Bee Removal' - however I'm going to look at another term it seems you want to rank well for - 'San Diego Bee Removal'.

You're getting an F for this according to SEOmoz's on page reports. That term is not used anywhere on the page, in the title, in alt image tags, in a H1 tag or in bold/strong. Yes, you are trying to rank for it on this page - http://www.propacificbee.com/bee-removal-san-diego-bee-control.php - but if this is indeed one of your trophy terms (as I guess it would be by looking at your site) - why not try and rank for your homepage?

All those sub pages you have for different areas (Allied Gardens, Alpine, Bonita etc) should have more unique content too - there are way too many pages with VERY similar content. Google is going to frown upon this.

Hope this helps,

Brad

As long as the targeted phrase is included in the page title and close to the beginning of the title, that's fine.

I would lean towards the 2nd page title, but that particular title looks a bit spammy/unreadable (remember, your page title isn't just for SEO, it's to influence people in the SERPs and get higher click throughs). Try something like:

Buy Silver Bullion & Silver Bars Securely | Company Name

I would agree with everything that danatanseo stated regarding H2 and H3 tags. However, I would never use multiple H1 tags.

As stated in SEOmoz's own on page optimisation reports:

"Best practices for both SEO and accessibility require only a single H1 tag. The H1 is meant to be the page's headline, and thus, multiple H1s are confusing. Consider employing H2, H3 or CSS styles to achieve the same results with text visualization."

Hope this helps!

Hi Erin,

Sub directories are the preferred method. This has been asked many times on SEOmoz so I'll post a few links so you can have a look at some of the responses and exactly why they are preferred:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-vs-blog

http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-place-for-a-blog-blog-mydomain-com-or-mydomain-com-blog

http://www.seomoz.org/q/subdomains-vs-subfolders

Hope that helps!

Brad

Hi Rhys,

I agree with everything that Alan stated regarding existing links.

Moving forward, I'd suggest the following:

1. Add the ability for customers to share your products socially. I don't see any social media icons on any of the pages, especially the product pages. Add FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus.
2. Do you have social media accounts for your site? If not, create the 4 above and start posting! You'll get more of a sense of community and people will be able to share what puzzles they've completed, which ones they want to purchase next etc. I'm not personally in to puzzles but I know people that are, and they can't wait to get their next one as soon as they finish one.
3. Highlight your competitive advantage more (on the item template, page titles etc). What makes you stand out? Free shipping? (BTW really really confusing having two free shipping points in dollars and pounds), best customer service, fast shipping, the latest puzzles etc.) Give people a reason to shop with you.
4. You've got reviews but none of the products I viewed had any reviews. I'd suggest emailing customers 3-4 weeks after purchase asking for reviews if you don't already. This would also tie in nicely with a social media pages. Reviews are great for original content.
5. Your blog has no entries and is dated from 2010? This doesn't look great...
6. If you're struggling to get good/unique content on the site try adding more pictures/videos/staff testimonials/staff favourites etc.

Hope some of that helps

Hi Sacha,

This was recently asked here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/blogs-are-best-when-hosted-on-domain-subdomain-or

I agree with Alan and Todd in that thread, you should go for www.domain.com/blog

Thanks

Text links pass far more link juice than image links.

Having said that, remember you want a 'natural' linking profile - so don't be afraid to add a few image links here and there (just make the majority of them text based).

I tried out a '5 custom articles for $5' type thing just because I was a little bored one afternoon and wanted to see if they would actually deliver. To my surprise, they delivered the articles within a few hours and they were all unique (I checked copyscape). The articles were written in a strange manner, when loaded into a word doc every 5th or so word was underlined so that it appeared like it was incorrect spelling. A little dodgy.

I wouldn't actually use this service for anything useful. Key rule for anything on the net: if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Work on building meaningful relationships and that way you'll get FB likes in a natural way. And you'll be able to engage your fans and get some benefit out of the relationship, not just 1000 meaningless likes.

We know of a few people that have done this Vinnie.

It certainly looks better when a site has 500+ likes than some of the sites we have just launched that have less than 10 likes. It's not just about people buying from a site with more likes, it's about people wanting to join your community. Why would the average person want to join a community with another 8 people? They probably won't see any benefit in that.

Hi,

My advice to you would be to link to the separate top level categories if it is useful to the website user. Build the website for the user, not for search engines, and the rankings will come.

E.g on the green widgets page you could have a clear funnel to each type of green widget and then some text such as "Prefer red widgets? We've got a great range of red widgets available for purchase." Again, I would only use this if it was useful to the website user.

Another example might be if green widget 2 is exactly the same as red widget 2 except for the colour. You'd obviously want to link these 2 as they are related items and the user might want to visit the other colour widget.

Thanks

I've used the same basic tactics on some of my sites before. Sure it works, but you'll get caught out eventually. Half of these sites were hit by Panda/Penguin and now the rankings are way off in page 5+.

My advice - create a real SEO plan that is built with the future in mind. Don't go after short term gains. Try to predict where you want to be in 6-12 months and create a plan around that. Remember, content is king, so start developing some great content on your site and sharing it amongst your social profiles.

If you're unsure about the other more technical aspects of SEO, hire a reputable SEO firm. Have a look at their past clients, their site, their social profiles. Do they look spammy/too good to be true? If so, give them a miss and move along.