Testing different titles to see if you can improve your rankings for specific keywords or to focus on different keywords may be worthwhile but changing them for the sake of making a change is pointless.

Hi Jury

If you haven't already i would recommend raising the issue through the help email address help@seomoz.org

On the Q&A forum we can pass thoughts or suggestions but the support team at seomoz will be best placed to answer this.

Hi Atul

If users are searching on a term, for example Amy Winehouse the results prior to her death would have probably been Youtube videos, Lyrics, her official site (if she has one) etc

Immediately after her death users will be wanting to find out what happened, the latest update. As such the CTR for the existing SERP would probably be lower as the user doesn't want the Youtube video or lyrics etc. They want the QDF results to kick in and show the latest news item(s) at the top.

Hope that explains it.

Hi Artience Girl

The Google Webmaster guidelines covers topics like these but a key point is that geotargetting using IP address is fine as long as you are not showing Google a separate Google only version of the site. This would be considered cloaking.

You will therefore need to decide which regional variation you want Google to end up at when it tries to visit/crawl the www.example.com URL

But before you do that check the Google Webmaster guidelines in and around this area as if you follow them you are less likely to end up on the wrong side of them.

Hope this helps.

Hi Stephen

Below are some URL's I happened across today when looking for something related.

http://www.cto20.com/post/Tips-Tricks-3-URL-Rewriting-Rules-Everyone-Should-Use.aspx
http://searchengineland.com/url-rewrites-and-redirects-part1-16574
http://searchengineland.com/url-rewrites-and-redirects-part2-16575

Not 100% sure they will help but thought I would pass them on in case they did.

If there is something in the contract that will affect the client negatively or if the old firm is suspected of being likely to cause problems then it may be that the clients best interest is suited by employing a reputable SEO firm to work on link building to strengthen the link profile before cutting ties with the old firm.

There will obviosuly be additional cost by following this approach however this would need to be weighed up against the possible rankings fall / traffic fall that might occur if the contract doesn't protect the client from the sort of situation described.

Cons:

May lose some of the link juice from the 301 redirect from the old URL's (between 1 and 10% is the usual quoted figure)

Initial (usually short term) drop in rankings and potentially traffic of weaker site pages

www.weakersite.com is a "nicer" looking URL for offline marketing than www.strongersite.com/weakersite

Pro's:-

If on Subfolder rather than sub directory pages will benefit from domain authority and links to domain of stronger site.

Can focus future link building and on-page SEO efforts on one site rather than 2, potentially doubling the amount you can get done

If building from scratch and choice of 2 sites or 1 I would say go for one. As two already exist there is more of a call to be made.

If the offer is more than you are currently earning and doesn't tie you in for too long a period other than the standard notice period then I would take the position but start thinking about your next move.What is it that will help you achieve that next step? You could also consider some freelancing (if allowed in your contract) to boost up earnings and potentiall bost your skills and experience.

Hi Ben

Any links, which are a key component of SEO could be split between the two sites rather than bolstering the single site.

Also would the content on this seperate site be unique from the original site? If not then the search engines may look at the new page and decided that it is not worthy of inclusion.

It is possible to rank for the same term with multiple pages on your site so for example the home page, about us and offers page could rank 1, 2 and 3 for a term. Aiming for this may be a better use of your time and efforts as seeing multiple listings for a site at the top of the rankings increases credibility for that site in the users eyes.

Unless the company is a well known brand, which isn't likely as you have said they are a local business then the volume of searches will be higher for the location & business type as a keyphrase. Currently that type of domain name will have an SEO benefit. More traffic and higher rankings are the positives.

A lack of branding and the fact that the position regarding keyword matched domain names could change are downsides.

The final decision should rest with the business owner but I would present the positives and negatives too them as I have had some success with keyword matched domains. Aware of the potential changes in the future I will be stepping up the link building on the sites to try to protect them from any changes.

Cons:

May lose some of the link juice from the 301 redirect from the old URL's (between 1 and 10% is the usual quoted figure)

Initial (usually short term) drop in rankings and potentially traffic of weaker site pages

www.weakersite.com is a "nicer" looking URL for offline marketing than www.strongersite.com/weakersite

Pro's:-

If on Subfolder rather than sub directory pages will benefit from domain authority and links to domain of stronger site.

Can focus future link building and on-page SEO efforts on one site rather than 2, potentially doubling the amount you can get done

If building from scratch and choice of 2 sites or 1 I would say go for one. As two already exist there is more of a call to be made.

Hi Atul

If users are searching on a term, for example Amy Winehouse the results prior to her death would have probably been Youtube videos, Lyrics, her official site (if she has one) etc

Immediately after her death users will be wanting to find out what happened, the latest update. As such the CTR for the existing SERP would probably be lower as the user doesn't want the Youtube video or lyrics etc. They want the QDF results to kick in and show the latest news item(s) at the top.

Hope that explains it.

Testing different titles to see if you can improve your rankings for specific keywords or to focus on different keywords may be worthwhile but changing them for the sake of making a change is pointless.

Unless the company is a well known brand, which isn't likely as you have said they are a local business then the volume of searches will be higher for the location & business type as a keyphrase. Currently that type of domain name will have an SEO benefit. More traffic and higher rankings are the positives.

A lack of branding and the fact that the position regarding keyword matched domain names could change are downsides.

The final decision should rest with the business owner but I would present the positives and negatives too them as I have had some success with keyword matched domains. Aware of the potential changes in the future I will be stepping up the link building on the sites to try to protect them from any changes.

The meta description tag doesn't influence SERP's.

As you know search engines often use it as the description for your page in search results.As such a relevant, unique, compelling meta description can have a positive influence on how many clicks you get on your search listing.

The general line is that we should design for the user and not the search engine so if a meta description is compelling and attracts users then that would be exactly what you are doing.

If you believe that putting the price will increase the click through then I would go for it.

Had some advice from Will Critchlow when I asked about the use of the £ symbol in meta descriptions and he said that we should "use HTML encoding (£ rather than £). We tend to advise going for ASCII only as character encoding opens you up to a world of pain, but HTML entities should generally be fine"

Hi Ben

Any links, which are a key component of SEO could be split between the two sites rather than bolstering the single site.

Also would the content on this seperate site be unique from the original site? If not then the search engines may look at the new page and decided that it is not worthy of inclusion.

It is possible to rank for the same term with multiple pages on your site so for example the home page, about us and offers page could rank 1, 2 and 3 for a term. Aiming for this may be a better use of your time and efforts as seeing multiple listings for a site at the top of the rankings increases credibility for that site in the users eyes.

If there is something in the contract that will affect the client negatively or if the old firm is suspected of being likely to cause problems then it may be that the clients best interest is suited by employing a reputable SEO firm to work on link building to strengthen the link profile before cutting ties with the old firm.

There will obviosuly be additional cost by following this approach however this would need to be weighed up against the possible rankings fall / traffic fall that might occur if the contract doesn't protect the client from the sort of situation described.

The way to rank for spelling errors is to optimise for them. Rather than littering the site with poor spelling which will not look good to the user you should try to include the misspelling as genuine content.

For example a light hearted blog post with incorrect spelling vs correct spelling in the title and page name. In the content t could mention the spelling mistakes and unusual terms that people use to find your site (gathered from the analytics data).

It may not be the most interesting post for the visitor and will struggle to gain page specific links but you will have a page optimised in terms of content for the misspelling. If you don't really want people to read it release it to the site at a quiet time and then follow up with a stong post which people will read and the spelling blog post will be overshadowed.

Hope this helps.

You could perfectly optimise your site on-page and still rank below competitiors due to them having a stronger link profile.

As mentioned in the other responses I would hope to see results inside of a month BUT it may be that you have to work for a number of months to catch up to where competitors are depending on how string their link profile is.