I actually just did a wealth of research on this topic a few days ago. Without going into the nitty gritty details, if the https is site-wide Google recommends a Rel="canonical" attribute (http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394) pointing to the non-secure http version. Google claims it can index https fine, but Matt Cutts said he would "lean towards pointing the canonical to the http version." Also, on the Rel="canonical" page Google says:

If you publish content on both http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish and https://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish, you can specify the canonical version of the page. Create the element:

Add this link to the section of https://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish.

Make sure the canonical is on every page of your site.

Not sure why this may have happened, but it is creating duplicate content, which is why the canonical is necessary.

Hope that helps!

Thanks

From my experience it's much easier to go back to the well with larger clients. Smaller clients don't tend to appreciate the "margin of error" bit so I'll try to over-estimate the quote when dealing with them. Smaller clients tend to ask 2x as many questions as well.

10-20% sounds about right for project management, but I won't put that in the proposal. I'll mark project management and reporting as "free" and just include them in the package (with the markup in other areas). I don't put the hours estimated for each task either... though i know some agencies do.

That doesn't 100% answer your question, but I hope it can help.

Sorry Khem I do not agree.

The nofollow attribute doesn't stop a page from being pulled in a search engine. It also doesn't stop the flow of PR (Sure that's what Google says it does, but it definitely does not work that way). The only time you should be using a nofollow is for links you either:

1. Don't trust

2.links that lead to pages that search engines cannot understand

in regard to number 2, if you have a 'sign in' link on your homepage you should put a nofollow on that. Search engines cannot sign in to your website. There is no reason for a search engine to follow that link. All other links - just keep them dofollow. You're not 'sculpting' your PR by using nofollow links.

You should switch your concern away from nofollow and focus on site speed. Your site seems slow to me.

Do you have the translations on language specific TLDs or as a subfolder or a subdomain on your current site? Is the translation being done by a widget or was the content hand-translated by a professional translator?

Did you claim the subdomain as a new language in webmaster tools?

Technically, you're loosing a very very small amount of link juice by hosting it on a subdomain. The optimal configuration is www.domain.com/blog.

Source - SEO Secrets (great book by the way)

It won't help. In fact, the search results are so finicky right now that you could probably redirect your domain to a competitor and get them penalized. Basically, if your rankings dropped on April 23rd - 24th you're probably not coming back any time soon.

It's not all bad though. Look at it as an opportunity to try out new marketing strategies. You could try going through your site and reducing bounce rates, increasing time on page, improving site speed etc, but honestly I'd work on other marketing techniques. Get a video or data visualization campaign going. Try to get some media mentions. Conduct some interviews and give some yourself.

Did you get an unnatural links warning in webmaster tools?

Goodluck

Oh where to begin. I'm just going to redirect you to the Google's SEO guide and SEOmoz's beginner guide.

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Read those links, read some more about SEO, delete your domain and start over on a fresh one once you know what you're doing. Good luck.

I'd create a page on the site for each city if the business has its own physical address in each city (its own building). Then create a title tag specifically for that city.

If that's not possible, I think you're Title tag works. I'd move the brand to the end though (unless it's a REALLY well know brand).

big broad terms are expensive and usually have a higher Cost Per Conversion. Long-tails are more specific, cheaper and lead to more conversions. If you're using broad match, consider using a broad match modifier.

The phrase of "widget" should pull your ad for "buy widget," so it really isn't necessary. However, if you create a new ad group for "buy widget" you can control the budget for these specific keywords.

Remember, 30 KWs per ad group is best practice.